Author Topic: Searching for GOD...  (Read 3896300 times)

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8175 on: January 18, 2016, 09:56:16 PM »
Because otherwise there's no reason for humans to accept it any more than any other unsubstantiated claim like Zeus, Thor, alien abductions or a hollow Earth full of Tibetan monks.

But the methodology is science isn't it? And who is an authentic empiricist?


Outrider

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8176 on: January 18, 2016, 09:58:54 PM »
But the methodology is science isn't it? And who is an authentic empiricist?

Science is a methodology, one that's tied to physical phenomena. You're more than welcome to suggest another and demonstrate it's effectiveness and use it to demonstrate God, if you'd like...

You've tried logic, and that failed abysmally, I've not seen anyone try with mathematics yet, that could be interesting.

O.
Universes are forever, not just for creation...

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Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8177 on: January 18, 2016, 10:29:31 PM »
Science is a methodology, one that's tied to physical phenomena. You're more than welcome to suggest another and demonstrate it's effectiveness and use it to demonstrate God, if you'd like...

You've tried logic, and that failed abysmally, I've not seen anyone try with mathematics yet, that could be interesting.

O.
Isn't logic about premises though? That God fails logic has always seemed a con to me. Perhaps you can run that one past us again........unless it's one of those things that funnily you refuse to.........to be fair though that is more Hillsides bag.
 

Outrider

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8178 on: January 18, 2016, 10:35:10 PM »
Isn't logic about premises though?

That may be why attempts to derive God via logic have failed. It's a valid methodology, just not one that happens to be useful for demonstrating God. Like science is valid methodology, and isn't useful for demonstrating God.

Mathematics is another valid methodology, feel free to have a go with it.

Or, of course, come up with another valid methodology by which you could somehow support the claim 'God'...

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That God fails logic has always seemed a con to me.

Fair's fair, 'God' has always seemed a con to me.

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Perhaps you can run that one past us again........unless it's one of those things that funnily you refuse to.........to be fair though that is more Hillsides bag.

Run which one past you again? You say, here, that 'God fails logic' seems like a con, yet you were defending the cosmological argument, recently.

O.
Universes are forever, not just for creation...

New Atheism - because, apparently, there's a use-by date on unanswered questions.

Eminent Pedant, Interpreter of Heretical Writings, Unwarranted Harvester of Trite Nomenclature, Church of Debatable Saints

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8179 on: January 18, 2016, 10:46:23 PM »
That may be why attempts to derive God via logic have failed. It's a valid methodology, just not one that happens to be useful for demonstrating God. Like science is valid methodology, and isn't useful for demonstrating God.

Mathematics is another valid methodology, feel free to have a go with it.

Or, of course, come up with another valid methodology by which you could somehow support the claim 'God'...

Fair's fair, 'God' has always seemed a con to me.

Run which one past you again? You say, here, that 'God fails logic' seems like a con, yet you were defending the cosmological argument, recently.

O.
The failure of logic to demonstrate God is shared with the failure to demonstrate any philosophical position surely.

If you wont demonstrate the failure to establish God by logic perhaps you can demonstrate naturalism by logic.

Walt Zingmatilder

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8180 on: January 18, 2016, 10:50:00 PM »
That may be why attempts to derive God via logic have failed. It's a valid methodology, just not one that happens to be useful for demonstrating God. Like science is valid methodology, and isn't useful for demonstrating God.

Mathematics is another valid methodology, feel free to have a go with it.

Or, of course, come up with another valid methodology by which you could somehow support the claim 'God'...

Fair's fair, 'God' has always seemed a con to me.

Run which one past you again? You say, here, that 'God fails logic' seems like a con, yet you were defending the cosmological argument, recently.

O.
I didn't see you defeating the argument for an uncaused cause.
Merely the Outrider shuffle.

Outrider

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8181 on: January 18, 2016, 11:15:41 PM »
The failure of logic to demonstrate God is shared with the failure to demonstrate any philosophical position surely.

Ah, the classic 'I'm wrong, but hey, aren't we all' defense...

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If you wont demonstrate the failure to establish God by logic

You've already adequately demonstrated the failure to establish God by logic, I'm simply referencing those failed attempts.

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perhaps you can demonstrate naturalism by logic.

I've only ever claimed that scientific findings - the product of the assumption of naturalism - were provisional, so I'm not claiming proof. I'm claiming continually recurring practical validation, leading to an increased confidence in the findings of science. That's a methodology, see, you should try it some time.

O.
Universes are forever, not just for creation...

New Atheism - because, apparently, there's a use-by date on unanswered questions.

Eminent Pedant, Interpreter of Heretical Writings, Unwarranted Harvester of Trite Nomenclature, Church of Debatable Saints

ippy

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8182 on: January 19, 2016, 12:33:34 AM »
I won first prize in a Mensa IQ competition organised by our local evening paper  ;D

So why throw it all away on that religion nonsense, you must have been indoctrinated, some people are more prone to being indoctrinated than others no matter what their IQ happens to be, looks to me you got the short straw on that one Alan, I doubt you'll ever manage to get over it.

It's a shame if you stop and consider, had you spent your time on anything, anything else, anything that's better than that, say something that's useful how much you could have contributed to to benefit your fellow man as opposed to wasting your efforts on beliefs that have as near as it gets to zero evidence that could support them.

ippy
« Last Edit: January 19, 2016, 01:04:35 AM by ippy »

ippy

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8183 on: January 19, 2016, 01:01:40 AM »
Dear Leonard,

Your wee short sentence sent me on a journey to find romantic atheists, poetic atheists and boy!! did I find them :o

http://thehumanist.com/arts_entertainment/books/5-famous-atheists-in-literature

Which led me onto.

http://www.publicliterature.org/books/necessity_of_atheism/1

Percy Bysshe Shelley

The chunterings of the atheist back in the 1800's are not much different to the chunterings of the 21st century.

The snake in the garden of Eden is actually a phallic symbol, well according to 18th century scholars, never heard that one before, a talking penis :o :o

Gonnagle.

Atheists haven't needed to change, religionists are clinging on to the magical, mythical, superstition based parts of the various religions without a shred of evidence to support these main parts of your religions and without these magical, mythical and superstition based parts of the religions they just fall apart.

The modern evidence points to Eves rib since they started to trace back our origins they had to be traced back via female mitochondrial DNA, so it's looking more and more like they they even got that bit wrong, Gonnners, phallic symbol or not.   

ippy   

SusanDoris

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8184 on: January 19, 2016, 06:19:00 AM »
Outrider and Ippy

Super posts - a pleasure to read to start the day.
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Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8185 on: January 19, 2016, 07:18:46 AM »
So why throw it all away on that religion nonsense, you must have been indoctrinated, some people are more prone to being indoctrinated than others no matter what their IQ happens to be, looks to me you got the short straw on that one Alan, I doubt you'll ever manage to get over it.

It's a shame if you stop and consider, had you spent your time on anything, anything else, anything that's better than that, say something that's useful how much you could have contributed to to benefit your fellow man as opposed to wasting your efforts on beliefs that have as near as it gets to zero evidence that could support them.

ippy
I was never indoctrinated.  I just thought things out for myself.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8186 on: January 19, 2016, 09:16:14 AM »
I was never indoctrinated.  I just thought things out for myself.
Isn't that precisely what we'd expect someone who had been indoctrinated would say?
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8187 on: January 19, 2016, 09:21:57 AM »
Isn't that precisely what we'd expect someone who had been indoctrinated would say?

It's also what i'd expect someone who wasn't indoctrinated to say. It's a when did you stop beating your wife approach. 

BeRational

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8188 on: January 19, 2016, 09:22:14 AM »
I was never indoctrinated.  I just thought things out for myself.

For someone with such a high IQ, you seem very slow to pick up the rules of logic.

In fact using a bit of logic, I cannot deduce that you have a high IQ. You won, but perhaps everyone else had an IQ of 40?

I do not have enough information about the competition to know for sure.
I see gullible people, everywhere!

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8189 on: January 19, 2016, 09:23:36 AM »
It's also what i'd expect someone who wasn't indoctrinated to say. It's a when did you stop beating your wife approach.
So how do you sort the one from the other?
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8190 on: January 19, 2016, 09:26:50 AM »
So how do you sort the one from the other?


Given that the positive claim is that someone is indoctrinated, I would ask the person making the claim to evidence it.

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8191 on: January 19, 2016, 09:37:33 AM »


Given that the positive claim is that someone is indoctrinated, I would ask the person making the claim to evidence it.
Alan has already provided it - quite recently at that:

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10333.msg581217#msg581217
« Last Edit: January 19, 2016, 09:40:25 AM by Shaker »
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8192 on: January 19, 2016, 09:40:38 AM »
Alan has already provided it - quite recently at that.

Where?

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8193 on: January 19, 2016, 09:50:43 AM »
Alan has already provided it - quite recently at that:

http://www.religionethics.co.uk/index.php?topic=10333.msg581217#msg581217

So the evidence for indoctrination is that he was brought up in a Christian family? Does that mean that I was indoctrinated into voting Labour as I was brought up in a Labour voting family? How about indoctrinated into being a Celtic supporter, or indoctrinated into disliking carrots?


You shouldn't assume that because someone is brought up in a Christian family that they are taught to accept isn't uncritically. What it is evidence for is that Alan's claim to have 'just thought things out' for himself is incorrect.

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8194 on: January 19, 2016, 09:57:20 AM »
So the evidence for indoctrination is that he was brought up in a Christian family? Does that mean that I was indoctrinated into voting Labour as I was brought up in a Labour voting family? How about indoctrinated into being a Celtic supporter, or indoctrinated into disliking carrots?
In effect, yes. The ground was already prepared, as it were, for you to consider Labour to be the party you should vote for. Now, it's entirely possible that under one influence or another - a girl you fancied; someone you admired; a particularly fascinating book and so forth - by the time you had been of age to develop some intelligence and some critical thinking skills you could have re-evaluated this early imprinting, thought out the matter for yourself and come to a different or even a polar opposite conclusion and become a rabid Tory voter. It does happen and I'm not claiming otherwise - the majority of people are raised to eat meat and to consider meat as food, but there is a significant number of vegetarians -, but it's not tremendously common and that hardly matches Alan, does it? We know that there are sound evolutionary reasons for children to accept the word of those closest to them, the ones they love and respect, their care-givers - that of course almost always means parents or someone in loco parentis or parentum - in whatever they tell them.

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You shouldn't assume that because someone is brought up in a Christian family that they are taught to accept isn't uncritically.
Alan accepts everything about his religion uncritically - he displays absolutely no signs of being able to think critically in any way whatsoever, in fact. It had to come from somewhere.
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What it is evidence for is that Alan's claim to have 'just thought things out' for himself is incorrect.
Indeed. He also provided a self-refuting statement in his: "I was lucky to be born into a Christian family, so I have had exposure to Christian literature and practices for most of my life." If he was born into a Christian family then he wasn't exposed to Christian literature and practices for most of his life but all of it - it was the atmosphere he was born into and there was never a time when it wasn't the atmosphere all around him.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2016, 10:14:34 AM by Shaker »
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

Nearly Sane

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8195 on: January 19, 2016, 10:11:03 AM »
To me there has to be more than simple imprinting to make the claim of indoctrination, and it seems that there is then an inbuilt assumption that if the person accepts that imprinting then their view can be dismissed because they are simply indoctrinated. It automatically dismissed the view not because of it necessarily being wrong but just because they happen to agree with that first imprint. It, as a corollary, posits that disagreement with that first imprint is more valid, no matter what position is taken, and I don't think that case has been made.

I am conscious that I am splitting hairs here, in that I do think Alan does not approach his statements with any particular critical rigour, but I think that is true of some on here who have broken out of that first imprinting.

Alan Burns

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8196 on: January 19, 2016, 10:29:39 AM »
Isn't that precisely what we'd expect someone who had been indoctrinated would say?
My parents were not what you would call strong Christians.  My mother did not go to church.  My father started to go back to church when his children came along, but he did not receive the sacraments.

When I was in my early twenties, I was visiting my father in hospital and saw that he had a beaming smile on his face.  He proudly told me that he had just done confession with a priest.  It was a great answer to my prayers, and a great joy that when he came out of hospital we were able to attend the sacraments together.
The truth will set you free  - John 8:32
Truth is not an abstraction, but a person - Edith Stein
Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. - CS Lewis
Joy is the Gigantic Secret of Christians - GK Chesterton

Shaker

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8197 on: January 19, 2016, 10:45:34 AM »
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm! The Catholic faith is indoctrination BIG TIME in my opinion!
One has to wonder why people who give up, let us say, Buddhism typically don't refer to themselves as ex-Buddhists, but it's extremely common for people who have zero Catholic belief and zero Catholic practice but were raised thusly refer to themselves as 'lapsed' Catholics. If you're not a Catholic you're not a Catholic and there's an end on't, I'd have thought. You don't say you're a Catholic of any kind, not even a 'lapsed' one, unless it still has some sort of hold over you, surely - this seems to be practically unique amongst religions. I haven't eaten meat in 23 years and haven't smoked a fag in 15, but I don't make a point of labelling myself as a former meat eater and ex-smoker. It simply doesn't arise.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2016, 10:51:09 AM by Shaker »
Pain, or damage, don't end the world. Or despair, or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back. - Al Swearengen, Deadwood.

bluehillside Retd.

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8198 on: January 19, 2016, 10:55:15 AM »
Vlunderer,

Quote
Isn't logic about premises though? That God fails logic has always seemed a con to me. Perhaps you can run that one past us again........unless it's one of those things that funnily you refuse to.........to be fair though that is more Hillsides bag.
 

Oh dear. As ever, you have it wrong here. It's not that "God fails logic" is the issue - rather it's that those who attempt to use logic to demonstrate this god always seem to fall into false reasoning. Look at this mb for the endless stream of negative proof fallacies; arguments from consequences, popularity etc; misattribution of cause and so on - many of which you've attempted.

If you think that god isn't logic apt, then fine - finally propose some other method to demonstrate this god of yours so the rest of us can distinguish your conjecture from just guessing. 

Oh, and the uncaused cause BS fails as you've been told many times for several reasons - you cannot show that the universe did have a beginning, "time" is meaningless before space time, it's special pleading for a god that would not have had to had cause, at best it leads to deism but not to theism etc etc.

Final thing: why on earth would you even bother with accusing me of not answering a question? Anyone on this mb and indeed on the old BBC one will be very aware that I've always answered questions and moreover by contrast that you've always run away from them.

Look, I'll show you: what method would you Vlad propose to distinguish your claims about "god" from just guessing about stuff?

'bye then...
« Last Edit: January 19, 2016, 11:17:20 AM by bluehillside »
"Don't make me come down there."

God

Rhiannon

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Re: Searching for GOD...
« Reply #8199 on: January 19, 2016, 11:09:38 AM »
One has to wonder why people who give up, let us say, Buddhism typically don't refer to themselves as ex-Buddhists, but it's extremely common for people who have zero Catholic belief and zero Catholic practice but were raised thusly refer to themselves as 'lapsed' Catholics. If you're not a Catholic you're not a Catholic and there's an end on't, I'd have thought. You don't say you're a Catholic of any kind, not even a 'lapsed' one, unless it still has some sort of hold over you, surely - this seems to be practically unique amongst religions. I haven't eaten meat in 23 years and haven't smoked a fag in 15, but I don't make a point of labelling myself as a former meat eater and ex-smoker. It simply doesn't arise.

Although not raised a Catholic I was raised by my Catholic grandmother a lot if the time as my Anglo-Catholic mother worked long hours. Guilt and shame were used as tools of discipline - no adult ever smacked me when I was a kid but maybe the effects would have worn off sooner. I've largely shaken most of the guilt off but shame - never being good enough - is a harder one.