CP3S

FOUR MOUR DAYZ!!!!1

And I got my 360 back!!! Wooo!!!

SIX MORE DAYS!!!

Starting to get very desperate to get my Xbox back.

Phew, this thread has been lively lately! Took me a while to dig this up.

darth_ender said:

Well, I do find that the NIV actually seems to drive home a different point, that being that prophets did not privately interpret the revelation as it proceeded from God, while the others seem to emphasize that the readers of scripture are not to privately interpret the revelations of God as they've come through the prophet.  The NIV seems to preclude my theory that prophets' revelations aren't word-for-word dictations while the others seem to allow for it.

Hmm, I still feel all translations are explicitly claiming that the words written were from God himself and not from men.wikipedia link to, is no such thing. It merely explains the process I am about to explain. 

Even if it wasn't just via visions, there were still only a very small handful of men who are claimed to have ever seen them.

If you were determined enough, you could go see the Dead Sea scrolls (they toured their way through America a few years ago), or any other set of fragments you wanted for yourself.

There isn't even one shred of tangible evidence that the source material for any of the Mormon scriptures ever existed. All evidence points to The Book of Mormon being authored by Joseph Smith (though it could have been someone else), and its original language to have been English.

Ooh, this could be a fun discussion.  If we do proceed down this road, I will definitely move my responses to the Mormon thread.  But for now, I will offer you this outdated article:

http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Wordprint_studies

Wordprint is an extremely questionable method. It is far from conclusive, and really determines nothing. 

Usually, translated works by different authors but the same translator are shown to be of the same author by the wordprint method, but not always. The inconsistency there goes along way in telling us that, ultimately, this study on the Mormon books really tells us nothing.

We even have the "Book of Abraham" (that's the one, right?) written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, that has no correlation whatsoever to what Smith claims to have translated from that same piece of papyri. This is the point where you start talking about the necessity of faith, which would be an obvious requirement.

Yes, this would be worth discussion as well.  Perhaps I will address in the Mormon thread.

We actually discussed it a bit last time.

I still feel that the Book of Abraham and the revelation that it is nothing of the sort, should have been the end of Mormonism.

To his credit as well, he spent relatively little time working on the Book of Mormon, approximately two months of actual reading with transcribers.

That is hardly unreasonable. With people to do the transcription work, this would be very doable.

The variations of the Septuagint and Vulgate are not inconsequential, as they were based on different Hebrew source material than we have before us.  If they were modern translations, it would make little difference.  But they are ancient translations, taken from a less standardized source, and thus offering their own unique perspective.  It's obvious you are knowledgeable on this topic, more than I, but I am at least aware that they are translations of a source different from the Masoretic, making the textual differences valuable for scholars.  The Dead Sea Scrolls link I provided above demonstrates such to be true for at least the LXX, and the Vulgate would still contain some similar value.

I didn't mean to claim that they were not inconsequential at all, they are very useful tools. But through the very nature of translation, they are undeniably altered from the get go. Also ancient translation focused more on ensuring meaning was intact, rather than focusing on a literal representation of the document being translated.

The LXX is the one I am most familiar with, since it was Greek that I studied. Many of the variations are found in poetry, a few extended books, and the addition of several books. The Apocrypha, which many Christians use and consider canonical, contain these extra books and the "deleted scenes" from other books.

Aw man, I think we just witnessed the death of a meme.

And Duracell, seriously! Stop watching horror movies, you clearly don't like them! You have no right to watch whatever you want to.

DuracellEnergizer said:

 

CP3S said:

When you say you hate atheism, you are essentially saying that you hate disbelief in gods.

Essentially, I am saying I hate the very concept that God(s) do not exist. If there is a defining term for the concept - rather than the adherence to the concept itself - I'd like to know what it is if it'll make my position clearer.

 

This is such a vague, and rather odd comment.

If I get this right, you are admitting that you do not believe God exists, but you completely resent the term "atheist" and refuse to be called one, because you hate them (but not all of them, because you are cool with your atheist peers here). Seemingly you hate them, because you hate the concept that God doesn't exist. Is that to say, you really want God to be real, but you don't think he is, so you are really pissed at him for it?

Maybe I am way off, I'd like to hear more.

Mrebo said:

I second ender's response.

Science doesn't need to prove or disprove anything at all. Doesn't need to prove whether romantic love is anything more than hormones and electrical impulses with the general purpose of motivating reproduction so that monkey men may continue for as long as they are able.  Similarly need it prove that love of children exists is a evolutionary development to motivate us to care for them until they too procreate. Whether one wants to accept that's all love is because that's all that science can tell you is another matter.

Only, it can demonstrate those things, and it can do it quite well.

Actually, human mating behaviors is one of the things that has always led me to doubt God to some degree. We can look at mating patterns and behaviors, what women find attractive, what men find attractive, what kind of responses our bodies have to this, chemical releases, etc. All of it fights against monogamy. Why would God program us so contrary to the way he wants us to be.

Whether one "believes" or "knows" love to be more than that (or not) is obviously up to each person, but I can't imagine holding such a stilted view of life. Maybe if I had no concept of love beyond what the scientific method can tell me I'd also put that particular concept on the plane of mermaids and unicorns. Not to say atheists take such a stilted view of love, but belief in God is similar in terms of "knowing" without scientific proof.

Love is an emotion you can see and feel. It can be oppressive, it can be painful, it can be sweet, it can be blissful, it can be overwhelming. We've all experienced it, and we have all seen the crazy things people will do for someone they love. There is no reason to deny it. Anymore than there would be reason to deny depression, sadness, anger, joy, etc. More than just feeling, the body changes while experiencing these things. They are in a way tangible and measurable. The concept of God is not.

Also, love is actually quite selfish. No matter how you try to look at it, deep down, it is "I want you to only mate with me", I want you all to myself, it is the well being of your own children over those of others. Ultimately, the things we do for love, are things we do for ourselves. If you buy your wife flowers, is it because you love her and you want her to feel special? Of course, but it is also because you want to be the one making her feel special, and a demonstration of your value as a mate.

I want to emphasize how much I agree with ender. I like you, Leo, Bingo, Frink, et al. since it can be hard to discuss such topics without coming across as strident. I find it an interesting discussion but it unfortunately comes down to somebody being less than a good guy. Like I told Warbs, I try not to discuss religion. At least one side sees no valid argument to even have and people only end up being disgruntled.

What do you mean by, "it unfortunately comes down to somebody being less than a good guy"?

Warbler said:

CP3S said:

It's Friday night! Go out and do something! If I didn't have to be at work bright and early, I'd be out and about. Philadelphia has got to have some great stuff going on Friday nights. And Italy, so many hot women! Wish I were there now. Either of those places.

Carpe diem, y'all!

all that takes money.  

$5 dollars, buy a beer, sip it slow, make some friends.

I've gone whole days without eating so I would have money to do exactly that.

Leonardo said:

Who cares about women, I just wanna hang out with my friends and they're away most of the time.

Make new friends? With hot women?

Exactly, good sir. Surely, life is easier for the gay man. Less estrogen to deal with.

Of course, you've shared your past tales of woe, so I'm sure we are all just doomed the same.

It's Friday night! Go out and do something! If I didn't have to be at work bright and early, I'd be out and about. Philadelphia has got to have some great stuff going on Friday nights. And Italy, so many hot women! Wish I were there now. Either of those places.

Carpe diem, y'all!

Bingowings said:

I have friends with 360s and Wiis who will eventually want to upgrade.

So if I eventually do want to move into generation 7 I would have to find some other source for PS3 games and who wants to trust a sony owned cloud?

As for the fragility of the 7th gens. My 360, as far as I know (been having trouble getting it back from a girl*), still works. It is from 2008. It is a jasper unit, one of the last models before the slim design came out, those models are suppose to have a very low failure rate.

My PS3 slim died eleven months after the date of purchase (brand new). Almost missed the warranty on that one. I barely used it during those eleven months. Months would pass by without me ever turning it on, and I think I have yet to beat a single game on it. While on the phone trying to work out getting it fixed, the guy kept trying to sell me a warranty, saying it was very likely the refurbished model they are going to send me as a replacement could very likely fail within another eleven months and that paying $99 for a 3 year guarantee would be prudent. I told him if they are really that fragile and it dies again in less than a year, my 360 and I will just have to go on without it.

*She has my tea kettle and my pajama pants too. Seriously, try getting over a heartbreak without tea, video games, or ridiculously comfy pajama pants, that whole situation was downright cruel!

TV's Frink said:

darth_ender said:

I have a feeling I wouldn't last more than a few days if I actually started posting over ther ;)

Perhaps you'd do better posting under ther?

Under wher?

darth_ender said:

Oh, CP3S, don't be a party pooper ;)  Quite honestly I've enjoyed this discussion and have found it very interesting.  I'm saddens me you haven't gotten the same pleasure.  

Don't get me wrong, I got pleasure from it too. But I feel like Leo made a claim, and I defended his use of the word "know", and it has kind of got us stuck in that rut ever since. There is really nothing else to say on that subject. Leo made his point, I made mine. I'm perfectly happy to go on with the discussion, I'll just wait until we move past the "know" thing and jump back in.

I actually kind of enjoy it here now. I moved into the city and no longer live out in the middle of nowhere, much better.

DuracellEnergizer said:

Personally, I wouldn't want to be labelled an atheist - or an agnostic atheist, for that matter - even though I suppose I do meet your criteria, for the simple reason being that I don't like atheism - in fact, I hate it* - and don't want to be associated with it.

 

You meet the status quo on that one, Dur. Atheism has quite a bit of a stigma attached to it, and you'd be one of many atheists I have encountered who refuse to call themselves atheists because of their ill feelings toward them. There is a rather surprising societal bias against atheists. People like the word agnostic because it feels less extreme.

I think this is going along with the idea that atheism is some kind of a doctrine. A year or so ago, I walked into a bookstore and purchased a copy of Hitch-22. The woman at the checkout looked amused and said, "That's funny, you don't look like an atheist to me, and I know atheists." I tend to find checkout line conversation irksome enough even when the clerk is not saying ridiculous things. I wanted to ask, "And what should an atheist look like?" but decided just to make a bemused grunt instead. The woman was assuming only atheists would read Hitchens, and that they all somehow look to be a certain way.

Atheism isn't a doctrine, a religion, a set of beliefs, or even a subculture (though you do have subcultures that are atheist). It is merely a lack of belief in a deity, nothing more or less. When you say you hate atheism, you are essentially saying that you hate disbelief in gods.

Mrebo said:

ender expresses much of my sentiment on this topic. And it goes to Leonardo's response about his view of the world versus others. But I think it's a cop-out to complain about generalization.

The word arrogant has been bandied about. I think the real problem is ignorance (the pure definition of the word: lacking in knowledge), whether that ignorance of God is based on allegedly rational scientific thought or just accepted for some other reason.

The scientific process is not a brick wall; it's an open-ended expanse. I think that is ender's point. When those claiming to adhere to the scientific process declare God non-existent, they are the ones using it as a brick wall. The great faith in the scientific method is another issue. I see the scientific method as nothing more than a very limited set of tools. In order to scientifically demonstrate that God doesn't exist, one must define God in some narrow way and not just come up empty-handed, but as Leonardo suggests, show that God cannot possibly inhabit the same space as other demonstrable elements. I don't see how science can possibly do so.

A cop-out? Seriously?

This whole discussion is getting so very silly.

Science doesn't need to disprove the existence of gods or god-like creatures. No evidence exists for them, there is no reason to assume they exist or to feel the need to disprove they don't.

There are all sorts of things that don't exist, and thankfully, we don't waste a lot of time on proving they don't. If someday we discover mermaids or unicorns, I for one, think that would be super cool, and I'd be very excited about it. Until then, I am content to assume they are mythological (which I am sure you assume the same about them).

So now we have those who through faith believe in a deity (which I am perfectly cool with, if it brings you comfort, if it makes you happy, please, have at it), waving the burden of disproof in our faces for something we haven't the slightest good reason to suspect any possibility of. If you are going to make a claim, then the burden of proof is on your shoulders. "Period. End of sentence." As Warb would say.

If I make the claim I am a super awesome vigilante that makes Batman look extremely lame by comparison, whose job is it to verify this? Yours of course! No! Obviously it is mine. You have no way to prove I am not an amazingly awesome vigilante who fights crime every evening, but I am the one making the fantastic claim.

I cannot disprove your god. Me admitting this is no more of a victory in the name of theism than me admitting that we cannot prove or disprove the existence of centaurs. But ultimately, all evidence points away from their existence, we only know about centaurs thanks to ancient writings of fantastical tales that they are included in.

So...to get more directly to your point CP3S, there is a difference in not believing in a particular formulation and 'knowing' that no deity exists. At best, us monotheists are partial weak atheists ;) I am of the view that (a mere belief without a claim of knowledge) many/most views of god(s) are the imperfect human perceptions of the true God. Looking at it from a more pseudo-scientific perspective, a belief in one particular formulation may preclude the existence of some other god(s).

I know centaurs and Santa do not exist. If you can prove to me either one exists, then I will drop my defense of Leonardo's statement that, according to his belief system and world view, he knows god does not exist.

Barring proof of centaurs or Santa, I'm not going to reply to another word on Leo's claim, and my defense of his use of wording. It has just gotten absurd, and driven what was an interesting discussion into a pithy debate over semantics.

Leo feels he knows God does not exist. Many religious people are at least as certain that God does exist.

Why should either of these concern us to the point of discussing it with nearly as many words as we already have?

darth_ender said:

Actually, believe it or not, I included an extra couple of sentences discussing atheists who do not fit the "scientific" mold. I removed it because I thought it detracted from my point. Now I see I should have left it. Yes, an atheist can believe in anything...except in a god of any sort: 'a-' meaning 'without,' 'theos' meaning 'god' (of any type), '-ist' meaning 'one who subscribes to that way of thinking.' But they can believe in the tooth fairy, fortune telling, horoscopes, or whatever. I should have been more specific in that I was referring to those who actually claim to hold to a truly scientific mindset. (I was alerted to this common misconception around 5 or 6 years ago when this idiot who wrote for the Arizona Daily Wildcat named Taylor Kessinger wrote a very condescending piece criticizing atheists who were, in his view, superstitious about other things; though he had often been condescending towards Christians without much backlash, you should have seen the responses to that article; I'll see if I can find it online; time lapse...ah, looks like Google gets some hits, but then I get the 404 error).

I don't see why atheists believing silly things is an issue. Buddhist are technically atheists, but obviously believe in spiritualism. It is nothing new. Atheism is not a doctrine.

But don't misunderstand my intention, because you are actually reinforcing my point. I know that scientists know that they do not know everything. They acknowledge that they cannot. Those atheists who are truly scientific admit that they cannot possibly know those things they cannot test, even though they also acknowledge that just because it cannot be tested does not make it nonexistent or unreal. Thus, since God is untestable, a truly scientific atheist cannot with full conviction 'know' that God does not exist, but rather can be firmly convinced based on a perceived lack of evidence. Those that 'know' that God doesn't exist are not acting truly scientifically.

Again, I think you are making scientific thought out to be limiting, in ways that it is not. Science is a method of learning, not a strict doctrine that must shape our every thought.

I am reasonably sure beyond doubt that the Ninja Turtles aren't real. I can't scientifically prove it, but since I don't claim to know it, I am being truly scientific.

I know the Ninja Turtles aren't real, they are merely a work of fiction created for entertainment. Now I am being unscientific.

Do you see how ridiculous this hair splitting is? So what? Atheism isn't a doctrine. Leo can claim to know God doesn't exist, as you, I am sure, would be willing to say you know that Zeus doesn't exist, and he is violating no atheist standards. It is all semantics at this point, and hardly worth wasting time on.

I'd maintain that the vast majority of atheists are also agnostics (Leo, clearly, not being of this group), and that the vast majority of agnostics are also atheists. Fink doesn't believe in a god, though he'd call himself agnostic, he is technically an atheist. In the same way, most atheists will admit that they cannot disprove god or know 100% for sure that a god or god like being doesn't exist, which effectively makes them agnostic on the situation. Ultimately, agnostic is kind of a redundant term. You either believe or you don't believe. If you say, "I don't know for sure, but I don't think so." Then you don't believe. If you say, "I don't know for sure, but I think so." Then you believe. I suppose agnosticism could be reserved for those who just don't care enough to even bother thinking about it in the first place.

I agree. There IS no need to disprove him. It is not a falsifiable experiment. But as such, while one may criticize the testing of the reality of God, one cannot either prove or disprove his existence. Ergo, though one may hold a firm conviction that God does not exist based on a perceived lack of evidence, one cannot truly say with certainty that he/she 'knows' God does not exist.

No disagreement there. But again, I don't think this discussion has relevance to anything at all.

In my mind you are correct in all that you say here, except for a bit of semantics. I won't argue much because I think it beside the point, but just for clarity, atheism does not mean one doesn't believe in certain gods, but rather that one does not believe in ANY gods: completely without belief in a divine being. Thus, I am not an atheist towards Odin or Ra or Jupiter. I don't believe in them, true, but I am still not without belief in a Divine Being. Everything else in the above quote does not disagree with what I am trying to say.

The matter is debatable. Christians were once widely considered to be atheists by the pagan world because they rejected the majority of gods, only choosing to believe in their one God (and this would be the earliest use of the Greek word "atheist", if I am not mistaken.) I feel like saying that you take an atheistic stance on Odin would be more than accurate. But like you said, it is all beside the point.

Nor I. That is not my point. My point is that the religion and those that hold to it are not exactly evidence that God does not exist.

I've never once heard an atheist make this argument before (not to say none ever have). In fact, the first time I've heard this argument was today in mrbenja's post, which felt a bit like a weak strawman argument and had me scratching my head. I didn't address it, because it didn't feel at all worth addressing.

Anyway, I wouldn't worry about it too much. It isn't a common argument, and it certainly wouldn't be used by an intelligent thinker to argue the non-existence of God.

My point is not to prove that God exists with this argument; it is philosophical, not scientific in nature. My point is that atheists and believers follow different standards, and according to those standards, the believer is free to 'know' (even if his/her 'knowledge' contradicts completely with the 'knowledge' of a different brand of believer, and even if the non-believer sees such knowledge as nothing more than foolish, unscientific superstition), while the atheist, FOLLOWING HIS/HER OWN STANDARDS, cannot truly claim to 'know' that God does not exist. Make sense?

Sure, it makes sense. In your original post you seemed to claim that theists are liberated because they don't have these constrictions. I'll agree with you completely on that, if you have no standards for belief (or more loose standards), you are much more free to believe some crazy and out there stuff.

Are you Catholic, Warb? I never realized that.

TV's Frink said:

Honestly, this is where I get lost.  What was the actual process of approaching God?

Very carefully!

Winston Zeddmore says:

Ray, the next time someone asks you if you're a god, you say YES!

Bingowings said:

I'd love to enter your box but could you do something about those funny noises?

I'm regrowing my Lego man beard, once you see how dashingly charming I look and am, you won't give a damn about those noises.

Bingowings said:

Superman, Doctor Who, Zeus, Kosh, Buddha, Neo, YHWH, Cthulhu... some of us however have a problem believing these things to be literally real.

Not me.

I believe everything is possible and therefore certainly happening somewhere. 

Because of your great faith, be listening for my blue box, for someday soon I shall come and retrieve you and you shall travel with me until you grow old and unattractive, get permanently trapped in some other dimension, or find yourself frustrated that your deep love and infatuation for me is unrequited.

Leonardo said:

Warbler said:

Leonardo said:

Warbler said:

first you say "I don't believe that God doesn't exist" then you say "there is no God"  which is it?

Look closely. I put the verb "believe" in italics.

As Frink said, belief and knowledge are two different things. I don't believe there is no God, but then again I don't believe the Earth goes around the Sun. I know the Earth goes around the sun.

But if you know the Earth goes around the sun, you must also believe it goes around the sun. 

No, I don't. I know it. Period. One excludes the other.

It is all rather empty semantics being argued here. I feel Leonardo saying he doesn't believe in anything is perfectly valid.

It is all about the number you're looking at and the particular dictionary you are using (and English being Leo's second language, this takes us to a level of semantics most Americans are incapable of thinking on, and we can throw in the language of the dictionary you are reading as well). But it is always kind of fun to hang people with semantics when you can't think of anywhere else to go.

So you are saying that you know God doesn't exist.  That seems like a rather arrogant thing to say.

So what?

Ok, picture this: in your system of beliefs, I am wrong. Now, just assume, for the sake of argument, that I was right. Would I be arrogant then? Or would I be just right? Please define arrogant for me, maybe I don't fully understand what the word means.

Arrogant would mean you are over exaggerating your own abilities or self importance.

I daresay Warb is pretty arrogant for knowing that Bes doesn't exist. But then again, maybe he is merely agnostic when it comes to Bes and the other Egyptian gods.

darth_ender said:

There is an inherent advantage for the believers when using the word 'know' in debate. The atheist holds that in order for something to be true, it must be demonstrable through observation and scientific experimentation. A falsifiable experiment is necessary to actually disprove something. From Wikipedia.

I think you are generalizing quite a lot here, and being very presumptuous. Not all atheists are materialistic atheists or ascribe strictly to scientific thought, or require demonstration or falsifiability to disbelieve in God or gods.

And even for those of us who do, you're trying to spin the scientific process in a way that makes it sound extraordinarily limiting, in a way that it isn't to most of us. Ultimately, a scientist knows that we don't know even a small fraction of everything there is to know, and that the knowledge we do have is just a starting point to greater discovery and free thought. Where you make it sound like a brick wall that stops us in our tracks, it is really a wide open gateway and a series of bridges and roads to all sorts of exciting places that are still in the process of being built and paved. 

For this reason, I can see where the agnostic comes from, but not the atheist. The agnostic does not believe God exists, yet reserves ultimate judgment. The atheist on the other hand feels that they can somehow disprove God's existence, though such is scientifically impossible. In other words, they are contradicting the only source of truth they even accept: scientific experimentation.

From a strictly scientific standpoint, there is absolutely no reason to feel the need to disprove the existence of God. It is not that complicated.

I'm going to use Odin, because he is by far the most badass god who ever existed. (See what I did there?)

Now I am pretty sure none of you theists believe Odin exists. In fact, I am willing to bet you guys know Odin doesn't exist. The very idea of believing in this ancient Nord god in this day and age is silly. But at one time for a group of people who lived long ago, it would have been offensive to walk up to them and say Odin doesn't exist. It's very likely you would end up with a battle axe embedded in your skull, in the name of Odin, of course. Perhaps some of them would have just tisk tisked your lack of faith, or challenged you to disprove Odin, ranted about how their belief liberates them, or simply handed you a banana. Who knows.

The definition of "atheist" is: "A person who does not believe in the existence of God or gods."

Darth_Ender, Warb, Mrebo, and any other theist here, I could be way off on this and just wildly assuming, but I am willing to bet you are all atheist. If you only believe in one god, it means there are hundreds of gods you don't believe in, or that you hold an atheist stance toward. In the end, I simply disbelieve in one less god than the countless number of gods you don't believe in. The same way you find no reason you should believe in Ra, I find no reason I should believe in your god.

Something I have noticed, and it's just an observation and may not be correct, but I feel that more atheists tend to have a chip on their shoulders than agnostics. It seems that because 'Mom sent me to Catholic school' or 'Bible-thumpin' George W. Bush started a crusade against Islam' or 'Evangelicals won't accept homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle,' therefore 'because I disagree with what some religious individuals have done to ruin my life or poison the world, God cannot possibly exist.' One may use this as evidence in their personal quiver, but still cannot actually disprove God. They may only support their theory, but they cannot 'know' that God does not exist.

Religion has done and does do a lot of shitty things. While I tend to be much more open minded about religion and its positive sides, I certainly cannot fault people for speaking out against it.

Religious persons on the other hand are liberated in this sense. Their sources of knowledge are not limited to the scientific method (though they may be limiting themselves in other ways). They believe that God can prove his existence to them, and that they can 'know' he is real. The scientist may dispute this method, but the very fact that it is accepted on faith and not on scientific proof allows for a claim to knowledge, even if the non-believer disputes the reality of that knowledge.

Wow. I don't even know where to begin in disagreeing with this, it is overwhelming.

Yeah, what the fuck? Now I wish someone would have quoted it.

Jedi Master said:

I like Nintendo Gamecube. Nintendo's systems are every bit as good as their competitors' systems and they're cheaper to buy. Also, I have some friends and family who have gone through a few Playstation 2's whereas I still have my original Gamecube. They're not only cheaper when they come off of the assembly line, they're also more durable.

Lol, this post was made in October 2004, when the Game Cube was still a current gen console, just three years after it came out, and two years before the Wii was released.

Xhonzi, how did you figure out that it was a reply to this post?