I live in a country full of superstitious twits

I like regular potato chips, better than ridged ones. That's a bias, I think, so even I have one.

This does not mean that the infidel ridge-lovers have a valid belief structure, though. Smooth and crisp nirvana will never be theirs, and they will suffer in the Vat of Oil That Hasn't Been Changed For A Long Time for, uh, for a long time.

More seriously: Yeah, everyone has a bias. As long as their bias is not harming my quality of life, it's not a big deal for me. But the second some Ruffles-munching heathen tries to illegalize my crunchy and delicious Lays, the claws come out, baby.

Not likely to happen, I'm afraid. I've got a number of stumbling blocks, the chief one being 'no real proof of a thing which, to me, seems pretty unlikely'. Reality is a matter of perception, Kevn, and I simply don't see it the way you do. I'm one of those people who can see the 'hand' of chaos in everything, and have no problem with the concept of order arising from chaos (take a look at Fibonnaci numbers, if you're not already familiar). It does sadden me that there are people who think I'm going to suffer for all eternity because I don't worship the same thing they do (which is another stumbling block for me, with religion: the God of the Book seems kinda petty and cruel, to put it lightly). And the existence of conflicting religions, all of which are convinced that they're right (no matter how utterly bizarre, to me, they seem... Hindu faith, for instance)*, doesn't instill me with any real confidence that anyone has ever found the One Path. I think some things are, essentially, unknowable, and I think that kickin' and screamin' over unknowable things is, well, silly. Religious wars are IMO the absolute height of human folly.


*please do not take this as an attack on any religious practices; alls I'm-a saying is, to me personally, the whole 'loads of arms and look, that dude has an elephant's head!' thing is kinda strange.

Nature has little to do with the best ways to behave in a civilized society, I've found.

This is something I've come to refer to Type A and Type B athiesm.

Type A, or agnostic athiests, don't believe there is a god - but they aren't fanatical about their opinion. They don't BELIEVE in god, and they aren't really agnostic because they aren't questioning if he MAY exist, but they differ from Type B... thiestic athiests, who BELIEVE there is no god.

It's kinda a fine point. One doesn't believe in god. The other believes there is no god. B I generally find very unpleasant to discuss anything with. B is as much faith as any religion, although its not a religion in the sense that it has no divine component exactly.

thanks for the recap. this is how it looked like to me.

So why are you an agnostic, Juauni? Too afraid that if you decide one way or another it'll offend someone and make life difficult for you? Too cowed by political correctness to have an opinion of your own? Or, like 95% of all the posts you make on this forum, you're just trolling?

Everyone's biased about their own opinon. I don't for a second claim that I'm not. I have stong opinions so it's safe to say I'm strongly biased, but my opinions are formed by the evidence. If someone came up with conclusive proof that a god or gods existed I'd be a believer (though probably not a worshiper).

I could say the same, but I can't think of any evidence one can provide that would prove there isn't a God.

::::::yawn::::::

I did. And no there are not many more. It's a shocking realization but most people even if they don't belong to a specific denomination, believe in some higher power.

If the statistic included agnostics I wonder what the percentage would be.

As a certified agnostic, I don't know and I don't care

hehe

If entropic stuff can give rise to organization and complication, can there also be effects without causes?

There can be a negative cause - something exists in a certain way because nothing has changed it, for example.

The cloest thing to what your talking about is random mutation, which sorta fits that description.

hmmm.... *thinks about the people she is pretty sure came about through mutation...*

She knows what she's talking about...
Just look at me after a visit to Chaos!

I was reading something about a year ago, and I forget pretty much all the specifics (sorry!), but apparently under really esoteric conditions cause-and-effect can apparently be reversed... talking about quantum physics, of course, or as I call it, 'that stuff I like to think I could understand if I ever kicked my potato chip habit and went back to school for fifty years or so.'

If you have a single atom of some radioactive substance, suppose its halflife is 5 minutes. This means that after 5 minutes, there is a 50% chance that it will have decayed.

Last time I heard about this, there is no way to tell beforehand if it will decay or not. The decay is not "caused" by any external forces, and I believe using something called "Bell's inequality" somehow, one can even show that there cannot be any "hidden variables" inside the atom determining when it will decay.

Any two of these radioactive atoms are entirely identical, but will most likely decay at different times. This seems to me like an uncaused effect.

are you exposing your preconceived notions about agnostics too now? is nobody good enough for chip midnight except chip midnight? oh yeah and taco.

effects always have causes, what you mean is can an effect have more structure than the cause.

I like and enjoy everyone in this thread, except you. You're the only one who's contributed nothing but attacks... but yeah, I'm the elitist bad guy. *laughs*

did you learn about religion from comic books? the religious people i know do not function by external definitions anymore than you do. particularly definitions that chip midnight seems to pull out of thin air. perhaps you are defining a vast group of people with very diverse world views by your experience with a couple of bigots. coupling that with your main form of education on philosophy and religion being the wikipedia and mmorpg forum high fives for smoking the witch doctors, you've inadvertently become one



here's a recap of lessons we've learned from chip's manual of absolute truth -
religious people, by definition, think athiests are stupid, delusional, or just plain wrong. and it's not nice when they say it.
in reality, religious people are delusional. science proves it, so it's ok for people to burn bibles.

calling religious people superstitious twits is ok.
disparaging peoples indirectly by attacking their beliefs is ok. if it's religion.
disparaging athiest for their beliefs, directly or indirectly is not ok. (especially in movie stores)
these things are not all the same. it's not rocket science!

most religions codify hatred. although explicitely scriptures talk about love and brotherhood, they should be judged by its worst followers. for example: "9/11 was a faith based initiative" ROFLMAO - athiests score a hat trick.
humanism, is however, misunderstood. the unabomber is a poor representative of athiesm.

beliefs are not an indicator of morals.
humanism is a better root for morals.
it doesn't matter that morals aren't truth to discover but a function of social values.

if you pick the wrong team, you are delusional. if you don't pick a team, you are a coward.

there's nothing wrong with being an elitist in my book. be honest about it. and don't be a bigot about it.

Nice way to avoid the questions posed to you in favor of more ad hominem. You really are a piece of work. You're only succeeding in making yourself look like a hypocrite (and quite the prick). Welcome to mute. I think I've had quite enough of your trolling.

the topic of this thread isn't my beliefs. the topic is your prejudices, sweeping generalizations and ignorant claims about religious scriptures. you have yet to respond to how any of your comments that i've quoted, juxtaposed or reiterated are anything but damning. instead you respond with ad hominems like "why is it ok for religious bigots to be bigots but not for athiest bigots?"

re: hypocrite
you are reacting to bigotry by some religious people with bigotry against religious people. you are not only judging their belief system, you are insulting it. i, on the other hand, am reacting to your bigotry by calling you a bigot. the the hypocrite is you. "it's not rocket science."

i guess in the world of paperback novel intellectuals muting is the best defense. you can hide your head in the sand, but your ass is still exposed.

speaking of trolling: I live in a country full of superstitious twits