Searching for GOD...

[Gordon]

This is so ridiculous you must be putting it in for provocation or to conjur me up..
Firstly, you seem to be claiming prophetic powers, secondly the notion is in itself delusional and wishful thinking, as if all the copies of the worlds best selling book and the entirety of the largest belief system in the world are going to disappear.
It also casts the ''comedian'' Ricky Gervais as either an expert futurologist or a prophet.

What arrant Cock Hillside......Gervais must have been feeling a little funny when he uttered this.

Whoosh!

[Stranger]

There can be no half measures in this, Susan.  We are either entirely under the control of physically defined reactions to previous events - hence robotish zombie-ish behaviour as you correctly surmise...

Yet you agree that everything that goes into a choice: our nature, nurture, and experience applied to the situation, influences everything we decide and you have been totally unable to explain what how the resulting decision would differ from one fully determined by those things while at the same time not being random (which is actually a contradiction).

So in practice, far from there being "no half measures", you cannot even coherently explain the difference between what you (prejudicially) call "robotish zombie-ish behaviour" and what you fantasise is the truth of the matter.

You just keep on robotically repeating the same old baseless assertions...

[bluehillside Retd.]

In which Vladdo collapses into a logically disastrous heap yet again…

This is so ridiculous you must be putting it in for provocation or to conjur me up..

Firstly, you seem to be claiming prophetic powers,…

Fail 1: as there’s no bottom up logical path from a hypothesis to Genesis or to the Quran, there’s no reason to think the same books would reappear. That requires no "powers", prophetic or otherwise. 

…secondly the notion is in itself delusional and wishful thinking, as if all the copies of the worlds best selling book and the entirety of the largest belief system in the world are going to disappear.

Fail 2: as ever, Vladdo fails to grasp even the concept of a thought experiment.

It also casts the ''comedian'' Ricky Gervais as either an expert futurologist or a prophet.

Fail 3: an ad hom isn’t an argument. Either the arguments itself stands on its merits or it doesn’t – who makes it has no relevance to that.

What arrant Cock Hillside......Gervais must have been feeling a little funny when he uttered this.

Fail 4: misplaced triumphalism. Yet again the pigeon knocks over the chess pieces, craps on the board, and flies off to claim his “victory”.

It’s all a bit predictably sad really.

[Alan Burns]

Yet you agree that everything that goes into a choice: our nature, nurture, and experience applied to the situation, influences everything we decide and you have been totally unable to explain what how the resulting decision would differ from one fully determined by those things while at the same time not being random (which is actually a contradiction).

Can you not discern the obvious difference between "influenced" and "determined"?  (And it has nothing to do with "random".)

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gordon,

Whoosh!

About 32,000 ft over his head I reckon. I'm only estimating though, so it could be a thou or two either way.

[Stranger]

Can you not discern the obvious difference between "influenced" and "determined"?  (And it has nothing to do with "random".)

FFS have you seriously got such a bad memory - or are you just being shamelessly dishonest?

Yes, I know the difference but yet again you are running away from the point. If absolutely everything that influences a choice (including the nature of whatever is making the choice) does not (when taken together) fully determine it, there is nothing left to base the remaining choice on - so that remaining choice can only be random.

Not having any random elements means determined.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Fail 1: as there’s no bottom up logical path from a hypothesis to Genesis or to the Quran, there’s no reason to think the same books would reappear. That requires no "powers", prophetic or otherwise. 

That is unlikely to be tested and in any case Genesis is a story with moral content and we know that people arrive at them all the time, So no change from your state of wrongness there.

Because the whole thesis is unlikely to be seriously put to the test it is unsurprisingly the sort of place we would expect to find you.

[BeRational]

This is so ridiculous you must be putting it in for provocation or to conjur me up..
Firstly, you seem to be claiming prophetic powers, secondly the notion is in itself delusional and wishful thinking, as if all the copies of the worlds best selling book and the entirety of the largest belief system in the world are going to disappear.
It also casts the ''comedian'' Ricky Gervais as either an expert futurologist or a prophet.

What arrant Cock Hillside......Gervais must have been feeling a little funny when he uttered this.

It's likely true though.

If everyone forgot about all religions and all science.
Any holy texts that came to exist a thousand years later would not bear any resemblance to current holy texts.
But, all the science books would be created again with exactly the same conclusions and formulae.
E would still equal MC squared no matter who comes up with it.

This is because science is a method to examine the reality we find ourselves in, and that will be the same in a thousand years as it is now.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It's likely true though.

If everyone forgot about all religions and all science.
Any holy texts that came to exist a thousand years later would not bear any resemblance to current holy texts.

How do you know and when is it ever going to happen?
New scientist did an article on counterfactuals in science. The science we have now it concluded may not be science we have if we wound the clock back.....I know that is impossible but then so nearly is a situation where all science and religion are forgotten.

As it happens science is faced with the problem of how to inform future civilisations of nuclear waste if this one falls. It seems they would want to piggy back such information on religions since they are the most durable form of community and produce the most durable literature.....source BBC

You are therefore just the latest in a long line on here of arse clenchingly wishful antitheist thinkers.

[Maeght]

How do you know and when is it ever going to happen?
New scientist did an article on counterfactuals in science. The science we have now it concluded may not be science we have if we wound the clock back.....I know that is impossible but then so nearly is a situation where all science and religion are forgotten.

The scientific knowledge may not be the same at any point in a rerun history but the same discoveries would be made at some point.

As it happens science is faced with the problem of how to inform future civilisations of nuclear waste if this one falls. It seems they would want to piggy back such information on religions since they are the most durable form of community and produce the most durable literature.....source BBC

That is society's problem rather than science's (whatever is meant by that phrase  since science is a method not a thing). The knowledge would need to be passed on to future generations. Using an existing structure such as organised religions could be one method I guess but so what?

You are therefore just the latest in a long line on here of arse clenchingly wishful antitheist thinkers.

Can't see where that conclusion comes from.

[torridon]

Can you not discern the obvious difference between "influenced" and "determined"?  (And it has nothing to do with "random".)

Whichever factor is the most influential in the making of a choice, is the determining factor.  If there is no determinant, then it is a random outcome.  This is really very simple.

[torridon]

How do you know and when is it ever going to happen?

Quite likely it will happen, in some form or other.  History shows that civilisations rise, and then they fall.  Even with our high tech society we may not survive an ecological catastrophe of our own making, and if we do survive that we will not survive any significant cosmic event unscathed.  So its an interesting thought experiment to consider.

[Stranger]

How do you know and when is it ever going to happen?

FFS it's a thought experiment - how likely it is to happen could not be less relevant.

It's making a point about the nature of 'knowledge'. The way the physical world works isn't going to change so (for example) any mathematical descriptions of it from physics that match experiments must be equivalent. In other words you can reconstruct scientific knowledge from first principles (just the notion of science itself). On the other hand, does anybody really think that Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or any other religion would be reconstructed without their texts and traditions?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

FFS it's a thought experiment - how likely it is to happen could not be less relevant.

It's making a point about the nature of 'knowledge'. The way the physical world works isn't going to change so (for example) any mathematical descriptions of it from physics that match experiments must be equivalent. In other words you can reconstruct scientific knowledge from first principles (just the notion of science itself). On the other hand, does anybody really think that Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or any other religion would be reconstructed without their texts and traditions?

It starts with it's conclusion namely that the same religious tropes would not reappear but somehow 'religion' would. You also seem to be equating science with maths.

Therefore you and the others are cowardly hiding behind the practical impossibility of this being tested and given that condition trying to make it a paeon to science Vs religion is another example of your humbug.

[Maeght]

It starts with it's conclusion namely that the same religious tropes would not reappear but somehow 'religion' would. You also seem to be equating science with maths.

Therefore you and the others are cowardly hiding behind the practical impossibility of this being tested and given that condition trying to make it a paeon to science Vs religion is another example of your humbug.

Paeon?

[Nearly Sane]

Paeon?

Presume it's paean. I think there is an archaic spelling of it as paeon.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

That is unlikely to be tested and in any case Genesis is a story with moral content and we know that people arrive at them all the time, So no change from your state of wrongness there.

Because the whole thesis is unlikely to be seriously put to the test it is unsurprisingly the sort of place we would expect to find you.

Perhaps if you looked up "thought experiment" you'd see where you went wrong. Thought experiments are, well, just that - experiments in thought. They're not hypotheses to be trialled and tested in the real world.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

Stop digging!

It starts with it's conclusion namely that the same religious tropes would not reappear but somehow 'religion' would. You also seem to be equating science with maths.

No it doesn't. It just posits that, if all the "holy" texts were to vanish overnight, there's no reason to think they'd re-emerge some time hence (not least incidentally because we're told that some of them are "revealed" so the various authorial gods would presumably have to to their revealing all over again). By contrast, applying the scientific method to the same evidence would at some point reach the same answers, for obvious reasons.   

Therefore you and the others are cowardly hiding behind the practical impossibility of this being tested and given that condition trying to make it a paeon to science Vs religion is another example of your humbug.

Just bonkers. Again, try actually looking up "thought experiment" to work out your mistake.

[Maeght]

Presume it's paean. I think there is an archaic spelling of it as paeon.

Ta.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vladdo,

Stop digging!

No it doesn't. It just posits that, if all the "holy" texts were to vanish overnight, there's no reason to think they'd re-emerge some time hence .

That is debateable though. Even if these are a function of our biology, and that were it, there is no guarantee that the same tropes would not pop up again and independently
namely God, the relationship with him, the perceived need for him.

To claim ''no reason'' is therefore just a function of your wrongity.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

That is debateable though.

All thought experiments are “debatable”, but the fact remains that there’s no reason to think that the same religious stories would re-emerge as they’re not founded on observation and testing. 

Even if these are a function of our biology and that were it. There is no guarantee that the same tropes would not pop up again and independently
namely God, the relationship with him, the perceived need for him.

Thought experiments in their nature don’t deal in “guarantees”, but there are no reasons to think that the same stories would reappear (not least because the same gods would have to do their “revealing” all over again). That’s not to say that religions wouldn’t re-emerge – they probably would given our propensity for explanation-seeking – but it is to say that they’d almost certainly be different ones. By contrast though, the same scientific formulae etc would come back because they’d rest on the same observations, testing and reasoning.   

To claim no reason is therefore just a function of your wrongity.

Oh the irony.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vladdo,

All thought experiments are “debatable”, but the fact remains that there’s no reason

When you commit to an error you really commit.

If you have evidence that the same tropes would not arise independently just as with maths' science, literature, ideas etc. please present it.

How do you know, for instance, that antitheism isn't such a pernicious meme in terms of it's own survival that it would need to preserve the very theisms on which it depends?

Hint: You don't.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

When you commit to an error you really commit.

If you have evidence that the same tropes would not arise independently just as with maths' science, literature, ideas etc. please present it.

How do you know, for instance, that antitheism isn't such a pernicious meme in terms of it's own survival that it would need to preserve the very theisms on which it depends?

Hint: You don't.

More idiocy. For god's sake, look up "thought experiment" willya? They don't rest on evidence - that's why they're called thought experiments.

As for "antitheism" having to invent theism so as to exist, you're in beyond bonkers territory now.

You crashed and burned. Again. Suck it up and move on. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vladdo,

More idiocy. For god's sake, look up "thought experiment" willya? They don't rest on evidence - that's why they're called thought experiments.

As for "antitheism" having to invent theism so as to exist, you're in beyond bonkers territory now.

You crashed and burned. Again. Suck it up and move on.

You're still not getting it.
To say there is no reason to believe religions like Islam and Christianity would not arise again is stupid, wishful thinking not based in reason

It might to be reasonable to suggest they may not, or even that they would be unlikely in which case you'd have to qualify but you went for ''No reason'' Hillside.......Oh dear.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

You're still not getting it.
To say there is no reason to believe religions like Islam and Christianity would not arise again is stupid, wishful thinking not based in reason

It might to be reasonable to suggest they may not, or even that they would be unlikely in which case you'd have to qualify but you went for ''No reason'' Hillside.......Oh dear.

Oh FFS! OK, as you can't be bothered to look it up for yourself, here it is (from Wiki):

A thought experiment (German: Gedankenexperiment,[1] Gedanken-Experiment[2] or Gedankenerfahrung[3]) considers some hypothesis, theory,[4] or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. Given the structure of the experiment, it may not be possible to perform it, and even if it could be performed, there need not be an intention to perform it.

The common goal of a thought experiment is to explore the potential consequences of the principle in question:

"A thought experiment is a device with which one performs an intentional, structured process of intellectual deliberation in order to speculate, within a specifiable problem domain, about potential consequents (or antecedents) for a designated antecedent (or consequent)" (Yeates, 2004, p. 150).

Examples of thought experiments include Schrödinger's cat, illustrating quantum indeterminacy through the manipulation of a perfectly sealed environment and a tiny bit of radioactive substance, and Maxwell's demon, which attempts to demonstrate the ability of a hypothetical finite being to violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_experiment

Do you see the bit that says: "Given the structure of the experiment, it may not be possible to perform it, and even if it could be performed, there need not be an intention to perform it."?

Now can you see where you went wrong when you demanded evidence?

Something?

Anything at all?

To say that there's no reason to think that the same faiths would arise again is neither stupid nor wishful thinking - it's a statement predicated on the (fairly obvious I'd have thought) observation that there's no reason to think the same stories and narratives would emerge and take hold that would lead to those same faiths. If you seriously think otherwise, then tell us what that reason would be.

As you clearly can't, I suggest you just go and lick your wounds instead.