Hans Blaster said:

No you posted Google search links. I ain't click those things with the trackers embedded in them. Just copy/paste the URL in your address bar *AFTER* you click on the link and visit the page.

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OK, it seems something went wrong as it usually goes through to the page.

Hans Blaster said:

Very cool. I'm trying to keep up on such things, but someone keeps distracting me with nonsense about vases.

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Come on keep up if you want to travel down the rabbit hole of "all possibilities" lol. Its fun. The vases are the vases. They come up as a necessary evil as part of investigating ancient advanced knowledge and tech.

But its only one of many. I am not sure you will keep up as I have already done this and have the research. But I will try to ensure the right links lol. But then when you just brush off the support refuting your false claim that its all spectulation. It sort of makes it less fun.

Hans Blaster said:

Don't assume I've read everything you have. I need links because you have posted so much garbage pseudo archeology that without a link I have no reason to trust your judgement on the topic.

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Another unsupported claim.

Stopped_lurking said:

But it makes a difference, it informs my decisions regardless if it is qualified somehow externally.

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If its not qualified with some kind of external reference, it's arbitrary because there is nothing that separates it from being a true or false sentiment. It's just a feeling of some sort with nothing that makes it valid or invalid.

Stopped_lurking said:

So the answer to why is God?

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In a sense, does the clay have a right to tell the potter what should become of it?

Stopped_lurking said:

You can have a final creator, without it having any intentions with its creation.

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Sure, but that's not really relevant. That different kinds of creators are conceivable doesn't alter the characteristics of the one that is under discussion.

Stopped_lurking said:

Seems arbitrary in the extreme. Why does a creator even define what is true? At most it would define what is, but there is not even a requirement that they would know what reality will be.

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What is your basis for such a statement?

Stopped_lurking said:

I'm not a moral realist at all. But you invoking God or a Creator only asserts that morality is connected to telos as a brute fact.

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Yes, and I've recognized the epistemic issue in doing so. But the reason I don't see it as an issue is the brute fact is specifying a relationship between values not between facts and values. It solves the metaphysical problem by stating how there can be real. non-arbitrary moral values, though the epistemic one remains.

Stopped_lurking said:

So it seems.

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Yeah, and admittedly the de jure question and the de facto one are inseparable.

Keziah

wheat

Kathleen30 said:

And as to Charlie Duke.. Strong in him you seem infatuated with this guy you seem determined to have your way with me and anyone else who disagrees. Come the year 2027 and if the coming space flight to the moon is postponed again for a number of years . I’ll be calling the whole lot of them liars

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Don't bother with her she just wants all the moon deniers banned like she once did to me once.
My first warning was b/c I posted 'Bla bla bla' I can't remember what the 2nd warning was for, I think it was for calling Charles Duke a liar but the 3rd warning was for calling Buzz Aldrin a liar which she reported me for, I got banned for a whole month.

To be warned is to be forearmed.

Ophiolite said:

I attribute your bizarre answer to the lack of clarity in my post. A scientist has a thought, a speculation, a belief: "I believe there is a relationship between the sphericity of quartz grains and the distance they have travelled from their source." They test that belief by gathering evidence that will either confirm, or refute the belief. Beliefs, in this system, are tested against reality. You want to follow a system, you do follow a system, wherein beliefs are tested against other beliefs.

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Yes you are describing the process of empirical science. The question is what is it testing. Is it a particular kind of reality. The quantified aspect that only science can measure.

Tell me how you can test this way for say phenomenal beliefs or experiences like love and beauty. Are these not also real. If someone has a persistent belief about something that they intuit is this not real. How do you explain belief in God. How do you test that God is not real.

You can't. So therefore science can only test a limited aspect of reality. The physical stuff, the naturalistic process that conform to certain measures ie particles, fields, chemicals, forces ect. It has nothing to say about conscious experiences or phenomenal beliefs. Trying to clobber belief or experience with science is like saying the soundwave vibrations of cat gut scraping on strings explain the experience Mozarts music. .

Ophiolite said:

I need to be clear that I understand you. You have offered belief in God as an example of the "better understanding" which ancient peoples derived from these "other methods" that was superior to what was thought the case by experts in the relevant field. That was what I asked for. I do not see how a belief in God represents an answer to that request.

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Because its not just about belief in God but consciousness. Consciousness of God, gods and spirits. It was not the specific religion but that all were immersed in a spiritual context. Obviously the more we go back before rationalisations and all that people believed in more transcedent ideas.

If you notice all the cultures have their spirituality that is intertwined with nature. Animals are spirits, crops are aligned to the sun and moon, stars are their guides. They were immersed in nature spirtually. Which is not necessarily a belief in the Christian God. But a natural disposition for humans even today. Except since Enlightenment we have rationalised ourselves away from this more transcedent worldview.

The bible mentions all know God by nature. So as we go back to a time that was closer to creation for all these cultures the more they were closer to God or the gods. The more spiritual.

Of course a Christian will say the true source is the God of the bible. But for the purposes of culture and human nature we are natural born believers and the further we go back the more in tune we were with the spiritual world whicvh gave knowledge unlike modern knowledge. All the cultures tell this story and it seems to match out evolution and we hear them say that this knowledge is disappearing.

Ophiolite said:

The second sentence is irrelevant, since I have never claimed that science has shown God to be impossible. And it would be ludicrous for me to claim that a belief in God was impossible, given the abundant evidence given on this forum that their are many believers. (They can't all be lying.)

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So why do people deny the beliefs in the gods of the ancients. Their own stories of what they say is real events like what the bible says.

Ophiolite said:

Edit: I have just noticed a post from @Hans Blaster where he notes, correctly, that scientists test hypotheses, not beliefs. While strictly correct I suggest that, colloquially, many a scientist will say something along the lines of "I believe I know what's going on with these unusual high gamma ray readings in the sandstone".

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It is an idea proposed. A possible explanation to account for the observations. But this is all premised on a certain aspect that is being tested. The quantified stuff. Do you think fundemental reality is 'Matter'. That there is only a material reality. Many people believe in an immaterial reality.

Science cannot test this. So using science to refute it is impossible. When someone asks for evidence they are asking that an immaterial reality conform to a material reality and if it cannot. Then it is not real, is something the material reality conjures up. But nothing real or no real knowledge can be derived from the immaterial realm. The only reality is material or physical objective reality.

Servus said:

I've seen and participated in lots of climate debates over the years, which is how I determine what all I've heard/read.

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Ok

Servus said:

What it come down to is the Green Industry (which has problems of its own) vs the fossil fuel industry. The $8 Trillion green industry seeks to replace the fossil fuel industry.

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What's the point in throwing in how much revenue(is that a revenue figure or just total economic activity?) of the green industry in there for? Or mentioning that there are problems? Is that somehow supposed to justify not taking action to address what you admit is a real problem?

Servus said:

Which it will eventually as a matter of progress. But of course they don't want eventually, they want ASAP.

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Sure, and for pretty good reason. As the saying goes, "a stitch in time saves nine."

Servus said:

The Democrat party uses this as part of their "we will save the world" platform. So the idea being promoted is "if you want to save the world, vote Democrat". And of course the planet has to be seen as being in great peril in order to prompt that kind of support.

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Perhaps if the republican party acknowledged the problem and proposed solutions, it wouldn't be such a monopoly issue for the Democrats and the supposed scaremongering wouldn't generate support.

Hans Blaster said:

Even if I were to accept such an unevidenced being as a creator of the Universe, why would I grant it the definition of my "purpose". It wasn't even the proximate cause of my existence. (And I don't let the ones who are the proximate cause of my existence define my purpose, nor have they ever demanded to.)

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You think God needs your permission? Cute.

Hans Blaster said:

As someone who has used inventions in ways beyond the intended purpose, I reject that analogy as obviously false.

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Good for you.

Hans Blaster said:

You are.

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Am I?

Hans Blaster said:

A "truth" defined by one being is not a truth, it is an opinion.

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Oh? That's quite the bold claim.

Stopped_lurking said:

I think it shows that might (or what we can get away with) doesn't define morality

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How is an ability to resist compulsion by force a rebuttal to such a definition? All it shows is that might isn't absolute, it doesn't infringe on the notion that if there is no objective basis for "right" or "wrong" then it makes no difference, because there is no possibility to qualify it.

Stopped_lurking said:

I don't even agree that a human inventor decides the intended use of his invention. He uses it as he intends, someone else might use it another way. So now we are talking about God, ok why does God have the prerogative to define our purpose. In this discussion I see God as just another person, at least until it has been shown why God have any special weight in this discussion.

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The fact that you think God is "just another person" is the real crux of the issue, as if human beings are equivalent to a being with perfect knowledge, perfect intentions, etc. God has the pregative because God is God.

Stopped_lurking said:

No, but there is nothing in the word Creator that implies all other characteristics you seem to place on it

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Sure, but it should be obvious given the context that I am referring to an omni-being and not just some intermediary creator.

Stopped_lurking said:

Does this follow automatically from the word Creator? Perhaps, what "is". But why would the creator define what "ought" to be.

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Because the Creator defines what is true, period. There is no need for a Creator to draw an inference about what "ought" to be from what "is" so the is-ought problem doesn't apply to a Creator, because He is the one who is defining such matters. As I said earlier, the problem is an epistemic one because it submarines any attempt at constructing an argument that is valid since any moral argument will either insert the moral judgment in the premises or there will be no clear relationship between the premises and the conclusion. Now, if our only recourse is human understanding then the problem is most likely intractable because all of our knowledge, such that it is, comes from observations of a state of affairs so there's no legitimate way to draw moral inferences and any moral understanding we claim to have cannot be grounded in anything beyond pretending that the rightness or wrongness is just a brute fact.

Stopped_lurking said:

What do we know about God that hasn't been postulated by humans?

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This seems to be a question loaded with presuppositions which we do not share.

Servus said:

Another issue is all the condescending vitriol in the form ad hominem personal attacks. Which is something a true scientific intellectual would completely avoid.

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I can get like that - I'm an emotional sort of guy. But I can also calm down and try to be reasonable if I see some growth or recognition of contributing factors from online debate opponents. I guess I got fired up at the "Gish Gallop" attack - when I was trying to do due diligence to the REPEATED memes you're throwing my way.

Servus said:

One doesn't really hear from the actual scientists much. Rather most of what one hears is hyperbolic interpretations of their research and findings.

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That is so true - yet you are still happy to attack the entire climate movement based on Greta Thunberg!

What I have not seen, ironically, is evidence from yourself that you have ever engaged with the actual science.

Did you know the first head editor of the IPCC reports was Sir John Houghton - a physicist and a Christian?

What about Professor Katharine Hayhoe? She is the daughter of missionaries, is married to a pastor, and is herself a climate scientist. Please listen to this interview where theologian and historian Dr John Dickson asks what it’s like to advocate for climate science while being married to a Baptist pastor.
(It's got excellent production values, audio snippets from "The Newsroom" - and is a lot of fun as well as being thoroughly biblical.)
Good Earth

Katharine Hayhoe - Wikipedia

I am so tired

Jesus

Venison

Servus said:

No, I said AGW is real, but it doesn't warrant all of the doomsday exaggeration and hyperbole.

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How did you determine that the projections are "exaggeration and hyperbole"? We are already seeing serious consequences of AGW with respect to marine ecology, which is bound to have cascading effects. But even if all the "doomsday" scenarios are false, what harm is supposed to come from prudent energy policy that moves us towards renewable resources that are carbon neutral? Why champion inaction, if you believe the problem is real? Or what solutions do you support as an alternative to those proposed by "the left"?

Hans Blaster said:

The Scots-Irish aren't really Irish (don't stone me if you happen to be one). They were lowland Scots who settled in Ireland for a generation or two before moving to the American colonies. They settled primarily along the spine of the Appalachians.

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For some reason, I'm reminded of a bit by Emo Phillips:


-- A2SG, not sure what made me think of that....

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN said:

But they can't. Getting off drugs aren't that easy. That's why I said that a lot of people, that are on drugs need professional help. Since some are numbing pain. From sexual , mental and physical abuse. Also the withdrawal can cause people to die. I was raised Republican, and learned. That most Republicans did drugs, had abortions and need help. Most of the Republicans ,that I know have addiction issues. It's not easy for them to get off of drugs. Because they need medical help. But they seem to vote against them selves.

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Well someone, who is usually fairly liberal on most issues suggested that Americans should just stop buying drugs

forklift operator

Clare73 said:

However, there is Jesus' statement that all men are slaves to sin (Jn 8:34). . .slaves are not free.

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Do slaves of righteousness desire to escape from the government of YHVH's Kingdom/ Jesus ?

Yul

winter is coming.

When winter comes . . .

CoreyD said:

Did God create his intelligent children with free will?
Though many whether religious or non religious claim not, and argue against this, the answer is clearly yes.

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Curious in a way. Looking at mankind and all the christendom and religions that act stupid and ungodly every day,

the answer may not be clear at all.

Yum

banh mi?

CoreyD said:

The Bible says Adam was not deceived.Thus Adam acted on his own free will.
Do you disagree?

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The Bible is the Breathed Word of The Magnificent Almighty Everlasting Truthful Real Creator of all things.

Men almost always oppose the Bible and are violently against the Creator (men oppose God).

hmmm...... who to trust ?

JESUS! HALLELUJAH FOREVER !

AV1611VET said:

Years ago here two of our posters duked it out big time.
One was Thaumaturgy, the other was [the real] Glenn Morton.
Post 542

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from that reference post- thread: little if any honesty or humility or truth. Seemingly no benefit from forum.

Gracchus said:

This is what interests me in this forum. How an why do people become immune to reason. The phenomenom is especially apparent in politics and religion.

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Say, can you see it?