Is Atheism Unscientific?
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Diode,
"can only imagine that evolutionists would freak the frigg out if they saw these statements. Humans MAYBE evolved, but the evolution itself was set into motion by a creator."
Not going to frigg out. Just ask you a question.
Who created the creator ?
Seems you might accept or believe in evolution but are quite sure of the creator.
Can you prove it ?
"can only imagine that evolutionists would freak the frigg out if they saw these statements. Humans MAYBE evolved, but the evolution itself was set into motion by a creator."
Not going to frigg out. Just ask you a question.
Who created the creator ?
Seems you might accept or believe in evolution but are quite sure of the creator.
Can you prove it ?
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
What conclusions can we draw if he can't?
not sure if im answering you correctly but heres what i have. A lot of religion relies on this broad definition of faith. In many instances no matter how much scientific evidence there is against religion, there is faithful religious person to take its place. In my mind this is the most unscientific aspect of religion; faith. Faith is going about something based on ... not sure... there is no science behind it, is there?
I dont think we know enough to say whether religion is right or wrong, be it atheism or Catholicism. There are too many variables to say that if you believe in no higher power you are going against the scientific evidence.
There isn't enough scientific information to say yay or nay. ..., or is that what you are asking? I may be wrong. I could always be very wrong.
Hmmm... im really just thinking as i type and im sure it shows... Out of all the scientific evidence that exists, i believe we know/have very little of it, and because of this idea of 'we know that we dont know anything' when you put things in perspective then a belief in the unknown or a belief that you "know" there is nothin out there are both possibilities scientifically and i dont think you can call either of them unscientific. I could be stereotyping, being redundant answering my own questions and contradicting myself and shit but I dont apologize for this massive mess of text but id be interested into how people respond. yes i am under the influence
"always be ready to be very wrong"
-spaz-
Simon,
"What conclusions can we draw if he can't?"
With regards to whether he can prove a creator. None, the subject is unproveable.
However.
Diode,
Do you believe in a religion of which the creator you mention is the almighty ?
If so then why do you believe in the possibility of evolution ?
If not then what are your referring to when you state the creator started evolution ?
Thank you
"What conclusions can we draw if he can't?"
With regards to whether he can prove a creator. None, the subject is unproveable.
However.
Diode,
Do you believe in a religion of which the creator you mention is the almighty ?
If so then why do you believe in the possibility of evolution ?
If not then what are your referring to when you state the creator started evolution ?
Thank you
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
So, why ask?
Simon,
I see your point. I was merely trying to show that no one can prove that.
He claims a possible belief in evolution and yet talks about a creator. I am interested in whether he believes in a religion where god created all as is. There is no mention in any religion that god set forth the process for things to evolve over millions of years.
So why would he leave the door open to evolution if he is so sure about the tenets of his religion.
So maybe we can skip the first question but I have a feeling it will be brought up again.
But here goes.
Diode,
Do you believe in a religion of which the creator you mention is the almighty ?
If so then why do you believe in the possibility of evolution ?
If not then what are your referring to when you state the creator started evolution ?
I see your point. I was merely trying to show that no one can prove that.
He claims a possible belief in evolution and yet talks about a creator. I am interested in whether he believes in a religion where god created all as is. There is no mention in any religion that god set forth the process for things to evolve over millions of years.
So why would he leave the door open to evolution if he is so sure about the tenets of his religion.
So maybe we can skip the first question but I have a feeling it will be brought up again.
But here goes.
Diode,
Do you believe in a religion of which the creator you mention is the almighty ?
If so then why do you believe in the possibility of evolution ?
If not then what are your referring to when you state the creator started evolution ?
spidergoat
Valued Senior Member
If evolution is correct, it eliminates the need for any outside agent. People who say God started evolution really don't understand the explanatory power of that theory.
given that the senses reflect one's consciousness, that is hardly surprising ....
LightG,
I brought this over from another post, you state:
"A causeless universe without consciousness as the causeless element poses unique problems .... namely how design comes into being and how (apparent) universal constants remain (apparently) constant. For instance, a perfectly functional car will remain immobile for practically eternity until someone sits in the driver's seat, yet a conscious element can transform even a dysfunctional car into a mobile one in a few moments.
From here, atheists rest on the metaphysical claim that consciousness is a materially reducible phenomena. Theists rest on the metaphysical claim that consciousness isn't.
Theists have a means of application for verifying this claim.
Atheists don't."
What a bunch of nonsense. First of all if you want to use that argument why didn't god just give us bleeping cars. I mean it is the most absurd crap I have ever heard. Oh and by the way while I am at it, can you prove there is a god ? Didn't think so. I can't prove there is no god, fair enough.
But are you listening to yourself. Take the first part.
"A causeless universe without consciousness as the causeless element poses unique problems .... namely how design comes into being and how (apparent) universal constants remain (apparently) constant"
That is more a reflection of evolution and poses the difficult question on intelligent design or a creator, how does design come into play ? Yes it is a slow process over millions of years, you are not that significant get over it.
Want to get into the cause. Show me one shred of evidence of your cause. I'll show you the bones of millions of years of evolution which don't lead to a cause but prove your idea of a cause as BS. So I don't know what the cause is I just know yours is nonsense.
To prove there is no god is one thing, to brush off the evidence we have in front of us is another.
I brought this over from another post, you state:
"A causeless universe without consciousness as the causeless element poses unique problems .... namely how design comes into being and how (apparent) universal constants remain (apparently) constant. For instance, a perfectly functional car will remain immobile for practically eternity until someone sits in the driver's seat, yet a conscious element can transform even a dysfunctional car into a mobile one in a few moments.
From here, atheists rest on the metaphysical claim that consciousness is a materially reducible phenomena. Theists rest on the metaphysical claim that consciousness isn't.
Theists have a means of application for verifying this claim.
Atheists don't."
What a bunch of nonsense. First of all if you want to use that argument why didn't god just give us bleeping cars. I mean it is the most absurd crap I have ever heard. Oh and by the way while I am at it, can you prove there is a god ? Didn't think so. I can't prove there is no god, fair enough.
But are you listening to yourself. Take the first part.
"A causeless universe without consciousness as the causeless element poses unique problems .... namely how design comes into being and how (apparent) universal constants remain (apparently) constant"
That is more a reflection of evolution and poses the difficult question on intelligent design or a creator, how does design come into play ? Yes it is a slow process over millions of years, you are not that significant get over it.
Want to get into the cause. Show me one shred of evidence of your cause. I'll show you the bones of millions of years of evolution which don't lead to a cause but prove your idea of a cause as BS. So I don't know what the cause is I just know yours is nonsense.
To prove there is no god is one thing, to brush off the evidence we have in front of us is another.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
That is not the way one responds to a challenge on a science board. I made a reasonable observation that you have failed more than once to answer my question. The proper response is to show me the post in which your answer is embedded and explain why you consider it to be an answer, when I don't--not to deny my cognitive powers. I have been "reading" and "comprehending" cleverly disguised religionist dogma and precocious undergraduate exercises in circular reasoning since I was your age, forty or fifty years ago. (When I was attending CalTech and learning rather a lot about science.) My literacy and my comprehension skills are just fine.
It's a sad commentary on the state of scholarship in today's world that stuff like this can be published. It may have passed for one step on a search for the truth in Aristotle's day, when virtually everyone took the supernatural for granted and felt that it had to be accounted for in any self-respecting theory. But today it's just gobbledygook. No matter how preciously you state it, it still boils down to a logical fallacy: 1. We don't know how the universe got here; 2. Therefore it must have been created by a consciousness.
We don't really know for sure that there was ever a moment when the universe did not exist. Our way of measuring time is purely anthropocentric, based entirely on the way we perceive time, passing at what we regard as a steady rate. We project that rate backwards for about three times as long as our planet has existed--much less its biosphere--and say by golly it looks like the universe had a beginning. To extrapolate a constant rate of the passage of time by several orders of magnitude may turn out to be as foolish as extrapolating trans-light speeds or temperatures below absolute zero. Maybe time passed more slowly in the moments following the Big Bang. Maybe the closer you get to it, the slower time passed, and it will turn out that the Big Bang really occurred at minus infinity and the universe has always existed.
I don't know how the universe got here, or even if it did "get here" as opposed to always being here. But I'm not embarrassed to say so, unlike the religionists who will go to any length to avoid admitting that they don't know either.
The Supreme Court? A branch of the same government who convinced an entire population that Saddam Hussein had WMDs? Yeah right, the credibility of any statement from the U.S. government is riding really high these days. I'm gonna search e-Bay for my very own copy of the Official Supreme Court Dictionary. More seriously, the law routinely redefines common words in ways necessary to resolve cases. We don't use legal language in science.
I couldn't care less, but it's my job as a Moderator to keep this website focused on science, and when we get a flood of religionists attempting to take over our bandwidth with antiscience and unscientific arguments, it stretches us too thin. Somebody over on the Linguistics board may be searching for information on the T-V divide or Verner's Law, and I'm too busy over here keeping the barbarians from storming the gates of GS&T to go help him on my own board.
I'm not sure that's an entirely fair statement. If we're allowed to discuss attitudes about religion on a science board, I don't see how we can exclude philosophy. In retrospect, I think this discussion should have been moved to Philosophy to start with.
But to get back to what Oil was saying about the definition of religion, I will go so far as to say I don't give much of a damn how philosophers define "atheism." Like lawyers, they have their own definitions of words that are not the same as those used by the general public. So if either a philosopher or a jurist defines "atheism" as "a religion," it carries zero weight here. Here are five definitions of atheism from five well-respected dictionaries (Webster's Collegiate hard copy and four online dictionaries):
- Belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
- A strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny.
- 1. The outward act or form by which men indicate their recognition of the existence of a god or of gods having power over their destiny, to whom obedience, service, and honor are due
2.The feeling or expression of human love, fear, or awe of some superhuman and overruling power, whether by profession of belief, by observance of rites and ceremonies, or by the conduct of life
3. A system of faith and worship, a manifestation of piety, as: ethical religions, monotheistic religions, natural religion, revealed religion, the religion of the Jews, the religion of idol worshipers. - A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
- 1. The service and worship of God or the supernatural
2. Scrupulous conformity
3. A cause, principle or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
Could everybody dial back the personal insults please. They do nothing to advance the argument. Oil, I know you're not the only one who's guilty of this, and even the normally implacable Fraggle gets testy in the presence of too much religious bullshit, but you have turned it into a fine art. KNOCK IT OFF, EVERYBODY.
That's not true. You're begging the question of abiogenesis. It is perfectly possible to accept evolution but not abiogenesis. The former is a canonical scientific theory whose denial we are permitted to dismiss with prejudice, according to the teachings of Prof. Laplace. The latter is merely a hypothesis, whose denial should be accompanied by evidence, in order to advance the argument, but even if it's not we can't respond by saying abiogenesis is an established canonical scientific theory. It's not.
Wait... how can a belief be scientific? To me that's like saying "The road is pig." I thought there was just no real frame of reference. Inclusion or exclusion of God in scientific study should be irrelevant. Atheist says-I wonder what holds us down. Theist says-I wonder how God holds us down. Same scientific study, God is irrelevant. What choices these people make outside of science, sure, belief or not is going to affect things.
Wrong. Atheism is the position that God does not exist. There is no such thing as atheist agnostic. An agnostic is the position that man cannot know whether or not God exists. You don't know what atheist means. It is the typical erroneous delusion that atheism is a lack of belief. There is no such thing as any "ism" that implies a lack of a position.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
Are you an atheist lixluke?
Here is another thread that disucssed this: http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=83943&page=10
What atheism is and isn't.
Atheism IS NOT a lack of belief.
Atheism IS the position that there is no God.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS: Weak Atheist, Strong Atheist, Atheist Agnostic, or any other moronic rediuclous absurd retarded kindergarten terms that proclaim atheism.
Anybody who believes in freedom of belief allows others to practice their belief, and can freely discuss one another's beliefs as superior while being aware that everybody has this right.
Atheists who believe that atheism is superior are self-righteous when they proclaim that atheism is superior as if unaware that everybody believes their religion is superior. As if they have some profound knowledge that makes them scientific.
Atheists who impose atheism upon others with bigotry against anything with religious connotation are self-righteous fanatics.
Fanatical atheists get upset at seeing people practice religion in public, and do whatever they cant to prevent others from practicing their beliefs.
What atheism is and isn't.
Atheism IS NOT a lack of belief.
Atheism IS the position that there is no God.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS: Weak Atheist, Strong Atheist, Atheist Agnostic, or any other moronic rediuclous absurd retarded kindergarten terms that proclaim atheism.
Anybody who believes in freedom of belief allows others to practice their belief, and can freely discuss one another's beliefs as superior while being aware that everybody has this right.
Atheists who believe that atheism is superior are self-righteous when they proclaim that atheism is superior as if unaware that everybody believes their religion is superior. As if they have some profound knowledge that makes them scientific.
Atheists who impose atheism upon others with bigotry against anything with religious connotation are self-righteous fanatics.
Fanatical atheists get upset at seeing people practice religion in public, and do whatever they cant to prevent others from practicing their beliefs.
It is a little annoying when I wear this shirt that says "Jesus was a hippie" in public. People respond with laughter and a high five, or evil glares, and I never know which people are which.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
This seems like a 'no'. That you are not an atheist. But I'm not sure.
Lixluke,
"There is no such thing as atheist agnostic."
Atheists don't believe in god. Agnostics can not prove it either way.
I am an atheist/agnostic. I don't believe in god, but can not prove it does not exist.
And you can prove god exists how ?
Are you trying to force people who are agnostic to say I don't know to the question, do you believe in god ? That I can't take a position of belief as you have.
The difference is that I am not claiming I can prove god does not exist and you as a theist are.
You can prove this how ?
I have less of an issue with theist who claim a belief, but understand that they can not prove it to me. That's fair even though I would argue that their reason for the belief, their religion is questionable at best.
I don't look down on those that claim a belief, just the ones who claim they can prove it. That is not honest.
"There is no such thing as atheist agnostic."
Atheists don't believe in god. Agnostics can not prove it either way.
I am an atheist/agnostic. I don't believe in god, but can not prove it does not exist.
And you can prove god exists how ?
Are you trying to force people who are agnostic to say I don't know to the question, do you believe in god ? That I can't take a position of belief as you have.
The difference is that I am not claiming I can prove god does not exist and you as a theist are.
You can prove this how ?
I have less of an issue with theist who claim a belief, but understand that they can not prove it to me. That's fair even though I would argue that their reason for the belief, their religion is questionable at best.
I don't look down on those that claim a belief, just the ones who claim they can prove it. That is not honest.
Simon Anders
Valued Senior Member
The people who laugh are more likely to be your friends.
If they laugh WHILE giving you an evil glare, run.
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