You still haven't explained why in your view atheists should be embarrassed.

And if that's not your point, please explain how atheists would be embarrassed? Because it doesn't make sense so far.

The Jabberwocky, and Santa, and most of those mythical/made up beings supposedly possess supernatural abilities.

But the whole thing should embarrass both sides. — Coben

Only insofar as the atheist would be embarrassed having to justify not believing in the Jabberwocky.

Just recently I read a line in Tom Wolf's Tobias Wolff's "Old School" that some knowledge is felt in the back of your neck.

Also, Harvey Siegel talks about the critical thinker being appropriately moved by reason, and goes on at length about what he means by "moved" in his book "Rationality Redeemed".

Especially Siegel relates to what you're getting at here, in case you're curious.

I know you wish that was true.

If God were the mountains and the trees and the skies, then the geologists and botanists and metereologists would have found some proof of that by now. They haven't, so the kitchen table remains devoid of an apple.

Burden of proof rests on you just as much as it would rest on the believer of the Jabberwocky. No, I don't want to do any more work than has been already done for millennia by others seeking truth, because at this point it's as much a waste of our precious time on this earth as searching for the Jabberwocky would be.

Finding the table empty of evidence for the apple and insisting we must remain agnostic and call our knowledge of ~apple "faith" is just silliness.

But we've come to running in circles, and I'm afraid you're fulfilling Singer's quote: "It is a distinctive characteristic of an ideology that it resists refutation. If the foundations of an ideological position are knocked out from under it, new foundations will be found, or else the ideological position will just hang there, defying the logical equivalent of the laws of gravity."

So, in essence, there's nothing left to be said to you that would make any difference. And with that I take my leave of the conversation. G'day!

Well, I'll be doggonned. Never thought I'd live to see the day someone on the interwebs listens to reason :rofl:

You may object to my absolutizing, but until we have an equal society not based on reducing humans to working units chasing money, it's corruption all the way down. — rlclauer

I reject your absolutism because I think it is narrow-minded and short-sighted. We can't have an egalitarian and equal society by tossing out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak.

Small businesses in small towns, for example, are not "corruption all the way down." Though they are victims of the corruption evident through massive corporations trying to kill any and all competition.

That only follows if a) the institutions are only getting their values from those negative conditions and if b) those conditions are 100% negative.

Even capitalism has it's positive ideas and influences, as destructive as the negative ones are.

I do reject your idea that our institutions are based on some model which is beneficial to humans, as I feel the material conditions we find ourselves in actually drive a lot of these mental illnesses — rlclauer

I agree with the second part of this statement, but do not know what it has to do with the first. At least, it is not clear what "institutions" you mean--mental asylums or general political/economic? Because I never claimed that of the latter, but I would maintain the former are meant to help people.

the whole idea of a "psychotic recovering and returning to normality" is a modern construct. our society requires certain behaviors to get by. in order to hold a job, in order to be considered neurotypical, certain expectations are placed on human behavior. in my opinion this is just a modern bias, it has nothing to do with some "objective normal state." I do not remember where I heard this argument, but I have seen some argue that a schizophrenic in an old tribal society would have been considered to have a unique insight, and may have been a shaman. in recent times, they just spray you with pepper spray and arrest you or medicate you or institutionalize you. — rlclauer

To a certain degree it's true that we over-diagnose and medicalize states of mind that are actually perfectly normal, harmless, and sometimes even beneficial (minor depression has been shown to help people find solutions to pressing problems, for example).

But when we institutionalize people, we're not putting away people who are just merrily doing their own thing whilst happening to see unicorns or hear friendly voices and arrive at the meaning of life. We're putting away people whose psychological issues make them a continuous risk to themselves and other people. Depressed people who are so apathetic they sit in their own excrements and slowly dehydrate because they can't garner the enthusiasm to get a glass of water. Schizophrenics who hear voices that tell them to kill people. People with such strong paranoia they think their wives are going to poison them and so they think they're acting in self-defense by killing her first. Etc. etc.

Of course, if the history of the OED is anything to go by, even such cases can be thoughtful, intelligent people who have a lot to contribute (read "The Professor and the Madman").

In the case of God, we don't know what She looks like, or where to look for her. Perhaps She only hangs around in sheds. Then we might see you emerge from the kitchen, proclaiming the absence of God, and we might wonder if you'd looked in the shed — Pattern-chaser

So basically, you're saying you believe in something you know nothing about, can't know anything about, and is unknowable generally. Gotcha.

Your 'proofs' include no evidence of a standard that would satisfy a scientist or a philosopher. Thus I conclude, pending the arrival of new evidence, that you cannot justify your beliefs, and simply assert them again and again, perhaps hoping I will tire? :wink: — Pattern-chaser

Most philosophers and scientists use these same ideas, so I'm not sure what you mean. They said gods were in the trees. We looked and there were none. They said they were on the mountains. We looked, there were none. They said gods were in the heavens, and again we looked and found nothing. The goalposts have been moved and moved by believers until the only things they can fall back on are some concepts of an "unknown unknowable," belief in which rests solely on faith.

It's very much obvious that we've done thousands of years of work looking over and under and inside every possible "kitchen table" and have turned up nothing. At this point, the burden of proof rests on you and your ilk. Just like it would rest on any person purporting the existence of Nessie, Santa, elves, ents, and nymphs.

Your argument for God is the same as it would be for the existence of the Jabberwocky.

The AtL is like being in the bedroom and claiming that there is or is not an apple on the kitchen table without being able to see the kitchen table or check about the apple.

What I'm saying is that we've gone into the kitchen and found the kitchen table has a banana on it, but no apple. We don't have "proof" of the absence of the apple other than there is no apple to be seen or felt or in any way discovered. It would be nonsensical therefore to continue insisting on the existence of the apple, but we can accept the banana.

I hope that makes the difference clear to you. If not, I fear there's no hope for you.

You misunderstand how an appeal to ignorance works as well as how I was presenting atheism.

1. The AtI works only when you're appealing to ignorance in cases where there is equal lack of evidence for both sides. E.g. "I don't know that there isn't a teapot circling the sun, therefore, there is one". This ignores of course the improbability and impossibility of a teapot circling the sun. (For instance, any teapot would immediately desintegrate near the sun, so it's impossible.)

This ties into my 2. point: I specifically said that God is illogical/impossible. The attributes he is supposed to possess are contradictory, such as omnipotence.

3. Though there is no evidence in favor of God, there is plenty against him. Most previous theories of how and where he exists have been disproven (not in the clouds or the heavens or in the trees or the seas) and for all things he is supposed to have done and created there are more plausible explanations that do have a lot of evidence in their favor.

If you have a theory of existence like the Big Bang that does have evidence, and another theory that has none and is absurd on the face of it like God, then the only rational conclusion is to follow the former and forget about the latter.

Note that yes, these all add up to an inductive argument, and induction does not involve 100% certainty, which ironically is what believers always insist non-believers present (ironically, because their own belief rests on 0% certainty). But it does add up to a 99% certainty, or something thereabouts, which is good enough to state "God doesn't exist" and move on with our lives to think about more important things.

The contempt philosophy shows for average Joes is one if the reasons it is irrelevant. — T Clark

You got it the wrong way around. The Joe's show contempt for philosophy and so philosophy moves on without them.
But you can start a Philosophy of Kardashians if you like. Subject #1 whether tis nobler in the mind to use matte or glossy lipstick. :snicker:

Not really. And still not. The people are voting on all sorts of issues without knowing why.

But furthermore, you didn't answer multiple points/questions of mine:
1. Which contemporary philosophy have you read?
2. Do you really think the people who put more importance in the Kardashians than in Plato should be determining the value of philosophy? Or what role philosophy plays in your own life?

I don’t see how that is the case — NOS4A2

Have you been following the news lately? There have been more than a couple attempted and committed mass killings by white supremacists and more than a couple protests where supremacists violently clashed with antifa and social justice protesters.

some fear it will lead to extremism, sectarian violence and even civil war. — NOS4A2

Correction: it already has led to extremism and violence.

It doesn't matter except to a small group of people if knowledge is a true belief or justified true belief. — RogueAI

That actually matters a whole lot to everyone, whether they care to know it or not. At least, if you want a fuctioning democracy!

People generally know more about the Kardashians than a single philosopher living or dead. Are you sure you want to pin importance on what the average Joe thinks is interesting?

You seem to be working with a pretty narrow (capitalistic?) view of what is important.

What contemporary philosophy have you read? And about what subjects?

darling — Shamshir

Who? Where? You talking to someone else?

I'm guessing — Shamshir

Well, have fun with that. Your personal guessing and musing about the metaphysics of the universe are only interesting insofar as they contain something more than your imagination.

Don't they? Won't they? Can't they? Shouldn't they? Wouldn't they? Couldn't they?

Proportionally you're too big to fit in to that tiny mind, much as God is too big to fit in to yours. I guess? — Shamshir

And yet somehow he fits in yours? Or, if he doesn't, how the heck do you know what you're even talking about with the concept of God if your mind is too small to think about him?

That's what I call an epistemological plothole :lol:

I wonder if the denizens of the ocean's bottom think likewise of humans? — Shamshir

You think plankton think humans are supernatural deities? :rofl:

Sounds like you had a really bad teacher there.

Can we recognise your realism from what you have written here, and if so, how? — Pattern-chaser

Yes. I've clearly stated both my atheism and my resistance to believing anything illogical, impossible, or fantastical, even for the sake of momentary immersion in a narrative (though I dont believe, as you do, that this entails some "lesser" form of pleasure taking or partaking in fiction).

What is a mystic?
How does anything I have said lead you to the conclusion that I am presenting 'mysticism'? — Pattern-chaser

1. You said God endowed us with certain abilities.
2.

I believe in God, and I'm as happy to call Him Jupiter or Jesus as any other name. All of them - yes, every one - represents one or more aspects of the one too-big-for-us-to-understand God. I think of Her as Gaia, but Cthulhu will do just as well, if that's your thing. God is God — Pattern-chaser

Of course, once you believe in an impossible and irrational idea like God, then you pave the way for all manner of silly and contradictory things and ideas.

Ah, good, and on topic.

(No "slime", apart from that we evolved from it.) — PoeticUniverse

How has slime been off topic?

Maybe. Maybe they want to run away, but just give up in the end. Maybe they don't want to run away, maybe they want to be eaten by the Slime. Maybe it's sloth and maybe it's suicide. — Shamshir

Since you're getting silly, I'll just assume you're beginning to see reason :wink:

You can be entirely unaware of the simulation, but be unable to run away. Sleep paralysis is an obvious example; lest it be authentic — Shamshir

Sooo, you're saying all movie goers try to run away from the Slime but are paralyzed?

Sounds like a lawsuit to me :lol:

Whether you're within a simulation you're unaware of is irrelevant; what is relevant is that the audience of a film may fall in to such an obliviously immersed state for the duration of the film, parallel to which, the audience's corpus is instinctively restricted; that's the belief. — Shamshir

If you were entirely unaware of the simulation, you would run away from the Slime.

You have stopped responding constructively; we have nothing further to exchange, usefully, I don't think. — Pattern-chaser

I don't think we do either, but mostly because realism and mysticism don't mix. Talking to a mystic is like talking to a stone wall. Mysticism claims to be open-minded, etc, but then ironically dismisses all realist propositions as hopelessly naive.

Are you denying this as a possibility — Shamshir

Yes, because the screen embodies the fiction.

Why do you think God gave us cognitive dissonance — Pattern-chaser

God doesn't exist.

Your ad hominem approach - — Pattern-chaser

Ah, dish it out but can't take it. I'm not surprised.

Consequently, why can't you fully believe in Jaws for the duration of the movie, but feel perfectly safe due to the screen between you two? — Shamshir

Because if I'm aware of the screen, I'm aware of the fiction and thus that Jaws is not real.

Your approach seems naive, when — Pattern-chaser

Your posts seem condescending. But I guess that's to be expected from someone who thinks they've got some mystical insight :chin:

If being precise about language and trying to get the ideas here right is naive, then so be it. Not sure what else we're doing here if not that though :lol:

No? The arena here is the human mind; normal rules don't apply. :wink: Did you think doublethink was fictional? :chin: — Pattern-chaser

Doublethink is not the ability to entertain to contradictory beliefs at the exact same time in the same experience. That's impossible.

I'm not sure what you mean?

If I meet a real tiger in a real cage I don't have to entertain conflicting beliefs about what is real and what not.

That barrier would be the awareness of the fictionality and thus of the unreality of the story, and thus the reader/watcher would not believe the story to be real even while engaging in the story, since you cannot believe p and ~p at the same time.

The state they were in was genuine, not in any sense delusional, but not maintainable under all conditions. — Pattern-chaser

That still doesn't explain why while in that state you wouldn't feel and react the exact same way you would irl if faced with the same creatures/situation/damage/whatever, if your belief is real/true/full/actual belief in the exact same way in both fictional and nonfictional encounters.