On 4/25/2011 14:24, Warp wrote:
> Certainty (which can be either positive or
> negative, so technically speaking there are actually four options).

No. "I no longer believe the sun is up" is not equivalent to "I believe the 
sun is not up." The latter would be disbelief.

I believe evolution is true. I believe I'm sitting in front of a keyboard 
right now.

Do you believe Elvis is alive?  Do you believe Elvis is dead?  Can you 
really answer no to both of those questions?  I don't think that's how a 
normal person would treat the word "believe" in everyday English. Except in 
a discussion of religion where one side or the other is intentionally trying 
to change the meanings of words in order to make it difficult to express the 
opinion with which they don't believe, in much the same way as someone will 
say "How can you not believe in God when God is Love?"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 14:10, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:09:12 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> On 4/25/2011 10:35, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:31:09 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>>
>>>> If it doesn't stop being
>>>> faith just because you're right, it doesn't stop being belief just
>>>> because you have justification for the belief.
>>>
>>> But it does stop being faith when you have knowledge that you are
>>> correct.  Faith is by definition trusting rather than knowing.
>>
>> Right. Just like you can have faith in something that turns out to be
>> true, you can have a belief in something of which you are certain.
>
> But it's not necessary - because you are certain, right?

Certainty is a measure of the strength of your belief. Your belief doesn't 
stop being a belief when you're certain, any more than a fact stops being 
true when you obtain evidence to support it.

I believe the sun is up *because* I have evidence. If I didn't have evidence 
(or I had evidence to the contrary) I would believe the sun is up because I 
have faith. I might have that faith and belief that the sun is up even if I 
was in a closed room, and regardless of whether the sun actually was above 
my horizon or not.

Belief and faith describe mental states. Those descriptions don't speak 
about the truth of the belief. The difference between belief and faith is 
not whether it's correct, but whether there's evidence available to the one 
doing the believing to support of contradict the belief or faith.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 14:16, andrel wrote:
>> That's weird to me.
> Oh no, not again!

I wasn't planning to discuss it further. I just wanted to be sure I had 
understood your objection was to a deity, rather than a particular deity 
interested in the doings of mankind.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 14:33, andrel wrote:
> Only if it is nor was at any time able to interfere in this universe. (my
> feeling is that this is correct English, my brain says 'huh, aren't you
> missing a negation', but where to put it?)

As a native english speaker, I'd say

"Only if it isn't nor ever was at any time able to interfere in this universe."

So, yeah, negate "is" as well.  I can't say I could actually express as rule 
why that's right, tho.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 2:24 PM, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>> If I open my eyes and say "I believe the sun is up already", and then I get
>> out of bed and open the curtain and it's all bright and blue sky out, would
>> you really say "I no longer believe the sun is up"?
>
>    Basically you are stating that there are only two options: Belief and
> disbelief. However, it's not a dichotomy. The third option is what you
> yourself stated in your post: Certainty (which can be either positive or
> negative, so technically speaking there are actually four options).
>
See, this is just like the argument over theory. We are going around and 
around here, over what is a trinary problem, because someone wants to 
define it as a binary one, by conflating 'certainty' with some sort of 
'belief'. It doesn't matter if certainty is a belief or not, in terms of 
internal states, what matters is that their is a clear delineation 
between what you are certain of, and to what degree you can apply such 
certainty, and what you only assume to be true.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:48:36 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/25/2011 14:10, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:09:12 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> On 4/25/2011 10:35, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 10:31:09 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> If it doesn't stop being
>>>>> faith just because you're right, it doesn't stop being belief just
>>>>> because you have justification for the belief.
>>>>
>>>> But it does stop being faith when you have knowledge that you are
>>>> correct.  Faith is by definition trusting rather than knowing.
>>>
>>> Right. Just like you can have faith in something that turns out to be
>>> true, you can have a belief in something of which you are certain.
>>
>> But it's not necessary - because you are certain, right?
> 
> Certainty is a measure of the strength of your belief. Your belief
> doesn't stop being a belief when you're certain, any more than a fact
> stops being true when you obtain evidence to support it.
> 
> I believe the sun is up *because* I have evidence. If I didn't have
> evidence (or I had evidence to the contrary) I would believe the sun is
> up because I have faith. I might have that faith and belief that the sun
> is up even if I was in a closed room, and regardless of whether the sun
> actually was above my horizon or not.
> 
> Belief and faith describe mental states. Those descriptions don't speak
> about the truth of the belief. The difference between belief and faith
> is not whether it's correct, but whether there's evidence available to
> the one doing the believing to support of contradict the belief or
> faith.

Now I'm going to have to think about this one a bit. :)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:40:37 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/25/2011 14:13, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> But if I were to describe the change in state, it would be "I no longer
>> need to believe that the sun is up - I know it is."
> 
> So if evidence obviates belief, and evidence obviates faith, what is the
> difference between the two?

Faith is less justified than belief, perhaps?  Similar concepts, but at 
different places along the scale.

>> IOW, it's not that finding out causes disbelief, it removes the need
>> for belief because it's demonstrably true.
> 
> We're just using the words differently. Knowledge is justified true
> belief. It can be demonstratively true yet not believed (a creationist
> and evolution) and it can be demonstratively true and believed (a
> scientist and evolution).

Again, going to have to give this more thought.  I *really* like 
discussions like this because they give me a chance to stretch my 
brain. :)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 4/24/2011 9:12 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I know some people in this group have trouble accepting that I am a
>> religious atheist, but that is what I think too.
>
> I can see that, but for my view, I see 'religious atheism' as being self-
> contradictory, because for me atheism has to do with rationality, and
> rationality is more or less the opposite of religion.
>
> So I find your position quite interesting, and am interested in hearing
> more. :)
>
I tend to suspect he may be describing what some might call "spiritual 
non-religious", since spiritual is more or less a state of mind, and 
perception about connections, real or otherwise, which everyone 
experiences to one degree or another, whether they use the term or not, 
where as religious.. tend to presuppose either ritual and tradition, or 
belief in the supernatural. Mind, Secular Judaism would fall under the 
category of atheist + ritual and tradition, so.. its not certain.

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 9:08 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/25/2011 4:03, andrel wrote:
>> - I don't see how I can base any ethics/morality on the existence of a
>> God.
>
> I think if the god in question has scientifically-backed evidence, it's
> unlikely to be a god that has anything to do with human ethics or morality.
>
> I.e., I'd agree with you with the god of the bible, but I can't imagine
> what form scientific evidence in support of that god might be. But there
> are lots of ways one can imagine to find the creator of the universe
> exists that hasn't anything to do with specifically creating life on
> earth or morality. For example, the "fine tuned universal constants"
> argument, if actually supported, would be evidence (not proof) of a
> creator that maybe was aiming for carbon/water based life, but saying
> nothing about Earth, morality, humans, etc.
>
Mind, it only implies carbon based life due to lack of evidence "here" 
that you could have anything else (and since dominant life tends to eat 
anything that might be different...) You could make a similar argument 
for DNA needing to be the way it is, only.. maybe not, since you can 
insert DNA that uses different coding into an animal, and have it 
replicate. Its just not certain yet if it could a) form in that 
alternate way from the start, or b) function as a genome, not just as 
non-functional insertions.

So.. More information needed before you can make a coherent claim as to 
what defines, "fined tuned to produce us", even assuming you got as far 
as, "fine tuned to produce life at a rate of 
1:254257429872394634632496234 places in it. lol

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 12:28 PM, andrel wrote:
> Thou shalt not kill. Ok, but is that in
> general or only humans?

To be clear, the term actually used in the less mangled Jewish version 
is "Murder", which specifically refers to something you do to other 
people. Mind, "people" may be a bit uncertain a term, since it can often 
be "chosen people". Or, as one person put it, "Love thy neighbor 
literally meant the person living right next door to you, not 
always/ever the one living in the next village."

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:40:37 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/25/2011 14:13, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> But if I were to describe the change in state, it would be "I no longer
>> need to believe that the sun is up - I know it is."
> 
> So if evidence obviates belief, and evidence obviates faith, what is the
> difference between the two?
> 
>> IOW, it's not that finding out causes disbelief, it removes the need
>> for belief because it's demonstrably true.
> 
> We're just using the words differently. Knowledge is justified true
> belief. It can be demonstratively true yet not believed (a creationist
> and evolution) and it can be demonstratively true and believed (a
> scientist and evolution).

Thinking about it a bit more - the examples you gave are perhaps not the 
best, I think.  The creationist would dispute the 'demonstratively true' 
part of evolution as the foundation for their disbelief in evolution.

There are two things one could dispute:  the theory, or the data.  In 
refusing to "believe in evolution" (a statement that I find funny 
because, again paraphrasing Neil DeGrasse Tyson, 'truth doesn't require 
your belief.'), the creationist is disputing either the veracity of the 
data or the conclusions reached by interpretation of the data.

So the dispute isn't with the idea of evolution (necessarily), but rather 
the conclusions reached by Darwin and those biologists who have reached 
the same conclusions.

Going back to the 'sun is up' example, when there is sufficient data to 
prove that a belief is correct, then it becomes truth and transcends 
being a belief.  When I see the sun around the curtains in the morning, 
and I know what time it is because my clock tells me that it's morning, I 
can believe the sun is up because there is evidence of it.  It might turn 
out to be a really bright light on a truck parked outside my window, and 
so my even justified belief that the sun is up could be wrong.

But if I pull the curtains back and see that, yes, the sun is up, then I 
no longer need to believe it because I can observe that it is up.  
"Belief" implies some doubt as to the state of what it is that I might 
observe.  If there's absolutely no doubt, then belief isn't necessary.

Just like believing I'm sitting in my chair.  I know I'm sitting in my 
chair; I can see it under me, I can feel it supporting my weight.  I can 
ask my wife to tell me if she observes the chair under me (and thus get 
corroboration).  I don't need to believe it's there because there's no 
chance that it isn't - because if it wasn't, then I'd be on the floor, 
and unable to type this message (because my keyboard is supported by my 
desk).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 4/24/2011 9:17 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:44:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> On 4/23/2011 10:09 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Sat, 23 Apr 2011 23:45:04 +0200, andrel wrote:
>>>
>>>>> I think there's a fundamental difference, if you're like most of the
>>>>> atheists I know - you're willing to be convinced given sufficient
>>>>> evidence.
>>>>
>>>> No, I am not, that is the point. There being a God is to such an
>>>> extend contradictory to being me, that I will never accept any
>>>> evidence(, hence my reference to that book of my father). I think you
>>>> will find that true for other atheists as well.
>>>
>>> That is different - so you're saying that if someone presented rational
>>> evidence for a God, you wouldn't accept it?  I find that *highly*
>>> unusual.
>>>
>> Problem is the "rational evidence" part. How do you tell someone playing
>> at god, with super advanced tech, or even abilities maybe, and that they
>> "are" god in any real sense. Hell, to most of the people over thousands
>> of years a Jedi would constitute a god, but we would, if any such person
>> showed up, be looking at blood samples to work out how the hell they did
>> it, not bowing to them in worship, a fact true even for most religious
>> people. First, you need a coherent definition of god, then you can talk
>> about what constitutes evidence.
>
> Interesting, I hadn't looked at it that way, but that makes a lot of
> sense to me (andrel, is this the sort of thing you're talking about?)
>
>> Since most of the stuff in religious texts fall into these categories:
>>
>> 1. Things any two bit magician can replicate. 2. Things we could
>> replicate now, with preparation. 3. Things we could at least imagine
>> replicating, if we had certain technologies.
>> 4. Things we couldn't replicate, like making a new universe, and then
>> showing someone around in it, and which are probably not possible.
>
> The first three things you state are things that make sense to me.  #4,
> though, I'm not sure 'probably not possible' seems a little wishy-washy
> to me.
>
> Jim
Well, probably not possible due to the fact that most theories about 
multiple universes seem to imply that you can't get there from here, 
even if you managed to somehow make one. The laws of physics in, never 
mind between, them would tend to preclude it.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:44:09 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Do you believe Elvis is alive?  Do you believe Elvis is dead?  Can you
> really answer no to both of those questions?

Sure, it's possible for someone with insufficient data to answer "no" to 
both questions.  Is Schrodinger's cat alive or dead?  Before you open the 
box, which would you believe?

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 16:18, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Faith is less justified than belief, perhaps?  Similar concepts, but at
> different places along the scale.

Well, to my reading, "belief" being present means I think it's true. It 
doesn't matter whether I'm justified, or whether it's actually true. If I 
believe Elvis is alive, it doesn't matter whether he is or whether you've 
showed me the funeral. That doesn't affect whether or not I believe it. 
(Showing me the funeral of course may affect whether I continue to believe it.)

If I believe something and I haven't changed my mind, then I still believe 
it. I don't stop believing I was right just because I found out I'm 
*actually* right.

Faith, in my vocabulary, may be a religious term meaning "belief without 
evidence or in spite of contradictory evidence." Or it might just mean 
"confidence."   I have faith Fred will do the right thing. I have confidence 
Fred will do the right thing.  But "faith" tends to mean something even 
stronger than confidence, in my vocabulary.

"Knowledge" is when you believe something and you have evidence and you're 
not mistaken. Or, as the philosophers put it, "justified true belief."

Tell me what word you'd use to mean what I mean by belief.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/24/2011 10:16 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/24/2011 16:44, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> looking at blood samples to work out how the hell they did it,
>
> There is already someone in India or something, millions of followers,
> born of a virgin, curing disease and raising the dead, basically
> everything Jesus ever did, wandering around live. Nobody outside of his
> followers pays any attention.
>
Might be because such people are a dime a dozen, and most of their 
miracles pretty always turn out to not be what they claim, or 
manufactured. Its not that hard to present the form of death in someone, 
either by accident, or intent, and have it pretty much undetectable by 
anything short of an EKG machine, properly calibrated. And then, there 
is the fact that a lot of that shit just gets made up by followers 
anyway, to bolster the supposed power of the one they follow.

BTW, belated, but happy zombie uprising of 33AD, which one bit of the 
Bible, but not one other document from the time, mentions. lol

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 16:14, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> See, this is just like the argument over theory. We are going around and
> around here, over what is a trinary problem, because someone wants to define
> it as a binary one, by conflating 'certainty' with some sort of 'belief'.

I disagree. I think this is just a discussion over the definitions of words. 
I use "belief" to indicate the mental state in which I think something is 
true. Someone else is using it to mean the mental state in which I think 
something is true but I am not certain. I think I can believe something to 
be true of which I am certain. Jim seems to think I cannot believe something 
to be true of which I am certain. I would find it very confusing if someone 
at Fred's funeral said "I can't believe Fred is dead" and meant it literally.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 16:25, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> Mind, it only implies carbon based life due to lack of evidence "here" that
> you could have anything else

Well, the "fine tuned" argument says that if you go a little bit one way, 
you don't get any atoms, and if you go a little bit another way, everything 
collapses into a black hole before there's time for nuclear fusion to start, 
or some such.

So, not so much "carbon based life" as "atomic matter, elements, molecules, 
etc."  Maybe if you want to make life out of free quarks interacting with 
gravity waves or something...

In any case, I'm trying not to spoil Calculating God, which has some fun 
stuff in it. I highly recommend it to anyone who ever wondered "I wonder if 
there *might* be evidence of God out there."

P.S., I don't think we've found any such evidence yet, so any example I give 
would have to be taken with a grain of salt as simply a "imagine if this 
really was evidence..."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:35:19 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Tell me what word you'd use to mean what I mean by belief.

"I think it's true" fits well here.  There's a difference, though, 
between "I think it's true" and "I know it's demonstrably true".  The 
latter doesn't require belief, because one can demonstrate the truth of 
the statement.

So really, it comes to me as :

True:  Something that can be verified in the real world.

Justified belief:  Something that one thinks the evidence points strongly 
to; something that one has studied.

Unjustified belief:  Something that one thinks the evidence points 
strongly to, but something that one hasn't studied in-depth.

Faith:  Something that one has no understanding of the evidence for or 
against, but is inclined to believe to be true nonetheless, perhaps even 
in the face of evidence against it being true.

False:  Something that can be verified to not be true

Not sure that that's the complete scale or even an accurate scale, but 
maybe a point of discussion can form around it.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 4:38 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/25/2011 16:14, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> See, this is just like the argument over theory. We are going around and
>> around here, over what is a trinary problem, because someone wants to
>> define
>> it as a binary one, by conflating 'certainty' with some sort of 'belief'.
>
> I disagree. I think this is just a discussion over the definitions of
> words. I use "belief" to indicate the mental state in which I think
> something is true. Someone else is using it to mean the mental state in
> which I think something is true but I am not certain. I think I can
> believe something to be true of which I am certain. Jim seems to think I
> cannot believe something to be true of which I am certain. I would find
> it very confusing if someone at Fred's funeral said "I can't believe
> Fred is dead" and meant it literally.
>
But, it is much the same thing. Because belief gets used interchangably 
to define both a state of certainty, as well as a state of uncertainty, 
where you are merely presuming a fact, without necessarily having 
evidence. Many of the same people at that same funeral would think you 
where nuts if everyone was talking about the freak accident that killed 
him, and you said, "I don't have a theory about how he died.", meaning 
that you could only guess at it, not a state of certainty about how it 
actually happened. Their reaction would, almost certainly be, "What, 
with all the things people have been saying here today, you have no 
'opinion' of how it happened?"

Its exactly the same situation.

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:38:03 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim seems to think I
> cannot believe something to be true of which I am certain. I would find
> it very confusing if someone at Fred's funeral said "I can't believe
> Fred is dead" and meant it literally.

Well, I'm talking about a literal sense, not a figurative sense of the 
word.  "I can't believe Fred is dead" is a figurative use of the word 
'belief', or a type of denial (take your pick).

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 16:31, Jim Henderson wrote:
> But if I pull the curtains back and see that, yes, the sun is up, then I
> no longer need to believe it because I can observe that it is up.

I understand what you're saying. I just don't think that's how normal people 
use that word outside of religious arguments.

Would you say I'm wrong to state "I believe Elvis is dead"?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 16:34, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:44:09 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> Do you believe Elvis is alive?  Do you believe Elvis is dead?  Can you
>> really answer no to both of those questions?
>
> Sure, it's possible for someone with insufficient data to answer "no" to
> both questions.

Sure. Can *you* say that?  If someone asked "Do you believe Elvis is alive?" 
would you say "No"?  If someone asked "Do you believe Elvis is dead?" would 
you say "No"?

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/25/2011 16:44, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:38:03 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> Jim seems to think I
>> cannot believe something to be true of which I am certain. I would find
>> it very confusing if someone at Fred's funeral said "I can't believe
>> Fred is dead" and meant it literally.
>
> Well, I'm talking about a literal sense, not a figurative sense of the
> word.  "I can't believe Fred is dead" is a figurative use of the word
> 'belief', or a type of denial (take your pick).

Right. That's what I'm saying. I can't believe anyone at the funeral would 
say "I can't believe Fred is dead *because* he's laying here right in front 
of me, not breathing!"

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/04/25 19:46, Darren New a écrit :
> On 4/25/2011 16:31, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> But if I pull the curtains back and see that, yes, the sun is up, then I
>> no longer need to believe it because I can observe that it is up.
>
> I understand what you're saying. I just don't think that's how normal
> people use that word outside of religious arguments.
>
> Would you say I'm wrong to state "I believe Elvis is dead"?
>

I don't beleive that Elvis is dead because I do KNOW that he's dead!

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/04/25 18:44, Darren New a écrit :
> On 4/25/2011 14:24, Warp wrote:
>> Certainty (which can be either positive or
>> negative, so technically speaking there are actually four options).
>
> No. "I no longer believe the sun is up" is not equivalent to "I believe
> the sun is not up." The latter would be disbelief.
>
> I believe evolution is true. I believe I'm sitting in front of a
> keyboard right now.

If you are sitting in front of your keyboard now, there is absolutely NO 
need to beleive it. It's a fact, so you KNOW that you are sitting in 
front of your keyboard.

The same way, as evolution has beed demonstrated to be true, one KNOW 
that evolution is true. Here again, you don't beleive, you know.

>
> Do you believe Elvis is alive? Do you believe Elvis is dead? Can you
> really answer no to both of those questions? I don't think that's how a
> normal person would treat the word "believe" in everyday English. Except
> in a discussion of religion where one side or the other is intentionally
> trying to change the meanings of words in order to make it difficult to
> express the opinion with which they don't believe, in much the same way
> as someone will say "How can you not believe in God when God is Love?"
>

"God is Love"? How can you be sertain of that?
Read the bible carefully. Is the great fload an act of love? Is the 
destruction of Sodome and Gomora an act of love?

Absolutely NOT! They are acts of HATE and IRE! How come a "God of Love" 
can commit such acts?

Then, if you read further, you'll find that he's also a WAR GOD! A War 
God don't Love, he Fight!

The answer is definitely NO! No "God of Love" could ever do those. A 
"God of Love" would find it IMPOSSIBLE to do those acts for the sole 
reason that they are antythetic to it's very nature, even if he's 
otherwise Omnypotent.



Alain

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/04/25 19:47, Darren New a écrit :
> On 4/25/2011 16:34, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:44:09 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> Do you believe Elvis is alive? Do you believe Elvis is dead? Can you
>>> really answer no to both of those questions?
>>
>> Sure, it's possible for someone with insufficient data to answer "no" to
>> both questions.
>
> Sure. Can *you* say that? If someone asked "Do you believe Elvis is
> alive?" would you say "No"? If someone asked "Do you believe Elvis is
> dead?" would you say "No"?
>

Q: Do you beleive Elvis is alive?
A: No! He's dead.

Q: So, you beleive Elvis is dead?
A: No! He's dead.

Q: Why don't you beleive he's dead but you say he's dead?
A: I know that he's dead, I don't need to beleive it.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> No. "I no longer believe the sun is up" is not equivalent to "I believe the 
> sun is not up." The latter would be disbelief.

  Of course it's not equivalent. There is more than one alternative to the
former. For example, "I no longer believe the sun is up, I know it."

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/04/25 19:30, Patrick Elliott a écrit :
> On 4/25/2011 12:28 PM, andrel wrote:
>> Thou shalt not kill. Ok, but is that in
>> general or only humans?
>
> To be clear, the term actually used in the less mangled Jewish version
> is "Murder", which specifically refers to something you do to other
> people. Mind, "people" may be a bit uncertain a term, since it can often
> be "chosen people". Or, as one person put it, "Love thy neighbor
> literally meant the person living right next door to you, not
> always/ever the one living in the next village."

Considering that the worg "gentile" in Ebraic means "Not of the Peoples" 
or "Not Human" as "Human" = "The Peoples" = "The Chosen Ones".

In the /old/ times, for a Jew, killing a non Jew was not a murder.
BUT, the same distinction was also on the part of most other nations. 
For the Egyptians, any non-Egyptian was mostly cattle.

It started to change with the Greecks under Alexander the GReat and his 
Empire building and continued with the Roman Empire. When you start 
conquering other nations and integrating them into your nation, you can 
no longer afford to view other nations as non-peoples.

Post a reply to this message

On 4/26/2011 9:04, Alain wrote:
> I don't beleive that Elvis is dead because I do KNOW that he's dead!

See, that sentence is nonsensical to me. That's not how the word "believe" 
is defined for me. It's like saying "I'm not driving a vehicle, I'm driving 
my *car*."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/26/2011 9:16, Alain wrote:
> If you are sitting in front of your keyboard now, there is absolutely NO
> need to beleive it. It's a fact, so you KNOW that you are sitting in front
> of your keyboard.

To me, the world belief includes the word knowledge. Knowing is a kind of 
believing, just like faith is a different kind of believing.

> "God is Love"? How can you be sertain of that?
> Read the bible carefully. Is the great fload an act of love? Is the
> destruction of Sodome and Gomora an act of love?

Oh, the God that is Love is not the one in the bible.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/04/25 19:32, Patrick Elliott a écrit :
> On 4/24/2011 9:17 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:44:07 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> On 4/23/2011 10:09 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> On Sat, 23 Apr 2011 23:45:04 +0200, andrel wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>> I think there's a fundamental difference, if you're like most of the
>>>>>> atheists I know - you're willing to be convinced given sufficient
>>>>>> evidence.
>>>>>
>>>>> No, I am not, that is the point. There being a God is to such an
>>>>> extend contradictory to being me, that I will never accept any
>>>>> evidence(, hence my reference to that book of my father). I think you
>>>>> will find that true for other atheists as well.
>>>>
>>>> That is different - so you're saying that if someone presented rational
>>>> evidence for a God, you wouldn't accept it? I find that *highly*
>>>> unusual.
>>>>
>>> Problem is the "rational evidence" part. How do you tell someone playing
>>> at god, with super advanced tech, or even abilities maybe, and that they
>>> "are" god in any real sense. Hell, to most of the people over thousands
>>> of years a Jedi would constitute a god, but we would, if any such person
>>> showed up, be looking at blood samples to work out how the hell they did
>>> it, not bowing to them in worship, a fact true even for most religious
>>> people. First, you need a coherent definition of god, then you can talk
>>> about what constitutes evidence.
>>
>> Interesting, I hadn't looked at it that way, but that makes a lot of
>> sense to me (andrel, is this the sort of thing you're talking about?)
>>
>>> Since most of the stuff in religious texts fall into these categories:
>>>
>>> 1. Things any two bit magician can replicate. 2. Things we could
>>> replicate now, with preparation. 3. Things we could at least imagine
>>> replicating, if we had certain technologies.
>>> 4. Things we couldn't replicate, like making a new universe, and then
>>> showing someone around in it, and which are probably not possible.
>>
>> The first three things you state are things that make sense to me. #4,
>> though, I'm not sure 'probably not possible' seems a little wishy-washy
>> to me.
>>
>> Jim
> Well, probably not possible due to the fact that most theories about
> multiple universes seem to imply that you can't get there from here,
> even if you managed to somehow make one. The laws of physics in, never
> mind between, them would tend to preclude it.

There is a model that say that it may be possible to create many 
universes in your common high school lab... The experiment could be 
explosive, but the energy would instead be channeled at an angle 
relative to this universe and result in the creation of one or several 
distinct universes. Each of those would have it's own physical laws, 
maybe tinted by those from our universe.

It's only a mather of concentrating enough energy (a few mega joules) in 
a small enough volume (per cubic milimeter) for a short time (less than 
0.0000001s is enough).


That model states that we may already, albey accidently, have created 
thousands to trillions of new universes.

As there is, at least now, now way to prove or disprove that, it should 
stay at the theoretical model stage.

Post a reply to this message

On 4/24/2011 16:44, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> 4. Things we couldn't replicate, like making a new universe, and then
> showing someone around in it, and which are probably not possible.

I think we call that The Sims.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 26-4-2011 0:50, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/25/2011 14:16, andrel wrote:
>>> That's weird to me.
>> Oh no, not again!
>
> I wasn't planning to discuss it further. I just wanted to be sure I had
> understood your objection was to a deity, rather than a particular deity
> interested in the doings of mankind.

It is not so much an objection. The point is that being an atheist has 
become so much part of me over the years that a God in any form is not 
compatible with being me. Or to put it more technically, we are mutual 
exclusive. Either a God exists or me, not both at the same time.
Part of the discussion with Jim was also that I think this sort of 
philosophical ideas creeping into your being is more common that you 
might expect. If they do they, become undiscussable. You and me notice 
that in religious people, but without really being aware of it, it might 
happen to you too, and it probably has. That also implies that we are 
less rational than we like to think.
Although our level of irrationality is nowhere near that of some 
religious people. (But they might say the same)

-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

Post a reply to this message

On 26-4-2011 0:17, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:05:31 +0200, andrel wrote:
>
>> On 25-4-2011 23:43, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 23:33:00 +0200, andrel wrote:
>>
>>>> Only if it is nor was at any time able to interfere in this universe.
>>>> (my feeling is that this is correct English, my brain says 'huh,
>>>> aren't you missing a negation', but where to put it?)
>>>
>>> Maybe try saying it a different way - I think I understand, but I want
>>> to be sure before I comment. :)
>>
>> I am prepared to accept any deity if and only if it has never had any
>> influence on my universe and it will never have, and as long as it's
>> existence can be rigorously and scientifically proven by an experiment.
>
> So a deity that has no past, present, or future influence over the
> universe?  I'm not sure what purpose that would serve.

Me neither.

> But that is how I read what you wrote the first time.

And to be sure I added the second clause that is incompatible with the 
first.


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

Post a reply to this message

On 26-4-2011 0:53, Darren New wrote:
> On 4/25/2011 14:33, andrel wrote:
>> Only if it is nor was at any time able to interfere in this universe. (my
>> feeling is that this is correct English, my brain says 'huh, aren't you
>> missing a negation', but where to put it?)
>
> As a native english speaker, I'd say
>
> "Only if it isn't nor ever was at any time able to interfere in this
> universe."
>
> So, yeah, negate "is" as well. I can't say I could actually express as
> rule why that's right, tho.

for me that is strange because you than have a negated and an unnegated 
term in a (negated) disjuction.

By De Morgan's law I would transform 'is nor was' into 'is not and was 
not' which is what I meant. But are ordinary natives aware of that?

-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/04/26 12:49, Darren New a écrit :
> On 4/26/2011 9:04, Alain wrote:
>> I don't beleive that Elvis is dead because I do KNOW that he's dead!
>
> See, that sentence is nonsensical to me. That's not how the word
> "believe" is defined for me. It's like saying "I'm not driving a
> vehicle, I'm driving my *car*."
>

My native language is French.
"to beleive" translate to "croire"
"to know" translate to "connaitre" or "savoir"

In French, "croire" imply an impression or a guess. That makes the two 
terms realy distinct.
"savoir" means actual, factual, knowlege devoid of any beleif or impression.

Thus, for me, "beleive" is very, extremely, different from "know".



Alain

Post a reply to this message

Le 2011/04/26 12:51, Darren New a écrit :
> On 4/26/2011 9:16, Alain wrote:
>> If you are sitting in front of your keyboard now, there is absolutely NO
>> need to beleive it. It's a fact, so you KNOW that you are sitting in
>> front
>> of your keyboard.
>
> To me, the world belief includes the word knowledge. Knowing is a kind
> of believing, just like faith is a different kind of believing.
>
>> "God is Love"? How can you be sertain of that?
>> Read the bible carefully. Is the great fload an act of love? Is the
>> destruction of Sodome and Gomora an act of love?
>
> Oh, the God that is Love is not the one in the bible.
>

For me, beleif specificaly exclude knowlege.
Then, faith can be seen as a small subset of beleif.


Alain

Post a reply to this message

On 4/26/2011 10:38, Alain wrote:
> Thus, for me, "beleive" is very, extremely, different from "know".

Sure, I can understand that. As I've been saying all along, we're really 
discussing the definitions of the words, not some deeper meaningfulness of 
reality. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/26/2011 10:19, andrel wrote:
> but without really being aware of it, it might happen to
> you too, and it probably has.

I know it has. I'm fully cognizant of my pathway from my childhood to where 
I am now, philosophically speaking.  I think the difference between me and 
many others I know is that I'm not worried by being illogical, irrational, 
etc.  I like to think I'm less irrational only to the extent that I know 
where I'm irrational.  At least, I like to think so.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/26/2011 10:29, andrel wrote:
> On 26-4-2011 0:53, Darren New wrote:
>> On 4/25/2011 14:33, andrel wrote:
>>> Only if it is nor was at any time able to interfere in this universe. (my
>>> feeling is that this is correct English, my brain says 'huh, aren't you
>>> missing a negation', but where to put it?)
>>
>> As a native english speaker, I'd say
>>
>> "Only if it isn't nor ever was at any time able to interfere in this
>> universe."
>>
>> So, yeah, negate "is" as well. I can't say I could actually express as
>> rule why that's right, tho.
>
> for me that is strange because you than have a negated and an unnegated term
> in a (negated) disjuction.
>
> By De Morgan's law I would transform 'is nor was' into 'is not and was not'
> which is what I meant. But are ordinary natives aware of that?

You could also so

"Only if it neither is nor was at any time able to interfere."

So the "neither" means "that negation also applies to the 'is' part."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 4/26/2011 10:19 AM, andrel wrote:
> On 26-4-2011 0:50, Darren New wrote:
>> On 4/25/2011 14:16, andrel wrote:
>>>> That's weird to me.
>>> Oh no, not again!
>>
>> I wasn't planning to discuss it further. I just wanted to be sure I had
>> understood your objection was to a deity, rather than a particular deity
>> interested in the doings of mankind.
>
> It is not so much an objection. The point is that being an atheist has
> become so much part of me over the years that a God in any form is not
> compatible with being me. Or to put it more technically, we are mutual
> exclusive. Either a God exists or me, not both at the same time.
> Part of the discussion with Jim was also that I think this sort of
> philosophical ideas creeping into your being is more common that you
> might expect. If they do they, become undiscussable. You and me notice
> that in religious people, but without really being aware of it, it might
> happen to you too, and it probably has. That also implies that we are
> less rational than we like to think.
> Although our level of irrationality is nowhere near that of some
> religious people. (But they might say the same)
>
Twain once stated something to the effect, "You could house all the sane 
people in one asylum, but if you tried to house all the insane ones, you 
would run out of building material."

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 18:33:41 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/25/2011 16:44, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:38:03 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> Jim seems to think I
>>> cannot believe something to be true of which I am certain. I would
>>> find it very confusing if someone at Fred's funeral said "I can't
>>> believe Fred is dead" and meant it literally.
>>
>> Well, I'm talking about a literal sense, not a figurative sense of the
>> word.  "I can't believe Fred is dead" is a figurative use of the word
>> 'belief', or a type of denial (take your pick).
> 
> Right. That's what I'm saying. I can't believe anyone at the funeral
> would say "I can't believe Fred is dead *because* he's laying here right
> in front of me, not breathing!"

Well, I'm talking about the use of it in a literal sense (rather than a 
figurative sense). :)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:47:55 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/25/2011 16:34, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:44:09 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> Do you believe Elvis is alive?  Do you believe Elvis is dead?  Can you
>>> really answer no to both of those questions?
>>
>> Sure, it's possible for someone with insufficient data to answer "no"
>> to both questions.
> 
> Sure. Can *you* say that?  If someone asked "Do you believe Elvis is
> alive?" would you say "No"?  If someone asked "Do you believe Elvis is
> dead?" would you say "No"?

I can't, because to me, there seems to be sufficient evidence to say that 
he is, in fact, dead.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:46:39 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/25/2011 16:31, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> But if I pull the curtains back and see that, yes, the sun is up, then
>> I no longer need to believe it because I can observe that it is up.
> 
> I understand what you're saying. I just don't think that's how normal
> people use that word outside of religious arguments.

I believe it is. ;)

> Would you say I'm wrong to state "I believe Elvis is dead"?

I don't have enough data to say whether it would be right or wrong for 
you to make that statement.

If I assume that you weren't there when he died and that you weren't 
present at the funeral, then I would say that you're probably right to 
state that because you've read reports of his death and they seem to 
point you in that direction (as they do me).

Philosophically, though, I don't have any direct experience with the fact 
that he's dead - I have to rely on others' accounts of the event, and I 
choose to trust them and believe that they are accurate and correct.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 4/26/2011 12:43, Jim Henderson wrote:
> I believe it is. ;)

I think this might be the fundamental problem we're having:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief#Belief-in

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

Post a reply to this message

On 26-4-2011 21:05, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 4/26/2011 10:19 AM, andrel wrote:
>> On 26-4-2011 0:50, Darren New wrote:
>>> On 4/25/2011 14:16, andrel wrote:
>>>>> That's weird to me.
>>>> Oh no, not again!
>>>
>>> I wasn't planning to discuss it further. I just wanted to be sure I had
>>> understood your objection was to a deity, rather than a particular deity
>>> interested in the doings of mankind.
>>
>> It is not so much an objection. The point is that being an atheist has
>> become so much part of me over the years that a God in any form is not
>> compatible with being me. Or to put it more technically, we are mutual
>> exclusive. Either a God exists or me, not both at the same time.
>> Part of the discussion with Jim was also that I think this sort of
>> philosophical ideas creeping into your being is more common that you
>> might expect. If they do they, become undiscussable. You and me notice
>> that in religious people, but without really being aware of it, it might
>> happen to you too, and it probably has. That also implies that we are
>> less rational than we like to think.
>> Although our level of irrationality is nowhere near that of some
>> religious people. (But they might say the same)
>>
> Twain once stated something to the effect, "You could house all the sane
> people in one asylum, but if you tried to house all the insane ones, you
> would run out of building material."

The appropriate Adams quote would be about Wonko the Sane, but I'll 
leave that to someone else.



-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:57:04 +0200, andrel wrote:

> The appropriate Adams quote would be about Wonko the Sane, but I'll
> leave that to someone else.

Indeed, that would be appropriate - the idea that outside his house is 
the asylum. :)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:00:36 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 4/26/2011 12:43, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I believe it is. ;)
> 
> I think this might be the fundamental problem we're having:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief#Belief-in

That seems like a reasonable explanation.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 26-4-2011 18:04, Alain wrote:
> Le 2011/04/25 19:46, Darren New a écrit :
>> On 4/25/2011 16:31, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> But if I pull the curtains back and see that, yes, the sun is up, then I
>>> no longer need to believe it because I can observe that it is up.
>>
>> I understand what you're saying. I just don't think that's how normal
>> people use that word outside of religious arguments.
>>
>> Would you say I'm wrong to state "I believe Elvis is dead"?
>>
>
> I don't beleive that Elvis is dead because I do KNOW that he's dead!

'If Elvis was still alive, he would be dead by now.'


-- 
Apparently you can afford your own dictator for less than 10 cents per 
citizen per day.

Post a reply to this message

On Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:08:29 -0400, John VanSickle wrote:

> There simply is no command in the
> Bible for Christians to kill Jews, to make them second-class citizens,
> or to maltreat them in any way.

Let's take an example in the Bible, then:  God's commandment to the 
Israelites to commit genocide and infanticide on the Canaanites.

How does one rationalize genocide and infanticide as being "good"?

Jim

Post a reply to this message