Religeous Two Week Fire Gap

Sorry, no. Thats one in a million isn't it ? Too low. Way, way too low if you include doing harm and killing others by the way you apply religious principles in deciding how to vote.

So, can you define those who are a threat, and what they are doing to be a threat?
Are all Christians a threat because of how they vote etc?

True in a sense, but a profound misrepresentation.

Science knows that the number of things that cannot be proven false is infinite, and unstructured, and therefore of no interest whatever. It concerns itself only with those things it can prove true, or those it suspects with good reason that it might soon be able to prove true. An open mind is not a blank mind.

A mind closed to the possibility of a creator isn't open.

Well, not always, anyway, eh?

Prove to me there was a creation.

No. Christians are a threat because their religion posits that any who dont subscribe to their religion are evil and destined for hell.

Thats kind of a problem.

I don't want to be too boring Kevn. Can't you guess? Even excluding all the atrocities of the past. Iraq. Palestine. Suicide bombings. Religious massacres all over the world, every week almost.

Its the result of believing you are "chosen", "special", uniquely "right" or uniquely "blessed" or uniquely "licensed to abuse". Or even of supporting or following others you believe to be in these categories. Not really surprising. But not as harmless as you suggest.

Ok, easy. Look around you. See the trees, the sky etc. It came from somewhere. We know everything physical has a beginning and end in nature. That proves there is a creation.

It proves there is stuff. It does not prove it was "created".

We do not know that everything physical has a beginning and an end. We simply know that it changes form.

How is this a threat to anyone?

I mean.. if you're not Christian, then they're "threatening" you with imaginary things.

It's silly to be upset that christians think you're going to hell, when you don't even believe in their religion.

It's a threat because that very attitude is the root of intolerance. It affects me in LIFE.

Kevn, you're disappointing me. Do you even read anything anyone posts to you? I've personally explained to you several times now why the above statement is completely false. Atheism is not a religion (for the last @#$%! time!). Atheism does not involve faith. To keep claiming that it does, especially after having it explained to you again and again, just makes you look ignorant and sound like a bigot. If you want to put something down, at least have the decency to understand it first. How can you expect anyone to be open to anything you have to say when you so completely ignore everything said to you? Does it take you a leap of faith not to believe in faeries and gnomes? Of course it doesn't. When you understand why not, you'll understand why Atheism isn't a leap of faith. It's the default position for any rational person about any extraordinary claim for which there is no evidence.

If you are talking about the religious people in Africa and other places that kill each other, it's mostly an issue of control of land. If they had no religion they would still fight. Like the Jews and Arabs. It's more a battle to control land.

The majority (my bet is 99.999%) of Jews and Arabs are completely peace loving. To blame them all for the acts of a few is biased.

Okay.

Okay.

Kevn.

Kevn.

Okay.

Let's give you what you want, okay?

Listen: There's a creator. Okay?

There's a fucking Creator.

Okay?

Right.

Great.

Now --- so what?

What difference does it make? What tiniest bit of difference does it make?

I'm serious, here.

Do we now get all Monty Python: "Oh God ... you are so big ... so very huge ... please don't hurt us!" ... Do we now try to "figure out" which of the world's umpteen creation myths is the one closest to the truth so we can use that one as a sort of guideline for living ... Do we now, having verified a Creator, do anything other than what we've already been doing --- via science and secular philosophy, for shit's sake! --- to better understand our existence?

How does yes-there's-a-Creator change things, Kevn? How is it different?

Come, boyo, preach us up a storm! Roll, daddy, roll!

Because, for me? It wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. Who cares if there's a creator or not? It exists? Fine --- it can kiss my ass!

I'm already doing the best job of being a human being that I can possibly do. I keep falling short of perfection, yes, as we all do ... but I'm already consciously doing, given my limitations, the best I can do, and will not change a thing. And I won't be all full of gratitude, either, raising my quavering hosannas unto the Creator --- because I've got better things to do, more important things to take care of, among my own kind.

What do you do, now that you've been granted the actuality of a Creator? How do you live your life differently? And why, Kevn, why? Riddle me that, Klein-man!

You've got me seriously engaged here, though I've resisted for weeks. Okay? You happy now? Let's see some honest response, Mr. Open Mind!

If you would live any aspect --- any aspect --- of your life differently if there were, verifiably, a Creator ... if you're doing things now that you wouldn't do if there were a Creator ... if there are new things that you'd start doing if there were a Creator ... then I humbly suggest that you're a spineless, skulking creature worthy of all the scorn Ulrika may (or may not) have heaped upon you since you first started posting here ... and that you scare the hell out of me.

I'm not being flip or anything less than serious, here: If you would significantly change your thoughts or actions if the existence of a Creator were a known, verifiable thing ... you scare the hell out of me.

Please respond, okay? If I'm still scared after a few posts, I'll then put you on ignore and have no more of this mess --- it's no good for my blood pressure, dontcha know --- and we'll be all the better for it, and I can go back to eating my pie-of-the-day in peace.

But, please, respond.

You are absolutely right. I can not say with infinite certainty that he doesn't exist. But I can certainly say that he doesn't exist with a far larger degree of certainty, than you can say some kind of super being does not exist.

You're not really making a rational argument here. You're trying to stretch things to extremes, with the intention of creating a derivation of the slippery slope argument.

You are essentially saying that you do not need to prove to ANY extent that something doesn't exist, for you to know that it doesn't exist. Basically, if you have not seen evidence of something, that you KNOW for a fact that it does not exist.

This is obviously a silly way of looking at things... There are tons of things that we discover every day, that we didn't think existed previously.

No matter what way you slice it, YOUR belief structure is based on some being or event that is completely irrational, and is something that you have absolutely no experience with. The beginning of the universe creates a situation which no belief system has a rational way of explaining.



Oh, and don't associate me with Intelligent design, Memory... Believe it or not, it's possible to realize that you can't know that God doesn't exist, without believing in God, or believing in nonsense like Intelligent design. That whole scheme is cooked up by people who don't understand how evolution actually works, and is based on completely flawed logic.

The key failure of intelligent design, in its attempt to suggest that "hey, the only way we could have such complex crap, is to have a God make it", is that you're assuming the existence of an even MORE complex entity (ie. God himself).

If "the creation is proof of a creator", then that would mean someone needed to create God... So, causality just takes you one level deeper. If you try to say, "God always existed!", then the same thing could be said for the universe. Neither one of these possibilities makes any sense, of course... but, like I said before... when you get down to the creation of the universe itself, I suspect that any answer is going to be irrational.

Chip,

Read the thread from yesterday. Eveyone agreed except you that we should use words as defined by most big dictionaries. If you insist we use your vocabulary we will never be able to have meaningful discussions.

You can say it a million times, but agnostic s a real word, and it has meaning, just as atheist is a word with real meaning. I don't have a Chip's International Dictionary.

hoping this post makes some sense. I for one was raised in Tennessee in the heart of the Bible Belt. Baptist and Methodist and Presbyterian Churches everywhere. Mostly Protestant....one or two Catholic Churches are all that are in my part of the Country still! But, I married a military man and moved all over the world. Lived in a third world country, found my beliefs and in some instances, my skin color the minority. I learned humility. I learned that as much as I believed my way...Others believed thiers. I learned tolerance...forgiveness(mostly from others who forgave my ignorance)...and what a small part i play in this world. This is truely a global community in SL...so....embrace the diversity, LEARN from PEOPLE! Don't dis thier beliefs cause they are different from yours. Nothing is as interesting as our fellow human beings...sharing this Huge space ship called Earth!

Kevn, thank you for telling me what I believe. I will now ignore you.

Your conclusions are correct, Kevin, in a way. But I assure you that the argument you present does not inevitably lead to them. If it did you would be at the centre of a mass conversion by forum thread. You aren't, are you ?

Wait, wait.

Unlike my beloved Euterpe, I am no mistress of logic ... but something seems a little off to me there.

Roland, are you saying that your zero has a greater value than Ulrika's zero?

This logic fails because it ignores the possibility God (the creator) is a spirit, not a physical being. As I pointed out earlier, all physical things we can observe have a beginning and an end. We can't assume spiritual beings are confined to physical laws.

You're not gonna respond, are you, Kevn?

Fraidy cat.

Nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah, nyah!

This notion is the root of your delusion.

Brilliant. I salute you. THIS is the attitude the creator wants you to have, except perhaps not quite so harshly put. Why else would he have sent you here ? Anyone think he couldnt have made his presence known, with a bible automatically built into every grass blade, a buddha in every boudoir, and a nodding rabbi on every rooftop ? If he'd wanted.

How's that for a hijack ? Made you cross ?

Try this - he exists, yes. But not "out there". I see him speaking, and he signs it "Memory Harker". So I suspect, in fact Memory, that we agree.

Another tear.
He cries (and laughs) a lot.