...and yet nothing coherent fills the vast hole created by the absence of a god concept. Hmmmm.

Yeah we haven't found the first cause so let's say a magical caretaker did it.

A caretaker who takes care of people by allowing them to murder, rape and molest each other because he thinks free will is more important.

Like a parent who lets their children play in traffic because they want to give them freedom.

My moderately large penis is more likely to be a creator of the universe than God. I know the former exists.

And they're both pricks either way...

(January 31, 2017 at 4:07 pm)emjay Wrote: Do you understand what I've been trying to say?

Reasonably well, I think.   

Quote:I don't think he does and I'm starting not to either I accept the value of reason in the environment (ie the physical universe) we inhabit; that there are relationships - ie causality - that we can discover, to ever increasing levels of detail, using both our statistical 'passive' modeling and reasoning, and our capacity for abstraction means that it's basically limitless how deep we can go in any particular field of study. Ie truth is 'out there' in the form of relationships and all we've got to do is mine it So I'd say I'm a rational person... I may not be formally logically trained, and the course will help with that, but I'm nonetheless logical and skeptical.

Whereas Neo's only interest in feigning logical discourse lies with inserting his god in syntax.

Quote:Do you think I'm rational?

Well, I mean, you're human..so..at worst, a rationalizer...and at best...yeah, sure.  

(January 31, 2017 at 10:12 pm)Khemikal Wrote:

(January 31, 2017 at 4:07 pm)emjay Wrote: Do you understand what I've been trying to say?

Reasonably well, I think.   

Well, I guess that's all I can ever really hope for... if I can go through life and have someone else understand me reasonably well... they think... then I've done my job well

Quote:

Quote:I don't think he does and I'm starting not to either I accept the value of reason in the environment (ie the physical universe) we inhabit; that there are relationships - ie causality - that we can discover, to ever increasing levels of detail, using both our statistical 'passive' modeling and reasoning, and our capacity for abstraction means that it's basically limitless how deep we can go in any particular field of study. Ie truth is 'out there' in the form of relationships and all we've got to do is mine it So I'd say I'm a rational person... I may not be formally logically trained, and the course will help with that, but I'm nonetheless logical and skeptical.

Whereas Neo's only interest in feigning logical discourse lies with inserting his god in syntax.

Er... no comment Believe it or not I am interested in understanding Aquinas' arguments, and by extension, Chad's... properly... not just at face value but really understanding them. And seeing for myself just how coherent their God concept actually is, but can't do that without truly understanding it. The same with any arguments; I don't want to distort the meaning with my own assumptions, I want to know what theirs are and therefore understand it from their perspective rather than mine. That's one of the skills I need to learn with my course; how to disect, extract, and above all understand an argument. You've always struck me as kind of superhuman in your ability to size up an argument (reasonably well ) so any tips on how to do it efficiently? For instance have you ever read the Summa Theologica? It's not exactly a small book and if understanding Aquinas' arguments basically requires learning a whole framework of concepts to put it into context then I doubt it's feasible to truly understand it unless you're really into it. How would you go about extracting the essence of the Summa, if you haven't already?

Quote:

Quote:Do you think I'm rational?

Well, I mean, you're human..so..at worst, a rationalizer...and at best...yeah, sure.  

Nice dodge

MJ, I never said you yourself weren't rational. Quite the opposite. I am commenting on the idea that human reason cannot be trusted as a means to attain knowledge since it was selected for fitness not verasity.

(February 1, 2017 at 12:03 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: MJ, I never said you yourself weren't rational. Quite the opposite. I am commenting on the idea that human reason cannot be trusted as a means to attain knowledge since it was selected for fitness not verasity.

No worries Intuitively I think I agree with you... in fact at first sight it looks pretty much like what I was trying to say (but don't quote me on that because in philosophy I never know if I'm talking about the same thing as someone else, even if it looks like we are ), but I think of it in terms of scope. So do you believe in evolution then?

I don't believe in evolution. I accept it as the best and most firmly established theory of biological speciation. And I'm not a fan of intelligent design either. It seems like a misguided effort.

(February 1, 2017 at 12:45 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: I don't believe in evolution. I accept it as the best and most firmly established theory of biological speciation. And I'm not a fan of intelligent design either. It seems like a misguided effort.

Sorry for my wording... I guess I'm just so used to (some) theists treating it like an alternative 'religion' to believe in or not rather than a best hypothesis scenario.

(February 1, 2017 at 12:45 am)Neo-Scholastic Wrote: I don't believe in evolution. I accept it as the best and most firmly established theory of biological speciation. And I'm not a fan of intelligent design either. It seems like a misguided effort.

OK, fair enough. So before speciation started to occur, how do you envisage what 'man' looked like?
Was he Caucasian, negro, Polynesian, etc, or a one size fits all blank which then went on to speciate all the others?

Was first man hairy? Was that in God's image also...