What do atheists think that "to know God" means?

Much like: if humans eat, and humans have hair, then that which eats has hair.

Which rather excludes fish, reptiles, birds, insects etc.

I.e. you have committed a logical fallacy of the undistributed middle.

 

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If you have a watch, and you put the watch into a box, and then you put the box with the watch inside into a drawer: Do you have a watch in your drawer or not?

 

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And you are evading my point, almost as if someone payed you to do so.

 

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@wynn --

Rocks exist, rocks do not suffer, therefore suffering is not a part of existence.

 

Are those interactions then somehow not part of matter, part of existence?

Is a certain level of complexity somehow not a part of existence?

 

If you exist, and you suffer, then suffering exists, and it is part of existence.

 

And I mean really - just look at the supernaturalist nature of what you just said above!!

 

Swing and a miss.

 

@wynn --

I guess my reductio ad absurdum was too subtle for you. Did you not notice the similarities between your argument and mine? They both employ identical logic.

 

Is this what you've been reduced to, Wynn?

 

No - I am explaining why your point is based on falacious logic - and thus does not hold up to scrutiny.

They are part of existence, sure. But you can not logically conclude from these that suffering is an inherent part of existence.

To do so would be to commit a logical fallacy: If A is an X then, because A is also Y, all those with X must also be Y.
(If A exists, then because A also suffers, all those who exist must also suffer).

i.e. just because some forms of matter experience suffering does not mean that suffering is an inherent part of material existence.

 

I didn't conclude that, you did.

I used that argument to illustrate a point, not to make it.

It is evident that there is suffering. How, where, why - this is what interests us.

What your camp is doing that you try to present suffering as a minor, subjective, local issue, something that just needs to be accepted and dealt with. And by "dealt with", this implies solutions of the "grit your teeth and bear it" sort, or solutions that involve simply distracting oneself, so that one's suffering is pushed out of one's awareness.

Some of us are saying that those "solutions" aren't real solutions, and that a real solution needs a much more radical approach.

Thank you, I've read my Schopy.

 

Hey, JDawg! How you've been? Long time no see.
:m:

 

@wynn --

That is not what you said. This is what you said:

"If humans exist, and humans have problems, then existence (that which exists) has problems."

See the difference?

Rather than arguing a spurious and fallacious point, why don't you just say what you mean next time?

 

As Arioch has pointed out - this is what you concluded, whether you intended to or not.

And LG claimed that such a problem is inherent in material existence.
I/we are arguing that this is not the case... that it indeed IS a subjective, local issue - specific to various forms of "life" and their interaction with (other) matter (thus allowing for whether one considers "life"/matter to be dualistic).

Further, you are conflating two issues - the first whether problems are "subjective, local issues" and then what those subjective views might be.

Holding to the former does not imply holding to the latter.

But I would say that before we can discuss those subjective views, if that is the intention, we at first need to agree that they are subjective views and not the "inherent problems" of material existence - which would be to suggest that they are objective.

If you can describe some of the problems of a rock... or of a universe devoid of life, perhaps?

But if we can't even agree on the nature of the problem...?

Did it help?

 

Yes, I can spot a useless pedant from ten miles.

 

I suppose you must get a lot of practice in recognizing them, after all you look in the mirror every day.

 

Do you think seeking clarity and pointing out fallacious logic in an argument to be useless?
Further, if you consider my comments to be useless or pedantic, feel free to state it explicitly rather than implicitly through such thinly veiled insults. It would certainly be more polite, if nothing else.

 

You would know.

I actually did read my Schopy ... as have you. So let's not play dumb here.

 

That was not how I arrived at my stance that suffering is inherent to material existence, nor did I suggest that this is how you should.

Do you have some ideas as to why we can't agree on the nature of the problem?