Atheist zealots a heavy cross to bear

[GA Russell]

I've seen Einstein referred to many times in similar discussions. I don't get it. Why should anyone think that his opinion on this subject is any more respectable than anybody else's?

Copernicus and St. Thomas Aquinas were priests. Does Einstein trump them?

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

I've seen Einstein referred to many times in similar discussions. I don't get it. Why should anyone think that his opinion on this subject is any more respectable than anybody else's?

Copernicus and St. Thomas Aquinas were priests. Does Einstein trump them?

since he was Jewish when he DID identify with a religion, I doubt he gave them little thought

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Einstein did not "believe in God."

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/einstein.html

Originally Posted by bear4hunter

No he didn't!

I never stated he believed in a "personal god".

I always thought the direct quote of Einstein summed it up....
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings."

All else is pretty much speculation about what he meant or how he arrived at that conclusion. I prefer to just stick to what he had to say on the matter.

Originally Posted by ardeegee

And even if he did, that is still an appeal to authority logical fallacy. Einstein could be wrong. Einstein was wrong in his opposition to quantum mechanics.

I never said he couldn't be wrong. Of course he could be, so could I be, so could you be and so could Hawking be. What of it?

What I asked was if you thought discussing the matter with him would be like "rolling in mud with swine"?

The point of my OP and this thread was not a debate about who is right or wrong, it was about being civil to each other when discussing it.

Originally Posted by ardeegee

And you are disregarding the first part of my statement: "When you are dealing with intelligent, well educated, rational people, you can be polite."

Mostly because I see people on here begin such discussions in a polite and reasonable manner. It very quickly seems to devolve into name calling and obnoxious taunts, and it is generally not exclusively one side or the other that begins the swift decline.

Originally Posted by ardeegee

There are intelligent, well-educated people who are also religious. But the overwhelming majority of the religious people chomping at the bit to "debate" and "disprove" evolution and other non-theistic things are pig-ignorant nitwits or slimebag liars or both. Atheists gain their bitterness (if it is there) not from debating with erudite philosophers-- they get if from dealing with hillbillies who say "I ain't come from no monkey, I dun come from Adam and Eve (not Adam and Steve) and they ain't dun bin no big bang an' you gonna die an' burn in hell fur'ever if you don't dun bin turnin' to Jeeeeeeeesus, who diiied foooor yoooouah seeeeens!" It comes from listening to people who couldn't distinguish a quark from a quasar if their lives literally depended on it who come up and tell you how they know more than "all dem gooodles syentyst" and then start quoting the same idiotic creationst talking points that all ignorant sheep get from their ignorant shepards and the wolves that prey on them.

Sorry, hadn't seen that kind of argument put forward by anyone here at MR so I didn't think it was the reason these threads seemed to devolve so quickly into the name calling and questioning of others intelligence.

Originally Posted by ardeegee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach_the_Controversy

http://www.google.com/custom?num=100...onists&spell=1

I wasn't really discussing ID.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by GA Russell

I've seen Einstein referred to many times in similar discussions. I don't get it. Why should anyone think that his opinion on this subject is any more respectable than anybody else's?

Copernicus and St. Thomas Aquinas were priests. Does Einstein trump them?

I only referred to him as an example of an intelligent, well educated and rational person who stated he believed in a god. I only referred to him to ask if ardeegee would consider discussing the existence of god with Einstein to be like "rolling in mud with swine".

I did not suggest he was right or wrong on the matter.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

I assert that in the debate Dawkins was calm, soft spoken, polite and the picture of civility. He showed himself to be thoughtful, well educated, and well spoken.

I haven't watched those clips yet, but that does just about sum up every other time I've heard Dawkins speak.

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

as earlier stated, this is the Llounge. as long as we don't hang from the chandeliers, wear our spurs in the waterbeds or shoot at the piano player, we're pretty much allowed free rein if we play more or less nicely with one another.

Actually, I think you'll find swinging from the chandeliers is OK, so long as one puts one's Zany Carter down first. If it isn't I should probably get down now

[recluse]

I really think these threads are a waste of time.
No one here can prove they are right.
For both sides it is simply a matter of faith.

And, personally, both sides are responsible for all the hate.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

Actually, I think you'll find swinging from the chandeliers is OK, so long as one puts one's Zany Carter down first. If it isn't I should probably get down now

maybe it's because I started a lil ol fire the last time I did it. knocked a few of the candles out of their holders.

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

maybe it's because I started a lil ol fire the last time I did it. knocked a few of the candles out of their holders.

Oh right - I did wonder why the place was suddenly refurnished and redecorated. Not to mention the faint lingering smell of smoke.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by recluse

I really think these threads are a waste of time.
No one here can prove they are right.
For both sides it is simply a matter of faith.

It seems to me that to say one believes in the existence or non-existence of some sort of god, somewhere behind the scenes, requires much less faith than to say one believes in a specific god tied to a specific religion.

It's the difference between believing there's some sort of cake in the tin, and the belief that, not only is there a cake, but it's a victoria sponge with a 90 degree slice missing. One is more likely to be true than the other imho.

[recluse]

I had a feeling faith was the wrong word to use.

Try this:
There is a cake tin. Some believe there is a cake in the tin. Others believe the tin is empty. Until the tin is opened and the contents, or lack thereof are revealed, all either side has is their belief.
I don't think anyone can open that tin yet.
And I believe there are people on both sides who don't want it opened.

[bear4hunter]

Originally Posted by recluse

I really think these threads are a waste of time.
No one here can prove they are right.
For both sides it is simply a matter of faith.

And, personally, both sides are responsible for all the hate.

If you ask me, atheist and other non-believers have been civil (tolerant, dialogue-seeking) long enough, it's about time we jump the barricades and start to be fundamentalistic about extinguishing religions of all kind.

Civility - to sum it up in a short sentence - lead us to 9/11, fatwas against cartoonists, jews calling every critiscist a nazi and so on.

IMHO, no thinking person can be religious, and ergo most religious people can't think! Some can, but they just make profit of the stupidity of others (collecting money from their followers, or using the following crowd as canonball meat).

Indeed none of the sides can prove they're right, but it's not a matter of faith, it's a matter of reasoning: the arguments against the existence of a god (personal or not) just make much more sense.

Did you know their was an unwritten pact between church before educational revolution? Taxes kept people poor, and churches kept them dumb - poor and dumb people are the best prerequisites to wage a war.

[recluse]

And here you are, trying to incite one.

This thread was meant to be a civil exchange of ideas.

[nomesque]

Originally Posted by bear4hunter

If you ask me, atheist and other non-believers have been civil (tolerant, dialogue-seeking) long enough, it's about time we jump the barricades and start to be fundamentalistic about extinguishing religions of all kind.

YAY!!!! More fundamentalists!!! Just what the world needs!

FWIW, here's my personal theory, formed from decades of experience - there are arseholes everywhere. Some use their religion as an excuse. Some use others' religion as an excuse. But they're still arseholes, and they still stink.

[Cyberman tM]

Originally Posted by recluse

I had a feeling faith was the wrong word to use.

Try this:
There is a cake tin. Some believe there is a cake in the tin. Others believe the tin is empty. Until the tin is opened and the contents, or lack thereof are revealed, all either side has is their belief.
I don't think anyone can open that tin yet.
And I believe there are people on both sides who don't want it opened.

Nicely put.

If there is a closed cake tin, does it matter if there is anything in it? We can't open it anyway, so why bother...

Originally Posted by bear4hunter

If you ask me, atheist and other non-believers have been civil (tolerant, dialogue-seeking) long enough, it's about time we jump the barricades and start to be fundamentalistic about extinguishing religions of all kind.

So you want to wage war against those believers, to educate them, teach them the one true belief?

Isn't that what THEY are said to be doing all the time? How is this different then?

It's funny how one could just "invert" most atheist to get a religous zealot. You'd not really need to change anything, just the sign, from minus to plus, so to speak.

--

Agnostic FTW!

[sweevo]

Originally Posted by recluse

I had a feeling faith was the wrong word to use.

Try this:
There is a cake tin. Some believe there is a cake in the tin. Others believe the tin is empty. Until the tin is opened and the contents, or lack thereof are revealed, all either side has is their belief.
I don't think anyone can open that tin yet.
And I believe there are people on both sides who don't want it opened.

This analogy is more appropriate:

In an article titled "Is There a God?" commissioned, but never published, by Illustrated magazine in 1952, Bertrand Russell wrote:

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."