huskerjack23

Also, I'd like to point out, if you had the personal experience of knowing God's presence, why hasn't he shown himself to me? And all of the rest of the non-religious? Or native peoples who know nothing beyond their small strips of jungle? This experience always seems to have a caveat of having a bible around.

Secondly, which God made himself known to you? If it was the God of the bible, do you totally dismiss a muslim's personal experience of seeing allah and mohammed? Of someone seeing Thor? Zeus? Ra?

If personal experience was a legitimate basis for existence, then Allah exists. The frickin Flying Spaghetti Monster exists and you best not tell me he doesn't. He personal touched me with his noodly appendage and I saw the light in the sauce.

Personal experience has never been quantifiable or demonstrable and is not and will never ever be a valid form of evidence.

 

For one, the human brain is very easily fooled. Optical illusions for instance. Under the influence of drugs, made by the human body or externally.

 

Also, why should I unaccept something on faith? It doesn't exist in the first place. I don't need to unaccept it on faith. You need me to do that. Should I also unaccept the boogeyman on faith? Children believe in the boogeyman and they swear that they saw him but I have faith that it doesn't exist because I can't prove that he doesn't.

 

Do you realize how dumb that sounds?

 

Then a majority of science is out the window since it is defined and refined by human observation and the human brain. What other way to you have to interpret the world other than through your personal experiences? Other people's personal experiences?

 

Sounding dumb or not, by definition or the word faith, that's exactly what it is. You cannot prove the boogeyman, or unicorns or other concepts don't exist, but without proof that they don't exist, you are relying on faith that they don't. Again, if you want to get hung up on the religious association of the word faith, that's your business, that doesn't make it less true though.

The majority of science isn't defined by personal experience. It's defined by repeatable experimentation, data gathering, and peer review. There's nothing personal about that. You seem to be equating the scientific method with faith in the human experience to understand such concepts. You fail to realize that it's not faith. It's calculated risk. You would call me trusting my car's brakes not to fail, faith. I would call it calculated risk. I have observed brakes work to it's intended purposes time and time again and because I have observed and basically tested brakes for myself, I understand the probability of success or failure.

Where that differentiates with faith in a god is that there is no observable phenomena of your god or any gods that can't already attributed to the natural world. No proof. None.

You have faith. I take calculated risk. That's the difference.

It's just so very insulting that you would say that I don't believe something exists based on faith. Yes none of us know that unicorns and the boogeyman don't exist, but the probability is so incredibly low, based on the fact that nobody has concrete evidence, why should I believe it exists?

jliehr,

 

Accusing an atheist of faith is a poor tactic for one simple reason––and it happens to be a reason that has to be clarified with everyone and their grandmother. Most atheists do not claim there is no god. HuskersNow is even more bold than I am when that he says there is no evidence for one so he does not believe in one. I myself qualify even that by saying I have never seen any evidence or heard any reason that would make believing in a deity reasonable. Show me the reason and if it holds I will accept your god hypothesis. Both myself and nearly every atheist I've ever come across (but not all of them) are simply at the position that you are with regard to Allah, or Santa, or fifth-dimensional reptilian aliens. You (and we) cannot claim to a certainty that they do not exist, but we do not believe in them either. Fundamentally I am in a position of not knowing.

 

Atheism comes with no set of beliefs, no church, no creed, and no statement of purpose. It is not a religion, and it does not require faith. It makes no statements about the origins of the universe, and it requires no adherence to any philosophical position, including but not limited to: skepticism, 'darwinism, rationalism', nihilism, etc, etc. You may see signs for atheist groups, or atheist picnics, or atheist ho-downs, but if you have any regard for intellectual honesty, you'll have to avoid the impulse to have an "Aha!" moment. They do not speak for me, and simply identifying their party and myself as atheist does not allow you to make a single statement about what we might as a group hold to (any more than you being an a-Santaist allows me to say anything about your opinions).

 

That being said, I do understand that in the course of conversation sometimes atheism gets tied in with materialism or empiricism and that religion can sometimes get tied in with theism. As long as everyone is comfortable with basic definitions this is just a way to shorten conversations and get to the point, but you seem to fundamentally not understand my position, or the position of the majority of soft atheists.

 

Hope that clarifies things.

 

I understand your position, I just don't agree with what your saying.

 

Here's my basis to say that your position requires faith.

 

Definition of the word faith is as follows; belief that is not based on proof. You believe that God and\or religion has not been proven to exist, or not exist is what you are saying? You have not experienced the complete knowledge of every person that has ever lived, you ignore the opinions of people who both do, and don't believe in God or religion, you don't accept the evidence (personal testimony) of the basis of their belief. That in and of itself means that you rely on faith that someone else hasn't experienced, proven or disproven said religion or God (not being specific). So either you have faith that their experiences are false, or you are ignorant of their experiences. Yet by the very mention of their experiences by myself, and the fact that you obviously don't live in a vacuum, you may not know the specifics of their experience, but you realize they exist, even if only in their false reality. Furthermore since you cannot prove, or disprove their experiences you chose not to believe them based on, you guessed it, faith.

 

Case in point, I can tell you that I have personally experienced God in a way that tells me he is real. Now you are faced with two choices, you can either believe it or not. You can pretend to make a third choice and say that I chose not to make a decision without proof, but either way you rely on faith to dismiss my experience as false. And I know you disagree, and that's fine, that's what makes discussions like these frustrating, but enjoyable.<BR style="mso-special-character: line-break"><BR style="mso-special-character: line-break">

 

Final question, what would it take to make you believe in God? What evidence do you need? Let me know and I will pray that even though you may not seek it, that the evidence one day will find you.

Personal experience has never been quantifiable or demonstrable and is not and will never ever be a valid form of evidence.

For one, the human brain is very easily fooled. Optical illusions for instance. Under the influence of drugs, made by the human body or externally.

Also, why should I unaccept something on faith? It doesn't exist in the first place. I don't need to unaccept it on faith. You need me to do that. Should I also unaccept the boogeyman on faith? Children believe in the boogeyman and they swear that they saw him but I have faith that it doesn't exist because I can't prove that he doesn't.

Do you realize how dumb that sounds?

 

 

Where have we educated ourselves out of harming each other? Can you provide examples, because I can provide examples of some pretty egregious harms caused by pretty well-educated people. Ted Kaczynski comes to mind immediately.

 

 

I never claimed that all harm would go away with more education, but that it could be lessened considerably. By education, I am not talking about those so-called institutions of learning known as public high schools or the like, I am talking about taking away ignorance and belief in unfalsifiable ideas and substituting them with reasoned out ideas based on the evidence available.

 

 

 

 

 

You also cannot safely assert that by removing religion that the person harmed by religion would not now be harmed. They may not have been harmed by religion, but they would still, possibly, be harmed. Equate the world to a minefield, and remove the mine of religion, you're still walking in a minefield. Whether it has 99 or 100 mines is statistically irrelevant, and you still haven't (and cannot) address the reason(s) the mines were put there in the first place.

 

 

 

As yet not one of your arguments has removed harm from mankind - you've just removed one of innumerable harms.

 

 

 

 

I was saying that by removing religion the person who would have been harmed will no longer be harmed because of religion.

 

 

 

Your analogy doesn't have any place in reality. Religion is not equatable to a mine in a minefield. You assume that all of the mines are equally destructive, but religion is especially so. Really, religion is an effect of ignorance. It is one of the many substitutes of reason. By lessening the amount of ignorance in the world, the amount of harm is subsequently reduced because of the harm that ignorance in general causes.

 

 

 

In the last sentence of the paragraph, are you asking me to describe to you the history of religion and how it came about?

 

 

The irony is that your arguments hold no more basis than his; you assume that because God cannot be empirically proven that God doesn't exist. Yet because God is a theory (or concept or whatever label you prefer) he is not governed by empirical evidence. Try as you will, the existence of God simply cannot be proven or disproven. You take the word of handed down books from dead scientists or philosophers that you never saw or can prove existed, yet deny Christianity that comes from books and personal accounts. Because Christianity doesn't fit your world view you automatically label it, and other religion as ignorance.

 

If you presume that religion was created by man, and that it is inherently bad in some way, you must also admit that man is inherently bad. Yet in your magic world you assume if the same people that created the monstrosity known as religion would not have the world would be a better place. Yet you completely sidestep the issues that caused man to "create" religion in the first place, an idea or belief always must start with one individual in response to something else. Without a creator, concepts or ideas cannot exist right? Something or someone had to create everything, right? Or do you just believe that everything has always existed, but just is discovered at certain times? How can something exist if it didn't have a beginning? Can you prove it existed, or that it didn't exist before? Of course not! Even the "big bang" (or whatever led to the big bang which started it all in the scientific world had to have been a result of creation (possibly not the Christian God)? Scientific theory tells us that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but if it was never created, how can it exist?

 

Atheism is no less of a religion than other religions, you can hide behind scientific theory or whatever you want, but in the end, it is just your belief system and world view into the existence or non-existence of God, which is exactly what every other religion that has ever existed is. It provides no fewer, and no greater answers than that of any other religion or world view. If it gets you to sleep at night, and gets you through life, that's all that matters. Unless of course the Christian's have it right, then you're screwed. If Christians are wrong, then it hurts them not, they will cease to exist and will have wasted a life which is just a blip in the evolving world, yet if atheists are wrong, they have a life of eternal purgatory that awaits them. Of course all sides could be wrong and then we're all screwed!

Calling atheism a religion is like saying baldness is a hair color.

It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T-16 back home, they're not much bigger than two meters.

Win!

But...I betcha I can throw a football over them mountains.

Any Adult Swim fans on here? Here's a couple of my favorites:

 

Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job!

The Venture Brothers

Squidbillies

Metalocalypse

Aqua Teen Hunger Force

King of the Hill

Sealab 2021

 

And this one is from MTV but it is one of my favorite shows:

 

Wondershowzen

You forgot Home Movies and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. And by the way, SPAGHETT!

We should direct you over to the A/V forum. Watch the best videos around that will send chills down your spine.

http://www.huskerboard.com/index.php?/forum/99-video-audio-etc/

I'll start you off with the quintessential video though.

That website is a slow cluster eff. They need to get rid of some of that stuff on there.

In a general sense, Government control and regulation and social acquiescence to these ends. The embrace of the marginalization of liberty.

 

 

In a specific sense, the government's distrust of capitalism and gradual formation of a socialist state.

 

As in you want that to happen or it is happening and you'd prefer it not to?

 

I do not want approve of this trend.

 

Phew. Me either.

 

I'm trying to narrow down my political philosophy into something that might be able to answer my own question is a succinct way. I don't think I'll quite make it, but here goes. Feel free to print this on a T-shirt, but if anyone does, make sure I get my F(*&ing royalty checks.

 

Hrrg. Hrmm...

 

Don't take my money. And don't tell me what to do.

 

I know, I know. Just let it soak in. I'm for legalizing drugs, prostitution, gambling, etc. I'm against taxes that go a penny over what is absolutely necessary to keep this country from sinking into the ocean. I understand that the government has a role, but it has far exceeded it and has instead begun social engineering, which leads directly to a dependence on the state, which is sowing the seeds of tyranny. My vote will go for the candidate who maximizes freedom and minimizes taxes almost every time. Whether he's religious or not, gay or not, black, white, purple or not, homo sapien or not, that's my horse.

I like your views X but I'm gonna take just a little bit of side view on your view. I do believe that the federal government is leading us into tyranny, but not from the centralized goverment per se. They're just the tool that the corporatocracy uses to initiate and maintain the tyranny we see. That almost sounds like conspiracy theorist paranoia just typing it out, but it just seems to me that the freedoms that were supposed to be guaranteed for the people, are also being guaranteed and actually being enforced for corporations. I just don't understand how such a huge gap in the socio-economic classes can benefit a country, especially on a global scale like this.

But I'm kind of an idiot, tell me off if I'm off base anywhere.

I'm gonna nominate Brophog as newcomer of the year, just based on the two Offense trending threads. Guys is bringing an A game that I rarely see on message boards, and Huskerboard is really an A game of an establishment. Kudos to that guy.

I have the flatulence guys. Stay away.

Listening to USC right now and they're reading emails obtained from Dan Beebe through the freedom of informatino act. The email they're focusing on is one Beebe THOUGHT he was sending to remaining Big XII teams. He begins his email with "I'm not sending this to Colorado or Nebraska for obvious reasons" yet the email was, in fact, sent to both schools. The kicker is, in this email Beebe explains that the loss of the two schools WILL NOT hurt the conference, and in fact may make things BETTER financially for everyone left in the conference. Assuming Nebraska and Colorado have lawyers worth their weight in salt, they should have no problem convincing a judge they do not owe exit fees. Thank you, Mr. Beebe, for reminding us how lucky we are to be getting out of a conference run by someone as incompetent as you

I can't find a link to the email, but if anyone does, please post

Considering Nebraska has a tenured law professor as it's Chancellor, I think they'll be fine haha

Has anyone used, and I'm sure you have, I-Form Tackle Over - HB Power O? That play is 9 yards a gain minimum almost every time. It's almost unfair.

I just love this conversation.

The offense was effective against the Sun Belt teams. How did the Huskers go from effective to inept? Was it really the talent gap? I know Baylor and Iowa State aren't Sun Belt teams, but shouldn't we have been able to score at least 20 points against each of those teams?

We need to pinpoint when the offense really lost it's effectiveness. The VTech game is when Zac Lee got injured. The O-line was basically a shiite pile the entire season. Two of the returning WR's from '08 collectively crapped their pants and got benched for what half the frickin season because they kept dropping passes.

So I would suggest that if there's any blame to put on the offense's ineffectiveness would go 1.) Injuries, 2.) Position Coaching, 3.) Inexperience, 4.) QB play.

I mean if you really thought about it, QB play hinges upon those other factors. This is a team game after all.

I'm more psyched about the Polar Tank. Just think about how much milk you can store in one of them things.

Is Husker_x an atheist now? I remember sometime last year arguing with you about atheism vs. agnosticism as if they could be mutually exclusive and that's not really true. Gnosticism has to do with knowledge and theism has to do with belief. Most of us would probably subscribe to agnostic atheist because most of us are skeptics and logical and even though we don't believe in god claims, it would be stupid of us to make an assertion that one didn't exist. It's almost an unknowable claim. Especially because most apologists make claims about how god is outside of our universe, etc. etc.

 

Yeah I'm an atheist.

I must've misunderstood that initial argument. I'm sure that topic has long been buried.

Is Husker_x an atheist now? I remember sometime last year arguing with you about atheism vs. agnosticism as if they could be mutually exclusive and that's not really true. Gnosticism has to do with knowledge and theism has to do with belief. Most of us would probably subscribe to agnostic atheist because most of us are skeptics and logical and even though we don't believe in god claims, it would be stupid of us to make an assertion that one didn't exist. It's almost an unknowable claim. Especially because most apologists make claims about how god is outside of our universe, etc. etc.

Two of those schools are military schools so they definitely deserve it. Penn State could deserve it but I'm rather biased towards Devaney, Pelini, and the Huskers.

2001 Oklahoma was a day game too. That was 1 vs. 2 wasn't it?

Does anyone else not like the playcalling screen? I'm not really liking having to cycle through the plays like that

I hate it too. Frickin thing is annoying

I think it's funny that either Adi has one of his jerseys with him at all times or he knew he'd be meeting the president and purposefully brought one to give to the man.

Either way, it's funny to think about.

Adi Kunalic gave a jersey to the president? What is going on here?

Ford Field would be my top choice because there would never be any in-state homers playing in it.

 

 

M*ch*gan, Michigan State.

Oh, my bad, I was thinking that was the one in Indianapolis...

 

 

University of Indiana, Purdue.

Yep. I'm standing by this one.

Harsh haha

With Nebraska's 2-3 scramblers on the QB depth chart, I am thinking everyone will be using the Huskers online.

I was thinking the same thing. Cheese teams are scrambling QB's who throw deep to a fast receiver, with a lights out defense so that you don't actually have to play defense.