(May 23, 2016 at 8:25 am)Ben Davis Wrote:(May 22, 2016 at 9:34 pm)quip Wrote: I understand your point, I just believe there is more to the point than you're willing to examine.What makes you think that I haven't examined it, for decades, from a wide variety of perspectives? I haven't reached my current conclusions out of thin air. And I'll continue to examine it in order to maintain a view that's consistent with the best information available on the subject. However the materially naturalistic perspective that I support is so well evidenced that it would take a particularly impressive piece of evidence to change it.
Quote:(BTW I appreciate your courteous objections on the issue.)Ditto. Bad manners help no-one.
Quote:Why ever not? That very idea's roughly equal to the Buddhist notion of the five skandhas, an idea of which you, likewise, cannot merely dismiss without employing your own "unconscious assumptions about the nature of existence built in to your models."Why not? Because there's absolutely no robust evidence to support such a position. I don't employ unconscious assumptions, I employ conscious reasons. You could accuse me of bias, rightly but it's a rational and reasonable bias based on the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence.
Quote:I'm not asking Atheists to believe as such (that would be entirely pretentious and a bit too much to ask.) but rather raising doubt to their assumed materialistic model of reality.Until you can provide evidence for me to do so, I simply can't. It's not in my nature. But of course, that's exactly what a material naturalist would say
Fair enough.