"Atheist is hardest; they are narrow-minded and usually only consider empirical ideas."
46 comments
No, not empirical evidence! Anything but that!
I do agree with Muhammad B on one point: Christian because most of them don’t know anything about their own religion and rely on blind faith.
And we all know how empirical facts and ideas are bad for people..
Its better for people to have light switches that work less than 50% of the time.
Its better for people to have people guessing how to fix their cars and leaving it up to faith that it will work.
Its better to have a doctor consider the possibility that cancer fighting imps will cure their patients instead of trial and error using empirical facts.
Perhaps faith that people will be nice enough not to invade our country would be better than having a standing army.
"...and usually only consider empirical ideas."
Is there really a problem with that? I mean, if we ask you to prove a claim you make, isn't that just normal skepticism? Why is this a bad thing with you people? Why is faith considered a virtue? And what's the difference between faith and gullibility?
Funny how they want us to believe in supernatural ideas when they know they can't prove them at all.
I don't know. There's no shortage of things that I'd like to be true, even without hard data. The easiest example of this is intelligent life on other planets. I'm fine with the fact that there's no proof given our current understandings of both life and the universe but the possibility certainly exists. After all, if it happened here (notwithstanding the fact thar Muhammad B clearly isn't intelligent), why can't it have happened somewhere else?
@ mudak:
Given the number of potential opportunities, the odds favor life elsewhere in the universe.
Given the number of rational explanations for events previously considered to be magical and god-created, and given the bald assertions that: the alleged supreme being is unique, had no antecedents or moment of creation or non-existence, is all-knowing without the requirement of experience, etc., etc., the odds favor that the assertion is bullshit by quite a margin.
Does the phrase "empirical idea" mean anything at all? I mean, rational idea means something. Empirical evidence, ditto. But, empirical idea? Can someone give this foreigner an example of such thing?
Actually, reading this question, I'm not sure that that this was entirely intended as an insult. The question was: "Who would you rather debate?"
This guy answered Christians becuase they know little about their own religion. He was saying that debating atheists is most difficult because of their devotion to facts.
At least they get ideas...
em·pir·i·cal /?m'p?r?k?l/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [em-pir-i-kuhl] Show IPA
Use empirical in a Sentence
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adjective 1. derived from or guided by experience or experiment.
2. depending upon experience or observation alone, without using scientific method or theory, esp. as in medicine.
3. provable or verifiable by experience or experiment.
contradiction? I think so.
BTW I was looking for a comic about a world without christians, anyone know what im talking about? The one with the guy daydreaming about buying a coke?
@Clown:
Well "empirical idea" sort of has a meaning in the philosophy of empiricism. An empirical idea would be one arrived at through sensory experience, in contrast to "innate ideas", which strict empiricism rejects. Also utilitarianism is sometimes referred to as an empirical system, and by extension something's utility is an empirical idea.
In general, philosophically an empirical idea would be "selected experience" (W.E. Hocking), i.e. the formulation of a generalisation or law from sensation.
But, phenomenology aside, I doubt MB here is alluding to anything nearly so clever and is probably stringing half-understood terms together to sound clever. I'd call him a 'tard for it, but there's more than a slight chance I'm doing the same above.
;-)
Nah, I'll consider any flights of fancy you might have...
...and label it under "comedy", "tragedy" and/or "useless trivia"!
Open-mindedness is a virtue, yes, but not to the point where your brains are falling out your ears.
If you have evidence for the existence of your god then by all means present it. I would be very interested to see it but I doubt you have anything other than stories in old books, written by ignorant people.
@breakerslion. I concede that much. I'm just saying that, as an atheist myself, it's not all empirical data. We can certainly tweak those odds with assumptions about the chances of that life being decimated before they're discovered. Odds or not, we have no current evidence to support any hypotheses surrounding extraterrestrial intelligence. Therefore, to say anything approximating 'I believe that other planets have intelligent life' is exactly that: a belief.
Not really, Some things don't need to be proven to me. Free-thinker is a phrase associated with Atheists for a reason, we're recognized by others for this. Our range of knowledge is almost always wider than those dedicated to political or religious idealogies.
We can consider the 'other side' of an issue, because we don't have leaders telling us how to think
I've abandoned the use of the terms 'believe' and 'faith' for myself.
There's always a synonym that describes my meaning exactly, and which doesn't open up the floodgates to Fundie claims 'You have a belief, that's a religion, and your faith is exactly equal to my willful denial of facts'. (I admit I paraphrased there for the sake of clarity.)
In the 'Extraterrestrial life' example, the terms opinion, judgment, and expectation are all adequate.
Even if I assumed this guy was using the word "empirical" correctly, many famous thinkers (Descartes for example) tried and failed to prove the existence of God according to the rationalist school of epistemology. So, it really wouldnt make much of a difference one way or another.
@Doubting Thomas
Its interesting how anything considered a virtue can also be considered a vice.
Faith, Trust=Gullibility
Strong-willed/Firm=Stubborn
Honest=Blunt
Proud=Arrogant
Humble=Weak, Passive
Generous=Easy
Honorable, Good=Self-Righteous, Goody Twoshoes
Clever, Discrete=Deceitful, Lying
And where you draw the line is subjective. Its really impossible to be good without being bad. Morality is based on human interpretation.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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