Thread: Question for ATHIESTS

Originally Posted by lordyM

Damn scientists, tampering with the WILL OF GOD.

Funny how god's will is so easily tampered with. :3

Originally Posted by Mark75

That's just an appeal to authority.

And as such, is evidence, but not proof. It's consensual that an authority is more likely to be right, but not guaranteed to be right.

Logic can be applied to all things. IMO Logic is so darned underrated. There's nothing more beautiful than it.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

And as such, is evidence, but not proof.

It's not evidence of anything. Things believed by an intelligent person aren't inherently truer than those believed by others of lesser intelligence. That an authority believes so or asserts so has no relevance to the truth of the claim.

Originally Posted by Mark75

That's just an appeal to authority.

*warning Robinson family - incorrect use of logical fallacy*

An expert in a field -by definition - has access to more knowledge than you do regarding their field of study. As such, their opinion carries more evidential weight than yours or mine does purely because they are more well informed and more versed in their field.

A classic appeal to authority would be to say you should adopt Einsteins views on theology because he's Einstein (ie: a very smart man). But Einstein wasn't trained in theology, he was trained in theoretical astrophysics. Therefore his opinion is no more useful on the subject of theology than yours or mine - hence the logical fallacy.

Saying that an expert has a more valid opinion on their branch of science is valid, not fallacious.

Strangely enough, Einstien, as smart as he was, believed in god.

Originally Posted by Alextanium

An expert in a field -by definition - has access to more knowledge than you do regarding their field of study. As such, their opinion carries more evidential weight than yours or mine does purely because they are more well informed and more versed in their field.

Their opinion is more valid only if it's more accurate or well supported (which we should typically expect to be the case from an expert.) The fact that they are an expert or smart is still irrelevant. The relevant factor is not their "expertness" but rather the truth of their claims. Their expert status should not be considered. If a non-expert can correctly show the expert's claims false, even within the expert's field, the non-expert is still correct. The only reason their opinions are more likely to (but not inherently) carry more evidential weight is because they're most probably just more valid and informed opinions to begin with, not due to their "expertness". At no point should the level of expertise be compared. Only the validity of the claims.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Strangely enough, Einstien, as smart as he was, believed in god.

Einstein said religious texts were a bunch of sometimes meaningful but often childish stories, and that the idea of a powerful and aware being controlling reality was stupid.

He only ever referred to God in the sense of the beauty in the uniformity of physical laws.

Which in my opinion isn't God.

Originally Posted by Xei

Einstein said religious texts were a bunch of sometimes meaningful but often childish stories, and that the idea of a powerful and aware being controlling reality was stupid.

He only ever referred to God in the sense of the beauty in the uniformity of physical laws.

Which in my opinion isn't God.

as far as I know, he always strictly sperated god and physics... ?

But I don't think any statements about what he actually thought can be made anyway

He was pretty clear about it.

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

Originally Posted by Mark75

Their opinion is more valid only if it's more accurate or well supported (which we should typically expect to be the case from an expert.) The fact that they are an expert or smart is still irrelevant. The relevant factor is not their "expertness" but rather the truth of their claims. Their expert status should not be considered. If a non-expert can correctly show the expert's claims false, even within the expert's field, the non-expert is still correct. The only reason their opinions are more likely to (but not inherently) carry more evidential weight is because they're most probably just more valid and informed opinions to begin with, not due to their "expertness". At no point should the level of expertise be compared. Only the validity of the claims.

Mark it seems we're both dancing around the same point here. An experts opinion should be counted higher than some schmuck on the street (my point), unless said schmuck on the street can demonstrate the expert to be wrong (your point). We're not disagreeing here. I just feel it unlikely that said street schmuck knows fuck all when compared to someone thats been studying a branch of science for 10-20 years of their life.

I'm not saying take their word for everything. Merely that they are more likely to be correct on a matter pertaining to their field. To dismiss all relevant conclusions coming from a large body of scientists because 'I don't trust them there experts' is childish at best and asinine at worst.

Einstein was a pantheist. Not a theist.

Originally Posted by Xei

He was pretty clear about it.

"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

It's not all he said, though.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_Einstein_believe_in_God

Answer

Albert Einstein is on record as saying that he did not believe in a personal God. He said:

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."

Einstein also said:

"I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion. I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism. The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive."

Answer

Albert Einstein is on record as saying that he did not believe in a personal God. They keyword is personal. Einstein did not believe that god knows or cares about you on a personal level, that he hears your prayers or interferes in anyway in response to prayers. Instead, he believed that there was a God that maintained and created the harmony of the universe.

On whether he considered himself religious: "Yes, you could call it that. Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything we can comprehend is my religion."

On whether he accepted the historical existence of Christ: "Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."

On whether he considered himself an atheist: "I'm not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what that is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the most intelligent human toward God."

On the nature of God: "That deeply emotional conviction of a presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."

On whether science leads to religion: "Every one who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of nature--a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort."

On how religion motivates scientific inquiry: "The cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research."

On whether science and religion are at odds: "The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

On how he feels about atheist efforts to claim him as an ally: "There are people who say there is no God, but what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views."

On how he regards atheists: "The fanatical atheists...are creatures who cannot her the music of the spheres. I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist. What separates me from most so-called atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos."
Answer:

A year before his death Einstein wrote (full letter at link):

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

Originally Posted by ninja9578

Strangely enough, Einstien, as smart as he was, believed in god.

Untrue. He even declared on an interview that people interpreted him wrong. He was an atheist for all senses. His "God" was nature.

Originally Posted by Mark75

It's not evidence of anything. Things believed by an intelligent person aren't inherently truer than those believed by others of lesser intelligence. That an authority believes so or asserts so has no relevance to the truth of the claim.

Nah. "Truer" doesn't exist to science. Authorities are more likely to be true than an average person. Just like an evidence makes something more likely to be true, but doesn't make it true automatically. Arguments of authority are evidence.

Einstein sure as hell wasn't christian, but he wasn't atheist either.

On whether he considered himself an atheist: "I'm not an atheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what that is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the most intelligent human toward God."

If we really want to be so childish to play the category game then his answer
clearly shows that he is agnostic in the original sense of the word, not being
able to know, because whatever the greater order might be, it would have to
be far out of the reach of the human potential.

What I wanted to show with my previous posts and all I tried to say was
that it's not going to be as easy as this, to dissect Einstein's beliefs and
understanding of the nature of the universe. The question is, if people
here are truly interested in what it was that he thought, or if they're just
trying to argue for their side of opinion to win over this 'authority'.

On a side note, this thread is very odd.

I think that is a very important point. In the end, it really doesn't matter what Einstein thought about it, at least not from a personal perspective. He denied at least a couple important things that we now know to be probably true.

Not only that, the man was one of the most intelligent minds of our time. It is impossible to distill his thoughts on the subject of god into any label that he did not self apply based only on the relatively scant amount of writing he did on the subject.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

Nah. "Truer" doesn't exist to science. Authorities are more likely to be true than an average person. Just like an evidence makes something more likely to be true, but doesn't make it true automatically. Arguments of authority are evidence.

Mmm. Not really. The reason why one could legitimately argue from authority is because it is possible to list the reasons why that authority believes as they do or says what they say. The reasons should be enough to argue the point (the actual evidence) and the authority should be the icing on the cake.

http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/einstein.htm

Einsteins theological leanings are completely irrelevant. He was not a theologian, he was an astro-physicist. This line of conversation as it pertains to whether an argument from authority is valid or not is just pie in the sky wankery.

Why do people care so much whether Einstein believed in god? Does someone seriously think that "Einstein was a genius, and he [did/did not] believe in god, therefore my view is proven correct" is an argument that is worth something?

As I said, I think it is far more interesting to understand the way he
perceived the nature of reality and whatever it is that is beyond our
perception of it. This I actually find pretty relevant, rather then the
question if he believed in a personal god, which he obviously didn't.

And I absolutely agree that what you are criticising is pointless.
Everytime a discussion like this is becoming about someones 'side'
it gets too premature for my taste, it's just so tiresome to argue
about belief in abstracts as if they were fact. In this sense, any
side can be equally fundamental.

Wow, for the love of... well, you know...

Did we go from debating the validity of the Shroud of Turin and the Empty Tomb to Einstein's personal beliefs? Why should we even debate his beliefs?

Damn, you're right. But it's still interesting. Sorry 'bout that, though

Originally Posted by Alextanium

Einsteins theological leanings are completely irrelevant. He was not a theologian, he was an astro-physicist. This line of conversation as it pertains to whether an argument from authority is valid or not is just pie in the sky wankery.

So, when someone is claiming Einstein believed in God, his opinion matters, but when someone claims he didn't believe in a God, then his opinion doesn't matter.


PHYSICISTS STUDY NATURE AND REALITY. No-one on earth is better to talk about a possible god than them. Einstein's opinion does matter - he is an authority.

Funny fact: most theologians are atheists.

I guess I was mistaking, I guess he didn't believe in god. I must have been thinking of another scientist

Did any of you read Einstein's quotes that were posted? Can't you see that it is not so black and white? A genius doesn't see things as so black and white. He neither believed nor disbelieved in God. Only fools are so certain to make up their minds so hastily, a wise person who sees into the nature of reality profoundly deeply and comes up with the thoroy of relativity and that energy and matter are one is hesitant on claiming either way because he doesn't see it so black and white and he knows that he will be misunderstood.

Don't put Einstein into your own box.

Now even if Jesus's powerful energy burned his image into the shroud of Turin and he resurrected out of a tomb, that has nothing to do with whether or not their is a God, and that this God, if he exists, is a Christian God. It has nothing to do with god, it has to do with Jesus. But there is no evidence that the shroud has anything to do with Jesus and there is absolutely no proof of him ever existing, much less becoming resurrected.

That is not to say that I don't think that he existed. However, I don't think that he is the only begotten son of God and he has no power to save anybody from anything. So, what does the shroud of Turin or the myth that Jesus resurrected have anything to do with my life in relation to this cosmos? It makes no difference to me. If I believe in Jesus, which I do, it is even without the shroud, and without him being resurrected. To me, Jesus was just another powerful enlightened individual who got murdered by the fundies. And God is irrelevant. In fact, it depends on what you mean by the word God as to whether I believe in it or not. It also depends on my mood. To me God is the sum of all energy and matter in its quantum potential state expressed in my own subjective awareness and that every moment is now. Which has nothing to do with a prehistoric rag.

Originally Posted by Kromoh

PHYSICISTS STUDY NATURE AND REALITY. No-one on earth is better to talk about a possible god than them. Einstein's opinion does matter - he is an authority.

I think it's a bit sophomoric to say no-one on Earth is better to talk about a "possible god" than a scientist. Einstein's opinion would matter the most to a scientific audience, because that's where Einstein would typically have authority. That's where the value comes from. Being valued is not the same as being true, however. A smart theologist may agree with Einstien's view in General Relativity, but not in his opinion of God. Perhaps they can both be an authority in their own respective fields of knowledge, no?