Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Theism and Atheism => Topic started by: Walt Zingmatilder on September 03, 2020, 06:44:29 AM
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If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
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Or, if kangaroos suddenly all turned purple this afternoon (Australian Western Standard Time), sprouted wings overnight and by tomorrow morning they were all found nesting in trees before it was even breakfast time in Sydney - would that be sufficient evidence for 'God', Vlad?
Somehow I don't think putting together an outrageously silly scenario, be it asteroids that end up spelling or purple flying kangaroos, is all that worthwhile an exercise (even if mildly entertaining for around 30 seconds or so).
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Or, if kangaroos suddenly all turned purple this afternoon (Australian Western Standard Time), sprouted wings overnight and by tomorrow morning they were all found nesting in trees before it was even breakfast time in Sydney - would that be sufficient evidence for 'God', Vlad?
Somehow I don't think putting together an outrageously silly scenario, be it asteroids that end up spelling or purple flying kangaroos, is all that worthwhile an exercise (even if mildly entertaining for around 30 seconds or so).
Anything that exposes your desire to be the one who asks the questions rather than answer them is worthwhile Gordon.
Why do you think this question is too ridiculous to answer by questions about Leprechauns and why Christians don’t believe in them are not?
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Anything that exposes your desire to be the one who asks the questions rather than answer them is worthwhile Gordon.
I'd have thought that a thinking person would have interpreted my answer as being a parody of your deliberately ridiculous OP which, in my view, didn't merit a serious answer.
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I'd have thought that a thinking person would have interpreted my answer as being a parody of your deliberately ridiculous OP which, in my view, didn't merit a serious answer.
And yet you think questions from atheists about Leprechauns and why Christians believe in them aren’t ridiculous?
I cannot recall you answering any question. After all you are not here to answer questions but to expose fallacies..........or get others to do it.
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And yet you think questions from atheists about Leprechauns and why Christians believe in them aren’t ridiculous.
The point about Leprechauns is that it is alleged that all arguments for God are also arguments for Leprechauns. That is nonsense, and the continual banging on about Leprechauns by some posters is very tiresome, but it is not comparable to your OP.
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The point about Leprechauns is that it is alleged that all arguments for God are also arguments for Leprechauns. That is nonsense, and the continual banging on about Leprechauns by some posters is very tiresome, but it is not comparable to your OP.
The point about the asteroid is to test the atheist when he/she claims there is insufficient evidence. It establishes type and extent of what they might mean evidence.
Refusal by the atheist is down to fear of where the reasoning process might lead.
Lack of response to this question exposes atheist unwillingness to engage in discussion betraying their purpose on the board as mere sniping.
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If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
Well, it would certainly be evidence that there was something powerful at work sending us a message but it would be rather ambiguous by itself. As I've said elsewhere, the unqualified word "God" is all but meaningless. Which god? What are we supposed to do about it? Is it a message from a god or a warning against them?
It would need to be followed up with some equally miraculous but more detailed message. Then we'd have to go from there...
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Well, it would certainly be evidence that there was something powerful at work sending us a message but it would be rather ambiguous by itself. As I've said elsewhere, the unqualified word "God" is all but meaningless. Which god? What are we supposed to do about it? Is it a message from a god or a warning against them?
It would need to be followed up with some equally miraculous but more detailed message. Then we'd have to go from there...
What do you mean “go from there”.
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If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
It would certainly make me seriously consider it, yes, although I'd have to see exactly how clearly it was spelt out - I'm reminded of Matt Parker's demonstration of how you could build a network of isosceles and equilateral triangles by joining up the locations of Woolworths stores in the UK. I guess it would depend on how much of a signal to noise ratio there appeared to be - get enough pieces of toast and you find images of Jesus, Mary and Dee Snider from Twisted Sister, but I'm not sure it's a sign of anything in particular.
O.
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It would certainly make me seriously consider it, yes, although I'd have to see exactly how clearly it was spelt out - I'm reminded of Matt Parker's demonstration of how you could build a network of isosceles and equilateral triangles by joining up the locations of Woolworths stores in the UK. I guess it would depend on how much of a signal to noise ratio there appeared to be - get enough pieces of toast and you find images of Jesus, Mary and Dee Snider from Twisted Sister, but I'm not sure it's a sign of anything in particular.
O.
Ok let’s try zero noise.
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What do you mean “go from there”.
I mean see what the message said. I guess ideally, if it was from a god, it could be individual messages to each person on earth. After all, god would know better than I do what would convince me and it might not be the same as what would convince somebody else. But it would need to be clear an unambiguous - totally unlike the bible, for example.
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If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
Another example of your daft wummery. ::) Of course it wouldn't be evidence of god.
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Another example of your daft wummery. ::) Of course it wouldn't be evidence of god.
Not summery the reasons for the questions have been outlined.
What extra would need to happen for you to believe?
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Vlad,
If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
Why would anyone think that to be evidence for “god”?
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Slart,
The point about Leprechauns is that it is alleged that all arguments for God are also arguments for Leprechauns.
No it isn’t.
That is nonsense, and the continual banging on about Leprechauns by some posters is very tiresome, but it is not comparable to your OP.
And it’s a straw man. The point about the leprechauns analogy is that, if an argument attempted to justify the belief “god” works equally well to justify the belief “leprechauns” then it’s probably a bad argument. You cannot in other words say that logic is sound when it produces an outcome you think not ridiculous but unsound when it produces an argument you think ridiculous. Logic stands alone regardless of where it happens to lead.
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I mean see what the message said. I guess ideally, if it was from a god, it could be individual messages to each person on earth. After all, god would know better than I do what would convince me and it might not be the same as what would convince somebody else. But it would need to be clear an unambiguous - totally unlike the bible, for example.
God isn’t the one to be convinced though.
Also from another point of view it may not be a matter of conviction but of commitment.
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Vlad,
Why would anyone think that to be evidence for “god”?
The word God in every language. What is lacking for it not to count as evidence?
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The word God in every language. What is lacking for it not to count as evidence?
A methodology for supernatural claims.
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A methodology for supernatural claims.
I see, so you would feel forced to treat this as a natural event?
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I see, so you would feel forced to treat this as a natural event?
In the absence of methodology for supernatural claims, you know the one you have been asked for hundreds of times and never provided, then talking about evidence for asupernatural claim is specious.
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Pidge,
The word God in every language. What is lacking for it not to count as evidence?
Some method of verifying the claim. Unless this god was interested in persuading only the gullible and the hard of thinking, he'd have to do a lot better than taking out a billboard with his name on it. If ever such a phenomenon was observed though, it would tell us only the following:
1. The observed event was not congruent with our current understanding of the physical universe.
2. Unless we found some means of understanding every possible aspect of the physical universe, we could not eliminate the possibility of the event happening naturally.
3. Even if we could with certainty understand every possible aspect of the physical universe, that would tell us precisely nothing about the cause of the event. Presumably anything capable of causing it would also be capable or producing whatever word it liked, regardless of whether it was a god or something else.
This really is basic stuff you know, even for you.
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Ok let’s try zero noise.
I'd probably have to seriously consider it at that point - I'm not sure how it'd go, it seems such an alien concept from here, but it'd have to be considered.
O.
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I'd probably have to seriously consider it at that point - I'm not sure how it'd go, it seems such an alien concept from here, but it'd have to be considered.
O.
You need a supernatural methodology for it to be evidence of a supernatural claim.
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If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
For me, it would tip the scales a bit in God's favour. Of course I would also have to be convinced it wasn't an illusion or magic trick.
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You need a supernatural methodology for it to be evidence of a supernatural claim.
You don't get methodology with supernatural claims - that's a) what makes them supernatural and b) why they can't be proven or disproven. Such a hypothetically improbably event - to have a noiseless signal in natural phenomenon - even before you consider the information arising from interpretation of the data would be beyond credibility to discount I'd think... which is why I don't believe we'll never see such a thing outside of the cinema.
O.
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If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
If that did happen, to take one set of responses for example....
Your nearest Muslim neighbours would probably be rejoicing that the message is confirmation that Mohammed was correct all along, he was visited by an angel, he is the last prophet. Jesus was a prophet, a man and certainty not devine.
Would they be correct though?
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You don't get methodology with supernatural claims - that's a) what makes them supernatural and b) why they can't be proven or disproven. Such a hypothetically improbably event - to have a noiseless signal in natural phenomenon - even before you consider the information arising from interpretation of the data would be beyond credibility to discount I'd think... which is why I don't believe we'll never see such a thing outside of the cinema.
O.
To discount for what? The point of Vlad's hypothetical is as evidence for god - and that's a supernatural claim. As you havd agreed that cannot be evidence.
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For me, it would tip the scales a bit in God's favour. Of course I would also have to be convinced it wasn't an illusion or magic trick.
How can it be evidence for supernatural claim in the absence of a supernatural methodology?
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jeremy,
For me, it would tip the scales a bit in God's favour. Of course I would also have to be convinced it wasn't an illusion or magic trick.
But why "God" rather than, "any other possible non-naturalistic entity"? There'd still be a 100% burden of proof to demonstrate an argument for "God" rather than just against our current understanding of physics. The OP is just basic god of the gaps/argument from personal incredulity/shifting the burden of proof stuff.
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jeremy,
But why "God" rather than, "any other possible non-naturalistic entity"? There'd still be a 100% burden of proof to demonstrate an argument for "God" rather than just against our current understanding of physics. The OP is just basic god of the gaps/argument from personal incredulity/shifting the burden of proof stuff.
Why anything non-naturalistic at all?
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NS,
Why anything non-naturalistic at all?
I covered this a couple of posts back, but why indeed?
It's such an old trope isn't it - "You can't explain X, therefore it must be Y". The cheat of course is that's there's no argument for Y there at all.
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If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
Assuming this idea of yours really did happen and after some investigation it was found to actually be a solid piece of evidence supporting this god idea of yours Vlad and then assuming it became accepted as the truth world wide, it would also be the first time the world had seen any viable evidence that supports this god idea.
Not very likely is it Vlad?
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If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
If it was absolutely clear this was the case - rather than if you squint you can pretend that the shapes just might say something like god - then perhaps so. However were that to happen it would provide no evidence whatsoever for the christian god, rather it would be evidence for some extraterrestrial intelligence.
And actually it wouldn't necessarily be evidence of an actual god. Were a extraterrestrial super-intelligent race want to make their presence known in a manner which would subdue the population of the earth, what better way would there be than trying to make out your are a god - knowing that humans are likely to revere gods.
But isn't this example, in reality, nothing more than Jesus' face in a slice of toast.
https://www.livescience.com/45414-brain-face-pareidolia.html
Human psychology is such that it tends to see known shapes and patterns and ascribe anthropomorphised meaning to those patterns, where none actually exists.
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How can it be evidence for supernatural claim in the absence of a supernatural methodology?
We have evidence for a claim. I' not going to prejudge it by putting it in a box.
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jeremy,
But why "God" rather than, "any other possible non-naturalistic entity"? There'd still be a 100% burden of proof to demonstrate an argument for "God" rather than just against our current understanding of physics. The OP is just basic god of the gaps/argument from personal incredulity/shifting the burden of proof stuff.
Why indeed?
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If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
How do we rule out advanced aliens?
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How do we rule out advanced aliens?
Would they be a preferable explanation to God? If so why?
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We have evidence for a claim. I' not going to prejudge it by putting it in a box.
No, you don't. To have something regarded as 'evidence' for a supernatural claim, you need a methodology that supports what 'evidence' means. If you don't have that, you are talking nonsense.
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If it was absolutely clear this was the case - rather than if you squint you can pretend that the shapes just might say something like god - then perhaps so. However were that to happen it would provide no evidence whatsoever for the christian god, rather it would be evidence for some extraterrestrial intelligence.
And actually it wouldn't necessarily be evidence of an actual god. Were a extraterrestrial super-intelligent race want to make their presence known in a manner which would subdue the population of the earth, what better way would there be than trying to make out your are a god - knowing that humans are likely to revere gods.
But isn't this example, in reality, nothing more than Jesus' face in a slice of toast.
https://www.livescience.com/45414-brain-face-pareidolia.html
Human psychology is such that it tends to see known shapes and patterns and ascribe anthropomorphised meaning to those patterns, where none actually exists.
Interesting so the debris arrangement would empirically spell the name of god and you would think it a case of seeing patterns where there are none.
In this hypothetical scenario wouldn't it be more a case of you seeing chaos where there was a pattern.
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No, you don't. To have something regarded as 'evidence' for a supernatural claim, you need a methodology that supports what 'evidence' means. If you don't have that, you are talking nonsense.
How are you defining supernatural here? Are you defining every material event as natural?
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How are you defining supernatural here? Are you defining every material event as natural?
I'll go with
'The supernatural encompasses all entities, places and events that fall outside the scope of scientific understanding of the laws of nature'
That doesn't mean that all events, or indeed any of them, are natural. Just that we investigate them using methodological naturalism. I don't know why you qualified events with 'material' since I not only don't know if there is such a thing as a non material event, I am unsure if the concept makes any sense.
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I'll go with
'The supernatural encompasses all entities, places and events that fall outside the scope of scientific understanding of the laws of nature'
That doesn't mean that all events, or indeed any of them, are natural. Just that we investigate them using methodological naturalism. I don't know why you qualified events with 'material' since I not only don't know if there is such a thing as a non material event, I am unsure if the concept makes any sense.
Thanks. I come from an angle where the supernatural.....awful word, has occasional material consequences ranging from belief to the miraculous. The experience therefore of my branch of the supernatural is one of involvement rather than just observation. An arbitrary decision to be the dispassionate observer of reality actually in imposes certain conclusions which become reality
A methodology then becomes not only a philosophy but a modus vivendi with value and virtue.
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Thanks. I come from an angle where the supernatural.....awful word, has occasional material consequences ranging from belief to the miraculous. The experience therefore of my branch of the supernatural is one of involvement rather than just observation. An arbitrary decision to be the dispassionate observer of reality actually in imposes certain conclusions which become reality
A methodology then becomes not only a philosophy but a modus vivendi with value and virtue.
Sorry, no idea what you are trying to say here.
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Sorry, no idea what you are trying to say here.
Probably that you are yourself the detecting instrument for things supernatural.
One usually either responds positively or negatively to it, neutrality could indicate disrepair..
I can understand a lot of those who suggest they might be swayed.
Those who insist on sticking stentorially to their atheist guns seem unfeasibly pious and disciplined if not doctrinaire.
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Probably that you are yourself the detecting instrument for things supernatural.
One usually either responds positively or negatively to it, neutrality could indicate disrepair..
I can understand a lot of those who suggest they might be swayed.
Those who insist on sticking stentorially to their atheist guns seem unfeasibly pious and disciplined if not doctrinaire.
That's clearer, however, it's unargued, badly defined assertion.
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That's clearer, however, it's unargued, badly defined assertion.
I can’t see how a statement,that in terms of the supernatural it is experienced rather than intellectually argued or scientifically observed, can be turned into the type of argument that stimulates atheism’s corporate intellectual clitoris.
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I can’t see how a statement,that in terms of the supernatural it is experienced rather than intellectually argued or scientifically observed, can be turned into the type of argument that stimulates atheism’s corporate intellectual clitoris.
That's just it, it is merely asserted statement. Just as me saying that you were completely and utterly wrong, would be just an asserted statement. And they would both be worth exactly the same.
Your approach is worthless in terms of any discussion.
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That's just it, it is merely asserted statement. Just as me saying that you were completely and utterly wrong, would be just an asserted statement. And they would both be worth exactly the same.
Your approach is worthless in terms of any discussion.
My approach has led to highly active and contributed to threads on this forum just look at the stats so you can stuff yer missy humeian shite regarding the worth of my posts.
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Pidge,
My approach has led to highly active and contributed to threads on this forum just look at the stats so you can stuff yer missy humeian shite regarding the worth of my posts.
Your "approach" is to be the house troll. You're here to pollute, no to contribute.
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My approach has led to highly active and contributed to threads on this forum just look at the stats so you can stuff yer missy humeian shite regarding the worth of my posts.
Irrelevant.
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Pidge,
Your "approach" is to be the house troll. You're here to pollute, no to contribute.
Joey Essex
I’m here to stimulate discussion. It appears to be working.
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No, you don't. To have something regarded as 'evidence' for a supernatural claim
Do you realise that, when you examine it, the notion of the supernatural is actually incoherent? There's only things that exist and things that don't exist. Evidence helps us decide which bucket - exists or not exists - some concept more likely belongs to.
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How do we rule out advanced aliens?
Because they contacted Earthlings?
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Do you realise that, when you examine it, the notion of the supernatural is actually incoherent? There's only things that exist and things that don't exist. Evidence helps us decide which bucket - exists or not exists - some concept more likely belongs to.
And since it is a supernatural claim for a supernatural entity which you believe is an incoherent concept, then evidence for it is a meaningless idea.
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Would they be a preferable explanation to God? If so why?
Aliens would be perfectly natural, and do not require supernatural explanations.
In that respect they are more reasonable
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Vlad,
Would they be a preferable explanation to God?
Yes.
If so why?
Ockham's razor.
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Aliens would be perfectly natural, and do not require supernatural explanations.
In that respect they are more reasonable
There is no sense until there is a methodology for supernatural claims where they appear in the category 'reasonable'.
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Aliens would be perfectly natural, and do not require supernatural explanations.
In that respect they are more reasonable
No, they are more naturalistic. Your preference stems from your philosophical naturalism.
Philosophical naturalism cannot be established by methodological naturalism.
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Vlad,
Yes.
Ockham's razor.
Explain Please?
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There is no sense until there is a methodology for supernatural claims where they appear in the category 'reasonable'.
By methodology do you mean one that you can understand or one that you might not understand?
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By methodology do you mean one that you can understand or one that you might not understand?
False dichotomy. How about one that stands up to logical challenge?
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No, they are more naturalistic. Your preference stems from your philosophical naturalism.
Philosophical naturalism cannot be established by methodological naturalism.
Nope, please show your methodological nonnaturalism?
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Nope, please show your methodological nonnaturalism?
I'm sending it to you telepathically now.
Are you getting it?
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I'm sending it to you telepathically now.
Are you getting it?
That you have no answer... Yes.
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That you have no answer... Yes.
You did want something methodologically unnatural. I provided it.
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You did want something methodologically unnatural. I provided it.
Nope
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Could be Old Nick trying to deceive us.
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Joey Essex
I’m here to stimulate discussion. It appears to be working.
No, it is not! You post a shovelful of old bollocks and people post proof that that is what you have posted and youre response is to post another pile of old rubbish trying to masquerade as wisdom!!
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Nope
Well then I’m afraid I am at a loss to know what you are after. For my part I could possibly describe methodological materialism to you but after that it gets hazy. My next stop might be to critique methodological materialism passed off as methodological history but after that I doubt I could produce a methodology for any other discipline.
I take it you can.
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Well then I’m afraid I am at a loss to know what you are after. For my part I could possibly describe methodological materialism to you but after that it gets hazy. My next stop might be to critique methodological materialism passed off as methodological history but after that I doubt I could produce a methodology for any other discipline.
I take it you can.
Nonsensical non sequitur
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Nonsensical non sequitur
Not helpful i’m Afraid, but I suppose you aren’t here to help, just expose fallacies mim, mim, mim, mim, mim,mim etc.
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Well then I’m afraid I am at a loss to know what you are after. For my part I could possibly describe methodological materialism to you but after that it gets hazy. My next stop might be to critique methodological materialism passed off as methodological history but after that I doubt I could produce a methodology for any other discipline.
I take it you can.
Using a lot of long words fools no-one.
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Not helpful i’m Afraid, but I suppose you aren’t here to help, just expose fallacies mim, mim, mim, mim, mim,mim etc.
I have no idea what you are going on about.
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And since it is a supernatural claim for a supernatural entity which you believe is an incoherent concept, then evidence for it is a meaningless idea.
No. The concept called "supernatural" is incoherent, not necessarily the entities you choose to label with the word.
Everything is supernatural until we find evidence for it, then it becomes natural.
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Pidge,
Explain Please.
Aliens functioning according to natural laws would require far fewer assumptions than a god acting according to “supernatural” ones (whatever that would mean}. QED
Not helpful i’m Afraid, but I suppose you aren’t here to help, just expose fallacies mim, mim, mim, mim, mim,mim etc.
You’re accusing someone else of being “not here to help”? Wow.
Anyway, as you really should have grasped by now “exposing” the fallacies attempted to justify the belief “god” is all that’s necessary for atheism for exactly the same reason that exposing the fallacies attempted to justify the belief "leprechauns" is all that’s necessary for a-leprechaunism.
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No. The concept called "supernatural" is incoherent, not necessarily the entities you choose to label with the word.
Everything is supernatural until we find evidence for it, then it becomes natural.
Not a big fan of the term myself. Regarding your second thesis.....Bold.
I’m liking the cut of your gib.......while of course, not necessarily agreeing with it
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Pidge,
Aliens functioning according to natural laws would require far fewer assumptions than a god acting according to “supernatural” ones
As would Leprechauns which also function according to natural laws.
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Pidge,
As would Leprechauns which also function according to natural laws.
Yes, but not leprechauns that can flit in and out of the material realm at will. How does that help you?
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Pidge,
Yes, but not leprechauns that can flit in and out of the material realm at will. How does that help you?
Yes if they have naturalistic properties then non naturalistic properties are irrelevant.
I’m afraid the appellation “ small Irishmen” has fucked any equivalence with God every time you have tried it.
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Pidge,
Yes if they have naturalistic properties then non naturalistic properties are irrelevant.
Same as your god then who apparently appeared multiple times as a material entity. Fair enough.
I’m afraid the appellation “ small Irishmen” has fucked any equivalence with God every time you have tried it.
A mistake you’ve made many times despite being corrected on it every time. My “immaterial/material at will” leprechauns appear to people as little green men when in their latter incarnation. Your “immaterial/material at will” god appeared as whatever “He” looked like to people when he showed up as a material being too (at least he did according to some ancient texts you think to be “holy”). Of course, if you want to claim the Bible to be wrong about that that's up to you.
See? No difference. Game over.
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Pidge,
Same as your god then who apparently appeared multiple times as a material entity. Fair enough.
A mistake you’ve made many times despite being corrected on it every time. My “immaterial/material at will” leprechauns appear to people as little green men when in their latter incarnation. Your “immaterial/material at will” god appeared as whatever “He” looked like to people when he showed up as a material being too (at least he did according to some ancient texts you think to be “holy”). Of course, if you want to claim the Bible to be wrong about that that's up to you.
See? No difference. Game over.
Look a small Irishman is naturalistic and therefore in the same category as aliens. The old leprechaun schtick is therefore a busted flush.
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Pidge,
Look a small Irishman is naturalistic and therefore in the same category as aliens. The old leprechaun schtick is therefore a busted flush.
Look, leprechauns choose to appear when in material form as small Irishmen. Your god chooses to appear when in material form as human-like. After all, the Bible tells us (and in several books mind you) that “God” appeared in person no fewer than eight times (to Hagar, to Abraham & Sarah, again to Abraham, to Jacob, to Moses, to Gideon, to Samson, and even in a “fiery furnace”).
https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_1297.cfm
See, here’s your problem: if you want to claim a god that’s immaterial but can (and has) appear(ed) when he feels like it in recognisable material form to witnesses then you have no basis to deny the same phenomenon to any other objects of faith beliefs, leprechauns included. Your only ways out of that would be:
1. Special pleading (OK, "god can’t do that but leprechauns can’t"); or
2. To decide that the Bible is wrong.
Has this sunk in yet?
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Pidge,
Look, leprechauns choose to appear when in material form as small Irishmen. Your god chooses to appear when in material form as human-like. After all, the Bible tells us (and in several books mind you) that “God” appeared in person no fewer than eight times (to Hagar, to Abraham & Sarah, again to Abraham, to Jacob, to Moses, to Gideon, to Samson, and even in a “fiery furnace”).
https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_1297.cfm
See, here’s your problem: if you want to claim a god that’s immaterial but can (and has) appear(ed) when he feels like it in recognisable material form to witnesses then you have no basis to deny the same phenomenon to any other objects of faith beliefs, leprechauns included. Your only ways out of that would be:
1. Special pleading (OK, "god can’t do that but leprechauns can’t"); or
2. To decide that the Bible is wrong.
Has this sunk in yet?
Sounds like you are imputing divine properties to Leprechauns retrospectively and to suit your argument Hillside. That has to be fallacious.
Where are your citations that Leprechauns are one thing incarnating as another?
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Pidge,
Sounds like you are imputing divine properties to Leprechauns retrospectively and to suit your argument Hillside.
Not in the slightest. Leprechauns are “supernatural” but can exist immaterially or materially as they please, only when they are material they appear as small Irishmen. I know this to be true because that’s my faith. If you think there’s a “divine” and it can do the same trick, that’s up to you but I claim no such thing for my beliefs.
That has to be fallacious.
And not true.
Where are your citations that Leprechauns are one thing incarnating as another?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun
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Pidge,
Not in the slightest. Leprechauns are “supernatural” but can exist immaterially or materially as they please, only when they are material they appear as small Irishmen. I know this to be true because that’s my faith. If you think there’s a “divine” and it can do the same trick, that’s up to you but I claim no such thing for my beliefs.
And not true.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun
read it. Nothing about existing immaterially just wee Irishmen with special powers. Invisibility not mentioned.
Lot of natural activity though.
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Pidge,
read it. Nothing about existing immaterially just wee Irishmen with special powers. Invisibility not mentioned.
Lot of natural activity though.
Read it again: "A leprechaun (Irish: leipreachán/luchorpán) is a diminutive supernatural being in Irish folklore...They are usually depicted as little bearded men, wearing a coat and hat..."
Got it now?
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Pidge,
Read it again: "A leprechaun (Irish: leipreachán/luchorpán) is a diminutive supernatural being in Irish folklore...They are usually depicted as little bearded men, wearing a coat and hat..."
Got it now?
You read it again. A leprechaun is a DIMINUTIVE supernatural being. LITLE BEARDED MEN, WEARING a coat and a hat.
Got it now?
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Pidge,
You read it again. A leprechaun is a DIMINUTIVE supernatural being. LITLE BEARDED MEN, WEARING a coat and a hat.
Got it now?
Dear god but you struggle. Again: "A leprechaun (Irish: leipreachán/luchorpán) is a diminutive supernatural being in Irish folklore...They are usually depicted as little bearded men, wearing a coat and hat..."
Which part of the word "supernatural" is confusing you so?
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Pidge,
Dear god but you struggle. Again: "A leprechaun (Irish: leipreachán/luchorpán) is a diminutive supernatural being in Irish folklore...They are usually depicted as little bearded men, wearing a coat and hat..."
Which part of the word "supernatural" is confusing you so?
Which part of the words diminutive, little, bearded, men and wearing is confusing you so?
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Pidge,
Which part of the words diminutive, little, bearded, men and wearing is confusing you so?
None of it. That's how they choose to appear when they want to be in material form.
You think there to be a supernatural god that when he wants to be material chooses to appear in "human-like" form (at least if the Bible is to be believed).
That's the same phenomenon - supernatural entities able to flit in and out of their (different) material forms as they wish.
You've crashed and burned yet again. Deal with it.
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Pidge,
None of it. That's how they choose to appear when they want to be in material form.
You think there to be a supernatural god that when he wants to be material chooses to appear in "human-like" form (at least if the Bible is to be believed).
That's the same phenomenon - supernatural entities able to flit in and out of their (different) material forms as they wish.
You've crashed and burned yet again. Deal with it.
Supernatural phenomenon covers a range Hillside. You are just confusing the general term witha specific or you are choosing specific properties to construct something. Both fallacies.
You have crashed and burned.
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Pidge,
Supernatural phenomenon covers a range Hillside.
Yes, lots of people believe there to be lots of different supernatural beings.
You are just confusing the general term witha specific or you are choosing specific properties to construct something. Both fallacies.
Did that mean something in your head when you typed it? Again:
1. You believe there to be a supernatural entity called “God” that’s able to flit in and out at will of its material and immaterial states. When in the latter, it’s in “human-like” form.
2. I believe there to be supernatural entities called “leprechauns” that are able to flit in and out at will of their material and immaterial states. When in the latter, they’re in “small Irishmen-like” form.
See? If you want to believe a preposterous thing about the object of your faith belief, you have no basis to deny others the same preposterous thing about the objects of their different faith beliefs. QED
You have crashed and burned.
You’re desperate now.
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Pidge,
Yes, lots of people believe there to be lots of different supernatural beings.
Did that mean something in your head when you typed it? Again:
1. You believe there to be a supernatural entity called “God” that’s able to flit in and out at will of its material and immaterial states. When in the latter, it’s in “human-like” form.
2. I believe there to be supernatural entities called “leprechauns” that are able to flit in and out at will of their material and immaterial states. When in the latter, they’re in “small Irishmen-like” form.
See? If you want to believe a preposterous thing about the object of your faith belief, you have no basis to deny others the same preposterous thing about the objects of their different faith beliefs. QED
You’re desperate now.
No Hillside you've been creating your own type of Leprechaun to suit your own argument or rather to turdpolish an old one.
Fail.
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Pidge,
No Hillside you've been creating your own type of Leprechaun to suit your own argument or rather to turdpolish an old one.
Even is that had been true, so what? It's my faith belief after all. Fortunately for me it's not true though - as Wiki plainly tells you, leprechauns are both supernatural and able to appear as small Irishmen, a trick they can do presumably at will. Similarly, the Bible claims a God both supernatural and able to appear at will in human-like form. Different faith objects, same trick.
Fail.
The fail is still all yours. You can keep twisting in the wind all you like, but unless you intend a) to deny the Bible; or b) to attempt special pleading for your god, you've lost the argument.
Again.
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Pidge,
Even is that had been true, so what? It's my faith belief after all. Fortunately for me it's not true though - a Wiki tells you, they're both supernatural and able to appear as small Irishmen, a trick they can do presumably at will. Similarly, the Bible claims a God both supernatural and able to appear at will in human-like form. Different faith objects, same trick.
Is all yours. You can keep twisting in the wind all you like, but unless you intend a) to deny the Bible; or b) to attempt special pleading for your god, you've lost the argument.
Again.
Hillside all you are doing is conflating all supernatural things. It doesn’t work. The universe popping out of nothing is supernatural. The universe existing for ever is supernatural. As you say, no gods involved, Leprechauns? Diminutive............Eminently measurable.
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Hillside all you are doing is conflating all supernatural things. It doesn’t work. The universe popping out of nothing is supernatural. The universe existing for ever is supernatural. As you say, no gods involved, Leprechauns? Diminutive............Eminently measurable.
Why is the universe existing forever supernatural?
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If the 'EVIDENCE' in the title of this thread bears any resemblance to its equivalent in a Court of Law the simple answer is that THERE AIN'T NONE!
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Why is the universe existing forever supernatural?
It is beyond scientific verification. I.e.methodological naturalism.
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If the 'EVIDENCE' in the title of this thread bears any resemblance to its equivalent in a Court of Law the simple answer is that THERE AIN'T NONE!
As far as I know the law works on witness testimony.
Every now and then someone takes God or his existence to court.I never hear the verdict.
On another matter would you say you reached out to your gods...or did they reach out to you.
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As far as I know the law works on witness testimony.
Every now and then someone takes God or his existence to court. I never hear the verdict.
On another matter would you say you reached out to your gods...or did they reach out to you.
Neither - I was introduced by a couple of friends. I suppose you could interpret that as them reaching out to me via my friends tho'!
The only person I have ever heard of taking God to Court was played by Billy Connolly!
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Neither - I was introduced by a couple of friends. I suppose you could interpret that as them reaching out to me via my friends tho'!
The only person I have ever heard of taking God to Court was played by Billy Connolly!
Your friends would have made some kind of testimony to you?
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It is beyond scientific verification. I.e.methodological naturalism.
How do you know that?
It is not yet understood is not supernatural.
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Your friends would have made some kind of testimony to you?
No, they merely told me that they were pagan, not that they were witches, and invited me to a Summer Solstice ritual.
I went chatted at the P U afterwards, went to the next full moon ritual, and the next and then I asked to join the coven!
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How do you know that?
It is not yet understood is not supernatural.
Not even time travel could resolve the question of whether the universe has infinite existence.
The question is always going to remain a matter of connection. Secondly an infinite universe is an unrepeatable entity Both these elevate the question beyond methodological materialism.
To expect or hope for a scientific solution is faith in science. Let me repeat, faith....in science.
Popping out of nothing could be seen as the equivalent of magic. Although I understand that only becomes a problem for some if there is the suggestion of an actual magician which is a no no.
So popping out of nothing is fine for these folk. Something pulling the rabbit out of its hat? Why ever would we think that?
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No, they merely told me that they were pagan, not that they were witches, and invited me to a Summer Solstice ritual.
I went chatted at the P U afterwards, went to the next full moon ritual, and the next and then I asked to join the coven!
What was it that convinced you?
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The universe popping out of nothing is supernatural. The universe existing for ever is supernatural.
Drivel.
It is beyond scientific verification. I.e.methodological naturalism.
Not only is that a bizarre notion of "supernatural", which would make in mean something like "beyond our ability to investigate", it's also not strictly true. If we had the theory that made testable predictions and that also predicted that the universe was infinite, that would be scientific evidence.
Not even time travel could resolve the question of whether the universe has infinite existence.
The question is always going to remain a matter of connection.
See above.
Secondly an infinite universe is an unrepeatable entity Both these elevate the question beyond methodological materialism.
The history of the observable universe is unrepeatable, yet we have learned a great deal about it using methodological materialism.
To expect or hope for a scientific solution is faith in science. Let me repeat, faith....in science.
Science will go on investigating as far as it can. There may well be questions that never get answers but that doesn't make them "supernatural" or make anybody's baseless guesses any more believable. Just because we see no way in which science can investigate something now does not mean that there won't be a way in the future. It wasn't that long ago that people thought science could never tell us anything about the composition of stars: "In 1835 the French philosopher Auguste Comte predicted that we would never know anything about the chemical composition of stars." from >here< (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234544764_Auguste_Comte%27s_Blunder_An_Account_of_the_First_Century_of_Stellar_Spectroscopy_and_How_It_Took_One_Hundred_Years_to_Prove_That_Comte_was_Wrong).
I don't have faith that science will explain everything about why things exists (I expect it won't) but insisting that that means that there is something supernatural is just playing silly word games.
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Drivel.
Not only is that a bizarre notion of "supernatural", which would make in mean something like "beyond our ability to investigate", it's also not strictly true. If we had the theory that made testable predictions and that also predicted that the universe was infinite, that would be scientific evidence.
See above.
The history of the observable universe is unrepeatable, yet we have learned a great deal about it using methodological materialism.
Science will go on investigating as far as it can. There may well be questions that never get answers but that doesn't make them "supernatural" or make anybody's baseless guesses any more believable. Just because we see no way in which science can investigate something now does not mean that there won't be a way in the future. It wasn't that long ago that people thought science could never tell us anything about the composition of stars: "In 1835 the French philosopher Auguste Comte predicted that we would never know anything about the chemical composition of stars." from >here< (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234544764_Auguste_Comte%27s_Blunder_An_Account_of_the_First_Century_of_Stellar_Spectroscopy_and_How_It_Took_One_Hundred_Years_to_Prove_That_Comte_was_Wrong).
I don't have faith that science will explain everything about why things exists (I expect it won't) but insisting that that means that there is something supernatural is just playing silly word games.
A litany of faith in science.
Watch the astronomical claims of atheists Comte ballsed up on that.
Bertrand Russell predicted we would never be able to track something the size of an orbiting teapot.
Because he didn’t believe ludicrous items could be put into orbit?
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A litany of faith in science.
Drivel. As I said, I don't expect science to answer every question and it's anyway irrelevant to the point. Calling something you think science can't answer 'supernatural' is just a daft game with words.
Bertrand Russell predicted we would never be able to track something the size of an orbiting teapot.
Because he didn’t believe ludicrous items could be put into orbit?
Once again Vlad demonstrates a total lack of understanding of analogy and the burden of proof.... ::)
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Bertrand Russell predicted we would never be able to track something the size of an orbiting teapot.
Because he didn’t believe ludicrous items could be put into orbit?
No, since to see it that way would be an over-simplistic take on the point BR was conveying using this analogy: I'm surprised, or maybe not, that given how often this analogy has been mentioned you still don't understand it.
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No, since to see it that way would be an over-simplistic take on the point BR was conveying using this analogy: I'm surprised, or maybe not, that given how often this analogy has been mentioned you still don't understand it.
I understand it, not as holy atheist scripture as you do, but as the horse laugh argument it is.....and that, as you ken fine well, is fallacious.
But in the spirit of amity.....what say we compromise on “utterly shite analogy”?
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Drivel. As I said, I don't expect science to answer every question and it's anyway irrelevant to the point. Calling something you think science can't answer 'supernatural' is just a daft game with words.
Once again Vlad demonstrates a total lack of understanding of analogy and the burden of proof.... ::)
Look you are an out and out faith in science merchant by your own statement.
However astronomy is based on what things in space give out. So without resorting to mere faith in science to solve everything because it has shown cause and effect in the past, what is it that the universe is giving off that tells us that it is effect without cause. Bing, Yet another reason for why this isn’t the preserve of science.
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Look you are an out and out faith in science merchant by your own statement.
Just repeating something doesn't make it any more true or believable. I have 'faith' in science to the extent it is a methodology that works. That's it. I'm not, as you suggest, putting my faith in it to be able to answer every question about existence.
And you are still ignoring the point that just labelling things that you think science can't address as 'supernatural' is nothing but a silly word game.
However astronomy is based on what things in space give out. So without resorting to mere faith in science to solve everything because it has shown cause and effect in the past, what is it that the universe is giving off that tells us that it is effect without cause. Bing, Yet another reason for why this isn’t the preserve of science.
I have never claimed that the universe is an effect without a cause. As of today, the best theory of space-time we have (that is backed up by evidence) tells us that it is a four-dimensional manifold and that time and cause and effect are internal to it. It would, in that case, not be an effect at all. A quantum theory of gravity may change that or it may not. There are a large number of speculative ideas in this area but until and unless they make predictions that can be verified, they remain conjectures. They do however have the advantage that they are based on extrapolating what we know in some way or another, rather than just being baseless superstition.
It's anyway irrelevant unless you have an alternative methodology that can objectively determine the probably true from just making shit up, then we are stuck with science and logic.
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Just repeating something doesn't make it any more true or believable. I have 'faith' in science to the extent it is a methodology that works. That's it. I'm not, as you suggest, putting my faith in it to be able to answer every question about existence.
And you are still ignoring the point that just labelling things that you think science can't address as 'supernatural' is nothing but a silly word game.
I have never claimed that the universe is an effect without a cause. As of today, the best theory of space-time we have (that is backed up by evidence) tells us that it is a four-dimensional manifold and that time and cause and effect are internal to it. It would, in that case, not be an effect at all. A quantum theory of gravity may change that or it may not. There are a large number of speculative ideas in this area but until and unless they make predictions that can be verified, they remain conjectures. They do however have the advantage that they are based on extrapolating what we know in some way or another, rather than just being baseless superstition.
It's anyway irrelevant unless you have an alternative methodology that can objectively determine the probably true from just making shit up, then we are stuck with science and logic.
How are you still denying your expressions of faith in science. They are there for all to see and you repeatedly stated your faith in science. What a barefaced cheek you have in denying it.
I on the other hand have asked you what it is about the universe that will reveal that it is effect without cause.
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Vlad,
Hillside all you are doing is conflating all supernatural things.
Don’t be daft. I’m just pointing out that if you want to claim one “supernatural” thing able to flit in and out of im/materiality at will, you have no basis to deny others claiming different supernatural things capable of the same thing.
It doesn’t work.
Straw men generally don’t.
The universe popping out of nothing is supernatural. The universe existing for ever is supernatural.
Leaving aside your wrong descriptions of the hypothesis, how on earth have you jumped from “not understood naturalistically” to “supernatural”? Was thunder supernatural before it was understood naturalistically? Why not?
As you say, no gods involved, Leprechauns? Diminutive............Eminently measurable.
Why would a leprechaun manifesting itself as a small Irishman be any more or less measurable than a god manifesting itself in human-like form?
Perhaps you should consider stopping digging about now?
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Pidge,
How are you still denying your expressions of faith in science. They are there for all to see and you repeatedly stated your faith in science. What a barefaced cheek you have in denying it.
Why have you just doctored his quote by removing the speech marks he put around the word faith/"faith"? You knew he did this to mean something like "confidence based on practical experience" rather than the religious sense of the term. It's not the first time you've done this kind of thing, and it's shameful behaviour.
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How are you still denying your expressions of faith in science. They are there for all to see and you repeatedly stated your faith in science. What a barefaced cheek you have in denying it.
This appears to be a barefaced lie. Apart from the sense that science is a methodology that works (the evidence for which you are using to read this message), where have I expressed any other 'faith' in it?
I on the other hand have asked you what it is about the universe that will reveal that it is effect without cause.
I haven't said that it is an effect without a cause.
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Pidge,
Why have you just doctored his quote by removing the speech marks he put around the word faith/"faith"? You knew he did this to mean something like "confidence based on practical experience" rather than the religious sense of the term. It's not the first time you've done this kind of thing, and it's shameful behaviour.
No one has confidence based on practical experience of an effect with no cause in science because that
isn't what science does. Therefore.
"confidence based on practical experience" is just a statement of faith without evidence.
''Not only is that a bizarre notion of "supernatural", which would make in mean something like "beyond our ability to investigate", it's also not strictly true.''
If he states that isn't true , then that is actually faith in science without evidence that everything is within the scope of science to investigate.
We know what manner of thing science is capable of and what it isn't because it is a discipline and a methodology.
Effect without cause isn't science.
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Not only is that a bizarre notion of "supernatural", which would make in mean something like "beyond our ability to investigate", it's also not strictly true. If we had the theory that made testable predictions and that also predicted that the universe was infinite, that would be scientific evidence.
Scientific theories are not scientific evidence.
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Pidge,
No one has confidence based on practical experience of an effect with no cause in science because that isn't what science does. Therefore."confidence based on practical experience" is just a statement of faith without evidence.
Stranger hasn’t claimed “effect with no cause” as he explicitly just told you in his last Reply. Perhaps if you stopped lying about that your quote doctoring would be less appealing to you?
If he states that isn't true , then that is actually faith in science without evidence that everything is within the scope of science to investigate.
Bullshit. It’s your claim that phenomenon can’t be explained naturalistically must therefore be “supernatural”, so the burden of proof is with you to justify that claim. There’s no “faith” in science as you imply because no-one says that science/naturalism necessarily must be the correct explanatory model.
We know what manner of thing science is capable of and what it isn't because it is a discipline and a methodology.
What “manner of thing” do you think science isn’t capable of, and how would you propose to justify you assertion about that?
Effect without cause isn't science.
And a Happy Meal without fries isn’t a Happy Meal. As no-one claims either though, your “point” is irrelevant.
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Pidge,
Scientific theories are not scientific evidence.
Scientific theories require evidence. No-one says that they are evidence.
Your already badly corrupted coherence monitor seems to have given up the ghost entirely now.
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No one has confidence based on practical experience of an effect with no cause in science because that
isn't what science does. Therefore.
"confidence based on practical experience" is just a statement of faith without evidence.
I really don't know why you've decided to suddenly focus on an effect without a cause, but the evidence is that they happen all the time within the well tested theory of quantum mechanics, so you're wrong anyway.
If he states that isn't true , then that is actually faith in science without evidence that everything is within the scope of science to investigate.
Total misrepresentation of what I said.
I never claimed that everything was within the scape of science to investigate, I was making a specific point that a theory that implied an infinite universe but also made testable predictions could provide evidence for that sort of universe.
Effect without cause isn't science.
False. Why are you even obsessing about effect without causes?
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Scientific theories are not scientific evidence.
But evidence for scientific theories are evidence that they are accurate models.
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Vlad,
Don’t be daft. I’m just pointing out that if you want to claim one “supernatural” thing able to flit in and out of im/materiality at will, you have no basis to deny others claiming different supernatural things capable of the same thing.
That isn't what is being claimed by Christianity. Any empirical measurement of Jesus would not have yielded any scientific data concerning his divinity.
The basis of flitting in and out of materiality is that you have chosen to so extend the described properties of the Leprechaun.
In any case where Jesus passed the humanity test Leprechauns have failed any kind of test and the evidence is that people have added to the story and properties over the years. Something you yourself have a part in by making Leprechauns divine.
Leprechauns though are Diminutive supernatural irishmen with beards and coats and hats. You have been polishing their diminutivity and Irishanity out of the picture while conflating the gamut of supernaturality.
Conflating the gamut of supernaturality. A fallacy ascribing all and any supernatural ability to any supernatural entity.
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Pidge,
Stranger hasn’t claimed “effect with no cause” as he explicitly just told you in his last Reply. Perhaps if you stopped lying about that your quote doctoring would be less appealing to you?
Bullshit. It’s your claim that phenomenon can’t be explained naturalistically must therefore be “supernatural”, so the burden of proof is with you to justify that claim. There’s no “faith” in science as you imply because no-one says that science/naturalism necessarily must be the correct explanatory model.
What “manner of thing” do you think science isn’t capable of, and how would you propose to justify you assertion about that?
And a Happy Meal without fries isn’t a Happy Meal. As no-one claims either though, your “point” is irrelevant.
Joey
He has talked about his faith in science.
Your bollocks about practical confidence in science is faith in science.
His notion that if you have a testable hypothesis which makes a prediction you have scientific evidence is wrong.
You seem to have shown yourself up a pair of committed dillitantes.....if not dillahunty's Ha Ha Ha.
Also you cannot have it that the universe is infinitely old and therefore doesn't need a creator one moment and then argue that proposing an infinite universe isn't proposing an effect without a cause.
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I never claimed that everything was within the scape of science to investigate, I was making a specific point that a theory that implied an infinite universe but also made testable predictions could provide evidence for that sort of universe.
Quote from: Never Talk to Strangers on Today at 08:21:04 AM
Not only is that a bizarre notion of "supernatural", which would make in mean something like "beyond our ability to investigate", it's also not strictly true. If we had the theory that made testable predictions and that also predicted that the universe was infinite, that would be scientific evidence
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How about talking to me about what I think?
He has talked about his faith in science.
Not in the sense that you have suggested, I haven't - this is appears to be a barefaced lie.
Your bollocks about practical confidence in science is faith in science.
Drivel.
His notion that if you have a testable hypothesis which makes a prediction you have scientific evidence is wrong.
If you have a well tested theory that makes further predictions that you can't directly test, that is evidence (albeit not as strong as direct evidence) because it is evidence that you have a good model.
Also you cannot have it that the universe is infinitely old and therefore doesn't need a creator one moment and then argue that proposing an infinite universe isn't proposing an effect without a cause.
I don't think anybody is proposing any particular conjecture here. However a universe with an infinite past isn't an effect without a cause and, as I've explained to you countless times before, if general relativity is broadly correct, the universe isn't an effect at all, regardless of whether it has an infinite past or not.
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How about talking to me about what I think?
Not in the sense that you have suggested, I haven't - this is appears to be a barefaced lie.
Drivel.
If you have a well tested theory that makes further predictions that you can't directly test, that is evidence (albeit not as strong as direct evidence) because it is evidence that you have a good model.
I don't think anybody is proposing any particular conjecture here. However a universe with an infinite past isn't an effect without a cause and, as I've explained to you countless times before, if general relativity is broadly correct, the universe isn't an effect at all, regardless of whether it has an infinite past or not.
If it is neither a cause and effect then you are in fucking difficulties trying to invoke science then aren't you.
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Quote from: Never Talk to Strangers on Today at 08:21:04 AM
Not only is that a bizarre notion of "supernatural", which would make in mean something like "beyond our ability to investigate", it's also not strictly true. If we had the theory that made testable predictions and that also predicted that the universe was infinite, that would be scientific evidence
Which was made in the specific context of your claim that a past infinite universe would be supernatural. So I'm not claiming that everything is within the scope of science to investigate.
A point I made specifically (twice) in the same post:
Science will go on investigating as far as it can. There may well be questions that never get answers...
...
I don't have faith that science will explain everything about why things exists (I expect it won't)...
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If it is neither a cause and effect then you are in fucking difficulties trying to invoke science then aren't you.
No. The fact that you don't understand general relativity and have totally ignored several attempts by me to explain it in simple terms, does not mean it's not science.
Yet again: in GR, time, and hence cause and effect, are part of the four-dimensional manifold. The manifold itself is not embedded in time (it can't be inside itself) so the whole idea of it being either an effect or a cause, in any normal sense of the words, is nonsensical.
As I said, a quantum theory of gravity may change that picture - we simply don't know, but it's certainly a self-consistent scientific theory that has passed every test we've been able to perform.
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Quote from: Never Talk to Strangers on Today at 08:21:04 AM
Not only is that a bizarre notion of "supernatural", which would make in mean something like "beyond our ability to investigate",
Meaning of Supernatural from Oxford Dixtionaries
supernatural
[ˌsuːpəˈnatʃ(ə)r(ə)l]
ADJECTIVE
supernatural (adjective)
(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.
"a supernatural being"
Powered by Oxford Dictionaries · Bing Translator
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No. The fact that you don't understand general relativity and have totally ignored several attempts by me to explain it in simple terms, does not mean it's not science.
Yet again: in GR, time, and hence cause and effect, are part of the four-dimensional manifold. The manifold itself is not embedded in time (it can't be inside itself)
But alas Never it is abundantly clear that you are.
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Quote from: Never Talk to Strangers on Today at 08:21:04 AM
Meaning of Supernatural from Oxford Dixtionaries
supernatural
[ˌsuːpəˈnatʃ(ə)r(ə)l]
ADJECTIVE
supernatural (adjective)
(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.
"a supernatural being"
Powered by Oxford Dictionaries · Bing Translator
Well, if you take it to be beyond current scientific understanding, then what is supernatural changes over time, so everything was supernatural at some point in the past.
If you take it literally as beyond any possible scientific understanding or the laws of nature, then we into blind guesswork both as to what science may discover in the future and as to what, if anything, is beyond the laws of nature (even if we can't discover them).
Being beyond scientific current investigation does not make something supernatural unless you're going to accept that the category changes with time. What's more, an infinite universe and the idea of a universe from "nothing" are things that are currently being investigated scientifically, albeit on a largely theoretical basis (although some of the ideas have made some predictions that could be tested, at least in principle).
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Well, if you take it to be beyond current scientific understanding, then what is supernatural changes over time, so everything was supernatural at some point in the past.
If you take it literally as beyond any possible scientific understanding or the laws of nature, then we into blind guesswork both as to what science may discover in the future and as to what, if anything, is beyond the laws of nature (even if we can't discover them).
Being beyond scientific current investigation does not make something supernatural unless you're going to accept that the category changes with time. What's more, an infinite universe and the idea of a universe from "nothing" are things that are currently being investigated scientifically, albeit on a largely theoretical basis (although some of the ideas have made some predictions that could be tested, at least in principle).
Poor Never. Anything beyond the ambit of science is supernatural and anything beyond the ambit of current science is alas mere faith in science or more specifically, the promise of it.
My work here is Done. Thank you....and Goodnight.
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Pidge,
That isn't what is being claimed by Christianity. Any empirical measurement of Jesus would not have yielded any scientific data concerning his divinity.
Wrong again. The Bible says that “God” appeared in human-like form on multlple occasions. That’s what Christianity claims. And if this god did that, then in principle at least those appearances were measurable events. Just pickling a different characteristic of the divine and asserting that to be non-measurable is just more evasion.
The basis of flitting in and out of materiality is that you have chosen to so extend the described properties of the Leprechaun.
Again, even if I had so what? My faith belief = my rules. As it happens though, I do have authority for it. Wiki tells us quite clearly that leprechauns are both “supernatural” (ie, not naturalistic) and able to appear as small Irishmen (ie, naturalistic).
In any case where Jesus passed the humanity test Leprechauns have failed any kind of test and the evidence is that people have added to the story and properties over the years. Something you yourself have a part in by making Leprechauns divine.
Irrelevant nonsense. Stick to the argument you continue to lose.
Leprechauns though are Diminutive supernatural irishmen with beards and coats and hats. You have been polishing their diminutivity and Irishanity out of the picture while conflating the gamut of supernaturality.
And human-like manifestations of a god have eyes and ears and arms and legs. How many times to you have to be told that your god and leprechauns are both immaterial when they want to be and material when they want to be? They’re different objects of faith claims that happen to be able to perform the same trick. That no more implies that leprechauns are “divine” though than ducks laying eggs implies they must be crocodiles. Different entities, same trick.
Conflating the gamut of supernaturality. A fallacy ascribing all and any supernatural ability to any supernatural entity.
Incoherent gibberish.
He has talked about his faith in science.
No he hasn’t. He talked about his “faith” in science – you’re just doctoring out the quotation marks again. I have “faith” that my car will start in the morning, by which I mean that I think it likely to happen based on previous attempts, the reliability of the brand etc. I have no faith (religious sense) in my car starting though because I think it has supernatural properties.
Your bollocks about practical confidence in science is faith in science.
Stop lying.
His notion that if you have a testable hypothesis which makes a prediction you have scientific evidence is wrong.
And not true. He said no such thing. Stop lying.
You seem to have shown yourself up a pair of committed dillitantes.....if not dillahunty's Ha Ha Ha.
Illiterate lying. You really should try to stop lying – maybe start with a once-a-year “Vlad not lying” day or something?
Also…
When everything before has collapsed in a lying, irrational heap you cannot have an “also”…
…you cannot have it that the universe is infinitely old and therefore doesn't need a creator one moment and then argue that proposing an infinite universe isn't proposing an effect without a cause.
More lying. Try reading what’s actually proposed, not what you would like it to be.
Meaning of Supernatural from Oxford Dixtionaries
supernatural
[ˌsuːpəˈnatʃ(ə)r(ə)l]
ADJECTIVE
supernatural (adjective)
(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.
"a supernatural being"
Powered by Oxford Dictionaries · Bing Translator
But as every mindless, brain dead, dishonest, evasive, cringe-inducing effort you’ve ever made here implies the second meaning (“beyond…the laws of nature”) if you now want to resile from that to the first meaning, ie “OK, maybe my Christianity is built on various naturalistic phenomena after all that so far at least science hasn’t been able to explain” (“beyond scientific understanding”) that would be a pretty remarkable change of tack would it not?
Not that you will ever, ever answer any question of course, but why not just tell us what you do mean by “supernatural”? Is it “outside the laws of nature”, or “something the current state of science cannot explain”?
What’s stopping you?
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Pigeon chess again. You've totally ignored all my points.
Anything beyond the ambit of science is supernatural and anything beyond the ambit of current science is alas mere faith in science or more specifically, the promise of it.
Incoherent drivel. Either you are going to define 'supernatural' in terms of current science (which makes everything supernatural at some point in the past), or what is 'supernatural' (beyond science in principle or beyond the laws of nature, that science may never exactly know) is nothing but a guess. Either way, it's a totally useless concept.
And it obviously has nothing to do with faith in science. Science either will or won't be able to answer any given question. I don't claim to know what the limits of science are - specifically, I don't claim that science will explain everything about why things exist, quite the opposite - and anybody who claims they do would be guessing. And none of this actually changes the facts of the matter. Science is investigating those things you claim to be beyond it and we could never know when we had reached its limits anyway.
Once again, we then have to return to the fact that you (and every other theist that I've encountered) have totally failed to provide an alternative, objective methodology to distinguish between things that are probably true and just making shit up. Until and unless somebody does, we only have logic and science. Everything else is indistinguishable from guessing.
It's not even as if any theist (that I've heard of) has an 'answer' (blind guess) that doesn't leave us with more questions that are still unanswered. What do we call those unanswered questions - super-supernatural, maybe?
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So, As I said.
It's Goodnight from me........And it's goodnight from the two wrongies. Hillside and Never.
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Pidge,
So, As I said.
It's Goodnight from me........And it's goodnight from the two wrongies. Hillside and Never.
Yes, I'd probably want to run away and hide too if I'd had a day like the one you've had.
PS Just checked my calendar: turns out 09 September 2020 is the first annual "Vlad Won't Tell Any Lies Today" day. Should be a novel experience for all concerned...
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So, As I said.
It's Goodnight from me........And it's goodnight from the two wrongies. Hillside and Never.
This is basically an admission that you have no actual reasoning to offer, so fine, goodnight to you too.
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What was it that convinced you?
Convinced me of what, precisely?
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Convinced me of what, precisely?
To become a pagan, start to believe in gods, follow paganism, join with other pagans?
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That isn't what is being claimed by Christianity. Any empirical measurement of Jesus would not have yielded any scientific data concerning his divinity.
Breaking news.
Christian admits Jesus wasn't divine.
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Breaking news.
Christian admits Jesus wasn't divine.
Breaking news.....Breaking wind, surely. Empirical measurement not capable of detecting God Jeremy.
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Breaking news.....Breaking wind, surely. Empirical measurement not capable of detecting God Jeremy.
What? You just said that they are.
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Pidge,
Breaking news.....Breaking wind, surely. Empirical measurement not capable of detecting God Jeremy.
Except of course on the eight recorded occasions when "He" appeared in "human like" form. Read your Bible.
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Pidge,
Except of course on the eight recorded occasions when "He" appeared in "human like" form. Read your Bible.
I dont want to stifle God but science doesn't do God. Decisions were taken as to the ambit of science by that community.
An incarnation such as Christ would I suppose only register as a person. Gods previous appearances might have yielded some but no data on divinity scientific data. Had there been scientists.
On hand to investigate who knows what scientific data would show.....but it wouldn't show the divine. That is detected by the human instrument.
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Pidge,
I dont want to stifle God…
It’s not “God”, it’s belief in god. You're overreaching. Anyway…
…but science doesn't do God.
No, but cameras for example would if “He” decided to appear in “human-like” form as the Bible claims.
Decisions were taken as to the ambit of science by that community.
Gibberish.
An incarnation such as Christ would I suppose only register as a person. Gods previous appearances might have yielded some but no data on divinity scientific data. Had there been scientists.
Irrelevant. A book you think to be authoritative says that “God” appeared in recognisably human form. Eight times apparently. Other books others believe say that supernatural leprechauns appeared in recognisably small Irishman form. Different faith objects, same trick.
On hand to investigate who knows what scientific data would show.....but it wouldn't show the divine. That is detected by the human instrument.
Take it up with whoever wrote the Bible, not me.
Anyway, here we are back at the beginning again. You apparently believe in one supernatural entity able at will to flit from immaterial to material, who when in the latter arrangement appears as “human-like”. I believe in different supernatural entities also able to flit from immaterial to material, only when in the latter arrangement appear as small Irishmen-like.
Why should your belief about that be taken any more seriously than mine do you think?
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I dont want to stifle God but science doesn't do God.
Yes but the question is why. Maybe science doesn't do God because God doesn't exist. In fact, that seems like the most parsimonious explanation.
An incarnation such as Christ would I suppose only register as a person.
Earlier you said an empirical test for divinity is possible. If somebody registers as a human under such a test, then they are not God.
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Yes but the question is why. Maybe science doesn't do God because God doesn't exist. In fact, that seems like the most parsimonious explanation.
First of all science doesn't make any judgment on what exists, you'll find that is philosophical. Secondly science doesn't do a lot of things, the Rumba, values, morality, Tap dancing so I think that wraps it up for the parsimony thing.
Earlier you said an empirical test for divinity is possible.
Did I ? If I did I retract that straight away there is no empirical test for divinity.No If somebody registers as a human under such a test, then they are not God.
There is no empirical test for Divinity. What you are saying is the equivalent of trying to find out how good a footballer someone is by getting them to play the saxophone.
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Vlad,
First of all science doesn't make any judgment on what exists,…
Not really. Perhaps not in an absolute sense, but science proceeds a least on the basis that, say, potassium is real but phlogiston is not.
…you'll find that is philosophical.
In epistemic terms yes.
Secondly science doesn't do a lot of things, the Rumba, values, morality, Tap dancing…
Depends what you mean by “do”. Science defines, describes and explains phenomena – it isn’t the phenomena themselves though.
…so I think that wraps it up for the parsimony thing.
Nope. Gravity being naturalistic is a more parsimonious explanation – ie, it requires fewer assumptions - than pixies holding stuff down with very thin stings so we can reasonably call the former “true” albeit with no reference to absolute positions.
Did I ? If I did I retract that straight away there is no empirical test for divinity.
But there would be for a god showing up in person, or at least to the satisfaction of the Bible’s authors there would be.
There is no empirical test for Divinity.
Or any other test either. That’s the problem for people who would claim the divine and want the claim to be taken seriously.
What you are saying is the equivalent of trying to find out how good a footballer someone is by getting them to play the saxophone.
Except there’s a test for good football playing that could be used instead. Your problem is closer to complaining that someone wants to apply the saxophone grade 8 exam to claims of Scotch mist knitting. Fine. Which test would you propose they use instead?
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Vlad,
Not really. Perhaps not in an absolute sense, but science proceeds a least on the basis that, say, potassium is real but phlogiston is not.
In epistemic terms yes.
Depends what you mean by “do”. Science defines, describes and explains phenomena – it isn’t the phenomena themselves though.
Nope. Gravity being naturalistic is a more parsimonious explanation – ie, it requires fewer assumptions - than pixies holding stuff down with very thin stings so we can reasonably call the former “true” albeit with no reference to absolute positions.
But there would be for a god showing up in person, or at least to the satisfaction of the Bible’s authors there would be.
Or any other test either. That’s the problem for people who would claim the divine and want the claim to be taken seriously.
Except there’s a test for good football playing that could be used instead. Your problem is closer to complaining that someone wants to apply the saxophone grade 8 exam to claims of Scotch mist knitting. Fine. Which test would you propose they use instead?
Science has a better description of how things are than the old phlogiston theory. And arrived at it through scientific means. Any extension of this beyond the scientific is scientism and empiricism neither of which can be established by science. You make an irrelevant statement.
Gravity or pixies? What the fuck is that all about. Like incarnating Leprechauns, Pixies holding the cosmos together is another of your confections. Another straw man which no one but you or someone with a more creative imagination than you has thought of.
Parsimony is not about whacky vs sensible, or supernatural versus natural it’s about simplicity of solution but more importantly necessary entities.
Another grand misunderstanding that religion rules out naturalistic explanations or always prefers supernatural ones instead. That is not the case except for fundamentalism perhaps.
In fact, believing that is an article of faith for fundey New atheists.
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First of all science doesn't make any judgment on what exists
Yes it does. Science judges that the planet Neptune exists despite the fact that we can't see it in the night sky.
Secondly science doesn't do a lot of things
We are not talking about a lot of things, we are talking specifically about whether God exists. Science does do existence.
There is no empirical test for Divinity.
Agreed. However, earlier you said there could be a test for divinity.
That isn't what is being claimed by Christianity. Any empirical measurement of Jesus would not have yielded any scientific data concerning his divinity.
Another question for you to evade. If there can never be a test for divinity, how can we ever be sure that Jesus was/is divine?
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Yes it does. Science judges that the planet Neptune exists despite the fact that we can't see it in the night sky.
And we know that Uranus exists because you seem to be talking through it...Only joking. That one planet exists but the planet Vulcan, originately thought to be the first planet from the sun doesn't. We know that scientifically because there is no measurable planet and science seeks the measureable and the material. But it does not do ontology. It is totally focussed on the physical and makes no comment one way or the other as to other ontologies.
Another question for you to evade. If there can never be a test for divinity, how can we ever be sure that Jesus was/is divine?
That certainty or surety is only mediated by science is scientism, physicalism, naturalism, materialism and empiricism.
As I said, you and I are the instruments of detecting the divine.
I think it is interesting that when I gave the original scenario at the start of this thread some seemed to plump for that evidence only indicating Aliens.
To identify as God therefore it seems he has chosen a different route from scientific knowledge to knowledge of the divine maybe to avoid confusion with aliens perhaps.
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[science] is totally focussed on the physical and makes no comment one way or the other as to other ontologies.
What other ontologies? Can you name another ontology that can be shown to have any grounding in reality?
As I said, you and I are the instruments of the divine.
That assumes the divine exists, but you have no way of showing that the divine exists.
You seem to be inventing a ton of gobbledygook around science, but it is really very simple at its core. Science is just testing your ideas (whatever they are) against reality. If you can't test God with science, you cn never be sure that he exists. So we might as well assume he doesn't.
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What other ontologies? Can you name another ontology that can be shown to have any grounding in reality?
That assumes the divine exists, but you have no way of showing that the divine exists.
You seem to be inventing a ton of gobbledygook around science, but it is really very simple at its core. Science is just testing your ideas (whatever they are) against reality. If you can't test God with science, you cn never be sure that he exists. So we might as well assume he doesn't.
No gobbledy gook. Just plain facts about what science is or isn't capable of. Anything beyond that and we are into isms which are not capable of being established scientifically. As for reality, There are other realities or aspects of reality, maths and history, morality for example.
Carrying on without God because he doesn't appear in the anals of science without investigating avenues already taken is scientism which as I've pointed out to you already isn't established by science.
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As I said, you and I are the instruments of detecting the divine.
They're a bit shit at it then - otherwise there wouldn't be endless different religions, sects, cults, and denominations, not to mention that they all look exactly like other human superstitions.
Carrying on without God because he doesn't appear in the anals of science without investigating avenues already taken is scientism which as I've pointed out to you already isn't established by science.
Where's the objective methodology we can use to test, which, if any gods exist? And yet again, the word "God" by itself, without further definition, is totally meaningless.
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They're a bit shit at it then - otherwise there wouldn't be endless different religions, sects, cults, and denominations, not to mention that they all look exactly like other human superstitions.
Not sure.
I think we can imply the divine even and perhaps especially where it is being dodged.
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I think we can imply the divine even and perhaps especially where it is being dodged.
Laughable. Nobody can dodge meaningless waffle, and "the divine" is just as meaningless as "God". Unless you can come up with a definition and an objective methodology, even if some god(s) exists, we simply can't know.
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Pidge,
Science has a better description of how things are than the old phlogiston theory.
And indeed better than any claim of fact with no means of investigation and testing.
And arrived at it through scientific means.
Science employs “scientific means”? Er, yes.
Any extension of this beyond the scientific…
No-one is doing that.
..is scientism…
Depends what “extension” you had in mind, but unless it’s the claim that all phenomena are necessarily amenable to the scientific method then no it isn’t.
…and empiricism…
Science is necessarily empiricist.
…neither of which can be established by science.
Scientism isn’t a claim anyone I know of makes, and of course empiricism is validated by science. That’s why we have aeroplanes and medicines.
You make an irrelevant statement.
Wrong again.
Gravity or pixies? What the fuck is that all about. Like incarnating Leprechauns, Pixies holding the cosmos together is another of your confections. Another straw man which no one but you or someone with a more creative imagination than you has thought of.
Ah of course – there’s me forgetting that you have no concept of the analogy. Sorry, my bad.
I was merely trying to explain to you parsimony in terms I thought you’d be able to grasp. Clearly the effort failed.
Parsimony is not about whacky vs sensible, or supernatural versus natural it’s about simplicity of solution but more importantly necessary entities.
Actually it’s about which proposition requires the fewest assumptions, but as ever you’ve missed the point about that.
Another grand misunderstanding that religion rules out naturalistic explanations or always prefers supernatural ones instead. That is not the case except for fundamentalism perhaps.
Nope, no idea what you’ve even trying to say here and nor does it relate to anything I said. It’s simple enough though: either the religion to which you happen to subscribe thinks some phenomena to be “supernatural” or it doesn’t. And if it does, by that term you mean either the definition “outside the scope of science to explain” or the definition “outside the laws of nature”. For some reason you’re refusing to tell us which version you opt for though, so what you actually think about that is anyone’s guess.
In fact, believing that is an article of faith for fundey New atheists.
I suppose it would be if anyone did (and if there was actually such a thing as a “fundey New Atheist” (sic)) but as that’s just another of your straw men and your invented bogey man respectively we can safely ignore it.
So anyway, as despite your coyness on the matter as you seem to believe in a god outwith the laws of nature able to flit in and out of material form at the drop of a hat, do you have any good reason at all to deny me the same claim for my belief “leprechauns”?
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Laughable. Nobody can dodge meaningless waffle, and "the divine" is just as meaningless as "God". Unless you can come up with a definition and an objective methodology, even if some god(s) exists, we simply can't know.
I don't see what is meaningless about a cause for nature that is external to nature rather than nature causing itself.
In terms of methodological materialism I'm afraid it gives no justification of your arguments so why it has been inveigled into those arguments is certainly a mystery to me.
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Vlad,
I don't see what is meaningless about a cause for nature that is external to nature rather than nature causing itself.
How about the problem it gives you of finding a cause for that cause?
In terms of methodological materialism I'm afraid it gives no justification of your arguments so why it has been inveigled into those arguments is certainly a mystery to me.
A mistake you've made countless times despite being corrected on it just as many times. What then would be the point of correcting you on it again?
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Pidge,
And indeed better than any claim of fact with no means of investigation and testing.
Science employs “scientific means”? Er, yes.
No-one is doing that.
Depends what “extension” you had in mind, but unless it’s the claim that all phenomena are necessarily amenable to the scientific method then no it isn’t.
Science is necessarily empiricist.
Scientism isn’t a claim anyone I know of makes, and of course empiricism is validated by science. That’s why we have aeroplanes and medicines.
Wrong again.
Ah of course – there’s me forgetting that you have no concept of the analogy. Sorry, my bad.
I was merely trying to explain to you parsimony in terms I thought you’d be able to grasp. Clearly the effort failed.
Actually it’s about which proposition requires the fewest assumptions, but as ever you’ve missed the point about that.
Nope, no idea what you’ve even trying to say here and nor does it relate to anything I said. It’s simple enough though: either the religion to which you happen to subscribe thinks some phenomena to be “supernatural” or it doesn’t. And if it does, by that term you mean either the definition “outside the scope of science to explain” or the definition “outside the laws of nature”. For some reason you’re refusing to tell us which version you opt for though, so what you actually think about that is anyone’s guess.
I suppose it would be if anyone did (and if there was actually such a thing as a “fundey New Atheist” (sic)) but as that’s just another of your straw men and your invented bogey man respectively we can safely ignore it.
So anyway, as despite your coyness on the matter as you seem to believe in a god outwith the laws of nature able to flit in and out of material form at the drop of a hat, do you have any good reason at all to deny me the same claim for my belief “leprechauns”?
Joseph
The schtick from your bundle of schticks, that religion prefers a supernatural explanation for each event over a scientific explanation where there can be one has been exposed for the gargantuan tosh it is. NOMA and all that.
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I don't see what is meaningless about a cause for nature that is external to nature rather than nature causing itself.
That's just meaningless waffle too. We simply don't know why nature exists and if we did, why would we label it as "God" or "the divine" or even "unnatural" or "supernatural"?
In terms of methodological materialism I'm afraid it gives no justification of your arguments so why it has been inveigled into those arguments is certainly a mystery to me.
I didn't say anything about methodological materialism, I said you needed a definition and some sort of objective methodology to investigate it with.
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Pidge,
Joseph
The schtick from your bundle of schticks, that religion prefers a supernatural explanation for each event over a scientific explanation where there can be one has been exposed for the gargantuan tosh it is. NOMA and all that.
Straw man noted. I don't suppose you have any actual arguments in response to what I actually said though do you?
Something?
Anything?
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Vlad,
How about the problem it gives you of finding a cause for that cause?
''Who created that creator?'' is not an atheist question. It also doesn't negate a creator for the universe.
Argument from contingency gives an elegant stop to infinite regression which cannot actually produce anything anywhere. (The infinitely owed £5 scenario and all that)
Infinite universe or Ad nihilistic existence are both supernatural (see the Oxford dictonary vis beyond the ambit of science)
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Pidge,
Straw man noted. I don't suppose you have any actual arguments in response to what I actually said though do you?
Something?
Anything?
You have rather inferred that the religious prefer explanatory pixies for the effect of gravity rather than Gravity and yes, even if that is analogy it is analogy for the religious preferring supernatural explanations to the scientific explanations.
Shit analogy, straw man, a turdpolish and projection of blame all in one morning.....not bad Hillside, not bad at all.
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''Who created that creator?'' is not an atheist question. It also doesn't negate a creator for the universe.
It does show that it doesn't actually answer the question of why stuff exists.
Argument from contingency gives an elegant stop to infinite regression which cannot actually produce anything anywhere.
Still waiting for you to post this argument. And BTW, if you can argue that something is a logically necessary, wouldn't that make it contingent on logic?
Infinite universe or Ad nihilistic existence are both supernatural (see the Oxford dictonary vis beyond the ambit of science)
Still drivel.
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It does show that it doesn't actually answer the question of why stuff exists.
Still waiting for you to post this argument. And BTW, if you can argue that something is a logically necessary, wouldn't that make it contingent on logic?
Still drivel.
What do you mean by stuff.
It answers the accusation of God being a meaningless thing. Which can only be true if the idea of creation of anything was meaningless we know too that creation by intelligence is not a meaningless thing either.
In terms of making God contingent. Seeing that infinite regress cannot apparently produce anything, a Necessary creator would have to be. We cannot say with any confidence that THAT GOD is not the God of the answer to why there is something rather than nothing, who is being experienced and worshipped or sought.
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What do you mean by stuff.
Everything.
It answers the accusation of God being a meaningless thing.
You can define "God" as an intelligent creator of the universe (presumably singular) but that still leaves us with endless different god-ideas that contradict each other.
Seeing that infinite regress cannot apparently produce anything...
So you keep asserting. I see no logical contradiction in an infinite past.
...a Necessary creator would have to be.
Why would whatever is necessary, if anything is, be an intelligent creator? And you didn't address the point, if you use logic to argue that something is necessary, then you're making it contingent on logic, so it would be logic itself that would be necessary.
We cannot say with any confidence that THAT GOD...
Nothing you've said has given any sound reason to think that any god actually exists.
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Everything.
You can define "God" as an intelligent creator of the universe (presumably singular) but that still leaves us with endless different god-ideas that contradict each other.
But that would have no bearing on God as creator which would be the commonly agreed meaning. Any other differences would not be relevant in that respect
So you keep asserting. I see no logical contradiction in an infinite past.
Except it doesn't answer the question of why/how there is something rather than nothing. There could be an infinite past but devoid of anything since Infinite regressions do not seem to produce anything in themselves( The infinitely owed £5 scenario).
Why would whatever is necessary, if anything is, be an intelligent creator?
Having no external influence itself is the only creative force so the creation or decision or choice to create or not to create must come from within the necessary entity. Since there is no scope for accident or chance or randomness it must have it's own reasons. Non intelligent things are not known to harbour there own reasons And you didn't address the point, if you use logic to argue that something is necessary, then you're making it contingent on logic, so it would be logic itself that would be necessary.
I don't think so....I may be making my argument from logic but a necessary entity is not conjured by clever argument but must exist on its own.
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Except it doesn't answer the question of why/how there is something rather than nothing.
It doesn't need to answer that question, as the precept makes the question moot - there was never 'nothing' for 'something' to emerge from, there was never a time when there was nothing for there to be an option for something, there is only an eternal something.
There could be an infinite past but devoid of anything since Infinite regressions do not seem to produce anything in themselves( The infinitely owed £5 scenario).
Infinite regression doesn't need to produce anything, the thing is already there - that's what makes it infinite. If there were a time it weren't there in order to need to create something, it wouldn't be infinite.
O.
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It doesn't need to answer that question, as the precept makes the question moot - there was never 'nothing' for 'something' to emerge from, there was never a time when there was nothing for there to be an option for something, there is only an eternal something.
And how is that not the necessary entity or radically different from God?
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But that would have no bearing on God as creator which would be the commonly agreed meaning. Any other differences would not be relevant in that respect
Which doesn't help with either the fact that you have not made a coherent case for such a being nor with the fact that the various god-ideas contradict each other.
Except it doesn't answer the question of why/how there is something rather than nothing.
Neither does an intelligent creator.
There could be an infinite past but devoid of anything since Infinite regressions do not seem to produce anything in themselves( The infinitely owed £5 scenario).
You still haven't pointed out any contradiction and, as I said before, time is part of the universe, as far as our best theory is concerned, so whether the past is finite or infinite doesn't change the fact that the whole manifold is not embedded in time at all.
Having no external influence itself is the only creative force so the creation or decision or choice to create or not to create must come from within the necessary entity. Since there is no scope for accident or chance or randomness it must have it's own reasons. Non intelligent things are not known to harbour there own reasons
This is just nonsensical. A mind that thinks and makes choices requires time, for a start. Also, part of your previous attempts at defining necessity was that it couldn't have been different. As soon as it has a choice, it could have been different.
I don't think so....I may be making my argument from logic but a necessary entity is not conjured by clever argument but must exist on its own.
I wasn't talking about the specific argument. If something is logically necessary (which it would have to be if you could make a logical argument for it - not that you have, of course) then it depends on logic for its existence. If logic was different, then it wouldn't exist, so it would be contingent on logic, and it's logic itself that would be necessary.
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Pidge,
''Who created that creator?'' is not an atheist question.
No-one said it was. Rather it merely says that, if you want to posit a creator god then you give yourself exactly the same problem about that god as the problem you thought there was with a naturalistic model of the universe: where did “god” come from?
It also doesn't negate a creator for the universe.
That’s stupid. What it actually does is to tell you that shifting a problem you thought insurmountable about the universe to something else doesn’t make the problem go away.
Argument from contingency gives an elegant stop to infinite regression which cannot actually produce anything anywhere. (The infinitely owed £5 scenario and all that)
“It’s magic innit” is not an “elegant” anything – it’s just evasiveness.
Infinite universe or Ad nihilistic existence are both supernatural (see the Oxford dictonary vis beyond the ambit of science)
Currently or in principle? You’re going to have to get off the fence once day about which version you’re attempting. Was thunder for example once “supernatural” according to the version of the term you’re trying here?
You have rather inferred that the religious prefer explanatory pixies for the effect of gravity rather than Gravity…
Stop lying. What I actually explained to you was the principle of parsimony – ie, that answers requiring fewer assumptions are to be preferred over those requiring more assumptions, and used the scientific theory of gravity vs the pixie version to illustrate the point. As you seem unable to grasp the nature of analogy though, the effort was wasted on you.
… and yes, even if that is analogy it is analogy for the religious preferring supernatural explanations to the scientific explanations.
Er, isn’t “God” supposed to be “supernatural” (the “outside the laws of nature” version of the term) according to most religious people?
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Pidge,
No-one said it was. Rather it merely says that, if you want to posit a creator god then you give yourself exactly the same problem about that god as the problem you thought there was with a naturalistic model of the universe: where did “god” come from?
Joseph
Well the question can certainly be asked. How does that help naturalism since the natural seems to be contingent? Whereas something Non Contingent seems the most logical position to embrace.
Admission that one does not and probably cannot detect the necessary event, condition or entity has given way to the temptation to say things like ''the universe just is'', or there is no necessary entity, event or condition (explaining away) and one is left with appeal to infinite regresses which it can be argued are unproductive.
There has been compromise. I have said that I am willing, if it is found, to be shown the necessary aspect, event, moment etc in/of the universe and I think many atheists are happy to have an eternal necessary so long as it isn't God.
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To become a pagan, start to believe in gods, follow paganism, join with other pagans?
Sorry for the delay in responding, I missed this reply!
To become a pagan - it was a religion that didn't demand the kind of things that Christianity did. They have no equivalent of the Bible unless you become a Gardnerian, which I didn't. It did not demand that I believe as a matter of fact that the Goddesses and Gods exist. All they ask is that you have a personal faith that they do and during a ritual, you have faith that they hear what you say and that you understand that like humans, they may choose to ignore you without any other reason than, like humans again, they just can't be bothered or are too busy with something else. Also, there are different deities who look after different things, they don't expect you to believe in one entity that does it all (and then fucks most of it up").
To start to believe in Gods - see above.
To follow paganism - the cycle of Life - Birth, Life, Death and Rebirth - No Hell, just the Summerlands in which to go over what has happened during your previous life and to use that to prepare for Rebirth.
To join with other Pagans - A sip of communion wine? Sod that for a game of soldiers. wait 'til the ritual is over and get out a few bottles of the Moniak or Lindisfarne, work out which ritual is going to be the next one you go to, which need not be the one of your own coven's as you might be invited to go to a different coven's ritual! As long as you clear your absence with your own High Priestess, of course! Also, there are no 'different denominations' separated by differences in dogma (again except the Garnerians). they are ALL pagans and they accept every pagan's right to work in his or her own way (except the Gardnerians!)!
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Sorry for the delay in responding, I missed this reply!
That’s fine, thank you very much for responding. If you feel that if my responses don’t apply please let me know.
To become a pagan - it was a religion that didn't demand the kind of things that Christianity did.
which demands? I don’t think demands necessarily affect the truth status of any religion. For myself I think religion is probably less real if it isn’t promoting some sense of challenge within you. That promotes a sense of rubbing up against something other. They have no equivalent of the Bible unless you become a Gardnerian, which I didn't.
Although I believe God opened up my understanding of the bible prior to becoming a Christian I have a modicum of sympathy in that early in my Christian life I noted some brothers and sisters held the bible in a different position of ascendancy neatly summed up by the local vicar when I discussed the situation with him. He described their position as making the bible almost the fourth member of the trinity which of course it isn’t. I think non Christians also think this.It did not demand that I believe as a matter of fact that the Goddesses and Gods exist. All they ask is that you have a personal faith that they do and during a ritual, you have faith that they hear what you say
This statement looks self contradictory and only seems to make sense if you take the word exist, to mean exist in the material sense.
If you do not believe they exist in any sense, how can you have faith that they hear what you say?
It looks that you have misunderstood the nature of existence as meant by Christians in my opinion.
If something is actually not real at all then it makes sense that they have no power except over the imagination and they do not actually hear anything.
I have not said your gods are not real....but you have apparently. Neither do I believe your religion to be bollocks. Have you asked your atheist friends here.if they believe that?
understand that like humans, they may choose to ignore you without any other reason than, like humans again, they just can't be bothered or are too busy with something else. Also, there are different deities who look after different things, they don't expect you to believe in one entity that does it all (and then fucks most of it up").
Does your belief have a supreme God or Goddess?
To start to believe in Gods - see above.
To follow paganism - the cycle of Life - Birth, Life, Death and Rebirth - No Hell, just the Summerlands in which to go over what has happened during your previous life and to use that to prepare for Rebirth.
To join with other Pagans - A sip of communion wine? Sod that for a game of soldiers. wait 'til the ritual is over and get out a few bottles of the Moniak or Lindisfarne, work out which ritual is going to be the next one you go to, which need not be the one of your own coven's as you might be invited to go to a different coven's ritual! As long as you clear your absence with your own High Priestess, of course! Also, there are no 'different denominations' separated by differences in dogma (again except the Garnerians). they are ALL pagans and they accept every pagan's right to work in his or her own way (except the
Most religions have their schismatic but it sounds like you guys are working overtime to keep up a united front. However Please excuse and indulge me in your resolve in this matter..... You have Gods.....and I have a God, You believe in freestyle worship, I worship in my own way. What is it then that excludes from being in your group of pagans? Same for the gardnerians.
[/quote]
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And how is that not the necessary entity or radically different from God?
Whether or not it's necessary rather depends on which definition of necessary you're deploying today. How it's different from gods is that there's no suggestion of consciousness, intent, purpose, goals, judgement, magic, deliberation or direction in the explanation.
None of which was actually the point, I was just showing that you keep failing to appreciate the implications of a potentially infinite reality with regards to ideas like 'before' or 'creation'.
O.
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Whether or not it's necessary rather depends on which definition of necessary you're deploying today. How it's different from gods is that there's no suggestion of consciousness, intent, purpose, goals, judgement, magic, deliberation or direction in the explanation.
Immediately and on the off. If there is only one entity there is only one degree of freedom and therefore only one direction. Unless of course other potentialities are contained within this one entity. Since there is no randomness, no possible accident since there is nothing external to blunder in and nothing external to influence or determine, then something very much like a choice, and more like choice than anything else would have to be made about which potentiality to enact.
Something without the aforementioned properties would enact all potentialities and therefore a chaos would ensue. Whether that would occur simultaneously or progressively one could only hazard.
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Immediately and on the off. If there is only one entity there is only one degree of freedom and therefore only one direction. Unless of course other potentialities are contained within this one entity. Since there is no randomness, no possible accident since there is nothing external to blunder in and nothing external to influence or determine, then something very much like a choice, and more like choice than anything else would have to be made about which potentiality to enact.
Something without the aforementioned properties would enact all potentialities and therefore a chaos would ensue. Whether that would occur simultaneously or progressively one could only hazard.
This is still utter nonsense and baseless assertions. You can't have anything like a choice without time. What's more, if there is a choice then it could have been different with flatly contradicts what you've previously said about necessity.
And I'm still actually waiting for you to set out this supposed argument from necessity, or reference a summary that you're prepared to stand by. What are the premises, what logic steps lead you to a necessity that is anything like any god-ideas? If you can make a logical argument how is the 'necessary' entity not contingent on logical self-consistency itself?
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This is still utter nonsense and baseless assertions. You can't have anything like a choice without time.
The floor is yours!
Outrider and I are discussing an infinite reality. What do you think you are discussing?
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No gobbledy gook.
Just saying it doesn't make it so.
Just plain facts
How are you determining that what you assert is fact?
about what science is or isn't capable of. Anything beyond that and we are into isms
You're the one who keeps wanting to talk about isms. I'm trying to avoid all that useless jargon.
There are other realities or aspects of reality, maths and history, morality for example.
Mathematics by itself will not tell you anything about reality. Morality is a set of rules that define the bounds of acceptable human social behaviour. It's not meant to tell you about reality.
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Vlad,
Well the question can certainly be asked. How does that help naturalism since the natural seems to be contingent?
No-one said it “helps” naturalism. What was actually being said was that transferring an unknown to a new (supposed) entity doesn’t make it any less of an unknown. “It’s magic innit” answers nothing.
Whereas something Non Contingent seems the most logical position to embrace.
No it doesn’t. The “most logical position to embrace” is to proceed from known precepts to seek a coherent, investigable and testable answer – it’s not to think that “it’s magic innit” is any kind of answer at all. "God" in other words isn't an answer - it's the abnegation of an answer.
Admission that one does not and probably cannot detect the necessary event, condition or entity has given way to the temptation to say things like ''the universe just is'', or there is no necessary entity, event or condition (explaining away) and one is left with appeal to infinite regresses which it can be argued are unproductive.
First, you’ve yet to demonstrate that there must have been a “necessary event”.
Second, a “don’t know” isn’t “unproductive” – it’s just a statement of the current state of knowledge. There’s nothing more productive about trying to fill a gap in understanding with “it’s magic innit”.
There has been compromise. I have said that I am willing, if it is found, to be shown the necessary aspect, event, moment etc in/of the universe and I think many atheists are happy to have an eternal necessary so long as it isn't God.
Yet again, atheism doesn’t say “so long as it isn’t God” at all. What it actually says is, “the arguments you attempt to justify your belief “god” are either missing, incoherent or wrong. Therefore there’s no need to take the claim seriously”.
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Just saying it doesn't make it so.
How are you determining that what you assert is fact?
You're the one who keeps wanting to talk about isms. I'm trying to avoid all that useless jargon.
Mathematics by itself will not tell you anything about reality. Morality is a set of rules that define the bounds of acceptable human social behaviour. It's not meant to tell you about reality.
Well, I guess i've punted what I consider to be reality. Perhaps it's about time you told us what your conception of it is.
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. . . it sounds like you guys are working overtime to keep up a united front. Same for the Gardnerians.
Before I answer any of the other points made in your post I must clarify one thing from the quote above.
There is no "United Front" and if you read some of the posts on the Pagan Topic, especially those of the Lady Rhiannon and myself, that should be blindingly obvious.
Paganism is in no way a formalised religion. Each and every Pagan is free to follow whichever path he or she wishes, solitary, coven, or a mixture of both. The only "united front" is probably the Pagan Federation which will, if requested, represent any and all pagans who are experiencing difficulties of any sort in the practice of their beliefs due to opposition by non-Pagans or, even, from other pagans who follow a different path, such as, occasionally, the Gardnerians.
It is, and this is one of the things that attracted me to it, highly individualistic. A Pagan car=n follow his/her own path entirely separate from every other Pagan on Earth for 364/365 days/nights of the year/leap year and yet join a coven of witches to celebrate Samhain (look it up in a dictionary) should they wish so to do and the Coven was willing to accept their presence.
Gardnerians are followers of Gerald Brosseau Gardner who (quite literally) invented Gardnerian Witchcraft in the 1950s and whose followers consider themselves the elite of the Craft and will not countenance the presence of any non-Gardnerian at any ritual that they perform.
If you cannot understand these points it is going to be a long and difficult road to explain my beliefs and my attachment to them in place of the Christianity in which I was brought up!
Owlswing
)O(
PS - It might be an idea to get the Mods to move our posts from this thread to the Pagan Topic
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Vlad,
No-one said it “helps” naturalism. What was actually being said was that transferring an unknown to a new (supposed) entity doesn’t make it any less of an unknown. “It’s magic innit” answers nothing.
No it doesn’t. The “most logical position to embrace” is to proceed from known precepts to seek a coherent, investigable and testable answer – it’s not to think that “it’s magic innit” is any kind of answer at all. "God" in other words isn't an answer - it's the abnegation of an answer.
First, you’ve yet to demonstrate that there must have been a “necessary event”.
Second, a “don’t know” isn’t “unproductive” – it’s just a statement of the current state of knowledge. There’s nothing more productive about trying to fill a gap in understanding with “it’s magic innit”.
Yet again, atheism doesn’t say “so long as it isn’t God” at all. What it actually says is, “the arguments you attempt to justify your belief “god” are either missing, incoherent or wrong. Therefore there’s no need to take the claim seriously”.
It and you can assert that as much as it and you likes even unto Bovine homecoming. Bovine Homecoming, Bovine excretion more like it.
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Pidge,
It and you can assert that as much as it and you likes even unto Bovine homecoming. Bovine Homecoming, Bovine excretion more like it.
So I explain point-by-point where you've gone wrong, and in reply you just spit the dummy.
In the unlikely event you ever feel like attempting at least an argument to counter-argue, let me know. In the meantime, your abject collapse (yet again) is noted.
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Since there is no randomness, no possible accident since there is nothing external to blunder in and nothing external to influence or determine, then something very much like a choice, and more like choice than anything else would have to be made about which potentiality to enact.
I don't see how you get to that. In order for there to be choice there has to be a) something to do the choosing and b) possibilities. In a deterministic and eternal reality there is neither anything 'before' the reality in order to choose it, and no possibility of an alternative for there to be a choice of. The concept of choice makes no sense to me in that context.
O.
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Well, I guess i've punted what I consider to be reality. Perhaps it's about time you told us what your conception of it is.
That which still exists when we stop believing in it is one.
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I don't see how you get to that. In order for there to be choice there has to be a) something to do the choosing and b) possibilities. In a deterministic and eternal reality there is neither anything 'before' the reality in order to choose it, and no possibility of an alternative for there to be a choice of. The concept of choice makes no sense to me in that context.
O.
But I am arguing that the eternal reality and God are one and the same. So the eternal reality is self determining and since it is the one thing there is no accident to have, no direction to unconsciously blunder into, no randomness. Any potentialities as far as a temporary or temporal universe is concerned must exist within the eternal reality for there is nowhere else to exist.
That the universe is a single consistent actualised potentiality points to self control which a single eternal reality, entity or necessary must logically be imbued with.
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Pidge,
So I explain point-by-point where you've gone wrong, and in reply you just spit the dummy.
In the unlikely event you ever feel like attempting at least an argument to counter-argue, let me know. In the meantime, your abject collapse (yet again) is noted.
Bullscat.
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If you can make a logical argument how is the 'necessary' entity not contingent on logical self-consistency itself?
Sorry I missed this. If you are saying logic might be the necessary entity, I would say you might be in the right direction. Since regards to any matter something has to be logical, logic must be involved.
However, I would say that we need the matter, entity, process in question for the logic to operate, so the logic is dependent or contingent on the matter. In the case of the ultimate, this is resolved, I would move where the logic and the matter in question are one.
I’m sure there are those here who would say that without a physical universe logic would not exist.
I say that without God it would not exist. In fact, the early Greek Christians held that Jesus is the logos as held in Greek philosophy.
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Vlad,
Second, a “don’t know” isn’t “unproductive” – it’s just a statement of the current state of knowledge. There’s nothing more productive about trying to fill a gap in understanding with “it’s magic innit”.
Of course a Don’t know is unproductive and certainly on it’s own. Don’t know leading to humility might be productive but I don’t quite see that in your case.
A magician with a hat and a rabbit has got to be less magical than an ultimately unproductive infinite chain of magicians, rabbits and hats.........or one infinitely old rabbit.
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That which still exists when we stop believing in it is one.
I believe we can make something out of this.
In terms of still existing, will you exist in a million years?
How long will your atoms last? How long will the quarks and electrons exist?
Now go back and ask how long have they existed?
And then ask yourself what then is real after or before everything you know or can measure existed?
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Pidge,
Bullscat.
Still no argument then.
Of course a Don’t know is unproductive and certainly on it’s own. Don’t know leading to humility might be productive but I don’t quite see that in your case.
Nope. “Don’t know” is “productive” in that it provides a starting point for investigation, testing, validation etc of the likely answer. Just filling the gap it creates with “god” though serves to shut that down – you have the answer to your satisfaction already, so why bother looking for another one that’s coherent, cogent, justified with reason and evidence etc? “God” is the beginning and end of enquiry – though having eructated that white noise you’re left with the problem that there’s nothing useful you can do with it.
A magician with a hat and a rabbit has got to be less magical than an ultimately unproductive infinite chain of magicians, rabbits and hats.........or one infinitely old rabbit.
So now you’re dicking around with the difference between “conjuring” and “magic”. Look, if you don’t like “it’s magic innit” for your position and would prefer another term for a claim that’s incoherent, vague and non-investigable about an entity that apparently exists outwith all physical, temporal and it seems logical constraints then think of another word for it. Until you do though, describing your position as “it’s magic innit” seems a good fit to me.
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Pidge,
Still no argument then.
Nope. “Don’t know” is “productive” in that it provides a starting point for investigation, testing, validation etc of the likely answer. Just filling the gap it creates with “god” though serves to shut that down – you have the answer to your satisfaction already, so why bother looking for another one that’s coherent, cogent, justified with reason and evidence etc? “God” is the beginning and end of enquiry – though having eructated that white noise you’re left with the problem that there’s nothing useful you can do with it.
So now you’re dicking around with the difference between “conjuring” and “magic”. Look, if you don’t like “it’s magic innit” for your position and would prefer another term for a claim that’s incoherent, vague and non-investigable about an entity that apparently exists outwith all physical, temporal and it seems logical constraints then think of another word for it. Until you do though, describing your position as “it’s magic innit” seems a good fit to me.
‘Magic innit”sounded like a jolly piece of spin to the North Essex mind. But when the implications of it are realised....blame anyone else......I see parallels here with Sir Bernard Jenkins voting for the withdrawal agreement,
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Pidge,
Still no argument then.
Nope. “Don’t know” is “productive” in that it provides a starting point for investigation, testing, validation etc of the likely answer.
OK so how are your plans, your investigation, testing and validation coming on? Development of a hypothesis might be in order too. My guess is that YOU HAVEN’T made much effort in this direction. I thought it was established that science doesn’t do god.
All you are doing Hillside is substituting thinking with science and science with scientism.
That i’m Afraid should sicken every person to the core of their very being.
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Pidge,
‘Magic innit”sounded like a jolly piece of spin to the North Essex mind. But when the implications of it are realised....blame anyone else......I see parallels here with Sir Bernard Jenkins voting for the withdrawal agreement,
Anyway, as I was saying…if you don’t like “magic” as your “argument” to justify your claim “god” that’s incoherent, vague and non-investigable about an entity that apparently exists outwith all physical, temporal and it seems logical constraints then think of another word for it.
It’s your problem to describe how you'd justify that claim, not mine.
OK so how are your plans, your investigation, testing and validation coming on? Development of a hypothesis might be in order too. My guess is that YOU HAVEN’T made much effort in this direction. I thought it was established that science doesn’t do god.
Wow – you’ve done some pretty epic shifting of the burden of proof before now, but this one surely takes the biscuit. “God” is your claim, not mine so it’s your job to propose a method to justify it, not mine. You know, the question you always run away from when it’s asked: if you don’t think science can do the job, tell us which method we should employ instead (cue sound of slamming door, wind whistling, a lonely coyote yelping in the distance etc as Vlad makes his escape yet again) .
All you are doing Hillside is substituting thinking with science and science with scientism.
Stop lying. I’m quite prepared to agree that science has nothing to say about your claim “God”. Your problem though remains that nothing else has either.
Remember?
That i’m Afraid should sicken every person to the core of their very being.
What should – your lying?
I agree.
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I haven't seen any of the evidence of god I assume was proffered in this threads title yet Vlad.
There's been plenty of going around the houses words though, all without the viable evidence that would be required to convince the, so called, atheists, you know Vlad, 'atheists' the more level headed people that post on this forum.
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Pidge,
Anyway, as I was saying…if you don’t like “magic” as your “argument” to justify your claim “god” that’s incoherent, vague and non-investigable about an entity that apparently exists outwith all physical, temporal and it seems logical constraints then think of another word for it.
It’s your problem to describe how you'd justify that claim, not mine.
Wow – you’ve done some pretty epic shifting of the burden of proof before now, but this one surely takes the biscuit. “God” is your claim, not mine so it’s your job to propose a method to justify it, not mine. You know, the question you always run away from when it’s asked: if you don’t think science can do the job, tell us which method we should employ instead (cue sound of slamming door, wind whistling, a lonely coyote yelping in the distance etc as Vlad makes his escape yet again) .
Stop lying. I’m quite prepared to agree that science has nothing to say about your claim “God”. Your problem though remains that nothing else has either.
Remember?
What should – your lying?
I agree.
While you dismiss the reasons people believe their religion to be sensible, while people paint religious people as somehow mentally unstable or thick while substituting thinking with a doctrinaire scientism themselves, it is necessary to counter those views. Not to save God, he’s already old enough and ugly enough to look after himself but as an antidote to ignorance and professional turdpolishing.
We know God cannot be proved or disproved scientifically so that is not in question.
The Johnsonian level of hypocrisy in calling NPF on believers and then freely owning up to not being able to disprove God but acting as though you have needs flagging up regularly.
Nor can you retreat into ''atheism is merely the lack of belief in Gods''. Since your definitions have gone further into the reasonableness of what believers have said about God and the obviousness of your following Dawkins in the attitude and relationship he thinks atheists should have with religion.
“Question everything” the skeptics say but some of them don’t like it when it’s them.
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I haven't seen any of the evidence of god I assume was proffered in this threads title yet Vlad.
There's been plenty of going around the houses words though, all without the viable evidence that would be required to convince the, so called, atheists, you know Vlad, 'atheists' the more level headed people that post on this forum.
Let’s have your justification of level headedness for starters rather than I would imagine an outsiders view that you are obsessed atheists.
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The Johnsonian level of hypocrisy in calling NPF on believers and then freely owning up to not being able to disprove God but acting as though you have needs flagging up regularly.
You really don't get the burden of proof at all, do you? "God" is meaningless. There are countless different claims about contradictory versions of god(s), and saying that nobody has ever given me a definition and an accompanying objective reason to take any of them seriously is not acting as if I've disproved them. There is no need to even try to disprove something if you've seen no reason to take it seriously in the first place. It's the way everybody acts with regard to most fantastical claims all the time.
“Question everything” the skeptics say but some of them don’t like it when it’s them.
What do you think isn't being questioned? Where has somebody made a solid claim (rather than just speculation) that they wouldn't question?
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While you dismiss the reasons people believe their religion to be sensible, while people paint religious people as somehow mentally unstable or thick while substituting thinking with a doctrinaire scientism themselves, it is necessary to counter those views. Not to save God, he’s already old enough and ugly enough to look after himself but as an antidote to ignorance and professional turdpolishing.
I presume you've had a fresh delivery of straw.
We know God cannot be proved or disproved scientifically so that is not in question.
Not quite: it is more that claims of 'God' are irrelevant for science since such claims are made without reference to any methodology that would get you to a 'proved vs disproved' outcome.
The Johnsonian level of hypocrisy in calling NPF on believers and then freely owning up to not being able to disprove God but acting as though you have needs flagging up regularly.
Nobody is trying to 'disprove God' since, as noted above, there is no method that could be used to do so - which is why it is reasonable to dismiss the claim until such times as there is a suitable method available: that prospect seems remote though, and since proponents of 'God' can't advance even a testable definition of 'God' then their claim can be parked.
Nor can you retreat into ''atheism is merely the lack of belief in Gods''. Since your definitions have gone further into the reasonableness of what believers have said about God and the obviousness of your following Dawkins in the attitude and relationship he thinks atheists should have with religion.
Nope - an absence of belief about 'Gods' is a reasonable summary, and nothing else is required.
“Question everything” the skeptics say but some of them don’t like it when it’s them.
Provided, of course, that the question being asked is a valid one.
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While you dismiss the reasons people believe their religion to be sensible, while people paint religious people as somehow mentally unstable or thick while substituting thinking with a doctrinaire scientism themselves, it is necessary to counter those views. Not to save God, he’s already old enough and ugly enough to look after himself but as an antidote to ignorance and professional turdpolishing.
Straw man.
We know God cannot be proved or disproved scientifically so that is not in question.
The Johnsonian level of hypocrisy in calling NPF on believers and then freely owning up to not being able to disprove God but acting as though you have needs flagging up regularly.
Nor can you retreat into ''atheism is merely the lack of belief in Gods''. Since your definitions have gone further into the reasonableness of what believers have said about God and the obviousness of your following Dawkins in the attitude and relationship he thinks atheists should have with religion.
Another straw man.
“Question everything” the skeptics say but some of them don’t like it when it’s them.
Another straw man.
It's getting positively agricultural in here.
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Vlad,
You’ve managed to pack an awful lot of stupid and an awful lot of dishonest into one post here. Let’s quickly dispense with both, and then see what you’re really up to shall we?
While you dismiss the reasons people believe their religion to be sensible,…
No, what I do is to identify where the logic used to justify beliefs is wrong. On the rare occasions you actually try at least to argue for something rather than misrepresent the views of others you always do it with one or several fallacies. I’ve even in the past codified and numbered them to save time by just replying “1, 3, 7” etc when you do it remember?
…while people paint religious people as somehow mentally unstable or thick…
No-one dos that. Stop lying.
…while substituting thinking with a doctrinaire scientism themselves,…
No-one does that. Stop lying.
…it is necessary to counter those views.
No it isn’t because they’re not views people here express; they’re just more of your straw men (another fallacy).
Not to save God, he’s already old enough and ugly enough to look after himself…
It’s belief in god, not "god". You’re reifying – another fallacy.
… but as an antidote to ignorance and professional turdpolishing.
It’s not ignorant or “professional turdpolishing” to identify correctly when your attempts at logic are wrong.
We know God cannot be proved or disproved scientifically so that is not in question.
No-one has suggested otherwise. Same goes for leprechauns though, which is why the people proposing god and leprechauns alike have the burden of proof to demonstrate their claims or at least to provide a method to do so, which is the point at which you always run away.
The Johnsonian level of hypocrisy in calling NPF on believers and then freely owning up to not being able to disprove God but acting as though you have needs flagging up regularly.
Deep, deep stupidity there. You refer to the NPF, then align with it by complaining that people can’t “disprove God” (even though no-one claims to). The point of the NPF is that the absence of a disproof isn’t an argument for a proposition, and in any case the absence of a disproof of "god" is wholly a function of the failure of theists to provide a method – any method – to investigate the claim. You can’t disprove leprechauns either, and for the same reason: I’ve provided no method to investigate that claim either.
Nor can you retreat into ''atheism is merely the lack of belief in Gods''.
It’s not a “retreat”, any more than your position that a-leprechaunism is merely the lack of belief in leprechauns is a retreat.
Since your definitions have gone further into the reasonableness of what believers have said about God and the obviousness of your following Dawkins in the attitude and relationship he thinks atheists should have with religion.
Incomprehensible gibberish. The “reasonableness” concerns entirely whether or not the arguments theists here attempt to justify their religious beliefs are logically sound. So far, none of them have been.
“Question everything” the skeptics say but some of them don’t like it when it’s them.
Stop lying – you’re welcome to question anything you like (that's one of the many differences between us: I answer questions; you don't). The only one who doesn’t “like it” is you, which brings us to what you’ve really been up to here: evading.
You were asked some simple questions:
1. If you don’t like “magic” to describe your justification for your claim “god” that’s incoherent, vague and non-investigable and concerns an entity that apparently exists outwith all physical, temporal and it seems logical constraints then what word would you prefer?
2. Why did you shift the burden of proof by complaining that I hadn’t proposed a method to investigate your claim “god”, and can you now see what an epic mistake in thinking this was?
3. The big one – after all you ducking and diving, flat out lying, straw manning etc you’re still left with the same question: what method would you propose for anyone to investigate, test and verify your claim “god”? Would it really kill you even to make a vague attempt to answer that rather than return yet again with your usual ragbag of evasions and diversionary tactics?
Really though?
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You really don't get the burden of proof at all, do you?
Yes, Naturalism, physicalism, materialism, empiricism have a burden of proof.
The problem is whether an atheist status quo is the same as any of the aforementioned or indistinguishable from.
So when Hillside chuffs and puffs about belief being indistinguishable from a guess.
The atheist status quo remains stubbornly indistinguishable from naturalism, physicalism, materialism and empiricism.
It is all very well, not being able to, or not having to prove God does not exist, it's acting as though you HAVE which is the problem.
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Vlad,
Yes,...
Then why the cock up of complaining that I hadn't come up with a method to investigate your claim "god"?
Naturalism, physicalism, materialism, empiricism have a burden of proof.
Which the three of them that people actually argue for satisfy.
The problem is whether an atheist status quo is the same as any of the aforementioned or indistinguishable from.
No it isn't. The "atheist status quo" is where you arrive when you identify that the arguments attempted to justify the claim "god" are wrong - no more, no less
So when Hillside chuffs and puffs about belief being indistinguishable from a guess.
What - your claim "god"? Until you ever provide some method to investigate, test and verify it that's exactly what it is.
The atheist status quo remains stubbornly indistinguishable from naturalism, physicalism, materialism and empiricism.
No, just logic. Be nice if you stopped lying about that.
It is all very well, not being able to, or not having to prove God does not exist, it's acting as though you HAVE which is the problem.
No-one does that but, even if they did, why would that be any more a problem than acting as if you'd disproved leprechauns?
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So when Hillside chuffs and puffs about belief being indistinguishable from a guess.
The atheist status quo remains stubbornly indistinguishable from naturalism, physicalism, materialism and empiricism.
Unless you can provide some way (methodology) to distinguish between claims about god(s) from guessing, then nothing else is needed to dismiss such claims - certainly not any of the -isms you list.
It is all very well, not being able to, or not having to prove God does not exist, it's acting as though you HAVE which is the problem.
Yet again: the unqualified word "God" is entirely meaningless because it refers to multiple different concepts - most of which are indistinguishable from guessing without the aforementioned methodology (and those that aren't are falsified by evidence).
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Vlad,
No it isn't. The "atheist status quo" is where you arrive when you identify that the arguments attempted to justify the claim "god" are wrong - no more, no less
That is quite different from A-anything is the status quo which is what I think you came out with. To have identified that the arguments for God are wrong suggests total knowledge, a delusion that Carl Sagan avoided but stressed but is impossible to avoid for an Essex ego.
Also you start with the status quo in an argument. Here you admit to ending with it.
Epic bollocks from North Essex.
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Unless you can provide some way (methodology) to distinguish between claims about god(s) from guessing, then nothing else is needed to dismiss such claims - certainly not any of the -isms you list.
Back to status quo. What you are doing is basing the status quo on not being able to empirically detect God when you look out. If that clinches your atheism that IS empiricism. However empirical science does not support that conclusion which is merely a matter of belief that what I can empirically detect is all there is. Any argument for empiricism being rendered circular argument. Empiricism is therefore a guess. To say that theism is more ''Guessy'' than empiricism is special pleading although Hillside tells us that Stephen Laws has tried to pull it off.
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Pidge,
That is quite different from A-anything is the status quo which is what I think you came out with.
No it isn’t. “A-anything” is what you have before any arguments are attempted for the “anything”. It doesn’t matter at that point what the anything happens to be – above the axiomatic in the absence of reasoning we can only accept everything as true or nothing as true, and the former is incoherent.
To have identified that the arguments for God are wrong suggests total knowledge, a delusion that Carl Sagan avoided but stressed but is impossible to avoid for an Essex ego.
Why are you such an epic fucking liar? What I actually said was:
“Incomprehensible gibberish. The “reasonableness” concerns entirely whether or not the arguments theists here attempt to justify their religious beliefs are logically sound. So far, none of them have been.”
Can you see that “theists here attempt”?
Can you though?
Which part of that qualifier have you managed to turn into a false claim about “total knowledge”? I’ve told you before – if you insist on telling lies here at least try not to be so shit at it.
Also…
There can be no "also" when your prior lying has been identified.
…you start with the status quo in an argument. Here you admit to ending with it.
Gibberish.
Epic bollocks from North Essex.
Lying about what people say so as to call the lie “epic bollocks” is pretty desperate don’t you think?
Also why the weird obsession with god's own county? I don't live there now anyway, but my former bit of it happens to be rather lovely.
So anyway, the main question I predicted correctly you’d run away from (because you always do) was this: what method would you propose for anyone to investigate, test and verify your claim “god”?
It’s ok, you can say it. You have no method of any sort to offer of have you. We knew it anyway, so you might as well say so.
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Back to status quo. What you are doing is basing the status quo on not being able to empirically detect God when you look out.
Drivel. Yet again: the word "God" is devoid of any meaning because it refers to countless different and contradictory claims - and it's up to those who make those claims to provide some (any) method of distinguishing said claims from guessing. Empirical evidence is a way to distinguish guesses from probable truths (as is logic) but if you have some other way, it really is up to you to provide it.
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Drivel. Yet again: the word "God" is devoid of any meaning because it refers to countless different and contradictory claims - and it's up to those who make those claims to provide some (any) method of distinguishing said claims from guessing. Empirical evidence is a way to distinguish guesses from probable truths (as is logic) but if you have some other way, it really is up to you to provide it.
Empiricism is a guess...as I have pointed out to you before.
Empirical evidence sorts out empirical guesses any claims for them beyond that is empiricism.
For logic I don't think there is the talent on this board for a proper oversight of that.
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Pidge,
Empiricism is a guess...as I have pointed out to you before.
Lie 1 – it’s no such thing, for reasons that have been explained to you many times.
Empirical evidence sorts out empirical guesses any claims for them beyond that is empiricism.
Lie 2 – you’re misrepresenting empiricism as an absolutist position rather than a probabilistic one.
For logic I don't think there is the talent on this board for a proper oversight of that.
Lie 3 – there doesn’t need to be a “talent on this board for a proper oversight of that”. Your rare forays onto attempting arguments to justify your beliefs are always logically false. We know this because they align exactly with logical fallacies that are established and codified.
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Pidge,
Lie 1 – it’s no such thing, for reasons that have been explained to you many times.
Lie 2 – you’re misrepresenting empiricism as an absolutist position rather than a probabilistic one.
Lie 3 – there doesn’t need to be a “talent on this board for a proper oversight of that”. Your rare forays onto attempting arguments to justify your beliefs are always logically false. We know this because they align exactly with logical fallacies that are established and codified.
Its not just talent that is needed for oversight its maturity, people skills and integrity.
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Pidge,
Its not just talent that is needed for oversight its maturity, people skills and integrity.
So you get caught out in yet more lying, and reply only to complain about the integrity of other people?
Really?
How about you making an apology instead for your latest set of lies, misrepresentations and straw men and we'll see how we go from there?
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Let’s have your justification of level headedness for starters rather than I would imagine an outsiders view that you are obsessed atheists.
Well basing views on evidence for a start, wouldn't that be a level headed approach to how one bases a view on any subject including religions?
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Pidge,
You’re misrepresenting empiricism as an absolutist position rather than a probabilistic one.
Oh, Do you mean Empiricism is probably the belief that only the empirically detectable and measureable are meaningful or exist rather than just the belief that only the empirically detectable and measureable are meaningful or exist? Or you just don't believe it absolutely and wouldn't and haven't bet the house on it?
And how does that ride with your acting like the atheist big shot? Or is your statement just evasive codswallop?
Then of course there is your adherence to physicalism, of which we can ask the same questions.....and naturalism and scientism and evasionism.
If you are Probably of these Isms, what is it that you are improbably, but with an outside chance you are, an adherent of?
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Well basing views on evidence for a start, wouldn't that be a level headed approach to how one bases a view on any subject including religions?
Empirical evidence, yeah. Thank you Ippy you've proved my point.
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But I am arguing that the eternal reality and God are one and the same.
That's not an example or definition of a god that ties into anything even remotely like the normal usage. It's almost as though you're trying to tie the word god to any concept you can find that's sort of even tangentially relevant to the discussion just to claim validity for your claim of gods, even if it means losing all meaning of the word in the process.
So the eternal reality is self determining and since it is the one thing there is no accident to have, no direction to unconsciously blunder into, no randomness.
No, it's not 'self determining' - it does not 'choose' a direction, it's derterministic.
Any potentialities as far as a temporary or temporal universe is concerned must exist within the eternal reality for there is nowhere else to exist.
Possibly - it can be infinite in time and space but completely orthogonal to things happening in other dimensions.
That the universe is a single consistent actualised potentiality points to self control which a single eternal reality, entity or necessary must logically be imbued with.
No, it doesn't point to 'self control' at all, there is nothing in the conception the requires or suggests there is any degree of 'control' over the process. Processes occur under the influence of natural laws, which are intrinsic parts of reality, but there is nothing selecting them to apply, nothing choosing 'levels' of them or means of interaction, they simply are. There is no 'self' to be doing any determining, there are just natural processes and time.
O.
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That's not an example or definition of a god that ties into anything even remotely like the normal usage.
That is incorrect. The word eternal is associated with religion and god and not 'normal usage' as you construe it. Reality is certainly a term used in God as ground of being theology. In eastern theologies God is the ultimate reality. Your opening statement is thus immedately off the mark considering you have co opted many of the properties of the necessary being from God anyway.
It's almost as though you're trying to tie the word god to any concept you can find that's sort of even tangentially relevant to the discussion just to claim validity for your claim of gods, even if it means losing all meaning of the word in the process.
In view of my accusation I think it would be helpful if you outline, warts and all, your conception of God, bearing in mind I suspect your experience has been largely secular till now.
No, it's not 'self determining' - it does not 'choose' a direction, it's derterministic.
Firstly if the universe is deterministic then there must be a determiner, whatever it is. For the necessary, definitially it must be self determining other wise if it is not there is something which determines it and that then becomes the necessary. Since you are saying the universe is determined You have now then almost proved God IMHO.
there is nothing in the conception the requires or suggests there is any degree of 'control' over the process. Processes occur under the influence of natural laws,
You can be under the influence by being ''under the control of'' so I don't see what the argument is
which are intrinsic parts of reality, but there is nothing selecting them to apply, nothing choosing 'levels' of them or means of interaction, they simply are. There is no 'self' to be doing any determining,
And yet you are suggesting the laws of nature are doing what they do by themselves!!! there are just natural processes and time.
Oh dear the inevitable cop out by declaration of naturalism.
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Pidge
Oh, Do you mean Empiricism is probably the belief that only the empirically detectable and measureable are meaningful or exist rather than just the belief that only the empirically detectable and measureable are meaningful or exist? Or you just don't believe it absolutely and wouldn't and haven't bet the house on it?
And how does that ride with your acting like the atheist big shot? Or is your statement just evasive codswallop?
Then of course there is your adherence to physicalism, of which we can ask the same questions.....and naturalism and scientism and evasionism.
If you are Probably of these Isms, what is it that you are improbably, but with an outside chance you are, an adherent of?
What do you think your unremitting lying disingenuity is doing for what I imagine is your already wrecked reputation here?
You know already the series of lies you’ve just told. What would be the point on correcting them once again only for you to ignore the corrections and repeat them same lies down the line?
So anyway, the main question you’re still evading remains: what method would you propose for anyone to investigate, test and verify your claim “god”?
Do you seriously think that just telling lies about what people here say is a legitimate way to respond to that?
Why?
PS So no apology then for your latest misrepresentation about my supposedly claiming total knowledge when I expressly referred only to argument attempted here? Didn’t Jesus have something to say about bearing false witness? What do you think he’d make of your behaviour here would you say?
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Empirical evidence, yeah. Thank you Ippy you've proved my point.
Vlad, what point of yours have I inadvertently managed to demonstrate?
See if you can answer this question without applying the equivalent of three or four pages of foolscap, where you somehow manage to write acres of your long winded mostly meaningless scribble.
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Vlad, what point of yours have I inadvertently managed to demonstrate?
That you require empirical evidence. There you go. Five words.
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ipster,
Vlad, what point of yours have I inadvertently managed to demonstrate?
See if you can answer this question without applying the equivalent of three or four pages of foolscap, where you somehow manage to write acres of your long winded mostly meaningless scribble.
He doesn't like evidence because it's "empirical", but he'll never propose an alternative method to investigate his various claims and assertions. He tries to distract from that failure by posting lots of irrelevant lies about what empiricism actually entails. That's his schtick.
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ipster,
He doesn't like evidence because it's "empirical"
I love empirical evidence for empirical entities like er, Extremely Small irishmen, Pots, Gold, Rainbows.
Let's hear what Ippy has to say.
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Vlad,
I love empirical evidence for empirical entities.
Let's hear what Ippy has to say.
Better yet, let's finally hear what you have to say about what method instead you'd propose to investigate your claims.
Why so coy?
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Vlad,
Better yet, let's finally hear what you have to say about what method instead you'd propose to investigate your claims.
Why so coy?
There is no scientific method and that goes for physicalism too and naturalism and empiricism and scientism.
In terms of methodologies I have already said I wouldn't know how to go about formulating one for anything other than science and I suspect neither do you or Ippy.
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Vlad,
There is no scientific method and that goes for physicalism too and naturalism and empiricism and scientism.
No-one here argus for scientism, and of course there's a scientific method for "naturalism and empiricism" - that's why we have rockets and medicines. So, now the red herring and straw men are out of the way...
In terms of methodologies I have already said I wouldn't know how to go about formulating one for anything other than science and I suspect neither do you or Ippy.
So you assert the claim "god", but you "wouldn't know how to go about formulating" a method to investigate and verify that claim?
Does it occur to you that this gives you something of a problem if you want the claim to be taken seriously?
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Vlad,
No-one here argus for scientism, and of course there's a scientific method for "naturalism and empiricism" - that's why we have rockets and medicines. So, now the red herring and straw men are out of the way...
So you assert the claim "god", but you "wouldn't know how to go about formulating" a method to investigate and verify that claim?
Does it occur to you that this gives you something of a problem if you want the claim to be taken seriously?
Vlad,
No-one argus for scientism, and of course there's a scientific method for "naturalism and empiricism" - that's why we have rockets and medicines. So, now the red herring and straw men are out of the way...
So you assert the claim "god", but you "wouldn't know how to go about formulating" a method to investigate and verify that claim?
Does it occur to you that this gives you something of a problem if you want the claim to be taken seriously?
No one argues for scientism? Well they do everytime they promise science is likely be able to overrride any objections that there are some things that are not science.
There is no methodology for philosophical naturalism and philosophical empiricism and the methodologies have never supported anything you've ever said about God.
Stop Bullshitting.
Science is science and has nothing to say on ''being''. Only on the physical and to turn it into something more than it is, is dishonest.
Some will take the claim seriously because they haven't deluded themselves into equating God with Leprechauns.
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Vlad,
No-one here argus for scientism, and of course there's a scientific method for "naturalism and empiricism" - that's why we have rockets and medicines.
Sanctimonious bullshit which tries piously and in line with arseclenching scientism to co-opt progress and medicine to atheism. Dawkinsian Wank of the finest vintage.
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Pidge,
No one argues for scientism? Well they do everytime they promise science is likely be able to overrride any objections that there are some things that are not science.
Fine. Now actually try to find someone who says that, or more to the point who says that science is capable of finding the answers to all possible questions about the universe.
Good luck with it.
There is no methodology for philosophical naturalism and philosophical empiricism…
Provided you don’t lie about what these terms mean, of course there is – it’s called science.
..and the methodologies have never supported anything you've ever said about God.
No, logic does that.
Stop Bullshitting.
Stop lying.
Science is science and has nothing to say on ''being'' only on the physical and to turn it into something more than it is, is dishonest.
And a straw man. If you don’t like your straw man though, stop repeating it.
Some will take the claim seriously…
What claim - your straw man? Why would anyone do that?
…because they haven't deluded themselves into equating God with Leprechauns.
And the big lie to finish. Yet again – there’s no “equating God with leprechauns”. Never has been, never will be. What there actually is (as has been explained to you about 47 billion times already) is the equating of the arguments attempted to justify these claims when they’re the same arguments.
You should stop lying about this. Really you should. You never well though will you.
So anyway, with all your latest evasions over let’s address your epic problem. By your own admission, you "wouldn't know how to go about formulating" a method to investigate and verify your claim god”?
How you propose to get out of that then?
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Pidge,
Sanctimonious bullshit which tries piously and in line with arseclenching scientism to co-opt progress and medicine to atheism. Dawkinsian Wank of the finest vintage.
More argument-free lying. What do you get from it?
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Sanctimonious bullshit which tries piously and in line with arseclenching scientism to co-opt progress and medicine to atheism. Dawkinsian Wank of the finest vintage.
Do you realise that the post to which you were responding said nothing at all about atheism?
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I love empirical evidence for empirical entities like er, Extremely Small irishmen, Pots, Gold, Rainbows.
Let's hear what Ippy has to say.
Oh I see Vlad, it's some sort of semantic problem that you're having about the exact meaning of the word evidence, well I thought I'd consult Proff Google and he says, 'the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid'.
I'll settle for 'viable evidence' Vlad, I've not seen anything like viable evidence coming from your direction that gives anything like an absolutely cast iron, full proof evidence supporting your claim that there is some sort of god that really does exist.
This must be really hard for you Vlad, AB and spud have an exactly similar problem; tough.
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Jeremy,
Do you realise that the post to which you were responding said nothing at all about atheism?
Quite. It doesn’t take much scratching at the surface for Vlad to throw his usual list of bogeymen into the fray does it – it’s all a bit unhinged I find. If only to stop that throbbing vein in his temple finally giving out I think perhaps I should back off a bit with a shorthand response each time his posts a suite of lies, straw men and misrepresentations while he tries to make good his escape. With due deference to the Gish Gallop therefore*, I think from now on I’ll just reference his use of the “Vlad Gallop” when he does it.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop#:~:text=The%20Gish%20gallop%20is%20a,or%20strength%20of%20the%20arguments.
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That is incorrect. The word eternal is associated with religion and god and not 'normal usage' as you construe it.
God is not just 'eternal' though, god implies many, many other things, not least of which is some sense of consciousness.
Reality is certainly a term used in God as ground of being theology.
You know my feelings on theology, however. Misusing or misattributing reality as somehow supporting magical claims validates neither the field nor the claim.
In eastern theologies God is the ultimate reality.
And still something more self-aware, dynamic and involved than just existence. There are theological concepts of an eternal existence within which 'spiritual' rules apply to ideas like reincarnation, Nirvana and one-ness, but those are not 'gods' and where 'gods' are introduced it's with personalities, intentions and awareness.
Your opening statement is thus immedately off the mark considering you have co opted many of the properties of the necessary being from God anyway.
Nothing can be 'co-opted' from gods which don't exist; that something in reality could be eternal is derived from first principles, that someone else mistakenly attributed it to gods doesn't make accepting that it's possibly a necessity 'co-opting' it just means that you got part of your working right.
In view of my accusation I think it would be helpful if you outline, warts and all, your conception of God, bearing in mind I suspect your experience has been largely secular till now.
I'm sure you would find that helpful, it's always helpful when someone actually offers something rather than just sniping from the sidelines. However, in this particular instance I can't really help you, as I don't have a conception of a god, as I've not come across anyone's definition of one which made sense enough to accept.
Firstly if the universe is deterministic then there must be a determiner, whatever it is.
Wrong.
For the necessary, definitially it must be self determining other wise if it is not there is something which determines it and that then becomes the necessary.
Founded on the mistaken first premise.
Since you are saying the universe is determined You have now then almost proved God IMHO.
Except for the failure to understand determinism...
And yet you are suggesting the laws of nature are doing what they do by themselves!!! Oh dear the inevitable cop out by declaration of naturalism.
You realise that's not an argument, right? Why do natural laws need to have been 'selected' by some intelligence, why are they not just an inherent part of the infinite structure of reality?
O.
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God is not just 'eternal' though, god implies many, many other things, not least of which is some sense of consciousness
All I have actually proposed is self control but yes the question is how can an unconscious actualiser show self control. Since there is nothing to stop it actualising, there being nothing outside it. The only control is self control. The rest of your post looks like more assertion of the naturalist position.
The failure to understand determinism...
The floor is yours.
You realise that's not an argument, right? Why do natural laws need to have been 'selected' by some intelligence, why are they not just an inherent part of the infinite structure of reality?
Again the floor is yours but the laws of nature could be also be bound up with the logos in some way.
You seem to be skirting further acceptance of some of the ideas put here and the similarities but in this post a lot of others' terminology has entered your own.
What for instance is it which determines?
Accusations of not knowing then remaining silent yourself isn't good.
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Oh I see Vlad, it's some sort of semantic problem that you're having about the exact meaning of the word evidence, well I thought I'd consult Proff Google and he says, 'the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid'.
I'll settle for 'viable evidence' Vlad, I've not seen anything like viable evidence coming from your direction that gives anything like an absolutely cast iron, full proof evidence supporting your claim that there is some sort of god that really does exist.
This must be really hard for you Vlad, AB and spud have an exactly similar problem; tough.
Ippy. You aren't even capable of explaining what you mean by viable evidence.
Go on prove me wrong by telling us. And for Hillside since he is going to ask who I mean by us. I mean non-wankers.
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Pidge,
Ippy. You aren't even capable of explaining what you mean by viable evidence.
Shifting of the burden of proof fallacy (again). If you don't think empirical evidence is appropriate for the job of validating your claims then it's your job to tell us what type of evidence would be.
Go on prove me wrong by telling us.
See above. Why is the burden of proof concept so difficult for you?
And for Hillside since he is going to ask who I mean by us. I mean non-wankers.
Three letters and a hyphen too many there.
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Pidge,
Shifting of the burden of proof fallacy (again)..
How is asking for someone's definition of viable evidence shifting the burden of proof Don't be stupid, I think you are getting over excited, you silly Billy.
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Vlad,
How is asking for someone's definition of viable evidence shifting the burden of proof…
Seriously? Empirical evidence is the only type of evidence I (and I guess ippy too) know of. You assert a claim you call “god”, and tell us that it’s not empirical evidence apt. Fine. Then it’s your job to tell us what type of evidence instead would do the job.
QED
Don't be stupid,…
Such a pity you have no concept of irony.
I think you are getting over excited, you silly Billy.
You’re the one who routinely spits the dummy remember, not me.
So anyway, now you’ve tried yet more evasions it’s back to your epic problem. By your own admission, you "wouldn't know how to go about formulating" a method to investigate and verify your claim "god”.
How do you propose to get out of that then?
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Vlad,
Seriously? Empirical evidence is the only type of evidence I (and I guess ippy too) know of.
it's philosophical empiricism then. What evidence do you have for that?
Goodnight Vienna........... circle.
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it's philosophical empiricism then. What evidence do you have for that?
Goodnight Vienna........... circle.
So was it older than 10 years old children that you said you were sexually attracted to?
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Pidge,
it's philosophical empiricism then. What evidence do you have for that?
Goodnight Vienna........... Group.
And the last lying evasion of the day to finish. I make no comment at all about whether there's such a thing as non-empirical evidence - for all I know there could be, though I have no idea what it would look like. Luckily for me though that's your problem, not mine. You make the claim "god", you tell us that empirical evidence isn't right for the job of justifying your belief, so it's your job to tell us what type of evidence instead would be.
Do you propose to twist in the wind forever about this?
Why?
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Pidge,
And the last lying evasion of the day to finish. I make no comment at all about whether there's such a thing as non-empirical evidence - for all I know there could be, though I have no idea what it would look like. Luckily for me though that's your problem, not mine. You make the claim "god", you tell us that empirical evidence isn't right for the job of justifying your belief, so it's your job to tell us what type of evidence instead would be.
Do you propose to twist in the wind forever about this?
Why?
As a philosophical empiricist, what empirical evidence do you have for philosophical empiricism?
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As a philosophical empiricist, what empirical evidence do you have for philosophical empiricism?
As you being a paedophile, why are you a paedophile?
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As you being a paedophile, why are you a paedophile?
Too weird for me, Your welcome to this message board farewell to all apart from Nearly Sane obviously.
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Too weird for me, Your welcome to this message board farewell to all apart from Nearly Sane obviously.
Don't lie. And learn to write English.
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Don't lie. And learn to write English.
He won't quit this board - the posters here, not including myself, are the only people who are prepared to put up with his bullshit and bollocks!
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He won't quit this board - the posters here, not including myself, are the only people who are prepared to put up with his bullshit and bollocks!
Why would I want him to quit the board?
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All I have actually proposed is self control but yes the question is how can an unconscious actualiser show self control. Since there is nothing to stop it actualising, there being nothing outside it. The only control is self control. The rest of your post looks like more assertion of the naturalist position.
Asking questions is not 'asserting' anything; redefining language beyond the point of usefulness to try to maintain some semantic semblance of continuity so you can overlay your unvalidatable hypothesis over any idea that's proffered is just theology in practice.
The floor is yours. Again the floor is yours but the laws of nature could be also be bound up with the logos in some way.
They could be, but there is no need for them to be. The fact that there are natural laws does not preclude a logos, but it equally does not require it or even suggest it.
You seem to be skirting further acceptance of some of the ideas put here and the similarities but in this post a lot of others' terminology has entered your own.
I have no idea what that sentence is supposed to mean.
What for instance is it which determines?
Nothing, that's not what 'deterministic' means.
Accusations of not knowing then remaining silent yourself isn't good.
That rather depends; if my claim is that it's a concept which defies sense, then not knowing doesn't look bad at all, it's entirely consistent. On the other hand, if you think you've got a conception, but you spend all your time skirting around the fringes of it without actually defining it, who is it that looks disengenuous?
O.
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Vlad,
Too weird for me, Your welcome to this message board farewell to all apart from Nearly Sane obviously.
In 241 I said:
“Empirical evidence is the only type of evidence I (and I guess ippy too) know of.”
In 242 you replied to that with:
“it's philosophical empiricism then. What evidence do you have for that?”
Here’s what philosophical empiricism means (something that's been explained to you many times before now):
“Empiricism, in philosophy, the view that all concepts originate in experience, that all concepts are about or applicable to things that can be experienced, or that all rationally acceptable beliefs or propositions are justifiable or knowable only through experience.” (emphases added)
https://www.britannica.com/topic/empiricism
You’ll notice that my position (that “empirical evidence is the only type of evidence I know of”) is not therefore philosophical empiricism (ie, the claim that all evidence is empirical). Thus in 244 I corrected your misrepresentation when I said:
“I make no comment at all about whether there's such a thing as non-empirical evidence - for all I know there could be, though I have no idea what it would look like.”
You though just ignored that, and in 245 (ie, the very next Reply) said:
“As a philosophical empiricist, what empirical evidence do you have for philosophical empiricism?”
If the first misrepresentation was a mistake, ignoring the correction to repeat the same misrepresentation was a lie.
In 246 NS said:
“As you being a paedophile, why are you a paedophile?”
He wasn’t suggesting that you’re a paedophile. Rather he was demonstrating that if you persist in lying about people’s positions, anyone else can play that game back at you too.
I suggest you apologise and try to respond to what’s actually said, not to your misrepresentations of it.
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Ippy. You aren't even capable of explaining what you mean by viable evidence.
Go on prove me wrong by telling us. And for Hillside since he is going to ask who I mean by us. I mean non-wankers.
As you already know Vlad, it's been explained to you so many times, the ball's in your court I'm not the one promoting anything, I'm just one of many that ask you and your fellow travellers where is there any evidence that might support this god idea of yours and if there is any viable evidence, fine, let's have it.
Trouble is Vlad, I've never seen any of your god lot present anything that would confirm this god of yours does in fact exist and don't forget where the burden of proof lies, you know Vlad, B R's teapot.
I'll assume that you must be aware the international press and all of the other forms of the media will be busy making you the most famous person in the world, that is, if you managed to present some viable evidence that supports this god idea of yours, well maybe not today then Vlad.
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Now Vlad is back again after his miniscule break he might be able to provide some evidence of the existence of god, which would stand up in a court of law. I am not holding my breath! ;D ;D ;D
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Now Vlad is back again after his miniscule break he might be able to provide some evidence of the existence of god, which would stand up in a court of law. I am not holding my breath! ;D ;D ;D
You're right to ask L R and I try to remind him presenting VIABLE evidence just as you're saying L R, he needs to think of all that world fame that would be sure to follow if he did manage to find some VIABLE evidence.
Again L R, you're right about not holding your breath while waiting for his VIABLE evidence.
ippy.
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Now Vlad is back again after his miniscule break he might be able to provide some evidence of the existence of god, which would stand up in a court of law. I am not holding my breath! ;D ;D ;D
I don't know what you mean by evidence. I put that down to not exposing the definition as empiricism.
I did not raise objections or withdraw my input, without which, frankly this forum would have experienced the equivalent of heat death aeons ago, because of the situation regards the method for finding God. Here I think atheists are in the same position of not knowing what it is they are asking for, bless their hearts.
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Vlad,
I don't know what you mean by evidence. I put that down to not exposing the definition as empiricism.
Yes you do - it's a method you wouldn't be able to falsify if l tried the same thing to justify my belief "leprechauns".
I did not raise objections or withdraw my input, without which, frankly this forum would have experienced the equivalent of heat death aeons ago, because of the situation regards the method for finding God. Here I think atheists are in the same position of not knowing what it is they are asking for, bless their hearts.
Not true - see above.
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Here I think atheists are in the same position of not knowing what it is they are asking for, bless their hearts.
Unmitigated drivel. We are looking for you to come up with some way to justify your god claims - how you go about that is entirely your problem.
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Here I think atheists are in the same position of not knowing what it is they are asking for, bless their hearts.
If I think that the claim 'God' is incoherent and contradictory then clearly I can have no idea what sort of evidence would overcome my objections, especially since my objections are a conclusion based on my rejection of the plethora of failed arguments already offered by those claiming 'God'.
Even so, since I don't adopt a position of absolute certainty, I have to allow for the possibility that a different and evidence-based argument for 'God' could yet be presented, so that asking what methods might support compelling arguments for 'God' remains a reasonable question to ask those such as yourself, Vlad.
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Unmitigated drivel. We are looking for you to come up with some way to justify your god claims - how you go about that is entirely your problem.
I've come up with many ways to justify God claims over the years.
I'm not going to make any remarks about the attitudes of anybody to these ways except to say, pastafarianism, leprechaun similarity, , unicornism aren't good starting points.
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I've come up with many ways to justify God claims over the years.
I'm not going to make any remarks about the attitudes of anybody to these ways except to say, pastafarianism, leprechaun similarity, , unicornism aren't good starting points.
The problem is that none of what you've said can actually distinguish between your god claims and claims of all the other stuff you've mentioned, like leprechauns.
You haven't even come up with a meaningful definition of 'god'. You've tried to stick the label on anything from Feser's "base of hierarchy" to universe simulators (no matter what their other characteristics). You first need to make up your mind what it is you're trying to argue for.
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Vlad,
I've come up with many ways to justify God claims over the years.
Also not true, or at least you’ve proposed none that aren’t incoherent or fallacious. Or that don’t work equally to justify leprechauns too.
I'm not going to make any remarks about the attitudes of anybody to these ways except to say, pastafarianism, leprechaun similarity, , unicornism aren't good starting points.
They’re an excellent starting point if you want to show that an argument to justify the belief “god” is probably a bad one when it justifies these beliefs too.
Oh, and by the way – when are you going to provide a method to justify my belief “leprechauns”?
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The problem is that none of what you've said can actually distinguish between your god claims and claims of all the other stuff you've mentioned, like leprechauns.
You haven't even come up with a meaningful definition of 'god'. You've tried to stick the label on anything from Feser's "base of hierarchy" to universe simulators (no matter what their other characteristics). You first need to make up your mind what it is you're trying to argue for.
I've written at length about the differences in claims about Leprechauns and claims about God.
My recollection is of a debate with someone on this board who claimed that Leprechauns were indistinguishable in all ways from God. Since this arguably makes the term Leprechaun redundant. How then are the divine attributes ridiculous?
Of course one shouldn't have shorn....or should that be Shaun?...Leprechauns of their definitive characteristics in the first case.
Just because there may be some arguments that would apply to arguments apply to God, So what they also apply to aspects of naturalism, empiricism, multiverse, simulated universe as well.
I think we need to remind ourselves how "blown out" recourse to Leprechauns has always been.
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Vlad,
I've written at length about the differences in claims about Leprechauns and claims about God.
And every time you’ve done it you’ve been corrected about that mistake of thinking that different characteristics are relevant to the argument. You in turn routinely just ignore or lie about the corrections you're given.
My recollection is of a debate with someone on this board who claimed that Leprechauns were indistinguishable in all ways from God. Since this arguably makes the term Leprechaun redundant. How are the divine attributes ridiculous.
Then your recollection is wrong or you’re lying again. No-one here has said any such thing - precisely the opposite in fact.
Of course one shouldn't have shorn....or should that be Shaun?...Leprechauns of their definitive characteristics.
The defining characteristics of leprechauns and of “god” are irrelevant. What is relevant is that they’re in the same category when the arguments attempted to justify beliefs in the existence of either of them are the same.
lt’d be helpful if you finally stopped lying about that.
Just because there may be some arguments that would apply to arguments apply to God, So what they also apply to aspects of naturalism, empiricism, multiverse, simulated universe as well.
No they don’t.
I think we need to remind ourselves how "blown out" recourse to Leprechauns has always been.
Until you can engage with or at least stop misrepresenting the point of the analogy, no it hasn’t been.
Oh, and where’s my method for justifying my belief “leprechauns” then?
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I've written at length about the differences in claims about Leprechauns and claims about God.
Yes, unfortunately, all that has shown is that you don't understand the analogy (or even analogy in general, probably).
My recollection is of a debate with someone on this board who claimed that Leprechauns were indistinguishable in all ways from God.
I don't believe anybody has ever argued that but if you want to provide a link...
Just because there may be some arguments that would apply to arguments apply to God, So what they also apply to aspects of naturalism, empiricism, multiverse, simulated universe as well.
More irrelevant gibbering. ::)
I think we need to remind ourselves how "blown out" recourse to Leprechauns has always been.
Your total inability to grasp the analogy has no impact on its validity. It is, and always has been, perfectly valid in the context.
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NTtS,
Yes, unfortunately, all that has shown is that you don't understand the analogy (or even analogy in general, probably).
So far as l can tell he either just doesn’t understand what “analogy” means at a conceptual level, or he does understand but he chooses to pretend he doesn’t. l’ve explained it to him oftentimes, sent him links to definitions etc so l think it’s likely the latter but there’s no telling.
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Vlad,
Also not true, or at least you’ve proposed none that aren’t incoherent or fallacious. Or that don’t work equally to justify leprechauns too.
I’ve argued that Leprechauns have physical definitive features. Enki has provided a list of those features which would satisfy existence empirically.
There are no properties of the divine that can be studied so.
Also again My contention is we would all remain a leprechaunist even if Leprechauns were shown to exist just like our lives never change whenever any obscure species ceases to exist or some obscure species is discovered.
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I’ve argued that Leprechauns have physical definitive features. Enki has provided a list of those features which would satisfy existence empirically.
All totally irrelevant because they're magic / supernatural.
There are no properties of the divine that can be studied so.
Also irrelevant but what about miracles and answered prayers?
Also again My contention is we would all remain a leprechaunist even if Leprechauns were shown to exist just like our lives never change whenever any obscure species ceases to exist or some obscure species is discovered.
Now there’s an argument you can’t say you’ve debunked, because I’ve just come up with it.
Drivel - we certainly wouldn't remain aleprechaunist if we had evidence and them being magic / supernatural and all, it would be likely to be a significant discovery. However, even if we accept your contention for the sake of argument, it too is totally irrelevant.
Now, have you thought of any reason why we should take your god claims any more seriously than leprechauns, yet?
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All totally irrelevant because they're magic
So apparently was Chitty chatty Bang bang but by all accounts it still needed it’s fucking oil changed.
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Now, have you thought of any reason why we should take your god claims any more seriously than leprechauns, yet?
So apparently was Chitty chatty Bang bang but by all accounts it still needed it’s fucking oil changed.
I'll take that as a 'no'. ::)
Why don't you stop trying to undermine analogies that you obviously don't understand and concentrate on actual positive reasons why we should take your god claims seriously?
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Also irrelevant but what about miracles and answered prayers?
My contention is that one could witness a miracles and remain an atheist. If you were unable to remain an atheist it would be because you would acknowledge an ability to perceive the divine.
Answered prayer is different because you may have been experimentally involved.
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My contention is that one could witness a miracles and remain an atheist. If you were unable to remain an atheist it would be because you would acknowledge an ability to perceive the divine.
Answered prayer is different because you may have been experimentally involved.
I am of the opinion so called, 'miracles', have a natural explanation, so it is sensible to be sceptical when someone claims the god, for which there is no evidence of its existence, is responsible for them.
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Drivel - we certainly wouldn't remain aleprechaunist if we had evidence and them being magic / supernatural and all, it would be likely to be a significant discovery. However, even if we accept your contention for the sake of argument, it too is totally irrelevant.
If Leprechauns were discovered empirically we would act as if they didnt exist and apparently that's all being an atheist is acting as though God doesn't exist.
Magic/ supernatural is not I'm afraid susceptible to empirical means. In the case therefore of Leprechauns disappearing, only illusion or instrumental failure or electromagnetic interference
Can be demonstrated empirically. We could therefore continue being a-Leprechaunist in terms of them being magical or supernatural.
Shorn of their supernatural abilities we could proceed with life as normal.
But, even if we did have evidence of them disappearing so what?
And here we come to it, if all arguments for Leprechauns are the same as for God., if we have found Leprechauns have we also found God?
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I am of the opinion so called, 'miracles', have a natural explanation, so it is sensible to be sceptical when someone claims the god, for which there is no evidence of its existence, is responsible for them.
And that is a philosophical naturalistic opinion.
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Or, if kangaroos suddenly all turned purple this afternoon (Australian Western Standard Time), sprouted wings overnight and by tomorrow morning they were all found nesting in trees before it was even breakfast time in Sydney - would that be sufficient evidence for 'God', Vlad?
Somehow I don't think putting together an outrageously silly scenario, be it asteroids that end up spelling or purple flying kangaroos, is all that worthwhile an exercise (even if mildly entertaining for around 30 seconds or so).
This is about evidence for God that would make you believe there was a God Gordon not about any parody I may make about how unreasonable your requirements may or may not be.
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And that is a philosophical naturalistic opinion.
Whatever it is, it appears to make more sense than yours. ::)
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If Leprechauns were discovered empirically we would act as if they didnt exist...
Your reasoning for this bizarre assertion is..... missing.
...and apparently that's all being an atheist is acting as though God doesn't exist.
Unmitigated drivel. The unqualified word 'god' doesn't even have an accepted meaning - and what being an atheist generally involves is noticing that there isn't the slightest hint of any reasons to take any of the thousands of gods that humans have dreamt up at all seriously.
Magic/ supernatural is not I'm afraid susceptible to empirical means. In the case therefore of Leprechauns disappearing, only illusion or instrumental failure or electromagnetic interference
Can be demonstrated empirically. We could therefore continue being a-Leprechaunist in terms of them being magical or supernatural.
Shorn of their supernatural abilities we could proceed with life as normal.
You're just making shit up. It's perfectly possible to deduce that something is going on that we have no explanation for, if it happens often enough and in circumstances that we can study - which is what evidence for leprechauns would involve.
And here we come to it, if all arguments for Leprechauns are the same as for God., if we have found Leprechauns have we also found God?
What is the matter with you? Is this really that far over you're head? Of course we wouldn't have found god - I can't even imagine what bizarre and mangled misunderstanding you've constructed that could possibly lead to such a silly conclusion.
We were talking about hypothetically finding actual evidence for leprechauns, so the arguments that had previously been made would have no relevance whatsoever.
You really should give up on the analogy, as it's obviously way over your head, and go back to simply trying to come up with some reason why other people should take your notion of god seriously - after you've actually defined said notion, of course.
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Your reasoning for this bizarre assertion is..... missing.
Unmitigated drivel. The unqualified word 'god' doesn't even have an accepted meaning - and what being an atheist generally involves is noticing that there isn't the slightest hint of any reasons to take any of the thousands of gods that humans have dreamt up at all seriously.
You're just making shit up. It's perfectly possible to deduce that something is going on that we have no explanation for, if it happens often enough and in circumstances that we can study - which is what evidence for leprechauns would involve.
What is the matter with you? Is this really that far over you're head? Of course we wouldn't have found god - I can't even imagine what bizarre and mangled misunderstanding you've constructed that could possibly lead to such a silly conclusion.
We were talking about hypothetically finding actual evidence for leprechauns, so the arguments that had previously been made would have no relevance whatsoever.
You really should give up on the analogy, as it's obviously way over your head, and go back to simply trying to come up with some reason why other people should take your notion of god seriously - after you've actually defined said notion, of course.
So all arguments for God are the same for Leprechauns but the empirical argument for Leprechauns does not cover God.
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So all arguments for God are the same for Leprechauns but the empirical argument for Leprechauns does not cover God.
Again: what the fuck is the matter with you? At least try to engage your brain before posting foolish nonsense - or do you want to make a total fool of yourself? Of course (hypothetical) empirical evidence for leprechauns is not evidence for a god - how could it possibly be?
Also, who said all arguments for god were the same as for leprechauns? Some of them are just bad for other reasons.
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Whatever it is.......
;D
You people don't even know your doing it. Such is the depth of your indoctrination in philosophical naturalism and in your case LR Channelisland shittism ha ha ;D
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Again: what the fuck is the matter with you? At least try to engage your brain before posting foolish nonsense - or do you want to make a total fool of yourself? Of course (hypothetical) empirical evidence for leprechauns is not evidence for a god - how could it possibly be?
Also, who said all arguments for god were the same as for leprechauns? Some of them are just bad for other reasons.
See reply#267
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Also, who said all arguments for god were the same as for leprechauns? Some of them are just bad for other reasons.
Oh good so finally you guys are going to STFU about Leprechauns.
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See reply#267
What's that got to do with the point?
Oh good so finally you guys are going to STFU about Leprechauns.
Why would we? I note one thing about #267 (http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=17808.msg822339#msg822339): you quoted blue as saying "Also not true, or at least you’ve proposed none that aren’t incoherent or fallacious. Or that don’t work equally to justify leprechauns too." [emphasis added]. As I said, who claimed that all arguments for god were the same as for leprechauns?
I'd go and have a little lie down if I were you (try to sleep it off?) - you seem to have lost the plot completely.
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What's that got to do with the point?
Why would we? I note one thing about #267 (http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=17808.msg822339#msg822339): you quoted blue as saying "Also not true, or at least you’ve proposed none that aren’t incoherent or fallacious. Or that don’t work equally to justify leprechauns too." [emphasis added]. As I said, who claimed that all arguments for god were the same as for leprechauns?
I'd go and have a little lie down if I were you (try to sleep it off?) - you seem to have lost the plot completely.
So what you are saying then is you will appeal to Leprechauns not because all arguments for Leprechauns are the same for God but because you want to confuse the ridiculousness of Leprechauns with God for the purposes of horse laugh....got you.
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The things claimed for a god, for which there is no evidence of its existence, are much crazier than those attributed to leprechauns. I like the idea of leprechauns much better than I like the idea of god.
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So what you are saying then is you will appeal to Leprechauns not because all arguments for Leprechauns are the same for God but because you want to confuse the ridiculousness of Leprechauns with God for the purposes of horse laugh....got you.
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You really are determined to make a fool of yourself, aren't you?
For about the ten thousandth time: leprechauns are like god(s) in that they are claims for which there is no evidence. There are therefore a certain set of 'arguments' for god(s) that fall down because they would work equally 'well' for leprechauns. Pointing this out is a valid form of argument called reductio ad absurdum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum).
Get a grip - this isn't rocket science.
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I am of the opinion so called, 'miracles', have a natural explanation, so it is sensible to be sceptical when someone claims the god, for which there is no evidence of its existence, is responsible for them.
It could be described as a miracle if Vlad stopped pretending to not understand what is meant when posters use an analogy.
ippy
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It could be described as a miracle if Vlad stopped pretending to not understand what is meant when posters use an analogy.
ippy
There is good analogy and bad analogy
God and Leprechaun analogy Bad analogy
Brexit and sanity analogy bad analogy
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God and Leprechaun analogy Bad analogy
Wrong!
Brexit and sanity analogy bad analogy
Right
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( * \ \,' ,' ,'-)
`._,) -',-')
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You really are determined to make a fool of yourself, aren't you?
For about the ten thousandth time: leprechauns are like god(s) in that they are claims for which there is no evidence. There are therefore a certain set of 'arguments' for god(s) that fall down because they would work equally 'well' for leprechauns. Pointing this out is a valid form of argument called reductio ad absurdum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum).
Get a grip - this isn't rocket science.
So they are both things for which there is no evidence.
Would you therefore agree with me then that that applies to philosophical physicalism, empiricism, naturalism, scientism and a number of positions from which you argue.
And in any case Not all arguments which apply to Leprechauns apply to God.
Basically then as far as Leprechauns are concerned you are merely providing each other with atheist wankfodder.
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God and Leprechaun analogy Bad analogy
Wrong!
Brexit and sanity analogy bad analogy
Right
Heartened to see that someone from the Channel islands has the wit to recognise that. Last bit not first bit.
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Would you therefore agree with me then that that applies to philosophical physicalism, empiricism, naturalism, scientism and a number of positions from which you argue.
And round and round and round we go, as Vlad desperately tries, at all costs, to avoid the actual point. Yet again: I'm not arguing from your favourite collection of philosophical -isms.
And in any case Not all arguments which apply to Leprechauns apply to God.
For fuck's sake - how many more times?
Basically then as far as Leprechauns are concerned you are merely providing each other with atheist wankfodder.
How about, for once in your life, just for a change if nothing else, actually try reading what has been said to you and at least trying to think about it? What harm can it do you?
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Heartened to see that someone from the Channel islands has the wit to recognise that. Last bit not first bit.
Cheeky sod, you are obviously jealous that you didn't come from my beautiful island home! I wonder from which alien planet you originated? ;D ;D ;D ;D
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And round and round and round we go, as Vlad desperately tries, at all costs, to avoid the actual point. Yet again: I'm not arguing from your favourite collection of philosophical -isms.
For fuck's sake - how many more times?
How about, for once in your life, just for a change if nothing else, actually try reading what has been said to you and at least trying to think about it? What harm can it do you?
Not all arguments for God are arguments for Leprechauns. You came up with it.
You guys have already admitted that any unfalsifiable unfalsified analogy is bad.
Start acting responsibly or you will compound any view that this forum is merely atheist wankfodder.
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Cheeky sod, you are obviously jealous that you didn't come from my beautiful island home! I wonder from which alien planet you originated? ;D ;D ;D ;D
Never been. Tell me has the local council outlawed cannibalism yet?
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Not all arguments for God are arguments for Leprechauns. You came up with it.
Nobody ever said they were. You seem to be living in some bizarre parallel universe all of your own.
You guys have already admitted that any unfalsifiable unfalsified analogy is bad.
No, I've no clue at all what you're wittering on about...
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There is good analogy and bad analogy
God and Leprechaun analogy Bad analogy
Brexit and sanity analogy bad analogy
'God and Leprechaun analogy Bad analogy'
The analogy you're referring back to is about as accurate as you can get when describing veracity of belief in Leprechauns or gods, I suppose it's bad, for you, if you don't like it but that doesn't matter or make this analogy wrong.
You could say because the god v Leprechauns analogy is so accurate it has to be a good one Vlad, or the better one of the two options.
ippy.
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Never been. Tell me has the local council outlawed cannibalism yet?
I don't think I would enjoy roast Vlad for Christmas lunch! ;D
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Vlad,
I’ve argued that Leprechauns have physical definitive features. Enki has provided a list of those features which would satisfy existence empirically.
So has your god when he chose to appear in physical form. So far, so equivalent then…
There are no properties of the divine that can be studied so.
There would be when this supposed divine chose to appear in material form (pillar of light, a whisper etc). This has been explained to you many times so why keep lying about it?
Also again My contention is we would all remain a leprechaunist even if Leprechauns were shown to exist just like our lives never change whenever any obscure species ceases to exist or some obscure species is discovered.
Gibberish.
My contention is that one could witness a miracles and remain an atheist.
You’d have to sort out first what you meant by “miracle”, but in principle yes. Why? Because you’d have no means of knowing that it was a “miracle” rather than just a natural phenomenon for which you had no naturalistic explanation to hand – like thunder or erupting volcanoes once were. That’s your basic burden of proof problem remember?
If you were unable to remain an atheist it would be because you would acknowledge an ability to perceive the divine.
No, it would be because you’d been able to apply a method to test the claim “miracle” that had no other possible explanation. Whether your god or the Flying Spaghetti Monster had performed said miracle would of course be a different matter entirely.
Answered prayer is different because you may have been experimentally involved.
Nope, no idea.
If Leprechauns were discovered empirically we would act as if they didnt exist and apparently that's all being an atheist is acting as though God doesn't exist.
More gibberish. If leprechauns (or your god) were discovered empirically (ie, when either chose to be in material mode) why would anyone ignore either finding?
Magic/ supernatural is not I'm afraid susceptible to empirical means. In the case therefore of Leprechauns disappearing, only illusion or instrumental failure or electromagnetic interference
Can be demonstrated empirically. We could therefore continue being a-Leprechaunist in terms of them being magical or supernatural.
Utter bollocks. You claim a god that flits between non-material and non-material states. I claim leprechauns that flit between material and non-material states. Both are faith claims, and there are various eye-witness accounts for each when in material form.
Shorn of their supernatural abilities we could proceed with life as normal.
Who said they’d be shorn of their supernatural abilities?
But, even if we did have evidence of them disappearing so what?
What are we talking about here – leprechauns or your god?
And here we come to it, if all arguments for Leprechauns are the same as for God., if we have found Leprechauns have we also found God?
First, no-one said “all” arguments. What’s only ever been said is that WHEN the argument used to justify the belief “god” applies equally to justify the belief “leprechauns”, then it’s probably a bad argument.
Second, this is more bollocks: the same argument will often justify different, equally valid outcomes.
Third, even if you weren’t flat wrong again you seem to have painted yourself into the corner of “if the argument to justify the claim god also justifies the claim leprechauns, then there are leprechauns.” Is that really where you want to be?
So all arguments for God are the same for Leprechauns but the empirical argument for Leprechauns does not cover God.
The empirical arguments for leprechauns cover leprechauns when they’re material, and the empirical arguments for god cover god when he’s material. There are no arguments to justify the belief in either when they choose (supposedly) to be non-material That’s your problem.
So what you are saying then is you will appeal to Leprechauns not because all arguments for Leprechauns are the same for God but because you want to confuse the ridiculousness of Leprechauns with God for the purposes of horse laugh....got you.
More pigeon chess. He’s not saying that at all.
So they are both things for which there is no evidence.
When in non-material form, yes. If you think witness accounts is evidence though, then there’s some of that for both when they have been in material form.
Would you therefore agree with me then that that applies to philosophical physicalism, empiricism, naturalism, scientism and a number of positions from which you argue.
No. First because you just lie about what some of these terms mean, and second because no-one here subscribes to the absolutist versions of them despite your endless misrepresentations about that.
And in any case Not all arguments which apply to Leprechauns apply to God.
Most seem to, but in any case has anyone said that they do?
Basically then as far as Leprechauns are concerned you are merely providing each other with atheist wankfodder.
And you spit the dummy again when you’ve run out of road again. ‘twas ever thus.
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Vlad,
So has your god when he chose to appear in physical form. So far, so equivalent then…
There would be when this supposed divine chose to appear in material form (pillar of light, a whisper etc). This has been explained to you many times so why keep lying about it?
Gibberish.
You’d have to sort out first what you meant by “miracle”, but in principle yes. Why? Because you’d have no means of knowing that it was a “miracle” rather than just a natural phenomenon for which you had no naturalistic explanation to hand – like thunder or erupting volcanoes once were. That’s your basic burden of proof problem remember?
No, it would be because you’d been able to apply a method to test the claim “miracle” that had no other possible explanation. Whether your god or the Flying Spaghetti Monster had performed said miracle would of course be a different matter entirely.
Nope, no idea.
More gibberish. If leprechauns (or your god) were discovered empirically (ie, when either chose to be in material mode) why would anyone ignore either finding?
Utter bollocks. You claim a god that flits between non-material and non-material states. I claim leprechauns that flit between material and non-material states. Both are faith claims, and there are various eye-witness accounts for each when in material form.
Who said they’d be shorn of their supernatural abilities?
What are we talking about here – leprechauns or your god?
First, no-one said “all” arguments. What’s only ever been said is that WHEN the argument used to justify the belief “god” applies equally to justify the belief “leprechauns”, then it’s probably a bad argument.
Second, this is more bollocks: the same argument will often justify different, equally valid outcomes.
Third, even if you weren’t flat wrong again you seem to have painted yourself into the corner of “if the argument to justify the claim god also justifies the claim leprechauns, then there are leprechauns.” Is that really where you want to be?
The empirical arguments for leprechauns cover leprechauns when they’re material,
Thank you. What part of "The divine is not susceptible to empirical investigation" are you not getting.
You aren't subscribing to a philosophical empiricism as I define it then it's reasonable for me not to agree with divinity as you describe it.
I find your appeal to a literal interpretation of seeing the hind quarters of God to shore up argumentum ad Leprechaunum er veridum.
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Thank you. What part of "The divine is not susceptible to empirical investigation" are you not getting.
You aren't subscribing to a philosophical empiricism as I define it then it's reasonable for me not to agree with divinity as you describe it.
I find your appeal to a literal interpretation of seeing the hind quarters of God to shore up argumentum ad Leprechaunum er veridum.
How about you stop spouting utter drivel and irrelevant nonsense just long enough to address the actual point? That being, what specifically is your definition of 'god' and why we should take it seriously?
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Vlad,
So having had your arse handed to you on sling yet again, this is the best you can come up with?
Ah well.
Thank you. What part of "The divine is not susceptible to empirical investigation" are you not getting.
The part that questions your special pleading about your faith claim “god” being “not susceptible to empirical investigation” when in non-material mode not applying equally to my faith claim “leprechauns” when they’re in non-material mode.
You aren't subscribing to a philosophical empiricism as I define it then it's reasonable for me not to agree with divinity as you describe it.
No it isn’t. First, I’ve told you countless times what it is that I do “subscribe to”, and over and over again you’ve misrepresented what I’ve said and instead invited me to defend something I expressly don’t subscribe to at all.
Second, I have no interest in what you mean by “divine”. Your argument is that you cannot investigate claims about a non-material entity by using naturalistic methods. The twofold problem this gives you is first that neither can any other method you’re capable of producing, and second that then the same could be said about any other claim of non-material entities, leprechauns included when they choose to be in that mode.
I find your appeal to a literal interpretation of seeing the hind quarters of God to shore up argumentum ad Leprechaunum er veridum.
It’s not my interpretation. A collection of books you think to be “holy” claims that your god appeared in physical form multiple times. If you want these claims to be taken seriously, then during those times he would have been as amenable to naturalistic investigation as my leprechauns were when they chose to be in material form.
Short version: if you want to apply a conditional caveat to your faith claim, you have no basis to deny the same conditional caveat to my faith claim. QED
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no-one here subscribes to the absolutist versions of them despite your endless misrepresentations about that.
That's irrelevant to the question asked.
Can you then, agree now that some of the same arguments for philosophical empiricism, naturalism, physicalism, etc. can be used for Leprechauns?
Either you agree in which your use of Leprechauns for God and not for the above philosophies is itself a fallacy.....or you disagree with Leprechauns being unfalsifiable.
Basically Hillside you are fucked whatever.
And since you've covered preventing me from choosing a chess metaphor '''oh yes....mim, mim, mim that's pigeon chess''
I'll just say. Game over.
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Vlad,
That's irrelevant to the question asked.
Complaining that people can’t defend positions they neither take nor rely on is entirely relevant. It just shows you to be dishonest.
Can you then, agree now that some of the same arguments for philosophical empiricism, naturalism, physicalism, empiricism.
That doesn’t scan. What are you trying to ask?
Either you agree in which your use of Leprechauns for God and not for the above philosophies is itself a fallacy.....or you disagree with Leprechauns being unfalsifiable.
Agree with what?
Basically Hillside you are fucked whatever.
Not when you’re incapable of a coherent sentence I’m not. Try again, then say it out loud until you can finally come up with a version that doesn’t resemble a bad hand at Scrabble.
And since you've covered prevented me from choosing a chess metaphor '''oh yes....mim, mim, mim that's pigeon chess''
“And since you've covered prevented me from choosing a chess metaphor…”? I tend not to comment on your struggles with the English language, but would it really kill you to check your efforts for coherence before posting them?
I'll just say. Game over.
As you never showed up for the “game”, it never began.
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Vlad, it speaks volumes that you would rather post endless daft misunderstandings and spurious nonsense, than actually make any attempt at all to justify your own claims - or even define what they are, for that matter.
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That's irrelevant to the question asked.
Can you then, agree now that some of the same arguments for philosophical empiricism, naturalism, physicalism, etc. can be used for Leprechauns?
Either you agree in which your use of Leprechauns for God and not for the above philosophies is itself a fallacy.....or you disagree with Leprechauns being unfalsifiable.
Basically Hillside you are fucked whatever.
And since you've covered preventing me from choosing a chess metaphor '''oh yes....mim, mim, mim that's pigeon chess''
I'll just say. Game over.
Nurse come quickly Vlad needs his nappy changing! ;D
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Nurse come quickly Vlad needs his nappy changing! ;D
Little rose doing her atheist groupie bit
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Vlad, it speaks volumes that you would rather post endless daft misunderstandings and spurious nonsense, than actually make any attempt at all to justify your own claims - or even define what they are, for that matter.
Never talk doing his atheist groupie bit.
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Vlad,
Complaining that people can’t defend positions they neither take nor rely on is entirely relevant. It just shows you to be dishonest.
That doesn’t scan. What are you trying to ask?
Agree with what?
Not when you’re incapable of a coherent sentence I’m not. Try again, then say it out loud until you can finally come up with a version that doesn’t resemble a bad hand at Scrabble.
“And since you've covered prevented me from choosing a chess metaphor…”? I tend not to comment on your struggles with the English language, but would it really kill you to check your efforts for coherence before posting them?
As you never showed up for the “game”, it never began.
Anybody who is effectively saying. Never mind what others interpretations and definitions say, it's what I mean that counts is indicative of a man used to getting his own way.
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Vlad,
Anybody who is effectively saying.
“Anybody who is effectively saying.” Doesn’t scan as a sentence. Has even your fragile grip on the language begun to fail you now?
Never mind what others interpretations and definitions say, it's what I mean that counts is indicative of a man used to getting his own way.
Stop lying. Definitions matter – that’s why you keep getting called out when you assert that a term (“materialism” etc) means something it doesn’t mean at all, and then complain that someone who argues for it can’t defend your personal redefinition. The first few times you do it could be forgiven for simple mistake. When you do it over and over again though no matter how many times your mistake is explained, no matter how many times you’re given citations and references etc then you’re just lying.
You really should try at least to stop lying.
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Can you then, agree now that some of the same arguments for philosophical empiricism, naturalism, physicalism, empiricism.
That doesn’t scan. What are you trying to ask?
My bad
What I meant to say was.
Can you agree now that some of the same arguments for philosophical empiricism, naturalism, physicalism, empiricism can be used for Leprechauns?
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Vlad,
My bad
What I meant to say was.
Can you agree now that some of the same arguments for philosophical empiricism, naturalism, physicalism, empiricism can be used for Leprechauns?
First, these are different categories of arguments: some don't make absolute claims, others do. No-one here argues for the latter, and lumping them together as if they were in the same category is dishonest.
Second, I have no idea what you’re trying to ask still but you can try good and bad arguments to justify the claim "leprechauns" as much as you can try them them to justify anything else. The point though has nothing to do with that. The point was, is and will continue to be that if you think an argument works to justify the claim “god” and the same argument also justifies “leprechauns” then it’s probably a bad argument. See “reductio ad absurdum” to see why.
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When you do it over and over again though no matter how many times your mistake is explained, no matter how many times you’re given citations and references etc
Seriously, do you have citations for that?.........They're not there Hillside. Am I supposed to take you seriously or not?
I'm at the point where I know you can't really hate me Hillside but you must absolutely HATE those people who don't take what you say with a pinch of salt.
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Vlad,
Seriously, do you have citations for that?.........They're not there Hillside. Am I supposed to take you seriously or not?
What the hell is wrong with you? Citations for the proper definitions of the words you try to re-define? Yes, lots of them – all of which have been given to you often.
Or do you mean citations fir the countless the times I’ve said one thing, you’ve promptly misrepresented what I said and then demanded that I defend your misrepresentation of it? There are countless examples of that too.
I'm at the point where I know you can't really hate me Hillside but you must absolutely HATE those people who don't take what you say with a pinch of salt.
I don’t hate “you” at all – I have no idea who you are. What I actually hate is your inability to be truthful, presumably because you take some kind of perverse pleasure from relentless trolling.
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Vlad,
First, these are different categories of arguments: some don't make absolute claims, others do
Which ones do and which ones don't? And now you seem to be in the market for giving citations can we have those too. No-one here argues for the latter
Don't they? I'm more of the opinion that they don't want to give any idea of what their philosophy is. These are people who purport to lack, rather than purport to have and lumping them together as if they were in the same category is dishonest.
Lumping them as philosophies is not dishonest, that's just your propensity for accusing people of lying....IMV a major cause for the loss and lack of membership on this board.
Second, I have no idea what you’re trying to ask still but you can try good and bad arguments to justify the claim "leprechauns" as much as you can try them them to justify anything else. The point though has nothing to do with that. The point was, is and will continue to be that if you think an argument works to justify the claim “god” and the same argument also justifies “leprechauns” then it’s probably a bad argument. See “reductio ad absurdum” to see why.
The question is quite clear. Either you are off colour, stupid or you are bullshitting.
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Never talk doing his atheist groupie bit.
::) Kind of demonstrating my point. You'll post any old shit rather than define and attempt to justify your own claims.
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Vlad,
Which ones do and which ones don't? And now you seem to be in the market for giving citations can we have those too.
The exact same ones I’ve given you citations for many times. Why the hell should I give them to you again, only for you to ignore them again as you always do? Oh, and can you have forgotten already that time you attempted a citation to justify your definition of a term and it turned out to say precisely the opposite of what you though it said? Many was the chuckle we all had about that down at the Limping Whippet.
Don't they? I'm more of the opinion that they don't want to give any idea of what their philosophy is. These are people who purport to lack, rather than purport to have
To have what? Your already flaky grasp of the language is slipping again.
Lumping them as philosophies is not dishonest, that's just your propensity for accusing people of lying....IMV a major cause for the loss and lack of membership on this board.
Then stop lying. Your standard stunt is to lump together non-absolute positions (materialism etc) that people here do argue for with absolute positions (physicalism etc) that no-one here argues for, and then to demand that they defend them as whole.
The question is quite clear. Either you are off colour, stupid or you are bullshitting.
I answered it (something you will never do by the way). Why have you lied about that?
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Vlad,
The exact same ones I’ve given you citations for many times. Why the hell should I give them to you again, only for you to ignore them again as you always do? Oh, and can you have forgotten already that time you attempted a citation to justify your definition of a term and it turned out to say precisely the opposite of what you though it said? Many was the chuckle we all had about that down at the Limping Whippet.
To have what? Your already flaky grasp of the language is slipping again.
Then stop lying. Your standard stunt is to lump together non-absolute positions (materialism etc) that people here do argue for with absolute positions (physicalism etc) that no-one here argues for, and then to demand that they defend them as whole.
I answered it (something you will never do by the way). Why have you lied about that?
No questions answered, no citations. Just shows you how fucking useless atheism is.
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Vlad,
No questions answered, no citations. Just shows you how fucking useless atheism is.
1. Questions answered (try to stop lying about that, even if you can't stop lying about everything else).
2. How useful something is doesn't tell you whether it's right or not.
3. You've been given countless citations, and ignored them all. Why would anyone want to go the same trouble for you again?
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No questions answered, no citations. Just shows you how fucking useless atheism is.
Not as fucking useless as somebody who will do anything, employ any distraction possible, post endless shit about anything, just to avoid defining and attempting to justify their own claims.
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Vlad, In Post 267, you said:
I’ve argued that Leprechauns have physical definitive features. Enki has provided a list of those features which would satisfy existence empirically.
Not at all. I simply listed a range of types of evidence which might well include but is not limited to physical characteristics, any or all of which might well support the idea that leprechauns existed. Here again is the whole paragraph:
"Bones, DNA, reputable historical references and cross references, ideologically independent witnesses, captured examples(living or dead), plenty of photographs and film, examples of wishes being granted under lab conditions, even pots of gold found regularly at the ends of rainbows."
This type of evidence, although it wouldn't necessarily confirm the existence of leprechauns, would to some extent support the idea as a feasible possibility, just as it would for your God. The analogy stands.
There are no properties of the divine that can be studied so.
Rubbish! There are plenty of references to his physical characteristics.
In the Bible, God is described as having the likeness of a human. He seems to have ears, eyes, hair, nostrils, feet, fingers. Moses used to speak to him and Abraham met him. As for his character attributes, he can be jealous, warlike, a deceiver, a waverer, gracious, kindly, vicious. He can even encourage adultery and suicide on occasions. He is described in many different ways, some comical, some decent, some horrendous. Jesus is described as having white wool like hair and with a sword coming out of his mouth in Revelations. He is also described as performing numerous miracles.
The trouble is that we have no means of verification for any of these characteristics and attributes so, just like leprechauns, the analogy stands.
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Vlad, In Post 267, you said:
Not at all. I simply listed a range of types of evidence which might well include but is not limited to physical characteristics, any or all of which might well support the idea that leprechauns existed. Here again is the whole paragraph:
"Bones, DNA, reputable historical references and cross references, ideologically independent witnesses, captured examples(living or dead), plenty of photographs and film, examples of wishes being granted under lab conditions, even pots of gold found regularly at the ends of rainbows."
This type of evidence, although it wouldn't necessarily confirm the existence of leprechauns, would to some extent support the idea as a feasible possibility, just as it would for your God. The analogy stands.
Rubbish! There are plenty of references to his physical characteristics.
In the Bible, God is described as having the likeness of a human. He seems to have ears, eyes, hair, nostrils, feet, fingers. Moses used to speak to him and Abraham met him. As for his character attributes, he can be jealous, warlike, a deceiver, a waverer, gracious, kindly, vicious. He can even encourage adultery and suicide on occasions. He is described in many different ways, some comical, some decent, some horrendous. Jesus is described as having white wool like hair and with a sword coming out of his mouth in Revelations. He is also described as performing numerous miracles.
The trouble is that we have no means of verification for any of these characteristics and attributes so, just like leprechauns, the analogy stands.
For info
http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=6939.msg822446#msg822446
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If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris DIDN'T spell out the word God in every human language, would that not be evidence for God?
Do you think that asteroids, the moon and the results of their collisions can exist without God existing?
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Vlad,
If an asteroid crashed into the moon and the debris spelt out the word God in every human language would you believe in God or would you require more evidence?
More evidence (indeed any "evidence" would be helpful). It’s been a while since you tried the survivorship bias fallacy though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
Given enough asteroids hitting enough moons such a thing could happen with no god involved. Fantastically unlikely events happen at the time - consider the fact of your existence for example. How many bajillions of events must have happened since the big bang do you suppose for you to be here? Is that evidence for “God” too do you think as you seem think very unlikely = god?
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Vlad,
More evidence (indeed any "evidence" would be helpful). It’s been a while since you tried the survivorship bias fallacy though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
Given enough asteroids hitting enough moons such a thing could happen with no god involved. Fantastically unlikely events happen at the time - consider the fact of your existence for example. How many bajillions of events must have happened since the big bang do you suppose for you to be here? Is that evidence for “God” too do you think as you seem think very unlikely = god?
So I take it that this would be insufficent evidence to shake your stentorian new atheism.
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Vlad,
So I take it that this would be insufficent evidence to shake your stentorian new atheism.
No, it wouldn't be "evidence" at all for someone capable of reasoning. Try reading the Wiki article I linked you to to see where you went wrong.
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Vlad,
No, it wouldn't be "evidence" at all for someone capable of reasoning. Try reading the Wiki article I linked you to to see where you went wrong.
The purpose of this thread is to hopefully prompt an answer to the question ''what would get you to believe?'' Regarding expecting an asteroid to crash into the moon and the debris to spell out the name of god in every language, given that the universe is mediocre (in the sense that it is pretty samey throughout), to believe that this occurance is common place seems to be the less reasonable choice....and having plumped for it your doubts about other extremely unlikely events seem like special pleading.
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Vlad,
The purpose of this thread is to hopefully prompt an answer to the question ''what would get you to believe?'' Regarding expecting an asteroid to crash into the moon and the debris to spell out the name of god in every language, given that the universe is mediocre (in the sense that it is pretty samey throughout), to believe that this occurance is common place seems to be the less reasonable choice....and having plumped for it your doubts about other extremely unlikely events seem like special pleading.
The universe may be "pretty samey throughout" yet the number of shapes snowflakes can be is for practical purposes infinite, so there is no special pleading. Your mistake here is to assume that the great unlikeliness of an event is evidence for it having an intentional cause, in particular when you apply your own narrative to infer its meaning. It isn’t though. Consider for example the number of ways a randomly shuffled standard deck of cards can be dealt. It’s called 52 Factorial (52!). Written out, the number is:
80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000.
So how unlikely is it would you say that any particular order of 52 cards would be dealt?
Here’s a clue:
“This number is beyond astronomically large. I say beyond astronomically large because most numbers that we already consider to be astronomically large are mere infinitesimal fractions of this number. So, just how large is it? Let's try to wrap our puny human brains around the magnitude of this number with a fun little theoretical exercise. Start a timer that will count down the number of seconds from 52! to 0. We're going to see how much fun we can have before the timer counts down all the way.
Start by picking your favorite spot on the equator. You're going to walk around the world along the equator, but take a very leisurely pace of one step every billion years. The equatorial circumference of the Earth is 40,075,017 meters. Make sure to pack a deck of playing cards, so you can get in a few trillion hands of solitaire between steps. After you complete your round the world trip, remove one drop of water from the Pacific Ocean. Now do the same thing again: walk around the world at one billion years per step, removing one drop of water from the Pacific Ocean each time you circle the globe. The Pacific Ocean contains 707.6 million cubic kilometers of water. Continue until the ocean is empty. When it is, take one sheet of paper and place it flat on the ground. Now, fill the ocean back up and start the entire process all over again, adding a sheet of paper to the stack each time you've emptied the ocean.
Do this until the stack of paper reaches from the Earth to the Sun. Take a glance at the timer, you will see that the three left-most digits haven't even changed. You still have 8.063e67 more seconds to go. 1 Astronomical Unit, the distance from the Earth to the Sun, is defined as 149,597,870.691 kilometers. So, take the stack of papers down and do it all over again. One thousand times more. Unfortunately, that still won't do it. There are still more than 5.385e67 seconds remaining. You're just about a third of the way done.
To pass the remaining time, start shuffling your deck of cards. Every billion years deal yourself a 5-card poker hand. Each time you get a royal flush, buy yourself a lottery ticket. A royal flush occurs in one out of every 649,740 hands. If that ticket wins the jackpot, throw a grain of sand into the Grand Canyon. Keep going and when you've filled up the canyon with sand, remove one ounce of rock from Mt. Everest. Now empty the canyon and start all over again. When you've leveled Mt. Everest, look at the timer, you still have 5.364e67 seconds remaining. Mt. Everest weighs about 357 trillion pounds. You barely made a dent. If you were to repeat this 255 times, you would still be looking at 3.024e64 seconds. The timer would finally reach zero sometime during your 256th attempt.”
(https://boingboing.net/2017/03/02/how-to-imagine-52-factorial.html)
And yet these odds against the specific hand we deal actually being that hand instead of another one is something we barely notice.
So would you say that your example of an asteroid hitting the moon and the debris spelling “god” is more or less likely than a random distribution of 52 cards? It’s impossible to say of course, but there’s no doubt is there that both are fantastically unlikely events. And yet you seem to think that a random hand of cards wouldn’t be evidence for “god”, but the asteroid example would be just because you happen to attach your own meaning to one outcome but not to the other. Why?
I suggest you start with the link I gave you to the Wiki article about survivorship bias…
Incidentally, as well as your car crash in reasoning you might want to consider too that your asteroid example would break no universal laws – it would just be an unusual event from our perspective so would be a Poundland trick for a god to do. You’d have been better advised suggesting something like, say, “what if the visible stars suddenly one night rearranged themselves to say, “Hi – God here!”?” You’d still have the problem of knowing whether our basic understanding of physics was wrong such that gravity wasn’t as we thought it was, but it’d at least give more pause than would rocks acting according only to known laws and forces.
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The purpose of this thread is to hopefully prompt an answer to the question ''what would get you to believe?'' Regarding expecting an asteroid to crash into the moon and the debris to spell out the name of god in every language, given that the universe is mediocre (in the sense that it is pretty samey throughout), to believe that this occurance is common place seems to be the less reasonable choice....and having plumped for it your doubts about other extremely unlikely events seem like special pleading.
The irony being that your example is a case of special pleading for the existence of God since you simultaneously believe that no matter the outcome of the debris, you attribute it to God.
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The purpose of this thread is to hopefully prompt an answer to the question ''what would get you to believe?'' Regarding expecting an asteroid to crash into the moon and the debris to spell out the name of god in every language, given that the universe is mediocre (in the sense that it is pretty samey throughout), to believe that this occurance is common place seems to be the less reasonable choice....and having plumped for it your doubts about other extremely unlikely events seem like special pleading.
We have no idea how many universes there are, we have wildly varying ideas about how many planets there might be in this one alone*, and of those we have no idea how many are inhabitable, then inhabited by sentient organisms... given that potentially incredibly vast number, and the human capacity to find patterns in otherwise random distributions, even your asteroid example I suspect wouldn't be enough for me, and probably at least some others.
* A mid-range figure extrapolated from the Kepler space probe data in 2013 estimated that there could be 40 billion habitable planets in the Milky Way, one of just somewhere between 200 billion and a trillion galaxies in this universe. Producing a debris patter than includes identifiable shapes, given human pareidolia, once in 13+ billion years amongst 40 x 1021 planets just in the universe we know exists suddenly doesn't seem particularly significant.
O.
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We have no idea how many universes there are, we have wildly varying ideas about how many planets there might be in this one alone*, and of those we have no idea how many are inhabitable, then inhabited by sentient organisms... given that potentially incredibly vast number, and the human capacity to find patterns in otherwise random distributions, even your asteroid example I suspect wouldn't be enough for me, and probably at least some others.
* A mid-range figure extrapolated from the Kepler space probe data in 2013 estimated that there could be 40 billion habitable planets in the Milky Way, one of just somewhere between 200 billion and a trillion galaxies in this universe. Producing a debris patter than includes identifiable shapes, given human pareidolia, once in 13+ billion years amongst 40 x 1021 planets just in the universe we know exists suddenly doesn't seem particularly significant.
O.
This is all very well but doesn’t really answer the question of what it would take for you to believe in God.
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Vlad,
This is all very well but doesn’t really answer the question of what it would take for you to believe in God.
The abandonment of my critical faculties.
(I set out where you n most recently went wrong a couple of post ago by the way.)
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Vlad,
The abandonment of my critical faculties.
Yours are pretty poor I grant you but maybe an overhaul rather than scrappage?
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The irony being that your example is a case of special pleading for the existence of God since you simultaneously believe that no matter the outcome of the debris, you attribute it to God.
Nice to see you posting.
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Vlad,
Yours are pretty poor I grant you but maybe an overhaul rather than scrappage?
I'll add "irony" to the list of concepts you don't understand.
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This is all very well but doesn’t really answer the question of what it would take for you to believe in God.
For me personally, I've answered that before: I can't imagine what it would take for me to accept such a notion, it seems incomprehensible to me. Given just how unimaginably vast and old our universe is, and our complete inability to determine if it's unique or just one amongst who know how many others, the idea of taking a single exceptional event and attempting to justify a complete reworking of our understanding of how reality probably works doesn't wash for me.
O.
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the idea of taking a single exceptional event and attempting to justify a complete reworking of our understanding of how reality probably works doesn't wash for me.
I cannot see how the inclusion of an uncreated creator or a necessary being would require a ''complete reworking of our understanding of how reality works'' by which I take it you mean science. More ''science vs religion'' crap IMHO.
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Vlad,
I cannot see how the inclusion of an uncreated creator or a necessary being would require a ''complete reworking of our understanding of how reality works'' by which I take it you mean science. More ''science vs religion'' crap IMHO.
Of course you can – “an uncreated creator or a necessary being would require a ''complete reworking of our understanding of how reality works” because it contradicts or fails to align everything we know so far about reality. It’s just woo.
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Vlad,
Of course you can – “an uncreated creator or a necessary being would require a ''complete reworking of our understanding of how reality works” because it contradicts or fails to align everything we know so far about reality. It’s just woo.
Still more from the new atheist through.
Dawkins stated the universe was just as we would expect from a godless universe and failed to justify that assertion just like you. He certainly failed to convince de grasse Tyson and Bostrom and Greene. All simulated universe men.
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I cannot see how the inclusion of an uncreated creator or a necessary being would require a ''complete reworking of our understanding of how reality works'' by which I take it you mean science. More ''science vs religion'' crap IMHO.
Our understanding of how reality works rests upon the concept of cause and effect - to suggest that there is an uncaused effect requires that to be reassessed. It's not 'science vs religion crap', but it is 'methodological naturalism' vs 'magic/woo'.
O.
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Vlad,
First, your latest effort has no relationship at all to the post you were trying to reply to. I explained to you why a “uncreated creator” would require ''complete reworking of our understanding of how reality works”. Rather than respond to that, you’ve employed one of your standard evasions of shooting sideways into something else. For what it’s worth nonetheless…
Still more from the new atheist through.
What are you even trying to say here?
Dawkins…
Richard Dawkins has nothing to do with the conversation about the SU conjecture you’ve just run away from.
… stated the universe was just as we would expect from a godless universe and failed to justify that assertion just like you.
Of course it does, just a you’d expect it to look if there were no unicorns on Betelgeuse. You never have grasped the burden of proof have you, even though it’s been explained to you many times.
He certainly failed to convince de grasse Tyson and Bostrom and Greene. All simulated universe men.
So far as I know Dawkins hasn’t given much attention to the SU conjecture, and certainly not in a way that attempts to rebut the “simulated universe men” (none of whom by the way think it would be a rationale for your “god” even if the conjecture turned out to be correct - they speculate about a possible simulator, but the "uncaused" bit is an invention all of your own).
Apart from all that though…
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Our understanding of how reality works rests upon the concept of cause and effect - to suggest that there is an uncaused effect requires that to be reassessed. It's not 'science vs religion crap', but it is 'methodological naturalism' vs 'magic/woo'.
O.
You are confusing scientific understanding with the understanding of reality. In other words methodological materialism with a definition of reality based firmly in philosophical naturalism.
Nowhere is there a claim of an uncaused effect. That is clearly absurd since you cannot have an effect without a cause. What is proposed is an uncaused cause which it would be absurd to call an effect.
An uncaused thing on which all is dependent is unavoidable whether it be eternal stuff which is ever changing or an eternal God at the bottom of everything.
So several errors and at least one straw man invention I.e. uncaused effect before a gratuitously and unwarranted dismissive finale calling out supposed woo.
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Vlad,
First, your latest effort has no relationship at all to the post you were trying to reply to. I explained to you why a “uncreated creator” would require ''complete reworking of our understanding of how reality works”. Rather than respond to that, you’ve employed one of your standard evasions of shooting sideways into something else. For what it’s worth nonetheless…
What are you even trying to say here?
Richard Dawkins has nothing to do with the conversation about the SU conjecture you’ve just run away from.
Of course it does, just a you’d expect it to look if there were no unicorns on Betelgeuse. You never have grasped the burden of proof have you, even though it’s been explained to you many times.
So far as I know Dawkins hasn’t given much attention to the SU conjecture, and certainly not in a way that attempts to rebut the “simulated universe men” (none of whom by the way think it would be a rationale for your “god” even if the conjecture turned out to be correct - they speculate about a possible simulator, but the "uncaused" bit is an invention all of your own).
Apart from all that though…
I believe Greene and Dawkins discussed this on a video available on you tube.
Why should the scientific journalist and ethnologist Dawkins opinion or lack thereof be taken more
Seriously than that of Bostrom, Greene and Degrasse Tyson.
Whether the above scientists consider the nature of the creator to be The uncaused cause or a bored teenager from an advanced civilisation is neither here nor there on the issue of maker as Jeremy P has pointed out. You are merely conflating the questions of maker and what it is like.
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You are confusing scientific understanding with the understanding of reality. In other words methodological materialism with a definition of reality based firmly in philosophical naturalism.
No, I'm not - I'm accepting that our most reliable understanding of reality, currently and possibly potentially, is through the scientific method.
Nowhere is there a claim of an uncaused effect.
“....uncreated creator....” would seem to undermine that claim.
That is clearly absurd since you cannot have an effect without a cause.
That's what I thought, but then someone went and suggested gods.
What is proposed is an uncaused cause which it would be absurd to call an effect.
Ah, a rare sighting of the 'special pleading' in the wild... it's so nice to see a classic.
An uncaused thing on which all is dependent is unavoidable whether it be eternal stuff which is ever changing or an eternal God at the bottom of everything.
We've had this discussion before, and you know that I don't accept that claim, either.
So several errors and at least one straw man invention I.e. uncaused effect before a gratuitously and unwarranted dismissive finale calling out supposed woo.
Uh... no errors, no straw men... and entirely justified description of woo.
O.
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No, I'm not - I'm accepting that our most reliable understanding of reality, currently and possibly potentially, is through the scientific method.
“....uncreated creator....” would seem to undermine that claim.
That's what I thought, but then someone went and suggested gods.
Ah, a rare sighting of the 'special pleading' in the wild... it's so nice to see a classic.
We've had this discussion before, and you know that I don't accept that claim, either.
Uh... no errors, no straw men... and entirely justified description of woo.
O.
2 Points. Your straw man invention of the term uncaused effect.
The use of the word effect immediately begs the question of wha the cause is. Not so with the term cause.
When you say you disagreed with the idea of something on which all depended, please remind me of your alternative and the argument you used to say that the alternative wasNOT something on which all depended, thank you.
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2 Points. Your straw man invention of the term uncaused effect.
You cited an 'uncreated creator'; that IS an uncaused effect, even if you don't happen to like that description.
The use of the word effect immediately begs the question of wha the cause is. Not so with the term cause.
And your use of the word 'creator' immediately begs questions, it turns out that language is limited - would you prefer 'spontaneous phenomenon', because however you colour it it's the same thing.
When you say you disagreed with the idea of something on which all depended, please remind me of your alternative and the argument you used to say that the alternative was NOT something on which all depended, thank you.
I don't need to provide an alternative, I just need to point out that you've failed to make your case. You keep making this burden of proof error... As it is, I've not said that there isn't a fundamental level to reality, I've just questioned the implications of using the term 'being'.
O.
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You cited an 'uncreated creator'; that IS an uncaused effect, even if you don't happen to like that description.
Wrong, the term effect cannot exist conceptually without the term cause. That all causes need an effect is a statement of philosophical naturalism. And that’s different I’m afraid.
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Wrong, the term effect cannot exist conceptually without the term cause. That all causes need an effect is a statement of philosophical naturalism. And that’s different I’m afraid.
But your justification for claiming that this isn't an effect is that you don't want it to have a cause, you want it to be the 'uncreated creator'; you can't justify your claim with your claim, or you simply have a circular argument.
O.
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But your justification for claiming that this isn't an effect is that you don't want it to have a cause, you want it to be the 'uncreated creator'; you can't justify your claim with your claim, or you simply have a circular argument.
O.
No the word effect unavoidably involves cause. It is totally implicit in the concept of effect.
Not so with the concept of cause. And that is so whether one likes it or not.
One has to believe that all causes are also effects. All effects are the result of causes.
You keep dodging this.
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No the word effect unavoidably involves cause. It is totally implicit in the concept of effect.
Yes. And this is why you want to avoid the use, because it doesn't sit with your arbitrary special pleading.
Not so with the concept of cause. And that is so whether one likes it or not.
It would appear that you've failed to grasp the implications of the concept of cause and effect - each cause is, itself, and effect of prior causes, that's how they system works. To rely upon the implication that an effect must have a cause, but to then refute the implication that each cause is itself an effect is to fail to understand the notion of cause and effect.
One has to believe that all causes are also effects. All effects are the result of causes.
A cause has to be the effect of a prior cause, otherwise it doesn't exist.
You keep dodging this.
You keep reverting to special pleading.
O.
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Yes. And this is why you want to avoid the use, because it doesn't sit with your arbitrary special pleading.
It would appear that you've failed to grasp the implications of the concept of cause and effect - each cause is, itself, and effect of prior causes, that's how they system works. To rely upon the implication that an effect must have a cause, but to then refute the implication that each cause is itself an effect is to fail to understand the notion of cause and effect.
A cause has to be the effect of a prior cause, otherwise it doesn't exist.
You keep reverting to special pleading.
O.
No, it is you who are redefining the word cause to fit science and then trying to gussy up science into philosophical materialism, whereas the concept of cause is clear.That makes you in error three times.
I perfectly understand the notion of cause and effect. You distort words to fit what is unmistakably a belief
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No, it is you who are redefining the word cause to fit science and then trying to gussy up science into philosophical materialism, whereas the concept of cause is clear.
The notion that cause and effect is a chain is not foreign to you, pretending that it is just makes you look petty.
That makes you in error three times.
I'm not sure if it's your maths or your logic, here, but there's definitely an error there.
I perfectly understand the notion of cause and effect. You distort words to fit what is unmistakably a belief.
Wow, there goes an irony meter...
O.
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Nice to see you posting.
Thanks. It's been a while, to the point that it feels nostalgic.
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Vlad,
I believe Greene and Dawkins discussed this on a video available on you tube.
“I believe” is not a citation, and even if they did discuss the SU conjecture I’m not aware that they tried to rebut anything NdG Tyson et al have actually said.
Why should the scientific journalist and ethnologist Dawkins opinion or lack thereof be taken more
Seriously than that of Bostrom, Greene and Degrasse Tyson.
Erm, you introduced RD here remember, not me. I have no idea why, and nor is there any indication that any of these people have said any of the things you ascribe to them. Apart from that though…
Whether the above scientists consider the nature of the creator to be The uncaused cause or a bored teenager from an advanced civilisation is neither here nor there on the issue of maker as Jeremy P has pointed out.
Wrong again. JerempyP merely observed that a universe creator would appear to be god-like to the casual observer, but he did not suggest that it would also therefore be possessed of the characteristics you think to be necessary for your god (being uncaused for example).
Oh, and of course it has everything to do with. You think there to be an “uncaused cause” and you pray in aid proponents of the SU speculation for support. You’re wrong to do that though for the reasons I have explained to you – the SU proponents provide you with no support at all for your unevidenced claim “god”.
You are merely conflating the questions of maker and what it is like.
Oh the irony. I’m doing no such thing, but that is exactly what you are doing. You’re the one loading this supposed creator with unwarranted characteristics (like being uncaused, let alone the rest of the menu in the Nicene Creed) whereas I’m merely explaining to you that none of these characteristics are necessary for the this “creator” to exist nonetheless. You’re basically the Wylie E. Coyote of this mb, but you’ve yet to look down to realise there’s nothing supporting you.