Atheists have no proof. It's a fairytale, not a belief. Only theists have proof. — EugeneW

You're right that atheists have no proof. But so don't theists.

laws of nature and the basic stuff in it are clever enough to create themself? — EugeneW

who said they needed to create themselves? This is not a valid assumption. They could have existed forever. No need for creation.

However, if you believe that creation happened, that's your prerogative, and nobody has the power of argument to deter you from that. On the other hand, if you said that creation is a necessity, a necessary event, that is not belief; that is a claim, and it can be argued against.

Do you have proof of this? — EugeneW

Do you speak and comprehend English? FAITH is a BELIEF. It requires no proof. What's so fucking hard to understand about that?

I voted no, I'm suspicious of this line:

Therefore, since the moment is both a beginning and an end, there must always be time on both sides of it. — fdrake

I agree with this. I also challenge the claim that motion defines time. It does not. Motion makes time measurable, but it does not define it. Time exists outside of motion.

What Aristotle proved is not that time exists forever, but that motion has existed forever. He fails to see the power and the finding of his own proof.

Read my fucking lips:

God belief is completely valid. IT'S A BELIEF. It purports no knowledge. Atheism, ditto, but the opposite.

Any arguments against beliefs that they should be supported by evidence is invalid. You can't demand evidence for something that is not knowledge.

This goes for both theists and atheists. It is futile to try to convince someone to discontinue his or her BELIEF. — god must be atheist

natural selection is not random. — Cidat

Randomness is a human construct for covering those things that we can't predict. Human predictive capacity is very limited. Therefore our perception of things can be called random when it is completely unpredictable.

God belief is completely valid. IT'S A BELIEF. It purports no knowledge. Atheism, ditto, but the opposite.

Any arguments against beliefs that they should be supported by evidence is invalid. You can't demand evidence for something that is not knowledge.

This goes for both theists and atheists. It is futile to try to convince someone to discontinue his or her BELIEF. — god must be atheist

I'll need to keep on posting this until one or more of you read this and it sinks in.

You can't report me for repeating myself, because all of you have been repeating yourselves too.

God belief is completely valid. IT'S A BELIEF. It purports no knowledge. Atheism, ditto, but the opposite.

Any arguments against beliefs that they should be supported by evidence is invalid. You can't demand evidence for something that is not knowledge.

This goes for both theists and atheists. It is futile to try to convince someone to discontinue his or her BELIEF.

Of course a naive example. But what could philosophy do with real life urgent questions? — Ansiktsburk

Answer them, that's what it could do. And answer them sooner than later, seeing that the questions are urgent.

For instance: Global warning. First, you have to put it in a question form, to enable philosophy to answer it. So: how can we stop global warming? Philosophy may answer, "create a plan and follow it which will make global warming go away."

It means the many worlds interpretation. — EugeneW

thanks!

MWI — EugeneW

I got into a mud-slinging duel by challenging some user on the forum to not use abbreviations that are less widely accepted and understood than WTF and LOL.

I don't know what MWI stand for. Care to type out the words the initials stand for? I won't look it up on Wiki. It is not my responsibility to make me understand what you said. You said this because you wanted to communicate something to me; so make it please so that I can understand it. Write out please the words that are initialized in the abbreviation MTI.

She answers questions, but some of them are hard to hear. — Sam26

That's quite all right, since I'm also hard on hearing.

the last thirty minutes she takes questions. — Sam26

When I have the time, I will watch it. Sounds fascinating.

Yes. That's why I refer to that anti-heretical attitude as Scientism. It's an absolute Either/Or, Win/Lose, Self/Other, My-way-or-the-highway worldview. It violates Aristotle's definition of Virtue in terms of Moderation. — Gnomon

You're quite clear in your message.

Let me put it this way:

"The road to world peace is paved with everyone wearing their underwear on the outside, and everyone also getting a complete sex-change operation with someone else of the originally opposite sex."

You don't believe this? You are closed-minded. You think this is stupid? You are violating Aristotle's definition of Virtue in terms of moderation. YOU MUST BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU SEE OR HEAR, EVEN THINGS THAT CONTRADICT EACH OTHER, OTHERWISE YOU ARE A PIECE OF SHIT DEVOTED TO SCIENTISM.

Please understand: You are free to believe what you believe in. I am free to believe in what I believe in. One of the things I believe in is that it is easier to believe and accept one's own beliefs than to start on a long and arduous path of a study of science.

In fact, it is the ease of belief that makes people accept New Age stuff, religious beliefs and Tarot card readings and Astrological predictions. Because they are all pre-ambled with "You don't have to understand it, and nobody knows why, but the process works." Whereas science is something the scientism followers INSIST you must understand to believe it.

My belief is that stupidity is easier spread and accepted than knowledge, and insisting on giving stupid theories a fair chance for acceptance is even stupider than the theories themselves.

My practical question for this thread, is why do Anti-Metaphysics Trolls, waste their valuable on-line time, trying to defeat something that they assume to be already dead, and although perhaps a ghostly nuisance, cannot by their definition, make any difference in the Real world? — Gnomon

1. My time is not valuable. My on-line time is worth even less. Wrong assumption.
2. We, Anti-Metaphysics Trolls, don't want to defeat something that's dead. We want to stop the proliferation of other people believing that something dead is something alive.
3. Thoughts can make a difference in the world. Stupid thoughts increase the stupidity level all over the land. I don't like to see that.

You asked a question and I answered your question. That's all. Run with it.

Why isn't the beginning of time situated at the end? — EugeneW

That is not a good question. Maybe it is. Maybe time IS going backwards, EugeneW; we just don't know it, for obvious reasons.

Does she carry the whip? Sheer curiosity.... — EugeneW

mine is worse... she carries an enema bag. Also carries carries. Her name is Kerry.

their way of life which involves long periods of peaceful meditation, volunteering/ helping people in need and living a simplistic minimalistic lifestyle. — Troyster

What about making enough dough to pay the mortgage, take the kids to hockey practice and ballet lessons, pay for their orthodontics and class excursions, keeping your wife at bay with buying her expensive jewelry, pleasing your husband with performing unspeakable acts, and playing poker with the boys on Friday nights?

Is a Buddhist monk's salary going to cover all this? And why meditate, when you can daydream about the role of the office secretary as the stern nurse with you being the incorrigible industrialist? Huh?

I just kept on reflecting on the thought. That I brought up depression was not a response directly to what you said, instead, it was a continuation of my thoughts on the topic.

I don't know if I addressed anyone with my post as a response. My post was rather a reflection of my thoughts starting from the point of the quote.

I talked about depression not because you mentioned it but out of my free will (so to speak). I am sorry for having thoughts and imagination. I'll try to curb them next time. :-)

First kid: I don't have a dad and a mom at home I have two moms.
Second kid: Really? How is that possible?
Teacher: Please be quiet, you two. The law forbids me to encourage this conversation.
First kid: My mom said she's my first mom and my other mom is my first mom too! [Laughter in class]
Teacher: Let's move on. I could lose my job if I say anything to encourage such a discussion. Anyway, you are too young and immature to understand these things. [More laughter in class]
Second kid: Sir, what's a lesbian? [Hysterical laughter in class. Head teacher enters and suspends teacher] — Cuthbert

Nice skit. Liked it.

I cannot consider it as a "human condition". It does not characterize human life. It's a disease. And if one is generally sane, it will pass when the causes of its occurance are lifted. — Alkis Piskas

Bin der. Dun dat. Under totally different circumstances

A bit of a difference between boredom and depression: the overall feeling is SOMEWHAT similar, but not totally. They say boredom is the forerunner to depression.

A healthy person deals with boredom much like he deals with any other displeasure: he seeks to avoid it or else to replace it. Much the same way as with hunger, sleepiness, etc. A person who can't avoid boredom is diseased, precisely how you wrote it. But much of the time the inability to avoid boredom or to replace it is not due to inner difficulties, but to outer ones, such as being in jail or in the arm or navy. To some males the pervasive absence of female company can trigger this. Hence, the aversion to Muslim lifestyle for a western type man.

"Non-physical", to my mind, suggests some X that cannot be modelled or measured and which lacks any causal relation – interaction – with every physical Z.

I am in love with Susan. Susan is in love with me. Consequent to our love, we do a lot of things in physical reality, many of which we would never do in physical reality should we lack love.

To me the existence of non-physical real things is proven by their causal links to physical reality. And it is a two-way causation: physical reality potentially causes changes in non-physical reality, and non-physical reality potentially causes changes in physical reality.

77 levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or
78 developmentally appropriate for students — Ciceronianus

These are impossible to standardize.

Aside from this, the law does NOT prohibit or inhibit PRIVATE discussions, even when it is not appropriate by age or by developmentia.

So "no", (an) "omnipotent" being cannot make something "too heavy" for it to move if that something is moveable; it can, however, instantly move (with a thought) anything which is moveable — 180 Proof

You forget that it is the same authority, being, or god, that CREATES that stone. You are not mentioning creation in your example and argument. That is a violation, since the CREATION of the stone is also done by an omnipotent being.

is it possible to make something move? Yes. Is it possible to make something big? Yes. Can it make something so big that no other being can move it? Yes. Can it make it so big that God himself can't move it? No./Yes.
This is not a self-contradiction, it is a contradiction that presents a challenge of creation vs actualizing.

"I'm lying right now" is a self-contradictory statement. We can't ask God to say if this is true or false.

But with no self-contradiction, we can ask if a statement is true or false. And we expect an answer of yes or no, true or false.

In the irresistable force / immovable object example, each question can be answered with a "yes" or "no", or else with a "true" or "false". None of the tasks presented is unimaginable. All of the tasks presented can be answered.

Therefore I claim that the example does not violate

the ability of (a) being to do anything that is not impossible, or self-contradictory, to do instantly (i.e. just by thinking) and / or which no other being can do. — 180 Proof

Moving a stone is not impossible. Creating a stone is not impossible. Not being able to move a stone is not impossible. There is no self-contradiction anywhere; the denial of the possibility of omnipotence is not self-contradictory. It is a straightforward proposition. Its main thrust is that omnipotence can only exist if omnipotence does not exist. Therefore the NOTION of omnipotence, the meaning of it, is what is impossible, because it and by itself is a self-contradictory concept..

We may still marvel at Euclid — Cuthbert

You're advocating that there be a Geometry Man? Saving the world from evil second-degree equations and from hideous indefinite integrals from outer space. Oha! (Marvel at Euclid.)

Sorry, not to diminish the gravity of your post... just I came from the ShoutBox forum and I m still in "Very silly mood".

In my study of history, I came across a Chinese leader, who made it compulsory for his followers to siesta after the midday meal. They gave him a historical name that reflected this revolutionary idea, which changed the course of the nation. In the honour of his decision and decree, his historical name has been changed to Chew-n-Lie.

I am afraid that choosing a dog's life is just sour grapes. That's also told by a Greek.

We live in a time when there is a sub-culture which adores and idolizes the Greek culture of thought. I feel that that is overplayed. There is nothing in the Greek culture that a smart person in our age could not develop on his own using his or her own brains. And collectively, as a society, we have surpassed the Greek culture collectively as a society in wisdom.

True enough, there are also sub-cultures in our present society which are lightyears below and behind the thought-achievements of the Greeks. My answer to that is that there were people then too, who took no note of the constantly arguing philosophers in the School of Athens.

I can't help the feeling of this:

I put myself in ancient or Classical Greece. Whenever the school of Athens was active.

I argue with people what is best for us, what is the best way to live. What is it that we know, don't know, can't know, and in this quagmire of knowables we create collective nouns for some concepts.

So far so good.

The we take these concepts and we reason out how to handle these concepts and how to apply them to our lives in order to live the best lives we possibly can.

We are all middle-class intellectuals: we have slaves to do jobs for us, but we are not independently wealthy, and we are all rather intelligent.

Then after an afternoon's worth of debate we go home, eat a mediocre meal, screw our wives, (one each) and go to sleep.

In the meantime!!!!!

In the meantime the rich: the oligarchs, the patriarchs, the patricians, whatever you want to call them, eat really tasty food, well-spiced, with exotic fruits, and drinking to it expensive, heavy wines; and after dinner they sample their harems of very beautiful women.

I can't escape the comparison between their society and ours. In those years there was an abandon of intellectual thought; these days there is an abandon of mediocre tv. Both for the middle classes. We are told now to buy a new car to be happy, or a tv with a huge screen, or take a vacation in the Bahamas, or to go on a website to find dates, or to go to this or that store to buy apparel, or to buy pizza from this or that pizza place. This we are told to do become happy.

The ancients or Classicals were told to figure out in an intellectually intuitive way what makes them happy.

In the meantime the rich in both societies reap the delights available to humans in ways the middle class can't even fathom.

So the bottom of it is that creating concepts like aporia, integratia, rupertonia, etc. etc. you call them what ever you want, and figuring out how to navigate them in your life to become happy are mere ersatz, are poor attempts at rationalizing to help self-suggest happiness, much the same as you amass useless junk in your home in these modern times to lull yourself into believing you are happy.

While, in effect, the route to happiness is completely different.

Thank you, 180. I've known you for your magnanimity on these forums. I got carried away, but if something positive came out of my rants, then perhaps it was worth it.

To be frank, I've been forever angry about others using abbreviations that were unclear to me. That anger triggered by a long line of occurrences of the same kind over a long period of time, never subsided; in fact, it always increased with every new occurrence.

That's why I never established a family.

I am sorry, and I apologize, for putting you through this. My only defense is that I get incredibly annoyed by this habit of others.

Again, I apologize for my misbehaviour, and I am glad something will change in the future for the better.

:halo:

I'm not here to spoon-fed that much. — 180 Proof

Fair enough. One thing to ponder, though: If you are trying to communicate an idea to someone else, would it not be more CONDUCIVE to your cause to make the other person understand you "with" the least possible effort, on the path of the least amount of obstacles to the other "person's" comprehension?

a well-known science acronym? — 180 Proof

It's well-known? Well, I have never heard of it.

That's precisely my point. YOU assume it is KNOWN to EVERYONE because it's known to you.

Thanks, EU.

nly a finger pointing at the CMB by which we interpretat — 180 Proof

What's a CMB?

(Nothing against you, personally, but it irks me to no end when people are too lazy to type out three words, and they assume I will understand their abbreviations, while there is total communication breakdown due to not my fault, but due to their 1. laziness and 2. assumption that everyone knows what they know. And they make me fucking work by needing to type much more than three words to get their message over to me again, and to properly express my dismay about the related events their lack of consideration causes.)

I chose "other" for the reason to say that any poking at the nature of the Universe that populates the same space as we do, and any speculative description stands to fail. (But not necessarily.)

There are beliefs people hold on to, and I am no exception. I know the space expanse and time are infinite. And I know I exist. Beyond that, everything else is negotiable.

Theories abound. The more science uncovers of reality, the more incomprehensible things become on the intuitive level. I think the best thing is not to make any rash decisions; and definitely not to engage in bitter arguments over these things.

+?
Obviously pedophiles will phantasize about pedophilia. That can't be made illegal.

Question: what about pedophiles drawing their own art depicting pedophilia? Not sharing it, not distributing it, and destroying it before anyone else can glance at them.

We physicalists need to introduce a new ingredient with explanatory power. Let's call that ingredient X. Then what is X? Is it matter? No. Is it interaction. No. Is it X? Yes! But X alone won't do. We need an Y too. Then what is Y? Is it matter? No. Is it interaction? No. Is it Y? Yes! — EugeneW

I understand that's how quantum mechanics work. The theory, that is. If some phenomenon is unexplained, while others are, then they say "this phenomenon is different because it involves a particle (with a new, hitherto unused name, such as "squadrita")".

Then they throw themselves into math, until they "distil" the quantum "squadrita". Once that's done, onto the next.

I find this highly suspect for being prone to fantasy, but hey, if the math works out, you can't argue with quantum mechanics.

↪god must be atheist god must be a conspiracy theorist?

We're probably privvy to about 2% of the truth of what is actually happening and the reasons behind it — Changeling

thanks, @Changeling.

The idea I voiced was not even mine.

But it is curious to see that certain opinions are labelled "conspiracy theories" and are deleted when posted. After all, with two percent knowledge, any theory IS and truly is, a conspiracy theory. In the sense, that one theory that sounds plausible is just as likely to be true, as another plausible theory which states the opposite.

I used to belong to another philosophy website where I mentioned that a lot of meteorological data was not available to the common man.

They jumped on me. They all jumped on me, and cussed me and condemned me for not believing the climate change.

I had said NOTHING of the climate change. All I said, was stating an indisputable fact. I drew no consequences; while at the same time I asked, what could have possessed the powers that be to block the data from the common man.

The moderators kicked me out of the site due to this mentioning of a fact and for challenging the decision of the authorities. They did not kick me out due to any resistence by me to the theory of the climate change, for I voiced NO SUCH RESISTENCE. They simply hated me, for saying inconveniencing things, and they accused me of something I never did.

@Baden, do you think the moderators on that site did the right thing, the fair thing, the just thing?

Here, I mentioned an opinion -- not even mine, it was not MY conspiracy theory -- and I was asked not to say that. AND never again air the opinions of this friend of mine.

I promised compliance, and I am sticking to my promise. I will never again mention an opinion by this friend of mine.

But it makes me wonder: if nobody has any amount of reliable data to support any solid argument or opinion, then what is the rationale to ban certain content? If the theories are equally not worth a farthing then why is a worthless theory allowed, while another worthless theory is not?


So: I am voluntarily not posting for a while, to protest the fact that I had been silenced in a way and by the means for a cause that I feel is unfair.

Again: I won't go against my word. I will never again post opinions from this friend of mine. That I promise. I am protesting the fact, however, that some unworthy theories are allowed, and some equally unworthy theories are not allowed to be posted.

What motivates this drive for such passionate defense of the already powerful? — Isaac

I'd venture, independent of any aspect of this war between Russian and Ukraine, that the motivation for the drive is to "give dues where dues are due." Or something to that effect.

In my opinion people are brainwashed, and the brain-washing has got to such a point, that it is now on automatic, it feeds itself, its internal energy keeps it alive and keeps it getting larger. The Powerful need not worry about the anger of the people that the Powerful have harnessed; it won't decrease; because the anger feeds the logic/rationalization that feeds the anger that feeds the rationalization/logic, and so on. It's like the reaction of igniting people's anger and giving them a thought to mutually feed the anger has reached a critical point, where the system is self-sustaining, and needs no input or feeding from outside the system to keep the system not only in equilibrium, but to make it encroach others, and to make it larger and larger.

Mine's simple. I want to hold my government and its allies to account for their role in this, I want to make sure they don't get to play the white knight, saviours of the innocent. — Isaac

Go do it, then.

Giving hell to other participants in discussion forums, I somehow think, won't accomplish your aim and goal.