BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 04:33 PM

Sure - INVESTIGATE the possibility, yes, but believe in it before the evidence is in, isn't thinking.

And if you have no replicable evidence, you have no EVIDENCE. Look it up.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 04:38 PM

Yikes. I was yelling. Sorry - bad day at work with the mice.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Stringsinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 05:09 PM

I am in favor of the scientific investigation of religion through psychology, history, the use of
carbon dating, DNA, etc. and attempting to understand the claims made by religious institutions. I don't see that this is harmful in any way and might shed more positive light on how religion functions in society.

Joe Campbell has stated that we need our myths. They are symbols and reflect what values society holds. They can be educative in that they prescribe productive ways to live. Myths need to be examined.

In this way, religion and science can find a rapprochement. Building an artificial barrier between the two doesn't help.

if the leading scientists of the world explored religion through their inductive methods,
we might learn ways to govern ourselves and outlaw war.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 06:06 PM

Mrrzy:

Replicability as a criterion has to be adjusted to the nature of the field. While molecules are pretty apathetic and will blindly perform the same way every time they are subjected to the same conditions this is not the case for sentient consciousness capable of originating decisions instead of just reacting. Given that deep and important difference, the onyl way you can acheive replicability is in the most general of terms. Furthermore although every complex compound molecule of the same parameters will behave exactly the same way and will be found to have exacvtly the same components, two beings will be found to have an entirely different set of decisions across their long history, and with each different decision a different set of consequences up to which they either did or did not step. Thgis does not mean you cannot isolate variables and predict large-scale phenomena, but it sure means that a blind quest for absolute replicability in human thought is a loser's game from the get-go.

Because of this the goals and rules of evolving a body of scientific knowledge about this arena has to be thought through carefully in advance, or it will fail the way Freud's projections failed to make a uniform model of thought,.

A

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 06:52 PM

Frank,

One of the big problems that anti-religionists have is the notion of "enabling". The broad stroke is that all religionists are enabling fundamentalism.

Well, yes...... I can see how people could think in that way.

But for me, my care and concern in that area boils down to whether to change a thing by tearing it all down to the ground, or by building upon and strengthening what is good to create the kind of sustainable strength that real change entails-- this from a not-so-long-ago, effective-in-my-small-milieu social-change person. In the varied roles I played, I learned how to work from the inside and how that can have a powerful level of effectiveness built on alliance rather than an adversarial dynamic-- to put relationship-building at the center of any real goals, no matter the effort or setting.

I that think the cry for change from the outside-- agitating and protesting-- also is necessary for such an effort to succeed--- I had lunch today working on that very thing-- but my own effectiveness is far more efficient from the inside, from close inside-- from a position of real love for the person and for the good they adhere to. That just happens to be where I can do something, where maybe others can't. (It takes a village to impeach an idiot.)

Not to mention that such an approach is Bibbical (my word to maintain a lighter tone).... The short course there is that to make changes, in the broken parts of the system to which I belong, requires my highest use OF that system FOR that system, which sometimes means traveling slowly enough to maintain a clue what I am doing, how, and why. It's not a recipe.... it's thought and improvisation at every turn, using the tools inherent in the system.

I think all professional fields have this in common, if you are inside the field.

I think the education system is a parallel people sometimes think more clearly about (and sometimes more painfully about)-- but when I was working to change THAT system, I was working from the inside, and I do not mean the PTA.... I had a unique job where that WAS my job description, basically, as well as the development of leadership to support the process of change. My lunch partner today asked me how I could have left "all that" to enter the arena of ministry; he'd had a pretty cool social-change job as well, during a lull in his priestly career.... We both felt that IN the ministry there were many more opportunitites to participate in far-reacing change efforts; but then as you have acknowledged, the Episicopals can be pretty cool folks. :~)


I took a quick look or two at the "Secularist" thread BTW-- scary, scary, scary. I see more clearly now (no pretense of politeness in THAT thread) why there are some folks I just will not talk about this stuff with anymore, here, and I very much apprecuiate your post awhile back that answering to demands for my "responsibility to change the fundie world" is up to me.... it has to do, partly, with a smart sensse I am trying to develp of how to prioritize my time. Wrestling with people in the area of their greatest rigidities holds no attraction for me when it comes to time to spend. Fortunately the Ridid Right is wide open in OTHER areas of their personalities-- much more open than some of the rabid anti-religionists around here. I wish those folk would read you posts sometime, and try to take them in... Very ironic, but you speak for my "view" far more articulately than I have managed to do just yet.

I learn a lot from our little dialog-inside-a-dialog, Frank, and I thank you for your time and care in it. From trying to understand your posts from your view, to thinking how to cast my responses, there is a lot to learn.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 07:25 PM

And BTW/PS, the negativity some folks around here love to focus on makes it harder, not easier, to do the change work I do..... the change some of them say they want to see is impeded, not helped, by the trash talk.

I'd love to post sometime what I could use some help with, but I know what would happen..... it's too bad, because I can be a pretty helpful ally if anyone REALLY wants to change a fundie's mindset. Sad thing is, actually TRYING it would ruin the pity-party some folks prefer to have!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: goatfell
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 07:31 PM

i forgot to add to my statement TROLL ALERT (GUEST ED) IS A TROLL.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 09:14 PM

Nonetheless, if it can't be replicated, it's not evidence of anything.

And it is the enabling part that has me asking, which hasn't been answered yet, why should I "respect" (I've explained what I meant enough times...) people's deliberate ignorance/denial of reality?

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 09:25 PM

Especially when they want you to pay for it.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Janie
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 09:54 PM

Mrrzy,

What is with the "should?" It is your choice and your responsibility. It is "could."

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 10:05 PM

The "should" comes from all the people, here and elsewhere, who think that you *should* respect people's beliefs. I don't see why I should, when those beliefs contradict, or deny, reality. So often I don't... but then I'm called "intolerant" or worse. My responsibility, especially to my children, should be (in my mind) to teach them not to respect such, um, things.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 11:02 PM

Question for Little Hawk: When does an icon become a god, and did you create an icon so powerful that it functions as a god?

As a model for your consideration-- because Shatnerism is too scary to contemplate right off, and you know it-- I recommend you study the model presented by FSMism (Pastafarians).

I submit that there IS at least one God, the FSM who is worshipped by Pastafarians.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Janie
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 12:02 AM

Mrrzy - Well, lack of respect is one indication of intolerance. Part of being responsible for the choice to disrespect is acknowledging and owning the attendant intolerance.   We all have things we choose not to tolerate, for any number of reasons and rationales. Lack of respect is one of those reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: GUEST,Barney
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 01:38 AM

Why would anyone in their right mind believe in something for which there has never been the slightest shred of evidence? Religious belief is irrational and delusional. Filling impressionable young minds with this rubbish is child abuse.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:19 AM

Because one person or many people have never seen evidence of something...whatever it is...does not mean it does not exist. Hence the wide diversity of beliefs or unbeliefs. Seeking the truth by personal study is perhaps the best way forward...or for some perhaps doing nothing and believing in nothing. We all have a choice.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: GUEST,Barney
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 12:58 PM

In an ideal world we would all have a choice, but in this one many of us don't. Nor do we all get the chance for 'seeking the truth by personal study'; only the more fortunate of us get that privilege, and many of those waste it.

There is no such thing as an unbelief, although the word was used in some mediaeval Germanic dialects to describe particularly troublesome poultry.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 01:48 PM

And if you have no replicable evidence, you have no EVIDENCE. Look it up.

Look what up, Mrrz?

I submit for reflection here that your statement doesn't answer my point about the difference between the nature of the systems under consideration.

Consider, for extrapolation, the difference between living systems and non-living chemical or particle systems. If you abrade a moouse's flesh, it starts regenerating, normally. If you shave a millimeter off an aluminum crystal, it does not, usually.

Clearly there is a fundamental difference between the system behaviors. Two mice, dropped into exactly the same pot of acid, will not behave in exactly the same way, although you could say they both squirm and call that a replication of behaviour if you wanted to. Arguments of complexity aside for the moment.

IF you take two minds and show them exactly the same image of colors, they will come up with wildly different responses ranging from highly aesthetic and pleasurable down to glumly apathetic indifference. And if you repeat the process, there may two more comp0letely unique responses.

Thought is not matter. That's the bottom line. Trying to measure thought with the tools of matter is like trying to measure the volume of the ocean's water with a schoolboy's ruler.

So where are you going to get a standard of replicability out of this? The social scietists settle for probabilities and per centage of opinions one way or another, for example, and there's some use to that system in measuring mass-agreement zones of thought, but it won't get you far in measuring the outer bounds of individual potential to see and know and create.

BTW, Barney, a belief in the not-ness of something certainly does exist, event hough it seems to be a two-step process of creating the belief in somethign and then painting it black! :D

A

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:31 PM

Frank Hamilton, you are a fine, perhaps even great musician. and a whole bunch of other wonderful things too, but you are way over your head here--

When you advocate a "scientific" evaluation of religion, you are opening the door to demands for a religious evalation of science, which is exactly the problem that "Squawkin' Dawkins" and company are worried about in the first place.

And the sad fact is that "religion" looks better when held up to the light of science, than science looks when held up to the light of religion--

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:45 PM

Actually, religion looks pretty stupid when viewed through the light of science, and you can't view science through the light of religion because religion is blind and mindless.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 02:48 PM

When you advocate a "scientific" evaluation of religion, you are opening the door to demands for a religious evalation of science,

Not really; in a faith tradition that embraces rational thought, certainly a consideration of science's strengths and shortcomings happens..... it is possible, you know, to look squarely at BOTH science and faith and see things that do not necessarily have to be consdiered on opposition to one another. We have these big old minds that can handle the complexity needed for that kind of thoughtful regard of different, differing, or even diverging viewpoints.

I think chats around fire rings many centuries ago probably involved just that sort of wondering (and that broad a range of wondering), because it's a human tendency to wonder about it all-- the big picture, the things that seem obviously related, the things that appear not to be related, the detail level....

We can handle that, and more.

I don't understand why people-- religious or non-religious-- are afraid to open the doors to thinking or asking about things.... I CAN understand why folks sometimes assume that certain tradtions may inhibit the opening of the doors, but I would think that all doors that can be opened would inform the subject.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 03:52 PM

Tell ya what. Let's NOT have a scientific assessment of religion, since religion by at least one definition is a codification of beliefs and practices and moral codes and all kinds of other stuff science can't address heuristically, by its nature.

But what we _could_ have is a scientific address to fundamental questions about the spirit -- disdaining all doctrine, examining all reported experiences, and seeing if there was such a thing as a way to measure the beast, or detect its impact. IS the human beast a meat organism occasionaly generating an electromagnetic rush called a spiritual experience, or a spiritual entitiy occasionally getting trapped in a meat rush called a physical body? Does "meat" do aesthetics and insight? If there is a difference, what keeps the two bound together in individual natures?

It would not be easy, because, by its nature, it would streeetch the working framework of science as we have known it, but it would be interestin'.



A

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: GUEST,Barney
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 04:46 PM

So which religion is right?

I'll leave you all to ponder that while I pop off and make a list of my non-beliefs...

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 05:00 PM

BArney:

Bring another stick back with you to stir the anthill.

You know damn well that none of Earth's religions are "right".


A

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 05:12 PM

I know very little about the B'hai faith (I'm not even sure I'm spelling it correctly), but what I do know is that it teaches that ALL earthly religions are equally valid, with the corallary, of course, that they're all equally mistaken in so very many of the particulars that they preach.

What does that leave?

Well, one can still believe that a transcendant spiritual reality exists, and that it behooves all of us to transcend ego and love our neighbor as ourselves.

Do we really need to be sure of much more than that?

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 05:17 PM

I meant look up Evidence.

And replicability is not a useful concept without focus - if you show people the same wavelength of light, yes, they will have different experiences of it. That isn't replicating. If you show one person a wavelength, and then show the same person the same wavelength, that is replicating. And you may yet get different experiences based upon context, or how they are feeling at the time. What does that tell you about "the difference between the nature of the systems under consideration" - ? Jack all - if you have different systems, studying one and then the other is not replicating the first study, it's studying something else. So your question doesn't make sense.

However, it is quite possible to study thought in science. You just have to focus in, so that what your study -note, not your results necessarily- IS replicable. That way, IF you get the same results, you HAVE evidence for something - whatever thing you were studying.
For instance, look at functional MRI studies, reaction-time studies, and other "hard" science in psychology, neuropsychology, psycholinguistics, etc. We are learning a whole lot about thought by studying it. We wouldn't if we just tried to believe in it, or pray about it, or look in ancient novels about it.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: GUEST,Barney
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 05:58 PM

"BArney:
Bring another stick back with you to stir the anthill.
You know damn well that none of Earth's religions are "right".
A"

My point exactly - it's not possible, whereas it's perfectly possible for them all to be wrong.

Or then again, maybe one of them is right, and the rest are wrong..

Whoops :-)

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 06:28 PM

Well, Mrrz, with all due respect I don't think you have answered my points, and I feel your remarks about "believe in" and reading old novels, and such is just persiflage with no bearing at all n anything I said. I am not going to repeat myself, but I am more than willing to agree to disagree or at least leave the differences where they stand.

A

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: M.Ted
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 08:43 PM

My comment was actually intended to be a droll and slightly pointed reminder that Science and Technology have been used to wreck havoc of an almost unimaginable scale on our human race.

If they wanted to, the religious community could ask some fairly penetrating questions about the overall benefit of many scientific "achievements" to the welfare of humankind. Lucky for us, they don't do that very often.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 09:18 PM

My comment was actually intended...

Glad to hear it-- I thought you'd lost your mind.

The discussions about science I've been involved in, in religious life, have tended to fall into the category of Ethical Theology and not been science-bashing at all. Not all religious discussion of opposers' views is oppositional in response; certainly in Anglican theology there is usually the expectation to seek the via media in that realm as well as in more strictly-doctrinal issues for which we are better known.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 09:33 PM

Ted,

Almost all technologies are by nature two-edged swords, from wood-carving to fission. There's no doubt, in my mind anyway, that as a species we have been way cleverer than we have been good.

Religions looking at science, aside from discussing the ethical implications as they align with moral codes held to be religious in origin, wouldn't have a lot to say, unless they start on a drumbeat (prophylactics are he spawn of Satan) in some way. Well, I know the Amish have certain decrees, also. But it's either observe it or condemn it. Oddly enough I don't know of any instance where technology has been forwarded by some religious input. And why should it -- it's the old "render unto Caesar", which surely includes technological advantages in Caesar's markets.


A

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Neil D
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:29 PM

This thread has become God-like in its profundity, if not its enormity. All praise to The Mighty Thread and hail Troll its procreator!

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 Dec 07 - 10:36 PM

...if only they didn't grovel and mumble so much.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:08 AM

Ismailism actually regards science as a primary tool for understanding the intelligible universe. The Aga Khan Foundation runs more than 300 schools in some of the more interesting parts of the world, with the purpose of creating a foundation for economic and technological development.

A special priority in these schools is to provide equal educational opportunities for female students--which should give those of you who think that Shia Islam is sexist something to think about on these, the longest nights of winter.

And, now that I think about it, I wonder how many of the ranters and ravers in this thread learned what they know about science (which, in some cases, seems not to be much) at an Institution of Higher Learning that was founded by Methodists, or Baptists, or Presbyterians, or those dreaded Calvinists, or even worse, actual Catholics?

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Amos
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:31 AM

I differentiate between "religious input" and actions taken by people who are also religious. Now that I think of it, there is one mandate to glorifiy the owrks of man to God -- or do I have that backwards? ANyway, innovating has always been a highly individual creation even when teams or cultural groups are providing the matrix.


A

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Amos
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 02:28 PM

GEtting back to the issue of living versus non-living systems, and scientific rigor, here is an interesting scientific report that concludes that even fruit-flies cannot have their behaviour accounted for by simple stumulus response; but that they seem to include an "initiator" in their neural system which adds spontaneity.

The report is in this video from researchers at the Free University in Berlin and like all good research opens more question than it answers.

But is germane to the up-thread discussion about scientific analsyis of thought, even if only in fruit-flies.


A

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 03:01 PM

Until somebody finds a way to observe thoughts, it will be very difficult to subject them to scientific rigors. And there are some people who think that thoughts are like the Yeti--meaning that, without reliable, documentable observations, they don't really exist.

Without a valid and replicable research model, Descartes's idea that "I think therefore I am" is just an unprovable opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 04:43 PM

Of course there are Yeti. We elected one to serve as vice president in 2004.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 04:54 PM

Well, it seems to me that only those thing that people are against qualify for demands that they be rigorously proved scientifically. Can't see thought, so can't "prove" thought-- but no one is so anti-thought that they want to subject that to scientific proof before they'll even talk about it or tolerate OTHERS talking about it.

Only where there is extreme prejudice (and a mind already closed to possibilities) is the demand for proof before discussion.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 05:35 PM

Maybe we can't *SEE* thought, but we can get understandable responses to whatever you want to call our awareness by making noises and making marks on paper....and we can attach electrodes to the head and watch needles jump when certain stimuli are introduced.

These are indications...predictable and measurable in certain ways. Now you may call the underlying causes 'thought' or just call 'em electro-chemical reactions, but we DO stuff with them. Most supposed paranormal and religious 'entities' can't be 'measured' in any truly similar way.

I repeat...we need to quit trying to measure, evaluate and describe them with similar terminology.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 06:02 PM

You can attach electrodes to the head of a cabbage, and you can watch the needle jump, but you still won't know what it's thinking.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Bill D
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 06:10 PM

If you show the cabbage a picture of an erotic carrot, will the needle reading change?

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: Amos
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 06:13 PM

A liberal cabbage. or conservative?


A

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 06:33 PM

More to the point, is the cabbage gay or straight?

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 07:10 PM

Apparently, the needle will move if you just think about showing it a picture of a carrot. Click Here if you think I'm kidding

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 07:25 PM

As to your question, PG--that is entirely to do with how straight the carrot is.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: TheSnail
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 08:19 PM

Oh dear WYSIWYG, please try and distinguish between things and theories about things. Gravity and Thought and the Earth, Sun and Moon and Love and Bacon Sandwiches and the Colour Purple simply exist. They ARE regardless of science or religion. It is only theories about them that need to be proved.

Just because I can't see a Bacon Sandwich at the moment doesn't mean I can't prove they exist. Now I think about it.....

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Dec 07 - 10:58 PM

Snail, I'm terribly sorry to have to break this to you, but I have a duty to tell the truth, (Deep Breath)--

Gravity and Thought and the Earth, Sun and Moon and Love and Bacon Sandwiches and The Color Purple don't exist at all--they are merely ideas that we have created with language. The ideas have no meaning beyond the fact that make differentiations that are meaningful to us--they have no relationship to the true nature of these objects at all.

In fact "true nature" and "objects" are also ideas that we have constructed--

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: M.Ted
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 12:12 AM

Oh, and the old argument about "What if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it?" or some such thing, has nothing to do with sounds or trees, and is merely a disagreement on the meaning of the word "sound".

In that same way, the discussion in this thread is just a disagreement about the meaning of a whole lot of words.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: TheSnail
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 07:21 AM

M.Ted

Gravity and Thought and the Earth, Sun and Moon and Love and Gravity and Thought and the Earth, Sun and Moon and Love and Bacon Sandwiches and The Color Purple don't exist at all--they are merely ideas that we have created with language. and The Color Purple don't exist at all--they are merely ideas that we have created with language.

Now you are confusing the names of things with the things themselves. All of these existed before we came up with names for them (with the possible exception of Bacon Sandwiches). I think Genesis says that (with the possible exception of Bacon Sandwiches). My point is that you cannot prove gravity or thought, you can only prove theories of gravity or thought.

Subject: RE: BS: There aren't any Gods (not even Jesus)
From: TheSnail
Date: 15 Dec 07 - 07:25 AM

M.Ted

Oh, and the old argument about "What if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it?" or some such thing, has nothing to do with sounds or trees, and is merely a disagreement on the meaning of the word "sound".

No it isn't. It's about what you are allowed to infer about an event that you have not observed on the basis of your experience of events that you have observed.