Martyrs are supposed to die, for a cause, and Gandhi did not. — god must be atheist

He was assassinated in 1948.

But he shamed some oppressors with the suffering he imposed on his own self.

The same that shook the world is the common thread between Gandhi and martyrdom. — god must be atheist

Gandhi and Martin Luther King risked their lives and were killed. They did not intend to die. That was my point. They didn't intentionally sacrifice themselves. I wasn't clear enough.

if ineffable, then what's up with all the preaching anyway...? Weird. — jorndoe

People gotta talk. Not God's fault.

Gods have no explanatory power. — Tom Storm

I think that's not true. People experience God. You may claim that they are experiencing something else, something more mundane. Or you may claim they are deluded. I don't think they are, but it doesn't matter. God does have explanatory power. Not to you, clearly. But that doesn't disqualify the experience other people have or God's value to them.

You are one of the most moderate atheists here on the forum. You don't share the rabid obsession of some. But your lack of imagination limits your understanding.

And welcome to the forum.

How many theory ( I'll never use the term 'believe' in this forum ;) ) that your reality depends
mostly on what you focus on and if you stop paying mind to something that it no longer has any weight on your personal environment even if it is affecting others around you? — Pixel Blast Chamber

Anything that affects the people around me will affect me also. I'm sure that's not the answer you are looking for. Perhaps you should clarify your post.

There is one correct, logical, complete answer. — DavidJohnson

Sorry, no. @jamalrob is right.

First, notice what I said in the first sentence: "before God created time and space." It is undoubtedly absurd to talk about 'before," or to use any temporal language to describe the period (another temporal term) before God created time and space. After all, there is no time, so how can we talk about a time before time existed? — Raymond Rider

This is a human language problem, not a theological one. Language paradoxes don't limit God's abilities.

This brings about the "second time problem." If time has always existed, then why did God create everything else when He did? Why did He choose that specific point in time to create the universe? — Raymond Rider

Again, God is not limited by your limited understanding. This is a human contradiction, not a theological one.

You can't play gotcha with God. There are plenty of good reasons why he might not exist, the two you have provided are not them. They.

Someone here is a buffoon. I'm not ruling out the possibility that it's me, but I don't think so. — jamalrob

A couple of thoughts:

• There is no reason you both can't be buffoons.
• You might be a buffoon, even if you are correct on this issue.

Someone here is a buffoon. I'm not ruling out the possibility that it's me, but I don't think so. — jamalrob

I didn't think we were allowed to imply new members are buffoons till they've submitted 20 posts.

Right, and as already noted its completely speculative and baseless, and the fine-tuning argument in particular rests on a claim about probability that can't be sustained. The only form of the anthropic principle that is credible is the so-called "weak" anthropic principle, which is more or less just a tautology. — Seppo

People who believe in the quantum multiverse or the anthropic principle are like people who think that if you flip a coin four times and get four heads you are more likely to get a tail than a head on the fifth flip.

111 — jamalrob

There is no way we can know what kind of answer you are looking for, given that you reject correct answers. — jamalrob

I'm with Jamalrob. And welcome to the forum.

I don't think Jesus intended to die on that cross either. — Olivier5

Agreed.

I was just making a relevant distinction between Empirical scientists, who get their hands dirty, and Theoretical scientists, who get callouses on their pencil fingers. Albert did no physical experiments, and he used mathematics only to translate his qualitative subjective scenarios into the universal language of logical relationships. — Gnomon

This is baloney. Read some of his papers. They are rigorous and heavily mathematical. Even though he did not do experiments himself, this work has been tested over and over and found to be correct. His work is not "qualitative" although he worked hard to explain his findings to non-technical readers in a non-mathematical way. Much of modern physics is based on the work he did.

No, not really. The anthropic principle merely tells us that there is a selection effect on any observations we can make, in virtue of the fact that we exist in the first place to make those observations. — Seppo

There are two principles. The weak anthropic principle is as you say - it's a restatement of the obvious, i.e. we live in a universe where conditions suitable for human life exist. The strong anthropic principle is different. It states that the improbability of the conditions we find ourselves in here means that the universe must have been set up to promote the evolution of humans or someone like us. It's the fine tuning argument.

It's not martyrdom indeed, but the idea is very similar: the weak testifies of a scandal by facing the strong in a totally asymmetric manner. — Olivier5

I don't think Gandhi gave his life to be a symbol to his people. I think he risked his life as part of a tactic to gain freedom for his people. There's a big difference.

Yes, yes. I know I'm being a nitpicker. I shouldn't go off on a tangent.

I suspect that you think I'm making a scientific claim, when I say that "evolution is qualitatively progressive". But, since I'm not a scientist, I don't make authoritarian statements about the quantitative mechanics of physics. I do however cite those "soft" scientists, such as Einstein, who are more theoretical & philosophical than empirical & technological. — Gnomon

My problem with this is that the question of whether or not evolution is progressive is not a qualitative soft science or metaphysical question. As I said - it's either right or it's wrong, and I believe it's wrong.

And calling Albert Einstein a "soft scientist" is about as inaccurate a description as I can think of.

Certainly. But I think that the points I brought up reflected or implied that ... — Alkis Piskas

I don't think you and I have any beef. Unless I've misunderstood what you're saying, we're agreeing with each other.

It was used by Gandhi — Olivier5

Gandhi was not a martyr. Peaceful disobedience is not martyrdom.

I changed the first sentence of my first paragraph to read "If a significant number of qualified people don't think something is self-evident, it's not self-evident at all," because I think the way it was originally was ambiguous.

Denial is easy; understanding is hard.

Obviously, if you doubt that evolution is progressive, then it's not "obvious or self-evident" to you. — Gnomon

If a significant number of qualified people don't think something is self-evident, it's not self-evident at all. Calling something self-evident requires a consensus among the parties to the discussion. There's no consensus here. And it's not just between you and me, I'm talking about people who understand the specifics of evolution better than we do.

It is even quite apparent in biology, as "progressive speciation" is well documented, despite the occasional extinction events. — Gnomon

Whether you call the apparent increase in complexity & organization "progressive" depends on your personal perspective. As you can see from the excerpts below there are plenty of experts to whom biological progression is obvious. — Gnomon

I will acknowledge that the complexity of life has increased over the last 500 million years since the the Cambrian Explosion, but that's because it started out with bacteria, the simplest organisms possible. There was nowhere to go but more complex. But that's not progress or purpose. That doesn't show that evolution is directed. It's just probabilities. If you start with 100 black marbles in a box and then start exchanging one marble at a time at random, black marbles for white ones and white marbles for black; eventually you will end up with 50 black marbles and 50 white. That doesn't show progress toward diversity of marble color.

Whether you call the apparent increase in complexity & organization "progressive" depends on your personal perspective. — Gnomon

No. It doesn't depend on personal perspective. Somebody's right and somebody's wrong. I think I'm right. Am I 100% positive? No, but I'm certain enough to make the claim I have made.

As you can see from the excerpts below there are plenty of experts to whom biological progression is obvious. — Gnomon

I never said there weren't a lot of people who think evolution is progressive. But as I said, if there is not a consensus, it is not obvious.

The Anthropic Cosmological Principle implies that the evolution of the cosmos is teleological. — Gnomon

My skepticism for the strong anthropic principle is as strong as my skepticism about progressive evolution. It's not science it's.... I don't know what it is.

Every bit of this is incoherent. Reality is objective. It's not a metaphysical claim, it's a physical one. As in, physics. Nothing about your position is clear. — Garrett Travers

As I said, let's leave it at that. We're not getting anywhere.

I hope you will pardon me if I don't respond directly to your categorical claim that my expressed opinions are incorrect. — Gnomon

I don't believe evolution is progressive, but that's not what I argued. All I argued is that the position that evolution is progressive is not obvious or self-evident. It's not hard to deny.

A reality doesn't have to exist for objects in it to interact? — Garrett Travers

I didn't say there is no reality, I said there is no objective reality. I didn't even say that. I only said there are other ways to look at reality.

Objective means, in the context that we're talking about : not dependent on the mind for existence. — Garrett Travers

Yes, that's what I mean by objective reality.

actual. — Garrett Travers

By calling objective reality "actual," you seem to mean it is the common everyday reality people deal with. That's not the only, or necessarily the best, way of looking at it.

So, again, I'm going to need that example of something that exists that provides no evidence of itself existing. — Garrett Travers

So, again, I never said anything about something that exists that provides no evidence of itself existing. You're doing it again - using our everyday experience of reality as evidence that objective reality exists when the question on the table is whether we need the idea of objective reality to explain our everyday experience of reality.

I think acting as if there is an objective reality can be a useful way of seeing things, but it is not the only way of seeing things. And it is not necessarily always the best way of seeing things. Again, objective reality is a metaphysical entity. It's not true or false, it's just assumed. No, I don't want to get into a discussion of metaphysics. I've spent enough time doing that for a while.

Let's just leave it at that.

Then you are going to have to provide an example of something extant that does not present itself as observable via evidence, given the ability to perceive such a thing through either the senses, or instruments created to detect it. Otherwise, you are saying something that is incoherent. — Garrett Travers

Observing something by evidence does not require there to be an objective reality. You keep saying it's self-evident, but it's not. Then you go on to claim that interacting with reality in any way requires an objective reality, which is begging the question. I agree with Joshs:

To claim that there is one true reality that we can attain through empirical reason, above and beyond our perspectival access to the world, is confusing an assumption with an absolute truth. — Joshs

You have just demonstrated that you perceive that reality by talking within it with someone else also in it, through objective hardware, designed by objective technological standards, to send such messages as contain your objective statement of the objective meaning of reality in association with perception, which you could not have done without perceiving the objective reality within which you objectively chose to operate. But, we can play pretend all day if you want. — Garrett Travers

I didn't say there is no reality. I said that there are other valid ways of interacting with reality that do not assume an objective reality. Even that wasn't my main argument, which is that the existence of objective reality is not self-evident.

If there were no reality, you'd not have been able to send such a message to me, which simply verifies that the only reality to speak of is the one we occupy. — Garrett Travers

Again, I didn't say there is no reality. I only said that its existence is not self-evident. It is not the only way of seeing things that is consistent with human experience of reality.

As you noted, the experts are not unanimous in their assessment. Positive progression is a matter of interpretation, and the scope of your worldview. — Gnomon

If we are agreed on that, then we agree on the claim this:

Philosophers, through the ages have mostly agreed that our world appears to be designed, and tried to guess the intentions of the designer. Their conjectures may prove wrong in the details, but agree on the general direction : upward.
— Gnomon

That evolution is progressive is hard to deny.
— Gnomon

As I noted, I believe these statements are incorrect. — T Clark

That's all I claimed. You have not responded to that claim. Many people like to claim that their positions are unquestionable, self-evident, when they are not. That's what you have done.

References won't convince you, if you are not looking at them from an open-minded perspective. — Gnomon

Again - you're not responding to the claim I made.

For example, reverse the timeline in the image below --- is the athletic ape better than the couch potato? Now substitute the image below for the blob, and do you see any progress? :joke: — Gnomon

I think the illustration you have provided is enlightening. It shows evolutionary "progress" from chimpanzee to human, but humans are not ancestors of chimpanzees. I think that shows the oversimplicity of the argument you are trying to make.

Objective reality is a recognition of a self-evident, self-emergent, productive, law abiding, patternized, immutable plain of existence. Not an assumption. — Garrett Travers

I disagree. I see the existence of objective reality as a metaphysical question, by which I mean it is an underlying assumption, what R.G. Collingwood calls an absolute presupposition. As such, it is neither true nor false. Collingwood and I are not the only ones who feel that way. That shows it is not "self-evident."

It can and does exist without the assumption of God. — Garrett Travers

The idea of objective reality is meaningless if there is no one who can perceive it.

Now, that doesn't mean one cannot postulate a super ordinate existence, but no evidence suggests such existence, thus one is reliant on making supernatural claims of an infinite variety. — Garrett Travers

I make no claims for anything supernatural. To call something "superordinate" there has to be something that is ordinate, which would be objective reality. So, your argument is circular.

I've only ever known people who believe in God to think along these lines. — Garrett Travers

I have no religious beliefs.

To NOT believe in the objective reality in which you live requires the belief in a god. — Garrett Travers

I got a bit lost in your discussion. Until I got to this sentence, I thought you were agreeing with me. I disagree with your statement. I don't think one needs to assume that either objective reality or God have to exist.

Certainly. An absolute reality requires a God. But people, so much misled by religious dogmas and bias of all sort,as well as lack of critical reasoning and undestanding, don't even treat God as something absolute. — Alkis Piskas

I wasn't making a statement about religion. What I wanted to say was about science. Science is supposed to replace religion, but it's underlying presuppositions are similar.

The bottom line is, I think, that such a absolute state is highly impossible to exist. But even if it does exist, we are not able to conceive it. anyway. — Alkis Piskas

Not to go off on a tangent, but I think objective reality is a metaphysical entity, not something that exists in the world. It is one of the unproven assumptions, presuppositions, of science and much of our daily experience of the world.

The vast majority of people (including "thinkers") believe there is and talk about an "objective" reality. Isn't this the "base" reality and the reality "outside of human observation", that you are talking about?

n such cases I use to ask, "If there is an objective a reality, who is out there to tell?" — Alkis Piskas

"Objective" reality appears to require an infinite, absolute viewpoint to at least be posited as possible. It does not currently seem possible, and were it to exist, we run into the problems above vis-á-vis our current conceptions of information. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It has always seemed to me that belief in an objective reality requires a belief in God. As you note, there has to be someone who can experience it, someone with "an infinite, absolute viewpoint."

Not that this is particularly relevant, I find I agree with you on all counts - re time, reality, imposed structures/'laws'. — Tom Storm

Thanks. If you and I agree on something, we must be right.

Why do you think Kawabata said literature can defeat religion? Is it related to promote a better educational system or the pursue of a free state of knowledge through books? — javi2541997

Seems like it would be something a bit less mundane than just improving education. I wonder if he meant that literature could replace religion to fill a human need for meaning. Did he have anything less cryptic to say about it?

I think you are missing the point! God should know! It's supposed to be omniscient, so you would think it would teach its prophets a little bit of science so they wouldn't make so many mistakes.
But I suppose it cant because it does not exist! — universeness

That's quite a stretch for an argument.

Also, @Ciceronianus's reference was not to the Christian God, it was to Mithra, a Persian god with many followers in Rome.

I came across a couple of other commercial pieces very much like this one yesterday, but for different locations, under different management. My guess is that they were created in the same shop. — Bitter Crank

For some reason it made me think of Ren and Stimpy.

That's OK. I don't take the smoke-without-fire too seriously. It's par for the course, for philosophers who explore the outer limits of human knowledge, where angels fear to post their unpopular opinions. — Gnomon

Yes....well...ahem.

But there is a strong trend, especially in the fields of Complexity & Cosmology to present (non-divine) scientific models of Teleology. — Gnomon

I believe this is not true. Do you have some references?

As the articles below illustrate, it's not just little ole me that sees signs of directionality in the world's development, from a simple Singularity to the cosmic complexity we see today. — Gnomon

I never said that there aren't people who believe that evolution is teleological. I only responded to the following comments:

Philosophers, through the ages have mostly agreed that our world appears to be designed, and tried to guess the intentions of the designer. Their conjectures may prove wrong in the details, but agree on the general direction : upward. — Gnomon

That evolution is progressive is hard to deny. — Gnomon

As I noted, I believe these statements are incorrect.

The Stanford entry below provides names & opinions. :smile:

Teleological Notions in Biology :
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/teleology-biology/ — Gnomon

The SEP article you referenced includes the following statement:

Nevertheless, biologists and philosophers have continued to question the legitimacy of teleological notions in biology. For instance, Ernst Mayr (1988), identified four reasons why teleological notions remain controversial in biology, namely that they are:

• vitalistic (positing some special ‘life-force’);
• requiring backwards causation (because goal-directed explanations seem to use future outcomes to explain present traits);
• incompatible with mechanistic explanation (because of 1 and 2);
• mentalistic (attributing the action of mind where there is none).

A fifth complaint is that they are not empirically testable (Allen & Bekoff 1995)...

This demonstrates my point - there is widespread belief among appropriately qualified scientists and philosophers that evolution is not teleological. It is not hard to deny that evolution is progressive. Qualified people do it all the time.

What didn't you buy about it? If the physical world is evolving, I assume consciousness is as well (and I'm not a materialist). — Noble Dust

I came to the book skeptical. It seems like a pretty radical proposition. But I was willing to be convinced. His use of the Iliad and Odyssey as evidence for the ancient lack of self-awareness associated with what he called a bicameral mind. To me, it's a weak argument. What I call a Malcolm Gladwell argument. (That's not a good thing.)

What these two sources have in common is the idea that we can't necessarily assume we can understand what and how people in the past thought or felt. Understanding how other people think requires us to try to put ourselves in their shoes. This can be a more and more difficult task the further we get from their time and culture.
— T Clark

Yes, this is what I'm getting at. — Noble Dust

If I remember correctly, you made a similar comment about understanding the Tao Te Ching. Wasn't that you? I don't think my awareness of the difficulty of understanding minds from different times and cultures means that we can't succeed.

Philosophers, through the ages have mostly agreed that our world appears to be designed, and tried to guess the intentions of the designer. Their conjectures may prove wrong in the details, but agree on the general direction : upward. — Gnomon

I don't know that his is true. It certainly isn't true for today's philosophers and scientists. Do you have specific information on beliefs over time?

That evolution is progressive is hard to deny. — Gnomon

Many evolutionary biologists do not believe evolution is progressive. I looked on the web for information about the distribution of biologists' opinions on the subject, but I couldn't find any.

It is similar but with some different tones. I think the magical realism of "Sputnik, sweetheart" is not close enough to 1Q84. Nevertheless! It has that Murakami atmosphere that you can check in most of the books: loneliness, random grils out of nowhere, Metaphysic conversations, nostalgia, etc... — javi2541997

I'll add it to my list. Maybe this will give me the impetus I need to read some more Murakami.

I guess I'm asking a question of ancient psychology, which is impossible to answer. — Noble Dust

This made me think of something I've come across in a couple of places. The first is from Jaynes' "The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind." Jaynes contends that people in the ancient world were not self-aware in the way we are. He explicates the stories in the Iliad and Odyssey as evidence of this. I find it unconvincing, although there is some interesting stuff. The second is the work of Christopher Lasch, a social critic who had a Freudian slant on human sociology and psychology. I remember being struck by his idea that the structure of the family has a strong influence on the structure of our minds. As families changed as we went from an agrarian society to an industrial one, our minds also changed.

What these two sources have in common is the idea that we can't necessarily assume we can understand what and how people in the past thought or felt. Understanding how other people think requires us to try to put ourselves in their shoes. This can be a more and more difficult task the further we get from their time and culture.