JackC

Well, properties like "omnipotent" might not seem as useful as properties like "red" if you're just doing a visual scan but it's not like you know nothing. You know this thing is omnipotent, that's a clue. Not a very useful one perhaps but it's still a clue. But like I said to Beowulf ~ Whenever an atheist tries to search the universe for a god (metaphorically speaking), the theist is always at an advantage because he can move the goal posts by changing what is meant by "God". Unless you can get the theist to give you a clue as to what god is, you can't do anything. If you do get a clue, the best you can do is follow it and see where it leads. Take omnipotence for example. Can god make a rock so heavy he can't lift it? That shoots omnipotence down by revealing a logical contradiction. The theist is then forced to define omnipotence not as "can do anything" but as "can do anything logically possible" or "can do anything within his nature". Each time the theist gives you clue, you follow it and expose the flaws and the theist is forced to move the goal posts again. Eventually, after you've shown them enough flaws they pull out the big guns and shout "faith!". It's a game and it always ends the same way. The theist shouts "faith!" and the game is over. Indeed, the most successful confidence tricks leave the victim with no knowledge that he was scammed. But religion is a lot more subtle than a Nigerian 419 scam. The Nigerian oil tycoon who needs to shift $400 million knows that he's attempting to rip you off whereas the theist actually believes there really is a memejamba in the box he's trying to sell you. People who believe their own hype make better salesmen than people who don't.

Infidel!

I'm not worried. I'll just set my red hairy memejamba on him. Memejambas make good pets.

I could be god. You don't know. But more seriously, in the limit that you can know anything, invisible omnipotent crows that wish to remain anonymous are as good as non-existant to me.

True enough. If you have no idea what properties a memejamba has you can't do anything about proving anything. However, if someone lets slip that a memejamba is red, you've got a lead. If they let slip that a memejamba is hairy, you've got another lead. If there are no red hairy things in the box, then there are no memejamba's in the box. So the deists god (a god who lit the fuse for the big bang then buggered off never to be seen again) you can't do squat with. You know nothing so you can prove nothing. But the christian god didn't just bugger off. He stuck around and wrote books. So instead of searching for a memejamba, we're searching for red hairy memejamba's.

I completely agree which is why my last sentence in the post you quoted was "no one can define sufficiently accurately what constitutes a god and he probably isn't confined by the box anyway." Whenever an atheist tries to search the universe for a god (metaphorically speaking), the theist is always at an advantage because he can move the goal posts by changing what is meant by "God". My point wasn't to prove that god can or cannot (in principle) be proven one way or the other, my point was simply to show that you can prove a negative. Now in the case of god, it's impossible for all practical purposes because 1) you can't define what you mean by "god" 2) god might not even be confined by the box anyway but we definately are 3) it's a fooking great big box (and that's the understatement of the year)

The point being, if you're going to slag off a country at least have the decency to take it on the chin if someone slags yours back.

Mar 2007 Jul 2007 Jan 2007 Feb 2007 Jan 2007 Jul 2007 Dec 2006

Some people might have but I don't think I ever said science will prove god doesn't exist, if you can show me where I did then I'll admit that it was an incorrect statement. I have asked you what it would take for you to abandon your belief in god but that's not the same thing. I have also said that some gods are logically incoherent and disbelief in them is justified on those grounds. But God is a positive assertion and before anyone believes that positive assertion it needs to backed it up with evidence otherwise you'd have to disprove every absurd assertion ever made that some entity exists or be forced to believe it. In principle you can prove a negative. For every set S there is a set Not-S, and vice versa, so every negative entails a positive and vice versa. All one has to do to prove a negative is rewrite the statement asserting the negative of set S into the positive of Not-S. If you can show Not-S to be true, you've automatically proved S false and vice versa. If I were to give you the statement "there are no crows in this box" you could restate that as "there are crows in this box", then open the box and find crows or no crows. If you find no crows, you've proved the statement "there are crows in this box" to be false and thereby proved "there are no crows in this box" to be true, thereby proving a negative. Now substitute crows for god and box for universe. The problem being, the universe is a hooking great big box and we can't look everywhere at once. So proving that negative would be devilishly difficult to do and for all practical purposes impossible. Especially when no one can define sufficiently accurately what constitutes a god and he probably isn't confined by the box anyway.

You think consciousness isn't developed in the brain? Really? See there's the thing. Science is complicated and by comparison religion is simple. With science you have to understand brain activity and it's relation to neurons, dendrites, synaspes and the like. With religion you have to understand godidit. With science you have to understand evoluionary biology with its relation to DNA and natural selection. With religion you have to understand godidit. With science you have to understand big bang cosmology and dark matter, general relativity and the copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. With religion you have to understand godidit. To the theist, religion takes less stuff to learn about ergo it takes less faith to believe in. To them, it takes a monumental amount of faith to believe what has already been proven by thousands of scientists over hundreds of years but it takes comparatively little faith to believe the unfounded assertion that godidit. Maybe because it's easier to spell, I don't know. [/sarcasm]

Say's the man who takes every conceivable opportunity he possibly can to piss off the British. Juanesky quote

What evidence can I produce? Can I produce evidence that Santa Claus doesn't exist? What about the Loch Ness Monster or Big Foot? It's an easy escape for you to say "prove it" whenever someone says god doesn't exist because you and I both know that it's quite impossible. You do know that it's impossible? All I can do is to show you the flaws in the evidence you use to prove god does exist. People do that in threads like these ad nauseum and theists always dodge and weasle their way out eventually falling back to that impenetrable barrier of delusion called faith. As long as theists take faith over rationalism, even discussing it is a complete waste of time.

Does that go for the existence of god too? I do have a core belief that I am wonderfully made by a creator that loves me. Dang if everything I see in this world isn't through that lens. ~ Steveorino As a true seeker, surely you can't be afraid of discovering that you might actually be wrong?

I used to live in a city that had a very big event similar to this every year. After witnessing the first years asshole fest, I made a point of leaving town that weekend from then on.

I'm sure this is based on loads of direct personal experience riding and wrenching on them

That was in the blurb I quoted, perhaps you would like to go back and read it? You could even look up the original article, the citation was included in my post.

Awesome.

Depends on the group of humans. From Larson et al "Leading Scientists Still Reject God." Nature, 1998; 394, 313. Larson and Witham present the results of a replication of 1913 and 1933 surveys by James H. Leuba. In those surveys, Leuba mailed a questionnaire to leading scientists asking about their belief in "a God in intellectual and affective communication with humankind" and in "personal immortality". Larson and Witham used the same wording [as in the Leuba studies], and sent their questionnaire to 517 members of the [U.S.] National Academy of Sciences from the biological and physical sciences (the latter including mathematicians, physicists and astronomers). The return rate was slightly over 50%. The results were as follows (figures in %): BELIEF IN PERSONAL GOD 1914 1933 1998 Personal belief 27.7 15 7.0 Personal disbelief 52.7 68 72.2 Doubt or agnosticism 20.9 17 20.8 BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY 1914 1933 1998 Personal belief 35.2 18 7.9 Personal disbelief 25.4 53 76.7 Doubt or agnosticism 43.7 29 23.3

BWAHAHAHA Was that the war you joined 2 years late? That was big of 'you' It seems amazing that the UK was paying war loans back to the US 61 years after the war ended. We paid the final instalment in December 2006. Up until 1941, US companies were making a tidy profit selling arms to both sides. If Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbour, it's a fair bet the US would have continued to cash in on the destruction of europe. But Japan did attack, America stopped arming Germany and entered the war. So it's completely, like, awesome that they came to lend us a hand. It's even more awesome that they won't shut up about how awesome it was.

Speak for yourself mate. For me, the level of commitment was greater when I did my PhD. Army bollocks was much easier.

Well from my perspective, Harleys are all about image. The image they give me is uncomfortable, illhandling, asthmatic peice of farm junk.

I like that idea.

It sounds like you've put yourself through quite a bit of hardship because of your belief in god. Although I don't understand it and I think you might have been able to do more good following a different path, I can't help but respect your dedication and they way you carry yourself while doing it.

I guess that quote wouldn't make much sense without the movie reference. Oops. Mental note: please engage brain before pressing "post".

Mom? Is that you? Sorry, it apealed to my sense of humour. And Lock Stock and Two Smokin' was on TV recently.