Thread: Is it possible for us as men to have a discussion on God

Originally Posted by mischievous

Are you saying that man just suddenly appeared and that these ideas were impressed upon him from an outside source? Hmmm, sounds vaguely familiar.

Familiar indeed! You said:

You must be taught a belief system

So... no?

Originally Posted by mischievous

I can prove light exists to a blind man easy. Stand him out in the sun long enough, and he'll get burned!

I agree you can prove to him that light as he can understand it exists. But what I said was that you cannot prove to the blind man that light is visible or that visibility even exists unless he chooses to believe what you say about it. If seeing is believing, then good luck. If not, then we're back to God aren't we?

Are you saying you cannot ever trust any evidence? Ever?

Not at all; I have the option to believe whatever evidence is put before me. So do you

You don't have a guilt organ or a god shaped hole.

And yet the blind man could stand there getting burned and keep saying, "That's just heat! I still don't see anything! Get it off get it off it offends me!"

Not that he would, that's just a hypothetical of course

Wait a minute... I can't make up my mind.

Sorry, I still don't follow some of your statements.

I feel like we're drifting into the land of the invisible unicorn and I don't want to upset his holiness the FSM, so I think I'll bow out here.

It's been different.

Oh majestic and holy FSM, please forgive me my sins.

Originally Posted by mischievous

Sorry, I still don't follow some of your statements.

If I had the technology to give our guy sight I could prove it to him. That's the reality of the situation. Belief doesn't come into play at all here. That's my point.

He can chose to believe or not, that doesn't negate the fact that light exists.

According to your position then, life is an hypothesis?


I really wish I didn't believe in gravity, it would be very helpful in my line of work!

And you don't have to believe in a Grand Designer, but does your lack of belief make it true that God doesn't exist?

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

And yet the blind man could stand there getting burned and keep saying, "That's just heat! I still don't see anything! Get it off get it off it offends me!"

Not that he would, that's just a hypothetical of course

Well, this is not exactly an accurate train of thought, for heat to cause the same kind of burn it would have to be much hotter than the average ambient temperature of the generally inhabited areas of Earth.

Since the skin damage from light waves is not a function of temperature, it would have to be some form of radiative energy other than heat.

Originally Posted by JMS

And you don't have to believe in a Grand Designer, but does your lack of belief make it true that God doesn't exist?

No, it could very well exist even if everyone disbelieved.

But that's a false analogy, you're equating the natural to the supernatural, which are two things that are more than likely dissimilar.

(For all we know, God could be like the elusive Paradoxasaur that only exists if you don't believe it exists and as soon as you begin to believe it exists, it no longer exists. )

I know I said I would bow out but then I had to answer this:

Originally Posted by JMS

And you don't have to believe in a Grand Designer, but does your lack of belief make it true that God doesn't exist?

+1 on what Russel said.

Quote: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

We can play word games ad-nausea.

No, you cannot disprove the existence of the Invisible Pink Unicorn, or any other, fill in the name here, deity. Believers love these tactics, they live for them, in fact, without them they have infinitely less than they are comfortable with.

Since you guys ( mischeivous and Russel) assumed that my point was a false analogy I will assume that you completely missed my point and make myself clear! So, here goes:
What is, is. What is not, is not. no matter what science says, no matter what religions say, no matter what atheists and agnostics say, this truth does not change! because we believe in something, that does not make it so. because we don't believe, that does not make it not so!
The world, the Universe, all that can be seen or not seen is as an olympic swimming pool and we as a whole are less than an atom in that pool!
Quite honestly, all any of us have is faith, be it faith in science, God, what have you.



What is, is and what is not, is not! Our beliefs and proofs, facts and figures. religions and faiths do not change this truth one iota!

Originally Posted by JMS

Since you guys ( mischeivous and Russel) assumed that my point was a false analogy I will assume that you completely missed my point and make myself clear! So, here goes:
What is, is. What is not, is not. no matter what science says, no matter what religions say, no matter what atheists and agnostics say, this truth does not change! because we believe in something, that does not make it so. because we don't believe, that does not make it not so!
The world, the Universe, all that can be seen or not seen is as an olympic swimming pool and we as a whole are less than an atom in that pool!
Quite honestly, all any of us have is faith, be it faith in science, God, what have you.



What is, is and what is not, is not! Our beliefs and proofs, facts and figures. religions and faiths do not change this truth one iota!

Remember when you played tag as a kid? When someone pulls out the old, "Faith is different and doesn't require proof," it's tantamount to saying, "I'm safe, I'm on base!" Nobody can argue with make-believe!

Science is nothing but a method. Faith cannot be touched because it cannot be tested. Look at what people filled in our gaps of knowledge with, faith or god or whatever. The tendency to do that is still rampant!

I don't have to have faith in gravity, speed of light, etc...

Your truth of what is is and what isn't, isn't is a given. That's obvious.

Sorry, but I don't need faith, it's not all I have. And just because I don't know something now doesn't mean I won't know it later, take for example the new collider that's coming on-line. Exciting! What I do have is an understanding of how precious life, the universe, and everything is because I have no faith. Like you said, what is is and what isn't isn't.
Enjoy your time here because there ain't nothing after! Anything else is just make-believe a.k.a. faith.

Originally Posted by JMS

Quite honestly, all any of us have is faith, be it faith in science, God, what have you.

i would disagree that everyone who values science more than a deity is exercising faith.

if i believe that hurricane ike just knocked down the tree in my yard, but can't see it, hear it, touch it, etc, etc... then that's faith. i can postulate that the tree is no longer standing, but as long as it remains impossible for me to tell, my belief is faith.

now, if i go out in the yard, and see that the tree is lying on the ground, and smell the burning wood from the lightning strike, and feel the splinters in my yard, etc i no longer have faith that the tree is fallen, i have KNOWLEDGE that the tree has fallen. i can observe, repeatably, that the tree is in fact no longer vertical. i can bring other people over to my house and i can show them the same thing, and they can observe it and agree with me. i can look at the tree all day long, for however long i like, in whatever way i like, and there it is: fallen.

now, with science, we can't always directly observe the tree. sometimes we can only hear the thunder and the subsequent crash of the tree, and then make a guess (hypothesis) that it has fallen. this isn't faith either, because i'm not SURE the tree has fallen, i only think it might have. i have some incomplete evidence that points to a fallen tree, but it's still a guess. it's not until i have all the evidence that i can say with certainty that the tree has fallen.

modern science has heard the thunder and the crash, and is guessing that the tree has fallen. we don't know. we guess. we suppose. and we are looking for evidence as best we can. people who claim that the tree has 100% definitely fallen, without seeing it, are idiots. they don't know. they are guessing, too, but because they are tools, they claim knowledge without really having it. people who say all scientific theories are 100% true and god is 100% false fall into this category. it might be. but we don't know yet. we're still looking, guessing, and drawing conclusions from what we see.

religion tells us there is an invisible tree in a yard we can't ever look at, with invisible hurricanes that may or may not have invisible lightning. but they still claim infallible knowledge (not really knowledge, it's faith, but a lot of them won't say it like that) that their invisible tree has fallen. not only is this NOT based on observations, but it's completely non-deterministic. you can't EVER look at the invisible tree to see if it has fallen. you can't ever touch it, or sniff for burning wood. ever. that's faith.

so i'm going to have to take exception to you lumping everyone that favors science into one group that acts out of faith. some of them do, yes. but i think i speak for russell, mischevious and myself when i say we DON"T have faith. at all. we guess, and we (and the scientific community) look for evidence. sometimes we observe things that make us a bit more certain of what we guessed. sometimes we observe things that make us realize our guesses kind of sucked, and we need to come up with new guesses. but we are always looking, and we are always willing to re-evaluate our guesses and come up with new ones.

you can say that we're guessing... we are. you can say that we might be wrong... we might. but you can't say we have blind faith because we really don't... we're just guessing and observing.

russell and mischevious, if i've put the wrong words in your mouth, i'm sorry.