mhaze,

I posted before your last effort was noticed. And a slight correction. The phrase, "Make of that as you will." should have been following, "One would have to assume these are intelligent people."

Why you have to play on the rights of parents to indoctrinate their children when I have specifically stated a case against governments doing so. Are you intentionally attempting to muddy the waters or have you decided that is what I must mean. Which, of course, it isn't.

My personal opinion is that parental control of information given to their offspring should be all encompassing. One would hope that stigma against harmful indoctrination will become more widespread. I am not advocating legal remedies.

I think your 'double-think comment qualifies for a position next to 'reds-under-the-bed'. Non-religion is increasing dramatically. This doesn't meant that religion has gone away. There is still much work to be done.

Backtracking on atheist societies was an interesting ploy. Australia is a good example of a godless society and and no one is jumping on rickety boats to leave it. Can you name a few democratic societies where atheism is causing problems anywhere near the problems caused by religions in all societies?

I have never said my views were "educated" but I do try to be rational. You should also.

David

Oh boy, mhaze. You really did come late to this thread...

<<And no particular conclusion is better or worse than another since none can be shown to be right or wrong.>>

And this is where every agnostic goes wrong. Just because we can't know with absolute certainty one way or the other, that doesn't mean we can't reach a high degree of certainty. 

These things aren't always black and white, you know. The world is indeed all shades of...

Hang on, where did I just hear that?

<<Its that famed absolutism again - `he's saying its not white so he must think its black. But the world is indeed all shades of grey.>>

There it is. 

Speaking of the "absolutism again", it was actually your fellow agnostics who couldn't break themselves away from this black and white way of thinking, not David or anyone else. 

You have just demonstrated precisely why the inability think in shades of grey (or "absolutism") had been raised on this thread and yet here you are desperately trying to pin this mode of thought on David.

Shameful.

AFoAI>> Non-religion is increasing dramatically.<<

Sorry sport, we can't have you making fact less statements.
Christianity in the first world is abating at a rate of knots. But the second and third worlds are booming. There are more Christians alive now than at any other time. Further, what about the other major religions of the world. Do you know there are more practicing Muslims alive now than at any other period in history? Probably not.

David, the relatively affluent consumer society has left God. You may as well call them the Caucasians, and Caucasians make up less than 15% of the globes population.

sonofgloin,

As you are obviously not reading the thread and just taking pot-shots using an obvious very inferior weapon every now and then, read this previous post and maybe even go to the links provided. Now, isn't that a novel idea.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/images/icon_link_grey.gif

Get back to me on this.

David

Curses, she cried. I'm wasting a post. The link I supplied was wrong. This is the one to which I was referring.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5547#152718

David

AJ Philips>> Oh boy, mhaze. You really did come late to this thread...
And this is where every agnostic goes wrong. Just because we can't know with absolute certainty one way or the other, that doesn't mean we can't reach a high degree of certainty.<<

Aj, I told you earlier in the thread that dressing up a “guess” in terms likes “high degree of certainty" does not make it so. Or any more a valid “guess” than anyone else’s given the subject matter. All you have to refute a creator is the physical and your own minds penchant for an answer that suits it.

Given we are talking the ethereal, where does physics come into it, and that is what your mind is using to gain a conclusion. You can only have a “high degree of certainty” if you know what “was” before the big bang tiger.

Best guess from our brightest is that a molecule the size of a single atom explodes and created everything. The molecule was just sitting there waiting, if you can use that term, because it had substance but it had no time. Then bang, from nothing to everything....who lit the wick? The nature of matter is that you cannot destroy it.
Burn it or degrade it, it remains in one form or another. But we know all matter originated 13 Billion years ago. What created matter?

AJ that last line reminded me of a line the devil says to a demon in Time Bandits "I made mysef, I cannot be unmade"....great line.


Just tell about what “was” one second before the big bang and then you could claim a degree of certainty, other than that you are guessing like the rest of us. About the semantics of your title.You can only be agnostic. Atheist is a psychological term invented for supremists who delude themselves that they absolutely, categorically, unmistakenly,know what what happened 13 Billion years ago.