Normal

So god isn't an abstract concept? The soul isn't an abstract concept? The only reason it's "abstract" is because there is no physical evidence, that doesn't make it any less "concrete". Love exists as a concrete experience, subjective or not.

I take it you're one who uses science as the reason for lack of belief in god?

Normal

Who said anything about "beyond the realm of science"? I'm talking about things science can't prove/explain. Maybe because a lot of these things are "subjective abstract concepts", which sceince uses as a cop-out in being unable to explain these things.

Hawkingfan

Yes. They only exist in your head.
What it means is that there is no reason to say it exists concretely as you seem to be saying. It exists as an abstract entity in the brain, like an idea, and that's it. There is nothing concrete about it. Just because your mind can conceive of it, doesn't make that idea exist outside of itself in a concrete way. It is nothing more than a product of the brain. Anyone can make something up. Doesn't mean it exists concretely.
Love exists as an abstract experience. Many people don't believe in love. I am one of them. Love is nothing more than a pipe-dream. I believe in lust, however, which is scientifically the second most natural instinct in humans and is necessary for the survival of the species.
What tipped you off?

Normal

Why'd you use "feel" and "touch"? Is the love example getting to you?

You can't "feel" or "touch" or smell, hear, see, taste: logic, language, poetry, politics, "evil", "love", etc. etc. etc. etc.

Prove them with mathematics. Prove them with anything, give me some neurology that explains the areas of the brain in use for each of these things, that doesn't prove their existence, because they don't even physically exist at ALL.

Hawkingfan

I'm talking about things science can't prove/explain.[/QUOTE]
You're talking about things that don't exist except only as ideas in your head.
The cop-out is that you cannot tell the difference between the two.

Normal

Only in my head, or a diminsion we don't know about, or a parallel universe where this is all a dream, or something else that is supernatural, metaphysical, and very much unknowable to humans.

Exactly, I'm not arguing every idea I think up is concrete, I'm arguing everything "concrete" that we are able to know right now is not everything that can possibly be known, and everything we are capable of knowing, is not even everything that could possibly be known, and even everything we know now, is not the whole story to what we originally find as concrete.

This is you extending your experience of science beyond what science can explain in the very way Socrates outlines in his "Apology". Having wisdom about science does not give you wisdom in things such as love, politics, language, etc.

And most notably, god.

Normal

Yes, all ideas exist in our brains. Is that the whole story? Logic only exists in our brains? Nature does follow certain "logic", that being an inanimate, non-sentient entity right? Does nature have a brain now?

Hawkingfan

Wow. One unproved assertion after another. Well, it's pretty hard to argue with someone who believes that it is reasonable to think those things exist with the same amount of confidence that you yourself exist. Fascinating.
Why do you criticize me for thinking it is unreasonable to believe in those things? Why do you feel it is JUST AS REASONABLE to believe those things exist as the existence of you or I?

Hawkingfan

Nature follows scientific laws, not logic.

Normal

Because I believe it's REASONABLE to think humans can't know everything that is KNOWABLE.