How do you know what "reality" is?
Can you conceive of "reality" without employing concepts?
contradictory evidence!?
- Thread starter sowhatifit'sdark
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How do you know what "reality" is?
Can you conceive of "reality" without employing concepts?
It's not a good anaology. For example, all people anthromorphize... no exceptions. I do it, you do it, we all do it.
When mistakes are positively reinforced, they are going to be repeated and if those mistakes lead down a particular path then the end of that path is always going to be realized. For example, if a gambler hits the jackpot when he carries his lucky rabbits foot then he is likely to attribute the rabbits foot to him winnig and carry it around whenever he goes gambling. We both know that association is a mistake but it was positively reinforced so it will be repeated.
It happens all the time and nope.
The best course of action IMO is to understand a phenomena whether it be external or internal.
I can't falsify the concept of a 'God', 'Angel', etc. I can falsify specific human claims of 'God' (and thusly any other local claims dependent on 'God').
I am pretty sure I have state this multiple times but I'll do it again in boldface in case it was missed. A generic notion of 'God' (or any dependency notion) is not falsifiable, only specific human claims are.
It only works if applied to a specific human-claimed 'God'. They show the mechnisms behind the claim and there of course would be additional information showing an absence-of-evidence of the 'God' as well as at least one mistake in the word of that 'God'.
Agreed. Fortunately that's not the case.
I can only drum up evidence against specific human claims of 'God'. A generic idea of 'God' is not falsifiable; however, it is worth noting that it is not any more probable than any fantastic human idea.
Are you asking for a complete definition based on incomplete information? All I can tell you are knowns and known unknowns.
Probably not. I can conceive of many things which have no 1:1 correspondence to what is external to my mind.
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Crunchy cat
For instance a person who sees their father as a person sees them as a such because their father is an actual person,not because they are anthropomorphizing.
You can't say that simply because some people make mistakes in identifying people (due to anthropomorphizing) that all people who are identifying people are.
Somethings in this world are actually people, and lo and behold, god is one of them ...
When you are talking about god, you are talking about something outside of your sphere of known variables and are simply using the argument of "some people getting it wrong so everyone does"
but simply because everyone does it, it doesn't mean that they do it all the time.
For instance a person who sees their father as a person sees them as a such because their father is an actual person,not because they are anthropomorphizing.
You can't say that simply because some people make mistakes in identifying people (due to anthropomorphizing) that all people who are identifying people are.
Somethings in this world are actually people, and lo and behold, god is one of them ...
but in the case of a gambler you are talking about known variables. You know how gambling works and you know how a rabbits foot doesn't (unless of course it emits some high tech gadget that emits some sort of signal that plays up with poker machine electronics).
When you are talking about god, you are talking about something outside of your sphere of known variables and are simply using the argument of "some people getting it wrong so everyone does"
well you can argue for their rejection by using identical general principles that you apply for the rejection of god
if you want to use behaviour as the final last word in determining its ultimate nature, you will fall short of this best course
Take a look at this image:
Can you NOT recognize it as the face of a woman or a man playing a horn? It would seem we anthropomorphize all the time.
It would be better described as "most people get it wrong and this is why". Suddenly we're in a situation were the sphere of known variables does cover the phenomenon.
Do you perceive the rejection of a specific human-claimed 'God' as the rejection of people?
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if you want to use behaviour as the final last word in determining its ultimate nature, you will fall short of this best course[/QUOTE]
I would prefer to use human behavior as a means to understand why we do certain things.
Crunchy cat
Are you also anthropomorphizing then too?
Or is he actually a person?
the problem comes when you apply that to god since, unlike the gambler analogy, the variables are unknown to you
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It tends to beg the question by suggesting that god is ultimately human based, which is the whole topic under discussion.
So what happens when you look at your father?
Are you also anthropomorphizing then too?
Or is he actually a person?
the problem comes when you apply that to god since, unlike the gambler analogy, the variables are unknown to you
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I'm not sure what you mean by "human-claimed god"
It tends to beg the question by suggesting that god is ultimately human based, which is the whole topic under discussion.
then it has no entrance into issues of a said things existence or non-existence
I brush my teeth. Are you sure you can figure out, simply by watching me brush my teeth, why I do it? I am sure you could come up with a number of reasons, but your being able to come up with them says absolutely nothing about why I actually brush my teeth right there, right then - unless you are omniscient.
But perhaps you are just not thinking clearly enough. Focusing on human behavior can be a step in understanding why we do things: in the sense that in order to recognize what our intentions are for doing something, we need to focus on the activity right there as we engage in it; although this is not certain either, because our powers of concentration might not be strong enough to allow us reliable feedback.
If one wants to know why one does something, one needs to focus on one's intentions for doing it, not on the behavior. The behavior is secondary and might not adequately reflect intention anyway.
Technically speaking, anthropomorphism is only valid when applying to something not human; however, yes I do project features onto my father nonetheless. It likely results in faster identification and if I do it too much, I might not understand his reaction to something... thinking he would react like I would react. All the while he is still a human being.
That's just it. Variables become known once we're dealing with a specific human claim of 'God'.
'Jesus', 'Yaweh', 'Allah', 'Thor', and 'Isis' are examples of human-claimed 'God' objective external life forms. They are life forms that are claimed to have interacted with reality in very specific ways. Contrast that with the idea (not a human claim) of a generic 'God' that has no falsifiable detail.
When you have a specific human-claimed 'God' with an enormous sample size of non-evidence and his words / actions are falsified by real knowledge then its clear that such an entity does not exist. The question then be comes why does the claim itself exist? So yes it absolutely has bearing on existence / non-existence.
If all humans were consistently compelled to brush their teeth since recorded history and they would hurt / kill each other for differences in toothbrushes then a behavioral analysis might be a way to go. That's not the case however. Also, toothbrushes exist and can be demonstrated to exist.
Look at that image I posted about 2 posts upwards. Can you NOT see a woman's face or a man playing a horn? When you can't then try asking yourself what your intention is.
Crunchy cat
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IOW all you can do is offer some luke warm soft science hypothesis on how the idea of god has arisen in human society.
It is not a hypothesis that can be tested or repeated.
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so in other words we cannot reject your claim that your father is a person simply due to your inability to refrain from anthropomorphizing him?
but they don't, since you are not dealing with the raw material of the claim of god's existence.
IOW all you can do is offer some luke warm soft science hypothesis on how the idea of god has arisen in human society.
It is not a hypothesis that can be tested or repeated.
why would a god with a quality or having interacted with reality be human based?
its not clear how god's existence has been falsified by "real" knowledge
sowhatifit'sdark
Valued Senior Member
I truly doubt you can do this in general way either. Try taking on some of the mystics who don't care at all about the age of the earth as depicted in Genesis, etc. You can simply tell them that you are not convinced, that you do not find their belief and descriptions of their experiences convincing. Fine. But you have no evidence that God does not exist, nor do you have any evidence that they are wrong.
and as I stated above you cannot falsify a specific human claim that they have, for example, spoken with God. You can come up with counter theories, as you already have, but you cannot falsify their assertion. You may think you are being forced to repeat yourself, but actually you keep repeating something fallacious.
How can you possible determine the liklihood?
See lightgigantic's thread on awareness:
Count the passes
and Crunchy Cats' reply there:
The exact same thing could be happening in relation to God, heaven, spirits, angels etc.
As long as one focuses on one thing, one doesn't see anything else.
It's only in the replay, when told to focus on something else -and accepts to do so-, that one notices that other thing.
Count the passes
and Crunchy Cats' reply there:
The exact same thing could be happening in relation to God, heaven, spirits, angels etc.
As long as one focuses on one thing, one doesn't see anything else.
It's only in the replay, when told to focus on something else -and accepts to do so-, that one notices that other thing.
To demonstrate a person, an instance of that person suffices.
You're up against a personal bias wall if that is your interpretation. I can't help you beyond that point.
Because if a single claimed interaction is demonstrated to be false then the house of cards falls down. All that remains is to understand why the claim existed in the first place.
Pick a 'God' of your choosing, make a list of all it's claimed interactions with objective reality and then compare those claims with real knowledge on the subject (if available). If the 'God' interaction doesn't match reality then that particular 'God' stands falsified.
I can demonstrate that they have no objective evidence to back their particular claim, I can find incorrectness in their claims, and I can explain why they make the claims. That does in fact demonstrate their claim to be false. Now whether or not it matters to them is irrelevant. Truth is truth whether or not a person accepts it, suspends judgment on it, or denies it.
Any particular claimed 'God' can be falsified by demonstrating an absence of objective evidence of the claim over a ridiculously large sample size, by finding incorrect objective claims in any claimed interactions with reality, and of course by explaining why the claim exists to begin with.
Go visit the parapsychology section of the site, make some observations, and maybe you'll have a better understanding of how to do that.
Not the best anology but it works both ways. Did you see the red dragon in that video? Probably not because it ain't there.
Crunchy cat
another irrevocably anthropomorphizing human?
(BTW - if you insist on falsifying the claim by empirical standards, you would be violating the methodology behind the claim - kind of like trying to falsify claims of temperature with a tape measure ... nothing wrong with a tape measure of course, just that it is the wrong tool for measuring temperature ... in the same way, nothing wrong with empiricism, just that it is wrong tool for dealing with issues of consciousness)
who is the instance shown to?
another irrevocably anthropomorphizing human?
the problem with soft science is precisely that - personal bias
and what makes you think it has been demonstrated to be false?
therefore god remains unfalsified
(BTW - if you insist on falsifying the claim by empirical standards, you would be violating the methodology behind the claim - kind of like trying to falsify claims of temperature with a tape measure ... nothing wrong with a tape measure of course, just that it is the wrong tool for measuring temperature ... in the same way, nothing wrong with empiricism, just that it is wrong tool for dealing with issues of consciousness)
the difference is that in theism there is a positive claim and a process that runs along side it (IOW a request to "focus" on something - that is what yoga basically means)
If you neglect the request (or unaware of it) its no big surprise that god seems as distant as a moon walking bear
No, you are claiming that you can tell what the limitations of the scope for empirical knowledge must be, and that your assertions about deities are outside them.light said:
And once again, that isn't the argument. The argument is that any assertion that anyone has got this particular thing right involves a truly extraordinary coincidence of attributes - it looks just like a particualrly common and frequently encountered way of getting something wrong, in every detail.light said:
The case he seems to be making to me is that he has evidence that all existing assertions, beliefs, and descriptions of God extant resemble common and well-established human errors in every detail, and differ from these well-known kinds of error in no respect whatsoever.sowhat said:
That is indeed evidence that those Gods are based in human error. It is not proof, but evidence. It does not apply to any theoretically conceivable God, but only to all the kinds of Gods under consideration here. For all of those Gods - every entity referred to here by the word "God" - those resemblances to error and that absence of difference from error (even under request and opportunity to supply such) is indeed evidence of existence only as error.
How convincing it is probably depends on one's level of belief in the God.
Yep... or a recording device as an alternative.
It's a problem with humans... and in this case I see a big bias wall on your end.
Pick a specific human-claimed 'God', list out all its claimed interactions with reality, and I'll demonstrate at least one of them being incorrect.
Huh? That made no sense.
We're not measuring consciousness. Lets say for example a Christian 'God' is claimed to have created the Earth in 6000 years. Reality shows Earth to have been caused billions of years ago. That mismatch would indicate the 'God' claim was incorrect (reality is always the highest authority).