how to turn a believer

[dimreepr]

19 hours ago, Itoero said:

I've heard several people here in Belgium that agree with this...it was on the radio a couple days ago.  They consider believing in God the rational choice, regardless if he exists or not. My problem with Pascal's wager is that that implies believing in a personal God.(a deity who can be related to as a person) I deny the existence of a personal god since it rise countless more questions. I do think the belief in an impersonal force which can be called Ietsism (Somethingism)i is more a rational choice.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ietsism

Good answer (damn it +1 ) but my point is, if someone who does believe due, perhaps, to Pascal's rational and harms no-one why do you want to, or should we, make them believe what you do.

[John Cuthber]

You could start by explaining that Pascal's wager doesn't make sense.

You are almost certain to end up in Hell anyway because you don't know which religion is "right" so you will follow the wrong one and, for example, go to the wrong church on the wrong day.

I'm always puzzled that Pascal didn't spot this.

[dimreepr]

3 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

You could start by explaining that Pascal's wager doesn't make sense.

You are almost certain to end up in Hell anyway because you don't know which religion is "right" so you will follow the wrong one and, for example, go to the wrong church on the wrong day.

I'm always puzzled that Pascal didn't spot this.

Perhaps he was an Omnist. 

[John Cuthber]

It doesn't solve the problem.

Which day do you go to church?

[dimreepr]

Don't worry John, given your political views, you'd probably get in; although It may have a few questions about why you're so determined to piss on their parade. 

[puppypower]

As a teen, I moved away from the stricter religious orientation of my youth,  because being a heathen was much easier. Heathen had fewer restrictions. It was easier to take the low road, especially when there as a lot of peer pressure, in public schools, which trained you to discriminate against religion.  This peer pressure adds even more work, to hard work of walking the high road. The high road was hard enough with a support group. The option of less effort combined with the group hug made the low road took better and easier. 

After being a socially acceptable heathen for many years, I went back to religion, because I had appeased that side of me, but I still did not find what I was looking for. This new resolve back to religion did not change the peer pressure, to stay on the low road. For example, in most science forums if you "preach" you will be punished, but if you attack preachers, you get a group hug. The deck is stacked, not to live and let live, but to torture anyone not on the low road.

This bottleneck in terms of social equality, led me down a middle path. The idea was too see if there was scientific way to support religion. Proving God to those of no faith is not easy, especially with the dual standard in science. For example, dark energy has never been seen in the lab. Dark energy has s many lab data points as seeing God in the lab. Yet only dark energy is accepted as fact. It's existence is based on secondary affects, which is the same type of proof offered for God but only one will be accepted by the dual standard. If there is a miracle of healing, not explained by science, how does this differ from dark energy, not seen in the lab, expanding space-time? Since I was not dealing with rational consistency, I needed to address religion in a different way; connected to mind and brain. 

One science based observation is that the invention of written language, coordinate in time very closely to the story of Genesis in the bible. Is there a parallel between these data? The answer is yes, Written language altered the human mind so a new type of human appears.

 

[dimreepr]

13 minutes ago, puppypower said:

As a teen, I moved away from the stricter religious orientation of my youth,  because being a heathen was much easier. Heathen had fewer restrictions. It was easier to take the low road, especially when there as a lot of peer pressure, in public schools, which trained you to discriminate against religion.  This peer pressure adds even more work, to hard work of walking the high road. The high road was hard enough with a support group. The option of less effort combined with the group hug made the low road took better and easier. 

After being a socially acceptable heathen for many years, I went back to religion, because I had appeased that side of me, but I still did not find what I was looking for. This new resolve back to religion did not change the peer pressure, to stay on the low road. For example, in most science forums if you "preach" you will be punished, but if you attack preachers, you get a group hug. The deck is stacked, not to live and let live, but to torture anyone not on the low road.

This bottleneck in terms of social equality, led me down a middle path. The idea was too see if there was scientific way to support religion. Proving God to those of no faith is not easy, especially with the dual standard in science. For example, dark energy has never been seen in the lab. Dark energy has s many lab data points as seeing God in the lab. Yet only dark energy is accepted as fact. It's existence is based on secondary affects, which is the same type of proof offered for God but only one will be accepted by the dual standard. If there is a miracle of healing, not explained by science, how does this differ from dark energy, not seen in the lab, expanding space-time? Since I was not dealing with rational consistency, I needed to address religion in a different way; connected to mind and brain. 

One science based observation is that the invention of written language, coordinate in time very closely to the story of Genesis in the bible. Is there a parallel between these data? The answer is yes, Written language altered the human mind so a new type of human appears.

7

Good post +1. Why do both sides get so worked up about a deity rather than the path they choose to follow? A scientific/academic path is no less difficult and no less valuable, than the high path of humanity. 

[zapatos]

21 minutes ago, puppypower said:

As a teen, I moved away from the stricter religious orientation of my youth,  because being a heathen was much easier. Heathen had fewer restrictions. It was easier to take the low road, especially when there as a lot of peer pressure, in public schools, which trained you to discriminate against religion.  This peer pressure adds even more work, to hard work of walking the high road. The high road was hard enough with a support group. The option of less effort combined with the group hug made the low road took better and easier. 

After being a socially acceptable heathen for many years, I went back to religion, because I had appeased that side of me, but I still did not find what I was looking for. This new resolve back to religion did not change the peer pressure, to stay on the low road. For example, in most science forums if you "preach" you will be punished, but if you attack preachers, you get a group hug. The deck is stacked, not to live and let live, but to torture anyone not on the low road.

This bottleneck in terms of social equality, led me down a middle path. The idea was too see if there was scientific way to support religion. Proving God to those of no faith is not easy, especially with the dual standard in science. For example, dark energy has never been seen in the lab. Dark energy has s many lab data points as seeing God in the lab. Yet only dark energy is accepted as fact. It's existence is based on secondary affects, which is the same type of proof offered for God but only one will be accepted by the dual standard. If there is a miracle of healing, not explained by science, how does this differ from dark energy, not seen in the lab, expanding space-time? Since I was not dealing with rational consistency, I needed to address religion in a different way; connected to mind and brain. 

One science based observation is that the invention of written language, coordinate in time very closely to the story of Genesis in the bible. Is there a parallel between these data? The answer is yes, Written language altered the human mind so a new type of human appears.

 

You have a misunderstanding of science, evidence, dark energy, and the "miracle of healing", all of which lead you to mistakenly believe there is no "rational consistency".

[dimreepr]

39 minutes ago, puppypower said:

One science based observation is that the invention of written language, coordinate in time very closely to the story of Genesis in the bible. Is there a parallel between these data? The answer is yes, Written language altered the human mind so a new type of human appears.

2

I'm sorry I retract my +1, I missed this bit, it's a non-sequitur, humans invented language but not because of an alteration. The only thing it can possibly alter, either way, is society. 

28 minutes ago, zapatos said:

You have a misunderstanding of science, evidence, dark energy, and the "miracle of healing", all of which lead you to mistakenly believe there is no "rational consistency".

Our current models that predict dark energy is only rationally consistent if we believe in the current model, which is incorrect.

[Strange]

49 minutes ago, puppypower said:

For example, dark energy has never been seen in the lab.

No but the effects have. 

50 minutes ago, puppypower said:

Dark energy has s many lab data points as seeing God in the lab. 

Wrong. There is zero evidence for gods but lots of evidence for dark matter. God is a myth. Dark energy is an observed fact.

50 minutes ago, puppypower said:

It's existence is based on secondary affects, which is the same type of proof offered for God but only one will be accepted by the dual standard. 

Nonsense. Can you point to a set of observations and a mathematical model for your god or gods?

No.

So you comparison is wrong, idiotic and slightly offensive.

The only dual standard here is yours, trying to elevate faith and opinion to the same level as objective measurement.

52 minutes ago, puppypower said:

If there is a miracle of healing, not explained by science, how does this differ from dark energy, not seen in the lab, expanding space-time?

Because there are no such miracles (just stories) whereas there is copious objective, quantitative evidence for dark energy.

54 minutes ago, puppypower said:

One science based observation is that the invention of written language, coordinate in time very closely to the story of Genesis in the bible.

I don't really know what that means. You think writing was invented in 7 days? Or you think writing was created by Adam and Eve? Or you think writing was invented the same time as Genesis was first written down? 

All of those are wrong, so there doesn't seem to be any science here.

Quote

The answer is yes, Written language altered the human mind so a new type of human appears.

Bollocks.

10 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Our current models that predict dark energy is only rationally consistent if we believe in the current model, which is incorrect.

That doesn't make much sense but sounds like nonsense...

Are you saying that General Relativity is wrong? If so, perhaps you should start a new thread to argue that.

[dimreepr]

3 minutes ago, Strange said:

Are you saying that General Relativity is wrong? If so, perhaps you should start a new thread to argue that.

 

My only point is, it's possibly not entirely correct because we need something we can't see/observe (or understand why we can't see/observe) to explain it in full, all observations so far say it's correct, but? 

[zapatos]

24 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Our current models that predict dark energy is only rationally consistent if we believe in the current model, which is incorrect.

Of course. All predictions are based on underlying models, and all are subject to change if we gather new information or insights.

And did you just say our current model is incorrect? Can you expand on that a bit?

[dimreepr]

Just now, zapatos said:

And did you just say our current model is incorrect? Can you expand on that a bit?

 

 

Guilty (my bad), for is read maybe. 

[Strange]

1 minute ago, dimreepr said:

My only point is, it's possibly not entirely correct because we need something we can't see/observe (or understand why we can't see/observe) to explain it in full, all observations so far say it's correct, but? 

The statement wasn't about "correctness", it was about "rational consistency" (whatever that means). 

There is no inherent inconsistency in the models or in the evidence supporting it.

Given the overwhelming evidence for GR, and the total lack of evidence against it, it seems unlikely it will be shown to be wrong. But we already know it is (like all theories) incomplete so I'm not sure what the point is.

"Dark energy" (whatever it turns out to be) is based purely on evidence and observation. It might be explained by GR (currently the simplest explanation) or it might turn out to be something else.

[dimreepr]

13 minutes ago, Strange said:

The statement wasn't about "correctness", it was about "rational consistency" (whatever that means). 

There is no inherent inconsistency in the models or in the evidence supporting it.

Given the overwhelming evidence for GR, and the total lack of evidence against it, it seems unlikely it will be shown to be wrong. But we already know it is (like all theories) incomplete so I'm not sure what the point is.

"Dark energy" (whatever it turns out to be) is based purely on evidence and observation. It might be explained by GR (currently the simplest explanation) or it might turn out to be something else.

 

I bow to your greater knowledge, but there's always a but.

https://quotational.com/author/sheldon-cooper/

 

Edited March 12, 2018 by dimreepr

[koti]

35 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I bow to your greater knowledge, but there's always a but.

https://quotational.com/author/sheldon-cooper/

 

I heard that Strange writes lines for Sheldon so theres no but  

[dimreepr]

2 minutes ago, koti said:

I heard that Strange writes lines for Sheldon so theres no but  

In what universe? 

[Itoero]

On ‎10‎-‎3‎-‎2018 at 2:33 PM, dimreepr said:

Good answer (damn it +1 ) but my point is, if someone who does believe due, perhaps, to Pascal's rational and harms no-one why do you want to, or should we, make them believe what you do.

Because people that believe because of Pascal's supposed rationality can easily make the step to being a full-blown Christian. And I think many people that claim to believe in God due to Pascal are 100% theists and give the Pascal's Wager to act interesting. I'm not really an ietsist, I believe in whatever science finds.

I have The Big Bang Theory trivia quiz book.  

I'm sorry for those neg reps and the ones I gave before. It was uncalled for.

Edited March 12, 2018 by Itoero

[DrP]

On ‎09‎/‎03‎/‎2018 at 2:03 PM, Eric H said:

There is so much injustice in this world, and laws will never stop injustice.

No, I agree - but outlawing this behaviour seriously reduces the cases of it happening I would think. If rape was legal then more people would do it.  It isn't and that is deterrent enough to stop some people. Personally I despair at the state of people's psyke that they would get off on it let alone carry out such an act. (maybe it is an evolutionary hang over for propagating genes). Maybe I am guilty of moral snobbery, I used to be a Christian and cannot think how someone could hurt someone physically and mentally in such a way and take pleasure in doing so - I really think it is disgusting.   So in short  -  outlawing it was a good thing in my book!  

 

[MigL]

Never thought I'd have to defend Dimreepr...

Don't go getting all offended Strange ( ) but you know that the observational evidence for accelerated expansion, and the need for dark energy, is based on measurements of the 'standard candle', type 1A supernovae.
You also know that recent studies have confirmed the existence of several sub-groups of type 1A supernovae, of differing luminosities, which could throw the whole distance scale out of whack. Maybe there is no accelerated expansion and no need for dark energy.

Sometimes absence of evidence just means we haven't found it yet.

[Strange]

8 hours ago, MigL said:

Never thought I'd have to defend Dimreepr...

And I am surprised to find myself criticising him.

8 hours ago, MigL said:

You also know that recent studies have confirmed the existence of several sub-groups of type 1A supernovae, of differing luminosities, which could throw the whole distance scale out of whack. Maybe there is no accelerated expansion and no need for dark energy.

I haven't yet seen any data suggesting this could make dark energy "go away" (and there are other reasons to think dark energy is present, anyway). 

 

[puppypower]

Dark energy has never been seen in the lab. God has also never been seen in the lab.  They have this in common. Science is  still trying to see dark energy, close and personal, via super colliders. Dark energy is inferred from secondary affects. Dark energy is being used to close the energy balance for the universe. This was not  a problem a decade ago.  Again, we need a concept, we can't see in the lab; like God, to explain a new observation. Dark energy is based on faith in theory. A miracle; secondary observation, is based on faith in the theory of God. 

There is another logical explanation for the energy balance problem. This connected to Special Relativity; SR. In SR reference is relative to observer.  Each reference will see the other references relative to itself. This is only true of space and time references. It is not true for mass references, which is the third variable of SR. Mass is an invariant and is not relative. Many physicist have attempted to get rid of relativistic mass so this will not poise a problem. 

For example, say we had two rockets, one with mass M and other with mass 2M. They are in empty space with no way to know who is moving, They have a relative velocity of V. Both references will see the same relative velocity. Each will see the other moving at V. However, the kinetic energy is not the same for both references. The rocket with 2M mass has twice the kinetic energy; 1/2MV2, as the one with mass =M. If we assume relative reference in distance and time,  we  can underestimate the  kinetic energy. This is the real source of the energy imbalance we attribute to dark energy. In other words, if we are on rocket M and we assume we are moving, but the other rocket 2M is moving we shot change total energy by half. 

We measure the parameters of the universe using energy signals. Energy is composed of frequency and wavelength or time and space. This approach is very useful but is  leaves out mass and is not accurate with mass. We know relative motion, but we do not know for certain, in terms of momentum=MV needed for a universal energy balance. We have assumed too little energy based on our relative earth reference. Now we see data that suggest we need more energy. We can either speculate the unprovable in the lab; dark energy, or we can use well established criteria of mass and then simply alter relative references into reference criteria that can close the new energy balance.  

Faith has not decreased, rather the objects of faith have changed. Now we have rational polytheism instead of symbolic monotheism. 

 

 

Edited March 13, 2018 by puppypower

[Strange]

34 minutes ago, puppypower said:

Dark energy has never been seen in the lab. God has also never been seen in the lab. 

Dark energy has been seen (from the lab).

Gods have not been seen.

Quote

Dark energy is based on faith in theory.

No. It is based on observation. (As MigL points out, those observations could turn out to be wrong. But at last we have observations. Unlike your gods which are unsupported by observations.)

34 minutes ago, puppypower said:

Science is  still trying to see dark energy, close and personal, via super colliders.

Via supercolliders? Really? You might as well say that people are trying to see gods with electron microscopes. It would be just as accurate.

34 minutes ago, puppypower said:

This is the real source of the energy imbalance we attribute to dark energy.

Clearly you like to believe in things with no evidence or rational basis so you think this makes sense.

34 minutes ago, puppypower said:

Energy is composed of frequency and wavelength or time and space.

Nonsense. Energy is a property of things. 

34 minutes ago, puppypower said:

This approach is very useful but is  leaves out mass and is not accurate with mass.

We (if not you) know the relationship between mass and energy.

34 minutes ago, puppypower said:

We have assumed too little energy based on our relative earth reference. Now we see data that suggest we need more energy. We can either speculate the unprovable in the lab; dark energy, or we can use well established criteria of mass and then simply alter relative references into reference criteria that can lose the new  energy balance.

This incoherent rambling is (a) nonsense and (b) off topic. 

Edited March 13, 2018 by Strange

[zapatos]

1 minute ago, puppypower said:

Dark energy has never been seen in the lab. God has also never been seen in the lab.  They have this in common.

My old rugby jersey has never been seen in a lab. God has also never been seen in a lab. They have this in common.

But of course trying to draw conclusions about something based on the commonality of whether or not a human has observed it by now is a foolish endeavor.

[dimreepr]

57 minutes ago, puppypower said:

Dark energy has never been seen in the lab. God has also never been seen in the lab.  They have this in common. Science is  still trying to see dark energy, close and personal, via super colliders. Dark energy is inferred from secondary affects. Dark energy is being used to close the energy balance for the universe. This was not  a problem a decade ago.  Again, we need a concept, we can't see in the lab; like God, to explain a new observation. Dark energy is based on faith in theory. A miracle; secondary observation, is based on faith in the theory of God. 

4

God damn it, puppy, I thought you had a point but not this BS, now I feel foolish.  

22 hours ago, Itoero said:

Because people that believe because of Pascal's supposed rationality

 

OK back to the topic, it may have rational arguments but they can never be definitive.

22 hours ago, Itoero said:

can easily make the step to being a full-blown Christian. And I think many people that claim to believe in God due to Pascal are 100% theists and give the Pascal's Wager to act interesting.

I think it's more likely they use the wager to defend a position they believe but can't prove, and my point is there's nothing inherently wrong with that, for instance, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed in fairies yet he's still celebrated.

Edited March 13, 2018 by dimreepr