What Makes A Debate/Discussion Interesting?

[seekingsolace]

I believe that natural laws govern the way matter behaves, and that the origin of life here on Earth will eventually be understood to be a consequence of chemistry. Great progress is being made along those lines already. The ultimate fate of the universe is being explored by cosmologists. In a universe that is expanding at an accelerating rate, it would seem that that fate would most likely be a heat death.

There is no compelling reason for me to think any of this is intelligently guided. For me, the most desirable course of action is to watch as the theories unfold and the data accumulates and we get closer and closer to the truth through evidence and reasoning.

That is what I meant with 'supreme being' in the sense that: the belief of nature is characterized by power over all things - in opposition to an external control.

 

[MarkFL]

That is what I meant with 'supreme being' in the sense that: the belief of nature is characterized by power over all things - in opposition to an external control.

When you use the word "being" this connotes an intelligence or sentience for me.

 

[seekingsolace]

When you use the word "being" this connotes an intelligence or sentience for me.

Yeah I did mean to change it to force, or another suitable word. You had already replied by the time I realised

 

[Josiah]

If anything is learned.

 

[tango]

Correct, I am an agnostic atheist...my stance is that I don't have enough evidence to say anything at all about the supernatural. And because of this lack of evidence, I do not believe in the supernatural. Now, if you were to ask me if I believe that Leprechauns exist, I would say no, they do not exist. Why? Because there is no evidence. So, I see the dichotomy in my own stance, and I suppose I justify the difference to myself by saying billions of people do not worship Leprechauns.

So I suspect the issue you describe is standard pigeonholing - you're an "atheist" therefore you must be one of those people who refuses to believe all the evidence for a divine being, you mock us for our faith while having a faith of your own that you won't admit and so on. And all the while fingers are being pointed ears are being closed to hear what it is you actually believe. It's really no different to people registering the words "I voted for Obama" and hearing "I agree with every single thing Obama has ever said or done, and I agree with every single thing every other Democrat voter has ever said or done". (Just to avoid any doubt I personally didn't vote for Obama - I don't get a vote in federal elections so my personal political leaning is irrelevant here)

It's good to see inconsistencies in your own stance. I often find it interesting to see how most people (myself included) have inconsistencies in what they believe in (usually in political discussions where they say the government should or shouldn't do something in general but make exceptions when it benefits them personally). It can be interesting rooting out that sort of dichotomy. Most people don't like it. I don't like it much myself but in order to come to a consistent worldview it has to be done.

 

[MarkFL]

So I suspect the issue you describe is standard pigeonholing - you're an "atheist" therefore you must be one of those people who refuses to believe all the evidence for a divine being, you mock us for our faith while having a faith of your own that you won't admit and so on. And all the while fingers are being pointed ears are being closed to hear what it is you actually believe. It's really no different to people registering the words "I voted for Obama" and hearing "I agree with every single thing Obama has ever said or done, and I agree with every single thing every other Democrat voter has ever said or done". (Just to avoid any doubt I personally didn't vote for Obama - I don't get a vote in federal elections so my personal political leaning is irrelevant here)

Yes, I will admit I do grow weary at times with "Why do you hate God?" and "How do you know right from wrong?", etc. Or "You can't prove there's no God, so we're in the same boat!" as if the two propositions are equally likely.

It's good to see inconsistencies in your own stance. I often find it interesting to see how most people (myself included) have inconsistencies in what they believe in (usually in political discussions where they say the government should or shouldn't do something in general but make exceptions when it benefits them personally). It can be interesting rooting out that sort of dichotomy. Most people don't like it. I don't like it much myself but in order to come to a consistent worldview it has to be done.

I will likely adjust my worldview the tiny amount it would take at this point to say I am actually a gnostic atheist, in the same way, to use my earlier example, that I would claim gnosticism regarding the non-existence of leprechauns.

However, if compelling evidence surfaces for God or leprechauns, then I will happily change my belief.

 

[tango]

Yes, I will admit I do grow weary at times with "Why do you hate God?" and "How do you know right from wrong?", etc. Or "You can't prove there's no God, so we're in the same boat!" as if the two propositions are equally likely.

With that in mind I think the stance of gnostic atheism is as much a statement of faith as belief in some kind of god in that neither stance can be conclusively proven or disproven but both sides believe, on the balance of evidence available, that their position is the correct one. In many ways I personally struggle to understand the mindset that essentially says "I don't know and don't really care" but that's probably because I personally struggle with the notion of figuring that maybe there is a god and maybe there isn't but it doesn't affect me (small g intentional on the basis that the existence of a god doesn't necessarily imply the existence of the Christian God). For myself if some kind of sentient supreme being existed I'd want to know, on the basis that a being powerful enough to create/design/direct/whatever our lives is worth knowing about even if only to conclude that I can't change what it does but can try to stay out of its way.

I will likely adjust my worldview the tiny amount it would take at this point to say I am actually a gnostic atheist, in the same way, to use my earlier example, that I would claim gnosticism regarding the non-existence of leprechauns.

However, if compelling evidence surfaces for God or leprechauns, then I will happily change my belief.

This is where the question of what counts as "compelling evidence" gets interesting, especially given that atheists and Christians look at much the same evidence and draw totally different conclusions.

To take a slightly fun example, I don't believe in unicorns and I'll hazard a guess you don't either. I have no problem with the statement "I believe unicorns do not exist", and for the purposes of the illustration I'll assume you'd take a similar stance. Now imagine I'm out hiking and see a unicorn right in front of me. I get good and close to make sure it isn't a regular horse with an ice cream cone planted on its head and conclude that it's definitely a unicorn. We could flip the scenario around to make it a pegasus, or a centaur, or some other improbable creature to make sure that I can be 100% sure I'm seeing the thing I don't believe in. So I go home excited, with a new worldview based on having seen something with my own eyes and verified it with my own eyes. I tell you all about my experience of this mythical beast you've never seen and have no reason to believe exists.

What do you do with my testimony of having seen it for myself?

 

[MarkFL]

...To take a slightly fun example, I don't believe in unicorns and I'll hazard a guess you don't either. I have no problem with the statement "I believe unicorns do not exist", and for the purposes of the illustration I'll assume you'd take a similar stance. Now imagine I'm out hiking and see a unicorn right in front of me. I get good and close to make sure it isn't a regular horse with an ice cream cone planted on its head and conclude that it's definitely a unicorn. We could flip the scenario around to make it a pegasus, or a centaur, or some other improbable creature to make sure that I can be 100% sure I'm seeing the thing I don't believe in. So I go home excited, with a new worldview based on having seen something with my own eyes and verified it with my own eyes. I tell you all about my experience of this mythical beast you've never seen and have no reason to believe exists.

What do you do with my testimony of having seen it for myself?

Well, as the saying goes, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Even if someone I would trust with my life no questions asked were to tell me he saw a centaur, I would require more than that before I would be compelled to shift my worldview. I would likely only be satisfied if one of those critters was captured and studied by scientists and verified after rigorous testing to be a genuine human/horse hybrid. Otherwise, I would think that even though this person I trust truly appears to believe his/her claim, that the likelihood is far greater that they are delusional or otherwise mistaken somehow, simply because of the nature of the claim and the (virtual) impossibility of the mixing of human and horse DNA.

 

[tango]

Well, as the saying goes, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Even if someone I would trust with my life no questions asked were to tell me he saw a centaur, I would require more than that before I would be compelled to shift my worldview. I would likely only be satisfied if one of those critters was captured and studied by scientists and verified after rigorous testing to be a genuine human/horse hybrid. Otherwise, I would think that even though this person I trust truly appears to believe his/her claim, that the likelihood is far greater that they are delusional or otherwise mistaken somehow, simply because of the nature of the claim and the (virtual) impossibility of the mixing of human and horse DNA.

The saying makes a lot of sense, but if someone you did trust to the ends of the earth insisted they saw some kind of man-horse hybrid and described it as being a centaur wouldn't you at least be inclined to shift your worldview away from "they don't exist" to "maybe they exist"? What if several people you trusted started making similarly outlandish claims of seeing centaurs? Wouldn't you start to consider that maybe there was some truth in the claims?

Of course you'd want to consider the possibility some idiot was running around the woods in half a horse outfit but wouldn't you at least be more willing to consider that your worldview was wrong?

Hey, let's make this more interesting. What if you personally saw something like a centaur? You can't capture it to analyse its DNA, you can't even find it when you go back to the place you saw it with recording equipment, but you know what you saw. And you're confident that what you saw with your own eyes isn't an idiot in half a horse costume. At what point do you start to have a little, you know, faith in what you have seen even before you can generate scientific proof of anything?

 

[MarkFL]

The saying makes a lot of sense, but if someone you did trust to the ends of the earth insisted they saw some kind of man-horse hybrid and described it as being a centaur wouldn't you at least be inclined to shift your worldview away from "they don't exist" to "maybe they exist"? What if several people you trusted started making similarly outlandish claims of seeing centaurs? Wouldn't you start to consider that maybe there was some truth in the claims?

Of course you'd want to consider the possibility some idiot was running around the woods in half a horse outfit but wouldn't you at least be more willing to consider that your worldview was wrong?

Certainly, if several completely trusted friends told me they had seen a living creature with the body of a horse and the upper body of a human, then I would feel this is worth investigating, to see if I could gather more evidence. I would ask where the sighting had occurred and looks for signs in that area, and I would try to find out if any other sightings had been reported to the media as well. I would be interested to see if anyone had taken any pictures/videos of good quality.

In the end though, I would need for experts in zoology to verify that they had been found before I would actually make a worldview shift. While the sightings by laypeople would be worth looking into, I would only trust expert opinions as actual verification.

Hey, let's make this more interesting. What if you personally saw something like a centaur? You can't capture it to analyse its DNA, you can't even find it when you go back to the place you saw it with recording equipment, but you know what you saw. And you're confident that what you saw with your own eyes isn't an idiot in half a horse costume. At what point do you start to have a little, you know, faith in what you have seen even before you can generate scientific proof of anything?

In this scenario, let's say that my own sighting occurs after having been told about sightings by my trusted friends. This will rule out me thinking I am suffering from mental issues or was somehow under the influence of a powerful hallucinogen. While this sighting of my own would be even more credible to me, I would still have the need for expert verification and testing before truly believing that this creature I saw is what it appears to be. I would likely think that perhaps an experiment from a lab doing strange experiments with genetics had escaped.

 

[Lamb]

Hmm...what makes a Debate/Discussion interesting. When someone brings up something that makes me "think". I like some type of information or question where I have to delve into my beliefs and most of the time I'm not swayed. But still, I like the challenge.

What I DON'T like are the little jabs at other people. That stuff is never necessary.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Hmm...what makes a Debate/Discussion interesting. When someone brings up something that makes me "think". I like some type of information or question where I have to delve into my beliefs and most of the time I'm not swayed. But still, I like the challenge.

What I DON'T like are the little jabs at other people. That stuff is never necessary.

Jabs are so prevalent that hardly a thread exists without them.