Yes. It is justified by something that turns out to be false, so it it turns out not to be justified. this is how we proceed is it not? — unenlightened

A false belief can be justified. That's why the JTB definition of knowledge is JTB, not just JB.

Farmer Giles believes his cabbages will fail because the fairies have cursed them and that belief is justified on the grounds that he failed to put milk out for them last full moon.

Not having put out milk last full moon doesn't justify a belief that fairies exist and cursed his cabbages.

Whereas seeing something that looks like a cow in his field may justify his belief that there is a cow in his field.

One can see that justification is also knowledge, and that one can be wrong when one thinks one knows something. So the farmer is mistaken in his implicit claim to know that a that a cow shape is a cow. Had he further justified this by touch or smell, he would not have made the knowledge claim about the cow in the field.

Gettier is mistaken in thinking he has found a failure in our understanding of knowledge. He has discovered fallibility. — unenlightened

Not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that the farmer's belief isn't justified?

We made a recent change that requires a user's first 5 posts to be approved by moderators before they can post freely. I've approved your queued posts.

If one can infer B from A and if B entails C then one can infer C from A.

If the cowishly shaped cloth is a cow then there is a cow in my field, therefore if I can infer that the cowishly shaped cloth is a cow given the evidence then I can infer that there is a cow in my field given the evidence.

I would say that, sometimes, one has to be pragmatic rather than principled. Maybe lockdowns and the like do deprive people of their rights. But they’re still practical.

Our current justice system sometimes allows for the guilty to go free and sometimes convicts the innocent. These are simply unavoidable evils, and in lieu of a more practical alternative, is something we just have to accept. And the same is true of our COVID regulations.

I think we, the staff, have a loose convention whereby it's the banner who is responsible for closing the thread. — jamalrob

I hate to be bound by convention, so locked. :cool:

As if wealth can be accumulated to this degree without a state. The state giveth, the state can taketh. — Xtrix

I sometimes wonder what society would be like if the no regulation, no tax, no government crowd got what they want. Probably some dystopia controlled by mega corporations that are effectively a government by another name, except even more blatantly run by and for the rich and powerful and without even the semblance of a democracy.

I wouldn't say illogical, at least doesn't derive a contradiction. — jorndoe

If the past is infinite then the present is the end of an infinite period of time, but an infinite period of time has no end.

An infinite past of sequential events is illogical, though. If we imagine each second of the universe as a person counting then the present is that person having counted every integer up to 0 which makes no sense at all.

Asking for the cause of the universe is asking why inflation happened or why there was an initial singularity of infinite density and temperature at all. They seem like reasonable questions that ought have answers.

If anyone other than the government acted like the government, handcuffed people and locked them in a cell, they’d be rightfully called a criminal. That’s why it’s difficult to distinguish the government from any other criminal class.

I don't quite understand your point. — TheMadFool

That it doesn’t require two deities for it to be possible that there are both people who kill for fun and people who save drowning children.

If you are ready to jump down the rabbit hole and want to find if anything can break the conservation law and similar laws of physics I wish you luck. — dclements

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

Since they are created spontaneously without a source of energy, vacuum fluctuations and virtual particles are said to violate the conservation of energy.

If refuting God was so easy you'd wonder why so many people still take it as true. (Genesis and God) — Shawn

Because so many people are unreasonable. Or because they’re don’t believe in Yahweh but some other God.

Mind you, I didn't come into this thread as a religious person — Shawn

Then why only consider one religion’s God? Do you have in mind some God that isn’t tied to a specific scripture?

Then, assume YHWH, then. — Shawn

Something is Yahweh iff it is the being that created the world as described in Genesis. Science has proved that the world wasn't created as described in Genesis. Therefore, nothing is Yahweh. Therefore, Yahweh doesn't exist. — Michael

Following on from this, assume that some deity exists. What does it take for that deity to be Yahweh as opposed to some other deity like Allah or Angra Mainyu or Zeus? Claims of miss-attribution only get you so far. Eventually you're not talking about Yahweh but about something else. If the world was created according to the Mandé creation myth then it's Mangala that exists, not Yahweh. You'd be hard-pressed to argue that Christians and the Mandé are referring to the same God but that the Christians just got everything about him wrong.

So if you want to argue that Yahweh can exist even if Genesis is wrong then you need to clarify the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be Yahweh.

:up:

But so is not the opinion that we must choose YHWH to be the person we talk about. That is even less relevant. — god must be atheist

Excluding other religions on the basis of a bias. — god must be atheist

I honestly don't understand what you're getting at here. I just want to know who – or what – @Shawn is referring to when he asks if logic or science can disprove God. If he's referring to Zeus then I have something more meaningful to address. He's clarified that he's referring to Yahweh, so I'm now able to answer his question.

Your proposition would be discriminatory and religionist. — god must be atheist

I don't know what you mean by this.

Then, assume YHWH, then. — Shawn

Something is Yahweh iff it is the being that created the world as described in Genesis. Science has proved that the world wasn't created as described in Genesis. Therefore, nothing is Yahweh. Therefore, Yahweh doesn't exist.

I'm hesitant to say YHWH, because it seems to me that some will laugh at Genesis and pass it off.

What do you think? — Shawn

You're the one asking the question. I don't know who – or what – you're referring to when you ask if logic or science can disprove God. You have to tell me.

I think, it can be supposed that the monotheistic God of the Abrahamic tradition is sufficient. — Shawn

Which one? Yahweh (Christianity), Allah (Islam), and the Monad (Gnosticism) don't seem to be the same person.

The empty vacuum of space is really not empty and the ephemeral particles and/or quantum foam that barely exists in this emptiness can change states just enough to make it appear as if matter/energy is popping into and then out of existence. — dclements

You have it backwards. The vacuum of space isn't "really" empty because quantum fluctuations happen.

Even "if" these virtual particles don't enable the quantum fluctuations to pop into and out of existence it is a given that some other energy, force, or thing could be causing quantum fluctuations to pop in and out of existence.

It could be, but we have no evidence of such a thing. In fact, quantum fluctuations as something-from-nothing are a consequence of the uncertainty principle which we have many reasons to believe is true.

Aside from my argument, this what you said is very anti-Christian. — god must be atheist

Does Christianity have something to do with @Shawn's question? Is he asking if science or logic can disprove Yahweh? I wasn't sure if he was referring to Yahweh or Allah or Amun-Ra or Angra Mainyu or the Demiurge or someone or something else, hence why I asked him what God is.

However. My first name is Peter. Am I the only Peter in the entire history of the world? Are there other Peters aside from myself? — god must be atheist

Sure, but when we ask if God exists we're not just asking if there exists someone or something named "God"; we're referring to a specific individual and asking if that individual exists. There cannot be two of that individual.

No, I think you are having trouble understanding the issue. It is a given with everything we know that no natural process can create something out of nothing. It is also impossible to even prove that natural (or supernatural for that matter) process to create something out of nothing. — dclements

There are quantum fluctuations, albeit they don't last long.

I exist. So 180 does not. If he exists too, then there could be two gods. Nobody says there has to be only one. That is an assumption that can't be substantiated. — god must be atheist

That depends on whether or not "God" is a proper or common noun.

only looking at it as a human phenomenon (an anthropological perspective) and viewing how it applies to human life and psychology. — I like sushi

Then I don't know what you're trying to argue. That polytheism is easier to understand than monotheism?

Does the "fact" that good and evil are just concepts have any consequences that I/we should be worried abotut? Since these are just concepts, am I now at liberty to murder, rape, pillage, plunder, etc? — TheMadFool

I don't understand the relevance of your question. I'm addressing your claim that one deity cannot be the source of both good and evil. "Good" and "Evil" aren't things. Rather there are certain behaviours that we describe (rightly or wrong) as being good or evil. Killing someone for fun might be an example of something that is evil and saving a drowning a child might be an example of something that is good. So your argument is that if only a single deity exists then it shouldn't be possible for there to be both people who kill for fun and people who save drowning children. That seems like a non sequitur.

How does that make reifying relevant? Where did I go wrong? — TheMadFool

You seemed to reify good and evil. They're not things in their own right.

But more to the point is my second question: killing someone for fun and saving a drowning child are both real things, but why must at least two deities exist for both to be possible?

So, God's just a concept! — TheMadFool

Good and evil are just concepts.

Something like killing someone for fun and saving a drowning child are real things, but why must at least two deities exist for both to be possible?

Moses Finley says they're the same (pretty much). We think of the psyche as something an individual owns. Ancient people saw the psyche plastered over the whole world and called the elements divine.

Yes, there's the mythology if the world's beginning. That's a small part of what divinity once was. — frank

I have no idea what you're saying here. Can you speak literally and not in metaphor.

How can one entity (God) be the source of , grabbing the low hanging fruit here, both good and evil. At a minimum we need two deities. — TheMadFool

For one thing, you're reifying. For another thing, why would two deities be required?

Monotheism seems less flexible and less forgiving. — I like sushi

That has nothing to do with whether or not monotheism is correct. Any facts about the supernatural and religious cosmology are entirely separate to human introspection.

They're the same thing from different perspectives. — frank

No they're not. One is about the psychology of a particular species of animal life, one is about supernatural entities that are responsible for the creation and management of the physical world (and a supposed afterlife).

What does human psyche have to do with the existence of one or more deities?

Why is it that neither science nor logic can disprove God? — Shawn

What is God?

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/480/site-guidelines

That's who I was thinking of but as we didn't carry over bans from the old place I guess it doesn't technically count as an unban.

Actually, I'm wrong. We did reverse a ban and they're still here.

does TPF offer the possibility of redemption? — Michael Zwingli

No. We tried it once and it didn't work.