(March 2, 2010 at 12:12 pm)Eilonnwy Wrote: The argument goes like this, "If you believe in only things that you can touch and see, how can you believe Australia Exists?" Basically to prop up the idea that a materialist ideology is insufficient in asserting the existence of a country you've never been to. However it's a fallacious argument because you can assert Australia (or in this case, China) exists because we can see maps of Australia, we can call someone in Australia, we can meet people from Australia, etc...

This is not sufficient proof of Australia or China. The maps can be entirely doctored, total bullshit made up by people who want you to believe in China. Not only can you not prove that the calls are to people really from China, you can't prove that the person on the other end is even real or in the real place known as China.

Quote:The same idea applies to God in the sense that if he is real and exerts some type of influence on the reality we see, we could test it and come to a conclusion, but that's not the case.

What sort of influence do you want to see? For me, there are all kinds of examples of His influence.

Quote:As I've said many times before, if God is a transcendant being that does not influence this world, then why worship? If he does, then we should be able to substantially test for it.

He is a transcendant being but that does not mean that He does not influence this world. You are simply looking for the wrong kind of influence. Everythin gis connected. Look at the bigger picture.


Oh, and Saerules, I'm quite interested- why do you disagree that nothing can be new? It isn't a dig at what you said, I'm just curious to hear some food for thought.

I flew over China right before I landed there and it looked much like the maps I've seen of the area. Once you smell the open sewers of China and see the coal dust all around you will know China. Anecdotal evidence for the win! Yeah, I know...

Liar.

I'm not lying, I went there while I was employed with RadiSys to work on Nortel-Matra boards in their cell-phone network. They were multi-bus boards built by Intel. RadiSys bought the service contract and made ass-loads of money servicing that old technology.

This sounds like a rewording of the Brain in a jar argument.... China is not an exstrodinary claim so extrodinary evedence is not required, but saying you cought a 50 lb bluegill or seen someone walk on water you might need somthing more than hear say or 2nd hand stories to prove it...

But if reality is all a trick and nothing can be proven.. THEN NONE OF IT FUCKIN MATTERS.


But street performers fool people all the time... Or maybe Chris Angel or David Blane is the next messia.

(March 2, 2010 at 10:56 am)Eilonnwy Wrote:

(March 1, 2010 at 9:04 pm)Tiberius Wrote: Actually it's a fair point. One cannot be a materialist and then demand evidence of a non-material being. This is why I reject materialism...

Not entirely. If the non-material being is said to interact in the world in a substantial and material way, then we have something to talk about.

If you're talking about non-material and also non-interactive then we really don't have much to talk about anyway.

If a non-material being can interact with a material world, then part of it is material in the first place. It's like saying the 2D world can interact with the 3D world. Something 2D cannot by definition interact with the 3D world, since to do so would involve it extending into three dimensions.

The reverse (3D to 2D) is fine, since the 3rd dimension is made up of the 2nd dimension plus depth. Greater dimensions can always interact with smaller dimensions, but not the other way around, only because they are made up (partly) of that smaller dimension.

So I dispute that a truly non-material being can interact with the material.

Adrian, I'm not the one claiming that a non-material being interacts with the material world.