water said:
Hi Dido
What is your motive to use this argument, individual vs. society?
Must there necessarily be motive?
To show a few things:
1) People don't just come up with the idea of God
on their own.
2) Society is the last stronghold against nihilism, which is the wing of the feral child, the individual. This of course means that nihilism is 'natural', as opposed to being induced by societal influences. I will elaborate on this natural property towards the end of the post.
3) To explain why free will can only be supported by arguments from ignorance, circularity, and groupthink. (That is to say, the notion of 'responsibility' is instilled by human society and is absent by default in the individual)
There may be others but I can't think of them right now because I'm hungry and hungry men don't think about these things. I'll add any that I think of.
I just did. It was not me who gave me life, that I am alive is due to someone or something else -- and this is the primary motivator for us to think in terms of an other.
And "an other" means (a) God? If so, just come out and say it so I can go to work already.
Without being raised in a human society, one has no language to communicate with humans. Thus, humans can't know what goes on in Mowgli's mind.
We're left with a blank here.
Matthew 7
16You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
To have a belief in "something else".
Then everyone is religious.
Now now. I'm using "something else" in the same vein you are. To be more specific:
To be religious is to employ the knowledge of the numinous acquired from society in a personal manner (whether in its original form or modified). As follows, the degree of religiousness is proportional to the extent to which this knowledge is applied personally.
That's as narrow a description as is possible without mistakenly excluding certain cultures.
I think it would be premature to claim they have no knowledge of God -- we have no way of proving that, and as empiricists, we must allow for that possibility.
As an empiricist, you must understand that the absence of evidence is evidence of absence.
No. Unless you wish to join M*W and claim to have proven a negative ...
If absence of evidence were evidence of absence, if humans would cling on to this, then they would still live in the savannah.
Then you know that humans are not empiricists
by default (I don't think I need to tell you
what leads man to rely so heavily on empiricism).
But for an empiricist, as the definition requires, this is the mantra - to do as doubting Thomas did.
Go tell this to scientists. Science functions by the principle that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Like I said, humans are obviously not empiricists by default. If we were to be as the rationalists insist we ought to be then there would be no religion.
Testing of theories requires this sort of rigid empiricism. Expansion of theories however allows for 'creativity' but testing of the
hypothesis reverts to the same standard.
It is an assumption, a hypothesis. Unless we first set a hypothesis, we have nothing to work with.
Without a way to test your hypothesis you have nothing to work with. Since you have no way to test your self serving hypothesis, let us
know them by their fruits.
Cherries, in particular.
Is that an empirical observation?
Oh. And society is somehow ... completely different from what man is?
Depends on what you mean by 'man'.
They are not etymologies, and they are pertinent inasmuch as they show it is not clear what exactly God's attributes are, and that further study is needed before we can make ex positivo definitions. Scientific pursuits are pointless if we have no ex positivo definitions.
If thus, it is not clear what God's attributes are, how then can scientists say that there is no evidence to support "biblical claims"?
Searching for (an) ex positivo definition(s) is absurd. It is not clear what "exactly" God's attributes are
because they vary from society to society. This assumption of yours that there are definitions of God, implying that He is immutable, is simply fallacious and will prove unworkable and will give you much grief. The God you know about today is not the same as the God you knew of years ago; as your knowledge of God changes,
God changes too.
And for this reason does science have no business with God: the immutable and transcendent and mysterious God is only found in society and (gasp!) changes along with society. As for the lack of evidence to support Biblical claims, I will give you a few examples which we would expect to be of magnitudinous order:
Noah's Ark: There's the question of how he got all the animals on there, how he fed all of them, how he kept the ark from being smelly, how he kept all the food from going bad, how he got rid of waste.. etc.
Ressurection of the Saints: The author of Matthew claims that "at the moment of Jesus' death "the tombs were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they entered into the holy city and appeared unto many"
Now I don't know about you, but an event like this going utterly unrecorded by ANY historian, not even the authors of Mark, Luke, John, or even Paul or Jude? Believing this is an actual historical events were resurrected saints entered the city and were yet utterly unnoticed by history takes
faith. Did I mention the legend says our good friends Noah and Adam and Eve were among those wakened?
I suppose you could argue from ignorance and say that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Same goes for Elvis' face appearing on the moon.
The sun stops for Joshua
Now be realistic. The sun does NOT revolve around the earth no matter what the Flat Earth Society says. Neither does the earth stop suddenly in its tracks without any catastrophes (tsunamis for example) occuring and NO ONE ON EARTH apart from the Hebrews remember to record it.
Then again, for all these you could say "Goddidit" or "so? that doesn't prove it couldn't have happened". Same goes for the Native American creation story.
Now you wonder why scientists are insouciant concerning these things?
We both know that the definition is circular and that disqualifies it from being useful for personal knowledge. Circular definitions are only good for groupthink. And golly gosh darn, isn't that what society is there for?
A lingering teenage angst.
Something you have long forgotten, old woman.
And? What are they to you, and what are you to them?
I am their former comrade. And to me, they represent a society based on a larger society (similar to circles).
You are, sometimes. Beware of Richard Gere and gerbils.
Huh?
(As for my assholery, I am here to learn from the best. Slimy scum that I am)
Thank you! This is the best laugh I've had in months!
And.. you are laughing with me?
We're again at the authorship problem and its implications.
Mowgli did not invent himself, he did not give himself life, he did not decide how the chemical reactions in his body would take place, he did not decide that that snake would show up, what he experiences and learns is not up to him etc. etc.
So what exactly is *his* doing? If you say "nothing", then there is no Mowgli. If you say "everything", then there is no other entities in the universe. So?
You are only having this problem because of your understanding of what Mowgli is, which is tied to your understanding of what (or who) you are, which is in turn founded on your experiences in society.
Leave this circular definition in order to better understand Mowgli as
a conglomerate. There is no "one" called Mowgli. 'Mowgli' is not some automaton. You can not point to Mowgli and say "here he is" or "there he is". Groupthink fostered by society's indoctrination, which makes us all 'reason' that we have things called
culpability and
responsibility, has also led us to believe in an "I", a "you", a "Mowgli", who can be held
responsible.
Without a society's encouragements, feral children simply
do not come up with the notion of responsibility. As you watch wolf packs and observe monkies, you will notice specialization - 'responsibilities' assigned to each member. But do you see a snake exhibit any sense of responsibility? Do tell me this: do you see any non social animal exhibit any sense of responsibility on its own?
(On the other hand, I do not view instincts such as maternity as being responsibilities; these become responsibilities -
requirements - upon indoctrination into a human society. Another one of the 'natural properties' is nihilism, which is never espoused
by society but most propably germinates and approaches fruition, much like a calculus limit, by virtue of entropy. That is to say, nihilism in society, like limits in mathematics, is never fully reached that we might say, "here lies a nihilistic society." And this is how Jesus and the Apostles were
wrong. Christian eschatology
incorrectly envisages a final period of ultimate decadence whereas we find this to be false. At best, there is a sort of life-and-death cycle to flush out nihilism from society by way perhaps of religious revival or scientific breathrough or catastrophe such as September 11th. This cycle bonds society ever stronger,
always concluding in the victimization of the nihilist - the 'oddball' is left standing outside society's huddle with a target on his head)
If we renounce this circular doctrine of responsibility, it becomes exceptionally difficult to find any reasonable justification for claiming the existence of an 'I' or a person. There is therefore
no need to talk about a Mowgli as if there is a "he"; we need not fret over the apparent 'difficulties' of free will and responsibility, parasites which have their fangs
only in society.
Unless, of course, you are able to show me the "person" who is doing the experiencing or the thinking or the believing or the praying. Probably not;
we don't need to.
These "arguments from ignorance" are what enables us to make hypotheses in the first place.
Of course, some people indeed use arguments from ignorance to keep themselves comfortable.
But think: If you insist only on what you presently know, is this not yet another argument from ignorance?
That is an excellent question you have brought up. I was not prepared to bring this up since this tackles my theories on epistemology, whereas the knowledge of God is a mere tributary.
My knowledge is already circular as a result of not knowing it
on my own but rather from a society. This means
all arguments can be demonstrated to be arguments from ignorance. A famed example:
- Don't say the f-word!
Why?
Because its a bad word!
Why is it a bad word?
Don't ask me stupid questions, you know its bad!
Given this admission, you probably want to know why I lambasted your argument. If I insist on what I don't know, like you have, then I no longer have a 'stable foundation' for my claims. Contrary to your rebuttals, scientists do not rally and support hypothesis; they support tested experiments. On the other hand, if my claim rests on what I have learned from a society, then I have that society for a 'stable ground' (by virtue of groupthink). This is not to say the former is 'better' than the latter, but sticking to what is empirically verifiable gives us the largest 'stable foundation', for therein we have an entire society to verify our claims and reassure us that we are 'correct'.
The Victor is thus the one who can demonstrate his claim to be truer than the rest. The only way to do this is of course to use a method accepted by the larger society.
In our case, the larger society disapproves of illogical claims and yours is less grounded than mine. In my case, I give examples which are verifiable by experience and testing (such as a dog who gets kicked will begin to cower from its owner) in order to support my explanation while you appeal to ignorance (resting your case not only on that which we do not know, but can not know). This quasi-'majority vote' system is of course a horrid way of determining any truth, but that's just the way it is. As you can expect, if you were in an intensely religious society, the burden of proof (illogical as it may seem today) would have been squarely on me. As Conway's game of life would have it however, our society (which, for simplification purposes, is sciforums only) is far more receptive to testable information than what appears to be simple speculation. How dejecting that I should struggle futiley against society by relying on it's variable moods!
Although there are some who will believe if told the Bible is true, their faith is made more firm by being
shown that the Bible is true. Because of this, I suspect your appeal from ignorance is not as satisfactory and satiating as you would hope. It is hard to hold up such an argument to sociological examples from the animal kingdom and human civilization as well as from observations of feral children.
Even Thomas wanted to see for himself.
You, my dear boy, fail to see that cooperation (which you dub "groupthink") is so far the best way of improvement.
I refuse to say cooperation is the "best way" to improve since I am part of society, that 'cooperative effort'. But when I look yonder, to the outskirts where feral children prance unfettered, I see hope that I may know for myself and be content by myself. Such a statement argues - from ignorance - that a feral child envies our 'civilization', our decadence, this excess. This appeal is full of hope by one in a society, saying that society is the best way of progress.
But you have never been feral. So how do you know.
Not ignorance?
If you do not allow for an alternative explanation, if you do not allow for a "But let's hypothesize XY is possible, and test this hypothesis", then you will never discover or learn anything.
If there is no way to test your 'hypothesis', then it becomes self serving. But it will only be a lesson in futility; and you will groan and labor with pangs of uncertainty until you too can place your fingers in those nail-scarred palms and your faith is made whole.
Instead,
know them by their fruit.
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(So howzat for teenage angst, eh?)
