If grant used his brain, he could have figured out that Chris was clearly stating "... the muslims and OTHER eastern religions prior to Islam...." Maybe better phrasing or use of commas? Well English is ambiguous in that way...
Inwardly I'm strongly atheist but I keep my gob shut because people are all retards who are too ignorant to understand the scientific method. Makes you more enemies than friends to actually think things through in this world. I do enjoy listening to a good rant though, stephen fry is fucking hilarious when he gets on a roll. Content for the thread: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
what is this god you are talking about? i hear a lots of people use the word, but its meaning doesnt seem to be consistent ... -> ignosticims, igtheism. imo maybe even better then agnosticism (igtheism, ignosticism is kinda theist)
Chris are you derping or actually trying to fucking have a discussion in a thread that's met for lolz... stop being such a penis and have some fun bro
+1 Using logic to discuss with people who believe in magic is futile. I wish my angry teen self had taken heed of this.
i agree to some extend, but if you completely rule out a topic - especially if its not falsified/falsifiable logically (as its by definition not falsifyable if an almighty, allpowerful god insists on it being so) - you are in danger of falling into dogmatism yourself ... im agnostic, im not sure if there isnt a higher tier entity acutally (but im quite certain, that if there is one, its at such scale that we probably will never find out about). look at the pictures of red shift surveys and the millenium run, there is obviously at least higher level organisation in the universe. i really disgust religion (= institutionalized believe) though ...
Apathy, not dogmatism. I have the "Oh shut the fuck up." attitude towards it when its discussion (usually petty bickering.) Its only when government policies/taxes, education and bloody self righteousness is affected by religion that I get annoyed. There's a faith school in my neighbourhood in London and sometimes I fantasize about toppling it's minaret. :D (Not as bad as the stage school where they wear red blazers. Red blazers, disgusting.)
I'm having lots of fun calling grantrithor an idiot. Curiously I stopped being atheist when I realised that investigative skepticism requires agnosticism. Essentially to me, agnosticism is taking great care to remain very much aware of your own ignorance. Working to reduce it is a grand thing, and being so aware of it all the time is a good motivator. And I find generally being able to accept uncertainty to be a useful life skill. You learn to say 'yeah I have no idea what I'm doing but I can probably learn as I go'. Well that's why you don't use logic, you metagame, you learn how to manipulate people and then convert them. Doesn't immediately matter if they follow sensible beliefs for the right reasons, but it does matter that they stop being annoying religious crazy people. Maybe they don't always become less annoying, but either way you get to have fun messing with people's heads. For bonus points do it to philosophy students because they will believe some crazy shit.
well, i understand apathy as, "why do anything anyway?" and dogmatism as "we know this for certain so why question it?" - might be me understanding it wrong though ...
Apathy can be specific, 'I don't give a shit about your dumbass arguments' is a form of apathy I suppose. Although it sounds more like annoyance.
Lethargy would probably be more accurate actually, it's more 'urgh, I can't be be bothered right now' whereas apathy is more 'life is meaningless'.
just bc i seemed to skipped readin this: i also find the igtheist approach very appealing - read up on that if you are into messing with ppls heads -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igtheism i found out about it when we had the last discussion on this topic here :D it kinda extends this to feeling superior to agnostics aswell hehehe
I don't want to nitpick here but atheists belive that there is no and cannot be a deity, agnostic atheists on the other hand do not belive in the existance of a deity. Being an agnostic atheist or an atheist isn't a matter of balls, atheists do the same mistake as any theist, there is no prove for either an existance nor for no existance of any deity, even if it's just the ramblings of someone on a psychotic break, there's always the smallest of chances that he hit some truth, but being an agnostic atheist, I wouldn't belive that shit.
True on a very coarse level. However, atheists have parsimony on their side: there is a far greater probability that we're correct
An agnostic atheist is a contradiction in it self. Agnostic means that you don't have enough knowledge to decide if there is a god or not.