Isn't that the point? It's just one continuous loop. Nobody will ever prove god does or does not exist.
But it's silly to think he does exist
What has god done for you
- Thread starter fishtail
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But it's silly to think he does exist
Good point. Also this rhetorical situation capitalizes on the obvious advantage of taking the word of those who came before you. It's better taking their word for it than having absolutely nothing right? I mean what do you have to loose?
This would the be smarter thing to do, if it weren't for scientific evidence offered from the most powerful intellectual framework of the human species. The analogy would have to include that rigorous testing suggests it is highly unlikely for a diamond to be in the box in order to be more accurate.
This would the be smarter thing to do, if it weren't for scientific evidence offered from the most powerful intellectual framework of the human species. The analogy would have to include that rigorous testing suggests it is highly unlikely for a diamond to be in the box in order to be more accurate.
Isn't that the point? It's just one continuous loop. Nobody will ever prove god does or does not exist.
But it's silly to think he does exist
theism lays claim to direct perception as a conclusion from correct practice, which in turn has a foundation of theory.
atheism lays claim to a probability based on a foundation of theory with no advancing proposals for practice to come to a direct perception of this tentative claim.
For me God has helped me to avoid self loathing. He taught me what love was when no one else would. He was more of a father than my father ever could be. He gave me a family larger than any I've ever could have dreamed. He gave me security and showed me fear is to be challenged.
Even though I wasn't my mother's favorite, God seemed to pay more attention to me than she. And I payed more attention to him. He was there fore me. I can attribute two jobs to his kindness, my best friends, and I'm thankfull that I've lost some "best friends", thanks to him.
I've made alot of mistakes and he's there listening, accepting me. Being forgiving. More importantly he gives me credit for trying, even if I don't always succeede.
Even though I wasn't my mother's favorite, God seemed to pay more attention to me than she. And I payed more attention to him. He was there fore me. I can attribute two jobs to his kindness, my best friends, and I'm thankfull that I've lost some "best friends", thanks to him.
I've made alot of mistakes and he's there listening, accepting me. Being forgiving. More importantly he gives me credit for trying, even if I don't always succeede.
With all due respect to your upbringing, you need an invisible friend to keep from hating yourself?
Yes, but only for those who agree with what that particular theist sees as "perception" AND "conclusion" "correct" AND "practice".
Now that I read it again, this seems to describe atheism more than theism to me; direct perception (what we can derive objectively from the senses) as a conclusion from correct practice (applying scientific testing to those perceived derivations and doing them the same each time by a number of people which removed all biased agendas, hence them being correct), which in turn has a foundation of theory (gravity, natural selection, or any theory that science provides WHICH, by the way, would immediately be thrown out if contrary evidence was sufficient).
Now that I read this again, it seems to describe theism more accurately than atheism! A probability (God's existence) based on a foundation of theory (the Holy books, which are purely theoretical and without tangible evidence to support it) with no advancing proposals for practice to come to a direct perception of this tentative claim (religion offers no tangible evidence or any means of objectively acquiring, testing, and refining said evidence, unlike science).
You sure have an odd understanding from my point of view.
Celpha Fiael
theism lays claim to the direct perception of god (I am not talking about theists who accept the existence of god theoretically or on faith)
einstein disagrees
"I hold that Western science isn't capable of comparing and contrasting the validity of one method of knowledge against others. Why? Because its own basis is too narrow. That basis was summed up by Albert Einstein in Out of My Late Years (1936):
Out of the multitude of our sense experiences we take, mentally and arbitrarily, certain repeatedly occuring complexes of sense impression ... and we attribute to them a meaning the meaning of bodily objects.
Einstein admitted that this method cannot even prove the existence of the external world. So how can we be sure that the bodily objects scientists study are real things? Aren't such objects just mental interpretations of a jumble of sense data that, with a nonhuman mind, or even with a human mind culturally different than ours, could be interpreted in a very different way? Wouldn't a different interpretation of sense data reveal a very different world? Which interpretation is the right one? And how, by this method Einstein described, can we ever know whether there is a reality outside the range of our sense experiences? These questions are not for science to answer. They are for philosophy. There is a difference between the scientific approach and the philosophical approach."
-substance and shadow, S.swami
no
theism lays claim to the direct perception of god (I am not talking about theists who accept the existence of god theoretically or on faith)
einstein disagrees
"I hold that Western science isn't capable of comparing and contrasting the validity of one method of knowledge against others. Why? Because its own basis is too narrow. That basis was summed up by Albert Einstein in Out of My Late Years (1936):
Out of the multitude of our sense experiences we take, mentally and arbitrarily, certain repeatedly occuring complexes of sense impression ... and we attribute to them a meaning the meaning of bodily objects.
Einstein admitted that this method cannot even prove the existence of the external world. So how can we be sure that the bodily objects scientists study are real things? Aren't such objects just mental interpretations of a jumble of sense data that, with a nonhuman mind, or even with a human mind culturally different than ours, could be interpreted in a very different way? Wouldn't a different interpretation of sense data reveal a very different world? Which interpretation is the right one? And how, by this method Einstein described, can we ever know whether there is a reality outside the range of our sense experiences? These questions are not for science to answer. They are for philosophy. There is a difference between the scientific approach and the philosophical approach."
-substance and shadow, S.swami
you mean you haven't discovered any normative descriptions in scripture?
. A devotee feels the presence of God everywhere, but one averse to the Lord denies His existence anywhere.
-Bhaktisiddhanta Maharaj
You haven't escaped my earlier point; what you define as "god" will differ greatly from others, even your fellow theist.
Yes, I believe Descartes asked similar questions. I'm well aware of philosophy and it's extreme ideas that can be presented as possible, and so I submit that while philosophy can pose the question (which is always prerequisite to science), it cannot answer it. Allow me to explain:
You're right in the possibility that, as Einstein said, we may never know whether there is a reality outside the range of what our sense organs can intake. But, I ask, did that philosophical notion prevent Einstein from devoting his entire life to science? No, in fact he revolutionized science in mind boggling ways that great minds today are still digesting. The problem with this (very interesting) philosophical assumption is that it can only go so far before it becomes tiresome and useless. (It remins me much of the scenario portrayed in the sci-fi thriller, The Matrix.)
According to that philosophical stance, why do anything? It isn't hard to imagine a scenario (which I would be quick to point out, doesn't make it true) like the matrix, wherein we are deluded into thinking what we perceive is real. Take an object of your affection for example. You feel strongly towards this person, you wonder about this person, you wish to know this person more...but wait...oh that's right, he/she may just be nothingness and only a figment of my imperfect sensory system. Once again, this is a perfectly consistent assumption. But would it be such an overwhelmingly strong assumption that you would stop interacting with this person altogether? "Sorry, I can't see you anymore because I have no evidence that you aren't just a subjective interpretation of a jumble of sense data." Of course you wouldn't! I'd imagine a reasonable response from you, one perhaps along the lines of this:
"While I cannot be sure of her true existence, it matters not, for everything in me and around me attests to her existence. Even if she doesn't and is a product of another, more true reality (say the matrix), I am also within this paradigm, of which both of us are inescapably dependent upon (this is where the Matrix correlation breaks down, as we all know, Neo escapes). So, it is the more rational choice to behave like she is there."
You do get evidence of her existence, that's no question. What you are second guessing is the validity of that evidence due to an imaginary over-reality. This, as stated in the quote, can be applied not just to our rhetorical loved one, but ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. But, as in the case of the rhetorical loved one, this is far from sufficient reasoning to cease pursuit of what is being questioned.
Science is no exception. To sit around and attribute your inactivity to "it's all fake anyway" is a horrible excuse and a waste of life. Let's give this philosophical thought so much as to assume that it is true; we would never know anything about this over-reality if we sat on our asses all day. Science, if anything, would be getting closer and closer to finding out about this potential alternate reality, way more than philosophy would.
So now, I'll turn to "how do we know which mental interpretation is right?". Once again, the answer is science. An identical experiment upon the foundations of this reality done on one side of the earth for one observer as well as on the other side of the earth for another observer, yields the same results. Is it not obvious that this is the very anchor in which your philosophical conundrum seeks? These scientific discoveries have stupendous application to our reality, whether in predicting something as ordinary as today's weather or predicting something as rare as exactly when Hallie's comet will pass by our planet again. It is upon these objectively stable laws that we find a common ground in which to plant our perceptions, they obviously have a real and astoundingly accurate application to everything we perceive. It doesn't matter if we can prove philosophically the unquestionable existence of what we see around us, regardless we still see and interact with them as if they were completely real.
This is impossible without science, as what is left would only be philosophic and, as you've rightly put your finger on, is subjective to each individual. What a chaotic world we'd live in without the prolific and proficient enterprise of science!
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you mean you haven't discovered any normative descriptions in scripture?
My fellow thinker, even if there were any normative descriptions in scripture, I would hesitate to take the word of a fellow human who is just like myself, except authoritatively demanding of his own word.
I detect no respect at all only your need to satiate your contentious hunger in ridicule.
This also applies to your professed "study" of natural selection, etc. You take the word of those who came before you, accepting their metaphysical speculations as truth.
You read something in a book or on a web page and choose to believe it or not believe it. Any attempted justification concerning methodology or so-called "evidence" is a red herring, inasmuch as you ultimately are choosing to place your faith in the words of those who came before you.
Firstly, their 'speculations' are anything but metaphysical. You need a dictionary.
Secondly, these people's words are backed by evidence, something which you seem to be very unfamiliar with. As opposed to a theist, a proper scientist never merely gives his word but backs it with countless tests with full instruction of how to repeat those tests and full details concerning the tests. Furthermore, this educated and supported word is then re-simulated and re-simulated again and again before it is given to the public and stated as a scientifically accepted fact.
Just to set the record, people share your suspicion and have ever since the birth of science. Millions of people have investigated the validity of scientific findings since then, moreso than any one of us could ever dream of accomplishing in our lifetimes. Needless to say, those proposals that we would be right to suspect have been weeded out. While today's theories dont' have the durability of older ones as they have not been around as long, you can bet that hundreds and thousands of people devote their life's work to making sure the right ones survive each day. Science has thus built a reputation for itself; a reputation of reliability, which is more than religion can say for sure. Now while we're talking about it, science is founded on the merciless testing of its own ideas (which is once again, more than religion can lay claim to). It has no preference for theory, only those that work and are objectively solid.
So, by the time it gets to my eyes and yours, it is safe to bet that it is not merely somebody's opinion, certainly not one that I am taking on faith.
But enough about me, I wonder, do you heavily scrutinize and perform a rigorously thorough background check on any and everything you read? Honestly? You obviously haven't for anything you've read contrary to natural selection; had you done so, you wouldn't have proposed that the evidence I speak of is subject to my interpretation of it, nor would you have embarrassed yourself by attempting to overthrow almost a century's worth of entire life-times devoted to the evidence that you've just dismissed by fiat due to your ignorance.
Celpha Fiael
therefore science is not a problem, as long as it knows the limits of its foundation (namely empiricism, or more precisely perceiving the connection between one measurable phenomena and another).
science is a problem when ....
..... (science is) outrageously demanding. It demands that it is not simply a way of explaining certain bits of the world, or even the local quarter of the universe within telescopic range. It demands that it explains absolutely everything.
- B. Wooley , Virtual Worlds
perhaps amongst theists who work exclusively out of theory or faith
therefore science is not a problem, as long as it knows the limits of its foundation (namely empiricism, or more precisely perceiving the connection between one measurable phenomena and another).
science is a problem when ....
..... (science is) outrageously demanding. It demands that it is not simply a way of explaining certain bits of the world, or even the local quarter of the universe within telescopic range. It demands that it explains absolutely everything.
- B. Wooley , Virtual Worlds
therefore the compiler of scripture is not just like you, much like the compiler of normative descriptions within physics texts is not an average chappy
Thou dost display great faith, my good man, indeed, we have not seen so great a faith - indeed, not in all of Israel.
Again, I bring to your attention that your assertions above are the result of something that you read in a book or on a web page. You are choosing to place your faith in the words of those who came before you.
Hahahahhahahahahhahah!
I see how a God escapes this criticism. Also, whoever B. Wooley is sure didn't think through this point very much; of course it's going to seek to explain absolutely everything, why wouldn't it? And it's not a totalitarian enterprise demanding absoluteness based on what we can perceive in this local quarter of the galaxy; scientists often entertain the fact that physical constants/fundamentals could be different in other parts of the universe. Nothing indicates that this is the case, so for what reason at all would you assume that it is, as B. Wooley so hastily has?
Please reword this, I have no idea what that...sentence (if it can be called that) is saying.