CherubRam
New member
The native Americans also had constant tribal wars, human sacrifice,(some tribes) and most were very cruel.
The misfortune of the native peoples could have been an act of God. (Maybe)
Atheism died in the 20th century
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The native Americans also had constant tribal wars, human sacrifice,(some tribes) and most were very cruel.
The misfortune of the native peoples could have been an act of God. (Maybe)
CherubRam
New member
Evolution is a matter of fact, then God created.
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[FONT="]Isaiah 43:10[/FONT][FONT="]. "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD (Yahwah), "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no god formed, nor will there be one after me.[/FONT]
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[FONT="] [/FONT]
[FONT="]Isaiah 43:10[/FONT][FONT="]. "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD (Yahwah), "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no god formed, nor will there be one after me.[/FONT]
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And indeed I wasn't going for 'better', just equivalent. In terms of epistemology, and especially by the standards of today, the existence of gods is claimed by bald assertion. So any claim made without unambiguous evidence can be dismissed without unambiguous evidence. And indeed you can't disprove the existence of anything, which is why there exists the badly named 'burden of proof'. So, it is a kind of scientific fact that gods don't exist because there is no unambiguous evidence for them, but of course that is provisional on the appearance of further evidence. Do you have any?
In previous discussions on the question here on ToL, I have set the boundary much lower, and invited whatever kind of reasons for believing that anyone would like to raise. Once the discussion has got beyond 'you would never accept any evidence I gave', it always turns out that the reasons given are not convincing to me, and I present myself as a reasonable person in this. Not reasonable by the moronic level of delusion some christians seem to spend most of their time in (I'm not thinking of you here, naturally) but reasonable in the sense of someone who is not going to perversely deny things that clearly have merit.
So far, nothing. But the invitation is always extended...
I have absolutely no idea what that sentence means, but I celebrate your use of 'unhorses'!
That sounds very convenient.
Two points:
1. It is pretty clear that the only mechanism for constructing meaningful knowledge is through information received through the senses. So you have some kind of sensory input, be it listening to bible fables read to you, or you have some experience that you analyse. Well, sensory input followed by analysis is at the core of the scientific method, so the means by which people come to believe in sky friends is a scientific question.
2. I've never heard of a theistic belief system where the god in question does not interfere physically in the universe, so now we are in the realm of physical evidence, the collection of which is part of the scientific method.
So I think you still have your work before you to establish that science cannot pronounce on the existence of a god. The only principle against it is the one that fearful believers have invented.
Part of the problem is the word 'faith'. You might not agree with my definition. But since the usual response is Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen I think I can claim that faith excludes activities where evidence has been 'seen' (or sensed physically), and actually I make plans on the basis of evidence for the likely outcome of the planning process.
So thank you for your contribution, but the total remains zero.
Stuu: You're still waiting for that special cargo to arrive then
He is your Prince Philip, perhaps.
Indeed it does, and I am. And for both of us there is nothing we can do about the former.
Stuart
I've always said to anyone who asked for proof, sure, give me the empirical standard that if met would settle the point.
The problem being that it simply and demonstrably isn't a thing empiricism can address. So it is necessarily a philosophical, subjective, and experiential matter. Meaning faith will always be at the heart of it, because objective certainty isn't possible.
It could have used another comma, but the short of it is that when you say almost you undo any blanket statement of denial. So you can't say "almost" and also say "there is no". Either you hold an absolute or you recognize its absence. I spoke to why that was important prior.
For whom? Certainly not for anyone who would prefer to settle the question for everyone...which should be just about anyone.
Spoken like a true empiricist, but not like a rationalist or mathematician.
Doesn't help. Mechanism isn't proof of or against God. All theistic claims go to origin and we're back to square one. Now if I tell you I can heal the sick with a power given to me by God that's another thing entirely.
We have faith in outcomes that have not yet transpired. Faith is the willingness to stand on God's promises which have yet to come to fruition, but there's more to it. It doesn't follow that it stands on nothing. Your own plans require a measure of faith and for much the same reason. Now you may believe yourself more assured in whatever it is you've fashioned as an idea for any number of reasons beginning with your belief that you know yourself and can count on your actions where I only suppose my God. Or you may feel your uncertainty greater for any number of reasons, beginning with an unwillingness to count on the day that might not certainly come, and count mine greater even as you fail to value it. But faith isn't and shouldn't be confused with wishing or a want of any experience in founding, as only those who believe in God will put their faith in His word and those have an experience of Him that is at the center of that faith.
No one just believes. If they tell you they do then they haven't thought it through.
Why would it have to be empirical? My only criterion is 'be convincing to a reasonable skeptic'. That's me.
I have never required 'objective certainty' of anyone on any topic. You would have to talk to other religious believers about their dedication to that concept.
You have not given a reason why empirical evidence is not applicable. As I have stated before, there is a photograph of Charles Darwin on the cover of my copy of Origin of the Species. Why is there not a photograph of any author on the cover of the Judeo-christian scriptures? I am prepared to accept that there is a proper reason for that, but what exactly is it? Was it written before the advent of photography, and are the authors all now dead? Is the author god shy? Does it not reflect visible light? Does the material the god is made from not interact with electromagnetic radiation? If that is true, how did the god interact with matter to 'create' stuff? You seem to know a lot about this god that is very dull and political, but nothing that is really interesting. At the moment all we have is your assertion about empiricism.
But you know there is a god, right? If you do, then I know there isn't. If you have in mind a probability about whether a god exists, then so do I. Then we have a real topic of conversation.
Huh?
So why are you so coy about trying to be convincing about it?
Faith is the 'evidence of the unseen', right? Well I think unseen evidence is an oxymoron, and I don't see it as a virtue that you claim to do things on 'unseen'evidence.
I think you have identified there the reason for anyone believing in christianity.
Stuart
Greg Jennings
New member
Misunderstanding.....in regards to my pre-edited post here
Why? Because without it the whole thing is simply another subjective exercise.
I've done so numerous times in the past and you've been party to them. The challenge is a short hand way of illustrating why. It's why you will never and no one has ever answered it with a litmus that met could settle the point. And if you don't really know what would suffice empirically you don't really know what it is you're asking for, or what you're asking for is something else, supra.
And the photo makes all the difference does it? Makes any difference then? Just so. What reasonable man would believe or deny him on the existence of that photo? And that is its value.
You have a bit more than an assertion, you have a puzzle you can't solve that underscores it. Beyond that, your interest is your own. I'm disinterested in it.
No, it doesn't follow that your lack of experience is the rough equal of experience. Now you can doubt the experience of another to be sure, but that's another thing than the one you're attempting.
I can't be more specific if you aren't.
Coy is like beauty or a goodly sized plank. It's mostly in your eye.
That you're stepping around what I said to say what you already did illustrates the level and nature of your bias and little else.
I think you need to think about what I actually said more, on the whole, and use it less frequently as a pause before you say something else.
Stuu: Why would it have to be empirical? My only criterion is 'be convincing to a reasonable skeptic'. That's me.
But all that is vulnerable to the simple assertion that it's not true. Meantime, you are claiming this is a being that has created (by what exact means you don't seem to be able to say) the entire universe and yet you say that unambiguous empirical traces of that are inapplicable to determining the existence of this being. That's fatuous nonsense for the uncritical. I'd appreciate if it you refrained from insulting me in that way.
Stuart
Stuu: You have not given a reason why empirical evidence is not applicable.
I know exactly what I am asking for. What are you stalling for? You might be unwilling to try to convince, which is your prerogative of course, but it makes your criticisms very hollow. Or perhaps you don't think you can be convincing, in which case I suggest you might reflect on how you can continue to convince yourself.
No, it's not the photograph itself, it's the reasons for its absence. That's the important factor, but the question is treated with derision by the religiously deluded because they have never been asked to think in that way. And now you are rehearsing all those canards yourself. The god isn't answerable to the demands of empirical evidence etc. But you still have not explained why your god cannot be photographed. The point of the question is very clear. There is fantastic hypocrisy in claiming to know your god's wishes well enough to be able to tell other people exactly what it demands of them, but on the other hand suddenly not knowing even basic things about the god like its appearance, location, composition, abilities to manipulate matter and so forth. That is hugely convenient for people with ambition for power over others without wanting to go through the effort of earning the right to that power: a kind of bullying to gain influence of the gullible. Not nice.
Huh? What puzzle? I think it's all very obvious.
Nothing has changed. You have nothing but assertion, whether it is yours or your unthinking adherence to someone else's. There is a god, but it is so important that no one has the right to question its existence. Or, I fear what the god will do if I allow people to think about it. Or, I fear what will happen to society if the bubble of myth is allowed to burst. Or, I fear that my ability to influence others will diminish if the spell is broken.
But all that is vulnerable to the simple assertion that it's not true. Meantime, you are claiming this is a being that has created (by what exact means you don't seem to be able to say) the entire universe and yet you say that unambiguous empirical traces of that are inapplicable to determining the existence of this being. That's fatuous nonsense for the uncritical. I'd appreciate if it you refrained from insulting me in that way.
Stuart
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And western Europe was often embroiled in religious wars and if you were on the wrong-god side with respect to the monarch you might be burned at the stake.
Which burning at the stake was an act of your god (maybe)?
That's great, so long as what you're looking for is rational and reduces to a meaningful and objective litmus, one that when met must compel a rational being to accept it, without regard for their bias or perspective---using a repeatable, verifiable methodology in approach. If there isn't (and there isn't, which is why you're trying this instead of answering on the litmus) your objections are no more compelling or different in kind than the proffer of a street corner evangelical would be from an opposing perspective.
On the point of tricks.
You mean your supposition in relation. Show me a photograph of everything. If you can't it doesn't exist. Better yet, forget the side bar and try cobbling that litmus that makes your question meaningfully different from any other subjective approach or assumptive stab at negation.
That's just an insult stretched out to look like a meaningful statement, which is funny considering your "I'd appreciate if it you refrained from insulting me in that way" conclusion, as well as your sensitivity to derision.
Rather, I've invited the empirical and you're opening a can of ham. You can't cobble the standard. And the reason you can't is, as I noted prior, it isn't suited to the approach.
Or weighed. Or been seen riding a unicycle. "Cannot" is your presumption. The answer is, "What God could you be talking about?" And until we answer that question the rest is distraction. If you can't meet the need for creating the standard, piling subsequent and contingent challenges over that is simply the rational equivalent of camouflage .
A lot of entangled confusion in that, stuu. Hypocrisy would be found in acting contrary to a thing you know. It wouldn't be hypocritical to be unable to do something that can't be done or know something that can't be known. Basic things? I know His nature. I know the implications and promises that attend it. Those are basics in relation to the questions. Asking for a photograph (you're a few thousand years late on that manifestation) is just stuff and nonsense avoiding the one task you have that makes your objection/inquiry different from any subjective approach. And no one who believes in the God who created the universe is unsure about His ability in relation to matter.
How men can use a thing doesn't have much to do with the thing itself, unless the thing itself is created for the use, which takes us right back to the only real question and litmus that matters.
No, you don't. The puzzle is the empirical, objective litmus. And the obvious thing attending is your inability to meet/create it.
Rather, all you have is the testimony/assertions of those who do believe against the assertions and want of experience you possess. The adherent has more, but that more isn't something you're interested in accepting as truth, which is certainly your right. And the Christian has encountered the means to test the hypothesis, but you want something else. It's an impasse of your own creation, but impasse it remains.
Question away. I've never told you not to.
I think you're talking about some notion you have in your head, which is also funny, when you consider your position.
When you say "bubble myth" all you really do is underscore that you aren't really approaching the question objectively, that you arrive with a pretty hard set assumption that will preclude anything short of the litmus you can't manage.
What influence? Are you talking about or to the leaders of flocks? I imagine they'd do something else and that their worry would be something else unless they were rascals, in which case who cares about their worries?
No idea why you believe that, but it does provided a measure of insight, so thanks.
No one can say what means exactly. There are few compelling theories.
What I actually said was that if the question is God and you want proof then you have to understand what proof would objectively, empirically settle the question. So far, not a single soul asking for proof and making empirical objection has managed to understand and relate what they're really asking for.
If that standard/litmus doesn't establish the empirically and independently verifiable truth then all your talk of the empirical or objective reduces to is a masque for a particular subjective desire and litmus. In which case I refer you to the manual. It's in there.
That's an insult pretending to be meaningful. You should slap a question mark on the end of it and complete the cycle of nonsense.
Funny for the reasons noted above.
Town just owned Stuu
He was speaking to me about some parrots we had known. These parrots did not know if cracker, or Polly gave them an award. They were all atheists because none of them knew what death was, or why they would care to ponder its meaning.
This led me to believe God does not judge parrots, as they are born in perfection, above all humans.
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
Hopefully it's a trial period and he can still return him
So do the N. Koreans. - they wore clothes :rotfl:
Nope, I've got absolutely no idea how that works logically. It looks like one big fat strawman, one that has hands over its ears and is shouting, in Strawish, 'I can't hear you'.
Maybe I should ask Patrick Jane what you mean, he seems to be a big fan of your rhetoric.
You seem to be arguing with me about me being interested in any reason, not just empirical evidence, and you are applying that same strawman to this separate request for reasons why a photograph isn't an appropriate request. You can tell the difference, right?
I can't show you a photograph of Baal because as far as I can tell, Baal doesn't exist and non-existent things don't bear photographing. I can't show you a photograph of the teapot that Bertrand Russell claimed is in orbit because it is a reasonable conclusion that there is no such teapot, and non-existent teapots are resistant to imaging. I can't show you a photograph of doubt, even though I could show you a photograph of a person's doubtful expression or a scan showing the bits of the brain that 'light up' when doubt is being contemplated, because doubt itself is an abstract concept, and that makes it a poor subject for forming a concrete image.
So, is your god resistant to photographing because it is an abstract noun (in which case how does it manipulate matter?), or is it shy, or is it not photographable because, as far as we can tell, it doesn't exist and so the Baal argument applies?
Stuu: That's the important factor, but the question is treated with derision by the religiously deluded because they have never been asked to think in that way.
You seem to be identifying yourself with the term 'religiously deluded'. Why did you take that on? I would be happy for you to have excluded yourself. Your case would have been better still if you had not then posted this overall response, a load of beautifully crafted waffle.
I never insisted on empirical evidence, I asked you to be convincing. I agree that unambigous empirical evidence is very convincing, but I am a reasonable person, although skeptical and one that demands high standards of explanation. I think you have no power to convince, and your ability to convince yourself is paper thin. Why do you really believe the way you do?
Stuu: But you still have not explained why your god cannot be photographed.
So this god looked like Jesus, in your opinion, but unfortunately photography wasn't available. Now you have made some progress. Does that mean the god can only be photographed when it has appeared in human form during the time since the invention of photography? What makes it unavailable at other times?
I wasn't really asking you about beliefs. I was asking you about how you can reconcile the two positions of exquisite knowledge and profound ignorance, separated exactly by the interface of moral judgment and practical explanation.
Yep, that is my proposition. The god was created by power-hungry humans. Or indeed for the benefit of weak tribal leaders who needed a big imaginary stick to wield.
You are the only one who seems to care about that. Why do you?
Poor me. How little of your real world I have encountered for myself.
Yep, let's wait for Jesus to come again.
Still waiting...
Stuu: Or, I fear what the god will do if I allow people to think about it.
I was thinking more of the likes of 1 Timothy 6:20-21.
Stuu: Or, I fear what will happen to society if the bubble of myth is allowed to burst.
If you think that the geo-political scenario currently does not include bubbles of myth, then that explains why often you can't give coherent answers to simple questions.
Not sure why you keep referring to litmus. What is that supposed to be a metaphor for? My inability to ask you a question you are willing to answer?
Stuu: Or, I fear that my ability to influence others will diminish if the spell is broken.
Fair point.
Stuu: But all that is vulnerable to the simple assertion that it's not true.
Why would you respond to the assertion at all, against the demands of scripture, if the counter-assertion didn't make it vulnerable?
Is that because there is no unambiguous evidence?
Go on, humour us then.
Sure, that is what I have been asking you for all along. Great, let's have it: what proof would objectively, empirically settle the question?
You tell me what I am asking for then. I have tried, but you don't seem to believe me.
You are the one doing all the talking about empirical and objective. Not me. Reading this is like listening to Gollum having a conversation with himself in the third person.
Stuu: I'd appreciate if it you refrained from insulting me in that way.
Tell me how I may further amuse you by the same means.
Stuart
Stuu just owned Town
It looks the way it logically is, your emotional reaction to it notwithstanding. If you can't find the empirical measure then all your posturing amounts to nothing more than a subjective reaction and you might as well be the guy on the street corner you likely find offensive.
Leave the windsock out of it. I don't care who you ask. But I do care how you answer and so far you're stamping foot a lot.
Your "seem" is a lot like your argument, wanting support.
I've been perfectly clear about it. Either there's an objective, empirical (or other equally objective) litmus to meet or there isn't. The isn't underscores the insufficiency of empiricism (or other objective approaches) and the inherently subjective nature of our approach to the question of God.
You can't show me a photograph of all sorts of things, existent and non. If I produced a picture of a resurrected Jesus walking across my pond I'm betting that would only begin all sorts of additional challenges and questions that wouldn't settle a thing.
So we're right back to settling. If you want proof you should understand what would suffice. And for the what would suffice to be meaningful beyond your subjectivity it would have to be empirically (or otherwise objectively) verifiable and the means methodologically reproduceable.
What's that litmus again? If you can't name it you can't be satisfied and the question/challenge isn't meaningful.
When you insist on proof you by and large are absent some other means of objective verification on the point, which you also fail to produce as a standard.
This is serious business and you're a member of the Body. Playing with it is unseemly, PJ. I'd rather you contribute to the conversation if you think you can improve it or lay off. This is one topic you can't play both sides of without losing both.
Ok windbag
ok doser
lifeguard at the cement pond
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