I look through this forum and I am saddened, for even in such a place of intelligence, people are still making the same age-old category mistakes: seeking the truth-values of that which defines truth-values.
There is no truth that can force itself on you. If there is such a thing as truth, it is powerless and impotent before the arbitrariness of what humans choose to accept. Even that which leads to death if it is denied cannot force a person to accept it. Even that which leads to a life of sheer misery cannot force a person to accept it.
Do any of you here still seek what is REAL? Are you after the power to make your perspective irrefutable? For shame, I say, if that is indeed the case for any of you.
It is a category mistake to classify perspectives as refutable or irrefutable. Perspectives define what is refutable or not. One cannot even talk about what is true, meaningful, provable, or consistent unless one has first adopted definitions for these words. These definitions are themselves arbitrary; that is, they are a function of human preferences. They answer only to their ability to memetically propagate, as your church (sort of) tells you.
Is God's existence consistent with rational thinking? Define God. Define consistent. Define rational thinking. Then analyze. When you have finished, recognize that your conclusions only pertain to a belief in God, and not to the actual existence of such an entity.
There is no possibility for Christians and Atheists to have a meaningful debate, for they each operate using different axioms to determine truth-value. The debate will be solved most likely through memetic natural selection (though I suspect both Atheism and Christianity and even Agnosticism may lose out to Antidoxism), unless somehow Atheists and Christians and people of all other faiths (for Atheism is a faith, as is Agnosticism) can agree on which axioms define truth-values. Until such an agreement takes place, what else are you doing but flapping your lips?
Re:The Antidox
« Reply #1 on: 2005-11-26 16:45:31 »
Sorry mate, "Atheism is to faith, as bald is to hair color."
"A" - without "Theism" - belief in gods. <- plural. All and any.
Atheism comes in two flavors:
Weak atheism, "I don't know whether or not there are gods, but I don't believe in them." and hopefully you can recognise that it doesn't take much thought to recognise that "belief" - asserting a truth value - in the absense of evidence or necessity is foolish.
Strong atheism, "All of the god thingies I have heard of are self-contradictory or contradicted by what we know of the Universe and thus impossible. I don't vest belief in the impossible." - another impeccable logical position. Even when the strong atheist is really strong and asserts "There is nothing I would call a god in this Universe", that atheist is merely making an observation out of experience, and while the rigorous support for this position is lacking, you would need to show her a god thingy which she would concur is a valid god thingy from her perspective in order to be able to make the claim that the atheist's assertion of unbelief in gods represents "faith" on the part of the atheist.
Note that neither position excludes the Atheist from being forced by some evidence to reconsider. Atheism is not incompatible with falsification.
Hermit
PS Technically Agnosticism does require faith, because agnosticism does not speak to the existence of gods (which is assumed), but asserts that the nature of gods is unknowable.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
From dictionary.com: "Faith: Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing."
Faith does not have anything, necessarily, to do with a God, a set of gods, or any other sort of metaphysical being. Atheists have faith in reason, and it is their faith in reason which compels them to declare that gods are inconsistent with this faith.
Reason is but a set of axioms for defining truth-values, second only to the axiom that truth-values are definable. In this sense, it makes no sense to talk of superiority or inferiority to Christianity. However, it is obviously of a stronger memotype, conferring a great deal more auto-beneficiality and exo-beneficiality, and this is ultimately why it will probably win out in the long run.
Really, my main point is simply that you cannot use logic to refute a non-logical system, only to show that the non-logical system is in fact a non-logical system. This is why a devout Christian and a devout Atheist can not have meaningful discussion without agreeing on a single set of axioms for defining truth-values. However, that set of axioms is precisely what they are arguing over half the time anyway, and it makes no sense to argue over axioms because the axioms themselves define the basis for any arguments. No axioms=no argument; all you can say is "I like these axioms better."
Re:The Antidox
« Reply #3 on: 2005-11-27 04:09:13 »
[The Adversary] From dictionary.com: "Faith: Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing."
[Hermit] The confidence is not I submit, "justified confidence".
[Hermit] Certainly I agree that faith has nothing to do with gods. It is to do with "trust". Unfortunately, the trust is dewey eyed and unconditional.
[Hermit] As is often the case, Ambrose Bierce captured it perfectly. "Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
[Hermit] I largely agree with you with much you say on the xian vs atheist issue, but not entirely. You may be giving too much credit to "axioms." And "devout" is not, I imagine, the first word that a literate atheist would choose as a descriptive characterisation even if ernest and sincere. Its more common meanings convey to a discerning nose an overwhelming stench of piety.
[Hermit] Nevertheless, greetings and welcome. Have fun.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
Really, my main point is simply that you cannot use logic to refute a non-logical system, only to show that the non-logical system is in fact a non-logical system.
Using logic to show that a system is non-logical is identical to refuting it.
From dictionary.com: "Faith: Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing."
Faith does not have anything, necessarily, to do with a God, a set of gods, or any other sort of metaphysical being. Atheists have faith in reason, and it is their faith in reason which compels them to declare that gods are inconsistent with this faith.
Your are commiting the equivocation fallacy here, using two different definitions of "faith". The trust that rational people have in the scientific method or the trust I have (most of the time) in my senses is not the faith of Christianity (2nd definition below).
faith (from dictionary.com) 1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing. 2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
I have faith in rationality (first definition) but I would be reluctant to express it that way because of the confusion with definition 2.
« Last Edit: 2005-11-27 13:31:55 by David Lucifer »
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