(November 9, 2010 at 11:03 pm)coffeeveritas Wrote: OK, after reading these posts it seems a lot of people here would say that religion makes no sense logically, does nothing beneficial, and is in fact generally harmful. Also I'm getting that you think of atheism as the basic, default stance, and it is supported by science, which explains the universe in much clearer terms.Atheism isn't a stance, but many atheists turn to scientific answers over religious ones and many atheists are atheists because of scientific concepts.
What atheism is is an anti-stance. It's a denial of pre-established notions.
(November 8, 2010 at 6:32 pm)Paul the Human Wrote: I'm not much of a fan of philosophy, either. It all seems like mental gymnastics to me... and I don't care how you word the claim that god exists, or what mental gymnastics you take to get there... none of it makes the claim true, nor does it give me any reason to believe that it is.
(November 9, 2010 at 11:03 pm)coffeeveritas Wrote: Interesting stance, generally science is closely tied to philosophy throughout human history, and they both operate off of logic structures, I would like to know more about how you see this. In any case, The Void certainly seems to like philosophy enough for the both of you!
Lots of good input and even a debate about philosophy, good stuff. Thanks everybody!
Not really. Science has always been based upon empirical evidence and what that evidence can prove more than anything else. Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom. Science is the pursuit of truth.
If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers...
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth centry when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind. ~Clarence Darrow, at the Scopes Monkey Trial, 1925
Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
