What is faith? Really?

[mistermack]

Right. They believe it based upon trust, that of their parents or priests, or whatever. That's fine. It's having faith in the community and the priest. There's nothing irrational about this. Likewise, I put that trust into my mechanic, doctor and teacher. Likewise, children are taught to accept secularism, multiculturalism, feminism, and so on. How many adults can put on defenses for these ideologies? Not many. Does that make them indoctrinated? I suppose, in a sense. Is their position irrational? I will let you answer that.

You seem to have a strange and unworldly notion of trust. I might trust a mechanic with my car (if I was forced to) but I wouldn't trust him with a £10,000 loan.
I might trust my mother with my children, but I wouldn't trust her with a secret. ( I found that out the hard way ).
I might trust one priest with the parish finances, but wouldn't trust him with my eight-year-old nephew.
I might trust another priest with money, nephews, secrets, loads of things. But why should I trust that he is right about there being a god? My brain is as good as his, and lovely guy though he is, he's never said anything that is remotely convincing.

I trust Albert Einstein to know far more than I ever can about physics, and to have a far better brain than mine, to understand all that knowledge.
But I still don't trust that everything he said or wrote was RIGHT. It was just the best out there at the time.

What you seem to suggest, is that it's logical to trust that the good people get it right. That's bollocks. Being good doesn't help at all. Especially when, by your logic, that good person got their faith from trusting a previous good person. And that good person...................... ad infinitum.

In the end, it only takes ONE con-man, to con a good person, and the trusting people down the line all end up conned, by well-meaning people. Especially when it's a story they WANT to be true. (which is how all good con-men work).

[Seth]

The constitution was presumably voted on by someone. And if people "simply didn't bother questioning" the ban, then they implicitly must have found the ban to be acceptable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constituti ... ng_process

De Valera personally supervised the writing of the Constitution. It was drafted initially by John Hearne, legal adviser to the Department of External Affairs (now called the Department of Foreign Affairs). It was translated into Irish over a number of drafts by a group headed by Micheál Ó Gríobhtha (assisted by Risteárd Ó Foghludha), who worked in the Irish Department of Education. De Valera served as his own External Affairs Minister, hence the use of the Department's Legal Advisor, with whom he had previously worked closely, as opposed to the Attorney General or someone from the Department of the President of the Executive Council. He also received significant input from John Charles McQuaid, the Archbishop of Dublin, on religious, educational, family and social welfare issues.

A draft of the constitution was presented personally to the Vatican for review and comment on two occasions by the Department Head at External Relations, Joseph P. Walsh. Prior to its tabling in Dáil Éireann and presentation to the Irish electorate in a plebiscite, Vatican Secretary of State Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, said about the final amended draft "We do not approve, neither do we disapprove; We shall maintain silence."[4] The quid pro quo for this indulgence of the Catholic Church's interests in Ireland was the degree of respectability which it conferred on De Valera's formerly denounced republican faction and its reputation as the 'semi-constitutional' political wing of the 'irregular' anti-treaty forces.

It was drafted by politicians in colaboration with the Church.
So no. It wasn't democratically elected by the people.

Doesn't matter how it was drafted,how was it enacted? Was there a popular vote to enact it or was it enacted by decree? Didn't I see the words "presentation to the Irish electorate in a plebiscite" in there somewhere?

[Seth]

Well, the argument would be, I suspect, that divorce makes a mockery of the institution of marriage and the important social goals of marriage, which include stability of the family unit, support and proper parenting for the children, and the social stability that results from the aforesaid policies.

I'm not at all sure they were wrong in those assessments, based on the American experience with "no fault divorce" and the like that has resulted in serious negative social consequences as generations of children raised in broken homes and often without adequate fatherly influence perpetuate the crumbling of a stable society.

So in that respect, everybody gets fucked by allowing divorce, and the easier it is to divorce, the worse everyone gets fucked as society as a whole has to take up the burden of supporting single mothers and their children, a duty which naturally accrues to BOTH parents in a stable no-divorce family.

People still get seperated even when there is no divorce. Not allowing divorece doesn't mean that people stay together and play happy family.

Indeed, but in a separation the legal duties of each partner towards the other, and towards the children, remain in force and are enforceable.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

Are you sure? If so, please cite the critically robust scientific evidence that God does not exist and is not capable of controlling time, space and matter.

Typical theist illogic. Someone making an extraordinary claim has to prove it, not those who are not convinced that the claim is illusory.

Sez who? You? The Gods of Science? The National Science Foundation? Fuck them, they have no authority to lay the burden of proof of anything.

Says everyone who understands what the scientific method is and what science can and can't prove. Science can't prove in a near infinite universe that something 100% doesn't exist. It can only provide evidence and explanations for physical phenomena. So you are asking Jim to do something that science isn't even supposed to do.

Well, that is rather the entirely of the point, isn't it?

Once again showing you know virtually nothing about science.

Actually, you have proven that science knows virtually nothing about God. Which means it ought to either say that or shut the fuck up about it so as not to trumpet its ignorance as loudly as you trumpet yours.

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

"I've never seen a subatomic particle, so the most logical position to take is that they don't exist" Really?

You have just shown your utter ignorance of the scientific method. Vast amounts of quantitative measurements from a huge variety of experiments have supported the standard model of sub-atomic particles. The evidence is quite compelling, and no-one other than a complete ignoramus would make such a statement.

That was not the case in 1579 however. By your argument it was logical to presume that they didn't exist. That's wrong. It was ILLOGICAL to presume that they didn't exist. Presuming something does not exist merely because someone is ignorant of the facts is illogical. A proper scientist of 1579, faced with a proposition that subatomic particles exist would say "I don't know whether they exist or not, but I cannot say they don't, how about we do some experiments to see if we can discover the truth."

But not only have I not seen god with my own eyes, but there has been no data or objective evidence presented to support his existence. Rather an important difference...

Not really. You're just stating the fallacy of an argument from ignorance.

No atheist needs to prove the non-existence of Thor, or Zeus, or Vishnu, or any of the hundreds of putative deities that have festered in the fevered imagination of mankind since the first tall tale was told around a hominid campfire...

Correct, they don't need to prove anything...unless they make a claim about a thing...and then according to their own Atheist Rationalist religious dogma they have imposed a burden of proof upon themselves by making that claim.

We make only the claim that there is no evidence which supports their existence, and invite believers to show that we are wrong. They never, ever have...

Bullshit. Atheists commonly make the absolute statement that God does not exist. Moreover, when you say "there is no evidence" you are lying, or you're being deliberately ignorant, because there is evidence. Thousands of years of evidence. Hundreds of thousands or billions of individual observations of evidence over the centuries. Carefully documented evidence. It's just that you don't believe any of the evidence because it doesn't meet your standards of scientific proof. But that of course means nothing because your standards of proof are dependent on your level of scientific knowledge, and we all know that scientific knowledge is incomplete. Therefore you cannot with any scientific certainty whatsoever say that the evidence that exists pointing towards the existence of God is scientifically insufficient because our contemporary scientific understanding is paltry and faulty and incomplete.

Therefore, the best you can say scientifically is "I don't know whether God exists or not."

Show me clear evidence that a supernatural entity is controlling space and time, and defying the laws of physics. You can't do it, nobody ever has...

Which doesn't mean that an entity capable of performing those acts does not exist and is not entirely "natural" and you're just an ignorant hairless ape.

Of course, but why should I bother about a putative possible deity when nothing suggests they exists other than the emotive rantings of many, utterly conflicting theist models?

In other words, you're not a scientist. I thought so.

So, in the absence of evidence, the theist resorts to the private fantasy of faith.

The key word in that sentence is "private."

Here, I quite agree. Private religious faith will hear no criticism from me. However, the moment their ranting starts to demand equal billing as a model of the universe, I shall say "put up or shut up"

[/quote]

It's up to you to put up or shut up by examining the evidence that exists and showing with scientific rigor that the evidence that exists does not lead to the conclusion that God exists, because until you do the God hypothesis is just exactly as scientifically valid as the Big Bang hypothesis or the Brane Universe hypothesis or any of the other cosmological constructs currently accepted as valid science despite paltry to non-existent evidence supporting them.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

because there is evidence. Thousands of years of evidence. Hundreds of thousands or billions of individual observations of evidence over the centuries. Carefully documented evidence.

A bald statement that means absolutely nothing. The evidence is, and always has been, totally subjective.

[pErvinalia]

Seth wrote:

Are you sure? If so, please cite the critically robust scientific evidence that God does not exist and is not capable of controlling time, space and matter.

Typical theist illogic. Someone making an extraordinary claim has to prove it, not those who are not convinced that the claim is illusory.

Sez who? You? The Gods of Science? The National Science Foundation? Fuck them, they have no authority to lay the burden of proof of anything.

Says everyone who understands what the scientific method is and what science can and can't prove. Science can't prove in a near infinite universe that something 100% doesn't exist. It can only provide evidence and explanations for physical phenomena. So you are asking Jim to do something that science isn't even supposed to do.

Well, that is rather the entirely of the point, isn't it?

Once again showing you know virtually nothing about science.

Actually, you have proven that science knows virtually nothing about God. Which means it ought to either say that or shut the fuck up about it so as not to trumpet its ignorance as loudly as you trumpet yours.

Science isn't an entity. It can't talk.

Science is used to explain physical phenomena. Evidence is is either physical or logical in nature. Faith isn't evidence. You are making a nonsensical argument.

[pErvinalia]

It's up to you to put up or shut up by examining the evidence that exists and showing with scientific rigor that the evidence that exists does not lead to the conclusion that God exists, because until you do the God hypothesis is just exactly as scientifically valid as the Big Bang hypothesis or the Brane Universe hypothesis or any of the other cosmological constructs currently accepted as valid science despite paltry to non-existent evidence supporting them.

What about the floating invisible teapot hypothesis? What about the FSM hypothesis? You surely can't believe this shit you are peddling??

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

because there is evidence. Thousands of years of evidence. Hundreds of thousands or billions of individual observations of evidence over the centuries. Carefully documented evidence.

A bald statement that means absolutely nothing. The evidence is, and always has been, totally subjective.

Prove it. Your claim, your burden of proof.

[Seth]

Science isn't an entity. It can't talk.

Back to pettifoggery in lieu of rational debate I see.

Science is used to explain physical phenomena.

Yup

Evidence is is either physical or logical in nature.

No, evidence is something that tends to point towards the truth or existence of something.

Faith isn't evidence.

Nobody said it was, thus...strawman argument.

You are making a nonsensical argument.

No, I'm making a very logical argument that you are unable to rebut successfully.

[JimC]

Seth wrote:

because there is evidence. Thousands of years of evidence. Hundreds of thousands or billions of individual observations of evidence over the centuries. Carefully documented evidence.

A bald statement that means absolutely nothing. The evidence is, and always has been, totally subjective.

Prove it. Your claim, your burden of proof.

No. Their claim, their burden of evidence.

[pErvinalia]

Science isn't an entity. It can't talk.

Back to pettifoggery in lieu of rational debate I see.

Science is used to explain physical phenomena.

Yup

Evidence is is either physical or logical in nature.

No, evidence is something that tends to point towards the truth or existence of something.

Faith isn't evidence.

Nobody said it was, thus...strawman argument.

You are making a nonsensical argument.

No, I'm making a very logical argument that you are unable to rebut successfully.

To be honest, I'm not sure what you are arguing any more. You seem to be saying that stories inside someone's head passed down from parent to child are evidence of God. You are using evidence in such a loose way as to make it totally meaningless. Evidence is used to determine the likely truth of something. Hence it has to be accessible to others and repeatable and ideally controllable (i.e. scientific) to have any value whatsoever. Sure, individuals might believe that particular thoughts in their head that they were indoctrinated into as a child are evidence of God. Good for them. Why should I give a shit about that? I only start giving a shit about religion when it starts being imposed on other people. In that case, it can and should be dismissed as myth while ever reasonable evidential support is lacking. I don't know how any rational person can argue against this idea. Hence why I have no idea what you are actually arguing for. Unless you are irrational...

[pErvinalia]

Seth wrote:

because there is evidence. Thousands of years of evidence. Hundreds of thousands or billions of individual observations of evidence over the centuries. Carefully documented evidence.

A bald statement that means absolutely nothing. The evidence is, and always has been, totally subjective.

Prove it. Your claim, your burden of proof.

No. Their claim, their burden of evidence.

He doesn't seem to understand the concept of 'burden of proof'. Doesn't appear to understand logical reasoning and science. Strange fellow to find on a rationalist forum.

[Svartalf]

Seth wrote:

because there is evidence. Thousands of years of evidence. Hundreds of thousands or billions of individual observations of evidence over the centuries. Carefully documented evidence.

A bald statement that means absolutely nothing. The evidence is, and always has been, totally subjective.

Evidence of what? of the fact that any deity that might exist is the greatest douchecanoe in creation?

[Seth]

Seth wrote:

because there is evidence. Thousands of years of evidence. Hundreds of thousands or billions of individual observations of evidence over the centuries. Carefully documented evidence.

A bald statement that means absolutely nothing. The evidence is, and always has been, totally subjective.

Prove it. Your claim, your burden of proof.

No. Their claim, their burden of evidence.

Nope, your claim, your burden.

If you say "the evidence for the Big Bang theory is, and always has been, totally subjective" it is YOU who is making a claim of a statement of fact, and therefore the burden is on you to prove your claim.