Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: Étienne d'Angleterre on March 01, 2016, 01:41:59 PM
-
Dear Hope,
I have been following this forum for some time but have never registered to post as I feel I would rarely have the opportunity to reply to messages addressed to me.
However, you have driven me to it!
You frequently allude to other approaches to understanding reality apart from science. A recent example had been on the Alpha topic thread. You have said (sorry for the poor quality quoting as I don't yet know how to do it properly:
- "They only fall at the first hurdle if science and the naturalistic approach to reality is the sole approach we have - and you have yet to provide us with any evidence that that is the case - so, a good example of your use of tyhe negative proof fallacy on your part."
"Science works, to a large extent. Few, if any, Christians would disagree - however, you have never shown any evidence that it is the sole arbiter of reality"[/i][/u][/b]
Several posters have asked you to provide some details as to how we might know about this alternative approach but without answer.
Please, please please could you do so as I can't stand the suspense anymore. Just some basic outline as to go about discerning things that are likely true from things that are likely false.
Ta
-
Hello Stephen (& welcome),
I'm pretty sure you'll soon find out that your post is a triumph of Hope over expectation...
-
A reply will put many of us out of our misery.
-
We'll form an orderly queue behind you, Stephen.
-
Welcome to delurking.
I'm afraid you are going to be out of luck. Your request has been made many times over the years and Hope has always ignored it. There's a good reason why he has always ignored it and that reason is that there is no approach for understanding reality apart from science.
I would go as far as saying that there can be no other approach for understanding reality. The fundamental point of science is to test your ideas to see if they conform to reality. Hope thinks science is some mysterious complex process carried out by people in white coats in laboratories. It's not (or at least not necessarily). Any approach to understanding reality must include the step of checking your ideas against reality and if your approach includes that step, it is science.
-
A new poster, there's Hope for us yet then ?
:D
-
Having read the post before last I have to confess I always thought Hope was a 'she'.
No other comments but I do hope you receive an answer Stephen.
-
Please, please please could you do so as I can't stand the suspense anymore. Just some basic outline as to go about discerning things that are likely true from things that are likely false.
Ta
Hi Stephen, as I've pointed out before - several times - the issue is that as far as certain people are concerned the only valid evidence is that which is moderated by the scientific method. As you will appreciate, since this method relies solely on the naturalistic, any non-naturalistic evidence is necessarily disallowed by such people. Therefore experience is irrelevant - even though experience is quite an important factor in getting jobs, bringing children up safely, ...
However
I have been trying to decide how best to introduce the following for a few days (when I haven't been coughing my guts up and suffering from nasal drip syndrome).
In the past, we have been told here that sceince doesn't deal in right and wrong - yet that is a major part of human life. There are, for instance, the societal rules and regulalations that exist in any society. If sceince doesn't deal with right and wrong, where does the impetus for deciding what is right and what is wrong come from? It clearly can't be a merely naturalistic source, otherwise science would always be able to give imput. So, let's take a couple of examples. Where, if at all, is the naturalistic reasoning behind the idea that one shouldn't lie? or kill (after all most of animal world kill to survive and we don't seem to regard this as unacceptable). On the other end of the spectrum, there is the issue of speeding. There was scientific evidence used to install the current 70mph limit here in the UK - though I'm told that modern research has largely refuted that evidence.
Obviously, it is very hard to provide a naturalistically valid methodology for parts of our lives that go beyond the natural - but then of course even the die-hard scientific naturalists here turn to 'magic' when they invoke 'spontaneous healing' - something that doesn't fit in the scientific lexicon at all. They have no answer to the situation so make things up.
-
Welcome Stephen - it's great to see a new poster at last. (Nearly said member there ...). I do hope that having been provoked into posting by Hope (it comes to us all, believe you me) you'll stick around and enjoy the blandishments of R & E.
-
A reply will put many of us out of our misery.
Well, if you and others were to read my and others' posts as carefully as you claim to do, you will notice that I have made no dramatically new comments here - just pulled them together in to a single post.
-
Hi Stephen, as I've pointed out before - several times - the issue is that as far as certain people are concerned the only valid evidence is that which is moderated by the scientific method. As you will appreciate, since this method relies solely on the naturalistic, any non-naturalistic evidence is necessarily disallowed by such people. Therefore experience is irrelevant - even though experience is quite an important factor in getting jobs, bringing children up safely, ...
However
I have been trying to decide how best to introduce the following for a few days (when I haven't been coughing my guts up and suffering from nasal drip syndrome).
In the past, we have been told here that sceince doesn't deal in right and wrong - yet that is a major part of human life. There are, for instance, the societal rules and regulalations that exist in any society. If sceince doesn't deal with right and wrong, where does the impetus for deciding what is right and what is wrong come from? It clearly can't be a merely naturalistic source, otherwise science would always be able to give imput. So, let's take a couple of examples. Where, if at all, is the naturalistic reasoning behind the idea that one shouldn't lie? or kill (after all most of animal world kill to survive and we don't seem to regard this as unacceptable). On the other end of the spectrum, there is the issue of speeding. There was scientific evidence used to install the current 70mph limit here in the UK - though I'm told that modern research has largely refuted that evidence.
Obviously, it is very hard to provide a naturalistically valid methodology for parts of our lives that go beyond the natural - but then of course even the die-hard scientific naturalists here turn to 'magic' when they invoke 'spontaneous healing' - something that doesn't fit in the scientific lexicon at all. They have no answer to the situation so make things up.
The universe does not care if you lie, or kill, or steal.
Human groups do.
The 'rules' come from groups trying to establish a way of living together that benefits all.
We are stronger as a group than individuals, and we need rules to live in large groups.
That's all there is to it.
-
As you will appreciate, since this method relies solely on the naturalistic, any non-naturalistic evidence is necessarily disallowed by such people.
How about providing some then.
Therefore experience is irrelevant - even though experience is quite an important factor in getting jobs, bringing children up safely, ...
In what way is experience not naturalistic? Or, alternatively, what constitutes a non-naturalistic experience?
If sceince doesn't deal with right and wrong, where does the impetus for deciding what is right and what is wrong come from?
The thing between your ears.
It clearly can't be a merely naturalistic source, otherwise science would always be able to give imput.
Science does, since biology is involved.
So, let's take a couple of examples. Where, if at all, is the naturalistic reasoning behind the idea that one shouldn't lie or kill...
Using you brain to consider the consequences if routine lying or killing were acceptable.
On the other end of the spectrum, there is the issue of speeding. There was scientific evidence used to install the current 70mph limit here in the UK - though I'm told that modern research has largely refuted that evidence.
That would be because when it comes to social regulations these involve people thinking and reviewing their decisions: brains again.
Obviously, it is very hard to provide a naturalistically valid methodology for parts of our lives that go beyond the natural
Which parts are these then?
- but then of course even the die-hard scientific naturalists here turn to 'magic' when they invoke 'spontaneous healing' - something that doesn't fit in the scientific lexicon at all. They have no answer to the situation so make things up.
Utter bollocks!
-
Well, if you and others were to read my and others' posts as carefully as you claim to do, you will notice that I have made no dramatically new comments here - just pulled them together in to a single post.
I can't say I've ever seen anything even in your posts before as outstandingly stupid as trying to use speed limits as an argument for supernaturalism.
Close, but not quite.
-
any non-naturalistic evidence is necessarily disallowed by such people.
Please give some examples of non naturalistic evidence.
Therefore experience is irrelevant
In what way is experience not natural?
There are, for instance, the societal rules and regulalations that exist in any society.
In what way are these not natural?
If sceince doesn't deal with right and wrong, where does the impetus for deciding what is right and what is wrong come from?
That's an interesting question, but what makes you think that the answers are not natural?
but then of course even the die-hard scientific naturalists here turn to 'magic' when they invoke 'spontaneous healing' - something that doesn't fit in the scientific lexicon at all.
What are you talking about? Science has told us a lot about the way our bodies heal themselves. This "spontaneous healing" you are talking about is merely another way of saying they got better.
-
Science has told us a lot about the way our bodies heal themselves. This "spontaneous healing" you are talking about is merely another way of saying they got better.
The particularly irksome thing about this is that the last time Hopeless was beating his chest about spontaneous healing no more than a couple of weeks ago (unsurprisingly, invoking the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy) I posted a link* to a long, thorough, very clear and really rather good BBC article on the subject outlining what science already knows about SH (a surprising amount) and promising areas for future research. Hopeless either didn't read said article or read it but didn't understand it - either way he's acting as though it never existed, and is blithely boring on as though SH is some grand supernatural thing that mystifies everybody.
* Here: http://goo.gl/r4BtVP
-
Hi Stephen, as I've pointed out before - several times - the issue is that as far as certain people are concerned the only valid evidence is that which is moderated by the scientific method. As you will appreciate, since this method relies solely on the naturalistic, any non-naturalistic evidence is necessarily disallowed by such people. Therefore experience is irrelevant - even though experience is quite an important factor in getting jobs, bringing children up safely, ...
However
I have been trying to decide how best to introduce the following for a few days (when I haven't been coughing my guts up and suffering from nasal drip syndrome).
In the past, we have been told here that sceince doesn't deal in right and wrong - yet that is a major part of human life. There are, for instance, the societal rules and regulalations that exist in any society. If sceince doesn't deal with right and wrong, where does the impetus for deciding what is right and what is wrong come from? It clearly can't be a merely naturalistic source, otherwise science would always be able to give imput. So, let's take a couple of examples. Where, if at all, is the naturalistic reasoning behind the idea that one shouldn't lie? or kill (after all most of animal world kill to survive and we don't seem to regard this as unacceptable). On the other end of the spectrum, there is the issue of speeding. There was scientific evidence used to install the current 70mph limit here in the UK - though I'm told that modern research has largely refuted that evidence.
Obviously, it is very hard to provide a naturalistically valid methodology for parts of our lives that go beyond the natural - but then of course even the die-hard scientific naturalists here turn to 'magic' when they invoke 'spontaneous healing' - something that doesn't fit in the scientific lexicon at all. They have no answer to the situation so make things up.
Thank you for getting back to me, and I hope the cold is better soon.
I'm afraid I couldn't find anything non naturalistic in your post.
Right and wrong appear to me to be value judgements about behaviours. Behaviours, attitudes and reasoning clearly have there origins in biology and this can be clearly demonstrated by downing a bottle of Whisky. Do you agree that your attitudes and behaviours would be different subsequent to this? Biology is also clearly ripe for scientific investigation.
Likewise speed limits are a compromise between getting around as quickly as possible whilst also trying to minimise accidents. I don't see anything non naturalistic about this.
Not sure I understand your point about spontaneous healing. You have a cold at the moment. I bet you won't a year from now (well not the same one anyway). What is non naturalistic about that. If you lost a leg in an accident and it suddenly grew back you might have something worth talking about.
I suppose a good way to proceed would be for you to give us an example of "the parts of our lives that go beyond the natural"
TTFN
Stephen
PS Thanks for the welcome messages. I don't know how often I will be able to post but hope to give it a good shot.
-
How interesting to hear that a lurker/browser of this site has decided to post; this is a very good thing of course, and I hope more do so.
Stephen, the best thing I've found is to scroll past Hope's posts and read others' answers. In this way I am compelled to read parts of Hope's posts, but it's less painful with a sensible answer immediately following!! :)
-
How interesting to hear that a lurker/browser of this site has decided to post; this is a very good thing of course, and I hope more do so.
Stephen, the best thing I've found is to scroll past Hope's posts and read others' answers. In this way I am compelled to read parts of Hope's posts, but it's less painful with a sensible answer immediately following!! :)
The problem with this, Susan is that some of those following posts misrepresent what I have written, and thence become moot posts.
-
How interesting to hear that a lurker/browser of this site has decided to post; this is a very good thing of course, and I hope more do so.
Absolutely. I wish I'd asked Stephen how he found us.
-
The problem with this, Susan is that some of those following posts misrepresent what I have written, and thence become moot posts.
No they don't: they point out your routine use of fallacious reasoning.
-
Right and wrong appear to me to be value judgements about behaviours. Behaviours, attitudes and reasoning clearly have there origins in biology and this can be clearly demonstrated by downing a bottle of Whisky. Do you agree that your attitudes and behaviours would be different subsequent to this? Biology is also clearly ripe for scientific investigation.
One doesn't have to down a bottle of whisky to do something 'wrong'. One doesn't need to have had one's attitudes and behaviours modified in this way to be able to do wrong. As for your comment that "Behaviours, attitudes and reasoning clearly have there origins in biology ..." perhaps you can provide us with evidential material to show why the law against killing someone - which exists in practically every 'corner' of the globe - is in any way related to biology.
Likewise speed limits are a compromise between getting around as quickly as possible whilst also trying to minimise accidents. I don't see anything non naturalistic about this.
Good to see you making the same mistake that others here have - taking an argument 'for' the role of science in such a process and trying to point out an error.
Not sure I understand your point about spontaneous healing. You have a cold at the moment. I bet you won't a year from now (well not the same one anyway). What is non naturalistic about that. If you lost a leg in an accident and it suddenly grew back you might have something worth talking about.
As far as I'm aware, no-one uses the term spontaneous healing to refer to everyday healings - such as of colds or illness caused by viruses - it is generally accepted that this is one example of how the body is designed/able to combat infection/virus attack/etc.
It tends to be used for more unexpected healing - when doctors have said that there is nothing more that they can do for a patient - such as in some cases of cancer or severe burning. The claim that the body 'just repairs' itself after months, sometimes years of not being able to seems a bit far-fetched and unscientific.
I suppose a good way to proceed would be for you to give us an example of "the parts of our lives that go beyond the natural"
I've given this example before - emotions. All others have managed to do is refer to the symptoms of whatever emotion they might be talking about, not the underlying processes
PS Thanks for the welcome messages. I don't know how often I will be able to post but hope to give it a good shot.
Its good to debate with you, Stephen. Don't worry about not being able to post regularly.
-
As far as I'm aware, no-one uses the term spontaneous healing to refer to everyday healings - such as of colds or illness caused by viruses - it is generally accepted that this is one example of how the body is designed/able to combat infection/virus attack/etc.
It tends to be used for more unexpected healing - when doctors have said that there is nothing more that they can do for a patient - such as in some cases of cancer or severe burning. The claim that the body 'just repairs' itself after months, sometimes years of not being able to seems a bit far-fetched and unscientific.
Far from it. If you'd read the article I posted a fortnight or so ago and referred to again earlier (#14) you'd be aware that it's looking increasingly likely that there's no difference between the two - in other words, that the immune system plays a part (not 100% clear at present but under active investigation) in the spontaneous remission of some cancers just as it does for a cold or a cut finger.
That something appears to be far-fetched to someone says nothing whatever of its truth and is nothing more than the fallacy of personal incredulity - surprise surprise.
-
Dear Hope,
Well done, you attracted a new member to our small forum, keep up the good work.
Dear Stephen,
Welcome, I am the forums psychic, the spirits are telling me you have atheistic leanings.
Gonnagle.
-
The universe does not care if you lie, or kill, or steal.
Human groups do.
The 'rules' come from groups trying to establish a way of living together that benefits all.
We are stronger as a group than individuals, and we need rules to live in large groups.
That's all there is to it.
B R, I've had to admonish Len for taking the words out of my mouth often before I can even reach the keyboard.
You're beginning to seriously piss me off now with your consistent straight to the point/nub of almost every contribution here on the forum and you haven't even got the decency to make the odd duff post from time to time, that might make me feel better about my posts.
It's about time you did something about it_______ and an apology isn't enough.
ippy
-
The problem with this, Susan is that some of those following posts misrepresent what I have written, and thence become moot posts.
What Hope? I hope they're Not misrepresenting things in the same way that you do, are they?
ippy
-
Dear Hope,
Well done, you attracted a new member to our small forum, keep up the good work.
Dear Stephen,
Welcome, I am the forums psychic, the spirits are telling me you have atheistic leanings.
Gonnagle.
If your psychic powers were any good Gonners, you'd already know if he was an atheistic or not.
I can remember seeing somewhere that there is a newspaper titled "The Psychic News", I can remember thinking, why do they need a newspaper?
ippy
-
One doesn't have to down a bottle of whisky to do something 'wrong'. One doesn't need to have had one's attitudes and behaviours modified in this way to be able to do wrong. As for your comment that "Behaviours, attitudes and reasoning clearly have there origins in biology ..." perhaps you can provide us with evidential material to show why the law against killing someone - which exists in practically every 'corner' of the globe - is in any way related to biology.
Easy-peasy anything and everything that people think is due to human biology: there is no alternative to thinking using your brain. Try thinking using either your big toe or the nearest kettle if you don't believe me.
Good to see you making the same mistake that others here have - taking an argument 'for' the role of science in such a process and trying to point out an error.
As far as I'm aware, no-one uses the term spontaneous healing to refer to everyday healings - such as of colds or illness caused by viruses - it is generally accepted that this is one example of how the body is designed/able to combat infection/virus attack/etc.
How convenient that you exclude all the stuff that is routine and understood, due of course to scientific research such as the development of vaccines,
It tends to be used for more unexpected healing - when doctors have said that there is nothing more that they can do for a patient - such as in some cases of cancer or severe burning. The claim that the body 'just repairs' itself after months, sometimes years of not being able to seems a bit far-fetched and unscientific.
Utter nonsense, and I expect I have rather more direct experience of this than you since I used to do it for a living, and Mrs G still does.
I've given this example before - emotions. All others have managed to do is refer to the symptoms of whatever emotion they might be talking about, not the underlying processes
More nonsense: your emotions are biological processes occurring in your brain, where these are subject to both biological processes within your body (some of which are autonomic) and are also subject to external events, stimuli and other inputs, such as drugs, alcohol and let us not forget allergens.
You really do need to educate yourself out of the simplistic understanding of biology that you seem to have: and you won't find the answers in theology and its associated fallacies.
-
Dear Stephen,
Welcome, I am the forums psychic, the spirits are telling me you have atheistic leanings.
Gonnagle.
[/quote]
Hi, thank you for the welcome.
Your spirits are 4/7th correct. :)
I don't have a belief in the traditional Deities but I do have a strong sense of the spiritual and numinous. I'm sure most people theist or atheist might feel the same.
I was having a cup of tea next to my camellia that is just coming into bud earlier. The birds were singing I thought this is heaven on Earth. Then I noticed that the birds were eating the insects on the plant - maybe not Heaven after all :-\
The reason I ask Hope is that wouldn't it be interesting if he was correct about these non material/ naturalistic things.
So far though I have seen nothing to convince me, but I remain open to persuasion.
Hopefully, the first of many conversations.
Stephen
-
Absolutely. I wish I'd asked Stephen how he found us.
Hi,
Actually I did post briefly on the old BBC forum. After it closed I didn't bother but a few years later a bit of googling this place showed up.
I didn't post before because I'm no in a position to do so on a regular basis and I think it rude to ask a question if you haven't got time to respond.
-
Dear Stephen,
Welcome, I am the forums psychic, the spirits are telling me you have atheistic leanings.
Gonnagle.
Hi, thank you for the welcome.
Your spirits are 4/7th correct. :)
I don't have a belief in the traditional Deities but I do have a strong sense of the spiritual and numinous. I'm sure most people theist or atheist might feel the same.
I was having a cup of tea next to my camellia that is just coming into bud earlier. The birds were singing I thought this is heaven on Earth. Then I noticed that the birds were eating the insects on the plant - maybe not Heaven after all :-\
The reason I ask Hope is that wouldn't it be interesting if he was correct about these non material/ naturalistic things.
So far though I have seen nothing to convince me, but I remain open to persuasion.
Hopefully, the first of many conversations.
Stephen
You might be interested in the Panthiest thread on the Pagan topic then :)
It was started by Shaker. 🌹
-
One doesn't have to down a bottle of whisky to do something 'wrong'. One doesn't need to have had one's attitudes and behaviours modified in this way to be able to do wrong. As for your comment that "Behaviours, attitudes and reasoning clearly have there origins in biology ..." perhaps you can provide us with evidential material to show why the law against killing someone - which exists in practically every 'corner' of the globe - is in any way related to biology.
Good to see you making the same mistake that others here have - taking an argument 'for' the role of science in such a process and trying to point out an error.
As far as I'm aware, no-one uses the term spontaneous healing to refer to everyday healings - such as of colds or illness caused by viruses - it is generally accepted that this is one example of how the body is designed/able to combat infection/virus attack/etc.
It tends to be used for more unexpected healing - when doctors have said that there is nothing more that they can do for a patient - such as in some cases of cancer or severe burning. The claim that the body 'just repairs' itself after months, sometimes years of not being able to seems a bit far-fetched and unscientific.
I've given this example before - emotions. All others have managed to do is refer to the symptoms of whatever emotion they might be talking about, not the underlying processes
Its good to debate with you, Stephen. Don't worry about not being able to post regularly.
Well I would like to cut out most of the post which spectacularly fails to get the point I was making.
You have picked (an correct me if I a wrong) emotions as something non naturalistic and not within the remit of science.
WHAT!!!!!
This I clearly complete rubbish.
Suffer serious brain damage and it is likely that you will suffer changed attitudes and emotions.
Take alcohol and / or drugs and it is likely that you will suffer changed attitudes and emotions.
Witness as traumatic event and it is likely that you will suffer changes attitudes and emotions.
People who are dead show no changes in attitudes and emotions regardless of how much Whisky or cocaine you give them or prop them up in front of Bambi in the tragic scene we are all well familiar with.
Add to this the FACT that medical science can produce drugs which effect hormones I think it more likely that emotions are naturalistic, have origins in Biology and can be understood and manipulated (to a degree) by the application of science than emotions are supernatural.
What say you?
-
Thank you,
I will investigate further.
-
I don't have a belief in the traditional Deities but I do have a strong sense of the spiritual and numinous. I'm sure most people theist or atheist might feel the same.
I was having a cup of tea next to my camellia that is just coming into bud earlier. The birds were singing I thought this is heaven on Earth. Then I noticed that the birds were eating the insects on the plant - maybe not Heaven after all :-\
The reason I ask Hope is that wouldn't it be interesting if he was correct about these non material/ naturalistic things.
So far though I have seen nothing to convince me, but I remain open to persuasion.
Hopefully, the first of many conversations.
Stephen
Hi, Stephen,
I'm a pantheistic pagan; to me spirituality is very much as you describe, feeding and nurturing the needs we have that go beyond the physical. And I think it is in the (supposedly) small things we find meaning - the sun on your face, the scent of the earth.
I fully understand where you are coming from on the apparent 'fallen-ness' (to borrow a phrase from Christianity) of the cycle of life where things consume other things in order to survive and heaven on earth suddenly slips away - btw I'm sure you know that tea is a form of camellia. But if you look on the whole without judgement, but consider how interconnected everything is, and how vast, there is perspective and balance to be had. It's only us humans that come along and spoil the party, at least as far as we know.
-
Thank you for getting back to me, and I hope the cold is better soon.
I'm afraid I couldn't find anything non naturalistic in your post.
Right and wrong appear to me to be value judgements about behaviours. Behaviours, attitudes and reasoning clearly have there origins in biology and this can be clearly demonstrated by downing a bottle of Whisky. Do you agree that your attitudes and behaviours would be different subsequent to this? Biology is also clearly ripe for scientific investigation.
Likewise speed limits are a compromise between getting around as quickly as possible whilst also trying to minimise accidents. I don't see anything non naturalistic about this.
Not sure I understand your point about spontaneous healing. You have a cold at the moment. I bet you won't a year from now (well not the same one anyway). What is non naturalistic about that. If you lost a leg in an accident and it suddenly grew back you might have something worth talking about.
I suppose a good way to proceed would be for you to give us an example of "the parts of our lives that go beyond the natural"
TTFN
Stephen
PS Thanks for the welcome messages. I don't know how often I will be able to post but hope to give it a good shot.
Hi Stephen,
Welcome to this forum. I hope you enjoy it. You seem to have started well, with some very pointed questions.
And just so you know that there are plenty of people here with a variety of views and arguments, may I point you to a previous thread which discussed ideas of morality in some detail.
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10374.0
If you delve into this thread, you will probably get some inkling of the different ideas and arguments that people on here have produced on this subject.
Cheers. :)
-
The universe does not care if you lie, or kill, or steal.
Human groups do.
The 'rules' come from groups trying to establish a way of living together that benefits all.
We are stronger as a group than individuals, and we need rules to live in large groups.
That's all there is to it.
But hang on because humans are part of the universe.......so the part of the universe that can care does.
-
Hi Stephen, as I've pointed out before - several times - the issue is that as far as certain people are concerned the only valid evidence is that which is moderated by the scientific method. As you will appreciate, since this method relies solely on the naturalistic, any non-naturalistic evidence is necessarily disallowed by such people. Therefore experience is irrelevant - even though experience is quite an important factor in getting jobs, bringing children up safely, ...
This shows a basic misunderstanding of the terms naturalistic, and evidence. There is no such thing, and there never can be any such thing, as non-naturalistic evidence. Evidence is a naturalistic concept. The rest of your post is pursuant to this elementary faux-pas and thus is not worth reading.
-
Hello Stephen,
Welcome to the Forum.
I am one of the ever decreasing number of Christian posters on this forum. As you may have gathered from other threads, I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to convince some of the non believers that we all have a spiritual soul which facilitates our conscious awareness and free will. From your posts it would seem that you will present me with another challenge!
-
Stephen, why have you singled out Hope for your attention? Other posters, like Alan Burns make daft assertions without supporting evidence too!
-
Stephen, why have you singled out Hope for your attention? Other posters, like Alan Burns make daft assertions without supporting evidence too!
True, perhaps he can take you on too, when you have one of your assertive ( black and white ) moments.
;)
-
Some people just can't accept that we live in a natural universe.
Why shouldn't everything have a naturalistic explanation? We can see the way that science has been ousting supernatural ideas for centuries - it certainly won't be stopping now.
In any event, there is no evidence of anything supernatural in our universe so the natural explanation is far more likely in any observation of phenomena we make.
Science provides the single explanation. Believers are told to make two assumptions: One, that something is supernatural and two, that it just so happens to be the god(s) they have chosen to worship and not Brahm,a Shiva, Odin, Allah, Zoroaster, etc.
-
True, perhaps he can take you on too, when you have one of your assertive ( black and white ) moments.
;)
Like what?
-
Hope,
Hi Stephen, as I've pointed out before - several times - the issue is that as far as certain people are concerned the only valid evidence is that which is moderated by the scientific method. As you will appreciate, since this method relies solely on the naturalistic, any non-naturalistic evidence is necessarily disallowed by such people. Therefore experience is irrelevant - even though experience is quite an important factor in getting jobs, bringing children up safely, ...
Oh dear. This is just a re-statement of Vlad's "methodological materialism" mistake. "Evidence" is itself a naturalistic concept - it relies on data, testing, falsifiability etc. If you want to call something evidence then you have to play by these rules. If you want to call something else evidence though, then as ever you have all your work ahead of you to propose a method of any kind to distinguish this supposed evidence from mistake, misattribution, just guessing, the effects of a bump on the head etc.
However
I have been trying to decide how best to introduce the following for a few days (when I haven't been coughing my guts up and suffering from nasal drip syndrome).
In the past, we have been told here that sceince doesn't deal in right and wrong - yet that is a major part of human life. There are, for instance, the societal rules and regulalations that exist in any society. If sceince doesn't deal with right and wrong, where does the impetus for deciding what is right and what is wrong come from? It clearly can't be a merely naturalistic source, otherwise science would always be able to give imput. So, let's take a couple of examples. Where, if at all, is the naturalistic reasoning behind the idea that one shouldn't lie? or kill (after all most of animal world kill to survive and we don't seem to regard this as unacceptable). On the other end of the spectrum, there is the issue of speeding. There was scientific evidence used to install the current 70mph limit here in the UK - though I'm told that modern research has largely refuted that evidence.
Seriously?
Seriously seriously?
First, "science" has a great deal to say about the biological basis of morality - try reading Bill Hamilton for starters for example. Briefly, codes of behaviour we call “moral” tend to favour the survivial of the genome and we can demonstrate this readily with careful observation of the species that practice it.
Second, even if science can't currently explain something that doesn't give you free reign to decide that the answer must therefore be non-naturalistic. This "reasoning" is essentially that used to explain that thunder and lightning was Thor chucking his hammer around.
Third, if you want to claim the supposed non-naturalistic as a fact then you also have all your work ahead of you first to define it, and second to demonstrate it.
Fourth, if you actually mean something like “science can’t tell us what’s right and what’s wrong” then the question itself is misguided because it assumes an empirical answer that’s “out there”, something for which there’s no evidence whatever. That said, if we’re to look anywhere for answers to these questions then as Sam Harris has argued using the tools of reason and logic seem more likely to give us more reliable answers than pointing to ancient texts and the personal “faith” of some people that those texts must be true.
Obviously, it is very hard to provide a naturalistically valid methodology for parts of our lives that go beyond the natural…
That’s just incoherent. What on earth makes you think that there are “parts of our lives that go beyond the natural”?
- but then of course even the die-hard scientific naturalists here turn to 'magic' when they invoke 'spontaneous healing' - something that doesn't fit in the
scientific lexicon at all. They have no answer to the situation so make things up.
And that’s just stupid. “Spontaneous healing” refers to an unexpected recovery from illness for reasons that aren’t well understood. Maybe one day they will be understood, maybe we’ll never know but either way that says not one jot of an iota of a smidgin to the cause being “not natural”, and moreover no-one with a functioning brain thinks the cause to be “magic”.
Apart from that though…
-
Hope,
Oh dear. This is just a re-statement of Vlad's "methodological materialism" mistake. "Evidence" is itself a naturalistic concept - it relies on data, testing, falsifiability etc. If you want to call something evidence then you have to play by these rules. If you want to call something else evidence though, then as ever you have all your work ahead of you to propose a method of any kind to distinguish this supposed evidence from mistake, misattribution, just guessing, the effects of a bump on the head etc.
Seriously?
Seriously seriously?
First, "science" has a great deal to say about the biological basis of morality - try reading Bill Hamilton for starters for example. Briefly, codes of behaviour we call “moral” tend to favour the survivial of the genome and we can demonstrate this readily with careful observation of the species that practice it.
Second, even if science can't currently explain something that doesn't give you free reign to decide that the answer must therefore be non-naturalistic. This "reasoning" is essentially that used to explain that thunder and lightning was Thor chucking his hammer around.
Third, if you want to claim the supposed non-naturalistic as a fact then you also have all your work ahead of you first to define it, and second to demonstrate it.
Fourth, if you actually mean something like “science can’t tell us what’s right and what’s wrong” then the question itself is misguided because it assumes an empirical answer that’s “out there”, something for which there’s no evidence whatever. That said, if we’re to look anywhere for answers to these questions then as Sam Harris has argued using the tools of reason and logic seem more likely to give us more reliable answers than pointing to ancient texts and the personal “faith” of some people that those texts must be true.
That’s just incoherent. What on earth makes you think that there are “parts of our lives that go beyond the natural”?
And that’s just stupid. “Spontaneous healing” refers to an unexpected recovery from illness for reasons that aren’t well understood. Maybe one day they will be understood, maybe we’ll never know but either way that says not one jot of an iota of a smidgin to the cause being “not natural”, and moreover no-one with a functioning brain thinks the cause to be “magic”.
Apart from that though…
Makes me realise how much I've missed you, Blue!
-
Ditto!
-
Hope isn't going to provide a method for the non-natural because the concept has no explanatory power - it can only give an assertive "what" and not an explanatory "how". This is because invoking a concept that can do anything leaves us with no means of ever being able to establish when it does do something. Spontaneous healing? - oh that'll be the non-natural. The doctor cured you? - oh that'll be the non-natural working through the doctor.
You need to posit something this non-natural can't do, otherwise you can apply the concept as an "explanation" for anything, which is pissing in the wind as it cancels out the idea that it does explain. Contrast is needed, otherwise a non-natural explanation is left meaningless.
-
Hope isn't going to provide a method for the non-natural because the concept has no explanatory power - it can only give an assertive "what" and not an explanatory "how". This is because invoking a concept that can do anything leaves us with no means of ever being able to establish when it does do something. Spontaneous healing? - oh that'll be the non-natural. The doctor cured you? - oh that'll be the non-natural working through the doctor.
You need to posit something this non-natural can't do, otherwise you can apply the concept as an "explanation" for anything, which is pissing in the wind as it cancels out the idea that it does explain. Contrast is needed, otherwise a non-natural explanation is left meaningless.
Very good, and nice to see you again. I was taught in terms of constraints. Any descriptive or explanatory scheme must have constraints, and usually quite narrow ones. It would be difficult to do a Ph. D. in 'Stuff that I like', or 'Here are some ideas I've had recently'.
The supernatural can do anything, in other words, there are no constraints. As Andy said, what can't it do? And, the devil can make you think very clever ideas - so beware! But how do I know when an idea is demonic?
-
Hi Blue
"... even if science can't currently explain something that doesn't give you free reign to decide that the answer must therefore be non-naturalistic. This "reasoning" is essentially that used to explain that thunder and lightning was Thor chucking his hammer around."
I can't agree with this because, as I see it, those ancients who thought thunder and lightening was Thor chucking his hammer around were the first scientists.
What do scientists do these days? They look at unanswered questions, they use any knowledge already gained, and they come to some sort of hypothesis. Surely that's all those guys were doing.
That they got it wrong isn't surprising, scientists are always bringing their ideas up to date. It is the religious of today, who seem to think bringing their ideas up to date is a big no no!
-
I can't agree with this because, as I see it, those ancients who thought thunder and lightening was Thor chucking his hammer around were the first scientists.
That's all very well as a hypothesis, but is it testable? And was it actually tested?
-
Stephen, why have you singled out Hope for your attention? Other posters, like Alan Burns make daft assertions without supporting evidence too!
Because he indicated that he had a methodology that was useful for the "non naturalistic" aspects of life, and I wanted him to enlighten me.
However, as he can't give an example of a "non naturalistic" aspect of life I don't think a methodology will be forthcoming.
-
Hi, Stephen,
I'm a pantheistic pagan; to me spirituality is very much as you describe, feeding and nurturing the needs we have that go beyond the physical. And I think it is in the (supposedly) small things we find meaning - the sun on your face, the scent of the earth.
I fully understand where you are coming from on the apparent 'fallen-ness' (to borrow a phrase from Christianity) of the cycle of life where things consume other things in order to survive and heaven on earth suddenly slips away - btw I'm sure you know that tea is a form of camellia. But if you look on the whole without judgement, but consider how interconnected everything is, and how vast, there is perspective and balance to be had. It's only us humans that come along and spoil the party, at least as far as we know.
Thank you for that. I am not going to be bothering with this thread much more as it is clear that no answer will be forthcoming, and actually I don't want to spend my limited available time in pointless discussions. I must admit to not knowing as much as I probably should about pantheistic paganism, is there some reading you could point me to in order that I may get up to speed?
Best regards,
Stephen
-
Hi jj,
"... even if science can't currently explain something that doesn't give you free reign to decide that the answer must therefore be non-naturalistic. This "reasoning" is essentially that used to explain that thunder and lightning was Thor chucking his hammer around."
I can't agree with this because, as I see it, those ancients who thought thunder and lightening was Thor chucking his hammer around were the first scientists.
What do scientists do these days? They look at unanswered questions, they use any knowledge already gained, and they come to some sort of hypothesis. Surely that's all those guys were doing.
That they got it wrong isn't surprising, scientists are always bringing their ideas up to date. It is the religious of today, who seem to think bringing their ideas up to date is a big no no!
Shakes got there before me, but you cannot call the Norse the "first scientists" because they didn't employ any of the tools of science - data gathering, testing, a falsifiabilty test etc. Both may have begun with a hypothesis, but only the methods of science allow the hypothesis a higher truth probability than guessing. Hope's problem is that epistemically he's no further ahead with "God" than the Norse were with Thor - hypothesis (or "conjecture" or "guess") is the beginning and end of it, and will remain so until and unless he finally comes up with a method of some kind to dig himself out of that position.
I wouldn't hold you breath on that one though.
-
That's all very well as a hypothesis, but is it testable? And was it actually tested?
They were looking for answers to phenomena, which is what scientists do. If I knew now no more than they knew then, I would probably come to the same conclusion.
There was no way they could test their theories and the religious leaders wouldn't allow any change in the conclusion that godidit, as it suited their agenda too well!
-
JJ,
They were looking for answers to phenomena, which is what scientists do. If I knew now no more than they knew then, I would probably come to the same conclusion.
There was no way they could test their theories and the religious leaders wouldn't allow any change in the conclusion that godidit, as it suited their agenda too well!
They may well have been looking for explanations, but that doesn't make the Norse early scientists. The difference between science and religious beliefs is that only the former entails a method to test and verify the various hypotheses with which each begins.
-
JJ,
They may well have been looking for explanations, but that doesn't make the Norse early scientists. The difference between science and religious beliefs is that only the former entails a method to test and verify the various hypotheses with which each begins.
The master has returned.
Science of course is not an ontology. So why people bring it up......
-
But it can be the basis for an ontology, e.g. scientific realism.
-
A new poster, there's Hope for us yet then ?
:D
Well yes. I notice that the list of people on site includes about double of those actually posting, sometimes even more. Come out, come out wherever you are...
-
What I would like to know from Hope is what form these spiritual experiences/phenomena take that need his non-scientific method.
-
I have been trying to decide how best to introduce the following for a few days (when I haven't been coughing my guts up and suffering from nasal drip syndrome).
That's not mucus its ectoplasm!!! ;D
-
But it can be the basis for an ontology, e.g. scientific realism.
But it isn't an ontology and scientific realism is not science.
-
One doesn't have to down a bottle of whisky to do something 'wrong'. One doesn't need to have had one's attitudes and behaviours modified in this way to be able to do wrong. As for your comment that "Behaviours, attitudes and reasoning clearly have there origins in biology ..." perhaps you can provide us with evidential material to show why the law against killing someone - which exists in practically every 'corner' of the globe - is in any way related to biology.
Good to see you making the same mistake that others here have - taking an argument 'for' the role of science in such a process and trying to point out an error.
As far as I'm aware, no-one uses the term spontaneous healing to refer to everyday healings - such as of colds or illness caused by viruses - it is generally accepted that this is one example of how the body is designed/able to combat infection/virus attack/etc.
It tends to be used for more unexpected healing - when doctors have said that there is nothing more that they can do for a patient - such as in some cases of cancer or severe burning. The claim that the body 'just repairs' itself after months, sometimes years of not being able to seems a bit far-fetched and unscientific.
I've given this example before - emotions. All others have managed to do is refer to the symptoms of whatever emotion they might be talking about, not the underlying processes
Its good to debate with you, Stephen. Don't worry about not being able to post regularly.
So are you going to invoke God for the reason for all these non-natural phenomena or do you propose something else?
-
Hope,
Oh dear. This is just a re-statement of Vlad's "methodological materialism" mistake. "Evidence" is itself a naturalistic concept - it relies on data, testing, falsifiability etc. If you want to call something evidence then you have to play by these rules. If you want to call something else evidence though, then as ever you have all your work ahead of you to propose a method of any kind to distinguish this supposed evidence from mistake, misattribution, just guessing, the effects of a bump on the head etc.
Not too sure I agree with your definition of evidence. What about historical evidence. Be a bit pushed to classify that as data or testable etc.
I think evidence and its quality, with regards to the world out there, is one thing, data collected by some sampling method is another.....?
-
Hope,
Oh dear. This is just a re-statement of Vlad's "methodological materialism" mistake. "Evidence" is itself a naturalistic concept - it relies on data, testing, falsifiability etc. If you want to call something evidence then you have to play by these rules. If you want to call something else evidence though, then as ever you have all your work ahead of you to propose a method of any kind to distinguish this supposed evidence from mistake, misattribution, just guessing, the effects of a bump on the head etc.
That is just philosophical totalitarianism Hillside.
The flaw in your argument is the assumption of ontological naturalism. Where is the Evidence for it?
So if the underlying assumption has no evidence then the assumed definition is flawed and claiming the rules as you are doing is merely like Stig of the Dump claiming the chalk pit.
-
Hi Jack,
Not too sure I agree with your definition of evidence. What about historical evidence. Be a bit pushed to classify that as data or testable etc.
I think evidence and its quality, with regards to the world out there, is one thing, data collected by some sampling method is another.....?
Depends what you mean "testable" etc as often there's tangible evidence of historic events - the carbon dating of fossils for example. When there are only records or stories though then we still have the tools of forensics to rely on - were the claimed events within known parameters? Were the witnesses contemporary or was the story re-told? Are there multiple sources or just one? Do the stories come from a time when magical explanations for the otherwise inexplicable were commonplace? What other explanations could there be, and how have they been eliminated? etc. None of these things necessarily deliver a knock out blow to the story, but they help build a context of credibility that allows us to take a view on their likely truthfulness or not.
Compare that with the "I had a feeling that a god (who also happens to be the one with which I'm most familiar) paid me a visit" and the evidential difference is night and day.
-
That is just philosophical totalitarianism Hillside.
The flaw in your argument is the assumption of ontological naturalism. Where is the Evidence for it?
So if the underlying assumption has no evidence then the assumed definition is flawed and claiming the rules as you are doing is merely like Stig of the Dump claiming the chalk pit.
I've been away for a few months and you haven't moved a fucking nanometre further on from this dishonest, straw man bollocks that people here are asserting philosophical naturalism.
It's unfalsifiable (as has been said over and over) and there is no evidence for it. This is a huge kick in the pants for your proposition of the supernatural, as you can never verify it because it's verification would falsify philosophical naturalism.
-
Hi Andy,
I've been away for a few months and you haven't moved a fucking nanometre further on from this dishonest, straw man bollocks that people here are asserting philosophical naturalism.
It's unfalsifiable (as has been said over and over) and there is no evidence for it. This is a huge kick in the pants for your proposition of the supernatural, as you can never verify it because it's verification would falsify philosophical naturalism.
Pungently but accurately put. I guess when you'e both deeply dishonest and utterly invested in a straw man all you're going to offer is endless repetition of the mistake regardless of how many times it's explained to you. It's essentially trolling, which is why I've given up responding to it.
-
I've been away for a few months and you haven't moved a fucking nanometre further on from this dishonest, straw man bollocks that people here are asserting philosophical naturalism.
It's unfalsifiable (as has been said over and over) and there is no evidence for it. This is a huge kick in the pants for your proposition of the supernatural, as you can never verify it because it's verification would falsify philosophical naturalism.
I don't understand what you are getting at here.
-
I don't understand what you are getting at here.
(PN = philosophical naturalism. MN = methodological naturalism)
PN is unfalsifiable. Supernatural verification would falsify PN, but that negates PN being unfalsifiable. Pick one - either concede your position has no foundation or stop shifting the burden by banging on about how MN can't falsify PN and embrace your burden by falsifying PN with supernatural verification.
-
Andy,
(PN = philosophical naturalism. MN = methodological naturalism)
PN is unfalsifiable. Supernatural verification would falsify PN, but that negates PN being unfalsifiable. Pick one - either concede your position has no foundation or stop shifting the burden by banging on about how MN can't falsify PN and embrace your burden by falsifying PN with supernatural verification.
Whoosh!
-
(PN = philosophical naturalism. MN = methodological naturalism)
PN is unfalsifiable. Supernatural verification would falsify PN, but that negates PN being unfalsifiable. Pick one - either concede your position has no foundation or stop shifting the burden by banging on about how MN can't falsify PN and embrace your burden by falsifying PN with supernatural verification.
No, still not getting it. PN has a burden since it is a positive assertion. There is no question of shifting the burden on to it since it comes with one whether any other arguments have one or not.
-
No, still not getting it. PN has a burden since it is a positive assertion. There is no question of shifting the burden on to it since it comes with one whether any other arguments have one or not.
No-one is asserting PN. You are asserting the supernatural. Falsify PN by verifying your assertion.
-
No-one is asserting PN. You are asserting the supernatural. Falsify PN by verifying your assertion.
Sorry, Hillside stated that the concept of evidence was naturalistic.
-
Sorry, Hillside stated that the concept of evidence was naturalistic.
No, he's stating that the concept of evidence is currently only applicable to the natural as no-one has established how it can make sense with regards to the supernatural.
-
No, he's stating that the concept of evidence is currently only applicable to the natural as no-one has established how it can make sense with regards to the supernatural.
And we've not been shy in asking ...
-
No, he's stating that the concept of evidence is currently only applicable to the natural as no-one has established how it can make sense with regards to the supernatural.
I think what you mean by making sense is making it fit naturalism.
You forget that yours and Hillsides statements are ontologically loaded.
All that can be honestly and demonstrably be said is that science cannot falsify naturalism or the supernatural.
-
I think what you mean by making sense is making it fit naturalism.
You forget that yours and Hillsides statements are ontologically loaded.
All that can be honestly and demonstrably be said is that science cannot falsify naturalism or the supernatural.
No, I'm not making it fit naturalism, rather it's people such as yourself who don't make it fit with the supernatural. Once you understand that there is nothing you can't use as "evidence" for the supernatural, you may eventually twig that this renders evidence as meaningless.
I haven't, nor do I know ow of anybody else, claimed that science can falsify either. Again with the shifting. It's for you to give us a means to falsify naturalism with supernatural verification, but I'll wager I can take a longer sabattical and still get no response...
-
All that can be honestly and demonstrably be said is that science cannot falsify naturalism or the supernatural.
... which is essentially the negative proof fallacy, which you can't use as Hope has taken out the copyright on it.
-
I don't understand what you are getting at here.
We have noticed
-
No, I'm not making it fit naturalism, rather it's people such as yourself who don't make it fit with the supernatural. Once you understand that there is nothing you can't use as "evidence" for the supernatural, you may eventually twig that this renders evidence as meaningless.
I haven't, nor do I know ow of anybody else, claimed that science can falsify either. Again with the shifting. It's for you to give us a means to falsify naturalism with supernatural verification, but I'll wager I can take a longer sabattical and still get no response...
But the natural is defined arbitrarily. Either in terms of matter or energy or the empirically observable that is as you say MN.
If you are extending the definition of the natural to naturalism, to exclude the supernatural then you are making an ontological punt.
Naturalism is a positive assertion and therefore has a burden of proof.
-
... which is essentially the negative proof fallacy, which you can't use as Hope has taken out the copyright on it.
Gibber
-
But the natural is defined arbitrarily. Either in terms of matter or energy or the empirically observable that is as you say MN.
If you are extending the definition of the natural to exclude the supernatural then you are making an ontological punt.
Naturalism is a positive assertion and therefore has a burden of proof.
I'm not excluding the supernatural, nor am I asserting naturalism. Never have, never will. Naturalism has a burden, yes, but since I'm not asserting it I don't have to defend it. You, on the other hand, do exactly that with the supernatural, but instead of defend it, you continuously burn straw.
-
I'm not excluding the supernatural, nor am I asserting naturalism. Never have, never will. Naturalism has a burden, yes, but since I'm not asserting it I don't have to defend it.
That's fair enough.
-
That's fair enough.
So now you understand that the ball is very much in your court, how are you going to falsify naturalism?
-
So now you understand that the ball is very much in your court, how are you going to falsify naturalism?
I don't know? Does that preclude supernatural falsification though?
Does that mean it cannot be?
Does it matter that no one is claiming naturalism to be true when it either is or isn't?
Can you say ''Here's naturalism..............falsify it ''without having asserted naturalism in the process.
Why does nobody have to assert naturalism but I have to falsify it?
I think Andy....You are taking the piss.
-
I don't know? Does that preclude supernatural falsification though?
Does that mean it cannot be?
Does it matter that no one is claiming naturalism to be true when it either is or isn't?
Why does nobody have to assert naturalism but I have to falsify it?
I think Andy....You are taking the piss.
You think you have reason to believe that naturalism is false. That's why.
-
You think you have reason to believe that naturalism is false. That's why.
And nobody believes it's true?
You see Andy until someone establishes it as true I have no reason to believe it is do I.
-
And nobody believes it's true?
You see Andy until someone establishes it as true I have no reason to believe it is do I.
Yes, some people believe it's true. So what? What has that got to do with you believing it is false? It doesn't get you off the hook, so what other excuse do you have from shying away from your burden?
-
Yes, some people believe it's true. So what? What has that got to do with you believing it is false? It doesn't get you off the hook, so what other excuse do you have from shying away from your burden?
Firstly MN doesn't support Ontological naturalism.
Secondly naturalism arbitrarily cuts off the supernatural by confusing the focus of MN with reality for no good reason.
That is why I don't believe it.
-
Firstly MN doesn't support Ontological naturalism.
Secondly naturalism arbitrarily cuts off the supernatural by confusing the focus of MN with reality for no good reason.
That is why I don't believe it.
You're harping on about not believing it is true - a transparent dodge when you know full well that I'm taking about you believing it is false.
-
Says Vlad as he dashes to the door marked 'Get out of here quick and hope nobody notices you've gone'!
Too late old chap, since some of us are awaiting your answer to Andy's question which is, in case you forget;
So now you understand that the ball is very much in your court, how are you going to falsify naturalism?
-
... which is essentially the negative proof fallacy, which you can't use as Hope has taken out the copyright on it.
If that's the case, perhaps I ought to be charging you for its use, then. ;)
By the way, apologies for not posting much yesterday, spent most of the morning catching up on sleep and trying to get rid of the stinking cold I've got.
-
Andy,
I'm not excluding the supernatural, nor am I asserting naturalism. Never have, never will. Naturalism has a burden, yes, but since I'm not asserting it I don't have to defend it. You, on the other hand, do exactly that with the supernatural, but instead of defend it, you continuously burn straw.
You need to watch Chummy here because - along with various other terms he abuses ("scientism", "category error" etc) he plays fast and loose with the word "naturalism" in order to set up the straw man he wants to critique. Most if not all are content to take its standard meaning of, "the natural is all we know of that's reliably accessible and verifiable" with no comment on the supposed "supernatural', the "super-super natural" or any other white noise term for claimed phenomena outside of that.
By re-defining it though as "all there is or can be" yer man gives himself the straw man he needs to respond with a "how do you know that?"
And even if he did eventually find someone who proposed his personal re-definition of "naturalism", he'd still have all his work ahead of him finally to tell us what he means by "supernatural" and to demonstrate its existence at all.
That's what I mean when I talk about dishonesty - you simply cannot have a conversation with someone who just makes up his own meanings for words in order to attack them.
-
Sass, just a very small point you may have missed, but never mind, there wouldn't be any planets if there wasn't any gravity, perhaps you were messing with your assercitron and it made you accidentally miss the gravity of your mistake.
ippy
-
Andy,
You need to watch Chummy here because - along with various other terms he abuses ("scientism", "category error" etc) he plays fast and loose with the word "naturalism" in order to set up the straw man he wants to critique. Most if not all are content to take its standard meaning of, "the natural is all we know of that's reliably accessible and verifiable" with no comment on the supposed "supernatural', the "super-super natural" or any other white noise term for claimed phenomena outside of that.
By re-defining it though as "all there is or can be" yer man gives himself the straw man he needs to respond with a "how do you know that?"
And even if he did eventually find someone who proposed his personal re-definition of "naturalism", he'd still have all his work ahead of him finally to tell us what he means by "supernatural" and to demonstrate its existence at all.
That's what I mean when I talk about dishonesty - you simply cannot have a conversation with someone who just makes up his own meanings for words in order to attack them.
I'm aware of how he defines it and it isn't alien to me. It's what I'm working with, as opposed to having a discussion about what naturalism should mean.
-
Sass, just a very small point you may have missed, but never mind, there wouldn't be any planets if there wasn't any gravity, perhaps you were messing with your assercitron and it made you accidentally miss the gravity of your mistake.
ippy
Cleverly spotted, Ippy! :)
-
Andy,
I'm aware of how he defines it and it isn't alien to me. It's what I'm working with, as opposed to having a discussion about what naturalism should mean.
But surely what a word does mean is what matters isn't it? If someone wants to invent a new meaning and then critique what the new meaning implies that's up to him, but it fails to engage with the the argument that actually undoes his position.
If though you're saying something like "even with your reinvention of the meaning you've given yourself various logical problems" that's fair enough, but a bit otiose I'd have thought.
-
Andy,
But surely what a word does mean is what matters isn't it? If someone wants to invent a new meaning and then critique what the new meaning implies that's up to him, but it fails to engage with the the argument that actually undoes his position.
If though you're saying something like "even with your reinvention of the meaning you've given yourself various logical problems" that's fair enough, but a bit otiose I'd have thought.
What someone means is more important than the label they are using for it. I've no issue with the "nature is all there is and can be" definition he is using, so I don't find it otiose.
-
Andy,
What someone means is more important than the label they are using for it. I've no issue with the "nature is all there is and can be" definition he is using, so I don't find it otiose.
It's otiose inasmuch as he's saying, "here's something no-one claims that I'm going to critique anyway as a means of dismissing what it is they actually say".
The first bit (critiqueing something no-one claims) is just irrelevant. The second bit (using that critique to imply that what people actually say is also wrong) is dishonest.
-
Andy,
It's otiose inasmuch as he's saying, "here's something no-one claims that I'm going to critique anyway as a means of dismissing what it is they actually say".
The first bit (critiqueing something no-one claims) is just irrelevant. The second bit (using that critique to imply that what people actually say is also wrong) is dishonest.
Oh, you'll get no argument from me over his constant straw man dishonesty, claiming somebody is using an argument they have categorically said they aren't using, but I'm happy to work what he means as it does no favours for him anyway when it's turned on him.
-
Andy,
Oh, you'll get no argument from me over his constant straw man dishonesty, claiming somebody is using an argument they have categorically said they aren't using, but I'm happy to work what he means as it does no favours for him anyway when it's turned on him.
Fair enough. In my experience feeding the troll only makes him fatter, but I wish you well nonetheless.
-
It would be interesting to get Vlad to spell out what he does mean by 'naturalism', although of course, he would inevitably reverse that, and start saying, no, what do you mean by it? OK, not interesting.
-
As far as I'm aware, he means it as blue stated - PN is the position that nature is all there is and can be. He believes it is unfalsifiable whilst believing it is false. Go figure.
-
Firstly MN doesn't support Ontological naturalism.
Nobody gives a fuck.
There is a claim made by Hope that there is something else beside the natural. He also claims to have a method of determining whether these "supernatural" phenomena. The focus of this thread is what the hell is that method. Please try to stay on topic.
-
Wiggs,
It would be interesting to get Vlad to spell out what he does mean by 'naturalism', although of course, he would inevitably reverse that, and start saying, no, what do you mean by it? OK, not interesting.
Vlad doesn't answer questions. He demands that other answer his questions, but he never ever, ever, ever answers questions put to him.
It's one of the characteristics of a troll.
-
Andy,
As far as I'm aware, he means it as blue stated - PN is the position that nature is all there is and can be. He believes it is unfalsifiable whilst believing it is false. Go figure.
Far be it from me to defend the king of pantsonfire-ism, but I suspect his response would be not that it's false, but rather that the claim (ie, his personal reinvention of the word "naturalism") is unwarranted because you cannot eliminate the posibility of an unknown unknown - eg, the "supernatural".
The big cheat he builds on his straw man is then to imply that, because anything supernatural might be, therefore it is - so he's free to populate that space with any un-defined, un-argued and un-evidenced "somethings" that happen to take his fancy.
It's desperate stuff I know, but once you strip away the polysyllabic terms he doesn't understand ("ontology" being the latest one to fall victim to the Vlad comprehension mangleometer) there it is nonetheless.
-
Andy,
Far be it from me to defend the king of pantsonfire-ism, but I suspect his response would be not that it's false, but rather that the claim (ie, his personal reinvention of the word "naturalism") is unwarranted because you cannot eliminate the posibility of an unknown unknown - eg, the "supernatural".
The big cheat he builds on his straw man is then to imply that, because anything supernatural might be, therefore it is - so he's free to populate that space with any un-defined, un-argued and un-evidenced "somethings" that happen to take his fancy.
It's desperate stuff I know, but once you strip away the polysyllabic terms he doesn't understand ("ontology" being the latest one to fall victim to the Vlad comprehension mangleometer) there it is nonetheless.
He believes there is more than just the natural, ie the supernatural, so by definition he believes "naturalism" is false.
-
Andy,
He believes there is more than just the natural, ie the supernatural, so by definition he believes "naturalism" is false.
Ah but now you're straying into That Place Which Vlad Shall Never Dare To Enter - ie, an argument for what he believes. Yes (so far as anyone can tell) he does believe in the supernatural, but he'll only ever confine himself here to trying to pick holes in the arguments he doesn't like - albeit by lying about them. The recent exchanges here are a good example of that.
Outside of this conversation though, yes that's right - he must necessarily think his straw man version of naturalism is false because he believes in something that contradicts it.
-
Wow, you godless are sure puffed up at Hope and Vlad. But anyways, I'm still waiting for one of you, extraterrestrial believing godless atheists, to produce a Klingon. A microbe, a limb, a wingnut from a saucer will do. Don't pollute your science with your optimism. I heard the Hubble is being replaced with a new and improved eye in space for finding Spock's daddy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGZV6fsotYo
-
Wow, you godless are sure puffed up at Hope and Vlad. But anyways, I'm still waiting for one of you, extraterrestrial believing godless atheists, to produce a Klingon. A microbe, a limb, a wingnut from a saucer will do. Don't pollute your science with your optimism. I heard the Hubble is being replaced with a new and improved eye in space for finding Spock's daddy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGZV6fsotYo
This post of yours Woody, d'you think you could give it another go, only in English?
ippy
-
Says Vlad as he dashes to the door marked 'Get out of here quick and hope nobody notices you've gone'!
Too late old chap, since some of us are awaiting your answer to Andy's question which is, in case you forget;
Technically ontological naturalism cannot be falsified, right?, which leads me once again to wonder why people appeal to science for some kind of support for it.
If you are now not naturalistic believers like Andy claims not to be then I must be getting through to you guys.
Andy wonders why I consider it not actually to be correct, I have given two reasons and my experience of God which has echoes in many others reducing the likelihood of hallucination ( which has a vastly different epidemiology anyway) and for which there is no current adequate alternative explanation within science or even the great Dawkinso himself since the greatest antitheist who has ever been* is not completely sure god doesn't exist.
-
Andy,
You need to watch Chummy here because - along with various other terms he abuses ("scientism", "category error" etc) he plays fast and loose with the word "naturalism" in order to set up the straw man he wants to critique. Most if not all are content to take its standard meaning of, "the natural is all we know of that's reliably accessible and verifiable"
Give a reference where this can be found then Hillside.....put your money where your mouth is.
Youre giving naturalism a folksy, charm offensive,sentimental spin......almost political in it's appeal.
I have to hand it to you, politics is widely seen as the preserve of c**** but on this board you have turned it into seeming respectable sagacity..........maybe you can polish a turd.
-
Technically ontological naturalism cannot be falsified, right?, which leads me once again to wonder why people appeal to science for some kind of support for it.
If you are now not naturalistic believers like Andy claims not to be then I must be getting through to you guys.
Andy wonders why I consider it not actually to be correct, I have given two reasons and my experience of God which has echoes in many others reducing the likelihood of hallucination ( which has a vastly different epidemiology anyway) and for which there is no current adequate alternative explanation within science or even the great Dawkinso himself since the greatest antitheist who has ever been* is not completely sure god doesn't exist.
In short, a game of spot the glaring contradiction - listen while Vlad tells you it's unfalsifiable while giving his reasons as to why he thinks it's false.
-
In short, a game of spot the glaring contradiction - listen while Vlad tells you it's unfalsifiable while giving his reasons as to why he thinks it's false.
Yes in scientific terms it is unfalsifiable. But unless you are a scientific realist reality is wider than what science can handle. In terms of both content and scope.
-
Yes in scientific terms it is unfalsifiable. But unless you are a scientific realist reality is wider than what science can handle. In terms of both content and scope.
The give us some examples of this unrealist reality, which is clearly an oxymoron anywhere outwith the 'mind of Vlad' (which is a great title for a mid-1960's Hammer horror).
-
The give us some examples of this unrealist reality, which is clearly an oxymoron anywhere outwith the 'mind of Vlad' (which is a great title for a mid-1960's Hammer horror).
Sorry, I don't know what you are getting at here.
-
Yes in scientific terms it is unfalsifiable. But unless you are a scientific realist reality is wider than what science can handle. In terms of both content and scope.
*Drumroll for the method that can falsify PN*
-
Sorry, I don't know what you are getting at here.
You said that; unless you are a scientific realist reality is wider than what science can handle. In terms of both content and scope.
So, since you seem to think that 'reality is wider than what science can handle. In terms of both content and scope.', and since as far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong) you think that naturalism as assumed by use of the scientific method is inadequate, and that there is 'something else', then an example of 'something else' would be helpful - along with a description of a contrasting method: an 'unscientific non-naturalistic method', for want of a better term.
If you can provide this information you'll have falsified PN, so please don't keep us (or the Nobel prize committee) hanging on for clarification.
-
You said that;
So, since you seem to think that 'reality is wider than what science can handle. In terms of both content and scope.', and since as far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong) you think that naturalism as assumed by use of the scientific method is inadequate
Stop right there. ''naturalism as assumed by the use of the scientific method''?
Naturalism is an ontology
Science is a method.
An ultimate Gordonian conflation gambit.
-
Stop right there. ''naturalism as assumed by the use of the scientific method''?
Naturalism is an ontology
Science is a method.
An ultimate Gordonian conflation gambit.
So, in order to correct my confusion perhaps you'd unpack your 'naturalism is an ontology' statement, just so that I understand your thoughts.
-
Hi Gordon,
So, in order to correct my confusion perhaps you'd unpack your 'naturalism is an ontology' statement, just so that I understand your thoughts.
Relax, you're fine - science takes naturalism (in the sense that the natural is all there is) as a working assumption because natural phenomena are all that the tools of science can access and investigate. The switcherooo he's attempting is to conflate the working assumption version with an absolutist epistemic version - ie, the natural is necessarily all there is - so as to create a straw man he can dismiss.
I suppose that if you looked hard enough you might eventually find someone who does argue for the absolutist version, but they're few and far between I'd have thought for the fairly obvious reason that you cannot eliminate the possibility of unknown unknowns, however unlikely.
Of course none of this has anything whatever to say to whether there actually is a supernatural, let alone to how it might be populated - ie, with gods, leprechauns or the man on the moon for that matter - so all he has is an "anything might be", with which no-one disagrees in any case.
-
Nobody gives a fuck.
There is a claim made by Hope that there is something else beside the natural. He also claims to have a method of determining whether these "supernatural" phenomena. The focus of this thread is what the hell is that method. Please try to stay on topic.
Frustrating isn't it.
It's a simple request to a very clear claim that Hope Made.
He seems to have disappeared though.
-
Hi Gordon,
Relax, you're fine - science takes naturalism (in the sense that the natural is all there is) as a working assumption because natural phenomena are all that the tools of science can access and investigate. The switcherooo he's attempting is to conflate the working assumption version with an absolutist epistemic version - ie, the natural is necessarily all there is - so as to create a straw man he can dismiss.
I suppose that if you looked hard enough you might eventually find someone who does argue for the absolutist version, but they're few and far between I'd have thought for the fairly obvious reason that you cannot eliminate the possibility of unknown unknowns, however unlikely.
Of course none of this has anything whatever to say to whether there actually is a supernatural, let alone to how it might be populated - ie, with gods, leprechauns or the man on the moon for that matter - so all he has is an "anything might be", with which no-one disagrees in any case.
Completely wrong
An assumption of ontological naturalism is not necessary for science.
Another epic fail.
-
Completely wrong
An assumption of ontological naturalism is not necessary for science.
Another epic fail.
What on earth are you on about?
The topic of the thread is very simple. A claim has been made that there are "non naturalistic" aspects of life. The question asked is:
Can we have some examples of non-naturalistic aspects of life?
How do we know they are non naturalistic i.e. what methodology should we use?
It really is very simple
-
What on earth are you on about?
The topic of the thread is very simple. A claim has been made that there are "non naturalistic" aspects of life. The question asked is:
Can we have some examples of non-naturalistic aspects of life?
How do we know they are non naturalistic i.e. what methodology should we use?
It really is very simple
Experience of the supernatural would do it.
Naturalism is of course an ontology. I'm not sure we can assume naturalism as you seem to.
Note experience of something is not the analysis of something.
-
Stephen,
What on earth are you on about?
The topic of the thread is very simple. A claim has been made that there are "non naturalistic" aspects of life. The question asked is:
Can we have some examples of non-naturalistic aspects of life?
How do we know they are non naturalistic i.e. what methodology should we use?
It really is very simple
Welcome. Indeed it is a simple question. As a newbie here I should warn you though that I've asked Vlad the same thing perhaps hundreds of times and he never, ever, ever, ever, ever answers (though he does demand that others answer his questions).
Instead he endlessly posts straw man arguments and then becomes so invested in them that he can't back out - as here with this relentless lying about science and naturalism.
-
Experience of the supernatural would do it.
So let's see some examples of experience of the supernatural accompanied by the methodology which confirms that said experiences are indeed ones of the supernatural.
-
Shakes,
So let's see some examples of experience of the supernatural accompanied by the methodology which confirms that said experiences are indeed ones of the supernatural.
And while you're about it you may as well ask him why everyone else's experiences of different supernatural "somethings" entirely are false but his is correct. He'll never answer either of course, but hey...
-
So let's see some examples of experience of the supernatural accompanied by the methodology which confirms that said experiences are indeed ones of the supernatural.
I cannot give you an experience Shaker, No one can.
In terms of the methodology one has to ask if there is a complete natural (but not naturalistic) explanation. If there is not then the experience stands.
-
Experience of the supernatural would do it.
And how would you know that it is something supernatural that you are experiencing?
[/quote]I'm not sure we can assume naturalism as you seem to.
[/quote]
I have assumed no such thing. However, I don't assume supernaturalism either as you appear to.
-
Shakes,
And while you're about it you may as well ask him why everyone else's experiences of different supernatural "somethings" entirely are false but his is correct. He'll never answer either of course, but hey...
You deliberately misrepresent me when you say I say others supernatural experiences ''entirely are false''. That has never been my position.
-
And how would you know that it is something supernatural that you are experiencing?
I'm not sure we can assume naturalism as you seem to.
I have assumed no such thing. However, I don't assume supernaturalism either as you appear to.
Fair enough.
As I have said we need to separate experience from the analysis of the experience.
Babies and toddlers experience without knowing what it is but the knowledge comes later with a language framework.
If an experience is not adequately covered by the linguistic framework of naturalism but fits with that of religion then we can ''know'' that one is having a religious experience.
-
If an experience is not adequately covered by the linguistic framework of naturalism but fits with that of religion then we can ''know'' that one is having a religious experience.
That's begging the question - assuming from the off the truth of religion and religious experience without even a sniff of a methodology in which to do so.
-
That's begging the question - assuming from the off the truth of religion and religious experience without even a sniff of a methodology in which to do so.
I think you are taking naturalism as the default position......on what warrant?
Secondly one doesn't assume it from the off a) because one doesn't have the linguistic apparatus and b) because I imply that one sees if it fits into natural experience first.
If anything I am taking the naturalistic position as default on zero warrant.
-
Shakes,
That's begging the question - assuming from the off the truth of religion and religious experience without even a sniff of a methodology in which to do so.
I think you are taking naturalism as the default position......on what warrant?
Secondly one doesn't assume it from the off a) because one doesn't have the linguistic apparatus and b) because I imply that one sees if it fits into natural experience first.
If anything I am taking the naturalistic position as default on zero warrant.
You'll have spotted this yourself no doubt, but what ol' Percy Pantsonfire is asking you to do here is to justify your claiming of his straw man version of naturalism. Neither you nor anyone else does that of course, but he seems to be so invested now in the lie that he will not or cannot do the honest thing and back away from it.
-
Fair enough.
As I have said we need to separate experience from the analysis of the experience.
Babies and toddlers experience without knowing what it is but the knowledge comes later with a language framework.
If an experience is not adequately covered by the linguistic framework of naturalism but fits with that of religion then we can ''know'' that one is having a religious experience.
"Not adequately covered by the linguistic framework of naturalism"?
Have you even the faintest idea how moronic that is? The ancient greeks didn't have a word for the colour blue. On that basis every time they looked at the sky, they were having a religious experience.
Words fail me. Oh look, I must be having a religious experience as well. ::)
-
"Not adequately covered by the linguistic framework of naturalism"?
Have you even the faintest idea how moronic that is? The ancient greeks didn't have a word for the colour blue. On that basis every time they looked at the sky, they were having a religious experience.
Words fail me. Oh look, I must be having a religious experience as well. ::)
You are confusing the word words with the phrases linguistic framework.
Besides not having a word for Blue sounds a bit far fetched.
-
You are confusing the word words with the phrases linguistic framework.
Besides not having a word for Blue sounds a bit far fetched.
It's true, I looked it up and ended up starting a thread elsewhere
-
I cannot give you an experience Shaker, No one can.
In terms of the methodology one has to ask if there is a complete natural (but not naturalistic) explanation. If there is not then the experience stands.
In which case, I experienced Brahman when I was 21. I don't know what the 'natural' explanation of this experience was, but looking back on it over the years, I'm sure it wasn't Brahman. If it was Brahman, how do I determine that my experience of 'ultimate reality' was less authentic than your experience, which is defined by completely different parameters? The fact that you have continued to believe that your experience conveyed something of the ultimate truth of things is neither here nor there. You may well have simply been reinforcing a delusion, simply because other people claim to have had such experiences in a similar religious context.
However, even in within similar religious contexts the experiences differ so markedly to be truly considered authoritative.
-
I cannot give you an experience Shaker, No one can.
He didn't ask you to give him an experience, he asked you to describe an example of an experience.
In terms of the methodology one has to ask if there is a complete natural (but not naturalistic) explanation. If there is not then the experience stands.
There's always a completely natural possible explanation and that is that the experience was imagined.
-
jeremy,
There's always a completely natural possible explanation and that is that the experience was imagined.
Quite, but ooh any of the various non-divine explanations for the experience are sooo much less exciting than the notion that a universe-creating god had paid a personal visit so, um, best just to pretend that they don't exist eh?
You'd think that the bewildering multiplicity of other people who think they've had experiences every bit as deeply felt as yours about any number of different gods, spooks, ghouls and ghosties would give the "I've had an experience therefore the cause to which I attribute it must be true" merchants pause, but it seems not - as indeed should the worrying aspect that the cause these folks reach for is almost invariably the one that's culturally most proximate to them.
Funny that.
-
jeremy,
Quite, but ooh any of the various non-divine explanations for the experience are sooo much less exciting than the notion that a universe-creating god had paid a personal visit so, um, best just to pretend that they don't exist eh?
Very well summed up. I can't fully explain my personal visitation of 'Brahman', but I've no doubt that steeping myself in oriental mysticism and reading about experiences of this kind had something to do with it. At any rate, it did not prove to be particularly relevant to living my life after a year or two, and I eventually began to regard it as a purely physically determined phenomenon - some weird product of brain chemistry.
-
Hi Dicky,
Very well summed up. I can't fully explain my personal visitation of 'Brahman', but I've no doubt that steeping myself in oriental mysticism and reading about experiences of this kind had something to do with it. At any rate, it did not prove to be particularly relevant to living my life after a year or two, and I eventually began to regard it as a purely physically determined phenomenon - some weird product of brain chemistry.
Yes, it's very odd isn't it. Given the many ways we can be fooled (or fool ourselves) into thinking even the most profound experiences of supposed divinities are properly attributed when they're not, why on earth would anyone just dismiss those various real world explanations in favour of a supernatural one for which there's no investigatory method of any kind? It's this, "I really, really think that god paid me a visit, therefore - um - god must have paid me a visit!" certainty that leaves me looking askance.
Then throw in the fact that the gods such people reach for are almost invariably the ones that just happen to be most culturally proximate. And then throw in that they'll often try to support their confidence with an argumentum ad populum ("lots of other people have had my experience too") oblivious not only to the fact of many more people "experiencing" different gods entirely, and to the workings of memetics - introduce to a long lost tribe any new religious belief and suddenly they'll start experiencing its gods too - and the whole thing looks shakier and shakier as a proposition.
I really think that, if I woke up tomorrow convinced that a god had looked in in the night, I'd want to exhaust every damned alternative explanation before thinking I was right about that. And yet here we see "I experienced god" stories of such casual certainty that you have to wonder if only people of a deeply credulous and incurious nature go for them.
Odd indeed.
-
So we are agreed then, a spacesuit and a supply of breathable gaseous life sustaining non poisonous air, then we are good to go?
Until you need food or drink.
So good to go for a few hours
-
Until you need food or drink.
So good to go for a few hours
You can go three days without water and three weeks without food so plenty of time to get down to the shops.
-
You can go three days without water and three weeks without food so plenty of time to get down to the shops.
No shops no food no animals no plants. All dead
-
No shops no food no animals no plants. All dead
You forgot the super massive secret bunker where there are shops a plenty. Stores to last for centuries seemingly.
-
I really think that, if I woke up tomorrow convinced that a god had looked in in the night, I'd want to exhaust every damned alternative explanation before thinking I was right about that. And yet here we see "I experienced god" stories of such casual certainty that you have to wonder if only people of a deeply credulous and incurious nature go for them.
Odd indeed.
Which is why I say that "God", if he really wants to convince us that he exists, will have to not only do something which breaks all natural laws, but also let everybody know when he is going to do it.
Personal contact is a non-starter.
-
Hi Dicky,
Yes, it's very odd isn't it. Given the many ways we can be fooled (or fool ourselves) into thinking even the most profound experiences of supposed divinities are properly attributed when they're not, why on earth would anyone just dismiss those various real world explanations in favour of a supernatural one for which there's no investigatory method of any kind? It's this, "I really, really think that god paid me a visit, therefore - um - god must have paid me a visit!" certainty that leaves me looking askance.
Then throw in the fact that the gods such people reach for are almost invariably the ones that just happen to be most culturally proximate. And then throw in that they'll often try to support their confidence with an argumentum ad populum ("lots of other people have had my experience too") oblivious not only to the fact of many more people "experiencing" different gods entirely, and to the workings of memetics - introduce to a long lost tribe any new religious belief and suddenly they'll start experiencing its gods too - and the whole thing looks shakier and shakier as a proposition.
I really think that, if I woke up tomorrow convinced that a god had looked in in the night, I'd want to exhaust every damned alternative explanation before thinking I was right about that. And yet here we see "I experienced god" stories of such casual certainty that you have to wonder if only people of a deeply credulous and incurious nature go for them.
Odd indeed.
A fine exposition of your own beliefs, well done.
I see you are peddling the old memetics schitick as a blind for merely stating the bleeding obvious.
-
I really think that, if I woke up tomorrow convinced that a god had looked in in the night, I'd want to exhaust every damned alternative explanation before thinking I was right about that. And yet here we see "I experienced god" stories of such casual certainty that you have to wonder if only people of a deeply credulous and incurious nature go for them.
Odd indeed.
I basically agree, blue, though at one time I would have thought there were 'many paths to God' and any strange experience was grist to the mill of sustaining a belief in the divine. There are many people who feel the lack of ultimate meaning in their lives very keenly (and I was one of them), and it took me a long time to realise that because some people have a desire to feel that they are of ultimate significance, this desire must apodeictically (lovely word) have its fulfilment somewhere.
I'm certain Vlad hasn't grasped this, for all his talk about your 'stating the bleeding obvious'. Can't help thinking that phenomenology - let alone epistemology - are quite his thing somehow, for all his references to academic philosophy. I do just wish he'd learn to distinguish between the spelling of the possessive adjective, 2nd person <your>, and the contracted form of 'you are' - <you're>, though.
-
Where has Hope gone?
A whole thread of his own to reveal a new way of looking at the world and still we are kept waiting. :(
-
Where has Hope gone?
A whole thread of his own to reveal a new way of looking at the world and still we are kept waiting. :(
And, as I've said several times before, you'll be waiting for the same length of time as I and others will be waiting for the answer to my companion question about evidence that a naturalistic approach is the only valid approach to reality. Its tantamount to you discussing the validity of an orange, whilst I and others debate ther validity of a cow. The two issues don't match up with each other.
-
And, as I've said several times before, you'll be waiting for the same length of time as I and others will be waiting for the answer to my companion question about evidence that a naturalistic approach is the only valid approach to reality.
Not really up to speed with this whole burden of proof thing, are you?
Earlier today I posted something on the "The downward trend continues" thread on this very subject. Rather than link to it, I'll reproduce it right here for you so that you can't dodge the issue again by claiming that you haven't seen it:
You're the one making the assertion and thus the one who bears the burden of proof. Those who are aware of the success of scientific rationality are the ones who can provide a methodology for their worldview - we have more than amply justified (because so often reinforced) confidence in it (there's the evidence you mentioned) and have not been furnished with any good reason to go elsewhere. That to me is what it boils down to - the lack of a valid justification to think that your claims have any basis and the lack of any good reason to think that there's an alternative methodology.
You're the one claiming that there are other realms of reality and other methods of evaluating them over and above the rational/scientific ones we already know work so well, and that's why you're being asked the questions about these allegations and asked to supply evidence for them.
You know, the questions which you're still dodging even now. You've been asked them so many times by so many people over such a long period of time that by now it's a perfectly reasonable position to conclude that the reason you continually avoid stumping up a single item of evidence for these assertions is that it simply doesn't exist. True scepticism demands that I allow for the possibility of these different realms and alternative methodologies, but rationality doesn't allow for me to accept them merely on the say-so of somebody who alleges them but continually ducks coughing up with the evidence for them. All sorts of things may be merely possible; the point in wanting accurate and reliable knowledge of the world is to have a means of sifting the possibilities and determining what's true and what isn't, or what's not demonstrably so at the very least. My methodology in that regard is done and dusted; where's yours?
-
And, as I've said several times before, you'll be waiting for the same length of time as I and others will be waiting for the answer to my companion question about evidence that a naturalistic approach is the only valid approach to reality. Its tantamount to you discussing the validity of an orange, whilst I and others debate ther validity of a cow. The two issues don't match up with each other.
Or you could stick to discussing the oranges instead of ignoring them in favour of these spurious and highly convenient cows you mention.
You are fooling nobody since your reasoning errors have been pointed out to you on numerous occasions - so, I'll join Stephen in asking yet again what is this other aspect to reality: the burden of proof is yours.
-
And, as I've said several times before, you'll be waiting for the same length of time as I and others will be waiting for the answer to my companion question about evidence that a naturalistic approach is the only valid approach to reality. Its tantamount to you discussing the validity of an orange, whilst I and others debate ther validity of a cow. The two issues don't match up with each other.
But I have never made your the claim that a naturalistic approach is the only valid approach to reality. Rather I am not aware of one. Not the same thing at all.
You claim to know of another method/approach. Therefore, it is up to you to provide evidence.
-
But I have never made your the claim that a naturalistic approach is the only valid approach to reality. Rather I am not aware of one. Not the same thing at all.
You claim to know of another method/approach. Therefore, it is up to you to provide evidence.
And not just you, but no one I know of on here, and many have made the same point when Hope has misrepresented this in the past. But he has ignored this and continued to lie about it.
-
I basically agree, blue, though at one time I would have thought there were 'many paths to God' and any strange experience was grist to the mill of sustaining a belief in the divine. There are many people who feel the lack of ultimate meaning in their lives very keenly (and I was one of them), and it took me a long time to realise that because some people have a desire to feel that they are of ultimate significance, this desire must apodeictically (lovely word) have its fulfilment somewhere.
Your use of the term 'ultimate meaning' reminds me of interesting discussions I've had elsewhere. It does seem that some people desperately want there to be such a thing as an ultimate meaning of existence (where ultimate means the end-point of all the questions, something that many parents of small children would give their right arms for, I'm sure) which would give a rock-bottom foundation not dependent upon anything else. I suspect that for many the appeal of theism is that positing the existence of a god would provide such an ultimate meaning, but I'm not remotely convinced. Not only is the existence of such an entity wholly unproven (of course); I can see no reason why a god's meaning should be anybody else's meaning. It strikes me as a prime example of what Sartre called mauvais foi, or bad faith - inauthenticity, in other words; taking on somebody else's meaning off-the-peg (as it were) instead of taking responsibility for and putting in the hard yards of creating your own. (This is why Sartre said that even if there was such a thing as a god, it would be every human being's duty to defy it).
No, it seems vastly more likely to me that there's no ultimate meaning, only proximate meanings that we discover for ourselves, which we live by temporarily and that die with us (although others can take them up for themselves after we're gone). If my picture of human existence is true (and of course I think it is, otherwise I wouldn't hold it) then that's the way life actually is for us, and for many that seems to be a truly dreadful prospect. Hence the fact that so many people chase ultimate meaning and ultimate significance mostly through religions.
-
Even as I write something, do I hold the ultimate meaning. I not the same as when I started this post, the writing of the post changes me, even ignoring the multiplicity of what 'me' might mean at single instant. But if you ask me now what I meant by the start of the post, we either have to go on my thoughts on it now, and the me is changed, or my, again changed, memory of what another me might have meant, and we know the issues of memory, well I, that is what was I did mean, though my now knowing might be different and indeed must be.
-
No, it seems vastly more likely to me that there's no ultimate meaning, only proximate meanings that we discover for ourselves, which we live by temporarily and that die with us (although others can take them up for themselves after we're gone). If my picture of human existence is true (and of course I think it is, otherwise I wouldn't hold it) then that's the way life actually is for us, and for many that seems to be a truly dreadful prospect. Hence the fact that so many people chase ultimate meaning and ultimate significance mostly through religions.
I agree; I truly don't get why people find this alarming. It's not just religion that people chase in looking for meaning; society, our parents and peers will have us looking for fame, material wealth, beauty, and/or career success as the trappings of a meaningful life.
It's a cliche to say that the meaning is in the moment but what else is there other than that? And if that is all there is then I am responsible for exploring it and defining the meaning in it, in this moment and the next, knowing that the me who finds meaning in watching my dog play won't be the me who finds meaning in watching him play tomorrow. And the meaning of watching my dog play is simply that in this moment, that's what I'm doing.
-
Just finished writing and posting and seen that NS has said much the same thing about constant change. What meaning can be found if I don't even know what 'me' is? It's actually easier to find meaning - coming back to this idea of taking responsibility for the moment - with 'no me', because that doesn't impose limits of what 'me' likes, does, understands and is capable of.
-
Just finished writing and posting and seen that NS has said much the same thing about constant change. What meaning can be found if I don't even know what 'me' is? It's actually easier to find meaning with 'no me', because that doesn't impose limits of what 'me' likes, does, understands and is capable of.
That for which one might use the perpendicular pronoun agrees. And yet it is much much worse than this, for there to be an ultimate meaning, that has to exist outside the ever changing I, and be accessible to every I in exactly the same way. Indeed it cannot allow for any confusion, since to have ultimate meaning it must be judged against an ultimate meaning which must be knowable by all, since if it isn't nothing can be written with ultimate meaning.
-
That for which one might use the perpendicular pronoun agrees. And yet it is much much worse than this, for there to be an ultimate meaning, that has to exist outside the ever changing I, and be accessible to every I in exactly the same way. Indeed it cannot allow for any confusion, since to have ultimate meaning it must be judged against an ultimate meaning which must be knowable by all, since if it isn't nothing can be written with ultimate meaning.
Well quite. 'My own personal ultimate meaning' has to be meaningless.
I still come back to not seeing why it matters though.
-
I agree; I truly don't get why people find this alarming. It's not just religion that people chase in looking for meaning; society, our parents and peers will have us looking for fame, material wealth, beauty, and/or career success as the trappings of a meaningful life.
It's a cliche to say that the meaning is in the moment but what else is there other than that? And if that is all there is then I am responsible for exploring it and defining the meaning in it, in this moment and the next, knowing that the me who finds meaning in watching my dog play won't be the me who finds meaning in watching him play tomorrow. And the meaning of watching my dog play is simply that in this moment, that's what I'm doing.
I think I understand it intellectually; I just don't recognise it as valid for myself, IYSWIM.
By 1816 the human population of the planet had risen to one billion. Apart from a tiny minority of prominent figures - philosophers; political thinkers and leaders; major creative artists and so forth; people whose ideas are still discussed and implemented; people whose books are still read and whose music is still listened to, that kind of thing - absolutely everything else important to people at that time is now gone. Vanished. Almost every single thing that people considered important, meaningful and worthwhile about their individual lives is now as meaningless as though it had never existed at all in the first place, because those lives are over and done with.
This is why trying to find (which in practical terms usually ends up as trying to impose) meaning, worth and value somewhere outside of life itself is a fool's errand. If those things are not found or made in life as it is lived, they're nowhere. Some people who are that way inclined have deep existential dread that if there's no such thing as an afterlife with the preservation (somehow) of personality, existence is meaningless. But as I said just a few days ago, adding an infinite string of zeroes to zero just gives you zero. There's absolutely no reason why infinite time should invest existence with value - quite the opposite, in fact, since the certainty, ubiquity and the randomness of death, working to do stuff against the clock as it were, is what adds meaning to existence. With an infinite amount of time in which to do things would Shakespeare have ever written a sonnet or Beethoven a symphony? Why bother?
-
Well quite. 'My own personal ultimate meaning' has to be meaningless.
I still come back to not seeing why it matters though.
I wouldn't worry, it's all just talking.
-
As ever here and elsewhere I am brought back to my favourite philosophical quote 'If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do'
-
I can understand the idea of eternal life giving meaning to suffering, death and loss (the latter especially) - it acts as a kind of celestial compensation I guess, a recompense for the pain. And what very often lies behind that is a desire to see the continuation of the relationships in this life; it takes but moments to blow holes in how heavenly that would work though.
I've said on here before about the fact I regret wasting so much time - not doing what I could have, not being who I could have been. And it's not that I think I should have written a sonnet or penned a symphony, just that I should have been bloody well alive for the whole time that I was here.
-
But I have never made your the claim that a naturalistic approach is the only valid approach to reality. Rather I am not aware of one. Not the same thing at all.
You claim to know of another method/approach. Therefore, it is up to you to provide evidence.
Bumped for Hope
-
Bumped for Hope
Forlorn hope! :)
-
Forlorn hope! :)
Very good.
I think you are correct.
Seems a pity, genuinely interested but nothing is forthcoming.
-
Stephen,
Very good.
I think you are correct.
Seems a pity, genuinely interested but nothing is forthcoming.
I lost Hope long ago.
In both senses.
-
The only thing that occurs to me is so-called irrealism, which seems to argue that there is no objective reality, and that there are different versions of the world. For example, many people favour a physicalist version, but some people favour phenomenology, i.e. that this experienced moment is the real. One can also cite, for example, the the idea that everything is empty (an Eastern idea), or without characteristics, and the philosopher Whitehead's view that there are only processes, and not things.
However, I don't think Hope had these things in mind! And please don't ask me to defend any of these.
-
Wiggs,
The only thing that occurs to me is so-called irrealism, which seems to argue that there is no objective reality, and that there are different versions of the world. For example, many people favour a physicalist version, but some people favour phenomenology, i.e. that this experienced moment is the real. One can also cite, for example, the the idea that everything is empty (an Eastern idea), or without characteristics, and the philosopher Whitehead's view that there are only processes, and not things.
However, I don't think Hope had these things in mind! And please don't ask me to defend any of these.
I don't have have a problem with any of these. If one of them is your reality, then it is your reality. The problem though is that - unless we're to stay under the duvet with our separate realities until the twiglets and Vimto run out - we have to find a common language of at least a probabilistic reality in order to function. If the good folks at Waitrose and I share our realities I'm more likely to be fed than if, say, my reality is that I'll survive on unicorn farts and so I never need darken their doors.
This doesn't seem so controversial to me - the reality of intersubjective experience may be rough and ready and to an extent arbitrary, but it works because we have a method to test it - in this case, either I starve to death or I don't. The problem I find comes when some claim their personal realities - "god" for example - to be part of that intersubjective reality with no method of verification whatever, so if they're allowed to gatecrash that space any one personal truth is as valid as any other personal truth: allow in one of them and you have to allow in all of them.
That those who privilege just one personal reality over the rest (the Christian god over, say, the Norse gods for example) can bring to the table only logical fallacies to support their claim seems to me to be telling too.
-
EFFECT - you moron - the word you want is effect! You should be charged for the cold-blooded murder of the English language!
The only time you don't bollox up the spelling of something is when you copy and paste from the KJV!
As God is my judge I thought about writing 'effect' and deliberately wrote 'affect' but in hindsight, anyone would have guessed and only had to look at my history of using the word it was nothing to do with not knowing.
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=11072.msg564109#msg564109
There shows the ignorance and double standards of yourself as an atheist.
Anyone can make a spelling error. If an atheist nothing said but if a believer we are called a moron etc.
Nothing in your post is about the actual thread but is evidence that you are here to attack people not take part in the thread discussion.
When you plan a trap for someone remember God isn't stupid. In future if you comment on such silly things as a spelling error and engage in such an attack everyone now knows it is all you are here for.
At the time I had no idea what the reasoning behind using the 'a' instead of the 'e' was.
Now I see God used it to show the true mentality and reasoning being to attack believers even on the slightest thing and not the actual content of the post.
Well done! Who really looks the Moron, now?
-
EFFECT - you moron - the word you want is effect! You should be charged for the cold-blooded murder of the English language!
The only time you don't bollox up the spelling of something is when you copy and paste from the KJV!
I get affect and effect wrong a lot of the time. Don't think I'm a moron but perhaps you do.
Its not so much the spelling which can be an issue in posts as far as I'm concerned but more whether the meaning comes across. Often it doesn't, usually due to a poor sentence structure it seems to me.
-
Yeah, well ... you can prove anything with facts can't you.
-
Use of affect and effect would be easierfor those who are not so sure because effect can be used as a verb, meaning 'to make happen'.
-
SusanDoris and Maeght
I agree, others make the same, and similar mistakes, but they do not do it in demonstrating the pompous arrogance that Sassy does in all her pronouncements!
-
So, to be clear.
If 'scientists' make a statement which supports Sassy's views, then they are correct, accurate and should be believed without question even if there is no reference given to those 'scientists' names or their claims in order that they can be checked.
On the other hand if the same subject has other scientists with opposite views/results and there are references/papers/research available which can be scrutinised or checked, then they must be wrong?
Is that about it?
-
SusanDoris and Maeght
I agree, others make the same, and similar mistakes, but they do not do it in demonstrating the pompous arrogance that Sassy does in all her pronouncements!
I know what you mean.
-
So, to be clear.
If 'scientists' make a statement which supports Sassy's views, then they are correct, accurate and should be believed without question even if there is no reference given to those 'scientists' names or their claims in order that they can be checked.
On the other hand if the same subject has other scientists with opposite views/results and there are references/papers/research available which can be scrutinised or checked, then they must be wrong?
Is that about it?
Got it in one.
-
So, to be clear.
If 'scientists' make a statement which supports Sassy's views, then they are correct, accurate and should be believed without question even if there is no reference given to those 'scientists' names or their claims in order that they can be checked.
On the other hand if the same subject has other scientists with opposite views/results and there are references/papers/research available which can be scrutinised or checked, then they must be wrong?
Is that about it?
You got it! ::)
-
Revived so Hope can post his evidence that he is claiming on the "What is scholarly..." thread.
To recap, since I have started posting Hope has alluded to the following as potential examples of non-naturalness:
1) Morality (including speed limits) - as science doesn't do morality then it is an example of something non-natural.
Just because science is morally neutral, it does not mean that scientific method cannot be used to study human behaviours and the drivers for such behaviours.
Furthermore, you still need to show why the existence of morality demonstrates the existence of God.
2) Experience of the supernatural/God - he has personal experience of God.
I don't think people doubt that some people have an inner experience which they attribute to an encounter with God. What you need to do though is to demonstrate that you have correctly attributed it to an actual objectively true God.
3) Spontaneous healing / answer to prayer.
We are still waiting for the evidence of your claim that a naturalistic explanation can be ruled out in terms of spontaneous healing. How you can tell the difference between something for which there is no scientific explanation and something which can have no scientific explanation remains a mystery.
Likewise, there is no reason in principle that the claim that healing correlates with prayer cannot be answered using the scientific method. Healing being caused by prayer due to some supernatural intervention is out of scope but until some correlation can be shown then there is no phenomenon to investigate.
There might have been others but these are the ones I can recollect reasonably well.
-
Revived so Hope can post his evidence that he is claiming on the "What is scholarly..." thread.
How many pages of the site do you want this to cover, Stephen? I'm not quite sure exactly how much evidence has been put in front of the members of the board over the 5 or so years I've been a member, but it would involve an incredibly long post.
-
No verifiable evidence has ever been put up by Christians to support the existence of a god.
-
How many pages of the site do you want this to cover, Stephen? I'm not quite sure exactly how much evidence has been put in front of the members of the board over the 5 or so years I've been a member, but it would involve an incredibly long post.
Only bringing it up in response to your repeated claim.
Actually I think the post containing evidence would be a very short one. One containing supernatural claims would indeed be very long. Claims and evidence are very different things though.
-
Revived so Hope can post his evidence that he is claiming on the "What is scholarly..." thread.
To recap, since I have started posting Hope has alluded to the following as potential examples of non-naturalness:
1) Morality (including speed limits) - as science doesn't do morality then it is an example of something non-natural.
Just because science is morally neutral, it does not mean that scientific method cannot be used to study human behaviours and the drivers for such behaviours.
Furthermore, you still need to show why the existence of morality demonstrates the existence of God.
2) Experience of the supernatural/God - he has personal experience of God.
If you think that science has something to say about morality, which you accept as non material than might we not also take a human behavioural response in looking at God?
For instance I put a fairly long post on which an antitheist responded to almost too quickly saying it didn't make sense. Now having been a Goddodger of old I know I was prone to skip over things to do with God.
The point is though we can spot the behaviours of people in the presence of religion not just so called "religious people" but "anti religious " people, although going by their posts on here they would rather be the ones wielding the scalpels and the electrodes.
-
To make any post manageable in length, I'll post references.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-craig-ehrman
http://www.josh.org/resurrection/evidence-for-the-resurrection/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_and_origin_of_the_Resurrection_of_Jesus
http://www.str.org/articles/is-there-any-evidence-for-jesus-outside-the-bible#.Vzgssr62HgU
https://carm.org/there-are-no-non-biblical-accounts-resurrection
http://christianity.net.au/questions/other-than-the-bible
http://www.bethinking.org/jesus/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-from-non-christian-sources
There are a few to be going on with, whilst I go and get ready for church.
Furthermore, the Jewish religious leaders were so concerned about his claims to be God and to be acting as God that they chose to have him arrested and killed. That is pretty telling in my mind.
-
If you think that science has something to say about morality, which you accept as non material than might we not also take a human behavioural response in looking at God?
Actually it is Hope's claim that morality is non material. Since it describes Human behaviours it appears very much material to me. Not in the sense that it is something out there that can be picked up and weighed, but without material beings demonstrating behaviours and then assigning good or bad labels to that behaviour then I don't think there wold be any morality.
Belief in God can certainly motivate certain behaviours. However, how you get from belief in God to God exists is the key question.
-
Only bringing it up in response to your repeated claim.
Yet where are the contradictory evidences?
Actually I think the post containing evidence would be a very short one. One containing supernatural claims would indeed be very long. Claims and evidence are very different things though.
I'd suggest the opposite, Stephen.
-
To make any post manageable in length, I'll post references.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-craig-ehrman
http://www.josh.org/resurrection/evidence-for-the-resurrection/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_and_origin_of_the_Resurrection_of_Jesus
http://www.str.org/articles/is-there-any-evidence-for-jesus-outside-the-bible#.Vzgssr62HgU
https://carm.org/there-are-no-non-biblical-accounts-resurrection
http://christianity.net.au/questions/other-than-the-bible
http://www.bethinking.org/jesus/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-from-non-christian-sources
Furthermore, the Jewish religious leaders were so concerned about his claims to be God and to be acting as God that they chose to have him arrested and killed. That is pretty telling in my mind.
In your mind, maybe, not in mine. Jesus was just a pain in the butt that is all as far as the Jewish hierarchy was concerned, they didn't actually believe him to be a god, imo.
-
Actually it is Hope's claim that morality is non material. Since it describes Human behaviours it appears very much material to me. Not in the sense that it is something out there that can be picked up and weighed, but without material beings demonstrating behaviours and then assigning good or bad labels to that behaviour then I don't think there wold be any morality.
Exactly. Like mathematics, say, or a legal system it may not be a concrete physical thing but is utterly dependent upon concrete physical things - humans - for its existence. No humans, no morality.
-
Exactly. Like mathematics, say, or a legal system it may not be a concrete physical thing but is utterly dependent upon concrete physical things - humans - for its existence. No humans, no morality.
But I think you'll have to recognise that science doesn't do morality, so your statement no humans,no morality is not scientific.
Back to the drawing board.
-
Actually it is Hope's claim that morality is non material. Since it describes Human behaviours it appears very much material to me. Not in the sense that it is something out there that can be picked up and weighed, but without material beings demonstrating behaviours and then assigning good or bad labels to that behaviour then I don't think there wold be any morality.
Belief in God can certainly motivate certain behaviours. However, how you get from belief in God to God exists is the key question.
But I believe there is another set of questions here........namely the motivations of anti-theists which can and should be investigated since the plea is that it is a rational response.
For example, is the repulsion from God neuro scientifically equivalent to the fear of spiders.
Antitheists must also don the electrodes.......having a celebrity antitheist doing the tests won't do.
-
But I think you'll have to recognise that science doesn't do morality, so your statement no humans,no morality is not scientific.
Back to the drawing board.
Not really - that science doesn't 'do' morality is an opinion, but then there's the contrary opinion espoused by, for example, Sam Harris.
-
The understanding that survival of the most cooperative trumps survival of the fittest suggests that science does do morality.
-
Hope,
How many pages of the site do you want this to cover, Stephen? I'm not quite sure exactly how much evidence has been put in front of the members of the board over the 5 or so years I've been a member, but it would involve an incredibly long post.
Depends on whether you continue to play fast and loose with the term "evidence". If you stick with your pattern of just guessing, wishful thinking, confirmation bias etc then the answer is "lots". If however you want the term to have some meaning that distinguishes it from these characteristics, then none whatsoever.
To put it another way, so far it's been a very short post: just a picture of some tumble weed.
-
To make any post manageable in length, I'll post references.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/is-there-historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-craig-ehrman
http://www.josh.org/resurrection/evidence-for-the-resurrection/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_and_origin_of_the_Resurrection_of_Jesus
http://www.str.org/articles/is-there-any-evidence-for-jesus-outside-the-bible#.Vzgssr62HgU
https://carm.org/there-are-no-non-biblical-accounts-resurrection
http://christianity.net.au/questions/other-than-the-bible
http://www.bethinking.org/jesus/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-from-non-christian-sources
There are a few to be going on with, whilst I go and get ready for church.
Which in the case of the resurrection, are claims. I accept that they are claims. What you need to do is to demonstrate those claims are true somehow. You would need to rule out the possibility of lies, mistakes, confirmation bias, later additions to the story. These are all know human behaviours, how have you discounted them?
Furthermore, the Jewish religious leaders were so concerned about his claims to be God and to be acting as God that they chose to have him arrested and killed. That is pretty telling in my mind.
It would indicate that they thought he was not God wouldn't it?
-
Moderator:
This thread contains a discussion about the Moon landings so I'm going to split of these posts and from them create a thread about matters lunar in the 'Science' Board later today. I'll lock this meantime and unlock after I've split these posts.
Could I ask enthusiasts on the issue of Moon landings to avoid launching into further posts until the new thread is in place.
Update:
I've split off the 'Moon' posts and will look at these forming a new thread: some further surgery will be required first, so please be patient!
-
Not really - that science doesn't 'do' morality is an opinion, but then there's the contrary opinion espoused by, for example, Sam Harris.
What are Sam Harris premises and what are his aims? To be tha antitheist version of Moses?
-
Not really - that science doesn't 'do' morality is an opinion, but then there's the contrary opinion espoused by, for example, Sam Harris.
Really, how does it propose what is right behaviour and wrong behaviour from just behaviour?
-
Moderator:
Please note the the posts in this thread that dealt with the Moon landings have split off into a new thread in 'Science':
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=12076.msg613867#new
-
Really, how does it propose what is right behaviour and wrong behaviour from just behaviour?
I really couldn't tell you, and that's because The Moral Landscape, the book in which he fleshes out these ideas, is the only major work of his that I haven't yet read.