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Originally Posted by filtherton
Who's lying? My position is that it's not a big deal for one to believe in supernatural explanations for things that otherwise would have no explanation at all.
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What do you mean by "believe"?
Do you mean "I don't know what is in my kitchen right now, so I'll believe that if I enter or look into my kitchen I'll be eaten by an invisible rabid wolverine?"
I think that having that belief would be a pretty damn big deal. Note that there is no way to disprove this belief other than risking being eaten by a rabid wolverine -- there is
no evidence that can be produced that would prevent an invisible from being in my kitchen, and be about to eat me.
So now I can't enter my kitchen.
Such beliefs can cover everything. And it is not that hard to construct a belief that cannot be disproven -- "after I cease to exist, my undetectable soul will be judged by how many sinful women I have killed".
If a belief is fundamentally irrational, there is no way it can be addressed or disproven using rationality. No evidence can be provided that contradicts it. No arguement can be made against it.
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How are they irrational? They don't necessarily reject things that can be proven, they just believe in things that can't. How is that irrational in the context of an irrational existence?
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See above.
Our existence rational, it is just increadibly complex. There are some parts of it that resist being reduced -- but they are almost always bounded within a set of rational bounds. These bounds on human behaviour can be checked, studied, examined, and used to predict what is and isn't reasonable.
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The experience of reality is only completely rational if you happen to be omniscient. That being said, being rational certainly has its place and there certainly are many theists who aren't open to new ideas.
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Rational does not mean perfect, correct or predictable.
I can say that a triple-pendulum behaves rationally. I cannot predict what it will do, but I can predict many things that it won't do.
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I would bet that you actually aren't qualified to claim anything on behalf of all atheists.
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Neither am I -- but I know that "athiest" is a position about the existance of god, not a position about the supremacy of rationality in all modes of human behaviour. As such, claiming that the supremacy of rationality is a seperate, larger arguement than athiesm seems pretty damn reasonable. :P~~
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Sure, but seeing as how most christians are well aware of the unprovable nature of their faith i can't imagine why you would bother, other than because you enjoy riding around on high horses.
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Have you met most Christians? Just curious!
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You're right. I assumed people were arguing his positions when they weren't. Let me amend my position on dawkins. He's wrong in the way most militant atheists are wrong: he thinks that reminding people that their faith isn't scientifically justifiable is the same thing as providing a compelling reason to abandon that faith. He thinks that reason should prevail in a place where reason doesn't necessarily matter.
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Or he's argueing that the lack of scientific justifiability should be a reason why you shouldn't put much stock in religions. By putting forward that position, it is possible that more people will agree with his measure of meaning. They are likely to teach their children, friends and aquantances this measure of meaning. Some of them might be swayed.
It could be that Dawkins realizes that there are people who are lost causes, who are so heavily indocerinated that they are immune to his arguements. And maybe he's fine with that -- you can never convince everyone. But that doesn't mean he has to tolerate their stupidity or coddle them.
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Yes, for many people religion is because there is no other explanation available beyond the atheist explanation of "there is no explanation at this time". Why is atheism necessarily the "rational" decision when it comes to religion? All atheism says is that there's nothing because there's no reason to believe that there is something. Why is that necessarily rational? Has there ever been a point where there was a something despite the fact that there was no reason to believe that there was a something?
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Rational doesn't mean right. Rational doesn't mean infallible.
I can come up with situations where it is Rational do believe something that isn't actually true.
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Stem cell opposition isn't a strictly religious/religious right thing, though i'm not surprised that you'd make such an ideologically self serving generalization. The same goes for gay marriage.
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Neither of these are strictly religion based. Yet strangely there is a huge correlation between gay marriage and stem cell opposition and being more fundamentalist.
It could be a third factor causing the correlation. Can you think of one?