RE: A question game for agnostics. (Full Version)

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Real0ne -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/8/2011 8:02:13 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: provfivetine

1. Agnosticism is the only belief system that adheres to the rigors of the scientific method. The phrase "God exists" (positive theism) and/or "God does not exist" (positive atheism) are both non-falsifiable propositions. If you argue either of the aforementioned propositions then you are ignoring the scientific method and are committing the gravest possible error in scholarly research. Positive theists and positive atheists have a lot in common; they both are smug cranks that attempt to pass off their own normative judgements as truth.


Thats not quite correct.

You run into a snag when because unless they are knowledge-less of the subject they fall under some belief one way or the other which gets us into faith etc etc as I explained in depth in my thread where I posted the supreme court determination that atheism it in fact a religion.

They only way they can make the claims they are is if the create a new word or start hunting through the dictionary for a term which bypasses the function of human reason and at the same time includes it.

The OP of this thread was used to mop the floor in that thread thats why the ridiculous rules....  LMAO



provfivetine -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/8/2011 8:30:51 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Real0ne

Thats not quite correct.

You run into a snag when because unless they are knowledge-less of the subject they fall under some belief one way or the other which gets us into faith etc etc as I explained in depth in my thread where I posted the supreme court determination that atheism it in fact a religion.



Yes, atheism is a religion, but belief has nothing to do with science. You're conflating negative atheism/theism with positive atheism/theism. A negative atheist that asserts "I believe God does not exist" is just making a normative statement just as a theist that asserts "I believe God exists." To to be a positive a(theist) is to make a claim that cannot be tested and to be a negative a(theist) is to make a normative statement. This is why I stated before how both sides ignore the rigors of the scientific method. Again, normative statements are not scientific; simply believing in something does not make it true.

quote:



They only way they can make the claims they are is if the create a new word or start hunting through the dictionary for a term which bypasses the function of human reason and at the same time includes it.

The OP of this thread was used to mop the floor in that thread thats why the ridiculous rules....  LMAO



This practice is very common (more so in political debates than in religious ones) and when people start doing this they lose the argument. After all I can define any word as I please, but if this is the case then the world would be engulfed in chaos. For example, you could claim that 2+2=6 (simply by defining your terms differently) or you could tell your employer that your 9 o'clock AM start time really means 12PM; somehow I think your math teacher and your supervisor would not take kindly to such arguments.



Real0ne -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/8/2011 8:42:57 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: provfivetine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Real0ne

Thats not quite correct.

You run into a snag when because unless they are knowledge-less of the subject they fall under some belief one way or the other which gets us into faith etc etc as I explained in depth in my thread where I posted the supreme court determination that atheism it in fact a religion.



Yes, atheism is a religion, but belief has nothing to do with science. You're conflating negative atheism/theism with positive atheism/theism. A negative atheist that asserts "I believe God does not exist" is just making a normative statement just as a theist that asserts "I believe God exists." To to be a positive a(theist) is to make a claim that cannot be tested and to be a negative a(theist) is to make a normative statement. This is why I stated before how both sides ignore the rigors of the scientific method. Again, normative statements are not scientific; simply believing in something does not make it true.

quote:



They only way they can make the claims they are is if the create a new word or start hunting through the dictionary for a term which bypasses the function of human reason and at the same time includes it.

The OP of this thread was used to mop the floor in that thread thats why the ridiculous rules....  LMAO



This practice is very common (more so in political debates than in religious ones) and when people start doing this they lose the argument. After all I can define any word as I please, but if this is the case then the world would be engulfed in chaos. For example, you could claim that 2+2=6 (simply by defining your terms differently) or you could tell your employer that your 9 o'clock AM start time really means 12PM; somehow I think your math teacher and your supervisor would not take kindly to such arguments.


I am not talking about words like "freedom" which is nothing more than a covert form of slavery, or the vulgar slang conversion of words like holocaust to complete bullshit like its is used today, I am talking about a word that bears valid structural integrity and passes the test of linguists etc etc etc.

There is a process attached that I summed up in my last post that I exhaustively explained in that atheism thread that negates the position and until a legitimate word comes along I do not see any root foundation supporting their position as I said.  That is to say its a strawman argument.  see my posts on the matter



SpanishMatMaster -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/8/2011 9:25:57 PM)

I can't believe it... after more than FIVE HUNDRED MESSAGES regarding the subject about Atheism being a religion or not... some of your are so OBSESSED that they try to CARRY ON HERE!!
[:D] !!

Ok...
quote:


ORIGINAL: provfivetine
1. Agnosticism is the only belief system that adheres to the rigors of the scientific method. The phrase "God exists" (positive theism) and/or "God does not exist" (positive atheism) are both non-falsifiable propositions. If you argue either of the aforementioned propositions then you are ignoring the scientific method and are committing the gravest possible error in scholarly research. Positive theists and positive atheists have a lot in common; they both are smug cranks that attempt to pass off their own normative judgements as truth.
2. Yes.


Good, thank you.

Now, let me consider a being. I am not saying that he exists, I am only describing a being.

Its name is "Unoser". He is an extraterrestrial and lives in a planet far beyond the reach of our astronomical instruments. In his planet, the civlization is more than one million years more advanced as the one of the Earth in technology (don't tell me that this is impossible because we won't survive that much, I am just trying to express things in a simple way, not writing a contract with the devil). So, their technology is so extreme that it looks like magic for us.

He has a hobby: Around far planets with life, he looks for and internet and then for internet forums. And there, he looks for people whose alias in the forums is provfivetine. Of course, he uses his extreme technology for this, as well as his extremely advanced mind (so advanced that we cannot even imagine his reasons to do this). And then, when he finds one, he substitutes their nose with an illusion.

The substitution is made in such a way, that the technological devices he uses (which can be artificial intelligences far beyond our natural one) influence all the environment. When a victim tries to touch his nose, the mechanisms of the illusion care about that he feels the nose (interfering with the neural channels, maybe). They care that the victims sees the nose in the mirror. They care that a doctor can see it too (even if it is not there, they can also interfere with the doctor's perception). They can change the results of X-Ray analysis, etc, etc, etc... in other words... there is no way, for us, to discover the illusion. And still - it is an illusion. The victim has no longer a nose.

And Unoser did found you some time ago. Before you wrote your first message in this thread.

Please remember that I define Unoser this way. If something about the being is not like I described, he is no longer Unoser. Unoser is only Unoser if he accomplishes all this definition.

My next questions are:
* Can you affirm that Unoser exists?
* Can you deny that Unoser exists?

Best regards.



SuzeQ -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/8/2011 9:40:57 PM)

It's the second coming of Christ, and before the world ends Jesus wants to take in some fishing. So he gets his friend Moses and they head up to Minnesota to fish, figuring they can drop in on Ron for beers afterwards.

They are about to rent a canoe when Moses says: "Jesus, can't you still walk on water? Why not just walk out there?"

So Jesus takes his reel and tackle and steps onto the lake....and falls knee deep in water.

Moses says: "Well....maybe you need a head start or something, why not go to the end of the dock and try."

So Jesus takes his reel and tackle and steps off the end of the dock and falls up to his waist.

Moses says: "Well why not rent the boat, go out to the center of the lake and try there."

So they rent the boat and go to the middle of the lake, Jesus is about to step off and try again when Moses says: "Wait. Just to be safe, why not get yourself into the state of mind you were in the first time you did it."

So Jesus sets down, meditates for a few minutes, and finally he's all psyched up, and steps out of the canoe....and sinks! So Moses does the old part-the-waters trick and pulls Jesus up into the boat. Jesus is just beating himself up over this. He just doesn't see what's going wrong here. Moses just stares down at the bottom of the boat.

Suddenly, Moses says: "I got it! I know what's wrong! Did you have those holes in your feet last time?!?!"
____________________________________

Jesus was Jewish, right?

So how come he has a Mexican name?



Real0ne -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 12:51:42 AM)

why are you insulting unoser?

http://www.youtube.com/user/unoser

but your description does sound like the average dumb ass american versus the ptb lol



stellauk -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 2:05:05 AM)

Got to love those who try to define in concrete terms that what isn't concrete.

Say what if the entire Universe is just a miniscule part of an omnipresent spiritual existence which lies beyond our powers of perception?

I do not subscribe to religion, nor am I an atheist - does this make me an agnostic?

However I am aware of my existence and that what we know as life. Thing is, I'm relative to you and everything in the Universe through being a part of it, therefore I am also relative to time and space. Time gets shorter the older I get, of death as an experience I have no knowledge but know it is accelerating towards me.

My life is way too short to be trying to define that which lies beyond my perception and much closer to infinity (commonly believed to be the primary objective of the Universe) so therefore like most other people I stick to that what I can perceive, what I know, and in the absence of knowledge, that what I believe.

You see if I am part of a Universe which is heading towards infinity, then I am heading towards infinity also through whatever plane of existence I occupy at a given moment.

There is no right or wrong. There is only what is valid and acceptable at any given moment, relative to my own individual existence and perception and that what I am within some sort of relationship with.

I hope this makes sense.



GotSteel -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 11:12:40 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Real0ne
I explained in depth in my thread where I posted the supreme court determination that atheism it in fact a religion.


I call bullshit!

That's not quite correct. You posted a news article which blatantly misrepresented the supreme court ruling. In your thread I posted the actual supreme court ruling and pointed out the section where the supreme court referred to atheism as non-religion.



GotSteel -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 11:38:48 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata
To interpret a myth literally is the functional equivalent of taking a metaphor literally. It proves you are illiterate, not that the God of Genesis doesn't exist.


I'm continually surprised that you seem unable to grasp my point. Praying to a metaphor is absurd, sacrificing bulls to a deity that doesn't literally exist is ridiculous. Saying that the god of the Bible is a myth is the same as admitting that he's fictional. Pointing out that fictional characters aren't real would be trivial if we were talking about any other book.



wittynamehere -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 11:54:05 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster
abide by the rules.
Agnostics (people who do not deny the existence of God, but also do not affirm that God exists) only.

Okay, I'm with you so far. That definition describes me, so I can play.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster
Consider God a person (that is, a "who", and not only a "what") who created the universe.

Wait a second. By definition above, I don't affirm God exists. Now you require me to consider God a person? And I have to believe this person created the universe? I'm willing to do that for the sake of this discussion, but now I no longer qualify as agnostic by your given definition, because you've made me affirm that God exists, and is the creator of the universe. I believe you've set up what they call a paradox. But I'll continue in the hopes that it will be resolved.

quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster
1) Why are you agnostic?
2) Do you have a nose?

1) By the definition you gave above, which I was forced to comply with in order to get this far, I'm agnostic because I "do not deny the existence of God, but also do not affirm that God exists".
2) You didn't define what "nose" means, but if I can only pick yes or no, I'll go with "yes".

Now what?



provfivetine -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 12:09:06 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster

I can't believe it... after more than FIVE HUNDRED MESSAGES regarding the subject about Atheism being a religion or not... some of your are so OBSESSED that they try to CARRY ON HERE!!
[:D] !!

Ok...
quote:


ORIGINAL: provfivetine
1. Agnosticism is the only belief system that adheres to the rigors of the scientific method. The phrase "God exists" (positive theism) and/or "God does not exist" (positive atheism) are both non-falsifiable propositions. If you argue either of the aforementioned propositions then you are ignoring the scientific method and are committing the gravest possible error in scholarly research. Positive theists and positive atheists have a lot in common; they both are smug cranks that attempt to pass off their own normative judgements as truth.
2. Yes.


Good, thank you.

Now, let me consider a being. I am not saying that he exists, I am only describing a being.

Its name is "Unoser". He is an extraterrestrial and lives in a planet far beyond the reach of our astronomical instruments. In his planet, the civlization is more than one million years more advanced as the one of the Earth in technology (don't tell me that this is impossible because we won't survive that much, I am just trying to express things in a simple way, not writing a contract with the devil). So, their technology is so extreme that it looks like magic for us.

He has a hobby: Around far planets with life, he looks for and internet and then for internet forums. And there, he looks for people whose alias in the forums is provfivetine. Of course, he uses his extreme technology for this, as well as his extremely advanced mind (so advanced that we cannot even imagine his reasons to do this). And then, when he finds one, he substitutes their nose with an illusion.

The substitution is made in such a way, that the technological devices he uses (which can be artificial intelligences far beyond our natural one) influence all the environment. When a victim tries to touch his nose, the mechanisms of the illusion care about that he feels the nose (interfering with the neural channels, maybe). They care that the victims sees the nose in the mirror. They care that a doctor can see it too (even if it is not there, they can also interfere with the doctor's perception). They can change the results of X-Ray analysis, etc, etc, etc... in other words... there is no way, for us, to discover the illusion. And still - it is an illusion. The victim has no longer a nose.

And Unoser did found you some time ago. Before you wrote your first message in this thread.

Please remember that I define Unoser this way. If something about the being is not like I described, he is no longer Unoser. Unoser is only Unoser if he accomplishes all this definition.

My next questions are:
* Can you affirm that Unoser exists?
* Can you deny that Unoser exists?

Best regards.



No.



willbeurdaddy -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 12:22:55 PM)

FR


oooh, everything might be an illusion. How profound. Hint: it doesnt change fuckall even if it is.



GotSteel -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 5:56:30 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: provfivetine
(HINT: because you can't confirm or falsify the existence of a deity).


We can't confirm or falsify the existence of a god but we can confirm or falsify the existence of the God.

quote:

ORIGINAL: provfivetine
Yes, one that we cannot test for.


Of course we can test for the being described by the Bible in a number of ways. For instance we can and have tested to see if a being who ham-fistedly answers the prayers of his followers exists. This is a case where absence of evidence is evidence of absence.



Kirata -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 7:00:47 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

I'm continually surprised that you seem unable to grasp my point. Praying to a metaphor is absurd...

The feeling is mutual. Yes, praying to a metaphor is absurd. Here is an example of a relevant metaphor from one of the dictionaries online:

"A mighty fortress is my God."

You are absolutely right that it would be absurd to pray to a fortress (the metaphor), but it is equally absurd to argue that such a God does not exist because we know for a fact that fortresses do not create universes, as is claimed for this "fortress" God. In a similar vein, I recall you once arguing that the Golden Rule was cruel nonsense because it recommends that somebody who enjoys being whipped should go around whipping people.

Your reasoning in both cases suffers from an extraordinarily concretistic bent of mind.

K.



Kirata -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 7:12:20 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

oooh, everything might be an illusion. How profound. Hint: it doesnt change fuckall even if it is.

Yes it does. It changes how much we are entitled to think we know about reality.

K.



SpanishMatMaster -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 7:48:40 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: wittynamehere

Hello, wittynamehere.
Accepting a definition of God does not imply to accept that God exists. It only implies to accept a certain meaning for the word "God".
Please answer again. Thank you.



SpanishMatMaster -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 7:52:21 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: provfivetine
No.

Dear provfivetine:

They are two questions. Please provide two answers, I do not know to which question you are answering.

I might suppose that you are answering "no" to both, but I prefer not to rely on suppositions. I took the care of writing that text, please take the time to write two times "no" if this is the case.

Best regards.



CrazyCats -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 7:52:47 PM)

Alright, I'll play.

First part:
1) Yes, while I have a leaning towards the "doesn't exist" side of the argument, I cannot unequivocally rule out the possibility that an intelligence managed to purposefully set off the "Big Bang" in such a way that it would result in our present reality.

2) Yes, because I can see it, touch it and receive physical sensations from it since it is a part of my body.

Second Part:
1) No, I cannot affirm the existence of a being known as Unoser who un-noses forum goers with specific names. Without evidence that anything has changed, and that all physical definitions of a nose are still covered by the illusion, I still have a nose.
2) No, because despite the subjective reality of sensation and vision that affirms the existence of my nose, I cannot have complete and perfect certainty that it exists, therefore it is just as likely as not that Unoser made off with it. (Yes, with that logical train of thought, I could claim that I don't have proof of my own existence either, let alone certainty that anyone else exists.)



SpanishMatMaster -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 8:01:38 PM)

Dear CrazyCats:

If Unoser did exist, you would have no nose. This is a direct result of the definition of Unoser, and it cannot be avoided. Well, I must add to the definition of Unoser that he found you too :) but you get the concept.

Question: Do you agree with this?

Please try to stick to the point. Do you simply agree that, if Unoser exists, your nose does not?



provfivetine -> RE: A question game for agnostics. (11/9/2011 8:10:36 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster

They are two questions. Please provide two answers, I do not know to which question you are answering.

I might suppose that you are answering "no" to both, but I prefer not to rely on suppositions. I took the care of writing that text, please take the time to write two times "no" if this is the case.

Best regards.


No(x2)



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