The Satanic quality of the Internet

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Skybird

An agnostic is somebody who claims that one cannot know.

An atheist is somebody refusing to believe in the concept of theistic deity. This is not so much an active act of belief, but the refusal to actively believe. It thus is somewhat passive an act.

Cambridge Dictionary - conviction

- a strong opinion or belief
- a feeling of being certain about something

Merriam-Webster Dictionary - conviction

-a state of mind in which one is free from doudt

Even though a truth that a person holds is a negative value, for example ‘there is no god’, defending that truth requires conviction. In order to accomplish that a person must express an opinion. He must be able to defend that position with conviction. If he can not then he has failed. If he refuses to then he has no actual opinion or his opinion is unknown to others.

Originally Posted by Skybird

A prophet is somebody who claims to deliver the message of a supernatural entity, whose will is revelead to the prophet in visions or intuitions.

Cambridge Dictionary - prophet

a person who is believed to have a special power which allows them to say what a god wishes to tell people, especially about things that will happen in the future, also

a person who supports a new system of beliefs and principles

Originally Posted by Skybird

So, maybe there is a dogma indeed behind my reasoning, then. It would be called humanism.

Cambridge Dictionary - humanism

a belief system based on the principle that people's spiritual and emotional needs can be satisfied without following a god or religion

Originally Posted by Skybird

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...gLnU_blog.html

Just a reminder of what this threat originally was about.

I for one think this is a good development. No organization or person is beyond criticism or examination. If it falls because of this it had little value to begin with. If it makes it stronger because of it, it will have more value.

[Sailor Steve]

The above post argues for the concept that atheism is indeed a belief system. As I've pointed out, there are certainly atheists who act that way. On the other hand the whole argument diverts attention from the question of whether there is any evidence. "You're just as bad as I am!" doesn't make you any better. Firm belief seems to be a part of human nature. Whether this belief is a "gift from God" or just a particular of how the mind works is certainly debatable, but it always comes back to the same problem, which is whether there is a God to grant said gift.

So rather than toss out accusations of one side being as bad or worse than the other, how about showing something concrete. The bottom line here is that science investigates, examines, and creates theories. Faith does none of those. The theories may end up being true or false, but they are the best that can be proposed based on the available evidence. Skybird made a good argument for the nature of scientific theory, and no one has countered it yet.

It's like the Sherlock Holmes conundrum. Science attempts to make theories that fit the facts. Faith attempts to make the facts fit predetermined beliefs. If you have a belief, for or against God, let's see some facts.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

It's like the Sherlock Holmes conundrum. Science attempts to make theories that fit the facts. Faith attempts to make the facts fit predetermined beliefs. If you have a belief, for or against God, let's see some facts.

Since faith is much older than modern science i think it is very natural.

Lets take the example of our fine tuned universe.
Science claims that only tiniest of tiniest changes in physical laws would make universe inhabitable for life.

The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers (i.e. the constants of physics) seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life". "For example," Hawking writes, "if the electric charge of the electron had been only slightly different, stars would have been unable to burn hydrogen and helium, or else they would not have exploded. It seems clear that there are relatively few ranges of values for the numbers (for the constants) that would allow for development of any form of intelligent life. Most sets of values would give rise to universes that, although they might be very beautiful, would contain no one able to wonder at that beauty."

It can be claimed that there must must be some design to universe on another hand one can say that it is just in our heads.This statistical miracle simply happened because it actually happen...as Hawkins says if it did not happen we would not be here to wonder about it...ok

Chose which ever you like but i think that there are no compelling evidence against any...besides maybe some general belief and association of religion with stupidity which unfortunately in many cases is backed in reality.



................

What's interesting to me is that you spend a lot of time talking about what others believe, but you have yet to say what you believe. Do you have anything positive to add to this?

If you don't condiser them positive then consider them again.
As for what I think on the subject I think it cuts both ways and is in fact an empty smokescreen.
Cretinists will continue to believe in cretinism no matter how much evidence is posted openly online which they can read, fundamentalist literalists will still repeat their version of the truth and it will still be swallowed unquestioningly by those of the same mindset, people interested in spreading the "truth" of atheism will still repeat Dawkins repeating Hartung without question.
Availabiltiy of the information isn't going to change some peoples minds as they are already set, you could post direct links to laws and treaties which are freely available on the internet and people will still insist that there is really a secret text hidden in the documanet and continue to repaeatedly pronounce that "text" as the truth and demonstrate their absolute faith in that "truth" is unshakeable.
The sort of censorship some of these people want to protect their views from other influences would only be possible in an isolated totalitarian state and even then would not be secure.
Once again you have those who want to ban information and those that want to ban information and they are on the same side yet are claiming they are completely different from each other.

[joegrundman]

i came across this very interesting talk by Daniel Dennet, titled "How to tell you are an atheist"

it's quite long, at 45 mins, but worth it.

The main caveat to the talk is that his 'example' theist is clearly a modern christian from a western country. That said, it is an interesting and thought provoking talk.

[MH]

?????????

Tried to run spell checker and it all got corrupted...never mind.
Damn the gremlins of the inter webs or slow cell connection.

[Skybird]

Atheist conventions? I am not aware we have that over here, and if it happens, it is happening outside the reach of my radar screen. But beside the conspirating Catholic church and the dummy protestants, we only have Islam sabotaging our society, but no radical militant Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals, so there might be a difference between Europe/Germany and the US here.

But i can imagine that it is different in America, where radical evangelists and born again Christians and fundamentalists are acting much more aggressive and even militant than in any Western country, so atheists may see freedom and secularism being under much heavier fire from religious rightwingers in the US and thus feel a greater need to organise themselves and coordinate resistence to that.

- When considering that for example many atheists fear for the wellbeing of their family and their job if they would reveal their atheist attitude and happen to live in some conservative community in the bible belt ( this is being illustrated in so many stories and interviews I read over the years that I have stopped to count them),

- or when you consider that there are many regions and high ranking public offices that you are in practice unable to ever reach or get voted into if you tell the public you do not believe in God (you are better off to admit you are a believing Satanist, but never-never admit you believe nothing!) ,

- or when you consider that an American president gets away with saying that he thinks Americans who do not believe in God are not even true Americans and of course also are no patriots even when they put their life at risk for their country in wars;

- when you consider that nationwide bible swingers try to push biblic ideas of world creation into public education plans, and where they fail to get it implemented in the law tell their people in the system to present it beside the offical education plans as a "alternative" that pupils should be strongly encouraged to examine (this is missionising imo, nothing else, and undermining the education sector);

- if you consider that 3 in ten Americans take the bible literally,

- when you consider that 4.5 in 10 Americans believe in creationism;

- when you consider that it is claimed time and again the foundign fathers founded America as ex explicitly Christian nation,

- when you consider how religious lobbying has penetrated the secular basic order and brought the referance to the Christian god both into the Pledge of Allegiance and onto coins and bank notes,

- when you consider the murderous militancy of opponents of abortion,

- while many of these man-loving humanists at the same time go hysteric when shouting their soul out of their throats in front of a prison and cannot get a execution candidate killed soon enough;

when you consider all these examples and many others, then you may get an idea why atheists maybe find the secular state order of the US in danger and themselves under pressure and thus decide that they want to organise their resistence to all this religious madness - to increase their own chance of survival, to defend freedom (last but not least the freedom FROM relgion), and to defend secularism.

u_crank, I just had a brief look at two dictionaries I have on my shelve here, and then compared some terms on the german and the English wikipedia site as well. All definitions were different a bit, so I fear your list of entries only illustrate the diversity in different understandings, but in no way mark the final word on the meaning of a term. And the meaning I pragmatically tend to base on is how the word most often is used in contemporary language, or I explicitly refer to the original latin or greek origin.

Dictionaries - in the end are about spelling only, not about encyclopedic definition. They give a hint on the meaning terms maybe - but these are usually subjective and vary from publisher to publisher.

However, I have given earlier explanations of how I use the terms you questioned. And much earlier I also explained my - as I admitted: very different - use of the terms religion and spirituality, and what I mean by both.

As your seocnd-last posting is concerned and to which i referred, "prophets of atheism", it was clearly meant as somethign derogatory, an attempt to destroy a reputation of somethign or somebody without needing to deal with its/his arguments. And these arguments stand on a basis of scientific strong fact, and use of logic and reason. Counter these arguments on thesame terms, if you can. Dawkins is not giving a dogma, a prognosis on basis of nothing, or a prophecy quoting hear-say - that is religion's business, not his. He is giving conclusions that are the results of examination and analysis and implementation of quite uncomplicated logical thought. And I can only take serious opposing views that are able to meet these conclusions on the ground of right these principles. "But I believe differently", and leaving it to that, is just not good enough.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by MH

Since faith is much older than modern science i think it is very natural.

The human mind wants to know the answers, and when there are none to be had turns to speculation. If there is no countering evidence spectulation becomes ingrained and becomes belief, which in turn becomes "fact". There is a long history of science having to wage an uphill battle against people in authority who already "know" the answers and do anything to stop that changing.

Lets take the example of our fine tuned universe.
Science claims that only tiniest of tiniest changes in physical laws would make universe inhabitable for life.

And faith claims that the universe has already been defined and explained, and we must make scientific discoveries fit into whatever viewpoint that particular faith subscribes to.

It can be claimed that there must must be some design to universe on another hand one can say that it is just in our heads.This statistical miracle simply happened because it actually happen...as Hawkins says if it did not happen we would not be here to wonder about it...ok

And that is how reason works - admitting that if an answer is not known then it is not known, nothing more.

Chose which ever you like but i think that there are no compelling evidence against any...besides maybe some general belief and association of religion with stupidity which unfortunately in many cases is backed in reality.

Beliefs are fine. It's when the believer insists that he knows the answer that trouble begins. This also includes those who insist on 'unbelief'. There aren't as many of those as the believers would have us believe, but there are a few and they tend to be voluable.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The human mind wants to know the answers, and when there are none to be had turns to speculation. If there is no countering evidence spectulation becomes ingrained and becomes belief, which in turn becomes "fact". There is a long history of science having to wage an uphill battle against people in authority who already "know" the answers and do anything to stop that changing.

Long eons ago, religion and science lay in the same hands, and the priests tried to understand the stars in order to learn their god'S will or future fate or whatever. Astronomy is probably the olderst scientific branch of all. Probably even caveman occasionally looked at the moon and the sun and by his intellectual means tried to figure what they were.

It took the "Greek revolution", the implementation of the Greek understanding of scientific methodology that explicitly ruled out the validty of referring to the supernatural as an explanation for phenomenal observations, to make "science" what it is today and what we refer to when using this label, "science".

And faith claims that the universe has already been defined and explained, and we must make scientific discoveries fit into whatever viewpoint that particular faith subscribes to.

An effort strongly revived by the current pope, and also by creationism, of course. Also the Tea Party-kind of America's right, and the Tony Blair clones in Europe.

Isn't it funny that in recent years, Catholicism and Islam work hand in hand to bring a fundament of believing in the deity back to Europe, and that creationsim has been translated into the cultural context of Islam and is blossoming marvellously in the Islamic world, spreading from Turkey mainly? The church time and again acts on behalf of Islam'S sprad in Europe, and preists time and again preach for emebracing Islam as if it were just an oriental version of the curch'S dogma, and Muhammad and Jesus were preaching the same. Every difference, especially the unwelcomed ones, is rejected, ignored.

Mian thing is that people shall believe in a theistic dogma. For the church dogmatists hope to benefit from that in getting a rennaissance of Catholic influence, power, and growing submissiveness and obedience of the devout believers. And many christians with bleeding hearts and praying minds seem to buy it, and celebrate when another church is turned into a mosque, which happens several times per week in some place in europe nowadays. That's when I think of myself as living alone amongst sheep.

Imagine if somebody would dare to turn a mosque into a church! Global crisis, collective mass hysteria! Red faces over alleged hate crimes against humanity!

These christians I mentioned above are cattle that smiles and wags its tail while being led to the butcher. They cannot wait to get there. Stupid people. Kind maybe, well-meaning maybe, but hopelessly stupid, naive, disconnected from reality. Die dümmsten Kälber wählen sich ihre Metzger selber.

[MH]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

And faith claims that the universe has already been defined and explained, and we must make scientific discoveries fit into whatever viewpoint that particular faith subscribes to.
.

No...maybe it was like 700 years ago.
Nowadays the religion tries to deal with what is at hand updating or stretching theology from literal texts.
Which is good i think because it usually comes with acceptance of some other humane values.

I find it rather funny when atheist try to preach on how wrong it is...the departure from stereotyped believers.
They do it better than Khomeini.
If one don't fit in to the stereotype of medieval believer he must be atheist or idiot in denial...great philosophy.

I sure the audience might feel better in particular if they pay for the tickets to this circus....atheist conventions lol

.................

[joegrundman]

Originally Posted by MH

No...maybe it was like 700 years ago.
Nowadays the religion tries to deal with what is at hand updating or stretching theology from literal texts.
Which is good i think because it usually comes with acceptance of some other humane values.

I find it rather funny when atheist try to preach on how wrong it is...the departure from stereotyped believers.
They do it better than Khomeini.
If one don't fit in to the stereotype of medieval believer he must be atheist or idiot in denial...great philosophy.

I sure the audience might feel better in particular if they pay for the tickets to this circus....atheist conventions lol

.................

you find the idea of an atheist convention funny? why? did you actually listen to the talk, or are you satisfied with your own conclusions from guesswork alone?

[MH]

Originally Posted by joegrundman

you find the idea of an atheist convention funny? why? did you actually listen to the talk, or are you satisfied with your own conclusions from guesswork alone?

I did listen and it was funny and shadow....are you offended?

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

On the other hand the whole argument diverts attention from the question of whether there is any evidence. "You're just as bad as I am!" doesn't make you any better. Firm belief seems to be a part of human nature. Whether this belief is a "gift from God" or just a particular of how the mind works is certainly debatable, but it always comes back to the same problem, which is whether there is a God to grant said gift.

So rather than toss out accusations of one side being as bad or worse than the other, how about showing something concrete.

I sincerely hope that you are not suggesting that I have said "You're just as bad as I am!" or made accusations of one side being as bad or worse than the other. If you read every post I have made on this thread you will see that I have said nothing disparaging about atheists or Atheism. That is not my style. If I have please point it out an I will apologize.

What I have made is an attempt to show that Atheism is a competing world view or with various religions and other world views. This is simply an opinion and not an original idea on my part.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

The bottom line here is that science investigates, examines, and creates theories. Faith does none of those. The theories may end up being true or false, but they are the best that can be proposed based on the available evidence. Skybird made a good argument for the nature of scientific theory, and no one has countered it yet.

I am in complete agreement with this. I personally see no conflict between science and belief in God. I am sure I am not the only person who believes this.

As to the burden of proof mentioned earlier I believe it belongs to the ones who are most insistent in their belief. I am not. Again it is my own personal conviction. I feel no obligation to convince others of this fact.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

It's like the Sherlock Holmes conundrum. Science attempts to make theories that fit the facts. Faith attempts to make the facts fit predetermined beliefs. If you have a belief, for or against God, let's see some facts.

Good point Steve. If I come up with any thing I'll let you know.

Originally Posted by u crank

Probably. I didn't want to be too obvious, but yes Dawkins is certainly one of the most well known of the prophets of Atheism.

Originally Posted by Skybird

Defamation of science and reason this claim is.

A prophet is somebody who claims to deliver the message of a supernatural entity, whose will is revelead to the prophet in visions or intuitions.

I do not find the word offensive but if you do I retract it. My apologies to both you and Mr. Dawkins.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by u crank

I sincerely hope that you are not suggesting that I have said "You're just as bad as I am!" or made accusations of one side being as bad or worse than the other. If you read every post I have made on this thread you will see that I have said nothing disparaging about atheists or Atheism. That is not my style. If I have please point it out an I will apologize.

I apologize. I spoke poorly, and was wrong to reference your post directly. I was basically refering to the idea of Christians pointing at non-believers and accusing them of being just like religious fanatics. While some certainly do that they are a minority. Most atheists simply don't believe, and that seems to be a concept that some believers apparently can't comprehend.

What I have made is an attempt to show that Atheism is a competing world view or with various religions and other world views. This is simply an opinion and not an original idea on my part.

Got it.

[u crank]

Thank you for clearing that up Steve.

Regards.