if you really want my opinion on this, i've already been through it in this thread, starting on this page: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23821&perpage=6&pagenumber=11
Thinking religion is BS is different from proving it. Your belief that religion is BS is as scientific as my belief in God. I respect your opinion but please know that we are 'wearing the same boots,' so to speak! I just can't believe a successful trader, which economics (i.e. science) tells us should not exist, can not realize that his very profession is rooted in faith much in the same way my belief in God is rooted in faith.
Thanks. Well, whatever you've been doing seems to have been working for you. I KNOW it must be faith.....and any faith, I believe, is faith in God! That's my own personal view! Thanks
Nonsense. Whem my computer shows me that there is a 67.5% chance that a certain setup will end up profitable, there is no FAITH involved, just pure statistics. If you wish to call my statistics FAITH, thereby making it a synonym, thats fine. But dont try and tell me that its the SAME faith as the blind belief theists have in their god. My so called faith is based on objective measurements and observations which I can prove exist to anyone. Theistic faith is blind. Its accepting something as true WITHOUT reason, unlike my trading setups. There is a HUGE difference. I do NOT have any theistic style faith. Trading on blind theistic faith would be suicide to my equity. peace axeman
i never eliminate pretty much anything. i'm just extremely skeptical of man made explanations of the universe from essentially cave man times. when i say i think religion is BS, i'm saying i'm 99.99999999999999999 sure it is. i will not deny that i can't prove you wrong, however, you certainly can't prove your beliefs true. this argument has been beaten to death. basically, it's not logical to believe things that have absolutely nothing to support it. and the weaker the claim, the more ridiculous it is to believe it. having faith i will drink water tomorrow is NOT equally as ridiculous as having faith a biblical "god" created the universe. continue reading that thread i gave a link to. a few pages later i answer your question.
Your computer shows a 67.5% chance that a certain setup will end up profitable, right? And you believe your computer? You mean you actually have faith that what your computer is telling you is correct? Suppose for the sake of argument that your computer was giving you accurate information and that your programs for testing all accurately implemented stock filtering just hte way you intended. But then you admit that you have faith in probabilities, right? What I am saying may surprise you but try to listen: FAITH IN SCIENCE IS THEISTIC! This is most definitely the case as much of what was considered science 1000 years ago is considered nothing but hogwash today......so who is to say that in 1000 years from now, current probability theory will not be completely disproven, right? So you are having faith that today's science is permanent and will not be invalidated at some point in the future. Many extraordinary things happen in life and many people point to such miracles, healings, stigmatas, saints whose bodies decompose at astonishingly (science-defying) slow rates, people surviving ridiculous accidents which science would surely have not permitted, people recovering from diseases which science classifies as terminal, visions of the virgin mary, orthodox icons crying, and etc... as their proof that God exists. Others point to the existence of the Bible as a means for proving the existence of God. But do you see what you're doing? Your pointing toward your Bible (probability theory and your own chart pattern recognition method) to serve as evidence that a stock will probably do this or probably do that. I honestly do not see the difference. Over periods of thousands of years, science is often revised and sometimes even disproven! You are having faith that a stock will move in a certain direction and you are basing that faith on your system and probability theory. I have faith in God and base that faith on my own personal experiences as well as the miracles whch i listed above and teh bible. Life is all about faith. You have faith that your eyes are seeing what everyone else's eyes are seeing (unless you are schizophrenic), or your ears are hearing what everyone else's ears are hearing, and etc.. for all the senses. You are conditioned, from birth to consider your five senses as the purveyor of complete truth! Some people have senses most of us don't have which allow them a glimpse of the spirit world (we've all heard of the sixth sense). My conclusion is that each and every human being has faith in that which cannot be proven. When you think about it, you may realize that theists' faith in God is no more blinder than your faith in the markets, in statistics, and in your ability to do what economic theory says shouldn't be possible.
Your faith in science tells you that in all likelihood, water will be there for you tomorrow. But what if science is wrong? What if by some unexplainable happenstance, ALL water on the earth dried up overnight? I think we'd all be praying for water (scientists and religious fanatics alike)! Let me say this to perhaps shed light on your "man made explanations of the universe from essentially cave man times" comment. In a thousand years from now, 3003, do you HONESTLY BELIEVE that our current scientific explanations of the universe will still be completely valid? Our current explanations will most likely be invalidated just as many of the explanations from 1000 years ago have been invalidated today. Science itself is a religion. If you have faith in Science, then you are essentially having faith in a religion! If you have faith in the markets, in chart patterns, in your ability to trade successfully, you are engaging in theism because you are having faith that certain things are likely to happen based on evidence which is garnered from an unstable, constantly changing, discipline (namely science). You don't have to agree with me, obviously, but I hope you can understand what I am saying, at least
All I am saying is that with changes in centuries, civilizations experience changes in religions.....our current century's religion appears to be science (i.e. people tend to believe that the tenets of current scientific knowledge are accurate and complete)...in 1000 years from now, who KNOWS what type of religion will be generally accepted, it still may be science but I'd be willing to bet my life savings that it won't be science as it exists in its present form. My motto is basically that all traders have faith in either themeselves, the markets, or both. Such faith is a belief in that which can not be proven and is therefore equivalent to faith in God.
Um...axeman...I'd like to learn more about fallacies. Can you help point out some from the above three posts? It's ok if you get tired after the first ten or so...