Isn't the burden of proof on the person who makes a claim for the existence of a hitherto unproven entity?earnest_seeker wrote:It's purely your assertion that it's a fantasy, and it's an assertion that you have been unable to prove.
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- Sun Jul 06, 2008 2:59 am
- Forum: GENIUS FORUM
- Topic: Beyond God and Evil
- Replies: 329
- Views: 45122
Re: Beyond God and Evil
- Sun Jul 06, 2008 1:25 am
- Forum: GENIUS FORUM
- Topic: Debating a christian - how would you destroy this argument?
- Replies: 30
- Views: 9423
Re: Debating a christian - how would you destroy this argument?
Diebert wrote: The danger one should be aware of when criticizing religion is that it's easy to erect a straw version of a belief - easy because many believers themselves are already doing that - and knock that one over. But this doesn't amount to a serious or substantial critique in my opinion. An...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 10:45 pm
- Forum: GENIUS FORUM
- Topic: Debating a christian - how would you destroy this argument?
- Replies: 30
- Views: 9423
Re: Debating a christian - how would you destroy this argument?
4. If the cosmos needs an efficient cause of its continuing existence, then that cause must be a supernatural being, supernatural in its action, and one the existence of which is uncaused, in other words, the Supreme Being, or God This is a clear non sequitur for it doesn't follow from the premisse...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 9:36 pm
- Forum: Archives
- Topic: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
- Replies: 36
- Views: 97260
Re: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
Some further notions on what a 'truth' is, since you've asked me to define it. So 'truth', in my opinion, refers to different meanings of the word: 1) Absolute Truth, the platonic projection of mankind of an ideal (complete, absolute, unchanging) abstraction of all that is. Again, imo it is unclear ...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:48 pm
- Forum: GENIUS FORUM
- Topic: Debating a christian - how would you destroy this argument?
- Replies: 30
- Views: 9423
Re: Debating a christian - how would you destroy this argument?
Can heaven ever live up to the expectation that it is a far better place than our world and still contain humans?
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:34 pm
- Forum: Archives
- Topic: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
- Replies: 36
- Views: 97260
Re: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
What's your definition of a "truth"? First of, truth is a rather platonic concept of the human mind. There is only tentative truth we as humans can speak of in my opinion. So, this means that your question is rather tricky. For the word 'truth' itself is a trojan horse in these discussion...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 7:03 pm
- Forum: GENIUS FORUM
- Topic: Have your emotions mellowed with age?
- Replies: 22
- Views: 1862
Re: Have your emotions mellowed with age?
Dan wrote: Absence of emotion isn't a good thing in itself if the cause isn't the presence of greater reason. Dead people are a good example of that fact. And by 'dead' I don’t just mean the ones that are rotting in the ground; I'm talking about those who lack all passion for thought; leaving their...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 6:22 pm
- Forum: GENIUS FORUM
- Topic: Debating a christian - how would you destroy this argument?
- Replies: 30
- Views: 9423
Re: Debating a christian - how would you destroy this argument?
Mortimer Adler's argument for the existence of God (Wikipedia) : In his 1981 book “How to Think About God”, Adler attempts to demonstrate God as the exnihilator of the cosmos. The steps taken to demonstrate this are as follows: 1. The existence of an effect requiring the concurrent existence and ac...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:46 pm
- Forum: GENIUS FORUM
- Topic: Judging Others
- Replies: 405
- Views: 68545
Re: Judging Others
I don't think anyone was saying that cell phone use is morally wrong. That's just the faulty interpretive net that you cast on the conversation, Sam. I saw people talking about how cell phone use has become something of a neurotic obsession for many people, and also quite an annoyance in public pla...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 3:44 pm
- Forum: Archives
- Topic: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
- Replies: 36
- Views: 97260
Re: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
Fujaro, Your whole methodology for seeking Ultimate Truth is wrong. It's not an object that can sit within consciousness, so it can't be discovered by social means like science or mathematics. It's the foundation of consciousness, so it has to be sought and found through introspecting one's own con...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:55 am
- Forum: Archives
- Topic: The Reasoning Show - Miscellaneous Discussion
- Replies: 300
- Views: 389916
Re:
IMO, David and Dan could have countered some of this more effectively by focusing more specifically on A=A, and how the logical idea expressed by it holds true regardless of what terms and definitions we plug into it. They touched on it, but they didn't get to the core of it. It wouldn't have refut...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 5:25 am
- Forum: Archives
- Topic: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
- Replies: 36
- Views: 97260
Re: Semantic dissonance
Well, I dunno, but isn’t this a classic example of an absolute truth (“absolute truth has no meaning”) having meaning? No, all it is saying is that we haven't got a clear view on the concept to build on. There isn't however any certainty that we can never gain such a concept. Maybe you can find a w...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:54 am
- Forum: Archives
- Topic: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
- Replies: 36
- Views: 97260
Re: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
This sounds a lot like Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorems, which interestingly enough can be used just as well to argue for a Platonic view of some ultimate, more 'objective' reality. The fact that each system has as unprovable axiom or two that need another 'higher' system-universe-theory to est...
- Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:50 am
- Forum: Archives
- Topic: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
- Replies: 36
- Views: 97260
Re: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
Testing isn't applicable because it's not empirical knowledge that's being discussed, but logical knowledge. To put it in terms that you're familiar with, apply your argument to the set of all positive integers. Is the set of all positive integers incomplete because we can't test all of them? No, b...
- Fri Jul 04, 2008 7:41 am
- Forum: Archives
- Topic: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
- Replies: 36
- Views: 97260
Re: The Nature of Knowledge - Victor Danilchenko
First of, I'd like to say that I appreciated the interview very much. It somehow reminded me of the endless discussions I had with my younger brothers in my adolescence. These arguments ad absurdum almost drove my parents, who understood them as quarrel, nuts. That may sound as depreciation of the i...