Percy is a Deist - Now what's the difference between a deist and an atheist?

And?You are mistaking the need for an observer to evaluate subjective evidence with the veracity of the evidence.What you can conclude is that you don't know, but that there is a possibility that mark does indeed feel funny. There is also a possibility that he is making it up, but to conclude that is the only valid possibility is a logical falsehood.Likewise, if a number of people report feeling funny after sharing an experience, one could conclude that there is some relationship between the experience and feeling funny, even though you have no other evidence to go on, and thus it does open up an avenue of investigation. Saying "people made it up" doesn't do that.Enjoy.

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Rebel American Zen Deist
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Wrong, but if you want to believe that I won't stop you. You, after all, seem obsessed with justifying my position within yours.Have fun.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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A fanatic is someone who won't change their mind, and cannot get off their subject. Curiously that is what you seem to be obsessed with doing.No Straggler, I have demonstrated why I think you are wrong, you just don't accept it. I can't make you see my point of view, nor can you make me see yours, and I see absolutely no purpose served in re-hashing and re-hashing what our positions are until this forum is dust.I suspect that the reason you can't let this go is because you just plain cannot understand why I am a deist, and not an atheist. It seems you keep making up reasons for this, in order to satisfy your frustration with your inability to make me think like you do.In the end, concepts are tested for validity by whether they are contradicted by evidence of reality, and it does not matter where those concepts come from, for them to be so tested.In the end, the rationality of a concept depends on subjective comparison to whether or not it is contradicted by evidence of reality, and whether or not there are others that believe the same things, and it does not matter what those concepts are.In the end, people make subjective evaluations of all information entering their world view, and either fit it in with previous concepts, or reject it as irrelevant\wrong.As long as such world views are not contradicted by any evidence of reality, and are consistent with the world views of others, then who are you to judge the value or validity of other world views.That is about as generic as I can make it.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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And yet I have never actually talked about my beliefs, or what is the root. You have made up something, and I've told you that your concept of my beliefs is totally false.Gosh Straggler, why is this such a problem for you? The basic difference is that I allow subjective evidence to be an indication of possible truth in my search for answers and you do not, but it is NOT why I believe what I believe, rather it is the way I test the validity of (several different) beliefs where you have no objective evidence pro or con. My personal belief is irrelevant to this process, and the only bias involved seems to be that I allow subjective evidence to be an indication of possible truth in my search for answers and you do not.Are UFO's possible evidence of alien visitations? I say yes, you say no, and the difference is purely due to the different relevant value given to subjective evidence.If you want to call that "biased guessing" then go ahead. You will excuse me if I don't find this argument any more compelling than all your other arguments.(*) What it comes down to is the basis for making hypothesis which are then tested against reality. The validity of astrology, etc, can be tested against reality, whether you think the conclusions are valid or not.If you conclude - based on life on earth and the known number of planets - that life on alien planets is highly likely, and somebody else concludes - from the same evidence - that it is highly unlikely, then what is the difference between the two other than subjective opinion and thus biased guessing?If you conclude from the same evidence that there is a possibility of alien visitations, but then conclude that claims of seeing alien visitations are false then that is biased guessing as well.Eliminating concepts that are falsified by objective evidence of reality then can also be considered "biased guessing" and it essentially becomes pointless what the discarded concept involves.The reason astrology is generally discarded is not because it is biased guessing based on a system of interpreting planetary influences on people, but because it has generally been falsified: predictions fail to produce significant results.(/*) Are you saying there is objective evidence of alien visitations?What more is needed to distinguish your viewpoint from mine? I cannot see any way to determine which of us is ultimately right, and I find trying to bully someone into your position to be rather pointless and intellectually vapid. We disagree. Is that so hard to acknowledge?Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : added {*)to(/*)

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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Rehash 4003 No, Straggler. That's still not it. Belief is not evidence. Experience is evidence, whether the experience can be confirmed by others and whether the experience can be explained in terms of known reality within a persons world view (people having different ability to explain experiences in scientific terms) or not. Then you will be glad to know that this is not the case either.If taking someone else's experience as a possibly true event means you have a possibility that you can test.For instance the experience of UFO alien visitations.Compare to the extrapolation of life from our meager knowledge of the parameters involved, where we can conceive of a logical possibility of such visitations. This too you can test.The test is the same -- can we find evidence that (a) contradicts the possibility of alien life visiting earth, and (b) can we find evidence that would increase the possibility of alien visitations.You listed astrology as an example of belief founded concepts, and this too is something that we can test: do planets affect the behavior of people or not? So far the evidence is that astrological predictions do no better than random answers.You have recently been talking about "biased guess" as your interpretation of what is being done, however this applies as much to the extrapolation of the possibility of life as it does to other concepts: the extrapolation is biased by what you believe about the relative validity of different evidence, based again on your world view. A theory is a "biased guess" -- it is biased by the evidence and the logic used to formulate the guess.You've talked about the evidence that people make things up. This too is true: at one level all concepts are made up - they are the way we explain our experience of reality to ourselves within our world views.You seem to have an objection to using subjective evidence in any way, that for me is difficult to understand as long as the end result -- testing concepts against the evidence of objective reality is the same in the end. Most such subjective evidence based concepts will end up in the discard pile if they run afoul of reality. Have fun making up stuff.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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Hi Rahvin,In your last post on the IPU thread you said: Nope. I have confidence that a subjective experience may possibly be true, but that is as far as "confidence" goes. What I see, is that there is no evidence of it being anything more than fiction. There is no subjective evidence to support a possibility, and that makes it fundamentally different from any concept supported by subjective experience.Certainly the existence, or not, of an IPU has no bearing on the existence, or not, of god/s, so in the end there is nothing accomplished by the IPU argument.To bring it into context with this thread, atheists are at pains to say that they see "no reason" to believe in god/s. In this vein, deists see no reason not to believe in the existence of some kind of god/s.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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LOL. You still don't get it. No, it just means there is no reason to not believe in x.Believing in x does not de facto mean one should believe in y even though there is no evidence contrary to either x or y.Curiously, the fact that you need to pin a logical fallacy on something that is not derived by logic is rather humorous on two counts: (1) the fact that it is a (in your mind anyway) logical fallacy, does not mean that it is necessarily wrong, just that it is not logical, and (2) you are trying to prove something is illogical that is acknowledged to not involve logic: big whoop eh?It also means that everyone who likes blue is engaged in special pleading when they say they prefer blue to pink. Surprisingly there is no logical reason to prefer any color over any other color - they are just wavelengths, after all. Curiously, it is a fact that there are many people that prefer blue. There are also people that prefer pink. One preference does not make the other invalid.This does not change the fact that I prefer blue nor the fact that there are people that prefer pink. This preference is not based on choice or logical deduction, it is just a part of me.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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Hi Rahvin, Perhaps if you spent less time fantasizing about what I've said, and more time reading it, you wouldn't keep making false assertions. Curiously, I have not asserted the reality of such an existence. At no time have I tried to convince anyone, or asserted, that what I believe is actually true. It just happens to be what I believe (and I'm not even sure what "it" involves). So, if I prefer my faith to faith in say, for the sake of argument, the IPU, then it is a "subjective value assessment," and immune from special pleading? No, because the young age for the earth and a global flood are contradicted by evidence. Evolution's accuracy is validated by observations of actual evolution happening in real-time, and by the fact that there is no evidence that contradicts or invalidates it. Logically false, even if that were what I was asserting. One can easily imagine a deity outside objective reality, and for such a deity it would be impossible to have any objective reality ... by definition.Enjoy.

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Rebel American Zen Deist
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Thanks Rahvin. It is not explained by rational means, which is why the IPU argument fails, as the IPU argument only works if I said it was rational, and I've said before that it is non-rational - orthogonal to rational vs irrational. It is not chosen, nor is it deduced in any way. It is just what I believe. With no evidence contrary to my belief, it is not irrational, for there is no reason to disbelieve it.My preference for blue is also not rational, but is it insane to prefer blue? Or is there just no reason not to like blue? Is the preference for different colors just part of the many differences between people? Thanks for your participation. Then you will likely continue to misunderstand faith, and try to treat it as if it should be rational, and get frustrated when it doesn't play nice.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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Thanks onifre I've heard of it, and it has critics as well.
Qualia - Wikipedia

quote:

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Yet it has been argued whether or not identification with the external object should still be the core of a correct approach to sensation, for there are many who state the definition thus because they regard the link with external reality as crucial. If sensations are defined as 'raw feels', there arises a palpable threat to the reliability of knowledge.

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Since it is by definition difficult or impossible to convey qualia verbally, it is difficult to demonstrate them directly in an argument; a more tangential approach is needed. Arguments for qualia generally come in the form of thought experiments designed to lead one to the conclusion that qualia exist.

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Doesn't sound like that is an objective area of study. Looks more like a study of subjective evidence than on objective reality. No, that is a reason how, not why - if it even explains that. In effect, color blue "resonates" with my vision perception more than other colors. This means that I am more sensitive to seeing blue, but that doesn't explain why I prefer it. I could still be more sensitive to blue, but like orange better. And yet the experiments with the God Helmet show that some people have a heightened activity in their processing cells for religious experience. Certain areas of the brain resonate with the helmet to produce a spiritual feeling. This too would explain how, but not why. Why is imagination limited by knowledge? What is the objective reality of a god that is undetectable? Further, if one believes that god is unknowable, how could one expect to have any way of determining whether or not the terms "objective reality" applied or not.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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Hi whateverman, It took me a bit longer. I find it curious that finding out is a kind of epiphany - "oh, THAT's what I am" - experience. The "condition" exists before it is named ...Enjoy the forum.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
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Rebel American Zen Deist
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