@SCOTUSblog

PJH

No. I'll go and clarify that point now...

darkmatter

@chubertdev said:

@darkmatter, why do you want to kill babies?

I'm not very much a fan of them tbh imo

darkmatter

@ben_lubar said:

Believe there is no god (Atheism)

be·lieve biˈlēv verb 1. a) accept (something) as true; feel sure of the truth of. b) have faith, especially religious faith. c) feel sure that (someone) is capable of a particular action.

hold (something) as an opinion; think or suppose.

Well, I believe² there is no god, but I do not believe^1b there is no god.
I'm not sure about definition 1a above... it is more like 1b than anything.

To be fair,

faith fāTH noun 1. complete trust or confidence in someone or something. 2. strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

I also do not have faith² in the lack of a god, but I have faith¹ in the scientific method.

darkmatter

And I suppose if you want to get extremely pedantic and combine the two definitions such that believe^1b refers to faith¹ then you could state that I have faith^{1->believe:1b} in the scientific method.

However, I'm pretty sure that's not what anyone in this topic has meant when using the word faith.

Filed Under: not pedantic enough yet

Polygeekery

I think you forgot "ASDESIGNED". As in, "Long topics are hard to read, ASDESIGNED". Or, "Discourse is an abomination, ASDESIGNED".

Polygeekery

@ben_lubar said:

Actually, that statement alone does not require faith. That is the equivalent to agnosticism. Compare it to this very similar statement:

Intercourse said:I believe that there are not any purple elephants with pink polka dots roaming the Antarctic continent in bermuda shorts.

That one is faith.

So then, I do not believe in god. As many have said before. But somehow, even though I have followed your pedantic dickweedery, you will still say that my atheism requires faith.

Polygeekery

BUG! Quoting a quoted quote breaks quoting of the quotes. @codinghorror said that we should quote anything we reply to in context, this is a serious barrier to conversation. Not as large a barrier as fucking infinite scrolling, but still a pretty large fucking barrier.

Now, the only question is, is this bug ASDESIGNED, or WONTFIX? Maybe it will just be filed under USERSCANGOFUCKTHEMSELVES or THISISMYFUCKINGWORLD,SUCKIT?

darkmatter

@Intercourse said:

ASDESIGNED

The quoted quote or nested quote or whatever has been broken by design since day one.

Polygeekery

@darkmatter said:

The quoted quote or nested quote or whatever has been broken by design since day one.

For some reason, pagination seems to be broken on this forum also. This is a serious bug. What kind of fucking idiot would not include that as a feature?

Arantor

@Intercourse said:

So then, I do not believe in god. As many have said before. But somehow, even though I have followed your pedantic dickweedery, you will still say that my atheism requires faith.

So, you do not believe in god. Is that an absence of belief on your part (indicating agnosticism due to absence of belief) or is it an active presence of belief in the non-existence of a god? (indicating atheism) The two are not equal.

"I do not believe in x" is not the same as "I believe in no x".

Best analogy yet: what is darkness? Is darkness anti-light or is darkness absence of light? Darkness and anti-light are not the same thing.

darkmatter

@Intercourse said:

For some reason, pagination seems to be broken on this forum also. This is a serious bug. What kind of fucking idiot would not include that as a feature?

The freedom to paginate should clearly have been included in the Constitution.

darkmatter

You all keep giving 2 options to a question with more than 2 answers. Neither option applies.

tl;dr version of s.m. - I have hypothesized that no god exists. I have thus far gotten no conclusive experimental evidence of god(s) existence. Therefore my hypothesis remains valid.

Fortunately it is as self-fulfilling a prophecy as believing in god is... that is, until we die. Then I get my conclusive evidence when I either go to hell (or any of the other fates that non-believers befall according to whatever religion) or cease to have existence. Unfortunately my hypothesis will be proven correct when I am unable to get the proof. Which is itself a reason for some people to go through the motions of believing in god(s) whether they believe in them or not... the old, what do I have to lose theory.

Arantor

Actually I presented two options that represent two points on a spectrum between complete falsehood and certain fact, subject to an individual's level of trust in the accuracy of the information (i.e. opinion elevated to the point of being a belief), but in any case they aren't absolute.y

You have no evidence a god exists. You have no evidence suggesting a god does not exist either. You have no evidence in either direction so yes your hypothesis remains valid, but trending towards agnosticism since you have no evidence supporting either direction, therefore you have an absence of belief in either direction by definition.

darkmatter

@Arantor said:

You have no evidence in either direction

Unless I'm counting things that people had been attributing to god(s) that have since been clearly disproven. In which case I'm way up there in proof against.

Polygeekery

@Arantor said:

You have no evidence a god exists. You have no evidence suggesting a god does not exist either. You have no evidence in either direction so yes your hypothesis remains valid, but trending towards agnosticism since you have no evidence supporting either direction, therefore you have an absence of belief in either direction by definition.

I have to believe, just so I do not hate all of mankind, that you realize that proving a negative is an impossibility. If you believe as such, then you realize that the fact that you cannot disprove something, does not provide it with any validity.

I cannot conclusively prove that there are no polka-dotted elephants roaming around Antarctica, but that does not require any sort of ***ism.

You want to have your cake and eat it too. Life, and rationality, does not work that way. If I come up with any hypothesis that would require the proof of a negative to disprove, then it is bullshit. Plain and simple.

Yes, you are correct that there is no way to prove a negative. But the burden of proof does not lie on those who do not believe. It lies on those who do. As there is no way to prove a negative, but limitless ways to prove a positive, where is your proof?

Arantor

Of course it's an impossibility. But you can have evidence to support a position - even a negative one - without having to find a total burden of proof. We have no evidence to support the existence of a god. We have no evidence not supporting the existence of a god either. No burden of proof either way, simply a decent lack of evidence supporting either argument.

Me, I have an absence of belief in either direction simply because I have no evidence on which to base that opinion. No proof required. Thank you, good night, you've been a tremendous contestant.

Polygeekery

Tell me how you would disprove Bertrand's teapot then. If you have no way to come up with evidence either way (negative positions are almost never able to be proven), then the common assumption has to be false. The only commonality here is god, so god is false.

'Nuf said.

darkmatter

It's mostly a matter of semantics and definitions here.
There are plenty of objections to Bertrand Russell's teapot as an argument, a lot of which just say "nuh uh it doesn't count cuz teapots aren't gods" or something to that effect. Some objections are more plausibly rooted and could be brought out by someone here to argue that specific point, much to everyone's chagrin.

But again it all comes down to whether we have to have faith in something even if it is that there is nothing, by the religious definition of faith:

strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof

And as I've stated, and plenty in this topic has proven, it is simply not fathomable for them to get their heads around the idea that we could have zero spiritual apprehension involved in our models of the universe.

Polygeekery

@darkmatter said:

And as I've stated, and plenty in this topic has proven, it is simply not fathomable for them to get their heads around the idea that we could have zero spiritual apprehension involved in our models of the universe.

That is the phrasing I was looking for. If you have faith, it implies apprehension and the possibility of doubt. I have absolutely no doubt or apprehension that my viewpoint is correct. I do not require faith for my viewpoint.

But, if there were a booming voice from the sky, or any other shred of evidence that my viewpoint were wrong, I would reconsider it and possibly change it. Those who have religion and faith do so in spite of the preponderance of evidence that their viewpoint is demonstrably false.

dkf

@xaade said:

If I walked into a doctor's office and told the doctor that I wanted to remove my arm. It's my body, my flesh, and I can do what I want.

The doctor would say that it is a particularly dangerous elective surgery that would violate his oath to do no harm, and would reject my petition.

Not necessarily. They might also think that it's better that they did it instead of having you take your arm off yourself. There are real cases where this has happened. Now, I might well agree that wanting to take your arm off is mad, but I don't think it should be illegal, and I would rather that it be done by a qualified professional in as safe a fashion as possible instead of by fooling around with a rusty chainsaw in a back alley.

This happens to be strongly consistent with my position on other matters discussed in this thread (and others besides). Overall harm minimisation requires keeping as much legal as possible, but regulating the ways in which they can be done.

Maciejasjmj

@darkmatter said:

It's mostly a matter of semantics and definitions here.

And we can settle on that.

Besides, even if a god exists, it would probably be way too difficult for a human mind to comprehend him, given that he was the designer of the whole universe. Whatever... it would be, it would probably be defined in terms that make quantum mechanics look like child's play.

And even then, why should he care about human beings? In the scale of the universe, we're not even ants - the universe is about as concerned with humans as a human is concerned with subatomic particles when talking about countries.

dkf

@Maciejasjmj said:

In the scale of the universe, we're not even ants

And ants are even smaller! When will this madness end?!

boomzilla

@PJH said:

@boomzilla - are we going for DUPLICATE or WONTFIX....? ;)

Just trying to keep Doing It Wrong.

boomzilla

@ben_lubar said:

those badges

Oh. I get it now. Then the goal is INVALID, of course. Always set a stretch goal.

boomzilla

@darkmatter said:

There are plenty of objections to Bertrand Russell's teapot as an argument, a lot of which just say "nuh uh it doesn't count cuz teapots aren't gods" or something to that effect.

Whatever you think about the teapot doesn't matter. You're still talking about what is or isn't in solar orbits. Like whether there is or isn't a god.

Onyx

Fucking hell people, you're giving me a headache. I think you redefined the terms at least three times each.

Ok, let's see if we can pin down at least one thing. Based on the description, tell me what definition I fall under:

I am confident, within reason, that given all the available evidence there is no such thing as a theistic god. I do however believe that a deistic god is so loosely defined that there is no way to prove either position, and since it bears little to no relevance to anything, I don't really care either way.

So what? I'm an atheist that's agnostic towards deism? Close enough?

Filed under: Given the level of pedantic dickweedery on this forum, probably not

Nagesh

I am also getting headache but that is being caused mostly by insomnica.

boomzilla

@Onyx said:

I think you redefined the terms at least three times each.

It's like FizzBuzz all over again.

darkmatter

@boomzilla said:

FizzBuzz

Anyone know why it seems like every example solution you see to the FizzBuzz problem explicitly checks the loop index mod 15 to print FizzBuzz instead of just printing Fizz for mod 3 = 0 and Buzz for mod 5 = 0 and letting the FizzBuzz handle itself when both mod 3 = 0 and mod 5 = 0?? I suppose the reason is for explicit readability, but in this case I'd prefer to do it the shorter way and just put a comment at the top of the code explaining why/how it works.

pre-post edit: nevermind, I found someone else that did it the shorter way.

xaade

@dkf said:

Not necessarily. They might also think that it's better that they did it instead of having you take your arm off yourself. There are real cases where this has happened. Now, I might well agree that wanting to take your arm off is mad, but I don't think it should be illegal, and I would rather that it be done by a qualified professional in as safe a fashion as possible instead of by fooling around with a rusty chainsaw in a back alley.

This happens to be strongly consistent with my position on other matters discussed in this thread (and others besides). Overall harm minimisation requires keeping as much legal as possible, but regulating the ways in which they can be done.

But that's just a step back is all.

Before the legalization, the public agrees that it is a bad thing to remove your arm. A person disagrees and performs the operation themselves. For clarity, let's remove the danger and say they are experts at it and perform it perfectly. The public didn't want to stop it because it is dangerous, but because they disagreed with the notion of doing it at all.

Now, let's say someone makes the argument that we need to allow it and regulate it because it is dangerous and people will hurt themselves if we don't provide a legal method.

Now, the public has had some weird change of heart. We can suppose they still disagree but they logically see a problem with making it illegal. Alternatively, we could suppose that they now agree with allowing it, but it's still dangerous and they need to regulate it. Either way, it doesn't matter anymore. It is now legal.

However, now that it is legal but with restrictions, what if someone doesn't agree with the restrictions of the law. Maybe the law says you have to show you aren't insane, or maybe it says you have to go to a specialist. Whatever regulation will have a restriction. Said, person takes matters into their own hands and does as before, remove the arm illegally.

Now let's apply the same argument as before. We have to legalize it, or people will take matters into their own hands and do it themselves in a dangerous way.

So, we have two options that I can see. Stand up for the new legal restrictions and say it stops here. Alternatively, agree that we have to uphold our argument and progressively make every method of removing arms legal, even the dangerous ones. However, that presents the paradox.

If the intent is to provide safe means with the argument that people will seek out unsafe means, the two parts of that idea are at odds with each other.

I don't have a way to solve the paradox. Therefore, I currently hold the opinion that such an argument is not sound. Whereas the parts of the argument are valid, the conclusion is not sound.

dkf

@xaade said:

I don't have a way to solve the paradox.

The easiest way is to stop attempting to force your narrow-minded moral fascism on everyone else. Just sayin'

xaade

It's not moral facism.
I'm simply saying that the argument is flawed.

The reality of the discussion is that you and I draw the line at different points, for our own reasons.

The argument of "They're just going to do it anyway." is a wash. It is a logical paradox and not a good argument.

Throw it out, bring me something else.

dkf

@xaade said:

The argument of "They're just going to do it anyway." is a wash. It is a logical paradox and not a good argument.

Well, the evidence is that that's what happens. Whether or not you like it.

I'd rather things be kept mainly legal, and so regulate-able for safety and to avoid problems with fraud, assault, etc. And there's really good scientific evidence (to wrench things back somewhat on topic) that contraceptives do not cause excessive suffering (and cannot do; there are no nerves). Similarly, while I might not like abortion, I would not ban it: it is far better to keep it regulated and legal so that other problem — problems that we know will exist from historical records that show that they did exist in the past — are avoided.

I don't think any of the above will convince you. My argument is from evidence, not from an a priori stance on what is right or wrong.

boomzilla

@dkf said:

And there's really good scientific evidence (to wrench things back somewhat on topic) that contraceptives do not cause excessive suffering (and cannot do; there are no nerves).

Aside from, like, maybe cancer.

@dkf said:

My argument is from evidence, not from an a priori stance on what is right or wrong.

Somewhat. But legal vs illegal does change behavior, and it's reasonable to weigh the risks depending on the harm. And you end up with crazy people who think drugs should be legal but large sodas should not.

DrakeSmith

@Intercourse said:

If you have faith, it implies apprehension and the possibility of doubt.

When it comes to religion, you have this wrong. Those with real faith in $DEITY have NO apprehension doubt despite the lack of evidence. Note I did not say "despite evidence to the contrary"

@Intercourse said:

Those who have religion and faith do so in spite of the preponderance of evidence that their viewpoint is demonstrably false.

Evidence against the existence of $DEITY? If you have that, you're the first. Or more likely, you're being horribly close minded, and assuming that those who believe are stupid makes you sound bigoted. And you're trying to force your thoughts on the matter on them, something that I find many who share your views claim as a reason they hate religion.

darkmatter

@DrakeSmith said:

apprehension

ap·pre·hen·sion
ˌapriˈhenSHən
noun
1.anxiety or fear that something bad or unpleasant will happen.
2.understanding; grasp.

In the phrase, Spiritual Apprehension, the term apprehension is referring to definition #2 above.

Edit: Yes it is interesting that this word is almost an antonym for itself....
And that definition is directed at both you and @Intercourse because it doesn't look like either of you were using it correctly.

xaade

It's not a right or wrong stance.

Ok, if you regulate abortion to make it illegal after 6 months, what will the mother do at 7 months? Won't there be someone that will just "do it anyway".

The argument that they "do it anyway", shouldn't be used to determine whether something should be legal or not, because it's just going to push the limits back some, and then we'll have the same argument when someone wants to go past the established limits. It doesn't place a firm stance on anything, and is entirely subjective to the whims of emotion.

Polygeekery

@DrakeSmith said:

Evidence against the existence of $DEITY? If you have that, you're the first. Or more likely, you're being horribly close minded, and assuming that those who believe are stupid makes you sound bigoted. And you're trying to force your thoughts on the matter on them, something that I find many who share your views claim as a reason they hate religion.

Evidence against a generic $DEITY? No, I do not have that. No one does. Proving a negative and all of that, it is not possible.

There is a preponderance of evidence that the Christian god as portrayed in the Bible is a false belief though. At least as the Bible says, as large portions of it are demonstrably false.

antiquarian

@Intercourse said:

There is a preponderance of evidence that the Christian god as portrayed in the Bible is a false belief though.

The pagans agree with you about this, so it's really irrelevant to the argument about atheism here.

Polygeekery

@apapadimoulis said:

I mean, it certainly raised awareness to the general public about corporate personhood, but it was really tangential. You can't deny someone's rights just because they're a member of a group.

Oh no, no, you're Google Inc., and these buildings are owned by a fictitious corporate entity. The fourth amendment only applies to people, so we're just gonna come inside and look on all those servers there.

I agree with you there. I would say most sane people would. Where people differ on such issues is where to draw the line. For me, a corporation absolutely has a right to privacy, due process and a certain amount of freedom of speech, etc. My line is well before we get to the point that a corporation has freedom of religion or that corporate speech is extended to being able to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign contributions.

When you give a corporation the ability to spend limitless amounts of money on political campaign contributions, you have just completely fucked over every real citizen of the USA.

Polygeekery

@antiquarian said:

The pagans agree with you about this, so it's really irrelevant to the argument about atheism here.

In the USA, if we talk about disproving god, it is a safe assumption that we are talking about disproving the Christian god.

antiquarian

Sure, but my point is that you're just getting started. There are thousands of others to disprove.

Polygeekery

@antiquarian said:

Sure, but my point is that you're just getting started. There are thousands of others to disprove.

"I contend 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." ...Stephen F Roberts

Bort

Maybe our entire concept of law is backward.

We're defining things in terms of what people shouldn't be allowed to do. We should define them in terms of what people must do and just leave it at that.

People must drive on the correct side of the road.
People must pay taxes.
People must have jobs.
People must steal.
People must set fire to municipal buildings.
People must have abortions before the third trimester.

Problem solved.

You're welcome.

Arantor

Which side is the correct side of the road?

How much tax?

Can people move between jobs?

etc.

antiquarian

Historically, gods from other religions were either incorporated into Catholicism (which for over 1000 years was the only game in town) as saints where possible, or made into variants of the Devil where not. One could reasonably conclude from that that Catholics at least at one time did believe in other gods. In any case, Christians do not necessarily have the same reasons for not believing in other gods as you would. Specifically, you do not have a holy book that tells you not to.

In any case, the pagan agrees with you about the Christian god, but you are not a pagan, so your work is not done. At a minimum, you would have to demonstrate that your case against the Christian god also applies to the gods of other religions.

Filed under: Can I have a pedantic dickweed badge now?

Arantor

They're all aliens. The dude on TV with the ridiculous hair says so.

apapadimoulis

@Intercourse said:

where to draw the line. For me, a corporation absolutely has a right to privacy, due process and a certain amount of freedom of speech, etc.

Who decides the line? The way McCain-Feingold had it, FEC bureaucrats could act arbitrarily (and capriciously) to determine what is and isn't legal political speech. They were the thought police.

@Intercourse said:

When you give a corporation the ability to spend limitless amounts of money on political campaign contributions, you have just completely fucked over every real citizen of the USA.

Citizens United has nothing to do with campaign contributions. Those are already, and have already been regulated. McCain-Feingold banned political speech.

I like my guns, and if I want to tell the country that Candidate X is a gun grabber, my only vehicle is to join forces with a group of other gun people (i.e. the NRA). Why should that be illegal? Aside from protecting the ruling class from the little people?

dkf

@boomzilla said:

And you end up with crazy people who think drugs should be legal but large sodas should not.

Yeah, well there are daft people all over the place. (On the other hand, why should I have to buy a large soda if all I want is a small one? Sometimes I'm just not very thirsty. [spoiler]And if I was going to ban anything as Grand Dictator Of The World, it would be all cola because I think it's disgusting. And button mushrooms; how the hell does anyone like those? But I seem to be in a small minority with those.[/spoiler])

dkf

@antiquarian said:

Historically, gods from other religions were either incorporated into Catholicism (which for over 1000 years was the only game in town) as saints where possible, or made into variants of the Devil where not. One could reasonably conclude from that that Catholics at least at one time did believe in other gods. In any case, Christians do not necessarily have the same reasons for not believing in other gods as you would. Specifically, you do not have a holy book that tells you not to.

And there's a lot of religious practice that feels a lot like worshiping various saints as demigods. Oh, they're obviously just saints, but squint a little and it looks suspiciously polytheistic.

Filed under: the old ways never died, they just changed the labels