Joined: 2/28/2006
Posts: 2275
Location: Milky Way -> Earth -> Brazil
I don't want to interrupt your interseting debate on how to apply fantasy to real life
so here's a very quick picture
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
So basically, you expected to waltz me along to a conclusion you made, while holding the claims leading to the conclusion in an immutable and indisputable position? That is hardly a way to conduct meaningful discussion.
No, I (correctly) assumed we were essentially in agreement on a minimum of one of my perceptions of your concept of god. Then I stupidly asked a question that amounted to, "If we are essentially in agreement on at least one of these points [and we were], I believe the following to be a logical conclusion. What are your thoughts on that conclusion?" My question was stupid because it foolishly ignored my "the bible is not math" maxim which renders all logical discussion concerning irrational beliefs moot.
Here's a hypothetical and analogous situation: I said, "It seems to me that you believe 1+1=2. If that's so, isn't 25 a prime number?" Instead of saying, for example, "No, I disagree, 25 is the square of 5," or "Yes, I agree, 25 is a prime number in base 6," you just said in a very long-winded fashion, "1+1 does indeed equal 2." That is, you merely reiterated my contention that we essentially agreed upon a particular premise without addressing the conclusion I drew from it.
Anyway, I certainly didn't expect you to do any waltzing. Perhaps in my wildest dreams I nursed a forlorn hope you would do more than tread water, but I happened to be awake when I posted the question. Soon I won't be, though. Maybe my brain will invent an answer for you before morning. Even if it does, I doubt I'll post it. I just hate arguing, so I think I'll stop now.
To me as a somewhat neutral observer it seemed as though Bisqwit didn't use any logical fallacies, as long as he starts from the premise that the Bible holds absolute truth.
Well, any reasonable person must admit the bible contradicts itself on numerous occasions, so the assumption itself that the bible holds absolute truth is, logically speaking, irreparably fallacious.
Well, any assumption is in fact irrational on its own. You cannot be 100% sure of anything in this world. There are always alternative explanations for what we observe. Physics don't explain how stuff in this world works, but merely provide a possible system of how they could work that doesn't contradict itself, with a few exceptions (that need yet to be resolved?*).
Maths is purely fictional because it starts from the premiss that the universe is divided into countable entities. This makes sense for us as humans to do because our brain classifies certain patterns as objects, but does that make it true or is math just a tool for us? Math may be logical in itself, but it also starts from an unreasonable premiss. Any system that relies on maths may thus not be able to represent the true reality of this world in an adequate fashion in the end.
It appears as though the laws of physics we've deduced from our experiments were in fact true, but maybe they don't describe what's really happening after all. Maybe the underlying mechanisms of how this world works are totally different from what we expect and there really is no mass, there only seems to be mass to an observer of this world for reason x. So pyhsics describe just a possible coherent system of how things work, but the fact that the system is in itself logical and that experiments seem to confirm it, doesn't make it true or real. It's just a tool. And like maths, physics assume that the universe is divided into seperate entities. From a logical nil-perspective that's a totally baseless assumption, if you ask me.
Now back to the Bible, starting from the unreasonable premiss that it holds absolute truth, the contradictions don't serve as evidence for it being not true anymore. Instead they are a challenge and your duty as a believer becomes to explain these contradictions for yourself and thus come closer to God. They make you think about who he actually is, and you should go that path because it's the only path that leads to the light and to love, because God is love. If God appears to not love us, then it's just because we cannot comprehend his true motivation for the things he does. That's a very reasonable explanation that resolves something that seems like a contradiction in the bible to you, but maybe it's more like a puzzle you have to solve to get a closer understanding of who God really is.
*) Here too, any "contradictions" are just "yet to be resolved" to advocates of the system.
Everything in this world starts from unreasonable assumptions. The natural sciences try to minimize assumptions and that has led them to be quite valuable tools, but you can never totally eliminate them. Also, you can make up theories and collect all the evidence you want, evidence never proves a thing. Collecting evidence is just a way to reassure there are no contradictions inside the logical systems we've invented, but absolute proof for even that can never be attained. (Yes, in maths it does work to a certain degree, mainly talking about physics here). You'd have to perform an infinite number of experiments to deliver that proof, and even then, it wouldn't make your assumption true and real, just a plausible explanation for a certain phenomenon.
I really do think that believing in natural sciences to be true is as unreasonable as to assume any religious system to be true. I don't believe that absolute truth is graspable through our senses and I'm not sure if it even exists. Everybody needs to make some baseless assumptions in their lives though, we do that unconsciously all the time. To explain new observations, we constantly make up theories that we either keep relying on* or eventually discard. If you purely rely on logic, you are never able to leave the point of knowing absolutely nothing, neither can you logically deduce any sense for us being alive.
*) For example, your assumption that the discussion with Bisqwit would be pointless. You still participated in it, maybe just to reassure to yourself that your assumption is true and that you are on the right track with your life, while he is wrong.
In the end, being overly logical is the nice and secure, but complicated way to live our lives, while being more willing to stick to unproven theories (some of which you've made up on your own) is a more explorative and adventurous, but more risky way of living your life. It's a good thing that both types of humans exist in this world, as well as everything in between. If your path leads to a dead end, you can be happy there are lots of other human beings to try the other ones. It means you never need to live your life in regret, as walking down a wrong path still serves as a valuable warning to others, so it's never in vain.
In life, you just pick one path and see where it takes you. If you find something valuable there, go and share it with the rest of the world.
It's a lot like decorating a christmas tree.
Now back to the Bible, starting from the unreasonable premiss that it holds absolute truth, the contradictions don't serve as evidence for it being not true anymore. Instead they are a challenge and your duty as a believer becomes to explain these contradictions for yourself and thus come closer to God. They make you think about who he actually is, and you should go that path because it's the only path that leads to the light and to love, because God is love. If God appers to not love us, then it's just because we cannot comprehend his true motivation for the things he does. That's a very reasonable explanation that resolves something that seems like a contradiction in the bible to you, but maybe it's more like a puzzle you have to solve to get a closer understanding of who God really is.
That is pretty much spot-on, as much as I understand how frustrating and fruitless that may be from any other perspective.
Also, true that everything starts from assumptions. For whatever experience or observation we witness, we can only build theories upon assumptions on what it means. Some assumptions are just easier to justify than others, easier to sympatize with, easier to propagate, easier to build new assumptions upon, and, also, more difficult to abandon when subscribing to them long enough. Zhuangzhi, for instance, pondered, while dreaming of a butterfly, if he's really the butterfly who dreams of being a human. These quantities apply possibly to everything observable, anything thinkable and anything experiencable.
Also, true that everything starts from assumptions. For whatever experience or observation we witness, we can only build theories upon assumptions on what it means.
Just because our senses are limited and we have to always make assumptions doesn't mean that all assumptions are equally valid. Some assumptions are more justified than others.
A credible assumption is one which, above all else, behaves consistently and can be verified/repeated by independent parties, all of who get the same results. Consistency also means that you can build a model which describes the phenomenon and makes (correct) predictions about its behavior. Likewise if it can be measured and tested by something else than people with their fallible senses (iow. machines).
If a claim cannot be verified, measured and independently tested (always giving consistent results), and is inconsistent or self-contradictory, it diminishes its credibility.
"Genuine self-esteem, however, consists not of causeless feelings, but of certain knowledge about yourself.
It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
- Onkar Ghate
Bisqwit wrote:
