One of my favorite bloggers, Greta Christina, wrote a very sound, well articulated piece that she linked to from her blog, and you can read over at AlterNet. When I posted a few months ago asking Christians to show me their evidence for gods, what Greta wrote is kind of what I had in mind, although I was lazy, hoping that I might actually have someone present something in the way of evidence, other than anecdotal happenings or intuitive personal feelings, that I might then put under the blog-ial microscope to examine. Unfortunately, that post and a few afterward got hijacked by commenters who will remain unnamed, and we never really were able to sink our teeth into it (which, in hindsight was probably their goal). As Greta makes clear, deflection, deflection, deflection.
As I said in that post, and elsewhere, the existence of God is the ultimate question in the ongoing debate between theist and atheists. This boils down to “where’s the beef” (remember the Wendy’s commercial?).
Well, Greta has dissected most of the arguments given, and starts from the proposition that theists fail to produce the beef, although she uses the metaphor of money (I have to have some originality here, don’t I?) All we get is the sesame seed bun, when they promise so much more. Not even a pickle.
She gives the standard deflections to the demand for evidence, and knocks each one down. Some examples to whet your appetite:
The spiritual realm is beyond this physical one — we shouldn’t expect to see evidence of it.
…
If there really is a non-physical, spiritual world affecting the physical one… why can’t we come to an understanding about the nature of that world, and how it affects this one? Why, after thousands of years of religious belief, are we still no closer to an understanding of the spiritual realm than we ever were? Why do religious beliefs still all boil down to a difference of opinion?
Then there’s:
It’s disrespectful and intolerant to tell people their religious beliefs are wrong.
…
In the marketplace of ideas, only religion gets a free ride in an armored tank. Only religion gets to sell its wares behind a curtain. Only religion gets to make promises about its wares that it never, ever has to keep. And when people hand out flyers in the marketplace saying, “These guys are selling hot air, the Emperor has no clothes, here’s all the reasons why our wares are better,” only with religion do people scowl disapprovingly at the disrespectful, bigoted intolerance.
Finally:
If They Had The Money, They’d Show It
…
When something even vaguely resembling solid evidence for religion appears, believers are all over it. The Shroud of Turin. The Virgin Mary on a cinnamon bun. That ridiculous prayer “study” supposedly showing that sick people who were prayed for did better… until the study was blasted into shrapnel, and the researchers were shown to be dishonest at best and frauds at worst, and subsequent studies that were actually done right showed absolutely no such thing.
There’s a lot more.
Read it.
del.icio.us 
reddit 
SPANISH INQUISITOR 
To me, the question is not is there a god or gods? Rather, the question that truly vexes us is “Is there a God that wants us to submit to its will?”
As I have stated before, when it comes to the possibility of our universe having been created by some higher intelligence, I have to plead agnosticism on that.
It is entirely another thing when people behave forcefully, and violently if they deem necessary, to enforce what they believe to be this creator’s will. You can’t eat pork. Men can’t shave their facial hair. Adam kissing Steve instead of Eve is forbidden because it causes God to engage in a furniture smashing tantrum in his celestial living room. Women should be veiled and segregated. Adulterers must be stoned to death.
When a person fervently believe that the god he worships requires these things, such a person must be in a state of perpetual outrage, because there will always be somebody who violates these divine rules and must therefore be punished lest the community be infected and risk drawing divine wrath down on everyone.
So, where the skepticism in me kicks in is when someone tells me something happened or something is god’s law because it says so in the Bible or the Quran, for example. To say that Jesus was born from a virgin is not an objective fact like the Earth orbits the sun is an objective fact. Rather, it is a faith claim, as there were no OB-GYNs around to state the Mary’s hymen was intact before she gave birth to Jesus. Likewise, the part of the New Testament where Jesus is supposely tempted by the devil is not an objective fact. Chronologically, it takes place before he meets the apostles, and he was supposedly alone with the devil for 40 days. Either the story was made up by someone else or Jesus either (a) really had the experiences described and related it to others, or (b) he made it up. It’s not enough to say “Yeah, well if Jesus said it happened it must have happened, because he’s like Jesus, man!”
I think that even asking “Is there a god?” presupposes that it’s a worthwhile question. To me, it’s not; it’s just as silly as asking, “Is there a horse that can fly?”
Now, if I were physically confronted with a horse that, indeed, could fly, I would ask: How does it do that? Perhaps I’d even try to figure out: Why does it do that? What purpose does flying serve for this horse? Where do flying horses come from?
But until I’m shown such a horse, I don’t bother myself with questions about it — because there are millions of legitimate questions to ask oneself, and others, every single day.
Yeah, it was a good one. Greta is one of the best atheist writers around.
Good post, it’s a question I’ve been pointing out for a long time and have never gotten a satisfactory response. The ultimate question in the theist/atheist debate is whether or not a god of some sort actually exists and it’s a question that no theist wants to tackle so, as you point out, they try to make it an insult to even question the existence of a god. It’s typical spurious nonsense, the same kind of thing that goes on in almost all supernatural beliefs. You can’t wonder about astrology without getting claims of insult from the star-charting loons either.
But I have to point out that the second you try to remove your central beliefs from examination, you lose all credibility in the realm of ideas. Theists lost that years ago and they’re certainly doing nothing to win it back.
…and so far no one, not even cl, has ever properly addressed the question. Instead we get irrelevant circumlocution about…shit…anyone have even the slightest idea what he’s on about in this thread? I know he’s doing his damnedest to avoid answering a simple question, but in the process he’s lost me. Someone should have taken up my $50 bet. I would have paid.
I’ve been busy today with my son, who’s home for a short stay, and haven’t really been paying much attention, so perhaps I’ll look a little closer at these comments…
This piece of Greta’s piece was a good one, perhaps one of her best. If one is interested in debating with theists, then the primary question is whether any gods exist. Until that’s established, there’s no point in going ’round and ’round about who that being may be and what he/she/it may do or want. God-questions really don’t interest me anymore; they’re in the same category as questions about other fictional characters. On occasion, they’re intellectually amusing, but they’re not nearly as important to living one’s life as some religious believers think they are.
Even though she’ll resort to censorship, too, I wholeheartedly concur with your support of Greta. She’s my favorite atheist blogger, and there are many reasons, but mostly because she often focuses her prying logic just as intently on the flaws in atheism. Greta ain’t no “party lines” Team Scarlet A atheist, and I haven’t yet come across an atheist blogger who shows even ten percent the impartiality she does.
As for your “questions” here,
Loaded question; presupposes that people don’t come to any understanding about the nature of the spiritual realm.
Argument from ignorance; based on an unsupported premise (that after thousands of years, we’re no closer to an understanding of the spiritual realm).
Loaded question; religious beliefs don’t all boil down to a difference of opinion. In fact, that is the most detrimental claim an atheist could possibly imply.
That’s not true at all. Many atheist bloggers use the armored tank of censorship to protect their ideas from theists. You are one of them.
Blanket statement, broad generalization, and just plainly untrue: I’m a believer, and I found all that stuff to be hokey-pokey.
Nice. Glad you admire Greta, because you just proved one of her main points with your little analytical deflections.
Don’t fool yourself, SI: I began to present you with evidence. You conceded one data point, then resorted to the usual refutation by denigration, and once the rest of Team Scarlet A got involved, things went as they usually do: a bunch of insults, and not much substance. Then, when everything dies down, you go back to your, “If theists had anything they’d bring the evidence” crappola. It’s like, “Bring me a cookie,” followed by, “What flavor?” followed by “Any flavor but that one, now bring another.”
Worse, you denied the second data point for weeks, only to find out that you hadn’t even gotten the facts straight. I can provide the links again if you’d like.
If religious believers had good evidence for their beliefs, they’d be giving it.
I believe I have good evidence for my beliefs. If you were open-minded and impartial as you claim, you’d attempt rational explanations of the evidence given instead of denigrating and marginalizing those who give it, then refusing to proceed any further. Learning becomes impossible when you refuse to accommodate new data into your worldview.
Good for you. I’m sure it makes you feel good. Unfortunately, I could care less whether you have evidence that convinces you. I need to see evidence that convinces me. So far the video game incident, A and L’s non-existent upstairs neighbor, Steve’s similar occurences in Los Angeles, the strange case of Ingo Swann, your own precognitive experience, Kayla Knight, your comparison of the cerebro-centric consciousness hypothesis and the tripartite model, or Marianne George are far from convincing evidence, the type that makes me sit up in bed and say “Jesus, save me!”.
Now, how the fuck am I supposed to do that? Your evidence is either anecdotal, meaning I have no way of testing it, much less experiencing it; some New Agey, woo-woo psychic that has nothing to do with the existence of god, or even the supernatural; one instance of many instances of spontaneous remission of common diseases, which we hashed and rehashed and is perfectly explainable in a natural context; some esoteric discussion of some esoteric theories of consciousness, again irrelevant to the existence of gods; and some dream interpretation of a woman who partook of narcotics, again, anecdotal. I’ll repeat my self: how the fuck am I supposed to come up with something rational to explain these things you find convincing? I have a better idea. Since you find them so convincing, explain to us why they lead you to your Christian beliefs, and if they don’t why you offer them as evidence for gods? After all, you are the proponent of the proposition that they are evidence for gods, so the burden is on you. Right now, they are nothing more than stories of isolated individuals.
And I’m supposed to have an open mind? If I accept them as evidence for gods, I’ve just closed my mind.
So, I’m still waiting for convincing evidence. And an answer to my question which you could make me pay someone $50 bucks for, if someone takes the bet.
(This is where you get to whine about how there is no evidence from you I’ll accept. No, get it straight. There is evidence from you I will accept. So far you haven’t presented it.)
SI,
Well, you find them unconvincing, right? Since you are presumably a rational atheist, this means you don’t accept beliefs without evidence, right? So what is the evidence for your belief that non-agent causes can better explain any or all of the events I’ve discussed? If you cannot provide said evidence, on what grounds do you justify your position?
None of the things I mentioned led me to my beliefs about the Bible, although many of them are certainly corroborated by the Bible (for example healings and veridical dreams). One doesn’t build a grand unified theory from scratch, but must first establish a foundation to build from. I do not offer these as evidence for God or gods per se; I offer them as evidence for spiritual domains of existence, the absence of which clearly undermines the majority of mainline religious claims.
The burden now falls to you – the skeptic – to justify your position that non-agent causes can better explain any or all of the phenomena.
CL:
You do realize that all of the “questions” (“As for your “questions” here…”) that you critiqued were Greta Christina’s, not SI’s, right? Check out her article for yourself, here (SI linked to it in the OP too).
Furthermore, you do realize that SI simply extracted three little bits (a total of 269 words) of Greta’s 2,669 word article to whet his readers appetites and encourage us to go read the entire piece, right?
This is just my opinion, mind you, but it looks to me like you jumped to a hasty conclusion or two yourself. You apparently assumed that SI was presenting an argument when he wasn’t doing anything of the sort. Moreover, your critique of what you apparently thought was a complete argument was only a critique of three brief passages that were completely removed from their contexts. A robust critique would require examining the arguments in their entirety and in their contexts. Since you haven’t done that (not here, at least), I found all the stuff in your comment to be hokey-pokey.
Chaplain,
I assumed nothing other than that SI parroted Greta’s post I’d read a week or two ago. I’m on her mailing list. I figured since SI was endorsing her opinions, that he found them valid, which merits my criticism. I suppose “as for the questions here” or “as for her questions SI’s reproduced here” would have been closer to maximum clarity, but either way, the arguments themselves are what’s at issue here, not whether or not I understand who said who, so let’s not get hung up on trivialities.
I’m sure you do, but I don’t see much in the way of rebuttal to anything I’ve said, so, I’m not too worried about you merely not liking my comment.
She didn’t “merely” not like your comment. She gave the grounds for what would be a good comment and pointed out how you, failing to meet that standard, produced an unlikable comment, or “hokey-pokey”.
It’s essentially like when I explain how you’re an idiot because of X,Y, and Z and all you walk away from the comment with is that I called you a idiot.
Your reasoning is flawed: that I didn’t criticize the full set of Greta’s arguments in their entirety here has no bearing on the validity of the subset of her arguments I did criticize in this thread.
Of course – anything else you have to tell us about the inconsistency between the morality you preach and the path you walk?
The problem is that in your mind, “explaining how someone is an idiot” is synonymous with “using first grade dialect to expressing your personal dislike.” Move on.
That’s possibly a nice reply to Chaplain, not to me, and it acknowledges that there was a reason for Chaplain’s valuation of your comment beyond “merely not liking” it.
Btw, if you act like an idiot, jackass or douchebag, then it’s fair to call you an idiot, jackass or douchebag. Yes, the terms aren’t flattering. Neither is “short”, but it’s not immoral to call Danny DeVito short. That’s what he is. He’s short, Tiger Woods is an adulterer, Osama bin Laden is a terrorist and you often give warrants for being dubbed an idiot, jackass or douchebag. That’s just the reality of the situation. Now perhaps you could try sometime to explain why, when so dubbed, you think you haven’t earned such a title, like how you just addressed Chaplain’s comment, rather than doing what you usually do, which is to ignore the reason and cry like a bitch about being personally attacked. THAT, much like most of your other crap, has grown old and it would be a treat if it or you were to “move on”.
No, it was possibly a nice reply to you, too, because you endorsed Chaplain’s comment which provoked it, and acknowledging “a reason” for Chaplain’s valuation is not the same as acknowledging a valid reason for Chaplain’s valuation – which is of course still lacking.
Man, if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you broke into my house and stole all my South Park scripts. Like I said, “act like an idiot” means “disagree with Philly.” You label anyone an idiot if they disagree with you; it doesn’t matter who. It could be TitForTat, or Gideon, or the guy from Australia, or even your boy Exterminator whom you called an “old man” when he was once handing your ass to you: anyone who disagrees with the Almighty PhillyChief gets some kind of label attached to them, because of course, it couldn’t be that they actually have a valid reason to disagree with the Almighty PhillyChief, it must be due to some defect on their part, right? Because the Almighty PhillyChief is never wrong, and never shows face. The arrogance astounds, and your appeal to standards of argumentation is pathetic.
I – or any of the many others who feel likewise – could just as easily go on and on in every comment about how we think you might just be a small man who overcompensates for his inabilities with insults, and makes himself feel better by denigrating others online, but why? Why should anyone care what I think of you? Why resort to spreading a bunch of schoolyard gossip? What does expressing what I think of you add to the arguments? Nothing.
See, I don’t think too highly of you, either, but because I’m here for intellectual discourse and not a playground pissing contest, I’m perfectly willing to suspend my emotions and ego for the pursuit of truth. I see no sense in regressing to first grade techniques; you, unfortunately, cannot or will not come to a similar conclusion. As such, you are an impediment to the search for truth.
Who’s the “jackass” if you’re asking the one denying the claim for proof? Get over yourself. Your dislike of me is so strong that it’s clouding your ability to recall even the most rudimentary guidelines for sound argumentation, for example the fact that the burden of proof falls to the positive claimant.
Now go on, toss out some more ad hominem remarks, and keep telling yourself you respect standards of argumentation.
There was nothing wrong with the way I addressed Chaplain’s comment. You yourself said it was “possibly a nice reply,” did you not?
How many times do I have to tell you Philly? Your opinions aren’t reasons; they’re opinions. Like any bully, you imagine yourself to have FAR more power than you actually do. When I respond by noting that you’ve chosen insult over logic, I’m not “crying,” I’m letting the record show that when it comes down to it, you “win” by insult, not logic or intelligence. Should I get a web cam? If so, I could show you that I just chuckle at your vain commentary, and long for commenters who really want to get somewhere.
Right; but you taking every chance you can to make your potshots doesn’t get old. Like Ex told you, nobody’s twisting your arm to keep taking potshots at me, tough guy. If you don’t like me, then just sit back and keep your mouth shut. It’s as easy as that.
CL:
Your “critique” of Greta’s article is a bit thin. Your objections, as stated here are unsupported assertions. Rather than just saying that she’s wrong, counter her argument about religion “boiling down to a difference of opinion,” for example, by presenting evidence against the claim. Ex has already asked for something similar re: knowing the spiritual realm. I’m not saying whether you have a case to make; I’m just saying that you haven’t made one yet.
cl:
… presupposes that people don’t come to any understanding about the nature of the spiritual realm.
Can you define “spiritual realm”? And can you also define “people” as used in this context? If so, can you then give an example showing how “people” have come to any “understanding” about this “spiritual realm.” (Perhaps, just to play fair, you’d better specify what you mean by “understanding,” too.)
If you can’t give an example, can you at least show how you’d go about falsifying Greta’s/SI’s presupposition (let’s call it a hypothesis). Or does it seem correct, as far as you know?
Ex,
Yes. I can do those things, and am doing them at my own blog. For the past months, this has been the dominant theme of my work. I’ve written literally dozens of posts accomplishing either in whole or in part the things you ask for.
I’ve got examples galore. I’ve got charts of criteria that either cohere or contradict the strong and weak versions of the cerebro-centric consciousness hypothesis against “spiritual” models. I’m in rapport with scientists and getting my own first-hand accounts of miracle claims from sources, instead of just parroting third-party anecdotes. You of all people know that such is respectable journalism. Unlike your boy Philly, I’m not just here spouting my useless opinions at you guys. I respect your intelligence far more than that. I will, however, take the time to point out the utter hypocrisy of pretending to be open-minded on the one hand, and burying our heads in the sand and hiding behind insult on the other.
You don’t state precisely what you mean by “Greta’s/SI’s presupposition,” but presuming you refer to the presupposition that people have not come to any understanding of how the spiritual world interacts with this one, hell no it doesn’t seem correct.
You’ve certainly written dozens of posts. The accomplishment part is definitely in dispute.
Chaplain,
No, they’re not. They are preliminary justifications for my claim that Greta’s questions / arguments are fallacious, and they are soundly supported by the various definitions of the logical fallacies mentioned in each one of them.
I’m not “just saying” she’s “wrong”. I’ve given cogent preliminary justification that explains why her questions / arguments are fallacious in each case.
For example, why is Greta’s first assertion cited here fallacious? Because it’s a loaded question that presupposes a distinct conclusion and precludes open deliberation a priori. Or, why is Greta’s claim that “all religion boils down to a difference of opinion” fallacious? Well, for the same reason: it’s just an opinion rephrased as a question.
Why do I need to refute a fallacious argument with evidence? Isn’t fallacious argumentation always self-defeating? Think about it: if all religion boils down to a difference of opinion, then one cannot reject any religion based on factual, empirical or objective grounds.
For months now, on my own blog, as I’ve been telling SI, yourself and others over and over again, I’ve been doing exactly what you people ask for, and I’ve been challenging each of you to offer explanations. I can’t help it that most of you prefer refutation by denigration. There’s nothing I can do about that. You just gotta open your eyes and see something more than what you’ve already decided things to be.
A better question would be “Why are cl’s opinions cogent arguments, while the opinions of others are mere opinions; fallacious, spurious and undeserving of response.”
Open your eyes and look at them, for FSM’s sake:
The “label” I assigned to that question / argument was “fallacy of presupposition.” The reason I assigned that label to that question / argument was because it presupposes that we haven’t come to any understanding about the nature of the spiritual world. It’s loaded, a mere opinion masquerading as a question, QED.
Since when does it matter whether I include links or not? I stopped including them because none of you use them. How many times did I link to my video game incident in the very threads SI alludes to in the OP? At least a half-dozen. And still, SI didn’t even pay me the courtesy of giving the thing a thorough read. Yet, somehow he was *plenty* certain as to the insufficiency of evidence he didn’t even understand, and that I was a “sack of shit,” and a “waste of time.” So you tell me Chaplain: how would you handle something like that? Seriously.
On the other hand, I willingly accept the responsibility of keeping myself informed of each and every argument you, Philly, SI and others make on your own blogs. To contrast, though each of you denigrate me in your own threads pretty much regularly, none of you ever come over to my blog and squarely address what’s being offered. The last time Philly came there, it was to say that “he’s almost always right.” The last time SI came there, it was to troll last time he’d wet his pants about Gideon and wanted to make a point. The last time Evo came there, he got all frustrated and split. And the last time you came there, you just congratulated me on the baby (which is all good, too, BTW: I’m just noting that though all of you attempt refutation by denigration and talk large around here, none of you actually attempt refutation by cogency over there).
I can’t help that you all apparently prefer taunting me from the comforting sidelines of Team Scarlet A’s Affiliate Blogger Network, but don’t try to hold me responsible for anybody’s intellectual lassitude except my own.
Whine alert!
CL:
Without at least a little bit of support, they simply look like labels. Her questions are not fallacious just because you say they are and assign labels to them. You’ve got to demonstrate that the labels are justified.
I understand that fuller explanations of your positions are available at your blog. Still, a couple of sentences, even with links to fuller explanations at your blog, would help your “preliminary justifications” look like such rather than convenient labels that can be read as convenient excuses to dodge giving explanations. I’m not saying you actually intended to dodge the explanations, I’m just saying how it can look.
CL:
I agree that Greta’s literary device throughout her AlterNet piece was to state her opinions as questions. The thing is, she then went on to support those views in extended arguments AlterNet. All you’ve addressed here are her conclusions (stated as questions – which is a bit confusing out of context, but it works in the actual piece), not her arguments. What I was trying to get at in my earlier comments is that you need to address her actual arguments and show why they’re fallacious. If her arguments are fallacious, then her conclusions are fallacious. But, the conclusions can’t legitimately be declared fallacious until the arguments have been dissected and found lacking.
I’m not trying to taunt you, but I will hold you responsible for your apparent intellectual lassitude in this case (even though I know you really care one way or the other about that anyway).
I’ll go on record as stating that, in my view, very few of my interactions with you in the past couple of years have been “refutation by denigration.” We’ve both engaged in that a few times, but, by and large, I’ve tried to avoid going there (sometimes less successfully than others). I’m getting tired of you implying that such is my normal mode of interaction with you. If that’s really the way you feel about our exchanges, well, I know what I can do about it.
No, she complained about how all she gets from believers is “conversational gambits,” but her complaint doesn’t apply to me because I’ve offered to “show her the money,” just like I offer each of you. Instead of being responsive to that, she banned me from her blog, so she can’t be too serious about wanting to hear evidence, else you’d think petty personal distastes wouldn’t obscure the pursuit of truth.
I got that the first time around. What I’m trying to tell you is that she doesn’t make any actual arguments. Read her post. She complained about 6 “conversational gambits,” tosses in some rhetorical questions for support, and calls it a day. That’s not an argument about anything, let alone a cogent one. In fact, what cogent argument in Greta’s post do you claim I’ve overlooked?
Please. There is no intellectual lassitude in this case. I explained why each of her questions here were fallacious in this thread, and I even went into more detail on my own blog, just for you. Your objections are based on this presupposition that there’s something substantial I’ve missed.
Nobody’s perfect, but Chaplain, you used refutation by denigration on our very first meeting by labelling me a troll, all while allowing Team Scarlet A’s pet troll “Trinity” to run rampant. Will you finally deal with that by denouncing it as the immature hypocrisy even your own readers suggested it is? And, just the other day, you resorted to refutation by denigration in the “Gold + Platinum Rule” post on your own blog.
Further, I’ve not said that refutation by denigration is your normal mode of interaction with me; rather, I just noted that all of you use refutation by denigration as your strategy when the going gets tough, and none of you spend any significant time actually considering the arguments and evidence I present on my own blog, which reveals your demands for evidence for what they are: intellectual posturing.
I feel that our exchanges have value, and that we’ve made leaps and bounds of progress. In fact, before you went off on me the other day, I’d actually re-updated my “links” and taken you off my list of detractors. Like I said, though I think it’s childish that you never squarely addressed the Trinity thing, I’ve still got a certain respect for you that I’ve not yet achieved with the others.
An offer we’ve accepted, time and time again. I even devoted a full post to it. Yet we’re still awaiting delivery…
You’ve been banned at lots of blogs. Sometimes you’ve just got to accept reality.
Ever hear the phrase “.. where there’s smoke, there’s fire…”?
Again? Another whine alert!
CL:
I’ve read your response to Greta. What it boils down to is your claim that you are not like those other theists about whom she complains. Well, there are always exceptions to generalizations.
I’ve read some of your posts that you cited in that rebuttal, and the ones that I recall offhand are basically anecdotal evidence. You know the weaknesses inherent with anecdotal evidence, so I won’t go into them here. In the past, many things that were inexplicable at the time they happened – and therefore credited to supernatural sources – have turned out to have natural explanations. I’ll go with the odds that the same thing will happen with the events you’ve described. As for your stuff about consciousness, I’ll wait and see how things shake out with more scientific study. Until then, I’ll side with explanations that fit in best with the rest of the vast body of scientific knowledge that has served humans so well in recent centuries. Religious notions and scientific theories just don’t have comparable track records.
I’ll be honest with you. Given the large claims that many believers make about their gods (I’ll stick with Christianity just to keep it simple) – he created everything, his son’s hideous death atoned for the “sins” of all humankind, that he actually loves all humankind – not just select individuals and groups, that people who believe in Jesus will resurrect from the dead somehow and live in heaven somewhere forever – I’m not impressed with spirits who toss video games around a living room, or angels who sing to a small group of illiterate shepherds in the middle of nowhere to announce the most important birth in history (if it were true), or deities who reveal themselves via garbled holy writings. At the very least, God is a lousy communicator. I’ve already posted what it would take for me to believe in a deity, and anomalous bits of information scattered here and there don’t make the cut. If God is all that many believers say he is, his existence should be more readily apparent than it is. Gods who play parlor tricks when living beings around the world are suffering and dying everyday, often in hideous circumstances, do not deserve respect, let alone worship.
“Gods who play parlor tricks when living beings around the world are suffering and dying everyday, often in hideous circumstances, do not deserve respect, let alone worship.”
Perfectly phrased. I’ve tried to say the same thing a few times, but I’ve never gotten it worded quite that well.
Thanks Chaplain for the link. I read it. It amused me enough to provoke an entire post. Terrible waste of time, as any time spent on him is.
I must add that what it would take YOU or any individual to believe in a god or anything else supernatural has no bearing on whether either exists. Furthermore, unexplained effects are evidence only for unexplained effects. To argue that they are evidence for the supernatural requires a warrant for the supernatural hypothesis first, and no, the effects are not the warrant. That’s circular reasoning. Lack of another explanation for the cause also doesn’t warrant the supernatural hypothesis. That’s essentially an argument from personal incredulity. Entertaining other hypotheses about the supernatural hypotheses, like “If God is all that many believers say he is, his existence should be more readily apparent than it is” is also unwarranted, for it ignores the need for the initial hypothesis’ warrant and when you ignore that, then you’re in a quagmire of naked assertions. Why isn’t he apparent? Well he doesn’t want to make his existence too obvious because he’s testing people’s faith, or perhaps he’s handcuffed by free will, or perhaps he’s the god of the Deists whose simply moved on or perhaps he’s just a prick. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Where’s that going? I don’t know, but it’s a muddy place FAR away from where we should be, at the checkpoint requesting a warrant for this supernatural hypothesis.
Philly:
I agree with that. If you’ll recall the post to which I linked, you’ll note that I stipulated there that I wouldn’t consider any divine revelation credible that wasn’t unequivocal, universal and simultaneous globally. I think you know that I’m not expecting that to happen.
Again, I agree. I stated, in my first comment on this thread, that “the primary question is whether any gods exist. Until that’s established, there’s no point in going ’round and ’round about who that being may be and what he/she/it may do or want.”
Chaplain,
Your original complaint – which prompted my post – was that I’d overlooked Greta’s “actual arguments.” Yet, that doesn’t seem a concern anymore, and you’ve not answered my question as to which of Greta’s “actual arguments” I’ve insufficiently addressed.
Would you care to answer that question? Or, can we now agree that Greta’s post doesn’t contain any “actual arguments” to rebut??
PhillyChief,
In the event you have something more intelligent to say than “douche” or “jackass,” perhaps you can precisely identify what “warrant for a hypothesis” entails, and give examples of hypotheses with warrants? Seriously. Give it a shot.
Quite simply, plausibility to connect a hypothesis to data. For instance, if I hear a noise in the other room and I know my wife is home, it’s a warranted hypothesis that she caused the noise. What’s unwarranted is the hypothesis that the noise came from a yeti or, unfortunately, Olivia Wilde, regardless of how much I wish it was due to Olivia Wilde being in the other room.
Of course having Olivia Wilde and my wife in the house may be trouble, unless if she’s like her character on House, but I’d probably need a lot of sake to make that happen, especially if I was going to be allowed to participate.
So then, if you say it’s plausible to connect hypothesis X to data point Y, then, everything’s okay?
I’m not applying subjective reasons. The existence of the supernatural has not been established, therefore supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted. That’s pretty objective reasoning.
Now should you claim that anecdotes about others’ personal experiences of what they believe to be the supernatural should be enough to establish the existence of the supernatural, that’s a subjective standard, and one you’d somehow have to explain why it should be the new objective standard. Also, if it should only apply to the supernatural and nothing else, then in addition you’d have to explain how that’s not special pleading. Perhaps you could try and argue for how amassing enough anecdotes might be on par with empirically establishing the existence of the supernatural, which might be easier, but that’s still arguing for why your opinion should be a new objective standard. IOW, rejecting your supernatural hypotheses is not a subjective rejection but an objectively based one, jackass.
CL:
My original complaint was directed at your initial comment in this thread. You’ve addressed that in the post at your blog. So, yes, my original complaint is not a concern anymore because you’ve addressed the issue.
So then, my rebuttals of Greta’s “arguments” aren’t hokey-pokey?
Hokey-pokey? Is this the same cl who refuses to answer questions over precision of speech objections?
CL:
The “hokey-pokey” remark was directed at your comment on this thread, not at your blog post.
Chaplain,
Then, let’s talk some more: how is it “hokey-pokey” to note the fallacious nature of a given question?
PhillyChief,
Yes, you are:
That is certainly *NOT* objective reasoning that any scientists use, but subjective reasoning that you use. Real scientists do not require that phenomena be established before making hypotheses about them.
Four centuries ago, was the existence of asteroids established? No. Three centuries ago, was the existence of electrons established? No. Two centuries ago, was the existence of the atom established? No. One century ago, were quarks and leptons established? No. Yet today, each of these things are established.
How did we establish these things? Like Newton did with gravity – by observing their effects, then testing predictions. Science – by it’s very nature – seeks to explain that which is *NOT* established. It does not limit itself to hypotheses from “established phenomena.”
You’ve got it quite backwards.
So. Observing video games falling the way you say they did, what hypothesis do you formulate, and what predictions can you make from that hypothesis?
It’s easy SI, asteroids that pass within a certain distance of the Earth excite the quarks, leptons and electrons in the atoms in the video games, which causes them to fall.
And Note that I asked this question before you said “I will answer you, but first…”.
It’s still hanging there, ripe for the picking.
SI,
My position is that an agent cause (one produced by an agent of a rational nature that acts with intentions, ends or purposes) can better account for the data than a non-agent cause (one that is not the result of purposeful actions by some agent).
From my position – that an agent cause better explains the data – I predict that no scientist will ever be able to reproduce the video games’ anomalous flight path and landing that myself and the two witnesses observed. If the account could be sufficiently explained via appeal to current knowledge, or made to repeatably occur, either of those would falsify the agent cause hypothesis to my satisfaction.
So, I’ve given you my preferred hypothesis, complete with one prediction and two criteria for falsification. If anyone took you up on the bet, you should pay up.
Do you believe it was an agent from CONTROL or KAOS?
Btw, you do realize your position is one of an argument from ignorance, right? In your own words, “a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false”. You just incorrectly accused me of making this fallacy, and here you are committing it yourself. Oh, and believing it’s an “agent” because nothing else makes sense for you is an argument from personal incredulity.
Fuck, I forgot how amusingly stupid you can be. LOL! Thanks for this, I needed the laughs.
Given their tidy landing, I’d say it was a CONTROL agent. Probably 99.
Shit. The previous comment should have read:
For the reason state previously, my guess is that it was agent 99.
chaplain,
It’s easy to crack jokes, but I’d really love to hear an honest attempt at explaining any of the things I’ve discussed on my blog in the last few weeks. You and SI and PhillyChief and the others on Team Scarlet A make such large pretense about the importance of knowledge over belief, yet, even when I bring you a working scientist with a Ph.D. in her field who’s published knowledge that challenges your position, you prefer to remain convinced of your beliefs and not one of you asks the scientists anything about her knowledge.
This is what I mean when I say you can’t just trade your cross for a Scarlet A and call yourself a freethinker.
My position is that an agent cause is more consistent with the data than a non-agent cause. That’s not an argument from ignorance.
But why deflect this thread’s salient question any further? If I say food is cheap, especially meat, does that mean only food is cheap? Or that both food and meat are cheap?
You’re right, it’s not. I said it was an argument from personal incredulity. You know, it’s bad enough when you can’t understand what’s written, but now you can’t even read what’s written. 2010 is not looking good for you, jackass.
PhillyChief,
To SI, I said,
Instead of answering the questions I’ve already asked you, you interjected,
I then replied,
To which you said,
You accused me of “not reading what was written,” but didn’t you write that mine was an argument from ignorance? Yes or no?
When you give a clear answer to that, let’s get back to this: if I say food is cheap, especially meat, does that mean only meat is cheap? Or, does that mean both food and meat are cheap?
I would call this a “looking-glass” understanding of science. Or “doublespeak” science. The words individually make sense, but they don’t add up to describe what science really is. You remember how I categorized science understanding into three levels, TitforTat? Guess which one this falls into…
I will answer you, but first, I need to know if we’re in agreement as to the nature of science: does science limit itself to making hypotheses about established phenomena only?
I don’t really care. It’s your assertion, you run with it.
“I will answer you…”
Oh please. Everyone here knows you won’t.
$50 bucks says that he won’t. Anyone but cl want to take that bet?
TOG,
The answers SI seeks are on my blog. Your education is not my responsibility. Neither you nor anybody else here can possibly “know” that I won’t answer SI. All I can do is repeat the question I asked him, which he chose not to answer: does science limit itself to making hypotheses about established phenomena only?
Feel free to answer that yourself. It might be more productive than just hopping on the thread to take stabs.
Nope. Looked. Not there.
Everyone, if you’ll notice… cl has STILL not answered SI’s question. Predictable as it gets.
Jebus, all I hear are crickets chirping.
Tommykey,
Gee, quite the funny guy!
Thought you’d like that one! 🙂
I did. I wish I’d written it.
Me too.
Come on SI, it’s a straight-forward question: does science limit itself to making hypotheses about established phenomena only?
Define “established phenomena”.
Proof that deja vu is a natural phenomena!
Sorry, cl. I asked the straight-forward question. You answer it. That’s how it works. Why do you always feel compelled to answer a question with another question?
If you need to clarify something before you answer it, go ahead and clarify it. Make it part of your answer. If I disagree with the clarification, I’ll tell you.
And if you can’t answer it, just say so. You waste so much bandwidth with your little games. I have a new post, and we can get on to that, instead of 20 more comments that lead nowhere, here.
Piss off Philly; you’re the one making the claim in the first place.
“my beliefs *are* open to reason and evidence, and I’m willing to discuss them anytime”
You’re such a *knob*.
oooo. That’s so…unbecoming of the rational christian….
You didn’t ask me to discuss my beliefs. You asked me to define “established phenomena,” yet you were the one who claimed, “The existence of the supernatural has not been established, therefore supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted.” You provide the definitions; you’re the one making the claim. You tell me what you meant by “established” as used in your own claim. I can’t read your mind.
The existence of the natural world is established (ie – it’s demonstrable). Exploring the established yields discoveries like that of asteroids and atoms. In contrast, the existence of the supernatural has not been established, therefore there’s no grounds for forming hypotheses about it, no basis for investigation, making predictions, or testing.
You can’t compare unknown phenomena of the natural with the supernatural unless you’re claiming the supernatural is actually a currently unknown aspect of the natural. Is that what you’re claiming, you tit?
That was hands-down my favorite comment you’ve ever made. The “you tit” part was completely unexpected, out in left field, and funny. And, I’m being serious there. But, let’s get on with this..
So, is that which is demonstrable established, or, is that which has been demonstrated established, or, both?
Next, define “supernatural.” Honestly. I’m not trying to game with you. We’ll never get anywhere if you don’t. Hell, we probably won’t get anywhere even if you do.
Naw. You espouse the supernatural, you define it. We don’t think it exists. How are we supposed to define something that doesn’t exist?
You know, this isn’t Plato’s Dialogues. This is just a bunch of non-academic laymen shooting the shit. Why can’t you just converse? Why do you have to put on these airs, as if common discourse is beneath you.
Just answer my fuckin’ question, or move on.
2nd attempt: You can’t compare unknown phenomena of the natural with the supernatural unless you’re claiming the supernatural is actually a currently unknown aspect of the natural. Is that what you’re claiming, you tit?
Standard dictionary definitions apply in the question.
He. Won’t. Answer. It.
Want to add to the pool? I have $50 bucks in it.
While you’re at it, might as well define “demonstrable” and “demonstrated,” too. That way there can be no squirming out of anything from anybody.
Deflection, obfuscation and avoidance.
Gotta hand it to you, you’re the Master.
SI,
Bug off a minute and let me try to have an actual conversation with Philly and/or NAL. You had your chance; you chose not to participate.
Philly,
I heard you the first time big guy, relax for two seconds and have a little patience. There’s no sense in answering that until we’ve removed all wiggle room, which leads to,
Okay, I’ll do the same, but – you still haven’t told me: does established = demonstrable, or that which has been demonstrated? The difference is crucial. Your original claim was that established = demonstrable, but I wonder if maybe you misspoke, because “demonstrable” indicates an instance of potentiality, whereas “established” indicates an instance of actuality.
NAL,
That’s pretty much what I figured you’d say, and that effectively handles the “argument from natural causes” you waged at Philly’s. If the supernatural is everything that doesn’t exist within the universe, then it is literally impossible for science to ever identify a supernatural cause for anything, because science can only make empirical deductions about things in this universe. So, the “argument from natural causes” becomes a fallacious tautology.
Now mind you, I’m *not* protecting from inquiry that which folks refer to when they commonly use the word, “supernatural,” rather, just showing that the common definition precludes any legitimate inquiry of that which folks refer to when they use the word. I’m just as guilty of using that word as anyone, and for that I apologize.
Anyway, that’s why I asked the question I asked at Philly’s: if God were to show up right here, right now, then according to your own definition, that would be a natural phenomena, and not a supernatural one, because regardless of the nature of the God that showed up, it would take place in this universe.
Oh. Sorry. Forgot this was your blog. Don’t let me interrupt.
Just let me know when you get around to answering my question that I asked you yesterday. Have someone send me an email.
You speak for yourself and your guests in that regard. Some of us are published authors pursuing academic degrees.
I answered it, pottymouth. Further, I answered it the first time I introduced the video game incident in the thread(s) you allude to in the OP. The information is there, so quit pretending that I’ve never delineated any sort of hypothesis / prediction chart, because two minutes at my blog proves otherwise. Not only that, but there are literally heaps of posts on how to ask the right questions regarding these issues. If you would but dedicate even 2% of the time I spend reading your arguments to reading mine, you would know these things. I can’t help it that all you sought to do there was denigrate and dismiss. Don’t be so lazy by just looking for non-academic, layman’s potshots.
Irony. Meter. Broken!! How many times did you avoid my straight-forward question in your recent morality thread? A good dozen?
Now, why don’t you practice what you preach and tell me: does science limit itself to making hypotheses about established phenomena only?
“Some of us are published authors pursuing academic degrees.”
“…pottymouth.”
I’m sorry, but I haven’t laughed this hard in days.
“How many times did you avoid my straight-forward question in your recent morality thread? A good dozen?”
The fact that YOU of all people have the temerity to say that just speaks volumes about how completely unaware you are of how others perceive you.
CL:
Unless your publications and your studies pertain directly the subject matter at hand, that stuff is meaningless. FFS – SI is a lawyer. He didn’t just pursue degrees, he successfully acquired at least two of them to attain that status. But, he’s honest enough to acknowledge that his status as a lawyer doesn’t qualify him to speak as an expert on religion.
But, now that you’ve raised the issue, I have three questions for you:
1. Are any of your publications related to religious studies?
2. Do any of your publications appear in refereed journals?
3. Is the degree you’re pursuing related to religious studies?
CL:
1. Questions are not fallacious. Arguments are fallacious.
2-4. Those questions are not relevant to this discussion.
Oh My Fucking God! Really? I am so impressed. Truly. Down-on-my-knees bow-towards-San-Francisco impressed.
I’ll treat you with the respect you truly deserve from now on. I promise.
{mumble}sanctimonious twit.
Is he freakin’ serious? I can’t… I can’t even think of words, that’s how stunned I am that he just did that.
Quite frankly, I admire your composure. If anyone did that to me on a hypothetical blog that I ran, I’d encourage them to bug off themselves. Permanently.
TOG,
How could I possibly be unaware of how you (and others here) perceive me? All you, Philly, SI and others ever do is spout off about it. Do you actually have anything to add to the discussion? Or, are you just here to cheerlead for your team and take stabs at me? Get over it. Address the meat, or bug off yourself. And quit glossing over the fact that SI doesn’t answer my questions – as evidence in this thread – and the last one on morality.
Chaplain,
I’ll address your questions, despite your dodging of mine:
1 Yes
2 Not yet (are there referred religious journals??)
3 No; for the most part, theology is for the birds
Either way, I don’t see that 2 and 3 should pertain much to this conversation, which is ultimately about science and epistemology, and not religion.
So, there ya go. Now, right back at’cha, plus one:
1. How is it “hokey-pokey” to note the fallacious nature of a given question?
2. Why did you denounce me as a troll the very first time I visited your blog – when I was there for nothing other than an honest dialog – while you allowed a real troll to have their way with me?
3. Why did one of your own readers email me privately to blow the gig, and further state an opinion that such behavior was immature and off-putting?
4. Is not 2 indicative of at least some degree of legitimate hypocrisy?
Have you known him to crack any jokes?
“Address the meat, or bug off yourself.”
I’d do what you say, but SI specifically told me I could ignore you when you tried to tell me what to do on his blog 😀
“And quit glossing over the fact that SI doesn’t answer my questions – as evidence in this thread – and the last one on morality.”
The reasons he’s doing that are as follows:
A) You steadfastly refuse to answer a single question. And I mean ANSWERING a question. You’re giving responses to questions, but they’re on par with lawyerly non-answers in terms of weasel-y-ness.
3) He’s gotten to the point where he can see past and predict your pointless rhetoric. Meaning, he knows when you’re trying to GOTCHA him. Why would he bother answering when he knows you’re going to equivocate?
I’m using standard definitions which you could find in a Merriam-Webster dictionary. How about you?
As an impartial observer, I really think you guys need to take a break from each other!
Sorry, Tommy. I can’t leave, so if we take a break, there’s only one commenter than needs to head in one direction.
I’ll start it off with my definition of the “supernatural”. It’s more of a definition of what the supernatural isn’t:
The supernatural is everything that doesn’t exist within the universe. If something exists within our universe, I consider it to be natural.
I put my definition out there, let’s hear yours.
cl:
Not true. Scientists investigate parallel universes and membrane cosmology. M-theory and its eleven dimensions are the hot topics in physics.
cl:
There is nothing fallacious or tautological about it since your “science only makes deductions about our universe” argument is false.
cl:
That would be an example of a natural phenomena with a supernatural cause.
NAL:
Really? How would you know?
That’s why I hate the “Reply” button. You don’t know, without scrolling through the comments, if someone has responded to your comment. /End of rant.
Maybe you can’t know. As Arthur C. Clark said: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
However, that advanced technology would still have to abide by the laws of physics. If a natural phenomenon violated the laws of physics, then that may be an indicator of a supernatural cause. Or it may indicate that the laws of physics need updating.
If the natural and the supernatural are not distinct and disjoint, then there is no difference between a natural cause and a supernatural cause. Maybe that’s what the supernaturalists want, a conflation of the two. That way they can maintain their illusions.
NAL,
Do those models appeal to things beyond this universe? Yes? Or no?
I don’t separate existence into categories of “natural” and “supernatural.” All that exists – whether in this universe or beyond – is a part of “nature,” i.e. “the natural order of things.” Now, when I use the word “supernatural,” I refer to things the average person has in mind when they use the word: ghosts, spirits, God, angels, demons, miracles, etc. In common usage, the word “supernatural” is simply a euphemism the ignorant attach to the unexplained. Fire and lighting used to be considered supernatural. It’s more a label to express an idea than a sound ontological categorization. But, for the purposes of this discussion, I say we stick to your definition, which is actually objective and useful.
If you’d like more, I suggest this post.
According to your definition – which is the one I’m using here – natural and supernatural *are* distinct. Accordingly, a natural cause denotes one that acts on this universe from within this universe; a supernatural cause denotes one that acts in this universe from beyond it. Right?
cl:
Yes.
So, you use the word “supernatural” in the common usage, the usage the average person has in mind.
Right.
NAL,
Then – if those models appeal to things beyond this universe – and “supernatural” denotes that which is within this universe – is it not an unavoidable fact that those models describe purportedly supernatural mechanisms? Yes? Or no?
Well yeah, but my mistake is that I even use the word at all, because as commonly used, its subjective nature isn’t really useful for anything. In the interest of maximum clarity I’d say that I’m gonna make it a point to never use it again, but I’ve made that point before, and found it difficult to uphold because the term is so interwoven into these types of discussions.
cl:
Yes.
NAL,
When I said, “science can only make empirical deductions about things in this universe,” I meant that anything purported to neither overlap nor interpenetrate this universe cannot be studied empirically, but only through conceptual models derived from empirical observations made in this universe. IOW, even if they exist, we can’t study a comet, or some law, or some property from a parallel universe. Would you agree with that statement?
To my previous question, you said,
So then – if those models appeal to things beyond this universe – and if “supernatural” denotes that which is within this universe – and if it is an unavoidable fact that those models describe purportedly supernatural mechanisms – and if it is undeniably true that scientists study those models – all things you’ve just agreed to – then, are you and I in agreement that science *can* study supernatural mechanisms, whether they overlap or interpenetrate this universe or not?
Philly,
You’re drifting, and trying too hard to get a gotcha: does established = demonstrable, or that which has been demonstrated? Just answer honestly, and let’s give this an honest chance.
TOG,
When does pessimism ever produce results? If Cassel employed your line of thinking while deliberating whether he should pass to Chambers, could the touchdown get made? Think about it: “Man, I really wanna uncork this puppy to Chambers who’s all the way down there in the end zone, but I know if I try, he’ll never catch it anyway.”
Have a little faith, will ya? Oh wait – you’re an atheist.
“When does pessimism ever produce results?”
When it allows one to avoid wild goose chases, for instance?
“Have a little faith, will ya? Oh wait – you’re an atheist.”
Yeah, I only believe in the existence of things that seem like they could possibly exist. So I’m not holding my breath looking for your integrity. If I see any evidence or suggestion that it could even theoretically exist, maybe I’ll change my mind. But based on my observations and those of my peers, it doesn’t look good.
Why, because by definition the supernatural can’t be demonstrated?
“Although supernatural events or miracles do interact with the natural world, such events represent temporary intrusions into the natural world from entities whose very nature generally forbids them to leave hard evidence, because they themselves are said to come and go from outside our construct of space-time.” – cl
As the Church Lady used to say, “isn’t that convenient?”
Btw, I LOVE this gem:
“to pit two different methods of explanation against one another when one of them is outside the jurisdiction of the argument a priori seem(sic) like an unfair approach to me.”
What’s unfair is to think that a “method of explanation” can be considered legitimate because it explains something that by definition can’t be explained nor demonstrated to exist! LOL! What a bunch of shit. Absolute Dragon in my garage.
“…from entities whose very nature generally forbids them to leave hard evidence…”
I’d be intrigued to hear how he knows that their nature forbids them from leaving evidence, but I know if I asked I’d never actually get an answer.
Yeah, take ghosts, for instance. Does every person who dies turn into a ghost? If not, what is the criteria proposed? Does the person have to have suffered a violent or tragic death? In that case, should we expect ghosts to be concentrated in areas where massacres or other mass casualty incidents occurred? Are ghosts fixed to the spot where they died, or can they go anywhere, like in the movie The Grudge?
How does one account for confirmation bias in studying for ghosts in places like Auschwitz or Gettysburg? Wouldn’t I be liable to credit every seeming whisper on the wind, bump in the night or creaking floor to a ghost?
Besides, when you consider that some hundreds of millions of people have died within the last 500 years, isn’t it reasonable to expect that ghosts would be living with us practically cheek by jowl? If they exist but can’t leave hard evidence of their existence, then we really can’t factor them into explanations of anything, can we? I mean, can ghosts be recruited to scour the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan to find Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri for us, or can historians contact ghosts of participants in historical events to give us their eyewitness accounts of what they saw?
Apparently not. Instead, we’re left with “those noises in your attic or that voice you thought you heard in the wind could have been a ghost and you can’t prove it’s not.”
Tommykey,
Not that you’ve implied such, but none of that represents my actual position on disembodied spirits. Still, I like that you have a bunch of questions. You may or may not have already seen it, but that same general spirit of inquiry is what prompted this.
There are two general categories of response when confronted with anomalous phenomena: bury our heads in the sand and denigrate, or ask the right questions. Science and knowledge can only proceed via the latter.
Then why do you ask all the wrong questions? Such as:
How is that even remotely responsive to my specific request that you provide a hypothesis concerning the video game incident, along with predictions that can be derived or expected from that hypothesis? You said that Newton observed the effects of gravity (apocryphally the apple falling on his head), formulated a hypotheses and made predictions from that observed effect.
So, what hypothesis do you make about your video games? And what predictions could we expect to confirm if that hypothesis is true?
Finally, if you think your non-responsive counter-question really needs to be answered first, then answer it in the best way you can as part of your full answer.
That’s the last time I’ll request it.
Now, I’ll make a prediction: If you even try to answer the question, the answer will amount to “Goddidit!” once you strip off the cl based® circumlocution.
cl:
My apologies. I didn’t read your comment carefully enough. “Supernatural” does not denote that which is within this universe. “Natural” denotes that which is within this universe. I thought I had made that clear in my model and that you understood my model.
Don’t apologize. I suspect he knew exactly what you were trying to say, he just wanted to twist it around so that he could claim that the supernatural fits in what we call the universe, even though it was pretty evident that was not what you were saying. That’s his MO.
Now, this is where he’ll pop in to tell me to piss off, in my own blog no less, because I’m not allowed to comment when he’s having an intense interchange with someone not me.
NAL,
Actually, my apologies, for I’m the one that made the typo. Re-parse:
So then – if those models appeal to things not in this universe – and if “supernatural” denotes that which is not in this universe – and if it is an undeniable fact that those models describe purportedly supernatural mechanisms – and if it is undeniably true that scientists study those models – all things you’ve agreed to – then, are you and I in agreement that science *can* study supernatural mechanisms, whether they overlap or interpenetrate this universe or not?
Also, my apologies if I missed a beat, but it appears you left this one hanging: when I said, “science can only make empirical deductions about things in this universe,” I meant that anything purported to neither overlap nor interpenetrate this universe cannot be studied empirically, but only through conceptual models derived from empirical observations made in this universe. IOW, even if they exist, we can’t study a comet, or some law, or some property from a parallel universe.
Would you agree with that statement?
I don’t agree or disagree with that statement.
Much of what we know about our own universe is based on conceptual models derived from empirical observations made in this universe. The Big Bang, Dark Matter, Dark Energy are examples.
There are theories that gravity is “leaking” between parallel universes since gravity is such a weak force. What this may tell us about parallel universes is not clear to me.
As of now, I don’t think there’s any empirical evidence of parallel universes. But there was no empirical evidence for gravity warping space-time when Einstein first postulated his theory. If M-theory is shown to be accurate in one of its aspects, then other derived aspects, such as the 11 dimensions, will have to be given considerable veracity.
Of course, all this parallel universe stuff may turn out to have more to do with philosophy than physics.
CL:
I’ve changed my mind about answering the four questions you posed earlier. Since I don’t want to derail SI’s thread, I’m not going to engage in any further discussion of the matter beyond this.
1. Questions are not fallacious. Arguments are fallacious.
2. I identified you as a troll in that thread because you behaved like a troll. Trinity was a lampoon, not a troll. I didn’t allow her to “have her way” with you; I allowed both of you to speak your pieces.
3. I have no idea why a reader whom you outed last summer (so there’s no need to be coy now) did what he did. I’m not a mind reader.
4. No, it wasn’t hypocritical. Trinity was a lampoon, you were a troll. Even after I identified you as a troll, I allowed you to continue posting comments, including a 5,000 word essay. You had your way on that thread far more than Trinity had hers.
“…including a 5,000 word essay.”
Holy shit. I never actually read that. At once I am both shocked and completely un-surprised. That is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen, the concentrated amounts of sophistry and deflection are nearing lethal levels on that post.
Apparently everyone knew it though, cause he got kinda smacked down after that. I had a good laugh at ildi’s post where she said “You may or may not find it amusing that CL uncritically reports the 1907 research of Duncan MacDougall’s ’21 gram’ experiment proving the existence of a soul.”
Chaplain,
That’s a poorly-formed response though, because questions can be fallacious. Questions that incorporate fallacious premises are by definition fallacious.
Verbosity is not trolling. On the other hand, what would you call it when an atheist blogger calls someone a troll for simply being verbose or opinionated, yet knowingly allows an undeniable “lampoon” to hide behind anonymity in order to harass believers?
I can understand why you wouldn’t tackle that question head-on; it’s gotta be at least some degree of bothersome knowing I’m right. Though it’s just my opinion and not worth a piss in the long run, what you ought to do is just suck it up and say, “Fine. You know what cl, all else temporarily aside, you’re right about this. I was silly and immature to condone sockpuppetry and trolling on my blog.” After all, did I not send you an apology in the mail after that thread? Alas, the imprisonments of pride.
You don’t think it might have been because that person was correct that your actions were immature and off-putting?
“Hers,” eh? Trinity was a Christian decoy Team Scarlet A sicked on believers. You know it, I know it, Team Scarlet A knows it, but apparently, integrity doesn’t matter.
TOG,
Well, I thought you were going to change your tune a few comments back when it appeared you might actually try to have a discussion, but since I see that you can’t contain your emotions and personal dislikes as usual, I’m afraid it’s the end of the road for you and I. Big loss, right? So, feel free to keep hating on every thread you find me on, but know that I won’t be responding to you anymore, unless of course it’s on my own blog. And, by all means, bookmark this comment and shove it back in my face if I slip up.
Best to you, TOG. Honestly, if I’d known correcting the good half-dozen factually inerrant claims you’ve made would have lead to you following me around like a shadow taking stabs literally every time you engage me, I would have never corrected you at all. I just didn’t realize how much pride you have invested in this.
One last correction:
Yet another misconstruing of my actual position. Note that the title of that post was, False Argument #8: Science Has Proven The Soul. IOW, that science has proven the soul is a false argument.
This is what I mean when I say that heated emotions blur cold logic. In all your glee to get a gotcha, ildi made my words say the exact opposite of what they say:
Philly,
Come on Chief; we’re getting closer and closer to a miracle here. Besides the fact that I’d really like to see SI lose that bet, I think we can make some progress in this discussion, if you would just give me what I need to proceed: does established = demonstrable, or that which has been demonstrated?
Demonstrated, but it doesn’t matter does it since supernatural entities’ very nature forbids them to leave evidence? How do we know this? Because you say so. Why should we accept that? Because you say so.
So if we observe random effects whose causes are unknown, we’re justified in forming a hypothesis for those causes involving the supernatural because the effect is consistent with the definition of supernatural? Dragon in my garage
You’re not an intellectual, jackass. You’ve consistently shown that fact. You fail to grasp logic. You fail to grasp basic definitions. You certainly fail to grasp the scientific method. You consistently exhibit confirmation bias and offer fallacious arguments. You kiss up to people who don’t directly challenge you in hopes of being considered an intellectual but when they eventually refuse to do so and call you out for your shenanigans, you label them part of a team conspiring against you. In fact, you keep a running tab of these “slights” as exhibited above by referring back to being labelled a troll by the Chaplain. How long ago was that? A year? Two? The bit about being published was especially pathetic as another attempt to try to appear as an intellectual.
As a narcissistic attention whore, these comment erosions into a cl-fest are just what you seem to love, and I’m loathe to accommodate that desire, but this one has been a high water mark, a one stop bookmark to highlight what a clown you are, complete with links to more of your inanity as well as a more lengthy examination of that inanity on my blog. Finally you got your spotlight. Enjoy.
“Honestly, if I’d known correcting the good half-dozen factually inerrant claims you’ve made would have lead to you following me around like a shadow taking stabs literally every time you engage me, I would have never corrected you at all.”
Not the case at all. Even if you hadn’t gotten me for being wrong… let’s see, I count twice, in reality, more than six… you’re still an annoying toolshed, and I don’t like annoying toolsheds.
It’s nothing personal. You’re just a pain in the ass who says and does ridiculous things. Anyone who does that, I’m going to tell off.
Now, allow me to mirror you and quibble:
“Did MacDougall conclude his findings were proof that we have a soul / spirit? Not by any means…”
You said HE didn’t conclude that, which by no means shows that YOU didn’t conclude that. Nice try.
CL:
In a comment posted at my blog on January 30, 2008, ildi said
In a comment addressed to TOG, today, you said that the position you stated in your post, False Argument #8 had been misconstrued.
I’m curious: how did ildi manage, on January 30 2008, to misconstrue a position that you published on May 17, 2008?
I’ll let you ponder that while I move along. In that same comment addressed to TOG, you said:
That’s an incomplete, perhaps even misleading, account of what you wrote in your post:
You probably won’t agree with me, but I find the thrust of the material quoted from your May 17,2008 strikingly different from the thrust of the comment addressed to TOG today.
You said to me, earlier in this thread,
I’ll leave it to you and others to deduce my guess regarding your reason for not including a link in your comment to TOG. What I will say is, don’t be too quick to assume that readers are not interested in going to source material, whether it’s yours or anyone else’s. I’ve found that source material is often more fascinating than the comments/articles/posts that lead people there.
SI,
I saw the comment you added up there in the thread. I can’t make you see what I see. When I’ve given you data points before, you either concede them as “weak” evidence for a miracle, ignore them entirely, or you simply spit on them without even understanding them in context. Why on Earth should I proceed with someone who calls me “sack of shit” yet isn’t even reading the argument he dismisses? Honestly? What possible benefit could result? Don’t you think that’s a legitimate concern on my behalf? What would happen if you displayed such haste in trial?
And seriously, why do you keep trying to paint me as a man who won’t answer questions, when I’ve now asked you five times:
1) does science limit itself to making hypotheses about established phenomena only?
Does it? Or not? Though I don’t know what’s motivating you, I believe in my heart that you’re intelligent enough to know the answer is clearly, “no.” On the other hand, saying such would seemingly put you at odds with your boy Philly. What’s more important? Party lines? Or the pursuit of truth?
Chaplain,
She didn’t. She misconstrued what I’d published earlier. Like you did with the “Gold Platinum Rule,” I made emendations to that post after I realized people were getting the wrong impression. As far as the McDougall thing, it’s not proof of the soul. It’s certainly an interesting experiment that I’d like to see repeated today, though, especially with all the advances in technology. When I noted that McDougall didn’t tout the experiment as proof, the implication was that his position was cautioned with reason. The point to make was that he was a good researcher, not a hasty inductor simply trying to prove his point.
That’s fine, and as we both know, people will fill the gaps with their opinions. If I had anything to hide whatsoever, I wouldn’t have even responded to TOG, let alone quoted my post and listed the title for anyone to go find.
Philly,
Thank you. See? Wasn’t that hard, right? Now, I’m’a go drink a few Tecate’s and chill out a bit. Done blogging for tonite. I’ll get back to you, and promise to use Merriam Webster definitions, as we’ve agreed, and I will answer your “you tit” question. In the meantime, if there’s anything else besides the “you tit” question you’d like to remind me of the need to answer, I’m all ears. As for the rest,
Why did you omit the words “generally” and “hard” from my statement?
Again, your statement, not mine. Why did you load it with “random” prefixed to “effects?” Science is always justified in forming hypotheses, making predictions, and testing reality for them. The way you’ve described it is backwards, like I’ve been saying.
The rest of your comment – as usual – constitutes refutation by denigration. Your opinions are worthless to pursuing truth. If you want to stick to the actual discussion we’ve got going – the discussion about why I believe what I believe – I’m down, but other than that, we already know your low opinion of me.
“If I had anything to hide whatsoever, I wouldn’t have even responded to TOG…”
Oooh, is that why you’re ignoring some of “Team Scarlet A’s” (what-the-fuck-ever, yeah right) other comments…
yada, yada, yada, ad infinitum, ad nauseum
Now you know why nobody wants to take my bet.
Here, I’ll quote the whole damn thing in its entirety YET AGAIN:
“Although supernatural events or miracles do interact with the natural world, such events represent temporary intrusions into the natural world from entities whose very nature generally forbids them to leave hard evidence, because they themselves are said to come and go from outside our construct of space-time.”
Then either you’re saying they have left evidence, in which case:
1) What is it?
2) By what standard are you determining that it’s evidence of the supernatural?
Or you’re just saying it’s possible that they could leave evidence, which begs the question how do you know it’s possible?
Of course before getting into their characteristics, you have to explain why you believe they even exist, and before that, you have to explain why you believe the supernatural exists. So to recap:
1) How do you know the supernatural exists?
2) How do you know supernatural beings exists?
3) How do you know characteristics of these beings?
4) How do you investigate and gather this evidence which “generally” is not left behind?
“Them” has to be established as being part of reality first. THAT is the point you continually ignore. Furthermore, invoking science to somehow validate your nonsense while, as quoted below, simultaneously saying science can’t touch the supernatural is disingenuous, no?
• “That earlier people attributed supernatural cause to things we today explain with science shows only their misunderstanding of supernaturalism’s jurisdiction“
• “phenomena to which we ascribe ‘natural’ causes can simultaneously have ‘supernatural’ roots that per the laws of physics we are incapable of apprehending.”
Keep drinking, jackass.
To get a real feel for what cl is actually doing here, I have taken the time to create an instruction sheet, so that our home viewers can participate and experience the “CL SHUFFLE”. Yea!
1. Take your right index finger and touch the tip of your right thumb with it, so that when you look at your hand you see a big “O”.
2. Pull down the three remaining fingers so that they are aligned with the right index finger, keeping the relative “O” shape with your hand.
3. If you are a man, slide the resulting “O” hand over your pork sword. If you are a woman, slide it over your significant other’s pork sword. (He’ll thank you for it)
4. Move your hand in a stroking motion up and down the aforementioned pork sword.
5. Wait for results. (Some lubrication may be necessary)
That’s all you need to fully understand the cl circle jerk.
Don’t be surprised if you see this comment cited elsewhere.
Philly,
I don’t continually ignore it; I continually dismiss it as the stupidest, most backwards “logic” I’ve heard this year. You’re intelligent, too, so I don’t know why you can’t see it. Science is the study we undertake to sift what’s real from what’s not.
Therefore, when you say,
You put the cart before the horse. Plain and simple. Why must a scientific hypothesis be “established as being a part of reality” beforehand when the entire thrust of science is to sift what’s real from what’s not in the first place? We test and develop hypotheses to determine what’s real; not the other way around. This “logic” of yours is absurd.
You seem to miss the fact that science has been and is “sifting through” this stuff, and has found every facet of it that it’s investigated to be hogwash. Complete and utter garbage.
I wish I could find that bar graph of supernatural claims made versus those vindicated by science… here’s a spoiler: there are zero of one of those two things.
NAL,
Really? Why? Do you not have an opinion one way or the other regarding our ability to study comets or laws from universes outside ours? I would think the answer would be an unequivocal, “no.”
Either way, can we at least finish this(?):
So then – if those models appeal to things not in this universe – and if “supernatural” denotes that which is not in this universe – and if it is undeniably true that scientists study those models – all things you’ve agreed to – then, are you and I in agreement that science *can* study supernatural mechanisms, whether they overlap or interpenetrate this universe or not?
Philly,
Here’s the definitions of “supernatural” Merriam Webster uses:
1a of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe;
1b of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2a departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature
2b attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)
So, when you make a blanket statement like, “there’s no evidence for the supernatural,” which of those four definitions do you claim to be incongruous with all known scientific evidence?
Open challenge to anyone,
The only questions in this thread that I’ve been delaying in answering were the ones that required agreement on definitions before proceeding. For example, after five refusals, Philly’s finally answered that established = demonstrated, which is a decent goalpost we can actually use.
I’ve asked for a list to be made of any / every so-called “unanswered question” in this thread (and I’m aware of the comment you posted yesterday, SI, I’ll get to it).
But to those who claim I’m dodging questions, make the list so I can address your claims, or quit whining.
The definition is:
1 : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2 a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)
So all of it, however 2a is a usage definition, no? “Appear to transcend the laws of nature” would make, to some remote tribesman, an ipod appear supernatural, and they’d call it supernatural, but it wouldn’t be supernatural. I understand that definition needs to be in there because that is a usage of the word by the ignorant, but for the sake of defining what the supernatural is supposed to be, I don’t think it’s a appropriate.
Btw, I had a list in my last comment if you need one, and others restated their questions several times, so I really think it’s up to you to go back and see what you missed. Besides, it just makes you look worse if you have it listed again how much you’ve, um, overlooked answering, no?
PhillyChief,
Fair enough. I’ll meta-analyze the thread myself. It will just take a little longer, that’s all.
We are in complete agreement as to the definitions. For clarity, I’m referring to, “of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil” as 1b, because technically, something can be beyond the observable universe yet *not* a God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil – right? If yes, let’s get to it.
I had asked,
..to which you replied,
Yes; 2a is a “usage definition,” which is exactly why I’ve been suggesting that we’re using loaded language all along. If you look, you’ll see that this is also where bryce and I agreed on your own blog. I’ve said before that “supernatural” gets used as a euphemism for that which we don’t understand, and an iPod would be supernatural by that definition. So, for the sake of defining what the supernatural is supposed to be, I don’t think 2a is appropriate, either. I further suggest that you and I either revise or discard Merriam Webster’s inappropriate definition 2a, and since I’m sure you’ll agree, let’s now focus on other definitions Merriam Webster gives. Let’s start with 1a.
2a notwithstanding, since you said, “all of it,” that means that when you say “there’s no evidence for the supernatural,” you are claiming that no known scientific evidence is congruous with “an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe” [1a].
If that’s the case, do you disagree with NAL and myself that, “Scientists investigate parallel universes and membrane cosmology,” and that “M-theory and its eleven dimensions are the hot topics in physics,” and that “those models appeal to things not in this universe”?
If yes, we see that whether we use NAL’s definition – or Merriam Webster’s – your claim that “there is no evidence for the supernatural” – is simply false. Because, whether we define “supernatural” as “an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe,” or “everything that doesn’t exist within the universe,” undeniably – science undeniably studies those things.
NAL,
Recall that you yourself said your stated position was “..that scientists are investigating the supernatural and may be able to provide evidence of same.” I just have two very simple questions. After all, we both put time into this, and I participated according to the definitions you established, so I think it’s only courteous to concede common ground if and where it exists.
1) Are you and I are in agreement that science *can* study purportedly supernatural mechanisms, whether they are claimed to overlap or interpenetrate this universe or not? Yes or no?
2) Returning to your original remark at Philly’s, if it is a “reasonable conclusion that there is probably not one phenomenon that requires a supernatural explanation,” are today’s scientists who study explanations that are by your own definition supernatural acting unreasonably? If yes, how so? If no, why not?
I’ve already responded to your latest lines of discussion, and will gladly post those responses as soon as you answer the above questions. Then, beginning with dark flow, we can move the discussion to what is and is not evidence for the supernatural, since there it seems we disagree.
I do not accept the premise that the natural and the supernatural “overlap or interpenetrate”. My model assumes that the two are disjoint.
It depends.
If scientists are investigating the origin of the universe, then I think it reasonable to consider supernatural causes, since I don’t think the universe can create itself. Without evidence their theories are purely speculative.
In general, I think it is not reasonable to consider supernatural causes for natural phenomena. There may be natural causes that have yet to be discovered.
My model presumes that a natural phenomenon is explained by either natural or supernatural means but not both.
NAL,
Assuming the two are disjoint – are you and I are in agreement that science *can* study purportedly supernatural mechanisms? Yes or no?
Scientists *can* study anything they want. Whether they will find any evidence or not, I don’t know.
I think any such “evidence” will likely be of the inferred type, for example, as a prediction from a proven mathematical formula. Not at all satisfying, but still valid.
So then, you’re saying “yes,” that scientists can study the supernatural by the definition we’ve agreed to here. Note that I never thought you said or implied scientists couldn’t study the supernatural, either. IOW, I’ve not attached any “fact of evidence” claim to your words – anywhere. I’m just solidifying our agreement that yes, science can study “the supernatural” according to both your definition and Merriam-Webster’s. Now, it becomes a question of whether or not any scientists have found any evidence for the supernatural, which of course leads to,
That’s exactly what I was getting at when I said, “anything purported to neither overlap nor interpenetrate this universe cannot be studied empirically, but only through conceptual models derived from empirical observations made in this universe. IOW, even if they exist, we can’t study a comet, or some law, or some property from a parallel universe.”
When I said that the first time, you said you neither agreed nor disagreed, but your statement here seems to indicate that we’re in agreement. So, while I’ll refrain from opining on what I think is likely, are we in agreement that science (probably) cannot derived empirical observations of a comet, or some law, or some property from a parallel universe?
PhillyChief,
Since it is undeniable that scientists are studying hypotheses like parallel universes and m-theory, with the question of what is and is not evidence for the supernatural still open, are we at least in agreement that science *can* study purportedly supernatural mechanisms, whether they are claimed to overlap or interpenetrate this universe or not?
Yes? Or no?
I seem to recall writing that scientists were investigating supernatural (based on my definition) phenomenon. I never claimed that there was existing scientific evidence. I stipulated the possibility of obtaining evidence of the supernatural, not the fact of evidence being obtained.
I even noted the possibility of M-theory being nothing more than a philosophy.
My stated position is that scientists are investigating the supernatural and may be able to provide evidence of same. As far as I know, no such evidence now exists.
I invite visitors to read my actual comments and don’t accept cl’s version of what he thinks I said.
Regular readers here already know that, but it’s good to point it out to those who stop by infrequently, or are otherwise not used to cl’s penchant for subtle modification of the words of others.
SI,
I realize you couldn’t resist taking another stab, but if you read my words closely, it’s undeniably false that I reported anything other than what NAL *actually* said. I said,
I quoted NAL’s words, and note that nowhere therein did I say or imply that NAL cited any sort of “fact of evidence being obtained.” I’d appreciate it if you’d retract your above implication that I “modified the words of others” when I did no such thing. Rather, I’ve quoted NAL directly.
mmmm….I wouldn’t say it’s undeniable, and apparently NAL wouldn’t say that either, since he made a point of telling everyone to read what he wrote, not your version of it.
But I’ll leave it to everyone else to come to their own conclusions. You know what mine is.
Of course I do; it’s always the option that gives me the least possible amount of credit as a human being. And to think, all that talk about making people smile.
Typical.
You know, respect is something you have to continue to retain. It’s only automatic to a point.
And it’s easy to lose.
It is the content of that paragraph that is interesting. It listed several investigations that are being conducted by physicists. These investigations are generally known. That these investigations deal with things not of this universe should be obvious. Why bother to ask Philly if he agrees? I would think that all readers of this blog would agree. The paragraph must have a rhetorical motive beyond its useless interrogative.
To the casual reader, in the next paragraph, it might appear that cl and I agree that there exists evidence of the supernatural. The casual reader would be mistaken.
There may come a day when there is evidence, but that time is not now. I would love to proved wrong.
You may be interested in reading Robert L. Park’s book called Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud
His summary of the seven warning signs of bogus science includes the following:
ildi,
Well, that might be what it suggests to Park, who must be either willfully ignorant of science or well-educated but for some reason still willfully ignorant.
The plain reality is that inability to boost a signal **DOES NOT** suggest that the effect being studied isn’t really there. That’s a horrible methodology for discerning the truth, as the history of “real science” will testify.
For example, along the road to the discovery of the electron, there was an electrostatic effect being generated, even in Hertz’ experiment; it’s just that the electrometer Hertz used could not detect that effect.
So, according to Park – whom you’re citing – Hertz’ technological limitations “suggested that electrons weren’t really there.”
What utter rubbish. If J.J. Thomson had succumbed to Park’s “logic,” he would have had no incentive to pursue the discovery of the electron.
It’s you who’s preaching “voodoo science,” ildi; get with the times.
Maybe I missed something, but I read that quote about “boosting the signal” as metaphorical. The “tortured analyses of statistics” doesn’t mean that the telepathy, psychokinesis, or precognition “signal” was weak, but that the evidence for it was somewhat weak.
Your comparison to an actual physical experiment that could be improved with technology is somewhat inapt, if I read that correctly.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is extremely strong in this one…
Oh he’s at Otto level
Awesome movie.
Yes. And one that’s one degree away from Monty Python, which makes it only 2 degrees away from this blog.
NAL,
Thought that one might catch your attention 😉
Recall that back at Philly’s when you and I started this little journey, you said,
Yet here, I led you through a series of clear, “yes-or-no” questions that suggested quite differently. Now, you say,
That’s certainly a reasonable invitation, if I don’t say so myself, and I’d like to take you up on it, because I don’t *think* you said anything other than *exactly* what you yourself *actually* said. Allow me.
You began your discussion with me here by supplying your preferred definition for the word supernatural: everything that doesn’t exist within the universe.
Then, in response to me asking you if thought that parallel universes, membrane cosmology, M-theory and its eleven dimensions appealed to things beyond this universe, you *actually* said,
When I relayed our discussion to PhillyChief, I did *not* say that you “claimed that there was existing scientific evidence.” I said,
That is all I said. Though facts of evidence have been obtained, I did *not* at that time say you had alluded to any sort of “fact of evidence being obtained,” and I had clearly understood your remark about “M-theory being nothing more than a philosophy,” so there was no need to remind me.
Your stated position does not conflict with anything I’ve said, and according to the definition you chose, evidence does exist for “the supernatural,” for example, using WMAP, cosmologist Kashlinsky of the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland has detected slight deviations in the CMB that – in terms of what galaxy clusters *should* be doing – appear to contradict predictions cast by Einstein’s General theory of relativity as well as the theory of dark energy. These results – submitted to The Astrophysical Journal – show galaxy clusters receding anomalously, i.e. in a particular direction and at greater-than-expected speeds (cf. dark flow)
Returning to your original remark at Philly’s, if it is a “reasonable conclusion that there is probably not one phenomenon that requires a supernatural explanation,” why are today’s scientists studying explanations that are by your own definition supernatural?
Lastly, I’m glad you’ve now stated your official position, because after our last exchange, you got peculiarly silent. Now, can you finally just with a simple “yes” admit that you and I are in agreement that science *can* study purportedly supernatural mechanisms, whether they are claimed to overlap or interpenetrate this universe or not?
Dark Flow Detected – Not!
Even if/when evidence is produced that verifies the existence of something not of this universe, the conclusion that some particular phenomenon is due to supernatural causes would not be reasonable.
Considering the massive list of phenomena shown to be due to natural causes, even if one or two phenomena were shown to be due to supernatural causes, one cannot, therefore, reasonably conclude that a particular phenomenon is due to a supernatural cause.
Cl, you’re deliberately trying to stretch the meaning of the word “supernatural” by trying to separate away the “especially: of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil”. It’s the same tactic as stretching the meaning of faith to encompass everything in order to claim faith is used when it’s not.
Are there suggestions that parallel universes and strings aren’t natural, that they’re a different order of existence? Seriously, I’m asking. If so, on what grounds are they saying this? Also, they didn’t just pull string theory out of their asses (that makes for an icky image). The theory explains shit and can be applied to make predictions about reality. It’s become this m-theory which some hope is that holy grail of a unified theory of everything. How the fuck does a “shit moved in my house and I can’t explain it so it’s probably a ghost because ghosts do that shit” supernatural hypothesis compare to that? Doesn’t the “theory” part clue you in at all?
Oh, and that Kashlinsky guy is kind of not really taken too seriously, right? He’s the multiverse guy isn’t he, or am I thinking of someone else?
So, I hope everybody had a restful break! [/TEMPORARY CEASE FIRE]
PhillyChief,
If I say food is cheap, especially meat, does that mean only meat is cheap? Or that both food and meat are cheap?
I don’t know why he’s bothering belaboring the English language on this post, when on the other one, he has conceded that the supernatural doesn’t exist.
That’s fascinating. Well I was going to ask if he could just cut to the chase and say what he means when he says either “supernatural” or “the spiritual world” (I can’t remember that last one exactly, but it was something involving “spirit”), but if the supernatural doesn’t exist, so be it.
Anyway, to leave supernatural as whatever is outside the known universe, that’s just an attempt to repackage calling whatever we can’t explain as supernatural. I heard a noise, I can’t explain where it came from, probably a ghost. The universe is here, I don’t know how, probably due to some supernatural creator thing.
Actually, I guess both of those can be tied together, can’t they? Everything is natural, and things we can’t explain yet are dubbed supernatural until they are explained. Hey wait, that was definition 2a, departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature. Excellent! Well we’ve wrapped this baby up then, yes?
NAL,
I saw your latest comment. I’ll get back to ya.
SI,
For once – just once – can you let Philly fight his own battles, please? Do you “freethinking” and “rational” atheists really need this much backup?
PhillyChief,
See? Another argument from your own pre-decided opinion. Although there is no possible way you could know my motive, you go right ahead and state your opinion of my motive as fact, and use that as the backbone of your argument, the opening sentence in fact. You have no justification for claiming I’m “deliberately trying to stretch the meaning of the word supernatural” – of course – no justification other than your own pre-decided conclusion that I am dishonest and participate in threads “to ruin them.” Right: I just get such a kick out of being blessed with your presence, and SI’s. My presence here can’t be because I actually believe in the arguments I’m putting out or anything like that; it must be because I’m some dishonest scumsucking jackass douchebag who somehow gets off on first-gradeisms. The arrogance never ceases to amaze me, and more, the fact that so few people call you on this crap. Just shut up and suspend your opinions for even two seconds, read what people *actually* say, and stick to what their words permit. Quit seeing things through the lenses of the tainted glasses you wear; speak on what you know or can know. Then, go get a dictionary. Look up the word “especially,” and you’ll note that it is neither exclusive, nor synonymous with “only,” but an inclusive adverb used to denote above-average instances of the quality in question.
For examples:
If I say, “food is cheap, especially meat,” that doesn’t mean, “only meat is cheap.” Both food and meat are cheap, the latter more so than the former.
If I say, “certain atheists annoy me, especially Philly,” that doesn’t mean, “only Philly annoys me.” Both everyone else alluded to and Philly annoy me, the latter more so than the former.
Accordingly, if Merriam-Webster defines supernatural as, “of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe, especially of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil,” that doesn’t mean, “only that which relates to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil” is supernatural. Both “order of existence beyond the visible observable universe” and “that which relates to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil” are supernatural, the latter more so than the former.
Accept the definitions Merriam-Webster gave and answer my questions, else quit wasting our time.
Insecure, are we?
I think it’s interesting that you think of a discussion about a particular issue as a “battle”. I see it as a round table conversation. If you have something to say in a public forum, and you object to anyone but the person you address getting involved, then take it to email. That way you can have a private conversation, a private debate.
But if you post on my blog, as far as I’m concerned, anyone, including myself, especially myself, can jump in and comment. If you don’t like someone else’s comment, then don’t respond.
But don’t tell me I can’t comment in my own blog. It makes you and whatever your argument is look a lot weaker than it is.
I know I said that before. Are you thick?
Now, protocol aside, don’t think I didn’t notice that you side-stepped (read: completely avoided) my observation that you’ve already conceded the non-existence of the supernatural. Given that, exactly what battle are you waging here?
“…I’m some dishonest scumsucking jackass douchebag…”
Thanks for giving us the opportunity to quote-mine you like you’ve done to us.
SI,
I didn’t, and for a lawyer, you show terrible attention to the statements I make. I didn’t tell you anything in my last comment; I asked, “..can you let Philly fight his own battles, please? Do you “freethinking” and “rational” atheists really need this much backup?”
“..fight their own battles” is a figure of speech. I do view these dialogs as round table discussions. However, even in a round table discussion, sometimes two people need to hash something out, and that can become more difficult with everyone else at the table flapping their mouths.
As we see here, you came along and quoted my personal view that “all that exists is natural.” Yet, my personal view is irrelevant to a discussion where Philly and I are discussing Merriam Webster’s definitions. So really, you just muddied up the water.
I’m asking you respectfully: please, will you just let Philly and I see if we can’t find some common ground here? Please. I’d do the same for you or anyone else anytime they asked.
Philly,
You and SI might have, but you and I have not. You still haven’t given a clear answer to a very basic question: [according to Merriam-Webster’s definition 1a] since it is undeniable that scientists are studying hypotheses like parallel universes and m-theory – with the question of what is and is not evidence for the supernatural still open – are we at least in agreement that science can and does study purportedly supernatural mechanisms?
There is no 1a outside of your mind.
(burning truck)
Nothing to see here, move along
“I’m asking you respectfully: please, will you just let Philly and I see if we can’t find some common ground here?”
I don’t see how SI commenting and giving his observations is preventing you and Philly from doing the same.
I was going to invite cl out for a beer and ask him to be my new bff until that meddlin’ SI showed up. Fuck it now. Sheesh!
Hey, I was just starting to work you for that beer. What, am I not cute enough. 🙂
Because too many people responding clogs the tubes or something…
JESUS CHRIST……..Do I need to help out cl against you big bad Atheists. 🙂
PhillyChief,
Why? Because you say so, once again? Who made you the arbiter of reality?
Again: [according to Merriam-Webster’s definition 1a] since it is undeniable that scientists are studying hypotheses like parallel universes and m-theory – with the question of what is and is not evidence for the supernatural still open – are we at least in agreement that science can and does study purportedly supernatural mechanisms?
Also, if I say, “food is cheap, especially meat,” does that mean that only meat is cheap?
Uh, there’s no 1a
Holy Shit, Batman! There isn’t!
Perhaps the disappearance of 1a can be attributed to the supernatural?
At the risk of being accused of fighting Philly’s battles, may I point out that if scientists are studying hypotheses like parallel universes and m-theory (both of which are naturalistic hypotheses, i.e. explanations for natural phenomena we think we see in the universe) then by definition they are decidedly not studying “purportedly supernatural mechanisms”.
Or did I miss something?
NAL,
I’m responding to this comment of yours. If you’ve left any others that I’ve missed, let me know. Sorry for the length.
Why though? As in, why must it have a rhetorical motive? I assure you, there’s no rhetorical motive, and you’re right – not just readers of this blog, but anyone with half a brain that pays attention to science should agree that those investigations deal with things not of this universe. Then again, I don’t want to assume anything about my interlocutor(s). I don’t know what Philly’s exposed himself to, education-wise. After all, he’s running around making claims like, “there’s no evidence for the supernatural,” and, “The existence of the supernatural has not been established, therefore supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted.” Those claims suggest to me that he might not understand science nearly as squarely as he thinks he does. If “supernatural” hypotheses are “unwarranted,” why is it that a growing number of physicists and other scientists are looking towards them? Are they just a bunch of unreasonable, irrational “jackasses,” too?
Philly apparently expects us to just take his word for it – his opinion about what is and is not warranted as a hypothesis in science – as truth. In essence, Philly is claiming that all these scientists are studying unwarranted hypotheses. Why? Because he says so? Who the hell made him the arbiter of a warranted scientific hypothesis? I don’t have the link handy right this second, nor the extra minutes required to locate it, but you yourself said (something to the effect of) that when considering the cause of the universe, supernatural hypotheses were reasonable, because you don’t think the universe could create itself. I agree. So do many modern scientists. We can’t just dismiss them all because their positions conflict with our precious little atheism.
If we want to get anywhere in these discussions, don’t you think we have to nail ourselves down? Don’t you think clear “yes” or “no” answers to questions can provide both clarity and accountability for statements made? Notice that instead of giving me a clear “yes,” Philly’s now talking about Otto, Fish Called Wanda, etc., etc., none of which has anything to do with our discussion about the “supernatural.” Then, everyone else joins in the fray, then a week later, everybody forgets about the factual matters of the discussion. Rinse and repeat for next post, ad infinitum.
There’s always a possibility that a casual reader will make some oversight. Casual readers can and often do misunderstand things and skew them out of context. The only thing I can do to help that is to be as clear as possible. I thought I was. Note that nothing in,
..attributes a statement of “fact of evidence” to you. All I was asking Philly was if he agrees with our agreement that the modern forefront of physics looks to “the supernatural,” and that whether we use Merriam-Webster’s definition 1a, or yours, the claim “there is no evidence for the supernatural” is false.
Now, implicit in that latter statement – of course – is my position that scientists have evidence for some of these things. Not proof, but evidence. Which leads us to,
Which puts us right back to square one, because I gave you an initial piece of evidence being offered. Is that evidence free from dispute? Of course not. So let me ask: you say you would love to be proven wrong here, how can I do so?
It seems to me that whatever evidence I put forth can simply be dismissed by pointing to some other Ph.D. who disagrees. That’s the whole problem here, at least from my view. I’ll put something out from scientist X, someone else will find something from scientist Y that says different. That’s what you did: “Oh, well Wright says dark flow wasn’t detected.” Mind you, there are still Ph.D.’s who question evolution.
The way I see it – like I said six months ago in the very beginning of the discussion SI alludes to in the OP here – and other commenters agreed what I said then was wise – we need clearly delineated goalposts for what is and is not evidence for X. Else it’s, “that’s evidence,” followed by, “no it’s not,” followed by a bunch of unproductive nonsense and name-calling.
What method do you suggest for overcoming those difficulties?
What method do you suggest for overcoming those difficulties?
Realize that Philly, SI et al are not going to engage you in the way you want them to, and stop commenting on their blogs.
I would imagine your professors must sit in anguish at the end of each term debating whether or not to just pass you so they don’t have to deal with you again.
But not just “some other Ph.D.” Edward L. Wright is a professor of Astronomy at UCLA and got his Ph.D. in astronomy from Harvard. When someone of that caliber says you’ve made errors, it’s reasonable to be skeptical. That’s the nature of evidence, here today, gone tomorrow. A preponderance of evidence is required.
Just because scientists are investigating the supernatural (according to my definition) in a few specific and limited areas does not imply that the supernatural can be used to explain natural phenomena, in general. Just because scientists are investigating the supernatural in a few specific and limited areas doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to assume that the supernatural is involved with flying video games or cancer remissions.
Some of them are probably investigating such things just so they can say to believers in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, crop circle and haunted houses just so they can say “Look, we’ve checked it out, there’s nothing there, now get on with your lives already!”
Yikes, sorry for the repetition of “just so they can say”!
And more specific to this line of inquiry as it’s being pursued by cl, you have to be careful that:
1. Cl is trying to pursue the definition of supernatural that says it’s anything outside of our body of knowledge at the moment, while at the same time
2. distancing himself from the common, layman’s understanding of the term supernatural, then
3. with that exclusion, getting everyone to agree that scientists are studying this limited and somewhat arcane notion of the supernatural, eventually
4. claiming that because scientists are studying the “supernatural” it must exist, and
5. thereafter pointing to that agreement with us (Even atheists agree that the supernatural exists!) in future posts and discussions so that
6. readers in the future will assume we’re talking about the common layman’s definition of ‘supernatural”, not knowing that it had been excluded from the discussion at the outset.
Whew!
Now, with that caveat in mind, I agree with Tommy that when nutters posit supernatural explanations for seemingly natural phenomena, (Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, crop circle and haunted houses) it’s usually left to the scientists to refute them. In the process they “study” the claims, so in that limited use of the word “study”, scientists actually study supernatural claims. And when I say scientist, there are not many of the caliber of a Edward L. Wright, more like amateurs like James Randi and others who might have a degree, but pursue it for the debunking possibilities.
I don’t believe Harvard has ever funded a study of Bigfoot, but in this world, anything’s possible.
Of course, there’s no changing the minds of the true believers. I have heard that some Bigfoot believers claim that we haven’t found any bodies yet because the creatures are really spiritual beings that can teleport out of our dimension. That’s what they do, define the phenomena they believe in in such a way so that no one can ever disprove it.
My intuition tells me that is why the Jesus resurrection story was the empty tomb. How could anyone disprove that? On the other hand, if it was written as some fantastical event witnessed by thousands of people but lacking in extrabiblical sources to corroborate it, it casts serious doubt on the story. An empty tomb leaves an investigator with nowhere to go. Pure genius on the part of the person who thought that up.
Well, since the story was passed down orally for something like 30 years or so, before it made it into writing, it probably started out something closer to reality, with a simple story of a Jewish “prophet” that was executed, buried, and whose body was probably never touched. But sitting around the camp fires, and passover tables, some story teller discovered that the story had very little impact, unless it was embellished with miraculous happenings.
You can see the wheels turning in the story teller’s head.
“Look at their little eyes light up when I change the story to say the body was gone! Look how astounded they are when I tell that that an angel stood guard at the tomb! I think that’s the way I’ll tell the story from now on. They’ll think I’m a great storyteller.”
Your induction here is so poor its pathetic:
First, the one we’re using is no “limited or somewhat arcane” definition. It’s the first definition in a common dictionary that Philly proposed we use. Second, I don’t mention that scientists study the supernatural to support an assertion of mine that it exists; I mention it to illustrate that claims like yours and Philly’s – that “there is no evidence for the supernatural” and “supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted” – are exaggerated and false claims used to bolster support for an atheistic worldview.
NAL,
I’m really not sure why you seem to distrust me so much, NAL. You and I seem to be in agreement here.
Of course; why would I disagree with that? I wouldn’t disagree with the need for a preponderance of evidence, either. But, preponderance means an integrated, supported, connected body of data points, right? Well, in order to get there, we have to first be able to agree on what one acceptable data point is. Then, we can take a look at say, a dozen data points being offered, analyze them, and see where the chips fall. Then a dozen more. That sort of thing. Is that not reasonable?
Of course not, and that’s not what I’m saying or implying. However, your position here does sort of undermine your previous statement you made at Philly’s. You implied that the preponderance of natural explanations make unreasonable the idea that some phenomena might need a supernatural explanation. Then we got Philly running around saying supernatural hypotheses aren’t warranted. Yet, many of today’s leading physicists seem to disagree, and you yourself now say supernatural causes are reasonable when considering the cause of the universe.
Well see, now you’re using a different definition of supernatural than the one you gave. If we’re just using ‘not in this universe’ and ‘not overlapping or intersecting’ like you said, then of course, the video games and cancer remissions couldn’t have supernatural causes, because they both happened in this universe.
I don’t know what to assume about the video games. That’s why I was asking other people for their best attempts at rational explanations, all of which were found wanting for various reasons. Though there are lots of other things I wish I could get some of you people to see, one of them is that I’m not running around telling people the video games prove this or that. It’s more like, “Whoa, now here’s something that’s definitely consistent with the idea of ghosts or spirits or pyschic energy or something. Let’s see if we can’t find some plausible explanation.”
And, I’m adding more and more things like that every week. Even bringing the scientists who published the papers I reference on board to answer questions directly. But, nobody seems too interested in that.
FYI, Greg Laden posted this on his blog last week: Skeptics: How do you know what to “believe”? that may be of interest.
Also,
The results aren’t even there to show that the purported supernatural phenomena (e.g., parapsychology) even exist to begin with, so there’s nothing to ‘splain. The James Randi Educational Foundation was offering $1 million to to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event and no one has collected yet.
I believe those like cl would see “under proper observing conditions” and say they have evidence but none that those people would accept. Of course that would be long after lengthy parsing of what exactly that phrase meant. I can see accusations that Randi’s definition of “proper” was dogmatic or proper according to who or what.
Well, then, those people should just admit that they don’t know the first thing about how the scientific method works, shouldn’t they? Too much to ask, I know.
ildi,
As TitForTat’s explained to you before, the idea that not everyone who shares the atheist conclusion misunderstands science or the scientific method is pure arrogance.
“As TitForTat’s explained to you before, the idea that not everyone who shares the atheist conclusion misunderstands science or the scientific method is pure arrogance.”
I agree with you on this one, that would be arrogance.
It’s just too bad that isn’t what ildi said. At all.
“Whoa, now here’s something that’s definitely consistent with the idea of ghosts or spirits or pyschic energy or something.”
It’s also consistent with leprechauns, pixies, the fair folk, aliens, invisible people, mad science experiments, gravity anomalies, bizarre quantum effects, badly processed memories, tired hallucinations, exaggeration, lies, or any number of other things. Some of these explanations seem a lot more likely than the others.
I’m provisionally going with Tommy’s bizarre quantum effects explanation until a better explanation is given. He gets points for both style and creativity.
Cl you fucking idiot, arguing that an agent is valid because you can’t fathom anything better is an argument from personal incredulity. Arguing that it’s valid until disproven is an argument from ignorance.
CL:
O(kay. I’ve read Dr. George’s paper. Let’s deal with it one step at a time.
She had the first experience described in her paper under the influence of a recreational drug. In her paper, Dr. George said that the betel nut she was given, “was very strong, and soon I was unusually high.” In her comment on your blog, Dr. George said,
So, was Dr. George high as a kite during her “wakeful but dreamlike reality?” Or did she just have a pleasant buzz going?
Is there more than that paper, because I don’t see it making any serious points. Betel nut can make you disoriented enough to be unable to react to being fondled and penetrated by a toothless old woman, and perhaps makes you open to suggestion (she had no recall of a dream until others repeated it and insisted it happened).
Btw, a cultural anthropologist is a scientist uniquely qualified to discuss what exactly regarding atheism, or is she supposed to be challenging something else that frequenters here think?
PhillyChief,
Why feed the trolls, big guy? I will not discuss new statements with you until you demonstrate responsibility for previous statements. Own up to the things you write. For example,
You accused me of “not reading what was written,” yet, in this comment, did you or did you not write, “..you do realize your position is one of an argument from ignorance..?” Yes? Or no?
Or, if that one’s too tough, if I say “food is cheap, especially meat,” does that mean only meat is cheap? Or that both food and meat are cheap?
Chaplain,
Ah, I see… now you have questions that you’ve been called out? Interesting, but why not go straight to the source? I’ll append your questions to my thread and point Marianne towards them, so she can answer them in her own words.
By “first experience” you are presumably alluding to Marianne’s awkward sexual experience with Kalerian, yet, neither Marianne nor myself offers that experience as evidence an all-encompassing reality. Are you either intentionally or unintentionally poisoning the well, or was your question a non-sequitur as stated?
Excuse me for behaving like an idiot. I mistakenly thought you were interested in engaging in dialog. I won’t make the same mistake again. Ever. I took up your invitation to read a paper I’d not seen, and, instead of just pleasantly continuing the conversation, you couldn’t resist chalking up a point for “calling me out.” I’m through with this- I don’t know what to call it, as it certainly doesn’t strike me as a conversation. Perhaps confrontation is the right word. Yes, that’s it. I’m through with this confrontation.
Don’t be so sensitive. That I called you out for inconsistencies in your position doesn’t mean we’re engaging in something other than a dialog, and I welcome you to do the same with me.
If you want to go back to burying your head in the sand, that’s your prerogative. As for me, I’m still very interested in hearing how your worldview has superior explanatory power in this case. If you feel it does, perhaps you can suspend your dislike of me long enough to pursue the truth?
CL:
You call me out for alleged inconsistencies and it’s good dialog, in your opinion. When I do the same for Dr. George, and demonstrate that the inconsistencies are real, it’s poisoning the well – again, in your opinion.
If you can’t see the importance of my question re: the accuracy of her accounts, there’s no point in continuing this- whatever it is we’re doing here. One thing I know about it is that it’s not worth my time to examine, let alone, discuss a paper that the author admitted was written 13 years after the events described.
This fact alone raises serious questions about the integrity of Dr. George’s data. I’ve got lots of questions about this study – and not particularly snide ones either – but the fact is, I’m actually not interested in either questions or the answers. You can call that burying my head in the sand, trading in my cross for a Scarlet A, being close-minded or whatever other cute phrases you devise. The fact is, I have no interest in the gods, veridical dreams, ghosts and all the other crap you seem to think should interest me. I have one life to live, and I’m going to live it pursuing the interests I deem as important to me. If you think my interests are ill-chosen, well, that’s tough. Go proselytize someone else:
A third reason I blog is to share my beliefs and ideas, and to hopefully encourage others that they are worth believing. The Bible’s promises and the world’s spiritual traditions as I believe them are good, how could I not try to strain them from the muck they’re often delivered in? That I believe them to be true, and that I believe truth is worth sharing, obligates me to share what I believe.
Huh. That’s weird: I thought you were done with this “confrontation”? 😉
In a spirit of good will I assure you that’s not the case, chaplain. I claimed inconsistency because you (and others here) make large pretense about the importance of knowledge as opposed to belief, yet, until I said something about it, all of you were seemingly uninterested in asking an actual scientist with a published paper any questions. To me, somebody who *really* believed that knowledge was more important than belief would be asking the scientist(s) multiple questions, yet, most here seem content to sit back and insult me. To me, that is not consistent with either freethought or rationalism.
So far, you have NOT demonstrated any real inconsistencies with Dr. George’s account. You wrote the following imprecise sentence, which is either pure sloppiness, or an attempt to poison the well:
The problem is that your language is imprecise and affords much possibility for confusion. By “first experience” you are presumably alluding to Marianne’s awkward sexual experience with Kalerian, yet, neither Marianne nor myself offers that experience as evidence of an all-encompassing reality. You then go on to say,
The question cannot be meaningfully answered, because when you say “wakeful but dreamlike reality,” you do not specify which of Marianne’s particular experiences you allude to. That Marianne partook of betel nut prior to her awkward sexual experience with Kalerian has no bearing on any of the four sleepdreams. If you want to give me something precise that I can nail you down to, instead of vague generalities, I can work with that, but don’t give me a non-sequitur and expect anything grand.
Well, well! What a candid concession! One clarification, though: I do not argue that the things I write about “should” interest you. I argue that they should interest anyone with the courage to apprehend the truth. That may or may not be you, but this last comment of yours suggests that in the final analysis, it really isn’t about the evidence, or knowledge, but the fact that you believe you have one life to live, and so you’ll do what you deem important.
To me, that’s honest and respectable. Pretending it’s about the evidence is not.
PhillyChief,
Man, you sure do lose your wits quick. I understand the definitions of these fallacies; there’s no need to puff up your chest.
You accused me of “not reading what was written,” yet, in this comment, did you or did you not write, “..you do realize your position is one of an argument from ignorance..?” Yes? Or no?
It’s a very easy question to answer if there’s no pride in the way.
That comment:
Btw, you do realize your position is one of an argument from ignorance, right? In your own words, “a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false”. You just incorrectly accused me of making this fallacy, and here you are committing it yourself. Oh, and believing it’s an “agent” because nothing else makes sense for you is an argument from personal incredulity.
And in the next:
Cl you fucking idiot, arguing that an agent is valid because you can’t fathom anything better is an argument from personal incredulity. Arguing that it’s valid until disproven is an argument from ignorance.
How many fucking times do I have to restate the same damn thing? Two fallacies, jackass. You’re holding it using one, and defending it with another. I can’t make it any more simple for you, so that’s that.
PhillyChief,
I’m trying to understand you here, I promise.
Okay then, are you claiming that I’ve made BOTH an argument from ignorance, AND an argument from personal incredulity?
LOL…………One big happy family. 😉
Happy New Year
OK. Happy New Year to Everyone! I see in my inadvertent neglect of my blog, CL has come back from vacation, only to pick up where he left off – a place I still can’t fathom. He’s all over the map.
Let me see if I understand what he’s now saying:
He believes that the best hypothesis for his video game incident is that an agent caused it. If I understand correctly, by agent he means an intelligence with intention. Someone or thing that caused the video tapes to move as they did, most likely with the intention that he observe it (else, why do it if no one is looking?)
My question was
I’m still confused, cl. Other than out of your ass, where did you come up with this hypothesis? You say
and you use the term position, not hypothesis, which I find telling. Your position is nothing more than your belief, restated, which, being a Christian is presumed as your starting point. So what you are saying is: “I believe the video games were moved by an intentional agent (god) because I believe in supernatural intentional agents (gods) and it’s consistent with what supernatural intentional agents (gods) would do, and inconsistent with what might be expected to occur in nature.”
Circular reasoning at its best, cl.
Nowhere do you provide anything of substance that would lead you to believe it was caused by an intentional agent, other than your predisposed belief that it was caused by an intentional agent.
Then in an exquisite example of burden shifting, you say:
At the risk of repeating myself,
It’s your burden to come up with the explanation, not mine, and simply restating your belief in the supernatural neither meets your burden, nor allows you to shift it to me.
Try again.
I like the fact that somehow this supernatural all-powerful deity has chosen to reveal itself to cl by causing video games to fall down funny. Once.
Very nice
And I alluded to the fact that he did so when cl was watching, which means he intended cl to observe. What does that say?
Just think. This happened when cl happened to be there watching. since cl can’t be everywhere at the same time, can you imagine how many video games fell over like that when no one was around?
To paraphrase the old philosophical question, “If a video game falls sideways in the forest when no one is watching, did it really happen?
No way, cl caught the only time that has ever happened in the history of the universe, right there. It hadn’t happened before and it will never happen again, because it was a special sign just for cl from an omnipotent world-creating deity.
SI,
That’s correct.
That’s putting words in my mouth. I’ve said nothing about the agent intending that we see the event.
Correct, and that is the question I answered, although of course, not to your satisfaction.
No, I use the term hypothesis. I used “position” in my opening sentence, to describe what I called the “agent cause hypothesis.” Remember? I said, “..either of those would falsify the agent cause hypothesis to my satisfaction.”
What I’m saying is that an agent-cause is more consistent with the data than a non-agent cause. That’s it. You’re the one adding ambiguous and confusing language like “God” and “supernatural” into the mix, not me. Can you make your objections based on what I actually say, as opposed to your own translations thereof?
Circular reasoning occurs when a proposition which requires proof is assumed without proof. For example, “The Bible is true because the Bible says so.” In the case of the video game incident, as far as I can see – and please correct me if I’m wrong – we have two and only two possible types of causation: agent causation, and non-agent causation. We know that both types of causation occur in the real world, so putting stock in one or the other is not an assumption of a proposition that requires proof, such that could sustain your charge.
Anyone who wishes to attempt to explain the incident as opposed to burying their head in the sand assumes a burden. I’m the one going out on a limb by offering my best explanation. You can sit there and shoot down those with the courage to try all day long, but that won’t put us any closer to the truth. If you’re so logical and rational and confident of the superiority of your materialistic worldview, then surely, asking for your explanation of the video game incident shouldn’t be too much.
It’s not shifting the burden; it’s common sense. Something happened in the real world. There are two possible types of causation – agent and non agent. Your denial of agent causation implies that you believe non agent causation has superior explanatory power. So, where’s the explanation?
Instead of playing “rebut the theist,” why don’t you make your position look attractive? This is what I mean when I say that too many atheists protect their worldviews in a glass box. It’s like the person who always complains about the current administration but never does anything towards offering a superior alternative.
So the intellectual honesty of saying “I don’t know” equals burying one’s head in the sand, but fabricating an explanation is heroically going out on a limb? Well you’re in good company, jackass.
Idiotus: It has to be Apollo and his chariot.
Skepticus: But where are you getting that from?
Idiotus: There are two possible types of causation – agent and non agent. Your denial of agent causation implies that you believe non agent causation has superior explanatory power. So, where’s the explanation?
Skepticus: I don’t have one.
Idiotus: Well you can try and bury your head in the sand if you want.
Skepticus: I’m not, but…
Idiotus: But you are! Look, I’m going out on a limb here offering my best explanation. What have you got?
Skepticus: I don’t currently have one.
Idiotus: Then how can you dismiss the Apollo theory?
Skepticus: There’s nothing warranting Apollo theory.
Idiotus: Your denial of agent causation implies that you believe non agent causation has superior explanatory power. So, where’s the explanation?
Skepticus:I don’t need one in order to say the idea of Apollo riding across the sky in a chariot explains daylight is unwarranted.
Idiotus: Why?
Skepticus: Because you’ve got nothing to offer as evidence that it’s Apollo.
Idiotus: So you’re saying it’s not Apollo because I can’t prove to you that it’s Apollo?
Skepticus: I can’t accept that it is if you can’t offer some proof that it is.
Idiotus:THAT’S an argument from ignorance. I win!
Skepticus: No, you don’t understan-
Idiotus: Yes, yes, yes it is! I win! I win!
Skepticus: sigh
No. Saying “I don’t know” is intellectually honest. When it comes to God’s existence, I admit that I don’t know – I believe.
But back to it:
If I say food is cheap, especially meat, does that mean only food is cheap? Or, does that mean both food and meat are cheap?
How long will you deflect this question? How long will others refuse to call you on it? Until it becomes undeniable that you’re stalling because answering either way reveals the fact that your “argument” requires emendations?
Since you seem fond of meta-commentary, here’s one taken directly from this thread:
11 December 2009 at 2:36 PM, PhillyChief said,
11 December 2009 at 5:23 PM, I responded,
11 December 2009 at 6:36 PM, PhillyChief replied,
11 December 2009 at 6:57 PM, I asked,
11 December 2009 at 7:40 PM, PhillyChief replies,
11 December 2009 at 8:15 PM, I replied,
12 December 2009 at 12:34 AM, PhillyChief returned with,
12 December 2009 at 2:50 AM, I replied,
12 December 2009 at 2:35 AM, PhillyChief replied,
12 December 2009 at 6:58 PM, I ask Philly,
13 December 2009 at 12:15 PM, PhillyChief replies,
So, let’s reparse Philly’s claim 11 December 2009 at 7:40 PM, substituting “demonstrated” for “established”:
That’s not objective reasoning, it’s backwards reasoning,
because science does not require causes to be established or
demonstrated to warrant hypotheses about them. Look how absurd PhillyChief’s claim
becomes if we replace supernatural with asteroids and pretend we’re trying to explain meteorite craters before asteroids were established:
Any scientist would easily recognize that as absurd, right? Yet for some reason, PhillyChief calls this objective reasoning.
And apparently, you “logical atheists” approve.
But all that’s water under the bridge for me at this point. What I challenge JUST ONE PERSON to answer is:
If I say food is cheap, especially meat, does that mean only food is cheap? Or that both food and meat are cheap?
Quit actin’ like such ‘fraidy-cats.
No. You consistently prove beyond a reasonable doubt (to me) that you do not understand burden of proof. You’d never make it through law school, so don’t bother trying.
If you are asserting a claim, it is up to you to prove it. If all you do is tell me what you believe the explanation is, then I’m perfectly within my rights to “bury my head in the sand” if I want to because you’ve proven nothing.
Here, you’re the one asserting that the video games were moved by the hand of a causative agent. You have not proven that. So if I say “I’m not convinced”, then go convince someone else. All you need is a jury of your peers, or someone agreeable as the finder of fact. It doesn’t have to be me.
Anyone here convinced by cl that his video games were moved by this “agent”? Hmmm? Anyone?
And don’t forget, this entire discussion is being held in the context of the existence of the supernatural, so presumably your agency “hypothesis” is leading to some proof of that. If not, why are we wasting our time?
If you want to concede a natural causative agent such as one of your buddies playing a trick on you, I’m with you. But if you’re going to make the leap to the supernatural, you better have something better than “My position is that an agent cause…”, because so far that’s all you have.
That hadn’t occurred to me. I would think he’d be a fantastic mark. I’m sure his “friends” have a ball with him. “Oh cl, you have to come over. Yeah, I know I have a ghost (snicker). Yeah, yeah man, come on over (snort) and bring some beers (chuckle).”
I understand the burden of proof just fine; for the purposes of these discussions, it falls to the positive claimant. That’s pretty basic. Recall, SI, that it was you who recently conceded to conflating evidence with proof.
I can’t “prove” to you what you won’t accept as possible. You have already stated that you cannot be convinced “because the supernatural is in [my] mind.” The fact that you don’t even ask the scientist of a published paper speaks volumes. You bang this drum about the advantages of belief over knowledge, yet rest on nothing other the fact I haven’t convinced you. That’s cowardice in my opinion. You should be able to say, “cl, you’re wrong because…” followed by an explanation that is superior to mine.
I’m willing to stop discussing it whenever you are, and more than content to await your next post.
To be more precise, you can’t prove the supernatural. Period.
Which is one of the reasons why.
Again. What is it I’m supposed to ask her? “Nice memoir, sweetie. Is it true?” Exactly what will that get me?
You really ought to start reading what we write cl, or in the alternative, understand what you read. Your attempt at rationalization of your religious beliefs are pitiable, and even somewhat pathetic. I said it before. You don’t need to convince just me, you need to convince the world. Write a book if you think your rationalizations are so novel, so remarkable, and so overwhelming. If they are, my personal skepticism will be swept aside, as if nothing.
This has been done for over a year, not just by me but by most everybody that has responded to you. Your failure to see it is explainable by the same thought processes that induce blind faith in others.
Which may take awhile. It’s a new year, and I have a lot on my plate.
That depends on how we agree to define supernatural. If we go by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary definition that Philly and I agreed to, it seems that a decent subset of scientists think supernatural hypotheses have warrant, which means they’re at least open to the idea that those supernatural hypotheses might be verifiable. Where would science be if they just shrugged their shoulders and accepted your closed-minded opinion? I’ll tell you where; in the dark.
[sigh…] There you go again, arguing nothing but your opinion. I thought you logical atheists were supposed to be about knowledge? You write entire posts pontificating about the advantages of knowledge over belief, then sustain your position with opinions, not knowledge.
SI, cussing at people, calling them names, and saying “you didn’t convince me” does not constitute a sound explanation as to why your explanation for a given event is superior to mine. If you really believe that you given sound explanations demonstrating the superiority of your own views, please, show me an instance of evidence.
If that’s all you’re getting from the comments, then you just reinforce my conclusion that you aren’t really reading them.
This is the last time I’ll say it. Evidence has to come from you, not me. Until you understand that, you’re wasting your time. And mine.
“This is the last time I’ll say it. Evidence has to come from you, not me. Until you understand that, you’re wasting your time. And mine.”
But, but, the VIDEO GAMES, SI, the VIDEO GAMES. Those video games fell over funny! And one time a girl’s cancer went into remission! That MUST mean that an omnipotent omniscient omnibenevolent deity created the universe and then made rules that meant he’d have to punish his own creations for things he created them knowing they’d be unable to avoid doing and then incarnating himself as one of his creations a few thousand years later in order to sacrifice himself to himself in order to save his creations from the place he created to torture them if they broke the rules he made knowing they couldn’t help breaking them.
I’d love to see the survey of scientists who would agree with this tendentious statement.
It’s really simple, ildi: if “supernatural” means “order of existence outside or beyond this universe,” then by definition, scientists who study parallel universes, string theory and m-theory study the supernatural.
NAL had no problem grasping the logic:
If you would but for two minutes suspend your dislike of me, maybe you could grasp simple logic, too?
Notice the big “if” there. My question is, do physicists agree with your definition of supernatural? Are you seriously saying your little video game experience is an example of parallel universes in action as studied by physicists?
Hilarious – you owe me a new keyboard. 🙂
Maybe your follow up question could be about how “unusually high” she got from that “very strong” betel nut – the one that’s supposed to have a mild effect similar to that of nicotine. Inquiring minds want to know.
chaplain,
If I were to smoke a cigarette right now, I would be “unusually high,” even though nicotine is comparably mild.
What I’d like you to explain is how Marianne stating she was “unusually high” during the awkward sexual experience with Kalerian has any bearing on the sleepdreams I mentioned.
If you cannot show the connection, why did you introduce a non-sequitur to the discussion?
Right, while you ask questions about details after month-long arguments: “Hey wait cl, are you saying the games actually shot across the room, as if thrown?”
Don’t lecture me about reading when you overlook points that were extant from day one.
PhillyChief has been avoiding the following question like the plague:
Why was PhillyChief avoiding that question, you might ask? Well, he claimed “supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted”, and he cited the Merriam Webster online dictionary’s definition of supernatural, of which #1 is:
I informed PhillyChief that according to the definition he provided, scientists studying parallel universes, string theory, m-theory are studying supernatural hypotheses, and I asked him why he feels they do so without warrant. Instead of admitting his argument was inaccurate at best, or wrong at worst, or explaining why I should accept his claim that these scientists are working without warrant, he simply accused me thusly:
The problem for PhillyChief is, I’m not “trying to stretch the meaning” of anything here. When we say, “X is Y, especially Z,” we’re saying both that X is Y, and that Z is Y. If I say, “Food is cheap, especially meat,” that means either food or meat qualify as cheap; they are both an instance of cheap. Now, according to my knowledge, PhillyChief never answered my question, and instead evaded it every time I asked. No problem; he didn’t need to. He undeniably accuses himself right here:
Well now isn’t that interesting! Why does that undeniably accuse PhillyChief, you ask? Well, because he showed proper understanding of the word especially. PhillyChief said he finds it troublesome for “another” to define him as an atheist, especially a Christian. This means PhillyChief would be troubled to be defined by either “another” or a Christian. If I said, “PhillyChief is troubled to be defined by another,” my statement would be in accord with his. If I said, “PhillyChief is especially troubled to be defined by a Christian,” my statement would be in accord with his.
Accordingly, if Merriam-Webster defines supernatural as “of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil,” that means either “of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe” or “of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil” are supernatural. They are both instances of ‘supernatural’ according to Merriam-Webster. Well, scientists are hypothesizing about an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe. Theoretical physics is currently awash in supernatural theories (parallel universes, m-theory, string theory, etc.).
Which means either, 1) that supernatural hypotheses are warranted to a legitimate subset of scientists, or 2) that Philly is right in his assertion and all those scientists are wrong. I’m willing to accept 2 as the most likely explanation, but it would require sufficient evidence.
Repeating this ad nauseam does not make it true.
Ildi:
if supernatural means ^beyond the universe^ then aren’t parallel universes and m-theory supernatural hypotheses? I’m still trying to figure out on what grounds athiests can object to that.
I would think it’s more than that, Randall. Looking at this definition you have both the issue of “order of existence” and being beyond the observable universe. Well does that mean dna was supernatural prior to 1950, or whatever year it was first observed? If so, then supernatural would merely be shit we haven’t observed or figured out yet, which is what greases the god of the gaps nonsense, and indeed that definition acknowledges that it’s generally used for that shit and other woo.
I think if you’re going to say supernatural shit is not natural, that it’s a different order of existence, yet don’t really explain anything about that difference other than that it’s not natural, then in light of the above problem, you just have the label being applied to anything you can’t explain. If there was some new order of existence which we could quantify, then no doubt it would be simply added to the list of natural, like the way English can add foreign words.
Are you familiar with the comic Dr. Strange? Here’s a surgeon who, once exposed to magic and trained in how to manipulate it, works it like any other material. Now if it’s quantified, and there’s predictability to it, then is it still supernatural or does it become part of an expanded definition of natural?
I was trying to stay neutral by asking Ildi 🙂 but since you put me on the spot
^of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe^
understood, but isn’t it still true that scientists study supernatural hypotheses?
If supernatural is merely what’s not been observed yet, then once it’s observed, then it’s no longer supernatural. If that’s what you’d like to use for supernatural, then should someone observe a ghost or a god, they wouldn’t be supernatural anymore. I somehow doubt that’s the way believers in the supernatural consider the supernatural.
This little game is really sleight of hand, because there’s supernatural and then there’s SUPERNATURAL (ie – the unobserved and ghosts/gods) so the trick is to get someone to agree to the use of supernatural and then use that to justify SUPERNATURAL. For instance, if you call multiple universes supernatural, and that’s a credible scientific field of study, then some jackass will then say scientists study the SUPERNATURAL, and that it’s credible. Sleight of hand, get it?
Poll a dozen people on the street as to what’s supernatural, and you’re not going to get multiple universes or m-theory, you’ll get ghosts and gods and other woo, which is why that definition very clearly specifies ESPECIALLY of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil. Another related issue is how people will joke about how their iphone or some similar new gadget works by magic or if something doesn’t work correctly it’s due to gremlins because they don’t have a damn clue how things work.
PhillyChief:
^If supernatural is merely what’s not been observed yet, then once it’s observed, then it’s no longer supernatural.^
true, but that’s not the dictionary definition you just gave. is it ^merely what’s not been observed yet?^ or is it ^of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe?^
For myself, I find defining these theoretical scientific constructs of ‘other’ universes as supernatural to be a stretch. Whether it’s an allowable stretch depends on the motivations of the stretcher, I suppose. In the context of the theistic/atheistic debate, it just seems to be a way of allowing gods, angels, demons, ghosts or what have you in through a doorway wrought wholly of definition, and nothing more. Multi-universes and the like aren’t inventions made of whole cloth, nor out of the yarns spun by ancient goat herders. They are scientific extrapolations, albeit sometimes highly speculative ones; extensions of accepted theories into the realm of what science can’t explain as yet. Call them supernatural or not- ultimately, that’s a question of semantics, and not much more. But don’t lose track of the fact that there’s a qualitative difference between these kinds of hypothetical scenarios, and the supernatural realm of the theists. That’s the difference between Philly’s ‘supernatural’ and ‘SUPERNATURAL’ the way I see it. It’s just another attempt to squeeze god in under the scientific umbrella, by distorting the umbrella all out of shape.
Yeah, sleight of hand works pretty well, I think.
If something is supernatural because it’s beyond the visible universe and it eventually becomes visible, like what happened with dna, then the supernatural is merely what’s not been observed yet. That sounds to me like a transitory label, no? Do you think that’s how believers in the supernatural see the supernatural, as a transitory label, or rather as the SUPERNATURAL, in its all caps, wooey glory?
And no opinion on the sleight of hand issue, Randall?
like i said i was trying to ask someone impartial. now i see that jim commented also
jim:
like you i see gods and parallel universes as distinct also. that’s why it makes sense for the dictionary to say ^supernatural^ can be either. from my pov: PhillyChief claimed supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted, cl challenged and ask him to clarify his definition, PhillyChief said standard dictionary definition, cl went with that, and according to it, it’s true that scientists study the supernatural. now PhillyChief complains the dictionary definition is transitory. okay then, why base a claim against theism on a transitory definition? that’s what i don’t understand. if he just meant to say SUPERNATURAL hypotheses are unwarranted, why not make that clear up front? it would’ve saved a shitload of drama
Ildi:
still interested in your take
PhillyChief:
do you remember that you replied to my comment to ^Ildi^ and that’s what started this off? this seems an awful lot about ^you^ when i didn’t ask you about in the first place
^If something is supernatural because it’s beyond the visible universe and it eventually becomes visible, like what happened with dna, then the supernatural is merely what’s not been observed yet. That sounds to me like a transitory label, no?^
absolutely. which is why you shouldn’t use transitory definition to support your arguments against theism
note: how ^believers in general^ or ^people on the street^ define supernatural doesn’t matter. i’m talking to ^you^
opinions are what i’m trying to avoid but since you asked twice yeah i think there’s possibly sleight of hand going on i’m just not sure who. which is why i ask my questions. don’t come to my blog criticizing me and calling me arrogant for asking unbiased questions. like i said, i know church folk and that’s exactly how they tend to react to questioning
where things don’t add up for me is here: you claimed supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted. when the apologist challenged you and ask to clarify your definition, you said go with the standard dictionary definition. he did, and according to that, scientists study the supernatural. if your objection is to now say the definition you approved is transitory, why did you approve it? you can’t make the apologist use the dictionary, then back out when they do. that’s the same slippery bullshit they pull
Settle down, Sparky. Comments made on an open forum are, by definition, open. That means anyone can respond to them.
I don’t see the Merriam definition the same way as you, as merely “beyond the universe”, so your question of why I’d use a transitory definition isn’t applicable because I don’t see that definition as transitory. The definition clearly states “an order of existence” as well as the nod to the most common usage of the word, for referring to gods and ghosts and such. To read it as merely what’s not been seen yet or what’s beyond the universe is a mistake, either willful or accidental, and that leads to either a transitory definition or a set up for a sleight of hand trick.
Btw, I didn’t call you “arrogant for asking unbiased questions.” You have an active imagination, which is probably why you believe in the supernatural. 😉
PhillyChief:
you said i was criticizing others while admitting to being ignorant then you said ^ah the arrogance of youth^ or some shit. all i did was ask you a few questions
^To read it as merely what’s not been seen yet or what’s beyond the universe is a mistake, either willful or accidental, and that leads to either a transitory definition or a set up for a sleight of hand trick.^
i’m reading it exactly how ^you^ approved it, which was
^of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil^
you ^are^ saying we should use the whole definition, right? if so, that’s where i’m confused and that’s why Cl saying you’re misusing the word ^especially^ makes sense because what’s described on either side of ^especially^ counts as supernatural. that was the point of that food question. did you ever answer it?
it’s true the definition sucks but then why’d you approve it? are you dickin around with Cl on purpose because he’s an easy target? if so send me an email and i’ll stay far away from it. or did you pick a shitty definition to sustain your claim that supernatural hypotheses aren’t warranted?
if you ^really^ meant that SUPERNATURAL hypotheses are unwarranted shouldn’t you have made that clear up front? shouldn’t you have said ^God^ hypotheses or ^spiritual^ hypotheses or something like that are unwarranted?
Randall: If I may-
“…if he just meant to say SUPERNATURAL hypotheses are unwarranted, why not make that clear up front? it would’ve saved a shitload of drama.”
You’ve sort of walked into a conversation that’s been going on, like, forever. The qualifiers have already been done to death. It has been made clear many times, in many ways, over at least the several months I’ve been hanging around, and probably quite a while longer. The game is called re-visit, and re-visit, and re-visit…
^You’ve sort of walked into a conversation that’s been going on, like, forever.^
no offense, but none of that makes anything make any more sense. i’m only commenting on ^this^ conversation so ^that^ history is irrelevant. believe me, i’m aware of the history and that’s why i didn’t ask PhillyChief or Cl anything in the first place. the constant back&forth shit is draining and i’m tryin to get away from energy vampires, not attract them
from my pov: Cl went with the definition PhillyChief approved which was ^supernatural^ according to the dictionary not ^SUPERNATURAL^ according to a cherry-picked part of the dictionary. so if PhillyChief actually meant ^SUPERNATURAL^ then why tell Cl ^supernatural^ claims are unwarranted?
or am i missing something?
The part you’re missing GR, is the ongoing game CL likes to play of twisting the definition of a word out of shape, having you agree with that twisted definition, then acting like your agreement with that twisted definition supports his contention (whether that his bff god exists, or that ‘supernatural’ forces knocked some CDs over in his mother’s basement).
Actually, that reminds me of apologetics in general…
In any event, the reason why his statement that scientists study supernatural hypotheses is incorrect is because methodological naturalism is the core principle underlying the scientific method. CL seems to confuse the hypotheses supported by mathematical models in theoretical physics with the supernatural.
Personally, I never understood the argument Cl was trying to make with definitions.
Supernatural simply means “beyond the natural”. However, the “natural” is all there is, so something beyond all there is doesn’t exist. Therefore, any discussion of the supernatural is purely academic, sort of like discussing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It makes great barroom conversation, but in reality, it’s pointless.
You can see that by cl’s attempt to define the word to include things that would be clearly natural, if proven. They would be clearly natural, because they could be proven, using methodological naturalism.
If we define supernatural to include dark matter, and we prove the existence of dark matter, then, once proven, in hindsight science has studied and proven the supernatural. It’s a bootstrap exercise, at best.
But it’s still pointless.
And as I said way up-thread, I suspect cl’s motivations are that once we agree to his definitions, and agree that science is studying the predefined supernatural hypotheses, he’ll point to that and say “See. Even atheists agree that the supernatural can be studied! That proves the supernatural exists!”
Well therein lies the transitory definition issue if you base “all there is” on what we know. The more we know, the more we may say there is. (This is where jackass alludes to asteroid belief before they were first identified.)
But ok, natural; that’s a quantification, so the asteroids don’t apply because known of or not, they’re still natural, but let’s focus on something unusual like dark matter. Alright, so we find stuff that’s different than how we currently define natural. Is it supernatural? I’d say no, because if we can examine this new stuff and understand it, then it would simply be added to our definition of natural. (This goes back to my earlier question of ‘if magic was discovered and understood, would it still be considered supernatural?’)
Ah, well THERE is the heart of the game. If gods don’t exist but you want people to believe they do, you have to kill methodological naturalism. If they can’t be proved or disproved that way, then you’re set. How do you do that? By defining them as unfalsifiable via claiming them as being something else, aka supernatural.
Problem: Why should we believe this crap? Methodological naturalism works for EVERYTHING I do, so wtf?
Solution: You make the supernatural credible by claiming scientists study the supernatural. How do you do support that claim?
Set-up: By cleverly trying to twist the definition of the supernatural to merely something outside of the known universe.
Sleight of hand: Once you get someone to bite on your definition of supernatural, then you can go back to your god crap and show how that’s supernatural as well; therefore believing in it is a credible endeavor since scientists do it, right?
But wait, you’ve already said the supernatural was this other stuff that’s unfalsifiable. What now? Wave hands, obfuscate, and exit, stage left…..
I would say “if we can observe this new stuff” using our senses, and any extension of those senses (technology), then it’s natural.
Perhaps today we can’t observe dark matter, because of basic human limitations, but some day we can. In retrospect we will have concluded that dark matter was natural all along, just like in retrospect, we can conclude that even though no one knew that asteroids existed hundreds of years ago, we now know that they did, and hence were always there.
Everything is natural. Supernatural is a human invention of the mind.
I agree with all of this, completely, other than the implication that someone devised this way of thinking intentionally, in order to create a belief in something they nefariously wanted us to believe, but couldn’t prove. To the contrary, it was a subconscious development. I think it was just ignorant human folk trying to come up with an explanation for things that their puny human minds could not come close to fathoming, because human knowledge had not advanced that far. It was the best they could come up with. They didn’t understand even the concept of nature, so it must have been something beyond what they knew, which turned out to be, simply, nature.
And we’ve been stuck with it , trying to shake ourselves of the supernatural fleas that have been living off of the blood of humanity, ever since .
SI & Ildi:
i understand there’s a history with you guys & cl but all i can say is don’t let it blur ^your^ logic. take a closer look at the full exchange between him and PhillyChief and try to limit your judgment to only what’s needed. it seems you’re both ignoring the fact of who set the definitions this time around which was PhillyChief. i myself was trying to figure why PhillyChief would tell cl ^supernatural^ if he actually meant ^SUPERNATURAL^ because it didn’t add up, then he admitted he was trying to ^test^ cl ah i see so it’s cool to load our claims with definitions we don’t ^really^ believe in just to think we’ve proved a point? that doesn’t fly with me
i think if an atheist (or anyone) is going to make claims they should be clear what they mean up front not point the apologist to a definition then cheese out on it later. to me Philly was either shady on purpose or just didn’t think what his argument through and didn’t want to backpedal. i could see either
Let me clarify for you then for you seem to have trouble following things. There’s nothing wrong with the Merriam definition, but you can see how someone could misread it, can’t you? Now were that person sincere, you could easily point to ‘order of existence’ and the ‘especially’ bit and that would be that, but when someone deliberately misreads it, what’s the point? The “test” was to see if he’d try to exploit that potentially confusing yet easily explainable part and he didn’t disappoint. To use an analogy, imagine if you wanted to test your dog’s obedience by leaving a steak out on the table. If he eats it, are steaks bad? Of course not, and neither is the definition. Both the dog and cl need a wrap to the nose. 😉
Now as far as limiting judgement to what’s needed, you can’t take criticism well at all and subsequently have exhibited a bug up your ass concerning me and it’s clouding YOUR judgement. You repeatedly misread my comments yet I don’t get the sense that you’re really that obtuse, so I have to assume your emotions are making you obtuse. Of course I might have simply misread you and you are that obtuse, but I’d like to think that’s not the case.
Btw, what is it with you kids hatin’ on the caps?
Ok, to recap:
From merriam-webster.com
1 : of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
2 a : departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature b : attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)
You don’t think it’s cherry-picking to limit the definition to just a subset of it, and then claim that’s what scientists mean by the word supernatural? Do you really think that scientists would agree that the definition of supernatural is only 2a and not the rest? Who’s cheesing out, or more accurately, playing word games?
Let’s not forget, that while Philly first suggested the Merriam Webster dictionary definition, it was Cl who first used it here.
Philly then corrected CL’s quote. CL agreed to the correction.
Even though the first definition clearly was qualified with the word “especially“, and even though cl paid lip service to the qualification, he spent the bulk of his comments from that point on hammering the non-“God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil” aspect of the definition, instead focusing on clearly alternative natural hypotheses such as parallel universes and M-theorys.
So, as ildi points out, who was doing the cherry picking?
Just to pile on a bit more because this is classic cl…his “agreement” actually changes the dictionary definition!
What a disingenuous asshat.
You may not like Philly’s style GR, but I much prefer it to the sad little pixel-wasting games played by cl.
SI & Ildi:
PhillyChief said ^all 4^ so i took ^1a and 1b^ to mean cl would show his claim wrong by all four aspects. i took it that he would force PhillyChief to eat 1a then 1b et cetera. PhillyChief wussed out and wouldn’t even admit that cl had forced 1a. it would be real easy for cl to force 1b too because scientists try to study gods and spirits. do you not say prayer studies have shown prayer worthless? scientists wouldn’t have studied any of that unless they thought the ^supernatural hypotheses^ had warrant and you can’t have cake and eat it too by saying ^supernatural hypotheses^ are unwarranted yet ^no correlation with prayer^ at the same time. no having cake and eating it too
besides where did cl limit ^supernatural^ to 1a and claim scientists ^only^ define it that way? i did not see that please cite it
PhillyChief approved the definition cl threw out that’s exactly the problem i’m having. the theory that he tried to ^test^ cl doesn’t add up for me either because if cl is always what people say why test him at all? it doesn’t add up it seems to me PhillyChief is doing the cherry picking or like i said before just plain fucking around and not being very good at hiding it. plus i saw how he acted at my blog which was like a real dick
please spare me the ^who likes who better^ stuff i think that might be what’s getting in the way here
PhillyChief:
i’ll tone it down on other turf but reality and what you think is reality are miles apart buddy. you cry that i criticized you and imply i was arrogant when i just asked you three or four questions. then you talked down to me on some ^older man^ bullshit about logic. after a half dozen unwarranted assumptions about everything from my age to the people i know back home. either you do some heavy duty misreading yourself or you’re an outright liar trying to get a rise out of whoever will pay your ass a dime. what i mean by that is stop writing misleading shit about me i don’t believe in the soul
GR,
• Prayer studies make no reference to a “supernatural hypothesis”. Their purpose is merely to test the claim that the act of prayer results in healing (or whatever else is being claimed). IF it was found it did, THEN they’d entertain hypotheses as to why.
• There is no 1a or 1b to the supernatural definition.
• Please go back and reread the whole argument here, because you’re missing quite a lot which may be why you’re getting so many things incorrect.
The rest of your comment is merely repeatedly stating things which have been explained to you to be incorrect, or just emotional charged babble.
I’m a little confused by the above, but that could just be my admittedly limited powers of interpretation. Not sure what you mean by “forced”.
Be that as it may, cl tried to create a working definition of supernatural (which, incidentally, is a common tactic on his part – creating definitions, but let’s not digress), and bit on Philly suggestion to use a dictionary. Dictionaries, by their very nature, try to encompass all uses of language, even the most arcane. Personally, I think the Merriam Webster definition is somewhat misleading, because it can be construed to permit something natural into the definition. I like the following much better, from dictionary.com:
If you read through all of the comments (and I know there are a lot), cl tried to emphasize only one aspect of the M-W definition, ignoring the most common aspects that most, if not all people assume when they hear the word, as reflected in the dictionary.com definition, above. He wanted to use the phrase “an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe” as an acceptable definition of something that was supernatural, claimed that because there were scientists studying parallel universes, that they were studying something beyond the “visible observable universe”, and hence, as a result, he could then claim that scientists studied the supernatural. (I don’t think parallel universes could be encompassed in the dictionary.com definition.)
That, to my view, is a really tortured construction of the term, but, hey! Run with it. If you accept that kind of pretzel logic, then you would be perfectly within your rights to feel that scientists studied the supernatural. Unfortunately, the real world intrudes on my way of thinking, and probably on that of most other people, probably even yours. No one, not even scientists, believe that supernatural should be defined in such a way that if we someday discovered the existence of an alternative universe, that we had suddenly discovered the supernatural. For Christ’s sake, the only reason they posit such hypotheses, is because the physics takes them there. You know, physics? That arm of science that studies the natural world?
Please don’t take offense at this, but really, unless you’ve been in some of the discussions we’ve had with cl, you can not appreciate how disingenuous and dishonest he really is as a debater. Stick around and come to your own conclusions. I won’t wish him on your blog, because you’ll come to hate me, but you really need a lot more experience with him than you now have to credibly criticize our relationship with him.
I don’t know how you’re missing it, dude.
From the same comment where cl “agrees” to the definition:
You do notice that there is no 1a in the m-w definition, right? Cl split off part of 1 to suit his purposes. No scientist would agree that the definition of supernatural is an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe. Are you following along? None of his examples of what scientists study fall under the definition of supernatural. The key part of the definition of supernatural in 1 is especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil
Second, please direct me to the studies where
Third,
Good advice; I would try to heed it.
Wow. Just, wow. I’ll take this:
That’s exactly what I was trying to do, but as you say, we couldn’t even get past 1a. The 1a / 1b thing was an attempt to be thorough. Philly made the very general claim that “supernatural hypotheses” are unwarranted, so I asked Philly which aspect of MW’s definition he was alluding to. He said “ALL” so I was going to evaluate Philly’s claim in the context of each aspect of the definition Merriam Webster supplied. The reason I wanted to do this was to remove all wiggle room.
Before we even started I explained that I split the definition because something can exist that is “beyond the observable universe” but not a “God, god, demigod, spirit, or devil.” That is a true statement none of you “logical atheists” can deny, and I believe that’s why nobody complained at that time. In fact, nobody complained at all until it became apparent that per Merriam Webster’s definition, scientists do feel supernatural hypotheses are warranted:
Note the word especially, and any one of you feel free to answer the question PhillyChief avoided over a dozen times: “if I say food is cheap, especially meat,” does that mean only meat is cheap? Or that both food and meat are cheap?
Accordingly, both “of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe” and “of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil” qualify as “supernatural” according to Merriam Webster. Theoretical physicists feel hypotheses regarding “an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe” are warranted.
…which is not the definition of supernatural as given by merriam-webster. m-w doesn’t split the definition into two parts as you are doing. You’re changing the definition you agreed upon with Philly. You failed the honesty test yet again.
especially is not the same as and
especially = particularly = specifically
…which is not the definition of supernatural as given by merriam-webster.
“Note the word especially, and any one of you feel free to answer the question PhillyChief avoided over a dozen times: ‘if I say food is cheap, especially meat,’ does that mean only meat is cheap?”
In M-W, the “especially” is used as part of a definition. It does not have the same connotations and meanings as it does when used in an everyday sentence as you have tried to say it does.
Well, the one good thing about this is that at least now we’re right back to the key question PhillyChief deflected a dozen times.
ildi,
That’s exactly my point! So, when PhillyChief said,
Doesn’t that mean PhillyChief finds it troublesome whenever he encounters the general instance of being defined by another, and more so when he encounters the specific instance of being defined by a Christian?
Just a simple “yes” or “no” would suffice.
“an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe” is not the definition of supernatural per merriam-webster.
Ildi:
correct me if i’m wrong but
you or cl can correct me if i’m wrong but i didn’t see him as saying ^an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe^ is the definition of supernatural per merriam-webster. that’s the whole point of the damn food question at least that’s how i read it
what i’m curious about is why will answer when cl asks how ^they personally^ use the word ^especially^ would you say yes or no to his last question? i will go on record and say ^yes^ i think everyone should answer i bet it would help clarify
Ok, what do you see him as saying is the definition of supernatural? What is the point of the food question, since that seems clear to you?
Remember all, you’re never going to get back all the time you’ve spent on this.
I agree, but I hate to give up on GR too soon.
Ildi:
i had read each of those carefully please don’t assume because we aren’t on the same page i’m not doing my work. trust me i do my work
what i mean is where in those four comments you cited or anywhere else did Cl claim that’s what scientists mean by supernatural? if he didn’t is it possible you might have misunderstood or maybe read that into it? i read it as according to the ^beyond the universe^ part of the definition scientists make supernatural hypotheses and that’s true
you would say that’s true right? that going just off the ^beyond the universe^ part of the definition, scientists study the supernatural?
No.
Maybe this example from myoxford.com will help (this is from their discussion of the corpus and dictionary entries):
Do you see how the dictionary entry is using especially here? Do you see now why the m-w definition 1 includes all of the text, not just the first half of the sentence?
So, the definition of supernatural in 1 includes relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil. The entire sentence is the definition of supernatural.
Scientists do not postulate hypotheses that involve gods, spirits or devils.
Ildi:
i carefully read the comments you cited but where did Cl claim that’s what scientists mean by supernatural?
If only I had heeded you…
Question: Do scientists study the supernatural?
Answer: No.
That is to say,
If only I had heeded you…
anything that meets any of the specific instances mw listed. meaning that if something exists ^outside the universe^ then it’s supernatural if something is a ^God, god, spirit or devil^ then it’s supernatural if something is ^departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature^ then it’s supernatural or if something is ^attributed to an invisible agent (as a ghost or spirit)^ then it’s supernatural. according to mw at least. when cl asked which definition PhillyChief was referring to he originally said “all of them” though he and cl agreed to discard 2a (the ipod problem), that’s what the definition said. now PhillyChief wants it to ^only^ mean SUPERNATURAL when that wasn’t what he originally said
i saw the food question as proving undeniably that any of those four definitions counted as ^supernatural^ according to mw
consider: given PhillyChief’s statement ^I find it troublesome, as an atheist, to be defined by another, especially a Christian^ would you say that PhillyChief ^must^ be defined by a Christian in order to be troubled? IOW, if a non-Christian defined PhillyChief as an atheist, wouldn’t he still be troubled, according to the statement he gave?
sorry, “all of it”
i use quotes for ^verbatim^ and carats for emphasis or to indicate paraphrase or approximate statements
Four definitions? How are you getting four definitions out of merriam-webster?
Theoretical physicists are not studying the supernatural when they posit dark matter, string theory and multiverses. That’s not to say there aren’t any theoretical physicists who are religious and go the “goddidit” route for why there is a universe (though theoretical physicists are a pretty atheistic bunch).
Ildi:
would you be willing to answer a few questions directly? if so i can ask them you can answer and we can be done with it
Sure, unless it’s along the lines of: “If food is cheap, especially meat, does that prove conclusively that theoretical physicists study the supernatural?”
Ildi:
you asked me “You don’t think it’s cherry-picking to limit the definition to just a subset of it, and then claim that’s what scientists mean by the word supernatural?”
yes, i would definitely say that’s cherry-picking but that’s where the questions come in
1 where did cl limit the definition to a subset of it, then claim that’s what scientists mean? i did not see that but if you can show me i’ll agree with you right now that he’s cherry-picking
2 if given the statement
^I find it troublesome, as an atheist, to be defined by another, especially a Christian^
could PhillyChief be troubled if defined by a non-christian?
It wasn’t that hard to find, GR, so this is really the last time I do your work for you:
and
and
and
In fact, there are so many examples, I have to wonder if your inability to find them indicates laziness, or a reading disability?
Well, you’d really have to ask him, but I’d bet being defined by any theist would be troubling to him.
And me. Thanks, ildi. I was going to do that but you saved me the work.
In all fairness, there is a lot to read in this thread, with 334 comments so far, and they are not linear or chronological. But it doesn’t make sense to imply that it’s not there if you have not read it.
Time to eat humble pie.
i didn’t imply it’s not there i searched and i had read the stuff Ildi cited before she even cited it and when she cited it i spent even more time searching that’s why it was kinda snippy for her and now you to assume i haven’t done my work. for what it’s worth, don’t let your dislike of Cl get in the way with me i enjoy reading here i just don’t want to be pulled into the scene
in reality it’s just that i find her evidence insufficient because what she offers isn’t support for what she told me Cl said. if you look at her citations nowhere in any of it does Cl say that’s what ^scientists^ mean when ^they^ say ^supernatural^ if you disagree cool maybe i’m the one wrong but just show me where. i read Cl as saying by the ^beyond or outside the visible universe^ part of the definition then theoretical physicists or cosmologists do study the supernatural and that’s true. but that’s different than saying those theoretical physicists or cosmologists ^themselves claim to be studying^ the supernatural
i will eat humble pie no problem but not because person a doesn’t like person b or whatever. show me where Cl said the theoretical physicists or cosmologists ^themselves claim to be studying^ the supernatural and i’ll eat humble pie
No, it’s not true. It’s a shitty definition when stripped of its qualifier, but cl has latched onto it for the precise purpose of being able to say that scientists are studying the supernatural when they clearly are not.
If scientists are studying the supernatural, then by definition they are not scientists and they are not doing science.
The entire thrust of cl’s arguments here (and they are clearly set forth in those quotes that ildi got you) is exactly that – using the stripped definition from M-W, science studies the supernatural.
We are not criticizing you when we say you need to read everything he writes very closely, but you do.
What’s so hard to understand when he says?:
I think I see what you’re asking now; in my defense, your delphic comments do rather lend themselves to misinterpretation. I recommend spending at least half as much time articulating your questions as reading the comments:
I’ll admit that I glossed over your question to glom onto the fact that you seemed to uncritically accept cl’s assertion that there are four definitions for the supernatural in m-w.
To answer your actual question would involve digging back into the deep, dark beginnings of this thread, which, frankly, I’m not willing to do ( here be dragons).
As memory serves, this conversation started off with cl’s claim that he is using the scientific method to study his magical flying CDs, that he is in rapport with scientists who study the supernatural, including some chick who got raped in a dream, or some crazy shit, therefore scientists study the supernatural. (I pretty much gloss over cl’s self-absorbed whinging comments – if there are pearls in there, feel free to dig them out yourself.)
Then began the great definition debate, ending up with cl following Philly around the blogosphere like a puppy with shit on its paw asking about cheap food and meat.
So, you’re right; cl is not saying he personally knows any cosmologists who say that they are studying the supernatural in the quotes I provided. What cl is saying is
a) because there are some people out there who call themselves scientists who are “studying” the supernatural and with whom he is in rapport, and
b) because he has managed to mangle the definition sufficiently to include what legitimate scientists do, then
c) scientists study the supernatural! Voila!
Is that one sentence or two?
Is that one sentence, or two?
Sure looks like one sentence again, not two. So how again do you get a 1a and 1b?
I guess when you’re a Christian, cherry-picking is just second nature, so much so you can’t even see that you’re doing it. Like for instance seeing:
“especially is not the same as and
especially = particularly = specifically”
And you reply
“..especially is not the same as and..”
That’s exactly my point!
Yes, see just what you want and ignore the rest. What’s especially funny is if you leave out just one word when quoting him he goes ballistic and cries “strawman!” like a mental patient. Again, blind to what one doesn’t want to see or acknowledge. Another example would be ending a comment with “jackass”. Do that and it effectively makes whatever else you wrote invisible to him. Try it, it’s a lot of fun.
“Sure looks like one sentence again, not two. So how again do you get a 1a and 1b?”
this might help you understand why its two distinct parts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon
Nope. It’s still one sentence. Nice try though.
“Nope. It’s still one sentence. Nice try though.”
never said it wasn’t. it DOES have two distinct parts, however. kind of like this one.
“I went to the swimming pool; I was told it was closed for routine maintenance.”
you see? one sentence and two separate parts/thoughts.
Jason:
Bad example. Yours is simply a compound sentence. It could just as easily be written ‘I went to the swimming pool. I was told it was closed for routine maintenance.’ The others’ point is that in the definition under question, the first part of the definition is qualified by the second part. None of which matters, I suppose. Both sides should just admit they mean different things by the word ‘supernatural’, and leave it at that. You want to include other universes et al under that umbrella term to make it seem like scientists are postulating ‘the supernatural’? Fine. Just don’t expect to get those very scientists you’re talking about to agree with you. As has already been stated, theories pertaining to ‘other universes’ are theoretical speculations derived from mathematical theories. We’re talking scientific extrapolation, plain and simple. Supernatural i.e. ‘woo’ is in a different ballpark altogether. Isn’t that why theists go to such pains to claim that their ‘supernatural’ cannot be subjected to empirical investigation in the first place?
“As has already been stated, theories pertaining to ‘other universes’ are theoretical speculations derived from mathematical theories.”
bullshit. there are no mathematical theories that support or even allude to a multiverse model. that model was created as a response to the problem of the anthropic principle. if there are close to an infinite number of other universes, the fine tuning of this universe wouldn’t be improbable and would in fact even be expected. of course, its all, as you say, completely speculative and based on theories that are pertaining to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe.
Jason:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation
Note this sentence:
“Proponents argue that many-worlds reconciles how we can perceive non-deterministic events, such as the random decay of a radioactive atom, with the deterministic equations of quantum physics.”
jim,
Actually, that’s all the difference if you ask me. When PhillyChief said,
Either another defining PhillyChief OR a Christian defining PhillyChief would count as “troublesome” according to PhillyChief’s statement. We do not require that both criteria be met in order for PhillyChief to be troubled, right? The statement “Philly is troubled when non-Christians define him” would be true, right? The statement that “a Christian must define PhillyChief in order to trouble him” would also be false, right?
I realize you’re ignoring me or whatever, but I would really love to hear you or anybody explain how what I said is wrong. That still NOT ONE PERSON ever answered the food question should tell you guys something.
and i will have you note this one. buried way down as i expected.
MWI (or other, broader multiverse considerations) provides a context for the anthropic principle which may provide an explanation for the fine-tuned universe.
Jason:
‘bullshit. there are no mathematical theories that support or even allude to a multiverse model. that model was created as a response to the problem of the anthropic principle.’
I await your retraction.
i’ll answer cl.
“if i say food is cheap, especially meat – does that mean BOTH food and meat are cheap?
yes. that’s exactly what it means as any person with only a modicum of understanding of the english language would be able to tell you.
to answer that question in the affirmative would, of course, force you to agree that the word especially in the definition of supernatural means that BOTH an order of existence yada, yada, yada AND God, spirits, blah, blah, blah are supernatural.
sorry to all who would disagree – you probably need to stop doing heavy drugs.
So, that‘s what keeps me from embracing God!
“Proponents argue that many-worlds RECONCILES how we can perceive…”
and if grasshoppers carried .45’s, it would reconcile the problem of frogs eating them.
this in no way shows that there is any mathematical theory that supports or alludes to a multiverse model.
Jason: How’s about giving this little article by Andre Linde a read, then get back to us? Seeing as how you’re the expert on theoretical physics, and all…
ETERNALLY EXISTlNG SELF-REPRODUCING CHAOTIC INFLATIONARY UNIVERSE
I see a lot of mathematical equations, but since I don’t suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect, I’m not even going to pretend like I know what it says. I await your summary, though.
Now, this interview with Linde in Wired is more my speed…
Big Bang Bust
If you don’t like to read, from the science network:
Panel 2: Is Our Universe Unique, and How Can We Find Out? Session 1: The Universe, Multiverse, Physical Laws
“How’s about giving this little article by Andre Linde a read, then get back to us?”
this is a ONE universe model – not a multiverse model.
i shouldn’t think it odd to say that there are mathematical theories that support a ONE universe model.
btw – this one’s bullshit too. different reasons though.
ildi
“If you don’t like to read, from the science network:”
i don’t have any audio where i’m at now but i’ll listen to it later and get back to you
Well, if you actually knew what you were talking about you’d know that (from his Stanford U. web page):
I guess you didn’t get that far, though, huh.
“Well, if you actually knew what you were talking about you’d know that (from his Stanford U. web page…”
also
“I guess you didn’t get that far, though, huh.”
well, since you didn’t direct me to his website, i would have to say…no, i didn’t get that far. but let’s see what exactly is on his website.
here’s something to note:
“The new cosmological paradigm may have non-trivial philosophical implications. In particular, it provides a scientific justification of the cosmological anthropic principle…”
also: (EMPHASIS mine)
“One of the most important implications of the anthropic principle in the context of inflationary multiverse is the possiblity to SOLVE THE COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT PROBLEM. The first anthropic solution of the cosmological constant problem was proposed at the last page of my review article The Inflationary Universe , Rept. Prog. Phys. 47, 925 (1984). My second proposal was made in my paper Inflation and Quantum Cosmology. It was written in June 1986, and published in the book “300 years of gravitation,” (Eds.: S.W. Hawking and W. Israel, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987), 604-630. The MAIN GOAL of these two papers was to propose a physical mechanism which would ALLOW THE EXISTENCE of different exponentially large parts of the universe with DIFFERENT VALUES of the COSMOLOGICAL CONSTANT. Until the invention of the inflationary theory, this was an UNSOLVABLE PROBLEM.”
so what’s the problem?
from wikipedia – cosmological constant”
Some supersymmetric theories require a cosmological constant that is exactly zero, which further complicates things. This is the cosmological constant problem, the worst problem of FINE-TUNING in physics: there IS NO KNOWN NATURAL WAY to derive the tiny cosmological constant used in cosmology from particle physics.
so, as i stated before – clearly, multiverse models are put forth by people that see the anthropic principle as a problem. none of these guys, especially this guy, andrei linde, (does that mean BOTH these guys AND andrei linde?) sat around doing math and science and then suddenly sat straight up in their chair and screamed – “holy shit!! there might be multiple universes according to these mathematical theories!
fine tuning is a problem for these guys because as atheists they understand that the fine tuning of this universe, if indeed this be the only one, would absolutely require an intelligence and more likely an Intelligence.
Jason:
Here’s your statement: “‘bullshit. there are no mathematical theories that support or even allude to a multiverse model. that model was created as a response to the problem of the anthropic principle.”
Whether or not these theories do or do not address the anthropic problem has absolutely nothing to do with your statement ‘THERE ARE NO MATHEMATICAL THEORIES THAT SUPPORT OR EVEN ALLUDE TO A MULTIVERSE MODEL’. As has been shown, the multiverse theory came directly as a result of problems with the quantum mechanistic mathematical models. To say that there are no mathematical theories that support or allude to a multiverse theory is blatantly false. The equations are all over the place, and now you’re just waffling. The facts are simply against you here, and you’re just trying to pull a switch by citing a subsequent side issue as the original impetus behind the MATHEMATICAL source material.
Again, to say “that model was created as a response to the problem of the anthropic principle.” is the real bullshit here, and flies in the face of the facts that you’re now trying to avoid.
Now, do you still maintain that ‘there are no mathematical theories that support or even allude to a multiverse model.’? Yes, or no?
jim
“”Again, to say “that model was created as a response to the problem of the anthropic principle.” is the real bullshit here”
i disagree. you should really read it again. linde admits as much albeit in a downplayed manner – big shocker there for an atheist.
and also there is tremendous difference between discovering through science and mathematics a new idea or possibility and positing a theory in order to offer an alternative to a problem you dislike and then attempting to make the math work.
so, no. i don’t retract my previous statement. as a matter of fact, reading that metaphysical quackery and its two direct admissions that the anthropic principle is problematic AFTER i had stated as much only serves to reaffirm my position.
What was that position again? That you have no clue what you’re talking about?
Funny how physics turns into “metaphysical quackery” when it doesn’t support your bff deity.
Ok, so Jason stands by his statement that “There are no mathematical theories that support or even allude to a multiverse model. that model was created as a response to the problem of the anthropic principle.” I invite interested readers to peruse the plethora of information to the contrary already offered,(a good starting place is the wiki link I provided earlier), and to make their own judgments. Personally, I find Jason’s argument akin to saying that there were really no dinosaurs, there’s no evidence for dinosaurs, and that atheists just made up dinosaurs to answer the problem of why the earth seems to be only 6,000 years old. Oh, and since he included the phrase ‘or even allude to’, I guess there aren’t any books about dinosaurs, either, and atheists are just pretending that the books actually exist.
Okee dokee!
Then why bring up “parts”? No one here has had any problem with “parts”. We can all read, and understand punctuation.
So, who gives a shit? It’s still ONE definition.
“So, who gives a shit? It’s still ONE definition.”
i disagree but be it one, two, or twenty – its a definition you don’t agree with anyway so what’s it matter to you.
out of curiosity – how WOULD you define supernatural?
Ha! Gotta love this:
Yeah, who gives a shit about facts!
Seriously though – that definition 1 has two distinct parts means there are two distinct conditions that can qualify as supernatural according to 1.
Someone asked where you defined supernatural by only the first part of the definition. This is a good place to look. You want us to ignore the gods, demi gods, ghosts part, and define it strictly by the first clause.
That’s what you mean by two distinct conditions that can qualify as supernatural . If they are distinct, then we can throw out the especially clause, and still have supernatural, right?
jason,
That’s exactly what I asked SI. He never answered. He did give another dictionary definition though, and that one’s about five times longer than Merriam Websters! So much for clarity, eh?
You must have missed this.
You’re right, I also cited a better, more comprehensive definition. It doesn’t leave any room for the natural, which the definition of the supernatural should exclude, BY DEFINITION. M-W is deficient in that regard, in my opinion.
(I tried to find out what the OED definition was, but I don’t own a copy, and you have to register online to use it.)
According to the compact OED, which is free:
supernatural
adjective 1 attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature. 2 exceptionally or extraordinarily great.
I assume theoretical physicists and scientists in general would like to think that their work is supernatural per the second definition…all this and a paycheck and tenure, too!
Online?
Yes, it’s
AskOxford.com
Thanks.
When I looked up supernatural, It came up with what I assume are 15 related words:
1 supernatural
2 magic
3 superstition
4 curse
5 daemon1
6 divination
7 divine2
8 elf
9 evil
10 fable
11 humanism
12 invocation
13 juju2
14 mana
15 mojo
No multiverse?
SI,
No, I saw it, it’s just that “whatever is not natural” not a meaningful definition at all.
I saw your references to other dictionary definitions, too, but I don’t see a point in exploring them because if they can be found wanting in any way, you can always just label them “deficient” then tell me I need to abide by your personal definition according to your perception of “real-world, everyday usage.”
jason,
I searched for a reply to my latest reply to you, but couldn’t find it. No worries, no expectations, just letting you know I’m keeping an eye out for you.
Ok, dude, you must be brain-damaged. Do you not see how your second sentence directly contradicts your third? When asked how he defined supernatural, he answered by giving another dictionary definition.
And what’s the obsession with how long a definition is? Does that make it less accurate? Maybe it indicates that the definition has a lot of nuances?
I personally like this statement made by geologist Arthur Strahler:
and to indicate interdependent statements
Funny how m-w had no problem breaking 2 down into 2a and 2b but did not do so for 1.
People, this is not rocket science. No matter how you try to twist and distort the definition of supernatural, scientists (including theoretical physicists) are not postulating supernatural hypotheses because methodological naturalism is the core principle of the scientific method.
“…scientists (including theoretical physicists) are not postulating supernatural hypotheses…”
they certainly are according to this definition: of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe.
or do you not agree that this is a valid definition of the word supernatural?
No. As I said upstream, I don’t. It’s actually a piss poor definition for the word, because it allows into the definition many things that would be natural.
That sort of negates it’s usefulness, doesn’t it?
Postmodern semantics; you gotta love it.
‘Postmodern semantics; you gotta love it.’
Not really.
/sarcasm
I was also practicing using a semicolon in a sentence.
LOL!
I; believe; this; conversation; has; run; its; course;…
That’s the ultimate lesson to walk away from this with, and I’m reminded of some saying involving pearls and pigs.
You gotta admit, folks. Waaaaaaaay up there in the original OP, Greta was right:
Hi jason!
The problem as I see it is these folks demand believers use “standard dictionary definitions” except when they want believers to use “their personal practical usage definitions” for example SI keeps saying “that’s not how the word is used in real life” in response to definitional disagreements. My problem is that such is a completely arbitrary method of argumentation. As GR put it somewhere above, you can’t tell someone “use the dictionary” one day then “use my personal definition” the next, not if you want to come across as consistent anyways.
It’s funny, because while they’re accusing me of cherry-picking and dishonesty and everything else, nobody seems to have noticed that PhillyChief can only – and I mean ONLY – make his argument appear successful by cherry-picking Merriam Webster’s definition so that it refers ONLY to the “God, gods, spirit” part of the definition. They say I’m the one cherry-picking and doing sleight of hand, but to me, PhillyChief’s conniving is so obvious as to be undeniable.
Ildi,
Non-sequitur. I’ve not argued that anything besides methodological naturalism is the core principle of science. I argue that a subset of scientists believe supernatural hypotheses are warranted in accordance with Merriam Webster’s definitions. You’re conflating two different claims.
Note that PhillyChief said “all of it” when asked which parts of Merriam Webster’s definition were incongruous with the evidence. Note that he’s now selectively focused only on the “God, gods, spirit” part means he stripped away all other parts of Merriam Webster’s definition to focus only on the part PhillyChief needed to make his argument work. That’s cherry-picking. How long can you keep wiping his shirt for him?
To contrast, I’m evaluating PhillyChief’s claim in light of each distinct definition Merriam Webster provided. See what you want to see though, I’m just trying to help in case you want to understand why I do what I do, versus why you think I do what I do.
cl
didn’t mean to ignore you – this post has become quite convoluted and i missed this post.
“The problem as I see it is these folks demand believers use “standard dictionary definitions” except when they want believers to use “their personal practical usage definitions”…”
yes, i agree that the ground does tend to shift underfoot quite a bit here.
this, from si:
“BTW, I’d be real interested in hearing cl’s opinion of your “problematic notion” theory. I wonder if he agrees with you?”
well, what say you, cl?
jason,
I agree, and it’s all my fault damnit!
Seriously though, watching ildi cherry-pick her way through GR‘s questions has been so amusing I’ve not felt the need to add anything as of late. On the “normal human being” level, it’s too bad she thinks so little of me else we might be able to have a decent conversation.
This whole thing is most interesting, watching people say “use the dictionary definitions” one day, then “use the everyday ‘real-world’ usage” the next day, then objecting to my application of everyday ‘real-world’ usage to the word especially the next.
As for you, I appreciate your clear and direct answer to my question of how especially is used in everyday language. I agree with you that any person with a modicum of intelligence and integrity knows that if we say “X is Y, especially Z” that any isolated instance of X or any isolated instance of Z legitimately and independently qualifies as Y. Similarly, X does not require Z nor does Z require X to satisfy the condition of being Y.
When PhillyChief says, “I find it troublesome, as an atheist, to be defined by another, especially a Christian,” any impartial, educated person can see that either a Satanist defining PhillyChief as an atheist or a Christian defining PhillyChief as an atheist would qualify as troublesome, and that neither requires the other in order to do so. PhillyChief’s own use of the word contradicts his definitional objections and I believe that’s why nobody but you has answered that question.
The really funny thing is that even if the definition was ONLY “God, gods, demigod, spirit or devil” PhillyChief’s argument could still be objected to because scientists do formulate hypotheses involving God, ghosts, spirits, etc. Prayer studies and ghost studies are two examples. Whether or not the pertinent isolated hypotheses are falsifiable is a legitimate argument we could have, but the point is that some subset of scientists have devoted themselves to exploring supernatural hypotheses.
At this point the atheist has to either make a “no true scientist” argument, or move the goalpost some other way. Or they can just call me “jackass” and get out of it that way.
As far as your discussion about “problematic notion” theory, I saw that SI had expressed some curiosity as to my opinions as well but honestly I’ve not been paying much attention to it. Early on, I recall jim wanting you to retract some statement about “no mathematical support for multiverse cosmology” or something similar, and I recall a comment you made about being hesitant to claim vacuum fluctuation comes from true nothing, which I would agree with. I tend to side with those philosophers who view true nothing as an ontological impossibility.
Beyond that you can ask anything you like and you can rest assured you’ll get a clear, easy-to-understand answer that I’ll be willing to hold myself accountable to.
Yes, they did. What exactly do you think theoretical physicists do?
Linde seems to have no problem with that. From a 2004 Slate interview:
and
Awesome, isn’t it?
Amazing. CL…I mean, jason, should appreciate it.
ildi
“Yes, they did.”
nope. they put forth a theory to explain away a very problematic notion and then attempted to make the science and math work. i say attempted because they haven’t yet made it work. multiverse theory is NOT a darling in the cosmological world.
i also say a problematic notion but only problematic from their worldview.
si
what is this obsession of thinking that cl and i are the same person? maybe you’re jesting.
Interesting theory, except you can read what actually led to positing the multiverse, and it originally had nothing to do with your ‘problematic notion’, but instead had to do with reconciling non-deterministic events with quantum theory. You’re just making things up as you go along.
This is all beginning to sound like another goofy conspiracy theory, isn’t it?
‘After WWII, Hitler’s reanimated corpse, sequestered away deep below the Alps, needed to come up with a way to keep Christianity from overwhelming the world. His solution? Multiverse theory! It was so simple! One day, he and reanimated Eva sort of casually wandered into physicist Hugh Everett’s laboratory, and casually remarked “You know, Herr Doctor, ve really should do something about zis cursed problem regarding ze anthropic principle, hm? Vis, say, oh, I dunno, maybe something like ze MULTIVORLDS HYPOTHESIS! Mwahahahahahaha!”
Quantum physicists from around the world joined in the conspiracy, inventing nonsense terms like ‘wavefunction collapse’ and ‘radioactivity’, and soon all the fools were taken in by the impressive science-babble, and soon after that…god was dead!’
Dum Dum Duuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
I used to hang out with some theoretical physicists back in the day in grad school… they were always, like, man, this problematic notion is really harshing my buzz (they used to have the best drugs, too) – let me whip out a mathematical model to ‘splain it way so my worldview is all, like, mellow again.
Then there’s always ZOMBIE FEYNMAN!!!!1!!eleventy!!1!!!
Ok, jason, put your $$ where your mouth is and give me some citations to prove you’re not just pulling crap out of thin air. Otherwise, just repeating something that makes you feel good doesn’t make it true.
You keep saying this; who is “they,” and what is this problematic notion again, and why is it only a problem from their worldview?
Again, some actual articles or something besides your (slightly incoherent) personal opinion.
ildi
please note the very first paragraph and then take note of the very first example given as an argument against fine tuning. a fine tuned universe is the problematic notion because, as i said before, it would indicate an intelligence at work or more likely an Intelligence.
before the citation, though:
“they” is any person (usually a scientist or cosmologist) who is desperately seeking a naturalistic origin of the universe. of course, the simple fact is that before the universe began to exist, a naturalistic cause for anything would be impossible because…there is no universe yet. natural laws are a byproduct of this universe and cannot be independent from it. on top of that, “they” also have the added problem of a fine tunned universe that needs to be somehow explained away. so, “they” have thus proposed a solution – the universe is either a) eternal – which is patently ridiculous and shown to be categorically false or b) the universe sprang forth unbidden and from absolutely nothing which is even more ridiculous than the first idea. multiverse models are the byproduct of idea b.
now – on to your citation
from wikipedia – “fine tuned universe”
Possible scientific explanations
If it is accepted that the universe is fine-tuned, there are a number of scientific explanations that attempt to account for it.
There are fine tuning arguments that are naturalistic [10]. As modern cosmology developed, various hypotheses have been proposed. One is an oscillatory universe or a multiverse where physical constants are postulated to resolve themselves to random values in different iterations of reality.[11] Under this hypothesis, separate parts of reality would have wildly different characteristics. In such scenarios the issue of fine-tuning does not arise at all, as only those “universes” with constants hospitable to life (such as what we observe) would develop life capable of asking the question.
Really? You might enjoy this presentation by Lawrence Krauss: A Universe From Nothing. His actual presentation is about 50 minutes, and it is a good summary of the current status of cosmology for the layperson (which is definitely me). Some of his statements that jumped out at me:
In a flat universe, the total energy of the universe is precisely zero.
(Our universe is flat; he goes through the measurements that demonstrate that.)
Only such a universe can begin from nothing.
If you have nothing in quantum mechanics, you’ll always get something.
The laws of physics allow a universe to begin from nothing.
So, while he’s not saying the universe is eternal per se, he is saying that the universe began from nothing, and has no ending.
“And the universe with god is based on wishful thinking.”
and the universe without God is based on absolutely nothing and so amounts to absolutely nothing and so too we humans amount to absolutely nothing by way of inclusion in this meaningless universe.
which means, from your standpoint, this conversation is also without meaning and therefore moot. so why waste anymore of your limited time discussing meaningless things? you should be out having a fine meal or on holiday in a warm and sunny locale or getting laid. hurry now – time’s wasting.
ildi,
“You might enjoy this presentation by Lawrence Krauss…”
i’ve seen this presentation before – krauss is obviously a really bright mind but i think like most people of his intellectual level, they can’t see past their own brilliance.
the universe ex nihilo without God is based upon the fact that virtual particle pairs (particles that cannot be directly observed but are known to exist because of their effect on things that are observable) pop into and out of existence seemingly from nothing all the time. its called quantum fluctuation. because this does not violate the law of the conservation of energy its used as a foundation for this universe model.
one of the main problems of this model is the word seemingly. just because modern science cannot explain how and why and from where these particles come from at present, it shouldn’t be assumed that they are actually coming from “nothing” or “nowhere”. this is the main criticism of this universe model.
again, interesting theory but the mathematics of it haven’t been worked out, it assumes more than it should, and, again, its a theory posited as a response to the apparent fine tuning of the universe as it predicts multiple universes.
And the universe with god is based on wishful thinking.
So we should ignore what he says because he’s so brilliant, and knows it? Confidence in his own intelligence makes him unreliable? Please. Spare us. I’ll listen to what Krauss has to say far more than those humble scientists like Pat Robertson, Ken Ham, and Kent Hovind.
You’re coming precariously close to making an argument from ignorance. It sounds a lot like “We really don’t know, so therefore Goddidit”
“You’re coming precariously close to making an argument from ignorance.”
how ironic you say that since this is exactly what krauss HAS done. he and other cosmologists don’t know how or why these particles “pop” into and out of existence so they posit they come from “nowhere” and from “nothing” and thus they can now present…a flourish of trumpets please – a universe from nothing.
You really didn’t watch the Krauss lecture, did you? HE hasn’t done anything, other than contribute. The physics community has done it all. The entire body of physicists throughout the world. And they didn’t just claim that they didn’t know something, so they made it up, as you imply. They did the hard work and analysis to back it up. There is a lot of evidence (if you watched the lecture) to support the theory that there is energy and mass where there appears to be nothing. As Krauss very ably explained, the language of science is math, not English, and the math supports the theory. We don’t have the language to mirror the math, so use of the word “nothing” is actually misleading. Did you hear him explain that part?
That’s not an argument from ignorance.
Latching on to the misleading notion of nothing, and then claiming that physicists claim that the universe came from nothing, is an argument from ignorance.
Did I just hear your fanfare of trumpets fizzle out?
S.I.:
“Latching on to the misleading notion of nothing, and then claiming that physicists claim that the universe came from nothing, is an argument from ignorance.”
This can’t be stated often enough. It’s also obvious that Jason simply breezed through the wiki stuff I gave him until he found the word ‘anthropic’. Why do I say this? Because his claim is that the mworlds hypothesis emerged from some lame need to get around the creationists’ ‘fine tuned universe’ arguments, and that, in his words “‘bullshit. there are no mathematical theories that support or even allude to a multiverse model. that model was created as a response to the problem of the anthropic principle.”
When in fact, the theory emerged DIRECTLY FROM the equations of quantum theory, as is apparent from any but the most utterly biased and cherry picked reading imaginable. All this information is right there on the SAME PAGE THAT HE USES TO CLAIM THAT THE INFORMATION DOESN’T EXIST! That it subsequently happens to speak to the fine-tuned universe bullshit is so beside the point, that it’s around the corner, down the street, and across state lines from the point! The arguments are there, the equations are there, but the facts are simply being ignored because they don’t fit the creationist agenda. What a fine example of theistic propaganda this has become.
Jim
We (atheists) are often characterized as misunderstanding theology, when in fact we don’t think theology is a subject worth understanding, even if we understood it.
Likewise, Christians believe that science is a subject that is not worth understanding, because it conflicts with their beliefs. So they make no effort to understand it, instead offering shallow, simplistic, cartoon characterizations of what they discuss.
We’re both guilty, in that sense, of figuratively putting our fingers in our ears and singing, loudly “la-la-la-la-la”.
The difference between us, the reason why I think I’m justified in not understanding theology, and they in turn are NOT justified in not understanding science, is that theology presumes the existence of god, and I need to know he exists before I waste time on a study of the subject that explains him, wheras, theists spend every moment of every waking day interacting with science, secure that it is true, and useful, and willing to take every advantage that it offers them, yet they refuse to accept it when it conflicts with their beliefs, which they cannot, ever, prove.
Sorry for the run on sentence.
S.I.:
It’s not so much the misunderstanding that bothers me. That can always be straightened out through information. What irks me is the blatant mischaracterization of facts, then glossing over offered information as if it doesn’t exist, simply because it doesn’t play well with the propaganda you’re pushing. This isn’t merely a game of wordplay, like so often goes on in these discussions. I say the origin of m-theory is ‘a’. Jason says no, the origin is ‘b’. So Jason is offered several citations by different people, explaining how and why m-theory originated with ‘a’. What does he do? He simply glosses over all that until he finds a mention of ‘b’ in the source material- NOT in the context of originations, mind you- then substitutes ‘a’ for ‘b’.
It’s as if we were reading a story: in the story, Jack drinks a glass of milk. Someone says “No, Jill is the one who drank the milk.” So you offer the challenger several passages in the story where Jack is demonstrated to have ingested the milk. What does he do? He skips over all that, then starts turning pages until Jill enters the story. Then he says, “Aha! Told you I was right; here’s Jill, right here!’ Nevermind that she doesn’t drink the milk. The mere fact that she’s in the same story as Jack and the milk somehow justifies the challenger’s point. Sigh.
Man, you’ve gotta keep on top of these guys every second!
S.I.:
P.S. Speak for yerself…I’m pretty caught up on my mythology…er…theology 🙂
You might – just might – be justified in saying this if a) you were a peer of Krauss’, which at a minimum means that you, too, are a practicing theoretical physicist. (By the way, his real peers don’t seem to think he’s been blinded by his own intellect:)
and b) you actually give a cogent example of where his presentation is wrong. I suppose that’s what you’re attempting to do with your take on quantum mechanics:
I have to admire your cohones, if nothing else. Don’t be afraid to just jump right in and make definitive statements about something you know absolutely nothing about! Please don’t take it personally, though, if I give more weight to the conclusions of the actual theoretical physicist that the laws of physics allow a universe to begin from nothing. This appears to get rid of the need for positing a creator.
(If I’m wrong and you are in fact a physicist, please do point me in the direction of your published peer-reviewed journal articles providing the analysis of how “the mathematics of this universe model haven’t been worked out,” and “assumes more than it should.”)
This is such a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. xkcd captures it so well, as usual:
Revolutionary
Yeah, that’s me. The court jester. I just love kidding around. Really. I do!
BTW, I’d be real interested in hearing cl’s opinion of your “problematic notion” theory. I wonder if he agrees with you?
…and no signs of dying soon…
There’s this magic feature on my brouser called “find in page” and I searched the thread for “scientist.”
What are these kids learning in school nowadays?
Well, for starters, they’re apparently not learning Capitalization.
They’re such rebels!
(First time I’ve tried linking to an image, so I hope it works…)
Looks like that was a big “NO”…
down with CAPITALISM
Well from me, they’re learning that accepting the claim that they’re special little snowflakes is unwarranted. They MAY be, but they’ll have to demonstrate that to me first. 😉
Thank you for a wonderful picture into your world of fantasy. Ignoring all your false assertions for the time being, I find it fascinating that for you, the truth value of information is based on how well it jives with the idea of meaning you’ve concocted and/or latched on to for reality and furthermore, this fabricated meaning has such a hold on you that you couldn’t deal with reality without it. Fascinating!
“…that you couldn’t deal with reality…”
if there be no God, reality is nothing more than a series of moments that leads one inexorably to death and non-existence. its an incredibly quick trip too – not even an eye blink relative to the age of the universe. if that’s the case, i shouldn’t think that one would want to waste one jot or their time here talking about things that don’t ultimately matter.
And if they won’t leave Britney alone, then what’s the point of going on?
That exactly correct. Now you’re getting the hang of it!
Unfortunately, rather than proceeding rationally, you fall back on irrationality.
We don’t live in relative time, we live in actual time. So the fact that relative to the age of the universe we are here a mere 80 years or so, does not take away from us the fact that those 80 years can be quite meaningful while we are living them. We are free to do as we please, to find meaning and enjoyment in everything around us.
So, we live for the moment. If we find meaning and enjoyment “wasting our time” discussing this with you, all that means is that YOU are the one who is wasting his time. You should be on your knees, praying that you are right, that these short years you have here will be extended into eternity for you to enjoy. Because if you are wrong, then it it YOU who has wasted his time. Neh?
So why are YOU here, talking about things that don’t ultimately matter? You think that if you come here and show your god that you support him, he’ll reward you after you die? Or do you find the subject intellectually stimulating, like I do, enough to cause you to come back and continue to discuss topics that elude conclusions, but are fun to ponder? Perhaps you find some meaning in that process?
If so, I might suggest that you and I are much alike, humans living life the exact same way. Because if you truly took your beliefs to their logical conclusion, you would have committed suicide a long time ago, so as to start the eternity clock ticking that much sooner. Really, this life is, as you say an “eye blink”. Why not finish the blink and proceed to the feature attraction?
“Unfortunately, rather than proceeding rationally, you fall back on irrationality.”
and then
“Because if you truly took your beliefs to their logical conclusion, you would have committed suicide a long time ago…”
and then
“Why not finish the blink and proceed to the feature attraction?
and you’re lecturing me on rationality?
as an aside, my beliefs encompass a lot more than the concept of eternal life – taken as a whole, the logical conclusion of my beliefs is not to get to death as soon as possible – anymore than the atheist belief system’s logical conclusion is to murder everyone that believes in God or a god.
though, after your last suggestion, i bet at least some atheists wouldn’t mind one bit if those people checked out of their own accord.
No. Though the Rapture keeps sounding better and better. 😉
Which atheist belief system are you referring to? There are a few out there. I guess the most popular one would be Buddhism, but that’s sort of atheism*.
As for checking out of their own accord, ideally no but hey, if that’s what they want to do, uh, god bless! 😉
Btw, anyone see Doug Stanhope recently or listen to his latest cd? He does a great suicide bit starting with the fan of his that offed himself. Good stuff.
SI wrote:
No, it’s not, which makes you lecturing GR about the need for careful reading hilarious, especially considering that GR’s careful reading revealed that I in fact *did not* make the claims Ildi attributed to me. Ildi even admitted to “glossing over” both GR’s statements and mine, which I find admirable and liberating. Now it all makes sense: when it comes to me, she doesn’t even care enough to get the facts straight.
For the record, the “entire thrust” of my argument here is to show that by each of those definitions Merriam Webster offered, scientists study the supernatural. That’s the third or fourth time I’ve stated that now, but I don’t expect you to acknowledge it because it doesn’t fit the preconceived conclusion you want to make.
The whole thrust of my argument here is that PhillyChief wrote a check his logic couldn’t cash. He said “supernatural hypotheses are unwarranted” but that “argument” is a philosophical and epistemic nightmare, so I asked him what he meant by “supernatural” to which he replied “standard dictionary definitions.” I then asked which aspect of Merriam-Webster’s four-pointed definition PhillyChief had in mind when he says “supernatural hypotheses aren’t warranted,” to which PhillyChief replied “all of it.”
I agree with you the definition is junk. That’s why I think PhillyChief shouldn’t use junk to define the language he uses in his claims.
That is of course until atheists like yourself, PhillyChief and countless others want to cite prayer studies as evidence against theism, right? You want to have your cake and eat it too, when what you need is a slice of humble pie yourself.
Unbelievable. {shakes head}
There is a BIG difference between the claim that anything outside the visible universe is by definition supernatural (and thereby any scientists studying it are studying the supernatural), and the claim that the supernatural physically affects the natural world through prayer. The former is just simply semantic sleight of hand, your forte‘. The latter is a scientific study of the natural effects of a supernatural assertion.
Surely you know the difference.
Or do you?
Unbelievable. {shakes head, and laughs}
So how’s that cake taste?
I don’t know. How does it feel to be totally clueless?
Oh, great, now he’s going to go around cackling about “pie” and “cake” for the next couple of weeks…
Poor baby can’t even make the distinction between studying “claims for the supernatural” and “supernatural”, and the irony is that there never even ends up being a phenomenon to make any hypotheses about, whether naturalistic or supernatural, so the claims are moot.
To clarify, prayer studies test the claims that prayer does X. You can test the claim that something does X without getting into how. In fact, rather than the how being the primary concern as theists think it is, it’s the effect that is AND it isn’t until the effect is noted that the how has any fucking warrant for interest.
So you clueless theists wishing to make a scene with this and drop smart-assey comments, shut your pie-holes and you can have your cakes and shove ’em up your asses. Fuck, if I could only have a $1 for every time I need to explain this shit, then I wouldn’t have to work (although at times this feels more like work than actual work).
Does anybody doubt that if scientific methodology on a large scale started verifying the effects of prayer, that the news wouldn’t be plastered all over the place? Oh! Let me answer that one myself in apologist-speak:
‘God can only be verified, but never disproven.’
What was that church lady used to say?
Of course, because it just couldn’t be that you’re actually wrong or anything, it’s just “save face” no matter what the cost.
The problem for you is that intercessory prayer studies purport to test the claim that God (a supernatural being according to Merriam Webster) heals human beings in response to prayer. Deny it, object to it, or cuss and puff your chest all you want, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re just wrong. Scientists study 1a, scientists study 1b, you approved a definition that sank your own argument.
And the meter keeps running…
Prayer studies study the EFFECTS only, not the god crap.
Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer…
Simply saying I’m wrong is not going to make it so nor convince anyone else that it is so, but you can try praying that that’ll happen. Good luck with that.
Yet every other day of the year you demand theists to present you with scientific evidence for the supernatural. So which is it?
Has the light bulb gone off over your head yet?
S.I.:
Curiosity question- are you nearing your ‘most comments in a thread’ record here? Pretty soon, this’ll equal the number of hits I’ve ever had on my whole blog! *mutters enviously*
It actually already passed the personal record about 50 comments back. Not that I noticed. 8)
If I really cared about it, I’d have to thank cl . But I don’t.
OK. I lied. It is nice to have people stop by and comment. A lively bunch of comments is sort of fun. Unless Giddyup is the one creating them.
So, you’re having your ‘cake’, and eating it too? Sorry, couldn’t resist. Guess I’ll have to go and eat some humble pie now 🙂
On second thought, in my dilapidated condition I’d never hold it down.
You just need a good chaser. Like a bottle of Maalox.
CAKE OR DEATH?
From the OP:
then hundreds of comments later,
You ask Christians to present their evidence, then define “evidence for the supernatural” out of existence a priori. In short, you demand the logically impossible. As an analogy,
Car Salesman: “Hey there I’ll give this brand new 2010 BMW to the first person who can piss in a corner! Oh, by the way, did I tell you that we’ll be having this contest in a round room?”
Talk about sleight of hand!
I’ll ask you again. Has the light bulb over your head lit up yet?
SI,
Come on SI, lose the attitude and let’s try to get to some common ground here. If you’re referring to your comment where you said,
Then I have to ask: when scientists conduct studies to test the claim that God answers prayers, they’re not studying a supernatural hypothesis? Is that what you’re saying?
If yes, I’ll offer my objections accordingly. If no, then please, explain what you are saying so I can evaluate it correctly.
A better analogy would be while standing in a round room, person A claims he regularly pisses in the corner and person B asks, “show me.” Hey, maybe the room isn’t completely round, and person B somehow hasn’t noticed the existence of a corner yet, and professional architects and interior designers haven’t noticed any corners ever, so there’s nothing warranting belief that there are any corners, so person B would really like to see on what grounds person A can claim he regularly pisses in the corner.
So no, he’s not defining “evidence for the supernatural” out of existence a priori. He’s asking, in light of there seemingly being no evidence for a god, by what evidence do believers believe there is a god. If you can’t see the difference, I won’t be surprised, jackass.
What inevitably happens is:
• the believer’s definition of evidence is different than the non-believer’s
• the believer plays the faith card
• the believer attempts to justify belief without evidence (ie – makes them feel good or invoking a logical fallacy like popularity or personal incredulity)
• the believer dons his douchebag costume and trolls the discussion
PhillyChief,
I can see that difference clearly, PhillyChief, and I can even see the open-mindedness your comment reflects. I get that atheists just haven’t seen anything convincing. That’s my whole point: what’s convincing is a matter of subjectivity, which is what science is supposed to get around. The problem is, once atheists say “supernatural hypotheses aren’t warranted” and / or “studying the supernatural is not science,” they’ve effectively precluded any scientific evidence from ever being offered.
Why?
Because if “supernatural” means “God, gods, spirits” etc., and if scientists studying the supernatural are by definition not doing science, how can there ever possibly be scientific evidence for “God, gods, spirits” etc.?
No, no, no, it’s absolutely not a matter of subjectivity. It generally is for the believer though (see above, “the believer’s definition of evidence is different than the non-believer’s”)
No again on three counts:
1) Determining a claim lacks warrant is not a finite decision, meaning once a warrant is produced, the claim will be re-examined
2) No scientific evidence is precluded before it’s offered in science
3) As of yet, there’s been no scientific evidence for the supernatural (again, see above “the believer’s definition of evidence is different than the non-believer’s”)
So you offer shit flying around your house. Can you demonstrate this? No? Anecdotal, so not evidence. You can demonstrate it? Ok, what’s the warrant for this being evidence for the supernatural? Got none? Well then we’ll file under “unexplained” for now, and scientists from around the globe will probably be submitting grant requests to study it. As they study it, they’ll either figure out why it’s happening or not. If they do, and it’s something new which they’ve never seen before, guess what? It’ll be labelled as some new kind of phenomenon and the definition of “natural” will be expanded. If they don’t, it’ll remain labelled “unexplained” until they do.
But hey, let’s just pretend the scientists decide to call what’s happening “supernatural”. Now from there, what’s the next step for someone like you to claim there’s a god? I mean let’s face it, that’s what all these games are ultimately about, right? To justify believing in your fantasy man. So ok, how would that get you there? Let’s take life on Mars for instance. From what we know, life requires water. Now they find water on Mars, so then are they justified in claiming life exists on Mars? Nope. Are they justified in claiming life once existed on Mars? Nope. So again, how would scientists claiming shit flying around in your house is supernatural get you any closer a warrant for your claim that a god exists? Bonus question – would it in anyway apply to the claims of fairies, gremlins or ghosts?
Philly’s right on, cl, and I agree with his analysis, but allow me to put it the way I see it. It may seem circular to you, but that’s only because you’re trying to shoehorn supernatural into a closed definition.
I asked once, and devoted a post, for theists to show their evidence for god. We went round and round on it, with you claiming I wouldn’t accept anything you’d offer, so why bother. I understand your frustration, but it can’t be helped. Your assumptions about reality do that to you, not any limitations I place on it. You assume the supernatural exists, when you have no reason to, other than pure desire.
My point (the one I would have made had you even attempted to answer it with anything) with my original request was that it is impossible to provide evidence for the supernatural, because evidence, by its very nature, being the product of science, can only be offered to explain the natural. If you could actually provide evidence for something you claim is supernatural, you would have taken it right out of the realm of supernatural, and into the natural, because by definition, the natural encompasses everything, so if there is evidence of something (anything) it can only be natural.
Philly describes it differently, saying something is either unexplained, or natural. There is nothing else, and even the unexplained will be natural once it’s explained.
So, if you had answered my original inquiry, with, say your video game anecdote, at best it would have been relegated into the category of unexplained. And I’m fairly certain that if an explanation could be definitively found, it would be natural.
The supernatural is a concept that ignorant people created in order to explain the unexplainable, but history has shown us time after time that once we are able to explain the unexplainable, the explanation is always natural. Without exception, everything we know is natural, and if we don’t know it, it’s still unexplained. There has never been a supernatural explanation proven for anything, ever, in the history of civilization (which is why Philly claims that a supernatural hypothesis is unwarranted.)
If there is even a shred of understanding on your part, the light bulb will start getting brighter. If you insist on clinging to a mere belief in something for which there is no evidence, and for which there can be no evidence, then the light bulb will remain dim.
Philly & SI:
These are both excellent comments with clear explanations. Thanks to both of you for stating it so well.
Philly:
Shop no further!
I can’t believe I actually found this…LOL!
Well, now I just want to see it hit 400.
Me too. I think this one brings the total to 395.
No fair padding the numbers.
Oh, wait. I just did it too. 8)
figured a break would do well
SI: no offense but too early in the morning for me to eat any kind of pie let alone humble which isn’t warranted. to shoot totally straight here i think like Ildi you might be the one who’s glossing over things and you’re even assuming i’ve not done my work like she was. why? i mean it when i say i’ve looked at this thread so please if you can just give me the same good faith i give you
but getting along how has your position changed in light of Ildi’s comment 24 January 2010 at 3:14 PM? she now agrees with whereas you seem to be holding out still. if so that’s cool i just wanna know the reasoning
Ildi: thanks i figured that’s what was going on i could tell from the beginning that people feel strongly here about this person or that and the whole time it felt like you were just glossing over my comments. that’s why i think the whole condescending attitude and ^assume i hadn’t done my work^ thing was unwarranted but no hard feelings
unless you can show me something i actually have missed the ^especially^ thing still doesn’t add up. the way we use the word in everyday language permits the distinction 1a and 1b. PhillyChief proved as much with what he said about not liking being defined by another especially a christian. that means first that he finds ^whoever^ defines him troublesome whether they’re christian or not and second that he finds it even more troubling when a christian does it. from my pov Cl just applied that same logic to mw’s 1 and i still haven’t heard a valid objection. and yes i did read your comment about myoxford.com it doesn’t add up and actually supports 1a / 1b because if we say ^women and especially young women are vivacious^ then ANY woman young or not is vivacious, young women more so. what comes before ^especially^ denotes the general what comes after denotes the more specific. it would not be required for a person to be christian to trouble PhillyChief a woman would not be required to be young to be vivacious and ^some thing^ would not be required to be ^God, gods, spirit, demigod, or devil^ to be supernatural. it makes perfect sense but i’m more than willing to reconsider if there’s a reason besides strong feelings
Ok, GR, I wandered over to your blog to see if I could get an insight into why you’re obsessing over whether cl’s parsing of the definition of supernatural is accurate or not and I found this:
So, of course merriam-webster has to be defining supernatural as of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe!
I’m willing to go one more round with you on how to read dictionary definitions because this is an important skill. In the definition of vivacious; why didn’t the entry just say ‘attractively lively and animated?’ Why did they add the clause (especially of a woman)? Remember, they only have so much room to try to capture the full current usage of a word.
Read the entire entry for The Corpus and the dictionary entry to see what I mean.
Set theory, you’re doing it wrong. The person wouldn’t have to be Christian, any theist would do. The theoretical Philly of this example would not be annoyed by an atheist defining what atheism means. The vivacious person would have to be a woman, not just any person. The supernatural would not be required to be god, it could be any other fairy tale or religion.
Do you see how this is working? For the first one: the set is theist, not person, the subset is Christian. For the second one: the set is woman, not person, the subset is young woman.
Now, you do the third one.
On the other hand, if you want to define supernatural as “I don’t like naturalism, there’s other stuff out there,” go for it.
(fucked up my html bold tag… why, why no preview?)
I insist on getting the 400th comment.
Nice job! Your html is fixed, too.
Ah, you caught that little gem, did you? Yeah, we can pretty much leave it at Godless irrational Randall. He loses objectivity when you disagree with him, especially when it’s over things he just wishes were true.
For the record, I do get annoyed sometimes when an atheist defines atheism, especially when they’re clueless and irrational. Still, the record goes to those clowns who called themselves atheists yet said they occasionally prayed to Thor and Gaia. They’re gonna be tough to beat, but every once in awhile you get a good challenger.
Well in fairness, there’s nothing to atheism that says you have to be objective and rational. I think many of us are still looking for a label that encompasses those and atheism. In the mean time, we have to put up with the yahoos calling themselves atheists while sporting their crystals, taking homeopathic “remedies”, watching Ghost Hunters like it’s a fucking scientific documentary, and so on. sigh
Theoretical Philly doesn’t! Everybody wants to be theoretical Philly’s bff!
That’s because he’s too much of a pansy to tell other atheists they’re wrong and/or annoying. Good friends let you know those things, but most people can’t handle having such good friends, so they become bffs with those who won’t tell them they look fat in their jeans, or that they shouldn’t do karaoke, or that their clueless ninnies. It’s kind of like pretending you have a personal god who loves you, only not quite as bad. The bff is at least real, only what they tell you is pretend. Ah, the bliss of delusion!
I don’t play pretend.
There’s nothing wrong with being a hardass and also having a sense of humor.
Was I supposed to put a little jokey emoticon after my comment? I fucking hate fucking emoticons! Emoticons make baby jesus cry… 😦
…and bffs don’t tell say you look fat in your jeans (assuming they’re being asked), they say “Well, I don’t think they’re showing your figure off to its full advantage, sweetie. Did you see that episode of What Not To Wear with that short chick who reminds me of you? Stacy and Clinton say a bit of a higher rise and straight-leg jean looks best on someone with your body shape… ”
There’s a big difference between playing pretend and slapping people upside the head with the troof.
Given that, I prefer your upfront, rather abrasive style of commenting (especially when it’s aimed at someone else, natch) than the snarky passive-aggressive roundabout (‘get to the point already!’) style that seems to come naturally to some commenters who shall remain nameless.
a big difference between; meant to say a balance between
Lovely! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Mrs. Chief watches What Not To Where, which means I inevitably get stuck watching some of that, and don’t even get me started about Project Runway. RuPaul’s Drag Race, on the other hand, is television gold. 😉
Ildi:
^why didn’t the entry just say ‘attractively lively and animated?’ Why did they add the clause (especially of a woman)?^
because most people use ^vivacious^ to describe ^attractively lively and animated^ women. i get that dictionaries list the technical definitions and the common ways people use words. that’s not where we seem to disagree
^The person wouldn’t have to be Christian, any theist would do.^
because?
I don’t understand your question. Or, should I say, question fragment?
Btw, I’m curious; why have you invented your own version of punctuation marks? It makes reading your comments tedious as hell.
carats denote emphasis double quotes denote verbatim statements
as in, ^why^ would “any theist would do” when the question is who would trouble PhillyChief?
That didn’t answer her question, which was, why invent your own punctuation (for emphasis) when there’s a perfectly good, globally understood way of doing it?
as in, why would “any theist would do” when the question is who would trouble PhillyChief?
i don’t give a rat’s ass what the comment looks like it’s about time. carats require 4 keystrokes html 7
what i’m asking is why “any theist would do” is correct in answer to the question of who would trouble PhillyChief when defining him as an atheist. that’s about as clear as i can possibly make it
It may be saving your fucking time, dude, but you’re the one asking the fucking questions, so it would be just a teeny-weeny bit courteous if you followed fucking conventions.
People can be divided into one of two subsets: atheists and theists. (Well, there are agnostics, too, but we’ll leave them out for purposes of this example.)
Atheists reserve the right to define themselves. It is annoying when someone who is the “out” group tries to tell the “in” group how to define themselves. Christians feel the same way when atheists argue against what they would consider a strawman Christian. So, even though Philly clarified later that irrational asshats of any stripe annoy him, for the purposes of our example, he would not be annoyed at having a discussion of what it means to be an atheist with another atheist.
oh hey well excuse me but what fucking difference does it make since you admitted to glossing over my comments in the first place? gimme a godless break will ya
and what the fuck do you know about courtesy you condescending polecat! you’re out there talking shit to theists when you fuck up basic physics while at the same time falling back on the ^back at grad school^ talk
you said (and i’ll use quotes and html instead of carats so you don’t have a hissyfit this time)
“”””””””Atheists reserve the right to define themselves. It is annoying when someone who is the “out” group tries to tell the “in” group how to define themselves. Christians feel the same way when atheists argue against what they would consider a strawman Christian. So, even though Philly clarified later that irrational asshats of any stripe annoy him, for the purposes of our example, he would not be annoyed at having a discussion of what it means to be an atheist with another atheist.””””””””””
no shit, but too bad that’s not even what the fuck we were talking about. we were talking about dictionaries and the corpus link and how the word especially is used and again you’ve managed to make some off the wall remark that doesn’t relate shit to shine-ola. no wonder theists get irritated with some of you it’s like debating someone with add
for the third time now, given what the guy said earlier, when the question is who would trouble PhillyChief why does “any theist would do” work as an answer?
I can’t speak for ildi, but I’ll tell you that I tend to gloss over, and even skip, your comments when I can’t understand them on the first read, and that happens with regularity, in my opinion, because you use unconventional punctuation. So, if I may give you some unsolicited advice, use the fuckin’ conventions accepted and used by everyone else, or risk being ignored.
How ironic.
As I’ve explained before, I’ve ended up glossing because your writing style is for shit.
oooh, snap! A poseur…
(Funny part was the theist didn’t pick up on my egregious errors.)
I’ve answered to the best of my ability. I obviously have no idea what you’re asking.
alright. that does it. i’m jumpin’ in my ^html and perfect spelling^ costume from here on out, just so people will quit bitching about irrelevant shit
<>
Ildi:
I thought that was pretty fuckin’ funny, too: the theist described the 2nd law accurately and remained polite while you got it wrong and talked a bunch of shit like you knew a thing or two. New Atheism in a nutshell, I suppose.
My point here is that when people use the word especially it is to modify other words, not to exclude between groups of words. At some point back in the thread or maybe even somewhere else (I’m not sure exactly where the remark was first made), PhillyChief said (and I’m paraphrasing to the best of my recollection here so cut me some slack if the grammar or diction isn’t exactly as he originally spoke it),
That means whenever “another” defines PhillyChief as an atheist, he finds it troublesome. In other words, it’s not a necessary condition that the person defining PhillyChief be Christian in order for PhillyChief to be troubled. Either “another” or a “Christian” defining PhillyChief as an atheist would be considered troublesome. Like I said the last couple of times,
You even responded to that with,
No shit eh? Why is that? As in, why did you say that? Did the lightbulb go off over your head yet? Or are you still glossing over shit?
No more bitching about punctuation and html and “accepted conventions” and
goddamnedGod-damned carats anymore. Produce an answer already.Ok, asshat, I’m not even reading the rest of your shit. He/she remained “polite” because he knows even less about physics tham you think I do; I did the knee-jerk on open vs. closed system for the second law and got it backward because I was trying to get him past the college dorm navel-gazing to his actual point.
On the other hand, I really did not know that quantum theory predicts that a black hole can actually evaporate, so I looked it up after jim corrected me and did the mea culpa on that thread, and actually learned something – which I’m not in this fucking tedious and offensive exchange with you, so fuck you.
Ildi: What? I thought you preferred the abrasiveness? Hey if you don’t like it don’t dish it out. I was more than patient while you snarked me with the same condescending bullshit I hear you judge the apologists for. Assuming I hadn’t done my homework when really you were glossing over my comments, avoiding straight forward questions, obviously rushin’ through shit.. it feels like I answered the door to some fuckin’ Mormons here. Ooh!
Okay, asshat, but when were you? You already said you were glossing right over them anyways, back around when you started lecturing me about courtesy, right after you assumed I wasn’t doing my work. Gimme a fuckin’ break already!
Now now, watch that spelling! Tell me then, if “he/she” only remained polite because “he/she” knows less than I think you do, how the fuck was it that “he/she” made accurate statements about the second law and you did not? How the fuck was it that “he/she” didn’t get the black hole thing wrong, and you did? Truth is, I misunderstood some of what you said over there too. It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with being wrong or not understanding just don’t act so full of yourself and turn into a big ol’ bitch about it when you’re obviously just as prone to fucking up as anyone else. Pride impedes logic. Truth is, I think it’s good that you even can admit to being wrong. That already puts you miles ahead of boobus Idiotus who roots for KC.
Look, now that we’ve both said our peace, why not just you start over with me, I’ll start over with you, and let’s just go from where we left off? You gimme basic respect and I’ll proofread every comment from here on out. Promise.
You clueless git, Philly has my respect. Philly actually has things of substance to say, and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. He sure had your number right off the bat, but no, I thought no one can be as dense as this, it must be that moronic writing style, then I’m thinking trollish, but you threw in just enough “no, really, I’m reading very carefully” for me to take you at face value and try yet again to explain a fairly simple concept.
You’re studying logic? That is too funny! You seem to be majoring in the school of ‘how to miss the forest for the trees’. Tell me what difference it made to the discussion whether cl said “scientists study the supernatural” or “scientists themselves say they study the supernatural?” Hmmm? Did that make his parsing of the definition any more or less accurate? I thought you made such a big deal about it because you had an actual point to make, but no, sadly disappointed. You stripped that tree bare and then moved on to the next one.
People? That’s the best you can fucking do? I give you links to how dictionary entries are written and yet another example of how the word is used in yet another entry and you give me people? You lazy little shit, go and do some fucking research.
God, I am so annoyed with myself …
Ildi: calm down and get rational. It’s the internet.
In case you haven’t noticed I haven’t suffered you gladly either.
The difference it made to me was that you were hearing what you wanted to hear and making judgments about reality based off that, not what the other person was actually saying. You did it with me, too.
No. As I explained, it confirmed my initial suspicion that your parsing of other people’s arguments sucks ass. Get it yet?
In my discussion with you, I had two points to make. My first point was that you weren’t even fuckin’ listening to what people were saying. It took a few exchanges to get you to slow down long enough to think critically, but you conceded that point which actually was courteous. My second point is that your full of shit for twisting the definition of the word especially just to save face in some bullshit internet argument. I waited patiently and respectfully for you to answer the question. I read the entire corpus link you gave and even explained to you how it contradicts your case in my last comment. I based my explanation of what especially means off three or four dictionaries and an encyclopedia. It is used to modify, not exclude
You oughtta be. You’re condescending and rude to people and you assume others know less when you’re out there spewing a bunch of misinformation around the interwebs. You won’t even explain with clear language why you yourself said “any theist would do” when the question was who would trouble PhillyChief. Well, allow me to explain: any theist would do because the word especially MODIFIES and INTENSIFIES verbs, nouns and adjectives, etc. It does not exclude between them.
If your calm now, do you really believe that the word “especially” is an exclusive adverb? If so, on what grounds? Answer that else let’s get on with life.
🙄 Big surprise. That Baby Jesus kid is the whiniest, most sniveling little brat ever. I’m glad he wasn’t my kid.
8)
🙂 😛 😉 😀 😯
what the fuck is so hard about carats = emphasis and quotes = verbatim?
SI no offense i like your blog but realize i’m not the one telling anybody to be courteous. i may cuss or hoot or holler but i assume the best about people until given reason otherwise and i am 100% courteous to courteous people. besides, you’re just as discourteous to people who annoy you like i said i lurk and i’ve seen you at your best and your worst so let’s just leave it at that if we can
i started using carats because i once used quoted for emphasis and had some asshole jump down my throat about it. i don’t like typing html i tend to fuck it up so i don’t use it and i think it’s kinda silly to expect everyone to comment the same way by using html. i’ll try to go easy on the carats or lose them altogether here but honestly i don’t think it will make a lick of difference because some of your commenters type perfectly and i’ve seen them get glossed right over too
if you want to answer the question i’m down to hear what you have to say but if not i got better things to do than getting bitched at for grammar
I don’t want to answer the question, because, frankly, I’m not following it. That exchange was between you and Philly and ildi. Not me.
And to be perfectly blunt, I wasn’t following it because I have a hard time understanding the flow of your comments. I really don’t understand what you’re asking, and it may be partly because of your creative punctuation, and it may be because of limitations on my part. Whatever the reason, I’m not going to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure it out. This blog is a hobby, not a vocation for me.
If it was me, and someone offered some constructive criticism about my ability to communicate, I’d look real hard at the criticism.
C’est la vie
Why don’t we just cut to the chase, shall we? GR is SO steamed that I should dare find fault with him, that he’s hell bent on finding fault with me. The spearhead of that attack is the MW definition of supernatural I agreed to. Fault in the definition = fault with me. Where he finds as the optimal point of attack is over “especially”.
But the real question, which I mentioned LONG ago and I even explained to GR would be what I would discuss were cl not a douche and had sincere intents, is what does “order of existence” mean? THAT, imo, is the lynchpin, for that’s referring to some unknown category of existence. In light of that, the issue of “especially” not only isn’t problematic, but is actually an aid, for when someone questions “order of existence” and gets “especially : of or relating to God or a god, demigod, spirit, or devil”, THEN it makes sense. Oh, like that shit. Got it!
So the definition is perfectly fine. Yes, there’s potential to be confused but as I just explained, that confusion is easily dealt with. The “test” I intended was to see if cl would try and exploit that potential confusion and he did, because he’s a douche. Despite what GR would hope, I did not hastily choose a weak definition just to lay a trap. I presented a strong definition which only appeared to be weak. Failing to see that and raging for so long over “especially” in a purely emotionally driven attack shows little GR is even further out of my league than cl. Add to this an insistence on unconventional writing and the arrogance of expecting others to adapt to it, and we have a classic example of a spoiled little brat who has just left the protective basement of his parents’ home and has run into a buzzsaw of reality.
Here’s some advice, cupcake. Take time to read and examine things before charging in. You don’t know shit yet. Just because you think you do doesn’t make it so. Brush up on your studies of logic and critical thinking, and it wouldn’t hurt to study Sun Tzu or games like chess or go. Now get out of here until you can keep up with the adults, or at least until you start writing in proper English.
Kids today! It’s that damn self esteem movement.
Alright PhillyChief, I tried in “good faith” as they say to ignore your last belligerent pussy cries for attention but now you’ve crossed the line with four more paragraphs of it so I will grant you four properly-formed and proofread paragraphs of my own:
[i] You arrogant pile of fuckery! You’ll sit there and lecture me about needing to study logic and philosophy when I’m in school for both and you’re the fucking king of lame ass clowns assumptions? You’re joking, right? Or just pissed off about something in life? If not, how about you get your wise ass back to my blog and count how many UNWARRANTED assumptions you made about me you fucking idiot! You don’t even take responsibility for what you say you leave a shitstorm and bail. What law of logic supports that shit? Then explain why the fuck you’re running around typing shit about me like that I have some “rationale for dualism.” Then ask yourself why you even came to my blog in the first place. Did you say anything about the post? Hell no! You just cried like a bitch about “being criticized” when all I did was ask ILDI some questions that your pushy ass responded to! Newsflash, jackass: asking questions is not criticizing! That’s how the “church folk” react to questioning!! You say I’m “ignorant” because I compared “church folk back home” to “materialist atheists” but by golly here you are fitting the mold perfectly. I’ve seen atheists come into Bible study pal and the “church folk” pretty much act like you minus the cussing.
[ii] I’m not hellbent on finding fault with you dipshit you left it all over my blog like idiot snail tracks. And I didn’t “hope” that you were trying to lay some trap I actually was hoping you weren’t because that shit’s for morons but I guess I overestimated you. You call it a “test” but that’s just a play on words. If you’re trying to “test” the other commenters then really it’s you who’s not being sincere asshole! You even encourage me to call Cl “jackass” because you say “it’s fun.” Um, you need to get a life if your idea of “fun” is calling people “jackass” on the internet. I was talking to Ildi to try and make some sense out of this clusterfuck and had no interest in your sorry ass. You must have some kind of ego complex where you think everybody frames reality around you. Always having to have the last word, always having to shout over others and talk shit when things don’t go your way.. you’re a boobus Idiotus of the first degree my friend, a true energy vampire who would pontificate on his own pseudo-intellectual opinions far past the tweekers and cokeheads! Believe me, I come from religion. I’ve got no interest in your kind – and by “your kind” I mean self-righteous opinionated assholes who think they know a thing or two and treat everyone else like peons.
[iii] I hate to break the news, but you aren’t nearly as good with English as you seem to think:
To me, potentially confusing definitions aren’t exactly “fine.” If you can explain the “order of existence” issue then I’d like to at least walk away with something gained philosophically from this. If not, I guess I’ll see ya next time you say a bunch of stupid shit.
Wow, 17 minutes, and hold up: you’re probably not going to listen to a word of it, are you? What a fucking idiot I am for even wasting my time.
No doubt you’re the pride of the philosophy department.
My god, I would never play D&D with cl. What a fucking rules lawyer.