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jepsd.
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October 6, 2006 at 11:39 AM #37397October 6, 2006 at 12:41 PM #37403
carlislematthew
ParticipantOne cannot prove nor disprove the existence of God. Therefore, to be rational, you have to say you do not know if God exists or not.
With respect to the belief in God (or anything for that matter), the burden of proof is on the believer. Without the proof that God exists (after many centuries of study), it’s an entirely rational conclusion to state that God does *not* exist.
I happen to believe in the existence of a family of invisible elephants that float approximately six feet over my deck. They are odorless, and make no sound. The nature of these elephants, being invisible n’ all, makes it somewhat tricky for others to disprove their existence. Bummer.
October 6, 2006 at 12:43 PM #37404Anonymous
GuestCM: “But I think that it would be possible to have a society where humans set the rules for the maximum benifit to society and to individuals.”
Sounds plausible, logical, and irrefutable. Problem is when you attempt to maximize benefit to BOTH society and individuals, compromises creep in. That 90 year old person in the old folks home who never married and has outlived her friends; why keep her around? She costs society $25-50K per year in payments to her old folks’ home. Isn’t that money better spent on educating 2.5-5 kids in a CA public school for one year?
A centralized government would love to decide that, and, arithmetically, it’s an easy calculation, in favor of the children. But that’s where Christianity comes in and says, it’s not the government’s decision to make, and it’s not the government’s life to take.
Christianity says each and every individual has intrinsic value. Protect the weak and innocent. Seems okay to me. Otherwise, ad absurdum, you get developments like the Nazis, who decided that Jews, gypsies, and Slavs were unworthy of living.
Religion is the great, absolute civilizing and restraining force. It fails, often. But it works, mostly, especially Christianity; Europe and America are different and are better.
October 6, 2006 at 12:54 PM #37405Daniel
ParticipantWonderful posts, zk and carlislematthew! My thoughts exactly. Congrats!
October 6, 2006 at 12:56 PM #37406sdrealtor
ParticipantHow my rant turned into a religious thread displeases me. Out of respect for my beliefs or lack there of 😉 please start a new thread on that topic.
October 6, 2006 at 12:57 PM #37407ParticipantSounds plausible, logical, and irrefutable. Problem is when you attempt to maximize benefit to BOTH society and individuals, compromises creep in. That 90 year old person in the old folks home who never married and has outlived her friends; why keep her around? She costs society $25-50K per year in payments to her old folks’ home. Isn’t that money better spent on educating 2.5-5 kids in a CA public school for one year?
That’s absurd.
Christianity says each and every individual has intrinsic value. Protect the weak and innocent. Seems okay to me. Otherwise, ad absurdum, you get developments like the Nazis, who decided that Jews, gypsies, and Slavs were unworthy of living.
Are you implying that if you’re not a Christian, then you’re a Nazi (or similar) and you are a fan of genocide? If so, please clarify. If I’m not a Christian, am I evil?
If each and every individual has intrinsic value, does that include gay people? What about muslims during the crusades? Were they valued too? Perhaps a little less? Is there a formula somewhere – some kind of quiz, with points?
October 6, 2006 at 1:00 PM #37409ParticipantHow my rant turned into a religious thread displeases me. Out of respect for my beliefs or lack there of 😉 please start a new thread on that topic.
Given that our religious posting was off-topic for the thread, but existed in the off-topic *forum*, I respectfully must state that I am therefore ON topic. So it is you, sir, that is on-topic, and therefore OFF topic.
October 6, 2006 at 1:05 PM #37411ParticipantGo to hell;)
October 6, 2006 at 1:05 PM #37412Doofrat
ParticipantJG,
Christianity is not the only moral compass out there, and if it is for you, then I’d be very afraid of you if you ever lost your faith.
October 6, 2006 at 1:08 PM #37413ParticipantGo to hell 😉
LOL!!! Please provide GPS coordinates and recent comps. 🙂
October 6, 2006 at 1:10 PM #37414ParticipantGlad to see you got my joke. I was worried that you might take it the wrong way.
October 6, 2006 at 1:11 PM #37415Guesthmmm…we should ask the roman empire if its better off with Christianity. Oh wait…nevermind.
October 6, 2006 at 1:32 PM #37416jepsd
ParticipantWith respect to the belief in God (or anything for that matter), the burden of proof is on the believer. Without the proof that God exists (after many centuries of study), it’s an entirely rational conclusion to state that God does *not* exist.
carlislematthew, burden of proof or respecting beliefs has nothing to do with it.
Please conduct a scientific test to prove or disprove that those things that float above your deck do or do not exist. You cannot conduct such an experiment. Therefore, the rational conclusion is that we do not know whether they exist or not. Most of us would believe they do not exist, but this is not a rational conclusion, it is again a belief.
I’m belaboring this because this whole board exists because some (myself included) believe there is a housing bubble. Believing something does not make it true or untrue. We collect evidence and try to draw rational conclusions based on the evidence, not lack thereof.
October 6, 2006 at 2:14 PM #37422zk
ParticipantPC: “zk, you expressed exactly what I feel about religion. I think I love you!”
Get in line, babe. No, I’m just kidding. It’s great to know that someone feels the same as I do.
CM:”Godless yes, but they had BELIEF! I’m not a communism expert, but as far as I know they believed in the people, the state, the ideology.”
True. And the society I describe would belive in the human race.
jep:”Athiests believe God does NOT exist.”
That is one definition of atheist. “2: a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.” is another definition of atheism. I, and probably most atheists, are atheists under the second definition. If I believe that the chances of there being a god/gods is about the same as invisible elephants floating above matthew’s deck (and I do), then by some definitions I am an agnostic. Because I believe in the possibility, however ridiculously remote, that there is a god/gods. I would guess the scientists we’re talking about would feel the same way. So, call them/us what you want; it’s only a label. I use the word “atheist” to describe myself because it’s easier (and better understood) than saying “I believe the chances of their being a god/gods is less than one in a trillion to the trillionth power, but I can’t say that I’m absolutely sure there’s no god.” If one says “agnostic,” most people would probably think that person doesn’t know what to believe, or that they place the odds of there being a god somewhere in the 5-99% range. Not fitting into either of those categories, I just refer to myself as an atheist on the rare occasions that it comes up.
“Talk to any atheist for a while, and you may find that they are obsessed with God (believing in the non-existence, that is).”
None of the atheists I know are like that. Also, I don’t think most of my friends even know I’m an atheist. It’s not worth advertising in today’s american culture. If what you said were true, what would be the relevance of it?
jg:”Sounds plausible, logical, and irrefutable. Problem is when you attempt to maximize benefit to BOTH society and individuals, compromises creep in. That 90 year old person in the old folks home who never married and has outlived her friends; why keep her around? She costs society $25-50K per year in payments to her old folks’ home. Isn’t that money better spent on educating 2.5-5 kids in a CA public school for one year?”
Of course compromises creep in. That’s how society works. But to suggest that the scenario you describe above would actually happen is like me saying that if Christians were in charge, there would be murderous crusades. No, wait, that actually happened. Just because your god holds life to be sacrosanct (oh, wait, only under certain circumstances) doesn’t mean that a humanist society wouldn’t.
“Christianity says each and every individual has intrinsic value. Protect the weak and innocent. Seems okay to me. Otherwise, ad absurdum, you get developments like the Nazis, who decided that Jews, gypsies, and Slavs were unworthy of living.”
Plenty of genocide has been committed in the name of god. Doesn’t seem okay to me. Sure, protect the weak and innocent. Great. But I’d add, “don’t kill those who believe differently from you.” Seems like a lot of religions leave that out.
“Religion is the great, absolute civilizing and restraining force. It fails, often. But it works, mostly, especially Christianity; Europe and America are different and are better.”
If it fails often, it is neither great nor absolute.
Europe and America may or may not be different and/or better. But if they are, I don’t think christianity has got anything to do with it.
In my opinion, they are not better. The U.S.A. has the sixth-highest homicide rate in the world. The seventh-place country has barely more than half the homicide rate as us. Violent crime is a much bigger problem here than in most countries. In what ways do you think Europe and America are better, and what do you think Christianity has to do with it?
doof:”Christianity is not the only moral compass out there, and if it is for you, then I’d be very afraid of you if you ever lost your faith.”
I’m curious about that. I don’t think jg would turn into an amoral being if he lost his faith. What do you think, jg?
October 6, 2006 at 2:28 PM #37423rseiser
ParticipantWhew.. much too abstract for me guys, but I would argue that one could distinguish between a rational scientist and a rational person.
A person could be considered rational if they believe in experience collected over the lifetime of mankind, even if there is no proof. A person is probably rational to count on the sun always shining every day. Sure, maybe it doesn’t one day or the moon could be in front of it, but I wouldn’t call the person not being rational believing in the regular event.
I also wonder if probability plays into this. We know that events are rare, but we don’t know if they will hit us each of the next two days.
We could say that it is rational to buy a house in California if it is cheap, and earthquakes are rare. But what if one hits one week after you buy it? Both people will fight about who is more rational, the buyer because the chance was low, and the friend who warned him will say she was rational because an earthquake can hit any time in California.
Same with the market. I suppose you cannot claim that it is rational that a market will go up. Since you cannot predict the future, no prediction is rational. One person can claim it is rational that it goes up its historical rate, and another person can claim that this time is different and unforseen events might happen. Either way the market goes, one person will declare victory without proof that he was rational. Then what? Are they now only following the lead of the person who was right?
I suppose we would follow the person who was more often right the last couple of times, but is this rational?Still a little conundrum for me how to resolve our differences on market predictions. I guess, the one who has made a better return when he retires was rational; or lucky, haha.
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