Let's Present Some Evidence ...

[Atheologian]

It sounded more like a believing exericse to me.

Maybe you aren't very good at thinking...

a thinking excersize requires you to put yourself in the place of a hypothetical event or scenario, and apply that experience to your own.

 

[Willamena]

a thinking excersize requires you to put yourself in the place of a hypothetical event or scenario, and apply that experience to your own.

As I said . . . an exericse in beleiving.

 

[Atheologian]

But do we imagine that the "truth" we find, testable and verifiable, is all the testable and verifiable truth that there is to find in the books written by superstitious fools?

More of this, really? Why? While the sentence makes little sense, I get the gist of it. Yes, we do imagine that proven things are true, and things that cannot be proved, should not be considered when discussing truth. That means God.

 

[Atheologian]

As I said . . . an exericse in beleiving.

Just give it up already. You have no idea what you're talking about.
An excercise in believing is called FAITH, or RELIGION.

 

[Willamena]

Oh . . . I gave up long ago.

 

[Willamena]

More of this, really? Why? While the sentence makes little sense, I get the gist of it. Yes, we do imagine that proven things are true, and things that cannot be proved, should not be considered when discussing truth. That means God.

Is truth the same as proof?

 

[Atheologian]

Oh . . . I gave up long ago.

Sorry, that was a little rude. But you still need to give up the "believeing excersize" thing. That's nonsense. You can't take part in a theoritical situation if you don't "presuppose" the necessary angle.

The John Frum experiment is typical of any thought expirement, only condensed to fit on one post.
You can call thinking believing if you like, but they are not the same.

 

[PureX]

If you are using the term culturally, than obviously you do mean God in the biblical sense. Don't you mean you use the term philosophically?

I personally use it practically. I am nothing if not practical.

What you did was borrow the idea of a supreme being, and applied your own ideals and morals to it.

What I did was confront a mystery, and sought out how I might be able to use it to better my life. Some of the 'ways' I borrowed from various religions. And eventually I pasted together a kind of theology that seems to work for me.

If you want to debate that, we can. Just ask any two moderate theists what their idea of "God" is. You'll never get the same answer, and you'll have to dig through meaningless philosophical banter to get there.

That's because "God" is a dynamic concept. It's both unique to individuals, and every-changing.

 

[Willamena]

Sorry, that was a little rude. But you still need to give up the "believeing excersize" thing. That's nonsense. You can't take part in a theoritical situation if you don't "presuppose" the necessary angle.

Alright. . . what we were supposed to take away from the thinking exercise? And where does a belief system (for instance) lie in "presupposing the necessary angle"?

 

[Atheologian]

Just out of curiosity, would you consider yourself agnostic? As in, you don't know and we'll never know, so it's no use to debate the unforseeable?

 

[Commoner]

Logic has it's place, and value. But it's not the magic totem of all truth. We have a lot of other tools.

No, of course it's not. Logic, by itself tells you nothing - what it does tell you is what follows from a premise and what does not.

 

[Atheologian]

I personally use it practically. I am nothing if not practical.
What I did was confront a mystery, and sought out how I might be able to use it to better my life. Some of the 'ways' I borrowed from various religions. And eventually I pasted together a kind of theology that seems to work for me.
That's because "God" is a dynamic concept. It's both unique to individuals, and every-changing.

Regardless of whether it works for you, it doesn't mean it's real or true. Believing something does NOT make it so. Since you pride yourself on being practical, what are the chances that the god you put together in your own head is REAL? What makes him any more real than a god that encourages human sacrifice or slavery? And be careful, if you start philosphising on what is "truly real" or "real in my reality", you've wandered off into intangibles again.

 

[PureX]

Just out of curiosity, would you consider yourself agnostic? As in, you don't know and we'll never know, so it's no use to debate the unforseeable?

We are all agnostics, I believe. I don't know if God exists or not. I choose to live as if God (as defined by me) does exist because I find that my life is improved by my doing so.

 

[Willamena]

Just out of curiosity, would you consider yourself agnostic? As in, you don't know and we'll never know, so it's no use to debate the unforseeable?

I am neither of and each of agnostic, atheist and theist.

 

[PureX]

No, of course it's not. Logic, by itself tells you nothing - what it does tell you is what follows from a premise and what does not.

Sometimes.

The problem with truth is that all we can really get out of it is relative truthfulness. "A" can be shown to be true only relative to "B" and "C". A true "A" by itself is just a tautology. It doesn't mean anything because it's neither informed by, nor informs, anything else.

 

[Atheologian]

The Modern Theist:

God exists in the minds and hearts of those that believe. He as an idea. He is energy. He is love. He is the thought behind the thought. He is a mystery, that I will never understand, I can't see, touch, feel, hear, smell or taste him, but I know he's there. I have no proof, except for archaic religions and bogus scriptures from centuries ago, but I believe. He works in mysterious ways. I can't understand him with my human brain, but my soul, which I also have no proof of, will return to him when I die. While my organic matter decomposes, my personality will live on forever, in the form of... Something. I might be reincarnated, but I'm not sure. I will deny all corelation between MY deity, and ANY deity used to prove it false. My deity is one of my own personal making, so he CAN'T be disproved. When I don't understand something, "God did it." When something is beyond the reach of modern knowledge, "God did it." I also refuse to aknowledge that religion is harmful to the world, and insist that EVERYONE believes in God in the same moderate, half-hearted way that I do.

 

[Atheologian]

I am neither of and each of agnostic, atheist and theist.

That doesn't make any sense.

 

[Commoner]

The problem with you 'argumentum ad populum' objection is that it comes from an old philosophical format that was designed to get at a static, objective idea of truth. In the several hundred intervening years since these philosophical rules were invented, our collective concept of truth has changed considerably, to the point where many of these old rules just don't apply, anymore.

In the case of our discussion, we are not pursuing an objective truth, like those philosophers of days of old. We are pursuing a concept of truth, now, that does in fact live in the minds of humans, only. And as such, the 'argumentum ad populum' actually becomes a viable bit of evidence, rather than an objectionable misdirection. In the modern world, we don't get to own some absolute objective static truth. The best we can do is a glimpse at a dynamic, relative, and limited truth. And we each are going to get that glimpse from our own unique place in time and space. Suddenly, our opinions have become a lot more important than they once were. And that includes mass opinion.

The problem is bigger than that. People believe so many nonsensical things - things on which even we would agree without doubt are absurd and we are so bad when applying "common sense" to problems in which common sense fails, that there is no way to distinguish the "good beliefs" from the "bad beliefs" by measuring popular opinion. By itself, numbers say nothing, they don't present evidence - you need to back it up some other way. And if you have another way, popularity becomes irrelevant anyway.

What's the difference between "40% of Americans believe in ESP", "37% of Americans belive in ghosts" and "39% of Americans believe evolution". How do you tell which one is a "good belief". They certainly all "work" for people, so how would you know if not for some other evidence?

That doesn't mean that opinions that are "only" opinion and ideas that are "only" ideas don't matter, it's just that the frequency of these ideas among the population is not sufficient to warrant calling it "evidence" and is not only not sufficient but is in many cases the complete opposite of the facts.

 

[Commoner]

Sometimes.

The problem with truth is that all we can really get out of it is relative truthfulness. "A" can be shown to be true only relative to "B" and "C". A true "A" by itself is just a tautology. It doesn't mean anything because it's neither informed by, nor informs, anything else.

Exactly. But it will tell you when a conclusion is illogical given the premise. It will not tell you if the premise is correct.

 

[Atheologian]

Sometimes.

The problem with truth is that all we can really get out of it is relative truthfulness. "A" can be shown to be true only relative to "B" and "C". A true "A" by itself is just a tautology. It doesn't mean anything because it's neither informed by, nor informs, anything else.

You are trying to bend the theory of relativity to something as intangible and unreal as "Truth". There is no "relative truthfulness". Truth is only an idea. However, the notion of truth allows only ONE of any number of alternatives to be "True".

if A is only true in relation to B and C, than D and E don't exist.

Relativity works when you are speaking of the realtionship between space and time, not you and your deity.