Uh oh...I think he might be checking out. Somebody get the paddles in case he has a quote-stroke.

Quote:I say God exist, it shows that I BELIEVE in the existence of God. You say God does not exist and this statement shows you BELIEVE in the non-existence of God. Religion is based on the BELIEF in God and Atheism is based on the BELIEF that there is no God. Both atheism and religion have their own BELIEF systems. You think I am detrimental but have you ever looked inside your own shirt or you are only used to criticise others. Can science prove there is no God and universe came out from nothingness? Or perhaps, science can prove that life appeared on earth in result of a random, unguided, mindless, and blind process which is heavily dependent over luck and chance.
ABSURD.

This has been said countless times before on this forum, but Atheism is not the belief that there is no god, it is the lack of belief in a god. There are some atheists who, on top of not believing in a god, claim no gods exist, but the majority (at least here) do not claim that.

Also, science does not claim everything came from nothing - the Big Bang theory in it's current form says the universe started as a singularity, which is absolutely the opposite of nothing, because it is everything, but condensed infinitesimally.

@Harris: What if I said that I do not believe in the existence of "God" (or any god)? What then?

After reading more responses it is clear that:

You do not know what atheism is.
You do not know what science is.
You do not know what evolution is.

I read your quote, which shows a gross misunderstanding of abiogenesis and evolution, which btw are separate things.

(July 26, 2014 at 11:24 am)Harris Wrote:

(July 10, 2014 at 2:17 am)whateverist Wrote: Re the OP: I take it on faith that what can be repeated in the lab and which has been peer reviewed in science journals is provisionally the best we can do where empirical questions are concerned. So I'm going to go way out on a limb and accept science -including evolution- on faith over what ever any holy book may be interpreted as saying to the contrary. That's just the way I roll.

Many people think that when we have scientific explanation of something we don’t need God. People like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawkins say to the people, “you have got to choose between science and God.” The first thing to clear up here is that they imagined God to be a kind of god of the gaps (I cannot explain it therefore, God did it). Now, if you think of God like that then of course you ask people to choose between God and science because the more God the less science or more science the less God. However, that is not true in the light of the religious definition of God that says God is the creator of the whole show. He is the God of things that we understand and He is the God of things that we don’t understand. So summing up what we have here two kinds of explanation.

1. Explanation in terms of law and the mechanism on the one hand and
2. Explanation in terms of agency on the other hand.

It is absurd to suggest that an explanation in terms of law and mechanism rules out the existence of the agency and yet that is exactly what people are arguing in the case of explanation of the universe.

But I don't claim that an explanation in terms of law and mechanism rules out the agency of a creative god. I am agnostic but also apathetic where such claims are concerned.

I've never been satisfied with any description of a god which I've heard so far. Some claim a god blinked everything into existence from nothing at all. But that is only one aspect of gods and I can't show that no gods exist just by showing that no god was necessary for the universe as we know it today - even if I could (which of course I can't). Likewise, just by pointing out that an explanation in terms of law and mechanism does not rule out gods, you haven't established the necessity of gods.

Now I'm not invested in demonstrating that an adequate account of everything is possible without gods .. anymore than I think it necessary to show that such an account is possible without accounting for unicorns or trolls. I just don't care about those things. They don't prick my imagination as being important or even relevant. But by all means, include any of them that you like in your own musings. As I said originally, that just isn't the way I roll but I have no agenda for the way you should proceed.

(July 26, 2014 at 12:07 pm)Tobie Wrote:

Quote:I say God exist, it shows that I BELIEVE in the existence of God. You say God does not exist and this statement shows you BELIEVE in the non-existence of God. Religion is based on the BELIEF in God and Atheism is based on the BELIEF that there is no God. Both atheism and religion have their own BELIEF systems. You think I am detrimental but have you ever looked inside your own shirt or you are only used to criticise others. Can science prove there is no God and universe came out from nothingness? Or perhaps, science can prove that life appeared on earth in result of a random, unguided, mindless, and blind process which is heavily dependent over luck and chance.
ABSURD.

This has been said countless times before on this forum, but Atheism is not the belief that there is no god, it is the lack of belief in a god. There are some atheists who, on top of not believing in a god, claim no gods exist, but the majority (at least here) do not claim that.

Also, science does not claim everything came from nothing - the Big Bang theory in it's current form says the universe started as a singularity, which is absolutely the opposite of nothing, because it is everything, but condensed infinitesimally.

Maybe this has been said countless times before. However, the thing which no one has thought about is that the new Atheist has redefined the faith. They say faith is purely religious concept that is to believe in something without any evidence for the existence of that thing. However, new atheists are completely blinded to the fact that their whole worldview is in fact a faith and indeed not only that but perhaps even more importantly that science depends on faith. Every scientist believe that the entire universe is intelligible that is we can in part understand it by using our minds that we have to believe before we do science.

Physics is powerless to establish its faith in the reliability of human mind simply because you have to have that faith that the universe is intelligible before you could do any physics at all. So here is the very odd thing the new atheist are railing against faith when they needed to believe their own worldview as well as to do science.

Even discounting your ludicrous and pig-headed adamant insistence that atheism is a faith despite being informed repeatedly by those who identify as atheists that it's not - are you conceding that faith is a weak position to adopt?

(July 26, 2014 at 2:38 pm)Harris Wrote: Physics is powerless to establish its faith in the reliability of human mind simply because you have to have that faith that the universe is intelligible before you could do any physics at all. So here is the very odd thing the new atheist are railing against faith when they needed to believe their own worldview as well as to do science.

There's a difference between "having beliefs" and "having faith". If I believe that the universe can be comprehended it's because there is an overwhelming body of evidence supporting that belief. OTOH, faith is belief in spite of no or insufficient evidence.

(July 26, 2014 at 2:38 pm)Harris Wrote: Every scientist believe that the entire universe is intelligible that is we can in part understand it by using our minds that we have to believe before we do science.

Physics is powerless to establish its faith in the reliability of human mind simply because you have to have that faith that the universe is intelligible before you could do any physics at all. So here is the very odd thing the new atheist are railing against faith when they needed to believe their own worldview as well as to do science.

Ah yes, the standard dishonest equivocation of axioms required in order to function at all- axioms that have a track record of reliability in practice, by the way- with capital F Faith in a god, for which you have no evidence at all, and no record of effectiveness to go with it. Yawn.

Hey, next tell us how we're just atheists because we want to sin!

(July 26, 2014 at 11:29 am)Harris Wrote: Read Quran and compare it with other religious scriptures.

---

Have done just that and the Qur'an holds up to scrutiny no better than any other book of bullshit. And even worse, the level of boredom it generates is only surpassed by the book of Mormon.

I'd love to get my hands on that filthy book for no other reason than to desecrate it. But how to defile it? Burning is too good a fate for such an evil thing.