quote:

ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto
My dictionary (the kind that is made of paper pages bound together & sits on my desk) defines "belief" as

quote:

something believed, an opinion or conviction not immediately susceptable to rigorous proof

A religious person or theist holds the opinion or conviction that there is a God or Goddess or multiple Gods. This opinion or conviction cannot be proved by impartial, unbiased facts.

An atheist holds the opinion or conviction that there is no God or Goddess or multiple Gods - and this opinion or conviction ALSO cannot be proved
by impartial, unbiased facts.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/belief+system
Ergo, atheism is a belief just as theism is a belief.

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
whatever one believes is up to the believer.

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
It is a matter of what you wish to believe

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto
Ergo, atheism is a belief just as theism is a belief.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel
choose to believe that Santa Claus is real. Did that work?

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ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr
So, I am not talking about people that just doubt my belief and go on their merry little way. Your not-so-subtle put-down of what I may or may not believe (woo-woo) pretty much tells me that you feel the need I described in my above re-quoted post.

So, I was not describing atheists or agnostics. I was talking about the anti-God zealots that have this need to make sure no one believes in any kind of higher power. I have found that it's usually because they consider themselves to be the higher power and can't stand people worshipping anyone that isn't them.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel
Would you consider this to be true for truth claims in general or even any other truth claim? Consider:

person 1: The Earth is flat.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel
Would you consider this to be true for truth claims in general or even any other truth claim? Consider:

person 1: What's in that box?
person 2: A zombie. You see neither of us has opened the box yet, therefore my claim about its contents is true.
person 1: That makes sense after all it is a matter of what you wish to believe.

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
The earth would be flat if we didn't know better. But we do. It's valid only if you're ignorant to that fact.

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
In Christopher Columbus' day, they didn't have the means to discovered the earth was a round planet.

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
So in not knowing that, and in looking out to sea, it would seem reasonable to assume that the earth is flat.

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ORIGINAL: Louve00

The earth would be flat if we didn't know better. But we do. It's valid only if you're ignorant to that fact. In Christopher Columbus' day, they didn't have the means to discovered the earth was a round planet. So in not knowing that, and in looking out to sea, it would seem reasonable to assume that the earth is flat. But we do know better, today. But, if someone wishes to believe that, despite what man has learned, who am I to take their belief from them? I can tell them what I know...offer them the facts of that...but I can't make them believe that, unless they believe my sources and choose to go with it.

To say a zombie is in a box you haven't opened is pure assumption. I try not to assume, so while I would let you believe what you wanted to believe, I would be skeptical of that statement and not consider it fact, unless I actually saw that zombie. It would only make sense if you jumped to conclusions and disallowed yourself the ability to actually find out and open the box.

If I believe a thing, a person would have to offer concrete proof to disengage me from that belief. Truth and belief are two different things. You can believe something that is not true. But truth, for sake of example, would be more based on science and the true discovery of a fact. While belief is something that "faith" persuades. If the two meet in harmony, that's even better. But that doesn't always happen, IMO. :)

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
The earth would be flat if we didn't know better. But we do. It's valid only if you're ignorant to that fact.

The Earth wouldn't be flat if we didn't know better, unless you're proposing the some Tolkienesque idea that it used to actually be flat and then later bent into the current shape.

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
In Christopher Columbus' day, they didn't have the means to discovered the earth was a round planet.

"The concept of a spherical Earth dates back to ancient Greek philosophy from around the 6th century BC,[1] but remained a matter of philosophical speculation until the 3rd century BC when Hellenistic astronomy established the spherical shape of the earth as a physical given." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
So in not knowing that, and in looking out to sea, it would seem reasonable to assume that the earth is flat.

Actually looking out to sea is one of the proofs that flat earth theory is wrong. That the crows nest allows people to see farther demonstrated that the earth wasn't flat for anyone who was paying attention.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

People tend to be fine with that in theory until a Skeptic starts debunking their beliefs at which point the Skeptic becomes "zealot" and "hater" and just about every other negative thing that the believer can figure out to rant at them.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

P.S. It's not my put-down by the way, woo-woo isn't even a term that I use. It is however a term which exists.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

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ORIGINAL: DaddySatyr

They have this deep-seeded need to abolish any and all belief in anything that may be omnipotent. Why?

Oh, it's not restricted to things that posses omnipotents. Skeptics are opposed to all forms of woo-woo.

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
To say a zombie is in a box you haven't opened is pure assumption. I try not to assume, so while I would let you believe what you wanted to believe, I would be skeptical of that statement and not consider it fact, unless I actually saw that zombie. It would only make sense if you jumped to conclusions and disallowed yourself the ability to actually find out and open the box.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

quote:

ORIGINAL: Louve00
To say a zombie is in a box you haven't opened is pure assumption. I try not to assume, so while I would let you believe what you wanted to believe, I would be skeptical of that statement and not consider it fact, unless I actually saw that zombie. It would only make sense if you jumped to conclusions and disallowed yourself the ability to actually find out and open the box.

What about cases where we haven't figured out how to open the box yet? Is it then a matter of what you wish to believe or is claiming that a zombie's in the box still pure assumption?

You talk about disallowing yourself the ability to find out what's in the box, isn't that exactly what faith does? When we decide as a society that we already know the answer because of faith and demand that somebody else figure out how to open the box and stick concrete proof in our faces before we'll disengage from that belief, doesn't that really get in the way of opening the box?

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
All Tolkienesque idea's aside...I never thought the earth was flat. Or that it ever was flat and one day shaped itself into the round shape it has now.
My response was to you wanting me to consider that it was a valid thought to think the earth was flat.

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
In fact, I did learn from you and what I learned was that Columbus had the means to know better than he did. I would go one step further and say, based on what you said, Columbus was a perfect example of his faith (and wish) to believe what he did. Columbus did indeed "choose" to believe that the earth was flat, if he had access to the information you just shared. Or, maybe he didn't have access to these facts.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

quote:

ORIGINAL: Louve00
All Tolkienesque idea's aside...I never thought the earth was flat. Or that it ever was flat and one day shaped itself into the round shape it has now.
My response was to you wanting me to consider that it was a valid thought to think the earth was flat.

Of course you don't think that, I'm trying to point out that we give theists claims about reality this special exception that doesn't apply to other claims about reality. The earth wouldn't be flat if we didn't know better, it is not a matter of what you wish to believe, there is a correct answer even if we don't know what it is.

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ORIGINAL: Louve00
In fact, I did learn from you and what I learned was that Columbus had the means to know better than he did. I would go one step further and say, based on what you said, Columbus was a perfect example of his faith (and wish) to believe what he did. Columbus did indeed "choose" to believe that the earth was flat, if he had access to the information you just shared. Or, maybe he didn't have access to these facts.

I'm of the impression that Columbus thought the earth was spherical, his voyage wouldn't have made much sense otherwise. My point is that flat earth theory never should have been kicking around during the Dark Ages.

People came up with a model of what the Earth is like based on some personal observations, it's pretty straight forward to see how they could have come up with flat. Thing is once they posit that hypothetical model if they had tested it, thought through how things would work on a flat earth and compared that to how things actually work, it would have shown them that the earth wasn't flat long before they had concrete proof.

The same thing applies to God. I can't offer you concrete proof about how the universe started but we can talk to a Christian. What model of reality are they pushing? How does it compare to observable reality?

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel

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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto
(yes IMO atheism IS a belief system, just like religion is a belief system. Neither are "fact" based)

I've already addressed why that is not the case, by the way.

I respectfully disagree.

My dictionary (the kind that is made of paper pages bound together & sits on my desk) defines "belief" as

quote:

something believed, an opinion or conviction not immediately susceptable to rigorous proof

A religious person or theist holds the opinion or conviction that there is a God or Goddess or multiple Gods. This opinion or conviction cannot be proved by impartial, unbiased facts.

An atheist holds the opinion or conviction that there is no God or Goddess or multiple Gods - and this opinion or conviction ALSO cannot be proved
by impartial, unbiased facts.

Ergo, atheism is a belief just as theism is a belief.

quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

The same thing applies to God. I can't offer you concrete proof about how the universe started but we can talk to a Christian. What model of reality are they pushing? How does it compare to observable reality?

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ORIGINAL: LookieNoNookie

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ORIGINAL: doctorgrey

yes, it IS offensive, but then, so is the notion of god.

DrG

Here's what someone told me a loooooong time ago:

"Imagine there was this giant explosion (the Big Bang) and that everything was created from nothing (makes sense.....if there was always something....it had to come from somewhere, ergo, at one time there had to have been nothing). Now imagine everything you see today (here...next to you, what you see every day), how well it works intertwined, ad infinitum......

It's the equivalent of having 500 kabillion decks of cards....all shuffled together.....and the next 4,000,000 hands all come out a straight flush. Every time.

That's Earth."

That's God.