Richard Dawkins make everyone look like an idiot when he talks to them. Personally I am not an atheist, but seriously are all religious people so moronic? Do they even bother to research or THINK before they say things? Albeit to be so sure that ones religion is correct is arogant and dismissive without any facts to support. On the other hand i see atheism as the same thing. You don't know, therefore you presume. Dawkins strikes me as very arrogant to dismiss A higher being or creator completely. Sure disprove man made religions all together, but what about Gnosticism? What are his views on that?
personally i think this guy (not dawkins)is just playing devils advocate. Truly he is not being serious.
this topic is open for debate now.
couch-potato
Atheists aren't presuming anything. No evidence for a creator, so it won't be believed in. You don't have the prove the non-existence of anything (burden of proof).
Domesticated
quote:
Originally posted by couch-potato
Atheists aren't presuming anything. No evidence for a creator, so it won't be believed in. You don't have the prove the non-existence of anything (burden of proof).
No, atheists believe with absolute certainty that there is no 'higher being', and yet they have no proof.
Lira
There are quite a few kinds of atheists, Domesticated... and, let's face it, no atheist would ever bother to look for a negative proof, as that's utterly illogical ;)
quote:
Originally posted by Nrg2Nfinit
Sure disprove man made religions all together, but what about Gnosticism?
Why would gnosticism be special? Unless you mean agnosticism :p
couch-potato
quote:
Originally posted by Domesticated
No, atheists believe with absolute certainty that there is no 'higher being', and yet they have no proof.
I have no proof that there's not invisible fairies in my bedroom, but I won't be arguing for that anytime soon.
Nrg2Nfinit
quote:
Originally posted by couch-potato
Atheists aren't presuming anything. No evidence for a creator, so it won't be believed in. You don't have the prove the non-existence of anything (burden of proof).
Just because we could not see beyond our galaxy, we did not presume that it was the only one. We left the answer blank.
Science does not negate but instead provides evidence to support a hypothesis.
Where is there evidence to support that initially all matter was created from nothing and thus a higher dimension beyond our perception may exist where something put things into motion?
I don't know the answer thus i do not make non factual assumptions (atheism, or specific deity ism ) The answer is left blank until sufficient evidence can be accumulated to create and reject null hypothesis with regards to there being a god or creator of some sorts.
I see dawkins as playing the role of "i don't know but this is what we do know" but without basis he returns to the idea that there is no god. There isn't evidence to support the claim.
Thats my beef with atheism. How can you be so sure if there is no evidence to base your specific claim?
Nrg2Nfinit
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
Why would gnosticism be special? Unless you mean agnosticism :p
you know what i meant.. :p
obviously agnosticism
Domesticated
quote:
Originally posted by couch-potato
I have no proof that there's not invisible fairies in my bedroom, but I won't be arguing for that anytime soon.
Get a clue.
A Catholic, Jew or Muslim believes in the existence of a divine creator or higher being.
An agnostic does not necessarily believe in a higher being, but nor do they deny that there could possibly be one.
An atheist completely denies that there could possibly be a divine or higher being. As with the religious person, they have no proof to prove this belief. They are making an assumption.
Nrg2Nfinit
quote:
Originally posted by couch-potato
I have no proof that there's not invisible fairies in my bedroom, but I won't be arguing for that anytime soon.
right.. but do you have proof of preception of a fourth dimension? Fifth?
A full understanding to the consequence of time dialation? Matter being created from nothing? Presence from unpresence?
I'm not talking about a fairy here lol your demeaning the subject. I am talking about a higher level of being, higher perception of things. What we see isn't what we get. Clearly as animals who are only meant and have evolve to simply perceive our limited environment there is much more that we cannot easily perceive to come to conclusions that negate a higher existence without empirical evidence.
Darwin simply put the pen down for evolution. Modern science has begun writting the story. To boast darwin as arrogantly as dawkins seems a bit hypocrytical and simplifying the situation we are in.
Science teaches us to be humble and open to new ideas and reformatoin of theories.
Cladistics change constantly for example. We used to think dinosaurs with bird hip orientation were related to birds but instead, those ones were later found to be related to lizards!. It was only through maticulous analysis that we found that essentially hip orientation of those dinosaurs was convergent and as a reminder of the fraility and openness to cladistics the names were never reverted. Ornithischians (bird hip) are more related to lizard and sauritian (lizard like) are more related to birds.(an issue with semantics that goes to show that defining evolution itself is never concrete and is open to debate constantly).
This is just an example to show that science needs to be constantly challenged in order to progress. To make bold factless statements is arrogant and inconclusive. Thus should not be made to hold truth.
Nrg2Nfinit
waiting for pkc
lol
Lira
quote:
Originally posted by Domesticated
An atheist completely denies that there could possibly be a divine or higher being. As with the religious person, they have no proof to prove this belief. They are making an assumption.
But the sort of assumption is quite different. You see, I'm speaking for myself here but, in order to be a Christian, for example:
You must believe the universe needs an external creator (assumption #1);
This creator cannot be an unconscious event - it created the universe willingly (assumption #2);
Oh, and for the record, not only is he conscious, he's also a loving creature (assumption #2.5);
He also created the world because He saw it was good, He decided to populate it (assumption #3);
Now, there are inhabitants in his world, and He actually cares about his behaviour (assumption #4);
Furthermore, not only does He care about the behaviour of the inhabitants of his world, He also told a particular group of inhabitants what kind of behaviour He expected from them (assumption #5);
Finally, He's watching all His creatures (it's probably like a gigantic version of The Sims) and, should His creatures fail to live by His standards, he will let them rot in a very unpleasant place (assumption #6).
Naturally, this is all very tongue-in-cheek and oversimplified, but as an atheist, there's nothing you need to assume other than "Okay, we're on our own... where do we begin?". And, don't get me wrong, I don't think religion is a bad thing, but the whole "atheists are just like theists" thing just happens to be a completely misguided concept.
Nrg2Nfinit
quote:
Originally posted by Lira
But the sort of assumption is quite different. You see, I'm speaking for myself here but, in order to be a Christian, for example:
You must believe the universe needs an external creator (assumption #1);
This creator cannot be an unconscious event - it created the universe willingly (assumption #2);
Oh, and for the record, not only is he conscious, he's also a loving creature (assumption #2.5);
Not only He created the world because He saw it was good, He decided to populate it (assumption #3);
Now, there are inhabitants in his world, and He actually cares about his behaviour (assumption #4);
Not only does He care about the behaviour of the inhabitants of his world, He also told a particular group of inhabitants what kind of behaviour He expected from them (assumption #5);
Finally, He's watching all His creatures (it's probably like a gigantic version of The Sims) and, should His creatures fail to live by His standards, he will let them rot in a very unpleasant place (assumption #6).
Naturally, this is all very tongue-in-cheek and oversimplified, but as an atheist, there's nothing you need to assume other than "Okay, we're on our own... where do we begin?". And, don't get me wrong, I don't think religion is a bad thing, but the whole "atheists are just like theists" thing just happens to be a completely misguided concept.
its the same lira, you're making assumptions in order to be christian A god
B jesus
C holy spirit
in order to be Atheist
A no god
B no evidence means no creator
C origin of species is bible lol
