Searching for GOD...

[Alan Burns]

Only if you won’t permit that “I” to think outside the logically broken prison it’s built for itself. The “I” that is me is quite capable of grasping that there are substrates of reality that aren’t immediately apparent. Why isn’t the “I” that is “you”?

You virtually talk yourself out of existence, being no more than "a practically useful construction".
Then you claim to have personally grasped "substrates of reality that aren’t immediately apparent".
All done through the unavoidable deterministic control of natural, unintelligent, unguidable forces.

And I still fail to see how nothing more than "a practically useful construction" can possibly achieve personal incredulity.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

Yes, In Hillsides world

WE have an illusion of OURSELVES.....In which case what on Earth is it that is being Illuded.

He doesn't actually know if that is even the case but explaining the self away is so integral to his world theory.

Ah, the unedifying sight of a keyboard warrior in full idiot mode. No-one "explains the self away" of course, and nothing about putting our sense of selfhood within a larger context of underlying realities too suggests any such thing either.

Weird.

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Gabriella,

Wrong again – you sought to draw an analogy between the two and I explained why they’re not analogous: one is investigable and the other isn’t.

Wrong. I said I don't find one situation more problematic than the other. Your bias seems to have made you interpret that to mean whatever you want it to mean. You make that mistake a lot on here.

I don’t pretend and you’ve missed again the basic point of principle – investigabilty vs non-investigability. How easy or practical the investigability of one of them happens to be is a different matter.

That you want to pretend I've missed it is up to you. It's not problematic for me that some beliefs can be tested objectively and others are adopted based on personal experience and subjective values and cultural views.

That there is no method to validate the competing truth claims about the supernatural just means there is no reason, other than personal preference, why anyone should adopt one supernatural belief over another. I don't find it problematic to take a liberal approach and leave it to individuals to identify their preferences from the competing claims they come across or experience during their lives, with the law stepping in where beliefs result in criminal behaviour.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

You virtually talk yourself out of existence, being no more than "a practically useful construction".

That’s the same mistake Vlad keeps making. A flock of birds doesn’t cease to exist once you know it’s actually lots of individual birds interacting; a wave doesn’t cease to exist once you realise water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. What on earth makes you think the sense of selfhood we experience would cease to exist just by putting it within a larger context of underlying but less obvious realities?

Then you claim to have personally grasped "substrates of reality that aren’t immediately apparent".
All done through the unavoidable deterministic control of natural, unintelligent, unguidable forces.

I don’t claim it, the science that studies these things demonstrate it.

And I still fail to see how nothing more than "a practically useful construction" can possibly achieve personal incredulity.

No doubt you do, but your personal incredulity is epistemically worthless. Essentially you’re a solipsist – “All I perceive must be all there is”. And actually for hundreds of years all we perceived was pretty much all we had to go on. For the last three hundred or so years though we’ve come to grasp a richer and deeper understanding of reality – one that doesn’t have "me" at the centre of it, and one that demonstrates substrates of reality that much better explain the phenomena we observe. 

I know it would upset some deeply held religious beliefs you have to think about it, but that doesn’t change where the reason and evidence have taken us I’m afraid.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vladdo,

Ah, the unedifying sight of a keyboard warrior in full idiot mode. No-one "explains the self away" of course,

Eh?

I'm merely taking my cue from this statement from Torridon which you have chosen to defend.

 '' Nonetheless such concepts dissolve at more fundamental levels. Do you imagine that particle physicists refuse to buy apples from market stalls because they know that they can't really touch them.  Touch is a useful concept at our everyday levels of thinking, but it doesn't really happen.''

Of course this might be a case of that other dodge ''What Torridon/ Dr Dawkins/insert applicable antitheist meant to say was what I am telling you now''

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gabriella,

Wrong. I said I don't find one situation more problematic than the other. Your bias seems to have made you interpret that to mean whatever you want it to mean. You make that mistake a lot on here.

Wrong. You attempted an analogy. It if wasn’t an analogy you might just as well have said that you don’t find tap dancing more problematic than evangelising. Your analogy failed. Deal with it.

That you want to pretend I've missed it is up to you. It's not problematic for me that some beliefs can be tested objectively and others are adopted based on personal experience and subjective values and cultural views.

No-one said it was. It is though “problematic” for some people who insist that their faith beliefs thereby demonstrate objective facts about the world (“prophet”, “resurrection”, “soul” etc).

And that’s all that’s being said here.
 

That there is no method to validate the competing truth claims about the supernatural just means there is no reason, other than personal preference, why anyone should adopt one supernatural belief over another.

You don’t say. So tell it to the evangelists.

I don't find it problematic to take a liberal approach and leave it to individuals to identify their preferences from the competing claims they come across or experience during their lives, with the law stepping in where beliefs result in criminal behaviour.

Nor do I. Anyone can identify whatever preferences they like so far as I’m concerned. I was merely explaining to you though that, in the absence of any other validating method, abandoning reason and evidence in favour of faith is expensive for the evangelist because his claims and assertions of fact are no more epistemically valid than any other evangelist's claims and assertions for anything else.

It’s not difficult stuff this.

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

Then you claim to have personally grasped "substrates of reality that aren’t immediately apparent".
All done through the unavoidable deterministic control of natural, unintelligent, unguidable forces.

I don’t claim it, the science that studies these things demonstrate it.

In your opinion.

Demonstrate where anyone on the planet can go to see inanimate organic/inorganic material being responsible for life. anywhere

Demonstrate where anyone on the planet can to to see a gain (not increase) in genetic information solely via mutation and/or natural selection.

No doubt you do, but your personal incredulity is epistemically worthless.

Which is just a copout so that anything which falsifies your stance gets thrown out. It renders your position unfalsifiable, meaning that you are claiming the truth of your position without ever having to (or being able to) justify it.

If someone wanted to claim that 2+2=5 and I said it doesn't because the answer is 4, should they be able to claim that I am using personal incredulity?

When are you ever going to learn to start making any kind of argument here based on truth as a concept?

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

Gabriella,

...

I was merely explaining to you though that, in the absence of any other validating method, abandoning reason and evidence in favour of faith is expensive for the evangelist because his claims and assertions of fact are no more epistemically valid than any other evangelist's claims and assertions for anything else.

It’s not difficult stuff this.

Oh dear ... Another of your arguments not based on truth.

Your claim abandoning reason and evidence in favour of faith is a loaded phrase. It assumes that the only acceptable method for establishing truth is one that assumes natural causes and explanations. Like to hide that one away, don't you.

Furthermore, it assumes that anyone employing a religious belief does not use reason and does not consider evidence. I see no evidence for that in Gabriella's posts even though her religious belief is different to mine! You continue to refuse to accept that people who have any kind of religious belief reasons on the basis of the tenets of their belief. The same can be said for those of no belief. Everyone looking at evidence needs some kind of framework to interpret it. And since you will probably challenge that, I'll use the example of statistics as to how the same set of numbers can in some cases lead to diametrically opposing conclusions. How do you explain that if evidence is supposed to be so powerful?

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

Perhaps bluehillside, when you eventually decide to stop conflating evidence with proof, you may at last, finally, endlich, enfin, begin to understand religious belief.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

Eh?

I'm merely taking my cue from this statement from Torridon which you have chosen to defend.

 '' Nonetheless such concepts dissolve at more fundamental levels. Do you imagine that particle physicists refuse to buy apples from market stalls because they know that they can't really touch them.  Touch is a useful concept at our everyday levels of thinking, but it doesn't really happen.''

Of course this might be a case of that other dodge ''What Torridon/ Dr Dawkins/insert applicable antitheist meant to say was what I am telling you now''

Dear god but reading for comprehension really isn't your thing is it. "At more fundamental levels" they do dissolve, just as at fundamental levels space and time dissolve too (try Carlo Rovelli's "Reality Is Not What It Seems" to get you started on this). Not for one moment though does that mean, say, suggest, imply, indicate, propose, or anything else that they also dissolve at the more superficial level of our immediate perception.

Does water dissolve when you know that it consists of bonded hydrogen and oxygen molecules? No - that knowledge just gives you a deeper and richer understanding of reality, but you can still use water to splash in your bedtime snifter.

Jeepers creepers but this is hard work 

[Alan Burns]

AB,

That’s the same mistake Vlad keeps making. A flock of birds doesn’t cease to exist once you know it’s actually lots of individual birds interacting; a wave doesn’t cease to exist once you realise water consists of hydrogen and oxygen. What on earth makes you think the sense of selfhood we experience would cease to exist just by putting it within a larger context of underlying but less obvious realities?

Because the single entity of conscious awareness which comprises "me" is not a flock or a wave of individual particles.  Material particles interacting comprise nothing more than interacting particles.  Interacting particles do not constitute a single entity of self awareness.   Simple logic.

[Maeght]

Because the single entity of conscious awareness which comprises "me" is not a flock or a wave of individual particles.  Material particles interacting comprise nothing more than interacting particles.  Interacting particles do not constitute a single entity of self awareness.   Simple logic.

No, belief.

[bluehillside Retd.]

SotS,

In your opinion.

No, in the “opinion” of science.

Demonstrate where anyone on the planet can go to see inanimate organic/inorganic material being responsible for life. Anywhere

What are you even trying to say here?   

Demonstrate where anyone on the planet can to to see a gain (not increase) in genetic information solely via mutation and/or natural selection.

Why? That’s just an old creationist stupidity based on a failure to understand the terms it uses, long since detonated. Look it up FFS!

Which is just a copout so that anything which falsifies your stance gets thrown out.

It’s no such thing. It’s just the reasoning that “I can’t imagine how X, therefore Y” is very bad thinking. Nothing more, nothing less.

Why is this difficult for you?

It renders your position unfalsifiable, meaning that you are claiming the truth of your position without ever having to (or being able to) justify it.

This is mad. All that pointing out an argument from personal incredulity does – and all it claims to do – is to identify a flaw in the reasoning of the person who attempts it.

Why is this difficult for you?

If someone wanted to claim that 2+2=5 and I said it doesn't because the answer is 4, should they be able to claim that I am using personal incredulity?

Only if you relied for your falsifying argument on the construction, “I can’t imagine how the answer could be 5, therefore the answer cannot be 5”.

When are you ever going to learn to start making any kind of argument here based on truth as a concept?

Perhaps when you finally tell us what you mean by “truth as a concept”?

You’re a long, long way out of your depth here Sword.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vladdo,

Dear god but reading for comprehension really isn't your thing is it. "At more fundamental levels" they do dissolve, just as at fundamental levels space and time dissolve too (try Carlo Rovelli's "Reality Is Not What It Seems" to get you started on this). Not for one moment though does that mean, say, suggest, imply, indicate, propose, or anything else that they also dissolve at the more superficial level of our immediate perception.

Does water dissolve when you know that it consists of bonded hydrogen and oxygen molecules? No - that knowledge just gives you a deeper and richer understanding of reality, but you can still use water to splash in your bedtime snifter.

Jeepers creepers but this is hard work 

Ah I see you have been mesmerised by the language used by the pop scientists.
This is why you feel you can overturn even the basics of science which operate on a scale that you and Torridon are now describing as unreal.

Torridon is describing touch as not really existing and yet even at science explanation at a basic level we find this which has been endorsed by scientists:

From BBC KS3 Bitesize Physics Forces

Forces can be contact forces, where objects must touch each other to exert a force. Other forces are non-contact forces, where objects do not have to touch each other. These include:
gravity
magnetism
forces due to static electricity

I'm afraid you are confusing science, journalism, pop science and actual science Hillside and you are defending Torridon's flowery yet scientifically dubious ideas.

[bluehillside Retd.]

SotS,

Oh dear ...   Another of your arguments not based on truth.

And for those of us working in English?

Your claim abandoning reason and evidence in favour of faith is a loaded phrase. It assumes that the only acceptable method for establishing truth is one that assumes natural causes and explanations. Like to hide that one away, don't you.

Wrong again. It “assumes” that, in the absence of an alternative method, there’s no way to distinguish the truth of any one faith claim from the truth of any other. If you think that there is a way to do that though why not finally tell us what it is?

Furthermore…

You can’t have a “furthermore” when you’ve just crashed and burned so comprehensively.

[qupte]…,it assumes that anyone employing a religious belief does not use reason and does not consider evidence.[/quote]

No it doesn’t. That’s what religious people themselves say – only for some unknown reason they tend to elevate their personal faith above the epistemic value of reason and evidence, calling it “reductionist” and such like. 

I see no evidence for that in Gabriella's posts even though her religious belief is different to mine!

Gabriella is careful to acknowledge that faith does not justify claims of objective fact.

Why aren’t you?

You continue to refuse to accept that people who have any kind of religious belief reasons on the basis of the tenets of their belief.

Again, in comprehensible English?

The same can be said for those of no belief.

Nope, no idea.

Everyone looking at evidence needs some kind of framework to interpret it. And since you will probably challenge that, I'll use the example of statistics as to how the same set of numbers can in some cases lead to diametrically opposing conclusions. How do you explain that if evidence is supposed to be so powerful?

Very easily, as you know. Interpretation applies to the conclusions drawn from looking at a data set. It’s still reason and evidence based even when the interpretation varies. Religious faith on the other hand claims a higher, better, more robust guide to “the” truth – faith. It abjures the reason and evidence stuff in favour of personal conviction.

Short version – they’re not analogous.

[Maeght]

Touch as in making contact with something or the sense of touch i.e. the feeling that you are touching something?

[bluehillside Retd.]

SotS,

Perhaps bluehillside, when you eventually decide to stop conflating evidence with proof, you may at last, finally, endlich, enfin, begin to understand religious belief.

 

Perhaps Sword when you stop lying about that and finally tell us what you think you mean by “properties of truth” or whatever it was you’ll be in a position to engage with the arguments here.

[Gordon]

In your opinion.

Demonstrate where anyone on the planet can go to see inanimate organic/inorganic material being responsible for life. anywhere

Demonstrate where anyone on the planet can to to see a gain (not increase) in genetic information solely via mutation and/or natural selection.
Which is just a copout so that anything which falsifies your stance gets thrown out. It renders your position unfalsifiable, meaning that you are claiming the truth of your position without ever having to (or being able to) justify it.

If someone wanted to claim that 2+2=5 and I said it doesn't because the answer is 4, should they be able to claim that I am using personal incredulity?

When are you ever going to learn to start making any kind of argument here based on truth as a concept?

Ignoring the above incoherent rambling of yours, how are you doing with setting out for us these 'properties of truth' that you've frequently mentioned?

[The Accountant, OBE, KC]

Gabriella,

Wrong. You attempted an analogy. It if wasn’t an analogy you might just as well have said that you don’t find tap dancing more problematic than evangelising. Your analogy failed. Deal with it.

Wrong. I attempted a liberal position on this issue. Deal with it. I could have said tap dancing or kick boxing or pretty much anything. As it happens, I don't find a promotion of tap dancing any more problematic than evangelising, but hard as it is for you to accept, you can't control the activity people choose to include in their posts, and cultural beliefs and values engage my attention more than tap dancing.

If the cultural message/ belief appears a bad idea to any individual, it can be challenged as is happening on here, or people can limit their exposure to it, or counter its effect with alternate beliefs and values. 

No-one said it was. It is though “problematic” for some people who insist that their faith beliefs thereby demonstrate objective facts about the world (“prophet”, “resurrection”, “soul” etc).

Maybe for some people. Not so much for others. Not particularly problematic compared to having any other beliefs or ideas or claims about objective facts challenged. It appears from the posts on here that some people finding other people's claims unconvincing is less of a "problem" and more of a challenge. 

Nor do I. Anyone can identify whatever preferences they like so far as I’m concerned. I was merely explaining to you though that, in the absence of any other validating method, abandoning reason and evidence in favour of faith is expensive for the evangelist because his claims and assertions of fact are no more epistemically valid than any other evangelist's claims and assertions for anything else.

It’s not difficult stuff this.

No idea what you mean by "expensive". Do you mean challenging? Evangelists seem to see it as a necessary challenge - I don't think disseminating faith beliefs about the supernatural that are impossible to objectively validate was expected to be easy, given the competing claims and schools of thought that gain popularity at different times within individual religions.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Ignoring the above incoherent rambling of yours, how are you doing with setting out for us these 'properties of truth' that you've frequently mentioned?

Bzzzzzzzz Deviation.

[bluehillside Retd.]

AB,

Because the single entity of conscious awareness which comprises "me" is not a flock or a wave of individual particles.  Material particles interacting comprise nothing more than interacting particles.  Interacting particles do not constitute a single entity of self awareness.   Simple logic.

Simple false logic. You betray here your fundamental ignorance of emergence – it’s not just lots of bits working together, it’s completely new phenomena that arise spontaneously from that co-operation but that are not present in any of the constituent parts. It’s pretty much everywhere you look in nature - flocks of birds, water and consciousness are all examples of it. 

Suggest you try Steven Johnson’s “Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software” to get you started. If nothing else it might help you to make less of a fool of yourself here in future.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vladdo,

Ah I see you have been mesmerised by the language used by the pop scientists.

This is why you feel you can overturn even the basics of science which operate on a scale that you and Torridon are now describing as unreal.

Stop lying.

Torridon is describing touch as not really existing and yet even at science explanation at a basic level we find this which has been endorsed by scientists:

From BBC KS3 Bitesize Physics Forces

Stop lying.

Forces can be contact forces, where objects must touch each other to exert a force. Other forces are non-contact forces, where objects do not have to touch each other. These include:
gravity
magnetism
forces due to static electricity

Stop lying. All that was being explained was that superficial understandings (that fingers contact keyboards for example) are often wrong. Nothing more, nothing less.
Just lying about that doesn’t hep you. 

I'm afraid you are confusing science, journalism, pop science and actual science Hillside and you are defending Torridon's flowery yet scientifically dubious ideas.

And I’m afraid that yet again you’ve either ignored, misrepresented or flat out lied about the arguments that undid you.

What does that say about you do you think?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vladdo,

Stop lying.

Stop lying.

Stop lying. All that was being explained was that superficial understandings (that fingers contact keyboards for example) are often wrong. Nothing more, nothing less.
Just lying about that doesn’t hep you. 

And I’m afraid that yet again you’ve either ignored, misrepresented or flat out lied about the arguments that undid you.

What does that say about you do you think?

I think then you defended Torridon even though your most recent post to AB re emergence shows you don't agree as part of your portfolio of how you defend the indefensible.

AKA Hillside's bumper fun book of Turdpolishing.

I have to express admiration on how you can agree with my take on emergence , disagree with Torridon's and make it seem like the other way around...........still turdpolishing though.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Gabriella,

Wrong. I attempted a liberal position on this issue. Deal with it. I could have said tap dancing or kick boxing or pretty much anything. As it happens, I don't find a promotion of tap dancing any more problematic than evangelising, but hard as it is for you to accept, you can't control the activity people choose to include in their posts, and cultural beliefs and values engage my attention more than tap dancing.

Either it was an attempted analogy or it was irrelevant. Telling us that evangelists and economists (or whatever) rely on language, metaphor etc alike means it was the former.   

If the cultural message/ belief appears a bad idea to any individual, it can be challenged as is happening on here, or people can limit their exposure to it, or counter its effect with alternate beliefs and values.

So? Cultural messages are well and good, but we were talking about those who make claims of objective fact and rely on “faith” to justify those claims. And that’s a very different thing.     

Maybe for some people. Not so much for others. Not particularly problematic compared to having any other beliefs or ideas or claims about objective facts challenged.

No it isn’t, but you’re shifting ground though. The national strategy guy isn’t in that arena. If though someone wanted to make a claim of objective fact about anything at all on the same basis as the evangelist – if, faith – then yes, he’d be in the same boat. That’s the point. 

It appears from the posts on here that some people finding other people's claims unconvincing is less of a "problem" and more of a challenge.

? 

No idea what you mean by "expensive". Do you mean challenging?

No, I mean that they’ve thrown away the epistemic currency of reason and evidence. If someone says, “god is real, and here’s my logic and evidence to support the claim” that logic and evidence can be considered and accepted or rejected on its merits. If though he says instead, “god is real and I know that because that’s my faith” there’s nothing to consider. Anyone can have a faith belief about anything, so he thereby relegates himself to the “so what?” box alongside the dragonists and the leprechaunists.   

Evangelists seem to see it as a necessary challenge - I don't think disseminating faith beliefs about the supernatural that are impossible to objectively validate was expected to be easy, given the competing claims and schools of thought that gain popularity at different times within individual religions.

Well, no – and more impossible I’d have thought than not easy given the absence of any method at all to test the attendant claims of objective facts.

[Alan Burns]

I don’t claim it, the science that studies these things demonstrate it.

Hard to see how science can demonstrate something which it has not yet defined.

No doubt you do, but your personal incredulity is epistemically worthless. Essentially you’re a solipsist – “All I perceive must be all there is”. And actually for hundreds of years all we perceived was pretty much all we had to go on. For the last three hundred or so years though we’ve come to grasp a richer and deeper understanding of reality – one that doesn’t have "me" at the centre of it, and one that demonstrates substrates of reality that much better explain the phenomena we observe. 

We have discovered much about how things work, but the mysteries of reality have become deeper than ever.

I know it would upset some deeply held religious beliefs you have to think about it, but that doesn’t change where the reason and evidence have taken us I’m afraid.

I think about things much more than you give me credit for