Naked Ape

I never claimed that theology was a pitiful make-believe discipline, just that it's fictional foundation is not 'THE TRUTHTM' (whatever that may be). I refer again to BDS who I will paraphrase: A degree in English Literature has make-believe as it's subject as well, and most people (engineers excepted) would still call it a valid discipline.
Again, I appologise, I was not attempting to claim that you said a diploma was proof that the discipline had elements of truth, but that is the impression your first round of agruement left with me. This didn't seem to match your usual level of lucidity, so I asked a question and you cleared that up.
I have never felt threatened by theology. I used to have a good friend who became a minister before god decided to kill him with ALS (nasty way to die). We had many interesting discussions about many of the topics he studied in seminary. At that time, I read a goodly number of my friend's textbooks, but that was twenty odd years ago and I don't recall many specifics. I noticed that as interesting as most of the topics that we discussed were, these topics never seemed to come up in church. When I asked why this was I was told: "Ignore the man behind the curtain, I am the mighty Oz!", and we laughed. Actualy the explanation given was rather pragmatic: "The silverhairs are the only ones who give in any substantial amount, and they want to hear the olde tyme religion stuff. If you make them uncomfortable they leave and so does their money.". I found the later answer to be much less amusing.
Gosh that sure sounds cooler than naive realism, is it too late to switch?
I don't think that the money would be very good if you were both faithless and honest, remove the honesty component and you might have a lucrative career in evangelism. Is there any faith group you know of where the theology espoused in these seminaries is preached in the pews?
It seems excessive to blow them out of the water when they seem to only have one oar in it.
I usually end up hung up on the "Assume the supernatural." statement that seems to preceed any 'theological arguement'. The question 'Why on earth?' always springs to mind. I admit my greatest difficulty is with the "undetectable" nature of supernatural things, I have trouble distinguishing that quality from "non-existant". I am also rather suspicious of the concept of existence outside the natural world, being a naive realist I keep thinking that the set named "natural world" contains all possible things.

Cheers,

Naked Ape

Starboy

How soon the philosophers forget that it was those that thought that philosophy and philosophers were full of shit that did those experiments. But then again I am sure that that these fine philosophers who cannot define what philosophy is let along produce a philosophy of philosophy yet can produce a philosophy of just about everything else will tell you that everything is philosophy. Whoopee for philosophy.

Starboy

Gurdur

Hmmmm. Haven't we discussed that before ?
Didn't you say you lack experience and training in either science or philosophy ?
So you are speaking from a position of ignorance.
So you are defending ignorance as a position ?
And you refuse to ever defend your position in a formal debate ---- you prefer this kind of contentless flame ?

Gurdur

Ah, I see !
Okeydokey, I recommend a trip to Paris, France. It won't do much for hygiene or Proper Diet, but hey, it's a trip to Paris.
And the full answer is: Bluff !
Works a treat.

Gurdur

The interesting question is, why do some here feel so threatened by philosophy ?
It's just barely understandable that they have a huge beef with what they think is theology, but philosophy ?
The overt animus is quite marked and weird.I once had a discussion with a woman Protestant minister here in Germany, about state control of funding of the mainstream churchs --- and she made the point that she liked it because it meant she was free to tell her congregation what she liked; since her salary was not dependent upon them, she was free to speak her mind.
The Quakers seem fairly consistant across the board.
Presuppositions, it's all presuppositions.The problem with naïve realism is its poverty in theorizational ability; especially in pyschology, it's very easy to get things wrong from the word go with such a POV --- which is why behavioural psych has enormously hard judgmental criteria for experimental set-up and judging results.

Realism, whether naïve or sophisticated, depends on a presupposition that the set named "natural world" contains all possible things.
It's a presupposition which I accept too, but it's still only a presupposition; in the end, it could never be anything else but a presupposition unless it was turned into a circular argument.

Starboy

Perhaps it looks that way to you but you are mistaken.

Gurdur I made specific claims about philosophy. Is there a philosophy of philosophy? Are you saying there is? Philosophers don't have philosophies of all sorts of things? Are you saying that ain't so? As far as debating philosophers, been there done that. Philosphers are as slippery as thiests. After all they play the same "truth" game.

Starboy

MrFrosty

Sorry but I laughed out loud when I read the title of this thread

Gurdur

Nooooooooo ----- I'm pretty damned sure you stated quite specifically you lacked formal advanced training in any scientific field or philosophy.
It was in a thread a while ago in the Philosophy forum.
So you're not even able to make specific claims, you've only made a contentless flame.
Ha ha, where ?
You made a contentless generalized flame about philosophy and science; I pointed out that you speak from an ignorance of the history of science.
Weird. And funny.
Anyway, I'm sure you'll be able to find many fundy theists who would agree with you about condemning philosophy.
Good thing it doesn't matter much, eh ?

Hugo Holbling

This is false, just like the rest of your ranting. You can try to trace experimentalism or empiricism as far as you like, but you'll not find this attitude. I would challenge you to do so, starting with Vesalius, but of course you run away from such things. What's more, you decline to mention that you were asked not to post in the philosophy forum anymore because of your inability to argue (or indeed understand) anything without similar behaviour, so your remark that you've "been there done that" is also not quite accurate.

The fact remains that if philosophy is so hopeless and a complete waste of time, it should be no problem for you to engage in a formal debate and show us. Instead, you run away and post content-free rants here. Would you like me to post links to the numerous times in which your bleating about the "truth game" have been shown to be without a clue? The only thing "slippery" and fundamentalist here is you.

Tyler Durden

Are you addressing my excerpt by accident? Did you mean to quote my earlier post that was addressed to you? I'll assume that is the case.

Who are the philosophers you think forgot? Who are those that thought philosophy was full of shit? Why should the philosophers define what philosophy is or produce a philosophy of philosophy, which seems like a circular, self-referential demand that actually solves your problem?

At any rate, when will you actually address the salient points i have raised, instead of pissing on your favorite strawperson,which has been a personal ipsedixitism fetish of yours?