Talk:God/Archive 14

message: Should the text say "many" scientists or just "some". Well, the text goes on:
"For example, about 60% of scientists in the United States expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of deities in 1996."
So that leaves 40%, which is a big percentage. Note however that this only refers to the United States.
"Among leading scientists defined as members of the National Academy of Sciences, 93% expressed disbelief or doubt in the existence of a personal god in 1998."
Here we are left with 7%, which is a small percentage. However, note that this refes both to the US and one spectrum of scientists (leading scientists).
So we have a large percentage of US scientists and a small percentage of leading US scientists believe in God.
Both numbers refer only to the US, so it cannot serve as a basis for whether there are generally many theist scientists in the world.
And more general, in absolute numbers there are many theist scientists even in the US. Our sentence did not refer to precentages.
There is no reason to replace "many" with "some". Str1977 (smile back) 14:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: there is an excellent reason not to replace "some" with "many", and you have given it above. We don't know precisely; it is clear it is not a majority (even a bare majority); hence "some" which does not speculate on the percentage at all, but leaves it open. You need to strongly support a value weighting such as "many" in order for it to be in the article - as would anyone wanting to replace "some" with "few". KillerChihuahua?!? 19:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with KC. The term "many" is undefined and speculative in this context; the term "some" is accurate and not at all problematic. Balance, accuracy, and NPOV guidelines would all support the use of "some" in this instance. Doc  Tropics 19:19, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Hmm, this may actually be a moot point. After reviewing the refs cited for this para, I think it needs significant rewrite. The numbers quoted on this page don't seem to represent an accurate reflection of the information cited. I will post a possible "new version" here for community review shortly. Doc  Tropics 21:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some quotes from Darwin may be good for this section - notably I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars. regarding the problem of evil with regard to biology/evolution, and perhaps the difficulties with the Bible with regard to the Age of the Earth etc, which he also discusses in Origin of Species. Richard001 10:25, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How many scientists

message: Wasn't there a guy who vandalized this page? What did he do to it? PNI 20:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Given how often this article is vandalized, you might need to be a bit more specific : ) Doc  Tropics 21:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Vandalization

message: Does anyone else feel that this article is way too long? Olleicua 19:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, 36kb for a topic like this is actually very reasonable; it almost qualifies as a "brief overview" given the number of sub-topics. Doc  Tropics 19:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Length of article 

message: To quote this article, 
"In 1999 Draygomb's Paradox came up with the strongest evidence for God not existing." 
What is this so called paradox and why is it considered the strongest "evidence" for GOD's nonexistence? --208.127.64.94 02:16, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointing that out. The material had been added when the Draygomb article was created, and should have been excised when it was deleted. I've removed it now. Doc  Tropics 02:37, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:   Draygomb's Paradox 

message: I would just like to say that I highly disagree with having the intro as basically a discussion about the existence of God which is longer than that section of the article.  The intro is supposed to summarize the article, so shouldn't it go God is... there are arguments for and against God...there are several names of God...history of developments of idea of God...ect? Roy Brumback 07:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As I said twice above, I did not agree with blanking the intro. I think now, I agree somewhat that the old stuff was too detailed, but I believe that there is salvageable content, so I have tried my hand at condensing the old intro. I hope we can reach a compromise. --Andrew c 16:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Intro

message: While this is part of THE LIGHT; The Rainbow of Truth collection of research ideas attributed to the philosophy of Thinking in Colour, it is also the logical development of Alfred North Whitehead and his observation that "There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil".
In the realm of Mathematics we appear focused in the world of  concrete reality, whereby in the world of abstracts and mult-dimensional representations we have different answers.  American school redefines mathematical paradigm
The simple reality that in the absolute concrete world, 1+1 = 11, and in the pure abstract world, 1+1=1, case example, the cities of Port Arthur and Fort William were united and formed the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario.  Here the addition of concepts remains the same, only that the concept is larger.
The addition of variables can have different values if the value of each integer has sub-values.  One bag of marbles plus one bad of marbles equals 200 marbles.  The complexity of the variables has changed in this particular example; multi-dimensional math.
In the world of pure abstraction, nothing, plus nothing, plus nothing equals nothing.  A trinity that may reveal a solution to the question of God.  According to the verses of Saint John, in the beginning was 'the word' and the word was God and the word was with God.  A possible solution is 'nothing'.  That pure state of nothingness would have existed prior to the creation of the universe and will exist in the end; the alpha and the omega.
--Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 23:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  God and Multi-dimensional Math 

message: In Chapter 2 (pg. 31, "The God Hypothesis") of his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins says that "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it, a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, a vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidical, philocidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully"  (video, ≈8:15-8:54). --172.162.239.214 21:04, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: We have added this to the article about The God Delusion, but I see no tasteful way of fitting it into this article. I was going to suggest Yahweh, but I see you have already been there. Wherever else you have put this, at least fix philocidal -> filicidal.  --Merzul 16:35, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fit This Quote In? 

message: If someone claims to believe something, short of using a polygraph, you're pretty much stuck with accepting that they do believe it. Let's just say that people believe in God and not employ this POV suggestion that they're lying about their beliefs. Grace Note 09:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How about "profess a belief in"?  My concern with saying outright that they "believe" is that I suspect lots of the religious counts just ask what religion they subscribe to and not whether, in their heart of hearts, they believe each tenet of the faith.  Anyway, "profess" is a nice religious term!  bikeable (talk) 20:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "claim to believe" 

message: The cited source says, "Sizes shown are approximate estimates, and are here mainly for the purpose of ordering the groups, not providing a definitive number." --JWSchmidt 03:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can we do better?