You Can't Argue Against God

[mikkel_the_dane]

You still haven't done the half-hour-with-no-air test.

When you've done it, please be sure to let me know how it went.

You don't know that.

Here is that problem - you take for granted what you are supposed to show as a fact. In a sense it is a circular arguement.
I can only be doing this if objective reality is real. I am doing this, therefore objective reality is real.

You really have to learn that your philosophical system hasn't solved the main problems in epistemology. You just believe it like any in effect true believer. The variant to religion is that you are in effect a naturalist yet a true believer.

 

[paarsurrey]

You Can't Argue Against God​

The justification for science is not that it's true in any absolute sense but that it works.

I agree that Science is not true in any absolute sense, it is useful if it works.
Hope, I have understood one correctly, please, right?

Regards

 

[firedragon]

So, the fast way to shut up these Theist is simple. Just tell them "that's false"

As any claims starting with "God =" is per definition false. Facts need mot be debated

That's called handwaving.

As a rational person, you have to give valid, non-contradicting, rational reasoning to back up your assertion that "it's false".

 

[PureX]

Why?

Because existence isn't random, and could not have spontaneously burst forth from random nothingness.

And what exactly do you mean by "God" here? If God exists in more ways than as a concept, notion, thing imagined in an individual brain, then God is out there in reality. So why can't we detect and describe [him]? Why does God never appear, say or do?

We have no idea what the limits of "reality" are. It is very reasonable to assume that there is a great deal of "reality" that we humans cannot detect, and that we have no awareness of, whatever.

Do amoebae need gods? Do ants? Fish? Snakes? Birds? Mammals?

Everything needs the organizing possibilities and limitations that have allowed and enabled them to exist. And those possibilities and limitations require a source. We call that source "God". So yes, ALL that exists, "needs God".

But by looking for those answers, science has built the modern world, the computer, the Mars rover, modern medicine, genetic science, materials for cars, sewing machines, carpets, paint, railroad rails, on and on.

Science has also enabled mankind to destroy itself. Which mankind seems destined, now, to do. So as you want so badly to sino it’s praises, keep in mind that it has given a box of loaded pistols to a bunch of hyperactive monkeys.

The justification for science is not that it's true in any absolute sense but that it works. The justification for religion is to be guessed at, but there are credible theories out there.

Religion, philosophy, and art also "work" very well when they are appropriately applied to the mystery of being. While science works disastrously when it's wrongly applied. We need to use them all if we wish to gain wisdom rather than intelligence. Yet the scientism cult absolutely cannot grasp or accept the idea that religion is valuable and useful to humanity in any way. Or in many cases that philosophy is anything more than just mental masturbation, while art is really just for entertainment purposes. They are ignorant zealots for 'science always and only'.

You echo their sentiments constantly.

 

[RestlessSoul]

No, as I've said many times, outside of this sentence there are no absolute statements.

And our understanding of reality changes, so that what was true at one time is not longer true ─ which is to say, truth is never absolute, but it is indeed retrospective. For example, as you know, the Michelson-Morley experiment put an end to the understanding that light propagated in the lumeniferous ether. Or, going the other way, until 2012 it wasn't true that mass is due to the Higgs boson, but now it is.

My definition of truth is that truth is a quality of statements, and a statement is true to the extent that it accurately reflects / corresponds with objective reality.

What definition of truth do you use?

No, self-awareness is not illusory. You, looking out through your eyes, and via your other senses, perceive the world external to your self, accurately or inaccurately, but you can still cross the road safely, still recognize your parents, siblings, friends and others, still understand that you / your body needs air, water, food, society and so on.

I don't suggest that we do. On the contrary, I point out that we each perceive the world we live in through our senses, aided of course by our evolved instincts.


No. You will never be someone else, or a bird, or a car, or a gutter, or a shop, and nor will I. Your death will not be my death, or vice versa, in any meaningful sense.

And when you die, that will be the end of you, and when I die that will be the end of me ─ no more perceiving, no more living identity for either of us. But reality will still be there.

Your definition of truth is okay as far as it goes. It doesn’t go very far, and certainly doesn’t point at any truths of it’s own, but it’s functional. It fails, however, to take account of the mounting evidence that everything in this objective reality of yours is not only in flux, but also defined by context. So any correspondence between objective reality and our understanding of it, is necessarily transient.

If you take it as axiomatic - and quantum physics points us in this direction - that object, observer, and act of observation are inseparable, then your paradigm of an objective reality which is external to and distinct from our observation, but somehow susceptible to it, no longer serves. We need a new paradigm, a new way of understanding the shifting relations between subject, object, and observer.

 

[stvdv]

That's called handwaving.

As a rational person, you have to give valid, non-contradicting, rational reasoning to back up your assertion that "it's false".

Oh, I thought in the case of "God = .." it's too obvious, no need to debate

God is defined as e.g. Omnipresent, Omniscient and Omnipotent. God can't be limited,

Hence, never write God on left side of "="

God = ...

As this limits God, hence "it's false"

 

[blü 2]

You don't know that.

Here is that problem - you take for granted what you are supposed to show as a fact. In a sense it is a circular arguement.
I can only be doing this if objective reality is real. I am doing this, therefore objective reality is real.

You really have to learn that your philosophical system hasn't solved the main problems in epistemology. You just believe it like any in effect true believer. The variant to religion is that you are in effect a naturalist yet a true believer.

You STILL haven't tried it. I'll wait.

 

[blü 2]

Because existence isn't random, and could not have spontaneously burst forth from random nothingness.

We don't know that. There's a lot we don't know, but at least science is systematically looking.

We have no idea what the limits of "reality" are. It is very reasonable to assume that there is a great deal of "reality" that we humans cannot detect, and that we have no awareness of, whatever.

If by that you mean we're entitled to assume something is there but we can't detect it, you and I disagree. We can hypothesize in order to test ideas, as we do about "dark matter" and so on, but we can't assert the existence of something for which we have no evidence.

Everything needs the organizing possibilities and limitations that have allowed and enabled them to exist. And those possibilities and limitations require a source. We call that source "God". So yes, ALL that exists, "needs God".

"Organizing possibilities and limitations" are how chance drives evolution, But evolution is blind, and to call them "organizing" or "possibilities" or "limitations" are all human interpretations of blind events, processes and forces.

Science has also enabled mankind to destroy itself. Which mankind seems destined, now, to do. So as you want so badly to sino it’s praises, keep in mind that it has given a box of loaded pistols to a bunch of hyperactive monkeys.

So did the inventor of the club, the spear, the arrow &c. It's never dull being a hyperactive ─ ahm I think you'll find we're apes, not monkeys.

Religion, philosophy, and art also "work" very well when they are appropriately applied to the mystery of being.

They work as social tools, except of course when they don't, and apparently unlike you I find "the mystery of being" largely answered by evolution. And though I allow that abiogenesis still lacks a demonstrable path from chemistry to biochemistry, the answer will be found by science because science is actively looking, and not by religion, which is essentially an adjunct to social systems and is not looking.

 

[blü 2]

Your definition of truth is okay as far as it goes. It doesn’t go very far, and certainly doesn’t point at any truths of it’s own, but it’s functional. It fails, however, to take account of the mounting evidence that everything in this objective reality of yours is not only in flux, but also defined by context. So any correspondence between objective reality and our understanding of it, is necessarily transient.

So what's your definition of "truth?

 

[RestlessSoul]

So what's your definition of "truth?

I don’t have time to write 10,000 words and still miss the target. So I’ll borrow just a few, from Jalalludin Rumi;

“The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Each person took a piece of it, and thought they had the truth.”

 

[blü 2]

I don’t have time to write 10,000 words and still miss the target. So I’ll borrow just a few, from Jalalludin Rumi;

“The truth was a mirror in the hands of God. It fell, and broke into pieces. Each person took a piece of it, and thought they had the truth.”

So you have no definition, no clear concept, of truth.

That sounds convenient.

 

[RestlessSoul]

So you have no definition, no clear concept, of truth.

That sounds convenient.

That so obviously isn’t what I said. But of course, we keep missing the obvious, all of us.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

So you have no definition, no clear concept, of truth.

That sounds convenient.

Well, here is one defintion of God. God is the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being. That is the defintion but that doesn't mean that it is a fact. So the definition of truth doesn't have to be a fact, just like with God.

Now you are just playing words games in your mind so you can claim to yourself that you won.
Defintions is about how we understand a word. But that is not that same as if there is a God or if there is truth. Be a general skeptic and don't just doubt God.

 

[blü 2]

Well, here is one defintion of God. God is the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being. That is the defintion but that doesn't mean that it is a fact. So the definition of truth doesn't have to be a fact, just like with God.

Now you are just playing words games in your mind so you can claim to yourself that you won.
Defintions is about how we understand a word. But that is not that same as if there is a God or if there is truth. Be a general skeptic and don't just doubt God.

Have a nice day.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Have a nice day.

So how do you know that your definition of truth is valid?
That problem is close to over 2000 years old in Western philosophy. Have you solved it?

I haven't. I am just honest about it and understand how come we have methodological naturalism.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Actually they are quite empirical to those who experience them.

You might want to look up what "empirical" means.

To give an extreme example we might both agree on: when a schizofrenic experiences hearing voices, he does not have empirical evidence of voices.

Mere "personal experience" is not empirical.

Which I've been trying to explain to you but you'd don't seem ready to hear anything which doesn't fit within your concept of reality.

The problem is that you are confusing subjective personal experience with empirical data.
They are not the same thing.

Well I have. Not for any specific demon. Just a general cleansing of the house. I didn't come across any demons about the house afterwards so I can't say it didn't work.

I submit that you didn't come across any demons, ever.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

How does one rape the word?
Oh, you mean misuse, right, please?

Regards

Yes, you have successfully understood a figure of speech.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There are no good reasons in objective reality and no good reason decides what objective reality is as independent of the mind.

Empirical evidence, is a pretty good reason.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Empirical evidence, is a pretty good reason.

Yeah, but good is not empirical and nor is reason. So you have to show non-empirical evidence for how it is a pretty good reason.

I get how emperical evidence makes sense. But from there doesn't follow strong realism or naturalism as such.
You are in effect a scientific skeptic, where as I am a general one.

Now for solipism, I am a limited emperical solipsist, in that I believe in a weak subjective understanding of knowledge. I.e. knowledge can make sense, but that it makes sense, is subjective.
I still accept that there is an objective reality. I just don't haven't seen any evidence for what that reality is, other then not the mind as per having reality independent of the mind.

Now if you have to answer with in effect emotions, then do so.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Yeah, but good is not empirical

It's not an empirical claim either, but a judgement call.

You have a very annoying habit of mixing different things together.
It's the equivalent of asking what purple tastes like.
Does not apply.