There is no evidence for a biblical jesus

[Rational Gaze]

I quoted him...

I know. So did I.

Eh, you say that, but I really just don't believe you.

As I said, whatever helps you get to sleep at night.

Does any old block of text with a goal of refuting something count as a refutation now?

Nope. The principle of sufficient reason stands. I just needed to develop the noumena idea, which I have done (even though Glenn unsubbed from this thread, so I don't really see the point, but hey, according to you, if I don't answer something right away then I'm apparently hiding something or whatever delusional tin-foil hat conspiracy theory you can concoct.)

You really don't see it? Really? Visualize yourself talking the way you have been in this thread to a friend, family member, co-worker or teacher. Sit back, close your eyes and try to play the conversation as though its a movie.

It should become quite clear to you.

Nope, sorry, ain't seeing it. Then again, I am not emotionally sensitive, and don't have an enormously large but frail ego. It's not so much I think highly of myself as it is, I don't think highly of you.

What is this question that I've missed?

You mean this question: How does philosophy demonstrate the existence of the supernatural?

I mean, it's obvious. Wasn't it you who said something about being blinded by pride earlier? Hmm...

[Rational Gaze]

Hey Jaecp, maybe you can tell me. How does the existence of natural phenomenon empirically verify naturalism? Tassman can't seem to provide a single rational reason for thinking naturalism is actually true.

[Rational Gaze]

naturalism and the principle of uniformity have been empirically verified by scientific methodology

Wait a minute, didn't Tassman earlier say...

I am NOT inferring that naturalism is true

Is it just me, or does it appear that Tassman has no idea what he himself is actually saying?

[lilpixieofterror]

You really don't see it? Really? Visualize yourself talking the way you have been in this thread to a friend, family member, co-worker or teacher. Sit back, close your eyes and try to play the conversation as though its a movie.

It should become quite clear to you.

I’ve always wondered how you get along in the real world and seriously think this is a good argument. One of my friends and I do insult one another, just for fun to see who can come up with the best insults. I have not always been too nice to my brothers and some of my cousins because they were acting like idiots and the same can be said of co-workers or teachers. Do you seriously think that I and others don’t have the guts to tell others they are being dumb, when they are being dumb? Sometimes I say it in a pretty polite way and try to give the suggestions of how to change their behavior and other times I’m not quite so nice. It really depends on the situation, but I have learned that sometimes being sweet doesn’t get things across and you sometimes have to put a boot in some bodies rear end (so to speak) to get your point across.

Nope, sorry, ain't seeing it. Then again, I am not emotionally sensitive, and don't have an enormously large but frail ego. It's not so much I think highly of myself as it is, I don't think highly of you.

I’ve wondered that myself and wonder if it comes from being told they are special all of their lives and not living in this place called reality. I do remember one little whiny college kid that I had to slap around a few times because he was being an idiot. He went to whine to the teacher about me. Thankfully, this teacher had a brain and figured this kid was just a little cry baby and told me to at least try to be a little nicer to him, to at least keep myself out of trouble. Goes to show, lots of cry babies exist around the world.

[Juice]

Let’s not! It is generally accepted that key philosophical terms are used in different ways by different philosophers.

Careful not step in Tassman’s BS folks. He wants to try to cover up his obvious lack of understanding of logic by trying to fool us into believing that people familiar with the basics of logic would correctly use the terms valid and sound interchangeably when referencing an argument.

But, no doubt it’s a nice way to avoid the difficult questions – right up there with accusations of logical fallacies and mockery, used by you lot to avoid the unpalatable fact that your worldview is based on faith alone and cannot be verified.

Questions aren’t arguments Tassman.

It is not unpalatable to me that my world view requires faith. Your world view requires faith on certain points too. They cannot be verified either. You, being an atheist, undoubtedly have faith that the first life form arose on this planet by some form of naturalistic abiogenesis. You have faith that that life form gave rise to all other life on this planet. You can’t “verify” either of those two key propositions of your world view either.

This discussion of Philosophy and nit-picking over Logic’s terminology is a diversion instigated by RG, and continued by you in best ‘schoolmarm’ mode, to avoid dealing with my assertion that there is no methodology or any discipline to establish the existence of the supernatural as a verified reality.

Dude, you were speaking about logic incorrectly to support your argument. There is no way that my pointing this out is a diversion.

And it is not merely nit-picking over terminology anyway. You weren’t even able to offer a reasonably accurate definition of what logic is. You said, “logic is how the universe works.” If you can’t even come close to correctly defining the subject you are speaking about why should we take seriously anything you have to say about it?

And you were given the discipline: Philosophy. The counter argument was to essentially pooh-pooh Philosophy (and logic to a degree).

Thus the existence of gods, angels, cherubim, evil spirits, i.e. the whole paraphernalia that supposedly comprises the supernatural universe can only be a matter of personal faith. Nothing more!

Of course it requires faith to believe God exists. You exercise faith in your beliefs too.

As well, unlike science with its productive methodology and huge body of acquired knowledge about the natural universe, there is not a body of verified knowledge about the alleged supernatural universe.

But we can use the body of acquired knowledge to infer the existence of the supernatural (specifically God’s existence).

Thus, while the existence of the supernatural is a hypothetical possibility, it is in fact a highly improbable notion and belongs to an earlier and more credulous age of myth and magic.

How do you arrive at the conclusion it is highly improbable? Let’s see the argument.

Glad you enjoy it. Pity you can’t deal with the argument – but that’s the point of put-down’s in TWeb, isn’t it, i.e. discredit the opponent in lieu thereof.

You don’t seem to need my help discredting yourself. You have proven time and time again to be absolutely spectacular at doing that all by yourself.

[Juice]

Wait a minute, didn't Tassman earlier say...

Is it just me, or does it appear that Tassman has no idea what he himself is actually saying?

I've seen fish flip-flop less.

To quote Tassman, "The difference is between what I said and what you think I meant, i.e. you missed the point."

You see when Tassman says something absurd it isn't that he said something absurd. We just missed his point.

[Rational Gaze]

Yeah, Tassman is a proponent of The Backtrack. If you can't unsay something you just realised is horribly wrong, the next best thing is to claim you never said it. This is an extremely gutsy manoeuvre on forums without an edit function, and forces reliance on the good old "you're just misrepresenting me" manoeuvre.

[bertatberts]

Philosophy isn’t Science
I would argue:
Science proceeds by two steps: Idealization and abstraction.
Scientists observe empirical phenomena and abstract the prominent qualities or properties, and then cultivate them into a conceptual or theoretical framework with which to describe, explain and predict possible phenomena.
The degree of creativity will always vary depending on the nature of the scientific inquiry.
On the converse, the noble philosopher strictly, speaking, is a commentator: we don't go out there and try to explain or predict anything, in the same way a scientist do. Instead, the philosopher attempts to elucidate and clarify.

Essentially, there are two types of philosophy:
1) "The Philosophy of ____"
2) "Philosophy".
Re. #2, "philosophy" is concerned with 'meta-questions': what is truth? What is right? What is wrong? blablabla.
This is certainly NOT a science, in my humble opinion, as these 'meta-questions' refer to nothing.
Surely it's no coincidence that philosophers have been posing and debating these same questions on and off for the best part of 2,500 years? And still no conclusion, Pure traditional "Philosophy", doesn't really refer to anything. The questions posed by classical traditional "Alain de Botton" or "A.C.Grayling" philosophy doesn't really refer to anything. It’s just idle speculation, with no real answers, as the questions posed are indeed too vague to have any practical determinate truth values.
Philosophers have an annoying tendency of posing problems and offering no resolutions. This is because they have no answer, no solution.
Philosophy can't ponder the real world without referring to it. At that point, it must bring in the products of that real world. Abstractions only go so far, that's why they aren't the primary focus of modern philosophy. The core abstract issues without a referent have been dealt with and have been shown to be absurd when applied to reality as discovered by various disciplines -- specifically scientific disciplines.
So even philosophers have to deal with reality ... and that reality includes knowledge gained from the sciences. The days of speculating about only abstract concepts is over.
I repeat again, "philosophy" [#2] is NOT a science.

However, what about #1: "The Philosophy of ____" ?,
Where '_____' is anything, example the 'philosophy of physics', 'the philosophy of mathematics', 'philosophy of language', etc.
I would argue that such branches of philosophy are as much a science as the religion is.
Why?
Well, the answer is simple:
Such "Philosophies of x" are concerned with a specific subject matter. I.e. 'x'. The philosophical inquiry therefore is constrained by 'x' itself.
For example consider the 'Philosophy of Physics'.
Physics is a science.
So what does the philosopher of physics do?
He examines the concepts of physics, the theories of physics, and the methods of physicists.
Such a philosophy is therefore engaging in conceptual analysis and should also be well-versed with the theories in question, and know a sufficient amount of mathematics and science in order to do this effectively.

Philosophical Scepticism.
It is clear some people have no idea what it is.
"Philosophical scepticism is distinguished from methodological scepticism in that philosophical scepticism is an approach that denies the possibility of knowledge, whereas methodological scepticism is an approach that subjects all knowledge claims to scrutiny with the goal of sorting out true from false claims."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_skepticism
Ludwig Wittgenstein clarifies it here “philosophical scepticism is a type of obsession because the sceptic never, even from the beginning, allows for the possibility of anything counting as evidence which might satisfy his doubts. Thus, doubt is perpetual, and the activity of constantly questioning is ultimately pointless."
Ludwig was referring to the stance taken by the theist.

To paraphrase Tassman Questions which are discussed by philosophy must have a valid premise. The conclusion is only valid as long as the premise is valid.
The only thing to make a premise valid is empirical evidence. Nothing else!
It wasn't philosophy that discovered DNA, though it may have discussed it, and come to a probable conclusion. It needed science to finalise it. This is why philosophy is always subordinate to science, even though they may need each other.

The Atom has been a philosophical idea since ancient Greece; it wasn’t until science discovered it, that it became a fact.
Empirical evidence determines reality, NOT philosophy.

[Juice]

The only thing to make a premise valid is empirical evidence. Nothing else!

If nothing else but empirical evidence makes a premise valid, then provide the empirical evidence that validates the premise: The only thing to make a premise valid is empirical evidence. Nothing else.

Ready, set, go…

[lilpixieofterror]

Looks like after getting his beating and properly schooled in the relationship of science and philosophy, Bert, after researching on Wiki for an entire 2 hours has become an expert in both topics and tries to come back and claim himself as an expert. Time for Bert to be schooled again and shown to be the armature he really is.

Philosophy isn’t Science

Where did I or anybody else say that philosophy was science (in the sense of the natural sciences)? Nowhere, so right here you begin with a strawman. Good job, perhaps you could try to actually understand my argument instead of your strawman recreations of it? My argument is that science is depending upon a philosophical foundation and you haven’t at all refuted this yet, you instead

I would argue:
Science proceeds by two steps: Idealization and abstraction.
Scientists observe empirical phenomena and abstract the prominent qualities or properties, and then cultivate them into a conceptual or theoretical framework with which to describe, explain and predict possible phenomena.
The degree of creativity will always vary depending on the nature of the scientific inquiry.

He mostly gets this right, but fails to notice that this is rather philosophical outlook on science. I guess the lack of understanding irony is one of the main traits that comes along when one becomes a fundy atheist.

On the converse, the noble philosopher strictly, speaking, is a commentator: we don't go out there and try to explain or predict anything, in the same way a scientist do. Instead, the philosopher attempts to elucidate and clarify.

This again, is totally false and can be confirmed just by looking at the fact that the scientific method is philosophical in outlook or looking at how science historically developed from philosophy and still maintains some of that philosophical core to this very day. Yet again, Bert refuses to drop his nonsense and continues to prefer to worship science, as the all knowing infinity that answers all of humanities questions and problems instead of one field of knowledge, among others. That is what happens, when one becomes a fundy atheist, it seems.

Essentially, there are two types of philosophy:
1) "The Philosophy of ____"
2) "Philosophy".
Re. #2, "philosophy" is concerned with 'meta-questions': what is truth? What is right? What is wrong? blablabla.
This is certainly NOT a science, in my humble opinion, as these 'meta-questions' refer to nothing.
Surely it's no coincidence that philosophers have been posing and debating these same questions on and off for the best part of 2,500 years? And still no conclusion, Pure traditional "Philosophy", doesn't really refer to anything. The questions posed by classical traditional "Alain de Botton" or "A.C.Grayling" philosophy doesn't really refer to anything. It’s just idle speculation, with no real answers, as the questions posed are indeed too vague to have any practical determinate truth values.

This is just more non arguments and idiocy, posted by our resident wiki researcher. People have been debating tons of things for centuries and will most likely continue to debate tons of things, for centuries to come. Acting as though science is all the all knowing infinite that knows everything is just as stupid as thinking that religion is the all knowing infinite that knows everything. What the 7th grade researcher fails to notice is that these matters affect every last one of us and form the core of our society. What is right, wrong, and truth affects each and every one of us and philosophers and even laymen have made some interesting contributions because these questions affect us every day. They form the bases of our core of laws, our morality, or code of conduct, and even the very fabric of our society itself. To claim these are ‘nonsense’ and ‘idle speculation’ shows just how postmodernism warps the mind and creates all sorts of flaws in basic thinking or logic, for that matter. Thanks again Bert, for showing everybody just how big of a moron you are because if we don’t know what truth is, how can you say science is truth? Yet again, you make silly mistakes and don’t even see how you contradict yourself.

Philosophers have an annoying tendency of posing problems and offering no resolutions. This is because they have no answer, no solution.

Then our wiki research might want to take a philosophy course, read a theologian, or read a philosopher because I can think of several philosophers that have not only posted problems, but solutions too or are you so stupid that you fail to notice this going on in our code of laws (for example)? Yet again, our 7th grader shows how he should stop talking and making himself look even dumber then he already has.

BTW Plato’s Republic or Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Thelogical offers both questions and resolutions to these questions. Plato discusses the ‘perfect government’ and gives solutions to reaching this government and Thomas Aquinas discusses the nature of God and gives example of how his nature is known. Again, you show the world you don’t know what you’re talking about and should just be quiet and let the real experts talk.

Philosophy can't ponder the real world without referring to it. At that point, it must bring in the products of that real world. Abstractions only go so far, that's why they aren't the primary focus of modern philosophy. The core abstract issues without a referent have been dealt with and have been shown to be absurd when applied to reality as discovered by various disciplines -- specifically scientific disciplines.

Again, he shows he doesn’t know what he’s talking about because history shows that the natural sciences developed from philosophy and the fact that famous scientist were once called ‘natural philosophers’, until around the 19th century. In fact, even today, scientist earn philosophy degrees (aka the PhD, for example). So this goes to show how ignorant Bert is and how he should do in depth research over glancing over a few wiki articles.

So even philosophers have to deal with reality ... and that reality includes knowledge gained from the sciences. The days of speculating about only abstract concepts is over.

Yet again, he shows he has never read a philosophy book, in his life. Plato’s Republic and Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Thelogical are both books that give practical answers to their subject in question. AKA, Bert is an idiot that doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

I repeat again, "philosophy" [#2] is NOT a science.

In the sense of a ‘natural scientist’ you would be correct, but scientist can also be a pretty broad definition as well. BTW it’s too bad I didn’t claim that philosophy was the ‘natural sciences’, but what I claimed (and you still haven’t refuted), that it needs a philosphical core in order to exist. A fact you refuse to engage, but would rather throw up smoke and mirrors and show the world that you don't know what you're talking about. Quite revealing, if you ask me.

Blah blah blah…

At this point, I am just getting board of listening to Bert rant so I decided to cut his ranting short. Now you might want to go back studying for that 7th grade science test you have next week. I wouldn’t want you to fail it, you know, while you’re pretending to be an expert in things you clearly are not in. Go away now child, adults are talking are its rude to talk while adults are.

[Rational Gaze]

I'm personally wondering when bertatberts is going to man up and accept my debate challenge. Presumably: never.

[Jaecp]

You mean this question: How does philosophy demonstrate the existence of the supernatural?

I mean, it's obvious. Wasn't it you who said something about being blinded by pride earlier? Hmm...

Thats almost exactly what I said in post 487

Nope. The principle of sufficient reason stands. I just needed to develop the noumena idea, which I have done (even though Glenn unsubbed from this thread, so I don't really see the point, but hey, according to you, if I don't answer something right away then I'm apparently hiding something or whatever delusional tin-foil hat conspiracy theory you can concoct.)

No,

What we have here is that as soon as nobody you actually respect is watching you stop doing a sufficient job and go back to just claiming victory in every post.

Hey Jaecp, maybe you can tell me. How does the existence of natural phenomenon empirically verify naturalism? Tassman can't seem to provide a single rational reason for thinking naturalism is actually true.

Are you trying to argue solipsism now?

Are we swapping?

Anyway, Tassman is drawing a distinction, if you want clarification, ask him.

I’ve always wondered how you get along in the real world and seriously think this is a good argument. One of my friends and I do insult one another, just for fun to see who can come up with the best insults. I have not always been too nice to my brothers and some of my cousins because they were acting like idiots and the same can be said of co-workers or teachers. Do you seriously think that I and others don’t have the guts to tell others they are being dumb, when they are being dumb? Sometimes I say it in a pretty polite way and try to give the suggestions of how to change their behavior and other times I’m not quite so nice. It really depends on the situation, but I have learned that sometimes being sweet doesn’t get things across and you sometimes have to put a boot in some bodies rear end (so to speak) to get your point across.

Do you really not see the differences between how you joke along with your friends for fun and what happens on this website?

[Rational Gaze]

What we have here is that as soon as nobody you actually respect is watching you stop doing a sufficient job and go back to just claiming victory in every post.

No, what we have is that I offered a sound objection, and another that needed a little more work.

Are you trying to argue solipsism now? Are we swapping?

How does arguing AGAINST naturalism mean I am arguing FOR solipsism? Although I merely asked for rational reasons to accepting naturalism. So far, Tassman has just offered circular reasoning and arguments from ignorance.

[Jaecp]

No, what we have is that I offered a sound objection, and another that needed a little more work.

Could you unpack that?

How does arguing AGAINST naturalism mean I am arguing FOR solipsism? Although I merely asked for rational reasons to accepting naturalism. So far, Tassman has just offered circular reasoning and arguments from ignorance.

Naturalistic assumptions offer tangible benefits in the real world,

For example,

This magical box with which we are communicatign upon

[Rational Gaze]

Could you unpack that?

I've already mentioned this, but there is another good objection to Solipsism (although it is kind of related to points already made) and that is: it is just inexplicable why the Solipsist and only the Solipsist exists. If the Solipsist can exist as a phenomenon, then why can't anything else? In short: there is just no good reason to suppose why only one phenomenon (the Solipsist) exists. The only way out would be to claim that the Solipsist is God, yet that is evidently not the case.

Jaecp argued: - A. Learning is illusory i. The Solipsist makes themselves forget. ii. The Solipsist "learns" from the imaginary people in their mind, the knowledge is stored in their "subconscious." iii. The Solipsist is "remembering" things they have "forgotten." B. The Solipsist creates new knowledge. i. New knowledge is created by extrapolating from an existing limited knowledge base. Jaecp's responses therefore lead to the conclusion that, if solipsism is true, then the solipsist has therefore managed to compartmentalise themselves into two separate beings: the architect who is elaborating this elegant façade and the observer who, clueless of what the architect is up to, plods on through the imagined world with no power over it all, and no knowledge of it all. The architect watches the audience watching the illusion, but the audience has no knowledge of this architect. What good reasons does the solipsist have for affirming that this creative architect is actually them? Especially considering that the solipsist, seemingly, has no power over this architect, and has no knowledge of its actions. If the solipsist does not know what this architectural force is doing, then how do they know that it has not created other phenomenon and they, the audience part, is simply unaware of this? Another point is that if this architect is really the solipsist, then why does it concoct such bad things and inflict pain on the solipsist? Surely, it would be more rational for a solipsist to believe that they are really in a matrix like prison or are being tricked by a demon, or some such similar notion?

Naturalistic assumptions offer tangible benefits in the real world,

So, you're saying that the belief that nature is all that exist is the reason why we have computers and the internet? That's odd given that the overwhelming majority of scientists and great thinkers in the past have been Christians, and there is still a good number today. Maybe you'd like to explain how assuming naturalism necessarily leads to greater scientific results?