The problem with atheism

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Letr GB answer for his own words, google fudge for his.

My question was originally aimed at GB, but you decided to answer.

Which is fine by me, by the way.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
God has infinite power.

So is that a yes or no?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Perhaps if he had looked further he would have seen that these fairies were responsible for order, harmony, beauty, wisdom, power and love, instead he dismisses it and resigns himself to merely acknowledging the gardens elementary facets!

I don't appreciate your portrayal of the life and sacrifice of the Christ, its disrespectful and in the immort ...[text shortened]... Don Vito Corleone, 'what have I done for you to treat me so disrespectfully',

The zen master

I'm calling it as I see it, I'm not here to protect your feelings with respect to your wacky and bizarre religious beliefs. If you don't like what I say, man up.

Originally posted by Great King Rat
I don't think it's possible to built houses that are guaranteed to resist these kinds of forces.

Actually it most definitely is possible. In fact the damage from almost all natural disasters could be significantly reduced if we planned for them and put in a lot of effort doing so. However, they are so rare that most poorer people do not invest against them. The people in question are so poor that they put most of their efforts into just surviving day to day rather than planning for natural disasters. (of course none of this gives Robbie 'points' as he is deliberately misunderstanding the argument being made).

Originally posted by twhitehead
Actually it most definitely is possible. In fact the damage from almost all natural disasters could be significantly reduced if we planned for them and put in a lot of effort doing so. However, they are so rare that most poorer people do not invest against them. The people in question are so poor that they put most of their efforts into just surviving day ...[text shortened]... e of this gives Robbie 'points' as he is deliberately misunderstanding the argument being made).

It is definitely possible.

We can build houses that could withstand being hit not just with a tsunami
but fully submerged, we can make them withstand the greatest hurricane,
or tornado. We can make them withstand earthquakes, and possibly even
most volcanic activity.


However that would make those houses incredibly expensive and resource
intensive.

It often makes much better sense to build cheaper more environmentally
sustainable houses that don't require 3 meter thick steel reinforced concrete
walls and if there is a disaster we save the people in shelters they reach in
time because of early warning systems and insure against the financial and
property loss.

And twhitehead is right we could do a great deal to reduce the impacts
of disasters by eliminating poverty, and by better planning.


However as twhitehead also rightly says this isn't relevant to the actual
question at hand.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Actually it most definitely is possible. In fact the damage from almost all natural disasters could be significantly reduced if we planned for them and put in a lot of effort doing so. However, they are so rare that most poorer people do not invest against them. The people in question are so poor that they put most of their efforts into just surviving day ...[text shortened]... e of this gives Robbie 'points' as he is deliberately misunderstanding the argument being made).

Yes, I agree that damages could and should be reduced. My point was that we cannot realistically protect ourselves 100% from natural disasters. And with storms such as these many houses will be severely damaged, no matter how well you built them. And people could then hide in underground shelters, but economically it will still be devastating for a country.

Having said that, I am always amazed to see the result of a tornado blowing away houses in the American tornado alley. They know that it will happen again next year and you'd think America has enough money and knowledge to built better houses and yet many of them appear to live in houses that are obviously not built to resist tornados.

EDIT: according to this website http://www.tornadoproofhouses.com/ tornadoproof houses are possible. I stand corrected in that respect if it's true. They do have a disclaimer though:

"It is not difficult to build low-cost, energy-efficient homes that will totally protect the lives and property of those who live in them from the most severe natural disasters*


*Not valid for direct hits from atomic bombs or meteor strikes."

Originally posted by Proper Knob
I'm calling it as I see it, I'm not here to protect your feelings with respect to your wacky and bizarre religious beliefs. If you don't like what I say, man up.

Its disrespectful, a man in my position cannot be seen to be weak, Capiche?

Originally posted by Great King Rat
Yes, I agree that damages could and should be reduced. My point was that we cannot realistically protect ourselves 100% from natural disasters. And with storms such as these many houses will be severely damaged, no matter how well you built them. And people could then hide in underground shelters, but economically it will still be devastating for a co ...[text shortened]... s and yet many of them appear to live in houses that are obviously not built to resist tornados.

you have statistics for how many will be damaged or what could be reasonably done to reduce fatalities? The point is that it happens and nothing is done and I am loath to admit it, twithead is correct, economics prevents these things happening, which is not the fault of God, for the economies of the system are man made entities, on one side of the world you have people dying from obesity and overindulgence on the other side, people dying from lack of basic necessities, will we also lay the blame for this upon God?

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
you have statistics for how many will be damaged or what could be reasonably done to reduce fatalities? The point is that it happens and nothing is done and I am loath to admit it, twithead is correct, economics prevents these things happening, which is not the fault of God, for the economies of the system are man made entities, on one side of the w ...[text shortened]... side, people dying from lack of basic necessities, will we also lay the blame for this upon God?

If god can be thanked for saving Googlefudge from a tornado he can also be blamed for the death of the Philippine version of GF.

Right?

Originally posted by Proper Knob
I agree, we all have a sense of spiritually. We marvel at the wonder of nature and the awe of the universe, it's just that some of us do that without having to subscribe to some ancient Jewish zombie story or whatever particular mythology takes your fancy. As Douglas Adams said -

'Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?'

I heard this story on a show I occasionally watch... I might get a few details wrong
but the details relevant to my point are correct.

There was/is a great debate/argument over whether people really envision things in
their mind as things they actually see.

So when people talk about seeing something in their minds eye, their imagination, are
they actually seeing an image in their mind, or is this just a metaphor, a flowery use of
language to describe what's going on.

When the person telling this story came across this debate in their philosophy studies
they were deeply puzzled by this debate as when they imagined something in their
minds eye they very definitely 'saw' it.

But what they came to realise (after studies were done) is that a percentage (say 20% )
of people really clearly see things like they were actually looking at them when they
imagined something (or remembered something). And another 20% didn't see anything when
they imagined something or remembered an event.
And everyone else fell somewhere in-between.

And this debate had raged for decades (if not longer) because some of the philosophers
belonged to the 20% who never saw anything in their mind and some belonged to the 20%
who saw things in their mind as clear as actually looking at them.

And both sides assumed that everyone's abilities in this were about the same and generalised
from their personal experience to everyone else. they assumed that if they couldn't visualise
images in their mind and actually 'see' them then nobody else could and they were just using
flowery language to describe what was going on.



My point.


We are not all the same.

When you say "we all have a sense of spirituality"... I can't agree.

Partly because it's simply unfounded.

And partly because when I hear many people talking about 'spiritual' feelings or experiences I
often think, I don't and have never felt like that. it seems completely alien to me.


There was an experiment done where people worked out what parts of the brain get activated
by having a 'spiritual experience' of the kind people have when they are in church and claim to
be experiencing god answering they're prayers (or something).
And they worked out how to remotely stimulate those parts of the brain with a device and give people
these experiences at the touch of a button.
And people who had had these experiences said they felt identical to the 'real' thing, and they had the
same response patterns when viewed in an MRI scanner.

But it doesn't work on everyone. Richard Dawkins tried it and was keen to experience what it is that
people who go to church and have these experiences actually felt... and he felt nothing.

Like in my first example there is a percentage of people who's brains are wired to give them these experiences
really powerfully and easily, and a percentage who don't and can't feel that way, with everyone
else spread out in between.




When you generalise like that, to claim we ALL feel that way....

Well, no we don't.


When I hear many of you talking about your 'spiritual' experiences and feelings, religious or otherwise, I have to
say I just don't feel that way. And never have.
It looks like my brain just isn't wired that way.

Now I don't have any problem with that, I'm perfectly happy as I am not feeling these things.
It's quite possible that there are things I enjoy and ways I perceive the world that would be as alien to you as
your 'spiritual' feelings are to me. And given the choice I wouldn't change me... at least not that way.


Perhaps that is why I don't feel that every day is a blessing in the way that some of you evidently do.
It's that I experience and think about the world in a different way.


And I think we need to recognise that in these discussions because otherwise you land up arguing that all
people view and experience the world the same way you do, and failing to understand those that view
it differently. or even THAT they view it differently.

Originally posted by Great King Rat

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby

[b]Be thankful it wasn't a blizzard, hurricane or tornado. He holds the universe together by the word of His power and knows all about googlefudge and his family.

Did He temporally forget about the people in the Philippines?[/b]

Perhaps first ask Empiricism or Science; Rationalism or Philosophy; Humanism or Fortune Tellers or The Weather Fairy.

Postscript to follow.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Perhaps first ask Empiricism or Science; Rationalism or Philosophy; Humanism or Fortune Tellers or The Weather Fairy.

Postscript to follow.

I suspect I speak for everyone when I say... 'Huh???'

Completely offtopic but that debate about visualizing things that you're talking about sounds very interesting. I just tried to pinpoint to which group I "belong" so I thought of a cube and while I was clearly thinking about a cube and it's "traits" (6 faces, 12 edges, 8 corners) I wasn't "seeing" it at all.

How about others? Any link between seeing-not seeing and theist-atheist by any chance?

I also happen to belong to a very small group of people who sometimes have to sneeze when they have an erotic thought, like I'm looking into the sun.

Any link between sneezing-not sneezing and atheist-theist?

🙂

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
Perhaps first ask Empiricism or Science; Rationalism or Philosophy; Humanism or Fortune Tellers or The Weather Fairy.

Postscript to follow.

I'll await your postscript before repeating GF's reply...

Originally posted by Great King Rat
Completely offtopic but that debate about visualizing things that you're talking about sounds very interesting. I just tried to pinpoint to which group I "belong" so I thought of a cube and while I was clearly thinking about a cube and it's "traits" (6 faces, 12 edges, 8 corners) I wasn't "seeing" it at all.

How about others? Any link between seei ...[text shortened]... e I'm looking into the sun.

Any link between sneezing-not sneezing and atheist-theist?

🙂

I am not ware of any link between visualising and religious orientation.

I am nearer the visualise everything end of the spectrum, Although I
am not in the very top group. I tend to read books like watching a film.
I can clearly 'see' what a Culture GSV would look like for example.


I would suspect that there is a correlation between visualisation ability and
professions like film making, but I don't think there would be a link between
such ability and theism/atheism.

There might be more of a correlation between ability to have 'spiritual experiences'
and theism, but I have no data on that.



I am amused though about the idea of a correlation between orgasmic sneezing and
atheism though 😉