by AlmostAtheist 21 Replies latest jw friends
a story is just a story until there is evidence that it is more....
is there a god? are there many gods? should I worry if one of these gods is going to smite me for my lack of faith in him?
is there any reason I would chose one god to worry about over the others?
if there is a god or gods, can they be trusted? are they sane?
would a sane god require me to abandon my "god" given ability to reason?
the closest science can come to proving the non-existence of a unfalsifiable, is the god of the gaps thingie. it's not a test, just a philisophy based on scientific discovery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps
so, we keep shedding light on the dark recesses that we thought god occupied. physical phenomena that we once explained with tricked out god majic, and now explain with a scientific theory, or set of workable hypotheses.
based on this track record, it is rather safe to assume that science will continue on in this same fashion, while self-correcting itself, and that the place that people think god could be will become smaller and smaller and more abstract and more absctract.
TS
From Jonathan Culler's "Literary Theory": "...meaning is determined by the context, since context includes rules of language, the situation of the author and the reader, and anything else that might conceivably be relevant. But if we say that meaning is context-bound, then we must add that context is boundless: there is no determining in advance what might count as relevant, what enlarging of context might be able to shift what we regard as the meaning of a text. Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless." Translation: the universe is big. If you haven't read the complete works of Douglas Adams, stop breathing, right now, and go do it. The three-dimensional potential measurements of the universe, that it is a potential sphere potentially 26 billion light years in diameter and growing, in no way cartographically surveys the sub- and hyper-dimensional crannies where such a Mesopotamian cumulonimbus Herm might have his privvy council. And there might be something we have no terminology to comprehend awaiting outside of what we can our "universe." According to the popular conception of a God that is outside space and time, being outside our physically observable universe is _the perfect_ place for a privvy council. Our telescopes cannot _get there_, so we _can't see_ that he's "Not there." Am I far off the mark by saying that the only thing an atheist will insist on is that "science has not observed phenomena that would suggest a god"?
rm,
ya, that is a pretty good analysis. you basically have two schools of atheism. weak atheism, which is a lack of belief. this is very very similar to what you describe. and then you have strong atheism, or positive atheism, which actually makes positive assertions about the universe. like: there is no god.
people like to say that these atheists are making a faith based assertion. this would only be true if the probability matrix said that the chance of god's existence is a clean, simple 50/50.
but, it's not. there is actually more reason to think there is no god, than there is to think that there is one. i am not saying it's 100/0 in favour of atheism, becuase it's not. but it's not 50/50 either. it takes way less faith to assert there is no god, than it does to assert that there is.
TS
When science can provide data and clear scientific definitions of what a "GOD" actually is, someday we might verify the truth or falsity of such a belief.
Tetra: That scenery looks stupendous!! Is it really in Europe - I thought Lichtenstein was flat as a pancake.
HB (of the "Hating Bunkum" class)
Tetrapod, well I know the Anthropic Principle sucks rocks. What can you say briefly about positive atheism?
This is why I prefer my position: the question of any gods' existences is absurd. Very few people actually live their day to day lives as if any god(s) were watching or might have any interference in the near or distant future. I am an agnostic in the sense that it matters not to me whether any gods exist.
Newsline ...
"Science has proven that God doesn't exist"
Pat Robetson
"expect the wrath of God on your newspaper soon ... the locust are coming"
We now know that our planet has undergone two mass extinction events in the last several billion years. Both times 99.9% of all life was destroyed. After each event life came back in different forms - 95% of all creatures that have ever lived are now extinct,too. If you believe in intelligent design, then you shouldn't be surprised, if G-d wipes out all life again and tries to get it right on the 3rd try. Or, you can believe as I do, that my hunter gatherer ancestors 10,000 years ago who prayed to their deity for help in finding that last wooly mammoth for dinner had just as much help from their G-d as our prayers to our personal G-d give us today.
Organized religion is a luxury only men with full stomachs can afford.
peace,
Moshe
which means they hold the view that science has already proved that god doesn't exist
I don't know who posted that or what context it was said in, but here's my take:
People who are indoctrinated and propagandized into believing an all-encompassing, no-questions-unanswered worldview, as a consequence need to believe that people who don't share this worldview don't because they (the non-believer) have been thoroughly indoctrinated and propagandized into believing a false -- yet similarly absolute -- worldview that is antagonistic to the one that they (the believer) holds. Absolutists projecting their absolutism.
That was an awkward sentence, I hope you understand what I meant. :)
