God

[Stranger]

Science is God's bitch. Good for a laugh.

I'll take the latter and you can shove science elsewhere.

Quite amusing that you're using the fact that science works to spread your ignorant, anti-science superstitions. Every time you type a message online you're demonstrating that science works.

[Sriram]

Yes Sriram, isn't that how science works dream up a few ideas and then hang on to the ideas where largely all the indicators add up, shouldn't that be the way we, humanity, moves on rather than stagnating?

ippy.

I have no problems with science, ippy. I thought you would have understood that after all these years.   

I only highlight the fact that  there are many phenomena that science cannot investigate given its rigid scope and boundaries.

So IMO, we should use science as a platform and use its discoveries as the basis on which to build our life philosophies.....not adhere strictly to its discoveries as the ONLY reality.   That is all my argument is.

Cheers.

Sriram

[Stranger]

I have no problems with science, ippy. I thought you would have understood that after all these years.   

You do, actually - for one thing you cling to multiple misunderstandings that you refuse to correct (what a meme is, and natural selection being a metaphor, spring to mind). Your approach is also more of looking for things you think (sometimes wrongly) support what you want to be true and dismissing everything else.

[SusanDoris]

You do, actually - for one thing you cling to multiple misunderstandings that you refuse to correct (what a meme is, and natural selection being a metaphor, spring to mind). Your approach is also more of looking for things you think (sometimes wrongly) support what you want to be true and dismissing everything else.

I was thinking when reading Sriram's post, 'But that's daft!', but your response is way better, so I'm seconding that!:)

[Sriram]

You do, actually - for one thing you cling to multiple misunderstandings that you refuse to correct (what a meme is, and natural selection being a metaphor, spring to mind). Your approach is also more of looking for things you think (sometimes wrongly) support what you want to be true and dismissing everything else.

Regardless of what you think of my views....do you agree that science by its very scope and methods has limitations and that all aspects of the world need not fall within its investigative methods? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Regardless of what you think of my views....do you agree that science by its very scope and methods has limitations and that all aspects of the world need not fall within its investigative methods?

That depends on what you’re trying to ask here.

Do the tools available to science have limitations? Yes of course – current telescopes can only see so far etc, but that’s not so suggest in principle that data and evidence must be forever inaccessible.

Are there phenomena that by their very nature could never be investigable with the methods and tool of science? There’s no good reason to assume that, no.

Are the “scope and methods” of science such that they exclude knowledge that’s otherwise available? The scope and methods of science enable us to distinguish verifiable facts from just guessing (or, as the religious put it, "faith"). Absent any other method to do that, there’s no good reason to think so.

Hope that helps.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Quote from: Owlswing on 27-10-2020, 18:11:20

    Problem - I am NOT atheist!


Oxford Dictionaries Online defines today's “pagan” as “a member of a modern religious movement which seeks to incorporate beliefs or practices from outside the main world religions, especially nature worship.”

Oh NO I ain't!

Having known you longer through this board I would describe your position as trying to run with the hare and the hounds. I don't suppose atheists respect you for that.

[ippy]

Having known you longer through this board I would describe your position as trying to run with the hare and the hounds. I don't suppose atheists respect you for that.

You leave Owl alone Vlad he's probably sitting there with his animal skin garb fastened over one shoulder and not doing any harm to anybody just planning which forest he's going to run around in tonight.

ippy

[Owlswing]

Having known you longer through this board I would describe your position as trying to run with the hare and the hounds. I don't suppose atheists respect you for that.

I don't give a tuppeny damn what atheists think of me, any more than I give three monkey's fucks what you think of me, and I can't even find a description for what I don't give for what Theoretical Skeptic might think, if he can think for himself, of me!

You are entitled, as are the atheists, to follow whatever religious, or lack of religious, belief that suits you - just as long as you do not, as Theoretical Skeptic (in English, of course, sCeptic) does, try to force his version down the throats of everyone who does not follow his particular path or views.

As I have stated before I am Jewish by birth, High Church Anglican by upbringing and Pagan by choice.

You don't like that? Tough, but then again I'm not asking you to like it, just leave me alone to it because I DO like it!

Bright Blessings, Love and Light and May the Old Ones watch over you and yours always" (Regardless of how misguided your religious beliefs might, to my mind, be!)

Owlswing

)O(

 

[Owlswing]

You leave Owl alone Vlad he's probably sitting there with his animal skin garb fastened over one shoulder and not doing any harm to anybody just planning which forest he's going to run around in tonight.

ippy

Thanks for the support(?), Ippy, but I will not be running around in the forest until Samhain (Nov 31)!

Samhain - pronounced SAH-WAIN.

Bright Blessings, Love and Light, and May the Old Ones watch over you and yours always!

Owlswing

)O(

[Dicky Underpants]

Moses did write Genesis. That wasn't much of a debate, was it

Moses did not write Genesis. This can be debated, but it appears you just prefer to lay down the law. I'm interested in genuine biblical criticism, not in the pronouncements of people who just follow the line of their confirmation bias

[SusanDoris]

Owlswing

#58

[ippy]

Thanks for the support(?), Ippy, but I will not be running around in the forest until Samhain (Nov 31)!

Samhain - pronounced SAH-WAIN.

Bright Blessings, Love and Light, and May the Old Ones watch over you and yours always!

Owlswing

)O(

Good on you Owl, sorry I cant help handing out the little dig from time to time.

If it' any help I have the same opinion about all of the beliefs that have no evidence base that would if there were any, back them up, I've not singled you out, oh yes by the way what's the going rate for a hollowed out ram's horn these days Owl?

[Dicky Underpants]

Yeah you are.

Since he believes in gods and goddesses he obviously isn't  That's really not too difficult to understand, is it?

[Dicky Underpants]

Get over yourself, dude. Two Dropouts in one of their parent's garage and the evil US military created the junk I post on. Maybe some doofus in a lab coat had nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon and figured out how they did it but that's about as far as it goes.

Yeah, Science brought us eugenics and weapons of mass destruction and an endless series of inaccurate speculations about everything from eggs to the age of the universe.

Science is God's bitch. Good for a laugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ua-WVg1SsA

Also quite good for determining the accurate age of the earth, the origins of life and the antiquity of certain ancient manuscripts from which you derive your absurd belief system. Quite good for the technology which cooks your bacon and eggs of a morning, as well as the fridge where you keep them fresh. Unless you've decided to live in a cave in the Rocky Mountains.
The Bible really isn't an accurate means of calculating anything. You are right in saying that it does not give any means of determining the age of the earth, but neither does it give any accurate means of determining the age of Methuselah, apart from its saying he lived a very long time. It also says that Balaam's Ass talked (yours certainly does), and that the sun stood still for Joshua. You may well believe Methuselah lived hundreds of years. Big deal..
Evidence?

[ippy]

I have no problems with science, ippy. I thought you would have understood that after all these years.   

I only highlight the fact that  there are many phenomena that science cannot investigate given its rigid scope and boundaries.

So IMO, we should use science as a platform and use its discoveries as the basis on which to build our life philosophies.....not adhere strictly to its discoveries as the ONLY reality.   That is all my argument is.

Cheers.

Sriram

Something I can't help is my aversion to any form of woo, somewhere where we part company, prove the references in your last post to me and it's no longer woo, until such times?

You have an almost insurmountable task ahead of you let me know when?

Regards to you and yours Sriram, ippy. 

[Owlswing]

Good on you Owl, sorry I can't help handing out the little dig from time to time.

If it's any help I have the same opinion about all of the beliefs that have no evidence base that would if there were any, back them up, I've not singled you out, oh yes by the way what's the going rate for a hollowed-out ram's horn these days Owl?

When I can find one on sale, far too bloody expensive! I still have a need for three, one for the Coven altar and two as drinking horns; bull horns currently being priced at about one arm, one leg and two testicles each!

)O(

[ippy]

When I can find one on sale, far too bloody expensive! I still have a need for three, one for the Coven altar and two as drinking horns; bull horns currently being priced at about one arm, one leg and two testicles each!
 

[Sriram]

Something I can't help is my aversion to any form of woo, somewhere where we part company, prove the references in your last post to me and it's no longer woo, until such times?

You have an almost insurmountable task ahead of you let me know when?

Regards to you and yours Sriram, ippy.

'Woo' is all in your head, ippy!     

Is the idea of parallel universes 'woo'?  Is the idea of a String 'woo'? Is the idea of 11 dimensions 'woo?  Is time travel 'woo'? Is the many worlds hypothesis 'woo'? Is the idea of consciousness participating in the creation of the universe 'woo'?  Is non-local influence of particles 'woo'?

Its all about our biases and the Two boxes syndrome.

[jeremyp]

Moses did write Genesis. That wasn't much of a debate, was it?

All the evidence points to Genesis being written in the middle of the 1st century BCE quite a long time after Moses purportedly lived. Not only that but it's not even the work of a single author.

ETA: Just out of curiosity how many atheists here were formerly theists?

At least one, although I have been an atheist for more than 30 years now.

[jeremyp]

I've always thought that it was interesting that Hinduism apparently is thought of as monotheistic though having many gods.

In that sense it is very similar to Christianity.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

'Woo' is all in your head, ippy!     

Is the idea of parallel universes 'woo'?  Is the idea of a String 'woo'? Is the idea of 11 dimensions 'woo?  Is time travel 'woo'? Is the many worlds hypothesis 'woo'? Is the idea of consciousness participating in the creation of the universe 'woo'?  Is non-local influence of particles 'woo'?

Its all about our biases and the Two boxes syndrome.

False analogies. Again. Science develops hypotheses that begin with known precepts and then conjecture possible answers. They’re based on prior knowledge and observation. Call them “educated guesses” if that helps. These hypotheses may or may not subsequently be demonstrated to be true.   

By contrast, sometimes people have beliefs that are essentially incoherent – they rest on no known precepts, they require no prior knowledge or observation and they have no means of investigation, even in principle.

What you do is to combine the two categories as if they're epistemically the same. They’re not though. Note even close. Are unicorns woo? Is Jack Frost woo? How about the man in the moon? See – some things just are woo, and you can’t just carve out the ones you happen to like and claim them to be equivalent to scientific hypotheses.

It would help if you stopped repeating this mistake, especially as you’ve been corrected on it several times before now.         

[Sriram]

Sriram,

False analogies. Again. Science develops hypotheses that begin with known precepts and then conjecture possible answers. They’re based on prior knowledge and observation. Call them “educated guesses” if that helps. These hypotheses may or may not subsequently be demonstrated to be true.   

By contrast, sometimes people have beliefs that are essentially incoherent – they rest on no known precepts, they require no prior knowledge or observation and they have no means of investigation, even in principle.

What you do is to combine the two categories as if they're epistemically the same. They’re not though. Note even close. Are unicorns woo? Is Jack Frost woo? How about the man in the moon? See – some things just are woo, and you can’t just carve out the ones you happen to like and claim them to be equivalent to scientific hypotheses.

It would help if you stopped repeating this mistake, especially as you’ve been corrected on it several times before now.       

No...you are not getting the point.   All spiritual matters are not 'beliefs' as you think. You are confusing religion with secular spirituality.

NDE's for example, are not a belief.  They are not 'woo'. They are real experiences and point to a real after-life.

[Stranger]

NDE's for example, are not a belief.  They are not 'woo'. They are real experiences and point to a real after-life.

They are certainly real experiences but claiming that they point to a real afterlife is where you descend into baseless woo.

[torridon]

No...you are not getting the point.   All spiritual matters are not 'beliefs' as you think. You are confusing religion with secular spirituality.

NDE's for example, are not a belief.  They are not 'woo'. They are real experiences and point to a real after-life.

Incorrect.  They are real experiences but 'pointing to a real after-life' is a woo interpretation.