Fundamental Atheism and the Conflicting Ideas Problem.

I would also say that this applies equally to dark matter and dark energy ... the mystical stuff that makes the universe spin on time.or not.I would say it is incumbent on them if they want to convince you, otherwise big deal. I also think it is better to say "I don't know" than to claim to know when you don't, that you should be equally skeptical on both sides. this doesn't mean you aren't free to believe one way or the other, just that you need to distinguish between belief and knowledge. Again, what you may be looking at is the evidence regardless of how you see it. Your expectations may be what are in error. Can you distinguish between a wholly natural universe and one that was created and left untouched ... from a sample of <0.00001% of it?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

I was down for the count yesterday with a sinus headache (and I have learned to stay away from posting in that condition), so I can feel your ... understand your feeling.my personal belief is more on the lines of a god creating the universe to see what would happen -- the "now surprise me" approach, so that understanding how things work is as natural as wanting to know what is over the next hill.I find some people as closed minded and boxed in by their world view insisting on no god as much as others on the other side. And so will I. Seems like a rational approach to me.{corrected msg #}This message has been edited by RAZD, 04*13*2005 06:01 PM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

and I have no problem with belief as long as folks don't try to impose their {whatever} on others, whether it be ufo's, dark matter, or green aliens making designer genes.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

and dark matter and dark energy and ....as long as the yardstick is applied the same in all cases eh?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Just out of curiosity, your "reply" had what to do with any of the points I made in my post? Umm, yeah. So? What does dark matter - or anything else cosmological - have to do with anything I've written in this thread? Sure. "I don't know" is a reasonable answer when there is doubt. My discussion with Oook appears to be based on at what level "doubt" becomes meaningless mental masturbation. IOW, at what point it becomes reasonable to state, "it ain't so". For me, the last 40,000 years or so provide a pretty fair baseline - to the point that continuing to admit "doubt" becomes futile exercise equivalent to a metaphysical argument over "the square root of a duck", as a friend once put it. I'm sure there's some deep and profoundly important philosophical statement in here, but I'm simply to dense to understand it. Aside from the universe reference (which appears superficially to be a "we can know nothing if we don't know everything" argument), this paragraph is almost Brad-like in its opacity. Sorry if I'm not up to your intellectual level on metaphysics.

umm, because it is their job and the work is checked and cross-checked, while your opinion is just you saying whatever you need to in order to dance around the issue. This also fails to address the issue of communication -- that if you don't use the same meanings as other people then you are speaking a different language that only appears similar. claiming that atheism is a belief system is superstitious? nope. claiming that atheists who claim it is not belief but a known fact is superstitious? again nope: demonstrated. because I "find it useful" is also missing the point that this is observed behavior. by you, in fact. No matter what you call it, it is still a belief. LOL. The more you argue as you have in these posts, the more you show your fundamental adherence to your dogmatic tenet that there is no god is factual and not belief. Seems you cannot be anything else but. yep. it certainly is. thanks. sounds like a tenant to me. and a fundamental belief that will not accept other viewpoints event though it has no evidence, in spite of your (erroneous) claim (you have not ruled out ALL claims of ALL gods, and "a great deal" is not a unanimous position either). Yeah right, you were reduced to insult after insult because your evidence didn't stand up to the sexual dimorphism evidence while sexual selection did. I went down the list of observed patterns of hairiness and hairlessness and showed how it matched sexual selection criteria, while you just made more insults. but like I said, I will be happy to take this particular argument elsewhere. like I said. Seems you can't keep from indulging in insult when you really have no facts to back up your position.

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no, I am equating the more than tentatively inadequate knowledge about this behavior with other areas of similar tentatively inadequate knowledge. Is it really? Sounds like you are a solid believer in the factual existence of dark matter. Of course that was not enough to explain the anomaly, so now we have to have dark energy too ... to counteract the gravity ... so which is it?No, what we have -- and all we have -- is an observation that does not match the prediction. Period. Dark matter appealed as an explanation, until they needed to add dark energy (what's next?), but the reality is that there is not just insufficient evidence to justify belief in it, there is no independent evidence: it just doesn't stack up, particularly when you look at the scale of the problem. I also remind you of your words: Seems you are stuck with absolutely believing in dark matter (so that you can believe that all known phenomenon are suitably accounted for), when there is as much evidence for dark matter as there is for a god making the universe spin. It seems your {world view} is forcing you to commit to this concept, regardless of how little evidence is there, just so all the universal ducks are in a row.And you still have not gone down the list of {A} items. I am guessing that you would show yourself to be inconsistent in the application of your criteria.Just as you could not answer the list of evidence I had for sexual selection.Let me repeat it for you, just to give you another opportunity: Now I could infer from your posts on UFO's and Dark Matter, but I wouldn't want to be accused of putting words in your mouth, and that is only two or three out of 11 anyway, and no god is even on the list.What say hmmm? Thank you for summing up your fundamental position on this topic, and I again remind you of your own words: Enjoy.{edited to change subtitle}This message has been edited by RAZD, 04*13*2005 07:36 PM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

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umm, because it is their job and the work is checked and cross-checked, while your opinion is just you saying whatever you need to in order to dance around the issue. This also fails to address the issue of communication -- that if you don't use the same meanings as other people then you are speaking a different language that only appears similar.

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My you are gullible. It is also the job of Snopes to track down urban legend, but their "debunking" of the allegation that Bush said the French had no word for Entrperenuer to Blair is based only on the report of Alistair Campbell, one of the formeost liars in British politics.Or, I can find dictionaries tha propagate the lie that communism payes everyone equally. Thats an outirghjt falswhood, but dictionaries propagate it.Your appeal to fatuous authority is dismissed. I will not be held to the opinions of a few individuals who cannot possibly reasearch the absolute validity of every word in the language.

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claiming that atheism is a belief system is superstitious? nope.

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Yes it is. Because atheism is the absence of a theistic belief. That is all.

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claiming that atheists who claim it is not belief but a known fact is superstitious? again nope: demonstrated.

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Not remotely demonstrated, becuase your entire illogical argument dependas on attributing to me a position I do not hold, and then telling me I am mistaken in the position I do hold. You have to deal with atheists as we are, not how we are in your imaginings.

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No matter what you call it, it is still a belief.

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No, its not a belief. To describe my position as a "belief" renders the term "belief" useless, as it now means any opinion on any topic, no matter how tentative.

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LOL. The more you argue as you have in these posts, the more you show your fundamental adherence to your dogmatic tenet that there is no god is factual and not belief. Seems you cannot be anything else but.

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And assignation of "fundamentalist" remains a blatant and insulting slander, as I have neither tenet nor dogma, nor is there any such for atheism.

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sounds like a tenant to me.

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A tenet of which movement, faction, fraction, sect or tradition? Please be specific. Where are they headquartered?

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and a fundamental belief that will not accept other viewpoints event though it has no evidence, in spite of your (erroneous) claim (you have not ruled out ALL claims of ALL gods, and "a great deal" is not a unanimous position either).

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Well, why should I? All existance evidence for god has been dealt with and suitably accounted for. There is no need to deal with the question of god any further - a model that explains all god-related phenomenon has been devoloped. And I do not need to take seriously claims merely becuase they are claims; I first need to be persuaded that there is even the remotest possibility they are serious.

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Yeah right, you were reduced to insult after insult because your evidence didn't stand up to the sexual dimorphism evidence while sexual selection did.

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You remain deluded. You claimed there was no evidential support for the running ape model, and that sexual selection was therefore chosen by default. You never were able to come up with a suitable response when I demonstrated that there WAS a bgetter explanation in the running ape model, and therefore the absencen of evidence default that sexual selection relies upon was not automatic. Behave like an adult and admit your errors.

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I went down the list of observed patterns of hairiness and hairlessness and showed how it matched sexual selection criteria, while you just made more insults. but like I said, I will be happy to take this particular argument elsewhere.

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No, you were hurling the insults, accusing me rather fatuously of not being an expert in the field. Your argument was destroyed. Deal with it.

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Is it really? Sounds like you are a solid believer in the factual existence of dark matter. Of course that was not enough to explain the anomaly, so now we have to have dark energy too ... to counteract the gravity ... so which is it?

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Don't ask me, as a theoretical physicist. I am happy with best guesses based on the available evidence. And if you conclude that I "beleieve" in a thiing merely becuase I am able to explain roughly how science came to the conclusion it did, it reinforces the point that you use "belief" to really mean "opinion", and this argument is entirely semantic.

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No, what we have -- and all we have -- is an observation that does not match the prediction. Period. Dark matter appealed as an explanation, until they needed to add dark energy (what's next?), but the reality is that there is not just insufficient evidence to justify belief in it, there is no independent evidence: it just doesn't stack up, particularly when you look at the scale of the problem. I also remind you of your words:

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Sure. And lots of people don't "believe" in it because everyone is aware how minimal our knowledge on the topic is. You are now defaulting to the common Theist trope of demanding that science be absolutely perfect and answer any and all questions immediately, or be "false". That is absurd.

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Seems you are stuck with absolutely believing in dark matter (so that you can believe that all known phenomenon are suitably accounted for),

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LOL. It is my OBSERVATION that amny physiocist use the term" dark matter" for a largely inexplicable phenomenon, and you turn this into a positive belief in the existance of a particular thing?This just shows how contorted and semantic your manipualtion of the term "belief" is.

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when there is as much evidence for dark matter as there is for a god making the universe spin.

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A what? Is there any reason to think that entities called gods exist? No there is not. Why therefore would I consider the possibility?[And incidentally, dark matter could even turn out to be the hand of god. That would not alter the validity of observing the effects of dark matter and giving it a label.]

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It seems your {world view} is forcing you to commit to this concept, regardless of how little evidence is there, just so all the universal ducks are in a row.

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Nonsense. It is because all the ducks ARE in a row that I adopt the concept.

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And you still have not gone down the list of {A} items. I am guessing that you would show yourself to be inconsistent in the application of your criteria.

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I have given you a siutable answer; your word-games do not amuse me much and I see no reason to go through the motions again and again. I am not your baby-sitter.

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Thank you for summing up your fundamental position on this topic, and I again remind you of your own words

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Don't bother, I wrote them.
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So, do you have an argument yet? Or shall I just claim victory by default?

I don't know anything about dark matter and dark energy. I rely on the scientific method and the rigour of the physicist community to ensure that such hypotheses are treated appropriately. for this reason I feel comfortable in keeping an open mind on these issues. But i certainly couldn't point at any data or analyses that indicate their existence, so I can't say that I am sure they exist. I am totally reliant on the vigilance of the academic community to do that job on my behalf.There doesn't appear to be a rigorous scientific community who support the existence of UFOs, angels, devils, God and pixies, so I can't keep an open mind on those issues. I am not aware of a group of people employing systematic framework of knowledge-gathering that might convince me to accept such hypotheses.mick

so, when it is a "safe" topic you are comfortable saying "I don't know" but if it is one that doesn't fit your {world view} you feel that your opinion is enough, regardless of the level of evidence being the same.the difference is belief in the absence of evidence either for or againstand the difference between regular atheism and this subcategory of fundamental atheism is in acknowledging that your belief is a belief.I know mine is.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

um, the amount of evidence that shows that the dark stuff really exists rather than it being just one hypothesis of how to make observation match theory. the hypothesis that god makes the galaxies spin just so is as valid as the dark stuffs hypothesis due to the total lack of evidence one way or the other.another hypothesis is that the theory is wrong. this is what I happen to believe: that there will be physical evidence that validates some other theory of gravity ability to predict the observed behavior without needing dark stuffs. the argument is simple: we have an evidence base on (1) universe on which to judge whether this universe was created or happened.thus it could have been created exactly as it is (down to the whirling galaxies overspeeding their observable mass behavior), or it just happened that way (and dark stuffs exist ... or they don't {and something else explains it ... or not}).we cannot know which, because we don't have evidence of {the other} for comparison.I choose to believe one thing, you choose to believe another -- based on the same (lack of) evidence.Ooook on the other hand doesn't choose, he waits for evidence. LOL. Not metaphysics so much as arguing for the same approach to be used for things with similar levels of evidence.Because I acknowledge that belief is involved I can go down the list of {A} items and recognize that we can't really know which do and don't exist, but that I can also say which ones I believe to exist and which not, because I choose to so believe.Acknowledging when belief is involved makes you freer to evaluate the subtle differences and also to consciously distinguish when knowledge is involved and when belief is involved.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

And yet I am not the one using archane and unusual if not abnormal definitions of words to bolster a tenuous position and call it logical. LOL. in one breath you claim you are not part of a group, and in another that you are. so you assert again, but then that is what you believe. or is it just your opinion?No, I will let belief stand as it is commonly defined and used by the rest of us. Atheism is not an opinion, but a belief. Perhaps you can tell us what your definition of belief is? heh. you're mixing up belief "Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons" with fundamentalism. Of course to a fundamentalist they are the same. see there you go again. in a group, not in a group, in a group, not in a group ... depending on the argument? of course, that the same questions can be posed for deism is probably beyond you. or do you contend that deism is not a belief your penchant for blatantly misrepresenting the facts is, again, hereby noted. these are both falsehoods. I challenge you to show a post where I said either. this is just one more example of your complete inabilty to deal with the subject honestly.let me refer you to
EvC Forum: the evolution of clothes?
http://EvC Forum: the evolution of clothes?
and
EvC Forum: the evolution of clothes?
where, rather than my accusing you "fatuously of not being an expert in the field" it seems you were ducking and running from honestly participating in the argument. you made an agreement, and never lived up to it.the agreement was proposed here
EvC Forum: the evolution of clothes?
and your acceptance of it is here
EvC Forum: the evolution of clothes? fundamental is as fundamental does. I couldn't have said it better.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Eastern or Western time, be specific.

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And yet I am not the one using archane and unusual if not abnormal definitions of words to bolster a tenuous position and call it logical.

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Yes, that exactly what you have done - remember, you prposed that keys I saw 10 minutes ago are equivalent in their mystery to a god who has never been observed ever in human history.

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LOL. in one breath you claim you are not part of a group, and in another that you are.

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Bullshit - all I denied was your appeal to spurious authority.If I bought a publishing company, and we printed a dictionary containing the definition "RAZD: noun, a fool" would that then become True?

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No, I will let belief stand as it is commonly defined and used by the rest of us. Atheism is not an opinion, but a belief. Perhaps you can tell us what your definition of belief is?

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ahahaha... having appealed to dictionary authority, RAZD now appeals to the vulgar argot. Hypocritical much?Seeing as you in such awe of the mental acuity of dictionary compilers, why don;t you look it up?belief Audio pronunciation of "belief" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (b-lf)
n.1. The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another: My belief in you is as strong as ever.
2. Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something: His explanation of what happened defies belief.
3. Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.opinion Audio pronunciation of "opinion" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-pnyn)
n.1. A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof: The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion (Elizabeth Drew).
2. A judgment based on special knowledge and given by an expert: a medical opinion.
3. A judgment or estimation of the merit of a person or thing: has a low opinion of braggarts.
4. The prevailing view: public opinion.
5. Law. A formal statement by a court or other adjudicative body of the legal reasons and principles for the conclusions of the court.

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heh. you're mixing up belief "Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons" with fundamentalism. Of course to a fundamentalist they are the same.

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Erm, I'm not, you are: remember, you are inventing tenets that do not exist in order to justify you rationalisation.

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see there you go again. in a group, not in a group, in a group, not in a group ... depending on the argument? of course, that the same questions can be posed for deism is probably beyond you. or do you contend that deism is not a belief

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I note you have failed to answer with any indication of where these tenets exist, or where your mythical organisation of dogmatic atheists is to ,located.And in regards deism, they do have tenets - having been in Friends House, a deist facility, I have seen them on the walls. Duh.--

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your penchant for blatantly misrepresenting the facts is, again, hereby noted. these are both falsehoods. I challenge you to show a post where I said either. this is just one more example of your complete inabilty to deal with the subject honestly.

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LOL. Your challenge is accepted, becuase I already succesfully posted them once. But it will have to wait for another post.

The topic (in the case of physical hypotheses) is safe because of the existence of the scientific method. When the topic is not safe, i.e. when no scientific method is being applied (as you say, when the topic doesn't fit my world view) scepticism seems to be the only reasonable response.

if it's mystical it must be eastern eh?