189 replies to this topic

[Kyelo]

Like I said way back in this thread. All gods that are written down ie Yaweh, Allah, Thor etc can be disproven however the general concept cannot ie it is impossible to say a god(small g)didn't start the big bang off which lead to abiogenesis and evolution.

So to me, science cannot argue against deism and pantheism.

[LondonTom]

Basically what happened

[eFestivals]

Ed209, on 25 May 2012 - 03:18 PM, said:

Well, there is a big difference scientifically.

No there's not, not a single jot.

Neither can be proven or disproven, end of. There is no other scientific conclusion that can be made.

Your belief that there is a difference is your bias.

You could believe there's a subjective difference, but that comes down to nothing more than one being long running - and yet here's betting you don't give (similarly unprovable) old wives tales the same possibility of being right as you give religion. So that again is really only another show of bias.

You're in no way exceptional in having that bias (and I'm far from free of it myself), which only gets to show just how deeply engrained is the idea that we must accept and respect religious ideas.

[sifi]

 Kyelo, on 25 May 2012 - 04:15 PM, said:

Like I said way back in this thread. All gods that are written down ie Yaweh, Allah, Thor etc can be disproven however the general concept cannot ie it is impossible to say a god(small g)didn't start the big bang off which lead to abiogenesis and evolution.

So to me, science cannot argue against deism and pantheism.

Yaweh and Allah is the same God.

[kaosmark2]

eFestivals, on 26 May 2012 - 08:10 AM, said:

No there's not, not a single jot.

Neither can be proven or disproven, end of. There is no other scientific conclusion that can be made.

Your belief that there is a difference is your bias.

You could believe there's a subjective difference, but that comes down to nothing more than one being long running - and yet here's betting you don't give (similarly unprovable) old wives tales the same possibility of being right as you give religion. So that again is really only another show of bias.

You're in no way exceptional in having that bias (and I'm far from free of it myself), which only gets to show just how deeply engrained is the idea that we must accept and respect religious ideas.

There is some difference.

While neither can be proven or disproven, the leaf-waving thing actively contradicts well-established theories that explain vast swarthes of observable experimental data. Considering that it is an unprovable scenario, to make the assumption that the currently accepted theories are correct rather than the leaf-waving hypothesis is sensible. In the same way, to make the assumption that currently accepted theories are correct when they contradict religious beliefs is sensible. However, a creator, deism, pantheism, and a few other varieties of 'god' don't actually contradict much. ALL the gods of major religions do, and I don't give any more credence to the idea of the Christian God than I do the leaf-waving thing, but some forms of ideas regarding one or several gods don't contradict scientific theory, and thus have greater credibility as a hypothesis.

[Kyelo]

sifi, on 26 May 2012 - 08:31 AM, said:

Yaweh and Allah is the same God.

I know what you are saying but there is a difference. I always explain the difference between the Jewish, Christian and Muslim gods as if they were a model of car that has evolved with time so you get mkI, mkII, mkIII...they share the same basic design but have evolved.

[poloaa008]

Not upset in the slightest. I am becoming used to be being challenged about my newly found zealous atheism.

[eFestivals]

kaosmark2, on 26 May 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

There is some difference.

While neither can be proven or disproven, the leaf-waving thing actively contradicts well-established theories that explain vast swarthes of observable experimental data.

The purpose of the leaf idea wasn't for it to be ripped apart - if that had been the case I'd have put more thought into constructing it.

But anyway, any difference you're seeing is not a scientific one, the difference is a subjective one.

It's simply the case that a person *might choose* to believe that the currently accepted ideas are worth sticking with. What is of importance to science is *proof* - for which there is none.

Subjectively deciding that some existing knowledge should be put into place as an explanation for an unprovable idea can be done with god & religious ideas just as much as it can be done with my ridiculous leaf idea - but it's considered 'bad form' to do that with religious ideas, and much less so for other ideas.

I've put an unprovable idea out there, and shown that people approached it in a completely different way to the similarly-unprovable ideas of a god and religions - which was what I was aiming at doing, and which has come good.

[kaosmark2]

eFestivals, on 27 May 2012 - 11:20 AM, said:

The purpose of the leaf idea wasn't for it to be ripped apart - if that had been the case I'd have put more thought into constructing it.

But anyway, any difference you're seeing is not a scientific one, the difference is a subjective one.

It's simply the case that a person *might choose* to believe that the currently accepted ideas are worth sticking with. What is of importance to science is *proof* - for which there is none.

Subjectively deciding that some existing knowledge should be put into place as an explanation for an unprovable idea can be done with god & religious ideas just as much as it can be done with my ridiculous leaf idea - but it's considered 'bad form' to do that with religious ideas, and much less so for other ideas.

I've put an unprovable idea out there, and shown that people approached it in a completely different way to the similarly-unprovable ideas of a god and religions - which was what I was aiming at doing, and which has come good.

Oh yeah, I get that the point was to show that:
Idea A - Leaf waving
Idea B - God
are both unprovable, both irrelevant in the face of established scientific evidence and associated theory, and both equally ridiculous.

All I'm saying, similarly to Kyelo, is lets separate God, Idea B, into 2 distinct ideas to better reflect the different concepts it can embody
Idea B1 - Traditional religious versions of God/s.
Idea B2 - A much vaguer notion of some sort of conscious being.

Idea B1 is at least as ridiculous as the leaf-waving scenario, if not potentially moreso. I think there's more chance of your leaf-waving heating Ed's beans by chaos theory every single time he heats up beans than there is of the Christian God, or any other religious bollocks.

Idea B2 deserves some credence, although because of a lack of observable, repeatable evidence (let alone proof), there should be no attempt whatsoever to incorporate it into scientific explanations. Unlike ideas A and B1 though, it doesn't contradict anything so isn't completely ridiculous and can't be easily dismissed.


It's not a completely subjective assertion that leaf-waving vs God aren't comparable. It's saying that unproven ideas that contradict evidence are of less value than unproven ideas that don't contradict or support evidence. Most religious beliefs contract evidence, and are ridiculous. I'm saying dismissing the likes of deism/pantheism as being as silly as Christianity is wrong. I'm not saying dismissing Christianity as being as silly as leaf-waving heats beans is wrong.

[sifi]

 Kyelo, on 27 May 2012 - 01:31 AM, said:

I know what you are saying but there is a difference. I always explain the difference between the Jewish, Christian and Muslim gods as if they were a model of car that has evolved with time so you get mkI, mkII, mkIII...they share the same basic design but have evolved.

No.  That might be an overtly simplistic of evolution of abrahamic faith, but the actual godhead figure is the same creator.  If you want to use your car analogy, it's the same car but with a few optional extras.