General Chat

OHHHH - wonderful question at last!!! Why are they all male? Maybe if they were female you would have had that evidence you so crave.

Maybe I'll be able to provide you with that evidence as and when I'm called to meet him again. But, as I've said before, it will be too late to say 'I told you so'.

Maybe you can tell me when I meet you in Dingly Dell, the place where everyone goes when they die and live on a diet of stewed lettuce and haddock. Where god is called Eric and his civil partner is a gerbil called Frank and they live in a house made of marzipan and chocolate.

Prove me wrong. It's my belief. Well, it is after a night at the pub.

But it is Eldrick :)

If there was evidence 'enough' to convince, there would be no virtue in faith...it would be simply like believing in a banana in the fruit bowl, you see it, there it is...end of.

And i think it would take away some of the glory of being here ( not Shropshire lol, the earth ) if you knew beyond doubt that you would be shuffling off to a better place at the end of your 3 score and ten you would not make the most of the beauty and sheer exciting possibilities of the 'here and now ' ( nor who is here with you in fact).

I GOT ONE............

gods a male because if you notice he passed all the hard stuff onto the female .typical man
we give birth and have all those womany things.
you guys get none a that.:)

and ..........adam could,nt even suss out the tree a knowledge till eve told him .
cos the snake told her.see

If that is your belief Eldrick, I hope you are happy in Dingly Dell. I wouldn't dream of asking you to prove or disprove it's existence. So why can't we be happy with our beliefs without this constant pressure to 'prove'

Ok you've convinced me of one thing Eldrick..i am NOT going to Dingly Dell ...stewed lettuce and haddock, not to mention the marzipan...why I'd die rather than go there :)

Hmmm, surprisingly, I don't wear that argument!

There are far too many gods in competition with each other for one of them not to give us a bit of a hint. I mean, just something like a televised walk on water (with proper scientific protocols being observed of course) or even just a little bit of hellfire, the odd sudden mutation into a pillar of salt or better still, turning a whole lake into nice vintage Merlot would get me to church 5 times a day.

Or maybe he or she could stop wars, violence and all manner of nasty things. Oh, I forgot about the free will get out clause in the contract :-)

Beverley - you don't have to prove anything. DIngly Dell is a fictitious made up place, actually. I just made it up - hah! So there.

Same as heaven, hell and paradise.

eldrick a whole lake filled with merlot.......raflmao.
you wish

Religion has been described as the tightest garment into which life was ever laced.

And there is no second act in the play of life. So, do your best during the first & only act.

If Galileo, who is described as a scientist, according to Steven Hawking, could have written on these boards in days gone by about his theory, that the Earth wasn't the centre of the universe, what side and what argument would Eldrick's ancestors have put forward to say who was right and who was wrong? Would he have decried Galileo's idea telling him to 'prove it' or would he have stood up against the society of the time and say, yup Galileo you are right and the rest of the world is wrong. Even some scientists/astronomers of his day got it wrong because they were closed to alternate ideas to their own.-JLe

Rose:

"If there was evidence 'enough' to convince, there would be no virtue in faith...it would be simply like believing in a banana in the fruit bowl, you see it, there it is...end of. "

And ... your point is ... ? ;)

You're assuming your conclusion.
(This, btw, is the actual meaning of "begging the question".)

What "virtue" is there in "faith"?

None that I know of!


One's private reasons for being glad something (evidence of the supernatural) doesn't exist are not a rebuttal of a request for evidence, or of the reasons for that request. ;)

Janet:

"Would he have decried Galileo's idea telling him to 'prove it' ..."

Actually, I think the whole point is that Galileo did have evidence ...

http://plus.maths.org/content/earth-moves

"In these days of debates on climate change we're often reminded of that other great clash between science and authority, the staunch refusal by the catholic church to accept scientific evidence that the Earth is moving around the Sun. Although Nicolaus Copernicus was the first astronomer to formulate a comprehensive heliocentric model, it was Galileo Galilei who got into trouble for it, and who embodies this clash between science and religion in the popular imagination. Galileo's telescopic observations added a substantial body of *evidence* to the theory ...

... Although the catholic church's interpretation of the scriptures firmly opposed the Copernican world view, church authorities were quite happy with astronomers using the heliocentric model for computational purposes. Astronomers were allowed to make calculations based on it, as long as they did not believe or proclaim it as fact. Galileo had successfully negotiated this knife's edge for most of his career — he had been investigated by the Inquisition in 1616, but let off and merely warned informally not to teach Copernicanism. The chief concern of his later trial was not to refute Galileo's *evidence* for the heliocentric system, or to find out how exactly his writings contravened the scriptures, but simply to determine whether Galileo had heeded the church's warning."

Rose, again:

"But I don't need those words, I have the 'evidence' of my eyes and my heart and my brain. ( and something 'more' than the combination of those three) ."

No, really, you can't do that. You can't put a word in did-dits and thereby use it to mean something it doesn't mean.

Whatever you have from your eyes and your heart and your brain, it ain't evidence, did-dit or no, "something more" or no! Unless, of course, what you have from your eyes, for instance, or that "something more", actually is evidence. ;)

The fundamental nature of evidence is that it is communicable. Here, those were my words, but I just googled them -- "evidence is communicable" -- and look where the phrase turns up. ;)

http://debatepedia.idebate.org/en/index.php/Debate:_Atheism


* Religious Dogma provides a Haven for Social Ignorance.
Even assuming the theological premises of religion are valid, the epistemological basis for divine gnosis, cannot be communicated free of interpretation and bias. In contrast **knowledge obtained through empirical evidence is communicable** as the skeptic can independently repeat the observation or analysis of data. If wisdom exists in the social proscriptions of a given religion's dogma then that wisdom can be empirically verified. On the other hand if "the message" has been altered or misunderstood by "the messenger" then in obedience to religious authority pious society does not question the validity of the claims through empirical means. Thus flaws remain which lead to unjust persecutions and unnecessary conflicts such as jihad's, witch trials, and inquisitions.

"No, really, you can't do that."

I CAN you know Janey lol..and did ;)

I was however using the word 'evidence' in its broadest sense (Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion), evidence that satisfies MY OWN rigorous logic and rationality, not necessarily 'evidence' that would satisfy Eldrick's or yours or a court of law :0)

( BTW is "did-dit" actually a word/s..just that I've not heard it before...I shall use it all the time now )

"The fundamental nature of evidence is that it is communicable" that may well be so ... ( eg I can communicate the evidence that proves that the death penalty is not a detterent but people have the right to ignore that evidence if they so choose ....and often do lol)

On religion/ spirituality I do not NEED to provide evidence because I am not seeking to convince anyone of anything. In fact, if I HAD concrete evidence I wouldn't give it to you. :)

Yes, well there's the thing.

I don't know of any non-believers engaged in much of a campaign to persuade believers of much of anything. Non-believers tend to want to be left alone.

It's the believers who campaign not just to persuade the non-believers, but to organize the world according to how they think their beliefs call for it to be organized, and this quite often results in one of those *their fist -> our noses* kinds of situations.

Having people importuning one on one's own personal private doorstep to engage in their persuasive efforts is bad enough. Having them campaign for laws and institutions that, they claim, are consistent with their beliefs is much worse.

They attempt to control others and compel them to behave as they direct, when they have *no* evidence of any authority for their instructions. And, of course, to punish non-compliers.

And that's the real harm done by - some - believers.

Just ask Galileo. ;)


Oops, the dit-dits.

One of the very few places on the net I find it being used is in something by an old chum of mine in Australia. ;)

"What's with the dit-dits round the word protesters?
Like, you think it was a Rent-A-Crowd? How lame..."

just thinking........imagine going back to king tuts times ,and saying oh in the year 2000,theres gonna be metal birds flying in the sky.lolol.they,d never believe it.or try to explain cars and buses to them .
just food for thought .

I don't disagree with what you have said there at all Janey.

Well I want evidence against it then Eldrick. I think it is just a case of we shall have to wait and see.

I for one shall hedge my bets.....and go for believing in the good guy. If the other belief is true....I won't be losing much, will I? :-))