Question to athiests who say...

[DJ Bonebraker]

Dude, you do know he's dead now?

Yes, and I believe the world is a better place now.... I seem to remember thinking at the time how nice it would have been if Death would have taken a side-trip to pick up Bin Ladin while he was at it, but as they say, you can't have it all go your way.....

Also, thank your for confirming that you're a category 2 athiest (I've found most atheists fit into 4 categories.... Category 2 are the ones that are atheists because they think they're the smartest carbon-based lifeforms in the universe and don't like the idea that any being could possibly be smarter Category 1 are the types that have more skeletons in their closet {both literally and figuratively} than the catacombs of venice and don't want there to be a God because then they know they'd be going to Hell for sure, Cat 3 is for those who think any kind of morals that might interfere with their fun are bad, so they don't believe in God because they want to do whatever they want, regardless of how morally wrong they are, providing that it isn't actually illegal to do such things. Cat 4 atheists are those who've had something really bad happen to them and they think {wrongly} that because that bad stuff happened, then God couldn't possibly exist.).

Andrei_V: I know a lady who was exiled from Romania during the Cold War era because of her beliefs, and her father was captured and tortured by the secret police on several occasions (on the one occasion, while the guards were torturing him, the 4th highest ranking officer burst into the cell and ordered his men to stop: About 5 minutes after they started torturing him, the General in charge of the base died suddenly and without warning, 5 minutes later, the Colonel died the same way, followed at the same interval by the Major.... That's when the Captain realized that there was a pattern and that, in the name of enlightened self-interest, it might be a good idea to stop torturing and subsequently release the prisoner.... You might say that was all coincidence, but in my experience, there is no such thing as a coincidence).

 

[Perfection]

Looking at anecdotes generally isn't the best way to understand reality. You might not know all the factors nor will you know the truth of every statement made. Repeatable science is the way to go.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

That quite clearly doesn't follow, a ****** who happens to love cricket is going to know a lot more about it then me. Knowledge =/= intellegence.

Ha! and by your logic then, just because you're better at debate than I am also doesn't mean your smarter, because as your said, having more practice/experience/knowledge != intelligence. Therefore, the sword that you've wielded so flamboyantly and arrogantly has swung back around and cut your own head off.

Besides, I've found whilst in my travels, that there is more than just one kind of intelligence.... My Uncle is a genius with machine tools.... He can do things with his 50-year old non-CNC lathes and mills that none of the big outfits with their modern equipment could even think about doing. That may not require a high IQ by normal standards, but it requires a different kind of intelligence that allows one to almost become one with the machine... Same goes for certain expert mechanics, carpenters, and other craftsmen.

I have a certain skill with languages.... I actually taught myself how to read, write and speak Japanese (although my reading and writing skills are getting a bit rusty), and memorized the Greek Alphabet in less than a week when I was in Jr High school (I was bored and thought it might make a nifty secret code), and I've come up with what should be nearly unbreakable ciphers just for the hell of it (well, actually one I use for an Elven alphabet for some of the stories I write).

Still, I don't treat anyone (except arrogant twits) as inferior to myself... which is one thing you definitely could learn... Remember this also: Intelligence != maturity or wisdom.

If I had to chose either wisdom or pure IQ-based intelligence, I'd pick wisdom any day.... For one thing it's better for practical, real-life situations, and people tend to respect wisdom more (mainly because I've not met any truly wise person who was arrogant, but I've met a lot of smart people who were real smart-aleks).

Edit: the whole irony of this situation is that while we're having what basically amounts to an IQ waving competition, your average professional athelete, who is about as smart as a box of rocks, is making more money per game that what you and I make per year, COMBINED!, and their only skill is hitting a ball with a stick or catching a ball and running with it.

 

[Perfection]

Ha! and by your logic then, just because you're better at debate than I am also doesn't mean your smarter, because as your said, having more practice/experience/knowledge != intelligence. Therefore, the sword that you've wielded so flamboyantly and arrogantly has swung back around and cut your own head off.

Only if I used debate skills as the sole metric. Critical thinking and logical reasoning seemed to be in short supply with you too.

Debate skills were just the warning light, your subsequent posting confirmed it.

 

[Andrei_V]

Andrei_V: I know a lady who was exiled from Romania during the Cold War era because of her beliefs, and her father was captured and tortured by the secret police on several occasions

I bet she was a member of an unorthodox sect like Jehova's Witnesses or something.

Little has changed since then, now the religious fanatics from the Russian Orthodox Church would persecute them as 'totalitarian sect'. Gosh, they managed to ban Salvation Army as 'pro-military organization'.

In the Soviet times there were laws against certain 'religious cults', only the major religions (like Orthodox, Catholic or Islam) were officially recognized. On the other hand, the Soviet laws were not strictly enforced, one could easily escape prosecution with minimal caution. We used to say, the harshness of the law is compensated by its non-obligatory character. The predominantly atheistic population would not give a damn about your religion or lack thereof.

Now there are mobs of angry fanatics (think of those Islamic terrorists), that would simply beat you in the street for wrong religion, wrong skin color, Caucasian origin, or whatever other reason.

 

[Berzerker]

Why, exactly?

Atheism means just that -- no evidence, no belief. You don't believe in Invisible Pink Unicorns, even if you don't know whether they exist, do you? I guess that makes you an 'a-unicornist'.

That's theism which is untenable, a belief in a personal God-Creator in the absence of any evidence/rational justification.

Atheism is a denial of God, not a dis-belief. I dont believe God exists is not the same as God does not exist.

 

[Andrei_V]

Atheism is a denial of God, not a dis-belief.

Atheism is lack of belief, please consult the dictionary before telling me what I believe or deny.

 

[Berzerker]

We know how it came to be, big bang. It's not my problem if you can't get past the fact that time has a beginning and nothing (including space and time) existed beforehand.

We dont know how the universe came to be, we have theories about what happened since but what happened before is a big ?

If nothing existed before time and space, and time and space were born with the Big Bang, where did the Big Bang come from?

 

[Berzerker]

Atheism is lack of belief, please consult the dictionary before telling me what I believe or deny.

Atheism is a denial of God's existence, if you have no belief in God you'd be agnostic.

Atheism - 1.the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

Agnosticism - 2 an intellectual doctrine or attitude affirming the uncertainty of all claims to ultimate knowledge.

 

[Andrei_V]

Atheism is a denial of God's existence, if you have no belief in God you'd be agnostic.

Atheism - 1.the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

Agnosticism - 2 an intellectual doctrine or attitude affirming the uncertainty of all claims to ultimate knowledge.

I am an agnostic, because I don't know whether a God exists.
I am an atheist because I don't believe in a God.

Being agnostic does not preclude a belief, one can say, I don't really know whether a God exists, but I believe in Him anyway. Think of Pascal. So, it's perfectly possible to be an agnostic theist.

That's the lack of belief which makes you an atheist, not the lack of knowledge.

 

[Perfection]

We dont know how the universe came to be, we have theories about what happened since but what happened before is a big ?

If nothing existed before time and space, and time and space were born with the Big Bang, where did the Big Bang come from?

It didn't come from anything. It didn't even come.

Atheism is a denial of God's existence, if you have no belief in God you'd be agnostic.

Atheism - 1.the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

Agnosticism - 2 an intellectual doctrine or attitude affirming the uncertainty of all claims to ultimate knowledge.

It's an annoying definition game, atheists definitely do not believe it God, although many allow the logical possibility of God.

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Perfection, You're only proving your sophmoric judgement and lack of maturity... How do YOU know about my lack of critical thinking and logical reasoning? I've come to my conclusions through a fusion of critical thinking, reasoning and experience... I actually managed to take a "logical debate" test (which even the atheists who took it admitted was way rigged in favor of those who answered "no" to the first question, which was "Does God exist?"), and only had to bite one bullet (which in this case was defined as an argument that was logically sound but people might find harsh or disturbing) due to my answering "yes" to the question "If God was just and all-knowing, then there would be a purpose of some sort to an innocent girl dying of some horrible disease."

As I said in my last statement, you seem to use what I call the 3-year old defense anytime a hole is found in your argument.... I.e. the rules only apply to other people, but not me because I'm special...

I also could say that your arrogant attitude was a warning sign of your total lack of maturity, but your subsequent posts (and lack of any consideration for other people's feelings) only proves it.

How do you measure the ability to think criticaly, may I ask? Just by reading the posts of someone who's had a bad week, tired and in a bad mood (not to mention that I sometimes have trouble typing my exact thoughts down because I have a constant storm of ideas whirling around in my head at super-sonic speed, and things sometimes come out wrong... If you were to look up the term "Freudian Slip" in the Dictionary, I'd bet you'd find my picture)? Well, then I'd say your testing methodology is just as flawed as you say my logic is.

....Next thing I know, you'll be saying that Nikola Tesla wasn't half as smart as you were....

EDIT: So, you're saying that your entire theory is hinged on the ASSUMPTION that nothing existed BEFORE the big ban? And you say I lack the ability to think critically or logically :shakehead:

Takes a pretty big leap of faith to believe that the universe just wasn't there, and then "poof" it suddenly is... sounds like a miracle, if you ask me... As for nothing possibly existing before, all I can say is that you aren't thinking 5th (or maybe 16th, I've lost track of how many total dimensions there are supposed to be) dimensionally.... This universe is not the sum-total of existance... Yes, I know that's an assumption, but it is equally provable or un-provable as yours (although according to quantum theory and as I understand how wormholes work, I'd say evidence IS on my side in this case, since wormholes involve creating a hole in the fabric of space-tinme that goes OUTSIDE space-time and re-enters somewhere else).

Andrei: No, she was just plain Orthodox.... There was all sorts of stuff like that going on, though... I reccomend you read God's Smuggler by Brother Andrew... It's about his exploits of helping God's people behind the Iron Curtain.

 

[Perfection]

I just find it so amusing that instead of disproving my objections to your crappy arguments you're just rambling on about my cutting remarks about your intelligence.

If your such a good critical thinker, tell me where I went wrong or where you made a mistake so we can move on.

You can start the rebuttal to this post: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=6224504&postcount=85

 

[Andrei_V]

Andrei: No, she was just plain Orthodox.... There was all sorts of stuff like that going on, though... I reccomend you read God's Smuggler by Brother Andrew... It's about his exploits of helping God's people behind the Iron Curtain.

Well, I don't know the details. There were certainly some weird and even scary things. Maybe they were engaged in an Anti-Soviet activity, that would be scary, and their religion would count against them.

However from my own personal experience I can say the rumors about the religious persecutions are greatly exaggerated.

 

[Perfection]

Category 2 are the ones that are atheists because they think they're the smartest carbon-based lifeforms in the universe and don't like the idea that any being could possibly be smarter

That's false, there are infact plenty of people I recognize to be smarter then me.

The following CFCers are definitely smarter then me:
Fifty
FredLC
Plotinus
Stratego

So what catagory do I fit in now?

 

[Xyan]

Some Buddhists believe in a God.

Negative. Buddhists do not believe in a God. Please find out more about Buddhism before making such statement.

 

[Perfection]

EDIT: So, you're saying that your entire theory is hinged on the ASSUMPTION that nothing existed BEFORE the big ban? And you say I lack the ability to think critically or logically :shakehead:

In fact not. It's just a means to describe the beginning universe in a logically consistant fashion that is compatabile with both science and atheism. There's a number of other possibilities that are fully compatable with my general worldview that involve time before the big bang. I don't talk about them because they're not simple, not evidenced and don't illustrate how weird time can be.

Takes a pretty big leap of faith to believe that the universe just wasn't there, and then "poof" it suddenly is... sounds like a miracle, if you ask me...

That's not how it works! There was no before the big bang! That means that there was no time that the universe wasn't there.

As for nothing possibly existing before, all I can say is that you aren't thinking 5th (or maybe 16th, I've lost track of how many total dimensions there are supposed to be) dimensionally....

String theory is 13 dimensional, with all contained within the universe, my origin thoughts are 100% compatible, unless there is some sort of big bounce scenario

This universe is not the sum-total of existance... Yes, I know that's an assumption, but it is equally provable or un-provable as yours (although according to quantum theory and as I understand how wormholes work, I'd say evidence IS on my side in this case, since wormholes involve creating a hole in the fabric of space-tinme that goes OUTSIDE space-time and re-enters somewhere else).

In my view, thoeries are useful only as far as they explain things and if one theory is needlessly more complex and explains no more (As I believe all God-based thoeries do) then there is no reason to believe them.

 

[Berzerker]

I am an agnostic, because I don't know whether a God exists.
I am an atheist because I don't believe in a God.

Being agnostic does not preclude a belief, one can say, I don't really know whether a God exists, but I believe in Him anyway. Think of Pascal. So, it's perfectly possible to be an agnostic theist.

That's the lack of belief which makes you an atheist, not the lack of knowledge.

There are two absolutes - God exists and God does not exist. Between these two are people who dont claim to know either way and may lean toward a belief or no belief.
The difference between atheism and agnosticism is the former knows God doesn't exist and the latter aint sure. Its the same as the difference between fundies who know God exists and all the people who may express some belief but wont argue it as fact.

 

[Andrei_V]

In my view, thoeries are useful only as far as they explain things

I'd say theories are useful only as far as they predict things, adding to our knowledge about the world.

Other than that, they have the same value as Harry Potter or LoTR style fiction.

 

[Perfection]

There are two absolutes - God exists and God does not exist. Between these two are people who dont claim to know either way and may lean toward a belief or no belief.
The difference between atheism and agnosticism is the former knows God doesn't exist and the latter aint sure. Its the same as the difference between fundies who know God exists and all the people who may express some belief but wont argue it as fact.

That's in fact false for the vast majoirty of self-described atheists (myself included).