51. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121113 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 1:17 am

Well Greyman, if you really and honestly have seen the pink unicorn then you are right. Man! I was so like you. Always eager to bring in "the pink unicorn" or "the celestial teapot" to win arguments with other opponents. The truth is, I was wrong. So Wrong!

52. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121110 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 1:13 am

God does exist. To ask- Can we touch/smell/fell/see him is a tricky question. Most of us think it term of moving around in space-time as a way to get from one experience to another. What if that is not enough?
I can't direct you to a place where God sits so that you can talk to him.

53. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121107 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 1:09 am

Your materialistic prejudices are showing through.

54. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121105 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 1:06 am

I understand your dilemma.

I am a colour blind person and when people tell me about something being a shade of green or blue I find it tough to understand what it means. But I have to trust them nonetheless. I guess that is what it is like with the God thing. You people have not experienced it and hence are skeptical like how I am about colours. I guess you'll have to trust me based on how honest an individual I am generally in life. But I'm hopeful that God will prove himself to you. If only you were open-minded enough to entertain thoughts about him and let yourself think in ways that you wouldn't otherwise have done.

55. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121100 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 12:58 am

Well I can't show it like how I may be able to show you the Taj Mahal. Its not something I know to be residing in some part of our universe. Its not like that. Like how we are aware of reality, we can be aware of it. I can't direct you to look in some direction and show you god.

56. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121094 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 12:48 am

Red is just a "thought"?

You say- "it's a wave of light with a certain frequency, your brain evolved to distinguish it in a certain way we now name red"-

And this is not a thought? Physical reality percieved in qualia is real but qualia is not?

Well the meta quality is something I know like how I know "red". If your how's-a-ma-gotcha is real and you've seen it, then you should kinda understand what I mean by "meta" when I talk about God.

57. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121090 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 12:33 am

Thats the problem. The evidence for God is not like evidence for "the earth being round". You need physical evidence to prove physical claim. But God is not like that. God has this meta quality to it. Trying to describe it to you would be like describing "red" to a blind person. You will get the evidence. Just that it won't be of the kind that we can describe using the English language. Does "red" need evidence for its existance? It is its own evidence.

58. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121086 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 12:25 am

Well I don't know why he talked to me. If he thinks I'm special, then maybe I am. But I don't claim that. I don't have any super-human powers. But yes I understand your dilemma, why should you believe me? you will be convinced, I hope, after we talk for a while.

59. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121083 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 12:17 am

righton, I can understand from where you get the courage to scoff at people's beliefs. To think that God talking to me is like "me talking to myself" is the assumption you have to take, inorder to keep feeling certain about what you believe.

I'm not impressed. But do talk to me. You seem to be the only one here with an open mind to angage me and I commend you for it.

60. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121081 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 12:10 am

sorry... was having lunch.. I'm in India you see. Sorry.

61. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121080 by the_assayer on February 3, 2008 at 12:09 am

Well my hunch is he will speak only to me. Maybe because he thinks of me as someone who knows the atheistic side of things. So probably my mission is to convince you all of his existance. Anyway I'm not sure about that. He didn't give me any instructions. As for Kardashovel's claim, I'm skeptical. I think he is wrong, like how most people are wrong about what God is. I'm not certain what the God I talked to is like, but I'm suspicious of others when they say they have spoken to him too. I feel like they are lying for their personal benifit. In the past probably some person did speak to God like how I did. But a lot of charlatans have lied about speaking to God and used it to control people for their selfish needs. So I'm not gonna take Kardashovel seriously unless my God tells me he is OK and not lying.

62. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121075 by the_assayer on February 2, 2008 at 11:54 pm

No names. But I think its Krishna. Because I was reading the bhagavat gita a week before I had my first call from him. So I wont say I'm sure of his name. But he also commended me for being a vegetarian all my life even though I was an atheist for the most part of it. So I'm guessing it could not be Jesus.

63. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121074 by the_assayer on February 2, 2008 at 11:51 pm

As I said, when you hear a voice that is completely alien to you suddenly out of nowhere, then you have to beleive that it is not just thought up. It was not a human voice like any I have heard. I can only use metaphors to describe it. It was like big chunky things moving past each other, like the "swoosh!" sound you get when a train goes past another.

He told me that I'm not to feel guilty that I've rejected him for so long. He said that you don't need to know God inorder to be good, but you need God to feel happier in a world which offers not much hope. He has talked only twice so far and I don't pray or talk to him before he starts talking to me. The few times I've tried he did not respond, so I wait for the next time I hear from him.

64. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121070 by the_assayer on February 2, 2008 at 11:36 pm

Ok... I know I talked to God because I was hearing a voice unlike mine and unlike anyone's i've heard on TV. So I can be reasonably certain that it was God. He told me a great deal about myself. About how I've had to live a miserable life upto that point because I feared I would find evidence for God someday. I so know that to be true now.
Please ask questions. It makes it easier for me to give you my evidence.

65. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121064 by the_assayer on February 2, 2008 at 11:18 pm

Kardashovel, you're lying. Only I have talked to God personally. Everyone here will come to know that once they cross-examine me. I have PROOF!.

66. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121058 by the_assayer on February 2, 2008 at 11:01 pm

Ok here's my challenge(please please reply, someone)...

You can cross-examine my claim and you will come to know that I'm saying the truth(about speaking to God) and Kardashovel is lying. The PROOF for that will be that my testimonial is more evidenced than Kardashovel's as you will notice after you cross-examining me.

67. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121054 by the_assayer on February 2, 2008 at 10:50 pm

Ok... I guess everyone's chicken to not be engaging my claim. Cross-examine me if you have the gutts! Humph!

68. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #121048 by the_assayer on February 2, 2008 at 10:18 pm

I've spoken to God too.

Cross-examine me! Upto it?!!

69. 'Irrational Atheist' trounces God-deniers

Comment #118712 by the_assayer on January 30, 2008 at 9:39 pm

I get the impression that becomethearrow is faking it. Anyone else with me on this one?



-Back to my hole now.

70. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78242 by the_assayer on October 12, 2007 at 8:33 am

To Dianelos-

God theory is an ontological theory, but not like naturalism is. Sure naturalism discovers ontological truth, but thats not its main purpose. Naturalistic theories are mainly tools used to connect measurables(ontology verifiable). Newtons law of gravitation seeks to form a pattern between measurables like mass and distance. The theory only claims for relational validity not for ontological validity. In other words, gravitational laws don't have to "exist", they just need to "funtion". And all the ontological claims within the theory are observable. There are ofcourse contrvertial theories like string theory with its 11 dimensions, but its controvertial for this very same reason. Its ontological claims have not been verified.

But God is not such a theory. God is a purely ontological proposition, mostly inspired from abductive reasoning. It is important that we do apply better standards to verify God's existance without which God can only be considered as a contingent possibility.

71. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #78232 by the_assayer on October 12, 2007 at 8:08 am

Dianelos, here's my problem.


What standards do you apply to figure what is true supernaturally? Naturalism is verifiable through observation. We know that earth is round from observation. We know that the Sun exists, through observation. What standard decides what is real and what is not in the supernatural realm?
I'm not ruling out the contingent possiblilty of there being a God. Anything conceivable is contingently possible. That way your mother may even be a vampire... who knows? :) ... But we cannot pass judgements based on just something being a possibility, can we? So now we have to talk about the "necessary" existance of God. WE need to show that God is necessarily true.

So what standards can we apply to an existance claim in the supernatural world? Is abductive reasoning enough? "The world looks designed ,if we assume a God the world makes perfect sense" - Is this a valid standard that we can apply? I don't think so.
Consider the following case. "A mountain looks like a giant mole hill, a supersized mole could have created a mountain, so it makes perfect sense to beleive that a supersized mole exists"- Is this all that we need to believe in giant moles? That way we'll be living in a world full of giant invisible beings. Adbuctive reasoning has its limits expecially when used in context where no apriori knowledge is available( in this case our universe, we don't have any other universe to compare it with). Abductive logic is not flawless and it serves no purpose when used to prove an existance claim as witnessed in my mole-mountain scenario.

What other standard can we apply to the supernatural realm? Is subjective experience proof enough? Consider the following case, a schizophrenic patient reports to his/her doctor that he sees little people walking around in his room. Is this a good standard to validate the existance of little people? I cannot be sure that there are no little people- contingently, its possible, but not "necessarily", atleast not untill we have further objective(agreeable) evidence.


Also how good is an explanation like "God did it" anyway? You don't explain what God is, or how God can hold his extraordinary powers, or even what the powers themselves mean? If God is what set the speed of light to the value we know, how did he do that? On the whole the "GOD" hypothesis fails short of giving an answer. It only gives the name of the answer- "GOD" , the rest is just "something-somehow" talk. Worst of all, God is defined as unknowable, which suggests that we might as well stop searching for answers to the Big questions because we will never know it.


Straying a bit off topic-


I've seen you argue using consciousness as a means to tie in loose strands and get God back into the picture. Have you read about Benjamin Libet's work on consciousness? He basically demonstrated that test subjects became consciousness of their decision to move their fingers(or flap their wrists) only a fraction of a second after the relevant brain area had already sarted to formulate and carry out the decision. Though we still don't understand much about consciousness, we do know that tinkering with our brain can have big affects on our personality, cognition and even subjectivity(Eg: stimulating the brain with electrodes cause subjects to hallucinate and see things). Libet alo found that once the subjects were consious they were able to veto their decision to move their arms, suggesting that consciousness may still have a useful purpose in decision making. However if we were to include these insights into our picture of a consious God, does he not appear to be "governed" by something else?


This also brings me to another related problem. How can God have a mind anyway? If he can manage to have a mind and be conscious even without a brain(since he is outside our material world), why can't there be a small pink invisible unicorn living in your fridge? in other words, if we can give God a human-like mind just like that, why can't I give the quality of unicornness to the entity living inside the fridge although a fridge is too small to contain one and something that is invisible is not pink(normally). Again we run into scenario where any conceivable entity however impossible by natural stantards will have to be believed in. Acceptable?


So I guess it all comes dowm to what standards would we want to chose inorder to be able to decide what qualifies as truth and what doesn't in the supernatural world. Should we not stick to best possible standards, namely emperical and thereby be limited to only "naturalism" however depriving it is on our imagination.?

72. Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously

Comment #78118 by the_assayer on October 11, 2007 at 11:58 pm

"Even then there is little doubt that to assume a religious model of reality is conducive to a better quality of life than the alternative. So if both a religious and a non-religious model of reality are reasonable only a masochist would prefer the non-religious model of a "hideous" reality. " - Dianelos.

Is there some standard by which you call the non-religious model "hideous". Are you claiming that it is a hideous model for everyone? Apparently there are a lot of people on this site, including me, who find that our quality of thought and life has been improved greatly by imbibing principles of skepticism and a higher standard of inquiry. The hideousness that you refer is not a 'fact' about the non-religious model.

When trying to argue in defense of a religious model, it helps not to say stuff like "Religion is cool, atheism sucks!". It simply isn't a very good argument.

73. I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer

Comment #77850 by the_assayer on October 10, 2007 at 11:10 pm

http://www.stockhouse.com/mediascan/news.asp?newsid=9319664


Here's the article I think the Flea is refering to. Anyway, I see nothing in there that amounts to a "refutation". Its mostly saying that venters is claiming more that what has been demonstrated in the labs. This a serious problem though and it would be nice if Josh could post the article I give above, so that readers may get a better picture.

Flea you say -

"""
1) Why did this site post the original spin in the first place and not the refutation?

2) What does RD think? It is after all his field of expertise. Why did he not warn us about the false claims being made?

"""

You seem a bit paranoid here. Don't be so judgemental; not so soon atleast.

Also, does being an evolutionary biologist make you an expert in artificial life synthesis? Anyone?

74. Teacher: I was fired, said Bible isn't literal

Comment #77071 by the_assayer on October 8, 2007 at 11:17 am

Flea you write:

""I see Coel. So you are changing the argument. Not only is the elephant invisible but there is no physical aspect to it at all.""

There is nothing wrong with the idea of an invisible elephant which does not have any physical attribute because it exists "supernaturally". We cannot apply any known natural standard in deciding on how real such an entity can possiblly be.

God is defined as having personality, as being its own cause, as having a mind(capable of thinking) even when it is not made of matter(ie no brain). If you can assign all these qualities to God without describing how God can possibly hold them, why can't we assign the quality of being an elephant to our little entity inside the fridge even though it is invisible and considerably small? You see, supernaturally our little elephant can be both existant and yet not have any of those obvious observable features of one, just like God(human-like features and yet not observable)

So now how do you prove that no such elephant can exist?


As an aside, we are talking about contingent reality here. In other words about stuff which exists accidentally. We are not talking about the "necessary existance" of God or the invisible elephant.
Anything conceivable is contigently possible. Like, it is possible that an 80 foot monster lives under the earths surface. However, this monster is not necessary real, as we have no evidence to support that claim.

So its important that you show God to be necessarily true, failing which your claim can only be treated as a contingent possibility.

I don't think atheists can deny that God is contingently possible. Its the idea that God is necessarily true that we find unconvincing.

Thoughts?

75. The Rise of Atheist America

Comment #68846 by the_assayer on September 8, 2007 at 11:34 pm

"Arrogant deniel of God"?.... "Condemnation of believers"? -BEAT THAT STRAW MAN! HARDER! HARDER!

If only these jounalists could just get their facts straight.... Would be saving us a day's worth of "pointing out misrepresentations".

76. We need a more intelligent religion debate

Comment #68540 by the_assayer on September 7, 2007 at 1:14 pm

"Atheism is just the rejection of God, of any supernatural power, they will say, it entails no necessary belief in historical progress. This is disingenuous as far as its latest apostles go. The Graylings', Dawkins' and Hitchens' have a moral mission: to improve the world by working towards the eradication of religion."- Hobson

Well actually who's not on a moral mission? Isn't Hobson trying to 'improve the world' by calling for better debate? The tricky word here is "eradicate". It gives the impression that Dawkins et al are determined not to engage in debate with the oppostion, which we know is false. Also, there is no "forceful" deconversion, not even political force. Its only an academic issue and only those who want to scrutinise or argue for their beliefs need to get involved in the tussle.

77. The smallest signs of retreat

Comment #68530 by the_assayer on September 7, 2007 at 12:46 pm

Religious belief, here, seems to be like the technologist dictum "never say never". It seems like there are quite a number of believers who beleive, because it seems so poetically rich to "believe". Maybe, for them, the fact that its "motivational" to believe alone makes it worth believing?

Are we atheists barking up the wrong tree? Maybe its their "admiration for the possibility of God" and not their "belief in God" that we need to address. In my view it seems likely that many believers think of themselves as the on the side of "openness" and atheists on the side of "closedness", "rigidity" etc.
I'm reminded of Feynman's words- "All thats possible is not happening"...."Whats important is not possibility but ACTUALITY". If we try hard, we might be able to find evidence pointing in favour of a few or one of these so called "possibilities". Thats how we start to build a picture of whats actually happening.
This is what the scientific method is all about- ways to find out if something is "happening" or not. It is not a limiting force as one might think. Infact as we weed-out from the landscape of possibilities we reach an area more fertile with newer "possibilities"-possibilities that would not have been accessible to us had we not decided to be skeptical.
Would explaining how the scientific method works and how it is more empowering and envigorating help to win the hearts of this group of believers?

78. The smallest signs of retreat

Comment #68469 by the_assayer on September 7, 2007 at 8:20 am

I would not call this article "utter drivel". Surely there is a genuine lack in her understanding of Dawkin's position, like for instance the sense in which "virus" is used( as a meme),but she does bring up an important aspect about the new atheistic movement- the aspect of "policy". Politically atheism should merge with secularism, something that rarely gets mentioned by Richard et al. In other words, it is easy for a believer to interpret the movement as politically oppressive towards relgion. There should be an attempt to explain the difference between "criticising" religion and "oppressing" it.



"But in the process he got very tangled up trying to justify his comments that bringing a child up with a religious faith is akin to a "milder form of sexual abuse" "- Bunting

This is clearly a distorting Dawkins' views. His point is that Religious indoctrination is a "case" of "child abuse". In other words he is trying to say that we should treat such action as "abusive" to the child. The word abuse may have common sexual connotations, but as a literary person its not excusable that she overlooked such an obvious mis-interpretation. "...akin to a milder form of sexual abuse.." seems like a desparate attempt to frame Dawkins as saying, " Religious parents are like "mild" child molesters".

In my opinion, Dawkins should drop the "Religion is abusive" slogan. Politically it wont work. To reach beleiving parents and to convince them about the immorality of such indoctrination, we need to be more patient and communicative. Moreover, such political pleading should not be done through some twenty second sound-bite where it becomes all too confusing and provides easy fodder for such unresearched and reactionary reviews.

79. Like any half-decent atheist, I'm fond of a bit of religion

Comment #67838 by the_assayer on September 5, 2007 at 1:35 am

I think the key issue here is "belief". Beliefs are what we base our judgements on. And the question to be asked is "Are we willing to make judgements just because something(here God) is "possible". Is it not possible, atleast slightly, that your "mother" is a blood thirsty vampire? So are you gonna go "Van Helsing" on her based on 'just' that feeling?

I think we ought to separate stuff that affect our judgement from stuff that we do, just because its fun or because its habitual. For instance, I speak to my Dog, even though I know he doesn't understand what I'm saying. I even do it to my one year old Nephew. Also, if someone close to me were to die, I might want to have an imaginery conversation with the person once in a while or might find it hard to resist thinking how that person would feel about this or that. Rationalism doesn't require that we be anything other than Human. But we need reason and critical thought(science) to help us get a grip over "reality".

Having said all that, God believing and other similar magical ways of thinking ARE judgemental and hence it is important to challenge these beliefs. But if people can cleverly choose what to be irrational about, then it would not necesserily be bad. Because it'll be done only because its fun or because its very hard to curb that sort of behavior. In other words, intentional irrationality should not 'always' be a problem.


There might be "richness" in religious experience, even if there is little actuality to it.

80. In God we doubt

Comment #67427 by the_assayer on September 3, 2007 at 11:59 am

Detox, I don't know about you, but I don't believe that God does NOT exist. Thats the Strong atheist position. The weak atheistic position, or normal atheism is the belief that the evidence is not yet in to conclude positively that there IS a God. It is impossible to prove a negative. Thats not the way evidence works.

For instance, I cannot produce evidence that proves that the earth is not flat. I can only prove that the Earth is round. The flat earth model cannot be falsified by evidence. Its our need to stay logically consistant (ie the earth cannot be round and flat simultaneously) that makes us conclude that the Earth in NOT flat. But thats not the work of "evidence".

Similarly, God's non-existance cannot be proved. It can only be inferred.

To say that there is no God will then have to be based on Faith, never can it be based on evidence.

God is unlikely, is a better philosophical position.

81. In God we doubt

Comment #67268 by the_assayer on September 3, 2007 at 1:56 am

Roach, but nobody's arguing that an impulsive judgement about atheism is RIGHT. Rather the question is, " Is it wise for us to lose that potential reader, just because we in advance are only interested in the sort of reader who is more patient and critical? " In other words, Should we be trying to engage as many as people of as many types as possible?

82. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #67124 by the_assayer on September 2, 2007 at 3:23 am

Hi Mark,

About the quote
"A universe with a God would look quite different from a universe without one. A physics, a biology where there is a God is bound to look different."
Richard Dawkins

I get why you think this statement implies that dawkins should have "known" what a God build universe looks like to make such a comparison.
The reason for the apparent confusion is because its not taken in context. If I remember right, Dawkins used this sentence when he was asked about the evidence for intelligent design in our universe. Dawkins' reply, paraphrased, goes something like this.
"A universe that is run by a God(a personal interventionist one) would not follow the progressively simpler rules of physics or biology. Rather, it would show signs of chaos as we would have a constant fiddling with these patterns, so much so that all semblence of order would be lost." Ofcourse this is what I take from his words. Probably Richard himself can clarify it better for you.

As for the question of design. I'd like to put to the following case.
Don't we require a priori knowledge about God and his Designs for us to infer that our world is infact a designed one...? For Eg. Suppose I had no idea of what a "painter" is and what "paintings" are, and I come across a "watch" while strolling along a beach. If I looked at the watch and said "Ah! A painting, must have been made by a painter!", I would be wrong on two counts. One, I wrongly associated a watch to a painter, and two, I made the assertion that it is a painting even when I did not know what a painting looks like.

Now, lets take the case of a beleiver asserting that our universe is designed. Ofcourse he/she doesn't know what God's designs look like, a priori, and hence to assert that our universe, the only sample avaiable, is designed assumes that we somehow do know what "God must have done". An assertion, that makes one wonder how he/she got to know that.
Let me also add to this point that, not everything "looks" designed. Most natural landmarks are out of shape. There are lots animal species in the wild that are not exactly beautiful or "pleasing to the senses", not to mention the monsters that live and thrive deep under the sea. Not everything that lives is even Benign and harmless(why would God design such wild predators?). The human body itself could use a bit of better design, like the fovea centralis and adjunct situation of the wind and the food pipes. Also lets not forget all the handicapped and autistic children, who would have to be a case of God's deliberate poor design If we are to accept a beleivers premise.




God is said to have created the universe because he has the "power" to do so. But isn't that the laziest explanation? Suppose you asked me, " why is the sky blue", to which I replied "a mysterious and powerful entity named BOOBA is responsible for making the sky look blue", how satisfying is that anwser? Firstly, let me point out that no real explaining has been done. All I did was to say a name BOOBA( did not define it, please note) and said that Booba has "powers"( In other words Booba can bring forth the result "SOMEHOW") and said that Booba is behind the sky's colour being blue. But If I were to accept the premise which is that, BOOBA has POWERS that i cannot understand, then Its only natural to assume that Booba did it( it would not be an air-tight case but still quite an excusable belief). However, Boobais illdefined and it's powers are arbitrarily assigned without giving details of what enables Booba to have these powers.

Isn't God just like BOOBA?




As long as you are arbitrarily assigning powers onto an undefined entity called "God", you might as well say that the universe was created by a mysterious potato. Because details about God like he is compassionate, all loving and so forth are as relevant to the topic of creation as say the squishiness or gas-forming ability of potatoes.

Aren't words like omnipotent, omniscient etc used to say its all "magic" ? Also, assuming such an omniscient or omnipotent being to be existant does not stop us from asking the infinitely regressive question of "what made that?". If beleivers are contend with "God made himself" (an assertion that requires us to give up on our notion of causality), why aren't they happy with "the universe created itself"?

Ok I should stop now. hope to hear your response.

83. The importance of doubt

Comment #66672 by the_assayer on August 30, 2007 at 9:57 pm

""Dawkins claims, however, that religious believers deserve neither respect nor rights in any circumstances.""



Not true. He only said, as far as I can see, that reiligion and religious dogma should not be given a free ride anymore. He has never said that religious people should be denied their right to beleive. The act of criticising believers and their beleifs should not be confused with dogmatic enforcement of atheism. Unlike the Christian right, there is no political atheistic movement seeking to ban all religion and curb people's freedom. The "imagine no religion" banners seen on this site are not covert instructions telling atheists to rid the world of beleivers. Rather, most atheists here are only interested in a war of ideas and thats how they hope to change the world.

Having said that, I do think Religious(Faith) Schools should be banned, because they try to enforce their dogma onto their pupil and especially try to censor or prohibit any access to alternative views. In a secular school, a child can learn about all religions and also about atheism. He/She should be able to decide better then.

As for, do religious people deserve any respect? Well yes. I do think we should respect their rights. Should we respect their beliefs and actions by default? NO!! Respect should be "earned"!


"""He writes of those "afflicted with the mental virus of faith, and its accompanying gang of secondary infections". The idea of religious believers as disease carriers is not trivial, for it suggests a contrast between the disease and the theoretically healthy body of society, along with the necessity for antidotes."""


When dawkins talks of memes like religion, I wish he could make things a bit more clear. Otherwise, it is far too easy for someone to get the wrong impression. Also, I wish he could make these arguments about the memetic nature of religion without necesserily calling it a disease from the outset. When you start an argument that way, it shuts people like Cornwell off. They get stuck at the level of the gory implications of your analogy and will not understand your position any further. It helps to be a Good-Cop at times. :)


Personally I don't see how a well-tamed religion like the one Cornwall dreams of can become a danger to society. But as an academic subject, relgion can and should always be subject to scrutiny(But, beievers should have their right to believe and defend their beleifs no matter what).

84. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63742 by the_assayer on August 15, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Darwin2. If possible try to read my post #161 as well. Thanks.

85. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63741 by the_assayer on August 15, 2007 at 3:39 pm

darwin2- Referring to your post

""""
Accepting "Anything that happens, happens" is a poor excuse for being lazy and not wanting to take the time to investigate why it happens. If astronomers and other scientists took that position, we would all be living in more ignorance then our society presently lives in now.
"""""

I think you are guilty of being lazy too. You might have read books and done some introspection but that hardly makes your methods rigorous or your conclusions certain.

Your God is a magician. Who just magicked things into existance. Where are the details?? If I asked you "why is the sky blue?" and if you answered back saying "God magicked it to look blue" would that be a sufficient answer? Aren't you taking the easy(lazy?) route to answering the question of how the universe was created?

In other words, isn't "infinite God" another way of saying "answer still falls short of explaining"?

86. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63723 by the_assayer on August 15, 2007 at 2:27 pm

Errr! what??

Steve99- I was not trying to justify the existance of God. I hope you would read my whole post. I was only using a popular definition for God.

87. India's Internal Partition

Comment #63720 by the_assayer on August 15, 2007 at 2:17 pm

HAPPY INDEPENDANCE DAY!! To all Indians on this site. :D

88. Interview with Richard Dawkins

Comment #63716 by the_assayer on August 15, 2007 at 1:59 pm

To darwin2-
Let me explain my position-

"God is defined as that which created our universe." Now, you're only reading that sentence backwards when you say "The universe was created by God." In other words, what you are saying is- "The creator creates". Which is a tautology. You're calling the answer of a question as 'X' and then claiming that 'X' is the answer. NO additional information is provided.

You've forgotten to ask yourself "How can God create universes?" "What is that extra feature in him that makes him capable of doing all this magical stuff?" All you have done so far is to say that God had the intend to make a universe and he made one, just like that!! EVen I have the intend to create universes, but I can't create one. Why not?

Does belief in God help us answer that final question of why we exist? If all we can say is that God magicked the whole universe into existance, doesn't that leave you pondering-
"HOw did he do that???"?

So, here you have people(like you)giving a name(god) to an entity whose features are not understood, whose methods of action are not understood and whose involvement in our world cannot be positively validated.

All of this begs the question, "To what end is all this brouhaha about God?".

89. Scarlet Letter Campaign Update: A Victory

Comment #62316 by the_assayer on August 9, 2007 at 8:43 am

I'm not able to open the "curriculum for baptist schools" article becasue of a 404# error. Is anyone else facing this problem?

90. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61930 by the_assayer on August 7, 2007 at 12:58 pm

OOOPS!! :D

91. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #61915 by the_assayer on August 7, 2007 at 11:39 am

Dianelos Georgoudis -Tell me how does God create consciousness? Why is it that theists think they don't need to answer this? Isn't "God did it!" a cope out? Afterall, what can God not do? And what does presupposing a God tell us about the universe? Does it improve our understanding?

Now, is God conscious? As something that is capable of making deliberate decisions, God may just be conscious. So how did that happen?

God if defined as "Everything", ie the universal set of all qualities thinkable and unthinkable, serves no useful purpose. You cannot say anything about God with certainity. God may save your soul, or maybe not. Maybe the whole soul thing is wrong. Maybe its thetan? Can you say, "NO that can not be right, 'cause God is....." ??

92. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #61904 by the_assayer on August 7, 2007 at 10:50 am

Naturalism is not physicalism per se. Physicalism only implies that the world can be explained by physical phenomena. However, if one looks at quantum mechanics we soon realise that physicalism need not be intuitive. Quantum entanglement speaks of separated particles with opposite spins communicating instantly. This was never thought sensible however this is what you observe. Even the Wave-Particle duality is quite hard to think intuitively about.
Right now, physicists have moved away from intuitive physics to a minimally intuitive one, where the criteria is that the theory built shuold give the right numbers. In other words, the theory should be predicitve. Thats all.

To explain consciousness we will have to come up with a parsimonious hypothesis so that we can test and check its results.

I can claim that we are all living in the Matrix and we all go to the real world once we die. This will be a non-parsimonious claim-untestable. I can argue that since experience is subjective my matrix-theory is valid. Ofcourse nobody can say its impossible. But it is my job to give positve evidence for my claims, if I want myself to be taken seriously. Religion should try to do the same.

93. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #61902 by the_assayer on August 7, 2007 at 10:35 am

"We all use first person data.."- OK. Do we think all first person data is true?? For example, if you close your eyes and imagine a ghost in front of you, does that make it real?

When religion claims that the evidence for God is "first-person" type and not objective, how can unbelievers(by default) be convinced of anything?
People who report UFO's, Chupacabras, Big foots, fairies, ghosts etc in most cases have only first person data to present as evidence. There is enough reason to be skeptical about these claims.

Our brains can be tricked by illusions; we may be subject to halucinations; we can (often) draw the wrong conclusions because of poor data gathering or analysis.
My point is this- We need to investigate claims thoroughly to find natural explanations. There is no such thing as supernatural explanation. A supernatural thing ceases to be an explanation because there is no way of validating its truthiness. An explanation like God is just so "magical". When you say that a magical thing using magical means created the universe, you are offering no useful information that can deepen our understanding.
So first person accounts are important and inescapable, however not incorrigible. We need objective evidence for that. Naturalists may use their first-person intuition and imagination, however experimental results are not subjective and can lend us more certainity.

94. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #61895 by the_assayer on August 7, 2007 at 10:14 am

Dianelos Georgoudis- OK, you tell us-clearly if possible- What is the theological argument for explaining consciousness?

95. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61890 by the_assayer on August 7, 2007 at 10:07 am

...the Chewbacca Defense comes irresitibly to mind. :)

96. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61874 by the_assayer on August 7, 2007 at 8:23 am

TinyRobot--

If the laws of nature were muddled up and chaotic, can't that be the work of an Idiot God or a drunkard God?

Why does it have to be that the orderliness of our world was given to us by a superbeing?

How does God explain the mystery of suh orderlinees? The way I see it, God is a magical thing and by saying "a magical thing using magical means created the universe" you are not giving an explanation. It only mimics the semantic structure of an explanation.

"A watch can be created only by a watchmaker, then surely atomic clocks must have been created by a super-watchmaker."- this sort of reasoning has its limitations.
Take the case of a mole hill. Surely a mole can create a mole hill, so doesn't it mean that mountains were craeted by giant moles??

God is not a wrong hypothesis. Its not even wrong.
I can claim that we are all living in a dream or that the whole universe sprang into existance only a few minutes back(with all this memory planted in our brain). Can it be proved wrong?NO!! Should we believe it? NO!!

97. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61868 by the_assayer on August 7, 2007 at 8:00 am

TinyRobot I think your wrong about Antony Flew.
He's still an atheist, atleast thats what he himself declares to be in this article.


Sorry to dissapoint, but I'm still an atheist -Antony Flew
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=98

98. Arrogance, dogma and why science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason

Comment #61832 by the_assayer on August 7, 2007 at 3:55 am

""""Yet distinguished scientists have been hounded and their careers jeopardised for arguing that the fossil record has got a giant hole in it. Some 570 million years ago, in a period known as the Cambrian Explosion, most forms of complex animal life emerged seemingly without any evolutionary trail.

These scientists argue that only 'rational agents' could have possessed the ability to design and organise such complex systems.""""


Yes yes!! a rational agent whose existance however doesn't need to be rationally validated.

99. The Gullible Age: Review of 'The Enemies of Reason'

Comment #61481 by the_assayer on August 5, 2007 at 10:22 am

Discipline-
you say- "We secularists need to pick our battles and this new direction just dilutes our efforts."

I don't think this 'dulution of effort' is dangerous. The Reason all of this quackery continues to exists is because of a prevelant pool of potential "suckers". The aim of secular-rationalists should be to spread reason and not just fight religion. The main reason religion and other cults enjoy special previlages without having to defend their claims is because of a socity that is for the most part apathetic to reason and validation. We have to invigorate the masses to think for themselves and teach then to be skeptical. Relgion may be the elephant in the room, but the room can get bigger if we choose not to be vigilant.

100. New age therapies cause 'retreat from reason'

Comment #61471 by the_assayer on August 5, 2007 at 9:41 am

LOL!!! Thats a good one... :D