Ergonomically speaking, it would be a waste of energy to be skeptical living in a community that values truth and so, over time living in one would eventually turn off the skeptic inside us. — TheMadFool
You've lost me. — 180 Proof
Hmm - I thought the key focus of skepticism was valuing truth above most things. I think sometimes people mistake skepticism for denialism and cynicism. — Tom Storm
Skepticism (doubtful until evidence is furnished) is pointless in a community that values truth. — TheMadFool
Probably only the case if you believe God exists. — Tom Storm
I wonder about that. The assumption there is that it only functions around deception. My skepticism starts with me and I value truth (in as much as truth is possible). I often find myself pondering 'Why do I think that?" What evidence do I have for that view?' 'Do I really have an opinion on this subject?' "What am I not considering here?' Etc. I just consider it a necessary part of interacting with the world. — Tom Storm
What I call God is not what most people call God, but it's the closet thing. I've had an ongoing experience for a year or so; that can't be accounted for otherwise. I've made every attempt to eliminate the possibility and failed to do so; including multiple psychologist. The other side of the experience is the inability to convey it in a meaningful way as if evidence isn't supposed to be possible. The moment I can identify or be notified of an inconsistency in what is a rational experience with no rational explanation I would welcome it.1. How have you arrived at your belief that God exists? Was it after some theoretical or logical proofs on God 's existence or some personal religious experience? Or via some other routes? — Corvus
I don't and if God has a will it intends us to be atheists.2. Why do you try to prove God in a theoretical / logical way, when already believing in God's existence? — Corvus
imaginary gold coin — tim wood
1. How have you arrived at your belief that God exists? Was it after some theoretical or logical proofs on God 's existence or some personal religious experience? Or via some other routes?
2. Why do you try to prove God in a theoretical / logical way, when already believing in God's existence? — Corvus
What I call God is not what most people call God, but it's the closet thing. — Cheshire
World greatly stunned, begins to widely read
‘The End of Faith’, ‘The God Delusion’,
And ‘god is Not Great’. — PoeticUniverse
I was brought up by a devoutly Catholic mother, educated in a working class mostly immigrant Catholic grammar school and then an elite Catholic high school, served mass as an altarboy from 2nd through 12th grade, and lastly considered the priesthood as a religious studies honors student. When I was a believer I'd sincerely believed I'd believed.
However, I gave up "God" for Lent during 11th grade after acknowledging that the Bible was unbelievable (both "too good" and "too bad" to be true), that the history of its making and ecclesiastical uses was largely dishonest, corrupting, overtly political, and finally recognizing that I'd never "truly believed" after all but only that I had merely conformed. I'd discovered that I could no long defend the indefensible on the basis of believing the unbelievable. That was 41 years ago, and I've been a freethinker ever since.
NB: The classic arguments in defense of (mono)theism are among the best arguments against 'theism as such' and the few theists who are also cogent, careful, thinkers whom I've ever encountered are uncomfortably aware of this. At the end of the day, they (must) lean heavily on "faith" to "justify" their fact-free beliefs (superstitions). — 180 Proof
I did. The idea is that in crediting the possibility of the impossible you blur to the point of erasure the distinction between existence and non-existence. Which you are apparently willing to do with gods, but not with gold coins. What's the difference?Perhaps you could directly interact with what I wrote. — Bylaw
have nothing to do with my position, though I am sure it might with other theists' posts and positions. For example.In response the cry of the fond is often, "It could be! It could be!" And there could be a monster under the bed or in the closet. But there isn't. Too many beds have been looked under, too many closets opened and illuminated. — tim wood
With some difficulty I translate this as: not supernatural=natural; not natural=not real.I think the word supernatural is nonsensical. Of course that can be due to my ontology. But if it is the case, it is not supernatural, it is natural. If it is not the case then it is not real. — Bylaw
Someting about what some people thought about elephants, followed by your if there is a god, then it is natural or real. Which hpypothetical syllogism is easy enough to grant.There were people who believed elephants could communicate over extemely long distances. They were poo pooed, until it was later understood how. It could have been dismissed as a claim the elephants had supernatural powers, but actually it was a claim that they had some kind of natural power. To me if there is a God, it is then natural or real. — Bylaw
Yes it certainly can seem those folks don't think as I do. But you would ignorance it up in a black box and thereby level the field stylizing both means of understanding as "eclectic." Reasoning that way I can demonstrate that there's no difference between Lebron James' and my basketball skills - for the which neither evidence nor fact can be adduced in support. And then bleh-bleh-bleh about beliefs about things, on the bases of which beliefs people make decisions.If you focus on the word supernatural, it can seem like those people over there operate with an epistemology I do not. If we black box that, then we can look at how we actually decide things are true. As far as I can tell everyone is eclectic epistemologically. — Bylaw
More bleh-bleh-bleh about what you think some subgroups of people do under certain circumstances, extrapolating that beyond the circumstance. But in terms of self-representation by those subgroups of their own actions, you think there is some misrepresentation.I think in philosophy forums it becomes very binary, as if non-theists use, for any important decision, some kind of empirical research and theists use gut feeling and habit. Then the theists pretend often, that actually they have reasoned their way to certain beliefs based on deduction. While implicitly the other team presents themselves as having one consistent epistemology. They conclude things only via X. But I think both groups are misrepresenting themselves (not all of each group, but many in each group). — Bylaw
Which you did not answer. I then made the mistake of asking you a simpler question, which apparently you did not comprehend:Which leaves the ancient question, do you believe because it's true? Or true (for you) because you believe? It's my bias that it ultimately has to be one or the other. — tim wood
I know the difference between an imaginary gold coin and a real gold coin. Do you? — tim wood
So I'll ask that: when you say something is true, what do you mean? It appears you mean that you buy it as true-for-you. But news flash, true-for-you is not true.1. How have you arrived at your belief that God exists? Was it after some theoretical or logical proofs on God 's existence or some personal religious experience? Or via some other routes?
— Corvus
Not through theoretical proofs. Via experiences. Via working with a tradition and finding that much of what I have been told is the case, and things not obvious, have turned out to at least seem to be true. — Bylaw
There's the real, which can also be called the natural. If there is a God, God is not supernatural, but part of the real, part of nature or all of nature, perhaps. Both theists and non-theists have run with the idea of the supernaural, sometimes taking it as synonymous with the transcendant. Like we have for naturalists a monism. Nature is all there is. But theists are dualists with a natural and a supernatural. And, yes, some, read some, theists go along with this. But other theists do not. You have phenomena that have been verified via, science say, and you have other phenomena that have not. These latter need not be supernatural. They might not exist or they might, but in neither case need they be supernatural, just phenomena that have not yet been verified. Rogue waves and elephant long distance communication were not supernatural phenomena when they were not verified to the satisfaction of the consensus of scientists, for example. They were purported natural phenomena that did not fit with then current models in science. The people who believed in these phenomena, though often labelled irrational then, were not irrational, even though the phenomena were not verified at that time to a consensus of scientists.With some difficulty I translate this as: not supernatural=natural; not natural=not real. — tim wood
Those were not parts of some syllogism. I was pointing out that what is not currently verified now, in science, need not be a phenomenon that is in some special ontological category. It could be,as elephant communication turned out to be, quite natural.Someting about what some people thought about elephants, followed by your if there is a god, then it is natural or real. Which hpypothetical syllogism is easy enough to grant. — tim wood
I understood that question.Which you did not answer. I then made the mistake of asking you a simpler question, which apparently you did not comprehend:
I know the difference between an imaginary gold coin and a real gold coin. Do you? — tim wood — tim wood
Where did I assume that true for me is true?So I'll ask that: when you say something is true, what do you mean? It appears you mean that you buy it as true-for-you. But news flash, true-for-you is not true. — tim wood
Bad form to tell someone else what they're thinking or what they believe unless you know and get it right, and that for good reason. And you don't.For you.... All your.... Your.... You, you, you — Bylaw
I don't appear to claim that. Which is you saying and claiming things about what I think and precisely why I started responding the way I did with 'you' and 'you' that you think is bad form. You responded to me as if I was a certain kind of theist presenting arguments for the existence of God. And you repeatedly told me, explicitly and implicitly what I thinking.You appear to claim material existence of things not ideas and also not material. — tim wood
If it's a delusion, more fool me! — Cuthbert
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