God says this, and God says that

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Originally posted by forgiven:
I also find it somewhat ingenious when you refuse to answer a direct question as to your beliefs

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Don't start this again, forgiven. I give you the best answers I have.

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in the meantime how can you assert that logic didn't exist in the universe before life?

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Probably because we define it differently. I see logic as a system-- a type of specialized language or shorthand meant to help overcome the pitfalls of normal human languages. This doesn't exist until codified. Look on the web for symbolic logic systems. There are dozens of them. All were invented. But, all of them deal with the same underlying physics of causality that we deal with on a daily basis.

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no? verify logic for me, empirically...

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Have you ever noticed that when one billiard ball hits another one that both of them change speed and direction? Well, there you go. Logic is the codification of these relationships. It is the cleaned up and carefully analyzed accumulated experience of countless people.

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verify reason...

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Just did.

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does love exist?

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Love is a sensation. You feel it, it is a real sensation.

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ethics? verify them

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Ethics is the study of human interaction or a codified description of functional human interaction.

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no, but internal inconsistencies should make one question the veracity of a worldview, yes?

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Certainly, though it seems to not be a problem for most people.

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sigh... john i've spent a very long time showing there *is* self-contradiction...

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sigh.... you've attempted to show self-contradiction. I have told you why I disagree with your analysis. Now, rather than this childish exasperation, how about continuing the discussion on to the next step, which is a reply to my objections.

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what you've done is simply to say that *you* aren't mired in inconsistencies but you've only done that by dancing around direct questions concerning material and non-material entities...

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Forgiven, don't do this again. I am not dancing around issues. I do not agree with you on many things, must you at every turn interpret that as avoiding the question?

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you again miss the point...

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And so do you. Did you miss that your logic justifies contradictory assertions? What was that you said? Oh yes....

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no, but internal inconsistencies should make one question the veracity of a worldview, yes?

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it's not that we can't use reason, it's that the atheist can't *account* for reason while remaining faithful to her worldview... she must borrow from mine

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I account for reason just fine. This is your fantasy, no offence intended. ( really ) I honestly have never encountered this opinion before.

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i asked you your opinion, you repeated the question for me...

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Is it material or immaterial as I describe it? I don't think the question makes much sense.

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so logic is a human construct "shared" by many animals?... imagine a vast primordial soup, no life exists as yet... does the law of non-contradiction exist? can that vast soup both be and not be at the same time in the same way? if not, logic existed... if so, you are correct... do you really mean to say that man needed to be present for logic to exist?

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What you describe isn't logic, it is physics. I explained my take on this.

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the "christian worldview" is that God created man with attributes possessed by God... logic existed before man, logic is an attribute of God...

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'k.

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now it doesn't matter whether or not you agree with this, what matters is that the christian's beliefs are consistent while the atheist's aren't...

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You are just repeating your assertions.

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what matters is that the christian can accept as real metaphysical entities while the atheist (at least the materialist) can't...

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Why does it matter that christians accept metaphysical entities?

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here is the clearest statement you make to deny that logic existed prior to man... before man, did two plus two equal four? before man, was pi R round or square?... for it not to exist until "created" (whatever that might mean) makes no sense, as i'm sure you're aware... did quarks exist before they were "created?"

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What is your problem with this, forgiven. Did French exist before people started to speak it? No. Did numbers exist before people started to count? No. Numbers are abstractions, not items. Numbers are concepts. Plus? Minus? Equals? All concepts created to deal with the world, but not things in themselves.

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so as you can see you did in fact state that only empirical evidence is acceptable since it's the *only* evidence that exists...

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I did not say that only empirical evidence is acceptable. I said that is all we've got. It isn't a value judgement concerning the trustworthiness of non-empirical evidence. It is the realization that there is no non-empirical evidence to judge.

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and you further state that anyone who believes something without empirical evidence is irrational... i find this amazing since you're using that which can't be empirically verified (logic, reason) to make the statement you just made... yes, inconsistent in the extreme

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This is only a problem if I accepted you assertion that logic is not based in experience. Good thing I don't accept that assertion.

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some examples please? given the definitions of the terms, show us how you'd verify a metaphysical entity

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I am assuming that you refer to this: Empirically verifiable things don't have to be material. There doesn't have to BE any material.You jump from this statement to the weird question about verifying metaphysical entities, apparently assuming that by not-material I meant not empirical.Example: Bishop Berkeley did not believe in matter at all. He believe that everything was mind and that it was all held together by God.Example: Kant also did not believe in matter. He believed that all we see is a mental construct he called phenomena.Example: Plato wasn't a materialist either.Example: My desk isn't solid. It's solidity is an illusion produced by the electromagnetic interaction between atoms and molecules. The atoms aren't solid either and can behave as both particle and wave. Get small enough and everything you think of as material gets turned upside down. Things aquire weird properties-- mass and no size, charge and no mass, etc. It isn't philosophical materialism by any means.

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so i see... why not, don't you have an opinion on this?

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Ahhhh..... the sweat smell of subtle ad hominem powdered and blended with just a pinch of hubris...

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you don't deny the existence of material entities, do you?

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Well, actually, in the strictest sense I do. Materialism is a concept and it is one that doesn't really seem tenable.

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sigh... logic? reason?

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sigh...... logic and reason are entities?

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if you can't speculate "outside of that (space-time)" where do you get the right to argue God's (a being who exists both inside *and* outside space/time) existence? does this seem a tad inconsistent to you?

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Would you argue the existence of elves if the topic were of some importance in your life? Even if someone made the claim that elves exist outside space and time? Why is it that you and gene pretend to not understand this reasoning when applied to your faith but get it when applied to anything else?------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
John you're right there is no evidence for the easter bunny or santa claus. These are just lies made up to give a secular meaning/financial profit to the two most important Christian holidays.

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Lol.... I can buy that.Actually the dates for the two holidays and the associated pagan icons were co-opted from pagan religions as a draw to the christian church. You know, to make the pagans feel at home-- that sort of thing.

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Not the type you seem to require but to me the very earth is evidence, quoting a song here by some singer named Rebecca St. James "the heavens declare you are God, and the mountains rejoice, the oceans cry aleiluiah".

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The problem, funk, is that the argument works equally well no matter what you plug into it. You say the earth is evidence for Jesus' power. Someone else says it is evidence for The Great Spirit, or for Pele. Without much thought one can come up with mutually exclusive and contradictory conclusions.

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When I go to the Rocky Mountains (so oftenly thought of around here as just folding rock) I can see God's craftsmanship, folded rock should not cause this sort of awe.

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Why not? What sort of awe should folding rock induce?

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There is evidence, solid evidence at that, to the existance of God.

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No, funk. There isn't. There is your emotional reaction to the world. That isn't evidence. I have a much different emotional reaction. Are going to allow that as evidence-- hard, good, solid evidence-- that I am right and you are wrong? Don't think so.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
Sorry John I knew it wasn't really a submissable argument.

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Then why accept it? By your admission it is not a good argument?

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It's just it seems so very simple to me, the existance of God. Around here it's gets to be made much more complicated than I think it is.

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It is simple, funk, because you just accept that there is a God and won't think about it. Your belief is based on an emotional reaction. Basically, all that you are saying is that God exists and the proof is that it is soooooo obvious that God exists. Suppose I said that evolution or abiogenisis is "just so obvious" ? Would you accept that as proof? Or would you ask for something more substantial? What about racism? It is "so obvious" that THEY are inferior to US? Is that adequate justification?------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by gene90:
Then why do you make so much of the claim that God has not been proven empirically to exist? Is that not inconsistent?

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No gene, it isn't, as you aptly describe below. You are perfectly capable of applying this logic to anything but your own faith. It is sad, and really kind of scary.

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Because it's testable. Adults found out a long time ago that to keep the belief alive in their children they have to do the shopping, the wrapping, and the sneaky placement under the tree. Otherwise, no fat elves sliding down chimneys.

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Have you noticed how the faithful have to do all the work? Raise the money, build the buildings, sing the songs, write the books?

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My nonbelief in Santa Claus is actually faith-based, just like the belief of the atheist is faith-based. It doesn't make me wrong, but it does require that I have no room to go around poo-pooing faith, now doesn't it?

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I can't help but think that you are shuffling away from the idea that non-belief in Santa is due to lack of evidence for Santa, and much evidence that things attributed to Santa are actually done in other ways.Claiming that since you have no kids that your disbelief in Santa is faith-based is nonsensical and diversionary. Kids have nothing to do with what you believe. It seems that you are trying to squeeze out of a tight corner-- that you disbelieve in Santa for precisely the same reasons I disbelieve in your God.

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Of course, I can make a direct argument from the evidence: All presents under the tree have a source known by the parents.

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Funds in the church coiffers have an identifiable source.

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This is direct evidence against Santa Claus. And if you like, we examine satellite reconaissance of the North Pole.

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Santa's workshop is invisible. Don't you watch the cartoons that run around this time of year?

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I do not deny the possibility. I do require evidence to believe there are definately no grey aliens amongst us.

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So you are in favor of proving negatives? Do you believe everything until it is proven wrong? Or do you believe what is shown to be correct? By your grey-alien logic, you must not deny the possibilty that Allah is the true God, that Zeus is King of the hill, that Osirus died for our sins? And you must have evidence that any of these are not the true god. There is no such evidence, so how is it that you choose your religion? And how is it tht you can defend it when there are so many possibilities waiting to be disproven. It is absurd. I am not buying the posturing.BTW, the aliens look just like us ( in disguise of course ). You can't tell us apart.

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Or to not believe in purple elephants?

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Or Borg in the breakroom?

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I don't think God requires nearly as much as this because we know the Borg are a product and tradmark of Paramount Studios and no-one has ever made a claim that they are real.

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But there is no hard evidence against it, so the possibility is there that there could be Borg in the break room. Your comment that there are more reasonable and less reasonable beliefs is exactly my point.

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And finally this is testable. The concept of Borg lurking in your office building is absurd because you've been all around your office building and many others like it and never found Borg there.

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Exactly. I have never found anything to indicate the existence of a god either.

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The concept of Borg infestation is testable and has generated only negative results.

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The concept of God ought to be just as testable if such a thing exists and if it influences our universe. While one may not ever see god, there should be clear evidence of 'magic.' Yet there is no such evidence.

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All of the above are hypothetical *physical* entities, and each is testable.

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You've added the physical portion. Dragons, Santa and the EB can all be considered spiritual or magical beings, as can unicorns, faeries, goblins, sprites and trolls.But even more interesting is that the logic you've been using applies to anything, physical or otherwise.

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God is not necessarily a physical entity here on Earth and is not testable in the same sense, as you so gleefully like to point out.

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Then how about Slimy the Gnome, who lives in the 8th through the 11th dimensions. Slimy is not a physical entity on earth, nor is Slimy testable in the same sense as would be purple elephants. It is then reasonable to believe in Slimy? We have no disproof of Slimy, so we must consider his existence a reasonable belief? We have no positive evidence for Slimy either, but that doesn't matter because we haven't disproven his existence. It is absurd, gene.------------------
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Originally posted by Chara:
You know what ... I do! Everytime I find out a little bit about the workings of the human body, I am awed by the complexity and design.

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Ya know. I feel that same amazement, but awe doesn't equate to 'it had to have been designed'------------------
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Originally posted by Primordial Egg:
As did the Jews before the Christians and many cultures before that - to claim that materialists are borrowing from a Christian worldview is a major distortion.

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I made this same point. Apparently, forgiven considers the Christian worldview as having permiated the universe since its creation, even though such worldview hadn't been verbalized until circa 200 AD. Thus, these various peoples ALL borrowed from this sort-of thing in itself christian worldview.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by forgiven:
i define logic as based on the law of non-contradiction...

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Is logic the law of contradiction, or is it a verbal mathematics based upon the law of contradiction? I think you are confusing the two.

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it's earth, 3.5 billion years ago... there is no life of any kind... none, zip, zilch...

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... probably was life here then

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is the law of non-contradicion in effect?

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You are talking about physics, not logic. You said yourself that logic was BASED ON the LoNC. This does not make it the same as. Tell me that logic IS the LoNC. I dare you, because once you do you are stuck there. The sum of logic is the LoNC. Derivatives won't be logic mind you, if logic IS the LoNC.

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can earth both occupy it's portion of space/time and *not* occupy its portion at the same time in the same way?

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Well, there is this concept in quantum physics called the superposition of states.... Sub-atomic particles, even atoms, do it all the time. Most physicists seem to concure that superposition breaks down just over atomic scale, but a few disagree. Even so, travel far enough back in time and the whole universe likely exhibited just this sort of weirdness.------------------
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Originally posted by forgiven:
my entire series of posts was aimed at showing, not that atheists (and several times i qualified the word to mean materialists) don't utilize or even depend on metaphysical entities, but that they can't account for those entities... while denying the existence of such things they still feel comfortable arguing that God doesn't exist, all the while failing to understand that the means by which they frame their arguments have to be borrowed from those who *don't* deny their existence

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It still doesn't make sense. I don't see the need for metaphysical entities, unless you are claiming that physical laws are, well, metaphysical. And that is kind of silly.

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how, my thinking went, can someone ask for proof of a transcendent entity while utilizing just such an entity to form his arguments? and it is inconsistent, if you think about it...

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But there is no need for a trancendent entity to frame the argument. The law of non-contraciction, as you have defined logic, is a description of how things appear to work, it isn't an independently existing thing. It doesn't even hold universally. Subatomic particles happily ignore it all the time.

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i am troubled that you seem to confuse the result of such an entity (billiard balls for example) with the entity itself (laws of physics, for example)...

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Wow. You are more of a Platonist than I thought. There is no need for a collection of Laws-of-Physics Entities sitting like Kings on metaphysical thrones. There is observation and our interpretation of it. We call this interpretation a law of physics. They are description of physical processes.

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and also by the obvious (to me) truth that before life existed on earth, logic did...

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I don't think you answered my question about the French language? Did French exist before people spoke it?

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quarks, i thought, were a good example of that...

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Quarks? I don't really know what you mean, but I have a hard time understanding how quark weirdness can help your case.

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something can exist without anyone knowing of it, correct?

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Colloquially, sure. Something can exist without anyone knowing about it. But does it exist? You seem to be begging this question.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by Primordial Egg:
Aha, so she's not using Christian in the sense of "religion founded by Jesus Christ" but in the sense of "a prehistoric absolute"?
PE

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Right-o. The debate in this thread about logic and how it can exist prior to human existence? That started because forgiven made a claim to the effect that logic existed before humans. The Christian worldview likewise existed before Christianity. I have a problem with both of these assertions.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by Primordial Egg:
The second one I agree with you. I'm not sure about the first (open to persuasion tho') - it seems to me to lie within the definition of "logic".

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Exactly.

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If you define logic as that which comes out of a logic gate, then logic becomes a tangible measurable quantity, like charge or gravity.

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But it seem to me that you are measuring electricity or some other physical quality, and not logic itself. In other words, does the quantity you measure actually fit what we consider logic? I can't convince myself that it does.

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If you define logic as a method of assigning relationships between things, then it only exists before life inasmuch as "methods for assigning relationships" existed before life.

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This pretty much my take on it. Logic isn't the relationships, it is our description of them. Forgiven, seems to want or need it to BE the relationships. This doesn't make sense to me for several reasons. Logic was invented and has been reinvented numerous times. Just look up symbolic logic on the web. There are dozens of systems. The first thing is just about any logic text is the statement that logic deals with statements, not necessarily the real world. It is an abstract system for analyzing propositions. And, logic breaks down, with the breakdown of strict classical mechanics, at sub-atomic scales. It therefore can't be an absolute.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by Chara:
Just leaping out into the dark here .... Would it be acceptable to say that the only form of logic that can be absolute in your way of thinking is "that which can be measured"? ie mathematically?

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I don't think applying the term 'absolute' to logic makes any sense at all. To me, it is like saying there is an absolute 'geology' or an absolute 'english.' It just isn't applicable. There may be underlying principles which turn out to be absolute up to the limits of our ability to know, but applying it to the descriptions of the systems just doesn't make sense. Try imagining an 'absolute' hurricane, for example. It is a very complicated system, but you can't really apply the word 'absolute' to it.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
Where do you get your information and knowledge?

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From my own experience and from the experiences of others as recorded historically in books. However, I don't put one of them on a pedastal and call it infallible.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by robinrohan:
Hume!!!!

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Hume, what?I wrote a 14 page criticism of Hume's Treatise for Phil class.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
Then it still comes from a book then doesn't it. So you can't fault me for getting mine from a book. A book told me so does mean something. That's a pathetic rebutal.

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Surely you can see the difference, funk?But let me put this is in context. The comment was a response to gene's insinuations that athiesm is the easy way out. It isn't. Everything I do is on my shoulders. I cannot appeal to a BOOK for guidance. I can read books, and I do, but I cannot appeal to a book. You guys have the Bible. Look up the problem in your little concordance, gloss over the conflicting bits, and you are all set. I hate to break it to you, but that is the easy way out. The only hard part is glossing over the conflicting bits, and that seems to be pretty much second nature to most Christians.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by gene90:
Agreed. "Rebuttal" is giving the comment too much credit. Until Nos482 showed up such behavior was unknown from the local atheists. S/he set a bad precedent and the others, remarkably, seem to be following.

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Oh, lets review shall we?This started back in post #17 when you responded to my post #12.In reply, I made numerous comments to your post-- my post #19. In this post I made short and concise, but damned accurate criticism of what you had written to me. And I made it quite clear that I felt your post was a pretty insubstantial response and an insult to my intelligence-- a point of which you accuse me in your next post.Your next post, #26, addresses few of the issues but instead attacks me personally to the point of outright slander, all the while hypocritically posting the Forum guidelines. You continue this attack in post #28 as well, and post #32, and #44. It is there for anyone to read.You tell me who is exhibiting bad behavior.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com[This message has been edited by John, 12-11-2002][This message has been edited by John, 12-11-2002][This message has been edited by John, 12-11-2002]