Doesn't really alter much. The amount of time spent on something doesn't indicate it's actual worth. How much time, effort and paper is put into train spotting? (As a hobby - not the existence of trains themselves). Does that make train-spotting a valid (whatever that means) practice? Any more valid than, say, military vehicle restoration (which has fewer devotees/ written materials).
my point is that the very notion of actual worth is something arrived at due to who said what when ..... most of which is garnered through the written medium sounds like a topic of teleology (of which there is plenty to read btw) For instance a stark difference between leprechauns and god is the (almost) complete lack of teleological foundations in the former ... hence its practically impossible to indicate any society that doesn't have social functions lodged within theism .... and similarly practically impossible to find a society with an equivalent interest in leprechauns. So that's why its all about strawmen, since deconstructing leprechauns as a fictional construct is a hell of a lot easier than doing the same with theism.
No that's not an indicator of worth. Unless you'd also consider an extensive catalogue of my mother's discussions about gardening to be of worth. Providing they were all timed and dated. Not to me. Really? Didn't the teleological foundations come later, after embellishment? Nah. Same subject, same validity.
and who she is, of course, and where she speaks. For instance if she was a qualified agricultural scientist and happened to be in some part of world with a critical grain shortage due to some plant disease, her discussions might well be of great worth. Then you must live in a gray world where any activity is just as equally valid as any other I guess there might have been a handful of eccentric persons who dedicated their lives to the pursuit of rainbows with excavation equipment in tow .... Only by disregarding practically all that we hold as superior in the fields of philosophy, ethics, science, architecture, literature, music and art
So in the case of the bible/ whatever the assumption is a priori that whoever is speaking is a god expert? That god exists before the books that show he exists are written? False assumption. And you've missed the point. Or sat up all night deciding god does exist and they know enough to write about him/ them. it. Really? You have strange ideas on what constitutes "superior".
I disagree. There's an equal amount of good evidence for the existence of FSM as there is for the existence of Thor as there is for Allah as there is for Amaterasu as there is for Leprechauns as there is for Unicorns as there is for Dragons as there is for Poseidon etc.... Which is to say: None. And that's the point. It's all made up. Just like Santa. So stop being a God-Bot and pull your head out Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Michael PS: Oh and you forgot about Xenu. Notice the size and color? You see, the size and the color are evidence of Xenu being real and existing and the other Gods et.al. not being real and not existing. It's not good evidence - but evidence nonetheless.
No more than the assumption is apriori that your mother is an agricultural scientist. Its more the case that the books (much like the books of any other discipline of knowledge you care to mention) possess both normative descriptions of the practitioners and descriptive descriptions of the article under investigation. IOW there are direct indications of who and how a person becomes knowledgeable and what they are being knowledgeable about. then you alternatively you must introduce issues of teleology to discern the validity and value of one activity over another. or alternatively, discerned the nature of god by dint of experience and elaborated on how others, provided they apply themselves, can also achieve similar results I guess the pending leprechaun Renaissance is what contributes to the lack of philosophical dissertations, eh?
On the contrary there is tons of evidence that the FSM is a satirical ploy used by atheists. You could even place it in a continuum, being a philosophically watered down version of Bertrand Russel writings, a flying teapot for the masses, if you will. As for Xenu, reference to font size and colour is probably the closest thing one could get to for a normative description for practitioners.
You can? I bet you can't. Depends on the specific deity and beliefs. You mentioned cargo cults as being easily debunked - so is Mormonism, and other theisms of recent enough development that they haven't been cleaned up and made more presentable in thoughtful company. The older theisms have evolved, edited out the cruder implausibilities. They have angels, not elves. Back to the cargo cults again? or are we talking peyote religion?
Its as easy as showing the rusted out hull of a ship So what's the equivelen tof a rusted hull in these other theisms? as you tentatively suggest, no doubt Once again, feel free to indicate the equivalent of a rusting hull (and not another tentative argument) to support your claims.
And there are tons of evidence that Gods are human projections onto the natural world. So I guess we're stuck with no GOOD evidence. As I said, no good evidence. Which is the point LG. There is no GOOD evidence for Gods, Goddesses, Xenues, Smurfs, Santa, Elves, magic, etc.... no better than being written large and in green. Sorry but thems the beans, :shrug: Michael
You have a constant habit of boldly stepping over the line with the assertion that atheism is an evidenced claim. You've done it again here. Do you want to revoke it now or get whipped back into the kennel again? For as long as one remains divorced from issues of application, any absurdity is just as effective as any other. Its not so much that there is no good evidence, but that there is no good evidence available to you.
Depends on the philosopher, but so what? Being discussed by a philosopher neither makes something real or not real. They are seminal enough to be on most reading lists, but so what? How is being seminal relevant? Talk about irrelevent, and not true. For example there are far more teleological foundations for leprechauns in my society than there are for brahman. But as I said, god for god. Pick one that is "real" and one that is "false" and show the difference.
But you do have to consult philosophy in order to determine what is real ... which leads one to determining which philosophers one agrees or disagree with ... or alternatively, positing one's self as one. If you want to comment on a literary idea, you would address issues found in the seminal version.. For instance citing Herman Hesse's work as sufficient for contextualizing buddhist claims falls a bit short. what do you think brahman is? false god would be one that did not have access to all potencies (unless of course one is talking of a demigod, which is something slightly different)
If you could kindly explain to me what this has to do with you using a fallacy and me pointing it out to you - and indeed your continual usage of that fallacy? --- As there seems to be a need to explain it to you: Claiming that something is true because lots of people believe it, write about it or spend time wondering about it is argumentum ad populum. It is a fallacy and should have no place in reasonable discussion. A claim has been made to an argument being a fallacy, (strawman: comparison of leprechauns etc to gods). To support that claim, you provide a fallacy, (argumentum ad populum). In short: You're arguing against a claimed fallacious argument by making a fallacious argument. Kindly try again. --- Finally, in response to the OP. The mistake is made that the comparison is one concerning specific attributes such as a god and mermaid both living in the sea. This is of course not what the comparison is about. The comparison is: lack of evidence for the existence of a claimed entity. In this the comparisons are valid.
That would miss the point, from a cargo cultist's point of view. They have seen many rusted hulls. Their faith remains. Since your rusted hull example represents a complete (and typical) failure to comprehend the beliefs of the cargo cultists, the equivalent would be another such oblivious begging of the question - how about if I observe that Christian cemeteries are full of dead people, unrisen and not in heaven? Does that shake your faith? So what are you denying - that there is evidence for the possibility that gods are projections by humans unto the natural world, or that such evidence favors atheistic comprehension?
Its quite simple. If the only hits come from persons who don't believe it (ie atheists playing coy) the idea is not represented in any form ... what to speak of any philosophical form (the form of delineating the truth/misrepresentation of a thing) which brings us back to the old issue of the requirements for evidence, since you have one party claiming that there is no evidence and the other claiming that there is. :shrug:
Indicating a rusting hull (and perhaps further info that can be gathered from a merchant shipping company) is sufficient to contextualize the faith however The point with the cargo cult is that the object of their faith can be contextualized without a heavy reliance on tentative arguments. IOW we can observe the manufacture of transport vehicles and the goods they carry. Similar types of arguments directed against more regular types of theisms don't have that resource. For instance in your statement about the rising dead, there is no observation of the intrinsic quality of life (or the ability to reduce it to the bare material elements, if that's what floats your boat), so your qualm of "I don't see it" isn't as strong as the arguments against cargo cultists, which is "I do see it" does evidence that some scientists got it wrong indicate that all scientists are getting it wrong? Its one thing to draw a conclusion in a particular circumstance. Its another to extrapolate that to all circumstances.
