PROPER GUN STANCES ARE FOR ZEALOTS

I’m really impressed with everyone. I’ve never seen this happen in a comment thread.

Now we can all go back to arguing about boob size and trigger discipline. Good ol’ m[c]s.

“The difference between these people and evangelists or Carlos Castanada for example…”

Dude i do not take the words of priests and whatnot as scientific fact.

But still for the most part on everything else you are right. Religion has failed to show any scientific evidence for god. So i understand your skepticism in that regard. The only reason i believe is because of some wild shit that has happened to me. All i can offer is anecdotal evidence but for the most part anecdotal evidence doesn’t mean shit because i could be lying.

1. Cold, hard science is making serious efforts in every field, legitimate efforts, and all while held (for the most part) at the arm’s length of skepticism and being incredibly self-critical. Thus far, no evidence of god, or anything like a Prime Mover. I’d argue that we’ve made a LOT of headway in secular science towards an origin explanation, getting monumentally closer to the moment of the Big Bang itself. Religion, or even spiritual thought, thus far has put forth no testable theory towards the origin. Only a claim of ignorance.

2. Michael Faraday (and Oppenheimer, and Planck, and Heisenberg, and Newton for that matter) all had unorthodox ideas that some considered crazy. The difference between these people and evangelists or Carlos Castanada for example, is that each of them also had evidence to back up what they were saying, or at the very least, experiments that could be run.

3. The goal of science is, despite the talk you hear from people like me, not to prove or disprove god. Like I’ve said before, in most cases, with what most people mean, it’s not a thing that can be proven or disproven (these things exist in mathematics, and what it means is that they have no bearing on the rest of the model). If, in the course of us systematically understanding our universe, we come across a god, then good for us. If not, it only means everything we’ve done is that much more worthwhile, because we did it by ourselves.

That’s a big reason why, philosophically speaking now, I refuse to believe in a god, especially without evidence. I want every man and woman to be honored alone for their successes and blamed alone for their failures or crimes. It makes me cringe when basketball players thank God for their game. Dude, you did that yourself! Pat yourself on the back. I think crimes committed in the name of god are 1,000 times worse than crimes committed for your own selfish gain; at least in the latter case even you understand you can be held accountable.

“Ideas that are not right or wrong are, by definition, meaningless and dangerous (because they appear at first to be normal, but are incapable of being proven wrong). It’s how kings claim divinity and eugenics kills millions of people. It’s precisely the reason that “a lack of evidence” proves nothing, absolutely nothing, not a single thing to give legitimate, reasonable credit to this world view.”

“The reason I’m still derisive is that, until you have some method of even theoretically verifying this, it’s just near-meaningless armchair thinking, hence my pothead comment.”

Well that’s what i was beginning to get at. The reason people don’t take the theories seriously is because there has been no real effort into trying to prove or disprove them. They take things like Abiogenesis and say ” THERE DEFINITIVE PROOF GOD DOESN’T EXIST.” Or they say even dumber shit like the young earth people and say ” WELL THE BIBLE SAYS IT HAPPENED AND IT IT’S A HISTORICAL TOME!” People aren’t putting any real effort as far as cold hard science goes. Two: in order for god to work we will have to completely rearrange and rethink what we know. It’s alot like when quantum mechanics first started coming out. When michael farraday discovered cathode rays he created the seeds for modern quantum mechanics. That more or less shook the scientific community and challenged the past hundredsomething years of newtonian physics. Now we know that both Newtonian and quantum physics co-exist. A lot of people didn’t want to fuss with it because it challenged our previous notions of how our universe worked. It more or less caused a huge stir among scientists. It wasn’t until all the bunk science trying to prove or disprove it was weeded out that we were able to come to todays current conclusions. That is what “creationism” ( and believe me i use that word loosely because of all the stigmas attached to it) is doing. It is suggesting that the last 30 or so years of research on the matter might have been in vain. Anything that disrupts previous notions is rarely greeted by a slew of serious research on either side

Add into it the religious and atheist crazies who fuck around with any effort that is remotely serious by adding in bunk science and personal vendettas; we may never find the true answer for a long timer. It’s not sciences fault we can’t prove or disprove it. It is the very nature of man and his willingness to go to any means necessary to prove himself right or to prove others wrong. So That is why there has been no real headway in creationist theories or pure secular science in regards to the origins of the universe and existence of god. I mean think of it this way. One side is intent on disproving thousands of years of religious dogma and giving cold hard proof in order to establish that their belief is correct. And then there is another side (christians mostly)who is intent on proving that the past thousands of years of their teachings and beliefs have been correct all along. Who can you really trust? It’s a mess. And both scientists and religious folk lose out on it.

Ideas that are not right or wrong are, by definition, meaningless and dangerous (because they appear at first to be normal, but are incapable of being proven wrong). It’s how kings claim divinity and eugenics kills millions of people. It’s precisely the reason that “a lack of evidence” proves nothing, absolutely nothing, not a single thing to give legitimate, reasonable credit to this world view.

I do agree with you to a degree there. There can be some pure evil drawn out of that type of thinking. Again the nature of man is what makes it so.

You still could be right, if it’s possible for “you to be wrong, but that doesn’t mean I have to give you any credit until you’ve done some work.”

Oh i am not asking for credit, just that there could be some credit. And if i was smart enough i would do work on it ( i am horrible at math)and i am afraid i would end up getting biased towards one side or another.

You cannot be right or wrong. This is the case if your world view has completely (even in the hypothetical) unverifiable tenants (like the faeries). Ideas that are not right or wrong are, by definition, meaningless and dangerous (because they appear at first to be normal, but are incapable of being proven wrong). It’s how kings claim divinity and eugenics kills millions of people. It’s precisely the reason that “a lack of evidence” proves nothing, absolutely nothing, not a single thing to give legitimate, reasonable credit to this world view.

The other possibility is that you’re possibly right, and if your world view is not like that above (as in, your definition of ‘god’ allows for verification of existence under theories, methods, and protocols for experimentation), which is why I have been careful to not say you are wrong. The reason I’m still derisive is that, until you have some method of even theoretically verifying this, it’s just near-meaningless armchair thinking, hence my pothead comment.

String theory, perhaps the most outlandish theory still considered ‘physics’, at least had the wise idea to keep quiet about the fundamentals until experimental protocols and aligning of explanation with what we currently know were verified. Until then, it was simply not a considerable theory. That’s why I’m not considering yours. You still could be right, if it’s possible for you to be wrong, but that doesn’t mean I have to give you any credit until you’ve done some work.

Does this make sense now?