Quote:If I told you that a fork was a spoon...you wouldn't say "Yeah, legit, cuz I mean words are vague and stuff"..now would you? If a diabetic asked for his insulin, it would be important that you didn't grab a syringe full of coca-cola...huh?I think I understand your objection. I don't think there is any equivocation. Please consider this analogy:
1. We want to talk about the existence of X,
2. first we look into dictionaries and encyclopedias to learn what X is before we start talking about it. So we can avoid meaning different things by X and remove the possibility of equivocation.
3. We find out that X has many different meanings, so we pick them one by one (not two of them at the same time) and investigate them separately. This way it's clear what we mean by X in each investigation.
4. First we pick up Zeus we investigate it, since there is no evidence to suggest Zeus exists, we conclude that Zeus does not exist. Great! This is resolved.
5. Next one, we pick up "The creator of universe" again using the same argument we conclude that "The creator" does not exist. we do this for many times and we are happy.
6. We come across "The universe itself", no matter how much we try we can never conclude that "The universe itself" does not exist.
7. We write a report of our investigation: "We discovered that 99 definitions of X lack the evidence for their existence, but 1 of them clearly exist"
8. So we can say "I don't believe in these gods [comes the list of 99 definitions]" but since we found 1 definition of god which is existent, we cannot assert "We do not believe in any gods"
I Hope this clarifies that there is no equivocation in the argument.
Quote:Somehow I doubt that's true, but you'll probably inform us that you use the word "woo" in an indefinite, ambiguous way.... that doesn't include -your- woo.
Not really, this was just a casual conversation and unlike our discussion wasn't meant to be specific and definite. And I genuinely do not believe in anything magical, transcendental, etc.
