Ben Gunn on 6/4/2008 at 19:56
Quote Posted by SD
Science leads to atheism because science teaches us not to believe in anything without evidence, and there is no evidence for a God. The only scientifically supportable position is that there is no God, just as the only scientifically supportable position on unicorns or leprechauns or spaghetti monsters or compassionate conservatives is that they don't exist.
Evolution leads to atheism because evolution is the only process by which we know intelligence arises. In the absence of any evidence that intelligence can arise any other way, God, as the greatest intelligence that ever was, must have evolved from something else. Since religion teaches us that there was nothing pre-God, we have a paradox: an intelligence such as God cannot exist without having evolved from something, but in order for him to be God, he must not have evolved from anything.
I'm too tired of debating this shit on the Internet with people who refuse to accept the inherent intellectual inferiority (theists) or superiority (atheists) of their particular stance, so I ain't going to be extrapolating further. I hope.
By all means do not reply to this post, I dont want you to tire your preaty little mind.
Evolution is a fact. The evidence supporting it is too overwhelming for anyone in his right mind to question it and it comes from just about every field of biological research.
But to think it can prove anything about the non-existence of god is the same as thinking that Darwinism can support a racist or nazi or an unrestrained capitalist system of morals.
It is a scinetific theory and as such deals only with what is and not with what ought to be. It deals with causes, not with sakes. It cannot constitue idealogy and those that use it for it are not doing science but merely using it as they please.
You say science has taught us not to believe in anything without evidence or proof but the truth is that we are doing it on a daily basis- there is a whole set of categories which science has no way of dealing with them, let alone prove or disprove them- the mental categories such as to want, to feel, to ache, to believe and so on.
This set has these characteristics-
a. They are accessible directly only to the person experiencing them as opposed to entities dealt with science which are public.
b. They are unmeasurable- when asked "how much do you want it?" there is no sense in answering "74".
c. They have no sense on the material level. They DO NOT= energy.
This leads to this set of problems copy pasted from Wiki. ((
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivist#Philosophical_issues):)
Quote:
Certain problems arise with the positivist belief system once it is accepted:
1. Since all of our most certain knowledge, namely, that of our ourselves and our own mental states, is inaccessible to objective science (being personal), how is positivism to account for what we know? And since our inferences about what we do not directly know, but only surmise on the basis of our actual experiences, comprise the objective world of scientific entities imagined by positivist philosophy, how is it supposed to be possible to account for any knowledge at all positivistically?;
2. Since the self and its knowledge is known and experienced (not only subjectively but) qualitatively not quantitatively, how is it supposed to be possible to give an objective quantitative account of the source and core of all knowledge--scientific and otherwise--namely the scientist himself?;
3. If an experience is 'reduced' to something else, does it cease to exist as a subjective qualitative thing, or not? If not, doesn't it remain in a crucial sense unreduced to a 'scientific' object? If so, what inspired the 'reduction'?
4. Since science is descriptive in nature, and posits how a given thing is, how can scientific methods describe how something ought to be?
Thinking that science can account for all human knowledge is naive. It cant even explain the process of a man wanting to raise his hand- it may descirbe in minute detail every neuron, muscle and tendon that accompany it but the
wanting itself simply cannot be inferred from this physiological process cos it has no meaning whatsoever on that level.
catbarf on 6/4/2008 at 20:16
Quote Posted by SD
Science leads to atheism because science teaches us not to believe in anything without evidence, and there is no evidence for a God.
I know very few people who think using an entirely scientific viewpoint and process.
jay pettitt on 6/4/2008 at 21:12
Quote Posted by BEAR
The human ability to believe the unbelievable is everywhere... Religion is taught earlier than anything, meaning by the time you become an adult its so ingrained in your psyche there really is no way to get it out.
For shizzle. I'm frequently surprised at just how effectively brainwashed I am.
catbarf on 6/4/2008 at 21:37
Quote Posted by BEAR
Religion is taught earlier than anything, meaning by the time you become an adult its so ingrained in your psyche there really is no way to get it out.
Not only is it taught earlier than anything else, but it is taught by a figure that the child has a deep emotional connection to, is taught repeatedly for roughly eighteen years, and impressed very strongly on the child. It's the most effective form of brainwashing in existence.
Renzatic on 6/4/2008 at 21:58
It was cute when you all were high fiving each other and patting yourselves on the back, but now things are starting to get a little ridiculous. I suggest you all take a step back, take a deep breath, and....oh shit, now I've done it. You're all gonna start screaming about the minutiae of the processes of logic again, aren't you?
Oh, lord. Why do you test me so?
catbarf on 6/4/2008 at 22:28
Quote Posted by Renzatic
but now things are starting to get a little ridiculous.
Do explain.
BEAR on 7/4/2008 at 05:04
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
For shizzle. I'm frequently surprised at just how effectively brainwashed I am.
I assume you are being facetious but Im not entirely sure. I didnt mean that as a dig at religion or religious people. I mean that from an atheists standpoint, I think we've got to accept that we're all governed by the same rules. People too often boil it down and just insult religion without accepting its place in the past and future. Religion obviously has had a benefit in the past, or else it would not be so prevailant in the world, the only way to understand it is to study it with an open mind. I think alot of the attacks on religion come from simple frustration rather than actual malice. Im willing to accept that you believe what you believe if you can forgive the fact that it really pisses us off when you argue with us on science.
Ironically I think religion and spirituality can be explained pretty well using evolutionary thinking and the scientific method.
Thirith on 7/4/2008 at 07:52
SD, can I ask you something? According to your understanding of the world, can science explain how matter/energy came into being? If so, what theories do you follow? Or would you say that there is no point in enquiring beyond the Big Bang (or whichever "beginning of the universe" theory you subscribe to)? Same question to Catbarf.
(Please note that this is an honest question: it's not an implicit "You can't explain what was before the Big Bang, so haha! you have to admit that God exists!")
Chimpy Chompy on 7/4/2008 at 08:54
Quote Posted by jay pettitt
. In one uniquely elegant phrase we came to understand, for the first time, life, the universe and everything; and our place in it..
Life maybe, I'm not sure how you think it made us understand the Universe and Everything? Given that people are still working pretty hard on stuff like cosmology and string theory...
Quote Posted by strontz
God, as the greatest intelligence that ever was, must have evolved from something else.
Heh, maybe he did...I kind of like the idea of a series of evolving gods creating increasingly complex universes like kids playing with ant farms.
Anyway science has led me to an agnostic position on Gods myself. There's no information coming in and no reliable reason to factor him into any of our explanations so... shrug and move on.
catbarf on 7/4/2008 at 10:15
Quote Posted by Thirith
SD, can I ask you something? According to your understanding of the world, can science explain how matter/energy came into being? If so, what theories do you follow? Or would you say that there is no point in enquiring beyond the Big Bang (or whichever "beginning of the universe" theory you subscribe to)? Same question to Catbarf.
I don't know, and I don't need to. Evolution works just fine without knowing the origins of the universe. I will wait until there is sufficient evidence for any one concept.
Quote Posted by BEAR
or else it would not be so prevailant in the world
Self-propagation is not an inherent trait of good ideas and things. Memetics goes a good way towards explain its spread, but it in no way must be intrinsically good in order to exist in a widespread form.
