[Rictor]

well said.

Everything in moderation, including logic. Irrationality is a fundamental
part of what makes a human a human. Balance, thats the key.

[Kazan]

Tiara: "open my mind to other posibilities" screw you, only the weak and pathetic debator resorts to argumentum ad hominem - YOU JUST DID

Iti s because my mind is OPEN and I follow OBJECTIVE PROCESSES that I am atheist, and see religion as irrational

[Kazan]

Rictor: I have balance - logic for the realm of logic, emotion for the realm of emotion - I do not let them cross to where they do not belong

[Tiara]

Originally posted by Kazan
Tiara: "open my mind to other posibilities" screw you, only the weak and pathetic debator resorts to argumentum ad hominem - YOU JUST DID

Iti s because my mind is OPEN and I follow OBJECTIVE PROCESSES that I am atheist, and see religion as irrational

Now who's sad? You're the one sprouting the insults. Now vthat's argumentum ad hominem. Not really debator like, now is it, mr 'Look-at-me-I'm so-smart'? Seriously, you're a sad sad man.

Ow, and just for the record, I'm an atheist too... I just don't exclude the possibility. And you are not just an atheist. You're agnostic atheist. An atheist doesn't believe in it but doesn't outright deny the very slim possibility of a god. You do. hence the agnostic part.

[Kazan]

Tiara: i was merely replying to your argumentum ad hominem - an attack I have _ZERO_ patience for

You keep saying I "exclude the possibility" and you're _wrong_ -- it's possible, however intesmminally imporbably - HOWEVER that doesn't change the fact that it is irrational to believe without evidence

[Tiara]

I specifically said in a previous post that you don't have to believe in it, just don't outright dismiss it like you have done in this thread. But you seem to not read my post very carefully. Once you call something irrational you no longer have an open mind to it.

And since you call everything that has 0 evidence either way irrational, you don't have an open mind to it.

[Kazan]

Tiara: they are IRRATIONAL BY THE FRAGGING DEFINITION OF IRRATIONAL

perhaps for you your statemnt is true - however my the main definition of irrational, the one i use - stands upon OBJECTIVE PROCESSES that I adhere to very strictly

[Kamikaze]

Originally posted by HotSnoJ

Now about infinite. Let's take two sets of numbers. Set A will have all odd and even numbers. Set B will have only odd numbers. Now both are infinite, however logic would say that Set A would be twice as large as Set B. But as stated both sets go off into the infinite! This example is to show that the infinite can only exist in our heads, and to go a step farther, the super-natural. Because if the world (anything material) is finite, it had to have had a beginning. And if it had a beggining, it had to have had a creator that is infinite (a being that has no first cause, always existed).

You're grossly misusing the mathematical concepts of finite and infinite.

Set A is not, logically, twice as large as Set B. Both are of aleph-null cardinality. You can try to match numbers from Set A to Set B and you will always have numbers in Set B to match to Set A. Same the other way around.

If you take the set of real numbers and the set of natural numbers, there you have a clear cardinal difference. The real numbers are of aleph-1 cardinality. There's a very neat justification of this (diagonal theorem) but I won't get into that.

[ionia23]

Of course, that's the interesting thing about faith.  It's great for blowing away paradoxes.

A favorite amoung coffeehouse-intellectuals who like to give me a hard time about believing in something that, by their definition, does not exist is:

"If God can do anything, could he* make a rock he* couldn't throw?".  I love this one.

The answer, imho, is "yes".  Any paradoxes created by this are kind of pointless, save those who want to bring logic into it.

What's that line in Hitchiker's Guide?  Oh yes, 'Not impossible, just very very improbable".

* - I use 'he' out of habit, not belief.

[Kamikaze]

It doesn't "blow away" paradoxes. It just blindly ignores them.

[karajorma]

It is a paradox. It's a way of explaining how everything started that doesn't explain how God started.

Which simply puts you back to square one.

[ionia23]

Originally posted by Kamikaze
It doesn't "blow away" paradoxes. It just blindly ignores them.

It does.  Faith is a bridge between a definable, limited reality and an undefined, unlimited reality where anything is possible.  Hence, paradoxes become meaningless.  You have the freedom to explore possibilities without the chains of logic.

[ionia23]

Originally posted by karajorma
It is a paradox. It's a way of explaining how everything started that doesn't explain how God started.

Which simply puts you back to square one.

Or onto a different playing field.  Ask yourself, assuming the origin of God(dess. whatever) can be determined in some way that would be relevant to the human mind (ho ho ho), beyond being a made-up fictional character or whatever, what is the practical value in such knowledge beyond simply "knowing"?

[Ghostavo]

We could become gods ourselves or make other gods... or find a way to kill god. If we don't know what that knowledge is, we can't see the exact pratical values of them now, can we?

[01010]

Originally posted by ionia23


It does.  Faith is a bridge between a definable, limited reality and an undefined, unlimited reality where anything is possible.  Hence, paradoxes become meaningless.  You have the freedom to explore possibilities without the chains of logic.

Are you a Christian? Or do you have your own beliefs on a higher power?

I'm just curious.

[Kazan]

Originally posted by ionia23
"If God can do anything, could he* make a rock he* couldn't throw?".  I love this one.

and the question is completely pointless

there is a reason why i don't ask such questions

[01010]

That is because you are as close to a machine as humans can be Kazan.

[ionia23]

Originally posted by 01010
Are you a Christian? Or do you have your own beliefs on a higher power? I'm just curious.

I was at one point.  Then I took a course in college called "The History Of Western Religions" which was taught, coincidentally, by an atheist.  I'll never forget this little nugget of knowledge:

"Whether or not you believe is meaningless to this course, but you cannot deny the power force religion has played in the development of what we now call modern civilization".

The course studied the development of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

Imagine my surprise when I read "Gilgamesh".  I pretty much got my entire belief structure shattered.  All the things I took for granted as being "truth" were levelled.

Then I found myself dating a witch for 2 years.

End result?  I ended up with even stronger faith than I had before.  my spiritual beliefs are a wierd mixture of probably six different faiths.  The christians would call me a "heretic".

I call myself a pagan-christian.  It seems to hold up so far.  No one to date has been able to break it.

Besides, what have I got to lose, ya know?

[ionia23]

Originally posted by Kazan
and the question is completely pointless

there is a reason why i don't ask such questions

Oh I bet there is.

[Kazan]

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