and we are back to twitter.

what you really want to do is just argue, it in some way feeds your ego, or feeds some need that validates you. From the outside it appears to me your self worth is based on some view that you are an intellectual and these banters back and forth are your validation.

You are in no way really interested in an exchange of ideas - you just want to fight.

My goodness. Do you want to do philosophy or not? Because the above is just excuse and red herring. If you want to do philosophy, please go back to my post and probably engage my philosophical enquiry — S

it is not, but you calling every call for you to make and support your positions a red herring is one.

Faith is inconsistent with reason. — S

because........., and support please - or it is just opinion

They are two fundamentally different things, — S

agree

Reason leads me to reject what you have faith in. — S

because......., and support please - or it is just opinion

, because you don't know what the factual situation is regarding the existence of God. — S

and neither do you.

Let's not go round and round all day, like twitter. Let's do philosophy .

We make an argument to influence others that their view is in error, or to convince them that our view is correct/better/ more reasonable.

If one has no interest in either of these objectives - he has no need to argue.

I have no interest in changing your mind, I have no need to argue anything to you.

If you wish to change mine, make a complete and coherent argument with clear propositions and conclusions and I will answer them as honestly as I can.

Standing by it is not the same as justifying it. What's your counter to the claim that lack of evidence in support of a proposition constitutes reasonable grounds for not believing it? — S

I have no need to support it, I am not trying to change your POV. I have no issue at all with what you believe. I can't prove to you that God is, is a fact. So I don't try. I can't prove to you that atheism is not reasonable, so I don't. Your beliefs do not bother me, and I have never challenged you on them.

It seems rather apparent that mine bothers you, you are the one making the repeated claim that my faith based theism is in error. It is you making the claim - and you who should make the argument to support it.

But I have a bigger question for you. Why do feel such a need to proselytize me on your atheism. In all the talks we have had on the subject, I have never tried to convert you to my POV, all I have done is defend my belief - which I have always admitted was based on faith.

My belief is, as always, that my theism is a matter of faith, and that faith is not inconsistent with fact or reason.

If you belief that my theism is inconsistent with fact, I await your argument that shows God is not, is a fact.

If you believe that my theism in inconsistent with reason, I await your argument that shows it is unreasonable to have faith in theism.

Science does indeed make claims of the latter type. A pristine bedroom with no evidence of mud, fur, paw prints, and disorder, is scientific evidence of the absence of a filthy and excited dog having been in there. — S

Scientifically - your example is evidence. The evidence is the observation that we 1. knew what we were looking for, 2. Knew what it would look like if we saw it, and 3. Had a specific and limited place to look. Not an absence of. Here is the science.

Hypothesis:

There was a filthy muddy dog in this bedroom.

Assumptions:
1. In general terms I know what a dog is, if I saw a dog I would be aware of it and recognize it as such.
2. In general terms I know the nature of dogs, i know how they move, their general biology
3. In general terms I know what mud is, if I saw mud, I would be aware of it and recognize it as such.
4. Assume no other mud filled animals entered the room
5. Assume no other possible ways mud could have entered the room
6. Assume that if mud was in the room at one time, it would not have been removed prior to observation.
7. In general terms we know what a room is, and in specific we now the exact room that is in question in the hypothesis.
8. That if a muddy dog was in the room at one point it would have to leave some mud or other observable evidence in the specific search area.

Observation:

We have done an extensive search of the room in questions, with the instruments at our disposal.
We have seen no mud, and no other signs that a dog was in the room.

Conclusion:

Based on our assumptions and with the tools at our disposal we find there is no evidence to support the hypothesis that a dog was in the room.


None of that is anything at all like all the noseeum arguments you try to make. And I stand by my point
that - Lack of evidence only proves a lack of evidence.

you made this point on a different thread - matters some what you mean by guessing - i guess ( couldn't resist)

here is an example:

You and me are playing hold em poker heads up.

on the deal -
I get A Hearts, A clubs
You get 4 -5 spades.
I guess I have the best hand right now, don’ t want to get out drawn
I 3 bet
You like your suited connectors, guess I have a pair but you want to see a flop


The Flop goes A spades, 3 spades, 7 spades
I love the flop – trip A’s - bet half the pot
You seem to take a long time – but call - I guess you are playing me with the delay and have the flush and am glad you are slow playing it so I can get out on the turn

The turn is 7 hearts
I am trying to control my breathing and act cool. I check hoping to check raise you when you
Bet your flush, you guessed I had trips on the flop when I bet big and are happy I checked here guessing the board paired 7 either gave me the full house or quad 7’s - you check – expecting to fold on the river

The river is 6 spades
I know the odds of that card filling in a strait flush is 22 – 1, but I know the hand is possible the only one that can beat me. I bet the pot. Guessing you just have the flush. You go all in.

I guess you put me on trips early and didn’t bet my check on the river because you knew it was a trap and would have folded into any bet I would have made. So the river must have given you the strait flush or you would not have gone all in - But I can’t give into I would be folding a full house into a 22-1 shot - I call and lose

In your understanding of guessing – how much or all that was guessing or reasoning an unknown with limited information.

- understand, my bad - my issues is source - mea culpa - typed too fast - apologies

Again, I'm just saying that moral sentiments are contained within minds, and everyone already agrees with that so I feel no need to support it. — Isaac

that could actually be the worst philosophic argument I have ever heard.

Isaac - I completely understand your point, and I completely disagree. Nothing wrong with that. The core base of your belief is on as shaky ground as mine. That is the reason there is so many different views on the basis of morality. If that was not the case - we wouldn't be disagreeing, and we would not be at 49 pages.

I vote for it was cadbury's idea. Enjoy the chocolate.

what are your thoughts on retroactive antinatilism ? Asking for a friend.

I don't understand what you mean by supported. — Isaac

I meant what is the basis of TS's and I think your core belief that all mental phenomena is by definition subjective.

TS has already acknowledged and I think you would agree that the "all" is not correct. Things that can be shown to have objective truth outside this, such as physical reality, are not subjective by the definition above. The cat is on the chair is objectively true no matter the mental phenomena of an individual who says otherwise. So we are capable of objective thought and about thinking incorrectly about things that are objectively true. But to TS and you this does not apply to moral judgments. And as best I can tell the reason for this, just is, and has no support. TS's case is a pure no seeum argument - I don't see any evidence that there is any other way, so there is not any other way. Yours seems to be pure denial that such a thing is possible.

So the relativists, not believing that to be the case, have nothing to support — Isaac

And you do understand how completely circular that is.

Cutting to the chase - I do think it is very possible as I have said a few times, that it is very possible that there is an outside source to some moral judgments. Call it human nature, instinct, evolution or God.

And I find this a better explanation of the near universal moral judgments on some issues than your explanation.

I don't feel either of us has any certain advantage one over the other with the basis of our core beliefs and that is what I wanted to check. And with that the case, I am happy to agree to disagree.

thanks Edward, really. But I'm good on opinions on this topic. I just checked back in to see if my understanding of the base assumption was correct and what the support for it was. I don't mine agreeing to disagree - but I wanted to make sure my understanding of the counter position was correct.

https://livemusicblog.com/features/grateful-dead-wall-of-sound/

No worries - I think we are fine to agree to disagree now - i just wanted to check to see what the basis of your core assumption was, to make sure I wasn't missing anything. No need to keep repeating our positions back and forth. All good my friend.

By the way friend sent me a text reminding me yesterday was the anniversary of the Wall of Sound - thanks bear

I don't want to write anything else for a moment, because I want the only response to be asking you HOW that would be evidence of objectivity — Terrapin Station

firstly, this is your flying teapot, not mine. It should not be my job to prove your point is false. In pure argument form - I can just remain unconvinced that you have provided sufficient support for your position and remain skeptical. But being an agreeable sort -

Observation:
Almost all human beings on the entire planet have the same moral judgment on a particular action.

Possible explanations:
1. billions upon billions of individual mental phenomena all independently reach the same moral judgment.

2. there is some reason or basis external to individual and independent mental phenomena that is the source of the near universal judgment. Call it instinct, human nature, evolution, God, or what you please.

I find 2 a more logical explanation than 1.

there's a complete lack of evidence of moral judgments occurring outside of minds. — Terrapin Station

and as on many many many other things - lack of evidence, is just lack of evidence. And even that is in dispute. And at the core of point all along. Near universal moral judgments on some issues is evidence that the source of some moral judgments could have a source outside individual mental phenomena.

We will disagree here which is fine - just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

"Therefore subjective" is just a stipulation of definition. We're using "subjective" to refer to "occurs only in minds." That doesn't need any support. It's just a stipulation about how we're going to use a term — Terrapin Station

I know it is sufficient to you and yours, but to me at least the core basis for your entire argument is poorly supported at best, and in a very real way begs the entire question.

but thanks so much for a good and understandable reply.

What makes something bad morally is that an individual has the disposition that it's bad morally. That's what making something bad morally is. Things are morally good or bad to someone. — Terrapin Station

I understand what you are saying, and if I have missed it mea culpa ahead of time. But has this point actually been supported here. Again - not being difficult - but trying to understand.

This view that moral judgments are individual metal phenomena - and therefore by definition subjective.
is, i think at the core of the disagreement. But I have not seen this, or if i did, i did not recognize it as such, supported in any way.

I think there is some reasonable evidence to question the underlying assumption of de facto subjectivity simply because it is an individual metal phenomena.

I can think 2 + 2 = 5, and most would say that i was in error, it is objectively true it = 4, and so on for many physical and verifiable things. So I would say there is evidence that I can think things that are in conflict with objective and verifiable reality.

Both and myself have pointed to near universal moral judgments, and at least my underlying question on these is, as above, does it not show that there can be objectively moral views that individual thoughts can be in error of.

It seem the majority of your argument, at least to me rests on an assumption that has not been support yet as far as i can see.

Is there some support for: all moral judgments are individual mental phenomena and therefor subjective. ?

with out support the argument seems circular to me.

P1 - all individual mental phenomena are subjective
P2 - Moral judgments are individual mental phenomena

C - moral judgments are subjective

again - truly trying to understand

This seems true, but that doesn't automatically equal it being wise. Instead of debating competing meanings we might look more closely at what meaning is. — Jake

No real issue with all that - may argue some there is some balance point between experience, refection, and attempts at understanding. But of course one must experience life. As we are all aware knowledge of something and the experience of that thing are very different things.

All that aside - was not where I was going with the apparent human need for meaning. Here is the point I was trying to make, in relation to Rahner's preapprehension. That the reason or source of this desire is the inherent feeling there is something there in all of us.

how about we both stop writing sermons, I will go water my plants, and enjoy their beauty. Contemplate supper, a thought worth the time. Look forward to an evening with my wife. I think maybe I'll go experience the rest of the day, instead of trying to think deep thoughts about the rest of the day here

no need, I think Rahner would quite agree with all of that. Rahner's way at looking at some of that, is his point that we humans are both transcendental and bound to a physical world as well. We exist in the boundary between the physical and the metaphysical, and we belong to neither fully.

an interesting tangent here is the advancements in AI, and biotechnology. How far away are we from being able to download ourselves into a computer and replace all the messy bits of us with replacement parts. Would this new thing that sort of looks like us ( i would go for a few modifications) and thinks like us, be us. They cyber you is not that far away. Maybe the more important question is should we ?

The truly rational act for the atheist is not so much how one might define reality, but rather what one's relationship with reality is. Emotional relationship. That's where human beings primarily live. As example, philosophy forums are supposed to be about razor sharp reason etc, but as we all know they are actually primarily about the male ego, ie. emotions. — Jake

this is very much in line with what Rahner would call - "Anonymous Christianity"
worth looking into if you are interested.

What the God debate should have taught us is that we are fundamentally ignorant, and all our opinions on such matters are basically a thin wallpaper veneer attempting to hide that ignorance, mostly from ourselves. This vast sea of our ignorance aligns with the nature of reality. Our internal knowings are mostly nothing, a void, just as the external reality is. — Jake

what Rahner would say is we are incapable of knowing such a thing as God, other than what He reveals. Yet we all have an inherent knowledge, a pre apprehension that something is there - even if we do not recognize it, or even if we deny it.

I think Rahner would say the reason for the continual God debate, and the part of the human condition that seems to make us seek meaning - both stem from this pre apprehension. Without being to identify or even understand what it is, we are all aware something is there.

the point was in the post above the one you highlighted, which is why not just believe them.

thought you might find this quote but Rahner interesting.

"What is made intelligible is grounded ultimately in the one thing that is self-evident, in mystery. Mystery is something with which we are always familiar, something which we love, even when we are terrified by it or perhaps even annoyed or angered, and want to be done with it.

For the person who has touched his [or her] own spiritual depths, what is more familiar, thematically or unthematically, and what is more self-evident than the silent question which goes beyond everything which has already been mastered and controlled, than the unanswered question accepted in humble love, which along brings wisdom?

In the ultimate depths of his [or her] being, [the human person] knows nothing more surely than that his [or her] knowledge, that is, what is called knowledge in everyday parlance, is only a small island in a vast sea that has not been traveled. It is a floating island, and it might be more familiar to us than the sea, but ultimately it is borne by the sea and only because it is can we be borne by it.

Hence the existentiell question for the knower is this: Which does he [or she] love more, the small island of his[/her] so-called knowledge or the sea of infinite mystery? "

not sure i am up to this task. And a warning I can't do this without getting pretty religious. Not evangelising here just answering a question.

Firstly, there is an inherent problem in any discussion like this. In some way we need to anthropomorphize God to try to understand. This is necessary to some degree but always in error.

In my view all of your options are true. Catholicism allows for many interpretations of this, and many are needed to accommodate the various receivers of the message. A 12 year old boy, an un educated working man in Nigeria, a poor woman in South America a high school graduate in Vermont, a phd physicist, me, a bishop, the pope, and a Jesuit theologian. All have a different level of how to interpret abstraction. Some may need a more anthropomorphic God than others. And there is often some disagreement among factions. I think Karl Rahner was a brilliant man, and I relate well to his theology, some in the church thought he was near heretical. He didn't even like the word God very much, he like Mystery better.

In Ignatian spirituality God is in all things, He is active in our lives and in His creation. And if one pays attention one can develop a greater awareness of His presence. We develop this through discernment, where we pay attention to our feelings and emotions and discern if our choices are ordered or not. If we are authentically ourselves, and honest in our evaluations we can feel God's presents in this process. Also daily we pray the examen, this is a process of reviewing your day with the specific goal of in hindsight looking for where we felt Gods presence. When we do this we try to stay quiet in our mind and allow it to go where it wants, and focus on those things it lands on.

It's just a particular brain state, and nothing besides. — praxis

Not argument, just explanation. A tenet of Ignatian spirituality is to see God in all things. When one goes through the Spiritual Exercises, a large part of that process is the ability to become more aware of the presence of God in our every day lives. To those with a predisposition to feel so, this will sound very hokey. But to hundreds of thousands of jesuits that have done the exercises it is very real. They would say all of life is a spiritual experience if you train yourself to be aware of it. Who is to say that they are wrong, or deluded, or anything else, simply because though a different frame a reference one can not understand how such a thing could be.

Science doesn't deny the existence of minds though, nor does it deny the existence of god. It actually makes no statement about the existence or non-existence of gods whatsoever. You're confusing "is observable" with "exists". No respectable scientist goes around saying that X, Y, and Z unobserved phenomenon don't exist purely because we have not yet observed them. — VagabondSpectre

Agree - science is very much in the business of looking for stuff that does not exist, and very much not in the business of denying anything with out evidence.

It's just a particular brain state, and nothing besides. — praxis

Or without any evidence to refute them other than a different world view, we could just believe otherwise honest and unmotivated to misinform people that they believe what they believe to be true. Does your qualia of a sunset equal my qualia of a sunset. Does your attempt to inform me of the refraction of light waves through the atmosphere and the way my optic nerve relays that to my brain in any way effect my unique exeriance?

and I know you need the last word

no just don't want to waste time with you. There is a difference.

Ok - thanks for sharing - as in your original faith= guessing I have no desire to argue you over it. You asked, and seem still to be asking me to defend a position I haven't taken. The only claim I have made is my theism is a matter of faith. That is it. All the other claims are yours. And I have expressed no desire to argue against your claims.

There is no sufficient evidence to be found to the best of my knowledge [for either the existence of God or the existence of a space teapot], and you aren't providing any, so it wouldn't be reasonable for me to reach any other conclusion [than that the two positions are on the same epistemological level], would it? — S

That is not an argument for faith = guessing.

And has little to do with faith. I agree and have like a thousand times said that there is no physical evidence that God ( whatever such a thing as God is) exists ( however such a thing as God exists)

That has nothing at all to do with faith.

I am not ever going to convince you at all about anything I believe about faith, and I have no desire to try. But it seems you do have an issue about faith that you would like to convince me of. If that is the case go ahead - make your point.

We have already had the chat on the difference between teapots and God on the claim of reasonableness of claims of existence. No need to repeat. - Seems a different point to me than the one that started this - that you said faith = guessing. Not sure when that changed.

I am not doing anything

YOU said Faith = guessing , with no support, and asked me to prove that it does not -

My last post on this - unless you make a full argument

I will take a deep breath and try to explain

YOU asked if any theist would say why they believe
I said - faith
YOU said that faith = guessing, and asked me to prove it does not
(I have made no claim or effort to argue any of this - you asked - I said faith - that is all)

I feel no need to prove to you that faith does not equal guessing - I could care less what your view is on the topic

I have - however a few times, said if you wish to make some cogent and complete argument on the point , I would respond

That is how I see it - either make an argument, let it go, or throw another barb and move on - I am indifferent to each option

You are being trolled dude. Im guessing because he feels like he’s giving you your own medicine or something but its clear he is being deliberately obtuse and dishonest. I think its a personal issue with you since he isnt always like that...not on purpose like he is here anyway. — DingoJones

I am not - I have no issue or point I am trying to make. S asked, I said faith - He said that equals guessing and wants me do defend it is not. That is his point - not mine. If he wants to make the argument faith = guessing he is free to do so. He doesn't want to do that. I have no desire to prove to him that faith does not equal guessing - I could care less. If he wishes to prove the point to me - he is free to do so.

that is how I see it.

make a succinct and cogent argument all in one place about the conclusion you want to show me is true - or go back under your bridge or find someone else to waste their day with you. Either way I am indifferent -

There is no sufficient evidence to be found to the best of my knowledge, — S

for what

so it wouldn't be reasonable for me to reach any other conclusion, — S

state your conclusion

don't tell me how you would argue - make an argument - you just are trolling me to type something you can throw rocks at. I do not care at all if you do or do not - but if you actually make a coherent argument with clear propositions and conclusions I will happily address such an intellectually honest effort.

↪Rank Amateur It is up to you to support any supposed difference in epistemological level. I can't do that for you. Either I'm right or I'm ignorant, but you have done nothing which could possibly change my assessment by simply pointing to my burden of proof. The burden of proof can be avoided, as you well know. You avoid it all the time. I can avoid it by retracting my claim for scepticism, which means I have nothing to defend, but you have a questionable faith which seems no different in epistemological terms to faith in a space teapot. — S

I don't have an epistemological issue - you say i do - support your claim or not - as you wish.