Praying won't help you...

[Atilla]

Richard's comment has a lot to commend it.
Most people are uncomfortable with the prospect of being ultimately resonsible for themselves, as an adult male I accept responsibility for myself and my family - I will do what it takes to ensure they are fed, clothed, sheltered. If I dug ditches for a living at X pounds an hour I would stagger into work every day I could draw breath to do so, and I have always believed that nobody is responsible for the wellbeing of my family other than myself. (Good news for the social security peeps there then).

Not everyone is confident in their own ability to stand up to life and its vagaries, some folk have the strength but lack the confidence, and they invent deities to believe in so they can keep doing what they have to whilst having a fallback position they will hopefully never need to call on.

It's a logical absurdity to claim 'there is no God, because you cannot prove God exists', it is equally absurd to claim 'there is a God, because you cannot prove God does not exist'. Anyone who doesn't grasp the truth of this paragraph is, frankly, a bloody idiot.

If I were God I would be very upset at the poor standard of my defence team on here - there's one notable exeption, everyone else is just qwu

I always hold the view anybody who doesn't understand any particular thing - it is because it has not been explained sufficiently at a level that the listener can comprehend.

To expect people to understand everything one says and if they don't they are stupid idiots is arrogance to say the least and stupidity on behalf of the individual explaining.


With the first two paragraphs I agree whole heartedly.

 

[DaveJB]

Hi Atilla,
my post (due to a stupid extra mouse button) is actually longer than you read - corrected by an edit.

As for

To expect people to understand everything one says and if they don't they are stupid idiots is arrogance to say the least and stupidity on behalf of the individual explaining.

Err, sorry, but :
During this thread the pro God lot have claimed 'You can't prove God doesn't exist, therefore he does'

The anti God lot have also claimed
'You can't prove God does exist, therefore he doesn't'

Both arguments are logically unsound to the point of inanity - you cannot prove something by pointing out that the opposite cannot be proved - all you can prove is that you can't prove something.

And I stand firmly by what I said, if somebody can't see that, they're a bloody idiot.

 

[Atilla]

Hi Atilla,
my post (due to a stupid extra mouse button) is actually longer than you read - corrected by an edit.

As for


Err, sorry, but :
During this thread the pro God lot have claimed 'You can't prove God doesn't exist, therefore he does'

The anti God lot have also claimed
'You can't prove God does exist, therefore he doesn't'

Both arguments are logically unsound to the point of inanity - you cannot prove something by pointing out that the opposite cannot be proved - all you can prove is that you can't prove something.

And I stand firmly by what I said, if somebody can't see that, they're a bloody idiot.

I agree with most of what you write DaveJB, but simply that I feel by talking and explaining we can all educate ourselves.

Most people are of the same faith as their parents. When indoctrination takes place at this level people will believe at 70 what they were tought at 7 by their loved ones.

I hope by all our arguements we may in our own time consider and reflect and possibly question all that we believe to be true or false.

 

[Mr. Charts]

Looking at this world and its state of suffering and injustice, any supernatural being, entity, (s)he, whatever, involved in its conception, production, development should face calls for their resignation and be charged with incompetence, neglect and culpable mass homicide.

Only an initially random state of unplanned physical and biological progression and diversion can explain the ungodly mess this planet is in.
As to elsewhere in the universe, random though growingly understandable processes must have produced similar catastrophic events.

Richard

 

[DaveJB]

I agree, (Atilla)
I was brought up C of E in the 1960's, which as we all know means 'can hum the tune, but even the vicar is an agnostic', whilst school started with hymns and prayers every day.

I like to think that the obviously false religious message in all of that let me develop the well rounded approach I now have - I enjoy Christmas, I get 2 weeks off and can listen to Bing Crosby without remembering the stuff about him thumping the wife and kids, and don't Christmas carols sound so much nicer than those dire hymns you get the rest of the year?

I honestly don't believe either side can convince the other - the 'doubters/unbelievers' have not gone through the life altering moment of conversion that the true believers have felt - many 'believers' on here haven't experienced this either, it's obvious when you talk to a real believer that they've had a life changing moment, and it's personal to them so non-transferable.

Many/most of the belivers on here are spouting claptrap, indoctrination no more valid than Mao's little red book, the odd one is arguing well and stands far more chance of persuading the non-believers of, if not God, then at least their own sincerity and intelligence. The thing is, the genuine 'real' believers are sure they're right and will not budge, nor should they - you might well feel their 'moment of revelation' was actually nothing of the sort, but to them it's the ultimate reality. The claptrap lot are just trotting out the old brainwashing rubbish, and they won't stop to listen to themselves because they need a God and are afraid to look too close at belief in case they lose the one they have.

Non-believers will argue the point, sensible ones will argue well and logically, and will not be convinced by the claptrap lot in the slightest - if they meet a true believer they will most likely decide the believer is mistaken but sincere... that's me, I have known several people who very clearly had a deep belief founded on what they considered to be direct contact with God, I think they were mistaken, but I know they are sincere and it's very noticreable that these people don't trot out the usual rubbish as 'proof', they argue their points forcefully and logically.

So - you can only 'convert' the claptrap lot who probably don't really believe it all any more than I do anyhow.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

There is a human need to want to identify and associate with something beyond rationality and proof.
Almost certainly this emanates from the individual's sense of alienation from the vastness of life and the universe and his/her sense of helplessness in the face of such awe inspiring complexity and incomprehensibility.
Of this religion was born.
And myths.
And fairy tales.
And flying saucers.

Richard

So you don't believe that Mohammed or Jesus existed? :-S Well they did and the there were huge pivotal point in history during their lifetimes. These people did something. Historical fact. Whether you believe they received a divine message is the only point you can argue.

Why would a Jew carpenter or an Arab sheep herder care about "alienation from the vastness of life and the universe and his/her sense of helplessness in the face of such awe inspiring complexity and incomprehensibility"? They weren't scholars (and the scholars who were around at that time did not know nearly as much about the universe as we have learned in the last 100 years. Also, given the structure of the societies and lack of information flow during those time periods it is highly unlikely they had any prior opinion on such matters.

Also give one slap-dash quasi-philosophical reason for the birth of myths, fairy tales and flying saucers is ridiculously short sighted and far too sweeping.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

Looking at this world and its state of suffering and injustice, any supernatural being, entity, (s)he, whatever, involved in its conception, production, development should face calls for their resignation and be charged with incompetence, neglect and culpable mass homicide.

Only an initially random state of unplanned physical and biological progression and diversion can explain the ungodly mess this planet is in.
As to elsewhere in the universe, random though growingly understandable processes must have produced similar catastrophic events.

Richard

Newtons laws of motion >>> pre-destination >>> nothing is random.

All the problems in this world are caused by people. You're always going on about how you make grands so whats to stop you jumping on a plane and building a school in Africa of helping bring irrigated water to villages in India? Religion teaches judgement and atonement and in the end everyone will be held accountable for what they did or didn't do.

=growingly understandable processes

I see your point here but I don't buy it. As I said earlier, science can give you the how but it will never give us the why. We never get answers for the inexorable processes around us. Why does the a cell replicate itself? Simply saying because "it's programmed to" or "because of it's genetic make-up" just doesn't cut it in my book. Nobody can tell you why gravity is but there are a million people worldwide who could calculate and measure it light years away. What I do buy is adaptation and survival of the fittest and how it is relative to restricted gene pools brought about by social, demographic and geographic factors. Panthers in S-America, leopards in Africa.:|

 

[gedward3]

So you don't believe that Mohammed or Jesus existed? :-S Well they did and the there were huge pivotal point in history during their lifetimes. These people did something. Historical fact. Whether you believe they received a divine message is the only point you can argue.

Why would a Jew carpenter or an Arab sheep herder care about "alienation from the vastness of life and the universe and his/her sense of helplessness in the face of such awe inspiring complexity and incomprehensibility"? They weren't scholars (and the scholars who were around at that time did not know nearly as much about the universe as we have learned in the last 100 years. Also, given the structure of the societies and lack of information flow during those time periods it is highly unlikely they had any prior opinion on such matters.

Also give one slap-dash quasi-philosophical reason for the birth of myths, fairy tales and flying saucers is ridiculously short sighted and far too sweeping.

Maybe they were both nutters who had a dash of Derren Brown magic up their sleeves.
Do a few basic tricks to get the disciples, disciples spread the word and gather the crowds. A couple more tricks to please the crowd and show them my magic and hey presto im the messiah. Get all sorts of freee sponsorship like free bread from McMoses.
Get free ale and wine from St Patricks P*ss Up Place and even a couple of rides free on the old donkey down at Alton Messiah's. Maybe they were strong people and the world was more gullible then. Something musty have gone right as im RC. You may replace any words above with your chosen ones of your religion just to stop any new wars, mass murder or genocide breaking out on T2W.

Ged

 

[Mr. Charts]

Maybe they were both nutters who had a dash of Derren Brown magic up their sleeves.
Do a few basic tricks to get the disciples, disciples spread the word and gather the crowds. A couple more tricks to please the crowd and show them my magic and hey presto im the messiah. Get all sorts of freee sponsorship like free bread from McMoses.
Get free ale and wine from St Patricks P*ss Up Place and even a couple of rides free on the old donkey down at Alton Messiah's. Maybe they were strong people and the world was more gullible then. Something musty have gone right as im RC. You may replace any words above with your chosen ones of your religion just to stop any new wars, mass murder or genocide breaking out on T2W.

Ged

Good stuff :clap:

How about a theme park for religions on a Pacific (hardly) island , like Disney, with various animatronic gods in the different centres. The unholy men (no women allowed) can all have interchangeable robes and beards and feel self-important and tell people they have a hot line to Religion Central the sauce of all wisdom so they can expound the will of their very own almighty one or duo or trinity or whatever.
It can be marketed as educational and promoting interfantasy understanding, respect and harmony.
Radiating off from the central theme park at the end of spoke-like corridors can be gladiatorial arenas where the fanatics of each religion can fight each other to the death in front of their adoring supporters and the world media.
It would be illegal for any persecution or killing of other religious people (or even infidels !) to take place outside the island on pain of life imprisonment with Richard Dawkins a la Sartre's Huit Clos.
In due course the island could be nuked and there would arise the myth of the evil US government run by religious fanatics having destroyed the island in order to further their plots of world domination and to appease the military-industrial complex which thrives on wars.
Later, rich individuals could finance under-water expeditions of intrepid explorers trying to locate the fabled Land of Peace and Harmony in the (aptly named) Pacific.

 

[Technically Fundamental]

Sounds just like the world of finance and politics Mr Charts.

 

[gedward3]

Sounds just like the world of finance and politics Mr Charts.

It does, but with a much better edge to it.......

 

[DaveJB]

Sorry, gotta comment on this bit -

Newtons laws of motion >>> pre-destination >>> nothing is random.

Newton's laws are an extremely good (and impressive, given their age) approximation to the way that matter on the macroscopic scale behaves in the Universe. They have, however, been superceded by Einstein's work which covers the interaction of space, mass and time more completely and with demonstrably greater accuracy.

Make an 'arm' out of tubing so that there are two freely rotating joints between the two ends - mount a mass on one end of the arm and clamp the other to a desktop. Lift the mass and release it, it will perform a fairly complex little dance in which the arms/joints rotate in an unpredictable manner (this is a simple demonstration of 'chaos') where no matter how hard you try to duplicate the initial conditions the path followed by the mass will not repeat.

Newtonian mechanics (essentially) says that when the initial conditions are known then all subsequent actions can be predicted - this is now known to be fallacious, the Universe is a chaotic system and you cannot predict the future course of its component pieces EVEN IF you knew where they all were to start with.

Dave

 

[arabianights]

Newtonian mechanics (essentially) says that when the initial conditions are known then all subsequent actions can be predicted - this is now known to be fallacious, the Universe is a chaotic system and you cannot predict the future course of its component pieces EVEN IF you knew where they all were to start with.

Dave

Which makes technical analysts all the more amusing

 

[Technically Fundamental]

Sorry, gotta comment on this bit -

Newton's laws are an extremely good (and impressive, given their age) approximation to the way that matter on the macroscopic scale behaves in the Universe. They have, however, been superceded by Einstein's work which covers the interaction of space, mass and time more completely and with demonstrably greater accuracy.

Make an 'arm' out of tubing so that there are two freely rotating joints between the two ends - mount a mass on one end of the arm and clamp the other to a desktop. Lift the mass and release it, it will perform a fairly complex little dance in which the arms/joints rotate in an unpredictable manner (this is a simple demonstration of 'chaos') where no matter how hard you try to duplicate the initial conditions the path followed by the mass will not repeat.

Newtonian mechanics (essentially) says that when the initial conditions are known then all subsequent actions can be predicted - this is now known to be fallacious, the Universe is a chaotic system and you cannot predict the future course of its component pieces EVEN IF you knew where they all were to start with.

Dave

But repeating the event isn't physically impossible however improbable. And then there was "coincedence" and the old interpretation chestnut.

 

[DaveJB]

But repeating the event isn't physically impossible however improbable. And then there was "coincedence" and the old interpretation chestnut.

No, repeating the event isn't impossible - just impossible to predict (as well as likely to take you most of your lifetime to achieve once) because Newtonian mechanics won't predict for chaotic systems, which was the point I was making... Newton does not mean everything is predetermined which was what the poster's comment said. (I was simply pointing out that this was yet another 'fact' that was nothing of the kind).

Which makes technical analysts all the more amusing

Yes indeed - the only thing that keeps me going is the fact that I'm not trying to predict exactly what will happen, I just need to be close enough often enough to make a profit. Actually, if the twin jointed arm device has a pen mounted on the swinging mass and you run a blank paper roll behind it as it swings you can get resultant patterns drawn that look uncomfortably like price charts... this does NOT do wonders for your confidence when you see it. (I saw this during a fascinating 1 hour intro to chaos theory lecture a year or two back, and thought 'oo err' for a good while afterwards).

Dave

 

[TheBramble]

Actually, if the twin jointed arm device has a pen mounted on the swinging mass and you run a blank paper roll behind it as it swings you can get resultant patterns drawn that look uncomfortably like price charts... this does NOT do wonders for your confidence when you see it. (I saw this during a fascinating 1 hour intro to chaos theory lecture a year or two back, and thought 'oo err' for a good while afterwards).

There's a market there Dave....

 

[Technically Fundamental]

why is my posting that newton's hypothsis that for his laws to apply as a constant everything must be preordained being turned into an arguement about predicting the future?

 

[maxima]

Praying won't move the markets obviously but according to Strauss...

Studies of the traits of survivors have noted one thing they had in common was prayer.... After all, the greatest survival skill one can have is to avoid panicking in an emergency, and instead to stay calm, organized, focused, decisive, and determined.

it has to be an exhilarating view to see a daredevil naturalist, calm, organized, focused, decisive, and determined... being eaten by a crocodile

 

[Mr. Charts]

"if the twin jointed arm device has a pen mounted on the swinging mass and you run a blank paper roll behind"

.....at the same speed, will it take off like that plane that never flew or a helicopter..........

Richard

 

[DaveJB]

Richard,
you don't want to even consider this for a moment - when you are making money trading the last thing you need is a mental bucket of cold water in the face!

why is my posting that newton's hypothsis that for his laws to apply as a constant everything must be preordained being turned into an arguement about predicting the future?

Sorry if I' misunderstood, but I took:

Newtons laws of motion >>> pre-destination >>> nothing is random.

as being read left to right, and the >>> meant to represent the mathematical symbology for 'implies', ie

Newton's laws of motion IMPLY pre-destination which further IMPLIES that nothing is random... which would be a suggestion that was once common in science, prior to C20, that perfect knowledge of the starting conditions would allow the future of a system to be accurately mapped out.

Your follow up I don't quite follow, how can everything being preordained NOT refer to the ability to predict the future? Not arguing here, just a bit puzzled, what was your statement meant to suggest?
a constant is a fixed value, laws aren't values so I don't follow the first bit either to be honest... it seems an unlikely thing for Newton to have said, unless he was on a bit of a wind down?
Dave