Question for Atheists...

[TagliatelliMonster]

Take the sun away and you will quickly realize there is purpose.

The correct term to use here is "function".

 

[PureX]

Christianity came to my ancestors on the end of a sword and it was rammed down my throat as a child so cry me a river. All we are doing is debating for debates sake and discussing for the sake of discussion so why don't you just cool your jets.

Your resentment toward human behavior in the name of religion isn't exactly "objective evidence" against the existence of God, now is it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Do you question or merely accept?

I question claims. I accept evidence.

Do you seek at all? Where is your hunger to know?

You are hinting to a false dichotomy.
You seem to be saying that either one agrees with you or one is not hungry to know anything.
This is ridiculous.

I'm hungry to know. I shall just not accept claims without independently verifiable evidence.
I don't see the point of just believing things. It's a very good way to end up with false beliefs.

Do you wait for others to bring everything to you so you can accept or reject it??

The quest for knowledge is a work for the human collective. A single human life time is too short to discover everything for yourself.
Humans are so technologically advanced precisely because we accumulate knowledge.
Why would I not trust a physicist on physics matters over a non-physicist?

Is it strange to have someone pointing to where you can Discover the answers for yourself??

It is, when what is being pointed to is indistinguishable from self-brainwashing / self-deception.

I already told you... my standards for belief are higher then that.
Such is not sufficient to convince me about something concerning the external world. Especially not something as extra-ordinary as what is being talked about.

 

[Audie]

I love how you completely avoid being clear about your beliefs and instead decided to go on the offensive with a good ol' ad hominem


Classic.

Speaking of a waste of time.

 

[PureX]

Ideas exist as physical processes in our brains. At least, that is what all the evidence shows. And, even if false, that falsehood would be determined via the scientific method.

Everything exists as the cognitive result of that process. In fact, the process itself would not exist except that it generates the cognitive results that it does. Yet for some reason you are obsessed with the physical process as being the most important aspect, when you couldn't even assess importance without the cognitive result that you think is not as important as the physical mechanics that express it. That makes no logical sense at all. It's like saying that the evolutionary process is what really matters, not the life that it shapes, because it's what generates and shapes life. But it's not. In fact, evolution wouldn't even exist, nor would it have any purpose, without the phenomenon of life.

Philosophical materialism is fundamentally illogical, and doesn't make up for it by being useful to anyone.

??? Not even close. Protons existed long before anyone thought of them.

Nothing exists beyond our cognition except as an edict of faith. "Objective reality" is a fantasy that you believe in, quite blindly. And you have no way of ever proving otherwise because that would require our cognition. But you have so thoroughly convinced yourself that it's real that you can't even imagine how it might not be.

The planet Neptune existed long before anyone had the conception of it.

It doesn't exist at all except as an idea in our minds. But this is impossible for you to comprehend. Isn't it. Because you truly believe that the ideas in your mind exist apart from your mind. And they don't.

our ideas are how we *know* things exist, but that is not the same as saying that things only exist if they are ideas in some mind.

The reason that is wrong is because you are ignoring meta-ideas. Ideas that we use to generate and validate collections of other ideas. Your belief that "objective reality" is real is one of those. One that you won't doubt or question. Because if you do, you will begin to see how little we can actually know about anything. How much we are all living in a big myth of our own creating.

No. A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. Our conception of existence is not the same as existence.

It is to us, as we have no other options.

Existence is independent of us. Our knowledge of that existence depends on our senses, though.

You believe this, and so for you it is what it is. But it's just a theory that've chosen to believe in. You can't know that's so because you can't know anything apart from your own cognitive imagination.

No. One is a fictional character and the other is a real phenomenon.

Everything is fiction. Just different kinds.

The *idea* of Sherlock Holmes exists, but that is not the same as Sherlock Holmes existing.

What a silly statement.

No, one exists in the real world and the other does not. One exists merely as a fantasy, the other exists independently of us.

No, it is about knowledge and truth. And yes, the truth is important to me. And what distinguishes truth from falsehood is precisely the reliability of the truth.

I don't care about control. People have an absolute right to believe falsehoods. But I don't want to.

So they are not interested in the truth. They are interested in pleasant falsehoods. I am not.


That is a misuse of the notion of truth. Feeling good is its own *value*. Some choose that over truth.

Yes, feeling good is a value, not a truth. Truth is a different value. of the two, I choose truth.

That is, again, a misuse of the word.

Well, it matters whether we are deluding ourselves or not. That is why truth is a higher value for me.

Yes, most people are quite happy living with false beliefs.

Correct. I am NOT happy living with false beliefs. Otherwise, why not just go into a pleasant drug-induced coma? Control has nothing to do with it. Knowledge does. Curiosity does.

 

[ratiocinator]

"Objective reality" is a fantasy that you believe in, quite blindly.

What a totally absurd statement. Try walking through a few fantasy "objectively real" solid walls an let us know how you get on.

Obviously you don't even really believe this yourself, otherwise why would you be typing fantasy messages on a fantasy device that connects to a fantasy internet to be read by fantasy people and then answer their fantasy replies?

 

[Polymath257]

Neither am I claiming the animal was a dog or a wolf.

then why did you describe it as such?

Says the guy who says all sorts of things that aren't factual.

Give an example.

It's an atheists' tactic with no validity - baseless.

To point out that you don't understand a topic? Sorry, but that is perfectly valid.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

What a totally absurd statement. Try walking through a few fantasy "objectively real" solid walls an let us know how you get on.

Obviously you don't even really believe this yourself, otherwise why would you be typing fantasy messages on a fantasy device that connects to a fantasy internet to be read by fantasy people and then answer their fantasy replies?

Well, you are special, since you have made methodlogical naturalism irrelevant and you have solved the problems of the evil demon and the thing in itself.
Now I have bilnd faith the objective reality is real, orderly and knowable. But you seem to have evidence for that and thus made methodological naturalism irrelevant.
So please give the objective evidence for that.

 

[Polymath257]

Everything exists as the cognitive result of that process.

To me, that is simply absurd. Things exist whether we think about them or not.

In fact, the process itself would not exist except that it generates the cognitive results that it does.

Again, absurdities.

Yet for some reason you are obsessed with the physical process as being the most important aspect, when you couldn't even assess importance without the cognitive result that you think is not as important as the physical mechanics that express it.

Yes, knowledge about the world is a mental process. That doesn't mean the real world doesn't exist independently of our thoughts.

That makes no logical sense at all. It's like saying that the evolutionary process is what really matters, not the life that it shapes, because it's what generates and shapes life. But it's not. In fact, evolution wouldn't even exist, nor would it have any purpose, without the phenomenon of life.

Only in the sense that all life evolves.

Philosophical materialism is fundamentally illogical, and doesn't make up for it by being useful to anyone.

And philosophical idealism is better? hardly.

Nothing exists beyond our cognition except as an edict of faith. "Objective reality" is a fantasy that you believe in, quite blindly. And you have no way of ever proving otherwise because that would require our cognition. But you have so thoroughly convinced yourself that it's real that you can't even imagine how it might not be.

Well, among other things, the fact that I can be surprised shows that i am not the one generating my perceptions. That alone is evidence of an external reality.

It doesn't exist at all except as an idea in our minds. But this is impossible for you to comprehend. Isn't it. Because you truly believe that the ideas in your mind exist apart from your mind. And they don't.

I can comprehend what you say. I tis very similar to what the philosopher Berkeley said. But I find his ideas absurd as well.

I understand what you are saying. And I have considered it. I still find it absurd.

The reason that is wrong is because you are ignoring meta-ideas. Ideas that we use to generate and validate collections of other ideas. Your belief that "objective reality" is real is one of those. One that you won't doubt or question. Because if you do, you will begin to see how little we can actually know about anything. How much we are all living in a big myth of our own creating.

No, I am not ignoring meta-ideas. I am also not ignoring that there is a reality independent of our thoughts and ideas.

It is to us, as we have no other options.

That is a question of epistemology, not of ontology.

You believe this, and so for you it is what it is. But it's just a theory that've chosen to believe in. You can't know that's so because you can't know anything apart from your own cognitive imagination.

Rather a trivial statement and also irrelevant to the conclusion I have made.

Everything is fiction. Just different kinds.

Wow.

What a silly statement.

That Sherlock Holmes doesn't exist even though the idea of Sherlock Holmes does? How is that silly? I seems like common sense to me.

The idea of the moon is not the moon. It is merely our conception of the moon.

 

[lukethethird]

Your resentment toward human behavior in the name of religion isn't exactly "objective evidence" against the existence of God, now is it.

Never said it was, though I am relieved that the cosmic tyrant does not exist. The notion that a God created the universe is medieval, we live in the scientific age now, or at least some of us do.

 

[Polymath257]

Well, you are special, since you have made methodlogical naturalism irrelevant and you have solved the problems of the evil demon and the thing in itself.

Both are problems that philosophers like to tie themselves in knots about. But that is one of the reasons philosophy has so little value in figuring out things.

It is perfectly good as a way to have convrsations over drinks with friends or in discussion forums, but there is little to take seriously. It can be good mental exercise, though.

Now I have bilnd faith the objective reality is real, orderly and knowable. But you seem to have evidence for that and thus made methodological naturalism irrelevant.
So please give the objective evidence for that.

Among other things, the fact that i can be surprised is evidence that my thoughts are not all that exists. I do assume my memory is at least somewhat accurate (although not perfectly so). That means I can find and recognize order in my perceptions. This, together with the conclusion that there is something outside of me, leads to the scientific method to find and explain regularities in perception. So 'objective reality' is a hypothesis that is, in fact, testable (via surprise) and is useful for making predictions of new perceptions.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

To me, that is simply absurd. Things exist whether we think about them or not.

...

But you can't know about them if they exist independently of you knowing about them. It is a functional contradiction to claim you can know something indepedent of you knowing it.
So say there is a universe requires someone saying that.

So for real, it has no objective referent and is not science. That is philosophy.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Both are problems that philosophers like to tie themselves in knots about. But that is one of the reasons philosophy has so little value in figuring out things.

It is perfectly good as a way to have convrsations over drinks with friends or in discussion forums, but there is little to take seriously. It can be good mental exercise, though.

Among other things, the fact that i can be surprised is evidence that my thoughts are not all that exists. I do assume my memory is at least somewhat accurate (although not perfectly so). That means I can find and recognize order in my perceptions. This, together with the conclusion that there is something outside of me, leads to the scientific method to find and explain regularities in perception. So 'objective reality' is a hypothesis that is, in fact, testable (via surprise) and is useful for making predictions of new perceptions.

Those are not real for the real world as they don't exist indedepenty of your thoughts and feelings. You are doing philosophy yourself.

 

[viole]

Yes. The atheists' created God can easily be killed. After all, they created it, to kill it.

I am not sure I understand. Do you think we created the God of the Bible?
Or do you mean another God that is even easier to kill?

Ciao

- viole

 

[viole]

Yeah, but that is not the only philosophical way of understanding the world.

And where did I said that it is?

Ciao

- viole

 

[F1fan]

Your resentment toward human behavior in the name of religion isn't exactly "objective evidence" against the existence of God, now is it.

If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time in 17th century Europe with your views there's a good chance you would have been turned at the stake. Lucky you to be born in a more tolerant time. And with internet access.

 

[PureX]

To me, that is simply absurd. Things exist whether we think about them or not.

"Thing-ness" is an ideological assignation that does not occer outsde the hunan brain. There are no "things" out there that we do not designate. So whatever it is that you are insisting exists beyond and apart from human cognition, it's not a "thing".

Yes, knowledge about the world is a mental process. That doesn't mean the real world doesn't exist independently of our thoughts.

Real and unreal are cognitive value assessments. Whatever exists beyond and apart from human cognition it's neither real nor unreal.

Only in the sense that all life evolves.

Life evolves because it's life. It has transcended the limitations of matter and become self-determining. That's why it is able to evolve. Evolution didn't make life happen, life made evolution happen.

Well, among other things, the fact that I can be surprised shows that i am not the one generating my perceptions. That alone is evidence of an external reality.

It's only evidence that you cannot always predict how you perceive reality.

I can comprehend what you say. I tis very similar to what the philosopher Berkeley said. But I find his ideas absurd as well.

You really should try to get over that. It's a serious intellectual flaw that will stop you from learning new ways of comprehending the mystery of existence. It already is.

I understand what you are saying. And I have considered it. I still find it absurd.

Because you're stuck.

No, I am not ignoring meta-ideas. I am also not ignoring that there is a reality independent of our thoughts and ideas.

Who's reality would that be? God's? As clearly it could not be any of ours.

That Sherlock Holmes doesn't exist even though the idea of Sherlock Holmes does? How is that silly?

Are you even reading what you're writing? What's silly is that you are asserting that because Sherlock Holmes doesn't exist physically, he's some sort of lesser form of existence (metaphysically). Your bias for materialism is so profound that you're discrediting even your own assertions. Sherlock Holmes is far more than just physically extant, he's metaphysically extant. He can learn and teach and solve crimes and never die.

The idea of the moon is not the moon. It is merely our conception of the moon.

The idea and the physical experience are both the moon. They are both real and they both exist equally.

 

[F1fan]

But you can't know about them if they exist independently of you knowing about them.

Do you mean there is some guy named Domingo who lives in El Salvador (there's surely at least one being a common name) who I have no knowledge whatsoever about and I can't end up knowing about him in any way? How is it relevant to anything that I never know he exists and lives his life?

It is a functional contradiction to claim you can know something indepedent of you knowing it.

This makes no sense. I have no idea of the existence of people I will meet in the future but they exist despite my NOT knowing they do, yet.

So say there is a universe requires someone saying that.

So for real, it has no objective referent and is not science. That is philosophy.

Thus irrelevant to knowing what can be known.

 

[ratiocinator]

"Thing-ness" is an ideological assignation that does not occer outsde the hunan brain. There are no "things" out there that we do not designate. So whatever it is that you are insisting exists beyond and apart from human cognition, it's not a "thing".

Real and unreal are cognitive value assessments. Whatever exists beyond and apart from human cognition it's neither real nor unreal.

More absurdities. Have you tried the walking through those "walls" (that don't exist outside your mind) yet (#806)?

Life evolves because it's life. It has transcended the limitations of matter and become self-determining. That's why it is able to evolve. Evolution didn't make life happen, life made evolution happen.

Dogmatic assertion. Where is your reasoning or evidence? How could you even know if all your other dogmatic and absurd assertions are true?

It's a serious intellectual flaw that will stop you from learning new ways of comprehending the mystery of existence.

Wow. Has somebody learned something from your dogmatic philosophy? Do tell. How many people actually accept it?

[Sherlock Holmes] can learn and teach and solve crimes and never die.

Your whole approach is ironic in the extreme. You keep on lecturing people who base their beliefs on things that can be tested and shown to work for everybody (regardless of what they believe) and tell them how wrong they are and exactly how things really are, based on.... well, what exactly? It appears to be nothing but your own blind faith.

You are among the most dogmatic posters in the forum. The most certain of everything you believe, yet you appear to have no basis for it at all.

 

[Polymath257]

"Thing-ness" is an ideological assignation that does not occer outsde the hunan brain.

And yet, there are things outside of the human brain.

There are no "things" out there that we do not designate.

Of course there are. For example, there are certainly planets in the universe that we have not yet discovered.

So whatever it is that you are insisting exists beyond and apart from human cognition, it's not a "thing".

Absolutely there are things outside of human cognition. In fact, the *vast* majority of things have never been thought about by a human.

Real and unreal are cognitive value assessments. Whatever exists beyond and apart from human cognition it's neither real nor unreal.

Your assumption. I do not share that assumption.

Life evolves because it's life. It has transcended the limitations of matter and become self-determining.

Um, no. it is still subject to the limitations of matter. Life still follows the laws of physics, chemistry, etc.

That's why it is able to evolve. Evolution didn't make life happen, life made evolution happen.

No, the ability to evolve is one of the properties of living things.

It's only evidence that you cannot always predict how you perceive reality.

Which shows that there are aspects of reality that are not within my cognition.

You really should try to get over that. It's a serious intellectual flaw that will stop you from learning new ways of comprehending the mystery of existence. It already is.

I have read Berkeley. I just find his ideas absurd.

Because you're stuck.

Who's reality would that be? God's? As clearly it could not be any of ours.

Huh? Reality isn't something that people own. Again, it is independent of out thoughts or perceptions. Our *understanding* of reality is achieved through those thoughts and perceptions, but that is a limitation of humans, not a problem with reality.

Are you even reading what you're writing? What's silly is that you are asserting that because Sherlock Holmes doesn't exist physically, he's some sort of lesser form of existence (metaphysically).

Absolutely. In fact, Sherlock Holmes does not exist. Our *ideas* of Sherlock Holmes exist (in our heads), but Sherlock Holmes is not a real thing.

Your bias for materialism is so profound that you're discrediting even your own assertions. Sherlock Holmes is far more than just physically extant, he's metaphysically extant. He can learn and teach and solve crimes and never die.

Garbage. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character. he does not and has never 'existed'.

Are you even thinking about what you are writing?

The idea and the physical experience are both the moon. They are both real and they both exist equally.

But they are different things. Ideas are in our heads, the moon is not. Our ideas about the moon can be correct or incorrect. For example, the moon is NOT made of green cheese.