So we've got down to it being a matter of proabability, and one of intellectual taste.Sounds like a belief system to me.
(
Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:11,
archived)
It's unclear what you mean by "belief system" here.
Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:15,
archived)
You believe god doesn't exist (though it has not yet been disproved)Religiousists believe god does exist.
Fight.
I say that we can't say one way or another at the moment, because we don't know. This is not to say we can't know, but that we don't at the moment.
(Fight.
I say that we can't say one way or another at the moment, because we don't know. This is not to say we can't know, but that we don't at the moment.
Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:20,
archived)
So which of all the made up religions in the earth's history will be true when this scientific god is discovered?
Well, we need to do more experiements, first, so we can't really say. Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:27,
archived)
But what would possibly count as an experiment here?And, correlatively, what would count as a falsification of a believer's claim?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:31,
archived)
Precisely the intellectual cul-de-sac that anyone who claims to think "correctly" and to have "intellectual good taste" finds themself in. Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:33,
archived)
Huh?How does my questioning your claim mean that I'm in a cul-de-sac?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:46,
archived)
Because you don't know how to answer it. You're unable to confront it.Because you have made the claim to be right (ie science), you must then prove yourself to be.
I'm just claiming not to know, which I believe is all anyone can do over the matter of god, precisely because the concept itself is by definition unprovable.
(I'm just claiming not to know, which I believe is all anyone can do over the matter of god, precisely because the concept itself is by definition unprovable.
Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:49,
archived)
But that's just the pointI don't believe that god doesn't exist. I think that there's no evidence for his existence, and I don't think that there could be; but I have no positive claim on the matter either way.
I'm sympathetic to Jonathan Miller here: he refuses to call himself an atheist for the same reason that he refuses to call himself an a-unicornist - for him, there's just nothing worth saying in the label, because the god-hypothesis is so obviously without foundation that there's no real point wasting energy fighting it.
There seems to be a lot of wisdom in that attitude.
(I'm sympathetic to Jonathan Miller here: he refuses to call himself an atheist for the same reason that he refuses to call himself an a-unicornist - for him, there's just nothing worth saying in the label, because the god-hypothesis is so obviously without foundation that there's no real point wasting energy fighting it.
There seems to be a lot of wisdom in that attitude.
Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:27,
archived)
But ... but ... but in your profile musings on the subject of god, you claim that the atheists are right, and that agnostics need to grow up and are intellectually barren!Now I don't know where you stand on the matter!
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:31,
archived)
Ha!Well, you might have me on that...
Hmmmm...
I think that the atheists are right to the extent that they don't invoke - and are resistant to invoking - the supernatural. That seems like obviously the correct strategy.
And - oh, all right then: whether or not I would class myself as an atheist or reject even that label is something about which I'm not wholly decided. In most situations, the two descriptions amount to the same, though...
(Hmmmm...
I think that the atheists are right to the extent that they don't invoke - and are resistant to invoking - the supernatural. That seems like obviously the correct strategy.
And - oh, all right then: whether or not I would class myself as an atheist or reject even that label is something about which I'm not wholly decided. In most situations, the two descriptions amount to the same, though...
Enzyme is powered by sunlight,
Mon 24 May 2010, 13:43,
archived)
Goedel's Theorem:nature can't be a complete and consistent system.
(
Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag,
Mon 24 May 2010, 14:27,
archived)