What makes you unbelieve Crash ?

If it's ok Mike I'll jump in too.I'm a bit different than Crash and some others. I've never been a believer.I know that the whole thing is central to your life so you might find it a bit hard to get but until I was into my 20's the religious issue just wasn't there. I didn't think about it any more than you might think about the structure of bucky balls now.And still, the only time it comes into my head now is when I'm discussing it with someone who thinks it is an issue or if I'm asked something.It is just a non-issue. I think more about where the moon is in the sky, whether it is waxing or waning and the current position of Voyager probes (things you might not think about more than once every few months if at all) than I think about God. Do you worry about those other things? Do they impinge on your consciousness?Probably not unless someone brings them up. That is about where God fits in for me.I am interested in religious issues (and discuss them with friends) as part of a general interest in history, sociology and psychology. From where I sit Christianity only happens to be the most in-my-face of the major religions. Like my daughter, my interest in Islam increased with all the kurfluffle that is going on now. I see them all as being very much equivalent.At one level they say about the same things. They all have good aspects and they all seem to have a way-out fringe element that is not good news. They all believe just as fervantly. The reasons given for each of the religions sounds exactly the same to me. I see no difference.If the religious folk don't bother me I don't bother with them.I have developed some hard feelings toward some cults only as I've been exposed to the bad side. The literalist fringe is a dangerous, irrational trend and need to be countered. I've been exposed to the ugliness of the Jehovah's Witnesses through someone shunned by her family. Those two groups do Christianity no favours.Others are obviously doing more good than harm. I would not attempt to stiffle or fight them even if I could.It isn't God that I am against in any way. That is just a word to me. It is the actions of groups that use God as an excuse for behaviour that varies from annoying to dangerous and even to cruel. All I see of God is the actions of individuals, some good, some bad.

Of course you do Mike. Everyone does. That ones faith is the correct one is obvious to each of the believers in all the faiths. They each have some good, to them, reason for it. However, they all have a problen when it comes to substantiating their beliefs with something a non-believer can accept.As they say in the Highlander "There can be only one." But some of us discard the one as well as all the others since we can't see any reason for accepting any of them.

You'll have to show your calculations. I've seen those with a number of guessed at numbers in them. If the input is garbage the output is too.As for intelligent life we have a sample of exactly one. You don't do statistics on that.It is true that microbial life on Mars would change the guess about life's commonness. Expontential is not the right term to use.

I'm not speaking for Crash, ( lord knows (small "l", ) he can sure talk enough for himself) but I there is a serious disconnect in the parts of the above paragraph.You talk of Crash's "hard stabs at God". You then give a reasonable example with the "parent" comment of Crash's. However, you then add "Creationism is religious lies". In what way is that a "stab at God"?Creationism isn't anything to do with God, per se. It is all about a worship of a very particular (and peculiar) interpretation of a small part of the Bible. It has been demonstrated to be wrong. It is publically defended with lies. When we try to discuss those lies here on this forum those who claim to be adherents to "creationism" (of one sort or another) and supposed supporters of it run back to the faith and belief forum. Crash, and others including myself, makes a personal choice to conclude false. This is done without specific evidence (unless the particular God is described in a way amenable to evidential analysis). It is a personal choice. Others are free to choose diferently.The point is it is purely a personal choice. Like any one of a huge number of different ideas people have it is not decidable at all. Ghosts, gods, Yeti and on and on are all believed or not by individuals without evidence. Some of us see all of them as the same waste of time.If you're happy to take things on faith we are (mostly) all happy to leave you to it. But there is one condition. You have to leave others to their own personal choices. You have to recognize that you have no objective, non-personal way of saying anything at all about these things. That is, you have to stay out of the science classroom.If you want in then you have to come in with evidence and a way of separating some form of reality from all the other, conflicting ideas that have been and still are believed by many different people. If your beliefs are undecidable in an objective way then they must remain subjective and your beliefs. Nothing more than beliefs and nothing less than beliefs.I agree with you that Crash may be overstepping if he thinks he knows what God would or wouldn't do. He doesn't. And you don't either.

This whole thing, Mike, is why experiments are frequently conducted double blinded. It is often difficult but the problem of personal bias entering into the results is an understood and studied phenomenon.Anything less would constitute evidence that anyone, of either view, should trust as being meaningful in anyway at all.edited to change Nothing less to anything less[This message has been edited by NosyNed, 04-26-2004]

You missed the slight subtlety. The question is would it be more likely. I don't think there is anyway to prove or disprove this (well not easily). But it seems to me that if you take someone with lots of other reasons for doing something (power, revenge etc) and then put them into a dogmatic, God is on my side, I am without doubt right frame of mind then it seems that you have significantly increased the likelyhood of them acting.I might say a lot more likely you might say only a little. I don't see how to settle that.

I agree that Muslims are not, obviously, Christians. They don't believe in his divinity. You seem to suggest that the reason is that they don't follow his teachings.I believe that at sometimes a slight majority of the US population has approved of attacking Iraq (and for sure, I think, for Afghanistan).Therefore, you are telling me that the US is either made up of a majority of non-Christians or at least a very significant near majority. Right?This message has been edited by NosyNed, 05-06-2004 03:56 PM