How many people believe in GOD.

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Originally Posted by trish

Good one, martin.
I just came across an amusing algorithm for scoring the worth of scientific papers and their authors

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

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Sadly this one is what we really do DO to increase worth of our humble contributions to human knowledge

http://www.enallagma.com/wordpress/2...-impact-factor

Depressing...and be sure to cite me on that.

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Originally Posted by Prospero

Agnosticism seems to me to be the only viable position. To believe that there is or isn't a God depends upon a certainty which cannot be proven.

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I think I'm in that camp. Atheism is too much of a leap of faith for me.

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Originally Posted by robertlouis

But they can't offer proof - you have to share and/or accept their blind faith.
I tend to agree with Patrick McGoohan on this one....

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Originally Posted by Prospero

And what did our famed Prisoner have to say?

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Originally Posted by robertlouis

I am not a number, I am a free man! Somewhat Cartesian, to continue our intellectual exchange from elsewhwere.

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Originally Posted by robertlouis

This is only Goering to get worse.....

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Then, every time he tries to run away freely, a big, inflated, bouncing ball comes and gets him, not unlike the Gods for our societies. The metaphor isn’t bad at all! :)
But indeed, matter is the immediate evidence. It took us everything to eventually find ways to explore its nature. Anything that is said to transcend it should be what needs to be demonstrated. But we took the opposite route: we had to vanquish our spontaneous way of thinking it, which is symbolical, by founding methods to abstract ourselves from their emotional charge and magical value, starting indeed with Descartes, and also Bacon, kepler, Galileo. Even the very way we extract moments from the even flow of time, and events from the chaotic and infinite chain of what happens, to simply tell a story, is performing the same kind of magic the evangelist John identifies as the work of the Verb: we create worlds... It’s going to take a lot of house shaking and mind rumbling to get rid of the Gods without loosing what’s the best of who we are. And we’re far from achieving it yet.
I guess that's why I personally hold to my agnostic (do you say "agnosticist"?) position...

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Originally Posted by danthepoetman

Then, every time he tries to run away freely, a big, inflated, bouncing ball comes and gets him, not unlike the Gods for our societies. The metaphor isn’t bad at all! :)
But indeed, matter is the immediate evidence. It took us everything to eventually find ways to explore its nature. Anything that is said to transcend it should be what needs to be demonstrated. But we took the opposite route: we had to vanquish our spontaneous way of thinking it, which is symbolical, by founding methods to abstract ourselves from their emotional charge and magical value, starting indeed with Descartes, and also Bacon, kepler, Galileo. Even the very way we extract moments from the even flow of time, and events from the chaotic and infinite chain of what happens, to simply tell a story, is performing the same kind of magic the evangelist John identifies as the work of the Verb: we create worlds... It’s going to take a lot of house shaking and mind rumbling to get rid of the Gods without loosing what’s the best of who we are. And we’re far from achieving it yet.
I guess that's why I personally hold to my agnostic (do you say "agnosticist"?) position...

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If it comes to a choice between Prometheus and Zeus, I'm with the Titan every time.

Which makes me a Protestant atheist, I guess...

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Originally Posted by robertlouis

If it comes to a choice between Prometheus and Zeus, I'm with the Titan every time.

Which makes me a Protestant atheist, I guess...

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Feeble beings assembled around the fire he gave us, we know he’s having his liver eaten out while chained to a rock. As Nietzsche asks: can we face the truth? can we really face our own meaninglessness and the insignificant nature of our values and escapes? Can we face our own ignorance even in science? When the world of magic is still close enough to enlighten us with its reassuring façade? You don’t need to have someone who’s ready to kill and die to make a fanatic; we all are extremists of our convictions and certainties, down to the most common life. As said also Pascal (I’m becoming totally pretentious with my quotations), it’s either diversions (entertainment) or blind faith, for us; middle ground is unbearable.
I like protestant atheist: it has a nice ring to it. I could find myself to be a catholic materialist mecanicist with a belief in beauty. :)

A journalist, researching for an article on the complex political situation in Northern Ireland, was in a pub in a war-torn area of Belfast. One of his potential informants leaned over his pint of Guinness and suspiciously cross-examined the journalist: "Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?" the Irishman asked. "Neither," replied the journalist; "I'm an atheist."
The Irishman, not content with this answer, put a further question: "Ah, but are you a Catholic atheist or a Protestant atheist?

From Richard Dawkin's book "God Delusion"

You are not first

M

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Originally Posted by danthepoetman

Feeble beings assembled around the fire he gave us, we know he’s having his liver eaten out while chained to a rock. As Nietzsche asks: can we face the truth? can we really face our own meaninglessness and the insignificant nature of our values and escapes? Can we face our own ignorance even in science? When the world of magic is still close enough to enlighten us with its reassuring façade? You don’t need to have someone who’s ready to kill and die to make a fanatic; we all are extremists of our convictions and certainties, down to the most common life. As said also Pascal (I’m becoming totally pretentious with my quotations), it’s either diversions (entertainment) or blind faith, for us; middle ground is unbearable.
I like protestant atheist: it has a nice ring to it. I could find myself to be a catholic materialist mecanicist with a belief in beauty. :)

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I do not believe in god
Christopher Hitchens vs. God (god loses by the way) - YouTube

I told god that if he can let me win 14 million in the lottery i will leave the industry.

I am still here with no 14 million so I can only assume he is happy and aprooves of my current career choice :)

Chloe x

A good Catholic girl returned to her family home in Dublin after living in London for several years. After a couple of drinks she told her mother that she had something to confess.

Her elderly mother - a little hard of hearing - blanched when the girl spoke and said "Holy Mary, mother of Jesus... you cannot be serious? " she exclaimed. "A girl of mine. What shame to bring on the family. Why in the name of the sweet lord did you do that?"

The girl was upset and explained: "I am sorry mother... but I had to make a living. That's why I became a prostitute."

Her mother calmed down and replied. "Oh sweet girl - I misheard you.....

I thought for a minute you said you'd become a protestant."