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Junior Member (Idle past 3496 days) Posts: 28 From: Australia Joined: |
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Author | Topic: I don't believe in God, I believe in Gravity | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
Coca-Cola is much more available to me than it was to Moses. That doesn't mean I drink more of it than he did.
... the set of observations of gravitational effects available to you is so much greater than was available to those at the time the bible was written. Straggler writes:
My point was not about comparable/relative understanding. It was about belief versus acceptance. Care to address that?
So actually it's very relevant to the question of comparable/relative understanding.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
You're avoiding the point of the post. You're asking me to repeat ad nauseam what I have already clarified. If you don't like my answer boo hoo but you're not going to get a different answer to the same question.
I'm disputing that you could possibly be in possession of the level of ignorance you are claiming regarding gravity, the effects of gravity and understanding of said phenomenon.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
You have to consider that question in the context of this discussion - i.e. in comparison with the belief in God. What is the difference between accepting the existence of Coca Cola and believing that Coca Cola exists? I accept Coca-Cola in the same way I accept aerodynamics. I can observe the effects and I can recognize that somebody else understands those effects better than I do. Belief in God is quite different. There are no effects to observe. Ergo, acceptance of Coca-Cola and aerodynamics are different from belief in God.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
greentwiga writes:
Where does it do that? Chapter and verse, please.
I am talking about the Bible preserving the time and location of the domestication of wheat, even to the location being on a volcano, despite 6,000 years of passing the story on verbally.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
They are accurate enough for the problem at hand, just like the Biblical understanding of gravity is accurate enough for deciding whether or not to sleep under apple trees.
Does the fact that adopting the theories of the apple guy and the crazy hair dude allowed us to put men on the moon and discover/predict a range of new observable phenomena indicate that these theories are in any way accurate descriptions of reality?
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
They aren't "private definitions". They're distinctions - like making a distinction between dogs and cats instead of just calling them "pets".
But one doesn't need to invent private definitions of "belief" or "accept" to make that point.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
You missing the word "about" makes me an idiot? I have ABOUT the same understandimg of gravity as Moses did - despite the availability of additional opportunities. I have ABOUT the same consumption of Coca-Cola as Moses did, despite the increased availability.
... an idiotic and patently false claim that you are as ignorant as Moses... Straggler writes:
The semantic nitpicking would be pretending there isn't a distinction when there is. If you don't make a distinction between dogs and cats, that's fine, but don't pretend that nobody can make a distinction.
... some semantic nit picking in order to make a "distinction". Straggler writes:
Yup. I did and I do. About half the time you have something intelligent to say. I think I've even cheered you a couple of times. The other half, you're a troll, trying to get the answer you want instead of the answer you get.
And you had the temerity to call me a troll....
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
I didn't say there was no possible distinction. Did you miss the word "about" again? Dogs are about as popular as cats - maybe within ten or twenty per cent, who knows. Maybe I do know ten or twenty per cent more about our concept of gravity than Moses did. Most likely he knew twenty to forty per cent more about their concept of gravity than I do. Hey I'm just making a distinction between your understanding of gravity and that of Moses..... I thought you liked distinctions. I'm making a distinction between concepts. You're making a distinction between numbers. Do you see the difference?
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Straggler writes:
You and Usain Bolt are a lot closer together than Usain Bolt and a bullet. Moses and I are a lot closer together than I and Stephen Hawking.
I can run about as fast as Usain Bolt compared to the speed of a bullet. But if I were to simply say "I can run about as fast as Usain Bolt" people would quite reasonably point out that this isn't the case unless there is some serious misuse of the word "about" going on. Straggler writes:
You could have saved us all a lot of time by just cheering me in the first place.
Well you've made your distinction and we all seem to agree (even jar eventually) that the reasons people adopt a belief in gravity aren't the same as the reasons people adopt a belief in God.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Straggler writes:
Belief is for the things whose truth value we can not assess.
The aim is to believe things that are likely to be true.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Straggler writes:
Yes, "to believe is to accept as true." However, it is important to make a distinction between whether we accept something because of the evidence or we believe it despite the lack of any evidence.
Given the statement "I don't believe in God, I believe in Gravity" it seems obvious to me that the term "believe" is being used in the second sense.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
It should be possible to compare one's own mind with somebody else's mind to some extent. It should be possible to discuss concepts like "I like ice cream" in an almost objective way without being able to empirically test the "liking" of ice cream.
... these non-empirical methods you speak of are entirely useless with regard to things external to one's own mind....
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
And yet you wasted oh so many posts saying I was wrong.
Which is what a thread examining the statement " I don't believe in God, I believe in Gravity" is all about.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
Subjective empirical experiences can be compared. When we have similar ice-cream-tasting observations, the "liking" of ice cream moves into a grayish area between subjective and objective. The same would apply to religious experiences.
Tasting ice cream is indisputably an empirical expereince. Whether one likes or loathes that taste is subjective.
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ringo Member (Idle past 441 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Straggler writes:
I didn't misuse the word "about". You ignored it until I discovered the caps-lock key.
Hey - Once you'd got past your misuse of the word "about" I was happy to agree with you and even cheered (admittedly at your request) your post Message 138
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