This could go both ways, but interesting nonetheless:
"In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that misinformed people, particularly political partisans, rarely changed their minds when exposed to corrected facts in news stories. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger."
The point is, lets say he really believes in Z. YES his failure to provide more information says something about the validity of it. For one, it arouses our suspicion that he’s just making it up. But, failing that, we can request evidence, which he will fail to provide. At that point I feel free to call him a crackpot.
I suggest you read the article first before jumping to any conclusions.
Oh, so if i did not see your ninja edit, I all of a sudden chose not to read it. Nice logic there ::).
Is this the same as Downward- or Macro-Causation as found in Panentheism?
All your reference has done is to suggest that theism hinders progress. In the article Georges Lemaître warned the Vatican that the Big Bang Theory leaves the individual free to deny a transcendental being. Do you think this statement would hinder or progress research into the Big Bang? Of course it would hinder it, proving my point, which you classified as rubbish.
Of course big bang theory leaves the individual free to deny a transcendental being. I don’t see how that statement hinders scientific progress. The point being, is that Lemaître followed the evidence and the evidence suggests that the universe had a beginning and further theological/philosophical/metaphysical arguments are needed to support theism. Science is free to go in any direction, multiverse and all.
Aaw, that is cute. Have a walk outside, have a few goals in life, act towards a few ends. Maybe make a cute little teddy bear out of that scalp you so proudly hang behind your front door. try reality for a change.
Yeah, shift the responsibility onto the listener for “not understanding” the Z position (much like a petulant teenager) when the person making it up is not providing anything substantial. You claim it’s not the claimant failing to provide proper evidence, but instead the listener’s fault for just not doing enough effort to believe this (utterly unsubstantiated from the get-go) claim. I’m sure he could just go on and on making up new and wonderful shit about Z until the end of days, and still fail to provide any significant evidence that could sway me. This doesn’t lend his position any validity, I am NOT obliged to believe a shred of what he says until he can back it up. Even if he does create an entirely new field of philosophy to justify Z, all he’s creating is nebulous crap designed to try and justify his viewpoint without ANY (all together now) EVIDENCE. He will still repeatedly fail to provide ANY real evidence. Is it now MY fault that I’m not willing to spend the rest of my life listening to his crap? If he comes forth with worthwhile evidence I will drop whatever I’m doing and listen up and considder it, I swear.
Hence, I still won’t believe in Z. Until the point that he can PROVE the existance of his magical entity, it’s just another made-up magical entity. And that, is why we are atheists, in a nutshell.
Actually, the responsibility is with cyghost to make a clear definition. If he has no clear definition, you cannot say anything with regards to Z anyway, heck you don’t have to believe in Z either. Z becomes irrelevant if you do not wish to engage with cyghost to try and find out what exactly he is talking about. You unfortunately can’t say anything serious about Z as a result of the poor definition or your poor understanding of Z as a result of the poor definition.
Of course you are not obliged to believe him. Who said you where? Unfortunately, if you do not have a good enough understanding (as a result of his poor definition or whatever), there is just no way you can say anything about Z with regards to its existence.
Sure, if you are interested in Z, go for it, just don’t go on blathering on about Z if you haven’t got a clue what Z actually means in the first place.
You don’t have to believe in Z, but for Pete sake, reserve judgement about Z until you actually have a clue what he is talking about or just ignore him if you aren’t interested.
Z is going to be unfalsifiable for the rest of eternity. Even though cyghost just made Z up, you’re now requiring that the entire world become Z-agnostic for the rest of time. And still Z doesn’t exist. Which is why I asked my initial question, in this mode of assuming everything has a non-zero probability until proven otherwise (impossible to do), that means you have to be the ultimate pan-religious agnostic, heck you’re even argumentatively agnostic wrt Z. You cannot discount any religion. Which makes your life, complex, to say the least, do you plan on observing the criteria for all those different religions to hedge your bets into heaven? Do you think that’s even possible? Of course, only one of them can be true (and in my opinion, NONE of them are true). Are you happy KNOWING that you’re “provisionally believing” a whooole lot of shit that WILL be proven false, simply because the adherents didn’t shout loud enough and you didn’t have time in your limited existence to “evaluate” all that stuff of which AT LEAST 99.9% (probably 100%) is false. That’s a LOT of wasted time in the name of giving unprovable, un-falsifyable, clearly non-logical “phenomena” a chance. You may as well spend your time watching paint dry, since all the investigation in the world will still not disprove them. However, the point is, they’re not proven and justifyable to begin with. Hence the task is MUCH simpler if you just start with the belief that they’re all bull, and are open to being convinced otherwise. I assure you, if any religion is outright proven to be true, it’ll be front-page news and the talk of the town throughout the world. You wouldn’t need to look hard.
“Reserving judgement” is your way of saying, “It cannot be disproven, hence I believe it”. “Reserving judgement” for me means, “I won’t believe it until it can be proven”. Notice my “until”. I AM reserving judgement, just in a logically consistent way. I can be proven wrong, but I know I won’t waste my life investigating things that ARE false. In the same way I reserve judgement in the multiverse, and any un-proven scientific theory. I don’t believe it right now, there’s no reason to. BUT the difference is there may come a time when that viewpoint can either be vindicated through solid scientific evidence, or be proven false, and no god is going to torture me for eternity because I didn’t correctly anticipate the outcome with “incomplete knowledge”. I would argue, complete knowledge of something that is true, includes valid evidence. Complete knowledge of something that is untrue will not necessarily contain anything that is helpful in changing your mind one way or another. Further investigation is thus an utter waste of time.
Look, anything can be unfalsifiable for eternity if it has no clear definition. it does not mean you have to believe in it.
There isn’t much to say about Z really. It is just irrelevant. No need to have any judgement. Of course, if part of the definition of Z is that Z is just a made up thing he does not believ in anyway and thus non-existent. Then sure, I believe Z is made up and no need to believe in Z.
I am not assuming everything has a non-zero probability. If I don’t have a clear definition of something I will have no judgement with regards to probability or certainty.
What I am doing is trying to formulate a rational world-view (as rational as possible) taking what I know at present, discarding what I think is not rational and reserving judgement on things I do not have a clear understanding of. If I turn out to be wrong, so be it, at least I tried.
That is hardly true. I am merely saying that judgement will be reserved and I don’t have to believe or not believe it.
Actually, the responsibility is with cyghost to make a clear definition.
ha ha ha ha ha haaaahahaa haaa haa ha ha ha ha ha haaaa ha ha
“And in other news, with new fallacies being created left right and center telic, while swimming in his shit hole (cue new shithole fallacy, where you don’t just erect a straw man, you throw him in a pool of poo and dive right in after wards to drown the bastard and then believe you come out smelling like roses, shot himself in the foot. This is of course nothing new but it remains awesome”
Yeah, try reading it again when you have a calmed down a bit there old chap ???.
Why don't you remain calm please? All this emotion you are displaying is not helping your cause one bit. You have to be rational and these heaving emotions surely is unhelpful. Take a deep breath, count to 20 and relax. Think good things, let go of the anger. Sooooooth the fear and the dark emotions. green in, ugly red out, green in, ugly red out. gooooooooooooosefraba. Say it with me - goooooooooosefrabba. There? Calm now? Relax? Not so emotional, you'll be able to look at the logic in another light and perhaps being relaxed will help you to concentrate a little.
Oh, I forget, you keep telling people this is you being as calm as a Hindu cow in Calcutta… right… ::). Anyway, once that vain has receded (after popping or whatever), try reading again :-*.
Any and all emotion (yes including vein poppingsters) remains your projections (and that of GCG currently)
Now fuck off and die ;D or learn to follow your own logic or do whatever the fuck you want
Currently I am enjoying your contortions surrounding Z, while a true skeptic has already exposed me. And no, the current definition of Z stays as it is and you can continue to pretend you are “agnostic” toward it for all to laugh at. The fucking idea that something requires you to believe in it before making my food taste nice is not grounded in any fucking reality. And you choose to stand moot on it. Well fuck you and your horse. Myself and others like me, praise Jesus, will forever continue to point out bullshit where we smell it. Your weak attempt to silence critics of your bullshit theology will forever fail until you provide the evidence required.
Now it is about time for you to take a shower, you fucking reek.
Yep yep, another emotionless outburst from cyghost’s lalaland ::). Cool as a cucumber, as logical as can be. Got any more lovely irrelevant examples that completely misses the point? Don’t worry, I will play along ::)… without letting you pop a few more veins, I’ll try anyway >:D.
You have no fucking idea what my emotional state is. Not a single fucking clue. All you have is words I type and from that you build a nebulous fucking case that I am ‘popping a vein’. This is empathetically not the truth. Granted that I cannot prove this to my fellow skeptics, I’ll forgive them if they remain skeptical about it. However,
The fact that you dogmatically continue to speak out about my state of mind with zero empirical evidence to back it up, makes you the first official case of a SC. (believing in God 100% without evidence or actually really knowing what he / she / it is made you a XC remember?)
I am fucking amazed as I truly thought none such entities can possibly be thought to exist. (I was 99% on that). Having proved (99%) to me that there can really be such fucking dumb people, is a credit to your attempts.
Now that this red herring have actually had a positive result, I am happy to allow you to be a SC and a XC. I personally think it is a character flaw and one you cannot possibly do anything about until you acknowledge it.
Relax (or show some more emotion or whatever lol) chap, I am just playing with you lol. I wonder, could you perhaps differentiate between your emotional states when you write >:D? Or are emotional states as non-existent to you as thoughts are to Mintaka :P. Anyway, have fun.
SA was ‘blessed’ with a Minister of Agriculture with a sense of humour in the apartheid years: Schoeman and one of his best wisecracks in Parliament was “People who throw with mud, lose ground”. ;D
I wonder, could you perhaps differentiate between your emotional states when you write >:D?
I don't have a clue what you are asking here. If you are asking me to explain my emotional state so that you don't make mistakes about my feelings or preceived tone then I am afraid I cannot really help you. That is the projection you will have to work on. Any and all emotion you read in my words, are your own. I think the most emotion I feel when on forums is a) entertainment \ humor and at the other spectrum at most exasperation.
I don’t really get this, I have no clue about your mental state or your emotions or anyone else’s for that matter and so I do actually hold back comment on it. As per anti-SC regulations. That you think you know mine is fucking arrogant on top of being wrong. I get that being wrong in’t the problem it is for you, but this is still weird to the max.
Or are emotional states as non-existent to you as thoughts are to Mintaka :P. Anyway, have fun.
No they are pretty existent. And not made of particles. Go figure eh?
Hey man, I am perfectly happy for you if that is the way you want to portray yourself is being cool, calm and collective. I must say though, that if you were ever to write a book, I would really like to read what the angry characters will read like and how you will contrast them with your average cool, calm and collective character. That should be a hoot >:D.
Eendag lank lank gelede was daar 'n kwaai hasie wat in die bos gebly het. Hy was nie kwaai oorlat hy in die bos gebly het nie, hy was kwaai omdat hy van wortels hou en daar eenvoudig nie wortels beskikbaar was nie.