Facts vs evidence

[muhammad_isa]

In language, a particular label can have multiple meanings. Does your reference to my use of the word "reality" match my use and the context in which it was used? No.

In the context of what @PureX said "AND that science is not going to be the tool that achieves that point.",
I think it does.
You assume that knowledge of scientific observations in the physical universe is the complete sum of knowledge
that we can know. That is demonstrably false.
"reality" does not just consist of physical observation .. it consists of psychological observations
of our behaviour as well .. amongst other things.

 

[MikeF]

In the context of what @PureX said "AND that science is not going to be the tool that achieves that point.",
I think it does.
You assume that knowledge of scientific observations in the physical universe is the complete sum of knowledge
that we can know. That is demonstrably false.
"reality" does not just consist of physical observation .. it consists of psychological observations
of our behaviour as well .. amongst other things.

Our behavior is a physical manifestation, so I'm not really seeing your point.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Our behavior is a physical manifestation, so I'm not really seeing your point.

..whatever .. it is a part of "reality".

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I remain open. If I die and find there is no God then I will change my view, and I'm sure you also have a similar approach.

Yes. If I die and find that there is an afterlife, I'll address that then, since there is no way to do that now better than guessing what it would be like. If I had to guess, I would guess that there would be no gods or judgment day, just another world to inhabit.

Of course, if consciousness ends with extinction, we won't know that when it happens.

So I have made a non sequitur fallacy because I believe what the evidence does not absolutely prove to be the case.

If your conclusion is not sufficiently supported by your evidenced argument to justify belief by rational standards, then your argument contains a fallacy and your conclusions do not follow from what precede them - the definition of a non sequitur ("does not follow" in Latin). All faith-based beliefs front-loaded with a specious argument are non sequiturs, but not if there is no argument. In the latter case, they are merely unsupported rather than insufficiently supported claims and not arguments.

It's not fallacy if it's not a part of an argument, a mistake people make when they call an insult without an argument ("You're an idiot") an ad hominem fallacy ("Your claim is wrong because you are an idiot") - pure insult verses insult to repudiate another's argument. Compare "Jesus is God," a claim, with "Jesus is God because the Bible says so," a claim that is also the conclusion of a fallacious argument, making it a non sequitur of that argument.

Some answers that derive from empiricism are educated guesses based on wrong presumptions.

Answers from empiricism are demonstrably correct before they are called answers or knowledge. One cannot rightly call the premises of any scientific inquiry wrong (or correct) unless he can demonstrate that empirically.

The Biblical time for the conquest is from 1400BC. Evidence shows the Book of Joshua to be accurate for this time period. That is archaeology, the evidence is there and is not made up.

If you are correct, you should be able to present that evidence and explain why you think it means that there was an Egyptian captivity for Hebrew slaves, their escape from Egypt, a forty-year journey through the desert, the destructive conquest of Jericho, and/or the invasion of Canaan. If you are incorrect, you will not be able to do that.

Scientifically we advance forward in most areas and in some areas we seem to be going backwards imo.

Once again, your unsupported opinion is not helpful. What areas do you see science going backward in? And I mean science, not government and industry. I would suggest that you have no good example.

That is an absurdity .. to suggest that everything we see has no purpose.

The absurdity is making that claim. You've ruled out the possibility of a godless universe based on nothing at all but you gut feeling.

What you mean, is that you see the purpose of things when you want to see it, and claim that things might not have purpose when it suits you.

Probably not (your comment was addressed to another poster for whom I don't speak). What most atheists say is that purpose requires an intelligence with an agenda (intention), and that there is insufficient evidence for an intelligent designer to believe that one was needed or available.

It wasn't difficult at all for me to consider that the universe may serve no purpose except to conscious life forms that have emerged from it, which purpose would be anthropocentric, not the purpose of the cosmic web comprising billions of galaxies of solar systems, which don't seem to be awake. You seem unable to conceive of that as a possibility, so you call reasonable ideas absurd.

The values in society, and hence way of life, has changed drastically in the last few decades.

Yes, but the Bible and Qur'an haven't, which its adherents see as a virtue and outsiders see as petrification and stagnation.

 

[muhammad_isa]

It wasn't difficult at all for me to consider that the universe may serve no purpose except to conscious life forms that have emerged from it..

It is contrary to reason, that conscious beings that have a purpose, "emerge" from a dead universe with no purpose.

You seem unable to conceive of that as a possibility, so you call reasonable ideas absurd..

You're right .. I do not see it as a possibility.
I do not think that consciousness is effectively an illusion.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

In language, a particular label can have multiple meanings. Does your reference to my use of the word "reality" match my use and the context in which it was used? No.

Well, both of you are a unique subjective state of brain when you use the word "reality" as you can't observe it, but only understand it. It is an idea and nothing else.
I.e. we can observe and understand that people have different subjective understandings of reality and that we are all of all humans and include both of you as a member.

Or in effect when both of you use the label, you both create that fact there is an objective reality. Thus both of you are God.

So there are as many God as there are understandings of reality, because thinking and claiming there is a reality, causes there to be an objective reality.
The act of defining a word causes the meaning to be an objective fact.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

It is contrary to reason, that conscious beings that have a purpose, "emerge" from a dead universe with no purpose.

No, it is not. If it were, you could make the argument that rebuts the claim that it is possible. You have no such argument because there is none. What you have is a fervently held belief based in your gut feeling.

You're right .. I do not see it as a possibility.

Since you can't rationally justify that position or rule out the alternative, that opinion is a reflection of a poverty of imagination from you that does not limit what is possible for nature.

I do not think that consciousness is effectively an illusion.

Neither do I, but believing that the universe or its source is conscious and purposive may be. And even if the universe is conscious and has a purpose in is mind, why should that concern us?

Incidentally, the source of consciousness has to be unconscious itself, unless you think an intelligent designer created it before it was conscious. Think about how incoherent such a claim is.

 

[muhammad_isa]

Incidentally, the source of consciousness has to be unconscious itself, unless you think an intelligent designer created it before it was conscious. Think about how incoherent such a claim is.

I don't know what you are talking about..
G-d is Eternal, as is consciousness.

We might sleep, but G-d does not.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I don't know what you are talking about..
G-d is Eternal, as is consciousness.

We might sleep, but G-d does not.

Yeah, but it still don't follow that your version of God is the correct one.

 

[MikeF]

The act of defining a word causes the meaning to be an objective fact.

Not sure if you are trying to tease me in some way, as if the above statement represents my faulty thinking. I would disagree if that is the case.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

It's inconclusive evidence.

If it is evidence at all, it is at best, very, very weak evidence.

That's a moot concept.

If you can imagine it and ask questions about it, then it is logically possible you said. Even by your own criteria, it is not moot.

You can't. That's why it's a moot concept.

It appears to be a moot concept simply because you can't really address it can you.

No one is asserting that.

You certainly seem to be asserting just that. Everything is imagination according to you and if you can ask a question about it, then it is logically possible, etc.

Unless our concept of existence is incomplete. Which is very likely given that we already have determined that the universe was pre-determined and therefor is not the sum total of all that exists or can exist.

How has the universe been determined to be pre-determined. You can't just claim that and make so by claiming it.

I may believe that, based on my religion, but you are claiming it to be demonstrated. Let me guess, your evidence is your imagination and asking a question.

No one has claimed that it is.

Once again, that seems to be the conclusion you are trying to make be the natural conclusion.

Scientism is the habit of presuming science to be the only valid method of determining or defending a proposed truth.

That's just a definition that doesn't answer my question. Seems like you are avoiding that question by lobbing this dud.

God is an imagined conclusion. As are they all.

All conclusions are not imagined. Some just don't have evidence to support them.

"Actuality" is about functionality, not truth.

Another response that isn't on point and seemingly lobbed to avoid my question.

What we believe is irrelevant to anyone but ourselves. All belief is, is adopting a position of self-assumed righteousness. "I believe I am right". "I believe my reality is reality."

Yet again, your answer doesn't fit my point. I said that you seem to be saying that people that believe something are not lying when they make an affirmative statement or claim about what they believe. I think that is so, but your response neither affirms nor denies that.

Of course it is. How do you not get that "what exists" is an imagined belief?

No it isn't. Again, how do you not get that?

But what you can't see is that "reality" and "existence" are imaginary meta-concepts happening in our minds that are derived from a jumble of incoherent sensory input that we then sift through using logic and imagination to create. So when you claim "X" is imaginary as though there is anything that is NOT imaginary, you are revealing this blindness.

I don't know that my sensory input is incoherent. If it were, I think perception wouldn't be consistent across individuals. If someone asks me and a group of different people to pick up a square object out of a group of objects of different shapes, I bet most of us will pick up the square object.

When you make the claims that you do, you are revealing that you see things that aren't there, but you want them to be the way you see them.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

What can I say, other than I disagree. You are fixated on the experience of the individual, and of that, I am more than happy to be skeptical. But we do not have to stop there, throw up are hands and say, we really can't know anything about the world around us. We do not simply have our own experience, we have the experience of billions of other imperfect observers. With all that data, as well as our ability to create tools that expand our ability to collect data, data collected independently from a human observer, we have the ability to explore and understand actual reality, or as you say "Actuality".

Since we can be quite confident that things exist, as explained above, referring to "all that exists" is hardly an imagined fiction. However, I am definitely not saying that we know all the details of everything out there, by any means.



When talking about "Actualtiy", or the real world for the rest of us, it is our understanding of the rules and properties of the cosmos that determine our ability to make a judgment of logically possible. Now, since I think we are both in agreement that collectively, we (humanity) do not fully understand all the rules and properties of the cosmos, I suggest that any proclaimed judgment of logically possible is necessarily restricted what comports with what we do know. Outside of that is simply unknown. In the world of "Actuality" as we know it, no one can claim imagined entites as logically possible, there is nothing there to logically support such a claim.

That is the impression I get. The natural conclusion of all those claims is to admit defeat, because we can do nothing and I don't agree with that.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Not sure if you are trying to tease me in some way, as if the above statement represents my faulty thinking. I would disagree if that is the case.

I will answer in the other thread.

 

[PureX]

Our behavior is a physical manifestation, so I'm not really seeing your point.

Actually, it's a metaphysical manifestation. As cognition is a transcendent physiological phenomenon that creates possibilities that do not otherwise physically exist.

The problem with your materialist philosophy is that it presumes existence is limited by and to it's physicality rather than by what is possible or impossible. Yet a bicycle, an airplane, a handgun, and even the idea of a wheel are all identified by the new possibilities they introduces into the realm of being, not by the materials their made of or the conglomeration of physical forces that enable them.

 

[Brian2]

If you are correct, you should be able to present that evidence and explain why you think it means that there was an Egyptian captivity for Hebrew slaves, their escape from Egypt, a forty-year journey through the desert, the destructive conquest of Jericho, and/or the invasion of Canaan. If you are incorrect, you will not be able to do that.

It means that there was a conquest of Canaan as the book of Joshua describes and at the time that the Bible indicates.

What Is the Correct Time Frame for the Exodus and Conquest of the Promised Land?

The debate about the date of the Exodus, conquest of Canaan, and establishment of Israel as a nation: What does Bible chronology say? And does the material on the ground offer any evidence?

armstronginstitute.org

Biblical Sites: Three Ways to Date the Destruction at Jericho

Children in Sunday School often sing, “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho. Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came a-tumbling down.” But did the walls of Jericho r…

biblearchaeologyreport.com

Extra-Biblical Evidence for the Conquest

The Merneptah Stele and other ancient, extra-biblical texts provide strong indirect evidence for the historicity of Joshua’s Conquest.

biblearchaeology.org

There is also evidence for the early writing of the Law and that the command to read the curse of the law on Mt Ebal actually did happen.

Ancient curse inscription deciphered from tablet discovered during archaeological wet sift on Mt. Ebal

Biscuit Media Group

religionnews.com

There is also evidence for Israel being in Egypt and for Joseph being there as a powerful ruler in Egypt but the conquest at the time and how the Bible describes is enough for the Biblical conquest story to be true.

Once again, your unsupported opinion is not helpful. What areas do you see science going backward in? And I mean science, not government and industry. I would suggest that you have no good example.

I have no good examples that you would accept.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Actually, it's a metaphysical manifestation. As cognition is a transcendent physiological phenomenon that creates possibilities that do not otherwise physically exist.

The problem with your materialist philosophy is that it presumes existence is limited by and to it's physicality rather than by what is possible or impossible. Yet a bicycle, an airplane, a handgun, and even the idea of a wheel are all identified by the new possibilities they introduces into the realm of being, not by the materials their made of or the conglomeration of physical forces that enable them.

Well, yes. But there is also something else at play. Some of them are in effect objectivist in a general sense. All that matters, is objective as objective reality whether God or the physical universe.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

It means that there was a conquest of Canaan as the book of Joshua describes and at the time that the Bible indicates.

What Is the Correct Time Frame for the Exodus and Conquest of the Promised Land?

The debate about the date of the Exodus, conquest of Canaan, and establishment of Israel as a nation: What does Bible chronology say? And does the material on the ground offer any evidence?

armstronginstitute.org

Biblical Sites: Three Ways to Date the Destruction at Jericho

Children in Sunday School often sing, “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho, Jericho, Jericho. Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came a-tumbling down.” But did the walls of Jericho r…

biblearchaeologyreport.com

Extra-Biblical Evidence for the Conquest

The Merneptah Stele and other ancient, extra-biblical texts provide strong indirect evidence for the historicity of Joshua’s Conquest.

biblearchaeology.org

There is also evidence for the early writing of the Law and that the command to read the curse of the law on Mt Ebal actually did happen.

Ancient curse inscription deciphered from tablet discovered during archaeological wet sift on Mt. Ebal

Biscuit Media Group

religionnews.com

There is also evidence for Israel being in Egypt and for Joseph being there as a powerful ruler in Egypt but the conquest at the time and how the Bible describes is enough for the Biblical conquest story to be true.
...

Yeah and there is evidence I exist, therefore I am the correct person that speaks in the name of God.
I can do that one too.

 

[PureX]

Well, yes. But there is also something else at play. Some of them are in effect objectivist in a general sense. All that matters, is objective as objective reality whether God or the physical universe.

Objectivity is a mythical concept, like God, that people then adopt as their truth. A theoretical state, like infinity, that no human can experience directly.

 

[Brian2]

Yeah and there is evidence I exist, therefore I am the correct person that speaks in the name of God.
I can do that one too.

Is that scientific evidence or just a claim.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Is that scientific evidence or just a claim.

No, it is the Truth.
I decide how all of the world works and I don't have to doubt that, because doubt is from Satan. I don't doubt that I am the truth for how all the world works, therefore that is how the world works. And if you doubt that, it is from Satan.

That can also be done with rational and irrational by the way and is not unique to religion.