RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (Full Version)

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BenevolentM -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 4:36:51 PM)

In response to post 319. It is one thing to prove the existence of God and another to defend the particulars. The religious have been at this awhile. You may need to give the religious the benefit of the doubt. Like/dislike is not an objective criteria and is not the criteria used in science. It is what it is. We are all after the truth, aren't we?



Kirata -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 5:17:41 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM

atheism relies heavily on superstition. Atheism makes a very big assumption, namely metaphysical objects do not exist.

You are conflating Atheism with Physicalism.

K.



BenevolentM -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 5:47:52 PM)

Do you actually think splitting hairs on this one is going to make a difference? The argument is a top down argument. People here are chiefly familiar with bottom up reasoning. Bottom up reasoning seems agreeable because we are at the bottom. Seems to be and what is need not correlate.



BenevolentM -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 6:08:48 PM)

The word of the day on the Fox News the O'Reilly Factor for today was captious. It is oddly appropriate to the discussion.

quote:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/captious

1. apt to notice and make much of trivial faults or defects; faultfinding; difficult to please.



BenevolentM -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 6:25:20 PM)

After awhile it is going to come down to you are going to believe what you want to believe. I can anticipate two objections at this point. (1) Hey, I'm familiar with top down reasoning and I don't see it. (2) There is no such a thing as a trivial fault with a reference to chaos theory.

If it is (2) you may want to consider the possibility that you have face blindness. If it is (1), I do not feel like explaining it to you. I have been generous enough as it is.



GotSteel -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 7:05:01 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
In response to post 319. It is one thing to prove the existence of God and another to defend the particulars. The religious have been at this awhile. You may need to give the religious the benefit of the doubt. Like/dislike is not an objective criteria and is not the criteria used in science. It is what it is. We are all after the truth, aren't we?


Dude, I'm not asking you hard questions like prove God here. I'm pitching you softies and you can't even get them right. For instance you keep making this "face blindness" claim because you don't even know the actual name of what you're talking about. Also when you described how "face blindness" worked you're description was pathetically wrong.

This whole top down thing, at least the way you are doing it is a demonstrable failure, every time you've made a check-able claim you've been dead wrong. Even just putting your claims up against your claims showed you to be wrong. Not just a little wrong, glaringly so; I don't think there's a single poster in the thread who hasn't made a statement about how your rants sound cuckoo for cocoa puffs.



Kirata -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 7:06:20 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM

Do you actually think splitting hairs on this one is going to make a difference?

I think that as long as physicalists keep pushing their dogma as "atheism," a lot of people are going to be making highly unwarranted assumptions about anyone who says that they don't believe in God. Accepting and promoting that stereotype benefits nobody.

K.



GotSteel -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 7:16:51 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
You cannot give all your time to just one disruptive student.


The problem is it's not just one, look around who in the thread is agreeing with you? Who in the thread even think that the stuff you've been saying sounds sane?

Sure if it was just one [sm=dunno.gif] but it's not, you are failing the whole class. Seems to me like any remotely competent teacher would try a different way of explaining themselves.

Explaining the difference between enlightenment and insanity would be a good start or is it just a distinction without a difference?



GotSteel -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 7:37:12 PM)

Wow, that's the best religious argument I've ever heard for freedom of religion.



BenevolentM -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 7:45:20 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel

The problem is it's not just one, look around who in the thread is agreeing with you?


People are scared to agree with me. I've had people mention to this to me in private already. This environment does not reward virtuous conduct. Agreeing with me won't get you laid. At least I don't think so. Hope does spring eternal though.

My opinion of you has not changed. I'm hoping that Kirata will open up. He might have interesting things to say even if it is not strictly speaking on point. When Kirata speaks, people listen. I have a whole lot more respect for him than I do you.



Zonie63 -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 8:09:17 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM

In response to post 319. It is one thing to prove the existence of God and another to defend the particulars. The religious have been at this awhile. You may need to give the religious the benefit of the doubt. Like/dislike is not an objective criteria and is not the criteria used in science. It is what it is. We are all after the truth, aren't we?


I'm well aware that the religious have been at this for a while - at least thousands of years. But for the vast majority of those thousands of years, they've had a captive audience of people who were given no other choice. People had to be forced to believe, with the church using all kinds of atrocity and brutality to get people to toe the line. Now that religion can no longer do that in free countries, you wonder why people choose not to believe? You think it's because of fossil fuels?

I didn't ask for any proof of the existence of "God," only because I already know there isn't any. But as I said upthread, I'm an agnostic, so I'm at least willing to entertain the possibility that there might be some sort of intelligent design or "Creator."

And yes, I agree that we're all after the truth, but I would prefer it to be a confirmed truth, not wild guesses, conjecture, or unfounded speculation. I also agree that it's not question of like or dislike. But with scientists, skeptics, atheists, agnostics - you can assume that we're all from Missouri: You have to show us. [:D]




xssve -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 8:53:11 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM

quote:

ORIGINAL: xssve

it's science vs. superstition.


This is easy to address though you are likely in a state of denial, but atheism relies heavily on superstition. Atheism makes a very big assumption, namely metaphysical objects do not exist. That is in practice a very, very big assumption. One of the metaphysical objects is the law of excluded middle which you just employed. Belief in God relies heavily on the law of excluded middle. No one has been successful at proving that the law of excluded middle is invalid. In fact the empirical evidence strongly suggests that it is valid. The physics models rely heavily on the law of excluded middle. In order to overturn the law of excluded middle you must overturn physics.

The law of the excluded middle? Try the law of the observant herd, I think that's more your speed..

Atheists assume that imaginary things don't exist?

That's the problem?

Enlightened my ass, I think probably you're the harbinger of the disenlightenment.

And I thought I needed to get laid.



xssve -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 8:55:14 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM

Concerning post 304. xssve, your posts in general are delightfully detailed. From the stand point of argument one must often proceed in stages. In this case from the general to the specific. One must first establish whether monotheism is valid or plausible before one can approach whether its taboos and rituals are valid.

Valid? It's all in your head - when it comes to pure abstraction, unfettered by practical reality, one thing is as valid as the next.

Empiricism is where the rubber meets the road: what is it's utility?



Kirata -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 9:02:36 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: xssve

Atheists assume that imaginary things don't exist?

That's the problem?

You bet it is. Having a cadre of inquisitorial priests imposing upon the unwashed their holy dogma of what is "imaginary" and therefore "doesn't exist" is a problem. Whether from the pulpit or a podium, they're birds of a feather.

K.



tweakabelle -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 9:26:26 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kirata


quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM

atheism relies heavily on superstition. Atheism makes a very big assumption, namely metaphysical objects do not exist.

You are conflating Atheism with Physicalism.

K.

And that's far from the only conflation happening here. The primary conflation appears to me to be a conflation of Ego and Enlightenment.

On a more positive note, it is entertaining - in the style of a Groucho Marx rant [:D]



GotSteel -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 9:52:53 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zonie63
And yes, I agree that we're all after the truth, but I would prefer it to be a confirmed truth, not wild guesses, conjecture, or unfounded speculation. I also agree that it's not question of like or dislike. But with scientists, skeptics, atheists, agnostics - you can assume that we're all from Missouri: You have to show us. [:D]


I'm going with Zonie on this, after thousands of years religions have produced what actual knowledge exactly? The oracle at Delphi didn't give us the computer, the burning bush didn't give us the theory of evolution, Jesus didn't give us the theory of relativity. Compare that to just the knowledge science has given us in the last 100 years and the difference is staggering. As Stephen Hawking has said:

“There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, [and] science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works,”

Now I don't know what we'll find going forward, I don't even know if science is the best method we'll ever find. What I do know is that your way of doing things doesn't work as you've so aptly demonstrated for everyone in this thread.



GotSteel -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 10:06:14 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
My opinion of you has not changed.


Considering how fractally wrong your opinion is it should have been easy to learn something. That you haven't is just.....well it's really sad.



GotSteel -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 10:11:32 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BenevolentM
People are scared to agree with me. I've had people mention to this to me in private already.


The religious posters around here are generally willing to chime in but have left you talking to yourself. The people who are in the thread have not been scared to express what they think of your positions. So I'm left wondering, are these people imaginary?



tweakabelle -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/22/2012 10:25:51 PM)

quote:

Science will win because it works


Science will win, within its area of competence, because, within its area of competence, it works.

Science's area of competence is not unlimited. So there are problems with claiming science has unlimited applications or can offer insights into issues that remain outside its area of competence. Humans have always had, and (my guess is) will continue to have values other than and higher than utility.

Religion's area of competence has yet to be established fully in my view. Whether theism, or any of the -isms that exist in a relationship of conceptual dependency to theism (such as a-theism) has anything useful at all to contribute to this debate is also open to question IMHO.

That said, I do agree with your conclusion that "What I do know is that your [BM's] way of doing things doesn't work as [BM has] so aptly demonstrated for everyone in this thread".



GotSteel -> RE: Benevolent's Taxonomy of Atheism (3/23/2012 6:01:07 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

quote:

Science will win because it works


Science will win, within its area of competence, because, within its area of competence, it works.

Science's area of competence is not unlimited. So there are problems with claiming science has unlimited applications or can offer insights into issues that remain outside its area of competence. Humans have always had, and (my guess is) will continue to have values other than and higher than utility.

I agree, there are areas where scientific understanding is incomplete and even ones where science has nothing useful to tell us. It seems entirely plausible that this will always be the case. But, at the same time since science's "area of competence" keeps growing I'm unwilling to hazard a guess as to what ultimately the scope of science will end up being.



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