On Mon, 26 Nov 2007 11:11:03 -0800, JessHC wrote:

I find it fascinating that you believe I exist, and yet you have no proof
of it, and the only evidence is a message that you believe came from me.
Why is your disbelief so selective?

Why is your honesty so selective? We have evidence that people exist
and post to usenet. We have evidence that someone is posting to
usenet with the name "Michael." At what point should we start
pretending you aren't real?

How bout right now?

The gold rush of 1849 comes to mind. On the basis of almost no
objective evidence, large numbers of people traveled to California,
enduring incredible hardship. Yes, when they GOT there they were able
to verify objective evidence but that is not why they went! People in
large numbers *believed* in claims of gold.

Is this claim extraordinary? Yes, it is. Should it have required
extraordinary evidence? Yes, it should; and the people that waited until
they got extraordinary evidence very likely missed out. Not all; the big
industrial operations will not proceed without evidence, but little old
you and I can and should occasionally be willing to proceed on
extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence.

On Nov 26, 5:47 pm, Michael <newsus...@orneveien.org> wrote:

You are
drawn into a discussion of something you believe does not exist. Why?

Several reasons:

1. I regard the religious as the biggest threat to freedom.
2. I regard the religious as the biggest threat to the safety of my
loved ones.
3. I have an interest in history
4. I already mentioned morbid curiousity
5. I enjoy the comedy. I find your beliefs funny.
6. I enjoy picking out the logical fallacies. It's a mental exercise,
like doing the Crossword. You have nothing but logical fallacies to
support your beliefs, so religion is kind of a gold mine.

On Nov 26, 5:47 pm, Michael <newsus...@orneveien.org> wrote:

asteroids on a collision path with earth. It won't take "extraordinary"
evidence of an imminent collision; it will take only a hint, a suggestion,
of a collision and we'd better start taking actions.

I thought one hit Russia in the early 20th century. Whatever.

There is conclusive evidence that asteroids, icebergs, trains, and
snakes all exist. Instead of regurgitating the same analogy in a
different suit every time, why don't you tell me why it is reasonable to
think there is a danger in being an atheist (like you said) based on
objects in the real world which present a real danger?

This discussion does become rather esoteric at times and I was responding
to a man that seems blind to his own bias and beliefs. That is what I am
exploring and revealing; out of sheer necessity we have an ability to
believe what others tell us.

Why out of necessity do we believe what others tell us?

And by the same token, we have the equal ability to be skeptical. You
forgot to add that.

It stays "believed" until conflicts arise,
and I regret to admit that theism must seem like chaos to an atheist.

Belief is not my default position. There are many others like me. What
you just said is simply untrue.

A better answer is that there are no
challenges to the assertion that snakes exist in Cinnamon Creek. If ten
people said rattlesnakes exist at Cinnamon Creek, and ten others say that
NO snakes exist at Cinnamon Creek, now you are stuck -- some people will
believe one claim, other people will believe the other claim, and a
minority will make no decision until more evidence is available. HOWEVER,
even the man that makes no decision would be wise to be prepared for
snakes just in case the snake assertion turns out to be true. This is
Pascal's Wager.

It is not Pascal's Wager. Pascal's Wager is SPECIFICALLY about God, an
object which has never been shown to exist. Pascal's Wager does not
apply to objects that exist beyond a doubt. Whether a snake exists in
Cinnamon Creek is up to the individual to decide, but whatever he
decides, it will be based upon reason.

I suggest something in-between anti-theism and gullibility; I'm not sure
what to call it and many choices exist. "Guarded study" might be such a
thing.

I went through my "guarded study" phase quite some time ago, and am
now in my "morbid curiousity" phase. It was evident a long time ago
that the religious are full of *****, but yet, I still read their books
and watch their shows. I find the weird behaviour of animals pretty
interesting.

I would expect a con-man to offer evidence and wild claims. I have
offered no evidence and no wild claims.

Yes you have. The existence of God is a wild claim. God living far
away as a semi-omnipotent man is a wild claim. Using threats is a form
of evidence. You aren't very honest with yourself.

The stories I have told of my own
experiences may seem a bit extraordinary,

I haven't noticed that they're anything out of the ordinary.

but as I am not trying to prove
anything to you by these stories it makes little difference to me whether
you believe what I write.

I love that tactic.

Oh but I *do* believe that you believe in a God of some sort.

No. I really don't. Get that idea out of your head.

You are
drawn into a discussion of something you believe does not exist. Why?

Several reasons:

1. I regard the religious as the biggest threat to freedom.

2. I regard the religious as the biggest threat to the safety of my
loved ones.
3. I have an interest in history
4. I already mentioned morbid curiousity
5. I enjoy the comedy. I find your beliefs funny.
6. I enjoy picking out the logical fallacies. It's a mental exercise,
like doing the Crossword. You have nothing but logical fallacies to
support your beliefs, so religion is kind of a gold mine.

It is
not communication when the recipient does not believe it.

You are projecting your religious delusions onto bees.

An excellent demonstration of "projection". I have made no connection
between "religion" and "bees" -- YOU have!

Sure you have. You're talking about bee belief. Don't be dishonest.

And you are talking about religion. What an interesting turn of events.

Why did you bring up bee belief then?

Can't say that I've had anyone "simply disagre with me" in a long time,
except Tokay, he disagrees with me in very interesting and informative
ways.

You've stumbled into a bee's nest of people that disagree with you.

Obviously there's different kinds of theist. Tokay says I'm an atheist
that disbelieves all gods but one. An excellent way to put it.

Tokay is okay with me too, but that is an old saying. And since you seem
to understand it, why don't you apply the same skepticism you have about
other religious beliefs to your own belief? From our point of view, your
belief is no better, no worse, and just as unfounded as, say,
Scientology. Or Catholicism.

I regret to say that some of my co-workers and acquaintances,
supposedly all God-believing Christians of various kinds, deceiving
others seems to be more highly regarded than honesty.

From what I've read, you seem to be deceiving yourself a fair bit. What
makes you think you're more honest than them?

The problem stems mostly from a
lack of god-belief.

Oh, right. They SAY they're Christians but they're really atheists. The
clever bastards!

If they say they're a Christian, and tell me they believe Christ was the
divine Son of God, then they're Christians. The BTK Killer was a
Christian. You have to remember, I lack belief in your God, so to me,
you're all just humans engaging in the traditional human dance of sex,
greed, and lust for power, and kidding yourselves that's not what you're
really doing.

Many of these
religions have such a convoluted, mysterious God that it is impossible
to attempt defining, describing, obeying or believing in him/her/it.

Oh please. They are equally good at describing their Gods as you are at
yours.

IN these discussions, you may benefit to first find out what kind of
theist you have. The usual kind just wants to argue; be right; obtain
power, win.

Those qualities aren't limited to theists.

The rare kind that has a genuine, personally valid and rational belief
in God,

They don't exist.

is the kind that you might find more interesting to talk to.

I like talking to the kind like you, who just wants to argue, be right,
obtain power, win. The other kind of theists, the ones with a rational
belief in God, do not exist, so I can't talk to them.

That
kind, my kind, is not threatened by either your disbelief or by the
conflicting beliefs of thousands of other religions.

Sorry, you're not that kind. You are irrational and will say pretty well
anything, no matter how untrue it is, to win. No offence, I don't like
you any less for that, but go back and read what you write, and try to
be self-critical. It's interesting how many people describe themselves
as the opposite of how other people see them.

Having at least one
thing known for sure, this person can explore all kinds of different
ideas, and maybe find an explanation that explains the thing
known-for-sure even better. I review my experiences fairly regularly,
looking for the flaw that allows for a secular explanation.

You lack honesty, so your reviews are biased towards building your own
ego.

I really do want to understand other people. To do that means I must
enable mental "constructs" that sometimes challenge my beliefs, and to
encourage discourse I leave the unprovable parts of my beliefs for
other discussions.

The theme of this thread has been that of requesting evidence for the
existence of God. Why would you leave that for other discussions?

You do not seem to understand what an argumentum ad poplum is. By
your "logic," you should be an atheist, because there are lots of
people telling you that atheism is true.

Well, atheism isn't a thing that can be "true" I think, seems strange,
the problem is domain and range.

Either God exists or it doesn't. If it doesn't, then atheism is true.
Stop bafflegabbing.

It depends upon whether the word means "not
a belief in God" versus "A belief in not God".

Anyway, the number of theists outnumbers atheists by huge margins,
although the value of this is diminished when you realize that theists
are very much in competition with each other and atheists almost are
ignored.

Right. So the number of people that think God exists does not have
anything to do with whether God exists. Hence, it's a fallacy.

My comment to this is that we do not often use "logic" in real world
situations.

This is why it is easy to regard you as dishonest. Argumentum ad populum
is a fallacy, you were shown that you employed it, and now you're trying
to tap dance out of it by defending it as a good fallacy. Why don't you
just admit it didn't work and move on?

Different rules pertain. If many people tell you a particular
restaurant is "good", you will probably try it even though this is
argumentum ad populum.

Apples and oranges.

How many "bee dances" have you actually seen?

Oh man. Do we really need to go through this? Wasn't the bee dance
just an illustration. Okay, if you insist...

I have seen nature documentaries in which they show and describe the
bee dance. I have read about this behaviour in several different
books. And after I learned about bee behaviour from those sources,
I've spent a fair bit of time at Science Center watching the bees do
their dance in the glass behive because I find it pretty interesting.

There you go -- the one absolutely credible evidence that you have is
that you watched them. Of course, if you had not been TOLD what it
means, what would you have thought, if anything, about the bees moving
around?

I think the best evidence was the documentary by the biologists, but
whatever. The point is, bees dancing (as cool as that is) is a mundane
claim. Most of us trust our senses when it comes to the natural world,
you are arguing that we should abandon our senses. For the love of
Jesus, abandon the solipsisms.

Aren't you capable of abstract thought?

I am; but it is the atheist demand for objective, verifiable evidence
that casts the argument into the cold, sterile world of scientific
observation.

And you BELIEVE it.

YES, biologists have offered OBJECTIVE, VERIFIABLE EVIDENCE about
what bees are doing.

That they have, but did you believe it BEFORE you verified with your
own eyes?

Yes, because they offered reasonable evidence, complete with a narrated
video. When you come up with some film of God then I'll have to review
my stance.

What I see is that you are taking a calculated risk. You really want
to live forever, and you really want to live forever in Heaven and
have all those hot Celestial Wives (who wouldn't?). So, in your greed,
you are willing to give up rationality during life in the hopes that
you will be rewarded. I'm not willing to take that risk, you haven't
provided a compelling evidence that what you say is true.

If the danger is exceedingly great, or the reward exceedingly great, then
perhaps the evidentiary requirement need not be as great as Carl Sagan
suggests.

You have not provided objective, verifiable evidence that there is any
reward, or danger, in religious belief.