Concerns About Sony's Religious Intolerance

[nekokami]

Well... if Ricky were coming back, I'd probably write a short note here about how the historical origins of words don't always dictate their current use, but there doesn't seem much point now.

HarryT, do you have a particular edition of Plato's "Phaedo" to recommend? Sounds interesting. (And I hadn't realized that only binary stars can nova-- I knew our sun wasn't big enough for a supernova, and that yellow G stars don't go nova (according to Larry Niven, anyway), but only binaries? Really? Wow. This has been an interesting day.)

[soilwork]

Originally Posted by jmorton

I would like to thank msmith for starting this conversation. When I got my Sony Reader, I noticed the Dawkins book, but didn't pay it much mind. The title sounded pedantic and leaden to me. This thread got me interested, so I read it. Now I plan to purchase the book. What I read was lively, amusing, and right on the money. There is even an outstanding quote in it from Doug Adams as well as several fun ones from Einstein and his detractors. The people who are railing against it as some devil-spawned heresy have obviously never read beyond the title. Thanks again msmith. I owe you one.

Originally Posted by Gaurnim

interesting books to read (both the one in the original post and the Lee Strobel ones).

In addition to 'God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins, I would also recommend the following not-so-topic-neutral books.
- God is not great / Christopher Hitchens
- End of Faith / Sam Harris
- Breaking the Spell / Daniel Dennett

All books are well-written and each book offers somewhat different standpoint maybe due to author's training. I would also appreciate if someone recommends related books.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by RickyMaveety

OK .... I'm going to rephrase what you are saying to make certain I am understanding you.

A scientific or atheistic view expresses something as a fact only if there is unbiased evidence that the thing is a fact. And the only reason for believing something is true is that unbiased evidence.

Well, every observation has some bias so you have to take that into account. In science you hold things true if you have enough evidence for it. "Is a fact" is a confusing term that makes people believe that you must know something for certain to claim that it is a fact. All scientific claims are fallible and you do not no for certain that they are true.

The problem with that (again, I hope I'm understanding you) is that even with atheism, there is no unbiased evidence regarding the existence or non-existence of god.

Atheism is a lack of belief. And there are no good evidence for the existence of god so lack of belief is the reasonable position. For some definitions of a god it can be shown that the definitions are inconsistent and therefore nonsense. So there you have positive evidence for holding the non-existence of a specific god for true.

I understand what you mean (again, I think) about not being able to know anything for certain. That's part and parcel of Schrodinger's idea about, like it or not, the observer being unable to observe without altering the experiment

I only said that the fact that you do not know "not A" for certain is no argument for holding "A" as true or for drawing conclusions about what being true means. What I commented on was the tendency to mix up epistemology and ontology.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by tompe

Atheism is a lack of belief. And there are no good evidence for the existence of god so lack of belief is the reasonable position. For some definitions of a god it can be shown that the definitions are inconsistent and therefore nonsense. So there you have positive evidence for holding the non-existence of a specific god for true.

Actually, atheism seems to be the belief that there is no god. The lack of belief would be agnosticism. Most people are apatheists without thinking though.

According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism

Just some more words to spend time on

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by nekokami

HarryT, do you have a particular edition of Plato's "Phaedo" to recommend?

You could try my "complete works of Plato" right here on MR .

And I hadn't realized that only binary stars can nova-- I knew our sun wasn't big enough for a supernova, and that yellow G stars don't go nova (according to Larry Niven, anyway), but only binaries? Really? Wow. This has been an interesting day.

The way that a nova happens is that you have a white dwarf star and a "giant" star in close orbit around one another. The outer atmosphere of the giant star "accretes" on the surface of the white dwarf. After a few million years, the density of the accreted matter reaches a critical density and it "blows off" in a huge nuclear explosion. The entire process then starts all over again.

If the dwarf star is rather more massive, then the build-up of matter on its surface can push the density of the entire star over a critical limit, and the star blows itself to bits in a hugely more energetic supernova explosion - technically, what's called a "Type 1a supernova". These are very important to astronomers, since they happen when the star reaches a very specific, fixed mass, and hence the resulting explosion is of a fixed "brightness". They are so enormously bright that they can be seen in extremely distant galaxies, and the fact that we know how bright they "really" are, and we can measure how bright they seem to be, this gives us a very accurate way of measuring how far away that galaxy is from us.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

Actually, atheism seems to be the belief that there is no god. The lack of belief would be agnosticism. Most people are apatheists without thinking though.

According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism

Just some more words to spend time on

That's a position that has been thrashed to death on many usenet newsgroups more times than can be counted.

A strict definition of an atheist as someone who is certain that there is provably no god, and which puts all other "non-believers" down as agnostic isn't very useful IMHO, as it puts the nominal dividing line in the wrong place in what is a continuous spectrum.

I can't prove there is no god, so by your definition that would make me an agnostic. However, by that measure I am agnostic about god in the same way that I am agnostic about the easter bunny, or the tooth fairy. I live my life assuming that none of these exist, despite my inability to prove that they don't, so despite technical agnosticism, I would suggest that I am functionally atheist. This, to me, seems like a more useful defintion of atheism.

/JB

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

Actually, atheism seems to be the belief that there is no god. The lack of belief would be agnosticism. Most people are apatheists without thinking though.

According to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism

Just some more words to spend time on

Well the Atheism entry says "It is also[3] defined more broadly as an absence of belief in deities". Sometimes there is a distinction between strong and weak Atheism. And Agnosticism is even harder to define than Atheism.

But what I meant with lack of belief was as in lack of belief that santa clause exists which lead you to say things like "santa clause does not exist". You do not have to disprove the existence to make such statements.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by jbjb

I can't prove there is no god, so by your definition that would make me an agnostic. However, by that measure I am agnostic about god in the same way that I am agnostic about the easter bunny, or the tooth fairy. I live my life assuming that none of these exist, despite my inability to prove that they don't, so despite technical agnosticism, I would suggest that I am functionally atheist. This, to me, seems like a more useful defintion of atheism.

/JB

And one I agree with. I feel that saying you are agnostics implies more uncertainty then the evidence supports. So I think that people are using the term just because for social reasons or other resons they do not dare calling themselves atheists.

[HarryT]

To my mind, calling yourself an atheist is just as much a position of "faith" as calling yourself a believer in god. Both positions involve "unprovable" positions. Logically, the existance of god can neither be proven nor disproven, so agnosticism seems to be the only "rational" viewpoint.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by HarryT

To my mind, calling yourself an atheist is just as much a position of "faith" as calling yourself a believer in god. Both positions involve "unprovable" positions. Logically, the existance of god can neither be proven nor disproven, so agnosticism seems to be the only "rational" viewpoint.

The same is true of the Tooth Fairy, the Eater Bunny, and Santa Claus. Would you describe yourself as "agnostic" with regard to their existence?

/JB

[HarryT]

Certainly. As I say, rationally speaking it is the only logical position to hold, and I see neither more nor less reason to believe in "god" than I do the "tooth fairy". Do you? I _very_ strongly suspect that neither exist, but I cannot absolutely prove this to be the case.

[jbjb]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Certainly. As I say, rationally speaking it is the only logical position to hold, and I see neither more nor less reason to believe in "god" than I do the "tooth fairy". Do you? I _very_ strongly suspect that neither exist, but I cannot absolutely prove this to be the case.

That's exactly my point about the usefulness of that definition of atheism. There's a world of difference between the agnosticism that rational people hold about the tooth fairy and the "I'm unsure" agnosticism that many hold with respect to god. Your definition deletes that difference.

If you put the proablility of god's existence on a par with that of the easter bunny, then you're a functional atheist in my book. (The alternative is to be "agnostic" on *everything* - and I mean *everything*).

/JB

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

To my mind, calling yourself an atheist is just as much a position of "faith" as calling yourself a believer in god. Both positions involve "unprovable" positions. Logically, the existance of god can neither be proven nor disproven, so agnosticism seems to be the only "rational" viewpoint.

All scientific claims (non analytical claims) are unprovable.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Certainly. As I say, rationally speaking it is the only logical position to hold, and I see neither more nor less reason to believe in "god" than I do the "tooth fairy". Do you? I _very_ strongly suspect that neither exist, but I cannot absolutely prove this to be the case.

This I call "epistemological agnosticism" and is trivially true and all scientists have this view. That is usually not what people mean when they say they are agnostic about something.

According to the above you are agnostic about evolution also.

[HarryT]

If you accept the above definition, one has to be agnostic about pretty much everything . It is a statement of logic, rather than a "practical" definition. In the real world, I would certainly describe myself as a believer in evolution, and a non-believer in both god and the tooth fairy.