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After reading Richard Dawkins book I have to say yes. Its just you, me, and about seven billion people on this pale blue dot we call Earth. When you pray, no one is listening.
After reading Richard Dawkins book I have to say yes. Its just you, me, and about seven billion people on this pale blue dot we call Earth. When you pray, no one is listening.
Unless some ET has really good hearing!
so there's not even room in your mind for the smallest doubt? surely that is a leap of faith because you can't possibly KNOW.
The whole idea of a supreme being seems so illogical.
Seems to me the burden of proof should be on theists.
well i have doubts about religion but i also have doubts about certainty. i think certainty + science = having faith in science to some extent. how can you be a scientist & not be open to there being a possibility that you are wrong? that doesn't make sense.
i agree with you (& dawkins) that the burden of proof should be on the theist, entirely. but i'm talking about certainty. nothing is certain, surely? that's my point. i just think being a 6 on dawkins scale is reasonable. being a 7 is the same as being a 1. it's still a leap of faith, even if it's a smaller one. nothing is certain.
well i have doubts about religion but i also have doubts about certainty. i think certainty + science = having faith in science to some extent. how can you be a scientist & not be open to there being a possibility that you are wrong? that doesn't make sense.
If the evidence is strong enough most scientists will change their views. The same can't be said for most religious leaders. Carl Sagan once asked religious leaders if science was able to prove a basic tenet of their religion was wrong would they change how they teach their faith. All but one said they would not. Only the Dalai Lama said he would change how Tibetan Buddhism was taught.
If the evidence is strong enough most scientists will change their views. The same can't be said for most religious leaders. Carl Sagan once asked religious leaders if science was able to prove a basic tenet of their religion was wrong would they change how they teach their faith. All but one said they would not. Only the Dalai Lama said he would change how Tibetan Buddhism was taught.
If the evidence is strong enough most scientists will change their views. The same can't be said for most religious leaders. Carl Sagan once asked religious leaders if science was able to prove a basic tenet of their religion was wrong would they change how they teach their faith. All but one said they would not. Only the Dalai Lama said he would change how Tibetan Buddhism was taught.
but having evidence isn't the same as being certain, right? even if the evidence is strong.
but having evidence isn't the same as being certain, right? even if the evidence is strong.
It is to me. You can't be certain about something unless you have some kind of evidence to back it up.
That's why in science having faith is useless. That's why 99% of biologists, geologists and paleontologists support evolution. Tons of evidence backs it up. Nothing else explains the history of life on Earth better than evolution.
A few years ago someone posted that more scientists were rejecting the big bang theory. I thought that was outrageously funny because the night before I heard an interview with two astronomers from the University of Chicago discuss recent finding about the big bang theory and not once did they say it was in trouble. Creationists like to say that about evolution but its flat out wrong. No other theory has been presented that even comes close to disproving it.
It is to me. You can't be certain about something unless you have some kind of evidence to back it up.
That's why in science having faith is useless. That's why 99% of biologists, geologists and paleontologists support evolution. Tons of evidence backs it up. Nothing else explains the history of life on Earth better than evolution.
A few years ago someone posted that more scientists were rejecting the big bang theory. I thought that was outrageously funny because the night before I heard an interview with two astronomers from the University of Chicago discuss recent finding about the big bang theory and not once did they say it was in trouble. Creationists like to say that about evolution but its flat out wrong. No other theory has been presented that even comes close to disproving it.
okay, well we fundamentally disagree over what certainty means then - so you are exactly the same as my sister, haha.
anthony makes me wet. although i wussed out of meeting him a couple of months ago, hah. so scaryyyy. anyway he was on radio 4's beyond belief yesterday and really wiped the floor with ernie rea when he suggested he was an 'aggressive athiest'. that made me chuckle.
Where Dawkins was that night wasn't far away from the lions den, Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. A few of the students from there went to Dawkins talk to ask him silly questions about evolution during the questions segment. I loved his reply when he heard that Liberty University has dinosaur bones on display which are labeled as being only a few thousand years old. Dawkins said:
Quote:
If it's really true, that the museum at Liberty University has dinosaur fossils which are labeled as being 3000 years old, then that is an educational disgrace. It is debauching the whole idea of a university. And I would strongly encourage any members of Liberty University that are here to leave and go to a proper university."
anthony makes me wet. although i wussed out of meeting him a couple of months ago, hah. so scaryyyy. anyway he was on radio 4's beyond belief yesterday and really wiped the floor with ernie rea when he suggested he was an 'aggressive athiest'. that made me chuckle.
yeah i caught that program. nietzsche's editor.
always impressed when i discover a r4 listener on kr
__________________ she's a haunted house and her windows are broken
i'll hide behind a sofa
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