[QUOTE=Der Trihs]
You confuse “not understand” with “disbelieve”.
[/QUOTE]
It’s a common trap that some fall into-the belief that the only reason someone disagrees with you is that they just don’t understand you. It is possible to totally understand another viewpoint and yet disagree with it.
[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
It’s a common trap that some fall into-the belief that the only reason someone disagrees with you is that they just don’t understand you. It is possible to totally understand another viewpoint and yet disagree with it.
[/QUOTE]
It could be worse, though; I mean, people could go around arguing that you’re the helpless victim of a delusion or childhood brainwashing for thinking as you do.
[QUOTE=9thFloor]
I wonder if you’d be more likely to get a coherent answer to this good question if you rephrased it by asking why god would make the natural world amoral.
[/QUOTE]
Well, that’s what I thought I was doing, but then I imprudently stuck the sentence about natural evil in at the end.
Liberal–I admit to some confusion. I cannot reconcile some of the things you are saying. The point of my previous post is that it is incompatible with goodness and love to set up an amoral or indifferent environment for your ‘loved’ ones, an environment that might very will injure or kill them. Now you seem committed to the following claims:
- God is good and loves us.
- God voluntarily created an amoral universe for us to live in.
- By it’s nature, an amoral universe will often inflict terrible suffering on its sentient inhabitants; in many of these cases, this suffering is not the result of any exercise of free will on the part of these inhabitants.
- Suffering and pain are tragic.
Forget about evil; if you want, we can restrict evil to human intentions/character/whatever. But still, aren’t the above 4 claims inconsistent?
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Animal. All of them. They’re all brain things. The spirit is concerned with moral aesthetics, good and evil, and commands brains to do its moral will. If rocks had brains, spirit could make them into good or evil rocks.
[/QUOTE]
My moral aesthetics are a function of the same type of thinking that does my math.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Then we are at an impasse, I’m afraid. I do not know how effectively to communicate with someone who is of the opinion that science can examine the supernatural. It may as well be the case, as far as I’m concerned, that you think rationals can express all roots.
[/QUOTE]
What is the definition of “natural”, that mirrors your definition of ‘supernatural’? If it just means “things that are not supernatural”, then all you’re doing is attaching a name to your special pleading. Not Impressive.
If things truly exist that are outside the reach of science, then they are outside the reach of everybody; no human being knows about them. Not theists, not you, not anybody. This should be trivially obvious by the fact that any person could ‘be a scientist’, and scientifically record and examine their supposedly religious experiences.
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
It could be worse, though; I mean, people could go around arguing that you’re the helpless victim of a delusion or childhood brainwashing for thinking as you do.
[/QUOTE]
False comparison. I have evidence for my science based view of the world. Liberal has none for his mystical one.
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To be accurate, you have empirical evidence to support an empirical epistemology. Others have spiritual evidence to support a spiritual epistemology. Saying Lib has no evidence is false; he has no empirical evidence.
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[QUOTE=begbert2]
If things truly exist that are outside the reach of science, then they are outside the reach of everybody; no human being knows about them. Not theists, not you, not anybody.
[/quote]
Also true only within an empirical epistemology.
That would be silly, true. Calling oneself a scientist automatically places one within an empirical framework–the realm of science, in which theology, spritualism, and philosophy have little or no relevance.
But again, science (well, empiricism, actually; science is the means of its exploration) is only one epistemology. I happen to agree that it’s an extraordinarily useful one, but it’s by no means the only.
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[QUOTE=andros]
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To be accurate, you have empirical evidence to support an empirical epistemology. Others have spiritual evidence to support a spiritual epistemology. Saying Lib has no evidence is false; he has no empirical evidence.
.
[/QUOTE]
Except that there’s no such thing as “spiritual evidence”. They are trying to prove something imaginary - with something imaginary.
[QUOTE=andros]
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To be accurate, you have empirical evidence to support an empirical epistemology. Others have spiritual evidence to support a spiritual epistemology. Saying Lib has no evidence is false; he has no empirical evidence.
.
[/QUOTE]
I dunno. I mean, the good thing about empiricism is that it allows for intersubjective verifiability, since objects available to the five senses are in principle available for inspection and verification by other agents. But something that affects only the spirit can only be an inner experience, and so is not intersubjectively verifiable.
Now people on these boards have criticized me before for thinking that all evidence should be required to pass the test of intersubjective verifiability, accusing me of applying scientific standards to non-scientific questions. But I don’t think intersubjectivity is a scientific standard per se. I think it is an obvious requirement of rationality, and an obvious ‘check and balance’ on any experience which alleges to have evidential import. Can you explain why a person hearing voices is mistaken in thinking spirits are talking to him, without overtly or covertly appealing to the notion of intersubjectivity?
Where is Lib, anyhow? He hasn’t posted in this thread since early this AM. Come on, Lib, we’re bored at work and we want to argue with you!
[QUOTE=andros]
Also true only within an empirical epistemology.
[/QUOTE]
This is only true if by “spiritual epistemology” you mean “making stuff up”.
Science is merely extrapolation from observation, so anything which may be observed may be studied in a scientific manner, even subjective experiences. (You merely will be operating with a set of observations that are not objectively available.) So, if you can observe it, then it is subject to science. If you can’t observe it, then you’re not going to know about it, are you?
I am fully willing to accept that supernatural/spiritual ‘epistemologies’ are unavailable to science if and only if “supernatural/spiritual” = “imagined/made up/not based on real things or experiences”. That is the only definition that can take it outside the realm of science.
[QUOTE=andros]
That would be silly, true. Calling oneself a scientist automatically places one within an empirical framework–the realm of science, in which theology, spritualism, and philosophy have little or no relevance.
[/QUOTE]
There are people who study these things in a scientific manner. And if they ever produced any verifiable or repeatable results that represented something jarring or significant, then the scientific community would definitely sit up and take notice.
The only reason that theology, spritualism, and philosophy have “little or no relevance”, is because they’re doing an excellent job of imitating something entirely mental (overtly, in the case of philosophy), so the study of them is left to the social sciences and the history and literature departments.
[QUOTE=andros]
But again, science (well, empiricism, actually; science is the means of its exploration) is only one epistemology. I happen to agree that it’s an extraordinarily useful one, but it’s by no means the only.
[/QUOTE]
You’re right; you can also make stuff up, or simply believe only things your parents tell you, or flip coins to make decisions all the time - think of the possibilities!
[QUOTE=andros]
I happen to agree that it’s an extraordinarily useful one, but it’s by no means the only.
[/QUOTE]
It’s “extraordinarily useful” because it actually works. It actually does let people discover how the world works. Spirituality doesn’t. Faith doesn’t. We build machines according to the principles discovered by science because they actually work. An airplane designed according to “divine revelation” wouldn’t get off the ground, because there’s no difference between “spiritual knowledge” and any other fantasy you pull out of nothing. Except that people are supposed to take your fantasies seriously when you give it a label like “spiritual” or “religious”.
I’d like to add that I am not lambasting or denying the existence of subjective experiences of a religious nature - rather I am denying and lambasting the blatant and ridiculous application of special pleading where the theist says “You and your ‘science’ are not allowed to examine my experiences, because I said so!” Just because his interpretations of his experiences are so shaky and error-ridden that he needs to literally avoid any scrutiny at all lest his beliefs collapse like a tattered house of cards, that does not mean that the experiences either have or deserve protection from such examination.
[QUOTE=begbert2]
I’d like to add that I am not lambasting or denying the existence of subjective experiences of a religious nature - rather I am denying and lambasting the blatant and ridiculous application of special pleading where the theist says “You and your ‘science’ are not allowed to examine my experiences, because I said so!” Just because his interpretations of his experiences are so shaky and error-ridden that he needs to literally avoid any scrutiny at all lest his beliefs collapse like a tattered house of cards, that does not mean that the experiences either have or deserve protection from such examination.
[/QUOTE]
My point about such experiences lacking intersubjectivity is similar, and epistemic in nature. Subjective religious experiences might be genuine, but due to their nature, we are prevented from knowing whether they are genuine. You can believe that they are genuine, if you want, but in doing so you are not abiding by general epistemic principles which I believe determine the value of all evidence, scientific or non-scientific.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
That’d be right if that were what I said. Apparently, there is simply no way I can communicate with you because I cannot recall there ever being an exchange between us on this issue that consisted of a mutual understanding and respect. Can you? And so, restating what I already have would be a waste of time. In fact, I will not be surprised if your response to this post has not interpreted it in some strange way that takes me completely by surprise. **Voyager ** understands what I’m saying. **Sophistry and Illusion ** understands what I’m saying. **SentientMeat ** has always understood what I’m saying. But **Der Trihs ** does not. **9thFloor ** does not. And you do not. Or at least pretend not to. You’re a smart man, Czar. I’m disappointed in you.
[/QUOTE]
There’s a difference between understanding and agreement. You’ve assumed a lack of the former in my case by virtue of not getting some version of the latter. I understand what you’re saying because I used to say it myself. I’ve grown up.
[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Another basic misunderstanding-it’s “a-theism”, not “athe-ism”. I do not have a belief in the nonexistence of gods. I do not believe that gods exists. Can you understand the difference?
[/QUOTE]
In my experience, most every articulate, devout, religious person I’ve ever debated or spoken with on subjects such as these asserts that my views are also religion by a different name and that therefore the quality of their assessments and conclusions are the same as mine.
They assert a religious belief. I don’t believe. My lack of belief is then labeled a religion.
Check, please?
[QUOTE=Malacandra]
It could be worse, though; I mean, people could go around arguing that you’re the helpless victim of a delusion or childhood brainwashing for thinking as you do.
[/QUOTE]
Imagine that. Actually, I assert that when I’m sitting still as well.
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
Where is Lib, anyhow? He hasn’t posted in this thread since early this AM. Come on, Lib, we’re bored at work and we want to argue with you!
[/QUOTE]
LOL Surely S&I, there’s an S&M thread elsewhere on the board? 
[QUOTE=Sophistry and Illusion]
My point about such experiences lacking intersubjectivity is similar, and epistemic in nature. Subjective religious experiences might be genuine, but due to their nature, we are prevented from knowing whether they are genuine. You can believe that they are genuine, if you want, but in doing so you are not abiding by general epistemic principles which I believe determine the value of all evidence, scientific or non-scientific.
[/QUOTE]
And my point about subjective religious experiences is that I’ve had them and thought they were religious in nature and now see them for what they were. I’m also friendly to considerations about falsifiability of things that pass for “evidence” as a test for them when subjective experiences are being treated as if they’re objective proof of anything. And, as S&I has stated, if on the other hand everything is completely subjective then you can’t distinguish from the schizophrenic to the priest. Which, as far as I’m concerned, is just fine.
I used to work with emotionally disturbed people and believe me, they’ve got their internal worldviews down to a perfect and logically consistent set of subjectives.
They’re also wrong, as they come to realize with some medication and therapy.
[QUOTE=9thFloor]
LOL Surely S&I, there’s an S&M thread elsewhere on the board?
[/QUOTE]
I take my jollies where I can get them.