We should not attack Iraq

@cystic:

I don’t know TG. Do you think that’s necessary?

Well… maybe not… but anyway i’ll enter in it if it was to happen :)

But i am not sure this is the right place…

If there was to be further debate, it would need to be both organized and orderly, with a specific question blah blah blah.

THAT would be great… i don’t know how much time i and falk were repeating the same thing… Not that i want to win an argument ad nauseum but we never get any counter argument… YB (or anyone else) say something, we give a counter argument, silence… then the same basic argument came up again !

My problem with actually entering a debate is my lack of facility with the process etc. I’ve had no philosophy training (aside from medical ethics), no religious study (aside from reading the bible and a bit of history on my own time - and even that’s remarkably poor), and i have no experience with debating at all.

Well i have no training in philosophy, i just get a lot of reading about the subject when my faith was getting weak.

About feeling; everyone feel they are right, you just need argument, rational or empirical, to make a solid thesis, otherwise everything would be only subjective.

@FinsterniS:

Well i have no training in philosophy, i just get a lot of reading about the subject when my faith was getting weak.

About feeling; everyone feel they are right, you just need argument, rational or empirical, to make a solid thesis, otherwise everything would be only subjective.

but that is how i experience the world.
i interpret what i see, feel, think, hear, etc. with a very subjective tilt. Certainly i am a scientist, trained in critical thinking and analysis - particularly where the material world is concerned, but i am, after all, a romantic, a feeler of feelings, a wannabe mystic (a la Hans Denk). My heart shakes to certain kinds of music, my stomach plummets to the tone in my girlfriend’s voice, my fascination with physiology is readily distracted by my interpretation of a conversation i had earlier in the day.
A discussion based on rational (i hesitate to say empirical, for is that not also subjective to our interpretation of the world?) objective knowledge leaves out far too much of who i am and what i know.
I’m sure a computer program might well be designed to settle this kind of a debate tho’.

A discussion based on rational (i hesitate to say empirical, for is that not also subjective to our interpretation of the world?) objective knowledge leaves out far too much of who i am and what i know.

I still cannot understand how you can claim god exist. Sure every christian feel and interpret the “relation” they have with god, but with a little objectivy it all fall down.

I’m sure a computer program might well be designed to settle this kind of a debate tho’.

It need to much jugement, information and sometime creative logic. Anyway… not only theist use fallacious argument; they do not agree on the basis. I am sure you know some young earth creationist; they use fallacious argument, ignore lots of facts and do not agree on the basis of thermodynamic, very complicated to speak with them…

Fin

Yanny - You are correct. I’ll certainly agree that anything is possible. However, I would hope the rest of the universe didn’t handle things as humans do. Concepts of the divine are clearly a human phenomenon. We need to control, to know, to have purpose above life itself. The “possible” reality is that these concepts are irrelevant in the universe and human understanding of it is horribly inaccurate…

THAT would be great… i don’t know how much time i and falk were repeating the same thing… Not that i want to win an argument ad nauseum but we never get any counter argument… YB (or anyone else) say something, we give a counter argument, silence… then the same basic argument came up again !

Yeah, I see this happen a lot. That is why it would be nice that everything would be ordered and concise to prevent this from happening.

A discussion based on rational (i hesitate to say empirical, for is that not also subjective to our interpretation of the world?) objective knowledge leaves out far too much of who i am and what i know.

CC, then start reading! :) I’m sure creationist have a logical argument somewhere. That will be key to your success.

@TG:

A discussion based on rational (i hesitate to say empirical, for is that not also subjective to our interpretation of the world?) objective knowledge leaves out far too much of who i am and what i know.

CC, then start reading! :) I’m sure creationist have a logical argument somewhere. That will be key to your success.

unfortunately these forums are the closest things i have to recreational reading. I really need to hone up on my “harrison’s internal medicine” “Cecil’s essentials of medicine”, and a dozen other texts, as well as about 30-40 hours of anatomy before i do any more reading (besides, i think i’ve spewed much of the relevent current thinking on creationism in previous posts)

I’ll keep the fight up for theism, CC. I’ve been reading these posts with grat interests and in some cases, great laughs. I think I have a few more curveballs to throw at our fellow atheists here.

unfortunately these forums are the closest things i have to recreational reading. I really need to hone up on my “harrison’s internal medicine” “Cecil’s essentials of medicine”, and a dozen other texts, as well as about 30-40 hours of anatomy before i do any more reading (besides, i think i’ve spewed much of the relevent current thinking on creationism in previous posts)

Well Crypt, from one theist to another, why do you believe in a God(s)? I’m sure you’re a scientific man, and you wouldn’t accept something without reasonable cause or evidence. It’s just not that God doesn’t exist (ahhh… the classic Tooth Fairy Argument), but so far scientific evidence discussed at this forums points more to the fact he can’t exist. So why? What’s your reason? What secrets haven’t you revealed?

So… there is 3 options guys (i am only speaking to those interested, CC, TG, Falk, Emu…)…

1; We stop talking about religion.
2; We continue our countless and endless different discussion on religion.
3; We try to make one LAST topic with a logical order; Argument/Counter-Argument. And we don’t speak religion in other topic.

Fin

I am fine with ether 1 or 3.

@TG:

unfortunately these forums are the closest things i have to recreational reading. I really need to hone up on my “harrison’s internal medicine” “Cecil’s essentials of medicine”, and a dozen other texts, as well as about 30-40 hours of anatomy before i do any more reading (besides, i think i’ve spewed much of the relevent current thinking on creationism in previous posts)

Well Crypt, from one theist to another, why do you believe in a God(s)? I’m sure you’re a scientific man, and you wouldn’t accept something without reasonable cause or evidence. It’s just not that God doesn’t exist (ahhh… the classic Tooth Fairy Argument), but so far scientific evidence discussed at this forums points more to the fact he can’t exist. So why? What’s your reason? What secrets haven’t you revealed?

I am a scientific man (i believe, and apparently so does the University of Manitoba). So far no argument has been made her that points to the “fact that God can’t exist”. The very best that’s been done is some thought provoking suggestions as to why arguments for the existance of God may be flawed. As for my own reasons why i believe in a God, there are many. The most important is the feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. The “fact” that i have “heard” God/Jesus telling me that he cares about me. And at the oddest times. Less when i’m praying, and more when i’m just being “quiet”. I have been amazed at the work that the Holy Spirit has done in my life - stuff that i could never have done on my own, insights that are beyond my tiny mind.
I believe the bible. I believe it’s history, and i believe the message it communicates. I believe in Jesus and i believe i’ve talked to him. The message he brought to earth is beautiful, as are the things he did during his life (including his death). As mentioned, i think one can’t take the whole of the bible literally as too much of it makes more sense metaphorically.
Other people - i have heard the most amazing stories from the most credible people i know. The way God has worked in the lives of other people, both overtly and subtly has been amazing if you believe what these people tell you to be true.
A terrible argument is the Descartes square - where you line up:“God exists” and “God doesn’t exist” on the x-axis and “i believe and die” and “i don’t believe and die” and list all of the consequences of these phenomenon (including during life and the afterlife).
Finally i have read and studied quite a bit about other religions and parallel myths and there is a lot of cohesiveness (although much is written by others in other perspectives, etc.). I may be branded a heretic, but i believe it possible that a pantheon of “gods” exists. The bible talks about other “deities” in a sense, and given thier “activities” i think that some of these might be fodder for Greek, German, etc. “myths”.
I could be wrong about all of this. Certainly much of it could be argued against, however these arguments rest on the phrase “is it not possible that . . . ?” which i consider to be a poor way to deal with life changing experiences. I could be crazy. That has not been ruled out. According to textbooks i am not crazy yet, nor do i have a clinically diagnosable personality disorder etc. At the same time, myself and many friends, acquaintances and family members might have an undiagnosible brain disease.

I hope this somewhat answers your question. I could prolly discuss this for hours, including my “faith journey” over coffee, and i know i’m not doing any justice to the subject here (but i know God will forgive me :))
I have a rational for all of this, but it’s hard to explain. I used to be continually questing for hard, logical knowledge, but i’ve come to know enough about myself and the world to know that this is a much of the time this is a stupid quest for useless knowledge given the many sides to the human psyche etc.

You are clearly not a man of science if you believe someone could demonstrate god doest not exist… Even if i could explain everything on this universe i would not be able to prove a god doest not exist; that is simply impossible. If you really want Atheist to prove the nonexistance of a mythology, why don’t you try proving me the tooth fairy does not exist, with facts.

About you being Crazy you probably know i don’t think that. When all your friend, family and people around believe very have in something, it is hard to get against them, even more when the belief is as golden as christianism.

Fin

@Anonymous:

You are clearly not a man of science if you believe someone could demonstrate god doest not exist… Even if i could explain everything on this universe i would not be able to prove a god doest not exist; that is simply impossible. If you really want Atheist to prove the nonexistance of a mythology, why don’t you try proving me the tooth fairy does not exist, with facts.
Fin

my mommy told me that there is no tooth fairy and that she was just pretending to be the tooth fairy for some bizaare reason.

I have been amazed at the work that the Holy Spirit has done in my life - stuff that i could never have done on my own, insights that are beyond my tiny mind

I wouldn’t believe that. When you lower yourself, I also lose face. :) Remember that.

As for my own reasons why i believe in a God, there are many. The most important is the feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. The “fact” that i have “heard” God/Jesus telling me that he cares about me. And at the oddest times. Less when i’m praying, and more when i’m just being “quiet”. I have been amazed at the work that the Holy Spirit has done in my life - stuff that i could never have done on my own, insights that are beyond my tiny mind.

Anything else aside personal experience. I haven’t had the plessure of God/Jesus actually “telling me” something - at least not in an actual “voice.” Of course I could just be crazy…

I believe the bible. I believe it’s history, and i believe the message it communicates. I believe in Jesus and i believe i’ve talked to him. The message he brought to earth is beautiful, as are the things he did during his life (including his death). As mentioned, i think one can’t take the whole of the bible literally as too much of it makes more sense metaphorically.

Well let me ask you this. How much do you believe in evolution (both micro and macro)? Do you believe in the Bibical “Flood?” Do you believe in Adam and Eve? Are are these just metaphorical stories?

I used to be continually questing for hard, logical knowledge, but i’ve come to know enough about myself and the world to know that this is a much of the time this is a stupid quest for useless knowledge given the many sides to the human psyche etc.

Stop that! Some of us are still on that quest! :)

“Who would you feel if one day you woke up and turned on your computer, and it started talking to you? It started to perform tasks that you are thinking about, even before you tell it what to do. How would God have felt?”

“Of course I could just be crazy”

Welcome to the club.

@Yanny:

I’m getting fed up watching President W. Bush infringe upon my civil rights. He is acting like a Hypocrit, a Dictator, and is not abiding by our Country’s laws. If I could make the choice, I’d impeach him, but I can’t.

President Bush somehow got it into his head that he needs to attack Iraq. At this point, if we do attack it looks like it will take place around Late October early November, election time. Any analyst will tell you attacking Iraq is a political issue, and is not important to our national security.

Congress, except for a minority of Republican busch supporters, completely opposes attacking Iraq. Our Allies, even such names as Turkey and Britain, are against attacking Iraq. In fact, if we do attack Iraq we’re unlikely to have a decent bombing base.

Ousting Saddam would destabilize the entire Mid East. The Countries of Iran and Israel would become the regional powers. Without Iraq’s military in the picture, there is no one to threaten Israel. Israel could attack Lebanon, Syria, and Jorden without any trouble. Iran would likely seize up a large portion of the former Iraq. This will set in place a powerful country, more ruthless than Iraq itself.

In Iraq itself, its likely 3 groups, maybe even independant states, will arise. The Southern Islaamic Fundalmentalists are willing to rise up and attack Saddam, but doing so would require the US to arm these people. This will create another Taliban. In the North, the Kurds will likely become part of Turkey, no big deal there. As I have already mentioned, Iran is likely to seize a large portion of Middle Iraq, including important Oil wells.

This is not 1991. Saddam has not made any aggressive action toward the United States. We do not have the Military Force, nor the Allies we did back then. Our Economy is much worse. Busch needs to forget about stupid Politics like this.

Bush is dropping “the ball” like his father. You don’t give advanced warning of an attack.

And Yanny, thanks to Israel, Saddam didn’t have a nuclear deturrent which could of made Saddam king of Arabia in 1991.

Nice to see you two back.

After i read what horntet said, good to see ya back by the way, I can help but wonder if you ever described how your civil rights were being violated Yanny.

Saddam will not, as i have said many times, be stupid. He wants to stay alive. He will only use his weapons if he is forced to. 

For Saddam, I’m not too sure of hissanity. After all, this was the same person who invaded Kuwait and gased/starved his own people. As for the possibility of nuclear weapons, this seems only that Saddam won’t use NBC’s. Chances are, Saddam will instead use his weapons as leverage to carry out his own acts. And by then, it will be too late. Imagine if the Israel’s hadn’t taken out Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981. Would the Allies be so lucky in the Persian Gulf?

A President cannot just go start a war without permission.

That’s why the President will not invade Iraq without asking for permission from Congress and make his case to the Allied Powers.