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Originally Posted by shakran
Except that the first two examples are established to not exist, especially the first one, which was invented in the last decade. And frankly, you're still being a complete damn jerk for comparing people who believe in a deity to whackjobs who form UFO-based cults.
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They walk like a duck, they quack like a duck, they look like a duck.
I respect the beliefs of "whackjobs" who worship UFOs as much as a I respect the beliefs of Christians. I know more about the Christian whackjob beliefs, so in many cases their beliefs are more predictable (and hence less dangerous/scary).
I see no reason to respect Christian belief any more than UFO cultists. You don't seem to have any problem with insulting the beliefs of UFO cultists, yet you seem to have issues with me not respecting Christian belief.
I don't believe might makes right. Might makes might. Just because Christians have lots of power doesn't make them any more right than the UFO cultists are.
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Originally Posted by Yakk
The only "existance of God" that cannot be disproven is a claim without any conseqence in this universe.
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OK. Put your money where your mouth is. Prove there is no god. And I mean PROVE it, not just "I, Yakk, believe there is no god."
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Which God do you want me to disprove, and what would be true about the features of the universe if the God existed?
I can invent a God and some consequences of that God, but I doubt it would satisfy you. Here goes:
The Lollypop God. It created the universe to produce Lollypops, and it rewards any intelligent being that makes Lollypops with luck.
To test for the existance of this God (which has
consequences within the universe), one simply does a controlled experiment testing for "luck" between people who make Lollypops and people who do not.
To give you an example of a God that has no consequences:
Bob the God. Bob the God build the universe 10 seconds ago, in a state just as if it had existed for many millenia before. Bob the God never interacts with the universe after creation.
The existance of Bob the God has absolutely no consequences on the state of the universe. As such, Bob the God's existance cannot be tested for.
So the claim "Bob the God" exists is a claim without consequence in this universe. As such, I did not claim that I could disprove the existance of "Bob the God".
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Originally Posted by Yakk
So long as those who believe in the existance of God don't try to infect me, my children, or anyone placed under my care, and they don't place any restrictions on my behaviour based on their ridiculous beliefs, I am fine with their ridiculous beliefs.
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Apparently not since your earlier post advocated that you want to "undermine the acceptance of religion, and (mostly) cure it."
That isn't exactly showing even a modicum of tolerance.
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I'm not advocating we lock up people who have religious belief. I don't think we should kill people for having religious belief. I don't think that having religious belief makes you any less a citizen of a nation.
So I'm showing tolerance. I'm not showing acceptance.
In my experience, there are enough people who leverage the religious belief of others to cause harm to me that my reponse is "lets weaken the crazy cult".
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I agree that they should not project their religious beliefs onto you or try to force you to behave in certain ways just because their religion tells them they must behave in those ways. However, the vast majority of religious people lead quiet lives in which they do not attempt to oppress anyone. They are completely undeserving of your hate-filled ridicule.
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I think they hold stupid beliefs. I don't hate them particularly.
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Yes, we all understand that if God actually comes down here and proves his existance that his existance will be proven. But the abscence of that proof is not itself proof that god does not exist.
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Are you aware of the "Positivist" school of thought?
Suppose you have a statement S. Suppose that statement, if it was true, had a consequence C.
Now, it seems pretty reasonable that 'statements that have no consequence are pretty damn meaningless'.
But if S implies C, then if C is false
so is S. So a statement, by having a meaning -- having a consequence if it is true -- becomes disprovable.
Ie, the disprovability of a statement is seemingly tied directly to the meaninfulness of the statement.
...
So the very fact that "God does not exist" is disprovable is saying "God does not exist" is a meaningful statement. It contains a prediction about what can and cannot happen.
The statement "God does exist",
without any qualification on what you mean by God, lacks this property. It contains no predictions about what can and cannot happen, what can and cannot be experienced. It is, in a very fundamental way, meaningless.
Practically, people don't believe in that meaningless version of "God does exist". Their belief in God has meaning to them -- it justifies thoughts and actions.
A "belief" in "God exists" that justifies no thoughts, no actions, and has no consequences -- that is a belief that cannot be disproven.
It is a meaningless belief.
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In the same way that "it is impossible to move faster than light" is a testable belief - but not one which we can test at the current time. Until God comes down here and proves his existance, we cannot test his existance.
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We try to test the speed of light barrier all the time -- every time someone puts pokes at things moving reasonbly quickly (like electrons). Every time someone uses physics to predict the behaviour of reality. Every particle accellerator.
BTW, the more precice statement of the light-speed barriers would be "it is impossible to accellerate past the speed of light" and "moving faster than the speed of light in two arbitrary frames is equivilent to time travel -- it can create a closed time-like curve".
We also try to test the non-existance of God all the time. "Hey God, want to show that I'm wrong? Not today? Ok."
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Your logic is as faulty as your attitude. You say it's not possible to prove anything, then you say that the nonexistance of god has been proven.
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No, I said "proven". I wasn't using quotes for emphasis, I was using quotes to mean "this word doesn't quite mean what it seems to mean".
My apologies -- I must not have been clear enough. Try rereading it. The word proven and the word "proven" are meant to refer to two slightly different meanings of the same word.
The absolute proof is different than the practical proof. Absolute proof is impossible in any situation -- for all you know, what you think is an absolute pure logical proof is actually nonsense, and somehow your brain is interpriting it as a perfect proof. What one really has to work with is various grades of practical proof.
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We'll get back to this idea once you can keep the same premise solid through two paragraphs. Until then, kindly back off the many intelligent and kind people who happen to believe in something you don't.
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Please avoid ad homeum attacks. Thank you.
If they are intelligent and kind, I'll respect them for it. If they also believe in some random crazy belief, I'll respect them less for their crazy belief.
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That's exactly my point. That's why it's called faith. Others have faith that god exists. You have faith that he does not. Neither group can possibly prove their faith right or wrong.
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When have I used the term faith? If you ascribe my thought the term faith, I guess I can survive. But my faith
can be disproven. Just show me evidence of a God. I'm not that picky, any one of the thousands or millions of Gods out there will do. And after some testing, I hope I'll change my mind.
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As an example, the Flying Spagetti Monster "global warming is caused by lack of pirates" can be demonstrated to be false -- in this case, because their graph of # of pirates is way off (not even close to the right shape).
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Spreading bullshit 3 feet thick through a thread won't disguise the fact that you're dead wrong, and it certainly won't disguise your complete lack of respect for those who happen to believe in a deity.
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I take this as meaning "I am not actually reading what you are saying"?
I am not trying to disguise my lack of respect for religious belief. Those who choose to believe in a diety deserve less respect for that belief, as far as I am concerned. They may deserve respect for other things about themselves -- so the claim that I have an utter lack of respect
for them is a lie.
Note that just saying that "Yakk is dead wrong" won't make it any more true. I'm perfectly willing to disagree with billions of people when they are wrong and I am not.
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Originally Posted by Yakk
Or the Christian Bible's implied approximate 6000 year age of the Earth -- it predicted certain things that didn't pan out (and really surprised people when they discovered them!).
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I'm not trying to prove to you that god exists, and I'm not going to debate the immensely flawed bible with you. We both know the bible has logical contradictions galore.
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*nod*. So do you respect the beliefs of people who claim the world is 6000 years old, and that all of the scientists are lieing? What about those who hold that the earth was made to look older than it is?
When does the line get crossed, and you go from "crazy UFO cultists" to "non-crazy religious belief" -- is it an age thing? A person-count thing?
I'm curious where the line is.
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That does not, however, preclude the possibility that a higher power than humans exists somewhere in the universe.
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Yes. And it doesn't perclude the invisible wolverine in the kitchen. I think that people who believe in invisible wolverines, the god of the bible, anamist spirits, some mysterious universal energy spirit all hold equally ridiculous beliefs.
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It does not preclude the possibility that the universe was somehow created, nor does it preclude the possibility that you are dead wrong about the non-existance of a deity.
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Sure, I could be wrong. I could be disproven. If it happens, I hope I'll change my mind, and convert to worship of the flying spagetti monster, creator of the universe. Or the invisible pink unicorn. Or whatever other completely unexpected flavour of a God turns out to exist.
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That's nice. Keep the disrespect to yourself in here. Debate the issues, not the people.
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Sure. "I think you have a stupid belief -- your 'god delusion'. I respect that belief as much as I would respect a belief in an invisible pink unicorn, a flying spagetti monster, or a rabid undetectable kitchen wolverine. Do you have any reason to increase my respect for your belief?"
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Maybe. What's your point? Leave them alone. They're not hurting you.
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I've given examples where religious belief is hurting me.
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Then perhaps you could redirect that intelligence of yours to examining the niceties of social behavior, and maybe even adapting a few of them. It's not polite to tell someone their belief is ridiculous, especially when you can offer no concrete evidence that they are wrong.
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Suppose I could offer concrete evidence that the Catholic Church is wrong. Would it be ok to ridicule belief in the Catholic Church's faith?
Note that evidence is much easier to generate than proof. I've made a lot of statements about the difficulty to absolutely prove the non-existance of god.
To provide evidence for the non-existance of god, that is damn easy. Because lack of evidence is evidence of absence.
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Some guy down the street believing in god won't get in the way of your goals any more than 2 homosexuals wanting to marry will turn you gay. Relax, and back off.
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My ridicule of someone else's religious beliefs won't stop them from having those religious beliefs.
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And the tide goes both ways. Religious people throughout history have been tortured, mutilated, burned at the stake, and killed in many other nasty ways by those who decided their beliefs are ridiculous.
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Statistically, most of such torture was committed by nominal believers in a different absolute-truth faith system. Not that that is much evidence -- for most of human history, having a different absolute-truth faith system than your neighbours was not a good way to have a long and healthy life.
No.
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Originally Posted by shakran
I am not defending religion. I think most religions are wrong, but the key is that *I* think that. Yet somehow I manage to keep my tone respectful when talking to those who do believe in their religion. I don't talk about eradicating their beliefs.
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I want to get rid of religion. I think it has caused more harm than good, and it will cause more harm than good. You don't agree -- acceptable.
But if you thought religion caused more harm than good, wouldn't my behaviour make sense?
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I don't say they're ridiculous, or stupid, or any of the other vitriolic sputum that has been aired in this thread.
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You seem pretty negative about crazy UFO wonks.
You seem to consider their beliefs ridiculous. Please provide me a decent reason why I should consider Christianity any less ridiculous.
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OK, you win. If you want to drag this thread down into the realm of silliness, so be it. No, the spaghetti monster cannot be proven to not exist. There's a lot of evidence that it doesn't - not the least being it is a work of fiction invented as a joke within the past 10 years - but yes, I will acknowledge that it is not possible to prove conclusively that there is no spaghetti monster somewhere in the universe, because it is not possible to prove a negative.
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And there is lots of evidence that the Christian God does not exist.
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Correct. However I would point out that there is no billion-dollar organization (much less many billion dollar organizations) dedicated to the concept that the spaghetti monster exists.
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Yes, the Christian cult is a rich cult.
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There is no long history of belief in the spaghetti monster
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Yes, the Christian cult is an old cult.
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there is no ancient text proclaiming the existance of a spaghetti monster
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Things written down are not always true. When something is edited and gathered into an omnibus with things proven false, other things that are really questionable, and other things that are ridiculous, one would argue that they are not very likely to be true.
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and there is no widespread belief or teaching about the spaghetti monster.
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Yes, the christian cult is a large cult.
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In other words, it would be much more understandable were we to look askance at someone who genuinely believed in a spaghetti monster.
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Yes, the Christian Cult currently has more social acceptance than the Spaghetti Monster cult does.
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But to say that someone is ridiculous and stupid for essentially trusting their parents (after all we generally learn about god first from our parents)
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Yes, their parents passed down a stupid and ridiculous belief to their children. Rather sad that they would do such a bad thing to their kids, but it is possible that the parents didn't know any better.
Hopefully children can be protected better in the future.
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not to mention a huge percentage of the world's population, is way, WAY out of line.
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Yes, the Christian cult is a large one.
I'm sorry. Just because many people believe something, doesn't make it any more true. If the earth moves, it moves, even if the entire world believes it doesn't move.
The existance of "God" is not a question of popularity.
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Until Yakk can conclusively prove that something which a large percentage of the world's population believes in is false, he should avoid calling them stupid.
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How conclusively? Are we below the standard of absolute proof?
Providing non-absolute proof that there is no God, at say the level of confidence required to "disprove" a scientific theory, is damn easy.
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He should instead, frankly, sweeten his tone or shut the hell up.
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How about no?
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I am not objecting that Yakk does not believe in god. I am objecting to the rude, disrespectful, and hate-filled way in which he is expressing that disbelief.
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I don't hate people with stupid or crazy or ridiculous beliefs just because they hold their beliefs. I am sometimes afraid of them, I sometimes pity them, and I often find their beliefs ridiculous.
Sometimes, I hate the actions they take that they justify based on their beliefs.
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Yes, but while the Michelson-Morley experiment proved conclusively that either there was no aether, or that the aether did not have the slow-down effect on light it had been assumed to have
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If that is your standard of conclusive proof, then we have conclusive proof there is no God.
Because the aether could have been moving in a swirl that exactly cancelled out the effect they wanted to see, or millions of other hypothesis could be generated in order to make their experiment consistent with an aether that carried light.
But
that would no longer have been the simplest explaination anymore. The hypothesis added to patch the aether back in would pretty much only predict the observations made in the experiment that inspired them. They would have no successful testable implications.
As such, they should be discarded, along with the aether hypothesis.
If you hold the God hypothesis to the same standard as the aether,
it has been conclusively disproved.
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, the power of prayer experiments do not have sufficient controls to prove that prayer doesn't work. After all, maybe those who are praying, simply aren't doing it right.
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Just like the aether experiments. The experiment might not have been set up right to detect the aether -- maybe the aether had different properties. You can explain away any observation in any case by tossing on enough ridiculous and stupid hypothesis to patch over your theory.
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If you want to talk dishonesty, then we have to look at Yakk's original premise. Yakk cannot prove that there is not a god
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I can provide ridiculously strong proof that certain particular gods don't exist.
I can provide science-theory level proof that the god hypothesis should be discarded (ie, disproven).
I cannot provide absolute proof of anything.
I cannot provide nigh-absolute proof that a consequenceless god does not exist.
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yet he dishonestly acts as though he, with his faith that there is no god
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I have faith there is no God? Second time you've mentioned this. I'm sure there is a definition of faith that makes your statement work.
Second, are you calling me a lair? Back it up, shorty!
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is superior to those who have faith that there is a god, because he is not being honest enough to admit that neither side is any more provable than the other.
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There is an asymetry between existance and not-existance. Are you aware of it?
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I won't destroy your belief, but don't even think about destroying mine.
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What if I have a belief that your belief should be destroyed? (I'm not saying that I do, I'm just noting that your perfect tolerance must have limits)
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that is all that I am faulting. His attitude is atrocious.
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So, what do you think of the beliefs of UFO cultists?
Faithful Catholics?
Pentacostals?
Suicide cultists?
Suicide bomber cultists?
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Yeah, that's Dawkins' hope too. Unfortunately he, like Yakk, needs to learn that you can, to borrow a phrase, convert more flies with honey than vinegar. You're certainly not going to win over the religious types by telling them they're stupid.
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If the common opinion of religion was that belief in it was stupid and backwards, do you think it would have any impact on the rate of religious transmission between generations?
Btw, the science-quality "proof" that God does not exist:
Hypothesis: God exists.
Implications of Hypothesis: None.
Conclusion: The God hypothesis implies nothing about the observed universe. As such, it is an unnessicary hypothesis to explain any observation.
Result: Discard (ie, consider disproven) the Hypothesis.