h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

NeoPathFinder, did you not see my last post? A very nice wikipedia article about Christian Communism. You are simply wrong about communism and atheism on so many points.

You have also made clear what your definition of 'athiest' is, and that definition does not apply to me. someone earlier posted a definition that matches not only me, but my experience of other 'athiests': I am lacking a belief in god.

Since you are asking a question of a type of person that I am not (a type of person that I've never met, in fact) I cannot with any integrity answer your questions.

You also said that you think that 'irriducible complexity' is an argument for the existence of God.

There are three problems with this, as I see them.

1) Biological evolution is quite capable of creating systems that meet the definition of 'irriducible complexity'. Thus, finding an example of IC does not challenge evolution in any way.

2) No example of a system that could not have evolved has ever been found in nature.

3) Even if such a system were found, the existence of a God or Gods would not explain it. In order to be intelligent enough to design organic life, God would have to be intelligent Herself, and thus massively complex. She therefore couldn't have arisen by chance any more than the life She created.

Or to put it more simply - who designed the designer?

Gif

'Atheism is the belief that God definitely does not exist. Theism is the position that God definitely does exist.'

The trouble is that you also seem to think that 'agnosticism' is a position that is completely undecided about whether or not God exists.

I am pretty confident that God doesn't exist - roughly as confident as I am that there are no little green men on Mars. But I can't prove it absolutely. So what am I to call myself? I don't fit any of the three definitions above.

I just say I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God. As I said before, anything else is just semantics.

Gif

'if something was true 2000 years ago then it must be true, period'

Does this apply to morality also? How do you square this with (what I assume is) your belief in a 'New Covenant' with very different moral rules to the Old Covenant?

Gif

"1) Biological evolution is quite capable of creating systems that meet the definition of 'irriducible complexity'. Thus, finding an example of IC does not challenge evolution in any way.
2) No example of a system that could not have evolved has ever been found in nature."
Intelligent design proponents demonstrate that biological evolution is not capable of those things and describe the systems in the book I linked to. I'd be very interested to hear what the response is to the arguments outlined in it.

"3) Even if such a system were found, the existence of a God or Gods would not explain it. In order to be intelligent enough to design organic life, God would have to be intelligent Herself, and thus massively complex. She therefore couldn't have arisen by chance any more than the life She created."

Or to put it more simply - who designed the designer?"

Excellent point. God may exist, but doesn't work as an excuse so we don't have to explain things we don't know.

I've heard one answer to this that I find extremely interesting - God may inhabit nonlocality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonlocality

Fundamentally, the question you have just asked is a question about time. The question assumes that God has an origin in the past, and moves forward in time from there to the present, and presumably will move forward into the future much in the same way that we do. Anything that exists in time the way we do must have an origin.

But my idea of God is that God exists outside of time, in the same sense that we would exist outside the first dimension if we were infinitely long and finitely wide. Where then, would our beginning in the first dimension be? Answer: we would inhabit the entire first dimension. Since we're infinitely long, then in the first dimension, we would have no beginning or end. Our beginning and end would be found in the second, and possibly third dimensions. So it is with God and time. If God exists, and has an origin, it must be in a higher dimension than we have thus far observed.

It may be even harder to visualize living outside of time than it is to visualize, as Douglas Adams explains in Last Chance to See, the world in sound.

"You are simply wrong about communism and atheism on so many points."
OK then please explain the difference to me. I accept that I may be entirely wrong about the definitions I have used for both.

"You have also made clear what your definition of 'athiest' is, and that definition does not apply to me. someone earlier posted a definition that matches not only me, but my experience of other 'athiests': I am lacking a belief in god."
Agnostics are lacking a belief in God. What is the distinction then, between atheism and agnosticism? I thought I understood it until now, but apparently I do not.

"Since you are asking a question of a type of person that I am not (a type of person that I've never met, in fact) I cannot with any integrity answer your questions."
I'm not sure I was asking a very specific type of person really ... I was mostly just trying to open a discussion with anybody who didn't believe in God, which is pretty broad. I thought I knew what the words "atheist" and "agnostic" meant but if my understand isn't accurate then I'd appreciate being enlightened on the subject.

"'if something was true 2000 years ago then it must be true, period'

Does this apply to morality also? How do you square this with (what I assume is) your belief in a 'New Covenant' with very different moral rules to the Old Covenant? "
The Old Testament traditions were looking forward in time towards the coming Messiah. The New Testament traditions are looking backwards in time remembering the Messiah. The truth has not changed, merely the temporal perspective.

An agnostic is an atheist without a backbone.

"The trouble is that you also seem to think that 'agnosticism' is a position that is completely undecided about whether or not God exists."
Uh, hmm, what did I say that gave you that idea? Anybody who doesn't claim to know for absolutely sure is an agnostic according to what I had previously thought.

"I am pretty confident that God doesn't exist - roughly as confident as I am that there are no little green men on Mars. But I can't prove it absolutely. So what am I to call myself? I don't fit any of the three definitions above."
I think that would be agnosticism

"I just say I'm an atheist. I don't believe in God. As I said before, anything else is just semantics."
Well, I'm just trying to follow correct semantics as far as I know them. My understanding was that agnosticism means "no positive belief in God" while atheism means "positive belief that there is no God". It seemed to me that agnosticism was more logical than atheism if you're scientific-minded because, as has been pointed out thus far, science cannot prove a negative.

how does your idea of god existing outside of time square with the doctrine of your church?


on the subject of the meanings of atheism and agnosticism, I've just skimmed the thread so far and I've come across several very clear and very similar statements from atheists of the fact that atheism is a lack of belief, not a belief in a lack.

If I started a thread that asked a question about Christians but then later repeatedly said that what I understood by 'Christian' was 'roasted-baby-eater', would you feel frustrated in the conversation/

I've seen that article on Christian Communism before. My response is, "That's not communism, that's radical socialism" because while economics is an important part of Communism, Communism is not at it's core a purely economic idea - it's a philosophy about life and human destiny. Radical socialism is an economic theory that may or may not be coupled with Communism.

To quote the article:

"Christian communists also share some of the political goals of Marxists, for example replacing capitalism with socialism, which should in turn be followed by communism at a later point in the future. However, Christian communists sometimes disagree with Marxists (and particularly with Leninists) on the way a socialist or communist society should be organized. In general, Christian communism evolved independently of Marxism, and most Christian communists share the conclusions but not the underlying premises of Marxist communists."

OK, please go back and replace every time I have used the word Communism with the phrase "Marxist communism". I'm certainly not talking about any other ideas that merely use the word "commune" in the name at the front of it.

Okay, let´s reiterate:

Theist: Someone who believes God exists
Atheist: Someone who doesn´t believe God exists, untill proven otherwise
Agnostic: Someone with the silly idea that since neither side has been proven, they shouldn´t take a stand

anybody who lives in a commune or has communion is a "Communist"

"Theist: Someone who believes God exists
Atheist: Someone who doesn´t believe God exists, untill proven otherwise
Agnostic: Someone with the silly idea that since neither side has been proven, they shouldn´t take a stand"

OK, that is slightly different than what I've heard in the past. I'm probably going to have to be more careful to use the terms correctly in the future.

we need a smiley

please show us a real-world example of a marxist communist system (not Leninist, not Stalinist, not Maoist, etc.)

Irreducible complexity: "Intelligent design proponents demonstrate that biological evolution is not capable of those things and describe the systems in the book I linked to"

No, they do not demonstrate anything of the sort, they merely labour a tired and factually incorrect argument. I haven't read the book, but the example the ID zealots usually use is the eye. We know how the eye evolved. It was a flap of brain tissue that gradually descended, thinned out, and became specialised.

That's why the mammalian eye is wired the wrong way round, with the blood vessels and nerves on the 'outside' of the retina. If this isn't damning evidence against the actions of an 'intelligent' designer, then I don't know what is.

"how does your idea of god existing outside of time square with the doctrine of your church?"

Well, the first time I heard the theory, I thought, "This makes perfect sense and in no way contradicts the fundamental doctrines of my church. In fact, it would explain many things that were up to this point somewhat inexplicable."

"on the subject of the meanings of atheism and agnosticism, I've just skimmed the thread so far and I've come across several very clear and very similar statements from atheists of the fact that atheism is a lack of belief, not a belief in a lack."
That's what I'd thought. Now I'm confused again.

"If I started a thread that asked a question about Christians but then later repeatedly said that what I understood by 'Christian' was 'roasted-baby-eater', would you feel frustrated in the conversation/"
Sometimes I do get frustrated in this way because there are alot of misconceptions about my own church, so yes I can see why that is frustrating. I appreciate the attempts of people on this thread to walk me through this.

"please show us a real-world example of a marxist communist system (not Leninist, not Stalinist, not Maoist, etc.)"
There is none. The goal of Communism was never achieved.

Why is it necessary for agnostics to "take a stand"? What is this? A "You're either with us or against us" situation? Is there an "Axis of theists/atheists"?

I find the existence or non-existence of a god to be utterly irrelevant in my life. It seems to me to be an inane conversation about minutiae that forms an irritating background noise in most MBs. Agnosticism for me is keeping an open, if ultimately disinterested mind.