Who am I to dismiss another peoples beliefs?
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Jehovah's Witnesses try to murder their own son
- Thread starter scaramanga
- Start date
Who am I to dismiss another peoples beliefs?
Ok let me be more clear, who am I to dismiss people's belief in other gods, or dismiss that they are the same or indeed different.
Those are the strict definitions, but I have to describe myself to most people as an atheist for them to understand where I'm coming from.
I do think it's worth mentioning that IMO an agnostic view that leans heavily towards the atheist end of the scale is far more sensible as that's where all the evidence so far lies.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
There are real stories of them refusing medical treatment to their children though. A lot of harm. Cult comment wasn't out of line (at least not way out of line), shunning family members that want to withdraw from the cult/belief, downright indoctrination etc.
Certainly not Catholic church levels, but more because of the relative number of followers than the harm of the belief itself by my guess.
Depends on what you mean by atheism in its absolute sense. If you mean "there is no GHod", you would be right. But you would also be very hard up finding many atheists that actually believe that, at least atheists I've heard from publicly (as in public intellectuals etc) and privately have not held that belief.
For me atheism (the rejection of the GHod claims, "I don't believe") is more rational than agnosticism.
You really should. It's a great read. Hitchens was fantastic, no replacement has been found. You might not find him harmonious by the way, but you will have to delve deep to find him being inharmonious towards aimed at regular believers.
Absolutely wonderful science communicator.
A theist answering "I don't know" to any question is at least a step in the right direction. Theists moving away from creationism, holy text creation stories, science denialism etc is a step in the right direction for me - although it still leaves a lot to be desired. At least that's a sign of allowing evidence to exert some influence. I have no discussion about creation with religious people that accept science wholeheartedly and think that biblical (or other holy text) accounts of creation are just man made myths. Most of them will answer "I don't know" at comparable points to myself I think.
The difference is when you (or other religious people) claim that "GHod did it". Because that is a claim that's not comparable to any claim I make, it is a truth claim and it's not supported by any evidence (presented to me at least). Where do I/atheists make a comparable claim? I can't see that we do...
Does this again boil down to a previous conversation we had about what it means to be an atheist? If so please present me with the (current day) atheistic thinker, public intellectual, writer, journalist, philosopher, scientist (or whatever really) that self identifies with your not-a-get-out-clause-for-atheists definition of atheism. I'm almost certain when/if you find one that person will be in a minority amongst atheists.
I am also an agnostic. If that gives my burden of proof argument any more weight. I don't think it should, but that's more down to our disagreements on definitions.
would it not be fair to say that unless you're a physicist and have personally proven the evidence you speak of, that you are actually just placing your belief in what you have been taught, the same as religious people who were taught to believe in GHod/religion?
and besides - atmos/particles etc are not evidence against GHod or Religion - they're just the building blocks of the world we live in. nothing to say there isn't something out there doing the building
I don't think that I am missing the point at all, to dismiss others belief in gods is to put a distinction and perhaps hierarchy on those with faith, this is something I explicitly refuse to do, as it is fundamentally devisive. I may not agree with the practices of certain religions or sects there in and therefore the interpretations of what faith means. But to dismiss their GHod, no I won't do that.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
No.
We have actual reasons to believe in the scientific method as a method for separating truth from fiction. Achievements like the moon landing, cars, the internet, modern medicine, electricity etc. I could go on, but so could you so I won't.
The scientific method does not rely on absolute authorities and it is a real marketplace of ideas. There is a lot of competition between scientists and I can guarantee you that there are thousands of brilliant people around the world that would love nothing more than to prove Einstein, Darwin, Higgs or Hawking wrong. A Nobel prize, fame, money, fan-girls/boys, research budgets and top scientific jobs would follow.
I haven't had the (dis)pleasure of going through a peer-review process so far in my life at least. It's one of the most ruthless examinations of your work you can imagine though, with experts in the field picking through your every word and idea. And in the time after that, if the idea/paper is interesting, competing papers will arise, questions will be asked. People will try to replicate and expand on your findings, if what you did doesn't hold up sooner or later it's very likely to be pointed out.
The major scientific theories we have now have emerged as a result of decades and centuries of this competitive and self-correcting process involving some of the brightest minds we know of. It shouldn't be trusted without skepticism of course, but if there is anything you can trust to separate truth from fiction any way past a simple "I think therefor I am" this seems like by far the best option available to us.
GHod and religion has not shown this capability to any extent. Quite the opposite in fact as religion has had to be dragged after scientific progress throughout centuries of history to this day. The truths that were supposed to be eternal have been changed, the holy men that could supposedly communicate with GHod have been disgraced, the major religions have fractured and divided without the support of kings. It is as we see it today exactly as we would expect religions to look if they were man made. There is no reason to believe in them.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Baleforce
Arthur Rowe
would it not be fair to say that unless you're a physicist and have personally proven the evidence you speak of, that you are actually just placing your belief in what you have been taught, the same as religious people who were taught to believe in GHod/religion?
and besides - atmos/particles etc are not evidence against GHod or Religion - they're just the building blocks of the world we live in. nothing to say there isn't something out there doing the building
no, because it's tangible, i can touch it, therefore i know it exists, do i know what its made of? am i smart enough to fathom every link in the chain? it doesn't matter, i know its made of something, therefore as the science of smarter people than me jump from link to link and work it out they have a base from which to begin, they have a hard fact, an end result
you could obviously then argue the "but whats real?" matrix argument of course
it was a segue point of semantics i think, not really relevant to the current thread topic
Braineclipse - a great response which i feel a little bad for eliciting as it's deeper than i had intended to go with the subject tbh (sorry about that :lol: )
these threads are always destined to result in a lot of head banging - both sides approach the matter with totally different outlooks. AFAIC, Science proves how but not why - it gives you the blueprint/instruction manual but doesn't tell you what drew/wrote it - and thus does little to disprove the idea of a GHod - I don't think it's their intention to do so tbf
science saying the world started with a big bang out of nothing sure does sound like GHod clicking his fingers and creating the world though
these threads are always destined to result in a lot of head banging - both sides approach the matter with totally different outlooks. AFAIC, Science proves how but not why - it gives you the blueprint/instruction manual but doesn't tell you what drew/wrote it - and thus does little to disprove the idea of a GHod - I don't think it's their intention to do so tbf
science saying the world started with a big bang out of nothing sure does sound like GHod clicking his fingers and creating the world though
The only point in this or any other conversation with you, that I use 'GHod did it' is in my theory of creation which arguably has more basis in science then any form of 'mad chance theory, simply because something out of absolute nothing is a scientific impossibility (at least as far as my knowledge stretches), the very video you posted only reinforces that, as he states that 'nothing' is infact black matter, which is something.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Braineclipse - a great response which i feel a little bad for eliciting as it's deeper than i had intended to go with the subject tbh (sorry about that :lol: )
these threads are always destined to result in a lot of head banging - both sides approach the matter with totally different outlooks. AFAIC, Science proves how but not why - it gives you the blueprint/instruction manual but doesn't tell you what drew/wrote it - and thus does little to disprove the idea of a GHod - I don't think it's their intention to do so tbf
science saying the world started with a big bang out of nothing sure does sound like GHod clicking his fingers and creating the world though
Absolutely nothing to feel bad about or say sorry for
Science doesn't disprove GHod, much like science doesn't disprove unicorns. It's impossible to prove a negative in that way. Science on the other hand has disproved many GHod claims. Or rather, science is incompatible with many GHod claims. Because of that religions have evolved, to the point where even the catholic church officially has no issue with evolution for example iirc. Unthinkable not that long ago. So in a way science has disproved some versions of GHod, but science cannot disprove all versions of GHod.
Asking what drew/wrote the bluepring/instruction manual is a very loaded question as it implies that something did write/draw those. Science makes no such assumption. However if there was a GHod influencing proceedings in the current universe there's no reason to think that it couldn't be detected by science. Say GHod answered prayers and healed the sick just once in a while - you would expect hospitalized people that had families praying for them would improve more frequently. Studies show that this is not the case. This doesn't disprove GHod, but it does give some indication towards if there is a prayer-answering GHod operating in our universe or not.
Some claims are by their nature non-scientific. People can claim that after we die the GHod that created the universe will magically whisk us away to another dimension completely separate from this one without the rest of us noticing. This can't be studied by science. There have been claims like the 21 grams claims about the weight of the soul - later disproved, or claims about the interaction between the spiritual mind and body through certain parts of the brain (admittedly some time ago) - again disproved. Essentially all religious claims that are based in this world are potentially something science can study. For me this includes the claim that people sometimes make where they claim to know what GHod wants and thinks.
The problem with the "GHod clicked his fingers" description of the big bang is that it raises another and more difficult problem than it solves. A being powerful enough to create a universe from nothing is almost by definition more complex than the universe being created. So where did the universe creator come from? And saying "he was always there" is no good (special pleading), because it still adds a level of complexity without actually answering anything. The universe popped into existence with a net zero energy is much more elegant, much more in line with our current understanding of physics and is a simpler (thus better) explanation.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
So where did GHod come from? (remember please that something out of nothing is an impossibility in your worldview)
Interesting that watching someone that's about as knowledgeable as anyone in this area where you're clearly not particularly well trained disagree with you would further convince you that you're in fact right here.
"GHod did it" has absolutely no scientific basis. The theory as presented by Krauss as "a universe from nothing" does have a scientific basis. I don't see how you could possibly disagree with that.
Discounting anders as just a nut job, which 99.9999999999999999999 etc know that he is, the belief in Ra or Atum Ra was a form of sun worship, the giver of heat and essential for life, who is to say that ain't metaphoric, as for the sacrifices, I never said that I believed in all, or any for that matter, at least not in any way completely.
Kenyan Spur
Peter Taylor
Sorry,
This thread seems to have gone OT.
It is late here in the tropics.
Just please update the original topic
Did the JWs succeed in their attempt to murder their own son ( as claimed by the OP )
This thread seems to have gone OT.
It is late here in the tropics.
Just please update the original topic
Did the JWs succeed in their attempt to murder their own son ( as claimed by the OP )