AJ Philips,
>>I think you’re blurring the line between two different kinds of beliefs here, George.<<
I am sorry, but I could not have made the distinction more clearly.

I accept that you do not accept my understanding of terms involved in my posts to Oliver and david f.

>>Actually, from memory, I think I’ve mentioned this to you several times before, so I’m a bit surprised that you didn’t catch on<<
Exactly, and several times before I decided that, after having learned the lesson from you, it was better not to provoke you.

I am trying to understand other people’s points of view, be it you or e.g. runner for that matter, but that is all. I don't want to take away your certainties that make you feel rationally, morally, or what, superior to those you disgagree with. We obviously do not communicate and if you think it is my fault, I am sorry but we’ll have to live with it.

Perhaps the link Severin provided above, might be helpful: the author is more or less saying the same thing I have been trying to put on this OLO into various chunks of not more than 350 words, hopefully more convincingly.

An excellent post AJ, I feel as if you have said what I have been trying to say, except more succinctly!

AJ Phillips <"In fact, despite how wrong it was for my parents to indoctrinate me, I’m very thankful that they did as it gave me the unique opportunity to experience both sides of the coin and understand where Christians are coming from."

My mother was a strict Catholic and my father a lapsed protestant.
Thus, I grew up with a very strict Catholic education , but with a healthy bit of skepticism from my father.

You have inspired me to stop apologizing for the fact that I no longer
believe in a god as a creator or anything else.
Yes, we should all live together in harmony and respect each others beliefs, but no, I don't have to go along with believing in fairy tales.

AJ Phillips <"...but if you lived in India, it would be Vishnu and Hinduism; If you lived in an Islamic country, it would be Allah and Islam. Do you honestly think you would have discovered Yahweh in ancient Greece?"

Yes indeed, how true. I had a friend at work who had been adopted from Korea to Australia, as a baby. She eventually traveled back to Korea to see her relatives. She was the only Christian in a whole village of Buddhists! She no longer believes in any god

Dear david f,
>>Labelling atheism as a form of religious belief is often used as a tactic by religious people<<
I agree. On the other hand there are “non-religious people” who try to explain away the atheists (the Communist version) I have experienced, as actually religious people, although the Comrades explicitly claimed atheism as part of their world-view, and prosecuted not only political or ideological adversaries, but anybody who did not keep his/her faith “private enough”. For me it was adding insult to injury, and made me stop contributing here on the topic of Marxism or Marx-Leninism.

So I understand if people do not like to have world-views - their own or those of their adversaries - labelled to fit somebody’s prejudices.

I wrote “When talking about world-view positions, what I see as truth might not be seen as truth by you” which agrees with your “what Jesus called ‘truth’ … is not a meaning I give to the word”. For me truth, the meaning of which everybody, irrespective of his/her world-view orientation, has to accept (otherwise we could not communicate) concerns only trivial everyday matters (like “snow is white”) or formal, mathematical statements.

I think many misunderstandings can be avoided if one uses the word “proof” only in formal (logic, mathematics) contexts, where consensus does not depend on circumstances or world-views. Where it does one should use the word “evidence” (though some languages cannot make the distinction), aknowledging this dependence. For instance, a photo of the accused about to stab the victim, would be accepted as evidence in a court some 80 years ago, but is practically worthless since Adobe Photoshop.

I know that some atheists ask for evidence about one’s world-view orientation that would convince people of the opposite orientation. This sounds to me like asking for proofs of axioms, unless one keeps the above distinction between proof and evidence in which case the request is a tautology as I mentioned.

‘Let's assume that a supreme being set in to motion a self-creating (perpetuating?) universe.’
Posted by Severin, Tuesday, 3 August 2010 12:13:25 PM

Oliver and Severin,
The statement above is not adequate for logical discussion. For if a supreme being set into motion a self creating universe, then it wouldn’t have been self creating.

This statement is not the first of its type that has been presented recently.

To say God created the world by some self creating method (cosmic evolution) is to saying that he used a method of creating in which he didn’t create.

“Why would a superior being want to be adored and worshipped?”
Posted by Severin, Tuesday, 3 August 2010 5:56:30 PM

This question inclines principally towards the theological. What would be the point of having a theological discussion with an atheist?

“Science is not as you (Dan S M) defined it a search for truth.”
Posted by david f, Saturday, 29 May 2010 7:47:58 PM

“Dear TAC,
You misuse the word, truth.”
Posted by david f, Monday, 7 June 2010 6:50:58 PM

“I object to calling religious belief truth because no matter how sincerely you believe something it does not make it true.”
Posted by david f, Wednesday, 9 June 2010 9:03:16 AM

Dear David,
You apparently hold to some concept of truth. I’m trying to work out what your concept of truth is.

You say that it is ‘accepted’ that the sun came into being before the earth. Now, by your own words, believing in something doesn’t make it true. Does having a majority of people accept something make it true?

Oliver,
I don’t think my source was lazy or dishonest. If they were, then that reflects similarly on your source because they’re both pretty much in agreement.

I claimed that for fifty years the estimates for Pluto’s mass were wildly inaccurate. By your figures, you state that in the latter part of that time period, the estimate was revised but was still quite inaccurate. So whether it was wildly inaccurate or very inaccurate, my point was that it was inaccurate and quite so for quite some time. Of course, with improvements in instrumentation, we revise and correct. Yet in the mean time we needn’t be as haughty as those in the ABC article, who were acting so dismissively.

Severin,
You can be relieved that I’m not looking to be educated by you.

In regard to you raising the connection between the Bible and scientific texts, they do share at least one thing in common. Both help form a body of literature. The bible is made up of words with meaning. The meaning must be somewhat meaningful or it wouldn’t be the world’s biggest selling book.

For you to say that the Bible can be interpreted any way one wishes is a throw away line, and presupposes that the words don’t really carry any meaning. This is a kind of wishful thinking from the atheist.

That section of Job describes large creatures, presumably then extant. It gives some detail, and remains there for anyone’s examination.

Form a layman’s view, apart from the absolute size of some, I don’t see huge differences between the nature of dinosaurs and other large lizards alive today. Their fossils may not have been found in rocks containing many mammals, but they have been found in layers containing other animals alive today. As for there being no fossil strata record revealing human remains along with dinosaur remains, I’ve heard there are a number of anomalous finds, such as the Tampa figurine, and the ‘Malachite Man’ remains in dinosaur rock in Utah, but these are not conclusive due to possible secondary explanations such as ‘intrusive burial’.