Does God exist?

[bhsmte]

Yeah, but I wouldn't say that's the only variable. Sometimes people just honestly disagree on a text's meaning. Other differences in denominations have to do with values (like helping the poor through giving money or helping them through sweating it out).

Usually more than one variable, but it is the dominant one.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Yep, he is a piece of work, all in the name of God.

Sam Harris absolutely handed him his rear end and Bart Ehrman did well against him as well. Craig is the king of; misrepresenting the other person's position, so they have to burn up debate time correcting the lies that Craig told.

You should check out his sessions with Lawrence Krauss in Australia. I think they did about 3 or 4 of them. Krauss can be funny as hell at times

 

[FireDragon76]

Yeah, but I wouldn't say that's the only variable. Sometimes people just honestly disagree on a text's meaning. Other differences in denominations have to do with values (like helping the poor through giving money or helping them through sweating it out).

Most of the denominationalism in Christianity is down to honest disagreements and varying historical and political forces relating to a text that is often ambiguous. It's mean-spirited and ignorant to say its all about people wanting to make God in their image.

That's precisely the reason I tend to favor Anglicanism/Episcopalianism... the comprehensiveness and liberalism transcends a lot of those issues.

 

[quatona]

Actually, I would say that appealing to a deity that seems to support exactly how you're living your life is the perfect example of creating god in your image.

Agreed. But that´s - again - a completely different point.

I talked about when it is required to invent an authority in order to establish your morality. (IOW: If your morality is sound, intelligible and empathic, you don´t need to evade to such methods.)

 

[DogmaHunter]

Imagine two circles. Truth is much larger and contains fact, which stands for truth that is empirically verifiable. This is so because there are more things that are true that aren't empirically verifiable, and can't even be empirically verified.

There are also lots of facts that we don't know about, can not know about and will never know about.

I don't see the difference.

Seems to me the words are synonyms.

Well, if it's too broad it doesn't really become science, just separate philosophical principles that can stand on their own. Science has to be all the above added together.

No. Science (academia doing research) uses the scientific method.
I can use the principles of the scientific method in my daily life to come up with rational answers to questions. And in fact we all do.

But you inform yourself other than through science by using reasoning, experience without induction, experience without replication, intuition, etc.

And in science we don't reason, use experience (experiment), etc to come up with conclusions?

And I don't always rely on my intuition. In fact, that's the last resort. It's what I'm left with if I don't have any actual data to inform my decision. Then I'll have to go with intuition and hope for the best.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Isn´t that exactly when it becomes convenient to appeal to a deity that allegedly sides with you: if you want to establish a "morality" that otherwise nobody would accept?

Nailed it.

 

[DogmaHunter]

A morality that interestingly seems pretty much exactly with how you're already living your life...

NO. Just... no.

Obedience to a perceived authority is not a morality.

 

[PsychoSarah]

I'm not overthinking by simply pointing out that one word has to mean something that's different than another word or else there's no point in using two different words.

Can't there just be no point to using two different words? Language isn't the pinnacle of efficiency.

 

[Received]

NO. Just... no.

Maybe you shouldn't have that ninth cup of coffee.

Obedience to a perceived authority is not a morality.

Sure it is. Morality is itself an authority, just like reason is.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Maybe you shouldn't have that ninth cup of coffee.

Sure it is. Morality is itself an authority, just like reason is.

Morality is an idea.

 

[Received]

There are also lots of facts that we don't know about, can not know about and will never know about.

I don't see the difference.

Seems to me the words are synonyms.

Yeah, but they have technical differences when you ask philosophers or linguists. Without these distinctions, there's no point in even having two different words. They make terrible synonyms. Usually we use synonyms to make ourselves sound cool. Loud and sonorous. Quick and immediate. Bright and scintillating. You know.

No. Science (academia doing research) uses the scientific method.
I can use the principles of the scientific method in my daily life to come up with rational answers to questions. And in fact we all do.

Okay, but my point is that the principles of the scientific method are just independent principles, whereas science (or the scientific method) fuses all these principles into one package.

And in science we don't reason, use experience (experiment), etc to come up with conclusions?

And I don't always rely on my intuition. In fact, that's the last resort. It's what I'm left with if I don't have any actual data to inform my decision. Then I'll have to go with intuition and hope for the best.

Science is technically inductive reasoning plus all the other principles we talked about, again, as one package. Most reasoning we use is deductive, or even abductive. And personal experience is different than experience with replicability and some type of standardization, as is the case with science.

And you do use intuition in very important ways. In this case you're using your intuition to ascertain the philosophical presuppositions that come together (even this come together-ness is intuitively mediated) to create science.

 

[Received]

Usually more than one variable, but it is the dominant one.

Yeah, prolly.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Huh? A computer is organized matter but it's not the least bit intelligent in the sense i'm talking about.

Cortana, Siri, etc are starting to disagree with that.

In any case, did I say that it is the product of any type of organized matter? I don't think I did.

To clarify: every intelligence that I have ever observed, was the product of an an arrangement of matter: a brain.
I'll add computer chips of the future when AI gets freakishly close to human intelligence.

I've never observed an intelligence that was not the product of matter. Everything I know about the phenomena of intelligence suggests that it requires an arrangement of matter to "emerge" from.

Scientists don't understand how consciousness relates to the brain.

But they do not doubt the fact that it emerges from a brain. There is no doubt that the consciousness is dependent on the existence of the brain, that it cannot exist without the brain.

They don't understand how it works, how it relates to the brain. But that it DOES relate to the brain is without question. Which is why you said that, btw, and not for example that they don't understand how it relates to the spine, or the biceps or the middle finger.

Some philosophers doubt they ever will.

When it comes to the natural sciences, philosophers can take a hike

LOL

 

[Received]

Agreed. But that´s - again - a completely different point.

I talked about when it is required to invent an authority in order to establish your morality. (IOW: If your morality is sound, intelligible and empathic, you don´t need to evade to such methods.)

You wouldn't say that morality, or doing right stuff in general, is its own authority?

 

[Received]

Can't there just be no point to using two different words? Language isn't the pinnacle of efficiency.

It isn't, but it should be. And there is an etymological history behind the terms we're talking about, so there's no big point in having this discussion.

 

[Received]

Morality is an idea.

Okay, now I'll really get complicated. Morality involves sets of ideas that actualize a previous non-ideological sense of universality. Two savages walk up to one another and one hits the other; both sense, by appealing to universality (whether or not you say it's evolutionarily adapted), that there's something wrong with this action. Putting it into rules just makes this sense of wrongness much more concrete.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Maybe you shouldn't have that ninth cup of coffee.

Nah.... I am rolling my second joint, I'm fine.

Sure it is. Morality is itself an authority, just like reason is.

No, it's not.

Mere obedience to perceived authority is the "morality" of psychopaths:

X is good because the authority says so.

 

[Received]

Nah.... I am rolling my second joint, I'm fine.

Dang, what kind of swag are you smoking?

(Lol, for the first time I used this question in a serious way.)

No, it's not.

Mere obedience to perceived authority is the "morality" of psychopaths:

X is good because the authority says so.

Whoa. Psychopaths have no authority. That's what makes them psychopaths. Their own "authority" is the immediacy of their blunted senses and reward pathways.

An authority is just something that has power over you. Truth definitely has power over you, or else you would be able to determine what should be followed over truth.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Yeah, but they have technical differences when you ask philosophers or linguists. Without these distinctions, there's no point in even having two different words. They make terrible synonyms. Usually we use synonyms to make ourselves sound cool. Loud and sonorous. Quick and immediate. Bright and scintillating. You know.

Okay, but my point is that the principles of the scientific method are just independent principles, whereas science (or the scientific method) fuses all these principles into one package.

Science is technically inductive reasoning plus all the other principles we talked about, again, as one package. Most reasoning we use is deductive, or even abductive. And personal experience is different than experience with replicability and some type of standardization, as is the case with science.

And you do use intuition in very important ways. In this case you're using your intuition to ascertain the philosophical presuppositions that come together (even this come together-ness is intuitively mediated) to create science.

This seems to me, to be nothing more then semantics and a bunch of labeling.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Okay, now I'll really get complicated. Morality involves sets of ideas that actualize a previous non-ideological sense of universality. Two savages walk up to one another and one hits the other; both sense, by appealing to universality (whether or not you say it's evolutionarily adapted), that there's something wrong with this action. Putting it into rules just makes this sense of wrongness much more concrete.

You're leaving out the important step here. What triggers them feeling wrong about it?

I'll give you a hint: it has something to do with knowledge.