Faith and Reason.

[Kaylia]

Um, I wrote that out above. I think you're kinda confused ^^;
(

Did you read both post? The first one was an answer to your definition, and the 2nd was the continuation of the first. Your definition of observation is all over the place. It doesn't even mention anything about the subject that is being observed. Empirical evidence should come after the definition of experiment too, because it's implied there was an experiment.


All of them are copy/paste from wikipedia? Do you disagree with any of those definitions?

Science: Refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method

Scientific instrument: Is an apparatus or equipment used to collect datas in a scientific domain.

Observation: Observation is either an activity of a living being (such as a human), consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments.

Experiment: is a method of investigating causal relationships among variables. An experiment is a cornerstone of the empirical approach to acquiring data about the world

Empirical: The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment

Scientific evidence : Scientific evidence is evidence which serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis[citation needed]. Such evidence is expected to be empirical and properly documented in accordance with scientific method such as is applicable to the particular field of inquiry

Scientific evidence is the equivalent of empirical evidence, since any empirical evidence will be a scientific evidence


The only part that could dissocies "observation" from the scientific method is the "or", but I don't believe we were talking about observation in their general sense. If we did, those observations wouldn't be considered empirical, and couldnt be used in your definition of scientifical evidence.

[Blarg]

I'm about 16 pages behind but I just watched this vid and it made me think of this thread although it may not fit in at all with whatever is currently being discussed.

YouTube - Doug Stanhope - Would you Believe

[kareface]

Do you have faith in yourself?

Setting aside the semantic butchering of the argument. You can't really have faith in yourself, because by definition, there would be some measure of evidence you are basing your opinion off of. I figured someone would of posted the, "can you have faith in people" argument. It, however, isn't really a faith based argument. If you trust someone, you've made observations of their actions, body language, what they are wearing and even how they speak. Even if you know very little about them, you make assumptions based on your experience with other people that are similar in nature.

When you hear someone with a southern US accent, there is tendency to assume they are a little dumber on average thanks to how they are portrayed throughout the media. In any language there are colloquial dialects that are generally thought of as ignorant. A conversation between 2 children will sound very different, even if the topic matter is the same then one between adults. Ones between people who thinks of themselves as gangsters will be very different then people who think of themselves as religious. How they phrase things, how aggressive or subtle they come off as, how they communicate with you on any level is a observation you make. Just like how you might not be able to properly describe why you trust someone, you might not be able to describe why you are annoyed by the presence of someone else.

Decisions made about people you haven't even met can be based on your personal experience. If you have been pampered your entire life, you can be too trusting. If you have led a hard life, you can be too paranoid. When we make a decision to believe in someone, or even ourselves, it's never taken on faith. Because we exist, we have experience and conditioning that we've accumulated over the many years we've lived. That doesn't mean that our beliefs are always justified, hardly. We constantly make mistakes in judgment, but at the end of the day people take a little better understanding with them when they make bad calls. We refine the process we use to evaluate our peers and ourselves.

This is different for God. His existence is unknown, and likely false. I say this not because I don't want a god to exist, but based on the evidence it is much more likely that he does not exist. No proper refutation has been offered by the religious community, besides faith. The question then becomes, how can you have faith in something who's best argument for existence is faith its self. The only other place such lunacy would be common is among the mentally impaired. Faith in anything that lies outside the realm of nature can not be distinguished from delusion.

Ask yourself this, how would faith in a god be any different from faith in an imaginary being. If I view everything from the warped looking glass of my self-justified delusion, everything I came across would justify my position, even if it isn't the most logical conclusion. Then it becomes how to interpret the evidence to support my myopic world view. This is very different then a delusion based on something inside the realm of nature. It can be tested, proven to be accurate or false. I could be convinced that I can fly at will, but no matter how hard I tried, I would be unable to make that into a reality. By contrast, if I was convinced I had a invisible friend who can fly around, this is something no one could ever disprove, even if it was never true.

So to answer your question, no, by definition I can never have faith in myself. Because any discretion made about myself would be based in part on my personal experience. I don't have faith in my ability to walk to the kitchen and back, I know from experience that I can. I don't have faith that I could walk to the mall and back, even if I've never done it before, because I know my approximate limitation. I don't have faith that my friends won't steal from me, I've made judgments based on years of observations. Even if I'm wrong, the discretion is not based on faith, its based on experience. It is the same reason why we don't allow children to make decisions that could majorly affect their well being. They do not have the accumulated experience to properly make decisions.

With that in mind, how many decisions besides religion do you truly make on faith?

Anybody else ready to have an aneurysm from the blatant, profound, and continued misuse of words like faith and belief in this thread? How is it so hard to recognize the difference between faith (religious), and faith (trust). The two are worlds apart, and need appropriate differentiation when trying to have a discussion on things like this.

I agree with this point as well. I just thought it would be redundant for me to simply reiterate what that fat fuck said.

[0ni0n]

Anybody else ready to have an aneurysm from the blatant, profound, and continued misuse of words like faith and belief in this thread? How is it so hard to recognize the difference between faith (religious), and faith (trust). The two are worlds apart, and need appropriate differentiation when trying to have a discussion on things like this.

I have repeatedly pointed out the distinction between the two, but it seems that obscuring the underlying definition with a trace of existentialism is the only argument theists on this board have come up with so far.

[kareface]

Did you read both post? The first one was an answer to your definition, and the 2nd was the continuation of the first. Your definition of observation is all over the place. It doesn't even mention anything about the subject that is being observed. Empirical evidence should come after the definition of experiment too, because it's implied there was an experiment.


All of them are copy/paste from wikipedia? Do you disagree with any of those definitions?

Science: Refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on scientific method

Scientific instrument: Is an apparatus or equipment used to collect datas in a scientific domain.

Observation: Observation is either an activity of a living being (such as a human), consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments.

Experiment: is a method of investigating causal relationships among variables. An experiment is a cornerstone of the empirical approach to acquiring data about the world

Empirical: The word empirical denotes information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment

Scientifical evidence : Scientific evidence is evidence which serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis[citation needed]. Such evidence is expected to be empirical and properly documented in accordance with scientific method such as is applicable to the particular field of inquiry

Scientifical evidence is the equivalent of empirical evidence, since any empirical evidence will be a scientifical evidence


The only part that could dissocies "observation" from the scientific method is the "or", but I don't believe we were talking about observation in their general sense. If we did, those observations wouldn't be considered empirical, and couldnt be used in your definition of scientifical evidence.

First off, Scientifical. Really...

I've only been reading through this thread the last couple pages. But from what I've gathered your argument is that the system that we use to quantify the wold around us could be flawed. You're saying, what justifies scientifical evidence over non-scientific observations. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Not all observations are scientific, not all evidence is in science is empirical. A great deal of hypotheses can't even be qualified by empirical evidence. That is, however, why the scientific process has a self correcting element to it. After a hypothesis can be locally verified by experiments, and the results point to no other logical conclusion, the hypothesis is subjected to the process of peer review. It can be said in a single sentence, "subjected to peer review". But that sentence represents in many cases, years and years of trial, rewriting, verification, resubmission after resubmission. It's not something to be taken lightly. People, who in most cases have may more years of expertise in the topic of study, pick through your paper with a fine tooth comb. They try and recreate the results, compare them with the current known model and look for inconsistencies.

Science has been described a a series of paradigms, each one followed by a succession of people merely polishing the details of the last great paradigm shift. Most of science is weeding out the flaws in ideas, and keeping only the best, the ones that most accuratly describe the known natural world. You can argue that the system could be flawed, and that what knowledge gained through the scientific process would also be flawed. You might even be right. However, the system we currently have has one thing that faith, religion, belief, god, angels, the whole of the supernatural realm has yet to provide. Results.

The times of mans short history that have always been the darkest are the ones when religion doctrine was the basis for making decisions. The scientific process, even if it's not perfect, works very well. The results allow us the comforts and control that we posses today. Any argument you could make about the scientific process would be drenched in irony if conveyed via a computer. It's hard to consider a medium today that wasn't developed thanks to an advancement of scientific knowledge. Studying the bible did not prevent disease, or feed us, shelter us or warm us. Prayer did not build cities, nor convey knowledge. Religion has, in most cases impeded the results of scientific and moral advancements. At the end of the day it's no better then any other fairy tale and it's something, like fairy tales, we should have long since outgrown.

[thatwasnifty]

What exactly is Kaylia trying to argue? That people here are asserting that science is a valid means to observe and predict reality because it claims to be valid on its own merits, which is no different from how religious people claim their interpretations of the bible to be true because the bible itself says so, and therefore is invalid by our own arguments?

Even if Kaylia is right and this is what people are arguing, then the parallel is still wrong. Science's power, reliability, and superiority to other methods of observation and discovery come from its ability to make accurate and precise predictions and to correct itself when it's wrong. Science is validated internally and externally. Faith and religion are neither accurate nor precise, ergo are useless.

Also a few pages back there was a tangent about Leviticus, and Melchiah and Kuya are absolutely correct that the prohibition against homosexuality was just a means to control the populace and further separate the Hebrews from neighboring peoples. I wish Christians would learn just a little bit of Hebrew so they could read the original words that their supposedly infallible texts were written in and would then actually know what they're saying. The word usually interpreted as "abomination" (and used in 18:22 and 20:13) is "to'evah," which in the Bible always refers to foreign practices which were considered ritually unclean for the Hebrews. Some scholars interpret this as a prohibition against temple prostitution, which was practiced by various Middle Eastern cults 3000 years ago.

[scrockstar]

These last 5 pages have been A++ would read again.

Kaylia pwns everyone so hard they don't even realize how hard they have been pwn'd.

And then everyone starts throwing around words like Empirical Evidence when they obviously have no clue what it means. They are just repeating words they heard other people say. This definitely made my morning.

I don't think most people on here are able to have an actual discussion about the topics brought up due to the fact that they don't understand enough about science / philosophy to really address the topics.

This thread reminds me about what Fredrick Nitchie said in the Gay Science. That if you were to observe college students discussing religion, you would find 100 poor arguments that any theologian with half a brain could refute.

Obviously Kaylia is not someone trained in these matters or arguments, yet he brought up several good points that woosh'd most of you and your only response was to go Ad Hominem on him. God forbid a 4th year Philosophy student comes in here and brings up
Berkeley's Immaterialism, let alone anyone trained in these arguments.

Anyways I'll go back to not posting so you guys can keep making ridiculous attacks at religion / science so you can feel better about your own view point.

[Alleya]

These last 5 pages have been A++ would read again.

Kaylia pwns everyone so hard they don't even realize how hard they have been pwn'd.

And then everyone starts throwing around words like Empirical Evidence when they obviously have no clue what it means. They are just repeating words they heard other people say. This definitely made my morning.

I don't think most people on here are able to have an actual discussion about the topics brought up due to the fact that they don't understand enough about science / philosophy to really address the topics.

This thread reminds me about what Fredrick Nitchie said in the Gay Science. That if you were to observe college students discussing religion, you would find 100 poor arguments that any theologian with half a brain could refute.

Obviously Kaylia is not someone trained in these matters or arguments, yet he brought up several good points that woosh'd most of you and your only response was to go Ad Hominem on him. God forbid a 4th year Philosophy student comes in here and brings up
Berkeley's Immaterialism, let alone anyone trained in these arguments.

Anyways I'll go back to not posting so you guys can keep making ridiculous attacks at religion / science so you can feel better about your own view point.

It always amuses me when someone says "I could totally own you guys but you're not worth it, neener neener!"

Maybe there's something to be said for people who make their arguments to the best of their ability, as opposed to someone who believes that their arguments are above repeating.

[Melchiah]

Science has been described a a series of paradigms, each one followed by a succession of people merely polishing the details of the last great paradigm shift. Most of science is weeding out the flaws in ideas, and keeping only the best, the ones that most accuratly describe the known natural world. You can argue that the system could be flawed, and that what knowledge gained through the scientific process would also be flawed. You might even be right. However, the system we currently have has one thing that faith, religion, belief, god, angels, the whole of the supernatural realm has yet to provide. Results.

This, a thousand times.

And not only results, but results than can be duplicated at will.

[Max™]

"Scientifical evidence is the equivalent of empirical evidence, since any empirical evidence will be a scientifical evidence" ~Kaylia

What?

Scientifical is badly worded, Scientific is the word you're searching for.

Empirical evidence is that which is unambiguous, everyone agrees that an apple is an apple, everyone agrees that the Universe seems to be very large and full of a smattering of what appear to be stars.

You can use empirical evidence to perform an experiment, which can then produce scientific results.

The only way Kaylia is pwning everyone, is if they're whooshing us.

I have talked to them before about other matters, and I think the biggest problem we are encountering is a linguistic barrier.


I don't have a problem with faith, to each their own, but it is simple to note that faith is not scientifically verifiable, falsifiable, or anywhere near it in fact.

For the record, I have faith, believe in a god in a sense (not the one that most anyone would have even heard of), and believe some day we will be able to connect our science with faith.

Unfortunately that will only come after we have left this Universe somehow, which isn't an easy feat, like asking a thread to extricate itself from a woven tapestry.

[Woozie]

Empirical evidence: that which can be taken for granted.

NOT experimental evidence.

People breathe, the earth is in orbit around the sun, seasonal variations in weather are cyclical, an object will tend to remain in any state, unless acted upon, etc.

These are things which anyone can go and pick up on, and thus taken for granted.

Empirical is a nice way of saying "all the obvious shit you dumbfucks should know by now", last I checked.

Empirical evidence is that which is unambiguous, everyone agrees that an apple is an apple, everyone agrees that the Universe seems to be very large and full of a smattering of what appear to be stars.

You can use empirical evidence to perform an experiment, which can then produce scientific results.

I think you're confusing a few definitions.

You're getting "empirical" mixed up with "self evident" or a priori or something. Something that's empirical is based on observation. All scientific knowledge is empirical knowledge. "The Universe seems to be large and full of a smattering of what appears to be stars" actually is empirical, but "an apple is an apple" is not.

A self evident truth is one that goes without saying. "An apple is an apple" is self evident. "It is impossible to be and not to be at the same time" is the example my philosophy professor and logic professor always gave. Any knowledge gained independent of experience is called "a priori". 2+2 =4 is an a priori truth. It can be derived from the obvious, goes without saying, taken for granted, a priori, self evident propositions of peano arithmatics. "The universe is large..etc" is an a posteriori truth. It is derived based on observations. Time dilation is an a posterioiri truth. It can be derived from the empirical, a posteriori, not-self evident propositions of special relativity. Likewise, virtually all scientific laws and truths are a posteriori. All empirical data is a posteriori. Virtually all scientific data is a posterori and empirical.

Experience/experiment = empirical
Obvious/taken for granted is not empirical

People breathe, the earth is in orbit around the sun, seasonal variations in weather are cyclical, an object will tend to remain in any state, unless acted upon, etc.

These actually are all empirical truths, because they're all based on experience/experiment. None of these are the kind of truths you can take for granted or "goes without saying". Well, they can be only in the sense that no one will ever disagree with you about any of these because of our common experiences.

Excuse my horrible spelliing. Lack of spell check sucks.

I know I didn't contribute much to the thread here. I just wanted to clear that up because I was beginning to get confused myself D:

[Neosutra]

Brings new meaning to "We hold these truths to be self evident".

[kareface]

Here is the problem scrockstar. I finally got a chance to read back a few pages. People didn't pick up on his logical fallacy. He's trying to conflate axiom with belief, which are not interchangeable terms.

What you're saying is

-My argument are valids because scientic method is valid
-Scientific method is valid because my argument are valid

That's a straw man argument, even if he was saying that it wouldn't change the facts. The scientific method is validated by the results. How does validating it with the argument even make sense.

To rephrase it more accurately:

-Something that is peer reviewed is more likely to be true because the scientific method is valid.

-The scientific method is valid because it consistently produces accurate results that can be validated by anyone.

As someone who understands little of Christian theology, i feel i must ask these questions. What exactly do we understand as lie with a woman in the context of the time and era this was written? Are we to assume that these things mean the same to us as they meant to them with a difference of two thousand years? Not that any of that matters, as regardless of the interpretation, i'd doubt we'd put anyone to death over it considering the way we see things.

Then you have proven that your morals aren't driven from your scripture. Morality can't come from god if you are willing to interpret his words in a non-literal fashion. If that's the case then anything you believe will be reflected through your interpretation. Which is evident when you compare theists moral codes. I rarely see anyone stoning to death disobedient children anymore.

Which brings up the ever present issue of where theists derive morality from.

If you derive it from scripture, you should follow it verbatim, who is man to question the writing of god.

If you are born with an inherent morality from god that supersedes the literal teaching of the bible, then the bible can not be the word of god with out them conflicting.

If the bible was intended by god to be interpreted allegorically, what right do you have to impose any morality from the text if everything can be interpreted in that fashion. Otherwise you are only following the tenets which you personally agree with. Gay marriage should be allowed, ect ect.

If scripture provided morals, why were some of the darkest times in history due to religious ideals. Is it moral to tell someone to kill another person? Is god immoral?

Just for your information, I've a major in physics, and trying to understand the world is where I spent most of my time every weeks. I swear by science, but I know how relative the definition of "truth" is. It's always relative to the axiom you defined at the start, and axioms is something that require a belief.

This is false. A axiom represents a starting point of a self retaining truth. I exist to some degree because if I did not, I would be unable to make the claim of my existence. It's not a belief of my existence, but self evident. Where as, "I exist, because god created me" is not self evident, as existence may not require god. Something must always be true.

I'm arguing semantic, because semantics is what allow us to communicate. If your A and my A don't mean the same thing, then your B and my B won't be the same.

No, you're arguing semantics because it's your only avenue. You only have that option or rehashing arguments that have been reused more times then the "I put a... in your...." meme. If you argue semantics you can endlessly debate points like existence, meaning, truth, knowledge. Philosophy & Epistemology is an intellectual vacuum in real debates. Yes, at the end of the day we could all be in the matrix, no one can truly know anything, your truth can be different then my truth, and so on...

That's like trying to find a limit in R....your experiment allow you to find this limit, but you still need axioms to define R, or the concept of limit isn't even defined.

Basically, I can't prove this reality exist, but I'm convinced enough that it exists to build the scientific methods on top of it. This conviction isn't based on "logic", or "reason", it's just something you accept because it feel right to you

False! An axiom is by definition a logical assertion. You say it's not "based on logic", but the axiom is would be: "logic would suggest that r is r". In that case, it's self-evident, which means it is its own evidence. Much like my question of existence is evidence of my existence. Belief is a statment that lacks logic nessary to be self evident, and has no basis for external evidence to support. Otherwise it wouldn't be a belief, it would be an axiom, truth, knowledge, ect..

So the entire derailment of this perfectly good debate by Kaylia has been to force us into admitting that we cannot tell for sure if we exist or not? Thanks a fucking lot for the massive waste of time. Arguments in futility are amazing. If we don't really exist, neither choice matters. If we do exist, the scientific method wins. End of story.

This goes back to my point. He has no substance, just the same philosophical arguments that can be applied to ANY TOPIC. I could be making the claim that the world is flat and use his exact line of logic for the last 5 pages to discredit the "round-earth-folk".

I'm not the one who disagreed with the obvious. Neo did.

That's right, he actually made the reference. You can derail any philosophy class with that damn concept. It's not like we are suddenly being enlighten to the idea that the reality we perceive maybe different then what are senses allow us to comprehend. There needs to be a term for people who use the "matrix" argument.

Funny, I thought empirical evidence were based on the scientific method. Mind rewording it in a way that doesnt imply self reference.

And sorry for attempting to use mathematical reasoning in an argument. Instead, I should be doing like you who define nothing and make contradictory statement.

Self existence is an axiom, a self evident one at that. So, until you can prove to me I don't exist, it'll remain true. I dare you....

If you want me to apply your definition, it would become an equivalent of the axiom I proposed many pages ago, and doesn't prove anything. It's just something you accept.

The argument isn't silly. What is silly is saying you don't need axiom/belief in order to make the scientifical methods work. No sane scientist would hold this position. People disagreed with my statement for over 7 pages, and eventually ended up stating the exact same thing...
If my statement wasn't wrong in the first place and is an "evidence", why argue against it?

You require axioms, but not beliefs. Axioms are logically sound assertions, beliefs are not. You can't compare the 2.

Fallacy: A fallacy is an argument which may convince others but is not logically sound. Note that the truth of the conclusions of an argument does not determine whether the argument is a fallacy - it is the argument which is incorrect.

Oh sweet irony.

It doesn't prove that we all exists,it shows that we are all working under the assumption that we all exist in the same reality.

I know kung-fu.

I'm fine with any definitions, I just want both of us to use the same one to prevent avoidable confusion. I looked in 4 dictionary (2 online, 2 offline) and wikipedia, but the definition change a lot, and doesn't keep the subtlety that is needed for our argument.

No, that really isn't what you are doing. Because every time a logical conclusion is near you fall back to "matix"-esk non-arguments. What was said before was enough to support a logical axiom, but you decided to continue this BS.

Scientifical evidence is the equivalent of empirical evidence, since any empirical evidence will be a scientifical evidence

"The empirical method is not sharply defined and is often contrasted with the precision of the experimental method, where data are derived from the systematic manipulation of variables in an experiment. Some of the difficulty in discussing the empirical method is from the ambiguity of the meaning of its linguist root: empiric." -wiki

Empirical evidence is evidence used to build a hypothesis, usually generally understood observations. "Scientific" evidence is most likely what you trying to refer to. Evidence that supports the results of the hypothesis. It is scientifically evident that gems exist, because that was the resulting conclusion of the gem theory.

You argue semantics but butcher definitions right and left. Axioms act as logical starting points and are self evident. Empirical evidence is not required to be a part of the scientific method. Empirical and scientific are not interchangeable, nor is Axiom and belief. Please stop using the word scientifical...

[Mizango]

These last 5 pages have been A++ would read again.

Kaylia pwns everyone so hard they don't even realize how hard they have been pwn'd.

And then everyone starts throwing around words like Empirical Evidence when they obviously have no clue what it means. They are just repeating words they heard other people say. This definitely made my morning.

I don't think most people on here are able to have an actual discussion about the topics brought up due to the fact that they don't understand enough about science / philosophy to really address the topics.

This thread reminds me about what Fredrick Nitchie said in the Gay Science. That if you were to observe college students discussing religion, you would find 100 poor arguments that any theologian with half a brain could refute.

Obviously Kaylia is not someone trained in these matters or arguments, yet he brought up several good points that woosh'd most of you and your only response was to go Ad Hominem on him. God forbid a 4th year Philosophy student comes in here and brings up
Berkeley's Immaterialism, let alone anyone trained in these arguments.

Anyways I'll go back to not posting so you guys can keep making ridiculous attacks at religion / science so you can feel better about your own view point.

I like Kaylia as much as the next person (love talking science with him) , but get off his dick already. Besides logging on and co-signing you did nothing and added nothing to this thread.

[Neosutra]

Of the christian theists here, how many of you believe jesus will come back during your life time?

Also, for the non christian theists: If god created everything, what created go? If god "simply existed", then what keeps the universe and/or whatever is above this dimension frome existing outside of time as well? i.e. if the universe is a quantity X, and god is a greater quantity Y (has to be more powerful than the universe if he created the universe), and you state that X is too complex to have been chance or the product of some timeless physics we dont understand yet, then how do you justify an even greater quantity Y existing outside time?

[meson]

This, a thousand times.

And not only results, but results than can be duplicated at will.

Many an indigenous people would claim religion does in fact give repeatable results. They would, that is, if they were still around.

[Neosutra]

Many an indigenous people would claim religion does in fact give repeatable results. They would, that is, if they were still around.

True, would be nice if Moses would contribute to this thread.

[meson]

With that in mind, how many decisions besides religion do you truly make on faith?

IN GOD WE TRUST

[meson]

True, would be nice if Moses would contribute to this thread.

I was thinking more along the lines of Montezuma.

[Neosutra]

That doesnt really address the question at all meson. (@ the "in god we trust" comment).

Cant tell if you are being serious or not Q.Q