God did it

ecco said:

Are you saying that God spent eternity making angels and heaven? If that is that case, why do people say "God needed another angel in heaven" when a child dies?

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BilliardsBall said:

Huh? Children don't become angels. Are you going to debate using English idioms or the scriptures?

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Many of your fellow Christians believe that.

Nevertheless, you skipped:
Are you saying that God spent eternity making angels and heaven?

BilliardsBall said:

Timelight is time as we count time based on light moving at a constant speed. Before this universe per BB theory, was there light? Was there linear timelight or time?

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You must have a better search engine than I do. When I google "timelight definition" I get:

Please try to post using just words that google know about. In other words, stop making up ****.

ecco said:

The joke is that I actually took the time to read all that.

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Let us start with something simple:
I am religious, I hold at least one belief without evidence about the world as such. What the world is at the fundamental level, which is a belief without evidence, because I don't use science for that.

So now you are a scientist. You can observe, that I am religions. That is an observational data-point or an observational fact. It is not a fact, derived from a theory or hypothesis. It is a field anthropological observation. You observe a part of the landscape and that part is that Mikkel is religious.
So how can it be wrong or any of these other words, that I am religious? It can't be according to science, because it is a fact, an observational data-point. It is no different that if you pick up a rock and drop it, then it falls towards the center of earth.
That a rock falls towards the center of earth is a data-point, That I am religious, is a data-point.
That a rock falls towards the center of earth is not wrong according to science, it is a fact as a data-point.
That I am religious is not wrong according to science, it is a fact as a data-point.

That is the problem of all of you and your kind who use science to claim that it is wrong to be religious. It is not. It is a fact just like it is a fact, that a rock falls towards the center of earth here on earth as long as not influenced by a stronger gravitational field.

With all your science, it is not wrong that I am religious. If it to you is wrong, then it is not science. So if you claim that it is wrong to religious you hold a belief without evidence.

It is that simple. There are humans, which are atheists and use science, yet if one of them claims that it is wrong to be religious, then that is a belief without scientific evidence.

That has nothing to do with atheism or science per se. It has to do with that there are some humans, who do not understand how science works, when they claim that it is wrong to be religious. That it is wrong to be religious, is not science. It is without evidence and thus a belief without scientific evidence.

@mikkel_the_dane Are you trying to point out some unfairness and fallacies that you see in people denouncing religions and their followers, under banners of atheism, science and reason?

mikkel_the_dane said:

Let us start with something simple:
I am religious, I hold at least one belief without evidence about the world as such. What the world is at the fundamental level, which is a belief without evidence, because I don't use science for that.

So now you are a scientist. You can observe, that I am religions. That is an observational data-point or an observational fact. It is not a fact, derived from a theory or hypothesis. It is a field anthropological observation. You observe a part of the landscape and that part is that Mikkel is religious.
So how can it be wrong or any of these other words, that I am religious? It can't be according to science, because it is a fact, an observational data-point. It is no different that if you pick up a rock and drop it, then it falls towards the center of earth.
That a rock falls towards the center of earth is a data-point, That I am religious, is a data-point.
That a rock falls towards the center of earth is not wrong according to science, it is a fact as a data-point.
That I am religious is not wrong according to science, it is a fact as a data-point.
That is the problem of all of you and your kind who use science to claim that it is wrong to be religious.
It is not. It is a fact just like it is a fact, that a rock falls towards the center of earth here on earth as long as not influenced by a stronger gravitational field.

With all your science, it is not wrong that I am religious. If it to you is wrong, then it is not science. So if you claim that it is wrong to religious you hold a belief without evidence.

It is that simple. There are humans, which are atheists and use science, yet if one of them claims that it is wrong to be religious, then that is a belief without scientific evidence.

That has nothing to do with atheism or science per se. It has to do with that there are some humans, who do not understand how science works, when they claim that it is wrong to be religious.

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mikkel_the_dane said:

That it is wrong to be religious, is not science. It is without evidence and thus a belief without scientific evidence.

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Religiosity can be examined. It's causes and beliefs can be examined. Therefore, it is not without evidence.

Let me state some facts:

• The vast majority of people who believe in a god believe that their god is the only real god and that other gods are not.
• The majority of people who believe in a god believe in the god their parents believe in and taught them to believe in.
• Over the Centuries, there have been hundreds (thousands?) of gods proposed by and believed in by people.

The above is strong evidence that the god that any one person believes in is not GOD.

The problem is further compounded when one throws religious beliefs into the mix. Is the God of Catholics really the same as the God of Protestants and the God of Mormons and the God of Jehovah's Witnesses? Most of these groups don't even consider the others to be Christians. Christianity is split into over 300 major denominations. Ditto Islam with their Sunnis, Shia, Wahabis, etc. Ditto, ditto, ditto.

So, is it wrong to be religious? Which religion? Which god? All of you cannot be right. And that's a fact.

ecco said:

...

So, is it wrong to be religious? Which religion? Which god? All of you cannot be right. And that's a fact.

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No, because none of us humans including you can be objectively right with reason, logic, evidence, truth, proof or what ever for all aspects of being human.
None of us are objectively right nor wrong. It is a belief without evidence for all aspects of being humans. Objectively right or wrong in this sense, is not different than God. There is no positive evidence for it. Neither with science, philosophy nor religion.
If you in fact believe that you are in effect with reason, logic, evidence and so on right as a human for all aspects of being a human, when the rubber meets the road, you are in effect no different than some other humans, Not all humans, but some and that has nothing to do with religion or not.

I were an atheist for 30 years and I tried hard to do it with objective reason, logic and evidence. I found, I couldn't. I am honest now, I can't live with only objective reason, logic and evidence. Maybe you can, but it doesn't matter to me, because I can do it differently.

Peace

mikkel_the_dane said:

No, because none of us humans including you can be objectively right with reason, logic, evidence, truth, proof or what ever for all aspects of being human.
None of us are objectively right nor wrong. It is a belief without evidence for all aspects of being humans. Objectively right or wrong in this sense, is not different than God. There is no positive evidence for it. Neither with science, philosophy nor religion.
If you in fact believe that you are in effect with reason, logic, evidence and so on right as a human for all aspects of being a human, when the rubber meets the road, you are in effect no different than some other humans, Not all humans, but some and that has nothing to do with religion or not.

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What I said was:

ecco said:

So, is it wrong to be religious? Which religion? Which god? All of you cannot be right. And that's a fact.

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It is indeed a fact that everyone's religious beliefs cannot be correct.

You could not address that fact because it runs counterintuitive to your beliefs about objectivity and subjectivity, so you go off on a ridiculous tangent and twist it into being "right as a human for all aspects of being a human". Don't you realize that when you do things like that that you lose all credibility?

ecco said:

I were an atheist for 30 years and I tried hard to do it with objective reason, logic and evidence. I found, I couldn't. I am honest now, I can't live with only objective reason, logic and evidence. Maybe you can, but it doesn't matter to me, because I can do it differently.

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Well, whatever you substituted for reason and logic isn't working either. If it did you wouldn't need to twist around and deflect by making comments that don't pertain to the argument.

ecco said:

...
It is indeed a fact that everyone's religious beliefs cannot be correct.
...

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Yes, it is a fact. There is at least one and indeed many more religious beliefs, which are not correct.

But how does that make it wrong?

ecco said:

It is indeed a fact that everyone's religious beliefs cannot be correct.

You could not address that fact because it runs counterintuitive to your beliefs about objectivity and subjectivity, so you go off on a ridiculous tangent and twist it into being "right as a human for all aspects of being a human". Don't you realize that when you do things like that that you lose all credibility?

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mikkel_the_dane said:

Yes, it is a fact. There is at least one and indeed many more religious beliefs, which are not correct.

But how does that make it wrong?

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I have not been arguing that it is wrong to have religious beliefs. I have been arguing that most people's religious beliefs are wrong. I have been making that argument from evidence. See post # 185.

ecco said:

I have not been arguing that it is wrong to have religious beliefs. I have been arguing that most people's religious beliefs are wrong. I have been making that argument from evidence. See post # 185.

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Okay, most people's religious beliefs are wrong as incorrect, without evidence, false in logic as with logical proof and so on. Okay, I agree.

Now what?

Edit after first posting:

I would go so far as for me personally, that my religious are in fact wrong as incorrect, without evidence, false in logic as with logical proof and so on.

ecco said:

I have not been arguing that it is wrong to have religious beliefs. I have been arguing that most people's religious beliefs are wrong. I have been making that argument from evidence. See post # 185.

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Take 2.

If you are trying to establish facts, how it is, then we can do that.
But I got this feeling that we are "circling" the is-ought problem. Or if you like this:
Science has limits: A few things that science does not do

Science doesn't make moral judgments
When is euthanasia the right thing to do? What universal rights should humans have? Should other animals have rights? Questions like these are important, but scientific research will not answer them. Science can help us learn about terminal illnesses and the history of human and animal rights — and that knowledge can inform our opinions and decisions. But ultimately, individual people must make moral judgments. Science helps us describe how the world is, but it cannot make any judgments about whether that state of affairs is right, wrong, good, or bad.

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You are establishing a fact, a case of how a part of the world is. It is a fact that I have beliefs without evidence. I agree.
And so again: Now what?

ecco, you are an atheist. I get that and beyond that, you are trying to explain something to me. Now it appears to me, notice appears, that you are try explain something I already know. It seems to me, that you think I haven't consider what you are trying to explain. I have and predict that it will end here:
You want me to start thinking like you. But you are in effect stating a truism - I have wrong beliefs or rather religious beliefs are wrong. I know that.

So here is another truism. It is a fact for how the world works, that you and I do it in part differently. I know that too.
Since it is fact, that religious beliefs are wrong, then it is in part a fact about how the world works.
You see, in doing science you state how the world works. In part the world works in that some people have religious beliefs and these are wrong. There for the n'th time, I get it.

So for the n'th time. Then what? What is the earth shattering knowledge you have, that I don't have and will change my world-view. Don't be coy - just say it.

mikkel_the_dane said:

Okay, most people's religious beliefs are wrong as incorrect, without evidence, false in logic as with logical proof and so on. Okay, I agree.

Now what?

Edit after first posting:

I would go so far as for me personally, that my religious are in fact wrong as incorrect, without evidence, false in logic as with logical proof and so on.

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What does "wrong as incorrect" mean? You used that twice.

Why do you say "without evidence"? Your religious beliefs are not the same as the religious beliefs of Hindus or Muslims or Jews or Wiccans. All are different. Basic logic says they cannot all be right. How do you not understand that that is evidence?

mikkel_the_dane said:

Take 2.

If you are trying to establish facts, how it is, then we can do that.
But I got this feeling that we are "circling" the is-ought problem. Or if you like this:
Science has limits: A few things that science does not do


You are establishing a fact, a case of how a part of the world is. It is a fact that I have beliefs without evidence. I agree.
And so again: Now what?

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See my previous post (#193) on logic and evidence. Then you can try to formulate an argument as to why you feel logical conclusions do not constitute evidence.

ecco said:

What does "wrong as incorrect" mean? You used that twice.

Why do you say "without evidence"? Your religious beliefs are not the same as the religious beliefs of Hindus or Muslims or Jews or Wiccans. All are different. Basic logic says they cannot all be right. How do you not understand that that is evidence?

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Correct. All, I ask is, then what? What follows next?

ecco said:

See my previous post (#193) on logic and evidence. Then you can try to formulate an argument as to why you feel logical conclusions do not constitute evidence.

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Again, I agree with the logic and evidence. And again I ask: Then what?

For any word as X, for which the word is about something independent of all human thought and feelings X can't be both X is Y and X is non-Y. That goes for all variations of Y. I get the logic and where it ends.
For all cases of X is Y or not for all variations of Y or not, only one can be not false with logic. I GET IT!

And again I ask: Then what? What is next? What follows? What is your point with this? What am I supposed to learn from this?

mikkel_the_dane said:

And again I ask: Then what? What is next? What follows? What is your point with this? What am I supposed to learn from this?

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I suppose you could just go back over all our posts and see.

ecco said:

I suppose you could just go back over all our posts and see.

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I don't have to.

We are in effect debating the limit of evidence. Your evidence as for your methodology works in the following manner:
For any X, which is the same for all humans, X can't both be X is Y and X is non-Y.
The corner stone is "the same".
IFF God exists, God is the same for all humans.
IFF the universe exists, the universe is the same for all humans and is the same for the following class of words: Reason, logic and evidence.
That is where we end. It has nothing to do with God, it has to do with that which is the same for all humans.
That is the crux of your reasoning.
But that has a limit.

So first the indirect approach. Not just for God, but for all words assuming the same for all humans. How we ought to behave, what is just, fair, right, do we have rights, what is the correct economical system, what makes a human a human as for worth, dignity and so on and knowledge, evidence, truth, proof and so on.
Example: Some humans assume that knowledge is the same in an universal sense for all humans, but they can't agree on it. Some claim verification and others falsification. Yet others claim pragmatism, usefulness and so on.
So here is goes for all cases of X is Y and not just God, it follows for the sum of all these variants of X is Y, most humans have wrong beliefs. In effect for all times past and present you properly end up with 99,9+% of all humans having wrong beliefs.
But then a question follows: If it is near universal that all humans have wrong beliefs, is it then properly a case of special pleading if a given human claims: I don't have wrong beliefs.
Special pleading is this: Applying standards, principles, and/or rules to other people or circumstances, while making oneself or certain circumstances exempt from the same critical criteria, without providing adequate justification. Special pleading is often a result of strong emotional beliefs that interfere with reason.

Now notice the key element, which is the corner stone of your argument. 99+% of humans don't reason in the correct manner, but you do. The root question is this: Are there limits to reason, logic and evidence for all humans and not just everybody else but you?
Now I am a global skeptic, so I know these limits apply to me. And I know that apply to you and everybody else for the totality of all human aspect of everyday life and not just God.
You are a local skeptic, because you are skeptic of all other forms of reasoning, logic and evidence, that you don't use. But you are not skeptic of your own, because that works for you.

So here is the practical falsification of wrong beliefs. They really can't be that wrong, because if they are really really wrong for how the universe works, humanity would be dead a long time ago.
So here is what you believe about me, but which is not a fact. You believe that I use the words "I am right" as most humans do and properly including you. I don't. I am a global skeptic and I don't believe like you do in wrong beliefs, because we don't think and fell in the same manner. And there it is: "The same". That is psychology for both cognition and feelings/emotions, but you and I are not exactly the same.
And it doesn't work for me in the same manner, how wrong beliefs work for you.

So no, I don't believe in right and wrong like most humans. And I don't use this: I am right and you are wrong. Nor I am wrong and you are right. Because I don't have to. I do my cognition and feelings/emotions differently than you.
So your assumption that I use "I am right" like most people don't apply to how I do that.
Neither of us are right or wrong as humans. We are in some cases different and how you deal with that can be different from me.

So am I condescending? Yes, I am, because I point out something you haven't considered, because you don't have to. No human lives only with reason, logic and evidence alone. But you can believe that and a lot of humans believe it. They use it to justify that they are right and I have wrong beliefs. The joke that I checked it and figured out that it didn't really matter, the way that they use it. They all use it to say something about my worth as a human, but I still have that. Because my worth as a human is in me. I am proud to be a human, because I have made the best of it as me.

Now it is a whole other game, when we go: You and I. But we are not even close as long as you judge me in effect as less for having wrong beliefs.
I don't judge you for your worth as a human. I believe that you have it, because I believe in that and I don't mind that it is a wrong belief to you. I still believe it.

And yes, I mean it: With the best regards.

BilliardsBall said:

The starting point of Christianity is a person, not a "revelation".

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So, did that person "reveal" his wisdom to his future flock by any chance?

If we cannot discover religion through objective analysis, how are you to discover its falsity? That seems a double standard.

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Do be able to discover falsity, the thing needs to be falsifiable to begin with, which religious claims are not.
Unfalsifiable claims are potentially infinite in number, only really limited by what your imagination can produce.

So no, it's not a double standard. It's a single standard. What can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence. You, likely, dismiss claims of bigfoot, scientology, alien abduction, etc, for the exact same reasons.

What would make you accept a claim concerning the suspension of natural law?

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Any kind of independend verifiable evidence that would demonstrate such, instead of having to "just believe" it happened.

If Jesus visibly appeared to you, would you follow Him or tell your friends, "I had a horrible brain blip vision today"?

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How would I know that it wasn't a hallucination or that I was tricked into something?
Why would my claim of such to my friends be any different from the claims of alien abductees or claiming that Jessica Alba crawled out of the TV screen during a movie, made love to me and then went back into the TV to finish the movie?

How could you distinguish to truth value between these claims?

BilliardsBall said:

So based on my thesis touching Hinduism and the Bible, "Only one of these two is shown logical, accurate, honest, consistent, provable, verifiable" your "response" is a relativist "How can we ever really know the truth of anything"? I don't buy that.

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Don't be foolish.

The bible is not accurate, not logical, not honest, not consistent, not provable and not verifiable in any way, in terms of its supernatural / religious claims. At all.

We distinguish accurate ideas from false ideas by testing them against observable reality.
"true" are those things that correspond to reality.

Religions / faith based beliefs can't be contrasted to reality as they are explicitly defined as unfalsifiable and by extension unverifiable. That's why faith is required. You gotta "just believe". Testable ideas don't require mere "belief", as they can be... you know....verfified.

ecco said:

What does "wrong as incorrect" mean? You used that twice.

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He likes to re-define words like "wrong" ad hoc as it suits whatever argument he's making at that particular time.