7 ms·
i've never met a more evangelical (from the greek) crowd than atheists.
by lintiness 10y ago
i've never met a more evangelical (from the greek) crowd than atheists.
- nitrogen 10y agoYou really ought to get to know some Mormons ;) (spoken as a former believer). One reason some groups, like atheists or evangelicals, are so vocal is because they believe that the damage done to society by others not sharing their beliefs will be irreparable. This is why beliefs and decisions need to be rooted in reproducible evidence, rather than the reverse.
- sverige 10y agoThere are many kinds of evidence that are not reproducible.
- justinjlynn 10y agoEvidence refers to that which can be evidenced on demand, or rather more apropos, produced upon demand. Therefore, unless you mean something other than the commonly accepted meaning of the term 'evidence', then evidence must be reproducible. Perhaps if you could share some examples, we could explore your definition more fully?
- sverige 10y agoI disagree that all evidence must be reproducible, which is the standard for experimental evidence (simple physics comes to mind). Just off the top of my head, there is historical evidence and geological evidence, for example. Historical evidence (whether documentary or archaeological or otherwise) is certainly producible, but not reproducible in the sense that you can provide the exact same thing again. Geological evidence (again, very simply, like rock strata) is not reproducible. Even saying that this kind of formation always accompanies another kind isn't reproducible. (The "all ravens are black" problem.") There are other logical kinds of evidence that don't meet the "scientific" standard, and yet are quite valid. My objection really is that the original statement was far too narrow.
- Jedd 10y agoI think this is not true. Would you care to provide many examples?
- nitrogen 10y agoI can't speak for sverige, but in my experience and in observations of others, some types of non-reproducible evidence used to justify belief include: - Coincidences where the person decided at "random" to take a different route, and ended up avoiding a disaster or helping someone as a result. Counterarguments: confirmation bias, ignoring unconscious intuition. - Other people saying or doing the right thing at exactly the right time to alleviate a personal suffering the other person "couldn't" have known about. Counterarguments: confirmation bias, underestimating others' intuition/perceptiveness. - Feeling a funny happy/peaceful/warm/shivery/tingly feeling at the same time as something religious happens or while reading a religious book. Counterargument: fMRI+TcDCS/TcMS experiments (though tentative), other situations in which similar feelings occur like relationships, deeply artistic movies, music, nature, etc. - Children saying things about subjects they haven't been taught about directly, like a long dead relative. Counterargument: confirmation bias (think of all the misbehavior children commit), and underestimating children's perceptiveness. - Personal epiphanies, like having unexpected words or an internal dialog instead of monologue popping into mind especially in religious scenarios, for example when praying over someone else, or when reading, etc. Counterarguments: right temporal gyrus (bicameral mind theory), evidence that thoughts occur before we are aware of them, subjective variations in nature of internal monologues and imagery.
- pessimizer 10y agoGood news?
- arethuza 10y agoI'm pretty sure I'd never had a discussion with him about whether god exists or not. I'm certainly not evangelical about my atheism.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- k-mcgrady 10y agoI think your mistake is that your assuming because some atheists are loud they represent all of them. It's definitely off-putting but those people are in a minority just as religious fundamentalists are in a minority.