Loaded-Gun.Com - Anti-Social.Com's Rejects!
General Category => Entertainment => Topic started by: FAH-Q on March 18, 2009, 09:25:20 PM
-
I used to quite dislike Maher because he came across as smarmy, but I've warmed up to him recently. I enjoy his show these days, and religulous was excellent.
-
I saw it, it was quite funny and it made me a 100% non-believer... I was already at 99% so it didn't take much at that point.
I went to see it with a female friend who didn't laugh AT ALL through the entire thing. She isn't religous either. I think she just doesn't have a sense of humor. I think she might've laughed once but it was one of those stifled laughs where you cover your mouth with your hand.
-
Definitely no sense of humour.
And I'm 99.9 to the power of infinity % non-believer. In that the idea of there being a god is ridiculous, but the idea that I can know anything is 100% true is even more ridiculous.
-
Interesting! I should see this movie!
PS: I also dislike Maher.
-
Maher is indeed a smarmy assclown but I'm currently downloading it due to your recommendation.
-
Quick question. If Mary spanked Jesus as a child, did he turn the other cheek?
-
I hate Maher for a long time, then when I got HBO I ended up watching an episode of Real Time, and decided that I still didn't like him, but despite that I agreed with 80% of what he says. Now I kind of even like him a bit, sort of like that asshole uncle that you hated as a kid but that grew on you as you got older. He takes a lot of cheap shots, but at least he's funny about it.
I don't agree with him about religion, but I really want to see Religulous just to see him make fun of christians.
-
I'm 99%er too.
But, the one thing that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around, is the big bang. I can't believe that everything came from absolutely nothing, in some finite event, billions of years ago. What was here before the big bang? I mean I just can't get that there was nothing before everything. Maybe some supreme being that is infinite, created the big bang. Maybe he wanted a new hobby, and created a universe to tend to and watch it evolve on it's own.
-
I'm 99%er too.
But, the one thing that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around, is the big bang. I can't believe that everything came from absolutely nothing, in some finite event, billions of years ago. What was here before the big bang? I mean I just can't get that there was nothing before everything. Maybe some supreme being that is infinite, created the big bang. Maybe he wanted a new hobby, and created a universe to tend to and watch it evolve on it's own.
I'm a fan of Ekpyrotic Theory (http://wwwphy.princeton.edu/~steinh/npr/), but it sitill basically leaves the same logic-holes that you're talking about.
Basically it says that there are these three-dimensional electromagnetic (I think?) branes that ebb and flow like sheets in the wind, because they both have constantly-changing charges across their surface. Once in every few hundred billion years or so, these branes interact, or touch, and the resulting cascade of heat/energy creates a universe.
Ekpyrotic theory states that the universe is not "exploding" like a big bang, but that the objects in the universe are moving away from each other through time/space, giving the illusion that there is a center to the universe and that it is expanding.
But still you have the problem of: Where did the branes come from? What caused the undulating charges across their surfaces? If there's charge, there's energy, and if there's energy, something - at some point - set it in motion.
And well, it just gets wacky from there.
-
But still you have the problem of: Where did the branes come from? What caused the undulating charges across their surfaces? If there's charge, there's energy, and if there's energy, something - at some point - set it in motion.
And well, it just gets wacky from there.
The 'Brane Bang created the 'Branes and their charge is just an illusion. See, the 'Brane Bang is really nothing more than the interaction of two Meta'Branes drifting across each other. The Meta'Branes are taught with gravity and this creates the illusion of an undulating charge in the 'Branes.
-
I think it was an ok movie as long as you're not taking it seriously. Putting together somewhat serious ranting with a bunch of scam interviews doesn't really cut it as a proper documentary in my book, but it made for funny viewing. And surprisingly, Bill Maher comes out of it looking like much less of a dick than the guys at the forefront of the atheist thing, like Sam Harris & Richard Dawkins.
I'm way more interested in mysticism than in religion.
I do like what Tolstoy said about religion quite a bit - especially that line about it being how one defines the relationship between the finite and the infinite. I think organized religion really offers little more than an easy answer to that question, which can provide comfort if you're not going to spend a lot of time considering it.
The issue I take with religion has a lot more to do with it being used as a power structure to manipulate human opinion to serve the interests of the people who deem themselves our rulers.
-
more rationally, however, there is evidence from supercollider work and deep space research that something CAN come from nothing. In fact, it's theorized (but not proven empirically, since we cannot observe at this scale yet) that millions and millions of particles spring into existence every second, only to be annihiliated by the antiparticle partner that was created at the same time.
Maybe it's just turtles, all the way down, in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs.
-
I'm afraid I'm convinced that religions are all false, but that said, I find religion as a concept deeply fascinating. It's thousands of years of piled up memes. It's the cultural equivalent of a vast and glorious junk-yard. Religion is where all of our best metaphors and symbols come from. It's a thing we do that has no rational explanation. Also it's something that regardless of the culture we all participate in independently. In other words, if you took a fresh batch of babies and isolated them - made a Moon colony or something else science fictiony - they would inevitably come up with a religion and it would mean everything to them. And we care deeply about it - we fight wars over religion. It seems to me an evolutionary shortcoming, but I'm clearly missing something. It can't be a negative if it hasn't weeded itself out by now. Why do we need to believe in fictional realities? Fascinating stuff.
As far as the Maher film, I considered watching it but I've seen so many lucid disproofs of religion that I agree with wholeheartedly to care anymore. I'm not the one that needs more proof. I don't need to watch yet another back-patting film to feel secure in my understanding. I started getting this way after the Michael Moore films. Typically it's just a bunch of cheap shots at obvious lunatics and we end where we began. These films are kind of zero-sum gains. I'd frankly rather learn what the opposition has to say for itself. I'm pretty keen on seeing Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. I like to be angry.
TLDR science vs religion rant in microprint:
On the topic of science versus religion, I've put a lot of thought to it and I think it all boils down to fundamental problems with our means of communication. The language itself is poorly designed. The problem is that when a mystic speaks of believing something he means something vastly different from when a scientist says he believes something. the word "belief" is the village whore. It means everything from "having blind and groundless faith in" to "rigorous logic based understanding of." I've tried to employ the term "understand" in my own lexicon to avoid this issue. Thus the mystic "believes that" and the scientist "understands that." But I can see that from the other perspective this is just propaganda. The problem is that we don't have a succinct way of expressing the history behind the contention. There is no "in-a-word" way to explain how a person has come to accept something as being so. This problem with the language we communicate with leads the religious to incorrectly think that their beliefs are in as much conformity with reality as the scientist's beliefs and on the other hand it leads scientists to incorrectly think that by proper refutation they can correct the misconceptions of the religious. It's a pointless exercise. The common language that both the religious and the scientific use is the root of this murky problem. We are in need of a linguistic remedy.
-
I haven't seen the movie but it sounds interesting.
I think many people get caught up in wanting to believe that the universe was a conscious creation and that it had to be created for us or that we as organisms were actually planned ahead of time to be made in the image of the creator. Humans are greedy like that. There is no logic that can support this idea. To fall back to the old moss on/under a bridge analogy that I posted about many years ago there is nothing to suggest that humans aren't simply a basically random mutation with no value whatsoever to the function of the universe. In fact as with most aggressive organisms we will likely find a way to muck it up and will have to be dealt with.
Viewing humans as a patch of moss on a bridge no matter how smart we think we are our perceptions are limited by our faculties and the scope of what we are capable of perceiving from our limited vantage point. We can investigate the metal and paint in our local area, even possibly detect vibrations coming from some unknown source and form some conclusions about our "universe" but we can have no concept whatsoever about things that can't be perceived by us at all, such as the cars and trucks passing on the other side.
So since we can't directly perceive the cars we can never form a valid theory of how the bridge came into being, what it's purpose really is our our purpose (other than surviving and growing) for being there.
And the question of whether the universe is a conscious creation or spontaneously erupted from nothing is not a question that we can ever answer. Like looking into mirrors on facing walls the question echo's on and on through infinity. If created then who created the creators, if spontaneously evolved then where did the energy come from to start with. That question will always haunt us but I think the concept of the classic "God" creator creating the universe and hand crafting man in his image as christianity portrays can safely be put to rest. Modern crristianity is nothing more than a political ploy.
But the god worshipers -as they have been taught- are committed to a massive global catastrophe in which in their belief all nonbelievers, heretics and evil doers will be wiped from the face of the earth allowing a glorious 1000 years of peace for "the chosen people" under the rule of one government of religion by religion and for religion. This is a very real threat that many powerful human forces are actively working to accomplish and marks religion as dangerous and in fact marks it as the very incarnation of the great evil, the threat of which it uses to mobilize it's followers.
And the saddest part of that scenario is that even after the great war those who embody the leadership of religion will most likely be simply using it the same way it has been used all along, to control the people with no real serious belief other than lip service on their part. They will use it, they will use the people, and they will have absolute power over them.
Yeah I know, shut up already. ~sigh~
-
And the question of whether the universe is a conscious creation or spontaneously erupted from nothing is not a question that we can ever answer.
I tend to trust statistical "certainties." The fact that we're discussing something admittedly unknowable is proof to me that we have nothing to discuss at all. Religion is a patch for the vague misgivings which underlie our daily existence. Humans are forever searching for the answer to the "Why?" of it all. I suggest there is no answer. I also suggest that this is nothing to be alarmed about or ashamed of. I frankly find it comforting that my existence is not perpetual. I wouldn't want to live forever. How breathtakingly boring, and what an ironically trapping/imprisoning thought - that we can't ever be finished with life.
Occam's razor suggests that entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. We have the choice of believing in a world of physical realities such as we are familiar with or we can multiply matters beyond all necessity and believe in the supernatural world of fantasy and magic required to support the existence of our favorite deity. Occam's razor is an aphorism that succinctly combines the concepts of simplicity and statistical certainty. There's just too much of reality that we have to give up on to believe in a creator.
-
TLDR science vs religion rant in microprint:
On the topic of science versus religion, I've put a lot of thought to it and I think it all boils down to fundamental problems with our means of communication. The language itself is poorly designed. The problem is that when a mystic speaks of believing something he means something vastly different from when a scientist says he believes something. the word "belief" is the village whore. It means everything from "having blind and groundless faith in" to "rigorous logic based understanding of." I've tried to employ the term "understand" in my own lexicon to avoid this issue. Thus the mystic "believes that" and the scientist "understands that." But I can see that from the other perspective this is just propaganda. The problem is that we don't have a succinct way of expressing the history behind the contention. There is no "in-a-word" way to explain how a person has come to accept something as being so. This problem with the language we communicate with leads the religious to incorrectly think that their beliefs are in as much conformity with reality as the scientist's beliefs and on the other hand it leads scientists to incorrectly think that by proper refutation they can correct the misconceptions of the religious. It's a pointless exercise. The common language that both the religious and the scientific use is the root of this murky problem. We are in need of a linguistic remedy.
I agree completely with your tiny rant. It's one of the issues I've also thought about many times. I hate the word "Believe". I don't "Believe" anything, I just have a hell of a lot of weird theories.
-
I suggest there is no answer.
Prove it.
-
The burden of proof lies on the one asserting the matter. I'm asserting nothing.
-
Pffft. So we're going to quibble over assertions versus suggestions, eh?
That's almost as pointless as arguing about religion!!
-
Ugh. The reason there is no answer to "Why?" is because nature alone being indifferent, a reason "why" implies some unnecessarily multiplicatory supernatural force. I hate to repeat myself but you ask me to prove it...
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Your turn. Prove your god exists.
-
Who needs to worry about objective reality when the orgy of destruction I have prayed for my entire life is just around the corner!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/perfect-storm-john-beddington-energy-food-climate
-
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
The counter-argument most often used when faced with the Occam's Razor argument is one of irreducible complexity.
Your turn. Prove your god exists.
The counter-statement most often used when faced with the show-me-your-god statement is one of requisite faith without proof.
Cmon, Doormie! Much like J with bagman, you're not showing me anything I haven't seen on the internet already!
I'm not getting into this conversation until you come with something new and interesting. :P
-
I'm afraid I don't follow. Are you suggesting that because you can't imagine the evolutionary path leading to the formation of an eagle's eye that a supernatural being created it out of the clay of the earth? I think that a far more parsimonious treatment of the matter would lead you to question the strength of your imagination concerning the realm of physical nature. The argument of irreducible complexity is nothing short of a declaration that because you don't know something it is unknowable. How monstrously arrogant we humans can be.
Faith without proof is all well and good, but one wonders for whom it is requisite? If blind belief is a requisite for the existence of the deity then surely we've entered a tautological hall of mirrors. Really I don't expect a proof that your favorite deity exists. There is no proof I would find acceptable just as arguments from a logical perspective would have no effect on those adopting your line of argument. We're speaking orthogonally to one another. I'm speaking about understanding in a natural context and you're speaking of understanding in a supernatural context. It's a failure of the language we're using. I would argue that my meaning is more relevant as physical reality is natural and only the fantastic is supernatural. This is another parsimony-premised argument, but I really fail to see how the suggestion that something is irreducibly complex would make me agree to throw up my hands and embrace dogma. In fact, I can readily assure you it wouldn't.
-
Your turn. Prove your god exists.
The Double Slit Experiment.
I rest my case.
-
Exactly. God has two slits. How can anyone compete with that.
-
>>The Double Slit Experiment.<<
Excellent insight and a reminder of why I frequent this media.
Haven't thought about that in quite a while.
-
My god rides a skateboard.
-
I'm afraid I don't follow. Are you suggesting that because you can't imagine the evolutionary path leading to the formation of an eagle's eye that a supernatural being created it out of the clay of the earth? I think that a far more parsimonious treatment of the matter would lead you to question the strength of your imagination concerning the realm of physical nature. The argument of irreducible complexity is nothing short of a declaration that because you don't know something it is unknowable. How monstrously arrogant we humans can be.
Faith without proof is all well and good, but one wonders for whom it is requisite? If blind belief is a requisite for the existence of the deity then surely we've entered a tautological hall of mirrors. Really I don't expect a proof that your favorite deity exists. There is no proof I would find acceptable just as arguments from a logical perspective would have no effect on those adopting your line of argument. We're speaking orthogonally to one another. I'm speaking about understanding in a natural context and you're speaking of understanding in a supernatural context. It's a failure of the language we're using. I would argue that my meaning is more relevant as physical reality is natural and only the fantastic is supernatural. This is another parsimony-premised argument, but I really fail to see how the suggestion that something is irreducibly complex would make me agree to throw up my hands and embrace dogma. In fact, I can readily assure you it wouldn't.
You've framed my point extremely well.
Your belief that there is no diety is just as valid as someone else's belief that there IS a diety, since Occam's Razor for you is Irreducibly Complex for the other.
Thus, arguing about religion at any time is meaningless, because the people involved in the argument will rarely be moved by the other's argument.
:)
-
Except that since their belief in a deity rests on their own proof-defying dogma and my "belief" rests on repeatable experimentation, mine is a higher order belief.
Religion requires that the inductee be informed by a human.
Science requires only that a human be curious about his surroundings.
I would disagree that the two "beliefs" are equivalently valid and that Occam's razor is the same as an argument of irreducible complexity. Occam's razor might serve as the starting point for the Irreducible Complexity people, but they then violate it.
Where an irreligious Occam disciple reasons thus: "I cannot understand how this could have come about therefore I must be ignorant,"
a religious Occam's razor applier reasons: "I cannot understand how this could have come about therefore I know it must have come from outside of nature."
Taking the step out of nature is no small thing. It conflicts fundamentally with the concept of parsimony.
I would also disagree that arguments surrounding religion are meaningless - but only to the extent that the two come into conflict with each other. I think it is quite important to strenuously resist the political machinations of the fundamentalists who seek to excise scientific concepts they disapprove of from the school curriculum. I also think it's important to limit the corrupting influence that the equal-footing presentation of their dogma with scientific conclusions has on children who don't know any better. The number of people who believe that the jury is still out on evolution is appalling. But as far as trying to convince a zealot to accept logic or to convince a scientist to embrace fantasy, I agree neither one will have any impact on the other.
-
Exactly. God has two slits. How can anyone compete with that.
Haha I don't know how much of that was joke but just for anyone who's never heard of it: The double Slit Experiment (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc&feature=channel_page)
-
That was all joke, of course, but as profound as it is I'm not really sure that the double slit experiment proves anything about the existence of a supernatural deity. Certainly it's strange science but (unlike supernatural phenomena) its foundations lie in the natural realm, the experiment is eminently repeatable, and far from requiring blind faith - the scientists who performed it
invited required scrutiny...
Let's go back and expand in microprint on the suggestion that was made earlier that when speaking of understanding, the scientific concept of belief is of equivalent validity to that of the religious concept of belief. I don't think I explained myself very well regarding this particular notion and it relates in a way to the implied next step you're making when you speak of the double slit experiment. Hopefully this will be clearer than it was.
I think it's pretty clear that the only way the two "beliefs" can be considered equivalently valid is if one is to disregard an objective reality. Reality is the ultimate test of a theory and if you have no way to test your theory via reality then you are trivializing the single nexus between the two lines of argument. Granted if a religious person consciously dodges reality then he can speak of whatever he wishes, but most religious people I have encountered seem to strongly support the idea that objective reality is in alignment with their theories although they equally strongly discourage means to test it. Is the idea that scrutiny can mar objective reality? Is there a shred of evidence supporting this? I know the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle has become the darling of the pseudoscience crowd, but what does it really bring us to? Like the Double Slit experiment it brings us to the edge of what we as humans can understand through our limited experience of nature. To at this point make an about face and decide based on no evidence that the only natural events possible are those which we have personally experienced and that this must ipso facto be proof of supernature is singularly absurd. Maybe I'm making an argument that would lead to the natural classification of what we call supernatural. So be it. In that case, there is no way to have any degree of certainty in these non-experiential realities since we cannot perform tests. So what does it boil down to? The scientist will ask that you accept all facts supported by repeatable experience and to reject or hold in question those that are unsupported. The pious will ask you to accept the words of another human with no greater insight than you and to accept that his untestable theories are correct even when they conflict with your testable/tested ones. Even if the suggestion is made that the original source of the untestable theories is some divinity, the problem boils down to the reliability of the first human claiming to have been originally contacted. Given what we know about human nature, what we know about aboriginal drug-induced religions, what we know about the nature of oral tradition, what we know about the historical changes to the canons central to each religion and the fact that no two independently arising religions agree on all points, doesn't it feel a bit naive to rest our belief on this first prophet? Doesn't it feel as though it multiplies matters a bit beyond necessity?
EDIT: microing for the TLDR crowd.
-
When writing things on the internet (or in email), break paragraphs down into three sentences maximum, two sentences on average. It will increase the percentage of people that read everything that you have to say.
-
It will increase the percentage of people that read
everything anything that you have to say.
-
Haven't you people ever been through anything like this before? Like all good science versus religion arguments nobody is seriously expected to read any of it.
Typical format: two people rant up and down by carefully cherry picking individual poorly-constructed sentences from the other's rant from which to launch the next pointless wave of text. After a while one side gives up and says "Fuck it! I don't even care that you're still wrong." and the other one smirkingly concludes he's won. Internet arguments of this brand are all verbal wars of attrition. If there were an answer that would satisfy all sides, would we be the ones to finally solve it after so many centuries of philosophers have failed?
-
how many monkeys on typewriters does it take? :)
-
The monkeys would have to go at it differently. I think they would have to approach the problem by reworking our lexicon. Phrases used to describe religious thought and scientific thought shouldn't overlap hardly at all. It leads to utter confusion. As it stands the two areas of discussion overlap on all the important phrases.
EDIT: Just noticed this part:
(or in email)
My emails haven't been that bad have they? I try to keep most of my board-posts to just the usual dick and fart jokes, but I do sometimes ramble in emails. I tend to think of them as letters. Be thankful I've not sent you one of those. :P ...Yet...
-
Oh, oh, really? So, now we're back to arguing about lexicon (http://loaded-gun.com/index.php?topic=44.msg1830#msg1830)?
-
EDIT: Just noticed this part:
(or in email)
My emails haven't been that bad have they? I try to keep most of my board-posts to just the usual dick and fart jokes, but I do sometimes ramble in emails. I tend to think of them as letters. Be thankful I've not sent you one of those. :P ...Yet...
It's just a trick I stumbled upon, several years ago.
In corporate America, your best chance to catch someone's attention is to write a short sentence at the beginning of an electronic communication framing your topic. Then, you follow up with several short paragraphs (no more than 3 sentences each, preferably two) to elaborate your point.
Finally, you close with another short sentence that finalizes your point.
-
I think it's pretty clear that the only way the two "beliefs" can be considered equivalently valid is if one is to disregard an objective reality.
Reality is the ultimate test of a theory and if you have no way to test your theory via reality then you are trivializing the single nexus between the two lines of argument. Granted if a religious person consciously dodges reality then he can speak of whatever he wishes, but most religious people I have encountered seem to strongly support the idea that objective reality is in alignment with their theories although they equally strongly discourage means to test it.
Is the idea that scrutiny can mar objective reality? Is there a shred of evidence supporting this?
I know the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle has become the darling of the pseudoscience crowd, but what does it really bring us to? Like the Double Slit experiment it brings us to the edge of what we as humans can understand through our limited experience of nature. To at this point make an about face and decide based on no evidence that the only natural events possible are those which we have personally experienced and that this must ipso facto be proof of supernature is singularly absurd.
Maybe I'm making an argument that would lead to the natural classification of what we call supernatural. So be it. In that case, there is no way to have any degree of certainty in these non-experiential realities since we cannot perform tests.
So what does it boil down to?
The scientist will ask that you accept all facts supported by repeatable experience and to reject or hold in question those that are unsupported. The pious will ask you to accept the words of another human with no greater insight than you and to accept that his untestable theories are correct even when they conflict with your testable/tested ones.
Even if the suggestion is made that the original source of the untestable theories is some divinity, the problem boils down to the reliability of the first human claiming to have been originally contacted.
Given what we know about human nature, what we know about aboriginal drug-induced religions, what we know about the nature of oral tradition, what we know about the historical changes to the canons central to each religion and the fact that no two independently arising religions agree on all points, doesn't it feel a bit naive to rest our belief on this first prophet? Doesn't it feel as though it multiplies matters a bit beyond necessity?
-
Thanks for the writing tips.
PS - Lexicon also appears earlier in this thread if you ramble-wade. I'll put a clamp on my opinions in this field though. I can tell when it's time.
-
I'm not convinced of the validity of the Heisenberg principal as it relates to the observational relationship between observed and ignored results.
Nor am I convinced that particles must pass through both slits concurrently to produce such an interference pattern. But I'm a hands on person and If I haven't tried it myself then I remain skeptical.
But, adding it to the discussion was a stroke of genius even if it was meant to be a joke. There are very complex correlations to be considered.
However, I'm not yet sold on the current explanations for this effect. Currently the test equipment has too much undesired determination on the results, ... in my opinion.
-
>>When writing things on the internet (or in ....<<
I write whatever I'm thinking even if it results in a three paragraph run on sentence with a half dozen commas.
Who cares, ideas are all that matters.
-
I guess we'll never make it in corporate America, Tru.
-
Who cares, ideas are all that matters.
disagree.
communication of your ideas is all that matters.
a genius locked in a cell does the world no good.
an idiot can turn a crowd to savage things.
-
disagree with what?
-
He disagrees with the idea that external entities should be tasked with interpreting the ideas of those who are incapable of articulating their concepts.
A point which must be taken to extreme to be relevant yet valid nonetheless.
-
Yeah, same reason that after watching Lady in the Water I decided that if I ever met M Night Shyamalan in person I'd just spout random words and guttural noises at him until he complained, then say, "Oh, so Cohesion IS more important than originality, huh?"
-
That still jives with "We'll never make it in corporate America."
I read it wrong. There was no quoted material so I thought he was responding to my post.
-
I listened to an interesting podcast on the nature of reality while I was at work today. If anyone's interested in beating the dead horse, it was Episode 25 @ http://sittingnow.co.uk/
-
this thread needs more boobs.
-
(.)(.)
-
Does your God allow this?
(http://2adultflashgames.com/2afgnjk134jho1yufc/flash/cindy-hope-and-safira-all-wet.jpg)