leibowde84
Veteran Member
"Stand still and do nothing?" What do you mean by that?
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Is there any religious argument that actually stands when scrutinized with reason?
- Thread starter cambridge79
- Start date
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Nope, I'm happy to discuss reason as it relates to belief in God. But, arguments from ignorance (like your use of "cause and effect" and "spirit or substance") are logical fallacies which, of course, should be pointed out and criticized.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
noted and dismissed....
When Jesus would heal someone he would say that their sins are forgiven. But if you were only looking at the behavior of the cells in the body before the healing, you would say that they were behaving according to the "laws of chemistry," and not according to the sinful practice held that was required for the process to have occurred. And when looking at the behavior of the cells again after the healing, you would note their behavior as being according to the "laws of chemistry."
Augustus
…
If you tried to be a bit more open minded and actually thought about the bigger picture rather than seeing how many times you can squeeze in stock cliches involving navels and goalposts and how many times you can repeat the names of (incorrectly applied) logical fallacies, then you might not miss the point so frequently.
You seem intent on turning it into a penis measuring contest: "Who's got the biggest wang: Religion or science?" It's not a competition, no need to try to make it into one.
It's been said that science and religion are non-overlapping magisteria, I don't quite agree with that but they are only ever so slightly overlapping magisteria. It is pretty pointless to compare them.
What you said was: "Science has provided all of the supposed benefits of religions in a far more direct, tangible, measurable way" (Then you proceeded to talk about lasers)
Currently, there is simply no evidence to support this. There is no scientific basis for creating community, morality, identity or meaning. We make these up ourselves based on subjective logic and reasoning.
This we do through myth, stories we tell ourselves to make sense of existence that are not objectively true (It's not just stories about Zeus, humanism or nationalism, for example, are myths). These myths help to ground our values into a larger narrative.
You asked for a 'transcendental' value that you use to guide yourself, well you seem to believe that striving for scientific reality is intrinsically important at all times (i.e. you said "No, reality is what matters"). This forms part of your myth (probably also including ideas of progress due to Enlightenment values, etc.). You also believe in things like universal human rights.
Neither of these values are objectively true. Universal human rights is a completely fictitious concept, conjured out of thin air in the 18th C, and the idea that recognising 'reality' is more important than gaining many benefits from a false belief is pretty ridiculous when you think about it.
Without believing in your myths you could never justify it.
Yes, we have to have subjective myth. That would be the scientific position to take. It is universal in human society, and there is no evidence that it is possible to replace it.
These myths can be religious or they can be secular, but they must exist.
Do we have to interpret myth as fact? Doesn't really matter. The only point that is relevant is whether or not you act as if it was true and this is what we do.
Last edited:
jonathan180iq
Well-Known Member
Which particular claim in the Wiki article do you have a problem with? Which piece of that historical timeline do you consider to be just wholly misinformed? Can you support that "corrected" historical information with anything other than the Russian video you saw on Youtube? (By the way, surely you see the irony in trying to subdue Wikipedia as being non academic by citing a Youtube video as your source, right?)
He says that because what you've claimed is not factually credible. First off, you're the one who has claimed that ancient sources of technological advances somehow reside in the annals of ancient books, like the Old Testament or the Vedas, so you're the one who should be backing up that claim. There's nothing in the actual historical research which suggests that the Nazis were anywhere close to having the atomic bomb. This is mostly because they officially rejected academic findings by Jews at the time, and that was a huge mistake. They also pretty much had one guy working on the real science behind it - and a small unorganized team outside of that.
Let's take a look at a claim from Germany that also suggests that the Nazis not only were close to the bomb, but that they were already testing it...
Rainer Karlsch...
http://www.spiegel.de/international...-close-was-hitler-to-the-a-bomb-a-346293.html
"The only problem with all the hype is that the historian has no real proof to back up his spectacular theories.
His witnesses either lack credibility or have no first-hand knowledge of the events described in the book. What Karlsch insists are key documents can, in truth, be interpreted in various ways, some of which contradict his theory. Finally, the soil sample readings taken thus far at the detonation sites provide "no indication of the explosion of an atomic bomb," says Gerald Kirchner of Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection."
Now, while it may have been possible for Germany to have developed the weapon, what actually happened was very different and, like I said, there were never really close.
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/physics/brau/H182/Term papers '02/Matt E.htm
" The debate over the German scientists role in the development of the bomb intensified after the war. During the closing days of the conflict, American and British intelligence officials decided to inter many of Germany’s leading scientists at a place known as Farm Hall, in England. Their purpose was simple. By secretly placing microphones in the German quarters, they hoped to learn the extent of the German atomic bomb project from conversations between the detainees. These recorded conversations provide insight into their reaction to the news of the dropping of the atomic bombs on August 6th and August 9th. Heisenberg’s meeting with Bohr during the war, coupled with these recordings and later statements, led many historians to conclude that Germany could have produced the bomb, but that German scientists managed to delay these efforts. This conclusion has become known as the “Heisenberg Version.”
At Farm Hall, immediately following the news of the first bomb, Weizzsacker said to his colleagues, “I believe that the reason we didn’t do it was because all the physicists didn’t want to do it, on principle. If we had all wanted Germany to win the war we would have succeeded” (Frank 76-77). Later in the day, Otto Hahn remarked, “I must honestly say that I would have sabotaged the war if I had been in a position to do so” (Frank 82). Finally, Heisenberg himself told Hahn that if the Germans had been in the same position as the Americans and “had said to themselves that nothing mattered except that Hitler should win the war, they might have succeeded, whereas in fact they did not want him to win” (Frank 83). Each of these statements lends credence to the belief that German scientists did not want the Nazis to win the war and that they therefore did not pursue research on the bomb to the fullest extent possible."
This is all supported elsewhere as well:
- http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/holocaust/Research/Proseminar/johnamacher.htm
- http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1127.htm
- https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_qVgeP_UGqsC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=nazi+atomic+bomb&ots=TopoH-bvK7&sig=bgLbK5KUlVRTEyiO995K7JPl3OM#v=onepage&q=nazi atomic bomb&f=false
Nuclear fission was confirmed in 1939 and everyone started working on development of a bomb using this new discovery. The Germans may have had the ability to develop one, sure. But they were nowhere close to actually having a functioning weapon. They were further behind than the Americans and the Russians. They did not gain special hidden knowledge by reading ancient Sanskrit texts. Their studies into the Vedic texts taught them nothing about atoms or about flying saucers or about the supposedly lost art of flying because it was never discovered by the ancients. Like Outhouse said, what you're claiming is factually not credible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Epsilon
Feel free to read the transcripts from the actual German scientists here:
- http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/English101.pdf
- https://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p11a.htm
- http://tocs.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/50527398.pdf
- https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/Preprints/P203.PDF
If you find any reference to the great secrets found in Vedic texts, please cite them.
Which one? Which Wiki article should be supplanted by the information that you saw in a video on Youtube?
jonathan180iq
Well-Known Member
Yes, Thief. The fallacy part is that you don't require god to follow the same rules that you require of everything else.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
God made the rules.....
it's not up to me to make God do anything.
prior to the bang.....you think there were rules.
after the bang....sure.
cause and effect took hold in the same instant.
what's so hard about that?
Who said anything about supplanting? I said updating. Those videos did quote a number of sources.
Those where Wikipedia says they need updating or more information. Did I say it is said or did I say it is a fact?
The way I have it is that the Germans stopped their research on the atom bomb and concentrated on their "ÜFO,s"
Last edited:
jonathan180iq
Well-Known Member
Unsubstantiated claim.
I have no idea, actually. No one does.
Sure.
Ok
It's leap-frogging disconnected thoughts. You've yet to establish that God is, let alone that he created anything... You have no explanation for why this unsubstantiated being is exempt from the rules that you agree exist for absolutely everything else. You're argument is essentially "Because it is..."
jonathan180iq
Well-Known Member
...Which were also a colossal failure and a waste of time and resources.
Where is the fleet of Nazi Saucers today?
Why weren't they ever found in any other state than as a non-working prototype?
Why did they never make a battlefield appearance?
Why is there no academic mention of them anywhere?
If the Nazis suddenly got their hands on some advanced ancient knowledge, why couldn't they use it to turn the tide of the war?
Why aren't these advanced ancient structures still being built? (What happened to all the information?)
Why are there so many questions and black holes of information if what you're talking about is legitimate history?
Look, they deserve all the credit in the world for creating the world's first jet fighter. Good on them. But that was as advanced as anything they would ever produce and it didn't use magic of ancient long-lost information - they simply adapted and modified currently existing technology of the time. There is nothing about the Nazi war machine that should be romanticized or hidden behind a veil of mystery or conspiracy. They got in their own way in terms of technological achievements and they wasted too much time on frivolous pursuits that were never going to change the inevitable outcome of the war they were fighting. There is no magic. There were never any ancient flying palaces. The people of ancient India knew nothing about atomic structure and that information never get discovered by Occultic Nazi propagandists in a way that would ever make any valuable contribution to their war efforts.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
comparison to a leap of faith?
not really....
substance has no volition of it's own
Spirit first.
(just love that unsubstantiated stance of ignorance .....you don't know......)
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Your use of it in this context is an argument from ignorance. You claim that, because we can't currently explain what caused the Big Bang, it must have been God or "spirit". That is the classic "God of the gaps" argument ... a well known logical fallacy.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
This is another logical fallacy ... "circular reasoning". You are assuming your conclusion in your premise. You claim that "God made the rules" which assumes God's existence.
jonathan180iq
Well-Known Member
The difference is that we aren't pretending to know, whereas you do.
You're making a reality claim for the whole of the Universe, and there's nothing but posturing to support it.
You are claiming special knowledge of a thing that is unknowable and you do so by inventing a completely unsubstantiated thing to defend it... In what other conversation would that an acceptable defense?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Watch how this works:
Robber:
"I believe in Gremlins based on science... Cause and effect.
Science leans on it heavily. Science is based on the idea of Cause and Effect.
I say Gremlins first.... There can be no effect without the first cause, Gremlins."
Atheist:
"But hey man, isn't that just an unsubstantiated claim about Gremlins? I mean, shouldn't you first prove that Gremlins exist? Also, why are Gremlins immune to the Cause and Effect principle that you require of everything else?"
Robber:
"Gremlins make the rules... It's not my place to question the Gremlins.
The Big Bang had a cause, I say Gremlins.
Since it's Gremlins first, effect comes from them..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Do you think the Gremlin argument is any good?
Did you watch both the videos? many of your questions are answered in them.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Are you referring to "The Bell"? The reason why the Nazi's failed at the A-Bomb was because of their head scientist blowing up his lab. They grew impatient with him, and concentrated on the V2. The Bell, if it actually was built, was not successful, and they, most likely, only made a couple.
Agnosticism is an approach; atheism is the end result of that approach when properly applied:
- agnosticism (as laid out by Huxley): "we ought not to accept conclusions that are not supported by rational justification."
- "There being no rational justification for belief in gods, we ought not to accept this belief."
... but simply acknowledging that (most);gods can't be conclusively disproven isn't exactly a "win" for the theistic side. It still puts God in the same category as leprechauns, "intelligent falling", Russell's Teapot, the Lost City of Atlantis, and a host of other ridiculous - but unfalsifiable - claims that would be unreasonable to take seriously.
If theism and atheism are on equal footing with no evidence for or against God's existence - i.e. if we can't tell whether God exists because his existence is indistinguishable in every measurable way from his non-existence - then there's no contradiction in living as if God doesn't exist (since even if he does, he may as well not exist for all practical purposes), but it would be sheer lunacy to not only accept his existence but worship him and dedicate your life to him.
In this case, we can also reject every "revealed" religion as false. Any revelation from God, if sufficiently justified, would serve as evidence for the existence of God. If we're saying that there is no evidence for God, we're implying that there's insufficient justification for every claim of revelation.
"I think, therefore I am" doesn't actually work when you unpack it. Descartes assumed things about how thought works that conflict with our understanding of neurology today.
The key thing in "I think, therefore I am" is the idea that as I am thinking, I am simultaneously aware that I am thinking; however, even though this process feels simultaneous, it isn't. When we're "aware" that we're thinking, we're actually switching back and forth rapidly between thinking about the main focus of our thoughts and self-awareness of our thinking process. What we're actually experiencing is not the thought as we're thinking it, but the memory of thinking it from a split second before. This means that "I think, therefore I am" is subject to all the problems with the potential for false memories that Descartes identified.
It just wouldn't be a rational thing... and it isn't.