Monster said:

Where did you hear these things? Why would an educator do anything to kids with packed lunches? That's just a dick move. I know some schools frown on packed lunches because they aren't always healthy, but obviously that's still dickish.

Not sure that a kid has ever been suspended for praying at school. I know that school mandated prayer or teacher led prayer is not allowed, but personal or student led prayer is perfectly acceptable. Any school that suspended a kid for praying should be firing people immediately.

I vaguely remember something about a school cutting of the mic of a valedictorian...so I just looked it up to refresh my memory. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...oning-god-graduation-speech-article-1.1369065

"Student speakers were told that if their speeches deviated from the prior-reviewed material, the microphone would be turned off, regardless of content," the school said in a statement on its Facebook page. "When one student?s speech deviated from the prior-reviewed speech, the microphone was turned off, pursuant to District policy and procedure."

I'm not sure if this is what you're talking about, so if it's not then let me know.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bettina-elias-siegel/schools-meddle-in-parents_b_4337744.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004986/High-school-bans-valedictorian-Kyle-Gearwar-giving-speech-God-changed-life.html

No good link for being suspended for praying as the usual case is the students were told not to do something for safety or the chaos that it causes, and the students refused, and were suspended for that, supposedly not the praying, but the number of stories that are out there number in the thousands - I didn't have time to read about them all and find the one I was remembering.

Just Google this "child suspended for praying" and you will see them. Certainly the stories get blown out of proportion, but there is at least one or two where the ACLU, and other lawyers got involved. Once it becomes a political football, I doubt we ever get the true story. So as an off-the-cuff response to Champs ignorance, I probably repeated some right-wing conspiracy. I am going to rot in hell forever. I am sure that the teacher/administrator in Champs story was a much bigger dick than any of the other stories out there for being persecuted for praying.

If a kid put his/head down to say a prayer in school nobody would even know.

michchamp said:

no, I saw it. I never said it was.

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Yes but you did say I couldn't see the difference between some problem you mentioned with the problem I mentioned. That is tacitly untrue - what I claimed about Walker had nothing to do with your Buddhist child getting persecuted. I didn't compare them at all, and even stated that more than once.

michchamp said:

yes, Christianity or God aren't the problem here... Christians are the problem. as violating the principle of the separation of church and state is widespread, especially in the south... there are many problematic christians!

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ok, lets talk about problematic non-Christians as a percentage of the total number people belonging to those groups. This is an entirely different argument. It is like you saying well you're right KAWDUP, but your ilk are worse, and even though I can't prove it, I am going to keep on saying it. Give it a rest Champ - I am not discounting what happened to this kid. I am not going to post what I responded to for the 4th time.

michchamp said:

I don't see how an atheist asking Scott Walker to take down a tweet or "getting his/her panties in a bunch" and "persecuting him" to use your characterization of the event excuses what I was talking about in the other thread that zyxt made this one in response to.

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LOL - you and your strawman comment to me is laughable in light of your comment above.

I made no such claim or excused anyone's actions. You keep throwing shit up there, and maybe something will stick, but you need to go back to the drawing board on this argument.

I can hear your response already.

Whatever!!

Monster said:

agnostic atheist - someone who DOES NOT believe in a god or gods, but does not claim there is no god with 100% certainty.

agnostic theist - believes that a god or gods exist, but does not claim that there is a 100% certainty that they do.

gnostic atheist - someone who knows for sure that there is or has never been a god or gods.

gnostic theist - someone who knows for sure that there is a god or gods.


not being a christian does not make you an atheist. It just makes you a follower of another religion. I am an agnostic atheist. I don't believe in any of these man-made gods, but I'm not ignorant enough to say there is absolutely no possibility of a god. I'd say the chances of a god are very poor, but I'm not going to say there is no chance.

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Thank you

This is a big pet peeve of mine

I'm not sure when "agnostic" became a buzzword for people stuck in some unknown middle ground.

Gnosticism refers to knowledge
Theism refers to belief


On a completely unrelated note, I also hate when people use anti-social improperly when they likely mean asocial. Seems to be a common mistake with the recent generation.

Gulo Blue said:

Burden of proof is a useful concept in law, where a determination must be made and people must jointly take action with imperfect knowledge. It does nothing to identify truth. ...

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thank you for explaining that to me. yes, I can't imagine one ever needing to make decisions or conclusions based on evaluating the evidence presented to one outside of the practice of law...

in a somewhat related note, I remember back in law school, in constitutional law 1, my professor (a catholic polish-italian american, like me, or like I was at the time), explaining that in tests of whether a religious belief is sincerely held, as part of an analysis of whether a secular law unconstitutionally interferes with one's 1st amendment right to practice their religion, one side can't subject the other side's beliefs to cross examination. then he got animated and said, "By the way, no matter what religion you are, you don't want that to happen. No religion would ever stand up to cross examination in court."

So... why would one believe in something that couldn't stand up to a simple cross examination?



That don't make no sense.

michchamp said:

So... why would one believe in something that couldn't stand up to a simple cross examination?

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Simple. Because you have to. Nobody functions solely on beliefs that could stand up to a simple cross examination.

Gulo Blue said:

Simple. Because you have to. Nobody can function solely on beliefs that could stand up to a simple cross examination.

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Also seems to skip your perception of free will argument. Although it does take a bit of logic to get from there to God but I can certainly see it.

"You can't make me believe - LA LA LA - I can't hear you." :*)

<probably should duck right about now> I know - glutton for punishment.

tinselwolverine said:

What if someone is right in the middle? Is that an unaffiliated agnostic?

I know some people who call themselves "deists;" I guess they probably fall into the category of agnostic theists.

They have no religious affiliation and do not claim to know for certainty that there is a higher power, but their opinion is "unless someone can prove to me that something can come from nothing, then I'll believe that there is some kind of higher power or creative force."

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I consider deists to be people who believe in gods, but don't exactly believe in any particular one. Most deists i know dont believe in man-made gods, but do believe that a god probably exists.

Pope say: go to church, give us money, behave according to how we tell you.

Me and a Guy who is like Red both say: Why?

Pope say: here's a bible, it explains everything.

Me: there are contradictions in it. It was written thousands of years ago, and translated (and probably mistranslated) dozens of times, if not more (!!!!) I happen to know that some of these things are false. Insanity isn't caused by demonic possession... it's a mental disorder. This guy was brought back from the dead? How? Wasn't his body decaying? Angels struck down every first born in an entire country? LOL, you expect me to believe this?

Guy like Red: Don't listen to him, Holy Father. All this sounds reasonable to me. I need truths in my life, and you have provided them.

Me: I'm not persuaded. I'm going to do my own thing

Pope: MichChamp, I am greatly displeased. You will burn in hell for all eternity, a fate so terrible you can't comprehend it, and so I will not explain further. rest assured if the Spanish Inquisition were present, I would order them to torture you to death, because...


Me: *yawns* Oh, you finished? k. I'm gonna go have a beer and post on the Detroit Sports Forum. have fun in Church, Guy like Red. Guy?

*Guy like Red marches towards the church with a vacant look in his eyes*

KAWDUP said:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bettina-elias-siegel/schools-meddle-in-parents_b_4337744.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004986/High-school-bans-valedictorian-Kyle-Gearwar-giving-speech-God-changed-life.html

No good link for being suspended for praying as the usual case is the students were told not to do something for safety or the chaos that it causes, and the students refused, and were suspended for that, supposedly not the praying, but the number of stories that are out there number in the thousands - I didn't have time to read about them all and find the one I was remembering.

Just Google this "child suspended for praying" and you will see them. Certainly the stories get blown out of proportion, but there is at least one or two where the ACLU, and other lawyers got involved. Once it becomes a political football, I doubt we ever get the true story. So as an off-the-cuff response to Champs ignorance, I probably repeated some right-wing conspiracy. I am going to rot in hell forever. I am sure that the teacher/administrator in Champs story was a much bigger dick than any of the other stories out there for being persecuted for praying.

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Googled. Found a few stories and you're right. They're completely blown out of proportion. The first story http://www.christianpost.com/news/12-students-suspended-for-praying-at-school-26130/ sounds like the christian students were in the wrong and are using their punishment as an excuse to attack the kid who complained.

Basically, they were denied the chance to use a private room for prayer, just like any other group at the school would be. They were told to do the prayer group outside, but the weather was bad. Then, the decided to do it in the cafeteria and ended up offending someone. I get that the offended student was probably being a bit sensitive, but how would you feel if you had to go to school and sit next to a group of satanists talking about how god is the true evil? It's a public school. You can pray privately, right? God hears your thoughts. Right?

Most of the others seem as if the school says the prayer was disruptive and the christian students wouldn't back down. One story, the student actually admitted she was trying to be disruptive. If you want to preach, preach in church or a pre-approved place. I don't think that's too much to ask from people.

Gulo Blue said:

Simple. Because you have to. Nobody functions solely on beliefs that could stand up to a simple cross examination.

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To be fair, we may not always have the answers to everything. You still have to live your life by evidence. You can't just say, "This house made of grass will stand up forever." Why? Because you know grass to be flimsy and easily blown away in the wind. Instead, you realize that brick or wood is much stronger and will likely not be blown away in the wind if built correctly. Thing is that you take that evidence you have and build your house accordingly. Then you learn from your mistakes.

That's how i see your religion. There is absolutely no evidence that your bible is fact and much evidence to the contrary. Science has proven many things in the bible to be completely wrong and/or impossible. I can't believe in something like that, no matter how much i wish there was an afterlife and a heaven waiting for me. Faith and wishing do not make things real.

Monster said:

I consider deists to be people who believe in gods, but don't exactly believe in any particular one. Most deists i know dont believe in man-made gods, but do believe that a god probably exists.

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it's basically a rejection of organized religion, without going too deep and getting to agnosticism/atheism.

here's what happens when you cross-examine someone's religious beliefs (it ain't pretty) from Clarence Darrow's cross of William Jennings Bryan in the "Scopes Monkey Trial". Link. it's entertaining, but long. The judge should never have allowed it, but Bryan insisted on continuing despite his attorney's objections

Highlights:or this one:

Monster said:

That's how i see your religion. There is absolutely no evidence that your bible is fact and much evidence to the contrary. Science has proven many things in the bible to be completely wrong and/or impossible. I can't believe in something like that, no matter how much i wish there was an afterlife and a heaven waiting for me. Faith and wishing do not make things real.

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I can understand that line of thinking leading to the rejection of organized religions.

For my part, my understanding of evolution and Occam's razor conflict with the otherwise unnecessary (and allegedly illusory) perception of free will. It's not a matter of just not understanding how it works; in a material-only existence, it shouldn't be there. I find the idea that such a phenomena would result from the work of an intelligence to be more likely. Once you hold that belief, understanding reality involves speculating on the intent of that intelligence. What's He getting at? I think we've garbled and twisted the Bible and its meaning plenty. There are no translations involved with how we currently use the Constitution, but I doubt we stick to the meaning of the words as originally written there. The Bible, and other religious texts, are like that, but to a much greater degree. There are two ways I see to get truth out of it. You can be a scholar and try to figure out historical contexts and the impact of multiple translations or you can trust that the intent of the text can be revealed though your own interpretation. Since we can't all be scholars, I trust that if it's a part of His intent that we find some truth in it, we can find it though more typical levels of effort than a scholar makes. That also implies His goals can be achieved through other faiths since the typical level of effort for a non-Christian involves little to no Bible reading.

There is another assumption I'm making. I don't believe that only a fraction of humanity is a part of the plan, so whatever the plan is, it shouldn't be exclusive and it shouldn't require you to be born in a certain part of the world or at a certain point in history. That's means some people in the past had more figured out than I do, so while I fully expect that everything has been twisted and untwisted and retwisted by people that have mixed religion and power, I also presume that smarter people than I have found truths that I'm not likely to find as quickly on my own. So I adhere to my religion with a skeptical eye. By my understanding, my religion allows that.

Monster said:

agnostic atheist - someone who DOES NOT believe in a god or gods, but does not claim there is no god with 100% certainty.

agnostic theist - believes that a god or gods exist, but does not claim that there is a 100% certainty that they do.

gnostic atheist - someone who knows for sure that there is or has never been a god or gods.

gnostic theist - someone who knows for sure that there is a god or gods.


not being a christian does not make you an atheist. It just makes you a follower of another religion. I am an agnostic atheist. I don't believe in any of these man-made gods, but I'm not ignorant enough to say there is absolutely no possibility of a god. I'd say the chances of a god are very poor, but I'm not going to say there is no chance.

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I am too, Monster. I don't believe in any god, but can't prove one doesnt exist because its currently impossible to do so (just like its impossible to prove one DOES exist), and frankly, I'm not terribly interested in trying to do so. Im content to let people practice religion if they want to, I dont care...as long as it doesnt affect me, or affect other people negatively.

I feel that religion is something more personal than a lot of other people do, something meant to be kept to yourself, your family, and your religious community. My dad is a pastor and its something my parents instilled in me from when I was young, that its never ok to press your religious beliefs on someone else. My parents are one of the best examples of awesome Christians. They've always been completely ok with me being an agnostic atheist, and Ive actually had a lot of interesting discussions with my dad about it all.

I feel like I could keep going but I need to get ready for work haha

Gulo Blue said:

...
For my part, my understanding of evolution and Occam's razor conflict with the otherwise unnecessary (and allegedly illusory) perception of free will. It's not a matter of just not understanding how it works; in a material only existence, it shouldn't be there. ...

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Why? Why does there have to be a reason for self-aware intelligence, what I think enables free will (you can term each different things)? It was clearly an evolutionary advantage to have it. To be able to step back from instinct and plan... that allowed man to spread among different habitats, to alter behavior depending on the environment. so free will independent of primal instinct evolved... it doesn't mean there's a reason for it. life exists, evolves, adapts, or fails to, and dies off.

I suppose if religion helps some people cope with that realization, it's okay. It's just that... they shouldn't need to pray in public school, that's all.

Ideally, the experience of living life itself would be enough of a reason to live for everyone, with no need to appeal to the supernatural, but I guess it's not.

Gulo Blue said:

There are two ways I see to get truth out of it. ...

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three if you count drinking heavily, and making a beast of yourself so you don't even have to confront these issues.

spockmaster said:

I am too, Monster. I don't believe in any god, but can't prove one doesnt exist because its currently impossible to do so (just like its impossible to prove one DOES exist), and frankly, I'm not terribly interested in trying to do so. Im content to let people practice religion if they want to, I dont care...as long as it doesnt affect me, or affect other people negatively.

I feel that religion is something more personal than a lot of other people do, something meant to be kept to yourself, your family, and your religious community. My dad is a pastor and its something my parents instilled in me from when I was young, that its never ok to press your religious beliefs on someone else. My parents are one of the best examples of awesome Christians. They've always been completely ok with me being an agnostic atheist, and Ive actually had a lot of interesting discussions with my dad about it all.

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Replace Dad with Mom and we've had incredibly similar experiences here. There was a particularly annoying Holy Roller Ohio fan back in the day on ESPN. He got pissed at me for citing the fact that I grew up a PK

His whole background of why he was so devout and evangelical was because his Mom had read the Bible to him every night before bed as a kid.

And as an aside, look at the Book of Mormon -- the LDS Bible -- the Bible that was discovered in upstate NY and translated by using a special jewel. Interesting how this Bible for the "lost tribes of Israel" happened to address contemporary issues of the day..... Yet had been written centuries before!

michchamp said:

Why? Why does there have to be a reason for self-aware intelligence, what I think enables free will (you can term each different things)? It was clearly an evolutionary advantage to have it.

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Your senses convert physical mechanical interactions with the world to electrical impulses to the brain. Based on the network of cells in the brain, sufficient complexity must exist for sophisticated reactions to inputs (because we have sophisticated reactions to inputs). In a material-only existence, there is no need for a perception of a choice being made. What would it mean if there was? How would your 'will power' steer an electrochemical potential from one neuron to another?

It's about cause and effect and the fact that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Is the perception of free will a cause or an effect? In a material-only system, the brain is a machine, it only reacts to inputs as a sufficiently complex computer could. The perception of free will is a mystery, but it cannot be an independent agent of decision. It cannot add energy to the system. It is just another reaction to some physical cause.

So you can throw the idea of an evolutionary advantage out the window. If consciousness merely arises from the complexity of the brain and free will is perceived, but is not an actual causal agent, then it cannot have an effect. No cause = no effect = no evolutionary advantage.

Gulo Blue said:

Your senses convert physical mechanical interactions with the world to electrical impulses to the brain. Based on the network of cells in the brain, sufficient complexity must exist for sophisticated reactions to inputs (because we have sophisticated reactions to inputs). In a material-only existence, there is no need for a perception of a choice being made. What would it mean if there was? How would your 'will power' steer an electrochemical potential from one neuron to another?

It's about cause and effect and the fact that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Is the perception of free will a cause or an effect? In a material-only system, the brain is a machine, it only reacts to inputs as a sufficiently complex computer could. The perception of free will is a mystery, but it cannot be an independent agent of decision. It cannot add energy to the system. It is just another reaction to some physical cause.

So you can throw the idea of an evolutionary advantage out the window. If consciousness merely arises from the complexity of the brain and free will is perceived, but is not an actual causal agent, then it cannot have an effect. No cause = no effect = no evolutionary advantage.

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Forgive me, but i hate this argument. It makes sense, however it disproves the idea of your god and also leaves open the possibility of just about anything. A god could not come from nothing in your argument. It had to have been created or born. Its intelligence could not have just popped into existence.

Monster said:

Forgive me, but i hate this argument. It makes sense, however it disproves the idea of your god and also leaves open the possibility of just about anything. A god could not come from nothing in your argument. It had to have been created or born. Its intelligence could not have just popped into existence.

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How does it disprove anything about anything's origin? It's just a take on free will under a materialist view of the world. If you google "free will" and "neuroscience" you'll see other descriptions of this idea that it's an illusion. It's popular. People argue over what is meant by "free will" of course.