spin

I still find it intersting that this thread hasn't been moved to a more suitable place, but nevertheless I have been following it, so I may as well comment on it...

I have a certain sympathy for the view that Chaupoline is espousing. When proselytizers come to the door I often just tell them that I have enough trouble believing that the sun is going to rise tomorrow or that things I'm not looking at will remain the same as when I was looking, so who needs the extra complication of an even screwier set of beliefs?

To some degree Chaupoline is right. Everything we hold are constructs of the mind which we believe to be reflections of reality outside us. Our senses are our only access to that reality and what little information we receive through them gets heavily filtered by preprocessing algorithms we have learnt to apply from the earliest cognisant moments of our lives.

At the same time I think Chaupoline's thought here is ultimately unproductive. Those constructs, artificial indeed, are necessities which provide us with coherent access to the world outside us and sharing them with others gives us a modicum of objectivity about the world. This is important feedback which provides us the opportunity of correcting errors we have made in our taking on and employing of the tools we use to deal with the world.

Chaupoline is able to communicate ideas to Biff the Unclean, indicating a willingness to partake in the mechanisms seen as speculation. This in itself should show that the Chaupolinean position is more an argument for argument's sake rather than useful debate. Chaupoline shows by act that things exist outside his/her physical realm of control. This is an accession to a reality, even if it is through personal speculation. To espouse the Chaupolinean view one cannot adhere to it.


spin

Biff the unclean

Well it doesn’t have to be only for religious beliefs. Most scams and con jobs rely on faith too.
You must reject both reality and logic to support your religious contentions. You wouldn’t have to do that if they were either real or logical. Instead of searching for “absolute� truth all you have managed to do is discard plain old normal truth.

Nice going.

austin2

what is the purpose of a belief system

and how do YOU measure 'sucessful'?

and

what is the goal of Judiasm?

austin2

He asked about Israel not the Kingdom of Israel

and then he asked if Judiasm exists and is it a sucessful belief system...

why would you digress into some bizzare non sequitor about atheists in the United States?





quite odd

Biff the unclean

And one wonders if he does so out of ignorance or out of deviousness.
He refers to evidence that God chose Abraham and instead of asking if the Kingdom of Israel exists he asks about some country that started in the 1940’s that took the name of the old kingdom but is a completely different type of country.
It’s like pointing at a teenager named Arthur and saying “aha, the prophecy of the “Once and Future King� is true, Arthur has returned�. No, it's some other person named Arthur and no, it's some other country named Israel.

‘Is it successful’ would imply that it had many members. It doesn’t, so no, it’s not what you would call successful. That’s a rather simple concept that you are having trouble with there.

pharoah

Is 1 + 1 = 2 a concrete fact or speculation?

Is the statement "There are no concrete facts" a concrete fact or speculation? If it is a concrete fact then it contradicts itself, which makes it nonsense. If it's speculation then any evidence you introduce to support it would have to be concerete facts if you expect anyone to take it seriously. But wait, how can you use concrete facts to support the claim that there are no concrete facts? So you see, either way you go you become mired in hopeless absurbities.

Chaupoline

I think I understand where the confusion is coming from. I am not trying to disprove reality. I am just stating that reality exists beyond what we perceive and that we exist apart from our perceptions. There is always a possibility that our perceptions are faulty and therefore we can never say that what we perceive are concrete facts, because there is always the possibility that what we think we saw may be wrong. Absolute Truth is the way things are in their entirety, and our version of the truth is what we observed based upon our possibly faulty senses.

If you don't believe me ask any investigator that has had to take withnesses testimony about an incident. What they saw is not always what actually happened.

Biff the unclean

So you are saying that Abraham was crazy, and he didn't perceive God at all?

Chaupoline

No.

austin2

biff, says

that is not the implication

the goal of religion is to elevate mankind, create civil society based and inspire life with meaning and order

(or does each religion consider different criteria to evaluate level of sucess? the 'agenda' of Judiasm is not number of adherence, but rather to fulfill the task G-d chose for the Jews, that is to bring the Torah to the Nations...so from the the time of the escape from Egypt and the the people at Sinai, has this been done?)