Worth Reading.

Page: 1 2
Feb 27 2009, 10:59 am
0bby wrote:
I just believe in Luck and Unlucky, not Jesus and God.


Have you ever read about theoretical physics? Apparently you don't believe in those, either.
Feb 27 2009, 1:08 pm
Tayoko wrote:
0bby wrote:
Naive? Sure.

Just because I don't have faith in that sort of thing, it makes me naive?

Denying the existence of something that cannot be heard, tasted, or seen is just ridiculously retarded.

We have gravity. We have Thoughts and Dreams.

Even if you edited and extended your philosophy to something like:

"If it cannot be sensed (in any and all senses of the body) it does not exist"

It's still very naive and simple-minded. because that would just mean it would be imposible for something to exist if it cant be felt....

Think of someone, or even a force at a distance...that cant be sensed, does it make non-existent? No. Now, lets assume the "sensor" is always in the presence of the force, yet it still lacks the capabilities to perceive the force... does the force become non-existent? NO.

I was talking to Verm about this... and he gave a good example...Simply because a person was born deaf, does not make SOUND non-existent.

Therefore, (you mentioned faith, and this topic is about Science vs.God) its impossible to prove the existence of spiritual entities, like God, false... based solely on the fact that we don't have the capabilities to sense them.


It's impossible to disprove the existence of anything. Fairies? They hide every time you try to take a photo. Aliens? Camera-shy. Bigfoot? Likes his privacy.

There are an infinite number of things that can't be sensed or deduced - i.e., you can't determine their existence from logic or from empirical study. Do they exist or not? No way to know. So you may as well not multiply assumptions needlessly and assume they don't exist. If you can't detect their presence in any way they obviously don't affect reality in any way, so it doesn't matter if they actually do exist. You need to take a pessimistic approach to these sorts of things.

That's not to say that they definitely don't exist - there's no evidence to suggest that, you'd be intellectually dishonest to say that was the case. But to simply say "I have no evidence, I won't believe they exist" is exactly how you should be thinking - that's how science works.

Most gods, of course, are supposed to have some sort of physical effect on the world, or how do we know about them? And what's the point worshipping them? Those claims can be investigated. Most gods have some sort of mythology built around them - logic can be applied to that, to test for internal inconsistencies. The deities of the Abrahamic faiths fall down on both counts. I don't know enough about the Hindu deities to comment there, but I'm willing to bet they do, too.

So there's good reason to think that the Christian/Jewish/Islamic god doesn't exist, not just good reason to not believe in them.
Feb 27 2009, 5:08 pm
Jp wrote:
Tayoko wrote:
0bby wrote:
Naive? Sure.

Just because I don't have faith in that sort of thing, it makes me naive?

Denying the existence of something that cannot be heard, tasted, or seen is just ridiculously retarded.

We have gravity. We have Thoughts and Dreams.

Even if you edited and extended your philosophy to something like:

"If it cannot be sensed (in any and all senses of the body) it does not exist"

It's still very naive and simple-minded. because that would just mean it would be imposible for something to exist if it cant be felt....

Think of someone, or even a force at a distance...that cant be sensed, does it make non-existent? No. Now, lets assume the "sensor" is always in the presence of the force, yet it still lacks the capabilities to perceive the force... does the force become non-existent? NO.

I was talking to Verm about this... and he gave a good example...Simply because a person was born deaf, does not make SOUND non-existent.

Therefore, (you mentioned faith, and this topic is about Science vs.God) its impossible to prove the existence of spiritual entities, like God, false... based solely on the fact that we don't have the capabilities to sense them.


It's impossible to disprove the existence of anything. Fairies? They hide every time you try to take a photo. Aliens? Camera-shy. Bigfoot? Likes his privacy.

There are an infinite number of things that can't be sensed or deduced - i.e., you can't determine their existence from logic or from empirical study. Do they exist or not? No way to know. So you may as well not multiply assumptions needlessly and assume they don't exist. If you can't detect their presence in any way they obviously don't affect reality in any way, so it doesn't matter if they actually do exist. You need to take a pessimistic approach to these sorts of things.

That's not to say that they definitely don't exist - there's no evidence to suggest that, you'd be intellectually dishonest to say that was the case. But to simply say "I have no evidence, I won't believe they exist" is exactly how you should be thinking - that's how science works.

Most gods, of course, are supposed to have some sort of physical effect on the world, or how do we know about them? And what's the point worshipping them? Those claims can be investigated. Most gods have some sort of mythology built around them - logic can be applied to that, to test for internal inconsistencies. The deities of the Abrahamic faiths fall down on both counts. I don't know enough about the Hindu deities to comment there, but I'm willing to bet they do, too.

So there's good reason to think that the Christian/Jewish/Islamic god doesn't exist, not just good reason to not believe in them.

Good points.
Feb 27 2009, 7:25 pm
Jp wrote:
But to simply say "I have no evidence, I won't believe they exist" is exactly how you should be thinking - that's how science works.

It's impossible to disprove the existence of anything.

Yea, good points. Although thinking about "evidence" kind of lead me to believe that not only disproving, but also -proving- the existence of something is just as impossible. Logically, something absolute is impossible.

For centuries, Newtonian physics have been accepted as laws, or even, something absolute.. but just think of the research with quantum physics? I've never studied the topic in depth, but things like the "observer affect" put everything else in relativity's vague hands.

Either way, its obvious any number of people can sit back and debate of science, and logic forever.... and seeing as it is impossible to prove anything... seems sort of redundant to sit here and bother with it. haha.


Feb 27 2009, 7:50 pm
Tayoko wrote:
Jp wrote:
But to simply say "I have no evidence, I won't believe they exist" is exactly how you should be thinking - that's how science works.

It's impossible to disprove the existence of anything.

Yea, good points. Although thinking about "evidence" kind of lead me to believe that not only disproving, but also -proving- the existence of something is just as impossible. Logically, something absolute is impossible.

For centuries, Newtonian physics have been accepted as laws, or even, something absolute.. but just think of the research with quantum physics? I've never studied the topic in depth, but things like the "observer affect" put everything else in relativity's vague hands.

Either way, its obvious any number of people can sit back and debate of science, and logic forever.... and seeing as it is impossible to prove anything... seems sort of redundant to sit here and bother with it. haha.


Indeed, it's impossible to prove something as 100%, undeniably, indisputably true (Deductive logic offers 100% certainty, but you need to start from axioms and premises - and if they aren't rock-solid, the entire argument isn't. And they can't be rock solid, because they can't be demonstrated - they're axioms.)

That's not as much of a problem as it appears. We can take a number of axioms and premises for granted just because there's not much point if they're false - for example, I would consider it axiomatic that there is really a universe out there, that our senses observe imperfectly, that it has an objective existence apart from our observation, etc. etc. Not a terribly big deal, because if that axiom is wrong then there's no point in trying to know anything - may as well act like it's true.

You can, however, demonstrate that something is quite likely to be true. Once again, that's science. You postulate an idea, and then everybody tries to knock it down by finding an experiment that contradicts the idea. If it stands up to that sort of abuse for a fair while, people start to treat it like fact. Eventually, some really clever bastard goes and knocks it down and knowledge is rebuilt on slightly sturdier foundations.

It can't ever guarantee that its conclusions are correct, but it can be pretty damned certain about them.


Feb 27 2009, 7:57 pm
Sorry, Nish. Strawmen in a hypothetical, silly scenario don't demonstrate that your imaginary man in the sky is any good. Try again, though!
Page: 1 2