On Sun, 24 Apr 2011 10:00:05 +0200, andrel wrote:

>> That is different - so you're saying that if someone presented rational
>> evidence for a God, you wouldn't accept it?
> 
> yes

Rational - as in scientifically backed evidence, you'd reject?  I still 
find that quite unusual.

>> I find that *highly* unusual.
> 
> I don't think it is, I just say it. No matter what evidence they come up
> with (other than the person/thing itself, see below) I would always
> assume that they made a mistake or used a false assumption, even if I
> didn't see immediately what was wrong.

I have to admit that for me it would take something pretty solid, 
something where I might be inclined to assume that there was a mistake or 
a false assumption, but until such was proven to exist, I wouldn't really 
have a reason not to rationally concede that God exists.

>>> I don't think that there is too much difference in attitude between
>>> them and me. Other than that I understand the world and they don't. So
>>> I am defending the truth and they a fallacy.
>>
>> Then you're arguably just as religious as they are.
> 
> I know some people in this group have trouble accepting that I am a
> religious atheist, but that is what I think too.

I can see that, but for my view, I see 'religious atheism' as being self-
contradictory, because for me atheism has to do with rationality, and 
rationality is more or less the opposite of religion.

So I find your position quite interesting, and am interested in hearing 
more. :)

>> Otherwise, you'd
>> have to be open to a rational explanation or evidence for God.  For me,
>> I don't see it today, but if credible evidence were presented, I
>> wouldn't just look away from it and say "no, that cannot be".  That
>> doesn't mean I'd accept it unchallenged, either, though.
> 
> I was going to say that if a Godperson/thing came up to me and said it
> existed, I would still not believe it. But Darren beat me to it.

Well, I wouldn't believe it either, there have been plenty of crackpots 
who have claimed to be the 'second coming' (for example).  That doesn't 
constitute proof of any kind.

>>>> That undermines not only teaching real science, but the ability for
>>>> students to think about problems in a rational way.
>>>
>>> Are Americans worse programmers than Japanese?
>>
>> I have no data to support one being better than the other.  Do you?
> 
> When Japan became industrialized a couple of decades ago, they started
> with copying things and then imported foreigners that were in thinking
> not bound to the traditional ways, i.e. creative and daring. Only then
> were they able to design new things. Or at least that was the chauvinist
> western view a couple of years ago.
> 
> The thing to test here is if Japanese programmers are improving and
> native US ones getting worse. Perhaps comparing them to countries whose
> inhabitants do not accept any authority (like the Netherlands ;) )

I'm not seeing how this comes back to my comment above about the ability 
for students to think about problems in a rational way....

Jim

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