Religion and faith

[TheGodBen]

Herp derp.

Excellent point. I'm convinced.

 

[Ha'kiv]

It comes to me naturally.

 

[{ Emilia }]

Anybody else waiting for Ha'kiv to shout: "I'M URBAN! CHAVS ARENT URBAN!"

Oh, how I miss iBender.

 

[Trekker4747]

Apparently, you've never met a troll who deserves to be called a troll. They are anything but of poor intellect. I, unfortunately, am not one.

See, that there? That climbing onto your own little high-horse? That's trying to put us on the defensive and what a troll is.

Here's the deal, you've been here for like three days and you're already making enemies and turning people off on your person. This board is very much a community probably more so than many other boards out there, it's like a big party and we're all hanging out drinking Warp Core Breaches and eating nachos.

You, a new person, comes in the door and we all raises our glasses and shout out your name in a cheerful manner like you're Norm walking into Cheers and then we say, "So how's the world treating you today, Norm?"

And then you say, "Anyone who believes in God, or doesn't agree with my interpretation of this logic puzzle is an IDITOT!!" and we're all like, "Woah!" and try and talk with you reasonably, but you go on and on on your own little opinions and refuse to accept anyone else's ideas as just as acceptable. We try and tell you to calm down, take it easy, and get into the other conversations and try and warm yourself to the crowd but instead you keep going off that you're better, smarter, and right and fuck-all if anyone else thinks even a bit differently.

So, yeah, sorry, we're going to start throwing nachos at you and will be a bit less receptive to what you want to say.

 

[farmkid]

I won't question why you believe, because you have every right to believe, but I wanted to comment here about your light metaphor. The whole metaphor falls apart due to one major issue: You simply cannot prove the light is there. You think you're seeing light, and you insist the light is there, but no one else can see it until you manage to convince them that yes, the light is not only there, it must be there, and you must have faith to believe it, because faith is the evidence of things hoped for but not yet seen.

You, in your heart, know that light is there, and you believe you can see that light, but since it isn't visible to billions of others, then something is amiss. A man insists the light is real and exists. Observable data and rational analysis doesn't show anything there. Then we get into another problem: some say the light they see is yellow, others say it is blue, and still others believe it is red. Who is correct? Why can't any of them prove they're seeing that light? Why can't they all agree on the color of the light? Surely if the light is there, and billions see it, then there's a sample rate that can indicate the existence of that light, whether it be yellow, blue or red, and if someone knows, why can't they show it? Why all the handwaving in the dark to prove something that they believe exists?

Is it possible that the light is actually there? It's possible. Is it likely? Well, after thousands of generations saying they can see the light, yet with no light being produced other than testimonies that they can indeed see the light though they have no reasonable way to prove they can, then while there is a possibility that the light is there, it is highly improbable, and society can't behave as if the light is there and ignore the effects of that disregard of the lack of light present.

I understand what you've said here, and you raise some good points. However, I think you've missed the fundamental point of my analogy. It's not about convincing others, it's about why some believe. Many atheists deride believers for believing gullible idiots who believe in the absence of evidence, who believe just because an old book says so or because their minister says so. I was trying to point out that many believers do have evidence--their faith is based on evidence. It's just not evidence of the kind that can be validated by science or can be shared in its entirety with others. People can talk about it and can try to explain it to others, but they can't make others experience it. I just can't be properly shared. Now some may reject any evidence that cannot be validated by some other method. In science, we generally like to back up everything some other way. I understand that; in fact, my Ph.D. took an extra year or two because I was trying to do just that. If you're trying to convince others of something, and science is all about that, confirming your results by some other method is a very good thing. In science, one publishes results to convince others it's true and thereby advance the field. But, religion isn't science. You can't use others' evidence to benefit yourself, nor can you use your evidence to convince others. If you want to derive any benefit from it, you have to get it yourself. You publish your results not to convince others it's true, but to support each other and to entice others to find out for themselves.

 

[Ha'kiv]

Apparently, you've never met a troll who deserves to be called a troll. They are anything but of poor intellect. I, unfortunately, am not one.

See, that there? That climbing onto your own little high-horse? That's trying to put us on the defensive and what a troll is.

Here's the deal, you've been here for like three days and you're already making enemies and turning people off on your person. This board is very much a community probably more so than many other boards out there, it's like a big party and we're all hanging out drinking Warp Core Breaches and eating nachos.

You, a new person, comes in the door and we all raises our glasses and shout out your name in a cheerful manner like you're Norm walking into Cheers and then we say, "So how's the world treating you today, Norm?"

And then you say, "Anyone who believes in God, or doesn't agree with my interpretation of this logic puzzle is an IDITOT!!" and we're all like, "Woah!" and try and talk with you reasonably, but you go on and on on your own little opinions and refuse to accept anyone else's ideas as just as acceptable. We try and tell you to calm down, take it easy, and get into the other conversations and try and warm yourself to the crowd but instead you keep going off that you're better, smarter, and right and fuck-all if anyone else thinks even a bit differently.

So, yeah, sorry, we're going to start throwing nachos at you and will be a bit less receptive to what you want to say.

cool story bro

 

[Ha'kiv]

Oh hurr durr sweet sound of freedom.

 

[boobatuba]

THIS...IS...HA'KIV. The title character.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U[/yt]

 

[TheGodBen]

Herp derp.

cool story bro

Oh hurr durr sweet sound of freedom.

Do you know what I like about this site? The fact that it's not 4chan.

 

[Ha'kiv]

You're just close-minded, booba. I think you'll find that your faith in science and tests is just as blind as the faith of any fundamentalist.

 

[Ha'kiv]

Do you know what I like about this site? The fact that it's not 4chan.

Indeed it is not. I am at your mercy and await your punishment.

 

[boobatuba]

You're just close-minded, booba. I think you'll find that your faith in science and tests is just as blind as the faith of any fundamentalist.

Sorry, you don't know me at all.

How's the view up there on your high horse?

 

[Kemaiku]

Do you know what I like about this site? The fact that it's not 4chan.

Indeed it is not. I am at your mercy and await your punishment.

*wanders off to get the paddle.*

 

[Guartho]

First of all, I'm not an atheist. Second, I oppose religion.

 

[Ha'kiv]

Thanks for allowing my short stay, u gaiz. Hope yer blood pressures returns to normal soon. Life's short, brighten up *smacks yer backs*

 

[Ha'kiv]

Sorry, you don't know me at all.

How's the view up there on your high horse?

Hey hey, chill broski. Looks like you should listen to the song again.

 

[{ Emilia }]

Well, that was... bizarre.

 

[Mr Silver]

(opens up a new bag of popcorn)

 

[farmkid]

It isn't anti-Christian at all to accept science, despite what literalists may have told you. I believe that God did indeed create the Universe. I believe that He attempted to explain it in a way that would give people who did not understand science some way to grasp the basic concepts: that it was done in a methodical, step-by-step manner, that He did so with purpose, that He gave us souls, and that as beings of free will, we chose to abuse that creation as well as abusing each other. To my belief, however, this explanation was never intended to be literal, even though certain "snapshots" and "images" (particularly from the time of the Big Bang and the formation of the stars) do bear an artistic resemblance to what we have now discovered occurred. Note that I said artistic resemblance, not literal resemblance. However, just because something is a work of art does not mean it cannot carry truths that hold great importance to us. God didn't fuss with trying to explain the atom to the Israelites (heck, even the mathematical concept of zero hadn't been discovered when the earliest books of the Bible were set in writing) or time frames like billions of years, or even putting the steps in exactly what we are discovering to be the correct order. It was a general idea intended above all to convey the basic, upper-level concepts I described earlier...not a scientific treatise. I don't take it as such. I don't feel that undercuts my faith at all.

I've given this a fair bit of thought. It's not hard to see how such a thing could come to pass. Let's imagine, for the sake of the argument, that Moses was on Mount Sinai and God showed him how he created the world (and let's assume that it happened more or less how scientists have discovered to be the case). Now Moses, who had no background to understand what he was being shown. Let's even assume that he understood very well--God must be a great teacher, after all. Now, he goes back to the Israelites and explains what he's seen. Now, you have a guy who probably doesn't understand the scientific detail of what he saw all that well trying to explain what he saw to a bunch of people with absolutely no context in which to put what he's telling them in a language with no words to properly describe it. Now, that gets handed down orally for a while and then gets written down, once again, in a language without the proper words. Later, it gets translated by people who still have no background to understand it into other languages that can't describe it. Then, do it again. It's no wonder we're not left with a scientifically accurate textbook on the creation.

 

[Guartho]

Thanks for allowing my short stay, u gaiz. Hope yer blood pressures returns to normal soon. Life's short, brighten up *smacks yer backs*

Apparently the character has been written out due to poor reports from the audience focus group...