A safe guess is that you also don't your assumptions getting red flagged by logic and soundness...right? — Nickolasgaspar
it was already broken — Nickolasgaspar
Most interesting! — Ms. Marple
The point being that according to today's empiricist philosophy only that which can be conceived of as existing in time and space is considered real. There's no conceptual category for the transcendent, and no way of conceptualising it or reaching it through discursive philosophy.
See also God does not exist. — Wayfarer
I dunno what you're talking about! — Agent Smith
You have a point, but, from what I gather, this is part and parcel of philosophy and science. Philosophy is more deconstruction than construction if you catch my drift à la Socrates who was the wrecking ball of the ideaverse. After him, all that was left were piles of rubble where once majestic belief systems had been erected! He was the Genghis Khan of the world of beliefs. — Agent Smith
See also God does not exist.
— Wayfarer
The last is of course questionable — Hillary
The post it was quoted from contained a link to God does not Exist, by Bishop Pierre Whalon, so the phrase ought not to be taken literally. — Wayfarer
The post it was quoted from contained a link to God does not Exist, by Bishop Pierre Whalon, so the phrase ought not to be taken literally. — Wayfarer
In other words, God could not be God. He would be at best some sort of super-alien, flitting about the creation flashing super powers, seemingly irrationally. That is what the Flying Spaghetti Monster is. Its "worshippers," the "Pastafarians," are the latest in a long line of skeptics, though with perhaps a finer sense of humor. And even if said Monster existed, it could not be God. There would be no reason to worship it; in fact, one would do well to avoid it and its "noodly appendages."
Those who say they do not believe in God often give lack of evidence for their unbelief. This is a confusion of knowledge and faith. It is also an error of logic -- absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There cannot be any empirical evidence of the existence of God, for God does not exist.
Let me be clear: I believe God is. But my faith is not knowledge. At best I can give sound reasons -- sound to my mind, at least -- why my faith is not irrational. And that begins with clarifying the terms. What we call god (all human languages have a word for it) is something we infer from the fact of existence. The universe is, and it exists. Why it does -- why there is something rather than nothing -- cannot be proven from the terms and relations we can discern in the makeup of the universe.
A wonderful description of the state of modern "philosophy"!!! — Hillary
I would add "occurring", since "existing" limits things to static ones.according to today's empiricist philosophy only that which can be conceived of as existing in time and space is considered real. — Wayfarer
Yes. Ethics is concerned with relationships between people, not between G*D & Man. As I see it, G*D is not Fair-to-me, but Neutral-to-all. For most people, fairness is judged from a personal & subjective perspective. But for the impersonal & objective Programmer of Evolution, variations between "good & bad" are inherent & necessary in the Hegelian Dialectic. The heuristic (trial & error) Evolutionary Algorithm searches for "fitness to an ultimate purpose", not for "fairness to the individual players" in the game. In the game of Evolution there are winners & losers, but the rule-maker is only concerned with the final outcome.Is it then reasonable to conclude that ethics wasn't top on the list of God's priorities?
A more interesting question is, is this world, as Leibniz believed, the best of all possible worlds? A scientific proof of that would look like this: Given carbon-based life like ours, the other parameters of our universe that make life and goodness possible are such that they also permit death and evil. The question can be reformulated for dystheism also. — Agent Smith
Then, a question arises: are things that are considered real only physical or are non-physical things also included? For example, if I think of a solution to a problem --which does not occur in space and is not of a physical nature-- it is real for me, and I can also prove it so that it becomes real to others too.
This, as you can see, brings in the quite common question: "Real for whom?" Because what is real for me might not be real for you and vice versa. — Alkis Piskas
Some scholars feel very strongly that mathematical truths are “out there,” waiting to be discovered—a position known as Platonism. It takes its name from the ancient Greek thinker Plato, who imagined that mathematical truths inhabit a world of their own—not a physical world, but rather a non-physical realm of unchanging perfection; a realm that exists outside of space and time. Roger Penrose, the renowned British mathematical physicist, is a staunch Platonist. In The Emperor’s New Mind, he wrote that there appears “to be some profound reality about these mathematical concepts, going quite beyond the mental deliberations of any particular mathematician. It is as though human thought is, instead, being guided towards some external truth—a truth which has a reality of its own...”
Many mathematicians seem to support this view. The things they’ve discovered over the centuries—that there is no highest prime number; that the square root of two is an irrational number; that the number pi, when expressed as a decimal, goes on forever—seem to be eternal truths, independent of the minds that found them. If we were to one day encounter intelligent aliens from another galaxy, they would not share our language or culture, but, the Platonist would argue, they might very well have made these same mathematical discoveries.
“I believe that the only way to make sense of mathematics is to believe that there are objective mathematical facts, and that they are discovered by mathematicians,” says James Robert Brown, a philosopher of science recently retired from the University of Toronto. “Working mathematicians overwhelmingly are Platonists. They don't always call themselves Platonists, but if you ask them relevant questions, it’s always the Platonistic answer that they give you.”
Other scholars—especially those working in other branches of science—view Platonism with skepticism. Scientists tend to be empiricists; they imagine the universe to be made up of things we can touch and taste and so on; things we can learn about through observation and experiment. The idea of something existing “outside of space and time” makes empiricists nervous: It sounds embarrassingly like the way religious believers talk about God, and God was banished from respectable scientific discourse a long time ago. — What is Math?
Yes- in general, things exist irrespective of people believing they exist. But faith entails an unjustified belief. Belief in God can be unjustified even if a God exists.Yes, and that which is real (i.e. ineluctable, more-than-intersubjective) is independent of "faith". — 180 Proof
Exactly. Isn't that what I have said already? You have even quoted me on that! :smile:But 'real for whom?' then raises the issue of subjectivism - that what is real is up to you or me. — Wayfarer
Everyone can and does change one's mind from time to time. And one's reality changes accordingly. What difference does this make? There's no stable, static reality. Even if one thinks of reality as the physical universe --which is wrong-- that changes too, in fact, on a constant basis. There's nothing static and never changing, except such abtract ideas as infinity, eternity, God, etc.But it can't be that way - what if I change my mind? Does something that was real then become unreal? It can't be dependent on your or my say-so. — Wayfarer
Everyone can and does change one's mind from time to time. And one's reality changes accordingly. What difference does this make? There's no stable, static reality. — Alkis Piskas
This is true. For instance, most of my habits never change! :grin:There may not be a static reality, but some things will never change. — Wayfarer
Most interesting. — Ms. Marple
Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things. — Terry Pratchett
So we're just sacks of chemistry! — Neil deGrasse Tyson
That could be one of the reasons He very rarely intervenes, despite our earnest prayers, in the affairs of humans (we're not even alive to Him). — Agent Smith
Pretty much true, but it's more correct to say: "we're not godly enough to Him" — SpaceDweller
Paradoxically, G*D (Programmer ; Cause ; Source) is both "wholly-other" and "all-encompassing". In the sense of being unbounded by space & time, G*D is in a completely different ontological category from the creatures bound to live within the constraints of an imperfect, but evolving, physical world. However, in the Enformationism thesis, we humans are integral parts of the Whole System, in a concept similar to PanPsychism. Metaphorically, we are all ideas in the Mind of G*D.You know, I've been thinking (like never before in my life)...the gap between us and God could be as big or even bigger than the gap between us and animals stones! That could be one of the reasons He very rarely intervenes, despite our earnest prayers, in the affairs of humans (we're not even alive to Him). — Agent Smith
No. That's a Calvinist Christian notion of "Sinners In The Hands of an Angry God", who sees us as loathsome insects fit only to be burned. https://wwnorton.com/college/history/archive/resources/documents/ch03_03.htmPretty much true, but it's more correct to say: "we're not godly enough to Him" — SpaceDweller
Let's see what Gnomon has to say. — Agent Smith
Please "logically demonstrate" that evolution entails a "Cosmic Mind ... Creator / Programmer" [ ... ] — 180 Proof
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.