Russell's teapot

Since you forgot to close the quotes in your link, your post makes no sense.

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Original post by Zahlman ITT, I defend the theory that Russell's teapot, as presented to us by the holy prophet Bertrand, not only exists, but is in fact responsible for the existence of the entirety of the observable universe (It has chosen, more or less arbitrarily, to reside in elliptical orbit between Earth and Mars). Furthermore, nothing existed prior to the birth of Russell, when The Teapot, simultaneously created the entire universe in its observable state as of the date we call "May 18, 1872", including Mrs. Russell giving birth to little Bertrand. I am hoping that looking at such an argument from an outside perspective will force, er, certain individuals to get a fucking clue WRT the nature of science and religion, and the meaning of terms like 'logic', 'proof', 'evidence', 'choice' etc. Suggestions for what to take as a "religious text" are welcome.

I think that should fix it.

I think you might have better luck with the Flying Spaghetti Monster than Russell's teapot, as the FSM seems to have a lot more momentum behind it right now.

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Original post by SiCrane I think you might have better luck with the Flying Spaghetti Monster than Russell's teapot, as the FSM seems to have a lot more momentum behind it right now.

Well duh. Russel's teapot is so small you can't see it, it would have to be pretty damn dense to have much momentum at all.

CM

Well, I had a nice mini-novel written as a response, but in retrospect, I misunderstood your post. [grin]

What is a religious text? Anything said religion wants to be religious. Look up the term religious. What is a holy text? Nothing. I don't think the bible is holy, but I believe the messages are.

And, by the way, being religous doesn't make me anti-sciencetific. To those that don't believe in god, science ecourages that belief, but to those that believe in God, it is ever complimenting our God. You can't disprove god's existence, and I can't prove it. We come to a stalemate, and the only way for you to prove me wrong is when I die. Luckily for me, you can't rub it in my face if your right. [smile]

[Edit:] Dang, looking at Conner's post, it seems I misunderstood it again. You are argueing that such a teapot could exist, or what? Sorry, my mind is blank right now, I'm having touble understanding.

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Original post by Servant of the Lord You can't disprove god's existence, and I can't prove it.

logic says there's no reason to believe, then, until the burden of proof has been satisfied.

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Original post by fadilthrejk Quote: Original post by Servant of the Lord You can't disprove god's existence, and I can't prove it. logic says there's no reason to believe, then, until the burden of proof has been satisfied.

Why do people so admantly believe in no god then? Wouldn't the logical thing be to be openminded to either eventurality?
For that matter, what is logic? The only 'logical' thing is to believe what makes sense most to you, and I have trouble with the big bang and with most other religions I read about. The biblical route seems most 'logical' to me, as it is something I feel actaully makes sense.


On topic: Some of those wiki links are interesting, but yeah, I believe that the world was created, as it's sometimes put, "mature". If God had created a new world, it wouldn't be able to support life, and after all, God did create Adam and Eve matured, and not as newborns.

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Original post by Servant of the Lord Quote: Original post by fadilthrejk Quote: Original post by Servant of the Lord You can't disprove god's existence, and I can't prove it. logic says there's no reason to believe, then, until the burden of proof has been satisfied. Why do people so admantly believe in no god then? Wouldn't the logical thing be to be openminded to either eventurality?

Because the burden of proof is on the presenter of a claim, not the recipient.

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For that matter, what is logic? The only 'logical' thing is to believe what makes sense most to you, and I have trouble with the big bang and with most other religions I read about. The biblical route seems most 'logical' to me, as it is something I feel actaully makes sense.

You have no idea what you're talking about. Logic is a cut-and-dry system of reasoning, there's no "I feel like it makes sense, so it does". There are rules and principles to it.

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On topic: Some of those wiki links are interesting, but yeah, I believe that the world was created, as it's sometimes put, "mature". If God had created a new world, it wouldn't be able to support life, and after all, God did create Adam and Eve matured, and not as newborns.

God didn't create adam and eve. If we all descended from 2 people, you can get no more genetic diversity than what those two individuals have. Without evolution we would all have the same skin color, eye color, and hair color.
Why would god create the world as it was described in the bible, "complete", and then have some mechanism in place to change it all from there?

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Original post by fadilthrejk Because the burden of proof is on the presenter of a claim, not the recipient.

True, but we are standing on proof. This world, this universe, cannot have popped into existence but by God. It is like pointing at an object and saying 'Where did that come from?' and someone else responding, 'Oh, it was always there' Not a very good explaination, it has to come from somewhere.
Although, funnily enough, this could be turned around on me by asking where god came from, so I'd admit my ignorance on that point.

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You have no idea what you're talking about. Logic is a cut-and-dry system of reasoning, there's no "I feel like it makes sense, so it does". There are rules and principles to it.

Logic is not a cut and dry system, it is a theological thought. Logic is something man has created to prove he is correct. So in that sense, logically, I find the biblical version of the coming to being least flawed. Hopefully that is better worded on my part.

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God didn't create adam and eve. If we all descended from 2 people, you can get no more genetic diversity than what those two individuals have. Without evolution we would all have the same skin color, eye color, and hair color.

Now you're trying to prove evalution, but can't off any definate proof either. All you have is simularitys in animals, mutations in bateria, and simular occurances, and all I have is evidence of global floods, a nation that is constantly under attack and yet has survived for 2.5+ millinia, and simular events. As, I said, neither one of us will believe the other. I can offer as much of my proof as I can, and it won't matter one bit to you, and you can offer all your proof and it won't effect me.

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Why would god create the world as it was described in the bible, "complete", and then have some mechanism in place to change it all from there?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but are you refering to the tree of knowledge?


@Zahlman: Sorry I am causing your thread to get derailed, hopefully it'll get realigned, as those are interesting links.

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Original post by Servant of the Lord [...] Quote: You have no idea what you're talking about. Logic is a cut-and-dry system of reasoning, there's no "I feel like it makes sense, so it does". There are rules and principles to it. Logic is not a cut and dry system, it is a theological thought. Logic is something man has created to prove he is correct. So in that sense, logically, I find the biblical version of the coming to being least flawed. Hopefully that is better worded on my part.[...]

Logic is a definition-based system too simple to contain paradoxes. Thus, if it is incorrect or inconsistent (or 'not a cut and dry system'), so is all of the human thought behind it. The human thought behind ANYTHING else (including religion) is based on logic to some degree. The (only) reason we disagree about things is that we accept different statements as axioms.

At this point, there should really be an entire religion section of the forums where people can go to have these useless arguments.

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Original post by Servant of the Lord Why do people so admantly believe in no god then? Wouldn't the logical thing be to be openminded to either eventurality?

[Disclaimer]These are my ideas, and as such, are not to be held in any high regard. Nor should they be the source of any consternation. I wholly accept your right to disagree, vehemently if you feel it necessary. I also respect that you may indeed, hold contradictory ideas or beliefs sacred. You have the right to those beliefs and I am in no way belittling them, nor am I attempting to sway you. They are yours, and I respect that a difference of opinion will most certainly exist. In turn, I only ask that you respect my right to my ideas. Thank you[/Disclaimer]

This is essentially my contention, that believing there is no God is no more, or less rationale than believing there is a God. I further contend that it is impossible to prove the inexistence of God, and, on the other side, the only way to prove the existence of God is for His presence to be made known explicitly (e.g. snap His fingers and make us all simultaneously unquestionably believe in Him).

As such, I am agnostic. I accept that there may, or may not be a God and aside from the above mentioned proof of existence, it is impossible for me to ascertain the Truth. I choose, however, to accept nothing in the Bible (or any holy documents) as divine scripture as, written by mortals with definite agendas, it is, by definition, fallible. I cannot place any great faith in something written by the hand of man, especially when I cannot, in anyway, rationalize what is written in the work with the world in which I currently live.

That's just my 2 cents. Take it or leave it. I won't be arguing my point however, as even what I have said here is more than I generally contribute to religious discussions (due to their inherent volatility)

Now with this thread the Noahs Ark one will never reach 2nd place in the stats. Thanks alot.[flaming]

Awww, looks like noone wants to play the game and lots of people get the point already. Boo. [cry]

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Original post by Servant of the Lord Quote: Original post by fadilthrejk Quote: Original post by Servant of the Lord You can't disprove god's existence, and I can't prove it. logic says there's no reason to believe, then, until the burden of proof has been satisfied. Why do people so admantly believe in no god then?

That's the thing though: It's not so much an adamant belief in *no* god, as in *not your concept of* god.

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For that matter, what is logic? The only 'logical' thing is to believe what makes sense most to you, and I have trouble with the big bang and with most other religions I read about. The biblical route seems most 'logical' to me, as it is something I feel actaully makes sense.

That's not logic; that's intuition. Thanks for illustrating my point.
Logic is - roughly speaking - where you take axioms - things that are too simple to be provable - and apply ideas like "(A implies B) is equivalent to ((not B) implies (not A))", to arrive at progressively more complex theorems.

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Original post by fadilthrejk If we all descended from 2 people, you can get no more genetic diversity than what those two individuals have. Without evolution we would all have the same skin color, eye color, and hair color.

To be fair, the Bible said he created those two, but it never says that he only created those two (at least not in any translation I've read).

In any case, even the assumption that Eve was created from the rib of Adam doesn't require that they be genetically identical. Obviously some genetic switcheroo was necessary because of that whole XY -> XX thing, so there's no reason not to believe that other genes weren't mucked with as well.

So anyway, skin, hair and eye color are the product of multiple genes that come in recessive and dominant flavors and still aren't completely mapped. Take eye color as an example: two brown eyed parents can bear a blue eyed child. Geneticists only know of three genes which influence eye color, and those alleles only account for blue, brown and green eyes. Even if there were only two progenitors of the species, it's conceivable that Adam and Eve were gifted with alleles such that the full gamut of eye color found in current human expression are possible given descent from just those two. Especially since meiosis isn't the most exact replication mechanism you can think of.

While the ultimate effect of a small enclosed genepool is a community with a small amount of genetic variation between members, it says nothing about the originating members. The separation of the children of Adam and Eve into different tribes would create a number of groups that would eventually come to share similar genetic traits within the group, but those traits would not necessarily be the same from tribe to tribe.

And who knows? The lands where Adam and Eve settled could have been extra radioactive. There were more radioactive ores back then. A nice infusion of U-235 could inject some genetic diversity and explain why successive generations kept getting shorter lives. Of course, inbreeding could also explain that.

For the good of humanity and bandwith (and also to allow Noah to reach second place) the honourable thing to do would be to divert this topic quickly away from the direction it is currently headed.

So let us discuss the nature of logic, proof, evidence, choice. Extrarius has just attempted a definition of logic - 'Logic is a definition-based system too simple to contain paradoxes'. I do not agree with this. Firstly, because logic is not really a definition based system. But truly, before I may speak on that, you must qualify your meaning that I may be certain I have it correct.

As well, there are logics which do allow for the existance of inconsistencies.

Furthermore, even in science there are inconsistencies due to circular nature of certain definitions.

Logic is a system of mathematical proofs/rules for arriving at positions based on irreducible axioms. Note, however, that induction is a logical method, so it is possible to make an inferrence merely based on probability. At the same time, note that such inferences require a reasonable number of prior instances to justify the supposition for open-ended numbers of cases that the condition is always so.

Consequently, you can not arrive at any worthwhile religious notion as a product of the application of logic. Taking the monotheistic creationist position, for instance, one must make the leap that "all things exist" and "all things did not create themselves" thus "all things were created by one and the same Creator," which has no "prior art," if you will: aside from man, we do not see any "creator" that fashions such a wide variety of disparate objects. Taking the atheist position, on the other hand, the absence of proof is taken as proof of absence, which centuries of the discovery of the previously undetectable causes - ironically, though application of induction - to reject.

In summary, the only logical position with regard to religion is one of openness to possibility. The absence of proofs or disproofs that are not reliant on a biased predisposition means that the question of religious authenticity, God and so forth can not be objectively answered based purely on the scientific method.

In my opinion, that is as it should be. After all, if I could prove there was a God, you wouldn't need faith, would you?

Disclaimer: My personal "convictions" run along the lines of agnosticism/apathy, as suggested by my interpretation/argument of logical application above. Perhaps this post is self-serving. Perhaps not.

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Original post by Zahlman That's the thing though: It's not so much an adamant belief in *no* god, as in *not your concept of* god.

On the contary, many many people believe in no god. Many many people believe in my god and other gods, too, but many people do believe, and openly say, there is no god. Not just my beliefs of god.

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That's not logic; that's intuition. Thanks for illustrating my point. Logic is - roughly speaking - where you take axioms - things that are too simple to be provable - and apply ideas like "(A implies B) is equivalent to ((not B) implies (not A))", to arrive at progressively more complex theorems.

Hmm, perhaps it wouldn't hurt if I went and looked up logic, aparently I have a false definiton of it.

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Original post by Extrarius Logic is a definition-based system too simple to contain paradoxes. Thus, if it is incorrect or inconsistent (or 'not a cut and dry system'), so is all of the human thought behind it. The human thought behind ANYTHING else (including religion) is based on logic to some degree. The (only) reason we disagree about things is that we accept different statements as axioms.

Human thought is highly inconsistent.[smile]
But interesting all the same.

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Original post by Zahlman Logic is - roughly speaking - where you take axioms - things that are too simple to be provable - and apply ideas like "(A implies B) is equivalent to ((not B) implies (not A))", to arrive at progressively more complex theorems.

This is not true, the axioms are what may be considered the parts of your theory which cannot be proven from within your system [the founding formulae]. It is certainly possible that an axiom of your system may be proven from another since in principle, we may choose any set of axioms to serve as a basis of our theory.

Furthermore what you state there is not quite logic but an example of some actions (with use of connectives - here being implication) possible in a symbolic logic.

"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." -- Lewis Carroll