Scientific Knowledge? If there is no God?

[The Grand Nudger]

You know the old axe about the requirements of evil to prevail? Something along those lines..lol.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

You know the old axe about the requirements of evil to prevail? Something along those lines..lol.

Yeah Edmund Burke,"all that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing" and not funny actually.


From Australian Atheist Federation Forum:

The current activities of the Australian Christian Lobby: Annoyed? ME? I'm fucking livid.

Turns out it is a side project of the Australian Christian Lobby to apply pressure on politicians to push their bigoted agendas. It has surfaced once before on these forums as far as I could see but that was years ago. I was a little concerned at this blatant display of societal disregard.

They have four main projects:

Man + Wife 4 Life
Quote:
The Australian Labor Party will debate watering down its support for marriage at its national conference in December. This is despite an election promise to support marriage between a man and a woman. Should Labor falter, the Greens will almost certainly push for an immediate conscience vote to redefine marriage. We need to act now.
Kids' Rights Count
Quote:
Children deserve a mum and a dad wherever possible, but apparently not in Tasmania, where the Government plans to let two men, two women or a single person order a baby through altruistic surrogacy.
Care Not Killing
Quote:
Euthanasia is again up for debate in our Federal Parliament. Sign the petition today to send a clear message to the Senate that legalising euthanasia is a dangerous path that puts vulnerable lives at risk.
Women Are Worth More
Quote:
The WA Attorney General plans to ban prostitution from residential areas but allow brothels in other locations. This approach has failed elsewhere and women will continue to be ‘legally exploited’ through the sex trade.

The immediate hypocrisies spring to mind (that we cover quite a bit) such as:

Why does the hetero male/female model represent the ideal model for a union of two people and parenting given the high rate of divorce and history of suppressed spousal abuse (even in religious unions) etc?
They talk about women being 'worth more' when their very doctrines preach that women are the subservient and weaker sex.

So what of it?

[The Grand Nudger]

The Australian Christian Lobby looks to be about as fucked up as our own Christian Right.

[Godnoze]

You could assume there's more than the chemistry, or the working bits if you like. I don't. Similarly, the question of why my consciousness is my own and why I cant hop into this or that guys probably has to do with my brain being pretty firmly planted in my own head (just a wild fucking guess). Science may not answer these questions to your satisfaction, but that's hardly the same as not having an answer.

I have no problem with one's consciousness being rooted in one's brain. I am not talking about consciousness, I am talking about subjectivity. Oh, I see, you probably don't distinguish between the two. Consciousness is an objective condition, I mean that I have every confidence that you, Rhythm, are every bit as conscious of your own existence as say QuestingHound08 presumably is of his, and of course (from my POV) as I am of mine. My problem is not THAT fact, of consciousness itself, which is as much as an objective reality as, say, a tree or this keyboard I am typing on or whatever. But it's the subjectivity of these consciousnesses which is what I find difficult to "get". Not the fact that you are locked into your brain, but the fact that you are locked into being you, and having the particular subjective experience that is particular to you. Only, because I am subjective, it is ultimately my own subjectivity that puzzles me most.

No - this isn't working, I can sense that this is not getting over there...

_____________________________________________________________

JEEEEZ-O!

I gotta STOP this!!!!


!

EDIT - a bit of confusion - where I refer to you "having the particular subjective experience that is particular to you" I am not meaning to refer to the experiences of whatever happens during the course of your life (such as for example you having to read this drivel) but to the experience of receiving experiences (whatever they may happen to be). I mean, not say you going along to the shops to buy your stuff, or whatever, and the the stuff you do, but rather the abstract state of subjectivity itself. I recognise that you ARE you, of course, and that I am I, (etc), but not the reason WHY that is so (in every particular case).





Nah!

[The Grand Nudger]

Never dropped acid?

[Rhizomorph13]

Why would I drop acid? I am very careful not to drop it; it costs too much! bah dum bum tshhh

[ThomM]

I'm curious--since our science extrapolates (on a type of human faith) that the world we see is objectively measurable and understandable, and that our minds are equipped to know it not only instinctively, but speculatively...doesn't our entire system of Science kind of presuppose an ordered universe, with something faintly like a person ordering it (since it's intelligible to other persons)?

THere is an assumption here that nature itself could not produce an ordered universe without the need for the intervention of spooks - which you have not supported

However - the more basic question is - as more and more is found out about the universe - it is clearly LESS ordered than you say - read this article
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/sci...09feb99_1/
showing the the universe is far less ordered and far more violent that has been previously claimed

BUT at the more basic level - humans themselves are not born reasoned and responsible for their own actions. SO - they remain innocent until they reach the age of reason and responsibility - which the catholic stupidity puts at age SEVEN. I tend to beleive that a seven year old cannot do something within reason that would deserve the death penalty - but let us go with that.
23 % of the population of the earth today is under 7 years old - it would have been higher in ancient time because people did not live as long as they do today.

It is estimate that at least 5 million people lived on earth at the supposed time of the great flood - so more that a MILLION were children and infants that could not have done something to deserve to be drowned - their deaths in the supposed flood would simply be MURDER - pure and simple. Any first born children in the supposed passover would also be murder.

THAT you choose to bow down and worship and adore the worst mass murderer of innocent children and infants is a reflection on YOU and your own devil worship. Intelligent people reject that for obvious reasons

[Epimethean]

Rhythm, the Presocratics were positing notions on the nature of things in the 7th C before the crazy Jew, and doing some very similar thinking to their Asian counterparts. This only lends credence to your asseveration that the church had nothing whatsoever to do with science until it was forced to reckon with it.

[ThomM]

Rhythm, the Presocratics were positing notions on the nature of things in the 7th C before the crazy Jew, and doing some very similar thinking to their Asian counterparts. This only lends credence to your asseveration that the church had nothing whatsoever to do with science until it was forced to reckon with it.

Actually - it is not science alone that will be the most major obstacle for religion

IT is women - and knowledge of their role

THE major religions all treat women horribly
One must remember that when the major ancient religions were created by humans - women were largely the possession of men.

At that time - before our knowledge of genetics - it was largely thought that procreation did not involve the woman's blood line. THE man provided the "seed" which contained the whole human being - including its own blood supply not shared - and the man PLANTED the seed into the dirt (the woman) to grow in. So - women largely had no rights.

Today - woman who are being repressed in some religions will simply no longer stand or it =- and eventually will go elsewhere - with their children too.

[Diamond-Deist]

To the OP yes you are right, if the universe was pure chaos nothing would be here because the elements and atoms that make up this universe would not be coherent.

Elements are like ingredients and the universes chaos/order design is factory like, e.g if all we had were hydrogen and carbon that would not be enough to develop the universe as we know it.

This fact seems lost on some people, my belief in God goes back way further than any 13.7 Billion year Big Bang theory so the Goddidit approach believers get tarred with does not work with me because I put science on everything even before the Big Bang time frame (which I don't believe in).