Electric Monk

You tell me. You're the one who changed your tactics. I've changed nothing. Please go back and read our exchanges again, this time with the knowledge that I had just entered the thread, had never insulted you, and was not trying to anger or dismiss you. Indeed your own post before my reply that you got so offended at contained hardly more than an assertion about faith, and a challenge to refute it. One of the problems with text, especially in a contentious forum like this one, is that intent can be misread depending on the mindset of the reader. By your own admission you tend to "post on the fly" without providing explanation or support for your assertions, why not give someone the benefit of the doubt when they do the same? Reserve your vitriol for those who sling it. Whatever small condescension I have offered, you have earned with your words. Contrary to what you presume, I actually am interested in what you have to say, which is why I keep asking questions. I am certainly not trying to play silly little word games with you, and would really like to know the answers to the questions I have asked you. I am here to exchange ideas.

So it doesn't need to, and it doesn't logically prove the existence of the Roman Catholic god. Explain how this fails to make the Roman Catholic religion illogical, if it's central premise cannot be verified. To be "illogical" one must contradict "logic". The assertion of the Roman Catholic Church that God exists is an article of faith. As such, no claim of logic is made. And since one cannot contradict something that isn't there, this claim of the Roman Catholic Church cannot be deemed "illogical". To put the point as clearly as possible - an article of faith stands entirely outside the realm of logic or human knowledge. Good to see we're finally getting somewhere, isn't this nicer than that nastiness a page or so ago? I agree with you that the assertion that the Roman Catholic god exists is alogical, but what is the RC religion if not a logical argument built on top of that assertion?

So it doesn't need to, and it doesn't logically prove the existence of the Roman Catholic god. Explain how this fails to make the Roman Catholic religion illogical, if it's central premise cannot be verified.

You may be confusing me with White Doors, I made no such assertion. The assertion I indirectly made was that the Roman Catholic religion was not logical, and you promptly agreed with me by saying it was based on faith. Do you have some different definition of the word "faith" than I do? My definition of faith is "belief in the absence of evidence". I'm going to go read up on epistemology, since I guess you won't be of any help. Other than to provide some examples of ad hominem attacks and arguments from authority.

Ok, please explain, without insults. Edit: Hang on a sec, were you asking me to prove the statement "The Roman Catholic God does not exist"? That would also be the root of a logically invalid argument, because I can't demonstrate the truth of that statement either.

It is a matter of faith. Go ahead. The onus is on you to show that this faith can't withstand your logic. I think I just did.

Roman Catholicism, according to official doctrines, can logically stand with secular science and philosophy, including epistemology, evolution and big bang theory. One cannot logically refute the official doctrines of the Catholic faith, or the holding of same. In other words, the 'gaping hole' is in your sweeping assertion. I may be mistaken, but in order to have a valid logical argument, you have to establish the truth of all your premises. In this case the first premise would be "The Roman Catholic God exists." All the other premises could be indisputably true, but if you can't prove the truth of that one, your argument is invalid.

That's the built-in bias I'm referring to, essentially he is saying that whatever happens in the false premise/action side, the true premise/inaction side will be worse, when he hasn't even attempted to prove that. I agree that catastrophic global warming would be...catastrophic. The outcome simply hinges upon which box you choose to put the worst outcome in. What happens if I follow the same reasoning, and put global nuclear war in the false premise/action box? Does it then follow that I should automatically include it in the true premise/inaction box?

Both Pascal's wager and this argument assume that the worst case scenario for the false premise/action situation is better than the worst case for the true premise/inaction situation. The entire argument fails if you simply come up with a worse outcome for the false premise/action situation. In other words, the argument only serves to expose the biases of the one using it. (Note: this is not meant negatively, we are all biased.)

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Much as I'd like to agree with the video author, I don't think he has a good argument. He has set the values for each worst-case scenario arbitrarily, which biases the whole exercise in the direction of the "best" worst case scenario. I immediately thought of Pascal's Wager as an example of a similarly flawed argument.

We don't have the information needed to draw those probabilities. We would have to know the exact chemical conditions and circumstances for the generation of carbon-based life in order to draw the probability of carbon-based life existing elsewhere, and we certainly can't begin to be able to draw probability parameters around the existence of God. True, but we can infer some relative probabilities, I can say that when I roll a dozen dice at once the probability of them all showing sixes is a lot higher than them all balancing on one corner. Don't we make determinations like this all the time?

Can you clarify this? What do you mean by well-formed?

We need to define "God" before we can have a meaningful discussion on this topic. The traditional Triple O God, (Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent) has a much smaller probability of existence than an alien race with sufficiently advanced technology to appear "godlike" to us.

Great find!! I've seen one other comparable film The Naked Truth: Awaken the Sheeple But yours is much newer and more concise. Thanks.

Isn't it establishing religion, generally, and excluding those who don't believe?

This is not true, evolution requires imperfectly replicating living organisms. Evolution 101, Mechanisms: the processes of evolution Kinda makes you wonder how reliable that site is, if they get such a basic fact wrong.

I wonder why they don't allow the ten commandments, or other religious symbols in public buildings, or prayer in schools, but yet money and the pledge of allegiance are allowed to endorse the Christian religion?

The most interesting part for me was when they broke down the results between Republicans, independents, and Democrats. From the article "Being religious in America today is strongly related to partisanship, with more religious Americans in general much more likely to be Republicans than to be independents or Democrats. This relationship helps explain the finding that Republicans are significantly more likely than independents or Democrats to say they do not believe in evolution." I guess I just hadn't seen the differences shown so clearly before. I wonder if the Canadian breakdown is similar?

In all fairness, the article includes this paragraph. "Without further research, it's not possible to determine the exact thinking process of those who agreed that both the theory of evolution and creationism are true. It may be, however, that some respondents were seeking a way to express their views that evolution may have been initiated by or guided by God, and told the interviewer that they agreed with both evolution and creationism in an effort to express this more complex attitude." I am curious to see the other variants of creationism you mentioned.

I just found this quote from Greg. I don't think this means that they can't or don't use this forum as a resource.

Watch out for giant hamsters.

If it involves this forum, they likely won't tell us anything, as it would skew the results.

If I feel stressed, I just remember that I am the creator of the universe, and I immediately feel better. Is this evidence that I am the creator of the universe? Or is it evidence that believing I am, makes me feel better? (Note that this is just an example, I do not believe anything of the sort.)

I hope this isn't too off-topic (then again, threads tend to evolve), but I have trouble believing in the argument of a "prime mover" to get things started. If the "prime mover" got things started, then where did this prime mover come from? That's the "little trouble". The only real evidence that people have for a deity is the effect that the belief has on their lives. This kind of evidence is highly subjective and virtually impossible to communicate to someone else. It is, at best, correlation argument that suggests a causal effect but does not prove it. That said, this evidence is real from the perspective of the believer and there are many examples where people are substantially better off because they choose to believe in a deity. Why do you believe there is a need for anyone to offer you convincing evidence of their deity if they are not trying to convert you? If they are not trying to convert me, I generally get along quite well with believers...and I keep my reservations about their beliefs to myself. However, given the fundamental nature of their religious beliefs to the way they view and interpret the world, and the fundamental nature of my own beliefs to my world-view, we may have irreconcilable differences of opinion even in the most casual of conversations. How we choose to deal with them is up to us. I am sure that some believers are better off because of their beliefs, but that does not affect the rationality of their core beliefs, just as my non-belief, while benefiting me, is not made more or less rational because of that benefit.