Light sensors cause religious row

[OldLadyKnowsNothing]

Story here.

Maybe they should just move?

Sorry. Am hoping UQD as both fellow atheist and fellow pedant doesn't kill me instantly for the lack of grammar in that post.

You need me, don't you?

I am troubled by the idea of Lupus feeding kids with a glass of wine.

Let us know what you come up with, Lupus.

I think it's pretty clear that ideas of god(s) have been around for centuries, but that this proves nothing. After all, ideas of invisibility have been around for ages. As have other ideas of magic.

Just thought I'd throw this in. I may have posted it before. Can't remember.

If I make the statement "I have magical powers", and cannot offer evidence to support this, there are various possibilities about what is "true".

I'd say there are four main ones, with possible refinements, unless anyone wants to offer any extras.

(a) I have magical powers, and for some reason best known to myself am choosing not to exercise them right now.

(b) I have magical powers, and am demonstrating them in some way which cannot be empirically tested in the physical world, or which is too sophisticated for you to understand until you have read up on magicology.

(c) I do not have magical powers, but am convinced I do - i.e. I am deluded or at least have convinced myself that the statement is true on some level, or need to believe it for some reason.

(d) I do not have magical powers, and am well aware I do not - i.e. I am consciously fibbing for some reason.

Now it's fair enough for intellectual purposes, if you like, to say that the chances of these being true are absolutely equal, and not to choose between any of them because we cannot, ultimately, know - nobody can prove if I have magical powers or not.

But on a practical level, concerning the way we behave in the world, it's likely that most people will veer more towards either (c) or (d). It's not impossible that (a) or (b) could be true, but they are both, in practical terms, vastly unlikely given what else we know about the world.

My arguments for having magical powers may be internally quite coherent and could convince the gullible. But that doesn't change reality - we have to assume there are no "magical powers" until and unless someone can demonstrate them.

Similarly, the arguments against my having magical powers may sound frustratingly unconvincing - but again, that doesn't change the fact that the initial claim is fictitious until shown to be otherwise.

I hope this goes some way towards helping people understand my position.

And there's a chap at St Andrew's University who's working on an invisibilty cloak.

He's in the Physics department, not Divinity.

UQD: If this argument is so basic, as you think it is, why do you think great philosophers have spent their entire lives agonising over it? Surely they would just say: "Is he here? No. Well there you go." and get back to sorting out the books in the library or something. Do you not think, that in the vast works of people like David Hume, who spent their entire lives writing incredible works on these issues, that perhaps you might be mistaken in thinking that you have understood the nub of the issue?

I really don't know. I'm sure their great minds could have been put to better use. Intelligence is no proof of anything, is it? Dawkins is a clever chap and so is Rowan Williams.

They generally did lots of other things too, like invent maths and finance. Although I suspect it was all very easy before MN was invented, what with all that time on their hands.

I don't think that anyone on here has used the historical pervasiveness of religious belief as a defence of it. It was brought up as a specific counter to the argument that religious belief is an "extraordinary claim", not as a justification for all faith-based behaviours.

Well I think this thread was worth it for this:

YMMV?

Yellow Monkeys Mob Villages?

"why do you think great philosophers have spent their entire lives agonising over it? Surely they would just say: "Is he here? No. Well there you go." and get back to sorting out the books in the library or something"

Do you know I'd like to know the answer to that too.

If you think about it anyone reasonably intelligent would know from day 1 that they were not going to come up with an answer. I mean regardless of the truth of the matter they were not going to be able to demonstrate it. You can't spend years rearranging and studying the evidence since there is none. After the first 5 mins all you can do is get out a deck of cards to pass the time.

I mean you might come up with something that sounded poetical and profound, but no amount of sitting in an overflowing bath was going to cause an 'eureka' moment was it.

It would be disappointing if they just wanted to enhance their reputation as philisophers by working on it. So if anyone has a better reason I'd be interested.

Ah, well, being a philosopher is indoor work with no heavy lifting. You can see the attraction.

Message withdrawn

Have you tried to read any philosophy, onagar?! They can spend 200 pages defining the word 'tree', and elaborating on Thomas Aquinas' opinions thereon, before even scratching the surface of whether it makes a noise when it falls over in the woods...

You can spend a long time discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, without proving the existence of either (though the evidence is largely in favour of the latter).

If you think about it anyone reasonably intelligent would know from day 1 that they were not going to come up with an answer.

Onagar: Well it was sort of sarcastic comment really onager (I know you will be AMAZED at such a thing from me ) in that it is sort of like saying "The Big Bang? It just went 'BANG', so what's to study?" I think that if you believe the argument to be so simple, then perhaps it is because you have not really looked into the question of theism from the point of view of logic and philosophy, which is it's natural home, rather than science.

I'd really like to recommend a book for anyone interested in the history of the debate but I'm not sure that I know of any 'easy readers' - I've had a look but most of the popular ones seem to focus on Mark Twain etc rather than the more important figures of slightly older times! Perhaps someone can suggest something?

UQD, if a believer were to believe in God merely to fill in the gaps, they wouldn't be a person of faith.

I believe that the Big Bang theory is possible. I also believe that an intelligent source was behind it, as do many scientists and mathematicians, this in an interesting little study on that very thought.

There is no reason why science cannot go hand-in-hand with religion. And there is no justification for the spurious claim put about by some, that God is for the weak-minded. Some of the most intelligent people believe in God and I'm sure they wouldn't take too kindly to being called weak-minded.

It would be interesting to know exactly when a belief in God first occured. Not that this can be answered. But for those who argue that God fills in the gaps, and provides psychological comfort - are you applying that theory to the entire human race? Because there are a lot of people who do not need the gaps filling in, nor do they need psychological comfort. So it is wrong to claim that this is a human need.

Indeed, a belief in God, you would argue, only makes those gaps bigger and more frequent. Because religion does not provide any more answers, rather it raises many more questions.

Questions such as;

The Duck-Billed Platypus, wtf?????

Onagar, I would imagine it is a response to the urge to ask all the usual questions regarding the nature of existence, the limits of our knowledge, whether our being has some purpose etc. None of these questions disappear with the big bang theory or an understanding of evolution.

MP I would like to recommend (again) John Gray. (The philosopher - Black Mass, Straw Dogs etc, not he of "men are from mars women are from uranus" fame.)

oh, right

I'm just donning my philosopher robe to have a go at this myself. Trying to put myself in their place.

I get a big A4 pad and draw a line down the middle. On the right I put "reasons god can't exist".

Hmm, well there is nothing to go there at all. So I better write "reasons god must exist" in the left column.

Drawing a bit of a blank here cos no physical evidence at all. But hold on. I write:

"Because lots of people think he does"

Hold on though. Some believe god is female or a group of gods. So I better scratch that out and make it this:

"because lots of people think god/s or goddess/s exist"

We must include those others since if we just count believers in one specific god we don't have a vast majority

Okay, but in some religions like the Norse or Wicca they are not all creator gods and not all humanoid or even corporeal so maybe better to go with.

"because lots of people think powerful beings or forces exist"

Maybe we better scratch out beings to cover all bases.

"because lots of people think powerful forces exist"

Wow! that includes the scientists too. We did it! and much faster.

We know it's name too. It's The Universe.

Do I get to be famous?

Will there be groupies?

You missed out the part where the man has to retreat to his cave

Only if it's air conditioned. I love the fruits of science

Who made this Universe of yours?

Does it have a bar?

I made it. See Solipsism

And it only serves atheists!

That sounds about right.

Rhubarb, there's (at least) one very good reason why science and religion cannot properly go hand-in-hand; religion is incompatible with the kind of hard questioning that science requires.

At the same time, science doesn't really work when you have to simply take large areas of knowledge "on faith" or where the answers are only ever going to be "I dunno" (eg, exactly what were God's motives with the whole Forbidden Fruit thing? )