Creation and Causality

[The7thColporteur]

But this isn't exactly the truth, is it? You know just as well as I, that god didn't write the bible.

You made an assumption in your statement.

 

[HitchSlap]

You made an assumption in your statement.

Fact: humans wrote the bible.

 

[The7thColporteur]

Fact: humans wrote the bible.

Not in contention, at all. Go back and read my statements, and then see your assumption.

 

[HitchSlap]

Not in contention, at all. Go back and read my statements, and then see your assumption.

More word salad.

 

[The7thColporteur]

More word salad.

Would you please explain how so?

 

[DogmaHunter]

Well, you are assuming that people pretend

When they make faith based claims and then call that "knowledge" - that is pretending, yes.

, and you are invoking a special pleading from your own subjective understanding of what's always better.

That's not special pleading. That is an empirical statement. There's a track record of a few thousand gods now discontinued, that were once invoked to "explain away" the things humans were ignorant of based on nothing but faith (as opposed to actual evidence).

Thor does not cause thunder.
The sun's orbit isn't caused by Ra pulling it accross the sky with a chariot.
Jupiter doesn't throw lightning bolts.
Poseidon doesn't rule the tides or causes sea storms
Demons are not responsible for desease.

Whenever evidence based claims go head to head with faith based claims, the faith based claims never win.

How can you know that it's always better.

An extremely long track record of evidence based claims providing better and more accurate answers then faith based claims.

As a matter of fact… I know of no instance where a faith-based claim turned out to be an accurate claim.

What is the rational for such absolute?

The track record of such claims.

Even context of actual pretending there are plentiful scenarios in which saying "I don't know" will be pragmatically inferior than unknowingly invoking some model that actually match reality.

If you are ignorant on a subject, then the amount of potential models you could come up with are practically infinite, only really limited by your imagination.

The chances of stumbling on the "right" model, are worse then winning the lottery 5 times in a row.

And let's not forget that once you settle on one of these models that were pulled out of thin air... you actually stop looking for an actual answer.

I'm not saying that IS the case with Christianity. I'm simply pointing out that you are operating by assumptions that are not as obvious as you think these are.

I'm operating on evidence and an extreme track record of empirical succes and faith-based failure.

 

[DogmaHunter]

It is not my claim. It is God's claim. Let's be sure to make sure we understand who is making the claim. God is.

That's merely what you believe / claim.
Your statement, is not evidence of itself.

 

[devolved]

You said ...

So we can both agree that god didn’t say anything, and you were merely being hyperbolic in your enthusiasm of your personal faith in a god.

I agreed with you that humans wrote Bible and put it on paper and subsequently copied it. I'm not sure how you jump to saying that we both agree that God did not communicate anything.

But then you say...

Anything and everything we’ve ever learned about the nature of reality has been through the scientific method and observational rigor.

You are speaking hyperbolic religious language here which is ironic.

Science is a label we give for a systematic brain activity. There is no clear way to demarcate as to what part of that systematic brain activity is science and which part is not... apart from going about it by utilizing pragmatism ( if it had been proven useful... then it's science), and plurality of consensus (if specialists agree, then it's science).

The problem is that there is no clear demarcation as to what is science and what is not. Everything that we've learned resides in the realm our basic presupposition framework. Thus it becomes a no true scottsman game of appropriation of brain activity that we emulate based on viability of pragmatic outcome.

In science all we care about are ratios of predictable outcomes that we use to organize reality to our advantage. Science is more concerned with what is useful rather than with what you would label as "true"

Again, believe what you need to in order to protect your faith, for its in the gray area you describe that it can only exist.

Again, you have a brain activity demarcation problem here. Essentially that's what you are judging here. Our brain is a pattern detection and interpretation mechanism. As such it is not always reliable and is limited to a narrow context of reality, hence individual brains depend on other brains to provide context and feedback. In such, there's plentiful of "grey areas", especially since ALL our knowledge is based on a framework of axiomatic assumptions. Whatever we subsequently build is derived from the assumptions.

What you are doing here is triumphantly declare "science" as a triumph over "religion" when both of these are different continuum of the above-described process. There's a spectrum range from "scientific reductionism", which is very narrow and specific. Then there's less precise "science" like economics and sociology, and psychology which takes a much broader and more generalized approach. And there's broader "cultural wisdom" and religious axioms, which is much broader and principle-driven, especially in context of the culture these were defined.

Hence, your level of analysis of the overarching nature of this process is inch-deep. You admit that you rely on baseline assumption that you don't care to justify, and then you attempt draw the lines where no such lines exist.

It's difficult to have any broad-scope discussion about reality with the reductionist approach that you credit "everything and anything" to, especially when you can't even justify your baseline presuppositions.

 

[HitchSlap]

You said ...



I agreed with you that humans wrote Bible and put it on paper and subsequently copied it. I'm not sure how you jump to saying that we both agree that God did not communicate anything.

But then you say...



You are speaking hyperbolic religious language here which is ironic.

Science is a label we give for a systematic brain activity. There is no clear way to demarcate as to what part of that systematic brain activity is science and which part is not... apart from going about it by utilizing pragmatism ( if it had been proven useful... then it's science), and plurality of consensus (if specialists agree, then it's science).

The problem is that there is no clear demarcation as to what is science and what is not. Everything that we've learned resides in the realm our basic presupposition framework. Thus it becomes a no true scottsman game of appropriation of brain activity that we emulate based on viability of pragmatic outcome.

In science all we care about are ratios of predictable outcomes that we use to organize reality to our advantage. Science is more concerned with what is useful rather than with what you would label as "true"



Again, you have a brain activity demarcation problem here. Essentially that's what you are judging here. Our brain is a pattern detection and interpretation mechanism. As such it is not always reliable and is limited to a narrow context of reality, hence individual brains depend on other brains to provide context and feedback. In such, there's plentiful of "grey areas", especially since ALL our knowledge is based on a framework of axiomatic assumptions. Whatever we subsequently build is derived from the assumptions.

What you are doing here is triumphantly declare "science" as a triumph over "religion" when both of these are different continuum of the above-described process. There's a spectrum range from "scientific reductionism", which is very narrow and specific. Then there's less precise "science" like economics and sociology, and psychology which takes a much broader and more generalized approach. And there's broader "cultural wisdom" and religious axioms, which is much broader and principle-driven, especially in context of the culture these were defined.

Hence, your level of analysis of the overarching nature of this process is inch-deep. You admit that you rely on baseline assumption that you don't care to justify, and then you attempt draw the lines where no such lines exist.

It's difficult to have any broad-scope discussion about reality with the reductionist approach that you credit "everything and anything" to, especially when you can't even justify your baseline presuppositions.

Quite the straw man.

 

[devolved]

Quite the straw man.

Again, you seem to think that throwing these generalized assumption and labels like "straw man" adds validity to what you are saying without any need to first demonstrating that your baseline assumptions are justifiable.

That's not how adequate philosophical discussion works. It's not a chess game where you can bypass thought by reacting to something with a typical verbal retort and dismiss certain move being "against the rules".

You have to justify your rules first. And you are not even attempting to do that.

 

[HitchSlap]

Again, you seem to think that throwing these generalized assumption and labels like "straw man" adds validity to what you are saying without any need to first demonstrating that your baseline assumptions are justifiable.

That's not how adequate philosophical discussion works. It's not a chess game where you can bypass thought by reacting to something with a typical verbal retort and dismiss certain move being "against the rules".

You have to justify your rules first. And you are not even attempting to do that.

We all make three basal assumptions:

1. Reality exists.

Would you agree?

 

[HitchSlap]

Again, you seem to think that throwing these generalized assumption and labels like "straw man" adds validity to what you are saying without any need to first demonstrating that your baseline assumptions are justifiable.

You committed straw man fallacy. Your characterization of my statements were not even close to accurate.

Straw man - Wikipedia

That's not how adequate philosophical discussion works.

"Adequate philosophical discussion works" only when both parties seek to understand the other's point of view, and don't commit logical fallacies during that process.

It's not a chess game where you can bypass thought by reacting to something with a typical verbal retort and dismiss certain move being "against the rules".

Yet, at every turn, you've reframed what I actually said, into something you wish I had said. Philosophical discussions requires interlocutors actually respond to what is said without deliberate misrepresentation.

You have to justify your rules first. And you are not even attempting to do that.

Fine, rule #1:

Reality exists.

Would you agree?

 

[devolved]

We all make three basal assumptions:

1. Reality exists.

Would you agree?

I thought that I've addressed this in #157? Should I clarify this further?

 

[devolved]

You committed straw man fallacy. Your characterization of my statements were not even close to accurate.

If it is inaccurate, then feel free to correct me. Can you describe which views I misrepresented and what is the view that you hold? I welcome to see where I went wrong in that regard.

Yet, at every turn, you've reframed what I actually said, into something you wish I had said. Philosophical discussions requires interlocutors actually respond to what is said without deliberate misrepresentation.

Certainly. I agree. Please tell me how I've misrepresented your view on the issue?

 

[devolved]

"Adequate philosophical discussion works" only when both parties seek to understand the other's point of view, and don't commit logical fallacies during that process.

While I agree that we should minimize fallacies in our arguments, but these are not Yellow/Red cards in a soccer match . I seldom invoke these anymore, because:

1) We'd have to be on the same page when it comes to our presuppositions to reference fallacies in logic. We may map to different meaning of words, for example, so screaming fallacy doesn't help much with that.
2) It makes no difference what the "shortcut fallacy" is. Whether you can demonstrate it does make a difference.
3) Just because an argument is poorly worded or framed, or contains fallacies... does not automatically make the claims of that argument false or untrue (see fallacy fallacy).

 

[HitchSlap]

I thought that I've addressed this in #157? Should I clarify this further?

No, thank you. Your attempts at clarification come across as word salad, so I've had to slow your roll so we can find a starting point.

 

[HitchSlap]

Right then, moving along.

#2 We can know (learn) things about reality.

Do you agree?

 

[devolved]

No, thank you. Your attempts at clarification come across as word salad, so I've had to slow your roll so we can find a starting point.

Ok. I can see why you may be having trouble grasping the concept, but we can do it one by one. Please do me a favor and define complex terms as you go on. For example, what do you mean by knowledge, for example, in #2.

By we can skip #1. I've already said I agree.

 

[HitchSlap]

Ok. I can see why you may be having trouble grasping the concept, but we can do it one by one. Please do me a favor and define complex terms as you go on. For example, what do you mean by knowledge, for example, in #2.

By we can skip #1. I've already said I agree.

Dictionary definition of knowledge. (It's not a trick question)

 

[devolved]

Dictionary definition of knowledge. (It's not a trick question)

There is no single dictionary definition of knowledge. "Knowledge" has a different semantic meaning whether you are speaking to a philosopher, scientist, educator, or a theologian. It's not a simple term to unpack:

Knowledge - Wikipedia

As a generic understanding of that term, do you mean that we can see some patterns of reality, remember these, and recognize these later?

In that case, I can certainly agree. If you mean something more than that, then you'd have to tell me how you define knowledge first.