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@Mopac
Okay, so why do we still say the Sun is a thing that people respect even if we don't call it a god?
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@3RU7AL
I refuse to join your cult until you explain exactly how you make the astronomical leap from "ultimate reality" to "YHWH"."I AM"So do you believe Popeye is a god too?
You are belittling your own imaginings and talking down to them, and its more disrespectful to yourself than Christians.
I mean, you can't have an honest conversation about the nature of our existence or what have you if that's not what you want to talk about to begin with.
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@3RU7AL
I refuse to join your cult until you explain exactly how you make the astronomical leap from "ultimate reality" to "YHWH"."I AM"So do you believe Popeye is a god too?
You are belittling your own imaginings and talking down to them, and its more disrespectful to yourself than Christians.
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@3RU7AL
I refuse to join your cult until you explain exactly how you make the astronomical leap from "ultimate reality" to "YHWH".
"I AM" is not a leap.
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@3RU7AL
That's true. Namely, "there is no compelling reason to subscribe to any particular ancient rule-book".This isn't a theological supposition.A theological supposition would be, "there is a particular god or gods with particular attributes".Atheism makes no such claims.
Yes, that is a theological supposition. Yes, that would be excluded among the multitude of ideas not qualifying "I am without god"
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@3RU7AL
That's true. Namely, "there is no compelling reason to subscribe to any particular ancient rule-book".
This isn't a theological supposition.
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@3RU7AL
It's not a fallacy (okay, its a sarcastic fallacy) because its analogous to what you are actually doing. You made the fallacy, comparing two different things and calling them the same. I pointed it out in English so that you can relate.
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@3RU7AL
A rock is not a theist.
Atheism makes only 1 theological supposition.
Atheism is not compatible with seeking God.
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@zedvictor4
Here's part of an interview Clint Eastwood had with the Esquire in 2016. The first section is just offhand remarks about his career. Its somewhat relevant just because of the way he talks. 2nd paragraph he starts getting into his highly sophisticated political analysis. The third he delves into a political blunder when he talked to an empty chair, and offers a first hand perspective.
ESQ: Scott, do you think you've picked up any of Clint's instincts?
SE: I've tried to take every opportunity I can to learn from him. I flew to Georgia to see him work on Sully. Every chance I get, I'm trying to be on set with him.
CE: He's doing great. He's on the right track.
SE: I think he's got a knack for picking good material.
CE: You know it when you see it. But by the same token, you have to keep an open mind. It's so easy to get to a certain spot and say, "This is very comfortable." My agent begged me not to do Every Which Way but Loose.
SE: [Laughs.] That always cracks me up.
CE: And my lawyer begged me not to do it: "This is a piece of shit. It's not the kind of thing you do." And I said, "It's not the kind of thing that I've been doing—all these pictures where I'm shooting people. I want something you can take your kids to." I said, "I like this character. I think it's hip that the girl dumps the guy and it's not happy ever after." And the public loved it. If you make a couple decisions where your instincts worked well, why would you abandon them?
SE: He always told me that. "Nobody knows anything, so don't listen to anyone else."
CE: Nobody knows diddly. They just think they do. And the people that think they know the most know the least.
ESQ: Your characters have become touchstones in the culture, whether it's Reagan invoking "Make my day" or now Trump … I swear he's even practiced your scowl.
CE: Maybe. But he's onto something, because secretly everybody's getting tired of political correctness, kissing up. That's the kiss-ass generation we're in right now. We're really in a pussy generation. Everybody's walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren't called racist. And then when I did Gran Torino, even my associate said, "This is a really good script, but it's politically incorrect." And I said, "Good. Let me read it tonight." The next morning, I came in and I threw it on his desk and I said, "We're starting this immediately."
ESQ: What is the "pussy generation"?
CE: All these people that say, "Oh, you can't do that, and you can't do this, and you can't say that." I guess it's just the times.
ESQ: What do you think Trump is onto?
CE: What Trump is onto is he's just saying what's on his mind. And sometimes it's not so good. And sometimes it's … I mean, I can understand where he's coming from, but I don't always agree with it.
ESQ: So you're not endorsing him?
CE: I haven't endorsed anybody. I haven't talked to Trump. I haven't talked to anybody. You know, he's a racist now because he's talked about this judge. And yeah, it's a dumb thing to say. I mean, to predicate your opinion on the fact that the guy was born to Mexican parents or something. He's said a lot of dumb things. So have all of them. Both sides. But everybody—the press and everybody's going, "Oh, well, that's racist," and they're making a big hoodoo out of it. Just fucking get over it. It's a sad time in history.
ESQ: What troubles you the most?
CE: We're not really … what troubles me is … I guess when I did that silly thing at the Republican convention, talking to the chair …
ESQ: I didn't say it was silly.
CE: It was silly at the time, but I was standing backstage and I'm hearing everybody say the same thing: "Oh, this guy's a great guy." Great, he's a great guy. I've got to say something more. And so I'm listening to an old Neil Diamond thing and he's going, "And no one heard at all / Not even the chair." And I'm thinking, That's Obama. He doesn't go to work. He doesn't go down to Congress and make a deal. What the hell's he doing sitting in the White House? If I were in that job, I'd get down there and make a deal. Sure, Congress are lazy bastards, but so what? You're the top guy. You're the president of the company. It's your responsibility to make sure everybody does well. It's the same with every company in this country, whether it's a two-man company or a two-hundred-man company… . And that's the pussy generation—nobody wants to work.
ESQ: You've campaigned for office. If you were going to write a stump speech for this election, what would you say?
CE: "Knock it off. Knock everything off." All these people out there rattling around the streets and stuff, shit. They're boring everybody. Chesty Puller, a great Marine general, once said, "You can run me, and you can starve me, and you can beat me, and you can kill me, but don't bore me." And that's exactly what's happening now: Everybody is boring everybody. It's boring to listen to all this shit. It's boring to listen to these candidates.
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@dustryder
But I said it before, and I'll say it again. The best argument for Donald Trump being racist is thst the party that created the KKK insists that he is.If your best argument is a historical link that bears no modern relevancy whatsoever, it must be rather poor.
Yeah, I'm kind of jealous of that one liner.
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@Swagnarok
Alexandria Cortez was actually unpopular in her own (deep blue) state last I checked. Her district is an outlier in that respect.
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@n8nrgmi
Americans talk about "Africa" like a country all the time. Like half of us have no lucid concept of the international geography, other than it looks like a horse. That's just how some people are accustomed to speak. Its in our media. Its everywhere. You are just giving that person you are speaking with a hard time.
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@3RU7AL
Expanded ContextCalculating a probability and showing your work with a margin of error isn't the same as holding conviction, going forth and turning on a light switch. We've established that much.So can we agree that "faith" might be the wrong word to use for "faith in science"?Thinking that he can is not faith. It appears I have assumed your meaning incorrectly.
ReplyFaith in science has already been offered, so it doesn't make sense for a lack of science to be a cause requiring faith.When you said,Thinking that he can is not faith. It appears I have assumed your meaning incorrectly.I thought we agreed that science does not require faith.Please explain.
Negative, notice we have not established anything further than the emboldened portion and we never agreed that science does not require faith. I am referring back to my initial assumption of what you meant by "faith in science", which at least makes sense. There is nothing else for me to refer to.
Initial AssumptionI assume when you say faith in science you are essentially referring to the idea that without having yet done so, you will be able to duplicate the scientific methodology, and you are going to take a leap of faith in order to test the theory. Just because you are imagining a cathode collecting hydrogen bubbles and an anode collecting oxygen bubbles doesn't make the faith itself distinguishable from faith in anything else.
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@3RU7AL
"Jesus is god" is NOT scientifically testable (unfalsifiable) (but might be logically incoherent) and as such requires "faith".
Faith in science has already been offered, so it doesn't make sense for a lack of science to be a cause requiring faith.
Random unfact: The Truth is unfalsifiable
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@3RU7AL
"Jesus is God" is a theological statement. All things are possible through God. It just happens that Christianity is "The Way"
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@3RU7AL
I just provided a testable example as a dogma. I've dabbled in the language but I wouldn't typically say "religious beliefs" (others might) unless I'm speaking to an anti-intellectual reference, like ideological politics. Its a vague phrasing only suited to that sort of idea in my experience.
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@3RU7AL
Dogma (The earth is flat), logic, and predictionsPlease provide even a single example (counter-factual) of a religious belief that CAN be tested.
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@3RU7AL
Calculating a probability and showing your work with a margin of error isn't the same as holding conviction, going forth and turning on a light switch. We've established that much.So can we agree that "faith" might be the wrong word to use for "faith in science"?
Thinking that he can is not faith. It appears I have assumed your meaning incorrectly.
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@3RU7AL
These limitations mitigate the confidence of the results. This confidence is Quantifiable. It's called "Sigma" and it NEVER REACHES 100%.Approaching this with an open mind, that sounds like glorified statistics. That is not how I understand science.Please explain how you understand science.
I'll try to remember this.
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@3RU7AL
...and you are going to take a leap of faith in order to test the theory.Testing a hypothesis is not a "leap of faith".Testing a hypothesis is skepticism in action.Religious faith is (100%) belief in something that cannot be tested (like going to heaven).Scientific "faith" (high confidence) is belief in something that can be tested (like turning on a light switch).There is a very real difference. Testable versus Untestable. Verifiable versus Unverifiable.
Is testing a hypothesis science? As I see it the context here is an offshoot on the subtopic of faith, in which "faith in science" was brought up, which I assumed involved replicable scientific methodology. Now, its noteworthy that faith in science isn't atheism, nor atheistic.
Testing a hypothesis does conform with skepticism, but I wouldn't say that it is skepticism. One may test something in which they already know the result.
Religious faith is (100%) belief in something that cannot be tested (like going to heaven).
At first glance this looks unreasonable as you can't prove that all religions cannot be tested. Since you are unwilling to be open minded to other religions, I suppose you can only prove that your "religious faith" cannot be tested. I probably could have commented to this in your last reply, but what I am unclear on was not your formatting, which I can appreciate.
Scientific "faith" (high confidence) is belief in something that can be tested (like turning on a light switch).
Calculating a probability and showing your work with a margin of error isn't the same as holding conviction, going forth and turning on a light switch. We've established that much.
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@3RU7AL
These limitations mitigate the confidence of the results. This confidence is Quantifiable. It's called "Sigma" and it NEVER REACHES 100%.
Approaching this with an open mind, that sounds like glorified statistics. That is not how I understand science.
I assume you mean by faith in science you are essentially referring to the idea that without having done so, you will be able to duplicate the scientific methodology, and you are going to take a leap of faith in order to test the theory. Just because you are imagining a cathode collecting hydrogen bubbles and an anode collecting oxygen bubbles doesn't make the faith itself distinguishable from faith in anything else.They are not the same.One has perfectly logical explanations of how electricity can split oxygen from hydrogen. It is part of a coherent theory of chemistry.There is ample evidence from multiple sources and can be explained without an in-person demonstration.The other very important point is that science, based on inductive reasoning, has very specific limitations.These limitations mitigate the confidence of the results. This confidence is Quantifiable. It's called "Sigma" and it NEVER REACHES 100%.Now, if I read in some old book that I could turn lead into gold with some unicorn tears and a squirt of dragon blood, and I went around teaching this to people because I 100% believed it, that would be much more similar to a religious belief.The other point I'd like to make is that the cathode collecting hydrogen bubbles IS TESTABLE (FALSIFIABLE).The tenents of religion taken "by faith" are NOT TESTABLE (UNFALSIFIABLE).
I don't observe that you've drawn a distinction between faith and faith.
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@3RU7AL
Ok,Just to be clear, when someone says "you have faith in science" they are not using the word "faith" in the same way that religious people use it.When a religious person says "I have faith that Jesus will usher me to heaven when I die" this is not the same as someone saying "I have faith that the cathode will collect hydrogen bubbles and the anode will collect oxygen bubbles".One is a verifiable, evidence-based belief and the other is pure imagination.
I assume when you say faith in science you are essentially referring to the idea that without having yet done so, you will be able to duplicate the scientific methodology, and you are going to take a leap of faith in order to test the theory. Just because you are imagining a cathode collecting hydrogen bubbles and an anode collecting oxygen bubbles doesn't make the faith itself distinguishable from faith in anything else. Obviously you are referring to different topics, but faith should be used in the same way as a matter of faith. If you're to draw a situational distinction it would seem appropriate to use adjectives as Mopac does when they deny "blind faith".
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@3RU7AL
You happened to contend some sort of conflation with confidence on my part and I supplied a distinction that utilized confidence. I would say you can have a confident attitude independent of faith.
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@Mopac
One definition that I like is "something that is believed especially with strong conviction.", because strong conviction certainly can come from evidence, and the godless prefer to use the definition, "firm belief in something for which there is no proof.", which is actually a definition we would find offensive, because we have faith in what we know and witness.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that people are misusing the word to be subversively offensive. One must be fooled to think otherwise. An aspect I find most appropriate from citing Hebrews is that faith is not expressed as a self-righteous conception of belief.
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@3RU7AL
100% confidence is knowing, which is faith. Faith is not synonymous with that level of confidence.I am only 100% confident in logical tautologies. Your religious beliefs are not tautological.Your "faith" is not the same as my instrumental beliefs.
Your logical tautologies are something you have encompassing knowledge and complete control over. This is consistent with what I've been saying to you.
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You are ignoring your epistemological limits.'Less you fancy yourself a god, I suppose you'll disregard your epistemological limits in order to act reasonably upon sound evidence.
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@Mopac
I just want you to know that The Orthodox Church does not understand this description of faith in Hebrews to be a definition of faith, so much as a description of how faith works.
Yeah, I appreciate that. I'm admittedly not very good at conveying the "inside out" of the faith, but this person likes rigorous definitions so I'm not sure how else to convey it through this medium.
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@3RU7AL
So, when you say "faith" (like "faith in god") do you mean "100% confidence" or just "some unspecified level of confidence"?
Complete confidence is knowing, which is a result of faith. Faith is not always synonymous with such a state.
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@3RU7AL
Confidence in hard data is not the same as faith in a bronze age superstition.
The "hard data" is different from the "bronze age superstition". Faith is still faith
I'm curious. Why are you pressing such a simple concept?
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@TheRealNihilist
If faith had no baggage, what would you have faith in?He said it has "a little more baggage than the dictionary". This has got to be an intentional misrepresentation.
Faith in anything has baggage... The misrepresentation, if there is one, has been presented to 3RU7AL by someone other than myself.
You may not follow the same faith, but you have the same kind of faith as a Christian or a JewI don't like the same ice cream as you but you still like the same kind of ice cream as me. What are you even saying?You basically said no then yes.You said you don't have the same faith then you said you have the same kind of faith.
I'm saying that although you have faith which runs contrary to mine, we are both still referring to faith. Christians and Jews have the same kind of faith as you in that sense.
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@3RU7AL
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.In a religious context, "faith" has a little more baggage than the dictionary (which is merely a reflection of common usage and not authoritative).
If faith had no baggage, what would you have faith in? You may not follow the same faith, but you have the same kind of faith as a Christian or a Jew.
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@3RU7AL
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You are ignoring your epistemological limits.
'Less you fancy yourself a god, I suppose you'll disregard your epistemological limits in order to act reasonably upon sound evidence.
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@3RU7AL
Faith is not thinking that he can, but knowing that he will.Not based on Quantifiable evidence. Faith is the exact opposite of a justified, evidence based belief.
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@3RU7AL
Normally you need faith to act reasonably upon sound evidence.You are conflating "faith" with "confidence".
Hebrews 11: 1 Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
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@3RU7AL
My faith isn't blindly following scraps of paper from the middle east. We are a living faith with Holy Orders and active Monasticism.Our faith is Truth worship. Something you don't understand because in your mind it is "Oh no, anything but that."And you certainly aren't judging rightly.No, the epistemological black hole comes from pride and false humility. It isn't that one in that situation doesn't know, it is that they know better. They know better than to even receive instruction, because if they can't know, no one can know!It is faith in one's own understanding, not faith in The Truth, which has long been scribbled away as some absurdity.You don't seem to understand standards of evidence.If you have sound evidence, you don't need faith.And you don't need a book, or a church in order to know god(s).
If you have sound evidence, you don't need faith.
Normally you need faith to act reasonably upon sound evidence.
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@3RU7AL
In Leviticus 20:13 "The Bible" says, “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”
I can't really say the significance this holds in whatever school of Islam but I have read that the Shiite still don't eat shellfish. Others just won't eat pork.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Why do you think I'm trolling?
You don't take your own material seriously, and don't seem to hold much integrity in my view. You are asking for people to react to something that is pretty much meaningless to you.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Eh, I think you're trolling and speaking of God disrespectfully. I'd rather not go on without some other term. The point is that it is plain to see you hold alcohol to a different standard
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@Discipulus_Didicit
Alcohol is good and hangovers exist.
Snoopy: When you drink too much and get a hangover, you blame "God" and not the Alcohol. You also avoid personal responsibility.
OPP1: God is either good, evil, morally neutral, or non-existent.P2: If God was evil then alcohol would not exist.P3: If God was good then hangovers would not existC1: God is either morally neutral or non-existent.Solve that one real quick theists.(Yeah, mostly looking for Keith and SM to give their take on this.)
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@Discipulus_Didicit
When you drink too much and get a hangover, you blame "God" and not the Alcohol. You also avoid personal responsibility.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
You have a double standard for "God" and Alcohol.
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@keithprosser
Does the UK have a respected constitution like the United States?
We have a less dramatic (Islamic) mass migration of refugees with the Somali population though certainly nothing in comparison to the millions flocking to European countries. Somalia is pretty close to the Arabian peninsula, suffered war and anarchy. The cultures are quite different from contemporary American society. There are documented challenges to assimilation on aggregate.
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@disgusted
You don't attack Islam you attack Muslims and then you lie about it.
I have noticed that Stephen has a common pattern of being perturbed by the person he replies to most often on Islam, Keith, who studies religion in a more pragmatic and practical fashion. Stephen attempts to respect a theological approach as would be expected of the actual religious adherents. Keith continually rejects theology if at all possible, and often insists on a secular discussion so there is bound to be some miscommunication. Its kind of hard to separate the religion from the people if someone opens up a socio-political conversation to begin with, and Stephen does express numerous attempts to have a conversation more oriented around religion, and less as Keith suggests "brown people". I'd suggest that some confusion might be avoided in the future if more of the topics about practicalities of relations in the UK were started in the society forum.
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@disgusted
Is the function restored?
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@3RU7AL
I'm surprised no one has taken seriously all of the damage caused by previous sitting presidents forming these agreements without the approval of representation. Its as if people are so fixated on Donald Trump in this moment they don't stop to look around at the politics behind our terrible foreign relations, in this case with Iran. The executive giveth, and the executive taketh away.
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@disgusted
How do you know how much reporting you've done in the last 10 months?
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@dustryder
Your question doesn't really make sense since the Bible spans thousands of years of history all leading up to Jesus, and the current order.
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@disgusted
I've added your last two posts to the "More Guns Thread"
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