You won't play by the rules of faith, so I have to point out the circular rules the faithless use when they play their logical games.
Nothing circular by QED. You haven't pointed anything out other than the brute fact that you have to work by the same "rules" as I do. There are no rules by "Faith". Faith = Faith is circular anarchy. You prefer illogical games, obviously because your argument by Faith is groundless by comparison to QED or coomon sense ps. come up with something more interesting quickly.. or I'm off . Life is too short for this nonsense
Pretty true, Dt. We act far more emotionally than we care to admit. Or are aware. Still, I find that most of that is because we operate on "auto pilot" so much of the time. Most of have no idea of just how the beliefs about the world that we hold -- "beliefs" that we often have no idea we hold -- affect our decisions on a day to day basis. "Beliefs" that were haphazardly formed by our experiences, parents, teachers and peers throughout our lives without any conscious reflection on our part. Usually simple awareness and then rational reflection on these issues can help us act "more" rationally, rather than "completely" rationally. The latter is very difficult, maybe impossible, because we don't "know" what the grand purpose of our lives is. If it universally applies to everyone, or it is peculiar to each individual. Or even if such a thing exists. Obviously, how can you know if you made a "right" or "wrong" or "good" or "bad" or "more/less" rational decision if you don't know what the ultimate goal is. (How do you know whether to turn left or right if you don't know where you're supposed to be heading?) In all my thinkingon this, I haven't been able to decide on anything beyond simple "pleasure"; or, in even simpler terms, "having fun" as the "ultimate life purpose". Some people have "God" as the ultimate goal. Or rather, having a relationship with God. In this sense, I don't find anything particularly "contemptible" about it, as Bert Russell does. For many people it's a great answer. And it seems to simplify a lot in their lives. A noted theistic philosopher, whose name I am having a mental block over, argues that our purpose in life isn't to increase pleasure/minimize pain but to "knowledge of God". Not bad, as far as the normal theistic babble goes. However, I'd simply say that such a person is indeed increasing pleasure, assuming that "knowing God" is a pleasureable experience and most theists do report is as such. So, imho, his argument really becomes "knowing God is the most pleasurable activity". Well, maybe for some. I haven't found it to be so. But maybe I'm not "trying hard enough" (= don't have enough faith?).
Precisely stu, if i said it once i've said it a half-dozen times to ART, we are all constrained by the same rules, otherwise we cannot utter a sound or think a thot!
Hi rgelite, After having run through Longshot's many quotes of Bertrand Russell, which he "believes" to give more than adequate intellectual backing to his convictions, I quickly dropped the Gödel example in order to put a little damper on the hype. In this context I also opposed my "disprove" to his "prove". I didn't really expect to get a reaction like yours in which you attempt to put some badly needed rigor in all this. In fact you may also have seen my short question about "rationality". As your argument concerns "proving" or "proof", we of course would both recognize that the nature of the proposition is of paramount importance. The almost endless confusion on the Chit-Chat threads like this one is mainly due to the failure to recognize the fact that "human knowledge" can be of different kinds. As an example, you probably noticed our friend "stu's" reply almost following yours where he in fact believes to be able to "disprove" a proposition of a metaphysical kind with arguments about "space and time". Your argumentation is interesting because you take care to circumscribe things rather well. I don't want to get into a very lengthy argument here, but the chief error, not necessarily yours, is the failure to fully comprehend the nature of "scientific knowledge". The term "science" is certainly one of the most abused ones. Simply stated: "knowledge is called scientific if and only if it permits to predict the outcome of physical experiments". I used the word "simple" in my definition because to get deeper into this requires writing a book. It is interesting to observe that your 2 + 2 = 4 expresses a form of knowledge which is not "scientific" in the above sense as the verification or proof does not rest on physical observation but on the laws of mathematical logic, i.e. mathematics is not "scientific knowledge" at all. This may shock many persons ignorant of the nature of knowledge. It is a generally recognized fact that in people's daily lives, other forms of "knowledge" than "scientific knowledge" or "mathematical/logical knowledge" are of utmost importance. Most of our actions in daily life are based on this kind of loosely defined practical knowledge. Few people would argue with the innate experience of "wisdom" that most humans believe to possess and cherish. In fact people make much more use of "wisdom" than of mathematical-logical or physical knowledge. Of course many philosophers have reflected on this without ever coming to a "unified" view. As to the existence of God, scientific or mathematical/logical arguments can't help us any further. Bertrand Russell tried to prove a lot of things in mathematics but I don't think he ever claimed it to be of much use in proving/disproving the existence of God. Einstein as a scientist didn't apply physics either to this kind of problem. He was well aware about the question though. So, rgelite, I didn't answer your question at all, I only felt obliged to explain my "disprove". I did not pretend to establish anything in physics or in mathematical logic. Be good, nononsense
nono, one does not generally disprove the existence of unicorns or santee clauses or a particular ghost... under the accepted rules of reason and evidence.. it is up to the claimant to make his mark and prove HIS claim .. lest he lose all rights to his claim. :-/
To communicate with a brute, you have to speak to the level of understanding of a brute. So if I go to your brute level, play by your rules, it is not a big deal.....nor is it a big deal to use your brute rules to show the inherit flaws of such brute logic. There are very definite rules of faith, contrary to your statements. Where the faithless fail, and become failed theists who often spew a sour grapes mentality, is that they make a choice to no longer practice faith, and choose rather to practice relativistic logic. Faith is a path to know the absolute, where relativistic logic is to forever a path to the circle of relativistic knowledge. The faithful practice their faith to get off the wheel, the relativistic thinkers practice circular logic to grease the wheel.