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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Hell: Do I have to share heaven with this guy?
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The Riv
Shipmate
# 3553
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Posted
With all respect and humility, Callahan, no Sir. As Purgatorial as this thread has become, I will lightly remind one and all that as this is Hell, so thoughtful debate and all that goes with it can take a back seat. I'll only add in that IMO, which shouldn't matter too much at all to Hell denziens, Hamas et al have made homicide bombing Policy -- a consistent, indiscriminant and disgusting one at that. There you go.
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"I don't know whether I like it, but it's what I meant." Ralph Vaughan Williams
"Riv, you've done a much better job communicating your passion than your point. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about." Tom Clune
Posts: 2749 | From: Too far South, USA. I really want to move. | Registered: Nov 2002
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
quote:
Relativism is the only honest approach to religious myths and beliefs, not that it should be applied to every statement.
But this statement begs the question surely? It's a statement that requires justification and to be shown to be demonstrably true. But it can't be. Because it's your belief.
quote:
You're ignoring the difference between factual verifiable truth and moral religious truth. Can you not see the simple distinction between things we can empirically prove and things we can't?
No, I can't. On two counts. First, I'm not convinced we can't empirically prove some things you are saying that we can't prove. Second, there are probably lots of things you might say that we can empirically prove that I might think we can't prove. I certainly couldn't point to a distinct line between the two.
quote:
Religious truth is quite different from factual truth.
Can I ask something about this statement. Is it a statement of factual truth or a statement of religious truth?
See, if it is a statement of factual truth, you should be able to prove it empirically. But you,
by definition, can't.
So it must therefore be a statement of religious truth. Which means (by your own arguement) that it is only a belief, not an objective truth. and the whole arguement slides into the bottomless pit of circular reasoning. It's a statement that cuts off the branch of reasoning that it is sitting on.
quote:
Discussing and exploring our ideas about what might be out there in a spirit of open-minded enquiry, informed by tradition and religious scriptures, is a noble endeavour. Insisting that you know the truth about this stuff when that's quite plainly a physical impossibility helps no one.
But that's exactly what I'm claiming. I'm claiming that I think I know the truth. and you are too. The statement "No one knows the truth", is intrinsically a statement claiming to be a universal absolute truth.
It is in the very nature of things. You can't run or hide from it. If you make any kind of declarative statement, then you are saying it is true.
RooK said:
quote:
It all just seems so arbitrary. If you believe in an all-power being, what's stopping it from having two simultaneous truths?
Rook, this is the crux of all theological arguements. The answer to your question is of course, "logic".
But if God is not subject to logic, then the law of mutally exclusive alternatives goes out the window.
For example, the mutually exclusive alternative "God Exists" and "God Doesn't Exist" would go out the window. If we can be illogical, then both can be true.
The mutually exclusive alternatives "God is bad" and "God is good" go out the window.
In short, you would, at a stroke render every human thought about God, (and in fact, about everything else) meaningless and pointless.
And for the deepest cut of all, if God is not subject to logic and the law of mutual exclusion does not apply, then the statements "God is subject to logic" and "God is not subject to logic" can therefore both be simultaneously true.
So you'd end up right back where you started from I'm afraid. Far out man. I'm off to find some more weed..... ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
matt
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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RooK
1 of 6
# 1852
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt the Unbearably Boring:
In short, you would, at a stroke render every human thought about God meaningless and pointless.
No, dipshit diver, I'm saying that's how it seems already. If you're going to make me endure one of your pointless fucking purgatorial tirades, at least try understanding what other people mean.
Take your "logic" and go fertilize something smarter than yourself with it - like, say, some mushrooms.
Posts: 15274 | From: Portland, Oregon, USA, Earth | Registered: Nov 2001
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Nightlamp
Shipmate
# 266
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Riv:
I'll only add in that IMO, which shouldn't matter too much at all to Hell denziens, Hamas et al have made homicide bombing Policy -- a consistent, indiscriminant and disgusting one at that. There you go.
We have a moral difference in place between a bombing raid and a homicide bombing this is not seen by hamas ect.
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I don't know what you are talking about so it couldn't have been that important- Nightlamp
Posts: 8442 | From: Midlands | Registered: May 2001
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Sine Nomine*
Ship's backstabbing bastard
# 3631
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Posted
Oh dear God, please!
Someone shoot it and put it out of its misery.
Bam! Bam! BAM!!!
Whew. I feel better now. Justifiable threadicide.
Posts: 10696 | Registered: Dec 2002
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duchess
Ship's Blue Blooded Lady
# 2764
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
No, dipshit diver, I'm saying that's how it seems already. If you're going to make me endure one of your pointless fucking purgatorial tirades, at least try understanding what other people mean.
Take your "logic" and go fertilize something smarter than yourself with it - like, say, some mushrooms.
Ah, nothing like good ol' hockey puck losing it to put me in a good mood. I made a lame dip-stick webpage just for you.
[edited for code once again. Argh.]
[ 16. December 2003, 23:34: Message edited by: duchess ]
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♬♭ We're setting sail to the place on the map from which nobody has ever returned ♫♪♮
Ship of Fools-World Party
Posts: 11197 | From: Do you know the way? | Registered: May 2002
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Jonah the Whale
Ship's pet cetacean
# 1244
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Posted
duchess ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
I would offer to have all your babies, but I can't have any more.
Posts: 2799 | From: Nether Regions | Registered: Aug 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
duchess, every once in a while you completely blow my mind.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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The Riv
Shipmate
# 3553
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nightlamp:
quote:
Originally posted by The Riv:
I'll only add in that IMO, which shouldn't matter too much at all to Hell denziens, Hamas et al have made homicide bombing Policy -- a consistent, indiscriminant and disgusting one at that. There you go.
We have a moral difference in place between a bombing raid and a homicide bombing this is not seen by hamas ect.
I understand that, Nightlamp. Doesn't change one iota of my post.
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"I don't know whether I like it, but it's what I meant." Ralph Vaughan Williams
"Riv, you've done a much better job communicating your passion than your point. I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about." Tom Clune
Posts: 2749 | From: Too far South, USA. I really want to move. | Registered: Nov 2002
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Liam
Shipmate
# 4961
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt the Mad Medic:
quote:
Relativism is the only honest approach to religious myths and beliefs, not that it should be applied to every statement.
But this statement begs the question surely? It's a statement that requires justification and to be shown to be demonstrably true. But it can't be. Because it's your belief.
Oh for God's sake, you are boring me now. It's your argument that's illogical. You point out that absolutely nothing can be ultimately proven as true. Fair enough, but as you've observed, that doesn't get us very far - in practice, there are certain things we accept as facts, which requires a certain amount of basic proof if we're not all to argue constantly about what's real and what's not. Then you say we have to believe absolutely in the stuff that's furthest from having any proof. You can't have it both ways. And if your understanding of metaphor and imagination is this limited, I guess you must have some major problems reading novels or poems.
Tell me how you propose to 'prove' that Chick's heaven exists with the kind of proof you'd use for a scientific theory, and I'll accept that there's no difference between the two. Until then, as several people have pointed out, this thread is utterly tedious and I can't be bothered talking further with someone who can't distinguish consensual reality from conjecture.
Posts: 138 | From: Birmingham, UK | Registered: Sep 2003
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Nonpropheteer
6 Syllable Master
# 5053
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Nightlamp:
quote:
Originally posted by The Riv:
I'll only add in that IMO, which shouldn't matter too much at all to Hell denziens, Hamas et al have made homicide bombing Policy -- a consistent, indiscriminant and disgusting one at that. There you go.
We have a moral difference in place between a bombing raid and a homicide bombing this is not seen by hamas ect.
Frankly, I don't think a bombing raid is more moral than a suicide/homicide bomber. Just because we are engaged in official war manuevers doesn't mean we occupy the moral high ground. It just means we are being public about it. Both are murder, both are wrong. The only thing relative is whether or not you would ever consider either necessary.
Posts: 2086 | Registered: Oct 2003
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
quote:
Oh for God's sake, you are boring me now. It's your argument that's illogical. You point out that absolutely nothing can be ultimately proven as true. Fair enough, but as you've observed, that doesn't get us very far - in practice, there are certain things we accept as facts, which requires a certain amount of basic proof if we're not all to argue constantly about what's real and what's not.
There are three positions anyone can hold about the philosophy of Truth:
One position is to say there is essentially only one kind of truth. You can say that all declarative statements, whether they are "God exists" or "pillar boxes are red" are the same sort of statement and can be either True or False in the same sense of the words.
People reject this view because of a misunderstanding. They think something has to be provable, to be this sort of truth, and that if it is not provable, then it must be a different kind of truth altogether. Clearly "God exists" is not provable in the same way that "All pillar boxes are red" is provable and therefore, they reason that, it cannot mean the same thing to describe both these statements are "True". This is not the case.
Consider the statement: "On May 20th 1950 there were 2,234,266 blades of grass in hyde park". This is a purely factual statement. It must be either true or false. It is also entirely impossible to prove or disprove. I cannot say whether it is true or false, but I can say with confidence that it must be either true or false.
This is the catagory that I believe many statements of theology are in. They may not be provable, but that doesn't mean that they are therefore not definitely either true or false.
However, many people reject this, and therefore talk about a different kind of Truth to these cover statements, the truth or non-truth of which cannot be determined. A truth which is by it's nature undefined, or non exclusive. This is "Shrodinger's Cat" truth.
The principle of Shrodingers cat, is that if a Cat is in a box with some poison, you don't know whether the cat has eaten the poison until you open the box. Consequently you don't know whether the cat is alive or dead until you open the box. Shrodinger's conjecture is that that opening the box does not just confirm the cat's status but creates it. When the box is closed you don't simply not know the cat's status, but the cat in reality has an indeterminate status.
The problem with applying this was that Shrodinger was using an analogy for a real phenomenon of quantum physics, not proposing it as a theisis of philosophy.
The objections to this philosophy of Truth are many. For one thing, it violates Ockhams Razor. For another, how should one decide which statements should fall in to the absolute truth and which should fall into the shrodinger truth catagory? The statement "God exists" would seem to be a candidate for being a "shrodinger statement", but the statement "Jesus Christ rose from the dead" is much closer to being a statement of normal truth.
What I hinted at in my last post, was that, in practice it becomes impossible to draw a line between these two types of truth. If you accept that "shrodingers truth" exists, you lay yourself open to the logical possibility that all things are merely shrodingers truths. And you can't prove that they arent, because your proof may itself be a "Shrodingers truth".
In essence, trying to maintain that there are two types of truth is an intrinsically unstable philosophical position which deteriorates into the third and final philosophical position:
The third position is to say that there is no real truth at all and that all truth is subjective or relative. All Truth is like Shrodinger's Cat. This postion gets trapped in an even more profound logical paradox. How can it be true that there is no truth?
Therefore, the only teneable position is the first position.
quote:
Then you say we have to believe absolutely in the stuff that's furthest from having any proof. You can't have it both ways. And if your understanding of metaphor and imagination is this limited, I guess you must have some major problems reading novels or poems.
My arguement was, in a nutshell, if you want to start believing in subjective truth, you have to go all the way with it. You can't just apply it just to abstract questions. IF you are going to be consistent you must apply it all the way down to the mundane level and that becomes clearly rediculous. The only logically consistent alternative is to believe only in absolute truth, all the way up to the most abstract levels.
You are quite right, you can't have it both ways.
quote:
Tell me how you propose to 'prove' that Chick's heaven exists with the kind of proof you'd use for a scientific theory, and I'll accept that there's no difference between the two.
I don't have to. I merely maintain that Chick is either right or he is wrong. What I reject is the idea that he is right for him or that there is no such thing as right or wrong when it comes to the kind of things Chick was writing about. For the record, I think he is wrong about several things, but that's not the point.
[ 17. December 2003, 10:39: Message edited by: Matt the Mad Medic ]
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt the Mad Medic:
Consider the statement: "On May 20th 1950 there were 2,234,266 blades of grass in hyde park". This is a purely factual statement. It must be either true or false. It is also entirely impossible to prove or disprove. I cannot say whether it is true or false, but I can say with confidence that it must be either true or false.
Nonsense. I can say with astonishing amounts of confidence that it false.
If you had given a range of numbers I'd have to do some sums, but unless you were very clever & knew a lot about Hyde Park and knew a lot about grass (I'm all three ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ) you'd be pretty likely to get it wrong.
That's how science works - by estimate & proibability and educated guessing. And that's about as certain (or as little uncertain) as any knoweldge we have in the world (only exceptions being a few odd bits of maths & logic which are arguably just True)
Your complete bollocks idea that there is some sort of special category of "religious" truth that's different from "physical" truth is nothing but a way for atheists to pat believers on the head & say "there there don't worry your little heads about it wer know that when you talk about this God business you are just using Special Language that doesn't really mean anything we need to bother ourselves about" Bloody fluffy-bunny 6th-form philosphy.
The kinds of evidence we have about God are in fact exactly the same as the kinds of evidence we have for anything else pretending they aren't is just stupid. You can't "prove" tan't God exists? Join the club - you can't even "prove" that you exist.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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GreyFace
Shipmate
# 4682
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Your complete bollocks idea that there is some sort of special category of "religious" truth that's different from "physical" truth is nothing but a [snip]...
Bloody fluffy-bunny 6th-form philosphy.
Actually, isn't that exactly the point Matt was trying to make, that the notion of religious truth being different in concept, from any other truth is bollocks?
If not, I'm lost in this one. I'll get me coat.
[ 17. December 2003, 12:13: Message edited by: Grey Face ]
Posts: 5748 | From: North East England | Registered: Jul 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Excuse me, am I just a figment of my own imagination? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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thursday+
Shipmate
# 5264
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Posted
I think the reference was to the argument that runs as follows:
We perceive certain physical objects. Say, a cat. But all that physical 'cat' is, is a collection of particles. So our imputation of unity to it is in error.
Similarly, 'I' perceive that 'I' have a mind. However, this 'mind' can equally be seen as an illusion produced by a collection of thoughts, which as a mass create (to themselves) an appearance of something 'thinking'. So the imputation of unity is again in error, because we are assuming a ground on which the thoughts exist.
I think the argument is flawed myself, but I won't go into it as we're already wildly off-topic.
[ 17. December 2003, 12:41: Message edited by: chestertonian ]
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Jesus did not rise from the dead and announce, "A Blessed Easter! I'm the Second Person of the Trinity!," then spend the remaining days until his Ascension instructing the apostles in rubrics.
Newman's Own.
Posts: 392 | From: home is in your head | Registered: Dec 2003
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Liam
Shipmate
# 4961
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grey Face:
Actually, isn't that exactly the point Matt was trying to make, that the notion of religious truth being different in concept, from any other truth is bollocks?
If not, I'm lost in this one. I'll get me coat.
Yes, everyone's lost and it's a futile and very tedious argument.
I don't have the time for great long philosophical treatises, I'm afraid, so I'm going to bow out of this debate after this post.
My point all along was that treating religious propositions in the same way as you would historical or scientific data - for example, having great long hair-splitting logical debates about them, or insisting that one is provably right and another wrong - is simply inappropiate. Their power is that of metaphors which help us to understand our relationship with God, other people and the universe. And the implication made above that only an atheist would make such a statement is complete nonsense. You can believe in God without needing to be certain that everything you think about God is a provable fact.
Yes, all truths are subjective and you can question the validity of anything. I'm comfortable with that, and with the ambiguities in my own position. My whole
point was that ambiguities in our ideas about the intangible are inevitable, and I'm uncomfortable with those who pretend they can be 100% certain about anything in this area.
In the meantime, no one has explained why one 'absolute' truth with no physical evidence should be trusted over any other 'absolute' truth with no physical evidence. There may be such a thing as absolute religious truths, but no one has satisfactorily explained how we can be certain which ones they are.
That's it, I'm really bored with this now and I won't bother going in circles any more. Matt, you just attack your straw man again and ignore my points. It seems to work for you, so who am I to say it's the wrong path? ;-)
Posts: 138 | From: Birmingham, UK | Registered: Sep 2003
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FCB
Hillbilly Thomist
# 1495
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Posted
I'm just pissed off that someone took a perfectly good thread on Jack Chick (blessed be his name) and turned it into a philosophy discussion.
FCB
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Agent of the Inquisition since 1982.
Posts: 2928 | From: that city in "The Wire" | Registered: Oct 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
I Think, Therefore I Am.
But if I Think not, Am I not?
I think not.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Sarkycow
La belle Dame sans merci
# 1012
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Posted
Punctures self-important, hot-air-filled thread with hostly toasting fork
Matt is now explaining concepts that most of you were using before he was born. Therefore, it's time to end the thread, so he can go teach his grandmother to suck eggs.
Sarkycow, hellhost
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“Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.”
Posts: 10787 | Registered: Jul 2001
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