@askthepizzaguy: Brilliant post(s), but a bit beside the point. Most debates here @ cfc are semantic & trivial in nature.
I find that most
debate is semantic and trivial in nature.
Even the ones that do "matter" (abortion vs. non, etc), rarely result in people changing their pov. But imo it's fun to argue.
I've noticed. It's funny when people who are set in their ways and views attempt to win an argument against an opponent who will never concede, and are equally stubborn. Funny for a while anyway. Unfortunately like I said, it doesn't get anywhere, and it does become more about the verbal jousting contest and about rhetoric and technicality than winning on any major point.
It's kind of like a football game where every play is blown dead due to penalties from an oversensitive referee, and no points are ever scored. Oh, it's dramatic, but it can get pretty.... pointless?
(oh puns... my rhetorical friend)
It would be nice, sure, but the sun will continue to rise whether we justify our belief in that or not.
But of course our
belief in it is beside the point... it will happen or not regardless.
Why is the future foreseeable?
I predicted you'd say something like this.
I agree that induction is useful from a human pov - indeed without it, no meaningful predictions could be made and science would become undoable. The reason I'm asking these questions (and lovett who started it, likely has the same reason - feel free to correct me if that's not the case), is to show that science & reason require some faith to work too, even if intuitively less than religion.
Well, now we're really talking about what should be different kinds of "faith". One is pattern recognition, the other is wholly without rational foundation.
If someone slaps you in the face with a fish 47 times in a row, and he doesn't show any sign of mercy or stopping, is it reasonable to assume he will slap you a 48th time?
If the sun "rises" every day for billions of years without exception, is it reasonable to assume it will happen again?
Now, is it reasonable to assume that instead of that, the earth will tear itself apart and there will be angels and demons battling it out on Pay-Per-View?
No. There is an actual leap of faith in order to believe such rubbish. Whereas the first two examples are simple pattern recognition. Without it, we couldn't assume enough about the world to eat cereal correctly. Gee, if I eat my cocoa puffs today, will it turn my stomach into a whale? I'd better not eat, because I just don't know.
"Faith" in this context isn't faith at all, but reasonableness. The difference is that one assumption has a leg to stand on, the other has none whatsoever.
As for the God(s) issue, well, to me the problem lies with the traditional narratives: all the holy books (that I've read at least) are rather violent and intolerant in nature, not to mention requiring absolute obedience down to the choice of toothpicks and the color of your Sunday sweater. Depending on the denomination, things may be milder or more harsh; but it is the books themselves that are the root cause of the problems.
Yes, commandments in the voice of God written by man can be problematic, especially since some of them make no sense. Don't eat pork, that animal is dirty and cursed! Of course, a cow is fine.
Why? "BECAUSE GOD SAYS SO", says man.
Most of the New Testament is an exception; it seems to be designed to reign in primitive human nature, while the OT seems to do the opposite. Note that I said most; there's plenty of bad stuff in the NT too. And it too tends to be authoritative, which is something that seems common to all religions: they almost always have rules, not guidelines.
Yes, the perfect way to get everyone to do exactly what you want all the time is to say two entirely contradictory things, and make both of them the law. Then, just enforce whichever law applies at the time. Everyone and everything can conveniently be your enemy or your friend, acceptable in situations or not. Marvelous duplicity, really. It's quite sinister.
Someone needs to update religion to the 21st century.
Scientology, part II?
Make a religion where it says, on trivial enough matters: "these tenets may change in the future, as the human race and its needs change". If I could get a hold of a decent batch of hallucinogens, I'd be willing to do it (for a decent fee ofc).
Or, we could always try thinking of things before we do them, rather than consulting a book written by a guy obviously tripping on mushrooms.
How do we know he was tripping on mushrooms? Inductive reasoning.
<---------Logic
