It is not as if they are mutually exclusive principles and I have been in Academia.
I have had plenty of experience of being treated like a freak for choosing to believe in something. If you want to talk about reason then I have some logical reason points. Atheism is an active belief in the absence of any supreme being existing. Usually this is coupled with the believe that the world, universe and life are all byproducts of random chance. >From a logical standpoint it does not seem reasonable for me to look at the Universe, the world, the incredibly complex life that exists within it and dismiss it as just some fluke of accident or chance. I see order and complexity as implying some kind of intelligence. I think chaos theory has been abused to state that given infinite time that anything that is possible to happen will eventually happen. However I might question whether it is possible for such order to be created at all by fluke of chance. If I consider how I would expect the Universe to look if it was devoid of any intelligence or any controlling influence then I would expect to see chaotic matter and randomly moving energy. If out of that some structure were to be randomly created I would logically expect that it would be like creating a snowflake in a furnace and that sooner or later the overriding chaotic nature of the Universe would destroy any fleeting order that was created within it. What I observe in our Universe and our world in particular is a highly complex structure which adapts and seems to increase in sophistication as time goes on. This implies to me some kind of intelligent design. Getting from that foundation to believing in something like the Bible is a big jump. For me it involves a such a complex chain of dependencies that Maven couldn't hope to cope with however it is certainly not a matter of believing on something just for the sake of it or to fit in or blindly without question but there are reasons behind believing in each principle. I do resent the implication from others that religious belief is just so irrational that it is evidence that an individual is flaky and illogical. My personal ethos has a big impact however of my work and business ethics and desire to see a computer industry more focused on moving the world forward than squabbling over rich people trying to get richer or maintain their wealth for which Software Patents have proved invaluable in that agenda. On Aug 8, 11:59 am, Casper Bang <[email protected]> wrote: > > It's easy to forget how sensitive religious people are when you're not > > around them. Most people I choose to talk to are atheists (that's not > > actually how I choose, at least not consciously), but all my wife's > > family are Catholics; before I was around them I'd have said something > > like that without worrying too much. > > Now I'm reminded of Sheldon Cooper in the Big Bang Theory. Not too > surprising though that people in academia would favor causality and > reason over crucifix and bible. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
