JCC God Exists.

Not at all. It simply wasn't an argument that was primarily about science.

 

Sure. It can easily be discarded with some science, though.

The argument is "if you look at the world as a religious person, you see the signs that God is there".

May I introduce you to the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

 

You've not studied your Qu'ran very closely have you?

And Solomon inherited David. He said, "O people, we have been taught the language of birds, and we have been given from all things. Indeed, this is evident bounty."
And gathered for Solomon were his soldiers of the jinn and men and birds, and they were [marching] in rows.

Until, when they came upon the valley of the ants, an ant said, "O ants, enter your dwellings that you not be crushed by Solomon and his soldiers while they perceive not."

So [Solomon] smiled, amused at her speech, and said, "My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favour which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to do righteousness of which You approve. And admit me by Your mercy into [the ranks of] Your righteous servants."

 

Watched this last night. Thanks for the link!

The whole thing was a bit frustrating, but one of the scientists had a fairly eloquent speech that I thought was the best moment of the show:

He says this with a certain humility and resignation and good humor, and it makes it a really appealing moment.

 

I liked the part where the skeptic guy explains how the Ark would have collapsed under its own weight, too.

 

Danthe's sock?

 

continuing:

Name any other great teachers that were insane. Generally, that's a good tip that they're not the people you should go to for advice, I'd say.

And yet, evolution espouses the survival of the fittest. How many subspecies of apes had to be killed because they were in the way of our development? What you're saying is that we feel good when we help others, which gives us a reason to help each other, which moves us along as a species (so, really, even selflessness is selfish). But that also seems to go against our nature to let the weak die off. It seems to me it would be good to help the strong, but helping the weak is resisting development.

Chimps rape and pillage, so it seems a bit unnecessary to point out that we only do bad things because we have developed the cognitive ability to override our genetic programming.

C.S. Lewis was a great thinker and highly educated. Reason has not changed so much that 50 years ago man was made up of idiots. There are great thinkers that we still look to sprinkled throughout time. He was also an atheist, after starting as a Christian, or being raised in the faith, anyway. So, he processed through a very good deal of all of this. He is still looked to in this area because most or all of his work holds up.

Even with the quote that you addressed, your response was, "Well, I would learn from a crazy man."

Think about that for a second. If you were in a university class and half the time your professor was going on about how he was God and was the Son of God and was going to die and come back to life and heal the sick (which, of course, he never did, if he was only a teacher) and he said he was going to come again to judge everyone and send them to heaven and hell...

You'd stick around for that? How many students would report that to the university? How long until he was fired? So, that couldn't take place in a university. So, you're saying if some guy was just wandering the streets of America, or wherever you are, with nothing, yelling about selling all your stuff and loving everyone...

It's laughable. Just picture some homeless looking dude yelling "I AM GOD" at you. I mean, this isn't exactly how it went down, but at some point you'd run into that.

And he's right, it's the same as if he was saying he was a poached egg. How can he be trusted? He has no grasp of reality. Or, he is a liar, and cannot be trusted.

 

Socrates heard voices.

 

I would say you bring up some valid points, AFS1983, but you're a women so there must be something wrong with them.

 

Well, relativism is wrong on its face. If there is no absolute truth, is that absolutely true?

That's also an interesting notion.. You don't believe in God, but you believe in this ethereal evolutionary driving force. Nature knows it's trying to get better, so it pushes in that direction, ironically, towards an ultimate end in nothingness, but that is the belief. The universe started, randomly, then life started, randomly, against all odds on both counts, then life seeks to become stronger, so as not to die, only so that it can all end up dying. It makes for a futile existence. There is no meaning of life. There will eventually be no life.

Your definition of empathy and altruism robs them of everything good about them. It turns them into utter selfishness. It turns them into another base pleasure and success-seeking endeavor. I mean, even if we say "that man who lived his whole life so that he gave everything he had every day of his life and died with nothing so as to help his fellow man live better lives and become a stronger race etc. etc.," then really he is a fool, for having wasted his entire life on a people that will eventually waste away.

once again, that is not altruism for its own sake. That is altruism for your own sake. If you give a gift, expecting to receive something in return, it was not much of a gift at all.

I have never heard of primates doing what you have described. Being loving? yes. Caring? yes. But how in the world could you know that they have the ability to place themselves in another ape's shoes? That sounds made up to me.

The golden rule is revolutionary now. It doesn't say "do unto others and you will receive something in return" it says "do unto others what you would want done to you (whether they do so or not)." THAT is revolutionary. This world is all about what we can get. Even when many people donate to charities, they make sure to get their receipts for tax write offs. (and no, I'm not saying that's wrong, but I am saying something.)

To give without expecting anything in return, including some kind of euphoric feeling... that's weird.

 

God this thread has gotten insufferably serious.

Oh well, what the hell.

Moral relativism =/= epistemological relativism, and they are both independent questions. Trite terminological shenanigans do not a counterargument make. Not to mention you've inadvertently made a good case against your own reversal, since if "moral relativism is wrong on its face" were self-evident, no one would disagree with you.

 

I think you're right, to an extent, of distinguishing between the two, though, to another, they do go hand in hand.

Also, just because you call something a name, doesn't invalidate it. There is no absolute truth is an absolute truth, thereby nullifying it, because of the law of noncontradiction.

That is not true, as plenty of people believe in epistemological relativism. And also from the very nature of the fact that some people believe in God and others believe there is no God. One is true, the other isn't. Just because relativism is false does not, inherently, make the truth apparent, then.

But you're right in moral relativism being slightly different.

 

They do not. Epistemological relativism requires moral relativism, yes, but one can be a moral relativist and still subscribe to the notion that 2+2=4.

that law would presuppose epistemological certainty, and would therefore be independent of epistemological relativism. Such a relativism permits contradictions. It's not unlike the notion that complete predicate calculus would contradict itself - people who believe in those sorts of ideas do not view paradox as demonstrative of falsehood.

Edit: Corrections, see below.

 

Ramza, are you really arguing that there's no contradiction when you say "there are absolutely no absolute truths"? Why not just acknowledge the contradiction and then say "there aren't very many absolute truths" instead? `

 

So, no they don't go hand in hand, to an extent, except yes, they do?

I mean, one requiring the other would be an extent, yes? Anyway, it's a bit moot because you have made your point that there needs to be some clarity there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_noncontradiction

 

I'm arguing the statement "there are absolutely no absolute truths" cannot be considered in an epistemologically relative system, so, no, I'm not. I personally consider it a paradox since I subscribe to the notion of absolute truths.

Edit:

Oh, *3.24. Never heard it called that, and now I feel silly.

 

"save me jeebus" ~homer simpson, whilst reading this thread

 

"Everything that has transpired in this thread has done so according to my design."

 

Lestat, drank Jesus's blood. So I totally believe in him.

 

If there is a god, then it knows exactly what it would take to convince me, and has refused to provide it. In fact, it has gone to great lengths to hide any evidence of its existence. That doesn't sound like a deity that wants to be worshiped to me.

 

God is like a bad The Sims player.

 

Something that bugs me is, how do we know which God is real?

Throughout history many civilisations have had numerous religions worshipping many different Gods, were these all the same being? You can't just discard Gods because you want to move on to whatever the new fashionable religion is, I'm not sure Zeus or Amun-Ra or Odin would take kindly to being rejected.
You can't just cast Gods aside when you get bored of them, at least not if they are real.

So what makes Christians or Muslims or Jews believe their God is any more real than the rejected Gods of the past? And why is that God more real than the multiple Gods of Hinduism?


As for the Meaning of Life - Many would say it is the creation of new life, given that every other species on Earth's general purpose in life is to procreate and continue evolution's line. Problem with us is that we have advanced beyond the base desire just to keep on reproducing (or at least many of us have) and we see the Universe in a different way to all other species. Perhaps we each have a goal in life to achieve before we die, perhaps the goal is to find a way not to die. it's really not easy to say anymore with humans as it would be for anything else.