Behaviour report by the London school of economics

Cleaver

wigglebeena wrote: »

Cuz it's funny to annoy folks. But probably true anyway. Who's sharper, someone who takes a position on faith without evidence (e.g. atheist)

Well you've succeeded in annoying this folk.

Whilst I don't want to come accross as some militant atheist (and apologies if I do), this is just plain wrong. There is no evidence for God existing. Full stop. He / She / It may exist of course (in the same way anything could exist), but there is currently not a shred of evidence for the existence of God. I don't have a 'position' on faith, I just don't believe in something that there is no evidence for. I don't believe in invisible pink elephants, faries, ghosts or any other concept that there is no evidence for either. Again, all these things may exist, but I don't think they do.

Of course I don't have any truck with people who do believe in a God, nor do I have any desire to 'prove them wrong' or anything like that. And as a point of order, it goes without saying that I don't think intelligence is linked to religious belief (or non-belief).

Cleaver

wigglebeena wrote: »

Oh yes, and because atheists do seem to borrow technically agnostic arguments rather a lot when challenged in debate (and suffering the embarrassment of having no logical rigour to cover their nakedness). If our arguments are so good, we must be pretty smart...

I don't think I've ever debated it before now to be honest.

carolt

Sorry - can't be arsed to read the whole thread, but I'm not atheist or even terribly liberal, but I think I'm fairly bright.

Know lots of v bright religious people - I suspect that labelling people by faith as automatically 'dim' might not be the brightest thing, actually.

wigglebeena

Cleaver wrote: »

Well you've succeeded in annoying this folk.

Whilst I don't want to come accross as some militant atheist (and apologies if I do), this is just plain wrong. There is no evidence for God existing. Full stop. He / She / It may exist of course (in the same way anything could exist), but there is currently not a shred of evidence for the existence of God. I don't have a 'position' on faith, I just don't believe in something that there is no evidence for. I don't believe in invisible pink elephants, faries, ghosts or any other concept that there is no evidence for either. Again, all these things may exist, but I don't think they do.

Of course I don't have any truck with people who do believe in a God, nor do I have any desire to 'prove them wrong' or anything like that. And as a point of order, it goes without saying that I don't think intelligence is linked to religious belief (or non-belief).

You're quite right (of course straw men arguments usually are). Nor for the reverse. Check out the black swan argument. Inductive arguments are logically insufficient for anything but the most practical and mundane everyday matters. Is inductive observation sufficient to be pretty sure a herd of wildebeest isn't going to swarm across the M1 on your way home? Yep. Enough to conclusively disprove the existence of any originating force for the matter and consciousness within our universe? Errr no.

(Respects to Sir Humphrey, I do get where you're coming from, but I'm a slightly more primitive style of agnostic, and physics and astronomy make my head hurt.)

There's nothing wrong with believing something without adequate evidence, you don't need to take offence. I have Muslim & Christian pals, we just avoid the subject of the rational grounding (or otherwise) of their beliefs.

Cleaver

Mr.Brown wrote: »

Maybe the argument is that believers and deniers have their eyes shut to the possiblity of an alternative. It is therefore more intelligent to leave your stance open. Previously, if asked, I would have said atheist. I realise now I meant to say agnostic. I have personally grown as a result of this thread.

I understand what you're saying, but I just can't agree.

Let's say you have a theory that there is no moon, it's actually a clever trick played by governments to put a hologram in the sky everynight. I will have an open mind to your theory, but the evidence tells me you are wrong. I think there's a 0.0001% chance you might be right, and if pieces of evidence come to light that support your theory then my mind will open even further. Am I 100% sure that you're wrong and I'm right? No. I'm not 100% sure about anything in life.

What you're basically saying is that we're all agnostic / unsure about everything. Which is fine. If what we're saying is if I can't prove that there's no God then I'm an agnostic then cool, I'm agnostic. The term doesn't really matter does it?

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm about as atheist as wiggle is an agnostic and a relgious person is of their theism.

Should I say that wiggle is close-minded because they are not open about athiesm?

F*ck me, this is complicated and ultimately futile. Is there not a stupidly small nationwide house price move we can pointlessly debate instead?

wigglebeena

treliac wrote: »

You're one smart lady, wiggle. Love the way you've been expressing yourself in this thread.

(Blush). Too kind. But I bow to Sir Humphrey and his elegant agnostic stylings: he's the general plotting to rout the opposition, I'm the footsoldier slogging it out in the trenches...

Cleaver

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

My point is that the idea of God as the creator of the Universe is meaningless. How can logical meaning apply if you are arguing about something beyond the realm of logic (or even the realm of illogic)?

Stephen Hawking it sums up; what is South of the South Pole? It cannot be conceived. Likewise, asking what happened before the Big Bang is equally impossible to conceive. If time only applies to the actual universe, how can even say that something was before the universe? You can neither believe nor disbelieve something that is inconceivable.

This is totally different to a flying spaghetti monster, which is a coherent concept, even if absurd.

Really, this is not a question that is worth wasting your time over IMHO.

This sums up my position a lot better than the waffle I was typing. I guess maybe you're right Wiggle and I am an agnostic. I have no idea what created the universe, if indeed it was created. I dunno if it was a Cadbury's cream egg, Tescos, a God, the letter 'Y', a left-wing think tank, big physics stuff, lots of light, Kwik-fit... it's all just abstract and theories. Obviously as humans it's logical and natural that we make up a big man in the sky who creates stuff (I'm obviously simplfying this here), but why this rather than anything else I don't know.

I guess I'm more concerned (if that's the right word?) why people in modern society feel the need to base a religion around a concept that is largely unknown. But hey.

ninky_2

the problem with agnosticism is that it can suggest that the probability of there being a god and the probability of there not being a god are equally likely. when to me they are not at all equally likely.

to me the existence of sweets can be proved by evidence so when the agnostic baby becomes old enough to realise this it can know that there are definitely things called sweets and they exist. there is no evidence that sweets do not exist.

when it comes to evolutionary theory we don't know that we've got it 100 percent correct but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that evolution exists and so in all probability it does even if we don't quite understand every single mechanism of it.

however, as for god. diddly squat. there is no evidence at all that there is a god. therefore until we come across some evidence for god it is pretty sensible to consider that for all intents and purposes there is no god. of course some people call the earth 'god' and then we get into an entirely different ballgame. but as far as i know we are discussing an all powerful conscious creator of the universe who didn't have to be created because he/she/it just is (whilst of course everything else does have to be created).

interestingly there has been a rise in creationism amongst students in uk universities. which has caused some issues when marking science papers as some have suggested that creationism should be allowed to be given as an explanation rather than evolutionary theory. some people may think this is harmless. i don't.

lemonjelly

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

My point is that the idea of God as the creator of the Universe is meaningless. How can logical meaning apply if you are arguing about something beyond the realm of logic (or even the realm of illogic)?

Stephen Hawking it sums up; what is South of the South Pole? It cannot be conceived. Likewise, asking what happened before the Big Bang is equally impossible to conceive. If time only applies to the actual universe, how can even say that something was before the universe? You can neither believe nor disbelieve something that is inconceivable.

This is totally different to a flying spaghetti monster, which is a coherent concept, even if absurd.

Really, this is not a question that is worth wasting your time over IMHO.

Quality post!!:T
The issue around god, is that it is logically impossible to prove a belief. The existence of god is unverifiable, and therefore untestable - interestingly a number of the religions feel it potentially blasphemous to question the existence of god, a kind of pre-emptive strike in my view. This is a way of avoiding the debate. But it is a belief system, and therefore not verifiable. Given that it can't be proven one way or the other: " the idea of God as the creator of the Universe is meaningless. How can logical meaning apply if you are arguing about something beyond the realm of logic".

ninky wrote: »

the problem with agnosticism is that it can suggest that the probability of there being a god and the probability of there not being a god are equally likely. when to me they are not at all equally likely.

to me the existence of sweets can be proved by evidence so when the agnostic baby becomes old enough to realise this it can know that there are definitely things called sweets and they exist. there is no evidence that sweets do not exist.

when it comes to evolutionary theory we don't know that we've got it 100 percent correct but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that evolution exists and so in all probability it does even if we don't quite understand every single mechanism of it.

however, as for god. diddly squat. there is no evidence at all that there is a god. therefore until we come across some evidence for god it is pretty sensible to consider that for all intents and purposes there is no god. of course some people call the earth 'god' and then we get into an entirely different ballgame. but as far as i know we are discussing an all powerful conscious creator of the universe who didn't have to be created because he/she/it just is (whilst of course everything else does have to be created).

interestingly there has been a rise in creationism amongst students in uk universities. which has caused some issues when marking science papers as some have suggested that creationism should be allowed to be given as an explanation rather than evolutionary theory. some people may think this is harmless. i don't.

The creationist issue is an interesting one. Both in the UK, & also in the states particularly there has been a movement to reclassify creationism as a scientific train of thought, as opposed to a religious belief. Essentially, if successful this means that creationism would have to be taught in schools & colleges in paralell with other scientific theories. There has been much action in the US courts, where the supreme court held the view that creationism is a belief, not a verified science, and therefore could not be slipped in to the curriculum.

Anyone who feels that the teaching of creationism is harmless is at best dangerously delusional.

A good account of the non-merits of creationism, along with other ridiculous (but too widely held beliefs, such as holocaust denial) is here: http://www.amazon.com/People-Believe-Weird-Things-Pseudoscience/dp/0805070893

StevieJ

Talking about religion, Louis was on tv the other night, so funny, so sad a must watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEeXjjesJfA