EU Referendum

[Ally Bongo]

1 minute ago, DonnyTJS said:

OK, so in reply to a question, she did not say that "My faith in God is going to help us get a good deal from the EU."

 

"Theresa May says her faith in God will guide our path out of Europe" is the headline

Is that not what she is inferring (more or less) ?

[DonnyTJS]

When did newspaper headlines start accurately summarizing what people have said?

What she apparently said was waffle. Something about being an Anglican (apparently in reply to a relevant question), that she thinks things through, weighs the likely consequences rather than prejudging, but ultimately (presumably when no one option is clearly preferable) will go with a 'gut instinct' that is founded on those things which make her who she is ... pretty much like most folk do. Not a great headline though.

[Alibi]

17 hours ago, DonnyTJS said:

Be they theists or atheists, they'd still be stating a faith-based belief since neither position can be proven. What's the difference?

As an atheist, I would make decisions on merit, on logic, on reasoned assessment or whatever.  Maggie May admits her judgement may be affected by a belief in fairy tales.  That's the difference.

[Alan]

On Sunday, November 06, 2016 at 9:45 AM, Rossy said:

Ach, better to leave him alone. He has the Scottish cringe and can't help himself. 

He's just a wee boy who's never moved more than 5 minutes away from his mum and sneers at others who do better. More to be pitied than attacked. 

 

I lived outside Glasgow/Scotland for 14 years.

How do you judge if you have done better than people?  Not sneering I just don't see your moral tones and reality in synch.

[Ally Bongo]

Does it surprise anyone that the BBC have completely reversed policy and opened up comments allowed for their report on Nicola addressing the Irish Parliament .....

 

 

[ParisInAKilt]

https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/08/457181.html

 

[Guest flumax]

20 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

Does it surprise anyone that the BBC have completely reversed policy and opened up comments allowed for their report on Nicola addressing the Irish Parliament .....

 

 

What policy is that? I see some political stories, others closed for comments, inconsistent 

[Ally Bongo]

2 minutes ago, flumax said:

What policy is that? I see some political stories, others closed for comments, inconsistent 

They usually never have comments allowed on Scottish Political stories - certainly werent during Indyref

[DonnyTJS]

7 hours ago, Alibi said:

As an atheist, I would make decisions on merit, on logic, on reasoned assessment or whatever.  Maggie May admits her judgement may be affected by a belief in fairy tales.  That's the difference.

As an atheist, you are simply doing what May does - making decisions on merit, logic (insofar as logic is compatible with holding to a metaphysical belief system), reasoned assessment and, as noted, founding all this on metaphysics. Theism and atheism are two sides of the same metaphysical coin.

[exile]

43 minutes ago, DonnyTJS said:

 Theism and atheism are two sides of the same metaphysical coin.

What about agnosticism?

[DonnyTJS]

39 minutes ago, exile said:

What about agnosticism?

That is the logical position to hold. When writing about his grandmother, Sartre said something along the lines of: "She believed in nothing. Only her scepticism kept her from being an atheist."

[exile]

8 hours ago, DonnyTJS said:

That is the logical position to hold. When writing about his grandmother, Sartre said something along the lines of: "She believed in nothing. Only her scepticism kept her from being an atheist."

Agnosticism is the rim of the metaphysical coin?

[DonnyTJS]

4 minutes ago, exile said:

Agnosticism is the rim of the metaphysical coin?

Not really, no. Agnosticism (literally 'without knowledge') is simply the realization that there is no logical way of knowing that which cannot be known. This is basically positivist philosophy: anything that comes under metaphysics ('beyond science') is something which can't be proven, either one way or the other.

Theists can't prove the existence of God; they rely on faith. Atheists can't prove the non-existence of God; they rely on faith. Agnosticism isn't metaphysical because it places all metaphysics in a different discourse, one that it is pointless to participate in (if you want an answer that is subject to 'proof' in any rational sense). So a different coinage entirely...

[Ally Bongo]

24 minutes ago, DonnyTJS said:

 

Theists can't prove the existence of God; they rely on faith. Atheists can't prove the non-existence of God; they rely on faith.

Surely atheists rely on evidence ?

As there is none - there is no God ?

[DonnyTJS]

23 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

Surely atheists rely on evidence ?

As there is none - there is no God ?

Say you have a dead body with a knife in its back, but there is no evidence whatsoever as to who wielded the knife. No evidence, but that doesn't mean there's not a killer.

A theist would point to plenty of 'evidence' for the existence of God - but evidence isn't proof. Take a rational example: reason tells us that the world is governed by cause and effect. What was the first cause?

Take an example from the natural sciences: the current best model for the beginning of the universe is the Big Bang theory. It just so happens that this theory was first proposed by Lemaitre. He took Einstein's equations from General Relativity which suggested that the universe was dynamic (as opposed to static), and by running time backwards suggested the beginning of time (a 'cosmic egg'). Einstein had also seen that his equations pointed this way but since observation at the time (1915) suggested that the universe was indeed static, he'd added a new element to the equations (the 'cosmological constant') that added mass to the universe and made the equations static. Only a decade or so later did technology advance sufficiently for Hubble to be able to show that light from distant galaxies showed redshift, and so the universe was expanding. Lemaitre's theory seemed to hold water. The problem was Lemaitre was a Roman Catholic priest as well as a mathematician. What he was suggesting was creatio ex nihilo - creation out of nothing, just as had been suggested by St Thomas Aquinas.

However, it doesn't make any difference what 'proofs' you search for. Theism and atheism are not subject to proof. If the existence of God was provable, the notion of free will would become meaningless, yet it is central to our view of ourselves. So God, by her nature, cannot be subject to proof.

Edited November 30, 2016 by DonnyTJS

[Ally Bongo]

Atheists arent trying to prove anything

Very poor analogy

 

 

 

 

[DonnyTJS]

Exactly. Like theists, their position is based on faith (so I don't know why you mentioned earlier that they rely on evidence) ...

[Ally Bongo]

Believing something doest exist because there is no evidence has nothing to do with faith

Believing something exists when there is no evidence has everything to do with faith

A better analogy than a dead body with a knife in it's back would have been the Loch Ness Monster

Rationality is oot the windae when it comes to the laws of the universe

[DonnyTJS]

But as I pointed out, a theist would say there is evidence - though evidence that does not constitute proof. However, the point is that the existence or non-existence of a god is a matter for metaphysics and therefore not subject to proof and thus a position on it, one way or the other, rests on faith.

 

 

[Alibi]

Absence of proof is not proof of absence, but your comparison of theists and atheists as two sides of the same coin is not a valid one IMHO.  There is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of god, but that does not amount to a proof of absence.  If someone could prove there was a god, most rational atheists would accept it, but asking us to accept something for which there is not a scrap of evidence is ludicrous.

[DonnyTJS]

Sigh ... I've pointed out 'evidence' that theists could put forward (the prime mover in a universe governed by cause and effect). They also point to all sorts of things from the existence of altruism to leaf-mimicking insects (to be fair, I understand evolutionary theory pretty well, but I struggle to see how leaf-mimics evolved in the detail that they did - though not for a moment do I attribute this to 'design').

You then say that if the existence of god could be proven most rational atheists would accept it...  ... What's your definition of 'proof' (or 'rational' for that matter)? But such a thing cannot be proven because metaphysics is a different discourse that lies outside the field of empirical science. (A provable deity would also make a mockery of free will, but that's by the bye).

I'm not asking you to accept something for which there's no evidence. You have already done that since you believe in the non-existence of god. I'm asking you to accept that such a thing is ultimately unknowable and therefore the only logical stance is one of radical agnosticism.

[Alibi]

1 hour ago, DonnyTJS said:

Sigh ... I've pointed out 'evidence' that theists could put forward (the prime mover in a universe governed by cause and effect). They also point to all sorts of things from the existence of altruism to leaf-mimicking insects (to be fair, I understand evolutionary theory pretty well, but I struggle to see how leaf-mimics evolved in the detail that they did - though not for a moment do I attribute this to 'design').

You then say that if the existence of god could be proven most rational atheists would accept it...  ... What's your definition of 'proof' (or 'rational' for that matter)? But such a thing cannot be proven because metaphysics is a different discourse that lies outside the field of empirical science. (A provable deity would also make a mockery of free will, but that's by the bye).

I'm not asking you to accept something for which there's no evidence. You have already done that since you believe in the non-existence of god. I'm asking you to accept that such a thing is ultimately unknowable and therefore the only logical stance is one of radical agnosticism.

I am agnostic in the strict sense of the word, and in fact we all are since nobody can prove anything one way or the other.  However having been exposed to religionists from an early age, I came to the conclusion that religion is a load of keech, a man-made belief originating in ancient times when there was widespread ignorance about science - to give just one example thunderbolts, a primitive explanation for lightning.  In ancient times, people were scared of their surroundings and so stories arose to explain the unknown.  I can't prove the non-existence of god, but I can't prove the non-existence of fairies either.  You have to make a judgement on the balance of probabilities, and when you stand back from religion, you start to see how ridiculous the whole concept is.

Edited November 30, 2016 by Alibi

[scoobydoo]

8 minutes ago, Alibi said:

I am agnostic in the strict sense of the word, and in fact we all are since nobody can prove anything one way or the other.

well thats not true. all any believers has to do is to ask their god to show themselves and it will be a girfuy to every none believer.

 

has it happened yet? no. will it ever happen? no, of course not.

 

[aaid]

Anyway, back to the EU referendum.  What a great reception the FM got in Dublin yesterday.  Yoons are going mental about it.

[Guest flumax]

5 hours ago, aaid said:

Anyway, back to the EU referendum.  What a great reception the FM got in Dublin yesterday.  Yoons are going mental about it.

Thank you for bringing it back... And yes good stuff re: FM but  not seen any of the reaction been rather occupied... What did I miss?