John Ess:There can never be evidence that backs up something that is logically invalid.
liberty student:You're claiming a lack of evidence as evidence. That is logically invalid.
Actually, he is saying that "contradictions" don't appear in this Lebenswelt. Similarly, the a priori, or tautologies, are present in every state of affairs, but are logically "senseless".
Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.
Faith is a bad word for many, but this is only because they fail to recognize how much they actually accept on pure faith. The vast majority of individuals don't really understand how things actually work. It works, and that's all that matters. But this goes beyond the pragmatic world of the laymen; it's true in the scientific and philosophical realms as well. Mathematicians, physicists, and economists are forced to take take things as given. It took Bertrand Russell 300 pages to prove that 1 + 1 = 2, but he failed to define addition. Why does zero factorial equal one? General relativity is still incompatible with quantum mechanics, and there are logical paradox's everywhere.
Philosophers have spent countless centuries trying to prove and debating the most basic things, but Cartesian doubt, the problem of induction, and other basic problems remain. I mean, no one here can even prove to me that they actually exist. So even if you accepted God on pure faith, you would be no different from the philosophers and scientists who arbitrarily place themselves on pedestals. But one does not require pure faith to know that some sort of God exists if one understands that infinite regress = illogical.
"If we wish to preserve a free society, it is essential that we recognize that the desirability of a particular object is not sufficient justification for the use of coercion."
Thank you Esuric. It is a real struggle to explain that empiricism does not apply to every domain.
2 must reads IMO:
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Cartesian Meditations by Edmund Husserl
And I don't see how that qualifies as a reductio.
Also, it seems that some of your comrades have pointed out that your understanding of "proving a negative" is flawed, too. Perhaps when you are done bettering your not-so-perfect command of logic, you might want to address this fact :
The fraudsters who run organized religions HAVE THE BURDEN OF PROOF.
chloe : I'll ask you directly: Do you think "faith" is fraudulent in the same manner that you discuss religion as being fraudulent?
I mean, no one here can even prove to me that they actually exist.
And yet catholicism is eternally true because the pope says so. Isn't it amazing?
Listen, I don't care about your strawmen. Take them to youtube.
Esuric, please realize that you don't exist.
But one does not require pure faith to know that some sort of God exists if one understands that infinite regress = illogical.
Perhaps I just don't understand what this means, is God supposed to be the beginning of the causal chain? Because that still raises further question.
I'm almost sorry that I posted this in the first place.
Just kidding, I'm not.
But it doesn't matter anyway because it's turtles all the way down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BWFpBTqSN0&feature=related
Everyone has heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, right? Would you rather believe in a god who can provide you with safety or a god who you can eat?
Will, we'll try one more time. For the team.
WillBlake: And I don't see how that qualifies as a reductio. You seem to think that if you fail to understand X, then X must be false?
That is incorrect. Can I ignore the rest of your response and you make a new one since this premise is false?
WillBlake:Also, it seems that some of your comrades have pointed out that your understanding of "proving a negative" is flawed, too.
I believe John is making an episetemological error. ERO is just my pet troll. You can read Nir's posts to see that what I am talking about is what is known as an argument from ignorance, which I believe I linked you or MaikU to earlier in the thread.
WillBlake:Perhaps when you are done bettering your not-so-perfect command of logic, you might want to address this fact : The fraudsters who run organized religions HAVE THE BURDEN OF PROOF.
You're assuming they are a fraudster before you have determined the fraud.
That is like bringing a man into court who is accused of murder, and because he is a murderer (so you claim) he must prove he is innocent. That's not how courts work. That's not how logic works. Even if everyone saw him commit murder, he comes into court an innocent man until his guilt is established. The burden of proof is on the prosecution.
When you claim that the people running religions are frauds, you're accusing them of a crime. The burden of proof is on you to prove the crime. You can't just keep asserting they are guilty because they are guilty and expect that to be treated as a reasonable argument.
And that doesn't even address the issue of what is and is not fraud which you have also tortured quite a bit. Fraud requires intent to deceive, otherwise everyone in society who gives an incorrect answer, would be fraudulent by your definition.
I understand you have a bias against organized religion. It is probably well founded. I have a bias against statism. However, that doesn't mean that just because we dislike something, or believe it to be wrong, that all the rules of thinking go out the window.
I had to read the transcript, their accents were unbearable. I'd say they are both incorrect, absolute concepts of "good" and "evil" don't exist and using God as the beginning of the chain is question-begging. Must there be an explanation for existence? Maybe, I take it on "faith" that we just do.
Angurse:Must there be an explanation for existence? Maybe, I take it on "faith" that we just do.
<3
ERO is just my pet troll. You can read Nir's posts to see that what I am talking about is what is known as an argument from ignorance, which I believe I linked you or MaikU to earlier in the thread.
I really hope you go back on vacation and:
Libertystudent:
Consciousness is an effect of matter. The brain, the source of consciousness, emerges from matter.
the lack of evidence is not what makes the logic true. I'm saying that evidence is simply irrelevant in this case.
It is a contradiction, indeed, and not aesthetics.
E. R. Olovetto:I really hope you go back on vacation
Thanks.
I really hope you go back on vacation
No one cares.
John Ess:the lack of evidence is not what makes the logic true. I'm saying that evidence is simply irrelevant in this case.
So you have a proof without a proof?
John Ess:Consciousness is an effect of matter. The brain, the source of consciousness, emerges from matter.
How do you know a consciouness without matter does not exist? If you say, because consciousness requires matter, we're back to the beginning again. Sure, A =A law of identity. Consciousness is defined by its relationship with matter. Fine. Then what if there is another form of "being" which doesn't conform to this definition of matter, or consciousness as we understand it?
I'm not disputing that you know that consciousness requires matter. I am saying that you cannot prove that an exception does not exist which would render the understanding to be, "most consciousness requires matter" or "this is like a consciouness without matter".
You can't claim an exception to your knowledge, or new knowledge doesn't exist because the conclusions you have already drawn do not allow for it.
John Ess:It is a contradiction, indeed, and not aesthetics.
I don't know where to go further on this, because we have a fundamental disagreement about knowledge.
As one of the lurkers on this forum, I'm glad he's not on vacation, I enjoy his posts very much :)
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
I know this was a long time ago, but I want to respond to this
Every person acts on faith every single day. They drive their car, on the belief they will not get into an accident. They ride in elevators, believing that they won't get stuck. They turn on gas stoves, confident that they won't burn their house down. And yet, elevators get stuck, traffic accidents happen and houses burn down from kitchen fires.
Every person acts on faith every single day. They drive their car, on the belief they will not get into an accident. They ride in elevators, believing that they won't get stuck. They turn on gas stoves, confident that they won't burn their house down.
And yet, elevators get stuck, traffic accidents happen and houses burn down from kitchen fires.
I think this ignores something important called risk analysis. It's not that all people drive their cars on the belief that they won't get into an accident (not that that isn't the case some of the time). I can drive my car knowing the risks but choosing to drive anyway because there are risks to not driving, such as getting hit by a car on the side walk. If I choose not to walk around because of that, there's a risk that I could starve to death if I don't, because now I'm not working and won't go to the store to buy food etc. The mere fact that I don't have perfect knowledge doesn't mean that I'm acting on faith. It means I've chosen a path that I think is most likely to lead to my preferred ends, and I can chose those paths based completely in the absence of faith.
Sam Armstrong:knowing the risks
I can't know that a traffic accident is possible if I drive on the road?
Sam Armstrong:I can't know that a traffic accident is possible if I drive on the road?
Ok. Is my estimation of the risks based on faith?
Sam Armstrong:Ok. Is my estimation of the risks based on faith?
If you assert that the risk of getting hit is X, you are making a leap of "faith". If you say "the risks are unknowable but so far the risk appears to be X and I'm going to go with that because I need to drive", then there's no faith involved.
Then that is what I'm going to say from now on.
Much of the stuff done by skeptics seems simply to be OCD about terminology. "NO don't say all swans are white! You have to say you've only observed only white swans!" Which makes the whole thing really pointless for mundane topics, like risk driving. Its more applicable in unprecedented high impact events.
Sieben:Its more applicable in unprecedented high impact events.
Like the discovery of life on another planet, or the awareness of a God. :)
I am hoping people get the notion of taking leaps of faith. Belief in social absolutes and ideal action are flaws of statist thinking.
Liberty Student:Belief in social absolutes and ideal action are flaws of statist thinking.
I guess it all boils down to how "better" is defined. If "better" means less dead or tortured people, then for sure. Way better. If "better" means hope and optimism for a nifty, touchy-feely, gum drops and cotton candy place we go to when we die, then no--not better. Religion is like a post-hypnotic suggestion that makes most people feel good about the prospect of dying and sharing.
Esuric, I'm new here so I don't want to come off as being brash, but really, most people accept things based on past previous experiences. If an expert is telling you how something is done, you may not understand why, but your previous experience with "higher-ups" lends you to believe he has no reason to lie. Or like the earlier example of driving because you believe you will not get into an accident. You accept the potential risk of getting into an accident because you believe it to be minimal, due to past experience. Some things "make sense" and others don't. I can't give you a philosophical explanation, but from a purely descriptive sense of how we humans operate, we accept them. God is not one of those things.
Atheism is the default position. It boggles my mind when people like William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga try to pass off God as being properly basic. Who defines what is properly basic? If that's the case, then I can label anything I want to as being properly basic. It is a matter to be taken upon faith and there's absolutely no evidence whatsoever to point towards any God.
This may not be "philosophically sound", so tear into me if you wish! However, I would postulate that things we all take for granted can be deemed as properly basic, whereras areas in life that differ greatly can be called into question. The very fact that some people feel no spiritual connection whatsoever and that many religions have sprung up in every area of the world lead me to believe that God is a societal construct. Same goes for worldwide moral sentiments. I know, I know, "genetic fallacy!", but that's not the point. When there are so many differing versions, it works against the case for one of them being true. How are we meant to tell the difference between God to God?
Sieben:I am hoping people get the notion of taking leaps of faith. Belief in social absolutes and ideal action are flaws of statist thinking.
I find this to be an absolutely amazing statement. Statism/religion are one in the same. They are each top-down moral authorities that give individual human beings the right to act in their name. How could it be otherwise? Maybe you're a deist or something because I haven't been around long enough, but religion is all about social absolutes and ideal action. States are like the manifestation of secular religion.
"The very fact that some people feel no spiritual connection whatsoever and that many religions have sprung up in every area of the world lead me to believe that God is a societal construct."
Well said. (After all, we are all born atheists, whether we are comfortable with that notion it or not...it is then up to the indoctrination schemes [or absence thereof] of our respective families and cultures to determine if, how, and to what extent, we deviate from that natural state of atheism).
After all, we are all born atheists imbeciles, whether we are comfortable with that notion it or not...it is then up to the indoctrination schemes [or absence thereof] of our respective families and cultures to determine if, how, and to what extent, we deviate from that natural state of atheism imbecility.
I would say though, Steve, that the need to achieve or live for something "higher than yourself" is something just about all humans can relate to. Some also feel that need to be at one with nature (like with pandeism or something), but I don't feel that connection at all. As a species, we differ either genetically or by circumstance, but it is my belief that religion exploits that relationship in the same way that the State exploits our desire to be a cohesive society.
Angurse, if by imbecility you mean like an uneducated, blank slate, your point is a poor one. Yes, susequent indoctrination can serve to instill objective truths, e.g., 1 + 1 = 2, or "the Earth is not flat" to alleviate our natural-born imbecility. But much indoctrination is based on subjective "truths"--e.g., "Noah built an ark," or "the Earth is a flat plane that rests on the back of a giant turtle" etc. Your own apparent dilemma of having being born a horse's ass has clearly yet to be alleviated by time or indoctrination.
Steve:Your own apparent dilemma of having being born a horse's ass has clearly yet to be alleviated by time or indoctrination.
If you can't articulate an argument without getting personal, then your time sharing an opinion here will probably be a waste.
Angurse, if by imbecility you mean like an uneducated, blank slate, your point is a poor one. Yes, susequent indoctrination can serve to instill objective truths, e.g., 1 + 1 = 2, or "the Earth is not flat" to alleviate our natural-born imbecility. But much indoctrination is based on subjective "truths"--e.g., "Noah built an ark," or "the Earth is a flat plane that rests on the back of a giant turtle" etc..
Where's Lionel Hutz? "There's the truth... and, the truth!"
So the naturalistic fallacy applies to some things but not others? Luckily (thank God?), you get to decide which truths are "objective" and which are "subjective". Has anyone actually proven addition yet?
Your own apparent dilemma of having being born a horse's ass has clearly yet to be alleviated by time or indoctrination.
By your reasoning being a horses ass is my natural state of being, I'm not going to let your schemes overcome nature.