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Post by hibernicus on Nov 11, 2008 19:29:57 GMT
INedifix says that the eixstence of curved space-time has been proven and that it is simply a matter of our perceptions. Which is true - is it subjective or is it true independent of our perception? The edifice of modern physics seems to disclose a reality which is very unlike what we perceive around us. Where did the ability to discern this come from? Can it be explained in purely empirical terms? I did not say that the fact that there is something rather than nothing proves that God did it, only that that is a possible explanation whose plausibility may be argued over. We can't just say the universe is just there and leave it at that - we can't exclude the possibility that there is an answer.
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 11, 2008 19:32:14 GMT
Another area where Dawkins seems to have difficulty is free will. He seems to believe at one and the same time that everything including his thought processes is determined (I've seen him say in a forum that he suspects punishing people for committing crime is as irrational as Basil Fawlty beating his car because it won't start) and yet he denies he is a determinist. Any thoughts?
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Post by hibernicus on Nov 11, 2008 19:38:25 GMT
Mel had a piece, I think on another thread, which I would liek to reply to here. He complaine dhow difficult it is for atheists to live in a society where the default position is supposed ot be that you're religious, where you feel inhibitions about revelaing your true beliefs to faily and friends for fear of their likely reaction, where various aspects of the law are shaped by the views of religious believers and where you are taxed to support things you don't believe in. All I can say is join the club. Traditionalist catholcis like those on this forum have exactly the same set of complaints. We are widely regarded as nutcases and freaks whose beliefs are self-evidently evil and demented, we have to pay the salaries of smutty talkshow hosts and blasphemous comedians out of our TV licences and are taxed to support various social services which we conscientiously regard as immoral, we are regularly portrayed in novels, films and TV as hypocrites and murderers (let us take THE DA VINCI CODE which is based on the proposition that the Catholic Church is and always has been run by people who know its central doctrines are false and murder people to prevent them finding out). If the woprld seems dominated by religious fanatics to you, it seems deeply and often aggressively secularist to us. One thing we can both agree on is that there's a lot of hypocrisy involved and that from our different positions we take these issues seriously, and not just as matters of social conformity.
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Post by hazelireland on Nov 11, 2008 20:47:50 GMT
You said that atheists can tolerate the private beliefs of religious believers so long as they do not try to impose restrictions on you because of them. First of all, I would have thought the question of whether or not there is a God is worth discussing in its own right I am not seeing the connection here between my point that you are referring to and your first comment to it. Of course it is worth discussing. If it were not then I would not be here on this website wasting my time looking for intelligent discussion while trying to weed through the many posts by slanderous forum trolls like SaintStephen. This comment appears to have no reflection on the point I made. Or do you think that tolerance means that things do not get discussed? Sorry totally baffled by this comment. Can you clarify what you mean? At present it seems to me a complete non sequitar and I do not know what to do with it. Second, and this is where it hurts, your concession is only of limited value because how we see the world affects our sense of what is right and wrong, so that divergences in belief inevitably have real-world considerations. Absolutely agree. However you have to present those real-world considerations in a form we can all relate to. I have at no point indicated that if you have a religiously motivated position that I will automatically disagree with it. If it is a reasonable position then your motivation for having it is irrelevant as you will be able to argue your position in a rational and meaningful manner. If your catholic world view leads you to believe the act of homosexual sex should be outlawed, for example (not saying it does, just need an example) then you need to translate that concern into real world reasons we can discuss and base your legal procedure upon. If however your entire point is floating on gods will or the scriptures and ONLY these things, then this is not good enough frankly. I repeat the quote from Barack Obama which still says this better than I can: "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all." Richard Dawkins also transgresses them when he says parents who transmit religious faith to their children are worse than those who sexually abuse their children Can you provide a citation or a quote or a link to him saying that? I have not heard it yet and would be interested to know where you get it. Yes I am aware he calls labelling children as religious before they have decided as a form of child abuse. He likens it to calling a 4 year old a Tory or a Republican and saying that that is what the child is. How can the child be that? However I have never yet heard him say that attempting to transmit the faith itself is child abuse. Nor have I heard it suggested that teaching your children about your faith and why you have it is child abuse. Nor have I heard him place this type of child abuse on a relative scale with other abuse such as, like you say here, sex abuse. I’m sure you have links and citations for this, so I will wait until you provide them before commenting on the quotes. IF you do not have the citations then it is possible you have misunderstood the message he conveys when he discusses this as Child Abuse so there is no point in me commenting on something he never said. Provide the citation or the link to this and we can discuss it then.
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Post by hazelireland on Nov 11, 2008 20:52:02 GMT
I did not say that the fact that there is something rather than nothing proves that God did it, only that that is a possible explanation whose plausibility may be argued over. Of course! 100% agreed! However as wonderful and as true as your comment is, it does not reflect the reality. As soon as you subscribe to a faith, like Catholicism, you are not just discussing a plausibility any more.... you are assuming that the god does exist. Not just that it exists, but you know what it wants, how it wants you to act, who it wants you to have sex with, when, and how, what you can eat when and how, and much much more. In short to know these things you need to have access to information that seems to be completely denied to the rest of us. You comment is true but it is merely a deistic comment. You have a whole world of proof still waiting to get through to make the huge leap to theism from deism.
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