If God Ever Stopped Intervening In Nature....

No I do not. I asked you:

quote:

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Are you saying that you discern real Bigfeet from phony Bigfeet by dictionary definition? If so, how?

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How do you COMPARE reality with the dictionary definition?

In the movie S1m0ne, Al Pacino creates a digital movie star and then he can't convince anybody that she isn't real. The technology may not be quite there yet but it does underline the fact that people are easy to fool about "reality".

So how does a dictionary definition of "true" help you distinguish between a man in a Bigfoot suit and a real Bigfoot? Even if you understand the meaning of "true" to the greatest possible depth of human understanding, how does that help you distinguish a man in a Bigfoot suit from a real Bigfoot?What you need to define is not the meaning of "true" or even the meaning of "Bigfoot". After all, a dictionary is likely to tell you that a Bigfoot is a creature that may or may not be real.What you need to define is what kind of EVIDENCE would distinguish a man in a Bigfoot suit from a real Bigfoot.Evidence is as close to "real" or as "true" as anything you're going to find. Definitions are only a shadow of reality.

But JRTjr01 thinks he has the answer and I'm trying to get him to tell us how he got it.

No they are not. As long as you and I know what the other means, we can communicate, no matter what any dictionary has to say about the subject. If you're using a dictionary definition and I say that definition isn't adequate, we need to come to some kind of agreement beyond the dictionary.So Let's try again: How does a dictionary definition of "true" help you distinguish between a man in a Bigfoot suit and a real Bigfoot? Even if you understand the meaning of "true" to the greatest possible depth of human understanding, how does that help you distinguish a man in a Bigfoot suit from a real Bigfoot?What process would you use to decide if a Bigfoot report was real or bogus? What would you do after looking in the dictionary?

We're on an Internet discussion forum, aren't we? We're talking about communication, aren't we? The question isn't so much about how you convince yourself; it's about how you communicate your thoughts to others.So again and again and again: How would you tell the difference between a real Bigfoot and a phony?I had a teacher once who said that if you can't explain something to an eight-year-old you don't really understand it. So how would you explain to an eight-year-old how you would tell the difference between a real Bigfoot and a phony? The problem is that when I TELL you what else I meant, you label everything I say as absurd. We can't communicate if you assume that everything you don't already know is absurd.If you make an attempt to honestly answer the question that I keep asking, maybe you'll begin to understand what I mean.

I'm not suggesting that.I'm not the one who claims to be able to tell the difference. I'm saying that IF you claim there is a difference, you need to be able to show us HOW you tell the difference. Of course you can. That's why I used the example of Bigfoot. We DON'T know if there's a real Bigfoot or not. What we need is some method of examining reports of Bigfoot so that we can determine whether they are describing something that does exist or something that SEEMS to exist.A fake Bigfoot "exists" only in the sense that there is SOMETHING that SEEMS to be a Bigfoot. The question remains: How do you tell the difference?How do you tell the difference between Nelson Mandela and Morgan Freeman dressed up like Nelson Mandela? How do you tell the difference between the Mighty Hulk and Lou Ferigno dressed up like the Mighty Hulk? How do you tell the difference between a new hominid species and a homo sapiens dressed up like Bigfoot?

I'm not claiming anything. I'm asking how YOU would tell the difference. We KNOW there are guys in Bigfoot suits. We see them on TV, etc. We DON'T know whether or not there is a real Bigfoot - i.e. a non-human who is NOT wearing a costume.So again: How would you tell the difference?

But that doesn't tell us anything about the ones we don't know.We know there are "X" and we know there are "Y". The question is: How do we know whether the specimen at hand is "X" or "Y"?Suppose we have a video of a furry creature about the size of a man walking through the woods. What process do you use to decide whether it's a guy in a Bigfoot suit or "something else"?

That's what I'd like JRTjr01 to think about.

Exactly how, though? What are the actual differences between the two videos that allow you to rule definitively on one and not the other? The second one is better quality - technology has improved a lot since 1967 - and CGI is a possibility today but you haven't shown any evidence that CGI was used. What's the fundamental difference between the two videos?

You said in Message 677: "Using the same methodologies, I can definitively say that this is a ‘man in a suit’ not a ‘Real’ Bigfoot." I'm asking you how YOU came to that conclusion. Be specific. What SPECIFIC features of the video prompted your conclusion?I'm being difficult about this because your basic claim seems to be that there is "real" reality beneath what we can actually observe. I'm trying to get you to tell us how you can tell "real" reality from observed reality.

I don't think we're so far off topic. It seems that if God did stop intervening in nature, believers wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Real Bigfoot or illusion of Bigfoot? Real God or illusion of God?

I'm on a public library computer and I can't watch videos. (I don't watch them anyway, just on principle.) Bring the argument here.

They say "massive" when they mean "big". They say "awesome" when they mean "good". They say "absolutely" when they mean "yes".