a challenge to those who feel intelligent
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
You guys in this thread are all such fucking hardliners. Religion is the opiate of the masses (Marx) but I guess personally I fail to see the difference between pouring your faith into religion, or science, or causality, or belief in my own existence, etc...
This is a "straw man". Can you show where someone did that? Put his "faith" in science in the same way that believers put their faith in their religion? I get the feeling, from previous remarks that you have been itching to get this off your chest the entire debate and now you shot your wad prematurely - this the sticky underpants fallacy:D
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
The form of logic is that if the premises are true then the conclusion is inescapable. Just remember that we assume all our premises.
Of course you assume smoking weed will have certain effects, you should read something by David Hume.
Structured forms build categorical systems on a floating foundation...
This is an attempt to muddy the waters. Of course all human knowledge is uncertain - thats the human condition - doubt.
ויאמר לא תוכל לראת את פני כי לא יראני האדם וחי
And he (God) said, You cannot see my face - for man shall not see me and live. (2nd book 33)
Moses is asking for certainty - and God is telling him that he cannot have that while he lives.
God goes on to explain that Moses is just going to have to settle for peep of Gods beehind.
Check it out. Its a beautiful moving passage about the doubt that all men must accept.
Just because you have doubt doesnt mean that all bets are equal. Did you ever play poker? Its essentially a game about managing uncertainty - managing it more skillyfully than your opponents. Just because all men men have a weakness does not mean that all men are weak.
Sure you can doubt the very foundations of knowledge, the underpinnings of math and science. And you should! That doesnt mean they are discredited or even that they are the equivalent of all other forms of knowledge.
Ok so you might really be just a brain in a vat. Do you pay your electric bill or not?
a challenge to those who feel intelligent
ur all dumb cuz god is easily found through meditation and the knowledge that people have gained through meditation. religion is fake and god tries to make every single persons religion seem real cuz he loves us, but in the end, what god is is beyond any thing like a religion, god is truely purely just the root soul of us all that has all the knowledge of everything we see and everything we are.
a challenge to those who feel intelligent
Quote:
Originally Posted by altagid
Just because you have doubt doesnt mean that all bets are equal. Did you ever play poker? Its essentially a game about managing uncertainty - managing it more skillyfully than your opponents. Just because all men men have a weakness does not mean that all men are weak.
Sure you can doubt the very foundations of knowledge, the underpinnings of math and science. And you should! That doesnt mean they are discredited or even that they are the equivalent of all other forms of knowledge.
Ok so you might really be just a brain in a vat. Do you pay your electric bill or not?
Absolutely I pay my bills. Even Hume said at the end of the day, I set aside my doubts and go play badmitton with my friends. Odd one Hume. I guess my point being that when people interpret biblical texts literally and assume the have the Truth, in a capital T sort of way please note, they tend to become fundamentalist assholes who think it's ok to bomb people for thinking something else. Obviously any absolute outlook is going to have problems in this sense. Likewise I think anyone who restricts existence to the physical, lacks both inspiration and imagination. Keep an open mind, and don't think that just because your system is empirical you're getting Truth (capital) out of it.
As for religion, I'll just say, contrary to poker, the human weakness in all humans is the groundwork for compassion, not exploitation. I don't rely on causal or quantum connections in order to be a moral person. Whether or not there is a spiritual connection between all people, I behave as if there is. Whether or not my existence is predetermined or not, I behave as if I have freedom. I behave as if I should pay my bills rather than just lounge around in my vat.
What would you do?
ps ~ I don't see it as a straw man. I hardly built it into much, and never represented it as a statement of your views. You could make a case for it being an example of equivocation. But I think it stands. But it's all bullshit to you isn't it? Why should you have to know anything about logical standards when you deal with Science afterall :thumbsup:
a challenge to those who feel intelligent
Sorry, just had to add this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by altagid
Can you show where someone did that? Put his "faith" in science in the same way that believers put their faith in their religion?
What do you even mean? I see people putting their faith in science on a daily basis. I do it myself. I'm fucking using a computer to post on the internet right now. Aren't I? Case in point.
Or do you mean cases where things obviously went hidiously wrong? Cases like Hitler and his biological experiments on the Jewish people? Or Chernobyl?
Oh wait, the scientists who do horrible things aren't really scientists. Just like the crusades wasn't really "Christians". At least, not as Christians would like to think of themselves.
As a scientist, are you hoping to discover what's out there? Or are you hoping to prove you already know something?
a challenge to those who feel intelligent
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
.... I guess my point being that when people interpret biblical texts literally and assume the have the Truth, in a capital T sort of way please note, they tend to become fundamentalist assholes who think it's ok to bomb people for thinking something else. Obviously any absolute outlook is going to have problems in this sense. Likewise I think anyone who restricts existence to the physical, lacks both inspiration and imagination. Keep an open mind, and don't think that just because your system is empirical you're getting Truth (capital) out of it.
Dogmatism is for fools. Dogma may seem attactive but it can really bite you in the ass , haw haw haw! One should never, ever be dogmatic... uh ... wait a second...
As for Truth with a capital T there isnt much of that in Science. Science is mostly about doubt, the skillful constructive use of doubt - not certainty. Very few important scientific results are "proved". Even the "Law of Gravitation" is just a theory and could, at least in principle be overturned. In fact the hope is that it will!
Just because I dont accept the existence of a spiritual world doesnt mean I closed minded about it Look, what's your position on Unicorns? or Bigfoot? Well mine is this, show me convincing evidence and I will accept their existence but until then, I conduct my life as if those things dont exist. I wont buy leather goods claiming to be unicorn hide . I wont waste my time and money going on a wild BigFoot chase, not on the strength of what we know at this time - this is a skeptical approach. You make the best decision you can based on the facts and tools that you have available - if later you get an opportunity to revise that decision, you jump at it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
.... As for religion, I'll just say, contrary to poker, the human weakness in all humans is the groundwork for compassion, not exploitation.
admirable but irrelevant. The point of that example was just to show that uncertainty can be handled intelligently - it does not oblige you to throw up your hands and say - all outcomes are uncertain therefore we have no way of making a decision and going forward.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
.... I don't rely on causal or quantum connections in order to be a moral person. Whether or not there is a spiritual connection between all people, I behave as if there is.
I have no idea what this means or how it connects to our discussion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
.... I behave as if I should pay my bills rather than just lounge around in my vat.
What would you do?
Damn, man! I am a brain in a vat. If I dont pay my electric bill they pull the plug on me!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
.... ps ~ I don't see it as a straw man. I hardly built it into much, and never represented it as a statement of your views.
this is bullshit - you are shifting your ground!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
....
Originally Posted by Polymirize
You guys in this thread are all such fucking hardliners. Religion is the opiate of the masses (Marx) but I guess personally I fail to see the difference between pouring your faith into religion, or science, or causality, or belief in my own existence, etc...
(text accents are mine)
a challenge to those who feel intelligent
polymirize, what does..putting faith into sience have to do with you using your computer to type on these forums? well IF you get on your comp GET on the internet,TYPE on these forums, hell you're using your computer for that. where does faith go into there...? do you guess everytime you hit the power button that the comp will turn on? no duh it'll turn on cuz you KNOW it will turn on, has nothing to do with faith.. but putting faith in something with no prooof, existing "before" dragons existed...how do you explain....anything right about that? but all you live for is to do right things cuz god said so..
a challenge to those who feel intelligent
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
What do you even mean? I see people putting their faith in science on a daily basis. I do it myself. I'm fucking using a computer to post on the internet right now. Aren't I? Case in point.
Theres a problem here - the word faith means many different things - I hate using either "faith" or "belief" in these discussions its treacherously slippery. Faith in a working tool is not at all the same thing as religous faith
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
Or do you mean cases where things obviously went hidiously wrong? Cases like Hitler and his biological experiments on the Jewish people? Or Chernobyl?
Either this is careless or you are very confused about what science is. Firstly what is the connection between Chernobyl and science? What scientific questions were being investigated - other than perhaps how many corners can you cut and for how long. Mengele however might have been real science. I dont know anything about the value of the research in its own terms but certainly persuing scientific inquiry through human vivesection is perfectly valid scientifically. Science it totally amoral like plumbing. There were plumbers who helped run and build the death camps - how does this reflect on plumbing? When your sink is blocked do you call a plumber (hey those guys participated in Auschwitz) or do you call a priest?
You keep firing these bolts at targets that dont exist and I feel as if you are trying to have a discussion with someone who is not here. No one here is proposing blind faith in science or that science can answer all the questions that we need to ask.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
Oh wait, the scientists who do horrible things aren't really scientists. Just like the crusades wasn't really "Christians". At least, not as Christians would like to think of themselves.
As a scientist, are you hoping to discover what's out there? Or are you hoping to prove you already know something?
Thats a straw man :thumbsup:
Again, science is a method of investigation. It is most effective in the physical world. It has no direct bearing on moral conduct or any of the existential questions that torment man. Its like plumbing - there are good plumbers and there are evil plumbers - so what?
a challenge to those who feel intelligent
My point is you're setting science on a pedestal by saying that science never leads us "wrong".
I agree with you when you say it has absolutely no moral implications, and since the notion of this entire thread was to demonstrate something about religion (or perhaps, as I'm trying to work with here, religious principles), why are we even talking about science again?
I agree (assuming I'm understanding you now, no promises) that science, the verifiable (and more importantly, falsifiable) source of empirical data can't tell us anything about how to live.
And yet, do you know how to live?
In a very real sense, I just want to know... how are you doing?
ps~ I'll agree, that last part is more rhetoric and jibing rather than logical valid, but no, it's still not a strawman argument.
A strawman argument is where I build a position similar to yours but with obvious deficienties and then tear it down. But in order to really get a strawman argument it would still require more of a build up, and probably a lot of "you say/said X". In short, misrepresentation. Have I supplied hard to think about analogies? Yes. Misrepresented your own position? I don't think so...
You should like, learn some philosophy and stuff man...:stoned:
a challenge to those who feel intelligent
Quote:
Originally Posted by TipTIP
polymirize, what does..putting faith into sience have to do with you using your computer to type on these forums? well IF you get on your comp GET on the internet,TYPE on these forums, hell you're using your computer for that. where does faith go into there...? do you guess everytime you hit the power button that the comp will turn on? no duh it'll turn on cuz you KNOW it will turn on, has nothing to do with faith.. but putting faith in something with no prooof, existing "before" dragons existed...how do you explain....anything right about that? but all you live for is to do right things cuz god said so..
How is it you KNOW, that the future will always resemble the past?
How do you KNOW, when you push that button, that your computer will turn on, as opposed to remaining off. Maybe it's broken, maybe its out of power, maybe god just plain hates you.
Are there limits to KNOWLEDGE? and if so, when we go beyond them, what else would we call it other than FAITH? Faith that the future will resemble the past even perhaps?
I guess my main point would just be to get a couple of the people out there to admit that yes, we all take some things on faith, because then this entire development of religion (or perhaps, religiousness? spirituality?) angle becomes merely a matter of degree...
Do you follow all that?
a challenge to those who feel intelligent
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
My point is you're setting science on a pedestal by saying that science never leads us "wrong".
well if I said that I didnt mean it. I do have a high regard for scientific thought, I do think it is much underappreciated and mistunderstood among the lay public. I do think that in many cases it is by a long shot our best bet at understanding our circumstances? But never lead us wrong - noooo. Science has no way of even knowing when we do have the right answer. There is no cosmic answer book that we can check our results again only observations that either support or contradict our theories. Science is designed to get it wrong and keep improving. But it has no way of telling for sure that you actually are at the end of your quest and there will be no conflicting inexplicable observations in the future. There is no human knowledge that is free from doubt. ".. for no man shall see me and live"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polymirize
I agree (assuming I'm understanding you now, no promises) that science,...can't tell us anything about how to live.
And yet, do you know how to live?
In a very real sense, I just want to know... how are you doing?
The quick answer is that I muddle through just like everyone else. No one has the manual. I think being a human being is an aburd thing. Absurd in a deep philosophical sense. I used to be a religious fanatic. When I started to get over that in my 30's I realized that I had swallowed lot of bullshit - much of it foisted on me by my very own self. I resolved to cut out the bullshit as much as possible - with mixed success. Bullshit is inescapable and sometimes even necessary. I cultivated a rather blunt, irreverant manner - others call it an "asshole". I believe that every man must find his own reason for living and that this is an intensely private matter - no other man will ever be able to judge or even fully understand this decision - to that extent I am an Existentialist. For me life is about the living of it. I try to figure out what things I really want to and to go after them without worrying whether they are important, appropriate or whether it all amounts to anything.
Being an atheist is a cold and lonely thing in many ways. You must confront the fact of your imminent death without any warm blanket or comfort that religion can offer. Death for an atheist is intensely personal and intensely lonely. But with this comes an exhilerating sense of release and freedom. My life is mine to do with as I wish and as I can.
I have found nothing that even begins to explain the way it feels to be a man and to know that I am a man. But I feel strongly, and this is a scientific idea, that one should not try to dispel mysteries with stories. Its ok not to know even though it is a torment.
