/sci/ - Science & Math

As a devout Atheist, this story touched my heart and I'm on my knees repenting to God now and crying because Jesus died for my sins.

>protecting your right to say stupid things and act like an ass.

That's assault charges and a dishonorable discharge right there.

Also his violent response instead of turning the other cheek would make Jesus sad.

>>2208996

Actually I lol'd. Proof that they are insecure enough to fudge an experiment.

Good, good. Let the butthurt flow through them.

pretty sure i'd be just as "safe" as i am now without the wars in korea, vietnam, iraq and afghanistan.

fuck i would rage if i knew any dumbass like that marine. the few people i know who have fought in iraq have given up on god.

I think a better ending to the story would "Marines are God"

>>2208996
>god was really busy protecting america hurr"

So they are saying god is NOT omnipotent? Since he apparently cant mutitask.

Or SINGLE-task. Whats the death toll from the wars so far? And their still rising?

Great job there god.

Sounds blasphemous.

>>2209014
no one has raged in this, which in turn means no one knows who this is. Given that no positive feelings could possibly arise from understanding the gravity of this picture, I guess thats a good thing.

>>2209039

Never understimate human stupidity. On the internets my friend and I met this right-wing, america-loving guy (claimed it had invented democracy, of all things) and he told us how god had saved him in iraq while his comrades died. My friend asked him why god didn't give him the ability to shoot lighting from his palms to save his friends.

The butthurt that followed was terrible, the rage swift.

>>2209051
this. I thought Marines had a god complex

*siiiigggh* shitstorm imminent

marine atheist veteran here. This story is complete malarkey, but it still makes me rage a bit, knowing someone went to the trouble to make this up

We could use more guys like this marine in here so he can stop all the theist v. atheist troll threads.

Why can't theistfags see their intolerable arrogance here? They think god is on their side. Most people who we would be considered our enemies, whether supporter of Iraqi dictatorship or actual terrorist, would certainly think the same.

Religion doesn't always fuck things up but it always will when the conditions are right. This is why we need to fight it.

>>2209098
i gladly would. I remember when /sci/ was first born, before the trolls found her. It was pretty sweet. nothing but interesting threads, even if there were a lot of .999...=1 threads

>>2209141
>I remember when /sci/ was first born, before the trolls found her. It was pretty sweet. nothing but interesting threads
Yeah I remember those first few minutes fondly as well. And then shortly after that the mods had no choice but to sticky a thread saying "NO RELIGION VS ATHEISM THREADS. NO HOMEWORK THREADS."

>>2209141
Those were mostly trolls bro. The first day from what I remember had /b/tards trolling the place head to toe.

>LOL NO THAT DOESNT PROVE GOD EXISTS LOLOLOLOL AOWIEMCOIMCWA SRSLY GUISE

It's funny that some atheistfags are actually taking this seriously. Come on, the professor was an ass so he got punched. The soldier is a total bro. That's the point of the story.

>>2209187

Another fine demonstration of religious morality. You get butthurt, so you are excused to inflict physical violence.

>>2209187
"He's a totally bro dude", could you sound like any bigger of a douche?

College Professor, Atheist, ACLU. Poison to Conservatives. You know that was only posted there to make "real" Americans hate him from the get go.

>>2209193
>>2209196
a.) If you insult a Marine about anything he will probably resort to violence seeing as he is a marine.
b.)This story isn't even real calm down god hating faggots.

>>2208996
Didn't read
The military sucks ass. It is full of the lowest of the lowe in society, nothing but low IQ poor people. LMAO

\thread

>>2209196
Don't exactly understand how it's douche to call someone a bro. Was that phrase commonly used by the circle of kids that bullied you back in high school?

>>2209193
And prime example of Atheist fortitude, to cry and baww if they get hit in the face for being a dickwad.

Just an aside; I read this story before. Only thing it was a Football player.

>>2208996
This is now a military sucks ass THREAD!
THE MILITARY SUCKS ASS!....DURRRR

this is how rich educated republicans convince poor uneducated people to vote republican, god fearing nationalism.

>>2209230
thats only true of the "grunts"

>>2208996
I got a story for you.
I go to a church a couple of months ago, I fucking denounce god in front of the whole congregation. I then proceed to take the mic and question there shitty beliefs.

Follwing my outburst, the amount of church gowers steadly drops week by week. By the end of the first month, the congregation is only 1/5 of the orginal. After the second month, the church is essentially empty. The Church closes the following week!

>>2209295

Holy shit, that takes balls. I salute you, sir!

>>2209295
I love you. Please continue doing this.

>god was busy

>>2209295
I believe you bro.

>>2209230
Just because someone does physical work doesn't mean he's stupid. Abraham Lincoln was famous around the country, especially in Illinois, for being a regular farmer-type guy and doing physical labor, but he was very deep and insightful. Some people want to help their country, that doesn't make them stupid. Also, many people are forced to go into war, whether by draft or by poverty, that doesn't make them stupid.

>>2209304
>>2209312
>believing he actually did that and if he did that he would be actually be allowed back on the premises to check the attendance and implying they just didn't call the police on him as soon as he refused to give the mic back.

>>2209320

No, its the indoctrination that makes them stupid. They don't question things.

>>2209230
>http://www.navy.com/navy/careers/nuclear-energy.html

You sure about that bro?

>>2209328
You can't say that about all people in the military. Obeying someone in one context is not the same thing as a lack of intelligence. If I were drafted into the military, following orders would be the natural thing to do. It would not mean that during or afterward, when I picked up my old life, my ability to mentally rotate objects, to write chemistry lab papers, or to argue about religion would be affected.

>>2209304
Thanks.

I just couldnt take it anymore. It is fucking sick to see people with no critical thinking be blindly lead around. Why would anyone try and take advantage of there fellow man laike that? I finally had to just say somthing and make them think about shit. Religion will eventually die out, once people smarten up.

>>2209328
You can question it all you want, as long as you do as you're told. You can't have an army of people who don't follow orders. Shit just doesn't work that way.

>>2209337
LMAO, that is the shittiest shit I have ever seen, since I took my last shit.

I remember some guy trying to draft me into that shit from highschool. It is fucking retarded. Military tech is always years behind the tech developed at universities or in the private sector. WTF would anyone want to work with second rate shit like that? Nigger please!

>>2209352
The military has the lowest IQ of any fucking carrer path. That is a fucking fact, look it up dumbshit!

Oh look, militant faggot atheists and fucktard fundamentalists are driving a wedge between religion and science that doesn't need to be there, discouraging kids of the faith to pursue a career of science because they fear ridicule, despite the fact that like, half of the AAAS are Christian. Yep lets keep buying into Dawkins's pot stirring bullshit.

>>2209382
I'm sure you'll be working with all kinds of technology at your job as a high school algebra teacher.

>>2209295

>>2209328

Soldiers are indoctrinated to follow orders and the chain of command, but they're also taught self-reliance (ie, the ability to think independently in crisis situations, like combat), and it is the duty of every soldier to refuse to obey illegal orders and to relieve superiors who are unfit for duty, and both of those duties require the ability to think critically.

Not all soldiers are stupid.

>>2209390
FINALLY! someone with common sense. I love the jab at Dawkins as well. 5 bonus points for you sir.

>>2209391

This.

>>2209391
Naw, I work at CERN bro....so you can fuck off.

>>2209295
Wow you're fucking cool. Meanwhile, the rest of us our actually contributing to society.

>>2209416

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>>2209390

Whoa whoa whoa, you guys are all missing the obvious problem with this story. How did the Marine get into college?

>>2209403
>it is the duty of every soldier to refuse to obey illegal orders
Funny how they always get court-martialled for it.
>Not all soldiers are stupid.
.0001% aren't tarded.

>>2209414
I'm Stephen Hawking guys pic with time stamp later.

>>2209428
Yeah, I didn't notice that. OP'S post must be bullshit. Thanks for bringing that to our attention!

No you don't. You are in high school and unlikely to achieve anything significant in your worthless life.

>>2209390
Theists and atheists are retards. Only agnostics have a clue.

>>2209295
>>2208996

I'm going to get jumped for this shit, but what the fuck ever. As an atheistfag, I must say... am I the only one who doesn't believe in an omnipotent, yet refrains from acting like a total asshole in front of christfags? Is it necessary for us to act like a total insecure jerks?

Now, there is defending your beliefs, and then there is displaying levels of autism the like of which the world has never seen. Or at least the like of which the congregation has never seen.

Stop making the rest of us atheistbros look like douches you raging aspie faggots.

>>2209428
>Marine in College
Military needed a poster boy so they bribed his way in.

>>2209420
>disagrees with me
>must be troll
>the ultimate in troll logic

cool story bro

The idea that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible is retarded as fuck, and you're all retarded for perpetuating it. The advancement of science requires just as much "faith," as religion does. The only difference is that science studies things that can THEORETICALLY be objectively proven or disproven, and religion studies things that can't, like morality and metaphysics.

Keep that theoretically in mind, because you all seem to love to forget it. There are plenty of scientists who are just as mindlessly, dogmatically dedicated to certain theories as any religious fundamentalist is. There are plenty of exploitative fucks who use science to extort people for money and power, don't think any church has a monopoly on that. And don't think that science's "worshippers," can't be just as idiotic and mindless in their supplication before science's supposedly "cold and objective" hand as religious people are. Religion is a field of scholarship too, and that means that, just like any scientist, people in religion are supposed to think critically and question current interpretations and views.

The only difference between science and religion are the things they study, and pretending otherwise just proves what a douchebag you are.

>>2209414

No you don't. You are in high school and unlikely to achieve anything significant in your worthless life.

college graduate jarhead stops in and laughs...

I aint even mad

>>2209442
Hey look, its a retard who doesn't realize being agnostic is technically being atheist. If you have no belief in god where or not you say there is no god you are an ATHEIST!

>>2209455
No, Atheism states there is no God. Which can never be proven because thats saying you have the infinite knowledge to say a being with infinite knowledge doesn't exist, i.e its fucking stupid.

>>2209455
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>>2209455
THIS IS THE LEVEL OF AUTISM I WAS TALKING ABOUT, JESUS MOTHERFUCKING CHRIST!!! YOU'RE ONLY HURTING THE LEGITIMACY OF ATHEISTS IN THIS COUNTRY, YOU'RE MOTHERFUCKING CANCER!!!

>>2209469
Keep thinking that. I admit that there could be a god but its pretty fucking unlikely and based on the evidence that is at hand the only logical conclusion is no god. The fact that you give thousands of years old writings equal footing just shows how ignorant you are to religion as a whole. Look at the roots of religion, realize that the modern day religions are mishmashes of previous religions, realize that if the religions that were mashed together are bullshit that the religions that they form are bullshit. It's pretty simple with a small amount of research. On top of that you are being a hypocrite unless of course you give equal footing to every god that has ever been thought up. Thats a lot of gods you know.

>>2209455
Ohh here we go

>>2209438
Name?

>>2209449

>mfw he thinks religion is a reasonable paradigm under which to study metaphysics
>laughingelf.jpg

>>2209449

>>The idea that science and religion are fundamentally incompatible is retarded as fuck, and you're all retarded for perpetuating it.

This is untrue, you haven't thought it through all the way.

Science is built upon empiricism, which affirms the necessity of supporting claims with evidence. Religion is built upon faith, which denies that necessity. They make use of mutually exclusive epistemological models, or claims to knowledge. It's absolutely true that one can believe in the *content* of any given religion while also accepting many (though not all) scientific findings. But it's also possible to commit adultery while married. People do it all the time. It doesn't mean adultery and marriage are compatible.

Any rebuttal you offer should directly address what I wrote above (especially with regards to the contradictory claims to knowledge that science and religion are based on) rather than sweeping it aside as if it was never said so that you can restate your premise. That's the only reaction it tends to get.`

I understand the argument that science and religion are separate pursuits which deal in separate areas of knowledge that don't overlap (the "non-overlapping magisteria" defense") but it falls flat the moment you consider things like souls, which if they exist must interface with our *material* brains. Already there's one violation of that supposed separation that many currently popular religions cannot do without.

As far as I'm concerned this concludes the argument, anything which follows is the expression of deep seated frustration with the unassailable validity of the materialist model. Discuss.

>>2209477
SPEAKING IN CAPS MAKES PEOPLE THINK THAT MY NON POINTS HAVE SOME ACTUAL SUBSTANCE BEHIND THEM!

>>2208996

true story: this never happened

>>2209477

Shut the fuck up, who crowned you king of atheists? You have no fucking authority over the rest of us, dick.

You have your approach, we have ours. We're as embarrassed of you 'uncle tom' atheists as you are of 'uppity atheists'

>>2209504
>mfw someone considers metaphysics a legitimate study.
girls_laughing.gif

>>2209521

Yeah, that's a good point too...

>>2209389
It is your responsibility to bring forth a source, but I spent a couple minutes of my own time to look something up anyway.

The only numbers I could easily were in this secondhand source http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/11/average-iq-of-enlisted-men.html

>Following the latest John Kerry brouhaha, a reader asked what the average IQ of U.S. military personnel is. From table 2.8 of the is Department of Defense document, <span class="math">I estimate that the average for new enlisted men in 1998 was about 105[/spoiler].
>This 105 estimate would be representative of the years 1992 through about 2004
>Converting SAT scores to IQs is a shaky process, but that would suggest about, oh, <span class="math">113 to 121 for the average officer[/spoiler] in the various services back in 1975-1985. (Don't take that as the final word.)
(military psychometrician's calculations)

Perhaps you don't actually fact-check and are relying on a passing comment from whatever you happened to have read, or maybe you just ran the test in your head. Show your source.

IQ is a bad measure of intelligence anyway.

>>2209469
>>2209477
This is cute,
But no youre the one who are infact making fools of yourself.

Definition of ATHEISM

1
archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2
a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity

Atheism has always included rejection of gods to lack of belief or disbelief of gods. Asserting that atheism is always hard atheism is not only arrogant, its demonstrably wrong and ignores the history and origins of the word.

Loli dump because theres no mods on /sci/ and this thread is shit.

>>2209536
Yay someone who isn't a retarded hipster trying to claim agnostic is an actual position.

>>2209536

>he goes to dictionaries for definition
>laughingelf.dll

>>2209536

>>Atheism has always included rejection of gods to lack of belief or disbelief of gods. Asserting that atheism is always hard atheism is not only arrogant, its demonstrably wrong and ignores the history and origins of the word.

Looks like someone doesn't know that the term "agnostic atheist" dates back to 1887. You're using a dictionary (meant as a general guide to language) when you should be using an encyclopedia:

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

>>2209546
Grasping at straws now.
>I don't have anything to refute what he says so I'll laugh and hope people don't notice my argument was owned.

>>2209550
You do realize that just proves the point right? agnostic atheism is still atheism.

>>2209542
it is an actual position. It's just not a position that supposes weather or not god exists, just a position of the possibility of proving it.

>>2209551

>Implying I've ever made an argument in this thread

>>2209551

You can't just *define* your way to victory in an argument. I know that's how you people think because you're used to referencing scripture for answers instead of thinking for yourselves, but if you want to know what someone believes, you don't look up a general definition of the label in a dictionary (for the same reason not all Christians would abide by the dictionary definition, they have the Bible for that) and you sure don't presume to *tell* them what they believe, that's a douchebag move.

Instead you act like a decent civil human being and *ask* them what they believe.

>>2209559
It's a position that by definition is agnostic atheism. My point being that claiming to be agnostic alone to try and part ones self from atheism is not a real position.

>>2209558

It doesn't fall under the dictionary definition because it does not satisfy the criteria therein.

This is a position people have. It has a name. You can't change minds or win arguments by playing with language and trying to shoehorn people into positions they don't actually hold.

>>2209575

In the industry of thinking, we call that a "strawman".

>>2209565
>>2209575
YOU are the ones claiming atheism is something other than what it really means. Atheism has always been both belief in no gods, and lack of belief in gods. agnosticism fits directly into atheism. You may believe it is impossible to know the answer but unless you say you believe in god you are by definition an atheist.

>>2209594

"Agnosticism fits directly into atheism"? What is this non-sense? There is such a thing as a gnostic atheist you know. It's a stupid thing, but it's a thing.

>>2209594
samefag
an agnostic atheist, but still an atheist.

>>2209594

>>YOU are the ones claiming atheism is something other than what it really means.

I didn't say atheism. I said agnostic atheism. Which is what most atheists actually are if you sit them down politely and ask them instead of flailing, foaming at the mouth and screaming dictionary entries at them.

>>2209602
I know I meant to say agnostic atheist, which is still a form an atheism.

couldn't get a good atheism v religion thread going

start an atheist v agnostic debate

>>2209605
wtf are you talking about? I am an agnostic atheist myself. I was getting pissed at people claiming agnosticism was a position in itself and not agnostic atheism. When I say atheist I am saying it in the broad sense including gnostic and agnostic atheism.

>>2209613
this,
/sci/ never change.

>>2209507

>They make use of mutually exclusive epistemological models, or claims to knowledge.

I think you're unrealistically generalizing. While at their cores, Religion is built on faith and Science is built in empiricism, both also have elements of the other. Religion, while primarily concerned with faith, (unless we're talking about complete idiots who make claims like Dinosaurs bones were put there by god to test us), has to accept the fundamental reality around it and incorporate that reality into its faith based teachings. They have to accept the realities of translation conventions and historical context for certain terms ("abomination" comes to mind, as it had a completely different meaning in the time period where the Bible was written than it does today), they have to accept the multiple different versions and gospels and their contradictions, and try to sort those out. Church doctrine has changed a lot in all the major christian sects just in the last few decades based on such interpretation. Empiricism has a place in religion.

Similarly, though I will admit far more weakly, faith has a place in science. As one example, there is the faith that our observations, and the technology we use to make those observations, are accurate. While we can recreate circumstances and observe again and again, finding the same result each time, and call this "empirical proof," we can never be sure it will ALWAYS happen in those circumstance. Everything we have "proven," is only proven until disproven. That's a kind of faith. And How much of our science is based on things that we can neither directly observe nor test with our current technology? We create mathematical formulas to explain what we believe is happening, but we have to take it on faith that they're accurate when we extrapolate new theories from them. Its a complex spiderweb that has plenty of faith strung along with the data and experiments.

>>2209565
>>I don't know how dictionaries work
Dictionaries are founded on popular use dumbass.
using a dictionary is a perfect way to see how most atheists Identify. Not our fault christfags have a huge dogma to get all worked up and divided over. The fact is Atheism is a catch all for those who don't express belief in a god refusal or not, And nothing in the term implies that the specific individual must arrive at the conclusion by any specific means. The history supports it, the dictionary supports it, the atheists support it.

>>2209499
The fact that you really believe that whole bullshit about the copying of other religions to create the modern religions is proof of you not knowing dick. You critiqued religion and came upon that but you didn't look into it further and you would realize that the whole "school of religions" nonsense is complete bullshit that was already disproved and made a come back with that shitty book The Da Vinci Code and Zeitgeist. For example, the Jewish torah was passed down for decades, but its not like the whole chinese secrets thing, because they believed that if they fucked it up they would go to hell, so it wasn't little kids whispering bull shit down a line it s was years of repetitive memory. If you really looked into this shit you would know that the whole Tower of Babel thing is about the Mesopotamians building the first ziggurat, which was a place of worship for them, then you would realize that the Mesopotamians bit off the Judaic religion and inserted their own shit in, hence the relation, to the story of moses and all that. The whole relation of Jesus to the Egyptians God is so fucking vague it cant be taken seriously, and the Mithraists modified their shit to appease all of the converts who wanted to be down with Jesus. Saying that religions seems similar so there is no God is like fundamentalists saying "derp evolushion is like a tornader goin thru a junkyard and makin a 747.".

I'm pretty sure everyone arguing "agnostic vs atheist" actually agrees with eachother.

>>2209620
>>they have to accept reality
No, no they do not, thats what makes faith faith buddy. as much as people like to paint evolution deniers as a minority, the only minority they inhabit are in higher stratas of clergy, the great masses are far more equally divided on the matter. Almost any religion you care to think of holds key tenants that outright reject scientific findings. Christianity and islam are top contenders but spiritism, shamanism, taoism, hinduism, toelt, buddhism, shinto, whatever.

To act like rejecting genesis alone fixes Christianity is a joke. Just as it is fallacious to suggest toetle is grounded in reality when clearly the world has not ended when they stopped sacrificing people for the sun god.

>>2209642
Dude, that bitch is hot. What's her name? Can you get her number for me? Does she take it up the ass?

>>2209620

>>I think you're unrealistically generalizing. While at their cores, Religion is built on faith and Science is built in empiricism, both also have elements of the other.

I've heard this one too. The misidentification of elements of science as "faith" which aren't analogous to faith in the religious sense. A rhetorical bait n' switch. Let's see if I called it....

>>While we can recreate circumstances and observe again and again, finding the same result each time, and call this "empirical proof," we can never be sure it will ALWAYS happen in those circumstance. Everything we have "proven," is only proven until disproven. That's a kind of faith

Yup. A "kind" of faith. But if you play fast and loose with language, words can mean whatever you want them to.

Affirming a high probability that there'll be a sunrise tomorrow based upon our understanding of orbital mechanics and the fact that there has been one daily for the entirety of recorded history is not in any meaningful sense comparable to believing with no evidence whatsoever that ghosts exist in our bodies which are responsible for thought, memory and emotion (things now proven to be neurochemical in nature) or that the universe was created by a deity rather than being autocatalytic, as explained in Hawking's new book.

You also did not address the soul as an example of a violation of non-overlapping magisteria.

>>2209620

Thus, if science and religion aren't mutually exclusive in their claims to knowledge, than any area in their normally separate, non-overlapping areas of knowledge that DOES interact, such as your example of the Soul, can rely on both, each with their own separate analysis. If we could somehow, using science, substantively prove the existence of the soul as a physical object, determine what its made of and the mechanics of its function, the MEANING behind its existence would not be any less in question. An athiest might say that the measurements prove its nothing but a chemical byproduct of the brain, but the theist might argue back that if intelligently constructed the formation of our brain during the evolutionary process, then the soul still has divine meaning.

>>2208996
Wtf IS GOING ON HERE?
we all agreed that religion was bullshit, we all agreed that the military was full of dumbasses.

WTF ARE YOU ARGUING ABOUT?

>>2209647

In the industry of thinking, we call that "equivocation".

>>2209648

>>Thus, if science and religion aren't mutually exclusive in their claims to knowledge, than any area in their normally separate, non-overlapping areas of knowledge that DOES interact, such as your example of the Soul, can rely on both

But they are mutually exclusive in their claims to knowledge. You never actually refuted that. You painted "the sun will rise tomorrow" and "God created the universe and sent Christ to die for our sins" as identically faith-based statements, which is absurd.

>>An athiest might say that the measurements prove its nothing but a chemical byproduct of the brain, but the theist might argue back that if intelligently constructed the formation of our brain during the evolutionary process, then the soul still has divine meaning.

You could use the same reason to deny germ theory, claiming that illness only appears to be caused by microorganisms, but is in fact still caused by unseen malign spirits.

The reason people use that tactic for souls but not disease spirits is because they have a deep emotional investment in the concept of the soul as it means life after death, whereas most have no comparable attachment to the notion of disease spirits.

Also, it's "atheist". You people never get it right.

>>2209670

Using argument ad absurdum to prove your points is not becoming. The fact that you want to compare the kind of faith that says "God created the earth in six days" to "the sun will rise tomorrow based on this theory" does not mean I want to. What about the kind of faith that we have to have in the mathematical equations we use to predict the existance of subatomic particles? We don't know they're there. We can't observe them. We have to observe the reactions of OTHER things completely unrelated to those particles, then write complex equations that say given that observation, and these constants, and these variables, then MAYBE this particle exists, and heres the even more complex equation that explains what reaction we need to see to prove it exists. How is that not analogous to faith? Because if you don't see the reaction you're willing to move on? Well, a lot of scientists aren't, and they'll spend their entire lives refining their theory, trying to prove that particle was there all along. I don't see that being any different from holding onto the belief that there is a supreme being of some sort.

As for the germ theory thing, your point is completely fallacious. You said science says observation proves the sickness is caused by the germs, and religion says its caused by the sickness spirits and the observation is wrong. Thats nothing like what I said about the soul.

What I said about the soul was that given that science could prove its existence, there would then arise a debate about the MEANING of its existence. Science might say its a simple byproduct of our natural biochemistry with no deeper value, and Religion might argue that it is a creation of the divine plan with a meaning far beyond its mechanical explanation. That's nothing like germ theory denial.

>>2209727

You sound like one of those really stupid people that, for some strange reason, think they are smart. But I'm pretty sure you're just retarded.

>>2209727
>He thinks science is in the business of teleology
>laughingelf.tar

>>2209727

>>Using argument ad absurdum to prove your points is not becoming

The fact that I used the word "absurd" does not make it an argumentum ad absurdum. Any way you quantify faith, it takes exponentially less to declare that the sun will rise tomorrow than it does to make the religious declarations I listed.

>>"The fact that you want to compare the kind of faith that says "God created the earth in six days" to "the sun will rise tomorrow based on this theory" does not mean I want to"

I never mentioned young Earth creationism. Moderate Christianity has its own problems with science.

>>How is that not analogous to faith?

Because you listed several good, if incomplete, reasons to suppose it is true. Religious faith, by comparison, is completely baseless.

>>As for the germ theory thing, your point is completely fallacious. You said science says observation proves the sickness is caused by the germs, and religion says its caused by the sickness spirits and the observation is wrong. Thats nothing like what I said about the soul.

No, it was a valid analogy. Just a difficult one for you to work around. Within the analogy, germ theory is the material model of cognition supplied by neurobiology, and the spiritual explanation is analogous to the belief in souls. The contention that souls might be responsible for what we interpret as neurochemical cognitive processes is directly analogous to the contention that disease spirits might be responsible for what we interpret as bacterial or viral infection.

It's one to one. Completely, flawlessly analogous.

>>What I said about the soul was that given that science could prove its existence, there would then arise a debate about the MEANING of its existence. Science might say its a simple byproduct of our natural biochemistry with no deeper value, and Religion might argue that it is a creation of the divine plan with a meaning far beyond its mechanical explanation. That's nothing like germ theory denial.

Except that you could make the exact same argument if disease spirits were discovered.

Expanding on the germ theory analogy, the reason germ theory was initially resisted was because at the time we were just beginning to peer into cells using primitive microscopes and the popular opinion was that the cell, as the basic unit of life, could not be purely natural. This was a real, prevalent view, called "Vitalism". Vitalists held that a supernatural "vital force" animates cells, that biology alone could not account for the mechanisms of life.

Vitalism is to cellular biology as Dualism (soul belief) is to neurobiology. It's the same debate for a new century.

>>2209798
Unrelated to the thread but what do you do for a living Mad Scientist?

>>2209810

Currently nothing, as I'm moving. I worked for Sharp electronics briefly before enrolling, and I'm hoping to work for EA after graduation.

>>2209632
I'm not saying because they sound familiar there is no god, I'm saying because all religion comes from the roots of attempting to explain the unexplainable that we can discount it. Look at what started it all, "If we don't sacrifice this virgin the volcano god will cause the volcano to erupt," "If we don't show our faith the god of water will cause drought or flood." These are the roots of religion. Modern day abrahamic religions come from these very same roots of attempting to explain the unexplained, "why we are here", "where we came from", "what happens after death". this is my point. We look at how every other religion that came before it and know exactly why they are bullshit, why assume that the modern monotheistic religions are any different? Hell many of the historical claims in the bible and other religious text can barely even be substantiated but we are supposed to take it at its word that this is the one and true god? On top of that they go into such detail of exactly what god is and exactly what he can do yet we now say we can't possibly know. So how the fuck are you going to assume people thousands of years ago had anymore to go on?

>>2209648
To talk about meaning implies a designer or creator. I do not believe in a designer or creator (of life), so I cannot talk about any meaning (of life). One might say that it lacks meaning, that it's meaningless.

>>2209727
You are talking about faith. I recognize it as faith, but it's a disservice to call it faith. Also, you don't properly understand it.

Einstein said it best: "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Anyone who is not insane, by that definition, has faith in evidence and inductive reasoning. That's all the faith you need to (inductively) prove that atoms exist, even if we can't see them.

It's all about scientific theory. A scientific theory, aka fact, is a collection of predictions which have a great amount of known evidence in their favor, no known evidence against the predictions, and which are falsifiable. That's it. You don't need any more faith than that.

Protecting America's soldiers you say...
Tell that to the dead ones ; )

>>2209894
You make a clear and correct argument.
HOWEVER!
You are being TROLLED!