olidp
Registered: 04/16/09
Posts: 64
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| | 07/31/09 at 09:48 PM | Reply with quote | #16 |
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Maxeo,
Phew! You're absolutely right, you did ruffle my feathers terribly with that post. I can begin to regain my composure now (to avoid confusion, I'm joking now too).
A few points of clarification though.
Am I to take it then, that in fact, you do not consider, in general, the 'I don't know' response to certain existential questions, specifically theistic ones, to be disingenuous and thus worthy of ridicule?
Am I also to take it that, in general, you regard scepticism with regard to theistic questions as a reasonable and respectable position?
In the post I was referring to, now clarified by yourself as nothing more than horseplay, I submit I was reasonable in assuming your disregard for the sceptics position as disingenuous. I do not think this was building a straw man at all, but in the interests of a civil discussion, I offer my apologies, the condescending nature of your response notwithstanding.
Finally, do you agree with me that the scientific enterprise has been an incredibly productive one, and do you think that this has anything to do with it's adherence to methodological naturalism?
An attempt to actually answer my questions this time instead of merely pointing out my personal shortcomings, as perceived by you, would be appreciated.
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Maxeo
Registered: 06/13/09
Posts: 1,718
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| | 07/31/09 at 10:18 PM | Reply with quote | #17 |
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That's undeniable, you went off a joke rather than gather all information, then built up pseudo arguments to tear them down. By definition... straw man.
Quote: Am I to take it then, that in fact, you do not consider, in general, the 'I don't know' response to certain existential questions, specifically theistic ones, to be disingenuous and thus worthy of ridicule?
I'm not ridiculing the question, go back and read the joke and the thread it came from, please relax. If you don't understand humor go read the thread on divine humor. No one is ridiculing any sincere inquiry of knowledge.
Quote: Am I also to take it that, in general, you regard scepticism with regard to theistic questions as a reasonable and respectable position?
Of course questions are reasonable, why are you asking this? Stop thinking I'm some troll.
Quote: In the post I was referring to, now clarified by yourself as nothing more than horseplay, I submit I was reasonable in assuming your disregard for the sceptics position as disingenuous. I do not think this was building a straw man at all, but in the interests of a civil discussion, I offer my apologies, the condescending nature of your response notwithstanding.
No, I'm stating their position is a copout by saying "I don't know" to certain questions, as you advocate in your straw man, when there is enough evidence to make a reasonable decision. Yes, huge straw man considering I never said anything in regards to being a naturalist and I said nothing of the sort in regards making any position even if "I don't know" was a sincere answer. You immediately presented, "Is it that you don't want to know?" And so on... Even if it was a serious answer you build up an argument against a position against one that would be due to ignorance or agnosticism. Two options which you failed to address. So, sir, please don't deny you made a straw man, if you deny this reasonable discussion has been thrown out the door. I advocate, sir, that you recognize reason as civilized. Also, please quote me in my uncivilized and condescending mannerisms from my previous post. If you felt that way, it was because you felt it yourself, because it's not there.
Quote: Finally, do you agree with me that the scientific enterprise has been an incredibly productive one, and do you think that this has anything to do with it's adherence to methodological naturalism?
Yes, it has been productive. Second question, possibly, but I'm not too informed in the scientific community so I don't want to dismiss anything genetically.
Quote: An attempt to actually answer my questions this time instead of merely pointing out my personal shortcomings, as perceived by you, would be appreciated.
Like I said earlier, you will need to pray for patience in these forums because people will upset you. I mean this with the most sincerity, I do not mean these points to belittle you, I mean them to encourage you. You'll need to not take them so personally, and instead pray for patience. If you can't take patience in these forums you'll need to find another one because people will get on your nerves. I mean this, and what I said in regards to patience sincerely, if you take it personally offensive, again, that's something you need to work out.
__________________
The first to present his case seems right until
another comes forward and questions him. -Prov. 18.17
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olidp
Registered: 04/16/09
Posts: 64
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| | 07/31/09 at 11:08 PM | Reply with quote | #18 |
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Maxeo,
Are you being serious now, or still messing about, it's hard to tell (sorry, couldn't resist).
Your most recent post has convinced me further that I was not engaging in a straw man. I was not unaware of the humorous nature of your post, but detected, as now confirmed by you, an element of seriousness to it. By saying that I or anyone else is copping out by saying 'I don't know' with respect to the evidence for a creator it is you who is being unreasonable, and not me (that's just my opinion of course old bean, feel free to disagree with it, I won't consider that to be the end any reasonable discussion). I'm sorry that you think that by disagreeing with your opinion on this matter (the straw man nature of my reply) is to throw reasonable discussion out the door, I respectfully disagree. Bear in mind that where you think that there is 'enough evidence', others, many others, do not.
What makes you think that I'm offended by your position, or your answers? I am certainly confused and a little bit concerned by them, but not personally offended by them. I actually find your responses thus far to be very enlightening.
If you can say that you believe with a clear conscience that there was absolutely no intention to condescend to me in your second response (or in your most recent response, where you imply that I do not understand humour) so be it. On the basis of your posts so far I simply do not believe you. Maybe this is something you would like to pray about. I, as an atheist, do not pray, but thanks for the tip. Furthermore, one can be condescending even when they do not mean to be. In fact, I find that this can often be when a person is at their most condescending.
Please feel free to respond to this, if at all, in whichever way you deem appropriate. I, in spite of my modest numbers of posts, and apparent tendency to take offence, am already finding participation in this forum to be most enjoyable and rewarding. It is always fascinating to engage with people, theist and atheist alike, and I am grateful to you for taking the time to engage with me.
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Maxeo
Registered: 06/13/09
Posts: 1,718
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| | 08/01/09 at 12:14 AM | Reply with quote | #19 |
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Quote: Maxeo,
Are you being serious now, or still messing about, it's hard to tell (sorry, couldn't resist).
I'm being serious.
Quote: Your most recent post has convinced me further that I was not engaging in a straw man. I was not unaware of the humorous nature of your post, but detected, as now confirmed by you, an element of seriousness to it. By saying that I or anyone else is copping out by saying 'I don't know' with respect to the evidence for a creator it is you who is being unreasonable, and not me (that's just my opinion of course old bean, feel free to disagree with it, I won't consider that to be the end any reasonable discussion)
Allow me to do a recap of what happened. I said,
Quote: I'm sure if I said, "I don't know" I can cop out and continue on my merry way anyways. It looks like a rising fad in the discussions now a days. Sorry guys, just trying to fit in 
To which you responded [my comments in red]:
Quote:
Maxeo,
Saying I don't know is not the same as saying I don't want to know. Where do you get this notion from? I never said anything about not wanting to know, this is begging the question that I don't want to know. As long as you have given the evidence, and arguments regarding the evidence, a reasonable analysis and claim that you honestly, for the time being, don't know, why is this a problem? Your not understanding of the joke is a result of this statement, like I said, I'm not holding it against you because you weren't around to pick up on it. In projecting anti-supernatural biases and motives on to those sceptical of your particular set of beliefs you are doing something which I suspect you would object to if it were done to you from a naturalistic perspective You assume my response to a proposition without knowing my position, how could you obtain this knowledge from my OP, or did you read previous posts of mine elsewhere?, i.e. you just say you 'know' because you want to believe in god and are too timid to live without this childish delusion. Rather shabby behaviour I think. My shabby behavior? Without begging the question and building a red herring, what behavior then?
Whilst everyone here so far seems to be very civil and fairly open minded, I'm becoming disturbed by the trend of impatience with conservatism in the face of a lack of data for a clear and unambiguous answer to incredibly complex and challenging questions. Why are you disturbed with my joke? Like I said, I'm not holding that against you...That may not be the way that revelation works, but it certainly is the way philosophy and science proceed, and it is the latter, I submit, which have provided us with the most tangible of real world benefits. As such I think you all owe the parsimonious nature of careful logical inquiry a far greater deal of respect than you appear to realise or admit. Now you accuse me of degrading philosophy... if only you knew it was a joke... you would understand, but instead you build a straw man by stating that it was real without any previous knowledge and tear it down by saying this...
My response then is:
Quote: olidp,
Sorry to ruffle your feathers, it's a joke. That was a serious apology. There have been threads recently in regards to "I don't know" as an answer. This informs you of the nature of the joke. I won't hold it against you, with 15 posts you haven't been around long enough to pick up on them. This is me telling you I'm not holding it against you.
I am a theist, Christian, Molinist, however much futher you want to break it down. With only having 15 posts you'll need to grow much more patient with your interaction with people if this has thrown you impatient already. I'm telling you my position so you can know my position instead of basing it on the joke. You seem to have grown impatient with your response, so I'm just giving you a friendly heads up in being patient.
However, I encourage you to hold off on attacking positions people hold without knowing. This is me trying to encourage you in not building straw men. You had very little knowledge of my position and you tried to build my argument for me and tear it down. This is true. You built quite the straw man olidp. I have interacted with every person in this thread so far, they all know I'm a Christian. Please be patient in your arguments...This was all sincere...
Can you please show me where my condescension and being rude is located? I apologize for encouraging you to pray for something if it offends you. However, you point out my offense prior to my suggestion to pray by stating:
Quote: In the post I was referring to, now clarified by yourself as nothing more than horseplay, I submit I was reasonable in assuming your disregard for the sceptics position as disingenuous. I do not think this was building a straw man at all, but in the interests of a civil discussion, I offer my apologies, the condescending nature of your response notwithstanding. Let's use a synonym for notwithstanding, in spite of. an LES of your last clause would be, "I offer my apologies in spite of the condescending nature of your response"
Now, you have to go back and cite my condescension before I encouraged you to pray.
You may cite:
Quote: If you can say that you believe with a clear conscience that there was absolutely no intention to condescend to me in your second response (or in your most recent response, where you imply that I do not understand humour)
I'm not sure if condescension is the right word. I was being serious because you did not understand that it was a joke in light of being informed that it was a joke. You used the joke to build the straw man. Once I informed you that it was a joke it was no longer treated as a joke, thus pointing you in the direction of further information. We shouldn't build reasonable discussions on jokes because, well they're jokes.
__________________
The first to present his case seems right until
another comes forward and questions him. -Prov. 18.17
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olidp
Registered: 04/16/09
Posts: 64
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| | 08/01/09 at 07:26 AM | Reply with quote | #20 |
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Maxeo,
Thanks for responding.
You keep assuming that I'm offended by your responses even though I have made it explicitly clear that I was, and am not. Do you want me to be offended by them, do you disbelieve my claim that I am not offended by them?
I never said that you said that 'I don't know is the same as saying I don't want to know'. I was suggesting that this is what was implied by your comment. In spite of your protestations regarding it's humourous nature, you have now confirmed that in fact this is what you think. By saying, seriously, as you now claim to be, that saying 'I don't know' with regard to certain supposed evidences for theism is a 'cop out' is the same, in my book, as saying I don't want to know. It implies willful ignorance on the part of the sceptic, whom merely finds evidences you find convincing to be less so. To call this is a cop out is using very strong, almost intolerant language, and as such concerns me, as it appears to display unreasonable impatience with those who fail to share with you certain beliefs. If a sceptic, on all potential evidences for theism, was to say they had no probabilistic opinion at all, then I would agree that now the term 'cop out' becomes more reasonable. But to refrain from the position of claiming to know is not the same. Withholding certainty in the light of incomplete evidence, once again, is a critical factor in the success and relative freedom from dogmas of the scientific process (testing for the null hypothesis for instance).
So I am not concerned by your joke, I am concerned by its serious undertones and your serious contention that 'I don't know' with regard to theistic evidences, or any other complex matter, is a cop out. It is not, and to claim that it is, as I've said, is shabby behaviour, and sloppy, overly emotional thinking. Please explain to me how claiming the 'I don't know' response is a 'cop out' is not projecting certain biases on to those who make it? Why would someone say they don't know, when in fact they do, or according to you, should?
We can go round in circles about whether or not I was straw-manning or not but I don't think it will get us very far. You think I did, I think I didn't. Your evidence hasn't convinced me, and mine hasn't convinced you. So be it.
What really concerns me though is your seriously stated position with regards to agnosticism on certain subjects. So let me ask you something. Theism, particular Christian theism posits as a fundamental claim the existence of a soul, and the possibility of a disembodied mind (God, angels, spirits, demons, and so on). Why is it that modern neurological science has shown this to be an incredibly unlikely scenario and one that lacks any evidence? Do you know? If a person comes to the conclusion that there is no possibility of a disembodied mind, and no such thing as a soul, both of which are perfectly reasonable positions on the current evidence, is this not good grounds to be at least exceptionally sceptical about theism, if not to reject it out of hand altogether? Do you know, and if you don't, why is this not a cop out?
No answer will offend me, so please don't let that concern constrain you in your response. Thanks.
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Maxeo
Registered: 06/13/09
Posts: 1,718
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| | 08/01/09 at 08:51 AM | Reply with quote | #21 |
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| With all your responses and how you felt I was condescending, usually that's offensive, if it is the case that you're saying you're condescending isn't offensive then okay.
As far as the tenability of the mind, I would refer to Abraham Varghese's five arguments of rationality, life [here's a quote by Dawkins on life:]
"Scientists invoke the magic of large numbers... The beauty of the anthropic principle is that it tells us, against all intuition, that a chemical model need only predict that life will arise on one planet in a billion bill to give us a good and entirely satisfying explanation for the presence of life here." [italics mine] Magic? Is it really entirely satisfying?
Consciousness, thought, and the self. Now there are those who reject all of these, like wonderer, but thought the neurology behind the mind body relationship is being more understood, I don't think it proves that the immaterial is false and naturalism is all there is. I thin naturalism fails coherency. Since an effect cannot be greater than its cause, in the case of evolution, the effect, [human intelligence] is exponentially greater than its supposed cause.
__________________
The first to present his case seems right until
another comes forward and questions him. -Prov. 18.17
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wonderer
Registered: 09/08/08
Posts: 2,835
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| | 08/01/09 at 09:34 AM | Reply with quote | #22 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Maxeo
Consciousness, thought, and the self. Now there are those who reject all of these, like wonderer...
You are bearing false witness. While it is true that I don't think of these things in the simplistic terms that you do, that is not the same as denying that these things exist. Please provide a quote where I suggest otherwise, or admit to having borne false witness.
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“It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man." - Richard Feynman |
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Maxeo
Registered: 06/13/09
Posts: 1,718
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| | 08/01/09 at 10:05 AM | Reply with quote | #23 |
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Quote: Quote: Originally Posted by Maxeo
Consciousness, thought, and the self. Now there are those who reject all of these, like wonderer... You are bearing false witness. While it is true that I don't think of these things in the simplistic terms that you do, that is not the same as denying that these things exist. Please provide a quote where I suggest otherwise, or admit to having borne false witness.
I'm not saying you reject that they exist, I'm stating that you reject these as answers with the best explanatory power and scope. Sorry for the confusion.
__________________
The first to present his case seems right until
another comes forward and questions him. -Prov. 18.17
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wonderer
Registered: 09/08/08
Posts: 2,835
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| | 08/01/09 at 10:11 AM | Reply with quote | #24 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Maxeo
I'm not saying you reject that they exist, I'm stating that you reject these as answers with the best explanatory power and scope. Sorry for the confusion.
Ok. No problem.
__________________
“It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man." - Richard Feynman |
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rsmartin
Registered: 07/09/08
Posts: 2,475
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| | 08/01/09 at 09:48 PM | Reply with quote | #25 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by Maxeo
As far as the tenability of the mind, I would refer to Abraham Varghese's five arguments of rationality, life [here's a quote by Dawkins on life:]
"Scientists invoke the magic of large numbers... The beauty of the anthropic principle is that it tells us, against all intuition, that a chemical model need only predict that life will arise on one planet in a billion bill to give us a good and entirely satisfying explanation for the presence of life here." [italics mine] Magic? Is it really entirely satisfying?
From which of Dawkins's writings did you take that quote, and from which page? It is not quoted properly, I don't think. What is the following supposed to say:
in a billion bill to give us a good and entirely satisfying explanation for the presence of life here
__________________
It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. –Carl Sagan, Demon-Haunted World, p. 12 |
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rsmartin
Registered: 07/09/08
Posts: 2,475
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| | 08/01/09 at 11:06 PM | Reply with quote | #26 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by olidp
As the title says, and, if it isn't falsifiable, does this matter? Off you go...
Theism is falsifiable. God can be proved not to exist. I know because I've done it. That no Christians and few atheists believe me does not refute my achievement. If I had not proved God's nonexistence I would not be an atheist. I had no peace with my Self until I came to this conclusion in July 2006, after more than forty years of deep, deep searching for this God I was supposed to believe in. If someone or something cannot be found, we conclude that it/he/she does not exist.
The Bible, plus the entire religion, promises that God allows himself to be found of those who diligently search. No one has ever searched more diligently than I. Christians deny this claim but they consistently fail to produce any testimony anywhere to come even close to anything I went through in my search to find this elusive God. As a professing Christian while I still had access to all the Christian literature and testimonies, no one anywhere ever provided any testimony that could tell me HOW to find this God. They would only tell me THAT they found this God. But they provided zero evidence of this God outside glowing testimonies.
The professed "evidence" was nothing but the changing seasons, healed illness, fortunate coincidence, helpful insight, or some other seemingly marvelous or unusual or inexplicable incident or occurrence. For some people, a new-born baby somehow proves the existence of God. Yet there are natural explanations for every single one of these items. Thus, I feel convinced that there probably are natural explanations for the few remaining items that science has not yet figured out. Seeing religious people turn to outright deceit, as they do with Intelligent Design theory, to make science fit their beliefs is evidence of their desperation to squeeze the universe between the covers of the Bible. I absolutely had to find the root of this deception so I studied it for my MA thesis and I learned a LOT that people here seem to wish I hadn't.
I think even my prof was disappointed with the conclusions I reached. However, I was raised with the confidence that Truth can withstand all controversy and testing. I learned the scientific method by default; it just is the way this world works. When one applies the scientific method to the claim that God does and is what Christianity claims, he disappears under the weight of the evidence. I didn't stop with the monotheistic concept of God; I had to know if there is such a thing as a supernatural or spiritual realm. At first, the evidence from anthropology seemed to prove that there is because humans from all cultures, religions, and societies across time and geography had spiritual or religious traditions that had identical feels to them.
Via sociology and psychology of religion I was able to identify what this feel is. What I was unable to do was find the God who was supposed to be behind all these feelings. In addition, I had enormous questions about how the Plan of Salvation worked. That is, how can Jesus' dead body save human souls from hell, as Christian theology teaches?
Not even my theology professors could answer my question. Only ExChristians even asked it. The very question is taboo in Christianity. That no theologian addressed it anywhere in all the heavy reading I had to do for my courses, in spite of the claim that Christianity is such a simple religion that uneducated children and slaves can understand it, proved to me that there is no answer. In other words, the concept itself is invalid: Humans are not evil (I had already concluded this simply from observing life) and require no saving through anyone's blood no matter how it's shed.
Obviously, none of these arguments falsifies theism. But neither do they have to. Nothing is more obvious than a character that fails to turn up. Such a fail-to-turn-up character is seriously questionable. If you claim to have this really intelligent Big Brother who can fix everything that can possibly go wrong with computers but unfortunately he's never available when things do go wrong--well, whether or not you actually have such a brother is beside the point. He is nonexistent so far as I and my computer problems are concerned.
Even if you threaten that he will meet me at the corner store after work with a baseball bat and beat me up if I get another technician--if he never turns up to beat up other workers, the chances that he will beat me up are seriously slim. Not to mention that I need my computer now and he is not available. I'm alive now and need to fix my problems now. Since God did not turn up I had to help myself. I must admit I did a considerably better job on my own in ten years than God did in forty. I don't regret taking over.
Of course, part of the way I thought God was in control and it was quite an issue giving up that idea when I realized that God does not exist and never had existed.
And yes, it matters an awful lot that God does not exist. It is really important that humanity realizes this before it destroys itself. Today, too large a proportion of humanity--including Discovery Institute and followers--is intent on distroying itself in the name of its God.
The impact of this kind of belief system on scientific research and education since the nineteenth century through the twentieth to the present day in the United States--and the funding for such research to continue--cannot be understated. If God existed and did what he is said to do, scientific research would be superfluous. God does not exist and we need to retain what learning we have accumulated in the past five centuries. Not to mention the need to continue learning. See this post.
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It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. –Carl Sagan, Demon-Haunted World, p. 12 |
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wonderer
Registered: 09/08/08
Posts: 2,835
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| | 08/01/09 at 11:54 PM | Reply with quote | #27 |
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You are beautiful when you are passionate RS
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“It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn't get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man." - Richard Feynman |
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olidp
Registered: 04/16/09
Posts: 64
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| | 08/02/09 at 10:23 AM | Reply with quote | #28 |
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Maxeo,
I'm not offended by any of your posts, I just don't think any of them have been right. Offence implies that my feelings were hurt or that I became angry when I read your reponses. I didn't. As I've said, I became concerned by your intolerance of the 'I don't know' position. Given your clarification of your position (claiming the response is a cop out) my distinction between 'I don't know' and 'I don't want to know', and my suspicion that you have a hard time distinguishing accurately between the two, has been borne out. You seem generally uncomfortable with the notion of someone being able to honestly say 'I don't know' on matters which directly impinge on your own worldview. I think saying 'I know' on matters regarding the fundamentals of nature can be just as much of a cop out (or, to put it more usefully and respectfully; unwarranted) as you think saying 'I don't know' is.
For an elaboration of the inquiry stopping nature of 'I know (God did it)' see Neil de Grasse Tyson on You Tube talking about Newton and cosmology (don't have the link at the mo, if I find it I'll post it in this thread).
I was gonna call you out on that quote too. It seems incomplete. I'm not denying that Dawkins may have used the word 'magic', but when quoting you should provide a citation, so the quote can be checked and read in it's broader context. I think Dawkins is clearly using the term in a figurative way. You could have replaced 'magic' with 'wonder' and the meaning would be the same. Nevertheless, I don't hold Dawkins to be perfect or infallible, and do not therefore have to delve in to apologetics every time he makes, or appears to make, an incautious, incorrect, or poorly worded statement.
It surprises me that you appear to find 'magic' so unsatisfying as an answer. How is positing a supernatural being, at odds with anything seen in nature (in my opinion), which is fundamentally and intentionally inscrutable to the human mind (beyond vagaries such as omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient, etc.) any different from magic?
I googled Varghese but could not find much other than a few newspaper articles. As such, I'll withhold on making any definitive statements on his position, but on the basis of what I've seen so far it seems like nothing more than God of the gaps stuff; the 'wonder' and mysteriousness of bumblebees and nature in general. Science can't currently explain this, I personally am incredulous that it ever could, and therefore God. To avoid the earlier straw man confusion, I am laying this out as a generalised version of a certain position which I regard to be invalid, which I would not be surprised if Varghese held, but am not stating he does as a matter of fact.
Quote:
'...I don't think it proves that the immaterial is false and naturalism is all there is.'
I didn't ask you to agree to the fact that neurology, and the absence of any strong scientific evidence for the immaterial, is definitive proof against the immaterial. I asked you to explain why this is currently the case, and thus appears to lead to this conclusion. This sentence is nothing more than an elaborate 'I don't know'. Go on, say it Maxeo, it won't kill you. It might even make you feel good. As I've said, the tentative nature of 'I don't know, but I'm gonna try to' inquiry is owed a great deal. It forms the bedrock of the scientific method, without which, amongst a near infinity of many other things, we would not be having this electronic conversation.
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Maxeo
Registered: 06/13/09
Posts: 1,718
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| | 08/02/09 at 12:34 PM | Reply with quote | #29 |
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Quote: I was gonna call you out on that quote too. It seems incomplete. I'm not denying that Dawkins may have used the word 'magic', but when quoting you should provide a citation, so the quote can be checked and read in it's broader context. I think Dawkins is clearly using the term in a figurative way. You could have replaced 'magic' with 'wonder' and the meaning would be the same. Nevertheless, I don't hold Dawkins to be perfect or infallible, and do not therefore have to delve in to apologetics every time he makes, or appears to make, an incautious, incorrect, or poorly worded statement.
The God Delusion beginning on p. 137 and ending in the last paragraph of 138 (ye of little faith) 
Check it out for yourself for all those who don't believe me...
Quote: I didn't ask you to agree to the fact that neurology, and the absence of any strong scientific evidence for the immaterial, is definitive proof against the immaterial. I asked you to explain why this is currently the case, and thus appears to lead to this conclusion. This sentence is nothing more than an elaborate 'I don't know'. Go on, say it Maxeo, it won't kill you. It might even make you feel good. As I've said, the tentative nature of 'I don't know, but I'm gonna try to' inquiry is owed a great deal. It forms the bedrock of the scientific method, without which, amongst a near infinity of many other things, we would not be having this electronic conversation.
I've said there's nothing wrong with saying "I don't know," my joke was in another context. If one is ignorant, then fine, okay, you don't know. I was stating that an immaterial mind is the best explanation for those five evidences.
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The first to present his case seems right until
another comes forward and questions him. -Prov. 18.17
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Tisthammerw
Registered: 07/05/08
Posts: 166
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| | 08/02/09 at 04:24 PM | Reply with quote | #30 |
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Quote: Originally Posted by harvey1Quote: Originally Posted by olidp
As the title says, and, if it isn't falsifiable, does this matter? Off you go... It's as falsifiable as any coherent philosophy, which is to say that you can always add a sub-hypothesis to save the day. This is one of the implications of the Duhem-Quine thesis. The only exception is that if you could show that God is not logically possible, then in that case theism would be falsifiable.
* Ganders Wikipedia article *
Ha! Some of the material in that Wikipedia article is taken from one of my web pages (though there I called it the "Duhem-Quine problem").
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