I am not anti-religion (superstition) I am not against Christians celebrating Xmas , although it would be nice if they were honest for once and acknowledge that they did not invent Christmas and the festival does not belong to them. I do not care what peoples superstiitions are , Jesus or spilled salt , makes no difference. I do believe the major religions are not ethical and I acknowledge that all claims made by those groups are based on self serving fantasy. I would not ban religion, superstition is an animal psychological trait, like shyness , aggression , left or right handedness. Although here only a small portion of people have religious (superstitious) tendancies , the rest become religious through overt brainwashing such as the child abuse that is convincing children that god exists and covert brainwashing such as Christian advertising designed to catch the psychologically stressed.

It is these last two unethical activities of supertitionists especially by Christian groups in the West and Islamic groups in the Middle East and Central Asia that infringes justice and democracy.

cont.....

Claims that atheism and antitheism defies logic is absurd. The claim is purely part of the agenda of superstitionists to ethnically clense this society so as to dominate and control. Superstitionists use all sorts of rubbish in order to try and muddy the waters , the comical assertions of late , the ridiculous and baseless Creationism and Intelligent Design discourse being a fine example and also the ressurected Flat Earth and Earth as the centre of the universe lead the charge of Christian pseudo science and if thats not crazy enough , there is also the 19th Scott invention of Rapture, ressurection, Movie Star mortality as prophecy indicators and then there is the likes of Mary appearing in the image of Betty Boo on a grilled Cheese Sandwich and effiges of Jesus bleeding bat excretement and creosote. Miracles are when Jesus saves through the miracle of well trained fire fighters, fire victims too far away from fire fighters suffer gods wrath of distance. Hypocondriacs are miraculously cured by touching Chinese manufactured grails and God turns his back on MS sufferers.

Conversion is ethnic cleansing, God does not convert people do. God does not preach , people do. God does not act , people do. God does not claim anything that is said of him , people do. God outside of the personal space is thus personal politics and efforts to change society to be abiding to religious doctrine is ethnic cleansing.

Outside of personal space the belief in god is facisism.

West you are a poor sad case of obsessive attitudes and ill informed of just what Churches teach. I suggest so that you be better informed on just what Churches teach and do in community that you attend a few non-charismatic Churches.

We had a lay preacher this morning teach that Jesus is a carpenter not a building inspector. He is there to restore us not to point out the defects. To use Jesus words in John 3: 17 God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the World but through him to save the World.

David,

“Either party can merely have a conviction.” I do not have a conviction; I am waiting for those who have, to prove their conviction is right.

You do have a conviction. You "beleive" god does not exist. Several philosphies and scientific method would suggest that convictions can only be held tentatively, because of the need to text said conviction. A power way of testing one's own conviction is try to disprove one's self, theist, antitheist, archaelogist or astrophysist. Herein, I bet that there are plently of mathematicians who believe in "the Big Bang" play with "Solid State" on some lazy Sunday afternoons. Moreiver, some of the concepts believed or disbelieved are outside of classical mechanics, even four dimensional space-time.

A conviction can be in the negative too. I do not believe the Earth is flat. As far as I can see the null hypothesis is disappoved, the Earth is nor flat.

When Eistein predicted in 1905 that light waves would bend near the sun, there were A-relativists and Relativists.

In 1919, Einstein's posit was confirmed, spot-on! But not so quick, please. If we all sat on our hand, we would not have discovered Einstein made an error: He maintained the Sun is a perfect sphere; it isn't. There is error present as later discovered, because of holding a null hypothesis to seemingly convincing results. [Did he fudge it? ;-)]

Had the fundamentalist Relativist said okay, proven, stop; and, the A-relativists said "Wrong, but lets not re-investigate the match between the equations and the shape of the Sun [budges at the centre]. What's more the burden of proof is on the Relativists. We just sit." The null hypothesis to Eistein's posit is, "the sun is not round". Current science [tentatively] maintains Einstein wrong on this one.

In sum, I posit you do have convictions and that where convictions are held the should be held tentatively. We are not infallable. The testing convictions should include null hypotheses, whether in 4-D spacetime, higher dimensions on theology.

Oliver,

You are playing around with words as do our religious chums. Conviction; (Pertinent Oxford Dictionary definition) Act of convincing; settled belief

And the definition of convince: persuade to believe firmly the truth (esp, of religious conviction) I hope you read that last part, esp, of religious conviction.

I no more “believe” a god does not exist than I “believe” that fairies do not exist.

It is not a matter of belief in either case. I accept they do not exist because of the lack of evidence for all of history and the existence of the ideas on both counts, have more than compelling prosaic explanations.

If you like, the highest probability is that a god does not exist. It is the same as the highest probability is that the Sun will be on the Eastern horizon tomorrow morning. I may have a conviction or a belief that it will be on the Western horizon. I have no belief or conviction in regard to its appearance in the east.

The way you phrased the sentence made it appear that each side had equality in holding a conviction. Are you a cupboard religionist?

David

Conviction; (Pertinent Oxford Dictionary definition) Act of convincing; settled belief.

-- Do you have a "settled" belief in the "non-existence" of (gods). I expect you do. I almost do; but because, of Science from the Enlightenment and Philosphies [Karl Popper - nature of Conjectures & Michael Polanyi - Convictions should be tentatively held.]

-- A dictionionary is a record of how words are used. Meanings can differ across disciplines.

I accept they do not exist because of the lack of evidence for all of history and the existence of the ideas on both counts, have more than compelling prosaic explanations.

-- The above could be a finding of a disproved null hypothesis. Good. You see, the same data can be used to tentatively to (a) prove the acceptance there is no god and (b)the rejection of the god, after a test for the existence of god. Do you know "all of history".

If you like, the highest probability is that a god does not exist. It is the same as the highest probability is that the Sun will be on the Eastern horizon tomorrow morning. I may have a conviction or a belief that it will be on the Western horizon. I have no belief or conviction in regard to its appearance in the east.

-- I tried to find the story of the Existentialist Turk on the Net for but couldn't. I never remember jokes; but rought it traces the life of Turkey day-by-day, confirmation-after-conformation, until Thanksgiving, when things change. Guess certain dinosaurs felt the same, if the Giant Meteorite theory is correct.

..Cont/