Atheist!

[Stella_Omega]

Whoah, wait-- who gets what in that trade, can't?

 

[john-the-author]

On the bright side, you've won my Hero of the Day award for making me giggle maniacally about posts that ordinarily would have done nothing but piss me off a little.

Oh, hurrah! I am ENORMOUSLY pleased that I'm able to add something good to what is otherwise weird, boring drivel.



Busy time here: the youngest just moved back home 2 months early because she's going in for surgery tomorrow afternoon to fix a broken elbow that she got last week when--ta-daaaaa!--trying out for the Roller Derby. (No, she's not going to be able to.)

Hugs, keed!

John

 

[john-the-author]

No, I was saying that it has been my observation over decades of working with biblical studies that people who study the Bible a lot tend to lose their Christian faith (Jewish scholars not so much in having their own faith rocked).

Jews have a lot more sense than Christians in this regard. You could well say that the whole religion is an argument. Since Jews have been Jews (and even before that, the Habiru), there was a tradition of negotiating with G-d. And, for that matter, G-d would negotiate back. (An expression that I've always enjoyed is "The Gods do love those who drive a hard bargain.")

And nowhere in the, uh, 613 basic laws (of which the 10 commandments are only... well, 10) does it say "You must believe in G-d!" There are rules that you won't worship any other gods and lots of rules about the way you're supposed to run your life, but there's no stricture that you've got to actually believe. And the Jews know that they're going to break laws no matter what; it's really unavoidable. So, they go on and do the best they can.

Fundamentalist Jews have a harder time being fundamentalist simply because Talmud says so many different things.

Judaism is an argument. It's not bad.

 

[past_perfect]

This is much better jomar as you did not call me a single name. But you did challenge my ideas, which is good. Thank you.

I do not accept that the existence of God is based on faith. I do not know who does this either. God exist whether people have faith in him or not.Therefore, no signs based on faith are meaningful in this argument. The theist is the most empirical one of the two. He believes in self evident truths, like those in the Constitution. He believes in correct references to these truths called logic and he uses absolute truth as his premise for learning. Now top that.

The burden of proof rest with the person making the assertion. The atheist makes the assertion that there is no God. He must prove this to be logical. The theist proves with evidence the existence of God but the atheist rejects the things that are, like logic, love, science, math, laws of nature, and moral laws, as something that man made himself. Well, that is just not logical. The law of gravity would be here even if man were not. These laws are not relative to what man thinks and they do not change. That is why scientist can depend on these natural laws to discover new knowledge. You might say the epistemology stays the same with God and varies with man and atheist.

I am not interested in rephrasing anything. I would like to be able to express my thoughts better. I am improving but am not doing too bad for a sixth grade education. I have been known to read some. That is where most of my ideas come. I hope you did not find any of this insulting. That would not be my intent.
Play safe, have fun.
wmrs2

I don't get you, sorry, probably because I'm coming from the field you have been mistakenly assigned to. Your definitions of truth and logic are quite unique - unfortunately I don't have the time to give you a full lecture on those, but let me give you a few brief pointers:

Logic works only if you have statements that can be proven to be either true or false. You cannot say they are self-evidently true. The moment you say that, you have left the realm of logic and entered the realm of faith. If you build a concept on statements that cannot be proven, you haven't left the realm of faith, just because the statements in themselves have the semblance of a logical progression. If your entire argument rests on a statement that cannot be proven, your entire argument is void.

Faith gives you a highly subjective and probably very orderly view of reality. Leave it at that. Be happy with that. But don't confuse subjective and objective. To have a logical progression of statements, all of them have to be verifiable and objectively true. If you say that you have to believe that they are objectively true, you have entered an element which cannot work objectively. Belief is subjective and cannot be used in an objective argument.

I hope this clarifies it for you.

 

[rengadeirishman]

why don't we all stop arguing and go have a drink?

first round is on me.

 

[rgraham666]

Because we're having waaaaay too much fucking fun!

 

[sadangel]

Because we're having waaaaay too much fucking fun!

We are! I must have misplaced the fun button! *eyes your shirt pocket and sees it* So...that's where it is!!

Back to regularly scheduled programming now.

Beep!

 

[Stella_Omega]

We are! I must have misplaced the fun button! *eyes your shirt pocket and sees it* So...that's where it is!!

Back to regularly scheduled programming now.

Beep!

His shirt pocket?

No... Rob's fun button is located much lower than that...

 

[sadangel]

His shirt pocket?

No... Rob's fun button is located much lower than that...

<whispers: Think if I ask nicely, I could find out?!>

 

[Liar]

His shirt pocket?

No... Rob's fun button is located much lower than that...

Button?

 

[rgraham666]

His shirt pocket?

No... Rob's fun button is located much lower than that...

Shhhhh! You'll give away all my secrets.

<whispers: Think if I ask nicely, I could find out?!>

Only one way to discover that.

 

[wmrs2]

I don't get you, sorry, probably because I'm coming from the field you have been mistakenly assigned to. Your definitions of truth and logic are quite unique - unfortunately I don't have the time to give you a full lecture on those, but let me give you a few brief pointers:

Logic works only if you have statements that can be proven to be either true or false. You cannot say they are self-evidently true. The moment you say that, you have left the realm of logic and entered the realm of faith. If you build a concept on statements that cannot be proven, you haven't left the realm of faith, just because the statements in themselves have the semblance of a logical progression. If your entire argument rests on a statement that cannot be proven, your entire argument is void.

Faith gives you a highly subjective and probably very orderly view of reality. Leave it at that. Be happy with that. But don't confuse subjective and objective. To have a logical progression of statements, all of them have to be verifiable and objectively true. If you say that you have to believe that they are objectively true, you have entered an element which cannot work objectively. Belief is subjective and cannot be used in an objective argument.

I hope this clarifies it for you.

Thanks for clarifying things for me as I have been waiting for you to step forward to give this point of view coming from a world view that keeps saying you can never know anything for sure. If knowledge is so difficult to grasp, tell me where did science and mathematicians learn so much?

Your explanation of logic comes from the world view that God can not really be known and assumes God may not exist; in fact, you state that it is not necessary to believe God exist. Your attempt to make others think my point of view is so radical and different fails. In America and Western Civilization, my point of view is anything but unique. It is nowhere near original. The point of view that you can not really know anything for sure is what is unique to the world. That is why communistic people have been able to justify their attempted dominance of the world. Their world system, that of the atheist, has no self-evident truths. Your position here is an argument that denies human rights and promotes an arrogance that says since man can not really know, he must be told how to live, not by God but by the higher wisdom of man. You simply claim that it is better to live by humanism than the moral principles of the Western World. We Americans, at least have chosen to keep our self-evident truths and freedom no matter how illogical you say this is. That is what is at stake here, a discussion of two world views. I like mine best.

I am willing to give you a few lectures on the difference between the two world views and how each views logic. You do not support the logic of the Western World but you approach the subject as if you really know what logic is. That is a trick but you do it well. When the deductions of your assertions are evaluated, it is clear that your logic is intended to impose a different way of living that is foreign to man's nature, the Western World and 90% of Americans.

This should be enough for you to consume for now. Hopefully this should help strengthen out your thinking. If you need more, let me know.
wmrs22

 

[wmrs2]

why don't we all stop arguing and go have a drink?

first round is on me.

I like your attitude but I enjoy friendly debate and clarifying ideas. That is why I am here. Besides I can drink you under the table any day. Now that is something to fight about.

 

[sr71plt]

You can increasingly know more--and continually rethink what you thought (wrongly) you already knew--without ever knowing it all. And "all" is an expanding reality anyway. Even if you knew all right now, you would no longer know all three seconds from now. *shrug*

 

[sr71plt]

Besides I can drink you under the table any day.

Well, now, you don't "know" that; you just "think" and "assert" and "believe" that (and, actually probably not even any of those--you probably realize this is hollow bravada). So, see, you don't know everything afterall.

 

[past_perfect]

Thanks for clarifying things for me as I have been waiting for you to step forward to give this point of view coming from a world view that keeps saying you can never know anything for sure. If knowledge is so difficult to grasp, tell me where did science and mathematicians learn so much?

Your explanation of logic comes from the world view that God can not really be known and assumes God may not exist; in fact, you state that it is not necessary to believe God exist. Your attempt to make others think my point of view is so radical and different fails. In America and Western Civilization, my point of view is anything but unique. It is nowhere near original. The point of view that you can not really know anything for sure is what is unique to the world. That is why communistic people have been able to justify their attempted dominance of the world. Their world system, that of the atheist, has no self-evident truths. Your position here is an argument that denies human rights and promotes an arrogance that says since man can not really know, he must be told how to live, not by God but by the higher wisdom of man. You simply claim that it is better to live by humanism than the moral principles of the Western World. We Americans, at least have chosen to keep our self-evident truths and freedom no matter how illogical you say this is. That is what is at stake here, a discussion of two world views. I like mine best.

I am willing to give you a few lectures on the difference between the two world views and how each views logic. You do not support the logic of the Western World but you approach the subject as if you really know what logic is. That is a trick but you do it well. When the deductions of your assertions are evaluated, it is clear that your logic is intended to impose a different way of living that is foreign to man's nature, the Western World and 90% of Americans.

This should be enough for you to consume for now. Hopefully this should help strengthen out your thinking. If you need more, let me know.
wmrs22

Excuse me? There is only one logic. A statement can either be true or false. That is not a world view. That is logic as it is, as it is being used in mathematics, other sciences and philosophy for crying out loud. And that doesn't say nothing can be known for sure. I can say: The earth is round. That is a verifiable statement. I don't need faith for that. It's a simple scientific fact. You claimed in an earlier post we are born with intuition and logic. That is simply wrong. Science tells us, it isn't like that. Science isn't biased or out to get you. It analyses the data available and draws logical conclusions. Full stop.

Believe me, lots of good and clever philosophers with such an inclination have tried to prove the existence of God. They couldn't. Cleverer philosophers then started saying, well, it doesn't matter. Rationalism and logic are one thing, and it is not mutually exclusive to having faith. I have no problem with that.

I am a Christian btw, and studied comparative religion out of interest and to figure out what it means to me - and I have to admit, I find your way of arguing a little immature. Faith is something precious, cherish it, but don't make it a brain substitute. What else you read into my explanation simply baffles me. As it baffles me whenever I start explaining something to American people - I try to clarify something really simple and next thing I know they claim I am attacking their way of life, their philosophy and their Constitution, am a herald of world communism and probably rape children. Wtf?

Again, logic is a tool, not a way of life. It doesn't match well with matters of faith. Absolutes and self-evident truths are a different way of saying: I believe they are self-evident, or I believe them to be absolute, unless you start proving something logically from scratch and explain why they are like that - then you can either convince me or not.

I hope you that makes it a little clearer for you.

 

[rengadeirishman]

I like your attitude but I enjoy friendly debate and clarifying ideas. That is why I am here. Besides I can drink you under the table any day. Now that is something to fight about.

famous last words.

 

[oggbashan]

Excuse me? There is only one logic. A statement can either be true or false. ...

Again, logic is a tool, not a way of life. It doesn't match well with matters of faith. Absolutes and self-evident truths are a different way of saying: I believe they are self-evident, or I believe them to be absolute, unless you start proving something logically from scratch and explain why they are like that - then you can either convince me or not.

I hope you that makes it a little clearer for you.

The US Declaration of Independence has a lot to answer for: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

They weren't. Lincoln made some of them happen. Women's rights made some of them happen. Martin Luther King made some of them happen.

"Self-evident?" It took nearly two hundred years to attempt to make them universal in the US.

Self-evident is a nonsense in logic but has a spurious resonance because of the Declaration of Independence.

Og

 

[sr71plt]

The US Declaration of Independence has a lot to answer for: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

They weren't. Lincoln made some of them happen. Women's rights made some of them happen. Martin Luther King made some of them happen.

"Self-evident?" It took nearly two hundred years to attempt to make them universal in the US.

Self-evident is a nonsense in logic but has a spurious resonance because of the Declaration of Independence.

Og

You also have to have a sense of the times. "Men" was even more of a limiting term than we generally think of today. Jefferson, who wrote (but read plagiarized some) the document, didn't consider blacks fully human (but, for some reason, did consider native Americans such), let alone "men"--and, other than Abigail Adams, didn't think woman qualified as equal at all. And "men" was taken as, yes, males--but only males meeting certain property requirements. Jefferson's sense of a "Creator" was more deist (a God created the earth and then floated away to leave it to its own devices) than anything we ascribe to "Creator" today. Liberty, of course, applied to males of means only. And, strangely enough, "pursuit of happiness" was a commerce term in those days.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Button?

Well... more like a lever, really.

 

[wmrs2]

Excuse me? There is only one logic. A statement can either be true or false. That is not a world view. That is logic as it is, as it is being used in mathematics, other sciences and philosophy for crying out loud. And that doesn't say nothing can be known for sure. I can say: The earth is round. That is a verifiable statement. I don't need faith for that. It's a simple scientific fact. You claimed in an earlier post we are born with intuition and logic. That is simply wrong. Science tells us, it isn't like that. Science isn't biased or out to get you. It analyses the data available and draws logical conclusions. Full stop.

Believe me, lots of good and clever philosophers with such an inclination have tried to prove the existence of God. They couldn't. Cleverer philosophers then started saying, well, it doesn't matter. Rationalism and logic are one thing, and it is not mutually exclusive to having faith. I have no problem with that.

I am a Christian btw, and studied comparative religion out of interest and to figure out what it means to me - and I have to admit, I find your way of arguing a little immature. Faith is something precious, cherish it, but don't make it a brain substitute. What else you read into my explanation simply baffles me. As it baffles me whenever I start explaining something to American people - I try to clarify something really simple and next thing I know they claim I am attacking their way of life, their philosophy and their Constitution, am a herald of world communism and probably rape children. Wtf?

Again, logic is a tool, not a way of life. It doesn't match well with matters of faith. Absolutes and self-evident truths are a different way of saying: I believe they are self-evident, or I believe them to be absolute, unless you start proving something logically from scratch and explain why they are like that - then you can either convince me or not.

I hope you that makes it a little clearer for you.

You deliberately define logic incorrectly. That is a characteristic of the world view you represent. Logic is making correct inferences and requires a premise that does not change. That is the classical definition of logic. Self-evident truths are the only premises that do not change. This thesis statement is not a world view but it does originate and is supported by a world view. You see, a world view is prior to logic. Logic is a deduction, not a comparison as you contend.

You do not view science the way the Western World views it. Science does not tell us that logic does not exist outside of us. If we did not exist, logic would be here. I simply said that when be were born, logic, math, science, natural laws. etc. were already here. Man did not make logic any more than he created science or natural laws.

Science is out to get you. The job of science is to make truth that has always existed a knowable fact. Science did not create the atom but it did learn to manipulate the atom. I am not a clever philosopher but I do know both intuitively and scientifically that God does exist.You have failed to present any evidence that God does not exist and to keep saying God does not exist is indeed intellectually immature of atheist. Your denial of a world system originating from God is also irrational since you say you are a Christian. The Christian Bible tells us that we must believe that God is (Heb:11:6). In Christianity, belief that God is, is necessary before faith. Your world system clearly has you confused about what you believe; therefore, do not think you have made things clearer for me or other Christians that may be depending on your wisdom.

Thank you for responding to my previous statements. Be well.
wmrs2

 

[Stella_Omega]

I always say there's a big difference between lower-case "truth" which means "a statement that agrees with reality and is verifiable by facts"

and Truth with a capital "T" which means "That which I will believe no matter what the facts are," often synomymous with "religion."

And you have to prove god exists, not the other way around.

 

[wmrs2]

The US Declaration of Independence has a lot to answer for: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

They weren't. Lincoln made some of them happen. Women's rights made some of them happen. Martin Luther King made some of them happen.

"Self-evident?" It took nearly two hundred years to attempt to make them universal in the US.

Self-evident is a nonsense in logic but has a spurious resonance because of the Declaration of Independence.

Og

This statement comes to us at a perfect time. It enables us to view exactly what I have been saying. A world view of a world without God would work to eliminate Unalienable Rights. According to oggbashan he thinks the Declaration of Independence has a lot to answer for. Many an evil despot has sought to replace our unalienable rights with a law of their own. Americans have always been able to defeat this perverted logic, but at a great cost of life.

Self-evident is a nonsense to every despot and enemy of democracy. That is what is really being said here.

 

[wmrs2]

You also have to have a sense of the times. "Men" was even more of a limiting term than we generally think of today. Jefferson, who wrote (but read plagiarized some) the document, didn't consider blacks fully human (but, for some reason, did consider native Americans such), let alone "men"--and, other than Abigail Adams, didn't think woman qualified as equal at all. And "men" was taken as, yes, males--but only males meeting certain property requirements. Jefferson's sense of a "Creator" was more deist (a God created the earth and then floated away to leave it to its own devices) than anything we ascribe to "Creator" today. Liberty, of course, applied to males of means only. And, strangely enough, "pursuit of happiness" was a commerce term in those days.

From your world view, should every American repudiate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? See, this discussion is about the importance of one's world view and your world view does mean something. People who love liberty should not tolerate the erosion of their national philosophy, which has a thesis statement to oppose atheistic USSR: In God We Trust. I like it. Let's keep it.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Your nurse will be along with your rubber spoon, in just a few more minutes.