Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: Owlswing on March 31, 2016, 03:50:26 AM
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An article from the Spectator that might well ruffle rather more than a few feathers on this forum.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/british-christians-must-start-to-think-and-act-like-a-minority/
Especially this particular statement:
The idea that some separation of church and state exists in England is a recent, fatuous import from America: we still have an established church and policy has always been framed by religious viewpoints.
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It's a tad disheartening that in this day and age people are still caught up by religious beliefs.
It was understandable in bygone days when we didn't have all the answers to the questions formed by our inquisitive minds, so we invented spirits and gods to fill the gaps. I suppose the idea became so ingrained into human culture that it is going to be difficult to grow out of it.
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Religion of any sort and politics certainly don't mix.
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Dear Leonard,
It's a tad disheartening that in this day and age people are still caught up by religious beliefs.
It's in your Genes old fruit, you can't escape it, you are a religious and spiritual animal.
Gonnagle.
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Dear Leonard,
It's in your Genes old fruit, you can't escape it, you are a religious and spiritual animal.
Gonnagle.
Nah! I once was caught up in it because a was born into a Christian family and culture, but as soon as I was able to reason for myself I was able to get free. Others aren't so lucky.
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An article from the Spectator that might well ruffle rather more than a few feathers on this forum.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/british-christians-must-start-to-think-and-act-like-a-minority/
Especially this particular statement:
The idea that some separation of church and state exists in England is a recent, fatuous import from America: we still have an established church and policy has always been framed by religious viewpoints.
Owl, I think the sad thing is that there has been a move within the CofE for the last 50+ years to disestablish, but it has almost always been blocked by 1) the laity or 2) the Parliament of the day. As for the idea that 'British Christians must start to think and act as a minority', many already do. Remember that there are probably more members of non-established churches in the UK than there are of the CofE (I intentionally didn't use the term Anglican, because 2 of the 3 main Anglican churches in the UK are already disestablished - not sure about that in N. Ireland). Secondly, how does one 'act as a minority'? Does one spend a lot of time and money vocalising one's opinions? Does one subvert society? Does one challenge what one sees as poor legislation and policy making?
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Dear Owlswing,
Good article and is that not what every Christian on this forum is doing, fighting its corner.
Christians have to prove not only that they have a right to speak their mind but also that everyone else benefits from having a healthy religious culture. In the past few centuries, Christians have contributed towards the abolition of slavery, the clearing of slums, the fight against low wages and the resistance to totalitarianism. They still have many wonders to perform.
Damn right!! Christians must come out of the cupboard ( Christians don't have closets, it is against our religion ) and fight for our right to party, problem about this is that, the Catholics are in the kitchen hogging the bread sticks, the CoE are in the lounge hogging the wine cabinet, the CoS are in the toilet with the whisky greetin that naebody luvs them and the YEC are outside in the garden giving an evolutionist a good kicking.
Gonnagle.
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Nah! I once was caught up in it because a was born into a Christian family and culture, but as soon as I was able to reason for myself I was able to get free. Others aren't so lucky.
And therein lies the problem, Len; were you really 'able to get free' or did you simply get caught up in an equally (in your terms) restrictive understanding? Obviously, there will be some who agree with you, there will be some who don't, and there will be some who regard being 'able to get free' to involve the adoption of a religious faith.
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Nah! I once was caught up in it because a was born into a Christian family and culture, but as soon as I was able to reason for myself I was able to get free. Others aren't so lucky.
Somebody else equating reason with atheism.....weird.
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Somebody else equating reason with atheism.....weird.
Got a reasoned (or evidenced) argument for any gods...?
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And therein lies the problem, Len;
Problem? I don't have one.
...were you really 'able to get free' or did you simply get caught up in an equally (in your terms) restrictive understanding?
My understanding is not restrictive, Hope, I am always ready to consider new evidence and change my beliefs if I find it convincing.
Obviously, there will be some who agree with you, there will be some who don't, and there will be some who regard being 'able to get free' to involve the adoption of a religious faith.
It would be an uninteresting old world if we all agreed, wouldn't it? :)
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Got a reasoned (or evidenced) argument for any gods...?
reason equals science?
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Got a reasoned (or evidenced) argument for any gods...?
reason equals science?
No. And I'll take your answer to be a no too.
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An article from the Spectator that might well ruffle rather more than a few feathers on this forum.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/british-christians-must-start-to-think-and-act-like-a-minority/
Actually this article makes some valuable points. Britain indeed is a post-Christian society, and that needs to inform our evangelism. At the same time I think that the church sometimes needs to heed the Lord's words 'render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's.' The trouble comes when the church tries to wear Caesar's shoes.
The church in this country is not at the point of Elijah in the cave! There is a thriving remnant.
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Dear Owlswing,
Good article and is that not what every Christian on this forum is doing, fighting its corner.
Damn right!! Christians must come out of the cupboard ( Christians don't have closets, it is against our religion ) and fight for our right to party, problem about this is that, the Catholics are in the kitchen hogging the bread sticks, the CoE are in the lounge hogging the wine cabinet, the CoS are in the toilet with the whisky greetin that naebody luvs them and the YEC are outside in the garden giving an evolutionist a good kicking.
Gonnagle.
;D what about the Baptists ?
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;D what about the Baptists ?
They couldn't swim and drowned in the font?
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Problem? I don't have one.
And many who hold a religious faith, especially those who have moved from a position of having no faith would say the same, Len. That suggests to me that the idea that religious faith is restrictive has no foundation, since such folk are saying that they feel freed from the restrictiveness of atheism.
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Got a reasoned (or evidenced) argument for any gods...?
SKos, over the years I've been on this forum, a number of people have put forward cogent, reasoned and evidenced arguments for the existence of gods. In a way, it is partly the reason that this forum still exists since some others then spend their time trying to demolish those arguments - without that much success, one has to say.
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And many who hold a religious faith, especially those who have moved from a position of having no faith would say the same, Len. That suggests to me that the idea that religious faith is restrictive has no foundation, since such folk are saying that they feel freed from the restrictiveness of atheism.
Religions can be very restrictive, especially fundamentalist Christianity.
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Religions can be very restrictive, especially fundamentalist Christianity.
As can atheism - certainly some of the kids I know who have grown up in atheist families have said that. As a result, I tend to look at the common denominator between such families - and it is clearly not religion or non-religion. That suggests that the restrictiveness is more to do with parenting skills than necessarily with the ethos of the family.
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SKos, over the years I've been on this forum, a number of people have put forward cogent, reasoned and evidenced arguments for the existence of gods.
Such as? We've had the 'flakey five', as advanced by Alien, but they've all been well and truly dispatched back to fallacy-land.
In a way, it is partly the reason that this forum still exists since some others then spend their time trying to demolish those arguments - without that much success, one has to say.
One has to say these 'arguments' (for want of a better term) have all been done up like the proverbial kipper because they can be shown to be fallacious. We can't get to you to produce even an outline of a defined method on which an argument for 'God' could be advanced and then verified.
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SKos, over the years I've been on this forum, a number of people have put forward cogent, reasoned and evidenced arguments for the existence of gods.
OK - where are they? One example will do.
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One has to say these 'arguments' (for want of a better term) have all been done up like the proverbial kipper because they can be shown to be fallacious. We can't get to you to produce even an outline of a defined method on which an argument for 'God' could be advanced and then verified.
SKoS, take note too. It is interesting to note that what have been called fallacious have simply been dismissed by some here on the grounds that they don't accept arguments that don't suit their naturalistic understanding of life. LKet me give you a different example. I can argue in Nepal that lamb is an extremely tasty meat, but many Nepaleses people will dismiss that claim on the grounds that they don't know what lamb is andhave never seen a lamb or a sheep. They lack the experience of what a sheep is to be able to verify the claim. That isn't to say that the claim isn't valid - just that their experience doesn't extend to this particular knowledge.
Interestingly, I can think of plenty of people who would regard your arguments, Gordon, as having been done up like the proverbial kipper because they too can be shown to be fallacious.
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SKos, over the years I've been on this forum, a number of people have put forward cogent, reasoned and evidenced arguments for the existence of gods. In a way, it is partly the reason that this forum still exists since some others then spend their time trying to demolish those arguments - without that much success, one has to say.
Hello negative proof fallacy, how are you today?
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SKoS, take note too. It is interesting to note that what have been called fallacious have simply been dismissed by some here on the grounds that they don't accept arguments that don't suit their naturalistic understanding of life. LKet me give you a different example. I can argue in Nepal that lamb is an extremely tasty meat, but many Nepaleses people will dismiss that claim on the grounds that they don't know what lamb is andhave never seen a lamb or a sheep. They lack the experience of what a sheep is to be able to verify the claim. That isn't to say that the claim isn't valid - just that their experience doesn't extend to this particular knowledge.
Interestingly, I can think of plenty of people who would regard your arguments, Gordon, as having been done up like the proverbial kipper because they too can be shown to be fallacious.
But we can prove sheep exist, you have no such evidence where god is concerned.
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SKoS, take note too. It is interesting to note that what have been called fallacious have simply been dismissed by some here on the grounds that they don't accept arguments that don't suit their naturalistic understanding of life. LKet me give you a different example. I can argue in Nepal that lamb is an extremely tasty meat, but many Nepaleses people will dismiss that claim on the grounds that they don't know what lamb is andhave never seen a lamb or a sheep. They lack the experience of what a sheep is to be able to verify the claim. That isn't to say that the claim isn't valid - just that their experience doesn't extend to this particular knowledge.
How tasty anything is, is subjective. That aside, you can demonstrate the existence of sheep in many ways.
So, any evidenced or reasoned arguments for any gods.....?
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SKoS, take note too. It is interesting to note that what have been called fallacious have simply been dismissed by some here on the grounds that they don't accept arguments that don't suit their naturalistic understanding of life. LKet me give you a different example. I can argue in Nepal that lamb is an extremely tasty meat, but many Nepaleses people will dismiss that claim on the grounds that they don't know what lamb is andhave never seen a lamb or a sheep. They lack the experience of what a sheep is to be able to verify the claim. That isn't to say that the claim isn't valid - just that their experience doesn't extend to this particular knowledge.
Then all you need do is bus-in some sheep (and of course some mint-sauce) to Nepal, capture the whole thing on CCTV and provide details of the acquisition, transport and delivery of the sheep and the Nepalese will have demonstrably experienced sheep.
Interestingly, I can think of plenty of people who would regard your arguments, Gordon, as having been done up like the proverbial kipper because they too can be shown to be fallacious.
Doubt it since, interestingly, I haven't made any arguments: I've simply referred to the rebuttal of arguments made by some theists, which isn't the same thing at all as me making an argument.
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SKoS, take note too. It is interesting to note that what have been called fallacious have simply been dismissed by some here on the grounds that they don't accept arguments that don't suit their naturalistic understanding of life.
That's not me then. I have never asked you for a naturalistic method. Just for a method. Actually I can't say that I have ever seen anyone demand the method be naturalistic.
LKet me give you a different example. I can argue in Nepal that lamb is an extremely tasty meat, but many Nepaleses people will dismiss that claim on the grounds that they don't know what lamb is andhave never seen a lamb or a sheep. They lack the experience of what a sheep is to be able to verify the claim. That isn't to say that the claim isn't valid - just that their experience doesn't extend to this particular knowledge.
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All you have to do (as others have pointed out) is show them a sheep. Many methodologies are available for this.
So can you show us a God?
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Hope,
SKoS, take note too. It is interesting to note that what have been called fallacious have simply been dismissed by some here on the grounds that they don't accept arguments that don't suit their naturalistic understanding of life.
Flat wrong. They are "called" fallacious because they are fallacious - they fit the various definitions of fallacy (argumentum ad populum, your favourite the negative proof fallacy etc). Your only way out of that would be to argue that logic itself is "naturalistic", and so no matter how much you crash through it it doesn't undo the force of your beliefs.
That gives you two problems though. First, you may as well abandon reason altogether to make your case not because your use of it is manifestly wrong, but because being "naturalistic" it's of no relevance in any case.
Second though, absent reason then until and unless you can offer something instead to enable the rest of us to test your claims (and to differentiate them from the different claims of others) then all you're doing is shouting at the wind.
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That's not me then. I have never asked you for a naturalistic method.
Has anybody?
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Some,
Has anybody?
No - it's just one of Hope's straw men. By complaining that others ask for a naturalistic method, he wants to distract attention from his absence of a method of any kind to distinguish his claims from those of others, and indeed from just guessing about stuff. When pressed veeeery hard he insists that he did so, like you know, ages ago only - um - he can't quite recall where, ooh is that the time already? Must dash! etc.
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Hope,
Flat wrong. They are "called" fallacious because they are fallacious - they fit the various definitions of fallacy (argumentum ad populum, your favourite the negative proof fallacy etc). Your only way out of that would be to argue that logic itself is "naturalistic", and so no matter how much you crash through it it doesn't undo the force of your beliefs.
That gives you two problems though. First, you may as well abandon reason altogether to make your case not because your use of it is manifestly wrong, but because being "naturalistic" it's of no relevance in any case.
Second though, absent reason then until and unless you can offer something instead to enable the rest of us to test your claims (and to differentiate them from the different claims of others) then all you're doing is shouting at the wind.
Let's not forget that the forum's favoured argumentum ad populum is ''Decline in church membership.'' Recognition of fallacy should prevent triumphalism on the part of the Goddodgers but doesn't.
Are reason and logic naturalistic? Of course not...... this is just Hillside doing the hustle.
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Let's not forget that the forum's favoured argumentum ad populum is ''Decline in church membership.''
Do you have evidence of this?
Have you come up with any evidence or argument for any gods, yet?
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Let's not forget that the forum's favoured argumentum ad populum is ''Decline in church membership.'' Recognition of fallacy should prevent triumphalism on the part of the Goddodgers but doesn't.
Are reason and logic naturalistic? Of course not...... this is just Hillside doing the hustle.
Who is arguing that a decline in church membership is an argument for christianity being incorrect - certainly not me. Indeed I regularly make it clear that the popularity of a point of a view is no indication of its objective veracity.
A decline in church membership is an indication of just that - less people in the UK being involved in churches in various ways. I think why many of us see that as a good thing is because it weakens the argument, not that christianity is right, but that christianity should be provided with special privileges in society - those arguments often being justified on the spurious 'we are a christian country' mantra.
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Who is arguing that a decline in church membership is an argument for christianity being incorrect - certainly not me. Indeed I regularly make it clear that the popularity of a point of a view is no indication of its objective veracity.
A decline in church membership is an indication of just that - less people in the UK being involved in churches in various ways. I think why many of us see that as a good thing is because it weakens the argument, not that christianity is right, but that christianity should be provided with special privileges in society - those arguments often being justified on the spurious 'we are a christian country' mantra.
Beat me to it!
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Prof,
Who is arguing that a decline in church membership is an argument for christianity being incorrect...
No-one is; it's just yet another of Trollboy's straw men. I hear they're having to ship in more dried grass from Canada to keep up with demand.
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Some,
No - it's just one of Hope's straw men. By complaining that others ask for a naturalistic method, he wants to distract attention from his absence of a method of any kind to distinguish his claims from those of others, and indeed from just guessing about stuff. When pressed veeeery hard he insists that he did so, like you know, ages ago only - um - he can't quite recall where, ooh is that the time already? Must dash! etc.
Actually when pressed he will make suggestions as to what his method is. On another thread he has suggested personal experience. However, when you point out that you can easily be mistaken and that you would need a method to verify what you are experiencing is in tune with realty, then this is when he disappears.
Therefore, I think his method is God of the Gaps, this is unexplained therefore God coupled with the negative proof fallacy, you can't prove that Jesus was not resurrected therefore the probability of a resurrection is at least 50%.
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Do you have evidence of this?
Have you come up with any evidence or argument for any gods, yet?
Have you come up with any evidence for what you believe, yet?
Science working not being evidence and that.
It is the Goddodgers delusion par excellence that they don't have an alternative view to the way the universe is. It is of course naturalistic and God free.
and of course since they have a view there is the burden to prove this.
It is of course a question of ontology and there are no methodologies to establish ultimate ontology and this is why we have the spectacle of methodological naturalism being dressed up as ontological naturalism.
Materialists have to constantly justify their choice to kill off something about themselves in the pursuit of the material.
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Science working not being evidence and that.
I would have thought that science working is rather good evidence that science works.
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Actually when pressed he will make suggestions as to what his method is. On another thread he has suggested personal experience. However, when you point out that you can easily be mistaken and that you would need a method to verify what you are experiencing is in tune with realty, then this is when he disappears.
Therefore, I think his method is God of the Gaps, this is unexplained therefore God coupled with the negative proof fallacy, you can't prove that Jesus was not resurrected therefore the probability of a resurrection is at least 50%.
The problem with that approach of course is that everything becomes equally 'true' even things which are mutually incompatible. It is inconsistent and logically fatally flawed.
Unless you are talking about 'true' being 'true for me' in other words an entirely subjective truth. So I have no problem with people using personal experience to justify 'true for me' statements - e.g. Gerald Finzi is a fantastic composer - it is true for me. Indeed only personal experience can be used to justify true for me statements, as by definition there is no objective veracity beyond that individual.
But that approach can never go beyond the individual, precisely because you cannot know what it 'true for me' and I cannot know what is 'true for you'. So although I can justify a view that it is 'true for me' that Gerald Finzi is a fantastic composer I cannot turn that into any kind of objective veracity, because there are other for whom it is 'true for them' that Finzi is a second rate composer, basically with little style of his own largely ripping off his contemporaries. That is true for them - there is no objective veracity approach which can decide which is true objectively using personal experience.
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Have you come up with any evidence for what you believe, yet?
Science working not being evidence and that.
It is the Goddodgers delusion par excellence that they don't have an alternative view to the way the universe is. It is of course naturalistic and God free.
and of course since they have a view there is the burden to prove this.
It is of course a question of ontology and there are no methodologies to establish ultimate ontology and this is why we have the spectacle of methodological naturalism being dressed up as ontological naturalism.
Materialists have to constantly justify their choice to kill off something about themselves in the pursuit of the material.
I think we all agree that there is some kind of natural, material reality around us don't we? So no burden of proof since we all agree anyway. We might all be wrong but hey ho you have to start somewhere.
You then go further and claim that there are non material non naturalistic things. Enjoy your burden of proof.
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Have you come up with any evidence for what you believe, yet?
Science working not being evidence and that.
What belief of mine are you talking about?
Have you come up with any evidence or argument for any gods, yet?
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It is the Goddodgers delusion par excellence that they don't have an alternative view to the way the universe is. It is of course naturalistic and God free.
and of course since they have a view there is the burden to prove this.
It is of course a question of ontology and there are no methodologies to establish ultimate ontology and this is why we have the spectacle of methodological naturalism being dressed up as ontological naturalism.
Materialists have to constantly justify their choice to kill off something about themselves in the pursuit of the material.
That will be 'no' then...
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The problem with that approach of course is that everything becomes equally 'true' even things which are mutually incompatible. It is inconsistent and logically fatally flawed.
Unless you are talking about 'true' being 'true for me' in other words an entirely subjective truth. So I have no problem with people using personal experience to justify 'true for me' statements - e.g. Gerald Finzi is a fantastic composer - it is true for me. Indeed only personal experience can be used to justify true for me statements, as by definition there is no objective veracity beyond that individual.
But that approach can never go beyond the individual, precisely because you cannot know what it 'true for me' and I cannot know what is 'true for you'. So although I can justify a view that it is 'true for me' that Gerald Finzi is a fantastic composer I cannot turn that into any kind of objective veracity, because there are other for whom it is 'true for them' that Finzi is a second rate composer, basically with little style of his own largely ripping off his contemporaries. That is true for them - there is no objective veracity approach which can decide which is true objectively using personal experience.
you don't need to tell me what the problems are with it. We are just waiting on Hope to tell us what that final little step is that gets from true for me to true for you.
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Actually when pressed he will make suggestions as to what his method is. On another thread he has suggested personal experience. However, when you point out that you can easily be mistaken and that you would need a method to verify what you are experiencing is in tune with realty, then this is when he disappears.
Therefore, I think his method is God of the Gaps, this is unexplained therefore God coupled with the negative proof fallacy, you can't prove that Jesus was not resurrected therefore the probability of a resurrection is at least 50%.
You are suggesting that the experienced isn't checked against what science can suggest. It is but the conclusion is that science does not cover the experience. To show bias towards the promise that one day science will cover it is Scientism pure and simple. It is a faith position and does not cover what Sir Paul Nurse has referred to as the limits of science. In scientism there are no limits since science completely describes things. That is a misunderstanding of science as a modelling activity.
I'm afraid given that we are all trading opinions which we may choose to justify or not.
That means blowhards such as Hillside lose a bit of ''authority'' and I guess that grates with him.
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What belief of mine are you talking about?
Complete cuntism.
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you don't need to tell me what the problems are with it. We are just waiting on Hope to tell us what that final little step is that gets from true for me to true for you.
It's on another forum, er, um, somewhere.
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You are suggesting that the experienced isn't checked against what science can suggest. It is but the conclusion is that science does not cover the experience. To show bias towards the promise that one day science will cover it is Scientism pure and simple. It is a faith position and does not cover what Sir Paul Nurse has referred to as the limits of science. In scientism there are no limits since science completely describes things. That is a misunderstanding of science as a modelling activity.
I'm afraid given that we are all trading opinions which we may choose to justify or not.
That means blowhards such as Hillside lose a bit of ''authority'' and I guess that grates with him.
Who said anything about checking it against science?
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Have you come up with any evidence for what you believe, yet?
There is no requirement for me to provide evidence to justify things I don't believe - the onus is on those who do believe to provide the evidence.
So if, as you are suggesting, atheists are required to provide evidence for things they don't believe in then you will also have an extremely long list of things you don't believe in that you equally will be required to provide evidence in justification. Let's start the list (and please do correct me if there are any here that I have erroneously suggested you don't believe when in fact you do):
That Thor is real and the god of thunder
That JFK didn't die but was abducted by aliens
That Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by a body double
That there is an invisible teapot in orbit around Saturn
That there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow
etc etc
I suspect you don't believe in any of those things (nor do I) and neither you nor I are required to justify our lack of belief - the onus lies entirely on the believers in those things to justify the veracity of their belief.
And in exactly the same manner I don't believe in your god, just as you don't believe in Thor and therefore I am mo more required to justify my lack of belief in your god than both your or I are to justify our lack of belief in Thor. You, on the other hand do believe in your god and therefore the onus is on your to justify that belief.
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Stephen,
Actually when pressed he will make suggestions as to what his method is. On another thread he has suggested personal experience. However, when you point out that you can easily be mistaken and that you would need a method to verify what you are experiencing is in tune with realty, then this is when he disappears.
Therefore, I think his method is God of the Gaps, this is unexplained therefore God coupled with the negative proof fallacy, you can't prove that Jesus was not resurrected therefore the probability of a resurrection is at least 50%.
Quite. Just to note too that claiming personal experience to be a method for establishing objective truths is a complete abuse of the term "method" because there's nothing systematic, planned, investigable, repeatable etc about it. The feeling that a god (who just happens to be the one with which you're most familiar) paid a house call may be an overwhelmingly strong one, but there's nothing methodical about it.
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There is no requirement for me to provide evidence to justify things I don't believe
That is completely non sequitur to a request to provide evidence to justify things someone does believe in.
Evasion noted.
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Looks like Trollboy's not only draining Canada's reserves of dried grass he's having to increase to three shifts of East European migrant workers to knock out all those straw men.
Must be exhausting work.
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Complete cuntism.
Urban Dictionary tells me that is a strict religious group that worships the vagina.
I don't recall joining such a group - I think I'd remember....
:)
Anyway, back to your evidence or reasoning...
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That is completely non sequitur to a request to provide evidence to justify things someone does believe in.
Evasion noted.
In which case tell me the things I believe in - noting that we are only talking about things which I believe are objectively true, not just true for me - and I'd be happy to oblige.
But I am glad you now accept that there is no requirement for an atheist to provide any justification for the things they don't believe in, in other words god or gods.
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Dear Stranger,
I was about to have a word with our Vlad but,
Urban Dictionary tells me that is a strict religious group that worships the vagina.
Are there badges and can I join :P
Gonnagle.
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Urban Dictionary tells me that is a strict religious group that worships the vagina.
I don't recall joining such a group - I think I'd remember....
:)
Anyway, back to your evidence or reasoning...
There were some characters in the Bible who appeared to worship the prowess of their penises, the amount of bonking that went on! ;D
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Looks like Trollboy's not only draining Canada's reserves of dried grass he's having to increase to three shifts of East European migrant workers to knock out all those straw men.
Must be exhausting work.
It's just the problem of essentialism Hillside, my old Mighty morphin' power variable philosopher.
What do you call people who won't settle on a name for themselves....Brights, atheists, hard atheists, soft atheists, atheists who could probably do with a spell in the fridge?
I remember a laddy so keen to crash onto the board and announce himself as an unashamed philosophical materialist.......until I handed his ass in a sling regarding how he demonstrated that.....then the evasion started among the ''whatevers''.
So now we have people who either ''have no beliefs'', or ''beliefs that others can somehow by the power of mysticism not comprehend'' so they can suggest strongly but never be pinned down as proposing anything.
I know....let's call it opposition without proposition. Of course you are all ontological naturalists and that is both implicit and explicit in people willing to describe experience other than empirical as delusion,illusion etc.
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Gonners,
Are there badges and can I join :P
Yeah but you'll need to pick a side because there's been a schism. The One True Church of the Otter's Pocket have (ahem) split from the more evangelical Holy Sepulchre of the Panty Hamster lot over an important doctrinal dispute. Something to do with Brazil I hear, but I'm a bit vague on the details.
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I'm a bit vague on the details.
No change there then.
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I know....let's call it opposition without proposition. Of course you are all ontological naturalists and that is both implicit and explicit in people willing to describe experience other than empirical as delusion,illusion etc.
That's not me then.
All I say is that we can mistakenly attribute a cause to an experience. Surely you agree with that?
So assuming that you do agree how do we check that we are not mistaken? AND NO, I AM NOT ASKING FOR A NATURALISTIC SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Any bloody method will do as long as it can distinguish between mistaken and not mistaken.
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I remember a laddy so keen to crash onto the board and announce himself as an unashamed philosophical materialist.......until I handed his ass in a sling regarding how he demonstrated that.....then the evasion started among the ''whatevers''.
Ye Gods! You can be an arrogant prat, can't you!
I've lost count of the number of times that various posters, cleverer ones than I, on this forum have handed your lard-arse in a sling!
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... or ''beliefs that others can somehow by the power of mysticism not comprehend'' so they can suggest strongly but never be pinned down as proposing anything.
Isn't that the main claim of many of the theists here - that us atheists simply can't comprehend their faith (we are somehow too dim) or that it has to sit in a special box of claims that can be justified simply by saying 'it's true' - yet that box isn't extended to all other unevidenced claims.
Problem is Vlad you sound as if you are talking about yourself rather more than you are talking about others here.
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"Hello? Is that Trollboy Enterprises?
It is? Good. The All Canada Board of Dried Grass Producers and Exporters here. Look, we're having a bit of a problem supplying you with all these extra orders for straw. We've asked around for you and apparently there's some capacity left in Argentina but, to be frank, at the rate you're going they'll be out within the week too.
Why on earth do you need so many container loads of the stuff anyway?
What's that - bit of a crackly line I'm afraid, and you'll laugh at this but I could have sworn you said you're ramping up your straw man production!
Say what now? You did say that! Wow, that must be quite a production line you've got going there Buddy...
Look, do they all have to be real straw? Could you consider using synthetics for a bit maybe, you know just until our new harvest comes in?
No? You insist on mass producing using the old methods? Well, I admire your sense of tradition Mr Trollboy but I'm afraid your ambitions here significantly outstrip supply.
Have you thought of trying the Chinese?
Hello? Hello?"
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Gonners,
Yeah but you'll need to pick a side because there's been a schism. The One True Church of the Otter's Pocket have (ahem) split from the more evangelical Holy Sepulchre of the Panty Hamster lot over an important doctrinal dispute. Something to do with Brazil I hear, but I'm a bit vague on the details.
You're all a bunch of splitters - the Church of the Badly Packed Kebab is the only one true church.
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It's just the problem of essentialism ...
Oh fucking hell, he's found another word to misunderstand and misuse :o
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It's just the problem of essentialism Hillside, my old Mighty morphin' power variable philosopher.
What do you call people who won't settle on a name for themselves....Brights, atheists, hard atheists, soft atheists, atheists who could probably do with a spell in the fridge?
I remember a laddy so keen to crash onto the board and announce himself as an unashamed philosophical materialist.......until I handed his ass in a sling regarding how he demonstrated that.....then the evasion started among the ''whatevers''.
So now we have people who either ''have no beliefs'', or ''beliefs that others can somehow by the power of mysticism not comprehend'' so they can suggest strongly but never be pinned down as proposing anything.
I know....let's call it opposition without proposition. Of course you are all ontological naturalists and that is both implicit and explicit in people willing to describe experience other than empirical as delusion,illusion etc.
-sigh-
Still waiting for some argument or evidence for any gods.
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Shakes,
You're all a bunch of splitters - the Church of the Badly Packed Kebab is the only one true church.
But their schism from the True Begotten Order of the Bacon Sandwich lot was so nuanced that it passed most of us by. Interestingly I hear that Muffin Methodists are packing them in these days, but that's another story...
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Oh fucking hell, he's found another word to misunderstand and misuse :o
Yep - he read about saw it here (by his favourite atheist):
http://www.edge.org/response-detail/25366
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Shakes,
But their schism from the True Begotten Order of the Bacon Sandwich lot was so nuanced that it passed most of us by. Interestingly I hear that Muffin Methodists are packing them in these days, but that's another story...
No, you're thinking of the Beef Curtains Baptists.
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Some,
Still waiting for some argument or evidence for any gods.
Can I suggest that you pull up a seat, order another frappuccino and start a good book; War and Peace should do it. You're gonna have a long wait...
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Shakes,
Oh fucking hell, he's found another word to misunderstand and misuse :o
Quite. I used to wonder whether Trollboy was a very stupid poster making very stupid posts because he knew no better, or an intelligent poster deliberately making stupid and dishonest posts his trolling ways to pursue.
I've concluded now that he's a hybrid of the two - just intelligent enough to put together more or less comprehensible sentences, but not intelligent enough to troll without being recognised as a troll. Why he persists on polluting this mb when he's been found out is anyone's guess, but there it is nonetheless.
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Dear Blue and Shaker,
Oh Dear!! but it is Friday and it is all atheist day, what :P :P I am surprised that the Christians have not dragged that one out today, although reading Spud and Hopes views on homosexuality, I am wondering who exactly is the fool, although the word fool, I think is not strong enough :-[ :(
Gonnagle.
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Ye Gods! You can be an arrogant prat, can't you!
I've lost count of the number of times that various posters, cleverer ones than I, on this forum have handed your lard-arse in a sling!
You wish.........
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You wish.........
Well stop being shy then.
I will repeat my earlier question.
That's not me then.
All I say is that we can mistakenly attribute a cause to an experience. Surely you agree with that?
So assuming that you do agree how do we check that we are not mistaken? AND NO, I AM NOT ASKING FOR A NATURALISTIC SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Any bloody method will do as long as it can distinguish between mistaken and not mistaken.
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Shakes,
Quite. I used to wonder whether Trollboy was a very stupid poster making very stupid posts because he knew no better, or an intelligent poster deliberately making stupid and dishonest posts his trolling ways to pursue.
I've concluded now that he's a hybrid of the two - just intelligent enough to put together more or less comprehensible sentences, but not intelligent enough to troll without being recognised as a troll. Why he persists on polluting this mb when he's been found out is anyone's guess, but there it is nonetheless.
.....Any progress on getting from methodological naturalism to ontological naturalism?
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Stephen,
Well stop being shy then.
I will repeat my earlier question.
Just to warn you, before you were here I once chased Trollboy all over this mb with that question, asking it dozens of times and never once did he manage an answer. Essentially his trolling consists entirely of lying about the arguments that undo his position and never, ever, ever even attempting an argument for whatever it is he believes in. After so many times of patiently explaining to him why two plus two does not equal five, only to be met with "Oh so you think the moon is made of cream cheese then" type replies I've given up feeding him.
It's your call though.
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.....Any progress on getting from methodological naturalism to ontological naturalism?
Any progress on addressing the issues I raised with you up-thread.
You have this rather annoying habit of going suspiciously quiet when a tricky question is asked of you even in response to your own line of argument, yet are all over others for failing to comply with your endless and pointless requests.
So to reiterate:
'In which case tell me the things I believe in - noting that we are only talking about things which I believe are objectively true, not just true for me - and I'd be happy to oblige.'
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Shakes,
Quite. I used to wonder whether Trollboy was a very stupid poster making very stupid posts because he knew no better, or an intelligent poster deliberately making stupid and dishonest posts his trolling ways to pursue.
I've concluded now that he's a hybrid of the two - just intelligent enough to put together more or less comprehensible sentences, but not intelligent enough to troll without being recognised as a troll. Why he persists on polluting this mb when he's been found out is anyone's guess, but there it is nonetheless.
Well Hillside, I guess in your crazy world of mighty morphin' variable power philosophers anybody can be a combination of anything.
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Shakes,
But their schism from the True Begotten Order of the Bacon Sandwich lot was so nuanced that it passed most of us by. Interestingly I hear that Muffin Methodists are packing them in these days, but that's another story...
No, you're thinking of the Beef Curtains Baptists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2mdfa6C5vY
:o ;D
[It's only a Monty Python song]
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Essentially his trolling consists entirely of lying about the arguments that undo his position and never, ever, ever even attempting an argument for whatever it is he believes in.
Indeed, which is why the following quotes from him are jaw-dropping:
'So now we have people who either ''have no beliefs'', or ''beliefs that others can somehow by the power of mysticism not comprehend'' so they can suggest strongly but never be pinned down as proposing anything.'
And:
'That is completely non sequitur to a request to provide evidence to justify things someone does believe in.'
The evader in chief claims that others cannot be pinned down on their beliefs and their justifications for them. Remarkable in his lack of self awareness.
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Well stop being shy then.
I will repeat my earlier question.
Ok I want to explore good questions but please don't expect of pat soundbite answers.
You say how can we know we are not making mistakes........ so we are really talking about certainty......may I ask you at what level of certainty do you hold your present views?
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Prof,
Indeed, which is why the following quotes from him are jaw-dropping:
'So now we have people who either ''have no beliefs'', or ''beliefs that others can somehow by the power of mysticism not comprehend'' so they can suggest strongly but never be pinned down as proposing anything.'
And:
'That is completely non sequitur to a request to provide evidence to justify things someone does believe in.'
The evader in chief claims that others cannot be pinned down on their beliefs and their justifications for them. Remarkable in his lack of self awareness.
Quite, though to be fair he has finally learnt to spell "non sequitur" so that must count as progress of some kind mustn't it? Mustn't it?
After all, they say you can't fix stupid but you can train it so perhaps there's a glimmer of hope there somewhere. Whether it'll work for the pathological dishonesty is another matter of course, but there it is.
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but please don't expect of pat soundbite answers.
Well we know that you are the master of the nonsensical pat soundbite, but also seem incapable of actually answering any questions.
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Well we know that you are the master of the nonsensical pat soundbite, but also seem incapable of actually answering any questions.
At least you have no problems answering questions....How do you get from methodological naturalism to ontological naturalism?
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Prof,
At least you have no problems answering questions....How do you get from methodological naturalism to ontological naturalism?
Classic Trollboy:
1. Completely avoid answering a question by instead asking a different and unrelated question;
2. Make sure the question is couched in his personal misunderstandings of some long words so as to trigger a fruitless explanation of what they actually mean that'll extend for so long that his original evasion of the question put to him is long-forgotten.
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Prof,
Classic Trollboy:
1. Completely avoid answering a question by instead asking a different and unrelated question;
2. Make sure the question is couched in his personal misunderstandings of some long words so as to trigger a fruitless explanation of what they actually mean that'll extend for so long that his original evasion of the question put to him is long-forgotten.
Just when one is after someone who can answer a straight question two come along at the same time.
So Hillside, your question is............. what is ontological naturalism?
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At least you have no problems answering questions....How do you get from methodological naturalism to ontological naturalism?
I have no idea - why are you asking me? Have I ever said this to be important or claimed it to be the case? I don't believe I ever have so I fail to see whig this question is relevant to me.
But perhaps you might start by defining your terms - banding about 'big words' like you understand them isn't very helpful unless you actually explain what you mean. Then maybe we can have a discussion, although I still struggle to see why this line of argument is relevant to me as I've never claimed that getting from methodological naturalism to ontological naturalism is important.
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Ok I want to explore good questions but please don't expect of pat soundbite answers.
You say how can we know we are not making mistakes........ so we are really talking about certainty......may I ask you at what level of certainty do you hold your present views?
Actually I wasn't talking about certainty. And as to my present views, it depends on the individual view.
- Am I going to have a heart attack in the next five minutes. Pretty certain >99% I'm going to be OK. Relatively young and healthy, no current symptoms of an impeding attack.
Will England make it to the quarter finals of the upcoming Euros? 50:50.
Why don't you tell us with what certainty you hold your belief in God to be real is?
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OK I would say that terms of having experienced God more certain than you of not having a heart attack in the next five minutes.
I'm not quite sure what you mean, but I will assume you are talking about your claimed experience of god.
The question arises - how do you know that what you have experienced and think is experiencing god is perhaps nothing of the sort.
So to use the heart attack analogy - someone might have chest pains etc etc and be absolutely convinced that they are experiencing a heart attack. In fact it may be something else entirely and only objective assessment using medical tools would determine whether or not they had actually experienced a heart attack.
So how do you know what what you experience and claim to be experiencing god isn't just indigestion rather than a heart attack. Problem is that in your case there are no diagnostic tools to determine reality from delusion.
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I'm not quite sure what you mean, but I will assume you are talking about your claimed experience of god.
The question arises - how do you know that what you have experienced and think is experiencing god is perhaps nothing of the sort.
So to use the heart attack analogy - someone might have chest pains etc etc and be absolutely convinced that they are experiencing a heart attack. In fact it may be something else entirely and only objective assessment using medical tools would determine whether or not they had actually experienced a heart attack.
So how do you know what what you experience and claim to be experiencing god isn't just indigestion rather than a heart attack. Problem is that in your case there are no diagnostic tools to determine reality from delusion.
You are perfectly free to diagnose my experience as something else but I suspect that would be within bias toward an ontological naturalistic explanation.
I make no heart attack analogy since there are obvious problems with reductionism of ''the heart is an organ, the brain is an organ'' type argument.
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Actually I wasn't talking about certainty. And as to my present views, it depends on the individual view.
- Am I going to have a heart attack in the next five minutes. Pretty certain >99% I'm going to be OK. Relatively young and healthy, no current symptoms of an impeding attack.
Will England make it to the quarter finals of the upcoming Euros? 50:50.
Why don't you tell us with what certainty you hold your belief in God to be real is?
Asked for your views you choose to be very flippant?
How certain are you of your belief that existence is essentially material?
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You are perfectly free to diagnose my experience as something else but I suspect that would be within bias toward an ontological naturalistic explanation.
I make no heart attack analogy since there are obvious problems with reductionism of ''the heart is an organ, the brain is an organ'' type argument.
But to fail to diagnose in that manner you are yourself guilty of a gross reductionism - such that god is merely a subjective feeling.
Now it may well be true that the reality is that god is merely a 'true for you' rather than true, but I wouldn't have thought that was the way you be wanting to take that discussion. If you want to try to claim that god actually exists, i.e. outside of the experience of believers then you are going to have to address objective reality, not just subjective 'true for me' stuff.
And the bias is entirely on you - effectively you are trying to claim that just because you experience something that it must be objectively true - that is the most grossing biasing in favour of your own subjective experience. It is the equivalent of me saying that because I think Gerald Finzi is a fantastic composer that it must be objectively true.
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But to fail to diagnose in that manner you are yourself guilty of a gross reductionism - such that god is merely a subjective feeling.
The trouble is though God crops up everywhere.....experience, cosmology, philosophy etc.
The time has come to cut to the chase. Science doesn't have the descriptive linguistic framework to encompass the experience or the philosophy but religion and the stock of Christian discourse gets closer.
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The trouble is though God crops up everywhere.....experience, cosmology, philosophy etc
No he/she/it doesn't - the issue is an experiential one - you and I may experience the same things but conclude differently. For you they are all evidence of god, for me none are, yet we may be experiencing the same thing. Which is further evidence that god is just a 'true for you' rather than a true.
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The time has come to cut to the chase. Science doesn't have the descriptive linguistic framework to encompass the experience or the philosophy but religion and the stock of Christian discourse gets closer.
I agree and disagree.
I agree that science and philosophy are different things, although they need to be consistent one with another. I disagree that religion including christianity gets us closer. The problem being that religion goes beyond being simply philosophy (although it tends to include that), it also tries to tread on the toes of a much better method of telling us what is objectively true, namely science. So it regularly imparts falsehoods (things which are demonstrably not true, such as young earth creationism, any number of claimed miracles, objections to evolution etc etc) and tries to add those as a bedrock on which the philosophy is written. That takes us further away as we build our philosophy on things which are wrong.
Further dogma resists change even when proven to be incorrect, so religions are extraordinarily bad at adapting to new situations because it may underline dogma. A good example being the resistance of the RCC to countenance the use of condoms as one of the tools to try to prevent HIV transmission.
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The trouble is though God crops up everywhere.....experience, cosmology, philosophy etc.
Except that cosmology is a science and doesn't include any gods; experience is subjective, individual and leads different people to different and mutually exclusive conclusions about gods; and frankly, all the philosophical 'arguments' for god I've encountered have been comical.
So, still no evidence or reasoning.
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No he/she/it doesn't - the issue is an experiential one - you and I may experience the same things but conclude differently. For you they are all evidence of god, for me none are, yet we may be experiencing the same thing. Which is further evidence that god is just a 'true for you' rather than a true.
But you are bias against the truth of experience from the get go.
However the logical end of your argument i.e. psychological incompetence has ramifications for knowing anything.
There is a linguistic framework which describes the experience.
I am sure we all experience God all the time as we are experiencing much that classical naturalism offers no explanation for however the experience of God at conversion, encounter and response, is obviously not experienced all the time.
God however is found in cosmology, moral philosophy and general philosophy and you would be foolish to deny that and I'm afraid it is that which threatens the cosy consumerist ''true for you'' schtick.
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Except that cosmology is a science and doesn't include any gods; experience is subjective, individual and leads different people to different and mutually exclusive conclusions about gods; and frankly, all the philosophical 'arguments' for god I've encountered have been comical.
So comical that even Dawkins and Sagan cannot rule God out.
Vis a Vis Cosmology being a science it contains a lot of stuff for which falsifiability is not certain.
Vis a vis your Good self I don't know why I am wasting my time on a Complete Cuntist.
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But you are bias against the truth of experience from the get go.
On the contrary - by your very use of the term 'the truth of experience' you are demonstrating your bias ably. The truth of experience is nothing more (nor less) than 'true for me', or 'true for you'. It isn't objectively true unless it is always true for everyone (in an experiential manner), which it clearly isn't or can be demonstrated to be true by objective means.
I am sure we all experience God all the time as we are experiencing much that classical naturalism offers no explanation for however the experience of God at conversion, encounter and response, is obviously not experienced all the time.
That is complete bollocks - you cannot know what I experience and I cannot know what you experience. You are doing the classic logical fallacy of assuming that just because you experience something in a particular way then I (and everyone else must too. You are making a claim equivalent to stating that all people must thing that Finzi is a fantastic composer because that is my experience.
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On the contrary - by your very use of the term 'the truth of experience' you are demonstrating your bias ably. The truth of experience is nothing more (nor less) that true for me, or true for you. It isn't objectively true unless it is true for everyone (in an experiential manner), which it clearly isn't or can be demonstrated to be true by objective means.
That is complete bollocks - you cannot know what I experience and I cannot know what you experience. You are doing the classic logical fallacy of assuming that just because you experience something in a particular way then I (and everyone else must too. You are making a claim equivalent to stating that all people must thing that Finzi is a fantastic composer because that is my experience.
And that would all be lovely if God didn't appear in philosophy, moral philosophy Cosmogeny and that is why God if he exists would be true for all of us.
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So comical that even Dawkins and Sagan cannot rule God out.
Ruling out (most) gods is a very different prospect to providing a good argument for any of them. How about you provide such an argument...?
Vis a Vis Cosmology being a science it contains a lot of stuff for which falsifiability is not certain.
There are speculative hypotheses - that's normal for a science. Some conclusions based on these hypotheses don't appear to be falsifiable. Insofar as they are not, they can never be classed as confirmed theories.
So what? What has that got to do with some god "cropping up" in it?
Vis a vis your Good self I don't know why I am wasting my time on a Complete Cuntist.
Don't think I've been described as 'Good' with a capital 'G' before - does it have some religious significance?
:D
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Prof, Some etc,
Hate to be the "I told you so" merchant, but I did warn you about feeding the troll. All you get in return is endless evasions, misrepresentations, fallacious reasoning etc laced from time-to-time with crass abuse. You'd think it'd be simple enough for him instead just to say something like, "you can distinguish the objective truth of the cause I attribute to my experience from just guessing by the following method:..." but it never comes.
Funny that.
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The trouble is though God crops up everywhere.....experience, cosmology, philosophy etc.
Not in mine, sunshine. J'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse.
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And that would all be lovely if God didn't appear in philosophy, moral philosophy Cosmogeny and that is why God if he exists would be true for all of us.
Of course if god objectively exists he/she/it would be true for everyone. But there is exactly zero evidence for actual objective existence of your god, or indeed any god. Sure people who believe (without objective evidence) in god can make moral codes etc based on their belief in the existence of their god, rather than their knowledge of the existence of their god, but those moral codes are made up by people, who we can objectively demonstrate exist, not by god, who we cannot.
What I am actually suggesting is that there is a middle route - where we can accept that god exists in an experiential manner, in other words 'true for you' if you chose to believe, but not actually objectively true for everyone.
Given the complete lack of objective evidence for any god then this at least allows some claim of subjective existence, as otherwise that lack of objective evidence drives to choosing not to believe, and people increasingly are when they have the freedom to chose and access to an open and balanced education.
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On the contrary - by your very use of the term 'the truth of experience' you are demonstrating your bias ably. The truth of experience is nothing more (nor less) than 'true for me', or 'true for you'. It isn't objectively true unless it is always true for everyone (in an experiential manner), which it clearly isn't or can be demonstrated to be true by objective means.
That is complete bollocks - you cannot know what I experience and I cannot know what you experience. You are doing the classic logical fallacy of assuming that just because you experience something in a particular way then I (and everyone else must too. You are making a claim equivalent to stating that all people must thing that Finzi is a fantastic composer because that is my experience.
That's interesting because it means that science and the universe being wonderful is according to you inconsequential personal baggage and yet there is no problem with it being touted round by Cox etc.
.....and Dougie Adams enjoyment of the Garden without fairies is also rendered as inconsequential shit.
And yet the very deriders of personal experience are the very people who specially plead science as the exception wonder counts.
The trouble is of course science pops up in cosmogony and philosophy although not moral philosophy.
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Of course if god objectively exists he/she/it would be true for everyone. But there is exactly zero evidence for actual objective existence of your god, or indeed any god. Sure people who believe (without objective evidence) in god can make moral codes etc based on their belief in the existence of their god, rather than their knowledge of the existence of their god, but those moral codes are made up by people, who we can objectively demonstrate exist, not by god, who we cannot.
What I am actually suggesting is that there is a middle route - where we can accept that god exists in an experiential manner, in other words 'true for you' if you chose to believe, but not actually objectively true for everyone.
Given the complete lack of objective evidence for any god then this at least allows some claim of subjective existence, as otherwise that lack of objective evidence drives to choosing not to believe, and people increasingly are when they have the freedom to chose and access to an open and balanced education.
Until you can prove ontological naturalism from methodological naturalism God remains.
God is not just an idea but is experienced but that involves encounter and response.
That is a consciousness raising experience leading to illumination of the linguistic and thought frameworks(we can accommodate the notion of \god as creator) and increased moral consciousness.
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Ruling out (most) gods is a very different prospect to providing a good argument for any of them. How about you provide such an argument...?
There are speculative hypotheses - that's normal for a science. Some conclusions based on these hypotheses don't appear to be falsifiable. Insofar as they are not, they can never be classed as confirmed theories.
:D
And you are therefore no doubt aware that Greene hypothesises virtual universes in his classification of multiverses.
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And you are therefore no doubt aware that Greene hypothesises virtual universes in his classification of multiverses.
What has this to do with some god cropping up in cosmology?
Or the objective arguments or evidence for any god from any source at all - which are only notable in your posts to date by their total absence?
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Until you can prove ontological naturalism from methodological naturalism God remains.
On the contrary god remains merely an idea until those who believe actually prove his/her/its existence.
What on earth does ontological naturalism or methodological naturalism have to do with it. And in addition why does one need to be proved from the other. They can both be separately true.
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What has this to do with some god cropping up in cosmology?
If this is a virtual universe it could have a creator.
I don't suppose your caricature conception of God runs to that.
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On the contrary god remains merely an idea until those who believe actually prove his/her/its existence.
Unless encountered. Otherwise you are equating methodology with ontology.
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If this is a virtual universe it could have a creator.
And it may not be a virtual universe and it may not have a creator.
If it does have a creator, it might exist in another universe and be the equivalent of a spotty teenager with a new physics set, in some advanced civilization.
I don't suppose your caricature conception of God runs to that.
I don't have a (single, my own) concept of any gods - so it can't really be a caricature.
Does your concept of god run to the spotty teenager?
This is the point Vlad, I'm not arguing that it's impossible for there to be some sort of god (or any other kind of universe creator) - just that there's no evidence or reasoning that support the view that there actually is - and, more to the point perhaps, that even if there is, it has anything at all to do with any of the gods created by humans.
http://www.godchecker.com/
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Until you can prove ontological naturalism from methodological naturalism God remains.
And by your logically non-sense argument so does:
Thor, Odin, Vishnu and every other of the thousands of purported gods
The invisible flying teapot
The flying spaghetti monster
The Loch Ness monster
Unicorns
Leprechauns
etc, etc etc
Can hardly be elbow room in that fantasy world of yours.
Just to be clear it isn't the case that something does exist unless or until it is proven not to exist. Nor actually does it not exist until it is proven to do so. It either exists or it doesn't. But the problem for you is that try as you and your co-religionists have tried over thousands of years you have yet to provide one shred of credible evidence that your god exists, beyond the 'true for me' subjective stuff.
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Until you can prove ontological naturalism from methodological naturalism God remains.
God is not just an idea but is experienced but that involves encounter and response.
That is a consciousness raising experience leading to illumination of the linguistic and thought frameworks(we can accommodate the notion of \god as creator) and increased moral consciousness.
I think approaching spiritual and religious stuff from the point of view of experience is fine. However, there are two issues with it - it is a private experience; and second, of course, there are a huge number of different experiences going in the world. I have Sufi friends who say that there is only God, and I have Buddhist friends who are not really interested in God, in fact, some of them say that there isn't anything really!
Now we are embarked on a kind of pluralism, which also includes lack of belief in God. Let a 100 flowers bloom, then, but I'm not sure that Christianity can include that.
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Prof,
What on earth does ontological naturalism or methodological naturalism have to do with it.
Nothing whatsoever. Trollboy’s playbook goes like this:
1. He had an “experience” that he’s attributed to a god (that by a remarkable co-incidence just happens to be the god with which he’s most familiar). So far, so subjective…
2. Then though he overreaches by asserting this god to be an objective truth for the rest of us too.
3. When asked why anyone else should take his causal explanation any more seriously than the countless different causal explanations countless others have had for countless experiences of their own he cannot or will not answer.
4. Instead therefore he’s cast around for terms that he thinks will help if he attacks them, and has lighted upon “ontological naturalism” to do the job. Now ontological naturalism can have various meanings, an extreme version being “the natural/material is necessarily all there is”. It’s a rare use though, the more usual one being something like, “the natural/material is all we know of that’s reliably accessible and testable” and so for the most part the proponent of it will proceed on the basis that, while anything might be, there’s no reason to suppose that everything that might be actually is.
5. Nonetheless, Trollboy labels us with his idiosyncratic version of the term, and then tries to critique us for ruling out the possibility that his personal god could also be a truth for the rest of us.
6. Leaving aside his definitional problem of having no idea what he means by “god” (which technically makes the rest of us ignostic in response to his claims) he seems oblivious not only to the fact that he’s pushing at an open door re the possibility that anything might be, and not only to the problem that that same door also opens the way to anything else anyone else may happen to dream up, but also to the problem that it takes him no one iota of a jot of a smidgin towards an argument to take his god from “might be” to “is”.
7. Deepak Chopra styley he throws in the notion of a multiverse – apparently in the belief that it means that anything might be actually is. Even so, he seems blissfully unaware that a god boxed in to one such sub-universe would flatly contradict the claims he makes for his god – ie, that “He” is the creator of everything, and moreover that this god is the only show in town.
8. Finally, regardless of how many times he’s corrected he clings to this nonsense as a man clings to a lead lifebelt all the while wondering why the waves are closing over him. At first it was just stupid, but now it’s openly dishonest because he cannot or will not address the corrections he’s been given.
It’s a mistake too I think to think that – because he (mis)uses long words – there must be an intelligence at play. When you strip away the evasions, the misrepresentations, the desperately broken logic you’re left with the reasoning of a four-year-old.
And an unpleasantly petulant one at that.
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Well ... bravo.
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And by your logically non-sense argument so does:
Thor, Odin, Vishnu and every other of the thousands of purported gods
The invisible flying teapot
The flying spaghetti monster
The Loch Ness monster
Unicorns
Leprechauns
etc, etc etc
Can hardly be elbow room in that fantasy world of yours.
Just to be clear it isn't the case that something does exist unless or until it is proven not to exist. Nor actually does it not exist until it is proven to do so. It either exists or it doesn't. But the problem for you is that try as you and your co-religionists have tried over thousands of years you have yet to provide one shred of credible evidence that your god exists, beyond the 'true for me' subjective stuff.
Odin, Vishnu etc. well granted.
Invisible flying teapot...... If it's invisible, how do we know it's a teapot?
FSM.............How do we know it's spaghetti and not linguine?
The LNM.................Either non existent or has moved.
Unicorns.........give me the horn
Leprechauns............where have you been for the last six years?
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Prof,
Nothing whatsoever. Trollboy’s playbook goes like this:
1. He had an “experience” that he’s attributed to a god (that by a remarkable co-incidence just happens to be the god with which he’s most familiar). So far, so subjective…
2. Then though he overreaches by asserting this god to be an objective truth for the rest of us too.
Let me stop you there Blue Hotel. I have said that in our debates I cannot say any more than If God exists he would be true for all of us since God is present in philosophy, moral philosophy and cosmogony. I have not claimed to be able to present God to anybody......the rest of your shit therefore is just antitheist wankfodder.
Have a nice day.
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Me:
It’s a mistake too I think to think that – because he (mis)uses long words – there must be an intelligence at play. When you strip away the evasions, the misrepresentations, the desperately broken logic you’re left with the reasoning of a four-year-old.
And an unpleasantly petulant one at that.
Trollboy:
Let me stop you there Blue Hotel. I have said that in our debates I cannot say any more than If God exists he would be true for all of us since God is present in philosophy, moral philosophy and cosmogony. I have not claimed to be able to present God to anybody......the rest of your shit therefore is just antitheist wankfodder.
QED
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Odin, Vishnu etc. well granted.
Invisible flying teapot...... If it's invisible, how do we know it's a teapot?
FSM.............How do we know it's spaghetti and not linguine?
The LNM.................Either non existent or has moved.
Unicorns.........give me the horn
Leprechauns............where have you been for the last six years?
All of them exist by your bizarre manner of thinking - unless you are cherry picking, so that your argument only applies to those entities that you have already pre-determined, in your mind, exist.
Not very logical really Vlad. Back to the drawing board I think.
Try again when you have a more cogent argument - until then I suggest you spend a little time learning about reasoning and intellectual argument as you seem rather lacking in those regards, whatever big words you might throw around (but clearly don't understand).
-
7. Deepak Chopra styley he throws in the notion of a multiverse – apparently in the belief that it means that anything might be actually is. Even so, he seems blissfully unaware that a god boxed in to one such sub-universe would flatly contradict the claims he makes for his god – ie, that “He” is the creator of everything, and moreover that this god is the only show in town.
Oh so now I'm Deepak Chopra? Well if you can deflect attention from my point Hillside then I guess I have to expect you to be up for it.
If we live in a virtual universe within a multiverse then whatever creates us fulfils the Job description of God as proposed i'm afraid.
Also you have missed the point that the multiverse may have no way of being proved or disproved and is thus special pleading on the part of people like Sean Carroll for whom one universe remains a ''problem'' for some reason....Oh the fine tuning ''problem'' apparently.
Finally if there are virtual universes, what is to stop them all being virtual?
Some questions there Hillside which doubtless you feel are beneath you being the biggest swinging wotsit on the forum and that.
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Me:
It’s a mistake too I think to think that – because he (mis)uses long words – there must be an intelligence at play. When you strip away the evasions, the misrepresentations, the desperately broken logic you’re left with the reasoning of a four-year-old.
And an unpleasantly petulant one at that.
Trollboy:
Oh so now I'm Deepak Chopra? Well if you can deflect attention from my point Hillside then I guess I have to expect you to be up for it.
If we live in a virtual universe within a multiverse then whatever creates us fulfils the Job description of God as proposed i'm afraid.
Also you have missed the point that the multiverse may have no way of being proved or disproved and is thus special pleading on the part of people like Sean Carroll for whom one universe remains a ''problem'' for some reason....Oh the fine tuning ''problem'' apparently.
Finally if there are virtual universes, what is to stop them all being virtual?
Some questions there Hillside which doubtless you feel are beneath you being the biggest swinging wotsit on the forum and that
QED redux.
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... people like Sean Carroll ...
I do love it when the anti-atheists (see what I did there) use the term 'people like'. It used to be 'people like Richard Dawkins' and now Vlad has applied the same technique to Sean Carroll.
Actually this doesn't mean 'people like Richard Dawkins' it means Dawkins, just as it doesn't mean 'people like Sean Carroll' it means Carroll. Because these guys can never actually think of any other members of the 'people like ...' class.
So come on then who are the rest of the group who are in your mind 'people like Sean Carroll', because there must be loads of others for you to use that phrase.
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I do love it when the anti-atheists (see what I did there) use the term 'people like'. It used to be 'people like Richard Dawkins' and now Vlad has applied the same technique to Sean Carroll.
Actually this doesn't mean 'people like Richard Dawkins' it means Dawkins, just as it doesn't mean 'people like Sean Carroll' it means Carroll. Because these guys can never actually think of any other members of the 'people like ...' class.
So come on then who are the rest of the group who are in your mind 'people like Sean Carroll', because there must be loads of others for you to use that phrase.
Ah, the sound of scraping barrels.
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Prof,
I do love it when the anti-atheists (see what I did there) use the term 'people like'. It used to be 'people like Richard Dawkins' and now Vlad has applied the same technique to Sean Carroll.
Actually this doesn't mean 'people like Richard Dawkins' it means Dawkins, just as it doesn't mean 'people like Sean Carroll' it means Carroll. Because these guys can never actually think of any other members of the 'people like ...' class.
So come on then who are the rest of the group who are in your mind 'people like Sean Carroll', because there must be loads of others for you to use that phrase.
Actually that's my fault I think. I referenced Sean Carroll in a different discussion and, true to form, Trollboy has seized on it and misunderstood or misrepresented him. Look at his latest abject confusion for example about "multiverse" and "virtual universe".
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Prof,
Actually that's my fault I think. I referenced Sean Carroll in a different discussion and, true to form, Trollboy has seized on it and misunderstood or misrepresented him. Look at his latest abject confusion for example about "multiverse" and "virtual universe".
Don't hold your breath if you want Hillside to explain where the ''abject confusion'' lies though.
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Well if you can deflect attention from my point Hillside then I guess I have to expect you to be up for it.
You made a point? Must have missed that.
If we live in a virtual universe within a multiverse then whatever creates us fulfils the Job description of God as proposed i'm afraid.
Right, so you might be worshipping a minor technician in some third-rate virtual universe making outfit - Universes'R'Us, perhaps? Before, you were talking about one of the Christian gods - you know, the one the you experienced, all the omnis, has some connection to the Jesus character in the bible and all that...
Also you have missed the point that the multiverse may have no way of being proved or disproved and is thus special pleading on the part of people like Sean Carroll for whom one universe remains a ''problem'' for some reason....Oh the fine tuning ''problem'' apparently.
Finally if there are virtual universes, what is to stop them all being virtual?
Some questions there Hillside which doubtless you feel are beneath you being the biggest swinging wotsit on the forum and that.
Well if you can deflect attention...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse
See Brian Greenes Nine types simulated multiverse.
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Shakes,
Well ... bravo.
Aw shucks ;)
Remarkable innit the way he went on immediately to demonstrate both stupidity/dishonesty and unpleasantness.
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Ah, the sound of scraping barrels.
Nope.
So come on then who are all the others in the category of 'people like 'Sean Carroll'.
The reality is that this is just a disingenuous trick aimed at trying to fool the reader into thinking that the attribute or opinion espoused by the particular person in the 'people like ...' statement is representative of a whole swathe of people all having the same opinion, when usually what is being described are views attributable to one person only.
So, come on, lets have you list of all the other in your 'people like 'Sean Carroll' group.
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Nope.
So come on then who are all the others in the category of 'people like 'Sean Carroll'.
Did I say scraping the Barrels?
I meant scraping the Carrolls.
Theres a part chapter in the ''God Delusion'' about how you get over the problem of fine tuning for starters.
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Let me stop you there Blue Hotel. I have said that in our debates I cannot say any more than If God exists he would be true for all of us since God is present in philosophy, moral philosophy and cosmogony.
This is of course arrant arse-gravy - no god is present in these things until and unless somebody decides to crowbar a god into them in an ad hoc manner, typically as a gap-filling exercise since they have a problem with saying "I don't know - need more data" and have to inject a god into the proceedings as pseudo-explanatory Polyfilla.
Philosophy, moral philosophy and cosmogony all do just fine without adding the fudge factor of a deity. It adds nothing and explains nothing. An idly spinning wheel, as I think Wittgenstein called such ploys - something that exists gratuitously and serves no purpose whatever.
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This is of course arrant arse-gravy - no god is present in these things until and unless somebody decides to crowbar a god into them in an ad hoc manner, typically as a gap-filling exercise since they have a problem with saying "I don't know - need more data" and have to inject a god into the proceedings as pseudo-explanatory Polyfilla.
Philosophy, moral philosophy and cosmogony all do just fine without adding the fudge factor of a deity. It adds nothing and explains nothing.
God is in those things whether you like it or not.
Shakers law= I like the sound of this, so it'll do.
The fudge factor is that which says ''I don't know but it isn't God''.
That makes you the finger of fudge covered in chocolate because it is arrant arse pull.
Have a nice day.
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God is in those things whether you like it or not.
Nope. Exactly as I said, only and unless you inject a god into those things for your own reasons.
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Nope. Exactly as I said, only and unless you inject a god into those things for your own reasons.
You are trying to claim philosophy, moral philosophy, and cosmogony for naturalism......it don't work but might provide your ilk with a bit of illicit wankfodder for a bit I suppose...........
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Theres a part chapter in the ''God Delusion'' about how you get over the problem of fine tuning for starters.
And....?
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And....?
Why should fine tuning be a scientific ''problem'' to be ''got over''
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You are trying to claim philosophy, moral philosophy, and cosmogony for naturalism......it don't work but might provide your ilk with a bit of illicit wankfodder for a bit I suppose...........
I'm saying that the most minimal, conservative, Occam's Razor-obeying default setting applies - go beyond that and start injecting gods into the process and that's when we start asking all those difficult questions that you dodge even faster than you reckon you used to dodge God.
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Why should fine tuning be a scientific ''problem'' to be ''got over''
Why shouldn't there be something we don't know?
Doesn't make your favourite 'just so' story 'explanation' any more believable. Maybe the Great Green Arkleseizure had fine-tuned snot.
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I'm saying that the most minimal, conservative, Occam's Razor-obeying default setting applies - go beyond that and start injecting gods into the process and that's when we start asking all those difficult questions that you dodge even faster than you reckon you used to dodge God.
Unfortunately though the universe which seems to have a beginning of the known universal laws would need two unnatural things to be in the position you give it.
1. To be self created 2.To have existed for ever 3. To be part of an infinite regression the ultimate violation of Occam's razor.
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Unfortunately though the universe which seems to have a beginning of the known universal laws would need two unnatural things to be in the position you give it.
1. To be self created 2.To have existed for ever 3. To be part of an infinite regression the ultimate violation of Occam's razor.
Just like any god, then...
Oh, but wait! Some of them gods are supposed to be 'outside' time.
Ah, but! Just as an example, if we take the whole of space-time, then it would exist as just a four dimensional object, not itself subject to any time - exactly as General Relativity suggests.
In any event, gods have no less problems than the universe; they are a redundant non-explanation.
Or perhaps it was the Great Green Arkleseizure.... Bless you!
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Just like any god, then...
Oh, but wait! Some of them gods are supposed to be 'outside' time.
Ah, but! Just as an example, if we take the whole of space-time, then it would exist as just a four dimensional object, not itself subject to any time - exactly as General Relativity suggests.
In any event, gods have no less problems than the universe; they are a redundant non-explanation.
Or perhaps it was the Great Green Arkleseizure.... Bless you!
unfortunately the laws of physics seem to break down the closer we get to the big bang. That really puts a stopper on trying to explain the existence of the universe by the things inside it.....which in turn makes naturalism espoused more and more arbitrarily doctrinaire.
Your conception of God is cartoon caricature.
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Did I say scraping the Barrels?
I meant scraping the Carrolls.
Theres a part chapter in the ''God Delusion'' about how you get over the problem of fine tuning for starters.
So your answer to 'people like Sean Carroll' is Dawkins and I guess your answer to 'people like Richard Dawkins' is Carroll.
Just astonishing - the level of guff really is remarkable.
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unfortunately the laws of physics seem to break down the closer we get to the big bang. That really puts a stopper on trying to explain the existence of the universe by the things inside it.....which in turn makes naturalism espoused more and more arbitrarily doctrinaire.
The tested theories we have break down - so we have something we don't know.
As I said before, that doesn't make any old 'just so' story of magic gods any more believable.
Your conception of God is cartoon caricature.
So, which part of what I said was incorrect - according to your non-caricature conception?
In the post I only said that some gods (concepts of god) are supposed to exist outside of time - something I've been told by several theists.
You have already stated that you think god created the universe. Your clear implication was that it explained what science can't.
So, it can only be the 'outside time' bit you think a caricature - you'd better tell your fellow theists...
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unfortunately the laws of physics seem to break down the closer we get to the big bang.
Wrong. It's not the laws of physics that break down but our current best estimate of what they are.
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You made a point? Must have missed that.
Right, so you might be worshipping a minor technician in some third-rate virtual universe making outfit - Universes'R'Us, perhaps? Before, you were talking about one of the Christian gods - you know, the one the you experienced, all the omnis, has some connection to the Jesus character in the bible and all that...
Well if you can deflect attention...
That if I may say is a good point and there are of course people like yourself who think we live in a third rate universe before we get onto multi verses.
On the other hand he could be a cosmic genius in the only non simulated universe.
The point is that the cosmologist Brian Greenes notion of the simulated universe
Is recognised as a valid scientific punt...........if you think multiverse is proper science that is.
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Shakes,
Aw shucks ;)
Remarkable innit the way he went on immediately to demonstrate both stupidity/dishonesty and unpleasantness.
Hang on I'll just get me violin out
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That if I may say is a good point and there are of course people like yourself who think we live in a third rate universe before we get onto multi verses.
On the other hand he could be a cosmic genius in the only non simulated universe.
Yes, we could be living in the only real universe, created by a "cosmic genius" but you have yet to supply a reason to think that we are - and that, even if we are, said genius has anything at all to do with the god you say you've experienced.
Many (mutually exclusive) god concepts are possible - so are many, many other myths, fables and works of fiction - the point is; are they at all probable? Do we have any reasons to take them seriously?
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Dear Stranger,
Do we have any reasons to take them seriously?
Aye!! Because I say so! Right! RIGHT!! And if you have trouble with that, I will see you at four o'clock when the bell rings, bring yer mates, you will need them.
Gonnagle.
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Many (mutually exclusive) god concepts are possible - so are many, many other myths, fables and works of fiction - the point is; are they at all probable? Do we have any reasons to take them seriously?
Well one could say that just because there are many concepts it doesn't mean we don't take the God concept seriously.
In the end it comes down to a natural providence or a divine Providence with only divine providence being able to tie up any straggly ends.
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Dear Stranger,
Aye!! Because I say so! Right! RIGHT!! And if you have trouble with that, I will see you at four o'clock when the bell rings, bring yer mates, you will need them.
Gonnagle.
Mr G...........I'm getting quite a cold rush of blood here........are you taking the piss out of Some Kind"........or me............or both?
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Dear Vlad,
Me old China plate, I feel the forum has got a tad heated in the past week or so, just trying to bring a touch of brevity back in my old insane way. ::)
Gonnagle.
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... Do we have any reasons to take them seriously?
Well one could say that just because there are many concepts it doesn't mean we don't take the God concept seriously.
In the end it comes down to a natural providence or a divine Providence with only divine providence being able to tie up any straggly ends.
I guess that's a 'no'.
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Dear Stranger,
Aye!! Because I say so! Right! RIGHT!! And if you have trouble with that, I will see you at four o'clock when the bell rings, bring yer mates, you will need them.
Gonnagle.
;D
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Phew for a moment I thought you had been seduced by the dark side ......or should that be Hill side?...............(several big smileys)
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Dear Vlad,
Seduced by old Blue, well he is lovely but Shaker is more my type, I get a warm cosy feeling in the panty girdle region when he goes all pantheistic :P :P
Gonnagle.
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Dear Vlad,
Seduced by old Blue, well he is lovely but Shaker is more my type, I get a warm cosy feeling in the panty girdle region when he goes all pantheistic :P :P
Gonnagle.
Yes............he's a Pant-theist.
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Some,
Yes, we could be living in the only real universe, created by a "cosmic genius" but you have yet to supply a reason to think that we are - and that, even if we are, said genius has anything at all to do with the god you say you've experienced.
Many (mutually exclusive) god concepts are possible - so are many, many other myths, fables and works of fiction - the point is; are they at all probable? Do we have any reasons to take them seriously?
Quite so. Poor Trollboy seems to be locked into endlessly pushing at an open door of anything being possible, but he has not one scintilla of an argument to take him from the possible to the probable. It's his standard playbook play, viz Reply 113:
6. Leaving aside his definitional problem of having no idea what he means by “god” (which technically makes the rest of us ignostic in response to his claims) he seems oblivious not only to the fact that he’s pushing at an open door re the possibility that anything might be, and not only to the problem that that same door also opens the way to anything else anyone else may happen to dream up, but also to the problem that it takes him no one iota of a jot of a smidgin towards an argument to take his god from “might be” to “is”.
7. Deepak Chopra styley he throws in the notion of a multiverse – apparently in the belief that it means that anything might be actually is. Even so, he seems blissfully unaware that a god boxed in to one such sub-universe would flatly contradict the claims he makes for his god – ie, that “He” is the creator of everything, and moreover that this god is the only show in town.
When all said and done he's actually just a god of the gaps merchant: "There's stuff that physics can't explain? That must be god then" etc and tediously etc. It's a curious ploy too to argue that because other gods of the gaps merchants before him have also posited various "somethings" to explain the otherwise inexplicable and so the idea has appeared often in the literature...therefore, um, god must be real then.
Ah well.
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Gonners,
Seduced by old Blue, well he is lovely but Shaker is more my type, I get a warm cosy feeling in the panty girdle region when he goes all pantheistic :P :P
Ooh, I've come over all rejected and offended now you heartless swine you. And after all those romantic dinners too... :(
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Asked for your views you choose to be very flippant?
How certain are you of your belief that existence is essentially material?
sorry about the delay in replying but the site will only let me access by phone.
i keep getting website could not be found.
i was not being flippant just pointing out that obviously how certain we are depends on what the view is.
as to yout question i would say that i am pretty certain a material/external reality exists and i am not a brain in a vat. are there other non material aspects? well i have seen any evidence or good arguments for them so have no belief in them. do i expect evidence to be presented? people have been asking these questions for a long time snd the evidence is still not forthcomingv so im not holfing my breath. but you never knoe i su0pose
i know that was a long answer but i believe it clearly represents my views.
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Stephen,
sorry about the delay in replying but the site will only let me access by phone.
i keep getting website could not be found.
I had the same thing for some three weeks recently. A combination of Gordon and Jakwan kindly fixed it - perhaps they could do the same for you?
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Stephen,
I had the same thing for some three weeks recently. A combination of Gordon and Jakwan kindly fixed it - perhaps they could do the same for you?
Seems to be working for now. No apparent reason for the outage but if anyone did do something, thank you.
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sorry about the delay in replying but the site will only let me access by phone.
i keep getting website could not be found.
i was not being flippant just pointing out that obviously how certain we are depends on what the view is.
as to yout question i would say that i am pretty certain a material/external reality exists and i am not a brain in a vat. are there other non material aspects? well i have seen any evidence or good arguments for them so have no belief in them. do i expect evidence to be presented? people have been asking these questions for a long time snd the evidence is still not forthcomingv so im not holfing my breath. but you never knoe i su0pose
i know that was a long answer but i believe it clearly represents my views.
Fair enough. It is not often somebody admits to being materialist.
For me though a materialist ontology has problems since full and honest commitment to it is impossible as the experience of the Vienna group of Logical positivist so teaches us. Neither is scientism a satisfactory philosophical formula.
Throughout history the definitions of material have changed which leaves us with a naturalism which is increasingly centred and defined not by nature but by being anti God for the sake of it.
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Gonners,
Ooh, I've come over all rejected and offended
No change there then.
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Throughout history the definitions of material have changed ...
I disagree - throughout history we have increased our knowledge so that we have come to understand that many phenomena that once had not been explained in a rational materialist manner have come to be. That doesn't mean that certain things used to not be material and now are, merely that we have come to recognise that they always were.
Good examples being:
Earthquakes
Thunder and lightning
Aurora borealis
etc
... which leaves us with a naturalism which is increasingly centred and defined not by nature but by being anti God for the sake of it.
Oh no, more nonsense biased paranoia.
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I disagree - throughout history we have increased our knowledge so that we have come to understand that many phenomena that once had not been explained in a rational materialist manner have come to be. That doesn't mean that certain things used to not be material and now are, merely that we have come to recognise that they always were.
Good examples being:
Earthquakes
Thunder and lightning
Aurora borealis
etc
Oh no, more nonsense biased paranoia.
Non sequitur
Atheists have had their covering lie, that religious people are anti science stripped away from them and yet here you are in an attempt to resurrect it!
Given there is no problem there then......that Christians accept the science.....we are left with your confusion of the terms ontology and methodology and that the only real difference is the scope of science in describing what exists.
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...materialist ontology...
FFS Vlad, why don't you actually read what people say and address that, rather than spouting drivel about irrelevant and often comically misunderstood philosophy...
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FFS Vlad, why don't you actually read what people say and address that, rather than spouting drivel about irrelevant and often comically misunderstood philosophy...
Because he wants to sound clever and important, when in fact he is neither.
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Fair enough. It is not often somebody admits to being materialist.
For me though a materialist ontology has problems since full and honest commitment to it is impossible as the experience of the Vienna group of Logical positivist so teaches us. Neither is scientism a satisfactory philosophical formula.
Throughout history the definitions of material have changed which leaves us with a naturalism which is increasingly centred and defined not by nature but by being anti God for the sake of it.
Sighhh!
I am a materialist in the sense that I think the material exists, but then I assume you do as well?
I am not commited to a postion of the material is all the can exist. I made this plain in my previous post so the reference to scientism etc are irrelevant.
So anyway you were going to explain how you know that you have correctly identified a objectively true God as a casue for your God experience.
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Sighhh!
I am a materialist in the sense that I think the material exists, but then I assume you do as well?
I am not commited to a postion of the material is all the can exist. I made this plain in my previous post so the reference to scientism etc are irrelevant.
So anyway you were going to explain how you know that you have correctly identified a objectively true God as a casue for your God experience.
The linguistic framework provided by religious and theistic philosophy and in particular that of Christianity and the realisation that that can only bring us to a certain point in the acquisition with a relationship is the confirmation that I and I strongly suspect others have encountered God.
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The linguistic framework provided by religious and theistic philosophy and in particular that of Christianity and the realisation that can only bring us to a certain point in the acquisition with a relationship is the confirmation that I and I strongly suspect others have encountered God.
What the hell is that jumble of words supposed to mean?
Can you try again in English?
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The linguistic framework provided by religious and theistic philosophy and in particular that of Christianity and the realisation that that can only bring us to a certain point in the acquisition with a relationship is the confirmation that I and I strongly suspect others have encountered God.
Could you perhaps start again please?
Firstly maybe you could describe the experience?
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Stephen,
I am a materialist in the sense that I think the material exists, but then I assume you do as well?
I am not commited to a postion of the material is all the can exist. I made this plain in my previous post so the reference to scientism etc are irrelevant.
Quite so. The straw man is Trollboy's standard trope though - materialism means that the material is all there can be; "ontological naturalism" means the natural is all there can be; morals aren't real morals unless they're universal rather than intuited and developed by people etc. I used to think that there was a least some intelligence there but its marriage with a deep dishonesty meant he could only repeat the lies so as to cling to his nonsense despite many corrections. Now I wonder if he's not just plain thick though so just can't grasp the correct meaning of the terms he so relentlessly misuses.
So anyway you were going to explain how you know that you have correctly identified a objectively true God as a casue for your God experience.
He'll do that roughy when hell freezes over. His case for an objectively true god doesn't exist, which is why he's reducing to trolling about the arguments he doesn't like by lying about them.
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Some,
FFS Vlad, why don't you actually read what people say and address that, rather than spouting drivel about irrelevant and often comically misunderstood philosophy...
Welcome to TrollboyLand (closed Wednesdays, concessions for the terminally bewildered). He's just yer classic troll - only ever lying about what's actually said and never, ever making an argument for something.
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And as I've said before, I'm not convinced it's us he's trying to convince at all.
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Some,
What the hell is that jumble of words supposed to mean?
Apparently Google Translate tried to develop a Vladdish:English module but had to give up on account of none of the meanings of the words in Vladdish staying the same for more than a couple of days.
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Could you perhaps start again please?
Firstly maybe you could describe the experience?
Certainly.
My experience starts with Sagans Cosmos and particular his idea of a cosmic community.
Very shortly after this I was given CS Lewis mere Christianity and recognised that the cosmic enthusiasm mediated through watching Sagan was a sense of the numinous.
Lewis also talks about God.God of course was for nutters and weak people or was it? That was something I had picked up unquestioningly picked up from my secular humanist roots.
God was now part of the numinous and something tied up to the Cosmos. Further reading of Lewis about God being in the dock. Awareness that God is also involved in morality. Phrase which chimes ! If you put God in the dock you find its you in the dock.
The Bible previously an old book strangely begins to become comprehensible.
Augustine's experience read, ringing words....make me a Christian but not yet.
Huge interest in what actually is the truth...Ringing words Pontius Pilate on truth.
Realisation that there is something behind Lewises and Christian writings.
Reading the bible. words that ring. Follow me and and behold I stand at the door freeze when realise that is true. Walk around in a focus on this which dissociates me from surroundings. Get a mental image of eating a pudding with no flavour as a metaphor for rejecting Christ.
Tell Jesus to take it all. Dissociation vanishes and feel great joy.
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Dear Vlad,
Nice ;) sounds like a journey, a realisation.
Gonnagle.
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So now we know that Trollboy had a funny feeling one day that, by a remarkable co-incidence, he thinks was caused by the very same god he'd read about and not by one of the gods he'd have read about instead had he been around at a different time and place, and moreover that wasn't caused by one of the may corporeal (but much less thrilling) possible alternative explanations for it.
Sweet.
Coming soon: Trollboy finally attempts an argument of get him from his his "funny feeling, true for me only" god to a god that's real for the rest of us too (without flat out lying about the arguments that undo him).
I'll get the Vimto and Twiglets in - can't wait!
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So now we know that Trollboy had a funny feeling one day that, by a remarkable co-incidence, he thinks was caused by the very same god he'd read about and not by one of the gods he'd have read about instead had he been around at a different time and place, and moreover that wasn't caused by one of the may corporeal (but much less thrilling) possible alternative explanations for it.
Sweet.
Coming soon: Trollboy finally attempts an argument of get him from his his "funny feeling, true for me only" god to a god that's real for the rest of us too (without flat out lying about the arguments that undo him).
I'll get the Vimto and Twiglets in - can't wait!
It's quite astonishing how much gullibility still exists despite the advances in science and education of today's world.
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Gonners,
Nice ;) sounds like a journey, a realisation.
Or a basic mistake in reasoning that's landed him in a place he has no argument for but that he's too scared to acknowledge may well be wholly wrong.
However likely the latter is to be the case, that of course is a matter only for him. His problem though is in insisting that his "funny feeling" god (albeit that he gussies that up with the term "numinous") is also a god for the rest of us because he has no coherent argument to that effect to examine, so instead just keeps lying about the arguments he doesn't like but can't rebut.
Would JC be proud of him for that do you think?
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Dear Vlad,
Nice ;) sounds like a journey, a realisation.
Gonnagle.
Yes you are right, most people respect an explanation but you still get the odd ignoramus who wants to diminish it into " having an odd feeling one day".
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Thank you for sharing that. As Gonnagle says it sounds like a good personal experience.
I can also very much associate with the part where you say the you "Walk around in a focus on this which dissociates me from surroundings". As part of my recovery from depression I have learnt some existing and developed my own techniques where I can go to another place far from to existing materials surroundings.
As I have always said I don't deny you your experience as I am sure you wouldn't deny me mine.
The issue though is:
Reading the bible. words that ring. Follow me and behold I stand at the door freeze when realise that is true.
How do we know the experience is true in the sense that it is true for everyone else i.e. objectively true?
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Certainly.
My experience starts with Sagans Cosmos and particular his idea of a cosmic community.
Very shortly after this I was given CS Lewis mere Christianity and recognised that the cosmic enthusiasm mediated through watching Sagan was a sense of the numinous.
Lewis also talks about God.God of course was for nutters and weak people or was it? That was something I had picked up unquestioningly picked up from my secular humanist roots.
God was now part of the numinous and something tied up to the Cosmos. Further reading of Lewis about God being in the dock. Awareness that God is also involved in morality. Phrase which chimes ! If you put God in the dock you find its you in the dock.
The Bible previously an old book strangely begins to become comprehensible.
Augustine's experience read, ringing words....make me a Christian but not yet.
Huge interest in what actually is the truth...Ringing words Pontius Pilate on truth.
Realisation that there is something behind Lewises and Christian writings.
Reading the bible. words that ring. Follow me and and behold I stand at the door freeze when realise that is true. Walk around in a focus on this which dissociates me from surroundings. Get a mental image of eating a pudding with no flavour as a metaphor for rejecting Christ.
Tell Jesus to take it all. Dissociation vanishes and feel great joy.
That's a very nice and no doubt to you a profound experience. But it is yours. Only yours.
Try accepting that it isn't so for us. That our lives are rich rather than flavourless (getting dangerously into Praise Be! territory with that metaphor by the way Vlad). That - and here's where I think you might struggle - we aren't inferior people leading inferior lives because we don't experience what you do.
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For me though a materialist ontology has problems since full and honest commitment to it is impossible as the experience of the Vienna group of Logical positivist so teaches us. Neither is scientism a satisfactory philosophical formula.
You don't have a clue what all that means, do you.
Throughout history the definitions of material have changed which leaves us with a naturalism which is increasingly centred and defined not by nature but by being anti God for the sake of it.
Rubbish.
The scepticism about the idea that God is real is a consequence of naturalism, not the definition of it.
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Stephen,
As I have always said I don't deny you your experience as I am sure you wouldn't deny me mine.
No-one denies that all sorts of people have all sorts of "experiences". The problem though comes with the cause to which some attribute that experience, especially when they overreach and assert that the cause was the god with which they happen to be most familiar, and therefore that that particular god must be real for rest of us too.
How do we know the experience is true in the sense that it is true for everyone else i.e. objectively true?
The experience(s) are "true" in that lots of people have episodes they think to be profound and moving - they can be stimulated artificially in the lab, Derren Brown can make the most hardened of atheists have them etc. What's almost certainly not true though are the bewildering variety of gods, spooks and ghouls some reach for as explanations for their experiences in preference to less thrilling corporeal ones.
And that's the point at which Trollboy either starts whistling and sliding out of the room, or instead just lies about or misrepresents the position of those of us who find his assertions to be undefined, un-argued, un-evidenced and frankly daft.
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Thank you for sharing that. As Gonnagle says it sounds like a good personal experience.
I can also very much associate with the part where you say the you "Walk around in a focus on this which dissociates me from surroundings". As part of my recovery from depression I have learnt some existing and developed my own techniques where I can go to another place far from to existing materials surroundings.
As I have always said I don't deny you your experience as I am sure you wouldn't deny me mine.
The issue though is:
How do we know the experience is true in the sense that it is true for everyone else i.e. objectively true?
I think the point is that Jesus was knocking as it were throughout the experience and the definition becomes in the hearing of it and the the opening of the door to it.
For me though as I have said it was accompanied with an increasing sense of community with those who experience the numinous and those who experience Christ. Please see my references to Augustine, Lewis, Pilate, Matthew etc.
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Of course none of this, "I like belonging to a club that believes in something, therefore the thing the club believes in must be true" daftness matters a jot normally. Trainspotters, stamp collectors or model railway enthusiasts are as free to carry on as they wish as are the members of the club that thinks Jesus is real. The problem though is that only one of them overreaches and insists that - in some unexplained way - their personal convictions should inform the lives of the rest of us: "the bible says X, therefore that should be your morality too" type nonsense.
Looks like the Vimto and Twiglets will have to be put away for another day and another poster then...
...shame!
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Dear Blue,
Basic mistake in reasoning, are you a Vulcan!
Dear Stephen,
It is always subjective, there are many paths to God.
Dear Rhiannon,
That's a very nice and no doubt to you a profound experience. But it is yours. Only yours.
Of course it is his, who else's would it be.
I haven't a clue about Lewis, it was only a couple of years ago I learned that Lewis was a Christian, but I can relate to Vlads post, the odd feeling that Blue talks about grows, it leads you down all sorts of roads, some you take, others you discard, hell! maybe one of those roads is atheism or Paganism, now Paganism I can just about get my head around but atheism, maybe it is another step in evolution, we all become Spocks.
Gonnagle.
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But the trouble is, Gonners, that Vlad offers his experience like it's something we all could have - all should have in fact, and the only reason we don't is that we are God dodging'. And that's simply not the case.
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Of course none of this, "I like belonging to a club that believes in something, therefore the thing the club believes in must be true" daftness matters a jot normally. Trainspotters, stamp collectors or model railway enthusiasts are as free to carry on as they wish as are the members of the club that thinks Jesus is real. The problem though is that only one of them overreaches and insists that - in some unexplained way - their personal convictions should inform the lives of the rest of us: "the bible says X, therefore that should be your morality too" type nonsense.
Looks like the Vimto and Twiglets will have to be put away for another day and another poster then...
...shame!
Well to be honest the good news came as a bit of bad news to the ego to begin with and since I came from secular humanism that was the comfortable option.
Also I was not a member of a church.
The reason I bring it up though is that there is an anti theist myth doing the rounds that there is no commonality in Christian experience and it is indeed a purely personal thing. That of course is an atheist fiddle.
If I want to be in a comfortable club it would be self righteous humanist Englander.
Who would be a Christian unless there was something in it that was more compelling?
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But the trouble is, Gonners, that Vlad offers his experience like it's something we all could have - all should have in fact, and the only reason we don't is that we are God dodging'. And that's simply not the case.
I offer it because I was requested.
I am not exhorting you to my experience of God but your own.Al experiences of Christ involve some journey from a to b.
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Dear Rhiannon,
But the trouble is, Gonners, that Vlad offers his experience like it's something we all could have - all should have in fact, and the only reason we don't is that we are God dodging'. And that's simply not the case.
Well that is Vlad for you, I did once try to decipher one of his posts, I got as far as greed, he hates greed, something we can all relate to, what I also know, he has a brilliant sense of humour but then so has old Blue and Shaker and in my sweet innocence I will leave it at that ::) ::)
Gonnagle.
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Dear Rhiannon,
Well that is Vlad for you, I did once try to decipher one of his posts, I got as far as greed, he hates greed, something we can all relate to, what I also know, he has a brilliant sense of humour but then so has old Blue and Shaker and in my sweet innocence I will leave it at that ::) ::)
Gonnagle.
Sweet you may be Gonners, but innocent?
Ni hablar/en absoluto/qué va, y un cuerno, as they say in Spanish! >:(
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I offer it because I was requested.
I am not exhorting you to my experience of God but your own.Al experiences of Christ involve some journey from a to b.
But I have my own experience of God, one which I've recounted on here in detail, and my journey took me very firmly (and against my will initially) from belief to non belief, and to a place where I feel more peace and more contentment.
But you won't accept that; you want me to keep trying to believe as you do and you think I'm avoiding god if I don't. And that simply isn't true.
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But I have my own experience of God, one which I've recounted on here in detail, and my journey took me very firmly (and against my will initially) from belief to non belief, and to a place where I feel more peace and more contentment.
But you won't accept that; you want me to keep trying to believe as you do and you think I'm avoiding god if I don't. And that simply isn't true.
He's extrapolating from his own experience - "Me = everybody else" - no less than Spud did in extrapolating from one experience with a gay man to all gay people being mentally ill, which is not merely extraordinarily offensive but simply wrong.
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Dear Mods,
Ni hablar/en absoluto/qué va, y un cuerno,
Translation please, and if our Leonard is having a pop, suspend his ass, not literally of course, Leonard might enjoy his ass being suspended :P
Gonnagle.
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Hi Gonners,
Basic mistake in reasoning, are you a Vulcan!
No, but nor do you need to be to be able to spot bad thinking. To be fair, it's not that Trollboy's reasoning to take him from his "funny feeling, true for me" god to an objectively true god is bad; rather that he doesn't bother with an argument for it of any kind: "I feel really, really strongly that Jesus was in touch, therefore Jesus was in touch and could be for the rest of you too" isn't an argument, it's just an assertion. You could substitute "Jesus" for Baal, or for Colin the Leprechaun for that matter for all the epistemic force it has.
And that's a problem for the "true for you too" merchant. He wants his opinion to be taken seriously, but he provides no reason for it to be taken seriously. The best he could do I suppose is to say something like, "I really think my god is your god too but I have no argument for that of any kind, so I'll keep it to myself and wouldn't dream of expecting anyone else to agree with me", trainspotter club styley.
If only it were so!
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Dear Mods,
Translation please, and if our Leonard is having a pop, suspend his ass, not literally of course, Leonard might enjoy his ass being suspended :P
Gonnagle.
All Len is telling you Gonners is No Way - Even with the Horn!
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Dear Stephen,
It is always subjective, there are many paths to God.
But Vlad and others insist it is an objective truth for me to. That is the problem.
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Stephen,
No-one denies that all sorts of people have all sorts of "experiences". The problem though comes with the cause to which some attribute that experience, especially when they overreach and assert that the cause was the god with which they happen to be most familiar, and therefore that that particular god must be real for rest of us too.
The experience(s) are "true" in that lots of people have episodes they think to be profound and moving - they can be stimulated artificially in the lab, Derren Brown can make the most hardened of atheists have them etc. What's almost certainly not true though are the bewildering variety of gods, spooks and ghouls some reach for as explanations for their experiences in preference to less thrilling corporeal ones.
And that's the point at which Trollboy either starts whistling and sliding out of the room, or instead just lies about or misrepresents the position of those of us who find his assertions to be undefined, un-argued, un-evidenced and frankly daft.
I don't see where we disagree. Or am I missing something?
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Yo Gonners,
It is always subjective, there are many paths to God.
Which one?
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And that's a problem for the "true for you too" merchant. He wants his opinion to be taken seriously, but he provides no reason for it to be taken seriously. The best he could do I suppose is to say something like, "I really think my god is your god too but I have no argument for that of any kind, so I'll keep it to myself and wouldn't dream of expecting anyone else to agree with me", trainspotter club styley.
If only it were so!
I know trainspotters are nuts (I was one until the end of steam locomotives) but I certainly do not know of a single trainspotter's club that would be nuts enough to accept Vlad as a member!
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I think the point is that Jesus was knocking as it were throughout the experience and the definition becomes in the hearing of it and the the opening of the door to it.
For me though as I have said it was accompanied with an increasing sense of community with those who experience the numinous and those who experience Christ. Please see my references to Augustine, Lewis, Pilate, Matthew etc.
Again I don't have an issue. This is an experience you have had, I don't deny it.
However, how do you know you are not mistaken in attributing it to an objectively true God?
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I offer it because I was requested.
It was requested because you claimed to have an experience of God and to be able to know that you are not mistaken in attributing that experience of God to the objective truth of God. It seemed sensible to ask you what the experience was.
You have kind of answered that so we are just waiting on the second part.
At the moment the second part seems to be, because you really really believe it, and so do some other people. That won't cut it I'm afraid.
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Stephen,
I don't see where we disagree. Or am I missing something?
No, I just wanted to explore a little the difference between "experiences" and the causes some attribute to those experiences. One of the various cheats Trollboy in particular attempts is to elide one into the other: "I had an experience that I think was Jesus getting in touch, therefore it was Jesus getting in touch, now let's have a chat about why he hasn't been in touch with you too" kind of thing.
No-one doubts that he had an "experience" all right - after all, many have and there are plenty of examples of episodes of profound feelings in the medical literature. Where it all falls apart though is in just reaching for a culturally familiar "god" as the cause of that experience is all.
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He's extrapolating from his own experience - "Me = everybody else" - no less than Spud did in extrapolating from one experience with a gay man to all gay people being mentally ill, which is not merely extraordinarily offensive but simply wrong.
Bit of a desperate conflation there Shaker.
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Owls,
I know trainspotters are nuts (I was one until the end of steam locomotives) but I certainly do not know of a single trainspotter's club that would be nuts enough to accept Vlad as a member!
Aren't the lumps of coal used in steam locomotives called "nuts"?
Hmmm...
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Dear Blue,
Which one?
All paths, even atheistic paths, we are all Gods children, anyway this has turned into thoughts on Vlad, I liked the article in the OP, stand up Christian soldiers just leave the homosexuals alone to live their lives in peace.
Gonnagle.
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Stephen,
No, I just wanted to explore a little the difference between "experiences" and the causes some attribute to those experiences. One of the various cheats Trollboy in particular attempts is to elide one into the other: "I had an experience that I think was Jesus getting in touch, therefore it was Jesus getting in touch, now then let's have a chat about why he hasn't been in touch with you too" kind of thing.
No-one doubts that he had an "experience" all right - after all, many have and there are plenty of examples of episodes of profound feelings in the medical literature. Where it all falls apart though is in just reaching for a culturally familiar "god" as the cause of that experience is all.
I was a secular humanist Hillside.
I too believed as you do that the religious were unquestionable mentally aberrant. But that's the point Bluehillside. You never question it.
Still there are ways out of your current predicament.
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Certainly.
My experience starts with Sagans Cosmos and particular his idea of a cosmic community.
Very shortly after this I was given CS Lewis mere Christianity and recognised that the cosmic enthusiasm mediated through watching Sagan was a sense of the numinous.
Lewis also talks about God.God of course was for nutters and weak people or was it? That was something I had picked up unquestioningly picked up from my secular humanist roots.
God was now part of the numinous and something tied up to the Cosmos. Further reading of Lewis about God being in the dock. Awareness that God is also involved in morality. Phrase which chimes ! If you put God in the dock you find its you in the dock.
The Bible previously an old book strangely begins to become comprehensible.
Augustine's experience read, ringing words....make me a Christian but not yet.
Huge interest in what actually is the truth...Ringing words Pontius Pilate on truth.
Realisation that there is something behind Lewises and Christian writings.
Reading the bible. words that ring. Follow me and and behold I stand at the door freeze when realise that is true. Walk around in a focus on this which dissociates me from surroundings. Get a mental image of eating a pudding with no flavour as a metaphor for rejecting Christ.
Tell Jesus to take it all. Dissociation vanishes and feel great joy.
Wonderful, Vlad. Thanks so much for sharing. But it's quite risky posting an experience on this forum of finding Christ. We could do with a place for just sharing such experiences where they don't have to be put under the microscope and picked to pieces.
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SP,
Wonderful, Vlad. Thanks so much for sharing. But it's quite risky posting an experience of finding Christ on this forum. We could do with a place for just sharing such experiences where they don't have to be put under the microscope and picked to pieces.
There is one - the faith sharing area.
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Very true, Blue. It's difficult having been asked in the middle of a thread such as this, though.
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Wonderful, Vlad. Thanks so much for sharing. But it's quite risky posting an experience on this forum of finding Christ. We could do with a place for just sharing such experiences where they don't have to be put under the microscope and picked to pieces.
I was requested for it.
I don't mind being put under the microscope but always hope they are looking through it the right way round.
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I was a secular humanist Hillside.
I too believed as you do that the religious were unquestionable mentally aberrant. But that's the point Bluehillside. You never question it.
I'm happy to question anything, provided there is some evidence or reasoning to work on.
I'm sure you had a very important (to you) experience.
The problem is that many people have vivid experiences and reach totally different conclusions. We need a way to distinguish which, if any, of the conclusions are correct.
You have yet to provide such a method.
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SP,
Very true, Blue. It's difficult having been asked in the middle of a thread such as this, though.
To be fair he was asked on this thread to describe his "experience", which so far as I can see is what he tried to do. As ever he overreaches by asserting "Jesus" as the cause with no argument of any kind to support the assertion, but why anyone would agree with his attribution of cause is the point at which he always goes silent. Or just lies about the positions of others.
Of course he could at least try to find a way out of his predicament by attempting an argument for his attribution of cause (I'll provide the Vimto and Twiglets if he ever fancies giving it a go) but for now all we have is, "it's true because I say it's true" which isn't very helpful, and moreover which works equally for the Thor-ist and indeed for the Leprechaunist.
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Some,
You have yet to provide such a method.
Believe me, he never will.
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SP,
To be fair he was asked on this thread to describe his "experience", which so far as I can see is what he tried to do. As ever he overreaches by asserting "Jesus" as the cause with no argument of any kind to support the assertion, but why anyone would agree with his attribution of cause is the point at which he always goes silent.
Of course he could at least try to find a way out of his predicament by attempting an argument for his attribution of cause (I'll provide the Vimto and Twiglets if he ever fancies giving it a go) but for now all we have is, "it's true because I say it's true" which isn't very helpful, and moreover which works equally for the Thor-ist and indeed for the Leprechaunist.
I believe what I have said is that the linguistic framework of philosophy, religion and specifically y Christianity accommodates my experience.
Whereas your assertion that I went yumpy one day and that there are medical papers for that is merely the desperate appeal of a person who for reasons best known to himself wishes to move swiftly on and ignore the philosophical grounds, which attend it.
I suppose what I am saying Hillside is that you are using one mother of a circular argument.
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You know, the problem is, literally being on different wavelengths.
Blue, because you are on a different 'channel' to Vlad.... you'll never see it his way.
But that's how we are..... 'tis ok... :)
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No-one doubts that he had an "experience" all right - after all, many have and there are plenty of examples of episodes of profound feelings in the medical literature.
Hillside, what kind of medical literature is antitheist or even ontologically materialist?
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I'm happy to question anything, provided there is some evidence or reasoning to work on.
I'm sure you had a very important (to you) experience.
The problem is that many people have vivid experiences and reach totally different conclusions. We need a way to distinguish which, if any, of the conclusions are correct.
You have yet to provide such a method.
Although I have said this before, I would like to repeat that I have had several 'experiences'. Each has been accompanied by a powerful feeling that there is no 'consciousness' in the universe at all. Strangely enough, the feelings engendered from these experiences have been quite liberating and quite humbling. However, I don't take my 'experiences' as necessarily pointing to any sort of truth, just as I don't take others' experiences as necessarily pointing towards any sort of truth.
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I believe what I have said is that the linguistic framework of philosophy, religion and specifically y Christianity accommodates my experience.
And....?
I'm sure other people would say that their experience was accommodated by other religions or totally different explanations.
We still need some objective method to distinguish the truth.
All you have said is that you had an experience and then found it fitted with stuff you've read.
This is not an objective test.
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SP,
Blue, because you are on a different 'channel' to Vlad.... you'll never see it his way.
That's true, inasmuch as my "wavelength" involves sifting with reason and logic the more probably true from the more probably not true.
Trollboy's wavelength on the other hand has no interest in those things - he just asserts as true whatever makes sense to him but is entirely indifferent to any sort of logical underpinning for it. Occasionally he'll allude vaguely to a "philosophical framework" he finds persuasive but he'll never tell us what it is, and then it's all relentless lying to redefine terms to suit his purpose, to mis-label the rest of us with positions of his own invention, to keep pushing at an open door that anything might be without ever even trying to get from a might be to an is, and to throw abuse at people who rightly find him to be both mendacious and ludicrous.
And that sadly ain't about to change any time soon I think.
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SP,
That's true, inasmuch as my "wavelength" involves sifting with reason and logic.
Since when has belief in God equated with mental illness been reasonable and logical?
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Since when has belief in God equated with mental illness been reasonable and logical?
Any chance of answers to 202 and 203?
Cheers
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Although I have said this before, I would like to repeat that I have had several 'experiences'. Each has been accompanied by a powerful feeling that there is no 'consciousness' in the universe at all. Strangely enough, the feelings engendered from these experiences have been quite liberating and quite humbling. However, I don't take my 'experiences' as necessarily pointing to any sort of truth, just as I don't take others' experiences as necessarily pointing towards any sort of truth.
I'm quite interested in the "Abyss" of existentialist thought. Would you say your experience equates with this?
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SP,
Have a look at Trollboy's latest eructation as an illustration of his deep dishonesty. The only person to mention mental illness is him, but now he's demanding that I defend the accusation. That's what trolls do - just make up any shit they like, affix it to their interlocutors, then hammer on about it in the hope that no-one notices that yet again they've completely ducked the problem they keep running from, in this case providing a method to distinguish his "true for you too" god claim from just guessing about stuff.
That's why I gave up feeding the troll - it only encourages him to keep lying.
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Any chance of answers to 202 and 203?
Cheers
I don't mean to be rude but I think you have misconstrued a part of my conversion experience as the whole thing. God is knocking from the start and the moment is one of full realisation of that.
My other point is my developing concern during my experience with ontological verity, the lack of answer from secular humanist belief and the appearance of a solution from an unexpected and yes initially unwanted source.
I would recommend digesting what I have said and in its entirety since not only is assuming the role of incessant inquisitor tiring for the interlocutee, it prevents reflection on what is actually being said to you as some of your fellow interlocutors stand testimony too.
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SP,
Have a look at Trollboy's latest eructation as an illustration of his deep dishonesty. The only person to mention mental illness is him, but now he's demanding that I defend the accusation. That's what trolls do - just make up any shit they like, affix it to their interlocutors, then hammer on about it in the hope that no-one notices that yet again they've completely ducked the problem they keep running from, in this case providing a method to distinguish his "true for you too" god claim from just guessing about stuff.
That's why I gave up feeding the troll - it only encourages him to keep lying.
You mentioned that medical literature deals with feelings like the ones you think I have. That can be construed as a sly way of implying mental aberration.
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I don't mean to be rude but I think you have misconstrued a part of my conversion experience as the whole thing. God is knocking from the start and the moment is one of full realisation of that.
My other point is my developing concern during my experience with ontological verity, the lack of answer from secular humanist belief and the appearance of a solution from an unexpected and yes initially unwanted source.
I would recommend digesting what I have said and in its entirety since not only is assuming the role of incessant inquisitor tiring for the interlocutee, it prevents reflection on what is actually being said to you as some of your fellow interlocutors stand testimony too.
Well, actually I have gone to some pains to answer the questions you have asked of me as honestly as possible. You can of course always as m further questions.
The reason for repeated questions is that you seem to be unable to spell out clearly why you think you really are experiencing God.
For example in the above post you say:
"My other point is my developing concern during my experience with ontological verity, the lack of answer from secular humanist belief and the appearance of a solution from an unexpected and yes initially unwanted source."
This comes across simply as an example of something happening which I can't explain here, is an answer therefore it is an objective truth.
So far clarity could you tell us specifically what the question was that lacked an answer and what the answer you got from an unexpected source was?
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Stephen,
Have another look at Reply 113 - the Trollboy playbook.
Having exhausted his repertoire of re-defining words to suit his purpose, ascribing positions to his interlocutors that none of us actually hold, making an argument that no-one disputes (ie, that anything could be), and never, ever, ever even attempting an argument for his objectively true god claim that distinguishable from just guessing about stuff he’s now complaining that it’s tiring when he’s called on it and demanding that you just listen to what he says – ie, all of the above.
Scummy behaviour throughout (would Jesus be proud of him do you think?) but classic true-to-form Trollboy from beginning to end nonetheless.
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Owls,
Aren't the lumps of coal used in steam locomotives called "nuts"?
Hmmm...
Yes, that is true, but, considering the final destination of the coal 'nuts' in this connection I could never make the connection as wishing that another poster should die in the Fires of Hell, or the steam locomotive equivalent thereof, is specifically banned and can get the poster equally banned (for life) so I didn't do so!
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Well, actually I have gone to some pains to answer the questions you have asked of me as honestly as possible. You can of course always as m further questions.
The reason for repeated questions is that you seem to be unable to spell out clearly why you think you really are experiencing God.
For example in the above post you say:
"My other point is my developing concern during my experience with ontological verity, the lack of answer from secular humanist belief and the appearance of a solution from an unexpected and yes initially unwanted source."
This comes across simply as an example of something happening which I can't explain here, is an answer therefore it is an objective truth.
So far clarity could you tell us specifically what the question was that lacked an answer and what the answer you got from an unexpected source was?
As I have said ontology is not dependent on methodology.
I'm afraid in terms of my certainty of experiencing God I,m afraid At the moment all I can say is, if it walks, like duck , quacks like a duck then it is a duck..........and not a leprechaun.
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As I have said ontology is not dependent on methodology.
I'm afraid in terms of my certainty of experiencing God I,m afraid At the moment all I can say is, if it walks, like duck , quacks like a duck then it is a duck..........and not a leprechaun.
Except, of course, ducks actually exist and it can be rpoved that ducks walk and quack.
The same cannot be said for the God of the Christians.
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Except, of course, ducks actually exist and it can be rpoved that ducks walk and quack.
The same cannot be said for the God of the Christians.
It's a metaphor son.
You and Hillside have just demonstrated that your only real argument against God is a knuckle dragging " yer all just a bunch of nutters ".
Bring on the talking donkey.
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As I have said ontology is not dependent on methodology.
I'm afraid in terms of my certainty of experiencing God I,m afraid At the moment all I can say is, if it walks, like duck , quacks like a duck then it is a duck..........and not a leprechaun.
Fine, so you finally admit you can't tell whether you are mistaken or not.
You might have compared your experience to what others describe as God and found it similar, but as none of them have been able to demonstrate that it is a true experience of God you are no further forwards. i.e. no one can show that there God experience is directly attributable to an objective external God.
Also, how does this help with mutually contradictory claims. You think Jesus is God because he walks like etc, etc.. my Jewish friends differ in their deeply held beliefs. Only one of you is correct. Jesus was divine or he wasn't (I am including Jesus as myth as not divine for simplicity).
PS. why have you been using the term secular on this subject? Secularism is nothing to do with whether or not God exists. You must be using it in a very none standard way.
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As I have said ontology is not dependent on methodology.
Also, what does this mean in plain English?
Are you saying that the truth of a matter is not dependent on having a methodology?
If so I agree, but for objective truths we need a methodology to discover whether it is true or not.
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Fine, so you finally admit you can't tell whether you are mistaken or not.
You might have compared your experience to what others describe as God and found it similar,
Similarity is a very flexible thing Stephen so I would self monitor your understanding of it if I were you.
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Fine, so you finally admit you can't tell whether you are mistaken or not.
You might have compared your experience to what others describe as God and found it similar, but as none of them have been able to demonstrate that it is a true experience of God you are no further forwards. i.e. no one can show that there God experience is directly attributable to an objective external God.
Also, how does this help with mutually contradictory claims. You think Jesus is God because he walks like etc, etc.. my Jewish friends differ in their deeply held beliefs. Only one of you is correct. Jesus was divine or he wasn't (I am including Jesus as myth as not divine for simplicity).
PS. why have you been using the term secular on this subject? Secularism is nothing to do with whether or not God exists. You must be using it in a very none standard way.
No, What I am trying to get across is that the experience is one where I am certain of it as I am of other experiences because several criteria involved in its description are fulfilled in my experience.
I'm afraid I am not in the position of being able to offer any comforting doubt about Gods existence.
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I'm quite interested in the "Abyss" of existentialist thought. Would you say your experience equates with this?
Haven't a clue, Vlad. These 'experiences' haven't taken the form of overwhelming feelings of emptiness and negativity at all or even any sense of alienation(if that's what you mean), more a realization of somehow fitting into a non conscious universe around me, without any need for any sort of outside purposeful prop. Do yours?
As the idea of the hugely varied experiences of others necessarily equating with their objective truthfulness does not seem to make much sense to me, it must surely follow that any subjective experience that I may have is no more or less objective. Hence, I have looked for other means of coming to my own conclusions as to whether a god(s) exists, for instance. As I have never, so far, found any evidence that one does, I see no reason to believe in any god whatever, until that evidence is demonstrated to me.
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No, What I am trying to get across is that the experience is one where I am certain of it as I am of other experiences because several criteria involved in its description are fulfilled in my experience.
I'm afraid I am not in the position of being able to offer any comforting doubt about Gods existence.
But what about the 'experiences' people of other faiths have had, which convince them that theirs is 'true'? Or in the case of my husband, when in a coma, that no god or afterlife exists?
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Also, what does this mean in plain English?
Are you saying that the truth of a matter is not dependent on having a methodology?
If so I agree, but for objective truths we need a methodology to discover whether it is true or not.
I'm sorry but Ontology precedes methodology otherwise methodology would conjure.
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But what about the 'experiences' people of other faiths have had, which convince them that theirs is 'true'? Or in the case of my husband, when in a coma, that no god or afterlife exists?
Well in the case of contradiction somebody in some cases has to be wrong.
We can of course have a genuine experience but be wrong in our interpretation of it.
For instance I think the abyss as experienced by the existentialists maybe related to the dark night of the soul in catholic mysticism.
In your husbands experience I would be most interested in what told him what after all must be a cosmic level truth if it is true that there is definitely no God.
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But what about the 'experiences' people of other faiths have had, which convince them that theirs is 'true'? Or in the case of my husband, when in a coma, that no god or afterlife exists?
Indeed - in fact I could give my experience of realising that I didn't believe in god which has many similar features to the experience Vlad describes which lead to him believing in a different direction.
The point, of course, is that none of these experience are anything other than subjective - they might by used to justify god existing, or not existing, in a subjective 'true for me' or 'true for you' manner. What these experiences do mot do is provide a jot of evidence to back up an objective view that god exists and exists for everyone - or for that matter objectively that god does not exist and does not exist for everyone.
In an objective sense god either exists or does not exist and our varying experiential states are completely irrelevant to that objective fact of existence or non existence.
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Well in the case of contradiction somebody in some cases has to be wrong.
We can of course have a genuine experience but be wrong in our interpretation of it.
For instance I think the abyss as experienced by the existentialists maybe related to the dark night of the soul in catholic mysticism.
In your husbands experience I would be most interested in what told him what after all must be a cosmic level truth if it is true that there is definitely no God.
I have no idea, and don't think his 'experience' is any more valid than that of those who believe they have connected with god.
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Bring on the talking donkey.
You're already here!
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Haven't a clue, Vlad. These 'experiences' haven't taken the form of overwhelming feelings of emptiness and negativity at all or even any sense of alienation(if that's what you mean), more a realization of somehow fitting into a non conscious universe around me, without any need for any sort of outside purposeful prop. Do yours?
As the idea of the hugely varied experiences of others necessarily equating with their objective truthfulness does not seem to make much sense to me, it must surely follow that any subjective experience that I may have is no more or less objective. Hence, I have looked for other means of coming to my own conclusions as to whether a god(s) exists, for instance. As I have never, so far, found any evidence that one does, I see no reason to believe in any god whatever, until that evidence is demonstrated to me.
The closest I can get to your experience is being in a room with phyletic ally organised biological specimen. I had a profound feeling of connectedness to a tree of life that went beyond the intellect.
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Well in the case of contradiction somebody in some cases has to be wrong.
We can of course have a genuine experience but be wrong in our interpretation of it.
Finally you get it. I do not deny your experience I just questions your interpretation. FFS
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I'm sorry but Ontology precedes methodology otherwise methodology would conjure.
In English please? I think you have said what I have. Something objective is either true or it isn't. In order to determine that we need a methodology.
FFS
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No, What I am trying to get across is that the experience is one where I am certain of it as I am of other experiences because several criteria involved in its description are fulfilled in my experience.
My Jewish friend would say the same.
What Criteria?
I'm afraid I am not in the position of being able to offer any comforting doubt about Gods existence.
I beg your pardon? Sounds like a threat to me. Believe what I do or your going to get you comeuppance. FFS
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My Jewish friend would say the same.
What Criteria?
I beg your pardon? Sounds like a threat to me. Believe what I do or your going to get you comeuppance. FFS
My Jewish friend would say the same.
Eh,
Re Jewish friend. Is he a convert or believing in the faith of his fathers?
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I beg your pardon? Sounds like a threat to me. Believe what I do or your going to get you comeuppance. FFS
They can't help it, the desire to feel superior is too strong! ;D
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Eh,
Re Jewish friend. Is he a convert or believing in the faith of his fathers?
He believes he has a deep experience of God. He is in no doubt about it.
You said there were several criteria which where fulfilled, I asked what they were.
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He believes he has a deep experience of God. He is in no doubt about it.
You said there were several criteria which where fulfilled, I asked what they were.
I'm happy for him.
It would be odd though for a divine experience to be centred around " not Jesus".....what would that make his experience. A point of doctrine .....or enjoyment of God?
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They can't help it, the desire to feel superior is too strong! ;D
Nope.........a meeting with God is not always initially an enjoyable thing as Isaiah, St Paul, Augustine, Bunyan, the rich man told to sell his belongings and others will tell you.
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The reason I bring it up though is that there is an anti theist myth doing the rounds that there is no commonality in Christian experience and it is indeed a purely personal thing.
Is there? Can you provide links to examples?
I don't know anybody who denies there is some commonality of experience between Christians, but it is easily explained by the fact that the Bible exists and so do priests and missionaries. Christianity originated as a tiny sect in the Greco-Roman empire and yet every Christian alive today can trace the origin of their beliefs back to that seed. We have never come across a group of humans without previous contact with Christian Europe who independently came up with the same religion.
Who would be a Christian unless there was something in it that was more compelling?
What is more compelling than the promise of not dying when you die. It's an empty promise, of course, but people still believe it.
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Dear Mods,
Translation please, and if our Leonard is having a pop, suspend his ass, not literally of course, Leonard might enjoy his ass being suspended :P
Gonnagle.
Google Translate is your friend
https://translate.google.com/#es/en/Ni%20hablar%20en%20absoluto%20qué%20va%2C%20y%20un%20cuerno%2C
Or speak at all what goes, and a horn,
I think that clears everything up.
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I'm happy for him.
It would be odd though for a divine experience to be centred around " not Jesus".....what would that make his experience. A point of doctrine .....or enjoyment of God?
He has an experience of God just as sincerely held as yours. You think a divine Jesus is involved in yours. In his there is no divine Jesus. One of you is wrong. That's why we need some way to confirm the reality of our experiences no matter how sincerely held.
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Is there? Can you provide links to examples?
I don't know anybody who denies there is some commonality of experience between Christians, but it is easily explained by the fact that the Bible exists and so do priests and missionaries. Christianity originated as a tiny sect in the Greco-Roman empire and yet every Christian alive today can trace the origin of their beliefs back to that seed. We have never come across a group of humans without previous contact with Christian Europe who independently came up with the same religion.
What is more compelling than the promise of not dying when you die. It's an empty promise, of course, but people still believe it.
Yes but being Christian also been likened to sitting for the whole journey in the lifeboats on a luxury cruise.
I can also see the comfort of a life of doing whatever you can get away with and no ultimate comeback....if you catch my drift Jezzer.
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Yes but being Christian also been likened to sitting for the whole journey in the lifeboats on a luxury cruise.
I can also see the comfort of a life of doing whatever you can get away with and no ultimate comeback....if you catch my drift Jezzer.
So if you are not a Christian you automatically go through life doing whatever you can get away with?
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Yes but being Christian also been likened to sitting for the whole journey in the lifeboats on a luxury cruise.
That's the first time I have ever heard that analogy.
I'm still trying to understand why you think it is relevant to my previous post.
I can also see the comfort of a life of doing whatever you can get away with and no ultimate comeback....if you catch my drift Jezzer.
I think you'd have to be a sociopath to enjoy such a life.
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He has an experience of God just as sincerely held as yours. You think a divine Jesus is involved in yours. In his there is no divine Jesus. One of you is wrong. That's why we need some way to confirm the reality of our experiences no matter how sincerely held.
Or we both might be right about Gods existence and one of us wrong about Jesus.
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That's the first time I have ever heard that analogy.
I'm still trying to understand why you think it is relevant to my previous post.
I think you'd have to be a sociopath to enjoy such a life.
How does it differ from what you believe then?
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Or we both might be right about Gods existence and one of us wrong about Jesus.
You said in your experience that Jesus was pivotal.
religion and specifically y Christianity accommodates my experience
So in your experience Jesus is divine in his, he is not. Either way it shows that experience is not an accurate guide to objective truth. If your experience of Jesus can be wrong so can your experience of God,
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Or we both might be right about Gods existence and one of us wrong about Jesus.
That's one option. There are, needless to say, others.
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You said in your experience that Jesus was pivotal.
So in your experience Jesus is divine in his he is not. Either way it shoes that experience is not an accurate guide. If your experience of Jesus can be wrong so can your experience of God,
He cannot experience a "not Jesus" as it were. If he has experienced a spiritual Jesus what is it about that experience that told him that Jesus is not divine?
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He cannot experience a "not Jesus" as it were. If he has experienced a spiritual Jesus
Is there another kind?
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How does it differ from what you believe then?
I don't see any comfort in a life of doing what I want with no comeback. However, it is my conscience that makes me that way, not fear of eternal punishment by an imaginary god.
Now, are you ever going to answer any of the points I put to you Trollboy?
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That's the first time I have ever heard that analogy.
I'm still trying to understand why you think it is relevant to my previous post.
I think you'd have to be a sociopath to enjoy such a life.
I get the impression Vlad thinks some of us are sociopathic, Jeremy.
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Shakes,
Is there another kind?
Well, there's Trolboy's kind - just deciding that your "experience" was God or Jesus when it was almost certainly nothing of the kind.
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He cannot experience a "not Jesus" as it were. If he has experienced a spiritual Jesus what is it about that experience that told him that Jesus is not divine?
He experienced the divine (in his view), Jesus plays no part in it. One Messiah at the end of it all.
He thinks you are mistaken based on his experience.
You think he is mistaken based on your experience.
One of you is wrong.
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I get the impression Vlad thinks some of us are sociopathic, Jeremy.
No, he's just trying to paint us into a corner where we effectively say we are sociopaths. He's a deeply dishonest person.
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I get the impression Vlad thinks some of us are sociopathic, Jeremy.
On zero evidence (alleged personal experience doesn't cut the Colman's) he thinks every non-theist is a (I quote) "God-dodger" because he claims that he once was.
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He experienced the divine (in his view), Jesus plays no part in it. One Messiah at the end of it all.
Either way one of you is wrong.
Im not disagreeing with you.
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The closest I can get to your experience is being in a room with phyletic ally organised biological specimen. I had a profound feeling of connectedness to a tree of life that went beyond the intellect.
I don't recognise that as being close at all to any of the 'experiences' I have had, and nor should I, because they have been all intensely subjective experiences. Even my wife accepts quite happily that she can't appreciate such experiences. However, thanks, for trying. :)
As I have already said, my experiences are just that, my experiences, and I certainly do not build my lack of belief upon them.
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Im not disagreeing with you.
So personal experience is no guide to objective truth then.
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On zero evidence (alleged personal experience doesn't cut the Colman's) he thinks every non-theist is a (I quote) "God-dodger" because he claims that he once was.
It's something we all need to reflect on folks.
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It's something we all need to reflect on folks.
No it really isn't. You lied. Everybody else knows it. No reflection required.
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It's something we all need to reflect on folks.
Why - you can just as easily be accused of being a god dodger in respect of all but one purported deity. Why are you dodging all of those other gods that people currently or once used to believe in with just as much fervour as you do now for your own purported god.
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Shakes,
On zero evidence (alleged personal experience doesn't cut the Colman's) he thinks every non-theist is a (I quote) "God-dodger" because he claims that he once was.
It's a fantastic piece of stupidity and/or dishonesty isn't it, this "god-doging" ludicrousness. Just lie and lie and lie about the arguments you don't like, make no argument of any kind for the god of your choice, then accuse the people you've lied about of dodging this supposed god of yours.
Trolling par excellence, truly.
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Shakes,
It's a fantastic piece of stupidity and/or dishonesty isn't it, this "god-doging" ludicrousness. Just lie and lie and lie about the arguments you don't like, make no argument of any kind for the god of your choice, then accuse the people you've lied about of dodging this supposed god of yours.
Trolling par excellence, truly.
It is amazing considering I have specifically asked him about his experiences. Wouldn't it be exciting to discover a whole new aspect to reality. Sadly I fear the wait goes on....
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So personal experience is no guide to objective truth then.
Bump.
So how do we distinguish between mutually exclusive personal experience?
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Stephen,
Bump.
So how do we distinguish between mutually exclusive personal experience?
Ordinarily of course by determining which is the more logically coherent and robust. Trollboy though rejects all that by just lying about the arguments he doesn't like and by asserting as objectively true instead whatever happens to feel right to him.
Sadly, bump as you might he'll never offer a method of his own as someone with even a shred of self-awareness and decency would.
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Certainly.
My experience starts with Sagans Cosmos and particular his idea of a cosmic community.
Very shortly after this I was given CS Lewis mere Christianity and recognised that the cosmic enthusiasm mediated through watching Sagan was a sense of the numinous.
Lewis also talks about God.God of course was for nutters and weak people or was it? That was something I had picked up unquestioningly picked up from my secular humanist roots.
God was now part of the numinous and something tied up to the Cosmos. Further reading of Lewis about God being in the dock. Awareness that God is also involved in morality. Phrase which chimes ! If you put God in the dock you find its you in the dock.
The Bible previously an old book strangely begins to become comprehensible.
Augustine's experience read, ringing words....make me a Christian but not yet.
Huge interest in what actually is the truth...Ringing words Pontius Pilate on truth.
Realisation that there is something behind Lewises and Christian writings.
Reading the bible. words that ring. Follow me and and behold I stand at the door freeze when realise that is true. Walk around in a focus on this which dissociates me from surroundings. Get a mental image of eating a pudding with no flavour as a metaphor for rejecting Christ.
Tell Jesus to take it all. Dissociation vanishes and feel great joy.
Great start with Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". Very few TV documentaries have impacted on me the way that series did and as much as I admire Neil Degrasse Tyson, his remake wasn't. patch on the original.
The rest of your experience is clearly deeply personal to you and if you genuinely believe you're in contact with the supreme cosmic mega being then good luck to you.
All I can say is that you musn't take it personally when we are sceptical and I daresay if you'd been born in Saudi Arabia you'd quite likely have the same connection to Islam.
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Great start with Carl Sagan's "Cosmos". Very few TV documentaries have impacted on me the way that series did and as much as I admire Neil Degrasse Tyson, his remake wasn't. patch on the original.
The rest of your experience is clearly deeply personal to you and if you genuinely believe you're in contact with the supreme cosmic mega being then good luck to you.
All I can say is that you musn't take it personally when we are sceptical and I daresay if you'd been born in Saudi Arabia you'd quite likely have the same connection to Islam.
A fair and decent post.
I'm not sure about your point about Saudi Arabia though since secular humanism was the environmental faith position where I came from.
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Bump.
So how do we distinguish between mutually exclusive personal experience?
Well both your friend and I claim experience of God.
I have said that there cannot really be an experience of "no Jesus"
This is why I tried earlier to distinguish between a divine revelation to an individual and adherence to the faith of ones fathers.
I suggest in this case you need to investigate how your friend holds faith in an as yet unreleased messiah.
Unfortunately I would move that people of other faiths have been moved on through the appalling behaviour of the antitheists around here.
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I'm not sure about your point about Saudi Arabia though since secular humanism was the environmental faith position where I came from.
Really - so when and where were you born then Vlad.
When I was born, in the mid 1960s in England there was a default societal assumption that there was a god and that that god was a christian god. It ran through most of culture and society in which I grew up - most notably within schooling, which was without doubt biased towards a clearly christian viewpoint even though every school I went to was non faith. We had hymns and prayers, services in the local cathedral. RE which focussed mostly on christianity with 'other' religions described just as that, 'other'. I don't believe that my schooling ever made it clear that people called atheists even existed, nor was the notion of humanism mentioned or discussed, likewise secularism.
So I've no idea when and where you were born - perhaps you'd enlighten us please.
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Really - so when and where were you born then Vlad.
When I was born, in the mid 1960s in England there was a default societal assumption that there was a god and that that god was a christian god. It ran through most of culture and society in which I grew up - most notably within schooling, which was without doubt biased towards a clearly christian viewpoint even though every school I went to was non faith. We had hymns and prayers, services in the local cathedral. RE which focussed mostly on christianity with 'other' religions described just as that, 'other'. I don't believe that my schooling ever made it clear that people called atheists even existed, nor was the notion of humanism mentioned or discussed, likewise secularism.
So I've no idea when and where you were born - perhaps you'd enlighten us please.
Scotland late fifties moved to England late fifties. A new town. Most people secular humanist very few church goers. Most people thought church goers oddballs.
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Scotland late fifties moved to England late fifties. A new town. Most people secular humanist very few church goers. Most people thought church goers oddballs.
In the 50's and 60's? Bullshit
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In the 50's and 60's? Bullshit
I think he means HIS 50s and 60s ... not the 1950s and 1960s.
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I suggest in this case you need to investigate how your friend holds faith in an as yet unreleased messiah.
Through his personal experience of God.
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Len,
I think he means HIS 50s and 60s ... not the 1950s and 1960s.
Surely he means the 1750s & 60s?
Wouldn't it be nice if Trollboy finally said something like, "OK, I know I have to lie and lie and lie to build the fortress of mendacity behind which I can just assert my un-defined, an-argued and un-evidenced personal beliefs as if they were true for the rest of you too, but hey as the intellectual cupboard for my faith is utterly bare that's all that's left to me"?
Fat chance eh?
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Len,
Surely he means the 1750s & 60s?
Wouldn't it be nice if Trollboy finally said something like, "OK, I know I have to lie and lie and lie to build the fortress of mendacity behind which I can just assert my un-defined, an-argued and un-evidenced personal beliefs as if they were true for the rest of you too, but hey as the intellectual cupboard for my faith is utterly bare that's all that's left to me"?
Fat chance eh?
I don't think he really believes or understands half the stuff he writes, he just chunters along stringing pseudo-intellectual words together in the hope that we will all be impressed.
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Incidentally Stephen not only will Trollboy never propose a method to distinguish his claims from just guessing (or indeed from different faith claims entirely) but he'll also never even tell you why he won't propose such a method.
Believe me, I've tried - dozens of times.
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Through his personal experience of God.
Bump
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Bump
The other day upon the stair,
He met a God who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
He wishes now he'd run away.
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Len,
I don't think he really believes or understands half the stuff he writes, he just chunters along stringing pseudo-intellectual words together in the hope that we will all be impressed.
Oh I can guarantee that he doesn't understand it for the good reason that for the most part there's nothing to understand. The wreckage of syntax and references to authors he's neither read nor understood mean that his posts are just a mess. It's a mistake to think that because he (mis)uses long words there must be an intellect at work nonetheless - essentially he has the reasoning ability of a four-year-old, and the petulance of one too.
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Len,
Oh I can guarantee that he doesn't understand it for the good reason that for the most part there's nothing to understand. The wreckage of syntax and references to authors he's neither read nor understood mean that his posts are just a mess. It's a mistake to think that because he (mis)uses long words there must be an intellect at work nonetheless - essentially he has the reasoning ability of a four-year-old, and the petulance of one too.
However, we have to hand it to him, he's managed to keep us all feeding him, which is all he set out to do. >:(
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Incidentally Stephen not only will Trollboy never propose a method to distinguish his claims from just guessing (or indeed from different faith claims entirely) but he'll also never even tell you why he wont propose such a method.
Believe me, I've tried - dozens of times.
A troll boy is a type of hat......hillsides.
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A troll boy is a type of hat......hillsides.
And Jonique Anoo is a kind of prat.
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Scotland late fifties moved to England late fifties. A new town. Most people secular humanist very few church goers. Most people thought church goers oddballs.
I would imagine in the late 50s and early 60s a vanishingly small percentage of the population would even have a clue what humanism was, nor secularism, let alone being nailed to the mast secular humanists.
Frankly the notion that when growing up you'd have had a clue that the people living in your area were secular humanists (which remember doesn't come with obvious outward signs such as going to church) is laughable. Vlad you really are full of sh**e.
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I would imagine in the late 50s and early 60s a vanishingly small percentage of the population would even have a clue what humanism was, nor secularism, let alone being mailed to the mast secular humanists.
Frankly the notion that when growing up you'd have had a clue that the people living in your area were secular humanists (which remember doesn't come with obvious outward signs such as going to church) is laughable. Vlad you really are full of sh**e.
My parents didn't go to church and I never knew anybody who did. We were put in Sunday school to give mum a break.......my brother went to Scripture Union and my dad and I would scoff at him on his return home.
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Len,
And Jonique Anoo is a kind of prat.
Bit harsh - why "kind of"?
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Len,
Bit harsh - why "kind of"?
Because Len has some manners?
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Owls,
Because Len has some manners?
OK, fair enough.
PS You do know that I was making a joke right?
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Owls,
OK, fair enough.
PS You do know that I was making a joke right?
Oh! Sorry! Did I ruin the punch line? Not intentional let me assure you! Put it down to tiredness after reading through twenty tons of Vladdishit!
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I know trainspotters are nuts (I was one until the end of steam locomotives) but I certainly do not know of a single trainspotter's club that would be nuts enough to accept Vlad as a member!
Personally, I've been in several clubs down the years and I reckon all of them would accept that vlad is a member.
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Squeaks,
Personally, I've been in several clubs down the years and I reckon all of them would accept that vlad is a member.
Not even the Bullshit Society?
The Mendacity Club?
The Worshipful Company of Irrationalists?
The Ancient Order of Misrepresenters, Misunderstanders and Misdescribers?
The Royal Chapter of Trollers & Turd Polishers?
Someone must want him surely…?
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Personally, I've been in several clubs down the years and I reckon all of them would accept that vlad is a member.
Lol
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bhs,
Do you want to have another read of my previous post?
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Squeaks,
Not even the Bullshit Society?
The Mendacity Club?
The Worshipful Company of Irrationalists?
The Ancient Order of Misrepresenters, Misunderstanders and Misdescribers?
The Royal Chapter of Trollers & Turd Polishers?
Someone must want him surely…?
well YOU found it funny and I guess that's what counts.
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bhs,
Do you want to have another read of my previous post?
Leave him, he's happy.
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Squeaks,
Do you want to have another read of my previous post?
Oh yeah - sorry. Given his disgraceful behaviour here I must have thought that there was a "never" missing in there somewhere...
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Personally, I've been in several clubs down the years and I reckon all of them would accept that vlad is a member.
This does not say a lot for the clubs that you have been in!
To paraphrase Groucho Marx, "I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have Vlad as a member".
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Len,
Bit harsh - why "kind of"?
:) :) :) :) :)
Just reiterating the construction of the post I was answering.
"A troll boy is a type of hat."
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Because Len has some manners?
I don't consider mocking a mocker as bad manners. :)
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Dear Mr. Anoo,
Any chance of a response?
I suggest in this case you need to investigate how your friend holds faith in an as yet unreleased messiah.
Through his personal experience of God.
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My parents didn't go to church and I never knew anybody who did. We were put in Sunday school to give mum a break.......my brother went to Scripture Union and my dad and I would scoff at him on his return home.
I'm not talking about you Vlad, I'm talking about the general population when and where you were growing up.
You claimed that most people were secular humanists - I challenged you on that given that even growing up through the 1960s and 70s (later than you) the concepts of secularism and humanism were pretty well invisible - how on earth do you know that most people were secular humanists Vlad - I think you are talking junk. I would suggest the reality was that most people were either church going christians or non church goers who still considered themselves to basically be christian and certainly not secular humanists.
Certainly I don't think that the concepts of secularism nor humanism were ever discussed during my (non faith) schooling, the default was always christianity.
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I thought religion was bigger in Scitland because of sectarianism.
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Dear Mr. Anoo,
Any chance of a response?
Through his personal experience of God.
I still maintain there are problems in classifying his non experience of Christ as an experience.
We can grant him a possible experience of God as you grant me a possible experience of God.
Presumably your friend then believes that Jesus' bones are still somewhere if turned to dust.
The question now is, does he sincerely hold that belief in the same way an atheist can sincerely hold that belief?
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I thought religion was bigger in Scitland because of sectarianism.
I think lots of people used to demonstrate that you can be atheist and anti-Catholic simultaneously...............hence jokes like are you a protestant jew or a catholic jew?
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I'm not talking about you Vlad, I'm talking about the general population when and where you were growing up.
You claimed that most people were secular humanists - I challenged you on that given that even growing up through the 1960s and 70s (later than you) the concepts of secularism and humanism were pretty well invisible - how on earth do you know that most people were secular humanists Vlad - I think you are talking junk. I would suggest the reality was that most people were either church going christians or non church goers who still considered themselves to basically be christian and certainly not secular humanists.
Certainly I don't think that the concepts of secularism nor humanism were ever discussed during my (non faith) schooling, the default was always christianity.
secular humanists are still in confusion over what they are today.
I know the default was ''anglican'' but that was merely for forms,etc
indeed the BHA has taken the lead in reversing what it sees as a historical and habitual propensity to tick the Anglican box on the census.
CS Lewises books written in the 40's were aimed at a whole population for whom being Christian was merely trying to live a good life and doing good deeds....basically a form of secular humanism.
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I still maintain there are problems in classifying his non experience of Christ as an experience.
We can grant him a possible experience of God as you grant me a possible experience of God.
Presumably your friend then believes that Jesus' bones are still somewhere if turned to dust.
The question now is, does he sincerely hold that belief in the same way an atheist can sincerely hold that belief?
He is not classifying his non experience of Christ as an experience.
He is saying that his experience of God excludes the possibility of a divine Jesus.
You both hold your opinions on the divinity of Jesus based on your experience. One of you is wrong.
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He is not classifying his non experience of Christ as an experience.
He is saying that his experience of God excludes the possibility of a divine Jesus.
You both hold your opinions on the divinity of Jesus based on your experience. One of you is wrong.
Well, you have my concerns and without further data on his experience, I cant see how his belief that Jesus is a man is any different from an atheist's.
Whose your money on being wrong.....and why?
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secular humanists are still in confusion over what they are today.
I know the default was ''anglican'' but that was merely for forms,etc
indeed the BHA has taken the lead in reversing what it sees as a historical and habitual propensity to tick the Anglican box on the census.
CS Lewises books written in the 40's were aimed at a whole population for whom being Christian was merely trying to live a good life and doing good deeds....basically a form of secular humanism.
I must jump in here and agree with you on this one, Vlad ... I may never get another chance!
Where I grew up in 1940/50s London, I knew of no one who went to church. Sunday school was to get the kids out of the way for an hour and 'Christian' was for the form filling.
Strangely, I still use that meaningless (to me) term when asked my religion.
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Well, you have my concerns and without further data on his experience, I cant see how his belief that Jesus is a man is any different from an atheist's.
Whose your money on being wrong.....and why?
I agree I don't think his opinion on Jesus as a man is different. So what? Not accepting the divinity of Jesus does not make you an atheist.
The point is that personal experience clearly isn't a totally reliable guide to objective truth.
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I thought religion was bigger in Scitland because of sectarianism.
Depends what you mean by 'bigger'. It was certainly more a subject of contention, I think but that very fact made the idea of a default church impossible. When certain sects will throw you out for attending services in other denominations, every service becomes a declaration of which of the many sides you are on.
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Stephen,
The point is that personal experience clearly isn't a reliable guide to objective truth.
Oh but it is silly, just only when it's Trollboy's personal experience. Sadly other people's personal experiences of all sorts of causal supernatural agencies other than his god don't get the same privileged status.
Shame that - I was rather hoping that the Holy Sepulchre Of Colin the Leprechaun would get some bigging up any time now.
Oh well :(
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I agree I don't think his opinion on Jesus as a man is different. So what? Not accepting the divinity of Jesus does not make you an atheist.
The point is that personal experience clearly isn't a totally reliable guide to objective truth.
Yes but as a whole it isn't reliably unreliable either.
Still we can either either end the dialogue here or perhaps the way forward is offered to all of us by dear old Socrates.
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Stephen,
Oh but it is silly, just only when it's Trollboy's personal experience. Sadly other people's personal experiences of all sorts of causal supernatural agencies other than his god don't get the same privileged status.
Shame that - I was rather hoping that the Holy Sepulchre Of Colin the Leprechaun would get some bigging up any time now.
Oh well :(
But we do not have Stephen's jewish friend to interlocute Bluehillside.
Stephen has no further data on his experience.
Use your loaf Hillside.
Finally we have a saying where I come from about having run out of things to say which is where you are at present and that goes something like....'' If you can't shit get off the pot''. I think you ought to yield therefore to the Stephen Taylors.
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A fair and decent post.
I'm not sure about your point about Saudi Arabia though since secular humanism was the environmental faith position where I came from.
Thanks
The Saudi Arabia point was me trying to illustrate that you'd likely have been a Muslim if you'd been born in Saudi Arabia.
I take what you say about being born into a secular humanist faith and moving on to something else.
I'd say that makes you the exception as opposed to the rule as the vast majority of people stock with the prevailing belief/unbelief of the culture they are born into.
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Depends what you mean by 'bigger'. It was certainly more a subject of contention, I think but that very fact made the idea of a default church impossible. When certain sects will throw you out for attending services in other denominations, every service becomes a declaration of which of the many sides you are on.
In which case I fail to see how Vlad is claiming to have grown up in a secular society.
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I must jump in here and agree with you on this one, Vlad ... I may never get another chance!
Where I grew up in 1940/50s London, I knew of no one who went to church. Sunday school was to get the kids out of the way for an hour and 'Christian' was for the form filling.
Strangely, I still use that meaningless (to me) term when asked my religion.
And you weren't christened, nor went to weddings/funerals in churches. At school you didn't have assemblies which were mini christian services with a hymn and christian prayers. The RE syllabus wasn't almost exclusively about christianity. You didn't end up endlessly bored on a Sunday because the pervading culture defined that Sunday was for church so shops, restaurants, cinema, sports, etc etc were closed - even pubs in some places.
I was growing up a couple of decades after you and although I'd agree that the proportion of people who attended church services was relatively low there was a rather all pervading christianity which was deeply embedded in society and in standard upbringing for most children.
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In which case I fail to see how Vlad is claiming to have grown up in a secular society.
He's wrong about secular, as applied to the society, but he could be right about wherever he grew up and the people he encountered. It's not that different from wigginhall's description of growing up and has been echoed by johnjil on this thread. Further, while sectarianism creates an awareness of religion, it tends to be quite a shallow one. You define yourself more as 'not the other' than the thing you are. There are enough people with an almost complete lack of religious and historical knowledge who will shout out random dates such as 1690, or 1916, who have no other apparent religious beliefs other than the other side are bastards.
Having started the thread on new sectarianism, I have ignored it on the basis that it is too depressing when looking at questions of how we deal with false divisions, too many answers are, we must divide from the false divisions to the one true set of divisions.
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Dear Sane,
There are enough people with a almost complete lack of religious and historical knowledge who will shout out random dates such as 1690, or 1916, who have no other apparent religious beliefs other than the other side are bastards.
The next pint you drink, savour it, because you deserve it, it does my wee Christian heart the power of good to know that there are Nearlysanes in this world.
Gonnagle.
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Yes but as a whole it isn't reliably unreliable either.
I agree. All we need now is a way of determining if we have correctly interpreted that experience.
Still we can either either end the dialogue here or perhaps the way forward is offered to all of us by dear old Socrates.
[/quote]
Carry on then.
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But we do not have Stephen's jewish friend to interlocute Bluehillside.
Stephen has no further data on his experience.
I could forward any questions on to him if you like.
However, I don't see what the issue is there are loads of people who claim to experience God but don't accept a Divine Jesus. Why is your experience valid but theirs not?
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I could forward any questions on to him if you like.
However, I don't see what the issue is there are loads of people who claim to experience God but don't accept a Divine Jesus. Why is your experience valid but theirs not?
But I think the next question is how these beliefs are held.
I would be interested to know from your friend how his belief that Jesus is not divine differs from an atheist's view that he is not divine or as you point out anybody who doesn't believe he is divine.
Does he hold it philosophically, or intellectually or out of respect for the faith of his fathers, or was it revealed to him directly by God or one of his agents, which agent and how was the message transmitted if that is the case and indeed received......or indeed any combination or all of these?
If you could pass that onto him that would move us on.
I confess to being a bit surprised that you haven't broached these questions of him.
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I confess to being a bit surprised that you haven't broached these questions of him.
Why? It's fairly standard Jewish thought isn't it?
It's all very simple really he believes he is in a personal relationship with God, same as yourself. He thinks it is the Jewish God, so therefore, it would be a bit surprising if he accepted the divinity of Jesus as that would make him a Christian surely?
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Why? It's fairly standard Jewish thought isn't it?
Ah well that would point to philosophy then coupled with a respectful belief in tradition.
So far then we have experiencing Christ vs intellectual conviction he was just a man.
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Ah well that would point to philosophy then coupled with a respectful belief in tradition.
So far then we have experiencing Christ vs intellectual conviction he was just a man.
No we don't. We have someone experiencing a God. This God is incompatible with a Divine Jesus.
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Ah well that would point to philosophy then coupled with a respectful belief in tradition.
So far then we have experiencing Christ vs intellectual conviction he was just a man.
Further more for clarity we have people having an experience and attributing that experience to God or Jesus. Let's just be clear on that.
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No we don't. We have someone experiencing a God. This God is incompatible with a Divine Jesus.
I don't see why until we get down as you call it say STANDARD religious THOUGHT.
I think it best to put this too him since we have a Jewish person's thoughts and experiences being mediated through an atheist here......................... though there is perhaps some mileage in asking you how and if you see any difference between religious experience and standard religious thought.
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I don't see why until we get down as you call it say STANDARD religious THOUGHT.
I think it best to put this too him since we have a Jewish person's thoughts and experiences being mediated through an atheist here......................... though there is perhaps some mileage in asking you how and if you see any difference between religious experience and standard religious thought.
What I was suggesting is that I have told you he is Jewish. It is pretty standard to expect someone who is Jewish to deny the divinity of Jesus. If he accepted the divinity of Jesus he wouldn't be Jewish in the religious sense.
You make it sound like this is a suprise to you or that he might be an exception. There are loads of Jewish people who believe they personally experience God.
You have an experience of God. You attribute it to the Christian God. A divine Jesus is a fundamental aspect of Christianity.
He claims an experience of God. He attributes is to God of the Jews. A divine Jesus is anathema to this religion.
This isn't difficult. One of you is wrong.
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What I was suggesting is that I have told you he is Jewish. It is pretty standard to expect someone who is Jewish to deny the divinity of Jesus. If he accepted the divinity of Jesus he wouldn't be Jewish in the religious sense.
You make it sound like this is a suprise to you or that he might be an exception. There are loads of Jewish people who believe they personally experience God.
You have an experience of God. You attribute it to the Christian God. A divine Jesus is a fundamental aspect of Christianity.
He claims an experience of God. He attributes is to God of the Jews. A divine Jesus is anathema to this religion.
This isn't difficult. One of you is wrong.
I agree however, where do we go from there? I think there are answers to these questions that we need from him namely:
Does he hold it philosophically, or intellectually or out of respect for the faith of his fathers, or was it revealed to him directly by God or one of his agents, which agent and how was the message transmitted if that is the case and indeed received......or indeed any combination or all of these?
I confess to being a bit surprised that you haven't broached these questions of him and that, for me, gives me doubt as to you wanting resolution or even further debate.
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I agree however, where do we go from there? I think there are answers to these questions that we need from him namely:
Does he hold it philosophically, or intellectually or out of respect for the faith of his fathers, or was it revealed to him directly by God or one of his agents, which agent and how was the message transmitted if that is the case and indeed received......or indeed any combination or all of these?
I confess to being a bit surprised that you haven't broached these questions of him and that, for me, gives me doubt as to you wanting resolution or even further debate.
I have just told you. He has an experience of God. For him it is the Jewish God.
I have had many discussion with him over the years. Similar ones to the one we are having. He believes he is in a relationship with God and it is the Jewish one. He can't give me answer to the question of how do you know you are not mistaken either.
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I have just told you. He has an experience of God. For him it is the Jewish God.
I have had many discussion with him over the years. Similar ones to the one we are having. He believes he is in a relationship with God and it is the Jewish one. He can't give me answer to the question of how do you know you are not mistaken either.
OK then I'm going to have have to push an alternative just to chivvy things on.
Your friend has had an experience of God but has intellectually developed in a Jewish philosophical tradition and has hung on to both.
Christian converts come from other philosophical traditions but have an experience of God as or in Christ. Any previous philosophical tradition which says Jesus is just a man is at odds with the experience.
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C'mon Vlad - Stephen's friend is making his claim on the same basis as yours, which results in different views of the divinity of Jesus. Now, and putting aside the risk that you both might be wrong, on what basis should we favour your claim over that of Stephen's friend?
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OK then I'm going to have have to push an alternative just to chivvy things on.
Your friend has had an experience of God but has intellectually developed in a Jewish philosophical tradition and has hung on to both.
Christian converts come from other philosophical traditions but have an experience of God as or in Christ. Any previous philosophical tradition which says Jesus is just a man is at odds with the experience.
So now you have to resort to lying about other peoples views in order to sure up you faith, because you are saying only converts can have a genuine sure fire experience guaranteed to be without error.
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OK then I'm going to have have to push an alternative just to chivvy things on.
The only thing that needs chivvying is you.
How can tell between mutually exclusive claims when they are based on personal experience?
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C'mon Vlad - Stephen's friend is making his claim on the same basis as yours, which results in different views of the divinity of Jesus. Now, and putting aside the risk that you both might be wrong, on what basis should we favour your claim over that of Stephen's friend?
Not going to happen is it. He can't accept that people can have genuine religious experiences that are just as fervently held but are mutually exclusive to his because he would have to admit that personal experience is not a useful method for determining the objective truth of the religious claims.
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C'mon Vlad - Stephen's friend is making his claim on the same basis as yours, which results in different views of the divinity of Jesus. Now, and putting aside the risk that you both might be wrong, on what basis should we favour your claim over that of Stephen's friend?
C'mon Gordon at the moment all that is being offered is an absent friend.Get him on.
You say he is offering it on the same basis,but with all due respect that comes from an atheist who has shown a willingness to bunch all gods with the same disdain.
I have taken the most reasonable line here which is get Stephen to transmit messages to and from me and his friend . You and Steven have just offered atheism wearing a kippah.
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The only thing that needs chivvying is you.
How can tell between mutually exclusive claims when they are based on personal experience?
If we agree that one of us is wrong. As I have no difficulty with that.
If you say that we cannot find out who is wrong then that is a different matter.
You say he receives his belief religiously.
Why does he he not receive it philosophically instead?
You do not know.
Get the man on otherwise all you are offering is atheism with a Kippah.
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Stephen,
Not going to happen is it. He can't accept that people can have genuine religious experiences that are just as fervently held but are mutually exclusive to his because he would have to admit that personal experience is not a useful method for determining the objective truth of the religious claims.
Quite so. When you cut through all the lying, the irrelevance, the straw men and the abuse all Trollboy has left is, "it's true because I really, really think it's true".
Wigginhall described him as "a fucking disgrace".
I see no reason to disagree.
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C'mon Gordon at the moment all that is being offered is an absent friend.Get him on.
If he wishes to join then we'd love to see him here.
You say he is offering it on the same basis,but with all due respect that comes from an atheist who has shown a willingness to bunch all gods with the same disdain.
We aren't talking about me, Vlad, we're talking about your claim and that of Stephen's friend and why we should prefer yours to his: to we get an answer?
I have taken the most reasonable line here which is get Stephen to transmit messages to and from me and his friend . You and Steven have just offered atheism wearing a kippah.
Atheism isn't the issue here: the issue is the comparison between two theistic claims: remember!
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If he wishes to join then we'd love to see him here.
We aren't talking about me, Vlad, we're talking about your claim and that of Stephen's friend and why we should prefer yours to his: to we get an answer?
Atheism isn't the issue here: the issue is the comparison between two theistic claims: remember!
Yes but the dogmatic shutdown and the melodramatic touch of Bluehillside coming on periodically like some spymaster touching his ear while whispering into yours and Stephen's make this an unmistakeably doctrinaire antitheist gig.
Another Goddodge accomplished.
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If you say that we cannot find out who is wrong then that is a different matter.
[quote/]
No I have asked you how you can know who is right or wrong. What is the method for verifying that your experience reflects reality?
That is al that is being asked of you.
You say he receives his belief religiously.
Why does he he not receive it philosophically instead?
You do not know.
Get the man on otherwise all you are offering is atheism with a Kippah.
He is merely an example of someone who makes claims on the same basis as you but contradictory ones. Are you really saying that you were unaware of this situation before I mentioned my friend?
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Another Goddodge accomplished.
By you.
I have given you the opportunity to explain how you can be certain you are not mistaken in attributing your experience of God to the reality of an objective God.
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By you.
I have given you the opportunity to explain how you can be certain you are not mistaken in attributing your experience of God to the reality of an objective God.
if this isn't, as Gordon says, about atheism stop posturing as a virtual Jewish believer and get the real one to answer.
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Yes but the dogmatic shutdown and the melodramatic touch of Bluehillside coming on periodically like some spymaster touching his ear while whispering into yours and Stephen's make this an unmistakeably doctrinaire antitheist gig.
Another Goddodge accomplished.
All you need do, Vlad, is give a civil response to a civil question: the only dodging going on here is yours.
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Stephen,
By you.
I have given you the opportunity to explain how you can be certain you are not mistaken in attributing your experience of God to the reality of an objective God.
One of the several oddities about Trolboy's fuckingdisgracery is that, if there is an objectively true god, then presumably "He" would want people to know that so, having chosen His special little helper, why then does Trollboy point blank refuse ever to make an argument of any kind to that effect?
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if this isn't as Gordon says about atheism stop posturing as a virtual Jewish believer and get the real one to answer.
I don't believe his claims either.
Are you seriously suggesting that he is the first person you have heard of that feels he has a profound experience of God that contradicts yours? Seriously that is unbelievable.
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All you need do, Vlad, is give a civil response to a civil question: the only dodging going on here is yours.
Stephen has said that either his Jewish friend and I are wrong. I have not disagreed with that. What I disagreed with is there being no way of him finding out who is wrong for himself. I have never said that experience of God is ever transferrable or empirical and have often said it isn't. I have said that if true God is true for all of us. If there is anything else you want me to answer or help you with please ask.
From my point of view you have your own definition of religion which lumps things together, is reductionist and ultimately incorrect in it's conclusion and guaranteed to dogmatically shut down anything which might challenge the antitheist position and that is as Kubrick would say, yours, Stephen's and that article Hillsides major malfunction.
Have a nice day.
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What I disagreed with is there being no way of him finding out who is wrong for himself. I have never said that experience of God is ever transferrable or empirical and have often said it isn't. I have said that if true God is true for all of us. If there is anything else you want me to answer or help you with please ask.
But it is YOU who claims that you CAN know if a claim is objectively true or not based on personal experience.
Or are you now saying that is not the case?
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But it is YOU who claims that you CAN know if a claim is objectively true or not based on personal experience.
Or are you now saying that is not the case?
Yes I am saying that you can know an objective truth by experiencing it.
I think you are confusing methodology with ontology.
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Gordon you fool man...
...turns out expecting someone actually to bother making a coherent and consistent argument for his claim of an objective truth before accepting it is actually just your anti-theism dogmatically shutting down his challenge!
Now I see it, it's obvious really. I'm kinda hoping now that if we wait patiently enough the great Trollboy will pull more of these objective facts out of his backside. Maybe the solution to the Syrian crisis for starters, or perhaps a cure for childhood cancer. Failing that, at least the winner of the 4.30 at Kempton Park next Saturday would ease the old finances a bit.
After all, surely it can't be that Trollboy's magic intuition works for one fact but not for any others can it?
Can it?
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Yes I am saying that you can know an objective truth by experiencing it.
I think you are confusing methodology with ontology.
Round and round it goes.
But you accept that you can be mistaken in that experience don't you?
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Stephen has said that either his Jewish friend and I are wrong. I have not disagreed with that. What I disagreed with is there being no way of him finding out who is wrong for himself.
He can't - it is your claim, and Stephen's friends claim, that we are discussing, and both are based on personal experiences which are intrinsically, well, personal: the question is whether one personal experience is more valid than the other.
I have never said that experience of God is ever transferrable or empirical and have often said it isn't. I have said that if true God is true for all of us. If there is anything else you want me to answer or help you with please ask.
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We have: what are the limits of personal experience and how should be accept or reject claims that are similar in one sense (personal experience) but different in other senses (the divinity of Jesus) - you aren't answering though.
From my point of view you have your own definition of religion which lumps things together, is reductionist and ultimately incorrect in it's conclusion and guaranteed to dogmatically shut down anything which might challenge the antitheist position and that is as Kubrick would say, yours, Stephen's and that article Hillsides major malfunction.
Our views aren't the issue - we're talking personal experiences of the divine, remember!
Have a nice day.
You too Vlad.
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Yes I am saying that you can know an objective truth by experiencing it.
No you can't - you can only know a subjective truth. For it to be an objective truth you would need to know that everyone else experiences it in the same manner, and you cannot know that.
Our experiences only tell us about 'true for me' not about 'true for everyone', i.e. subjective truths not objective truths.
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He can't - it is your claim, and Stephen's friends claim, that we are discussing, and both are based on personal experiences which are intrinsically, well, personal: the question is whether one personal experience is more valid than the other.
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We have: what are the limits of personal experience and how should be accept or reject claims that are similar in one sense (personal experience) but different in other senses (the divinity of Jesus) - you aren't answering though.
Our views aren't the issue - we're talking personal experiences of the divine, remember!
You too Vlad.
Mr Anoo,
Rushing around a bit this afternoon but this from Gordon is the words I would have liked to have used.
Oh, and have a good day.
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Round and round it goes.
But you accept that you can be mistaken in that experience don't you?
But you can also be right about it hence my statement about the unreliability of the unreliability of experience.
Hillside may if he chooses to do so remember our discussions about what I called his dependence on the psychological incompetence of humanity.
However so far such psychological incompetence is a dogmatically held position and when pressed its support comes at base from ontological naturalism confused as methodological naturalism i.e. medical science. Given this I am justified in a demand for proof of the objective truth of ontological naturalism. This is never touched on and avoided giving antitheists the air of 'shut up theist Pig dog, ve ask ze questions around here''
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No you can't - you can only know a subjective truth. For it to be an objective truth you would need to know that everyone else experiences it in the same manner, and you cannot know that.
Our experiences only tell us about 'true for me' not about 'true for everyone', i.e. subjective truths not objective truths.
Do objective truths have to be experienced? I don't know.
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But you can also be right about it hence my statement about the unreliability of the unreliability of experience.
Hillside may if he chooses to do so remember our discussions about what I called his dependence on the psychological incompetence of humanity.
However so far such psychological incompetence is a dogmatically held position and when pressed its support comes at base from ontological naturalism confused as methodological naturalism i.e. medical science. Given this I am justified in a demand for proof of the objective truth of ontological naturalism. This is never touched on and avoided giving antitheists the air of 'shut up theist Pig dog, ve ask ze questions around here''
Here we have it, yet again: Vlad's retreat into his personal lexicon of terms he doesn't really understand, mixed in with a dash of childish insults.
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He can't - it is your claim, and Stephen's friends claim, that we are discussing, and both are based on personal experiences which are intrinsically, well, personal: the question is whether one personal experience is more valid than the other.
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We have: what are the limits of personal experience and how should be accept or reject claims that are similar in one sense (personal experience) but different in other senses (the divinity of Jesus) - you aren't answering though.
Our views aren't the issue - we're talking personal experiences of the divine, remember!
You too Vlad.
The trouble is Gordon is that without Stephen's friend we cannot assess the similarity of religious experience or whether his friend has had a personal divine revelation of jesus non divinity or whether he merely holds that philosophically.
The problem is your generalisation AND SIMPLIFICATION AND YES shoehorning to fit your approach.
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Gordon,
Here we have it, yet again: Vlad's retreat into his personal lexicon of terms he doesn't really understand, mixed in with a dash of childish insults.
Presumably he thinks (inasmuch as he's capable of thinking anything) it gives him somewhere to hide from his inability to answer a perfectly simple question. The problem though with Trollboy just re-defining words to suit his purpose is that there's no basis on which to engage with him. Am I a materialist? Yes, according to the standard definition. Am I a materialist within the meaning of Trolboy's just made up version of the term? Pretty much no-one is I'd have thought.
And so it goes.
When confronted with such a badly disordered, non-functioning intellect allied to a near pathological mendacity what choice is there therefore but to ignore it?
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The trouble is Gordon is that without Stephen's friend we cannot assess the similarity of religious experience or whether his friend has had a personal divine revelation of jesus non divinity or whether he merely holds that philosophically.
The problem is your generalisation AND SIMPLIFICATION AND YES shoehorning to fit your approach.
Of course we can, Vlad.
Since we know that your claim and that of Stephen's friend differ in respect of the divinity of Jesus there is nothing to stop us teasing out a method, with your help, of comparing different claims of personal experiences of the divine. I happy for you to set out your method and we'll go from there, since presumably you have some basis for preferring your personal experience to that of Stephen's friend: don't you?.
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.
When confronted with such a badly disordered, non-functioning intellect allied to a near pathological mendacity what choice is there therefore but to ignore it?
Use the pretext of talking to others to bravely sneek in sly but offensive digs while taking the piss out of forum etiquette and rules, perhaps, Hillside?
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Of course we can, Vlad.
Since we know that your claim and that of Stephen's friend differ in respect of the divinity of Jesus there is nothing to stop us teasing out a method, with your help, of comparing different claims of personal experiences of the divine. I happy for you to set out your method and we'll go from there, since presumably you have some basis for preferring your personal experience to that of Stephen's friend: don't you?.
Gordon, we need to separate that which is claimed direct religious experience from that which is philosophically and intellectually assented. Anything else is a typical antitheist category fudge and mudge.
While I am waiting for you to recruit someone who isn't another antitheist I am moving my activities onto the one thread. Since being on many doesn't seem to be helping Bluehillside's condition.
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Do objective truths have to be experienced? I don't know.
By definition objective truths remain true even when not experienced. So they might or might not be experienced, but that is irrelevant to their veracity.
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Prof,
By definition objective truths remain true even when not experienced. So they might or might not be experienced, but that is irrelevant to their veracity.
But ontological naturalism precedes I move conjure up you can't disprove it methodological of course as as Popper put it wibble wibble why are you all being so horrible to me nurse nurse, I'm sitting in a damp patch again...
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Prof,
But ontological naturalism precedes I move conjure up you can't disprove it methodological of course as as Popper put it wibble wibble why are you all being so horrible to me nurse nurse, I'm sitting in a damp patch again...
Gordon, can we have a smiley which is smiling, er, benignly?
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Gordon, can we have a smiley which is smiling, er, beningly?
Good idea, seriously Vlad, perhaps there are options we can look out re. different smileys - I'll check it out.
I'd like to see a 'can we all calm down a bit' smiley, since sometimes exchanges here can get a little fractious and folk get preoccupied to the extent we can't see the wood for the trees: I suspect we all guilty at times (me included)!
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But you can also be right about it hence my statement about the unreliability of the unreliability of experience.
Hillside may if he chooses to do so remember our discussions about what I called his dependence on the psychological incompetence of humanity.
[quote/]
I don't deny you could be right. You could also be wrong. How can we tell?
However so far such psychological incompetence is a dogmatically held position and when pressed its support comes at base from ontological naturalism confused as methodological naturalism i.e. medical science. Given this I am justified in a demand for proof of the objective truth of ontological naturalism. This is never touched on and avoided giving antitheists the air of 'shut up theist Pig dog, ve ask ze questions around here''
Since it is you who makes the claims you are obviously the one that is going to get the questions.
As for the first part can you define your terms here please?
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The trouble is Gordon is that without Stephen's friend we cannot assess the similarity of religious experience or whether his friend has had a personal divine revelation of jesus non divinity or whether he merely holds that philosophically.
The problem is your generalisation AND SIMPLIFICATION AND YES shoehorning to fit your approach.
Well we are asked to take you word for it that you have had a personal revelation of God. Actually no one has said they believe you to be insincere just how do you know you are not mistaken. I see you won't extend that courtesy to others though.
And you haven't' answered my other question (this is third time of asking). Do you really no accept that there are other people out there who have deeply held personal beliefs based on experience of God that are mutually exclusive to yours?
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Well we are asked to take you word for it that you have had a personal revelation of God. Actually no one has said they believe you to insincere just how do you now you are not mistaken. I see you won't extend that courtesy to others though.
And you haven't' answered my other question (this is third time of asking). Do you really no accept that there are other people out there who have deeply held personal beliefs based on experience of God that are mutually exclusive to yours?
At present I can not give you my experience. I can give you my analysis.
What I am saying is part of experience is the switch from investigation to personal involvement. It is your own investigations and involvement you should concern yourself with, I kind of but kind of don't understand a refusal to explore this further.....for yourself of course.
I still don't know whether your friends holding of Jesus as not God is derived from direct personal revelation or whether it is essentially held as you hold it but in an intellectually Jewish idiom.
You keep shutting this line of investigation, why?
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Would it be fair to say - after all these months/years and countless times of asking for a method of any kind to distinguish his claims of the objective truth of his "god" from just guessing only to be met with a relentless refusal to answer or even to tell us why he won't answer - that Trollboy is telling us that his method cupboard is in fact empty: let's call it "method-dodging" for want of a better phrase?
I think it is fair.
Anyone disagree?
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Would it be fair to say - after all these months/years and countless times of asking for a method of any kind to distinguish his claims of the objective truth of his "god" from just guessing only to be met with a relentless refusal to answer or even to tell us why he won't answer - that Trollboy is telling us that his method cupboard is in fact bare: let's call it "method-dodging" for want of a better phrase?
I think it is fair.
Anyone disagree?
Methodology is not ontology Hillside. Methodology is an antitheist craze.
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So now we know that Trollboy is in fact a method-dodger we can - as frankly we knew all along - agree that his personal "ontology" is just that - personal, as indeed is anyone else's personal ontology personal to him.
Shame really. Would have been fun watching him finally attempt to build a logical bridge from his "in my head, I had a funny feeling one day, because it meant a lot to me it must be real for you too, entirely subjective" god to a "here finally is a reason anyone else should take my claim seriously" god but I guess that'll never be.
Funny that.
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Wow.
I've come back to the board after quite a while of very occasional visits, only to discover that Vlad's method-dodging has finally been exposed as such...
Not that it was ever difficult to see that that was what he was doing :)
Fascinating.
ht
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Hey horse,
Wow.
I've come back to the board after quite a while of very occasional visits, only to discover that Vlad's method-dodging has finally been exposed as such...
Not that it was ever difficult to see that that was what he was doing :)
Fascinating.
Welcome back - you've been away far too long. As you can see, your people need you!
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I still don't know whether your friends holding of Jesus as not God is derived from direct personal revelation or whether it is essentially held as you hold it but in an intellectually Jewish idiom.
You keep shutting this line of investigation, why?
I have answered it several times.
Here we go for another time:
(Before we go though I am proceeding along the lines that you equate experience of God with revelation of God. You use the former in your case and the latter in my friends case, so I will continue assuming you use them interchangeably)
You have a revelation of God. This best fits the Christian narrative. You therefore accept a divine Jesus.
He has a revelation of God. This best fits the Jewish narrative. He therefore does not accept a divine Jesus. If he thought there was a divine Jesus the Jewish narrative would not be the best fit to his experience.
[Further notes]
1) I use narrative as a short hand version for you "linguistic framework, so feel free to change them as best suits you]
2) Ignoring my friend, do you really think there are no Jewish people who believe they have a direct personal experience of God? Unless people who do are all lying the question remains, of how we know if your or their or any personal revelation is reliable.
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Hey horse,
Welcome back - you've been away far too long. As you can see, your people need you!
I can't promise a lot of posting time - I changed role at in March, so I'm busy learning stuff - but I'll be online if you want to message me with any threads that could be interesting; as you can imagine, I'm unlikely to have time to catch up on all the current live threads :)
ht
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And you weren't christened, nor went to weddings/funerals in churches. At school you didn't have assemblies which were mini christian services with a hymn and christian prayers. The RE syllabus wasn't almost exclusively about christianity. You didn't end up endlessly bored on a Sunday because the pervading culture defined that Sunday was for church so shops, restaurants, cinema, sports, etc etc were closed - even pubs in some places.
I was growing up a couple of decades after you and although I'd agree that the proportion of people who attended church services was relatively low there was a rather all pervading christianity which was deeply embedded in society and in standard upbringing for most children.
I agree Christianity was the basic theme underlying society but no one where I lived thought twice about it.
I think WW2 destroyed any faith the vast majority of the people of London had in God, when they had bombs constantly raining down - despite all the prayers being offered up.
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I agree Christianity was the basic theme underlying society but no one where I lived thought twice about it.
I think WW2 destroyed any faith the vast majority of the people of London had in God, when they had bombs constantly raining down - despite all the prayers being offered up.
On both sides of the English Channel at that.
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Wow.
I've come back to the board after quite a while of very occasional visits, only to discover that Vlad's method-dodging has finally been exposed as such...
We all knew it before, it's just that, only now is he being called out on it explicitly.
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I agree Christianity was the basic theme underlying society but no one where I lived thought twice about it.
Perhaps so, but that doesn't stop it being the predominant undercurrent. Vlad's view is that the predominant undercurrent was secular humanism but I don't think that is the case. To put it in rather simplistic way - when I was growing up there were two main groups of people, practising christians and non practising christians, often considered to be 'lapsed'. There were a few very rare 'others' - active members of other religions and some who were overtly non religious, but they were as rare as hen's teeth. So the default accept view was that you were either a christian who went to church or a christian who didn't go to church any more (or even ever!).
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Perhaps so, but that doesn't stop it being the predominant undercurrent. Vlad's view is that the predominant undercurrent was secular humanism but I don't think that is the case. To put it in rather simplistic way - when I was growing up there were two main groups of people, practising christians and non practising christians, often considered to be 'lapsed'. There were a few very rare 'others' - active members of other religions and some who were overtly non religious, but they were as rare as hen's teeth. So the default accept view was that you were either a christian who went to church or a christian who didn't go to church any more (or even ever!).
Prof
Vlad's use of 'secular humanism' is his way of saying non-religious. Those terms are comparatively new (or at least in the sense of general use) so I doubt if he had ever heard of them in his younger days.
Yes, the undercurrent was Christian just as it is today. The difference is that pre-WW2, there was no way the general population - who I think were as non-religious as today) could voice their views. Now we have forums like this on the Internet, it isn't simply a guy in a dress standing high above a passive congregation who has all the say.
Shaker
You're right, I'm pretty sure most of the German people were praying just as hard as the Brits and came out of WW2 with the same feelings re-God as we had.
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Yes, the undercurrent was Christian just as it is today. The difference is that pre-WW2, there was no way the general population - who I think were as non-religious as today) could voice their views. Now we have forums like this on the Internet, it isn't simply a guy in a dress standing high above a passive congregation who has all the say.
That would seem to conflict with what my father used to say. As a historian, he reckoned that the tipping point came with the end of the 1st World War.
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That would seem to conflict with what my father used to say. As a historian, he reckoned that the tipping point came with the end of the 1st World War.
Even if it were true that that marked a tipping point, which I don't know is the case, it certainly marked quite a lengthy and widespread boom in spiritualism, seances and the like - Arthur Credulous Conan Doyle was caught up in it in a big way. But then he was also taken in by fairy pictures cut out of magazines and stuck into the ground with hatpins, so that says it all really.
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Even if it were true that that marked a tipping point, which I don't know is the case, it certainly marked quite a lengthy and widespread boom in spiritualism, seances and the like - Arthur Credulous Conan Doyle was caught up in it in a big way. But then he was also taken in by fairy pictures cut out of magazines and stuck into the ground with hatpins, so that says it all really.
With all due respect Victorian spiritualism is a halfway house between traditional Christianity and a scientific materialism. OliverLodge stand as some one whose energy research is influenced by the concept of spirit and of course we mustn't forget ectoplasm.......spiritualists nod to materialism and scientific evidence.
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So now we know that Trollboy is in fact a method-dodger
You are the one who refuses to give a methodology for what you believe ontologically while demanding one from somebody who has already admitted he may not have one.
Alas, for you though, methodology is not ontology.
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You are the one who refuses to give a methodology for what you believe ontologically while demanding one from somebody who has already admitted he may not have one.
Alas, for you though, methodology is not ontology.
So, are you saying you can't provide us with a methodology in order to verify that you have correctly identified the cause of your experience?
You know what that would be absolutely fine. I'm very happy to proceed with discussion on a wide range of issues based on a true for you type claim. There could be many interesting ones to be had.
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You are the one who refuses to give a methodology for what you believe ontologically while demanding one from somebody who has already admitted he may not have one.
Alas, for you though, methodology is not ontology.
You are constructing what you'd like to think other people's ontological beliefs are and then criticising them.
That's a straw man fallacy.
Learn some logic!!!
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So, are you saying you can't provide us with a methodology in order to verify that you have correctly identified the cause of your experience?
You know what that would be absolutely fine. I'm very happy to proceed with discussion on a wide range of issues based on a true for you type claim. There could be many interesting ones to be had.
I am saying methodology does not help with issues of ontology.....and experience of God and the reality thereof and indeed Godfree, the view of atheism.....are issues of ontology.
Given that claims of God and claims of Godfree can be discussed philosophically and rationally and logically providing there is no erroneous claim that these are necessarily Godfree.
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You are constructing what you'd like to think other people's ontological beliefs are and then criticising them.
That's a straw man fallacy.
Learn some logic!!!
Many antitheists and non theists are in the experience of this forum very cagey about their beliefs........and that is the major malfunction which leads them to confuse methodology with ontology.
However where they stand
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I am saying methodology does not help with issues of ontology.....and experience of God and the reality thereof and indeed Godfree, the view of atheism.....are issues of ontology.
Actually, you can't really decide on anything without some sort of methodology.
Given that claims of God and claims of Godfree can be discussed philosophically and rationally and logically providing there is no erroneous claim that these are necessarily Godfree.
Nobody I know of is claiming that there are definitely no gods, so your 'Godfree' nonsense is another straw man.
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Many antitheists and non theists are in the experience of this forum very cagey about their beliefs....
No, they aren't - you've been told many, many times that most atheists do not claim there are definitely no gods. Your continued drivelling on about claims of 'godfree' can only be due either to failure to read, deliberate straw man construction, or stupidity.
....and that is the major malfunction which leads them to confuse methodology with ontology.
No - you lust keep moronically repeating this like it's some magic mantra. I doubt you even know what it means...
How about you give the full argument of how you know what other people's ontological beliefs are and in what way they are confusing it with methodology...
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I am saying methodology does not help with issues of ontology.....and experience of God and the reality thereof and indeed Godfree, the view of atheism.....are issues of ontology.
Given that claims of God and claims of Godfree can be discussed philosophically and rationally and logically providing there is no erroneous claim that these are necessarily Godfree.
So you agree you cannot offer anything to sort out the issue highlighted in msg 389.
For your benefit here it is again.
I have answered it several times.
Here we go for another time:
(Before we go though I am proceeding along the lines that you equate experience of God with revelation of God. You use the former in your case and the latter in my friends case, so I will continue assuming you use them interchangeably)
You have a revelation of God. This best fits the Christian narrative. You therefore accept a divine Jesus.
He has a revelation of God. This best fits the Jewish narrative. He therefore does not accept a divine Jesus. If he thought there was a divine Jesus the Jewish narrative would not be the best fit to his experience.
[Further notes]
1) I use narrative as a short hand version for you "linguistic framework, so feel free to change them as best suits you]
2) Ignoring my friend, do you really think there are no Jewish people who believe they have a direct personal experience of God? Unless people who do are all lying the question remains, of how we know if your or their or any personal revelation is reliable.
[quote/]
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Many antitheists and non theists are in the experience of this forum very cagey about their beliefs........and that is the major malfunction which leads them to confuse methodology with ontology.
However where they stand
I have told you exactly what my view of gods and the "non-natural" realm is.
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Actually, you can't really decide on anything without some sort of methodology.
Nobody I know of is claiming that there are definitely no gods, so your 'Godfree' nonsense is another straw man.
Shaker for instance has said in terms of questions of providence of the universe has cheerfully admitted that he doesn't know but it wasn't God.
That is a prime case of Godfree.
Ontological naturalist position is implicit in all forum arguments against theists.
You are wrong to portray these arguments as merely critiques of methodology.
Are you suggesting that al are some kind of weird theist atheist hybrid.
The person who actually needs to explain the leaky materialism you propose is actually Bluehillside but maybe you can explain how an ontological fence squatter can also be a vehement antitheist or anti supernaturalist.
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Shaker for instance has said in terms of questions of providence of the universe has cheerfully admitted that he doesn't know but it wasn't God.
No reason to think so, old fruit. And claiming to know something on no evidence whatever is a bit stupid isn't it, Vlad?
By the way: I know this is a daily thing with you but you appear not to know what providence means.
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So you agree you cannot offer anything to sort out the issue highlighted in msg 389.
For your benefit here it is again.
I have answered it several times.
Here we go for another time:
(Before we go though I am proceeding along the lines that you equate experience of God with revelation of God. You use the former in your case and the latter in my friends case, so I will continue assuming you use them interchangeably)
You have a revelation of God. This best fits the Christian narrative. You therefore accept a divine Jesus.
He has a revelation of God. This best fits the Jewish narrative. He therefore does not accept a divine Jesus. If he thought there was a divine Jesus the Jewish narrative would not be the best fit to his experience.
[Further notes]
1) I use narrative as a short hand version for you "linguistic framework, so feel free to change them as best suits you]
2) Ignoring my friend, do you really think there are no Jewish people who believe they have a direct personal experience of God? Unless people who do are all lying the question remains, of how we know if your or their or any personal revelation is reliable.
[quote/]
I do not believe that I can find a methodology for an ontology.
That should be clear.
I cannot give you what you want since that would make me complicit in your error namely that philosophical methods and logical methods are not relevant in religion.
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Ontological naturalist position is implicit in all forum arguments against theists.
Implicit in what way?
You are wrong to portray these arguments as merely critiques of methodology.
Why?
Are you suggesting that al are some kind of weird theist atheist hybrid.
An atheist (this one anyway) sees no reasoning and no evidence for any gods and hence lacks a belief in any.
I see no evidence or reasoning for vampires either.
Both vampires and gods might exist - but I have no reason to think they do.
What is so complicated about that?
Why can't you get it into your head?
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I see no evidence or reasoning for vampires either.
Both vampires and gods might exist - but I have no reason to think they do.
What is so complicated about that?
Why can't you get it into your head?
I think this is all about the fact that he finally admitted earlier that he has not got a methodology for taking his true for me claims forward to objectively real.
He is trying to salvage a draw by saying that you can't prove there is no God either. The fact that no one has made this claim always escapes him.
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Given that claims of God and claims of Godfree can be discussed philosophically and rationally and logically providing there is no erroneous claim that these are necessarily Godfree.
And yet even in discussion with another theist, you can't support your arguments.
ht
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Actually, you can't really decide on anything without some sort of methodology.
Nobody I know of is claiming that there are definitely no gods, so your 'Godfree' nonsense is another straw man.
I'm afraid that when methodology on this site they mean science and then try to hand wave the fact that science does not help with ontology.
Any victories an antitheist thinks he gets by talking about methodology is actually pyrrhic and indeed not a victory.
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And yet even in discussion with another theist, you can't support your arguments.
ht
No,
I can argue philosophically, rationally and logically with another theist and we can compare our witness.
When I argue with Stephen he is putting up an ersatz atheistic best shot at what he thinks a religious person is.
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I'm afraid that when methodology on this site they mean science and then try to hand wave the fact that science does not help with ontology.
Any victories an antitheist thinks he gets by talking about methodology is actually pyrrhic and indeed not a victory.
How do you arrive at a conclusion as to what you regard as true without a methodology?
I don't care if it's science or something else.
At the moment you seem to be claiming some magic insight directly into what is real and what is not, via reading a few books and matching it to something you experienced.
That would be fine if it worked for everybody else and they reached the same conclusion. It patently does not, otherwise we wouldn't have endless, sects, cults, religions, superstitions, atheists and agnostics...
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So, are you saying you can't provide us with a methodology in order to verify that you have correctly identified the cause of your experience.
The alternative explanation is mental aberration. Stephen.
Feel free to demonstrate mental abberance.
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I can argue philosophically, rationally and logically with another theist and we can compare our witness.
In other words you can discuss your relative subjective experiences, which is fine and dandy if that's what you wish to do, but takes us not one jot further in determining whether god or gods objectively exist (in other words true for everyone), in other words outside of subjective 'experience' (in other words 'true for me' but perhaps not 'true for you').
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How do you arrive at a conclusion as to what you regard as true without a methodology?
I don't care if it's science or something else.
At the moment you seem to be claiming some magic insight directly into what is real and what is not, via reading a few books and matching it to something you experienced.
That would be fine if it worked for everybody else and they reached the same conclusion. It patently does not, otherwise we wouldn't have endless, sects, cults, religions, superstitions, atheists and agnostics...
Methodology is not ontology Stranger.
When is that going to sink in.
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In other words you can discuss your relative subjective experiences, which is fine and dandy if that's what you wish to do, but takes us not one jot further in determining whether god or gods objectively exist (in other words true for everyone), in other words outside of subjective 'experience' (in other words 'true for me' but perhaps not 'true for you').
You are saying therefore that objectively real things do not cause experiences?
That methodologies give rise to experiences.
Also, although you may not like it, your musings move you inexorably towards a conclusion of mental
Why not cut to the chase and prove mental abbération.
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Methodology is not ontology Stranger.
When is that going to sink in.
Evasion is not an answer. When is that going to sink in?
Chanting your methodology/ontology mantra means nothing; you might as well just post "wibble".
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The alternative explanation is mental aberration. Stephen.
Feel free to demonstrate mental abberance.
Right after you demonstrate mental aberration in everybody who doesn't believe in your god.....
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You are saying therefore that objectively real things do not cause experiences?
I am saying that how we react to things (i.e. our experience of them) is, of course, subjective. You and I might experience the same thing but our subjective interpretation of the meaning of that experience may be entirely different - it is subjective.
Objective truths are independent of subjective experience - indeed they would remain objectively true even if there wasn't anyone around to experience them.
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I am saying that how we react to things (i.e. our experience of them) is, of course, subjective. You and I might experience the same thing but our subjective interpretation of the meaning of that experience may be entirely different - it is subjective.
Objective truths are independent of subjective experience - indeed they would remain objectively true even if there wasn't anyone around to experience them.
I've never experience Australia.
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I've never been to me.
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I've never experience Australia.
Exactly, but Australia exists whether you have experienced it or not.
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I've never experience Australia.
Indeed, and Australia exists whether or not your experience it, or even whether any human had experienced it. It also exists regardless of whether your experience of it (if you have had an experience of it) was favourable or not favourable.
So our experience of Australia is irrelevant to the objective truth of the existence of Australia. Are you really trying to claim that whether or not you have experienced Australia is relevant to whether Australia actually exists in an objective sense.
Thanks so very much for providing the perfect example to allow me to explain why I am right and you are talking rubbish.
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I cannot give you what you want since that would make me complicit in your error namely that philosophical methods and logical methods are not relevant in religion.
Nope I have never said that. It is simply that you cannot give a logical explanation.
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No,
I can argue philosophically, rationally and logically with another theist and we can compare our witness.
When I argue with Stephen he is putting up an ersatz atheistic best shot at what he thinks a religious person is.
Bullshit.
1) nothing ersatz about it.
2) Are you really saying that there are Jewish people who believe they have a deep experience of God, and that the Jewish narrative is the one which best explains it?
3) It wouldn't matter anyway if you all agreed about your experience. You would still need to show that the cause of the experience was God.
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The alternative explanation is mental aberration. Stephen.
Feel free to demonstrate mental abberance.
You could be mistaken. I don't know why you find this so hard to accept.
You have made a claim that you have had an experience of God which was caused by an encounter with an objectively true God. The burden of proof is all yours.
Again this is very very simple.
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Indeed, and Australia exists whether or not your experience it, or even whether any human had experienced it. It also exists regardless of whether your experience of it (if you have had an experience of it) was favourable or not favourable.
So our experience of Australia is irrelevant to the objective truth of the existence of Australia. Are you really trying to claim that whether or not you have experienced Australia is relevant to whether Australia actually exists in an objective sense.
Thanks so very much for providing the perfect example to allow me to explain why I am right and you are talking rubbish.
I think you are prematurely satisfied with your own answers to the Australia thing.
How for instance do we know it to be objective. You conjured its objectivity out of nothing.
It is objective and experienced. That should trigger investigation.
No methodology was required to make it objective therefore all demands and appeals to methodology are irrelevant to ontology.
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You could be mistaken. I don't know why you find this so hard to accept.
You have made a claim that you have had an experience of God which was caused by an encounter with an objectively true God. The burden of proof is all yours.
Again this is very very simple.
Feel free to demonstrate the mistake.
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I've never been to me.
I've been undressed by Kings and I've seen some things that a woman should never see...........after three...........
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaave beeeeeen to everwheyer...........but ah Nevvah been ta me.
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I think you are prematurely satisfied with your own answers to the Australia thing.
How for instance do we know it to be objective. You conjured its objectivity out of nothing.
It is objective and experienced. That should trigger investigation.
No methodology was required to make it objective therefore all demands and appeals to methodology are irrelevant to ontology.
Because we can use objective methodologies to determine that it is there. But that only proves its existence, it doesn't cause it to exist. If Australia had been uninhabited by humans until the 1700s it would still have existed before anyone had experienced it. That's what objective truth is all about, it exists outside of subjective human experience.
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Because we can use objective methodologies to determine that it is there. But that only proves its existence, it doesn't cause it to exist. If Australia had been uninhabited by humans until the 1700s it would still have existed before anyone had experienced it. That's what objective truth is all about, it exists outside of subjective human experience.
But it is there whether any methodology is done or not....you admitted that yourself.
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I saw this on another forum. GOOD FOR JESUS!
The Freedom From Religion Foundation sued the Chino Valley school board to stop praying during their meetings, and won. Time to award penalaties and costs.
Well, Judge JESUS G. Bernal awarded $202,000 to the FFRF in the suit, and it appears that the school board members themselves, rather than the taxpayer, are liable.
Chino Valley school board members ordered to pay $202K in legal fees
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Feel free to demonstrate the mistake.
No, you need to show that it is God.
Saying that you have not justified your claim is not a claim in its own right. Simply a statement of fact.
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But it is there whether any methodology is done or not....you admitted that yourself.
Of course it is - that's not what we are arguing about. We are arguing about your claims that your experience of god provides evidence that god is objectively true - it doesn't.
We can all agree that god either exists in an objective manner (i.e. for everyone) or does not objectively exist. Currently we have no evidence to support the objective existence of god and your subjective experience is irrelevant in an objective sense - all it does is suggest that god is 'true for you' (i.e. subjectively) not that god is true objectively.
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No, you need to show that it is God.
Saying that you have not justified your claim is not a claim in its own right. Simply a statement of fact.
No you need to demonstrate it is a mistake otherwise you are claiming mistake as the default. I am quite willing to seek to demonstrate God using testimony, philosophy, rationality and logic.
What are you doing about demonstrating mistake?
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Of course it is - that's not what we are arguing about. We are arguing about your claims that your experience of god provides evidence that god is objectively true - it doesn't.
I don't believe I have said that.
Relating of my experience of God couldn't possibly be the same as say dropping God on top of you.
You have to find God for your self. All I can do is give witness statement and philosophical, rational and logical explanation.
I still haven't experienced Australia....and I won't until I make some kind of movement or Australia comes to me.
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I don't believe I have said that.
Relating of my experience of God couldn't possibly be the same as say dropping God on top of you.
You have to find God for your self. All I can do is give witness statement and philosophical, rational and logical explanation.
I still haven't experienced Australia....and I won't until I make some kind of movement or Australia comes to me.
But there is a method by which you could confirm its existence.
You could book a flight there and stand on it.
There are any number of ways, perhaps looking at pictures of the Earth from space. We do not need to take anyones word for the existence of Australia, but you are asking everyone to accept your word for god.
Can you not see this simple mistake?
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But there is a method by which you could confirm its existence.
You could book a flight there and stand on it.
I think I've made that point already.
Have you been in space Be Rational?
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Nope I have never said that. It is simply that you cannot give a logical explanation.
Why not? If that is so then logic is naturalistic.......surely that isn't true except in the wet dream of an ontological naturalist.
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...philosophical, rational and logical explanation.
Where were those?
I still haven't experienced Australia....and I won't until I make some kind of movement or Australia comes to me.
Yes, but you don't dispute that it exists. Why not?
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No,
I can argue philosophically, rationally and logically with another theist and we can compare our witness.
And what happens if they don't match?
When I argue with Stephen he is putting up an ersatz atheistic best shot at what he thinks a religious person is.
Not really, no. It's odd that if it is the way you say, you should be able to demonstrate the 'ersatzness', and yet you don't...
Methodology is not ontology.
And yet ontology is a methodology.
ht
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No you need to demonstrate it is a mistake otherwise you are claiming mistake as the default. I am quite willing to seek to demonstrate God using testimony, philosophy, rationality and logic.
What are you doing about demonstrating mistake?
No, I am claiming undemonstrated as the default, it might be true it might not be true.
As you have not been able to demonstrate it is objectively true then I think that's a pretty sensible position to take.
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I think I've made that point already.
Have you been in space Be Rational?
You don't need to travel into space to be able to prove it exists in an objective manner. And space existed as it does now even when human's subjective experience of looking up into the night sky lead them to think that there was a big dome with light points on it which moved around, as was the case for many ancient civilisations.
Their experience told them that - it wasn't objectively true.
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Well we are asked to take you word for it that you have had a personal revelation of God. Actually no one has said they believe you to be insincere just how do you know you are not mistaken. I see you won't extend that courtesy to others though.
And you haven't' answered my other question (this is third time of asking). Do you really no accept that there are other people out there who have deeply held personal beliefs based on experience of God that are mutually exclusive to yours?
No.............. you asked me for my experience and it was so given. You have made of it what you have.
There is no question of me saying that no Jew has an experience of God.
I had an experience of God before I became a Christian where I acquired an awareness of the 'voice or mind' behind religious writings.
What I am questioning now is how an experience of Jesus not being God differs from, say, your acquisition of a belief that Jesus is not God?
This requires obviously the testimonial of someone you say has such a religious experience.
Just because we are religious doesn't mean that all our views are derived by direct divine experience particular if your faith partly involves having faith in the faith of your fathers.
Put bluntly I suspect atheist confusion and conflation in the understanding of religion on your part and it's fair to say that I am supposed to accept your account of another's experience.
Have you in fact contacted your friend after you said you would do so?
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Just because we are religious doesn't mean that all our views are derived by direct divine experience particular if your faith partly involves having faith in the faith of your fathers.
Oh dear - and are you suggesting that your experience was totally undetermined by the dominant religion of the society in which you were brought up? If you could ever extricate your 'experience' from such societal/religious influences then one might give your particular 'revelation' a little more respect - if you were an indigenous tribeperson from the Amazon who had never encountered Christianity before - and only learned later to fit his experience with the written/spoken theology of the Christian tradition.
You learned the Christian tradition in some respects just like the rest of us in western civilisation, and are inextricably conditioned by many of its claims. Unless of course you led a remarkably sheltered life.
I would just add - since I am no stranger to such phenomena - that such things can seem so overwhelming that their veracity is not often questioned. Overwhelming mental experiences do not ipso facto indicate divine truth.
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Oh dear - and are you suggesting that your experience was totally undetermined by the dominant religion of the society in which you were brought up? If you could ever extricate your 'experience' from such societal/religious influences then one might give your particular 'revelation' a little more respect - if you were an indigenous tribeperson from the Amazon who had never encountered Christianity before - and only learned later to fit his experience with the written/spoken theology of the Christian tradition.
You learned the Christian tradition in some respects just like the rest of us in western civilisation, and are inextricably conditioned by many of its claims. Unless of course you led a remarkably sheltered life.
I would just add - since I am no stranger to such phenomena - that such things can seem so overwhelming that their veracity is not often questioned. Overwhelming mental experiences do not ipso facto indicate divine truth.
Indeed - and a question back to Vlad - so you have accepted that only some of your experiences are divinely inspired. So given that not all are therefore (even in your view) divinely inspired how do you work out which ones are and which ones aren't. And if some aren't (by your own admission) divinely inspired, how do you know that they all aren't.
Yet again Vlad's arguments and justifications are crumbling to dust before our very eyes, and this time he is the author of his own downfall.
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Oh dear - and are you suggesting that your experience was totally undetermined by the dominant religion of the society in which you were brought up? If you could ever extricate your 'experience' from such societal/religious influences then one might give your particular 'revelation' a little more respect - if you were an indigenous tribeperson from the Amazon who had never encountered Christianity before - and only learned later to fit his experience with the written/spoken theology of the Christian tradition.
You learned the Christian tradition in some respects just like the rest of us in western civilisation, and are inextricably conditioned by many of its claims. Unless of course you led a remarkably sheltered life.
I would just add - since I am no stranger to such phenomena - that such things can seem so overwhelming that their veracity is not often questioned. Overwhelming mental experiences do not ipso facto indicate divine truth.
Not sure of your implied distinction between religions and other faith/life/cosmic positions based on say ontological materialism and /or humanism.
I believe there is a type who can dogmatically hold to propositions inflexibly and without doubt.
I am not of that type and so all of the cosmic/life positions get their chance to reassert themselves and yet have still managed to fail.
I'm afraid all you guys on here offer is a cosy if defensive agnosticism I left long ago coupled with an almost rabidly loony antitheism which my even cosy, defensive agnostic former self might have found quite strange.
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Indeed - and a question back to Vlad - so you have accepted that only some of your experiences are divinely inspired. So given that not all are therefore (even in your view) divinely inspired how do you work out which ones are and which ones aren't. And if some aren't (by your own admission) divinely inspired, how do you know that they all aren't.
Yet again Vlad's arguments and justifications are crumbling to dust before our very eyes, and this time he is the author of his own downfall.
No, we are trying to establish whether we can equate an experience of Christ with a belief that a Jesus not experienced is not divine held by a person who is religion.
Particularly where an atheist can hold the latter position.
Is the atheist experiencing this divinely? Or is the Jewish person merely holding that belief intellectually or philosophically?
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No.............. you asked me for my experience and it was so given. You have made of it what you have.
I accept your testimony and experience as true for you. Not a problem.
There is no question of me saying that no Jew has an experience of God.
I had an experience of God before I became a Christian where I acquired an awareness of the 'voice or mind' behind religious writings.
What I am questioning now is how an experience of Jesus not being God differs from, say, your acquisition of a belief that Jesus is not God?
The position isn't different. I have no belief in a divine Jesus. People of Jewish faith have no belief in a divine Jesus.
I get it through lack of evidence.
They get it through there understanding of God..
This requires obviously the testimonial of someone you say has such a religious experience.
Just because we are religious doesn't mean that all our views are derived by direct divine experience particular if your faith partly involves having faith in the faith of your fathers.
Have you in fact contacted your friend after you said you would do so?
Unbelievable arrogance.
So if some one claims experience of God that is fine because it agrees with you. If it doesn't agree with you then the error is theirs and comes through some other route and so yours is the true one. Absolutely unbelievable, I am literally staggered by the arrogance.
I have actually I asked him how he knows there is an objective God. Further to that I have asked him why he rejects the divinity of Christ?
I am not expecting back anything different to what he has told me before but I said I would ask so I did.
Put bluntly I suspect atheist confusion and conflation in the understanding of religion on your part and it's fair to say that I am supposed to accept your account of another's experience.
Well you expect us to accept yours.
You seem to be suprised that there is one person out there who c;aims to have an experience of God but comcludes differently to you. You are wrong there are a very great many of them. you only have to look and ask around to find out.
Anyway, even if everyone did have an experience that wa the same as yours it would get you one inch closer to moving it from subjectively true to objectively true.
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Not sure of your implied distinction between religions and other faith/life/cosmic positions based on say ontological materialism and /or humanism.
I believe there is a type who can dogmatically hold to propositions inflexibly and without doubt.
I am not of that type and so all of the cosmic/life positions get their chance to reassert themselves and yet have still managed to fail.
I'm afraid all you guys on here offer is a cosy if defensive agnosticism I left long ago coupled with an almost rabidly loony antitheism which my even cosy, defensive agnostic former self might have found quite strange.
All that is being said is that people using their experience to tell if something is objectively true or not is not obviously reliable because people come to different conclusions.
Even if they didn't though it would still not get you from subjective to objective.
This is basic basic stuff
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I accept your testimony and experience as true for you. Not a problem.
The position isn't different. I have no belief in a divine Jesus. People of Jewish faith have no belief in a divine Jesus.
I get it through lack of evidence.
They get it through there understanding of God..
Unbelievable arrogance.
So if some one claims experience of God that is fine because it agrees with you. If it doesn't agree with you then the error is theirs and comes through some other route and so yours is the true one. Absolutely unbelievable, I am literally staggered by the arrogance.
I have actually I asked him how he knows there is an objective God. Further to that I have asked him why he rejects the divinity of Christ?
Thank you.
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Thank you.
And if his reply is the one he has given me before that I have already given to you, what will your response be?
Furthermore, can you answer the point about even if everyone who had a religious experience agreed with yours how would this promote it from subjective to objective?
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No, we are trying to establish whether we can equate an experience of Christ with a belief that a Jesus not experienced is not divine held by a person who is religion.
Particularly where an atheist can hold the latter position.
Is the atheist experiencing this divinely? Or is the Jewish person merely holding that belief intellectually or philosophically?
No - that is your discussion with another person.
I am asking how you know which ones of your 'experiences' are divinely inspired and which aren't given that you yourself were the one who proffered the view that they could be one or the other.
And given your own admission that some aren't divinely inspired how can you be sure that they all aren't.
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No - that is your discussion with another person.
I am asking how you know which ones of your 'experiences' are divinely inspired and which aren't given that you yourself were the one who proffered the view that they could be one or the other.
And given your own admission that some aren't divinely inspired how can you be sure that they all aren't.
He has already told you.
If they match reach the same conclusion then they are divinely inspired and true.
If they contradict his then it is still evidence of his God but the bit that doesn't agree can be dismissed because it is cultural and not a real experience.
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And if his reply is the one he has given me before that I have already given to you, what will your response be?
Furthermore, can you answer the point about even if everyone who had a religious experience agreed with yours how would this promote it from subjective to objective?
I'm sorry but so far you have said he has had a religious experience which tells him that Jesus is not God and that it is standard jewish belief.
It is standard moslem belief, Unitarian belief and atheist belief also. How then is his experience distinct from yours or a moslems or Unitarians . All of these can have religious experience of God but you cannot have and yet you have the same view.
I am entitled to press on the issue thereof as to how his conviction was arrived at.
I would also be interested in his views on my experience which seems more clear cut,
isn't mere intellectually assent( I believe in Australia although I have no experience of it).......and indeed the difference between his position on my experience and yours.
To reiterate, I am not saying he cannot have had an experience of God I only want to know where the information of Jesus not divine comes into it.
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I'm sorry but so far you have said he has had a religious experience which tells him that Jesus is not God and that it is standard jewish belief.
It is standard moslem belief, Unitarian belief and atheist belief also. How then is his experience distinct from yours or a moslems or Unitarians . All of these can have religious experience of God but you cannot have and yet you have the same view.
I am entitled to press on the issue thereof as to how his conviction was arrived at.
I would also be interested in his views on my experience which seems more clear cut,
isn't mere intellectually assent( I believe in Australia although I have no experience of it).......and indeed the difference between his position on my experience and yours.
To reiterate, I am not saying he cannot have had an experience of God I only want to know where the information of Jesus not divine comes into it.
I have said no such thing. It would pay you to read what people are actually saying rather than what you think/want them to be saying.
He does not say he has had a divine revelation that Jesus is not divine. GOT THAT?
He claims (and in the same way I grant you your subjective truth I do the same to him, but I grant neither of you objectivity).
For the forty millionth time:
You have an experience of God. It is best explained to you by the Christian narrative.
He has an experience of God. it is best explained by the Jewish narrative. God's taking on human form is not part of this narrative.
He has done exactly the same as you. He has attached a narrative (or linguistic framework as you like to put it) to his experience. Those narratives are mutually exclusive.
I know you don't believe me but you are wrong to do so. This was one of the reasons I joined the forum my familiarity with people who claim experience as a guide to objective proof.
It's not so bad with him though because he doesn't explicitly state that I will be in trouble with the guvnor if I don't accept his claims as true for me.
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I'm sorry but so far you have said he has had a religious experience which tells him that Jesus is not God and that it is standard jewish belief.
It is standard moslem belief, Unitarian belief and atheist belief also. How then is his experience distinct from yours or a moslems or Unitarians . All of these can have religious experience of God but you cannot have and yet you have the same view.
I am entitled to press on the issue thereof as to how his conviction was arrived at.
I would also be interested in his views on my experience which seems more clear cut,
isn't mere intellectually assent( I believe in Australia although I have no experience of it).......and indeed the difference between his position on my experience and yours.
To reiterate, I am not saying he cannot have had an experience of God I only want to know where the information of Jesus not divine comes into it.
You seem terribly confused about standard thought thing.
I have told you he believes his experience is best explained by the Jewish narrative. The question then is why YOU seem surprised that he doesn't accept the divinity of Christ.
Why is this different to my atheism? Because he accepts the existence of at least one God.
Basic basic basic stuff.
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I have said no such thing. It would pay you to read what people are actually saying rather than what you think/want them to be saying.
He does not say he has had a divine revelation that Jesus is not divine. GOT THAT?
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But I am saying that I have had an experience of Christ
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But I am saying that I have had an experience of Christ
AARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
But what gets it from subjective to objective?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh
It is a claim!!!!!!!!!!
You now need to show your claim is true if you want it to be objective fact for all.
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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AARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
But what gets it from subjective to objective?
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh
I am not claiming that statement of my experience is anything more than sincerely offered witness statement which after all you requested. Why did you request it unless you could analyse it? You yourself must see some mileage in this stuff.
To me you seem happy with the uncertainty in the everyday material things and even whether or not the naturalistic view of everything is true but are seeking absolute certainty in respect of God.
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I am not claiming that statement of my experience is anything more than sincerely offered witness statement which after all you requested. Why did you request it unless you could analyse it? You yourself must see some mileage in this stuff.
To me you seem happy with the uncertainty in the everyday material things and even whether or not the naturalistic view of everything is true but are seeking absolute certainty in respect of God.
I accept your statement as a true for you belief. I sincerely do.
I did not request a witness statement though. You said you had a methodology that could show an objectively true God. This is obviously not the case.
I am not seeking absolute certainty in God, just something that gets at least a millimetre beyond true for me and only type claims.
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"You said you had a methodology that could shoe an objectively true God."
Well, a shoehorn would be the first step.
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"You said you had a methodology that could shoe an objectively true God."
Well, a shoehorn would be the first step.
:)
corrected. Ta
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I accept your statement as a true for you belief. I sincerely do.
I did not request a witness statement though. You said you had a methodology that could show an objectively true God. This is obviously not the case.
I am not seeking absolute certainty in God, just something that gets at least a millimetre beyond true for me and only type claims.
Stephen, you asked for me to describe my experience. That is a witness statement. I have to ask whether it is a genuine encounter. Certainly it ran counter to how I imagined things to be, I was in fact biased against God, in many respects, as in the experience of Isaiah, St Paul and Augustine and not for him and the experience was the very opposite of ego affirming. For me then the encounter has all the hallmarks of being objective.
As Brownie has said I cannot hand you God, I cannot give you the experience but whether God is true for me only?
Since I was once in the position you were in and am now where I am now, I cannot give you the assurance of you not experiencing Christ.
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Jon, I would like to hear of your experience and would be prepared to tell you mine, which was quite profound, but I am not sure this is the right place for it. We are still unable to prove any of it, rationally or scientifically; our experiences could be explained away rationally. Nevertheless, the experiences were true ones (certainly for us), inexplicable to anyone who has not experienced the same.
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No, we are trying to establish whether we can equate an experience of Christ with a belief that a Jesus not experienced is not divine held by a person who is religion.
Particularly where an atheist can hold the latter position.
Is the atheist experiencing this divinely? Or is the Jewish person merely holding that belief intellectually or philosophically?
I think that Sassy doesn't believe that Jesus was divine, why not ask her?
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For me then the encounter has all the hallmarks of being objective.
How - this is an 'experience' that you even describe as 'for me' - it is subjective.
Were you on your own? If not did the other person or persons also have the same experience. If you were do you think that had there been some other people around that they would have had the same experience too. Everything you have described to date seems consistent with an 'in my mind' type experience - like a dream or hearing voices. Very common of course, and can be very powerful as others have attested, but merely a manifestation of your own neurobiology and by definition subjective as someone else's neurobiology, even if sat right next to you, would lead them to believe that they had encountered what you encountered.
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Jon, I would like to hear of your experience and would be prepared to tell you mine, which was quite profound, but I am not sure this is the right place for it. We are still unable to prove any of it, rationally or scientifically; our experiences could be explained away rationally. Nevertheless, the experiences were true ones (certainly for us), inexplicable to anyone who has not experienced the same.
Actually I think lots of us, if not all, have quite profound experiences throughout our lives. I know I have.
The only issue comes when people insist that their subjective experiences are objectively true.
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Actually I think lots of us, if not all, have quite profound experiences throughout our lives. I know I have.
The only issue comes when people insist that their subjective experiences are objectively true.
Agreed.
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Agreed.
Likewise
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Jon, I would like to hear of your experience and would be prepared to tell you mine, which was quite profound, but I am not sure this is the right place for it. We are still unable to prove any of it, rationally or scientifically; our experiences could be explained away rationally. Nevertheless, the experiences were true ones (certainly for us), inexplicable to anyone who has not experienced the same.
I'd like to hear about yours and his experiences. I, too, have had experiences, and I know others who also have.
It would be very interesting to share them and see what conclusions could be drawn.
ht
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I'd like to hear about yours and his experiences. I, too, have had experiences, and I know others who also have.
It would be very interesting to share them and see what conclusions could be drawn.
ht
Yes that would be interesting. :)
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Jon, I would like to hear of your experience and would be prepared to tell you mine, which was quite profound, but I am not sure this is the right place for it. We are still unable to prove any of it, rationally or scientifically; our experiences could be explained away rationally. Nevertheless, the experiences were true ones (certainly for us), inexplicable to anyone who has not experienced the same.
Of course.
I have said almost continually that methodology is not ontology however whether they are bald about it or subtle the naturalist implication is that experiences like ours have at base nothing to do with the divine.
They demand proof or grounds to a level greater than that they expect of their naturalism and justified that in the platitudinous but empty phrase extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence although I firmly believe I have said far, far more about my beliefs and their grounds than any non theist in these parts who tend to take their beliefs as axiomatic .
Another such phrase is ''true for you''. They are happy for that to be so since they believe they are in possession of the ''true for everyone''. ''True for you'' is code for ''you are wrong.''or at best'' your experience is only relevant for you''
I have said that I cannot and would not GIVE my experience to him. Experience is not like that.
What I can say, by dint of explaining my experience, is that this is unlike say liking Chopin. It has the hallmarks of being a proper encounter namely of surprise, of awareness, of new and affective information and disturbance of ego, and against personal bias.
In summary then I cannot give him God or faith but I can dispute that we can absolutely and safely say that it is a ''just true for you''. I cannot prove it scientifically but then neither can naturalism be proved that way either.
In terms of whether it is fit to describe my experience... Stephen Taylor requested it and I met his request.
Enough has probably been said now in what looks like an absence of any new data or leads from my interlocutors.
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Stephen, you asked for me to describe my experience. That is a witness statement.
I think there is a genuine misunderstanding here.
I did ask you to describe your experience and you did give me a witness statement.
I accept it as your sincerely held belief.
We have moved on now though and I have been asking how you get from your true for you claim to objectively true. Something you can’t achieve by a witness statement alone.
I have to ask whether it is a genuine encounter. Certainly it ran counter to how I imagined things to be, I was in fact biased against God, in many respects, as in the experience of Isaiah, St Paul and Augustine and not for him and the experience was the very opposite of ego affirming. For me then the encounter has all the hallmarks of being objective.
Clearly you have been on quite a journey. However, the rockiness of the journey or the fact that the outcome is unpleasant again does nothing to get you from subjective to objective
As Brownie has said I cannot hand you God, I cannot give you the experience but whether God is true for me only?
I agree with you. The question is whether God is true subjectively for you or objectively true for all.
At the moment the answer seems to be that your claim of an objectively true God is undemonstrated.
That is fine, I’m very comfortable with that. The only reason we have had this debate is that yourself and Hope have claimed that it can be demonstrated.
Reading back over some of the posts (I note that some got a bit heated) I think that there might me another way of expressing what your methodology is.
Correct me if I am wrong but is it along the lines of.
The way to know God is through a personal experience of Him. If I were to go on the same journey as you had I might/would become convinced that god is objectively true.
If so, I agree. I might. It would still be a subjective truth though me believing it be objective does not make it objective.
I cannot give you the assurance of you not experiencing Christ
Not quite sure I understand what you mean by this.
I am not seeking assurance of an absent Christ.
I might go on to have an experience of Christ like you have at some point in my life, I don’t rule anything out.
I don’t look at the world in quite the same way that I did 20 years ago, who can say what my views will be 20 years from now if I am still around.
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Actually I think lots of us, if not all, have quite profound experiences throughout our lives. I know I have.
The only issue comes when people insist that their subjective experiences are objectively true.
People do need to accept that what is real to them may seem like fantasy to others. I accept it but I wouldn't talk about any personal experience of that nature to just anybody - not 'go public' if you like. It is a private thing.
Jon said: What I can say, by dint of explaining my experience, is that this is unlike say liking Chopin. It has the hallmarks of being a proper encounter namely of surprise, of awareness, of new and affective information and disturbance of ego, and against personal bias.
That is very similar to my experience. I didn't see anything or hear voices but it was quite profound. It would mean nothing to most others. Enough said about it.
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I agree with you. The question is whether God is true subjectively for you or objectively true for all.
At the moment the answer seems to be that your claim of an objectively true God is undemonstrated.
That is fine, I’m very comfortable with that.
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Dear Wonderful Horsethorn,
Great minds, yes! young Stephano talks about Profound experiences,
Actually I think lots of us, if not all, have quite profound experiences throughout our lives. I know I have.
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/profound
But I would be careful here, deep profound life changing experiences can be very personal, so the watch words should be, really think before you post.
Just thinking out loud but is there a common denominator and would that then mean it is objective. :o
Gonnagle.
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I have said almost continually that methodology is not ontology...
But an ontology is a methodology.
ht
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Yes that would be interesting. :)
It would, wouldn't it?
;)
ht
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Dear Wonderful Horsethorn,
Great minds, yes! young Stephano talks about Profound experiences,
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/profound
But I would be careful here, deep profound life changing experiences can be very personal, so the watch words should be, really think before you post.
Just thinking out loud but is there a common denominator and would that then mean it is objective. :o
Gonnagle.
Yes, profound experiences really can change our life.
The 'common denominator' is what I have been investigating for 30-odd years. I think I have a reasonable working hypothesis.
ht
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But an ontology is a methodology.
ht
Is it? I think you are the only one who thinks it is.
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I have said almost continually that methodology is not ontology...
Yes, it's clearly your current favourite straw man.
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Dear Horsethorn,
I think I have a reasonable working hypothesis.
Care to share, sorry but I am a nosey bugger.
Gonnagle.
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Is it? I think you are the only one who thinks it is.
Yes, it is.
It is a means to provide structure for a set of entities. That's a methodology.
ht
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Dear Horsethorn,
Care to share, sorry but I am a nosey bugger.
Gonnagle.
Maybe on another thread? - when Vlad and Brownie set it up, and we can all exchange our experiences and investigate the possibilities...
ht
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Dear Brownie,
People do need to accept that what is real to them may seem like fantasy to others. I accept it but I wouldn't talk about any personal experience of that nature to just anybody - not 'go public' if you like. It is a private thing.
Jon said: What I can say, by dint of explaining my experience, is that this is unlike say liking Chopin. It has the hallmarks of being a proper encounter namely of surprise, of awareness, of new and affective information and disturbance of ego, and against personal bias.
That is very similar to my experience. I didn't see anything or hear voices but it was quite profound. It would mean nothing to most others. Enough said about it.
Same here, no voices, no blinding light, more like what Jon describes, disturbance of ego, which has me really thinking this wonderful morning, mines happened in a Church, if it had happened in the RC Chapel down the road, would I still be celebrating the Teddy Bears return to their rightful place. :o :o :D
Gonnagle.
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Maybe on another thread? - when Vlad and Brownie set it up, and we can all exchange our experiences and investigate the possibilities...
ht
Good idea.
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Explain?
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Of course.
I have said almost continually that methodology is not ontology however whether they are bald about it or subtle the naturalist implication is that experiences like ours have at base nothing to do with the divine.
They demand proof or grounds to a level greater than that they expect of their naturalism and justified that in the platitudinous but empty phrase extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence although I firmly believe I have said far, far more about my beliefs and their grounds than any non theist in these parts who tend to take their beliefs as axiomatic .
Another such phrase is ''true for you''. They are happy for that to be so since they believe they are in possession of the ''true for everyone''. ''True for you'' is code for ''you are wrong.''or at best'' your experience is only relevant for you''
I have said that I cannot and would not GIVE my experience to him. Experience is not like that.
What I can say, by dint of explaining my experience, is that this is unlike say liking Chopin. It has the hallmarks of being a proper encounter namely of surprise, of awareness, of new and affective information and disturbance of ego, and against personal bias.
In summary then I cannot give him God or faith but I can dispute that we can absolutely and safely say that it is a ''just true for you''. I cannot prove it scientifically but then neither can naturalism be proved that way either.
In terms of whether it is fit to describe my experience... Stephen Taylor requested it and I met his request.
I don't require evidence of a higher standard for your objective truth claims than I require for any other objective truth claims.
You seem to have a serious downer on subjective truths.
Why?
Just because it is subjective does not mean that it is of no value.
When I was ill last year I learnt a lot of techniques that help me to stay well. There is nothing objective about these techniques. they generate experiences that I would find very hard to explain to you. That fact that they are subjective says nothing as to whether or not they are of value.
In terms of whether it is fit to describe my experience... Stephen Taylor requested it and I met his request.
No, my request was for how you can tell that your subjective experiences are objectively true. You have failed to meet the request.
You did tell us about your experience though and I thank you for that.
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What I mean is, if that is your claim then good for you. No skin off my nose.