All you talker downers.

[ZenMasterFlex]

Sorry if this has already been posted and I just haven't found it.
I hear alot of talk on here about how quantum physics and other forms of theoretical sciences lead toward the disproof of God. And how someone who is not studied in these sciences has no right to argue the existence of God.

So...I want to give any well studied non-believer on here the chance to explain in layman to all of the rest of us exactly WHY quantum physics or any other scientific observation you can think of disproves the existence of a God. I am listening.

[madnak]

Who's saying that?

[tomdemaine]

I think quantum physics has litlle or nothing to do with the existence or otherwise of god but I do like the phrase "talker downers".

[guesswest]

It could just be that I'm reading the wrong threads - but I've never heard anyone say that on here?

[Hopey]

I think you might be a little insecure in your "faith". I have never seen anyone post the types of statements that you are describing.

[Copernicus]

And if anyone did claim that, they would be shot down immediately, because it is impossible to disprove the existence of anything. No matter how complete our model of the universe gets. there will always be the fall back position "yeah but God made it that way" and you cant prove he didnt.

[ZenMasterFlex]

I must be popping crazy pills again. First, I never said I have "faith".
And "who" you ask is making such posts? Well, I haven't been to this forum in about 3 months but I seem to remember a certain David Sklansky posting a time or two on the subject of Science shedding light on certain things that used to be called "the work of God".

Doesn't ring a bell?.... Sklansky makes a post saying how he doubts there could be a God given what he knows about modern science, and then flaming ensues with believers and non-believers alike passionately defending their beliefs.....nothing?

I guess either all the posters of three months ago either dissapeared, converted, died, or just stopped posting.
Thanks for your time.

Are you [censored] joking? Isn't this the subject of every other post on this forum?

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I do like the phrase "talker downers".

[/ QUOTE ]

[ZenMasterFlex]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I do like the phrase "talker downers".

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, I thought it up all by myself.
Super, now that we have that out of the way, let's move on.
Unless of course we need to devote a little more time to this. Maybe a thread of it's own?

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I do like the phrase "talker downers".

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

[madnak]

I think David stopped posting in December. Maybe January.

These days every other post is Sharkey trying to explain why the world is 6000 years old using made-up language.

[New001]

[ QUOTE ]
I must be popping crazy pills again. First, I never said I have "faith".
And "who" you ask is making such posts? Well, I haven't been to this forum in about 3 months but I seem to remember a certain David Sklansky posting a time or two on the subject of Science shedding light on certain things that used to be called "the work of God".

Doesn't ring a bell?.... Sklansky makes a post saying how he doubts there could be a God given what he knows about modern science, and then flaming ensues with believers and non-believers alike passionately defending their beliefs.....nothing?

I guess either all the posters of three months ago either dissapeared, converted, died, or just stopped posting.
Thanks for your time.

Are you [censored] joking? Isn't this the subject of every other post on this forum?

[/ QUOTE ]
Are you confusing "XYZ makes God unnecessary" with "XYZ disproves the existence of God?"

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I do like the phrase "talker downers".

[/ QUOTE ]

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks, I thought it up all by myself.
Super, now that we have that out of the way, let's move on.
Unless of course we need to devote a little more time to this. Maybe a thread of it's own?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=5693735&page=0&vc=#Post5 693735)

[ZenMasterFlex]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


Are you confusing "XYZ makes God unnecessary" with "XYZ disproves the existence of God?"

[/ QUOTE ]

No. but thank you for the first thought on this thread, that couldn't be formed by a primate.

[ZenMasterFlex]

[ QUOTE ]
I think David stopped posting in December. Maybe January.

These days every other post is Sharkey trying to explain why the world is 6000 years old using made-up language.

[/ QUOTE ]

Great comic relief. I was getting frustrated enough to start hurting myself. Thank you.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
No. but thank you for the first thought on this thread, that couldn't be formed by a primate.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Great comic relief. I was getting frustrated enough to start hurting myself. Thank you.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
zenmasterflex

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No. but thank you for the first thought on this thread, that couldn't be formed by a primate.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Great comic relief. I was getting frustrated enough to start hurting myself. Thank you.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
zenmasterflex

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[/ QUOTE ]
having a short fuse is the new zen. To be at peace one must never be at peace.

[Hopey]

I like David's poker books, but I avoided his philosophy posts. Too wordy, and would inevitably result in the nits on each side flaming each other.

[hmkpoker]

[ QUOTE ]
I hear alot of talk on here about how quantum physics and other forms of theoretical sciences lead toward the disproof of God. And how someone who is not studied in these sciences has no right to argue the existence of God.

[/ QUOTE ]


http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/9891/borosignal2ky6rv.png

[Sharkey]

[ QUOTE ]
These days every other post is Sharkey trying to explain why the world is 6000 years old using made-up language.

[/ QUOTE ]

Congratulations on an active fantasy life.

[bunny]

I think you could construct an argument similar to the one you are claiming has been presented here (I dont remember seeing one other than a mild reference to it in Sklansky's last post). I dont think anyone would present it as a disproof though, more evidence for why you shouldnt believe in God. I imagine the argument going something like:

1. People used to believe all kinds of wacky things because the world was mysterious and we like explanations. A story was better than shrugging and not knowing.
2. As science progressed, more and more of the stories were found to be poor explanations - science had a simpler answer.
3. As each of these barriers was pushed back, religions fought tooth and nail to reject the latest developments and preserve the fiction that their worldview was "the truth".
4. Currently, religion explains a number of things that science cannot answer and maintains that science will never be able to do that, just as they have been doing all along.
5. It is only a matter of time before science does provide an answer to these (currently) difficult questions.
6. Religion's scope will continue to shrink, although possibly asymptotically, as our scientific knowledge expands what we know. It will basically amount to saying "Anything we dont know the answer to was done by God"
7. There are two explanations of this - religion has content and it has been misrepresented over the years or people just like to fill in the gaps with God and it is an invention of our society to satisfy our emotional need for "an answer" to every question.

This is probably not the best formulation but I think it's an argument (though clearly not a proof) for rejecting God's existence (invoking some kind of Occam's razor - although I dont personally think it is appropriate here).

[guesswest]

Someone posted an article arguing this point on here recently, can't remember who, perhaps someone can dig it out?

I remember not agreeing with this idea though - while it's true that theism has frequently been the retreat of ignorance in the past, this kind of argument is an application of inductive reasoning, which isn't a valid method.

[bunny]

I agree, of course - I was just playing Devil's talker downer.

[HLMencken]

[ QUOTE ]
I hear alot of talk on here about how quantum physics and other forms of theoretical sciences lead toward the disproof of God.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please point me to one post where this claim was made. JUST ONE, PLEASE!

[Andrew Karpinski]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
No. but thank you for the first thought on this thread, that couldn't be formed by a primate.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Great comic relief. I was getting frustrated enough to start hurting myself. Thank you.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
zenmasterflex

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/confused.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

I gotta say I am loving this style of post. Three quotes, often with the first two making the last seem weird, occasionally with all three and then a conclusion.

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I hear alot of talk on here about how quantum physics and other forms of theoretical sciences lead toward the disproof of God.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please point me to one post where this claim was made. JUST ONE, PLEASE!

[/ QUOTE ]
Shows how my memory is deteriorating with age - I was about to point you to Sklansky's last post, then realised he was basically making the exact opposite point. /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[atrifix]

[ QUOTE ]
This is probably not the best formulation but I think it's an argument (though clearly not a proof) for rejecting God's existence (invoking some kind of Occam's razor - although I dont personally think it is appropriate here).

[/ QUOTE ]I think there are any number of problems with this kind of atheistic argument, but I never really considered Ockham's razor to be one (outside of any unrelated internal problems with Ockham's razor). Can you elaborate on why you don't think it's justified here?

[bunny]

It feels like it should be in another thread...I'll start one in a tick.

[atrifix]

I was more interested in why you thought that this specific application of Ockham's razor was not justified, assuming that it can be justified in some other cases. At least, that was the idea I got from your post. Or were you just disagreeing with using Ockham's razor in general?

[bunny]

I was disagreeing with the use of occam's razor to decide between two competing theories for the creation of the universe.

[atrifix]

What I'm wondering is why the creation of the universe is a "qualtitatively different process." I don't see that.

[bunny]

Because all other processes happen within the universe. They happen at a particular point in time and in space.

[ZenMasterFlex]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I hear alot of talk on here about how quantum physics and other forms of theoretical sciences lead toward the disproof of God.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please point me to one post where this claim was made. JUST ONE, PLEASE!

[/ QUOTE ]
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/favlin...amp;postmarker= (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/favlinker.php?Cat=0&Entry=209677&F_Board=scimathph il&Thread=3496832&partnumber=&postmarker=)


Just one? Thank you, I would have hated to have to dig up the dozens that do exist.

[ZenMasterFlex]

And just in case you just "skim" or don't actually read it, or read it with your eyes closed, or read it with pepper spray in your eyes, or read it while watching TV and not paying attention. Here is a direct quote from that link where Sklansky is talking about Issac Newton

"He believed in Christianity because he didn't know about DNA, Fractal geomety, Chaos theory, Quantum Theory, Relativity Theory Nuclear Fusion and Siefried and Roy. He didn't even know about atoms. All things that suggest either no god or a God who washed his hands of us billions of years ago."

Thus, this thread.

[DougShrapnel]

Deleted. I thought you where talking about the post you linked and not a post within the thread

[ZenMasterFlex]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Using some stats that we have (I have no problem changing these %, if someone has other suggested %s) we know that perhaps 90% of geniuses in the science category do not believe in any god.

To makes things easier for me to write, let say we take the 1000 top scientist in the world. And out of these top 1000 we have 900 who think there is no god. We then have 100 who think there is some type of god.

We then want to narrow the top 1000 down to the top 100. Let’s say the % stays the same ( I have no problem agreeing it might go to higher than 90% when we do this). So we now have 90 -no god and 10 god.

Let say we narrow it down to 10.The score is 9 no god -1 god.

For this exercise it doesn’t really matter if the % stay the same. I want to reduce it to the lowest number in the group that still leaves us with 1 god person.

So we now have 1 believer and x number of non believers.

Now we have a conversation.

I want to know what the heck this one believer thinks.

What if he is the “Einstein” of the group. Then what?

I also want to know the lowest number we can get to and still have a Christian in the group.

What if he is the “Einstein” of the group. Then what?


[/ QUOTE ] This is RJT post that zen linked to. I see nothing about qm, or proof that god does not exist. Secondly RJT is an xtain, and not a talker downer.

[/ QUOTE ]

That damn pepper spay hurts doesn't it? SCROLL DOWN. OR...
Refer to my quote on this very thread, not but 2 or 3 posts below this very one.

I am beginning to see exactly why Sklansky stopped posting here. How did he last as long as he did?

[DougShrapnel]

It would help if you linked to what you where talking about, and not a 5 page thread. You quoted DS as an afterthought. I think you really need to be more specific and pay attention to detail. Nowhere does David offer QM as "proof" that god doesn't exist. He gave 2 more likely alternatives than the xtain god, instead.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
These things (DNA, Fractal geomety, Chaos theory, Quantum Theory, Relativity Theory Nuclear Fusion and Siefried and Roy) show how the world works perfectly fine without any present intervention from God. Until recently stuff happened (the sun burning, the mountains looking gorgeous, the fact that measles aren't caught twice, etc etc.) that were so unexplainable that invoking a God who kept a lookout on us seemed like a reaonable thing to do. When that changed the odds changed. A lot.


[/ QUOTE ] He is just providing a counter argument to some teleological argument.

[tomdemaine]

Coincientally quantum physics proves the non existence of god exactly to exactly the same segree that the banana proves the existence of god. Thus far the only concrete proof for the non existence of god is the babel fish.

[ZenMasterFlex]

[ QUOTE ]
It would help if you linked to what you where talking about, and not a 5 page thread. You quoted DS as an afterthought. I think you really need to be more specific and pay attention to detail. Nowhere does David offer QM as "proof" that god doesn't exist. He gave 2 more likely alternatives than the xtain god, instead.

[/ QUOTE ]

I quit this forum forever. If the word "proof"
is really what was holding this whole process up, and it wasn't brought up untill just now, then I quit.
I wasn't trying to stir up old issues that you have obviously settled and gotten past. Enjoy the 6000 year old earth in made up language stuff, and forget I ever brought this Sklanskianity, Does God exist? post.

At least if I post in MTT forum and ask "can someone link me the Hand History for KramerTMs Win in the 500k guaranteed?" I don't get 50 posts about how that never happened before someone pipes up and say's "hey he took 2nd in that event and here you go buddy". So, OK, I will grant you that it wasn't a "PROOF" as one doesn't exist or there would obviously be no discussion on the existence of God. Forgive me for thinking that was obvious.

[DougShrapnel]

[ QUOTE ]
is really what was holding this whole process up, and it wasn't brought up untill just now, then I quit.


[/ QUOTE ]

Post 4
[ QUOTE ]
And if anyone did claim that, they would be shot down immediately, because it is impossible to disprove the existence of anything.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you have a problem with the belief in god being a much less reasonable position from a teleological perspective, given that we now know so much more. Then thats a different arguemnt, and I'm afraid you are gonna have to create a language if you want to debate it. (not good with emoticons this is in jest) With your ability to create the phrase "talker downers" I think it is something you should at least consider. Ultimate chance, and causaly sufficient are already taken.

[ZenMasterFlex]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
is really what was holding this whole process up, and it wasn't brought up untill just now, then I quit.


[/ QUOTE ]

Post 4
[ QUOTE ]
And if anyone did claim that, they would be shot down immediately, because it is impossible to disprove the existence of anything.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you have a problem with the belief in god being a much less reasonable position from a teleological perspective, given that we now know so much more. Then thats a different arguemnt, and I'm afraid you are gonna have to create a language if you want to debate it. (not good with emoticons this is in jest) With your ability to create the phrase "talker downers" I think it is something you should at least consider. Ultimate chance, and causaly sufficient are already taken.

[/ QUOTE ]
Nobody said anything about debate.
My Original post was a question. Check it out.
I fail to see your point with those 2 totally unrelated quotes. Or was that supposed to suggest that my question was already answered? Because as my link proved, it didn't.
I guess I'll have to dig up another one that you can read and not see it for what it is again before I totally give up on you. I'll do that now.

I asked for a non-god-believer who was well studied in science to give his views on how a knowledge of Quantum physics, and other higher sciences might help one come to the conclusion that there is no God.
This was done out of curiosity, and in an interest in the thoughts of such a person. I suppose no such person exists on this forum now that Sklansky has stopped posting. Or if one does, he doesn't feel like posting in this particular thread.

*sigh* I'll go dig up another.