The first flaw in Sklanskyanity

[goofball]

The first logical objeciton I can see to your religion follows. I haven't bothered yet to think of others, and welcome them from other users.

Years ago, lightening wasn't understood. People thought it was caused by god. Now we better understand it and know better. Obviously there can be thousands of things plugged in in place of lightening: disease and the sun come to mind.

Merely because we don't understand the impetus for the creation of the current universe, I see no reason to introduce god in any form in a feeble attempt to explain what we don't understand. To do so is in clear violation of Ockham's razor.

The only use I see for the term is as a placeholder for whatever that cause was whether it was due to natural forces, a non onminpotent being from another dimension(like a scientist with an ant farm), the being you describe, or even the christian god.

[David Sklansky]

Wait. A non omnipotent scientist from another dimension with an ant farm qualifies to be my god. In fact I almost used that exact phrase myself. As to how he could have the power to punish after death, An Unexpected Ending, the last chapter of Poker Gaming and Life could give an inkling. Being in a higher dimension lets you do a lot of things.

Don't you be goin dissin my religion. I have a lot less patience than Not Ready.

[NotReady]

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I see no reason to introduce god in any form in a feeble attempt to explain what we don't understand. To do so is in clear violation of Ockham's razor.


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A simple definition of the Razor

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In its simplest form, Occam's Razor states that one should make no more assumptions than needed.


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How do you know what is needed to explain all the complexity of the universe? Every scientific "explanation" raises new questions. No explanation has yet been offered for existence itself. Saying a Big Bang did it is hardly an expanation.

Interesting to note that William was a Franciscan friar. Amazing how these stupid Christians keep advancing human knowledge.

[Exsubmariner]

"How do you know what is needed to explain all the complexity of the universe? Every scientific "explanation" raises new questions. No explanation has yet been offered for existence itself. "

The same is true of every major religion in the world. The good ones keep bringing up new questions. They incorporate them into the dogma. It's called "mystery" and it keeps the masses coming back to fill the collection plate.
It seems you're really worried about these upstart guys called scientists butting into your racket, how dare they... whats worse, they are better at this word game than you are.
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[David Sklansky]

"Interesting to note that William was a Franciscan friar. Amazing how these stupid Christians keep advancing human knowledge."

As I have said before, it was much more reasonable to be fervently religious hundreds of years ago.

Today however, if I am not mistaken, a much higher percentage of Jewish and Asian people go on to get Phds in this country than Christian People, especially (I think) in technical fields. (Don't get confused by that wording please. If 60% of the Phds go to Christians and 30% to Jews and Asians, the second category is at least five times as likely to get one).

The explanation for this is either that Christians are less intelligent or (more likely) that their faith makes them less curious about finding the truth about things since they think they basically already know it.

[NotReady]

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The same is true of every major religion in the world.


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The point I was making is human knowledge is limited. You seem to be implying that man has explained everything, so we don't need God anymore.

So explain everything.

And by the way, I don't have a racquet.

[NotReady]

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The explanation for this is either that Christians are less intelligent or (more likely) that their faith makes them less curious about finding the truth about things since they think they basically already know it.


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I can think of a much better explanation but I'm not going to state it until you answer my questions.

[David Sklansky]

If you are talking about what I believe about life after death, the makings of the universe, and other stuff that science has yet little clue about, the answer is I believe nothing. I assign probabilities to various theories I have and none of thes probabilities are much greater than 50%.

[goofball]

Yes your god (almost) qualifies as one of the possibilities. My claim is that given what we know now there's certainly no reason to favor him over the possibility of no god.

Also, your god doesn't quite qualify. You stipulate that he cares about us being happy. Under only one circumstance could I see that being true, and that is if his hypothesis is somehow related to us being happy. Then even still he would be rooting to confirm his hypothesis and only indirectly for our happiness. Outside of the remote above exmple I see no reason why he would care about our happiness any more than I would care abotu that happiness of rats were I do to an experiment on them (or elementary particles, if they had feelings).

[Exsubmariner]

"So explain everything."

I don't have to. All I have to keep doing is tapping the glass.

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