Is it better to be happy or right?

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
What is lacking in this dialogue is Charitibility in Interpretation and so far I have seen very little given by those who wish to deny that observation is worth more than a fart.

If you want to get technical, try this: It would be very unlikely that lobsters (quarks, muons, leptons, whatever) exist if their empirical consequence had never been observed.

[/ QUOTE ]

(I trust you mean "charitability".)

The consequences do not all have one explanation; they can be attributed to numerous causes or sources, all of them "theoretically" sound and consistent. Experimental verification, when achieved, only eliminates the many-states solution, leaving us with one concrete (version of) reality.

The usual example, I believe, is in quantum phyiscs, where experimental "verification" came about much later than the theory. Noentheless, the tenets of the theory were accepted (admittedly, not by all) before experimental verification - because they explained the consequences observed better (and more fully) than the other mind constructs. This despiote the fact that some of the latter carried the badge of experimental "verification".

[Bodhi]

Philosophy of science abandonned "verification" decades ago, now all we seek is "confirmation." [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[HigherAce]

Well what if there was evidence that there was no all powerfull creator. It was proven over and over again. Do you think, faced with these "facts"(whatever they would be), religioso's would instantly turn & give up there beliefs? I think religion has been crammed so deep into the masses minds that this argument doens't matter if there were facts or not. Same thing with old people. Most dont want to abandoned their life long beliefs and way of doing things..for any reason. Good-bad, logical-illogical, or even true or false.

[Mr_J]

Well it's not really possible to know if there is a right or wrong when it comes to whether God exists.

There are so many arguements to why God probally doesn't exist, and reasonable explanations for everything where people would normally argue why God does exist (I personally think people originally created God to explain what we didn't know or couldn't understand).

People believe in God because they were told he exists, not because they originally believed he exists.

The way I see it, it's like a typical gambler vs an advantage player.

However, if believing in God makes people happy, what's the point in spoiling it for them.

[Mr_J]

I totally agree. Religion is like gambling beliefs, just much more deeply rooted in to society.

We've reached an age where religion isn't necessary. If every generation from now on was brought up without knowing about religion, I think only a small % might be open minded to the idea. We've been brought up to believe God exists for thousands of years. Religion isn't going anywhere any time soon.

It's funny how so many people will believe in God, but not believe in something like aliens or something (by aliens I just mean any sort of life on another planet).

Ironically I think that's one of the things that would really hurt religion. If we had a visit from some outer space neighbours or something. Belief in God would probally be largely replaced by belief in the human race. Too weird.