from the Fee-Fie-Fou-Fhum-Fideism-Falafel dept.
Commentary at Salon!
Should you believe in a God? Not according to most academic philosophers. A comprehensive survey revealed that only about 14 percent of English speaking professional philosophers are theists. As for what little religious belief remains among their colleagues, most professional philosophers regard it as a strange aberration among otherwise intelligent people. Among scientists the situation is much the same. Surveys of the members of the National Academy of Sciences, composed of the most prestigious scientists in the world, show that religious belief among them is practically nonexistent, about 7 percent.
[...] Now nothing definitely follows about the truth of a belief from what the majority of philosophers or scientists think. But such facts might cause believers discomfort. There has been a dramatic change in the last few centuries in the proportion of believers among the highly educated in the Western world. In the European Middle Ages belief in a God was ubiquitous, while today it is rare among the intelligentsia. This change occurred primarily because of the rise of modern science and a consensus among philosophers that arguments for the existence of gods, souls, afterlife and the like were unconvincing. Still, despite the view of professional philosophers and world-class scientists, religious beliefs have a universal appeal. What explains this?
[...] First, if you defend such beliefs by claiming that you have a right to your opinion, however unsupported by evidence it might be, you are referring to a political or legal right, not an epistemic one. You may have a legal right to say whatever you want, but you have epistemic justification only if there are good reasons and evidence to support your claim. If someone makes a claim without concern for reasons and evidence, we should conclude that they simply don't care about what's true. We shouldn't conclude that their beliefs are true because they are fervently held.
Another problem is that fideism—basing one's beliefs exclusively on faith—makes belief arbitrary, leaving no way to distinguish one religious belief from another. Fideism allows no reason to favor your preferred beliefs or superstitions over others. If I must accept your beliefs without evidence, then you must accept mine, no matter what absurdity I believe in. But is belief without reason and evidence worthy of rational beings? Doesn't it perpetuate the cycle of superstition and ignorance that has historically enslaved us? I agree with W.K. Clifford. "It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." Why? Because your beliefs affect other people, and your false beliefs may harm them.
I am checking to see what the Church of the Flying Spagetti Monster has to say about all this.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:36PM (1 child)
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @02:20AM
Trump supporters are the best example.
(Score: 2, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:38PM (4 children)
When I drink my little wine -- which is about the only wine I drink -- and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of asking for forgiveness. And I do that as often as possible, because I feel cleansed. I think in terms of, let’s go on and let’s make it right.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:25PM (1 child)
For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion(operation of wandering)(planet) so that they will believe the lie.
Mystery Red of the Great American Eclipse [wa.hle.rs]
It has blood on it! [wa.hle.rs]
ABCNews: Eclipse makes pendulum wander [archive.org]
Lunar Eclipse this Sunday evening. Is that red shadow light always there, or does it fade in as NatGeo and WashPost show? Is the color distribution consistent with the model?
Nat Geo Eclipse 101 [wa.hle.rs]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:33PM
Yahweh is a shapeshifter! His lies are everywhere and even opposed to each other! All the better if all the lies are mutually opposed, for he is a god that destroys civilizations and planets. Seal him in the Great Barrier!
(Score: 2, Funny) by redneckmother on Monday January 21 2019, @02:22AM
Which "Cracker" do you "have"? Mitchie? Lyin' Ted?
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 21 2019, @02:56PM
You've had enough whine. Too much even.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:57PM (4 children)
Looks like the Old Ari made a submission. Not bad!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:47PM (3 children)
Looks like our Old Runaway is still sitting on the porch yelling at "those people".
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @01:06AM (2 children)
Yes. Now get off my lawn, and stop throwing rocks at my dog.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @01:51AM (1 child)
Well tell your dog to get back under the trailer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 21 2019, @04:54AM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @10:57PM (67 children)
Does this mean their religion and culture is stuck in the middle ages? Or, does it mean that inbreeding has reduced the number of intelligent Muslims? Or is there another reason that eludes philosophers...
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:26PM (17 children)
Couldn't even make it past the subject header without making a fool of yourself. By definition, all Muslims believe in Allah.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:51PM (11 children)
Wrong... pastafarian Muslims believe in the FSM.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:57PM (8 children)
How are they Muslims then?
Somali pirates fighting the good fight on the high seas against global warming?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @01:22AM (7 children)
Somali only believe in religion when it suits them.
This can change from one minute to the next.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @04:46AM (6 children)
The people who believe in Allah "when it suits them" are chopping heads, stoning women, and killing non-believers when it doesn't suit them. The people who believe in the Christian God "when it suits them" are charging usury, knocking on your door, and saying they don't want gay kids when it doesn't suit them.
It's one of those orders of magnitude things. I would rather have the most extreme Mormon as a neighbor than a "when it suits them" Muslim.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ledow on Monday January 21 2019, @08:14AM (5 children)
Way to ignore thousands of years of Christian-led persecution, not to mention things as recent as Protestants vs Catholics.
I thought that nobody forgets the Spanish Inquisition?
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday January 21 2019, @12:44PM (2 children)
>Christian-led persecution
Matthew 7,21-29
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @12:58PM (1 child)
Good goddess, what is wrong with you Yahweh worshippers?! It's a cool story bro, but normal people do not memorize cool stories verbatim! Pick a translation (and indicate which one you cretin!) and then post what you're looking at [biblegateway.com] (this is MSG):
(Emphasis mine.)
lolololol! Quite a fucking ironic thing to post! Maybe this is how Yahweh-worshippers should behave, but they objectively do not. You can believe in an ancient aliens lizard person theory for all I care, but when you assholes start trying to justify control over my body (such as whether or not I must provide life support for a child I did not want--you want the baby, you provide it life support!), lizard people conspiracy theories don't cut it.
That is what all the fucking sophistry in this discussion misses. Belief in delusional shit is fine for the most part, if all you need is a fairy story character to help you sleep at night. When you start forcing your irrational beliefs on other people with guns and nuclear weapons, well, good luck with the lake of fire after the white throne judgement, or however that myth went.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday January 23 2019, @10:19PM
> Maybe this is how Yahweh-worshippers should behave, but they objectively do not.
They who? they who don't behave are not Christian. Yahweh worshipers means nothing as in the very passage I cited.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’... (NIV)
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity... (KJV)
with these, and with the pretty identical orthodox Bible, we have a hefty majority of believers. These explicitly say that it is necessary to do like Christ in his return to the Father. The one you cited says it in a convoluted way.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2, Informative) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:36AM (1 child)
To use plural, you must have two or more. Christianity did not exist during the alleged life of Christ; it was only developed after his death. Consequently, another couple of decades must pass before Christianity is 2000 years old, and considerably more than than must pass before Christianity became powerful enough to engage in persecution.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday January 23 2019, @10:28PM
> Christianity did not exist during the alleged life of Christ.
Technically, it does since Peter spoke so it is near the end of the alleged life. Now, you might reject the historicity of what is written, but it is another matter.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Funny) by martyb on Monday January 21 2019, @02:36AM (1 child)
They believe in a Finite State Machine?
Theology meets mathematics... I like it! =)
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:13AM
May his boolean appendage touch you.
- DEADBEEF
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @05:17AM (2 children)
I heard that some Muslims do not really believe in their god; however they have to continue with the motions, otherwise their life in a Muslim country will be painful and short.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Monday January 21 2019, @05:41AM
Much like, say scientists in a Christian society known to kill blasphemers. In my opinion, *that's* why there are more atheists among the educated ... they're no longer afraid to tell you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @01:09PM
Complete and utter bullshit for the most part.
Their life will be very long and extremely painful.
Never let a true believer die while they don't believe.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @12:11AM (1 child)
Technically that would be incorrect. Mohamed decreed that no Muslin could deny that another is not a Muslim based on differences of behaviour.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @04:06AM
That may be true except that leaving the faith is punishable by death, so that can only apply to people who weren't muslim to begin with.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @01:21AM (35 children)
You want a real answer? Well - it's all right there in their Koran. Anyone who leaves the faith is to be put to death. It's really that simple. The priesthood pries into every person's life, looking for anything "wrong" that they can punish, thus bolstering their authority. And, it's not just authority, it's real power too. The priests, or imams, maintain a "morality police" to ensure they can pry into people's lives.
As much as people enjoy comparing Judaism and Christianity to Islam, their books don't justify executing someone who leaves the faith.
Islam isn't going to come into the 21st century peacefully. They will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, every inch of the way.
It is 2019 and women are finally allowed to drive without a chauffer, and more, without a curfew - https://www.dw.com/en/saudi-women-celebrate-lifting-of-ban-with-midnight-drive/av-44371045 [dw.com] Click the link, and just admire that shining face of a young female, out after midnight, driving. She has almost literally been released from prison. Before you pooh-pooh that comparison, look back in our own history, and see how access to automobiles changed our own culture.
But, it isn't all roses. You can bet both cheeks of your ass that the aforementioned "morality police" will be watching these girls and young women. It won't be long before some chick is beheaded for the outrageous sin of slowing down to look at some hot hunk walking down the street.
As for intelligence - no. I've never found any reason to believe they aren't intelligent. They just don't seem to pursue academics like we do. Allahu Akbar is good enough for them. The really bright people go to college, and pursue a career, but they don't waste a lot of time like we do. What need is there to question how the universe works, when we can put our faith in Allah? Why bother to strain the brain?
(Score: 5, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 21 2019, @01:38AM (31 children)
Boy it's a good thing Judaism and Christianity were never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever anything like this, nor is anyone from either of those two religions trying to impose theocracy anywhere in the world. Isn't it?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday January 21 2019, @03:43AM (19 children)
Actually, Judaism doesn't try to impose anything on non-jews. And even with other Jewst, they mostly just guilt you if you don't get with the program.
Jews believe that they are the chosen people. As such, they don't try to pull others in, they don't proselytize (except to other jews) and they certainly don't force non-jews to live by their rules. In fact, if you're not a Jew, they really don't want you.
It is possible to convert, but they don't make it easy to do and they'll never force anyone to do so. They don't want you.
Christians, on the other hand, have a long history of intimidation, forced conversion and torture.
Just wanted to set the record straight.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday January 21 2019, @07:19AM (16 children)
[quote]Judaism doesn't try to impose anything on non-jew.[/quote]
Well that certainly is not true. They have plenty to say about non-jews in their holy texts. Not much of it is nice either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:39AM (1 child)
SHUT IT DOWN
(Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:56AM
Why?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday January 21 2019, @03:42PM (9 children)
Please. Give ma an example of any of that sort of stuff (batshit crazy conspiracy theories aside) that Jews (not Israel. Not Israelis -- they are a minority of the world's jews, in case you didn't know) have/are purported (without evidence) doing that weren't already long past oral traditions more than 2500 years ago.
Please, do tell.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:24PM (1 child)
Anytime anybody complains about Israel they are called antisemetic, so they themselves say Jews are Israelies and Israelis are Jews.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:57PM
Really? I'm a Jew and definitely not an Israeli. Also I find that the paranoia (which isn't completely unjustified) of many Israelis foments hatred and violence against those who complain about how the the Israeli state treats other humans. I think such treatment is cruel and vicious. It disgusts me.
And I know many other jews who feel this way.
What's more, something like 20% of Israelis aren't Jewish [wikipedia.org].
I don't believe I've ever been called an anti-semite, mostly because I'm not. But perhaps you could do so and thus fulfill your own pronouncement. It won't have the weight of being factual, but I'm sure it will make you feel much better.
As a bit of unsolicited advice, it's a poor idea to paint people with a broad brush, as you'll usually find that you're flat wrong. Perhaps one should evaluate others based on the content of their character rather than their ethnicity, skin color, or (non)-adherence to demonstrably false belief systems. Just a crazy thought.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 21 2019, @10:16PM (6 children)
Have you ever read the Talmud, or listened to the real hard-liners not just in Israel but right here in the US, in this case the hardcore Orthodox in Brooklyn not an hour away on the subway from where I grew up?
The Abrahamic religions are *poison,* end of story. The only reason the Jews do so little damage compared to the Christians and the Muslims is how few of them there are.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by NotSanguine on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:13AM (5 children)
Yup. I've even been in the Mitzvah Tank [wikipedia.org]. They used to hang out down around Union Square when I was in high school, which was just a few blocks away.
I never said that Abrahamic religions (or any demonstrably false belief system) were good. What I said is that Jews don't go out of their way to press others (except other jews) and that includes the Lubavitchers and their ilk) to do things "their" way. They don't proselytize or attempt forced conversions. Nor do they attempt to punish or do violence to non-jews for not adhering to jewish law. And they, in fact, have *never* done so, unlike the Christians and Muslims.
And it's not because there aren't so many jews (~17 million worldwide), it's because they believe that they are the chosen people who have a covenant with Jahweh. So, if you're not a jew, they don't care. if you are a jew (and I've had both conservative and orthodox folks do this), they push you to be more religious. But if you're not a jew, they have no interest in your religious life. Full stop.
I'm an atheist myself, but am ethnically jewish (Ashkenazi on both sides) and grew up in a jewish household. As such, I was much, much less than an hour away by subway from jewish life and, less than an hour by subway from Borough Park or Crown Heights too.
and so, dear Azuma: Hah! What know you of jewish? For fifty-two years have I been jewish. My own counsel will I keep on what it is to be Jewish. (with apologies to Yoda).
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 22 2019, @02:02AM (4 children)
Fair enough. I will confess I pay much more attention to the historical part of Jewish history, especially the pre-Exilic component, than the modern. It comes from well over a decade of counter-apologia study which was aimed at Islam and Christianity, with the idea that one must know the roots of a problem to combat the branches.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday January 22 2019, @02:55AM (3 children)
That's a reasonable approach. Although (as I'm sure you're well aware) that much of the Pentateuch [wikipedia.org] or Torah contains oral histories pulled from many civilizations of the prehistoric fertile crescent.
In fact, the traditions and practices of the Jewish (although they didn't call themselves that back then) weren't even written down as the Torah/Pentateuch until the Babylonian exile [wikipedia.org] (ca. 600BCE), some 700-800 years after the construction of The Tabernacle, and ~450 years after the construction of the first Temple [wikipedia.org] in Jerusalem.
rabbinical Judaism [wikipedia.org] didn't evolve until a thousand years after the destruction of the first temple.
As was the case for most of human history, life back then was generally harsh, brutish and short. As such, it's unsurprising that there would be tales of violence, oppression and cruelty.
Oral histories are long-term games of telephone. Given that the stories in the Torah/Pentateuch weren't written down for 800-1000 years (possibly more) and included stories from Babylonian (the great flood story, thinly disguised portions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, etc.) and other cultures of the ancient fertile crescent, it's not a reliable historical source.
For example, archaeological evidence points to the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah being primarily agrarian, with Jerusalem (even in the time of Solomon) little more than a village, and a backwater in comparison to the cities of the Egyptians, Akkadians, Babylonians, etc.
As such, it's highly unlikely that the ancient jews were as powerful, warlike or special as the Torah/Pentateuch makes them out to be.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 22 2019, @04:46PM (2 children)
In meatspace, no, but the later Abrahamic religions explicitly justify themselves and their horrors and the same from their God on these stories. Nowhere in the Bible or the Koran does Yahweh disavow what was done in, for example, Canaan in Numbers 31. The fish may stink from the head, but the tree rots from the root, and what we have here is a God who brags about cultural destruction, genocide, and sex slavery. Same guy in all three religions. More than anything else, what proves Islam and Christianity are rotten is what they came from. I am surprised, dismayed, and slightly disoriented at how many people are willing to give Judaism a free pass here...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday January 22 2019, @09:14PM (1 child)
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Please help me understand.
Are you agreeing with me that the Abrahamic religions are all demonstrably false belief systems and, as such, don't have much value in today's world?
Are you decrying Judaism, Christianity and Islam as lousy systems of belief and thought? I can get behind that. However, there's a difference between Islam and a muslim, Christianity and a christian or Judaism and a jew.
I don't paint people with such a broad brush. Most folks are reasonably decent, even if they do subscribe to false belief systems.
Yes, there are assholes *everywhere*. They are (relatively speaking) quite small in number and do an outsized amount of damage to societies, cultures and other humans.
While I don't subscribe to demonstrably false belief systems, I don't believe that those who currently do should be judged based on mostly fictional "historical" accounts found in the foundation documents for those systems.
Are you saying we need to punish (with intolerance? Discrimination? Prison? Torture? Up against the wall?) folks who subscribe to demonstrably false belief systems simply because they do so? If so, you are no better than those who call for such action because they don't subscribe to a particular belief system.
Rail against Abrahamic religions as demonstrably false? I'm all over it.
Decry those who would harm others based on those belief systems? I'll help.
Demonize those who harm no one and only wish to live a halfway decent life, just because they hold beliefs different (and abhorrent to you) from yours? That makes you just as intolerant as the Spanish Inquisition, the Puritans, ISIL or the Westboro Baptist Church, and I won't be part of that.
Freedom of thought and expression aren't concepts that only apply to ideas that are comfortable for you.
I'm not saying all this to insult or demean you, Azuma. Quite the contrary. Over the years, I've found you to be, for the most part, someone who is generally decent and wishes to see the world, and the people who live in it, become kinder and more tolerant. Rather, I seek to understand your point of view and engage in discussion.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 23 2019, @07:26AM
Don't worry, I'm not the kind of sick fuck who would torture or kill others over their beliefs...though I *do* think everyone who believes in eternal Hell should spend 30 seconds on fire for the purpose of giving them some perspective on what it is they say they believe :)
That said, I really wish stupid were painful. Like, to the stupid, not to everyone else around them.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @09:54PM (3 children)
And you should not advocate boycotting Israel academically, athletically, or economically, because of their treatment of Palestinians.
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Tuesday January 22 2019, @02:52AM (2 children)
Please understand that this is an honest question, and please don't read anything into it... I'm merely asking out of curiosity, and lack of comprehension of the discussion... perhaps because of my intellectual weakness in following or understanding...
"Why?"
Please elucidate, and simplify for a poor mind...
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @04:11AM
Because you will be labeled as anti-semetic and lose Jewish friends by suggesting that the treatment of Palestians is unfair.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday January 23 2019, @10:32PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_Prevention_of_Damage_to_State_of_Israel_through_Boycott [wikipedia.org]
Application
The first lawsuit filed under the law was in 2018 by Shurat HaDin, an Israeli civil rights group, claiming $13,000 in "emotional damages" on behalf of three Israeli teenagers who had bought tickets for a show that was cancelled after a call to boycott. It was the first time to have been successfully applied, due to the difficulty of proving a direct link between a call to boycott and any actual damage caused by it.[12][13]
In October 2018, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered that the two New Zealand activists pay NIS 45,000 ($12,300) in damages to the plaintiffs' "artistic welfare", and court fees.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Funny) by turgid on Monday January 21 2019, @09:21AM (1 child)
"Fascists go around dressed in black telling people what to do whereas priests..." -- Father Ted.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Kalas on Tuesday January 22 2019, @07:40PM
I can't deny a +1 Funny to anyone who appreciates Father Ted.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Sulla on Monday January 21 2019, @04:56AM (5 children)
Yeah, and civilization broke the back Christianity and will eventually break the back of Judaism. Islam was looking real great and progressive compared to the other two religions "of the book" until the Mongol hoards pushed them to extinction and they moved from being a religion of knowledge and peace to being a religion of incest and war. The problem with Islam is that its reformation is pushing it further into the crazy.
Christians did bad stuff in the past, but they are pretty much tamed now and the ones that are crazy like the Westborough Baptist Church for example, are well hated by literally everyone. The highest level of intolerance we see from the crazy Jehovah Witnesses is ignoring my no solicitation sign and knocking on my door. I am not a huge fan of Mormons but the height of their religious madness was making their own version of the Boyscouts so that they didn't have to have gay troop leaders. I am not a fan of over-religious people as I find them annoying, but they are pretty much de-fanged.
Islam as it currently stands is incompatible with our western enlightenment ideals. Here in the west we like women having the right to work, drive cars, and choose who they want to marry. I'm not a fan of women (or men) being promiscuous, but I also don't think they should be stoned to death for it. I think that a woman being beaten by her husband, father, or boyfriend should have legal protection and a way to get out of the situation. I don't think that women should be guilted into committing suicide for "shaming the family" because someone outside the family caught a glimpse of her bear ankles. I prefer to keep the advances that we have here in the west.
The absolute most extremist Christians and Jews in the US aren't trying to take women's rights away. I heard my grandma a few times say that women's place is in the home and they should not be working, but she didn't think the 19th should be repealed.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @06:49PM (1 child)
>bear ankles.
I'm not sure, but that does look very scary to me.
(Score: 1) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:47AM
They're related to rabbit's feet; considered lucky.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Kalas on Monday January 21 2019, @07:02PM
To be fair, if I saw a woman with bear ankles I might have a problem with it too.
(Score: 3, Touché) by aristarchus on Monday January 21 2019, @07:12PM
Bear angles? Nothing compared to the Hoarding Mongols coming across our room and boarders to rape our gerbils!!
A gentle plea for spelling on SN? Awareness of homophones? Raises the level of panic, fear, and hysteria, just a little.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 21 2019, @10:26PM
Cornered animals are dangerous, and we have a ratshit-insane Dominionist cohort trying to take over the US government. They're already halfway there honestly; just listen to Pompeo, for example.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @07:52AM (1 child)
There is that bit about suffer not a witch to live amongst you. I can see how you'd resent that.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 21 2019, @10:23PM
No, no, no, I *fight* witches. So long as my Soul Gem stays at least somewhat shiny I'm not a witch myself, though you could argue the way these things work makes me a type of lich.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @08:16AM
Christians have a lot of bad shit in their history - but they can't justify it with the New Testament Bible. In fact, it's hard to find justification in the Old Testament. The Jews were ordered to kill every man, woman, and child in Canaan - Christians weren't ordered to kill every man, woman, and child in Indiana, or Arizona, or anywhere else. How many Trails of Tears were the Indians subjected to by the white man? Lots more than just the one we acknowledge.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @12:15AM (1 child)
Please check your history books. And then see if you can repeat your statement with a clear conscience. It is false in all respects.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 22 2019, @02:13AM
That was what we in the business refer to as "sarcasm," you know. I am well aware of what kind of genocides and violence, internal and externalized, Judaism and Christianity have lead to. It was reading about the Inquisition at the ripe old age of 9 that got me to questioning in the first place.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @09:10AM
Is this the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland you're talking about?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @11:45PM
There's a book I recommend that should appeal to any nerd called "The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu".
For centuries there has been a split in Islam between an obscurantist and tyrannical strain and a humanitarian, open, and education-valuing strain. That book describes how the two kept winning and losing in Mali.
Getting back to the subject, Nobel Prize winner Abdus Salam cited his Muslim faith as a motivation for doing research. That's an example of one side, and the riots that greeted him in his native Pakistan were an example of the other.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 22 2019, @12:50AM
Miami Beach is a fun place to study practical Judaism. The whole population wrestles with "how Jewish am I?" Nobody practices 100% strict, not if they're honest with themselves, but there are a lot who come close. Then, the majority are somewhere on the spectrum between: will drive a car on Saturday and will eat Bacon-Cheeseburgers seven days a week. Often they shift at various points in their lives. Knew a "rebel girl" in college who became a born-again Jew somewhere around Junior year, terribly disappointing to me, she was actually interesting to talk to before that happened, afterwards it was all self-examination and explanation of her newfound faith.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Monday January 21 2019, @07:03AM (7 children)
Or is there another reason that eludes philosophers...
"Philosophy" is a silly metric for judging human behavior. Most questions on religion, or any other territorial marking, can be answered by your local primatologist...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday January 21 2019, @07:18AM (1 child)
Oh, my dear fustakrkich, you have no idea! Really! No idea!
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 21 2019, @07:54AM
Please, put the ego down and slowly back away. We don't want anybody to get hurt...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @08:24AM (4 children)
On that, I'll have to side with Ari. There are evils that are recognized by virtually all men and women, regardless of religious beliefs. We can even make an argument that philosophy is the basis of religion. Most of the people of any given religion share the same philosophy, even if they don't recognize that fact. Take the Ten Commandments, and stand them up beside any of the well-known philosophers. They hit each point, even if they don't formalize the Ten Commandments, per se.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by fustakrakich on Monday January 21 2019, @08:44AM (3 children)
There is no "evil". There is no intellectual or rational foundation to it. There are only pathology and psychoses..
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @10:16AM (1 child)
No evil. During the Rape of Nanking, Japanese soldiers played with infants, tossing the infant between themselves, catching him/her on their bayonets. All while their horrified mothers watched, as dozens of other soldiers raped her to death.
But, there is no evil.
Fuck your intellect and rational.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday January 22 2019, @12:13AM
They are pathological, psychotic. I don't even see them as human. You are perfectly free to kill them off. If you want to call it "evil", knock yourself out. Homey don't do that.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday January 21 2019, @12:54PM
If you consider life as a process with some characteristics (to grow in size, number, and adapt), then it is easy for a living entity to define good, good is what permits life to carry on. This depends on the entity ability to perceive the good choice in hindsight, so intention counts as much as effects.
Evil is just a narrower point of view on things. The good man wants good things for everybody, the bad man wants good things for himself, out of ignorance, or out of faulty programming, which itself is just a different strategy. If destruction fits his self hatred, that too can be defined as a good thing. Traditionally evil has been associated with obscurity, for a reason.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday January 21 2019, @03:03PM (4 children)
For Muslims it is child brides and the promise of 70 virgins.
For Mormans it is multiple wives who will be subserviant.
For Christians it is abstaining from any form of sexual expression at all, but if you really just cannot control yourself, then you are permitted to marry one person of the opposite gender, exactly once, and no divorcing ever.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @04:41PM
If you are a shaker, then there isn't any sexual experience at all.
This is largely why there aren't any shakers any more.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday January 23 2019, @10:42PM (2 children)
> you are permitted to marry one person of the opposite gender
no, you can't marry an attack helicopter, it is the opposite sex.
Legally speaking you are forbidden to commit adultery. So the pre-post marital sex is irrelevant. You pick one person, the person picks you, you become a family. You want to have sexual experience with other people, you are harming them and yourself. It is a pretty radical requirement, but it was pretty normal back in the day for a sizable portion of people in many societies. So maybe they were all fearful bigots, or maybe we are biased in the other direction. The problem is that you cannot test both behaviors with one life only.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 24 2019, @04:44PM
In earlier times it was much more of a struggle merely to survive. We don't know how easy we have it. People didn't have time to experiment all that much with different kinds of behavior. To the extent that people did experiment, they might have been labeled pervert or worse.
A lot of the prohibitions are simply because of this: the rest of the tribe didn't want to pay to raise some irresponsible male's illegitimate offspring. Either the product of an affair, premarital intercourse, divorce, rape or other sexual expression outside of marriage.
So the tribe would encourage and do everything to promote stable marriages. Lots of ceremony around it. Lots of community support and encouragement, gifts, etc. Counseling from the older and wiser tribe members.
Two males for example are not producing offspring that provides labor to help with future harvests.
Just some thoughts about how things came to be. The path of least resistance usually explains things.
I remember naively saying I'm not going to be like my parents generation with a house, mortgage, two cars in the garage, kids playing in the yard, etc -- but I became EXACTLY that because it is the path of least resistance. Its just going with the flow. It's the easiest way to fall into.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @07:59AM
Snow!!!! Fucking Snow!!!!! Or, I mean, NOT fucking Snow!!!!! No sex for Snow!!!!! The guy is only a decade away from being a creepy old pervert.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:13PM (85 children)
Once you have decided that there exists a Highest Truth that you can't demonstrate with evidence and such, you have given up your ability to observe, evaluate, and reason. No matter what you observe or are presented with you will evaluate it as subservient to that Highest Truth, even if it's evidence that your Highest Truth is completely and utterly wrong.
The Highest Truth in question does not have to be religious in nature to have that effect. And no, smart people aren't immune to it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by HiThere on Sunday January 20 2019, @11:49PM (43 children)
Your argument is flawed. Just because you assert there exists a "highest truth", for some definition of highest, doesn't imply either that your argument is fallacious or that you're claiming to know what that "highest truth" is. For some definitions of "highest truth" assuming its existence is both reasonable and necessary. When I'm crossing the street one contextually dominant "highest truth" is that fast cars headed in my direction are dangerous.
Similarly, I believe in gods. They don't exactly fit into the normal picture of what a god is, and they aren't singular, but I have direct experience that they exist. I used to equate them to C.G.Jung's archetypes, but I've been rereading Jung, and they don't really match. His metaphors are based more around personal relations, power, and plumbing, where mine are based more around biology and computer programming. The biology is how the "collective unconsciousness" happens to get built about the same way in everyone, and the computer programming is about how our perception of reality is shaped via the underlying structure of the brain (as bio-computer). The gods are those routines that mediate between the structure of the system and consciousness. Think of them as "system library routines" that can assume the mask of a human personality, and can manifest in any sensory system they find appropriate. But that's "a truth for the armchair". When you're dealing with them you need to deal with them as if they were powerful intelligent entities (usually powerful intelligent people). And it's best to avoid dealing with them straight on, as they are known to frequently engage in "demonic possession"...this is an unusual description of several common forms of psychosis.
When I read the classical descriptions of someone encountering a god (such as Moses at the burning bush), they are fairly clearly talking about the same phenomena, so I feel that "gods" is the correct word to use. But it's a long way from the commonplace imagery.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Monday January 21 2019, @12:05AM (3 children)
Instead we get the simplistic fallacies exhibited in TFA. An assumption that the most ludicrous version of theism possible is the only version, beating up the straw man, declaring victory.
Yes, Moses encountered something incredible, something even he didn't really have the vocabulary to describe. So much of 'holy' writing is like that - it doesn't make perfect sense because it's an attempt to record something that was not understood, something for which vocabulary did not exist and had to be improvised.
Generations later, fools read it literally, and not long after that, smart people demonstrate that their literal reading is nonsense.
Well, yes, but it still amounts to beating up a straw man.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Monday January 21 2019, @06:32AM (2 children)
Whoops, responded to wrong post.
Moses (if he existed) had an experience that might be explained by taking an hallucinogen. No further explanation is required.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @10:26AM
"Every complex phenomenon has an explanation that is short, simple and completely wrong!"
Moses is the first literate person in Jewish history. It is not entirely possible that he experimented with the
literary construct of "fiction", or even practised the traditional Jewish didactic concept of parables.
An explanation needs to be more than "possible" it needs to go further than "plausible" - to be true it
needs "proof" - according to Moses beyond the person who proposes the argument, two further
witnesses. In other words, for something to stand, it needs at least three legs - even if it is a hypothesis.
--
Here: have an experi-mint! (They are coated in dark chocolate).
Proof: of course its proof - its "Wray and Nephew 100 proof white rum!"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 22 2019, @12:54AM
This doesn't bother you? Just because it might be explained by consumption of an hallucinogen doesn't even come close to an examination of the story. As far as I'm concerned, the whole story can be explained by Moses walking up the mountain alone, collecting his thoughts, then walking back down with a good story (lie) that had a positive impact on his people for generations into the future - no further explanation required, but the real value isn't in what happened or didn't happen, the real value is in the outcome.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @12:07AM
and:
And there was much rejoicing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday January 21 2019, @12:15AM (32 children)
You missed the part about the Highest Truth being defined as stuff that is above question by any mere observations, evidence, or reasoning.
In the case of your gods, if that's a metaphor that helps you understand the universe, fine. But if someone presents evidence that would lead to the inescapable conclusion that those gods don't exist, what would you do with that information? If the answer is "reject it out of hand without even considering whether it might be right", and cognitive dissonance theory suggests you are very likely to do that, then you are falling into the trap I described. Atheists aren't immune from these effects either: If you believe there's no possible way a god could exist, and you have an obvious miracle occurring right in front of you that defies every known law of science, you're likely to make the same mistake.
None of this is a big problem unless your Highest Truth convinces you to do something that's going to cause a lot of problems for other people. However, when your Highest Truth is telling you to create problems for other people, e.g. by killing them, then yes, you've gone off the deep end and need to be treated as such.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @02:23AM (8 children)
I think you aren't understanding. The "naively perceived" external world is a creation of underlying mental processes. What you see is not what's out there, but something that was evolutionarily useful to use to represent what's out there, and the intermediate layer are the gods. You could think of them as autonomous systems level processes, but they stand between you and whatever is really out there. which you can never perceive. They can also use your own brain software to interact with you as if they were personalities (please note the "as if"). And when they activate in certain ways they can adjust what you perceive to be things that no one else sees. When activated in a controlled way, they can produce "visions" which are clearly internally generated fabrications (as if conscious while dreaming). When they grab control, you can lose contact with the difference between what they are generating and what consensus reality would be. If sufficiently enthused (consider the derivation of that term) you can "inspire" others to see things the same way.
So this is what the gods have always done, and therefore I feel it's the right word to use to describe them.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 21 2019, @05:01AM (7 children)
There's this thing we label "objective reality". It's a simple enough idea: that what we observe is real. We're not being fooled by some hologram or projection or simulation. We don't have to take a blue pill, we're already outside of the Matrix, we always were, and there is no Matrix. As for deeper realities of the supernatural variety, sure, such things could exist, and we'd never be able to detect them. That's an unfalsifiable explanation.
Even if we can't rely on our senses, we have designed an awful lot of instruments that are excellent at measuring and observing all kinds of things. What our instruments perceive agrees with each other. Several different ways of measuring the same thing all produce the same value. We are not stumbling about in foggy confusion.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @04:43PM (5 children)
Sorry. Objective reality is an illusion. I'm not arguing for solipsism, but you cannot know the external reality. There are *LOTS* of experimental proofs of this. Even logical arguments (usually, but not always, relating to sets that contain themselves as members).
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 21 2019, @06:48PM (2 children)
You know the expression: If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, then it is a duck. So it is with reality. Doesn't matter if objective reality is an illusion or is reality, it's all we have to work with.
No one can prove that objective reality is reality, or supernatural illusion over some deeper reality. The idea that we and our instruments are all being fooled by a supernatural illusion is not falsifiable, not testable. Therefore, we provisionally accept that what we observe is reality. If an omnipotent supernatural deity wishes to deceive us, lie to us, keep us ignorant, there's nothing we can ever do to break out, and if we are ever to see reality, we must wait on His pleasure to end the illusion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:03PM (1 child)
What you say may be true for most of your day to day reality, but once you get into quantum mechanics, trust me: its far easier to be religious.
Somewhat anecdotally: it seems most of my biologist colleagues are atheist, the physicists not so much. Should really find some numbers on that...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday January 21 2019, @08:51PM
Too often, religion has been too easy, been a cop-out.
Much religion was obviously invented by ourselves, to serve our own several, divergent purposes. Those people who suffer from existential angst, who are unable to see sufficient wonder and beauty in mere existence and complicated phenomena, can't accept that freedom is good, actually fear and hate having so much freedom that they don't know what to do with themselves, and think all that freedom makes the universe a lawless, anarchic, chaotic, immoral, dangerous place, have very particular demands. They want a regimented sort of universe so badly they'll accept a good, made up story about there being just such a supernatural order. The features of their religions are quite telling. Why are these supernatural homelands and organizations monarchies, rather than democracies, or something even more advanced, whatever that may be?
What was good enough for the Iron Age sure isn't good enough today, now that we know so much more. We know the creation account in Genesis cannot be literally true, know that the Earth is not The Center of All Creation, know that we evolved from ape-like ancestors, know that much disease is caused by microorganisms and not divine displeasure or witchcraft. The Bible literalists who still contest that stuff and the opportunists who push worse things, such as the Prosperity Gospel, are a huge embarrassment to Christianity.
(Score: 1) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:52AM (1 child)
You have just contradicted yourself.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 22 2019, @03:17AM
Sorry, but that's not a contradiction. One of the examples is the "rubber hand" illusion, where people are convinced that a rubber hand is their own.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday January 22 2019, @05:58AM
We have built a lot of instruments, but we're not done. For example, we don't seem to have a reliable dark matter detector (if there is such a thing). It took us quite some time to come up with a neutrino detector.
Our neurons might or might not have a structure prone to quantum coherence and it might or might not affect their behavior (the jury isn't really even empaneled yet).
Our instruments do agree, but we're not always sure what they actually indicate. Sometimes we think we do and then we come to a new and better understanding. It's not as if those readouts are connected to a certain and objective truth.
Even with our instruments, our beliefs color what we read. Consider the Em drive. At first there was controversy over the question of "did the instruments actually measure anything". Finally, we agreed that they did, but what was it? We now have pretty good evidence for a rather mundane explanation, but it's not like we could just look at an objective readout and all agree "yep! that's it!".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by stormreaver on Monday January 21 2019, @03:07AM (19 children)
Atheist scientists absolutely WON'T make the same mistake. Instead of entertaining the ludicrous notion that, "an obvious miracle [is] occurring right in front of [me] that defies every known law of science," the atheist scientist will start collecting evidence that begins describing a new law of science Or perhaps multiple new laws of science. Because an atheist has already examined the notion of divinity, and rightfully concluded that it is a fabrication born of ignorance, there is that much less resistance to the expansion of human knowledge.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday January 21 2019, @05:52AM (15 children)
Assuming the hypothesis a proper miracle happens, the best scientists in this world will do shit.
A miracle, by its very meaning of the word, is not repeatable and defies any natural causation relationship - as such the scientists can't do anything - no chance of repeatability, nor any chance of observation with instruments able to detect the cause, no chance for experimentation. It's worst than magic, at least with magic one can analyze potions or examine amulets or hear incantations or whatevs.
In the end, upon witnessing a miracle and discounting insanity reasons, any scientist worth her/his salt will say: "I can't explain, a freak combination of conditions I don't get, or a statistical fluctuation made it happen once - very much like seeing a broken cup pieces suddenly jumping off the floor, recomposing themselves in a full cup and landing on the table: the laws of physics allow it. And it's a good thing this happens so rarely that we can ignore such events in the everyday life".
And they'd be right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday January 21 2019, @10:41AM
Any sufficiently analysed magic is indistinguishable from science. [girlgeniusonline.com]
TVtropes link here: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic [tvtropes.org]
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Monday January 21 2019, @01:07PM (8 children)
You have just argued that there are no supernatural miracles, which was my whole point: There is either science we understand, or science needing to be understood.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 21 2019, @02:19PM (7 children)
Come on, don't be obtuse. That's a possible explanation, however with a single miraculous occurrence, no scientist will ever be sure it's the only explanation or the correct one.
Science does not deal with one-off happenings, it can't - there must be a pattern of occurrences for science to be able to act.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Monday January 21 2019, @09:54PM (6 children)
For one-off events that are significant, scientists will make note of what they can for future reference. Given the eternally diminishing domain of unexplained phenomena, connections will eventually be made until enough dots are connected to form a hypothesis, which will then lead to a theory.
The one thing I can say with absolute certainty is that those dots will have absolutely no supernatural, godly component to them. It's not being obtuse. It's paying attention to history, and extrapolating logically.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday January 21 2019, @10:31PM (5 children)
Rrrright. Have to admire your optimism in regards to 'the memory of science'.
The recall phase, then giving credence to what was recorded are two things I don't trust will happen at centuries scale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday January 22 2019, @12:44AM (4 children)
I think they're talking about about one-off events witnessed by multiple scientists. If it's really something that strange and only one scientist witnesses it, the most likely explanation is almost certainly that they were hallucinating or that their memory of the event deteriorated afterwards. If they took photos or recorded other data, in the case of the biggest miracles, it's likely more probable that they falsified the evidence themselves and then lost their memories of doing so (or did it during sleep, for example) than anything more exotic being the cause. The world population's big enough that one in a billion coincidences will happen quite a lot over the decades and centuries.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 22 2019, @12:59AM (1 child)
This is terribly un-charitable to the scientists who actually do witness bizarre one-off (aka very low odds) events.
In my life, I have experienced several things - coincidences and strange events - that would seem to require better-than-lottery-winning odds to occur. Unfortunately, none of them involved lottery winning levels of wealth acquisition - though more than one seems to have preserved my health and well-being.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:36AM
I was trying to give just one example of the sort of mundane, yet fairly improbable explanation that can explain something that otherwise seems to be a supernatural miracle. There could be many other explanations, so no offense to the scientists. ;) It's the whole "After eliminating the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable...". I've noticed it also seems to be human nature to dismiss explanations that are seen as dull, negative or distasteful as being less probable than they really are. Most people suck at estimating, let alone understanding, probabilities.
Genuinely glad to hear chance has been working out in your favor.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:49AM (1 child)
One in a billion probability is very high in terms of statistical mechanics/thermodynamics.
The probability of a shattered cup to recompose itself from pieces and jump back from the floor to the table, while is theoretically permitted by the laws of physics, has a probability many 10hundreds lower than the 1/1024.
- 1024 - estimation of the number of atoms in the cup.
- "10hundreds lower" - assume each isolated atom can take 100 values for position and 100 values for impulse , the "configuration space" of each of the atoms in isolation would be 104. However, the atoms aren't isolated, only considering interactions with 2-8 atoms in the neighborhood raises the dimension of the configuration space for all the atoms in the broken cup to a value no human mind is able to grasp.
To put the things in perspective - the age of universe is 4.317 seconds. The atoms in a solid vibrate at 1013 Hz range, so the age of Universe expressed is a paltry 4.330 periods of atom vibration in a solid.
I'm afraid that even if one available microstate would be "explored" at every vibration (see the ergodic hypothesis [wikipedia.org]) you'll need to wait zillions of Universe ages to have a non-negligible probability of seeing "the miracle of the shattered cup recomposing itself from pieces and jumping back on the table".
Even if the entire population of Earth would swear they saw that miracle, the probability of the entire population of Earth being delusional is still higher than the miracle above.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday January 22 2019, @02:10AM
Yes that was more or less my point. When you need an explanation for an apparently supernatural miracle (something that at face value is for, all practical purposes, pretty much impossible), you can start to consider some seriously wacky coincidences to explain it that are still mundane and still manage to be more probable than the suggested supernatural event itself.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @01:41PM (4 children)
To me it is the very existence of science that demonstrates the existence of God. If the universe is simply a result of unguided chance I would not expect a universe that has repeatable structure. Out of all possible outcomes what are the chances of arriving at a universe that results in consistent laws of physics?
To explain this away atheists put their faith in the multiverse. They put their faith in the belief that this is one universe in many others. It's blind faith to be sure but it's the only thing that can possibly save their beliefs. But even so that doesn't explain away the problem. Because if the universe is really a product of randomness and we happen to wind up with a consistent universe for a period of time in a random universe future moments have no bearing on past ones. The chances that future iterations will continue to produce the same consistent laws as previous moments by chance approaches zero as the future progresses. Yet with each passing moment the laws of physics are the same. The consistency of the universe, the existence of science, evidences God. A coherent creator.
The multiverse nonsense is similar to the idea of having one grand computer possessing multiple virtual machines. Each virtual machine is its own universe. To be able to have any of the universes possess consistent laws the 'grand' universe that possess them (the computer itself) must have consistency built in. The computer itself, with all of its universes/virtual machines built in, is still a product of design and not random unguided processes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @03:35PM (1 child)
Anthropic principle still bites you in the ass. It never ceases to amaze me how small and tiny of a god Yahweh is. At one point, there was only room for one planet in the universe created by Yahweh. One star system. Then one galaxy. Now only one universe!
Who is to say that there isn't an unimaginably large number of possible universes, something on the order of a googolplex. Who is to say that many of them are not compatible with technological civilizations or even unicellular life? This one is however.
I refuse to worship a tiny god.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:31PM
"Who is to say that there isn't an unimaginably large number of possible universes"
You can have faith in whatever you want but call it what it is ... faith.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @12:54AM
Because you to not expect something is no argument at all. Since all that follows is based on that, what follows is naught but blather. What you ‘expect’ is not necessarily correct. Given a little observation of how numbers work (just consider fractals alone) your expectation becomes absurd. Numbers form patters. Patterns determine formulae. Formulae become laws. Complex systems form from simple occurrences. A butterfly flaps its wings and.....
Your expectation is rather contrary to the world and the way it works. Arbitrary at best and it has nothing to support it.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 22 2019, @04:51PM
This is all well and good for Deism and similar, but it's no good for any of the specific Earth-born religions we have otherwise. Don't conflate Yahweh with the "Philosophers' God."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @02:23PM
You've determined your conclusion (that there is no God) before you even investigated the matter. That's not a very useful definition of science.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:38PM (1 child)
"the atheist scientist will start collecting evidence that begins describing a new law of science Or perhaps multiple new laws of science"
Out of all possible universes why should I expect one that has any set of laws to begin with? Surely there are far more possible inconsistent universes where the laws of gravity are inconsistent, one moment gravity is strong, the next it's weak, the next it's non-existent, and it's not consistent from one location to another.
To me it's the very existence of a coherent universe with laws that evidences the existence of God.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @12:59AM
Ermmm... The reasons you give to believe in god are precisely the reasons that the idea of god is absurd.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday January 22 2019, @05:01AM
But there can be no such evidence. You're suggesting proof of a negative. There may be proof that some particular belief about those gods is incorrect, but the fundamental higher truth that they exist would be untouched.
The problems don't come in until that higher truth starts to cover things that are properly within the realm of science.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday January 23 2019, @10:49PM (1 child)
>But if someone presents evidence that would lead to the inescapable conclusion that those gods don't exist
as likely as finding the last digit of pi.
How can the product of a process perceive the process? how can a videogame character perceive the pc it is running on? how can a 100% emulated machine know it is emulated. Take a simulation, its creatures become self aware as us, study their world come to the conclusion that it is governed by the rules of the simulation plus some randomness. Where do they find us?
You could find an inescapable proof that nothing else exists besides what there is, and that what there is required no initial energy. Yet you have done it in the context of this world's logic which is modeled after this world. So it is a tautological short circuit instead of a demonstration. The world does not obey laws, laws describe the world.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday January 23 2019, @11:14PM
WAIT A MINUTE
Thesis: Pi is a finite number.
Hypothesis: Pi is 3 followed by an infinite series of decimals randomly distributed.
Now consider the '0' digit.
It has 1/10 or something probability of happening in the series.
Given that there are infinite trials this happens eventually with p=1
Now consider the '00' combination
It has 1/100 or something probability of happening in the series.
Given that there are infinite trials this happens eventually with p=1
Now consider the arbitrarily long '00...0' combination of length n
It has 1/10^n or something probability of happening in the series.
Given that there are infinite trials this happens eventually with p=1
But when a list of digits is followed by '00....0' for any n, it is finite.
(but being an infinitesimal combination, it only happens after infinite digits, it is a rehash of indeterminate forms)
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday January 21 2019, @06:30AM (2 children)
Perhaps Moses came across some magic mushrooms and struggled to explain his hallucinations?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:12AM
Was Moses in Oaxaca?
Do active shrooms grow in the Middle East? [shroomery.org]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @04:48PM
This is certainly not impossible. He was wandering in the desert and would need to eat whatever he could find. But mushrooms are a bit unlikely.
But what you are arguing about is the physical cause of his experience, not the experience itself. It could also have been a psychotic break. I don't think he had been alone long enough to have that be the cause. And, if you want to get physical, that area of the world had numerous oil seeps, which could catch fire and use a bush as a wick. So physically, there are lots of possibilities. And that doesn't explain the mental/psychic/emotional experience.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by ChrisMaple on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:55AM (1 child)
What part of the word "highest" do you not understand?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 22 2019, @03:18AM
Perhaps I don't feel that the same thing counts as "highest" in all contexts. If that doesn't answer your question, then I don't understand it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Gaaark on Monday January 21 2019, @12:02AM (4 children)
Replace Highest Truth with Dark Matter and you have the state of science today.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @01:48PM (3 children)
The difference is that scientists are trying to learn more about Dark Matter and make the black-box of it go away. Compare...
Science: Our theory says there should be a lot more matter in the universe, but we can't find it. So either our theory must be wrong, or there must be more matter out there. Let's call this discrepancy "dark matter," and run lots of test to figure out if our theory is correct, and/or if we can find where this matter is.
Religion: Our theory says that this happened because it is the Will of God. Therefore it is the Will of God and there is no need to investigate further. God works in mysterious ways. Who are you to question Him? Where were you when He built the firmament, and determined the waves, and scheduled the sun?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @04:51PM
Personally, I like Einstein's view.
I feel that science is the best way to read the universe that God wrote.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:07AM
He is right. Dark matter is a religion. It is rather unlikely to exist. All our examinations and studies show that its properties vary so much there would have to be many different types. Yet Quantifed inertia answers the issues that raised dark matter. Yet at the current time if you ask a scientist what causes inertia you will get an answer semantically equivalent to “god did it”.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday January 22 2019, @06:17AM
You have a limited imagination when it comes to religions.
The alternate questions are "Why did God will that? What was his/her objective? By what mechanism was it made to happen? Is there some way we might be able to do that one day? What must we do to learn how to do that?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday January 21 2019, @01:37AM (9 children)
How come?
In extreme, what you are saying amounts to asserting that (among many others):
have given up their ability to "observe, evaluate or reason".
I think you'd need to nuance your assertion to make it true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday January 21 2019, @02:18AM (8 children)
Your quotes argue that a famous scientist was a theist and another famous scientist was a strong agnostic. That does not validate either the conclusion that (a) these 2 scientists were beyond questioning, or (b) God exists. When it comes to the science at least, both have been demonstrated to be partially wrong, which doesn't make them not smart, it just makes them stuck with the data they had doing the best they could to figure out what was going on.
In Newton's case, if anyone had presented him with incontrovertible proof that God didn't exist, he would have almost certainly denied it vigorously. He was a lifelong theist who was mostly interested in alchemy and his job at the Royal Mint and did his physics and math work on the side as part of settling a bet. In Einstein's case, my guess is that he would be more open to it, but very skeptical that the proof was really correct because extraordinary results require extraordinary evidence. Of course, we don't really know for sure because both of them are long-dead and so far no reliable methods of communication with the dead have been discovered.
Even the best scientists can reach the limits of their reasoning and observational powers. The really really great scientists recognize that.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @02:27AM (5 children)
You left out that both were constrained by the society of their day as to what they could get away with saying. I've recently been rereading some of C.G.Jung's work, and it's really interesting watching him justify the Roman Catholic faith while in the midst of presenting arguments that it's really just a useful psychological tool.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @08:38AM (4 children)
And, you seem to have neglected to point out that WE are constrained by the society of our day.
Today, talking about religion anywhere outside of your own church and community will get you ostracized pretty quickly.
Einstein's approach to God and religion is the most rational of all. If I may paraphrase him, "I have no evidence regarding the existence of God, so I offer no explanations." There is every reason to believe that if Einstein knew of a way to get evidence regarding the existence of God, he would have gone for it.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @04:52PM (1 child)
I thought our own constraints were implicitly obvious. If I thought my ideas would attach to me, personally, I'd have been a lot more reluctant to share them. In person I've never shared them with anyone outside of my family and a couple of extremely close friends, that I knew well enough to know that this was safe.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @05:12PM
Good enough. But, for all of those out there who don't recognize today's constraints, it needs to be pointed out. Today, an innocuous remark within hearing of an SJW activist may get you pilloried, or even lynched. Observe that some young woman is beautiful, and she and/or some third party will take that as a mysogenistic assault on the young woman. (note that it is almost always safe to remark on her clothing, but not on her person - weird, huh?)
Those who are part of this new CTRL-Left society have no idea how constrained they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @06:06PM (1 child)
People have mystical experiences. People change their lives after religious conversions in ways they tried and failed to do on their own.
Of _course_ there are alternate explanations but remember that "subjective" is not the same as "wrong". If you have the misfortune to touch a hot object, you will be right to react to the subjective experience of pain and not continue getting burned while you wait for objective evidence from a thermometer.
There's a brain structure for having religious experiences. Why?
Why is belief so common that Sartre observed humans have a "God-shaped hole" in them?
Not proof, but things that require thought.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @08:43PM
I wonder if more intelligent/educated people don't train the mystical out of themselves. As children, we all have awe-inspiring experiences. Some of us are inspired by people, others by mother nature, others by fast cars, others by their religion. I think most of us continue to experience those things through life, but maybe these educated people have stomped that out of themselves, because they can't explain it. Ehhhh - I dunno.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @02:41AM
I thought we were in the "existence of a Higher Truth as a cause of limits on the observation, evaluation and reasoning abilities" context.
Since when "Higher Truth" necessarily equates to God?
Ummm... so, "being stuck with the data available" is another possible cause for limits in "observation, evaluation and reasoning abilities".
Even if you'd be right and the 'belief in a Higher Truth' is a cause of limitation, I wonder which of the two is the most restrictive?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday January 22 2019, @06:29AM
You're sidestepping your own claim. You acknowledge that both "decided that there exists a Highest Truth that you can't demonstrate with evidence and such,". Yet here, you seem to acknowledge that they retained their "ability to observe, evaluate, and reason" in spite of your earlier claim that they could not do so.
Have you changed your mind? If not, please clarify and constrain your original claim appropriately.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday January 21 2019, @01:46AM (20 children)
You mean like the Peano axioms [wikipedia.org]?
Actually, I'm pretty sure you don't mean things like the Peano axioms. They are, nonetheless, statements accepted without "evidence and such" at least in terms of rigorous proof. That's the whole point -- the axiomatization of mathematics we accept today depends on our belief in certain statements accepted without proof. And some of those things (e.g., the Axiom of Choice) result in some weird stuff.
Nonetheless, professional mathematicians don't seem to have given up their "ability to observe, evaluate, and reason."
We can argue about whether axioms or accepted postulates in a formal logical system constitute a "Highest" truth, but they must be accepted as a foundational truth in many parts of human knowledge.
My point is this: it's not sufficient to just complain about the lack of "truths" without "evidence and such." The bigger problem with religion is the "highest" element -- that your assumptions and beliefs are taken completely outside the realm of empirical evidence (or even purely logical rationalistic evidence) to the contrary.
Also, many people who believe in the so-called "Highest Truth" have plenty of "evidence and such." It's often just "evidence" in a form that you wouldn't accept. Many people believe miracles happen every day and ascribe supernatural significance to the mundane. That is "evidence" -- it's just not GOOD evidence according to your empiricist (and probably statistical) mindset.
The fundamental issue is the inability to question your beliefs and assumptions (not the lack of evidence) -- and that's a problem shared by religious zealots and many scientists alike. Lots of history and loads of studies show that scientists often have trouble giving up fundamental beliefs about their field or their research, until there's quite a bit of evidence to overcome their assumptions. That's not a criticism -- it's just a fundamental human bias, a bias that we likely couldn't survive without, since learning isn't really possible unless at some point it cements into accepted "truth" (even if that acceptance is technically provisional).
On the other side of things, as pointed out in TFA, the religious folks who are educated often don't share a lot of the same beliefs as the "masses" -- they create systematic theological systems where their beliefs are rigorously worked out within the constraints of some logical system based on some assumptions. If you've ever had a serious discussion with a systematic theologian, you'd note that they often have a great ability to reason -- they just devote such logical energies to systems with different assumptions compared to the average mathematician.
I'm not at all arguing in favor of religion here. Just noting that it's possible to reason within the constraints of all sorts of wacko systems of belief. And that's why smart people aren't immune to this sort of thing either. But it's also incredibly hard to know when it's important to question one's beliefs. If somebody walked up to me tomorrow and told me that the Law of Reflection in optics doesn't actually work and all my mirrors are based on a lie and I shouldn't trust my car mirrors when I'm driving, I'd be pretty skeptical of the person delivering this message -- even if they were very smart and seemingly had logical arguments. To those who believe in religion, some of their assumptions have the same sort of status as a basic scientific "law."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday January 21 2019, @02:23AM (6 children)
The Peano axioms have been subject to repeated rigorous testing against real-world phenomena: If the axioms were leading to conclusions that didn't match reality, they would have been abandoned a long time ago. You're conflating logical proof (where the conclusions can be demonstrated to be correctly derivable from premises) with empirical proof (that the premises are any good).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday January 21 2019, @04:07AM (3 children)
Ho-hum! Abandoned long time ago, eh?
How about the 5th euclidian axiom, so much trampled into the ground by Minkovski geometries - which, surprise, are necessary for relativity?
Abandoned or correct as matching the reality?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @12:48PM (1 child)
uhm. the problem there was that Euclid never had reason to treat geometry on the sphere other than intersections of 3D objects with 3D sphere. since you can always embed a curved manifold in a higher dimensional Euclidian space, I consider the axiom true, because I like to think of straight lines as being straight lines.
if you like to think in shortest path terms, then please do so and ignore the axiom.
but the fact that there exist Euclidian spaces in which the relativistic space-time can be embedded is objectively true, as is the fact that within that space there is a unique line parallel to a straight line for any point outside the straight line.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 21 2019, @03:32PM
Depends on the differential structure, but true for models we use all the time. Minkowski-metric manifolds (is what we use in general relativity) should be so embeddable into finite dimensional Minkowski spaces (topologically equivalent to Euclidean spaces), but if relativity should happen to allow for pathological differential structures (say non-metric spaces which happen to still have a speed of light or pathological boundary conditions), then you might still end up with infinite dimensional spaces to represent the model.
And of course, there's quantum mechanics. Then you might not have a relativistic space-time at the quantum level to embed in anything.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Wednesday January 23 2019, @11:01PM
Basically if you try to formulate the axioms in other banal conceptual universes they fail so their value is exactly what you say, in some models for this universe they are shown to predict stuff, which is useful.
Religions can have an axiom too, simply formulated as "if our world can generate abstractions, our world can be itself the abstraction (or a similar relation) for something meta we call the supernatural/God and consider aware". They can predict stuff, but you get to verify/disprove it only too late.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday January 21 2019, @04:25AM
I replied to another post below -- but logical proof has to meet empirical proof somewhere if one believes that "applied math" is real and that math has some relevance to how we use it to derive conclusions about the real world.
I'm not conflating them, but rather noting that the kind of abstract system of logical proof is closer to how I think many religious believers treat their assumptions. My very point is that these are quite different from empirically derived data.
As for "testing" of the Peano axioms... I'm really not sure how you can "test" them in a rigorous way. That's why they need to be accepted without proof. And there frankly is a lot of handwaving in real analysis when it comes to establishing "real numbers" (that's ironic, isn't it, given this discussion?) in a formal definition, how such numbers interact, etc. In fact, there is debate about issues coming out of those axioms when it comes to stuff that is impossible to test, like the existence and properties of non-computable numbers for example.
Anyhow, this is getting off-topic. My overall point was simply that there are a lot of assumptions made and used well in mathematical and scientific endeavors. I wasn't actually disagreeing that much with you as much as emphasizing that the problem is the "Highest Truth" categorization, where some assumptions supersede any others and become immune to questioning.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @07:07PM
BULLSHIT.
These axioms cannot be tested without making a circular argument.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @02:34AM (6 children)
The Peano axioms are not accepted as truths by mathematicians, but rather as a framework for constructing proofs that will hold wherever these axioms hold. (Actually, you also need to assume consistency and a rule or two of inference...but formal presentations include that.)
Truths require being embedded in an external world. Math doesn't. Math has proofs, but the proofs (if solid) specify under what conditions they can be asserted, and are always subject to being shown invalid. The closest math gets to "truth" is "Q.E.D.".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday January 21 2019, @04:15AM (1 child)
So I assume you don't believe that there is anything called "applied mathematics" then?
Most people -- including basically all scientists, engineers, etc. -- believe that math actually applies to the real world... somehow. The Peano axioms are one method for building up the basis for a system of math, but they also need to be paired with other assumptions (usually discussed in philosophy of math) about how math then actually might mean something in the real empirical world.
Unless you want to deny that "objective reality" doesn't exist, that science can't measure it with math or understand it with math, etc. Is that what you're saying?
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @04:40PM
To the extent that it's applied, it's not mathematics (to paraphrase Einstein).
When you apply mathematics you're turning it into physics or chemistry or ... well, whatever. Even statistics is not math, though it's even more heavily dependent upon math than is physics.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday January 21 2019, @03:44PM (1 child)
They say, in a nutshell: Zero exists, it is possible to count things, and you can use proof by induction. That's led to a lot of useful conclusions and operations. Ergo, unless you're saying that it isn't possible to count things, then those axioms are accepted as true by mathematicians.
And, as a sibling poster points out, applied math exists.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday January 21 2019, @04:58PM
No. They are excepted as consistent, and useful in appropriate contexts. They are not accepted as true by mathematicians. (Although I'll admit that lots of mathematics teachers seem to think they are true.)
If you embed them in an inconsistent framework you can use them to derive conflicting results. So they aren't true. They're self-consistent. (I.e., if you don't embed them in a larger framework, it is accepted that there can be no inconsistent derivations which do not contain a flaw in the proof.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 21 2019, @06:11PM (1 child)
Well said. Pure math is The Tautology Club. It is beautiful and sophisticated elaborations of "If these premises are true then the conclusions from them are true".
I feel a sense of wonder that it ever applies to the real world.
(Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:48AM
It does not apply in the real world, it is useful in the real world. No two apples are the same but we still count apples.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 21 2019, @07:34AM (1 child)
I shouldn't trust my car mirrors when I'm driving
Well, the warning says right there: "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear". Not only that, the brain has to flip the image produced by its optical inputs.
"Religion"? Just shows how creative we can be.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:58AM
When I first read that, I thought you meant it has to flip the image that it sees in the mirror (it clearly doesn't), but no--you obviously were talking about the image being upside-down on the retina.
The mirror thing reminds me of the crappy riddle asking why mirrors reverse left-to-right and not top-to-bottom. They do reverse top-to-bottom if you imagine the object being viewed was tilted forwards 180 degrees into that position rather than being rotated 180 degrees on the yaw axis. But I digress...
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 21 2019, @08:44AM (3 children)
I've known a lot of people like that. And, God knows, they get under my skin. It's almost like they believe they are surrounded by miraculous events, 24/7 - that they are so very important that God personally chaperones them every moment of their lives.
I see that as childish. We adults must get on with our lives without that omnipotent chaperone watching over us.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @04:26AM (2 children)
Stupid Democrats
Is there another kind?
And, God knows...
Who is God, compared to Kronsteen?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 22 2019, @04:02PM (1 child)
I dunno - there are some less-stupid Democrats. There may even be some not-stupid Democrats. It's even remotely possible that there are some intelligent Democrats. Those would be very rare, indeed. And, as time passes, there will be fewer and fewer of those - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJL0JyVMcD8 [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23 2019, @06:28AM
there are some less-stupid Democrats. There may even be some not-stupid Democrats. It's even remotely possible that there are some intelligent Democrats.
Not amongst the voters. They're either idiots, or they are corrupt. The same can be said for the republicans, but the democrats have to be more deceitful to keep the "liberal" idiots and their money from drifting off.
Clearly the person that moderated me above is a democrat. They cannot look at themselves in the mirror. The iron mask is impenetrable.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 21 2019, @02:50AM (3 children)
Faith is just too easy for academics. There's nothing to it: I have faith - end of story.
Many great scientists, as they get older, get faith - probably in large part because they come to realize that they will never have all the answers, life is too short.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Demena on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:50AM (2 children)
Please justify “Many great.... ....get faith” or accept it as the canard that it is.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 22 2019, @02:23AM (1 child)
Start with Einstein, and do your own research from there.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Demena on Sunday February 17 2019, @12:34PM
I have, and you remain correct. Even in your example.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday January 21 2019, @02:43PM
But only with respect to that Highest Truth, which let us note need not affect anything else by definition (for a common example, assuming the universe has a purpose or "telos" - it's not likely that you'll be able to ever observe lack of telos or that such telos or its absence will affect any science we ever do). It's really a non issue when the Highest Truth doesn't require making assumptions about the universe - that's most scientists' religious beliefs right there.
What isn't is when people decide that "Highest Truth" has immediate application without said "observe, evaluate, and reason" taking place. For example, our resident flat Earther presented [soylentnews.org] the dubious concept of "energeian planes" or "workings of deception" as crudely translated. It's the idea that God builds the world to be deceptive to the unbelievers and the wicked (who somehow would continue to be unswayed to righteousness, if God weren't deceiving them in addition) while the faithful see the world accurately. So apparently, his belief is that even the simplest of scientific beliefs is inherently and deliberately deceptive because a) only the wicked would wish to know more of Earth and the universe, and b) God deliberately deceives even in rather simple cases like the shape of the Earth and whether the Moon is real.
This leads to rather elaborate conspiracy theories like NASA faking the Apollo program while the Freemasons and the US military impose secrecy so strong that even a few hundred thousand people wouldn't dare reveal the truth of the thing. And of course, the flat Earth thing.
So we have here two viewpoints that both believe in a Highest Truth. But one has no material relevance to their ability to do scientific work (and to observe, evaluate, and reason) while the latter belief is that every scrap of science is delusional and huge hoaxes are being perpetrated by an assortment of parties from God on down to gull the scientists and the rest of wicked us into damnation. Sorry, they're not on the same page.
And really what's the point of your pronouncement? If I happen to believe that the universe is a computer simulation or an exact mathematical object (rather than scrupulously hold the goodthink position on everything pertaining to anything that could be part of a Highest Truth), does that mean someone should cut my funding for tree ring research? Even when such beliefs impair one's ability to do science in some areas, they can still do science in other areas where the conflict doesn't exist. We have real world examples. Does Linus Pauling's opinions on eugenics and vitamin C invalidate the DNA model he helped construct? Does Noam Chomsky's out-there political ideas invalidate his study of language systems?
And this all ignores that humanity, even of its scientists, operates on levels that are irrational. Even if we wanted to, we could not achieve perfect reasoning and such. The whole point of the scientific method(s) is to provide a good enough approach, not a perfect approach. Bottom line is we have better things to do with our time than futilely attempt to cleanse our scientists of all woo. They can do the job anyway.