Thread: Question about atheists

> ill-begotten

Hey - I didn't do anything ill to beget these nutrients. My parents did.

I believe things just exist and there is nothing that says we must be able to understand them. What is reason? What is theory? What is energy? What is a question? What is three dimensional space? What is an idea? Is it possible to draw any absolute conclusions about anything, even the things we thought we understood. Who really knows the answer to any of these questions?

I'm not going to get started because I'd get in trouble. But gravity is because you have a huge mass spinning in a circle which holds us down.

I'm pretty sure the spinning is irrelevant Zakk. The mass is what attracts. If anything, spinning would create an opposing, outward force.

Originally posted by Clyde
Your logic is flawed:

1) There is no such thing as proof.

2) It is impossible to collect direct evidence for a lack of a God, non-Gods do not leave evidence, it is only possible to infer things from the world, e.g. does this world indicate a infintely powerfully infitely wise infitely blah designer, well obviously not, because its shot to hell

3) You cannot claim that I believe in X, and I don't believe in X, are equally valid when neither has any evidence to back them up. The only sane way we have of determining what is real is based upon positive evidence, not lack of negative evidence.

If we followed your reasoning we would conclude that the man who believes in floating invisible kangaroos is as likely to be correct as the man who doesn't, that the man who believes in Santa Claus is as likely to be right as the man who doesn't, that a man who believes that a herd of elephants are going to materialise above his head and trample him to death is as reasonably balanced as people who do not live in constant fear of elephant death.

Its absurd and you know it is, apply the same reasoning you apply to belief in invisible elephants or talking radiators to God and you will see him fade into nonsense.

in other words if you believe in anything you cant see or prove your crazy hurray! So i guess columbus was crazy seeing as he tried to sail around a world that was most definitly flat! I also assume you think Albert Einstein was most definitly not "reasonably balanced" seeing as how he was religious!

these threads always turn out great

by the way Santa Claus was created by coca cola for the non religious folks who did not like the idea of saint nicholas

oh but of course

ah well we might as well join the ranks of the crazy people seeing as how i doubt you will ever accomplish anything as significant as the theories put forth by einstein

The only sane way we have of determining what is real is based upon positive evidence, not lack of negative evidence.

prove Goldbach's conjecture then...

So i guess columbus was crazy seeing as he tried to sail around a world that was most definitly flat!

Except there was a lot to suggest the Earth was round, the ancient Greeks knew about it thousands of years before Columbus.

I also assume you think Albert Einstein was most definitly not "reasonably balanced" seeing as how he was religious!

Einstein did NOT believe in a personal God who answered prayers did miracles, made man in his image etc. etc.

Plus again the argument is mute.

Say Einstein did believe in God, Newton did, and?

Social environment and indocrination have spectacularly powerfull effects on the human brain, very smart people can think crazy things as a result. If you have been brought up to believe something, and its is reinforced on a societal level it is extremely easy to wall it off in your mind. Consider it a _given_ and move on.

In (parts of ) todays world where atheism is socially allowed, where people are encouraged to think for themselves and to question then at the highest level of education people can finally break through these beliefs one only need to look at Nature's surveys of religious belief in scientist to see that. (If Newton were born today, he would almost certainly not be a believer)

I don't think you're crazy, i think you have a few crazy ideas that have been entrenched into your mind deep enough to make thinking about them in an objective way extremely difficult. I think, in short, that you are religious.

And i've looked up Goldbach's conjecture what is its relevence?

listen to what clyde says before any of you say something stupid

I'm pretty sure the spinning is irrelevant Zakk. The mass is what attracts. If anything, spinning would create an opposing, outward force.

I've been wondering about that, I mean, it's called centrifugal (sp?) force. Isn't gravity mass1-mass2/distance^2?

EDIT:

i think you have a few crazy ideas that have been entrenched into your mind deep enough to make thinking about them in an objective way extremely difficult

LISTEN TO THE MAN...the only answers you will get will only come from true objectivity...biases ruin these conversations

EDIT#2:

It's hard to understand everything if you don't believe in a god, in my opinion.

It seems logical to assume that using god to explain something is just another type of science with its own rules and laws, the only difference is one of its laws says that classical science doesn't explain everything, but it is still a science none the less. It's like trying to compare the third and fourth dimensions...space is an infinitely thin slice of hyperspace but it is by definition impossible for us to prove hyperspace exists. Well, actually the fact that the toilets spin in the opposite direction in australia kind of proves that hyper space exists, so my thinking isn't air tight, but you get the drift of what i'm saying and if you don't you are probably not a very cool person and should (in my humble friggin opinion)...die...