Languish's church attendence

[Viking]

Okay Viking how could physics be considered "free of miracles" if it isn't fully understood?

Because magic ceased to be an acceptible explanation. God did it was no longer an explanation of anything. 

[Razgovory]

Why does this interest you so much, Vike?

Cause he's a bigot.  He hates religion.  And doesn't think the religious people should be given peace. 

This is yet another reason why the religious should not be left in peace with their faith.

http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,4746.180.html

[Razgovory]

Okay Viking how could physics be considered "free of miracles" if it isn't fully understood?

Because magic ceased to be an acceptible explanation. God did it was no longer an explanation of anything.

That doesn't answer my question.  How did they come to this conclusion?

[Viking]

I'm sort of losing focus.  The watchmaker argument is essentially a naturalist one, it doesn't need overt miracles.

Well no. The watchmaker argument is that the world is so perfect because of miracle and the perfectness of the world is proof of the the fact of miracle. The giraffe has a long necked because god created the giraffe to have a long neck. The fish swims well because it was created by god to be a good swimmer. The sun is the way it is to give the earth a pleasant and temperate climate. The moon is the way it is to create the tides for shipping and other reasons with never a miscommunication. God made all these things the way they are and the goodness and virtue of the world is proof of gods goodness and virtue.

[Viking]

Why does this interest you so much, Vike?

Cause he's a bigot.  He hates religion.  And doesn't think the religious people should be given peace. 

This is yet another reason why the religious should not be left in peace with their faith.

http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,4746.180.html

Yes, Religion is not an excuse for anything, including the torture of cats. The torture of cats cannot be excused by religion. I hate religion in the same way Jefferson and Lincoln did. They saw it as a mockery of reason and human dignity. I agree with them on that.

[Viking]

That doesn't answer my question.  How did they come to this conclusion?

Because religion got the answer wrong every time when they finally found the answer. To paraphrase Laplace, they no longer needed god as a hypothesis, they had found real answers to how the heavens work, where lightning comes from and what causes storms.

[Barrister]

Whille I am not declaring we need God to explain anything you are talking as if every single thing in the Universe has been figured out, or was figured out by 1859, and there were/are no mysteries left.

And that the only purpose of God/religion was to explain things.  It's a very odd version of faith.

"only purpose" ? Valmy said no such thing. However explaining shit is most certainly one of the most important functions religion. The explanations are usually formulated in a manner to get people to make offerings, yes, but explanations they are non-the-less.

How do you know that?

Because God's an omnipotent, omnipresent being; the Alpha and the Omega.  Now maybe you're able to understand that, but I doubt it.  I can't.

The incomprehensibility argument isn't a pathetic cop-out or even really an argument, it's the first principle of faith.  A sort of humility in front of mystery.  I don't think we can even say God is good, or omnipotent - those are human terms.  The best we can approach is that God is not not good and so on.

I'm sure my Biblical knowledge is less than yours so I'll leave that to you.

It is a copout for the simple reason that the idiocy of the incomprahensability argument necessitates the end of inquiry. Inquiry itself becomes impious. It is the little brat claiming that the majesty of his calculations are such that they are incomprehensible to the teacher so the teacher must just accept his answer to be true.

Furthermore the religious actually do believe that he is good and omnipotent, without those beliefs their faith is pointless. Claiming that god is neither good and/or ominpotent contradicts all abrahamic religions.

I love it when people like Valmy or Sheilbh engage Viking on religion.  You can just tell that Viking wishes he was debating a fundamentalist.

God may be incomprehensible - but that is far from saying that you can not or should not try and understand the workings of the universe or the Allmighty.  Indeed I've heard some say that exploring the inner working of the submolecular world is just a way of trying to better understand God and his creation.

[derspiess]

Yes, Religion is not an excuse for anything, including the torture of cats. The torture of cats cannot be excused by religion. I hate religion in the same way Jefferson and Lincoln did. They saw it as a mockery of reason and human dignity. I agree with them on that.

Leaving aside the Lincoln/Jefferson troll bait, if I were an atheist I'd probably have nothing to do with religious discussions, as they wouldn't interest me in the slightest.  I'm curious to know where certain atheists' hostility towards religion comes from.  Did religion cause harm to you in some significant manner, to where you think you have to fight back against it?

[Viking]

I love it when people like Valmy or Sheilbh engage Viking on religion.  You can just tell that Viking wishes he was debating a fundamentalist.

Well yes. I can respect a fundamentalist. I feel a bit soiled when taking on the issue with people who treat their religion as a buffet. If god did exist that fact would be the most significant fact in history and that fact would be not only relevant to every issue but decisive on every issue. I can't help but lose respect for people who claim to have faith but then not only disregard god and his commandments but then seek to impose their own values and view on him. If god says kill the gays then kill the gays you must. If god commands you to sell all your wealth and leave your family to follow him then you must sell and abandon.

I can't respect people who don't have the courage of their own supposed convictions. God had a book written for you with lots of laws and rules and regulations for mankind. It's intellectually dishonest to run around pretending that god didn't mean it when he made eating lobster a capital offense.

God may be incomprehensible - but that is far from saying that you can not or should not try and understand the workings of the universe or the Allmighty.  Indeed I've heard some say that exploring the inner working of the submolecular world is just a way of trying to better understand God and his creation.

Again, this is a poor argument for anything. I can be pretty sure that those who said that about the sub molecular world didn't know what they were talking about. Deepak Chopra and his ilk are mendacious charlatans. Arguing that God is incomprehensible is the god of the gaps argument writ large. If it doesn't make sense or is malicious or is illogical or inconsistent with what god commanded in the last chapter then the incomprahensiability argument is brought out.

[Razgovory]

Why does this interest you so much, Vike?

Cause he's a bigot.  He hates religion.  And doesn't think the religious people should be given peace. 

This is yet another reason why the religious should not be left in peace with their faith.

http://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,4746.180.html

Yes, Religion is not an excuse for anything, including the torture of cats. The torture of cats cannot be excused by religion. I hate religion in the same way Jefferson and Lincoln did. They saw it as a mockery of reason and human dignity. I agree with them on that.

That's sort of a false dichotomy don't you think?  I really don't know any religion that condones the torture of cats.  The only people I know of that torture cats are sadists and researchers.  Besides, I don't recall Lincoln ever "hating" religion.  In fact, evidence of atheism seems to be second hand.

[Iormlund]

Did religion cause harm to you in some significant manner, to where you think you have to fight back against it?

Religious people will shamelessly impose their morality on others given half a chance. That's reason enough.

Not to mention they made me waste a lot of hours of my youth, thanks to Catholic indoctrination in public schools (paid for with our taxes!).

[DGuller]

Leaving aside the Lincoln/Jefferson troll bait, if I were an atheist I'd probably have nothing to do with religious discussions, as they wouldn't interest me in the slightest.  I'm curious to know where certain atheists' hostility towards religion comes from.  Did religion cause harm to you in some significant manner, to where you think you have to fight back against it?

No man exists in vacuum.  Religion affects other people, and other people in turn affect you.  Some of the ways religion affects other people are definitely not positive.

[Barrister]

I love it when people like Valmy or Sheilbh engage Viking on religion.  You can just tell that Viking wishes he was debating a fundamentalist.

Well yes. I can respect a fundamentalist. I feel a bit soiled when taking on the issue with people who treat their religion as a buffet. If god did exist that fact would be the most significant fact in history and that fact would be not only relevant to every issue but decisive on every issue. I can't help but lose respect for people who claim to have faith but then not only disregard god and his commandments but then seek to impose their own values and view on him. If god says kill the gays then kill the gays you must. If god commands you to sell all your wealth and leave your family to follow him then you must sell and abandon.

I can't respect people who don't have the courage of their own supposed convictions. God had a book written for you with lots of laws and rules and regulations for mankind. It's intellectually dishonest to run around pretending that god didn't mean it when he made eating lobster a capital offense.

  Well I didn't think you'd actually admit it.


You remind me of a friend of mine from university.  He was an evangelical, but he also loved a good rip-roaring debate where he'd refuse to give an inch.  Which meant he loved to argue why evolution was wrong.

At the time I was studying geology.  So a couple of times I wanted to argue how zircon dating had pretty conclusively shown the world was a hell of a lot older than 5000 years.  But do you think I could get him to debate zircon dating?  Of course not - he'd always go back to what he knew, which was evolution.

You don't know what the arguments against more liberal christian theology are, so you just call us "intellectually dishonest" because you'd prefer to argue about biblical literalism.   

[Valmy]

Well yes. I can respect a fundamentalist.

xinfinity

What a load of absurd bullshit.

You don't know what the arguments against more liberal christian theology are, so you just call us "intellectually dishonest" because you'd prefer to argue about biblical literalism.

Heh.  Yep.

[Razgovory]

I love it when people like Valmy or Sheilbh engage Viking on religion.  You can just tell that Viking wishes he was debating a fundamentalist.

Well yes. I can respect a fundamentalist. I feel a bit soiled when taking on the issue with people who treat their religion as a buffet. If god did exist that fact would be the most significant fact in history and that fact would be not only relevant to every issue but decisive on every issue. I can't help but lose respect for people who claim to have faith but then not only disregard god and his commandments but then seek to impose their own values and view on him. If god says kill the gays then kill the gays you must. If god commands you to sell all your wealth and leave your family to follow him then you must sell and abandon.

I can't respect people who don't have the courage of their own supposed convictions. God had a book written for you with lots of laws and rules and regulations for mankind. It's intellectually dishonest to run around pretending that god didn't mean it when he made eating lobster a capital offense.

God may be incomprehensible - but that is far from saying that you can not or should not try and understand the workings of the universe or the Allmighty.  Indeed I've heard some say that exploring the inner working of the submolecular world is just a way of trying to better understand God and his creation.

Again, this is a poor argument for anything. I can be pretty sure that those who said that about the sub molecular world didn't know what they were talking about. Deepak Chopra and his ilk are mendacious charlatans. Arguing that God is incomprehensible is the god of the gaps argument writ large. If it doesn't make sense or is malicious or is illogical or inconsistent with what god commanded in the last chapter then the incomprahensiability argument is brought out.

You prefer the fundamentalist cause they better fit your straw man attacks.  You might find this surprising but very serious people have had disagreements of faith and written a great deal about it.  This causes a great deal of difference in doctrines that are no more or less honestly held then a bible literalist.  This subtly causes difficulty when you try to pigeonhole someone.  Dawkins has the same problem, he lazily shrugs it off saying he doesn't believe it so he need not waste time learning what he's actually arguing against.  Instead he creates an idea of religion in his head and argues against that.  In that way he's no better then a creationist who doesn't actually understand the theory of Evolution.