tonea2003 said:
belief should based on something more tangible than faith
If you think wave-particle duality is tangible, then I doff my cap to you, sir. I stopped listening at quantum states of the hydrogen electron. That doesn't mean I don't accept both theories as truth, it means I accept that others believe it with enough conviction that it is probably correct. I have faith in their ability to understand it.
I have faith that science can and will provide a reliable model for all answers. There is overwhelming evidence for this in physics and maths which is why I believe they could be the languages of God. I also accept they could not be, and I might not believe it tomorrow, if a better model, say, God himself, was presented to me.
Where science can't eventually provide an answer, I assume that's because we (humans) are not able to comprehend the actual truth, because it is beyond our ability to comprehend it.
Which, basically, is the same as my opinion of God.
Which, funnily enough, makes this a good analogy for wave-particle duality.
tonea2003 said:
baldmosher said:
tonea2003 said:
do i take it you don't require faith as you know a god exists?
that i am waiting to hear
I already answered that question. You didn't answer mine.
have you? then for me say again, does god exist? if so why,when,where etc
i'm all ears
That's a completely different question.
In answer to your first question, I said "It's not unimaginable to think anything, including whether a deity does or does not exist. Thinking and believing it doesn't make it true."
What anyone believes doesn't affect whether it's actually true or not. People across Europe used to believe the world was flat and Hell was underground, until Galileo and Wegener figured it all out.
I don't see how I have a stubborn defence. Yes, I am stubbon, but what exactly do you think I am defending?
The only thing I defend is the undeniable fact that anything is possible but everything has an extremely wide-ranging probability.
In answer to your second question:
It's incredibly improbable that anyone could prove God exists.
It's incredibly improbable that anyone could prove he doesn't.
As such, it boils down to a difference of which incredibly improbable outcome you choose to believe.
I choose not to give a shit either way because it's out of my hands.
tonea2003 said:
baldmosher said:
tonea2003 said:
[didactic], you're not bad at twisting things to suit your own point, but come on you will have to better than that.
now we know your stance, or i think i do, what do you believe?
i find it strange your stoic defence of religious faith and any attempts to challenge this belief.
which incidently is just as much as my right as it is yours to defend.
i too would like to hear these historic tales you speak of
He's already said what he believes. He believes life was better when organised religion was more prevalent in society. What's your problem with that?
my problem is you cant prove it.
so prove it and take my problem away.
religion can only give "emotional" comfort not physical.
who is to say in life before organised religion people wern't better emotionally.
Since when do we need proof for everything? We're in trouble, because we don't have proof for very much at all, we only have a mountain of supporting evidence. At some point, we have to put our faith in the evidence being correct, or we propose a better model. That's how science works. Nothing is absolutely proven, only undeniable within reasonable bounds of sensibility.
A mathematician can prove that 1=2 but that doesn't make him God, it means he understands that nothing is certain and everything you understand is subject to your level of understanding and that if he has a greater understanding of a model than you do, he can explain it in a way that makes you believe anything he tells you. You wouldn't admit it at first, but it'd eat at you until you did start to believe.
It turns out, Hell is actually a molten mass of metal (mainly iron and nickel) with a molten iron core heated by nuclear reactions under extreme pressure, all below a very thin crust floating atop the whole lot. Turns out, convection currents in the mantle cause the crust to move around and when cracks appear you get volcanoes spitting molten rock into the air. So that probably isn't where the sinners go when they die. But we'll maintain the current model of Hell anyway, as that gets results.
Eventually, every five year old stops believing in Santa.
Does that mean we should explain to every 2 year old that it's Christmas, which is a pagan festival celebrating the darkest days of the year, stolen by Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, a prophet who convinced 12 people that he was not just a prophet, but the son of God, who was then betrayed by one of those who pretended to believe him, sold to the Romans who nailed him to a cross by the wrists and watched him die a slow, painful death at the whim of those who didn't like him telling everyone he was the son of God, and then three days later apparently rose from the dead, although nobody saw him do it, and one of his 11 remaining best mates didn't recognise him, but he showed him the scars and then he believed, and then those 11 went out and told everyone this story, the Romans bought into it, and the rest is history, but this basically means mummy and daddy have to save up all year to buy you a load of expensive stuff that you don't need, wrap it up so you can unwrap it again, your dad will put out a glass of sherry and some mince pies as usual, but won't eat/drink them until after you've gone to bed, grandparents will come round in the morning, we'll all overeat and fall asleep watching shite TV, the Queen will do a speech that the government wrote for her, your dad will get pissed, and then next day, he'll go to watch City at West Brom with a hangover in the freezing rain.
Or should we just tell him about Santa?
-- Fri Oct 14, 2011 3:17 pm --
LongsightM13 said:
To deny that this is happening in many of Britain's prisons is disingenuous and naive
To claim this is valid evidence for the original assertion is also disingenuous and naive. Unless the original assertion was specifically to do with prisons. 6 is a bit young for prison.
