How The Modern World Makes Us Mentally Ill

[Stranger]

That's all very well but it amounts to the same thing. Refusal to pursue even without full
knowledge of correctness of refusal. In other words a punt, and even worse for you.......
a faith position.
See reply 312

You really aren't paying attention, are you? Or maybe you don't want to pay attention?

If you want to reduce all of our decisions about what to believe (outside of pure logic and maths) to a 'punt' then I guess you can, since we cannot actually be 100% certain of anything.

We have no choice in the matter - all it is possible to do, outside of logic and maths, is assess the evidence and arguments.

Also is your rejection actual rejection or are you definition diddling?

Translation?

Is it possible to rationally reject if something if it is actually unfalsifiable?

Yes - see above.

have as nice a day as you can.

Well it would be quite fun watching you make a total arse of yourself (yet again), if it wasn't actually rather sad...

[Stranger]

But there is an extra dimension here, that of stake. Now everybody who has partaken in this debate has talked about odds but not stake with the exception of Wiggs and Rhiannon.

As I have already pointed out (twice) the sort of god that would make the stakes high in the way you seem to mean, is inconsistent with the world we observe.

If there is a god that is just and fair, has an important message for humankind, is able to deliver it in any way it chooses, and knows human nature, then there would be an obvious message from it.

There isn't such a message, so the proposition is falsified.

I have also pointed out that a god that punishes people for believing in gods for no good reason is unfalsifiable - so ignoring that possibility actually is what you keep calling a 'high stakes punt'.

[Enki]

The question remains Enki. Can scrutiny which ends with a question mark over the existence or nonexistence of something be described as rigorous?

Scrutiny which ends with a question mark, where the alternatives have equal merit,simply means that one has no means of judging which is the better answer. That doesn't mean the scrutiny has not been rigorous.

Scrutiny where one alternative is preferred over the other on the basis of evidence and logic, does not mean that the process hasn't been rigorous.

 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But I once believed because I thought I'd encountered god but then god disappeared and stopped being real. And I tried all the 'methods' I'd used before of seeking god (Bible study, prayer, the sacraments, collective worship etc) but he didn't come back and I couldn't find him. So in the end I concluded that it hadn't been real to start with, but was something I'd needed for some reason.

And I find my life more meaningful now because I'm responsible for finding that meaning.

Your truth isn't my truth. Why is it so hard for you to accept that?

But on that topic. Do you really believe that ''my truth'' is really true and yours is too? Since my truth and your truth encompass what we think the universe is really about.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

As I have already pointed out (twice) the sort of god that would make the stakes high in the way you seem to mean, is inconsistent with the world we observe.

Something else you need to explain but end up not doing so?
We have a world in which people make fatal choices often in the face of evidence or an alternative better fate.

[Stranger]

As I have already pointed out (twice) the sort of god that would make the stakes high in the way you seem to mean, is inconsistent with the world we observe.

Something else you need to explain but end up not doing so?

FFS Vlad, the explanation is in the rest of the post you're replying to!

We have a world in which people make fatal choices often in the face of evidence or an alternative better fate.

Did that mean something before you typed it?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Something else you need to explain but end up not doing so?


FFS Vlad, the explanation is in the rest of the post you're replying to!

Did that mean something before you typed it?

Eh?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

If there is a god that is just and fair, has an important message for humankind, is able to deliver it in any way it chooses, and knows human nature, then there would be an obvious message from it.

What is not obvious about the message of Christianity?
Since when did we have a world where it was not possible to insist on living the way we want rather than what is good for us and pay the price for it??

[Stranger]

What is not obvious about the message of Christianity?

Well, let's see...

• There isn't a (singular) message of Christianity, it depends on which Christians you ask.
  
  
• None of the messages are obviously from any god.
  
  
• Most of the messages are self-contradictory.
  
  
• None of the gods pointed at by any of the messages have any supporting evidence or sound reasoning.
  
  
• Christianity itself, quite apart from being fragmented and riddled with disagreement and contradiction, is only one religion of many - all of which have other messages about other gods.

I'm sure there'd be more points if I could be bothered to spend any more time on it. The whole point being that a god that had the characteristics I listed would deliver a clear and unmistakable message.

Since when did we have a world where it was not possible to insist on living the way we want rather than what is good for us and pay the price for it??

In English?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Well, let's see...

• There isn't a (singular) message of Christianity, it depends on which Christians you ask.
  
  
• None of the messages are obviously from any god.
  
  
• Most of the messages are self-contradictory.
  
  
• None of the gods pointed at by any of the messages have any supporting evidence or sound reasoning.
  
  
• Christianity itself, quite apart from being fragmented and riddled with disagreement and contradiction, is only one religion of many - all of which have other messages about other gods.

I'm sure there'd be more points if I could be bothered to spend any more time on it. The whole point being that a god that had the characteristics I listed would deliver a clear and unmistakable message.

In English?

God, Jesus and salvation is pretty unmistakeable.

[Rhiannon]

God, Jesus and salvation is pretty unmistakeable.

So Catholics, Baptists and Unitarians all agree on these issues?

[Walter]

God, Jesus and salvation is pretty unmistakeable.

Mr Privates , I'd like you to know I think you are a wonderful person .

[Enki]

But there is an extra dimension here, that of stake. Now everybody who has partaken in this debate has talked about odds but not stake with the exception of Wiggs and Rhiannon. My contention is that this is either conscious or unconscious avoidance.

How does one work out the probability of God or naturalism or any unfalsifiable?

I don't really get what you mean by 'stake' here. To the best of my knowledge I don't have a stake on whether any god exists or not. If one does, so be it. However, as I don't find anything which suggests one(or more than one) actually exists, why on earth should I bother with something which does not seem to affect my life, and, to all intents and purposes, does not even seem to exist? Why should I have a 'stake'in any particular god existing then? If I unconsciously avoid the idea of a god existing, then I wouldn't know, because that would be an unconscious process. However, I regard this as pure speculation on your part and, unless you have arguments forthcoming which backs up your contention as regards myself, I can quite easily reject it.

I see nothing which suggests that your God exists. So, in the absence of such evidence, and with the added incentive that much of what we already know can be explained without recourse to your God, I tend to think that the probability of your God existing is less than the probability of your God not existing.

The natural world has the inherent potential quality of greater explanatory power in reducing the falsifiability that it promotes in any of its elements and because of this it is amenable to testing and modifying its explanations on an intersubjective scale. This does not mean that supernaturalism does not exist, of course. However, because it seems to rely on the personal faith of its adherents, there seems to be no way in which it can be falsified at all. You pays yer money, and takes yer choice.(shrugs)

[Stranger]

God, Jesus and salvation is pretty unmistakeable.

Not as a message from an actual, real god, they aren't. They look for all the world like just another set of religious myths, with no basis in reality.

Yet again you've simply ignored most of what I said and, more importantly, the whole point.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

So Catholics, Baptists and Unitarians all agree on these issues?

So Catholics, Baptists and Unitarians all agree on these issues?

They agree that they are issues yes but that brings me back to the personal search.
As George Fox founder of the Quakers said "Christ says this, and the Apostles say this but what can thou say? Are thou a child of Light, and have walked in the Light, and that thou speaks, is it inwardly from God?"

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Not as a message from an actual, real god, they aren't. They look for all the world like just another set of religious myths, with no basis in reality.

Yet again you've simply ignored most of what I said and, more importantly, the whole point.

I think your ignorance of theology is showing here, see previous quotation from Pascal.

As George Fox founder of the Quakers put it.
 "Christ says this, and the Apostles say this but what can thou say? Are thou a child of Light, and have walked in the Light, and that thou speaks, is it inwardly from God?"

[Gordon]

They agree that they are issues yes but that brings me back to the personal search.
As George Fox founder of the Quakers said "Christ says this, and the Apostles say this but what can thou say? Are thou a child of Light, and have walked in the Light, and that thou speaks, is it inwardly from God?"

Which sounds like a license to make it up so as to suit your personal search preferences - and clearly preferences vary, hence we see all the shades of Christianity and theology.

Your Fox quote sounds like an invitation to commit the relativist fallacy (it's true for me).

 

[Stranger]

I think your ignorance of theology is showing here, see previous quotation from Pascal.

I think you've once again missed the whole point.

There is no clear, unambiguous message that is obviously from a real god. If you need to study theology to see it, then it isn't obvious. The absence of such a message rules out a god that has the attributes I listed - all of which are supposed to apply to most varieties of the Christian god.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I think you've once again missed the whole point.

There is no clear, unambiguous message that is obviously from a real god. If you need to study theology to see it, then it isn't obvious. The absence of such a message rules out a god that has the attributes I listed - all of which are supposed to apply to most varieties of the Christian god.

But I think you are setting knowledge of religion against some righteous self imposed prior dismissal of it. How can you, having done this, talk about obvious messages from real gods?
Secondly while we reduce, on slender evidence, so  that there are as many christianities as christians on one hand (hyperbole) and that all religions are the same on the other and competing on the same terms, we are dodging observing a human attraction to search for God.
Im not talking here about a herd thing but an existential movement of the individual.

You cannot avoid that you are taking a bet on one set of beliefs against another. Namely not needing salvation because the universe is naturalistic and we live in a unverse free of stakes against needing salvation and God.
Hopefully you can see the comforting attraction of ignoring God and that it is merely an emotional crutch.

Avoidance of God for a stake free existence

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Which sounds like a license to make it up so as to suit your personal search preferences -

That is possible but at the end of the day everything you don't actually know for yourself is something you are told you should believe is something you are taking in faith.

This is about finding the truth about God either way for yourself as it is yourself you are staking whatever decision you make.

[Stranger]

But I think you are setting knowledge of religion against some righteous self imposed prior dismissal of it. How can you, having done this talk about obvious messages from real gods?

Once again, you are ignoring the basic and simple point. If there were a just and fair minded god, with an important message for humankind and it had the means to deliver it in a clear, unmistakable way (so that it was obviously a real message from a real god and not some human made myth), then it would do so. Otherwise one or more of those characteristics would be wrong: it either wouldn't be just and fair minded, didn't have the means, or didn't think the message was important enough.

There is nothing complicated in that - you should face up to it and stop avoiding the issue.

[Stranger]

...it is yourself you are staking whatever decision you make.

You are, I assume, forgetting that you are betting against the god that will punish you for your baseless beliefs in your chosen myth. What is more, that god is actually unfalsifiable, whereas the sort of god you are trying to convince us about is falsified by the argument I gave above.

The stakes are far higher for you than those of us rejecting your contradictory god...

[Rhiannon]

The Quaker faith is very much about personal truth. Today there are Buddhist Quakers, pagan Quakers, theist Quakers and non theist Quakers.

[Gordon]

That is possible but at the end of the day everything you don't actually know for yourself is something you are told you should believe is something you are taking in faith.

Even if your faith seems to you to be like something distinct from knowledge you think you hold, which is what you seem to be saying, why do you feel inclined to believe (as in have faith in) in what you are told that doesn't correspond to any knowledge you hold? Surely you need to critique what you are told, else you'd end up having faith in everything and anything that is told to you - and I suspect you don't.   

This is about finding the truth about God either way for yourself as it is yourself you are staking whatever decision you make.

Your method for finding the 'truth about God' is what exactly? It sounds to me like your approach to this 'truth' is entirely subjective: might you be wrong?

[Rhiannon]

Vlad’s not answered my point about how I did love, accept and seek but couldn’t find what I once had. I was hoping he could tell me where I was going wrong, or at least explain why it happened.