What matters, whats real?

[Justanatheist]

Are you absolutely certain evolution occurs?

No.

 

[firedragon]

No.

Excellent. So you are not certain evolution occurs. Nice.

Are you certain that the earth has a circular shape?
Are you certain the earth is not flat?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

If John Doe believes in a god and you don't, why does what's he believes in matter so much to you?

Evidence for a god can neither show a god does or doesn't exist.

The arguement of both has to come from a belief because neither have supporting evidence(a god can neither be proven or disproven)

So my question is what makes anyone think their belief is stronger than the belief of others?

Because an awful lot of the time, people don't just stop as believing in a god. They go on to trying to decide what this god wants, and then try to provide it. Sometimes, their gods want them to cut off bits of children's sexual organs, for example. Then it becomes an issue of slightly more important. Sometimes their gods want them to go take other people's gods away from them, and replace them with their own (you may have heard of missionaries). Then it becomes an issue of a little more importance, don't you think? Sometimes, their gods want them to actually kill people who, for one reason or another, can no longer believe in those gods. That matters, doesn't it?

And a great deal of the time, they want to force their notions of what their gods want onto everybody around them, in spite of whatever those others' gods may think. That's perhaps not so important, but can be bloody irritating, don't you think?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Are you absolutely certain evolution occurs?

Yes. We've seen it in action.

 

[Justanatheist]

What is a moral absolute?

If you cannot define it, how could you argue if it exists or not?

Do you understand the question?

Yes I understand the question, since you choose not to define moral absolute I can deduce that you could not possibly had known what my answer would mean and your original question was meaningless. Lets go back to your original question which by your own logic is meaningless and you can define moral absolute, since you are the one who wants the information. No more meaningless questions please.

 

[Link]

I believe God is Worthy of worship. When you believe in the hidden, everything opens up and your life takes on new meaning.

 

[Justanatheist]

Excellent. So you are not certain evolution occurs. Nice.

Are you certain that the earth has a circular shape?
Are you certain the earth is not flat?

Lets go down the rabbit hole, define earth.
Define flat. Define certain.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And off we go down the rabbit hole of ignoring reasoned debate and deflecting down some philosophical navel gazing.
Ok I will revise my original words to reflect your debate so far,

With the given understanding that nothing is an absolute, not even our own existence or the existence of the person I am debating or even the forum itself, I assert that to the best of my knowledge (whilst understanding that knowledge cannot be proven to exist with absolute certitude) For all intensive purposes,

Science is a closed system.

With the given understanding that nothing is an absolute, not even our own existence or the existence of the person I am debating or even the forum itself, I assert that to the best of my knowledge (whilst understanding that knowledge cannot be proven to exist with absolute certitude) For all intensive purposes,

Religion is a closed system.

Happy now?

No, the world is a combination of regularities or variations and you can't reduce it down in practice to one or another. In practice we all believe in conditional absolutes, which we don't doubt. We just hold as with regularity these conditional absolutes with variation as individual humans.

The joke is that the world is not a fact nor not just beliefs. It is a combination in practice.

In other words as a human you have relations to the rest of the world, which are with variation and regularity objective, inter-subjective and subjective.
You are in other words a combination matter and mind and you can't just do one of them. Matter is in effect science, mind is religion and how to combine is philosophy, but we all do it similarly, yet different.

 

[Justanatheist]

No, the world is a combination of regularities or variations and you can't reduce it down in practice to one or another. In practice we all believe in conditional absolutes, which we don't doubt. We just hold as with regularity these conditional absolutes with variation as individual humans.

The joke is that the world is not a fact nor not just beliefs. It is a combination in practice.

In other words as a human you have relations to the rest of the world, which are with variation and regularity objective, inter-subjective and subjective.
You are in other words a combination matter and mind and you can't just do one of them. Matter is in effect science, mind is religion and how to combine is philosophy, but we all do it similarly, yet different.

Are you absolutely certain of that, no doubt, you cannot be wrong?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Are you absolutely certain of that, no doubt, you cannot be wrong?

Okay, you are not that special, because you are not the first one to do that.

Here is the joke. Concentrate on the condition of being wrong and how to know that. If I am wrong about what the world is and I know that, I am no longer Mikkel, because to know what reality really is objectively, requires that I am God in effect. But if I am God, I am not Mikkel.

In other words, to known objectively the metaphysical status of the world, I can't be subjective as that requires a mind. But if I don't have a mind and is not subjective, I am not Mikkel.
As variations:
The world is neither natural nor supernatural.
It is an experience you have for which you claim that there is more to the world than your experience of it. You could be wrong, but for you to know that you would be not you, because you would have to be able to observe yourself independent of yourself, to know what the world/reality really is in the strong objective sense.
That is a conditional absolute. It is conditioned on you being you and as long as you are you, then it is absolute. But if you know that you are wrong, you are not you.

 

[Justanatheist]

Okay, you are not that special, because you are not the first one to do that.

Here is the joke. Concentrate on the condition of being wrong and how to know that. If I am wrong about what the world is and I know that, I am no longer Mikkel, because to know what reality really is objectively, requires that I am God in effect. But if I am God, I am not Mikkel.

In other words, to known objectively the metaphysical status of the world, I can't be subjective as that requires a mind. But if I don't have a mind and is not subjective, I am not Mikkel.
As variations:
The world is neither natural nor supernatural.
It is an experience you have for which you claim that there is more to the world than your experience of it. You could be wrong, but for you to know that you would be not you, because you would have to be able to observe yourself independent of yourself, to know what the world/reality really is in the strong objective sense.
That is a conditional absolute. It is conditioned on you being you and as long as you are you, then it is absolute. But if you know that you are wrong, you are not you.

No you were the first to do that in our debate.

Now shall we stop it and have a reasoned debate?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

No you were the first to do that.

Okay. So I am wrong about not just that but also everything else in regards to the limits of doubt.

 

[Justanatheist]

Okay. So I am wrong about not just that but also everything else in regards to the limits of doubt.

Do you think mind and matter are separate?

 

[Justanatheist]

Here is the joke. Concentrate on the condition of being wrong and how to know that. If I am wrong about what the world is and I know that, I am no longer Mikkel, because to know what reality really is objectively, requires that I am God in effect. But if I am God, I am not Mikkel.

If your brain is damaged and your personality changes are you still Mikkel?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

If your brain is damaged and your personality changes are you still Mikkel?

No. But the idea of an "I" is in some versions no different that some other religious beliefs.

 

[firedragon]

Lets go down the rabbit hole, define earth.
Define flat. Define certain.

1. Earth - Not earth as in the 1st wire in a plug point. Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the largest of the four inner, or terrestrial, planets.
2. Flat - Not a flat as in an apartment in Rad building down Orange County. Flat is having a horizontal surface without a slope, tilt, or curvature. Flat earth is is a flat earth.
3. Certain - Established beyond doubt.

I wonder if you are planning to ask for definitions of all the other words in those three sentences, like sun, planet, largest, four, inner, curvature, country, surface etc etc.

 

[Justanatheist]

No. But the idea of an "I" is in some versions no different that some other religious beliefs.

You will have to expand on that I am not following you.

 

[Justanatheist]

1. Earth - Not earth as in the 1st wire in a plug point. Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the largest of the four inner, or terrestrial, planets.
2. Flat - Not a flat as in an apartment in Rad building down Orange County. Flat is having a horizontal surface without a slope, tilt, or curvature. Flat earth is is a flat earth.
3. Certain - Established beyond doubt.

I wonder if you are planning to ask for definitions of all the other words in those three sentences, like sun, planet, largest, four, inner, curvature, country, surface etc etc.

Since I have stated in this thread that I do not believe in absolute certainties ie, that which is beyond doubt, I see no point to your question I have already answered it.

 

[RestlessSoul]

No you are not, I fail to see how "lets look at the words of WLC" one chosen so as not to be confrontational can be translated into I "have appointed him to speak for all religious people".

Do you think saying this is not the 16th centaury helps your case, especially when we know 16th century barbarities are still being perpetrated by the religious this day.

Not one attempt to actually show how religion is not a closed system just a debate on whose words I chose to give an example of religion being a closed system.

If you were to undertake a cursory study of 16th and 17th Century European history, you would quickly realise that the dominant religion of the continent was anything but a closed system. It's evolution may have been especially traumatic during this period, but far from being closed to new ideas, the religious culture of Europe pre and post Reformation was teeming with radical and iconoclastic ideas.

Allow me to recommend the following, which you actually might enjoy.

The Leveller Revolution by John Rees
God's Secretaries by Adam Nicolson (republished as When God Spoke English)
The Quantum Astrologer's Handbook by Michael Brooks

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Do you think mind and matter are separate?

That won't decide what matter and mind is, because the causality of the world goes in the opposite different apparently. Whatever the world is metaphysical as to mind and matter, it causes me to use several categories about the world and I have been unable to reduce them down to one.
If you want a positive answer, I can't give you that, because I don't know.

Personally I am neither a naturalist or supernaturalist. I am indifferent to that.
"Philosophy, (from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of wisdom”) the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience. ..."

I know nothing about reality as a whole, so I just do beliefs about human existence and experience. I am an agnostic and skeptic about the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole.

If you want it as a joke. I am weird because I am neither a naturalist not supernaturalist.