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On April 18 2012 21:06 Kukaracha wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 19:42 zalz wrote:
Absence of evidence is most certainly the evidence of absence in some cases. It is not. Applying a scientific method to a metaphysical question is the dumbest thing pseudo-sienctific atheists do. Science is a rigorous method to understand the universe. It loses its very meaning if you use to determine things such as what is right and what is wrong, because you lose the essential rigorous aspect. PS : I'm an atheist myself so don't start one of those stupid "neenerneener" contests with me.
You might want to read the following sentences.
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I disregarded the following sentences because many christians consider the Bible to be an allegorical and metaphorical book. Questioning the reality of the Bible stories does not question the christian faith. The dogmas have changed through time, and theologists have come out with different forms of exegesis through the year.
But of course, it's not something you would know if you're not actually curious about what the Bible really is.
By the way, Zalz started with a scientific claim and followed with pseudo-history, so I don't really see the connection there.
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On April 18 2012 20:58 zany_001 wrote:
zalz, would you say that your entire philosophy is founded on reason and logic? And that any philosophy or religion which is not is false?
It doesn't have to be false, but I believe it leads to the correct conclusion more often.
For example, take the moral question of murder.
I would say murder is wrong.
Most people would also say that murder is wrong.
In this case, the conclusion is the same, but the thought proces that comes before is different. Most people would argue that murder is wrong, because it is wrong, an inheritance from centuries (if not millenia) of this belief being imposed.
Now a lot of people get anxious when you begin to discuss murder and whether it might be good, or perhaps in the middle, but people shouldn't feel this way. If a belief is correct then it should hold up to a critical observation.
I believe that if you force yourself to take a hard look at the things you believe and force them to adhere to reason and logic, you will be richer for it. People shouldn't be afraid of submitting
But for the most part, yes, my outlook on life is mostly based on being incredibly honest with yourself and forcing all yourself to be able to give a logical and well reasoned defense of any view you hold.
Does that mean I manage to do it all the time? I wish. I can still catch myself making mistakes on a daily basis, but I find there is a certain intellectual gratification when you don't take the easy route and say "it is because it is" but really try to force yourself to defend your positions with reason, and if you can't, adapt them.
It is not.
Applying a scientific method to a metaphysical question is the dumbest thing pseudo-sienctific atheists do.
Science is a rigorous method to understand the universe. It loses its very meaning if you use to determine things such as what is right and what is wrong, because you lose the essential rigorous aspect.
PS : I'm an atheist myself so don't start one of those stupid "neenerneener" contests with me.
There is nothing metaphysical about the claim of 3 million Jews migrating through a very specific desert for 40 years.
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Just because people act dumb, doesn't mean they are dumb. In other words you can never conclude one's intelligence by just watching them / hearing them talk.
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On April 18 2012 21:36 zalz wrote:
There is nothing metaphysical about the claim of 3 million Jews migrating through a very specific desert for 40 years.
How come? It can mean that they were many, it could represent hard times, it could be an emphatical version of what happened. It could be many things, and this is why it has been studied by passionate scholars for centuries now.
The existence of God is the metaphysical claim, the Bible is the metaphor that supports it. It's not hard to understand.
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The title of this thread, as well as the OP remind me of a lyric.
"And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know."
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On April 18 2012 22:05 Kukaracha wrote:
How come? It can mean that they were many, it could represent hard times, it could be an emphatical version of what happened. It could be many things, and this is why it has been studied by passionate scholars for centuries now.
It could be many things, but I already adressed this earlier.
This does not change that Exodus never took place in the way that most people would consider an event taking place. You know, by actually taking place.
Sure, there are plenty of people who insist that it is all a big number mumbo jumbo and if you read it the proper way, it spells the cheat code for Contra, but even if that was the case, Exodus itself would still not have happened.
Does Exodus contain an incredibly complex code that we cannot decypher. Perhaps.
Did Exodus ever happen in the physical sense? No, it did not. In this case, the absence of evidence serves as evidence of absence. A human society cannot travel the Sinai desert for 40 years and leave no trace. It is simply not possible.
The only way that it could be possible was if there was divine intervention which sought to remove any evidence from the desert. Aka, a trickster god.
It is possible to believe that, after all, there are people who believe that dinosaur bones were placed in the earth to test our faith, or placed by a conspiracy of scientists, but sooner or later you have to start wondering if you aren't just bending the truth to continually seeking the gaps.
The existence of God is the metaphysical claim, the Bible is the metaphor that supports it. It's not hard to understand.
Yes.
A claim to the existence of god is a metaphyiscal claim.
The claim that there were 3 million Jews wandering the Sinai desert for 40 years is not a metaphysical claim.
So applying science to the story of Exodus is not wrong, because Exodus isn't exclusively a metaphysical claim. Some may believe that it is more a story than a fact, but it is most certainly presented as a fact, and thus it is important to point out that on a factual level, Exodus never happened.
So, in conclusion, applying science to a metaphyiscal claim is indeed more often than not a waste of time, but claiming that 3 million Jews were wandering the Sinai for 40 years is not metaphysical.
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On April 18 2012 20:56 Kukaracha wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 02:39 Boblion wrote:
Lol i just used it as an obvious example. I have never talked about an "absolute" wtf. It is so annoying to discuss with you. You are always trying to put words in my mouth.
Also let's be clear once for all. If you have a "good job" with a "nice salary" it means that you are enjoying it and it is good for you which is completly different than taking a beating and suffering ! Now if your boss is a complete jerk it means that your job isn't "good" anymore and you should do something about it. If you stay and you become the bitch then yea you are submissive. It is a matter of CHOICES and of WILL.
I can't believe you don't understand stuff like this. You are always trying to make things more complicated than they really are. And your example is wrong, because you're arbitrarily dividing the world between those who submit and those who don't while almost everyone eventually submits to someone or something to different degrees. Maybe that wife took a beating, but maybe she's Rihanna and she's not really sad about her life overall. I mean, maybe you're a hippie and you believe that you would easily stand up to your boss and give up a 100k salary just because you're "not his bitch", but many people will gladly overcome humiliation to maintain their situation, at all levels. Of course it's a matter of choice, a matter of will not so much, you can simply not mind that much to be under the orders of someone. I don't see your point there (is there one anyway?).
For fuck sake stop to bring new words "being happy overall with your life" doesn't mean that taking a beating is healthy.
HEY I LOVE MY LIFE SO FAR SO YOU CAN PUNCH ME IN THE FACE, YEA DO IT AGAIN I LIKE IT. Also stop to ask non questions. If you value the "humiliation" 100k/month where is the fucking problem ? For 100k/month i would do many things (but not everything) and i would end up leaving my job after a while because at one point it is USELESS to gain money if you can't spend it. There is no point in feeling humiliated at work when you have X millions in your bank account
That's how modern society "works", wage vs work. What's your compensation when you take a beating by your husband btw ?
And yea sure i'm "arbitrarily dividing the world" lol. Coming from someone who is talking about "metaphysics" i find it HILARIOUS. Like if there is something outside "physics".
On April 18 2012 20:56 Kukaracha wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 02:39 Boblion wrote:
Words for words ! Smart is being clever ! Smart is being witty ! Smart is being bright !
But what is being clever ? What is being witty ? What is being bright ?
Since "smart" is a synonym of "intelligent, you have your own answer : Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 02:39 Boblion wrote:
Being intelligent doesn't mean shit if you are still a bum.
If you say that a bum can be "intelligent" but not "smart", then you're obviously using very different definitions for both while it is commonly aknowledged that they have similar definitions. In short, you're defending a poorly defined "concept" you once thought about that makes "smart" a synonym of "power". Some say that knowledge is power, but to quote a clever girl, "power is power".
Wtf is that gibberish lol. You are playing around with words and synonyms like if they are part of an equation.You are not even understanding what i'm saying. Words like "smart", "intelligent", "bright" have no meaning per se. It is always related to your abilities in the real(lol) world. So if you are a bum there are some good chances that you are either a very sick, weak and unhealthy person and/or DUMB ("debilus" in Roman meant crippled, lame, incapable, weak at the same time, whereas nowadays we are making a distinction between physical and "mental" abilities). Now please spare me your psychiatric studies about homeless people i don't want to know if they are either unlucky, have mental-illnesses, depressed with lower IQ or whatever. I have no interest in writing a thesis about it, i just want to not be like them lol. Also i don't want to have ressentiment towards people with higher status and abilities.
Envy yes but no hatred.
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When I think about my level of intelligence I always feel disappointed in myself for failing myself so much. I used to believe that I was above everyone in intelligence but now I understand that I'm just average if not below average... So now all I can do is try my best to sustain a happy life.
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On April 18 2012 22:22 zalz wrote:
Does Exodus contain an incredibly complex code that we cannot decypher. Perhaps.
Did Exodus ever happen in the physical sense? No, it did not. In this case, the absence of evidence serves as evidence of absence. A human society cannot travel the Sinai desert for 40 years and leave no trace. It is simply not possible.
[...]
The claim that there were 3 million Jews wandering the Sinai desert for 40 years is not a metaphysical claim.
So applying science to the story of Exodus is not wrong, because Exodus isn't exclusively a metaphysical claim. Some may believe that it is more a story than a fact, but it is most certainly presented as a fact, and thus it is important to point out that on a factual level, Exodus never happened.
So, in conclusion, applying science to a metaphyiscal claim is indeed more often than not a waste of time, but claiming that 3 million Jews were wandering the Sinai for 40 years is not metaphysical.
It's not metaphysical, it can be metaphorical.
Now, how do we know that the Exodus never happened? Does absence of evidence mean the evidence of absence in history? It does not.
I'll take the example of Caesar, who was one of few sources that we had on the life of certain northern tribes in Gallia. When he spoke of human sacrifices, we had every reason to doubt that his words were true and not a simple piece of propaganda against the barbarians. There was no other form of evidence that pointed towards the existance of human sacrifices in the druidic culture apart from Caesar's Bellum Gallicum, which, as an important source, almost counts as "evidence" (there rarely are "hard" forms of evidence in history, most of the time conclusions come from the multiplication of sources). While historians remained suspicious, it was assumed that maybe this was true, and the doubt remained until something or someone would disprove or prove this. We now know it's true after the examination of sacred grounds and the skelettons we found in them.
Whats does this mean? It means that if the Bible mentions a possible historical event, historians will have a positive approach of it, as the Bible counts as a source. To prove that it didn't happen, we needed to find elements that actually tell us that it didn't happen : estimations of the local population, traces of jewish populations in the area, climate estimations, etc. Which is not absence of evidence, it's the confrontation of sources.
Now, I don't know myself what the conclusions are.
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On April 18 2012 13:30 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 09:14 zalz wrote:
So no, Exodus never happened, and by extension that undermines all of the Abrahamic faiths. There's more to the abrahamic faiths than this. You don't understand what religion is if you think this "undermines" them. Nobody cares whether or not the stuff is historical.
Exactly Zalz, the basis of religion is a belief. Don't try to argue it, rational thinking does not apply to religion.
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On April 18 2012 22:27 Boblion wrote:
For fuck sake stop to bring new words "being happy overall with your life" doesn't mean that taking a beating is healthy.
HEY I LOVE MY LIFE SO FAR SO YOU CAN PUNCH ME IN THE FACE, YEA DO IT AGAIN I LIKE IT. Also stop to ask non questions. If you value the "humiliation" 100k/month where is the fucking problem ? For 100k/month i would do many things (but not everything) and i would end up leaving my job after a while because at one point it is USELESS to gain money if you can't spend it. There is no point in feeling humiliated at work when you have X millions in your bank account
That's how modern society "works", wage vs work. What's your compensation when you take a beating by your husband btw ?
That's however how modern management works in high-pay jobs. Competition is omnipresent, and while you do have the holidays to try out your yacht, your boss owns your body and soul and will throw you away like garbage if you slow down the pace.
Feeling humiliated at work has no impact on the amount of free time you have, and if you have little dignity to start with, you won't really mind. Now the "problem" of valuing this is that you're being submissive, which is my point : submission is not a matter of verticality and everyone submits to someone at different degrees.
And your husband might beat you, but if you were educated in a tough, machist environment it won't feel "wrong". He could be a lovely husband aside of those rage otubursts for example, or maybe he has enough money to take care of you, and you find that it's not that bad to take a slap to the face every now and then if you can drive a Porsche and spend your summer in Ibiza without having to work at all.
But enough of far-fetched examples, my main point has been stated and you haven't adressed it.
On April 18 2012 22:27 Boblion wrote:
And yea sure i'm "arbitrarily dividing the world" lol. Coming from someone who is talking about "metaphysics" i find it HILARIOUS. Like if there is something outside "physics".
You might want to send a letter to the College de France, they have a class called "metaphysics and philosophy of knowledge" directed by Claudine Tiercelin.
Unless you realize that "metaphysical" doesn't textually mean "not physical" or "beyond what is physical".
On April 18 2012 22:27 Boblion wrote:
Wtf is that gibberish lol. You are playing around with words and synonyms like if they are part of an equation.You are not even understanding what i'm saying. Words like "smart", "intelligent", "bright" have no meaning per se. It is always related to your abilities in the real(lol) world. So if you are a bum there are some good chances that you are either a very sick, weak and unhealthy person and/or DUMB ("debilus" in Roman meant crippled, lame, incapable, weak at the same time, whereas nowadays we are making a distinction between physical and "mental" abilities).
They do have a meaning, as long as you define it. The definition needs to be tied to the real world, true, but it's as simple as saying that being "intelligent" is showing a certain ability and quickness in mental tasks, and/or a certain knowledge and a good association of it. To says that being smart is being powerful is to enter the realm if pseudo-philosophy.
"Dumb" does not come from "débile" by the way, it's a germanic word.
On April 18 2012 22:27 Boblion wrote:
Now please spare me your psychiatric studies about homeless people i don't want to know if they are either unlucky, have mental-illnesses, depressed with lower IQ or whatever. I have no interest in writing a thesis about it, i just want to not be like them lol. Also i don't want to have ressentiment towards people with higher status and abilities.
Envy yes but no hatred.
Uh, okay.
On April 18 2012 03:24 sam!zdat wrote:
<3 you kukaracha
Love you too!
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On April 18 2012 23:29 Kukaracha wrote:
It's not metaphysical, it can be metaphorical.
Yes, and you argued that it was metaphysical, so you were wrong.
Now, how do we know that the Exodus never happened? Does absence of evidence mean the evidence of absence in history? It does not.
I'll take the example of Caesar, who was one of few sources that we had on the life of certain northern tribes in Gallia. When he spoke of human sacrifices, we had every reason to doubt that his words were true and not a simple piece of propaganda against the barbarians. There was no other form of evidence that pointed towards the existance of human sacrifices in the druidic culture apart from Caesar's Bellum Gallicum, which, as an important source, almost counts as "evidence" (there rarely are "hard" forms of evidence in history, most of the time conclusions come from the multiplication of sources). While historians remained suspicious, it was assumed that maybe this was true, and the doubt remained until something or someone would disprove or prove this. We now know it's true after the examination of sacred grounds and the skelettons we found in them.
Everything you said was eventually supported by evidence.
Exodus was actively looked for. They dug and dug for god knows how long in the Sinai desert and they didn't find anything. When they went looking for what you just mentioned, they found evidence.
If 600k - 3million people had marched through the Sinai desert for 40 years, there would be a trace. Groups as small as 50.000 were lost in a desert and left a trace, the Jews aren't any different.
People held their old testament in hand and began to look all over the Sinai desert, and they didn't find a single thing. Nobody in Egypt or around Egypt has ever mentioned the Exodus, an event of such earth shaking magnitude that it could not have occured without inflicting some collective shock on the society of the region, yet nobody mentions anything.
The idea that Exodus took place is like suggesting there was a world war in between 1 and 2, but nobody decided to write about it and the evidence just magically cleaned itself up.
Ooh, and then you proceed to complain that the only way to prove that there isn't a world war 1.5, is by quoting people talking about how world war 1.5 didn't happen. Just because you picked up a new phrase in school (absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence) doesn't mean its a holy mantra that is actually true.
That whole phrase was largely revived around the idea of Iraq having WMD's. We didn't find them, but that didn't mean they weren't there. I don't think you can find anyone that is sane of mind that will still claim that Iraq had WMD's.
If you don't find any evidence for something, despite looking tirelessly as many Jewish historians did, that is a good sign that it probably didn't happen. And when even the Jewish historians start to give up, you might have to just accept that you are fanatical in your desire to believe the Exodus story.
Whats does this mean? It means that if the Bible mentions a possible historical event, historians will have a positive approach of it, as the Bible counts as a source. To prove that it didn't happen, we needed to find elements that actually tell us that it didn't happen : estimations of the local population, traces of jewish populations in the area, climate estimations, etc. Which is not absence of evidence, it's the confrontation of sources.
Now, I don't know myself what the conclusions are.
So we need to find tons of reports of people outright saying:
"This didn't happen!"
Are you delusional? Why in the world would an Egyptian write that something didn't happen when the story was going to be made up several years after the imaginary event that never took place.
We know for a fact that human socities leave traces. 600.000 - 3 million people cannot travel through a desert for 40 years and leave no trace, this is impossible.
Thus, by not finding any evidence, we confirm that it never happened. If they had travelled for 40 years in the desert, they would have left a trace. This isn't a theory, this is a fact. They could have impossibly traveled the desert for 40 years and not leave a trace.
You are stuck in repeating the same phrase, but you fail to understand even the most basic thing about human societies. They leave traces.
The idea that the Exodus took place has just as much evidence as the idea that Jews lived in North-America. None.
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On April 19 2012 01:03 zalz wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 23:29 Kukaracha wrote:
It's not metaphysical, it can be metaphorical. Yes, and you argued that it was metaphysical, so you were wrong.
I never said so, and if it seemed like it did, then it was a misinterpretation.
What I was saying is that wether this happened or not is a non-issue to many believers themselves and does not question the Bible per se.
On April 19 2012 01:03 zalz wrote:
Everything you said was eventually supported by evidence.
Exodus was actively looked for. They dug and dug for god knows how long in the Sinai desert and they didn't find anything. When they went looking for what you just mentioned, they found evidence.
If 600k - 3million people had marched through the Sinai desert for 40 years, there would be a trace. Groups as small as 50.000 were lost in a desert and left a trace, the Jews aren't any different.
[...]
The idea that the Exodus took place has just as much evidence as the idea that Jews lived in North-America. None.
Right, so even if I agree with you, there isn't absence of evidence, because we found evidence that no population lived there.
"Evidence" is not the same thing in history and harder sciences.
You might say that I'm playing with words (wink at Boblion), but this simply isn't absence of evidence. We had one source saying there was an Exodus, but many others, more trustworthy pointing towards the contrary.
But to tell the truth, there is actually no consensus in that way, no one know where the mentioned cities were located, no one knows what mount was the mount Sinaï, and because "evidence of absence blablabla" doesn't work in history, it hasn't been declared that the Exodus officially doesn't exist.
If it has, I'd like to see your widely-accepted sources.
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On April 18 2012 23:38 Recognizable wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2012 13:30 sam!zdat wrote:On April 18 2012 09:14 zalz wrote:
So no, Exodus never happened, and by extension that undermines all of the Abrahamic faiths. There's more to the abrahamic faiths than this. You don't understand what religion is if you think this "undermines" them. Nobody cares whether or not the stuff is historical. Exactly Zalz, the basis of religion is a belief. Don't try to argue it, rational thinking does not apply to religion.
Oh, I think you can be perfectly rational about religion. It may require a more sophisticated concept of "rationality."
Coming from someone who is talking about "metaphysics" i find it HILARIOUS. Like if there is something outside "physics".
Now this is just ignorant.
edit:
You are stuck in repeating the same phrase, but you fail to understand even the most basic thing about human societies. They leave traces.
Brother, just how much written trace do you imagine we have from centuries of ancient Egyptian civilization?
(hint: not a ton)
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In conclusion, I deem zalz the winner.
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On April 19 2012 01:55 TORTOISE wrote:
In conclusion, I deem zalz the winner.
Depends on how you look at it.  I believe sam gets the last word here.
zalz was just temp banned for 90 days by p4NDemik.
That account was created on 2011-02-23 02:08:41 and had 2390 posts.
Reason: You have 3 bans and a very specific mod note all highlighting the fact that you can't help but make posts intending to provoke and bait out horrible comments from others. This is your last chance.
sam!zdat was just temp banned for 2 days by p4NDemik.
That account was created on 2010-10-14 03:45:55 and had 504 posts.
Reason: Read threads and reply intelligently. Do not make horrible one-line posts.
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Well, I was going to go on and ask zalz how he knew he existed but it might take him a while to reply :/
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On April 18 2012 22:27 Snuggles wrote:
When I think about my level of intelligence I always feel disappointed in myself for failing myself so much. I used to believe that I was above everyone in intelligence but now I understand that I'm just average if not below average... So now all I can do is try my best to sustain a happy life.
Aha me and you both brotha 
and someone said that you cant judge someone on intelligence by looking at them, but the whole point of this thread was me figuring out i could...But thats just me
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On April 19 2012 06:38 zany_001 wrote:
Well, I was going to go on and ask zalz how he knew he existed but it might take him a while to reply :/
Sorry but this question makes no sense, as it's the same as asking 'do you know if there is someone taking a pee right now in this moment?' nobody can answer that question. But by probability: You are 99% sure that there is someone peeing right now but you can't be sure.
In this context you can't tell if you exist, but per probability it makes it obvious that one exists, as that what someone is experiencing is certainly something, but noone can tell what it is.
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EPT
