Fuddam, A Few Moments Of Your Time Please.

[Zhaoman]

That's about as blunt as an argument can get.

[schmunk]

Science 1, God 0

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7537897.stm

[MadduckUK]

obviously god made that possible. look at his might and what he is capable of doing for us! this proves how much he loves us and we should all accept him for this miracle

[mediaboy]

Yeah.. what madduck said.
Only with more belief.

[G4Z]

Science 1, God 0

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7537897.stm

Nail head hit, point proven I think.

[yamangman]

If you had been born in a country such as Saudi Arabia to Muslim parents, visited the local mosque and never read the bible or had any contact with Christianity, would you be likely to be a Christian or a Muslim?

It's been asked by me and answered by fuddam before. It was your typical trite fuddam non-answer 'cos there isn't one'.

... or is he really just nuts?

If it turns out he is, I'd just like to say I called it months ago.

[j1979]

WAIT FOR THE MARROW

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-9lNmoJQcs

[mediaboy]

I went looking for some epic fail pictures, but there weren't any epic enough to show the degree of your failure. As has been pointed out so many times it's not true and atheists certainly don't believe in nothing, nothing is a broken concept. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in god(s). That's it. You may also like to know that agnosticism and atheism are NOT mutually exclusive. I am an agnostic-atheist (weak atheism) with regard to a non-specific god(s), but I'm a strong atheist with regard to the Christian/Muslim/Jewish god, because I can show that it's incoherent and contradictory given it's definitions - Epicurus is a good start.

Okay, you couldn't find any pictures. That could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. However, I made a mistake, and you are making it too. Like Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and anyone, within each set of beliefs and ideals there are differences.

I will concede the point, as I cannot argue against your faith in your beliefs, even if that faith is that you don't have belief in God or Gods.

My atheism/agnostic was mixed up, and for that I also apologise. I should have been more clear and actually made it sound like I knew what I was talking about. However, I am interested how you can doubt the existance of a god you don't believe in... Surely you can be one or the other.

I shall have to think about that more. I think it might come to me how others percieve it.

Atheism is a belief just as not collecting stamps is a hobby. If you can understand that then you will finally get it.

Okay. You lost me here. Firstly you say

Atheism is simply a lack of belief

and now you are saying that Atheism IS a belief. So which is it? I can't get it when you are using paradoxes across paragraphs.

Unless, of course, you meant that Atheists don't believe in gods, but they do have other beliefs. However, any beliefs whatsoever mean that Atheism is a faith, even if you can provide evidence for those beliefs... so tell me; is atheism a faith - as I said - or not - as you said?

I am an atheist and I believe the Earth orbits the Sun, therefore a) I do not believe in nothing and b) it does not stop me from being an atheist. I suggest that before you accuse others of not understanding their position or philosophies that you actually learn the correct meaning of those words and how they relate to the position before embarrassing yourself on a public forum.

Correct meaning?


Atheism:The doctrine or belief that there is no God
Agnostic: The belief that you do not know if there is a God or not.
Philosophy:Any personal belief about how you live your life.

Any other words?

Oh - and I said Atheism was a lack of belief, which IN CONTEXT, related to gods, meaning that Atheism was a lack of belief in Gods, or rather, a belief that God does not exist.

Of course, I'm sure you knew this.


EDIT: Just realised I made another mistake in my typing. Forgot a word. Now edited.

[G4Z]

Okay, you couldn't find any pictures. That could be good or bad, depending on how you look at it. However, I made a mistake, and you are making it too. Like Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and anyone, within each set of beliefs and ideals there are differences.

You know, after your first few posts I did think you had thought some of this through but now I am reading your posts and just wondering what hell you are dribbling on about.

I will concede the point, as I cannot argue against your faith in your beliefs, even if that faith is that you don't have belief in God or Gods.

My atheism/agnostic was mixed up, and for that I also apologise. I should have been more clear and actually made it sound like I knew what I was talking about. However, I am interested how you can doubt the existance of a god you don't believe in... Surely you can be one or the other.

I shall have to think about that more. I think it might come to me how others percieve it.

Read the bit you just quoted, only this time do it more slowly and understand it. I don't see how he could make it any more clear what he thinks. He said that he has a weak atheism toward non-specific god i.e a deity, maybe for example there might have been something before the big bang, who knows but as he is a weak atheist he is saying that its possible but not probable.

He says that he is a strong atheist towards muslim/xtian/hindu whatever gods because he sees contradictions within the texts and also contradictions between the texts and observed reality. Its not all the difficult to understand.

Okay. You lost me here. Firstly you say and now you are saying that Atheism IS a belief. So which is it? I can't get it when you are using paradoxes across paragraphs.

Unless, of course, you meant that Atheists don't believe in gods, but they do have other beliefs. However, any beliefs whatsoever mean that Atheism is a faith, even if you can provide evidence for those beliefs... so tell me; is atheism a faith - as I said - or not - as you said?

Now you are getting on my tits a bit, just because I have other beliefs (For example, the belief that its wrong to kill other people or the belief that Tony Blair is evil) does not in any way make my conclusion on the lack of gods in any way a matter of 'faith'. Most atheists look at the evidence and make a conclusion, it has naff all to do with faith its simply a matter of comparing observed reality with religious claims and seeing if they stack up, which they don't.

Correct meaning?


Atheism:The doctrine or belief that there is no God
Agnostic: The belief that you do not know if there is a God or not.
Philosophy:Any personal belief about how you live your life.

Any other words?

Oh - and I said Atheism was a lack of belief, which IN CONTEXT, related to gods, meaning that Atheism was a lack of belief in Gods, or rather, a belief that God does not exist.

Of course, I'm sure you knew this.


EDIT: Just realised I made another mistake in my typing. Forgot a word. Now edited.

Yeah its a belief, a belief like 'I believe if I drop this object it will hit the floor' I don't at all see how that makes atheism a matter of 'faith' as faith is inherently irrational whereas atheism is the logical starting point for any rational person.

[mediaboy]

Rationality is a matter of perspective.

[fuddam]

Science 1, God 0

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7537897.stm

lmao. Is that the best you can do? Just because medical science has attached arms to someone, that somehow means God has failed?

lol!

comes back exactly to that example I gave: just because God Himself doesn't arrive on the clouds to rescue the person in danger of drowning does mean God does not exist or has not responded.

[fuddam]

What I'd love to ask you is my final question and one I hope you'll answer honestly.

thanks for implying that I have been dishonest. Very kind of you.

If you had been born in a country such as Saudi Arabia to Muslim parents, visited the local mosque and never read the bible or had any contact with Christianity, would you be likely to be a Christian or a Muslim?

Muslim. But what difference does that make? We are all born into a context, and NO-ONE is born a Christian. Why? Because a Christian is someone who has consciously and rationally made the decision for Christ.

It's clear from this thread and pretty most of the other threads that mention Christianity that atheists et al assume anyone who claims to be a Christian, is a Christian, that going to church makes a person a Christian. Bollocks. If there's one thing I've harped on about, it's that Christianity is about a relationship with Christ. If one doesn't have that, can't be a Christian. Sorry.

Oh, and don't anyone toss your toys out of the cot for me using the word 'rationally'. It will just show you up for being a reactionary.

I propose to anyone else that you can't get a particular religion until you are introduced to it and therefore there is no true or correct religion. To back that up here's a nice graphic.

Utter tosh. That would be akin to saying there isn't any truth in *anything* - we are all introduced to the world from nothing, whether by our parents or teachers or self experience, or blah blah blah.
How did you get introduced to love? Did it happen on its own, in your head, without anyone 'introducing' you to it? Or what about quantum physics? Or what about your beloved naturalism? Understood Darwinism in the cradle, did you? You ARE special.

2nd, Christianity is not a religion. Your paradigm is too small to understand that sentence, though.

[fuddam]

There is, of course, myriad evidence for darwinism (Link should get you started.) as the mechanism for life on earth. Dawkins is rather in-elegantly applying darwinian concepts to the formation of the universe. It's his belief that the same darwinian theories can be applied. It's an interesting idea, but he's no astrophysicist.

I found a pretty interesting book this morning: Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution.
It might be worth your reading. It is, after all, from a non-religious person, so presumably he is not stupid, or gullible, or biased, or naive, or crazy.

I pasted that quote you consider erroneous not as a response to Darwinism per se, but because the adulation for Dawkins makes me want to throw up. There are so many esteemed scientists and philosophers who trash Dawkins (and not talking about the Christian ones necessarily) but Dawkins is much beloved by the ignorant.

[fuddam]

I think people who are agnostics are just as confounded as religious people. It should be clear to see that we are made up of small lumps swirling around each other and that there is no place for a god; because if there is a god then he/she/it must be made of the same lumps so must adhere to the same rules..

you need a bigger paradigm

[fuddam]

Very simply the supernatural cannot exist within a scientific world view. The purpose of science is to identify natural laws which apply to the world around us. If we witness a phenomenon, it must either be explainable within the laws we have, or our laws are wrong and we have to study the phenomenon and make new laws. In this way everything is a natural process and can be investigated in a scientific method.

If you are only studying the natural, why does that exclude the existence of the supernatural? Or even simpler, your logic excludes the existence of love, of desire, of hate, of fear. One see the effects of love/hate/pain etc, but one cannot measure love, see it, touch it, taste it, PROVE it. Strange, that.

This, of course, allows no room for a 'supernatural' or anything which exists outside of natural laws. We don't understand everything, our laws aren't perfect, but nothing exists to which some laws do not apply.

*You* allow no room for the supernatural. That does not mean it doesn't exist. Billions of people would disagree with you, but of course you simply dismiss them as gullible/stupid/ignorant/crazy.

While the supernatural is incomptible with science, from an evidentiary perspective, the best evidence that gods don't exist is simply the absence of any evidence at all.

Unfortunately, you
1) won't admit evidence outside your paradigm and
2) aren't prepared to look for it.

There is nothing 'supernatural' that doesn't have a far more simple natural explanation.

another grand statement. without any proof / foundation, and of course tautologous, since you won't admit that there is anything supernatural.

I'll quote Christ Knight here:

Dawkins (and Teepee) is like the eighteenth century Indian maharajah who stated categorically that it was impossible for water to support the weight of an elephant walking across a river. Of course, he had never seen ice – it was simply something that was completely outside of his experience of the tropical climate of India.

You haven't experienced Christ, so reject His existence in totum. If you do experience it, no doubt you'd immediately reverse your position, but the problem is, right now you reject anyone else's claims too. Sad.

[G4Z]

I found a pretty interesting book this morning: Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity and Other Fables of Evolution.
It might be worth your reading. It is, after all, from a non-religious person, so presumably he is not stupid, or gullible, or biased, or naive, or crazy.

I pasted that quote you consider erroneous not as a response to Darwinism per se, but because the adulation for Dawkins makes me want to throw up. There are so many esteemed scientists and philosophers who trash Dawkins (and not talking about the Christian ones necessarily) but Dawkins is much beloved by the ignorant.

Hummmm... from the wiki entry on Stove :

"In his final years Stove began to examine and criticize Darwinism. This surprised and dismayed many of his supporters who were Darwinists and thought Stove was as well, judging from the way he sometimes spoke. However, Stove's attack on Darwinism was not as radical as it appeared - he accepted evolution was true of all living things, and said he had no objection to natural selection being true of more primitive organisms. What he wanted to attack was the allegedly distorted view of human beings proposed by some "Ultra-Darwinists. For example, W. D. Hamilton, the Oxford biologist (and Richard Dawkins' mentor) famously said that no-one is prepared to sacrifice his life for any single person, but that everyone will sacrifice it for more than two brothers, a claim for which Stove thought was false, or at the very least, unverified. Stove argued that these sorts of strong claims are often made by hard-line sociobiologists, yet they are seldom pointed out even by many of their opponents. (In fairness, Hamilton's comment was made in a pub and is normally seen as being an attempt at a joke, rather than a serious scientific theory about human psychology)."

To be fair, he is quite right, there is no natural selection here in the west, so evolution is primarily driven by sexual selection. I really don't get what the point of linking that book is as it doesn't really support anything about your position.