Big Chiller
Registered Senior Member
It doesn't matter if it's a philosophical concept "absolute nothing" is "absolute nothing" and not a nothing of a different definition.
Richard Dawkins Again Refuses Debate With Christian Apologist William Craig
- Thread starter Mind Over Matter
- Start date
I don't think its possible to establish an issue of reality without philosophy. The idea that science is so accurate that it bypasses "philosophically established reality" is simply an idea of uneducated persons.
@lightgigantic --
Anything, and I do mean anything, can be a "philosophically established reality". Even the stance that reality is nothing but an illusion that we create and that we are ultimately gods is a valid philosophical stance, but that doesn't mean that it's useful.
And the idea that philosophical concepts that exist as nothing more than an amalgam of brainstates somehow overrides observed reality is simply the idea of a pop-philosopher who's gotten out of his depth. In other words, it's the idea of an uneducated person.
Anything, and I do mean anything, can be a "philosophically established reality". Even the stance that reality is nothing but an illusion that we create and that we are ultimately gods is a valid philosophical stance, but that doesn't mean that it's useful.
And the idea that philosophical concepts that exist as nothing more than an amalgam of brainstates somehow overrides observed reality is simply the idea of a pop-philosopher who's gotten out of his depth. In other words, it's the idea of an uneducated person.
kx000
Valued Senior Member
Our reality, civilization, world.. is an illusion. Everything was once a thought, ultimately everything at one point was an illusion, and thats how humans shaped the world. Was existence brought into reality, or does thought the difference between reality and nothing?
Anything, and I do mean anything, that is claimed to be "reality" has already made use of philosophy.
i agree - although for argument's sake it becomes more" - of a question "useful for whom/what purposes... for instance historically that philosophy system was useful for bridging the gap between Buddhist India and Vedic India
on the contrary, the notion that one has arrived at some sort of observed reality without philosophy is simply the idea of an uneducated person.
@lightgigantic --
Or the notion of a person with a much firmer grasp on the workings of the human brain than you have. I notice that philosophers and neurologists tend to be at odds, and I know which ones I'm putting my bets on. At least the neurologists get firm results that reflect observation.
Or the notion of a person with a much firmer grasp on the workings of the human brain than you have. I notice that philosophers and neurologists tend to be at odds, and I know which ones I'm putting my bets on. At least the neurologists get firm results that reflect observation.
BTW-
Do you see how reciprocating an unfavorable attitude degrades the conversation?
Do you see how reciprocating an unfavorable attitude degrades the conversation?
If they are, its only because they are offering opinions outside of their credited field of expertise.
LIGHTBEING
Registered Senior Member
Response by Dawkins regarding William Craig debate
Why I refuse to debate with William Lane CraigThis Christian 'philosopher' is an apologist for genocide. I would rather leave an empty chair than share a platform with him
Don't feel embarrassed if you've never heard of William Lane Craig. He parades himself as a philosopher, but none of the professors of philosophy whom I consulted had heard his name either. Perhaps he is a "theologian". For some years now, Craig has been increasingly importunate in his efforts to cajole, harass or defame me into a debate with him. I have consistently refused, in the spirit, if not the letter, of a famous retort by the then president of the Royal Society: "That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig
Why I refuse to debate with William Lane CraigThis Christian 'philosopher' is an apologist for genocide. I would rather leave an empty chair than share a platform with him
Don't feel embarrassed if you've never heard of William Lane Craig. He parades himself as a philosopher, but none of the professors of philosophy whom I consulted had heard his name either. Perhaps he is a "theologian". For some years now, Craig has been increasingly importunate in his efforts to cajole, harass or defame me into a debate with him. I have consistently refused, in the spirit, if not the letter, of a famous retort by the then president of the Royal Society: "That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/20/richard-dawkins-william-lane-craig
"I have come to appreciate as a result of a closer reading of the biblical text that God's command to Israel was not primarily to exterminate the Canaanites but to drive them out of the land.[…] Canaan was being given over to Israel, whom God had now brought out of Egypt. If the Canaanite tribes, seeing the armies of Israel, had simply chosen to flee, no one would have been killed at all. There was no command to pursue and hunt down the Canaanite peoples.
It is therefore completely misleading to characterise God's command to Israel as a command to commit genocide. Rather it was first and foremost a command to drive the tribes out of the land and to occupy it. Only those who remained behind were to be utterly exterminated. No one had to die in this whole affair." (craig)
see? the palestinians have only themselves to blame
"When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told -- religious Jews anyway -- than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolize American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place." (dawkins)
/snicker
the bible, the lobby, the whatnot
It is therefore completely misleading to characterise God's command to Israel as a command to commit genocide. Rather it was first and foremost a command to drive the tribes out of the land and to occupy it. Only those who remained behind were to be utterly exterminated. No one had to die in this whole affair." (craig)
see? the palestinians have only themselves to blame
"When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told -- religious Jews anyway -- than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolize American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place." (dawkins)
/snicker
the bible, the lobby, the whatnot
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There are door-to-door Christian proselytizers who enter your property, and after you tell them to leave, that they are tresspassing, they say they are not, that all land belongs to God, including yours, and that they as God's representatives have the right to be on your property.
Well,they have just as much right to be in jail, then - and will be just as close to God at that point.
They could justify almost anything with such an argument. A car, for example, is ultimately just a particular configuration of protons, neutrons and electrons. Since those particles belong to God, no-one else could lay claim to owning the car. Therefore, door-to-door Christian proselytizers would have the right to commandeer it for the purpose of serving God.
Of course, philosophical arguments generally aren't as useful for getting oneself out of jail as legal ones are.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Right. And if the Jews had simply left Europe, then Hitler wouldn't have had to kill six million of them. The deaths weren't Hitler's responsibility and their blood isn't on his hands.
That's tremendously problematic.
See the infamous episode at 1Samuel 15, in which God is supposed to have commanded the Hebrews to completely exterminate the Amelekites: to kill men, women, children, even their animals, and to leave nothing alive.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=1 Samuel&c=15&t=NKJV
Joshua 6:17 tells us that when Jericho was taken, its population was totally exterminated, except for those found in a brothel which had sheltered some earlier Hebrew messengers.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jos&c=6&v=1&t=NKJV
Deuteronomy 20:16 gives us what amount to the ancient Hebrews' rules of military engagement and clearly tells us that total genocide was commanded by God against all of the inhabitants in lands that the Hebrews felt that their God had promised them.
http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Deu&c=20&v=16&t=NKJV
Other charming Biblical passages have God ordering that daughters who have premarital sex be stoned, that Jews who leave Judaism be killed, and similar things.
I think that this stuff is extremely problematic for those modern Jews and Christians who simultaneously want to condemn practices like these as savage and barbaric, but still hold tightly to the doctrines of Biblical authority and inerrancy, and to the idea that the Bible is somehow the ultimate "Good Book".
The cognitive dissonance is palpable and there's a tremendous amount of selective attention and denial going on. (It's interesting how they continue to trot it all out though, when the subject is homosexuality.)