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| Is religious fundamentalism a disease of the mind? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 7 2007, 12:38 AM (5,024 Views) | |
| Dewey | Apr 7 2007, 06:39 AM Post #26 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Bingo. The funny thing is that I suspect that the real "rank and file" among fundamentalists would be able to sincerely say the exact same thing. Sure, there are the voices of intolerance; the Fred Phelpses and his ilk. But the vast majority of fundamentalists that I've known, and know, can simultaneously have tolerance for others beliefs, mistaken though they may feel them to be, without feeling a threat to their own beliefs. That's something very different from the issue of a fundamentalist exercisign political franchise to achieve social ends more aligned with his or her own beliefs. Everyone who votes does the exact same thing. Merely wanting the world to be more to your liking doesn't automatically translate into fear or intolerance of others' beliefs. This also marks what to me is a crucial difference among various fundamentalists. It's become pc to dump all religious fundamentalists into the same category. I don't. There are (for the sake of this matter) two different types of fundamentalist: 1. those who are willing to let societal matters be decided by the society at large, recognizing the pluralistic nature of the society; and who will individually and corporately adhere to their own belief system even if the larger society rejects it, and 2. those who do not recognize the pluralism of society (most importantly, pluralism of conscience), and who would deny the larger society itself to decide societal matters; opting instead for a socio-religious structure imposed top-down by a minority onto the society as a whole. This isn't a distinction based on the actual religion - or secular position - that is being fundamentalistically adhered to. This distinction can be made within, and across, those demarcations. One is a "tolerant fundamentalism;" the other is "fascist fundamentalism," regardless of the God, or god, being worshipped. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| JBryan | Apr 7 2007, 06:45 AM Post #27 |
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I am the grey one
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All evidence at hand would indicate that the earth is greater than 6,000 years old and it is certainly the way to bet. The evidence for man having a common ancestor is a bit more shaky but is, still, the way to bet. However, to state that it is utterly impossible, absolutely 0% chance that it could be otherwise as this statement clearly implies:
strikes me as being far more fundamentalist than scientific or reasoned. |
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"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it". Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody. Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore. From The Lion in Winter. | |
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| Riley | Apr 7 2007, 06:51 AM Post #28 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Funny how quick you are to defend Religious Fundamentalism and argue the use of the term 'disease', yet you seem to have no problem with thecomments another member makes daily. |
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| Jeffrey | Apr 7 2007, 07:45 AM Post #29 |
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Senior Carp
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jon asks if religious fundamentalism is a "disease" of the mind. To answer this, one needs a definition of "disease of the mind". Religion is an expression of irrationality, and as Dawkins's book puts it a "delusion", but "disease" does not seem supported. Until the rise of modern science, belief in some sort of religion was a plausible way of looking at the world. I have not voted, but if I had to vote, I would have to vote "no" to jon's question. I do not think that an autopsy of the brains of religious believers versus non-believers will reveal any sort of disease pattern: if so, the answer to jon's question can be scientifically documented to be "no". |
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| Dewey | Apr 7 2007, 07:54 AM Post #30 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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No, it doesn't apply to someone who says that two plus two equals five, because it is objectively provable that this is an incorrect statement. We're dealing with issues here that must deal with issues that are not objectively provable, nor even issues that there can be a decisive preponderance of evidence to make a "reasonable" conclusion. And here, I'm not talking about the "age of the earth" issue. You say:
I do not believe that the earth is 6,000 years old. Further, I'm not a fundamentalist. But on behalf of them, let me at least explain one thing about them to you. The core belief - or "core delusion," to you - of fundamentalists is not what the age of the earth is. Fundamentalist Christians' core belief is in God, and that Jesus Christ is the human incarnation of this God who acts to reconcile a broken relationship between God and us. That is their core belief. A secondary extension of that belief is the nature, and the way to understand and interpret, the Biblical scriptures. In other words, fundamentalist Christians believe that the earth is 6,000 years old because they believe in Christ, and the truth proclaimed in the Biblical scriptures. They don't believe in Christ because they believe the earth is 6,000 years old. But back to your earlier comment:
Even granting, for the sake of discussion, that your assertion is true - that my argument may equally apply to any truth claim - you're still mistaken. That doesn't make my statement self-refuting; it merely means it could be made in several scenarios. That doesn't refute the possibility that one of those positions is, in fact true. You're mistakenly assuming that I'm attempting to "prove" my position to you. I'm only pointing out the possibility of its truth. Your position is far more dependent upon proving or refuting than what I'm discussing here.
Simply restating the same argument using different illustrations does nothing to erase its fundamental flaw. The geological content of the moon is objectively provable. We can, and have, gone there and brought back literally rock-solid evidence of its makeup. Similarly, the man who thinks he can fly can, in an unfortunate and quite possibly "concrete" way, prove that he can't. It is even possible to send probes to Mars to prove or disprove the existence of pink unicorns there. What is not possible is to quantifiably prove or disprove the existence, nature, and will, of the supreme being believed in by the fundamentalists - and myself. The single argument, in its numerous wordings, don't address the same issue at all.
No, I don't base my belief that snow is cold, or that concrete is hard, or that my hairline is receding, or that five plus five equals ten, on "reason." There are certain things that are empirically provable by fact. Western concepts of "reason" deal with issues of "truth," which, while somewhat related to fact, is something very different. However, so-called Enlightenment philosophy has tried to blur these lines, by arguing matters of "truth" as if they were "fact," by self-determining their own criteria as the ultimate arbiter of truth. Truth, then, becomes not only true, but fact, based entirely on the level of agreement between the truth given claim and their own subjective criteria. I simply believe that there are worlds undreamt of, or at least unquantifiable by, the very real limitations of a relatively small group of Enlightenment-era thinkers and their latter-day disciples.
Incoherent only to the extent that one holds Enlightenment "Rationalism" to be the complete, ultimate arbiter of truth, fact, and now, definition.
I think that's pretty self-explanatory. The only way that you could have trouble understanding it is if you adopt the rather myopic view I mentioned immediately above.
Here's a key part of our difference. You hold that the fullest definition of a concept is determined by human understanding of the term; I simply disagree with that position. Neither do I consider it a valid argument to say, "of course I hold that the 'human understanding' is the ultimate meaning of a word; we invented the word and the concept; we have the right to set its definition!" I believe that we have not, in fact, invented the concept; rather, that we have been given a "being-ness" that has a rudimentary understanding of a much broader concept than we can fully comprehend. At best, we get to choose the sounds and written symbols to name that concept, and I'd even argue that the ability to do this is given by the same One who gives us the basic understanding of the concept in question. Because of that, I deny that we humans can set ourselves up as the final arbiter of the full meaning of concepts like truth, reason, mercy, justice, and so on. That's why I agree completely with your comment,
In fact, I think you were more accurate than you knew.
On the contrary, the reality of either would, or should, have a tremendous impact on how we understood our world. To continue to act as if something was not the case, if in fact it were, would invalidate all current claims of so-called "reason."
Oddly, that exact statement could be made by the most strident of fundamentalists. In fact, I believe it just was.
Again to the contrary, I do not believe truth to be at all relative, I believe in an absolute seat of, and definition of, truth. You do too; we just find it seated in different places. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| AlbertaCrude | Apr 7 2007, 07:59 AM Post #31 |
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Bull-Carp
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Fundamentalism is primarily a reaction to the collapse of piety rooted in mythology and the spiritual crisis of modernity. As with any religious reformist movement it wishes to go back to the basics of what it considers are core beliefs. A peculiarity of Christian fundamentalism is its emphasis on doctrine and rationalising the religious experience by focussing on what it considers absolutes; i.e the literal truth of scripture as the inerrant word of God and other core beliefs as Dewey has already outlined. While I think it to be misguided and dreadfully wrongheaded, it is not a mental illness. |
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| Moonbat | Apr 7 2007, 08:01 AM Post #32 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Nit-pick much? It's not technically impossible, but the same can be said for the existence of Australia, (technically one cannot prove it) or the distance of the moon from the Earth. Once a certain point is reached something becomes so probable that psychologically one considers it true. It is in the context of everyday speech that i say that the world is not 6000 years old fullstop. Now ok one can be nuanced about it. Then we would say that the world is not 6000 years old is improbable to an immense degree, fullstop. People who say it is probable are simply wrong. |
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| Jeffrey | Apr 7 2007, 08:02 AM Post #33 |
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Senior Carp
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Another point: religious fundamentalists often try to "relativize" the discussion by claiming that atheism is just another "religion" or "fundamentalism". This is an attempt to ward off charges of irrationality or ignorance on the part of the religious believer. This is false, since as Moonbat has pointed out, one viewpoint is based on reason and evidence, and the other on revelation from a Holy Text and "faith", which allows no choosing between different Holy Texts or faiths, except that people tend to stay with the one given to them as children in their culture. Dawkins makes another good, if rhetorical point, in The God Delusion on this turning the tables sort of argument (claiming atheism is just another religion or fundamentalism). Everybody is an atheist about thousands of gods, even religious believers. They are "atheists" about Zoroastrianism, Islam(assuming they are Christian), Zeus, Judaism (assuming they are Muslim), Christianity (assuming they are Muslim, etc.), and all the other religions other than their own. Everybody here is a sceptic and atheist about Mormonism (unless I missed somebody). As Dawkins points out, atheists just take their atheism one god further than the fundamentalist (who is logically an atheist about all competing religions). All religious believers are atheists about other religions. |
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| Dewey | Apr 7 2007, 08:46 AM Post #34 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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That's not a particularly good argument on his part. Atheism doesn't refer to how one understands what the true nature of a deity to be - whether by description of religious belief system (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, etc.) or subdefinition (Catholic, Baptist, Shiite, Sunni). If you told bachophile that he's an atheist because he doesn't agree with my understanding of God's nature, he'd laugh at you, or I suppose more accurately, at Dawkins. I think that in one sense, Dawkins gets close to a truth in this line of argument, but this not being horseshoes or hand grenades, that isn't good enough. He's properly noted a commonality in us, but he's misidentified what that commonality is. We are not all atheists of one description or another. I believe that we're all actually theists, in the sense that we all have a supreme concept - one theologian has called it our "Ultimate Concern" - to which we give our allegiance and veneration. Our only difference is which ultimate concern we've chosen to take off the buffet line. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| AlbertaCrude | Apr 7 2007, 08:47 AM Post #35 |
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Bull-Carp
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A very good examination of Christian, Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism can found here: Armstrong, Karen. The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism
Rather reminiscent of another thread, about a week ago.....seems to me Dawkin's isn't the first to hold this view of atheism. As I previously demonstrated, it has a verifible precedent in history. |
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| DivaDeb | Apr 7 2007, 09:13 AM Post #36 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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thank you Carry on, Men. Interesting reading. |
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| Dewey | Apr 7 2007, 09:30 AM Post #37 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Sigh... You know you could bring so very, very much to this conversation.
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| Dewey | Apr 7 2007, 09:34 AM Post #38 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Yes, and in this context it's even more inapplicable. As he attempts to make a 21st century argument for atheism, Dawkins would possibly the last person on the planet to base his definition of the term on that used by some sixteenth century clerics. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| TomK | Apr 7 2007, 09:36 AM Post #39 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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The interesting thing though, is that if Fundamentalists (and other believers in God,) are so misguided about so many real truths about reality--why are they successful in so many aspects of today's society? If one went by pay stubs, the "religionists" on the board would be the equal of the "rational thinkers". Same goes for "happy families" and the such. There doesn't seem to be any advantage in being "rational" about one's understanding of the world. |
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| katie | Apr 7 2007, 09:38 AM Post #40 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Good thread Jon. Interesting reading on both sides.
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| DivaDeb | Apr 7 2007, 10:05 AM Post #41 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I'm a little over-committed for a big discussion right now, Dewey. In addition to my teaching schedule, and the kid's stuff, I've been working about 30-40 hours a week researching and editing a rather large project for a theology prof (subject: worship). A tremendous amount of reading, writing, and analysis of music, history, art, philosophy, Hebrew, Greek, geography, you name it...I actually came onto the forum for a break from the academic stuff, to skate around doing dumb things like answering lists of a bunch of silly questions. I also have a kid having a birthday on Monday, a bit of a 'piano recital' to play for in a couple of weeks, right before I take 22 ballerinas to Pittsburgh for a week, so I daren't get too distracted from my appointed rounds. My head is organized and on task so far. I appreciate the balance you're bringing to the discussion, especially since you don't really have a horse in this race, being neither atheist nor fundamentalist. I'm pretty sure I won't have missed my opportunity to contribute on this topic. The question of my sanity seems to come up here, on a fairly regular basis. Now, I must go about my ignorant, irrational business and clean my house. We have a special day tomorrow. Not only is it Resurrection Day, it's the third anniversary of our church. Lots to celebrate. Signed, the only fundie in this thread |
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| Dewey | Apr 7 2007, 10:10 AM Post #42 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Obviously the rantings of a lunatic. Keep your head above water, Deb. Congrats on the third anniversary, and praise God that Jesus Christ is indeed risen from the dead. |
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"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685. "Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous "Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011 I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14 | |
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| TomK | Apr 7 2007, 10:19 AM Post #43 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Pretty interesting that for the most part the Fundamentalists don't get too involved in religion talk around here. From what we are led to believe about them they should be slinging hellfire and damnation all around this place. Hmmm. Do you think that maybe the media and the secularists are a bit on their case?
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| katie | Apr 7 2007, 10:28 AM Post #44 |
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Fulla-Carp
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My gosh, I wish I could multi-task like DD can.
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| Jeffrey | Apr 7 2007, 11:05 AM Post #45 |
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Senior Carp
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Dewey - Yes, I said his argument was a bit "rhetorical". However, he is correct that we are all atheists (i.e. disbelievers) about wood fairies and Zoroastrianism. He just goes one supernatural spirit-being further. Everybody is a disbeliever in something. |
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| Moonbat | Apr 7 2007, 11:09 AM Post #46 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Two plus two is defined to be equal to four. Or rather the result of two plus two is defined to be the word "four" or the symbol "4". To say two plus two equals five (and by "five" i mean "4+1" or "3+2") is a contradiction, it is incoherent, it is not wrong or right, it's undefined, it's meaningless, it's nothing more than an arbitrary collection of symbols. Your argument applies to all statements consistent in themselves, it can be used to defend pink unicorns on Mars or invisible elephants or any of an infinite number of mutually exclusive descriptions. Because it can be applied to any conclusion it is worthless at distinguishing those conclusions that are likely to be true from those likely to be false. You thus cannot use it to attack the idea that a certain conclusion is valid or invalid. All issues about the real world are not 'proveable'. Proof is irrelevent, only mathematicians can have it. It only applies to definitions, when it comes to seeing whether those definitions fit the real world. One must appeal to something other than formal proof. One must appeal to evidence. To a basis for belief.
I'm aware of this. It doesn't alter the point that they are utterly divorced from reality. And something means they resist reconnecting. Whether one describes the process that drives this disconnection as an illness is a matter of semantics. As far as i'm aware there is not a completely rigorous definition of illness/disease/syndromme. But whatever the label something is breaking (some of) their minds (when it comes to particular areas).
We can do alot better than possibility. It is 'possible' that there really are invisible ninjas, it's possible that the fundamentalists are right, it's possible that i'm a sleeping armadillo in a 7 dimensional universe having a particularly vivid dream. There are an infinite number of mutually exclusive possibles. What matters are not possibles but probables. Is it likely that there are invisible ninjas? Is it likely that the world is actually 6000 years old? (No and no). If you're interested in your beliefs being correct (and anyone who has beliefs must be, otherwise what the juice do they mean by "beliefs" in the first place) then you're interested in probables. Your argument is hopelessly flawed: Against the argument that there is no basis for belief in
You demonstrate the perils of natural language for if i take an everyday speech view of truth or proof i get JBryan accusing me of fundamentlism, and you confusing two entirely different concepts: The two statements "2+2=4" and "the speed of light is 2.997*10^8 ms^-1" are entirely different categories of statement one is mere definition, simple tautology. The other is a description of something, a claim about reality. You can't prove descriptions about reality. You can't prove that the man who is jumping off the cliff will not fly away - go ahead and try - all you can do is say that the best bet in light of the evidence is that he will fall. Now in that instance the best bet is such a good bet that unless we are philosophising we simply consider it to be true. Probes would not prove the existence or non-existence of unicorns they would simply provide more evidence. But this is of no consequence even if we pretend they would provide proof there have as yet been no probes so as of this point even you, with your totally wrong idea of what proof constitutes, are forced to accept the question of pink unicorns on Mars has not been proved. And yet it's still ridiculous to believe in pink unicorns on Mars! What matters are not questions of proof but questions of basis (which essentially means evidence). It simply _doesn't follow_ that finding a pepper corn under your table implies the moon is made of cheese. That is the case _irrespective_ of what geological lunar analysis shows.
Irrelevent. It's not possible to quantity, prove or disprove the existence, nature and will of invisible flying monkeys. The reason it's ridiculous to believe in What matters is basis, what separates ridiculous flying monkeys from trivially obvious post boxes is basis for belief.
Non-sequiter. Anything can be defended by saying oh yes but you're just putting your faith in reason. Oh you think i'm wrong about invisible flying monkeys oh yes but you're just putting your faith in reason. You think i'm wrong about the lack of pink unicorns on Mars oh but you're just putting your faith in reason. You think i'm wrong about the moon being made of cheese oh but you're just putting your faith in reason. Oh you have some analysis of lunar soil? How do you know it's lunar soil? How do you know the instruments are not lieing? How do you know that it didn't start off as cheese and then change to rock? So much faith you have in reason. (Tom see,s to go even further into this gibberish by saying you just have faith in logic, oh you think i'm wrong about 2+2=5 oh well you're just putting your faith in logic...) Reason sits between your experiences and the conclusions you draw from them. You experience cold when you touch snow but you infer that snow is a real substance that exists out in the world and has a certain temperature. That inference is a rational one. You experience a certain response when you touch or collide with concrete and you infer that there is a real substance out there with certain physical properties. You don't for instance conclude that you are in a VR machine or that concrete really is a mystical substance that becomes an armadillo every time you turn round. Five plus five equals ten is pure logic, pure mathematical consistency it is different from the above examples in that it is proveable given the definition of plus and the definitions of the numbers that you intuitively use. But it is still logic.
You simply do not understand the ideas. I think it's practically guaranteed there are concepts undreamt of, indeed its quite possible that aspects of reality are not simply undreamt of but undreamable of. But this is again completely irrelevent. Nothing i've said is predicate on us being able to imagine everything or quantify everything or being able to concieve of everything.
Give me an example of two different "systems of logic and reason" as soon as you do i will show you that the problem is simply semantics and is of no consequence to anything i've said.
Meaningless. We are humans we use words to describe stuff. Humans can't do any better than the human understanding of a term. Even if God exists and tells you about a word, then you're still stuck with what you understand of what he's told you about the word.
Even we didn't invent the word it makes not slightest bit of difference. We're the ones trying to use it and if we don't know what we mean it's of no use. Again your defense is utterly absurd first you turned on reason and your turning on actually understanding the words you use. But of course this is not so suprising for if one wanted to defend an idea like
Of course of course, what i mean is even if it's true that there is a God or there are invisible killer ant eaters the fact remains the best we can do is reason out the best bet for truth given the available information.
A fundamentalist might also say that the sky is blue but it would be of little relevence. The fundamentalist might make some superficial appeal to empiricism but of course they completley collapse when the results of empirical investigation are pointed out. And they also completely collapse when they are called to justify their conclusions they invariably fall back on the faith delusion thing of "i believe because i believe because i have faith" etc. etc. |
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| TomK | Apr 7 2007, 11:10 AM Post #47 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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And everybody's believeing in something--even if that only "nothing." It's not just rhetorical. It's Sophistry. |
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| Moonbat | Apr 7 2007, 11:18 AM Post #48 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Now that is sophistry. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| DivaDeb | Apr 7 2007, 11:25 AM Post #49 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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have you studied philosophy, moonbat? |
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| Moonbat | Apr 7 2007, 11:31 AM Post #50 |
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Pisa-Carp
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A fair amount of modern philosophy, and i have a general familiarity with some of the bigger ideas form historical philosophy but not have not spent vast amounts of time with it. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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12:45 AM Jul 13