26 Jul 08
Originally posted by ScriabinYou talk like a fool.
...nothing in this universe is capable of bringing one of those bodies back to life .....
The wise man will say "nothing I know of, is capable of bringing one of those bodies back to life ....."
I doubt you know everything that goes on in your own petty little household.
Im sure you do not know everything that goes on in you own little village,
far less for your town
your country
certainly not this planet.
Definitely not this solar system
or galaxy.
Yet you claim to know whether or not something or someone in this universe with possibly millions of inhabitable planets and millions of years more advanced that us, is capable or reviving a dead person ?
The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know. And that you are!
26 Jul 08
Originally posted by Rajk999I think Christianity is a foul religion. I know many Christians, and the ones that don't go to church are OK, but the church teaches them to hate cultural Muslims, so I think Christianity should be eradicated from the planet due to the actions of a few Christians.
You talk like a fool.
The wise man will say "nothing I know of, is capable of bringing one of those bodies back to life ....."
I doubt you know everything that goes on in your own petty little household.
Im sure you do not know everything that goes on in you own little village,
far less for your town
your country
certainly not this planet.
Definit ...[text shortened]... n ?
The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know. And that you are!
End of story.
26 Jul 08
Originally posted by scherzoPeople dont need to be taught to hate muslims. It comes naturally when you hear muslims kill adulterers and apostates and cut peoples foot and hands off etc etc.
I think Christianity is a foul religion. I know many Christians, and the ones that don't go to church are OK, but the church teaches them to hate cultural Muslims, so I think Christianity should be eradicated from the planet due to the actions of a few Christians.
End of story.
26 Jul 08
5 edits
Originally posted by Rajk999Nobody is denying here that there are things he does not know but are you implying here that literally anything is possible?
You talk like a fool.
The wise man will say "nothing I know of, is capable of bringing one of those bodies back to life ....."
I doubt you know everything that goes on in your own petty little household.
Im sure you do not know everything that goes on in you own little village,
far less for your town
your country
certainly not this planet.
Definit ...[text shortened]... n ?
The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know. And that you are!
If anything is possible then everything in the universe would be random and there would be no natural laws or order of any kind. You would might as well not bother to get up in the morning because there would be no reason to believe the world wouldn’t blow up or cease to exist at any moment.
…Yet you claim to know whether or not something or someone in this universe with possibly millions of inhabitable planets and millions of years more advanced that us, is capable or reviving a dead person ? …
Actually, there are good scientific reasons to believe a frozen human brain cannot be repaired no matter how advanced technology becomes. If certain “neural information” such as the “neural weights” of each brain cell or the “threshold values” of each brain cell is lost (which it would be as a result of death) then that information cannot be recovered and it is logically impossible for that info to be deduced from what it left of the brain. Since that “neural information” determines the original distinctive behaviour of each brain cells and is essential component of your memories and information processing etc, without it, it is logically impossible to reverse engineer to revive those memories etc nor revive the original personality of the person before his/her death.
… The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know. And that you are!…
You do not know that you do not know that anything is possible.
You do not know that you do not know that there is a god.
26 Jul 08
Originally posted by Rajk999I would like to insult you but with your intelligence you wouldn't get offended. What's with you? Did your parents meet on a petri dish?
You talk like a fool.
The wise man will say "nothing I know of, is capable of bringing one of those bodies back to life ....."
I doubt you know everything that goes on in your own petty little household.
Im sure you do not know everything that goes on in you own little village,
far less for your town
your country
certainly not this planet.
Definit ...[text shortened]... n ?
The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know. And that you are!
You clearly don't have all your cornflakes in one box. If that's what you get from what I said, then I would have to conclude you are so dim as to think Martial Arts are paintings by the sheriff.
If I want any crap from you, I'll squeeze your head.
26 Jul 08
4 edits
Originally posted by ScriabinBut you assume their truth, a priori.
Actually you are the one who reasons from assumed premises.
Whether or not the words we have today are the same as the Greek of the time, the truth of those words do no t lie in there mere existence on the page.
Human hands wrote them -- therefore, something more as evidence for the truth of them is wanting.
But you assume their truth, a priori.
es that which is the case.
But that is what people so afraid of facing reality tend to do.
Naturally, as would anyone receiving an account of miracles. Perhaps a friend of yours tells you about a miraculous event he recently witnessed. In order to believe him, even provisionally, you would have to assume the truth of his claim a priori. Of course, you'd first have to establish his credibility. Were there other witnesses? Does your friend have a reasonable motive for telling the truth, or not telling the truth? Etc.
Likewise, the credibility of the NT account of miracles can be tested.
For instance, the four gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - all written between 65 A.D. and 115 A.D., were written well within the living generation of those who might have witnessed the ministry of the man called, Jesus. Therefore, assuming the NT authors lied about the miraculous content of Jesus' ministry, we could expect a contemporaneous outcry and refutation of these miraculous additions to an otherwise normal history of a "merely human" prophet. But the historical record contains absolutely no dissenting voice contradicting the apostles' account of Jesus working miracles and his subsequent resurrection. This fact should at least give one pause.
Further, the apostles were persecuted and killed for claiming that Jesus rose from the dead. One might ask, why would anyone choose to suffer persecution and risk dying for a lie? If it was a lie, none of the apostles ever confessed to it, even when confronted with a painful death. Liars are generally selfish and wouldn't ordinarily allow harm to come to themselves for something they knew never happened. The apostles' account testifies that they witnessed first hand not only the crucifixion but the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is more probable that the apostles would have died for something they could not deny, than for something they could. This, also, should give one pause.
__________
Anyway, you catch my drift: the credibility of the gospel account can be established. (That's not to say, however, that an objector won't brush aside any established credibility, no matter how convincing, and simply say that it's always more reasonable to assume that the apostles were mistaken than that miracles occurred. To each their own.)
It is a shame that one with such apparent powers of thought uses them like a fly trapped in a bottle, ignoring the world outside that bottle and assuming that only that between the covers of this book of yours describes that which is the case.
You assume that any "ultimate truth" about reality would only be as apparent as your sensory data may allow, or as testable as Newtonian physics. Wouldn't that make you the fly in the bottle? 🙂
26 Jul 08
Originally posted by epiphinehasPrecisely .... these scientific atheist types think they know it all ...
......You assume that any "ultimate truth" about reality would only be as apparent as your sensory data may allow, or as testable as Newtonian physics. Wouldn't that make you the fly in the bottle? 🙂
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26 Jul 08
Originally posted by epiphinehasIn order to believe him, even provisionally, you would have to assume the truth of his claim a priori.
[b]But you assume their truth, a priori.
Naturally, as would anyone receiving an account of miracles. Perhaps a friend of yours tells you about a miraculous event he recently witnessed. In order to believe him, even provisionally, you would have to assume the truth of his claim a priori. Of course, you'd first have to establish his credi ...[text shortened]... able as Newtonian physics. Wouldn't that make you the fly in the bottle? 🙂[/b]
That would not be a priori at all. A priori propositions tend not to involve assumptions; their truth value is a necessary consequence of their definition. For example, the fact that the angles of a quadrilateral add up to 360 degrees is an a priori truth. That your friend can be believed is not something you take a priori but because of a posteriori evidence, such as is consistent sanity and credibility as an objective witness.
26 Jul 08
Originally posted by Conrau KI was under the (false?) impression that a priori referred to knowledge arrived at independently of experience.
[b]In order to believe him, even provisionally, you would have to assume the truth of his claim a priori.
That would not be a priori at all. A priori propositions tend not to involve assumptions; their truth value is a necessary consequence of their definition. For example, the fact that the angles of a quadrilateral add up to 36 ...[text shortened]... a posteriori[/i] evidence, such as is consistent sanity and credibility as an objective witness.[/b]
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26 Jul 08
Originally posted by epiphinehasYou are right, more or less, about that. I just do not think that the plausibility of a miracle could be determined by a priori reasoning.
I was under the (false?) impression that a priori referred to knowledge arrived at independently of experience.
26 Jul 08
Originally posted by Conrau K...I just do not think that the plausibility of a miracle could be determined by a priori reasoning.
You are right, more or less, about that. I just do not think that the plausibility of a miracle could be determined by a priori reasoning.
I agree. But this would be true no matter how credible the source, which is my point.
Given that miracles are possible, rejecting the NT account based solely upon the presupposition that miracles are impossible is illogical. We must consider the evidence as objectively as possible, and arrive at our own conclusions regarding its believability.
However, it's unacceptable to simply disregard the evidence without investigation, simply because the claims strike us as impossible. Further, there is no rule that says we must disregard the evidence, just as there is no rule that we must accept the evidence.
27 Jul 08
Originally posted by Conrau Ksee http://www.springerlink.com/content/w3789t8683073023/
You are right, more or less, about that. I just do not think that the plausibility of a miracle could be determined by a priori reasoning.
Spinoza argued
1. Miracles are violations of natural laws.
2. Natural laws are immutable.
3. It is impossible for immutable laws to be violated.
4. Therefore, miracles are not possible
The flaw in this is that Spinoza also assumes too much, just as those who assume miracles have happened assume too much. Spinoza's 2nd assumption should be that natural laws are those which we have been able to discern through observation and reason. Natural laws describe the way things are, and seldom the way things must be. Most of the time they are statistical probabilities more than irrefutable or unchangeable fact.
I do not find anything you have said or cited about miracles to be credible. The testimony of people dead since the first century is hardly something one can test. I find you rather credulous to offer these words up as evidence.
I am just as skeptical about looking into the future and assuming that we will be able to develop a faster than light space engine. That is, there are all sorts of theories, conjectures, fictions about whether or not a spacecraft can ever travel faster than the speed of ight, I don't think so unless you can show me how there can be enough energy in the universe in which we live to overcome the constant of the speed of light in a vacuum. I've written on this in the Science forum and referred folks to a series of helpful and basic information about the Theory of Relativity, the speed of light, and so on. I'll not repeat all that here.
I'm going with the scientific method and I will avoid an irrational approach to matter and energy.
The difference between believing and disbelieving a proposition is one of the most potent regulators of human behavior and emotion. When we accept a statement as true, it becomes the basis for further thought and action; rejected as false, it remains a string of words.
Belief and disbelief differ from uncertainty in that both provide information that can subsequently inform behavior and emotion.
Clearly, I do not accept as true the claim that the Bible was inspired by an omniscient God. I do not see any specific, falsifiable predictions about human events in the Bible. That is, the Bible contains no words that could not have been written by a man or woman living in the first century.
Our beliefs, except those relating to religious dogma, are based on evidence and experience. Religion allows views that would otherwise be a sign of insanity to become accepted or, in some cases, revered as holy. For example, transubstantiation - the Roman Catholic doctrine that, during the Mass, the bread and wine of the Eucharist changes in substance to the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, is something thatues that if believed only by one lone individual, he or she would be considered insane. In the context of religion, though, such teachings need not - and cannot - be questioned. It is an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the creator of the universe can hear your thoughts while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window.
27 Jul 08
You are incorrect:
Naturally, as would anyone receiving an account of miracles. ... In order to believe him, even provisionally, you would have to assume the truth of his claim a priori.rhaps a friend of yours tells you about a miraculous event he recently witnessed. In order to believe him, even provisionally, you would have to assume the truth of his claim a priori.
I'm afraid you need a basic course in philosophy -- the term a priori is practically synonymous with analytic knowledge and necessary truths. For example, "all bachelors are unmarried" is a priori knowledge because you only have to know the meaning of bachelors to know the statement is true. That is, you don't need to look into the world to verify the statement. However many bachelors you collected, they would all be unmarried because just to be a bachelor necessitates being unmarried. Thus a priori refers to knowledge which one can hold without reference to the empirical world. That is why "I exist" is also a priori knowledge after the Cartesian cogito - to even question one's existence entails that existence, so one's existence is known to themselves a priori.
Some philosophers would claim that it is not knowledge at all, some that understanding the word involves looking out to the world, but despite these challenges to the possibility of a priori knowledge, the definition of it holds: that which can be known without, or before (literal translation of priori), reference to the outside world.
A posteriori is quite simply the opposite. It wouldn't need to be labeled at all if not to distinguish it from a priori knowledge. It is basically knowledge that requires empirical investigation, it is knowledge acquired after (literal translation of posteriori) reference to the outside world. An example would be "all bachelors are untidy" You would have to collect a representative sample of bachelors and check their living environment to find out if it's true. There's nothing about the meaning of bachelor that indicates they are untidy. Similarly "Jane exists" can only become knowledge by looking into the world and finding Jane and verifying that she does exist. A posteriori is then practically synonymous with synthetic knowledge and contingent truths.
A priori knowledge CANNOT be false regardless of what circumstances hold in the world (is necessarily true). A posteriori knowledge COULD HAVE been false given a different set of circumstances in the world (is contingently true).
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27 Jul 08
1 edit
Originally posted by ScriabinThat surely is a piece of a priori reasoning about the plausibility of miracles. I wonder what epiphinehas has to respond.
see http://www.springerlink.com/content/w3789t8683073023/
Spinoza argued
1. Miracles are violations of natural laws.
2. Natural laws are immutable.
3. It is impossible for immutable laws to be violated.
4. Therefore, miracles are not possible
The flaw in this is that Spinoza also assumes too much, just as those t he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window.
EDIT: I personally doubt premise 1.