BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Janie
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:58 PM

Oops. I guess that post I made to the New Hampshire Primaries thread didn't disappear into cyberspace after all.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Bee
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:56 PM

"In response to Bee's observations about the repeating patterns of cognitive stages in maturing humans, I have no problem with them. They do not, however, speak to the point I was making. The development of complex response patterns, including language complexities, is an ongoing curve in all humans, and it doesn't surprise me that the patterns within one culture are repeating. I wouldn't be surprised if children in other cultures, left to their own devices, also go through similar phases." - Amos

All children go through the same development patterns, at least in terms of fine motor control, drawing, and recognition of two dimensionality in the form of a human face, Amos. It is not cultural, but human. A child drawing in the dust in Ethiopia will follow the same pattern of development.

I see great beauty in this. And even if "all such complications and pretenses of individual creativity are just recombinant elements of culture and perception in the physical universe, not creations", isn't that just the same thing as creativity? There are only three primary colours that we can see, plus white, the reflection of all colour, and black, the absorbtion of all colour (explaining simply), yet painters mix and recombine and dilute and saturate these five elements, strain them through the individual experiences and thought processes and emotionality of their unique-as-fingerprints minds and produce a nearly infinite variety of expressions. No never-seen-before colour needs to be created out of the stuff of the universe in order to effect all this originality.

"But once a while, one soul or another will break out with an original thought and astonish folks for a bref momoent as they scuttle to get their wits around such a thing. Holy, moly!!

That's the break-point in the program for me." - Amos

How would you know that the thought is purely original? How could you ever tell the difference between pure creativity, the "something new", and your recombinent elements of culture and perception?

That's where I stall. I think what we achieve, do, say, make, write, and so on is marvellous in itself, that we take our 'primary colours', that is, being physical creatures in a physical universe (which itself is infinitely full of marvels), and to a great extent, make ourselves, each one, unique.

I don't, as some might think, deny the faint possibility of Something Other existing, or that we ourselves might contain some Other Self. But I don't see that anything we presently do, or make, or become, no matter how astounding, is more indicative of such supernatural underpinnings than it is of our own and the universe's natural properties. I wish it were. I would be greatly comforted by such a reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Janie
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:26 PM

Freightdawg, are you looking at a site that the demographics would be clear to someone unfamiliar with NH? If so, would you mind providing a link?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: number 6
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:15 PM

I heard Romney's (losing) N.H. primary speech on CNN tonite. He said Americans are great because they beleive in God.

Then I recalled watching a CNN interview (back in 2001) with some Taliban leader in Afghanistan. He declared the U.S. will be defeated, because his people believed in God, and Americans didn't.

Oh well, silly post I agree but for some meaningless reason I posted.

Hmmm ... now I think I'll watch Hillary's victory speech.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Donuel
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:02 PM

You have left out   Not Even Jesus

which I thought was the salt of the thread.

and while you mean well I don't want my poems sent up into the main forum any more.

I am content to stay down here in the BaSement.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: GUEST,Juan Hu Tutz
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 08:53 PM

Have you lot really got nothing better to do?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 07:26 PM

The question is not one of the supernatural, I would suggest, but of the true scope and nature of the natural.

In response to Bee's observations about the repeating patterns of cognitive stages in maturing humans, I have no problem with them. They do not, however, speak to the point I was making. The development of complex response patterns, including language complexities, is an ongoing curve in all humans, and it doesn't surprise me that the patterns within one culture are repeating. I wouldn't be surprised if children in other cultures, left to their own devices, also go through similar phases.

The difference comes into play the day the child makes an original joke, or offers you an insight you did not think of yourself. More important, comes up with an original thought.
Of course, the mechanist school claims that all such complications and pretenses of individual creativity are just recombinant elements of culture and perception in the physical universe, not creations. And they are right with respect to a huge volume of traffic which really is just the dramatization of combinations of tired old memes

But once a while, one soul or another will break out with an original thought and astonish folks for a bref momoent as they scuttle to get their wits around such a thing. Holy, moly!!

That's the break-point in the program for me.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 07:16 PM

If you're interested in chemicals and religion, you'll like this site, which looks at all the traditions associated between the two;

Pharamceuticals and religion

But personally I don't reccomend it if you're after the real thing. At this stage of my life I find a lot of wisdom in teh words of John Fire Lame Deer, talking of his time in the Native American Church (the one that uses peyote as the basis of its dream quest - the Sioux, to which John Fire belonged, traditionally used the vision pit) "I became a peyoter for a number of years...but I never gave myself wholly to it. I also got myself deeper into our old Sioux beliefs, the spirit world; listened to preachers, herb men and the yuwipi (spirits). I was slowly forming an idea of where I wanted to go...but I could see a number of roads leading up to it and I did not yet know which one to take. so i tried them all, coming to many dead ends....at the time I quit peyote I had found out what a real Sioux vision was like. If you dream, that's no vision. anybody can dream. And if you take a herb - well, even the butcher boy at his meat counter will have a vision after eating peyote. the real vision has to come out of your own juices" ("John Fire Lame Deer - Sioux medicine man" by Richard Erdoes & Lame Deer)

But if you like to read about people's experiences on LSD etc., you'll find this page from the same site interesting:

The vaults of experience

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 05:06 PM

Frank--My doctor has a little lecture room with charts and graphs about the ill effects of various sorts of eating, as well as little dinner plates with good and bad meals on them. Sadly, bacon is on the bad plates, and, in spite of all my pleadings, he refuses to move it to a good plate--and so I keep no bacon--

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 04:59 PM

I would love to have remained open to the supernatural, but we've tried SO hard to demonstrate it that I think we'd have succeeded if there were really anything there... and if there is something supernatural that is completely outside of any perceptual capabilities, then it's not worth worrying about being wrong when you conclude (from all that aforementioned data) with 100% certainty that there is a natural explanation for experiences while on LSD, not matter how amazing they seem, even to people who aren't tripping.

The trick is, with the natural, you can do a whole lot that appears supernatural.

But that's a whole 'nother thread - how LSD works to make your attention so much more efficient (I've read inhibiting conditioned reflexes but that's an understatement) - boy, is it fun, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 04:52 PM

Here is a funny posting(funny to me, that is!) my ferret found...

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 04:48 PM

Just a further thought on the 'religious experience under the influence of fever / Lsd etc."

It may be that many people need these extreme conditions in order to open their minds and be receptive to the supernatural (remember the old saying about "there are no atheists in a crisis?"). It may be that during our normal workaday routine we get so bogged down with our own patterns and preconceptions like hamsters on the wheel (I go to work, I come home, I eat, I sleep, I go to work, I come home...at weekends I have a few beers...I get up, I go to work (hungover), I come home...) that we are not open to the supernatural and even try and shut it out if it intrudes on our lives where we have left little space for anything else except the drudge of our familiar and comfortable routine.

Taking Bee's comments on kids, I see an analogy here: kids are like a blank canvas, their minds are open to all possibilities. And as Bee says, they lose this openess as a result of growing up, often of being told 'green trees are green, red roses are red, and there's no need to see them any other way that the way they always have been seen'. You could take this axiom as being an analogy of empiricism. It's no surprise that kids have 'imaginary friends' that they lose as they get older and are told such things are 'impossible'. But how do we know they are, since as adults most of us have lost the faculty of being open to such things due to our own hard-wired preconceptions about the world?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 04:16 PM

Bee -

"Aren't we human animals, interacting with our brains and bodies and our vast environment, engaged in the expression of vision and imagination?"

I think that's one area where 'religionists' tend to differ. They see the human as an animal on one level, it's true: we inhabit physical bodies that have similar needs to animals: the need to feed, reproduce, stay protected from the enviornment etc., and these needs generate impulses that govern many of our actions. But they also view humans as being something a bit different to all other animals as well, being able to transcend all these physical imperatives (i.e to voluntarily abstain from food even when hungry: hunger strikes, shaolin monks, the saints.. no animal voluntarily starves itself for any end, even a higher one / to voluntarily choose a life of celibacy etc., etc.,)

Humans also seem to be the only creature capable of self-reflection, who asks 'who am I, what am I and where am I going?" (it's not clear if animals do this, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of this. By way of one small example, animals tend to be deeply conservative and stick within their prescribed roles for life - as do many humans, I admit! - but the important thing is that many humans do not) A good book that looks at some of the nature of animals is "The Life of Pi" by yann Martel. He seems to understand them as well as anyone, and talking to a friend who worked in a zoo for several years, his observations seem spot-on.

Humans have developed culture, history, created mass societies, changed their enviornemnt in radical ways and adapted to every climate in ways animals have not done, etc., etc., It is clear we are like animals in some ways (especially when we get drunk and let ourselves down ;-0) but we are also capable of being something far more.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 04:04 PM

"If someone says they have had what they call a religious experience on LSD, how can we know that such is not the case and ascribe it solely to the drug?"

Just to clarify, I mean that when a person claims they've had an experience they believe was of a supernatural nature while under the effects of LSD, it is impossible to write this off with 100% confidence as a mere mechanical effect of the drug on the brain and deny any possibility that what was expererienced might possibly be of a supernatural nature as well.
(though personally I would instinctively be very, very, very cautious about accepting such a claim under such circumstances, I couldn't flatly say it was not so with 100% confidence).

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Stringsinger
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 04:01 PM

MTed, the problem with bacon sandwiches is that they will come back (up) to haunt you.

I prefer to stay away from them.

Yours for good health,

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Stringsinger
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 03:57 PM

I agree with you Susan but don't leave out the cats.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 03:53 PM

Mrrzzy: "demonstrable. Note that this includes the word Demon... yikes!"

Don't worry Mrrzzy, there's no worry there! 'demonstrate' has nothing to do with dark forces, just comes from the old Italian via Latin stem of 'mostrare' the verb meaning 'to show'.
Like 'manager' has nothing to do with men, just comes from 'mano' meaning 'hand' as in, "to have a hand over something".

Bee -

the one problem with attributing religious experience to physical dysfunction as you described above, is that such a cause-and-effect realtionship cannot be be proved with 100% certainty as being simply the result of psychosomatic disturbance. If anyone tries to claim otherwise, they also cross the threshold into belief. Even with drugs like LSD, we know they cause hallucinations, we expect people to have hallucinations and delsuions when they take it. Some of these delusions can be easily demonstrated (remember, the criterion of empiricism?) for example the delusion one can fly, but beyond such examples we are getting into a more grey area. If someone says they have had what they call a religious experience on LSD, how can we know that such is not the case and ascribe it solely to the drug? If we are to keep our minds open to all possibilities, it is possible that such a thing did indeed occur; and especially if the divine doesn't manifest itself in some physical, empirically meaureable way, there is no way of coming to a firm conclusion about the experience. All we can say is that it was real enough for the person who experienced it, though we may never have experienced such a thing as such ourselves.

(BTW I haven't had any experinces I would consider 'divine' on LSD myself, just in case you were wondering)

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Bee
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 02:35 PM

I mostly agree with you Amos, (and you express my contentions better than i do, I think).

But:
'To dismiss this realm of the viewpoint as merely an extension of the mechanical is therefore dangerous. The risk it entails is cutting human beings off from their own powers iof vision and imagination.
SO although empiricism is a vital tool in continuing to sort out the mysteries of ther material continuum and isolate those phenomena and models which actually do describe the common parts, it is probably a bad choice to try to therefore insist that the world of individual perception should have forced down its throat a molecular/electronic explanation." - Amos

A good deal of what I understand about perception stems from two sets of experience; as a visual artist who refers to three dimensions by manipulating only two, and as a teacher of, and having learned from, very young children for many years.

Children's art has a very strict development, which initially follows physical development, from aimless scribble, to curvilinear back and forth scribble from the shoulder, to circular, from the wrist. They are developing fine motor skills from twoish to threeish, and their manipulation of drawing media refelcts that directly. Most children have an 'Aha!' moment when they see, in their circular scribbling, a round shape, and to a child, that is a representation of a human face, to which they have responded since infancy.

Once seen, the circle/face is drawn over and over, marks are added to represent eyes and mouths. Shaky lines are drawn from it (and at this point some adult will say: "You drew the Sun!", but it isn't), those lines are representations of limbs, hair, features.

After a while, the lines develop, trunks appear, limbs appear, fingers appear. I've watched this progression hundreds of times, and so have others - Rhoda Kellogg wrote an interesting study sometime in the sixties, I think.

(Now, where the hell was I going with this?)

Okay: at least in a basic manner, I understand how children come, physically and mentally, to this ability to translate from three dimensional reality to two dimensional representation. It is almost rote from one child to the next. And it is marvellous, I never tire of watching children go through this process, and seeing their intense delight when they make that first essential transition from purely physical expression to comprehending the image within that expression. Why would I not want to know how and why this happy process occurs, and to tell others, so they could share?

Shortly after that, of course, adults and older children and other people's pictures begin to influence (and in some cases, IMO, corrupt) their further artistic development, starting with that damn 'sun' comment. I am not being a starry-eyed woo-person when I say every single normal child has the capacity to become a visual artist, to be able to see the world in a clear and focussed fashion. They are, most of them, either prevented by circumstances (adults, available media, self esteem, etc.), or the desire to extend that ability is over-ridden by other pursuits, such as music or sports or language.

Now, I have no idea if I've gotten across what i wanted to. I think I mean to explain that I don't see a molecular/electronic explanation is in any way cold, or wrong, or brutal, or mechanical. Aren't we human animals, interacting with our brains and bodies and our vast environment, engaged in the expression of vision and imagination?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 01:43 PM

What is the ratio, 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration? It's waxing that makes you perspire;-)

I don't mean to give you a hard time, Amos--there are some wise and reasoned thoughts in your text--perhaps more than one could process during a single lunch. And since you didn't respond to my "bacon" questions, I went the safe route and had a ham sandwich instead.

As to my sense of...well you know, It is always with me--unfortunately, my lilting irony isn't always appreciated.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 01:12 PM

Waxy!! WAXY???! I am glad you have retained your sense of yewmah, Mister Ted, but the glistening dew you see on the flanks of my masterpiece are not wax but inspiration.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 01:01 PM

That is a pretty waxy screed, Amos, but it is lunchtime (here, at least) and inquiring minds want to know:

Is the bacon sandwich a good thing or a bad thing?

Is the bacon sandwich an entity of it's own, or is it a useful construction that really is comprised of other entities, unique in their own regard?

When does a sandwich become a sandwich?

When does a sandwich become a bacon sandwich?

Is a bacon and egg sandwich a bacon sandwich?

Is a club sandwich (which is bacon and chicken) a bacon sandwich or a chicken sandwich?

Which came first, the bacon and chicken sandwich or the bacon and egg sandwich ?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 12:30 PM

Bee's observations are well taken; a major part of the whole problem is understanding the degree to which the delicate web of signals and cells in the CNS can generate and/or modulate perception. There are so many examples of false or distorted reality being estabslihed in individual minds when conditions of stress, fatigue, rush, or just general dull-wittedness are involved that it is difficult to sort out in any reliable way.

In each moment of perception there is certainly a confluence of factors going on. INdividuals have different chronic levels of ability to perceive; acute conditions in the environment at the moment are a wild set of variables; individual associations of precent perception with past perceptions are a completely wild variable. The confluence of individual state, individual past, CNS state, biochemical details of the moment, and historic fallibility make it easy to conclude that the pottage of electrical and chemical impulses is the whole thing.

But even in Bee's example the question that is begged, like the elephant in the living room that no-one talks about, is who it is that does the filtering she mentions, the interpretation. Interpretation to and by whom? Because the final repository of perceptions and impulses, accurate or distorted, is a viewer.

The potentialities of that viewer to override the CNS and the automatic pattenr linking of the brain is possibly the biggest question of the 21st century, but it will not be answered until some understanding develops as to its nature.

To assume that the viewer is just more of the same mishmash of electro-chemical patterns in the nervous system strikes me as a woefully premature assumption, very similar to the belief in the flat earth that was held for centuries by some people who were deprived of a sailors insight and who based their conclusion on an inadequate set of data.

From my view it is because of the unreliability of this confluence of dynamic elements in any instant's perceptions that we have to respect the individual's description of what they have seen even while reserving the distinction between those observations and what we are here calling empirical reality. Empirical reality by its natur eis going to be a small subset of those things that have been and can be perceived. For one thing, there is no empirical reality that can survey the scope and dimensions of the imagination or capcity for vision, but it is these abilities which have brought baout every major cghange in our culture.

To dismiss this realm of the viewpoint as merely an extension of the mechanical is therefore dangerous. The risk it entails is cutting human beings off from their own powers iof vision and imagination.
SO although empiricism is a vital tool in continuing to sort out the mysteries of ther material continuum and isolate those phenomena and models which actually do describe the common parts, it is probably a bad choice to try to therefore insist that the world of individual perception should have forced down its throat a molecular/electronic explanation.

At the same time it is an equally bad choice to decide to force down the throat of individual viewpoints who do operate in the bands of vision and inagination any metaphysical construction of forms or entities which they do not, themselves, elect. To do so is just as surely to undermine the sovereignty of the creative soul as it would be to hypnotize him/her into believing he was just an electro-chemical servo mechanism without fire, hope, vision or any future beyond entropic decay.

THere are many ways to trash a human soul, and pushing religion down his throat is one; pushing materialism down his throat is another.

There are a few ways to strengthen him, and one is increasing his power of self-determination over data, explanation, and understanding.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 11:37 AM

I'll find out; I'll have him tailed!

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 11:36 AM

That dog will tell you anything to get bacon, but he's a goddamn liar. He never done none of them things... ;>)



A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Bee
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:52 AM

"So if I tell you I am at this moment (between key bashing) eating a delicious bacon butty...would you believe me? You only have my word for it.
If I tell you I have a relationship with Jesus, the living God, would you believe me?   I guess it all comes down to how much you trust people at their word...or does it?" - Georgiansilver

It's entirely possible (for me) to trust people at their word in almost all things except their perception of the supernatural in any form.

I have had experiences I think many people would have identified as 'religious experiences'. I personally identified them as a mental state influenced by various factors, all of them physical. Our own bodies, and our tremendously complex environment, are more than capable of producing phenomena which may appear to be encounters with gods, ghosts, or goblins, or just euphoria.

I have often heard people describe such experiences, people who are convinced they have been touched by a god, or an angel, or communicated with a ghost, or been taken up by ecstasy. It always seems to me that when they describe factors surrounding the experience, be it their own physical state, their environment at the time, or a combination, that they simply have not been able to recognise, usually through not knowing enough about such things, the physical foundations of these no doubt powerful experiences.

A person I trust above all others, and know to be very intelligent, is very devout, partly because of a religious experience she had as a young woman. At the time of this experience, she was deathly ill, full of toxins and running an extreme fever. She very nearly died. She experienced a long period of hallucinations and delirium, during which time her mother sat by praying aloud, the minister visited, and many people in white garments hung about her bedside.

I am not in the least surprised she regained health with a firm belief that she had been touched by God. It doesn't in any way reduce my trust in her - I just think she interpreted her experiences much differently than I have interpreted mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:34 AM

All approach him with a bacon sandwich and see what he does.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: theleveller
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 08:50 AM

Ah, but does your dog catch pheasants and rabbits? You can't eat quantum physics - or can you (and do they taste better than a bacon buttie)?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 08:27 AM

My dog is brilliant. He often gives lectures on quantum mechanics and string theory, you know, when he can fit it into his schedule.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 08:26 AM

It is an empirical fact that there is such a thing as a bacon sandwich.

WHen you invoke a relationship with a hypothetical, that's when you step beyond the bounds of empiricism. It is impossible for another to understand what the referent is, because you are using semantic fireworks I know what's behind the label sandwich to a 90% probability of accuracy. But your religious expression might as well be about Poonjab the Big Blue Power Dot.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 08:25 AM

The trick to empirical reality is that it's demonstrable. Note that this includes the word Demon... yikes!

And another trick is that you don't HAVE to trust anybody's word for it - if it's empirical, it can be shown, so no authority is involved.

And bacon sandwiches are delicious.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: theleveller
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 08:20 AM

"I guess it all comes down to how much you trust people at their word...or does it?"

Probably depends more on the nature of your relationship, Georgiansilver. I have a great relationship with my dog and often talk to her but, apart from the obvious words of command, I don't really believe that she understands what I'm saying. If I did believe it, I'd probably deserve to be subjected to psychiatric help. And, despite what some people are saying, my dog really does exist - or who is it who's crapping on my lawn?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 06:39 AM

M.Ted

and I couldn't deny that empirical reality

BREAKTHROUGH!!!!

Don't worry, M.Ted, bacon sandwiches are a continuously renewing force for good.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 02:45 AM

So if I tell you I am at this moment (between key bashing) eating a delicious bacon butty...would you believe me? You only have my word for it.
If I tell you I have a relationship with Jesus, the living God, would you believe me?   I guess it all comes down to how much you trust people at their word...or does it?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 11:50 PM

Yes, from a good lot of fat.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 11:06 PM

Fat lot of good that did you, eh?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 10:36 PM

I ate the bacon sandwiches. And now they don't exist. I was hungry and I couldn't deny that empirical reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 08:43 PM

I'm thinking!

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: TheSnail
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 08:41 PM

How can something that doesn't exist have the property of being not kosher? If they don't exist, why are Muslims forbidden to eat them? Come on, be rashernal.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 08:28 PM

"...bacon sandwiches (amongst other things) don't exist..."


                     Well, they aren't kosher and they don't exist for Muslims.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 08:27 PM

Which ever you like--I'm easy.

"Empirical Reality Denier" could mean a lot of things--one who empirically denies reality, for instance--or "Empirical Reality" could be some sort of Multi-User game, with a moderator call the Denier--and it seems like there were various gnostic sects that believed that our earthly reality was an illusion created by the Demiurge, which would have made them "Empirical Reality Deniers"--also, the could be people who, for whatever reason, denied the reality of any of a number of historic empires, Rome, Byzantium, etc.

In the same vein, an Empirical Reality Denier could be some some one like Luke Skywalker, who fought to keep the Empire from becoming a reality. It's very flexible--

I think, to make it complete, you need the idea of an "Empirical Reality Affirmer", so you could have little bands of Deniers and Affirmers stealing each others mascots and such. Just a thought...

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 08:07 PM

M. Ted:

No. Empirical reality-deniers is a functional definition, not an affinity class. "People Mrzzy doesn't like" probably includes lots of empiricists, as well, and may even exclude some ERDs who are nice about it.

An empirical reality denier is one who rejects empirical standards for defining the scope, attributes and nature of reality. "Pigs fly when no-one is watching" is an example of an ERD proposition. "The world was created in 16 seconds by an overflowing pot of pasta". is another. "There are four (three, seven, two, one, eleven) aspects to Divinity." is another. These propositions all have in common the denial of the empirical standard.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: TheSnail
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 08:04 PM

Mrrzy

M.Ted, what do you mind so much about my intolerance of empirical-reality-deniers, assuming you aren't one of them?

Oh yes he is. On the other thread he tried to tell me that bacon sandwiches (amongst other things) don't exist.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 07:37 PM

I suppose I come in closer to the "secular humanists" than the "empirical reality deniers," though the latter is a little more poetic.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 07:20 PM

But seriously, "empirical reality deniers" is just a perjorative term for everybody that "The Mrzz" doesn't like? Kind of counterpart to "secular humanists"?

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 07:16 PM

If I left you out, Riginslinger, I am truly sorry;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 05:34 PM

It's really confusing to have both of these threads running at the same time.


             M.Ted - You left off: "of empirical-reality-deniers..."

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 05:28 PM

"M.Ted, what do you mind so much about my intolerance.." that about sums it up.

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 05:17 PM

Accidentally posted to the other thread... sorry!

Um - The original thread, begun last year by another freethinker, was titled "There aren't any gods (not even Jesus)." I continued it, after it passed 800 some-odd posts, as "Still no gods 2008." If my shorter title is so much meaner, I apologize, but I really don't see the massive difference in spirit.

M.Ted, what do you mind so much about my intolerance of empirical-reality-deniers, assuming you aren't one of them? Do you disagree that a child's right to an education trumps a parent's desire to keep them ignorant? Do you believe that a leader should consult their personal supernatural force or being when making decisions involving your actual life? Why do you think it mean to argue forcefully against these and other immediate harms stemming from basing human actions on faith-in-something-undemonstrable-and-unfalsifiable?

I've started threads about celebrating midwinter godlessly, about whether atheists are the new gays, and posted the lyrics of godful songs I've liked enough to rewrite into godless songs. Others have started very similar threads. Look for the words to Atheists in Foxholes, for instance.

Don't read any further without a sense of humor...
(I also insist that people not smoke in no-smoking zones around the hospital where I work. Meanie, meanie.)

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: M.Ted
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 04:35 PM

I think you *like* her, Amos;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Still no gods 2008 (continued)
From: Nickhere
Date: 07 Jan 08 - 03:41 PM

Amos "ANd certainly, one individual's subscription on faith is nowhere sufficient as grounds for another to choose the same subscription, at least not if the other is looking for truthiness or usefulness"

Quite so. I would just add though by way of observation that if someone seems to have hit on something that really 'moves' them (again for lack of better vocabulary) curiosity alone would make the other enquire what that person had discovered.

"But it is a very clear lesson of history that mass agreement is not a reliable crityerion for measuring the value of data or its truthiness or usefulnes"

Up to a point. there have of course been many cases of mass popular delusion in many fields as well as religious - political, cultural etc., And of course we only need to look at our century to see that just because whole nations follow the leader doesn't mean the leader's right!

But while mass subscription to an idea or belief is no guarantee of its usefulness or reliablity, it would be equally uncalled for to dismiss it out of hand unless first proved through personal experience. If 50 million Frenchman tell you gravity will pull you rapidly downwards if you step off a cliff, and assuming that somehow you have no prior experience of this, it would be foolish to insist on discovering whether there is truth the 'hard way'. A prudent person might first stop and think to themselves "well, if so many people are saying it for so long, there might be something in it, and it might be worth looking into a bit more first".

We may end up finding that the 50 million Frenchmen are wrong afterall, but we can learn and be forwarned through the experience of others. Afterall, this is what every parent tries to do with more or less success!