02-18-2008, 06:01 PM
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#141
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Scoring Winger
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Northern AB, in "oil country" >:p----@
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if you look hard enough, you can see something in everything. I once saw a pair of boobs in my fried eggs.
__________________
Nothing like rediscovering one of the greatest bands ever!
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02-18-2008, 06:40 PM
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#142
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Referee
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Over the hill
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
So I understand you correctly: Are you suggesting that pluralism / relativism / uncertainties of the postmodern age will become external "authorities"? It sounds to me like your "ubiquitous mass culture" and "conformist ideology" serve as replacements for everything postmodernism hopes to retain: Do we become so pervasively integrated in our knowledge, political structures, and ideals that any sort of social or cultural diversity is wiped out? I suppose that if the "global village" that has resulted from increased technology progresses to its natural end, this would seem to be the case. Or am I misreading you?
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I think you are. In essence, I think "postmodernism," inasmuch as it really meant anything anyway, was a decidedly mixed bag. There was an intellectual movement that sought to decenter authority but it went hand in hand with an expanding mass culture that reinscribed authority/ideology, but now in a subtler, more pervasive form.
Now, in the post-post-modernity, it seems to me like there's a reaction against the decentering of authority, but no similar reaction to the cultural problems that attended post-modernity. If anything, mass culture is more pervasive and more uniform--look no further than the total banality that passes for entertainment television nowadays for an example. Political discourse has been replaced by paint-by-numbers partisanship, rife with false dilemmas and false choices designed to fool the citizenry into thinking that they have real power to effect a new and different future. In the meantime, the ideologies of state power/economic power are transmitted as the real content of the medium of mass culture (hey if you can borrow from McLuhan, so can I, right?  ) while keeping most of us entertained just long enough to shuffle off our mortal coils and make room for the next generation of shills and suckers.
To return to the question--I wonder if post-post-modernity isn't a little bit like post-feminism. That is, it's merely an attempt to reclaim external authority while affirming postmodernism's assertion that this same authority isn't accessible--at least not to you. Make sense?
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02-18-2008, 08:17 PM
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#143
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One of the Nine
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I don't know how much participation it would receive, but I would like to see a PUBLIC poll with the question "Is There a God?".
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02-18-2008, 08:24 PM
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#144
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Referee
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Over the hill
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 4X4
I don't know how much participation it would receive, but I would like to see a PUBLIC poll with the question "Is There a God?".
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That would be interesting. Though, to me "yes" and "no" aren't sufficient choices. I would answer "I don't know."
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02-18-2008, 08:25 PM
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#145
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One of the Nine
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
That would be interesting. Though, to me "yes" and "no" aren't sufficient choices. I would answer "I don't know."
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How about "Do You Think/Feel That There is a God?".
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02-18-2008, 08:27 PM
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#146
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One of the Nine
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I just wouldn't want a cop out answer C. To me it is yes or no. I really don't see how a person can kinda think that there may or may not be a god. If you're on the fence, you haven't really thought about it and therefore, your answer skews the poll.
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02-18-2008, 08:32 PM
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#147
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Referee
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Over the hill
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 4X4
I just wouldn't want a cop out answer C. To me it is yes or no. I really don't see how a person can kinda think that there may or may not be a god. If you're on the fence, you haven't really thought about it and therefore, your answer skews the poll.
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What if you've thought about it a lot and the answer is "I don't know"? I think it's a reasonable answer--in fact, I would stand by it as not being a cop out at all.
My elaboration would be "there's no evidence for the existence of God." But that's silly in a way, because why would there be? God exists outside the realm of the material and observable? Also, to borrow Rummy's phrase, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I believe in conclusions that follow logically from evidence, and right now the evidence points to "I don't know."
With that said, I don't practice religion, and I'm not moved by the ceremony or liturgy of practicing Christianity. But I'm hardly alone in that.
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02-18-2008, 08:35 PM
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#148
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Lifetime Suspension
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Calgary
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i saw an atheist in the mirror the other day
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02-18-2008, 08:36 PM
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#149
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One of the Nine
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan
What if you've thought about it a lot and the answer is "I don't know"? I think it's a reasonable answer--in fact, I would stand by it as not being a cop out at all.
My elaboration would be "there's no evidence for the existence of God." But that's silly in a way, because why would there be? God exists outside the realm of the material and observable? Also, to borrow Rummy's phrase, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I believe in conclusions that follow logically from evidence, and right now the evidence points to "I don't know."
With that said, I don't practice religion, and I'm not moved by the ceremony or liturgy of practicing Christianity. But I'm hardly alone in that.
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I hear ya, and I'm not trying to force people to make a choice. That is why I'd love to see a public poll with only a yes or no answer. Only people that are "sure" of their choice would answer. If there was a C, many, many people would choose it because it can't be wrong. I don't want those people in the poll (no offence to you, of course) just a public poll of people that are "sure"...
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02-18-2008, 08:37 PM
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#150
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Referee
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Over the hill
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MelBridgeman
i saw an atheist in the mirror the other day
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Next time you see that guy, pop him one for me!
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02-18-2008, 10:25 PM
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#151
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Singapore
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 4X4
I hear ya, and I'm not trying to force people to make a choice. That is why I'd love to see a public poll with only a yes or no answer. Only people that are "sure" of their choice would answer. If there was a C, many, many people would choose it because it can't be wrong. I don't want those people in the poll (no offence to you, of course) just a public poll of people that are "sure"...
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So have a yes/no vote and tell agnostics not to vote in it. Leave it between believers and atheists. Done.
__________________
Shot down in Flames!
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02-18-2008, 10:27 PM
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#152
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Had an idea!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by icarus
So have a yes/no vote and tell agnostics not to vote in it. Leave it between believers and atheists. Done.
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Agreed.
Someone going to ask for it?
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02-18-2008, 10:40 PM
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#153
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Retired
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 4X4
I hear ya, and I'm not trying to force people to make a choice. That is why I'd love to see a public poll with only a yes or no answer. Only people that are "sure" of their choice would answer. If there was a C, many, many people would choose it because it can't be wrong. I don't want those people in the poll (no offence to you, of course) just a public poll of people that are "sure"...
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Most atheists should answer "I don't think/doubt there is, but I can not be 100% certain". Choosing "No, there is definitely not a god" is a bit of a leap of faith.
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02-18-2008, 10:53 PM
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#154
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Singapore
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaramonLS
Most atheists should answer "I don't think/doubt there is, but I can not be 100% certain". Choosing "No, there is definitely not a god" is a bit of a leap of faith.
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Isn't that what an atheist is? Someone who definitely does not believe in God. If there are doubts, then you'd be agnostic (meaning "I don't know" or "I can't know"), wouldn't you?
__________________
Shot down in Flames!
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02-18-2008, 11:00 PM
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#155
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Retired
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Quote:
Originally Posted by icarus
Isn't that what an atheist is? Someone who definitely does not believe in God. If there are doubts, then you'd be agnostic (meaning "I don't know" or "I can't know"), wouldn't you?
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I don't believe there is a god, but I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that there isn't a god.
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02-18-2008, 11:51 PM
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#156
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: not lurking
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Quote:
Originally Posted by icarus
Isn't that what an atheist is? Someone who definitely does not believe in God. If there are doubts, then you'd be agnostic (meaning "I don't know" or "I can't know"), wouldn't you?
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It's possible to be both an atheist and agnostic, or a theist and an agnostic; many people are. Agnosticism is concerned with a question completely different from the atheist/theist debate: it is regarding whether the nature of God is knowable. Many theists are actually agnostic theists: they don't claim to know the nature of God, but they believe in him anyway; many atheists are agnostic atheists: they don't believe in God, but nor do they claim any knowledge about his existence or non-existence. Then there are about a dozen different forms of agnosticism that are neither theistic or atheistic.
Anyway, if you say that an atheist cannot have any doubts at all, you need to set the same parameters for theists: that a theist cannot have any doubts at all, and would describe God as something they know rather than believe in. Personally, I think you need to include both strong atheists and agnostic atheists in the one side, and strong and agnostic theists in the other.
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02-19-2008, 12:45 AM
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#157
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Franchise Player
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Sunshine Coast
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The only two choices that make sense to me are either you know or you don't know. As IFF quotes 'absence of evidence is not evidence of absence' or as I like to say, just because you haven't been there doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Atheists are lumped in with agnostics and even those who accept that there is a god only by faith but don't really know, I guess they're with the don't know crowd too. Sounds harsh but believing or not believing in god doesn't really mean much except to those religious leaders who benefit.
There is no magical redemption, other than grace, by professing god. It's like say an apple. You have either eaten an apple or you haven't. The apple tree doesn't care if you believe in him or not.
Last edited by Vulcan; 02-19-2008 at 03:29 AM.
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02-19-2008, 06:17 AM
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#158
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Franchise Player
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Helsinki, Finland
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Personally I think atheism is a definition from the past and for the older generation of atheists, at least in the western countries. Something my parents call "fighting atheists". They're the bunch that despite their stated disbelief in god actually pretty much define themselves by their disbelief and actively try to bring their points of view into the society. In my experience, they are the people most likely to start a discussion about the existence of supernatural things. I don't get that, and I don't see myself as a part of that group.
If asked a yes or no question, I can quite comfortably state that I don't believe in god, single or plural. But a more exact description would be that the question of supernatural forces is simply meaningless. It's like someone asking me "do I believe that garden gnomes secretly watch our every move". No I don't. That doesn't make me an agardengnomist.
I also don't believe in UFO:s, banana eagles, crystal healing, astronomy, the usefulness of biofuels, that Bono is actually anything but an egomaniac, that the things we buy actually make us happier even half of the time and so on and so forth. Some of that stuff could be defined under "religious thoughts", some have actual meaning in my life and most of it doesn't. And none of that is really something I consider to be worth mentioning about me, since really those things don't affect my life or thinking that much.
I don't like to be labeled by things that have no meaning in my life.
(Things that do affect my life and thinking are for example roleplaying games, as it's the art/entertainment form that I'm most active in, and music.)
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02-19-2008, 07:06 AM
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#159
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#1 Goaltender
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Richmond, BC
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There's a big difference between not being sure about the Judeo-Christian "God" and not being sure about some deity in general.
The first (believing in the Christian God, or not being sure) is clearly ignorant and can be dismissed out of hand by people with an ounce of critical thought in their brains. The second (not being sure about deities in general) is a more than fair result. I happen not to agree with it, but it is a fair conclusion to come to given the universe we inhabit.
__________________
"For thousands of years humans were oppressed - as some of us still are - by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable." - Carl Sagan
Freedom consonant with responsibility.
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02-19-2008, 07:12 AM
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#160
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#1 Goaltender
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Richmond, BC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
I also don't believe in UFO:s, banana eagles, crystal healing, astronomy,
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UFOs are not something you "believe in" or "don't believe in". We just don't know. But we do know they are not subject to belief or disbelief.
Crystals are not something you "believe in" or "don't believe in". They are 100% bull****. "Believing" in them is not possible, the only possibility is that you are crazy, (remarkably) credulous, moronic or all of the above.
Astronomy is a science. My degree is in astronomy. You are looking for "astrology". And for what it's worth, you can take my last paragraph and sub in "astrology" for "crystals". Exact same thing. Exact same bull****.
__________________
"For thousands of years humans were oppressed - as some of us still are - by the notion that the universe is a marionette whose strings are pulled by a god or gods, unseen and inscrutable." - Carl Sagan
Freedom consonant with responsibility.
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