Now I'm sure some good work has been done to stich together "the God that draws the crowds" and "the God that wins internet arguments" and I don't want to sell that short, but fundamentally that is what I take it to be: reconciling two very different ideas of God created for two very different purposes. — goremand
I was simply asking that we consider evidence in regard to the difference between faith and belief. — Tom Storm
Evidentialism implies that full religious belief is justified only if there is conclusive evidence for it. It follows that if the arguments for there being a God, including any arguments from religious experience, are at best probable ones, no one would be justified in having a full belief that there is a God. And the same holds for other religious beliefs, such as the belief that God is not just good in a utilitarian fashion but loving, or the belief that there is an afterlife. Likewise it would be unjustified to believe even with less than full confidence that, say, Krishna is divine or that Mohammed is the last and most authoritative of the prophets, unless a good case can be made for these claims from the evidence.
Evidentialism, then, sets rather high standards for justification, standards that the majority do not, it would seem, meet when it comes to religious beliefs, where many rely on “faith”, which is more like the forecaster’s hunch about the weather than the argument from past climate records. Many others take some body of scripture, such as the Bible or the Koran as of special authority, contrary to the evidentialist treatment of these as just like any other books making various claims. Are these standards too high?
I say the problem is in trying to come to grips with the sense in which such concepts exist. — Wayfarer
I think the need to provide public justification for private beliefs is still very strong, at least in the U.S. (though it may be fading fast), and that's a good thing. — J
Life is the necessary condition for value. — James Dean Conroy
I suggest you consider the possibility that your perspective is self contradictory. How do you know anything about chemicals?
— wonderer1
Does it matter? — Darkneos
Doesn't change [...] how they are the reason we feel what we feel. — Darkneos
That’s the illusion, it’s really just the chemicals. It is that simple and our stories making it to be more than what it really is.
Without those chemicals it doesn’t matter what the information is. — Darkneos
Meaningful experiences don't tend to be about something else, it only seems that way due to the chemicals in us. — Darkneos
Let's think of a USB memory stick. If we open it we do not find any information, we only find an electronic and physical layout. To obtain information we must have a suitable device, a USB reader. I wonder if the expression "to obtain information" is the correct way to refer to the case. Since the information, this is my theory, does not exist inside the USB stick. — JuanZu
You're not intelligent because of the properties alone of the chemicals in your body. You can't skip the middle step. You're intelligent because of the processes that that specific arrangement of chemicals allows to happen. And those processes AREN'T in all the particles. Those processes aren't in any individual particle at all. — flannel jesus
Our ability to communicate in this way also requires an understanding of EM fields, which are universal and not "composed of electrons" (rather electrons are the activity of the field, at least on many understandings). — Count Timothy von Icarus
Sounds like "smallism" to me. The problem is, there is no prima facie reason for smallism to be true — Count Timothy von Icarus
Macro things cannot be explained by properties the building blocks do not possess. — Patterner
No. I'm suggesting that they might be about the same things, under two different descriptions.
— Banno
I like the idea, but don't see how it can be. Can you explain? I suspect you have been doing that, but, if so, I haven't caught on. I am but an egg. — Patterner
You can still have choices, it's just that your choices follow from... well, follow from YOU, follow from the state of you. — flannel jesus



Until then it’s just a blizzard of lies and conspiracy theories, and it’s activating violent psychos to take it upon themselves to take matters into their own hands outside the democratic process. — NOS4A2
The reductio conclusion for one who disbelieves in free is that they don't believe in free will because they are determined not to. They'd be similarly forced to accept a believer believes because he must. — Hanover
If that's the case, we argue not to persuade or effectuate our opponents to choose our way of thinking, but because we simply must argue and bend as programmed. — Hanover
Does anyone else here feel that determinism, in its full intricacy, actually leaves room for more mystery rather than less? Or do you see it differently? — Matripsa
A friend of mine drew my attention on a conversation Richard Dawkins has had with ChatGPT on the topic of AI consciousness. — Pierre-Normand
You didn't reply to me but since you attacked me and my knowledge then I challenge you! — MoK
Couldn't you wonder that it could be you who doesn't have the proper knowledge to comprehend the MoK's argument? — MoK
The reality is that you simply can't imagine how physicalism could account for awareness and m-experience. You're committing the fallacy argument from incredulity, also referred to as "argument from lack of imagination". — Relativist
Humans cannot make objective judgments, and subjective judgements are meaninglesss — RussellA
P2) Experience is due to the existence of physical and the change in the state of physical is due to the existence of an experience — MoK
You bolded that portion yourself in your
, I simply formatted the quote in order to respect that. Because unlike you, I am indeed being charitable towards your intentions. e I will sense the
— previous comment — Arcane Sandwich
By assuming ignorance on my part, you're not willing to give me a fair reading as your interlocutor. — Arcane Sandwich
If you accuse me of strawmannig, then you're accusing me of charlatanry, hence sophistry, and therefore you are assuming ill intent on my behalf... — Arcane Sandwich
False. You do not sense the force of attraction in that case, you simply feel an increasingly solid sensation, in a tactile sense. — Arcane Sandwich
(AE1) If Empiricism is true, then magnetism can be perceived by human beings. — Arcane Sandwich
The thread became entangled in animal intelligence, a garden path, to my eye.
— Banno
Yes. There are those who cannot conceive of a non-human animal that truly shares any concepts with human beings and those who are quite sure that all animals in this world share that world, to a greater or lesser extent. Never the twain shall meet. Looks like two incommensurable conceptual schemes to me. — Ludwig V
To get treats, apes eagerly pointed them out to humans who didn't know where they were, a seemingly simple experiment that demonstrated for the first time that apes will communicate unknown information in the name of teamwork. The study also provides the clearest evidence to date that apes can intuit another's ignorance, an ability thought to be uniquely human.
Thanks for all your posts. Will come back with more of my replies on the rest of your posts in due course. — Corvus
