It's certainly true in many cases. But it became a major theme in Western culture during and after the Enlightenment. The conflict I see is between religious fundamentalism and scientific materialism. But it's a big world with room for many perspectives. — Wayfarer

Do you mean religious fundamentalists take the good book literally and scientific materialists have their own version of the good book which they too take literally?

Makes sense. The extremes are likely to be poles apart from each other.

Is there any way to find common ground? A way out for those who, say, want to have the best of both worlds, so to speak? I mean there maybe many religious scientists in the world? How do they manage?

Armstrong's argument is not so much that it was wrong, but that it backfired - that this kind of rhetoric could just as easily be used against Christians as by them. — Wayfarer

Ah! :up:

Sorry for the double post. My previous comments were, let's just say, unproductive for either of us.

Living, naturally, is never easy. You continue making the gestures commanded by existence, for many reasons, the first of which is habit. Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognized,even instinctively, the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation, and the uselessness of suffering. What, then, is that incalculable feeling that deprives the mind of the sleep necessary to life? A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. All healthy men having thought of their own suicide, it can be seen, without further explanation, that there is a direct connection between this feeling and the longing for death. (2)

It appears that I'll have to stick to my guns on the matter. Camus, if he's the writer concerned, has gone about proving his point - Absurdity - by splitting the world apart into two viz. the real and the illusory. This is an established tradition in philosophy - Plato's cave. Where the two have diverged in an important respect is that Camus claims the illusory has more meaning than the real; hence, the absurdity [of the real] and Plato believes the opposite, the real has more meaning than the illusory; hence, necessarily, the non-absurdity [of the real]. Who is correct? :chin:

Since both can't be correct and both make sense, we have a paradox in our hands. Ergo, my initial contention that dividing reality into real-illusion is flawed. It's better to look at reality as something with many sides to it and each side has its own worth, its own value, its own character, and so on. Given this view, Camus' argument fails because it depends on the real-illusion dichotomy and that we've seen leads to a paradox and so, is untenable.

for believers, medicine is just one more manifestation of God’s work on earth.

Precisely, atheists, given that they're in the business of refuting religion, are in an uncomfortable position - damned if you do, damned if you don't!

So I think it's a falsehood to claim that the Church denies or ignores science in these matters. — Wayfarer

This seems to be a different state of affairs in that the Church is going against science in the sense that healing/recovery happens in a medically/scientifically inexplicable way. How do we square this attitude with that above: for believers, medicine is just one more manifestation of God's work on earth."? The Church's ability to have it both ways must be mighty frustrating to atheists trying to build a solid refutation of religion in this respect.

One of her arguments in this book was that the early moderns too easily assumed that the marvels of natural science 'shewed God's handiwork' - Newton certainly did - inadvertently paving the way for LaPlace's declaration of 'having no need of that hypothesis.' It became increasingly easy to show that, rather than saying anything about God, science's enormous progress in understanding the universe showed no need of such an explanation. This finally culminated in vast misunderstanding of what, exactly, was meant by 'God' at all, save as a kind of placeholder for 'what science has yet to work out'. — Wayfarer

Well, I don't see how it's wrong for people to have thought that 'marvels of natural science 'shewed God's handiwork'"? After all, theism's claim is the god created this universe; surely his handiwork must be visible in all things, big and small.

the conflict thesis — Wayfarer

No smoke without fire is all I can say at the moment. Perhaps the notion of a conflict between religion and science isn't wrong per se but just flawed with that little grain of truth that people cling onto to keep the issue afloat.

Living, naturally, is never easy. You continue making the gestures commanded by existence, for many reasons, the first of which is habit. Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognized,even instinctively, the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation, and the uselessness of suffering. What, then, is that incalculable feeling that deprives the mind of the sleep necessary to life? A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. All healthy men having thought of their own suicide, it can be seen, without further explanation, that there is a direct connection between this feeling and the longing for death.

I see. I've always wondered at the notion of the so-called illusions that you refer to. In what sense are illusions illusions? My personal preference is not to make, what to me is, the unhelpful distinction reality and illusions as seems to be the intent behind Camus' pronouncements on the world. My approach, if you can call it that, is to view reality as layered-cake so to speak - there are different levels of connecting with reality, each level requiring a different mindset, a different frame of mind, a different attitude, a different set of circumstances, with no level being less real than the other. The real-illusion dichotomous perspective on reality makes it seem like one is more preferable to the other as if one is closer to the truth and the other not. In my book, all the layers of the cake are truthful in their own way with not layer being preferable to another.

As for "healthy" men having thought of their own suicide, I've always wondered whether the entire field of psychiatry hasn't got things backwards. Look at all the suffering, pain, anguish, horrors, atrocities, taking place in the world. Switch on the TV, turn the pages of a paper - tragedy after tragedy is all you'll see. A "healthy" man - a man with even a modicum of empathy or common sense - would find it difficult, even impossible, to take all of that in and still remain calm, unaffected and happy. Yet, say the psychiatrists, depression, and what usually follows - suicide - is an illness and those who can go on living their lives as if the world is all hunky dory are considered "normal". In essence, the person with tears in faer eyes is more normal than the one who's smiling ear to ear. Take this however you want to but my main objective here is to point out that normal and sick, insofar as mental health is concerned, has been incorrectly defined.

A step lower and strangeness creeps in: perceiving that the world is "dense," sensing to what a degree a stone is foreign and irreducible to us, with what intensity nature or a landscape can negate us. At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise. The primitive hostility of the world rises up to face us across millennia. For a second we cease to understand it because for centuries we have understood in it solely the images and designs that we had attributed to it beforehand, because henceforth we lack the power to make use of that artifice. The world evades us because it becomes itself again. That stage scenery masked by habit becomes again what it is. It withdraw sat a distance from us. Just as there are days when under the familiar face of a woman, we see as a stranger her we had loved months or years ago, perhaps we shall come even to desire what suddenly leaves us so alone. But the time has not yet come. Just one thing: that denseness and that strangeness of the world is the absurd.

Again, I don't subscribe to the view that depends on a real-illusion dichotomy. As I said, there are many layers to truth, each has its own quality, character, worth, beauty, and so on. Come to think of it, even a layered-cake model seems a poor analogy since it connotes a hierarchy. What comes to close to what I want to convey is that of a multi-faceted object - reality has many sides to it and each has its own value, no side being greater/lesser than another. Nonetheless, awareness of how many faces reality has is integral to coming to terms with them.

Men, too, secrete the inhuman. At certain moments of lucidity, the mechanical aspect of their gestures, their meaningless pantomime makes silly everything that surrounds them. A man is talking on the telephone behind a glass partition; you cannot hear him, but you see his incomprehensible dumb show: you wonder why he is alive. This discomfort in the face of man's own inhumanity, this incalculable tumble before the image of what we are, this "nausea," as a writer of today calls it,is also the absurd. Likewise the stranger who at certain seconds comes to meet us in a mirror, the familiar and yet alarming brother we encounter in our own photographs is also the absurd. (5) — David Mo

At this point, I must a lodge a complaint as to the tediousness of all this - every point, if it is one, made so far has been built upon the foundation of the real-illusion duo which, as I reiterate here, is unhelpful and misses the point of what reality is - a man of a thousand faces, not one man wearing a thousand masks, hiding his true identity that needs work to uncover.

That universal reason, practical or ethical, that determinism,those categories that explain everything are enough to make a decent man laugh. They have nothing to do with the mind. They negate its profound truth, which is to be enchained. In this unintelligible and limited universe, man's fate henceforth assumes its meaning. A horde of irrationals has sprung up and surrounds him until his ultimate end. In his recovered and now studied lucidity, the feeling of the absurd becomes clear and definite. I said that the world is absurd, but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment it is all that links them together. It binds them one to the other as only hatred can weld two creatures together. This is all I can discern clearly in this measureless universe where my adventure takes place. Let us pause here. (7)

Let's pause indeed.

Only habit justifies it. It is a natural habit, but a habit. — David Mo

A habit, as I said, perhaps in words that were poorly chosen and thus what appears to be a misconception on your part, is simply the act of repeating a certain kind of behavior, that behavior being associated with some meaning - here faith - and thus habits go towards reinforcing that meaning - faith - but in no way do habits justify anything unless one personifies the universe and construes its laws to be habits. Interesting.

Have you considered bigamy? — David Mo

You didn't offer that option.

The point I was making is that with only spatial reference, which tree is first and which is second, is completely arbitrary. You might add an additional spatial point, and say that relative to this point, one tree is closer and the other further, but this does not justify handing priority to one over the other. That the closer one is "first" and the further is "second" is not justified from a spatial perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

Does the arbitrariness of X's point of view somehow prevent him from developing the concept of space in this setting? :chin:

Again, "a first person and a second person in the queue" is a temporal reference. It refers either to the temporal order by which they assembled, or the temporal order by which they will be served. — Metaphysician Undercover

Really? If a queue forms at 12:00 Noon exact. How are you going to order it temporally? To make it clearer consider this. Imagine a computer program that displays 4 balls on the screen simultaneously, say at 4:00 AM. How are you going to order this temporally?

Imagine your two trees at two different spatial locations. To say that one is the first and the other is the second is a completely arbitrary designation. If you add a perspective, and say that you base first and second on this perspective, then your designation is subjective. The only thing which can make your designation of first and second into a true objective determination, is to provide a real, objective passing of time, and base "first and second" in this passing of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, the arbitrariness is inconsequential to X's first contact with the concepts of space and time.

To look at the past as before is really a mistaken perspective. Our perspective is always the present. And from the perspective of the present, the future is always before the past. Here's an example. Today is our perspective, and this is November eighth. Tomorrow is November ninth, and it is in the future. November ninth is in the future before it is in the past. Likewise, all things are always in the future before they are in the past, so the future is really before the past. How something will be is always prior to how it actually has been. — Metaphysician Undercover

The allegation that "to look at the past as before is really a mistaken perspective" is important as far as I'm concerned. I'll ask you a simple question based on dates, your contribution to the discussion. Today is 9/11/2020. Yesterday was 8/11/2020 and tomorrow will be 10/11/2020. What was the date before 9/11/2020? You wouldn't say 10/11/2020 (tomorrow) is the date before 9/11/2020, right? You would say 8/11/2020 but then 8/11/2020 is in the past and so, I conclude, "to look at the past as before..." isn't a mistaken perspective.

To drive home the point note the common expression "the day before". Today is Monday where I am and If I say, "I ate broccoli the day before" on which day did I eat broccoli? The correct answer is Sunday, I ate broccoli on Sunday, but Sunday is in the past; in other words, "to look at the past as before is really a mistaken perspective" is a dubious claim.

What is interesting though is why you thought "to look at the past as before is really a mistaken perspective"?

Can you give me more to go on?

It is only when we remove the present as the proper temporal perspective, and place things in a temporal order, like a chronological order, saying that one thing is before the other, in that chronological order, that we produce the illusion that a past event is before a future event. But this is a manufactured model, and it is faulty in that sense, because it does not portray the true relation of past to future, by portraying the existence of the event in the future as prior to its existence in the past — Metaphysician Undercover

Read above.

When the present is established as the proper temporal reference point, it doesn't make sense to say that there could be an infinity of past time. This is because there must always be a future before there is a past. Time cannot pass, and create a past, unless there is future which is ready to move into the past. So prior to there being any past time, there must have necessarily been a future. Something must have been available to move into the past. This implies that it is impossible for the past to be infinite because it is necessary that there was always a future prior to any past. Therefore the past is limited in this way. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm going to focus on the last underlined statement, "...it is impossible for the past to be infinite because it is necessary that there was always a future prior to any past". What makes you say that? The most reasonable interpretation of this would be your claim is that we've only experienced a finite part of the future and so the past can't be infinite. But that, as it turns out, is based on an unfounded assumption viz. that the part of the future we've experienced is finite. How do you know that? :chin:

What about the replies:

1. I don't know
2. Maybe

?

The first is a confession of personal ignorance and the second, in addition to being like the first, indicates a much wider state of ignorance i.e. will involve, for instance, disagreement among the ranks of experts on a given topic.

It appears that yes/no questions are typically about confirming/disconfirming a suspicion i.e. the questioner has a hunch regarding the answer and seeks to validate/invalidate it.

What is his name? Not a yes/no query
Is his name Carroll? A yes/no query

Where is the party? Not a yes/no query
Is the party at Carroll's? A yes/no query

When will Carroll arive? Not a yes/no query
Is Carroll arriving at 10? A yes/no query

How is Carroll? Not a yes/no query
Is Carroll fine? A yes/no quert

Which Carroll is it? Not a yes/no query
Is it Lewis Carroll? A yes/no query

Why is Carroll here? Not a yes/no query
Is Carroll here to meet me? A yes/no query

Who is Carroll? Not a yes/no query
Is it Lewis Carroll? A yes/no query

scientific mystery and a miracle — Kenosha Kid

I'll focus on this point in your post. I hope @Wayfarer will chime in at some point.

We've been discussing matters as if there's a fundamental antagonism between science and religion. Forget miracles for a moment and consider the fact that, if I'm correct, scientists thought/think of themselves as involved in an enterprise which they affectionately describe as reading the mind of god. In other words, contrary to religious folk who seem to see the hand of god in the extraordinary, scientists see god in the ordinary, the so-called laws of nature. What's the deal here? I mean if both the ordinary and the extraordinary can be interpreted as having divine origins how do we disprove the existence of god? A classic case of eating the cake and having it too!

I think a better understanding of our economy might include a study of Christianity. Especially Protestantism, that is tied to Calvinism, a very materialistic/supernatural understanding of life justifying the exploitation of humans and earth — Athena

I'm too ignorant to comment but if I had to say something about Christianity vis-a-vis the earth's present state it would be that Christian values are just too anthropocentric to permit an all-inclusive perspective, something necessary if we're to ever to get the global environmental movement off the ground. Just saying...I could be completely wrong of course.

That is not exactly true. We can talk about the cost of pollution, environmental degradation, deforestation, global warming. Here is a google page that does that. — Athena

Yes, the "cost" which is a monetary term to my knowledge. I feel like a nonphysicalist with an environmental agenda, equally apalled by the materialistic reductionism as I am about the, coincidentally, "green" reductionism. Isn't it odd that the greenback is at odds with the greenbelt? I guess, we're a bit confused about the whole issue - both are green after all.

Actually, the ordering described here as "first" and "second" is temporal rather than spatial. The one tree is first and the other is second because that is the temporal order in which the person encountered them, according to the person's approach from a particular direction. "First" and "second" is always based in a temporal priority, and can never be based in a "spatial dimension" because such a designation (first and second) with only spatial reference would be completely arbitrary, or subjective, depending on the perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was approaching it from the perspective of a queue, a line, as it were. Two trees would always form a line, a straight one but that's beside the point. The two trees can be viewed to be a sequence in terms of relative distance from X, the closer one being first and the farther one being second. A queue, a line of trees?! Ordering in space?! What are your thoughts on that? Of course it's also true that the sequence is temporal too but that wouldn't be quite so apparent to X as he has no real reason, no necessity rather, to think of time at this point and spatial ordering is the low hanging fruit, something rather obvious, perhaps too obvious to miss or overlook.

Too, there's a sense in which the two trees are at the same time just as a queue can form at 12:00 AM but there's a first person and a second person in the queue. I suppose the idea is to force X to think about an aspect of reality different from space.

At the second, fruiting tree, X has to make sense of the fruits' condition as the days progress. Space is no longer available to him as a context for the tree and the fruits haven't changed their positions. X is forced to think of an alternative - another way to make sense of the sequence: first, green; second, red. He can't do that in spatial terms, obviously, and so, he, in that moment, gets the first glimpse of the concept of time. X realizes, as it were, that the sequence is in another aspect, if you have issues with the concept of dimensions, of reality.

There is a problem which manifests from the modern tendency to portray time as a spatial dimension, and that is that temporal priority becomes an arbitrary, or subjective designation. You can see this in Kenosha Kid's threads where it is argued that time is reversible. Modeling time as a dimension of space robs us of the capacity for an objective concept of "priority" because such a designation become arbitrary, rather than being based in an objective passing of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

Care to expand on this a bit? What means you by "arbitrary", "subjective", and "objective passing of time"? As far as I'm concerned, all I want to achieve is to construct a plausible theory on the origins of the concept of time. I think secondary features like "subjectivity", "objectivity" come later and can be safely ignored. Unless, of course, you feel that they're relevant in which case you'd need to give me more to go on.

There is no sense in asking "in which dimension is the order/sequence of the ripening of the fruits taking place?", because dimensions are the property of space, and as described above, the concept of "space" does not provide us with the principles required for an objective concept of "ordering". Therefore we must allow that temporal ordering, and "priority" in general, cannot be properly conceptualized if we think of time as a dimension of space. — Metaphysician Undercover

Definition of "dimension" (Merriam-Webster): (mathematics): any of the fundamental units (as of mass, length, or time) on which a derived unit is based

You repeat so much the experience of seeing the sun rise every morning that you end up believing that it will always be like that. The believer who repeats a prayer with a lot of force ends up accepting it as an untouchable mantra. This is how superstitions work, as Skynner demonstrated with a dove.

Whether there is freedom or not I don't know. I can give an opinion on this, but I don't know. — David Mo

I can accept that but I'm interested in the causal claim that habit leads to faith. How? By tue way your sun example is an inductive inference - it has nothing to do with habit.

As for your view on praying and superstition, you're spot on. Many cases of superstition are examples of false cause fallacies: non causa pro causa or post hoc ergo propter hoc.

It appears you're right. Habit can cause faith in some kind of a feedback loop - faith induces the development of ritualistic behavior, these become habits, and habits reinforce [cause] faith...round and round we go in the carousel of faith and habit.

In that case you refrain from giving your opinion. — David Mo

If I have the opportunity of marrying two equally attractive women, your advice is to not marry at all? :chin:

I personally do not find the free will defense satisfying in any case of the problem of evil, however I recognize that is not the purpose of this post. — Emma

It's an integral part of the OP insofar as moral evil is concerned.

I think it is prevalent that the Christian God favors humankind over the rest of his creation, therefore the Christian God does not love all of His creation equally (denial of premise 2). — Emma

I can see where you're coming from on this issue. I myself stated in a thread not too long ago about how humans, endowed with this magnificent organ - the brain - can, has, and probably will beat the competition any time. With our technology we've dominated the world in a never-seen-before kind of way. In short, humans, with their brains, seem to be emerging on top in the evolutionary struggle for survival - we are, in more respects than I care to mention, the fittest in a world with one rule: survival of the fittest.

However, take a moment to take in the current knowledge we have on ecology and the environment. What's the general consensus in your opinion? What have we learned from the past 100 years or so of careful observation and analysis of our ecology and the environment? To my reckoning, from all our studies in these fields, the takeaway is this: our environment is a finely balanced system - each living organism, be it plant, animal, microbe, whatever, has an important role in maintaining the health of an ecosystem. Remove one or more players in this game and there are consequences, consequences that take the form of disequilibrium and disharmony in ecosystems that can, eventually, lead to catastrophic collapse of entire biospheres. Does this, in any way, give you the impression that one particular organism is being favored over another? In fact a case can be made that humans, capable of destroying the environment at unprecedented scales and speeds, are, in this sense, an illness, a disease, that's plaguing all life on earth but that's another story.

however it did cause her to re-evalauate some aspects of her world-view. — Wayfarer

In my world that counts as a win! :up:

As I said, the absurd is above all a feeling — David Mo

Care to expand on that? I thought it had and is supposed to have a sobering, depressing effect on us? I'm not sure. You tell me.

No. He only refers to those problems that are pressing for the human being in general and each one in particular.The fact of not hitting a pool or finding that there are no tickets for the theatre does not cause the absurdity that Camus spoke of. — David Mo

:ok: I don't think I have Camus figured out as well as I thought. Can you show me the way?

But I do see what you mean — Kenosha Kid

Thank you. My main aim is to somehow soften the blow of late Hitchens' declaration that the association between miracles and God is too weak to be of any significance.

I seem to have forgotten to mention that the "suspensions/violationz of the laws of nature" (miracles) must be authentic in the sense that it's not the case that they were/are perceived as such because of ignorance. To illustrate the point, a time traveller who takes his plane to the bronze age and takes to the air isn't going to count as a miracle for the reason that it's going to seen as "miraculous" because iron age folks would be ignorant of the principles of aeronautics. However, if a cup broken into pieces suddenly reassembles and becomes whole again or your long-dead grandfather whose ashes you personally disposed off in the ocean appears at your front doorstep, that would be a bona fide miracle. You get the picture, right?

It appears that miracles, defined in the Hitchensian sense as above, is a function of ignorance. The more ignorant one is, the more miracles one sees and that sets the bar very high for miracles because not only is it necessary to prove that a suspension/violation of the laws of nature has occurred but too that the belief that a miracle has occured isn't because of a lacuna in our knowledge. The former condition is an easier one to meet than the latter.

What gives?

Is Hitchens' definition too stringent? After all, it makes a nigh impossible demand - that our knowledge of the laws of nature is both complete and accurate. Is it possible to know that we know everything there is to know? Thereby hangs a tale. I wish to discuss that if you're game?

If we relax the criterion for miracles, say by declaring that only current, the most up-to-date, knowledge of the laws of nature matter, there's a real and unsettling chance that we might end up believing and worshipping god/gods which is/are, at this point, simply various manifestations of our ignorance.

This reminds me of Socrates who famously announced, "I know that I know nothing." Juxtapose this with the words of the Delphic Oracle: "Socrates is the wisest man there is." In a weird but palpably true sense, if wisdom, the be all and end all of philosophy, means to be cognizant of one's ignorance, it makes sense to, well, worship it, no? Could it be, is it possible, that the human tendency to immediately atrribute miraculous events to the divine, to god, is an indication that, deep down, we all know what wisdom really is - the Socratic paradox - and hence the, sometimes irresistable, urge to worship the unknown?

Of course hardly any of this will meet scientific standards of evidence and has been elaborated and redacted over millenia. — Wayfarer

Can you kindly read my reply to Kenosha Kid above?

However is actually a data set for miracle cures, or cures that seem to have been effected by prayers to Cathoic saints. Those are the records required for the beatification of saints in the church, and have been kept for centuries. The beatification process requires two bona fide, attributable miracles, and the process of obtaining those bona fides is extremely rigorous. See Pondering Miracles, Medical and Religious. — Wayfarer

I just recently got wind of the beatification process. I was surprised that the criteria were quite so stringent. Nonetheless, it seems the Pope can and has relax(ed) the conditions for sainthood by, for instance, reducing the required number of miracles from the standard two to one. Thanks.

I think this definitely is a unique and beneficial way to look at the myth in the context Camus wants — The Questioning Bookworm

I'm afraid it's uniqueness and benefit is outweighed by the fact that it's not really a choice and if one must insist that it is one, the old Camusian absurdity at play again, it's a Hobson's choice.

contradiction/absurdity — The Questioning Bookworm

I've always faced contradictions throughout my life, from the day I could, in my own small way, think, to this very moment. Our relationship, that between me and contradictions, can best be described as that between a moth and a flame - an irrestible urge in me, the moth, to dive headlong, with absolutely no concern for the dangers therein (I have a feeling that it induces insanity), into the burning flames of one contradiction after another after another. I've never managed to make even the slightest progress toward a resolution/solution for any one of them. Sisyphus, Camus?

As for absurdity, I once made a resolution of sorts - no, it wasn't New Year's day - that I wouldn't smile or laugh at a joke unless the punchline was a contradiction! I was, as it appears, a hardcore logic fan. This didn't work out very well for me for the simple reason that the contradictions didn't show up in the places where I wanted to or, more accurately, they appeared in all the wrong places. I wanted to roll on the floor laughing but there were no contradictions; there were contradictions but laughter, even a wee smile, was inappropriate. Sisyphus, Camus?

our faith in Christ's faith — 180 Proof

Excellent! It's turtles all the way down :grin:

However the presence of evidence would then remove the necessity of faith — Kenosha Kid

That's what I've been getting wrong all this time. Christianity isn't about faith. There's evidence, at least it's meant to be such - Jesus miracles.

While you can say a contradiction, you can't think a contradiction. — Harry Hindu

Oh! Now it makes sense. Thanks. You mean to say I can speak/write, for instance, the contradiction "god exists" and "god doesn't exist" - I just did ( :grin: ) - but I can't think it. And...your point is?

Do you understand what Aristotle is saying? Take in what Aristotle is saying and then roll it around in your head and then get back to me with how you would paraphrase it.:
“It is impossible for the same property to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect”
— Aristotle — Harry Hindu

I understand what Aristotle is saying but imagine I don't. How would you explain it to me? Please do.

Try to say, "exists" and "not-exists" at the same moment. Do you see the problem now? — Harry Hindu

Of course, I just gave it a go a moment ago but with a different kind of a contradiction. I tried imagining a square-circle. All that happened was the image in my mind flipped between a square or a circle bit never really getting to a square-circle. So? What's the point?

Alice is thinking something
There is something [that Alice is thinking about]

A
1. Alice is thinking Bob, the elephant
2. There is Bob, the elephant [that Alice is thinking about] (excuse the grammatical error)

B
3. Alice is thinking elephants
4. There is elephants [that Alice is thinking about] (ignore grammatical mistake)

C
5. Alice is thinking square-circles
6. There is square-circles [that Alice is thinking about] (again, pardon the grammatical boo-boo)



Two levels of thought with subcategories:
D. The possible
7. Concrete: Bob, the elephant
8. Abstract: Elephants

E. The impossible
9. Contradictions: Square-circles

In case of A, assuming there's an elephant called Bob, clearly, if Alice is thinking of Bob, Bob is.

In case of B, Alice is thinking of an abstraction - elephants. The Platonic thing to do would be to say there's a form, elephantness in some world of forms, and that all elephants are tokens of it.

In case C, it being true that Alice is thinking about square-circles doesn't imply that square-circles are.

In what sense is it that square-circles can't be? They're said to be impossible - they're contradictions. Right? The low hanging fruit here is that in the world in which Bob, the elephant is, you won't come across a square-circle. That's that.

What about the world of elephants - the abstraction? Squrares are abstractions, circles are abstractions i.e. both squares and circles are equivalent in terms of their existential quality to elephants - all being abstractions. A square-circle however has no place either in the world of the concrete or in the world of abstractions.

Here's where it gets interesting, at least to me.

There seems to be a sentiment, an expectation if you will, that for something to be there must be a world to be in. Isn't this the crux of Platonic worlds? I ain't sure. You be the judge.

At this point, I'm going to reverse the logic but, hopefully, not to the point that my argument fails. Basically, the idea is that just as one expects there to be a world in which things can be, if one claims that something can't be then, my logic goes, there must be a world in which that thing can't be.

Square-circles can't be - they're impossible - but in what/which world? Not in the world of the concrete, the world of Bob, the elephant, for certain. They also can't be in the world of abstractions - the world of elephants, squares, and circles. But for square-circles not to be, there must be a world in which it can't be. In other words, the world of abstractions - Plato's world of forms - must exist. If not, that square-circles are impossible, i.e. they can't be, doesn't make sense. This world of forms is inhabited by abstractions; Alice thinking about something implies that that something exists...somewhere :lol:

genes — Tristan L

Interesting point if I catch your drift. How people, perhaps this is an old-fashoined attitude, now outmoded, used to care about their ancestral lines. Matriarchal and patriarchal family lines were highly valued, protected, and extended down generations, some perhaps are much, much older than some modern African nations. Sad that they seem to have missed out on an important truth - that the bodies are, under some interpretations, merely vessels for the mind.

Oh! And Physicalism seems to accommodate a gene-based perspective of mind/brain.

In order not to be wrong, you first have to disjoin E with the trivially true proposition (e.g. 0=0; for our goals, we can speak of the trivially true proposition) to get (E OR 0=0), and only then conjoin the resulting proposition (E OR 0=0) with ¬E to get (E OR 0=0) AND ¬E, which is equivalent to ¬E. — Tristan L

:ok: Tell me one thing...what is the meaning of trivially true? By the way (E v 0=0) & ~E isn't equivalent to ~E. Do a DeMorgan on it and you have (E & ~E) v (~E v 0=0) and you know the rest.

not saying anything is equivalent to saying something trivially true — Tristan L

Saying is not the same as not saying and nothing is not the same as true, trivial or otherwise. Do I have to go Avicenna on you? :smile:

Why do you keep moving the goal posts? I explained it using the way you expressed it in your OP. I already pointed out that A cannot be any proposition under the sun because it has to logically follow — Harry Hindu

What does it mean, "...it has to logically follow."? Are you saying the natural deduction rules that appear in my argument are flawed? Which ones? Where?

Sorry but I didn't move the goal post. I erected it in the first place (recall it was me who provided you the argument). You're unwilling to accept the argument - an instance of ex falso quodlibet - and then proceeded to call it a non sequitur but didn't, obviously because you had better things to do, back it up with an argument of your own.

Then I don't understand how you can say that the quote I provided doesn't have any contradictions in it. :roll: — Harry Hindu

Avicenna probably intended it as such - to do an exposé on the absurdity of denying a contradiction - but, if it's not too much trouble, can you point out the exact location in the quote where a contradiction makes its, what I expect is a grand, entrance.

Try thinking of something and it's contradiction in the same moment. That is different than trying to say a contradiction in the same moment, which is impossible. To say a contradiction means that you have to say one sentence and then another that contradicts it. That is utterly different than thinking of a contradiction, which is done in the same moment. Try thinking of a god that both exists and doesn't exist. Now, use your logical symbols to say the same thing. It takes time to write them out, and the symbol appear in different places than the symbol that they are contradicting. When thinking of a contradiction, you think of the existing and non-existing property in the same moment and in the same visual space - meaning the existing/non-existing god must appear in the same space at the same moment. Remember this quote of Aristotle's: — Harry Hindu

You speak as if thought is different to speech. It is, quite obviously, but it can be said and it is true that speech is nothing but vocalized thought and thought is simply unvocalized speech. I'm curious though because, if what you say makes sense to you, your brain must work in a radically different manner than mine. Care to share.

God is a computer. — Jack Cummins

I wonder...I wonder...truthseeker. What would it entail if god is computer? Kindly factor in the possibility that this might be a mistake in that the computer may simply be one that is running the simulation i.e. there's someone behind the screen kinda thing, bashing the keys, creating the code, etc.

faith IN Christ and the faith OF Christ — Nikolas

Faith OF Christ: His faith in god
Faith IN Christ: Our faith in Christ

The intriguing mystery that needs a solving:

Our faith in Christ was/is/probably will be based on a certain set of miracles Christ performed - feeding five thousand with nothing but a loaf of bread, walking on water, restoring sight to a blind man, and resurrecting from the dead, etc. A good mix of miracles in my humble opinion but it needs mentioning that they wouldn't have convinced a modern person who's got just that right amount of scientific knowledge under faer belt to prevent or delay an inference of divinity.

Add to this the late Christopher Hitchens' assertion that miracles, in and on themselves, don't imply anything divine and Hitchens makes complete sense: imagine yourself, with a couple of hi-tech gadgets, wandering in the Amazon jungle and meeting one of the tribes whose most advanced tech is poison-tipped arrows. I'm willing to bet a considerable sum of money, not that I have any, that you'd be treated as a god when the truth is you aren't.

In essence, and I just realized this, the notion of our faith in Christ doesn't make sense. Miracles = Evidence or at least they were meant to be. It appears that I, probably others too, was/were mistaken all this while. Christianity isn't about faith as I thought; evidence of God was produced in the form of miracles. That's that!

As for Christ's faith in god, I suppose the miracles he performed convinced him too of his own divine nature. In other words, Christ himself was given miraculous evidence of god's existence and faer interest in the affairs of humanity.

In short, faith seems a totally inappropriate concept to attach to Christ, Christians, or Christianity. :chin:

You are giving your own version of the absurd. — David Mo

Really, I have my very own version of the absurdity of life? What's yours then?

unsolvable contradiction between his desires and reality. — David Mo

I wonder how general the idea of Camusian absurdity is. Does it encompass all desires? Are all desires thwarted by reality? For instance, I wanted to smoke five minutes ago, and I did. I had a headache and wanted some Tylenol and I popped two into my mouth, washed them down with a glass of water. Of course the simple nature of these, my, desires aren't lost on me but, do you supppose they're counterexamples to your claim: "unsolvable contradiction between his desires and reality"?

Anyway, Camus seems to be mainly concerned about the meaning of life - our desire for it and the unwillingness of the universe to give us one. Sisyphus would've loved to find out that the rock at the top of the hill would amount to something in the sense either it is, in and of itself, an achievement or it's a step toward something else. That the rock rolls down again to the starting position means both these possibilities are null and void. Meaninglessness!

In your example faith (belief without justification) is caused (motivation) by habit. In this example habit is the cause, faith is the effect. — David Mo

You're proposing a causal link between habit and faith here. How does that work? Do you have a causal argument to support this?

Nothing prevents you from having a hypothesis if you do not take it as a certainty. — David Mo

That's reassuring. So, how certain can we be?

Only experience can turn a hypothesis into law, an assumption into knowledge. — David Mo

What do you mean by "experience"?

An inconsistent hypothesis is immediately discarded — David Mo

Yes, but as I informed you and that might not have been necessary, there are/could be times when multiple hypotheses may be consistent with observation, all of them equally appealing in every known measure of appeal. What then? Am I not free, in the sense there are no justifications to force a choice, to choose any one of these hypotheses?

As far as I can tell, opinion is divided on the alleged weirdness of Quantum mechanics and it's the weirdness that's sent philosophers into a tizzy, right.

Take Schrodinger's cat for example.

Just yesterday I came across a video that claims that quantum superposition (Schrodinger's cat) is foundational to modern computer technology, in essence validating it.

Yet, some say, Schrodinger created the thought experiment just to show that there's something deeply flawed with quantum mechanics, in short invalidating the theory. Coming from one of the founders of quantum theory - Erwin Schrodinger - this needs to be taken seriously, right? Schrodinger eventually gave up - if that's the right way to see it - and took up biology. :chin:

So, yeah, we're, at least I am, very, very confused as to what the quantum world is all about.

The GLOBAL ECONOMY is completely, entirely, centerd on and around money. Even to someone who's utterly economically illiterate as I am can see this truth stand out like a sore thumb in the way economies are run both within and between countries. If money is flowing into the bank accounts, all is good is the mantra I suspect.

Unfortunately, the way economies are run, perhaps its something inherent in its very nature, has, :smile: "costs" that can't be translated by economists or anyone else apparently into money. Stuff like pollution, environmental degradation, deforestation, global warming, etc. haven't been transliterated into dollars and dollars seem to be the only language people, especially the ones who call the shots, understand. It's as if mother earth, Gaia, hasn't been able to keep up with the way human language has evolved from Hindi, Chinese, English, German, Japanese, etc. into the now global language that's money. In the past, Gaia, could speak to us in moving verse and thought-provoking prose, of course at the cost of losing precious trees to make the paper on which they're written. Now, this simply fails as the language has changed into what to Gaia is unspeakable nevertheless "understandable"

I've been led to believe this lamentable state of affairs is changing but not in the way some of us would've liked.

What's happening is people (economists?? I'm not sure) have begun the process of translation between Gaia and us but the chosen language is, for better or for worse, money - dollar costs of environmental degradation, dollar costs of deforestation, dollar costs of biodiversity loss, etc.

Wouldn't it have been better if we'd done it the other way - learned to speak mother earth, Gaia's language, perhaps requiring a getting in touch with our softer, mellow side that has a primeval connection to the Earth?

Something must be done about the so-called global economy.

Yes. I did. Search for the phrase, "non sequitur" on this page. The principle of explosion IS a non sequitur error. — Harry Hindu

Explain it to me with the argument I made:

1. P & ~P.......assume contradictions allowed
2. P............1 Simp
3. P v A......2 Add [A being any proposition under the sun]
4. ~ P.........1 Simp
5. A..........3, 4 DS

Three important facets to the logic above:

1. The propositions themselves
2. The logical connectives (&, v)
3. Natural deduction rules

Have I missed anything?

Explain the non sequitur using one or more of the above.

Then how are you defining, "contradiction"? — Harry Hindu

p & ~p = Something is something & Something is not that something

Is the principle of explosion self-evident in the way the principle of non-contradiction is self-evident? — Harry Hindu

It wasn't and thus this thread. By the way, how, in what sense is the law of noncontradiction self-evident?

No it can't. It has to logically follow, or be causally related with, the prior statement or its a non sequitur. I did mention this the post you replied to but apparently did not read. — Harry Hindu

I guess everyone has an opinion on the matter but what's your beef with the principle of explosion? Any flaws? You don't mention any.

"As for the obstinate, he must be plunged into fire, since fire and non-fire are identical. Let him be beaten, since suffering and not suffering are the same. Let him be deprived of food and drink, since eating and drinking are identical to abstaining.”
-The philosopher and polymath Avicenna — Harry Hindu

I love this quote but, on analysis, it, nowhere in its poetic fervor, states a contradiction. All it does, in my humble opinion, is swing back and forth between a proposition and its negation, never really getting there, never really making a point, the point in fact. It seems to be more about negation if anything. That's, of course, just my opinion. Perhaps you can edify me. Thanks.

I'm calling it a day. Thanks for your input. Much appreciated. Will get back to you if I think of anything worth the ink.

Sisyphus' rock doesn't symbolize for Camus a particular burden that you can avoid. It is the absurdity of life itself. The only way to get rid of the rock is to commit suicide. This is what Camus discusses in his book. — David Mo

As I said:

I don't know how to respond to this or if I can whether it'll be good enough to lessen our burden. — TheMadFool

Thanks for the clarification although the meaninglessness of Sisyphus' task seems to be the condition that the rock rolls down on every occasion - the futility of his effort is what Sisyphus' meaningless existence is about, no?

As for the absurdity of life, it only is so if one seeks some kind of higher purpose understood in the sense of being a significant part of, having a role in, something "bigger" than yourself. I suppose it's a natural, even instinctive, desire for there are things "bigger" than oneself but surely one must consider, seriously indeed, that there's no necessity that one has to get that much sought after part in the grand scheme of things. And I suppose this is Camus' absurdity for he's ignored a possibility that is as real to the same extent, even more perhaps, as our desire for a "higher purpose". We're absurd alright but, in this sense, Camus is more absurd.

I have no reason to think that, generally speaking, those who believe in a violent or compassionate god have other different reasons than their belief in that god. Another thing is that you think their beliefs are confusing or that they are at odds with the idea of a god that you believe in. But that is another matter. We are now discussing what is the base of those beliefs that you can think are confusing or wrong. Or not. — David Mo

I'm only drawing your attention to the possible fact that what you see as faith-based beliefs may not actually be that - they could simply be habits learned through repetition in settings like family, work, friends, community, culture, country, etc. In other words, your counterexamples to my claim that people, generally, aren't inclined toward faith are not so.

I don't know if I understood the question correctly. 'Spill over` puzzles me a little (damn phrasal verbs!). Can you change the verb? Do you mean 'apply to'? My answer follows this idea: — David Mo

Well, let me rephrase it as best as I can. What prevents you or me or anyone from assuming things, anything at all - propositions, theories, whatnot? For instance, as we speak, I can, for no reason whatsoever, assume that god exists or even that fae doesn't.

Of course, you might say that doing so has consequences in that certain other propositions are entailed and then the issue of consistency/inconsistency arises. Is this what you want to say? If yes, then what about propositions that are consistent with relevant other propositions? Does consistency in itself justify, is it a measure of, truth?

I don't think so.

You seem to be in the know about how science works. A scientist constructs, not one but many, hypotheses that explains a given set of observations and more than one may fit the data. What then? I'm familiar with one method that allows a choice to be made between competing hypotheses - Ockham's razor (seek simplicity) - but that has nothing to do with truth at all. Too, what if two candidate hypotheses are equally simple? What then? Can I not choose i.e. assume one of them to be true even though I have absolutely no rationale to do so? :chin:

The Munchausen trilemma disappears if we stop looking for absolute principles and look for reasonable principles. — David Mo

Interesting thought! What exactly is your point?

Very interesting. I applaud the spirit if not the success of the enterprise. Paraphrasing scientist Laurence Kraus, scientists go to work everyday with the hope and intent of proving their colleagues wrong.

I suppose the whole idea of thinking in any field according to Kraus and probably most thinkers past, present and future is in small part an exercise in building and fixing theories, old and new, but in large part consists of taking the wrecking ball to existing paradigms and breaking them.

Do continue this task - you might break math and that would be something very interesting to watch and also very satisfying given that I've always envied the mathematically talented lot.

To "activate" impermanence only when that which we love is gone is to attempt to repress grief by a kind of spiritual bypassing. — TLCD1996

Why would you say that? What is "...to repress grief..."? It sounds like some kind of extremely tough and equally wrong course of action when faced with loss. Why exactly do we grieve when we lose something we dearly love? Isn't it because we wanted it to last a little longer or, even forever? Knowledge of impermanence would've informed you that that's impossible and that everything dies and decays. Wouldn't this have lessen the suffering, the pain, the anguish, of loss? In short, knowing that nothing lasts forever, makes it easier to accept loss - the grief isn't being repressed, it's being alleviated, mitigated, or even eliminated through understanding the nature of our world, our universe, of life.

Speaking about the advent of modern medicine, that doesn't necessarily rule out suffering. — TLCD1996

I only mentioned about modern medicine to drive home the point of impermanence - had the Buddha been living in the 21st century, surrounded by modern amenities, creature comforts, access to dentists and doctors, living close to a popular nightclub, etc, would he have had the motivation to seek the cessation of suffering? In fact the Buddha's story, to the extent that it's true, reflects this in the clearest of terms. He was, by his father, isolated from all the pain and suffering that were extant then and what was the result? No impulse to solve the problem of suffering. Things change - that's what impermanence is. There's no hard and fast rule that the Buddha's words are eternal truths. In fact it's my prediction that in about 100-200 years, all religions, if their central premise is the alleviation of suffering, will become obsolete and people of that future will look at religions thus based with utter disbelief - suffering will be so alien to them because they would've never experienced it.

So while it's necessary to avoid panicking over these changes, it is also necessary to protect the essence through practice, education, discipline, etc. — TLCD1996

This is clinging with wisdom then? How?

There are certain situations which the winner will make more enemies and will probably face severe challenges; in such cases, I don’t think one wants his/her more favored one to win, and they may even wish the favored one to lose in order to protect its well-being. — Isabel Hu

Well, I suppose you're right but, give it some thought, would creating enemies be winning? :chin:

Therefore, it seems that no one creation winning all the time isn’t sufficient enough to assert that God has no preference or God loves all creation equally. — Isabel Hu

:ok: My question is simple: what would convince you or what, to you, is "...sufficient enough to assert that God has no preference or God loves all creation equally"?

I ask because the very idea of having preferences for a God entails that there should be clear signs that one particular living thing (I suspect you prefer that to be humans) is being favored thus. There seems to be no evidence of this to my reckoning. You disagree. Why? What has convinced you that there's favoritism going on?

God, cannot explain why God gives the mechanism of free will to us but not other creation. — Isabel Hu

Why do you think "other creations" lack free will?

However, there are still lots of common moralities that almost all human beings agree on, no matter what cultural backgrounds we have. — Isabel Hu

These are choices that appeal to humans. Too, I think the whole idea of divvying people up into cultures, races, whatnot, and after having done that being surprised to discover similarities among these various divisions is a mistake. It's like looking at a bunch of dogs in an animal shelter and being amazed at how all of them bark and wag their tails. They're all dogs just as we're all humans, similarities should be expected, it's the differences that should cause concern.