Posts made by FinsterniS

A gun is far more likely to be used in suicide, murder, or unintentional shooting than to kill a criminal. According to federal government figures, for every time a citizen used a firearm in 1996 in a justifiable homicide, 160 lives were ended in firearm suicides, murders, and unintentional shootings.

My statistic is maybe not perfect, you cannot simply rejecting it because of suiside, officially there’s not a lot of suiside in USA… but there’s a lot of “accident” due to firearm.

wow… that is suppose to be an argument for gun ?

What kind of societey will make firearm legal ? To “protect”, that is ridiculous, i prefer not to have a firearm and to know potential agressor will certainly have none.

“unintentional shooting” alone is a good argument against Firearm.

Moses,
wow, i’m pretty lost… you said on one post you were supporting a communist association ? no ?
Now you are saying you are supporting the right-wing canadian party ?

Not a little incoherent ?

I condemned the many “intellectuals” who are European, and their leftist ideas so many liberals strive to follow.

I will take that as a compliment

Oh and Fisternis, what gives you the right to ban empirical evidence from this conversation?

No “right”, it was just “off-subject”… just read again my first post here. I just want you to stop claiming god is “rational”, it is purely emotional and always has been a problem in science and politic.

@yourbuttocks:

The liberal party is not left wing?

I don’t know the parties, someone explain them to me?

Personnaly, but this is an european vision, i think of the liberal as being right-wing. In Canada i don’t know but in Québec it is the center-right party… But right and Left are not very clear terms… What is consider center-right somewhere can be center-left somewhere else. Amyway i did’nt stay in Canada really long so i am not aware of all the subtility of their politic.

Moses,
I don’t think there’s a lot of definition… From what i know the Alliance is the right-wing party of the Canada (less interventionist, more for decentralization)… But i was thinking you were a theist communist (quite strange… but anyway). Seem like i was wrong.

so Moses, you are right wing ?

…you forgot the BQ.

I would certainly vote for them because i think Québec should be a country of it’s own… (Not that i have anything against the English people). While i know the BQ is federal, they help the province of Québec to get a little “attention”.

You accuse me of not proving anything, and yet you have not proved anything.

That is just ridiculous, i don’t have to prove god does’nt, that is VERY hard to prove somethin that does’nt exist really does’nt exist. Try to proove the tooth fairy does’nt exist.

Me: Everything in the Universe has a cause, thus there must be a chain of cause(s) leading to the universe. The chain must start with an uncaused causer.

You: Everything has always existed, it simply changes form.

You are making me says somethine i never said. i said, i will repeat it even if it’s not the first time; i said the TWO OPTIONS ARE POSSIBLE.

The chain must start with an uncaused causer.

Completly ridiculous…. That is the kind of argument that have been refute several time but people don’t want to listen…

Even if there’s a start (highly probable LIKE I ALREADY SAID), theres no need for god… You are trying to counter several logical concept. I will refute it very briefly… more explicitly if it is needed…

The only thing god add to the chain is the “Uncaused”, while this argument seem valid at first (Aquinas, Descartes…), it is completly illogical and a good exemple of how people want to believe.

Why god does’nt need a cause but others things (like Law themself) does ? Laws are outside time & space, they don’t have position, they just exist, so they seem not to need anyone to create them. They don’t act nor react, they do not influence the universe, they form it. They seem to have everything to be the uncaused cause, the permanent stability.

Then you will say; god create law.
The fact is; god cannot be more fit for “Uncaused cause” than law themself… Then it is just adding an useless concept to something already “explained”. (occam’s razor; basic logic). You cannot say god create the universe because it can be explained without god.

The PRIME FACTOR argument is even more illogical than the ORDER NEED ORDERER argument.

You are using pretty old argument, while this does’nt make it false it have been often refute. For this reason, theist mathematician always use the “Faith” argument, not the “logical one”.

Me: Odds are unlikely of such a complex life form like man forming accidentally.

You: People are arrogant to assume a personal creator. And the odds are so good that an ultra-complex life form would form up that hundreds of planents have them.

Never said that !!!

I will make an analogy;
Roll 1 * 10^6 die,
If you get 1 * 10^6 time the number 6, you’ll have a baby.
If not; you’ll have no baby.

If the baby never came to existence, will he ask question about his existance ?

Also we don’t know how improbable life is, this is many a far more natural phenomena, maybe not, but anyway, we exist. So saying life is improbable so i god must have guide it is a little prematured.

You are right that i think religion is taint with misplaced arrogance.

Me: Fatima, Turin, Janarius, Guadaloupe, Bodies of Saints, Crying Mary, for some of the more modern ones which come to me off the top of my head.

You: The gregorian calendar was changed, and carbon 14 tests are 100% infalible. Plus miracles are empiric. (What does that mean? How does it in your mind rule out miracles as proof?)

That is not me; it is F_alk. Only the Empirical was mine. As i said i don’t want to speak empirical problem in this topic; too neboulus and too easy to proove anything.

Me: Evolution does not disprove anything. God exists outside of time; he created it. Thus how the way he created the Earth appears to us is in material.

You: Creationism is illogical and unscientific. Thus religion is also.

I NEVER SAID THAT !!!

Sure creationism is unscientific, but you are adding the “thus religion is also”. That is not logical… Relgion is a bunch of lies and it breed lies, but to say “creationism is false; so do religion” would be an easy, but illogical argument.

You: People create myths like religion to make them feel better.

Me: There is a lot more to Christianity than myth.

wow ! you actually quote me right… Again, we can discuss this for eternity so i won’t continue on the subject…

Now I can understand why you believe you come out on top. However, I don’t see why you call me ignorant, and my arguments garbage. Whats up? Is it because I disagree with you?

No, you are just using a big bunch of logical fallacies…

When i’m speaking of Argumentum ad ignorantis; that is in a very large way… I mean; is something we understand need the concept of god anymore ? …and before ? When there’s some darkness in any subject, the concept of god pop up from nowhere until we really understand the real cause. That is historical… but you could always try to refute that, anyway this is the kind of discussion i don’t want to have… I was just explaining why i accuse religion of “ignorance”.

You really seem to get off on this belief that Christians want you to go to hell. It may not be a bad idea to consider that the hell you are speaking of is one that may be yours of your own making - purposely pushing your way as far from God as possible, that you would never be reconcilled to him.

It’s an easy assumption with no real basis. The fact is i don’t believe in god, and i find the concept of Hell so ridicoulus i’m often speaking of it, with sarcasm. CC you are playing Butt game of personnal “attack”, this is useless and a good way NOT to argue.

Against, and i agree on this topic with everything CC said,

Also a little statistic against Moses false claim about Switzerland

Country / Handgun Murders / Population / Rate (per 100,000)
–---------------------------------------------------------
United States / 13,429 / 254,521,000 / 5.28
Switzerland / 97 / 6,828,023 / 1.42
Canada / 128 / 27,351,509 / 0.47
Sweden / 36 / 8,602,157 / 0.42
Australia / 13 / 17,576,354 / 0.07
United Kingdom / 33 / 57,797,514 / 0.06
Japan / 60 / 124,460,481 / 0.05

You say often Fisternis that just because 85% of the world’s population believes in God does not make it His existence so. However, you are missing the logic that there is enough to support God’s existence to make 85% of the World’s population believe.

Argumentum ad numerum

You seem to think people in general own the scientific knowledge and method to understand such complex thing. 1 000 years, even if the earth was proven to be a sphere (quasi), most people were thinking it was still flat… You are using very poor argument my friend. There’s no evidence of god, i ask a question at the first post that you are unable, with your “logical evidence”, to answer.

No the more common themes are love of God and fellow man

in christianism. you know butt every people are not christian, theres was countess religion in this earth. Norse, German, Gaul, Greek; they all had “false religion” like christian call them.

This is straight from you Fisternis, no one here believes this.

Christian do not believe in a personnal god ? Then christian are not theist.

That is a projection, a complete lack of creative logic.

You’re pretending there is a circular argument were there is none.

The only argument you’ve made exept the empirical one were circular… And that’s the only one i heard about.

If God does not exist, what exactly is the point of life? To procreate? To have as much pleasure as possible? To watch TV? What?

I am sure my answer will make you happy; i don’t know.

When man does’nt know, he create myth. I don’t know. I see a species that make everything (sometime not the right way…) to survive.

You are just adding some fancy pants logic to gloss over the real reason you not just disagree with the existence of God, but are vehemently oppossed to the existence of anyone who believes differently.

OIt is because it makes you uncomfortable. Plain and simple.

Argumentum ad hominem.

You attack me because you cannot attack my argument. And that is not “fancy pants logic”. I have only one certitude; god does’nt exist. Empiricism, rationalism, lamarckisme, darwinisme… i have no camp, but not on religion. You are making every move possible butt to use ignorance & to dodge argument i am making, discussion with you is useless.

Again, your hatred of Religion (seperate from your disbelief in God) is a very irrational and emotional aspect, the kind of thing you like to critisiz in other people

You are surely omnipotent to know such thing… no seriously that is first a rational reasonning, and people like you, that make me hate religion. Just look at your argumentation, that is empty, how can i not, as a scientist, be angry about this mayhem of logic ? You are using a lot of argumention i am sure will convince a lot of people, but using such logic will always get you problem with scientist or people with a minimum of logic.

You’re simply trying to replace your natural yearn for God with a new god, science. In april I was working at a camp for sixth graders. Before we ate, we sang a song of thankfulness, it was baisically a protestant grace except “the Lord” was replaced with “the Earth” They had simply moved from worshipping God to nature. When people stop turning to God they make “new gods” to turn to, science, nature, sex, drugs, violence, etc.

Everyone in this earth is not like you, i do not need religion, i do not need stable belief, stable ethic. I do not need religion, i do not need any personnal god. I have a fascination for science and math that cannot be
assimilate to any religious feeling. Theist stating X is a religion is a good way not to face directly the subject. Science is not my “god”, you are making a big & dangerous projection, like you are projecting your “essence” in your god.

I must say your aggressivity is far beyond mine. You could at least dream that your all-loving almighty god will send me in hell for my “crime”.

right Yanny, people seem to forget that too often

@cystic:

be careful FinsterniS. Religion is not merely an inner sensation of a god-presence, however it is also a collection of histories, rituals and beliefs passed down via texts etc.

True

Science is no more “infected” with religion then it is by politics (much less, i’d imagine), the biases of scientists seeking their own agenda’s of malice or success, industry, etc. Religion provides a jumping point for science in many respects. It asks why - science replies with how, and both may answer when and where. While it has been repeated that “religious people” have stood in the way of science, there are also many religious people furthering science (myself included).

Sure, science is not pure, but Religion is a counter-force to science that politic & money cannot match, because it does’nt only slow down science, it try to reverse it.

While historically creationists have tried to influence the development of science, they do have some good points (http://www.origins.org/menus/pjohnson.html). Furthermore, creationists are useful in challenging the theory of evolution as being merely a theory, forcing scientitsts to be honest about this point, to find proof for it, and to not declare it the “law of evolution” prematurely.

Creationism influence can be resume to the common people. There’s so many kind of evolutionism that it does’nt require creationism to remind it of it’s fragility. Still, evolution occur, the question is; How ? Creationists are making every move possible to point out problem of the evolutionism but not in a constructive way. There’s something very problematic with Creationism; it’s own method.

Evolutionism =
(Evidence) ==> Theory
(New Evidence) ==> Modification of the theory

It’s the scientific way. Evolutionism “regenerate” itself with new evidence.

Creationism =
(Religious Belief) ==> Theory

It’s not scientific. A creationist won’t use evidence of creation but evidence of incoherence in evolutionism. It does’nt regenerate on new evidence… Because these evidence simply does’nt exist. “new earth” creationist just look completly ridiculous, i was really shocked by the importence they seem to have in the US. The major argument religion ALWAYS has used it the argument from ignorance = “We don’t know how X work, then it’s god”

Creationism is just like geocentrism; it’s not in any way valid; it’s just an easy to understand theory, and very good for the oversized ego of the masses. Just look at statistic… the power of Creationism do not lie in his inherent value but in it’s ability to be easily understood by the poppulation.

And really, is “infect” the best adjective you could come up with? Not “permeating” or “lacing”? And every science? And necessarily in a “bad” way? how manichaeistic - Good (science) vs. Evil (religion).
:lol:

You know i hate “Good” & “Evil”, black & white term… i’m not qualifying in a general way Religion as being “Evil”, i just say it’s a counter force to Science, and also (i think); evolution himself. The belief in a almighty god is irrational (nobody here seem to be able to say oterwise) and arrogant (human is the center of the “creation”). oh sure i don’t think christian are idiot… well not all. Descarte was a real genius, he make big developpement in science, mathematic, method & logic, still when it come to religion he was completly irrational, every single logical proof he made are not consider as fallacious.

The only argument for religion is faith.

… still its not a reason to create such pseudo-theory as “Creationionism”. If religion was only a personnal affair i would’nt care, but it is not. It’s “infecting” every science.

… yes… that’s the only problem with the new forum

personnaly, i prefer this one…

FinsterniS - i think you are aware of my arguments by now.

What argument ?

Also just because you call it a myth does not make it so.

True, and just because you call it reality does not make it so.

Furthermore, even if something is a myth does not mean it didn’t happen (or couldn’t possibly have happened). Religions both living and dead have many “myths” that closely parallel stories of the bible.

For me a myth is a story conceive by human mind to explain things. Sure their is common theme in religion, but when you speak at parralell, you must not forget Christianism was created upon Islamist, who was created upon Egyptian mythology in some part.

The more common theme in religion are justice and post-mortem existance.

There is much anthropologically and scientifically to support (not prove) intelligent design.

I do not agree. The fact is the human race lack so much creative logic… it is very sad. We are intelligent; so universe must be created by an intelligence cause. We have emotions; so the creator must have emotions. We are human; so the creator must look like human. We are (were) a society dominated by male; so god must be male.

THAT is creativity ?

Theres not a sigle domain we have mastered where religion, where the concept of god, is still needed…

The better argument i’ve heard to support god evidence is; god exist because god exist.

For theists God is above useful. The question for us is not “is God useful to us?” (in explaining the world, say) but rather are we useful to God.

You misunderstood, certainly not because of you but because of my poor english. I was refering to logical concept such as Occam’s Razor.

Also, there is more to life and this world than mere utility.

I agree

I think it may be inappropriate to dismiss a concept (such as God) out of hand due to it’s utility.

Well… yes & no.

If A is not useful when we try to explain X, The it would not be logic to integrate A in the understanding of X.

Also there is much that is of little use that still has a belonging (conceptually) in the realms of knowledge etc.

We are certainly not using the same definition of utilit :smile:

I think if we limit our imagination to those elements that may be verified by the sense and instruments, then we limit our experiences too.

Again you seem to limit atheism to empiricism. I personnaly think observation & experiance are not the best way to aquire stable knowledge because of the inhability of induction.

What you just said make a lot of sence to me, and in the world i have very few certitude. I’m a little of a lot of theory, i’m a little rationalist, a little agnostic, a little empiricist it make a agnosto-empiro-rationalist :smile:. But when the discussion is on god; i’m a pure atheist, and i’m becoming more and more anti-religious with time…

Still; what i ask for in the first post was a rational argument, not derive from empiricism.

Naturally as a porported anti-scientific empiricist, i can spout this kind of dogma without shame. (would you believe i teach biology and organic chemistry? - my summer job).

You should be proud, biology is a beautiful science… well… like all science :smile:

And, no there is not more evidence that Bigfoot exists than God. How many miracles have been attributed to Bigfoot? How many people have used logic to prove (or try to prove, depending on your point of view) Bigfoot?

You are very boring with your miracle, only a blind man would think this constitute some sort of argument. In logic we call that “Anecdotal evidence”, it is rarely of any value and often classified as a logical fallacy.

I will just give you an exemple where dogmatic & empiriscist were one; A study proove payer help people to heal faster. So god must exist ! (the inevitable conclusion). But then… a more recent research prove that you can pray NOBODY, GOD, ODIN, SATAN or ZEUS, you will still help the person to heal faster. Why ? We don’t know… certaibly something linked to morphogenetic fields. Still the first theory (god) seem to be, as always, compromised. oh i am sure you will be able to find some way to gently retreat. But the fact is we don’t need god anymore to explain why prayer work.

And like i said, every religion has miracle… so they are all true ? even when they are in complete contradiction ? You have a “poor understanding” (to use your expression) of history if you think only jesus make miracle, and even is miracle are subject to questionning. Some of his miracle are in contraction with roman text of the time.

And for your “logic”, i’m still waiting for logical argument, its not the first time you speak of “logical evidence”, while it seem they are quite rare… You are always using old and invalid theory… Every single logical argument you’ve made were completly fallacious.

“Gott ist Tot”

• Friendrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

“Chacun prend les limites de son propre champ de vision pour celle de l’univers”

• Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

[ This Message was edited by: FinsterniS on 2002-06-16 15:56 ]

[ This Message was edited by: FinsterniS on 2002-06-16 15:59 ]

• true, true, true, related. We Christians, scientists included (please let’s pretend that this hopelessly romantic prairie boy without the rational that God gave his dog is somewhat of a scientist) have absolutely no tangible proof that God exists etc.

Im not even asking for proof, i just want an argument, without any logical falacy, to just put a personal god in the rank of Theory in the creation of our universe. We can even do that with contradictary theory, so it’s not asking for a proof.

And if i use the creation of the universe; its because the bible and christian believe god is the creator of the universe, and by using the creation of the universe i can bypass useless empiricist argument for Theist & Atheist (miracle & personnal contact for the first one, sociologic & psychological argument for the second).

An exemple between A & T, a is the atheist & T the theist.

T - God must have create the universe because we need a desinger for every design.
A - I can explain the desing of a mountain without using the concept of god.
T - But god create the mountain.

That is circular logic, completely invalid, so theres no discussion needed. The only thing you can argue is if the desing of the mountain is or not explained, but if it is not A will speak of even simplest desing totally understood by mankind. While if you are speaking about miracle it would never end because it is subject to interpretation.

T - I have personnal contact with god, you cannot say its not true !
A - Well i can, this is just a psychological reaction to the fear of death
T - no it’s not
A - yes it is
T - no
A - yes

Ad infinitum… (or maybe Ad nauseam)

We have a historical document that you shoot down as being a fairy tale.

Well… not fairy tale; mythology, but it is close…

The apparent reversal of entropy from the big bang to present, irreducible states of complexity within physiological systems are unexplainable by science, and written off as atheists who refer to the Catholic Churches censure of 15th century scientists.

Still. The theist don’t use the unknow to base coherent theory. They point the finger at it while shouting “it’s god !”. Sure, we don’t know everything… but that’s science, the day we will know everything i wish i’ll be dead (and i will :smile:).

The last thing we need in science is a religion that is trying slow us with conformism. Religion always retreat, just a question of time.

Witnessed miracles since time immemorial, real experiences (in so far that we can claim to have them) with a loving and personal saviour, a personal faith more effective than any other happenstance in a believer’s life (including torture and death) are written off as delusions, psychosis, lies, and irrational beliefs in fairy tales.

Exactly, and you’ll have an hard time using that AS AN ARGUMENT because empiricist is a very hard method of understanding, thing are rarely what they seem.

You have done it FinsterniS. You have asked a question that we can not answer.

Nia nia, i win, you loose, loossssser

No, seriously :smile:

If the concept of god cannot be even usefull.
Then rejecting it is the only logical option.

And i am sure you will agree useless concept cannot be integrate in any domain of knowledge.

At the same time, the questions that people of faith ask scientists are answered by the most flacid and tenuous “scientific” arguments with much inferrence, and little basis in fact as well.

In science we often believe we know much more that we really do.

Faith (well, Christianity) needs science: To keep it honest. To provide the physical explanation that underlies the statements in the bible. To help elevate all people in almost every discipline. At the same time, science needs faith (not religion - this is too easily dismissed as a series of superstitious rituals): To keep it honest. To keep people searching out new truths. To provide a balance. To keep us aware that not everything can be mastered and measured.

To keep it honest… and to keep it pollute science with preuso-theory like “creation science”. The very existance of Creationism is fallacious…

About science being honest WITH religion, i really don’t understand. I am doing my job in science, without any Wall. If i discover X, it won’t interfere with Y religious doctrine.

Why am i not honest with Science ?

by the way, glad i’m your favorite foe, you dogmatic church trasher you :smile:

and you dogmatic arch-nemesis of science :smile:

by the way, i did have an interesting experience while overseas, and can see more clearly your anger at religion, your claim that “God” (i’d say more accurately “religion”) is dying, amoung other things, but we can get into this in another series of posts . . . .

That’s in part why i am very proud of being European. Still i am very jalous of the asiatic in their scientic method, they work really more in symbiosis than we, occidental. And they seem to understand more easely all science are not independant but all linked under the same tree of knowledge (not refering to bible).

bordel… it was me :smile: