Hannah Cann tells us why she loves political correctness.
Do you have swine flu? No. Do you know anybody who does have swine flu? Probably not. So what's all the fuss about?
Can't afford ethical clothing but can afford a night out at Ziggy's? Jennifer Heyes discusses where students' priorities should really lie.
Three of The Yorker's blogs team have had a hard think about what general rules they live their lives by and written them down in the form of their own Personal Philosophies.
An agnostic is a person who believes that nothing can be known about the existence of God. And to me this has always been obvious. How can we know that God exists? We might have strong views one way or another, and I think about such views all the time – yes, agnostics do think about religion. Arguably they’ve thought about it more than anyone.
I was not encouraged to be religious from an early age, and neither was I encouraged not to be. But I’ve always taken an immense interest in religion and religious studies was one of my favourite subjects at school. My sister, having barely mentioned the idea, chose to be confirmed into the Anglican Church. I chose agnosticism. My parents, themselves fairly apathetic towards religion, are baffled by us both.
Agnosticism is not an apathetic stance. People who are apathetic on the subject of religion might say, "Well, I guess religion is a nice idea, but I haven’t really thought about it, so I don’t know if I have a faith or not." Whereas people who label themselves agnostics have simply had the courage to say, "I don’t know if God exists. No-one can know that. But I see many people with strong faith, and just because I personally don’t share it, that doesn’t make it less valid."
"Yes, that’s all very well," you might argue, "but you’re just sitting on the fence; you’re too cowardly to make up your mind." But I argue that agnosticism is the bravest stance that one can take in the religious debate. In a modern world plagued by doubts in both science and religion, and still wrestling with the immense problem of evil and suffering, to stand up and say, "the evidence doesn’t look promising, but ultimately I just don’t know," is surely a brave thing to do.
Many, not all, are driven to accept religion through fear – to them the alternative of living in a world without certainty, without the faith that there is something better to come, is simply too ghastly to contemplate. Similarly, others take refuge in science, with a capital ‘S’ – ‘Science’, they claim, has all the answers and if we don’t know them today we will do tomorrow.
In a modern world plagued by doubts in both science and religion, and still wrestling with the immense problem of evil and suffering, to stand up and say, "the evidence doesn’t look promising, but ultimately I just don’t know," is surely a brave thing to do.
But science doesn’t have all the answers: as philosopher David Hume argued, just because the sun rose yesterday and the day before that and the day before that, as far back as we can remember, makes it extremely likely that it will do the same tomorrow, but by no means certain.
I attended a talk earlier this term by the Reverend Lord Richard Harries. He began by stating that intolerance was arguably implicit in any serious world view, and while acknowledging the benefits of engaging in dialogue with people of other beliefs, he did not answer the question which was the title of his talk: "Can religions learn to be tolerant?" I think that religious individuals can be tolerant, and I have plenty of time for agnostic theists, but unfortunately I think that there will always be intolerant people in any society, whether religious or atheist. The reverend considered both religious and atheistic viewpoints, but not agnosticism, a serious world view that leaves most room for tolerance.
After this talk, a friend and confirmed atheist asked me whether I thought the tooth fairy might exist. I said no, I didn’t think so. So, he said, God doesn’t exist either – we have no more evidence than for the tooth fairy. Millions of people don’t believe in the tooth fairy, but there are millions of religious people in the world. I’m not saying that just because millions of people believe in something necessarily means that they are right (and the nature of their beliefs vary tremendously) but I am saying that we can’t just dismiss every religious faith outright, especially as some are so incredibly strong and even more have at least been seriously considered. If I’ve seriously considered something and so have you, but we’ve come to different conclusions, then we both must be prepared to discuss and defend our views. That’s tolerance. Bringing up the tooth fairy is funny, but irrelevant.
When people ask me about my religious views I tell them that I’m an agnostic. I’ll probably go on and waffle about the inherently flawed logic in arguments for the existence of God, or about the problem of evil, or about how incredibly fascinating I find Tibetan Buddhism. But they’ve probably shrugged their shoulders and walked away. After all, you can’t have a discussion with an agnostic, can you?
In a group debate somebody once asked me whether I held strong views about anything. Slightly taken aback and not much of a public speaker, my answer was probably incoherent. But I do believe in tolerance and I do think that agnosticism is itself a strong view - in my opinion, the strongest.
In '‘Why I’m not a Christian’', Bertrand Russell concludes:
"We want to stand upon our own feet and look fair and square at the world — its good facts, its bad facts, its beauties, and its ugliness; see the world as it is and be not afraid of it."
This is what I try to do every day, and when I look fair and square at the world I see tremendous complexity. And I’m not afraid to admit, after spending much time in thought and discussion, that I just don’t know – I don’t have all the answers and neither do you.
James,
The problems with R.A.T.E. are listed here http://gondwanaresearch.com/rate.htm
And an answer to your beliefs in the inaccuracy of dating methods can be found here http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/benton.html
#19: By that definition you could say almost any peer reviewed article published by a journal that agrees with it does not count as science. Again i ask you to look at the evidence and dispute that, instead of discounting it off-hand, and wikipedia isn't exactly known for being unbiased or truthful when it comes to the creation-evolution debate!
If you read the article it is about measuring helium diffusing from the crystals, they don't claim that the radioactive decay has sped up, just that the helium has diffused out of the crystal. Getting independent measurements of the diffusivity from a respected lab backs up the predictions they made 3 years earlier. For the earth to be 1.5billion years old the diffusivity would have to be 100,000 times less than it has been measured to be.
#20: if I say to you "I like cheese" twice, do you get any more information than if I had said it once? If i start adding random letters or changing random letters does it increase the information you get from it? In computer science mutations are called corruptions!
James you were looking for sources that dispute the evidence you have provided http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/pearly/htmls/gop-evolution.html
Stephen Fry said god doesn't exist, and that's good enough for me.
James, I mean that the Journal of Creation will of course back anything that finds in favour of its religious views (within reason).
Peer reviewed science journals don't have a view of science and only publish things that fit in that view. The publish work which can be accredited by the worlds authorities as correct.
NOT ONE did this for your 'evidence'. What's more likely....that they are covering up some huge proof of the age of the earth of that the 'evidence' is actually wrong?
There have been many instances throughout history of science questioning its foundations - it isn't uncommon. But I don't think this is one of those times.
And, telling people to go away and 'look at the evidence' isn't a valid argument. We have world experts because it is impractical (nay, impossibel) to expect each individual to assess evidence for every scientific argument they wish to use. That's what 'proof' is, and so far it (nearly) all points to an earth a lot older than you're suggesting and none has been found for a God yet!
#21: The actionbioscience webpage you linked to uses straw man arguments and arguments that have been long refuted. Due to real life and studies i don't have time to answer every point, but i'll do the first few points:
#23: more old and refuted arguments, see the full refutal from 3 days after it was published.
#25: scientific journals do indeed censor articles which do not fit their worldview, and since the prevailing ones have a long-age worldview, they refuse to publish stuff to the contrary. It simply isn't an open debate. The BBC and other sources reported not too long ago about Prof. Michael Reiss, an evolutionist who was given the push from the Royal Society after simply suggesting that creationism and ID could be discussed in classrooms to explain why they were wrong.
Forget the radioactive stuff....we've already established that the RATE is incorrect.
What about my points that if you (and all your religious friends/colleagues) grew up in India you would more than likely be a Muslim?! Even the Pope probably would have been if he had grew up in a strongly Muslim family.
And sorry, did you say you had some PROOF as to God's existence?
"But science doesn’t have all the answers: as philosopher David Hume argued, just because the sun rose yesterday and the day before that and the day before that, as far back as we can remember, makes it extremely likely that it will do the same tomorrow, but by no means certain"
I'm not sure I can agree that this supports the argument that 'science doesn't have all the answers'. If we view the scientific method as essentially inductive (even if this is an outdated view of science), then Hume's problem of induction would seem to prevent science from having any answers at all, not just some and not others.
The alternative is to claim that science is not inductive (like Karl Popper did, although in a flawed manner), in which case Hume's problem of induction isn't really relevant.
Your use of Hume, therefore, seems like little more than committing the fallacy of 'appealing to authority'.
#27: I don't think you've established the RATE stuff is incorrect, only that it is controversial (as anything which opposes a leading paradigm tends to be) and that you trust scientist guys who oppose it, fair enough, I'm not an expert either, so I shall leave it at that.
I can see you're point that upbringing makes a difference, in that it determines what you are taught from a young age, however it perhaps makes the assumption that we aren't capable of critical thinking and that we don't come across alternatives through school etc. Your point doesn't make such beliefs any less worthy of respect, hence why I didn't say "well you would believe that, you were probably brought up in an athiest family".
As for God's existence, I don't intend on proving it here. I shall just say that it takes me less faith to believe that this universe (which is beautifully complex on every scale, from stars to nanoscopic machines in cells) was designed and created by the God of the bible who loves us and endured torture and death to free us from our sin, than that it came into existence by accident through an explosion of nothing into something, the mysterious congregation of matter, and a random mixture of luck, death, and genetic corruptions. This is not a belief caused by any lack of education or reading in these areas, as I find the topics brought up here very interesting.
Thanks for triggering a good discussion Victoria, it does take guts to broadcast your beliefs about such things. I'm off to do some work now.
Yeah, I won't be replying any longer in this thread... James, just like someone who holds strong beliefs in the tooth fairy (to which, I am sure, he can produce evidence better still than yours), talking to you can be entertaining for a while but is ultimately very saddening and you will end up asking the person to 'grow up'... I'd point you in a direction, but you seem to miss the point of so many things; basic logic, confirmation theory, evolution, genetics, the relevance of computer science in the subject science in general. You seem completely deluded so I suggest you at least enjoy being free of cognitive dissonance, as you apparently reject most parts of reality. So again, grow up, please...
James, one could argue that religious people are not capable of true critical thinking.
No-one who is truly capable of critical thinking would accept a given religion and its rules in full given that it's based purely on where and when you're born. I could take 7 x 100 children and put them on 7 different islands and teach them completely different religions and they would all have your view that they're right.....
Anyway, I'm off to pray to the tooth fairy - nice chap that he is.
http://www.venganza.org/
There seems to be a lot of evidence showing that we were all created by the FSM... See pirate/temperature rise graphs etc. !
May you all be touched by his noodly appendage
#30: After that abusive rant, I must say I find it amusing that you then tell me to grow up.
comment deleted by a moderator Right, let's get started. Hadn't seen this thread pop up for some reason! Long reply upcoming...
"It therefore seems more sensible to be agnostic about the existence of the external world than about the existence of god."
I would say "just as" instead of "more" - do you know the outside world exists? If you assume it doesn't then, well, good luck with that. If you assume it does then you can continue. It's a fairly simple flow chart to produce where the assumption that the world doesn't exist and that you're a figment of your own imagination, or such, is difficult to cope with. It's the whole concept of "I think therefore I am" - who says that it is technically even true? I would say a better quote is "I think therefore I ASSUME I am" because, frankly, you can't prove that you exist. Agnosticism regarding one's own existance is also the necessary position, even if people take an assumption that they do.
"jason: fyi, charles darwin was not a theist - where did you hear that?"
Charles Darwin was a theist after penning 'On The Origin Of Species...' and lost faith in God when his young daughter died in 1851. In fact, here's a quote from his autobiography; "But I was very unwilling to give up my belief;—I feel sure of this for I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans and manuscripts being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels."
"The story of Jesus, though, doesn't seem to fit into the category of proof of god, it's just a slightly revamped version of the story of the pagan god mithras"
Slight difference being that we have thousands of historical 'primary' sourcesm including Roman accounts, that signal Jesus' existance. He was, factually, a human male who was executed for crimes against Rome. Whilst the eye-witness accounts that suggest that he was a godly man (such as Gandhi) are not necessarily conclusive, I still haven't seen an eye-witness account that suggests he caused trouble against Rome. Indeed the Bible comments that he was approached and said to "give to Caesar what is Caesar's" and also said something about respecting the authorities that you are underneath, implying that he didn't disagree with Rome in and of itself and definitely didn't try to cause a riot.
Jesus existed. Whether you want to say that he was the Son of Man is up to you. I could point to the reasons that I believe it to be the case or point to the reasons that make me doubt it but you can read through the prophecies of the OT yourself and you can compare Jesus with other old stories (none of which have close to the amount of historical proof that Jesus' does - and which was recorded by the non-Jewish authorities).
"helium diffusion"
It only seems to be used by pro-flood and pro-Creationist websites and I can't find any reliable scientific paper that has been published with this technique described. I also, speaking as both a Christian and a physicist, would say that scientific evidence for an ancient planet and universe are almost flawless. If God created the world 6,000 years ago then the Creationist "5,000 or maybe 6,700 or maybe 12,000 years ago" flood is shoddy science and God would have no reason to make the Earth appear young. He could easily just make it appear old and then laugh at us all trying to figure it out 
#19, Indians aren't usually muslims According to the Census of India over 80% of Indians are hindus.
And regarding the creationist thing again. Could someone else with a knowledge of physics look at the article he linked to and just check whether the graph makes as little scientific sense to them as it does to me? Another argument in science's favour is here, where someone who clearly knows a lot about astrophysics (my subject) fails epically at trying to explain it. Read the conclusion and then see them flounder... if stars were created before Creation Week then when it said God put stars in the sky it kind-of seems a bit dumb, surely? Other arguments made could similarly be broken down.
... sigh ...
Right. Fossils are in layers so obviously if they were once alive they died in chronological order. Most Creationists have long since rejected that God created fossils within the soil for no real reason and therefore the fossils would have to have died in order. Not only that but with the amount of rock on them it would have taken a long amount of time, even with a worldwide flood. Regardless, animals don't die in order when covered in water... also, why are there no fossils of cows that are 'incorrectly dated' at 100,000,000 years old? There's my fossils argument.
The stars have been dated. Using doppler-shift techniques that are 100% accurate it is possible to detect the speed of things moving away from us. Using various other techniques it is possible to find out a lot about the composition of stars. These compositions can identify the age of stars and can tell us about the fusion in the core. The argument that brown dwarfs don't have fusion so are 'fossil stars' is ludicrous - they sustain themselves using the same technique as Saturn and Jupiter, which also both emit light using the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism that I have studied. The astronomical and astrophysical model, at least from 1 second after the "Big Bang" is stable and uncontradictory to itself or other science. Before that our physics gets messy but we can ignore that since we're still dealing with 13.5 billion years.
There are about 10-20 techniques in use from geophysics to biophysics and from astrophysics to geology that can date stars, moons, planets, comets, fossils, rocks, compounds and organisms... and they are in quite confident agreement that the planet is substantially older than 1 billion years. The fact that there is a margin of error is unsurprising. Over time this margin of error will decrease and our date will become more accurate. That's science.
On the other hand, creationist 'science' such as the helium thing isn't very reliable. Their rebuttals of other people's arguments are scientifically poor, for starters, and furthermore their science is weak. The fact that helium in some rocks diffuses at a certain rate makes sense, to an extent, but they're ignoring so many factors it's completely laughable.
If God made the world he could have made it appear as it does today. None of what I have posted is proof against God. But it seems strange that a world which is scientifically supported as being ancient would be created to look old when there is no reason for it - it's much safer to assume that Genesis was written at, say, the time of Moses and based on ancient tales that aren't necessarily factually accurate - even if they're based on true stories (such as the formation of the Black Sea involving a flood of thousands of square miles appearing as a worldwide flood) etc.
Oh and the Great Barrier Reef is approximately 600,000 years old. For example. Hopefully this post isn't as long as I think it might be!
Jason: wow, long post.
I can see you have great faith in what you have been taught, and great faith that there is nothing of substance in creationists work. I'd love to discuss some of your points in more detail with you, however I'd like to refrain from doing so here as it'd take far too much space (I'm not a fan of elephant hurling) and I tend to get flamed when people's misconceptions incorrectly classify me as a tooth-fairy believing, flat-earth nutter who doesn't believe in gravity or radiometric decay! *sighs*
Please do drop me an email (my uni email is jh559) and I'll email back.
Kings, 7:23 And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
Yes, what a clever idea to take the Bible literally James, God seems to think that Pi is equal to 3...
And what a great idea to put so much useless non-sense in there too, wouldn't have occurred to him to add an appendix containing the cure for cancer or malaria or something...
#37: it says quite clearly that it had brims, the diameter was measured "one brim to the other", but the circumference says around it, not around the brim:
30 cubits / PI = 9.55 cubits
if the brim was 10 cubits thats a brim of 0.225 cubits out from the main body, a perfectly reasonable value.
Additionally it should be noted that a cubit is the length of a human forearm, and measurements given to more accuracy than half cubits are not seen. Even if it did not have a brim, it is a reasonable assumption that the values were rounded to the nearest cubit.
"I tend to get flamed when people's misconceptions incorrectly classify me as a tooth-fairy believing, flat-earth nutter who doesn't believe in gravity or radiometric decay! *sighs"
Well, if you believe the earth is 6,000 years old.....you kinda deserve it.
Merry Xmas.
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