The God idea. Argue with this.

[Ed Oscuro]

In fact, I was talking about Justified True Beliefs, or 'knowledge'.

Would you be a dear and actually say what you mean next time, so I don't waste my time trying to parse apparent gibberish like "Well, beliefs by definitions are without evidence" ?

I'm all for advancing the discussion, and I thought you were having a brain fart. Your brain must work faster than your fingers, a problem some of us have.

I find it odd that you get into a righteous fervor over this considering that you jumped on my ass a while ago for essentially the same issue. You would also be thanked to drop the pretense of politeness when you're clearly being insulting.

If you could do those few things, I would be eternally grateful.

[Michaelm]

I believe to most Christians, their personal relationship they have with God, a subjective experience mind you, is very much central to their faith.

It's a very selfish faith.
As long as your personal relationship with god is well all is well in the end.
Other people don't really matter at all apart from being objects that can be used by you to guarantee your place in paradise.
None of the so called good things that come out of monotheism are done because their good things but because they are a means to ensure a place in paradise where true believers will live an eternal life.

In war it's not uncommon for both sides to scream 'god is with us!'.
So one can argue that god is in reality just a lying bastard as he told both of the warring parties he was with them making them believe they would win.
Or perhaps there must be millions of gods so everyone can have his own personal one.

In real life a country that only has one party is called a dictatorship yet monotheism is called the 'true belief'.
Somewhere down the line the logic in that must have changed as monotheism is just 'spiritual dictatorship' after all.

We can still be friends, right?

I wouldn't call people that try to put down others cause they can't make an argument my friend.

[Randorama]

In fact, I was talking about Justified True Beliefs, or 'knowledge'.

Would you be a dear and actually say what you mean next time, so I don't waste my time trying to parse apparent gibberish like "Well, beliefs by definitions are without evidence" ?

I'm all for advancing the discussion, and I thought you were having a brain fart. Your brain must work faster than your fingers, a problem some of us have.

I find it odd that you get into a righteous fervor over this considering that you jumped on my ass a while ago for essentially the same issue. You would also be thanked to drop the pretense of politeness when you're clearly being insulting.

If you could do those few things, I would be eternally grateful.

I apologize, but unsurprisingly I am brainwashed enough to believe that some definitions are widespread (happens all the time...). I am lost on the the insulting part, but maybe it's all about the ice-dry humor (I realized that I am not using smilies anymore).

In general, the whole browhahah of beliefs can be seen as the basic fact that human brains can have any kind of ideas, including one about the motor immobilis. The problem kicks in when the simple fact that ideas can occur is turned in 'well, it is because there is something in the world which makes them occur'. In this regard any form of empiricist/behaviourist science makes pretty much the same mistakes of faith (unsurprisingly, I would say).

One could further argue that well, if it triggers positive feelings, it has to be a benefactive idea, after all (fine, and also vastly irrelevant to any serious theorizing). Problem is, a good feeling does not say a lot about how things are. One can enjoy heroin and getting raped to brutal levels, for instance (the latter could be lethal). One could also be 'programmed' to enjoy harsh activities which e.g. could be rewarded with 72 virgins, for instance.

Of course, this is not true for a vast amount of reasons. Problem is: how would one know? In general, if there is no evidence which can be accessed, in making a judgement, the outcome may even be dramatically wrong. Someone else has all of his interests in such a state of affairs, for instance. Claiming bullshit, if someone is willing to pay, is a well-retributed activity....on the skin of others.

In

[doctorx0079]

If your belief is based on a hallucination, how do you know you can trust it? Which hallucinations show you "the truth" and which ones are just hallucinations?

[charlie chong]

well last weekend on the saturday evening i got a strong feeling that something had happened to my favourite auntie.. this saturday( the week after) my mum calls to tell me she has some bad news that she has been holding off from telling me.. i say "aunty??" and my mum tells me that last saturday my cousin went to check on my auntie and she could'nt speak properly anymore.. turns out she has multiple tumours on her brain(she has been fighting cancer for 10 years)..

or the time a few week before i had a dream about the girl i was seeing shagging someone else related to my friend lewis.. turned out exactly true 2 weeks later that she was shagging his mate without telling me and lying to me...

true i ALWAYS think up worst case scenarios in my head...but this is just getting too weird.. it's like i get a little flash of the future but not enough to work out exactly what is going to happen.. i would rather not have them thanks pleeze as this shit plays on my mind..

[Ed Oscuro]

I apologize, but unsurprisingly I am brainwashed enough to believe that some definitions are widespread (happens all the time...). I am lost on the the insulting part, but maybe it's all about the ice-dry humor (I realized that I am not using smilies anymore).

Wow, I take back even any thoughts I had about you not being an alright guy. Apologies if I seemed steamed up (a little, naturally, but easily kept under control).

I guess this is yet another example of nice people can coming off the wrong way on the 'net.

If your belief is based on a hallucination, how do you know you can trust it? Which hallucinations show you "the truth" and which ones are just hallucinations?

I personally believe that all hallucinations are parts of the mind - perhaps parts so deeply hidden as to be completely inscrutable to the person experiencing their release from the unconscious mind. Yet the devil is that while we have models of the mind that improve all the time, we still don't have the technology to do more than say "these parts of the mind are working when this happens," and I suppose if you're religious that isn't evidence that thoughts aren't being inserted from outside.

We now know that individual neurons can hold more than a binary piece of data, much more - in fact a single neuron seems able to recognize a whole face - but without the ability to see how all these neurons fit together and (ultimately) be able to model and emulate the workings of a brain through a "vision" event, there'll always be people claiming that somehow things can still be inserted, or that brains have some ineffable quality that cannot be replicated artificially

[PROMETHEUS]

well last weekend on the saturday evening i got a strong feeling that something had happened to my favourite auntie.. this saturday( the week after) my mum calls to tell me she has some bad news that she has been holding off from telling me.. i say "aunty??" and my mum tells me that last saturday my cousin went to check on my auntie and she could'nt speak properly anymore.. turns out she has multiple tumours on her brain(she has been fighting cancer for 10 years)..

or the time a few week before i had a dream about the girl i was seeing shagging someone else related to my friend lewis.. turned out exactly true 2 weeks later that she was shagging his mate without telling me and lying to me...

true i ALWAYS think up worst case scenarios in my head...but this is just getting too weird.. it's like i get a little flash of the future but not enough to work out exactly what is going to happen.. i would rather not have them thanks pleeze as this shit plays on my mind..

all this is FAR from proving or even hinting at the presence of a god or anything

[doctorx0079]

well last weekend on the saturday evening i got a strong feeling that something had happened to my favourite auntie.. this saturday( the week after) my mum calls to tell me she has some bad news that she has been holding off from telling me.. i say "aunty??" and my mum tells me that last saturday my cousin went to check on my auntie and she could'nt speak properly anymore.. turns out she has multiple tumours on her brain(she has been fighting cancer for 10 years)..

or the time a few week before i had a dream about the girl i was seeing shagging someone else related to my friend lewis.. turned out exactly true 2 weeks later that she was shagging his mate without telling me and lying to me...

true i ALWAYS think up worst case scenarios in my head...but this is just getting too weird.. it's like i get a little flash of the future but not enough to work out exactly what is going to happen.. i would rather not have them thanks pleeze as this shit plays on my mind..

James Randi on Selective Memory :

". . It boils down to this: we tend to notice and remember when a theory is fulfilled, and to forget when it isn't; we're selective that way. Race-track addicts recall every win, but can't give you any details of heavy hunches that failed. Viewers watching Sylvia Browne on Montel exult over every "hit" she makes, but don't count the much more numerous misses. We note with dismay when the price of gasoline goes up two cents, but not when it goes down. . ."

http://www.randi.org/jr/022505thank.html#10

[Ed Oscuro]

We note with dismay when the price of gasoline goes up two cents, but not when it goes down. . ."

I notice when it goes down, since that's a win for me

Selective memory is one of my nemeses. I actually don't think it affects me much, but I can see how it does other people.

[Ex-Cyber]

James Randi on Selective Memory :

". . It boils down to this: we tend to notice and remember when a theory is fulfilled, and to forget when it isn't; we're selective that way. Race-track addicts recall every win, but can't give you any details of heavy hunches that failed. Viewers watching Sylvia Browne on Montel exult over every "hit" she makes, but don't count the much more numerous misses. We note with dismay when the price of gasoline goes up two cents, but not when it goes down. . ."

http://www.randi.org/jr/022505thank.html#10

I think the term for this is "confirmation bias", although Randi doesn't use it in that response.

[charlie chong]

all this is FAR from proving or even hinting at the presence of a god or anything

lolz you are such an arse prometheus no humility or nothing in your spirit and a real bad superiority complex .. you may be good at dodonpachi and your college work or whatever but you are clueless at how to be a good person with class..

i dont believe in god nor do i believe in science only.. too much weird coincidences happen to me a lot and i have full control of my dreams.. i'm saying i hallucinate and have premonitions a lot(most when i am not under the influence of drugs.. e.g i hadn't been smoking crak or anything else on that saturday )and i DONT believe in god.. i believe in ghosts and spirits and energies that are beyond most peoples control tho..

all your minds will break cos they cant bend!!!

[escadrille]

Thank goodness this debate has been settled!

I was afraid I'd check back and there would be no progress...

[doctorx0079]

I guess we agree to disagree, if that's what you mean by settled. Super Laydock has apparently lost interest.

[Super Laydock]

Super Laydock has apparently lost interest.

Apperently: maybe. For real: no.

Will get back when having more time.

Man on a mission

[doodude]

For anyone interested, Ben Stein will be on "CNN Prime" tonight as a guest of Glenn Beck.
I think there are 3 different showings of the same show...

[JoshF]

Oh god...

[Neon]

Which is more lolworthy - Intelligent Design or Glenn Beck?

I'd say ID. Glenn Beck is more annoying than laughable

[dave4shmups]

Well, I'll say this-I am no longer a Christian, but an atheist. For me, Christianity was simply stifling, and I no longer believe that thoughts or feelings like lust are sinful. Am I going to go on a hedonistic rampage? No, but I do feel free from the shackles of "I better believe all of this or I'm going to hell". That fear is mostly why I was a Christian/ And ,that is exactly what I find offensive about some religions-it's the same in Christianity as it is in Islam, do all of this or believe all of this or burn forever. I don't accept that anymore.

I haven't read "The God Delusion", but I am reading "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" by Christopher Hitchens. I don't thing it poisons everything, but there has been plenty of blood shed in the name of a god or gods. The ongoing conflict between Israeli's and Palestinians is just one episode, caused by the belief that one group was chosen by God to inherit the land. That's not to say that no blood has been shed in the name of atheism, however. I don't intend to evangelize my atheism to others, however neither am I going to bow to pressure from people in the church I used to go to. I am who I am, and I've been having doubts for a long time, now.

For people who believe in God, that's fine with me-I don't think they are diseased anymore then I think gays or lesbians are diseased. Violence committed either in the name of militant religion or militant atheism is wrong.

[JoshF]

The ongoing conflict between Israeli's and Palestinians is just one episode, caused by the belief that one group was chosen by imperial Britain and its racist leader to inherit the land.

[system11]

This old mess of a thread needed to stay dead. Locked.