Religion

[Scourge of teh Galaxy]

I am just wondering, am I making sense to ANYONE here?

Yep, I understand you perfectly

[Naryar]

Ah, now that we have 123 versus Frezal the thread has become interesting.

Garvin versus Skiitzox, on the other hand...

And yes 123, you do make sense to me. Though Frezal does as well.

[Urjak]

Also, how is gravity is qualitatively different from mysticism?  Yes this is a serious question.  Your dogma might immediately reject this because gravity is "so science" today, but when Newton first announce this many scientist attack it as mysticism because it is just some attractive force that exists.  Yes we can put equations on it, we know how strong it is, but even now nobody has a clue why gravity, or mass, exist.  Nor can we alter/manipulate it in any way.  The LHC has yet to find the Higgs Bozon.  So it's just some force, that's just how it is, and you just have to live with it.

I know this is Frezal's debate and all but this paragraph bugs me. Mysticism's definition is:
1.
a.Immediate consciousness of the transcendent or ultimate reality or God.
b.The experience of such communion as described by mystics.
2.A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience.
3. Vague, groundless speculation.

Definition number 1 and 2 seem inapplicable when dealing with gravity, so that leaves definition 3.  Gravity is not vague or groundless. There are some aspects of it that are speculation, but that hardly makes gravity mystical. Gravity is the attraction between two bodies with mass. Its strength can be quantified using equations. It exhibits traits that can be observed and measured. The only speculation we have about gravity is why it is there at all.

Also, from what I can tell the LHC hasn't looked for the existence of the Higgs Bozon yet do to a technical fault. So the fact that gravity's origins remain unexplained does not make it mystical.

[123savethewhales]

Also, how is gravity is qualitatively different from mysticism?  Yes this is a serious question.  Your dogma might immediately reject this because gravity is "so science" today, but when Newton first announce this many scientist attack it as mysticism because it is just some attractive force that exists.  Yes we can put equations on it, we know how strong it is, but even now nobody has a clue why gravity, or mass, exist.  Nor can we alter/manipulate it in any way.  The LHC has yet to find the Higgs Bozon.  So it's just some force, that's just how it is, and you just have to live with it.

I know this is Frezal's debate and all but this paragraph bugs me. Mysticism's definition is:
1.
a.Immediate consciousness of the transcendent or ultimate reality or God.
b.The experience of such communion as described by mystics.
2.A belief in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible by subjective experience.
3. Vague, groundless speculation.

Definition number 1 and 2 seem inapplicable when dealing with gravity, so that leaves definition 3.  Gravity is not vague or groundless. There are some aspects of it that are speculation, but that hardly makes gravity mystical. Gravity is the attraction between two bodies with mass. Its strength can be quantified using equations. It exhibits traits that can be observed and measured. The only speculation we have about gravity is why it is there at all.

Also, from what I can tell the LHC hasn't looked for the existence of the Higgs Bozon yet do to a technical fault. So the fact that gravity's origins remain unexplained does not make it mystical.

The problem is the second part, "groundless speculation", which is strongly cultural defined.  One culture might accept certain evidence while another rejecting them.

So take this two examples that is commonly refer to as mysticism, witchdoctors and shamans.  Most of them are not vague, they are past down through generations with rigorous rules and method of healing.  They are also not necessary groundless.  Natural herb can have healing properties and with generations of trial and error it is statistical that some of their methods should work.  However, you will be hard press to find any western doctors who will accept any of it.

So even stuff like acupuncture took a long time to be somewhat accepted.  It is heavily documented and not vague.  The problem is how one culture translate the evidence of another.  Stuff like 5 elements of the human body, fire/wood/earth/metal/water are surely not helping when directly translated.  They can however mean entirely different things than the western view in that context/culture.  So even now many western doctors will call that mysticism.

Think back to Newton's time, and what he claims.  He said the force that pull us down to earth are the same force that keeps the stars together, and that it is a fundamental part of nature.  Even with all the math and proper prediction of celestial objects, a "force that just is" is considered mysticism at the time.  Newton being deeply religious also doesn't help, and the line between science and religious beliefs at the time are not nearly as define as today.  As it turns out this notion has since been replaced by General Relativity.  And we can expect that in the future, the unified theory will at least change some part of that.  Suppose that the unified theory requires a radically different thinking of gravity then general relativity, would that make today's believe mysticism because we believe it completely knowing it cannot explain things in subatomic scales?

As for the Higgs Bozon, that is a prediction of the standard model.  Regardless what is the reason preventing the LHC from working we cannot assume that Higgs exist at this point.  After all if we can just assume stuff like that, who's going to pay all that money to build that LHC to begin with?

Basically, I am saying that most science, however defined and accepted now, starts out as ungrounded speculations.  Likewise many science in the outer frontier now, like theoretical physics, are highly speculative and not well grounded.  This is why many philosophers are still struggling with the distinction between mysticism and science, and such distinction isn't something you can simply pull out from a dictionary.

[Meganerdbomb]

Once you realize this all started from the hypothetical situation of freZal being kicked on the nuts by Jesus, you realize how funny it all is.

[Skiitzzox220]

After reading all of that I think I need to go to sleep..... My brain is just fried

[frezal]

Right because something floating down from the sky and kicking you in the balls is not a reason.

Has it ever happened in the past? No. Does it make sense for a physical being to fall from the sky without sustaining any damage? No. Does falling from the sky and kicking somebody in the balls prove divinity? No. At best, it proves the being has technology I don't know of.

If I have an experience like that, I will need pretty good evidence to disprove what I see.

In this scenario, all you saw was something fall from the sky and suddenly kick you in the balls. That is not proof of divinity, nor does it rule out the possibility of hallucination. If after getting your testicles examined, and a doctor determined that the damage is consistent with being kicked in the balls, that's still not proof of divinity. All you have is an unexplained mystery. If you want to rule out Earthly causes, it could still be an alien, a ghost, a time traveler, etc. The scenario proves nothing.

Try dark matter, dark energy, superposition, entanglement, Schrodinger's Cat, emergence of consciousness, complex systems, economics, etc.  Yes we know so much that none of us can learn them all in one lifetime, but that does not mean science explain "everything".

I didn't claim that we know everything. That's the problem with newagers and the religious. No we don't have all the answers, but history has taught us that the scientific method eventually leads us to said answers. Believing in the supernatural until an answer is found is just intellectually lazy.

Also, how is gravity is qualitatively different from mysticism?  Yes this is a serious question.  Your dogma might immediately reject this because gravity is "so science" today, but when Newton first announce this many scientist attack it as mysticism because it is just some attractive force that exists.  Yes we can put equations on it, we know how strong it is, but even now nobody has a clue why gravity, or mass, exist.  Nor can we alter/manipulate it in any way.  The LHC has yet to find the Higgs Bozon.  So it's just some force, that's just how it is, and you just have to live with it.

Gravity is internally consistent and works with our current understanding of the universe. One doesn't need to know how it works or why to measure its existence.

So if you live in Harry Potters world and you discover magical forces that you can quantify, calculate, put into books, and systematically channel, how is that differ from the 4 fundamental forces of gravity/electromagnetism/strong/weak?  We explain off the 4 forces as "property of space", as well as random particles popping in and out of existence in the quantum scale.  So why can't we have a 5th force, or 6th force, if by adding them in can quantitatively explain a bunch of unexplainable phenomenon?

If we could measure magic, that would be different. Thus far, we haven't found any scenario that requires magic to be explained. (Well, aside from the iPad.)

Things we cannot yet explain, such as dark energy, =/= supernatural.  Even things that are fundamentally unexplainable, such as the world smaller then Planck size, or the universe beyond the Hubble sphere,  also =/= supernatural.

Fortunately some scientists are more open minded.  They are willing to accept new forces so long as they can be observed/quantified.  They fight powerful social dogmas that used the "we can explain most things" argument to discredit their finding, and through their victory we have stuff like cellphones and GPS.

That's my whole point! In the scenario presented, and in every scenario I have thought of, divinity cannot be observed/quantified. Too many variables exist to isolate the cause as being divine.

And how many seconds does it take for you to come to this conclusion?  Have you any similar experiences in the past in which to draw reliable conclusions on?

I am relying entirely on the fact that no sane and honest person has ever claimed to have been kicked in the balls by a god. What experience in the past has led you to the conclusion that a god did it?

Given that you don't, what scientific law do you use to calculate the likelihood of hoax, hallucination, or a living monster?  Why is an unidentified living organism unlikely given we find new organisms in caves, rivers, and deep sea everyday?  Please don't throw probabilities around.  Probability testing is a pain staking process that takes time to calculating/plug into excel all those things, follow by statistical analysis.  Your gut feeling does not equal logic.

It very well could be a "monster." That doesn't make it Jesus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I can safely assume said creature is not made out of spaghetti, though, based on my knowledge of the pasta.

Seeing some flashing light and literally seeing a spaghetti monster kicking you in the balls are 2 very different things.  When I see flashing light, I assume I see flashing light.  Any further assumptions are mere fantasies that can neither be verified by or hold relevant to me.  As such I do not care.

But how do you know it was a monster composed of spaghetti? You haven't had time to study the thing, so at this point, you're just speculating. (And your speculation is something that isn't consistent with what we know about living beings or spaghetti.)

Try having an alien mother ship beaming down green dudes shooting lasers at me.  Yes, I will assume they are aliens without considering other explanations.  Hey it might be a hoax too, but I think whoever just stands there and hope the laser is fake are retarded.  I believe my eyes enough to not take that kind of chances.

Regardless of what it really is, the scenario is still scary. Fight-or-Flight kicks in, and I'd probably run. But again, just because I saw green men with laser guns, that doesn't mean aliens. Other earthly explanations (military testing, hoax, hallucination, etc.) and even supernatural explanations (ghosts, god(s), time travelers, vegetable monsters, etc.) exist.

I will not respond to the other 2 because you resort to personal attacks, which is a clear sign that you ran out of intelligent things to say.

When you insult my principles, I insult you. Sure, you insult with long-winded attempts to assassinate my character, but that doesn't mean you're taking any sort of high road.

[GarvinTheGreat]

UK mate, I swear you're just on this forum to annoy the hell outta everyone and you really are the only person I know who would be proud to be the lowest repped person on the forum[/quote]Not sure what I messed up there.

To tell you the truth, that was not my intention on the forum. When I first joined I was actually very nice. Ask Madman.

Im workin on my bot now, Thanks

See. Not sure what happened since then.
Anyway, back on topic. You wanna know who the real god is?

* Light shines down on him, everyone hails*

[Scourge of teh Galaxy]

Anyway, back on topic. You wanna know who the real god is?
(Image removed from quote.)

You... You... YOU BRUCE ALMIGHTY FANBOY! O:

[Meganerdbomb]

Well, we know frezal will never be kicked in the balls by God, because God knows it wouldn't do any good. And if being kicked in the balls isn't enough to convince someone then what is? amiright?
Also my face when my joke comment has inspired a massive wall of text argument.

[frezal]

Well, we know frezal will never be kicked in the balls by God, because God knows it wouldn't do any good. And if being kicked in the balls isn't proof enough, then what is? amiright?

I don't know what would prove to me that one or more gods exist. Richard Dawkins claims he knows what would convince him, but to my knowledge, he hasn't shared what this proof would be.

[Meganerdbomb]

Now, what would I have to show you to convert you to Pinkiepieism?

[Meganerdbomb]

Shut up, we already saw you the first time.

[Scourge of teh Galaxy]

I'm tellin you guys, you have it all wrong, ITS HIM.
(Image removed from quote.)

You... You... YOU BRUCE ALMIGHTY FANBOY! O:

Never post it again. kthx

[Naryar]

I'm tellin you guys, you have it all wrong, ITS HIM.
(Image removed from quote.)

Just go away...

[123savethewhales]

Right because something floating down from the sky and kicking you in the balls is not a reason.

Has it ever happened in the past? No. Does it make sense for a physical being to fall from the sky without sustaining any damage? No. Does falling from the sky and kicking somebody in the balls prove divinity? No. At best, it proves the being has technology I don't know of.

See you are drawing random conclusions again.

"does it make sense for a physical being to fall from the sky without sustaining any damage?"

This is not a question in this scenario, it is an observed fact, hence a meaningless question.  A more appropriate question would be

"how does a physical being fall from the sky without sustaining damage"

Obviously we lack the knowledge to know how this is done.  So to assume technology is not rational because it is an assumption not grounded on anything.  Likewise we have nothing to prove it's divinity, so both assumptions are equally as bad.

If they are both just as bad, why should "Jesus" take priority?

Because the religious reference point is the only existing complete explanation during the encounter.  This does not necessary make it more true, but it does make it falsifiable.  This is unlike unknown technology which you can keep making up on the go.

If I have an experience like that, I will need pretty good evidence to disprove what I see.

In this scenario, all you saw was something fall from the sky and suddenly kick you in the balls. That is not proof of divinity, nor does it rule out the possibility of hallucination. If after getting your testicles examined, and a doctor determined that the damage is consistent with being kicked in the balls, that's still not proof of divinity. All you have is an unexplained mystery. If you want to rule out Earthly causes, it could still be an alien, a ghost, a time traveler, etc. The scenario proves nothing.

All those requires me to make up stuff on the go.  You can explain anything with anything as long as you can keep changing your theory.  This is why a complete theory is qualitatively superior to a on the spot one, given a complete lack of reference point.  It does not mean that you must stick to it/believe it once more information is gather.  Nor should anything, even the existence of Jesus and God, be deem supernatural given we have the opportunity to investigation with observations.  It is only supernatural now because we have no way of meeting them in person, but there's nothing supernatural about it once you can interact with them.

Try dark matter, dark energy, superposition, entanglement, Schrodinger's Cat, emergence of consciousness, complex systems, economics, etc.  Yes we know so much that none of us can learn them all in one lifetime, but that does not mean science explain "everything".

I didn't claim that we know everything. That's the problem with newagers and the religious. No we don't have all the answers, but history has taught us that the scientific method eventually leads us to said answers. Believing in the supernatural until an answer is found is just intellectually lazy.

Believing in Jesus as the entity you saw and believing in everything else the church/bible tells you are two very different things.  I wasn't telling you to be religious here.  What I am saying is that it is enough evidence to disprove that God or God like entity must not exist.  Where they draw this power does not make the entity any less God like by any standards.

In a different sense, take "Jesus" as a label of the event, and it's property the ones you observed only.  Because these properties matches the biblical beliefs, you have a reason to investigate if the other properties match, but you do not have any ground to believe anything more before investigation.

Also, how is gravity is qualitatively different from mysticism?  Yes this is a serious question.  Your dogma might immediately reject this because gravity is "so science" today, but when Newton first announce this many scientist attack it as mysticism because it is just some attractive force that exists.  Yes we can put equations on it, we know how strong it is, but even now nobody has a clue why gravity, or mass, exist.  Nor can we alter/manipulate it in any way.  The LHC has yet to find the Higgs Bozon.  So it's just some force, that's just how it is, and you just have to live with it.

Gravity is internally consistent and works with our current understanding of the universe. One doesn't need to know how it works or why to measure its existence.

Replace Gravity with God, and we have,

"God is internally consistent and works with our current   understanding of the universe. One doesn't need to know how it works or   why to measure its existence."

Unfortunately this fits.  God can be internally consistent so long as they change the interpretation enough times.  Likewise Gravity is currently not internally consistent because it cannot explain quantum behaviors, and must be updated.  Also, a large majority of people still understand the universe through divinity.

The second part is far more problematic.  Understanding how and why things works is essential for defining anything.  If you see any new object without knowing hows or why, whatever label you give it has no meaning.  So understanding the hows and whys are essential in claiming Newtons version of gravity or Einstein's version of gravity exist, because their versions included hows and whys.

So if you live in Harry Potters world and you discover magical forces that you can quantify, calculate, put into books, and systematically channel, how is that differ from the 4 fundamental forces of gravity/electromagnetism/strong/weak?  We explain off the 4 forces as "property of space", as well as random particles popping in and out of existence in the quantum scale.  So why can't we have a 5th force, or 6th force, if by adding them in can quantitatively explain a bunch of unexplainable phenomenon?

If we could measure magic, that would be different. Thus far, we haven't found any scenario that requires magic to be explained. (Well, aside from the iPad.)

So we are in agreement here.

Things we cannot yet explain, such as dark energy, =/= supernatural.  Even things that are fundamentally unexplainable, such as the world smaller then Planck size, or the universe beyond the Hubble sphere,  also =/= supernatural.

Fortunately some scientists are more open minded.  They are willing to accept new forces so long as they can be observed/quantified.  They fight powerful social dogmas that used the "we can explain most things" argument to discredit their finding, and through their victory we have stuff like cellphones and GPS.

That's my whole point! In the scenario presented, and in every scenario I have thought of, divinity cannot be observed/quantified. Too many variables exist to isolate the cause as being divine.

If you try hard enough, you can find alternative explanations to anything and everything.  This does not mean you have reasons to given a complete lack of reference point.

Likewise, everything in the world cannot be fully observed/quantified.  Brain in a vat, matrix, philosophical zombies, and solipsism are all stuff that deals with the limitation of observations.  So this is not an unique problem to divinity.  The difference however is that you have an opportunity to investigate this "Jesus" you saw, and see how much/how little it match with pre-existing beliefs.

The one major thing I will investigate is rather he has the power to grant me eternal bliss or condemn me to eternal damnation.  If he holds this properties then I will undoubtedly believe him, as he is "Godly enough" in my book.

And how many seconds does it take for you to come to this conclusion?  Have you any similar experiences in the past in which to draw reliable conclusions on?

I am relying entirely on the fact that no sane and honest person has ever claimed to have been kicked in the balls by a god. What experience in the past has led you to the conclusion that a god did it?

I didn't claim God, I claim Jesus.  This does not imply that this "Jesus" must hold each and every property of any given church.  Even if divinity does exist, it does not mean the church has all the accurate properties of it.  Accepting some properties that matches your observations does not imply accepting the whole thing.

A whale does not stop being a whale just because you discover some new properties about them.  It does however imply that the older version of whale interpretation needs updating.

Given that you don't, what scientific law do you use to calculate the likelihood of hoax, hallucination, or a living monster?  Why is an unidentified living organism unlikely given we find new organisms in caves, rivers, and deep sea everyday?  Please don't throw probabilities around.  Probability testing is a pain staking process that takes time to calculating/plug into excel all those things, follow by statistical analysis.  Your gut feeling does not equal logic.

It very well could be a "monster." That doesn't make it Jesus or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. I can safely assume said creature is not made out of spaghetti, though, based on my knowledge of the pasta.

We have yet to define further properties of this monster you saw.  So we have no ground at all on how much it actually matches real pasta.

Seeing some flashing light and literally seeing a spaghetti monster kicking you in the balls are 2 very different things.  When I see flashing light, I assume I see flashing light.  Any further assumptions are mere fantasies that can neither be verified by or hold relevant to me.  As such I do not care.

But how do you know it was a monster composed of spaghetti? You haven't had time to study the thing, so at this point, you're just speculating. (And your speculation is something that isn't consistent with what we know about living beings or spaghetti.)

It composes of what "looks like" spaghetti, and eyes are one major observation tool.

Again, "what we know about" is not important because these are events specifically design to lack reference points.  We have yet to define the detailed property of this monster yet.

Try having an alien mother ship beaming down green dudes shooting lasers at me.  Yes, I will assume they are aliens without considering other explanations.  Hey it might be a hoax too, but I think whoever just stands there and hope the laser is fake are retarded.  I believe my eyes enough to not take that kind of chances.

Regardless of what it really is, the scenario is still scary. Fight-or-Flight kicks in, and I'd probably run. But again, just because I saw green men with laser guns, that doesn't mean aliens. Other earthly explanations (military testing, hoax, hallucination, etc.) and even supernatural explanations (ghosts, god(s), time travelers, vegetable monsters, etc.) exist.

So going back to the beginning, because the Alien theory is complete and can be falsified.  All other theories are made up on the spot and continues to be reinvented on the go, so they are unfalsifiable.

[frezal]

In what way is the alien theory complete and falsifiable? We know as much about alien invaders as we do about ghosts, time travelers, gods, and vegetable monsters.

In what way is the Jesus theory complete and falsifiable? Jesus wasn't known to fly (unless you count his rise to heaven, wherever that is), nor was he known for kicking people in the balls. If he doesn't match what we know of Jesus, then he's not Jesus (even if that's his name).

A big problem with relying on what you saw is how easy it is to be deceived or to miss something. Magicians make their living by taking advantage of this.



Based on the visual evidence, Penn and Teller caught each other's bullets in their mouths. Which is more likely: They're gods with super teeth --or-- Trickery was involved?

[123savethewhales]

And likewise you can trick each and every one of your senses, so all your knowledge can be a lie.

This is a fundamental problem with experience and it's existence does not make one interpretation better then another on it's own.  You see them "bite the bullet", here though you can reject superpower because you know Penn and Teller are human.  You also know they are magicians.  So you have more then enough reference points.

However, if I don't know they are human or magicians, then the assumption of super teeth will be just as neutral as trickery.  As I would not know their physical limits.

[090901]

I love how Garvin is trying to act like a badass.

Never heard that one before. Thx

BOT for a second after some research agnostic sounds pretty good to me.

But Garvin seriously it's 1:57 A.M. and I'm really beyond caring what I say to you

Where do you live? Wait... What are you doing up at 1:57?  Anyway later. My shows on.

1:57 am isn't that late.

[Scourge of teh Galaxy]

Here you can just talk about religion in general and what your personal beliefs are.

"Am I Catholic? Or Protestant? God I don't know..."