(January 5, 2016 at 4:57 pm)God of Mr. Hanky Wrote: Can I get some blue cheese, and perhaps a little red wine with that word salad?

Rather than demonstrate how I may have failed to make a coherent argument, your merely resort to anti-intellectual hand-waving. Your teachers must be so proud of you. (That goes for you too, Lady Camus!)

(January 5, 2016 at 4:30 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: [quote='mh.brewer' pid='1162408' dateline='1452025515']

Yes. You can have a knowledgeable belief. No one is trying to stop you.

Quote:Do I have to prove I have this knowledge via scientific method or evidence or philosophical arguments to claim it?

Yes. If you claim to have knowledge about a particular subject matter, you should be able to demonstrate that knowledge convincingly to other people, ESPECIALLY if you are trying to persuade others into believing you actually have it.

That is my whole point.

(January 7, 2016 at 4:01 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(January 5, 2016 at 4:57 pm)God of Mr. Hanky Wrote: Can I get some blue cheese, and perhaps a little red wine with that word salad?

Rather than demonstrate how I may have failed to make a coherent argument, your merely resort to anti-intellectual hand-waving. Your teachers must be so proud of you. (That goes for you too, Lady Camus!)

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you Chad . Longer posts take me longer to complete as I am at home with a 17 month old all day. Free time comes in short, random bursts.

(January 7, 2016 at 4:01 pm)ChadWooters Wrote:

(January 5, 2016 at 4:57 pm)God of Mr. Hanky Wrote: Can I get some blue cheese, and perhaps a little red wine with that word salad?

Rather than demonstrate how I may have failed to make a coherent argument, your merely resort to anti-intellectual hand-waving. Your teachers must be so proud of you. (That goes for you too, Lady Camus!)

Quote:As I see it, dicohotomies like natural/supernatural and scientific/spiritual serve more as terms of art than precise distinctions. In my preceding posts, I made a clumsy efforts to reveal these ambiguities.
The OP’s author appears to be ignorant of this. I don’t blame anyone from using terms of art. I use them all the time. It is only natural that many errors and misunderstandings follow when the same word can covey multiple meanings. ‘Natural’ is itself one such adjective. Some people think that natural and reality are the same. I do not. Nature refers only to physical objects, their features and attributes. Reality includes both physical and non-physical objects, like circles and triangles. Nor does non-physical necessarily mean magical, depending of course on what you mean by magic.

I believe that you believe it's art, but when you challenge a scientific idea, art need not apply. Science is water, and art is fire. The art you've shown here is a match flame already flickering in the breeze.

If you dispute that nature and reality are different, then instead of going apeshit with insults when we disagree you should

1. Not do anything until you've taken another hard look at your position, considering why you believe it's correct
and
2. If you still hold the same position after Step 1, then give us a reason why anyone, including the skeptics (not the few special snowflakes who are so enlightened above us because they had an "experience") should believe it too.

If you won't do the above, then what are you doing here?

On nature and reality: so, maybe the reality of circles and rectangles are nature, or maybe they aren't - ok, then!
What we can say for sure is they are both reality - I could probably stop right here, but I doubt that will be enough for you.

Q: What have circles, rectangles, and other mathematical realities ever meant to species other than Homo Sapiens?
A: Nothing - when they come upon or are confronted by an object, a body, or other life form, most species don't need to describe it, therefore they don't need to call it one thing or another. They need to decide between two maybes: maybe they could use it, or maybe they should run from it. Whatever the hell said opportunity or danger is, it's shape and other mathematical figures which characterize it are strictly human constructs which we created in order to help us sort out the disparate realities which we are capable of perceiving.

The sorting out and description of realities made it possible for us to actually use data from our observations, and without the ability to do these we wouldn't be able to tell each other whether our home planet is a sphere or a block. Hey, there you go, a sphere certainly is natural, and a reality all at the same time. By the way, we too are part of nature - we evolved by, and we do what we do according to our natural impulses. The ability to think like we do - yup, that too is a natural phenomenon. So if I draw this circle on paper with a pencil, and you say that isn't natural, well you would be making at best a subjective argument. Moreover, to separate the non-eating, non-mating, non-sleeping, and non-defecating activities of humans from nature on account of the intelligence which is required to do these is akin to saying no other animals have any intelligence - that's a certain falsehood to those who study animal behavior! Therefore, I see no valid cause for a separation between reality and nature. I think the only time I ever said anything to the contrary on nature was when I was a kid at the zoo - "Wow, that's so unreal!"

(January 7, 2016 at 4:22 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote:

(January 5, 2016 at 4:30 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Yes.  If you claim to have knowledge about a particular subject matter, you should be able to demonstrate that knowledge convincingly to other people, ESPECIALLY  if you are trying to persuade others into believing you actually have it.

That is not true for various things. When I go to the Doctor, I don't need to know how rigorous the system is, or how knowledgeable that doctor is, I can trust their opinion for other reason, and he can claim to know certain things. If you want certainty, that's another issue.
Aside from that belief compassion is good or there is human value or what not, is not something I have to prove to anyone to remind them of it. If you are going to teach your kid for example that they can't claim to believe in human value if they don't prove it, then that's rather sad. Or if you make a write an essay to prove they value your motherhood and why, and what not....that's rather sad as well.
A lot of knowledge is to live it, to experience in it first hand. You can then remind people of things you believe they ought to know from what they experienced by believing hey we are humans, I've experienced this, etc. 

Now this doesn't mean God is off the hook that She doesn't have  proven but you haven't shown She is on the hook that She must be proven either.

(January 7, 2016 at 5:37 pm)MysticKnight Wrote:

(January 7, 2016 at 4:22 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote:

That is not true for various things. When I go to the Doctor, I don't need to know how rigorous the system is, or how knowledgeable that doctor is, I can trust their opinion for other reason, and he can claim to know certain things. If you want certainty, that's another issue.
Aside from that belief compassion is good or there is human value or what not, is not something I have to prove to anyone to remind them of it. If you are going to teach your kid for example that they can't claim to believe in human value if they don't prove it, then that's rather sad. Or if you make a write an essay to prove they value your motherhood and why, and what not....that's rather sad as well.
A lot of knowledge is to live it, to experience in it first hand. You can then remind people of things you believe they ought to know from what they experienced by believing hey we are humans, I've experienced this, etc. 

Now this doesn't mean God is off the hook that She doesn't have  proven but you haven't shown She is on the hook that She must be proven either.

You should absolutely want to know how knowledgable your doctor is!!! You should always be your own patient advocate, and not just trust any doctor simply because he has "MD" after his name! Especially if you feel you aren't getting proper care. This is called critical thinking. And yes, a doctor is not obligated to explain everything he knows to you, but he certainly is capable of it. He went to medical school and he has degrees to prove he has learned and demonstrated his knowledge to a particular standard.

I
As far as the other stuff, human value and compassion and all that: again those are all very natural aspects of our species that do not necessarily require a scientific explanation to be experienced, but they can be explained scientifically if someone were to ask.

(January 7, 2016 at 5:50 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote:

(January 7, 2016 at 5:37 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: That is not true for various things. When I go to the Doctor, I don't need to know how rigorous the system is, or how knowledgeable that doctor is, I can trust their opinion for other reason, and he can claim to know certain things. If you want certainty, that's another issue.
Aside from that belief compassion is good or there is human value or what not, is not something I have to prove to anyone to remind them of it. If you are going to teach your kid for example that they can't claim to believe in human value if they don't prove it, then that's rather sad. Or if you make a write an essay to prove they value your motherhood and why, and what not....that's rather sad as well.
A lot of knowledge is to live it, to experience in it first hand. You can then remind people of things you believe they ought to know from what they experienced by believing hey we are humans, I've experienced this, etc. 

Now this doesn't mean God is off the hook that She doesn't have  proven but you haven't shown She is on the hook that She must be proven either.

You should absolutely want to know how knowledgable your doctor is!!!  You should always be your own patient advocate, and not just trust any doctor simply because he has "MD" after his name!  Especially if you feel you aren't getting proper care.  This is called critical thinking. And yes, a doctor is not obligated to explain everything he knows to you, but he certainly is capable of it.  He went to medical school and he has degrees to prove he has learned and demonstrated his knowledge to a particular standard.

I
As far as the other stuff, human value and compassion and all that:  again those are all very natural aspects of our species that do not necessarily require a scientific explanation to be experienced, but they can be explained scientifically if someone were to ask.

So he claims x does this and that, and is results in this and that. You tell him, show him the data, the various interpretations of that data, how he knows for certain or explain the whole system to you and how can know etc? Really.

Anyways, I think the first step if you want me to provide various arguments I have for God's existence, then there should a bit of a sign from you you are willing to budge. 

I will provide one, but will not be answering what other people have to say about it, because I've discussed this issue in the past and people responded already.

If God can decide goodness/morality or create it out of nothing, he can decide it's good to rape, he can decide it's good to torture humans forever for no crime of their own with immense torture. 
God can't decide it's good to torture humans forever who for no crime on their own with immense torture.
Therefore he can't decide morality or create it out of nothing.
Morality/goodness is not delusion but part of reality we live by.
If God can't create morality, then neither can evolution, because God can create evolution.
Therefore morality/goodness must be eternal.
Morality/goodness needs perception to be real.
Therefore an eternal perception that sees morality/goodness existed.

Tell me which part of the argument you find fault. I modified the argument from arbitrary and went to specific examples, so it's somewhat different then previous arguments, but to me this just shows we know goodness and eternal basis of it go hand to hand.

Also people if they have faith in your ability to reason will let you discuss with me, instead of everyone gang up on me style.

Also, when I say "God" can't, I'm not asserting She exists, but saying a eternal creator where it to exist this and that...