yes, but as semck pointed out, we were asking the question, how can you know your assumption was correct... but perhaps given the walls of text which we've been throwing at each other you can be forgiven for not following it all..

I think it is funny about having an argument about the sun rising tomorrow and whether or not the "laws of physics" says its so or not. Firstly there are no "laws" in the absolute sense, there are only theories created upon a preponderance of evidence that PREDICT what is most likely to happen if the same circumstance were to be repeated. There is no truth in Science, only theories based in evidence. There truth in Math and yet the truth is not in a real world sense but in a logical perfection sense which is completely the creation of the human mind as logic does not exist growing on some tree or something like that. Secondly, I hate to burst your bubbles but the sun doesn't "rise". It is the rotation of the Earth on its axis. :P Also, there is a general scientific method it does exist and if you don't think so well that is you opinion and you must not have any real scientific training to assert such silliness. And again science cannot prove anything much less whether God exists or doesn't exist. I have personally SEEN GOD and I am not joking. And yet I don't require anyone else to believe me since it was a completely subjective experience. No consensus or "shared" experience can be used as evidence simply due to its perfectly subjective nature. And there is no actual shared experience. My experience of the world is based upon my perception of the world. No one can have exactly the same perception as me since my perceptions are based solely on my senses which cannot be exactly shared. All experience of an person is INDIVIDUAL. Meaning it cannot be divided. It is ONE. I do offer to you young and bright debaters of this marvelously frustrating subject one subjective "proof" of the existence of God. Now it is not a scientific proof but a philosophical proof and so you must recognize the difference. Here it is: I ask you, "Do you believe that you exist?" If yes, then you have just proven existence of God by my definition which is simply: God IS. Now if you said "no" or "maybe" or any random answer, well I have to say you just again proved the existence of God by my definition for your answer exists therefore the answerer exists therefore God exists. :) Oh, and religion has more to do with its desire to self-perpetuate than it is concerned with people actually loving God. God can be loved only by individuals. If I love God and everyone around me loves God, well we are all still loving God's as individuals until such time as I cease to being a limited individual and recognize my true state which is that I have been an infinite individual the whole time and just didn't recognize it. Cheers.

'Secondly, I hate to burst your bubbles but the sun doesn't "rise". It is the rotation of the Earth on its axis. :P'

actually, from my point of view, the sun did rise. I happen to be taking my point of view on the rotating reference frame of the earth... jsut like most everyone else (truth be told, there was just a greyening of the sky as the cloud cover here means i haven't seen the sun all day, so i'm just guessing that is what happened... o_0)

you really hate yourself dont you jpg

@ orathaic LOL! Fair enough...it is your individual experience that counts. :P

"Firstly there are no "laws" in the absolute sense, there are only theories created upon a preponderance of evidence that PREDICT what is most likely to happen if the same circumstance were to be repeated. "

Also known as scientific laws. But call it what you will.

"There is no truth in Science, only theories based in evidence."

Define truth.

"There truth in Math and yet the truth is not in a real world sense but in a logical perfection sense which is completely the creation of the human mind as logic does not exist growing on some tree or something like that. "

Mathematical "truths" are tautologies. Is this what you mean by truth? It's a very narrow definition and not a very useful one. How about accordance with reality? For example, Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system. That is true statement, by the definition I suggested.

"Do you believe that you exist?" If yes, then you have just proven existence of God by my definition which is simply: God IS."

I define God as a the jar of Vegemite in my cupboard. Therefore God exists. But that doesn't quite work. I think if we are to have a meaningful discussion about the existence of God we need to agree upon the definition of the word God. I don't think what you have offered is a "philosophical proof" of anything.

@spyman
Here is what Wikipedia says and I think it is a good enough explanation of truth in the "real world" sense.

Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality.[1] It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character.[1] The direct opposite of truth is falsehood, which can correspondingly take logical, factual or ethical meanings.

In the the sense of God, I belief there is only ONE TRUTH. And that it is the same as my definition of God. GOD IS. This definition is inclusive of yours. Yet, honestly I have no idea how my Aussie brothers can each that shit. Sorry!

I have offered a philosophical proof for if anything exists then by my simple definition of God, God exists. This is not a scientific proof as I said. But it is a sufficient proof philosophically according to my definition of God. I believe I exist, therefore I have proven to myself that God exists by my definition. Now having a "meaningful discussion" about God...that is like blind men arguing what an elephant looks like by touching it. LOL! That is my point. God is a completely subjective experience of the individual. And each person is going to have a unique experience of what God IS. Atheists have the individual experience that God is NOT and my definition is still inclusive of that. For everything cannot be everything unless it is also inclusive of the nothing.

There is only one True existence and that is God. There only on True individual and that is God. There is only one True experience and that is God. I don't have any interest in debating this as I have been God Smacked, if you will, and thus I don't actually believe in God at all in a daily living sense. I experience God existing in my life at all moments in time and at all locations in space and beyond thus a belief is not required to validate my continuous experience.

God is the experiencer, God is that which is experienced, and God is the experience itself. It is all one infinite undivided consciousness. Again believe what you want. I do have a religion actually. I call it THE RELIGION OF ONE. And there is only one person in my religion and you are not allowed. So go get your own religion of one. There is only two rules in my religion. Rule #1: Accept that others beliefs are absolutely valid for them and I have no interest in changing them. Instead, I wish to learn more about what others belief cause you never know when there is some gem I find in another's belief that I can accept into my own. These gems are usually more of a certain moral or ethic or principle or code of conduct really than a belief that I would take on. Rule #2: Knowing that God is in everyone, try to love, serve, and accept others. It is that simple for me, bro.

@spyman
For example. I just learned to think of God as Vegemite and so know God is currently grossing me out! :P

Let's go with the first Wikipedia definition of truth then: the state of being in accord with fact or reality.

You don't think science makes statements which are in accordance with reality? After all you did say "there is no truth in science". Do you really believe that?

Lol I really like Vegemite. I guess it is something you have to grow up with :-)

Ok, as a trained scientist and a trained philosopher, I will agree to answer your questions as best as I can to further this discussion.

I believe that scientists, not science, make scientific statements when they are in accordance with observed reality and have been consistently verified by other scientists. If it cannot be verified, it cannot be a scientific statement. Science in itself is only a compilation of scientific statements used for making sense out patterns in objective reality. Doing science is simply the application of a systematic and reproducible (scientific) method of attempting to find and describe patterns in the ongoing change of the physical world.

What I believe is there is no scientific truth in the absolute sense and the scientific community agrees with me. There are only agreed upon theories based on a preponderance of evidence. And these theories come in the form of scientific statements. For me absolute truth is an individual, and thus a non-scientific, experience. What you are looking for I think is some kind truth that can be shared between people experiencing themselves as separate beings in the illusion of creation and I just think that any assertion of such truth as absolute truth is actually a fallacy or illusion. It could only rightly be called relative truth for there always has to be a context in which the relative truth is given meaning. Whereas absolute truth is its own context of meaning.

If you are talking about both of us agreeing that a cup on a table is what it appears to be and it is the same for both of us and that this is truth then sure I can agree to that and I would dispute that the truth thus established is anything more than a shared illusion of the separative existence of the cup. For in the ultimate sense, the Truth of the cup is that it and I are one and the same existence and it is only through my limited identification with this human form that I mistakenly define the cup as some object separate to myself in a physical space of ultimately, my own creating.

Maybe Vegemite for you is like Thai Shrimp Paste for me mmmmmm.....I can dip my pizza in that stuff. That grosses my fellow teachers out. Heehee.

Isn't it a little misleading to use the word God, for what you're describing?

unfortunately, nobody knows anything for certain about God, thus the definition is sometimes a little open.

I just mean to say that God, to the average person, doesn't mean the pantheist version he seems to be describing. If a religious person is hoping for the man in the clouds version of God, he probably would not be satisfied with the description just given by Meher. That man in the clouds version is what that word, God, means to almost everyone, so describing a completely different God should require a different word?

Pantheism = Atheism

Pantheism, in short, means that God(or whatever you want to call it), is the universe, doesn't it? I may be missing something, but I think that's what Meher was trying to say?

It's not quite Atheism though, is it? Maybe.. Watered down Atheism?

If you define God as the universe, and you say you believe in God, then all you are saying is you believe in the universe.

@orathatic,

We're going around in circles somewhat, though I'll go another couple rounds. I'd still be interested in a message just outlining your own beliefs, if willing to share, btw.

Anyway,

"yeah, i guess i'm going with my intuition on that rather than any logical sense, but as i've said, by intuition it is only by making this assumption that i can make decisions, before choosing this assumption i can not."

I see. Well, that's false. For example, suppose you decided to believe that everything would go on as normal, EXCEPT that you would "magically" have have 2 billion dollars in the bank tomorrow. It would be perfectly easy to make decisions based on that. You might go out and spend all your money on a Lamborghini tonight, e.g.

Now, you might say, "Yeah, but if I decide to believe something other than regularity, WHICH crazy thing would I believe?" I don't know! Up to you! Choose whichever one you want, or whichever one makes you happiest, perhaps. Or believe whatever you want to be true (like, believe in regularity, but whenever something comes into your head that you think might be true that you wish wasn't, just decide to believe that it's not). All good possibilities, since you're just making arbitrary assumptions that might all be as true as each other anyway.

Why not believe one of those?

"(where it is practical to assume such beliefs are knowns)"

It's, again, only practical if there's some good probability it's true.

"But as a sceptic i recognise there is no knowledge. Just what we assume."

So tell me this. Suppose I offered the following bet: if a large pink unicorn appears in your house / apartment tomorrow, and then stays (so that, e.g., you can demonstrate its existence through the obvious ways, such as my coming to see it), I will give you $5,000. Otherwise, you will give me $500.

Would you take the bet?

I presume not, but I'm curious why. You might say you've already chosen to assume regularity, but suppose I REALLY WANT you take the bet. Couldn't you do it to humor me? I mean, in reality, you can see that you can't evaluate between the two cases anyway, So why not take the bet?

(Or perhaps, will you?)

"on the other hand, you assumed i held a certain set of beliefs, i was at least trying to argue that i held those same beliefs."

I'm not completely sure what you're saying, but again, I apologize if I assumed something about you that I should not have. As is so often true of bare assumptions, they betrayed me.

"how do you measure how well the beliefs fit or do not fit together? "

By the fact that one undermines all confidence in the other. For example, logic + lack of a belief in God is a perfectly adequate ground on which to erect a hugely robus form of Hume's induction argument. This argument undermines confidence in induction, which is another assumption in the world view. Thus, they don't fit together well.

"Then you have some fairly simple set of beliefs, but then you can analyse the bible and find logical inconsistencies and conclude hat something was wrong with your basic premise, or god is illogical."

Perhaps. I haven't seen an inconsistency that isn't dealt with _fairly_ easily, without going to a core of the world view; but I won't deny that some work is sometimes needed.

I am not sure that I understood the relevancy or point of your next post, about schools and enrollment. I wasn't really trying to argue that public schools should teach Christianity. I want to understand the point though. Could you please tie it in more explicitly? Thanks!

I do want to apologize again, orathaic, for assuming incorrect things about you earlier in the conversation.

Regards.

If you want to know the Truth. Research my name. I am nothing, but he whose name I use as my handle can answer all of your questions with certainty, meet all your fears with love, and provide the deep meaning to life you are searching for. For Baba is God realized. Let go of thinking you know anything and the Truth appears for there is nothing to search for that isn't already there in perfection within yourself. It is not just to define God as the "universe" or all that exists. To truly "understand" this definition of God, one must actually experience the definition, i.e. experience oneself to BE the universe, to BE all that exists in one eternal moment of moments. The Truth is you consciousness is really infinite. It is a fact of existence that all if us will eventually realize ourselves as the ONE without a second. It is just a matter of when, not if. YOU ARE GOD IF YOU ONLY LET YOURSELF REALIZE IT. Jai Baba

I want what ever your smoking Meher Baba :-P

Look, I have nothing to gain. There is no group to join. There is only the GODMAN to meet, on your own, if you just Google my name...that rhymes :)

'Couldn't you do it to humor me? I mean, in reality, you can see that you can't evaluate between the two cases anyway, So why not take the bet?'

well if it does happen, i can use my new found unicorn for greater wealth than the $5,000. So i can comfortably reject your bet without resorting to any assumptions.

However this is just an example of me being able to create a rationalization for what i want to do.

'is a perfectly adequate ground on which to erect a hugely robus form of Hume's induction argument.'

adequate, but not necessary.

'Perhaps. I haven't seen an inconsistency that isn't dealt with _fairly_ easily, without going to a core of the world view;' - but is this inductive reasoning not also at the core of the world view?

Your view is that God exists and is good, and will always be good. But you have no reason to assume in the first place the God will always be good. (other than what's he's said in the bible, let's say, and you are again taking that on trust - if God may not always be Good then maybe in the past he wasn't Good, but we're mere humans so were easily deceived. Or perhaps more likely if there are logical inconstancies in the bible you can attribute them to human error - translation or merely the limits of human mental ability when it comes to interpreting the meaning of an omnipotent, omniscient God)

Now you might like to go back and say, that's not possible because we know such and such... but - from the sceptic's pov - you do not know such and such, you trust this idea, as I trust the regularity of nature.

'am not sure that I understood the relevancy or point of your next post, about schools and enrollment. I wasn't really trying to argue that public schools should teach Christianity.'

the point was merely one of observation - we can hold both science and religion to the same standards, and yet agree to teach science in schools. This was mostly an aside, but the point is merely that we are not engaged in double standards by doing so.

Let me go back to my no free will arguement, if you will.

I am bound by my biology. The neuron's basic behaviour is that it reinforces successful predictions (strengthens connections to other neurons which seems to have predictive power) I am bound by my nature to behave in a way which at it's basic level is guilty of making this inductive reasoning. Now you can claim all you like that tomorrow neurons will not act in this way, but until that happens i have no other choice in how i act.

You too are bound by this biology, and thus it is easier to find humans universally agreeing on science while disagreeing on religion - that is because science makes no other assumptions but allows for alternative assumptions (like the assumption that God exists)

now i don't mean to try counting assumptions of any given world view - that depends on how you break them down - but i do claim that the universally held beliefs can be more easily respected. (because i hold them, i would be hypocritical to disrespect someone else for holding the same) Whereas the non-universality of religious belief means i can criticize without hypocrisy.

(i think this is where we started, right, i said 'no, you don't have to respect everyone's belief just because everything we hold is a belief')

"well if it does happen, i can use my new found unicorn for greater wealth than the $5,000. So i can comfortably reject your bet without resorting to any assumptions.

However this is just an example of me being able to create a rationalization for what i want to do. "

Yes, of course. So why won't you really?

After all, we could come up with some other hypothetical if you'd like; one which you couldn't use to make very much money independently.For example, we meet in NYC. We bring a camcorder, and point it at the Empire State Building for five minutes at an agreed-upon time. If it starts shaking and wobbling in a wavy manner, contradicting the rigidity of concrete, then [same financial terms as before]. We could probably even just find a webcam.

Thoughts?

"adequate, but not necessary."

Sure, I didn't say it was necessary. Point remains, the beliefs are in tension. You asked.

"[Discussion of God's goodness.]."

Yes, I agree, if God were not good, then there would be all kinds of problems. But IF I assume He's good, then both His goodness, my ability to know His goodness, the regularity of the world, and everything else make sense. There are not incoherencies.

But yes, it's true, belief in a bad God would undermine reason just as much as atheism.

"Now you might like to go back and say, that's not possible because we know such and such... but - from the sceptic's pov - you do not know such and such, you trust this idea, as I trust the regularity of nature."

The difference being (if you were an atheist, which apparently you're not) that you couldn't give any reason why, in your own world view, your trust for the regularity of nature was likely to be correlated to truth; while, on my world view, I can do so for my ideas.

"... but the point is merely that we are not engaged in double standards by doing so."

Oh, I see. Well, schools aside (that's a much more complicated issue), you ARE engaging in double standards if you decry somebody who believes some random thing by fiat assumption, or because he wants to, _for his epistemological method._ You appeal to popularity, but on your own account, popularity has nothing to do with truth, so that does not clear you of the charge of hypocrisy (if you in fact engage in such criticisms. I think I've seen you do so, but I could be wrong, so I don't say you do dogmatically. Maybe you don't).

"I am bound by my biology. The neuron's basic behaviour is that it reinforces successful predictions"

Well, first of all, this is all very hypothetical and still poorly understood at the level you're trying to use it.

Second of all, it's BS. You could perfectly well accept my wager right now if you chose to. Whether that's free choice or the unpredictability of the brain, the mind is not so tightly tied to any form of rationality that it can't buck it should it so desire.

"Whereas the non-universality of religious belief means i can criticize without hypocrisy. "

It was the METHOD that I was saying you couldn't criticize. You can't criticize somebody's view _because it's arbitrary and totally unsupported._ You believe that's the only kind of view there is.

I really want to know why you won't accept my wager, though.

PS. And don't think you'll be getting any money from ME to come see your Unicorn. You had your chance for my 5k!

'Sure, I didn't say it was necessary. Point remains, the beliefs are in tension. You asked.'

What tension? Tension as far as i understand it implies a contradiction, but there is none that i can see.

(say for example you took two positions:

1) 'There exists an all-powerful, loving and good God'
And
2) 'To allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it is morally reprehensible'

There you have a contradiction)

'But IF I assume He's good, then both His goodness, my ability to know His goodness, the regularity of the world, and everything else make sense.'

how does God's goodness verify the regularity of the world?

'You appeal to popularity, but on your own account, popularity has nothing to do with truth'

where did i appeal to popularity?

Did i criticize the method?

'Well, first of all, this is all very hypothetical and still poorly understood at the level you're trying to use it.' - yes, i admit it is poorly understood, but i believe that animals with well developed neural networks (ie not babies who haven't had a chance to develop the connections) are bound in their behaviour.

'Second of all, it's BS. You could perfectly well accept my wager right now'

The ability to over-ride my assumptions (and make alternative models/mental constructs) is useful, we can come up with all kinds of new hypothesis, and some might be useful if we seem to have a chance of predicting something which benefits us greatly. However my trust in the regularity assumption would prevent me from taking that bet.

Would you take the same bet?

PS you should come see my unicorn, it's amazing!

"What tension? Tension as far as i understand it implies a contradiction, but there is none that i can see."

The tension is in believing two propositions, p and q, to be true, when q implies that you can have no clue as to the truth of p.

"how does God's goodness verify the regularity of the world?"

In itself in does not, but a good Biblical case can be made for His promising the regularity of the world, designing man to know and understand the world, etc., and His goodness, which implies His honesty, lends authority to those statements.

"where did i appeal to popularity? "

Right here:

"but i do claim that the universally held beliefs can be more easily respected"

and in the following statements as well.

In what way can they be "more easily respected" if your worldview already implies that every single one of the (universal) set of people that holds them does so without any grounds that correlate with their truth?

"However my trust in the regularity assumption would prevent me from taking that bet."

Trust in? I thought it was just an assumption you make to allow yourself to make decisions. Trusting in it implies that you actually consider it likely to be true. Now we really do have a straight-up contradiction, not just tension. (You believe that it is impossible to say ANYTHING about the truth of p, yet you trust in the truth of p).

"Would you take the same bet?"

No of course. I DO believe in regularity. I'm not the skeptic. :-)

"PS you should come see my unicorn, it's amazing!"

Hmm, well... could I do it for just a grand?

God is the bad.
God is the good.
God is the method by which both are understood.

""where did i appeal to popularity? "

Right here:

"but i do claim that the universally held beliefs can be more easily respected""

Yes, but that is not a resort to popularity regarding the likelyhood of this view being True, it was talking about respect.

If your position is that one can't respect beliefs unless they are proven to be True, then you may have some difficulty respecting yourself in the morning.

Semck said: "In what way can they be "more easily respected" if your worldview already implies that every single one of the (universal) set of people that holds them does so without any grounds that correlate with their truth?"

It is easier to respect a belief which you hold to be true. That you have no ground for holding this position is irrelevant. I would argue that a christian who believes in the Christian God and intervention would find it easier to respect the beliefs of a Young Earth Creationist, who also believes in the Christian God and intervention.


as i posted several pages ago: "however, your own life will also be based on this belief. It is inherently ingrained in every aspect of your experienced reality."

Now your experience may be wrong, and you only have your assumption of a regular universe to fall back on. But as you hold this belief it is easier for you to respect the beliefs of a skeptic like me - where i take the position that i trust this assumption without anything to back it up.

Yet you seem to have a problem with this position because i do the very same thing as you. (that is you assume God exists without anything to back it up, and therefore conclude that the universe is regular - both of our positions start with the same thing.)

a grand it is! And i'll even offer to pay for your airfare to my little island (where they teach Christianity in public schools, and ban women from having abortions...) out of that same grand :)

as to your 'tension' - "The tension is in believing two propositions, p and q, to be true, when q implies that you can have no clue as to the truth of p."

Believing that p is true while having no clue of it's truth is the same undertaking as believing q is true without...

it isn't even close to contrary.

However, it is falsifiable. ONCE you take these positions, you can test them. And if they turn out to be false then you can discard them.

This is a feature lacking from most religious belief systems, and i could argue that it is inherently beneficial.

OR i could point out that religious systems do accept the God sometimes updates his views and that there are millions of adherents who infact discard the old testament for the new, or the new testament for the Qur'an (القرآن الكريم) or the Qur'an for the writings of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh, `Abdu'l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice...
(i'd like to claim the list is endless, but it stops there for now, even if i've ignored hundreds of adherents of various other splitter factions...)

So i fear it is unfair to make even this claim.