The Resurrection

[Alan V]

But of course materialist metaphysics, which you appear to believe, can't be proven through materialist methods. And empiricist epistemology can't be proven through empirical methods.

Of course they can. They can also be proven through pragmatic methods, which is a lot more than you can say for religious beliefs.

Philosophy is no longer the best of human knowledge. You are trying to tell time from a clock that has stopped.

[Sheldon]

But of course materialist metaphysics, which you appear to believe, can't be proven through materialist methods. And empiricist epistemology can't be proven through empirical methods.

Of course they can.  They can also be proven through pragmatic methods, which is a lot more than you can say for religious beliefs.

Philosophy is no longer the best of human knowledge.  You are trying to tell time from a clock that has stopped.

That's a little unfair, it's more like he's challenging the time on your phone, while pointing smugly at the sun.

[Sheldon]

[...] I also don't believe deities are possible, and for the same reason. 

NB Those are not beliefs.

This depends on how you define "belief." 

No it doesn't, since (in that assertion) I expressed no belief, only disbelief, which is not an assertion or statement about its truth or falsity. 

Here, "belief" is anything a person holds to be true. 

Correct, and I made no such claim (in that assertion). 

It might help in future if you responded to what was said, and not some straw man. 

Here it is again:

I don't believe resurrections are possible, and I also don't believe deities are possible, and for the same reason. 

NB Those are not beliefs.

That assertion does not expresses a belief, but the lack of it. 

But of course materialist metaphysics, which you appear to believe, 

I expressed no such belief, nor do I hold any such belief, you seem incapable of nuanced thinking, or your grasp of language is inadequate. 

Do you think materialism, and disbelieving anything exists beyond the material,  are the same? If you said yes, then there's your error, you might want to take some care and examine why they are in fact not the same. Here's a clue, one is a claim to believe something, the other expresses disbelief in a claim. 
If someone presents a jar containing hundreds of coloured marbles, and claims there is an odd number, you can disbelieve the claim, without claiming there is an even number.

Sheldon: I don't believe resurrections are possible, and I also don't believe deities are possible, and for the same reason.

I'm not saying they're BAD beliefs

They're not beliefs at all.

[John 6IX Breezy]

I see now why you're interested in bodily resurrection too.

Now that you mention this, I don't actually know what other churches believe about the resurrection, particularly the Catholic Church. I only know the stereotype of grandma going up to heaven after she dies. Whereas in my church, grandma is just dead, she's not in heaven or hell, until the resurrection at the end of days.

Tell me what you think about this: Over the past few years I've grown more interested in the idea of informational realism, that the structure of reality is fundamentally informational. Now, I don't know what that means in philosophical terms, but in practical sense it's as if information is at the foundation of the universe, more fundamental than matter and energy, etc.

And so, could that mean that we exist informationally as well? That just as there is a genetic blueprint, there's an informational blueprint? Of course, under this view you'd certainly be able to upload yourself to a computer as information, whether or not the absence of body ultimately changes who you are. It also solves the problem of resurrection from a continuation perspective.

But does information sneak the soul back in under another name? The information itself wouldn't be conscious so perhaps that's the difference, but it is still very soul-like. From the surface it sounds similar to what you explained about Dante's view, especially since it also contains info about the form of the body not just mind.

[Sheldon]

I see now why you're interested in bodily resurrection too.

Now that you mention this, I don't actually know what other churches believe about the resurrection, particularly the Catholic Church. I only know the stereotype of grandma going up to heaven after she dies. Whereas in my church, grandma is just dead, she's not in heaven or hell, until the resurrection at the end of days.

Tell me what you think about this: Over the past few years I've grown more interested in the idea of informational realism, that the structure of reality is fundamentally informational. Now, I don't know what that means in philosophical terms, but in practical sense it's as if information is at the foundation of the universe, more fundamental than matter and energy, etc.

And so, could that mean that we exist informationally as well? That just as there is a genetic blueprint, there's an informational blueprint? Of course, under this view you'd certainly be able to upload yourself to a computer as information, whether or not the absence of body ultimately changes who you are. It also solves the problem of resurrection from a continuation perspective.

But does information sneak the soul back in under another name? The information itself wouldn't be conscious so perhaps that's the difference, but it is still very soul-like. From the surface it sounds similar to what you explained about Dante's view, especially since it also contains info about the form of the body not just mind.

[The Grand Nudger]

Demoting god and soul to the geek squad desk begs all the same questions as before.

[Belacqua]

But of course materialist metaphysics, which you appear to believe, can't be proven through materialist methods. And empiricist epistemology can't be proven through empirical methods.

Of course they can.  They can also be proven through pragmatic methods, which is a lot more than you can say for religious beliefs.

Philosophy is no longer the best of human knowledge.  You are trying to tell time from a clock that has stopped.

This is one of those topics that comes up from time to time on forums like this one. 

Here is an old thread from this forum where empiricism was discussed:

https://atheistforums.org/thread-43125-page-3.html

You won't be allowed to post there, but some of the discussion is good.

These days Google helpfully offers an AI summary answer at the top of the page:

Empiricism cannot prove itself because, by its own definition, all knowledge comes from sensory experience, so there is no sensory experience that could verify the statement "all knowledge comes from sensory experience" - essentially creating a circular logic where the very idea of empiricism relies on an unprovable assumption about the source of knowledge itself; it's a classic "chicken and egg" problem within the philosophy of knowledge. 

and this one:

The idea that "empiricism can't prove empiricism" means that the very concept of relying solely on sensory experience to gain knowledge (empiricism) cannot be verified through sensory experience alone, creating a paradox; essentially, to prove that experience is the only source of knowledge, you would need to use some form of reasoning or intuition which goes beyond mere experience, contradicting the core tenet of empiricism itself. 

As with all AI we have to take it with a grain of salt, but it seems like a fair summary of the standard argument. 

It's similar with materialism. Materialists begin with the idea that only the material is real, so a materialist experiment which only accepts materialist methods and materialist results as reliable will rule out non-materialist answers a priori. 

It would seriously derail the thread to go further into this, but these are very standard arguments so if you're interested they won't be hard to find.

[Belacqua]

I see now why you're interested in bodily resurrection too.

Now that you mention this, I don't actually know what other churches believe about the resurrection, particularly the Catholic Church. I only know the stereotype of grandma going up to heaven after she dies. Whereas in my church, grandma is just dead, she's not in heaven or hell, until the resurrection at the end of days.

Tell me what you think about this: Over the past few years I've grown more interested in the idea of informational realism, that the structure of reality is fundamentally informational. Now, I don't know what that means in philosophical terms, but in practical sense it's as if information is at the foundation of the universe, more fundamental than matter and energy, etc.

And so, could that mean that we exist informationally as well? That just as there is a genetic blueprint, there's an informational blueprint? Of course, under this view you'd certainly be able to upload yourself to a computer as information, whether or not the absence of body ultimately changes who you are. It also solves the problem of resurrection from a continuation perspective.

But does information sneak the soul back in under another name? The information itself wouldn't be conscious so perhaps that's the difference, but it is still very soul-like. From the surface it sounds similar to what you explained about Dante's view, especially since it also contains info about the form of the body not just mind.

I think that in the long run a lot of people are going to end up with the conclusion that mind is prior to matter. (Not necessarily temporally prior, but essentially prior.) 

This has been the conclusion of a number of schools in Western thought, and of course it's a foundational idea in philosophy from ancient India. Brahman, universal mind, comes before everything else.

David Bentley Hart's recent book on the philosophy of mind covers -- exhaustively, it's a long book -- all the current theories in philosophy of mind, and makes a detailed case as for why mind is the foundation of everything. 

It's one of those ideas that people keep coming back to. As Blake said "Man has no Body distinct from his soul; for that called Body is a portion of a Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age." It isn't dualistic, because it argues that matter is a portion or appearance of mind.

This is where non-dualism leads us when we have no persuasive theory about how a physical body can generate a mind. 

What this means for the condition and survival of the individual soul is a separate question. Christians and Vedic philosophers come up with different answers. But it seems to me that a lot of the current problems go away if we come at it from this perspective. 

People here are really going to hate this.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Blake, schmake.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

Now that you mention this, I don't actually know what other churches believe about the resurrection, particularly the Catholic Church. I only know the stereotype of grandma going up to heaven after she dies. Whereas in my church, grandma is just dead, she's not in heaven or hell, until the resurrection at the end of days.

Tell me what you think about this: Over the past few years I've grown more interested in the idea of informational realism, that the structure of reality is fundamentally informational. Now, I don't know what that means in philosophical terms, but in practical sense it's as if information is at the foundation of the universe, more fundamental than matter and energy, etc.

And so, could that mean that we exist informationally as well? That just as there is a genetic blueprint, there's an informational blueprint? Of course, under this view you'd certainly be able to upload yourself to a computer as information, whether or not the absence of body ultimately changes who you are. It also solves the problem of resurrection from a continuation perspective.

But does information sneak the soul back in under another name? The information itself wouldn't be conscious so perhaps that's the difference, but it is still very soul-like. From the surface it sounds similar to what you explained about Dante's view, especially since it also contains info about the form of the body not just mind.

I think that in the long run a lot of people are going to end up with the conclusion that mind is prior to matter. (Not necessarily temporally prior, but essentially prior.) 

This has been the conclusion of a number of schools in Western thought, and of course it's a foundational idea in philosophy from ancient India. Brahman, universal mind, comes before everything else.

David Bentley Hart's recent book on the philosophy of mind covers -- exhaustively, it's a long book -- all the current theories in philosophy of mind, and makes a detailed case as for why mind is the foundation of everything. 

It's one of those ideas that people keep coming back to. As Blake said "Man has no Body distinct from his soul; for that called Body is a portion of a Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age." It isn't dualistic, because it argues that matter is a portion or appearance of mind.

This is where non-dualism leads us when we have no persuasive theory about how a physical body can generate a mind. 

What this means for the condition and survival of the individual soul is a separate question. Christians and Vedic philosophers come up with different answers. But it seems to me that a lot of the current problems go away if we come at it from this perspective. 

People here are really going to hate this.

You don't speak for the members here.  You are not a mind reader.  STFU FFS.