Rabid atheists

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Well, actually, they extend this attack to any deviation from a capitalist market economy based upon property rights structures. Some have even taken it to the point where they argue against the law itself for not being private.

Abangyarudo, I have a few main points of disagreement with you: first, I cannot see faith as a good thing. I sympathise too much with the Buddhist point of view, basically that delusion, and craving for the world to be other than it is, is the root of human suffering. I don't think it's possible to eliminate all craving, but ultimately faith is the desire for an all-powerful parent figure to rescue one when times get tough. The fact that humans are resilient and often get by, often survive their trials, is not a testament to the goodness of God or the power (or utility) of faith. Having faith that a god will solve your problems only leads to greater dissapointment (say, to the level of disillusionment) when your problems turn out to be as awful as, or even worse than, you feared.

Secondly, you seem to be confounding 'science' with 'calculus.' A lot of science, especially the study of more complex systems, is based on statistics or is not described by mathematical models at all. It's also important to remember that the lay view of science does not necessarily reflect reality; as you yourself mentioned, every answered question simply leads to more questions. Scientists may be confident of the answers that they have found, but they are also more aware than the general public of how many questions remain unanswered.

It is true that the answers found by science can only be as good as the questions asked, and that the quality of the questions are only as good as the faliable humans asking them; so? As previously stated, science is not perfect. No human endeavour can possibly be perfect. However much you long for perfection and certianty, it does not exist. At least science admits this, though, wheras a lot of religions take this desire and say that what they wish for is real.

you misinterpreted me if I believed in god's power I wouldn't be agnostic.

My Claim is simple jf was openly harrassing people who are religious he has over fanatical views where he takes science as a religion. Since he uses science as a religion I dictate that if science is to be used as a religion its no different then how I would be if a religious fanatic was harrassing jf. I see no point in calling people morons because they believe in something at the expense of rational evidence, science often makes the same mistakes in its initial stages. Science does claim to know alot more then it does often if you look at evidence that is disproven it is disproven due to lack of using controlled variables but yet often other ideals that are considered scientific fact have made the same mistakes.

EDIT: to clarify I don't have a stake in this one way or the other. I just refuse to allow people to harrass eachother by saying their creed is correct it didn't matter if he was a buddhist, a christian, jewish, or whatever. We all have our views and ther eis no "right" view as there is no real "facts" so I object to jf calling people morons for believing in religion if jf was a christian and was calling a person a moron for not believing in that I would have pointed out the flaws in christianity after some research since I'm not much into religion study.

My explanation was faith was the unbridled enthusiasm of believeing everything will be all right in which I stated that its the only thing I envy as I have a hard time believing that things will adjust themselves. For the individual it does alot in terms of physically because of the pure belief that they will either be around for that divine moment they seek or they will die and go to some form of paradise.

Well I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the simplest explanation for moral reality is essentially nihilism. I don’t think that value notions such as good and evil exist outside our heads. There’s no logical reason why they couldn’t, but I find the idea of objective morality to be forced. The simpler explanation is that morality is simply a psychological phenomenon. This doesn’t mean that I will use this as an excuse to be anti-social. I know that behaving in an altruistic manner feels better and has less negative repercussions than being anti-social.

It's funny you should mention this, because it's another example of you projecting your thoughts onto me.

Let me make this clear so that you will quit making all these straw-man arguments against me. As a skeptic, I'm asking you to provide evidence for your claims. So far, you've only offered circular logic and non-sequiturs backed up by nothing more than a personal opinion and experience. When I point this out, your only defense is to label me as "religious" and "close-minded".

If you haven't figured out yet, that it is incumbent on you to provide evidence for any claim, then you will continue to loose every argument.



See what I mean??



Nice try at shifting the argument, but you're the one who has made claims, not me. You're the one who has to offer something.


1) As I previously posted, Witt merely posted a list of non-sequiturs on his part.

2) More of you projecting, trying to deflect the burden of proof off of yourslef.



Another straw-man argument. Science and religion are worlds apart. If you don't understand the fundamental difference between the two, then you're not capable of rational discussion on the subject.



That last part is rich... comming from you.

Anyone who believes in external verification.

no he showed you that your breaking the same rules your trying to apply to the topic. You don't have a leg to stand on and instead of acutally pointing out your topic you harrass other posters and then use these rules of logical debate usually breaking them in the process. Your not getting it noones gonig to fight with someone who tries to use things that he breaks and tell me besides your little rules of logic and ask for proof in a scientific mindset which is what I'm telling you is the flaw in that theory. You attack christianity but science is not a fact its a bunch of theories put forth as dogma to be a fact.

Everything can be rewritten nothing you can prove without having 100% knowledge of the broader subjects in encompasses. So that makes science in the same vein as a religion and hence show your particular revelance to the thread as a rabid atheists unable to think without spitting out science like religious scriptures even though every fact that science knows is only fact in their way of thinking. If you take into the account the other possibilities which science is not able to take into account in means everything is theories based on a group of assumptions.

Heres burden of proof which I'm not even playing because your just gonig to read off the religious bible you call scientific research tell me one fact that can never be changed.

The reason that atheists quote their most prominent advocates is that most of these advocates are scientists. That's the reason that following what they say is different to just blindly tailing some preacher with no evidence (or in a lot of cases, even a solid, fact based theory) to back up their claims.

The other reason is that until recently, we've been scattered all over the globe with no real direction.

In most countries, atheists actually outnumber the religious at a rate of up to 3 to 1!

We've just never had a voice before, so we're getting behind those who are finally trying to gather us together and give us a voice. But the whole premise of following these people (like Richard Dawkins for instance) is learning to be a free thinker, so while we may identify with and quite often quote our famous atheist speakers, we're just using them as a base to start from in terms of building what is essentially a very new movement in the world today. If you did some research into atheist demographics, you'd see that there are a lot of different types and sub-types, who don't always agree, but wouldn't dream of going to war with or showing prejudice toward eachother due to these differences.

As for god being beyond the ability of science to explain, well I have to doubt the seriousness of any agnostic claiming absolutes.

Science is the observation of how things work (watch out! I'm about to quote Dawkins!) and the observation of a universe that was specifically designed and is presided over by an omniscient and omnipotent creator would show VERY different results to one that wasn't and isn't.

People believe the question of god to be beyond science because they've been told by the churches of multiple faiths for thousands of years now that not only is god beyond the ability of science to explain or understand, but that such speculation is either dangerous or unnecessary!

What do they have to hide? Wouldn't a perfect, omniscient, omnipotent being ace all and any scientific tests thrown at it?

Atheists in general don't want to push their beliefs on anyone, but we've stayed silent so long that a) Our rights are rarely considered in countries where religion and politics go hand in hand and so b) We feel that perhaps some education as to where we're coming from and why we count is in order.

As for anyone who'd discount our moral system as negative or impossible then I would simply give this example:

As a new atheist of only about 6 months (and an ex-born again pentacostle christian), I was laying in bed thinking about a friend who is going through a lot of trouble right now and was really down about it.

My first instinct was to pray for him, out of force of habit, until I realised I genuinely don't belive in god anymore.

After that I thought about what I could do if I wasn't going to ask some ethereal body to take care of him for me.

Simply put, I started to figure out what I could do personally to help him and get him back on track.

So which would be the more productive moral code and would contribute better to humanity?

Laying in bed talking to the ceiling or formulating a plan on how to help your neighbour?

And how is that at all negative?

I myself am very aware of the ferocity with which a lot of atheists seem to argue their case, but the explanation is that they're passionate about atheism in the face of religious hostility towards our new movement. We just want to show that although we've previously been disorganised, there are a lot of us and we want our voices heard in the world today. Not only that, but we deserve to have our voices heard with just as much validity as any religious leader.

When we can be counted as equals, then we won't feel the need to announce our presence in the world, or to defend it.

Yes, but if one is a solipsistic nihilist then they are the external. You really haven't refuted the position but just stated you don't believe it because you dislike it.... which strangely is the most nihilistic thing you could have done, even solipsistic too in some ways considering that you likely bring that to a truth statement.


I have never heard of such a thing as metaphysical evidence.


I really tend to doubt that. The hidden assumption seems to be that atheists are liberal and tolerant liberals, but really foreign policy realism and neoconservatism have very atheistic roots and not only that but discrimination appears on all levels, especially the ideological as there is some evidence that seems to indicate that discrimination occurs in academia, which is a relatively non-religious environment. I mean, we could argue that people who would take these stances would have to be religious, but then we start having to stretch our definitions of religion to the point where we might as well state "everyone who doesn't think the way I think is religious", which would probably then seem to recreate this divide between the good and the evil that so colors human thought.


Why? The idea of an omniscient and omnipotent being is beyond our comprehension, and it originated in a world less perfect than our own. Really, your argument is probably going to go into the problem of evil and the response is going to go into the realm of theodicy with neither side truly being satisfied as most theists deny the ability to construct the hypotheses to show a difference and may argue that any universe to exist successfully must be designed even. The assumptions between atheists and theists end up being too radically different for sensible discussion to be possible unless one actually accepts the other's paradigm.


Nothing, but their faiths have told them not to test their deity nor to doubt. There are no scientific tests to prove or disprove a deity and there cannot be. A deity is a metaphysical being and science deals exclusively with the physical. Science could not prove or disprove the 5 minute hypothesis, how could they prove or disprove a deity who wanted to be taken on faith?


By even asking that question you fail to understand the philosophical question. You assume morality to prove morality. You say "Which moral code would be more productive by the standards of the morality I have already accepted?". This already goes against a religious conception of the idea and reject your own skepticism and scientific emphasis as a true reductionist would eliminate the idea of morality and if atheistic would become a moral nihilist and if agnostic then a moral skeptic.


The negativity comes in because your moral code is not seen as correct or having a proper foundation.


And ultimately this equality is somewhat impossible as either the world will strive to live as theists or as atheists. Your group arises because it attempts both and fails at both. Really though, most people of both parties end up being very philosophically incomplete from what I think I have seen so far.

Well, firstly, thank-you for proving that most people are able to completely miss the point on this.

My point was that we believe something, we have a right to believe it, we want our views to be taken into consideration, but everyone is so pre-occupied with trying to prove our beliefs wrong that it's as though we never asked the question: Don't we have the right to freedom of and/or from religion in most civilised parts of the world?

Actually the answer to that is no given the western world today, but the laws and constitutions are there and so we legally should and the founding fathers of whichever nation anyone happens to reside in put such laws in place in order to promote harmony and tolerance.

But in places such as america (where the foetal stages of an all out christian fundamentalist american taliban are on the rise), atheists do not have equal voice in the direction of their nation despite making up a very large part of it.

All they want, is to be able to make suggestions as to their nations direction based on the reality of events in the world and not let religion have such a hold on government, where they push their own agendas. (Agendas that in some parts of the world are beginning to get quite scary!)

A balanced voice and a balanced and REASON based government is all we ask.

THAT is ultimately why atheists are so passionate and occasionally vehement in their arguments, because the world is going to hell in a handbasket and a very large part of this problem is religiously motivated politics. We have nothing against religion, people are entitled to live as they choose and believe what they want, but all of it within REASON.

Common sense is quite often shown the door when it comes to politics influenced by religion and so, realising our own shortcomings in not having become an organised force to be consulted on such things, we're now trying to stand up and say "why don't we just act and react based on the economic, secularly political, environmental and humanitarian situation in the world today?"

Perhaps it's too little too late, who knows? One thing that definitely seperates a lot of atheists who base their beliefs (or non-beliefs, depending on how you want to look at it) on science from religiously motivated movements, is that they are quite open to admitting that they were wrong, or too late, based on the evidence before them. But we feel that the world needs cold hard reason at this point in time, especially in america (the most powerful nation on earth) and far from believing we should take over, we just think that we'd be the equal weight on the opposite end of a scale with the government in the middle and religion on the other side.

As for my sub-points, which are all you really addressed:


Respectfully, how is it that you can shoot down a scientific argument by claiming that god is metaphysical? What proof is there that he is metaphysical? What proof is there that he isn't physical? The idea only exists due to conjecture. The argument might be that this is beyond science, but it falls into a scientific hole. What if I were to say to you "the tooth-fairy is metaphysical because there is no evidence in physics for her existence"? She's just as provable or disprovable as god.



Corruption is something that will always exist, I won't argue with you on that one. Wars would happen without religion. But whereas christian fundamentalists are currently running around denouncing other religions (islam in particular) whenever they can, turning up to gay peoples funerals waving signs spouting such tripe as "thank god for aids" and when you look at 9/11, or the Madrid and London bombings, or the state of Pakistan, or Iraq, or Iran, or the Israel/Palestine conflict, or Kosovo (I could go on for a very long time!), the current climate of atheism is that we're tired of the world being the way it is largely due to religion and we'd like to see reason and the here and now come into the equation. That's what we're getting at.

Some might argue that Stalin and Hitler were atheists (although hitler claimed for most of his life to be a roman catholic), but they just happened to be atheists, they weren't doing what they were doing in the name of atheism and the simple fact is that you don't see atheist terrorists running around right now blowing people up because they're sick of religion having this effect on the world, we're just trying to stand up all around the world and say "Isn't this a bit much? Shouldn't we perhaps have a look at the effect this is having on the world and see if we can't change our thinking a bit in the hope of a moments peace?"



Why? Because it's NOT necassarily beyond our comprehension. I can't say that it definitely isn't, but just because we don't know something yet, doesn't mean we won't. The human brain has had no trouble in eventually coming to an understanding of all kinds of things that were deemed impossible to understand for thousands of years and the discovery of new information and understanding is showing no signs of stopping. But again this comes down to the whole argument of a metaphysical god, which, far from answering the question, just conveniently removes him from the equation.


Again, the whole metaphysical question, which really in the end is not much better than just blindly believing something without any proof. To this sort of argument I usually just say "If you'd like to tell me what you believe, then please go ahead, I'm fascinated with other peoples beliefs. But if you want to argue science, then let's argue science."

You can't beat down a scientific argument with an assumption that the opposite is true.

Besides which, doesn't it at least raise your eyebrow that they've been indoctrinated for so long not to question what they're told to believe?



Firstly, not all atheists are "true reductionists" as you put it. (in fact MOST aren't)

Secondly, why do you assume that just because we don't believe in god that we put any less value on morality?

This has got to be the biggest...... well I would say "misconception" of the truth, but the real argument here is more a "filtering" of the truth through religious lenses.

Atheists are not anarchists, we are humanists.

We're still entirely capable of appreciating beauty, morality, love and altruistic behaviour and far from doing it purely because we believe we will be rewarded in an afterlife, we do it because it feels good and we aim to do the very best that we can to create a pleasant world and environment because we believe that this is the only chance we get!

The time some spend praying for friends (and let's be honest, I was a christian for a long time and I know that there aren't many out there who pray and then DO), we spend doing, or at the very least formulating a plan on how to realistically help someone in the here and now.

We are not at odds with most religious morality, we believe in being good, just not for the same reasons and we don't do it because we expect it back with interest when we die.



This isn't an argument, it's just a belief and as explained above, we have completely selfless and productive reasons for maintaining a sense of morality. Personally I find the idea of doing good because otherwise you'll burn eternally in a pit of fire to be just a tiny bit negative (not to mention self preserving rather than truly altruistic), but that's just me.



I love how you make such bold statments and then leave me with so much proof!

*insert sarcasm here*

We believe in reason, yes. So in some sense of the word we can be theistic, but only on the ground level because we're all inspired to think for ourselves from there on up. Plus, it's hard not to believe in a lot of the same things and be as unified as atheists are when our belief is based on things that are PROVEN to be true in the world around us. You can hardly disagree on something that is so obviously a certain way and is right before your eyes.

Finally, your assumption that the world will either try to be atheistic or theistic is possibly the most cynical thing I've ever heard. Why can't we get along? Because the religious right won't rest until we believe what they do? Are they completely blind to the fact that this attitude is what brought the world to the point that it's at and that this is entirely the atheist point in trying to speak so loudly for reason in the world today?

We just want balance and to introduce more reason into the world, but all we ever hear is argument instead and usually from the very people who, being in power as the religious right, won't concede our point by default because they feel that atheism is an affront on their religion despite the fact that our message is "let's learn to get along".

No problem, I am glad to help.

Yes, you do have a right to believe what you believe if only based upon the fact that there is no reasonable and human way to prevent that. I think that most of that issue you speak of is fighting over the school system, and to be honest, I want more school choice.


Atheists are not equal in number and really, I think that the fundamentalists are losing power historically. The real issue is not that they are so strong but rather that we have developed a more secular world view so we are more aware, but Christian rhetoric and ideas have been boiling throughout America for its entire histories.


All people push their own agendas. Claiming otherwise is to claim some notion of neutrality which really does not exist except for people who hold things in common.


Well, you want good leadership, so does everyone. The real question falls down to what is considered reasonable. If you believed that people around you were going to suffer in hell for all eternity if you did not act to push your beliefs upon them and that you had a duty to prevent their suffering, then you would probably act like some of the evangelicals, hopefully smarter given your greater intelligence and more profound background than many of them.

A very large part of it is actually bad politics. Religious politics is a rather small part of the problem had because most actions that are disrupting atheists have very little to do with any religion. Hell in a handbasket though? People have been saying that for decades if not centuries.


Because the definition of common sense is different. If your beliefs include the idea that this world doesn't matter but only the one after, then focusing on these issues in such a way is either neutral or even something you would be opposed to. Loss of culture can be worse than death by bombs from such a view.

Atheists have beliefs. Saying otherwise is a completely ignorant statement. Atheists don't base their beliefs on science either, they just focus upon and adore science. Most issues of judgment relate NOTHING to science, and many atheists are not educated in all of the sciences as one would expect of the picture you paint. Part of this issue is really that there is little basis for right and wrong in the world. In economics for example, there is a difference between normative economics and positive economics, science focuses on the positive, but policy on the normative. There is no algorithm for the leap between the 2.


Because science doesn't study metaphysics, that is the realm of philosophy, and philosophy is a broader category that on some level includes science rather than the other way around. Everyone knows that. The proof is in most definitions of deities. If you are going to say that X entity doesn't exist then you must go with the definition. There is no proof of either, because we deal with logical categories. Yes, the tooth fairy IS as provable or unprovable as any deity. The point is meaningless though because human experience is inherently bound up in subjective choices without pure logic in existence to guide them.


Ok, so? Without religion then people will invent another one. What about the cult of democracy that wanted to make Iraq democratic? That was very important to the ideology of the Iraq war and one of the ideas of the neoconservative movement. What about Marxism and all the fools who died under its banner? People will seek gods, they historically always have and really always will, even if a metaphysical idea of existence ceases to exist.


So? Nothing can be done in the name of atheism so the argument is rather pointless as you argue that nothing can be done for the sake of a nothingness. What must be looked at is not the nothingness itself but rather the overall, fundamental results of it. I usually don't go this route because I don't really care. These objective facts only run tangent to man's subjective experience, they aren't one and the same. Atheists are less common though, and Marxism was an explicitly atheistic philosophy that did murder many religious folks for the sake of its ends, so really, that runs the closest to your idea of an atheistic variant of religious murder.


How isn't it? Such a being goes so deep into ideas of philosophy where human reason dies that it would be inconceivable if it weren't inconceivable. If a deity were conceivable then it couldn't be worthy of worship. Really though, a metaphysical deity does have a single thing that human beings already are coming to grasp about the world. He can know truth and know it with confidence. We can't. You may point to scientific progress but have you actually examined philosophy? In philosophy we have basically started going towards movements such as postmodernism and existentialism, both of which are denials of man's ability to know truth based upon the inability of rationalism and reductionism to find it. Skeptical thinkers which have built up atheistic thought have disproved our ability find ideas such as the complex moral function that God would have to represent, or our ability to induct so heavily into events as to know them, and certainly skeptics have disproven our ability to know an absolute statement of truth beyond perhaps the most basic axioms AKA cogito ergo sum, anything more complex leads to endless questions on from whence it came. No, we cannot conceive a deity and not for lack of trying.

That is what faith is. This isn't a matter of science though, to argue such is complete idiocy. Trust me, I can think analytically, but you are cramming a problem of another set of knowledge into the wrong epistemology.

This isn't a matter of science though. Like I said, this is metaphysics, not physics. Science does not regard metaphysics as part of its domain. Science focuses on the physical world and elements of it, and is an epistemology specially designed for that element of the world.


No, most people do that anyway. There are no true skeptics, even amongst the skeptical. The truly skeptical would die away under life's futility as they will destroy their reason and will to exist under the burdens of the unknowable but pressing philosophical problems that man faces.

They use reductionism very heavily in their arguments. If they used it selectively then they would cease to be consistent and thus not have a very solid philosophical position either way.

I don't. I say that if you were consistent then you would. I don't believe that atheists have a consistent philosophical platform when dealing with morality though because they find it too useful, unfortunately as Nietzsche would state: "When one gives up Christian belief one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality." This is not entirely done by atheists as they still draw their morality from a relatively Christian idea, they don't recognize that there is a clear break from the old into the new with the rejection of faith.


No, you are neither. Many atheists seek to be humanists because of how that expresses progressive ideals and many atheists are merely progressives who dislike conservative ideals, however, anarchist atheists exist.
Ok, I did not deny any element of that, except for denying that morality makes sense in an atheistic framework. How is that separate from the notion that your framework forces humanity into an egoist lens? Really, you have not actually addressed the basic point I have made and I think that the real reason is that you don't recognize the philosophical thing I am hammering down at. I am saying that within your framework, we still have all of the actions we see in life, but morality, as a concept, as an idea, as something as distinct as it was in the Christian conception, as the overall ideal of oughtness where there is some standard by which beings should by their very nature conform, does not naturally exist.


Ok, so?


I know you do not actually go around killing puppies, however, good is a religious concept which means that by that nature, you cannot have it. That is a poor way of phrasing the proper Christian mindset and you probably know it, Christians are supposed to love God because he is.


No, because within a scientific framework, selflessness doesn't really exist. Just study economics and rational man who acts towards his utility, just study psychology and our natural determination towards fulfilling our psyches, just investigate evolutionary biology and how all life is designed to propagate its genetics. In a scientific framework, the only thing that should really be seen is the atom, and the atom can never truly be selfless because all of its actions are based upon its wants and desires. Really, once again, you also make a strawman out of the religious conception. Have you completely forgotten "1Jn 4:18 There is no fear where love exists. Rather, perfect love banishes fear, for fear involves punishment, and the person who lives in fear has not been perfected in love."? And yes, before you point back to me on fearing the Lord you have to remember this definition "4. reverential awe," http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fear

That is because these statements are undeniably true given the fact that we try to be scientific utilitarians but also have regard for religion and traditional values. Think about it, even though we want religious presidents we also tend to whine when they seem too religious, we don't have consistency there.



We can, depending on how we try to shape society and separate ourselves from each other. Because neither side can honestly live their beliefs with the other doing the same. Christians want everyone to be Christians and want to build the very foundations of the nation and world to conform with that, they vote on policies towards that end. Atheists have their own objectives but won't take kindly the Christian morality being forced into their society and government. The issue has little to do with blindness but everything to do with objectives, you and a theist won't see the world in the same way. Trust me though, if this is the most cynical thing you have ever heard then your conception of reality must have a deficit of cynical people.

What makes you think that the world isn't reasonable? People are acting to get their own objectives, isn't that the most reasonable thing to exist. Atheism IS an affront to their religion given that their faith is found in decorating every part of this world in a manner to glorify God. They don't want to kill atheists but they want a Christian society for a Christian nation with Christian values that exports Christian ideals to make this a Christian world.

It's not fetal. It's more like a toddler throwing tantrums about the 'war on christmas,' and how everybody hates them, and how oppressed and taken advantage of and ignored and looked down on they are.



Yes, maybe a government where political adds with floaty crosses in the background are not considered par for the course - where being a theocrat is not considered a 'job qualification' for being president.



We hope that those of you who only refrain from evil things like molesting your children or murdering neighbors who annoy you because you are afraid of going to hell, never lose your faith.

The rest of us, however, are mentally healthy social mammals and have no desire to do those things in the first place and do not need a threat hanging over our heads in order to refrain from them.

Already dealt with that claim. The notion that people of religion avoid things for fear is not true if they have proper religion according the bible they often speak of as inerrant.

I think mental unhealth is a social construction. Some people would call us aspies mentally unhealthy, but I really don't think that the term has meaning unless you have some idea of how the brain should work, how it ought to work. I would then slide this ought over into the concept of oughtness, which then causes all of the philosophical problems involved with it.

The characteristics that are mentally healthy in other social mammals can also be considered mentally healthy in humans, though humans are a bit more refined.

I am not sure how many people actually study animal psychology that much from a position where unhealth is assigned, not only that but even then I don't consider it any different. We assign these labels based upon our values.

My little thread...how it's grown while I was away. Since you are the first person to actually address my points in a while,

Brundisium:
You misunderstand my meaning of the word "positive"; I am refering to those propositions which can be verified through some manner of observation, i.e. those which correspond and can be verified through sensations derived from an objective universe, or something to that effect. Normatives are purely constructed, and cannot be proven or disproven through experience.

As a mathematics major, I feel justified in being less than impressed with the standards of knowledge in science; a scientist is only qualified to speak of whether or not the proposition "there is a god" is useful in a scientific context. Science does not tell us what is true or what we ought to believe; science can only tell us what satisfies its presumptions concerning knowledge (science had to be invented too); at absolute best, science tells us what is useful to believe when interacting with objective reality. Anything beyond that isn't science, it's philosophy.

Last edited by twoshots on 27 Dec 2007, 12:01 am, edited 1 time in total.