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Atheists believe in miracles more than believers

cladking

Well-Known Member
OK, but I don't think that addresses my point, which was that everything that is causally connected, that is which can affect and be affected by other things, can be called nature. I don't know why you wrote those words.

EVERYTHING is causally connected. This is what experiment shows. Reality is a interconnection of all things in real time dependent on initial conditions.

What is so damn complex about this. Tides are produced by the moon and have been understood for 40,000 years until the tower of babel. Even a cup of coffee imparts tides to the moon and they orbit about their center of gravity. This is all pretty simple physics.

Planck was implying that, and he was probably correct to some significant extent. The young Einstein saw what nobody has seen before and what older scientists had difficulty accepting. Decades later, it was Einstein who had trouble with the implications of quantum theory.

No. Most people don't change their beliefs during their entire lifetimes. A lifetime of seeing what you believe just makes people more set in their ways. Young scientists are only a little more prone to properly interpret experiment that puts the lie to everything they believe. It isn't so much science that is intractable, it is scientists. Old timers lead the scientists at the top of the pecking order.

Now you've lost me again. I am unable to paraphrase this because I don't understand what it is you are saying.

Since we can see only what we believe we don't see anomalies. Anomalous data and experiment are everywhere but you can't see it because you see your beliefs. Even harder than seeing an anomaly is devising an experiment to prove the paradigm is wrong and there's not really an anomaly at all. The "anomaly" is a faulty interpretation of existing experiment.

Then I don't know what you mean by that word.

And, of course, the comment creates a paradox. If your belief is right then it's also wrong, since it's a superstition.

No superstition, no belief, is necessarily wrong. No scientific fact and no interpretation of experiment is necessarily right. Either of these things would be supernatural. It would be magic. It would take a miracle for science to be totally correct about anything at all. Yet most scientists turned out by our failed educational system for the last quarter century believe your definition where religion is wrong and science is right.

All belief is superstition. I avoid all belief. I deal in probabilities and best guesses. I try to understand all experiment simultaneously in terms of its metaphysics and probability holistically. It is my opinion that the best definition of "superstition" is "belief".
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
OK. I don't see that, nor does anybody else to my knowledge.

This is because you have beliefs passed to you on your parents' knees that are false. You believe humans are "special" and other life is dumb so you see dumb instead of their behavior. We can't even understand the nature of thought so how are we to understand the thinking of an animal that we don't believe thinks? How about those stupid house plants? How can we see the nature of consciousness when we believe the strong survive and every individual is the exact same species as its parents. We believe in linear progress and all sorts of nonsense and we see these beliefs everywhere we look. You can call something observation but most people don't observe and barely look any harder than is needed to confirm their beliefs.

One can be wrong even in a crowd. Every progress comes from individual ideas from those taken as crackpots.

Pure reason is logic and mathematic, and we call that knowledge, but knowledge about physical reality only comes from observing it (empiricism).

Humans don't really "reason" at all because language precludes it. Words mean something different all the time. Math is logical and one can think mathematically but nobody can quantify life, observation, or reason. There is only one kind of real knowledge and that is experiential knowledge. Children should be taught to gain as much experiential knowledge as possible so they can build better models, better suited to their knowledge base.

Reading something is a book is not knowledge. It is your estimation of what the author meant in terms of your own beliefs. Science texts tend to be correct but you can absorb as many as you want and not really know any more than state of the art. Remember state of the art has ALWAYS been proven wrong 8in the long run.

Not everybody. One can learn to do better.

Yes. Everyone! Many of us can snap out of it and all f us can see the naked king when the boy points him out.

Experiment shows this over and over and over. We see what we believe and reason in circles.

Unfortunately 19th century scientists were wrong about everything and they are still wrong despite so many years of building on their nonsense.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
OK. I hope that's true, although I don't know exactly what it is you mean by anomalies in this context.

I almost always use "anomalies" to refer to observation that doesn't fit beliefs or expectations regardless of the origin of the beliefs.

It should be apparent if I use another of the definitions.

I'd say that induction is what many animals including humans do automatically, but humans can articulate their inductions with language. My dogs know when it's time to feed them. They learned this by generalizing about prior experience.

I don't agree with any of your premises regarding consciousness or the thinking of homo omnisciencis. I can parse your sentences with your definitions so please try to parse my sentences with my definitions.

"Induction" is the comparison of the characteristics of things in taxonomies and abstract categories. It requires the ability to manipulate symbolic language used only by our species. Since I believe all things are unique I don't recognize categories of things. Without such abstractions there is no inductive reasoning. Like superstition inductive reasoning can lead to wrong answers and thinking in circles.
 

Balthazzar

N. Germanic Descent
I almost always use "anomalies" to refer to observation that doesn't fit beliefs or expectations regardless of the origin of the beliefs.

It should be apparent if I use another of the definitions.



I don't agree with any of your premises regarding consciousness or the thinking of homo omnisciencis. I can parse your sentences with your definitions so please try to parse my sentences with my definitions.

"Induction" is the comparison of the characteristics of things in taxonomies and abstract categories. It requires the ability to manipulate symbolic language used only by our species. Since I believe all things are unique I don't recognize categories of things. Without such abstractions there is no inductive reasoning. Like superstition inductive reasoning can lead to wrong answers and thinking in circles.

I'm attempting to grasp your line of reasoning and I'm having some difficulty. Categories seem important enough to consider, particularly when it comes to how things are formed. Cell structures and particle ability to bond together would be important for the identification of particular categories and able components for any would be structure to build upon. Wouldn't this be true for everything, including consciousness? It's certainly true for mathematics. If there is no able binder the data or particles would pass through and discarded as an anomaly, if I'm not mistaken. My language may be clumsy according to your own, but aren't categories necessary for organization and identification? Everything may be unique, but in that uniqueness are common denominators.

An anomaly would be void of a common denominator, lacking what is needed to form a more concrete structure. Anomalies are likely better suited and appropriate for something different than what you would be accustomed to, which is why I suggest categories are needed for identification.
 
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YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
Couldn't tell you. I try and figure it out but my questions usually go unanswered so I can't work out what they mean or the answer is something I don't understand like "fish are still fish" or "monkeys didn't invent microscopes". By then I get frustrated and the conversation ends for a period of time.
OK, let me try to settle this, if possible. I used the word morph in the sense of changing gradually, as in evolved. Period. (I hope that explains it, @firedragon understood it. Case closed. Maybe. I hope.) And yes, only humans of the more "recent" kind, according to science, have invented microscopes and have written books about Einstein and quantum mechanics. Monkeys have not. That is true.
 

John53

I go leaps and bounds
Premium Member
OK, let me try to settle this, if possible. I used the word morph in the sense of changing gradually, as in evolved. Period.

Then why not use evolved because that means evolved to everyone not just you.

(I hope that explains it, @firedragon understood it. Case closed. Maybe. I hope.) And yes, only humans of the more "recent" kind, according to science, have invented microscopes and have written books about Einstein and quantum mechanics. Monkeys have not. That is true.

OK, clear as mud.... according to science monkeys morphed into humans c.1590 and invented microscopes or was it when they started writing books about Einstein which is presumably after his death in 1955. That would make me 1st generation human.
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
Then why not use evolved because that means evolved to everyone not just you.



OK, clear as mud.... according to science monkeys morphed into humans c.1590 and invented microscopes or was it when they started writing books about Einstein which is presumably after his death in 1955. That would make me 1st generation human.
I like the word morph better than evolve in this case.
Ha ha, I like your last sentences. Very funny. :)
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
Does this represent your view

“yes Leroy granted, if the universe (the natural world) had a cause, this cause necessarily would have to be non-natural …. But the idea of a cause of the natural world is incoherent and/or wrong, andorillogical etc.. because …. (all the arguments that you made”) therefore the universe (natural wordl) didn’t had a cause.

Does this quote represents your view?
Yes, I already said as much:
Of course that would follow if it wasn't obviously silly to suggest a cause for the natural world in the first place

You made many interesting and important points, but I will not address anything until you explicitly grant (or refute) the point that I made.
Why on earth not? Point scoring, fear, what?

This sort of thing doesn't help with a sensible debate. I've made a lot of specific points about what you've said, and you've ignored them all by hiding behind some bizarre desire for me to acknowledge an argument whose basis is fundamentally nonsensical.

In fact, this is the second avoidance strategy after a simple flat, one-line contradiction.
 

TagliatelliMonster

Veteran Member
I have no idea that (in red) would be a different topic.

No, it's the exact topic. Since you are talking about the origins of space-time.
And you wish to posit causality as at least part of that explanation.

So it's very much on-topic to point out that causality is a temporal phenomenon and that you thus are trying to invoke temporal phenomenon to try and explain the origins of temporal conditions. This makes no sense.

All I am saying is that if “the natural world” was caused by something, then this something by definition had to be “non-natural”

Granted? Please answer yes or no

I can't answer your question because it seems to make no sense. See above.

Sure you can reject the claim that the natural world had a cause, based on the argument that you made…………..

Which would render your question into the category of "not even wrong"

What you can´t do is claim:

1 that the first computer came from a preexisting computer

But that's exactly what you are trying to do.............................................
Claiming that time came from pre-existing things that require time themselves. :shrug:

Note how in this entire conversation, I haven't once made a claim about the origins of the universe or "the natural world".


Nor

2 that nature came from preexisting nature

both claims woudl be logically incoherent

Neither claim is a claim I'm making either.... so yeah... not really seeing the relevance here.

This is logically and necessarily true, regardless on how you want to define “computer” or “nature”

do you understand ?
I understand. I understand you are making nonsensical statements hoping to score some kind of point.
I understand you are doing your very best to try and ignore your own faulty reasoning and are using strawmen to project it unto us.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
I'm attempting to grasp your line of reasoning and I'm having some difficulty. Categories seem important enough to consider, particularly when it comes to how things are formed. Cell structures and particle ability to bond together would be important for the identification of particular categories and able components for any would be structure to build upon. Wouldn't this be true for everything, including consciousness? It's certainly true for mathematics. If there is no able binder the data or particles would pass through and discarded as an anomaly, if I'm not mistaken. My language may be clumsy according to your own, but aren't categories necessary for organization and identification? Everything may be unique, but in that uniqueness are common denominators.

If I understand you correctly then I do agree that some characteristics of dissimilar things do share numerous traits in common and seem to naturally fit into categories and taxonomies. Using these similarities as mnemonics is difficult to avoid. I doubt however, that "consciousness" is necessarily built up of discrete things nor can it be reduced using experiment at this time. Consciousness is much more an on/ off characteristic that is fundamental to all living things and obviously therefore generated in myriad ways. The consciousness in a freshly severed tree limb is very different than the consciousness of a person but that its alive can sometimes be shown by putting it in moist earth where it will root and grow.

There are many common denominators and the difference from one electron to the next is unlikely to ever matter to us when designing our machines. But these differences still accumulate in reality over time as surely as the wingbeat of a butterfly in China causes a hurricane.

An anomaly would be void of a common denominator, lacking what is needed to form a more concrete structure. Anomalies are likely better suited and appropriate for something different than what you would be accustomed to, which is why I suggest categories are needed for identification.

Yes. But each characteristic and its suitability for supporting or denying existing belief can still be considered individually.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Cell structures and particle ability to bond together would be important for the identification of particular categories and able components for any would be structure to build upon. Wouldn't this be true for everything, including consciousness?

You seem to be thinking much more in terms of processes and I in terms of initial conditions and the forces at play. To think in your terms probably requires more categorization. I don't know. Your thinking requires time in your models where mine doesn't, I believe.
 

Balthazzar

N. Germanic Descent
If I understand you correctly then I do agree that some characteristics of dissimilar things do share numerous traits in common and seem to naturally fit into categories and taxonomies. Using these similarities as mnemonics is difficult to avoid. I doubt however, that "consciousness" is necessarily built up of discrete things nor can it be reduced using experiment at this time. Consciousness is much more an on/ off characteristic that is fundamental to all living things and obviously therefore generated in myriad ways. The consciousness in a freshly severed tree limb is very different than the consciousness of a person but that its alive can sometimes be shown by putting it in moist earth where it will root and grow.

There are many common denominators and the difference from one electron to the next is unlikely to ever matter to us when designing our machines. But these differences still accumulate in reality over time as surely as the wingbeat of a butterfly in China causes a hurricane.



Yes. But each characteristic and its suitability for supporting or denying existing belief can still be considered individually.

That was one of the points I was making about the cohesive properties of active components vs. anomalies. Truth's are built upon other truth's, so if your conscious structure identifies a truth it will build and develop further from that structure, if not the data will pass through as an anomaly. The anomalies will fit better elsewhere and would be in a different category.
 

Balthazzar

N. Germanic Descent
You seem to be thinking much more in terms of processes and I in terms of initial conditions and the forces at play. To think in your terms probably requires more categorization. I don't know. Your thinking requires time in your models where mine doesn't, I believe.
Conscious thought and my internal catalogue is all I'm able to utilize to develop from other data. Thought isn't so mechanical that it doesn't require ability to reason or ability to identify able components (data) for greater development. It's not like a change machine that separates the dimes from pennies and nickels from quarters, although similar principles apply.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I avoid all belief.
Except the belief that you avoid all belief, right?
EVERYTHING is causally connected. This is what experiment shows. Reality is a interconnection of all things in real time dependent on initial conditions.
And that collection can be called nature or reality. So, if gods exist and affect parts of nature, they too are natural.
Since we can see only what we believe we don't see anomalies.
Personal experience contradicts that. I see things that I wasn't expecting to see - things I didn't believe were true before I saw them.
You believe humans are "special" and other life is dumb so you see dumb instead of their behavior.
I just described my dogs' behavior. They've learned when their feeding times are and let me know that it's time to feed them. I don't think of them as dumb.
We see what we believe and reason in circles. Humans don't really "reason" at all because language precludes it.
Reasons has served me well.
"Induction" is the comparison of the characteristics of things in taxonomies and abstract categories. It requires the ability to manipulate symbolic language used only by our species.
Disagree. As I explained, my dogs generalize experience and demonstrate through their behavior that they expect the future to resemble the past.
 

firedragon

Veteran Member
This kind of question is disingenuous, given that what is known about the evolutionary tree is readily available to anybody who wants to find out, for example:

You don't even know the context of the question and you are just here to make some kind of rhetorical irrelevant statement. If that makes you feel good, well all good I suppose. Read the whole conversation if time permits you so that you are more aware of the context.

Thanks for the effort.
 
Christ Jesus Is Lord!
What I can say is that, with Science, everything has a cause and effect unless it can't be explained then it is a miracle. So Atheist( at least most of them) treat miracles as unknown variables till it gets explained whiles believers don't. whether or not science is able to explain it, it is still a miracle to believers unless atheists want to claim that based on 'water dipolarity theory' God parted the sea with giant magnets at that era? it seems to me that atheist in their attempt to disproof the Existence God with science always end up proving God's Existence and power.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
You don't even know the context of the question...
Somebody else who needs their money back from the fake mind-reading course. :rolleyes:

I read far more than I reply to, and it's actually quite difficult to even imagine a context in which asking for information about a common ancestor is not disingenuous, since any such question can easily be answered from publicly available sources.
 
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