Synaesthesia

luvluv,
The absence of evidence simply means we have abolutely no reason to believe. It is the theoretical futility of many theories that is reason not to believe.

tronvillain

Synaesthesia:
Yes, but I didn't want to alter Writer@Large's statement quite that much.

Writer@Large

My statement was just a linguistic one; I wasn't about to go into the deep science of it. Feel free to do so, though .

--W@L

Koyaanisqatsi

Funny how when this one sentence is applied in a scientific context, we infer galactic black holes, dark matter, string theory, the ability to travel to the moon, etc.; when applied in a cult context it's what causes people to hijack airplanes and slam them into buildings.

One option benefits humanity; the other destroys it.

You've chosen destruction. Why?

Actually, come to think of it, it doesn't even apply in a scientific context, because the detection of a black hole is possible through inferrence; God is not.

[ June 24, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Jobar

luvluv, in the context of this board, you are once again waving the tattered old flag of "You cannot PROVE that God doesn't exist! Therefore, He does!"

Claiming that you aren't doing that is gaining your theistic position no brownie points, and gaining yourself no respect.

luvluv

"One option benefits humanity; the other destroys it."

This is just silly. Do you really think that religion and science can be descirbed so easily? The nuclear bomb was not a product of religion. Millions of Jews were killed during the holocaust because faulty science declared them less than human. The current environmental plight of our planet is entirely the product of applied science.

Dogmatism towards ANY idea (yes, INCLUDING materialism and empiricism), regarding ANY idea as more important than the people it effects is what causes human conflict. It doesn't matter if that idea is capitalism, democracy, communism, nationalism, tribalism, etc. It is man's willingness to make PEOPLE subordinate to ideas that makes man kill people for ideas. At least Christianity has several official statements placing people over ideas (the best example is probably Matthew 25, but I can give others if you want). Materialism has no grounds for placing people over ideas.

Both religion and science can be beautiful things if used wisely, both can be destructive if used unwisely. That distinction you've drawn is a parody, no objective person with any kind of experience in the real world will accpet such a cartoonish distinction.

"luvluv, in the context of this board, you are once again waving the tattered old flag of "You cannot PROVE that God doesn't exist! Therefore, He does!""

Nonsense, I have actually said several times that this was NOT the purpose of my thread. My entire point is that strong atheists declare God's nonexistance very much in advance of their ability to prove His nonexistance. I'm saying you can only BELIEVE, or DISBELIEVE in God: in either case, it is a BELIEF.

I'm saying that there may be things that exist that you have no reason to believe exist.

[ June 24, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

Typhon

That is false. Our current environmental plight is the product of people. It's not just the ability to bulldoze down the rainforests that cause rainforests to be bulldozed.

Humanity's environmental impact on the biosphere is the fault of many factors. Take our current population explosion and its regretful dynamics, for an example. Despite decades of warnings from scientists who are aware of population dynamics, people keep having children. In fact, many of the world's hot spots in unchecked population growth, have come in regions of the globe where advances in science and regional economics, are least prepared to deal with the staggering human load placed on the ecology.

Another worrisome factor in this equation is religion. Many of the world's religions, having long relied on spreading through the biological propagation and subsequent indoctrination of their the members, have virulently and fundamentally resisted all sane efforts to curb explosive population growth. Christianity for example, has long fought efforts to plan smaller families, educate and distribute contraceptives, and are almost to the sect, against abortion. One should remember most of these religions started out as small, vulnerable cults, who depended on rapid growth by encouraging their followers to be "fruitful and multiply" thus insuring new ranks of the faithful who likewise pass on the meme.

So, while it is true that advances in science have dramatically increased our population by better agricultural techniques, medical advances, safer fuels, superior tools, better shelters, etc., it has also had the ability to foresee and suggest ways of dealing with this increase, such as renewable energy, sustainable farming, and limited or zero population growth. Religion, and people on the other hand, have taken the tools and not the advice, and used their "mandates from the gods" to give moral backing to their stupidity and greed.

You can also in the West, lay quite a bit of the blame on the Christian mindset in particular. We have religion in a large part to thank for the lovely concept of "Manifest Destiny" and systematic eradication of smaller, and non-Christian, indigenous populations world-wide. Unfortunately, we have not limited this attack to our own species, but in the process, have decimated the world's biodiversity on all levels.

As a non-theist, I see the world as a codependent entity. I believe humans are just another species of animals, who have no more right than any other to live, breed, and destroy others. In fact, science suggests that is not in our own self interest to do so, and that because of our connection and true role, as just another biological species living among many in a fragile ecosphere, we may very likely doom ourselves to the extinctions that have taken other dominant species, if we do not step lightly and with forethought.

Christians on the other hand, to continue my example, especially fundamentalist types, often in my experience care little if anything for the environment. This is not just born of material wants, but of the fundamental philosophy of the world view they hold. According to their wacko theology, animals and the planet are here EXPRESSIVELY for man's use or abuse. Man has been set over them, not a part, and the world by extension, is here by god's will, to be used or abused.

Time itself is limited, and most think they're living in the End Times (and have been, since the damn religion was invented). This is when examined, a very dangerous mindset. They're not worried about the kingdom on earth, half as much as the supposed eternal one in heaven. Is it any wonder that they don't give much of a damn about the environment. They think humanity is coming to an end sometime soon, and may indeed help cause this to be so. God will create a new world afterwards, or else there will be no need of one. Furthermore, if it is god's plan, then how can the faithful be blamed? If god wanted the rainforests to be saved, he wouldn't have sent missionaries and lumber combines to South American, now would he?

If there is a chance of a more sustainable future for all, we have to be able to think along the lines of placing biological diversity and conscientious, long-term, living on the forefront of our collective priorities, and certainly ahead of fanciful, non-existent gods. Religion, does not do this, but works in fact against it, constantly. It was better when our imagined gods lived in the animals and in the trees, and we were apart of it all. Christianity does a good job separating man from his environment, and damning the both in the process.

Nonsense. Materialism IS people over ideas. And religion is the single worst historical criminal in this respect anyway. Religions across the world place the ideals and fantasies of their faiths as being more important than the rights, lives, and happiness of their people, and those people in the world who do not share their beliefs. They certainly place it over the preservation of the environment and other species. Science and evolutionary behavorialism has a lot more than "several" statements which give us good reason to embrace cooperative, mutually beneficial behavior. The gods can do nothing more than hang their heads collectively in shame, when compared.

No, sorry, but you're wrong here again. For example, I'm an atheist. I have NO BELIFE in god or gods. On the question of particular gods, such as the ancient Canaanite sky god worshiped by the followers of Christianity, I can say I'm positive, based on the facts and on the particulars as defined by that religion, that a fundamental interpretation is untrue, that such a being does not exist, with only the most marginal of doubts. In the most general discussions of the supernatural, I am an atheist plain and simple, having no god belief whatsoever. I am a "strong atheist" on Yahweh of the Christian Bible, as there is overwhelming evidence that the world view and even the logical existence of such a god, is unsupported and actually shown to be untrue.

There is thus GOOD reason to lack a belief in god. So far, there are only illogical and poor ones to believe in gods. There is ever worse statistics, as mentioned, when it comes down to any particular one, such as Yahweh, Zeus, Buddha, Allah, or Vishnu.

I'm saying that such a statement is meaningless within the confines of our discussion, at best.

The fact remains that science does a generally good job of describing what exists. It infers what it can, and holds out final judgment on the rest. As science advances, those holes are filled, and our knowledge added to, or rectified.

Religion on the other hand, claims it already has ALL the answers. Unfortunately for the modern world, these answers when inspected, are merely the superstitions and ignorance expected from the iron-age and sometimes earlier societies which bred them.

When science shows that many of the beliefs held by religion and superstition are demonstrably untrue, religion responds by closing ranks and seeking to discredit either science or the scientist. On rare occasions, it seeks to update itself, and twist its interpretations in a more modern light, but never by abandoning its stance, that it contains the "whole truth." Rather than discarding the vast, factually untrue sections and claims of its dogma, it buries its head in the proverbial sands and demands that its followers do the same. This is on a good day in religion. On the bad ones, it takes a torch and pitchfork, and tries to destroy the "mad scientists" who have dared to point out that their god and faith are themselves, dangerously flawed.

Show me some tangible proof for a thing that exists that I have no reason to believe exists, and maybe, just maybe, you'll be getting somewhere.

.T.

[ June 25, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

Koyaanisqatsi

First let me say, well stated Typhon!

I will only expand a little on what you had said, since you said it all.

Had you paid closer attention, you would have seen that I wasn't comparing "science" and "religion," I was comparing the applied thought processes behind them:

Do you see the distinction now?



The actual specifics of the bomb were from applied science, true, but that wasn't what I was referring to. The mentality behind the hubris of building, using and maintaining the threat of the bomb, however, sure as shit can be traced to cult thinking (specifically christian cult thinking), IMO, and that was what I was arguing indirectly.

I don't know if you've ever seen a documentary called "Atomic Cafe," but you should. It's a collection of American propaganda from the fifties regarding nuclear weapons.

One in particular leaps to mind. A Colonel (just a Colonel, mind you) is sitting on a beach in front of the King of one of the atolls we decimated and his people, who are all completely oblivious, happy, generous people about to be taken from their paradise for our testing purposes.

The King stands and thanks the Colonel and the American people for including them in this "wonderful undertaking" and how he prays it will be for "the good" in God's hands and the Colonel says back (to the translator), "Well, you tell him that it being in God's hands, it cannot be anything other than good."

And then we blow the shit out of paradise with a hydrogen bomb.

The mentality that God is "on our side" and that God is "all loving and all good" and that therefore nothing anyone does when God is on "their side" can be "anything other than good" no matter how horrific (and there simply is no comparison to a mushroom cloud for abject terror) is what I was referring to.

Bullshit! Primarily millions of Jews were killed during the holocaust because they were "christ killers," the number one reason Jews have been persecuted, hunted and killed for centuries by Christians!

The mentality of cult thinking is what perverts "science" to such evil intent.

Typhon aptly destroyed this, so I will only add that it is the christian fundamentalist right-wing conservatives have been the ones that f*cked our planet and continue to do so, again because of the mentality that God created it all out of nothing and put it here for our use!

Does the very first chapter in the Bible ring any bells?

And we were f*cked!

As is so often the case I have found with the majority of theists who post here, you've got it all ass backwards.

What?

One cannot be "dogmatic" when applying the scientific method as a tool of cognition; they are mutually exclusive constructs.

The entire purpose of the scientific method (which is what I was originally referring to before you redefined the terms of my post) was to counter a dogmatic approach to existence; aka, cult mentality.

You're right, of course, but irrelevantly so, since you are simply addressing arguments I have never made.

No one should ever be dogmatic, especially "out in the world" where it matters and has detrimental impact.

Which is the primary reason why the scientific method of examining existence was concocted.

And it is these "ideas" that self-perpetuate and get transferred from generation to generation to generation especially if the idea is that these aren't man's ideas!

That's the ultimate evil of cult mentality; the lie that the dogma does not come from man's inhumanity to man, but from a God's inhumanity to man and it is this singular quality that mandates the inherent and continuing evil of thedoctrine itself.

It is the sin and you know what you are supposed to do right?

Hate the sin, not the sinner.

That's quite all right, I have hundreds of my own to counter with.

Bullshit. Although I am not a materialist and don't speak for "it," from what I understand it is simply an understanding based entirely upon what is extant; aka, no calls to supernature necessary to explain nature.

It is not a religion or even a philosophy of existence per se as it is a declaration of nature being its own cause.

What you're talking about is human moral codes, which, by the way, the myths of the Bible were created to describe, so don't pull any of that sophomoric crap. That's the purpose of myths; a literary style used to impart a particular group's ethos through fantastic, outrageous tall tales.

Humans create their own morality based upon group consensus, the complex psychological interplays of social and individual empathy/sympathy and survival and always have; the theist simply lies to him or herself based on inculcation that there exists a meta Judge/Jury/Executioner who enforces that morality.

A materialist, however, need make no comment whatsoever regarding this issue other than the fact that it exists and is therefore emergent.

Again, this has nothing to do with what I was talking about. It is the mentality behind "religion" that is detrimental and accounts for centuries of destruction.

So, since you keep trying to redefine my post, I'll respond in kind: Science is nothing more than applied examination of existence; Religion is how that examination gets applied, ok? Better?

And let's stop with the individuals wielding nonsense. If one or two or thirty cult members over the years occasionally did some bad things "in the name of" their cults, yes, one could easily argue that it is the individual not the institution.

But that isn't the case for christianity, because the doctrines of the cult and the dogma of the cult and the tenets of the cult instill and have directly caused centuries of victimization, torture, murder and wars to this very day. The cult member is subordinate to the cult and the cult is larger than any one cult member.

Hate the sin, not the sinner.

No, it is not. It is deadly serious, but keep in mind that you have incorrectly redefined the message I was imparting, so a more correct response to your comment would be for me to simply shift emphasis: "You mean, the distinction you've drawn is a parody."

Now it's correctly applied.

I agree, since it is your incorrect and misconstrued distinction.

I can't take this stupid non-argument any more!

ONLY THE THEIST HAS THE BURDEN OF PROOF. ONLY THE THEIST MUST PROVE THAT A GOD EXISTS. ONLY THE THEIST CLAIMS THAT SUCH A CREATURE FACTUALLY EXISTS.

GET IT STRAIGHT IF YOU PLEASE!

Ahem...excuse the rant, but you're an adult and obviously intelligent so you must understand this most basic concept, yet you keep making this invalid argument again and again and again.

ONLY the theist has a burden of proof because it is the theist who claims that this creature factually exists.

The only reason you continue to make this non-argument is because you have been programmed to, it's as simple as that, because it is impossible to make this argument legitimately, especially after the hundreds of times--hyperbolically speaking for emphasis--that I have personally seen you post this nonsense and be shown wrong every single time.

In other words, you are wrong in all conceivable universes; even in a universe where you are always right, this argument is wrong.

Hands down, always and forever, never, ever, ever shall this argument be right, which means that you must remove it entirely from your brain, either cognitively or through physical surgery because I swear to Buddha I will excrete out your monitor and perform the surgery myself if you ever try to post this invalid argument again, capisca!

Yes, I'm joking, but not about the invalidity of your argument.

Categorically false. The theist created the character, thus the theist must prove it exists before it is possible to "disbelieve."

It is in no way, shape or form a "belief" to state that fictional creatures do not exist!

You made these stupid characters up and then tell us we must prove they don't exist?

You would truly be out of your ever loving mind if you thought this was true and you don't exactly strike me as someone out of their mind, so there can only be one other explanation for your inability to recognize that 1 + 1 = 2.

Can anyone guess what I contend that explanation is?

That is not and never will be an argument of any kind.

You created a character. Based upon the fact that you created that character, you then decided to believe the character you created was real.

That is nothing short of delusion.

[ June 25, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Clutch

On the other hand, luvluv has chosen a maximally hopeless way of framing the point. There may be better ones.

Eg: Rabbits cannot grasp that there are infinitely many primes. It's not that we haven't figured out the right way to teach them; it's not that they feel they have better things to do than learn this. It takes a particular cognitive sumthin' to understand that there are infinitely many primes, and whatever it is, rabbits don't have it. Number theory, as the phrase goes, is Cognitively Closed to rabbits.

Choosing examples appropriately (this one might work for every non-human species, really) we have what appears to be substantial grounds for concluding that some truths can only be grasped using a particular cognitive sumthin' that humans don't have, too. It's a sort of cognitive Copernican principle, really: why suppose that for all other biological cognizers there are cognitive closed truths, but not for us? That puts us at the centre of things, cognitively speaking, in a way that requires special justification.

This line of thought is raised by a few people, including Noam Chomsky and Colin McGinn. I do not find it very plausible, but it's a far more forceful way of framing the question of principled knowability than luvluv's sensory version, trading as his/hers does on equivocation between the subjective qualities of property detection, and the existence of the properties themselves.

Changing gears a bit: Another interesting --even vexed -- question regarding principled knowability is raised by an argument floated by Frederic Fitch in a 1963 paper in The Journal of Symbolic Logic. Fitch showed that for any notion O that is both factive and distributive, and given only radically minimal assumptions about modality (viz, that logically absurd propositions are necessarily false), you can prove the absurdity of O(p & not-Op). And this means that if you hold the principle "If p, then it is possible that Op", you are committed to "If p, then Op". The kicker is that knowledge is just such a notion. In other words, if you hold that any truth can in principle be known, then you are logically committed to holding that all truths are actually known. (At least, that they will be known eventually).

Weird, huh?

[ June 26, 2002: Message edited by: Clutch ]</p>

Goliath

Luvluv,

I have absolutely no beliefs whatsoever regarding the supernatural. You are therefore demonstrably wrong.

Sincerely,

Goliath