A = a;

Heron

Heron, you specifically said:

Same with God. Unless you can prove He does not exist anywhere in the universe (which, again, would require observing the entire universe simultaneously), you cannot say with scientific certainty that God does not exist.

Unless you can prove that pink unicorns don't exist anywhere in the universe, you cannot say with scientific certainty that pink unicorns do not exist.

Perhaps that assists in illustrating the point I was making.

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_proof, which i linked in my first post.

You seem to think your point disproves mine, however it looks like you're saying the same thing I am. Look at it this way:

Just because pink unicorns seem fantastical and whatnot does not mean it is *impossible* that they could exist. We have not found a pink unicorn on Earth - all that says is that there is very little possibility that there is a pink unicorn on Earth somewhere. It says nothing about other possibly inhabited planets in the universe and whether there may be something on one of those planets that resembles a pink unicorn.

Just because God seems fantastical and whatnot does not mean it is impossible that he could exist. You may not have found God in your observations - it does not mean others have not. Science (and all experiences in general) are all about observations and their interpretations - if many people choose to interpret certain experiences as evidence of the existence of God, who are you to say they are wrong? You have not experienced what they have. You have not *tried* to experience what they have. (Rule #1 of scientific experiements: Repeatability.) And in any case, just because you have not come across God in your limited experience does not mean that others have not, nor that he does not exist.

That's all I'm saying. In fact you can ignore the last half of that last paragraph if you want - all you have to get from my point is that just because you don't think it's possible does not mean it isn't.

You can also think about it this way. If there were a God, and if you suppose he wanted us to believe in him through faith and not through direct physical evidence (because then it's easy to believe, isn't it?), then wouldn't it make sense for him to make it difficult or impossible to prove or disprove (either way) his existence?

ShadowWolf

@SuperousOxide said:

@ShadowWolf said:
Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_proof, which i linked in my first post.

An interesting bit from the page you keep posting

However, the fallacy can also occur when the predicate of a subject is denied:
"A supernatural force does not exist, because there is no proof that it does exist.".

Definitely. Trying to argue something exists or does not exist on basis of having no proof either way is a fallacy.

The_Vicar

@Heron said:

Basically, science cannot disprove the existence of God, and therefore cannot show the fallacy of various religions. I'm not saying that means religions are all true or anything, I'm only saying that an appeal to science in an attempt to disprove a particular religion is most likely a waste of time.

Not quite true. Science cannot disprove the existence of some sort of supernatural entity. It can, however, put limits on the attributes which such a being can have. Since religions give attributes of their gods, it is possible to show that a particular religion posits the existence of a god who cannot exist.

This uses the logical rule known as [i]modus tollens[/i], which is as follows: "If we know that 'if a then b', and we know 'not b', then we know 'not a'." For example, if you cut off my head, then I will be dead. I am not dead. Therefore you have not cut off my head.

As an analogy, consider this: you cannot prove that there are no monsters in your closet. There might be invisible, intangible, inaudible monsters, or they might be too small to see. But you [i]can[/i] prove that there are no monsters in your closet which are both (a) large enough to occupy a significant portion of the space and (b) either visible or tangible. Just open the door, empty the closet of non-monster objects, and look (which would detect any visible monsters large enough to see) and then fill the closet with solid boxes until there isn't enough space left for any monsters. Viola -- proof.

In the same way, it is impossible for there to be a god who will reward or punish us in the afterlife, because (as pointed out above) we don't have an afterlife. There cannot be a god who is all-powerful and all-loving and willing to intervene in the world, because there are natural disasters which cause suffering and which are not the fault of any human agency. (That is, even if most suffering is the just result of sin, there is suffering which is not the result of sin, and an all-loving all-powerful god would not allow this if they were willing to intervene.) There cannot be a god who is all-powerful, all-loving, willing to intervene, and desires worship in a particular form, because in that case any form of worship which was not correct would be halted by direct intervention by god. You can do this over and over and over again, and people have done so.

Basically, any god which cannot be disproved from a combination of logic and observation is a pointless deity. It is either too weak to do anything significant, or doesn't care about us. Either way, it isn't doing anything we need to worry about, so religion is a waste of time and energy.

ShadowWolf

@Heron said:

@ShadowWolf said:
Heron, you specifically said:

Same with God. Unless you can prove He does not exist anywhere in the universe (which, again, would require observing the entire universe simultaneously), you cannot say with scientific certainty that God does not exist.

Unless you can prove that pink unicorns don't exist anywhere in the universe, you cannot say with scientific certainty that pink unicorns do not exist.

Perhaps that assists in illustrating the point I was making.

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_proof, which i linked in my first post.

You seem to think your point disproves mine, however it looks like you're saying the same thing I am. Look at it this way:

Just because pink unicorns seem fantastical and whatnot does not mean it is *impossible* that they could exist. We have not found a pink unicorn on Earth - all that says is that there is very little possibility that there is a pink unicorn on Earth somewhere. It says nothing about other possibly inhabited planets in the universe and whether there may be something on one of those planets that resembles a pink unicorn.

Just because God seems fantastical and whatnot does not mean it is impossible that he could exist. You may not have found God in your observations - it does not mean others have not. Science (and all experiences in general) are all about observations and their interpretations - if many people choose to interpret certain experiences as evidence of the existence of God, who are you to say they are wrong? You have not experienced what they have. You have not *tried* to experience what they have. (Rule #1 of scientific experiements: Repeatability.) And in any case, just because you have not come across God in your limited experience does not mean that others have not, nor that he does not exist.

That's all I'm saying. In fact you can ignore the last half of that last paragraph if you want - all you have to get from my point is that just because you don't think it's possible does not mean it isn't.

You can also think about it this way. If there were a God, and if you suppose he wanted us to believe in him through faith and not through direct physical evidence (because then it's easy to believe, isn't it?), then wouldn't it make sense for him to make it difficult or impossible to prove or disprove (either way) his existence?

Just because you think it's possible does not mean it is.

Besides, I never said it was impossible. I just said your argument is baseless. You're drawing conclusions regarding my personal life and opinions that you wish to be true and not necessarily what are true.

dhromed

Oh fuck not this shite again.

dlikhten

@galgorah said:

Just found this in some code and thought I'd share

 

short age = -1;
if (short.TryParse(txtAge.Text, out age))
age = (short)age;
else
age = -1;
end if

-1 is the new hip thing to be nowdays. Plus with all the short-aged things nowdays can you really afford to be older than -1?

dlikhten

@ShadowWolf said:

@Heron said:
@ShadowWolf said:
Heron, you specifically said:

Same with God. Unless you can prove He does not exist anywhere in the universe (which, again, would require observing the entire universe simultaneously), you cannot say with scientific certainty that God does not exist.

Unless you can prove that pink unicorns don't exist anywhere in the universe, you cannot say with scientific certainty that pink unicorns do not exist.

Perhaps that assists in illustrating the point I was making.

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_proof, which i linked in my first post.

You seem to think your point disproves mine, however it looks like you're saying the same thing I am. Look at it this way:

Just because pink unicorns seem fantastical and whatnot does not mean it is *impossible* that they could exist. We have not found a pink unicorn on Earth - all that says is that there is very little possibility that there is a pink unicorn on Earth somewhere. It says nothing about other possibly inhabited planets in the universe and whether there may be something on one of those planets that resembles a pink unicorn.

Just because God seems fantastical and whatnot does not mean it is impossible that he could exist. You may not have found God in your observations - it does not mean others have not. Science (and all experiences in general) are all about observations and their interpretations - if many people choose to interpret certain experiences as evidence of the existence of God, who are you to say they are wrong? You have not experienced what they have. You have not *tried* to experience what they have. (Rule #1 of scientific experiements: Repeatability.) And in any case, just because you have not come across God in your limited experience does not mean that others have not, nor that he does not exist.

That's all I'm saying. In fact you can ignore the last half of that last paragraph if you want - all you have to get from my point is that just because you don't think it's possible does not mean it isn't.

You can also think about it this way. If there were a God, and if you suppose he wanted us to believe in him through faith and not through direct physical evidence (because then it's easy to believe, isn't it?), then wouldn't it make sense for him to make it difficult or impossible to prove or disprove (either way) his existence?

Just because you think it's possible does not mean it is.

Besides, I never said it was impossible. I just said your argument is baseless. You're drawing conclusions regarding my personal life and opinions that you wish to be true and not necessarily what are true.

Dudes, just STFU about this... You all must bow before the great and mighty spaghetti monster! IT EXISTS, GOOGLE IT! IT IS THE ONE TRUE GOD! It even has a church!

In the end the argument pro/against god is a non-argument. Unless you can tell me how i can convince you that god does not exist, do not even bring it up. Because no matter what, you can come up with a counter point and etc. forever... And neither one will prove anything...except the great spaghetti monster, that is true and must be all-worshiped!

And FYI pink unicorns don't exist. Why? Because you believe in gravity... think about it, it will make sense. If it does not, then you probly need to think about it again. (its a loop if you didn't guess)

ShadowWolf

a = SPAGHETTI_MONSTER ?

I knew it...

pitchingchris

Those who have placed blasphemous comments on this thread should be wary. I pray for your souls.

You might think that I'm just forcing my beliefs, but telling people that God doesn't exist is worse. You have no clue how wrong it is! Some of you are not even leaving a shadow of a doubt that he could exist. It just goes to show how many people in IT are really control freaks. Sometimes we need to let Jesus drive a little while :)

m0ffx

Can people please stop arguing about religion? I just saw MasterPlanSoftware outside my house stealing bikes. Help me whack him one with his own bolt cutters!

Eternal_Density

Apophis is a false god. A dead false god.

(y'know, programmers and IT people should be able to see that information can't arrive in the universe by itself)

The_Vicar

@pitchingchris said:

Those who have placed blasphemous comments on this thread should be wary. I pray for your souls.

You might think that I'm just forcing my beliefs, but telling people that God doesn't exist is worse. You have no clue how wrong it is! Some of you are not even leaving a shadow of a doubt that he could exist. It just goes to show how many people in IT are really control freaks. Sometimes we need to let Jesus drive a little while :)

Right, that's why Jesus told his disciple Thomas that he was going to burn for all eternity for wanting proof of the resurrection. Oh, wait, actually Jesus said "yeah, okay, feel those wounds, Tommy m'boy."

And when Elijah was trying to convince everyone that the god of Israel was real and the other gods weren't, he just told them that they had to believe and they did. Oh, no, wait, he challenged them to a magic show and gave them proof.

According to [i]your own holy book[/i], it is perfectly reasonable to ask god for proof. It only became a sin to do so once it became clear that there was no proof, and the hucksters and frauds you call priests were having a hard time conning people out of their money as a result. Get over it.

MrMan

@pitchingchris said:

I pray for your souls.

Praying is a pointless activity. Praying for non-existent things as "souls" is even more pointless.

Actually, scratch that, studies have shown that praying is detrimental. See this: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?pagewanted=2

operagost

@The Vicar said:

@ammoQ said:
@The Vicar said:
Fictional people don't count.
Most historicans would argue that Jesus is not fictional.

The one who is still alive certainly is, regardless of whether there was a historical one or not. Just like the dead historical Elvis versus the one in the tabloids.

I eagerly await your evidence of this non-existence.

Yahweh

@Heron said:

My point was only that you can only disprove with science, so using science to prove anything about religion is impossible - to disprove the existence of God requires observing the entire universe, for example. Any scientific "proof" that there is no God is based on bad science.

Basically, science cannot disprove the existence of God, and therefore cannot show the fallacy of various religions. I'm not saying that means religions are all true or anything, I'm only saying that an appeal to science in an attempt to disprove a particular religion is most likely a waste of time.

[lurk mode=off]

If a religion claimed "water melts at 5 C under 1 atm", we could test that statement for its truthiness. If a religion claims that God exists and we are all figments of his imagination, we couldn't test that, its not a falsifiable claim.

Science can only prove or disprove epistemological claims, not ontological ones. If God's existence is actually an epistemological claim, and a falsifiable one at that, then science could prove or disprove God's existence.

[lurk mode=on]

operagost

@The Vicar said:

@pitchingchris said:
Those who have placed blasphemous comments on this thread should be wary. I pray for your souls.

You might think that I'm just forcing my beliefs, but telling people that God doesn't exist is worse. You have no clue how wrong it is! Some of you are not even leaving a shadow of a doubt that he could exist. It just goes to show how many people in IT are really control freaks. Sometimes we need to let Jesus drive a little while :)

Right, that's why Jesus told his disciple Thomas that he was going to burn for all eternity for wanting proof of the resurrection. Oh, wait, actually Jesus said "yeah, okay, feel those wounds, Tommy m'boy."

And when Elijah was trying to convince everyone that the god of Israel was real and the other gods weren't, he just told them that they had to believe and they did. Oh, no, wait, he challenged them to a magic show and gave them proof.

According to [i]your own holy book[/i], it is perfectly reasonable to ask god for proof. It only became a sin to do so once it became clear that there was no proof, and the hucksters and frauds you call priests were having a hard time conning people out of their money as a result. Get over it.

It's amazing how someone could be so book smart, yet so ignorant.

Cap_n_Steve

The Vicar, that is probably the strangest argument I've ever heard. First of all, modern science probably knows more about black holes than the brain, and yet you apparently know enough to disprove the existence of a soul. Second, you somehow disproved God by saying he's either not that powerful or not that nice.

asuffield

@pitchingchris said:

Just because you can't see air, that doesn't mean its not there.

Anybody who thinks you cannot see air has never seen a vacuum. Air is visible just like clear glass - by the effect it has on the light that passes through it. With a little practice it's easy to spot, you just need to know what you're looking for.

Ironically enough, there's a minor group of idiots who believe that the Apollo moon landing photographs are fakes precisely because they were taken in a vacuum, and so they don't look the same as things in an atmosphere (apparently they too are unaware that air is visible).

asuffield

@ShadowWolf said:

Unless you can prove that pink unicorns don't exist anywhere in the universe, you cannot say with scientific certainty that pink unicorns do not exist.

You cannot prove that the pink unicorn does not exist, because she's invisible, so you can't observe her even if you did look everywhere. That's also the proof of how powerful she is, since no ordinary creature could be both invisible and pink at the same time.

superjer

( The problem I have when you try to convince me of your particular god is that you don't have any more evidence for it then other people have for other gods. Or, for that matter, faeries or pink unicorns.

But then you'll say, "You need to have faith!"

Well, what should I use my faith to believe in? Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, faeries? How do I choose? Faith doesn't help one bit unless I already want to believe in one particular god. And then it's just an excuse.

Sure, there could be a god or many gods out there. There could be lots of wacky things. I don't feel comfortable picking and choosing to believe in one infinitesimal subset of all those possible things, just because. And I'm highly suspicious of anyone who does. Can you really blame me? )

crippledsmurf

@pitchingchris said:

Just because you base your beliefs on proof, that doesn't mean God doesn't exist. How little is your faith !

My faith is strong, I wholeheartedly believe that by interpretting my environment and making decisions based upon those interpretations I will continue to live in a way in which I'm comfortable,

Quinnum

@galgorah said:

I had absolutely no idea when opening this thread that I was playing with pandora's box. Did we really need to turn this into a philosophical debate debacle of religious debate?

...

and for the record I'm a proud atheist.

So during sex do you yell out "Oh, Random Chance! Oh Random Chance!" ;-)

Quinnum

@pitchingchris said:

Those who have placed blasphemous comments on this thread should be wary. I pray for your souls.

You might think that I'm just forcing my beliefs, but telling people that God doesn't exist is worse. You have no clue how wrong it is! Some of you are not even leaving a shadow of a doubt that he could exist. It just goes to show how many people in IT are really control freaks. Sometimes we need to let Jesus drive a little while :)

Ok, forgetting the atheist vs theist debate for a moment, are you telling us that out of all the religions in the world, yours just happens to be the blinding light of truth? So all those Hindus and Muslims and Jews and miscellaneous are going to burn in your Christian Hell? But surely 1 billion Hindus can't be wrong?

Either all religions are true, or none are true. Personally I find the latter choice more likely due to Occam's razor, since religion is just a man-made construct.

LeaveYouFarBehind

@poochner said:

When taken to extremes, the only thing that can be proven absolutely is math. It has no dependence on external senses and exists (or can exist) entirely within the mind even if all that you see and hear is a mirage. Not that this is a great way to go about life, since my imaginary universe has predictable consequences for my imaginary actions. :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorem

Sorry to break it to you, but not even math is safe.

And Vicar, you started your line of reasoning based on a false premise. All of your arguments stem from your claim that science knows everything there is to know about the brain. Would you phrase it that way? No. But if that statement is not true, then your entire line of reasoning collapses like a Jenga tower.

But the main reason this topic was enough for me to create an account was that I am thoroughly annoyed that this entire topic is operating under the assumption that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are the only real religions. Those one billion Hindus? Pshaw! We can ignore them because our holy books are so large that we can hide our ignorance of world religions behind them!

And don't get me started on atheists. Most of them assume that any religion that has more than one deity is backwards and not worth their disbelief. Not all, but most.

~~This is a site aimed at the IT industry. Maybe it's just me, but don't any of you have Indian co-workers? I've heard that they're common 'round these parts.~~

Beaten to it while I was typing up the post!

EDIT2: Occam's Razor is misquoted almost every time it's mentioned. I believe the original is something like, "Do not multiply entities beyond necessity." i.e. don't make things more complicated than they need to be.

The_Vicar

@operagost said:

I eagerly await your evidence of this non-existence.

Which one, Elvis or Jesus?

The still-living Jesus is actually the easier of the two; Elvis could have faked his death and still be around but old. (He would have turned 72 this year.)

Jesus, though, according to his own followers, was human. Humans are completely material. Therefore, Jesus had no non-material parts. The material parts of him are subject to ordinary entropy, which means he is dead. (You can preserve a human's form for a millennium or so, but it requires internal dessication, and the various bits which keep you alive stop working.)

@Eternal Density said:

(y'know, programmers and IT people should be able to see that information can't arrive in the universe by itself)

Why? There's no information that IT people are privy to which comes from outside the universe. At least, not unless there's something they're not telling me about Cisco certification.

You are already making assumptions there which you cannot prove: you cannot prove there is anything outside the universe, and you cannot prove that this universe requires something outside itself in order to exist. In fact, if time is part of the universe, then cause and effect only applies to objects inside the universe, not necessarily the thing as a whole.

@Cap'n Steve said:

The Vicar, that is probably the strangest argument I've ever heard. First of all, modern science probably knows more about black holes than the brain, and yet you apparently know enough to disprove the existence of a soul. Second, you somehow disproved God by saying he's either not that powerful or not that nice.

We know enough about the brain to know that it has no non-material components. You don't need to know every detail of something's mechanics to have practical knowledge. (There were studies on optics long before quantum electrodynamics was developed, for example.) We have well over a century of seeing what happens to people's personalities when different parts of their brain get damaged. As a result, we know that the soul no longer has a function.

As a parallel, imagine a world in which computers are composed exactly as they are here, and there's a power grid, but that instead of being built by human beings, computers are built and delivered by invisible aliens. (With basic instruction manuals, of course, so that we aren't trying to use them as paperweights or boat anchors.)

Now, at first humanity would know nothing about how computers worked. We might very well suppose that computers had souls which transferred the data around and worked with it. But after a while, even if it were illegal to damage a computer deliberately, we would start to notice a connection between the parts of the computer and functions of the computer. The motherboard gets damaged [i]here[/i], and the keyboard port stops working. If it gets damaged [i]there[/i] instead, the USB port stops working. Accidentally drive a nail through the hard drive (a rare but possible occurrence), and suddenly there's no storage.

Humanity would also probably discover, after a long time, how to write a program in assembly language. (It would take a long time, but the odds are that people would examine the guts of an application before long, and start comparing notes.) Eventually we would be able to write our own programs, and we would discover that when you make the right calls, you can use the different parts of the computer individually.

The more we learned, the less plausible it would be that a computer had a soul. When parts stopped working, instead of the compensation we would expect from a soul-driven operation, there would just be flawed behavior. We would notice that when the actual CPU is damaged, there is nothing in the computer which compensates for it. (We might also note, depending on whether we were brave enough to try it, that under certain circumstances we can take an undamaged CPU from another machine and put it in place to restore the computer's functions. But we probably wouldn't try that until we were sure the CPU wasn't where the soul was.)

Eventually, we would learn the functions of every part of a computer, and have no functions left which a soul could oversee or influence. We would then have to conclude that computers either have no soul or that the soul has no part in actually making the computer work. We still wouldn't know [i]how[/i] a CPU works (or at least, this ignorance would be possible), or how to make a CPU, but we would still know that the computer is completely material.

That is approximately the process which has been accomplished in the case of the human brain. We have well over a century of medical records of people whose brains have been damaged in different ways, and they tally. If your brain is damaged in one way, you lose your long-term memory. Another way, and you can no longer speak. Another way and you no longer care about other people's misfortune. We are slowly but surely learning to differentiate between problems caused by physical dysfunction within the brain (which require a neurological solution) and those which are not (which can be treated psychologically).

We don't know enough about the brain to simulate one effectively, or to build one from scratch, or to enhance an existing one. But we can hook you up to monitors and tell approximately what you're thinking about -- whether you're imagining physical activity, or thinking about spacial relationships, or about other people. We know enough to know that there is no place left for a soul in the controls. There is no more space for a ghost in the machine; if there is a non-material part of the brain, it has to be completely passive, which means that it isn't what religions think of as a soul at all.

As for disproving god, I said I couldn't disprove the general case, just the specific ones. If your religious view consists of the statements that there is a god out there, but that god doesn't listen to prayers or watch over us, then your religion is entirely safe from disproof by me. If, on the other hand, you claim that god is just waiting until after we die to pitch some of us into eternal suffering and some of us into eternal bliss, then you have made specific claims which I know are false.

If we know "if a then b" and "not b", then we can deduce "not a". Well, plug in "if there is judgement of souls after death, then there are souls" and "there are not souls" and you get "there is not judgement of souls after death." Then try "if Christianity (or Islam, or Hinduism, etc.) is true, then there is judgement of souls after death" and "there is not judgement of souls after death."

The_Vicar

@LeaveYouFarBehind said:

And
Vicar, you started your line of reasoning based on a false premise. All
of your arguments stem from your claim that science knows everything
there is to know about the brain. Would you phrase it that way? No. But
if that statement is not true, then your entire line of reasoning
collapses like a Jenga tower.

Nope; never claimed we know everything. I don't know everything about my cat, but I don't need to know everything about him to know that he doesn't contain a nuclear submarine. See my previous post.

LeaveYouFarBehind

@The Vicar said:

@Cap'n Steve said:
The Vicar, that is
probably the strangest argument I've ever heard. First of all, modern
science probably knows more about black holes than the brain, and yet
you apparently know enough to disprove the existence of a soul. Second,
you somehow disproved God by saying he's either not that powerful or
not that nice.

We know enough about the brain to know that it has no non-material components. You don't need to know every detail of something's mechanics to have practical knowledge. (There were studies on optics long before quantum electrodynamics was developed, for example.) We have well over a century of seeing what happens to people's personalities when different parts of their brain get damaged. As a result, we know that the soul no longer has a function.

[snip]

Wow. So now you're adding Jumping to Conclusions to your list of fallacies. I already knew about the Faulty Premises, but this is exciting. Hey, I have an idea! Why don't you throw some Ad Hominem in there and then we'll have ourselves a party!

Just because we've been studying people's brains for a century and know that damaging this part does that, doesn't mean that we've disproved the existence of the soul. I think you're operating under a definition of the soul that makes your argument work, even if it isn't entirely accurate. Ooh! That means we can add Definition by Assumption to the list! Aren't you special?

You're assuming that the soul is supposed to control all these things that you say the brain controls, and therefore there's no such thing as a soul. I won't even attempt to go after that bad logic. Instead, let me propose to you this: What if the soul doesn't control any of that? What if the soul operates on some level we don't understand, causing subtle changes in the environment to influence the courses of our lives? Whether you agree or disagree with that possibility, you must admit that it is, theoretically, possible. And therefore, it is theoretically possible for the soul to exist.

Or let's take a much simpler approach, because you seem to think you understand logic better than you actually do. What if the soul cannot function properly without a properly functioning brain to work with? Then, if you insist on believing that the soul must control our sense of right and wrong (which you strongly implied), you now have a way that it can still do that and the brain can appear to do that as well.

And don't try to kid me that there's no room in the brain for a soul. Just because science can't detect it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The geocentric solar system was quite popular until some Italian guy figured out how to detect shadows on the moon.

Cute trick with the cat thing, by the way. I almost forgot Irrelevant Comparison, but thanks for reminding me! It seems to be a favorite fallacy of yours, doesn't it?

operagost

@superjer said:

( The problem I have when you try to convince me of your particular god is that you don't have any more evidence for it then other people have for other gods. Or, for that matter, faeries or pink unicorns.
But then you'll say, "You need to have faith!"

Well, what should I use my faith to believe in? Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, faeries? How do I choose? Faith doesn't help one bit unless I already want to believe in one particular god. And then it's just an excuse.
Sure, there could be a god or many gods out there. There could be lots of wacky things. I don't feel comfortable picking and choosing to believe in one infinitesimal subset of all those possible things, just because. And I'm highly suspicious of anyone who does. Can you really blame me? )

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.htm

operagost

@The Vicar said:

@operagost said:
I eagerly await your evidence of this non-existence.

Which one, Elvis or Jesus?

The still-living Jesus is actually the easier of the two; Elvis could have faked his death and still be around but old. (He would have turned 72 this year.)

Jesus, though, according to his own followers, was human. Humans are completely material. Therefore, Jesus had no non-material parts. The material parts of him are subject to ordinary entropy, which means he is dead. (You can preserve a human's form for a millennium or so, but it requires internal dessication, and the various bits which keep you alive stop working.)

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/begging-the-question.html

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ambimidd.html

The_Vicar

@LeaveYouFarBehind said:

Just because we've been studying people's brains for a
century and know that damaging this part does that, doesn't mean that
we've disproved the existence of the soul. I think you're operating
under a definition of the soul that makes your argument work, even if
it isn't entirely accurate. Ooh! That means we can add Definition by
Assumption to the list! Aren't you special?
You're assuming that
the soul is supposed to control all these things that you say the brain
controls, and therefore there's no such thing as a soul. I won't even
attempt to go after that bad logic. Instead, let me propose to you
this: What if the soul doesn't control any of that? What if the soul
operates on some level we don't understand, causing subtle changes in
the environment to influence the courses of our lives? Whether you
agree or disagree with that possibility, you must admit that it is,
theoretically, possible. And therefore, it is theoretically possible
for the soul to exist.

Making that assumption means that the soul is completely disconnected from your consciousness, and has no responsibility for your actions. Which means you can't have an afterlife through it and it can't reasonably be judged for your deeds. Which in turn still invalidates all the world's major religions. So thanks, you've just defended something I wasn't attacking, and which is totally irrelevant to most religious thought. Great job.

@LeaveYouFarBehind said:

Or let's take a much simpler approach,
because you seem to think you understand logic better than you actually
do. What if the soul cannot function properly without a properly
functioning brain to work with? Then, if you insist on believing that
the soul must control our sense of right and wrong (which you strongly
implied), you now have a way that it can still do that and the brain
can appear to do that as well.

Actually, I was already aware of this argument -- the "brain as receiver" theory is a fairly obvious one, and you are not the first to come up with it. I wasn't either, and I thought of it in high school. I left it out because -- let's face it -- this is a digression from the purpose of this board, and I'm already making long posts. But to the point: there is evidence and reasoning to contradict the theory, at least in so far as it allows a soul to exist which controls your consciousness.

I was going to write you a fairly long post about it, but I found that there's a vastly superior (albeit much longer) page already in existence, giving the argument in full, complete with references you can go and look up. I give you: [url=http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/ghost.html]A Ghost in the Machine[/url].

[quote user="LeaveYouFarBehind"]

And don't try to kid me that
there's no room in the brain for a soul. Just because science can't
detect it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The geocentric solar system
was quite popular until some Italian guy figured out how to detect
shadows on the moon.

Cute trick with the cat thing, by the way. I almost forgot Irrelevant Comparison, but thanks for reminding me! It seems to be a favorite fallacy of yours, doesn't it?

[/quote]

Once again: there is no room for a soul which has the qualities ascribed to it by any existing religion. There might be a flight recorder sort of thing. But what sort of afterlife would it have? It would be as related to the conscious entity we know as you as your toenails are, but you don't pray that your toenails will go to heaven after you die, do you?

The comparison is not irrelevant. There might be a non-material part of the brain, but in order for a soul to exist as described by religion, the mind and the brain would have to operate in certain ways. It can be demonstrated that they do not. In the same way, my cat might have swallowed many things -- mice, those little plastic things that they use to seal bags, possibly even bottlecaps although if so I expect to hear him start screeching soon. But if he had swallowed a nuclear submarine, he would have to be roughly the size of a nuclear submarine, and roughly the weight of a nuclear submarine. He isn't. Therefore he has not swallowed a nuclear submarine.

It's interesting that you mention the geocentric solar system, because in fact it's an example on my side, not yours. In order for there to be a geocentric solar system, the shadows of objects in the solar system would have to be in particular configurations. They aren't. Therefore there is not a geocentric solar system. So far, you have been doing the equivalent of saying "you don't know everything about the solar system, so you can't disprove that it is geocentric." We still don't know the location, composition, and size of every single asteroid in the solar system. We'll probably never know everything about every object in the Oort cloud (assuming it really exists), let alone be able to visit them all. That doesn't prevent us from knowing that the solar system is not geocentric.

Shakje

While I'm not particularly religious these days, I come from a deeply religious family and went through a spiritualist phase. I'd like there to be something after death, but there probably isn't anything. While US christians probably don't do much for their faith, their faith is their right and to me there's a worrying trend to have no respect for people's beliefs whatsoever. The real reason I'm posting this is because I get frustrated time and time again with people equating stupid religious people with religion as a whole. It's like the Italian government looking at some high profile killings and blaming all Romanians in that it is patently bigoted. If someone believes something that you don't believe then fine, let them believe it. The majority of people I've met who have religioius feelings, and I've met and been friends with people with all sorts of religious backgrounds, are level headed, have strong beliefs and would hardly agree with violence in the name of their religion. Morally and intellectually I respect them, and respect their beliefs. All too often I see people just plain laying into (mostly) christians online. Unfortunately this is obviously only going to lead to teenagers with a bit of fluff in their head spewing out the usual unintelligible vitriol back. There's plenty of Americans out there that have the same fanatacism for the Bush administration (for apparently no good reason) who are far more dangerous than religion. Religion is never going to completely die, it really is a waste of time trying to get it to fall over,

As for the Old Testament/New Testament thing, I'm pretty sure that Jesus said something like "forget about the old laws" in the speech about an eye for an eye and his new commandments, which is why I think what Jesus said takes precedence over anything in the Old Testament, but quite a lot of people seem to forget this. I think the war vs love thing is more indicative of the belief that Jesus was meant to be God's forgiveness and the chance for the rest of the world, whereas God in the Old Testament was just doing what he had to to protect his people in their formative years (Jews). A much better example of this would be fundies being almost militant over homosexuality when Jesus said love thy neighbour. I think that it's worth reading through religious texts, because there is some good stuff in there. There is some bad stuff as well but I refuse to blame terrorism, holy wars, or angry, spotty, teenage nerds raging their face off on their keyboard because someone said being gay might be all right, or some uptight, sexless old person writing letters to her politician because her friend at the last coffee morning told her some film was full of violence, sex and swearing, on religion, because if I did I'd have to blame violence on our society on computer games, violent music, violent art, etc. I don't believe they influence people to do bad things, and I don't think religion influences people to do things, terrible people and voices in their own heads influence people to do terrible things. I'm trying desperately not to get into this any further or get too into specific details, but the crusades are a perfect example of what I'm trying to say.

My 2c.

Mel

@Jetts said:

@PJH said:
@Heron said:
[religious stuff] science can only disprove, not prove. [religious stuff]

Either IHBT or you're talking bollocks.

I suspect the former, though given your contribution to these forums thus far (scientifically based on post count - no, mine is no better,) it might be the latter. Or both.

I can't find it now, but I read a wikipedia article (which w all know are always accurate) that talked about this. It talked about a hypothetical theory, black swans exist. No matter how many white swans you collect as counter evidence, you can't disprove the existence of black swans, and it only takes one black one to validate the theory.
I'm sure I'm butchering the actual meaning of the article with my paraphrase, but it just popped into my head while reading this thread. Maybe someone else will have better luck finding it.

There's a very easy way to prove black swans exist: go to New Zealand. I always knew white swans existed, I just don't think I'd ever seen one until I left NZ. Kinda like cold Christmases, really... </RandomComment>

asuffield

@Mel said:

@Jetts said:
@PJH said:
@Heron said:
[religious stuff] science can only disprove, not prove. [religious stuff]

Either IHBT or you're talking bollocks.

I suspect the former, though given your contribution to these forums thus far (scientifically based on post count - no, mine is no better,) it might be the latter. Or both.

I can't find it now, but I read a wikipedia article (which w all know are always accurate) that talked about this. It talked about a hypothetical theory, black swans exist. No matter how many white swans you collect as counter evidence, you can't disprove the existence of black swans, and it only takes one black one to validate the theory.
I'm sure I'm butchering the actual meaning of the article with my paraphrase, but it just popped into my head while reading this thread. Maybe someone else will have better luck finding it.
There's a very easy way to prove black swans exist: go to New Zealand. I always knew white swans existed, I just don't think I'd ever seen one until I left NZ. Kinda like cold Christmases, really... </RandomComment>

Which reminds me, this is all religious crack anyway. Science can both prove and disprove statements. A statement which cannot be disproven is deemed "unfalsifiable", which carries the implication of "this statement is malformed; go back and write it properly in a way that can be disproven". An unfalsifiable statement is not scientific, and furthermore is a pointless waste of space that can never carry any useful information. An unfalsifiable statement can either be corrected into a meaningful falsifiable statement, or it is nonsense, depending on whether or not the author has any real point to make.

"There is an invisible pink unicorn" is unfalsifiable and meaningless - who could possibly care whether this statement is true?

PJH

@pitchingchris said:

You're right, I could have used a much better example. But I do feel like you are wrong that gods were created for uneducated people. I do not believe in gods but in God (singular). [...]

If yall are not interested, then thats fine, but don't go around making claims that God is made up and all these other ones.

“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (Jn. 20:29).

@Stephen F. Roberts said:

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do.
When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

shambo

Pol Pot: 2 million people killed in 4 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields

Stalin: 3 million people killed in 30 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

Spanish Inquistion: 3000 people killed in 350 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

pitchingchris

@Shakje said:

While I'm not particularly religious these days, I come from a deeply religious family and went through a spiritualist phase. I'd like there to be something after death, but there probably isn't anything. While US christians probably don't do much for their faith, their faith is their right and to me there's a worrying trend to have no respect for people's beliefs whatsoever. The real reason I'm posting this is because I get frustrated time and time again with people equating stupid religious people with religion as a whole. It's like the Italian government looking at some high profile killings and blaming all Romanians in that it is patently bigoted. If someone believes something that you don't believe then fine, let them believe it. The majority of people I've met who have religioius feelings, and I've met and been friends with people with all sorts of religious backgrounds, are level headed, have strong beliefs and would hardly agree with violence in the name of their religion. Morally and intellectually I respect them, and respect their beliefs. All too often I see people just plain laying into (mostly) christians online. Unfortunately this is obviously only going to lead to teenagers with a bit of fluff in their head spewing out the usual unintelligible vitriol back. There's plenty of Americans out there that have the same fanatacism for the Bush administration (for apparently no good reason) who are far more dangerous than religion. Religion is never going to completely die, it really is a waste of time trying to get it to fall over,

As for the Old Testament/New Testament thing, I'm pretty sure that Jesus said something like "forget about the old laws" in the speech about an eye for an eye and his new commandments, which is why I think what Jesus said takes precedence over anything in the Old Testament, but quite a lot of people seem to forget this. I think the war vs love thing is more indicative of the belief that Jesus was meant to be God's forgiveness and the chance for the rest of the world, whereas God in the Old Testament was just doing what he had to to protect his people in their formative years (Jews). A much better example of this would be fundies being almost militant over homosexuality when Jesus said love thy neighbour. I think that it's worth reading through religious texts, because there is some good stuff in there. There is some bad stuff as well but I refuse to blame terrorism, holy wars, or angry, spotty, teenage nerds raging their face off on their keyboard because someone said being gay might be all right, or some uptight, sexless old person writing letters to her politician because her friend at the last coffee morning told her some film was full of violence, sex and swearing, on religion, because if I did I'd have to blame violence on our society on computer games, violent music, violent art, etc. I don't believe they influence people to do bad things, and I don't think religion influences people to do things, terrible people and voices in their own heads influence people to do terrible things. I'm trying desperately not to get into this any further or get too into specific details, but the crusades are a perfect example of what I'm trying to say.

My 2c.

This is what Jesus said (referring to the Old Testament). He came to supplement the law, not let us forget about them. \

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.(Matt 5:7)

And for anyone else out there, I didn't mean to spark this thing. I do respect peoples right to practice their own thing. I respect that there will always be people who practice Islam, Hindu, Judiasm, and others. Don't think that those groups who carry out jihad are really following Islam when they practice terrorism. It is against the basic fundamentals of Islam. I just don't take it too well when people make light of the religion that people practice. As far as all yall with science explanations, sounds like yall go to church with Tom Cruise.

djork

@shambo said:

Pol Pot: 2 million people killed in 4 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields

Stalin: 3 million people killed in 30 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

Spanish Inquistion: 3000 people killed in 350 years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

I guess that's why nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition... they're subtle!

belgariontheking

@The Vicar said:

Forget I spoke. After all, religion clearly is clearly totally harmless with no negative effects on the real world.

I think it's sad that you can only point out the articles that show religion in a bad light. How about the fact that 90+% of the relief efforts in the world come from some religious background? Where would it come from if not from churches, synagogues, etc. Certainly not from our government. The best schools in America started as religious institutions.

Furthermore, let's talk about how faith improves onesself. Not in every case, but in the vast majority of cases, faith serves to encourage the side of us that says "stealing/etc. is wrong." That side of us would still exist without religion and faith, but would need to be encouraged through other means. Not to say that in certain sects of certain religions, the wrong side is encouraged (suicide bombings, etc.) but for the vast majority of "religious people," it's a generally positive thing.

I'm not sure what you were trying to say with your flame, but religion is not a blanket bad thing. For as many articles as you can find, I can find as many to show religion does good things. It's sad to not be able to see the good and great things that faith can do in people and the world.

galgorah

@m0ffx said:

Can people please stop arguing about religion? I just saw MasterPlanSoftware outside my house stealing bikes. Help me whack him one with his own bolt cutters!

...He's working for me. Its all part of my plan for world domination...

galgorah

@Quinnum said:

@galgorah said:
I had absolutely no idea when opening this thread that I was playing with pandora's box. Did we really need to turn this into a philosophical debate debacle of religious debate?

...

and for the record I'm a proud atheist.

So during sex do you yell out "Oh, Random Chance! Oh Random Chance!" ;-)

Seeing as how I do believe chaos is its own form of order its more like. "Oh, Mandelbrot Set!, Oh, Mandelbrot Set!"

Lysis

@MasterPlanSoftware said:

Fascinating. I sparked a debate about religion...
Next thing you know someone will blow up the thread with a suicide post, and TDWTF will go to war with Slashdot.
Fantastic.

I feel a godwin's law post coming.

Lingerance

@The Vicar said:

Forget I spoke. After all, religion clearly is clearly totally harmless with no negative effects on the real world.

I may as well share my view on this. Personally I find the fact that a large number of religious beliefs to have become perturbed (kkk anyone?) the most susceptible are the monotheistic religions (as they appear to be the most prevalent nowadays); as such I generally dismiss any arguments claiming to be founded on said beliefs unless the subject is capable of generating an argument that holds on its own. Furthermore I personally would like to see organized religions abolished, this does not affect ones right to practice whatever they believe but rather hinders the ability to propagate ones demented vies of the world (unfortunately also hinders morally correct views from being spread, but thats the goal of parenting is it not?)

Heron

@The Vicar said:

That is approximately the process which has been accomplished in the case of the human brain. We have well over a century of medical records of people whose brains have been damaged in different ways, and they tally. If your brain is damaged in one way, you lose your long-term memory. Another way, and you can no longer speak. Another way and you no longer care about other people's misfortune. We are slowly but surely learning to differentiate between problems caused by physical dysfunction within the brain (which require a neurological solution) and those which are not (which can be treated psychologically).

You are, of course, arguing under an incorrect assumption of what a soul is (or, if you prefer, would be). You state that since we can prove that if a certain part of the brain is damaged, then it stops working, for various parts of the brain, that a soul cannot exist. This is a flawed assumption.

Take the following example: You are driving a car. Someone shoots your car's tire as you drive by - you lose partial control of the vehicle. (Someone hits you in the head with a baseball bat. You lose partial brain function.) Your argument is like saying that since part of the car ceases to function, then it cannot have a driver attempting to control it - you're saying that because part of your body ceases to function when it gets damaged, there can be no soul or spirit in control of it.

The reason your argument is flawed is quite obvious.

Heron

A quick addendum for those of you who prefer other comparisons.

Say you write a program that controls a robot. The robot is like a body, the program is like its spirit or soul. The Vicar's argument is analagous to saying that because some of the robot's functions cease working when it is damaged, there cannot be a program controlling it. (And, The Vicar, since your argument "proving" that souls don't exist is invalid, you cannot use it as a basis for "proving" there is no afterlife.)

And, by the way, science has not figured out what makes our brains tick. We know how certain things affect it (some drugs, trauma, etc), but we really have no idea why it works in the first place. I challenge you to prove otherwise (I really wouldn't mind being wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not).

Lingerance

@Heron said:

A quick addendum for those of you who prefer other comparisons.
Say you write a program that controls a robot. The robot is like a body, the program is like its spirit or soul. The Vicar's argument is analagous to saying that because some of the robot's functions cease working when it is damaged, there cannot be a program controlling it. (And, The Vicar, since your argument "proving" that souls don't exist is invalid, you cannot use it as a basis for "proving" there is no afterlife.)
And, by the way, science has not figured out what makes our brains tick. We know how certain things affect it (some drugs, trauma, etc), but we really have no idea why it works in the first place. I challenge you to prove otherwise (I really wouldn't mind being wrong, but I'm pretty sure I'm not).

Correction, the program is the neurological constructs that allow for data processing, or the brain. The soul is merely a mirage crafted thousands of years ago by those who did not understand the inner workings of the body. The probability that the soul (provided it existed) functions the way you think it does is astronomically low (considering all the possibilities of what it does exactly).

Heron

Actually, I would say the processor is the brain (the actual physical component that does the processing). The program is simply something executed by the processor. You could say the soul is the program executed by the brain.

pitchingchris

@Heron said:

Actually, I would say the processor is the brain (the actual physical component that does the processing). The program is simply something executed by the processor. You could say the soul is the program executed by the brain.

Going with another post from Heron (about how the brain ticks). Just think how powerful our brains really are. Sure you can talk about neurons and so forth, but the amount of processing that it does in a short period of time is pretty awesome. I don't see how anybody can deny its a great gift. Our bodies senses working together so flawlessly, like a well oiled machine. Think about pattern recognition software. About the complexity and computing power to recognize complex objects, but with just our eyes and our brain, we can make an almost instantaneous analysis of what an object is. Nothing man made will ever come so close :)

plazmo

Believers are the hardest people to have a religion conversation with, they are to stubborn in their ways to care if there is an alternative answer. And seriously, all of their arguments revolve around how god must be real because you cant prove it doesn't exist. Or they start comparing apples to oranges. i.e a pink unicorn to god, seriously a pink unicorn is more probable then you would think, a mystical power not so much.

Believes are really no different then people that believe in dark magic. They both believe that there are external forces outside of what we know that are giving us help/power. They both have their own books that came directly from the sources. They both have to prove that they are worthy by worshiping else they will not receive the benefits they believe were promised to them in the end. But, realize what you believers think of a person that believes in dark magic. I know i think they are insane for thinking there is magic in the first place, and on top of that they are worshiping some idol that is telling them how they should act and feel. Not to mention they believe word for word a book they thought was written by their idol, but in reality was written by some 40 year old guy still in his mothers basement.

This is apples to apples, its just they have more extreme beliefs so you can obviously see how defected they are for believing in such stuff. But you are just like them because you think you are completely right. But, if i made an opinion on if dark magic really existed based on a believers logic, then it does exist without question because you cant prove it doesn't.

Take a look at life without god. It really would be no different. The only difference is people would help others because they want to not because they had to. People live equally happy lives believing or not. And the thing that makes me proud about being atheist is i know _everything_ i do is is a result of my own doing and will, without the need to rely on anything else. i.e. i dont need to pray for help for something to happen because i know i can do it myself.

superjer

@operagost said:

@superjer said:
( The problem I have when you try to convince me of your particular god is that you don't have any more evidence for it then other people have for other gods. Or, for that matter, faeries or pink unicorns.
But then you'll say, "You need to have faith!"

Well, what should I use my faith to believe in? Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, faeries? How do I choose? Faith doesn't help one bit unless I already want to believe in one particular god. And then it's just an excuse.
Sure, there could be a god or many gods out there. There could be lots of wacky things. I don't feel comfortable picking and choosing to believe in one infinitesimal subset of all those possible things, just because. And I'm highly suspicious of anyone who does. Can you really blame me? )
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.htm

( First of all, your link is a 404. Secondly, what straw-man? Are you saying people don't actually to me to use faith, or believe in Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, faeries, or unicorns? (People do!) I'm arguing against REAL positions that people actually hold. I didn't need to create any straw-men. Unless you argue that other beliefs than yours are obviously false, there is no straw-man. I don't even know what your beliefs are so I have no idea what parts of my argument you'd think are straw-men.

You, on the other hand, have falsely declared my entire argument a straw-man in order to attack it! That's like a recursive straw-man or something -- neat! )

Heron

@plazmo said:

Believes are really no different then people that believe in dark magic. They both believe that there are external forces outside of what we know that are giving us help/power. They both have their own books that came directly from the sources. They both have to prove that they are worthy by worshiping else they will not receive the benefits they believe were promised to them in the end. But, realize what you believers think of a person that believes in dark magic. I know i think they are insane for thinking there is magic in the first place, and on top of that they are worshiping some idol that is telling them how they should act and feel. Not to mention they believe word for word a book they thought was written by their idol, but in reality was written by some 40 year old guy still in his mothers basement.

Corporate peons are really no different than people who believe in God. They both believe there are external forces outside of what we know that are giving us help/power [upper management?]. They both have their own books [operations manual, anyone?] that came directly from the sources. They both have to prove that they are worthy by working as dictated by said books else they will not recieve the benefits they believe were promised to them in the end [end of year raises?].... I could go on.

@plazmo said:

Take a look at life without god. It really would be no different. The only difference is people would help others because they want to not because they had to. People live equally happy lives believing or not. And the thing that makes me proud about being atheist is i know _everything_ i do is is a result of my own doing and will, without the need to rely on anything else. i.e. i dont need to pray for help for something to happen because i know i can do it myself.

Unfortunately, there is a strong correlation between increased selfishness of the american public and decrease in religious beliefs. So your argument doesn't really hold - people won't help because they want to, they'll just do whatever benefits themselves the most. Because that's what is actually happening.