chawks64 is offline chawks64 Post #51  July 8,2009, 3:53pm
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TaoShaffer wrote :
Yes but my question still stands. Where do we draw the line between True Statement, Probable Statement, Improbable Statement, and Fallacy. Hiding behind a rock of "anything is possible" does not constitute a proper argument for or against anything. There has to be some substance.
Why do you have to draw a line? The moment you do, you no longer consider all of the facts, just the ones that fit your conclusion.
 
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TaoShaffer is offline TaoShaffer Post #52  July 8,2009, 9:58pm
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chawks64 wrote :
Why do you have to draw a line? The moment you do, you no longer consider all of the facts, just the ones that fit your conclusion.

Let me write an example to make sure my personal way of working through outside information works.

If I watch the TV in the morning and the weatherman says there's a chance of snow, but I walk outside and it's 90 degrees out. I'll say "it's too hot to snow" and my "line" slides on the range from Improbable Statement, to Fallacy. Now if I walked outside and it was 10 degrees below freezing with some heavy dark clouds, my "line" slides to Probable. OK so with that simple example here's the way I look at it as it is relevant to the current discussion.

Someone on the streets tells me that there's an "intelligence behind the universe." Improbable. But I research it. (And I have and continue to ad nauseum.) And can come up with no conclusive evidence that such a thing exists, in fact no evidence that even leads to the question "did a higher intelligence do this?" I list it as a fallacy. The idea was fabricated in humanities beautiful imagination, or someone went on a tangent of thought. It happens, I've done it too.

Just because you can classify statements as true or false in varying degrees does not make you closed mind. If we were all so open minded to say "anything is possible" whenever an improbable is posited then we'd all be buying snake oil with the idea that it's going to cure cancer based on an "anythings possible" mentality.

And I'm sure this is where we get into the meat of the issue. What evidence is there to suggest there is an "intelligence behind the universe" / deity?

And yes I'm asking for the full monty here. Don't worry if its not scientific evidence. "I just know" works. Then we can all understand where the other is coming from. I reject this based on lack of evidence and logic, you believe that based on...

Or not.. you don't have to share..

--Tao
Last edited by TaoShaffer; July 8,2009 at 11:38pm. Reason: Addendum
 
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chawks64 is offline chawks64 Post #53  July 10,2009, 4:38pm
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TaoShaffer wrote :
Let me write an example to make sure my personal way of working through outside information works.

If I watch the TV in the morning and the weatherman says there's a chance of snow, but I walk outside and it's 90 degrees out. I'll say "it's too hot to snow" and my "line" slides on the range from Improbable Statement, to Fallacy. Now if I walked outside and it was 10 degrees below freezing with some heavy dark clouds, my "line" slides to Probable. OK so with that simple example here's the way I look at it as it is relevant to the current discussion.

Someone on the streets tells me that there's an "intelligence behind the universe." Improbable. But I research it. (And I have and continue to ad nauseum.) And can come up with no conclusive evidence that such a thing exists, in fact no evidence that even leads to the question "did a higher intelligence do this?" I list it as a fallacy. The idea was fabricated in humanities beautiful imagination, or someone went on a tangent of thought. It happens, I've done it too.

Just because you can classify statements as true or false in varying degrees does not make you closed mind. If we were all so open minded to say "anything is possible" whenever an improbable is posited then we'd all be buying snake oil with the idea that it's going to cure cancer based on an "anythings possible" mentality.

And I'm sure this is where we get into the meat of the issue. What evidence is there to suggest there is an "intelligence behind the universe" / deity?

And yes I'm asking for the full monty here. Don't worry if its not scientific evidence. "I just know" works. Then we can all understand where the other is coming from. I reject this based on lack of evidence and logic, you believe that based on...

Or not.. you don't have to share..

--Tao
This is going to sound lame, but I can't share. It would seriously make me look like a lunatic. Not to mention that it was when I was a child, so it wouldn't be taken seriously anyway. But I saw what I saw, and there is no logical explanation for it. Trust me, I've tried to find one for 40 years.

I don't think you can function in life without being able to say "This is ridiculous" or "This is logical". You could never make a decision otherwise. The only problem comes when there is new evidence and it is rejected because it doesn't agree with that judgment. Any conclusion has to be a preliminary conclusion. We can't let information pass by just because it doesn't fit in with what we've already decided.
 
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DennisWisconsin is offline DennisWisconsin Post #54  July 11,2009, 7:23am
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chawks64 wrote :
This is going to sound lame, but I can't share. It would seriously make me look like a lunatic. Not to mention that it was when I was a child, so it wouldn't be taken seriously anyway. But I saw what I saw, and there is no logical explanation for it. Trust me, I've tried to find one for 40 years.

I don't think you can function in life without being able to say "This is ridiculous" or "This is logical". You could never make a decision otherwise. The only problem comes when there is new evidence and it is rejected because it doesn't agree with that judgment. Any conclusion has to be a preliminary conclusion. We can't let information pass by just because it doesn't fit in with what we've already decided.
No significant information is passed by... What are we talking about? Leaving the door open to possibilities? The world is full of possibilities... I would prefer that my car doesn't turn into an SUV though... at least not while I'm driving it...
 
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shoelace is offline shoelace Post #55  July 13,2009, 9:22am
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chawks64 wrote :
This is going to sound lame, but I can't share. It would seriously make me look like a lunatic. Not to mention that it was when I was a child, so it wouldn't be taken seriously anyway. But I saw what I saw, and there is no logical explanation for it. Trust me, I've tried to find one for 40 years.

I don't think you can function in life without being able to say "This is ridiculous" or "This is logical". You could never make a decision otherwise. The only problem comes when there is new evidence and it is rejected because it doesn't agree with that judgment. Any conclusion has to be a preliminary conclusion. We can't let information pass by just because it doesn't fit in with what we've already decided.
It is these "lunatic" experiences that keep the door open for some of us to the possibility of there being some underlying but not-yet-factual characteristic of reality. I have had many many such "if I tell them about it they'll think I'm delusional" experiences. Yes, I have been on a quest ever since (since age 15) to explain these experiences. The best explanation I can come up with is that the mind doesn't just think in the present, but "thinks" in the future and the past as well in order to present to us a thought with what seems as though it's happening "by magic" in the present (in the mind). I'm not willing to propose an explanation that violates known laws of physics (likewise, stories, ancient or modern, of events which would require the violation of these laws lose their relevance and should be excluded from any argument, explanation, or proposal.)

Right now I'm working with the idea that thought ranges from pure fact to pure fantasy with all gradations inbetween (this relates to Chawkes' statement that we must be able to state "this is ridiculous" and "this is logical").

In driving a car we think factually; some part of the mind correlates one-to-one with reality (while other parts of the mind are fantasizing on other things) in order to steer it down the road. Okay, we parked the car, but now we are remembering the trip we just made. We are fantasizing, but it is loosely (not directly as before) correlated with what was once made up of facts. Later still, we think about the trip but the memory becomes inaccurate; colors of passing cars have been changed; people are added that weren't there; our sense of how long it took is distorted. Pure fantasy is creeping in. And finally, we imagine a trip to the North Pole where we have never been (an allusion to Heaven, where no one has been and lived to talk about it). In this fantasy we are making use of certain facts we have learned about the earth and pieced them together to create the fantasy, it is a conjectural representation of something that never took place, that never actually existed.

Some of the discussion here has pointed out that facts are provisional. Facts are founded on observation and reason, but the facts can change if new observations present contradictory information. Yet, facts have a history of leading to generally correct conclusions. They are our best evidence for determining what is correct.

Fantasy is what takes place in the mind. Fantasy can be anything, it does not have to correlate at all with facts (even though there are gradations of correlation, as outlined above). Belief is fantasy because it takes place in the mind. It's not possible to distinguish the difference between God speaking to you in your head or in your ear and you speaking to yourself in your own mind. I rightly call religion and belief in God a fantasy because it is at best a personal conviction that takes place in ones mind, experiences or no experiences aside.

We as a species have fantasized about God and gods for a long time. We create physical structures and behave and speak in such ways so as to make those fantasies seem more real. These things are facts, but they are based on fantasy. In every case (as far as we know) those observations we think we are making of God cannot be corroborated by anyone else, not without ignoring facts or failing to seek the facts in the case. I have never seen a case where someone was claiming God was more than just fantasy where he was not ignoring facts or was failing to ask pertinent questions.

Facts are not absolute, but too often I have heard believers use this fact as an argument to dismiss entire sciences of facts, and thus not use known facts in forming an argument in support of what amounts to their personal fantasy.

I am an atheist. But I also have certain personal beliefs in a god-like nature to the universe which can only be experienced by the mind in the form of fantasy. But I am agnostic with respect to these beliefs because I know they cannot be shown to be more than fantasy. They take place in my mind alone. When confronted with the facts of nature it is the fantasy that must go. The facts of nature are superior.

Delusion (which was briefly brought up) is partly one's failure to recognize his thoughts as being made of fantasy, and it is compounded (and more rightly called delusion) when facts of nature are ignored, distorted, or suppressed in favor of calling one's non-fact supported fantasy the greater truth. The church (i.e. most religions) has had a sad and long history of teaching delusional thinking.

Facts of nature are the greater truth as they do not depend upon the existence of humans -- they are discoverable by anyone, even rabbits and chimps, were they so evolved to do so. Fantasies, such as belief in God, are lesser truths (at best) because there is no inherent criteria for judging their accuracy or even their relevance except through the use of reason (which is often absent from deluded individuals' thinking.)

We are then left with the question, what is reason?

In my opinion, reason is the only reliable way to distinguish the difference between thoughts which are based more on pure fantasy from those that are based on pure fact.

Finally, fantasy is not a bad thing. It is a necessary part of living. It is the nature of creativity and inventiveness. It is probably even why our brains evolved to become so large in the first place. But mistaking pure fantasy for a major fact will usually lead to the wrong conclusions and mess up the solutions to many related problems you would most certainly encounter.

I support Chawkes and defend her beliefs because I have not seen that she is delusional in believing in God. It is only when she claims this is a greater truth, or the greatest truth, while ignoring known facts that it would become delusional. Delusional thinking is a failure to understand one's own mind and a failure to understand how reasoning works, it is placing a higher value on fantasy that is unsupported by fact.
Last edited by shoelace; July 13,2009 at 9:30am. Reason: double quoting chawkes, grammar, and clarity
 
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shoelace is offline shoelace Post #56  July 18,2009, 8:37am
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In post #10 rix describes Kant's Nuomenal World. This seems to be the same thing as my description above of a Fantasy Space. Anything that is not factual belongs to this fantasy space.

To return to the Dennis' original question, What would replace religion if it disappeared? I would say it would be another fantasy. A very involved fantasy. It would not be science or anything heavily documented by facts. Fantasy is a very powerful thing in the mind. All meaning is derived from fantasy (if we did not fantasize about things and events they would have no meaning to us -- the fantasy is our only way to refer to meaning, which may be why religion is so popular.)

Art, archetecture, and music are very involved fantasies. While music can be described mathematically, to create music requires a well-developed fantasy that matures only over years and decades -- in other words, it's a life-long involvement. The risk would always be in popular movements to systematically quash the claimed degenerate forms of art. Naziism satisfies some naturally occurring sense or desire to be or perceive oneself as superior.

The arts would be very good replacement for religion.

The fantasy of governement could also replace religion. Having a sense of civic duty to protect the rights of others and work for the betterment of every individual's life could involve a large portion of our everyday time, with large self-rewards and personal benefits as a result. But as you well know the media, which could be said to govern the mind, even in a democracy, loves to demonize and cast as degenerates those it collectively dislikes.

And so, money and power (with media as their diplomats) in the hands of the few would be the most likely replacement. Those in possession of these would risk the fantasy that our moral rules don't apply to them.
 
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ErikaD is offline ErikaD Post #57  July 18,2009, 12:47pm
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Dear all,
it is time to read Daniel Quinn "The story of B". Best time..
 
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DennisWisconsin is offline DennisWisconsin Post #58  July 19,2009, 5:02am
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ErikaD wrote :
Dear all,
it is time to read Daniel Quinn "The story of B". Best time..
Why?

Welcome to the group!
 
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ErikaD is offline ErikaD Post #59  July 20,2009, 12:40pm
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I can,t explain in two words and my english not perfect. But this man can answer for You about first wrong question. If we think - history of this people world took start just 2000 years ago, we can ask questions like Yours. But why we striking 3 milions years of our religion? If we can see our problems from this point, we can start new way how to understand our subliminal mind, our mind and that big conflict between inside and outside.
 
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ErikaD is offline ErikaD Post #60  July 20,2009, 12:45pm
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And all books of Daniel Quinn very good lectures for us to start think. We know about him not so much in Lithuania, but I think he is not just clever men, he is very deep men
 
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