Would you be an atheist if science and reason wasn't supportive of atheism?

[Cinjin]

What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Quaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills. I am trained in guerilla warfare and I'm the top sniper in the entire US armed forces. You are nothing to me but just another target. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on this Earth, mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the Internet? Think again, fucker. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of spies across the USA and your IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for the storm, maggot. The storm that wipes out the pathetic little thing you call your life. You're fucking dead, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime, and I can kill you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my bare hands. Not only am I extensively trained in unarmed combat, but I have access to the entire arsenal of the United States Marine Corps and I will use it to its full extent to wipe your miserable ass off the face of the continent, you little shit. If only you could have known what unholy retribution your little “clever” comment was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have held your fucking tongue. But you couldn't, you didn't, and now you're paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit fury all over you and you will drown in it. You're fucking dead, kiddo.

So what exactly is this? You've posted it twice now on these forums. Who originally wrote it and why is it you keep copying and pasting it here??

I'm just curious is all ...

Gilgamesh, it seems rather passive aggressive to me. Even if you do indeed think this is funny enough to continue posting - is it really that funny?

[Annik]

It's an internet thing.

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

How the fuck can it be improbable and certain at the same time you fuckwit?

The two are mutually exclusive. It can't be both. It's like saying the value of a constant is six and fifteen at the same time.

You mean like winning the lottery? They are not mutually exclusive, many improbable events are certainties. The post I'm responding to, for example. Hugely improbable, but simultaneously certain.

So something can have two mutually exclusive properties at the same time?

Ie, you're willing to violate a fundamental tenet of logic?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction

You gotta choose between the logical law of noncontradiction (which says something can't be improbable and certain simultaneously), and your understanding of probability calculus.

I suggest you drop your understanding of probability calculus.

[Ryantology]

Oh so you mean like flipping a coin and it landing heads up 18 billion trillion times in a row? Now that's improbable to an unimaginable degree, but is it impossible? Probably not, given enough time. No matter how long the odds, forever is longer! Mind you I'm not sure if you could say that is is certain that you could flip 18 billion trillion heads in a row if you had unlimited time?

It would have to be, wouldn't it? I'd think that any occurrence which is statistically possible is going to happen if you have forever.

Think of it this way: you are just as likely to get the same result (18 billion trillion heads) as you are any other possible combination of results. Getting exactly half heads and half tails would be exactly as difficult as getting all heads.

So yeah, 18 billion trillion consecutive heads results is certain given enough time. I would not want to be the poor bastard assigned to the task, though.

...999,998, 999,999, 1,000,000, 1,000,001, 1,000,002...

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

Both of Dawkins ideas are bullshit.

They all boil down to "who designed the designer".

Which leads to an infinite regress and thus fails.

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You need to graduate from Dawkins are read smarter atheists. Nobody takes him seriously in universities anymore.

And I should just take your word for it why?

BTW, invisible unicorns who are also omnipotent and can create the universe? So you're a theist now?

Nope. Don't actually believe it. Also didn't say they were omnipotent or could create the universe, just that they are undetectable and they make it rain. It is their magic that lets water evaporate. Prove otherwise. Or is this one of those 'so unlikely we shouldn't even consider it' things? (yeah, it is, even though a flying invisible magical unicorn is less extraordinary than a god)

I'm not sure that video proves what you think it does. Sagan nowhere says that an infinite regress is possible. In fact, we know that an actual infinite regress is impossible thanks to Hilbert's Hotel.




In other words, the position is that infinities are only possible as ideas, or mathematical constructs. Actual infinities cannot exist because they entail logical contradictions.

About Dawkins, don't take my word for it. Take Quentin Smith's word for it. Or Michael Ruse. Two eminently intelligent, respectable and deep thinkers who think Dawkins' arguments are insufficient to grapple with the most fundamental objections. Take the reviews of Dawkins' own books that point out the intellectual failures in his arguments.

About your unicorn, I suppose I have to ask if we have any reason to believe your claims. We have no metaphysical or logical reasons compelling us to do so.

On the other hand, there are plenty of compelling reasons to consider the idea of a transcendent mind, and therefore, a deistic position.

[The Grand Nudger]

So something can have two mutually exclusive properties at the same time?

At the same time in conversation, yep. At the same time with reference to the event, nope. You clearly haven't been paying attention (even to yourself) We might reference an a priori understanding of the odds of any given event alongside the certainty of that event as we know that it occurred. You know, before...and after.

Ie, you're willing to violate a fundamental tenet of logic?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction

You gotta choose between the logical law of noncontradiction (which says something can't be improbable and certain simultaneously), and your understanding of probability calculus.

I suggest you drop your understanding of probability calculus.

I have to make no such choice.

Are you ever going to calculate the probability of your last post? Let me help you. Before the fact....the exact post, at that exact time, in those exact words, from you exactly as you are (invoke a stream of variables following this too long to even list).....highly improbable. But here we sit, staring at the certainty of your last post, regardless. 1:1. That's the probability of an event that is known to have occurred. I'll keep saying it until it sinks in. It's not some sort of computational arcana, it's not even advanced math, it's some pretty fundamental shit Vinny.

[Vincenzo Vinny G.]

So something can have two mutually exclusive properties at the same time?

At the same time in conversation, yep. At the same time with reference to the event, nope. You clearly haven't been paying attention (even to yourself) We might reference an a priori understanding of the odds of any given event alongside the certainty of that event as we know that it occurred. You know, before...and after.

Ie, you're willing to violate a fundamental tenet of logic?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction

You gotta choose between the logical law of noncontradiction (which says something can't be improbable and certain simultaneously), and your understanding of probability calculus.

I suggest you drop your understanding of probability calculus.

I have to make no such choice.

Are you ever going to calculate the probability of your last post?

What in the world are you talking about? In conversation? What does the conversation have to do with the event?

The probability of getting heads on a coin flip is 1/2 or 50%. If you get a heads, the probability doesn't become 100% for heads. One of the probable outcomes merely becomes actualized.

If you flip the coin again, you have a 50% chance of getting tails.

This crazy theory of yours that events in the past are subject to probabilistic certainty simply because they occurred isn't reflected in any science or math concept I've ever seen. If it has, cite your sources.

Until then, the improbability of the universe stands.

You added something to your post though:

Before the fact....the exact post, at that exact time, in those exact words, from you exactly as you are (invoke a stream of variables following this too long to even list).....highly improbable. But here we sit, staring at the certainty of your last post, regardless. 1:1. That's the probability of an event that is known to have occurred. I'll keep saying it until it sinks in. It's not some sort of computational arcana, it's not even advanced math, it's some pretty fundamental shit Vinny.

Haha. This is hilarious.

So if I flip a coin and it lands on it's edge it's not an improbable event?

Listen to what you are saying. If you wake up tomorrow and you find you have three arms, that's not an improbable event?

Your theory is imaginary nonsense.

If an improbable event occurred, it is still an improbable event. This is the stuff criminal investigations are grounded it.

Nobody looks at a suspect who fits an eyewitness description, whos shoes match the footprints, who possesses a bloody weapon AND whose fingerprints are found at the crime scene and thinks "This isn't unusual or improbable at all. He can't be a suspect."

[The Grand Nudger]

A probability of 100%, 1, 1/1, 1:1 is a statement of certainty. If you are certain that an event occurred, the probability of it having occurred, is 100%.

Can this be any more simple?

At some point, this is the statement you will have to address. Not your poor analogies, not your own nuttery smuggled in and credited to another. It's either that or shit and run, your call.

[Kirbmarc]

In other words, the position is that infinities are only possible as ideas, or mathematical constructs. Actual infinities cannot exist because they entail logical contradictions.

Exactly. This includes allegedly eternal (i.e. infinite in time) beings. An eternal god entails numerous contradictions.

Take the reviews of Dawkins' own books that point out the intellectual failures in his arguments.

The review cites Thomas Aquinas' arguments, which have been thoroughly discredited since the times of Immanuel Kant. Nowadays those arguments should never be taken seriously by any self-respecting intellectual.

It's a really superficial, boring review that does not properly assess the main point of Dawkins' book, the fact that we have absolutely no evidence of an intelligent, personal god, and therefore atheism is the default position.

I'm not a Dawkins fan (he spends too much time talking about religious morals and making fun of laughable fundamentalists when he should have concentrated on the countless contradictions that are entailed by traditional attributes of the theistic gods), but most of his critics are either intellectually dishonest or actually did not understand the main theme of his book.

[pocaracas]

Can some of you probabilities experts tell me how it was that someone calculated the probability of a physical constant being what it is?
As far as I see it, these constants are real numbers.... if it was to sprout up randomly, it could take any one of the #R values (number of values in the real numbers set), or infinity. The odds of arriving at just one of them, would be 1/infinity, which is something very close to zero.... so close, it's indistinguishable from zero.
So, how could anyone calculate a non-zero probability for all the physical constants?

@Rythm & Vinnie
While Rythm is advocating the bayesian a priori probability concept "Given A, what are the odds of A? pff, 100% of course!", vinnie seems to be assuming the lack of such knowledge, which would be the reality when no Universe exists "What are the odds of A, given nothing? Some guy came up with this very small number."
You're arguing for two different things and at each other's hair for the other's lack of common ground.... -.-' while being both right...


Just a note on infinity. The number pi has an infinite "random" sequence of numerical symbols. It is possible to convert these numerals into musical notes and find, in pi, all the music that has ever been made by humans... provided it's music with up to 10 different notes. If you represent each note by 2 numerals, you could find all musics with up to 100 different notes. It's infinite. At some point, you'll find anything there. The trouble is how long would we humans take to find it?