Through Fiery Trials, Snippet #1

from The Life of Merlin Athrawes, Zhakleen Wylsynn,
Tellesberg, Royal University Press, 4217

I was away from the forum for quite a bit of time, so it may have discussed before in another thread, but I noticed something intriguing :

It is the "Royal University Press", not the "Imperial University Press" which is what I would expect.

Any thought on that ?

alj_sf wrote:

from The Life of Merlin Athrawes, Zhakleen Wylsynn,
Tellesberg, Royal University Press, 4217

I was away from the forum for quite a bit of time, so it may have discussed before in another thread, but I noticed something intriguing :

It is the "Royal University Press", not the "Imperial University Press" which is what I would expect.

Any thought on that ?

Much the same as the British Empire gave up sovereignty over their overseas possessions and reverted back to a kingdom. I suppose we will eventually get a Charisian Commonwealth with member nations rather than a Charisian Empire.

alj_sf wrote:

from The Life of Merlin Athrawes, Zhakleen Wylsynn,
Tellesberg, Royal University Press, 4217

I was away from the forum for quite a bit of time, so it may have discussed before in another thread, but I noticed something intriguing :

It is the "Royal University Press", not the "Imperial University Press" which is what I would expect.

Any thought on that ?

The Royal College of Charis became the Royal University way back in Cayleb the First's time and has proudly kept its name ever since, never mind that the Republic of Safehold was declared long ago?

Hildum wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:
I agree that demonstrating that we live on a world that is curved is fairly easy for anyone with a boat and a telescope, but my experience with atheistic true believers, or the Jesus never existed crowd is that they've got a fairly 'sophisticated' system whereby they provide reasons to exclude any evidence that doesn't fit their worldview. Flat Earthers probably have that same kind of set-up. Whatever evidence you hand them, they'll be prepped with an explanation of why that evidence is fraudulent.

The term "atheistic true believers" is an oxymoron, and rather insulting at that. You seem to feel that atheism is simply another religion. It is not, and you are projecting your beliefs of how people should feel on atheists. Hence your comment "true believers."

Atheists do not believe in a god of any type. You claim there is one, so the burden of proof is on you, not on them. Show them a well designed and executed double blind study proving the existence of god, any god, and they will come around. A book that was obviously written and rewritten to support one group or another is not proof of anything.

A practical definition of an atheistic true believer might be 'someone who wouldn't believe in God if the Virgin Mary appeared to them in a shower of rose petals.' Feel free to replace the Virgin Mary with the saint or God of your choice; I picked her because she seems to be on divine messenger duty for at least two religions.

At the moment, Eastshare is pulling the 'true believer' duties on Safehold. Whatever evidence he's presented with, he won't accept it. You could set up a well executed double blind trial if you like - he'd still believe that the proof presented was faked.The point is that it really doesn't matter - to a true beliver - if you produce evidence or not.

Which is why some atheists can be true believers in atheism - their lack of belief is so important to them, so much a core part of their identity, that they angrily reject any evidence, whether or not it would be considered acceptable in the field of study it comes from.

As Lyonheart says, there's good philosophical reasons for believing in a God that only rarely provides what you might call absolute proof, and seems to confine that proof to occasional guest appearances. Can you imagine the kind of stranglehold the COGA would have if Langhorne et al. could have relied on absolute proof that goes beyond personal experience? God exists, see proof here, use of electricity is an anathama.

Are you sure that's what He said? Heretic! He exists, here's the proof, and Zhasphar Clyntahn is His prophet!

Whitecold wrote:Atheism is a belief too. Obviously literal interpretations of the bible are incompatible with science, but you can always keep asking why.
Why do the fundamental constants of the universe align exactly in a way that allows baryonic matter to exist?
So far no one has any realistic idea on how to make experiments on anything outside the spacetime we know. Proving the nonexistence of any creator is as impossible as proving it.

The problem here is there are really two flavors of atheism. There is the hard atheist that says "I believe there is no god"--as you say, that is a religious position. However, there aren't very many of those, most of us are soft atheists who say "I see no reason to believe in any gods". This is not a religious position, but rather just Occam's razor at work. Religion supposedly solves all those unknowns with god-did-it--but actually just introduces a bigger one--explaining god.

Loren Pechtel wrote:The problem here is there are really two flavors of atheism. There is the hard atheist that says "I believe there is no god"--as you say, that is a religious position. However, there aren't very many of those, most of us are soft atheists who say "I see no reason to believe in any gods". This is not a religious position, but rather just Occam's razor at work. Religion supposedly solves all those unknowns with god-did-it--but actually just introduces a bigger one--explaining god.

There is a third variation on that, which is where people think there may be (or not) a god, but he is unknowable et reject completely churches and clerics. The only worthy criteria is reason, and as such they are near hard atheists and were parts of the early libre-pensée movement, but had no place for religious belief.

Loren Pechtel wrote:

Whitecold wrote:Atheism is a belief too. Obviously literal interpretations of the bible are incompatible with science, but you can always keep asking why.
Why do the fundamental constants of the universe align exactly in a way that allows baryonic matter to exist?
So far no one has any realistic idea on how to make experiments on anything outside the spacetime we know. Proving the nonexistence of any creator is as impossible as proving it.

The problem here is there are really two flavors of atheism. There is the hard atheist that says "I believe there is no god"--as you say, that is a religious position. However, there aren't very many of those, most of us are soft atheists who say "I see no reason to believe in any gods". This is not a religious position, but rather just Occam's razor at work. Religion supposedly solves all those unknowns with god-did-it--but actually just introduces a bigger one--explaining god.

I would quibble just a bit and argue that there are atheists and there are agnostics. The atheist says there is no God; the agnostic (thank you Thomas Huxley) believes the answer to the question is unknowable. Some subspecies of agnostic are willing to consider logical arguments on both sides or to stipulate that if evidence of God's existence is ever presented, they will accept it. Most agnostics, however, believe that proving the case either way is inherently impossible. I would argue that your "soft atheist" would actually fall under that rubric.

runsforcelery wrote:I would quibble just a bit and argue that there are atheists and there are agnostics. The atheist says there is no God; the agnostic (thank you Thomas Huxley) believes the answer to the question is unknowable. Some subspecies of agnostic are willing to consider logical arguments on both sides or to stipulate that if evidence of God's existence is ever presented, they will accept it. Most agnostics, however, believe that proving the case either way is inherently impossible. I would argue that your "soft atheist" would actually fall under that rubric.

I don't agree. Agnostics consider the question unknowable, soft atheists say we don't have enough information, but what we have gives a default answer of no.