It gets old because I can imagine what Sisyphus felt like. Dawkins merely expresses views that I share and he does so more eloquently and succinctly than I am capable of doing. He backs it with a level of science that makes sense to me and is supported by the scientific community. (You know, the folks who brought us all of the physical achievements that you referred to earlier). I have countered silly arguments time and again and, if I were getting paid for it, I might continue. As it is, I think I'll end it here so that you can get the last jab in and feel good about it. Enjoy. P.S. How do you like the poll results thus far?
Scientific realism Scientific realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be. Within philosophy of science, it is often framed as an answer to the question "what does the success of science involve?". The debate over what the success of science involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities apparently talked about by scientific theories. Roughly put, scientific realism is the thesis that the unobservable things talked about by science are little different from ordinary observable things (such as tables and chairs). Arguments for scientific realism often appeal to abductive reasoning or "inference to the best explanation". Scientific realists point to the success of scientific theories in predicting and explaining a variety of phenomena, and argue that from this we can infer that our scientific theories (or at least the best ones) provide true descriptions of the world, or approximately so.
ET poll results are so meaningful... Look, if you can't do it, no problemo... I am free to think you don't have the ability to make a decent counter argument on your own, and I am not so tired that I can't continue to argue from my position... If you can't back your own opinions beyond saying "Read so and so or watch so and so..." So be it for you...
I love it when I quote stu, and you can see that he really has nothing to say... Just like most people around here...
For sure atheism is not a mental illness. Somewhere between 40 - 60% (depending on source) of all Czech people are atheists. I visited Czech Republic a few times in my life. Czechs are one of the nicest people I met. And they are definitely not mentally ill. The country that neighbours Czech Republic is Poland. Depending on sources 90 - 95% of Poles are believers. Both nations have the same roots. Their languages are almost 100% identical. Their tradition and sense of humour and what not are the same. Anyone who votes for atheism as a mental illness de facto claims that one nation is mentally ill in 40 - 60% while a neighbouring (almost identical) nation is mentally ill in only 5 - 10%. Such claim not only would be laughed at by scholars but it would also be regarded as an offence against a common wisdom by everyone whose IQ is above that of a bacteria. I like OPTIONAL777's provocative threads. His input to increasing the number of pageviews on ET is priceless, but this thread is obviously a late April's Fool joke that we fell pray to. Congrats OPTIONAL777
When you read some of the nutty responses by some of the atheists on this thread, it does help to make my case...
i am certain that the majority are agnostic and not atheist. they likely do not know the difference. surf