Christianity

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uwot
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Re: Christianity

Post by uwot »

Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:15 amA Nothing can't prove itself as nothing and yet one can't go to the extreme of thinking one knows for sure about anything without proof...meaning a minuscule possibility always floats to the surface followed by an equally low expectation it could ever be different. It's a way of logic finalizing itself to accept and retreat before the unknowable.
I have no idea how to calculate the odds of a god existing. Off the top of my head, they're about the same as a universe existing.
Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:15 am- There is nothing in science which requires that concept to explain anything. It's a completely useless idea except in its historical context, i.e., how that belief manifested itself through history.
Well it's useless in the sense that if a god exists we wouldn't be able to control it.
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Re: Christianity

Post by Dubious »

Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:15 amA Nothing can't prove itself as nothing and yet one can't go to the extreme of thinking one knows for sure about anything without proof...meaning a minuscule possibility always floats to the surface followed by an equally low expectation it could ever be different. It's a way of logic finalizing itself to accept and retreat before the unknowable.
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 6:02 amI have no idea how to calculate the odds of a god existing. Off the top of my head, they're about the same as a universe existing.
Trying to calculate the probability for god’s existence is at best a fool’s game. However, since the universe does exist, and possibly many more, your statement gives credence to a high probability of a Grand Architect being responsible for it all.
Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:15 am- There is nothing in science which requires that concept to explain anything. It's a completely useless idea except in its historical context, i.e., how that belief manifested itself through history.
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 6:02 amWell it's useless in the sense that if a god exists we wouldn't be able to control it.
Same coin. Two sides. One with and one without god. A coin-toss will yield the same result. The point was, in case you missed it, god doesn’t explain anything, existing or not. Same scenario which makes god a write-off. De facto or merely hypothetical, the conclusion remains the same.
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Re: Christianity

Post by attofishpi »

Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 7:44 am
Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:15 amA Nothing can't prove itself as nothing and yet one can't go to the extreme of thinking one knows for sure about anything without proof...meaning a minuscule possibility always floats to the surface followed by an equally low expectation it could ever be different. It's a way of logic finalizing itself to accept and retreat before the unknowable.
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 6:02 amI have no idea how to calculate the odds of a god existing. Off the top of my head, they're about the same as a universe existing.
Trying to calculate the probability for god’s existence is at best a fool’s game. However, since the universe does exist, and possibly many more, your statement gives credence to a high probability of a Grand Architect being responsible for it all.
Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:15 am- There is nothing in science which requires that concept to explain anything. It's a completely useless idea except in its historical context, i.e., how that belief manifested itself through history.
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 6:02 amWell it's useless in the sense that if a god exists we wouldn't be able to control it.
Same coin. Two sides. One with and one without god. A coin-toss will yield the same result. The point was, in case you missed it, god doesn’t explain anything, existing or not. Same scenario which makes god a write-off. De facto or merely hypothetical, the conclusion remains the same.
What's your conclusion?
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Re: Christianity

Post by uwot »

Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 7:44 amTrying to calculate the probability for god’s existence is at best a fool’s game. However, since the universe does exist, and possibly many more, your statement gives credence to a high probability of a Grand Architect being responsible for it all.
Depends what you mean by high.
Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 7:44 am
Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:15 am- There is nothing in science which requires that concept to explain anything. It's a completely useless idea except in its historical context, i.e., how that belief manifested itself through history.
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 6:02 amWell it's useless in the sense that if a god exists we wouldn't be able to control it.
Same coin. Two sides. One with and one without god. A coin-toss will yield the same result. The point was, in case you missed it, god doesn’t explain anything, existing or not.
I completely agree.
Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 7:44 amSame scenario which makes god a write-off. De facto or merely hypothetical, the conclusion remains the same.
Being scientifically useless is not the same as not existing. I don't happen to believe in god, but I think we can safely put the odds of any god existing exactly as any scripture claims at close to zero.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:39 amNietzsche, like everyone else, was a product of his time. He took the theory of evolution, applied it to the future and predicted that some super man will evolve.
The way I interpret you, to the degree that I can fairly do this on an Internet forum, is to focus on really stupid statements like this one quoted. It is an obviously bad rendition of one of the most relevant ideas Nietzsche worked with. You mangled it. You have forced a reduction on a far more complex and involved idea -- far more thoughtful and compelling -- and thusly done a disservice to it. If you said to me "I read Nietzsche" I would be forced to doubt you. And if you did read him I could only say that you read him shallowly. In this -- this is what I think -- you reveal something about how your mind works. Unfortunately, it reveals a glaring limitation.

This tendency is noticeable in everything I have (bothered to) read of yours. I refer to you as a Philosophical Popinjay for this reason. You constantly preen your *feathers* in crass and vain public displays where you present yourself as an authority, and you certainly do make lots of shrill noises, but there is not a great deal of substantial thought brought out. Popinjay, braying jackass -- these are the sorts of labels that come quickly to mind. I do not want to discourage you and I hope you will keep moving forward. Yet will you not be able to move beyond this seemingly never-ending sophomoric phase?

I cannot think of one idea that contains more useful admonition than Nietzsche idea about *overcoming* ourselves. It is this notion that seems to have influenced all those who thoughtfully came to Nietzsche and carefully and closely read him. We are all constrained by limitations, we have all been informed by them, we subsist in them. It is very easy for us to notice how the people around us do this, and we can always poke at them in ridicule, but it is far harder to see how we ourselves are constrained and held back by the sorts of impositions that we impose on ourselves and far to easily and too regularly. So those who took his message to heart resolved to make an effort to break through. To ascend and transcend. The admonition worked on people operating in very different areas. And the admonition is still operating. So that is one aspect of 'self-overcoming' that seems to have flown over your head.

Another aspect -- relevant to our present conversations in my view -- is Nietzsche's assertion that some among us, if it proves to be possible, must overcome the *nihilism* he noticed as a sort of soul-killer (I use soul without a metaphysical connotation). Nihilism results from and out of the deadly clash between two epistemological systems. It is in that sense a disease. And the disease, if the metaphor is followed through, will either kill the diseased or the diseased will *overcome* the sickness. Obviously, he intensely critiqued *Christianity* as being the motherlode for nihilistic disease. And it is certainly not hard to notice how Christians and Christianity used shallow relationship as a protective barrier against a far more demanding confrontation -- with 'self', with 'declared certainty', with 'convention'. But here too, or here especially, there is a call to go to work on oneself.

Therefore, the task of *overcoming* is set before us. What is important and relevant is the degree to which this admonition can be and has been accepted by people working in very different and often unrelated areas (is anything really unrelated though?)

Did you get none of this Mr Philosophical Popinjay?!
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:39 amThat's because you haven't looked up Stephen Meyers yet. The particular premise that tickles him is that god exists; you won't find him coy about it.
Incorrect. I have looked into Meyer's personal position. But his personal position, whatever it is, does not therefore mean that the scientific position that is being explored -- all that which challenges and possibly contradicts a too-broad Darwinian theory -- is thereby invalidated. It does not take much subtlety of mind to see this. Except in your case. You demonstrate how reductionism works when it gets hold of someone.

And you also failed to notice and comment on an important point: how Marxist-Lenninist traditions of thought, or habits and tendencies of thought, have entered very strongly into our communal thought-processes. This is clearly visible all around us today and definitely in Academia. That is to say that there are all manner of different agenda that enter in, consciously and directly, and unconsciously and indirectly. (And there are people who are exploring this and trying to expose it to the light of day). This can be and should be looked at.

My view is basically not to care about what Meyers believes or does not believe at a personal level. But neither is my interest to too broadly or 'unfairly', as I say (too brusquely or precipitously) deny Darwinian theory, but simply remain open to being capable of examining a critical approach that, if true, could only expand understanding. One does not have to transform oneself into a *theist* or a Christian to examine the issue from a scientific perspective.

Though how could I not be aware that many use their pseudo-comprehension of ideas in such a way? But there is another side of this coin. And I suggest it shows itself in *people like you* who use their certainties, sometimes contrived certainties, in social and political battles as well as what we both seem, and many here seem, able to understand as epistemological battles. My view is that we must all step back a number of paces from the field of battle and better define what these differences entail.

So yes, at the present moment (if I have understood what I have read and heard correctly) the issue of mathematical probabilities that these 3 individuals focus on is a genuine focus (they offer a range of critique). This does not mean that, in my own case, I cannot or would not be able to consider that each of them operates, as seems to be the case, out of personal positions that could be biased.

But what you are trying to do -- it is obvious and evident in all that you write -- is to tear down any possibility of questioning prevailing views. What you do is brutish and grotesque. So I say "turn the lens of examination around and focus it on yourself'. And I say the same thing in regard to myself and everyone. There is more to be got from making ourselves the focus of certain trenchant enquiries -- than always being focused on what those *other people* always do which is so easy for us to notice.

And this brings us into the field of epistemological crisis where, at least, it can be talked about openly and honestly.

The notion of 'prevailing views' and also groupthink is something, especially today, that we can all focus attention on. The issue of 'manufacture of consent' and also how consensus is attained is what I am talking about (and I use the term manufacture of consent independently of Chomsky's use of it -- and anyway I think he got the notion from Walter Lippmann).
uwot
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Re: Christianity

Post by uwot »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 2:44 pm
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:39 amNietzsche, like everyone else, was a product of his time. He took the theory of evolution, applied it to the future and predicted that some super man will evolve.
The way I interpret you, to the degree that I can fairly do this on an Internet forum, is to focus on really stupid statements like this one quoted.
Bit harsh Gus. Have you nothing nice to say?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 2:44 pmIf you said to me "I read Nietzsche"...
I read Nietzsche.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 2:44 pm...I would be forced to doubt you.
Meh.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 2:44 pmAnd if you did read him I could only say that you read him shallowly.
Well, me being me, let's start with accuracy. Do you think my analysis is wrong?
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:24 pmDo you think my analysis is wrong?
Let's start with I think you blunder some of the high notes. And those are the important ones!
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Re: Christianity

Post by uwot »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:00 pm
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:39 amThat's because you haven't looked up Stephen Meyers yet. The particular premise that tickles him is that god exists; you won't find him coy about it.
Incorrect. I have looked into Meyer's personal position.
Then we know how you have spent your weekend:
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 4:49 pmIf I understand correctly I think Stephen Meyer tends to a theological position at least personally. If that is so (and I have not looked into it)...
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:00 pmBut his personal position, whatever it is...
So you haven't looked very closely.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:00 pm...does not therefore mean that the scientific position that is being explored -- all that which challenges and possibly contradicts a too-broad Darwinian theory -- is thereby invalidated.
Hey Gus, you got something right. Yes, it does not follow from the fact that Meyer is a religious nut, that everything he says is wrong. That would be ad hominem, dontcha know?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:00 pmAnd you also failed to notice and comment on an important point: how Marxist-Lenninist traditions of thought, or habits and tendencies of thought, have entered very strongly into our communal thought-processes.
I did notice but I failed to comment because it's a silly right wing trope. Marx based his material dialectic on Hegel's dialectic, which was a response to Kant's synthesis, which was provoked by his reading of Hume's embrace of empiricism and rejection of rationalism. The two ways of gaining knowledge, thinking about concepts and looking at the evidence are older even than Plato and Aristotle, going back, at least in the written tradition to the scraps we can glean from the Milesians and Eleatics. In contemporary philosophy, the names you need to know are Peter Lipton and Bas Van Fraasen.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:00 pmThis is clearly visible all around us today and definitely in Academia. That is to say that there are all manner of different agenda that enter in, consciously and directly, and unconsciously and indirectly. (And there are people who are exploring this and trying to expose it to the light of day). This can be and should be looked at.
There has never been a time in history when students have not challenged authority. It is medieval and totalitarian to suppress that.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:00 pmMy view is basically not to care about what Meyers believes or does not believe at a personal level.
Then why waste your weekend looking him up?
seeds
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Re: Christianity

Post by seeds »

Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 7:44 am The point was, in case you missed it, god doesn’t explain anything, existing or not.
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 9:05 am I completely agree.
Come on guys, it would explain lots of things.

At the very least it would explain why this vast "dream-like" illusion that we call a universe is so remarkably well "designed" that it causes two highly intelligent blokes, such as yourselves, to be fooled into thinking that it is a product of chance.

The first thing that needs to happen is that whenever you hear the word "God," you need to stop visualizing this anthropomorphic nonsense...

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uwot
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Re: Christianity

Post by uwot »

seeds wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 4:44 pm
Dubious wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 7:44 am The point was, in case you missed it, god doesn’t explain anything, existing or not.
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 9:05 am I completely agree.
Come on guys, it would explain lots of things.
Well yes, it would explain everything.
seeds wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 4:44 pmAt the very least it would explain why this vast "dream-like" illusion that we call a universe is so remarkably well "designed" that it causes two highly intelligent blokes, such as yourselves, to be fooled into thinking that it is a product of chance.
Hang on seeds, I don't think either Dubious nor myself are fooled into thinking that, rather we see it as the default starting position and that no argument nor evidence has so far made a better case.
seeds wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 4:44 pmThe first thing that needs to happen is that whenever you hear the word "God," you need to stop visualizing this anthropomorphic nonsense...
Shame on you seeds. You know I'm not that literal.
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Alexis Jacobi
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Re: Christianity

Post by Alexis Jacobi »

uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 4:11 pmThen we know how you have spent your weekend:
Note that when I wrote "I have looked into Meyer's personal position" but then said

"If I understand correctly I think Stephen Meyer tends to a theological position at least personally. If that is so (and I have not looked into it)..."

what I meant is that at the time when I examined his general perspective it was revealed that he was, and that he remained, a Christian. But how he thinks of Christianity, or how he bridges its contradictions or its insufficiencies, is what I have not looked into.
I did notice but I failed to comment because it's a silly right wing trope.
Here is another evidence of your reductionist tendency in operation. It also reveals a political and sociological impetus or tendency that I wager would work its way to the surface, and likely does, in your general thinking. So once again I suggest: Turn the lens of examination around. Focus it on yourself.

Let me correct you which means to add a good deal more important perspective.

It is true that some 'right-wing' thinkers use the Marxian assertion and critique as a too-general weapon. They may and they also may not understand Marian theory and they may and they may not understand the distinction implied by the term Marxist-Leninist. Nevertheless they use the term as a weapon, and other people, more uniformed even, also pick it up and use it. The reference loses meaning.

It is also true that using the term 'Marxism' in this way is more and more common and it has seeped into the mainstream. That much is true. But those who do this, as I am trying to point out, engage directly with the reductionism I am critiquing. It is far too easy to resort of reductionism when really far more thorough and thoughtful modes of approach are needed.

But the fact that this does happen, that people do this, does not have much bearing on the truth of the matter. And what is that truth?

I stand by the assertion that Marxist-Lenninist modes of thought, or traditions of thinking, and reductionist, politicized modes of thought that arise out of too strict binary concepts, have substantially crept into Academia. These bad modes have also crept (or swept) into culture generally and they are 'ravaging' in their effects.

This issue has been talked about at length by people on all sides of the political aisles and from very different, often opposed, political orientations. That this has happened, and that young people are being exposed to, and even in a way of speaking trained up in these modes and methods, that is a fair and necessary statement based in objective observation. It is an idea highly relevant to pedagogy.

Yet it extends far beyond pedagogic concerns when one opens oneself up to the important issue at stake -- which are cultural and also 'civilizational'. To make this statement, and to make this statement from outside of some specific and tendentious political position, means that one believes there are more proper, or more advantageous, modes of thinking that are possible.

That is my own view and the let's say ideal position I wish also to emulate.

So this is the ground from which I critique your sophomoric and often binary statements.

But look, though I may be going out on a limb here, I wonder if you have some writing that we could work on, you know, something a bit more creative and colorful -- I'll help you -- to come up with something like Wee Willy's Philosophy Hour but with a more artistic bent to it?

I was thinking along these lines . . .
uwot
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Re: Christianity

Post by uwot »

Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:12 pm
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 4:11 pmThen we know how you have spent your weekend:
Note that when I wrote "I have looked into Meyer's personal position" but then said

"If I understand correctly I think Stephen Meyer tends to a theological position at least personally. If that is so (and I have not looked into it)..."

what I meant is that at the time when I examined his general perspective it was revealed that he was, and that he remained, a Christian. But how he thinks of Christianity, or how he bridges its contradictions or its insufficiencies, is what I have not looked into.
You should read through the above, check your own chronology and see if even you believe it.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:12 pmI stand by the assertion that Marxist-Lenninist modes of thought, or traditions of thinking, and reductionist, politicized modes of thought that arise out of too strict binary concepts, have substantially crept into Academia.
You do eh? And what evidence can you provide?
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Re: Christianity

Post by seeds »

seeds wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 4:44 pmThe first thing that needs to happen is that whenever you hear the word "God," you need to stop visualizing this anthropomorphic nonsense...
uwot wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:01 pm Shame on you seeds. You know I'm not that literal.
Well, right back at you with the shame on you, uwot, me old bean. For in one breath you "completely" agreed with Dubious that God "...existing or not..." doesn't explain anything, while in the very next breath you agreed with me that God's existence "...would explain everything...".

I'm sure you didn't mean it quite the way it sounded, but I'm seeing a bit of a contradiction there, no?

Besides, when a long time ago I asked you the following question,...
seeds wrote: Sun Apr 29, 2018 12:20 am Just out of curiosity, what images rise-up in your mind when you hear the word “God”?
...you stated this...
uwot wrote: Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:02 am Beardy bloke in the clouds...
So my Sistine Chapel reference is not without a good reason.
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uwot
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Re: Christianity

Post by uwot »

seeds wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:57 pmWell, right back at you with the shame on you, uwot, me old bean. For in one breath you "completely" agreed with Dubious that God "...existing or not..." doesn't explain anything, while in the very next breath you agreed with me that God's existence "...would explain everything...".

I'm sure you didn't mean it quite the way it sounded, but I'm seeing a bit of a contradiction there, no?
Fair point. The thing is a blanket 'God done it' doesn't explain any individual phenomenon. So while god may be responsible for everything, appealing to him as the explanation for all things doesn't explain any one thing.
seeds wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:57 pmBesides, when a long time ago I asked you the following question,...
seeds wrote: Sun Apr 29, 2018 12:20 am Just out of curiosity, what images rise-up in your mind when you hear the word “God”?
...you stated this...
uwot wrote: Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:02 am Beardy bloke in the clouds...
So my Sistine Chapel reference is not without a good reason.
Ah well, that's "God" with a capital christian G. If that is how the Vatican chooses to present its "God", who am I to argue?
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