" Under that logic why don't we just sit around on this forum and discuss our favorite type of icecream or what we think is the best color. — christian2017


If you want to discuss those things...fine with me. I'll offer my favorites.

But the necessity to do that does not derive from my position...and I have no idea of why you think that.

I believe the belief that objective truth exists is paramount to having a stable society. — Christian


Interesting opinion. Could be right...could be dead wrong.

We can discuss your opinions...and the opinions of others instead of ice cream.



I do not believe it is arragant to say that objective truth exists but i will say it is very hard to come by. — Christian


I do not "believe" it either...but then again, I do not do "believing."

If you are saying however, that you believe it is not arrogant to say that objective truth exists...I disagree.

The wording structure "I do not believe..." has to be used carefully in a discussion in a philosophy forum. "

Yeah i've been wrong before but as the last thing you said in that post you should not be offended by the word "believe". Belief implies some form of opinion based on very little or sometimes alot of evidence. Its just a word. If i believe the color brown is best its probably based on the way my brain works or the way i am built. On the other hand i could accuse you that you won't be swayed on anything but you could also accuse me of not being able to be swayed on some things. I believe a cd or compact disc is a close representation of a recorded song however if you increased the sampling rate by some great order of magnitude, somebody somewhere would probably notice an improvement in sound quality.

I agree with that statement. I lost the quote but you said something to the effect that modern cosmologists are very often athiests.

I'm not going to say what religion Isaac Newton was but he did have a religion and what alot of people don't realize is that much of modern technology can be built using nothing more than physics principles that were discovered in the 19th (1800s) century or even just using Newtonian physics. The point i'm trying to make is people over estimate the ability of alot of modern scientists to solve all the world's problems. I believe science is great and the healthy person of belief will embrace science but that being said we shouldn't just bend over backwards to listen to modern scientists.

"As I see it...what we "believe" is nothing more than what we blindly guess about the unknown.

Anyone can make a guess at any time...nothing wrong with guessing. I do it all the time...and I imagine most people do it often also.

I always refer to my guesses...as guesses.

Some people call their guesses "beliefs."

Under that logic why don't we just sit around on this forum and discuss our favorite type of icecream or what we think is the best color. I believe the belief that objective truth exists is paramount to having a stable society. I do not believe it is arragant to say that objective truth exists but i will say it is very hard to come by.

"Amazon river can manage big boats and if you hug the coasts anybody of water could be used for travel in a large boat. The Vikings initially traveled the Atlantic by hugging the coasts as much as possible. " -me

As you well know you don't need a sea (you can use a boat/ship in the ocean) to use a boat and if you hug the coasts you don't need a sea to somewhat safely travel by boat. With any action there is always some risk and using boats on the ocean next to a coast does have more risk than using a boat on a sea (out in the open) in some cases.

"The laws of math should be invariant across all such universes.

I am of the opinion if there are other universes, they will be like this one. They are all made of the same stuff, go through the same processes and end up at the same temperature/density so all universes should end up similar. "

Yeah i definitely agree with that the laws of math would be the same across all universes. As to whether other universes would have the same laws of physics, i've wondered that myself. I certainly can't say your wrong about that.

Amazon river can manage big boats and if you hug the coasts anybody of water could be used for travel in a large boat. The Vikings initially traveled the Atlantic by hugging the coasts as much as possible.

"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actual_infinity

Its possible to keep counting indefinitely but even if you do you will never reach infinity (because it's impossible to count to infinity). So Potential Infinity is OK, but Actual Infinity never happens IMO.

It's impossible to construct something infinite as you'd never finish doing it. "

My understanding of physics is that what you said is true. There is a law in thermodynamics that things go from high order to low order so if made a computer program that used robotics to farm the land that robot would eventually fall apart or degrade itself unless i did things to actively make repairs to the system. Yeah i think you are right on this if i understand what you are saying. Perhaps if there were other universes (not sure why scientists say there are other universes) where the laws of physics are different then i think the above might not be the case.

Thats fair.

i'm just ok at mathematics but i do get better with age so maybe in 10 years i'll have a better analogy or maybe i won't.

if i add 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 that is 4. If i do the same thing again that is 8. If i die tommorow and never do this process again and at the same time have never heard of the term 12 i might conclude that `12 doesn't exist. The problem is our ability to testify what we believe is true is limited by our time on this earth. Infinte is not necessarily a fake construct its just we personally only have a limited time to testify to the things we hold to be true. If the universe keeps expanding i believe it is certainly possible that it could expand to twice as big, three times as big, 4 times as big and so on.

In early navigation in the old world ships very often hugged (without being too close) the coasts due to its easier to navigate that way and there is less weather closer to shore. In ancient times traveling by sea or boat was almost always faster than traveling by land. I think you are wrong on this post.

ok. Yeah thats not the first time i hit the wrong button.

i clicked the wrong button i'm sorry. I haven't fully figured out the way this website is set up yet.

Not all christian denominations have used inquisitions. The new testament says that there would be "bad" people that will creep into the congregations of the church. I believe there are decent christians just as there are decent Gnostics.

Some christians believe that god greatly rewards those who are innocent and suffer for their innocence. Jesus for example is the king of the universe and is worshiped by many according to christians. Not all christians believe that heaven is equal for all christians. Jesus said that there are many mansions in his "house" and some interpret that to mean that some people are more rewarded than others for their conduct here on this earth. I know many people who do to what they believe was God's discipline (US marines are disciplined) have great character.

i agree. This example of yours is the problem with saying there is no objective truth. As i said before objective truth can be very hard to obtain but i believe it is paramount that we except that absolute truth exists.

according to the book "1491" they did smelt some metals such as gold and i think silver and you could technically make weapons and tools out of gold and silver. I wouldn't be surprised if they used copper too. Why they never used these metals for killing and plowing is probably because the stone tools were good enough and they didn't have to compete against alot of other societies. That being said there were more than one societies in the americas.

"↪Maureen
tl;dr: Why is that that not everyone is an agnostic like myself? Those people must be stubborn or stupid. "

There is a practicality to religion. Religion promotes unity where there otherwise may have been none to beginning. In the book "Sapiens" by Noah Harrari he states that Religion allowed for massive coordination between people. He argues that humans at sizes greater than 150 people (apes are the same way) they can't function together without collective fiction. Money, corporations, religion, legal laws, and so on are all fictions according to the the book "Sapiens". Its a great book that is quite popular. He calls himself an atheist but he does practice a religion that emphasizes yoga. I would argue he recognizes the human mind has a side that needs some form of wierdness or spirituality.

I agree with this but i would like to add that for simple things like does the sky reflect the electro magnetic spectrum (a particular frequency) that usually appears to be blue to most people or that 1+1 = 2, those things in fact are objective truth. That being said when you get into things that have millions of data points such as a compact disc (cd) or large compilations of statistical data the objective truth is much harder to come by. Compact discs appear to do a good representation of a recorded song because they have what is called a high sampling rate and how this pertains to objective truth is that when you increase the amount of data points you come much closer to reaching objective truth.

The greeks had what was called the greek method of exhaustion for solving calculus problems. In calculus you never actually in the purest form achieve your goal but you do come so close that it is deemed close enough. The greeks used the above method and just kept plugging away (it took alot of time) until they got close enough that they said they found the correct answer. You can watch a youtube on calculus if you would like.

"Why is that? Must you prove that Donald Trump exists before we will discuss him with you? Every believer (belief in anything, not just God) decides what they believe. You decide whether you agree with them or not. No-one has the "job" of proving anything. "

I guess hes saying that because people who have a religion claim to have the moral high ground that they should have to try harder to prove their point because some would say that having a moral high ground imposes on people who might (keyword might) not be as moral.

i think you agree with the OP you just wrote it better. Just my opinion.

the funny thing about alot of these people is they would make metal jewelry but they wouldn't necessarily or in every case make metal weaponry as the old world would make metal weaponry.

thats fair

the same could be said to you for making this forum topic. I've made forum topics before and people tore into me because of the topic. This is a part of philosophizing or arguing or debating. Get used to it. I didn't ignore the hypothetical in the OP and i certainly didn't make up my own. I think this sort of topic is the sort of thing that elitist like to thnk about and the way it was phrased in the op i thought it was trite.

that was meant for i like sushi. I'm not real sure how that message got sent to you. I may have hit the wrong button.

the same could be said to you for making this forum topic. I've made forum topics before and people tore into me because of the topic. This is a part of philosophizing or arguing or debating. Get used to it. I didn't ignore the hypothetical in the OP and i certainly didn't make up my own. I think this sort of topic is the sort of thing that elitist like to thnk about and the way it was phrased in the op i thought it was trite.

The topic deserves humor because the topic wasn't entirely thought out. Personally i would volunteer to be killed in this instance. I've been held at gunpoint during an attempted robbery and i resisted the two robbers and they went away with nothing. I don't think alot of people who feel they are important are all that important compared to other people. I value veterans and military personell because i feel they have been put in harms way and put in situations that they didn't deserve to be put into let alone the fact that they are defendng this country. But i understand veterans are a separate issue from this topic.

I believe personal value has more to do with how hard you work to help others and also in addition to that how well you treat other people.

I feel this topic is trite but its always fun to argue/philosophize with people.

*he/she is just doesn't have

i agree with that. If christians aren't doing practical things to make things easier on people who suffer such as changing laws (without raising taxes) that negatively effect poor people and so on about stuff that helps suffering people then how can we christians defend our faith. I would argue most churches don't do alot to help struggling people whether those people struggle with finances or this that or something else.

When someone says they became an atheist at age 12, i would say that is too early to make that decision because there is some much information that a 12 year old no matter how smart he/she just doesn't have.

I read about Krishnamurti. I disagree with both truth is a pathless land and happiness is a pathless land. I think social norms are better for everybody. I believe that even ancient hunter gatherers had social norms but instead of worrying about some tyranicall government or corporation they had to worry about Tigers and bears and only had spears to defend themselves. (oversimplification)

People who don't have a sense of community are statistically shown to be more depressed than people who right wrong or indifferent are more individualistic.

i agree except i believe your beliefs effect your actions. If i believed Stalin or Hitler was good guy it would effect how i carry my self out in society and i believe the same is true about whether you believe in god or gods or whatever. I do agree that you can't be 100% certain of most things.

i agree. I think people who think because they have the corner on a definition very often miss the notion that their could be one or more key pieces of data or information that could drastically change what the objective truth is assuming there is such a thing as objective truth.

i used to go to an independent fundamental baptist church and they said no drinking whatsoever. Ever since then i've tried to find "better" ways to spend my time then drinking alot so i go to forums and argue with people instead. Every decision has its pluses and minuses.

"Smith & Wesson sometimes, Kalashnikov, Ruger, Glock, SIg Sauer. And I wish the need of it weren't so. "

lol. this is why i pray for a short life everyday.

Correct me if i'm quoting you wrong but i do not believe evolution excludes god or gods. At the minimum i think religion and devotion to something greater than ourselves is a product of evolution. Thats my opinion. Bees and Ants serve their queens and they have really small brains.

The first part i don't agree or understand what your saying right wrong or indifferent. For as to when you say.

"But you said, "was proven...". Was it? The article start with "If...". Grant "if" and you can "prove" anything."

Your right it hasn't been proven with out a doubt but that being said i would have to say that evolution or god or gods probably didn't confine itself to just electrons in structuring the way the brain works considering there are about 100 known particles small than the electron that currently known and the list is growing. Evolution is not confined to 19th century technology.

"That has nothing to do with my criticism of what he has said. "

Ok. I was talking to him about something else i guess. I could read through thousands of posts which have pages and pages of information (sometimes bad information) or i could pick and choose who i talk to. I'll go back through this particular topic and see what you said.

i wish i could disagree with that but that is very true.

Thats good to hear. I was worried that the Gnostic god was angry with me.

Assuming we know how Hindu society's function right? Do they not have a caste structure in India today due to Hinduism? Buddhist Japan was the same way during the time before the early modern period (before 1850).

i see what your saying. When matter and energy comes to a standstill who knows what that is like. i used to be a bad wrestler in high school and when you are on your back and there are 20 seconds left on the clock those 20 seconds feel like 10 minutes.

299792458 metres per second is the speed of light. If you had a distance of 2 light years (thats a distance not a time period) it would take 2 years for a photon to travel that. What you are touching on is special relativity and some other things. Yes a clock that approaches the speed C will tell time much slower than a clock moving on the earth (the earth is moving). This has been proven on airplanes that move faster than clocks on earth (in proportion of course). A photon does not move instantaneously but just fairly fast as far as i can tell. Ofcourse i'm sure you've heard that nothing can travel faster than C but i guess some scientists say that isn't true.