25 Aug 2008, 11:37 pm
25 Aug 2008, 11:39 pm
26 Aug 2008, 12:15 am
26 Aug 2008, 12:28 am
26 Aug 2008, 12:33 am
26 Aug 2008, 12:42 am
26 Aug 2008, 4:20 am
chever wrote:
Apparently, you didn't study hard enough to know that anecdotal evidence is inadmissible.
It's inadmissible in a published article, yes - but it's perfectly acceptable when one is formulating a hypothesis or debating online.
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the proportion or kind of scientists who do or don't subscribe to any religious belief doesn't mean diddly
Then why did you bring it up?
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Donald E. Knuth, probably the greatest computer scientist of all time, is devoutly Lutheran...
Sure- when he's studied biology or physics for a few years, and he's still devoutely Lutheran, I'll take that as a point.
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But the moral of the story is that you should come up with your own opinions, rather than parrot the opinions of others...
Funny thing - most atheists are former believers; most religionists are born into it.
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science and religious beliefs (including lack thereof) are almost completely orthogonal, except where things like faith healing and cretinism are concerned.
If you only look at specific beliefs, that is true. However, if you look at the heart of science - the scientific method, the skepticism, the constant questioning, the admission that one never knows anything - then, yes, science is antithetical to faith.
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I'm training to become a (computer) scientist and mathematician also, btw, if that means anything.
You are in a beautiful field that will challenge your intellect, but will probably never challenge your faith. I hope you enjoy working out a page-long calc problem as much as I did. You might consider taking a semester of Chemistry: the periodic table is one of the most lovely expressions of fundamental math that exists in the world.
26 Aug 2008, 11:22 am
LKL wrote:
chever wrote:
Apparently, you didn't study hard enough to know that anecdotal evidence is inadmissible.
It's inadmissible in a published article, yes - but it's perfectly acceptable when one is formulating a hypothesis or debating online.
Wrong.
LKL wrote:
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the proportion or kind of scientists who do or don't subscribe to any religious belief doesn't mean diddly
Then why did you bring it up?
To show my point.
LKL wrote:
Sure- when he's studied biology or physics for a few years, and he's still devoutely Lutheran, I'll take that as a point.
Why this restriction?
LKL wrote:
Funny thing - most atheists are former believers; most religionists are born into it.
So? You're still parrotting other people's opinions.
LKL wrote:
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science and religious beliefs (including lack thereof) are almost completely orthogonal, except where things like faith healing and cretinism are concerned.
If you only look at specific beliefs, that is true. However, if you look at the heart of science - the scientific method, the skepticism, the constant questioning, the admission that one never knows anything - then, yes, science is antithetical to faith.
Religious beliefs, at heart, are unscientific only in the sense that secular philosophical beliefs are unscientific
It doesn't matter
LKL wrote:
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I'm training to become a (computer) scientist and mathematician also, btw, if that means anything.
You are in a beautiful field that will challenge your intellect, but will probably never challenge your faith.
Uhh
I'M AGNOSTIC
LKL wrote:
I hope you enjoy working out a page-long calc problem as much as I did. You might consider taking a semester of Chemistry: the periodic table is one of the most lovely expressions of fundamental math that exists in the world.
Yeah I saw it before
26 Aug 2008, 2:18 pm
Chever, you're trying to make atheists look dumb when in fact you're only validating their position 
.
The Burden of Proof rests on the person making the Claim! So those who do believe in God or posit that God is actually possible are the ones who need to come up with TANGIBLE evidence. Agnositicism is the philosophically default position 
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26 Aug 2008, 2:27 pm
Haliphron wrote:
Chever, you're trying to make atheists look dumb when in fact you're only validating their position .
The Burden of Proof rests on the person making the Claim! So those who do believe in God or posit that God is actually possible are the ones who need to come up with TANGIBLE evidence. Agnositicism is the philosophically default position.
.The Burden of Proof rests on the person making the Claim! So those who do believe in God or posit that God is actually possible are the ones who need to come up with TANGIBLE evidence. Agnositicism is the philosophically default position
.It's not an empirical claim; 'burden of proof', at least as far as supplying material evidence, does not apply.
As with ethics or philosophy, you simply have to argue for your position and hope that others will accept it. There are numerous difficulties with mind-body physicalism, but I'm not really going to go into them unless explicitly asked to do so.
You're right, agnosticism is a logical 'default', since the truth value of the proposition "God exists" is undefined, rather than true or false, without further knowledge. And I am agnostic so I hope you're not trying to show me up on that account.
iamnotaparakeet
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26 Aug 2008, 2:36 pm
chever wrote:
I like chemistry best. It still has math, but not as extensively as physics. And studying math for itself is boring to me, well except for geometry which was fun, because it usually seems detached from reality and the word problems are usually written so poorly as to cause questioning of the author's knowledge of English.
26 Aug 2008, 2:44 pm
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
chever wrote:
I like chemistry best. It still has math, but not as extensively as physics.
Physics can be pretty cool. There is a lot of (frequently boring) number crunching though.
iamnotaparakeet wrote:
And studying math for itself is boring to me, well except for geometry which was fun, because it usually seems detached from reality and the word problems are usually written so poorly as to cause questioning of the author's knowledge of English.
Geometry is closely related with reality. Abstract algebra, category theory and fields like them often have a more tenuous relation with reality. (Even they have applications of course.)
26 Aug 2008, 3:18 pm
chever wrote:
LKL wrote:
chever wrote:
Apparently, you didn't study hard enough to know that anecdotal evidence is inadmissible.
It's inadmissible in a published article, yes - but it's perfectly acceptable when one is formulating a hypothesis or debating online.
Wrong.
Oh, well, in that case, I give up!
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LKL wrote:
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the proportion or kind of scientists who do or don't subscribe to any religious belief doesn't mean diddly
Then why did you bring it up?
To show my point.
If it "doesn't mean diddly," then it shows no point.
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LKL wrote:
Sure- when he's studied biology or physics for a few years, and he's still devoutely Lutheran, I'll take that as a point.
Why this restriction?
Mathematics (at least until you get to chaos theory and/or statistics) only encourages the belief that things can be 'known' in the real world. Simple objects like stars and simple systems like computers can be fairly well understood by human brains and fairly well described by calculus. It's not a study that encourages humility or the understanding that humans will never 'know' everything.
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LKL wrote:
Funny thing - most atheists are former believers; most religionists are born into it.
So? You're still parrotting other people's opinions.
How so? I decided for myself, without input, what to believe, and looked at my own evidence (unlike a religionist, who simply accepts what his or her parents/preacher tell them).
Your claim only makes sense if you're one of those people who believe that no thought that occurs outside of a vacuum can possibly be original - in which case, your definition of 'parroting' is so broad that it has no meaning.
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I'M AGNOSTIC
Ok. I stand corrected wrt. that point.
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'purity' in this case being synonymous with 'sterility' and 'simplicity.' I do enjoy xkcd, though.
iamnotaparakeet
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26 Aug 2008, 3:19 pm
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