5 reasons atheism is irrational

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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by charlou » Thu Mar 18, 2010 2:39 am

ScienceRob wrote:
Charlou wrote:
Gawdzilla wrote:
AshtonBlack wrote:Some are trolls. (The ones I dislike, Hit and Run, Cut and Paste, Lalalala and fair target for ridicule. Like a theist /b/tard.)
Some have doubts and want to explore.(The ones I like. Flawed arguments, but at least willing to engage. One day the veil may rise?)
... and many gradients in between.

I'm not suggesting that ANYONE has been "deconverted" due to a interwebz debate, but it could sow some seeds, perhaps.

As long as things remain civil and everyone plays nice, I don't have a problem.
I just keep hoping someone challenging will show up. Ain't gonna happen, I think.
Tigger wrote:So God is "your god" and is therefore entirely subjective. I have a headache (really) but it's my personal experience and I wouldn't expect you to have a sympathetic migraine just because I told you I was suffering. Your arguments hold no water. I'm out of here, unconvinced. Again. Slightly disappointed, too, but hardly surprised.

I don't get the two comments I've bolded above. What are the two of you wanting to be challenged about / convinced of?


I assume you mean that you're disappointed that your own arguments are not challenging and convincing enough to sway the absolutist mind of a theist?
I think more so that no new ideas have come to fruition that challenge the rational mind to explain away the seemingly impossible.

I just don't see how a rational thinker would even expect anything a theist, coming as they do from a position of faith and superstition, has to offer would be challenging or convincing?
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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by Rob » Thu Mar 18, 2010 3:15 am

I know personally I love an intellectual challenge, and I would wager most rationalists like myself do. I think they are just wishing/hoping in the same way I hope for my eventual graduate school to be free of cost. I know personally the I have tired of it all and have settled on religious apathy. Believers do not have sufficient reason to suppose that their god exists. The evidence isn't there, and without evidence you cannot logic your way into god. There is only one type of theist though, who can intellectually defend their position and be free of criticism. That is the theist who became a believer due to personal revelation and was not converted any other way. If a person has a subjective personal revelation that converts them then you really have no way to counter that. It was their experience which is subjective by its very nature so no at that point you can't really engage that possibility beside pointing out the nature of the human mind and body.
I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. [...] I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. - Richard Feynman

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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by JimC » Thu Mar 18, 2010 3:24 am

ScienceRob wrote:I know personally I love an intellectual challenge, and I would wager most rationalists like myself do. I think they are just wishing/hoping in the same way I hope for my eventual graduate school to be free of cost. I know personally the I have tired of it all and have settled on religious apathy. Believers do not have sufficient reason to suppose that their god exists. The evidence isn't there, and without evidence you cannot logic your way into god. There is only one type of theist though, who can intellectually defend their position and be free of criticism. That is the theist who became a believer due to personal revelation and was not converted any other way. If a person has a subjective personal revelation that converts them then you really have no way to counter that. It was their experience which is subjective by its very nature so no at that point you can't really engage that possibility beside pointing out the nature of the human mind and body.
What you can say, however, is that their personal revelation confers on them no right to comment on the nature of the universe or problems of human morality, and if they do, they can expect contemptuous laughter...
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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by Rob » Thu Mar 18, 2010 3:45 am

Yeah, I was thinking that while I wrote that but I thought I would say that in response if anyone brought up that point. Rational people who do have such experiences usually understand that while that experience was enough to convince them in no way does that subjective experience convince others so bringing forth such testimony is stupid at best intellectually dishonest at worst. The ones you really start to :banghead: are those who are not rational and have such an experience. That ranks up there for aggravating right along with the Hitler and Stalin were atheists argument.
I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. [...] I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me. - Richard Feynman

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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by Theophilus » Thu Mar 18, 2010 6:15 am

I'm still pondering on miracles Gawdz. I am wondering what evidence would convince me that a healing (they are the most often claimed miracles) was miraculous. You will know that "miracles" in scripture were signs to people (e.g. evidence of divinity), so one man's miracle could simply be another man's natural (if uncommon) healing.

As I've mentioned before I'm not from the "charismatic" (the charisms being "gifts" in this case) wing of the church; I don't mix with those that claim to perform or witness miracles. This may be a discussion that you're best having with someone who has witnessed (or would claim to have witnessed) a miracle. Everyday life is sufficient miracle for me, though I know that is not how you're describing miracles.
"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible" St. Thomas Aquinas

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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by Theophilus » Thu Mar 18, 2010 6:22 am

AshtonBlack wrote:Scientific dogma? Could you clarify what you mean? Isn't the scientific method designed so dogmas get overturned by the data? eg Newton's Gravitational Theory gets overturned by Einstein's General Relativity? Or something else? Like we don't accept anything without evidence?
Yes, I would say the scientific dogma is the scientific model of the day. As with all dogma (accepted truths) they can be very hard to overturn, people may explain away data that conflicts with dogma. For example William Harvey in his own lifetime never really convinced his contemporaries that blood circulates (despite having good data from well designed experiments in dogs) - it took the next generation to take that his new model board. William Harvey was challenging Galan which was even worse (if possible) than someone (especially a German-speaking someone) challenging Newton, the darling of British science. Science is objective, but few scientists are truly objective, especially when they get longer in the tooth.

Did you ever see that old BBC series "the day the universe changed" with James Burke? He picked half a dozen moments when our models of how the universe works were altered by large paradigm shifts, the resistance to paradigm shifts is very strong - some people never accept the new paradigm. I think the idea that new data comes along and "bang" everybody accepts the new scientific idea is a little too idealistic, it may take many years (and probably a new generation or more) for a truly new idea (such as blood circulating, disease not being caused by miasma, general relativity, etc....) to displace the old ones.

And religions have dogma as well, of course. And a little like William Harvey overturning dogma usually requires convincing a new generation of people as, I would suggest, the reformers did. In the case of the reformers they did not exactly present "new" evidence but represented evidence (scripture) which had been largely ignored or inaccessible to people.

I live in both religious and scientific communities, and the parallels (especially between how people and communities deal with new ideas) are perhaps stronger than you would expect.
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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by Hermit » Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:09 am

Theophilus wrote:Yes, I would say the scientific dogma is the scientific model of the day. As with all dogma (accepted truths) they can be very hard to overturn, people may explain away data that conflicts with dogma.
Oh, please, Theophilus. Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from. While there is always a struggle for one scientific theory to supersede another, no defender of any scientific theory demands that their theories (which qualitatively differ from dogma) must not be disputed, doubted or diverged from. I resent the very term "scientific dogma" because the second word is a malapropism. I really appreciate the courteous and civil style you post in, but if you persist with associating science with dogma, I will regard that as intellectual dishonesty.
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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by AshtonBlack » Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:35 am

Theophilus wrote:
AshtonBlack wrote:Scientific dogma? Could you clarify what you mean? Isn't the scientific method designed so dogmas get overturned by the data? eg Newton's Gravitational Theory gets overturned by Einstein's General Relativity? Or something else? Like we don't accept anything without evidence?
Yes, I would say the scientific dogma is the scientific model of the day. As with all dogma (accepted truths) they can be very hard to overturn, people may explain away data that conflicts with dogma. For example William Harvey in his own lifetime never really convinced his contemporaries that blood circulates (despite having good data from well designed experiments in dogs) - it took the next generation to take that his new model board. William Harvey was challenging Galan which was even worse (if possible) than someone (especially a German-speaking someone) challenging Newton, the darling of British science. Science is objective, but few scientists are truly objective, especially when they get longer in the tooth.

Did you ever see that old BBC series "the day the universe changed" with James Burke? He picked half a dozen moments when our models of how the universe works were altered by large paradigm shifts, the resistance to paradigm shifts is very strong - some people never accept the new paradigm. I think the idea that new data comes along and "bang" everybody accepts the new scientific idea is a little too idealistic, it may take many years (and probably a new generation or more) for a truly new idea (such as blood circulating, disease not being caused by miasma, general relativity, etc....) to displace the old ones.

And religions have dogma as well, of course. And a little like William Harvey overturning dogma usually requires convincing a new generation of people as, I would suggest, the reformers did. In the case of the reformers they did not exactly present "new" evidence but represented evidence (scripture) which had been largely ignored or inaccessible to people.

I live in both religious and scientific communities, and the parallels (especially between how people and communities deal with new ideas) are perhaps stronger than you would expect.
Well, I will concede that some ideas are entrenched and it takes a while, but usually it takes data to settle the matter, not just the Zeitgeist. But, in that very programme (I read the book, didn't catch the TV series) you mentioned James Burke makes the point that the scientific method is not only fosters change but also increases the rate of change. Dogma there maybe, but one only has too look at the scientific advancement of the species in the last 100 years. Science, as a tool to understand the universe and to make testable predictions about it, as the saying goes, works. Christianity, for example has had 1600 years to make it's case, rational science, maybe 400. Granted, there were scientists before Galileo, but as James Burke said, that is one of the days the universe changed.
Organised religions seem to be, to me, less adaptable to change or criticism of their entrenched ideas. This includes the basic premise that there is something supernatural, and they know what it is. Without evidence.

edited for clarity.(not sure it worked.)

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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by The Dagda » Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:40 am

thedistillers wrote:1) Human beings aspire to be happy. The logical consequence of atheism is despair and nihilism. If atheism is true, there is no reason to care about truth, or anything else, so even if God doesn't exist, it's more rational to believe and hope God exists, to live a happier life.
Subjecting your hapiness to believing what you think is a lie is not happiness it is cognitive dissonance. Many philosophers, mostly the existentialists have envisioned a way to be happy without religion. Personally I think Camus was the most succesful, see The Myth of Sysiphus.

No rational argument about God can make someone believe in something for which there is no evidence.
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The Myth of Sysiphus
by Albert Camus

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.

It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.

You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward tlower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.

It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.

If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Edipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.

One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. Discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Edipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.

All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

2) The universe had a beginning. It is irrational to believe a universe can start to exist without a cause, for ex nihilo nihil fit. Only what we call "God" can be the cause for the universe, for the cause of the universe has to be personal and immaterial. Therefore atheism is irrational.
What caused God? If you say nothing then there doesn't have to be a cause.
3) You can only make sense of the universe if it behaves in a predictable way. If atheism is true, there is no rational reason to believe the universe will continue to behave in a predictable way. We cannot make sense of the world we live in if atheism is true. Therefore atheism is irrational.
Non sequitur it doesn't follow that there has to be purpose for natural laws to work or order for the Universe to exist or that it even has to make sense. Teleology 101 failure.
4) There is no rational explanation for the Gospel accounts, unless Jesus really rose from the dead. Only God had the power to raise Jesus from the dead. Therefore God exists, and atheism is irrational.
You should of stopped at the bolded part. And added therefore they didn't happen and are merely a propaganda exercise for the fledgling church written in some cases more than a century after Jesus' death
5) Atheists can't even prove their position, using evidence and logic. Therefore atheism is irrational.
Neither can theists that leaves agnosticism as a more logical position, but meh its kind of tomatoes and tomatoes.

I'm sure every single point here has been mentioned before but I'm on may way out the door and didn't have time to read most of it.
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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by AshtonBlack » Thu Mar 18, 2010 8:02 am

Obligatory Tim Minchin tube:

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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by Theophilus » Thu Mar 18, 2010 8:15 am

Seraph wrote:
Theophilus wrote:Yes, I would say the scientific dogma is the scientific model of the day. As with all dogma (accepted truths) they can be very hard to overturn, people may explain away data that conflicts with dogma.
Oh, please, Theophilus. Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from. While there is always a struggle for one scientific theory to supersede another, no defender of any scientific theory demands that their theories (which qualitatively differ from dogma) must not be disputed, doubted or diverged from. I resent the very term "scientific dogma" because the second word is a malapropism. I really appreciate the courteous and civil style you post in, but if you persist with associating science with dogma, I will regard that as intellectual dishonesty.
Well Seraph, it is not just me who uses the term "scientific dogma". I hear it frequently from colleagues as they struggle to persuade others of their own models. And here for example is an editorial from the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal "Analyst" on scientific dogma: http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLin ... nalCode=AN.

If we look at the second definition in the OED (the first does pertain directly to religion) we find dogma may be defined and used in various wider ways "The body of opinion formulated or authoritatively stated; systematized belief; tenets or principles collectively; doctrinal system."

Interestingly the RSC editorial comments specifically on peer-review in respect to scientific dogma. I think the thoughts are quite pertinent considering the current controversies over peer review of stem cell research. It also reminds us that even scientists may initially reject new ideas even when supported by data....

"An intriguing ancillary issue to scientific dogma is the strongly connected role of the peer review system and Editorial practises of major vehicles for the publication of scientific research. We pretty well all accept that rigorous ‘‘justification’’ of arguments generated from chemical and other data is the order of day. I would argue for more flexibility and a greater sense of recognition from peers when considering the results of difficult and groundbreaking work. In
this respect, I am reminded that Lord Rayleigh commented that the Joule– Thompson effect was predicted years before the seminal work appeared, but
the truly original paper by Waterston was rejected. The same fate awaited an important paper, eventually published by Michael Smith on site-directed mutagenesis and we all know where this work ended. It is entirely possible that a prevailing level of dogma was involved in these decisions."
(Royal Society of Chemistry Editorial; M. Thompson, (2004) Scientific dogma—a personal experience. Analyst 129, 865)

Anyway, there's nothing like a good dispute over the proper use of English language to start the day :biggrin:

Have a good one Seraph.
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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by colubridae » Thu Mar 18, 2010 8:24 am

Hi theo..

you seem to be doing the usual theist trick... ignoring bits that don't fit with your fairy tale...


http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 25#p397631

you didn't answer this post...
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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by colubridae » Thu Mar 18, 2010 8:31 am

Theophilus wrote:
Seraph wrote:
Theophilus wrote:Yes, I would say the scientific dogma is the scientific model of the day. As with all dogma (accepted truths) they can be very hard to overturn, people may explain away data that conflicts with dogma.
Oh, please, Theophilus. Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from. While there is always a struggle for one scientific theory to supersede another, no defender of any scientific theory demands that their theories (which qualitatively differ from dogma) must not be disputed, doubted or diverged from. I resent the very term "scientific dogma" because the second word is a malapropism. I really appreciate the courteous and civil style you post in, but if you persist with associating science with dogma, I will regard that as intellectual dishonesty.
Well Seraph, it is not just me who uses the term "scientific dogma". I hear it frequently from colleagues as they struggle to persuade others of their own models. And here for example is an editorial from the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal "Analyst" on scientific dogma: http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLin ... nalCode=AN.

If we look at the second definition in the OED (the first does pertain directly to religion) we find dogma may be defined and used in various wider ways "The body of opinion formulated or authoritatively stated; systematized belief; tenets or principles collectively; doctrinal system."

Interestingly the RSC editorial comments specifically on peer-review in respect to scientific dogma. I think the thoughts are quite pertinent considering the current controversies over peer review of stem cell research. It also reminds us that even scientists may initially reject new ideas even when supported by data....

"An intriguing ancillary issue to scientific dogma is the strongly connected role of the peer review system and Editorial practises of major vehicles for the publication of scientific research. We pretty well all accept that rigorous ‘‘justification’’ of arguments generated from chemical and other data is the order of day. I would argue for more flexibility and a greater sense of recognition from peers when considering the results of difficult and groundbreaking work. In
this respect, I am reminded that Lord Rayleigh commented that the Joule– Thompson effect was predicted years before the seminal work appeared, but
the truly original paper by Waterston was rejected. The same fate awaited an important paper, eventually published by Michael Smith on site-directed mutagenesis and we all know where this work ended. It is entirely possible that a prevailing level of dogma was involved in these decisions."
(Royal Society of Chemistry Editorial; M. Thompson, (2004) Scientific dogma—a personal experience. Analyst 129, 865)

Anyway, there's nothing like a good dispute over the proper use of English language to start the day :biggrin:

Have a good one Seraph.

All this simply verifies what we have been saying...

Scientific 'dogma', when it is false, does get overturned.

no such thing happens with your fairy tales. No amount of evidence or rational thought will overturn them.
No matter how false they are shon to be.

You are simply a victim of your own dogma.

evidence suggests that you will sidestep this post with some further intricate nonsense, but i may be wrong.
Not dogmatic, is it?
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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by The Dagda » Thu Mar 18, 2010 8:32 am

colubridae wrote:
Theophilus wrote:
Seraph wrote:
Theophilus wrote:Yes, I would say the scientific dogma is the scientific model of the day. As with all dogma (accepted truths) they can be very hard to overturn, people may explain away data that conflicts with dogma.
Oh, please, Theophilus. Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from. While there is always a struggle for one scientific theory to supersede another, no defender of any scientific theory demands that their theories (which qualitatively differ from dogma) must not be disputed, doubted or diverged from. I resent the very term "scientific dogma" because the second word is a malapropism. I really appreciate the courteous and civil style you post in, but if you persist with associating science with dogma, I will regard that as intellectual dishonesty.
Well Seraph, it is not just me who uses the term "scientific dogma". I hear it frequently from colleagues as they struggle to persuade others of their own models. And here for example is an editorial from the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal "Analyst" on scientific dogma: http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLin ... nalCode=AN.

If we look at the second definition in the OED (the first does pertain directly to religion) we find dogma may be defined and used in various wider ways "The body of opinion formulated or authoritatively stated; systematized belief; tenets or principles collectively; doctrinal system."

Interestingly the RSC editorial comments specifically on peer-review in respect to scientific dogma. I think the thoughts are quite pertinent considering the current controversies over peer review of stem cell research. It also reminds us that even scientists may initially reject new ideas even when supported by data....

"An intriguing ancillary issue to scientific dogma is the strongly connected role of the peer review system and Editorial practises of major vehicles for the publication of scientific research. We pretty well all accept that rigorous ‘‘justification’’ of arguments generated from chemical and other data is the order of day. I would argue for more flexibility and a greater sense of recognition from peers when considering the results of difficult and groundbreaking work. In
this respect, I am reminded that Lord Rayleigh commented that the Joule– Thompson effect was predicted years before the seminal work appeared, but
the truly original paper by Waterston was rejected. The same fate awaited an important paper, eventually published by Michael Smith on site-directed mutagenesis and we all know where this work ended. It is entirely possible that a prevailing level of dogma was involved in these decisions."
(Royal Society of Chemistry Editorial; M. Thompson, (2004) Scientific dogma—a personal experience. Analyst 129, 865)

Anyway, there's nothing like a good dispute over the proper use of English language to start the day :biggrin:

Have a good one Seraph.

All this simply verifies what we have been saying...

Scientific 'dogma', when it is false, does get overturned.

no such thing happens with your fairy tales. No amount of evidence or rational thought will overturn them.
No matter how false they are shon to be.

You are simply a victim of your own dogma.

evidence suggests that you will sidestep this post with some further intricate nonsense, but i may be wrong.
Not dogmatic, is it?
How many theists ideologies could dance on the head of a pin or fit into the gaps between reason?

To the OP an after thought.

No I don't know God doesn't exist and no I don't care if he does or not in the same way as I don't care if fairies exist or The IPU*. Now Fuck off!

How shall we fuck off oh lord?

j/k

*besides the FSM is the one true God, PBUH.
"Religion and science are like oil and water, you can't expect to mix them and come up with a solution."

Me in one of my more lucid moments. 2004

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Re: 5 reasons atheism is irrational

Post by Tigger » Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:15 am

Charlou wrote:
<SNIP>

I just don't see how a rational thinker would even expect anything a theist, coming as they do from a position of faith and superstition, has to offer would be challenging or convincing?
QUITE!

FORGIVE THE SNIP AND THE SHOUTING. THEO!!! ANSWER SOME QUESTIONS FFS! Else why are you here? Don't answer that, I need to do other things this weekend rather than read a post you can supply an even more verbose answer to than usual. :roll: :razzle:
Seems like a pleasant enough guy though. :tup:
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