The problem with atheism – No rational connection between the methodology and object

[Enmos]

I'm not sure how you would objectively remove consciousness from the picture, since even the appraisal of how objective a particular issue is requires conscious input.

I mean how would you answer this question in an objective manner "Do you think it matters to the tennis ball whether you put it in your pocket or on the shelf?"

as for predators, sure
even a dog has a superior sense of smell or even a lemon tree has a superior ability to produce citric acid

Ok.

We have obviously different views here. I take it you believe in the soul and whatnot, non-corporal things.
There is no way we are going to agree about objective reality.

 

[lightgigantic]

Ok, I can agree with this. Although I don't particularly like your choice of words.

How do you know God is cognitively superior to us ?

not sure what you are asking
I mean all issues of knowledge are determined by application ... I think I have belabored that point enough already on sci

If you are asking what is the general run down of god's superiority, here's a concise reference on where the similarities and differences arise

Katha Up 2.2.13
The Supreme Lord is eternal and the living beings are eternal. The Supreme Lord is cognizant and the living beings are cognizant. The difference is that the Supreme Lord is supplying all the necessities of life for the many other living entities.

IOW god is independent. We are not (either in our liberated or conditioned phases of existence)

You can't even tell whether this dude is cognitively superior to you or not.

well no, I can't
you would require some sort of indication of both his and my qualities/capacities etc to make a comparison

 

[lightgigantic]

Ok.

We have obviously different views here. I take it you believe in the soul and whatnot, non-corporal things.
There is no way we are going to agree about objective reality.

thats true but I don't see how that issue arises with the tennis ball question

 

[Enmos]

Then I don't understand why you believe in it.

 

[Enmos]

thats true but I don't see how that issue arises with the tennis ball question

Because the human body is made up of dead matter. We are dead matter just like the tennis ball. Only the organization is different.

 

[lightgigantic]

Then I don't understand why you believe in it.

its an issue of application

theory -> application -> realization

But anyway, this seems a bit off topic and I am sure we have been this way before

 

[lightgigantic]

Because the human body is made up of dead matter. We are dead matter just like the tennis ball. Only the organization is different.

so how does that help you answer the question about the tennis ball objectively?

 

[Enmos]

so how does that help you answer the question about the tennis ball objectively?

Not, because it is loaded. "To matter" doesn't apply objectively.

 

[lightgigantic]

Ashura

lightgigantic: Sorry for the delay in my response, I've been a little busy.

no problem

“

Originally Posted by lightgigantic
unless you studied something that you already knew, the simple act of placing your backside on a certain seat in a certain building or opening a book and sticking your nose in it certainly wasn't what made you get straight A's ”
It was a behavior that started from kindergarten and continued through till now. That's where the foundation was laid, and that eventually led to the more complex topics learned in higher education. I can't think of anything that I'm missing. The only external consideration that comes to mind is the quality of the professor, but even then if the Prof. was bad I always had the book to rely on.

even if you rely on a book, that still doesn’t explain issues of comprehension – I mean I assume that everyone else in the classroom also had a book and also stuck their nose in it too
“

well thats a bibliography but what about the content?
I mean I'm sure you could mention a few issues of comprehension from your lecture hall days ”
I'm not sure how to answer the question to be honest. I'm still in my lecture hall days and applying your question to my current classes such as Music Theory or Psychology, I'm still left clueless. Would you mind rephrasing or elaborating? (I suppose this would qualify as an issue of comprehension? )

well when you get tested at the end of semester, what sort of questions do they ask?
Is it all simply bibliography (or cram to memory and vomit to paper)?
“

so how does praying "work"? ”
Er, I'm not too sure on how to answer this further without just pointing you right back to my last post. It's a form of worship to Allah, and the duah at the end is where you ask for forgiveness and blessings. Whether or not the duah comes true or not depends on your character as a Muslim, and Allah's whim. Perhaps one of the Muslims on these boards can clarify?

do you see any connection between the two or do you think they are isolated phenomena?
IOW do you think that Allah’s “whim” (a bad choice of word in my opinion, but for the sake of convenience we will ride with it for the time being) can change proportion according to the character of the performer? Do you think there are any limitations (for instance if the character is good enough there is effectively nothing that Allah can refuse by his whim)?
In short, how do you know whether you are praying properly or not … or what is a reasonable result to expect from prayer. (I mean suppose one is praying for forgiveness and then goes out and performs the same sort of stuff all over again, do you think they are warranted to be forgiven?)

 

[lightgigantic]

“
Emnos

Originally Posted by lightgigantic
by hearing/reading the graduate learnt something about his assessors (even though hearing/seeing is an empirical sense, it is not strict empiricism since it wasn't simply an issue of sound waves/visual forms that grants knowledge in this case)

By applying what he had heard, he came to appeal to the assessors sense of value and liking.

Having gained their approval, he was granted a status (by the assessors, since they are in a superior position) that he did not have before (in other words it wasn't sufficient for him to upgrade his status by working with his empirical skills of investigation).

So basically, if he went outside what his assessors deemed as acceptable, he wouldn't have got the position.

You could say that he successfully applied the normative descriptions for a successful graduate applicant.

Does this make sense?

This is kind off vague to me.
He assessed the situation on the spot, besides everyone knows to behave in a certain way when you are applying for a job.
I don't find this a convincing example.

if everyone knew, there wouldn’t be a need to supply course syllabuses and course descriptions to the general public ... and nor would there be a need for the plethora of “successful graduate applicant” literature one can subscribe to

Also, your premises are wrong. The assessors are completely real and the graduate knows this.
You cannot know whether or not God is even real.
So the analogy is flawed.

well I thought that was the point in question .. “How to establish that god is real”
I mean part of the prerequisites for using an analogy is that the components be commonly understood as real, otherwise its meaningless.
I mean if you weren’t convinced that graduate applicants are real, applicant assessors are real and the process of becoming a successful applicant is real, the analogy would be just as bewildering as the suggestion that the process of understanding god is real

 

[lightgigantic]

Not, because it is loaded. "To matter" doesn't apply objectively.

then why do issues of whether a statement is objective or not matter to you?

 

[Simon Anders]

Because the human body is made up of dead matter. We are dead matter just like the tennis ball. Only the organization is different.

Not my body. The whole damn thing is alive and pulsing with life. Just like the forest.

 

[Raithere]

or you are being seriously obtuse – I mean even straight and simple empiricism runs into a few pitfalls if it is incomplete of a few essentials ....

Okay, I'll make the point again. Complete knowledge is not necessary. In fact, complete knowledge seems to be an actual impossibility. I never said "an ant could know just as much about human affairs", an ant does not need to know anything about human affairs to understand that humans exist and have an effect upon its world.

Actually, I find your statements quite strange, are you actually asserting that we can ever know everything about God using any method? That's quite a boast.

then perhaps you won’t mind if we test your experience, yes?

Sure.

For some reason however you feel that there is no issue of normative descriptions in theistic comprehension

Quite the contrary actually. Of course, there is the problem that definition limits the subject. So the more we define god, the smaller he gets. But the problem, from my perspective anyway, is that theists can't seem to agree upon anything. Each group claims the other is wrong, even within groups there is significant dissent.

~Raithere

 

[Raithere]

What exactly is wrong with "clinging to authoritarianism"?

Authority does not necessitate truth. It's the easy way out, to let someone do your thinking for you.

You seem to think that I (or other people who do) accept certain religious doctrines on account that those doctrines themselves state that they are superior. But this is not the reason I accept them. I accept those doctrines through support of my personal experience and through agreement of pondering views.

Given the ingredients, it does not promise something that might be delicious to me. I do have some cooking experience by now.

So then promises don't mean anything, it's results you're looking for. The next question is; how you do go about evaluating the results of any particular philosophy?

Then you perhaps have more specific ambitions and goals than I do. My main goal is to be truly happy, a happiness that is beyond aging, illness and death. The only question is how to get there.

Happiness is not a goal to reach, it is a way of traveling. When you discover this, you find these things far less troublesome. It is a sad fact that religion often focuses people so completely upon an afterlife that they forget to live, which I find incredibly tragic.

Because it is only with concepts like karma and rebirth -and some important others- that life makes sense to me, and is worth living.

Then, by all means, follow the path that you enjoy. Just don't expect me to agree with your evaluations, I make my own.

~Raithere

 

[Medicine*Woman]

not sure what you are asking
I mean all issues of knowledge are determined by application... I think I have belabored that point enough already on sci

If you are asking what is the general run down of god's superiority, here's a concise reference on where the similarities and differences arise

Katha Up 2.2.13
The Supreme Lord is eternal and the living beings are eternal. The Supreme Lord is cognizant and the living beings are cognizant. The difference is that the Supreme Lord is supplying all the necessities of life for the many other living entities.

IOW god is independent. We are not (either in our liberated or conditioned phases of existence)

well no, I can't you would require some sort of indication of both his and my qualities/capacities etc to make a comparison

*************
M*W: You can't judge a book by it's cover. This guy looks pleasant enough, but I would give a rat's ass that he's been on steroids.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Because the human body is made up of dead matter. We are dead matter just like the tennis ball. Only the organization is different.

*************
M*W: Trust me, baby, there are some of us who are largely "dead matter." Thankfully, "dead matter" doesn't necessarily mean stupidity.

 

[John99]

Because the human body is made up of dead matter. We are dead matter just like the tennis ball. Only the organization is different.

I cannot understand the point of statements like that. Obviously you cannot take a single element and view it as the whole but...a tennis ball? Come on....

I am sorry but that is like saying a 5ghz 64bit pc is just a grain of sand.

 

[iceaura]

depends on how greater they are.
For instance the gap of empirical investigation between an ant and a human will never enable an ant to even begin to investigate human affairs (like say recognizing that this arm belongs to a homo sapiens sapiens).

So? I am satisfied that we agree that an ant can investigate and learn something about a human, and its methods are available to science.

And we are agreed that whatever methods a dog uses to investigate humans are available to science to investigate entities "greater" than a scientist.

So the statement "an entity greater than a scientist cannot therefore be investigated by science" is false.

So even if the claim that believers can produce, by imagining its existence, an entity greater than their own imaginations, so the common observation that what is being investigated is human concepts rather than extrahuman entities is finessed, we still have at least the theoretical possibility of investigating it, and learning something about it. Such as soemthing of the constraints on its existence, if any.

 

[lightgigantic]

Iceaura

Originally Posted by LG
depends on how greater they are.
For instance the gap of empirical investigation between an ant and a human will never enable an ant to even begin to investigate human affairs (like say recognizing that this arm belongs to a homo sapiens sapiens).
”
So? I am satisfied that we agree that an ant can investigate and learn something about a human, and its methods are available to science.

you really think an ant is understanding some hairs and freckles as a human?

And we are agreed that whatever methods a dog uses to investigate humans are available to science to investigate entities "greater" than a scientist.

we agree on that?
depends on how great the difference is.

So the statement "an entity greater than a scientist cannot therefore be investigated by science" is false.

not so

So even if the claim that believers can produce, by imagining its existence, an entity greater than their own imaginations, so the common observation that what is being investigated is human concepts rather than extrahuman entities is finessed, we still have at least the theoretical possibility of investigating it, and learning something about it. Such as soemthing of the constraints on its existence, if any.

once again it depends on how big the gap is.
If we are like ants and if another entity is like a human, we wouldn't know it even if we ran into them.

 

[iceaura]

you really think an ant is understanding some hairs and freckles as a human?

No, I think it is learning something about a human by investigating hair and freckles.

If we are like ants and if another entity is like a human, we wouldn't know it even if we ran into them.

Ants are aware of the event of running into a human. They are then capable of learning something about that human.

Their methods are available to science.