>I believe in things that can be empirically shown. On issues
>that have no data, i withhold judgement.
Generally I agree but on the issue of the existence of God we
have a lot of data. Arguments can be made along the lines of
"if god exists (and lots of assumptions of the consequences
of god's existence) then X would be true. X is not true therefore
god does not exist."
> I distinguish between
>personal belief (regardless of strength) and 'proof'.
I don't think anybody is suggesting that the non-existence of
god has been proven. Empirical data and logical proofs merely
provide evidence for believing something (or not).
>One acts however one wishes. This does not require any
>judgement of the universe.
One's actions require assumptions about the universe. What do
you mean by judgement?
>Perhaps not. Especially if the underlying assumptions seem
>to be free of observable data.
Many (perhaps most) of the arguments are empirical in nature.
>I believe after i finish a really good book, life will go on,
>but still i wish i could make the experience last just a
>little longer ;)
OK, bad example. A belief in god may not change any superficial
behavior, but it probably had deep effects by altering the
memetic environment for other beliefs.
>After the observation, we tend to organize the data. It's thinking
>of these things ahead of time... But it may also be true that
>some aspects of the universe are not comprehensible to humans.
>Wait a few millennium and we may find out (no need to decide
>now, after all). However, if you want to give it a go, something
>stranger than wave-particle duality would be interesting.
The physics of saturday morning cartoons is stranger because not
only is it contradictory, it is inconsistent.
-- David McFadzean dbm@merak.com Memetic Engineer http://www.lucifer.com/~david/ Merak Projects http://www.merak.com