On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 01:20:06 +0100, clipka wrote:

> => §1.4: Allow yourself and anyone else to freely and without shame or
> fear follow any rules they derive from their personal and current belief
> re the supreme something's existence or nature, within the limits
> imposed by §1.1 to §1.4 (sic!).

You had me up to this point, and only not here in a nuanced way.

I'm happy to let anyone follow any rules they derive from their personal 
and current belief, so long as they don't try to impose those on others 
ability to do the same - or if by doing so they put people in harm's way.

I'm happy, for example, to let devout Jehovah's Witnesses refuse a blood 
transfusion for themselves.  I'm not happy to let them refuse one for 
their child, because that is endangering the life of their child.

One might also say, though, that if they have a child, then they are 
endangering the child by refusing one for themselves as well.  That's a 
slightly thornier issue that involves making a decision by balancing a 
personal freedom against a personal responsibility.

And also:  Texas Board of Education.  If the individuals want to cripple 
their own childrens' understanding of science and handicap them in the 
real world, that's less a decision I feel I should get involved in.  When 
they use their influence to cram religious dogma into the public schools 
in ways that affect the entire country - no, they're not permitted to do 
that.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 2014-01-19 04:10, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> And another thing. Every time somebody stands up and defends evolution,
> they start receiving death threats. When was the last time a good honest
> Christian received death threats from the scientists for daring to teach
> Genesis?

This is something I see crop up in a few places, and it makes me wonder: 
  does this argument that the most-victimised party is inherently more 
valid thing have a proper name?  It's a very specific subset of appeal 
to pity, I think.  'X group hasn't been oppressed as much as Y group, 
/therefore/ their position is false (or at least irrelevant).'

--
T. Cook
http://empyrean.sjcook.com

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> "why the hell do 50% of the population ACTUALLY BELIEVE something which
> is obviously ridiculous?"

Religion.

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> I'm happy, for example, to let devout Jehovah's Witnesses refuse a blood 
> transfusion for themselves.

I'm not fully agreeing with that sentiment because I think it's sad
when someone puts themselves in danger because of false beliefs.

If you see someone going to make suicide, you generally try to talk
them out of it, to help them. You don't just watch by without doing
nothing and thinking "well, it's their personal choice".

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 09:01:15 -0500, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> I'm happy, for example, to let devout Jehovah's Witnesses refuse a
>> blood transfusion for themselves.
> 
> I'm not fully agreeing with that sentiment because I think it's sad when
> someone puts themselves in danger because of false beliefs.
> 
> If you see someone going to make suicide, you generally try to talk them
> out of it, to help them. You don't just watch by without doing nothing
> and thinking "well, it's their personal choice".

That's a fair point.

Jim



-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 20/01/2014 4:21 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> If you see someone going to make suicide, you generally try to talk them
>> >out of it, to help them. You don't just watch by without doing nothing
>> >and thinking "well, it's their personal choice".
> That's a fair point.

It is but balance that with the aims of Dignitas.

I don't want someone telling me, if I am in great pain at the end of my 
life. That I have got to suffer because the priests of the big man in 
the toga, says it is wrong.
Similarly I think Jehovah's Witnesses should be allowed to take their 
chances. But not their children or dependants.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 16:51:31 +0000, Stephen wrote:

> On 20/01/2014 4:21 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> If you see someone going to make suicide, you generally try to talk
>>> them
>>> >out of it, to help them. You don't just watch by without doing
>>> >nothing and thinking "well, it's their personal choice".
>> That's a fair point.
> 
> It is but balance that with the aims of Dignitas.

Yes.

> I don't want someone telling me, if I am in great pain at the end of my
> life. That I have got to suffer because the priests of the big man in
> the toga, says it is wrong.
> Similarly I think Jehovah's Witnesses should be allowed to take their
> chances. But not their children or dependants.

It also is a balance with the individual being of sound mind and acting 
with full awareness.  Where religious beliefs are concerned, though, that 
gets into more challenging territory, and is a bit muddier.

Jim
-- 
"I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and 
besides, the pig likes it." - George Bernard Shaw

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On 20-1-2014 1:20, clipka wrote:
> Am 19.01.2014 23:08, schrieb andrel:
>
>> I don't think I could base a morality on an agnostic point of view, so I
>> stick to being an atheist if you don't mind.
>
> I actually find it pretty easy:
>
>
> * I can't tell for sure whether there is a supreme something or not, or
> what its nature is, and I suspect that it is impossible to known for
> sure.

nitpicking: a true agnost is sure (s)he is not able to know. That is 
what distinguishes her/him from an ordinary person that simply does not 
know.

> Therefore, whatever my personal current belief on this matter may
> be, it may be wrong.
>

> something, nor try to prove what its nature is, neither to yourself nor
> to anyone else.
>

> believe in a supreme something or not, or what they believe its nature
> to be.
>

> fear ponder alone or discuss in groups whether there is a supreme
> something or not, or what its nature is, within the limits imposed by

>

> fear follow any rules they derive from their personal and current belief
> re the supreme something's existence or nature, within the limits

>
>
> I think these few rules, derived from what I consider the essence of the
> agnostic point of view, make for a formidable set of fundamental ethics.

I am afraid that I don't see how this helps in deciding what to do in 

follow that.

>

> currently think the supreme something's nature is:
>
> * I believe (even though I can't prove it) that there is a supreme
> something; I believe (even though I can't prove it) that hints about its
> nature can be found scattered among all world views and all throughout
> the universe, including science; I believe (even though I can't prove
> it) that its nature is very witty and humorous, very forgiving (to such
> an extent that the word is actually meaningless, because there is
> nothing to forgive in the first place), and very benevolent.
>

> humorous, forgiving and benevolent, and leave the rest.
>

>
>
> Pretty much everything else in terms of moral springs from the
> "commandment" to be forgiving and benevolent.

Going for the roundabout way of trying to second guess what a god would 
want if it did exist does not appeal to me.

BTW thinking about it, I think there is an agnostic way. Just find the 
common ground. If god exists do A and if god does not exist do A implies 
do A.
The problem is again in second guessing a non human. I am not good at that.
Another problem is that we seem to assume a single god, what if there 
are a large number of them and each has, just like us humans, different 
opinions.

OTOH if you take the assumption that if god exists it does not want us 
to be sure (insert THHGTTG quote here) you may only have to consider the 
situation that it does not exist.

-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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On 20-1-2014 7:43, Tim Cook wrote:
> On 2014-01-19 04:10, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> And another thing. Every time somebody stands up and defends evolution,
>> they start receiving death threats. When was the last time a good honest
>> Christian received death threats from the scientists for daring to teach
>> Genesis?
>
> This is something I see crop up in a few places, and it makes me wonder:
>   does this argument that the most-victimised party is inherently more
> valid thing have a proper name?  It's a very specific subset of appeal
> to pity, I think.  'X group hasn't been oppressed as much as Y group,
> /therefore/ their position is false (or at least irrelevant).'
>

underdog?

-- 
Everytime the IT department forbids something that a researcher deems
necessary for her work there will be another hole in the firewall.

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Am 20.01.2014 04:35, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
> On 1/19/2014 11:12 AM, clipka wrote:
>> Am 19.01.2014 18:09, schrieb Patrick Elliott:
>>
>>> I don't. See, the problem is, if you define god as some "ineffable
>>> something, we can't describe.", then you are correct, and that is
>>> invariably the "fallback" position of believers (since they can always,
>>> later, bait and switch back to the one they really do talk about all the
>>> time). However, any "defined" version, like.. the most common form of
>>> the Christian version, which performs miracles, reacts to prayers, etc.,
>>> and thus has a tangible impact, of some kind, has "testable" attributes.
>>
>> No, it doesn't - because the Bible /explicitly/ denies this testability,
>> saying we can't / shall not put God to the test. (And then there's
>> plenty of scripture that can be interpreted to implicitly affirm this.)
>>
> Well, no, in point of fact, only when it was "convenient" for..
> presumably the latest bunch of priests, dealing with some uppity
> parishioners, who wanted evidence, did it say that. There was some bit,
> I don't remember which part, where the guy did everything short of
> asking god to personal come down and buff his shoes, and god, quite
> happily, did them all, as "proof" that he really was god. Typically,
> believers pick the silly bit later, which says you shouldn't go around
> testing him, and gloss over the other earlier bit, where he was
> perfectly fine with it.

Well, what evidence do we have regarding the question of whether God can 
be tested for?

We have one piece of evidence identicating that we cannot.
We have one piece of evidence identicating that we can.

That's two pieces of evidence, certainly far too few to draw any 
reliable conclusions from them as to whether or not God can be tested 
for; the prudent thing to do would be to assume that we indeed cannot, 
and not bother trying. But let us just pretend that we're happy with the 
sample size - then we must conclude that there is only a 50% chance that 
God can be tested for (give or take approximately 50%, but we're 
ignoring that bit).

In other words, even if we could actually come up with an otherwise 
infallible test for the existence of God, we do have this 50% 
probability of error, leaving us no more than 50% confidence in our test 
result.

Worse yet: This systematic error in testing for the existance of God 
must be assumed to be of such a nature that it not only applies to any 
/individual/ test (which would still leave us with the possibility to 
just repeat our test often enough to increase our confidence), but to 
any /series/ of tests, and even any collection of entirely /different/ 
tests.

Thus, no matter how hard we try, how often we repeat our experiments, 
and how many different experiments we come up with - nothing will ever 
be able to give us a confidence of more than 50% in the result of all 
our testing.

That's not /anywhere/ close to the 95% confidence typically required in 
science for the label "statistically significant".


Thus:

- Presuming that there are less than 20 pieces of scripture in total 
making any explicit statements or providing anecdotal evidence about 
whether God can be put to the test or not, and

- Given that there is at least one piece of scripture explicitly saying 
that he cannot,

- We cannot ever, under any circumstances, conclusively test any 
predictions made by the hypothesis of the existence of the biblical God, 
disqualifying it as a scientific theory.


q.e.d.

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