Is evil nurtured, or natural?

[thalbergmad]

YES I think Thalberg needs some new hobbies.  His only purpose on this forum seems to be to harass pianistimo and put down religion.     Come on thal, can you post something positive, exciting anything nonreligous.  You complain about religion but then that is all you post about.

1. I have enough hobbies.
2. I do harass pianistimo and do enjoy it. Would you deny me this pleasure?
3. If i did start an exciting nonreligious subject, SHE would infest it.
4. I do complain about religion. Its not all i post about, but it is difficult to avoid when there is a large amount of threads on this board that contain it.

Your defense of this woman is very noble.

Thal

[thalbergmad]

I hope that you take the time to examine just how much material he has posted for the use of others in the sheet music requests section and retract that comment.

Thank you old chap.

Did not want to say it myself.

I don't think the tambourine bangers go in the sheet music thread very often.

Too many evil homo composers you see.

Massive regards

Thal

[asyncopated]

Belief in something that transcends the material world is necessary to believe in free wil  This is how I derive that:
1) Free will in it's simplest form is that individuals can make some choices about their lives
2) A solitary atom lacks free will.  It is subject to the laws of nature.  The very thought of it making a choice is absurd.
3) The human body is nothing more than a very complex collection of atoms.
4) Since humans are made of many components all of which are bound by physical laws, they are similarly bound, including their thoughts.  At no point can the complexity of the human body confer the ability to choose.
5) Therefore, free will is not logically compatible with materialist atheism.

That is not to say that Atheists don't have free will.  Only that a wholly rational Atheist would have to reject that notion or be inconsistent.  If there is no God, there can be no free will.

I was going to say bullshit, but.... ok what the heck, it's bullshit.

You don't need a theistic viewpoint to "transcend the material world" or believe in free will.  Any pursuit that does not really have a materialistic outcome transcends the material world.  Like playing the piano -- for me I don't and will probably never make money out of this, but i still do this just for my pleasure.  There is absolutely no material expectation involved. 

Apart from that there are many moral philosphies and idealogies that do not invoke any god whatsoever.  This is a perfectly natural human response. You live with other human beings, naturally you want to find ways to either oppress them fully or failing that live in harmony.  In this case, I would prefer the former, but seem to have no free will in that.

The human body as with everything else is governed by quantum mechanics.  We don't really know how/why quantum machnics works, but it is based on a probabilitic theory.  If you want an accurate description, it is described on a hilbert space with an l₂ norm, the square of which gives the probabilty of the wave function in the ket (adjoint) state.

Even the physical laws at the smallest scale are non-deterministic.  Not to mention something as complex as the human brain, in which all this must come into play by some process that has yet been explained. 

Whatever the case may be, it is clear that your argument is a logical fallacy just through my actions.  I choose to write this here and now.  I am exerting free will.  I don't believe or disbelieve in god, and don't invoke it.  That is irrelavant but still I exert that I am doing this of my own free will with no one pointing a gun to my head. I believe in the free will of saying that what you have just said about free will is bullshit.

[jpianoflorida]

1. I have enough hobbies.
2. I do harass pianistimo and do enjoy it. Would you deny me this pleasure?
3. If i did start an exciting nonreligious subject, SHE would infest it.
4. I do complain about religion. Its not all i post about, but it is difficult to avoid when there is a large amount of threads on this board that contain it.

Your defense of this woman is very noble.

Thal

Thal. Are you secretly in love with pianistimo? is that it? that's what this is really about.  Now we get it.

[pianistimo]

dear asyncopated,

you said 'you want to find ways to oppress them fully or failing that, live in harmony.'  this is an occultish viewpoint.  did you know that recently the emblem of the redcross has been sorta nixed or added to by a red crystal.  this is supposedly a humanistic emblem.  what it means to me is that in every area of society - we are told 'NO RELIGION.'  accept it.

i will not accept it.  i will not be oppressed for it either.  in fact, when it comes down to it - i will die for freedom.  freedom for my country and freedom of religion and worship to God.

what will you die for?

i'm not saying that you accept the occult.  perhaps you are just 'brainwashed.'  but, our governments accept power by believing that occultish ways are good for uniting the nations.  do you see any form of religious tolerance in the united nations policies?  they started out saying - everyone will have a national identity - and then systematically asked each country to nix 'under almighty God'  or anything to do with God in their constitutions.  within several years this has also been asked of africa. 

now, if you were a christian - would you like to see everything you believe abolished in the name of world peace.  i think it is hypocritical.  my fight is not against you.  my fight is against infiltrators of sovereign nations - they are seeking to create a one world system without God.

free-will is *** *** to those who do not want freedom.  sovereign nations.  autonomy.  did you know we're being set up for this?

[asyncopated]

you said 'you want to find ways to oppress them fully or failing that, live in harmony.' 

Sorry this was my attempt at tongue in cheek humour + a bit of sacasm  ok... i lie, a bucket load of sacasm. 

BTW I wasn't really thinking about religion there.  Was thinking more about why people thought in the past that slavery was acceptable (even preached in the bible) and why we now don't think it is.

This is not the occult, have you no idea of your country's history?  Didn't the american civil war happen? 

The idea of oppressing people is not a new one.  It's even recorded in the bible in moses saying "let my people go".  Ermmm.. why am i telling you what is written in the bible?

All I am saying is that it is quite natural for people to want to find ways of living harmonously with other given that oppression is OBVIOUSLY not acceptable.  I.e. the study of moral philosophy, with or without a religious context.

I just didn't say it very well.

what will you die for?

At the moment, this is not a relevant question.  I am tempted to say nothing, but I guess it's not accurate.  I suppose an interesting question is whether I have a choice in this matter.  Can i choose to die? Will you let me choose?

perhaps you are just 'brainwashed.'

by?  who is the omnipotent being that has brainwashed me?

now, if you were a christian - would you like to see everything you believe abolished in the name of world peace.  i think it is hypocritical.  my fight is not against you.  my fight is against infiltrators of sovereign nations - they are seeking to create a one world system without God.

I think the first thing to note is that not everyone believes in your god.  You share the world with muslims, hindus, jewish, buddist and a huge number of other people who believe in other gods or philisophical systems.  Governence was onces intertwined with religion, when the church had alot of power and yet I think that this is a very bad thing.  I'd rather a world be governed under material neccesity than theological foundings.  It's just an opinion. It does scares me to think of what would happen if someone like Ayatollah Khomeini dictated all policy.  Would you bow to his demands and the policies he sets?  He is after all a very pious man.

[pianistimo]

sorry if i sounded harsh.  i just get worked up about these things.  i mean benjamin franklin and william penn didn't add to freedoms and liberties - just to have it dashed within one generation.  if neither of them could have spoken their minds - they wouldn't have accomplished so much change.

but, now individual freedoms are scorned. frowned upon.  if someone is an independent thinker - they are not reliable.  reliable to be a 'slave.'  did you know you can be a slave without thinking you are one.

i say the entire populatioin is already becoming more enslaved by the second.  what do you really control?  do you control your life?  how many people know almost everything about you.  (i can say for myself - i'm not into spying on people in the least.  i think it is a sacriledge of human rights and privacies). 

writing down information about people can be the first ways that people LOSE rights.  why do you think hitler used this method.  was he God?  of course not.  but, he liked the feeling.  how many people - higher up in WORLD government have 'pets' that are in every country today?  and these 'pets' have 'pets' -- and so on.  in fact, i would daresay, in your own neighborhood there are people spying on you that you are not even aware of.  why?  i don't know.  laugh if you must.

look:

you can't get on or off major interstate connections without e-z pass.  what exactly is this?

you can't make a phone call without the possibilty someone is listening.

you can't go on your computer and know for sure that there isn't a 'backdoor' that you haven't thought of (possibly within your computer).

you can't buy certain products without a little FRID ? tag

your credit cards and credit report = who controls these ultimately?

many things in your life - you are a SLAVE.  you don't knowit.  and, if someone decides you die today - it's an 'accident.'  hmm.  how many people has this happened to.  conveniently.  in any nation!  not just ours...the entire world.  did princess diana actually die in an 'accident.'  noone really knows.  it's being sued about today by dodi fayed's relatives, i think.

[pianistimo]

of course, it helps that you and i are mere 'wanna be's' in the heavily secreted world of international intruiege.  i mean - all they'd have to do to me is to put too much ice-cream in the freezer.  (say on a day that i am highly stressed).

[asyncopated]

sorry if i sounded harsh.

I'm glad we cleared they air.  If you misconstrued what I meant, someone else could easily have done as well.  thanks for telling me.

i just get worked up about these things.  i mean benjamin franklin and william penn didn't add to freedoms and liberties - just to have it dashed within one generation.  if neither of them could have spoken their minds - they wouldn't have accomplished so much change.

but, now individual freedoms are scorned. frowned upon.  if someone is an independent thinker - they are not reliable.  reliable to be a 'slave.'  did you know you can be a slave without thinking you are one.

i say the entire populatioin is already becoming more enslaved by the second.  what do you really control?  do you control your life?  how many people know almost everything about you.  (i can say for myself - i'm not into spying on people in the least.  i think it is a sacriledge of human rights and privacies). 

writing down information about people can be the first ways that people LOSE rights.  why do you think hitler used this method.  was he God?  of course not.  but, he liked the feeling.  how many people - higher up in WORLD government have 'pets' that are in every country today?  and these 'pets' have 'pets' -- and so on.  in fact, i would daresay, in your own neighborhood there are people spying on you that you are not even aware of.  why?  i don't know.  laugh if you must.

look:

you can't get on or off major interstate connections without e-z pass.  what exactly is this?

you can't make a phone call without the possibilty someone is listening.

you can't go on your computer and know for sure that there isn't a 'backdoor' that you haven't thought of (possibly within your computer).

you can't buy certain products without a little FRID ? tag

your credit cards and credit report = who controls these ultimately?

many things in your life - you are a SLAVE.  you don't knowit.  and, if someone decides you die today - it's an 'accident.'  hmm.  how many people has this happened to.  conveniently.  in any nation!  not just ours...the entire world.  did princess diana actually die in an 'accident.'  noone really knows.  it's being sued about today by dodi fayed's relatives, i think.

I agree with you on a lot of these, although I have to say I don't go to the extent of yet saying that we are SLAVES. 

What you see, with all that you have mentioned, is a result of advancing technology in the information era for better or for worse.  The reason for having this technology is -- imagine that you needed to keep track of the medical records of every single person in the united states.  The amount of paper you would need, you would have to cut down several forests.  Not only that, after recording everything there is no gaurentee that you can find the information that you need of a particular patient that comes with an ailment.  With the amount of information that we are generating currently it's quite a natural progression to use technology to try and help us keep track, so that we can do things more efficiently.

We are entering the age where it's becoming possible to store all the information that you will ever generate and need in your lifetime on one single 3.5" harddisk.  This includes all your family pictures and movies, everything you would ever write and if you carried a microphone around with you everything you would ever say or play on the piano.

It is a artifact of the current reality.  We need to legistlate carefully for this, to make information is available to the right people when neccesary e.g. medical records in case of an emergency; but also protect people's freedoms and identities.  It's a fine balance and I have to say, a very difficult one.  I will not be surprised if in the next 50 or so years some government gets it wrong and faces a public backlash.

Technology is just a vehicle.  It's how we use the technology and what saveguards will be put in place that is the real challenge.

i mean - all they'd have to do to me is to put too much ice-cream in the freezer.  (say on a day that i am highly stressed).

Lol .  Now I know your achille's heel.

[musik_man]

I was going to say bullshit, but.... ok what the heck, it's bullshit.

You don't need a theistic viewpoint to "transcend the material world" or believe in free will.  Any pursuit that does not really have a materialistic outcome transcends the material world.  Like playing the piano -- for me I don't and will probably never make money out of this, but i still do this just for my pleasure.  There is absolutely no material expectation involved. 

You're misinterpreting what I meant by the word 'materialist.'  Materialism in this sense is not referring to goods and things.  It refers to the belief that the physical world is all that exists.  It's the belief that there is no spirituality, or soul, or God, or anything of that nature.  A materialist would say that playing the piano is not transcendent.  You get pleasure because the music causes chemical reactions in your brain.  Similarly emotions like love and hate would be based off of chemical reactions in the brain.

Apart from that there are many moral philosphies and idealogies that do not invoke any god whatsoever.  This is a perfectly natural human response. You live with other human beings, naturally you want to find ways to either oppress them fully or failing that live in harmony.  In this case, I would prefer the former, but seem to have no free will in that.

I don't understand what you mean by this.  What does the number of philosophies outside of God have to do with their validity?

The human body as with everything else is governed by quantum mechanics.  We don't really know how/why quantum machnics works, but it is based on a probabilitic theory.  If you want an accurate description, it is described on a hilbert space with an l₂ norm, the square of which gives the probabilty of the wave function in the ket (adjoint) state.

Even the physical laws at the smallest scale are non-deterministic.  Not to mention something as complex as the human brain, in which all this must come into play by some process that has yet been explained. 

I never said that atheism implied a strict determinism, as in we could run the universe over and over again and get the same results.  I only said that it denied free will which is different.  Imagine you have a choice between A and B.  A determinist might say that you will choose A.  Using quantum mechanics you might say that there is a 70% of you choosing A and 30% of B.  Free will would say that nothing can predict your choice as it is up to you.

Quantum mechanics introduces probability and thereby gets rid of determinism, but it does not explain free will.  Free will is contingent on choice and choice on someone choosing.  This requires a soul, something about a person that is not bound by the physical laws of the universe.  An existence outside of chemical reactions in the brain. 

Whatever the case may be, it is clear that your argument is a logical fallacy just through my actions.  I choose to write this here and now.  I am exerting free will.  I don't believe or disbelieve in god, and don't invoke it.  That is irrelavant but still I exert that I am doing this of my own free will with no one pointing a gun to my head. I believe in the free will of saying that what you have just said about free will is bullshit.

I never claimed you lack free will.  I believe that you chose to write this post.  I believe that you chose to use the word 'bullshit' three times.  (apparently my post angered you )  All I'm saying is that the belief that there is nothing beyond the physical world(as in a soul or God) logically excludes the belief that people have free will.  The two beliefs cannot be reconciled.  Many people do hold both beliefs, but by doing so they are contradicting themselves.  It would be akin to Thomas Jefferson believing that all men are created equal by God yet still supporting slavery.  The two ideas don't work together.

[asyncopated]

You're misinterpreting what I meant by the word 'materialist.'  Materialism in this sense is not referring to goods and things.  It refers to the belief that the physical world is all that exists.  It's the belief that there is no spirituality, or soul, or God, or anything of that nature.  A materialist would say that playing the piano is not transcendent.  You get pleasure because the music causes chemical reactions in your brain.  Similarly emotions like love and hate would be based off of chemical reactions in the brain.

You are right here after rereading your post I agree that I misinterpreted the word materialist.  Still I have you ask you what you mean by the non physical world.

I do subscribe to the philosophy that certain things like ideas can exist beyond the physical world, but need a physical 'container'.

In that case, I don't quote understand what you mean by beyond the material or physical world. 

Similarly emotions like love and hate would be based off of chemical reactions in the brain.

So is the notion of god.  the only reason you could concieve of this notion is because the chemicals in your brain.  Surely I don't have to quote decarte?

However, love and hate have simple physical manifestations that allow for two way communication, i.e. feedback.  I.e. i don't have to attempt to communicate with a deity or an object that does not exist in this physical realm. 

With god it's really more tricky.  I am quite convinced any communication is just one way, if you can term it communicate.  You ask him a question or for something, perhaps read the bible and divine the answer.  As long as the answer doesn't involve blowing people up, i don't really care if you do this.

I don't understand what you mean by this.  What does the number of philosophies outside of God have to do with their validity?

This is a response to the statement.

Atheism implies a lack of free will.  Morality only has value in a world with free will.  It is a framework for deciding which is the right path to take.  If one doesn't choose one's path, there is no need for morality.

Atheism does not imply a lack of free will.  All I'm saying is that one does not need a god  to want to find the "right path" out of one's own free will i.e. becasuse it makes sense to do so.

Quantum mechanics introduces probability and thereby gets rid of determinism, but it does not explain free will.  Free will is contingent on choice and choice on someone choosing.  This requires a soul, something about a person that is not bound by the physical laws of the universe.  An existence outside of chemical reactions in the brain.

You make the leap that since atoms have no free will, human beings made of atoms cannot have free will as well.  What I'm saying is that quantum mechanics, and the way the world works is so strange that at the moment, it is just impossible to tell. 

What is clear is that you cannot say we have no free will from because of the clockwork picture of the universe that newton had, which has since been superseded.  You agree with this.

All I'm saying is that the belief that there is nothing beyond the physical world(as in a soul or God) logically excludes the belief that people have free will.

I think there are huge gaps in your argument and don't believe this to be the case.  In the first place, we do not fully understand the physical world, so how do you know that is not sufficient to support within it the notion of free will?

Lets not talk about soul or god.  That's still slightly illusive.  Is an idea (like the one we are debating) beyond the physical world?  If you say it is, then we probabily agree -- it's probably just symantics.  If it isn't and you only admit the notion of some divine entity as beyond the physical, then we probably disagree.

Ideas may be beyond the physical world because the brain in itself might be bound by the physical world but the idea that it generates, i.e. the unique neuronal patterns in time, can surpass the physical in terms of representation.

apparently my post angered you

Angered is not quite the right discription.  Thought that you are some crazy fundamentalist looney and started panicking is more accurate .

[preludium]

Imagine you have a choice between A and B.  A determinist might say that you will choose A.  Using quantum mechanics you might say that there is a 70% of you choosing A and 30% of B.  Free will would say that nothing can predict your choice as it is up to you.
[...]
Quantum mechanics introduces probability and thereby gets rid of determinism

You're mixing up determinism and predictability. Rolling a dice is completely determined, yet its result is not predictable. Quantum mechanics is a deterministic theory, too.

[prometheus]

Musik_Man, there is no proof for a non-materialistic world.

Either we have these ideas about morals you find insatisfactory. Or we have totally nothing.

We do have morals of some kind. We need an explanation.

[pion]

You're mixing up determinism and predictability. Rolling a dice is completely determined, yet its result is not predictable. Quantum mechanics is a deterministic theory, too.

Your statement that rolling dice is "completely determined" would be right only if (1) Newtonian mechanics were exact, and (2) you could determine to infinite accuracy the initial conditions. However, Newtonian mechanics is not exact, and determination of initial conditions to infinite accuracy is not possible even in principle. On the other hand, Quantum Mechanics is NOT deterministic - in general, the results of a measuremnt cannot be predicted with 100% accuracy. In fact it is just this non-determinism that bothered Einstein and led him to consider so-called "hidden variable theory" (which WOULD be deterministic if only you knew the hidden variable) - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory

[prometheus]

Hidden variables have been rejected by observation.

I don't like this statement by wikipedia: "...but the hope for a so-called local hidden variable theory is still very much alive. The loopholes in entanglement experiments such as Aspect's are more serious than is generally realised."

Doesn't sound very NPOP, 'hope' and 'than is generally realised'.

I know the experiments done that supposedly exclude the possiblity for hidden variables, or at least make them much more unlikely, are incredibly complex so I have no idea about them. But I was under the impression that most physicists nowadays accept that these experiments do really indicate that hidden variables do not exist.

Though of course they may be wrong, but that is pure speculation.

Anyway, this whole idea is based on Einstein disliking 'god rolling dice'. I wouldn't trust Einstein on that one.

[chopiabin]

First of all, I don't understand these people who aruge by saying well "if this is true, then it implies this (which is usually not factual), so it must not be true"

I'm talking about the proposition made earlier that if "morality is not absolute, then free will could not exist" - exactly. The will is neither "free" nor "unfree"...these are concepts that are nothing but vestiges of Christianity and Neo-Platonism.


Every action is only a consequence of previous circumstances. Say your parents had concieved a night later than they concieved you - it would be different sperm, and they would have had a different kid. I don't know if that's clear.....

If one atom had been out of place at any event in your history, it would be a different history - your present would be different, and your future - Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle implies this - I also happen to believe that, though quantum physics is deterministic - in our reality, I believe that there is also implied Nietzsche's idea of the eternal recurrence - infineitely variable possible realities occuring infinitely AND simultaneously.


We don't really have "choice", we have the very, very wonderful illusion of choice.
And no, that doesn't imply that we can "change our destinies" etc. - these are expresseions of minds seeking definable end and beginnings.

To predict the future would imply that one would have to locate an electron - which instantly chnages it's course.

Read some BF Skinner and Nietzsche 

[prometheus]

Yes, I don't see how one can claim that we have 'free will' since clearly there are things that just influene our choices over which we have no control.

[pianistimo]

how is rolling a dice completely determined?  i don't get it.

i like what chopiniabin said - 'in our reality.'  christians and non-christians DO have different realities.  one believes that miracles do happen (unexplained good things that just 'happen' - and others believe it is random and not a miracle).

that is why so many people believe the bible is 'stories.'  but have they heard of many unexplained miracles that have happened daily since the bible was only scrolls in some scribes hands. 

maybe this is why i like reader's digest (don't laugh now) - because they occasionally tell things like 'unexplainable' stories.  one was about a girl who wanted to help her mother - who needed something or other - went to the drugstore - asked the clerk if she could 'buy' a miracle.  he laughed at first and was about to put her off - until he found out she was worried about her mother.  it happens that he was exactly the kind of surgeon that her mother needed for a specific operation and he performed it for free for this family.

or, things that happen in our own personal lives.  how can i explain the idea of prayer during a period of unemployment and some neighbor telling me their refrigerator mysteriously quit working and they had to unload some food on us?  i didn't tell anyone that i know of in the neighborhood that we were struggling (and had recently had our second child).  to me this was another proof, among many - that God not only knows every hair on our head - he also knows things about us that he uses to HELP us.

this is much different than a government that uses what they know about you to hinder you or keep you from gaining control.  governments are supposed to prevent fraud.  say with identity theft.  credit reports (that take WAY longer than they should to be righted).  who is at fault?  the criminals.  who pays - the victims. 

i am concerned about justice.  i do not think humanitarian guises of hospitality and good nature go very far.  you have to not only have laws - but someone to ENFORCE them.  otherwise they are meaningless.  now, in a world - state - you will have a few people in power and the rest slaves.  do they want the slaves to believe they can think for themselves?  no.  they want them dependent.  dependent on everything.  sources of knowledge.  thought patterns.  what 'gets' to the person.  this sounds an awful lot like past world governments and their 'iron fist.'

there are two kinds of iron fists.  the ones that use PURE reason.  and the ones that accept that God gives a divine free-will and that people who use it are truly free from opression because they are made in the image of God - and therefore have access to the Holy Spirit which =love.  love changes the entire dimensions of our physical world to a spiritual plane (which noone can see).  if God IS LOVE - then He is an example of it for all of us.  we no longer want to gain the advantage over someone else.  knowledge is given freely and none is really held back (unless it's a matter of maturity). if God wants to share all things with us - He is giving us a purpose for wisely using the things in this life.

the parables tell us of a wise steward and a foolish one.  now, if it were just a matter of quantum mechanics - neither would be considered wise or foolish.  there are really no criminals.  there are really no good people.  it is almost a predermined thing by our genetics.  this makes us incapable of good or evil...which we know EXISTS.  so if good and evil and choice are not important anymore - then so are laws that keep this all in check.  we may as well go down to the bank and hold it up.  for tommorrow, we die.  i mean - if you got away with a bank robbery - you'd be advancing the lives of your family (according to this theory of the 'selfish' gene).

[thalbergmad]

how can i explain the idea of prayer during a period of unemployment and some neighbor telling me their refrigerator mysteriously quit working and they had to unload some food on us?  i didn't tell anyone that i know of in the neighborhood that we were struggling (and had recently had our second child).  to me this was another proof, among many - that God not only knows every hair on our head - he also knows things about us that he uses to HELP us.

Well, that clinches it for me. Finally you have convinced me.

History has been made today and for thousands of years to come, the parable of pianistimos neighbors refrigerator will be used to convert all doubters.

I have seen the light.

Thal

PS Oops, just sat on my tambourine

[preludium]

On the other hand, Quantum Mechanics is NOT deterministic

The time development of the wave function is. This cannot be observed directly, okay, but this isn't the point. Single measurements show a probability distribution according to the square of the wave function, so the results of large series of measurements can be predicted, otherwise QM couldn't be a generalisation of classical mechanics. How do you explain the determinism of the special (classical) case if you deny it for the more general approach? At what point does determinism enter the scene and how?

The same effect appears with other statistical processes. For representative surveys in a population of several million people you need the data of only 2000 participants. If you collect more data your results will change only insignificantly. This is hard empiric evidence. Now talk about free will. (I actually reject the notion "free will", because the word "free" doesn't add anything meaningful. Either you want somthing or you don't want it. What would mean "free" then? Free from what? Influence of others? Then it would be their will you're following, not yours.)

[pianistimo]

but, in a good society - free will would mean that EVERY PERSON (excepting maybe the young children who are not mature enough to make ALL decisions for their personal being) has a chance to decide for themselves what they want to do and where they want to be within the law.

water would be free.

land would be free.

sewer would also be free - but let's not get into this.

people would not have that durnblasted homeowner's association.

maybe i am too idealistic - but i think i want some freedoms back. 

[asyncopated]

If one atom had been out of place at any event in your history, it would be a different history - your present would be different, and your future - Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle implies this - I also happen to believe that, though quantum physics is deterministic - in our reality, I believe that there is also implied Nietzsche's idea of the eternal recurrence - infineitely variable possible realities occuring infinitely AND simultaneously.

I have to day, despite agree somewhat with chopiabin, I actually disagree with this.  Erm but it's slighly complicated to explain why. So I won't. 

[cmg]

water would be free.

It is, actually.  What you are paying for is chlorination, filtering, etc. and the personnel, power and extensive water main systems that pump and convey water to your home and through your tap!  Do you expect folks in the water dept. to work for free?

There is no freedom.  That's a delusion.  It's a relative concept. 

[chopiabin]

Pianiatimo...there's a big difference in WANTING something to be true, and it actually BEING true.

Truth is NORMALLY painful and harsh - when Christians try to convince me of Christian truth because "God sacrificed so much for us", they miss the point.

Would it be nice if there were "gaurdian angels" and eternal life? Sure, that would be convenient, but it simply isn't real.

Christians and non-Christians do live in diifferent worlds - C's interpret the world supernaturally - a coincidence becomes a miracle, desires become "temptations" by the "devil", what they can't explain, they attribute to faith.

NC's simply try to take the world as it actually is, whether the truth be harsh or pleasant - I am an anti-idealist because I am intellectually honest and refuse to compromise my intellectual integrity by constantly explaining away or denying vast piles of scientific and philosophical evidence.

[thalbergmad]

Christians and non-Christians do live in diifferent worlds - C's interpret the world supernaturally - a coincidence becomes a miracle, desires become "temptations" by the "devil", what they can't explain, they attribute to faith.

Perfectly put

[pianistimo]

why then christians who are also scientists?  and good ones, at that.  as pianowelsh pointed out.  there is no room to say science and religion don't fit.  they fit like a hand to a glove.  after all - God made it for his glory and gave man power over the entire creation.  if we had no distinction from the animals, i would agree wholeheartedly with you - although at that point i wouldn't be reasoning.  because i'd be an animal.

[musik_man]

Ok, I have about half a dozen posts to reply to, so I'll apologize in advance if I missed any points that you really wanted me to address.  If that happens, just post them again and note them.

There's alot of discussion on whether Quantum mechanics is deterministic.  I'll admit that I don't possess a really deep understanding of it, but from what I do know, there are views among scientists that go either way.  What is certain is that we can't fully predict the outcome of atomic reactions because Heisenburg's uncertainty principle tells us that we can only know the starting conditions to a certain degree of accuracy(ie we can't know both the path and velocity of a atom with complete accuracy.)  Anything beyond that is past my understanding, but most scientists don't think of it as deterministic.  By that I assume they mean that even if we did know the starting conditions, we could not predict the outcomes as anything other than probabilities.  If you could rewind a reaction, you could do so and get different results each time, even with perfectly identical initial conditions.

Chopiabin, the notion of free versus unfree will is not some outdated Christian notion.  It is one of the most important questions anyone can ask.  You yourself seem to hold a determinist philosophy "Every action is only a consequence of previous circumstances", so I don't see how you can deny that the question is significant. 

You believe in the illusion of choice, which means that my perceptive experience must be wrong for that to be right.  But it seems backwards to me to reject one's own experiences for a philosophical principle.  If it appears that I have choice in my everyday life, yet my beliefs tell me I don't, I would hold that it's my beliefs that need to be changed.

Prometheus, my idea(and most notions) of free will does not entail being completely free of all infuence.  When I decide whether to eat or not, I am definitely influenced by my appetite.  I only assert that I have some choice in whether I eat.

As far as proof of a transcendental world, what about the experiences of the majority of humanity that does believe in one?  There are many people who have experienced God.  Of course, you mean scientific evidence, but that's unfair.  By definition science only attempts to study the material world.  If something is evidence of the supernatural, it is automatically unscientific.  Your belief that only scientific evidence has real value rules out you believing in the non-materialist.  In essence, you hold a philosophical notion about science that forms your opinion; therefore, you aren't rejecting spirituality on evidence but on faith.

Asyncopated, you hold that my argument is weak because we don't sufficiently understand the physical world.  What laws govern the physical world are irrelevant.  It is the philosophical assumptions of atheism that I am attacking.  These aren't dependent on the material world.  Atheism assumes that the universe is governed by scientific laws, and there is no God that has any impact.  The content of those laws isn't what's important.  It's whether or not they are sufficient to describe the universe.

[pianistimo]

musik_man,  you are brilliant.  i think this is a very well placed argument.  but i have smoked a peace pipe and am now a bit - well - feeling a bit groggy.  but, not so groggy as to not have one last thing to say.

ok.  i was waiting for my car today (getting the clock fixed - of which i mucked up when i washed the interior with too much water on a sponge).  thankfully, they installed a new clock because we took out a warrantee and even after i told them what happened they fixed it for free.  so i was waiting and reading material (obviously guy material) and found a popular mechanics magazine amongst GQ and all that.  (later i finally found goodhousekeeping under this huge stack of macho magazines).

and this first article in popular mechanics was say that a giant meteor is due to either come very close to earth or hit the earth around 2026 or something (20 years from now).  i think they called it 'apopis.'  anwya- the scientists are saying they are figuring ways to try to knock this giant meteor off course.  the danger is that if they hit the meteor too hard it might start spiraling instead - or break off into a meteor shower with lots of rocks.

then, i thought of determinism.  they gave about five outcomes and and five or six methods of helping this meteor go out of range of the earth.  i think it's decent science, actually.  and, for the record - never feel science is bad or that water filtrations systems aren't necessary.  what i do wonder about is why a meteor hasn't struck the earth before?  i mean - there are supposedly millions of them in the space around us.  if the earth is as old as scientists say it is - i think it would have been gone from a meteor way before a pole change.  10,000 years. 

now, apparently there ARE quite a few meteor craters on the earth.  but, it says this particular one heading at us - would have quite an impact if it hit.

i shouldn't bring this up right before x-mas - but do you ever wonder why we are still her after billions of years.  it seems implausible.


oh. about the water filtration systems - i think more people should be allowed to have their own wells if they want.  of course, i'm sure it's a lot of bother.  but then, public systems have their downside, too. 

[thalbergmad]

I love the way you get to the point so quickly and never beat around the bush.

Thal

[pianistimo]

blush.

[thalbergmad]

i shouldn't bring this up right before x-mas - but do you ever wonder why we are still her after billions of years.  it seems implausible.

The Earth is only 6,000 years old, so billions of years does not come into the equation.

Thal

[pianistimo]

i have no counterargument.  you took the words right out of my mouth.  thal, why don't you want your relatives to visit?

[preludium]

Heisenburg's uncertainty principle tells us that we can only know the starting conditions to a certain degree of accuracy

Uncertainty only applies to pairs of quantities whose product has the same unit as Planck's constant, i.e. position <-> momentum and energy <-> time. In plain words this means that you can determine the position of a particle as accurate as you want, but then the momentum is undefined. Uncertainty does not mean that everything is blurred.

Ok, I'll be off for a few days. This was a great discussion! To all of you: enjoy Christmas somehow. 

[asyncopated]

Uncertainty only applies to pairs of quantities whose product has the same unit as Planck's constant, i.e. position <-> momentum and energy <-> time. In plain words this means that you can determine the position of a particle as accurate as you want, but then the momentum is undefined. Uncertainty does not mean that everything is blurred.

Ok, I'll be off for a few days. This was a great discussion! To all of you: enjoy Christmas somehow. 

WARNING :--  HEAVY SCIENCE

This is sort of correct, but still it is inaccurate.  There is no energy-time uncertainty.  That is an artifact of old and somewhat not very correct theories.  This is because there is no temporal operator in quantum mechanics.  The hamiltonian governs the evolution of the wave function, with time as a parameter.  The reason for the uncertainty principle is that the operators do not commute.  I don't understand fully what this means, but it seems to describe the physical world accurately.

Whoever said that the wave function is governed by a deterministic equation is correct (schrodinger's equation).  However, there are 5 postulates in quantum mechanics (first quantisation regime, I'll not talk about second quantization), the one of the postulates is that a measurement is carried out by a projection operator, which collapes the wave function on to one of the admissible states with probabilty equal to the square of coefficient of that state.  This is because quantum machnics is inheretly a hypobalic equation so that it can describe the wave like nature of atomistic systems.  As such imaginatry coefficents with a phase are neccesary in describing each state.  In measuring something the phases are destroyed by must taking only the magnitue of the coefficients. 

The measurment process, is essentially a non-linear process and therefore the evolution of anything that is measured (or even continuously measured) is non-deterministic.

We need to discuss measurment for completeness sake -- what is meant by measurement/observation, but i won't bother here.  This is one of the biggest problems with quantum machenics.  Many scientists have said that this is unsatisfactory and some different forumations have been proposed, but all of them extremely complicated and not too easy to implement or test.

Quantum mechanics is young.  It is an incomplete theory and we should expect to see further development in the way we describe the quantum world.

[pion]

Single measurements show a probability distribution according to the square of the wave function, so the results of large series of measurements can be predicted, ...

Looks like we totally agree on the phenomenon but not on the meaning of the word "deterministic" as it applies to measurements. Averages ARE determinable in Quantum Mechanics but results of single measurements are NOT. This is unlike Classical Mechanics where single measurements are determinable. It is this "single-measurement" difference that leads one to say that CM is deterministic but that QM is not. This is the common usage of the word "deterministic". Now if YOU want to define "deterministic" in a different way, you are welcome, but if you do, you will get yourself misunderstood, and both you and other people's time will be wasted in clarifications like this one.

[asyncopated]

Asyncopated, you hold that my argument is weak because we don't sufficiently understand the physical world.  What laws govern the physical world are irrelevant.  It is the philosophical assumptions of atheism that I am attacking.  These aren't dependent on the material world.  Atheism assumes that the universe is governed by scientific laws, and there is no God that has any impact.  The content of those laws isn't what's important.  It's whether or not they are sufficient to describe the universe.

But from what we have seen thus far,  in many day to day activities there is no God that has any impact.  Most things can be described adequately with scientific laws.  Of those things that we can't yet describe, we have a inkling of how it works and can show that it does not break our scienctific laws in an obvious way.

So far we haven't really needed to invoke a god to describe the physical world we see.  Although there is a lot we still do not understand, it is certainly concievable that we will never need to invoke a god for this purpose.  At the moment, it is relatively safe to say that god is really an extraneous feature when it comes to describing the material world. 

Even if at some stage, god and science did merge, a personal god does not fit the picture.  This is just a completely outragous idea for science.  So whatever your argument maybe, if we follow though along these lines, jesus is irrelavant.

[asyncopated]

Looks like we totally agree on the phenomenon but not on the meaning of the word "deterministic" as it applies to measurements. Averages ARE determinable in Quantum Mechanics but results of single measurements are NOT. This is unlike Classical Mechanics where single measurements are determinable. It is this "single-measurement" difference that leads one to say that CM is deterministic but that QM is not. This is the common usage of the word "deterministic". Now if YOU want to define "deterministic" in a different way, you are welcome, but if you do, you will get yourself misunderstood, and both you and other people's time will be wasted in clarifications like this one.

I define it in the way I have always been taught.  The fact that you can only measure things in avearges means that probability comes into play.  That is you need to postulate a probablity space which is a triple --  a set of outcomes, sigma-algebra conditioned on those outcomes (for example a borel set) and a probability measure.

I use the word deterministic to mean equations that are non-probabilistic, if this is any clearer.  So you don't in anyway have to invoke the concept of a probability measure.

I have to say, this might be a bit unfair to you because it is close to my area of reaseach.  I am in condensed matter theory, in particular i study systems that are far out of equilibrium.  So, I'm quite aware of the literature and how these terms are used. Anyway, whatever the case may be, you are right it's just a matter of symantics.

Here is a page on interpretation of quantum mechanics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics

As you can see, the garden variety form that most physicists use (ensemble and copenhegan) are non deterministic.  I am aware of the many worlds approach, but it's really a tool to explore interpretation rather than a practical working physicists model. (This because it's very difficult to do any sort of sensible calculation.)

[asyncopated]

then, i thought of determinism.  they gave about five outcomes and and five or six methods of helping this meteor go out of range of the earth.  i think it's decent science, actually.  and, for the record - never feel science is bad or that water filtrations systems aren't necessary.  what i do wonder about is why a meteor hasn't struck the earth before?  i mean - there are supposedly millions of them in the space around us.  if the earth is as old as scientists say it is - i think it would have been gone from a meteor way before a pole change.  10,000 years. 

Erm they have.  Most of them are too small and they just burn up in the atmosphere.  things get very hot as they come crashing down. 

Here is a list of crater sites, if you want to visit any.  I think ucsd has a good group for this, so this should be quite accurate.  If you look at some of them, they are huge.

https://exobio.ucsd.edu/Space_Sciences/all_earth_craters.htm

These are the sites are those that land masses and don't account for meteors that fell into the sea. The reason why crater sites are not as obvious as on the moon, or on mars or any other planets is beacuse over the years these sites are usually mineral rich and life thrives around them. So they get over grown with trees etc.  Most of these should be really quite beautiful places to visit.

Here is another great application for google maps... designed just for an occasion like this.

https://geology.com/meteor-impact-craters.shtml

[pianistimo]

that's very cool, asyncopated.  thanks!  one thing that comes to mind is the obvious element of agreeing that quantum physics is based on improbablities rather than defined finite sets or linear thinking.  if this is so - what started this infinite process where we have to come in and find ourself in space and time - and yet the universe seemingly out of it.  the planets have suns and moons - but the entirety of the universe is made up of many galaxies - so who keeps it all together?  who keeps the universe from exploding from this continuing expansion (unless this is a sort of mirage - like in the desert - where we cannot accurately know for sure EXACTLY how fast the galaxies are moving away from us).  what if we are in some kind of rotational system that goes around in a spiral?   and then at the base it polarizes and sends us back to the top of the universe again. 

but, even that would counter the bible.  if God says his throne is at the sides of the north.  then, we have indication that the north - the north star - things that point north - are truly north to us.  who gave us north south east west?  hmmm. how did this idea even get started as to direction.  so the sun and moon must have been created (along with the stars) fairly close to the approximate time of the earth - to go from an indeterminate 'heavens' to a galaxy that functions within set parameters.  but, those parameters might be different for different galaxies. 

so if we have all different kinds of parameters for different galaxies.  and black matter in between - holding it all together -where's God?  in and through eVERYTHING that He created.  he brings it to life.  to color.  to function.  every planet has a quality made up of the types of elements that are used and according to the temperature and atmosphere of the planet.  who determined these to be so precise?  they are not as random as they seem - and yet - there is no 'love' to these planets.  they are lifeless.  but ours alone - in this great awesome space is the only planet with LIFE< COLOR< WATER<Liveable ATMOSTPHERE<    this is the biggest proof of God there is.  the heavens!  they declare God's glory.  the earth.  His love.

ps all it takes is one BIG asteroid.  these do come along every so often.  i think God protects His creation - and that is why we are still here. 

[thalbergmad]

ps all it takes is one BIG asteroid.  these do come along every so often.  i think God protects His creation - and that is why we are still here. 

Bollox - they do come along, but infrequently.

There are just as many craters on the earth as there are on the moon, but due to erosion, they are not immediately visible.

The meteor/asteroid that almost wiped out the dinosaurs in 3000BC left a huge crater in the Gulf of Mexico. This will happen again whether God wants it to or not.

The great Tunguska explosion of 1908 shows we are still vunerable. If that had happened in New York, millions would have died. It was Gods almighty hand that smote it and diverted it to Siberia.

Thal

[asyncopated]

ps all it takes is one BIG asteroid.  these do come along every so often.  i think God protects His creation - and that is why we are still here. 

Disasters do happen.  Remember the tsunami two years back on boxing day?  The death toll was about 200,000 people.  not to mention the damage and suffering.

That was god's hand to smite people because they were behaving badly, and he was displeased.  We should try offering him a sacrificial lamb so he won't do it again (do you know of any young boys for this purpose?).  you know -- agnus dei, qui tolis pecata mundi.

[prometheus]

Prometheus, my idea(and most notions) of free will does not entail being completely free of all infuence.

Sure, but this shows that defining it is problematic.

 

As far as proof of a transcendental world, what about the experiences of the majority of humanity that does believe in one?

Are you kidding? That's irrelevant. The people of our planet used to believe the earth was flat because that is the way they experienced it. Is that evidence for a flat earth?

There are many different religions and many different supernatural concepts. Most of these ideas don't get along with each other.
It is easy to see that the ideas based on these experiences are false and it is much easier to explain these experiences, that are totally real, by other means than saying there is a supernatural.

There are many people who have experienced God.

There are many people that have experiences something they recognise as god. Why? Because they is what they were taught.

Of course, you mean scientific evidence, but that's unfair.

Is there any other kind of evidence? You either know something through science or you don't know something.

These people with ideas about the supernatural or about gods, they are not based on something. They just exist because humans are irrational and superstitious.

If you are going to look at these experiences carefully you will realise that they are totally ambiguous. Almost always they entail something which cannot be explained. And they just put their view of the supernatural in that gap. There is no justification for their version of the supernatural. That was just made up.

Even people like Newton and Huygens did it. They both claimed: "We cannot explain this. So this must be god's work. We have no chance to figure this out." They were both totally wrong and they blocked science.

There are still some scientists that believe in god. Doesn't that prove humans are superstitious?

By definition science only attempts to study the material world.  If something is evidence of the supernatural, it is automatically unscientific.

Yes, and you place god in the supernatural. The supernatural is beyond us. It does not affect us. If there is a god then she exists in the natural.

The supernatural doesn't exist.

Your belief that only scientific evidence has real value rules out you believing in the non-materialist.

Then give me some supernatural evidence that has value.

In essence, you hold a philosophical notion about science that forms your opinion; therefore, you aren't rejecting spirituality on evidence but on faith.

Hahaha, amazing that even people you think are smart get their thinking and reasoning blocked out when they talk about religion, trying desperately to construct an argument for their position.

I don't have faith in science. I can simply ratify that science works, that it creates models of reality that are helpful and somewhat accurate.

As for religion and the supernatural. There is no evidence, there is no progress, there is no reason to believe in any of these things and the sole reason some people do is primitive superstition.

Asyncopated, you hold that my argument is weak because we don't sufficiently
understand the physical world.

So because we don't understand everything there must be a supernatural?

It is the philosophical assumptions of atheism that I am attacking.

You mean you are attacking science, not atheism. Atheism is a non-position. It is a lack of faith.

You are attacking reason and science.

Just look at 12th century Bagdad and the number of muslim science nobel prize winners today and you know what it means to attack science to be able to maintain a supernatural.

Do you also believe in astronomy? If you adjust the criteria of 'evidence' so that there is evidence for god then there is also 'evidence' for astronomy.



You may thing that the mainstream ideas of morality and ethics are flawed and unsatisfiying. I agree.
But your alternative cannot stand up to the slightest critisism.

Either we take what we have as a starting point or we have nothing at all.


I suggest that matbe you should watch this video by Neil deGrasse Tyson:
https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1150978581009235713

He talks about how 'even' smart people try to use 'god of the gaps' over and over.

[asyncopated]

Just thought I'd share this video.  It's a bbc documentry about disbelieve. 

So for people who want to convert others, if you would like to understand what there is such wide spread disbelief and growing, here is a good place to start. 

For thal, prometheus and cmg, if you haven't already seen this, I'm sure you will like this video

https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7100434305066027154
(Part I)

https://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1328550084560254937
(Part II)

[pianistimo]

everyone brings up 'the earth is flat' notion - as though that is the only argument point.  why so many gods that the greeks and romans - and egyptians earlier - had?  obviously they must have had a reference point at some time to even come up with the idea of 'god.'  we don't give them credit because we think they were 'uncivilized' as compared to us. 

we have an awful lot of 'temples.'  who came up with the idea of 'temple?'  hmm.  let's see - we have:
taj mahal
potala
wat po
fort jesus
mosque et. minaret
mughal empire's
qing dynasty's
not to mention all the christian churches all over the place
and of course, the dome of the rock

who came up with all these ideas that are similar to the descriptions in the bible of gold leafed temples where god's reside or were ressurrected. 

also, noone has really answered my question about the stars not moving much.  if we have examples of astronomical data way back from babylonian times - why do not we give it much credit sometimes.  the north star - for instance. 

and, lastly where did the idea of 'divine right of kings' come from?  hmmm.  someone just made that up one day.  well, in britain - they STILL have coronations.  where did the idea of coronation come from?  when kings/queens are coronated they use the words 'dieu et mon droit' or God and my birthright.  what birthright?  could it be the birthright of jacob?  could the bible be true?  could king david's ancestral line still be on the throne today. God did make a promise that he would continue the line of David forever. 

when kings/queens are coronated in britain - they are annointed with 'holy oil' by the archbishop of canterbury which 'ordains' them to monarchy.  in other countries this has been replaced by an inaugueration.  but, the symbology of the british coronation comes directly from the bible - from the psalms that are sung - to the horses coming in and going out - the symbology of the crown having 12 stones representing the 12 tribes of israel - the scepter (where did that come from?) and of course - the stone of destiny thought to be the original pillar stone of jacob.

now, if the bible was untrue - then britian would not use it as a reference point to their coronations.  there are also other countries - that don't realize it - that have ancestry that dates to the 12 tribes of israel. but, they are called today 'the lost tribes.'  why are they lost.  they're not, really.   they still exist.  abrahams seed was promised to become nations.  they are actual nations today.  does it matter what race people are?  no.  does it matter if they retain the bible?  yes.  if they do not realize their own history - they are denying who they are.

even france's aristocracy was based on kingship.  now, i'm not saying we should go back to this.  i'm just saying - what does history prove. history is a science as well.  should we doubt it?

[asyncopated]

Have a look at the documentry I posted.  There are some partial answers to the questions you ask.

[prometheus]

The antropologist that proposes that in primitive cultures there cannot be a skeptic or nonbeliever because he will be killed; if it is true then religion is far worse than I thought.

[asyncopated]

The antropologist that proposes that in primitive cultures there cannot be a skeptic or nonbeliever because he will be killed; if it is true then religion is far worse than I thought.

Certainly shortly after the raise of christianity under the rule of constantine this was true, and remained so for 1,000 years or so.  Witch hunts such that those re-enacted in miller's crucible were suppose to  be common.  This was also true around the fall of the islamic goldern age after 1400, where many more secular views were oppressed.

I would not be supprised if this is ture in many primitive cultures.  Although I think it would be had pressed to find evidence.

[prometheus]

Hahaha, those quotes by Cicero and Seneca are great. They already understood back then. I know these figures through some interest in roman history.

It is quite amusing to see that these people already realised how weak religion is. And then we see religious people today claim answers from atheists about details of the big bang and the origin of the universe.
But these people had no idea about all this at all. The work on the big bang was all done in the previous century.

Epicurus, he puts the argument I formed on death independently from him quite well. It is quite strange that many people, even those not religious, seem to have a misunderstanding there. At least for me it is.

As I said, I have to give Epicurus credit for being able to put it much stronger while being ignorant about almost 'everything'.

[prometheus]

Certainly shortly after the raise of christianity under the rule of constantine this was true, and remained so for 1,000 years or so.  Witch hunts such that those re-enacted in miller's crucible were suppose to  be common.  This was also true around the fall of the islamic goldern age after 1400, where many more secular views were oppressed.

Yes yes. I will watch part two later.


But if it is true that religion is hard-wired into us, which I tend to assume to be true then this man proposes that one of the details of this hard-wired program of religion is to kill those that disagree.

This means that all religious people that don't kill those that disagree do so because of anti-religious tendencies.

I am a bit skeptical about this claim. I also want to know how it stands together with the natural unwillingness to kill humans seem to have.

[asyncopated]

But if it is true that religion is hard-wired into us, which I tend to assume to be true then this man proposes that one of the details of this hard-wired program of religion is to kill those that disagree.

I think it was put very loosely.  It's not really religion that was wired into our brains, but and intrinsic "fear" of the unknown.  He said something along the lines that it's very much better (genetically) for us to assume many false positives (and not get eaten alive) than to accept false negatives (and die).  This intrinsic "fear" forms the basis of the perpensity for us to be able to (blindly) accept irrational arguments as being the "safe way".

Sorry for all the brackets and quotation marks.  I to am speaking very loosely.  It's not easy to explain this things without going running into several pages, but i think you undertand what I am on about.