god is a genesis of stupidity

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Comments

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

But who gets to decide what is 'preposterous'?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

The Amazing Randi!

Or if you prefer, the accumulated knowledge of mankind and the scientific understanding we possess.

Otherwise, we're living in a world of spirit mediums, chupacabras and a world created from the bones of Ymir.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Those judging the evidence. (If there is a shred of evidence for a religion, by the way, it no longer stands as a matter of faith.)

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Utilize Occam's Razor, for one.
Secondly, use the scientific method. What hypothesis best fits the available evidence? If the answer is "There is no God.", then that is the hypothesis used until some other hypothesis best fits the available evidence.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

But that's not how you come down, right? Aren't you a theist? Or are you actually an atheistic Catholic?

In any case, on this issue, I don't think Occam's Razor works. The very origin of the universe is still cloaked in mystery. We don't have evidence.

Mind you, I favor the materialist answer myself, about quantum fluctuations (even though I don't really understand what that means), but I am only saying that the theists have not been knocked out of the fight.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

But that's not how you come down, right? Aren't you a theist? Or are you actually an atheistic Catholic?

I believe that my faith only matters to me and not at all to anyone else. I don't pretend that my subjective faith has any objective meaning, anymore than I consider Ender's philosophical posings to have any objective meaning. It does seem to bother people that I consider subjective things, like faith, to be a purely private and internal matter and to have no weight in the objective world. However, this is perfectly allowable in Catholicism, so there is no discrepancy.

In any case, on this issue, I don't think Occam's Razor works. The very origin of the universe is still cloaked in mystery. We don't have evidence.

No, we don't have enough evidence. What is the simplest explanation that fits the evidence we DO have? The Razor works fine in that instance.

but I am only saying that the theists have not been knocked out of the fight.

They're not even in the fight, because they can't provide anything that fits the slim available evidence.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

They're not even in the fight, because they can't provide anything that fits the slim available evidence.

They appear to think they are in the fight, and more than that, they seem to think they won a big victory with the Hobby Lobby case.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

You're confusing law with science. Law can rule in whichever way it wants to, regardless of what the scientific evidence actually says. Law is nothing more than rules which provide order to society. There's nothing to say that those rules must be scientific or based on science or fair; all that matters is that they are enforced. It's easier to think of law as the ever-evolving rules to a non-ending board game, where each turn may be governed under different rules than the last.

Theists, like everyone else, can be in that fight. After all, law is our subjective thought turned into objective rules and objectively enforced.