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August 16, 2014 at 11:01 am (This post was last modified: August 16, 2014 at 11:02 am by Tonus.)
Maybe a UD is what you use when you want to get pregnant?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
It might be better to explain how equivocation works. When a word, such as faith, has multiple senses, it is important not to switch senses during the conversation because it can be misleading or cause inadvertent confusion: A balloon that contains enough hydrogen to float is light, therefore it cannot be dark.
Faith has multiple senses: religious faith through 'spiritual apprehension' and confident trust in something. It's inherently confusing to use the word in both senses in a discussion regarding religion, such as citing 'the need to have faith in God' in one post, and bringing up 'the faith it takes to believe your car will take you to your destination' in another. Better to stick to using the word 'faith' in the religious sense, and use 'belief' or 'trust' or 'confidence' regarding nondivine matters.
In ordinary use, when someone says 'faith healing' they don't mean 'placebo effect', they mean healing achieved by divine intervention, the faith involved being faith in God, not 'being misinformed that faith in God is effective in healing and therefore providing conditions conducive to the placebo effect'.
(August 14, 2014 at 2:38 pm)Esquilax Wrote: But that's the equivocation you're making, as "faith" in the faith healing sense of the word, is not at all similar to the very reasonable expectation, based on evidence, that things doctors give you are meant to cure you.
What you're doing is the same thing theists do when they say "well, atheists have faith too!"
In response to both you and Mister Agenda.
I'm not making any equivocations, I made it clear (on plenty of occasions) I wasn't talking about "faith" in the religious sense on the word.
Faith and Belief are one and the same.
I'm sure you realize that the Bible is translated into English from Hebrew and Greek.
In Hebrew the word for faith is trust, so "faithful servant" in the KJV, is translated from "trustworthy servant" in Hebrew. Likewise in the New Testament, the Greek word for "Belief" (πίστις) is translated into "faith" in the KJV.
Atheists can have faith. None of you can say that you know for absolute certain that there is no God, you make the choice to "believe" there is no God.
(August 16, 2014 at 11:42 am)Huggy74 Wrote: Atheists can have faith. None of you can say that you know for absolute certain that there is no God, you make the choice to "believe" there is no God.
You are an idiot. Firstly, because no one chooses their beliefs. You are either convinced of something or not. You cannot force yourself to believe in something. Secondly, very few atheists believe that there is no god. The majority of atheists, and as far as I know, every atheist on this thread is an agnostic atheist. We don't believe that there is no god, we simply don't believe your claim that there is one.
'The more I learn about people the more I like my dog'- Mark Twain
'You can have all the faith you want in spirits, and the afterlife, and heaven and hell, but when it comes to this world, don't be an idiot. Cause you can tell me you put your faith in God to put you through the day, but when it comes time to cross the road, I know you look both ways.' - Dr House
“Young earth creationism is essentially the position that all of modern science, 90% of living scientists and 98% of living biologists, all major university biology departments, every major science journal, the American Academy of Sciences, and every major science organization in the world, are all wrong regarding the origins and development of life….but one particular tribe of uneducated, bronze aged, goat herders got it exactly right.” - Chuck Easttom
"If my good friend Doctor Gasparri speaks badly of my mother, he can expect to get punched.....You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. There is a limit." - Pope Francis on freedom of speech
August 16, 2014 at 12:57 pm (This post was last modified: August 16, 2014 at 1:07 pm by robvalue.)
If you believe 100% that you can't possibly be wrong about your religion, then that goes to show that religion is the enemy of learning and understanding. If you have all the answers you have no motivation to look further.
Statistically speaking, if you were born in another country, you would most likely just believe 100% in the local religion instead.
Consider this: if everyone in the world was an atheist including you, and then one day you came across whatever holy book on some obscure library shelf, would you suddenly proclaim it to be 100% true and that everyone else should believe it as well? Somehow I doubt it.
And if religion is 100% true and all that, why does no one actually live by what the books say (in civilized countries)? Why would a god let us make our own crappy laws and ignore most of his? Those seemingly insane zealots who do horrible things in the name of religion may be despicable, but at least they are really acting on what they believe.
I admit to only knowing the bible in any depth, but I have no doubts that Christians do not live according to the morals of the bible under any stretch of the imagination.
This is not aimed at anyone in particular, nor meant to upset anyone, that is never my intent. I only wish to present arguments and encourage people to think clearly.
Feel free to send me a private message.
Please visit my website here! It's got lots of information about atheism/theism and support for new atheists.
(August 16, 2014 at 11:42 am)Huggy74 Wrote: I'm not making any equivocations, I made it clear (on plenty of occasions) I wasn't talking about "faith" in the religious sense on the word.
Fine. Then you were misapplying it in reference to faith healing, not the placebo effect. Simply reversing the intended meaning doesn't make the problem go away, it just means you're misusing terms in a different manner.
The faith in faith healing is very different from the belief present in the placebo effect, because only the latter has any form of verifiable evidence behind it.
Quote:Faith and Belief are one and the same.
Whatever, I'm not going to quibble over word usage because that's not the issue here. The issue is that you're pretending not to see an appreciable difference between capital F faith based on nothing at all, and colloquial "faith" based on reasonable expectations of scientific accuracy which is itself based on repeated, observable successes.
Quote:I'm sure you realize that the Bible is translated into English from Hebrew and Greek.
In Hebrew the word for faith is trust, so "faithful servant" in the KJV, is translated from "trustworthy servant" in Hebrew. Likewise in the New Testament, the Greek word for "Belief" (πίστις) is translated into "faith" in the KJV.
It was probably easier to have that lowercase sense of faith in the divine in the context of those accounts, where within the narrative universe of the old and new testament these magic claims actually did have some evidence for them. Such things are not present today, nor are they verifiable in the past, and so to use the words in the same sense now means you're using them inappropriately.
Quote:Atheists can have faith. None of you can say that you know for absolute certain that there is no God, you make the choice to "believe" there is no God.
I don't think you know very much about what atheists believe, here. Most of us are simply withholding judgment pending actual evidence about god. Having nothing to say is not the same as saying the opposite of what you guys are saying.
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee
Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!
August 17, 2014 at 12:42 am (This post was last modified: August 17, 2014 at 12:42 am by Whateverist.)
(August 16, 2014 at 11:42 am)Huggy74 Wrote: Atheists can have faith. None of you can say that you know for absolute certain that there is no God, you make the choice to "believe" there is no God.
You're right regarding the lack of certainty. Do you share this highly esteemed intellectual quality? Always nice to meet another agnostic even if your response in the face of that uncertainty is to believe in at least one god while I do not. I respect agnostic theists quite a bit.
But I haven't made the choice you think I have. The question has simply never risen to a level of importance or urgency sufficient to deserve a response. There are plenty enough other questions to answer each day more deserving than that one. But if you hear of any first class evidence you think will change that, send it through. You never know.
(August 21, 2014 at 5:11 am)ronwilliams Wrote: I am agree with you that God is exist but there is not any proof that is depend upon you, you accept this or not.
Fucking hell, are you just rolling your face along the keyboard, here?
"YOU take the hard look in the mirror. You are everything that is wrong with this world. The only thing important to you, is you." - ronedee
Want to see more of my writing? Check out my (safe for work!) site, Unprotected Sects!