I think I've loaded it or downloaded it a couple of times, but I've never watched it, I'm a great one for getting all kinds of stuff to watch or listen to but never actually doing it
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
I understand what you are saying, but I take great umbrage with the classification. The failure to apply canons of evidence, or the mistaken interpretation of correlation does not stem from a "mental deficiency". As a matter of fact, we intuitively make these sorts of errors quite regularly and primarily subconsciously in day-to-day life. The appeal to religious experience as a measure of ones certainty is a product of one's ability to construct a cohesive narrative of cause and effect to make sense of his or her own life. This is not a deficiency. If anything, it is a well honed, well developed survival instinct.
Right, but we're not talking about the decision making process of day to day life and the cognitive dissonance of being on a diet and buying a chocolate bar.
We were talking specifically about a certainty as it pertains to an intimate understanding of 'God'.
Generally, we refer to these people as zealots. I don't think it's any kind of leap in logic to associate religious zealotry with a deficiency in the mental/reasoning makeup of an individual.
Unless you are a zealot, and then you are able to make this statement, or, it's exact opposite.
Except that by definition you cannot be a zealous atheist, it is a belief structure based on proof rather than faith ergo it is just as impossible to disprove as prove the existance of god.
Except that by definition you cannot be a zealous atheist, it is a belief structure based on proof rather than faith ergo it is just as impossible to disprove as prove the existance of god.
Since when? I've always understood an atheist is someone who believes there is no god or doesn't believe there is a god. If you are certain there is no god, regardless of evidence/lack thereof, then you are by definition a Gnostic Atheist. Atheism is not by definition based on proof.
Of course, many Athiests base their beliefs on what science has found and due to lack of proof that there is a god, and by definition these are Agnostic Athiests.
It comes down to the difference in the following:.
'I believe there is no god' vs 'I don't believe there is a god'.
A Gnostic Athiest will be a person who thinks a long the lines of the first statement, as to belief is to be certain in your own mind, regardless of the evidence.
An Agnostic Athiest will think along the lines of the second statement. Their don't believe there is a god due to to lack of evidence. They are uncertain and profess an unbelief as opposed to a belief.
Edit:
Agnostic Thiests/Athists think there is/isn't a god, while Gnostic Thiests/Athiests believe there is/isn't a god.
I find it interesting the different levels of Atheism there seem to be. It seems like some react to religion like a vampire to holy water, whereas I think in my case I don't really regard it as anything. I can go with friends to their churches and take communion and its no different from doing anything else. I feel devoid of any emotion towards spirituality. I means as much to me as I do towards opening my car door or any other emotionless task.
I am not really sure what to think the more sermonizing kind of Atheists or those who come up with lawsuits against schools, etc. If I heard a prayer in school it didn't mean anything to me. I was neither elated nor appalled. I am not sure if that really adequately explains it. Maybe it is a lack of spiritual libido. If somebody asked my opinion of spirituality, then I think its a silly concept, the answers to many questions that really try to get at the meat of it start sounding about equivalent to a stereotypical Art Bell guest. I don't know if this is how other Atheists feel.
Since when? I've always understood an atheist is someone who believes there is no god or doesn't believe there is a god. If you are certain there is no god, regardless of evidence/lack thereof, then you are by definition a Gnostic Atheist. Atheism is not by definition based on proof.
Of course, many Athiests base their beliefs on what science has found and due to lack of proof that there is a god, and by definition these are Agnostic Athiests.
It comes down to the difference in the following:.
'I believe there is no god' vs 'I don't believe there is a god'.
A Gnostic Athiest will be a person who thinks a long the lines of the first statement, as to belief is to be certain in your own mind, regardless of the evidence.
An Agnostic Athiest will think along the lines of the second statement. Their don't believe there is a god due to to lack of evidence. They are uncertain and profess an unbelief as opposed to a belief.
Edit:
Agnostic Thiests/Athists think there is/isn't a god, while Gnostic Thiests/Athiests believe there is/isn't a god.
Professing a belief due to faith despite a lack of evidance is different philosophically from not believing in something due to lack of evidence.
An atheist by their own standard of proof cannot be certain where as a christian can, ask an atheist, even Dawkins, if they can be certain there is no god and they will tell you no they can't, it is inherent in the reason they are an athiest.
Ask a christian if they can be certain there is a god and they will tell you they can be, certainty in spite of lack of proof is absoloutly inherent in a religeous belief.
I am not really sure what to think the more sermonizing kind of Atheists or those who come up with lawsuits against schools, etc. If I heard a prayer in school it didn't mean anything to me. I was neither elated nor appalled.
I didn't like hearing prayer in school because it was lying to children. The concept of heaven may be comforting, but it's intellectually dishonest to tell children stories and pretend they are true. They don't have sufficient judgement at a young age to discount them.
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I'm going to tell you something that will blow your mind!
Your desk doesn't actually exist!
I'm no scientist but I imagine you are saying that the desk is made up of molecules, atoms, protons etc. I am also made up of these particles but still I am, I have a force pushing my breath in and now out, feeding oxygen to my heart, brain etc. We have to have a common understanding that we exist to start with.
The only argument that I think that can be made about my statement is the 'my' part about this desk. In my understanding everything in this world is temporary but right now I'm alive, you're alive and this desk is right in front of me.
I'm no scientist but I imagine you are saying that the desk is made up of molecules, atoms, protons etc. I am also made up of these particles but still I am, I have a force pushing my breath in and now out, feeding oxygen to my heart, brain etc. We have to have a common understanding that we exist to start with.
The only argument that I think that can be made about my statement is the 'my' part about this desk. In my understanding everything in this world is temporary but right now I'm alive, you're alive and this desk is right in front of me.
Actually he`s making fun of (many, though not all) spiritualists 'understanding' of quantum mechanics and similar theories.
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Oh definitely. Belief may be informed by knowledge or it may not be, but belief can be independent of knowledge.
Belief is the psychological state in which a person holds a premise to be true.
Whereas knowledge involves substantiation of that premise, evidence, something you can demonstrate unambiguously to others.
So for the graph you mentioned a gnostic theist, that means a person is both a theist (they believe, they hold the god premise to be true), AND they claim knowledge (they believe because they know (or think they know anyway)).
That's why the four quadrants of the graph, because you can have any combination of both belief (just holding the god proposition to be true) and knowledge (claiming to either know for sure, or not know for sure).
True, though it doesn't have to; often belief is simply the default position on a topic because you were raised in an environment with that belief.
Belief is just holding a premise to be true, regardless of why you hold it to be true.
Right, so you believe, and that belief is derived from knowledge (leaving out the question of the validity of that knowledge, I would argue a lot of people that believe and think they have knowledge actually don't have knowledge).
I'll go back to that there is a distinction between belief and knowledge. Belief like I said can be second hand (your default position is second hand) or in another case, it can be from a remembrance, like I had a cool experience last week, or last month or last year, etc. So I'm relying on this memory for my belief.
For me, knowledge is what you're experiencing right now and is a part of you, no belief needed or more apt belief has nothing to do with it. Your mind might even say this isn't happening, but it is.
But what if I asked you if you were were certain that it was all you were doing? It's easy for us to positively affirm things through observation, but you have to keep in mind that we only ever touch the surface of reality (reality being limited to our senses and is sometimes extended to what we can infer).
For example, if you asked someone that question 1,000 years ago, he would have probably said he was certain that is hands were only resting on his desk and nothing else, but now we know there is a lot more going on that we cannot sense on both macro and micro levels. Your desk is litterally being hurled through space at xx,xxxx km/h. There are also tiny particles moving through your hands and your desk. While it's true that your hands are only resting on your desk from your perspective, however in reality, they are not resting at all. Everything in the universe in dynamic and changing constantly.
But don't you see how limiting that is? Humans evolved 5 basic instincts to help us survive, and all 5 of them are specific to what our little spec of dust in the universe required. I think it's arrogant for a species on one little planet to assume that their senses are even close to knowing even a minute fraction of what is going on in reality.
Yes everything is changing constantly but the only way I can relate is to right now, this moment if you will. How we know that there is millions of tiny particles and that we are hurling through space is through tools we have made with our senses and we use these senses to read our findings. The reality is for me is that I can't push my hand through my desk even though they are both made up by these particles.
How other species relate to this life, is unknown to me and will probably remain that way unless you believe in re-incarnation into another life form. I use what I have been given and luckily enough, I'm satisfied. Sure my mind is curious about space, possible alien life forms, and other scientific explorations or explanations but my heart is good with what I have.
Yeah, I can see a certain arrogance creeping in but it can be said for all the various ideologies from atheism to the religious. Everybody thinks that what they know or don't know is the truth, and for them that is their truth. One thing is that what I do requires some humility and yeah sure, there maybe other beings out there with much better tools to understand this life but I can only understand it with what I have and being limited is no reason not to strive. The rewards are excellent.
Here's a video that tries to research the meditative experience. I don't know what my attitude to it is but at one point it seems to try to play the martyr card when confronted by science. I think Thor or maybe someone else at one time said this type of research is interesting.
Quote:
This short documentary reveals the exploratory work of a team from the University of Montreal who seek to understand the states of grace experienced by mystics and those who meditate. Filmmaker Isabelle Raynauld offers up scientific research that suggests that mystical ecstasy is a transformative experience and could contribute to people's psychic and physical health, treat depression and speed up the healing process when combined with conventional medicine. In French with English subtitles.
I don't think Buddhism is atheist, though I suppose traditionally the understanding of what a God is might be different than what others are thinking of, and lies closer to a polytheistic version of gods, as Buddhism doesn't exclude gods nor is it mandatory to include them and if you were to take gods into account they would be finite (my interpretation of it is that in Buddhism that gods, if real, are merely highly evolved beings that are still stuck in the cycle of Samsara).
Yes. Deities are defined as immortal, supernatural beings. It's a definitional thing that pulls them into atheism as they don't believe in a diety. Omnipotent beings are still possible, but immortal ones not (if I recall correctly).
I suspect that an atheist who is 99% sure that there's no god is likely to say he's agnostic, whereas a theist who is 99% sure that there is a god is likely to say that he's gnostic.
I fall into the former of those two categories. It's possible that god exists, but in a court of law, I'd have no problem finding beyond a reasonable doubt that he does not.
Professing a belief due to faith despite a lack of evidance is different philosophically from not believing in something due to lack of evidence.
An atheist by their own standard of proof cannot be certain where as a christian can, ask an atheist, even Dawkins, if they can be certain there is no god and they will tell you no they can't, it is inherent in the reason they are an athiest.
Ask a christian if they can be certain there is a god and they will tell you they can be, certainty in spite of lack of proof is absoloutly inherent in a religeous belief.
You are assuming that the processes for arriving at either belief are the same for every Christian and every atheist. This is a gross oversimplification.
One of the points emerging in this discussion is how epistemologically unsophisticated many people of every stripe are, especially when approaching these sorts of issues. Just because many atheists arrive at their belief through rigorous tests of the evidence, this does not require that every atheist has thought so carefully about her or his position. After all, Kirk Cameron considers himself to at one time have been a "devout atheist". I am fairly certain that there are many people who are simply convinced like he was that god does not exist, and that they have not put much more thought into the quality of that knowledge.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gargamel
I suspect that an atheist who is 99% sure that there's no god is likely to say he's agnostic, whereas a theist who is 99% sure that there is a god is likely to say that he's gnostic...
I find this sort of stereotypical characterization of all atheists as rational, critical thinkers in contrast to all theists as mindless zealots to be pompous, and a little offensive. The results of this poll completely refute your supposition: more than 20% of all respondants who consider themselves to be atheists also claim to be certain about it.
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"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
