Gaming Expert Pat Robertson: ‘Murdering Somebody In Cyberspace’ same as murder

[Vingnir the Wanderer]

It's very simple.

Hating what others do, that in no way limits others freedom, is, limiting.

The golden rule.  Its really not that hard of a concept.

[Molly]

[...] I've heard people say they are disgusted by the thought of homosexuality. [...]

I am. I've always been. At least as long as I can remember. I dunno why but the mere thought gives me the creeps.
Though everything boils down to one thing, and not exclusively to homosexuality but to everything in life (at least for me that is), and that is "The freedom of one person ends where the freedom of another person begins." That is my point of view, my way of looking at things, at everything really.

I don't care about homosexuals. As long as they leave me out of it. That's all I am asking for. Hell, most people here probably like watching lesbian porn... that's homosexuality too. Maybe some people need to keep that in mind.

That freedom-mantra applies to religion too. I dun care if someone likes to tell some heavenly entity his/her inner thoughts. I couldn't care less. But please, don't tell me about it. Don't try to make me belief. I don't want to.
For example: In Germany, the southern regions of the country mostly, it is common to have a little Jesus at the cross hanging in every classroom in public schools. That's not cool.

I have to admit that I didn't really read every single post in this thread but I flew over them quickly and I noticed that everyone in here is either a "believer" or an "atheist". Well, I am neither, I consider myself to be an "agnostic".
I don't believe in any God. The thought of having a single being as creator just sounds completely silly to me. I can't be an atheist either tho cuz that would mean that everything is just random and by chance. Sounds silly to me too. So, what do I believe? I don't know really if I am perfectly honest but I believe that something was involved at some point doing something that created something in return which might have led to some sort of chain reaction and *POOF* here we are. I know, sounds silly too but that is the best I came up with yet for myself

[Kafein]

Well god damn, I am white knighting aren't I?

What I said was mostly in response to Huseby's jerk ass tone that I took as "Get educated and educated people don't believe in god," which I didn't really see as a debate. So I decided to mock his standpoint. Maybe draw a few comparisons to the stereotypical super right wing, preachy Christian, indirectly.

And what do you think your tuff? fuck you, asians could drive good. Come fight me irl, unless you don't have enough lbs(not even worth an American dollar) to get a plain ticket.

Hey, huseby is being a jerk (he even recognises it) but I think many of his silly images are funny, maybe because I never saw most of them before, maybe because he is aiming at an incredibly easy target too "the stereotypical super right wing, preachy Christian". I don't see how any modern European Christian could get offended by "teach the controversy" jokes.

[Ninja_Khorin]

I don't believe in any God.

That makes you an atheist, and being an atheist doesn't lead to everything being caused at random. Atheism only answers the question: "Do you believe in God/gods?", if the answer is no, then you are an atheist.

[Molly]

Let me specify: I don't believe in any Gods that current Religions offer.

[Ninja_Khorin]

And if you believe in any other type of god you are a theist. 

Point is, atheism/theism is a yes/no stance.

Agnosticism is a stance on knowledge and not belief.

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Wikipasta:

Agnostic atheism
    The view of those who do not believe in the existence of any deity, but do not claim to know if a deity does or does not exist.

Agnostic theism
    The view of those who do not claim to know of the existence of any deity, but still believe in such an existence.

Apathetic or pragmatic agnosticism
    The view that there is no proof of either the existence or nonexistence of any deity, but since any deity that may exist appears unconcerned for the universe or the welfare of its inhabitants, the question is largely academic.

Strong agnosticism (also called "hard", "closed", "strict", or "permanent agnosticism")
    The view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of a deity or deities, and the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experience. A strong agnostic would say, "I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you."

Weak agnosticism (also called "soft", "open", "empirical", or "temporal agnosticism")
    The view that the existence or nonexistence of any deities is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable; therefore, one will withhold judgment until evidence, if any, becomes available. A weak agnostic would say, "I don't know whether any deities exist or not, but maybe one day, if there is evidence, we can find something out."

Not that any of this actually matters. Call yourself whatever you please. I usually just call myself an agnostic atheist, and if they ask me to clarify what I mean, I say explicit atheist weak agnostic, and occasional apatheist. That tends to stop any further questions.

[Tomas]

As an agnostic i see no difference between Theists and Atheists.  Both require belief without proof since God (or gods) is an untestable hypothesis.  Sitting on the fence for the win

Religious dogma and doctrine on the other hand can be disproved in a lot of cases and so I try to avoid those discussion unless drunk ;)

[enigmatic_stranger]

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[CrazyCracka420]

Hey, huseby is being a jerk (he even recognises it) but I think many of his silly images are funny, maybe because I never saw most of them before, maybe because he is aiming at an incredibly easy target too "the stereotypical super right wing, preachy Christian". I don't see how any modern European Christian could get offended by "teach the controversy" jokes.

it could have been anybody, I was just using Yaro as a target to post all those funny pictures that make fun and poke holes in religious logic.

and I said in the post with the pictures that I consider myself Agnostic, not Atheist (and even attached a nice picture describing what is close to my beliefs)

[Clockworkkiller]

Ok I didn't mean I was against it, I just meant that yes I was disgusted by it, I wrote "against" because I thought it would be enough to get my point across.

Btw I'm not religious either

GG guys

[Utrakil]

Why do some atheists try so hard to disprove a god they claim doesn't even exist in the frist place?

Why should you care what others believe in?

I'm against homosexuality, yet when someone tells me they are gay, I don't go crazy to the point of insults and try to turn them straight. I just ignore it, why can't people do the same for religion?
No ones trying to shove it down your throat, so why should you care?

It's funny how people talk about "live and let live" and shit, yet those same people, mock others religious beliefs and try to keep them from living how they want to live

Anyway this damn thread should just be locked and left to die, but knowing this community, I doubt that's gonna happen

I see my selve as a agnostic atheist and I would really like to not care what others believe.
BUT: Religious organizations are shoving their believe down our throat.
In many parts of germany childcare is still in the hand of the two major churches (catholics and protestants) and this results in the fact that you could loose your childcareplace when you get divorced.
Many young lads and ladies get opressed in their sexual developement in the name of different believes.
Worldwide boys get cut of their foreskin(might be not that bad) and in some regions girls get cut of their genitals and are sewn close in the name of religion.
In the US religious organization try to keep children away from scientific education about biology and earth history.
I guess everyone could add something to this list.

For me this is clearly shoving their belives down everybodies throat.

and that is the reason why it is essential for any society to keep up the discussion about faith, believe, tradition, religion and their role in modern seciety. If we would not we would still sacrifice people every now and then if the crops are bad.
we would still burn people with wisdom about herbs and medicine. we would still raid and kill in the name of the stronger, better, mightier good.
So all religions addopted to the changing of society during time and they have to otherwise they become worthless.

And this is why this dicussion must not stop.

[Christo]

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[Clockworkkiller]

I see my selve as a agnostic atheist and I would really like to not care what others believe.
BUT: Religious organizations are shoving their believe down our throat.
In many parts of germany childcare is still in the hand of the two major churches (catholics and protestants) and this results in the fact that you could loose your childcareplace when you get divorced.
Many young lads and ladies get opressed in their sexual developement in the name of different believes.
Worldwide boys get cut of their foreskin(might be not that bad) and in some regions girls get cut of their genitals and are sewn close in the name of religion.
In the US religious organization try to keep children away from scientific education about biology and earth history.

Touché, I guess

But, as stated before, there's a difference between the "high and mighty preachers" and your average believer.
Being raised in a Christian house-hold, I doubt my parents would care if I got a phd in biology, and such
But I don't know, heck, I'm just sounding like a fucking idiot.

and that is the reason why it is essential for any society to keep up the discussion about faith, believe, tradition, religion and their role in modern seciety. If we would not we would still sacrifice people every now and then if the crops are bad.
we would still burn people with wisdom about herbs and medicine. we would still raid and kill in the name of the stronger, better, mightier good.
So all religions addopted to the changing of society during time and they have to otherwise they become worthless.

And this is why this dicussion must not stop.

Yes but what happens when that discussion devolves into nothing but childish bs and insults, would the discussion still go on?

But like I said, I'm probably just digging a deeper grave, and looking stupid.

[Utrakil]

Yes but what happens when that discussion devolves into nothing but childish bs and insults, would the discussion still go on?

But like I said, I'm probably just digging a deeper grave, and looking stupid.

This
 

[EponiCo]

Interesting point about non-exclusive belief systems. But it still ends up being and indetermination of type infinite over infinite, which isn't equal to 1/2. It doesn't hold with exclusive belief systems, which afaik include all big monotheist religions. The event of either being true is stochastically impossible (*).

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Stochastically impossible means "possible but with probability tending to zero". An example of a stochastically impossible event is throwing a rock and calculating the distance it traveled with infinite precision. If you say beforehand that the rock will exactly travel 3 meters, it's stochastically impossible because the rock could travel any distance like 3 meters + an arbitrarily small value, and in all those cases it wouldn't be exactly 3 meters. In other words, probabilities in the domain of continuous random variables are not expressed ponctually but by density because otherwise it's always 0.

I've learned to deal with the infinite. I'm not sure whether (all) mathematicians agree though from what I learned it is pretty much correct. http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/101768/are-half-of-all-numbers-odd

I'm not sure what you mean by exclusive. You mean that it negates other theories? If so any meaningful statement is exclusive. "A unicorn exists" is a meaningful statement and it excludes the case that the unicorn doesn't exist, "A unicorn exists or maybe it doesn't" isn't. But it doesn't say very much, really. So a more fleshed out belief system contains many statements (*) like for example "The unicorn has wings. It likes rainbows and ice cream, and causes considerable pleasure in the other invisible unicorn behind the sun.".
The difference is just how much content they have (= how much they exclude). So, a full theology of unicorns written down in 5 books would have a lot of content. It would exclude a lot of different belief systems (i.e. one that says the unicorn exists but hates ice cream) and therefore it is quite unlikely. That is what you mean yes?
As long as the theory doesn't make statements inside a continuum it is still a finite collection of binary statements and thus finitely unlikely (**). If it does, well, just read "3m long" as "about 3m" and it's fine. And when the entire theology is wrong that doesn't mean that parts of it aren't right. This all still requires that you ascribe to the theory of "measuring" the number of theories against each other, or don't say for example that any theory without the unicorn is logically inconsistent.



(*) Well... The whole concept of statements is horrible. "A=A" is a statement and "A unicorn exists" also. But the latter seems to say much more. So perhaps it is actually a whole system of statements like "There is a X and X is a horse (which is a ...) and X has a horn (...)". I have the strong feeling this ends in complete madness, but the guy who did it seemed to hold up quite well as far as mathematicians go.