Sciforum Members - What do we believe?

How can I understand anything in any way other than how I understand it??? Surely if there is a misunderstanding then it is your role to clarify - not for me to assume a misunderstanding on my part. Otherwise we start with the assumption of misunderstanding and never progress.

Yes - it is.
Truth is objective - unchanging. Infinitely narrow.

Please don't tell me what the proper words are. I use the words I use for reasons. If you do not understand them (English clearly not being your first language - and I mean that as an observation, not an insult) then please do let me know, but do not assume that I have used improper wording.

No. To work on this basis is to work in a logical fallacy (Appeal to Popularity / Consensus etc).

To question a fact, if you state it to be objective, is surely a foolish notion?

Synonymous. "To know God exists" is the same as "To know God's existence is a fact". This is simple logic.
You can not know something exists without implicitly claiming that existence to be fact.

So what you really meant was "I conclude God exists (based on my subjective interpretation of experience)"?
"Conclude" is different to "know".

But changes nothing of WHAT you present.
You can claim with absolute conviction that you can fly off a cliff, unaided. It won't change your inevitable succumbing to gravity.

Is it only me who finds your comment to be oh, so ironic?

Sure - as long as you know what "know" means!

Anyone can conclude anything they want. Whether the conclusion follows a logical and rational path from the information is an entirely different story - and the conclusion, in and of itself, speaks nothing of the path taken.

Yep - adds nothing to the debate at all - as anyone can say anything they want with confidence. The purpose of debate, especially scientific, is to put forward your evidence. If you can not do that and rely solely on conclusions of subjective experience that you can not put forward, then you have no place at the table and must eat with all those others who spout unsupported confidence statements.

Then don't use the word "know". Use the word "conclude".

Understand the difference:
"I know God exists."
"I conclude God exists."

Which one of these expresses the possibility of doubt?

 

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sheesh!

agnostic.

 

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It's called imagination. Through it we can percieve a perspective which is not our own.

Then we disagree...not in principle for I actually agree but truth is different things to different people

Very well I will not tell you how to use your own language propperly. Clearly it is offensive to you and I don't wish to transgress.

Fallacy...no. Society simply is. Perspectives change from one to another. Somethings are commonalities. Society is not just a source of concensus it is a source of knowledge.

To question a fact, if you state it to be objective, is surely a foolish notion?

Negative. But I'll not define the terms of your language as you view it an act of offense.

No doubt but it is also synonymous.

I didn't say it did. But if you're going to believe then it might mean you have some doubts. This state of actuality is your hang up Sarkus. I will try to understand where you're going with this Sarkus but your use of this analogy doesn't strike me as definitive. I'm sure it meets your critera but it doesn't relate well.

Is it only me who finds your comment to be oh, so ironic?

Sure - as long as you know what "know" means!

Anyone can conclude anything they want. Whether the conclusion follows a logical and rational path from the information is an entirely different story - and the conclusion, in and of itself, speaks nothing of the path taken.

Yes anyone can say anything they want with confidence. So narrow it down, don't leave it in a state of happy generalization...use a filter, a process of elimination. If you find the field to wide then reduce the spectrum.

There is no as much of a difference there as you wish there to be. If you don't share that perspective it's entirely understandable for you objective.

Neither EXPRESSES doubt... What you must mean is which one is absolute. That would be "I know God exist." the other express an agrement, an end of consideration or to reach a logically necessary end by reasoning...

you did ask for definintion here.

 

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Is it really worth correcting you? It appears not - for you will continually use language incorrectly.

So you agree - but then say the complete opposite? You baffle me.

It is not so much offensive as impolite, not to mention arrogant, to suggest that someone doesn't mean what their words express. For who would know better what they mean more than the one who uses the words?

Unfortunately you are incorrect, and clearly you do not understand logical fallacies.

But society does not determine truth. They can at best share an understanding - but if all of society held that they could throw themselves off a cliff and fly unaided - gravity would still win.

Merely disagreeing won't make you any more correct, Saquist. If you wish to argue the matter, feel free, but your use of English is inaccurate and your understanding incorrect.

No - it isn't. "Conclude" and "know" are very different. One expresses a journey of thought (rational or otherwise), the other a mere arrival at an end-point.

My analogy is just fine, thanks. It relates very well to anyone who understands English.
Don't assume that the person didn't mean what they wrote.
Argue against what is written - not against what you think they might have meant if only you could understand it.

I'm sure this comment of yours was in response to a something I wrote - I'm just not clear how it has any bearing on anything being discussed?

I do not wish there to be a difference - there just is.

If you do not wish to be precise with your use of English words that is your prerogative, but you must then accept that people might not pick up on the meaning you are trying to get across - and that the onus is on you to clarify to them, not for them to guess at what you are inaccurately trying to say.

Feel free to re-read what was actually written.

And there you go again trying to reinterpret my words.

If you're going to copy from a dictionary, at least try to understand when each meaning is used:
There is no "agreement" when the term CONCLUDE is expressed by an individual - you can not reach an agreement with yourself. "We conclude" expresses agreement, but "I conclude" does not.

I fully agree that "I conclude" expresses the reaching of an end by reasoning - but it says nothing about the reasoning itself - whether it is rational or irrational. And thus the reasoning is open to debate. Thus the introduction of the possibility for doubt.

Where exactly did I pose that request?

 

I wouldn't consider your perspective that relevent anyway, Sarkus.

Yes it's called P.O.V

Then I will continue.

Such is the foundatioin of your beliefs.

I'm afraid you're wrong. Society does determine truth. It does now And it has before likely it will again baring your weak analogy of course.

It is your misconception that this is actually an argument.

Yes I know. One expresses an arrival the other expresses the location. They're no completely synonomous because that. There is a propper way to express each of them, not necessarily interchangable. Both are expressing an status but in different "tenses" (I'm not sure if that is the propper way to express that.)

For instance. When posed the question:
"How do you know?"
"by process of elimination."

That is a conclusion. It is the same as asking:
"What is your conclusion?"

No it's not exact it's colloquialism.

I accept what you're saying. I am not always precise. You however are not free of blame from interpreting either.

I don't think I copied that from a dictionary but I was wrong nonetheless. Agreement was not the propper word, as you said it was arrival.

 

Your call. I can't stop you from believing you can fly as I watch you hurl yourself from the cliff.

I think you'll find it's called "contradiction". Look it up.

If you continue to provide the evidence to support the conclusion that you do not understand logical fallacies, I can do nothing but continue to follow that conclusion.

WTF?????
:wtf:

You're going to have explain this most bizarre of comments before you are ridiculed too openly.

If society believed the earth to be the centre of the Universe... did this make it true?

Again, the evidence that you don't know what logical fallacies are mounts.

It was not an argument - but a statement of fact.

Apology accepted.

You need to be more precise in arguments / debates on forums - lest others misunderstand what you say.

Eh? Please clarify. How can blame be assiged to interpretation. If an interpretation is wrong then is it not for the other to correct them - but why "blame"??

So you still "know" God exists?

 

Sometimes they do oppose each other.

Simple. Your analogy is set to expose the negative qualification. That's fine. That's how a litteral truth is determined. But these are not so determinable. Societal truths tend to dictate a more intangible ideal. There are often expressed in religion folk tales, taboo and the like. But we can't merely push these off a cliff to see if these are true. That's why they are societaly truths.

The Hebrews writings in the Bible are much like this. For them these were truths, factual. It was there history and I image most culturals see it in the same light such as the Egyptians and the Babylonians

For that society which has believed for centuries such a statement would be true. But this is like jumping off the cliff...it's testable now in the past it was not easily discern it depended on information and a set of logical reasonings. Two sets of logical reasionings can still contradict.

I concur. It was my error in precision.
There are times when I regress to colloquial understandings.

I'm not sure what you're asking.

Interpreting in it's commonly understood premise in religion tends to be negative. Regardless of translation and actualities there is an attempt to mutate the facts to fit a modeled perception.

In Fact, interpreting done correctly infers only logical conclusions dependent on only the facts. Perception plays little to no part. However this might aswell be irrelevant since the more I thought about it the more I fould I was in error, thus saquist.

"When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. "

Yes, through deduction I have arrived at the desired status of knowledge. The arrival point and the desired destination are the same location.

 

"such is the foundation of your beliefs"
-Saquist

....

I could start laughing my ass off right here.
it is clear his entire foundation will fall within the next 5 years, at most.

 

I'll repeat it again...

:wtf:

Don't confuse "truth" with a conclusion being rational / logical.

The latter is dependent upon the evidence at hand.
The former is not.
If the evidence at hand leads rationally to an incorrect conclusion... so be it. The conclusion will probably be thought of as truth (or at least probable, depending on how aware they are of the limitations of the evidence viewed) but it isn't.
Everyone on the earth could have thought it flat, and possibly could have thought so based upon logical and rational thought from their evidence. But this still does not change the TRUTH.

And how, pray tell, have you managed to determine what is possible and impossible, and how have you determined that God is the conclusion of this.
Given that we are still pushing back the boundaries of our understanding of the Universe, is it not premature to conclude "God did it"?
What specifically is it that you have concluded MUST be the work of God, and that it is impossible for it to be anything else?

 

Saquist:


I like you, don't think I don't.
But, here's something to consider;

Agnostic.
What is an agnostic?
An agnostic is a person who doesn't know what to believe. Because their "conclusions" (I have only one eye open and am in pain, so, excuse me for being a bit too imprecise...), so to speak, lead
them to that idea. ... It's pretty simple, I am an agnostic because I don't know what to believe. I don't know.
That is what, in my opinion an agnostic is.

I could be wrong. But I don't know if God is some connection with the world, I don't know if the historicial evidence of God is real; I can't accept most anything in the bible, because it has all been shown to be very negitevly viewed and preposterous.
It is possible for one to believe in the bible I would accept this. Good people do.

Either way you look at it though.

To me, God could also really not exist; but, I have no evidence to support my claim. I have no reasons to assert it. I could be wrong. So I assume it's the most rational "conclusion" for me.

It is good you know God exists. I wish you could show me a little more reason [incentive assertion or even a bold idea; to change my mind, even the slightest; besides cramming down my throat the fact that I may go to hell.] to believe in God, from your suggestions. I can't find the slightest idea. Nobody on this site will either. You alone may know, but you cannot and will not convince either me, Sarkus; or anyone.

It's how it goes.

Why is an atheist an atheist; I don't know!
He doesn't believe in God.
We would have to hear from an athiest though, not a sour puss run down beat in the ditch agnostic wannabe.

 

Believing in your self is pretty much the definition of Egoism.
Why do people talk about it like it is a shameful thing?

 

i believe in law, right and wrong, truths and lies, actions and consequences, and in my experience. and i believe that my experience does not encompass all there is to know.

 

I don't disagree. That's why the truth can be subjective. Subjective to what we know. Discovering the truth will require investigation. Truths change as we discover them. We learn over time the truth.

We could learn we're all part of neural interactive construct and thus this would all be a lie. But for right now it's truth.

I can tell you one thing it wasn't through prayer. But the question is why do you want to know how I came to this decision? Is it moe important how you come to the decision. Whether aggree with the information and the conclusions and the facts that support them you must make your own decision. Do you hope to analyze my process and compare it to your own?

So be it.

Is is premature to make a conclusion at this juncture?
Let's see we do lack alot of knowledge in terms of the universe but we do know it has an order and structure. There is also an perceiveable determinable amount of chaos invovled. While somethings are predictable others are not.

I see the question of a designer of the universe much like the Theory of the Big and the Theory of the small. While one is predicitable the other is far from it. However it doesn't prevent us from tracking the path of comets and planets even if we can't track the exact location of quantum particles.

I've asked the question: Why isn't it all chaos or all structured? How does order beget chaos? How would choas create order?

Those were some of my early questionings to analyze the situtation.

 

That's intresting. I beleive if I were to chose to be agnostic I would be giving up on the search. By attacking this problem as one or the other it is like a positive preasure enviroment that produces wind that chisles away at as mountain and reveal something new...whether that new be for or against what I've understood previously.

I have sensed that agnostic is like a planet without an atmosphere. The surface never changes for hundreds of years.

I would rather discover that I'm wrong than to have an asteroid shatter my world.

I tested the information available. And that is indeed one the reason I'm here is present this information for testing aswell. I've had limited heat to really refine the end conclusion. Recently the test has been turned up and it's been very fascinating to see that there is alot of misconceptions about God as presented by science.

God not existing has to be possibility in the search you can't rule it out and hope to just...prove on side. Science tends to do this in the reverse and it's disturbing but I've come to realize that it is not science, it is the people behind it.

The first thing to investigate was the truthfullness of the most contended book on the face of the planet. I needed stark comparisons to apply to the bible. I need to find truth and I need to find falsehood. I also needed to discover any contradictions in my logic and the opposing logic not to mention reasoning on both sides.

My chosen method of cross examining this information was that of Justice based system. All evidence had to have a relation to the subject, all evidence to be eliminated had to be determined as prejudicial or irrelevant. The bible went through that test.

Because the bible had some very fantastic events involved I had to consider it's truthfullness. That required a stark comparison of the more relatable information.

Then I allowed it to lock horns with science directly both on it's terms and sciences' terms. It revealed surface contention. That required deeper inestigation. It was often an issue of precision or as we determined on this thread colloquialism that occurs in culture not to mention metaphors and grammar. Science doesn't really recognize these and I realize this was the source of the contention between them. I found precedent, in historical statements and actual use of these social alterations.

One such example was the contention between science and the bible on the issue of the creation of the Earth. I sensed this had to approached first. Not only did I find precedent I found others that precieved the same logic.

When this started to unravel the Bible gained a reputation for being correct.

 

Saquist,

What does it mean to say that "the truth is subjective to what we know ?

" Truths change as we discover them ". They do not; it's our understanding that changes

"The Theory of The Big and the Theory of the small ". In my opinion. someone who shows a complete lack of understanding of the scientifiv method. is hardly qualified to comment om QM. I have the impression that you have picked up a few buzz words and are using them without understanding the import of what you are saying. Who says that the exact location of quantum particles cannot be known ? Do you favour the Copenhagen interpretation or some other one, and why ? It's ironic that having deprecated science in many of your posts you are now invoking a scientific theory to support your position.

" How does order beget chaos ? " There's a straightforward answer to that but it will do you good to find out for yourself. " Beget" is not the most felicitous way of of describing what is happening.

If god created the universe, which contains order and chaos , why do you think he did so. Is it possible that he was incapable of doing better , or perhaps he is just a whimsical character. Doesn't sound too clever to me.

And how you arrive at a decision that god exists based on the premises you put forward is very difficult to understand. Would you care to clarify your line of reasoning ?


Lastly, it's commomly accepted that if one quotes another, credit should be given to the originator. You owe it to Conan Doyle/ Sherlock Holmes to credit him with the quotation you used in a previous post

 

Ok.

Because it might help in expanding my knowledge base.
Because I am interested in what persuades anyone to believe (intellectual curiosity in "the enemy" so to speak).
Because I want to see if you might have erred in the rationality of your thought processes, or if indeed you have some new evidence that I can build into my own framework of understanding.

Of course it is. But I can only work with information I have.
And if someone has reached a different conclusion then either one of us is irrational or we differ in our experience and information. And if we can bridge that difference through sharing experiences then we can reach a common understanding.

I am aware of that.

Yes. I try to do this whenever I have opposing views. It is the only way to proceed unless you desire permanent deadlock. It might be that sharing / analysing does not breach the deadlock, but even then it will give both sides a better understanding of why the deadlock is there.

Does that disturb you? Frighten you? Interest you?

So be it.

Define "order" and "structure".
We clearly use language differently so we would need to be clear on such fundamental words.

Are you confusing chaos with randomness and / or uncertainty?

So rather than ask "why?", you seem content on saying "God did it"?
If not, please be more precise.
Why are you not content to say "We do not know," but rather wish all questions to have an answer, even if that answer might be ultimately meaningless and merely pushing the question back a level?

 

And it is your intention to do so on this thread in which we're speaking of belief? You do realize that my intial statement was only directed to the point of the thread? It's ideology which I found flawed.

I find it revealing...and Fascinating.

The Free Dictionary.
Order: A condition of logical or comprehensible arrangement..

Structure: 1. Something made up of a number of parts that are held or put together in a particular way: hierarchical social structure.

.

It depends on the enviroment. Chaos is disorder. Randomness is unpredictability. I meant disorder. As in the disorder in the magnetic field lines of the sun caused by the varing surface speeds.

You Quoted Saquist. What did Saquist say?

 

Ok, Good post.

I admit, there is a lot to it.

Thus, "agnostic."

Faith I suppose is a "rational alternative?"

:bawl:

 

Agnostic, with Christian sympathies. I dated a christian girl who was very strong in her faith, was selfless, and was one of the kindest, most genuine people I had ever met, and it gave me a generally favorable view of day-to-day Christianity practiced by open minded, intelligent individuals. We only broke up because of college, but I never really told her that I was agnostic (although it is a more recent development).

Its more organized religion that I am against, which proclaims to have some sort of ultimate truth or monopoly on truth. I tend to believe that the possibility that a higher power, a "God" exists, is certainly feasible, and see it as pointless to claim that God does not exist, especially if the universe is indeed an open universe. I think religion gets too much criticism for the problems it causes, as any human institution with alot of conviction behind it will have its great upside and its terrible downfalls.