Koyaanisqatsi

What is wrong with you? Seriously. I'm asking.

This means nothing. "Proving the existence of the concept love" is an incomplete and therefore meaningless sentence!

Do you mean to say "proving the existence of the concept of Love and the existence of the concept of God" and if so, to what end?

It is exceptionally easy to prove that a concept exists, it is however, exceedingly difficult to prove that a God exists, got it?

A Concept is nothing more than an idea one expresses and therefore countless trillions of concepts can be said to "exist" and you don't need to prove they exist at all!

Here's a concept: WJ is a toaster.

Do I have to prove that my concept of you exists?

No, I just did. You can read what my concept is.

What you are asking, of course, would be that I prove my concept, not that I prove my concept exists!

Jayhawker Soule

Why would any atheist wish to deny such a thing. For any given individual, the God concept may trigger a 'religious experience', bed wetting, or a fit of laughter. This no more warrants belief in the supernatural than does the observation that the Monster concept triggers fear in children warrant a belief in ogres, etc.

[ July 30, 2002: Message edited by: ReasonableDoubt ]</p>

WJ

Koy!

You haven't proved anything. What you are arguing over is the claim that a concept exists apriori. First, if you told me [the concept]love exists and that you knew what it was, (which you really don't), but I had no initual experience with it, why should I believe you?

the apeman

WJ

"Proving the existence of the concept love" is an incomplete and therefore meaningless sentence!"

Gee, then I challenge you to make it a meaningful sentence!

WJ

"This no more warrants belief in the supernatural than does the observation that the Monster concept triggers fear in children warrant a belief in ogres, etc."

Mmmm, so you are saying that concepts do impart meaning abeit illusionary? Can you prove that love exists and its describe its nature, thru which it causes humans (or using your words) or "triggers" fear in adults/children as part of its effect? And if you can, again, how would the denial of the religious experience or feeling of 'God' differ? I'm convinced you either don't know or that there is no substantial difference.

Please go back and read the post folks.

Walrus

Jayhawker Soule

Please ask again.

Princess of Peace

This makes no sense to me. I don't think the two are as related as one might think. It is quite possible to have a concept without any experience. Take IPU. I have never experienced IPU. I have never seen IPU. I have never touched IPU. I have never heard IPU. I have never felt the presence of IPU. The only "experience" I've had is that I've heard of IPU.

On the other hand, it is quite possible to have an experience without any concept of what that experience means. I would not say that experience derives from concepts. I would say that the meaning of an experience derives from concepts, and this is a big difference.

I disagree. There is an innate need to develop concepts in order to explain the meaning of experience. The concepts are an aid to memory, but they also help to share stories, and to predict which experiences will come next.

The same way that I conclude that Keebler elves, though a nice concept, don't really exist in fact. I have more experience of Keebler elves than I do of God. I've seen Keebler elves on my TV. I've heard Keebler elves on my TV. I've even eaten the cookies that are supposed to have been produced by Keebler elves. And yet, I don't believe that Keebler elves really exist, even though I had some innate need to come up with the concept of Keebler elves. Do you believe that Keebler elves really exist and make cookies?

Who invented the concept of Keebler elves? Does it matter to you if many eons past, my ancestor came up with the concept of love all by herself?

You mean, you've never heard of ex-christians who lost their faith and proceeded to have the same emotional high that they had which they had attributed to being in God's presence before, but now felt it with absolute conviction of the non-presence of God? You've never heard of atheists who had the "burning in the bosom?" Obviously, these people who had these experiences which others attributed to God had another explanation of their experience. It meant something different to them, even though they swear it was the exact same experience that they had previously attributed to the "presence of God."

Others, of course, have never felt such experiences, or if they have, just never attributed them to the presence of God.

So... God is the one who makes the cookies, and not the Keebler elves? Why should I believe you? I've at least SEEN Keebler elves.

Goliath

WJ,

Since the emotion called love is natural, it is not supernatural. Since love has nothing to do with the supernatural, evidence suffices.

Sincerely,

Goliath

Jayhawker Soule

Bingo!

Jobar

I was going to advise WJ to put his brain in gear before putting his mouth into motion- but then I realized he would probably choose "R" for "race".

WJ, existence comes in many flavors. Take woozlefloppies. Do you know if woozlefloppies exist? Well, since I just made up the word, they don't- but the word "woozlefloppies" exists, because I did just make it up, and wrote it down. So in that sense, the word does indeed exist.

Now let's say I am a physicist, and hypothesize that quarks have internal structure- to wit, quarks are composed of dozens of entities I name woozlefloppies. I have created a concept- to wit, woozlefloppies are constituents of quarks. Therefore the concept now exists- I just made it up.

Now let's say that we test my concept against reality- say in some newly designed ultrapowerful particle accelerator. Lo and behold, the results we observe are consistent with my woozlefloppy hypothesis. I can now say that I have conceived of the woozlefloppy theory and that it has some physical support.

Onward- for many years, in many ways, scientists consider the implications of woozlefloppies, and every time they dream up a way to test these implications, the test agrees with the woozlefloppy theory. Alternative theories which do not involve woozlefloppies are inconsistent with all the tests. At this point, we can say with some confidence that woozlefloppies are real- or at minimum are consistent with all our tests and theories about reality.

So. The word 'love' exists. So does the word 'God'. Concepts for both- ditto. Trivial.

Now, if you are trying to say that the actual reality of love is no more proveable than the existence of God, I will disagree. Love allows us to make many predictions, and test them for truth or falsity. What predictions can we make to prove or disprove the physical existence of God?