b3ta.com talk
You are not logged in. Login or Signup
Home » Talk » Message 7338136 (Thread)

I'm just not sure how saying that it's all to do with god is any less of an absolutist reaction.
It still betrays the craving for a static discoverable cause for everything. I think the only defensible position here is to simply say I DON'T KNOW BUT ISN'T ALL THIS LIFE AND STUFF FUN?!?!?11?!1
(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:42, archived)
Do you have some sort of newsletter to which I can subscribe?
This is the most sensible thing I've read on here in, well, all the time I've been coming here.
(I helped save b3ta! Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:45, archived)
I'll make one, just for you.
But it won't have any fucking sudokus in because they're shit and pointless, just thought I'd let you know. It also might come with free stickers that may or may not exist if you care about that sort of thing.
(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:48, archived)
Yeah I don't really 'get' sudokus.
It seems like you can complete every one of them if you just stare at them for long enough.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:52, archived)
Computers can make them up,
and computers can solve them. I don't know why newspaper readers have to come into the equation.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:55, archived)
I'm definitely not completely shit at them, no way, not at all.
I think the lolarious puzzles on the back of a paper should just be replaced with a big sign saying

Look out of the window for a change, you never know, it might be pretty*
*apologies to our readers from the midlands
(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:56, archived)
I'm from thie midlands and it is actually quite pretty out of my window I'll have you know.
I can do sudokus easily enough, I just don't get the same sense of achievement as completing a crossword.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:02, archived)
Birmingham IS shit though.

(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:03, archived)
I was mainly thinking of Birmingham... if it even exists.
*shudders*
(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:04, archived)
Woah, sudoku is good puzzle.
Let's have less bullying of good puzzle.
(I helped save b3ta! Wildheart Baby. Drunken Mess In A Good Way, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:54, archived)
It isn't though....there isn't anything puzzly about it.
It's already given you the answer, you just have to put them in the right place.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:55, archived)
They have, it's funny I thought they gave you something half filled.
That you had to solve by filling in the right number/symbol in the right place.
(I helped save b3ta! Wildheart Baby. Drunken Mess In A Good Way, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:08, archived)
It just doesn't feel taxing enough.
You look at a box, then put the numbers 1 through 9 into and see if any of those numbers meet the criteria. Saying that though, I suppose you could do the same with a crossword and a dictionary, only it might take about a year.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:12, archived)
Did you never try the one where it had a large X running through the centre.
You could only have 1-9 in the x, that was a bit different.
(I helped save b3ta! Wildheart Baby. Drunken Mess In A Good Way, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:16, archived)
I will give it my wholehearted attention
even the page without the sudoku on it.
(I helped save b3ta! Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:56, archived)
Don't worry, there'll be wordsearches but do be warned, they may have no absolute answers.

(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:00, archived)
Oh, not those things.
It's almost like someone said, let's have I spy with the contents of a scrabble bag.
(I helped save b3ta! Wildheart Baby. Drunken Mess In A Good Way, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:09, archived)
if giving up is defensible.
science works on the assumption of discoverable causes for things, if you like I am extending that concept beyond the physical. You could dismiss science with the same kind of statement. I don't dismiss science at all, I merely recognise its limits.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:47, archived)
And then make assumptions beyond those limits.

(I helped save b3ta! Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:49, archived)
no no
no no no no
no no no no
(I helped save b3ta! Sir Sand GOBLIN ^popular page dis, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:50, archived)
Don't ever change, SSG.

(I helped save b3ta! Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:53, archived)
i don't even know how :(

(I helped save b3ta! Sir Sand GOBLIN ^popular page dis, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:04, archived)
HUZZAH

(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:07, archived)
we should start a new thread about me,
i will answer any question
(I helped save b3ta! Sir Sand GOBLIN ^popular page dis, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:09, archived)
DONE

(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:14, archived)
yes yes
yes yes yes yes
yes yes yes yes
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:54, archived)
not with that attitude

(I helped save b3ta! Sir Sand GOBLIN ^popular page dis, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:05, archived)
like what?

(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:55, archived)
"God exists in some form or another"
(paraphrased, obviously)
(I helped save b3ta! Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:56, archived)
the whole point of this discussion is that I haven't assumed it.
I wonder if you have been following it. I come to this conclusion after rejecting other assumptions that I have identified as absurd and it is the only thing that remains. And whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Reality has to exist somehow. I take that to be a truism.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:02, archived)
Woah, woah, woah.
Isn't there one final, counter assumption which is to simply say 'we don't know?'
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:04, archived)
wot he said

(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:05, archived)
so what does it matter what we say of the what "we don't know"
as long as the how we react to it when we do know is right?
(I helped save b3ta! Sir Sand GOBLIN ^popular page dis, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:08, archived)
Fine, it's not an assumption, it's just a largely baseless conclusion.
Like TFD sort of said, any position other than 'dunno' is absolutist and inherently unprovable.
(I helped save b3ta! Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:05, archived)
zacktly, s'metafisicks innit

(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:08, archived)
*mettafizzix five*

(I helped save b3ta! Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:10, archived)
I put it to you that it is a conclusion you refuse to come to.
Because I do know. I know that if I eliminate everything else that what remains must be the truth, that is what I call deduction. Call this faith in reason or whatever, but I know it and you don't know it and from where I'm sitting this puts me in the better position.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:11, archived)
I reject that entirely.
You don't know. If we reduce everything down I could claim we don't 'know' anything, cogito ergo sum reduction and all that, but I'm not doing that. I'm saying that empirically, you can conclude that there is a god/God all you like, but there's as much evidence to actually support that theory, over others, as there is for imaginary unicorns fucking a leprechaun and creating the universe by chance.
(I helped save b3ta! Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:14, archived)
And I'm saying that "empirically" is a severly limited method,
and that pure logic can establish truth - not absolute truth, mind you, because of Tarski's undefinability theorem, but if we allow ourselves to take the mathematical definition of "exists" Godel's Diagonal Lemma helps us a great deal.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:23, archived)
I don't have a fucking clue what half of that is.
But your logic is flawed.
(I helped save b3ta! Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:28, archived)
can pure logic establish truth or not?
or do we have to see something with the senses to know it? Because that puts a great deal of mathematics and theoretical physics in the dock.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:32, archived)
Accepting an answer purely because it's the only one left is more delusion than deduction.
You're assuming you had every possible answer to begin with, when clearly you didn't because the answer you've arrived at is incorrect. I could make an equally wild claim that it is impossible to disprove, but that does not make it true.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:17, archived)
there you go again assuming that answer is incorrect.
I don't know what the point is in continuing if you are going to reject any line of reasoning whatever that proves something you've already decided isn't true. Except for fun.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:25, archived)
It is you that is assuming every answer is incorrect.
I am merely stating that we do not know.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:36, archived)
No I quote you.
"clearly you didn't because the answer you've arrived at is incorrect."
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:38, archived)
Yes, the correct answer is "we do not know."
Not, "it must be God."
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:43, archived)
this is like me flipping a coin and it shows heads and asking you whether it is tails on the other side
and you saying you don't know.

Yes. It must be God because I have eliminated all the other possible answers. There's no room for "I don't know" here. I do know. I've told you why because you asked.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:48, archived)
Weren't you saying something about having to experience things to know they exist?
I can't 'know' for certain it's tails on the other side but it is highly likely.

Belief in God is not a coin flip, it is a monumental leap of faith akin to saying, when presented with a coin showing a head, that it is not tails on the other side. It is not an 'answer' it is blind faith and we are only discussing this because I cannot flip over your God coin and ultimately prove you wrong.

There is also a teapot that orbits around a star in our universe. Now that I have said this, it is impossible to disprove, therefore it must be true.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:54, archived)
I have ultimate faith in the teapot theory. I just KNOW it to be true, even though there is no evidence for it.

(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:56, archived)
We know something of coins,
from experience you might counter, but as far as the thought-experiment goes we know it from the definition of this abstract coin. Obviously the analogy didn't work as intended. Let me not muck about with analogies then. If there are two mutually exclusive claims and we know that one is wrong, we know that the other is right. There is no excuse for fence sitting. I know you are not yet convinced that we are dealing with mutually exclusive claims but can you at least agree with me so far in this?
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:00, archived)
Yes I agree, with regards to things like coins where there are always one of two answers, that if one is wrong, the other must be right.
What does that have to do with you believing in God?
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:07, archived)
All the non-God answers are absurd.
I have enumerated them below.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:09, archived)
Sorry, you mean to say the God answer is NOT absurd?
Imagine if only one person believed in God. They'd lock them up in a mental asylum.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:11, archived)
I'm still waiting for you to disprove my tea-pot too.

(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:16, archived)
if only one person wasn't deaf no doubt the same outcome would result.
this is not a very good line of argument.

You have assumed it is absurd, for some reason.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:16, archived)
Yes but hearing isn't the same as someone, one day claiming "THERE IS A GOD" and then there just being a God.
Stop using terrible analogies.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:18, archived)
And you haven't answered my question on where God was for the other 190,000 years of our existence and why, when he did decide to make himself known, he did so in an uneducated, illiterate and consequently gullible part of the world.
He didn't make himself known to the Chinese, who could read.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:20, archived)
woah now wait a second,
are you saying I'm the first and only person ever to say there is a God? And that my saying so somehow makes it true?
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:21, archived)
No, I'm saying that at some point, someone did declare it and, in your mind, that made it true.
You did not come to this conclusion on your own.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:23, archived)
Come on MGT, you're clever enough to know that this logic isn't just flawed, it's complete balls.
Good joke though.
(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:56, archived)
I'm glad you're here, I'm starting to question my sanity.

(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:59, archived)
Off to bed now I'm afraid treacle, you're on your own.

(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:03, archived)
complete balls?
what? I know that a coin is heads on one side and tails on the other, let is take that as a given. What is the problem here? Is logical deduction completely useless in general?
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:03, archived)
Well firstly working out by deduction how reality exists is in no way comparable to flipping a coin,
your complete unflinching arrogance in thinking that you have discovered and considered all the ways in which the reality could have come into being is staggering. You haven't even considered all sides of the coin, let alone the universe.

Secondly, logical deduction might possibly be useless in general, it's just an idea right? Why does it have to correspond with anything absolutely true?
(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:08, archived)
It's arrogant to deduce anything now,
or maybe only when you don't agree with the conclusion. You'd rather it be vague and open-ended maybe so we can all agree to disagree and get on with living however we want. Well call me arrogant. But tough.

I have considered all the sides of the coin. There are two sides of an ideal coin as used in philosophical thought experiments, heads and tails. And that's it.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 3:14, archived)
Firstly, is faith something you can know, or something you can have?
Secondly, your reasoning is faulty, as mike said, how can you have eliminated all other possible answers.
Thirdly, you wrongly assume that we categorically refuse to come to a conclusion which involves god. I'm not going to state that believing in god is a particularly illogical conclusion, I'm just saying it's one of many pretty illogical conclusions. I happen to really enjoy the massive variety and interesting features of all sorts of illogical conclusions without fetishising some sort of ultimate answer because, and I will happily admit this, I don't think I've ever going to properly work it out.
(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:25, archived)
faith is something one has, I guess, but one knows it when one has it.
I can eliminate answers by mutual exclusivity. There are four possible ways for the universe can exist, and three of them are absurd. Add to this list if you can think of any others, by all means.
1. circularity
2. infinite regression (turtles all the way down)
3. absolutism or "skyhook" i.e. "it just is"
4. self-reference

Thirdly, I'm not addressing you in particular on that one.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:35, archived)
5. god made it.
6. someone shat it out of their arse

Both of these possibilities are equally possible.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:39, archived)
5=2 "gods all the way down" (who made god?)
6="god made it by accident"=2

or =3 if you prefer to say that "god just is".
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:45, archived)
I don't think it's giving up, it doesn't have to mean an end to thought and interest and explanation.
Just an unwillingness to murder to dissect and admitting the fallibility and limits of the human mind. Or my own mind at least. You may or may not have one, I have received no direct sense data to prove either way.
(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:51, archived)
You recognise the limits of science? WOW, quite a statement there. What ALL of science?

(I helped save b3ta! mark morrisons prison shoes I love Willie, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:52, archived)
Science is limited to the modelling of phenomena
for the sake of the prediction of phenomena. It tells us what is, but not why it is. It tells us what we can do, but it doesn't tell us what we should do.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 1:59, archived)
Why do you need to be told stuff all the time?

(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:03, archived)
I wouldn't have been able to work out all of modern physics by myself,
being told things is actually rather useful.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:06, archived)
But everything?
All of what to do and why to do it?
(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:10, archived)
Yeah,
if I've got to cut someone's head off I'd like to be able to reassure myself somehow that I'm doing the right thing and not just acting on a whim.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:12, archived)
Why not just not cut anyone's head off?
Dur.
(I helped save b3ta! TFD is sporting this season's finest necropants, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:16, archived)
Are you now saying that morality is something you can only derive from religion?

(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:06, archived)
I don't know if I want to get into this again,
but the short answer is "yes".
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:08, archived)
So are we now going to talk about the deaths religion causes and then say something like, Hitler was an atheist?
If you truly believe you can only gain a sense of morals from religion, then I sort of feel sorry for you.
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:10, archived)
maybe she means religion in terms that
all morality is essentially made up, and that IS religion? maybe.
(I helped save b3ta! Sir Sand GOBLIN ^popular page dis, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:14, archived)
Hitler was a neo-pagan,
but moving on. People have their own consciences, and there are social constructs and acceptable codes of behaviour etc.. But how do we evaluate these things? We know that under Hitler (for instance) ordinary people did all sorts of things. We know that in some Islamic countries they cut your head off for being gay, and that in various places female circumcision occurs. These are just a couple of examples of moral problems that even the "new atheists" of today would like some kind of objective answer.

Various religions have got a lot of things wrong at different times, I'll admit, but we can't expect them to change for no reason. If we want to be able to say that such-and-such is right or wrong, we need a reason. Conscience and social custom just doesn't cut it, despite what the subjectivists like to pretend. And science doesn't help us, because it is impartial and makes no value judgments. Utilitarianism as per John Stuart Mill was a good effort but it has loose ends all over the place. The only thing that can tie them up as I see it, is the Will of God. It's only because God made the Universe for a reason and not arbitrarily or by accident that there can be any sense of what anyone "ought" to do.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:20, archived)
How do you explain my morals then, in the absence of a belief in God?
Or has he given them me regardless of whether I believe in him or not?
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:23, archived)
Conscience and social custom, probably.
I doubt you derived them logically from scientific knowledge, at any rate.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:30, archived)
Could I not have derived them from personal experience?
A base example such as "If I touch fire, it hurts me. It must hurt others too and I would not want to subject someone to the pain I felt."
(I helped save b3ta! mike woz ere 7442200 & 7696970 getter, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:45, archived)
why wouldn't you want to subject others to pain?
why does what you want decide what ought to be?
where does morality come into it? I'll tell you what does come into it. Empathy and sympathy, or compassion if you will. This is natural, but there's no logic in it.
(I helped save b3ta! Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:50, archived)
ruh-roh

(I helped save b3ta! Aardvark and so at last, I understood, Thu 6 Oct 2011, 2:08, archived)