I'd call that an unacceptable conflict of interest.

"I love my family and cheddar cheese equally."
"I love my family and blue sweatervests equally."
"I love my family and white GE toasters equally."

.....sounds f-ing ridiculous, doesn't it? I guess "god" makes it all better, or something.

(May 8, 2015 at 10:26 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: Trusting this is what Descartes argued, we can have at it beginning with premise (2),

I am sorry that I had not provided the reference. You can check:

Meditation III.
Of God: that He exists.
In
Meditations on First Philosophy
Rene Descartes
1641

Please note that Descartes has not presented his Meditation III in form of premises. The Meditation III spread roughly over 15 pages.

(May 8, 2015 at 10:26 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: which introduces an artificial dichotomy. Why does the source of an idea have to be either inside or outside ourselves? Why can't it arise from a response we have to an outside thing, so that both inside and outside are involved?

Normally, concepts and ideas are indeed gained by sense experience and to offer an account of the mental processes involved.

However, innate concepts do not derive from, or depend for their being understood on, sensory experience. Innate concepts are in the mind from creation but are not present in consciousness until we actually, conceive them.

For example, instinctual act of seeking and sucking of the breast in the new-born infant demonstrates an innate knowledge associated with the nourishment.

Other good example of innate idea is the idea of God, which is in our minds without having any sensory experience.

Plato argued that humans know many things and have many concepts, which they have not learned or acquired on earth. Hence, humans must have learned them in a previous existence.
(Phaedo 73a-78a and Meno 81b-86b)

Leibniz put it this way:

“This fits in with my principles, for nothing naturally enters our mind from outside; and it is a bad habit of ours to think of our soul as receiving messenger species, or as if it had doors and windows. We have all these forms in our mind and indeed always have had; because the mind always expresses all its future thoughts, and is already thinking confusedly of everything it will ever think clearly. We could not be taught something unless we already had the idea of it in our mind, the idea being like the matter out of which the thought is formed.”

Section 26.
Discourse on Metaphysics, (1686)
trans. G. Montgomery, La Salle

(May 8, 2015 at 10:26 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: If we've passed on (2), then the conclusion in (4) itself adds a new premise, that no effect can be greater than its cause. Yet we have abundant examples of effects (Atlantic hurricanes) which are much greater than their initial causes (tropical waves over the Cape Verde Islands). We could add the sun heating ocean water as an additional cause and say that the energy dissipated by an effect cannot exceed the energy supplied by all its causes, to rescue (4).

The case in point is wrong. Sun is the cause of winds on earth. Here the effect (blowing of winds) has no match to its cause (the powerful sun that drives those winds)

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/win...auses-wind
http://www.weatherquestions.com/What_cau...icanes.htm

(May 8, 2015 at 10:26 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: But once we get to (5), we must ask why the idea of God must have either the energy of God or some "greatness of qualities" he mentions there which God may have. The idea is not the thing idealized. I'm seeing a bit of Jello quaking here.

In other words, we are finite beings with finite conceptions. We are not capable to comprehend infinite because it overflows every intentional state and overflows consciousness and its objects. A good example is physics, which does not favour infinity. Infinity in normal conditions is considered as error or a scientific way of saying, "we do not have the answer."

We are incapable to provide sufficient rational grounds to justify the idea of infinite and thus cannot be the originator of this idea yet the idea of infinite God is part of our beings.

(May 8, 2015 at 10:26 pm)Hatshepsut Wrote: I'm pretty hip to God, but arguments along various lines-cosmological, ontological, first cause, and so on-have been running for centuries with no positive results. I don't believe the existence of God can be proved using any of the commonly accepted tools for reasoning. If things like quantum foams and inflationary epochs likewise are purely speculative, at least they can be analyzed within the rubrics of mathematical physics and some relation between them and the present state of the universe be derived and thus rendered plausible.

I propose that we accept God without proof. Perhaps based on the age-old prevalence of religious beliefs. I've heard the story that gods were invented to fill roles of agency for the frightening unknown, i.e. a god of storms to account for lightning, which we then conveniently know is caused by electrostatic discharges. I don't really buy that early peoples were so fearful as we suppose; they bravely confronted things much worse than summer thundershowers. In general, when humans coin a noun for something and begin talking about it, they are responding to some aspect of reality, not just to a mass delusion. So I accept that religious belief is a response to something real. However, I'm not foolish enough to think this constitutes an existence proof.

I continue by extending my previous point.

The content of the belief that fish swim is characterized by the concepts “fish” and “swimming.” If we do not have any knowledge and information about X then we cannot have the opportunity or possibility to build any idea because we are not even conscious of that X, proving or disproving is out of the question.

There are few arguments that atheists commonly use to disprove the existence of God. Two of them are:

1. There is no perceptual evidence of God.
2. God is a manmade concept.

Regardless of how efficacious or ineffective those arguments are, the main point to which I am trying to draw your attention is the idea of God itself. My main idea is to show how your views about idea God could be rational, despite the absence of empirical access to that domain.

Try to build an idea on X of which you have no knowledge, no data, no information and there is no mean to approach X because it is outside the realm of human perception. No one can make idea out from oblivion. There should be something from where to start.

But wait! How comes we not only have the idea of that X but we also talk about its particular properties and even try to give images to it. We argue and fight over its existence and non-existence and we blame each other for the misuse of its name. Furthermore, and most interestingly, we have laws from that X, which guide us on how to live our lives, and we are rebellious or obedient to those laws. How that idea resides in us when no one can make it. This is exactly my point and this is the thing to what all-great thinkers have referred as innate-idea.

The idea of God in embedded in your consciousness. This idea does not depend on abstraction from sense experience. Whether you want it or not it will remain there until the end of your life. The only freedom that you have is the freedom of rejection. You can reject that innate-idea only by intension. You can try to eradicate it by means of deceitful dichotomies, which support your pleasure seeking behaviour.

“But when they forgot the warning they had received, We opened to them the gates of all (good) things, until, in the midst of their enjoyment of Our gifts, on a sudden, We called them to account, when lo! they were plunged in despair!”

Al An'am (6)
-Verse 44-

(May 13, 2015 at 2:19 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: Harris, it looks like you understand the lengths to which some AF members will go to shelter themselves from the truth. I’ve noticed one particular strategy of theirs. I call it the but-but-but method. Once they realize that their first objection is bullshit they jump to the next in line, as in, “but but but…who created god?” After you point out that the universe had a beginning they say, “…but but but…the multiverse…”. Then when you show how unscientific, unparsimonious, unfalsifiable that theory is they say “but but but..the anthropic principle.” Then when you present the logical necessity of and evidence for teleology, they say, “but but but…but but but…but but but…” We’ll see how that strategy plays out when they stand before the White Throne.

Apart from “but but but” I have noticed one more characteristic. When these fellows confront some staggering point, they pretend to be ferocious and start throwing emotional and provocative squabbles to distract the attention of others.

(May 13, 2015 at 2:41 pm)TRJF Wrote: Of course, the bolded never happens, so...

Sorry, I'm just being snarky.  That's another one of our defense mechanisms.

Additionally, I will point out that... well... you and Harris might have very different conceptions of the "White Throne."  We atheists will get pwn'd for denying teleology, and Harris will get pwn'd for denying Jesus.

Or maybe you'll get pwn'd for denying Muhammad.

(Noting how many incompatible religions exist, and that the arguments for each of them are always the same - that's another of our strategies)

I know I know you are a tiny subversive transgressor of constituted order, a protohuman cheerleader for indignant humanity.

(May 13, 2015 at 3:03 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Show me one thing that supports the notion of a god, that cannot be explained by more mundane things which might themselves need explanation, that doesn't have its basis in crusty mythology. That's all I ask. The stone in my shoe is capable of proving its existence. Why can't a god?

The stone in your shoe is your own conscious experience, which you feel but cannot show. First, display your senses, which should be perceivable and after that ask me about God.

(May 14, 2015 at 9:42 am)ChadWooters Wrote: A proper reply to your request will take some time to craft. Before I go to all that effort and reply are you seriously interested in what might say and give it fair consideration?

Chad you are trying to smooth a bowed tail of a dog by putting it into a straight pipe. No matter how long you keep it there, it will instantly retain its original shape as soon as you will take it off that pipe.

(May 15, 2015 at 11:52 am)Stimbo Wrote: And what have we learned?

Make appeasement to me in the form of human sacrifice and if it pleases me, I increase your Internet speed. The figures prove it - what can't speak, can't lie.

Atheism is about 3000 years old and yet atheists are only 2% of the world population after passing of 3000 years. Are you able to see the hidden truth in these figures (what cannot speak, cannot lie) or you need some assistance in order to understand them?

(May 15, 2015 at 1:58 pm)Stimbo Wrote: That loser. No wonder his dad kicked him out.

Arrogance is the hallmark of atheism.

(May 15, 2015 at 8:34 pm)dyresand Wrote: Hate to break it to you there is no god.

If god does anything to mess with the world or even showed the slightest bit of his power it would mess with the laws of physics because this is a being with infinite power of course. But he never has and there would be some sort of prints left on time space left from him and again nothing. No god its all made up lets move on and go to Denny's tabs on you.

You are advocating the idea of “NOTHINGNESS.” Before doing so, you should give a proper conception of “NOTHINGNESS.”

(May 15, 2015 at 10:26 am)Hatshepsut Wrote:

(May 13, 2015 at 5:38 pm)LostLocke Wrote: P1 In the past 20 years the murder rate has gone up in Chicago.
P2 In the past 20 the internet speeds have gone up in Chicago.
C Therefore, raising internet speeds causes murder.

Or, more intriguingly, that murders cause Internet speeds to rise. Correlation is symmetric.  

Damn it. My internet is slow so I guess I have to get the axe out and kill a few more people.

Harris, you arent related to that guy who wrote a book about kissing dating goodbye are you? I think his last name was Harris

(May 16, 2015 at 2:06 pm)Harris Wrote:

(May 13, 2015 at 2:41 pm)TRJF Wrote: Of course, the bolded never happens, so...

Sorry, I'm just being snarky.  That's another one of our defense mechanisms.

Additionally, I will point out that... well... you and Harris might have very different conceptions of the "White Throne."  We atheists will get pwn'd for denying teleology, and Harris will get pwn'd for denying Jesus.

Or maybe you'll get pwn'd for denying Muhammad.

(Noting how many incompatible religions exist, and that the arguments for each of them are always the same - that's another of our strategies)

I know I know you are a tiny subversive transgressor of constituted order, a protohuman cheerleader for indignant humanity.

This might be a big coincidence, but I actually have the bolded embroidered on my throw pillows...

(May 16, 2015 at 2:06 pm)Harris Wrote:

(May 13, 2015 at 3:03 pm)Stimbo Wrote: Show me one thing that supports the notion of a god, that cannot be explained by more mundane things which might themselves need explanation, that doesn't have its basis in crusty mythology. That's all I ask. The stone in my shoe is capable of proving its existence. Why can't a god?

The stone in your shoe is your own conscious experience, which you feel but cannot show. First, display your senses, which should be perceivable and after that ask me about God.

I can rely on my senses, generally speaking, because they relay consistent data. A stone in my shoe will feel like a stone and not, say, a slug. In fact, the moment my senses start giving conflicting data is the moment I am aware that something is wrong.

But more than that, I can examine the stone, weigh it, measure it. I may even remember where I was when it got into my shoe. I can give it to someone else who can verify it independently. They might subject it to chemical and spectroscopic analysis, so as to determine what minerals it's made from; maybe even its age. It might be found to be a meteorite, something not readily apparent to the untrained eye at first glance.

So there's quite a lot we can do to discern the truth, be it stones or anything else, and have those results confirmed independently. Show me one single instance of a god meeting these same criteria and surviving analysis as a simple stone.

(May 16, 2015 at 2:06 pm)Harris Wrote:

(May 15, 2015 at 11:52 am)Stimbo Wrote: And what have we learned?

Make appeasement to me in the form of human sacrifice and if it pleases me, I increase your Internet speed. The figures prove it - what can't speak, can't lie.

Atheism is about 3000 years old and yet atheists are only 2% of the world population after passing of 3000 years. Are you able to see the hidden truth in these figures (what cannot speak, cannot lie) or you need some assistance in order to understand them?

Argument from popularity and completely irrelevant.

(May 16, 2015 at 2:06 pm)Harris Wrote:

(May 15, 2015 at 1:58 pm)Stimbo Wrote: That loser. No wonder his dad kicked him out.

Arrogance is the hallmark of atheism.

Irony is the hallmark of theism.

(May 14, 2015 at 6:32 am)pocaracas Wrote: Harris Wrote:
These Theories lack Correspondence and Coherence. In attempting to elucidate meaning to these expressions in terms of truth-conditions, induce a plethora of further problems. Many are a matter of detail concerning the kinds of properties we should associate with these terms to produce truth theories for them. Lack of Correspondence and Coherence are the sources for general difficulties concerning whether or not truth is central at all in the analysis or elucidation of meaning of these expressions.

Pocaracas Wrote:
Well, the god hypothesis introduces its own nice set of difficulties which you just happen to choose to ignore with a flick of a finger.

We can dismiss any non-proven hypothesis, while betting on one of them to be the winning horse. I guess that's what believers do.

I prefer not to gamble.

I had given sufficient logical evidences that universe cannot be the product of:

1. Nothingness
2. Accident and
3. Chance

Nothingness cannot produce anything where as if there is something then Accident can only cause chaos and anarchy, but not creation.

Chance depends over already existing paraphernalia. In order to explain Chance you first need to explain that paraphernalia.

The idea of Multiverse is an attempt of finding the cause of our Universe. This idea is thoroughly constructed on precise orderly structure of our existing universe, which is not at all chaotic, and there are no signs of anarchy either. Rather the phenomenon of fine-tuning and universal constants are mind-blowing factors.

The weight of all scientific and logical evidences leads only to one idea and that is the idea of CREATION.

As I wrote earlier, that multiverse is only a calculated assumption, which has no clues in support because those clues (if they exist) are outside of Universe and thus outside of conceivable domain of human perception.

Furthermore, I also argued that even if scientists would find the origin of our universe in some multiverse then they would face another challenge, “How and why multiverse exist?”

Therefore, long ago Aristotle has put a full stop over this regressive process by arguing for the First Unmoved Mover.

(May 14, 2015 at 6:32 am)pocaracas Wrote: Yeah.... there's this entity called "Natural Selection" that consciously "chooses" the fittest... why do you word things in such a fallacious fashion?

Anyway, had you not skipped high-school, you'd have been presented with the evidence you want.

Here's a collection of resources that seem fit for the job at hand:
http://sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/intro...selection/

http://www.ngsslifescience.com/biology_l...ction.html

http://www.nhm.org/site/for-teachers/les...igh-school

Good luck.

Regrettably, the links you have offered are not helpful in any sense. They only explain the (presumed) effects of Natural selection without giving any comments over the cause of Natural Selection and there is no mention about the source of Natural Selection.

Let me simplify the meaning of the phrase “Natural Selection is not science” so you can have a better grasp on it.

We do not know what gravity is. However, we know the source of gravity, which gives us the opportunity to measure its different strengths that precisely depends over the nature of the source. We can then use the results to modify our different scientific mechanisms on earth as well as in space. Thanks to the universal gravitational law, which makes us able to calculate and predict a precise consequence in advance for the manoeuvres of our machines in a certain gravitational field strength without any hassle of being wrong.

Similarly, we do not know what Natural Selection is. However, unlike gravity we do not know the source of Natural Selection either. The lack of the source means lack of certain specific features of the source, which further simplify to “NO CALCULATIONS.” Without calculations, there cannot be any universal law and so we are left with the unpredictability of fabulous Natural Selection.

This unpredictability is further empowered by absurd statements from eminent scientists like Dawkins according to whom

“NATURAL SELECTION, THE BLIND, UNCONSCIOUS, AUTOMATIC PROCESS which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life HAS NO PURPOSE IN MIND. IT HAS NO MIND AND NO MIND’S EYE. IT DOES NOT PLAN FOR THE FUTURE. IT HAS NO VISION, NO FORESIGHT, AND NO SIGHT AT ALL.”
Page 5
The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins.

It is a common sense that if we cannot observe some natural phenomenon then we cannot collect data related to that phenomenon. When we have no data then we cannot make our calculations. Therefore, without data and without calculations, any idea is unscientific. Thus, Natural Selection is not a scientific concept.

Natural Selection has a certain political purpose and that is to promote the ideology of atheism in the secular world by fooling young generations.

Quote:I had given sufficient logical evidences that universe cannot be the product of:


1. Nothingness
2. Accident and 
3. Chance

I thought you were trying to offer a proof of god.....when is that forthcoming?  Meh, in the meantime, who says the universe is the product of "nothing, accident, or chance" anyway?

-additionally, you probably ought to do just the bare minimum research into NS before you opine so confidently about it, you've gone full retard, up there...in that regard.  Could your statement be parsed so as to embarrass the shit out of you?  Yeah, it could (assuming you have shame....which might be an assumption too far.....)...but there's no need.....because no amount of claiming "the other guy's wrong" will advance your own position.  


Lets try this:

-Evolution never happened, all of our explanations for the origin of life and this planet, even this universe are all 100% wrong.  Now, kindly demonstrate that -your god explanation- is correct?

I'll take the false dichotomy daily double, and get me some nachos.

(May 17, 2015 at 5:34 am)Harris Wrote:

(May 14, 2015 at 6:32 am)pocaracas Wrote: Harris Wrote:
These Theories lack Correspondence and Coherence. In attempting to elucidate meaning to these expressions in terms of truth-conditions, induce a plethora of further problems. Many are a matter of detail concerning the kinds of properties we should associate with these terms to produce truth theories for them. Lack of Correspondence and Coherence are the sources for general difficulties concerning whether or not truth is central at all in the analysis or elucidation of meaning of these expressions.

Pocaracas Wrote:
Well, the god hypothesis introduces its own nice set of difficulties which you just happen to choose to ignore with a flick of a finger.

We can dismiss any non-proven hypothesis, while betting on one of them to be the winning horse. I guess that's what believers do.

I prefer not to gamble.

I had given sufficient logical evidences that universe cannot be the product of:

1. Nothingness
2. Accident and
3. Chance

I think spotted your problem.
LOGIC, even if correctly applied, when it uses faulty of incomplete premises, leads to the wrong answer.
Mankind's knowledge of how the Big Bang came about puts you in such a problem.
- The universe may have not began to exist, as your premise states, but rather it may have changed state... we can't tell what kind of change or even what sort of state... It's an unknown... at best, your premise can be that it's unknown what caused the big bang... But you cannot claim anything about a prior state. The Universe, in its present state, has been around since the big bang, at least.

Anything else, we don't know, we can't tell, we'd better not put faith in any wild guess.

(May 17, 2015 at 5:34 am)Harris Wrote: Nothingness cannot produce anything where as if there is something then Accident can only cause chaos and anarchy, but not creation.

How would you know anything got created at all, ever?

(May 17, 2015 at 5:34 am)Harris Wrote: Chance depends over already existing paraphernalia. In order to explain Chance you first need to explain that paraphernalia.

Chance arises from mankind's inability to account for all possible physical states at any particular time.

(May 17, 2015 at 5:34 am)Harris Wrote: The idea of Multiverse is an attempt of finding the cause of our Universe. This idea is thoroughly constructed on precise orderly structure of our existing universe, which is not at all chaotic, and there are no signs of anarchy either. Rather the phenomenon of fine-tuning and universal constants are mind-blowing factors.

Yes, the multiverse idea is a useful construct to show how this perceived fine-tuning may have come about... Is it really fine-tuned?
Or is it just another unknown?

(May 17, 2015 at 5:34 am)Harris Wrote: The weight of all scientific and logical evidences leads only to one idea and that is the idea of CREATION.

The weight of all theology shows that any god is complex enough to be even more complex than any universe... hence it too would require a creative force...
And down we go the rabbit hole....

(May 17, 2015 at 5:34 am)Harris Wrote: As I wrote earlier, that multiverse is only a calculated assumption, which has no clues in support because those clues (if they exist) are outside of Universe and thus outside of conceivable domain of human perception.

Furthermore, I also argued that even if scientists would find the origin of our universe in some multiverse then they would face another challenge, “How and why multiverse exist?”

Therefore, long ago Aristotle has put a full stop over this regressive process by arguing for the First Unmoved Mover.

So, Aristotle already had all the weight of present-day scientific and logical evidences, huh?
Or did he pull it out of his.. .err... imagination... like all theologians?

(May 17, 2015 at 5:34 am)Harris Wrote:

(May 14, 2015 at 6:32 am)pocaracas Wrote: Yeah.... there's this entity called "Natural Selection" that consciously "chooses" the fittest... why do you word things in such a fallacious fashion?

Anyway, had you not skipped high-school, you'd have been presented with the evidence you want.

Here's a collection of resources that seem fit for the job at hand:
http://sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/intro...selection/

http://www.ngsslifescience.com/biology_l...ction.html

http://www.nhm.org/site/for-teachers/les...igh-school

Good luck.

Regrettably, the links you have offered are not helpful in any sense. They only explain the (presumed) effects of Natural selection without giving any comments over the cause of Natural Selection and there is no mention about the source of Natural Selection.

Let me simplify the meaning of the phrase “Natural Selection is not science” so you can have a better grasp on it.

We do not know what gravity is. However, we know the source of gravity, which gives us the opportunity to measure its different strengths that precisely depends over the nature of the source. We can then use the results to modify our different scientific mechanisms on earth as well as in space. Thanks to the universal gravitational law, which makes us able to calculate and predict a precise consequence in advance for the manoeuvres of our machines in a certain gravitational field strength without any hassle of being wrong.

Similarly, we do not know what Natural Selection is. However, unlike gravity we do not know the source of Natural Selection either. The lack of the source means lack of certain specific features of the source, which further simplify to “NO CALCULATIONS.” Without calculations, there cannot be any universal law and so we are left with the unpredictability of fabulous Natural Selection.

This unpredictability is further empowered by absurd statements from eminent scientists like Dawkins according to whom

“NATURAL SELECTION, THE BLIND, UNCONSCIOUS, AUTOMATIC PROCESS which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life HAS NO PURPOSE IN MIND. IT HAS NO MIND AND NO MIND’S EYE. IT DOES NOT PLAN FOR THE FUTURE. IT HAS NO VISION, NO FORESIGHT, AND NO SIGHT AT ALL.”
Page 5
The Blind Watchmaker
Richard Dawkins.

It is a common sense that if we cannot observe some natural phenomenon then we cannot collect data related to that phenomenon. When we have no data then we cannot make our calculations. Therefore, without data and without calculations, any idea is unscientific. Thus, Natural Selection is not a scientific concept.

Natural Selection has a certain political purpose and that is to promote the ideology of atheism in the secular world by fooling young generations.

Got it: you're too stupid to understand that "Evolution by Natural selection" is an effect perceived from the multidisciplinary study of fossils; evolution of fast reproducing life forms such as bacteria and fruit flies; isolated populations, etc, etc, etc.

Natural selection has no political purpose. Nor does it promote any ideology.
Now... theology, on the other hand... the muslim kind that you claim to be true... oh boy!

(May 17, 2015 at 7:31 am)Rhythm Wrote:

Quote:I had given sufficient logical evidences that universe cannot be the product of:


1. Nothingness
2. Accident and 
3. Chance

I thought you were trying to offer a proof of god.....when is that forthcoming?  

Yeah, they say a picture is worth a thousand words.  However, it's clear that a thousand words aren't necessarily worth a picture-- unless it's this one: