Your intelligence astounds me!! Tell us more, Brother Blah!
-
Reincarnation
-
Next he'll be telling us how sheep bladders can be employed to prevent earth quakes.CnC> not everything needs to have a purpose or point and I don't need to ask for one from everything.So you believe in somethkng for which there is no evidence or even purpose? Cool.
-
See, Bush could really use more people like CnC. (thats your new nickname, its pronounced Ke-Nuk)
-
OMFG, CnC is the person-behind-the-scenes who drafted America's foreign policy. Someone call Bob Woodward!
-
This is Bob, how may I help?
-
I dont eat pork, and keep in mind I love porksometimes just a bit of bacon, or sausage.Its my belief that I dont want to be sick that keeps me from eating th snorting little bastards.Pork tends to make me very sick to my stomache, once ina great while its worth eating it andbeing sick, but not often, a slice of ham on a sandwitch, a piece or 3 of bacon a couple times a week or a bit of sausage here and there downt seem to bother me, but a pork chop, or a big chunk of christmas ham and iM sicker then shit for atleast a day.My guess would be its the intelligence argument, that pigs are so fucking smart that its wrong to eat them. I say that if it tastes good, eat it, never turn down the chance to eat newstuff, ya may just like it.Ill save anyone the trouble of asking, fthe one question this is all going to lead to...Yes, if I had the chance to eat human, Id do it knowing full well what it was.now Im not going to go out and kil someone and eat them, but should I be on a plane in the andies, or some other situation that allowed me the chance to sample a steak, why the fuck not?damned near everything I eat was alive and walking around at one time or another.I eat my woman as often as possible, and she tastes pretty damned good, and thats with no seasoning or herbs !
-
blah blah, blah blah blah
-
Dude, you're a hoot.
-
So you believe in somethkng for which there is no evidence or even purpose? Cool. yes, yes I am very cool. thanks for noticing.Really, I bet your one of those people that needs the proof shoved in their face befor they belive something. Pick on someone your own size Steve! >>>OMFG, CnC is the person-behind-the-scenes who drafted America's foreign policy. Someone call Bob Woodward!Yea, I'm just that good that stupid americans wanted an 18year old to be incharge of something that important. Says more about how stupid your president is rather then my skills at....that.
-
proof shoved in their faceNot quite the same thing as evidence. If the purpose is to comfort yourself about death, that's fine.> something that importantSo far we've had complete goofballs in charge of it. An 18-year-old could only be an improvement.
-
I don't personally believe in reincarnation, but that is a belief. It doesn't translate well into scientific fact. I have seen so, so many of the Atheism vs Religion debates, and I have to say that if you believe, then you do. That is what faith is about. I personally find it objectionable to think that there is no more to me than what can be seen with the eye or detected with medical instruments. I can't show you my soul, but I do believe it exists. What happens when we die? I don't really know, but I don't think it's nothingness. I think that such beliefs are important to society too. George Washington once said, "And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion" meaning that without a sense of accountability to a "higher power" we have minimal basis for morality. I have to agree; right or wrong, religion does separate us from animals.Voltaire once said, "Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." I personally think he was taking a poke at religious beliefs, but that is a two-edged sword. Certainty that belief in God is wrong requires just as much faith, and is just as "absurd" as believing.Stephen Gould once referred to science and religion as "non-overlapping magisteria", ie things that concern different areas of reality and cannot with any validity oppose each other. Although he said some contradictory things later, I have to agree with this early statement. These two shouldn't be used against each other. People who want to use the Bible as a science book are overstepping it's purpose in my view. People who use science as a reason to reject religious beliefs are doing the same. Ultimately we each have to find what we believe, what gives us peace with our place here, and faith is what spans the gap between what we know and what we believe. To end with a more humorous quote: "Cosmologists are always in error, though never in doubt."- Lev Landau, Russian Physicist
-
Now that's one of the most reasonable--and reasoning--posts so far....thanks for joining the party :grin:
-
I don't personally believe in reincarnation, but that is a belief. It doesn't translate well into scientific fact. I don't personally believe that you're God, but that's just a belief, not a scientific fact. [Question: What is meant by scientific fact?]> I personally find it objectionable to think that there is no more to me than what can be seen with the eye or detected with medical instruments.I'm not sure why you're uncomfortable saying, "I don't know what more there is to me, if anything, beyond what can be seen or detected". I don't understand what people have against open questions.> I can't show you my soul, but I do believe it exists.I have no idea why you do. Because it feels good?> What happens when we die? I don't really know, but I don't think it's nothingness.No one knows. No one has ever died and come back. I don't know why nothingness is not at least as valid as the alternatives.> "And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion" meaning that without a sense of accountability to a "higher power" we have minimal basis for morality.The falsity of that premise can be demonstrated by observing that atheists and agnostics are no less moral than religious people. In fact, someone did a study and found that irreligious people were slightly less likely to steal that religious people were.> I have to agree; right or wrong, religion does separate us from animals.So do genocide and nuclear weapons.In your quote, Voltaire was obviously talking about religion (although "religious belief" does not necessarily have to do with a deity).> Certainty that belief in God is wrong requires just as much faith, and is just as "absurd" as believing.That is just not right. Belief that I'm not God requires as much faith on your part as belief that I am, but are those two beliefs really on an equal footing?
-
But, what if.... Oh, never mind.
-
Good for you, Steve.
-
Man, I bet that was hard for you to do:grin:
-
In reply to: [Question: What is meant by scientific fact?] Well, according to Talkorigins a scientific fact is something that is "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent." In this case, it means that while I can reject reincarnation, I cannot do so on any basis more scientifically significant than my own personal view. In reply to: I'm not sure why you're uncomfortable saying, "I don't know what more there is to me, if anything, beyond what can be seen or detected". I'm not sure where you got this view, since it bears virtually no resemblance to what I was expressing. In reply to: I don't understand what people have against open questions. Me either. In reply to: > "I can't show you my soul, but I do believe it exists."I have no idea why you do. Because it feels good? It looks to me like you DO have an idea then. That one will be fine. In reply to: I don't know why nothingness is not at least as valid as the alternatives. Me either, but as I said it happens to NOT be my choice... In reply to: The falsity of that premise can be demonstrated by observing that atheists and agnostics are no less moral than religious people. How do you define "moral"? In reply to: In fact, someone did a study and found that irreligious people were slightly less likely to steal that religious people were. "Someone did a study"? Would you accept something like that from ME? In reply to: > "I have to agree; right or wrong, religion does separate us from animals."So do genocide and nuclear weapons. Not so. Genocide is something that animals do as well (look up "Bush wren" or "Stephen's Island wren" for examples), and in the final analysis nuclear weapons are just big weapons. Animals use weapons too. Belief in religions is the big division. In reply to: That is just not right. Belief that I'm not God requires as much faith on your part as belief that I am, but are those two beliefs really on an equal footing? Who said anything about believing that you 'are God'? I was speaking of the belief that God exists. Belief that God exists and belief that God doesn't exist are definitely on equal footing.
-
The currency of science is hypothesis, experimentation, theory, more experimentation, refinement of theory, and discarding of theories that don't hold up. I'll accept your definition of "scientific fact" as a popular term, not a scientific one. (I presume Talkorigins was using it to say that the theory of evolution is a "scientific fact".)SA> I'm not sure why you're uncomfortable saying, "I don't know what more there is to me, if anything, beyond what can be seen or detected".L> I'm not sure where you got this view, since it bears virtually no resemblance to what I was expressing.You said this: "I can't show you my soul, but I do believe it exists. What happens when we die? I don't really know, but I don't think it's nothingness."Wouldn't it be more rational to say "I don't know what happens after we die. Maybe it's nothingness, maybe not"? Do you see what I'm saying?SA> I don't understand what people have against open questions.L> Me either.But that doesn't apply to the question of what happens after death? Now why is that?L> Because it feels good?SA> It looks to me like you DO have an idea then. That one will be fine.I'm not sure what "truth" has to do with "feeling good", unless feeling good trumps truth. It may make you feel good to think that you're the best baseball player in Texas, but....SA> I don't know why nothingness is not at least as valid as the alternatives.L> Me either, but as I said it happens to NOT be my choice...Apparently the idea of "open question" doesn't obtain in this domain. I don't see why.SA>> The falsity of that premise can be demonstrated by observing that atheists and agnostics are no less moral than religious people.L>> How do you define "moral"?SA> In fact, someone did a study and found that irreligious people were slightly less likely to steal that religious people were.L> "Someone did a study"? Would you accept something like that from ME?Fair enough. It is incumbent upon the person who's making an affirmative claim to support his position, so here goes:Take a look at this article from the Times of London, from about a year ago: Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side', about an article published in the Journal of Religion and Society. From the journal article...In reply to:“In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. [from paragraph 18]Here is the actual journal article, by Gregory S. Paul:Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies.Here's an interesting paper by Paul Heaton of the University of Chicago, in PDF format: Does Religion Really Reduce Crime? The last paragraph of the conclusion on page 19 says:In reply to:My findings suggest that past research has overstated the salutary effect of religion oncrime. Although there is a clear intuitive argument for why religion might reduce crime, themechanisms through which crime might affect religion are less well understood. One possibleexplanation is that religious individuals are more trusting and therefore more prone tovictimization, a force which might tend to increase crime in religious communities or discouragereligiosity in high-crime areas. Fruitful future research might examine the extent to which thisphenomenon might undercut any positive tendency for religious individuals to commit fewercrimes themselves.> Belief in religions is the big division. People also pay taxes, live in condominiums, and pay taxes; animals don't. I'm sure the list of differences goes on and on. But so what? Even if religious belief separates us from lower animals, how does that make religion any more valid? And how do you know that whales, dolphins, and gorillas have no religious beliefs? I think it's an open question.Recent studies (using functional MRI) have localized areas of the brain that are active when a person feels what he feels during a religious "episode". Would you like me to dig up a reference? Also, a brain based explanation has been found for the feeling of out-of-body experiences. They can be induced by stimulation a certain part of the brain.L> Belief that God exists and belief that God doesn't exist are definitely on equal footing.They are definitely not on an equal ontological footing. How is believing in something that connot be perceived be on an equal footing with not believing it? Is there really a difference between saying "I believe in God", and "I am God"? Neither is falsifiable.
-
Sorry everyone, but in order to give the citations fair treatment this post has to be a long one. In reply to: The currency of science is hypothesis, experimentation, theory, more experimentation, refinement of theory, and discarding of theories that don't hold up. I'll accept your definition of "scientific fact" as a popular term, not a scientific one. (I presume Talkorigins was using it to say that the theory of evolution is a "scientific fact".) No, actually they were defining the term "scientific fact", as in what is meant by the term 'fact' when used in any scientific context. Now I'm curious. What is YOUR definition of a "scientific fact"? In reply to: You said this: "I can't show you my soul, but I do believe it exists. What happens when we die? I don't really know, but I don't think it's nothingness."Wouldn't it be more rational to say "I don't know what happens after we die. Maybe it's nothingness, maybe not"? Do you see what I'm saying? It would be more logical to say that if I didn't have an opinion on the issue, but since I do, it isn't. It's not a matter of being uncomfortable with anything; as long as I am addressing the question it would be irrational to not express my view since I in fact have one. In reply to: But that doesn't apply to the question of what happens after death? Now why is that? It applies to any question I don't have an opinion on. I suppose if I were unwilling to give my opinion on a subject it would apply as well, but I have no reason to hide my views. Like I said, I don't have a problem with open questions. In reply to: I'm not sure what "truth" has to do with "feeling good", unless feeling good trumps truth. Did I say anything about "truth"? I don't remember doing so. In fact I didn't use that word or that concept at all, so please don't put it in quotes. It implies that you are referring to something that I said. In reply to: Fair enough. It is incumbent upon the person who's making an affirmative claim to support his position, so here goes:Take a look at this article from the Times of London, from about a year ago: Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side', about an article published in the Journal of Religion and Society. From the journal article... “In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies." [from paragraph 18] That report was interesting reading. A sociologist (Gregory Paul) compares Europe to the United States, operating under the assumptions that 1) the US is more religious than England and other European countries (a reasonable one given the available data) and 2) that such religious beliefs are the only significant causal differences between the societies being compared (a rather ridiculous assumption which he makes no attempt to justify). He limits his data points to countries he refers to as "properous developed democracies", no doubt to be able to lump them together and leave out a host of former soviet bloc countries which are no more religious than Europeans. It also means he gets to leave out MORE religous countries like India which don't qualify under his "prosperous" requirement. Even with the rather specific targeting of data points which support his premise, Mr. Paul has difficulty establishing his claims, which he admits early in his report with:"This is not an attempt to present a definitive study that establishes cause versus effect between religiosity, secularism and societal health. It is hoped that these original correlations and results will spark future research and debate on the issue." In other words, he knows his conclusions are likely faulty. This also pretty much invalidates attempts to use his report in the way you are attempting. Still, I'm going to address his points a bit more specifically here, because it's only fair that I address the specifics of your evidence. Those not interested, if you haven't quit reading already, this is a good place to skip forward. It isn't going to be exciting.From his third paragraph: "in Europe [the idea that morality comes from religion] has not been a driving focus of public and political dispute, especially since the world wars."He even mentions major factors, like the world wars, which are but one of many major distinctions between Europe and the US, but fails to account for them in his analysis. Indeed, democracy in Europe is certainly not the same across borders, let alone a comparison across oceans, but his analysis treats all prosperous democratic states as identical.From his fourth paragraph: "Although its proponents often claim that anti-evolution creationism is scientific, it has abjectly failed in the practical realms of mainstream science and hi-tech industry " So pretty early in his analysis, he is framing the issue not as an "affect of religion on society" issue, but as a "creationism is wrong" issue. Pure creationism as he is framing it here is a minority view even among the religious. His fifth paragraph is repetition and elaboration of the fourth. Of note here is the fact that he likes to draw his conclusions from numerous papers by other authors. He is typically very good about citing his work, and in my experience the thing to look for in papers by such people is the statement slipped in without any such backing. A key one appears in his sixth paragraph: "In the United States popular support for the cultural and moral superiority of theism is so extensive that popular disbelief in God ranks as another major societal fear factor." His conclusion here isn't supported by any quote, cite, or authority. The significance of this statement, even if true, is that it invalidates self-reported data from his surveys. Here's another thing often found in papers with a targeted conclusion: acknowledgement followed by a quick dismissal of contradictory evidence. In his tenth paragraph we find: "Self-reported rates of religious attendance and practice may be significantly higher than actual rates (Marler and Hadaway), but the data is useful for relative comparisons, especially when it parallels results on religious belief." To paraphrase him here, 'people might have lied on the surveys, but it doesn't matter.' In point of fact, it matters a great deal. If people claim to be religious but they aren't, drawing conclusions based on their behaviour and attributing that to religion will give completely erroneous results. The idea that the results will be parallel isn't valid either because we are speaking of minorities in one case and majorities in the other.It's interesting that in the twelfth paragraph he once again states that his work doesn't and cannot show a correlation between religion and social conditions, ie: "Regression analyses were not executed because of the high variability of degree of correlation, because potential causal factors for rates of societal function are complex, and because it is not the purpose of this initial study to definitively demonstrate a causal link between religion and social conditions." If you compare this with his conclusions scattered throughout the paper, one is left wondering what the purpose of the document actually is.His charts were actually pretty interesting, mainly because they represented raw data without his interpretations being applied, and thus could be evaluated independently. The very first chart struck me right away with several contradictions. Looking at the US alone, we have the following numbers. Around 45% accept evolution (there is no breakdown on the varieties of evolution, or if the 'acceptance' of evolution was as valid science or as true belief), and around 65% absolutely believe in God. Only 40% regularly attend religious services ( a data point that has been challenged as being high in self-reported surveys), and only 30% take the Bible literally. Let me get this straight - of the 70% who DON'T take the Bible literally, only 2/3rds of them accept evolution? That doesn't sound right; there's a flaw in the data there somewhere. Also, if 65% absolutely believe in God, why is it that a maximum of 40% are attending services? Another contradiction that needs resolving, but there is no attempt to do so in this report. In fact, Mr. Paul dismisses such things as unimportant. Here are some more of the things he dismisses:"The especially low rates (of homocide) in the more Catholic European states are statistical noise", and "Other prosperous democracies do not significantly exceed the U.S. in rates of nonviolent and in non-lethal violent crime", and "Life spans tend to decrease as rates of religiosity rise (Figure 5), especially as a function of absolute belief. Denmark is the only exception.", and "Youth suicide is an exception to the general trend because there is not a significant relationship between it and religious or secular factors." A true analysis of the data would be required to address all such anomalies, not to see and dismiss them. For example, why might it be that the US exceeds European countries in homocides but is essentially equal to them in other crimes? Why don't other crimes follow with religious belief if indeed there is any connection between them?This goes on and on throughout this report, but in the final analysis it is noteable for two things. The dismissal without explanation of exceptions to his 'religion = social ills' thesis, and the complete lack of a scientific control. There is absolutely NO effort to eliminate other causes for the issues he raises, such as eliminating the possibility that higher homocide rates could be correlated to the increased availability of guns in the US, or that political unrest could be the source of Portugal's statistical abberations. He makes ZERO attempts to deal with the political differences between the US and Europe. For these reasons, this paper doesn't even begin to present a reasoned view of this issue, and I find the only rational course to be rejection of his conclusions.WRT the second study you cited, did you actually read the part you quoted? Let's take another look at it; In reply to: My findings suggest that past research has overstated the salutary effect of religion on crime. Although there is a clear intuitive argument for why religion might reduce crime, the mechanisms through which crime might affect religion are less well understood. One possible explanation is that religious individuals are more trusting and therefore more prone to victimization, a force which might tend to increase crime in religious communities or discourage religiosity in high-crime areas. Fruitful future research might examine the extent to which thisphenomenon might undercut any positive tendency for religious individuals to commit fewer crimes themselves. Take a close look at this. The conclusion here is that religious people commit fewer crimes, but may be the victims of more. The study was investigating why high religion areas don't show as much of a drop in crime rates as one might expect. It certainly doesn't support your contention that "irreligious people were slightly less likely to steal that religious people". It's the exact opposite in fact. This study even points out the fact of lower divorce and higher law enforcement percentages in areas with more religious adherents, and there is no correlation between crimes and religion as you suggested. In reply to: People also pay taxes, live in condominiums, and pay taxes; animals don't. I'm sure the list of differences goes on and on. Animals pay taxes; try making a kill in an area that a lion has declared his own. Animals live in condominiums; I have one in my yard that I built for purple martins, but monk parakeets build their own condos. In reply to: I'm sure the list of differences goes on and on. This is no doubt true, and I apologize for having a bit of fun at your expense, but you are having such a hard time finding a good example that I can't resist. I'll stop now though, and concede that there are differences between animals and humans other than religion. In reply to: Even if religious belief separates us from lower animals, how does that make religion any more valid? It doesn't, nor did I say it did. In fact, when I spoke of religion as the "big division" between humans and animals, I specifically referred to religions as "right or wrong". I made no assumptions about validity. In reply to: And how do you know that whales, dolphins, and gorillas have no religious beliefs? I think it's an open question. I don't have to know that, because you are the one making the positive contention. There is no evidence that they believe, and thus I can conclude what I want. If you want to close your open question or leave it open, be my guest. It's not incumbent on me to do so. In reply to: Recent studies (using functional MRI) have localized areas of the brain that are active when a person feels what he feels during a religious "episode". Would you like me to dig up a reference? Nope. I really don't see any relevance here, as it doesn't matter what the source is. In reply to: > Belief that God exists and belief that God doesn't exist are definitely on equal footing.They are definitely not on an equal ontological footing. How is believing in something that connot be perceived be on an equal footing with not believing it? That's not what I said. Look closely at the above and you should see the difference between what I said and what you are objecting to.
-
The phrase "scientific fact" has no technical meaning. It can mean a variety of things, depending on the writer's intention. To me, it sounds like "scientific proof". Science is not the same thing as mathematics. You can collect a lot of data to support the ideas that force equals mass times acceleration, and Schrödinger's Wave Equation is correct, but you can't prove them.
In reply to:
It would be more logical to say that if I didn't have an opinion on the issue, but since I do, it isn't. It's not a matter of being uncomfortable with anything; as long as I am addressing the question it would be irrational to not express my view since I in fact have one.
What's not logical is that you have an affirmative opinion about something for which there is no affirmative evidence. The question is not why you've expressed your opinion, but why you hold it.
Why do you hold it? Should I repeat myself and say that there is no evidence to support it?
In reply to:
I can't show you my soul, but I do believe it exists.
Why?
In reply to:
What happens when we die? I don't really know, but I don't think it's nothingness.
Why? Surely not because you "think that such beliefs are important to society". Do you think that makes irrational beliefs rational?
I appreciate your reading the references, but you didn't have to delve that deeply to get me to admit that the research on the subject is inconclusive. There's not much data, and the studies are not exactly definitive. That is often the case in the social sciences; analyzing human behavior is not like running a physics experiment. The point is that there is no good data to support the contrary belief either.
You claim that nothing separates us from the animals other than religion, but we have no idea what animals believe, or whether or not they have anything that resembles faith. Apparently, if you stretch the metaphor far enough, animals pay income tax, grow cotton, weave fabric, make clothing, fry onion rings in boiling oil, launch satellites into outer space, and walk on the moon. But, so what?
There is precious little evidence to conclude what animals believe. I wouldn't use an opinion about it as a foundation for a system of beliefs, one way or the other.
Your implication, of course, is that animals have no system of morals, and religious belief is what gives us ours. I'm telling you that, although it's a popular belief, and a convenient one for the religious, there is no good evidence to back it up.
Compare the religious Muslim communities that, when polled, support in large numbers, violence against civilians, suicide bombing, and so on. Compare that to the rather secular and non-violent Dutch and Scandinavians. I think we'd agree that those European countries have lower rates of violent crime than the United States.
Many African countries have traditions of conservative religion, yet are quite violent.
If you selectively cite data points, you can support any point of view.
Is it possible that human culture has evolved in a way that enhances human survival, and that wonton violence and criminality is not conducive to overall survival? That pure selfish is not the best recipe? Do you think that all human behavior stems from religion, or just the virtuous stuff?
In reply to:
It applies to any question I don't have an opinion on. I suppose if I were unwilling to give my opinion on a subject it would apply as well, but I have no reason to hide my views. Like I said, I don't have a problem with open questions.
Apparently not. An arbitrary answer seems to be satisfactory.
So, what is wrong with an open question? The issue is not whether you are willing to publish your views, but why you hold those views. We can't seem to get to the "why", for some reason. You could say, "I don't know", but you don't. Do you hold your beliefs because you think they're good for society?
In reply to:
Look closely at the above and you should see the difference between what I said and what you are objecting to.
It seemed pretty clear to me. If you have a different idea, feel free to expand on it.
I'm still trying to figure out why you believe the things you do.