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Atheists VS Theists

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ruveyn
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14 Jul 2010, 3:43 am

Laz wrote:
Thanks for closing your board Richard Dawkins now all those boring arguments are spamming everywhere.


I miss the Dawkins forum.

ruveyn



Asmodeus
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14 Jul 2010, 5:33 am

NobelCynic wrote:
Asmodeus wrote:
This is the religious counterargument, given in rational terms, eg "Without our Jesus, who do you love? Is death just the end for you?" etc.
I don't personally believe this.

What is the point of making arguments that you don't personally believe? Why don't you let the people who do believe this speak for themselves?

Because the premise of the thread was humourous discourse.



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14 Jul 2010, 9:05 am

NobelCynic wrote:
That's a tough call when you put it theists versus atheists in general, it would depend upon the individual. Both sides are working from a position of incomplete knowledge; the theist does not really know God and although the atheist thinks he can explain how life evolved he cannot explain how it began or what the human sense of self is though most are confident that science will answer these questions in the future.


An atheist works from the presumption that there is no god until verifiable evidence has been put forward to prove the existence of one. I'm sorry to say in advance that an old book anybody could've written does not prove it. It's not an atheist's job per se to explain how life began (although there are good scientific theories) because it has little to do with actual atheism. Assigning the explanation "God did it" to fill the knowledge gap hinders progress because science thrives on finding out the answers of questions which currently resolve in the answer "I don't know".



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15 Jul 2010, 8:22 am

ruveyn wrote:
Laz wrote:
Thanks for closing your board Richard Dawkins now all those boring arguments are spamming everywhere.


I miss the Dawkins forum.

ruveyn


Richard Dawkins forum closed? When???? :cry: :cry: :cry:

~Kate (was SweetPea over there)


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15 Jul 2010, 12:19 pm

I think most people don't really think about it or care. They like the romantic idea of some deity but not in their day to day lives. Most people will just agree about there is a god or something just to follow along with the pack.

It's a shame because the people who really believe hardcore are mentally disturbed people who need help and won't get it because people are too lazy and scared to just admit that, like santa claus, the easter bunny, and the tooth fairy, god isn't real.


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JetLag
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15 Jul 2010, 11:08 pm

I think it would be interesting to see not only the all-comprehensive stats (if the stats actually exist) of the IQ measurement tests of atheists versus theists; but also to see how the scientific community set up its controlled experiments in the first place that led them to narrow down the supposed determining factors of intelligence.

Personally, I think it takes both intelligence and imagination to create a theory that declares nobody + nothing = everything (0+0=0). And I wonder if placing confidence in a worldview that says that life actually rises from non-life, which is a mathematical, logical, and scientific impossibility and a tall tale to boot, is really a very wise and brainy thing to do.

But probably more important than tall tales, though, is that most respectable scientists would probably doubt in the end the validity of any categorical characterizations of IQs and braininess based on one's worldview, since the characterizations are imaginably just as real as Becher's phlogiston theory.


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Bethie
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30 Jul 2010, 11:46 am

JetLag wrote:
I think it would be interesting to see not only the all-comprehensive stats (if the stats actually exist) of the IQ measurement tests of atheists versus theists; but also to see how the scientific community set up its controlled experiments in the first place that led them to narrow down the supposed determining factors of intelligence.

Personally, I think it takes both intelligence and imagination to create a theory that declares nobody + nothing = everything (0+0=0). And I wonder if placing confidence in a worldview that says that life actually rises from non-life, which is a mathematical, logical, and scientific impossibility and a tall tale to boot, is really a very wise and brainy thing to do.

But probably more important than tall tales, though, is that most respectable scientists would probably doubt in the end the validity of any categorical characterizations of IQs and braininess based on one's worldview, since the characterizations are imaginably just as real as Becher's phlogiston theory.


It's actually THEISTS who claim the the Universe was spontaneously created from nothing.

It's also somewhat humorous that you baldly declare Abiogenesis a "scientific impossibility" when it is SCIENTISTS who proposed, validated, and continue to improve the theory.

But what do them there godless heathens know, right? :D

If the subject confuses you, you can always do research, ya know.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2% ... experiment


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18 Aug 2010, 10:06 pm

Asmodeus wrote:
Asp-Z wrote:
People who believe in an invisible imaginary friend with magic superpowers from a thousand year old story book vs. people who believe in verifiable science.

Hmm.

I believe the counterargument is
But the people with the imaginary friend believe life has some meaning, and for the most part atheists and scientists haven't cultured a life philosophy that makes them as furfilled, regardless of truth.


Note the confusion of "lack of belief in deities" with "lack of life philosophy".

:roll:


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18 Aug 2010, 10:16 pm

Asmodeus wrote:
Thiest equips circular reasoning!

Atheist deploys Dawkins!
It's super effective!

Theist uses prejudice claim!
Theist is fully healed!

Atheist reads.

Theist uses pseudohistory claim!
Theist's arguement feels stronger!

Atheist uses verifiable evidence to the contrary!
Argument broken!


Your theological viewpoint is trying to evolve...

*System Failure - Please Reboot Universe*



danieltaiwan
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18 Aug 2010, 10:45 pm

Who knows. Let's wait until we die and find out. Just enjoy life.



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18 Aug 2010, 11:30 pm

danieltaiwan wrote:
Who knows. Let's wait until we die and find out. Just enjoy life.


Excellent idea! and when someone who has died comes back with proof of an afterlife we can all relax and accept that.



AngelRho
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18 Aug 2010, 11:36 pm

Sand wrote:
danieltaiwan wrote:
Who knows. Let's wait until we die and find out. Just enjoy life.


Excellent idea! and when someone who has died comes back with proof of an afterlife we can all relax and accept that.


Jesus already did that.



adifferentname
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19 Aug 2010, 12:03 am

AngelRho wrote:
Sand wrote:
danieltaiwan wrote:
Who knows. Let's wait until we die and find out. Just enjoy life.


Excellent idea! and when someone who has died comes back with proof of an afterlife we can all relax and accept that.


Jesus already did that.


I think Sand meant someone real with, you know, actual evidence. A first person account would be nice too.



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19 Aug 2010, 12:17 am

These topics usually stink on ice.

All the same, IMO, we're immersed in a world where everything's mundane for the very reason that we've been in it to sort it out on our own - its important to take note and be aware of that. In a world where we...lets say....had elves and fairies walking or floating around us...who's to say that we wouldn't consider that completely natural and proof of nothing beyond little flying or pointy-eared people. In a world with no squirrels outside of childrens tales we might have made similar claims to that effect. Not to go so literal as to argue the difference in form and what evolution can and can't do - I don't doubt science at all, I just get the impression that too many people utterly lack imagination when it comes to interpreting the evidence for/against.



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19 Aug 2010, 12:24 am

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
I just get the impression that too many people utterly lack imagination when it comes to interpreting the evidence for/against.


Would you care to expand this a little? I'm not sure how you are coming to this conclusion, though I suspect in many cases that you are not seeing the machinations of thought behind the publishing of opinion because we do not always 'show our working' before giving the answer.

Maybe I missed what you were trying to say completely.



techstepgenr8tion
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19 Aug 2010, 12:32 am

adifferentname wrote:
Would you care to expand this a little? I'm not sure how you are coming to this conclusion, though I suspect in many cases that you are not seeing the machinations of thought behind the publishing of opinion because we do not always 'show our working' before giving the answer.

Maybe I missed what you were trying to say completely.

Watching a lot of the conversation I keep seeing things go into the same gutter usually - fairies, elves, an old man in a white robe on a golden thrown sitting on a cloud. I get the concept quite clearly; it starts with the notion that all religion or any sense of anything external is anthropology and anthropology only, thus the urge to grab at the fanciful.

What I'm trying to say is this: given the world we see around us, what we've been able to determine with science, the world we clearly know and can work with - I would think that to come up with an accurate hypothesis of what a deity would or wouldn't be, or what a human soul would or wouldn't be, one would need to take it from the reality that we know and trace it from that lens. IMO people who don't wish to do that or already have all the answers without doing so probably shouldn't bother taking any particular side of the argument.