Once you have defined a measurement system that correlates with your opinion of "soft". Most readings on the mineral hardness scale are hardly what a normal person would call "soft". A number 2 pencil is "soft", but you can stab someone with it.
The question didn't say "soft", it said "softer". The number 2 pencil might well be hard, but it's still softer than a carbon-steel dagger.
No.. much more like someone taking the first picture of a building and then claiming all other pictures of the building violate some copyright of the first picture taker.
Fair enough, it may too broad a stroke to paint it as a contrast between Abrahamic and atheistic points of view, but they do comprise something close to 70% of the population combined, and in the context of the GP arguing with someone going door to door proselytizing seemed a reasonable assumption. With regard to the holy books, whether one believes it is the inerrant word of God or the inspired word of God seems to be of little practical consequence when it is used to construct a belief set that includes unproven miracles as guiding principles.
I think it's probably entirely fair as far as the doorstepper goes. My problem is with the apparent assumption that [s]he is representative of all religion. And have any of us proven everything we take as guiding principles?
That's not the claim at all. The claim is that no one can know whatever else there is.
It is certainly the claim of some.
It's barely even a claim, it's practically tautological.
"The scientism dogma that it's all there is" is hardly tautological.
Well, that's logic and mathematics out of the window, then, because they're not part of science (they're things that science depends on).
You're right. There's absolutely no a priori reason to expect that math and logic would correlate with the phenomena we observe in reality. We only know their value because we have empirically determined it.
You couldn't empitically determine it if you didn't already assume them. Empirically determining their value depends on logic.
All means are known to be faulty, including those used in science.
Yes, that's why we check each others work. Something religious people aren't disposed to do.
Something some religious people aren't disposed to do. But my whole discussion is about those that do, and there are a lot of them. Anyway, my point wasn't that an observation might be erroneous, it's about the whole debate about what comprises an observation.
If you think there's a clear-cut division between science and metaphysics then I suggest that it's time to catch up with the 20th century.
Then how does one do a metaphysical experiment?
You can't. But there's a vast grey area where it's unclear whether you can do a valid experiment or not, so it's unclear whether it's science or not. Much of neuroscience is in denial about the assumptions it is making about what it is or isn't measuring, for example.
The religious person doesn't necessarily "know" revelation to be "faulty"
Only because he didn't care enough to check.
Your strawman religious person might not, but I am talking about the thinking theists who really have gone through this in far more detail than you seem to have done.
Unfortunately most of the militant atheists are still logical positivists and don't understand why that position collapsed (and often aren't aware that it did).
Logical positivism is too strong a claim to be supported by the evidence we have. There are absolutely true things that we cannot observe or determine empirically. But since we can't determine them empirically, no one knows what they are.
And there's the whole grey area in between, where we get indications but not enough to be confident. And I'm not defending a "god of the gaps", these are areas where science cannot be confident.
if you know your stuff I reckon you're far more likely to take a position along the lines of William Rowe's, that "some theists are justified in believing in God, even if it is the case that God doesn't exist".
Once upon a time it was justifiable to believe in Newton's laws of motion, even though they are not actually true.
Actually, as Newton stated them they are true, even under relativity. The dumbed down versions we were taught in school were never justifiably believed, because even the ancients knew of systems that changed their mass whilst in motion. But that's a sidetrack.
We just didn't have the means to rigorously test them. So yes, it's possible in principle to justifiably believe in something that is not true.
However, if you have the means to test your belief and fail to do so, that's not justifiable. If you make an argument based on revelation, and don't do the leg work to demonstrate that revelat
That's not the claim at all. The claim is that no one can know whatever else there is.
It is certainly the claim of some.
The obvious corollary is that anyone who claims to know something about whatever else there is is at best misguided and using methods that are known to be faulty, and at worst is running a scam.
Well, that's logic and mathematics out of the window, then, because they're not part of science (they're things that science depends on).
How can a religious person claim to have special knowledge of the supernatural, through means that we know are faulty (e.g. revelation), and still be considered a "reasonable" person?
All means are known to be faulty, including those used in science. No dependable method has yet been found for deciding what is a valid scientific observation and what isn't, because all observation is inherently subjective. The question is how faulty they are, and whether they're still good enough to usefully work with. As Popper pointed out, that's a subjective judgement. If you think there's a clear-cut division between science and metaphysics then I suggest that it's time to catch up with the 20th century. The religious person doesn't necessarily "know" revelation to be "faulty" any more than the scientific person (who might be the same person) knows scientific findings to be right. Unfortunately most of the militant atheists are still logical positivists and don't understand why that position collapsed (and often aren't aware that it did). There's plenty of scope for being atheist and up-to-date, but if you know your stuff I reckon you're far more likely to take a position along the lines of William Rowe's, that "some theists are justified in believing in God, even if it is the case that God doesn't exist".
What's your definition of "religious" then? There are plenty of people who believe in and worship an interventionist God, for example, who would consider the three statements you ascribe to all religion to be utter nonsense.
I truly do appreciate your skepticism about the limits of understanding, that is well advised. However:
It isn't taught to most religious people as a dogma, either.
You must know you're wrong about this. Faith is placed above reason in the dogma of all monotheistic religions, and there is no better proof than each claims their their holy book is the word of God. And how does each know that it's the word of God? Faith, Trust. I would love to see someone reason a monotheistic religious world view in the absence of its holy book.
Many adherents of monotheistic religions -- I assume you mean specifically the Abrahamic religions -- don't accept their "holy book" as dogma. Amongst Christians, for example, it's only the evangelicals who do. They're a particularly powerful and vocal group in the USA, so if you don't know much about religion in general or Christianity in particular then it's easy to think that they're what religion is, but that's a mistake. And you might notice that I said "most religious people", not "most monotheistic religious people", so you are shifting the goalposts.
Philosophically, solipsism is not falsifiable yes. But practically it's useless. Reason and the scientific method are verified as much as anything can be by the technology it produces. We can do things now that we couldn't before because we used reason. You can't say the same about faith.
When did we (humanity as a whole) ever not use reason? As I said at the start of this sub-thread, the religious and the atheists alike use reason -- although nowhere near enough of either of them. And most religious people (not all, true) accept the scientific method too; they just don't accept the scientism dogma that it's all there is.
I did reviews of a couple of books on both sides of the Dawkins' "God Delusion" debate, and read a whole lot more. I amused myself by seeing how soon each one blamed the other side for the Holocaust. Credit to Dawkins: he was one of the very few who didn't say that the other side was responsible for the Holocaust (he just implied it).
Despite the propaganda, you'll find reasoning people both outside and inside religion
Why would a reasoning person believe in the unverifiable? The only reasonable reaction when presented with a nonfalsifiable hypothesis is "could be, but I don't really know".
Religion is at best wishful thinking. And wishful thinking isn't reason.
Is there an objective reality? The existence of one is non-falsifiable. Is logic valid? The validity of logic is non-falsifiable. If you really believe that the only reasonable reaction when presented with a nonfalsifiable hypothesis is "could be, but I don't really know" then I assume you are an epistemiological solipsist, which is an intellectually viable position but one that challenges science just as much as religion.
This false equivalence is not helpful, with regard to faith. "Trust not thy own understanding" isn't taught to atheists as a dogma, and it is evident
It isn't taught to most religious people as a dogma, either. Although I think everybody would be wise to remember that there might be limits to their understanding and that they might be mistaken. "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."
A person can use reason about a great many things whilst ignoring it for a special subset of others.
Religion requires a specific *lack* of reasoning. It requires that you hang up all evidence based logical thinking and very literally take everything on faith.
"My book is the perfect word of god."
"We know exactly how god wants you to live your life."
"Our religion is the only true religion."
These are not factually verifiable statements..
And there are lots of religious people who don't believe any of those things, and there are quite a few who apply reason rigorously to their religious beliefs. "Some x are y", or even "Most x are y", is not sufficient to argue that "All x are y".
As a counter argument, I'd ask; do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become religious purely out of protest to atheists?
No. Do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become atheist purely out of protest to the religious? I know quite a few people who say that they have (especially out of protest against Roman Catholicism), but whether they're "reasonable people" is up for debate.
Actually, I agree with his statement to a degree. Recently I had a Jehova's Witness bang on my door trying to peddle her wares. When I politely told her that I was Atheist she took that statement w/out a beat and immediately came out with a pamphlet SPECIFICALLY for self-professed atheists. She also had an entire set of pre-arranged arguments regarding atheism and morality. I was a bit taken aback. I think that the religions of the world are taking notice to their shrinking congregations and are going on the attack to stem the loss of money in their coffers. Even 30 or 40 years ago, although you wouldn't immediately be stoned for professing your lack of religion 'we' were most definitely a backwater. Now Reasoning people are far more numerous and far more vocal about their views. 30 years ago I could NOT have told my parents I was atheist; now we have rather heated discussions on the topic, when we aren't smart enough to avoid the subject.:)
Despite the propaganda, you'll find reasoning people both outside and inside religion, but they're a minority on both sides of the divide.
The world is rapidly going the other way. Back in the 60s and 70s people thought that The Age of Reason had won and we could move into the future with hope. Now reason is under attack from the religions of the world.
Nope. Some people did, but others thought it was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius and a revival of spirituality. Many of those folks rejected science as being a force for evil -- there was a massive anti-science swing in the 1960s. Turn off your nostalgia filter and you'll find that there was no golden age.
This was also done at about the same time in the UK, by a group of people on Cix (a CoSy conferencing system), with the same conclusion, except we found two more unsolvable ones that I suspect the American team didn't look at: -1 and -2. For what it's worth, I invented the notation we used to document solutions, and one of the team produced a solver that exhaustively checked the game space for 11 982 and indeed found it impossible. So give or take formal proof of the solver's correctness, it is proven that not all games are solvable.
Have you actually followed up any of the references on that page? For example, the verse that allegedly claims that "Establishes that there are circumstances that can "compel" a Muslim to tell a lie." is actually about testimony under duress not being valid. It's just an anti-Islamic disinformation site.
Eh? No it doesn't. The software that Sony recommends is completely optional - you have to manually install it (no autorun) in the first place. Or you can decide not to and just use Calibre as you would expect. I own one (gifted me at Christmas) and although I'd never buy a Sony product personally I have to admit that I have zero complaints and certainly prefer it over a Kindle I once used for a few weeks.
The funny thing about this is that you occasionally see the Pre-Columbia-Pictures Sony in some products. Sony's eBook reader, for instance, is a model product. It uses the ePub format (the real, standardized one, not the hacked version that B&N sells). it uses a standard USB cable to transfer data, and charge. It doesn't have any backdoor via wireless or anything else that will let them pull a 1984 on books you've already purchased.
And it has the crappiest ebook management software you are ever likely to encounter, that Sony tries to force you to use by making it run whenever the reader is connected and so locking out alternative ebook management software such as Calibre. Yes, there are workarounds, but why does it need workarounds. Sorry, but I made the mistake of buying a Sony eReader and regret the waste of money. It is nowhere near being a "model product".
Slashdot Mirror
Once you have defined a measurement system that correlates with your opinion of "soft". Most readings on the mineral hardness scale are hardly what a normal person would call "soft". A number 2 pencil is "soft", but you can stab someone with it.
The question didn't say "soft", it said "softer". The number 2 pencil might well be hard, but it's still softer than a carbon-steel dagger.
That response is relative to each person, so it can't be objectively tested.
I didn't see the word "objectively" in the question.
No.. much more like someone taking the first picture of a building and then claiming all other pictures of the building violate some copyright of the first picture taker.
You mean like this?
Jesus and Superman didn't fight the Romans and Lex Luther without expecting some backlash, you know.
Please tell me what issue that was in, because that sounds AWESOME.
No, it all went a bit lame once the Romans worked out to make the nails out of Kryptonite.
"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."
You most likely do not understand this sentence.
If you think you understand that sentence ...
Fair enough, it may too broad a stroke to paint it as a contrast between Abrahamic and atheistic points of view, but they do comprise something close to 70% of the population combined, and in the context of the GP arguing with someone going door to door proselytizing seemed a reasonable assumption. With regard to the holy books, whether one believes it is the inerrant word of God or the inspired word of God seems to be of little practical consequence when it is used to construct a belief set that includes unproven miracles as guiding principles.
I think it's probably entirely fair as far as the doorstepper goes. My problem is with the apparent assumption that [s]he is representative of all religion. And have any of us proven everything we take as guiding principles?
It's barely even a claim, it's practically tautological.
"The scientism dogma that it's all there is" is hardly tautological.
Well, that's logic and mathematics out of the window, then, because they're not part of science (they're things that science depends on).
You're right. There's absolutely no a priori reason to expect that math and logic would correlate with the phenomena we observe in reality. We only know their value because we have empirically determined it.
Yes, that's why we check each others work. Something religious people aren't disposed to do.
Something some religious people aren't disposed to do. But my whole discussion is about those that do, and there are a lot of them. Anyway, my point wasn't that an observation might be erroneous, it's about the whole debate about what comprises an observation.
Then how does one do a metaphysical experiment?
You can't. But there's a vast grey area where it's unclear whether you can do a valid experiment or not, so it's unclear whether it's science or not. Much of neuroscience is in denial about the assumptions it is making about what it is or isn't measuring, for example.
Only because he didn't care enough to check.
Your strawman religious person might not, but I am talking about the thinking theists who really have gone through this in far more detail than you seem to have done.
Logical positivism is too strong a claim to be supported by the evidence we have. There are absolutely true things that we cannot observe or determine empirically. But since we can't determine them empirically, no one knows what they are.
And there's the whole grey area in between, where we get indications but not enough to be confident. And I'm not defending a "god of the gaps", these are areas where science cannot be confident.
Once upon a time it was justifiable to believe in Newton's laws of motion, even though they are not actually true.
Actually, as Newton stated them they are true, even under relativity. The dumbed down versions we were taught in school were never justifiably believed, because even the ancients knew of systems that changed their mass whilst in motion. But that's a sidetrack.
We just didn't have the means to rigorously test them. So yes, it's possible in principle to justifiably believe in something that is not true.
However, if you have the means to test your belief and fail to do so, that's not justifiable. If you make an argument based on revelation, and don't do the leg work to demonstrate that revelat
It wasn't just you.
the scientism dogma that it's all there is.
That's not the claim at all. The claim is that no one can know whatever else there is.
It is certainly the claim of some.
The obvious corollary is that anyone who claims to know something about whatever else there is is at best misguided and using methods that are known to be faulty, and at worst is running a scam.
Well, that's logic and mathematics out of the window, then, because they're not part of science (they're things that science depends on).
How can a religious person claim to have special knowledge of the supernatural, through means that we know are faulty (e.g. revelation), and still be considered a "reasonable" person?
All means are known to be faulty, including those used in science. No dependable method has yet been found for deciding what is a valid scientific observation and what isn't, because all observation is inherently subjective. The question is how faulty they are, and whether they're still good enough to usefully work with. As Popper pointed out, that's a subjective judgement. If you think there's a clear-cut division between science and metaphysics then I suggest that it's time to catch up with the 20th century. The religious person doesn't necessarily "know" revelation to be "faulty" any more than the scientific person (who might be the same person) knows scientific findings to be right. Unfortunately most of the militant atheists are still logical positivists and don't understand why that position collapsed (and often aren't aware that it did). There's plenty of scope for being atheist and up-to-date, but if you know your stuff I reckon you're far more likely to take a position along the lines of William Rowe's, that "some theists are justified in believing in God, even if it is the case that God doesn't exist".
What's your definition of "religious" then? There are plenty of people who believe in and worship an interventionist God, for example, who would consider the three statements you ascribe to all religion to be utter nonsense.
I truly do appreciate your skepticism about the limits of understanding, that is well advised. However:
It isn't taught to most religious people as a dogma, either.
You must know you're wrong about this. Faith is placed above reason in the dogma of all monotheistic religions, and there is no better proof than each claims their their holy book is the word of God. And how does each know that it's the word of God? Faith, Trust. I would love to see someone reason a monotheistic religious world view in the absence of its holy book.
Many adherents of monotheistic religions -- I assume you mean specifically the Abrahamic religions -- don't accept their "holy book" as dogma. Amongst Christians, for example, it's only the evangelicals who do. They're a particularly powerful and vocal group in the USA, so if you don't know much about religion in general or Christianity in particular then it's easy to think that they're what religion is, but that's a mistake. And you might notice that I said "most religious people", not "most monotheistic religious people", so you are shifting the goalposts.
Philosophically, solipsism is not falsifiable yes. But practically it's useless. Reason and the scientific method are verified as much as anything can be by the technology it produces. We can do things now that we couldn't before because we used reason. You can't say the same about faith.
When did we (humanity as a whole) ever not use reason? As I said at the start of this sub-thread, the religious and the atheists alike use reason -- although nowhere near enough of either of them. And most religious people (not all, true) accept the scientific method too; they just don't accept the scientism dogma that it's all there is.
I did reviews of a couple of books on both sides of the Dawkins' "God Delusion" debate, and read a whole lot more. I amused myself by seeing how soon each one blamed the other side for the Holocaust. Credit to Dawkins: he was one of the very few who didn't say that the other side was responsible for the Holocaust (he just implied it).
Despite the propaganda, you'll find reasoning people both outside and inside religion
Why would a reasoning person believe in the unverifiable? The only reasonable reaction when presented with a nonfalsifiable hypothesis is "could be, but I don't really know".
Religion is at best wishful thinking. And wishful thinking isn't reason.
Is there an objective reality? The existence of one is non-falsifiable. Is logic valid? The validity of logic is non-falsifiable. If you really believe that the only reasonable reaction when presented with a nonfalsifiable hypothesis is "could be, but I don't really know" then I assume you are an epistemiological solipsist, which is an intellectually viable position but one that challenges science just as much as religion.
This false equivalence is not helpful, with regard to faith. "Trust not thy own understanding" isn't taught to atheists as a dogma, and it is evident
It isn't taught to most religious people as a dogma, either. Although I think everybody would be wise to remember that there might be limits to their understanding and that they might be mistaken. "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."
A person can use reason about a great many things whilst ignoring it for a special subset of others. Religion requires a specific *lack* of reasoning. It requires that you hang up all evidence based logical thinking and very literally take everything on faith.
"My book is the perfect word of god." "We know exactly how god wants you to live your life." "Our religion is the only true religion."
These are not factually verifiable statements..
And there are lots of religious people who don't believe any of those things, and there are quite a few who apply reason rigorously to their religious beliefs. "Some x are y", or even "Most x are y", is not sufficient to argue that "All x are y".
As a counter argument, I'd ask; do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become religious purely out of protest to atheists?
No. Do you think it logical for any reasonable individual to become atheist purely out of protest to the religious? I know quite a few people who say that they have (especially out of protest against Roman Catholicism), but whether they're "reasonable people" is up for debate.
Actually, I agree with his statement to a degree. Recently I had a Jehova's Witness bang on my door trying to peddle her wares. When I politely told her that I was Atheist she took that statement w/out a beat and immediately came out with a pamphlet SPECIFICALLY for self-professed atheists. She also had an entire set of pre-arranged arguments regarding atheism and morality. I was a bit taken aback. I think that the religions of the world are taking notice to their shrinking congregations and are going on the attack to stem the loss of money in their coffers. Even 30 or 40 years ago, although you wouldn't immediately be stoned for professing your lack of religion 'we' were most definitely a backwater. Now Reasoning people are far more numerous and far more vocal about their views. 30 years ago I could NOT have told my parents I was atheist; now we have rather heated discussions on the topic, when we aren't smart enough to avoid the subject. :)
Despite the propaganda, you'll find reasoning people both outside and inside religion, but they're a minority on both sides of the divide.
The world is rapidly going the other way. Back in the 60s and 70s people thought that The Age of Reason had won and we could move into the future with hope. Now reason is under attack from the religions of the world.
Nope. Some people did, but others thought it was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius and a revival of spirituality. Many of those folks rejected science as being a force for evil -- there was a massive anti-science swing in the 1960s. Turn off your nostalgia filter and you'll find that there was no golden age.
Then for the book, give him "Teach yourself Urdu".
This was also done at about the same time in the UK, by a group of people on Cix (a CoSy conferencing system), with the same conclusion, except we found two more unsolvable ones that I suspect the American team didn't look at: -1 and -2. For what it's worth, I invented the notation we used to document solutions, and one of the team produced a solver that exhaustively checked the game space for 11 982 and indeed found it impossible. So give or take formal proof of the solver's correctness, it is proven that not all games are solvable.
Have you actually followed up any of the references on that page? For example, the verse that allegedly claims that "Establishes that there are circumstances that can "compel" a Muslim to tell a lie." is actually about testimony under duress not being valid. It's just an anti-Islamic disinformation site.
Eh? No it doesn't. The software that Sony recommends is completely optional - you have to manually install it (no autorun) in the first place. Or you can decide not to and just use Calibre as you would expect. I own one (gifted me at Christmas) and although I'd never buy a Sony product personally I have to admit that I have zero complaints and certainly prefer it over a Kindle I once used for a few weeks.
That's not the behaviour of my Sony eReader.
The funny thing about this is that you occasionally see the Pre-Columbia-Pictures Sony in some products. Sony's eBook reader, for instance, is a model product. It uses the ePub format (the real, standardized one, not the hacked version that B&N sells). it uses a standard USB cable to transfer data, and charge. It doesn't have any backdoor via wireless or anything else that will let them pull a 1984 on books you've already purchased.
And it has the crappiest ebook management software you are ever likely to encounter, that Sony tries to force you to use by making it run whenever the reader is connected and so locking out alternative ebook management software such as Calibre. Yes, there are workarounds, but why does it need workarounds. Sorry, but I made the mistake of buying a Sony eReader and regret the waste of money. It is nowhere near being a "model product".
I think you will find that people died of brain tumours even before the mobile phone was invented. What was your point?