On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:56:24 +0100, andrel wrote:

>  First you
> don't know for sure that Jim is completely heterosexual, 

Well, *I*'m sure about that. :-)

> second these
> women (and his boss) might have free will too (assuming such a thing
> exists  ). This might be perceived as slightly sexist.

Actually, my boss, my boss' boss, and my boss' boss' boss, are all female.

Jim

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On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:36:44 -0500, nemesis wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:22:20 -0500, nemesis wrote:
>> > free will?!  Do you live in a palace?  Do you have several women?  Do
>> > you have a PS3, a home theather with 42' HDTV and Dolby Digital?  Do
>> > you kill your boss when you're fed up?  neither do I...
>>
>> I have the things that I need in order to be happy, and I control my
>> own destiny.  That's not about where you live or the stuff you have.  I
>> am free to make my own decisions, and I am also free to live with the
>> consequences of those decisions.
> 
> me too!  My point is that you don't need to go to extremes in order to
> shout: "I am free!"

Um, I'm not, I'm simply saying that if you want to spend time praying for 
someone's soul, pray for the souls of those who appreciate the effort and 
for whom it has meaning.

Assuming the soul does exist, I consider it to be quite presumptuous to 
assume that because I don't believe the same as you do, my soul needs to 
be saved, and that you're the right person to be asking whatever deity 
you believe in for my eternal salvation.  For one thing, that assumes 
that your deity is the one that I would believe in "if I knew better"; 
that in turn presumes to be telling me what I should believe in, and, no 
offense, but you've no idea what's right for me in that department.

Tell you what, you can pray for my soul if you will permit me to do a 
tarot reading to tell us if you're right to do so.  I have honestly found 
tarot to be something useful as a tool for me; however, I would never do 
a reading for someone without their permission (and under most normal 
circumstances, I wouldn't even do so WITH their permission, because I 
personally don't think that's a proper use of the tool).

In other words, I'll trade you a ritual you're comfortable with and I'm 
not for one I'm comfortable with that you're not.  If you are comfortable 
with tarot, then let's find one you're not comfortable with and I'll use 
that instead.

Then you'll have an idea of what it's like to be on the receiving end of 
"spiritual" guidance that is unwelcome and unwanted.  Fair enough?

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> Then you'll have an idea of what it's like to be on the receiving end of
> "spiritual" guidance that is unwelcome and unwanted.  Fair enough?

geez!  If you wanted to get a "fuck you!" instead of "bless you" you could've
asked for it from the beginning.  what a fucked up world!

BTW, I'm ok with tarot or other oracles, like astrology or the I-Ching.  I don't
think it's satan at work, just the correlation of all things and personal
interpretation by means of a few man-made rules... they just present you paths,
you decide your way.

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Grassblade wrote:
> Christianism is based on a dogma: God exists. All the rest is logically
> gleaned from the Bible. 

Actually, I think you need more than just "God exists" as a premise to 
deduce Christianity. You need something like "God exists, he's the only 
one, he created the world and humanity, he actively intervenes and cares 
what you think of him, he's the one substantially as described in the 
bible," etc etc etc.


-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 12:46:46 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Not so much that they're too unlikely, but that they are vague enough
>>> as to take anything that fits the criteria and say "well, it happened,
>>> so therefore it wasn't improbable enough".  See the difference?
>> That's what science is for. And statistics. Generally speaking, it's
>> *possible* quantum particles could randomly come into existence in the
>> shape of a living, breathing Jesus. Unlikely enough I'd attribute it to
>> something else, tho.
> 
> Exactly; because your belief is that such a thing is unlikely, so there 
> must be a rational (within your frame of reference) explanation for it 
> that you're just not seeing.

I don't think you're reading what I'm writing. Isn't it *your* belief 
that Jesus will be reincarnated by random fluctuations of the quantum 
foam is rather unlikely?

Were it to happen, I'd think it more likely God made it happen than that 
it was just random.

> So if something were to occur that you couldn't put a scientific 
> explanation to, you'd accept that your view was wrong that there isn't a 
> god?  I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here...

That's basically what I'm saying, yes. And it's not just "we don't know 
how it happened", but "we know it can't possibly happen".

> For you or me, sure.  But you and I don't have the monopoly on 
> perspectives that make sense to people, either.  Maybe God told them that 
> the perception was right; 

I have no problem with that. Just because it's irrational doesn't mean 
it's *bad*.

> Well, true enough - because the event already happened.  But the 
> statistical likelihood of it happening prior to actually happening is 
> what I was referring to.

The statistical likelihood of me rolling 3 6 4 5 1 3 4 2 3 on a die is 
identical to me rolling 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 on a die. You can't look at 
the thing after the fact and say "it was unlikely", because you're 
ignoring all the *other* unlikely things that didn't happen. No volcano 
opened up in San Francisco, nor did the Las Vegas strip flood. But you'd 
be laughed at if you tried to use those non-events to prove the 
non-existence of God.

> Exactly.  Which is why an event or series of events that have happened 
> (as opposed to "if they do happen") is unlikely to prove that God exists 
> to anyone - because if they do happen, then they were statistically 
> likely to happen and all the information necessary to make that 
> determination just wasn't in yet.

Unless someone predicts it *specifically* in advance.

>>> Agreed, because belief isn't logical.  Otherwise, it wouldn't be
>>> belief, it'd be fact-based.
>> Well, it isn't (in my experience) logical, but it's also not scientific.
>> The two are somewhat different.
> 
> Somewhat different, but strongly related.

Well, the logic rules we use are scientifically supported, and science 
seems to continue to obey the laws of logic.

If modus ponens didn't work, we wouldn't use it. Since begging the 
question doesn't work, we don't use it.

>> If you like that sort of stuff, read some Greg Egan works. I'd recommend
>> Permutation City for a start, or his Axiomatic short-story collection.
> 
> I'll add that to my list as well.  :-)

"Permutation City" explores the nature of reality and its relationship 
to self. "Quarantine" explores free will. "Disporia" defines 
self-awareness/conciousness in the first dozen pages or so, but I'd have 
to read it again to appreciate it more - read the first chapter or two 
in the bookstore if you like. "Axiomatic" is a collection of short 
stories exploring, well, axiomaticity, if there is such a word. 
"Distress" is about the relationship of love and knowledge and reality, 
sorta.

I see he has more stuff out that I'll have to buy. Cool.

(I found Teranesia very disappointing, and Schild's Ladder interesting 
but not amazing, fwiw.)

> LOL, now *that* made me laugh out loud.

Yeah, when you've studied and thought about these subjects for a couple 
decades, it's not hard to laugh out loud at the stuff people regurgitate 
because they've been told it by their spiritual leaders.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> But something that keeps time accurately that you can wear on your 
> wrist?  Surely there aren't forests where those sorts of things grow on 
> trees. :-)

Only because it's easier to design than grow. "Something you eat, and it 
cures an infection? And it just showed up on bread? A miracle!"

> Yeah, it probably isn't exactly it, I think it's probably not something 
> those of deep religious faith put a lot of thought into. 

Yeah, exactly.

> I know some who 
> do, of course, but I think a larger percentage believe that all that can 
> be known is known, in spite of evidence to the contrary.

And those who *do* know the depths of science realize it's not 
incompatible with faith in the supernatural.

> I don't think there's any serious disagreement in the US that 
> math and science scores are down in schools.

I've seen such.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Grassblade wrote:
>> Yeah, its called chance. If you want to imply otherwise you first have
>> to provide evidence that divine intervention was needed to make that
>> happen, not human action.

> Yeah, right. Now you're asking for God as testable hypothesis.

No. Read closer: "Not human" != "God". There are multiple reasons this 
could happen: JHVJ, chance, aliens, Zeus. Patrick and you seem to agree 
it's not human. But your only other explanation is "God", which you need 
to support, as there are more things in heaven and earth than God and 
Human. If you'll forgive the irresistible phrasing. ;-)  If you assert 
that anything inexplicable and unlikely must be the work of God, you'll 
have to show how you came to that conclusion. You *don't* really have to 
show how you came to the conclusion that it wasn't humans guiding the 
process.

The religious stance of "if we can't explain it, it must be God" isn't 
valid logic.

> Really? So language cannot prove itself, can it? 

That statement doesn't even make sense. Or, if it does, you'll have to 
clarify what you're asking.

> Therefore let's burn dictionaries. 

Dictionaries don't prove anything.

> And math? Can it prove itself? 

No.

On the other hand, if you postulated the existence of God as a 
mathematical premise, nobody would be arguing with you. Nobody bashes 
religion because Decartes' "evil deceiver" doesn't really exist.

> So let's add math books to the pile. 

(clip snarky comment about how much religious people like burning books 
about science and math... ;-)

> Considering Science is based on published papers, that consist of math
> and (usually English) commentaries, I think you just killed Science.

It's not that "language" can't prove itself. It's that a statement can't 
assert that it itself is true and logically therefore prove it is true.

Neither science nor math attempts to prove themselves true "because we 
said so".

OK, so Math says "assume X. Therefore Y is true." But everyone who knows 
anything about the topic understands that the second statement means "Y 
is true logically within a framework that assumes X is true and which 
assumes the logical rules we used for getting from X to Y is true." Math 
doesn't attempt to prove that Y is true in the real world because you 
assumed X is true in your logical system.

Don't you know this stuff? Why are you trying to disprove math works, if 
you don't know how math works?

>> And even if you prove times and places, which it invariably fails at,
>> your argument that God was involved in it is based ***solely*** on the
>> presupposition that because a lot of people believe in your God, this
>> validates the idea that *he* was involved somehow. Its argument via
>> popularity, not evidence.

> Ever heard of peer review? It works on popularity among peers.

No it doesn't. Have you ever published a paper in a peer-reviewed 
journal? Have you ever reviewed a peer-reviewed paper? I have maybe half 
a dozen publications, and reviewed dozens more. It has *nothing* to do 
with popularity. Indeed, people organizing peer reviews go *out of their 
way* to make sure the people doing the reviews don't know *who* they are 
reviewing.

Another one of those possibly-true logical systems (popularity -> truth) 
that turns out not to work scientifically. That's why it's called 
"Doctor of Philosophy", you see. Think about it.

That you don't know this tells me you're talking out your butt when it 
comes to science, and that you understand it as little as you think 
atheists understand your religion.

> Man, if you're
> trying to take science out of the picture you're doing a good job. <_<

Only to those who are ignorant of science, apparently.

And it's *still* the case that lack of science doesn't prove your God is 
right.

> I seriously doubt that Buddhism is second. Islam allows four wives, BTW. Kind of
> an unfair advantage. ;-)

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

A trivial google search turns up at least some information. Note that 
atheism is third.

On the other hand,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion#Demographics
gives a completely different order to the list, off by orders of 
magnitude, so obviously this isn't easily measurable.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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Grassblade wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> nemesis wrote:
>>> war, assassination, threats and torture are not the teachings of Jesus or any
>>> other religious leaders AFAIK.
>> Doesn't Moses count?  You know, Numbers 31? Or was that genocide an
>> allegory too?
> Of course it counts, but he did mention Jesus did he not? Moses is about a
> couple of millenia earlier.

He mentioned "or any other religious leaders." I'd put Moses down as a 
religious leader, yes?

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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nemesis wrote:
> I was not comparing JHVH to Ra, Zeus or anything.  Just stating that, regardless
> of the different divine personas the pagans applied to represent the forces of
> nature, the one true God is the one who really rules over the many different
> forces of nature.

So, the satanists are really worshiping the same God that you do? As 
well as the Mayans doing human sacrifice?

Wow, the hubris of this statement continues to amaze me.  "No, the 
problem is you just don't *understand* that you're really worshiping 
*my* God, even if you don't think so."

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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nemesis wrote:
> I can't "save" you.  Just ask for it.

Why do I need to ask for it? I'm baptised.

>> If there is a God, then he understands what I'm about, and he will
>> forgive me for living as he intended - with free will.
> 
> free will?!  Do you live in a palace?  Do you have several women?  Do you have a
> PS3, a home theather with 42' HDTV and Dolby Digital?  Do you kill your boss
> when you're fed up?  neither do I...

You don't understand what Free Will means, do you?  Or are you implying 
that somehow atheists *don't* have free will? I'm confused.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

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