Hi Rrhain,
This is the response of someone avoiding the question. Let's try again, shall we?
Why is it on the back of my hand showing tails? Do you have evidence that this isn't a coin? It isn't on my hand? It isn't showing tails? Look, I'm picking it up, flipping it, catching it, slapping it on the back of my hand. Now it's showing heads.
Curiously, your insistence on having the answer is your avoiding the issue of what you do when you don't yet have the answer.
Assuming that you know the answer is ignoring the reality that you don't know until the coin lands.
Let's take it further. Since we apparently have no actual evidence for gravity ...
Which is not my argument.
Do tell what it is you think is outside the box? Oh, I'm sure there is something out there. After all, we don't know everything. But you seem to think you actually know something about what is outside of the box. Ergo, you must have evidence of it.
Curiously, my argument is precisely that we don't know what is outside the box. I'm glad you are sure there IS something out there, but that just validates my argument, not your poor understanding of it.
My argument is not that gravity may not exist, rather it is that there is no explanation for why it exists, and that having any number of theories on
HOW GRAVITY WORKS still fails to even consider the question of why it exists.
I believe there is some theoretical studies being done on a Grand Unified Theory in physics that may show gravity is an emergent property, and similar theoretical concepts in string theory, but that just gets us to how gravity came to be.
Where is your evidence, RAZD? Why do you demand chocolate sprinkles? Do you have evidence that they are required?
And thus, the merry-go-round spins again.
And again, I do not
demand sprinkles, you have me confused with someone else. I just point out that you cannot
eliminate the possibility that they may be needed, because your model is incomplete - a fact you have acknowledged in other posts as well as by saying that you are sure there is something out there ... rather it is your misunderstanding and false insistence that I demand them that seems to be your problem.
Rrhain continues on
Message 303
Said the man who refuses to answer questions. I've been paying very close attention, RAZD. That's why the same questions keep coming up. Until you answer them, they'll keep getting asked.
And yet you get the details wrong. Not as badly as Straggler who now has invented a false impression of my argument out of thin air, but still pretty bad for someone claiming to pay attention.
But here's the thing: You're ignoring the evidence that we do have in order to cling to this faux-impartiality you find so dear. This fantasy you have that there is "no evidence" is precisely that: A fantasy. The very act of defining something creates evidence. You can't even have an opinion of "I don't know" if you can't describe what you're talking about.
And still we have the problem of the total lack of any definition of this evidence that is so prevalent.
So where is the evidence that god/s do not, or cannot, exist?
Why do you keep avoiding this issue while claiming to have evidence?
And I've already responded to that. You have been paying attention, yes? Speculation and imaginations are wonderful at asking questions, but they are lousy at answering them. Why? Because they don't provide any evidence.
And the astute reader will know that I have previously stated this as well, so you are not telling me anything new, and you are not countering my argument. If you
have followed my argument/s why are you not aware of this?
Subjective evidence provides possibilities for further investigation, investigation that is done by the scientific process. If you doubt this has been my argument I can find old posts on closed threads that state this.
And yet, here you are insisting that there is a problem with the model without providing any evidence to justify your position, in direct contradiction of your claim that those who make negative assertions have to provide the evidence to justify them.
I've said it is incomplete, and you concur.
Rrhain,
Message 306 to tis---strange:
quote:
I think of my model of incomplete by default.
As do I. Any observational model is necessarily incomplete because there is no way to observe everything.
Thus my claiming that the model is incomplete should not set you on a rampage of claiming falsehoods about my position, not just in posts to me, but in posts to others as well.
It is always interesting to see my name pop up in posts between other people, especially by people who have not understood my position but feel that they are somehow an authority on it. It's the way YECs talk about evolution in specific and science in general, and it's rather amusing as well as disturbing. Amusing because they are so wrong, disturbing because they are so wrong and pretend to be right.
You really haven't been paying attention, have you. I've also defended Judaism, Christianity, Islam, various pagan beliefs, etc. Comparative religion is a bit of a hobby. I've been studying it for most of my life (and I do mean that fairly literally...started when I was 7.) My main concern has to do with people being honest about their claims, admitting when they're going on faith and their own personal experiences rather than assuming everybody else agrees. The reason I come to the defense of atheism so often here is because it tends to be the default response of creationists: If you agree with evolution, you necessarily must be an immoral atheist who would just as soon kill you as look at you. You rarely find someone saying that the alternative to their religious position is a different religious position. No, it's either their way or atheism as if god can't create life that evolves.
Thank you for that. It doesn't tell me what you personally believe, but it suffices to explain your position. I don't read Faith and Belief threads generally, so if you have done a lot of posting there I am oblivious to it, and so mostly see your pro-atheist positions on the evolution threads.
You're responding to what you think I believe, not to what I've actually said. So I will continue to keep my personal theological foundation to myself, thank you very much. It helps me to see who actually has a justification for their claims and who is simply lashing out.
I concur with that, as I also refuse to discuss my personal beliefs, much to the dismay of some, and prefer to discuss the issues of logic and evidence supported concepts and the question of how we can understand reality outside of the ability of science to see how things work.
The model works. Why do you demand chocolate sprinkles? Do you have evidence that they are required?
Why do you think this question has not been answered?
I've answered it several times, and my answer has not varied. The model works for the knowledge that we know, knowledge that is incomplete. The model addresses "how" questions but not "why" questions, because science is not suited for investigating the "why" questions.
Claiming that the model can provide the answers to future questions is assuming that all future questions will be answerable through science. My personal opinion is that chaos and uncertainty will prevent this, and there is plenty of empirical evidence that this is so. Does this mean god/s are responsible? Not really, not directly, only as the cause of all, therefore responsible (as you have asked).
It is logically impossible to have even an "I don't know" opinion about something that has not been and cannot be described.
Amusingly, what you are complaining about is not knowing. Thus you make my point that the default position is not knowing.
Once you hear a concept it interacts with your world view, that composite of knowledge, belief and opinion that each of us carry around assuming that it is valid within the context of reality as we understand it ... through our world view. This is where confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance interact with the concepts.
Wow! You're just on a roll today, aren't you! Now, you're accusing everybody else of "cognitive dissonance" despite having multiple people repeatedly ask you the most basic of questions over and over again through literally thousands of posts and somehow the problem is they are all suffering from "difficulty paying attention to argumenst that contradict dearly held beliefs."
Absolutely stunning, RAZD. You should take this act on tour. Prove me wrong, RAZD: Answer the question:
The model works. Why do you demand chocolate sprinkles? Do you have evidence that they are required?
Given that I
HAVE answered this question (and others) several times, it becomes rather a trite conclusion that the people that keep asking the questions are having trouble with understanding the answers, rather than my having difficulty answering.
The model is incomplete, I don't
demand sprinkles, I just note that as long as the model is incomplete they cannot be ruled out.
And you've already had your response showing that your argument is insufficient. I do not need to have a complete model to know that it is functional. I don't have to know all the details about how a car runs to be able to determine that it is running and that it is not running because of a giant hamster running in a wheel placed under the hood. If you're going to insist that I must remain "agnostic" on this matter because my comprehension of the internal combustion engine is incomplete, you're going to have to explain why it is that there is an engine block under the hood, not a hamster wheel.
And I've replied that this does not show why the car exists. I find it humorous that you use an example of a designed object to suggest that the model works. The car works because it was designed to work, built to work, and purchased because it works. Cars that don't work are junked.
I don't have to know all the details about how a car runs to be able to determine that it is running and that it is not running because of a giant hamster running in a wheel placed under the hood.
From this perspective, you are unable to distinguish between cars that work and those that don't work, if they are not running at the time, because your model is incomplete, and you cannot tell from your lack of details whether one will run and another will not.
So let's put your money where your mouth is, RAZD. Since our theory of gravity is incomplete, that must mean we don't know a damned thing about it and it is quite possible that if you were to jump off a tall building, you would honestly expect that there is just as much of a chance of you flying off to the clouds rather than plummet to the ground.
Says the man who claims to pay attention. The question here that your model cannot answer is
not how gravity works, but why does gravity
exist. Gravity obviously exists.
Why? A good model will be able to adapt to new information that comes along and change to accept it. After all, that's the way kinematics developed over the years. But as we've already discussed, the integration of new material into the model must necessarily take into account all the evidence we've already collected. Apples did not stop falling from trees waiting for Newton to figure out where Aristotle went wrong.
Correct, and the question is whether everything will be explainable, or whether there are some things that just don't lend themselves to explanation. Some of the explanations are getting down to rather bizarre concepts that might be considered magical in older times - can you guarantee that sprinkles aren't going to be needed?
I think that's enough of re-answering repeated repetitious redundancy, and not much point in going further if I don't know if you are going to pay attention this time.
The model is incomplete. Assuming that new knowledge will fit snugly in the model is logically invalid, assuming that the part is representative of the whole.
Enjoy.
we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.
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