Peanut Gallery

Hi bluejay,
Glad to see you eye to eye
I should give credit back - your clear and insightful examples and descriptions of your objections allowed me to quickly find a sufficient way to explain our point of view. I wrote that so as that you might try and read Straggler's points from this perspective and that might help clear up some mutual confusions that were springing up in your discussion with him. And maybe it worked, I don't know.

If you (finally) accept that bluegenes theory is a positively evidenced naturalistic explanation for an observable phenomenon (i.e. human belief in supernatural concepts) then you presumably also now understand that citing baseless unfalsifiable alternatives to this explanation is of no more consequence to this theory than omphalism is to the theory of evolution.You finally realise the validity of all those comparisons I have been making which you have found so annoying and which you have so railed against. The destination is the same even though the paths may differ. Which is effectively what I have been saying explicitly ever since Message 591But more than that I would say that ANY atheist position advocated at EvC based on citing evidence of human belief (psychology, anthropology, neurology, history etc. etc. etc.) is immediately misinterpreted by theists (and their "agnostic" adherents) as being an explicit and absolute denunciation of the existence of supernatural beings. And is thus met with stupid and irrelevant demands for disproof and pointless talk of absolute falsifiability where no equivalent evidence based conclusion in any area not so obscured by belief would be spared such irrelevencies.

I feel forced to point out the blatant maturity behind this post.
How dare you admit your mistake!
I have given your post a score of 5 as a protest against such behaviour.I hope you feel deeply ashamed at your display of strength of character.

Hi, Straggler. Yes.----- Well, if you'd give better context, maybe it wouldn't be so easy to misunderstand.During the debate, RAZD or I would make a comment. Then, you would respond, "No, that's not it. Look, here's an example that, if you knew what my perspective on the issue was, you would understand." I would then proceed to read the example, but without any idea as to what, exactly, it was an example of, it didn't ever read like anything relevant. And, all I got from you was repetition of it.But, I fell behind in the Great Debate thread midway through the second page because of all the mind-numbingly long-winded posts, and can't, for the life of me, keep up with it anymore, so that much is my fault.----- For future reference, if your goal is to avoid being misinterpreted as denouncing the existence of all supernatural beings, it would help your cause if you didn't start debates by saying, "All supernatural entities are figments of the human imagination.Edited by Bluejay, : the pronoun "it" is not appropriate for self-reference.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

I have previously tried to spell out where the mis-communication lay in numerous posts. Not least of all here Message 591 and here Message 187.That both I and bluegenes were continually citing the theory in question as a positively evidenced naturalistic explanation for an observed phenomenon was (I thought) the give-away as to what was actually being proposed.But anyway. Whatever the source of the miscommunication, and I accept my portion of blame, I am delighted that we got there in the end with a bit of encouragement from Mod. To be fair that was bluegenes expression not mine. Although I probably would have said something similar if characteristically less succinct.Now that you do understand what is being proposed how do you think it would be better phrased?

Hi, Straggler. Having now had the opportunity to peruse our discussion, I can see that there were a few places where I might have figured it out if I had taken more time to consider it: but I got lost in the disagreement, rather than in the search for a resolution.For that, I accept the blame.----- I've been anticipating this question, but I haven't been able to come up with an acceptable answer yet: everything I come up with is either not concise enough or too easy to misinterpret. One would think it would be easier, eh?You could start with something along the lines of: "Human concepts about what supernature is are figments of human imagination." It still needs some work, though.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Yes that is exactly the sort of clumsy and unedifying sentence that I was coming up with.

"Human concepts about what supernature is are figments of human imagination."Why is the point of the theory only being about our concepts of things as stemming from our imagination? Isn't that obvious and somewhat tautological?Didn't it come about as a way to support the disbelief in god? If its not saying anything about the actual god, then how does it have anything to do with what it stemmed from?

The theory isn't 'all concepts are conceptual' it is 'all supernatural concepts originate in the human mind' this is in contrast to say giraffe concepts which would originate from encountering extra-mental giraffes.If you think there exists a supernatural concept which corresponds with a non-mental entity in the same way giraffe concepts do, you can falsify the theory by presenting evidence for said non-mental supernatural entity.

Yes - agree. However, again (and as CS has quickly nuanced), what is new here? It's like, I mean - "So what?"Well, the predictive power of this theory is that when we bring the hard, cold fist of scientific investigation to bear upon the concept, we will always find that the evidence shows it was made up by human imagination (or HILF, that's Highly Intelligent Life Form and not some variant of MILF, if you will).I am again reminded of a short short story I read in Analog or Azimov magazine zillions of eons ago about the Shroud of Turin. This was before the actual scientific investigation occurred. After much hemming and hawing, the church officials decide to let a scientific investigation of the Shroud commence to determine if the blood stains are human and are about 2000 years old. The scientist returns later with basically a "Good News/Bads News" ending. The good news for the Church is that the blood is human and the dating of the blood is very close 2000 years old, within the error brackets! All the careful study they have taken to verify the legendary Shroud's care and it's resting place through thousands of years has proven to be a mission well done. So they ask what the bad news is and the scientist reveals that the blood contained very strong concentrations of chemical indicators that the particular human being that belonged to that blood sample was very deranged and afflicted with a mental disease of the sort that manifests itself often as someone proclaiming to be a god.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Think of bluegenes theory (and the evidence on which it is founded) in terms of answering the following question: Why do humans believe in supernatural beings?Here we have an observed phenomenon (i.e. human belief in supernatural beings) and we are seeking a scientifically evidenced answer. It is a falsifiable prediction of the theory that no-one will be able to present any objective empirical evidence that suggests beyond reasonable doubt an alternative source of such concepts. The demonstrable existence of such an entity would be such a source.As Mod has already pointed out the concept of a giraffe is not sourced from human imagination but from the scientific fact that giraffes actually exist. Surely you can see the difference. Of course it is related. And I realise that to you thinking about the evidence and then coming to the conclusion instead of deciding what you believe and then insisting it is evidenced in some way must seem rather radical.....

See Message 641And do stop with the extraneous "furniture" Xongsmith.

It is not in the province of Science to answer WHY shit happens.Science merely DESCRIBES how it happens.Even the so-called "soft" science, Psychology, might use the word "why" as a shorthand for an indeed Stragglersque lengthly paragraph or 6 for the descriptive nature of what humans may be doing in their heads for the issue of the moment. Explanatory? Yes. Why? No.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

Aw, come on. You liked that.

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- xongsmith, 5.7d

In many cases, including this one, the distinction is a stupid one.The scientific evidenced conclusion is that any supernatural concept, indeed the very concept of supernature itself, is a product of human invention.If you want to point out that this doesn’t conclusively prove that supernatural beings do not or cannot exist — Then fine. I will shrug and say So what?Because what this does do is put the entire concept of supernature firmly in the ‘baseless conjecture’ camp along with creationist omphalism, Scientologist claims about Thetans and all other such claims.