Ok. Something we can agree on.The five things are not a proof for God's existence.
What are "the rules of organic thought"?The facts of the principle of identity (the rules of organic thought) are.
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Ok. Something we can agree on.The five things are not a proof for God's existence.
What are "the rules of organic thought"?The facts of the principle of identity (the rules of organic thought) are.
He's a devotee of Objectivism and a contributing writing for the official Objectivist website. I had some correspondence with him when I was researching Objectivism for my article, which has been published in an apologetics pamphlet. We moved off the official site so that we could communicate directly via a privately owned blog configured much like this forum.
I had already done the background research, but before I wrote the article from my notational outline I wanted to speak directly with one of the organization's higher ups. It's not easy. It's like a cult, akin to Scientology. These guys are really paranoid about direct communications with skeptics. I was even advised to upgrade my firewall before going to the blog as my article was not going to be a positive review. It turned out fine though as I did learn that I had a few incidentals misconstrued from my conversation with him, so I was able to revise my notes on those and do more reading to confirm.
But it did get a little weird when he asked me about my person religious beliefs. I let him know I was a Christian and he started getting a bit condescending. I ignored that, pretended not to notice, because my goal was to get what I needed and move on. But that only made him more condescending as he clearly got the idea that I wasn't merely being diplomatically obtuse but was actually stupid. I just let him go on with his silliness about the nature of chemical composition, the paradoxical position-momentum dichotomy of the Heisenberg principle and the like. . . . When he got done with all that I asked him a few pointed questions in the light of certain facts about these things, and he terminated the conversation. LOL!
I notice that the worlds of atheists get smaller and smaller with each new absurdity they assert to deny the obvious.
Actually, religion is on the retreat.He's a devotee of Objectivism and a contributing writing for the official Objectivist website. I had some correspondence with him when I was researching Objectivism for my article, which has been published in an apologetics pamphlet. We moved off the official site so that we could communicate directly via a privately owned blog configured much like this forum.
I had already done the background research, but before I wrote the article from my notational outline I wanted to speak directly with one of the organization's higher ups. It's not easy. It's like a cult, akin to Scientology. These guys are really paranoid about direct communications with skeptics. I was even advised to upgrade my firewall before going to the blog as my article was not going to be a positive review. It turned out fine though as I did learn that I had a few incidentals misconstrued from my conversation with him, so I was able to revise my notes on those and do more reading to confirm.
But it did get a little weird when he asked me about my person religious beliefs. I let him know I was a Christian and he started getting a bit condescending. I ignored that, pretended not to notice, because my goal was to get what I needed and move on. But that only made him more condescending as he clearly got the idea that I wasn't merely being diplomatically obtuse but was actually stupid. I just let him go on with his silliness about the nature of chemical composition, the paradoxical position-momentum dichotomy of the Heisenberg principle and the like. . . . When he got done with all that I asked him a few pointed questions in the light of certain facts about these things, and he terminated the conversation. LOL!
I notice that the worlds of atheists get smaller and smaller with each new absurdity they assert to deny the obvious.
2 is the descriptOR, idiotI'm talking about what the number two describes, clown shoes.
And again, knowledge needing a source is not maxi magic, knowledge COULD just be, go ahead and prove that it couldn't, absolutely.
Dork.
No. It's not described in nature either. It's cogency may be demonstrated in nature outside of our minds, albeit, only as ultimately apprehended in our minds.
And I've already shown you what real academicians already know: your argument is self-negating, futile. That will be abundantly clear again when I show it to Emily.
Also my argument is not negatable. Knowledge may have NO SOURCE, and I kno w the junk religious answer to that but you can save it. Not having to have a source =\= not existing. You can think on that, with your dogmatic pseudo philosophy.
I was actually thinking of Ayn Rand as I read your post. I recall a particularly insightful critic who observed that she was really more of a master rationalizer than a rationalist. Some people are "smart" enough to convince themselves of just about anything.... Are you an irrationalist (an epistemological relativist) or a devotee of that idiot savant Ayn Rand, G.T.? I thought you leftists hated Ayn Rand. LOL!
Awesome! Which post?I was actually thinking of Ayn Rand as I read your post. I recall a particularly insightful critic who observed that she was really more of a master rationalizer than a rationalist. Some people are "smart" enough to convince themselves of just about anything.... Are you an irrationalist (an epistemological relativist) or a devotee of that idiot savant Ayn Rand, G.T.? I thought you leftists hated Ayn Rand. LOL!
Yeah, that makes sense. So the pseudo-philosophical . . . duh . . . on the outskirts of peer-reviewed academia is the real stuff, but the real stuff of peer-reviewed academia is the duh.
I noticed that you asked Justin about the laws of thought. They are the law of identity, the law of contradiction, and the law of the excluded middle. You just violated all three in that post.
You have to be able to delineate between logic, and what logic describes.2 is the descriptOR, idiotI'm talking about what the number two describes, clown shoes.
And again, knowledge needing a source is not maxi magic, knowledge COULD just be, go ahead and prove that it couldn't, absolutely.
Dork.
No. It's not described in nature either. It's cogency may be demonstrated in nature outside of our minds, albeit, only as ultimately apprehended in our minds.
And I've already shown you what real academicians already know: your argument is self-negating, futile. That will be abundantly clear again when I show it to Emily.
Also my argument is not negatable. Knowledge may have NO SOURCE, and I kno w the junk religious answer to that but you can save it. Not having to have a source =\= not existing. You can think on that, with your dogmatic pseudo philosophy.
do realize, of course, that you just shifted from the metaphysical substance of the mathematical value of two to a tautological expression concerning the value 2, something about a descriptORidiot? You might as well just run it all together, given that gibberish is gibberish. A = A.
And that argument (snicker) of yours: knowledge presupposes a knower. Hence, for that argument (snicker) of yours, the rest is down hill from there.
Logic is simply a descriptor, it does not exist in the physical sense - what it describes exists.
Knowledge requires a knower.
Sentient brains exist.
Knowledge exists.
I was actually thinking of Ayn Rand as I read your post. I recall a particularly insightful critic who observed that she was really more of a master rationalizer than a rationalist. Some people are "smart" enough to convince themselves of just about anything.... Are you an irrationalist (an epistemological relativist) or a devotee of that idiot savant Ayn Rand, G.T.? I thought you leftists hated Ayn Rand. LOL!
Yeah, that makes sense. So the pseudo-philosophical . . . duh . . . on the outskirts of peer-reviewed academia is the real stuff, but the real stuff of peer-reviewed academia is the duh.
You are demonstrating that you don't comprehend what I said, which is what I figured. Whether you believe I have proven it or not, individuals have individual perspectives. They believe "proof" in different ways. They see and evaluate evidence in different ways. They develop perceptions of truth through what they believe, whether out of faith or logic, or even scientific observation.
Humans are not infallible, our intelligence is not omniscient and our minds are not perfect, so no one can ever know truth. We believe truths, sometimes based on perceptions of logic, faith, spirituality, science... all kinds of things or maybe even strong combinations of these things, which are all subjective and based on our perceptions and perspectives as individual entities.
The only thing that can know truth is God.
Then nothing can know truth because there is no god. That's sad huh?
I might agree with you if you said, "only a god can know everything". Is that what you meant?
P.S. I thought about you when I was talking to my dad this weekend about how there is no god. His reasoning is just as liquid as yours is. There is a god because there must be.
And neither of you give the arguments against god any honest consideration because if you did then you wouldn't be so sure there is a god.
Especially a guy like you who claims to not be a christian. Do you know what you are? A cherry picker. You are like a tea bagger or libertarian. Can't honestly defend the GOP but all you are is a spin off. A cherry picker. You believe in generic god and hell. And no one else on this planet believes what you do, but feel free to keep on thinking you are so smart.
More people are atheists than agree with your version of god. Think about that for a minute. Why do they all believe different things? Because it's all in their heads.
There are just as many gods as there are snow flakes and just like snow flakes not one god is exactly the same as another persons spin.
Dear Sealybobo:
Even if we cannot prove there is a SOURCE of all knowledge.
What about the SET of all knowledge, laws, facts, events, thoughts that have occurred in the world?
Doesn't that exist as a collective SET of all things?
You can't prove it. No one can. But the rules of organic thought do as Rawlings pointed out. God tells us he's here.
There have been numerous claims of the supernatural, none of which have ever been demonstrated to be true. Furthermore, these claims are often mutually contradictory, and people who believe in one form of supernatural or paranormal activity will usually not believe in others due to cognitive bias and wishful thinking.
Proposing a non-physical explanation for an observed or imagined/fabricated phenomena is not a testable hypothesis and is therefore unworthy of serious consideration. It precludes any deeper insight or understanding and offers no means of distinction from any other possible supernatural claim.
There are many as yet unexplained phenomena and anomalies in nature. The scientific approach to these is to say “I don’t know yet” and keep on looking, not to presume an answer which makes us comfortable.
This claim often represents a deep discomfort with uncertainty or ambiguity, demonstrating a lack of critical thinking or poor understanding of a topic. It usually coincides with credulity, which is the tendency to believe in propositions unsupported by evidence.
Argument from wishful thinking. The primary psychological role of traditional religion is deathist rationalisation, that is, rationalising the tragedy of death as a good thing to alleviate the anxiety of mortality.
There is a truth and reality independent of our desires. Faith simply reinforces your belief in what you would like to be true, rather than what really is.
In order to better under understand this reality and discover the truth we must look for evidence outside ourselves.
Faith isn’t a virtue; it is the glorification of voluntary ignorance.
Yeah. Let us known when you want to stop thinking about irrelevancies, which amount to saying God doesn't exist over and over to yourself, and get back to the objective truths about existence and origin.
I have looked at my societies main organized religion and decided it is bullshit. Some people who do what I do turn to Hindu, Budda, Muslim, Jew (Sammy Davis Jr.) Mormon, Born agains. We want to be religious. We want there to be a god.
And if my societies organized religion is made up, what does it matter if I don't believe in god? They say I'll go to hell. They are fucked up and stupid and hypocrites. If there is a god he would reward my intelligence not your stupidity. Sorry, tough love.
Only a god can say he is 100% an atheist because he would have to be able to be in all places at one time. A god basically. So we admit not to be certain. But certain your gods don't exist? That we are. So we are atheists when it comes to your god, not a generic one.
I disagree with " So we admit not to be certain " as being an impediment for the individual to accomplish the goal of Spiritual existence post physiology - whether there is an Almighty or not is irrelevant in accomplishing the goal first that itself will either answer the question or by its sucess make the answer answerable. -
engineering life must be a multispiritual endeavor, the possibility certainly exist to join the effort, doubt is the seed for failure.
.
[Rawlings, you can put any kind of descriptor in front of logic... classical, formal, neo-classical, whatever... it is still a word which describes a concept of human belief and perception. Now there IS "unassailable logic" but this doesn't mean it is truth. We are incapable of knowing truth, we can only believe truth.
This is not a matter of me wanting to continue being a cave-dweller. I understand your argument regarding human cognition and identity, and logic for that matter, and I have not disagreed with you on any of that. I have been treated as if what I had to offer posed some sort of threat to your ideas. I don't know why, other than hubris.
I have only pointed out that any discussion of "logic" or things like "evidence" and "proofs" are all highly subjective terms used by humans to define various human perceptions of the aspects in reality. Because YOU can see your argument as valid and apparent, doesn't mean that every perspective also sees the same thing. And even if they did, it doesn't mean it's the truth. Logic does not equal truth. We don't know truth, we believe truth.
Boss, I'm impervious to the false and immaterial innuendoes of hubris or insecurity. You are making claims about reality that are purely subjective as if they were absolutes from on high, while you provide absolutely no objectively discernible argumentation or evidence in support of the bald declarations. None. Your contention about logic, evidence and proofs is false and contradictory.
Now there IS "unassailable logic" but this doesn't mean it is truth. We are incapable of knowing truth, we can only believe truth.
You cannot be objective or rational if you keeping inaccurately thinking and stating things. I've told you this before. It is self-evident that logic is not truth. Logic is a tool that divulges truth. Your statement is meaningless. Then you declare that we are incapable of knowing truth. How do you know that is true? Because you believe that is true? It’s not possible to believer a falsehood?
We, all of us, can see what is objectively true logically, and there is no justifiable or coherent reason to believe that what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges is not true. Is it possible that we can come to false conclusions even though we faithfully and objectively applied the principle? Sure.
But the reason we know that’s possible is the very same reason we know the fault would not be due to the logical principle, but due to apply it to a set of falsely apprehended data or do to a set of incomplete data.
But then that mostly happens when we are applying the principle to empirical data, not the rational data of axioms, postulates or theorems.
There's not a shred of evidence to support the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated is not true. How could there be? And the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated might not be true outside of our minds is useless, subjective mush. For whether that is the case or not, we wouldn't know the difference or be able to do anything about it. That's just the way it is for us, and commonsense and experience dictate that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness are at the very least reliably synchronized with the properties and the processes of the cosmological order.
There is no evidence or reason to believe that human consciousness has primacy over existence. On the contrary, all the evidence and the rational apprehensions of human cognition dictate that existence has primacy over human consciousness!
In other words, regardless of what the ultimate reality might be, that has absolutely no bearing on what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges every time we apply it. Wisdom dictates we go with what works rationally and empirically.
Bottom line: All you're really saying in the end is that what appears to be, might not be true. Okay. That’s nothing new, and it is in fact a useful thing to know, as we know that our data could be off. Also, this understanding allows us to imagine alternatives that we might not otherwise consider, but we must eventually be able to reconcile any extrapolations thusly derived to the real world in order for them to be of any practical use, and logic tells us that what might be via intuition and experimentation is dangerous to assume without always bearing in mind the exact nature of our premise. Otherwise, we're just blindly going with the flow of subjective mush, and it is people like me who are most capable of imaginatively regarding the variously apparent potentialities, not irrationalists or subjectivists, for they are in fact the most dogmatically closed-mind fanatics around.
Absolute logical consistency and objectivity reveal the complexities and potentialities of reality, not the ill-supported meanderings of subjectivist/relativist mush that presupposes that any given proposition isn't real, may not be real or can't real simply because its purely rational and not material. Ultimately, everything we believe is rational, not material in nature. Only closed-minded dogmatists ask the question of whether or not the nature of a thing is material or immaterial, or disregard the constructs of infinity, perfection, eternity, absoluteness, ultimacy . . . and accordingly confine the principle of identity and the logic thereof to the trappings of a one-dimensional reality. Hello! Folks were actually on this thread suggesting that I'm the closed-minded dogmatist because my way of thinking about things, actually recommended by the laws of thought, didn't make sense to them. Yeah. It didn't make sense to them because they are stuck in their one-dimensional world of subjective mush, which is not what logic is telling us about reality at all!
Logic is telling us that reality is infinitely more complex than that!
You are demonstrating that you don't comprehend what I said, which is what I figured. Whether you believe I have proven it or not, individuals have individual perspectives. They believe "proof" in different ways. They see and evaluate evidence in different ways. They develop perceptions of truth through what they believe, whether out of faith or logic, or even scientific observation.
Humans are not infallible, our intelligence is not omniscient and our minds are not perfect, so no one can ever know truth. We believe truths, sometimes based on perceptions of logic, faith, spirituality, science... all kinds of things or maybe even strong combinations of these things, which are all subjective and based on our perceptions and perspectives as individual entities.
The only thing that can know truth is God.
Then nothing can know truth because there is no god. That's sad huh?
I might agree with you if you said, "only a god can know everything". Is that what you meant?
P.S. I thought about you when I was talking to my dad this weekend about how there is no god. His reasoning is just as liquid as yours is. There is a god because there must be.
And neither of you give the arguments against god any honest consideration because if you did then you wouldn't be so sure there is a god.
Especially a guy like you who claims to not be a christian. Do you know what you are? A cherry picker. You are like a tea bagger or libertarian. Can't honestly defend the GOP but all you are is a spin off. A cherry picker. You believe in generic god and hell. And no one else on this planet believes what you do, but feel free to keep on thinking you are so smart.
More people are atheists than agree with your version of god. Think about that for a minute. Why do they all believe different things? Because it's all in their heads.
There are just as many gods as there are snow flakes and just like snow flakes not one god is exactly the same as another persons spin.
Silly boob, your Dad sounds like a much smarter man than you, your Mom must have been a real air head. Tell me, when does your "phase" move back into "agnostic" mode where you maintain we don't know for sure? Is this a monthly cycle thing or does it come and go?
My version of God is very fluid. 95% of the species believes in my God, they've merely customized their version to taste. Only 5% of the species believes in Nothing.
[Rawlings, you can put any kind of descriptor in front of logic... classical, formal, neo-classical, whatever... it is still a word which describes a concept of human belief and perception. Now there IS "unassailable logic" but this doesn't mean it is truth. We are incapable of knowing truth, we can only believe truth.
This is not a matter of me wanting to continue being a cave-dweller. I understand your argument regarding human cognition and identity, and logic for that matter, and I have not disagreed with you on any of that. I have been treated as if what I had to offer posed some sort of threat to your ideas. I don't know why, other than hubris.
I have only pointed out that any discussion of "logic" or things like "evidence" and "proofs" are all highly subjective terms used by humans to define various human perceptions of the aspects in reality. Because YOU can see your argument as valid and apparent, doesn't mean that every perspective also sees the same thing. And even if they did, it doesn't mean it's the truth. Logic does not equal truth. We don't know truth, we believe truth.
Boss, I'm impervious to the false and immaterial innuendoes of hubris or insecurity. You are making claims about reality that are purely subjective as if they were absolutes from on high, while you provide absolutely no objectively discernible argumentation or evidence in support of the bald declarations. None. Your contention about logic, evidence and proofs is false and contradictory.
Now there IS "unassailable logic" but this doesn't mean it is truth. We are incapable of knowing truth, we can only believe truth.
You cannot be objective or rational if you keeping inaccurately thinking and stating things. I've told you this before. It is self-evident that logic is not truth. Logic is a tool that divulges truth. Your statement is meaningless. Then you declare that we are incapable of knowing truth. How do you know that is true? Because you believe that is true? It’s not possible to believer a falsehood?
We, all of us, can see what is objectively true logically, and there is no justifiable or coherent reason to believe that what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges is not true. Is it possible that we can come to false conclusions even though we faithfully and objectively applied the principle? Sure.
But the reason we know that’s possible is the very same reason we know the fault would not be due to the logical principle, but due to apply it to a set of falsely apprehended data or do to a set of incomplete data.
But then that mostly happens when we are applying the principle to empirical data, not the rational data of axioms, postulates or theorems.
There's not a shred of evidence to support the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated is not true. How could there be? And the notion that the knowledge thusly extrapolated might not be true outside of our minds is useless, subjective mush. For whether that is the case or not, we wouldn't know the difference or be able to do anything about it. That's just the way it is for us, and commonsense and experience dictate that the rational forms and logical categories of human consciousness are at the very least reliably synchronized with the properties and the processes of the cosmological order.
There is no evidence or reason to believe that human consciousness has primacy over existence. On the contrary, all the evidence and the rational apprehensions of human cognition dictate that existence has primacy over human consciousness!
In other words, regardless of what the ultimate reality might be, that has absolutely no bearing on what the objectively applied principle of identity divulges every time we apply it. Wisdom dictates we go with what works rationally and empirically.
Bottom line: All you're really saying in the end is that what appears to be, might not be true. Okay. That’s nothing new, and it is in fact a useful thing to know, as we know that our data could be off. Also, this understanding allows us to imagine alternatives that we might not otherwise consider, but we must eventually be able to reconcile any extrapolations thusly derived to the real world in order for them to be of any practical use, and logic tells us that what might be via intuition and experimentation is dangerous to assume without always bearing in mind the exact nature of our premise. Otherwise, we're just blindly going with the flow of subjective mush, and it is people like me who are most capable of imaginatively regarding the variously apparent potentialities, not irrationalists or subjectivists, for they are in fact the most dogmatically closed-mind fanatics around.
Absolute logical consistency and objectivity reveal the complexities and potentialities of reality, not the ill-supported meanderings of subjectivist/relativist mush that presupposes that any given proposition isn't real, may not be real or can't real simply because its purely rational and not material. Ultimately, everything we believe is rational, not material in nature. Only closed-minded dogmatists ask the question of whether or not the nature of a thing is material or immaterial, or disregard the constructs of infinity, perfection, eternity, absoluteness, ultimacy . . . and accordingly confine the principle of identity and the logic thereof to the trappings of a one-dimensional reality. Hello! Folks were actually on this thread suggesting that I'm the closed-minded dogmatist because my way of thinking about things, actually recommended by the laws of thought, didn't make sense to them. Yeah. It didn't make sense to them because they are stuck in their one-dimensional world of subjective mush, which is not what logic is telling us about reality at all!
Logic is telling us that reality is infinitely more complex than that!
You are demonstrating that you don't comprehend what I said, which is what I figured. Whether you believe I have proven it or not, individuals have individual perspectives. They believe "proof" in different ways. They see and evaluate evidence in different ways. They develop perceptions of truth through what they believe, whether out of faith or logic, or even scientific observation.
Humans are not infallible, our intelligence is not omniscient and our minds are not perfect, so no one can ever know truth. We believe truths, sometimes based on perceptions of logic, faith, spirituality, science... all kinds of things or maybe even strong combinations of these things, which are all subjective and based on our perceptions and perspectives as individual entities.
The only thing that can know truth is God.
Then nothing can know truth because there is no god. That's sad huh?
I might agree with you if you said, "only a god can know everything". Is that what you meant?
P.S. I thought about you when I was talking to my dad this weekend about how there is no god. His reasoning is just as liquid as yours is. There is a god because there must be.
And neither of you give the arguments against god any honest consideration because if you did then you wouldn't be so sure there is a god.
Especially a guy like you who claims to not be a christian. Do you know what you are? A cherry picker. You are like a tea bagger or libertarian. Can't honestly defend the GOP but all you are is a spin off. A cherry picker. You believe in generic god and hell. And no one else on this planet believes what you do, but feel free to keep on thinking you are so smart.
More people are atheists than agree with your version of god. Think about that for a minute. Why do they all believe different things? Because it's all in their heads.
There are just as many gods as there are snow flakes and just like snow flakes not one god is exactly the same as another persons spin.
Silly boob, your Dad sounds like a much smarter man than you, your Mom must have been a real air head. Tell me, when does your "phase" move back into "agnostic" mode where you maintain we don't know for sure? Is this a monthly cycle thing or does it come and go?
My version of God is very fluid. 95% of the species believes in my God, they've merely customized their version to taste. Only 5% of the species believes in Nothing.
I was actually thinking of Ayn Rand as I read your post. I recall a particularly insightful critic who observed that she was really more of a master rationalizer than a rationalist. Some people are "smart" enough to convince themselves of just about anything.... Are you an irrationalist (an epistemological relativist) or a devotee of that idiot savant Ayn Rand, G.T.? I thought you leftists hated Ayn Rand. LOL!
Yeah, that makes sense. So the pseudo-philosophical . . . duh . . . on the outskirts of peer-reviewed academia is the real stuff, but the real stuff of peer-reviewed academia is the duh.
I think you probably missed my point. Which, to be fair, wasn't very clear.
My son has tried to convince me that our beliefs, even beliefs that are highly articulated, are never fundamentally rational at their core - and I'm beginning to think he's right. He says that they are adopted to satisfy deeply embedded emotional needs and we use reason to justify them or, far more rarely (almost never for most of us), challenge them. The thing is, it's the emotional strength of our beliefs that drives us to justify them rationally. And the more powerful the belief, the greater work we're willing to do to justify it.
I'm waiting for the TAGGers to make an honest admission that that TAGGing makes every possible explanation for existence (and for competing claim to gods) just as likely as theirs.I'll wait for TAGGers to absolutely disprove other possible explanations for existence.