Announcement

Collapse

Deeper Waters Forum Guidelines

Notice – The ministries featured in this section of TheologyWeb are guests of this site and in some cases not bargaining for the rough and tumble world of debate forums, though sometimes they are. Additionally, this area is frequented and highlighted for guests who also very often are not acclimated to debate fora. As such, the rules of conduct here will be more strict than in the general forum. This will be something within the discretion of the Moderators and the Ministry Representative, but we simply ask that you conduct yourselves in a manner considerate of the fact that these ministries are our invited guests. You can always feel free to start a related thread in general forum without such extra restrictions. Thank you.

Deeper Waters is founded on the belief that the Christian community has long been in the shallow end of Christianity while there are treasures of the deep waiting to be discovered. Too many in the shallow end are not prepared when they go out beyond those waters and are quickly devoured by sharks. We wish to aid Christians to equip them to navigate the deeper waters of the ocean of truth and come up with treasure in the end.

We also wish to give special aid to those often neglected, that is, the disabled community. This is especially so since our founders are both on the autism spectrum and have a special desire to reach those on that spectrum. While they are a special emphasis, we seek to help others with any disability realize that God can use them and that they are as the Psalmist says, fearfully and wonderfully made.

General TheologyWeb forum rules: here.
See more
See less

Why Neil DeGrasse Tyson Should Stick To Science

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by Cornell View Post
    Tassman



    A necessary rational being is not magic, it’s just the necessary material substance that you follow + rationality, so to say that rationality is magic absolutely makes your necessary material substance that supposedly is the reason for why existence exists an implausible explanation, because if your explanation is necessary why didn’t it have a component of reality back then, like we see now? With this being said how exactly does a necessary substance create new components that it doesn’t already have the potential to make? Your view on reality makes absolutely no sense.
    Your “view on reality” is merely an Argument from Ignorance. And it was you who offered magic as a possible solution, not me.

    Yes and this simplicity came about from a necessary rational being that entails no parts, so I agree with you. God is definitely simpler than whatever in the world you pose as an explanation.
    This is a bald assertion. Evolution is a clear demonstration that complexity has evolved from simplicity; no gods needed.

    In other words you don’t know, because your explanation fails in explanatory scope and power. I mean is this the best you got?

    With respect to the very first increment, how did it prevent an increase in frequency, and what happened? All your saying is godlessevolutiondidit, so I don’ t need to educate myself, because your buddies don’t have any clue what happened. I don’t know isn’t an education it’s a cop-out, well I have simple explanation, there is a necessary rational being, this rational being made us inherit rationality from it. We been told about this hundreds of years ago, but people just don’t want to listen because their emotions get involved. Imago dei, it’s so simple that I see no reason why people can deny it and tell me with a straight face how this nonrational substance created rationality by a natural selection wasn’t rational.
    Actually, its "God made in the image of man"; Homo sapiens and our simian ancestors came long before any notion of a deity was extant.

    I’m not saying ‘I don’t know, therefore God’ what I am saying is that “God provides the best explanation because the alternatives are garbage and can’t do the job.” Snip.
    God provides no evidenced explanation at all and the evidence for Natural Selection is undeniable.

    http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-...o-biology.html

    We are rational creatures, we evolved via Natural Selection. There's so much data already and scientific research, in areas like neurobiology, sociobiology, human psychology, emergence, evolution, general biology, physics, can actually and will provide real answers. So why would anyone bother with speculative metaphysics from the pre-scientific era?

    In other words you don’t know, and all you have to work with is, ‘god of the gaps’ as that’s your saving grace for everything you don’t know, because that ultimately makes atheism look like the correct view on the nature of reality.
    No, what we have to work with is Evolutionary theory and this is supported by abundant evidence.

    I can’t help the fact that you’re too lazy to look at the jargon, I can’t help the fact that you’re so hellbent on doing everything possible to deny the obvious fact that Theism is true.
    Theism is unsupported by any evidence other than metaphysical conjecture based upon assumed axiomatic premises.

    Why don’t you just cut the chase and just say ‘ I don’t want a God to exist, this is why I’m happy with saying “ I don’t know, but I’m sure my silly atheist friends will find out one day’
    This is getting ridiculous, you have absolutely nothing to work with. I’ve asked you dozens of times for an explanation of how evolutiondidit and all you do is give me the definition of evolution as if that’s going to explain it away.
    There is no substantive evidence that God exists. Your claim that the material properties of the brain cannot explicitly explain consciousness or rationality – and that they must therefore be caused by non-materialist processes - is merely an Argument from Ignorance, i.e. a god-of-the-gaps argument, which, as I keep reiterating, is all you've got.

    God helps my case, because God is a necessary being, what exactly is your alternative. Like what am I looking for in an atheistic universe, everything you guys come up with is so ad-hoc to the evidence.

    Is a godless universe supposed to necessary? Is it supposed to be contingent? Is it supposed to magically create rationality ex nihilo from nonrationality? How does it work?
    Physicists increasingly postulate the concept of an infinite, timeless quantum universe based on their understanding of quantum physics. Thus, if one insists upon using the archaic concepts of Necessary vis-a-vis Contingent then it is the universe itself that is ‘Necessary’ and it’s not contingent upon anything; but such classical metaphysical arguments have long been superseded by scientific methodology.

    It doesn’t invoke special pleading because the alternative doesn’t have those properties. That’s like saying it’s special pleading to say that Lebron James is a greater basketball player than the average joe, because the average joe doesn’t possess the property of being talented at basketball.
    False analogy! There’s no reason to think that the alternative, i.e. God, even exists.

    SNIP.

    So now comes the question that the godless never answer, and then try and downplay it as if there is no reason to answer, and this is because they don’t have an answer, so I’ll ask this again what is the explanation to this godless reality?
    The concept of an infinite regress in an infinite, timeless universe is meaningless. It belongs to the Classical era of philosophy before the counter-intuitiveness of quantum universe was understood.

    Ok let’s put this to the test then:

    You said “There is no other means of establishing a true premise”

    ^how do we prove this premise?

    you said “Philosophy must rely upon conjecture based upon the Laws of Nature as understood at present by science. It has no means to establish new facts”

    ^prove this premise then
    My assertion was not the premise of a Deductive Argument, merely a statement of fact using words with commonly accepted dictionary meanings. How you love your recursive arguments.

    This is egregiously false, so let me give you an example of how logic can build on other types of knowing. Take the proposition: "All bachelors are unmarried men." Now on inductive, physical evidence we could never completely verify this since we have the famous "black swan" problem of induction. We would only be able to state that as far as we had tested it the proposition always held true. But logic can demonstrate the necessary truth of the proposition by considering it to be true by the meaning of the words and therefore it can be known to be absolutely true analytically a priori. This is an instance of logic assuring knowledge which goes beyond that of the senses and that of induction.

    Therefore, logic can give us new knowledge
    You are confusing Deductive and Inductive arguments. A Deductive argument provides conclusive proof of its conclusions; if the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true. A deductive argument is either valid or invalid.

    Whereas:

    An Inductive argument, e.g. the “white swan argument”, is one where the premises provide some evidence for the truth of the conclusion but not conclusive proof. Inductive arguments are not valid or invalid,

    So, again, how can Metaphysics establish a “true premise” for your Deductive arguments?

    No it can’t The natural sciences ASSUME objective logic. Just as science also borrows an epistemology and often a metaphysical framework as well. Science cannot disprove the metaphysical argument that uses Occam’s razor to argue the case that we aren’t in the matrix.
    Science assumes nothing of the sort. Science is not about objective metaphysical truth. It is a collection of methods for making abstract models of nature, then testing those models against reality and devising falsifiable conclusions. Conversely, Deductive metaphysical conclusions claim to be objectively true.

    Aristotle’s geocentric universe wasn’t intuitive, it was empirical.

    Remember conceptual facts =/= empirical facts

    The geocentric universe wasn’t a part of aristotle’s metaphysics, it was a part of his physics.
    Intuition = non-inferential knowledge, Aristotle didn’t use non-infernetial knowledge to argue for geocentrism, as he used empirical means with respect to the way the Sun, Stars and Planets revolved around the Earth. Aristotle was making an ‘inference’ and therefore he wasn’t using ‘intution’ so have you absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, and judging at how poorly you are at conceding a point, I’m starting to think that this debate is a waste of time.
    Aristotle’s metaphysics was based upon his incorrect understanding of the physical universe, which is the point made several times already. Namely that a metaphysical premise can only be based upon the world-view of the day - as it was understood at the time - and this has changed exponentially since Aristotle’s day. The same applies to Aquinas.

    No, my argument is that I don’t need to argue for a materialistic way on how the immaterial connects with the material, the question you’re asking is nonsensical, as it presupposes the truth of materialism in its conclusion. That’s like me asking you how the material brain connects with immaterial thoughts if materialism if your worldview is true.

    Anyways, I’m with William Hasker, I’d argue that perhaps body has some identifying characteristic, unique to itself, that is has throughout its career. Or perhaps God not only creates but also sustains the causal interaction between the soul and the body. All and all while the argument is designed to show that there is some aspect of the human person that has the essential capacity to perceive logical connections, that entity still could very well be spatially locatable

    Or we can go with emergent dualism! It does feel good on the fact that I don’t have to deal with the “problem of intentionality” that materialists have to deal with.
    You can reinforce your presuppositions with whatever you like; there’s no substantive evidence to support any of it. "Emergent dualism" is pure conjecture. As for theists such as Hasker, he like you merely seeks to reinforce existing theistic presuppositions.

    Of course you don’t, but I was asking whether or not your proposition was true, so

    If God existed, then God would be contingent, is this true or false?
    It’s a meaningless hypothetical, e.g. if the all powerful Invisible Pink Unicorn existed then the all powerful Invisible Pink Unicorn would be contingent, is this true or false?

    Let me hold my stick aside for a second and ask you: Do you think that science is the only method towards gaining NEW knowledge about the universe, yes or no?
    Scientific methodology is the only means of ‘testing’ NEW knowledge about the universe, is my argument.

    Sez who? All you do here is beg the question and assume that matter has always existed.
    You mean like you beg the question and assume that God has always existed? See above regarding the scientific postulate of an infinite, timeless quantum universe as supported by quantum physics.

    There is absolutely no evidence for a universe filled with matter that was always here, zero, zilch, nothing, just emotional people who would do anything to refuse to believe in a God, if only they used half the amount of skepticism against the godless view of reality as they do with God, I guarantee they’d be Theists.

    If there as a sliver of evidence for a godless necessary material universe I’d have no problem accepting this.
    Hawking's view, which is shared by most of his colleagues, is that although 'real time' had a beginning, it begins from a timeless Quantum World. This well grounded in the Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

    And that law of physics only deals with closed systems, so this doesn’t work.
    True of Classical mechanics not Quantum Mechanics! In Quantum Mechanics a state of “nothing” is called Zero-Point energy. It's the lowest you can go. ZPE can be applied to all sorts of fields in Field Theory, but in particular it gives the vacuum energy in cosmology, along with the absence of other fields. The vacuum energy is likely the cosmological constant, so this means in an apparent void one can get fluctuations in the curvature of space-time - like special relativity and quantum mechanics give particles popping out of ZPE fields randomly, i.e. the likely origin of our universe.

    Do I really need to go over possible world semantics? Or how there are a priori truths that we can just grasp clearly and distinctly?
    One can “grasp” what you are trying to say, but you can’t show that what you are saying is true.

    You’re and atheist because you don’t look hard enough, and you’re not skeptical enough towards a godless universe.
    A godly universe doesn't exist merely because you think it’s a nice idea or that the ancients knew no better. We do know better today. BTW: Your apparent hatred and fear of atheism seems to me to be grounded in insecurity of your own theistic world view. Not surprising, it's an untenable view.

    Because God is the author of nature, and rationality existing as an initial feature of reality isn’t supernatural. The term supernatural wasn’t used until the 16th = 17th century, so one doesn’t need to accept the distinction.
    Whatever you want to call it your above assertion cannot be explained in terms of the Laws of Nature.

    I made no such supposed "god of the gaps" argument. All of the arguments for God's existence I hold to are based on what we do know and not on the gaps about what we don't.

    Snip.

    Now we come to the fine-tuning of the universe. Does this unique scientific event have deep theological context? Well, yes. And so it seems inappropriate to hand-wave this theistic explanation.
    The universe is not “finely tuned”; the mere appearance of design does not necessarily indicate the existence of a designer. We have an inbuilt capacity for “pattern-recognition”, which Michael Shermer refers to as "patternicity", i.e. we "see" patterns/design everywhere even when there is no such reality. It's a survival mechanism: better to avoid a rock that looks like a lion then be eaten. As for "Design", life evolved to fit the existing conditions, the conditions weren't designed for us.

    All the available substantive evidence points to naturalism, and none of it points to anything else. Therefore there is no reason not to be a naturalist and no good reason to be a theist. Especially given that, without exception, EVERY phenomenon which has been closely examined has turned out to have a natural explanation.

    That’s a lot of blind faith you have, and I’m glad that you think that you have enough to be optimistic about your views,
    Projection!

    Snip.

    The argument then goes as follows:

    1) If materialism is true, then there is no fact of the matter as to what someone’s thought or statement is about

    2) But there are facts about what someone’s thought is about. (Implied by the existence of rational inference.)

    3) Therefore, materialism is false.
    Except that it demonstrably isn't false as the cognitive sciences are increasingly showing us with empirical evidence as opposed to the speculative inferences of your “arguments from reason.”

    You haven’t taken me back and time and explained how it arose incrementally or at least give me something to work with so you have no answer. I argued simplicity,

    Rationality was an inherited feature of reality
    Once again there is no reason to assume that rationality did not arise incrementally via natural selection as have all the other human qualities. Why would you make an exception for “rationality?” Just because the material properties of the brain cannot at present explicitly explain “rationality” does not warrant the conclusion that it must be caused by non-materialist processes." This is another of your Arguments from Ignorance.

    I received no objection, only a god of the gaps plea. A plea that I’ve pretty much answer repeatedly now.
    But you haven’t. All your “arguments to the best explanation” are essentially god-of the gaps arguments, i.e. “we don’t know, therefore God…”

    Well those communities according to the godless evolution should have died off because those communities were lacking true beliefs.
    “Mind prayer, tithing, church service, baptism” are not evolved survival mechanisms; you clearly don’t understand how Natural Selection works.

    Oh and if the godless evolution is so concerned with truth as it supposedly aids survival, why do religious people live longer than non-religious people?
    The survival advantages in Evolution are measured in eons, not decades. But, regardless, you are wrong in anyway. The godly USA ranks only 28th on the UN Human Development Index (which includes life expectancy) compared to the godless nations such as Norway and Germany.

    From the article “Research into liver transplant patients found those who were actively “seeking God” had a better survival rate than those who did not hold religious beliefs, regardless of which faith they held.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/he...-suggests.html

    I also see things on spirituality too, so I guess the godles evolution is doing something fishy here.
    Selective links! Typical!

    How about:

    “CHICAGO (Reuters) - A study of more than 1,800 patients who underwent heart bypass surgery has failed to show that prayers specially organized for their recovery had any impact, researchers said Thursday. In fact, the study found some of the patients who knew they were being prayed for did worse…”

    http://www.templeton.org/pdfs/articl...331Reuters.pdf

    You said that a priori beliefs require assumptions, so I guess you’re backpedaling now, eh?
    Inasmuch as they are without reference to particular facts or experience they do require assumptions.

    IT doesn’t matter if it’s a ‘natural’ origin, unless by ‘natural’ you mean ‘material’ and if that’s the case, then you have a problem, how does physical matter say something about physical matter? States of mind have a relation to the world we call intentionality, or about-ness, how does matter do this exactly?
    “Natural” means “material”. In the absence of viable alternative explanations one must look to a material explanation as the cognitive sciences are demonstrating. God-did-it is NOT a viable explanation.

    Ask that materialist who needs to explain the immaterial substances in our universe, if you want to beg the question so can I.
    WHAT “immaterial substances in our universe”? See above re brain/thoughts in Monism vis-a-vis soul/body nexus in Dualism.

    No, you need to show me why I need to show you the mechanism whereby philosophy can acquire new facts about nature. You seem to be using this philosophical statement of yours as some sort of yardstick that I’m supposed to meet, Snip
    Scientific methodology can test it’s hypotheses about nature and thus acquire new knowledge. That’s its mechanism. What is the equivalent mechanism whereby philosophy can acquire new facts about nature? This is the question I'm waiting for you to answer. My answer: It can't. It doesn't have the requisite mechanism

    Well how do I distinguish what’s new knowledge and what isn’t, because I feel like I’m learning a lot about how the universe functions from all of your philosophical statements.
    You need to be able to test it against reality, as per scientific methodology .

    Yes, evolution + God, not the silly evolution + God

    Let’s break this down

    Evolution + God = Evolution + Necessary, rational being
    Evolution – God = evolution + necessary, nonrational being
    So where did evolution and that increment….ah I’ve asked plenty of times already, you just don’t know how.
    Again: There is NO credible evidence for the “plus necessary being” component in the first place.

    The very first increment, what happened, since you probably don’t know what year I’ll let that slide. So what happened?
    Once again: Whilst there are several viable hypotheses for Abiogenesis (i.e. the natural process of life arising from non-living matter) but as yet no established facts. But to use this as the basis of one of your “therefore God…” assertion is merely an Argument from Ignorance, which is mostly what the so-called Arguments from Reason are.
    Last edited by Tassman; 08-05-2014, 08:21 PM.
    “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Cornell View Post
      1.

      Which interpretation?

      Classification adopted by Einstein
      The Copenhagen interpretation
      Many worlds
      Consistent histories
      Snip.
      Quantum Mechanics is counter-intuitive and difficult to understand - especially for the layman. But this doesn't mean it is not a well understood scientific theory and highly productive.

      http://www.pbs.org/transistor/science/info/quantum.html

      http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/cu...ange-world.htm

      Your attempt to reduce it meaningless babble is deceitful.

      Metaphysical premise? Don’t you mean logic? Now with that being said as Keith Ward points out the Hypothesis of God is especially attractive, because it does not really look as though the fundamental laws and states of the universe are very simple at all. There is a whole 'particle zoo' at the subatomic level. There is dark energy and dark matter. There are many complex equations in quantum theory.
      Keith Ward is entitled to his unsurprising opinion – i.e. “unsurprising” given that he’s an Anglican priest. Nevertheless, just because “fundamental laws and states of the universe” are not simple, does not mean that they will not be understood. Nor do hypotheses “being attractive” necessarily make them correct.

      The scientific search for one neat "Theory of Everything", which would somehow embrace all lower-level physical laws, is looking very unlikely to succeed. The hypothesis that such a search will succeed is an article of faith in the power of science. It is not an unreasonable faith; there are good reasons, in the past success of science and the elegance of the laws so far discovered, to hold it. But to do so is as much a step of faith as is a commitment to the God hypothesis , which also has good reasons to support it, but cannot at present be conclusively established.
      The “Theory of Everything” is not an impossible goal. It refers to the attempt to unify both Classical Mechanics and Quantum Mechanics. This is necessary because General Relativity breaks down at the Planck length right where Quantum Mechanics comes into play.

      Science is searching for a physics that rolls them into one package. It will probably succeed – just as it succeeded with the predicted Higgins Boson, which was pivotal to the Standard Model and other theories within particle physics.

      So in other words you have no objection to what I just said, except the fact that Aristotle was old, and therefore he must have been wrong. Once you again you make another careless appeal to time.
      Spare me! That’s not what I said. Aristotle could only work with the available information about the universe which, in his era, was extremely limited. Thus the premises for many of his metaphysical arguments were not “true”. Hence the conclusions to these metaphysical arguments could not be “true”.

      If one couldn’t define what does not exist then we’d have no comic books, so this is wrong. I can make up a character, give it qualities and the definition alone gives you and idea of what it ‘ought’ to be like. Snip.
      I’m saying there is insufficient evidence for God’s existence to warrant a belief in his existence, just as there is insufficient evidence for the heroes of Marvel Comics to warrant a belief in their existence.

      It’s a hypothesis, the God hypothesis (Philosophical) agrees completely with the argument that, if there is going to be a final explanation of the universe, it has to be in terms of an eternal and necessary being. But instead of having a huge set of complicated quantum laws and a very finely balanced set of fundamental physical forces, all of which are realized sooner or later by some unknown principle, it postulates just one being, a cosmic mind or consciousness.
      Not if, as posited by Hawking and others, that the universe itself is eternal and infinite. The latter makes more sense in that we know that the natural universe exists; we don’t know that a non-natural deity exists.

      So what was wrong with it exactly? Is it wrong because you say so? Because you don’t like it?
      What was wrong with it is that analogies about the Laws of the Universe are not evidence of those laws.

      It’s still not genuine though, because we’re all living a ‘noble lie’. The purposeless godless evolution implants in our mind the fact that we are somewhat ‘meaningful’ only because it gives us a psychological advantage, so this ultimately means that this ‘satisfaction’ that we feel isn’t genuine, it’s BS just to aid in passing on our genes to more purposeless conglomerations of matter.
      Nonsense! The “satisfaction" we feel when we act according to our evolved nature, e.g. the loving nurturing of our children, is demonstrably real and meaningful. I’m not living a “noble lie” when I interact with my little daughter. Nor do the lesser creatures when they interact with their offspring. How presumptuous you are.

      And why do you speak of 99% of species? Why use species as a sample? Life has been around for billions of years, and this life makes a better measurement, because we’ve evolved from it, and therefore without ‘it’ we wouldn’t be here.
      There have been five mass extinctions of life on earth (some say we are on our way to a sixth mass extinction) and approx 99% of all species that ever lived are now extinct. So, why do you suggest that the universe has any more “purpose” for us Homo sapiens then for the rest of life on the planet? Because we’re “special”, what’s your evidence for this?

      Well there has to be a determined universe in order for that to be true, I know you’re big on illusions with this godless universe that supposedly makes all of these illusions the simpler explanation, but if free will doesn’t exist then we aren’t morally responsible for anything we do, but we why do feel sense’s of ‘justice’ when it comes to putting rapists in jail, when ultimately they weren’t morally in control of their decisions, because of determinism? I guess this is another illusion, right?
      Determinism might imply that our choices and efforts have earlier sufficient causes; it does not imply that we don't make choices or that our choices and efforts are causally impotent. Determinism is consistent with the fact that our deliberation, choices and efforts are part of the causal process whereby our bodies move and cause further effects in the world.

      Thus we observe the moral/behavioural code we have devised as evolved social animals because of our need to maintain social cohesion. It’s a naturally-selected survival mechanism which is common to many primates like us.

      Codes of behavior have nothing to do with moral facts, unless you can point out to me a code of behavir that ends up being objectively true.

      As far as morals being derivatives of self-preservation and procreation consequent upon natural selection this doesn’t get us to moral obligations, all it does is tell us what is, not how things ‘ought’ to be, so all you’re saying is that humans are pointless conglomerations of matter living with yet another delusion that is morality, and I guess moral nihilism would be true if Theism was false.

      It does, well moral predispositions more to the point. We instinctively observe the rules of the tribe or community to which we belong. This is what “morality” is all about. It's a derivative of self-preservation and procreation consequent upon natural selection; it has been naturally built into us. It's instinctive. If you want to argue that “Morals” are divinely revealed absolute laws, you must provide credible evidence.

      Give me a reasonable argument on how it happened and I’ll agree with you, so far you’ve failed at doing this. Snip.
      There is considerable evidence of the natural universe existing. And there is evidence of consciousness and rationality existing even if we don’t know how these qualities arose at this point – although there are several good working hypotheses. Thus the obvious conclusion is that these qualities evolved via Natural Selection as have ALL of our other qualities. There’s no good reason to think otherwise. Invoking a deity is unwarranted.

      So my instinct makes me think that giving money to the poor is ‘good’…..I don’t really see a difference, so this sounds like an obligation to me. It looks like you’re just calling moral intuitions ‘instincts’. If you’re not then how do we distinguish moral intuitions from instincts?
      Correct! Our “instincts” evolved to enable greater social cohesion, which is necessary for the survival of the species; we are genetically predisposed to behave thus. As well, our demonstrable inclination for “survival” is also instinctive - as it is for ALL life forms. All creatures resist being killed.

      That’s not saying anything about morality with respect to genuine obligation and brings us right back to moral nihilism, so if you’re a moral nihilist then that’s fine, because I’ll concede the point in which if God doesn’t exist then moral nihilism is true, so humans are not objectively valuable and we don’t have any objective obligations to fulfill.
      We act according to our instinctive needs as do ALL the social animals which depend upon community living for survival - NOT upon an externally imposed moral code. If you think the latter then provide evidence.

      God’s existence has been shown repeatedly to be better than the alternatives….whatever nonsense you guys believe in.
      Nothing can be “better than the alternatives” if it can’t be shown to exist

      You’re just calling ‘God’ the natural universe, because if ‘nothing is impossible’ then something has always existed, so there is your first piece of evidence for a necessary being. Let’s see if you can accept it.
      Yes! According to Hawking science is slowly awakening to the concept of the timeless cosmos, i.e. one without beginning or end and from which our current universe (one of many) was born. This is the current direction of theoretical physics. No gods are necessary. If a deity can exist eternally, so can the cosmos.

      That’s not the alternative, ‘natural’ is not mutually exclusive with ‘God’. Snip.
      Maybe not but ‘God’ is an unnecessary and irrelevant accretion.

      You don’t even know what Theism entails, as you try and dictate my position with silliness only because it makes it easier to knock down, however in the long run all you’re doing is attacking a strawman, so why should I even bother with you anymore? One thing I got out of you is that you look at God as some sort of supernatural being, well what the heck is ‘supernatural’ ??? in fact what does ‘natural’ mean?

      What do you mean when you say these words? If you mean ‘natural’ in the sense of ‘material’ then I can understand you, because then we can call ‘God’ a disembodied mind, and I’ll accept that as ‘non-natural’

      Otherwise I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about when you say ‘supernatural’
      Easy, Supernatural: “1. not of the natural world: relating to or attributed to phenomena that cannot be explained by natural laws”. You know, like a “disembodied mind”. Now do you understand? You were erroneously giving equal weight to two demonstrably NON equal postulates i.e. the non-natural universe (for which there’s no credible evidence) and the natural universe (for which there is) and claiming you were being neutral. You were not.

      No, Thor came from Odin, so obviously Thor isn’t the God of everything as Thor is CONTINGENT upon Odin for his existence.

      I hope you’re getting it now.
      Again you miss the point about how and why gods arose in the first place. The gods such as Thor, Wotan, Apollo, Aphrodite – in fact ALL gods, including yours - were invoked during the pre-scientific era in an attempt to explain otherwise inexplicable phenomena. They were pre-scientific solutions to how the universe worked in the absence (seemingly) of any other reasonable explanations. E.g. Thor took care of thunder and lightning, Neptune was the boss of the sea and Yahweh created the whole enchilada and so on. Got it? There is no inherent difference between ANY of the gods. There are ALL man-made. Needless to say, science has been more successful at explaining the universe, and how it works, than postulating deities. And cheaper; one doesn't have to offer sacrifices and offerings in order to keep them appeased.

      This is too vague, how do we distinguish between ‘new facts about nature’ and ‘trivial day-to-day learning experiences’ do we do this through your bias?
      Facts relating to the functioning of the natural laws and constants of the universe!

      And this social cohesion is a genuine lie, right? Because nothing really matters and we have obligation to maintain social cohesion, so I guess this is another illusion put forth by the godless evolution.
      A “lie” compared to what alleged “truth”. The necessity for social cohesion among evolved social animals such as us is demonstrable fact not a lie. As opposed to the unsubstantiated mythos of a creator God who made people in his own image and destined them for eternal life if they believe in him. Come now! And what about our fellow primates, don't they get a look in??? Why not!

      Wow so that’s it?

      You live with the fantasy of
      “I say I’m special, therefore I’m special’ and that’’s the best you got?

      Hmmm well now I must ask one question regarding those philosophical facts and trivial day to day learning experiences.

      If a person named chuck reaches the age of 18 and then says ‘I say I’m special, therefore I’m special’ is this a philosophical truth about the world or is it a trivial day-to-day experience?
      A pathological delusion, I’d say.

      More emotional wishful thinking,

      We find meaning through the lie of a purposeless evolution that gives us a psychological advantage just so we can propagate our pointless dna.
      Demonstrable fact, not a lie! And what's with this continual "pointless, godless universe" bit. Wishing for something different than the actuality is merely escapist fantasy. Personally, I have a satisfying, meaningful life; most creatures do. Although I admit there may be some existentially challenged baboons lurking in the jungles of Africa <sarcasm>

      By the way was your life special when you weren’t old enough to realize it, or does it become special when you’re aware that it’s supposedly special?
      I don’t claim my life is special; I’ll leave that sort of thing to the chosen ones of God.

      I know the godless love believing that purpose came from purposeless matter and that life came from non-life and all this magic , but you didn’t answer the question.

      Did the first organism have the potential to mutate, yes or no? Give me something to work with, because these god of the gap objections are getting old.
      There is no reason to think that abiogenesis didn’t occur via natural processes. There is no evidence that anything has ever occurred non-naturally. None! Science is a work in progress and how abiogenesis initially occurred is not yet known – although there are several promising hypotheses currently being tested. To claim that we cannot ever know is an argument from Ignorance.

      Do you ever think that one day you’ll use this logic?

      “We don’t know, because the view doesn’t make sense, so let’s change our view”

      Or is it hopeless?
      Change our view to what: “Therefore God…”? I’m sorry, but it is YOU who continually invoke the god-of-the-gaps argument.

      Same jam, you're still absolutely certain of the fact that you are uncertain (as you KNOW this to be true with absolute certainty), however I'm more interested in whether or not you are absolutely certain that there are no proven absolute premises, except ones we have defined to be true?

      Sez who? Are you absolute sure about this?

      If you think my opinion is incorrect you need to supply substantive evidence of proven absolute truths, rather than play recursive word-games. If not then I’ll assume you think there are NO absolute truths.

      Re absolutes: “Only one thing is certain—that is, nothing is certain. If this statement is true, it is also false”. Ancient paradox! Yes it's a cute retort, but ultimately unhelpful for either side.

      So in other words it’s useless because you say so, it’s a word-game because you say, and you don’t need to worry about this because, regarding your philosophy this isn’t a scientific problem, and scientific knowledge isn’t about objective metaphysical truth, so therefore it is absolutely true that scientific knowledge isn’t about objective metaphysical truth.

      Gotcha
      Scientific knowledge is not about objective metaphysical truth. This is not an absolute truth in and of itself; it is the nature of science as defined. It is a methodology for testing hypothetical models of nature against reality. And it has shown itself to be enormously successful in discovering new facts about the universe; metaphysics hasn't!

      Bare assertion with no support other than your emotions and dire need to live in a godless universe, because it brings you such great comfort…how do you KNOW it’s a godless universe, what should I be looking for (this should be interesting)
      So, if you don’t live in the natural universe, where do you live then? If you want to argue that you live in a god-made universe then you need substantive evidence which you haven't yet provided.

      I think what you’re saying is incomplete, science a collaborative that works off of individual interpretations, and the best interpretation that becomes a part of the collaborative. I agree that it would be hard for one person to be in charge of biology, physics, geology etc, but that’s not what I was saying.
      “…that works off of individual” or collaborative interpretations AND testing is a better way of putting it.

      Your God perhaps, but I don’t buy into your concept of God. When you argue with me and the God that I’m presenting, then we’ll see whether or not you can accept the obvious substantive evidence.
      There is no substantive evidence for any gods; they’re a superseded concept

      Once again you’re totally lost clinging to your ignorance and you have no clue on what you’re talking about

      Dionysus was the god of wine, how in the world does that make him the God of existence…..If you can’t answer then by all means, concede a point, admit that you were wrong. I promise I won’t make a big deal about it.
      See above re the role of gods in the pre-scientific era and why they were invented and why they're no longer necessary.
      Last edited by Tassman; 08-06-2014, 04:16 AM.
      “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Cornell View Post
        Who is asking?
        So, the fact that you think makes it self evident that you exist, you just can't explain, it isn't self evident to you, exactly what you are? Can't your philosophy answer that one for you Cornell?
        Last edited by JimL; 08-05-2014, 11:19 PM.

        Comment


        • Whoosh!

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix View Post
            Whoosh!
            Yeah I put in a smiley just for people like JimL...

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
              Yeah I put in a smiley just for people like JimL...
              You put one in for yourself as well i see Sparko.

              :clueless

              Comment


              • Originally posted by JimL View Post
                You put one in for yourself as well i see Sparko.

                :clueless
                Sorry Jim, Cornell got you - fair and square. Just admit it.
                Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                Comment


                • Originally posted by JimL View Post
                  You put one in for yourself as well i see Sparko.

                  :clueless
                  sure Jim. Kind of ironic coming from you, who has shown over and over how clueless you are about science, yet you worship it like a religion.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by seer View Post
                    Sorry Jim, Cornell got you - fair and square. Just admit it.
                    No, he didn't seer. Cornell has gone on and on about the possibility of the universe being no more than an algorythm and yet he argues that philosophy "I think therefore I am" proves his existence.

                    Comment


                    • I think this sums it all up.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                        sure Jim. Kind of ironic coming from you, who has shown over and over how clueless you are about science, yet you worship it like a religion.
                        Merely acknowledging the fact that science is best equipped to investigate the origins and functioning of the universe, as Jim is doing, doesn't meant that he's “worshipping" it, as you snidely and erroneously claim.
                        Last edited by Tassman; 08-08-2014, 01:44 AM.
                        “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Apologiaphoenix View Post
                          I think this sums it all up.

                          LOL, one of my favorite parts!
                          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by JimL View Post
                            No, he didn't seer. Cornell has gone on and on about the possibility of the universe being no more than an algorythm and yet he argues that philosophy "I think therefore I am" proves his existence.
                            Of course it proves his existence, his personal identity, as it does yours. Even if we lived in a virtual universe your personal identity is still confirmed, even if your understanding of the universe is incorrect.
                            Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by TimelessTheist View Post
                              ... Sagan just came across as being ignorant, when it came to matters of religion. Tyson, on the other hand, seems to be directly dishonest, if anyone remembers that thread I posted about his blatant lies in the first episode of Cosmos about the history of the Church.
                              Looks like Tyson lies a lot. Here's a journalist giving several examples, in a an article entitled, "Another Day, Another Quote Fabricated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson", which follows on from the same journalist's more detailed criticism in "Did Neil deGrasse Tyson Just Try To Justify Blatant Quote Fabrication?".
                              Neil deGrasse Tyson may be a fabulous scientist, and a consummate showman, but he’s downright terrible at accurately quoting people. Or, if you’re a “glass half full” kind of person, you might say that Neil deGrasse Tyson is pretty amazing at needlessly fabricating quotes and scenarios to showcase his own brilliance.

                              And
                              At this point, I’m legitimately curious if any quotes or anecdotes peddled by Neil deGrasse Tyson are true. Over the last week, I’ve examined only four, and every single one appears to be garbage. The “above average” headline. The “360 degrees” quote from a member of Congress. The jury duty story. And now the bogus George W. Bush quote. These are normally the types of errors that would be uncovered by peer review. Blatant data fabrication, after all, is the cardinal sin of scientific publishing.

                              Comment

                              Related Threads

                              Collapse

                              Topics Statistics Last Post
                              Started by Apologiaphoenix, 03-15-2024, 10:19 PM
                              14 responses
                              75 views
                              1 like
                              Last Post rogue06
                              by rogue06
                               
                              Started by Apologiaphoenix, 03-13-2024, 10:13 PM
                              6 responses
                              61 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post Apologiaphoenix  
                              Started by Apologiaphoenix, 03-12-2024, 09:36 PM
                              1 response
                              23 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post rogue06
                              by rogue06
                               
                              Started by Apologiaphoenix, 03-11-2024, 10:19 PM
                              0 responses
                              22 views
                              2 likes
                              Last Post Apologiaphoenix  
                              Started by Apologiaphoenix, 03-08-2024, 11:59 AM
                              7 responses
                              54 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post whag
                              by whag
                               
                              Working...
                              X