Phi for All

I'm not an atheist. I was raised in a Christian family and went to churches ranging from the suffocating Nazarene to the more open-minded Unitarians. I'm completely open to the possibility of the concept of a higher being, I'm just trying to define it in ways that aren't completely contradictory.

I personally don't wrestle with logical conclusions much when it comes to religion, but, like you, I often find them fascinating. And I think the greater truth is that it would be the height of arrogance for me to put someone else down for wanting to look for their own answers. Cleverness is like a tree; it grows best when you give it sunlight. I knew it was a risk when I did it, but the whole point of these new sections is to attract more open, insult-free discussions and maybe bring back some of the members who've been driven off. And I've always been fascinated when someone claims they follow the "right" religion. It's easy to be right when you've got a lot of backup. It breaks the heart. Until they get toppled by some godless heathen rabble. Then it's usually because they were too proud of their righteousness.

I like your perspective, Cap'n. It's more productive and interesting discussing things when the mind's not welded shut.

Oh, too bad you couldn't bother to read the first two sentences of the OP.

Oh, the old wormhole under the sink hypothesis. "Plumbing the Future", I think they call it. How hard is it to get another bald guy who vaguely resembles you to get the same tattoo in the same place? Oh yeah, solid evidence, unassailable proof. This explains why I go to Narnia every time I turn on the garbage disposal.

Let's not forget 2 Thessalonians 1:3 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. It seems like an individual's faith, like his love for his fellow man, is something that can grow. It can start at a certain size, and get bigger or smaller depending on certain factors. That doesn't seem binary at all. Why does so much of the evidence, including biblical scripture, seem to support the hypothesis that faith is quantifiable? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Really?! So *I* have to provide definitions for "faith" and "extremism" that are identical in order for you to take me seriously, but *you* get to say that "little faith" is synonymous with "faithless"?! Really?! Translations really don't work that way. If Jesus meant faithless, wouldn't he have said, "Because of your lack of faith" or "Because of your faithlessness"? The Book of Matthew was originally written in Greek, and the word used there for little faith was ὀλιγόπιστος, or oligopistos. Oligos means "little", "few" or "small", all of which define a quantity. Oligos doesn't mean "none". So I think your translation of what Jesus meant is wrong, or the original writer of Matthew was in error. You choose.

Let's take Christianity. Luke 12:27-28 says, "Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith." Little faith, implying that they should have more. And Matthew 17:14-20 says, "14 And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him, 15 said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. 16 And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” 17 And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.” 18 And Jesus rebuked the demon, [1] and it [2] came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. [3] 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” 20 He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” So Jesus himself allows that faith is quantifiable, and that more faith makes more possible. I offer the words of Jesus that faith is not a binary condition. And if faith can be weak or strong, it can be stronger, possibly strongest of all. And if there is a strongest of all faith, couldn't that be termed extreme?

That's a great answer. And it's a metric a religious leader might use to assess the overall faith of his congregation. Obviously, if Pastor A, in talking with Members 1, 2 & 3, finds that their probability estimates for God's existence are 60%, 75% and 90% respectively, Pastor A may conclude that Member 3 has more faith than the other two. And Pastor A may have another member whose probability estimate is 100%. Surely Member 4 has the ultimate faith in God's existence, based on whatever parameters Pastor A has decided to use? It shouldn't matter that this is one leader of one church. The only thing I'm trying to do right now is establish that faith is not a binary condition, but can be quantified.

Is that a justification for cheating?

More strawman. I specifically said, where everyone can see it, that your definition of faith talked about strong convictions. Again, I specifically asked you, for the purpose of my second paragraph, to forget about answering anything about extremism and focus on whether faith, as defined by strong convictions, could have a range of strength. Rewriting the question is another form of strawman. I'm only asking if faith is quantifiable. I'll make it even simpler, jryan. Please answer just this one question, no equivocation, no rewrites, no strawmen. And I don't mean to treat you like a hostile witness on the stand in a courtroom, but you should be able to answer this with a "yes" or a "no". Do some some people have more faith than others? Anyone else reading, feel free to answer as well.

I'd hate to see this end up with the problems that crop subsidies generate. Whenever farmers sell to energy concerns because the prices are better, millions of the poorest people die of starvation.

Is it ever justifiable to cheat on work assigned to you in school? Is it more justifiable in public school than in college? Are tests different than other assignments when it comes to cheating? Are some methods of cheating more justifiable than others?

Exactly. I envision a craft that gets boosted chemically out into space and then uses solar for electric propulsion to reach the asteroid belt. From there, robots programmed to grab and process whatever they come across bring materials back just inside the belt and build more robots for more processing. As long as the AI is sufficient to keep the system self-sustaining and ever-growing, we could eventually have a chain of supply stretching all the way back to Earth. Any manned missions would be paid for before they even started, and could include suitable habitats already put in place by the robots.

Can you force some words that would imply an analogy? That way your lines don't have to have a theme, they can be describing analogous attributes: How can my poems have a "theme"? Like pigeon toast or starlight cream? If they could sing it would be great, similar to the works of Nate.

I think you guys are focusing on what is brought to Earth back rather than what is not used from Earth. Heavy materials with engineering uses can stay in space for continuing colonization, while rarer items with more wealth to mass ratios can be sent back. And don't forget the really valuable stuff doesn't weigh anything; the scientific knowledge and technological breakthroughs and new discoveries are of incalculable value.

Agreed. Programmed AI is the best way to use robots off planet. They would need to find a chunk of asteroid to cannibalize, and use the materials to build whatever they needed to keep going further out.

The villagers feared strangers. They were probably a bit selfish among themselves as well. The soldiers taught them to share, so that instead of just eating the individual items they had (some villagers had carrots, some had milk, some had meat, some had bread, some had potatoes), everyone ate a delicious soup made from all the ingredients. The soldiers started out saying that stone soup was fit for a rich man's table, so the soldiers taught the villagers how to eat like kings whenever they wanted. Edit: Got to be quicker to beat Mr Skeptic to a good explanation.

It seems like you're trying to refute my hypothesis by not listening to anybody who disagrees with you and not answering questions put to you. I never said the definition of faith you provided was a definition of extremism, so let's call that a strawman argument that isn't valid. You also keep going back to my original question without taking in anything that's been said since, so that's just sticking your fingers in your ears. Let's stop that and start fresh. If you still want to argue this paragraph, make sure it's kept separate from your response to this second paragraph. Let's focus on defining faith, and leave extremism out of it for now. [2nd paragraph] In the definition of faith you provided, it mentions strong convictions. Do you agree that some convictions can be stronger than others? And if faith is quantifiable (the how doesn't matter; if some people have more faith than others, then faith might be measurable in some way), doesn't that mean that more faith in God is better than less faith in God, from a religious perspective? Or do you think faith is binary, you either have it or you don't?

As long as it's not solely a political impracticality, I would like to hear it. I know people who are against the death penalty from a religious POV, but think it's a necessary deterrent in society. I personally think it's immoral and we surely can come up with better deterrents.

Is the death penalty allowable within your religion, or your belief system? Is it considered murder? Is an ultimate judgment like that reserved for your deity or can man hand out capital punishment? Is your religious/spiritual stance at odds with your political stance on this issue?

Eventually, sure. Travel, absolutely. But exploration takes time that our current technology doesn't handle well in terms of human life support. In the long run, it will happen. For the near future, robot ships with the best AI we've got will probably play the largest part. I'm reading an interesting story right now where an enhanced Caribbean reef squid is operating the waldoes on a drone ship controlled from earth. Their mission is simple; head for an asteroid and set up small remote factories to process whatever the rock is made of. The squid is already adapted to a weightless environment, so maybe a compromise between a full manned mission and a robot drone would work well.

You can save payload and thus fuel by dropping the idea of manned missions. Robots and drones will probably be the near future of space exploration. It just takes too much of a ship's resources to accommodate fragile humans.

OK, let's take the last definition of faith, something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially a system of religious beliefs. Now take the "strong conviction" part. Would you agree that some conviction can be stronger than others? I'm not asking for a detailed measurement, or even for anyone's assessment, just the concession that "strong conviction" can have degrees of strength. What do you say?

I assume "Phil" is me. To better understand the question I'm asking in the OP, I gave my definition of extremism and faith and encouraged others to do the same so we could arrive at some agreement of terms. So far, you're the only one who keeps saying the definitions are wrong without offering anything to refute them.

Here, here. We've been asking for jryan's definition of extremism for 2 pages now. It's really quite insulting to be "corrected" by a standard that remains mysterious and unimaginable.