|
On November 16 2012 05:46 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2012 05:35 sam!zdat wrote:On November 16 2012 05:33 [UoN]Sentinel wrote:On November 16 2012 05:15 guN-viCe wrote:On November 15 2012 05:13 OmniEulogy wrote:
I've never thought about it much. I just think of Pascal and it's enough for me. I don't really lose sleep over it. ![[image loading]](http://www.godlessbastard.com/wp-content/uploads/GB-5659-Pascals-Wager-Matrix.jpg) I don't know accurate this graph is, but it gets the point across. Christians and Muslims are all praying to one person. Really depends on what kind of Christian you are. Lots of controversy over "persons" Well I mean Muslims believe that Jesus was a great guy and all but just wasn't the son of God. They actually tie all three together in ways and say "Yeah this is God, but you guys are doing it wrong." Christians do the same thing to Jews in a way. If anything it's just the three arguing over which one is the "right" pathway to paradise.
The differences between Judaism/Christianity/Islam are actually very profound, both in how scripture is interpreted (or even what is and is not scripture) and on a metaphysical level.
The trinity for example is deeply heretical to any muslim, because in Islam the singularity of god is of the highest importance. Saying that Jesus was God, made manifest on earth, is pure heresy.
The three claim the same foundation, and each claims to improve on the other, or deny the follower, but each reads and re-interprets what came before in drastically different ways.
Muslims often claim that they aren't that different from Christianity, after all, Jesus is a prophet to them too, but it only shows a profound lack of knowledge.
Not only is the Arab name for Jesus different, but even his life and actions are very different. If you believe that Jesus dying on the cross is optional, or negotiable, then you don't know Christianity.
So when a muslim says that he believes in Christ the prophet, and thus is close to Christianity, he forgets to mention that in Islam, Jesus never died on the cross, and wasn't an incarnation of God.
In Christianity, Jesus dying on the cross for the sins of mankind is of the same crucial importance as Muhammed being God's prophet.
Now, being an atheist I can feel easy that none of it is remotely true in the first place, but I get antsy when, most often the religious, try to blur the lines between the Abrahamic religions, and argue that they are very similar.
They aren't. Not in their rules, not in their claims, and not even on their metaphysical levels. The figure of God is technically the same for each three major branches, but each perceives him drastically different.
|
On November 16 2012 04:59 Recognizable wrote:
I believe you are an agnostic atheist? Agnosticism has gotten the connotation that you think both possibilities are equally probable, however that's not what I inferred from you post.
No it hassn't. Agnosticism in this case is just the view claiming that this God/no God thing is unknowable. As Wikipedia puts it: "an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a deity or deities, whereas a theist and an atheist believe and disbelieve." However, since I don't have any indications for there being a God, I tend to think the "no God" possibility is in principle more probable. Would you wanna call that "agnostic atheist"?
|
On November 16 2012 06:29 sam!zdat wrote:
Yeah, sure, but that's just my point. When you talk about these things you have to 1) be very careful about what concepts are already presupposed in your language and 2) refrain from thinking that just because there are a lot of unfortunate mythic-participatory religious folk with superstitious beliefs and a difficulty with confirmation bias doesn't mean that you, the Enlightened atheist with all yr rational thoughtz, have all the answers, because you don't.
edit: (this is less directed at you than the other guy who thinks he's so smart)
I'm actually a Christian. Or was that last bit the part you were referencing in your edit?
EDIT: But when you say they try to assume they are a "betterment" of each other, there is the unity. Hell, you can cherrypick parts from all three if you believe that's how it is. The three all see the same God but explain Him differently. The rest in my eyes is semantics by comparison.
|
On November 16 2012 06:59 Recognizable wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2012 06:51 sam!zdat wrote:ugh, the "semantics" thing again Ok. All I really ask is that you be nicer when you denounce people with their (admittedly naive) religious beliefs edit: but maybe I misunderstand your tone, if so, sorry and continue on your way  You started the semantics thing by saying I mean, we could try it in programming language or something and assign values to the believe in god and believe in no god or something but I doubt that would get us any further.
No, the "semantics thing" is people dismissing things by calling them "semantics." "semantics" is the study of meaning. When you talk about what things mean, you are talking about semantics. There is nothing more important and useful than arguing about semantics.
I don't see how a "programming language" would be any help at all. Do you take statements expressed in "programming language" to be more true in some way than statements expressed in natural language? (leaving out the fact that programming "languages" only have one mood, the imperative, and can't really make statements at all, but that's another topic)
But since you don't want to defend atheism I won't press you to define the claim.
|
I guess he wanted to use programming language to make the statements unambiguous and clearer. Optimal would be predicate or modal logic I suppose.
|
On November 16 2012 08:26 Cyberonic wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2012 04:59 Recognizable wrote:
I believe you are an agnostic atheist? Agnosticism has gotten the connotation that you think both possibilities are equally probable, however that's not what I inferred from you post. No it hassn't. Agnosticism in this case is just the view claiming that this God/no God thing is unknowable. As Wikipedia puts it: "an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of a deity or deities, whereas a theist and an atheist believe and disbelieve." However, since I don't have any indications for there being a God, I tend to think the "no God" possibility is in principle more probable. Would you wanna call that "agnostic atheist"?
I know. That's why I said "Agnosticism has gotten the connotation"
An Agnostic Atheist is one who believes he can't be for sure there is no god, the same way he can't be for sure there is no "insert something where there is no evidence of, for example: ghosts"
That's why many Agnostics call themselves Atheists, because in the public eye they are seen as Atheists, although strictly they are Agnostic. To solve this "problem" terms like Agnostic Theist and Agnostic Atheist were introduced.
No, the "semantics thing" is people dismissing things by calling them "semantics." "semantics" is the study of meaning. When you talk about what things mean, you are talking about semantics. There is nothing more important and useful than arguing about semantics.
How do you define what the meaning of a word is? It's impossible to do through means of other words because those words would have to be defined, which would create an infinite regress and results in circular logic. I wonder how this works in math/logic as well. I would assume that at some point you just have to take something as truth.
|
Semantics is most often described in natural language. This works because you never talk about the general meaning of a word but a phrase within it's use and utterance. There is no way to derive the meaning of a word or phrase without contex. That's why AIs have a hard time dealing with semantics. In some discussions semantics is used as truth-value semantics and mostly expressed in predicate logic.
If you are interested in this, don't hesitate to PN me. I made some easily understandable presentations about that during my studies which I can share with you.
|
On November 16 2012 20:52 Recognizable wrote:Show nested quote +No, the "semantics thing" is people dismissing things by calling them "semantics." "semantics" is the study of meaning. When you talk about what things mean, you are talking about semantics. There is nothing more important and useful than arguing about semantics. How do you define what the meaning of a word is? It's impossible to do through means of other words because those words would have to be defined, which would create an infinite regress and results in circular logic. I wonder how this works in math/logic as well. I would assume that at some point you just have to take something as truth.
Yeah, it's a hard problem. This is a big part of what literary theory is about.
The way it works in logic (and math is built on logic) is that you take certain things as axiomatic and then go from there. There is no bedrock foundation upon which you can construct your edifice.
The dominant (postmodern) view is that this presents an insurmountable obstacle to the possibility of "true" communication in language. I'm something of a heretic.
(edit: keep in mind that there are two separate problems: the formal consistency of a system, and the problem of reference to the world)
edit:
On November 16 2012 18:34 Cyberonic wrote:
I guess he wanted to use programming language to make the statements unambiguous and clearer. Optimal would be predicate or modal logic I suppose.
All formal logical systems have their limitations.
You cannot prove the consistency of a system from within the system. (second incompleteness theorem)
It's trivial to see why.
An inconsistent statement implies all possible q (that is, the statement "if p and not-p, then q" is a tautology - it is true for all possible p and all possible q). Therefore, an inconsistent system includes a proof of its own consistency. So if you were to discover a proof of the consistency of some system within that system, that wouldn't tell you anything, because both consistent and inconsistent systems produce proofs of their own consistency.
|
That's true sam!zdat. Let me add this: Most semantic debates are fought in natural language because they are about really specific items, for example what "the King of Scotland" refers to, so that it's easy to settle on truths outside of the matter of interest. If this is not satisfying you have to switch to formal semantics which is expressed in mathematical logic. The most prominent approach is the lambda calculus whose terms also rely on three basic axoms.
An arbitrary lambda term might look like this:
λ.x(λyλz)
Lambda calculus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_calculus
Formal semantics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_semantics_(linguistics)
|
hmm, yes, I don't think you'll get anywhere with that.
I rather think, instead, that when formal semantics is not satisfying one must switch to informal semantics
the main lesson I learned from studying computation theory was that all the really interesting problems are not computable! Although an understanding of computation/complexity and so on is indispensable for anybody who wants to call themselves philosopher nowadays
allow me to fly my own flag:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotic_square
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Communicative_Action
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
