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@Tiwaz
Do you feel that they should be excluded for some reason?
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@TheRealNihilist
A = A is definitionally true. You do understand the difference between descriptive and prescriptive language do you not? For example I do not question that there are no married bachelor's because a bachelor is an unmarried man by definition. That being said I may be skeptical that any given man is a bachelor without evidence.
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@TheRealNihilist
Isn't skepticism an infinte regress?
I'm not sure I follow.
Do you question your own position of your own self-critique?
Yes that is how skepticism works.
So is it reasonable skepticism?
It is reasonable to be skeptical until sufficient evidence is available on a given proposition.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
First and foremost I am a skeptic. My atheism is just a natural consequence of my skepticism.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
I am not actually a theist at all.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Yes we end up in the same boat even if that boat is actually two inches to the left.
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@keithprosser
An illusion is something kieth.I accept it's hard to pin down what consciousness is, but until a rock has an identity crisis and starts writing bad poems about life I won't accept consciousness is nothing at all.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Lets say reality is right, but I view everything two inches further to the left than I'm suppose to.I could mostly do stuff right, but I would miss sometimes.
I would go so far as to say that the human brain would seem to correct for similar issues as a matter of normal opperation.
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@keithprosser
What is the practical difference for the purposes of this conversation?Or may be we just find it hard to articulate what consciousness is....
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@keithprosser
The experience is a real experience. There is no guarantee that neurons are involved, though if reality is real then neurons are responsible for my perceptions of reality.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Are you asking if I have reasonable expectations about "reality" based on past experience? If so the answer is yes.
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@keithprosser @fallaneze
Perhaps the real bottom line is that whether it exists or not we don't really know what conciousness is.
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@Fallaneze
Consciousness either exists or does not.
Agreed.
The default position is non-belief.
I would accept this as a good logical starting point.
In order to move from non-belief to beliefor non-acceptance to acceptance, even as a matter of convenience, you must have evidence for that belief in order for it to be rational.
Ok so accepting conciousness as a convenience is irrational. It is also necessary in order for us to have this conversation at all. I enjoy these conversations and so I can, in order to facilitate them, accept conciousness for the purposes of these conversations. This has nothing to do with what I believe since it us merely a convenience.
You have no observable evidence but said that there is indirect evidence. So explain why indirect evidence is impermissible but the alternative, complete lack of evidence, is.
Firstly I would like to be certain we are on the same page here. What indirect but observable and independently verifiable evidence have I judged as impermissible and what have I asserted with a complete lack of evidence?
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@Fallaneze
I accept conciousness as a convenience and readily admit that it may not exist and meaning is merely an artificial standard created by humans (who may not actually be concious). You are misrepresenting me and that is called a strawman.I'm saying that your requirement that things must first have observable evidence for them in order to be accepted or believed in is already inconsistent with what you accept or believe in. Consciousness and meaning are two examples. So you remedy the inconsistency by accepting indirect evidence as well or you can choose to accept that there is no consciousness and/or meaning.
Do you agree with me that conciousness may not exist and that meaning certainly does not except in the context of what humans find subjectively meaningful or do you have an actual argument for why I should accept that either concept is more than this?
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
I believe that I am experiencing something even if that something turns out to be totally illusory.
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@Fallaneze
If you can write me an equation that would accurately measure consciousness throughout the cosmos then you might make it analogous to gravity. Until then, I see no observable (independently verifiable perceivable) evidence of consciousness.Accepting something as a matter of convenience is irrelevant to whether it's true or not true. By law of excluded middle, it's one or the other.Tell me what other options there are aside from existing or not existing.
I do not recall claiming to know that conciousness is more than an illusion. Honestly your the one tgat believes he's necessarily concious do you have any independently verifiable evidence or are you willing to concede that conciousness may not be real?
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
Ues it does but that is still just an assumption.It makes more sense to assume that everything you've never seen doesn't exist until it reveals itself.
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@Melcharaz
Of course i was skeptical until i experienced the Holy Ghost and the healing of God.
What was your experience exactly and how have you determined that its source was some god(s)?
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@Melcharaz
What texts? Many different religions claim to have a book of revealed truth directly from some god(s) which one do you mean and what makes it a better source of truth than any other?
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@Melcharaz
How do we determine what any god(s) say about anything?what God says is right is right and what he says is wrong is wrong.
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@Melcharaz
Then you understand why I remain skeptical of your claims.im aware of this.
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@Melcharaz
This is a claim not the evidence for any claim.Prophecy is more than just foretelling what will happen, its also encouragement and mandates to obey the Lord, often prophets condemn sin and stress to the people to return to the Lord and know better times, Joel talks about how the land will be restored for example.
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@PGA2.0
This is a claim not evidence for any claim.The Bible discloses the source of prophecy is God
I'm not speaking of a single prophecy but hundreds of prophecies.
I honestly don't care if it is millions of prophecies. If one does not act as sufficient evidence I don't see why you would think thst millions would. What you have if you are correct is thousands of irrelevant red herrings.
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@Melcharaz
It would be irrelevant to the question at hand.If i prophecied you would be struck by a semi truck 3 days from now, are you willing to accept that prophecy is not irrelevant?
or if i prophecied that a friend of yours would recieve 33.000$ in 2 days and it happened, would you give credience that there is a God who knows all things?
No I would not.
Ive found people say things are irrelevant when it doesn't apply to them. could you imagine having a prophecy of God telling you what will come to pass in your life?
I can imagine it sure but I cannot believe it without sufficient evidence and even is some prophecy that was verifiably accurate pertaining directly to me did exist that would not tell us the source of this prophecy. Any number of possibilities (including lucky guessing) could account for it as easily as some god(s) might.
That is why prophecy is an irrelevant red herring. It has nothing to do with my being personally involved and everything to do with prophecy not being sufficient evidence of anything but the prophecy itself (if said prophecy can even be authenticated).
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
This is not possible unless you somehiw are able to observe the universe somewhat better than professional cosmologists using the mist powerful telescopes in the world. I accept that we have no reason to believe I reject the idea that you or anyone has looked in every possible spot.I've looked in every possible spot and it's not there"
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@Fallaneze
That's at best indirect evidence of consciousness.
You mean like the movement of planets is indirect evidence of gravity?
If the statement "Consciousness and meanings are things you accept to be true" is incorrect, then it is not true that "Consciousness and meanings are things you accept to be true."
I do not accept them as true I accept them as a convenience.
Thousands of gods still either exist or don't.
If you don't believe me when I say that you have offered a false dichotomy let's count the possibilities together.
Option one is that no gods exist. Option two is that all gods exist. Options 3-10,000 only one of the many proposed gods exist. So like 10,000 options which is more than two.
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@Fallaneze
Consciousness and meanings are things you accept to be true
Incorrect. I accept these as convenient to my perceived interactions with my perceived fellow humans and my perceived reality nothing more.
Any god(s) that you posit to exist either will or won't.
I do not posit any god(s) but if we include any and all gods ever proposed we are talking about thousands of alternate possibilities not a binary set
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@Fallaneze
. I believe that other people are conscious because they mirror my own behavior and I myself am conscious
Unless you can provide specific evidence that you are concious then you like me merely accept conciousness as a convenience however you would like to package it.
Any of the proposed god's existing will either be true or not true. It is not a false dichtomomy.
This is not a binary this is literally thousands of possibilities each equally possible until proven otherwise.
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@Fallaneze
God either exists or does not.
False dichotomy. There are literally thousands of proposed gods. One god, some gods, many gods, all gods, no gods. Can we eliminate any of these possibilities (excepting that we simply do not believe without evidence which case the default is no gods until proven itherwise)?
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@Fallaneze
No it us not rationally justified. Accepting it is just a convenience but if people possess conciousness and rocks and photons do not the way to tell the difference is to observe behavior.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
What do you mean by evidence for no gods? Surely all we have is no evidence for or against since many proposed gods would be completely undetectable. This of course leaves us with no reason to believe but that is quite different from proving nonexistence.
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@Fallaneze
Are you trying to make the distinction between agnostic and gnostic atheists? Ones position gnostically concerns knowledge (or at least the claim of knowledge) not belief.As an atheist, you either (1) believe there are no God(s) or (2) neither believe nor disbelieve there are any God(s).
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@Fallaneze
If conciousness is more than an illusion then human behavior is the verifiable observable evidence. If you concede that conciousness is real (which I accept provisionally only) then that is the evidence.Of course I believe consciousness isn't an illusion. But if you're trying to convince me that there's observable evidence (independently verifiable and perceivable) of consciousness, then you'll need to show it to me.
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@Wrick-It-Ralph
May I ask why you are an atheist?I'm an antitheist. Change my mind.
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@Fallaneze
It seems silly to be skeptical of your own consciousness. The very act of thinking about yourself should show that positing yourself to be unaware is absurd.
Suddenly willing to grant that conciousness is more than an illusion?
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@disgusted
Yes not you. Sorry about that.
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@PGA2.0
Morality is what ought to be
What makes what ought to be mire than a subjective opinion?
Again, if we are just biological bags of atoms why should my reactions be the same as yours?
Clearly we do not always react the same. We react differently to anecdotal evidence for example.
If my biochemical makeup makes me respond differently from yours what is right or wrong about that?
Right and wrong are subjective opinions not quantifiable facts one cannot measure rightness.
Why should I want your survival if your competing deters from my survival?
Generally speaking it does not. Humans are a social species. We need one another to survive. I'm afraid this is a poor straw man.
My Christian worldview has a reason for your existence.
It has a proposed unproven reason.
I have not just used the claim. I have provided both logic and evidence of the claim in numerous posts through these threads.
All of your arguments presuppose the existence of your god(s) they do not properly establish it however.
On any point? Are you sure of no objective certainty on any point or else what you have said is self-defeating? (i.e., You can't even be objectively certain on that point
That is correct. Paradoxical as it may seem I cannot be objectively certain that no human could ever be objectively certain of anything because as a human I cannot be objectively certain of anything.
UNLESS there is a necessary Being
How would any being change the subjective nature of the human condition? Even if your claim is correct objective certainty is still probably beyond human beings.
Again, I can only demonstrate to a logical and reasonable degree.
Yeah but can you because you keep not doing.that.
Thus, there is evidence of biblical veracity.
If we grant that some prophecy from the bible camectrye that is at mist evidence of the veracity of the particular prophecy under discussion but not necessarily any other part of the bible please understand this as I have said it again and again. Prophesy (true or not) is irrelevant to the other claims made by the bible.
The flaw is from human beings, not God. Satan is described as a liar and the father or all lies. Does that mean God lied? No, it does not. My claim is that what God says it true.
Firstly this is just a one long bald assertion but it doesn't matter if your right or not. Let's assume that the flaws in the bible are from humans. There are still flaws. Unless you have some way of determining thevfkawed passages from those which are not flawed the rntire bible is questionable.
I have offered to give evidence and most atheists shut down the conversation because they are not interested in anything but their own talking points.
So far your best "evidence" is that there may be an irrelevant prophecy in the document that makes the claim you are supporting even though you have admitted that the book may contain flaws and even though books can contain both true and false information.
You also mentioned that historic figures/places appear in the document that makes the claim but historical figures are included in works of fiction regularly so that is not strictly speaking evidence either.
If we eliminate these two arguments what is your third best argument?
I can only give you a good reason to why.
But can you though?
Why can't God reveal Himself in the form of these writings?
I suppose some god(s) could but if that is the case I'm not sure how to distinguish between the "true" godclaim and the thousands of "false" godclaims. They All have a similar level of evidence. The anecdotal experience of its followers and it's scriptural writings/recitations. I swear I am having virtually the same conversation with Yassine. "Oh allah explains everything and you can't explain anything therefore allah". Please don't bother telling me why you think Islam is incorrect by the way it doesn't matter. Islam being incorrect does not make you correct.
why would all the evidence in the universe not confirm Him in some way?
That's a good question especially since all the testable evidence only confirms mundane physics at work.
prophecy is a claim that is confirmed by history. It is reasonable and logical to believe.
Prophesy is an irrelevant red herring.
Since you do not have trust in God that would be your requirement that you dictate to God. The biblical God continues to demonstrate to the believe His existence every day in what He has made and through His word.
Are you saying that your claims cannot be demonstrated to me until I accept your claim? That is the definition of confirmation bias. You don't have to believe in gravity for me to demonstrate it to you.
I have offered many times to show others that prophecy is reasonably confirmed in history.
Prophecy is an irrelevant red herring.
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@PGA2.0
What does it demonstrate unless there is meaning behind it?
Humans assign meaning. Nothing is intrinsically meaningful.
Is that unreasonable to believe?
It is never reasonable to believe a claim without sufficient evidence.
If the other hypothesis has little to zero explanatory power - yes.
That is irrelevant unless you prove your hypothesis.
I can only prove it is reasonable. The rest is up to you since I can't make you believe in something you do not want to believe in. That, in fact, is the message of Hebrews 11:6.
If you think I am able to.just believe whatever I want then you are quite mistaken. Beliefs are not a choice they are a realization.
the Big Bang is the cause of itself in that nothing caused something to exist which goes beyond reason, the universe is eternal, which begs the question of how we ever arrive at the present, or something or Someone caused the universe to exist), or God creation.
Without evidence I don't see how you could ever determine which (if any) of these possibilities is actually the truth. I'm afraid that without further information I must rejectvall these hypotheses.
Again, if you want to offer an alternative to these I'm listening.
It doesn't matter if I add one new possibility or one hundred or none. Without any sufficient evidence we cannot know which is correct even if we eliminate some of the possibilities.
Why is your past experience something that is reliable in determining whether God exists or not or can be demonstrated as reasonable to believe?
I cannot be certain. If however my past experiences cannot be used to learn then I cannot learn and this conversation is largely meaningless.
You are not a necessary being. Your existence did not cause my existence.
If I do not exist there is no reason for me to believe that you exist. From my perspective your existence is contingent on my being real (something I accept but can never be objectively certain of). Prove that you exist independent of my perceptions of you independently of my perceptions of you.
Your existence does not mean that what you believe is right or good is actually "right" or "good."
Right and good are subjective opinions not quantifiable facts one cannot measure rightness.
Now, if you want to believe you are that necessary being and you are having a conversation with yourself because you made me up then so be it.
I've already told you I am willing to accept that you exist provisionally and as a convenience. That will have to be good enough since I have no way of testing "reality" for realness.
you cannot make sense of it with the worldview you currently hold.
You still don't seem to understand. I don't believe humans can make sense of it. I accept not knowing (even if I'm not entirely satisfied with it) I don't have to lie to myself and pretend I have the right answer I'm comfortable with admittingthat I don't know. Dude get comfortable with it humans don't know mist stuff.
You would have to borrow from my Christian worldview to make sense of origins
Why would I borrow from a worldview that simply accepts claims with no sufficient physical evidence? That isn't making sense of origins it's guessing at them.
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@PGA2.0
We both agree that most gods are imaginary. I'm only asking what sets your god(s) apart from any other religions god(s) with or without prophecies or testimonial evidence?It is you, not me, who believes God is make-believe.
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@PGA2.0
I presented some evidence from the claims.
Please try to understand the difference between some and sufficient and if possible also the difference between claims and evidence.
I can present much more yet it keeps being dismissed.
Am I being somehow unclear about what level of evidence I am able to accept? If you have any evidence for any god(s) that is not either biblical or anecdotal please presentit otherwise I cannot accept that you have met your burden of proof.
There is an intricate network of prophecy that connects both testaments in ways those not well versed in the knowledge of the Bible miss.
Again so what? Even If we grant that the bible has real infallible prophecy that tells us nothing about where this prophecy came from. Any god(s) would still have to be demonstrated separate of any hypothetical prophecy contained in the bible.
It does not matter whether or not there is prophecy in the bible and it does not matter if it was accurate. Please move on to your next best proof this one is insufficient.
I acknowledge your claim. You claim that the biblical god Yahweh must necessarily exist. The problem is your propensity to use the same document which claims the Yahweh exists as the central proof in your argument. If you cannot prove that any gid(s) exist independently of this documentbthem nothing contained in the document matter. We have no actionable data.The claim and then the evidence was just ignored as per usual all the while claiming I did not present any.
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@PGA2.0
No, may claim is that the biblical God is true.
I understand that this is your overarching claim but that requires independent verification. The bible by itself is by its very nature insufficient.
There are lots of lies and liars in the Bible
Then why are you attempting to use it as a source? Honestly.
God is not one of them.
Assuming such a being exists can you demonstrate that it is not a liar or is that just another bald assertion that I am supposed to accept axiomatically?
Satan was false in what he taught under the guise of truth.
If Stan can do that then how can you be certain your personal religious truth is not him off some other force "teaching under the guise of truth"? Can you prove that Stan did not inspire the bible in order to influence humanity to evil?
the Bible has a lot to say about.
The. Bible. Is. The. Claim. Litteraly nothing it says is evidence unto itself. You must prove every claim presented in the book individually and independently. If that seems like can insurmountable task it could be because the evidence available is insufficient to demonstrate your claims.
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@PGA2.0
The bible is the claim and while it does in fact appear to contradict itself in several places it wouldn'tmatter if no contradictions were evident the claim still cannot be used as the evidence for itself.The Bible does not contradict what we would expect from Almighty God.
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@PGA2.0
No it does not. Real places and historical figures are included in works of fiction regularly.It gives credibility to the claim to have historical evidence that collaborates it.
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@PGA2.0
I agree.Any god that gives false information is not a god to be trusted.
As I said before, I'm along with you in showing that no god makes sense except the biblical God. If you want to try and make sense of another, please do.
I am not the one making a claim you are. It doesn't matter how many other hypothesis you can eliminate if you have not proven yours. The scientific method demands that we try our very hardest to disprove a hypothesis and if we cannot and another team cannot and several other scientists cannot then maybe maybe it's true. How would we even go about doing this with your proposed god(s)?
You can go through life wandering aimlessly with no certainty because what you believe does not have what is necessary for certainty.
I have no choice but to acknowledge that humans are mostly incapable of objective certainty on any point. The fact that I try to avoid believing in what is not necessarily certain is precisely why I remain skeptical of your claims until thay can be demonstrateded.
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@PGA2.0
What demonstration? You just said you are not expressing anything.
I am giving a demonstration of two things and then two more things. The words two and four are unnecessary in the process.
Just saying something like me being irrational doesn't necessarily make it so.
Well stated. Do you therfore retract your claim that I am being irrational?
What is irrational about not being able to see Spirit?
What is rational about claiming a spirit exists if you cannot demonstrate that any spirits exist?
Disproving other hypothesis does born in any way bring us closer to yours. Even if every other conceivable hypothesis could be refuted you must still prove your claim correct or there is no reason to accept it. It is beyond human epistemology to say what if anything caused the big bang and at least since then the universe has run on mundane physical processes to the degree that we can determine how the universe runs at all.Make sense of the world without first presupposing God.
You assume that God cannot be demonstrated to a reasonable degree to exist.
I assume no such thing. In fact past experience has led me to believe that no theistic/spiritual/metaphysical claim can be adequately demonstrated. That is no guarantee that none ever will but the sheer number of directly contradictory claims and the absolute lack of physical evidence of any kind leads me to be somewhat skeptical.
You are not a necessary being.
Au contraire from my perspective I am the only necessary being (assuming even I exist which would explain why my nose itches sometimes) and I cannot be completely certain that you exist. I am prepared to accept that you do since my perceptions woild.seem to indicate that you do and because I enjoy these conversations and they would be less enjoyable if they were completely one sided.
making sense of origins, morality, existence?
Origins: I don't know why or how the big bang started and that is the earliest event we have observable evidence for. That means we cannot know how or why it began or even if how, why or began are sensible terms to use in this context.
Morality: morality seems to be a learned behavior. Viewed in purely anthropological terms it would seem that working and living together helps pur species survive and reproduce and so we all enter into the social contract as an evolved behavioral trait. Even if there is more to it than that this is still technically true so if you claim that it is more it is up to you to prove that it is anything more.
Existence: I feel as though I exist and other stuff would also appear to exist. These feelings and perceptions may or may not be illusory but even if they are I can still make observations and learn about my perceived reality and so I accept reality prima facie purely as a convenience.
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@PGA2.0
You keep presenting the claim as thought it were the evidence. You claim to have answers but you have presented no sufficient evidence for any of the answers you propose. Instead you are trying to prove irrelevant issues and conflate them with your main point.
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