Winston Churchill: "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

Why I'm dreaming of a white-noise Christmas

 Lazy8 wrote: 
Just because something is non-objectifiable does not require the introduction of a supernatural actor. A dream, for example. You can't weigh it, can't measure it and it certainly won't fit in your scientific jar. We exist in an objective universe and live in a subjective reality. We can quantify the stuff around us, but how we respond and interact with that stuff is based upon our perceptions. It matters not that, in some unknown future, scientists may chart the analog pathways of perception, the perceptions themselves are still subjective. None of which require a supernatural actor or deity. The problem inherent within the supposed rational model you present is that it is an either/or didactic: something is either quantifiable, or it requires deity and is therefore not real. Perception is outside the bounds of the quantifiable and has no need of deity to explain nor sustain it as being a valid mode of apprehending our world. Perception is sufficient unto itself.

 Proclivities wrote: 


Things we can't quantify-that we can't fill jars with-cannot be said to be objectively "true". And when science can't explain something (and I hasten to add: yet) that doesn't imply any supernatural actor.

 Proclivities wrote:  
Well said.

Science can profess over rational, orderly, predictable and random things and even explain chaos, but it can offer nothing on the irrational.  Or it will pronounce the irrational as non existent because there is no reason or logic for the existence of the irrational.  Emotions can be rational and irrational all at once.

On that thought, is behavioral science an oxymoron ?

 hippiechick wrote: 
Brilliant - thanks for posting

Happy Festivus for the rest of us!

 miamizsun wrote:
It's all connected.

 Lazy8 wrote: 


Is he related to the single cell Hammond Organism living beneath Frank's shoes?

 hippiechick wrote: 
I understand his points and generally agree with what he is saying; Nietzsche said all of it better about 125 years ago. However, one cannot apply the scientific method to everything. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I am not at all anti-science; in fact, I am very much an advocate of Science, but Gervais is deifying "Science" - hailing it as some mystical, objective entity. Science - like religion - is practiced by subjective, opinionated, fallible human beings. Religion and/or Faith are personal and largely emotional subjects - I don't mean the organized religious view of "God", but rather one's personal sense of spirituality. Emotional matters can scarcely be solved by Science, despite what the true-believers of Science may place their faith in. Aesthetics cannot be satisfactorily defined or answered by Science either - despite centuries of attempts. Why does one person like a certain curry dish or a particular writer or musician? Why does one person find another person attractive? Why do people fall in love? Why do the numbers of packaged hot dogs and packaged hot dog buns never match? None of these questions can be fully answered by Science. Does he mean to presume that love, anger, happiness, or any sort of emotional and/or aesthetic values cannot really exist because there is "no scientific proof" to substantiate or quantify their existence?  Is any one of those things nonexistent because no one can "present a jar of it"?

Does God Exist? Ricky Gervais Takes Your Questions

 justlistening wrote: 

 islander wrote:

I'm just made in his image. Which I think makes him a single-celled organism...

When my partner screams that,,I always say..No No it's me !

 musik_knut wrote: (and hippiechick asked) 

I believe it's "NO GOD!! oh, NO GOD!!"

However if the partner feels that way about their mate then they might very well yell out OH GOD. edit (or You're God)

 musik_knut wrote:
I've yelled Oh God! many a time

 Lazy8 wrote: 
God speaks through you?

 musik_knut wrote:
I make the same noise god does.

If he had any neighbors he would totally wake them up.

 hippiechick wrote: 

I think in the throes of an orgasm, an atheist yells out "I don't believe!'...

 justlistening wrote: 
And sex? What about sex?

Does God Exist? Ricky Gervais Takes Your Questions
Earlier this week, in an essay that drew a deluge of comments, British comic, actor and filmmaker Ricky Gervais argued against the existence of God.

To give Wall Street Journal readers a chance to respond, we asked Gervais to answer via email some of the most frequently asked questions about his article.