(November 22, 2020 at 4:50 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: I see that you decided to retract one of your asserted facts - no matter.  

You have yet to get past the point of children's tendencies being more than a brute fact of what children do.  It's no surprise to me that children describe the world as they see it in human terms.  Seems like it might go with the territory of being human.  You think it means more.

How, a giant mystery.  I think you should reread the thread - because the comment above goes past a disagreement regarding facts and deeply into the territory of a bold faced lie.  I did...of course...offer explanations.  None of them had any allah, however, so you didn't like them. 

What explanations did you offer exactly ? I only recall you mentioning some unspecified "behavioral trick" and cultural influence. These factors certainly don't describe this tendency for belief pattern very well, because we observe the latter accross different cultures. So, until you give more referenced details about the trick you're talking about, we'll stick with appearances.

(November 22, 2020 at 4:50 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: If you demanded a chocolate cake and I gave you a couple vanilla cakes...it wouldn't be accurate to say that you'd been given no cake.  Just didn't get the one you wanted.  

So let's start...again, at the very bottom.  Children ascribe purpose to natural phenomena.  They could do this because they're hilarious little fantasy machines and see what doesn't exist, or they might do this because a natural teleology is conceivable.  I suspect that it's a bit of both.

You?

Yes of course, I agree. Children are obviously into fantasy, and there might be some instrinsic feature within them that explains the emergence of teleological thinking naturally. But again, describing these patterns in children scientifically doesn't answer our problem. Any scientific explanation of a given pattern still warrants the question of why the pattern is there in the first place. The same thing can be said about evolution, it doesn't explain away a fine-tuner who intended for natural selection all along to be the driving force behind the variety of life.

Some apologists like WLC consider the discovery of evolutionary processes, namely mutation and natural selection, as something in favor of theism. Because these processes require a whole package of chemical and environmental properties that just can't be ascribed to coincidence. So, even if these patterns in children turn out to have some evolutionary ground, we still have a lot of work to do.

(November 22, 2020 at 4:50 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Who cares whether you have a soul or whether you have something to look forward to?  To hear you lot tell it, most of us who (allegedly) do have souls don't have anything to look forward to, anyway.  

You insisted that without a god you were no different than a battery.  That much is laughably and demonstrably false.

How is it false ? I suppose you agree that a soul isn't conceivable without God. There is an equivalence, a logical one, between the existence of a just God and the existence of a soul. Now if you change the status of the existence of God from 1 to 0, the status of the equivalent assertion changes too.
With that in mind, absent deities and souls, we will die exactly like batteries do. We will simply run out of vital energy and vanish. The possibility of an afterlife and resurrection of people faces very serious difficulties, like the complete loss of identity, of what makes me, me, when our brains simply disappear.

(November 22, 2020 at 4:50 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: It's precisely equivalent to the conjecture that without god, there would be no difference between this or that.  Gods aren;t a difference making property - but asserting that..if a god left the room..you and a battery (or you and I) would be identical is exactly where this assertion goes.  If you don't believe that, then you don't believe your own assertion.

-Which is great...because it's ridiculous on it's face. 

As explained above, the existence of God is a difference making property with regards to souls and afterlife. Absent these two, we and batteries are the sum total of our constituent atoms, that's all there is to it.

(November 22, 2020 at 4:50 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Could?  Could but don't?  You leave me wondering what your life is supposed to mean with a god.  

You tell me that absent a god your life is without purpose, I rattle of some things that people find purpose in, things you mentioned...and you nope out.  Perhaps your life truly is purposeless...but you must understand that this is a you problem? 

Where exactly did I "nope out" ? I did say that finding purpose in these things is great, I do them too when I can. The relevant thing here is that, absent a god, we only have makeshift purposes. We can sometimes prevent the occurence of these bad things and enforce law, but there will always be some people, such as victims of these bad things, cannot find purpose without God.
As I said before, what would motivate some bereaved mother of a dozen of deceased children to carry on in life, other than the thought of them being in eternal bliss, until she "joins" them ?

(November 22, 2020 at 4:50 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Anywho, there are plenty f things that you could do for suffering people.  I suspect you have as much interest in that as you have in any other non-god thing.  This is one of the things about your god concept that irks me to no end.  

You excuse yourself for being worthless and uninterested in becoming worthy on account of it.

Go ahead. Keep polishing your strawman. Religious people are uninterested in helping suffering people.......

(November 22, 2020 at 2:24 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: Sorry, still catching up here. Is @Klorophyll s argument: children believe in the supernatural, therefore god exists?

This is a very important question that needs an answer (preferably in yes/no format) so that I don’t have to read the whole thing.

(November 28, 2020 at 3:26 pm)Apollo Wrote:

(November 22, 2020 at 2:24 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: Sorry, still catching up here. Is @Klorophyll s argument: children believe in the supernatural, therefore god exists?

This is a very important question that needs an answer (preferably in yes/no format) so that I don’t have to read the whole thing.

You're new here - don't hold your breath waiting for an answer from Klorophorm that isn't a wall of rambling text.

(November 28, 2020 at 3:30 pm)arewethereyet Wrote:

(November 28, 2020 at 3:26 pm)Apollo Wrote: This is a very important question that needs an answer (preferably in yes/no format) so that I don’t have to read the whole thing.

You're new here - don't hold your breath waiting for an answer from Klorophorm that isn't a wall of rambling text.

Thanks for the insight. I guess I can resume breathing at this point.

(November 27, 2020 at 5:18 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Meh, brainwashing isn't really a thing, people are active participants in their indoctrination.  

I do wonder what various and personal reasons related to thinking and observing you have for believing that a test should not be fair.  I don't care what magic book has to say on the issue or whether some imaginary themepark in the sky is a more fair place than this.  

What makes you think that an unfair test is testing anything at all about the people taking it?  Is the 5th grader with 2nd grade questions and 100% accurate answers better at the subject than the 5th grader with 10th grade questions and 80% accurate answers?  We could repeat the question with the same set of 5th grade questions for both 5th graders - but one kid has to dodge bullets while he takes the test..and the other, comfy in his chair with all the snacks and juice he needs.  I find it hard to believe that you've never taken a test in your life, and so couldn't observe that we standardize them exactly so that they're fair, but..also, so that they function as an actual test of who is better at a subject rather than who got the easiest set of questions or the more conducive circumstance.  

This isn't a question of whether you believe life to be unfair, or whether you believe that heaven will be fair.

I'll leave Winterhold settle this issue. It should be remarked, though, that the unfairness of life doesn't contradict the fairness of the test. An all-knowing and just deity tests people on what they can do, on decisions they consciously make. no matter how small and meaningless to us.

---

(November 28, 2020 at 3:26 pm)Apollo Wrote:

(November 22, 2020 at 2:24 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: Sorry, still catching up here. Is @Klorophyll s argument: children believe in the supernatural, therefore god exists?

This is a very important question that needs an answer (preferably in yes/no format) so that I don’t have to read the whole thing.

No. This is not my argument.

The argument is merely probabilistic : patterns of telelogical thinking in children is more probably than not due to a designer.

(November 28, 2020 at 3:57 pm)Klorophyll Wrote:

(November 27, 2020 at 5:18 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Meh, brainwashing isn't really a thing, people are active participants in their indoctrination.  

I do wonder what various and personal reasons related to thinking and observing you have for believing that a test should not be fair.  I don't care what magic book has to say on the issue or whether some imaginary themepark in the sky is a more fair place than this.  

What makes you think that an unfair test is testing anything at all about the people taking it?  Is the 5th grader with 2nd grade questions and 100% accurate answers better at the subject than the 5th grader with 10th grade questions and 80% accurate answers?  We could repeat the question with the same set of 5th grade questions for both 5th graders - but one kid has to dodge bullets while he takes the test..and the other, comfy in his chair with all the snacks and juice he needs.  I find it hard to believe that you've never taken a test in your life, and so couldn't observe that we standardize them exactly so that they're fair, but..also, so that they function as an actual test of who is better at a subject rather than who got the easiest set of questions or the more conducive circumstance.  

This isn't a question of whether you believe life to be unfair, or whether you believe that heaven will be fair.

I'll leave Winterhold to settle this issue. It should be remarked, though, that the unfairness of life doesn't contradict the fairness of the test. An all-knowing an just deity tests people on what they can do, on decisions they consciously make. no matter how small and meaningless to us.

---

(November 28, 2020 at 3:26 pm)Apollo Wrote: This is a very important question that needs an answer (preferably in yes/no format) so that I don’t have to read the whole thing.

No. This is not my argument.

The argument is merely probabilistic : patterns of telelogical thinking in children is more probably than not due to a designer.

I think so too—but that designer is natural selection not some vague supernatural guy named allah.

(November 28, 2020 at 3:30 pm)arewethereyet Wrote:

(November 28, 2020 at 3:26 pm)Apollo Wrote: This is a very important question that needs an answer (preferably in yes/no format) so that I don’t have to read the whole thing.

You're new here - don't hold your breath waiting for an answer from Klorophorm that isn't a wall of rambling text.

The repeated insults to my sacred name won't go unanswered. I will take my revenge.

(November 28, 2020 at 4:17 pm)Klorophyll Wrote:

(November 28, 2020 at 3:30 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: You're new here - don't hold your breath waiting for an answer from Klorophorm that isn't a wall of rambling text.

The repeated insults to my sacred name won't go unanswered. I will take my revenge.

Calm down, Klorophallus.

Boru

(November 28, 2020 at 3:15 pm)Klorophyll Wrote: What explanations did you offer exactly ? I only recall you mentioning some unspecified "behavioral trick" and cultural influence. These factors certainly don't describe this tendency for belief pattern very well, because we observe the latter accross different cultures. So, until you give more referenced details about the trick you're talking about, we'll stick with appearances.

Tick, not trick.  A tick might be a brute fact.  Something that we do no matter what the explanation for that thing is.  Maybe I knock on doors exactly 5 (and never 4, and never 6) times.  Reason?  Any reason, or no reason - it's just a thing I do.  Perhaps children ascribe purpose to natural phenomena for no reason or no satisfying reason whatsoever - that this is a fact describing what children do.  Say, imagining things.

Or, perhaps...children ascribe purpose to natural phenomena because they're accurately observing a natural teleology.

There are two possible explanations, as unsatisfyng as they may be and as god free as they are - that you will need to consider.  Or, at least, you would need to consider these before you declare that this is evidence of some silly god.

Quote:Yes of course, I agree. Children are obviously into fantasy, and there might be some instrinsic feature within them that explains the emergence of teleological thinking naturally. But again, describing these patterns in children scientifically doesn't answer our problem. Any scientific explanation of a given pattern still warrants the question of why the pattern is there in the first place. The same thing can be said about evolution, it doesn't explain away a fine-tuner who intended for natural selection all along to be the driving force behind the variety of life.

Some apologists like WLC consider the discovery of evolutionary processes, namely mutation and natural selection, as something in favor of theism. Because these processes require a whole package of chemical and environmental properties that just can't be ascribed to coincidence. So, even if these patterns in children turn out to have some evolutionary ground, we still have a lot of work to do.

Excellent, you agree.  Children do imagine things.  Sometimes...the things the ascribe to this or that can be explained by the mere invocation of what kids do.  

That's one of the reasons that what kids do isn't exactly a great indicator for the existence of any x.  

Quote:How is it false ? I suppose you agree that a soul isn't conceivable without God. There is an equivalence, a logical one, between the existence of a just God and the existence of a soul. Now if you change the status of the existence of God from 1 to 0, the status of the equivalent assertion changes too.
With that in mind, absent deities and souls, we will die exactly like batteries do. We will simply run out of vital energy and vanish. The possibility of an afterlife and resurrection of people faces very serious difficulties, like the complete loss of identity, of what makes me, me, when our brains simply disappear.

There is no fact about you which differentiates you from a battery that changes when a god enters or leaves the picture.  That's how it;s demonstrably (and risibly) false.  

Quote:As explained above, the existence of God is a difference making property with regards to souls and afterlife. Absent these two, we and batteries are the sum total of our constituent atoms, that's all there is to it.

No, it isn't.  Is there any difference to their being an afterlife between an afterlife with a god, and an afterlife without one?  No.  In both cases there is an afterlife, and the existence of a god is additional and irrelevant to the existence of an afterlife.  Tighten up.

Quote:Where exactly did I "nope out" ? I did say that finding purpose in these things is great, I do them too when I can. The relevant thing here is that, absent a god, we only have makeshift purposes. We can sometimes prevent the occurence of these bad things and enforce law, but there will always be some people, such as victims of these bad things, cannot find purpose without God.
As I said before, what would motivate some bereaved mother of a dozen of deceased children to carry on in life, other than the thought of them being in eternal bliss, until she "joins" them ?

You nope out when these things are brought up..you acknowledge that they exist, and then decide that your life is still meaningfully meaningless in the absence of some silly god.  

So -what- if we only have Makeshift Purposes™.....?  If that's what it would mean to be in a universe without a god, to you, then so be it.  We still have all those Makeshift Purposes™.  If your complaint or your inference is that by noticing purpose in life we can declare that a god exists or is more likely to exist..again demonstrably and risibily false.  We can notice purpose in life and say that this is a product of all of that makeshift purpose.

Next.

Quote:Go ahead. Keep polishing your strawman. Religious people are uninterested in helping suffering people.......

Oh, you mean Makeshift Purpose™?  The kind that you won't accept for your brilliant argument?  Get out of here with this trash.

Quote:I'll leave Winterhold settle this issue. It should be remarked, though, that the unfairness of life doesn't contradict the fairness of the test. An all-knowing and just deity tests people on what they can do, on decisions they consciously make. no matter how small and meaningless to us.

Exactly as I told Winter - I don't care whether or not you think this life is fair..or that you have some further silly belief about this life as a divine test... or how any combination of those two things leads you to conclude this or that about some djinns asserted soul forge.

Do you, like Winter, believe that a test shouldn't be fair, if so, why?

---

Quote:The argument is merely probabilistic : patterns of telelogical thinking in children is more probably than not due to a designer.

-and it's a completely garbage argument for all the reasons listed and more, if you insist.  So get a better one?  Surely, the very real god and very real author of this very real creation has some very real and very competent argument that in this very real world really did cause you to believe through a real process of real logical inference.

Let's see even the faintest glimmer of that. As it stands, god assumed (without any need to argue or provide evidence) is only 1/3 of the potential explanations for children ascribing purpose to natural phenomena. That's with just one guy offering just two other possibilities. The real spread leaves god approaching one out of.. essentially, infinity. It's already, more probably, not because of a god - regardless of whether a god exists - a secondary question which no observation of this kind may be capable of ascertaining in the first place.

All of your work, as the man said, is still ahead of you.

(November 28, 2020 at 4:17 pm)Klorophyll Wrote:

(November 28, 2020 at 3:30 pm)arewethereyet Wrote: You're new here - don't hold your breath waiting for an answer from Klorophorm that isn't a wall of rambling text.

The repeated insults to my sacred name won't go unanswered. I will take my revenge.

What?

You'll cry at us?