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Atheists/Agnostics/Skeptics! What are your sources of knowledge?

D

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
gnostic said:
That's unfortunate, considering that you think it is already made judgement before you have seen or heard what the other person have to say.

This is preconception and bias rolled into one, is truly not logical reasoning, q konn.

Leaving out science and religion in this example:

If two people (A & B) put forward their opposing arguments, and I was to judge each judgement impartially, I would not only have to listen and understand what both sides of arguments. If one person (A) say he has evidence and provide them, and the other person (B) no evidence to present to me, I would at least be able to verify the person A's evidence if it is true or not. Without evidence from person B, I am most likely favor person A.

But if both sides presented verifiable evidences for their respective cases, then I would be to analyse and verify which side's argument is more likely.
​
Do you understand q konn?

If you don't want to hear what Cephus, then your mind is already made up. That's "bias" talking, not logical reasoning. You think Cephus' evidence is faulty, but since you don't want to see it at all and don't want to verify the evidence to be true or not, then you have already lost the debate, because you don't think anyone else is right except you, speak of only your arrogance and ignorance.
Click to expand...

You can present evidence if you want to.
 
Tiberius

Tiberius

Well-Known Member
Infinitum said:
I have to admit "everything" sums it up pretty nicely. Depending on the topic I either prefer sources that are as close to the original information as possible (e.g. archaeological finds, original texts, scientific studies, etc) but when that isn't possible I try to look for sources that use these. When I read books I favour the ones that are written by people with a good academic reputation and that include references to the sources they've been using (so I can look up the information on my own if I feel the need to). I value writers who look at a subject from many perspectives, and who use logical argumentation to show why they've come to a certain conclusion. To sum it up, I like sources that allow me to assess the information myself instead of simply being told what's true or not.
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I have to disagree. If I take EVERYTHING as a source of information, then that would include ESP, magical crystals, water dowsing, auras and all sorts of other nonsense. For me, the only source of information is science. It covers EVERYTHING that is testable and verifiable, and all information needs to be tested and verified before we can reasonably accept it as factual.
 
Cephus

Cephus

Relentlessly Rational
q konn said:
/your statement is true if I don't already know that your wrong in a certain conclusion that you've arrived at, ie the argument is ''wrong'' , regardless of the context or conclusion.
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Then you are welcome to point those conclusions out and demonstrate, via evidence, that I actually am wrong. Go ahead.
 
McBell

McBell

Unbound
gnostic said:
If you don't want to hear what Cephus, then your mind is already made up. That's "bias" talking, not logical reasoning. You think Cephus' evidence is faulty, but since you don't want to see it at all and don't want to verify the evidence to be true or not, then you have already lost the debate, because you don't think anyone else is right except you, speak of only your arrogance and ignorance.
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It also makes qkonn the one guilty of that which he whines about (already made up his mind so why bother).
 
dust1n

dust1n

Zindīq
LegionOnomaMoi said:
So history is out? Darn. We'll never know if Caesar crossed the rubicon or if WWI really was the War to End all Wars.
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Well, to some extent, is this not true? There are many claims that Caesar crossed the Rubicon. But is this something we actually know without any further physical evidence? Similarly, the Exodus story is a matter of history, but the history doesn't jive with evidence.
 
paarsurrey

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
Tiberius said:
I have to disagree. If I take EVERYTHING as a source of information, then that would include ESP, magical crystals, water dowsing, auras and all sorts of other nonsense. For me, the only source of information is science. It covers EVERYTHING that is testable and verifiable, and all information needs to be tested and verified before we can reasonably accept it as factual.
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Can science cover the real purpose of a thing/event? Please
Regards
 
Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
paarsurrey said:
Can science cover the real purpose of a thing/event? Please
Regards
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There is no "real" perspective as the purpose of something depends on the perspective. From one perspective, the purpose of Bill Gates was creating and developing Windows; from another perspective his purpose is giving massive sums of money to charity; from a another perspective his purpose is to eat and be eaten.
 
C

columbus

yawn <ignore> yawn
paarsurrey said:
Can science cover the real purpose of a thing/event? Please
Regards
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No, because purpose is an abstract concept.
A large gold ingot might be great wealth and power, or it might be a doorstop, or it might be something else.
What science can tell you is how much it weighs, what it's current market value is, the atomic weight of gold, and lots of other facts. But not it's purpose. Because purpose doesn't exist in the world we share with each other. It only exists between our ears.
Tom
 
gnostic

gnostic

The Lost One
paarsurrey said:
Can science cover the real purpose of a thing/event?
Click to expand...
And there lies the narrow-mindness of one who think everything have purpose.

In order for there be purpose, the entity must be consciousness of its own existence, and make choices on direction of decision or the path to be taken.

So obviously man can do thing with or for specific purpose. He can choose one religion or another, and believe what he believe in...or none at all. He can decide on the education he receive, depending on what career or job to do.

But is a rock "conscious"? Can a rock decide to be anything other than a rock?

A rock can't decide its own purpose, but man can make use of rocks, thereby deciding its purpose, but only for man's own use.

The sun, or any star, is not conscious, can't consciously decide to do this or that. It create energy through thermonuclear fusion of its fuel - hydrogen - by fusing two hydrogen into helium atom. This result in tremendous amount of energy, which give light and heat. It does so without conscious guidance or intelligence. A star doesn't care what it does, because it has no ability to like or dislike what it does.

Eventually, the sun will run out of hydrogen fused, so it will begin to fuse helium atoms into heavier elements. Because of this change of event, the sun will become a red giant star, until it strip away all the outer layers of heavy elements and expelling them to out in space, until only the core of the sun is all that left. This core will all that be left of the sun, which mean the red giant will become a white dwarf star.

Scientists are able to predict the future (end) of our sun, by knowing the current mass of our sun, and they understand that it will not go supernova or turn into a black hole, because the sun is not massive enough.

Astronomers know this, because they study stars throughout space, and were able to predict how each star will come to an end, depending on their masses.

The stars don't consciously decide it will become "red giant", "white dwarf", "neutron star", "blackhole" or exploding as a "supernova".

And this sort of knowledge don't come from religions or their scriptures, and there is absolutely no evidences that any god or intelligent designer being involved with any event of the star.

The Qur'an for instance, give a metaphor that the stars are little lamps (don't remember the verses in the Qur'an), not knowing that these stars are like the sun. The Qur'an make the distinction that the sun and stars different, because the author don't realise the sun is itself an actual star. The Qur'an also stupidly make mistake that the stars only appear at night, but there are stars everywhere, and it doesn't matter if there is daylight or night at Arabia.

In matter of science, religions, especially in their scriptures and traditions, are poor sources of knowledge of the physical, natural world, because they are often give superficial observation, which is why the Qur'an never explain natural phenomena, but provide vague description.

As an agnostic, this is only my standpoint on the matter of theism, and nothing else. My education, career and social life is not dependent on my agnosticism. My source of knowledge come from everything that I have managed to learn through schools (and universities), through jobs, through social interaction with other people, and anything else that I might have left out.

My agnosticism is the least important of all other knowledge, and certainly the least practical.
 
Milton Platt

Milton Platt

Well-Known Member
columbus said:
No, because purpose is an abstract concept.
A large gold ingot might be great wealth and power, or it might be a doorstop, or it might be something else.
What science can tell you is how much it weighs, what it's current market value is, the atomic weight of gold, and lots of other facts. But not it's purpose. Because purpose doesn't exist in the world we share with each other. It only exists between our ears.
Tom
Click to expand...

I think he means some vague esoteric concept. As opposed to a use.
 
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