Ludwig

The fact that lots of people believed in ridiculous notions of God in the distant past, obviously shows deficiency in their capacity for reason, indicating that perhaps deduction of 'right' morals would be 'beyond them' and thus they'd need religion to prescribe morality for them. That is why religion was needed to prescribe morality for the masses.

That's Watford's capacity, but current logistics would probably mean they wouldn't be allowed to sell more than ~18000 tickets, due to stadium redevelopments, random seat changes, and other weird weird things.

So is Pooh.

No. The problem of induction is acknowledged by most of the great philosophers, including staunch empiricist rationalist Hume.

You misunderstand me, I have faith in scientific reasoning, but faith is 'a leap', accepting the axioms of mathematics is a 'leap of faith', as is belief in religion. One may have more evidence in its favour, but regardless, neither has absolute proof, and both require faith.

It's not an opinion. You cannot induct anything, you cannot be certain of anything, everything can be looked upon with reasonable scepticism, to believe in anything requires FAITH in your senses, in your observations, in the testimony of others.

Indeed, and I accept this.

The scientific method is not absolute. Anything empirical is unverifiable, though it is obviously reasonable to place faith in that, as opposed to religion, but it's hypocritical to claim that science is right and religion is merely blind faith. The problem of induction is what means everything can reasonably be doubted. Science can never be shown to be 100% correct, unless we had infinite time to induct the 'facts' which arise from experimentation, which we obviously don't have. It's not that 'science is wrong', but philosophically, the scientific method is most definitely imperfect.

I dislike how science is supposedly infallable, when I blatantly showed in my uberlong post that it is based on faith in the exact same way that religion is.

Religion is not the only reason given for war and thus religion is not wholly responsible for war.

You'll sell it and you need the money soon, so I'd rather keep it myself.

Yes he has, I have a video.

Dawkins. Militant atheism is just as bad as religion. God =/= religion. Do not mistake them for one another.

I dislike the way in which I was able to knock that out in 15 minutes, yet have been writing an essay on Shakespeare for 2 hours that is only slightly longer.

Something I've discovered fairly recently, having taken an interest in the philosophy underpinning the foundations of Mathematics, and general reading regarding inducting any sort of thought; is that belief in anything takes a massive amount of faith. I find it entirely hypocritical for a person to believe they are erring on the side of 'science', when the scientific method as a means of absolute proof is entirely useless. Every finding using scientific methods (experimentation and observation), every empirical observation in fact, can be reasonably doubted. It can be argued that masses of empirical data make it far less probable that scientific experiments produce false results, but regardless; it is not absolute. The problem lies with induction, how can we know that that which we have previously experienced will continue to hold true in the future? Perhaps we have a model in which we can be 'sure' that the sun will rise every morning. Do we, however, understand the fundamental nature of 'natural laws'? We think we do, but then, geocentricity was a prominent idea in the not so distant future (if we consider the age of the universe). It follows that our thought is based on inducting all sorts of empirical observations we make, but we cannot necessarily ever be certain of them. In fact, I've found that many a person would cite 'Mathematics' as an infallable set of truths. Lies. Complete and utter lies. You need faith to believe in the word of Mathematics, in the same way you do with belief in God. You need faith to believe in that which you empirically observe. Mathematics, is not logically sound, there is no way to prove the fundamental axioms of Mathematics are true, other than to accept that they are 'self-evident', in the same way that it is 'self-evident' that the TV opposite me is currently on. I cannot be certain it is, my senses can deceive me, I perceive feeling in dreams which apparently is not there. Can the world not be a long dream, constantly fooling me? (I think, therefore there is thought) There is faith required to believe in science, to believe in Mathematics, we must trust our empirical observations blindly, because the only way in which we can validate anything else is using our empirical observations, and using them to validate themselves is circular and not logically sound. You have faith, not in God, but in your senses. Your senses can deceive you, you may believe they do not, they may not, but that does not mean they cannot. Attacking a religious believer for 'blindly' believing in God, when infallable science is around, is hypocritical. Perhaps, we can do as Hume says, and tend towards that which is more probable. Perhaps it is more probable that our collective empirical experiences are not wrong, that science is true, that mathematics is probably true and that God is merely a 'gap-filler'. However, if someone disagreed with you, that a table is not a certain shape, that they see it differently, they do not interpret their sensory perceptions in the same way as you. Does this mean they are wrong? Are you wrong? It is merely a matter of interpretation. A person may have an equal faith in God that you have in science. Both are similarly doubtable, to argue otherwise is ridiculous, though a strong case could be made that to disbelieve science would irrational, as evidence errs in its favour. Science though, merely explains 'how', never 'why'. Why did the big bang happen? (There must surely be an answer to this, not that this necessitates the existence of a God, but faith in such a thing would not be totally unreasonable) What is the difference between someone telling you God exists and someone (using science) hypothesising the shape of the universe based on certain types of evidence? Neither can be empirically observed by you. How can you give credence to one, yet not the other. This is totally hypocritical. Everything can be reasonably doubted.

Or believing in the 'laws' of Mathematics, believing that what you experience is truly real, or well... believing in 'anything' for that matter.

Los Campesinos! - We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

I've stuck him up as a complete striker, with either Saga or Connolly as a poacher. Got 11 from 17 so far.

**** this ****

If I can't be sent to an Island, yes, I'll submit to our For-no...Stu.

I aspire to be as cool as you one day.

Fukken blatant skate bastard

Fee + make-up + lunch doesn't seem to have changed in 20 something years.

Because they'll all be home and on the internet already.

There was a cross-section of society, inc. BNP supporters in the audience yesterday. Fact.