Atheists believe in miracles more than believers

[It Aint Necessarily So]

On the one hand you talk about all this moral humanism, and on the other you talk as if only science can possibly discern reality and truth, while science couldn't care less about moral humanism.

My claim is that knowledge only comes from experience (empiricism), knowledge being the set of ideas that are demonstrably correct and can be used to predict outcomes.

My moral set is derived from reason applied to an intuition. Empiricism comes into play when I establish the rules of conduct that I think will promote my moral intuition. I don't consider the intuition knowledge, but the rules to make it happen are knowledge.

By itself, it doesn't. But when it's combined with philosophical materialism, and the worship of science as the source of all truth and understanding, it's hard to see how it wouldn't become amoral.

That was in response to, " I think you need to argue why an empirical epistemology leads to a lack of morals."

I don't have a position on materialism versus its alternatives, but I lean toward neutral monism; the fundamental substance of the universe is neither mind nor matter, but rather, something that precedes them and from which they both derive just like spacetime being the source of space and time.

Maybe you mean philosophical naturalist. That I am.

Nor do I worship science.

And I just told you where my moral values come from: reason applied to intuition (the message from my conscience).

All you have here is an antipathy to people like me - atheistic humanists. You seem to like to make derogatory comments about us. So, you simply declare us immoral or amoral.

you are dogmatically defensive. and so are the other scientism cultists on here. Seems they are skeptical only of any view that dares to contradict their own.

Look in the mirror, amigo. It's you having the emotional reaction to having your special way of knowing and your implication that you see further dismissed. My replies to you are measured and of an academic nature, not emotional.

It is impossible for anyone to be skeptical about the obvious.

There is no need for skepticism when a fact is obvious. Skepticism is for claims that still need confirming, and the method is empirical using critical thought.

I said that science is a methodology and the basis of this methodology is called "metaphysics"

You also said, "Science is based on old wives tales handed down from the confusion that arose with the dust from the tower of babel."

Science absolutely requires experiment

No, it doesn't. Why keep repeating that while disregarding its refutation? Observation without active experimentation defines much of science. How about explaining why you disagree with that rather than disregarding it and repeating yourself down the line?

Nothing our species does can be wholly independent of the beliefs of the experimenter or thinker.

That's a good thing if the thinker is a good one, and a good reason to keep false and unfalsifiable beliefs out of one's belief set.

Who decided that it's OK to declare the fittest based on unknowns like which individuals will reproduce the most?

It's a definition. Definitions aren't statements of fact.

If your definitions and assumptions are wrong you will end up at the wrong answer virtually every single time.

Bad definitions lead to confusion. False premises and/or fallacious reasoning will get you to an unsound conclusion

I once saw a butterfly use my bonfire as an elevator to the tree tops to begin its annual migration.

OK. That was a reply to "Only animals are conscious, and not necessarily all of them." I don't know how conscious butterflies are, but they are animals.

All through nature you can see the exercise of free will.

Disagree. Not from grass or mushrooms. They have no apparent conscious or will.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

You probably already know that I disagree. Science is based on skepticism and empiricism, that is, that knowledge about how nature works is acquired through observation and experience. A few other words pop up in the philosophy of science such a falsifiability and reproducibility.

Personally, I find very little in the rambling agendas and revealed truths to agree with.

Didn't you just say that the basis of science is old wives' tales? how do these two relate? Is metaphysics synonymous with old wives' tales. It seems so.

YES!!! Indeed, that is what was said. I just mentioned in a previous response how I find paragraphs of @cladking agenda open with one claim and often close with statements and claims that contradict the opening revealed truth.

We don't decide. Nature selects. The winners are called the fittest.

Agreed.

OK. The word means something else to me. Only animals are conscious, and not necessarily all of them.

That is what the evidence indicates despite empty claims and revealed truths.

So sudden for you can mean occurring in an instant or over the duration of multiple generations. You once called the collision of galaxies sudden (source)

Sort of eliminates the value of defining words and makes them useless. 'Peg grommet interval gelatin speedway constitution manifold brothel' could mean the same as speciation by natural selection of the environment acting on variation in a population according to the revealed truth methodology that is being promoted. I see it as part of a methodology to promote nonsense and gobbledygook over facts and reason.

I don't think that memorizing your definitions will make your thoughts using those words any clearer.

I agree. In my opinion, memorizing those personal, often secret, meaningless definitions would useless and remove knowledge rather than build on it.

Your claim was, "Lack of morality goes hand in hand with scientism."

And as a Christian that accepts science, I stand in real opposition as evidence against that claim.

Yet I refuted it. What people are calling scientism does not preclude being moral. Nor having an esthetic sense. Nor being spiritual. In fact, I would argue that knowledge of nature facilitates a spiritual mindset, by which I mean a pleasant sense of connection to and of belonging in the world - not a belief in spirits.

Agreed. Even atheists can and do have morals. Often I find they are much the same as the morals that theists claim for themselves. I haven't seen any evidence that science causes someone to become amoral. I think those people that are started that way or were already corruptible in some way that was acted on by things other than the science and technology they use and accept.

If you find fault in my refutation and want to change my mind, you'll need to identify what you consider incorrect and demonstrate that it is.

You and @PureX have used that word scientism to describe me. Does that make me amoral or immoral in your estimation? If not, how do you reconcile the existence of a conscience and moral inclinations with knowledge of science given your comment above?

It is used like a hammer to beat on others and not as some challenge to the ideas of others. It's a bully tool in my opinion.

I don't see how that follows. I think you need to argue why an empirical epistemology leads to a lack of morals.

Somebody aught to rather than just keep claiming it as established knowledge gathered by some secret, special way of knowing.

Sorry, but you need to make the case that most greedy people believe the theory of evolution, assuming that that is what your words mean.

Unfortunately, based on the evidence, that won't happen. It will likely be upside down flies communicating with bees and ancient aliens to make pyramids.

I am assuming that they knew less about how the world works than we do.

History began with the big bang, so you must mean recorded human history. The invention of writing would be a fine example of the progress you seem to think hasn't occurred all throughout human history, beginning with making stone tools and cooking with fire.

There was no golden age.

Every age is good times and bad times. Sometimes we shine. Sometimes we didn't do too well.

The reason the Garden myth was written in my opinion was to account for the disparity between a hard life and the belief in a god that loved them that could have them living in paradise, or as you called it, a golden age. The myth explains why life was so hard, why people died, why women suffered in childbirth, why there was so much death from disease and accidents. It was attributed to human disobedience and was considered a punishment.

I interpret the story following ideas like that. I don't see it as a story to be taken literally, but to express a relationship.

Except there is. I've seen it in my own lifetime. I've progressed myself from prelinguistic and nonambulatory to an adult who can walk, talk, and even do more.

I've used this example in the past. It wasn't sudden either. Not by the open, readily examined and widely known definition of sudden.

That was progress. It was the beginning of the end of absolute power for the king culminating eventually in modern monarchies and democracies.

Agreed.

Very often I find the conclusions and claims of the rambling narrative don't fit with the more well-known, established and accepted conclusions based on evidence.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

My claim is that knowledge only comes from experience (empiricism), knowledge being the set of ideas that are demonstrably correct and can be used to predict outcomes.

My moral set is derived from reason applied to an intuition. Empiricism comes into play when I establish the rules of conduct that I think will promote my moral intuition. I don't consider the intuition knowledge, but the rules to make it happen are knowledge.

That was in response to, " I think you need to argue why an empirical epistemology leads to a lack of morals."

I don't have a position on materialism versus its alternatives, but I lean toward neutral monism; the fundamental substance of the universe is neither mind nor matter, but rather, something that precedes them and from which they both derive just like spacetime being the source of space and time.

Maybe you mean philosophical naturalist. That I am.

Nor do I worship science.

And I just told you where my moral values come from: reason applied to intuition (the message from my conscience).

All you have here is an antipathy to people like me - atheistic humanists. You seem to like to make derogatory comments about us. So, you simply declare us immoral or amoral.

Look in the mirror, amigo. It's you having the emotional reaction to having your special way of knowing and your implication that you see further dismissed. My replies to you are measured and of an academic nature, not emotional.

There is no need for skepticism when a fact is obvious. Skepticism is for claims that still need confirming, and the method is empirical using critical thought.

You also said, "Science is based on old wives tales handed down from the confusion that arose with the dust from the tower of babel."

No, it doesn't. Why keep repeating that while disregarding its refutation? Observation without active experimentation defines much of science. How about explaining why you disagree with that rather than disregarding it and repeating yourself down the line?

That's a good thing if the thinker is a good one, and a good reason to keep false and unfalsifiable beliefs out of one's belief set.

It's a definition. Definitions aren't statements of fact.

Bad definitions lead to confusion. False premises and/or fallacious reasoning will get you to an unsound conclusion

OK. That was a reply to "Only animals are conscious, and not necessarily all of them." I don't know how conscious butterflies are, but they are animals.

Disagree. Not from grass or mushrooms. They have no apparent conscious or will.

That is the biggest frustration for me in any attempt to discuss and debate with the science denier and the fact generator. That they ignore anything that is told to them and just repeat their empty claims, ham-handed denial and unestablished facts. It is a very one-sided debate with people that don't seem to care what anyone else really says.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

My claim is that knowledge only comes from experience (empiricism), knowledge being the set of ideas that are demonstrably correct and can be used to predict outcomes.

My moral set is derived from reason applied to an intuition. Empiricism comes into play when I establish the rules of conduct that I think will promote my moral intuition. I don't consider the intuition knowledge, but the rules to make it happen are knowledge.

That was in response to, " I think you need to argue why an empirical epistemology leads to a lack of morals."

I don't have a position on materialism versus its alternatives, but I lean toward neutral monism; the fundamental substance of the universe is neither mind nor matter, but rather, something that precedes them and from which they both derive just like spacetime being the source of space and time.

Maybe you mean philosophical naturalist. That I am.

Nor do I worship science.

And I just told you where my moral values come from: reason applied to intuition (the message from my conscience).

All you have here is an antipathy to people like me - atheistic humanists. You seem to like to make derogatory comments about us. So, you simply declare us immoral or amoral.

Look in the mirror, amigo. It's you having the emotional reaction to having your special way of knowing and your implication that you see further dismissed. My replies to you are measured and of an academic nature, not emotional.

There is no need for skepticism when a fact is obvious. Skepticism is for claims that still need confirming, and the method is empirical using critical thought.

You also said, "Science is based on old wives tales handed down from the confusion that arose with the dust from the tower of babel."

No, it doesn't. Why keep repeating that while disregarding its refutation? Observation without active experimentation defines much of science. How about explaining why you disagree with that rather than disregarding it and repeating yourself down the line?

That's a good thing if the thinker is a good one, and a good reason to keep false and unfalsifiable beliefs out of one's belief set.

It's a definition. Definitions aren't statements of fact.

Bad definitions lead to confusion. False premises and/or fallacious reasoning will get you to an unsound conclusion

OK. That was a reply to "Only animals are conscious, and not necessarily all of them." I don't know how conscious butterflies are, but they are animals.

Disagree. Not from grass or mushrooms. They have no apparent conscious or will.

I've seen flying insects cross into the convection currents from an open fire. I've not seen anything that would indicate that they do this on purpose to gain altitude. Even if that is sometimes the outcome. Sometimes, they die, because the heat is too much for them.

It seems to be another case of applying bias to get the answer a person wants and make the data fit the explanation.

 

[YoursTrue]

How do you know anything about the past or the furture as your argument in part rests on, since you in effect deny that we can know anything but the present.
Stop making any argument that involves the past or present as it is unknowable according to you.

I am saying that telomeres are interesting. What makes sense to me does not have to make sense to others.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I am saying that telomeres are interesting. What makes sense to me does not have to make sense to others.

Well, you can't see that they are interesting nor can you see, what makes sense. So why do you say something you can't know?

 

[YoursTrue]

Well, you can't see that they are interesting nor can you see, what makes sense. So why do you say something you can't know?

The explanation of what they are and do is interesting. Sorry if you misunderstood. Take care and bye for now.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I am saying that telomeres are interesting. What makes sense to me does not have to make sense to others.

Do you think that making the best sense of something is the goal and that we all should be on that path to find the best sense of a thing or idea?

That something makes sense to a person does not imply that they have the sense of it or that their sense of it is correct. This is a fact that I struggle with when speaking with others. They often seem to feel their sense of things is the only sense their is and my words are unimportant.

But getting the best sense of something is what I try to do. I'm not always successful and the sense of many things still eludes me. But I think trying to be on the best track to that sense of things is the best that I can do.

 

[YoursTrue]

Well, you can't see that they are interesting nor can you see, what makes sense. So why do you say something you can't know?

I guess you'll have to ask the scientists and pro-evolutionists that research these things or believe them. Yes, I find the reports interesting

 

[YoursTrue]

Do you think that making the best sense of something is the goal and that we all should be on that path find the best sense of a thing or idea?

That something makes sense to a person does not imply that they have the sense of it or that their sense of it is correct. This is a fact that I struggle with when speaking with others. They often seem to feel their sense of things is the only sense their is and my words are unimportant.

But getting the best sense of something is what I try to do. I'm not always successful and the sense of many things still eludes me. But I think trying to be on the best track to that sense of things is the best that I can do.

I think it's interesting.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Well, you can't see that they are interesting nor can you see, what makes sense. So why do you say something you can't know?

I have heard that we all have the same evidence, but it is how we interpret that evidence where the faults lay. Then these people that say this continue on with explanations that defy that evidence, extend it where it cannot go and lace their conclusions with logical fallacies, misinterpretation and misrepresentation.

That nullifies the original claim about the evidence being the same in my view.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I think it's interesting.

What is interesting?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I have heard that we all have the same evidence, but it is how we interpret that evidence where the faults lay. Then these people that say this continue on with explanations that defy that evidence, extend it where it cannot go and lace their conclusions with logical fallacies, misinterpretation and misrepresentation.

That nullifies the original claim about the evidence being the same in my view.

Well, as a cognitive relativist I don't believe in same evidence as what is considered evidence in part has a cultural aspect. But still, I do believe in objective reality as such.

 

[YoursTrue]

What is interesting?

the actions of telomeres.

 

[PureX]

My claim is that knowledge only comes from experience (empiricism), knowledge being the set of ideas that are demonstrably correct and can be used to predict outcomes.

But knowledge of functionality is not knowledge of truth, or of purpose, or of righteousness. And so cannot determine ethical imperatives. We can build a car and drive it to the ends of the Earth. But we still won't know if we should or shouldn't do that, or why.

My moral set is derived from reason applied to an intuition.

That's extremely vague. To reason requires specificity, and a goal. It appears you possess neither.

Empiricism comes into play when I establish the rules of conduct that I think will promote my moral intuition. I don't consider the intuition knowledge, but the rules to make it happen are knowledge.

That was in response to, " I think you need to argue why an empirical epistemology leads to a lack of morals."

I don't have a position on materialism versus its alternatives, but I lean toward neutral monism; the fundamental substance of the universe is neither mind nor matter, but rather, something that precedes them and from which they both derive just like spacetime being the source of space and time.

Maybe you mean philosophical naturalist. That I am.

What I mean is the philosophy that asserts that reality is determined by and limited to physicality.

Nor do I worship science.

And I just told you where my moral values come from: reason applied to intuition (the message from my conscience).

Again, extremely vague and un-sourced.

All you have here is an antipathy to people like me - atheistic humanists. You seem to like to make derogatory comments about us. So, you simply declare us immoral or amoral.

I hold no antipathy toward anyone, and I have accused no one of being immoral or amoral. I am simply responding to the content I see in the posts.

Look in the mirror, amigo. It's you having the emotional reaction to having your special way of knowing and your implication that you see further dismissed. My replies to you are measured and of an academic nature, not emotional.

I am not having any emotional reactions. And I am fascinated that you (and some others) seem to be so in need of the idea that I am.

There is no need for skepticism when a fact is obvious.

Spoken like a true cult member.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

the actions of telomeres.

I see.

What is it about them that you find so interesting?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Well, as a cognitive relativist I don't believe in same evidence as what is considered evidence in part has a cultural aspect. But still, I do believe in objective reality as such.

I'm not sure that I fully grok that, but it means I may have something to learn.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm not sure that I fully grok that, but it means I may have something to learn.

There is no overall universal objective standard for what the concept of evidence is. Evidence as a concept is a cognitive norm and it can vary with culture or sub-culture.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

But knowledge of functionality is not knowledge of truth, or of purpose, or of righteousness. And so cannot determine ethical imperatives. We can build a car and drive it to the ends of the Earth. But we still won't know if we should or shouldn't do that, or why.

That's extremely vague. To reason requires specificity, and a goal. It appears you possess neither.

What I mean is the philosophy that asserts that reality is determined by and limited to physicality.

Again, extremely vague and un-sourced.

I hold no antipathy toward anyone, and I have accused no one of being immoral or amoral. I am simply responding to the content I see in the posts.

I am not having any emotional reactions. And I am fascinated that you (and some others) seem to be so in need of the idea that I am.

Spoken like a true cult member.

You were doing sort of well and then there is this that evidences the irreconcilable.

"I hold no antipathy toward anyone, and I have accused no one of being immoral or amoral. I am simply responding to the content I see in the posts."

"Spoken like a true cult member."

How can both be true?

The latter isn't in the content of the post. It is manufactured in your head from what you read and all your knowledge, bias and blind side. It isn't a response to the post content. It is a judgement of the poster.

I see you in a house looking out the front window and believing that you not only see what is in front of the house, but what is on the sides, in back, underneath, above and within the house all at once in some special way that only you possess.

I'm reminded so often of the words of John Heywood when I read the accusations of your posts.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

There is no overall universal objective standard for what the concept of evidence is. Evidence as a concept is a cognitive norm and it can vary with culture or sub-culture.

I'll see if I understand this.

In terms of entomology for instance, the detection of one adult corn rootworm per corn plant in a field is evidence that determines the actions of the farmer. But it is limited to that context and not evidence for anything else?

Are you saying that you consider evidence contextual and that the definition of it must include the context. That no one definition applies?

Or is it about the varying quality of evidence and how the collector, review, analyzer of that evidence can impart a bias?