MCalavera
Phoenix
Joined: Dec 16, 2010
Age: 30
Posts: 3963
Location: Melbourne
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 Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:24 pm Post subject: |
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| 1062651stAvenue wrote: | | MCalavera wrote: | I don't talk about cars to my hair stylist either. In fact, I don't even talk about cars much to anyone.
I do love discussing the flaws of religion, though. Can't stop me from doing so. |
Oh yes, just like Herod in the gospels. He listened to John the Baptist, even though he'd thrown him into prison. Are you a Herodian, Mr Calavera? And I read in your posts that you used to be a Christian: is this why you like slamming the likes of me?
You don't get any more fanatical and evangelical anti-smoker than an ex-smoker...... |
Are you kidding me? You think being blunt and honest is slamming you and acting like a Herodian? |
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Vigilans
Orgasm Donor
Joined: Jun 20, 2008
Age: 24
Posts: 12091
Location: La belle province
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:33 pm Post subject: Re: free will and atheism |
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| 1062651stAvenue wrote: | | Look, as far as the condescending bullshit goes, I think we see a lot more from the atheists on this forum than from the Christian apologists. I just thought I'd lay out what I see as your subconcious motivation - and risk your anger. Of course I might be wrong, and, I even sort of got told off by Shrox! |
That depends, you guys tend to see any disagreement as an insult or disrespect. Most of the atheists here are rather polite, they just get frustrated arguing with people incapable of logical deduction
Its best that you don't make assumptions about my motivations, since you have no basis to make these assumptions. All you need to know is I have been a lifelong pragmatic atheist, I never "abandoned" faith, so don't make the mistake of thinking I "abandoned" anything or have "subconscious motivation" for thinking the way I do.
It is highly condescending, for example, when theists claim they are just trying to "save" people by forcing their doctrine on them
| 1062651stAvenue wrote: | | Can you go into more detail about what you mean when you say "the actions of stupid people in the name of something that doesn't exist"? Is someone coming up to you and saying "YOU must do this action because the "sky fairy" has come to me and told me to tell you that you have to do it". Is that it, or is it a point about lifestyle? Say me (or any God-believer) has an ordinary life, which involves going to a church, synagogue, or mosque; does this in your opinion make the rest of their life stupid? Or are you talking about, say, David Koresh and his Branch Davidians who exegeted their way into a gun battle with the FBI? I think these episodes are best avoided, and I'll talk about the LRA later. |
Well, people certainly do say things like that. In this thread for example, cw10 has gone on about his prejudice in thinking atheists have no moral framework because they "don't believe in anything". Lots of Christians act this way. I get tired of people calling me immoral when often times I am a better person than they are. I get annoyed by religious people forcing their doctrine on the rest of society, or by the fact that they by default consider themselves better than I and others who don't think like them, because they are destined to eternal paradise.
Having religion in one's life does not make the rest of their life stupid
| 1062651stAvenue wrote: | | Every Christian has their doubts. Mother Theresa talks about her doubts in interviews, Cardinal Basil Hume talked about his doubts, and each Christian I know who serves others seem to get doubts. I do too, it seems to go with the territory. If you think I've decided what is true before, I can only say this is not the case. And I don't wish to aplogise for putting my case with confidence, as I don't think this serves anyone. Nelson Mandela said "The world is not served by (you) playing it small" |
Ultimately their faith beats their doubt and reason though. Religion/theism is absolute certainty, despite whatever platitudes may be said on its behalf
| 1062651stAvenue wrote: | | The point I'm trying to make is much simpler than you are making it out here. Firstly, you asked me a question, "what is it that atheists do that causes you so much consternation?" There's my answer, boss, no problem with that is there? Look at them, they're athiests and they're killing innocent people, damn them all. And the point I'm making is a kind of tongue in cheek one: if they'd actually gone to work in the garden on their days off, or became Christians, perhaps they wouldn't have given orders that resulted in the slaughter of so many people. But the serious point is, you atheists have no OBJECTIVE reason not to prefer Nazi morality to Christian morality. I'm with William Lane Craig on this one - you have nothing but evolutionary and functional reasons for whatever morality you say you have. The question is how to ground the objectivity of moral truths without reference to God, not whether moral truths can be known without believing in God or whether it’s possible to behave morally without believing in God. The point is neither epistemic nor behavioral, but ontological. Care to respond? |
That bolded statement is a big problem for me. You should keep in mind most Nazis and Fascists were Christians... Your assertion that "God" is somehow the ground needed for moral truth is blatantly false, if it were true, Christians would be infallibly good, which is clearly not the case; believing in God has *not* stopped millions of believers from acting immoral or even perpetrating acts of great evil and suffering. Belief in God is no more necessary for moral principles than *not* believing in God. Does that make sense to you?
| 1062651stAvenue wrote: | | I don't know the basis used by the LRA claim an attempt to build a Christian theocracy, or why they need to use force to pursue their claims. It is a very convenient claim, but I can only say what I did before. The acid test of what makes a Christian a Christian is whether they love their enemies. The Lord's Resistance Army should try that, not bullets. Or using child soldiers. I would freely condemn their actions as terrorist actions. |
Well clearly they are terrorists, but they are also evidently utilizing the same God as you for their moral groundwork. So how come they are not a moral person like you, and instead immoral and evil like me? 
| 1062651stAvenue wrote: | | However, his ideas have taken a long time to debunk. His ideas about the dictatorship of the proletariat completely ignores the fact that most revolutions are started by middle class people. LOOK AROUND YOU! The Arab spring continues in being mostly because middle class people decided enough was enough, although presumably they have the most to gain by by maintaining the status quo. Marx's ideas about alienation and explotation of the workers when seems to create unrest where there's none. |
You need to realize the concept of "Middle class" was not exactly existent as we know it at the time. At that time, industry was a new thing, and new social trends were still appearing. However the actual Communist revolutions that have occurred generally occurred in nations without substantial middle class. Because a Communist revolution requires working class people to fit that definition. The "Arab Spring" is fundamentally different.
Alienation and exploitation of the new industrial working class existed before Marx, which is why his works were almost an inevitability... Not the other way around
| 1062651stAvenue wrote: | | Many thanks for the reply you gave. |
Thank you for at least cutting back on being condescending, there is no reason for us to be rude to each other
_________________
Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -Sun Tzu
Nature creates few men brave, industry and training makes many -Machiavelli
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do |
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MCalavera
Phoenix
Joined: Dec 16, 2010
Age: 30
Posts: 3963
Location: Melbourne
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 4:43 pm Post subject: Re: Free-will and Atheism |
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| heavenlyabyss wrote: | | The idea of hard determinism does not sit right with me but if you can give some scientific reason for why I should believe it, I might change my mind. |
Do you need a scientific reason for why we should believe there are no souls? Of course not.
Same with free will. |
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Oodain
big chief wulla bamboom alakaway
Joined: Jan 31, 2011
Age: 23
Posts: 5022
Location: in my own little tamarillo jungle,
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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| Declension wrote: | | NarcissusSavage wrote: | | I will out of necessity of communication sometimes speak as if I am certain of something, but even then I'm not completely certain of it. It's just practical to do so. Belief is silly, in my opinion, possibly even delusional. |
First, I think that usually when people say that they believe something, all of these quibbles are already included in their use of the word "believe". So maybe you're not really being more careful than anyone else, you're just labouring the point more.
Second, there are some things that you are completely certain about, such as that you exist and can make choices.
| Oodain wrote: | | you say that science cannot be more reliable than perception itself, yet it is blatantly obvious that all science is, is a way to improve upon our perceptive abilities through systematic observation and comparrison of those observations. |
How do you know that it is "blatantly obvious"? Didn't you come to the conclusion that it is blatantly obvious by using your perceptions?
| Oodain wrote: | | you also say you can prove you can make a choice, please do, in a peer reviewable manner, |
I don't say that I can prove I can make choices. I say that I know that I can make choices.
| Oodain wrote: | | to be honest i dont even know how anyone cant see that human perception has obvious limitations |
What would we use to see such a thing? Our perceptions, of course!
| Tazdio wrote: | | You're sounding more & more 91-ish |
Yes, that's not a coincidence. I am trying on different worldviews to see if I can find one that doesn't have holes in it. I am not a very original person, I just steal things. 
| Tazdio wrote: | | but the "you know" part fails because the "knowing" happens after the actions acting out the "choice": |
I don't see it like that. It's not just that I remember making choices, and assume that I can make choices by induction. It's more than that. I know that I can make choices, as an essential property of the sort of thing that I am, call it an agent, a person, whatever. The ability to make choices is one of the preconditions of my existence. |
and all of that is meaningless unless i verify those observations with others,
when you read about many of the finest scientific thinkers the world has seen they all hold one thing in the front of their mind, their own fallibility.
you can decide to make it a black and white question but its not,
some things we verify with others through our entire lives and when we reach adulthood we take them for truths, many of those truths can later turn out to be wrong (many myths fall in this category, cramps when swimming after eating)
it only takes a short review of the countless perception experiments that have been done to show that there is at least some deterministic behavior(one of the reasons magic tricks work, they are basically tricks of perception, some tricks only work because our perception is inherently flawed (the ball going upwards is created in the brain visually where in fact the magician still has the ball in their hand, even they dont know why but it works)
also i am not arguing either for or against hard determinism, only that to say we can objectively prove either in any rational way we first need to know the physical basis of our thought process, something we havent quite gotten to yet.
also you keep saying you know you can make choices, how?
short of viewing multiple timelines that is kinda impossible, you only know you think you have choices.
_________________
//through chaos comes complexity//
the scent of the tamarillo is pungent and powerfull,
woe be to the nose who nears it.
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shrox
Phoenix
Joined: Aug 12, 2011
Posts: 3254
Location: OK let's go.
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 6:12 pm Post subject: Re: Free-will and Atheism |
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| MCalavera wrote: | | heavenlyabyss wrote: | | The idea of hard determinism does not sit right with me but if you can give some scientific reason for why I should believe it, I might change my mind. |
Do you need a scientific reason for why we should believe there are no souls? Of course not.
Same with free will. |
I don't believe humans have "souls", as in some essence that outlives us. |
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Tadzio
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 03, 2009
Age: 60
Posts: 877
Location: Banned-4-Epilepsy, USA
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 6:17 pm Post subject: No Torch Fuel Left??? |
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| shrox wrote: | | This thread is boring now!!!! |
Hi shrox,
When the enraging of the hordes quits having a beneficial response rate to churches, religions often quickly return to being mostly "boring" repetition from dusty books, since the defense of "How could a dusty book inspire the Crusades?" usually is taken as at least passive innocence.
("John Cornwell has revisited this seminal work of history with a new introduction that both answers his critics and reaffirms his overall thesis that Pius XII, now scheduled to be canonized by the Vatican, weakened the Catholic Church with his endorsement of Hitler?and sealed the fate of the Jews in Europe.").
Tadzio |
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shrox
Phoenix
Joined: Aug 12, 2011
Posts: 3254
Location: OK let's go.
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 6:23 pm Post subject: Re: No Torch Fuel Left??? |
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| Tadzio wrote: | | shrox wrote: | | This thread is boring now!!!! |
Hi shrox,
When the enraging of the hordes quits having a beneficial response rate to churches, religions often quickly return to being mostly "boring" repetition from dusty books, since the defense of "How could a dusty book inspire the Crusades?" usually is taken as at least passive innocence.
("John Cornwell has revisited this seminal work of history with a new introduction that both answers his critics and reaffirms his overall thesis that Pius XII, now scheduled to be canonized by the Vatican, weakened the Catholic Church with his endorsement of Hitler?and sealed the fate of the Jews in Europe.").
Tadzio |
Yes, good thing I am not Catholic. I don't like fish much anyway. |
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Lord_Gareth
Velociraptor
Joined: Feb 21, 2012
Posts: 440
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 7:57 pm Post subject: Re: free will and atheism |
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| 1062651stAvenue wrote: | | The point I'm trying to make is much simpler than you are making it out here. Firstly, you asked me a question, "what is it that atheists do that causes you so much consternation?" There's my answer, boss, no problem with that is there? Look at them, they're atheists and they're killing innocent people, damn them all. And the point I'm making is a kind of tongue in cheek one: if they'd actually gone to work in the garden on their days off, or became Christians, perhaps they wouldn't have given orders that resulted in the slaughter of so many people. But the serious point is, you atheists have no OBJECTIVE reason not to prefer Nazi morality to Christian morality. I'm with William Lane Craig on this one - you have nothing but evolutionary and functional reasons for whatever morality you say you have. The question is how to ground the objectivity of moral truths without reference to God, not whether moral truths can be known without believing in God or whether it’s possible to behave morally without believing in God. The point is neither epistemic nor behavioral, but ontological. Care to respond? |
This section of your quote, it makes me laugh, and it makes me cry. There's plenty of objective reasons not to prefer Nazi morality to Christian morality that don't have to involve God at all. Just because Hitler had a functioning system doesn't mean he had a good one, and in particular genocide has this tendency to eat up resources, time, and personnel that could be spent doing anything else. Even from a purely selfish perspective, crimes like mass murder, genocide, and wanton arson/destruction of property involve so much work (even at the bare minimum) that there's almost always some other viable solution, most of which are non-violent. Maniacs like Hitler and Stalin are cancers that harm the societies they build around themselves, normally through madness, and their insanity would've been the same regardless of the presence of any particular faith - their reasons would've been the only thing that changed.
As far as only having evolutionary and functional reasons for morality, I submit this counter-question - why is this a bad thing? |
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Declension
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 21, 2012
Posts: 1652
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Oodain wrote: | also you keep saying you know you can make choices, how?
short of viewing multiple timelines that is kinda impossible, you only know you think you have choices. |
I know that I can make choices just like I know that I exist. It's the sort of thing that cannot be false, or it would lead to absurdity.
I am completely willing to concede that someone who is monitoring my brain might be able to predict my choices with perfect accuracy. But that doesn't mean that I don't make choices.
We need to distinguish between hard determinism and soft determinism. Soft determinism says that my choices can in principle be perfectly predicted using knowledge of physics and knowledge of the present state of the universe. This might be true, although at the moment it seems doubtful since quantum conspiracies might be truly random and might occasionally affect my choices, and because certain information might not be able to be attained, even in principle. Hard determinism says that my choices can in principle be perfectly predicted using using knowledge of physics and knowledge of the present state of the universe, and that this means that I don't really make choices. This is nonsense. When you explain how something happened, it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. |
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MCalavera
Phoenix
Joined: Dec 16, 2010
Age: 30
Posts: 3963
Location: Melbourne
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Declension wrote: | | Oodain wrote: | also you keep saying you know you can make choices, how?
short of viewing multiple timelines that is kinda impossible, you only know you think you have choices. |
I know that I can make choices just like I know that I exist. It's the sort of thing that cannot be false, or it would lead to absurdity.
I am completely willing to concede that someone who is monitoring my brain might be able to predict my choices with perfect accuracy. But that doesn't mean that I don't make choices.
We need to distinguish between hard determinism and soft determinism. Soft determinism says that my choices can in principle be perfectly predicted using physics. This might be true, although at the moment it seems doubtful since quantum conspiracies might be truly random and might occasionally affect my choices. Hard determinism says that my choices can in principle be perfectly predicted using physics, and that this means that I don't really make choices. This is nonsense. When you explain how something happened, it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. |
When you're doing the process of choosing, it's only counted as "choosing" because your brain is "searching" for the best idea for you based on the "code" in your brain ... which is based on a combination of genetics and past experiences and current knowledge and other factors.
If no other factor suddenly hinders you from then following what your brain suggests and making that particular "choice", then that is what you end up "choosing". Otherwise, you'll end up "choosing" what that other factor demands you to "choose". |
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Declension
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 21, 2012
Posts: 1652
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 8:18 pm Post subject: |
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| MCalavera wrote: | When you're doing the process of choosing, it's only counted as "choosing" because your brain is "searching" for the best idea for you based on the "code" in your brain ... which is based on a combination of genetics and past experiences and current knowledge and other factors.
If no other factor suddenly hinders you from then following what your brain suggests and making that particular "choice", then that is what you end up "choosing". Otherwise, you'll end up "choosing" what that other factor demands you to "choose". |
I agree that everything you just said might be true. And I think that, if it is true, it supports my claim that I can make choices. You're talking about the physical process that corresponds to my subjective experience of making choices. You're talking about how I make choices. If you're talking about how I make choices, then you have already conceded that I do make choices!
I think that hard determinists, just like creationists, use the word "just" too much, and it ends up confusing them. Let me explain what I mean.
A creationist will say something like:
| Quote: | | But if evolution is true, then we are just a bunch of atoms! |
The correct answer is: yes, you are a bunch of atoms. But you are not "just" a bunch of atoms. You still have all the properties that you think you have.
A hard determinist will say something like:
| Quote: | | But if determinism is true, then our choices are just the result of physics! |
The correct answer is: yes, your choices are the result of physics. But your choices are not "just" the result of physics. Your choices still have all the properties that you think they do. |
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MCalavera
Phoenix
Joined: Dec 16, 2010
Age: 30
Posts: 3963
Location: Melbourne
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 9:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Aside from physics, what are they also the result of? |
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Declension
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 21, 2012
Posts: 1652
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| Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2012 11:16 pm Post subject: |
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| MCalavera wrote: | | Aside from physics, what are they also the result of? |
Nothing. When I say that my choices are not "just" the result of physics, what I am saying is that them being the result of physics does not remove essential properties from them.
The implication of the word "just" is that choices are not like what believers in free will claim they are like, since they are actually caused by physics. But I claim that choices are exactly what believers in free will think they are, even though they are caused by physics.
Put it this way. Say you met someone who believes in free will, me for example. What exactly am I wrong about? Can you specify how the universe actually is, and how I think the universe is, and explain how they are different?
Do I claim that my experiences do not influence my choices? Of course not! The whole point of choices are that they are influenced by our experiences. Well, determinism simply explains how this works.
Do I claim that my choices cannot be predicted? Of course not! If you know me well enough, you can predict my choices. If you are scanning my brain, then it's even easier!
Do I claim that after I make a choice, I can legitimately say that I could have acted otherwise? Yes, I do. But this has a nice interpretation within the framework of determinism. What I am saying is: either A or B could have happened, and the only deciding factor was what was going on inside my brain. |
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Oodain
big chief wulla bamboom alakaway
Joined: Jan 31, 2011
Age: 23
Posts: 5022
Location: in my own little tamarillo jungle,
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| Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:01 am Post subject: |
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that is what i mean when i say we dont even know what choices are yet.
also what goes on in your braiins is as much physics as anything else, we cannot predict if that removes anything from them as such untill we know excactly what thought is.
_________________
//through chaos comes complexity//
the scent of the tamarillo is pungent and powerfull,
woe be to the nose who nears it.
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cw10
Phoenix
Joined: May 24, 2011
Age: 40
Posts: 973
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| Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2012 3:57 am Post subject: |
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| Vigilans wrote: | More insults... You're a 38 year old man? Are you sure about that?
I think its about time the mods had a word with you |
Well you did finally stop arguing about it. Sometimes one needs to slam down the gauntlet no matter the consequence. You know why Chinese master slap you in face? To push in the lesson. |
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