Just to say, I shouldn't have made that general view aimed at you, sorry if it seemed I was attacking you.
It didn't seem that way, rest assured.
For example, when I say RAZD seems neutral, what I really means is that if I didn't know he was Deist, it would be difficult to know what he believed. I would go for agnostic.
His sympathies for the supernatural position shine through for me. Clearly he is trying to appear to be neutral, but I don't think he has succeeded. His insistence that unevidenced, unfalsifiable 'possibilities' need to be ruled out before any confidence can be given to the falsifable and unfalsified theory that has supporting evidence coupled with inductive reasoning is a bit of a give-away.
We are all biased. But I don't believe that atheists such as you have the keys to reason.
I wouldn't suggest otherwise.
You say that we can confirm things like an octopus.
My point was, that something natural which is true and real, can be regarded as farcical despite being real and true.
Of course, the platypus is a real world example of this.
In this way, God is farcical, I assume, to you.
Not at all. Certain claims about God can be farcical, certain arguments that propose to demonstrate any God's existence are absurd - but the concept of God is not farcical to me.
He is only ever farcical to a certain group of people, therefore doesn't that group of people explain that attitude, and therefore doesn't that tell us more about them than God?
Yes. But then - the book of Genesis tells us more about the authors than it does about God too...
It works both ways, if those that think god is a farcical concept this tells us more about them than god
then
those that think god is a serious revered concept tell us more about themselves than god.
You say that supernatural activity only comes from a human source therefore it is human.
No I don't. This confusion has been corrected numerous times on this thread. Suffice it to say I am very much not saying this.
Can you see how your doubt in God as someone real or true, comes from your particular group.
I don't doubt God because I'm an atheist.
I am atheist because I doubt God.
I'm not foolish and I appreciate that by identifying with a group I am susceptible to biases etc. And that works the other way too. Including RAZD who is not neutral but identifies himself as a True Skeptic Deist. I fail to see why this is relevant though.
I am honestly trying to get into the atheist's mindset. In this manner I am not attacking you or atheists. I personally don't have anything against you, you have never harmed me or insulted me and even if you had I have to forgive you, I don't get a choice.
Then free your mind and follow me...
I am going to sell you a pill that will grow your penis, enliven your sex life. I'm going to sell you a shirt that will attract women, a shower gel that will improve athletic performance and a bridge in brooklyn for just $5.
It is possible I'm telling the truth, but I suspect your inclination is to doubt me. I may have an ulterior motive such as...money.
That doubt? That attitude of 'Nullius in verba' seems natural when a transparent shyster comes along. But some people still manage to short circuit skepticism and get intelligent reasonable and careful people to fall for what appear to be obvious cons.
Remember the Emperor's New Clothes? How the 'tailors' created clothes that were so subtle and sheer that they would appear invisible to those who are sufficiently wise and sophisticated?
The little boy who said 'But the Emperor is naked!'? That's the atheist mindset.
Now, I deem it reasonable that you meet my own experiences with skepticism but I don't believe the only worthwhile view is the narrow view of science and empiricism. It's as though you do not regard any potential realities beyond the one we can detect unless empiricism is in play.
I always regard potential realities beyond the ones we can detect. I have a vivid imagination and enjoy thinking up new realities, and have written several (unpublished) books that utilise them.
However, I don't give any of them preferential credence as being true unless there is some reason to do so. I can think of no better way that to experience those alternative realities myself and have sufficient confirmation of others clearly experiencing the same alternative realities. The more rigorous tests regarding those experiences - the better.
If God exists, and created us, and is the God of the bible, and if you were wrong about all this, would that be that you were misled by him or would you regard that you had not been correct?
Assuming I was given no further information with which to make that decision I would think neither exactly.
Obviously I would concede that I was wrong, since I would be.
'The God of the Bible' is an ambiguous term. If it was the YHWH that demands belief for salvation I would maintain the inherent unfairness and stupidity of the system in which there was no way for us to verify the correct entity to believe in resulting in billions believing the wrong deity or lack thereof.
If it was the YHWH that doesn't demand belief and says 'not everyone is inclined to believe those stories, don't worry about it - join the party'...then of course I wouldn't feel misled. I wasn't led at all but it doesn't matter since I got to the destination nevertheless!
It strikes me as very unusual if guys like you would admitt to being wrong. I actually don't think that you think you can be wrong about anything, but maybe that's unfair.
And yet 'guys like us' demand theories be falsifiable, and 'guys like you' create unfalsifiable theories that can never be proven wrong. 'Guys like us' conceded that the universe was expanding, that it had a 'beginning', that Darwin's ideas don't actually work out.
Sure - everybody finds it difficult to admit to being wrong. Because of this, 'guys like us' have attempted to overcome this tendency by defining what it would take for us to be shown to be wrong. We define falsifications for our own ideas. Again, people - even 'guys like us' - may stick to falsified theories, trying to rescue them with caveats and patches but die hards tend to die out.
But look at the evidence mike. Relativity and Quantum Physics and other Cosmological theories are far more 'absurd' than 90% of religious ideas. They litereally defy belief, as if our brains are simply not wired up to accept them.
And yet despite their inherent absurdity - 'guys like us' accept them eventually - although almost everybody that accepts quantum physics for example, denies it at first. "It cannot be true, we must have missed something!" - but the evidence becomes overwhelming. Despite the fact that it seems absurd and impossible - the evidence shows it is true so there we have it. Eventually we have to admit that our pet ideas about how to get out of the apparent paradoxes are wrong. There are no hidden variables, there is no knowing position and momentum at the same time, it is impossible to predict which photons will reflect only how many of them will do so....
Guys like us love being wrong. We've been wrong so often, we've stripped out all those things we're been most obviously wrong about. Plenty remains, and a skeptics job at self-reflection never ends. I'd love to find out I was wrong about supernatural things - it'd be one of the most exciting things to be wrong about, ever!
Besides - the rationalisation is easy. Since atheists rarely say "God does not exist.", they don't have to admit to being wrong. Since they are clear that all their ideas are tentative it gives them a psychological trapdoor making it easier to admit being wrong. Remember 'all supernatural concepts come from the human imagination' is framed as a theory - not as a statement of fact.
I am probably wrong but I don't think I have ever know an atheist to say that he perhaps could have misled himself, having a particular attitude towards God.
I could be wrong. I could have been misled or have misled myself. I've done it thousands of times before and have chronicled some of those times on this very board.
There is one way to show that I was wrong: Show me reason and evidence combined that leads to the conclusion that a god exists. As Tim Minchin comments on a slightly different topic that atheists are often arguing about:
quote:
Science adjusts its views based on what's observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
Then I will change my mind
I will spin on a fucking dime
I'll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It's a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And whilst its memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it's had in it!
You show me that it works and how it works
And when I've recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve "Fancy That" on the side of my cock."
...
"Life is full of mystery, yeah,
But there are answers out there
And they won't be found
By people sitting around
Looking serious
And saying isn't life mysterious?
Let's sit here and hope
Let's call up the fucking Pope
Let's go watch Oprah
Interview Deepak Chopra
If you must watch telly, you should watch Scooby Doo.
That show was so cool
because every time there was a church with a ghoul
Or a ghost in a school
They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The fucking janitor or the dude who ran the water-slide.
Because throughout history
Every mystery
EVER solved has turned out to be
NOT magic.
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