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On June 30 2013 18:18 zbedlam wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 17:47 TSORG wrote:On June 30 2013 14:07 zbedlam wrote:On June 30 2013 10:51 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 10:39 zbedlam wrote:
Christians please go away or pose arguments that have some logic to them. Basing arguments on the basis that a book tells you what is right and wrong which applied several thousand years ago in today's society is stupid, nonsensical and infuriating to anyone that doesn't share your fantasies. You tell me to use logic, yet use none of your own? Tossing around strawman arguments and insults along with a conclusion not backed up by a premise or any kind of logical syllogism is pretty much the height of illogical argumentation. + Show Spoiler +In fact, I think I should try to deconstruct the argument (I use the term loosely) you seem to be providing here:
P1: The Bible tells us what is right and wrong.
P2: It applied thousands of years ago.
C: It does not apply today.
Does not follow from premise.
P1: Basing arguments on books written thousands of years ago is stupid.
P2: The Bible was written thousands of years ago. (kind of incorrect, but whatever)
C: Basing arguments on the Bible is stupid.
Better in that it's somewhat logical, yet still pretty weak in that you've not said WHY basing argument on books written thousands of years ago is stupid, and you misunderstand what the Bible is (not a singular book, but rather a collection of books and stories). edit: Besides, god isn't even pro life according the bible so even by christian standards your beliefs are unfounded. This misconception is largely irrelevant, but somewhat on-topic so I feel okay in shortly addressing it. God, in the Bible, claims many things for His own. Control over human life is one of those things. Hence, it is logical for the believing Christian to accept that God can take life yet forbid us humans from doing so. And, if you're using the argument from the one scriptural passage from the Old Testament that mentions abortion, understand that the interpretation of the Scripture is a very complex subject, and it is fully in-line with logic for the practicing Catholic to accept the Church (and Christ himself) as the correct authorities on the subject. Religion is based on the premise of faith not reason, basing your decisions on your faith has no rational reasoning. If you need me to tell you WHY basing an argument on collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god", a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place is flawed you are clearly beyond help. your entire post is flawed, but I suppose that would be a discussion for another topic. but it seems to me that how you claim with a conviction which would shame a dozen fundamentalists that you live by reason only and have no faith, that you are clearly "beyond help". Never claimed anything about myself.
you have not, i was reading a few posts and I thought they were written by the same person, my apologies. The first part of my post would still stand, the part about conviction you can dismiss, I have already adressed the right person.
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On June 30 2013 19:02 TSORG wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 18:25 ZackAttack wrote:On June 30 2013 18:01 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 15:45 ZackAttack wrote:On June 30 2013 15:21 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 14:07 zbedlam wrote:On June 30 2013 10:51 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 10:39 zbedlam wrote:
Christians please go away or pose arguments that have some logic to them. Basing arguments on the basis that a book tells you what is right and wrong which applied several thousand years ago in today's society is stupid, nonsensical and infuriating to anyone that doesn't share your fantasies. You tell me to use logic, yet use none of your own? Tossing around strawman arguments and insults along with a conclusion not backed up by a premise or any kind of logical syllogism is pretty much the height of illogical argumentation. + Show Spoiler +In fact, I think I should try to deconstruct the argument (I use the term loosely) you seem to be providing here:
P1: The Bible tells us what is right and wrong.
P2: It applied thousands of years ago.
C: It does not apply today.
Does not follow from premise.
P1: Basing arguments on books written thousands of years ago is stupid.
P2: The Bible was written thousands of years ago. (kind of incorrect, but whatever)
C: Basing arguments on the Bible is stupid.
Better in that it's somewhat logical, yet still pretty weak in that you've not said WHY basing argument on books written thousands of years ago is stupid, and you misunderstand what the Bible is (not a singular book, but rather a collection of books and stories). edit: Besides, god isn't even pro life according the bible so even by christian standards your beliefs are unfounded. This misconception is largely irrelevant, but somewhat on-topic so I feel okay in shortly addressing it. God, in the Bible, claims many things for His own. Control over human life is one of those things. Hence, it is logical for the believing Christian to accept that God can take life yet forbid us humans from doing so. And, if you're using the argument from the one scriptural passage from the Old Testament that mentions abortion, understand that the interpretation of the Scripture is a very complex subject, and it is fully in-line with logic for the practicing Catholic to accept the Church (and Christ himself) as the correct authorities on the subject. Religion is based on the premise of faith not reason, basing your decisions on your faith has no rational reasoning. If you need me to tell you WHY basing an argument on collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god", a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place is flawed you are clearly beyond help. Hmm... I was actually kind of hoping you'd argue the on-topic part, but I think this needs addressing. In the interest of brevity and on-topicness, I'll spoiler the rest: + Show Spoiler +Let's take these statements one at a time. (I will paraphrase for the sake of clarity, but will quote the source in a spoiler) Religion has no rational basis.+ Show Spoiler +"Religion is based on the premise of faith, not reason" Well, I suppose that could be said to be true in some ways. But it also ignores the vast history of Christian apologetics, much of which was based on finding logical basis for faith. It is simply not true that religion has no place for rational thought and is solely based upon "blind" faith. Whether or not you personally find the logical arguments and reasoning provided by the hundreds of Christian apologetics who over the past 20 centuries were interested in finding and developing logical basis' for their beliefs is irrelevant to the fact that they do exist. Basing your decisions on your faith is an example of irrational behavior.+ Show Spoiler +"basing your decisions on your faith has no rational reasoning" This is ridiculous. I present you with this syllogism: P1: My faith is the centerpiece of all my beliefs. P2: My decisions should be in-line with my beliefs. C: My decisions should be based upon my faith. That is a perfectly rational, perfectly logical syllogism. If my faith, being based at least in part on logical reasoning, is the centerpiece of all my beliefs, is the core of how I define myself and my world; than it is only reasonable to assume that I should base my decisions upon that faith. Otherwise I would be acting against myself, and as we know: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." God's existence is not logical+ Show Spoiler +"a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place" Perhaps you have conceived some awesome, new argument that provides something every single philosopher that has ever lived could not, and have the ability to use a syllogism to actually prove the non-existence of God... or perhaps you don't. If you do, by all means, present it. If you do not, than understand that the question of the existence of God is not settled, either scientifically or logically. There are many arguments for both sides. I suggest you read some of the works of Thomas Aquinas. He may be a bit dated nowadays, and every atheist thinks to cut his or her teeth on taking on his works; but it is undeniable that he was a very rational, very intelligent man. His arguments may not be convincing, but he certainly provided more energy to the subject than you or I have (unless, perhaps you are the recently deceased Christopher Hitchens, or perhaps you are Richard Dawkins?). Either way, if you are saying that God's existence cannot (or at least, has not yet been) logically proven to be so... I agree. That doesn't mean anything to it's validity or truth, however. The various authors of the various books and stories in the Gospel were flawed in both their recollections and their interpretations.+ Show Spoiler +"collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god" Under what authority do you make this statement? How much time have you spent analyzing the Bible? How much study have you put to the beliefs and histories of the ancient Jews, to the lives and beliefs of the ancient Christians? I can guarantee you that the Catholic church has put more time, more effort, and more mental "sweat" into the subject than any other organization that has ever existed. Unless you can provide me with some reason not to, I will take their word over yours. Especially since you seem to misunderstand the fundamental purpose of many of the stories and books in the Bible, that many of the "historical" books were never meant to be literal histories, but were often morality tales. Further, that they were all "normal humans" is debatable. Some were probably insane. Others were probably extraordinarily brutal and primitive by today's standards. Others may or may not have been true prophets in communication with the all-knowing, all-powerful God. Basing your beliefs on the Bible is so illogical that it is self-evidently so. I have no need to provide an actual argument because your position is inherently inferior.+ Show Spoiler +"If you need me to tell you WHY basing an argument on collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god", a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place is flawed you are clearly beyond help." Well that's just rude. And it's actually a logical fallacy. At that point I can't truly argue with you because you haven't given an argument. You've thrown out an insult and taken a tone of superiority. You might as well have said: "U r dumb, lol" and you would have provided as much intellectual value as you have now, and saved some time. I had hoped for something better.... but I suppose such hope was baseless and ill founded. Curse my blind faith in your abilities!  Hoo boy, that took a while. Well, hopefully we can move on from this better people. And I think I might just be done with the whole argument considering the fact that it seems impossible to bring up religion without having these same, inane discussions. You really need to accept that bible based religion is completely irrational. You really need to learn what the word: "irrational" means. You can talk all you want about how Christians have been searching for a rationalization for their belief for 20 centuries (even though it's only been like 5) Never heard of Thomas Aquinas, huh? (~8 centuries ago) Well, if you've never heard of him than you've definitely never heard of Augustine of Hippo. (~16 centuries ago) And I suppose that expecting you to have heard of Justin Martyr (~19 centuries ago) and Tertullian (~19 centuries ago) would just be too much. I mean... it's not like these are well known historical figures or anything like that. Though, perhaps, and this is a bit of a stretch, you've heard of Paul the Apostle? (~20 centuries ago) Maybe you recognize the name? but you can not give one example of any of them that have succeeded because it is an impossibility. You do understand what "logical" means right? Here, this will help: logic (n): a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoninghttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logicBy definition, the apologists were successful in creating logical rationales for their beliefs. Saying that religion is logical is misinterpretation of faith and slap in the face to actual logical thinking. Saying that people who created valid logical syllogisms were not logicians and were not using logic is a slap in the face to actual definitions. lol. Posting the definition of a word and telling me I don't know what it means doesn't make religion logical. Loose generalizations and looking at nature as an expression of god and making connections between the real world and the bible is not real logic. The philosophers, monks and saints that were tasks with finding god in nature found nothing. They were simply looking at the universe through a religious lens. Nothing that any of them wrote stands up to modern scientific logical thinking because it is based on invalid assumptions at their core. The only way they can be seen as logical is if you start with the bible, and assume that god is good, great, and in all things. It's all bullshit and calling it logical isn't going to make it any more so. modern scientific logical thinking because it is based on invalid assumptions at their core
You are doing exactly the same thing, only you are looking through a scientific lense instead of another one. You seem to mess up your definitions as the other guy already pointed out, and when you are reminded of that you just dismiss it, apart from this being an unscientific attitude, it is also really hard to have a discussion with someone who acts like that. Claiming that real logic is not real logic because you say so is hardly better than saying that God exists because I say so, and since it seems you have a problem when people do the latter... I will try nonetheless. For examply there are many forms of rationality, the most common ones are instrumental and coherent rationality. By definition of the former being rational means, if your goal is to get from A to B as fast as possible, then it is rational to go from A to B in a straight line, and it would be irrational to go from A to B through C, when C means taking a detour. By definition of the latter, being rational means having a coherent beliefset or system. It would be irrational to hold two beliefs that contradict each other, and you are rational insofar you do not have such contradicting beliefs. In daily use being rational is often confused with being reasonable (which means providing justified reasons/arguments), being logical (which is what Superfan tried to explain, logic is empty and you can claim the most evil and cruel things while being perfectly logical) and with common sense, which seems to be what you are doing. However claiming common sense is pretty vague and it seems to me it goes agains the modern scientific attitude you are trying to defend. The same goes for dismissing stuff you do not understand or do not care to understand or simply do not agree with as bullshit. In fact, the early scientific method is largely indebted to these guys because they laid the foundation for logical deduction which was, for the early centuries of the scientific development, the primary method of justification. Now this has shifted to induction, or more recently perhaps abduction or inference to the best explanation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning). However atleast induction has been shown to be irrational (read Goodman's Riddle of Induction), yet it is still largely used by scientists in the field. So much for that. Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lacatos have already convincingly argued against the position you are trying to take here, namely that of an independent, objective point of view, which is so problematic we can safely say it does not exist (pretty much in the same way you claim that God has no logical basis in the world, the same can be said about that objective "birds eye" point of view). You are as much affected by theory, by ideology as the next (religious) man. Is this an argument to support religion, "hell no". I do hope that it tempers you to make so many wildly unfounded claims.
The problem here is probabilty. You leave that out in the open, because if you apply the logic of religion every made up story is as valid as theirs.
That doesnt mean that there is no god in the christian point of view but it is highly highly extrem unlikely.
If i make up a story about a certain god and write a book about it you have to treat it the same way you treat the bible by that logic. That also implies that my story might be true aswell, but it is again highly highly extrem unlikely. Since there is no real way of falsifing it.
So the best way to get close to the truth (where as the real truth can never be obtained) since the pure fact that something exists is violating the rules of logic (that would be my proof of an abstract god, meaning that god is the absence of logic, being not logic that maybe shows in the quantum theory) is to go from inductive logic not the other way round.
So after we made that clear there is no need of further discussion about this topic.
GG
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On June 30 2013 19:11 Sokrates wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 19:02 TSORG wrote:On June 30 2013 18:25 ZackAttack wrote:On June 30 2013 18:01 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 15:45 ZackAttack wrote:On June 30 2013 15:21 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 14:07 zbedlam wrote:On June 30 2013 10:51 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 10:39 zbedlam wrote:
Christians please go away or pose arguments that have some logic to them. Basing arguments on the basis that a book tells you what is right and wrong which applied several thousand years ago in today's society is stupid, nonsensical and infuriating to anyone that doesn't share your fantasies. You tell me to use logic, yet use none of your own? Tossing around strawman arguments and insults along with a conclusion not backed up by a premise or any kind of logical syllogism is pretty much the height of illogical argumentation. + Show Spoiler +In fact, I think I should try to deconstruct the argument (I use the term loosely) you seem to be providing here:
P1: The Bible tells us what is right and wrong.
P2: It applied thousands of years ago.
C: It does not apply today.
Does not follow from premise.
P1: Basing arguments on books written thousands of years ago is stupid.
P2: The Bible was written thousands of years ago. (kind of incorrect, but whatever)
C: Basing arguments on the Bible is stupid.
Better in that it's somewhat logical, yet still pretty weak in that you've not said WHY basing argument on books written thousands of years ago is stupid, and you misunderstand what the Bible is (not a singular book, but rather a collection of books and stories). edit: Besides, god isn't even pro life according the bible so even by christian standards your beliefs are unfounded. This misconception is largely irrelevant, but somewhat on-topic so I feel okay in shortly addressing it. God, in the Bible, claims many things for His own. Control over human life is one of those things. Hence, it is logical for the believing Christian to accept that God can take life yet forbid us humans from doing so. And, if you're using the argument from the one scriptural passage from the Old Testament that mentions abortion, understand that the interpretation of the Scripture is a very complex subject, and it is fully in-line with logic for the practicing Catholic to accept the Church (and Christ himself) as the correct authorities on the subject. Religion is based on the premise of faith not reason, basing your decisions on your faith has no rational reasoning. If you need me to tell you WHY basing an argument on collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god", a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place is flawed you are clearly beyond help. Hmm... I was actually kind of hoping you'd argue the on-topic part, but I think this needs addressing. In the interest of brevity and on-topicness, I'll spoiler the rest: + Show Spoiler +Let's take these statements one at a time. (I will paraphrase for the sake of clarity, but will quote the source in a spoiler) Religion has no rational basis.+ Show Spoiler +"Religion is based on the premise of faith, not reason" Well, I suppose that could be said to be true in some ways. But it also ignores the vast history of Christian apologetics, much of which was based on finding logical basis for faith. It is simply not true that religion has no place for rational thought and is solely based upon "blind" faith. Whether or not you personally find the logical arguments and reasoning provided by the hundreds of Christian apologetics who over the past 20 centuries were interested in finding and developing logical basis' for their beliefs is irrelevant to the fact that they do exist. Basing your decisions on your faith is an example of irrational behavior.+ Show Spoiler +"basing your decisions on your faith has no rational reasoning" This is ridiculous. I present you with this syllogism: P1: My faith is the centerpiece of all my beliefs. P2: My decisions should be in-line with my beliefs. C: My decisions should be based upon my faith. That is a perfectly rational, perfectly logical syllogism. If my faith, being based at least in part on logical reasoning, is the centerpiece of all my beliefs, is the core of how I define myself and my world; than it is only reasonable to assume that I should base my decisions upon that faith. Otherwise I would be acting against myself, and as we know: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." God's existence is not logical+ Show Spoiler +"a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place" Perhaps you have conceived some awesome, new argument that provides something every single philosopher that has ever lived could not, and have the ability to use a syllogism to actually prove the non-existence of God... or perhaps you don't. If you do, by all means, present it. If you do not, than understand that the question of the existence of God is not settled, either scientifically or logically. There are many arguments for both sides. I suggest you read some of the works of Thomas Aquinas. He may be a bit dated nowadays, and every atheist thinks to cut his or her teeth on taking on his works; but it is undeniable that he was a very rational, very intelligent man. His arguments may not be convincing, but he certainly provided more energy to the subject than you or I have (unless, perhaps you are the recently deceased Christopher Hitchens, or perhaps you are Richard Dawkins?). Either way, if you are saying that God's existence cannot (or at least, has not yet been) logically proven to be so... I agree. That doesn't mean anything to it's validity or truth, however. The various authors of the various books and stories in the Gospel were flawed in both their recollections and their interpretations.+ Show Spoiler +"collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god" Under what authority do you make this statement? How much time have you spent analyzing the Bible? How much study have you put to the beliefs and histories of the ancient Jews, to the lives and beliefs of the ancient Christians? I can guarantee you that the Catholic church has put more time, more effort, and more mental "sweat" into the subject than any other organization that has ever existed. Unless you can provide me with some reason not to, I will take their word over yours. Especially since you seem to misunderstand the fundamental purpose of many of the stories and books in the Bible, that many of the "historical" books were never meant to be literal histories, but were often morality tales. Further, that they were all "normal humans" is debatable. Some were probably insane. Others were probably extraordinarily brutal and primitive by today's standards. Others may or may not have been true prophets in communication with the all-knowing, all-powerful God. Basing your beliefs on the Bible is so illogical that it is self-evidently so. I have no need to provide an actual argument because your position is inherently inferior.+ Show Spoiler +"If you need me to tell you WHY basing an argument on collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god", a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place is flawed you are clearly beyond help." Well that's just rude. And it's actually a logical fallacy. At that point I can't truly argue with you because you haven't given an argument. You've thrown out an insult and taken a tone of superiority. You might as well have said: "U r dumb, lol" and you would have provided as much intellectual value as you have now, and saved some time. I had hoped for something better.... but I suppose such hope was baseless and ill founded. Curse my blind faith in your abilities! Hoo boy, that took a while. Well, hopefully we can move on from this better people. And I think I might just be done with the whole argument considering the fact that it seems impossible to bring up religion without having these same, inane discussions. You really need to accept that bible based religion is completely irrational. You really need to learn what the word: "irrational" means. You can talk all you want about how Christians have been searching for a rationalization for their belief for 20 centuries (even though it's only been like 5) Never heard of Thomas Aquinas, huh? (~8 centuries ago) Well, if you've never heard of him than you've definitely never heard of Augustine of Hippo. (~16 centuries ago) And I suppose that expecting you to have heard of Justin Martyr (~19 centuries ago) and Tertullian (~19 centuries ago) would just be too much. I mean... it's not like these are well known historical figures or anything like that. Though, perhaps, and this is a bit of a stretch, you've heard of Paul the Apostle? (~20 centuries ago) Maybe you recognize the name? but you can not give one example of any of them that have succeeded because it is an impossibility. You do understand what "logical" means right? Here, this will help: logic (n): a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoninghttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logicBy definition, the apologists were successful in creating logical rationales for their beliefs. Saying that religion is logical is misinterpretation of faith and slap in the face to actual logical thinking. Saying that people who created valid logical syllogisms were not logicians and were not using logic is a slap in the face to actual definitions. lol. Posting the definition of a word and telling me I don't know what it means doesn't make religion logical. Loose generalizations and looking at nature as an expression of god and making connections between the real world and the bible is not real logic. The philosophers, monks and saints that were tasks with finding god in nature found nothing. They were simply looking at the universe through a religious lens. Nothing that any of them wrote stands up to modern scientific logical thinking because it is based on invalid assumptions at their core. The only way they can be seen as logical is if you start with the bible, and assume that god is good, great, and in all things. It's all bullshit and calling it logical isn't going to make it any more so. modern scientific logical thinking because it is based on invalid assumptions at their core
You are doing exactly the same thing, only you are looking through a scientific lense instead of another one. You seem to mess up your definitions as the other guy already pointed out, and when you are reminded of that you just dismiss it, apart from this being an unscientific attitude, it is also really hard to have a discussion with someone who acts like that. Claiming that real logic is not real logic because you say so is hardly better than saying that God exists because I say so, and since it seems you have a problem when people do the latter... I will try nonetheless. For examply there are many forms of rationality, the most common ones are instrumental and coherent rationality. By definition of the former being rational means, if your goal is to get from A to B as fast as possible, then it is rational to go from A to B in a straight line, and it would be irrational to go from A to B through C, when C means taking a detour. By definition of the latter, being rational means having a coherent beliefset or system. It would be irrational to hold two beliefs that contradict each other, and you are rational insofar you do not have such contradicting beliefs. In daily use being rational is often confused with being reasonable (which means providing justified reasons/arguments), being logical (which is what Superfan tried to explain, logic is empty and you can claim the most evil and cruel things while being perfectly logical) and with common sense, which seems to be what you are doing. However claiming common sense is pretty vague and it seems to me it goes agains the modern scientific attitude you are trying to defend. The same goes for dismissing stuff you do not understand or do not care to understand or simply do not agree with as bullshit. In fact, the early scientific method is largely indebted to these guys because they laid the foundation for logical deduction which was, for the early centuries of the scientific development, the primary method of justification. Now this has shifted to induction, or more recently perhaps abduction or inference to the best explanation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning). However atleast induction has been shown to be irrational (read Goodman's Riddle of Induction), yet it is still largely used by scientists in the field. So much for that. Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lacatos have already convincingly argued against the position you are trying to take here, namely that of an independent, objective point of view, which is so problematic we can safely say it does not exist (pretty much in the same way you claim that God has no logical basis in the world, the same can be said about that objective "birds eye" point of view). You are as much affected by theory, by ideology as the next (religious) man. Is this an argument to support religion, "hell no". I do hope that it tempers you to make so many wildly unfounded claims. The problem here is probabilty. You leave that out in the open, because if you apply the logic of religion every made up story is as valid as theirs. That doesnt mean that there is no god in the christian point of view but it is highly highly extrem unlikely. If i make up a story about a certain god and write a book about it you have to treat it the same way you treat the bible by that logic. That also implies that my story might be true aswell, but it is again highly highly extrem unlikely. Since there is no real way of falsifing it. So the best way to get close to the truth (where as the real truth can never be obtained) since the pure fact that something exists is violating the rules of logic (that would be my proof of an abstract god, meaning that god is the absence of logic, being not logic that maybe shows in the quantum theory) is to go from inductive logic not the other way round. So after we made that clear there is no need of further discussion about this topic. GG
Probability is part of the problem of the problem of justification, but the problem is far more fundamental than that imo. I might adress that later, first I will discuss your points.
But before I continue, I'd like to point out that falisifying is a method of justification, based on deduction (not induction, sorry), which, while it has apparantly alot of popular support (since I hear it popping up in the most random of contexts pretty much everytime in similar discussions), is largely discredited in the field of science. You will have a hard time finding scientists who still go about trying to falsify stuff.
With that out of the way, lets go to probability. I did leave out probablity, which is actually the most popular method of justification atm, I should have mentioned it. And the most popular method of establishing probablity and how to adjust ones belief according to acquiring new data is Bayesian probability. The method is normative however, and while it is hard to argue against it if regarded in that light, it is clear that people do not reason that way, even though perhaps they ought to. The main problem with it is also that it is hard to apply the initial value of probability. Induction also works with probability, when you see a thousand black crows and no white one, it becomes increasingly probable that you will only observe more black crows and from that the conclusion can be drawn that there are no white crows, or atleast one would say. I mentioned Goodman's Riddle before, if you are interested in this, I suggest you read it. It is too complicated and extensive for me to explain it here, certainly if I do not know if you even care to hear it, since you already GG'd me.
I would agree we cannot know the truth, but would you say we can know if we are close to it? After that you lose me, perhaps you can explain why the fact of somethings existence violates the rules of logic?
The discussion is still pretty much open, primarily because we do not have a satisfying method of justification yet. In a video of Dawkins (or Hawkins, I can't remember which one -_-) he said that the primary justification for science is that it works (it is important to note that he does not say anything about truth here). This shows the very pragmatic nature of science, and I think it is only to be applauded. However it also shows, imo, how one with science is unable to make some of the fundamental claims that are being made in the name of science (surprisingly often by people who are not scientists...)
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You are basically just saying a lot of stuff that is saying nothing at all.
All you say is that inductive logic has flaws etc. Yeah but there is no better method regarding that.
By your logic everyone can write a book and claim it is the book of god, so then you have to accept every book as an equally good explanation to the world?? Or we try to reason every book be deductive logic, it is just not making sense at all.
So using inductive logic is the most logical way in trying to obtain knowledge of truth, it doesnt mean it is 100% right and it doesnt mean it has no flaws. But it is the only method with the best probability of getting closer to the truth.
You cant argue against that hence all your points are useless and have to be dismissed.
So there is no other way than doing it the way we do, even if it has flaws. Because it is the best way to even come close to truth. You might aswell say there is no point at all in comming close to truth or trying since the absolute truth is never obtainable (that is the answer to your riddle) and even the ways to get closer to it have flaws. And we also cannot know if we are close to it, we just can know that the probabilty we came closer is higher than before.
And the fact that something exists is violating the rules of logic since out of nothing, nothing can exist.
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On June 30 2013 19:33 Sokrates wrote:
You are basically just saying a lot of stuff that is saying nothing at all.
All you say is that inductive logic has flaws etc. Yeah but there is no better method regarding that.
By your logic everyone can write a book and claim it is the book of god, so then you have to accept every book as an equally good explanation to the world?? Or we try to reason every book be deductive logic, it is just not making sense at all.
So using inductive logic is the most logical way in trying to obtain knowledge of truth, it doesnt mean it is 100% right and it doesnt mean it has no flaws. But it is the only method with the best probability of getting closer to the truth.
You cant argue against that hence all your points are useless and have to be dismissed.
So there is no other way than doing it the way we do, even if it has flaws. Because it is the best way to even come close to truth. You might aswell say there is no point at all in comming close to truth or trying since the absolute truth is never obtainable (that is the answer to your riddle). And we also cannot know if we are close to it, we just can know that the probabilty we came closer is higher than before.
And the fact that something exists is violating the rules of logic since out of nothing, nothing can exist.
im not saying it just has flaws, im saying it cannot do what it is supposed to do. I can argue for this, and I will when I have more time to write an extensive post about it. I can pm it to you if you want. But having said that, while induction is theoretically flawed, it seems to be practically working. So I will concede that point, and if for you that means to think about it is useless, then you have the right to that opinion. If it doesnt bother you that we are largely working with a method of justification that is irrational (in the sense of incoherent), that is your right as well. However by doing that, you do disregard a fundamental part of western philosophical and scientific tradition, that being what it is worth ofcourse.
As to the rest I do not see how we can determine that we probably came closer to a point of which we do not know where or what that point is in the first place. If I am missing something obvious here, I'd like to know. Because, to make an analogy, if you do not know where you are going, then how do you know you are probably getting closer to it. All you know is that you are getting farther away of where you were.
thanks for clarifying the point of about the rules of logic. I suppose I cannot argue against it  On a sidenote, I have always found it funny how the Christian and Scientific explanation for the existence of everything have some very striking similarities in their core notions.
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On June 30 2013 18:54 gedatsu wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 15:21 xM(Z wrote:
in the end it all comes down to the future of an entire species being decided by women and women alone. that should never happen, it should never be allowed to happen. i don't care if it's their bodies/their lives because this, is my species too. You know, human population is still rapidly increasing. The future of the species is not in jeopardy, at least not with regards to number of births. If some cataclysmic event reduced humanity to just a few hundred thousand individuals, then you might have a good point about not letting individual women have the final say about abortions. But we're not in that situation right now.
so when you fail at protecting a species with laws, you go with trust, faith, believe, common sense?. gl then.
ps: the situation we're in right now doesn't matter, today doesn't matter. what matters is the future and in the future you could have an internationally organized body of women dictating who/when/how and for how much someone would get to procreate.
they won't give you their eggs; they'll use contraception to prevent accidents from happening and if a miracle were to happen, well then they can just legally kill it.
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You didnt read my post carefully. And i dont think you cannot think about that the way we think about it right now (meaning) sience is flawed. That is acceptable, but that doesnt mean beliving that a book written 2000years ago is equal to that. Since all books you write and claim it is the truth should be treated the very same way.
After all i dont understand where your point is? All you point out is that every method has flaws and we cannot obtain the absolute truth. I agree on that, but where is the point, just because of that it doesnt mean all "philosophies" and religions are equally valuable.
If you say that than there is no reason in trying to obtain more truth at all, since it would be totally pointless. If you say that the bible is equally valuable in obtaining the truth that modern sience is, then there is no fucking point in doing sience at all regarding more "fundamental knowlegdge" other than technology.
And if we gain more knowledge through the methods we use than means of course that we get closer to the truth, even if it just means we have gotten from 1000 to 1001 and we are trying to reach infinity.
And to pick up your analogy i have a way better one even implementing your analogy and making you GG right here (sry i have to be offensive since i feel like it today)
Let us say we are doing a journey, and the goal is to reach the truth or mb just the journey itself.
So we start walking and we come across a road, and we walk that road and then we come to a sea which is beautiful (let us say the sea is called christianity) and we can take a walk around it but if you say "wow that is the most beautiful sea i ve ever seen" and you start thinking about nothing else and you settle here, then your journey ends, you keep walking around that sea. But then you maybe dont see other seas that are more beautiful and you dont see the mountains, and you never see the desert. So if you dont want the journey to end here (since basic human instinct is curiousity) we keep on walking and we come to a river and we come to a lake and then we come to mountains and then we try to climb that mountain (not meaning that at the top the absolute truth lies) but then we come to a passage we cannot go any further (meaning our knowledge using logic to climb is not sufficient), then we can either stay there and keep trying or we can go down again and try to climb another mountain, and maybe we cannot climb any of those mountains, yet we are doing the JOURNEY since the journey is our goal, no matter where you go. You dont know if you walk in the wrong direction you just know you are doing a journey for the sake of the journey. And you also know that you wont see everything, that doesnt mean you have to sit at the sea and it also doesnt mean you have to stop doing that journey or never start it at all.
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On June 30 2013 19:02 TSORG wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 18:25 ZackAttack wrote:On June 30 2013 18:01 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 15:45 ZackAttack wrote:On June 30 2013 15:21 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 14:07 zbedlam wrote:On June 30 2013 10:51 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 10:39 zbedlam wrote:
Christians please go away or pose arguments that have some logic to them. Basing arguments on the basis that a book tells you what is right and wrong which applied several thousand years ago in today's society is stupid, nonsensical and infuriating to anyone that doesn't share your fantasies. You tell me to use logic, yet use none of your own? Tossing around strawman arguments and insults along with a conclusion not backed up by a premise or any kind of logical syllogism is pretty much the height of illogical argumentation. + Show Spoiler +In fact, I think I should try to deconstruct the argument (I use the term loosely) you seem to be providing here:
P1: The Bible tells us what is right and wrong.
P2: It applied thousands of years ago.
C: It does not apply today.
Does not follow from premise.
P1: Basing arguments on books written thousands of years ago is stupid.
P2: The Bible was written thousands of years ago. (kind of incorrect, but whatever)
C: Basing arguments on the Bible is stupid.
Better in that it's somewhat logical, yet still pretty weak in that you've not said WHY basing argument on books written thousands of years ago is stupid, and you misunderstand what the Bible is (not a singular book, but rather a collection of books and stories). edit: Besides, god isn't even pro life according the bible so even by christian standards your beliefs are unfounded. This misconception is largely irrelevant, but somewhat on-topic so I feel okay in shortly addressing it. God, in the Bible, claims many things for His own. Control over human life is one of those things. Hence, it is logical for the believing Christian to accept that God can take life yet forbid us humans from doing so. And, if you're using the argument from the one scriptural passage from the Old Testament that mentions abortion, understand that the interpretation of the Scripture is a very complex subject, and it is fully in-line with logic for the practicing Catholic to accept the Church (and Christ himself) as the correct authorities on the subject. Religion is based on the premise of faith not reason, basing your decisions on your faith has no rational reasoning. If you need me to tell you WHY basing an argument on collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god", a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place is flawed you are clearly beyond help. Hmm... I was actually kind of hoping you'd argue the on-topic part, but I think this needs addressing. In the interest of brevity and on-topicness, I'll spoiler the rest: + Show Spoiler +Let's take these statements one at a time. (I will paraphrase for the sake of clarity, but will quote the source in a spoiler) Religion has no rational basis.+ Show Spoiler +"Religion is based on the premise of faith, not reason" Well, I suppose that could be said to be true in some ways. But it also ignores the vast history of Christian apologetics, much of which was based on finding logical basis for faith. It is simply not true that religion has no place for rational thought and is solely based upon "blind" faith. Whether or not you personally find the logical arguments and reasoning provided by the hundreds of Christian apologetics who over the past 20 centuries were interested in finding and developing logical basis' for their beliefs is irrelevant to the fact that they do exist. Basing your decisions on your faith is an example of irrational behavior.+ Show Spoiler +"basing your decisions on your faith has no rational reasoning" This is ridiculous. I present you with this syllogism: P1: My faith is the centerpiece of all my beliefs. P2: My decisions should be in-line with my beliefs. C: My decisions should be based upon my faith. That is a perfectly rational, perfectly logical syllogism. If my faith, being based at least in part on logical reasoning, is the centerpiece of all my beliefs, is the core of how I define myself and my world; than it is only reasonable to assume that I should base my decisions upon that faith. Otherwise I would be acting against myself, and as we know: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." God's existence is not logical+ Show Spoiler +"a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place" Perhaps you have conceived some awesome, new argument that provides something every single philosopher that has ever lived could not, and have the ability to use a syllogism to actually prove the non-existence of God... or perhaps you don't. If you do, by all means, present it. If you do not, than understand that the question of the existence of God is not settled, either scientifically or logically. There are many arguments for both sides. I suggest you read some of the works of Thomas Aquinas. He may be a bit dated nowadays, and every atheist thinks to cut his or her teeth on taking on his works; but it is undeniable that he was a very rational, very intelligent man. His arguments may not be convincing, but he certainly provided more energy to the subject than you or I have (unless, perhaps you are the recently deceased Christopher Hitchens, or perhaps you are Richard Dawkins?). Either way, if you are saying that God's existence cannot (or at least, has not yet been) logically proven to be so... I agree. That doesn't mean anything to it's validity or truth, however. The various authors of the various books and stories in the Gospel were flawed in both their recollections and their interpretations.+ Show Spoiler +"collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god" Under what authority do you make this statement? How much time have you spent analyzing the Bible? How much study have you put to the beliefs and histories of the ancient Jews, to the lives and beliefs of the ancient Christians? I can guarantee you that the Catholic church has put more time, more effort, and more mental "sweat" into the subject than any other organization that has ever existed. Unless you can provide me with some reason not to, I will take their word over yours. Especially since you seem to misunderstand the fundamental purpose of many of the stories and books in the Bible, that many of the "historical" books were never meant to be literal histories, but were often morality tales. Further, that they were all "normal humans" is debatable. Some were probably insane. Others were probably extraordinarily brutal and primitive by today's standards. Others may or may not have been true prophets in communication with the all-knowing, all-powerful God. Basing your beliefs on the Bible is so illogical that it is self-evidently so. I have no need to provide an actual argument because your position is inherently inferior.+ Show Spoiler +"If you need me to tell you WHY basing an argument on collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god", a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place is flawed you are clearly beyond help." Well that's just rude. And it's actually a logical fallacy. At that point I can't truly argue with you because you haven't given an argument. You've thrown out an insult and taken a tone of superiority. You might as well have said: "U r dumb, lol" and you would have provided as much intellectual value as you have now, and saved some time. I had hoped for something better.... but I suppose such hope was baseless and ill founded. Curse my blind faith in your abilities! Hoo boy, that took a while. Well, hopefully we can move on from this better people. And I think I might just be done with the whole argument considering the fact that it seems impossible to bring up religion without having these same, inane discussions. You really need to accept that bible based religion is completely irrational. You really need to learn what the word: "irrational" means. You can talk all you want about how Christians have been searching for a rationalization for their belief for 20 centuries (even though it's only been like 5) Never heard of Thomas Aquinas, huh? (~8 centuries ago) Well, if you've never heard of him than you've definitely never heard of Augustine of Hippo. (~16 centuries ago) And I suppose that expecting you to have heard of Justin Martyr (~19 centuries ago) and Tertullian (~19 centuries ago) would just be too much. I mean... it's not like these are well known historical figures or anything like that. Though, perhaps, and this is a bit of a stretch, you've heard of Paul the Apostle? (~20 centuries ago) Maybe you recognize the name? but you can not give one example of any of them that have succeeded because it is an impossibility. You do understand what "logical" means right? Here, this will help: logic (n): a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoninghttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logicBy definition, the apologists were successful in creating logical rationales for their beliefs. Saying that religion is logical is misinterpretation of faith and slap in the face to actual logical thinking. Saying that people who created valid logical syllogisms were not logicians and were not using logic is a slap in the face to actual definitions. lol. Posting the definition of a word and telling me I don't know what it means doesn't make religion logical. Loose generalizations and looking at nature as an expression of god and making connections between the real world and the bible is not real logic. The philosophers, monks and saints that were tasks with finding god in nature found nothing. They were simply looking at the universe through a religious lens. Nothing that any of them wrote stands up to modern scientific logical thinking because it is based on invalid assumptions at their core. The only way they can be seen as logical is if you start with the bible, and assume that god is good, great, and in all things. It's all bullshit and calling it logical isn't going to make it any more so. modern scientific logical thinking because it is based on invalid assumptions at their core
You are doing exactly the same thing, only you are looking through a scientific lense instead of another one. You seem to mess up your definitions as the other guy already pointed out, and when you are reminded of that you just dismiss it, apart from this being an unscientific attitude, it is also really hard to have a discussion with someone who acts like that. Claiming that real logic is not real logic because you say so is hardly better than saying that God exists because I say so, and since it seems you have a problem when people do the latter... I will try nonetheless. For examply there are many forms of rationality, the most common ones are instrumental and coherent rationality. By definition of the former being rational means, if your goal is to get from A to B as fast as possible, then it is rational to go from A to B in a straight line, and it would be irrational to go from A to B through C, when C means taking a detour. By definition of the latter, being rational means having a coherent beliefset or system. It would be irrational to hold two beliefs that contradict each other, and you are rational insofar you do not have such contradicting beliefs. In daily use being rational is often confused with being reasonable (which means providing justified reasons/arguments), being logical (which is what Superfan tried to explain, logic is empty and you can claim the most evil and cruel things while being perfectly logical) and with common sense, which seems to be what you are doing. However claiming common sense is pretty vague and it seems to me it goes agains the modern scientific attitude you are trying to defend. The same goes for dismissing stuff you do not understand or do not care to understand or simply do not agree with as bullshit. In fact, the early scientific method is largely indebted to these guys because they laid the foundation for logical deduction which was, for the early centuries of the scientific development, the primary method of justification. Now this has shifted to induction, or more recently perhaps abduction or inference to the best explanation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning). However atleast induction has been shown to be irrational (read Goodman's Riddle of Induction), yet it is still largely used by scientists in the field. So much for that. Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lacatos have already convincingly argued against the position you are trying to take here, namely that of an independent, objective point of view, which is so problematic we can safely say it does not exist (pretty much in the same way you claim that God has no logical basis in the world, the same can be said about that objective "birds eye" point of view). You are as much affected by theory, by ideology as the next (religious) man. Is this an argument to support religion, "hell no". I do hope that it tempers you to make so many wildly unfounded claims.
I think what are missing is that the law is a real world application with immediate consequences. In those circumstances science is the way to go about decision making. If you make laws to prevent people from sinning whether or not that law actually makes a positive impact on the lives of people that it affects, you are purposefully sacrificing progress in this world, for salvation after death that is made up and unknowable. It is not just against the ideas this country was founded on, and it is not only theocratic, but it is insane. You are the one that is making unfounded claims.
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On June 30 2013 20:02 Sokrates wrote:
You didnt read my post carefully. And i dont think you cannot think about that the way we think about it right now (meaning) sience is flawed. That is acceptable, but that doesnt mean beliving that a book written 2000years ago is equal to that. Since all books you write and claim it is the truth should be treated the very same way.
I think we are talking past each other on this point here. I was not really talking about the bible, I should have made that more clear. I find it hard however, because my mind is not yet entirely made up on the matter. I am inclined to agree that we cannot put the bible on the same level as a theory of science regarding the existence of the universe. If only because the latter is so much more thorough. I think in the end I would say both sides are overstepping their boundaries frequently in the claims they make, and the bible, whenever it talks of the age of the world etc, is overstepping their bounds. As it concerns metaphysics, it just cannot make claims about physics the way it does. In the same way that science, which concerns physics has trouble to make claims about the non-physical and generally cannot make claims about the metaphysical other than it does not concern us.
After all i dont understand where your point is? All you point out is that every method has flaws and we cannot obtain the absolute truth. I agree on that, but where is the point, just because of that it doesnt mean all "philosophies" and religions are equally valuable.
If you say that than there is no reason in trying to obtain more truth at all, since it would be totally pointless. If you say that the bible is equally valuable in obtaining the truth that modern sience is, then there is no fucking point in doing sience at all regarding more "fundamental knowlegdge" other than technology.
I would say that the main objective of science is the advancement of technology, that is why I do not see any problem with saying that the best justification for science is that it works. My point is that all methods are flawed because they cannot incorporate everything in the world. Whatever they come up with, where it gains ground in one area, it must yield in another (this is my view, it is by no means a "truth"). What I want to achieve is a better understanding of this, that we all look at the world from the basis of some fundamental claims, and we build a world view in coherence with these claims. And what the claims are that are at the foundation of our world view, in the end determines whether or not we accept certain beliefs or not. In that abstract sense I'd say, yes were all doing it in the same way, so it is hard to say that one fundamental claim is better than another. Im sorry if i am not being clear here, this is work in progress for me still.
And if we gain more knowledge through the methods we use than means of course that we get closer to the truth, even if it just means we have gotten from 1000 to 1001 and we are trying to reach infinity. You are assuming here that it is a linear process, and I dont think this is so. In technology I suppose it is, if you make a version 1.0 then version 1.1 is (or ought to be) an improvement. This does not mean however that we have come any closer to the truth, as history has shown, we can make technologically functional things with (what we now perceive to be) a wrong understanding of the world.
And to pick up your analogy i have a way better one even implementing your analogy and making you GG right here (sry i have to be offensive since i feel like it today)
Let us say we are doing a journey, and are goal is to reach the truth:
So we start walking and we come across a road, and we walk that road and then we come to a sea which is beautiful (let us say the sea is called christianity) and we can talk a walk around it but if you say "wow that is the most beautiful sea i ve ever seen" and you start thinking about nothing else and you settle here, then your journey ends, you keep walking around that sea. But then you maybe dont see other seas that are more beautiful and you dont see the mountains, and you never see the desert. So if you dont want the journey to end here (since basic human instinct is curiousity) we keep on walking and we come to river and we come to a lake and then we come to mountains and then we try to climb that mountain (not meaning that at the top the absolute truth lies) but then we come to a passage we cannot go any further (meaning our knowledge using logic to climb is not sufficient), then we can either stay there and keep trying or we can go down again and try to climb another mountain, and maybe we cannot climb any of those mountains, yet we are doing the JOURNEY since the journey is our goal, no matter where you go. You dont know if you walk in the wrong direction you just know you are doing a journey for the sake of the journey. And you also know that you wont see everything, that doesnt mean you have to sit at the sea and it also doesnt mean you have to stop doing that journey.
If i understand this correctly, you are saying that the journey is the truth (because we are doing the journey to reach the truth, and later you say that the journey is the goal). When I just ignore the theoretical implications of what you just said, and just respond to this with my gutfeeling, i'd say I can agree with such an attitude and I welcome it. However I'd like to point out that the sea, which you mentioned and called christianity, is only just one such wonderous things that we come across, there is another one, perhaps it is a forest, or a lush field, and it is called (theoretical) science. I'd say that what you claim about the sea, and having to move on to complete the journey, would also be true for the forest or the field.
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On June 30 2013 20:04 ZackAttack wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 19:02 TSORG wrote:On June 30 2013 18:25 ZackAttack wrote:On June 30 2013 18:01 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 15:45 ZackAttack wrote:On June 30 2013 15:21 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 14:07 zbedlam wrote:On June 30 2013 10:51 sc2superfan101 wrote:On June 30 2013 10:39 zbedlam wrote:
Christians please go away or pose arguments that have some logic to them. Basing arguments on the basis that a book tells you what is right and wrong which applied several thousand years ago in today's society is stupid, nonsensical and infuriating to anyone that doesn't share your fantasies. You tell me to use logic, yet use none of your own? Tossing around strawman arguments and insults along with a conclusion not backed up by a premise or any kind of logical syllogism is pretty much the height of illogical argumentation. + Show Spoiler +In fact, I think I should try to deconstruct the argument (I use the term loosely) you seem to be providing here:
P1: The Bible tells us what is right and wrong.
P2: It applied thousands of years ago.
C: It does not apply today.
Does not follow from premise.
P1: Basing arguments on books written thousands of years ago is stupid.
P2: The Bible was written thousands of years ago. (kind of incorrect, but whatever)
C: Basing arguments on the Bible is stupid.
Better in that it's somewhat logical, yet still pretty weak in that you've not said WHY basing argument on books written thousands of years ago is stupid, and you misunderstand what the Bible is (not a singular book, but rather a collection of books and stories). edit: Besides, god isn't even pro life according the bible so even by christian standards your beliefs are unfounded. This misconception is largely irrelevant, but somewhat on-topic so I feel okay in shortly addressing it. God, in the Bible, claims many things for His own. Control over human life is one of those things. Hence, it is logical for the believing Christian to accept that God can take life yet forbid us humans from doing so. And, if you're using the argument from the one scriptural passage from the Old Testament that mentions abortion, understand that the interpretation of the Scripture is a very complex subject, and it is fully in-line with logic for the practicing Catholic to accept the Church (and Christ himself) as the correct authorities on the subject. Religion is based on the premise of faith not reason, basing your decisions on your faith has no rational reasoning. If you need me to tell you WHY basing an argument on collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god", a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place is flawed you are clearly beyond help. Hmm... I was actually kind of hoping you'd argue the on-topic part, but I think this needs addressing. In the interest of brevity and on-topicness, I'll spoiler the rest: + Show Spoiler +Let's take these statements one at a time. (I will paraphrase for the sake of clarity, but will quote the source in a spoiler) Religion has no rational basis.+ Show Spoiler +"Religion is based on the premise of faith, not reason" Well, I suppose that could be said to be true in some ways. But it also ignores the vast history of Christian apologetics, much of which was based on finding logical basis for faith. It is simply not true that religion has no place for rational thought and is solely based upon "blind" faith. Whether or not you personally find the logical arguments and reasoning provided by the hundreds of Christian apologetics who over the past 20 centuries were interested in finding and developing logical basis' for their beliefs is irrelevant to the fact that they do exist. Basing your decisions on your faith is an example of irrational behavior.+ Show Spoiler +"basing your decisions on your faith has no rational reasoning" This is ridiculous. I present you with this syllogism: P1: My faith is the centerpiece of all my beliefs. P2: My decisions should be in-line with my beliefs. C: My decisions should be based upon my faith. That is a perfectly rational, perfectly logical syllogism. If my faith, being based at least in part on logical reasoning, is the centerpiece of all my beliefs, is the core of how I define myself and my world; than it is only reasonable to assume that I should base my decisions upon that faith. Otherwise I would be acting against myself, and as we know: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." God's existence is not logical+ Show Spoiler +"a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place" Perhaps you have conceived some awesome, new argument that provides something every single philosopher that has ever lived could not, and have the ability to use a syllogism to actually prove the non-existence of God... or perhaps you don't. If you do, by all means, present it. If you do not, than understand that the question of the existence of God is not settled, either scientifically or logically. There are many arguments for both sides. I suggest you read some of the works of Thomas Aquinas. He may be a bit dated nowadays, and every atheist thinks to cut his or her teeth on taking on his works; but it is undeniable that he was a very rational, very intelligent man. His arguments may not be convincing, but he certainly provided more energy to the subject than you or I have (unless, perhaps you are the recently deceased Christopher Hitchens, or perhaps you are Richard Dawkins?). Either way, if you are saying that God's existence cannot (or at least, has not yet been) logically proven to be so... I agree. That doesn't mean anything to it's validity or truth, however. The various authors of the various books and stories in the Gospel were flawed in both their recollections and their interpretations.+ Show Spoiler +"collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god" Under what authority do you make this statement? How much time have you spent analyzing the Bible? How much study have you put to the beliefs and histories of the ancient Jews, to the lives and beliefs of the ancient Christians? I can guarantee you that the Catholic church has put more time, more effort, and more mental "sweat" into the subject than any other organization that has ever existed. Unless you can provide me with some reason not to, I will take their word over yours. Especially since you seem to misunderstand the fundamental purpose of many of the stories and books in the Bible, that many of the "historical" books were never meant to be literal histories, but were often morality tales. Further, that they were all "normal humans" is debatable. Some were probably insane. Others were probably extraordinarily brutal and primitive by today's standards. Others may or may not have been true prophets in communication with the all-knowing, all-powerful God. Basing your beliefs on the Bible is so illogical that it is self-evidently so. I have no need to provide an actual argument because your position is inherently inferior.+ Show Spoiler +"If you need me to tell you WHY basing an argument on collection of books and stories from thousands of years ago from the (many times) flawed recollection of events from normal humans and their interpretation of what "god", a being with no logical explanation for existing in the first place is flawed you are clearly beyond help." Well that's just rude. And it's actually a logical fallacy. At that point I can't truly argue with you because you haven't given an argument. You've thrown out an insult and taken a tone of superiority. You might as well have said: "U r dumb, lol" and you would have provided as much intellectual value as you have now, and saved some time. I had hoped for something better.... but I suppose such hope was baseless and ill founded. Curse my blind faith in your abilities! Hoo boy, that took a while. Well, hopefully we can move on from this better people. And I think I might just be done with the whole argument considering the fact that it seems impossible to bring up religion without having these same, inane discussions. You really need to accept that bible based religion is completely irrational. You really need to learn what the word: "irrational" means. You can talk all you want about how Christians have been searching for a rationalization for their belief for 20 centuries (even though it's only been like 5) Never heard of Thomas Aquinas, huh? (~8 centuries ago) Well, if you've never heard of him than you've definitely never heard of Augustine of Hippo. (~16 centuries ago) And I suppose that expecting you to have heard of Justin Martyr (~19 centuries ago) and Tertullian (~19 centuries ago) would just be too much. I mean... it's not like these are well known historical figures or anything like that. Though, perhaps, and this is a bit of a stretch, you've heard of Paul the Apostle? (~20 centuries ago) Maybe you recognize the name? but you can not give one example of any of them that have succeeded because it is an impossibility. You do understand what "logical" means right? Here, this will help: logic (n): a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration : the science of the formal principles of reasoninghttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/logicBy definition, the apologists were successful in creating logical rationales for their beliefs. Saying that religion is logical is misinterpretation of faith and slap in the face to actual logical thinking. Saying that people who created valid logical syllogisms were not logicians and were not using logic is a slap in the face to actual definitions. lol. Posting the definition of a word and telling me I don't know what it means doesn't make religion logical. Loose generalizations and looking at nature as an expression of god and making connections between the real world and the bible is not real logic. The philosophers, monks and saints that were tasks with finding god in nature found nothing. They were simply looking at the universe through a religious lens. Nothing that any of them wrote stands up to modern scientific logical thinking because it is based on invalid assumptions at their core. The only way they can be seen as logical is if you start with the bible, and assume that god is good, great, and in all things. It's all bullshit and calling it logical isn't going to make it any more so. modern scientific logical thinking because it is based on invalid assumptions at their core
You are doing exactly the same thing, only you are looking through a scientific lense instead of another one. You seem to mess up your definitions as the other guy already pointed out, and when you are reminded of that you just dismiss it, apart from this being an unscientific attitude, it is also really hard to have a discussion with someone who acts like that. Claiming that real logic is not real logic because you say so is hardly better than saying that God exists because I say so, and since it seems you have a problem when people do the latter... I will try nonetheless. For examply there are many forms of rationality, the most common ones are instrumental and coherent rationality. By definition of the former being rational means, if your goal is to get from A to B as fast as possible, then it is rational to go from A to B in a straight line, and it would be irrational to go from A to B through C, when C means taking a detour. By definition of the latter, being rational means having a coherent beliefset or system. It would be irrational to hold two beliefs that contradict each other, and you are rational insofar you do not have such contradicting beliefs. In daily use being rational is often confused with being reasonable (which means providing justified reasons/arguments), being logical (which is what Superfan tried to explain, logic is empty and you can claim the most evil and cruel things while being perfectly logical) and with common sense, which seems to be what you are doing. However claiming common sense is pretty vague and it seems to me it goes agains the modern scientific attitude you are trying to defend. The same goes for dismissing stuff you do not understand or do not care to understand or simply do not agree with as bullshit. In fact, the early scientific method is largely indebted to these guys because they laid the foundation for logical deduction which was, for the early centuries of the scientific development, the primary method of justification. Now this has shifted to induction, or more recently perhaps abduction or inference to the best explanation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning). However atleast induction has been shown to be irrational (read Goodman's Riddle of Induction), yet it is still largely used by scientists in the field. So much for that. Kuhn, Feyerabend and Lacatos have already convincingly argued against the position you are trying to take here, namely that of an independent, objective point of view, which is so problematic we can safely say it does not exist (pretty much in the same way you claim that God has no logical basis in the world, the same can be said about that objective "birds eye" point of view). You are as much affected by theory, by ideology as the next (religious) man. Is this an argument to support religion, "hell no". I do hope that it tempers you to make so many wildly unfounded claims. I think what are missing is that the law is a real world application with immediate consequences. In those circumstances science is the way to go about decision making. If you make laws to prevent people from sinning whether or not that law actually makes a positive impact on the lives of people that it affects, you are purposefully sacrificing progress in this world, for salvation after death that is made up and unknowable. It is not just against the ideas this country was founded on, and it is not only theocratic, but it is insane. You are the one that is making unfounded claims.
the law has very little to do with science. For example we have universal human rights, yet there is no scientific basis for this, if anything, there is basis against it.
As for the rest, I have made no claim about sinning or anything regarding the law. I am also not American. Perhaps thats why i am surprised this is even an issue, and have not made any statement regarding it. I am not christian, either so I have trouble understanding their rationale. However I do find it important that when you are trying to argue against it, that you say things which are coherent and logical (in the true sense of the word) and not just some statements which are equally founded in ideology and which are just as biased but just on the opposite end of the spectrum.
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Well lets put it this way using sience as a form of getting close to "truth" the probabilty is way higher to get to 1001 from 1000 instead of going to 999 than with other methods. With other methods you ll most likely go backwards, stay the same or have a lower chance of going forward than using sience. That is the only thing we can do, we have no other options, we have to use the tools "one" has given to us.
If you want to build a car you dont do it with your bare hands or a baseball bat or a stone, you use the best tools you can get, so the chane you build a nice car is higher. That doesnt mean you cant fail. That also doesnt mean someone with better tools (higher intelligence etc.) cant build a nicer and faster car.
My only problem is when someone says different philosohpies etc. are equally valueable. No they are not. Feel free to belive in anything you want.
From a "fatalistic" or pragmatic point of view every effort to get to the ulitmate truth is a attempt in vain, you ll never get there, you might aswell do nothing. SO from that point of view everything is equally valueable since nothing will you get to your destination. But then again you just might kill yourself because then life is in vain.
Maybe we one day build a computer that is so highly intelligent that the moment it gets started it destorys itself.
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On June 30 2013 20:41 Sokrates wrote:
Well lets put it this way using sience as a form of getting close to "truth" the probabilty is way higher to get to 1001 from 1000 instead of going to 999 than with other methods. With other methods you ll most likely go backwards, stay the same or have a lower chance of going forward than using sience. That is the only thing we can do, we have no other options, we have to use the tools "one" has given to us.
If you want to build a car you dont do it with your bare hands or a baseball bat or a stone, you use the best tools you can get, so the chane you build a nice car is higher. That doesnt mean you cant fail. That also doesnt mean someone with better tools (higher intelligence etc.) cant build a nicer and faster car.
My only problem is when someone says different philosohpies etc. are equally valueable. No they are not. Feel free to belive in anything you want.
From a "fatalistic" or pragmatic point of view every effort to get to the ulitmate truth is a attempt in vain, you ll never get there, you might aswell do nothing. SO from that point of view everything is equally valueable since nothing will you get to your destination. But then again you just might kill yourself because then life is in vain.
Maybe we one day build a computer that is so highly intelligent that the moment it gets started it destorys itself.
I think we have come at the end of the discussion then, thanks for raising some interesting points.
(as a PS, you are undoubtly right about fatalism, but pragmatism is not nihilistic, while it does say we cannot know the ultimate truth, it says that this is simply irrelevant and we should concern us only with whatever works and finding ways of making things work better, in the end i think this is what most people live their lives by, whether they know it or not)
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On June 30 2013 20:00 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 18:54 gedatsu wrote:On June 30 2013 15:21 xM(Z wrote:
in the end it all comes down to the future of an entire species being decided by women and women alone. that should never happen, it should never be allowed to happen. i don't care if it's their bodies/their lives because this, is my species too. You know, human population is still rapidly increasing. The future of the species is not in jeopardy, at least not with regards to number of births. If some cataclysmic event reduced humanity to just a few hundred thousand individuals, then you might have a good point about not letting individual women have the final say about abortions. But we're not in that situation right now. so when you fail at protecting a species with laws, you go with trust, faith, believe, common sense?. gl then.
Like I said, this is something we don't need protection for right now.
And keep in mind that "laws" have only existed for some 5 thousand years. Humanity did just fine without them for hundreds of thousands of years before that. What did they use instead? "Trust, faith, believe, common sense."
ps: the situation we're in right now doesn't matter, today doesn't matter. what matters is the future and in the future you could have an internationally organized body of women dictating who/when/how and for how much someone would get to procreate.
they won't give you their eggs; they'll use contraception to prevent accidents from happening and if a miracle were to happen, well then they can just legally kill it.
In the future we could have an internationally organized body of men dictating who/when/how and for how much someone would get to procreate. But, just like with your scenario, nothing points to us heading to that future. If someone in the future decides to create such an organization, it is up to the other people in the same future to stop them.
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On June 30 2013 20:47 TSORG wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 20:41 Sokrates wrote:
Well lets put it this way using sience as a form of getting close to "truth" the probabilty is way higher to get to 1001 from 1000 instead of going to 999 than with other methods. With other methods you ll most likely go backwards, stay the same or have a lower chance of going forward than using sience. That is the only thing we can do, we have no other options, we have to use the tools "one" has given to us.
If you want to build a car you dont do it with your bare hands or a baseball bat or a stone, you use the best tools you can get, so the chane you build a nice car is higher. That doesnt mean you cant fail. That also doesnt mean someone with better tools (higher intelligence etc.) cant build a nicer and faster car.
My only problem is when someone says different philosohpies etc. are equally valueable. No they are not. Feel free to belive in anything you want.
From a "fatalistic" or pragmatic point of view every effort to get to the ulitmate truth is a attempt in vain, you ll never get there, you might aswell do nothing. SO from that point of view everything is equally valueable since nothing will you get to your destination. But then again you just might kill yourself because then life is in vain.
Maybe we one day build a computer that is so highly intelligent that the moment it gets started it destorys itself. I think we have come at the end of the discussion then, thanks for raising some interesting points. (as a PS, you are undoubtly right about fatalism, but pragmatism is not nihilistic, while it does say we cannot know the ultimate truth, it says that this is simply irrelevant and we should concern us only with whatever works and finding ways of making things work better, in the end i think this is what most people live their lives by, whether they know it or not)
Very well said.
But in addition (so we can have a new discussion here but i m not sure if i want that :D) that is way i dont like all these gender theories (saying that men and women are absolutly equal besides anatomy) because it is nothing but making up a story and sticking to it (construcitvism). It is their religion, but they cloak it in the name of science.
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This is my last post in this thread. I would just like to say that when people say things like, "science is just another religion" it really makes me sad. I don't see how people can be so blind when the answer is right in front of them.
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On June 30 2013 20:00 xM(Z wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 18:54 gedatsu wrote:On June 30 2013 15:21 xM(Z wrote:
in the end it all comes down to the future of an entire species being decided by women and women alone. that should never happen, it should never be allowed to happen. i don't care if it's their bodies/their lives because this, is my species too. You know, human population is still rapidly increasing. The future of the species is not in jeopardy, at least not with regards to number of births. If some cataclysmic event reduced humanity to just a few hundred thousand individuals, then you might have a good point about not letting individual women have the final say about abortions. But we're not in that situation right now. so when you fail at protecting a species with laws, you go with trust, faith, believe, common sense?. gl then.
Considering the absurdity of the scenario you're imagining, yes, common sense will do fine (and it also does not preclude proactive policies if there is ever a problem).
On June 30 2013 20:00 xM(Z wrote:
ps: the situation we're in right now doesn't matter, today doesn't matter. what matters is the future and in the future you could have an internationally organized body of women dictating who/when/how and for how much someone would get to procreate.
they won't give you their eggs; they'll use contraception to prevent accidents from happening and if a miracle were to happen, well then they can just legally kill it.
Current access to abortion has absolutely nothing to do with that absurd scenario - if women were organized the way you describe, they would easily be able to perform their abortions outside of hospitals thanks to their network. Men could by the way create the exact same body you describe, except it would be even easier for them to make sure their sperm wouldn't reach women. Does that mean we have to make a law preventing men from pulling out and using condoms?
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so our context differ. you people see the best case scenarios in which that could happen and i see the worst. you can't do that, there is no point in doing that. i can come up with contexts that would make the whole idea, even if it were to come true, laughable. 
the premise: women are the deciders. men can't do jack; their sole (among others, if you're really trying to split hairs) purpose in life is to procreate, spread their genes. men, making a men-body that would prevent/keep them safe from procreating makes no sense what so ever. also, women are evil, they are getting back on men for all those years of oppression.
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On July 01 2013 01:28 xM(Z wrote:so our context differ. you people see the best case scenarios in which that could happen and i see the worst. you can't do that, there is no point in doing that. i can come up with contexts that would make the whole idea, even if it were to come true, laughable.
No, not at all. You came up with an absurd scenario, and we're pointing out how absurd it is. It has nothing to do with best case/worst case scenarios.
On July 01 2013 01:28 xM(Z wrote:
the premise: women are the deciders. men can't do jack; their sole (among others, if you're really trying to split hairs) purpose in life is to procreate, spread their genes. men, making a men-body that would prevent/keep them safe from procreating makes no sense what so ever. also, women are evil, they are getting back on men for all those years of oppression.
Yes, we already got your absurd scenario, which is why we are calling it absurd. I also already replied to it:
"Current access to abortion has absolutely nothing to do with that absurd scenario - if women were organized the way you describe, they would easily be able to perform their abortions outside of hospitals thanks to their network. Men could by the way create the exact same body you describe, except it would be even easier for them to make sure their sperm wouldn't reach women. Does that mean we have to make a law preventing men from pulling out and using condoms?"
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On June 30 2013 17:56 TSORG wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2013 06:27 heliusx wrote:
Who gives a shit what your religion believes. You don't get to make decisions for people based off your fairy tales. no, but you get to make them based on yours?
Can you read?
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k, so you didn't get it at all.
Men could by the way create the exact same body you describe, except it would be even easier for them to make sure their sperm wouldn't reach women.
reread my post. i said men would want to perpetuate the species; making such an organization would be suicide for them.
"Current access to abortion has absolutely nothing to do with that absurd scenario ...
this whole topic is about extending current access to abortion, is about extending women abortion rights way past 20 weeks, up to pre-birth.
also, i made it clear in my example that women have total and complete control over when, how, whom they abort. it would be legal to abort during their whole pregnancy term. women wouldn't need networks dude.
they could abort on a bench in a park then toss the zygote/fetus/human in a garbage bin as if nothing happened.
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EPT
