Bush's lies were transparent, and whether he believed them or not we can't know.

But more to the point, is your story about the peasants and the castle.

My friend Paul and I were driving down the street one day, when he said, (this goes back a good 10-20 years) "You know what they want to do next? Shoot another man up to the Moon." Then I said, or he said, "(get out of here), are they really running so low on ideas?" Then I said something and Paul said, "Astronaut fucking moron." I started to laugh uproarously; i told Paul his utterance imitated that of those people, who are full of self-confidence, and if they don't understand something, they declare it stupid.

I think your mysterious ingredient why the stupid call the intelligent or the intelligents' ideas stupid is the Occam's razor of explaining something which they can't come grips with, in terms that speaks to them.

My uncle's butler is similar in a lot of ways.

Another thing that the incredibly stupid do, is say "It has never been that way around here" when I know for a fact it has, even just the week before. This angers me, for some, to me unknown, reason. In other words, "The tickets here never cost $7.50", Hearing this or similar, makes me angry and I don't know why.

Please look at and read Pantagruel's post just before yours.

IOW if a materialist argues that God does not exist because it would entail a dualism and 'we already know that materialism is the case, or that we know that a dualism cannot be the case' is now using a philosophical that is undemonstrated as if it is a scientific theory.. — Coben

A sane scientific materialist would never argue what you suggest they would argue.

In fact, no philosopher would argue that god does not exist. And no philosopher would argue that god exists.

God is a concept that has validity in a probable real existence. However, we know nothing about the nature of god. To claim any attribute to be known of god is pure charlatanism. That includes the claim of its non-existence and also of its existence.

-------------

That said, I never thought of this, but some pointed out that materialists would not call themselves scientific materialists; Scientific materialism (I don't want to abbreviate to SM) may be a name coined by the religious, to create a strawman that they can stab with their steely knives of arguments, but they just can't kill the beast, creating magical effects for their congregation to bewitch them into thinking that materialists actually think what the religious paint them with the colours of the devil-figure attributes of what they term scientific materialists. So to speak.

Sorry, I got too metaphoric there.

IOW it may be only the religious (I don't know this, actually), who use the term "scientific materialist" for a purpose to designate those materialists, who argue god does not exist because the science of matter (?) excludes now all gaps of knowledge formerly needed to be filled with a god-worship.

In fact, you and I could form a formidable writing pair. I would provide the ideas, and you, the precise and exact references.

Everything I think of has been thought of before in philosophy.

The difference between you and me, Pantagruel, I think, is that I think of these things, without any prior reading, whereas you seem to be reading about them first.

The main thing is that we agree when our terms have been defined identically in our minds, because our understanding of topics, however differently arrived at, is the same. (-:

For the closing of each gap, ten new gaps are opened.

Scientific materialism states that everything CAN be explained in the physical world, by physical laws. It does not say everything IS explained.

Scientific materialism is a philosophy, and therefore it does not require evidential support to the tune of, let's say, attributing causes to an effect in the physical world.

The OP is right about science not offering support for scientific materialism.

Scientific materialism is a philosophical concept, and as such, it could exist even if all scientific experiments were unable to point at cause-effect movements in the physical world.

So while it is true that science does not provide complete support to scientific materialism, the OP regretfully omitted that scientific materialism does not REQUIRE any such support by science.

How do you pronounce "Michael"? After all, you ought to be the ultimate authority on that.
=====
OOps. I realized that you have already said that.

Alzheimer's dementia strikes again. Forgetfulness is like a... a... I forgot.

I think we were trying to determine if there could be something more complex than humans, then as usual it got bogged down in demands for meaning. — Brett

I would say it bogged up, not down. If you mean different things with the same word, there is bound to be differences in expressed opinion. If you can get to a point where people who had been contentious can agree on meaning, then it's the first step to common understanding and agreement.

There could still be forever lasting conceptual differences, like between those who insist everything must have started sometime, even time, and those who can conceptualize things not starting ever, but existing since time eternal.

An intelligent person can identify true intelligence with his intelligence. What can someone without that skill do to distinguish between a person who actually understands something and someone who who just pretends? I really don't have an answer for that. Make basic education better? Make everyone more intelligent? — Qmeri

My solution would be to make everyone dumm.

The present public education system in North America is doing a superb job at it. It makes sure that people don't understand math, the sciences, technology and logical connections. This is a great way to pave the road for the rich to get richer and for the poor to get poorer.

What exactly is a religion (such as Christianity in the United States) competing with the state over? — praxis

things considered for competing in politics between religion and state:
1. Income.
2. Military power.
3. Abortions.
4. Votes. (Everyone loves them.)

Things NOT considered for competing in politics between state and religions:
1. Social services (Yuck... this man is stinky, that woman is a crack ho, that kid is delinquent, must build more jails immediately, must privatize government, and must privatize democracy.)
2. Social services (Hey, guys... this costs money. Nobody said that before we started. Must abort this involvement immediately.)
3. Social services. (Settle down, guys... we don't want to be branded "bloody commies".)

You said "compelled". That suggests a degree of force I didn't insinuate, like there's some kind of obligation backed by force comparable to that of law. — Pfhorrest

I would have mentally substituted "morally obliged" or "due to feelings of gratitude" for "compelled". Compelling does not necessarily involve law; but gratitude and moral conviction are forces to reckon with.

In all fairness, I don't know what strength of force you did not insinuate, I must go back further in this thread to find it out.

I suddenly feel 10 years old. — praxis

You just discovered the elixir of eternal youth. (-:

That has a business angle, too, you know.

Currently, cognitive science suggests swearing could be a sign of poor character, dishonesty, and other deficient social skills... — 3017amen

Concurrently, behavoural research suggests that swearing releaves kindey stone pressure, restores dead hair follicles to life (Hallelluyyah!) and mixes mortar for the building blocks of the Stairway to Heaven.

Some of the famous swearers in history:

V. I. Lenin (eeg'ee v huy),
Inge Merkel (Schweinhunden! Der ganze Rat!)
The Buddha (I can't believe this shit...)
Saul, or St. Paul of the Bible (Arsenokoitei)
The President of the United States of America (I like to grab their ***s; I like to **** with everybody's ****;
it gives me joy to put my **** in their ****.)

I asked this before, but if he wants Pigliucci to hear his life story so bad, why doesn't he just email him himself? — Artemis

Why not? He may have feared that a private email would not have been intercepted by lurkers everywhere, and read by thousands of complete strangers.

This is not a fact, but a stab at the truth. I may be totally off the target.

Maybe we're a little too conservative in who we get rid of for low quality, but a) we want to give posters a chance to improve and b) we post bannings and get interrogated about them, so we need to be able to justify whatever we do. — Baden

Consensus by the body of users on these forums which supports the banning of one or another may be 1. a guidance on pinpointing offenders and 2. an insurance that there won't be too much indignant upheaval among the users.

Best way to react to moderation is to treat it as valuable information — bert1

This is true.

I hope he stays. Best way to react to moderation is to treat it as valuable information about the values of the forum and adjust accordingly. He can still offer his theories if done in a more engaging way that people might want to respond to. — bert1

His theories were mere word salads. Speedtime and timespeed and such. He used physical concepts that had not been defined by physics, his theories were really insane. I am not talking about the banned user necessarily, I'm talking about the one on philosophynow.

There was nothing to say edgewise to his theories, because they were the products of an unfortunate, unlcear mind.

- P is equal to, but not the same, as p{D} - {speedtime}

This he did not write, it is my approximation of what he would write.

"The above guidelines are in place to help us maintain a high standard of discussion and debate, and they will be enforced. If you feel from the get-go that their very existence impinges on your right to free speech, this is probably not the place for you." — Baden

Baden, I appreciate that rules are made to be broken. But there are some other users who have a proven track record of making even less sense than the user who has just been banned.

I also appreciate that the user banned was banned because he committed other offences. But I'd like to see the "no-nonsense" rule to have stronger measures of enforcement than up to now.

I would also like to see clarification on the use of humour.

As a regular user I am glad the mods took action. I was considering reporting his stuff. — bert1

I was hesitant whether to leave a snide remark, with cutting sarcasm, or do nothing.

I think I did both.

The guy was not a total waste, he had valid things to say, but not always. His one-sentence replies were sensible, but his longer posts were complete brain salads. He posts, if I am any judge of style and content, at philosophynow with the id of "7johndoe" spelled backwards. I can't be bothered to trace the letters to spell them backwards.

There, on philosophynow, he goes on rampage upon rampage of posting his theories that do not make sense. If it's the same guy. He had also, if this is the same guy, left a very long post in the Lounge section at philosophynow, a very long time ago, an autobiographical note. Very, very sad, his life story is. Not just pitiable; you had to cry when you read it. It looked honest and candid, not made up at all.

Yes. Even the admins obey my demands. — Michael

I was simply doing a pun on the sound of "your call" as opposed to "my call" as in "Michael". I've been savouring to crack that pun for a long time. Like five days or so. Thanks for the opportunity.

It wasn't the best context to crack it at, and I'm sure in sounded language it can be made to work more smoothly and more overtly.

Desmond Morris a Zoologist who wrote books about human behavior, — Athena

Serves us right. Humanologists (Psychologists) usually write books about rat behaviour.

There are a huge number of problems crapping up. Overpopulation; polluting the environment; climate change; rich getting richer; poor getting poorer; corrupiton in gov; corruption in democratic process; pollution in demographic progress; redistribution of income, goods, services, races, religions and used goods; prepossessing priviledged status (the new aristocracy); the old aristocracy; racial relations; job losses; redistribution of overproduction crises; lazy bums; drug abuse, drug culture; the Capitalist Pharmaceutical-Military Complex; Shooting civilans en mass by terrorists, both foreign (politically driven) and domestic (fun types); terrorism by random political groups; terrorism organized by the Islamic fanatics; terrorism organized by the Pentagon whereby they bomb anyone on the map that the random country generator spits out of the computer; AIDS, hep C, West Nile Disease, lack of medicare in the USA. High cost of housing, high cost of food. Low cost of manufactured goods. Police brutality. Proliferation of Painful Puns. Alleged Autocracy over All Alliteration. The fall of the Roman Empire. Pestilence. The three horsemen of the Apocalipso Band of Indians.

The only saviour, the only safe place for the soul these days is singing rock and roll. Belting it out freely, without restraints or restrictions, from the bottom of your heart.

"Sziv es pohar, tele buval, borral,
Huzd ra cigany, ne gondolj a gonddal."

Translation:

"Heart and glass, filled with worry and wine;
Play it on, Gypsy, dont' fret, don't whine."

We don't want posts that are worthy of deletion showing on the site. That's why we delete them. — Michael

I guess it's your call, Michael.

The trash can was the Auschwitz of forum posts. Gnashing of teeth, a sea of burning sulphur. Souls living in eternal suffering. Those who got out of there alive, bore a frighteningly dark, tremendous scar on their souls for the rest of their lives.

That’s why the religious right is so antisocialist. They see secular society as a competing religion. If the only social support system is religious then religions benefit. If there are alternatives then religions risk losing to the competition. — Pfhorrest

Very smart. I always thought that the religious fight and fear atheism because of tribal patriotism. But there is more to it; in fact, the truly religious can't conceive of a life without a god faith. So they view atheism as a god-faith of some weird sort. Here, their fight is not only to preserve control, but also to preserve their god; and that is threatened, like you said, PFH, by socialism, which is the devil-worship of the atheists, so to speak.

but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. — Epictetus, Enchiridion, 1.

Here are things that are self-contradictory in Stoicism.

Things I control are my actions.

Things I don't control are things.

Ergo I don't control my reputation etc.

Strangers control my reputation.

------------------

Stoicism's rules don't apply to strangers. I can't control my reputation, but they can. It's not their action; their control is extended to things. They have special controls; not over more actions then I have, but they have control over things. Which I don't.

So the rule of Stoic philosophy does not apply to everyone equally? I can't control things, but others can?

What sort of a philosophy is that? It's like a physics that says gravity acts on some objects with mass, but does not act on some other objects with mass.

Or in chemistry: some oxygen atoms combine with hydrogen atoms, but some other oxygen atoms never combine with hydrogen atoms.

NO, but the way anyone can understand pregnancy without being pregnant.

Are you just trying to make conversation? Why don't you and I rent a room instead?

You can't internalize infinity. You don't have enough space. — ovdtogt

I meant aspects of it. Not the entire thing. I think I expressed that in the post.

Otherwise you're right. But then again, otherwise everyone is always right.

Those participants can easily just avoid the topic, or join in the thought experiment. Given that it is the assumption, it is not as if they are be cornered into chaning their minds or seeming to. — Coben

Absolutely.

↪god must be atheist Understanding infinite time and space requires infinite wisdom. — ovdtogt

Well, some aspects of it may, but there are aspects that you can internalize with limited wisdom, and the overview of the concept itself does not require infinite wisdom at all.

So I would be standing at the point represented by -1 and the next yardstick out would be -2 etc... The person laying out the yardsticks would have to start at the point '...' — Devans99

Again, you are speaking of a starting point. But there is no starting point in infinite space in any direction.

Every one of your arguments involves a starting point. And you don't specifically say it, but you imply that everything must have a starting point.

Aside from chaning your argument form the fact that you try to prove that there is a starting point (end conclusion) because there is a starting point (your premise), you need to conceptualize that that there is no starting point when something is infinite. Once you got that, you can begin to realize what I am trying to explain to you.

Among other things to consider FOR ME, is my uncle, who is a physician, who, like you, also is stuck in this starting-point concept. He often wants to start discussion about belief in god, as he is religious, and he starts his discussion with "You see, nephew, everything has to have a start, and..." and there is no way in earth, heaven or hell, that I could convince him that not everything has a start. Those things that have gone on since infinity, don't have a start.

This is a conceptual problem or limitation, and I don't wish to discuss it further, because if you are like my uncle, then you are a person who can never imagine or conceptualize this, and there is nothing and nobody who can enlighten you with this intuitive thought.

Every system that exists within time, be it a clock, a particle, or a whole universe, requires an initial state — Devans99

,,,unless it has always existed.

The clock that has always existed shows an undeterminent time at present. Whatever it shows now, it will show five minutes more in five minutes.

The clock has a beginnig point on its dial, and an end point, if you choose 0:00:00 and 23:59:59. But a period of time elapsed that you are measuring does not have to start at 0:00:00. It can start at 14:24:38 if you want, and you simply subtract the beginning time from the end time to arrive at the elapsed time.

If you have a clock going on for infinite time, you can't measure a finite time segment, because infinite time is not delimited by a beginning (or by an end or by both). Therefore the clock face is meaningless as to what it shows for present time if it has been going on forever in the past.

If religion is wrong, life is literally meaningless — Yahya Al Haj Eid

Religion is not right or wrong, it is based on nothing. It may be right on target, or it could be totally off. We don't know.

Religions talk about the nature of god and its will. But god is completely elusive, we got no data, no information on it. It is perfectly possible that god exists, and equally possible that it does not exist. But to claim that any human knows anything about god is charlatanism.

Sure, we got the ancient texts on god... but who were these books written by? Some humans, who purport to hear god's voice. You believe it if you want to; but you can also disbelieve it if you want to. And lo and behold, those who believe that the scriptures of a religion are authentic, are called the religious, and those who reject this notion, are the non-religious.

So... you say you can only have a meaningful life if you believe that an ancient text's words are authentically god's words. This is your perogative, but basically what you can be SURE of is that you have a meaning in your life because you believe the texts, which are not proven to be authentic, only believed to be authentic, and believed not even by everyone.

Your entire meaning is hanging on a text that describes, among other things, gods that have attributes that make the particular god impossible to be, because it has conflicting attributes.

So your meaning is hanging on something impossible.

Have a nice meaning.

it won't, indeed, go off-piste as humans would and tell you how moved it was by its grandfather's wartime experiences. — mcdoodle

Well, maybe it would if only it had its own grandfather. :-) Which served in the war. :-) And had experience-ready capabilities. :-)

↪god must be atheist Makes sense. God gives free will to his creation. Such free will includes both the ability of good and evil. Such ability of free will comes from God himself. Would that also then mean that God has the ability to create evil, even be evil himself? — chromechris

Well, this stands on a purely logical platform. You need to examine specific religious dogma to see if it stands in a given religion.

You see, the god concept is irrefutably possible to exist. But we don't KNOW anything about the possibly existing god. And religions often depict god, or imbue it with qualities that make it self-contradictory or impossible to be.

So to argue about this quality of god or the other, you need to rely on some sort of concepualization of god, which religions readily provide, but without any reliable bases. We have no data, no information on god, other than it has a possibility of existing.

So yes, I accept your question's proposition. I hope you see these are purely hypothetical presuppositions as we have no real data on god, not even evidence that it exists.

The truth is massively overrated.
— Isaac

So you're one of them then. When the evidence points to the truth of something other than what you believe, you dismiss the truth as "massively overrated". — Metaphysician Undercover

The Physics of Metaphysics

1. Facts are solidified opinions.
2. Facts weaken under extreme heat and pressure.
3. Truth is elastic.

The problem is that our associations are dependent on almost everything that makes up a human mind. They are affected by the mood of the situation, how things look like, what the current events are and how they affect the particular group that is talking, our human needs and priorities and other things that are very particular to human programming. — Qmeri

Well put, but I don't see why all aliens must lack in ability of human-like mirroring. Some aliens may have had experiences and developments in their evolutionary past that are similar to human experiences and developments. This is what you need to show is impossible. I don't think this can be shown in an a priori manner.

Something existing for an eternity of past time is an impossibility. To see this you can for example imagine a 24h clock that has exist forever and has been keeping time forever. What time does it read currently? — Devans99

This is a false argument. You might as well challenge the infinity of the three dimensional space with a similar mental experiment.

"Infinite directions are impossibilities. To see this, you can for example imagine an infinite series of yardsticks that have been lain in one direction coming toward you, and reaches the point at which you exist. How many inches (fractions are allowed) does the yardstick show at the point on which you stand?"

I totally agree with you. That is why I have stopped to try to figure out Eternity. That is a sure way to end up in an asylum for the mentally insane. — ovdtogt

It has been said that some qualities of eternity can be known, without experiencing eternity.

To try to experience eternity will certainly make a human question his own sanity.

Terry Pratchett, a writer for whom I hold high respect, wrote in one of his books: (not a quote, but a description of events) Two people from temperate climate zones who are by fate now in a desert at night, are staring at the starry sky with its infinite stars and galaxies, and one says something to the effect: "This is why religions always start in deserts. A man (meaning a human: man or woman) needs to place something, like a god, between himself and infinity in order to preserve his sanity."

So a belief in an infinite past equates to a belief that:

- Someone exactly like you
- On a planet exactly like earth
- Has been reading a post exactly like this
- And this event has occurred an infinite number of times in the past.

This has always struck me as an absurdum reductio argument for the impossibility of infinite past time. — Devans99

Reductio ad absurbum is a proof that has a premise: "Nothing can both be and not be at the same time and at the same respect." If you claim that trees are green AND red at the same time and in the same respect, then that is a necessarily false claim.

I see no recuctio ad absurdum in your example.

You must somehow think that because something is bizarre, then it must be absurd, and anything absurd is impossible.

I think you commit the equivocation fallacy.

A belief in the infinite past and in the future both imply that those states that have a nonzero possiblity of occurring in the universe, infinitely repeat. This may strike you as unbelievable, but just because it strikes you so, you have not proven that they are impossible. They are bizarre, for which a synonym is absurd, but it has no relation to the reductio ad absurdum logic state.

Something existing for an eternity of past time is an impossibility. To see this you can for example imagine a 24h clock that has exist forever and has been keeping time forever. What time does it read currently? — Devans99

It can show any time. The important thing is that it shows intervals of time. You are forcing a question that can only be answered with a numerical value if time started at one point. But time did not start at any point. The clock did not start at 0:00:00. The clock never started. It is going round and round, one cycle in 24 hours. The cycle could be from 0:00:00 to 0:00:00 or from 14:32:56 to 14:32:56. What the face shows is only material for things that are temporal (do not last infinitely in time).

Let me ask you: Let's suppose you are right, and time does have a beginning, at which the clock was started. Then what was the time five minutes before that? Because every time you pick a specific time, there are five minutes before that, and five minutes after that.

Another way of showing that time is infinite is the method of mathematical induction. Mathemathical induction is a type of proof in which if you can establish that in the first instance an iteration produces a specific result, and each iteration other than that form one instance to another, produces the same specific result, then the result at any one iterative point exists.

For instance, let's say the first instance is 0. Add to this two and subtract one. You get 1. This is the instance plus one in value.

Let's pick any instance now, say, X. Add to this two and subtract one. You get X+1. This is the instance plus 1.

The induction here shows that if you add two to any number and subtract one, then you get the number plus one.

The same process of induction can be applied to time.

At midnight tonight, if you subtract two hours, and add one hour, you get midnight minus one hour.

At any time on the timeline, if you take a time, X, and subtract two hours, and add one hour, you get that time minus one hour. This applies to all X values.

If X is infinite, then you get a value that satisfies the inductive process at each time, as it should.

If X has a minimum value, below which values don't exist, then the inductive process creates values that are outside the domain of the process. But that is impossible. Therefore X cannot be a minimum.

----------------

The short form of this I have already proposed: "The clock is set at the alleged beginning of time. The clock shows a time before which there is always a five minute period. When the clock is started at the beginning of the time, what was the time five minutes before it was started?"