What would you do if it were proven...?

[cathoichelp]

LOL! Okay, so same question for you: That strikes me as rigid thinking. Have you considered that possibility? (Note that a refusal to consider that possibility would, rather ironically, seem to constitute *an instance *of rigid thinking.)

So we’re polar opposites, but it turns out you agree with me? All of your opinions about what is ‘flawed’ or not - whether or not that’s even the right word - is based on some vague, unspecified ‘feeling’? Yet you want to claim that you are rational? You want to reply to my reasoned argument with an unreasoned “I know you are but what am I”? All this is surely very ironic, no?

haha not exactly vague feelings …
There are some things I am certain are 100 percent incorrect.

The existence of God however - in my opinion just can’t - or has not been even close to proven in my lifetime.
I don’t discount that there may be something. I personally think that power exists inside all of us and we channel it different ways.
However, the teachings of churches or religions are another story.
They are the views and theories of men - and men are flawed. I know certain things are incorrect … unjust … and untrue.

 

[cathoichelp]

A belief as such cannot constitute “rigid thinking,” so your definition is flawed - the term “rigid thinking” characterizes a mode of holding or evaluating beliefs, not particular beliefs as such; and it has *negative *connotations which must be justified in particular applications of the term.

I agree with your definition and I see doctrine that is clung too out of what seems to be completely stubborn fear -
When every logical obvious thought process tells us other wise.
I find this rigid.
I don’t insist you agree though I do understand where you are coming from as well.

 

[Betterave]

haha not exactly vague feelings …
There are some things I am certain are 100 percent incorrect.

The existence of God however - in my opinion just can’t - or has not been even close to proven in my lifetime.
I don’t discount that there may be something. I personally think that power exists inside all of us and we channel it different ways.
However, the teachings of churches or religions are another story.
They are the views and theories of men - and men are flawed. I know certain things are incorrect … unjust … and untrue.

Okay, wonderful, so you’re convinced that you *know *that certain things that my religion teaches are incorrect, unjust, untrue… things which you have declined to specify…

I, on the other hand, am convinced that there is a very high probability that your conviction is ill-founded, but since you are refusing to specify what it is you are referring to, further rational analysis is rather difficult.

 

[Betterave]

Betterave;7684072:

A belief as such cannot constitute “rigid thinking,” so your definition is flawed - the term “rigid thinking” characterizes a mode of holding or evaluating beliefs, not particular beliefs as such; and it has *negative *

connotations which must be justified in particular applications of the term.

I agree with your definition and I see doctrine that is clung too out of what seems to be completely stubborn fear -
When every logical obvious thought process tells us other wise.
I find this rigid.
I don’t insist you agree though I do understand where you are coming from as well.

How could you possibly understand where I am coming from on such doctrinal issues when you haven’t identified any of the doctrines you are referring to or heard what I believe about any of them?

 

[YankeeRC]

Hi,

I’m new here on CAF but thought I’d post a question which interests me.

For those who are theists - “What would you do if it were proven to your satisfaction that God does not exist”

For those who are atheists - “What would you do if it were proven to your satisfaction that God does exist”

Thanks for taking the time.

If I found out there were no God–specifically no Jesus Christ–I have often wondered if I might euthanize myself because suffering has no purpose.

That is very sad

 

[cathoichelp]

Okay, wonderful, so you’re convinced that you *know *that certain things that my religion teaches are incorrect, unjust, untrue… things which you have declined to specify…

I, on the other hand, am convinced that there is a very high probability that your conviction is ill-founded, but since you are refusing to specify what it is you are referring to, further rational analysis is rather difficult.

I can name a few -
I don’t believe there is one true church - I believe there are many paths to a righteous life.

I don’t believe the churches teaches on sexuality -

I don’t support the churches teaches and demands as far as the AIDS situation - pertaining to the use of condoms between married couples where one spouse is HIV positive

I do not believe in just war

• well to clarify I do understand there are reasons that are justified to go to war - however - murder is murder and taking innocent lives is taking innocent lives - I understand we as a society have not gotten to a point where this is not needed or expected even - but I think the goal should be peace… not justifying war -

I think its totally hypocritical to support capital punishment and the death penalty

I don’t agree w/ teachings pertaining to the use of birth control -

I agree w/ moral order in theory - however, I don’t think the teachings of the church actually follow what is “natural” to human beings -

I don’t believe in hate. period. I don’t hate the sin or the sinner… hate breeds more hate- it breeds injustice -

I can go on… but I think that’s a good start w/ what i have found incorrect w the Catholic Faith -

 

[cathoichelp]

And none of that has anything to do with proving the existence of God which is why I didn’t say it earlier … but since you asked -
Those things are pertaining to the validity of the Catholic Faith -
Not the existence of “God”
sorry I didn’t mean to ignore your questioning … I was just trying to not derail the thread

 

[Betterave]

Well this is certainly a tangent, but hopefully not a full-on derail.

I can name a few -
I don’t believe there is one true church - I believe there are many paths to a righteous life.

So obviously addressing every point would derail the thread, but let’s just examine your first example so we can perhaps clarify some principles (or change my questions so as to address any one of your examples, if one of the others works better for you).

To start with, you claimed: “There are some things I am certain are 100 percent incorrect.” Now my first question is, why say “I don’t believe… - I believe…” above? Why not say, “I am 100 percent certain that…”?

Secondly, how do you know these things, with 100 percent certainty(!) - if that is what you are in fact claiming? You don’t even begin to leave the land of rigid thinking, and enter the land of reason, if you don’t address this question.

 

[cathoichelp]

Well this is certainly a tangent, but hopefully not a full-on derail.

So obviously addressing every point would derail the thread, but let’s just examine your first example so we can perhaps clarify some principles (or change my questions so as to address any one of your examples, if one of the others works better for you).

To start with, you claimed: “There are some things I am certain are 100 percent incorrect.” Now my first question is, why say “I don’t believe… - I believe…” above? Why not say, “I am 100 percent certain that…”?

Secondly, how do you know these things, with 100 percent certainty(!) - if that is what you are in fact claiming? You don’t even begin to leave the land of rigid thinking, and enter the land of reason, if you don’t address this question.

Some things i feel 100 percent correct in - yes …
sexuality is an example of that
saying I believe - is less inflammatory than saying the church is wrong-
there isn’t a lot of difference in the two statements
I believe this is false
and this is false
Other than saying point blank this is false is more likely to send someone else off the deep end - as opposed to stating it as my own belief

 

[Betterave]

saying I believe - is less inflammatory than saying the church is wrong-
there isn’t a lot of difference in the two statements

You’re definitely wrong about that - there’s plenty of difference.

I believe this is false
and this is false
Other than saying point blank this is false is more likely to send someone else off the deep end - as opposed to stating it as my own belief

I’m not the type to go off the deep end, just because someone claims to know something. So go ahead and answer my second question: HOW do you know? - unless, in truth, you’re really just happier in the land of rigid thinking, and the land of reason in fact frightens you.

 

[cathoichelp]

You’re definitely wrong about that - there’s plenty of difference.

I’m not the type to go off the deep end, just because someone claims to know something. So go ahead and answer my second question: HOW do you know? - unless, in truth, you’re really just happier in the land of rigid thinking, and the land of reason in fact frightens you.

I know that the church is incorrect because the nature of a person is not wrong. Natural order and moral order are correct -
but the church makes a blanket statement that IS is the natural order of every human. And that is impossible. Because humans are not identical. The nature of every person … or the correct moral order of sexuality and sexual acts for every person therefore will not be the same.
I know many people with many different natures - Defining morality only in terms of ejaculating into a vagina - is well rather silly - and over looks the other purposes of sex and human interaction.
That does not mean there is not an ideal ethic of mutual respect and love between consenting adults involved in sexual relationships.

 

[cathoichelp]

If this is the correct teaching and the correct church there would not be people who were born incapable of living up to it WHILE still being fulfilled and happy in this lifetime.
That makes no sense.
Because there is no karmic reason… this could be a person who has a heart of gold and has done nothing wrong forced to suffer an entire lifetime for no reason??

You would not need bioethics committees trying to find loop holes for people to break church rules who can not possibly function with in the church…
Like women with female problems and birth control - for example -

If it were a correct teaching you would need to get around the teachings in certain cases-

 

[warpspeedpetey]

But its okay. You can accept the fact that there’s no Flying Spaghetti Monster

Sure, if you are willing to admit to holding a logically fallacious position, or to accept it on faith, but to accept a logically fallacious position knowingly is intellectually dishonest and to accept it on faith is counter to all the claims of atheism.

Argument from incredulity / Lack of imagination

Arguments from incredulity take the form:

** 1. P is too incredible (or I cannot imagine how P could possibly be true); therefore P must be false.
2. It is obvious that P (or I cannot imagine how P could possibly be false) therefore P must be true.**

These arguments are similar to arguments from ignorance in that they too ignore and do not properly eliminate the possibility that something can be both incredible and still be true, or appear to be obvious and yet still be false.

The non-existence of FSM is not a fact, it is an unknowable. There is no logical reason he must exist, There is no physical evidence of his existence. So as neither rationalism nor empiricism can offer any information, there is no way to make any statement of certainty in regards to FSM. So I am simply an agnostic to any formulation of Russells teapot

 

[samiam1611]

So: “Don’t worry, I’m rational alright - trust me; I just like to keep my rationality to myself!” atheism is a banned topic on CAF

Of course that’s how you feel… Goodness, of course! But the fact remains that without a public expression of that rationality your comments aren’t very interesting or convincing. atheism is a banned topic on hereBut since you like the FSM-argument, maybe you don’t care about that? You think that what is important is expressing your view (regardless of how implausible it will likely seem to others), not expressing the grounds for your view? atheism is a banned topic on here (Maybe not, but that appears to be your MO so far…)

I’m not here to try to argue atheism, bc not only would I get banned, I know it would fall on deaf ears for many people; furthermore, it wasn’t my point in joining this forum.
Publicly expressing my rationality is also off-topic for this thread. I do see where my arguments aren’t very convincing, I’m just kind of thinking out loud. or rather thinking with my keyboard. It’s not like I’m writing a thesis for a phD. Also, you asked me several questions in your response to my one post and I chose the one I most felt like answering at the moment. Doesn’t mean I won’t get around to answering some of the other ones.
Just like I am interested in hearing your thoughts on this subject, I would hope you would be of mine. I am not allowed to elaborate on them too much so it’s not really fair to borderline-insult my view due to lack of convincing arguments.
You are correct in that my MO thus far has been, for the most part expressing my view. I would consider much of my posts on this thread sort of just hey here’s my two cents. (Hence, the “I agree when cathoichelp said this” type of thing.) Not to mention if you remember the OP it was purely asking for how we (individuals) feel on the subject. Not asking us to defend our current beliefs! Plus some people wrote stuff that could have been echoes from my head, so I didn’t see much point in repeating them. Although now that I think about it there’s not much point in me just saying I agree either lol.
Before you dismiss me or my opinions as worthless bc I have not elaborated or explained my views, I just want to defend myself by restating that details on my beliefs are not welcome here and I just want to partake in a little friendly discussion. Not argue. Not insult. Just discuss.

Implausible? Really? Such a strong word for a belief that denies supernaturalness, which is practically the definition of implausible. well more like implausible is key to the definition of supernatural. whatever. gtg. I’ll be back to make that better.

 

[CatSci]

Sure, if you are willing to admit to holding a logically fallacious position, or to accept it on faith, but to accept a logically fallacious position knowingly is intellectually dishonest and to accept it on faith is counter to all the claims of atheism.

There’s nothing logically fallacious about it, nor does it require faith. I know that Bobby Henderson made it up as a joke to parody the ID movement. Too, I know that a wad of spaghetti didn’t create the universe.

The non-existence of FSM is not a fact, it is an unknowable.

No, somebody just made it up as a joke… it doesn’t really exist.

There is no logical reason he must exist, There is no physical evidence of his existence. So as neither rationalism nor empiricism can offer any information, there is no way to make any statement of certainty in regards to FSM.

Statement of certainty? Are you going down the route of “we cannot really know anything”? Please, save the bandwidth at least.

So I am simply an agnostic to any formulation of Russells teapot

Ridiculous.

How about the IPU?

It cannot be both invisible AND pink at the same time so certainly that one doesn’t exist, right?

 

[mellestad]

I agree with the overall idea that the FSM is an untrue concept, or at least it doesn’t have any logical basis to consider it a ‘reasonable’ concept that might exist in a possible world.

The FSM folks just need to claim that the FSM is an ‘ultimate’, then they can use the OA. I’ve not seen anyone do that though, so from that perspective it would fail. Easy to fix though, I now declare the FSM is the ultimate personification of…noodley goodness? Yea, noodley goodness.

 

[mellestad]

It cannot be both invisible AND pink at the same time so certainly that one doesn’t exist, right?

Just because light can’t reflect of the IPU doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the attributes of being pink. Things can exist outside of our perception, after all.

 

[CatSci]

Yea, noodley goodness.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Just because light can’t reflect of the IPU doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the attributes of being pink. Things can exist outside of our perception, after all.

The attributes of being pink are literally reflecting pink light and if your reflecting light then you ain’t invisible…

Have you read about the IPU? It was specifically designed to be self contradictory.

 

[Pieman333272]

Nice work taking down those strawmen CatSci!

Also, as spaghetti was invented by people, doesn’t that mean somebody had to cook the FSM?

 

[honestquestions]

Let me ask you a loaded question: Isn’t it perfectly obvious that there is no parity between these cases? So why suggest that there is?

No, it’s not obvious. The point is that you don’t believe in the FSM, but why not?