101–110 of 294 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the very definition of Christianity is that you are accepting the creed on faith. There really aren’t any claims you can verify or falsify until after you die (or during the special time of the Rapture).
That's not the definition of Christianity. Catholicism has a long philosophical tradition discussing the existence of God, and that tradition is far from refuted.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you've never been right about anything, you might need to reconsider your approach to learning. I think you're doing it wrong.
Perhaps you missed the communication subtext? Once I'm certain I'm right I'm not going to talk it about it ever again. What would be the point? There's nothing left to learn. I'll have moved on to new topics where I don't yet know what is right – where I'm hopefully wrong so there is something to learn.
> This inspired me to adopt the same strategy with my books: I invite Tufts students to help me write my books by sharing the penultimate draft with them in a seminar, where they are all encouraged to point out errors, challenge arguments, demand more clarity, and in general complain about anything that strikes them as amiss. Two professors from whom I was fortunate to learn, who did something like this in classes: *…
I just felt like we were being kind of used as free editors, rather than peers to engage with the intellectual ideas.
I think the more important question is, "How would I know if I were wrong?" As a thinking Christian, and I've thought very carefully on what kind of evidence could be presented to me to show that Christianity was wrong; I'd be interested in what kind of evidence Dennet would accept to show him that his atheism was wrong.
I think the very definition of Christianity is that you are accepting the creed on faith. There really aren’t any claims you can verify or falsify until after you die (or during the special time of the Rapture).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the tired kind of equivocating that's used by lazy Christians to claim atheism is a discrete and well-formed ideology. Atheism is just that, a-theism, a rejection of the notion of a supernatural dimension occupied by 'personal' god(s). What evidence (or counter-evidence) do you suggest I present to show that my disbelief in Thor or Odin is wrong?
"Unicorns exist" and "unicorns don't exist" are both factual statements of which one can have a belief. Right now you probably hold one or the other. Sure, if you'd never heard of unicorns, such a thing wouldn't enter your head; but you have heard of unicorns, and thus you do have an opinion on their existence. Similarly, if one lived all one's life in a rationalist bubble, and never even heard the mention of God or…
So for me the first time I really thought about whether god existed was in internet discussions. When I learned about the religions in school it was just a bunch of cool stories and cultural things, there was no need to think whether any of that was real or not. And when I got into internet discussions and first encountered religious people I wondered why they thought a fantasy story was real, but apparently you can't ask them that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not the definition of Christianity. Catholicism has a long philosophical tradition discussing the existence of God, and that tradition is far from refuted.
I think you misunderstand. There are no physical proofs available that Christian it is right. As I say, it is all based on faith and belief. Several other religions also have long philosophical traditions that are equally plausible - or not - and for which no physical proof exists.
So, everyone in the world knows what a circle is, or has a basic idea of a circle: you won't find a person who doesn't recognize one, right? But, there are no circles in the world, empirically--every circle you've ever thought you've seen is actually an ellipse, even the earth itself is oblong, just like all the stars and planetary bodies. Well, would we call it a mistake if someone described what, empirically, was a…
> But, there are no circles in the world, empirically Only if you have an overly strict definition of circle. I don't think it is wrong to call the outline of a ball a circle, or the shape you do if you take an Y shaped object and rotate it along one of those branches, it isn't a perfect circle but it is still a circle.
I think the more important question is, "How would I know if I were wrong?" As a thinking Christian, and I've thought very carefully on what kind of evidence could be presented to me to show that Christianity was wrong; I'd be interested in what kind of evidence Dennet would accept to show him that his atheism was wrong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the tired kind of equivocating that's used by lazy Christians to claim atheism is a discrete and well-formed ideology. Atheism is just that, a-theism, a rejection of the notion of a supernatural dimension occupied by 'personal' god(s). What evidence (or counter-evidence) do you suggest I present to show that my disbelief in Thor or Odin is wrong?
"Unicorns exist" and "unicorns don't exist" are both factual statements of which one can have a belief. Right now you probably hold one or the other. Sure, if you'd never heard of unicorns, such a thing wouldn't enter your head; but you have heard of unicorns, and thus you do have an opinion on their existence. Similarly, if one lived all one's life in a rationalist bubble, and never even heard the mention of God or…
Assuming that you believe in the miracles of the old and new testaments, how would such things be proven false? For them to be positive evidence for the existence of God, we should at least be able to imagine how we'd go about refuting them.