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Read Me: Topics and Guidelines Philosophy 201
February 7th 2007
Replies: x
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Amazing Rando
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Posted: June 29th 2009
@ 06:28 PM
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A Gym debate thread is opened to debate the following issue:
David Hume's arguments against miracles neither encourage belief in the unreasonable or the outrageous, nor should be regarded as knavery or folly
Skepticbud will be defending the affirmative and jpholding will be defending the negative. This debate will begin as soon as skepticbud makes his first post. The debate will last 5 rounds with up to 10 days between posts.
This debate is taking place here, and this thread is opened for...
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jason
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Posted: December 30th 2008
@ 09:12 AM
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I am only refering to a select category of DumbIdeaTM here and not the broad class of dumb ideas on the whole.
The class of dumb ideas that really puzzle me as to there popularity is the class of ideas that are known as Self Referentially Inchoerent or "self-refuting".
So what is an SRI ? And SRI is an idea that makes a knowledge claim about some set of objects, that the statement itself is in the set of these objects, and that this claim renders ideas in the set as problematic, thus...
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glostik88
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Posted: Today
@ 12:08 AM
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I've been told that God does not intend for us to sin. So, if God did not intend for humanity to sin then why put a forbidden tree in the garden of Eden?
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Austin
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Posted: November 17th 2009
@ 01:54 PM
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First of all I think it's well to understand that thanking is a form of gratitude aimed at some entity.
From MSN encarta dictionary:
Thank (past and past participle thanked, present participle thank·ing, 3rd person present singular thanks)
transitive verb
Definition:
1. express gratitude: to express feelings of gratitude to somebody or be grateful to somebody
"We'd like to thank you for a wonderful evening."
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Augustine2004
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Posted: November 17th 2009
@ 01:40 PM
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The popularity of ontological arguments for God’s existence is puzzling. Even if God’s existence can be proven, however the title ‘God’ is defined; then Christians, among others, are still far from proving that the God of the Bible is our God.
Also, the notion that we can prove by pure reason that the God of the Bible is our God strikes me as contrary to what the Bible teaches.
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Griggsy
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Posted: November 14th 2009
@ 09:17 PM
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[/I That one should use reason rather than faith is the presumption of rationalism. As Hume persuades us we must proportion acceptance to evidence, and Clffford warns us to avoid using no evidence for acceptance of matters. We test the waters. We adjust to the situation.
To do otherwise is to validate the argument from ignorance.:blush:
Faith begs the question of its subject for which theists have no evidence and huristic. Faith is just the we say so of credulity. Science is...
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mattbballman
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Posted: November 14th 2009
@ 08:42 PM
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I've been thinking about the correspondence theory of truth (CTT). According to CTT, a proposition is true if and only if it represents reality, if it corresponds to reality, to some fact about the world, to some state of affairs in the world. The proposition is a mirror or picture of the way the world is, which leads to intriguing ideas about mysterious representational properties had by propositions. This proposition can succeed or fail to correspond to reality. But how is it that...
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timspong
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Posted: November 13th 2009
@ 12:56 PM
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I love reading CS Lewis and have always found his writing to be extremely good pop philosophy while being theologically sound (mostly) without dwelling on the theological side too much. Are there any past or contemporary writers that write in a similar vein? The only one I can think of is Gilbert K. Chesterton. Any others?
I am not really interested in deep academic philosophy, but the kind of entertaining way CS Lewis writes "popular" philosophy to a mainly lay audience.
thx
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Eru Ilúvatar
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Posted: November 13th 2009
@ 12:51 PM
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Maybe this is a sign that I should go to bed, but I was wondering...
If someone were to burn every copy of, say, Beethoven's 5th Symphony, would the 5th symphony still exist? What does it mean, exactly, to say that something exists?
You might say that even without sheet music, it would exist in the minds of music enthusiasts. Okay. What if they lost their memories and/or died? Would it cease to exist?
I actually think that no matter what happens, the 5th Symphony would always exist. ...
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XD001
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Posted: November 13th 2009
@ 09:24 AM
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This is a thread directed mainly to theist apologists, but constructive criticism from atheists is also welcomed. I have recently been surveying the views of several well-known, mainstream Christian theologians and philosophers such as William Lane Craig, Robin Collins, etc. I found a startling similarity among many of them - although many of them accept evolutionary theory, they do not accept a naturalistic origin of life. They then use the (supposed) inability of metaphysical naturalism to...
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Griggsy
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Posted: November 11th 2009
@ 12:42 PM
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I pose the problem of the ignotist argument that God has no meaning,"hides our ignorance behind a theological fig leaf ," making the unimformative tautology , God wills what He wills . To further quote Keith Parsons:" Occult powers wielded by a transcendent being in an inscrutable way , does not seem to be in any sort of way a good explanation." But for the sake of argument ,one grants meaning to God, He violates Occam's razor Natural selection does the work without a mind behind it ....
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Griggsy
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Posted: November 11th 2009
@ 12:19 PM
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I f in Heaven there is free will ,yet no evil, why not on earth?Why the tests as even John Hick acknowledges in " The Encyclopedia of Philosophy?"If Yeshua was perfect man andhad free will, why not the rest of us?If his father has free will, why not we. Anyway, there is too much evil to play the Hick's soul-making game, his all or nothing fallacy.We atheists do not play that straw man of HIck. But if if Heaven is Heavenly, then it is the theist who makes the all paradise play and so,...
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hopelessromance
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Posted: November 10th 2009
@ 08:38 AM
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So I went to this service today and it was the first time I'd gone to this particular church. I'd been planning on going to it for a while but always had something come up. But I went and I liked it.
I actually like this so I thought I'd post it. It's not my analogy, it's 'Rev Kev's'.
(lol a goofy name my friend Haili told me)
He grew up son to an electrician and found that this formula fit the Holy Spirit as well. I think it's plausible, what about you.
With Ohms law you calculate the amps by...
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Kenny
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Posted: November 6th 2009
@ 08:34 PM
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More specifically, “Why materialists should either think that they don’t merely have a brain but are identical to one or that there is no such thing as their brain.”
Assume that you are a material thing.
Suppose that you do have a brain but are not identical to it. Then, presumably, your brain is a bearer of mental properties; it thinks. But do you think? If you answer “Yes” then you are committed to the view that both you and your brain think. So, associated with your person, are two...
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guacamole
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Posted: October 30th 2009
@ 11:38 AM
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I'm not sure I'm getting this but here it goes.
Hegel asserts that we do not understand the present unless we properly understand the roots and challenges that have lead us to the present, the thesis-antithesis-sysnthesis sequence that places us where we are. A Hegelian philosophy of sin and redemption might then be this:
In the first part the created persona is fallen, implicit in the fall, is the idea of salvation. We see the working out of the thesis of the law in the antithesis of...
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Mentieth
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Posted: October 22nd 2009
@ 07:45 AM
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I was having a conversation with my psychology teacher today, and we got onto the topic of Popper and psychoanalysis. It got me thinking, what would Popper say of the Christian God? I assume of course you are aware of Popper's theory.
So, I suppose the question is: in what way could God's existence be disproved? What evidence would need to be uncovered to show God does not exist?
Let's keep sir Popper proud. I of course don't want anything stupid. And of course I don't mean to suppose we...
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JeromeD
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Posted: October 18th 2009
@ 03:24 PM
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This is a question I have been trying to have a good discussion about with others, but without any real fruit, so I bring it here.
Does atheism logically implicate nihilism, that everything is meaningless, and altruistic atheistic philosophies (i.e. humanism) are inconsistent because there is no absolute, primal ground to meaning which can only be in an absolute universal principle, aka God?
Hans Kung writes in his book Does God Exist?
"The price paid by atheism for its denial is obvious. It...
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Bernie
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Posted: October 16th 2009
@ 09:36 AM
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Curious to know how a materialist approaches this question of the mind:
What comes first, thought or neuronal activity? If the latter, how is this proven?
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grayza
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Posted: October 13th 2009
@ 07:02 PM
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Hi there! I posted this in apologetics but upon looking at the various posts in this section this may be the more appropriate place for it. Sorry if its rude to post something twice
So my q's are: Is this original? (If yes promise not to publish it :P) Is it correct? Is it sufficiently similar to the ontological argument to justify calling it a variation of the ontological argument?
Premise 1: In reality there exists something rather than nothing.
Proof: Theres a universe stupid...
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jcarndt
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Posted: October 13th 2009
@ 07:13 AM
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Like the title says, if God does not exist, how did the idea of God or any religion get started? What is a plausible scenario for the very first person to invent this idea of religion?
Put yourself in some prehistorical guys shoes and be the first one in history to start a religion. What could be your motivations? How did you come up with the idea?
If there is no God, then there had to be a first person to start it all, so what are some current theories about this?
Thanks,
James
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Mentieth
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Posted: October 10th 2009
@ 04:40 AM
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I think a great injustice has been done towards Christians. We are held in view that if people do not do exactly what we say they will be sent to hell; even if they live a perfect life they will perish. Christians claim to have just God. But also a God who punishes temporal sin with eternal damnation. How can this be so?
People assume something that is simply not correct when we think of heaven, or at least they don't fully justify their belief. General worldly consensus is that we...
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Kenny
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Posted: October 7th 2009
@ 06:13 AM
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Here’s an argument that I just recently came up with (while corresponding with someone about various modal issues surrounding the possibility of there being an omnipotent being) for the conclusion that if it is possible for there to be a being that is both omnipotent and omni-benevolent, it is necessary that there is a being that is both omnipotent and omni-benevolent.
I think this argument is an interesting one because, if it works, it can be used to generate a version of the ontological...
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Joveia
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Posted: October 7th 2009
@ 03:23 AM
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Some of you may be familiar with the idea of 'qualia' (subjective phenomena) in the philosophy of mind (Stanford link). I was thinking that the idea of 'qualia' might be used to create an interesting theodicy (defense of the coexistence of God and suffering).
Of course qualia seems difficult to explain scientifically, and some argue that it is actually impossible to explain scientifically even in principle (the philosophers who argue this are often not religious). So one response might be to...
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themuzicman
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Posted: October 4th 2009
@ 11:11 AM
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Yeah, ok, it's "life ethics", which we might call morality, but I want to use ethical language to try to get at the abortion issue from another perspective.
I want to talk specifically about intrinsic and extrinsic value.
I think one of the major differences between pro-life and pro-abortion folks is the value they place on human life. To the pro-life person, human life has a high intrinsic value throughout the life of a human being, whether unborn or old, disabled or healthy, etc.
It...
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McGarr
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Posted: September 10th 2009
@ 04:15 PM
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Around the time of Spinoza, Newton and Leibniz the emerging world view was that of a clock work universe. The idea was that the initial conditions were set at the beginning of time and then everything proceeded from that point according to set rules that could be determined by science. Since, we are part of this clockwork universe Spinoza argued that all of our actions are determined by preceding causes. Free will was just an illusion and the only freedom was that of God's when he set the...
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Eru Ilúvatar
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Posted: August 29th 2009
@ 10:01 PM
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I've learned recently that William Lane Craig suffers from some sort of degenerative nerve disease that he had inherited from his mother. Does anyone have any extra information regarding this, such as the precise name of the disease?
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mattbballman
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Posted: August 18th 2009
@ 01:49 PM
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This topic tends to get unclear, so I'm going to try to explain my view the best I can.
Abtract objects (AO): what are some examples?
1. Numbers
2. Sets
3. Propositions
4. Properties
Just to name a few. If you believe they exist, you're a Platonist or a Realist.
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Pumbelo
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Posted: August 18th 2009
@ 04:05 AM
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http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/1326/rip.pdf
Some say so. How would you counter this argument?
The flaw seems to be (3), where "I" is used equivocal. One might easily say
(3*) Necessarily, if the proposition "God does not exist" exists, God exists.
Such absurd use of existential quantification should lead us to free logic.
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MetalMark
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Posted: August 16th 2009
@ 01:24 PM
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Many puzzle over what the meaning of life is. People treat it like it is a major mystery, that no one can know. But this isn't true, we do know what the meaning of life is.
Jesus constantly spoke of following Him. He also said "I am the way, the truth, and the life." We are to abandon ourselves and dedicate our lives for Christ. We have to give up our lives to serve Christ. Christ is the meaning of life, and we must take up our cross and follow Him.
St. Paul says "Therefore, whether you eat...
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Joveia
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Posted: August 8th 2009
@ 12:03 AM
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From a philosophical point-of-view, does the concept of infinity mean a 'kind of existence without the possibility of any distinctions/differences between or within anything'?
Infinity is a hard concept to pin-down, but I think that there are some good reasons for saying that it is essentially a kind of 'distinction-less unity'.
1. Take a plain of grass that's infinitely wide and infinitely long. With respect to horizontal location, you cannot find your place on it because it goes on...
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Austin
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Posted: August 7th 2009
@ 11:46 AM
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is that theoretically, and perhaps actually, all events, even his very remark, had their inevitable genesis in the early moments of the universe. What I ate for breakfast, for example, was determined by a very particular chain of cause/effect events that occurred billions of years before the Earth formed. It seems neigh impossible that within the coalescence of many atoms billions of years ago lay the inevitability of the bacon and eggs I had for breakfast, but this is what I see as hard...
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Nightingale
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Posted: August 3rd 2009
@ 02:41 PM
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What modern philosophers who may not have been Christian would you consider useful for a more complete understanding of theology? I recently read a book by Josef Pieper that uses the existential philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre to explain the unity of essence and existence in God and their distinction in every creature.
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Spacefoetus
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Posted: July 29th 2009
@ 11:02 PM
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I'm bored, its like one in the morning, I'm starting a band and can't think of name, and this question suddenly popped into my head?
And suggestions?
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sc_q_jayce
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Posted: July 26th 2009
@ 03:27 PM
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This is a poll. Please wait until the poll is posted before you reply.
Do you believe that mankind functions with libertarian free will? Yes or no?
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silent wonder
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Posted: July 26th 2009
@ 01:44 PM
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We can act because of a reason or without a reason. There is no other possibility. In the first case our action is determined by a reason, in the second case our action is determined by chance. Hence in both cases we have no control of our action and hence no free will.
In order to choose our action we would need to choose the reason that will then determine our action. But why would we choose that reason? Again, because of a reason or without a reason, but this means that even the choice of a...
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XD001
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Posted: July 26th 2009
@ 11:38 AM
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Hello everyone, I am new to these forums. I did not know where to ask, so I will make a thread here. As the title suggests, God and information are, I believe, inextricably linked to one another. Moreover, I believe that information theory presents a significant problem to metaphysical naturalism, namely to evolution. I currently in the process of writing a paper on this, which, with any luck, will be completed soon. Anyways, my thesis is that because all information must originate with a...
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Pumbelo
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Posted: July 24th 2009
@ 07:32 PM
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He talks about it in a video interview here.
The title is a little misleading. He discusses the issue of compatibilism vs. incompatibilism and what I would like to focus on the consequence argument and the mind argument.
First, watch the whole interview.
I will sum up the arguments anyway:
My formulation of the consequence-argument against compatibilism would go like this:
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Levy
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Posted: July 21st 2009
@ 11:45 PM
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I'll throw the first few pieces of evidence.
NDE's. There are people who come back from the NDE's that were pronounced brain dead that have said they were conscious. How do we explain this?
One of the only serious objections I've seen is well, how dead is dead?
But, I'd like to argue against that objection. There are cases where the person is dead, but there are some cases where isolated nerve cells and neurons are functioning. Does it make sense to say that the nerve cell or neuron has...
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NeilUnreal
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Posted: July 14th 2009
@ 04:38 AM
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I had an interesting thought last night: the “uniform” Michael Jackson used to wear is an excellent example of the postmodernist/poststructuralist concept of hyperreality.
A uniform normally serves a semiotic purpose.
The first-order semiotic purpose is to identify the wearer’s capability/authority in the real world. As in “I am a captain,” “I am a policeman,” or “I am an employee of this store.”
A second-order purpose is the use of the uniform to identify a role. This is the case in of...
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Teluog
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Posted: July 9th 2009
@ 02:46 AM
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Recently, I began to read a small book on basic logic. Next I plan on going through a more complex book on logic. The basic book doesn't have any exercises, and the more complex book doesn't have that many either. I'm looking for ways to get practice and the info given in logic books.
So I'm wondering if anyone knows of good books, websites, workbooks, etc. that have a lot of good exercises in them. Also, what logic books or websites have you read that you found very useful and thorough?...
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Levy
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Posted: July 3rd 2009
@ 02:44 PM
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Is there any evidence against the simulation theory? Post it if so:]
Blessings,
-Daniel
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Levy
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Posted: July 1st 2009
@ 11:50 PM
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Coincidences, Coincidences, Coincidences, and how to fit them into a biblical worldview?
I'd prefer to get Christian thought regarding this if possible.
I'd love to hear the feedback of the Calvinist and the Arminian alike.
I'll start with a few examples, in my life the past year, I've noticed from what has seemed like coincidence on top of coincidence. On the other hand, I've noticed things that have seemed like confirmations of God.
These examples might seem little, but they happen, and...
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Pumbelo
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Posted: June 29th 2009
@ 06:11 PM
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I'm pretty sure this is an old objection to the FWD and I would like to know how the usual response goes.
Basically, Plantinga argues
(1) It's possible that God would want to create a world that contains creatures that are worthy of being praised for their actions
(2) For a being to be worthy of being praised for its actions, it must have significant freedom
(3) If a being has significant freedom, it must be possible that it choses to perform a morally wrong action
(4) It's possible that God...
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ENeGMA
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Posted: June 28th 2009
@ 10:34 PM
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I thought this up while not paying attention in philosophy of science class and just want to see if there's anything to it:
If necessarily God exists then possibly I know that God exists.
If possibly I know that God exists AND necessarily God exists then possibly I know that God necessarily exists.
If possibly I know that God necessarily exists then necessarily I know that God exists.
Therefore necessarily I know that God exists.
But I don't know that God exists.
Therefore God doesn't...
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Kenny
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Posted: June 28th 2009
@ 04:11 PM
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What sorts of things are you and I identical to?
Here’s several (not always mutually exclusive) answers to that question that have been put on the table:
Immaterial souls
Composites of a body and a soul
Exotic microscopic material simples (probably lodged somewhere in our brains)
Brains
Human Organisms
Material objects that are numerically distinct from but collocated with human organisms
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seer
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Posted: June 15th 2009
@ 10:11 PM
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I have been reading Plantinga, Nash, and some of Thomas Reid - does anyone here agree or disagree that belief in God can be properly basic even without the classic evidences for theism?
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disciple100
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Posted: June 15th 2009
@ 03:02 AM
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It's pretty straightforward. This is a question to atheists, but anyone feel free to comment.
If you found out there really was life after death, would the first thought in your mind be, 'Crap.' or would it be more like 'Hey, neat.'
If you, as an atheist, believed that this life was all you get, then somehow you ended up in Heaven/Afterlife, would you be disappointed? Or thrilled? And why?
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thinking007
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Posted: June 11th 2009
@ 07:40 PM
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Greetings all.
I thought I would jump in and ask a question. How many are familiar with Alvin Plantinga? Plaintinga is a Christian philosopher who has written about the distinction between warrant and justification with respect to belief in God. This distinction comes out of the philosophy of the middle ages. Plaintinga states that belief in God is properly basic. This corresponds to concept of warrant. Warrant is explained by the idea that human minds make connections about life almost...
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Pumbelo
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Posted: June 10th 2009
@ 12:40 PM
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I borrowed this from Robert Maydole's "Modal Perfection Argument for the Existence of a Supreme Being" and combined it with an account of omnipotence by Alexander Pruss.
Definition:
A being x is omnipotent provided that in every possible world, x's free choices are collectively the ultimate explainers of the rest of contingent reality.
The following argument is logically valid:
(1) Omnipotence is a perfection
(2) If a property is a perfection, it's negation is not a perfection
(3) If a...
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fritleyfrisp
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Posted: June 8th 2009
@ 10:25 AM
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Is it because they object to it on Philosophical grounds?
That they don't understand it?
That they have such a narrow view of evidence that it doesn't make sense to them?
Is it a logically sound argument?
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Seasanctuary
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Posted: May 31st 2009
@ 07:24 AM
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Is it possible for a cooked fish to be brought back to life and swim around for hours? (Section XIII)
Sure, it's logically possible. But it seems like something can be logically possible yet not actually possible. Or at least questionable, unlike other things we know to be actually possible because we have unquestionable examples.
I'm wondering if there is official vocabulary to express the above idea. It seems like a worthwhile distinction which is glossed over simply because of English...
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disciple100
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Posted: May 27th 2009
@ 04:53 AM
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Alot of people like to make appeals to 'logic' when arguing agains one another. But doesn't logic seem to defy reality at times? Here's (one of my personal favorites) an example of logic defying reality:
In this particular instance, we are talking about infinite versus finite. Logically, if there is an infinite number of halves, we have an infinite number of space, so therefore the arrow never reaches it's final destination. But in reality, the arrow hits. Sometimes, logic just isn't...
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