It's not that you don't go along with my beliefs. That has nothing to do with it. I just find it amazing that people don't care if they offend others. I just don't understand it. I am talking more about common courtesy and respect for another human being, not my religious views.
I liked Merry Andrew's Unitarian KKK joke.
Your hurt feelings are misplaced. Nobody here intends to hurt your feelings. This is an open forum, where anybody can post their thoughts. If that bothers you, I'm sorry, but will not change.
edgarblythe wrote:Your hurt feelings are misplaced. Nobody here intends to hurt your feelings. This is an open forum, where anybody can post their thoughts. If that bothers you, I'm sorry, but will not change.
My feelings are not hurt, edgar. I know neither you nor anyone else intended to hurt my feelings. But, anytime anyone makes fun of God, I will say something about it.
I don't know what else to say. We are what we are, we do what we do.
We are what we do.
And by that we will be judged. There is no religion that will spare you from a just God and an unjust God be dammned.
It is prattle to invent a God when one is totally unnecessary.
edgarblythe wrote:It is prattle to invent a God when one is totally unnecessary.
Well, since I haven't invented a God I will take it you didn't mean that statement directed towards me.
A good man doesn't have to fear God or the after life. Thats what I think.
Actually, no one HAS to fear God or the afterlife. Some just do.
The issue here is whether ANY concept, particularly "mathematics" and "God" can "exist" independently of us communicating observers. To argue for such is to embrace "dualism" which is philosophically problematic and is being argued at length on other threads. For example, if we take the view that "reality is socially constructed" (Berger et al) then it is clear that "God" and "mathematics" are not equivalent because they are used in quite different social contexts despite attempts here to embrace both under the common banner of "timeless certainty". The argument here between theists and atheists epitomizes the social negotiations to establish the "ground rules" for such reality and often ends in communicative breakdown.
I thought the issue was the proof of god in or as a concept. Dualism is Good and evil or spirit and matter. Opposites, ying and yang. By the way I had to look dualism up.
Nobody understands God or it is more correct to say I don't understand what God is. The son of God. he is easier to understand if there was a son of God which I also don't know. But I am off topic. I just come to these threads from time to time to see if there is anything new, There never is.
I think this thread is one man or woman's search for God via math.
I can not validate it.
I can not even contribute to that particular road-map of reality.
Pye, all I ask is if you have a particular talent in math, please don't use it for evil. :wink:
edgarblythe wrote:There will never be a God, no matter how many tricks you can come up with. It just ain't so. God was invented in the myths of humans and will die out when human myth dies out. Could be in five hundred years, could last til the race becomes extinct.
Why are you so certain of this, Edgar?
Anybody can trace the earth's history as it evolved all the way to the present and clearly see that a notion of a God was arbitrarily invented by humans in the last few ticks of the clock for no reason except ignorance, fear and vanity. Agnostics are afraid to go against the believers, because of the dillema of proving the negative. Atheists in general know better than to fall for it.
Amigo
You could take my use of dualism as separation of "observer" and "observed". Note also that "proof" is a concept like any other, subject to social negotiation about what constitutes "evidence" (nominal level of measurement) and what are significant levels of evidence (the ordinal level and above).
A major point here is that even if you assume the methods of mathematics/logic to be relatively socially neutral, the application of such methods is not. (I may not adhere to the first assumption either but that would be another thread). In other words the statement "1 + 1 = 2" is meaningless unless we agree on the nature of the domain of applicability. (Compare the meaning of "is" in the statement "grass is green" with the meaning of "=" above....and then ask "which grass ?" or "which 1's ?")
edgarblythe Wrote:
Quote:Anybody can trace the earth's history as it evolved all the way to the present and clearly see that a notion of a God was arbitrarily invented by humans in the last few ticks of the clock for no reason except ignorance, fear and vanity. Agnostics are afraid to go against the believers, because of the dillema of proving the negative. Atheists in general know better than to fall for it.
Edgar, can you explain the ....arbitrarily invented by humans in the last few ticks of the clock for no reason except ignorance, fear and vanity....statement a bit further? I am not sure I quite understand what you mean.
edgarblythe Wrote:
Quote:Agnostics are afraid to go against the believers, because of the dillema of proving the negative. Atheists in general know better than to fall for it.
Its not actually for the agnostics to prove the negative, its for the believers to come up with some evidence or substance to support the positive propostion "God exists". This of course they continually fail to do.
But the atheists have a problem too. If they say "God does not exist" if its meant as a propostion they do indeed set themselves the task of proving a negative. And if its a flat statement, it could only be made by an omniscient being, i.e something we could assume IS God.
Thanks for the clarification, Pyedog...
I am not inclined to argue against your position, other than to say you will probably offend more theists than atheists...which probably is not anything you are worried about.
As an atheist, I am particular about the definition of God. When God is defined as something other than the Gods of human religion, I prefer to disengage. It is the conventional God -the God who supposedly created the universe for us, and instructs us on how to behave- that I don't believe in. I see no evidence for (or against) Gods who do not interact with us directly. I simply choose not to equate universal principles -which, I am fairly certain do exist- with God as I define Him, or as he is traditionally defined.
In other words, while unmoved by your proof myself, it strikes me as as useful a view of reality as many others, perhaps more useful than most.
