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So God is logical? From which premisses does He follow? (induction or deduction).

And either religion isn't brought by God, or He has multiple personality disorder. Quite an extreme case of it during the period of the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians too.

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every one of you idiots who are saying god doesnt exist, i want you to answer one simple questin. how can a man survive 2-3 pieces of shrapnel thru the skull into the brain?
if you cant anser that then start believing in god.

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At 3/16/07 05:40 AM, Zoraxe7 wrote:
um... Imperator.... Sparta DID win the peloponnesian war, you need a better examply.

Sparta kicked thens Athens ass.

You missed the qualifier of hoplite warfare, which makes the example complete (and accurate). I have no doubts that Grammer is perfectly capable of going toe to toe against Rav, but not if he treats him like the typical 9/11 conspiracist.

I've debated Rav several times on the topic of religion, I think we've got a decent bead on each other's belief structures.

It's shit like this:

"I completely understand why his position and beliefs are inherently flawed, and are void of any common sense of comprehension of what religion actually is whatsoever."

and

" I have no idea why you'd take the position of a man who forces his flawed opinions on others, but I think it's pretty obvious that yeah, when you say something as retarded as "God is illogical", and you can't back it up with, you know, logic, then I'll get frustrated. Because he doesn't have a real argument. He used a flawed definition of logic, and he has a flawed concept of religion."

that merit the title of idiot. He can't POSSIBLY know his position based off one debate, one aspect of one religion. If he honestly believes Rav is a guy who "forces his flawed opinions on others", Grammer deserves to be called a moron. End of story.

Shit, it's almost as bad as Dre-Man calling me an atheist.....

Also, instead of seeing the POINT of my "hypocricy" attacks, he gets defensive and attacks back like a 2 year old escalating one shove for another.

The point of telling him to suck a dick was to get him to realize what a waste of space saying such things merit. There's just no point in doing so. After 3 pages of debating, both Grammer and Rav escalated until they were posting well over the character maximum, and sometimes doubleposting to the max.

The reason is that 90% of which was simply attack/counter-attack, and only 10% ended up in actual debate.

And what did all that solve? Not a damned thing. Neither side is willing to make concessions, and the debate becomes meaningless. Therefore, I felt that further "debating" became pointless, and tried to break it up.

I mean come on, we're talking about a guy who actually ENJOYS 24 pages of refuting 9/11 conspiracies. There's only so much useless repetition I can stand, and now I have to go back 5 pages just to find a topic worthy of draggin up to debate on.

Now on to the man of the hour:

Know your place, that this isn't it.

Pfff. I'm the Keymaster, are you the Gatekeeper?

My debate, not yours.

Oh, pardon monsieur. I didn't realize I required an invitation......

How 'bout you keep whining about how everyone hates each other, about how we should all get along, and all of this hippy bullshit.

Seemed to work on getting an intelligent religion thread started (gracias Rav)......guess I'll keep it up!

Grow up. This is a politics forum. People debate in a politics forum. If you can't handle it, leave.

What was going on here was hardly what I'd call "debate".

If you wanna find out how far your balls have dropped, test your luck over here
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic.php?id=66 8396

where REAL debate happens.....

You obviously never saw the posts he's said this

You obviously generalize his personal beliefs off the few posts you claim mention this. Try debating him more than once before defining what he does and does not believe......

Stereotypes are nasty little things, aren't they my little Liberal friend ;)

I also believe, that people who tell the ones who say that, to ignore me, while starting their own debate with me, are also clowns.

Ahem: " It's not your fucking place to tell me who I can and can't debate, and for how long. If a mod wants to step in, fine, let them, but don't whine like a whiny bitch everytime I start debating and cry that I'm holding a grudge. Know your place, that this isn't it."

This works both ways bub....

You're a friggin moron.

Yeah, all us Christians are friggin morons.

Good generalization. I never even mentioned the fact that you were Christian, good stretch on that one, must be a 20ft er at least......

Who the fuck are you?

My name is "nobody" (Classicists will lol at this one).

I honestly don't believe SevenSeize, Proteas, JMHX, and stafffighter and reading this entire thread, seeing or caring who's saying what.

How about Togukawa, Peter-Il, Zoraxe, Dr-Jerakai, and Draconias? They've all seemed to "vanish" from this thread in the last 5 pages. Thanks for killing the Official Religion Thread Grammer, 'preciate it.....

I've actually proven my valid points in many debates.

Against 9/11 conspiracists. That's like bragging about beating up paraplegics.......
I'm sure your fight record against kindergardeners is equally impressive......

when you say something as retarded as "God is illogical

two books you might wanna get into.
http://www.amazon.com/Walk-Two-Moons-Sharon-C reech/dp/0064405176

http://www.amazon.com/Times-Arrow-Martin-Amis /dp/0679735720
(very good read, highly recomended)

Try coming at it from his perspective. There are two ways to debate Grammer, one is to refute the other guy's argument. The other is to make him refute his own. The latter is infinitely more valuable, powerful, and rewarding; the path of scholars, doctors, and leaders. The former is the beginner's way out, the "I'm better, smarter, faster because..." attitude all kids start with, and few grow out of.

Because he doesn't have a real argument. He used a flawed definition of logic, and he has a flawed concept of religion.

First:
I'd really hate to know what you think of my concept of religion. Frankly, I can see where Rav wanted to take things (generally), and the fact that you believe it's not even an argument is kinda disturbing.....

He's been debating SOMETHING for numerous pages, why don't you try taking a gander at what that is before dismissing it?

Second:
the definition of logic is so varied and culturally expansive (as well as historically) that frankly, you'd have to TRY to come up with a "flawed" definition. After all, "logos" simply translates to "word", so how is it we came up with an entire body of study surrounding it?

I gave multiple class links involving the study of logic, from 100-400 level courses. Are you really so thick headed as to believe what you wrote about "definitions"? Come on, we've had this debate before, you should know by now that I don't ride on Merriam-Webster's coattails to validate my thesis. Definitions on such expansive fields such as "logos" are useless.

Shit, I spent a full 3 hour seminar trying to define "violence" (class title is Political Violence and Historical Memory) with 3 grad students and 4 other undergrads. The result was ????? You really think that if an entire class of people can't define something like "Violence" that you're argument that Rav is using a flawed definition of "logic" is gonna hold water? Gimme a break....

Shit, if you want, I'll even give you the link to a few books that highlight my position on definitions......INCLUDING one on the definition of Violence......U of M education, free of charge. Come on, whadda ya say?

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At 3/17/07 04:07 AM, godsman11 wrote: every one of you idiots who are saying god doesnt exist, i want you to answer one simple questin. how can a man survive 2-3 pieces of shrapnel thru the skull into the brain?
if you cant anser that then start believing in god.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

Peter's on to something with these new guys......too easy......

At 3/16/07 04:34 PM, Togukawa wrote: So God is logical? From which premisses does He follow? (induction or deduction).

And either religion isn't brought by God, or He has multiple personality disorder. Quite an extreme case of it during the period of the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians too.

My thoughts exactly......

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This is something that raises alot of crap at home, being that my fam is christian and hates all forms of science 'because it's just evil', whereas i love science. i believe that 'God' as people understand he/she/it, is merely a way to explain what we cannot fathom ourselves. however, in Physics, the Quantum Entanglement theory states that all forms of life are intreconnected by a common force. Some physycists believe that this common force is proof of the existance of god. I personally believe in god. and believe that he manifests himself in something which makes up over 70% of the universe, something called dark energy, which is simply an energy source of vast magnitude with no explainable source, at this time. however as to the point of people abandoning religion, it will never happen. religion is not just belief in a god, it is much more powerful than that. Religion provides faith that something more powerful than you is looking out for you. Faith, not scientific theory/fact, gives soldiers courage to fight, homeowners courage to fight off armed robbers, and gives a hope of a better life after the hell we already live( wheather you admit it to yourself or not). In truth, I believe the issue will someday will be not science vs. religion, but that this race will finally grow up and stop waging this 2000 year old debate which has led many times to bloodshed of each against the other, but we will move into a time when science helps strengthen religion, and religion helps strengthen science. Congrats to anyone who made it all the way to hers, and a word to the skimmers , read it, it just might make you think.

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At 3/17/07 04:11 AM, Imperator wrote: If you wanna find out how far your balls have dropped, test your luck over here
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic.php?id=66 8396

...he certainly knocked it out of the park on the first swing, there...

>_>

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At 3/17/07 04:13 AM, Imperator wrote:

At 3/17/07 04:07 AM, godsman11 wrote: every one of you idiots who are saying god doesnt exist, i want you to answer one simple questin. how can a man survive 2-3 pieces of shrapnel thru the skull into the brain?
if you cant anser that then start believing in god.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage

Peter's on to something with these new guys......too easy......

Also, why would that prove the existence of god anyway? Some people die when big metal bars get driven through their brains, and some don't. It doesn't really reveal anything of a theistic nature either way.

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At 3/17/07 05:07 AM, The-Weapon wrote: This is something that raises alot of crap at home, being that my fam is christian and hates all forms of science 'because it's just evil', whereas i love science. i believe that 'God' as people understand he/she/it, is merely a way to explain what we cannot fathom ourselves.

I'm sorry your family feels this way. It truly is a shame that people look down on the discovery scientist have made over the past few hundred years because of dogma. I do find your concept of god to be interesting, though I urge you to be careful of how you your self interpret it, less it become a god of the gaps concept.

:however, in Physics, the Quantum Entanglement theory states that all forms of life are intreconnected by a common force.

Umm... No. Quantum Entanglement has nothing to do with life (At lest nothing worthy of mention). Quantum Entanglement is simply the effect of a particle's wave function becoming interdependent on another particle wave function (e.g. The spin states of two particle created by say weak field interaction. Now if the primary daughter particle [i.e. The more massive particle] has the same amount of spin after the decay then the two emitted particle must have equal and opposite spins. Now if there is no inherit way to know what the spin will be a priori[and there usually isn't], then the initial spin states of the two is unknown; But now, if we observe the spin state of one of the two particle then we suddenly become aware of the spin state of the other particle, with out measuring it! This is the nature of Quantum Entanglement[on the surface it sound pretty bland, but if you understand the nature of QM, then you realize this is actually very exciting as it allows a particle wave function at some distance to be collapsed; you can read into wave functions and there collapse what you will.]). There is no actual “force” on the particle, the nature of it's wave function is just dependent on another particle.

:Some physycists believe that this common force is proof of the existance of god.

Actually not that many. In fact most Physicist (At lest the ones I've meet; which certainly isn't a hell of allot, but I do know of a great many, and there general belief structures. So read what i've writen but take it with a grain of salt) are ether atheist or agnostics, some where in the realm of 60%~85%. As for thous who do believe in god, I'm sure it dose help to support there faith, as the very nature of QM can seem to imply there are things in the universe we don't know and there for there could be a god. (Another interesting side note none of my professors [even the ones who believe in a deity], take QM as a general show of evidence for a god/gods)

I personally believe in god. and believe that he manifests himself in something which makes up over 70% of the universe, something called dark energy, which is simply an energy source of vast magnitude with no explainable source, at this time.

Let me just say that, your free to believe what ever you want to believe and, I truly hope my writings don't take away your belief, but merely clarify the actually nature of what science and the universe says. Now dark matter and dark energy are two slightly different topics, mostly discussed in Astronomy. Dark matter is the explanation for the aprint non inverse square nature of gravity(Basically our galaxy is rotating to uniformly, and is generally to large, to be explained by simply Newtonian mechanics; But there is no other comparable theory of gravity out there so dark matter was proposed to explain it[ Note, we have actually “seen” dark matter as packets of gravitationally dense space where there is no visible matter]. See: Dark matter .

Dark energy is like dark matter in that we can't see it with using the electro magnetic force, but can see it's effects in the expansion of the universe (Basically the universe is expanding to fast and accelerating. In order to explain this phenomenon additionally energy must permeate the universe.) See: Dark energy.

It's highly unlikely that this extra mass/energy is god, unless he's broken up into millions of pieces.

:however as to the point of people abandoning religion, it will never happen. religion is not just belief in a god, it is much more powerful than that. Religion provides faith that something more powerful than you is looking out for you. Faith, not scientific theory/fact, gives soldiers courage to fight, homeowners courage to fight off armed robbers, and gives a hope of a better life after the hell we already live( wheather you admit it to yourself or not).

Faith can be a powerful thing, but so can rationalization and logic. I personally don't need to believe something high then me is looking out for my well being, in order to “keep holding on”, and I'd would rather people work towards making this life better rather then hope that some next life (which may never come) will be better. Note, these last two comments are my personal beliefs take from them what you will.

:In truth, I believe the issue will someday will be not science vs. religion, but that this race will finally grow up and stop waging this 2000 year old debate which has led many times to bloodshed of each against the other, but we will move into a time when science helps strengthen religion, and religion helps strengthen science. Congrats to anyone who made it all the way to hers, and a word to the skimmers , read it, it just might make you think.

Science and religion will most likely never intermingle. The problem is the general philosophical difference between the two concepts. I recommend reading up on the philosophy of science (and probably just general philosophy) to understand why. If we can ever empirically observe god then that might change, but due to the nature of god we could never be sure we where actually measuring it. *sigh* the whole argument against the observation of god is to detailed and complex to be placed here.

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At 3/16/07 05:53 AM, Zoraxe7 wrote:

At 3/16/07 05:47 AM, I-have-2-arms wrote:

But there is a problem in this confliction. Scientists will always try to find evidence about the big bang. Religion does not. This is probably one of the main reasons why people are becoming less religious these days.

People becoming more smart has nothing to do with people becoming less religious. Its just society today is obsesed with today and themselvs and money, the USA in paticular.

Not acording to the 80% christian population.

People are stupid.

You look at the buildings and the utopia around you and tell me that any other animal in the world could make such things. You tell me and I will deem the human populas stupid.

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At 3/16/07 04:34 PM, Togukawa wrote: So God is logical? From which premisses does He follow? (induction or deduction).

Well, according to Ockham's Razor God is the most favorable answer. From my interpretation of the Razor, God is the simplest answer and doesn't leave alot of favorables.

And either religion isn't brought by God, or He has multiple personality disorder. Quite an extreme case of it during the period of the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians too.

Or it could be a case of each individual society warping God for their cultural convenience.

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Aat 3/17/07 08:48 PM, JakeHero wrote:

Well, according to Ockham's Razor God is the most favorable answer. From my interpretation of the Razor, God is the simplest answer and doesn't leave alot of favorables.

Actually according to Ockham's Razor the god option would be the first to be thrown out. God is effectively an infinitely complex object or idea (this is part of the definition of god). Now since god is infinitely complex then any idea witch isn't it self infinitely complex is more favorable.

Also the concept of god is inherently illogical. Take for example the concept of omnipotence; You have a creature or object which is capable of any feat, now I ask this you can this creature create something which can not exists, say a square circle (and please don't bring in the topic of manifolds, there quite irrelevant to the discussion). If you say no, then god can not be omnipotent (and there for not god), as there is something it can not do, but if you say yes then it's possible to violate the rules of logic have been violated and hence the argument is illogical. Now it is possible that logic it self be wrong; But if it is then there's no longer any grounds to argue on as quite literally any thing becomes possible, and impossible simultaneously (It would seam from what we can see and feel that this doesn't happen so we have empiricism [which is one of the corner stones of science] to help support our clam's). However despite it being possible to violate logic, don't be surprised if few people accept your explanation with out ether evidence or something to replace it with.

And either religion isn't brought by God, or He has multiple personality disorder. Quite an extreme case of it during the period of the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians too.

Or it could be a case of each individual society warping God for their cultural convenience.

So then do you question whether any society, including your own, has the actual written word of god?

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At 3/17/07 10:56 PM, EndGameOmega wrote: Actually according to Ockham's Razor the god option would be the first to be thrown out. God is effectively an infinitely complex object or idea (this is part of the definition of god). Now since god is infinitely complex then any idea witch isn't it self infinitely complex is more favorable.

While I don't disagree entirely, with the Ontological argument, that might not be such a stretch. Reducing the possibilities of all things that could create the universe (if indeed it was created) to a singular, as-powerful-as-is-logically-possible "being" or force requires the fewest assumptions and therefore satisfies the Razor. It's only when we start to assign features to this force, like holiness, or the birth of a son, or the tossing of lightning, that it gets out of hand.

Also the concept of god is inherently illogical. Take for example the concept of omnipotence; You have a creature or object which is capable of any feat, now I ask this you can this creature create something which can not exists, say a square circle (and please don't bring in the topic of manifolds, there quite irrelevant to the discussion).

Lol, dude, if anyone here other than you and me actually knew what manifolds were I would be downright SHOCKED.

Speaking of which, it's nice to see another physics nut on the board. Maybe I'll conjur up a physics thread... maybe start out with a discussion of the dark matters and energies as well as the (really freaking cool) entanglement issue.

And how about the fact that Douglas Adams wasn't far off about the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything being 42... closer than most, anyway, considering it's 137. Now if only we could figure out the question...

If you say no, then god can not be omnipotent (and there for not god), as there is something it can not do, but if you say yes then it's possible to violate the rules of logic have been violated and hence the argument is illogical.

Been trying for 20-howevermany pages to get people to grasp that argument. All I can do now is wish you good luck.

Or it could be a case of each individual society warping God for their cultural convenience.

So then do you question whether any society, including your own, has the actual written word of god?

Or it could be that everyone has their own interpretation of the word of god, and that everyone feels the same divine power, just in different ways. You should take a gander at my thread. We're a little more esoteric and obscure, but it's a welcome change from most of the repetition of this thread. Hell we may even in the near future ponder the religious nature of entanglement and 137...

if only there were another 3 in there... that would be like geek nirvana.

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At 3/17/07 03:42 PM, Grammer wrote: That was my debate, not yours. You're just a whiney little bitch who wants everyone to agree on everything and get along, but no one cares what you think.

Wait... who's whiny here?

I'm gonna assume that was sarcasm, as there's nothing "intelligent" about telling me religion is "illogical".

Are you now just completely blinded by your dislike of us that you see everything as a personal attack? He was commenting on the thread I made, not about what has gone on in here.

1.) Then you don't know your definition of 'debate"

Scholarly debate is more strict than your definition. What we did was argue, not debate. I yelled at you, you yelled back at me, nothing was gained.

test your luck over here
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic.php?id=66 8396

Invalid ID parameter, lolz

Worked for me, dunno what's wrong with your comp. If you copypasta'd it instead of just clicking, there's a space you'd need to remove to make it work. Regardless, you've already found the thread, and shown us what you think of it, so the point is moot.

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Something funny has came into my head other than a dart.

Animals don't worship God. They don't go to church, hell it's a suprise in some animals to be thinking at all.

So that would sort of make them non-believers. Does this mean that all the animals are going to hell?

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At 3/17/07 10:56 PM, EndGameOmega wrote: Actually according to Ockham's Razor the god option would be the first to be thrown out.

Considering Ockham himself was a monk, I think you're misunderstanding his razor or it's way of conduction.

God is effectively an infinitely complex object or idea (this is part of the definition of god). Now since god is infinitely complex then any idea witch isn't it self infinitely complex is more favorable.

Actually, even though God cannot be fathomed, him creating the universe is the simplest theory with the least amount of variables. I believe this meets three criterias of the razor.

Take for example cells, we all know living things are composed of them, yet we do not know the nature of cellular membranes. We do not descredit this scientific theory because we do not know everything there is to know about cells, do we? Even though we cannot even begin to grasp the concept of God with our hopelessly inferior intellects, that doesn't mean we cannot understand the idea of His creation.

It also seems intellectually erroneous to throw out an idea just because we do not understand its nature.

Also the concept of god is inherently illogical.

A matter of opinion.

Take for example the concept of omnipotence; You have a creature or object which is capable of any feat, now I ask this you can this creature create something which can not exists, say a square circle (and please don't bring in the topic of manifolds, there quite irrelevant to the discussion). If you say no, then god can not be omnipotent (and there for not god),

Omnipotence doesn't mean can do everything. It means all powerful, as for God not being able to do this. I don't think it's possible, but there's no number higher than infinity. Another problem is you assume every person believing in God also believes he is all powerful, despite deists generally think he isn't.

as there is something it can not do, but if you say yes then it's possible to violate the rules of logic have been violated and hence the argument is illogical.

I don't see why not. Just like a software engineer can rewrite and write new codes to override boot sectors, I'm pretty sure God is capable of the same thing when it comes to the premise of logic.

Now it is possible that logic it self be wrong;

I believe logic is subjective.

But if it is then there's no longer any grounds to argue on as quite literally any thing becomes possible, and impossible simultaneously (It would seam from what we can see and feel that this doesn't happen so we have empiricism [which is one of the corner stones of science] to help support our clam's).

I agree. When it comes to discussions about God everything we know and understand is thrown out the window, but human logic alone is insufficient. Perhaps this is a que for us to change our own perspective instead of dogmatically believing we can understand everything throw the threshold of science.

However despite it being possible to violate logic, don't be surprised if few people accept your explanation with out ether evidence or something to replace it with.

Doesn't bother me. I believe what I believe because of my own reasoning. Who am I to think less of others conclusions? As humans we have the problem of our evidence and ideas being in error.

So then do you question whether any society, including your own, has the actual written word of god?

That, my friend, is where faith comes into play.

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At 3/18/07 07:24 PM, JakeHero wrote:
Actually, even though God cannot be fathomed, him creating the universe is the simplest theory with the least amount of variables. I believe this meets three criterias of the razor.

Take for example cells, we all know living things are composed of them, yet we do not know the nature of cellular membranes. We do not descredit this scientific theory because we do not know everything there is to know about cells, do we? Even though we cannot even begin to grasp the concept of God with our hopelessly inferior intellects, that doesn't mean we cannot understand the idea of His creation.

It also seems intellectually erroneous to throw out an idea just because we do not understand its nature.

Just leaping in here, from what I know of Occam's Razor, saying Goddidit is not the simplist theory by that, as it introduces an unknown and untestable variable- God.

There is a big difference between God and cellular membranes. We can see cellular membranes and their effects, and we can conduct tests on them. The same cannot be said for God

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At 3/18/07 07:39 PM, Sybot wrote: Just leaping in here, from what I know of Occam's Razor, saying Goddidit is not the simplist theory by that, as it introduces an unknown and untestable variable- God.

I'll elaborate the point once more. Just because you do not understand the source, does not mean you can descredit the source's effect or what's leaking from it. Just because you do not understand God, does not mean you can deny the effect such a being would play in the inception of the universe.

There is a big difference between God and cellular membranes. We can see cellular membranes and their effects, and we can conduct tests on them. The same cannot be said for God

My point was, scientists do not understand the majority of cellular membranes. How they're composed, their elements, the way they activate. Yet we know living beings are composed of cells, even if we do not fully understand cells themselves. The same could be said about God, even though we cannot understand God, does not mean we can deny the clockwork perfection of the universe. We cannot understand God, but we can assume He is responsible.

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At 3/18/07 07:48 PM, JakeHero wrote:
I'll elaborate the point once more. Just because you do not understand the source, does not mean you can descredit the source's effect or what's leaking from it. Just because you do not understand God, does not mean you can deny the effect such a being would play in the inception of the universe.

It is not that I don't understand God, but that we can't see anything that could be caused by him (barring the actual creation of the universe, but that is unknowable). There are scientific theories that show how the majority of things in the universe came about, and none of them require God.

My point was, scientists do not understand the majority of cellular membranes. How they're composed, their elements, the way they activate. Yet we know living beings are composed of cells, even if we do not fully understand cells themselves. The same could be said about God, even though we cannot understand God, does not mean we can deny the clockwork perfection of the universe. We cannot understand God, but we can assume He is responsible.

We cannot assumes God as responsible any more than we can assume the Flying Spaghetti Monster was responsible.

And as I said before, we do not see the effects of God on the world, whereas cell membranes have observable and most importantly testable effects. (Also scientists do have a good idea about how they work: Wikipedia ). You cannot go and test God's effects, which makes the whole concept worthless in science.

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Been trying for 20-howevermany pages to get people to grasp that argument. All I can do now is wish you good luck.

Took me about 15 pgs to give up. But I put the concept of religion as illogical into a psych perspective and everything worked out fine......

From what I've discovered it seems to go both ways in psych though.....less definitive than physics.....

I'm just gonna read all these Quantum theorem and Razor Blades for now......maybe I'll try my luck and understanding and reponding to em later......just lemme get out my non-existent physics book......

I believe logic is subjective.

Probably more than even you realize.....

I agree. When it comes to discussions about God everything we know and understand is thrown out the window, but human logic alone is insufficient. Perhaps this is a que for us to change our own perspective instead of dogmatically believing we can understand everything throw the threshold of science.

THANK YOU! I swear this is the hardest concept for people to understand where I'm comin from.....

Grammer:

Imperator. I wouldn't call you "whiney", just annoying, but I wouldn't call myself "whiney" either.

Lol. Of course not....I wouldn't consider myself "whiney" either......

I don't dislike you, I dislike your beliefs on religion. I feel they are offensive, misguided, and that you don't have a shred of respect for people who believe things different from you.

Sigh.....just doesn't get it do he Ravariel? Grammer, if you truly believe my colleague holds no respect for the religious, he wouldn't be backin me up right now......

Ok, well, we're not in a College, we're an internet forum.

Well....not with that attitude we're not.....
a little civility on these boards can go a long way. Just because this is just a simple internet forum doesn't mean we have to act like raving lunatics......

Sybot:

And as I said before, we do not see the effects of God on the world

I think that's a bit too simplistic. How one interprets the effects of God are purely subjective. What you consider an observable effect is probably gonna differ from mine.

For ex:
A single mother capable of putting her son through college is what I consider a miracle of God. Whereas "Water to Wine" is just a party trick.

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Right.

Wrong.

Not even real drama. You're worked up over e-drama. You're pathetic.

I'm not the one writing 3 sentences in all caps to what?......someone legitimate a point?

Or what about your blatent hypocrisy, calling me a moron and telling me to suck a dick, yet telling me I've thrown out too many insults? What about that? Do you get that?

What about it? Fight fire with fire is a legitimate tactic. Unfortunate for you I ended up proving my point; this did not/ is not getting us anywhere. Thank you for participating in my study though, debriefing will occur in the next room.

A.) You're the one backing him up.

There's mutual trade, I'm actually rather surprised you don't see it.....

B.) If you were in any way religious, you wouldn't have called God "illogical".

Sigh.....
There's nothing wrong with being illogical, the world is not a perfect place. I don't mind being illogical, it makes the world that much more colorful.....

"Have your balls dropped yet?"

that statement did a lot of good, didn't it? I think now you're at least recognizing my argument. A step in the right direction. Pat yourself on the back.

Speaking of gods, where's Sol at? Being a god himself, maybe he can help illuminate the conversation a bit.

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Grammer and Imperator, do you guys even remember what this thread is about anymore? Insulting each other has nothing to do with Science or Religion. The only way to ever come to a reasonable balance on these types of issues is to argue without anger. Sure, we're on page Way Too High, but don't kill it with a flamefest.

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At 3/18/07 11:57 PM, Draconias wrote: Grammer and Imperator, do you guys even remember what this thread is about anymore? Insulting each other has nothing to do with Science or Religion. The only way to ever come to a reasonable balance on these types of issues is to argue without anger. Sure, we're on page Way Too High, but don't kill it with a flamefest.

I am a student of history, of course I know what it WAS about.....
It started as the typical science is right, religion is wrong (and vice versa) thread we have seen 23000 times before. It evolved into an epic battle between Dre-Man and myself (during which Proteas officially sanctioned this as the ORT, see below), calmed into an intellectual fervor of specialized interests, turned into a slug-fest between Rav and Grammer on the "logic" of religion, and morphed into a slug-fest between Grammer and myself on the manners of political debate. Imagine where we'll be tomorrow.....

In any case, I finally managed to sufficiently summarize my points in the last post, so there will not be a need for me to post against (or for) Grammer henceforth. He of course has the ability to respond either in kind, or on a higher/lower virtuous realm than myself/

Memorable lines from this thread:
"Because all the redundant religion topics in this forum have the same theme; who is right, science or religion? Seeing as this is the only topic on the BBS right now to have the balls to admit what it is, this is the new "Official" Religion topic. Same rules apply to this as the Official Bush Topic; I catch you posting a religion topic outside of this and it's a three day vacation for you."
~Proteas pg 12

The only anger stems from the fact that people accept the status quo of what NG politics are about: swearing, bad english skills, flame wars. It's the lack of incentive to make a positive change that makes me want to e-strangle people.

As you youself have found, Rav's thread
http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic.php?id=66 8396

attempts to break the mold, and has been rather successful. NOWHERE in there do you find posts like these:

"Science has disproved many Christian theories, such as the evolution of man, contrary to the theory of Adam and Eve."

"Religion'll die eventually anyway."

"The Catholic church in its middle stages was more of a business, a bank, if you will, than a holy temple or place. This alone is a good enough example to condemn even the beginnings of what is today the Catholic church, but there is more."

"science has yet to create a logical theory for the creation of man."

And so on and so forth. Mindless, pointless, drivel. The BEST part is these are just examples, and completely exclude all the name-calling, debasing and COMPLETELY worthless posts encompasing the 31 pages we have thus far.....

I'm tired of having to tell people "Welcome to Newgrounds" when they're shocked at being insulted for no good reason. I'm tired of people saying "this is an internet forum, not a classroom" and such as if that's an excuse for rude, outlandish behavior. People like that PISS me off, and it's that impetus for change that created the Heathenry thread in the first place.

The entire forum should be a lounge, we shouldn't need one specially created for Regs to escape the mayham of other politics threads. Why be set with what we have when we've discovered a way to gain so much more?

In any case, people respond differently to different motivations. A scolding was enough to get Ravariel to drop it, I thought a heavier version might sway Grammer to similar conclusions. Aparently I was wrong, and need a different motivation to quell him. In any case, you have my assurances that I won't be responding to Grammer anymore in this thread.

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At 3/18/07 07:24 PM, JakeHero wrote: Considering Ockham himself was a monk, I think you're misunderstanding his razor or it's way of conduction.

That Ockham was a monk is irrelevant. For the time Ockham live in (1290-1349) to be anything else (save for an upper class man), and have both the tools and the learning required to delve into philosophy was nearly unheard of. Also, as a side note, Ockham never used his principle to examine belief.

Actually, even though God cannot be fathomed, him creating the universe is the simplest theory with the least amount of variables. I believe this meets three criterias of the razor.

But to call forth this simple theory requires that something of infinite complexity, namely god, must exist. This is what I'm arguing about, god is infinitely complex and therefor not necessarily the simplest.

:I'll elaborate the point once more. Just because you do not understand the source, does not mean you can descredit the source's effect or what's leaking from it. Just because you do not understand God, does not mean you can deny the effect such a being would play in the inception of the universe.

You would be correct if there was evidence for the existence of god, but I just don't see any.

Take for example cells, we all know living things are composed of them, yet we do not know the nature of cellular membranes. We do not descredit this scientific theory because we do not know everything there is to know about cells, do we? Even though we cannot even begin to grasp the concept of God with our hopelessly inferior intellects, that doesn't mean we cannot understand the idea of His creation.

:My point was, scientists do not understand the majority of cellular membranes. How they're composed, their elements, the way they activate. Yet we know living beings are composed of cells, even if we do not fully understand cells themselves. The same could be said about God, even though we cannot understand God, does not mean we can deny the clockwork perfection of the universe. We cannot understand God, but we can assume He is responsible.

What clockwork perfection do you speak of? There really isn't any. The universe isn't perfectly set up to support life as to imply a god, if anything it's set up to be quite hostile to life and even it's own existence. The single object that our universe seams to be best setup to support and creat are black holes. In addition you make the assumption that any other set of universe constants are incapable of supporting life, this is further an erroneous assumption to make.
Also, I understand the analogy your trying to use, but biologist and biophysicist do have a great deal of information on the nature of cellular membranes.

It also seems intellectually erroneous to throw out an idea just because we do not understand its nature.

Your right if we don't understand the nature of something we can't, at lest from a philosophical stand point, throw it out. However we do know the nature of god, in that he has the five perfections, these perfections are in of themselves self contradictory and some are illogic on there own grounds. As an aside your argument contradicts one you made above.

A matter of opinion.

Only if you believe logic is fundamentally flawed, which I said in my early post is quite possible, but then nothing in the universe make sense any more, and it suddenly becomes quite impossible to understand anything, what with out the tools to examine things.

Omnipotence doesn't mean can do everything. It means all powerful, as for God not being able to do this. I don't think it's possible, but there's no number higher than infinity. Another problem is you assume every person believing in God also believes he is all powerful, despite deists generally think he isn't.

But to be all powerful means that you can do anything and if god isn't then why is god God? I could also make the argument against god being both omnipotent, and omniscience and therefor not god(since one of the dentitions of god comes from the five perfection, but I'll leave that for later). As an a side, there are different levels of infinity, in mathematics the lowest order is known as aleph-null [ at lest in set theory]) .

I don't see why not. Just like a software engineer can rewrite and write new codes to override boot sectors, I'm pretty sure God is capable of the same thing when it comes to the premise of logic.

Flawed analogy, logic is like the fundamental instruction set (e.g. X86, powerpc, etc.) or CPU of the universe, it isn't at all like the boot record. The beginning (i.e. All the different things that happed there in, and even assuming there was a beginning) of the universe would be like the boot record.

I believe logic is subjective.

Then that would imply that there are no absolutes.

I agree. When it comes to discussions about God everything we know and understand is thrown out the window, but human logic alone is insufficient. Perhaps this is a que for us to change our own perspective instead of dogmatically believing we can understand everything throw the threshold of science.

Two questions:
One, where is the evidence for the existence of god? With out any evidence or at the very least a convincing argument why should we rewrite all the theories concept and various other odds and ends that sciences had discovered simply to allow for the existence of something which very well might not exist?
Two, what do you purpose to replace science and logic?

Doesn't bother me. I believe what I believe because of my own reasoning. Who am I to think less of others conclusions? As humans we have the problem of our evidence and ideas being in error.

Interesting views, I find them fairly admirable.

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At 3/19/07 01:36 AM, Imperator wrote:
I am a student of history, of course I know what it WAS about.....

Hay! you told me that you diddnt know anything about history, so i explained that it was not relligions fault for the middle ages, you tricked me.

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Oh God will all of you people just shut the fuck up! I mean you all have let this one bleed to death and now it is just getting sad. And I know the second this hits the next page and is forgotten there is going to be another, and another, and another.
So just drop it for fuck sake.
MAH!

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At 3/19/07 12:39 PM, Zoraxe7 wrote: Hay! you told me that you diddnt know anything about history, so i explained that it was not relligions fault for the middle ages, you tricked me.

Yeah, but it got you to articulate your points much better, didn't it? ;)

And being a student of history is quite different from "knowing" history.....subtle differences make little white lies what they are: Half Truths.

But to call forth this simple theory requires that something of infinite complexity, namely god, must exist. This is what I'm arguing about, god is infinitely complex and therefor not necessarily the simplest.

But this complexity can be condensed into layman terms. I'm wondering if the theory of God would be better understood as operating on a continuum rather than a fixation of complex/simple.....

....nah, I guess that would still make it infinitely complex (moreso maybe) and thus doesn't help much.....

I'll elaborate the point once more. Just because you do not understand the source, does not mean you can descredit the source's effect or what's leaking from it. Just because you do not understand God, does not mean you can deny the effect such a being would play in the inception of the universe.

You would be correct if there was evidence for the existence of god, but I just don't see any.

I'm gonna have to go with Omega here, the idea that God is having an affect on the world denotes that an observation can be made. There's a difference between understanding the source and recognizing the existence of the source.

What I would question is what types of evidence Omega and other non-theists are looking for in their search for "proof" or lack thereof.

For instance, how does one measure suffering (seminar topic in class today, best example I can think of right now)? Are there degrees or gradients of suffering? How can suffering be shown objectively (and thus measured)?

Maybe if someone could answer me these questions we could move on to where evidence of God can be seen.

Then that would imply that there are no absolutes.

Only if logic is also not universal. Take the example of suffering above. What suffering is, how it comes about, and what gradients of suffering there are are subjective matters. What is not subjective is the fact that suffering exists cross-culturally (therefore suffering on this level is universal).

Similarly, while theories of logic will differ, there is a degree of universality in it regardless. Hence absolutes are still in play.

One, where is the evidence for the existence of god?

A better question;
What type of evidence do you need for the existence of God?

I can throw it at you day and night, but if it's not accepted as a legitmate form of evidence, or is deemed too subjective for a useful analysis, there aren't many avenues left for theists upon which to debate this aspect.

Two, what do you purpose to replace science and logic?

I don't think the question addressed a need for a replacement, but rather a need for placing value on alternative perspectives. Take it as an approach to postmodernism if you wll.....

anthropology has taken an offshoot of this idea too, and in recent years has been placing more emphasis on the value of individual memories, interviews, etc. But that's for the Historical Anthropology dept, not Theology.....then again, the two aren't entirely unrelated.......

At 3/19/07 03:12 PM, I-have-2-arms wrote:

Oh God will all of you people just shut the fuck up! I mean you all have let this one bleed to death and now it is just getting sad. And I know the second this hits the next page and is forgotten there is going to be another, and another, and another.
So just drop it for fuck sake.
MAH!

Relax. I've already given my assurances that I would not respond to him, and I don't believe I've given you any reason to mistrust my logos.....er.....Word....er......yeah...... ;)

You agreed with him that God was illogical, but you couldn't back it up.

See;
Ravariel, End Game Omega, etc.

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At 3/19/07 05:44 PM, Grammer wrote: Oh, I see you're trying to take the higher ground, after telling me to suck a dick. Nice.

Sigh....

Draconais asked for a ceasefire (and then I have arms2), so I honored his request. End of story.

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At 3/19/07 05:44 PM, Grammer wrote:

At 3/19/07 05:39 PM, Imperator wrote:

No, don't refer me to someone else, explain to me how God is illogical

Because he can't eat a burrito.

What else is there.

Free yourself from you false god and worship the Burrito.

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I see that you all decided to shoot past my idea and just keep on going. How funderful

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At 3/19/07 05:39 PM, Imperator wrote: What I would question is what types of evidence Omega and other non-theists are looking for in their search for "proof" or lack thereof.

Observable, repeatable and impossible events. If tomorrow (and every day afterward) Pi was calculated as 4.23581723... I would instantly believe a god existed. If some universal force's strength was changed, if another planet appeared in the solar system, etc etc etc.

So: independently observable and recordable, and physically impossible.

I can throw it at you day and night, but if it's not accepted as a legitmate form of evidence, or is deemed too subjective for a useful analysis, there aren't many avenues left for theists upon which to debate this aspect.

And so we finally, after 31 pages, get to the crux of the problem, eh?