VG,
haven't made a mistake.
Yes you have – and a big one too. As you struggle to grasp the difference between
knowledge about a thing and
the thing itself, let’s try an analogy that may help you. Specifically, let’s try probability and – for want of a better example – the weather forecast. You know how the weather forecast will sometimes say something like, “Probability of rain: 10%”? Would you say that that means that water droplets, atmospherics, humidity etc somehow must behave in a certain way 10% of the time, or rather is it instead a statement about our confidence in our knowledge about how the may behave?
Take as long as you need here…
…got it now? It’s just a statement about our knowledge of meteorology isn’t it. Now then, as we’re talking weather let’s consider lightning too (as you just ignored it last time). According to you, “
Supernatural is a description for something that is outside the various currently known rules and explanations of the natural world that science has come up with based on demonstrable evidence” (Reply #45948). Lightning was once “
outside the various currently known rules and explanations of the natural world that science has come up with…” etc so, according to you, at that time it was therefore "supernatural" right?
Only it wasn’t was it. Just as “Probability of rain: 10%” is a statement about our level of knowledge of something, so was “lightning is something that is
outside the various currently known rules and explanations of the natural world…” etc. That didn’t make lightning supernatural at all though did it. Not one little bit.
You can duck and dive about this all you like, but the basic principle won’t change. Something is either natural or supernatural in itself (I’m glossing here over the
a priori problem of establishing even such a thing as “supernatural” in reality by the way, but ok) and you cannot just use the contemporaneous state of knowledge of science to determine which of these it is, let alone to change it from one to the other (and presumably back again) as science develops.
That you mistakenly label religious beliefs as "private facts" or a dictionary definition of supernatural as "private language" is not my problem.
It’s not my mistaken labelling, it’s yours. Here for example:
“
I believe that the supernatural entity described in the Quran is real…but I am not claiming or making an argument that it is real... So for me it remains a belief, not fact” (#45948)
If you believe something to be “real” (ie a fact) then presumably you are “claiming or making an argument that it is real” to
yourself at least are you not?
I described certain religious concepts such as gods, judgment and accountability after death as supernatural because they cannot be explained by natural laws as they are outside the scope of natural laws. Feel free to compare this to phenomena that are within the scope of natural laws if you want, but I won't waste my time responding to your incorrect comparisons.
You’re committing a fallacy called reification here. What you should have said was something like, “I described certain religious concepts such as gods, judgment and accountability after death as supernatural because
according to the unqualified stories about them they could not be explained by natural laws
because the stories place them outside the scope of natural laws”.
Can you see where you went wrong there?
Thanks for confirming that the issue is individuals who kill people who don't share their beliefs rather than religion itself.
Stop lying - I didn’t do that at all. I “confirmed” only that when some people reify their subjective opinions into objectively certain facts they will tend to behave accordingly. Why do you suppose it is for example that hard line Muslim states drag blasphemers on to the streets and beat them to death (with “holy” text authority) whereas, say, moral philosophers with different positions do not?
Why though, and why doesn’t that bother you?
I have corrected you on your opinion - but you've just ignored the correction here.
See the first two words above.
You still seem confused.
You’re costing me a fortune in irony meters here…
I have pointed out that your opinion that believing in the reality of something supernatural as opposed to believing it is fiction like Aesop's fables does not turn that belief into a fact or a "fact" or a "private fact". You are still welcome to believe your opinion is correct/ real/ a fact / a "fact" or a "private fact" though if you want.
You haven’t pointed that out at all – you’ve just
asserted it, supported either with no arguments or with very bad arguments (eg, the intentions of the authors). You’re the one who believes “god/angel” to be a fact (“real”) remember, albeit it seems a special type of fact that's a fact only for you. If someone decided to believe that the hare/tortoise were a fact for them only too though, then you’d have two epistemically equivalent positions.
Try to stop misrepresenting this basic point.
You did not make an argument so there was nothing to rebut. You asserted that I had created a new category of "fact" when I was describing a belief that cannot be tested by science. You then made a comparison to a planet's orbit, which can be tested by science.
No,
you asserted it remember (“
I believe that the supernatural entity described in the Quran is real”). It’s your belief, so you deal with the contradictions it gives you.
See above - you seem to really, really believe that I have tied myself in a knot,…
“I” don’t; the reasoning and arguments you cannot or will not address do that, but ok…
…and that's fine provided your certainty of belief does not cause you to commit an act of violence. Also, I agree with you that you have the right to hold such a belief, even if I think it's an idiotic belief to hold.
And the repeated lie to finish. What “certainty” do you think I’ve expressed here or ever on this mb?
