Personal Philosophies

[transcengopher 349]

There's a fun fact though:

Statement "God exists" can't be falsified, because no matter where you look, he can be somewhere else.

Statement "God doesn't exist" can be falsified easily by finding him.

This allow for the latter statement to serve as proper scientific hypothesis.

[LordOfWolves 514]

There's a fun fact though:

Statement "God exists" can't be falsified, because no matter where you look, he can be somewhere else.

Statement "God doesn't exist" can be falsified easily by finding him.

This allow for the latter statement to serve as proper scientific hypothesis.

This is a non sense fact. But true. +1 for your...ability to confuse me.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

Scientifically, God doesn't exist. Not because he disobeys the laws of physics or anything, but because any data that supports his existence in unverifiable.

If you can't verify data, you can't treat it as a valid argument.

[scrdest 24]

Scientifically, God doesn't exist. Not because he disobeys the laws of physics or anything, but because any data that supports his existence in unverifiable.

If you can't verify data, you can't treat it as a valid argument.

I disagree. Yes, the data is unverifiable. But, absence of evidence =/= evidence of absence. No evidence would simply make gods' (any of them) existence a not very convincing hypothesis.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

I disagree. Yes, the data is unverifiable. But, absence of evidence =/= evidence of absence. No evidence would simply make gods' (any of them) existence a not very convincing hypothesis.

I wasn't implying there was evidence of his absence, I only meant that if something isn't scientifically verifiable, you have no reason to treat it as true. If you can't prove he exists, you can't know he exists.

I'm likening the situation to guilt: innocent until proven otherwise -> non-existant until proven otherwise

It's a valid comparison because innocence is assumed because convicting an innocent man is worse than letting a guilty man go free and not believing in a true God is better than dying for a false one.

[puxapuak 232]

There's a fun fact though:

Statement "God exists" can't be falsified, because no matter where you look, he can be somewhere else.

Statement "God doesn't exist" can be falsified easily by finding him.

This allow for the latter statement to serve as proper scientific hypothesis.

Heh, yes.

"God exists! Prove me wrong by... er... Not-Finding her. Ever. Somehow..."

"God doesn't exist! Prove me wrong by finding it."

Although 'God' should be replaced by "Randomly Chosen Deity X", since there isn't the slightest bit of consensus on what or who this 'God' is.

This is a non sense fact. But true. +1 for your...ability to confuse me.

Did that verbalisation of it help de-confuse?

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

Heh, yes.

"God exists! Prove me wrong by... er... Not-Finding her. Ever. Somehow..."

"God doesn't exist! Prove me wrong by finding it."

Although 'God' should be replaced by "Randomly Chosen Deity X", since there isn't the slightest bit of consensus on what or who this 'God' is.

Did that verbalisation of it help de-confuse?

"God" is male, or genderless, depending on representation, but I think is portrayed as male to pick one or the other over genderless. The fact that women give birth and men don't is irrelevant in this case. A study of ancient religion would reveal that most deities were female, with fertility goddeses and figures up to like.... 30k years old? being found. There seems to be a point where men realized the role they played in child creation and at about this time, male gods appear and seem to overthrow the female gods and replace them. Many cultures' have stories that reflect this, I think the most well known one being the ancient greek culture. The history of the greek polytheism is often used to represent the history of worship for their people. Gaia probably dates back to these very ancient cultures as a fertility goddess. The rise of the titans and cronus represents the male wave of "gods" claiming the centre of worship. Through further cultural revolutions, the new-age greeks overthrew that culture and replaced the titans. Stating that the gods you worship overthrew the previous ones is a way of stating your cultural supremacy, and the fact that the gods were born of the titans indicates that the new culture emerged from within the old one.

Bottom line, by the time the first traces of Judaism came to be, it was fully established that gods were male. From the point of a non-religious person as well, there is no point in trying to tell a religion or culture they are wrong, as in many cases you can't apply logic to the traits of a being that may or may not exist, and if it does exist, ignores all laws of logic anyway. Basically, if the bible says God is male or genderless or refers to Him as "He/Him" he is referred to as He or Him because that is how you refer to the God they are referring to. If you start by saying that the Bible or Torah is wrong, you can't even claim to be talking about the same God.

[puxapuak 232]

*snip*

That was all pretty western... I didn't state that I was referring to the judeo-xtian god. There are plenty of non-male gods that are still worshipped today and there are even Christians who consider their god to be female (I met a pastor who uses only the female pronoun in his congregation). But this is all pointing at the underlying idea that I was trying to get at anyway, which was that there's frackin tons of gods out there, and the same application of logic can be made to the proposal of any of them. It's such a disparate situation amongst believers that whenever someone says "God" pretty much no matter what their stated religion, you can't be sure at all of what particular god-like being they are referring to.

And the reason I did it all that way is because the more people of any religion arguing devoutly in favour of their faith realise that they are a small minority usually even within their own religion, they tend to start to exercise a little sociological imagination and further realise that Truth has very little to do with one's religion at all, but the random circumstance of their birth. And I can't see that as anything but a good thing.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

That was all pretty western... I didn't state that I was referring to the judeo-xtian god. There are plenty of non-male gods that are still worshipped today and there are even Christians who consider their god to be female (I met a pastor who uses only the female pronoun in his congregation). But this is all pointing at the underlying idea that I was trying to get at anyway, which was that there's frackin tons of gods out there, and the same application of logic can be made to the proposal of any of them. It's such a disparate situation amongst believers that whenever someone says "God" pretty much no matter what their stated religion, you can't be sure at all of what particular god-like being they are referring to.

And the reason I did it all that way is because the more people of any religion arguing devoutly in favour of their faith realise that they are a small minority usually even within their own religion, they tend to start to exercise a little sociological imagination and further realise that Truth has very little to do with one's religion at all, but the random circumstance of their birth. And I can't see that as anything but a good thing.

As a side note, if a pastor is referring to God as female, he isn't teaching from the bible or referring to the same God that the rest of the church is. They should be notified that he's started a cult under the name of Christianity...

[puxapuak 232]

As a side note, if a pastor is referring to God as female, he isn't teaching from the bible or referring to the same God that the rest of the church is. They should be notified that he's started a cult under the name of Christianity...

Again... that's the point. Ask two random christians in any part of the continent, and they're very unlikely to agree on very much of who or what god is, and what they want. There's whole bibles that differ specifically on what god is.

That's of course the thing about language too that I referred to in one of my first posts here. Language changes. People disagree on what certain words mean. Because there is no possible objective measure of what a word means (only aggregate subjective measures), it is subject to change over time. This is the case for any purely social structure - we define it as we see fit, and if the strict definition no longer matches reality, then it is that strict definition that is wrong, not reality.

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

this is true, but there are almost always ways you can try and put boundaries on these things. You could consider the bible of the largest church organization to be standard, or whichever is least altered from the original. For language there are many standardizations with dictionary publications.

[puxapuak 232]

The Catholic church tried boundaries. That didn't turn out well. I think they're still the largest, but you can get verbally abused for suggesting there was a trinity, if you live in certain places. It's a messy business, asserting truth where there is none...

[dunkleosteus 2,425]

The Catholic church tried boundaries. That didn't turn out well. I think they're still the largest, but you can get verbally abused for suggesting there was a trinity, if you live in certain places. It's a messy business, asserting truth where there is none...

did you see the thread about my history course? I know all about the catholic church =P

[puxapuak 232]

That's why I said it