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| Russell's teapot |
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Zahlman Moderator - Game Programming Member since: 1/9/2004 From: Toronto, Canada |
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 Posted - 8/7/2006 6:42:46 PM |
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| ITT, I defend the theory that Russell's teapot, as presented to us by the holy prophet Bertrand, not only exists, but is in fact responsible for the existence of the entirety of the observable universe (It has chosen, more or less arbitrarily, to reside in elliptical orbit between Earth and Mars). Furthermore, nothing existed prior to the birth of Russell, when The Teapot, simultaneously created the entire universe in its observable state as of the date we call "May 18, 1872", including Mrs. Russell giving birth to little Bertrand. I am hoping that looking at such an argument from an outside perspective will force, er, certain individuals to get a fucking clue WRT the nature of science and religion, and the meaning of terms like 'logic', 'proof', 'evidence', 'choice' etc. Suggestions for what to take as a "religious text" are welcome. EDIT: fixed link. Actually, the closing A tag was present; what was missing was the closing quote on the URL. [Edited by - Zahlman on August 7, 2006 8:22:52 PM] As a general rule, if you post in For Beginners and your code contains the word 'char', you have a bug. std::string roxors teh big one one one one. "OMG! I'm so happy! I have "1 Friends"!!!" -- coldacid "Basically whenever you invoke the dread ellipses construct you leave the happy world of type safety." -- SiCrane "I mean, if you had sex for every time O'Reilly used the word Patriotism you'd be almost as awesome as Chuck Norris." -- tthibault <triforce101> uh im not a noob i finished the game |
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Flarelocke Member since: 2/25/2002 |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 7:38:50 PM |
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| Since you forgot to close the quotes in your link, your post makes no sense. |
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Conner McCloud Member since: 1/28/2001 From: Golden, CO, United States |
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 Posted - 8/7/2006 7:45:07 PM |
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Quote: I think that should fix it. |
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SiCrane Staff Member since: 12/10/1999 From: Vernon Hills, IL, United States |
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 Posted - 8/7/2006 7:47:52 PM |
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| I think you might have better luck with the Flying Spaghetti Monster than Russell's teapot, as the FSM seems to have a lot more momentum behind it right now. |
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Conner McCloud Member since: 1/28/2001 From: Golden, CO, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 7:52:15 PM |
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Quote: Well duh. Russel's teapot is so small you can't see it, it would have to be pretty damn dense to have much momentum at all. CM |
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Servant of the Lord Member since: 9/24/2005 From: Pinole, CA, United States |
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 Posted - 8/7/2006 7:53:53 PM |
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Well, I had a nice mini-novel written as a response, but in retrospect, I misunderstood your post.  What is a religious text? Anything said religion wants to be religious. Look up the term religious. What is a holy text? Nothing. I don't think the bible is holy, but I believe the messages are. And, by the way, being religous doesn't make me anti-sciencetific. To those that don't believe in god, science ecourages that belief, but to those that believe in God, it is ever complimenting our God. You can't disprove god's existence, and I can't prove it. We come to a stalemate, and the only way for you to prove me wrong is when I die. Luckily for me, you can't rub it in my face if your right.  [Edit:] Dang, looking at Conner's post, it seems I misunderstood it again. You are argueing that such a teapot could exist, or what? Sorry, my mind is blank right now, I'm having touble understanding. |
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fadilthrejk Member since: 3/13/2003 From: Beaumont, TX, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 7:59:51 PM |
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Quote: logic says there's no reason to believe, then, until the burden of proof has been satisfied. |
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Servant of the Lord Member since: 9/24/2005 From: Pinole, CA, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 8:15:24 PM |
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Quote: Why do people so admantly believe in no god then? Wouldn't the logical thing be to be openminded to either eventurality? For that matter, what is logic? The only 'logical' thing is to believe what makes sense most to you, and I have trouble with the big bang and with most other religions I read about. The biblical route seems most 'logical' to me, as it is something I feel actaully makes sense. On topic: Some of those wiki links are interesting, but yeah, I believe that the world was created, as it's sometimes put, "mature". If God had created a new world, it wouldn't be able to support life, and after all, God did create Adam and Eve matured, and not as newborns. I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face. No faithless servant frightened from my task, but ready when the Lord of the harvest calls; And therefore, with all reverence, I would say, Let God do His work, we will see to ours. Bring in the candles. - Abraham Davenport |
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fadilthrejk Member since: 3/13/2003 From: Beaumont, TX, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 8:30:50 PM |
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Quote: Because the burden of proof is on the presenter of a claim, not the recipient. Quote: You have no idea what you're talking about. Logic is a cut-and-dry system of reasoning, there's no "I feel like it makes sense, so it does". There are rules and principles to it. Quote: God didn't create adam and eve. If we all descended from 2 people, you can get no more genetic diversity than what those two individuals have. Without evolution we would all have the same skin color, eye color, and hair color. Why would god create the world as it was described in the bible, "complete", and then have some mechanism in place to change it all from there? |
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Servant of the Lord Member since: 9/24/2005 From: Pinole, CA, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 8:50:03 PM |
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Quote: True, but we are standing on proof. This world, this universe, cannot have popped into existence but by God. It is like pointing at an object and saying 'Where did that come from?' and someone else responding, 'Oh, it was always there' Not a very good explaination, it has to come from somewhere. Although, funnily enough, this could be turned around on me by asking where god came from, so I'd admit my ignorance on that point. Quote: Logic is not a cut and dry system, it is a theological thought. Logic is something man has created to prove he is correct. So in that sense, logically, I find the biblical version of the coming to being least flawed. Hopefully that is better worded on my part. Quote: Now you're trying to prove evalution, but can't off any definate proof either. All you have is simularitys in animals, mutations in bateria, and simular occurances, and all I have is evidence of global floods, a nation that is constantly under attack and yet has survived for 2.5+ millinia, and simular events. As, I said, neither one of us will believe the other. I can offer as much of my proof as I can, and it won't matter one bit to you, and you can offer all your proof and it won't effect me. Quote: Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but are you refering to the tree of knowledge? @Zahlman: Sorry I am causing your thread to get derailed, hopefully it'll get realigned, as those are interesting links. |
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Extrarius GDNet+ Member since: 4/1/2002 From: Psionic Ward |
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 Posted - 8/7/2006 8:59:50 PM |
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Quote:Logic is a definition-based system too simple to contain paradoxes. Thus, if it is incorrect or inconsistent (or 'not a cut and dry system'), so is all of the human thought behind it. The human thought behind ANYTHING else (including religion) is based on logic to some degree. The (only) reason we disagree about things is that we accept different statements as axioms. |
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Driv3MeFar GDNet+ Member since: 4/24/2006 From: Bellevue, WA, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 9:16:04 PM |
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| At this point, there should really be an entire religion section of the forums where people can go to have these useless arguments. |
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Cold_Steel Member since: 9/19/2001 From: Newport, RI, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 9:18:17 PM |
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Quote: [Disclaimer]These are my ideas, and as such, are not to be held in any high regard. Nor should they be the source of any consternation. I wholly accept your right to disagree, vehemently if you feel it necessary. I also respect that you may indeed, hold contradictory ideas or beliefs sacred. You have the right to those beliefs and I am in no way belittling them, nor am I attempting to sway you. They are yours, and I respect that a difference of opinion will most certainly exist. In turn, I only ask that you respect my right to my ideas. Thank you[/Disclaimer] This is essentially my contention, that believing there is no God is no more, or less rationale than believing there is a God. I further contend that it is impossible to prove the inexistence of God, and, on the other side, the only way to prove the existence of God is for His presence to be made known explicitly (e.g. snap His fingers and make us all simultaneously unquestionably believe in Him). As such, I am agnostic. I accept that there may, or may not be a God and aside from the above mentioned proof of existence, it is impossible for me to ascertain the Truth. I choose, however, to accept nothing in the Bible (or any holy documents) as divine scripture as, written by mortals with definite agendas, it is, by definition, fallible. I cannot place any great faith in something written by the hand of man, especially when I cannot, in anyway, rationalize what is written in the work with the world in which I currently live. That's just my 2 cents. Take it or leave it. I won't be arguing my point however, as even what I have said here is more than I generally contribute to religious discussions (due to their inherent volatility) |
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Ainokea Member since: 3/15/2004 From: Keaau, HI, United States |
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 Posted - 8/7/2006 9:28:17 PM |
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Now with this thread the Noahs Ark one will never reach 2nd place in the stats. Thanks alot. ______________________________________________________________________________________ With the flesh of a cow. |
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Zahlman Moderator - Game Programming Member since: 1/9/2004 From: Toronto, Canada |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 9:29:29 PM |
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Awww, looks like noone wants to play the game and lots of people get the point already. Boo. [cry]Quote: That's the thing though: It's not so much an adamant belief in *no* god, as in *not your concept of* god. Quote: That's not logic; that's intuition. Thanks for illustrating my point. Logic is - roughly speaking - where you take axioms - things that are too simple to be provable - and apply ideas like "(A implies B) is equivalent to ((not B) implies (not A))", to arrive at progressively more complex theorems. As a general rule, if you post in For Beginners and your code contains the word 'char', you have a bug. std::string roxors teh big one one one one. "OMG! I'm so happy! I have "1 Friends"!!!" -- coldacid "Basically whenever you invoke the dread ellipses construct you leave the happy world of type safety." -- SiCrane "I mean, if you had sex for every time O'Reilly used the word Patriotism you'd be almost as awesome as Chuck Norris." -- tthibault <triforce101> uh im not a noob i finished the game |
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SiCrane Staff Member since: 12/10/1999 From: Vernon Hills, IL, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 9:33:29 PM |
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Quote: To be fair, the Bible said he created those two, but it never says that he only created those two (at least not in any translation I've read). In any case, even the assumption that Eve was created from the rib of Adam doesn't require that they be genetically identical. Obviously some genetic switcheroo was necessary because of that whole XY -> XX thing, so there's no reason not to believe that other genes weren't mucked with as well. So anyway, skin, hair and eye color are the product of multiple genes that come in recessive and dominant flavors and still aren't completely mapped. Take eye color as an example: two brown eyed parents can bear a blue eyed child. Geneticists only know of three genes which influence eye color, and those alleles only account for blue, brown and green eyes. Even if there were only two progenitors of the species, it's conceivable that Adam and Eve were gifted with alleles such that the full gamut of eye color found in current human expression are possible given descent from just those two. Especially since meiosis isn't the most exact replication mechanism you can think of. While the ultimate effect of a small enclosed genepool is a community with a small amount of genetic variation between members, it says nothing about the originating members. The separation of the children of Adam and Eve into different tribes would create a number of groups that would eventually come to share similar genetic traits within the group, but those traits would not necessarily be the same from tribe to tribe. And who knows? The lands where Adam and Eve settled could have been extra radioactive. There were more radioactive ores back then. A nice infusion of U-235 could inject some genetic diversity and explain why successive generations kept getting shorter lives. Of course, inbreeding could also explain that. |
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Daerax Member since: 8/2/2002 From: Southsea, United Kingdom |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 9:36:15 PM |
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| For the good of humanity and bandwith (and also to allow Noah to reach second place) the honourable thing to do would be to divert this topic quickly away from the direction it is currently headed. So let us discuss the nature of logic, proof, evidence, As well, there are logics which do allow for the existance of inconsistencies. Furthermore, even in science there are inconsistencies due to circular nature of certain definitions. |
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Oluseyi Staff Member since: 5/14/2001 From: New York, NY, United States |
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 Posted - 8/7/2006 10:01:01 PM |
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| Logic is a system of mathematical proofs/rules for arriving at positions based on irreducible axioms. Note, however, that induction is a logical method, so it is possible to make an inferrence merely based on probability. At the same time, note that such inferences require a reasonable number of prior instances to justify the supposition for open-ended numbers of cases that the condition is always so. Consequently, you can not arrive at any worthwhile religious notion as a product of the application of logic. Taking the monotheistic creationist position, for instance, one must make the leap that "all things exist" and "all things did not create themselves" thus "all things were created by one and the same Creator," which has no "prior art," if you will: aside from man, we do not see any "creator" that fashions such a wide variety of disparate objects. Taking the atheist position, on the other hand, the absence of proof is taken as proof of absence, which centuries of the discovery of the previously undetectable causes - ironically, though application of induction - to reject. In summary, the only logical position with regard to religion is one of openness to possibility. The absence of proofs or disproofs that are not reliant on a biased predisposition means that the question of religious authenticity, God and so forth can not be objectively answered based purely on the scientific method. In my opinion, that is as it should be. After all, if I could prove there was a God, you wouldn't need faith, would you? Disclaimer: My personal "convictions" run along the lines of agnosticism/apathy, as suggested by my interpretation/argument of logical application above. Perhaps this post is self-serving. Perhaps not. |
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Servant of the Lord Member since: 9/24/2005 From: Pinole, CA, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 10:06:15 PM |
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Quote: On the contary, many many people believe in no god. Many many people believe in my god and other gods, too, but many people do believe, and openly say, there is no god. Not just my beliefs of god. Quote: Hmm, perhaps it wouldn't hurt if I went and looked up logic, aparently I have a false definiton of it. Quote: Human thought is highly inconsistent. But interesting all the same. |
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Daerax Member since: 8/2/2002 From: Southsea, United Kingdom |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 10:13:57 PM |
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Quote: This is not true, the axioms are what may be considered the parts of your theory which cannot be proven from within your system [the founding formulae]. It is certainly possible that an axiom of your system may be proven from another since in principle, we may choose any set of axioms to serve as a basis of our theory. Furthermore what you state there is not quite logic but an example of some actions (with use of connectives - here being implication) possible in a symbolic logic. "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." -- Lewis Carroll |
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Daerax Member since: 8/2/2002 From: Southsea, United Kingdom |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 10:24:45 PM |
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Quote: In my opinion this is a flaw. And here you arrive at what I feel is a good definition of logic. A system of reasoning and rationalization in which ambiguities do not exist (or as little as is possible when dealing in non mathematical logic) and there is an attempt to address the incosistency of human thought to arrive at conclusions from a basic set of premises. |
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fadilthrejk Member since: 3/13/2003 From: Beaumont, TX, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 10:26:19 PM |
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Quote: Wrong. Go learn about valid and sound reasoning, too. Quote: Really? I wasn't aware of those. Got some links to back that up? Quote: What? No. |
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Servant of the Lord Member since: 9/24/2005 From: Pinole, CA, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 10:51:07 PM |
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Quote: I think I understand that. Here's wikipedia's take on Logic if anyone cares. The exact definition of logic according to wikipedia seems to be undecided, and as everyone here seems to have slightly different defintions it seems to be so. Qustion though: Theorys cannot be logical if it is built upon unproven theorys, but they are logical if built upon facts, or are they still logical regardless of whether they have facts as the base or not? [Edited by - Servant of the Lord on August 7, 2006 10:51:43 PM] |
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Daerax Member since: 8/2/2002 From: Southsea, United Kingdom |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 11:24:34 PM |
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Quote: Your link is missing an '=' sign :) Generally, the current dominant philosophy of science is one I believe which originated with Karl Popper, who states that only a falsifiable theory should be held as scientific. Hence, while no theory is provable, if we can find a way to test for a contradiction (which may of may not be true) in it then it is scientific. We continually attempt to find contradictions in our theory and work to refine, rework or remove them. There are those, such as Kuhn who disagreed with this philosophy. Something is logical if it contains no unclarities and no inconsistencies beyond those incosistencies that were specifically built to be allowable in it. Ususally most people do not allow for inconsistencies in their theories and 'paradoxical logical systems' are really only a curiosity (for now). Usually, incosistencies creep into scientific theories due to circular definitions that may be found in some basic postulates and the non rigorous nature of the proofs in that enterprise :p but the method of argument in papers are usually logical and follow from original premise using supports (math, induction, experiments) that are not inconsistent with experience, observation, intuition or logic. Logic cant really be defined because it is a primitive - irreducable concept - notion. |
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abstractimmersion Member since: 11/16/2005 From: Ellsworth, IA, United States |
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Posted - 8/7/2006 11:40:19 PM |
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| Hey, I've got a theory too. There exist a number of jokers who have decided that there is no meaning behind the superficial phenomena they see around them and have extrapolated that there is no meaning in life or anything to live for, so they adopt a cynical* pose and put on some skull-grin masks and try to amuse each other, worshipping the finality of death, entropy, and the apparent fate of human striving in the face of these apparently triumphant forces. The only modes in which their minds operate are irony, which is the literary expression of their complaint, and a righteous anger at any who deny the supremacy of death and meaninglessness. These pathetic, blood-spattered hyenas cackle and dance around the carcass of a diseased lion which they only think is the great God of the world that they have slain. You can keep your numbers and "logic" and deduction, and I'll instead operate with induction and metaphor. One thing I do believe is that my method is a bit closer to truth than yours will ever be. *this word comes from a Greek school of philosophy, that if you would read, you might imagine you're meeting some old friends. It means "doglike" literally, although that name was probably bestowed upon them by their opponents. Same old fights, every millenium. So you're sick of "theists pushing their theist crap down your throat" ? That street runs both ways, brother. This will probably be regarded as a flame even though my tone is similar to the original post. If this is even read (someone quote me in entirety!). BTW, Kuhn > Popper [Edited by - abstractimmersion on August 7, 2006 11:40:53 PM] |
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