The Anti-theist Thread

[Wayfarer]

Hmmm... What do you know? There's an online bible...

The exact citation was this:

Mark 7: 1-8
The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed. (The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.) So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with `unclean' hands?"
He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: `These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!"

See?

[FrodoFriend]

Entmoot is pink - now I know there is no God! j/k, I am an atheist though.

Reasons?

1 - I have never felt/witnessed/known of anything to indicate the existence of God.

2 - Science and Nature explain everything.

[Darth Tater]

Ack! New version of the bible! Ack! KJV forever!!!!

[Eruviel Greenleaf]

Originally posted by FrodoFriend
1 - I have never felt/witnessed/known of anything to indicate the existence of God.

2 - Science and Nature explain everything.

And I have the same reasons! I would explain them in a long-winded post, but there's really no point when I didn't even have to say them myself

Oh no, FrodoFriend, I keep stealing your words!

[Ñólendil]

It would have been better to call it the NON theism thread.

Uh, that would be "Atheism", I beileve. "A" is the "non" word in Greek.

[BeardofPants]

As an atheist, part of the reason I chose science over religion is that Religion is rigid, or fixed, whereas science is fluid, a constantly changing paradigm. While I like to imagine the possibilities that exist in this universe and others, I also like to be able ground myself in factual evidence. And as yet, the bible (written by a bunch of male bigots), and religion haven't been able to give this to me. Also, I study anthropology, and while it doesn't necessarily discount religion, they don't really sit well with each other.

* This is my opinion, and you can't change it.

[mirrille]

Ahhh...But I don't think that one has to choose between science and religion. I like the scientific system because it works very well for alot of things. But when using it, one has to be careful because there are certain tasks that it cannot be used for. Some things cannot be explained under that thinking system. Some religious types will jump all over that and say the system is junk, but that's not fair either. I don't think there is any one system that can solve everything. But science is a very good one. For some people, religion can help fill in the gaps, but one has to realize that it is a different system...i.e. not scientific. That's ok, as long as the person has actually thought about it.
Personally, I resist any kind of "proof" that comes out of a "holy book". I'm sure there's lots of good stuff in the Bible, the Koran, the Sutras and whatever else, but in the end, they are just books. Words on a page, written by humans. (Btw, select parts of the Bible were reputedly written by women. As too how much they were influenced by the "male bigots" around them, that's anyone's guess ) One has to frame what one reads in the context one's life. Just because someone wrote something down and got lots of people to read it doesn't mean it's the Absolute Truth. That's just too easy. I write stuff down all the time too.

[BeardofPants]

Yes, well that's why I said I 'chose' one over another. Nobody told me to do this, I chose this course for myself. And personally, to paraphrase Auduril (who is wonderfully fluent in her arguments), science is constantly changing, every minute, there is new information that we can factor into our equations. This is why I think science is better for ME; eventually, there will come a time, when so-called supernatural phenomena will be able to be understood, because the information missing, will be discovered. Again, thanks Auduril, 1000 years ago, we didn't have electricity, and would have been perceived as a miracle; the same with cars, computers, and so on, and so forth. 'Nuff said.

[Wayfarer]

I must point out that science and nature cannot explain everything.

Science relies on the belief that things will, in fact, work in a certain way. What we call the 'Law of Gravity' is simply the observation that, when you drop an object, it accelerates at a predictable rate towards the mass with the largest gravitational effect on it. It does not say why that happens.

While I am a huge fan of science, you cannot begin to utilize it until you accept that the universe does, in fact, operate under ordered parameters. And you cannot use science to explain why those ordered parameters exist.


Nature, well, I must honestly confess that I don't know what you mean by that. Are you referring to the belief that everything is interconnected and dependant on everything else? That's all nice and tidy, but still fails to explain why everything is there in the first place.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Wayfarer
I must point out that science and nature cannot explain everything.

Science relies on the belief that things will, in fact, work in a certain way. What we call the 'Law of Gravity' is simply the observation that, when you drop an object, it accelerates at a predictable rate towards the mass with the largest gravitational effect on it. It does not say why that happens.

While I am a huge fan of science, you cannot begin to utilize it until you accept that the universe does, in fact, operate under ordered parameters. And you cannot use science to explain why those ordered parameters exist.


Nature, well, I must honestly confess that I don't know what you mean by that. Are you referring to the belief that everything is interconnected and dependant on everything else? That's all nice and tidy, but still fails to explain why everything is there in the first place.

Two things, science does not rely on a belief that things will work in a certain way.

"Science is a process of searching for fundamental and universal principles that govern causes and effects in the universe. The process itself is a method of building, testing, and connecting falsifiable models to describe, explain and predict a shared reality. The method includes hypothesis, repeatable experiments and observations, and new hypothesis. The prime criterion in determining the usefulness of a model is the ease with which the model correctly makes predictions or explains phenomena in the shared reality."

Science is a constantly shifting paradigm, as according to the definition above. No one way is right, because it could always be proved otherwise. It makes predictions, or observations. That said, one day in the future, we may have the information to better answer questions in the universe. At the moment, it's baby steps, baby steps.

Nature is an old fashioned and outmoded argument. It is no longer really valid to said debate. Ecosystems, as well, can be considered bung, because they don't really factor in the human niche. The idea of everything as an equilibrium? Nah! How silly!

[mirrille]

Well, science is like that.
Science does not explain why. Science is only useful if you can make a prediction and test it.
It's like one of my profs was giving an example. You can watch the acceleration of a falling object and make predictions on how will it fall and come up with laws to describe the motion. And then you can say that little magic gnomes that we can't see or touch or detect in any way are controlling it according to those rules. But you can't see them. You can't touch them. You have no way of testing whether they are there. So science is useless in the case of your little gnomes. That doesn't mean they aren't there or that they are there. You can't tell with this system, that's all.
So I think: for some people, God is the magic gnome that can't be tested with science. It's neat. It's simple. It can't be disproven. And then some people just don't care. The little tennis balls will keep falling to the ground whether its God or little gnomes or the universe just likes it that way (not that we have to anthropomorhosize everything, it's just easier to say it that way) Which is where it disagree with:

While I am a huge fan of science, you cannot begin to utilize it until you accept that the universe does, in fact, operate under ordered parameters. And you cannot use science to explain why those ordered parameters exist.

You can use it just fine without that. It's a totally separate question. You can describe a painting without knowing who painted it. You just need eyes and words.

[FrodoFriend]

How can religion explain why things work they way they do better than science? Sure, you can say God did it - but where did God come from, and how does he do it?

I think science can explain why "parameters" exist. We just haven't discovered it yet. Maybe someday we will.

[afro-elf]

Originally posted by Ñólendil


Uh, that would be "Atheism", I beileve. "A" is the "non" word in Greek.

A dieism board could be a non- theist board.

[afro-elf]

mirrile what doesn't science explain
something supposedly super natural?

meaning:

how does one tell the difference between the invisible, totally transcendant, non-emprical etc from the imaginary?

[afro-elf]

Auduril (who is wonderfully fluent in her arguments)

I thought anduril was a he

[BeardofPants]

Well, apologies, if she is a he, and vice versa...

[afro-elf]

Mirrille I see this now so you don't have to answer to the above

You have no way of testing whether they are there. So science is useless in the case of your little gnomes. That doesn't mean they aren't there or that they are there. You can't tell with this system, that's all.

[Wayfarer]

Originally posted by BeardofPants

"Science is a process of searching for fundamental and universal principles that govern causes and effects in the universe."

This is what I said. Things work a certain way because there is a fundamental and universal principle.

Originally posted by BeardofPants
Science is a constantly shifting paradigm, as according to the definition above. No one way is right, because it could always be proved otherwise. It makes predictions, or observations. That said, one day in the future, we may have the information to better answer questions in the universe. At the moment, it's baby steps, baby steps.

Indeed! For example, we predict that falling objects will always accelerate at such and such a velocity. We consider that to be a fundamental principle.

To return to my arguement, if Science is the search for and study of fundamental governing principles, it sort of follows that there must be fundamental governing princaples. Where do they come from?

Originally posted by BeardofPants
Nature is an old fashioned and outmoded argument. It is no longer really valid to said debate. Ecosystems, as well, can be considered bung, because they don't really factor in the human niche. The idea of everything as an equilibrium? Nah! How silly!

I agree.

[

How can religion explain why things work they way they do better than science? Sure, you can say God did it - but where did God come from, and how does he do it?

I think science can explain why "parameters" exist. We just haven't discovered it yet. Maybe someday we will.

Religion doesn't say exactly why things work.
Christianity, for example, simply says that god made everything to work the way it does. And since it works the way it does, and not some other way, we can describe it and predict what will happen.

Science cannot explain why parameters exist. It simply must accept that they do, because if they did not, then science would not work.

what doesn't science explain

Science does not explain science. But God does. Think about it.

[FrodoFriend]

Wait - Wayfarer, are you trying to say that science doesn't explain everything, but God does? Or are you saying that some things are just unexplainable, by science or God?

I would say God and science are in the same boat. They can both explain everything except themselves.

[FrodoFriend]

By the way, science could also explain God, if you think about it.