Vicarius Provinciae
Re: I miss God
Sar1n,
I believe that God made all things in six wonderful days and made it all as mature and up and running. My belief comes from my experience with God and Jesus Christ which by the way conforms to all that the Bible promises. Further I have for the past thirty odd years read extensively the writings of many scientists who also back the Bible explanation. There is no " we think, " in the Bible as there is in everything that science has to say about creation.
Re: I miss God
When I mention Solipsism, and that there is no logical proof to disprove Solipsism, other than survival reflex (you need to assume solipsism is false in order to function and not go crazy). This means I already take a leap of faith to assume that Sar1n (and other people) are something outside myself, speaking in terms of pure logic; there is a permanent discontinuity, hence the leap of faith that you do aswell, unless you function in a solipsism-esque mind.Originally Posted by Sar1n
Now the idea of God is of course not easily transmitable, and it's suposed to be that way. Only the Apostles got the ability to perform miracles to prove other people, and there's very rare ocasional instances where a once in several centuries miracle happens, but as Iskar astutly pointed out, if Faith was a thing that I could logically show you in fullest, then it would be called something else other than faith.
Going more numerical, this applies even to finance in some degree. If in 2 days I have 20% chance of losing 200€, and 80% chance of wining 1000€, expected value is 760€. But outcome won't be 760€, it will be either 200€ or 1000€. Regardless, there is no proof that outcome will be either the 80% or the 20%, but it doesn't mean I can't make a weighted average of what should be expected value (and variation, standard deviation, etc). This just to give an idea.
Even on a football players, I can have a good probabilistic estimate of which players are likely to score more goals, and if I name them and in the end of the game I was proven right, it's still not following proof, because I'm hoping for something to happen, rather than follow something proven 100% to happen.
Faith is not something that Alien, it's something that people operate on things not 100% proven logically. A person without faith would be someone with ability to see the Future, future being deterministic.
And then there's Faith applied to the Transcendent and Religion, which is where we are right now.
Given you're rejecting the whole of faith, not just the faith applied to the transcendent and religion, you're in a logical error, sar1n.
The only difference is that the idea of a higher presence/conscience/intelligence beyond our understanding already existing, and having a relation with the universe and earth, is plausible to me.
Others deny it and think the only thing smarter/more evolved than humans is either nothing or aliens. I don't belong to such group.
Last edited by fkizz; June 07, 2017 at 08:06 AM.
It will be seen that, as used, the word Fascism is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.
-George Orwell
Insanity with Dignity
Re: I miss God
That is not entirely correct. It is true that most people just ignore constructivist considerations in their daily life, but one need not reject solipsist arguments to not go crazy. The point is to not fall for naive constructivism ("if everything is my thought, why can't I make the rain stop?") but to realise that even in a constructivist/solipsist (or more nobly: post-Kantian) setting "things" are essentially thoughts of yours but not all thoughts are at your complete disposal, some contingently so (those we call impressions, or perception), others necessarily so (the truths of logics, mathematics and systematic philosophy). This can be developed into a pretty robust constructivist epistemology that perfectly well allows you to treat everyday life as if it was something outside, while retaining the logical accuracy when it comes to more intricate questions of religion, theory of science and epistemology.
Last edited by Iskar; June 07, 2017 at 08:14 AM.
"Non i titoli illustrano gli uomini, ma gli uomini i titoli." - Niccolo Machiavelli, Discorsi
"Du musst die Sterne und den Mond enthaupten, und am besten auch den Zar. Die Gestirne werden sich behaupten, aber wahrscheinlich nicht der Zar." - Einstürzende Neubauten, Weil, Weil, Weil
On an eternal crusade for reason, logics, catholicism and chocolate. Mostly chocolate, though.
I can heartily recommend the Italian Wars mod by Aneirin.
In exile, but still under the patronage of the impeccable Aikanár, alongside Aneirin. Humble patron of Cyclops, Frunk and Abdülmecid I.
Re: I miss God
I don't even necessarily disagree, my point being the cold logical demonstration proving solipsism as fake that sceptics often demand simply does not exist. There's not even a mathematical demonstration. Maybe for people such as you and me what we have is enough, but for the very sceptic standards there is no hard proof/evidence for their standards and they just learn to take a leap of faith in the issue and ignore it.
That's very peaceful actually. I could say "if behaviour is commanded by my brain, why do I feel such temptation to slack off and why doesn't it go away? Why can't I just study to be the #1 student? Why so difficult to always be in good shape? Why can't I simply calm down when I decide to? Why can't I just fall asleep when I decide to? Why temptation to check cellphone doesn't go away?" list goes on, mentioning some average current zeitgeist worries.
Much of our thought is very hard to control without some training and experience. Sometimes inner thought harder to control than outside reality.
Oriental religions put an interesting importance in this (learn to control your mind), while Western thought has a more "develop solely your intellect at all costs" mindset.
Last edited by fkizz; June 07, 2017 at 08:26 AM.
It will be seen that, as used, the word Fascism is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.
-George Orwell
Re: I miss God
As you pinted out, and as I've been repeating all along, there is one leap of faith, or as I called it, assumption that we all take. We do it because we have no other way. But leap of faith in situation when there is a logical alternative is inferior choice. I'm not rejecting faith as whole, only in cases when there is alternative.
You are trying to equate faitth in metaphysical with educated guess. That is a fallacy. Educated guess and probability mathematics use past events and logic to pick out which, out of infinite number of possibilities, are more likely. Metaphysical lacks any reference frame, because it, by definition, exists solely in, as I called it, inner world. Therefore, any faith in metaphysical is blind faith that I am rejecting.
You are continually comitting fallacies here. Your last lines invoke false dichotomy, while there is infinite number of possibilities. Before that, you are putting words in my mouth, in fact you reverse my postion. Throughout this whole discussion, I stressed that the point of contention is metaphysical, among which religion and the "transcendent" as you call it certainly belong. You have several times tried to equate me with gnostic atheism while ridiculing that position, while my position, as I wrote before, is different. Do I need to quote you on every specific point? Because I certainly can.
I've warned you of that behaviour before. Maybe I was foolish to give you a chance to clean up your act and continue this debate.
member 3519
Re: I miss God
I am not familiar with that scenario and would be duely amazed if it were seriously contemplated, considering bacteria would be the last form of life to go in case of planetary catastrophy. As for evolution, of course the mechanism applies to everything that replicates and has some variation in its genome. My point is that that is not just no explanation for the origin of life, but also no explanation for the origin of complex life. Two events separated by billions or years.
What is the significance to this discussion? Well evidently it has no bearing on the existence of a supernatural power. Science can never prove or disprove that of course. What science can tell us beyond reasonable doubt is that, regardless of the possibility of 'intelligent design, the universe shows no signs at all that it was created by an anthropocentric power. And that is all that is needed when looking at the credibility of earthly religions.
"Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca -
Re: I miss God
Actually, that is quite well documented phenomenon. I'll give you a simplification.
Consider an ecosystem in which ecological niches are "filled" and every individual therefore has tough life competing with others of his and other, species for resources. In that environment, any new trait, any mutation is under high selective pressure. If it's not instantly beneficial or at least not harmful, the trait and its carrier has little chance of surviving. Under such conditions, large evolutionary changes, like development of new body type, that require complex interaction of new traits which might not be beneficial on their own, happen rarely and slowly. But it was a long time, and fossil record shows traces of multicellular organisms occassionally appearing for a long period, in fact it is possible that the trait evolved independently several times, but went extinct.
And now comes the big rock. Most of the organisms-could be as much as 90% of total biomass on Earth-were wiped away. Few survived, but among them were some multicellular organisms. And with most life dead, the competition, and with it selective pressure, is almost zero. For a short time, anything that is capable of surviving can thrive. New, strange mutations can now survive and spread, and interact in interesting ways. Within short time, from geological standpoint, diversity increases exponentially. Of course, with the biomass risisng again, selective pressure again increases, and many of these new variations are culled. But the variety, and with it new evolutionary possibilities, remains greatly increased.
This was not an isolated incident either. Fossil record shows there were several global mass extinction events, and many more smaller. A meteorite, supervolcano, or simply ecosystem collapse...the pattern was always the same. Extinction followed by huge boom in diversity. Cambrian explosion is another such, hugely popularized, event.
Re: I miss God
Such scenario
1) Only explaisn Microevolution. Does not explain Macroevolution (how universe was formed and evolved) or, in fact, not even Origin of Life.
2) People who didn't take creation story literally go recorded as old as ~200 AD. People thinking they have outsmarted their (religious) ancestors of 1800 years ago because they follow bacteria theory is a tad ridiculous. First theories that invisible organisms could spread diseases and evolve were around in 600-700s year AD.
3) Since old times people practiced breeding to enhace traits in their pets. There's a reason we say domesticated animal. A dog is a wolf that underwent long artificial eugenics process. Many different breeds of horses exist on artificial intended purpose. Difference here is the selector is a human, rather than Nature Pressure.
Some people actually believe rediscovering the breeding done people have done in animals since recorded history but this time with nature as the selector serves as a proof to say that metaphysics does not exist.
This is me subjective, but such a rushed conclusion shows signs of tiredness. No one forces people to believe in whatever, just come up with better excuses at least.
The whole point of supernatural is being something that science cannot prove or disprove, at least occasionally hint (or dis-hint) to. Plenty of Quantum Physics paradoxes stop being paradoxes if you assume an theistic observer, and some quantum physiscists ended up interested in Hinduism because of their research (some very thorny issues were harmounisly replied with the idea of cosmic consciousness), but this is trippy ground to discuss and does not enter the realm of proof per se.
This entering theology, but in christianism only 1/3 of God is anthropocentric (holy trinity). The point of Christ being Divine and Prophets existing is precisely for God to find a way to communicate in same wavelenght as us, if he spoke in "God language" we wouldn't notice and/or be clueless.
@Sar1n
Good to see you finally admited to taking a leap of faith to deal with Solipsism. At least we got somewhere.
Last edited by fkizz; June 07, 2017 at 03:37 PM.
It will be seen that, as used, the word Fascism is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.
-George Orwell
member 3519
Re: I miss God
I am not familiar with a pre-cambrian mass extinction event caused by an asteroid impact. Would like to have a source.
For me the question of the existence of a supernatural power is in itself only mildly interesting.The only practical question for me is the credibility of the divine revelations claimed by religions. In that sense, the fact that discrepancies between science and divine revelations can be explained away to the bare bone conclusion that god is unknowable does not inspire faith.
"Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca -
Re: I miss God
God and what people call "supernatural" is not unknowable, millions of people claim to have felt or feel some connection, which gives them confidence to have Faith (or vice versa).
It simply isn't provable in empirical terms. And that's how it's suposed to be, would you call "divine" something that you could reproduce at will in a small scale high school chemestry lab?
Last edited by fkizz; June 07, 2017 at 05:40 PM.
It will be seen that, as used, the word Fascism is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.
-George Orwell
Vicarius Provinciae
Re: I miss God
Muizer,
That God is said to be unknowable comes down to what He has given man to see of Him which is enough in His eyes until that great day when all is revealed by the bringing in of the new heaven and earth. We who do know Him do so by the faith of Jesus Christ imbued at the point of rebirth in the respect that faith, His faith, is enough for the moment. Once that happens faith will not be a prerequisite as it won't be required in the new system. Just as the garden typed and shadowed heaven way back in Genesis then so too will God walk and talk with those in the real thing.
Re: I miss God
Congratulations. It took just two pages of discussion to start understanding these two lines. At this rate, within a year you might even understand whole post.
Praepositus
Re: I miss God
As an aside I think I may have inappropriately said "scientific", when I meant material, evidence. It is certainly difficult to conduct a scientific study of spiritual phenomena under controlled conditions. Nevertheless we don't doubt the testimony of people regarding, for instance, crime, even though we can't scientifically verify it either.
Ignore List (to save time):
Exarch, Coughdrop addict
Re: I miss God
I'd say it's suposed to be as such.
You can at best study the behaviorial tendencies of religious groups and compare them to each other. Compare the likelyhood of people from religion x or y from having kids/studying /not studying /crime/not crime and compare such with non religious groups.
From my mind there seems to be the universal constant that almost all religious groups have higher birthrates than the non-religious.
Statistics can detect some difference.
Whatever provocation helps you sleep at night. Regardless your strong reaction towards idea of God while being a denier is in itself sort of paradoxical. You're dedicating a big amount of mood and energy to something that you claim to not exist.
Last edited by fkizz; June 08, 2017 at 01:32 PM.
It will be seen that, as used, the word Fascism is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.
-George Orwell
member 3519
Re: I miss God
Which means there is no reason to pick one religion over another. Might as well forget about revelations and opt for Deism then.
You know the bible well, I take it. Can you point out which passages are revealed as being subject to this 'need-to-know' clause and which are not?
Last edited by Muizer; June 08, 2017 at 01:33 PM.
"Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand?" - Lucius Annaeus Seneca -
Re: I miss God
Since you're conceding the debate, I'll skip to the point toward which I've been pushing all along. I've never claimed that god, in any form, does not exist. My claim, that can be logically deduced, is that within percieved reality, the entire idea of god is irrelevant. It is not a matter of existence, but relevance. You can believe in whatever you want, but in the moment that you allow your idea of god to change the way you affect the percieved reality, you are committing a logical error and taking an unnecessary leap of faith.
Re: I miss God
I'm not conceding the debate at all. You sound tired and are falling for wishful thinking.
So you sound like a Deist. You're getting closer to God. That's very different from beginning of the thread.
There's an obvious trail you tried to turn this into a personal quarrel (on an anonymous internet forum) rather than debate intent. And then you complain your opponent does not follow debate manners.
None of my points;
(Solipsism being logically and mathematically disprovable; Micro Evolution not explaining Macro Evolution neither Origin of Life itself; Fermi Paradox; Metaphysics existing; Faith existing; Intelligent Design being more probabilistically likely than endless randomness) were even defeated or even faced with good opposition points. Other users had good posts though.
You just gave average cussing/butthurt in the posts.
A person who feels victorious and knows his argument is correct does not cuss like that.
--------------------------
@Muizer
Deism is a beginning, more productive than Hedonistic materialism at least.
Eh, some religions have more in common than their religious leaders would like to admit. Christianity obviously drank much from the Stoics (including your signature of Senneca), Ancient Greeks like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and perhaps even Oriental thoughts. Some quotes from the Stoics before Christ are almost copy paste from what one hears in Cathechism or by a Priest in mass/after.
Some concepts in Buddhism and Christianism are also like cousin/brothers. But there are divisive issues.
"Do unto others as you with to be done onto you" you can find in both Christ and Confucius for example. Even Esoteric thought is very similiar across the continents.
Choosing religion was often solved by Geography and place of birth. Christian preachers solved to a degree, and spread the religion to the Americas and Asia, rather than have it stuck on the Mediterranean. But such was only possible after Age of Exploration started in Europe.
Hindus also believe in divine justice, but it is done by karma and cosmic consciousness. Christianity is by day of final judgement, but concept is similiar, different method.
What divides Christianity from Oriental religions after all so much coincidence in thought is that Christianity rejects Earthly Reincarnation, while Oriental religions are utterly addicted on the idea of Earthly Reincarnation.
I mentioned some good characters with religious/philosophical aura around them, but they are all before Christ. Can you find religious leader character that appeared after Christ that outranks Christ in merit of religion founding?
Last edited by fkizz; June 08, 2017 at 06:47 PM.
It will be seen that, as used, the word Fascism is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.
-George Orwell
Insanity with Dignity
Re: I miss God
As an aside, this false assertion has been addressed in post #51. Testimony in law may be personal assertion but can be put in the wide reference frame of scientific and logical consistency - something not possible for reports of spiritual experiences.
Since you summarised it so nicely, I'll address the points I haven't so far. We've already largely agreed on solipsism (I perfer "constructivism" or "Kantian idealism", but nvm) being not logically refutable.
It is true we still don't know many things about how life developed or came about in the first place. But science is ever progressing, and using this lack of knowledge as an argument for a deistic/theistic perspective reduces the noble choice of faith to a mere "god of the gaps". Religion may have mingled with explanatory myths and proto-science in earlier times - it no longer should do so, though.
The Fermi Paradox is not really a paradox and relies on too many unknown parameters, simply claiming there should be other intelligent life within the same galaxy. We don't know what parameters have to fit to create forms of conscious conduct and we may even be "blind" to other such forms because they elude our preconceived notion of "life" or "form". If we take the Fermi Paradox' premise ("We're not special.") for granted it also immediately resolves itself - since we haven't developed viable forms of interstellar, let alone intergalactic travel, or means of closely monitoring extremely far away planets, why should any other life form have accomplished that already? In that scenario the probability for finding extraterrestrial life only rises notably above zero when we manage to travel the galaxy effectively ourselves. (Which seems still quite far off.)
Metaphysics exist only in so far as they are ideas that people entertain. Silly ideas in my opinion.
Same goes for faith. If the mere existence of faith in someone's head proved anything we'd have to accept every single religion as more or less truthful and would be in quite a dilemma which gods to worship.
Arguments for probability don't really work when you talk about something that has already happened, so it does not matter which explanation is more probable in hindsight - the point is that we exist and whether or not that would have been an improbable outcome for an observer at the beginning of the universe (if there was such a thing) doesn't make the process that led to it less true. In fact, Ockhams razor would kill intelligent design as a purely scientific assertion. (It would be fine as a tenet of faith, though.)
"Non i titoli illustrano gli uomini, ma gli uomini i titoli." - Niccolo Machiavelli, Discorsi
"Du musst die Sterne und den Mond enthaupten, und am besten auch den Zar. Die Gestirne werden sich behaupten, aber wahrscheinlich nicht der Zar." - Einstürzende Neubauten, Weil, Weil, Weil
On an eternal crusade for reason, logics, catholicism and chocolate. Mostly chocolate, though.
I can heartily recommend the Italian Wars mod by Aneirin.
In exile, but still under the patronage of the impeccable Aikanár, alongside Aneirin. Humble patron of Cyclops, Frunk and Abdülmecid I.
Re: I miss God
In several consequent posts you abandoned any attempt to argument and went exclusively for personal attacks and irritation methods. That is conceding the debate.
Agnostic atheist, as I wrote before. I do not personally believe, but I also don't think that as long as metaphysical beliefs are understood for what they are, unnecessary leaps of faith that are inferior to any logical reasoning that have no impact on other people, they shouldn't be suppressed. This position was obvious in my first post:
I went hard at you in first post, and rightly so. You and basics went into this with your proselytising, which was uncalled for by OP. You went into this discussion with disrespect, and got fistful of it in turn. I did take some jabs at you along with argumenting, I do not deny that, but unlike you I have never used personal attacks instead of argument.
As for your points:
Solipsism. I argumented that solipsism denies the basic reference frame of reality, and therefore considering it logically is futile. It is simply one of infinite number of equally likely possibilities. So in the end, you can accept that it is a possibility or deny it completely, either way it does not matter to anyone but you. It's actually just like the idea of god. I could argue that solipsism IS one of such ideas. Result: trashed.
Evolution and origin of life. Iskar has more patience than me and tries to explain to you again why it is not a valid argument for any deism/theism. But that was done to death before, this is stillborn argument.
Fermi paradox. Trashed here:
You never formed response to this. Void argument.
Faith and metaphysical phenomena. Religious faith, which you unsuccessfully tried to equate with statistical analysis and educated guess, and metaphysical phenomena. The reasoning for their irrelevance is always the same, see explanation of solipsism. I argumented same way, and again got no valid counterargument.
Intelligent design and chances:
Your counter was very weak appeal to authority and "everybody knows". Fallacy.
Have you noticed one thing? Over half of my arguments had same essence. You never argued against it, instead you gave more examples to be shot down this way. Solipsism, idea of god, metaphysical phenomena...they're all from the same vein.
Vicarius Provinciae
Re: I miss God
Muizer,
Read all Paul's letters to the various churches and you can see what is just exactly on a need to know basis. Why Jesus Himself used figure and parable to give an insight to what would be in the future rather than what was here in reality yet still making claim to His own authority.
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