Lonelygirl15

tannhaus wrote:

Sfonzarelli wrote:The terribly erronious Hollywood drivel just gave us more power.

No..it just did more to slander the religion in the US and drive it underground...to the point of extinction in many places. It turned the children against the religion of their ancestors. It didn't really do anything GOOD for voudou.

The white supremacist power structure will always be antagonistic towards the existence of African ethnicity. Why would you ever expect otherwise?

Consider this - She is a minor. She will NOT be allowed to partake in any OTO related activity - apart from possibly "a feast for water" - and that will indicate that she just hit menarche.

Her family being members of the OTO would know this, and as such it wouldn't be anything else than a rite of passage.

I just think the religion is a ficticious blend of occult and pagan origins.
Any relation to Crowley, Thelema and the OTO/AA is because these subjects have readily available sources on the net.

And, as a member of the OTO I am seriously sceptical against any claims the series will make in the future.
It has to be tastefully done to be good, and I am glad that they have chosen to call it "The order of Denderah" rather than pin pointing OTO.

LikkleSister wrote:Consider this - She is a minor. She will NOT be allowed to partake in any OTO related activity - apart from possibly "a feast for water" - and that will indicate that she just hit menarche.

Her family being members of the OTO would know this, and as such it wouldn't be anything else than a rite of passage.

I just think the religion is a ficticious blend of occult and pagan origins.
Any relation to Crowley, Thelema and the OTO/AA is because these subjects have readily available sources on the net.

And, as a member of the OTO I am seriously sceptical against any claims the series will make in the future.
It has to be tastefully done to be good, and I am glad that they have chosen to call it "The order of Denderah" rather than pin pointing OTO.

I think they're afraid of our Lawyers.

sororyzbl wrote:I think they're afraid of our Lawyers.

I think they should be afraid of our lawyers

JerseyJohnny wrote: Calling religion "silly" as you have done several times is insulting to those who have any belief in any religion, by association. So, an attack was made by you.

I didn't call religion silly. I said that the kind of arguments creationists use to try to convince people their theories are legit are bad to the point when it sounds silly that they are willing to accept that.
I didn't say anything about religion, I was referring to their arguments, even good ideas can be argued in a bad way.

JerseyJohnny wrote: If you want to put it that way, then yes, my "biggest problem" is that I think it's about different philosophies. In which case YOUR biggest problem is failing to be aware or educated on differing philosophies and their impacts on our lives.

Then let me clear the problem for you. This is not about a clash of philosophies. This is where this entire argument comes from:
Religious person: There is a God, he created us, and we must pray to him and live by his word.
Atheist: How do you know there is a God?
Religious person: *Gives a bunch of proofs*
Atheist: *Not convinced by proofs*

This is what it's about- Atheists haven't seen a convincing proof yet, and it's not because they follow a different philosophy, it's a matter of convincing evidence.
For example: a person is very ill, and his friends pray for him, and he gets better. Some would say that's an act of God answering their prayers.
But an theist will say 'I'm sorry, but that's post hoc ergo propter hoc', just because two events happened one after another doesn't mean the first is the cause of the second. There could be a number of reasons for his improvement, some of them medical (some diagnoses are not 100%, good immunity system, natural immunity), some psychological (it's not known yet to which extent the mind can influence the body, it's possible that being cheered by the people around him, and having hope, can affect bio chemistry in a way that'll help the patient recover), some biological (it might've been a weaker strain), etc. Also, what about the people that had relatives praying for them and didn't recover. There isn't even statistical evidence that shows that praying helps.

So this claim failed to convince, there was a logical fallacy in it (post hoc ergo propter hoc). I can show you a bunch of others if you want.

JerseyJohnny wrote: That's "naturalism". That is based on the philosophy that "existence" is that which we can sense with our physical senses only. If you would study philosophy you'd learn about this.

Ah, but if we can't sense God in any way- see him or his deeds, hear him, touch or feel his touch, smell him, taste him, then he doesn't and didn't have any effect on us or our world. I mean, even if we can't see/hear/etc him in any way, we should at least see his meddling with the world, and thus infer his existance. Are you saying that his meddling with our world is also on a level not precieved by our senses? If so, then he has no effect over anything, if not- then we should be able to infer his existance. Problem is, I haven't seen any convincing evidence so far.

this is kind off-topic but I rather not make a new thread just for this.
How is Thelema pronounced?

Lost wrote:this is kind off-topic but I rather not make a new thread just for this.
How is Thelema pronounced?

THe-LEEM-uh. hard th, like theater. long second e. soft first e. soft a

BlackRiven wrote:

JerseyJohnny wrote: What constitutes "inference", and on who's part?

Inference, noun: the reasoning involved in drawing a conclusion or making a logical judgment on the basis of circumstantial evidence and prior conclusions rather than on the basis of direct observation.
It's the second step in a deductive argument, which consists of:
1) premises
2) inference
3) conclusion

On who's part? The person that attempts to reach a conclusion is the one that needs to infer it.

Good, so you recognize that "inference" is relative to each individual. Since you chose to use inference to define "logic", then it stands to reason that "logic" can vary from individual to individual as inference does. So why do you apply "logic" with a broad brush and having a single meaning to which each individual's thinking must adhere?

The closest thing we have to set standards for "logic" are those which have been developed through various branches of philosophy. Note the plurarlity of "branches"; there is more than one standard for "logic". In this day and age, a naturalistic approach is widely accepted. The reason for this is that the largely uneducated masses are living in a world filled with technology and place their faith in the technology. All people know about technology is that it is based on science, which uses scientific method, which is derived from the naturalist philosophy, that only those things which can be physically sensed are acknowledged as "real".

BlackRiven wrote:

JerseyJohnny wrote: What particular "standard of judgment" are we talking about here? There have been MANY throughout the history of philosophy, which is the basis for "logic".

Seriously do you really want to go there? There're various views on how to define logic, and the dispute doesn't keep people from using it or teach it in academic institutions in a very coherent way. I really don't need to point out to you what constitutes a rational thought.
Your problem is that you solve the inconsistancy that arises from your points of view- which appear very sound to you- and the ones of atheists by saying that there're different standarts of judgment, which is why you think that everything I wrote in the definition is relative.
If you really want to, go to wikipedia and type 'logic' in the search feature.

JerseyJohnny wrote: based on philosophy, from which logic is derived

Logic is not derieved from philosophy! Logic is not philosophy, it's a tool used by philosophy to reach its points of view. Philosophy is not logic. Philosophy uses logic. This is not about a clash of philosophies, call it 'rational thought' if it makes it easiers for you to make a distinction. .

Yes, I did really "want to go there", so I did. Although I have never considered a "Wikipedia" to be an academically reliable source of information, I did reference it, since you seem to find it to be reliable. In fact, it backed up what I said about "logic":

Logic, from Classical Greek λόγος (logos), originally meaning the word, or what is spoken, (but coming to mean thought or reason) is most often said to be the study of criteria for the evaluation of arguments, although the exact definition of logic is a matter of controversy among philosophers. However the subject is grounded, the task of the logician is the same: to advance an account of valid and fallacious inference to allow one to distinguish logical from flawed arguments.

Traditionally, logic is studied as a branch of philosophy.

The nature of logic has been the object of intense dispute: it is not possible to clearly delineate the bounds of logic in terms acceptable to all rival viewpoints.

So Logic is determined through philosophy, which is the basis for all mathematical and scientific study. It is NOT POSSIBLE for all to agree on one universal "logic", but rather to accept as a majority various types of logic to be applied to various problems. Maybe you should consult your "Wikipedia" more often?

BlackRiven wrote:

JerseyJohnny wrote: First of all, I'm not here to discuss "intelligent design" with a moron like you. Second, "concrete proof" is nonsense, as are the small-minded people such as yourself who believe there is such a thing.

I suggest you drop the attitude. Your anger is way out of proportion and has to do more with your associations to a personal attack than any actual attack that was made.
As for concrete proof, it exist as long as it refers to things of concrete nature. If there's a tree, it's there. That's indesputable.

My anger is out of frustration from talking to someone who lacks the capacity and/or desire to see beyond the limitations he chooses to place on his own thinking. It is fruitless to talk to someone who is so closed minded. Your assertion of what "concrete proof" is serves as a perfect example. If there's a tree, how do you really know it's there? How do you know that it's not a hallucination? How do you know that it's not a person in an elaborate costume pretending to be a tree? For that matter, how do you know you are not a brain in a jar who is hooked up to a computer that is playing these scenes for you (a la "The Matrix")??? How do you know that it's a tree and not a cow? The answer is that you start from the premise that your physical senses and what you have been programmed with in the past are not false, so you draw a logical conclusion BASED ON THAT. The problem is, that if any one of those premises are wrong, your logic fails.

If you care to learn more, then study it for yourself. It is not my job to educate you in philosophy. I spent too much of my own time and money going to good schools to learn it for myself, and I know it can't be taught in a message board. My suggestion for you is that until you have gone through sufficient education in this field, that you leave it alone, and also recognize that you do fall short intellectually in this area.

BlackRiven wrote:

JerseyJohnny wrote: I love how you talk about the "leap of faith", a concept which is so obviously lost on you, yet you use the catch-phrase to in your own pathetic attempt to portray the (il)logic of others. "Leap of faith" is a concept developed within the philosophy of Kierkegaard.

"The leap of faith is his conception of how an individual would believe in God, or how a person would act in love. It is not so much a rational decision, as it is transcending rationality in favour of something more uncanny, that is, faith."
-Wikipedia
How have I misunderstood that?

You have provided me with "Wikipedia"'s interpretation of Kierkegaard's philosophy, and one which is talking from the standpoint that rationality is rooted in physicality. So you haven't misunderstood Wikipedia, but you have misunderstood Kierkegaard. His "leap of faith" had to do with changing qualities, from one "state" to another. Again, study up for yourself if you're interested, I'm not being paid to educate you.

BlackRiven wrote:

JerseyJohnny wrote:It doesn't pertain to naturalistic philosophy.

Again, that's your biggest problem, you think this is about different philosophies. It's about how atheists haven't heard any conclusive proof for the existance of God or anything else that has religious nature.

Again, it IS about different philosophies. Atheists' "conclusive proof" is rooted in a naturalistic philosophy which ignores metaphysics. Not all people choose exclusively a naturalistic philosophy as the premise for their worldview, some choose metaphysical or (most commonly) a combination of a metaphysical with a naturalistic philosophy for their worldview. Study up. Talk to me when you have something that makes sense.

sororyzbl wrote:
I think they're afraid of our Lawyers.

Haha, this is most true. I would be

BlackRiven wrote:

JerseyJohnny wrote: Calling religion "silly" as you have done several times is insulting to those who have any belief in any religion, by association. So, an attack was made by you.

I didn't call religion silly. I said that the kind of arguments creationists use to try to convince people their theories are legit are bad to the point when it sounds silly that they are willing to accept that.
I didn't say anything about religion, I was referring to their arguments, even good ideas can be argued in a bad way.

You are not calling their argumentary technique "silly", you are attacking the premise of their argument. Therefore, you are calling their beliefs, their religions, "silly". You are not saying that Creationists argue their belief in a bad way, you are saying that Creationism or "Intelligent Design" itself is "silly". Please watch yourself for the doubletalk.

BlackRiven wrote:

JerseyJohnny wrote: If you want to put it that way, then yes, my "biggest problem" is that I think it's about different philosophies. In which case YOUR biggest problem is failing to be aware or educated on differing philosophies and their impacts on our lives.

Then let me clear the problem for you. This is not about a clash of philosophies. This is where this entire argument comes from:
Religious person: There is a God, he created us, and we must pray to him and live by his word.
Atheist: How do you know there is a God?
Religious person: *Gives a bunch of proofs*
Atheist: *Not convinced by proofs*

Wrong, this is about a clash of philosophies. You're just not educated enough or open-minded enough to understand it. This is where the entire argument comes from:

Atheist: You're silly to even try to argue that there is a God. It's clearly been proven that there is no God.
Religious person: Oh really? Where has this been proven?
Atheist: Through science.
Religious person: I thought science worked from the premise that only that which can be sensed through one of the physical senses is believed to "exist"?
Atheist: Yes, that's right.
Religious person: So science neither affirms nor disaffirms the existence of God explicitly, it simply doesn't even acknowledge the possibility of the existence of God to begin with since God can't be sensed?
Atheist: Correct.
Religious person: So how has science developed a proof about the non-existence of something which it has never acknowledged to either exist or not exist in the first place?
Atheist: You're a silly Bible-thumping Creationist, you just want to impose your religion on me and cause wars in the world! Stop spewing your hate!
Religious person: Uh, yeah, OK.

BlackRiven wrote: This is what it's about- Atheists haven't seen a convincing proof yet, and it's not because they follow a different philosophy, it's a matter of convincing evidence.

"Convincing" being the key word. So you admit there is "evidence", but that said evidence is not convincing to you. I realize that. I realize you also reject the evidence based on the fact that you choose a worldview that is naturalistic, and incorporate the premise that only those things which can be physically sensed can be believed to exist, and therefore reject said evidence as convincing because the reality is that nothing can convince you short of physical sensory experience. That has been my point all along, and you still seem to be inable or unwilling to see it. And, it is directly related to Atheists following a different philosophy, that being the philosophy of "naturalism" alone. You reject metaphysical philosophies from the start.

BlackRiven wrote: For example: a person is very ill, and his friends pray for him, and he gets better. Some would say that's an act of God answering their prayers.
But an theist will say 'I'm sorry, but that's post hoc ergo propter hoc', just because two events happened one after another doesn't mean the first is the cause of the second. There could be a number of reasons for his improvement, some of them medical (some diagnoses are not 100%, good immunity system, natural immunity), some psychological (it's not known yet to which extent the mind can influence the body, it's possible that being cheered by the people around him, and having hope, can affect bio chemistry in a way that'll help the patient recover), some biological (it might've been a weaker strain), etc. Also, what about the people that had relatives praying for them and didn't recover. There isn't even statistical evidence that shows that praying helps.

"Post hoc" logic is not a preclusion to truth. It simply doesn't serve as proof. I can draw post hoc conclusions to many truths, and although the logic is fallacious, the truth remains true.

For example, if you take an aspirin because you have a headache and your headache goes away, you could say "I had a headache, then I took an aspirin, and my headache went away. So aspirin makes headaches go away." Now, I could say to you "Sorry, post hoc ergo propter hoc." I could go on and say the reason your headache went away could be medical (perhaps you ate or drank something else which cured the headache), could be mental (perhaps the aspirin was a placebo), could be metaphysical (perhaps tiny demons with sledgehammers were in your head and stopped pounding the inside of your head after you took the aspirin). Could be a lot of reasons. I would be correct to point out that your logic was post hoc; however, this would not preclude the possibility that the truth is that the aspirin did cure your headache.

Therefore, the problem in both our examples and post hoc statements are not the logical fallacy of the post hoc statement itself, but the supposition that the post hoc is the only evidence considered in drawing a conclusion.

As for your comment about statistics, you really ought to know better than to bring that up. Statistics are subject to so many variable factors and are never proof positive that any pattern or trend will repeat. Statistics can be helpful and they can be harmful, and ought to be used cautiously. Statistics never constitute absolute proof.

BlackRiven wrote: So this claim failed to convince, there was a logical fallacy in it (post hoc ergo propter hoc). I can show you a bunch of others if you want.

This claim failed to convince because of your pre-selected philosophy on your world, and the logical fallacy brought about based upon that, not upon the logical fallacy of the post hoc statement. Again, a post hoc statement is only problematic when it is the sole determination for a cause and effect. You seem to have latched onto the "logical fallacy" of a post hoc statement as being an indication of overall logical fallacy, when in fact you have a different logical fallacy that is based directly upon your chosen philosophy.

BlackRiven wrote:

JerseyJohnny wrote: That's "naturalism". That is based on the philosophy that "existence" is that which we can sense with our physical senses only. If you would study philosophy you'd learn about this.

Ah, but if we can't sense God in any way- see him or his deeds, hear him, touch or feel his touch, smell him, taste him, then he doesn't and didn't have any effect on us or our world. I mean, even if we can't see/hear/etc him in any way, we should at least see his meddling with the world, and thus infer his existance. Are you saying that his meddling with our world is also on a level not precieved by our senses? If so, then he has no effect over anything, if not- then we should be able to infer his existance. Problem is, I haven't seen any convincing evidence so far.

That's the point, don't you even understand that? God is SUPERnatural (ABOVE the "natural"). METAphysical. If He could be sensed physically he would not be supernatural, but, rather, "natural". How is the supernatural precluded from us and our world? Only when one pre-supposes it, as you have. You have no proof that the supernatural doesn't exist or doesn't affect us and our world.

You say we should see "his meddling with our world", and we do. Of course, you will choose to interpret it differently if you pre-suppose that he can't even exist. Our world itself is proof, evidence of his existence and that his supernatural works are manifested in our natural world. Again, if you presuppose that he doesn't exist and can't since he's not natural, then you will never accept any rationale which allows for the supernatural.

For example, you decide that Australia can't and doesn't exist; you figure you've never been there or seen it and you don't accept as convincing evidence photos and stories about it, you have yet to physically experience Australia for yourself, so you decide it's not real. No matter what evidence someone provides for you, you will reject it. "Here's a picture of Sydney, Australia." You could say, "Nope, sorry, that must be some other city that you're passing off as so-called Sydney, Australia, because I know Australia doesn't exist." Or someone could say to you "Well I was born and raised in Australia, I've lived there all my life until I came to this city last year." You could say, "Well, I'm sure you beleive what you've been told all your life by other people, and I'm sure in your mind you think there's this place called Australia, but you're wrong, I know there is no Australia because I have never physically experienced it myself."

I suggest, BlackRiven, that you go and study philosophy for yourself. I'm done educating you, I don't get paid to do it and I have paid a lot in time and money to go to very good schools to study philosophy.

In the meantime, I suggest that you consider that while you may have your own belief set that you have chosen, it is not fair for you to criticize the beliefs of others by calling them (or the arguments that arise from them) "silly", particularly if you don't have the background in logic and philosophy (which you don't) to make such assertions.

~ JJ

JerseyJohnny wrote: You are not saying that Creationists argue their belief in a bad way

Here's exactly what I said, pay attention: "...but once a debate such as the one in Kansas arises it does seem incredibly silly that some people are willing to accept the kind of arguments that Creationists use."

JerseyJohnny wrote:
Wrong, this is about a clash of philosophies. You're just not educated enough or open-minded enough to understand it. This is where the entire argument comes from:

Atheist: You're silly to even try to argue that there is a God. It's clearly been proven that there is no God.
Religious person: Oh really? Where has this been proven?
Atheist: Through science.
Religious person: I thought science worked from the premise that only that which can be sensed through one of the physical senses is believed to "exist"?
Atheist: Yes, that's right.

That's not neceserrily true. We can't sense many things that were proven by science to exist. You can't feel the cell phone signals passing through your body, but we know they exist and we even make use of them, despite being unable to precieve them with any of our senses. If God exists, and he interacts with our world, we should be able to prove his existance throug those interactions with our world without seeing him. It's like how do we know the force of gravity exists? Because we can see objects being pulled to the ground, that means there's a force that's pulling them down. We haven't actually seen gravity, but we saw its effect on our world. Science deals with everything that exists, in one way or another. If it has interactions with our world we can prove it exists, doesn't matter if we can see it or not.

JerseyJohnny wrote:

BlackRiven wrote: This is what it's about- Atheists haven't seen a convincing proof yet, and it's not because they follow a different philosophy, it's a matter of convincing evidence.

"Convincing" being the key word. So you admit there is "evidence", but that said evidence is not convincing to you. I realize that. I realize you also reject the evidence based on the fact that you choose a worldview that is naturalistic, and incorporate the premise that only those things which can be physically sensed can be believed to exist, and therefore reject said evidence as convincing because the reality is that nothing can convince you short of physical sensory experience. That has been my point all along, and you still seem to be inable or unwilling to see it. And, it is directly related to Atheists following a different philosophy, that being the philosophy of "naturalism" alone. You reject metaphysical philosophies from the start.

Like I said, I don't have to see God to be convinced he exists, I just need to see an event that can be explained by nothing else save for the existance of God. That hasn't happened yet.

JerseyJohnny wrote: "Post hoc" logic is not a preclusion to truth. It simply doesn't serve as proof. I can draw post hoc conclusions to many truths, and although the logic is fallacious, the truth remains true.

For example, if you take an aspirin because you have a headache and your headache goes away, you could say "I had a headache, then I took an aspirin, and my headache went away. So aspirin makes headaches go away." Now, I could say to you "Sorry, post hoc ergo propter hoc." I could go on and say the reason your headache went away could be medical (perhaps you ate or drank something else which cured the headache), could be mental (perhaps the aspirin was a placebo), could be metaphysical (perhaps tiny demons with sledgehammers were in your head and stopped pounding the inside of your head after you took the aspirin). Could be a lot of reasons. I would be correct to point out that your logic was post hoc; however, this would not preclude the possibility that the truth is that the aspirin did cure your headache.

Therefore, the problem in both our examples and post hoc statements are not the logical fallacy of the post hoc statement itself, but the supposition that the post hoc is the only evidence considered in drawing a conclusion.

You are correct, Post Hoc doesn't prove something wrong, it just says that 'this is not neceserrily the case, you need to probe deeper to prove that is the case'. It has been proven through medical research that aspirin helps with headache, it hasn't been proven that praying helps. Now you're going to say 'that doesn't mean praying doesn't help, it just hasn't been proven yet'. Correct, but this joins an endless list of Religious claims that weren't proven.

JerseyJohnny wrote: As for your comment about statistics, you really ought to know better than to bring that up. Statistics are subject to so many variable factors and are never proof positive that any pattern or trend will repeat. Statistics can be helpful and they can be harmful, and ought to be used cautiously. Statistics never constitute absolute proof.

To be honest I don't trust statistics myself, it was an attempt to emphasize that no matter how you would look at it, there's no conclusive evidence that praying helped.

JerseyJohnny wrote: You say we should see "his meddling with our world", and we do. Of course, you will choose to interpret it differently if you pre-suppose that he can't even exist.

It doesn't matter what anyone presupposes. Science transcends presuppositions, the history is full of cases when science proved a belief that was considered by everybody true (for example: that the earth is not the center of the universe).

JerseyJohnny wrote: For example, you decide that Australia can't and doesn't exist; you figure you've never been there or seen it and you don't accept as convincing evidence photos and stories about it, you have yet to physically experience Australia for yourself, so you decide it's not real. No matter what evidence someone provides for you, you will reject it. "Here's a picture of Sydney, Australia." You could say, "Nope, sorry, that must be some other city that you're passing off as so-called Sydney, Australia, because I know Australia doesn't exist." Or someone could say to you "Well I was born and raised in Australia, I've lived there all my life until I came to this city last year." You could say, "Well, I'm sure you beleive what you've been told all your life by other people, and I'm sure in your mind you think there's this place called Australia, but you're wrong, I know there is no Australia because I have never physically experienced it myself."

I uderstand your analogy, but you are still holding the oppinion that this is about physical experience. It's not, and it gets really tiering to try to get this point across. You locked on the idea that this is about naturalist view vs supernatural view. Everything that exists does so regardless of our ability to precieve it. Everything that interacts with us or what we can precieve can be proven to exist, no matter if it's natural or 'supernatural'. However, the supernatural was never shown to be the only explenation in whatever idea or event that was argued.

JerseyJohnny wrote: I suggest, BlackRiven, that you go and study philosophy for yourself. I'm done educating you, I don't get paid to do it and I have paid a lot in time and money to go to very good schools to study philosophy.

And I suggest that you quit being condescending, it doesn't make your oppinions any stronger and only implies that you are unable to maintain any debate that questions your beliefs without being verbally abusive.

BlackRiven wrote:

JerseyJohnny wrote:Wrong, this is about a clash of philosophies. You're just not educated enough or open-minded enough to understand it. This is where the entire argument comes from:

Atheist: You're silly to even try to argue that there is a God. It's clearly been proven that there is no God.
Religious person: Oh really? Where has this been proven?
Atheist: Through science.
Religious person: I thought science worked from the premise that only that which can be sensed through one of the physical senses is believed to "exist"?
Atheist: Yes, that's right.

That's not neceserrily true. We can't sense many things that were proven by science to exist. You can't feel the cell phone signals passing through your body, but we know they exist and we even make use of them, despite being unable to precieve them with any of our senses. If God exists, and he interacts with our world, we should be able to prove his existance throug those interactions with our world without seeing him. It's like how do we know the force of gravity exists? Because we can see objects being pulled to the ground, that means there's a force that's pulling them down. We haven't actually seen gravity, but we saw its effect on our world. Science deals with everything that exists, in one way or another. If it has interactions with our world we can prove it exists, doesn't matter if we can see it or not.

Listen, Riven, I'm sympathetic to your position but you're letting Johnny run rings around you. Let me tell you a little secret about science: it really doesn't care about God one way or the other. Johnny didn't make that up. Science doesn't deal with "everything that exists" it deals with everything that can be perceived, measured and evaluated using a particular set of tools (the scientific method). Scientists, in their role as scientists, tend not to even want to talk about the existence or not of God, because that's not a question that science asks. Plus, a lot of scientists believe in God(s), and they can still be perfectly good scientists. Now, Johnny's example is a little misleading because it presents a bit of a straw man atheist, but you're actually taking up an even weaker position. Sheesh.

Let me try to make it clearer by going back to the example you guys have been discussing. In the Kansas schools case you had Creationists attempting to use the methods and language of science (what they were calling Intelligent Design) to make non-scientific claims about the world. The reason those arguments were "silly" was that they weren't scientific--they didn't actually follow the rules of science in making the conclusions they wanted to make. That doesn't mean that those claims can't be made using other bases besides science, it just meant that they didn't belong in a discussion that was supposed to be scientific. In fact, many critics of Intelligent Design have suggested that it would be perfectly acceptable for those kinds of theories to be discussed in a class about religion or philosophy, where meta-physical questions are very much appropriate.

BlackRiven wrote:Like I said, I don't have to see God to be convinced he exists, I just need to see an event that can be explained by nothing else save for the existance of God. That hasn't happened yet.

Again, that's missing the point. You can't be convinced of God's existence by science. That's what all that leap of faith stuff is about. It's about belief and doubt, not scientific certainty. It's a little confusing because people talk about their beliefs as something they "know," but that's where Johnny's point about a clash of philosophies is most salient. It's totally valid not to make that leap of faith, to adhere to science as your sole explanitory method, but you can't insist that everyone agree with your decision. Well you can I guess, but then people get offended and when they know more about philosophy than you appear to you'll run into trouble.

BlackRiven wrote:It has been proven through medical research that aspirin helps with headache, it hasn't been proven that praying helps. Now you're going to say 'that doesn't mean praying doesn't help, it just hasn't been proven yet'. Correct, but this joins an endless list of Religious claims that weren't proven.

Interestingly, scientists are, in fact, studying the issue of prayer and healing:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02177.html
You really should read the article, it touches on a lot of what you guys have been discussing (including aspirin, believe it or not!).

BlackRiven wrote:And I suggest that you quit being condescending, it doesn't make your opinions any stronger and only implies that you are unable to maintain any debate that questions your beliefs without being verbally abusive.

I think you'll have to accept that Johnny may be a little condescending in his tone, but his arguments are actually worth considering. He's not bs-ing, but he's not hand-feeding you a complete explanation either. You'll have to do some further investigation and reading to really understand his arguments and to come up with some good answers.

cymatic wrote:

BlackRiven wrote:

JerseyJohnny wrote:Wrong, this is about a clash of philosophies. You're just not educated enough or open-minded enough to understand it. This is where the entire argument comes from:

Atheist: You're silly to even try to argue that there is a God. It's clearly been proven that there is no God.
Religious person: Oh really? Where has this been proven?
Atheist: Through science.
Religious person: I thought science worked from the premise that only that which can be sensed through one of the physical senses is believed to "exist"?
Atheist: Yes, that's right.

That's not neceserrily true. We can't sense many things that were proven by science to exist. You can't feel the cell phone signals passing through your body, but we know they exist and we even make use of them, despite being unable to precieve them with any of our senses. If God exists, and he interacts with our world, we should be able to prove his existance throug those interactions with our world without seeing him. It's like how do we know the force of gravity exists? Because we can see objects being pulled to the ground, that means there's a force that's pulling them down. We haven't actually seen gravity, but we saw its effect on our world. Science deals with everything that exists, in one way or another. If it has interactions with our world we can prove it exists, doesn't matter if we can see it or not.

Listen, Riven, I'm sympathetic to your position but you're letting Johnny run rings around you. Let me tell you a little secret about science: it really doesn't care about God one way or the other. Johnny didn't make that up. Science doesn't deal with "everything that exists" it deals with everything that can be perceived, measured and evaluated using a particular set of tools (the scientific method). Scientists, in their role as scientists, tend not to even want to talk about the existence or not of God, because that's not a question that science asks. Plus, a lot of scientists believe in God(s), and they can still be perfectly good scientists. Now, Johnny's example is a little misleading because it presents a bit of a straw man atheist, but you're actually taking up an even weaker position. Sheesh.

Let me try to make it clearer by going back to the example you guys have been discussing. In the Kansas schools case you had Creationists attempting to use the methods and language of science (what they were calling Intelligent Design) to make non-scientific claims about the world. The reason those arguments were "silly" was that they weren't scientific--they didn't actually follow the rules of science in making the conclusions they wanted to make. That doesn't mean that those claims can't be made using other bases besides science, it just meant that they didn't belong in a discussion that was supposed to be scientific. In fact, many critics of Intelligent Design have suggested that it would be perfectly acceptable for those kinds of theories to be discussed in a class about religion or philosophy, where meta-physical questions are very much appropriate.

BlackRiven wrote:Like I said, I don't have to see God to be convinced he exists, I just need to see an event that can be explained by nothing else save for the existance of God. That hasn't happened yet.

Again, that's missing the point. You can't be convinced of God's existence by science. That's what all that leap of faith stuff is about. It's about belief and doubt, not scientific certainty. It's a little confusing because people talk about their beliefs as something they "know," but that's where Johnny's point about a clash of philosophies is most salient. It's totally valid not to make that leap of faith, to adhere to science as your sole explanitory method, but you can't insist that everyone agree with your decision. Well you can I guess, but then people get offended and when they know more about philosophy than you appear to you'll run into trouble.

BlackRiven wrote:It has been proven through medical research that aspirin helps with headache, it hasn't been proven that praying helps. Now you're going to say 'that doesn't mean praying doesn't help, it just hasn't been proven yet'. Correct, but this joins an endless list of Religious claims that weren't proven.

Interestingly, scientists are, in fact, studying the issue of prayer and healing:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02177.html
You really should read the article, it touches on a lot of what you guys have been discussing (including aspirin, believe it or not!).

BlackRiven wrote:And I suggest that you quit being condescending, it doesn't make your opinions any stronger and only implies that you are unable to maintain any debate that questions your beliefs without being verbally abusive.

I think you'll have to accept that Johnny may be a little condescending in his tone, but his arguments are actually worth considering. He's not bs-ing, but he's not hand-feeding you a complete explanation either. You'll have to do some further investigation and reading to really understand his arguments and to come up with some good answers.

You're right, I really am at a disadvantage at this point.
Basically what happened here is this:
I wasn't expecting to get into a debate about definitions to begin with, so when Johnny started asking questions like 'what constitutes logic', I didn't give that much thought. Johnny does appear to know more about proper definitions than I do (and philosophy in general).
My main philosophical interest was always the art of debate (how to construct and analyze an argument, logical fallacies, etc), so when I enter an argument, I intend it to be analytical. Johnny put me in a position that in order to advance I had to manage definitions correctly, which was a task I was bound to lose since I came unprepared. Basically, I wanted to do math, he insisted on defining math first.
My original intention was finding out Johnny's oppinions about FSM, I'm used to see Atheists analyzing religious arguments, but not vice versa, and I was curious as to what he might say.

However, regarding his attitude, I maintain that it was out of place. I don't believe my choise of words was any worse than that of some people he most likely met, nor was I preaching. Since he viewed this as inability to accept a different point of view, this shouldn't have caused such an angry reaction. I understand that he is used to see this in combination with an attack on religious beliefs, but I don't believe I gave him a reason to make the association, and even if the association was made I expect people to exercise restrain, as I did throughout the entire debate, and not turn it into a tool to vent emotions.

Second, so that it would be clear to Johnny and everybody that were reading what my position was and where I was coming from, I will summarize it.
I guess that Johnny's definition of 'neturalist' point of view would indeed describe my position in the best way, but I resent it still because it has a limitation which doesn't suits my oppinion. Here's what I think:

1)Everything that exists does so regardless of any condition.
2)Anything that exists and can be sensed, or its interaction with our world can be sensed- can be proven to exist.
That includes the paranormal. If the paranormal exists, and interacts with our world- it can be proven that it exists. Perhaps that turns paranormal into 'normal', which makes my view neturalistic, but it doesn't matter to me because I don't make that kind of distinction, I only care if something can be precieved, or if it interacts with our world. If the paranormal can interact with our world, proving its existance through that shouldn't change its features- it'll remain the same paranormal.
If I'm mixing up the definition, Johnny, then it's because I don't define it in such a way to begin with, and I'm not arguing from that definition. I'm reaching this argument because it's what's following from my premises.
If what affects our world can be proven to exist, and paranormal affects our world, it should be possible to prove its existance.

Lastly, I would like to use this reply as a call to you (Johnny) to end the aminosity between us. I believe that though you've obviously been offended, it should be clear by now that it wasn't my intention, and I see no reason for the hostility to continue. I'm willing to overlook the things you said, as I'm hoping you can accept that no offence was meant on my behalf. Whatever disagreements we have, philosophical or otherwise, don't have to be a source of ill feelings.

kilgoretroutlovesyou wrote: Yay, Thelemites. Yay, Christians. Yay, Agnotics and Gnostics alike. Boo, Stephen Harper.

Nice! lol

I hereby retract my previous statement of hatred for Jersey Johnny.