Atheists believe in miracles more than believers

[Madsaac]

Do you understand that not everything you do, is observation or inference from observation?

There is a part of human behavior, which is not empirical.

E.g. I have a pet cat. I can observe that cat and so on. I can't observe reasonable.

Yes, I understand and you have helped me understand but you asked 'What is your evidence that it is reasonable? How do you see reasonable?'

And I thought, listening to an expert would help, when deciding what is reasonable.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Yes, I understand and you have helped me understand but you asked 'What is your evidence that it is reasonable? How do you see reasonable?'

And I thought, listening to an expert would help, when deciding what is reasonable.

Well, e.g. there are no experts in morality in the same sense as for natural science. And for natural science the limit is that it has to be in effect empirically objective as per observation.
So e.g. to say that science is useful, is not science as for useful, because it is not an observation.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

What is your evidence that it is reasonable? How do you see reasonable?

The problem is that whether it is reasonable or not is not a fact with evidence as per science, but a subjective norm you believe in or not.

No.

Going by evidence tends to yield reliable answers consistent with reality.
The evidence, is the track record of success.

I'm now awaiting silly solopsists "arguments" about "reality" and "success".

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Well, e.g. there are no experts in morality in the same sense as for natural science. And for natural science the limit is that it has to be in effect empirically objective as per observation.
So e.g. to say that science is useful, is not science as for useful, because it is not an observation.

To say that science is useful, speaks to its utility.
You have a very annoying habit of lumping such things together.

 

[PureX]

Well, as a skeptic I answer that I don't know and that I don't personally care.

The problem is this in effect. You think that 3 makes sense, but you thinking that doesn't cause it so be so. In effect the limit of logic as thinking is what thinking can cause to happen and can't.

Thus it doesn't tell us that there is something apart from and beyond it. It just tell us that it makes sense to think that.

No one is pretending to know anything with perfect certainty, as I've emphasized to you many times.

Outside this sentence there are no absolutes. The justification for science is that it works, not that it's perfect.

Perfection has nothing to do with it. We have no idea wat energy actually IS. Or how it happened. Yet it is responsible for everything that exists. This isn't a perfectionist quibble. It's a glaring foundational hole in our understanding of everything.

If you're in doubt, compare the achievements of science to the achievements of religion, both good and bad, and see which has actually increased our understanding of reality.

Which what? Science gives us the automobile. Philosophy allows us to ask ourselves if this was a gift or a curse. If it weren't for philosophy, you could not have asked for that comparison. Because science has no value system. No ethical standards. And no concern for the human experience.

As for God, as I've also said to you before, the only manner in which [he]'s known to exist is as a concept, notion, thing imagined in individual brains. If you disagree, if you assert that God exists independently of any brain holding the concept of [him], then point [him] out in reality, demonstrate to us what God is made of, describe how many legs, eyes, senses, [his] manner of feeding and breeding &c ─ and of course how you know.

The only manner in which ANYTHING is known to exist is as a concept. Perception IS conception. Why is this so impossible for some people to grasp?

 

[PureX]

Sure. Ironically, an incomprehensible god is no challenge to my atheism, nor is it very helpful to Abrahamists.

I am not trying to challenge anyone's atheism. Nor am I interested in helping any religions. I am simply trying to impose some honest logic in a discussion that displays very little.

You can't build any holy book on that, but it's great for some fun alcoholophilosophically smoky thinking sessions, great for meditation, and gives me nice fluffy belly feels. Mystics of all religions, unite!

Why are you talking about holy books and belly feels? They have nothing to do with this discussion.

Haha, that's why it's logical to me that we cannot ultimately know whether there is a god or not... We are trapped in our puny little minds!

Except for our imaginations. The very thing that makes we humans, human.

 

[ratiocinator]

Perfection has nothing to do with it. We have no idea wat energy actually IS.

Untrue. It is a scientific term with an exact mathematical definition. As I said before, if you want to use it in some other sense, you need to be clear what you mean by it. Otherwise, you're just talking gibberish.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The only manner in which ANYTHING is known to exist is as a concept. Perception IS conception. Why is this so impossible for some people to grasp?

So there is no difference in terms of "existence" between your smartphone and leprechauns?

 

[PureX]

You can state it till you are blue in the face.
Doesn't change the fact that your premises are firmly rooted within the scope of science.

You think everything is firmly rooted in the scope of science because you think science is the only true source of reality and truth. This is called 'scientism'. And it's just cult nonsense.

But they can tell us things about their source.

They tell us nothing about the source. Which is why you are not going to offer an example.

 

[ratiocinator]

I am simply trying to impose some honest logic in a discussion that displays very little.

The problem is that you don't seem to be very good at logic. Forget the science (before you go into your normal rant), you're failing on a purely philosophical and logical level, see, for example: #3,724.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You think everything is firmly rooted in the scope of science

No. We are talking strictly about your premises.

because you think science is the only true source of reality and truth. This is called 'scientism'. And it's just cult nonsense.

We know that's your default go-to shenannigans whenever someone disagrees with your anti-science rethoric.
But it has nothing to do with the conversation.

They tell us nothing about the source. Which is why you are not going to offer an example.

They do.

Any object can tell you things about its source or origins.
This is why, for example, forensics can do what it does.

It's like the basic idea of how events of the past leave evidence that you can study in the present.

 

[PureX]

Untrue. It is a scientific term with an exact mathematical definition.

That's your response? Energy is a word? We know what energy is because we made up a word for it? And we applied numbers to it's effect?

We know what God is because we made up a word for it. And we applied lots of stories to it's effect. Is this your reasoning?

As I said before, if you want to use it in some other sense, you need to be clear what you mean by it. Otherwise, you're just talking gibberish.

We know what a mystery is because we made up the word "mystery", and because we could tell that there must be something more to know, but we couldn't see what that something is.

What about the idea of a mystery can't you understand? What we do know tells us that there is more to be known, but we can't access it. Logic tells us that there must be some kind of transcendent source behind the advent of existence, but we don't have any way of accessing it, to know.

Why are you fighting this rather simple and obvious line of reasoning? What about it do you find unreasonable? Is it because it opens the door to the possibility of God? And you just won't acknowledge that possibility?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That's your response? Energy is a word?

That's not even remotely close to what he said.

 

[ratiocinator]

That's your response? Energy is a word?

Straw man fallacy from our logic expert.

The point is that it's a word that has an exact meaning, so when you say "We have no idea wat energy actually IS.", it's a totally meaningless statement, given we do have an exact definition. You might as well say "we have no idea what momentum is", or "we have no idea what velocity is".

Clearly, you are thinking of some other sense of the word, but I've literally no idea what you actually mean.

What about the idea of a mystery can't you understand? What we do know tells us that there is more to be known, but we can't access it. Logic tells us that there must be some kind of transcendent source behind the advent of existence...

I've yet to see a sound argument from you to that effect, or even a definition of "transcendent source behind the advent of existence" in a way that is precise enough to make it logically meaningful.

Your 'logic' is all over the place. You mix up different meanings to words like 'eternal' and 'cause'. Your proposed options, that form your premises, involve time in one post, and then you deny its relevance in another. You ignore the philosophy of time as well as the science.

 

[blü 2]

Perfection has nothing to do with it. We have no idea wat energy actually IS. Or how it happened. Yet it is responsible for everything that exists. This isn't a perfectionist quibble. It's a glaring foundational hole in our understanding of everything.

Better to acknowledge that than to try to fill the hole with imaginary beings, I suggest.

Science gives us the automobile. Philosophy allows us to ask ourselves if this was a gift or a curse.

More accurately, science and technology.

If it weren't for philosophy, you could not have asked for that comparison. Because science has no value system. No ethical standards. And no concern for the human experience.

As I've mentioned to you before, humans have evolved so that we're born with certain moral instincts, found even in pre-verbal infants ─ dislike of the one who harms. like of fairness and reciprocity, respect for authority, loyalty to the group, and a sense of self-worth through self-denial. Those moral values are in place long before philosophy enters the picture. So are others, largely on the conventions of interacting with other people depending on their sex, age, relationship, status, authority &c, but these are learnt rather than instinctive, hence are more variable.

And scientists, being humans, have those same moral tendencies. Science itself is about facts. Most moral issues arise in the context of war and medicine, and are solved with values whose origin is in the instincts I mentioned above and of course often enough in the ethics of a particular occupation or school of thought.

The only manner in which ANYTHING is known to exist is as a concept. Perception IS conception. Why is this so impossible for some people to grasp?

Perception is part of conception, but all you get by standing in your town square and looking around you is what your brain's editing procedures think are relevant. Your perception of most of it involves no concept. If you set out to describe it, that alters the nature of what you're doing, and many of the words you use will be concepts.

Objective reality is the world external to the self which we know about through our senses. It's where our parents are, or were, and it's where we get our air, water, food, shelter and society. You have no doubt it's out there or else your posting here is inexplicable.

 

[Yerda]

Perfection has nothing to do with it. We have no idea wat energy actually IS. Or how it happened. Yet it is responsible for everything that exists. This isn't a perfectionist quibble. It's a glaring foundational hole in our understanding of everything.

If you want to get right into the weeds, we don't know what matter is either. Only how it behaves.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No.

Going by evidence tends to yield reliable answers consistent with reality.
The evidence, is the track record of success.

I'm now awaiting silly solopsists "arguments" about "reality" and "success".

Well, it is not solipist. It is just that it is subjective for the word succes as it unlike other words have no referent that is external sensory based.
Reality is in practice for some aspects obejctive, other inter-subjective and yet others subjective.
That is all.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

To say that science is useful, speaks to its utility.
You have a very annoying habit of lumping such things together.

Well, we are playing objective, inter-subjective and subjective again.
Take a stone, a piece of rock. It is tangible, you can observe it, it has dimensions and other measurements. Now do the same with utility.
So tell, what is it tactile feel, what is it color, temperatur, weight and so no.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Perfection has nothing to do with it. We have no idea wat energy actually IS. Or how it happened. Yet it is responsible for everything that exists. This isn't a perfectionist quibble. It's a glaring foundational hole in our understanding of everything.

Which what? Science gives us the automobile. Philosophy allows us to ask ourselves if this was a gift or a curse. If it weren't for philosophy, you could not have asked for that comparison. Because science has no value system. No ethical standards. And no concern for the human experience.

The only manner in which ANYTHING is known to exist is as a concept. Perception IS conception. Why is this so impossible for some people to grasp?

Yeah, but you still can't aviod subjective evaluation for what is and what matters.
So in effect other people can believe differently than you and that is where it ends.

 

[ratiocinator]

Take a stone, a piece of rock. It is tangible, you can observe it, it has dimensions and other measurements. Now do the same with utility.

There is nothing subjective about whether a model you have correctly predicts what is going to happen out in the world of rocks and things we can measure. It either does or it doesn't, and we can tell which using measurements.

In this context, that is what 'utility' means.