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Messages - Pjoo

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61
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 23, 2009, 11:40:41 am »
Quote from: Areyar on September 20, 2009, 04:28:38 pm
God is a fantasy, as is all religion, get over it and become atheist.
Facing reality will make the world a little better, thank you.

Quote from: LegoLord on September 20, 2009, 05:32:08 pm
Personally, I find this to be sufficient justification for pursuing religion.  Not enough to prove it, naturally.



Anyways, what I kinda was posting is...
Quote from: Leafsnail on September 20, 2009, 05:03:54 pm
Well, if a theory has no evidence for it, you have to presume falsehood.  Otherwise you'd end up believing pretty much everything.
God does have arguments for and against, which are based on rational thought. Some people decide that disbelievers is enough to prove religions wrong. Others believe that life is enough to prove religion right. Both are rather rational reasons to believe or disbelieve in God. If you think "God has given us free will so we can choose what to believe" is bad argument, you might not believe in God, but if you think there is just this universe, it's unlikely life exists without a creator(based on our current knowledge on how life came be, and all the laws of physics determinal to life, etc), you might want to believe in a creator. Etc.

Atheist doesn't feel God's existence is likely, theist does. It's just a difference on how you see the world. But everything related to religion gets really stupid the moment people start forcing their view on others. Science on the other hand is cool in that way, cause it's objective, if someone doesn't agree with science, they can just prove it(or more often, themselves) wrong. Don't believe in gravity? Try dropping a ball that doesn't fall to the ground. Don't believe in evolution? Fruit flies!

62
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 23, 2009, 09:55:03 am »
Quote from: Neruz on September 23, 2009, 12:15:49 am
Quote from: Pjoo on September 22, 2009, 11:55:27 pm
It doesn't. You have no solid evidence for or against God, again, depending on definition.

Unfortunately logic doesn't work that way due to the extreme difficulty of proving a negative. You start at the negative position and prove the positive position.

Feel free to try and work it back the other way, but bear in mind that in doing so you are acting illogically, and will be treated as such.
Logic works exactly like that. You give premises and based on them, you can figure out if something is true, and evidence or hypothesis based on evidence usually work to build premises on. In science. You do not believe in things unless they are rationally backed up by empirical evidence, as some things are extremely hard to disprove. Science gives you information you can use for thinking, creating stuff, whatever. But it doesn't, and never will, cover anything that cannot be empirically tested and falsified. Dropping ball from 10 feet doesn't cause "Law of God" to apply, cause usually we just rather call it gravity. And if thunder would strike ball every time it is dropped from 10 feet, we would have some kind of theory explaining why it happens, or not. Yet God cannot be accepted as explanation, because it's not fallible theory. It might be the best one, but it's still not objectively any better than other similar theories.
In philosophy, however, you can base things on evidence, but you can also base something simply on thought. Like atomism. You couldn't have based the idea on evidence, it was just based on though about what the world is like. Rational thought of rational person. "Hey, maybe everything is built out of blocks?" It would've sounded only a bit more crazy to materialists than some higher being, but turns out it was true.

I don't believe 3 billion people can be any more right than one, I've seen enough of idiotic belief in authority to think it isn't true. I also do not think matter or laws of physics need a creator, I've no problem believing cyclic or just infinite universe is possible. Thus, for me, rational thing is not to believe in God. I don't need God for my world view to work, nor I do need it for my mental health. I however cannot impose this on other, as I cannot expect everyone to see world as materialistic, reductionist and deterministic, with ethics based on same thing I base ethics on. These are philosophical questions everyone has their own answers to, or doesn't, and it builds up the subjective universe for them that really doesn't matter to anyone else.

Saying God doesn't exist is kinda like saying Ethical non-naturalism is wrong. I can say I do not believe Ethical non-naturalism is true, I cannot say it's not true. Well, I can, but then I also assume only my world view is correct.

63
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 22, 2009, 11:55:27 pm »
Quote from: Sergius on September 22, 2009, 07:10:05 pm
Quote from: Pjoo on September 21, 2009, 11:55:59 am
People are allowed to believe in invisible pink unicorns, just like they are allowed to believe that God does or doesn't exist, but I do get a bit pissed when they start stating God or no God, or even worse, creationism, as absolute truth.

The thing is, you're giving equal weight to both possibilities, when the body of evidence heavily weighs on one side.


It doesn't. You have no solid evidence for or against God, again, depending on definition.
No solid evidence against colour-swapping gnomes either, there's just no reason to explain it that way when building being green is way simpler way to explain it.

64
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 22, 2009, 02:54:13 pm »
Quote from: Muz on September 22, 2009, 01:58:45 pm
There are people who joke that hell isn't all that bad and not as boring as heaven,
Well, there are 3 "layers" of afterlife according to fundie beliefs mixed with mine.

1st layer: "Heaven"
Clearly the worst layer of afterlife. Populated by christians, big chunk of irrational people, who believe in creation, young earth, etc, which is even worse cause they actually were right. And are actually stupid enough to think they were rational all the time. "Told you so, told you so." Best reason not to believe in Bible.

2nd layer: "Hell"
Slightly better than Heaven. Here you get assraped by demons, but atleast you don't have to listen to "told you so, told you so", and generally you have rather enjoyable company, with creationists in heaven and greedy bastards elsewhere. Here are all the people Satan deems good - basically all other religious and areligious people, who have lived their lives, trying to stick to some good morals.

3rd layer: "Paradise"
Best layer of the three. Here be the murderers, rapists and other wrongdoers. Satan, being evil and all, has given them big houses and company cars for their bad deeds. They also get to employ several slaves, and generally have very high quality lives. Suicidebombers receive their virgins, plus other awards for possible records they broken. Wrongdoers who are christian can only blame Jesus for being sent into heaven instead of here.

I really hope Satan considers pro-choice as evil, I've always wanted a big house!

65
Life Advice / Re: Insomnia
« on: September 22, 2009, 01:40:06 pm »
I sometimes fall asleep with my headset on. I feel sad for you.
I have some trouble sleeping without music though, have so many unimportant things on my mind that keep me awake then :/

66
General Discussion / Re: I've been supporting the wrong side.
« on: September 22, 2009, 12:40:17 pm »
Quote from: Leafsnail on September 22, 2009, 12:17:40 pm
You can get conservative authoritarian policies (eg banning women in boardroom), conservative libertarian policies (eg removing "minimum on the number of women in a boardroom" laws), liberal authoritarian laws (eg setting a minimum on the number of women in a boardroom) and liberal libertarian policies (eg counting on people not being stupid). 
Fixed?

67
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 22, 2009, 12:23:37 pm »
Quote from: Muz on September 22, 2009, 01:31:52 am
Quote from: Neruz on September 21, 2009, 11:45:59 pm
Implicit Atheism is Atheism without thought, basically a child is an Implicit Atheist, as a child has not yet been told about God and thus cannot believe in God, due to not knowing about God.

A child is not an implicit atheist. I know a lot of kids who believe in God. Likely they've been informed, but the default stance is certainly not "there is no god". If anything, a child would be Agnostic, not Weak Athiest.
Child who has never been informed about God has a default stance of not thinking about God, and forming no belief one way or another. Sure, child always isn't atheist, but until child is told about God, the child usually is Implicit Atheist.
And Agnostic is not "middle ground" for theism and atheism...

Quote from: Muz on September 22, 2009, 01:31:52 am
If you believe that God(s) is a made-up idea with no proof, then you're Athiest. If you believe that there's insufficient evidence to support the existence or non-existence of God(s), then you're Agnostic. If you believe that there's not enough existence to support the existence of God, and that the pressure lies on believers to prove God's existence, then you're an Athiest. If you believe that the pressure lies on non-believers to disprove God's existence, then you're a Theist.

If you state "Gods do not exist", you are Strong/gnostic atheist.
If you state "I do not believe in existence of Gods", you are weak atheist.
If you state "I believe in deity/deities", you are theist.

If you state "It is impossible to know truth value of existence of Gods", you are agnostic.
If you state "Truth value of existence of Gods is unknown", you are weak agnostic.
If you state "Truth value of existence of Gods is irrelevant as He/She/they don't care"  you are apathetic agnostic.

Implicit atheists haven't thought about existence of God. Maybe because of indifference, maybe because they haven't heard about it or they haven't though such thing could possibly exist. Or maybe because they do not have consciousness.

And then there is ignostism, "Please elaborate." and apatheism "who cares?" and such...

Anyways, this is pointless discussion, lets change to Evolution vs Creationism :D

68
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 21, 2009, 05:08:52 pm »
Quote from: Leafsnail on September 21, 2009, 04:17:55 pm
But under that logic any action/ thought is rational and correct, since you must've wanted to do that action/ have that thought.
No, but every belief you actually believe is most of the time rational and correct, if you define it as something maybe existing(and I don't think there has been that many absolutes on God existing) It's rational to assume God can exist, unless God is logically impossible, which hasn't and cannot be proven, depending on definition.
And umm... It's still a reason to believe in God instead of Anti-God, if argument for God just feels more credible, due to like... say, 3 billion worshippers. And then you can just choose to believe in it, if you like believing in stuff without evidence. And I just have hard time imagining how can you know which one is God and which one is Anti-God :D

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Free will can be explained materialistically by the quantum behavior of individual subatomic particles in every neuron in your brain.
Doesn't still explain how you can affect the quantum behaviour with something that isn't caused by those neurons, if your consciousness and mind is created by those neurons n stuff.

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But if everything requires a cause, so does the entity that caused everything, right?
Maybe my God can violate laws of causality? :D I don't know, don't ask me, it was just an example.

69
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 21, 2009, 04:15:49 pm »
Quote from: Leafsnail on September 21, 2009, 03:57:29 pm
Um, it does matter, actually.  I suppose you could move the linguistic goalposts and say that "It's likely to me because is it" but that's not really answering the question.

Ok, lets assume stuff.

I feel that it is impossible matter has always existed or that big bang would've just happened, thus I feel almost completely sure there has to be God.
Or I believe in immortal spirit because there is no way explaining with materialistic view the free will.

Or something. And it really doesn't matter if you do not agree with my premises. If I feel that way, it makes God more likely to exist in my opinion than pink duck in Mars, thus justifying me believing in God instead of mentioned pink duck. It doesn't even have to be consciouss. I can just feel God is more likely than pink duck due to some subconsciouss reason.

Arguing from this point feels kinda dumb.

70
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 21, 2009, 03:43:10 pm »
Quote from: Leafsnail on September 21, 2009, 03:01:40 pm
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Other point, I think you have problem with binary. God either exist or it doesn't. Opinion does not have effect on it. Likewise, Anti-God either exists or doesn't, again, independent on your opinion. Now, you see both to be as likely to exist, but that has no effect on the truth value of existence of God. And I think it's pretty clear that theist thinks existence of God is more likely than existence of Russel's teacup. And yes, there are reasons to think something without evidence is more likely to exist than somehting else without evidence, even though those might not convince you.
And you neatly side step the question: What makes God more likely to exist than the Teapot, unicorns or Anti-God?
What makes me think God is more likely to exist than the Teapot, unicorns or Anti-God? Well, I don't think it really is, but euhm... giving likelihood for something to existing is subjective thing, while it actually existing is independent of opinion. A measurement of a state of knowledge for personal belief doesn't require evidence. It's subjective, but how you feel and what you believe in, is a fact.
And yeah, we can debate few months on what contributes as justifications for belief, but I don't think we will reach an agreement. For example, it doesn't matter if you do not believe authority argument(3 billion christians thingy), if someone else feels it makes things more believeable.

71
General Discussion / Re: I've been supporting the wrong side.
« on: September 21, 2009, 01:29:12 pm »
Quote from: Stany on September 21, 2009, 12:33:38 pm
I've always considered myself a supporter of the right-wing. I'm not a fan of racism or fascism. My belief in the right lies squarely in supporting individualism and the reduction of a centralised government. Recently however, I've started to have doubts. The right seems to be the side everyone hates, everyone sees them as heartless bastards who hate the poor. I'm not a horrible person, I give to charity and I believe charity is something that can function very well in a right-wing society as long as it isn't government controlled. The poor would depend on the kindness of others rather than an overbearing government. Sometimes I wonder why I don't just support the left, they're always depicted as the kind caring ones. What do you all think?
Im myself very left-wing and liberal. Right-wing doens't really seem that bad in Europe though. But I don't think people should be dependant on charity or other people for support, I think state should quarantee people positive liberty. I don't think it's overbearing government, there are always people who have problems, who cannot pay for their medical insurance or education, and sometimes people simply cannot do it all on your own. Oh, and homosexuals, drug addicts, convicts and the poor are people too.
I do understand why entrepreneur would vote right, but....

I think point of government is more equal and liberal(positive liberty) society, and I just think left-wing does that better. Some right-wing fiscal policies do actually make some sense, in a way that more people work and the more of work invested in production, more stuff is produced, but I do not really think I want to work more. Work to live, not live to work -.-

72
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 21, 2009, 12:58:36 pm »
Quote from: Andir on September 21, 2009, 12:38:10 pm
Regarding insight... I'd love to compare the history of religious uprising with this.  I'm willing to bet that people were more insightful when they were thinking about possibilities rather than following a religion.  (ie:  I'll bet that Plato, Socrates, and the rest of the well known "insightfuls" were near the end or during a tumult of religious ideology.)
Or like Pythagoras who considered mathemathics to be religion, and how telling people about irrational value for square's diameter was punishable by death? :D

73
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 21, 2009, 12:16:21 pm »
Quote from: Leafsnail on September 21, 2009, 11:58:33 am
I am not saying I am right.  I'm just saying that a theory with no evidence is just as likely as any other theory without evidence - vanishing small.  Heck, it's equally likely that there's an Anti-God who would send you to heaven when the Christian God would send you to hell and vice versa.  Legolord, however, is demanding that I see his ideas as equally valid, or a sortof 50-50 split between atheism and theism.  It just isn't like that.

"To claim as a fact that there is no truth behind these myths, however small, and tell everyone else to say the same or else they are unrealistic and sheltered is rather arrogant.  You don't have to believe there might be something to it, but you can't say for fact that there is nothing, because you can't prove a negative.  It is the assumption of fact that offends me."

Other point, I think you have problem with binary. God either exist or it doesn't. Opinion does not have effect on it. Likewise, Anti-God either exists or doesn't, again, independent on your opinion. Now, you see both to be as likely to exist, but that has no effect on the truth value of existence of God. And I think it's pretty clear that theist thinks existence of God is more likely than existence of Russel's teacup. And yes, there are reasons to think something without evidence is more likely to exist than somehting else without evidence, even though those might not convince you.

74
General Discussion / Re: Atheists
« on: September 21, 2009, 11:55:59 am »
Quote from: Areyar on September 20, 2009, 07:05:51 pm
yet you claim being unable to prove either existence or non-existence of gods as both a valid argument against atheism and pro-Gods.
It is valid argument.

You cannot prove God doesn't exist, thus there is possibility that God exists. If you want to believe in God based on miracle(or something you perceive as one) or whatever or just pure faith, you are free to do so.
Scientific skepticism creates us basis for science, where you can not accept unprovable as facts, because the facts can be wrong it would make the false information(being unable to be proven wrong and all), stick in the science, which would make it umm... a bit less scientific. Scientific skepticism doesn't make science always true, but having fallibility as requirement for scientific theory makes science evolving and objective, and being objective and empirical, something that should be taught in schools(if it moves like a photon, looks like a photon and acts like a photon, it really doesn't matter if it isn't a photon).
You don't need to have objective reasonings to believe or disbelief in supernatural, but you do need them to state something as absolute truth to other people. People are allowed to believe in invisible pink unicorns, just like they are allowed to believe that God does or doesn't exist, but I do get a bit pissed when they start stating God or no God, or even worse, creationism, as absolute truth.

That said, I do not believe in God or anything else supernatural for that matter. It just makes no sense to me, having materialistic, deterministic, reductionistic world view. I don't think God is much more likely to exist than the said pink unicorns, but also, I see no rational reason anyone would believe in pink unicorns. Belief in God, while I see it as irrational in itself, actually provides a lot of things some people need. Safety, belonging, esteem... The main thing I critizise religion on is that it upholds some rather irrational conservative views in society, which I think is not exactly great thing at maximizing personal liberty.
I also *know* omnipotent God cannot exist, cause it wouldn't be logical. But if we are allowed to break laws of logics, me saying " I also *know* omnipotent God cannot exist, cause it wouldn't be logical." actually means "I believe omnipotent God doesn't exist"(not really logical but apparently it doesn't have to be).

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Well, you're saying we shouldn't attack people's beliefs.  What are you doing right now?  Are you not attacking the beliefs of every atheist?  Why is it ok when you do it?  And why is being an Atheist any more offensive than being a Theist?
You are assuming, with absolute truth, that LegoLord is wrong, while you cannot provide arguments for it, as you cannot disprove supernatural. It's not within the field of science. There are no laws of physics that make the "law of God" to appear, so you cannot disprove it exists. LegoLord is only stating what he beliefs in, not absolutes, so it's not attacking anyone's beliefs, while you are stating with absolute certainity that you are right, he is wrong, while having no way of knowing or proving it.

75
Life Advice / Re: The meaning of suicide...
« on: September 18, 2009, 04:00:41 am »
Quote from: cowofdoom78963 on September 16, 2009, 06:58:13 pm

So I would say "no depression, no life lesson"
I've learned many life lessons without being depressed.

Depression itself is bad. It causes negative pleasure, which makes it bad. It can have some life lessons and it might affect some things in positive way, but usually it's just crap. Going postal and killing people can have some positive effects too, but Im not going to say it's not a bad thing.

And scars aren't always wisdom, sometimes they are hatered, grudges, narrowmindedness...

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