diana

Good evening, Albert. I see Free Thinkr has already summed up most of this, but I'm bored at work....

Aren't we all? But that isn't important right now.

Love is something we experience within our minds. It is a feeling--an intangible concept--we have named. In the case of love, we begin with the feeling, recognize it as unique, and label the feeling. I can love you, but my feeling is internal to me (and if experience is any teacher, my feeling has nothing whatsoever to do with how you feel about me or if you're even deserving).

Justice: another thing that exists only in concept. We have ideas of right and wrong (more concepts we have labeled), and have developed rather complex ideas of what constitutes "justice."

The fact that math is universal does not make it any less a concept we have labeled.

Just to be a pedant, I'll point out that "sound" requires an eardrum, so strictly speaking, music doesn't exist outside our heads.

But that isn't my point, of course. There are many types of sound. Maxx makes little woofing noises when he sleeps. As you can see, I have here begun with my experience of those sounds and labeled them, in this case, "little woofing noises." The same applies to music. It isn't just sound. It's a specific kind of sound. We start with the experience of that sound and label it.

Leave my yeast infection out of this.

Wisdom is easily a concept. I don't see how you figure it isn't. I can't give you a wisdom for Christmas, but neither of us denies there's such a thing as "wisdom"--although, in all fairness, we clearly disagree on what qualifies as "wisdom."

Again, we began with concepts of communication and labeled them "language." Please note the order of events. Again.

Yes!

Consciousness is something we experience, as opposed to unconsciousness, which we also experience. I figured I'm sounding like a parrot by now, but I can't see how people miss this: we have the experience, felt the need to discuss it, and therefore assigned to it a collection of sounds that we have linked to the sensation.

Experience THEN label of that experience.

Yes. But I note you didn't say ONLY here, which is why I agree whole-heartedly. But I'm discussing things that ONLY exist in our minds. Or at least, SOMMS was, which is why I'm taking such pains now to explain why they make a pisspoor analogy to God, unless you wish to posit that God doesn't exist outside of your mind, either.

Let me get this straight. You see a stove and the redhot burner. You reach toward it and feel the heat radiating from its surface. You touch it and you experience something you call "pain."

Once again, you see we have experience and a label for that experience.

How do you compare this order of events to God, which you can have no experience of? What is it you're experiencing that you call God? Or worse--because it's two steps removed--what is it you're experiencing that you call the love of a being you call God?

You're missing my point, I think. Until I have an experience I can label "God" (or even say has to be from a being I have no knowledge of), he remains a concept ONLY. He "exists" only in the minds of those who believe in him.

Please remember that we're discussing SOMMS argument here:He''s bifurcating. The "things" he listed have in common the fact that we began with a idea (such as math), feeling or experience and labeled it. The God "thing," on the other hand, has not yet, in the history of the world, been shown to have any connection to anything we experience. They are not the same "thing."

My senses tell me that hot stove is there. Anything having to do with that stove is labeled according to experience.

God, on the other hand, you have no direct experience of. Your senses cannot confirm that there is such a thing. Anything having to do with this God you have no experience of is labeled according to...what?

When you use God to explain anything you experience, you've already stepped beyond labeling the experience itself into postulating what caused it, and the cause in itself is something you have no experience of.

This is far removed from experiencing some phenomena and labeling the experience itself.

Argh. I still feel like I'm not managing to express the problem adequately. I'll try to simplify (using the typical Christian line of thinking; I apologize if I mischaracterize your position here, Albert):

I feel something bad --> I call it "pain"

You feel good --> You call it comfort --> You claim the comfort comes from a being that can't be experienced --> You call this being God

Thus you equate my belief in pain to your belief in God. The only fair analogy between the two, in reality, stops at "comfort."

d

Keith Russell

The most convincing argument for the nonexistence of 'God' I've ever observed?

Reality itself...

K

Calzaer

Ah, but diana, remember! Believers CAN experience God, much the same way paranoid schizophrencs going through cocaine withdrawl experience a room full of snakes plotting against them.

Conchobar

Yes, I am beginning to understand what Americans consider to be freedom of speech. With the more freedom of expression in the UK we need to remember that it has more limitation in America. It makes sense in the Western Country with the most laws. Tim Robbins, Madonna, and the Dixie Chicks must have spent too much time in anything goes Europe.

We are still trying to understand the complex rules of American Political Correctness. I don't think I could adjust to living there.

Conchobar.

Lobstrosity

Freedom of speech doesn't apply to private domains; people who run this forum have the right to dictate what can and cannot be said. "Freedom of speech" simply means that the government cannot pass laws that criminalize certain speech without compelling reason (such as the danger posed by yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre).

T. E. Lords

Personally I'm thankful for the restrictions on this board. I've tried to have meaningful discussion on other boards and they always disintegrate into name calling and pointless blather. I think it's good to have these rules here because it facilitates interesting conversation and keeps every thing civil.

joedad

Still like faded glory's line the best:

"Show me your god(s)."

Albert Cipriani

Dear T.E.,
You argue: Duh. The point is not one of knowledge but the means of obtaining that knowledge. As atheists, you guys only trust external, empirically verifiable facts for your knowledge, not internal, subjectively unverifiable sensations. As a theist, I call this bogus distinction of yours a chimera that only hyper-critters could draw.

Proof that your distinction is without a difference comes from the empirical fact that all external empirically verifiable facts come to us through internal subjectively unverifiable sensations. In short, all that we know is known as a function of what goes on inside our head, not as a function of what goes on outside our head.

For example, how does Diana know that she burnt her finger? I said through pain that happens inside her head. You said she’d still be able to know she burnt it even if she felt no pain. Fair enough. Perhaps she’d know it through her smell of burning flesh or her vision of the black stump where her finger was. But her olfactory and optical senses, like her sense of pain, happen inside her head. Next!

Point is, what happens inside one’s head corresponds to what happens outside one’s head. If you believe your pain and pleasure and vision is real, then those external things that seem to be responsible for them all are real, too.

Ergo, your argument that God is NOT real cuz He exists ONLY inside the head of believers is bogus. Nothing can get into our heads that wasn’t first outside our heads. If you doubt this, you must doubt that anything is real… unless, of course, you don’t mind being a hyper-critter. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Wyz_sub10,

<robot voice>
Switching to atheistic reasoning...
Substituing 'grandfather' for 'God'....
...complete.
</robot voice>


Of course this wouldn't prove anything. This just shows you dug somebody up and that body happened to have similar DNA. There may be some probablility that your related...but there's also a probablity that the tests were inconclusive...and your just interpreting things the way you want to.



Ahh...yes. You (a bonafide biased grandfather believer) are going to produce 'documentation' that 'proves' your Gods...oops...sorry...your grandfathers existence? Sorry but I find this overly biased. OF COURSE you are going to produce documentation of you grandfather...you BELIEVE he exists...this is not scientifically unbiased. Moreover...
-How can you prove the person in the photograph is actually your grandfather? It could be an imposter.
-First hand testimony? Ha. Your just spouting first hand testimony from people who blindly believe in your grandfather. They could be just making it up to support their dilusion!
-Employment records? This proves nothing as anyone with your grandfathers name could produce the same 'proof'. Also...employment records can be forged. How do I know they are not some kind of forgery?
-The government? This is just to good to be true. Now you are asking me to except 'proof' from a group of people who believe in your grandfather? This was already addressed...get some real unbiased evidence.



-Documentation...check
-First hand testimony...check
-Personal relationship...check



...but you have produced none of these for your great grandfather. Until you do...I remain an aWyz_sub10greatgrandfatherist.



Thoughts and comments welcome,


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Calzaer,

Where is your great grandfathers?






Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas