Underlying Philosophy

Well, now I'd like to talk to you like a Dutch Uncle.You write: That is, we ought to excuse you for being wrong because you acknowledged that you're wrong.(1) Well, in the first place, why not try to be right about what scientists say? I am baffled by this. Why not just tell the truth?Perhaps (as you believe) evolutionists are crazy and wrong about everything. Well, if this is true, then you could as well demonstrate this by talking about what scientists actually say, instead of making stuff up in your head and attributing it to them.(2) You call it "rhetoric". You seem to excuse it because we all know that what you're saying isn't true. Will you promise in the sight of God that you will never ever use this "rhetoric" when you're talking to people who might be fooled --- a Sunday School class for example?If you use this "rhetoric" in the sight of well-educated people such as me, then we realize what facts you are lying about and distorting --- we try to overlook that, and try to think about the actual substance of your argument. If you said the same thing to young children, then they would not know that, and your "rhetoric" would be a lie.(3) You have already screwed up on point (2). You should realize that a whole lot more people read these debates than participate on them. So you have told a whole bunch of strangers false things about the biography of Newton, false things about evolution, false things about the beliefs of Hitler, false things about the theory of gravity ... all because you couldn't be bothered to find out what was true before you posted.That is disgusting. We all make mistakes, but you did't try to be right.(4) It may become a habit. Suggestions can become memories. Well then, if you spend the next ten years explaining how biologists say that mammals evolved from turtles, then you may end up believing that it's true, and that this is really what biologists say. You in may the end forget that this started out as "rhetoric", and believe that the falsehood that you invented is a fact.To tell falsehoods, and defend your telling of falsehoods, is a pernicious habit. In the end you will have no idea of the difference between truth and falsehood or right and wrong --- you will only know what serves your agenda and you will believe that that is what God wants.---If you go on using "rhetoric" as an excuse then you will end up unable to distinguish between truth and falsehood.The following is a real story:I had met evangelical Christians before. Indeed, I had become an evangelical Christian.Then some preacher came up to me in the street. He asked me if I believed in evolution. Of course I said "yes".He then explained to me that the theory of evolution said that pigs would grow wings and fly away, and that since no-one had ever observed this the theory of evolution must be bunk.No, that's not the punch-line. That's fairly stupid, but wait a minute.He seemed to have so little of a grasp on the theory of evolution that I told him to sit down next to me. I could spend five minutes explaining it to him so that he could make his own mind up. There's mutation, and there's natural selction, and ...... at which point he exploded.Guess why?Because I was patronizing him by explaining to him what the theory of evolution actually said, which he knew. As soon as I started explaining why the theory of evolution doesn't say that pigs can grow wings and fly away, he got all offended and started to tell me how of course he knew that and that I was stereotyping all Christians as stupid by thinking that I needed to explain it to him.One minute: "The theory of evolution says that pigs will grow wings."The next minute: "You are being offensive to my religion to say that I believe what I just said."That is your "rhetoric". Creationists talk shit until they get caught, and when they get caught they get all offended at the suggestion that they were being sincere.Oh no no no, of course they didn't sincerely believe what they actually said, it was just "rhetoric".Tell the truth dammit.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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This is ridiculous and depicts very correctly the basis for the atheist philosophy - a worldview based on obsolete 19 century concepts. The fact that you are certain you understand some of those concepts proves how deluded some of you(most?) are. No Nobel Prize winner would claim to know what ANY of those concepts ttruly represent, but obviously it's not a hindrance for the kindergarten you have setup here.

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This is a straw man. You probably shouldn't get your definitions of atheism from theists. Atheism is merely a lack of belief in gods. That's it. It's as much as a "philosophy" as your lack of belief in Scientology.Until there is evidence for invisible, immeasurable beings, then it's rational not to believe in such things. I don't believe in gods for the same reason I don't believe in gremlins. Moreover, I don't believe someone is going to reward or punish me based on what I believe. I find the whole concept very manipulating and ridiculous.Atheism makes no claims to "divine truths" and most atheists don't even believe such "truths" exist; however, theists claim to KNOW that the answer to the unknowable is their god. Who is more arrogant? Most atheist have a humanistic or rationalistic "philosophy", but atheism, itself, is not a philosophy just as bald is not a hair color.I think it's much more delusional to believe in invisible, immeasurable beings that are indistinguishable from mythological or imaginary beings. All theists claim "god(s) exists". That is indistinguishable form the delusional claim that Xenu exists. There is no more evidence for one than there is for the other. The atheist merely says there is not enough evidence to believe in any gods. What is delusional about that? Should some actual evidence come along, I'm sure all atheists will reconsider the topic. We would need to be able to distinguish a real god from a misperception or myth or confirmation bias, of course. Most people don't even agree on what god is or what she does, did, or wants-- or even how many there are...or even what it means to say "how many" when you are talking about an invisible but omnipresent being.I think someone needs to prove that consciousness CAN exist without a material brain before I will believe in any invisible beings. If scientists cannot "know" about such things, then there is no reason to think that anyone else can either.Edited by articulett, : added "else" to last sentence for clarity.

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What are you talking about?

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I'm talking about how matter exists in living things are the same elements that appear to have no life in the earth such as a chunk of iron. or carbon. lifeless in appearance until it is used as a genetic building block in "living" things.if you were to shrink down and look inside your body they still exist in that same form as the stone, only much smaller and utilized in its environment differently. the entire earth or another planet or a sun could just as well interact in the same fashion inside of a greater body. emotions seem to be reflected in almost all "living" things, even plants react to emotional sounds, play rock metal to a flower and its less likely to grow. Emotions and thoughts exists within "living" things. if we do exist inside a greater body, and contribute to a greater existing body in some form or fashion, then thoughts and emotions would exist outside what we call living things, because there is nothing that exists that is dead. either A: it exists or B: it does not exist. and not existing is true death.Its a deep theory that begs for data. it will take time to accrue it. until then, if these debates do not work constructivly to the end of understanding MORE, then the debates are useless to me, and better left unsaid until i can gather the necessary data and do the necessary experiments to show what I'm talking about.

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How about we put a screwdriver through your head and see how well your thoughts and emotions get on without a functioning brain?

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This experiment has been done, and unless you are extremely sensitive to thoughts and emotions its unlikely you'll have the proof your looking for.as far as the vacuum, if there is an imbalance in pressure, there is a seeking of the ways of pressure to balance. it does not balance. it remains in motion. like wind. pressure; atmospheric or otherwise has an effect on matter. so the vacuum of space must be having an effect on the matter it surrounds in some fashion.i still have never been shown a vacuum without edges. and space is too large to use as an example.

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keep your mind from this way of enquiry, for never will you show that not-being is
~parmenides

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emotions seem to be reflected in almost all "living" things, even plants react to emotional sounds, play rock metal to a flower and its less likely to grow. Emotions and thoughts exists within "living" things. if we do exist inside a greater body, and contribute to a greater existing body in some form or fashion, then thoughts and emotions would exist outside what we call living things, because there is nothing that exists that is dead. either A: it exists or B: it does not exist. and not existing is true death.

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I think you are confused here. Emotions are brain processes that are interpreted by brains. A flower may react to sound waves, but there are no scientific studies to suggest they feel emotions. Thoughts and emotions are not magical things that exist absent a material brain anymore than music, though immaterial, is magical. Music cannot exist absent material instruments making the music and brains that interpret the music as "music". Music is a pattern of sound waves and thought is a pattern of brainwaves. They both require matter to exist.There are lots of things that exist that are dead, by the way. There are dead skin cells all over you right now. There may be a dead tree just outside your window. There may be a dead chicken in your freezer or a dead fly on your windowsill. There are dead sperm all over the place. Every living thing becomes a dead thing until the molecules that make them break apart and are incorporated elsewhere.Thoughts don't exist outside living things anymore than music does. These things are both dependent on matter to exist. There's a reason for the term: "brain dead"--the stuff required for thought is no longer working. As counter intuitive as this may seem, and as much as you or I might wish this isn't so, that is where the evidence points.Despite eons of belief, there is no evidence that any sort of consciousness can exist outside a material brain. And given the vested interest that all of humanity has in such a notion, I'd have imagined scientists would have found at least an iota of evidence that we could have built upon by now like we have with DNA. Correct information tends to lead to the ability to learn more and refine and hone that information.Really wanting to believe in souls or spirits or karma or Thetans or muses doesn't lend credence to the idea that such things are more than wishful thinking. The same goes for gods and demons. There is no way to distinguish one invisible immeasurable entity from any other. There doesn't appear to be evidence to believe in any of these things as far as I'm concerned. Edited by articulett, : No reason given.

You posted complete nonsense of a very high order and purity. I answered with the same kind of nonsense that you are espousing. It's very obvious that when you and your fellow atheists are cornered about their little theory(atheism based on misconceptions about the world), and are forced to acknowledge that you ACTUALLY know very close to NOTHING about matter, time, space, information, mind, free will, self-awareness you sidetrack the uncomfortable question with some super-duper nonsense about me being the second-smartest person in the world or me having antennaes or Einstein flying through the roof. This trend is very obvious throughout this forum - answer the uncomfortable question with another nonsensical question or run a tangent so that the question is 'forgotten'. You can't keep this delusion for long outside your own deluded circles. Your little philosophy of how the world is is wrong. Very very wrong. The small number of insights that we have been able to take into the nature of these concepts do not in ANY way whatsoever confirm the little model of the universe you have in your head. Edited by MatterWave, : No reason given.

No, and since I (and apparently everyone else on this thread) understood my simple and obvious point, you have no chance of deceiving me by saying so.You might, of course, succeed in deceiving yourself, but surely further effort in that direction is superfluous. No.If you are too dumb to tell the difference, that is of course no reflection on what I posted. Wow, all this just because you were unable to understand one simple logical proposition.One wonders how many hysterical lies I'd have elicited if I'd posted something that was genuinely hard to understand.If you had a nicer personality I'd feel sorry for you.

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The Tooth Fairy building a universe is just as unbelieveable as a fluctuation giving birth to a self-aware "I". Your dismay is the result of taking your philosophy way to seriously, whereby forgetting that we practically know NOTHING about anything as far as reality, existence and self-awareness are concerned.

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Why do you think your disbelief of the big bang and evolution is aligned with reality in any way?There is scientific evidence for the big bang and evolution, and that's why scientists hold the big bang and evolution to be provisionally true. There is no evidence for the tooth fairy, and likewise there is no evidence for God existing, or having intervened at any point in the development of the universe, let alone the diversification life.Unless you know better of course.

The thought processes of a plant and yourself do indeed seem to have more in common than I would have thought possible.But if listening to Meatloaf makes you feel happy all I ask is that you wear headphones. Rocks are alive?
Dead things are alive?
Have you been watching too many zombie films? It is a rather silly theory based on no evidence and a lot of wishful thinking. It is simply your attempt to shoehorn the "divine" into what you believe are gaps in scientific knowledge. I keep telling you that I am not looking for proof because evidence based investigation isn't about proof. You are the one that keeps demanding that everyone else disprove your pet nonsense whilst simultaneously dismissing out of hand a whole host of equally unprovable nonsense that you happen not to believe in.Having said all that I am willing to give the screwdriverinyourhead thing a go.All in the name of science.

I am not confused at all. There are many many things that I do not believe to exist. Yet I don't think I need a philosophy for each one.You apparently think we do need a philosophy for some but not others. Can you explain this or not? And yet it is you who is unable to answer simple questions about what you believe.Go figure.

dwise1, Everyone places metaphysics before epistemology, necessarily. Now of course, metaphysical assumptions are typically made sub-consciously, which is why I guess you think metaphysics is not reality. But the metaphysical assumptions still take place.Here is a simple example I used before, which you may have missed, so I will repeat it: you see a tree outside and want to know what it's trunk feels like, and then conclude that the best way to find out what it feels like is to go outside and touch it. Now there is nothing in the world wrong with doing this. But the point that this example makes is that metaphysical assumptions must be made before epistemological ones can be made. In this particular case, the metaphysical assumptions are numerous. One, for example, is "I can go outside and touch the tree". Another could be "I have a sense of touch", etc. Once these assumptions are made (though it be sub-consciously), the person can go outside and learn about the nature of the tree.But anyways, that example my seem like philosophical guru to you, but the only point I was trying to make is that metaphysical beliefs influence our epistemological beliefs. So, if we presume God to exist, and interpret nature accordingly, we will see things differently than someone would who takes the stance, for example, "nothing is true until proven to be so". Now I'm not 100% sure that you take that stance, but some other atheists on this forum do, and it is a very inconsistent viewpoint. The most glaring problem with it is that if one presumes nothing to be true, then how do they know that they are right? That is, how do they know that the statement "nothing is true until proven to be so" is true? Refer to my message #366. Refer to my message #366.

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Now as to your probability bit...You are an atheist (perhaps a materialistic one). I am a Christian. We are debating one another. Therefore, you argue against me as a Christian, and you argue against my specific viewpoint. In the same way, when I argue against you, I do not argue against Platonic Dualism, or Pragmatism, or Monism, or Existentialism. I argue against you, and your particular viewpoint.So following your logic, I could start racking off all the systems of thought that are ultimately atheistic, and start the probability bit up on you. Not to mention, of course, all the possible combination's of atheistic thought you could come up with. So what makes you think you are right?...The answer to this question doesn't matter, because it is very irrelevant. I am arguing against your particular system of thought, and you are arguing against my particular system of thought. In my system of thought, I take God's creation of the world, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His eternalness, etc., to be very fundamental points of my system of belief. And if you have a problem with these points, then...big deal. Stop arguing with me if you don't want to. But if you're going to argue with me, argue with me (duh!). I would have to do some studying on the history of the KJV to talk to you about it, so I'll just mention that the NIV is based on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are the absolute oldest manuscripts we have. And just because the KJV was translated in the 17th century, doesn't mean that it is a 1600-year-old corruption. A Bible could be translated today, and if it was based on the original letters of the apostles, and the original writings of the patriarchs and prophets etc., then it would have only been "corrupted" once. So ultimately, its not the time period that matters, but the amount of translations. Refer to my message #366. And also, why not give a reasonable, non-question-begging response to my question "why is murder wrong?", instead of just telling me I'm lying?Fortunately, I'm unaffected by your ad-hominem ramblings, but for your sake, and for the sake of everyone else on this forum, let's decide to resort to reasonable conversation to debate, and keep this discussion at least above a 5th-grade level.

PaulK, Let's look at what you said: You did admit that some assumptions must be made before producing an epistemology, and although you didn't actually use the word "metaphysical" to describe those assumptions, those assumptions couldn't be anything but metaphysical, as long as they aren't epistemological. Metaphysics deals with the nature of reality. When placing metaphysics before epistemology, guess what?...I'm placing reality before epistemology (because metaphysics deals with the very nature of reality. The reason my beliefs differ from yours is because I have a different view of reality than you do (obviously, or we wouldn't be having this discussion).

Not noticeably. But even granted this premise, we should note that epistemology deals with the nature of knowledge.It would seem advisable, therefore, to gain some knowledge about knowledge itself before trying to gain knowledge about anything else, especially such subtle and abstruse things as "the nature of reality". Without an epistemological program, you have no means of searching for such knowledge, nor indeed of identifying it if by accident you stumbled across it. To be more accurate, you're placing your unfounded beliefs about something you call "the nature of reality" before epistemology.Reality and your unfounded beliefs about the "nature of reality" are two different things. Or not, depending on whether your metaphysics is just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.To find that out, you'd need to know how to find things out, which is the subject matter of, remind me? ... oh yes, epistemology.

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You did admit that some assumptions must be made before producing an epistemology, and although you didn't actually use the word "metaphysical" to describe those assumptions, those assumptions couldn't be anything but metaphysical, as long as they aren't epistemological.

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You have managed to miss the fact that the statement you quote starts with the word "if". Therefore it does NOT "admit" that assumptions are necessary.

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Metaphysics deals with the nature of reality. When placing metaphysics before epistemology, guess what?...I'm placing reality before epistemology (because metaphysics deals with the very nature of reality. The reason my beliefs differ from yours is because I have a different view of reality than you do (obviously, or we wouldn't be having this discussion)

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But you are NOT placing reality before epistemology. You are placing imagination before truth. You need epistemology - and a reliable epistemology - to find the truth. And if your metaphysics is not true then it is NOT reality.So no, the rational and honest person must put epistemology before everything else. Anything decided prior to epistemology presents a risk of falling prey to falsehood and error.

But you haven't produced any actual ontology. That would involve you saying what it means to say "X exists", for general X. Questioned on this subject, you just said that God exists, which is not ontology any more than saying that aardvarks exist. Or unicorns, to use an analogy that might be more accurate. Apart from the fact that merely asserting the existence of God isn't metaphysics, you have not placed your religious beliefs before epistemology, just next to it. That is, you haven't shown how any epistemological conclusions can be drawn from your theistic assumption that I can't draw without it.

Huntard, You still haven't answered the question. Is something always wrong if it causes any distress, pain or suffering for someone? If something causes distress, it must be either right, or wrong. Or do you admit that there is an "in-between"? So basically, you have no definitive standard for determining right and wrong, or an ambiguous one if there is one. This means the only "thing" that can determine right and wrong (in your world) is, ultimately, yourself. You are the ultimate, deciding factor in making moral decisions (in your world, that is). You have said that other factors come into play, such as experience, but you ultimately have to decide what right and wrong is, since, after all, you have to first interpret your experiences and your evidences before you can make a moral decision. And by the way, there are no "brute facts", meaning that there are no facts that are just facts in and of themselves. They first require an interpreter that can provide good reasons for why they are true. For example, just because I say, for example, "it is a fact that the sky is blue", it isn't necessarily true, not until I provide a reason for why it is true.Anyways, you are the ultimate, deciding factor when making moral decisions for yourself. So from where did the moral arise that says that your morals in some way affect other people, i.e., why is something that is right in your mind, right for your neighbor, or vice-versa? Just because you have come to the decision that murder is wrong (in some cases), why is murder wrong for me in those cases? Why does rape disrupt society? Tell that to a starving cannibal. So would you be willing to share yourself with me, if I was starving? I guess you were talking about when I stated such things as "God is real". But these were merely statements about my beliefs, not arguments for the existence of God. I was answering the questions that I asked you, so that you wouldn't then complain and tell me that I can't answer my own questions. So we now have a new definition of "condone". So if someone doesn't condemn something, they condone it? So wouldn't this mean that because you haven't specifically condemned my coming over and killing you, you have condoned it? Let me go find my gun, and if you'll give me your address, I'll be happy to come over and fulfill your wishes...Another interesting question that is raised about slavery: if it is wrong for people to work for people without being paid (while being forced to do so), then is it wrong for oxen to work for people without being paid (while being forced to do so)? Or perhaps you would say that it is different for oxen to work for people, and for people to work for people (unpaid). This raises another question: would it be wrong for an ox to work for an ox (if it were possible)? Wouldn't this constitute a belief about the nature of reality (that reality leaves evidence behind)? You must know something about the nature of reality, or you wouldn't ever refer to reality, especially when you make explicit statements about the nature of reality, such as "reality leaves behind evidence". WHAT?!!! You don't know? You don't know why your memory is reliable, and countless other things? You have just admitted that your worldview has such huge holes in it, that it really isn't anything but a hole...And if the term "explosion" isn't satisfactory, then just insert "a rapid expansion of space", or whatever would satisfy you. As a Christian I don't believe that animals have an aesthetic sense (or at least not in the way that humans do), because the ability to sense beauty, and to be able to be in a relationship with God, and to be able to think logically etc., are all things we are able to do as a result of our being created in the image of God.Now of course, this reason doesn't satisfy you. But all I am doing is standing on my Christian worldview, as I should, if I wish to be consistent, that is. So in your world, if animals have an aesthetic sense, where did it come from?