"What if ..?"

[Thalassamania]

Well, let's not argue about the content of theologies anyways as I find much of what is touted as modern religion to be as misguided and harmful as I suspect you do

Strange request? Perhaps, but I think that is what I find so curious about atheism. It seems to be a belief based on a negative that can't be proven. (Now don't get mad at me but...) it strikes me that believing in non existance that cannot be proven is as faith based as believing in existance that can't be proven.

It is really rather simple. I assume that my wife is faithful to me. I assume, when I look out on an empty field that there are no invisible creatures there. I assume that there is not a diamond the size of my refrigerator buried in my front lawn. I do not need to disprove these claims and I am well within my rights to ask for some evidence, of my wife's infidelity, of the invisible creature in the seemingly empty field, of the possibility of a large diamond in my front lawn before I waste any time or energy on the claim. Similarly, if you want to tell me that the universe was created by an invisible and contradictory being who want me to worship him and who will reward me with eternal happiness or punish me with eternal pain depending upon how I please or displease him ... well, excuse me if I say, "Ya got any evidence, any at all?"

 

[AndyNZ]

Well, let's not argue about the content of theologies anyways as I find much of what is touted as modern religion to be as misguided and harmful as I suspect you do

Can I throw "irrelevant" into that as well?

For all this talk of religion, atheism and agnosticism.... don't forget the alternative, the indifferent.

Bottom line, most religions boil down to some fairly simple guidelines of what is socially and morally acceptable - irrespective of what I actually believe, or don't, there's always a chance that I've "got it wrong", but if some higher being exists that judges on what you believe as opposed to what you do..... well, I'd rather head downstairs anyway.

 

[DaleC]

It is really rather simple. I assume that my wife is faithful to me. I assume, when I look out on an empty field that there are no invisible creatures there. I assume that there is not a diamond the size of my refrigerator buried in my front lawn. I do not need to disprove these claims and I am well within my rights to ask for some evidence, of my wife's infidelity, of the invisible creature in the seemingly empty field, of the possibility of a large diamond in my front lawn before I waste any time or energy on the claim.

I can understand that (I think). I was thinking a lot about this today and trying to see things from your (and others) POV to figure out the disconnect. From my experience belief systems have always been a dynamic force so when one states they are a "this" or "that" I see it as something actively persued. I can now see however, someone considering themselves an atheist from a passive POV (passive not being a negative connotation). As in the example: Until someone shows me evidence to the contrary I do not believe. They do not actively persue their disbelief. They refrain from belief until some evidence is provided. Hopefully I got that right. It may seem odd but I usually do not discuss beliefs from that perspective.

Similarly, if you want to tell me that the universe was created by an invisible and contradictory being who want me to worship him and who will reward me with eternal happiness or punish me with eternal pain depending upon how I please or displease him ... well, excuse me if I say, "Ya got any evidence, any at all?"

I would not come close to telling you any such thing. To me that is a form of institutionalized crowd control.

Bottom line, most religions boil down to some fairly simple guidelines of what is socially and morally acceptable - irrespective of what I actually believe, or don't, there's always a chance that I've "got it wrong", but if some higher being exists that judges on what you believe as opposed to what you do..... well, I'd rather head downstairs anyway.

My belief would fall heavily in the camp of favoring what you do rather than who you worship. If there is a "higher being" I am pretty sure it would not ascribe to such base human emotions as pride and vanity and would be more concerned in my growth as opposed to its aggrandizement. I put most of my eggs in the path, not the being. It doesn't really matter to me if there ultimately is a "higher being" in the godlike sense. To me the value of the being is to aid one along the path (if that makes sense).

 

[Sas]

I can understand that (I think). I was thinking a lot about this today and trying to see things from your (and others) POV to figure out the disconnect. From my experience belief systems have always been a dynamic force so when one states they are a "this" or "that" I see it as something actively persued. I can now see however, someone considering themselves an atheist from a passive POV (passive not being a negative connotation). As in the example: Until someone shows me evidence to the contrary I do not believe. They do not actively persue their disbelief. They refrain from belief until some evidence is provided. Hopefully I got that right. It may seem odd but I usually do not discuss beliefs from that perspective.

Yes, that's pretty much correct as I see it. You are one of the few people I've seen grasp that concept where you've started at a position where you think atheism is only about active disbelief, actually. It seems to be an incredibly difficult concept to convey to non-atheists, but I might steal Thal's examples next time I try

I've kind of always approached belief in things with this perspective. Perhaps why I never worry about my partner being unfaithful to me

 

[boulderjohn]

Bottom line, most religions boil down to some fairly simple guidelines of what is socially and morally acceptable - irrespective of what I actually believe, or don't, there's always a chance that I've "got it wrong", but if some higher being exists that judges on what you believe as opposed to what you do..... well, I'd rather head downstairs anyway.

I have a sciFi story written in my head about this. Maybe I will set it down some day. Beings from another galaxy find a planet and meet a God. He tells them that he has created a world and billions of people, all of whom have an immortal soul. He gave one small group a secret message with no logical evidence behind it. The idea is that if anyone sincerely believes this secret message, they will be rewarded with an afterlife of bliss for all eternity, no matter how they live their lives. Only a minority believe this. In fact, many never even hear that secret message. Many others get a competing message that makes either equal sense or greater sense. Those who do not believe the secret message will punished with incredible pain, pain will only be starting quadrillions of years into the future.

Even though the space travelers have a strict nonintervention policy, thy decide that with a being so purely evil as that in control, they must act.

I cannot believe a being with that power could be that evil, so I don't worry about it.

 

[lamont]

A believer states there definately is something
An atheist states there definately isn't
An agnostic states they just don't know.
The first and last are an act of faith, derived at without definative proof.
The motivation of science is the agnostic mind.

I think I've got a fairly scientific viewpoint about gravity, and I definitely view what we know about gravity as being incomplete. However, day-to-day I operate with 100% faith in gravity.

That's about the same perspective that I have on religious issues. Day-to-day I'm an atheist, but if you want to have a discussion about definitive proof either way I don't have it.

And if this was a poker game I'm "all in" on the atheist side, but until the cards are turned over, I don't have any information about what the cards are... I've just made my bets...

 

[lamont]

That's really kind of interesting, Thal. One would think that a scientist wouldn't choose a side until there was either 100% scientific proof supporting intelligent design or 100% scientific proof supporting that no intelligence could possibly have designed the universe.

There isn't 100% proof in *anything* scientific. That's part of having a scientific theory -- in order to be scientific it must always be able to be disproven -- if a theory cannot be proven wrong, it isn't a scientific theory. If scientists ever believed that something was 100% correct and couldn't not be proven wrong and there was no room for doubt, that would be practicing faith and not science.

That doesn't mean that science is wishy-washy, though. Fuzzy math is more useful for understanding scientific theories than black/white true/false binary logic. Outside o the quantum regieme, gravity is thought to be well understood. So is electromagnetism. The big bang theory is nearly on as stable of footing, but with some details like inflation not being entirely nailed down. The ability of string theory to enlighten us about quantum gravity is on very shaky ground (although it is clearly mathematics, and useful to study).

There is some room to doubt, though. Given the problems with dark matter, one solution to that problem is that we don't actually understand gravity on the scale of galaxies and galaxy clusters (dark matter in that case doesn't exist, but gravity changes). That explanation has tended to loose favor, but if we get better measurements that alternative explanations cannot account for all the dark matter, then modifications to Einstein's General Relativity is back on the table.

Am I incorrect in thinking that the definition of an agnostic is one who doesn't know if God exists or or does not exist?

Wouldn't a scientist believe in his theory about the existence or lack of existence of God, gods, intelligent design, etc., but keep an open mind that his theory might be wrong?

I don't think anyone has provided scientific proof of either.

An awful lot of scientists apply Occam's razor to God and self-identify as atheists. What they're stating is just that they feel it 99% likely that God does not exist, even if there is no scientific proof, and they feel the burden of proof is on providing the proof that God exists[*].

[*] And for the religious people reading this, I'm not arguing that you have to entertain this viewpoint, but that a lot of scientists entertain this viewpoint.

 

[lamont]

While there busy with trying to recall Einstein's mathematical tensors, they can explain why gravity totally fails to explain why Saturn has rings and Jupiter doesn't, or why the theory of gravity contradicts the second law of thermodynamics.

Gravity isn't entirely responsible for 'explaining' Saturn's rings compared to Jupiter's rings -- at a basic level you need thermo, gravity and E+M to explain planetary formation, and you've got an enormous issue with initial boundary conditions and determining how to simply them -- which is a human issue with being able to know those initial conditions and to be able to simulate them exactly in a complicated N-body chaotic dynamics problem where N is very large and the timeframes allow for very complicated chaotic interactions and generate sensitivity to initial conditions.

And gravitation doesn't contradict the 2nd law of thermodynamics at all.

 

[lamont]

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states while a system can go through some physical process that decreases its own entropy, the entropy of the universe must increase overall. Processes that decrease the total entropy of the universe are impossible. If a system is at equilibrium, by definition no spontaneous processes can occur, and therefore the system is at maximum entropy which is impossible.

Perhaps a quotation by the accomplished physicist Ellery Schempp is in-order:

"Since everything in the Universe tends to disorder according to the 2nd Law, orderly orbits are impossible."

And all oribiting systems give off gravitational waves and on a long enough time frame will decay.

Uh, and that is from this *parody* of intelligent design arguments:

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p67.htm

You have misunderstood his point, *completely*.

 

[DCBC]

Gravity isn't entirely responsible for 'explaining' Saturn's rings compared to Jupiter's rings -- at a basic level you need thermo, gravity and E+M to explain planetary formation, and you've got an enormous issue with initial boundary conditions and determining how to simply them -- which is a human issue with being able to know those initial conditions and to be able to simulate them exactly in a complicated N-body chaotic dynamics problem where N is very large and the timeframes allow for very complicated chaotic interactions and generate sensitivity to initial conditions.

And gravitation doesn't contradict the 2nd law of thermodynamics at all.

... And if a black hole is not increasing in size by accretion or mass from the outside, it will lose mass by Hawking radiation and will eventually evaporate.

My apologies, it was not my intent to bait such a discussion on this thread.