Monsanto, Chemtrails & our future. Must see. No kidding.

[yojimbo]

Well, I think that atheists are agnostics that have found faith

I'll grant atheism as a state can exist, ie, all of creation, just is, there was nothing else, and is nothing else, the fact we dont have all the answers doesn't mean that god is out there filling in the gaps, just the answers are that we haven't found yet, thats a possible scenario, and lets face it, highly likely.

All we're doing now is debating the definition, I'm coming from the point of view that atheists _believe_ god doesnt exist, and you are positing that atheists _reject_ the existence, in which case we're both happy I think. Rejecting on the basis that so many of 'gods works' have been over turned, and so we may as well ignore the rest anyway, is reasonable, science accepts theories being rejected. Most atheists though are people that dont believe he exists, dont think too much about it critically, and then assume they are atheists when they are in fact agnostics that 'believed'.














PS. Chem-trails are real, a talking snake told me so, and said it was all her fault.

[Elbrad]

PS. Chem-trails are real, a talking snake told me so, and said it was all her fault.

I see you've met my ex-wife.

[yojimbo]

PS. Chem-trails are real, a talking snake told me so, and said it was all her fault.

I see you've met my ex-wife.

Passive-aggressive? Prone to misinterpreting facts? Taking attempts at critical thinking as a personal attack?

I had the same model, I traded it in for a more reliable one.

Talk about problems with cracked heads...

[nxski]

Being an atheist and being non-religious are 2 different things. An Athiest BELEIVES there is no god, a religious person BELIEVES there is a god, a non-religious person (such as myself) doesn't beleive either unless it can be proven one way or another. My motto has always been "I will find out when I die"

[Elbrad]

That would be agnostic then nx. Probably the most rational position to take, and you also hedge your bets. It's almost like Pascal's Wager, without the whole "leaping into faith as a bet" kind of thing.

[Mr. Flibble]

Actually, there are different degrees of atheism, most atheists are in fact agnostic atheists, not gnostic atheists.



So, you have degrees of theism, you are either towards believing or not. But you also have degrees of how certain your position is. A fundamentalist is a gnostic theist for example. Most atheists do not believe in god, but due to a lack of any other evidence prefer to have an agnostic stance. However, at the same time they do not believe in many of the supernatural claims put fort by those who believe.

Thus you have the confusion.


As for contrails and climate change, there is this to mull over:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48947384/ns ... e-science/

[Elbrad]

And we've come full circle.

In order to believe in a god, you have to deny science. In order to believe in chemtrails, you have to deny science.

And for the record, I fall directly into the gnostic atheist category. We can show that no god ever has shown any proof of his/her/it's existence, therefore it's rational to say that it doesn't exist...in much the same way it's rational to say that Russel's Teapot doesn't exist.

[Mr. Flibble]

And we've come full circle.

In order to believe in a god, you have to deny science. In order to believe in chemtrails, you have to deny science.

And for the record, I fall directly into the gnostic atheist category. We can show that no god ever has shown any proof of his/her/it's existence, therefore it's rational to say that it doesn't exist...in much the same way it's rational to say that Russel's Teapot doesn't exist.

I agree mostly with what you have said here, with a minor quibble.

Science should not compel you to believe anything, but rather to compel you with the evidence. If new evidence arises that is contradictory to the evidence prior, you should change your position as the evidence compels you to do so.

In this way, science is distinct from faith, as it requires evidence.

[konadog]

I hear yah Mr. Flibble.
Lots of scientists believe in God, or at least A God. Science is nothing more than a method of finding things out - answering questions. It's a fabulous method too which has provided us with many answers. There are still lots of questions the scientific method is unable to address though, and this is the space which our spirituality fills. The two are not mutually exclusive at all.

[glenn]

I'll say it, all the world's religions, both ancient and modern are fairy tails.

Simultaneous with a more complex brain and increasing language came the earliest documented proto-human burials. These were intentional, and they included personal items, items of value and items for use in the afterlife. Since then, countless belief systems developed, and evolved along side human culture. Some died out, some dominated. But, every religion on this planet can be traced back to the primitive beginnings of the culture that produced it. There is no mystery.

Humans are pattern finders. It allows us to pick out predators that are hidden in the trees in front of us. It allows us to understand how our landscape functions. It also allows us to find patterns where non exist . Stare at the clouds for a minute and you'll see animals. As our brains become more complex - this pattern finding also becomes more complex. This is why we can take a huge set of sensory inputs, and create a story around it that fits very nicely into our understanding of the way the world works - like believing that contrails are chemtrails, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. We select information that confirms what we want to be true.

Even though I think that the ideas we have for a God (s) are laughable - we will never be able to understand the meaning of reality. The more we look, the more there is to see. The Hadron collider is on the verge of discovering the next level of particles. Astrophysics is predicting a multiverse (now that's mindblowing). String theory supports dozens of dimensions. How about the fact that most of the known universe, including everything you can touch - is made up of almost nothing. But all this stuff is really just more storytelling for now. It really has no consequence on our lives.

We don't need God to tell us how to live, and the idea that we are being watched is quaint. This is our home, we will all live and die here, and it's not getting any bigger. If we keep sh!tting in our own backyard we are going to eventually step in it. The sooner we, as a species, admit that there is no such thing as divine sovereignty (that God won't allow us to ruin creation), the sooner we can grow up and take care of the planet - before we humans end up being forced to depend on lifeboat strategies to survive the next few 1000 years while the environment recovers.

[Mr. Flibble]

I hear yah Mr. Flibble.
Lots of scientists believe in God, or at least A God. Science is nothing more than a method of finding things out - answering questions. It's a fabulous method too which has provided us with many answers. There are still lots of questions the scientific method is unable to address though, and this is the space which our spirituality fills. The two are not mutually exclusive at all.

Agreed. Although it is interesting to note that as you approach the harder and harder sciences (in terms of empirical evidence) the likelyhood of believing in a higher power becomes less and less. Physicists believe in god the least out of all the scientists.

However, I would disagree with you that there are questions that the scientific method cannot address - Sam Harris wrote a great book about how science can address morality called "The Moral Landscape". Morals were traditionally deemed an area that science found impossible to address. Now, with the advent of brain scanning and imaging techniques we are on the horizon of being able to address such things as morals and spirituality with science.

It is more a case that science has not finished addressing these questions at this time. In my personal opinion, science only has the moral questions left to address as to me, it already addresses the spiritual questions. For example, I am a way for the universe to know itself, and my left arm is made out of matter that came from a different star from my right. These are scientific things, but when you think about them are to my mind highly spiritual. After all, stars had to die so that you and I could live.

[Elbrad]

I hear yah Mr. Flibble.
Lots of scientists believe in God, or at least A God. Science is nothing more than a method of finding things out - answering questions. It's a fabulous method too which has provided us with many answers. There are still lots of questions the scientific method is unable to address though, and this is the space which our spirituality fills. The two are not mutually exclusive at all.

There is nothing that science can't address that religion can address with any more accuracy. Science says "We don't know yet, but here are a few hypotheses." Religion says "God did it. Stop asking questions."

Let's be blunt. Religion is full of hypocrisy, inconsistency, fear-mongering and cherry picking. It's hardly a good guide to living your life.

[Mr. Flibble]

There is nothing that science can't address that religion can address with any more accuracy. Science says "We don't know yet, but here are a few hypotheses." Religion says "God did it. Stop asking questions."

Let's be blunt. Religion is full of hypocrisy, inconsistency, fear-mongering and cherry picking. It's hardly a good guide to living your life.

This may be the case, I myself fall under the category of an agnostic atheist. I have read the Koran and the Bible. I have yet to work on the Book of Mormon or the Bahava Gita.

As you can see from my copy of the King James Bible, I have annotated mine with many notes, including the parts that many people don't read. Most people read the parts they are told to, and the Psalms and Proverbs because those are poetry. They generally skip over the atrocious stuff.

bible.jpg (106.39 KiB) Viewed 7909 times

However, religion is part of the culture of many people. It is important to remember that when you challenge a persons religions belief, they take that as a very personal attack and feel threatened. Thus, it does not always come across in a good light. It is important to put forward the idea of skeptical thinking and rationality, but at the same time it is important to carry your message in such a manner that carries the most impact. Directly criticizing a persons most closely held beliefs actually may reinforce those beliefs, which I believe is the opposite of your goal.

I myself have a Darwin fish and a Flying Spagetti Monster on the back of my Delica, but I try where possible to keep a level of sensitivity to peoples emotions to ensure that the message can get across. After all, we started this thread with what is obviously a conspiracy theory (there is no evidence in favour of chemtrails) yet people believe it.

It is my belief that if we wish to make more people capable of rational responses and able to use critical thinking, that we must slowly teach them the tools of how to determine true from false, real from imaginary. Because if we do not, then it will cause harm to many people.

[konadog]

There is nothing that science can't address that religion can address with any more accuracy. Science says "We don't know yet, but here are a few hypotheses." Religion says "God did it. Stop asking questions."

Let's be blunt. Religion is full of hypocrisy, inconsistency, fear-mongering and cherry picking. It's hardly a good guide to living your life.

There are things that science cannot address at all. Religion and spirituality fills a deep need in us and have so since the beginning of time. It was the church who keep the light of learning and knowledge alive through the dark ages in Europe. It was the priests who were the mathematicians and astronomers in the ancient cultures like Egypt and the Maya. To cynically blow all this off is to dismiss the bulk of the human experience and learning. Sure religions and churches are hypocritical and closed minded - they are human organizations run by people with personal ambitions and political motives. That doesn't mean that the core ideas are worthless. All have something to teach us about ourselves and the cosmos.
Science is by definition amoral, interested only in the answers to the questions asked, not in the morality of the issue is question. Dismissing spiritual inquiry and philosophical thinking will get us no where.
Here's a link to an interesting article from the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/ ... nce-krauss

[Mr. Flibble]

There are things that science cannot address at all.

Such as?

Religion and spirituality fills a deep need in us and have so since the beginning of time.

There are certain South American cultures that never developed the idea of a god. What need does this fill?

It was the church who keep the light of learning and knowledge alive through the dark ages in Europe. It was the priests who were the mathematicians and astronomers in the ancient cultures like Egypt and the Maya.

Yes, it also controlled the people. You got burned at the stake for disagreeing with dogma, or confined for being a good scientist a la Galileo. The Maya regularly executed slaves on the steps of their temples. Then you have the spanish inquisition. Hardly what I would call moral actions.

The effect can be dramatically seen here:

Dark_Ages.gif (25.77 KiB) Viewed 7900 times

To cynically blow all this off is to dismiss the bulk of the human experience and learning. Sure religions and churches are hypocritical and closed minded - they are human organizations run by people with personal ambitions and political motives. That doesn't mean that the core ideas are worthless. All have something to teach us about ourselves and the cosmos.

They are well worth studying I agree. I am very well verses on Christian and Jewish Myths. I have others to branch out in. However, that does not mean I should believe in them. I enjoy the books in the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter series, but that does not mean I believe their stories. In the same way, I do not believe the stories of the Roman creation myths, nor do I feel the need to believe clearly false stories in other sources of Myth.

Science is by definition amoral, interested only in the answers to the questions asked, not in the morality of the issue is question. Dismissing spiritual inquiry and philosophical thinking will get us no where.

Science is a process, yes. So it is not moral in and of itself. However, you can use science to answer questions. So, one could ask "Is this a moral behaviour?" and you could use science to answer that question - we are just coming on to the frontier of being able to do that.

Here's a link to an interesting article from the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/ ... nce-krauss

The problem with Philosophy is that it is a pre-science field. With the advent of MRI scanners and the like, we will now be able to answer nearly all the questions of philosophy by fully understanding and modeling peoples minds. The only questions left outstanding will be about the nature of the universe, and things such as the grand unified theory. True, science will go on, and there is so much more to learn. Science grew out of philosophy, it started from that as a root. As the rules became more defined it became more solidified. Philosophy is interesting, but some of the questions it can ask are meaningless. Many things it covers are as much as: "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"