(August 14, 2009 at 3:41 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:

(August 14, 2009 at 3:31 pm)Eilonnwy Wrote: I'm a dishonest person when all you can do is argue with fancy words and not empirical evidence? Come on, you can do better than that.

When you claim I've implied things I obviously didn't imply. As for not having empirical evidence, even though you may not know it, large parts of my argument from potential/actual realities and existents depends solely upon knowledge that cannot be obtained in a non-empirical way.

(August 14, 2009 at 3:31 pm)Eilonnwy Wrote: Until you can produce evidence that's supports what you say, then every argument you present is just your own assertion and nothing more.

Right, my "own assertion". It happens to be built on something far more than my own assertions; it happens to be built on a fundamental recognition of workings of reality which has been developed in the Aristotelian (and other) traditions over a thousand year long period, leading up to the development of modern science within Christendom. I'd love to see you dispute that potencies and actualities are words without meanings by the way, and that they don't really apply to reality. If you do so, you are contradicting what we know most fundamentally and talking nonsense, just to substantiate your idea that my claims are only "assertions" without meaning.

I never said your words have no meanings, I only ever said that you apply them in a way that ends up to be circular reasoning.

Also, I never denied Arisotle's laws of logic and so forth. I completely agree with them and I have no problem with them at all. All I have ever said is that you completely fail to show how this logic absolutely proves that god exists, and even if you did you cannot possibly make the leap from god exists to the Christian god exists.

(August 14, 2009 at 5:01 pm)Eilonnwy Wrote: Also, I never denied Arisotle's laws of logic and so forth. I completely agree with them and I have no problem with them at all. All I have ever said is that you completely fail to show how this logic absolutely proves that god exists, and even if you did you cannot possibly make the leap from god exists to the Christian god exists.

Finally someone gives me a lead on these laws ... thanks Eilonnwy!

First thought ... they appear to be thje basis of computer/electronics logic i.e

• The law of non-contradiction (A is not non-A)
  
• The law of identity (A is A)
  
• The law of excluded middle (either A or non-A)
  
• The law of rational inference from what is known to what is unknown

Broadly speaking they seem to equate to:

• NOT (A is not non-A)
  
• AND (A is A)
  
• OR (either A or non-A)

I guess there should also be a XOR/NOR there but they're probably derived from those as combinations so that's cool (I'm sure Adrian or Leo will correct me on those if I'm wrong).

What remains clear though is that there is no "Law of Contradiction" (no matter how rational it may sound to JP).

Kyu

(August 14, 2009 at 5:55 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote:

(August 14, 2009 at 5:01 pm)Eilonnwy Wrote: Also, I never denied Arisotle's laws of logic and so forth. I completely agree with them and I have no problem with them at all. All I have ever said is that you completely fail to show how this logic absolutely proves that god exists, and even if you did you cannot possibly make the leap from god exists to the Christian god exists.

Finally someone gives me a lead on these laws ... thanks Eilonnwy!

First thought ... they appear to be thje basis of computer/electronics logic i.e

• The law of non-contradiction (A is not non-A)
  
• The law of identity (A is A)
  
• The law of excluded middle (either A or non-A)
  
• The law of rational inference from what is known to what is unknown

Broadly speaking they seem to equate to:

• NOT (A is not non-A)
  
• AND (A is A)
  
• OR (either A or non-A)

I guess there should also be a XOR/NOR there but they're probably derived from those as combinations so that's cool (I'm sure Adrian or Leo will correct me on those if I'm wrong).

What remains clear though is that there is no "Law of Contradiction" (no matter how rational it may sound to JP).

Kyu

The law of contradiction is the same as the law of non-contradiction, or the principle of contradiction.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Summed up well kyu.

There should be another one:

The unknown does not = whatever first century BC imagined it to be.

Fucking hell, over 40 pages of "goddidit" and still people are biting (including me, it would seem!).

Lets try to sum this up.

JP, I believe your epistemoligical argument has now been refuted, as you've tried to provide a logical argument for moral and logical truth from an objective mind, but have yet to provide any evidence for this, and your argument been refuted in many ways, one of which my quote below demonstrates.

Your 'ideal' of "logical truth" can be likened to whether or not the theory of evolution exists independently of subjective minds or, as you have trivially changed it to "Is the theory of evolution true regardless of what human minds think about it's truth?."

This question of "Truth" is irrelevant, we are talking about a natural mindless mechanism. We cannot assign value-judgements (i.e. truth or falsity) to events outside of the human realm of existence. The very notion is illogical. You can quote the "principle" (not law) of non-contradiction, but again this only describes a function/property/mechanism of reality. You have demonstrated no need for an additional "Objective mind"

Outside the human realm of conceptualism there exists ONLY FUNCTION. To assign subejctive semantic values to this function in order to attempt to prove an objective mind is ludicrous. It's similar to Dan Dennett talking about the concept of 'what colour was the sky before human beings inhabited the planet?" (its a non-question)

So, if logical truth is a natural mindless mechanism/property of reality, (and I'm pretty sure you can't refute that) there is no need to posit a transcendental objective mind, as per Occam's razor.

Your entire second argument (the a posteriori) is based on a "first cause" argument. (which you have denied on more than one occasion - and as such, I accuse you of intellectual dishonesty).

Whichever way you dress your argument up (in your case, as a causally regressive chain of potentialities and actualities, which results in the concept of "actus purus" - THIS IS A FIRST CAUSE ARGUMENT. So without offering evidence for your god as the first cause, you may as well postulate the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

And don't give me that shit about the FSM being made of physical spaghetti, so therefore is not transcendental, (which is a requirement of your god); - as we ALL know, the notion of FSM actually flying or being made out of spaghetti is purely metaphorical, and anyone who believes the literal truth of FSM is being narrow minded, and not acknowledging the true transcendental nature of FSM.

With that, I've had enough of this thread. As I've previously said to you; I saw another atheist forum, which you infiltrated and spent many pages going round the same circular arguments. You were refuted and dismissed there, and exactly the same has happened here.

Cheerio!

(August 14, 2009 at 7:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: JP, I believe your epistemoligical argument has now been refuted, as you've tried to provide a logical argument for moral and logical truth from an objective mind, but have yet to provide any evidence for this, and your argument been refuted in many ways, one of which my quote below demonstrates.

You are simply asserting your opinion without actually engaging my argument. First of all, the orthodox TAG does not rely upon any extrinsic evidence, because it is not an extrinsic-evidential argument, but one of the intrinsic logical coherence of foundational beliefs. Second, even my heterodox formulation of a transcendental argument, which bases itself on knowledge after the effect of the natural world, you have not even addressed or refuted with any of the contents of your post.

(August 14, 2009 at 7:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: Your 'ideal' of "logical truth" can be likened to whether or not the theory of evolution exists independently of subjective minds or, as you have trivially changed it to "Is the theory of evolution true regardless of what human minds think about it's truth?."

No. You are repeating the same fallacious interpretation of my words that I have already answered to here

(August 13, 2009 at 7:23 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:

(August 13, 2009 at 6:00 pm)amw79 Wrote: Whether or not the theory of evolution exists independently of subjective minds or,

I've never asked if the "theory of evolution" exists independently of human minds, but whether the truth of it does, that is, whether the conceptual content of it such as described in the theory actually conceptually applies to reality, exists independently of human minds or only exists in human minds.

(August 14, 2009 at 7:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: This question of "Truth" is irrelevant, we are talking about a natural mindless mechanism. We cannot assign value-judgements (i.e. truth or falsity) to events outside of the human realm of existence. The very notion is illogical. You can quote the "principle" (not law) of non-contradiction, but again this only describes a function/property/mechanism of reality. You have demonstrated no need for an additional "Objective mind"

Again, you repeat your assertions without actually engaging my argument. Neither of my arguments are about explaining how humans have come to know logical truth, but about the reality and nature of logical order. My (heterodox transcendental) argument is about explaining why any logical rules, laws, patterns, behaviours, or order applies to the natural realm to begin with, and the orthodox transcendental argument is about whether the logical order is transcendent. But neither are about any specific logical laws.

(August 14, 2009 at 7:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: Your entire second argument (the a posteriori) is based on a "first cause" argument. (which you have denied on more than one occasion - and as such, I accuse you of intellectual dishonesty).

Actually, it's not a first cause argument, but a transcendental source of actuality argument, which means that it doesn't depend on the idea of an unbroken causal chain in which all internal causes are traced to "one" first cause, as I've established several places.

(August 14, 2009 at 7:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: And don't give me that shit about the FSM being made of physical spaghetti, so therefore is not transcendental, (which is a requirement of your god); - as we ALL know, the notion of FSM actually flying or being made out of spaghetti is purely metaphorical, and anyone who believes the literal truth of FSM is being narrow minded, and not acknowledging the true transcendental nature of FSM.

Right. Then I can only call you a heretic as to FSM doctrine, and at that, a tasteless heretic, because this metaphor has no significance, and does nothing (according to your own words) to diversify it's doctrinal content away from the transcendent, biblical doctrine of God that my arguments arrive at, and if it does, then it's not supported by any of my arguments.

(August 14, 2009 at 7:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: With that, I've had enough of this thread. As I've previously said to you; I saw another atheist forum, which you infiltrated and spent many pages going round the same circular arguments. You were refuted and dismissed there, and exactly the same has happened here.

I was dismissed, but not refuted. And I was dismissed by you, but neither did you do anything to refute me.

(August 14, 2009 at 6:21 pm)Jon Paul Wrote:

(August 14, 2009 at 5:55 pm)Kyuuketsuki Wrote: Finally someone gives me a lead on these laws ... thanks Eilonnwy!

The law of contradiction is the same as the law of non-contradiction, or the principle of contradiction.

So it's Aristotelian logic ... if you had said that in the first place instead of blindly insisting you were right and I was wrong maybe we'd have got somewhere instead!

Please stop referring to it as the Law of Contradiction.

Kyu

JP I'm confused about which God you believe in here.
In one breath you claim God is "outside" you, and something yuou try to be like.
In the next breath you claim God is the Universe-so do you live "outside" the Universe.
I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked of mythology and the parables because that is exactly what the bible is, a storybook of parables and mythologies that don't know if God is outside of you "John 3:16"
or inside of you "John 17:21"
is it e pluribus unum or not?
are we of the one, or seperate from one?
You, for all your education and intelligence cannot seem to get any sort of grasp on this.
You also know that the earliest writings of the New Testament took place well over 100 years after the death of Jesus-who left NO writings of any kind behind. That there is no recorded history of Jesus outside your admitted mythological book of parables-which could just as well be "The Wizard Of Oz"
I was asking you those questions, simply to see if you trust your beliefs enough to let go of them. If you didn't have to fight for your belief in God, if you didn't believe in God what do you think would happen. Your answers to me were still given from the perspective of there being a God and an afterlife.
My truth is I have discovered that without God and an afterlife each moment is MORE precious, MORE rewarding, and I am much more present in them because I'm not seeing the world through a parable, but simply for what it is. I don't see you through a parable or as somehow relating to a myth or set of beliefs I have about the world. I simply see you as another human being, who I know has the exact same feeling of being the center of the Universe when you refer to yourself as "I".
The difference is "I" know that my beliefs are just that, beliefs. They are part of my chemical analog computers function, to give me a sense of self, of identity and motivation. I find that my beliefs are much more powerful when they are fact driven, and that people who operate from a place of blind faith in their beliefs tend to be somewhat looney, and most definitively stuck, or at best quite confused because they think their beliefs are real.
But are beliefs, and subsequent identities are not real, they are simply a frontal lobe illusion of our identity maker to make us feel real. You surely know that your thoughts are illusions, that they are no more real than what Brad Pitt thinks, or Charlie Manson thinks. Otherwise how do we end up with a Nazi Pope?

So which is your God, outside, or inside?
Om

(August 14, 2009 at 7:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: JP, I believe your epistemoligical argument has now been refuted, as you've tried to provide a logical argument for moral and logical truth from an objective mind, but have yet to provide any evidence for this, and your argument been refuted in many ways, one of which my quote below demonstrates.

(August 14, 2009 at 9:14 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: You are simply asserting your opinion without actually engaging my argument. First of all, the orthodox TAG does not rely upon any extrinsic evidence, because it is not an extrinsic-evidential argument, but one of the intrinsic logical coherence of foundational beliefs. Second, even my heterodox formulation of a transcendental argument, which bases itself on knowledge after the effect of the natural world, you have not even addressed or refuted with any of the contents of your post.

No, your argument HAS been engaged and refuted. You have simply failed to understand the argument.

(August 14, 2009 at 7:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: Your 'ideal' of "logical truth" can be likened to whether or not the theory of evolution exists independently of subjective minds or, as you have trivially changed it to "a posteriori"

JP Wrote:No. You are repeating the same fallacious interpretation of my words that I have already answered to here

No, i directly quoted you re this diifference - re: the [b]truth of the theory of evolution. I specifically pointed out the difference beetween my quote and and yours (describing it as trivial). Anyone can go back and check this - therefore you are a LIAR. (Thou shalt not bear false witness)

(August 13, 2009 at 6:00 pm)amw79 Wrote: Whether or not the theory of evolution exists independently of subjective minds or,

(August 13, 2009 at 7:23 pm)Jon Paul Wrote: I've never asked if the "theory of evolution" exists independently of human minds, but whether the truth of it does, that is, whether the conceptual content of it such as described in the theory actually conceptually applies to reality, exists independently of human minds or only exists in human minds.

(August 14, 2009 at 7:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: This question of "Truth" is irrelevant, we are talking about a natural mindless mechanism. We cannot assign value-judgements (i.e. truth or falsity) to events outside of the human realm of existence. The very notion is illogical.[/b] You can quote the "principle" (not law) of non-contradiction, but again this only describes a function/property/mechanism of reality. You have demonstrated no need for an additional "Objective mind"

JP Wrote:Again, you repeat your assertions without actually engaging my argument. Neither of my arguments are about explaining how humans have come to know logical truth, but about the reality and nature of logical order. My (heterodox transcendental) argument is about explaining why any logical rules, laws, patterns, behaviours, or order applies to the natural realm to begin with, and the orthodox transcendental argument is about whether the logical order is transcendent. But neither are about any specific logical laws.

Then what IS your argument about?!?!?!?!?!?!?? It seemed to me to be focusing on moral and logical laws, now you say your arguments are " neither are about any specific logical laws."

(August 14, 2009 at 7:38 pm)amw79 Wrote: Your entire second argument (the a posteriori) is based on a "first cause" argument. (which you have denied on more than one occasion - and as such, I accuse you of intellectual dishonesty).

JP Wrote:Actually, it's not a first cause argument, but a transcendental source of actuality argument, which means that it doesn't depend on the idea of an unbroken causal chain in which all internal causes are traced to "one" first cause, as I've established several places.

It fucking IS a first cause argument, and again - I invite everyone to look up the cosmological argument and the kalum cosmoligical argument, and point out any difference between these, and your own argument. There is none, so be intellectually honest about your points.

amw79 Wrote:And don't give me that shit about the FSM being made of physical spaghetti, so therefore is not transcendental, (which is a requirement of your god); - as we ALL know, the notion of FSM actually flying or being made out of spaghetti is purely metaphorical, and anyone who believes the literal truth of FSM is being narrow minded, and not acknowledging the true transcendental nature of FSM.

JP Wrote:Right. Then I can only call you a heretic as to FSM doctrine, and at that, a tasteless heretic, because this metaphor has no significance, and does nothing (according to your own words) to diversify it's doctrinal content away from the transcendent, biblical doctrine of God that my arguments arrive at, and if it does, then it's not supported by any of my arguments.

How do you know FSM doctrine? you havent studied it as I have. FSM argues EVERYTHING that your god attempts to. But requires no evidence. As yours.

amw79 Wrote:With that, I've had enough of this thread. As I've previously said to you; I saw another atheist forum, which you infiltrated and spent many pages going round the same circular arguments. You were refuted and dismissed there, and exactly the same has happened here.

JP Wrote:I was dismissed, but not refuted. And I was dismissed by you, but neither did you do anything to refute me.

I honestly am starting to get the feeling, that you are just here for kicks. Not actually believing what you are argueing. You arguments are now in such a circular muddle - I struggle to see what you have left.

---

Sorry for the above mess, I'm not learned in how to correctly quote posts. Can anyone help with this??

Do you believe it's possible for a man to be kind, gentle, honest, loving and caring without believing in God?