But whatever floats your boat. I won’t take it personally, as you probably treat all theists that way.

How is it that we can discover natural laws? — Noah Te Stroete

Through human intelligence, which we gained through evolution, and was not something that was God given. I base my views on information from scientific literature, not on creation myths in theological literature.

Is that not a good reason to maybe believe that we are in tune with nature? — Noah Te Stroete

I don't know. Can you be any more vague?

And if we are in tune with nature, is it such a stretch to believe that rational minds had to necessarily arise in nature? — Noah Te Stroete

Yes.

And I think that is reasoned faith. Your denial of these reasons is also reasoned faith. — Noah Te Stroete

Again, reasoned faith is an oxymoron. There's reason, and then there's faith. As soon as you make a leap of faith, you leave reason behind. I suppose you can reason up to a point, but overall, I don't think that it's appropriate to call your position reasonable if it involves a leap of faith, which is unreasonable by nature.

It doesn’t seem very moral, as it seems like you are denying theists’ humanity and dignity.

But whatever floats your boat. I won’t take it personally, as you probably treat all theists that way. — Noah Te Stroete

This one has yet to learn not to take everything I say so seriously. I'm like this with everyone. Nothing against theists in particular. I don't hesitate to rip into atheists with bad arguments. It's like a sport. Like hunting wild game. Yeah, that seems like a fitting analogy here of all places.

Belief that the universe has no purpose is also a leap of faith. Reasoned faith is not an oxymoron. It simply means that one has good reasons for believing in purpose/God. That definition is not oxymoronic. You say that we just happened to evolve rational minds. That is faith. I say that it had to necessarily happen. That is also faith.

one has yet to learn not to take me so seriously. I'm like this with everyone. Nothing against theists in particular. I'm don't hesitate to rip into atheists with bad arguments. — S

Very well. Carry on wit yo bad self. ;)

Belief that the universe has no purpose is also a leap of faith. — Noah Te Stroete

No, it can be, but it doesn't have to be, and in fact it isn't in my case.

Reasoned faith is not an oxymoron. — Noah Te Stroete

An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true). It's an oxymoron.

It simply means that one has good reasons for believing in purpose/God. — Noah Te Stroete

If it simply means that there are good reasons for a belief, then it isn't faith. You should just call that reasoned belief.

That definition is not oxymoronic. — Noah Te Stroete

I wasn't talking about the definition. I was talking about the term, as is perfectly normal and to be expected. Look at the dictionary definition and accompanying example.

You say that we just happened to evolve rational minds. — Noah Te Stroete

No, I think you'll find that that's not what I said, and I certainty didn't use a loaded phrase like "just happened". That's an old theist trick. I've seen it a hundred times or more. People have written books on the how's and why's of the evolution of rational minds.

I say that it had to necessarily happen. That is also faith. — Noah Te Stroete

Okay, I accept that your belief is faith based. That means that it's not rationally defensible, so I don't expect you to attempt such a defence here on this forum.

Very well. Carry on wit yo bad self. ;) — Noah Te Stroete

Like I need your permission. :cool:

What is your reasoned position that the universe has no purpose? I will bet there is an element of faith involved if you are brave enough to persuade me otherwise. And if you don’t believe that rational minds evolved non-accidentally, then what is your position there?

What is your reasoned position that the universe has no purpose? — Noah Te Stroete

Well, actually, I notice that in my last reply I allowed myself to fall into the trap of letting you word my position for me, instead of wording it myself. I don't need to conclude that the universe has no purpose. I just need to point to the lack of sufficient evidence in favour of a universe with a purpose.

And if you don’t believe that rational minds evolved non-accidentally, then what is your position there? — Noah Te Stroete

There might be accidental elements to that evolution. My position is: what does current scientific literature have to say? I've referred once already to a book I bought on the subject of the history of humankind. That book contains some detailed and reasoned theories about this topic, and it also cites currently available evidence in support or against such theories. Go read a book, and no, not your Bible. :wink:

Well, all I wanted to show was the thing that everyone knows. If one is to be held morally responsible then one must be capable of free agency. If someone has no choice but to act in a certain way then s/he can't be held morally responsible for his/her actions. I know you're fully aware of this fact and I get the feeling you're just pulling my chain.

Anyway, a dietary recommendation, last I checked, advises minimum and maximum nutritional requirements to stay healthy. We must eat the minimum requirement if we're to live a healthy long life. I see no problem in eating as much meat as suggested by nutritionists BUT to eat more would be an option, something freely considered and, therefore, since not being necessary, we're morally responsible for the extra killings that must occur to satisfy our, then excessive, appetites.

That's all I'm saying. Why would anyone disagree with that?

I have a bachelor’s of science degree, and I scored in the 99.6 percentile of the general knowledge portion of the Wechsler IQ test which was almost entirely scientific questions. I’ve read books on string theory, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and relativity. And, yes, I also read the Bible.

Well, all I wanted to show was the thing that everyone knows. If one is to be held morally responsible then one must be capable of free agency. If someone has no choice but to act in a certain way then s/he can't be held morally responsible for his/her actions. I know you're fully aware of this fact and I get the feeling you're just pulling my chain. — TheMadFool

Yes, I'm aware of that, and no, I'm not pulling your chain. But I am questioning the relevance of that to my criticism.

Anyway, a dietary recommendation, last I checked, advises minimum and maximum nutritional requirements to stay healthy. We must eat the minimum requirement if we're to live a healthy long life. I see no problem in eating as much meat as suggested by nutritionists BUT to eat more would be an option, something freely considered and, therefore, since not being necessary, we're morally responsible for the extra killings that must occur to satisfy our, then excessive, appetites.

That's all I'm saying. Why would anyone disagree with that? — TheMadFool

Simple. You weren't merely talking about minimum nutritional requirements, you were specifically talking about 300gm of meat per day. I think that switching to the broader category of nutrition would be an example of backtracking or moving the goalposts. I am saying that I don't believe that it's necessary to eat 300gm of meat a day to be healthy enough to get by. That doesn't sound credible at all.

I still have no idea where you got this 300gm of meat a day from.

We are animals at the top of the food chain. — Noah Te Stroete

We're not just animals. We're thinking animals. If a tiger were ever able to feel the pain of the animals it kills and ever possessed of a human-level rational brain, it would definitely conclude killing is bad or immoral.

So, we're animals, yes, we can feel pain like all animals. But we can also think and this ability, unique in the animal kingdom, informs us that inflicting pain on living things is immoral. Together, our feelings and our rationality, we understand the difference between good and evil.

Well, I don’t believe in the mental-only/objective-mind-independent dichotomy. I believe they are intertwined inextricably. Hence, my belief that there is reason to the universe (it is rational) and the human mind is rational. The two cannot be extricated or separated. — Noah Te Stroete

I'm not at all saying they're not "intertwined." But either you believe that everything is ONLY mind or you believe that there is no mind, or you believe that some stuff is mind and some stuff isn't.

Again, thinking that some stuff is mind and some isn't mind isn't really saying anything more than "Some stuff is a tree and some stuff isn't a tree." I don't think anyone would be saying that trees and other things aren't intertwined in that case. They're just not saying either that everything is only a tree or that there are no trees.

I have a bachelor’s of science degree, and I scored in the 99.6 percentile of the general knowledge portion of the Wechsler IQ test which was almost entirely scientific questions. I’ve read books on string theory, cosmology, quantum mechanics, and relativity. And, yes, I also read the Bible. — Noah Te Stroete

Good for you. So, on what reasonable basis do you reject these scientific theories relating specifically to what we've been talking about? Or do you reject them because of your faith, which isn't reasonable by definition?

Im not trying to be antagonistic, answering questions with more questions seems evasive. Especially when you do that instead of addressing the points I raised. Its not like im posting lengthy, obfuscating responses.
Now Im not sure how to respond, since trying to communicate towards understandung is what I am indeed attempting but you have found it offensive. — DingoJones

Maybe try being more verbose about what you have in mind.

You mentioned using the particular relation (rather than general relation, which I'm specifying because remember that I think there are only particulars) of a thing being x (or having property F) and not being not x (or not lacking property F) at the same time as something to do with ethics, but I pointed out that that doesn't have anything to do with ethics (or rather it doesn't have anything more to do with ethics than it does the price of tea in China, or garbage collection schedules, or whatever). So I'm not sure what you're talking about. You could say that ethics has to be in accord with that particular relation as a fact, but everything has to be in accord with every fact in that same sense, so again, it's difficult to say what it particularly has to do with ethics.

Hence why I asked you to explain what it has to do with ethics.

We're not just animals. We're thinking animals. If a tiger were ever able to feel the pain of the animals it kills and ever possessed of a human-level rational brain, it would definitely conclude killing is bad or immoral.

So, we're animals, yes, we can feel pain like all animals. But we can also think and this ability, unique in the animal kingdom, informs us that inflicting pain on living things is immoral. Together, our feelings and our rationality, we understand the difference between good and evil. — TheMadFool

This is exactly what I was getting at in my reply to that same comment which you've quoted from. Noah never properly addressed this point.

String theory is nothing more than metaphysics. It cannot be falsified. The multiverse and M-theory are also metaphysics. They may be mathematically coherent, but they may also be nothing more than mathematical unicorns. In other words, they may be complete fictions, and belief in them is nothing more than faith. The probabilities of quantum mechanics may very well be due to epistemic ignorance which could very well mean that we cannot know the laws that determine quanta. Belief that the probabilities are inherent to quantum behavior is faith. Belief that the universe is fully determined is faith. Belief that the universe was caused by a quantum fluctuation that inflated into a universe may very well be a mathematical unicorn.

I prefer to put my faith in God. It makes me feel good, and my conception of God as the conscious creator of the universe relates to our conscious creations of thought, dividing the universe into the existent and nonexistent. I believe that the universe requires a conscious observer to make sense, and God fits the bill.

Are we unique? How do you know? Dolphins probably think and feel empathy, yet they are killers. Dogs dream and understand some language and feel empathy as far as we know, and they evolved to live off our table scraps. I think we eat what we eat out of necessity because that’s how we evolved (purposefully evolved or not). I’m not denying that there are degrees of culpability, but some people can’t help themselves. They may have eating disorders, or they may be mentally ill or spiritually ill and may be eating to cope. I believe true morality involves forgiving people’s understandable faults and not being so judgmental.

I didn't really mean to focus on physics. We were talking about biology originally, and that is of greater relevance to the topic of discussion. But anyway, I don't believe for a second that "God did it" has as much going for it as, say, quantum mechanics. That's just not true. You can cling to your faith in God, but physics doesn't require faith in any truly comparable way. Reasonably comparing and weighing up theories requires an assessment of things like explanatory power and how well a theory matches up to the available data. That's not a matter of faith, and it doesn't result in all theories being on an equal footing, such that "anything goes" and "it's all just a matter of faith". Uh-uh. Nope.

It most certainly does involve faith because internally consistent mathematical theories cannot be tested and could just as well be complete fictions. You just prefer them because you don’t believe in a universal consciousness instead, which also has explanatory power that cannot be empirically tested.

It most certainly does involve faith because internally consistent mathematical theories cannot be tested and could just as well be complete fictions. You just prefer them because you don’t believe in a universal consciousness instead, which also has explanatory power that cannot be empirically tested. — Noah Te Stroete

Even if it does involve some degree of faith, it doesn't involve faith in any truly comparable way. Look at where science has gotten us, and look at where theology has gotten us. Look at the tangible results. Look at your computer, your TV, your mobile phone. Look at what Darwin, Einstein, Edison and Bell have achieved. Res ipsa loquitur.

Are we unique? — Noah Te Stroete

Yes, evidently so. Sorry, but that has been well established and is not up for debate. You've suggested that you have above average knowledge and are well informed in matters scientific. Well, you don't even need science for this one, it's common knowledge.

Providing examples of other species coming close to some extent and in some respects does nothing whatsoever to refute my claims about our uniqueness.

I’m talking about the genesis of the universe which I believe requires a consciousness that gives it order, what you might call a mathematical order. I believe morality comes from universal feelings from rational minds just as the universe is rational. All “scientific” universe genesis theories require the same amount of faith as a belief in God. They are all philosophy/metaphysics and not true science.

You’re talking to me like I don’t believe in science. Of course I do. I’m not ignorant. I don’t think that God created computers, at least not directly. I believe He endowed us with the same reason that governs the universe, enabling us to build computers with scientific reasoning.

Providing examples of other species coming close to some extent and in some respects does nothing whatsoever to refute my claims about our uniqueness. — S

Well, I agree we are unique. Dolphins are also unique.

Well, I agree we are unique. Dolphins are also unique. — Noah Te Stroete

Yes, they are. And, tying this back to your original argument, they aren't sufficiently like us for a sensible comparison to be made between the one and the other simply on the basis of being animals and being at the top of the food chain. So, you're still wrong, and you should concede. In fact, you should have conceded long ago when I originally raised this objection to your argument.

I’m talking about the genesis of the universe which I believe requires a consciousness that gives it order, what you might call a mathematical order. I believe morality comes from universal feelings from rational minds just as the universe is rational. — Noah Te Stroete

I don't care enough about what you believe unless it has a strong enough basis in evidence or reason. And that remains to be seen. Otherwise you may as well be telling me about your belief in magical flying unicorns or that your wife loves you.

Concede what? Dolphins have language, they feel empathy, and their brain size to body size ratio is larger than humans. They even have sex for fun as we do. You could say they also have a moral code as they are also social animals who look out for one another. What’s wrong with the comparison? They eat what they evolved to eat, and we evolved to eat cooked meat. We should spend more time worrying about one another and the future of the human race, and not worry so much about chickens.

What don’t you understand about “mathematical unicorns”? And yes, my wife does love me. I doubt very much that anyone loves you, God bless your cynical heart. You want to get personal?

Concede what? Dolphins have language, they feel empathy, and their brain size to body size ratio is larger than humans. They even have sex for fun as we do. You could say they also have a moral code as they are also social animals who look out for one another. What’s wrong with the comparison? They eat what they evolved to eat, and we evolved to eat cooked meat. We should spend more time worrying about one another and the future of the human race, and not worry so much about chickens. — Noah Te Stroete

Show me a dolphin who has made a conscious ethical judgement to refrain from eating fish, and you may just have a point. Otherwise you're just trying to nail jelly to your wife.

What don’t you understand about “mathematical unicorns”? And yes, my wife does love me. I doubt very much that anyone loves you, God bless your cynical heart. You want to get personal? — Noah Te Stroete

Alright, alright. I concede that your wife loves you. (But she loves me more). :joke: