The God Delusion

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Tea on tuesday

Yeah, you got me. Clearly, banking on previously well established meanings to words is cheating. I AM defining faith in a way that supports my argument, however, that same definition just so happens to be the one agreed upon by nearly everybody.

Your definition of faith and mine are the same -- our application isn't. You seem to think that your faith in the nonexistence of God is somehow more logical than my faith in the existence of God. However, both rest on nonprovable premises.

I'm okay with this situation -- you seem to be upset by it.

Cheers

[Tea on tuesday]

I don't have faith in the nonexistence of god. There is no logical reason to believe he/she/it exists (because there can't be a logic to God) and no empirical evidence to support that position. That isn't faith.

Also,

Originally Posted by tad10

Your definition of faith and mine are the same -- our application isn't.

I can see how you came to that conclusion. OH WAIT THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL.

[bardego]

Originally Posted by tad10

Your definition of faith and mine are the same -- our application isn't. You seem to think that your faith in the nonexistence of God is somehow more logical than my faith in the existence of God. However, both rest on nonprovable premises.

I'm okay with this situation -- you seem to be upset by it.

Cheers

While this is all very interesting and such, it rests upon a very common (and intentional) claim oft introduced in to the atheism v. deism debate - further muddied by a semantic misuse of the word "faith".

That claim being one that atheism requires "proof", the semantic misuse being that an atheistic position requires "faith"

As a non-positivistic statement eg:... "there is no evidence that supports the existence (claim) of God (as currently claimed)... (therefore) God does not exist (as currently claimed)"

Proof, in a purely evidenciary manner, is not required in this manner of claim.

Proof is required when one makes a positivistic claim introducing X value into a given system, with Y claims to validity.

At its core, the atheistic position is that the Y claims (re religion, et al) do not constitute adequate proof for X value (the existence of God). To conclude that God exists on the basis of incomplete and "un-sound" predicates is the very definition of "irrational"

A previous responder adequately covered the semantic issues regarding the word "faith".

Dawkins arguement is further encompassing of the point that society is its own worse enemy. While society tries to deny the existence/validity of the "full unicorn" (dogmatic religions) it goes over backwards to give sanction to the existence/validity of "partial unicorns" (moderate religious stances), when the only possible result of that logical meandering is the truth position that the unicorn does, in fact, exist. (This arguement is better covered in Harris' "The End of Faith")

The moderate postion enables, provides support for, the radical stance

In the end, one does not need to prove that the unicorn "does not exist", the burden of proof rests upon those who would claim that it (the unicorn) is real.

[Arbitrary]

These discussions are both so terrible. I blame the grammer.

At face value, the statement of "I believe in God" and "I don't believe in God" look nearly identical. Because of their similiarities in the words they use we are fooled into believing they can compared when in fact they share no common ground.

Lets take Person A. At his core he believes in God because he is unwilling to accept that our existence lacks meaning. The idea that a murderer who is never caught need never fear divine punishment is offensive. God must exist so a universe of this nature is not the one we live in.

Person B is an Aethist and a researcher. He doesn't believe in God because that would mean he would have to accept the possibilies of miracles. If miracles are possible than causality will always be in question. Did Effect B happen because of Cause A or was there a miracle? Perhaps the added causalities of a dissipating miracle were the result. Including the added causalities of dissipating miracles into equations is impossible so to keep everything straight God cannot exist.

These two belief systems share no common ground for there to even be a discussion. Even something as basic as what counts as evidence is a no go. The simplicity of "I believe in God" and "I don't believe in God" has duped them both into thinking there can be some sort of dialogue when there really cannot.

And why yes, I am reading Wittgenstein. Thank you.

[Lucificate]

Originally Posted by tad10

So atheism doesn't require proof to be true but faith does. Mmm'kay.

I skipped everything else, but I would like to point out that, yes, the maker of an existentially positive proposition bears the burden of proof. We don't say "prove every other possible proposition that isnt consistent with yours is false", we ask those who make propositions to prove their value. Workable knowledge would be impossible otherwise, reality itself absurd.

Lack of any belief at all is the base state, it is from that point that you introduce beliefs. Any introduced belief should be based on reason, therefore you need to start with a clean slate and introduce the notion of "god" through reason. If you can do that, you will win me over into your religion.

One more attack on your little statement there: it is correct that atheism doesnt require proof "to be true". None of these discussions are about what is true and what isnt. Personally, I think that it is impossible to know truths (the old Descartean dream world problem, coupled with a dose of pyrrhonian skepticism), so the point of reason isnt to know what is true, it is to develop a set of the most plausible propositions by which to live.

Atheism "requires no proof" as you have put it, because atheism is a lack of belief. A lack of belief does not require support, it is the base state from which we develop propositions. It doesn't mean atheism is definitely true, it means that with what we know, there is no reason to believe otherwise, and it is not probable, based on our understandings of reality, that the ideas found in religion are correct.

I don't need to prove to you everything that isnt in my backpack right now in order for you to know what it contains. But if I told you something was in it, you could ask me to prove it, and I couldn't rationally say "prove it isn't in my backpack" or "don't you just believe it? that would be the Right thing to do." I would need to open my backpack and show you what was in it.

Every religious person needs to understand that their beliefs that a man named Jesus is the son of an entity called God and did something nebulous like, for some reason, "die for our sins", where "sins" are "moral wrongs" as codified in the Bible are equivalent to a set of beliefs that a man named Ben is the son of an entity called Gorbash and did something amazing and odd like "ate a cupcake of tibbs", where "tibbs" are "moral wrongs" as codified in the book called the Voltron.

I just changed the names around, and if someone told you they earnestly believed that line of rubbish, you, as a christian (or other religious person), would say they were crazy, they believed insanity. There is no basis for their belief!

Well, your beliefs are the exact same as those beliefs and you don't see your own insanity. It is a psychotic delusion and it really needs to end.

[Tuco]

I wish some Christians were as serious about their faith as some Athiests were about disproving it.

[Tirinal]

I think there should just be a Grand Poobah hat that that forces anyone making under 200k a year to obey every whim of the wearer. It can be raffled off every couple months or so, defaulting to Scott Adams for the first term. The wearer assumes Cyclopean religious justness in every decree issued but must make all such pronouncements in an iambic pentameter that rhymes to the verses of H.M.S. Pinafore. It will be like worldwide Shariah law, but with more orgies.

If we're going to have institutionalized religion, we should at least not be half-assed about it.

[ValkyrieIsAboutToDie]

Better hope his Spasmodic Dysphonia doesn't flare up when he has the hat. Otherwise it would all be for naught.

[Zuuljin]

All of your answers are right here:

Flying Spaghetti Monster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Lucificate

Lack of any belief at all is the base state, it is from that point that you introduce beliefs. Any introduced belief should be based on reason, therefore you need to start with a clean slate and introduce the notion of "god" through reason. If you can do that, you will win me over into your religion.

I skipped everything else as well (this is, btw, exactly the same argument made by Trinial above).

Prove it. Prove to me that the lack of belief is a base state. Prove to me that such a thing as a "base state" exists. Prove to me that "any introduced belief should be based on reason." Prove to me that your definition of "reason" is the right one. Prove to me that I need to start with a clean slate and introduce the notion of God through reason. Prove to me that your definition of "clean slate" is correct.

(and btw when we are talking about God as a diety His name is spelled with a capital G not a lower case g -- just like any proper name or noun such as Dawkins of Christian is spelled with a capital letter -- it is only when we are talking about someone who is really, really good at videogames where we might say he's quite a god at EQ and use a little g-- if you expect me to take you seriously, I expect you to be polite)

Lets just look at the first one: lack of belief is a base state. You said it, I didn't -- I am not misquoting you, correct? This is an "existentially positive propositions" correct? And as you note "the maker of an existentially positive proposition bears the burden of proof." Yet you impose this burden on me and not upon your own propositions.

I would think that since your "existentially positive proposition" comes before mine in your logic -- it is only fair that you prove that lack of belief is a base state, before I am required to prove that God exists.

And that's why I cry bullshit. I don't give a flying fuck that you, or anyone else is an atheist -- seriously go burn bibles with your atheist buddies in your home or wear t-shirts that say "Fuck God" if that gives you jollies -- doesn't affect me -- but I do give a fuck and I find it hypocritical and it does affect me that everytime I have one of this discussion here or in RL atheists (such as you) take the logical scalpel to religion in an attempt to convert the unwashed masses (such as myself) but refuse to use the same instrument on their own belief structure.

Take for an example the canard that atheism isn't a belief it is a "lack of belief" cop-out. You can shout to the mountain tops that atheism isn't a positive statment of belief -- but the only folks who accept that are other atheists -- its part of your scripture. The rest of us know that atheism is a positive statement of belief: it is a statement, in the absence of proof, that there is no God.

You try to "prove" that atheism isn't a belief by stating that it isn't a belief. Way to use circular logic. You try to prove that atheism needs no proof by stating that "because atheism is a lack of belief. A lack of belief does not require support, it is the base state from which we develop propositions."

You are resting your entire argument right back on the unprovable assumption about "base states" and the lack of support and/or proof required from them. Do you see that that's simply a cop-out? That you are inserting the axiom that atheism doesn't need to be proven right there out in the open? Do you see why I think this argument is full of shit? You're using the same "existentially positive proposition" multiple times to state that you don't need to prove the self-same EPP.

As an aside I think you might be able to sell the "atheism isn't a belief" to more people if every atheist on the Interweb didn't seem to be trying to convert every non-atheist all the time.

And you, of course, are a prime example of such. You need to understand that your beliefs that there is no God are based on foundations as flimsy as the religous beliefs you ridicule. The writings of Dawkins notwithstanding.

Now I can and will go a little further since you seem to think you're some kind of genuis. There is a legal philosopher by the name of Arthur Allen Leff. Leff was an agnostic law professor who wrote a series of papers on the nature of logic -- stating much more forcefully and much more cleverly what I've tried to discuss above: to whit -- that no system of logic can prove the existence or nonexistence of God or whether one behavior is to preferred over another or whether one thing is good and another thing bad.

He stated it thusly: "There is no system of logic that can prove that napalming babies is bad." So when you talk to me about "base states" I know that you -- or whoever you're parroting (Dawkins? I don't know) doesn't know what the fuck they're talking about. There is no logical base state from which propositions spring forth like flowers on a barren meadow.

Finally let me say I pity you.

I pity you because of your attempt to make fun of my belief systems using little quotation marks around "sins" and "moral wrongs and "God"--
it shows how poor a lens atheism is of the world.

We are what we believe, and what we believe reveals (and obscures) the world around us -- our beliefs are a grid -- a secret decoder ring if you will -- that we use to bring order to the chaos of the universe. We put our secret decoder grid over the chaos and some things become clear and understandable while other things are hidden by the grid lines.

Your atheism is so narrow that is has obscured your vision of the universe and you can no longer distinguish between a real religon and a fake one. Between what is right and what is wrong. Between sanity and insanity.

I doubt you will understand what I'm trying to say because of your atheism (none are so blind as those who will not see & etc.) but I thought I'd make the effort to say it anyway.

[Arbitrary]

Even as an agnostic I find that to be mostly offensive and condescending.

It's a dick move.

I'm totally still buying a T-Shirt though.

[Tirinal]

I'm confused. By what criteria are you defining a real religion and a fake one?

Edit: The criteria may in no way be based on who wears the Grand Poobah hat. I thought of it first and it may be marketable.

[tad10]

Originally Posted by Tirinal

I'm confused. By what criteria are you defining a real religion and a fake one?

Edit: The criteria may in no way be based on who wears the Grand Poobah hat. I thought of it first and it may be marketable.

Religons invented for the purpose of making a logical argument = pretty much fake. I'll be happy to argue what is and isn't a religion tomorrow -- for now though I must sleep -- anyway isn't there some booze you should be drinking?


P.S. I'd be happy to agree that Scientology is fake too -- but that isn't related to the argument.

[vurt]

Admit defeat. Your God has been slain.

[Tirinal]

Originally Posted by tad10

Religons invented for the purpose of making a logical argument = pretty much fake. I'll be happy to argue what is and isn't a religion tomorrow -- for now though I must sleep --

I doubt much good would come of it, though I'd like to know the basis from which you're able to derive that religions founded specifically to advance ideology are somehow purer when by your own statements sensory induction is an acquired taste. How do you end up deciding which one has the 'truer' ideology if your initial faith is equal-opportunity? Scientology does have a pretty killer 401k.

anyway isn't there some booze you should be drinking?

It's entirely possible, my good sir. To be quite honest with you, that is the sort of level-headed thinking that I sorely feel these boards lack at times.