Too Many Extremes in Disbelief

[Zwing]

I will dismiss the Reality Self-Simulation Principle in favor of the false proposition that space, time, special relativity and Quantum Mechanics are unreal and only matter is real

You are barking up the wrong tree. These words “space”, “time”, “special relativity” and “quantum mechanics” refer not to things which can be relational objects, they refer to process abstractions which are used in explanation of phenomena. The same with the term “home run”. I cannot perceive a special relativity, a time, or a home run via my senses, I can only conceive of them by observing the relations between the objects which I can perceive, such as a baseball, a bat, an outfield wall, etc. I determine that these things exist by means of the changing relations between the objects which I can perceive with my senses. “God”, however, is posited to be a relational object, and so demands evidence before it can be said to exist. Your analogy is false.

Please show me one respected professional philosopher who is a theist. Even Baruch Spinoza, in the hyper-religious milieu which he inhabited and in the age within which he lived, was an atheist. The concept of God does not hold rational water as pertains to the attribution of belief.

 

[Zwing]

my perception that there are profound, perhaps ineffable truths buried in the myth. And that in any case, some truths can only ever be approached obliquely.

Yes! This is the wonder of mythos. It is when we read myth like stupid children that we go all sideways.

 

[dybmh]

I think my problem is trying to get online people to take a more scholarly approach when really all they want to do is take an argumentative, emotional one People will throw Jesus out the window simply because they don't like Jesus and find evidence to back up their dislike of Jesus. I study Theology at uni as a non-Christian so I'm inundated with the back and forth of historical analysis on the Bible, Jesus, etc. Perhaps I'm holding people to an unreasonable requirement.

I think your observations are 100% correct. And I also think you're being very kind.

 

[dybmh]

“whatever God makes most sense to you”

Maybe, respectfully, it's just an entry point. The seeker needs a place to start, and then they need to keep going. Naturally everyone is different, so everyone is going to have a slightly different ( or vastly different ) place to start.

What was said is, imo, practical. Although for those who are not "seekers", they are more ... what's the word.... gnostic(?) no... it's not just that... they're .... I wish there was a word for this. It's like a combination of valuing knowledge and fairness. Gnostic-Egalitarian? Maybe for people who value knowledge-and-fairness this sort of answer is irritating? People with those values are looking for 1 common entry point that produces equal results for everyone?

And this ignores individual goals. There's a lot to this. But specifically with the statement above, I think the key attributes are the desire for knowledge and fairness, which is not a bad thing in any way.

And if I consider the primary valid criticisms of religious people, isn't it in those two categories? Lack of knowledge and lack of equity?

 

[dybmh]

may be a gateway to deeper understanding.

Gateway! I just saw this. Yup. We're def in agreement LOL.

 

[dybmh]

Your hidden assumption is that you can have objective evidence as such.
So now show that you can have objective evidence.

nah... it's beautiful. It's a statement of their individual values and affinties.

And your reply is a statement of your own values and affinties. Although it's phrased as a "You and Your".

 

[dybmh]

Well, it is said of YHVH that “he” (anthro again) desires that all worship him and place no other gods before him. Indeed, pertaining to any god that might exist, if that god wanted a relationship with either a particular man or with mankind, then an introduction would seem prerequisite, for how can a relationship precede an introduction?

well..... not exactly. YHVH is only speaking to and requiring that of the Jews. So not YHVH is no requiring all worship him. Although there will be point, in theory, where knowledge of YHVH will be everywhere. Perhaps you're speaking of "The-Father"? And the masculine pronoun has meaning far beyond being anthro. Both masculine and feminine are in the form-likeness of God equally.

 

[dybmh]

I deny that such is the case:

Psalm 100​

1 Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Does it seem that this is addressed only to Israelites? Might the writer of this have thought that God made only the Hebrews, and no other people? I don’t think so.

The first line is a little misleading... all the earth.. birds, dogs, kitty-cats... Joyfully. Meow-woof-woof-tweet-tweet.

Jews are his people. Ahm-Yisrael. Yisrael means we're his people. Forever. And it's not an easy job. "His/masculine" figuratively. And even if it is everyone, there's no penalty for not doing it. It's supposed to happen magically/by-miracle.

The verse in the Psalm looks like this:

​

דעו כי יהוה הוא אלהים הוא עשנו ולא אנחנו עמו וצאן מרעיתו׃​

​

Know that the Lord is God; it is he who made us, and we belong to him; we are עמו (Ahmoh his people), and the sheep of his pasture.​

2 Sam 18:7

וינגפו שם עם ישראל לפני עבדי דוד ותהי־שם המגפה גדולה ביום ההוא עשרים אלף׃​

​

And there the עם ישראל (Ahm-Yisrael people of Israel) were defeated by the servants of David, and there was there a great slaughter that day of twenty thousand men.​

2 Sam 19:41

​

ויעבר המלך הגלגלה וכמהן עבר עמו וכל־עם יהודה ויעברו את־המלך וגם חצי עם ישראל׃​

​

(K) Then the king went on to Gilgal, and Kimham went on with him; and all the people of Judah conducted the king, and also half the people of Israel.​

Ezra 9:1

​

וככלות אלה נגשו אלי השרים לאמר לא־נבדלו העם ישראל והכהנים והלוים מעמי הארצות כתועבתיהם לכנעני החתי הפרזי היבוסי העמני המאבי המצרי
והאמרי׃​

​

And when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not set themselves apart from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites.​

 

[dybmh]

Yes, then why does He hide himself away, when he might achieve his wish with a little revelation from time to time (as the generations change)?

Contrast makes a big impact.

 

[F1fan]

Such an argument as this proudly wears logical fallacy on its sleeve. For it amounts to the idea that materialism is the only simple and obvious fact and that which is unseen is "false".

Untrue is the logical default, that’s the problem for those who think undetectable gods exist. How would you even know? You can’t. So to be critical of those who are honest in only dealing with what we can detect is real and true is pure theater.

However, the reverse is true. That which is unseen is ultimate reality and that which is seen is illusion or self-simulation BECAUSE it is material.

Absurd.

Again, God IS real BECAUSE He was proven using logic. And it was shown that logic equates to reality.

This is a claim without evidence so we reject it. Come back when you have evidence and a coherent explanation.

 

[F1fan]

Well, you are a criticial thinker and skeptic, so you can solve the problems of the evil demon and the thing in itself.

If you offered facts perhaps I could. Alas, nothing but more theater.

 

[dybmh]

Untrue is the logical default,

Presumption of guilt is immoral.
Innocent till proven guilty.
A person should be considered honest until they perjure themself.

Should I apply this standard to each and every one of your posts. It's all untrue, right? By default? Everything you write is untrue?

 

[dybmh]

Untrue is the logical default,

Only if your background is with dishonest people and you never branch out from that population. The problem is you have calibrated your metrics based on a specifc population. The specific Christian groups with whom you were raised and associated with. But that is just a small sample of the world's religious people. Not only are you ignoring outliers, which are always included in any sample, but you're also falsely assuming that everyone everywhere matches your own personal experience.

This is the prosecutor's fallacy. The statistics world-wide do not match the statistics of individual populations. Your experience is not representative of everyone.

Base rate fallacy - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Audie]

Yes! This is the wonder of mythos. It is when we read myth like stupid children that we go all sideways.

Not me

 

[Audie]

Untrue is the logical default, that’s the problem for those who think undetectable gods exist. How would you even know? You can’t. So to be critical of those who are honest in only dealing with what we can detect is real and true is pure theater.

Absurd.

This is a claim without evidence so we reject it. Come back when you have evidence and a coherent explanation.

Or dont. Thats OK too.

 

[dybmh]

Not me

You do seem to be obsessed with the children's cartoon bible version.

I mean, the very first post you made on this thread, brought it up. Is that "going sideways"? Kind of. You seem to be totally distracted by these things.

 

[F1fan]

Presumption of guilt is immoral.
Innocent till proven guilty.
A person should be considered honest until they perjure themself.

That is why claims of criminal acts are deemed untrue until evidence is presented. That’s the same as religious claims are deemed untrue until evidence is presented.

Should I apply this standard to each and every one of your posts. It's all untrue, right? By default? Everything you write is untrue?

Yes. Valid explanations are based on evidence and consistency with truth.

 

[Zwing]

…a concept of divinity which makes sense to the individual, may be a gateway to deeper understanding.

No, a study of the biblical and other mythoi is a gateway to deeper understanding of the human condition. A formulation of the concept that there is an existent god without having any objective evidence that such is true is no more than a delve into fallacious thinking, and a gateway to delusion. This much is obvious.

 

[Ella S.]

I see it as the other way around. Cosmology can be done as a scientific endeavor. In fact, it is currently being done as such. Questions about space, time, and origins are being asked and answered by scientists. That clearly has relevance for metaphysics since metaphysics needs to somehow cope with the answers found (that is, it does if you want to do metaphysics at all).

My personal view is that classical metaphysics is deeply flawed and needs to be thrown out. A new metaphysics needs to be constructed based on what we have found through science. If this seems backwards, it is because the history of ideas has been forgotten: the reason we have classical metaphysics is because of the attempts to understand what ancient observations showed about the universe. The problem is that Aristotle got it wrong. That is to be expected because he didn't know a lot of what was only discovered 2000 years later.

As for quantum mechanics, I think this gives the best example of why classical metaphysics is flawed. The problem is not that there is no ontology, but rather that there is no *classical* ontology. if you want to understand the quantum world using classical notions of 'particle', 'cause', 'space' and 'time', you *will* get confused and see paradoxes everywhere. If, instead, you take QM as telling you what sort of metaphysics you need (probability based, with correlations that travel), those paradoxes vanish.

I wish we still had the gold star "Winner" frubals. If there was ever a post that deserved one, it's this one.

I think people forget that "metaphysics" was originally a part of natural philosophy and natural philosophy is the ancestor to modern science. I don't disagree that metaphysics played an important role in natural philosophy, but in modern science that same role is fulfilled by theoretical science. The idea is the same; using the evidence gathered from investigation, both build a speculative model that ties those observations together.

This can be seen the clearest when you compare the Standard Model with the metaphysical position of Atomism. Both posit that matter is reducible to a set of elementary particles, but the Standard Model is considered a part of science rather than academic philosophy. It illustrates how the role of metaphysics has been supplanted by scientific investigation.

And that's not a failing on the part of metaphysics. It played an important function in its time. It's just that its time has more or less passed now.

 

[Zwing]

That’s the same as religious claims are deemed untrue until evidence is presented.

This is particularly true of claims annd propositions about the supernatural and extranatural. If you were to tell me that a new species of finch has been discovered in Africa, then that is a claim only involving the natural, and I may accept it without demanding evidence. If you were to tell me, however, that a beast being half man and half walrus has been discovered in Antarctica which feeds upon toucans that wash up from Brazil, then that is a claim involving the extranatural, and I should require objective evidence before accepting the claim. In like manner, claims about UFO’s or extraterrestrials. Similarly, claims about gods are supernatural claims, and demand the provision of objective, supernatural evidence if their acceptance is to be considered rational. We have to keep in mind what types of propositions that we are evaluating.