Atheists hope (don't pray) to bring ads to Toronto (G&M)

[urbanboom]

"....has also generated its share of hate mail, including two death threats and several warnings that the group is hell bound."

I think you missed that part of the article.

My bad, been a long week...

Once again...

"I like your Christ, but not your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
- Mahatma Gandhi

 

[urbanboom]

They're probably not even religious extremists. Just people obsessed with god and religion.

I think that's the definition of religious extremists.

 

[lordmandeep]

You do understand that it is not the purpose of science to prove or disprove your belief in the existence of god or higher powers? In order for anything to happen like you wish for, you would first have to provide some evidence of the nature of that higher power. It's location would be a start.

In my opinion, to have no evidence and to say a higher power exists is loony and I agree

The source is however Curiosity of the unknown or of the unexplainable (at this current moment ).

Really the question really goes down to is what was before the big bang. That is the only mysterious thing right now (apart from the Afterlife). There is no solid evidence in any direction, so as of this current moment there is no harm in saying there was NOTHING BEFORE! Or saying There is some force at work here!!!!

I believe the world was created like the Big Bang theory suggests. However I then think about what was before and of this moment I am leaning towards the supernatural. Why, because it interesting however I will change my view when Science discovers a more logical answer.

You need to chill out, and stop going after those have are not hardcore atheists like you. I have slowly getting convinced, however some key questions are left and until then...

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

I see this as a simple message of solidarity. It's not about "converting" devote Christians, Muslims or Buddhists to become athiests; it's about letting those of us who already know in our hearts that we do not believe in God feel like we can openly admit it. I know many who are non-religious feel somehow ashamed of it, or that they must hide it for fear of offending others: a ridiculous situation in the year 2009, in my opinion.

i think this is also the message behind dawkins' "out campaign " and even such movements as the brights movement. don't be ashamed & you don't dwell in darkness.

 

[lordmandeep]

It could also be imo that many people are still on a fence?

Undecided?

 

[Hydrogen]

Yeah, okay, but why fight fire with fire? The majority of Christians are not biblical literalists. If he wants to slug it out with fundamentalists by digging obscure quotes out of a book whose authoral origins are in dispute, he can be my guest, but the whole thing smacks of OCD.

Perhaps there isn't a divide between believers and non-believers as there is between moderates and radicals; the difference being that a moderate knows when to let go.

One problem is that moderates can unintentionally serve as a refuge for fundamentalists by legitimizing much of the ground they stand on. Religion has never had a particular strong claim to self-correction. That is why there is such an easy and simplistic resorting to statements that god did this or god did that, and finishing at that point as if it were some sort of obvious self-explaining conclusion. It is one reason why many religious people can't understand science; they view the tentative attitude towards knowledge as a weakness, and try to exploit it as such.

Remember, what we are talking about is a public discourse. If an individual is religious, believes in god and does so as a private and personal matter, then that's what it is and where it ends. It's a private affair. But when religions, religious beliefs, beliefs in god or claims about what god thinks become part of the civil discourse in an open society, then there is a right to ask questions about the presumed superiority of this position - particularly when such ideas are resorted to in order to shape or direct the trajectory of our society and civilization.

In that regard, I think its about time that both the belief systems and the proponents of religions state their claims in a manner that can be examined, debated and tested, and that such debate and testing be allowed take place without recourse to some special, unassailable status for religions. If science is to be open to scrutiny - particularly when examining the validity of knowledge - then religion must be put to the same tests.

 

[urbanboom]

i think this is also the message behind dawkins' "out campaign " and even such movements as the brights movement. don't be ashamed & you don't dwell in darkness.

The same could be said to Agnostics or non-practicing people who still claim affiliation to a Church, Mosque etc...

They can "come out". Don't be ashamed for being religious & you don't dwell in darkness.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

One problem is that moderates can unintentionally serve as a refuge for fundamentalists by legitimizing much of the ground they stand on. Religion has never had a particular strong claim to self-correction. That is why there is such an easy and simplistic resorting to statements that god did this or god did that, and finishing at that point as if it were some sort of obvious self-explaining conclusion. It is one reason why many religious people can't understand science; they view the tentative attitude towards knowledge as a weakness, and try to exploit it as such.

Remember, what we are talking about is a public discourse. If an individual is religious, believes in god and does so as a private and personal matter, then that's what it is and where it ends. It's a private affair. But when religions, religious beliefs, beliefs in god or claims about what god thinks become part of the civil discourse in an open society, then there is a right to ask questions about the presumed superiority of this position - particularly when such ideas are resorted to in order to shape or direct the trajectory of our society and civilization.

In that regard, I think its about time that both the belief systems and the proponents of religions state their claims in a manner that can be examined, debated and tested, and that such debate and testing be allowed take place without recourse to some special, unassailable status for religions. If science is to be open to scrutiny - particularly when examining the validity of knowledge - then religion must be put to the same tests.

thank you.

The same could be said to Agnostics or non-practicing people who still claim affiliation to a Church, Mosque etc...

They can "come out". Don't be ashamed for being religious & you don't dwell in darkness.

ashamed of what??? religion is injected almost anywhere you can look in our society. you guys have parades, the national anthem, funding for a religious school system, holidays, chapels in hospitals, etc. where is this shame religious people have in our society?

 

[Hydrogen]

In my opinion, to have no evidence and to say a higher power exists is loony and I agree

The source is however Curiosity of the unknown or of the unexplainable (at this current moment ).

Really the question really goes down to is what was before the big bang. That is the only mysterious thing right now (apart from the Afterlife). There is no solid evidence in any direction, so as of this current moment there is no harm in saying there was NOTHING BEFORE! Or saying There is some force at work here!!!!

I believe the world was created like the Big Bang theory suggests. However I then think about what was before and of this moment I am leaning towards the supernatural. Why, because it interesting however I will change my view when Science discovers a more logical answer.

You need to chill out, and stop going after those have are not hardcore atheists like you. I have slowly getting convinced, however some key questions are left and until then...

I'll start with you last part first. I am quite chilled. You are confusing an argument for anger and I think it's because the argument that I am making here is something you fundamentally don't agree with - based on your desire to resort to the supernatural for things that you don't understand.

The problem with resorting to such supernatural beliefs is that you don't have to offer up anything to support such a view. To say something is "supernatural" holds no explanatory power. It is actually devoid of meaning. You suggest as much by saying that you will change your view when science discovers something. I have to wonder if your stance is not based more on an unconscious discomfort of the unknown more than an actual belief in anything supernatural.

I will agree with you that curiosity is a fascinating and driving force for many people. And there is much to be curious about.

You mentioned the big bang and what existed before. Would you be surprised that there are some interesting science-based speculations that are not supernatural? Based on some existing (but very tentative) ideas, there exists a possibility that the universe is essentially endless (no start, no finish), that the big bang that made the universe we inhabit is just one within a continuous and on-going process that is constantly creating other universes. These ideas are at the extreme frontiers of science, but they do not resort to claims of the supernatural.

As for other areas at the frontier of science, how about the mind? What is consciousness? That remains one of the major questions open to research. You might find speculation about afterlife interesting, how about the very crux of this life? We are all conscious, but we are not sure what that consciousness actually is or how it is formed.

As I have stated earlier, saying that one does not know is not a weakness; it is merely a statement of fact and possibly an avenue for exploration in order to know. Should humanity go on for another millions years, I think it's doubtful that it will ever gather up everything there is to know about the universe (that really big, seemingly endless great outdoors going off in all directions).

There is still so much to learn and understand, and that is exciting.

 

[urbanboom]

ashamed of what??? religion is injected almost anywhere you can look in our society. you guys have parades, the national anthem, funding for a religious school system, holidays, chapels in hospitals, etc. where is this shame religious people have in our society?

This forum, just off of the top of my head. Me and transportfan seem to be the only religious people here, and we've been called just on this thread:
-fundies
-hypocrites
-dofus
-liars
-weird
-arrogant
-no grasp on reality
-without free-thought

not to mention that we've been labeled with all sorts of stereotypes.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

lordmandeep, you should give this article a read:



The Perimeter of Ignorance

A boundary where scientists face a choice: invoke a deity or continue the quest for knowledge

by Neil deGrasse Tyson

From Natural History Magazine, November 2005


http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/read/articles/nathist/perimeterofignorance

 

[Hydrogen]

Good find Prometheus. A fun and informative read.

So the universe wants to kill us all. But let's ignore that complication for the moment.

And what comedian designer configured the region between our legs—an entertainment complex built around a sewage system?

The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms.

Those lines cracked me up.

 

[Hipster Duck]

In that regard, I think its about time that both the belief systems and the proponents of religions state their claims in a manner that can be examined, debated and tested, and that such debate and testing be allowed take place without recourse to some special, unassailable status for religions. If science is to be open to scrutiny - particularly when examining the validity of knowledge - then religion must be put to the same tests.

Agreed, but these texts exist. Judeo Christian beliefs have been put to scrutiny quite extensively. To use an example cited earlier in this thread, Soren Kierkegaard examines the authenticity of faith in the story of Abraham and Isaac and comes to the conclusion that what separates Abraham from murder is his duty to God; that to believe in faith is irrational and that faith is founded in absurdity. Faith, for Kierkegaard, is an expression beyond the limits of what can be considered thought and cannot be observed or measured from any systematic point of view.

We can put science to the same testing and see that it, too, comes off the rails: how is intelligence a measurable property of brain matter? What is the intrinsic value of a sunset? And how would scientific discovery, which is itself value-laden and in search of measurable phenomena in a world where a lot may escape detection, be an appropriate means to determine the existence of gods?

Like Kierkegaard, we must put belief to the test rather than test the believer. I'm certain that the Bible is not God's word verbatim, and almost all but the most fervent fundamentalists would have to concede that interpreting the bible literally is silly. Some people I know who believe in a divine Creator would go so far as to say that the Bible and other sacred texts hang around their necks like a millstone. Therefore, quoting the Bible and finding odious passages like Prometheus is doing doesn't get to the heart of the matter, it's just pointing out the very obvious flaws of the human thought process - specifically of those humans who happened to live in the Fertile Crescent during antiquity and had probably not ventured more than 50 miles from the hut or mud-walled house where they were born.

My final word on the matter: the belief in God that I could reconcile with would be the same as that of Isaac Newton. If He exists (and I guess we'll never know, through science or otherwise), then he was just a perfect being who created a perfect universe to run and then left it at that. I believe in a deterministic universe and to address the question posed by Archibald MacLeish in J.B., I think that the world we live in represents a Panglossian ideal.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

hipster, one of the understandings i came to while i was a liberal christian/catholic was that the god i worshiped was not the same god of the bible. it still may have been monotheism but it wasn't the same god of the bible. this the point i'm trying to get across to moderates such as urbanboom when i show scripture. the god i believed in was not the god of the bible. the more liberal my views got, the less and less they resembled christianity, till finally i was a deist. after that, it didn't take long to abandon my deist view.

alot of times you will hear that jews, christians, muslims, worship the same god. IMO, i don't think this is the case. each religion is a monotheism but each religion describes god differently or have their own view of what god wants. it's like saying that you are friends with a british person and i'm friends with a british person so we must both be friends with the same british person. i know each monotheism is built on the foundation of the previous one but that's like saying that building A is the same as building B simply because they share a basement (linked together through path, lets say) and some of the building materials are similar. so while they are both still buildings, they are two separate structures.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

Good find Prometheus. A fun and informative read.

the most important part is the ending IMO...

I don't want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before.