Lurker > meisnewbie

It's only valuable because it's given out sparingly tbqh

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Hey it's been two months and you've done about a third! Keep up the good work imo

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It's irrelevant to say that we can explain the existence of religion through environmental factors. Because whether or not these people believe in God, and why they believe or don't believe in God, is not indicative of the truth of God.

First of all, you're right and I wish to retract the implication that merely because people have no reason to believe in God it means he doesn't exist.

Second of all I would like to say that my argument is that the belief of ANY group of people, including you, is not any evidence that God exists. The strength of their belief does not constitute an argument for god, especially in view of the simpler explanations of neuroscience or the sheer complexity of a deity that doesn't contradict empirical observation.

Also it's not really relevant to whether God exists or not, but if you were honest you'd still have to explain why a lot of people were deluded into believing an obvious falsity. It's not good to leave dangling threads or holes in your model.

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You cannot know for sure if anyone else has faith. You and God alone know if you yourself have faith.

What I object to is this "for sure" thing. Like, what the heck does it mean to be "for sure"...? How do you know that all of your senses aren't completely wrong then?

If you are correct (not saying you are), that means that you have sufficient material to explain people's belief in God, not the existence of God. If you connect these two, you are making the ad hominem argument.

I'm not getting it. Assuming we accept occam's razor, that argument has nothing to do with god or anything like that.

We do not agree on #1. We were born with eyes and ears.....that isn't proof that those things will always tell us the truth. What is the reason that we were given those things, indeed?

Yes well, even if they don't you still won't not trust them. Go ahead, walk off that cliff. There's no sure proof that exists right?

First off, other approaches do not have to make predictions that can be tested empirically- that should be clear unless you cannot stop yourself from equating empirically useful with true.

...Why NOT? Seriously, why can't empirically useful be true? In fact, why even bother having the word true when empirically useful already serves all the functionalities of the word true, except for this new little area you've defined for yourself that is true but not empirically useful?

Who's to say they are wrong?

The splatter on the ground. Oh wait, those can't say much of anything can they. The point isn't that they don't exist (people have surely ran into dangerous situations due to hallucinations or bad epistemology). The point is that sophisticated arguers who like making distinctions between "empirically useful" and "truth" like you wouldn't.

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So you made an unsupported assertion, and I denied your assertion.

...What? My assertion is supported by the lack of a single religion, by the marked influence of social factors in the spread of religion, by lack of any empirical support for most of the religious aspects of holy books.

Furthermore, it's abundantly clear that you're not interested in actually understanding my assertion, as you would have asked for a clarification or for support instead of merely contradicting me.

As for the empirical evidence, it was not a central or important aspect of the discussion, and would take up large amounts of time and energy. I am not here to debate the existence of God with you, just to point out the insufficiency of your reasoning on empiricism

I still don't understand what's insufficient about my arguments presented.

As far as I know my argument boils down to:

1) Everything in the world comes down to some sort of empirical observation. We were born with eyes and ears for a reason.
2) Any argument which attempts to refute this ends up having to make the same predictions that empiricism would in the first place. No one who has suggested empiricism is wrong has decided to walk off a cliff in defiance of it.
3) Science is one of the clear winners when it comes to empirically verifying things. I would bet on properly practiced science over almost any other method.

Now this doesn't represent my complete view, there are some exceptions and limitations that apply that I haven't mentioned, but I doubt they would come up because neither you nor jaffar have the requisite knowledge to know about them, but those points are what I think are the essence of my position. Obviously there may be some problems with those points as phrased as I haven't thought of which stem from not thinking those points out clearly, but it's a start.

There is no way of testing faith. If you think there is, then it's not the same faith we're talking about here. As for language, would you agree that explanatory language that can convince someone of something is based on reason? Language that makes an argument. Such language cannot communicate faith to a third party.

You just defined your way out of that. Like, if there's no way of testing faith, then obviously no language can express it, because the very expression is something testable.

Which also makes you without faith. Because there's no way to test for it, so how do we tell that you're a believer? How do YOU tell if you're a believer?

It really doesn't matter what "religious" people think or do, even if it's as you say. That's just an ad hominem argument.

I don't even understand what about my argument is ad hominem. I'm saying that it's sufficient to explain all possible causes to there being a god, on top of

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There is evidence for God that does not exist for unicorns, that isn't empirical.

I've asked for this before and you've been uncooperative. It's never too late to change.

We naturally expect that a universe should have either 0 gods, 1 god, or an infinite number of gods. It would seem very strange, arbitrary, if it had say, 389 gods. Why 389? Why 657? Why 44? But 0, 1, and infinity appear simple and natural.

There is a mathematical way of quantifying complexity actually, called Kolmogorov complexity, and 1 god is far more complex than no gods.

The claim in this topic has been that empirical proof cannot exist, because empirical evidence is not sufficient to constitute proof, so I'd say your statement is false.

What a great way of countering a statement. Just by contradicting it and not actually citing any specific objections.

Religion should be based on a choice, ideally. Everything should be based on choices, actually.....never on environmental influences.

What does this mean? What the hell is the difference between a choice and an environmental influence and why is choice desirable? Furthermore, you haven't actually acknowledged my argument that religion actually IS based on empirical observation: That is, people conclude that aspects of religion are true not because they received unquestionable nonempirical proof from the heavens, but that they received unreliaible empirical influences from their upbringing.

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That's one of the reasons M3 turned out to be such an unloved child; whilst it tried to correct what was wrong with M2 (and to an extent M1), it was still too rushed and it's creators too stuck in their ways for it to be much different.

I know this is coming about two years too late but I told you so

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All people accept empirical proof as a condition for belief in everything, including in religion.

Except information on religion (and politics, and nutrition and epistemology and probability...) mostly comes from the person's upbringing, their parents, their genetics and their pastor, only they call it "faith" and claim it has no empirical basis.

And then atheists get sidetracked into a definitions debate about what basis and evidence mean instead of seeing the actual causes of religion.

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But how do you know that a further exists? And if you do, then what justification is there?

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he is ten pedophiles at the same time

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Shaco imo. You like to depend on yourself often and like to make large contributions to teams and I think the assassin role is the type of champ you'd like the best even if they do have really high skill caps.

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Now you've finally answered the question. Thank you.

I haven't answered the question, because I really do care about truth over usefulness. But I DON'T care about is the abused, molested and malnourished version of the word "truth" that you and Jaffar claim to have access to and that you trot out in front of the public to show that it's perfectly safe while in your employment and see? Look how good care we're taking of it! Now run along now public while you fatten your "truth" on evidence, weaken it on experiment and finally depend on it to live.

Oh and let us borrow your fat, weak, codependent truth when ours does nothing. Funny that. Must be because your truth is more useful rather than more truthful.

Simple enough. Suppose God wants to make it useful for people to disbelieve in him. So he puts tons of empirical evidence out in the universe that makes it useful for people to disbelieve in him. For example, nonbelievers will randomly find gold nuggets in their fireplace, while believers will find lumps of coal. It is useful not to believe in God in this universe, but this belief is false.

Except that it's possible to construct minds which would still find the truth. Minds which prefer coals to gold. Minds who can blackmail god by using this gold to coal ratio. Minds who can self modify to believe in god to receive the gold nuggets in the instant of finding it, or who modifies into a nonbeliever etc.

Nothing is part empirical or nonempirical. Empirical is not an attribute like "blue" or "cold." It's a means for an observer to try to observe something.

Dodging the question again, how do you know which parts of religion are observable in theory and which parts are unobservable in theory?

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God is not completely nonempirical. That was not the claim. As should be obvious.

Then how do you know which aspects are empirical and which aspects are nonempirical then?

That was Jaffar's original question: what if we lived in a universe where useful and truth negatively correlated? Which would you prefer? If truth, then useful things would be bad things.

Just because it's possible to string together a bunch of words does not mean those words refer to anything. I claim that it's impossible to construct such a universe. How the hell would such a universe exist? Could you even give an example?

It might not be a good thing.

You're dodging the question.

And by the way, I don't really "care" about the word "truth", because most of the time it's meaningless when used by people such as jaffar and redsox. Give me "useful" over "true" any day, because even if people like jaffar and redsox claim to value the word they call truth, they will value the truth they call useful more.

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There are believers with true faith in God everywhere.

Where? Who are they?

They're not necessary per se, but certainly very helpful

What does that even mean? Why would they be helpful if God is completely nonempirical?

The same reason that all ideas cluster geographically. No one is denying that empiricism is useful.

But if Empiricism isn't TRUE then why is it a good thing that they do then?

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From: red sox 777 | #100
None of those accounts could satisfy you, just as Jaffar can reasonably say that the empirical account does not satisfy him. You're really arguing in circles here- something is true if it can be shown empirically, which is why the empirical account matches truth best. Too bad, there's really no easy way out on this one- we cannot handwaive away truth by appealing to common sense, usefulness, or anything like that.

I don't understand what satisfaction has to do with anything. Or what it means to "reasonably say that _______ does not satisfy ___" I'm certainly not "satisfied" by the empirical account because it's inadequate: why else be a scientist?

Once again, I'm not handwaiving away the truth by appealing to usefulness. I'm saying that usefulness is an extreme example of how well certain theories can explain the world. A diet that does not do what it's supposed to do is useless and based on an incorrect model. A diet that DOES work but based on weird logic (like "it works because feng shui" or "It works because of caloric restriction") would either have the explanation NOT explain anything in the end, or have deviations from the actual model that can be tested and the theory further refined.

I think that the empirical account is true because all other accounts of the world had to rely on the empirical account to exist at all. A religious account only exists because someone wrote a holy book or abused a child into believing it. A poetic account only exists because a poet has observed a world. Heck, what I know of the empiricism vs rationalism debate is dumb because the rationalists had to see or hear the course of logic which leads them to doubt empiricism in the process!

Recursive justification hits bottom because we literally have no way other than empiricism to justify anything else.

If you claim that religion has a nonempirical justification, then why are there no Christians in pagan societies that Christians have never met and there was no empirical proof of Christianity, in any way, shape or form? Why are Christian missionaries necessary? Why do religions geographically cluster?

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Where is the data that the wealthy actually generate wealth proportional to their earnings then? CEOs, bureaucrats and mutual fund managers all earn far more than the wealth they generate. The first and the third because their abilities are overrated. The second because they actively do harm.

For the income inequality thing

And to point out, income inequality isn't necessarily proof that exploitation has gone on. Pick the example of an entrepreneur who funds a start up that quickly grows to 5 million+ in value. Who's getting exploited here? Given that many technologies have been created that ALLOW small groups of people to leverage their marginal advantage over other people, increasing income inequality doesn't necessarily mean increasing lower class exploitation.

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Card Maturity
Mature cards: 3336 (98.4%)
Young cards: 53 (1.6%)
Unseen cards: 0 (0%)


lol

853 on Kanjidamage my internet went out and there was a two day stretch where the site crashed. Getting back on track.

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From: red sox 777 | #097
Well, that's what non-scientific accounts of the world purport to explain.

What are those accounts and how do they explain it.

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From: red sox 777 | #095
What is a flower to a scientist but the sum total of information it projects into the universe? A flower in a black hole may as well not exist.

can you explain to me how a flower can be anything more than its sum total of information, including the information from the flower which influences a person's evaluation of it

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From: red sox 777 | #093
The scientist's model is correct insofar as he accurately reports what he sees and what what plant actually is.

The scientist can only report what he observes. So his knowledge of the plant is also really a knowledge of the relationship between himself and the plant.

No. You're confusing the scientist's map with the referent of the map.

The scientist HAS a map, which of course references something we presume to be a flower. The poet has a map of the flower too, but he ALSO needs a map of his audience. The scientist attempts to match his map to the territory of the flower. A poet attempts to match his map to the flower maps his audience has, which is his territory.

An idealized scientist has a good map of the flower. An idealized poet has a good map of other people's maps of flowers.

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Is there any facet of my argument that is unclear or you would like to hear more about (lol)?

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fun fun fun only applies to when you think you're winning the argument

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It's terrific but it will have no lattes.

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3/5ths of one neonreaper god don't you liberal scum know anything

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Your point has different nuances when the s is attached or not. The former implies that it's a feature common to countries with communism, the latter makes no such implication.

It's relevant since an obviously communist country like Japan operated on a similar system, where enrollment in certain universities guaranteed a slot in high paying corporations... wait a second...

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A conscripted military.

The analogy goes further too! They had no choice, they lived in squalid conditions and they were coerced into their occupation by their fellow countrymen

It could be plural for all I know. I'd guess the Soviet Union did something similar. What's your point exactly?

Your sentences should be informed by what you already know. "Countries" implies far more than "China and I guess the Soviet Union".

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I like how it was plural until it wasn't

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From: red sox 777 | #062
In Communist countries, you were guaranteed a job by the government if you graduated from a good college. No need to worry about finding one, they'd just assign one to you. Some people would intentionally get worse grades to avoid being assigned to become doctors if they didn't want to do that.

Name three countries that did this.

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like post about your conservative blog on gamefaqs

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are my most salient features seriously saya no uta, global warming and neonreaper instead of fate stay night, bad religion arguments and heroic gamma ray

i demand a refund

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From: MoreSwagThanU | #003
Who really cares about all this tho

Shouldn't you? With increased centralization comes more variance in performance, which means increased global instability as the dips in the economy become more and more catastrophic, more and more dissatisfaction results in more conflict and potential terrorist candidates. Tie it into another economic disaster such as drought, peak oil or a pandemic and whatever the Great Depression was would look small in comparison.

But eh,

I guess if you can't summarize it in a single easy to hear catchphrase no one pays attention.

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no I mean

how to solve the differential equations

that define what the s p and d orbitals look like

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Teach them about s p and d orbitals

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we won
no thanks to me

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From: WingedInsignia | #081
Man, I can tell which part of the Internet meis is from!

Nothing's coming to mind. Can you tell me?

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From: TheRock1525 | #077
Your chances of dying in an automobile accident is 1 in 84 according to this:



So you're taking a greater risk getting in a car every day then you are doing this.

Easy yes.

...Uh, the rock, those are statistics of how likely you are to die from driving GIVEN THAT YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD. Not how likely you are to die from driving on a particular day.

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From: Liquid Wind | #059
Touhou had a lot of dedicated fans that create a ton of fan made material

a lot of the fan art is creepy as ****

I do like a lot of the music arrangements though

are you sure you're not confusing the fan art with official art

p sure zun always wanted his own melting wax museum

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I would do it if I was signed up for cryonics and could precommit to donating to the most efficient charity I can find.

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bio you're going to force me to learn to not suck with a non support/jungle role argggggghh learning

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Many energy forms move at C in a vacuum, it's not just light.

Great name three and tell me how you know.

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hello I'm a fraud and I've just given up

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You guys do realize that like

Yuki has regularly removed powers from people right.

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I'm wrong on that but I would be right on loving to see you humiliated and humbled if you don't point them out right now.

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I am going to disagree with someone else.

Am I going to actually argue with that person?

No.

Am I going to point out where that person was wrong?

No.

Am I going to remove myself from the entire argument process, wherein EITHER person can be proven wrong, and instead just say that the other person is wrong without specifying why or intending to?

Yes.

You complain of me being obnoxious. Fine, I accept that because I gladly suffer no fools. Then you complain of me being confusing? I don't recall any moment where someone was actively confused by my line of argument instead of by their prejudices on what my argument could be. If you want to point them out, go ahead, I know you'd love to see me humiliated and humbled.

But no, you'd rather embrace the feeling of being right, of having pointed out some flaw in my character, rather than go to all that troublesome work of having to think clearly, speak clearly and see clearly.

And that's why you're a lazy incompetent.

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From: red sox 777 | #111
Then what is your objection to Jaffar's statement? Clearly there is a meaningful difference between possible and impossible.

My objection is that he hides behind imprecise language and word games, and furthermore even if it was possible to prove something was impossible within math it doesn't mean that 1) Any particular statement has been proven or is provable to be possible or impossible 2) that jaffar would accept this mathematical proof 3) He seems to think everything is "impossible to prove" and hence religion, science and magic are on equal grounds.

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Yes it is possible to show that it's impossible to prove something.

With math.

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After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, 'I refute it thus.'

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can we just get rad link to play something better

I'm pretty sure he could learn the goddamn language and read something decent in the time he has been spending on this topic argh.

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