ethics, conscience, religion, savage atheism, quantum leaps...

Like your point and I agree with it. We can explain a lot through science, like for example evolution. It's been peer reviewed over and over again, and in 150 years since the inception of evolution by Darwin no one was able to refute the theory...and we've made even more discoveries in that field since then.

However, science has limits because our knowledge is either not advanced enough, or we don't have the technological capabilities to find answers (yet).

That's when some people start saying "just look at this amazing complexity, there must be a designer" simply because they don't understand it. A few hundred years ago, meteorites were considered signs of god...science now proved that's obviously total hogwash. And there will always be things we can't explain and it takes time for science to make progress and "solve" things.

Why is it so hard for some people to admit that they just don't know? Why do they have to make things up? And most importantly, we are the rest of us who admit we don't have all the answers letting them use their ignorance for political propaganda?? Just look at Beck, he's turned into a total televangelist. Why? To control the masses! And people follow because it gives them a sense of direction and it reinforces their faith. But it's all not based on rationality or logic...and imo that's holding back our entire species.

[edit on 31-8-2010 by MrXYZ]

reply to post by MrXYZ


Clearly die-hard creationists should steer clear of using the term "fossil fuel".

And before I forget, why didn't Dr. Noonien Soong make Data less perfect than Lore?

[edit on 9/1/2010 by EnlightenUp]

reply to post by NoahTheSumerian

It's a weak argument.

No it isn't. It's not an argument at all. Those that make the claim hold the burden of proof. Theists make the claim there is a God, therefore it isn't up to science, or atheism, or anyone other than the ones making the claim. You can't disprove the existence of something completely, not unless you're omniscient. It is incumbent upon those making the claim to provide evidence indicating their conclusion is right.

You're right science cannot disprove God, however if there is a God out there than it is science that has the best chance of finding it, providing that this god leaves behind some evidence or effects the natural world in some measurable way.

However, to stand vehemently against the possibility of esoteric realities - beyond our capabilities of measurement - is a terribly irresponsible approach to the quest for true and beneficial knowledge.

I agree that to deny the idea that a god MIGHT exist in some form and to claim that absolutely no god exists anywhere are both arrogant statements. When an atheist is so bold to claim there is absolutely no God they then accept the burden of proof because they have made a knowledge claim and this is one challenge they can't rise to since disproving gods entirely is nigh impossible.

However I think that we can make individual claims about the various gods and mythical creatures of mankind's own folktales and religions. For instance fairies. No one would claim it irresponsible to be opposed to fairies. Yahweh, the Biblical God, is another one that I would reject as are Zeus, Odin and many other gods. My point is that some creatures and deities can be discarded because a being with their proposed characteristics has only a negligible level of plausibility.

When the arguments start, acid-spewing atheistic 'scientists' will quite often conveniently forget or belittle the actual beliefs of their scientific forefathers as irrelevant

I've never seen an acid-spewing atheistic scientist and I really don't appreciate the imagery there. The reason why the faith of the scientific forefathers is irrelevant is because it has nothing to do with their contributions to science. Another reason it's irrelevant - most of them were born in a time when nearly everyone had faith in a god or at least had to pretend to for social purposes. The fact is that personal faith is just that, personal, the only time it becomes of consequence is someone's religious bias interferes with scientific progress.

for evangelising the masses into ignorance of the possibilities of the universe

So you want scientists to go around talking about God now? You are aware that there are scientists who DO believe in God right? Not every scientist is going around preaching atheism and those that do typically separate their atheism from their academia in the same way a theistic scientists keeps Sunday sermons out of his peer reviewed publications.

should simply allow room for the possibility that they might be wrong

Dawkins created a scale in one of his books, I don't know which, in which a 1 was certain there was a God and a 7 was certain there was no God. He described himself as a 6. So I really don't think he considers himself 100% certain. Given that he is a scientist I assume that if evidence suggesting the existence of a God came along he would follow the evidence.

You seem to be suggesting that atheists and scientists allow for the possibility of something for which there is no evidence because we might get evidence for it in the future. That's exactly what the vast majority of them are doing. In fact that's exactly the way science works but that doesn't mean they should start believing in God now BEFORE the evidence is found does it? I mean sure its POSSIBLE there's a God, heck almost anything is POSSIBLE. And that's the POINT! We don't believe in space penguins and flying spaghetti monsters and galactic car washes because they aren't indicated by evidence AND NEITHER IS GOD. So for right now almost ALL supernatural things are POSSIBLE but since they are not INDICATED BY EVIDENCE they are not BELIEVED IN.

Agnosticism. It's the only TRUE stance any real scientist can adopt.

What about Agnostic-Atheism? I have an issue with agnosticism, because basically it simply means that you don't know there's a God... Well really THAT'S EVERYONE ON THE PLANET. No one really knows if there is a God or not and those that claim to are being intellectually dishonest. We're ALL agnostics. The question is what do you believe?

Gnostic and Agnostic are about what you KNOW

Theism and Atheism are about what you believe

You can't just be Agnostic.

I'll work on this one in private and come back to it when I've had a rethink.

To be honest, this thread wasn't started with the intention of ID/creationist/theist/atheist argument, and I was a bit annoyed when it got moved into this particular forum - though I know why it got moved.... I was hoping it would evolve as a philosophical discussion, not a theist v atheist argument. I'm not qualified for such arguments, and I find them tedious/ irritating. I can't prove God's existence, and nor can anyone at this stage in the game. My experience leads me to believe there is a God, and if others are determined to wait for empirical proof (or if they prefer to attempt to prove there is no God) then that's their business not mine.

I was in an up and down head space when I started and progressed the thread, so some things were rushed out without fully being thought through or checked for how they might be interpreted. Apologies if anyone has taken offence at anything I said at any point. NB Slave / Master race was a daft choice admittedly, but was aimed at expressing the relative social status of the Jews at different points in history.

And for the record, acid spewing was aimed at those $%^&*$ who think it's fun to mock, ridicule and trash any attempt to express to anyone else one's own subjective beliefs. So, if you don't like the imagery, I'm not fussed. It probably wasn't aimed at you. No offence intended at any level, except to the acid-spewing bunch obviously.


Anyway, I won't be getting into an argument with well-practiced (master?) debaters.