On Mon, Dec 5, 2016 at 3:38 AM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: > > > On 12/4/2016 10:45 AM, Telmo Menezes wrote: >> >> On Sat, Dec 3, 2016 at 6:03 PM, Brent Meeker <meeke...@verizon.net> wrote: >>> >>> >>> On 12/3/2016 12:03 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> Physicists confuse physics and metaphysics, by not seeing that >>>> Aristotelianism is incompatible with Mechanism, and by confusing >>>> mechanism >>>> and materialism. Yes, that happens often for fundamental researcher >>>> often >>>> after retirement, except for philosophers, which confuses theology with >>>> Aristotelian theology. René Thom explained well that physicists confuse >>>> the >>>> notion of explanation and prediction. Physicists are good in prediction, >>>> but >>>> naive about explanation. >>> >>> >>> How do you know an explanation is a good one unless it provides good >>> predictions? >>> >>>> Physicalism *is¨a form of creationism. They take the statement that >>>> "there >>>> is a physical universe" as an explanation of why there is a physical >>>> universe. They replace "God made it", by "it exists", but that is not >>>> better. >>> >>> >>> Sure it is. It is better not to add imaginary beings to your explanation >>> for several reasons. First, it implies you know something for which you >>> have no evidence. >>> Second, brings in a lot of baggage about God: He's a >>> powerful person. He demands we enforce certain laws. He hates the same >>> people we dislike. He rewards worship.... >> >> You are implying specific definitions of God (I would guess >> Judaic-Christian). >> >> I just invented a new religion. Here's the sacred text: >> God is the explanation for matter existing and behaving the way it >> does. It is not possible to know God. >> >> Does your argument hold for my religion? > > > Your religion, like Bruno's, misuses the word "god" which has always meant a > person;
Brent, sorry, this is just not true. There have been many different conceptions of god throughout history. > and by doing so you drag in a lot of baggage. There was a group of > atheists in the Dallas area which for a time formed a church and claimed to > be a religion for tax purposes. They defined "God" to be whatever was good > in the world. The IRS disallowed their claim. I assume that evoking the American IRS as a a scholarly authority on such a matter is a joke, right? Telmo. > > > Brent > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
