capnkirk

I know you wrote this to Starboy, but I will still respond.

To expound on Vorkosigan's earlier post to this thread: "No. It is a degree in defending make-believe as truth, a much more pernicious act", and I would add, "one that requires much more intellectual agility." As the holder of a BSEE, I would agree with your friend. Engineering is so solidly founded on empirically demonstratable principles that a reasonable intellect and a talent for logical thought take all the mystery and ambiguity out of an engineering degree. To organize and digest all the ambiguity and mysticism of a theological doctrine (Xtian or 'other') requires much more intellectual energy and a lot more stress, especially for someone as grounded in physical reality as an engineer. I got just a taste of that when I went back to school and earned a BA (Cultural Anthropology), and we weren't dealing with anything as emotionally invested as our own personal religious convictions. Nonetheless, his comparison of relative difficulty is not representative of relative merit or relative veracity.

In ultimate effect there is no difference. A theologian absolutely will not tackle MY questions head-on! He can do no more than steadfastly reaffirm his faith while trying to deflect my questions. I have a relative who is a theologian, and after a few minutes of penetrating questions, he simply shut it all down with the declaration: "The contract (between man and God) is not understanding! The contract is faith!" Game over! That pretty well sums up the chasm between the theologian and the skeptic.

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nermal

Don't hit me with too big a stick, damnit. I'm trying to wrap my brain about some of this stuff.

I do admit ignorance, a whole lot of ignorance, but where I am ignorant, I ask questions and put forth ideas with a is this anything, or bullshit? caveat.

Ed

capnkirk

Hugo Holbling:

The tenor and thinly veiled sarcasm of your reply have amply demonstrated why there is no reason to try to debate anything with anyone on the Philosophy Forum (PF). Some people just like to argue, perhaps it is the stimulation of engagement, but it is ubiquitous on PF.

So far as "the unavoidable philosophical presuppositions involved in engineering" are concerned, you draw the erroneous conclusion that since I have no desire to debate them with you and your colleagues, I have not dealt with them to my own satisfaction. For me they are finished business; for you guys, nothing is ever finished business...and that one factor is critical to why I have nothing more to offer PF. Engineers have to finish projects; armchair philosophers don't labor under that constraint.

The bottom line is that the approval/disapproval, concurrence/disagreement of Philosoft & Co is irrelevant to me. I have satisfied myself that my philosophy works, and that it is too "pedestrian" for your lofty intellects, hence the abandonment of your pet forum. I have lived in quiet indifference to the approval of society all my life (well, not yet); and have thus come to cherish my anomie. My impressions of PF arise from direct exposure, and at this time are 'no longer negotiable', though I realize that that is an alien concept to PF.

There is simply no reason to go there any more. If you construe that to mean that my mind is closed, you are correct insofar as it is closed to PF. I am comfortable with that, whether you are or not.

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Hugo Holbling

How is it that you're able to read my mind? That could prove a useful skill. Do you think it helps to spread your contempt so widely like this, dismissing everyone in one sweep? I thought remaining open to the possibility of being wrong was a good thing, but i may have been sat in the armchair for too long.

Well, one of us is being presumptious for sure. Have you even looked at the efforts that some of us have made to explain why there is no armchair and why philosophical problems are both useful and important? Apparently not, in your haste to insult and dismiss us.

I'll wager your disdain is of little concern to those that post there, too, but once again you are perhaps a little too quick to suppose that everyone participating there behaves in a way you disapprove of. Since - by your own admission - you haven't even looked to check, that seems a little unfair and hardly any different from a theist who might be accused of behaving similarly. Nevertheless, i'll be glad to see you take up the defence of any true believer who takes this tack here at II with respect to their own ideas.

*shrug* It's not my forum. I have my own philosophy and it doesn't include dismissing the posts of people i may not have met in a forum i haven't even read for at least a year. However, this wouldn't be the first time i've been so foolish and idealistic while piloting my armchair.

I'm very glad for you, but if that's so then why are you here telling everyone how worthless the philosophy forum is? If you don't care what we think and don't feel the need to even lurk, let alone join in, why are you here telling me what i am and the value of what i do? If philosophy is so plainly useless then perhaps i have rather more confidence than you in people's ability to see that for themselves and just ignore me?

Good luck to you. I presume you'll also be refraining from criticising theists who have decided likewise.

I'm quite happy for you to decide as you like, since you've already disclaimed the possibility that you might be wrong and i sleep just fine despite your scorn.

capnkirk

You simply confuse the special case with the general case.

Special case: I have nothing more to share on IIDB Philosophy forum (PF).

General case: I have freely discussed and debated a huge number of issues on other forums on IIDB, mostly on BC&H and GRD. I have changed my POV on any number of occasions subsequent to those dialogs. In my experience it was on PF where I seldom saw a POV changed, so I left.

Fallacy: One who has reached a conclusion on an issue cannot be a freethinker. The concluded issue is whether there is any point for me to ever look at PF again.

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Hugo Holbling

If the irony of this remark doesn't hit you like a kipper at a disco then perhaps you had better avoid any forum where people think before they speak.

capnkirk

OK all you guys, you have now had a wonderful demonstration of the hubris and need to have the last say that you can expect on PF.

Sorry, but this demonstration is over.

One to beam up..
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Tyler Durden

What exactly are the words TA wrote, and where is the citation? i have the books at hand.

Thomas Aquinas does claim that his theology is the appropriate means to truth, true, just like any other philosopher. I don't mean to imply that theology and the philosophy of religion are identical. I could have added the qualifier that while theology is a study of the history of philosophy of religion, the common difference btw T and PoR is that in theology you assume the truth of the object under scrutiny. Of course the fact that there are agnostic and atheistic theologians is usually lost on us skeptics: we'd much prefer to go after those heathen believers. But nowadays, if you attended a theology seminar, preferrably a liberal one like Fuller in Pasadena, you would learn that they are concerned with the philosophy of religion to a greater detail than it used to be in the past, and the length they go to appropriate material from different disciplines is amazing. For what it's worth, theology encompasses far more than just the contentious apologetics the skeptics have grown familiar with on this forum, so there is a danger of having a dim view of theology that distorts the entire discipline.

Tyler Durden

That's a shitty analogy -one of the weakest I've seen in a long while - because one may be submitted to physical tests and the rigors of experimentation, while the other isn't. You can do much better!

Heh, the endless strawmanning continues. I fail to see the contradiction between chiropractic and immunization. Are you a chiropractor yourself?

Additionally, I do not share your metaphysical beliefs of the "underlying state of reality." FYI, naive realism is not a necessary component of skepticism. Next.
Not at all. I was only trying to show that a "degree in make-believe" isn't as easy as it sounds, which is why the characterization is highly false in itself.

Tyler Durden

This demonstrates a sheer ignorance of the history of philosophy and the origins of science. Modern science employs two of the discarded methods of philosophy: logical deduction from French rationalism and experimental reasoning from british empiricism. You're better off sticking to what you know, capnkirk, and keep your mouth/fingers shut/inactive on what you don't, in order to leave no doubt about your intellect.