pouët.net

rob: i didn't say I was religious, did i? or are you confusing religion with human spirit and intuition?

or are you just silly enough not to acknowledge those two human traits?

be very careful you don't throw the baby out with the bath water - that's all i'm saying.

Have you read any books by Dawkins?

I have never read in his books the denial of intuition. And the spirit is obviously just a product of the brain. Nothing godly about that.

rob, he's only slightly pregnant...

yes, i have read enough of his stuff.



then he must be a hypocrite, or just not a very good atheist. because, like the spirit, there is no "proof" for it. yet it explains much (infinity, fe) Or is he suddenly an agnostic these days?

but if it makes you guy comfortable to deny and mock what you don't understand - fine.

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Albert Einstein
( pasted from rob´s link )

let me guess- therefore, "you" would argue that though there isn't an actual God, there is an artificial God, and we should bear that in mind?

I've read a little on just how much he also revered "intuition" and attributed it to most of his work. So I'm pretty sure he would not want or behaviour to be dictated by cold logical science either. I don't think Einstein was a Technocrat. Which is more than can be said for that anti-human Dawkins

havoc: nah, "God" is used more as a synonym I guess. Not only to me, but many people across the world who would NEVER consider themselves religious.

I guess it stands for "something more". Either the potential for it here and now, or if you like in the afterlife (if one exists). Whatever it is, my "intuition" tells me it's closely related to the illusive idea of infinity. But, who knows....certainly NOT science. Yet they (atheists and science) readily deny "it", mock it and are gradually erradicating even the POTENTIAL for it from our consciousness - as though they have the ear of the very all knowing god they deny.

is that wise? I'm not sure.

i am fed up with this "roll your own god".

yes, science can't explain everything. some truth can never been proven.

but that does not mean that you can simply make up your own belief just by wishing for it. if you base your decisions on wishful thinking, you are bound to fail.

we can't hope to figure out everything on our own. we have to learn from past generation. science gives us a path of verification, so that we can test if it's really true. religion forbids verification, you have to belief the scripture, and it makes claims that are impossible to verify. "intuition" is prone to self deception, most "intuitive" persons lack the skills to perform an unbiased trial.

i try to test supernatural claims whenever i encounter them personally. usually the candidate is not even capable of writing down what a positive outcome would look like, it's all too fuzzy. when a test can be agreed on, even the simplest mistake can manifest itself as a statistical anomality, and the tested person thinks he has "supernatural powers".

the human brain is a fantastic pattern matcher, unfortunately it often sees patterns where there are no patterns. we start to keep our "lucky die", we engage into rituals even when compiling our sources, because last time that helped.

give your kids lots of random number generators: die, cards, roulette-games,... may be that will train them to understand random, and that will help them evade self deception.

klipper, ah.

ham, :))

### Bibles, Random number generators ###

chaos: So you *do* "engage into rituals even when compiling our sources" :D I always suspected that *G*

besides that: I agree. Many scientists are also religious people since they know about the "final frontier to knowledge" that we will never, ever cross.

I am mostly an atheist myself but I also dig religion, mostly the eastern ones, though.

someone posted a pic recently..here it is again

Our most valuable trait is irrationality?

What? There's no evidence for intuition? That is so many kinds of stupid. Not only is there tangible evidence that intuition exists, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a person who doesn't acknowledge it simply from personal experience with making intuitive decisions. Also there are perfectly naturalistic explanations of what it is, how it works and where it came from.

But exactly how does intuition "explain" infinity? Infinity is the very essence of a counter-intuitive concept that we can only begin to grasp through abstraction and rigid logic.

And yes, Dawkins is an agnostic, and so are 99.9% of all atheists. The two aren't mutually exclusive, in fact mostly they're two sides of the same issue.

about intuition: at this late nite hour I got a nice story to tell... back in my >active< scene days (~93) it happened more-than-a-coincidence number of times that I picked up the phone to call someone or sit before the phone shortly before that and sometimes the person had dialed me in that instance and was "already there" or the phone rang seconds before... this was really really weird (no drugs involved!! this was during my "innocent" days) ... the phenomena went away when I grew up..
sounds weird eh? true story, though.

No, you silly person, because it works. It works really, really well. Two plus two equals four - every time! You can count on it (pun intended). And confusing science with logic is a schoolboy error, although science is ALSO a great tool for exactly the same reason that logic is a great tool - it works really, really well.

No, sounds like you're remembering the hits and forgetting the misses. It's funny how this type of phenomenon only seems to exist outside of controlled experiments. The second someone pays close attention to what's going on, there's nothing weird about it anymore. Now isn't that weird.

well, I often thought about this and I tried to explain it with "reason" like you tried to.
however, I believe there is much more going on than what we are consciously aware of..

(just for the records: my layman pseudo-scientific explanation back then was that we all are basically "machines" built from a common gene pool so we would all act more or less similar to any given "input vector"s..)
I guess I am starting to walk on thin ice here. People who have studied this will derail me for sure :D
uh.oh.

Chaos: tell that to the author of "The Secret". I'm betting she wished for people to buy into the whole idea that if you just tell yourself that something is going to happen then it is going to happen.. and look! Now she's on Oprah and swimming in cash. THE SECRET WORKS!!!11111oneoneone