RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective

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MadRabbit -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 3:18:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro quote: ORIGINAL: Rule Archimedes was a supergenius... Wait, so now you are telling us that Archimedes was actually Wile E. Coyote???!!! [:D] Do you have any knowledge not gained from cartoons? Rule can tell who is a supergenius because he is, in fact, a supergenius....according to the many statements he's made claiming such.

Zensee -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 3:28:55 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Rule It is well known that the holocaust was financed by jewish bankers. If nobody else is going to nominate this for a Tinfoil Beannie award, in the category of, Most Fucked Up Thing Anyone Has Said On CM So Far This Year, then I will. Z.

bipolarber -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 3:44:49 PM)
Of course, you could all just start believing in MY religion. (I have it copyrighted, so don't try stealing any of it!) I call it, "Quantholosicim." It combines religion with the parallel universe interpretation of quantum physics. Since Heisenberg's uncertainty principle allows for another universe to exist for every possible outcome of every possible event, there is the chance that there are an infinite number of universes where any particular religion may be true. This also means there are infinte numbers of YOU out there, each believing every possible religion. As such, you should just relax, knowing you have it covered... somewhere.

CuriousLord -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 3:47:11 PM)
Then you take the limit of the notion of those universes approaching infinity and you find that there's a single possible solution.

Rule -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 3:50:03 PM)
Hitler was financed by: Alcoa, Chase National Bank, Davis Oil Company, Du Pont, DuPont General Aniline and Film, Ford Motors, General Motors, Hearst newspaper syndicate, International Telephone and Telegraph, John Davison Rockefeller, J.P. Morgan's bank, National City Bank, Radio Corporation of America, Readers Digest magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, SKF Industries, Standard Oil, Sterling Products, Sullivan and Cromwell law firm, Texas [Oil] Company, Vacuum Oil Company. Must be some jews among them?

Rule -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 3:56:54 PM)
Pray elaborate. (The multiple universe solution is incorrect in any case; far too complex.)

Zensee -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 4:02:44 PM)
Rule - there's a big difference between the possible presence of people of Jewish extraction within corporations which directly or indirectly enabled Hitler and asserting that Jewish bankers knowingly and specifically financed the extermination camps. Z.

Rule -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 4:18:13 PM)
Quite. I take it back. When after my post I started to look for my arguments all I found were those companies. I did not do an indepth investigation of the ethnicity of their directors. But Bush is a secret jew, isn't he? And his grandfather Prescott Sheldon Bush (Union Banking Corporation) was one of the financiers of Hitler.

SugarMyChurro -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 4:20:19 PM)
It's really stunning the things people will write here in defense of their ever more slender grip on reality... [8\|] Sadly, some people in this thread are really starting to show their intolerance. I'm not attacking people, I'm challenging ideas that people hold dear because I think those ideas are unworthy of them. I more deeply respect and care about the person holding a certain set of views and not the ideas that they so cherish. Free yourself from dogma and enter into the world as it really is. I'm not asking anyone to replace my dogma for their old one - I am simply asking people to question their own initial assertions about belief. If you deny the veracity of your own experience, of what meaning are your moments here in this universe of sensation? If you do actually trust your own world of experiences, how can you overlay faith on top of it without admitting to numerous contradictions between the world of experience and your chosen faith? You know, I am really not some mean, small-minded person. To a certain extent I just wish people would come out of their own self-imposed mind prisons. I honestly think that faith, and more particularly a religious worldview, can be a very dangerous thing if one is given to some of the more bizarre, less humane viewpoints. What I really seek is a world of greater tolerance. When I am not making abstract philosophical points about the absurdity of faith (again, from an empirical viewpoint), I'm actually a very religiously tolerant individual. As others have pointed out, it is actually we empiricists that have been continually targeted our whole lives long for being faithless. There is an enormous pressure to conform to one of the many religious views that many follow without question. What I always find striking is how little most of the faithful really understand about the religions they supposedly follow. Press them even a little on some minor points and they often readily reveal that they simply had no idea that were large chinks in the armor of their chosen faith system. But I am very familiar with the disappointed shaking of the head I get from people even after I have shown them that they haven't a clue about what they themselves really believe or why. So I don't come her to mock people, but to test their ideas about faith. It's fair to do so here because while I can have my say, others can have their say also. We can toss these ideas around and see what shakes out. But please leave the intolerance at the door. Amicable disagreement is possible. P.S. I hope this made at least some sense...

luckydog1 -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 4:28:52 PM)
Alumbrado, are you deliberatly being obtuse? I used "piss poor" in reefrence the definiton of Alchemy you used, not for the refernces you gave that science was extant BCE, of course you never actually gave me any such source. And I gave you a link to a University Math Departments pages on Alchemy (which of course you ignored and tried to only focus on the wikipedia article), showing that you were absolutly wrong on the origins of Alchemy and what is was. Mathmatics was the offshoot of Numerology cults which was a part of the Alchemic system. Alchemy was a lot more than trying to turn Lead into Gold, despite a piss poor page on dictionary dot com. I suppose if we want to assert that Theology is "Science"(it does meet 4 of the 7 criteria in the definition you gave), then yes I am wrong and there have been scientists since the dawn of mankind. If you want to say any sort of experimentation is Science then even Cockroaches are "scientists" (bite something---is it food--if yes keep eating, if nor bite something else), and I am way off base and completely wrong. If The concept of testing the hypothesis under other conditions is not part of science, then I am indeed way off base and foolish. I just don't think I am. That was Gallileo's greatest achievement, and the start of a paradigm shift in the way people relate to the world. It was the start of the "Scientific Era". He was trained in the Alchemical arts under the tutalage of the Church. Realised that these ideas had to be tested, did so and found a lot of flaws, for which he was persecuted and punished, and changed our perception of the world to an unbelievable level. Creating Science using the Scientific Method. Alchemists found some real things of value. Alchemy can predict eclipses. Alchemy math can build a Pyramid. But the why behind what they thought was incredibly different than a scientist. So if you want to claim that Catholic Theology is Science, then I will have to admit that science existed before the Scientific Method, how is that? Of course one of us will look foolish and dishonest. And BTW the Church rose about 1000 years before the start of the Scientific era. And the specifics of the Christian culture is the base from which Science was created. In the hundreds of thousands of years with Humans having the same basic IQ, no one had ever done it (or if they did, no one ever found out about it.)

luckydog1 -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 4:46:07 PM)
Sugar, your following questions pretty much hit the nail on the head If you deny the veracity of your own experience, of what meaning are your moments here in this universe of sensation? The thing is I am not denying the veracity of my own experience. If I said I had never felt the presence of the Divine and other things that convince me there is more, I would be denying the veracity of my experience. You have it totally backwards in your question. If you do actually trust your own world of experiences, how can you overlay faith on top of it without admitting to numerous contradictions between the world of experience and your chosen faith? This implies that a person has a literal revealed faith, ie fundamentalist (and honestly not a single person on here has taken that position, we all have expressly denied it), I have never experienced the sort of contradictions you refer to as being manifestly evident. You want to give me an example. I will try to answer it. But it is quite easy to realise that I am a being with only limited 3 dimensional senses bound by time. Of course I don't know everything, I don't see any reason to expect that I (or anyone) could. I will comment that to some of us who do have a faith in the Divine, the Evangelical Athiests do seem an awfull lot like a child who got super upset at learning the Santa Claus isn't literally true, and still has issues over it 20-40 years later.

Rule -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 4:47:44 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro Free yourself from dogma and enter into the world as it really is. Most may be confined by religious dogma, but I am not. I was raised atheist and actually for most of my life walked in your shoes. When I started to look at the world as it really is, the data did not make sense. Intending to disprove the existence of "God", just so that I would not be bothered by that idea when doing my analysis of cosmology, about five years after nearly completing that task I realized that my conclusions implied and described the "existence" of a binary computer of which our universe is presumably only a small part. So there it was: the Matrix and the Divine. quote: ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro If you deny the veracity of your own experience, of what meaning are your moments here in this universe of sensation? If you do actually trust your own world of experiences, how can you overlay faith on top of it without admitting to numerous contradictions between the world of experience and your chosen faith? There is no contradiction between science and spirituality / faith. quote: ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro I honestly think that faith, and more particularly a religious worldview, can be a very dangerous thing if one is given to some of the more bizarre, less humane viewpoints. You err in equating faith with a specific religion. So your argument and perception of reality is based on an improper grasp of semantics. quote: ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro There is an enormous pressure to conform to one of the many religious views that many follow without question. You may choose to worship Santa Claus. No pressure at all to do so, for he quite understands your insecurity. quote: ORIGINAL: SugarMyChurro What I always find striking is how little most of the faithful really understand about the religions they supposedly follow. That is why they need wise men to show them the way.

Zensee -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 4:57:06 PM)
So, lucky, are you still in denial that our ancestors used rudimentary but effective science to develop their technologies? That they stumbled upon making tool cores and sophisticated, composite tools by happy accident? Why are you fixated on this notion that, capital-S Science is some sort of doctrine that was developed at a particular time? There was no Council of Nicea, no creed, no ordinations, no pronouncement that Science has begun and from hence forth shall be practiced under the auspices of the Universal Laboratory of Rome... Just how many ancient Greeks had to use the scientific method to qualify? Stop cherry-picking and reinventing meanings to suit your prejudice. Alchemy was NOT used to build pyramids or cathedrals or predict eclipses. Numerology did NOT predate mathematics. And once again, NO the Catholic Church and Christian culture did NOT birth science. You have no evidence for that. Where do you get this stuff? Z.

luckydog1 -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 5:55:53 PM)
Why are you so fixated on mis definign what I say Zensee. It is really very Anti scientific of you to keep using the same logical falacy. Science is way of examining things. It is a paradigm or a framework. If you want to say that making prayers to the rock spirits and hitting the rocks at midnight on a full moon with a sacrafice is how you make the rock spirit happy so he gives you a sharp blade, is science, then I conceed and you are right. They were fucking scientists. Sounds dumb to me. I just think Chemistry that involves incantations (alchemy) is not science. Even if you can make gunpowder by mixing the proper portions of Sky, water and Earth. And you and Alumbrado are correct Science does not involve testing of the hypothesis or using the Scientific Method at all. Has nothing to do with it whatsoever, Anything done by trial and error is science, and only a dishonest fool would think otherwise. And of course the Church had no role in the Culture to which Gallileo was born or his personal education, again only a dishonest fool would think otherwise.

Zensee -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 6:34:17 PM)
Where did you ever get the idea that tool making was mostly superstition? Ever make a stone tool? Do you know what a tool core is? Any idea how much abstraction and forethought that involves? You don't give our ancestors much credit. They smelted metals, made alloys, glass, pottery, textiles... Just because they didn't have cell phones doesn't mean they were idiots. And I have never asserted that science is pure trial and error or does not involve testing and adjusting the hypothesis etc. etc. Nor did I say that Alchemy was science. Again you are just making up things for me to say so you can refute me. Please address my points, not your own inventions on my behalf. The only person abusing definitions here is you. Your sarcasm doesn't help either. Galileo was a product of Christian culture because he, and everyone else, had no other choice. That culture did its damnedest to prevent his research and publishing, indirectly through his church sponsored colleagues (who refused to look through his telescope because they "knew" there would be nothing to see) and directly in the form of threats of torture. Z.

SugarMyChurro -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 9:50:20 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: luckydog1 I would be denying the veracity of my experience. You have it totally backwards in your question. So this is empirical knowledge of the divine that you could both describe articulate for us and reproduce on demand? quote: ORIGINAL: luckydog1 You want to give me an example. I will try to answer it. Well, what's your stated faith system and I shall try to find a contradiction between it and what is normally perceived as objective, or commonly accepted, reality.

luckydog1 -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 9:55:56 PM)
"As I have said before, it is a method of using our minds through observation and experimentation. It's been with us for hundreds of thousands of years. Hit rocks together. Sharp bits come off! Hmmmm... sharp bits cut... etc.etc. That's not religion at work, that is the scientific process. " Nope that is accident and trial and error, not the scientific process. No where in that do I see you acknowlegeding the need for testing of the hypothesis under varying conditions, perhaps you forgot what you earlier asserted. You seem to know very little about how early man operated, and the context of pre scientific thought. The Making of Tools was sacred ritual. What you are describing could just as easily be, bite it, if its food eat it, which is the brain level of a cockroach. And I do not think they are doing science. Do you think ants are doing science? They seemingly have architectual skills. Is a monkey climbing a new tree doing science? Earlier someone ( I don't think it was you) was asserting that opening a door is science. You commented on Alchemy, "(Alchemy, BTW, was only the origin of modern chemistry, not of the modern, formal scientific method, just as astronomy grew out of astrology - superstition may contain knowledge but requires some judicious editing to achieve it.) " And that is absolutly false, guess you forgot you said that also. Astrology, Architecture, and numerology plus more were parts of Alchemy as was fortuntelling, and magic incantations. Did you know Pythagorus was a fortune teller? Thats what he was doing when he noticed his great Theory. He believed numbers were sacred and had mystical meanings, that's not science- it's numerology, even though he found a true relationship among the numbers. the judicious editing you refer to is the scientific method, which didn't get developed untill Rennisanse Europe. If you want to say that Pre Scientific Magic based technology is science, ok. Saying something was the "science of its day" does not make it science, it infact implies it was a substitute for it, and not the same thing..

SugarMyChurro -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 10:01:23 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Rule Intending to disprove the existence of "God" So you started out by trying to prove a negative? That seems unwise... [8\|] quote: ORIGINAL: Rule There is no contradiction between science and spirituality / faith. Well, there certainly could be and often there is. quote: ORIGINAL: Rule You err in equating faith with a specific religion. No, I don't err - you can't apparently understand a qualified statement when you read one. Read it again and you shall see I am citing specific faith systems. ----- I, for one, would be glad to see anything even sort of resembling a concise and coherent statement about the kind of ideas you are often eluding to but not actually directly articulating for the rest of us. It's really not very clever. I'd genuinely be interested in what you might say, but you never really come out and say it. It's an old game like the one played by Scientology that you have to struggle up through their caste system only to be rudely shocked to discover that Xenu idiocy at the end of it all. Thousands of dollars in debt to a make-believe faith system is not really where most people want to end up.

luckydog1 -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 10:04:45 PM)
Sugar, I have no "formal faith", You could say I am an open minded Zen Unitarian with Christian trappings, if you like. Feel free to show me the contradictions. I have no desire to testify on the web,and can't reproduce it for you. Can you prove empirically and reproducably that your mother loved you? I can't proove that I saw an Eagle while driving around today either, and if you choose to think that means I am lying or deluded, go for it. Can you prove to me empirically and reproducably that sub atomic particles have mass when they move?

luckydog1 -> RE: Faith to the faithless, a perspective (2/6/2008 10:09:16 PM)
"No, I don't err - you can't apparently understand a qualified statement when you read one. Read it again and you shall see I am citing specific faith systems. " Actually Sugar, in the first line of your opening post, the post that is the root of this entire disscussion you said, "I tried thinking of an analogy that would perfectly explain how agnostics or atheists perceive people of faith." Nothing about specific faith systems at all, in fact the opposite, is your orignal premise. Do you have the intellectual honor to admit, you have tried to switch your premise? Generally that is considered evidence that you can't defend the original one. You are trying to attack people with Faith in a divine by attacking a specific religion....Not a logical argument.

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