subject:"Re\: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore\?"



On 16 Oct 2014, at 18:43, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/16/2014 12:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 16 Oct 2014, at 05:28, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/15/2014 7:25 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 4:00 AM, meekerdb   
wrote:
Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence  
of Santa Claus you must have a definite idea of what "Santa  
Claus" refers to and therefore you do believe in Santa Claus.  A  
curious inference for a logician.


That's just fancy language, wherein semantic of "Santa" is mapped  
to "fictitious entity, old, fat, gift giving etc"; so you  
applying belief predicate to it results in believing untrue  
fiction.


What's more curious than this is why you choose "Santa" instead  
of "house" or "Brent" in your example.


But roughly I'd say yes, to negate some proposition you have to  
know semantic it refers to and point to/represent that idea, with  
all its possible flaws, and note said negation. And that isn't  
curious, I'd call it normal because I can't think of some  
inversion before I have a grasp on some usual state of affairs. PGC


I works with "house" and "Brent" too.  What's curious is that  
failing to believe in anything implies that you do believe in it.


Precisely: atheists does not fail to believe in God: they believe  
that the notion of God has no sense, but they use only the  
christian God to make their point.


And to believe that something does not exist, you need a precise  
version of it.


No, you just need a definite version.  The god I don't believe in is  
the god of theism, which, as I've written many times, is a person  
who created the universe and cares about how we behave and wants to  
be worshipped.



My opinion today is that "the god of theism" is not that far from the  
ONE of Plotinus, with some key difference. But modern catholic  
theologians are aware of that, and shows a pretty deep understanding  
of the neoplatonist philosophy. Th greeks distinguishes the Outer God  
from the Inner God. I doubt the Outer God want to be worshipped,  
unless we interpret "worshipped" in some relation of satisfaction from  
model theory.


Obviously much more work needs to be done on this. Theism might be  
like 65% correct, we just don't know. It might be 100% correct, and  
also 0% correct, but then changing one word would make it completely  
correct again. I mean; the text written by the theologians (mainstream  
or not in their beliefs).


You might have a too much rigid interpretation of the texts. Not all  
believers takes the sacred text in a literal sense, which should be  
obvious (pace Samiya) given that God is usually considered as having  
no name, no description, beyond comprehension. John Mikes is right, it  
related to pointing on ignorance (that's the case in comp).







So atheits, like christian (the fundamentalist one) believe that  
they have the right notion of God.


The theist notion, which I've explained once again above, is not  
just a fundamentalist god.  It's also the god of every religion that  
believes in worshipping and obeying their god (which is almost all  
of them).


Let the children grow. This is just superstitious behavior, although  
not entirely, because it can helps for the moral and the confidence, +  
placebo effect, etc. (But this is related to other topics: is the  
belief in God good for the health, and the social life, etc. and there  
are as many answer as there are notion of God).


When we stop worshipping the clouds, they did not disappear for that  
reason.


By the lexicon I gave, you can translate Plotinus in arithmetic. And  
yes. It is not so much Christians, but when you look at the details,  
some christians are closer, other are farer.


And the Pltinus lexicon is testable, given that such type of  
theologies include physics, or the lattice of observable truth.







the fundamentalist christian believe it exists, and the atheists  
believe it does not exist, and as you see, both share the same  
concept,


Of course if I I say I don't believe something exist I'd be a fool  
not to have a concept of what I was talking about.


The problem is not god. Neither this god, nor that one. The problem  
are the people which imposes their God on others.
Many strong atheists imposes their god to others, sometimes not  
realizing that they believe in a god, in the large sense I gave.





and defend it up to the point of not studying the field which  
exemplifies the subtlety of the concept. for the greeks: god is  
defined by the ultimate reality that we search.


Not "for the greeks".  The greeks killed Socrates for teaching his  
students to doubt the gods.


I have a similar problem. I have been criticized for polluting the  
mind of the student by making them doubt on primary matter.




When you write "the greeks" you mean a few greek philosphers.


I mean the scientists from Pythagoras to Damascius.



And then you criticize me for using the common meaning that w

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-17 Thread Stephen Paul King

[SPK]

I have a suspicion as to how this might happen. I think that it may be
> evidence of part of Bruno's argument that we are not single computations.
>
>If our individual minds span over all of the brains that could
> implement them and each brain is tied into a single physical world, then so
> long as the "wipe" occurs only in some some of the physical worlds, then it
> is possible to "retain the memory".
>This implies a restricted form of computational universality - not all
> software can "run" on each and every piece of hardware - and that there may
> be a way of selecting what the software does by steering which hardware it
> is available to run on. In this way one can "control" the software without
> taking any direct action on it.
>

[Telmo] 
Interesting, I hope Bruno can comment on this.


[Bruno]
I am not sure I understand. By Church thesis all software can run on all
hardware or anything, once it is organized so that it is Turing Universal.
Then the distinction between hardware and software is relative above the
substitution level, and absolute below (matter emerging from the FPI sums
on infinities of computations). I think that Stephen might be valid,
though. If we were able to kill ourself mentally and instantaneously, we
might choose the selection, like in a WM duplication but when seeing Moscow
(and the temperature) you kill yourself, so that only the W-guy survives.
But nature has programmed in a way such that we can't easily do that, at
least in the "mundane state of consciousness". Near death or in altered
consciousness state, I don't know. Perhaps. This needs much more research
to figure out.

Hi Bruno.

   You are taking a Platonic view and tracing out all distinctions of
computations (modulo complexity class) and hardware (modulo resource
availability), otherwise I thing we agree.


On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 11:20 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 16 Oct 2014, at 16:48, Telmo Menezes wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 3:48 PM, Stephen Paul King <
> stephe...@provensecure.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Telmo,
>>
>>You wrote: "If I understand the ideas in Mitra's paper correctly,
>> wouldn't it require that you yourself had forgotten about the discussion?
>> "
>>
>>That is what I thought at first as well and concluded that it was just
>> a misremembering or delusion. But I could not shake how "well constructed
>> the memory is. It was as if my memories somehow survived while all
>> objective traces vanished. All the non-1p traces had vanished but all of
>> the 1p content was still there.
>>
>
> Ok, that is quite intriguing. Have you tried asking your previous
> interlocutors? Could you have dreamt it?
>
> I had some very vivid dreams when I was a kid that feel like real memories
> to me. I only assume they are dreams because of the content (a plush toy
> gaining life, being pushed out of a very tall building and things like
> that). Looking back I suspect we are born into a very psychedelic state,
> but that's another topic.
>
> I'm not trying to grill you. I find this really interesting so would like
> to know the details.
>
>
>>
>>   I have a suspicion as to how this might happen. I think that it may be
>> evidence of part of Bruno's argument that we are not single computations.
>>
>>If our individual minds span over all of the brains that could
>> implement them and each brain is tied into a single physical world, then so
>> long as the "wipe" occurs only in some some of the physical worlds, then it
>> is possible to "retain the memory".
>>This implies a restricted form of computational universality - not all
>> software can "run" on each and every piece of hardware - and that there may
>> be a way of selecting what the software does by steering which hardware it
>> is available to run on. In this way one can "control" the software without
>> taking any direct action on it.
>>
>
> Interesting, I hope Bruno can comment on this.
>
>
> I am not sure I understand. By Church thesis all software can run on all
> hardware or anything, once it is organized so that it is Turing Universal.
> Then the distinction between hardware and software is relative above the
> substitution level, and absolute below (matter emerging from the FPI sums
> on infinities of computations). I think that Stephen might be valid,
> though. If we were able to kill ourself mentally and instantaneously, we
> might choose the selection, like in a WM duplication but when seeing Moscow
> (and the temperature) you kill yourself, so that only the W-guy survives.
> But nature has programmed in a way such that we can't easily do that, at
> least in the "mundane state of consciousness". Near death or in altered
> consciousness state, I don't know. Perhaps. This needs much more research
> to figure out.
>
>
>
> So essentially the physical universe would be a type of consensus amongst
> infinite instantiations of a mind? I guess your experience could be called
> a "reverse déjà vu" or maybe a "jamais vu".
>
>

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 16 Oct 2014, at 18:27, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/16/2014 12:17 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 16 Oct 2014, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:

Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence  
of Santa Claus you must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus"  
refers to and therefore you do believe in Santa Claus.  A curious  
inference for a logician.


Brent, are you trying to compete with John Clark, in attributing me  
things I have never said.


All what I said is that Atheists and Christian defend the same  
conception of God. The atheists defend that conception so that they  
can announce proudly to the world that there is NO god.
And doing so, they share the literalism of the fundamentalist  
christians.


The don't "defend the concept",


The Atheists (the strong non agnostic one) asks we keep all the  
religious term in the sense of one particular religion, lthough there  
are variant: the ultra-string atheists believes all the terms of any  
religion/theology makes no sense.





they accept that usage defines the word.


I am not sure you can extrapolate this for the spiritual domain. I  
remind you one of my favorite meta-axiom about God. It has no name.  
Plotinus was aware of the difficulty, but is almost valid in his  
explanation of how we can use word as pointer to what we can either  
not know, or, in some sense, know to much intimately to figure out a  
name or a description.





And when careful in philosophical discourse they make it explicit  
that they mean the god the theism, to distinguish this from the god  
of deism and from abstract principles of organization and love and  
all the other things that people have said are "god"



Yes. That is nice. But then why all the fuss, given that I made also  
explicit that I am talking of the God in the large sense of the  
greeks, those who made science including theology. That sense was  
already encompassing the theories of the Indians, the jews, the  
zoroastrians.


In science we adopt often large sense to start the research. God is  
the big interrogation point, in that large sense.
The God of physicalism (not of the physicists necessarily) is a  
primary physical universe/matter.

The God of the Christians and Muslims is the God of the bible.
All civilisation have been concerned by such notions, sometimes with  
many gods and goddesses.


The term "God" is universally used by everyone to denote the one  
responsible (in some variate sense) for what happens, and that we  
don't understand.


Saying there is no such God is equivalent with we have understood  
everything, the rest are technical details.







in order to manipulate others or comfort themselves.


In the theology of the Gnostics (ate the time of Plotinus), God is  
both incompetent and a bad guy.


The idea that God is good is in Plato, but I am not sure if that idea  
is not much older.


With comp, from the machine views it is hard to say truth is good, but  
it might be better than the lies. I dunno.


Bruno








Brent

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-17 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 5:06 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>
> On 16 Oct 2014, at 16:39, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 8:44 AM, LizR  wrote:
>
>> Sounds like doublethink to mewhich was of course a virtue and a
>> necessity if you lived on Airstrip One.
>>
>
> Right. If I remember correctly, peculiar machine is inaccurate but not
> necessarily inconsistent.
>
>
> Smullyan introduced that term in "Forever Undecided" (the little bible!)
>  with a slight different meaning. A reasoner (machine or not) is peculiar
> with respect to a proposition p, if he believes p, but also believes that
> he does not believe p. A reasoner is peculiar if there is a proposition p
> to which he is peculiar about.
>
> Such entities will be inaccurate, but not necessarily inconsistent. So you
> are right. The reverse does not follow, note.
>
> Exercise: find or build a peculiar entity.
> Solution: just that follish thing that Smullyan dares to do, and fake that
> you believe that G* is not talking about some machine or on G, but that G*
> talk about itself.
>

That was the funky move I forgot, which places this in good perspective.


>
> G* typically proves <>t   (correct intepretation: the machine I talk about
> is consistent)
> G* proves also, like G, the incompleteness theorem: <>t -> ~[]<>t, and G*
> is closed fro the modus ponens, so, G* prove ~[]<>t.
> So G* proves both <>t and  ~[]<>t, making G* peculiar on <>t. And G* is
> consistent, it does not prove the false.
>
> Of course G* is *not* peculiar on <>t. G* is peculiar on <>t only if
> *you* interpret (wrongly) the box of G* as being the provability by G. Of
> course the box of G* is the provability by G, or by any correct Löbian
> entity.
>
> This shows that any machine confusing science and truth (the box at the G
> level and the box at the *-level) will be peculiar on her consistency.
>

Somehow, I feel a bit more sorted now. I'll be able to sleep better tonight
;-)


>
> I think that we become peculiar if we identify consciousness and
> self-consistency, that might be true, but is at the star level. May be
> Dennett, the Churchland are peculiar, or a negative version of it.
>
> Interesting. I am so busy on clarifying the []p and []p & p confusion,
> that I forget the quite important G/G* confusion, which leads to the queer
> reasoner, as Smullyan called them also.
>

That's a lot of confusion on your shoulders.


>
>
> So you have to doublethink in consistent ways, to not generate suspicion.
>
> And they're also not conceited ( Believing for all p: Bp -> p, or there
> doesn't exist p such that: ~p & Bp ), thus believing in their
> infallibility. PGC
>
>
>
> Of course, with that same "queer" interpretation of the box (the
> provability by G* itself on itself), G* is conceited, as he believes in []p
> -> p for all p.
>

That's "of course" to you and "huh? Ah, nice!" again to me. PGC

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-17 Thread zibbsey



On Monday, October 6, 2014 7:15:44 PM UTC+1, Brent wrote:
>
> Here's an interesting interview of a philosopher who is interested in the 
> question of 
> whether God exists.  The interesting thing about it, for this list, is 
> that "God" is 
> implicitly the god of theism, and is not "one's reason for existence" or 
> "the unprovable 
> truths of arithmetic". 
>
> Brent 
>

What about a God of, knock down Goodness, like you maybe gave up on 50 
years ago. And Truth and all the other virtues. What if all that is real? 
Minimally, I suppose I'm asking where to file it under the above. Is it 
theism? Or is the other side? 

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 16 Oct 2014, at 16:48, Telmo Menezes wrote:




On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 3:48 PM, Stephen Paul King > wrote:

Hi Telmo,

   You wrote: "If I understand the ideas in Mitra's paper correctly,  
wouldn't it require that you yourself had forgotten about the  
discussion?"


   That is what I thought at first as well and concluded that it was  
just a misremembering or delusion. But I could not shake how "well  
constructed the memory is. It was as if my memories somehow survived  
while all objective traces vanished. All the non-1p traces had  
vanished but all of the 1p content was still there.


Ok, that is quite intriguing. Have you tried asking your previous  
interlocutors? Could you have dreamt it?


I had some very vivid dreams when I was a kid that feel like real  
memories to me. I only assume they are dreams because of the content  
(a plush toy gaining life, being pushed out of a very tall building  
and things like that). Looking back I suspect we are born into a  
very psychedelic state, but that's another topic.


I'm not trying to grill you. I find this really interesting so would  
like to know the details.



  I have a suspicion as to how this might happen. I think that it  
may be evidence of part of Bruno's argument that we are not single  
computations.


   If our individual minds span over all of the brains that could  
implement them and each brain is tied into a single physical world,  
then so long as the "wipe" occurs only in some some of the physical  
worlds, then it is possible to "retain the memory".
   This implies a restricted form of computational universality -  
not all software can "run" on each and every piece of hardware - and  
that there may be a way of selecting what the software does by  
steering which hardware it is available to run on. In this way one  
can "control" the software without taking any direct action on it.


Interesting, I hope Bruno can comment on this.


I am not sure I understand. By Church thesis all software can run on  
all hardware or anything, once it is organized so that it is Turing  
Universal. Then the distinction between hardware and software is  
relative above the substitution level, and absolute below (matter  
emerging from the FPI sums on infinities of computations). I think  
that Stephen might be valid, though. If we were able to kill ourself  
mentally and instantaneously, we might choose the selection, like in a  
WM duplication but when seeing Moscow (and the temperature) you kill  
yourself, so that only the W-guy survives. But nature has programmed  
in a way such that we can't easily do that, at least in the "mundane  
state of consciousness". Near death or in altered consciousness state,  
I don't know. Perhaps. This needs much more research to figure out.





So essentially the physical universe would be a type of consensus  
amongst infinite instantiations of a mind? I guess your experience  
could be called a "reverse déjà vu" or maybe a "jamais vu".


I ask we recount the votes!

:)

Bruno






   This hypothesis makes sense to me as I am using a dualist  
ontology, minds and bodies are not one and the same "thing" or  
"process" - I reject Descartes' substance dualism - the isomorphism  
implied by the duality is not between individual minds (logical  
structures/algebras) and brains (topological spaces/groups), but  
between something more like quotient of adjoint categories.


   I can't find a good mathematical description of the concept yet...

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 8:32 AM, Telmo Menezes  
 wrote:



On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Stephen Paul King > wrote:

Hi Telmo,

  One event involved an email exchange that I has with two people.  
We where discussing theories of emergent space-time. Nothing really  
consequential. It didn't go anywhere as on of the persons said that  
I had to wait for his paper to be published for further information  
on his theory.
   Thing is, now the only evidence that I can find that the events  
happened are in my memory. All of the emails and so forth are gone,  
as if they where wiped clean from our reality.


Thanks Stephen.
If I understand the ideas in Mitra's paper correctly, wouldn't it  
require that you yourself had forgotten about the discussion?



On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Telmo Menezes  
 wrote:

Hi Stephen,

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 8:53 PM, Stephen Paul King > wrote:

Hi Brent,

   I have had a couple of experiences that proved to me that there  
exists something like the theist God. Things that I can not explain  
otherwise are some kind of "divine intervention" that saved my life.  
Could there be an explanation that is completely secular?


Could it be explained by MWI + anthropic principle? You died in a  
large number of branches, in the ones where you survived something  
very unlikely necessarily happened?


I am open to such, but its like arguing that something like the  
spontaneous unscrambling of an egg actually happened but one does  
not have a

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 16 Oct 2014, at 16:39, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:




On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 8:44 AM, LizR  wrote:
Sounds like doublethink to mewhich was of course a virtue and a  
necessity if you lived on Airstrip One.


Right. If I remember correctly, peculiar machine is inaccurate but  
not necessarily inconsistent.


Smullyan introduced that term in "Forever Undecided" (the little  
bible!)  with a slight different meaning. A reasoner (machine or not)  
is peculiar with respect to a proposition p, if he believes p, but  
also believes that he does not believe p. A reasoner is peculiar if  
there is a proposition p to which he is peculiar about.


Such entities will be inaccurate, but not necessarily inconsistent. So  
you are right. The reverse does not follow, note.


Exercise: find or build a peculiar entity.
Solution: just that follish thing that Smullyan dares to do, and fake  
that you believe that G* is not talking about some machine or on G,  
but that G* talk about itself.


G* typically proves <>t   (correct intepretation: the machine I talk  
about is consistent)
G* proves also, like G, the incompleteness theorem: <>t -> ~[]<>t, and  
G* is closed fro the modus ponens, so, G* prove ~[]<>t.
So G* proves both <>t and  ~[]<>t, making G* peculiar on <>t. And G*  
is consistent, it does not prove the false.


Of course G* is not peculiar on <>t. G* is peculiar on <>t only if  
*you* interpret (wrongly) the box of G* as being the provability by G.  
Of course the box of G* is the provability by G, or by any correct  
Löbian entity.


This shows that any machine confusing science and truth (the box at  
the G level and the box at the *-level) will be peculiar on her  
consistency.


I think that we become peculiar if we identify consciousness and self- 
consistency, that might be true, but is at the star level. May be  
Dennett, the Churchland are peculiar, or a negative version of it.


Interesting. I am so busy on clarifying the []p and []p & p confusion,  
that I forget the quite important G/G* confusion, which leads to the  
queer reasoner, as Smullyan called them also.




So you have to doublethink in consistent ways, to not generate  
suspicion.


And they're also not conceited ( Believing for all p: Bp -> p, or  
there doesn't exist p such that: ~p & Bp ), thus believing in their  
infallibility. PGC



Of course, with that same "queer" interpretation of the box (the  
provability by G* itself on itself), G* is conceited, as he believes  
in []p -> p for all p.


Bruno




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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-17 Thread LizR

On the subject of atheists and whether they have a definite concept of god,
etc etc --- well, atheists are (in my experience) dogmatic that they are
sure there is nothing to the universe(s) except something like matter,
energy, space and time (or a quantum field, vectors in Hilbert space, or
whatever). That is, they - or at least the more vocal ones - appear to be
convinced that there can't be anything beyond a materialist conception of
reality.

Or at least that's how they tend to come across. As though they've made
their minds up.

"There's no god - get over it and enjoy your life" or words to that effect.

This is of course very similar to a religious viewpoint; it certainly
doesn't adhere to the scientific method of theories being provisional.

So Bruno may have a point.

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-17 Thread LizR

On 17 October 2014 03:54, John Clark  wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 2:44 AM, LizR  wrote:
>
> > Sounds like doublethink to mewhich was of course a virtue and a
>> necessity if you lived on Airstrip One.
>>
>
> Yes but without doublethink how could we have religion?
>

I tend to think of religion as singlethink.

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread LizR

On 16 October 2014 17:00, Richard Ruquist  wrote:

> I suggest that believing and not believing in anything is consistent with
> MWI (and therefore comp) for if you believe something in one world, you
> will fail to believe in it in some other world.
>

That's equivalent to extending the meaning of "you" to cover "your
multiverse self" - a move that's kind-of implicit in using the MWI (and
Bruno's teleporter) for probability calculations (but less so in quantum
suicide, perhaps...)

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

On 16 Oct 2014, at 17:20, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 3:11 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

>> Educate yourself by reading the excellent book by Lawrence M  
Krauss "A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than  
Nothing".

> It assumes still enough physicalism so that he put still some  
magic in the brain.

After looking at what you say above I very much doubt you have read  
the book by Krauss, or in fact read any book on cosmology written in  
the last 300 years; books by Plato or Aristotle don't count.

You can sum up, if you have some argument, showing it solves the  
computationalist FPI problems. But as you are stuck in step 3 of the  
formulation of the problem, I am not sure you are arguing, but just  
distracting.

>> You never said anything like that? On october 13 you said  " But,  
wait, we don't know if there *is* a physical world".

> In the context, it means a primary physical world. I insist enough  
of that important distinction.

I know what I mean by "physical" but I don't know what you mean, but  
whatever you mean it has to explain why engineers need to make a   
"physical" computer to get any calculations done.

Physical means based on empirical laws, like F = gmM/r^2, or -ih/2pidf/ 
dt = Hf.

If we are machine we need some inconsitent induction power to justify  
our consciousness can be correlated to that, unless this describes  
well what emerge from the sum of all computations in arithmetic which  
exist below our substitution level.

This generalize Everett from QM to arithmetic.

> It is a weak version of comp

I don't care, I have zero interest in "comp".

You still believe it enough to get up to step 2. And nobody  
understands what is your problem in step 3.

Bruno

> that is it is implied by all version of comp

Well good for "comp".

> think at the step 3 of the UDA.

And I'm not interested in what steps the Universal Dance Association  
recommends.

  John K Clark

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread meekerdb


On 10/16/2014 12:36 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
The key point is that atheist don't believe in God, but believe that God deos not exist. 
But to have such a belief you need to believe that you have the right notion of God, and 
this is what they share with the christian: the same conception of God, even if it is to 
assert its non existence. They dismiss, like the fundamentalist christian, the 
possibility that there is other religions, or other conception of God, which shows they 
don't read the literature.


No, and in fact I'm usually careful to use "God", capitalized as a proper name, for the 
theist god, a "god" for the more general concept as in "Money is the god of capitalists".


Brent

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread meekerdb

On 10/16/2014 12:24 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 16 Oct 2014, at 05:28, meekerdb wrote:

On 10/15/2014 7:25 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 4:00 AM, meekerdb > wrote:

Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence of Santa
Claus
you must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus" refers to and therefore
you do
believe in Santa Claus. A curious inference for a logician.

That's just fancy language, wherein semantic of "Santa" is mapped to "fictitious
entity, old, fat, gift giving etc"; so you applying belief predicate to it results in
believing untrue fiction.

What's more curious than this is why you choose "Santa" instead of "house" or "Brent"
in your example.

But roughly I'd say yes, to negate some proposition you have to know semantic it
refers to and point to/represent that idea, with all its possible flaws, and note said
negation. And that isn't curious, I'd call it normal because I can't think of some
inversion before I have a grasp on some usual state of affairs. PGC

I works with "house" and "Brent" too. What's curious is that failing to believe in
anything implies that you do believe in it.

Precisely: atheists does not fail to believe in God: they believe that the notion of God
has no sense, but they use only the christian God to make their point.

And to believe that something does not exist, you need a precise version of it.

No, you just need a definite version. The god I don't believe in is the god of theism,
which, as I've written many times, is a person who created the universe and cares about
how we behave and wants to be worshipped.

So atheits, like christian (the fundamentalist one) believe that they have the right
notion of God.

The theist notion, which I've explained once again above, is not just a fundamentalist
god. It's also the god of every religion that believes in worshipping and obeying their
god (which is almost all of them).

the fundamentalist christian believe it exists, and the atheists believe it does not
exist, and as you see, both share the same concept,

Of course if I I say I don't believe something exist I'd be a fool not to have a concept
of what I was talking about.

and defend it up to the point of not studying the field which exemplifies the subtlety
of the concept. for the greeks: god is defined by the ultimate reality that we search.

Not "for the greeks". The greeks killed Socrates for teaching his students to doubt the
gods. When you write "the greeks" you mean a few greek philosphers. And then you
criticize me for using the common meaning that would be understood by 99% of the people I
would meet on the street, instead of the meaning adopted by a few mystic greeks.

It is a pointer of what we don't know about the reason why we are here.

I suppose it goes along with the spirit of "everything". If I can think of it clearly
enough to fail to believe it exists then it must be among the the everything that exists.

The concept exist, but both fundamentalist christian and atheists believe that there is
no other concepts or definitions possible.

Of course there are. And there are many other words that can be used to describe them.
Plotinus called the concept "the One". And failing that you could make up a new word for
the concept.

You see the point?

No, I don't. You want to use the word "God", but for no reason I can discern. I once
thought you wanted to win a Templeton prize - which I think you would deserve. But you
said you didn't want to and declined my help in applying. So I guess it is some personal
reason you don't want to share. Maybe your mother would disown you. ;-) So it's OK with
me, just don't criticize me for my use of common language. I know what I'm saying and I'm
expressing myself so as to be understood.

Brent

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread meekerdb

On 10/16/2014 12:17 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 16 Oct 2014, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:

Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence of Santa Claus you
must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus" refers to and therefore you do believe
in Santa Claus. A curious inference for a logician.

Brent, are you trying to compete with John Clark, in attributing me things I have never
said.

All what I said is that Atheists and Christian defend the same conception of God. The
atheists defend that conception so that they can announce proudly to the world that
there is NO god.

And doing so, they share the literalism of the fundamentalist christians.

The don't "defend the concept", they accept that usage defines the word. And when careful
in philosophical discourse they make it explicit that they mean the god the theism, to
distinguish this from the god of deism and from abstract principles of organization and
love and all the other things that people have said are "god" in order to manipulate
others or comfort themselves.

Brent

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread Stephen Paul King

Hi Telmo,

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 10:48 AM, Telmo Menezes 
wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 3:48 PM, Stephen Paul King <
> stephe...@provensecure.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Telmo,
>>
>>You wrote: "If I understand the ideas in Mitra's paper correctly,
>> wouldn't it require that you yourself had forgotten about the discussion?
>> "
>>
>>That is what I thought at first as well and concluded that it was just
>> a misremembering or delusion. But I could not shake how "well constructed
>> the memory is. It was as if my memories somehow survived while all
>> objective traces vanished. All the non-1p traces had vanished but all of
>> the 1p content was still there.
>>
>
> Ok, that is quite intriguing. Have you tried asking your previous
> interlocutors? Could you have dreamt it?
>
> It would have to be a persistent dream. I have not been able to locate
one of the two persons. It is as if they vanished... The other person, who
I will not name, is a well known physicist. 



> I had some very vivid dreams when I was a kid that feel like real memories
> to me. I only assume they are dreams because of the content (a plush toy
> gaining life, being pushed out of a very tall building and things like
> that). Looking back I suspect we are born into a very psychedelic state,
> but that's another topic.
>

I think that when we are very young, the massive plasticity of the brain
allows for it to have a wide "spread" over its possible worlds. Research
into children that have "past life" experiences may contain data useful to
explain this effect.

>
> I'm not trying to grill you. I find this really interesting so would like
> to know the details.
>

Yeah, it is amazing stuff, but its very easy to deceive oneself.

>
>
>>
>>   I have a suspicion as to how this might happen. I think that it may be
>> evidence of part of Bruno's argument that we are not single computations.
>>
>>If our individual minds span over all of the brains that could
>> implement them and each brain is tied into a single physical world, then so
>> long as the "wipe" occurs only in some some of the physical worlds, then it
>> is possible to "retain the memory".
>>This implies a restricted form of computational universality - not all
>> software can "run" on each and every piece of hardware - and that there may
>> be a way of selecting what the software does by steering which hardware it
>> is available to run on. In this way one can "control" the software without
>> taking any direct action on it.
>>
>
> Interesting, I hope Bruno can comment on this.
>

Me too!


>
> So essentially the physical universe would be a type of consensus amongst
> infinite instantiations of a mind?
>

Yes. Exactly that! I define a "reality" in those terms: That which is
incontrovertible for some collection of mutually communicating observers.
  (Observers are anything whose observations involve the creation of
distinctions that make a difference to at least one other observer.)



> I guess your experience could be called a "reverse déjà vu" or maybe a
> "jamais vu".
>

Interesting!


>
>
>>
>>This hypothesis makes sense to me as I am using a dualist ontology,
>> minds and bodies are not one and the same "thing" or "process" - I reject
>> Descartes' substance dualism - the isomorphism implied by the duality is
>> not between individual minds (logical structures/algebras) and brains
>> (topological spaces/groups), but between something more like quotient
>> 
>> of adjoint categories .
>>
>>I can't find a good mathematical description of the concept yet...
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 8:32 AM, Telmo Menezes 
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Stephen Paul King <
>>> stephe...@provensecure.com> wrote:
>>>
 Hi Telmo,

   One event involved an email exchange that I has with two people. We
 where discussing theories of emergent space-time. Nothing really
 consequential. It didn't go anywhere as on of the persons said that I had
 to wait for his paper to be published for further information on his 
 theory.
Thing is, now the only evidence that I can find that the events
 happened are in my memory. All of the emails and so forth are gone, as if
 they where wiped clean from our reality.

>>>
>>> Thanks Stephen.
>>> If I understand the ideas in Mitra's paper correctly, wouldn't it
>>> require that you yourself had forgotten about the discussion?
>>>
>>>

 On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Telmo Menezes 
 wrote:

> Hi Stephen,
>
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 8:53 PM, Stephen Paul King <
> stephe...@charter.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi Brent,
>>
>>I have had a couple of experiences that proved to me that there
>> exists something like the theist God. Things that I can not ex

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 3:11 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>> Educate yourself by reading the excellent book by Lawrence M Krauss "A
>> Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing".
>>
>
> > It assumes still enough physicalism so that he put still some magic in
> the brain.
>

After looking at what you say above I very much doubt you have read the
book by Krauss, or in fact read any book on cosmology written in the last
300 years; books by Plato or Aristotle don't count.

>> You never said anything like that? On october 13 you said  " But, wait,
>> we don't know if there *is* a physical world".
>>
>
> > In the context, it means a primary physical world. I insist enough of
> that important distinction.
>

I know what I mean by "physical" but I don't know what you mean, but
whatever you mean it has to explain why engineers need to make a
"physical" computer to get any calculations done.

> It is a weak version of comp
>

I don't care, I have zero interest in "comp".

> > that is it is implied by all version of comp
>

Well good for "comp".

> > think at the step 3 of the UDA.
>

And I'm not interested in what steps the Universal Dance Association
recommends.

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 2:44 AM, LizR  wrote:

> Sounds like doublethink to mewhich was of course a virtue and a
> necessity if you lived on Airstrip One.
>

Yes but without doublethink how could we have religion? And how could a
logician say "Atheism, as I know it, is a slight variant of christianism"?

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 3:48 PM, Stephen Paul King <
stephe...@provensecure.com> wrote:

> Hi Telmo,
>
>You wrote: "If I understand the ideas in Mitra's paper correctly,
> wouldn't it require that you yourself had forgotten about the discussion?"
>
>That is what I thought at first as well and concluded that it was just
> a misremembering or delusion. But I could not shake how "well constructed
> the memory is. It was as if my memories somehow survived while all
> objective traces vanished. All the non-1p traces had vanished but all of
> the 1p content was still there.
>

Ok, that is quite intriguing. Have you tried asking your previous
interlocutors? Could you have dreamt it?

I had some very vivid dreams when I was a kid that feel like real memories
to me. I only assume they are dreams because of the content (a plush toy
gaining life, being pushed out of a very tall building and things like
that). Looking back I suspect we are born into a very psychedelic state,
but that's another topic.

I'm not trying to grill you. I find this really interesting so would like
to know the details.


>
>   I have a suspicion as to how this might happen. I think that it may be
> evidence of part of Bruno's argument that we are not single computations.
>
>If our individual minds span over all of the brains that could
> implement them and each brain is tied into a single physical world, then so
> long as the "wipe" occurs only in some some of the physical worlds, then it
> is possible to "retain the memory".
>This implies a restricted form of computational universality - not all
> software can "run" on each and every piece of hardware - and that there may
> be a way of selecting what the software does by steering which hardware it
> is available to run on. In this way one can "control" the software without
> taking any direct action on it.
>

Interesting, I hope Bruno can comment on this.

So essentially the physical universe would be a type of consensus amongst
infinite instantiations of a mind? I guess your experience could be called
a "reverse déjà vu" or maybe a "jamais vu".


>
>This hypothesis makes sense to me as I am using a dualist ontology,
> minds and bodies are not one and the same "thing" or "process" - I reject
> Descartes' substance dualism - the isomorphism implied by the duality is
> not between individual minds (logical structures/algebras) and brains
> (topological spaces/groups), but between something more like quotient
> 
> of adjoint categories .
>
>I can't find a good mathematical description of the concept yet...
>
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 8:32 AM, Telmo Menezes 
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Stephen Paul King <
>> stephe...@provensecure.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Telmo,
>>>
>>>   One event involved an email exchange that I has with two people. We
>>> where discussing theories of emergent space-time. Nothing really
>>> consequential. It didn't go anywhere as on of the persons said that I had
>>> to wait for his paper to be published for further information on his theory.
>>>Thing is, now the only evidence that I can find that the events
>>> happened are in my memory. All of the emails and so forth are gone, as if
>>> they where wiped clean from our reality.
>>>
>>
>> Thanks Stephen.
>> If I understand the ideas in Mitra's paper correctly, wouldn't it require
>> that you yourself had forgotten about the discussion?
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Telmo Menezes 
>>> wrote:
>>>
 Hi Stephen,

 On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 8:53 PM, Stephen Paul King <
 stephe...@charter.net> wrote:

> Hi Brent,
>
>I have had a couple of experiences that proved to me that there
> exists something like the theist God. Things that I can not explain
> otherwise are some kind of "divine intervention" that saved my life. Could
> there be an explanation that is completely secular?
>

 Could it be explained by MWI + anthropic principle? You died in a large
 number of branches, in the ones where you survived something very unlikely
 necessarily happened?


> I am open to such, but its like arguing that something like the
> spontaneous unscrambling of an egg actually happened but one does not have
> a collection of unimpeachable witnesses available.
>

>Ever you have an experience that is like Mitra's history rewrite
> idea http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3825? I have!
>

 I love this idea and I bet on its validity. That being said, how can
 you know you had such an experience? Could you elaborate?

 Cheers,
 Telmo.


>
>
> On Monday, October 6, 2014 2:15:44 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>>
>> Here's an interesting interview of a philosopher who is intereste

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 8:44 AM, LizR  wrote:

> Sounds like doublethink to mewhich was of course a virtue and a
> necessity if you lived on Airstrip One.
>

Right. If I remember correctly, peculiar machine is inaccurate but not
necessarily inconsistent.

So you have to doublethink in consistent ways, to not generate suspicion.

And they're also not conceited ( Believing for all p: Bp -> p, or there
doesn't exist p such that: ~p & Bp ), thus believing in their
infallibility. PGC

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread Stephen Paul King

Hi Telmo,

   You wrote: "If I understand the ideas in Mitra's paper correctly,
wouldn't it require that you yourself had forgotten about the discussion?"

   That is what I thought at first as well and concluded that it was just a
misremembering or delusion. But I could not shake how "well constructed the
memory is. It was as if my memories somehow survived while all objective
traces vanished. All the non-1p traces had vanished but all of the 1p
content was still there.

  I have a suspicion as to how this might happen. I think that it may be
evidence of part of Bruno's argument that we are not single computations.

   If our individual minds span over all of the brains that could implement
them and each brain is tied into a single physical world, then so long as
the "wipe" occurs only in some some of the physical worlds, then it is
possible to "retain the memory".
   This implies a restricted form of computational universality - not all
software can "run" on each and every piece of hardware - and that there may
be a way of selecting what the software does by steering which hardware it
is available to run on. In this way one can "control" the software without
taking any direct action on it.

   This hypothesis makes sense to me as I am using a dualist ontology,
minds and bodies are not one and the same "thing" or "process" - I reject
Descartes' substance dualism - the isomorphism implied by the duality is
not between individual minds (logical structures/algebras) and brains
(topological spaces/groups), but between something more like quotient

of adjoint categories .

   I can't find a good mathematical description of the concept yet...

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 8:32 AM, Telmo Menezes 
wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Stephen Paul King <
> stephe...@provensecure.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Telmo,
>>
>>   One event involved an email exchange that I has with two people. We
>> where discussing theories of emergent space-time. Nothing really
>> consequential. It didn't go anywhere as on of the persons said that I had
>> to wait for his paper to be published for further information on his theory.
>>Thing is, now the only evidence that I can find that the events
>> happened are in my memory. All of the emails and so forth are gone, as if
>> they where wiped clean from our reality.
>>
>
> Thanks Stephen.
> If I understand the ideas in Mitra's paper correctly, wouldn't it require
> that you yourself had forgotten about the discussion?
>
>
>>
>> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Telmo Menezes 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Stephen,
>>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 8:53 PM, Stephen Paul King <
>>> stephe...@charter.net> wrote:
>>>
 Hi Brent,

I have had a couple of experiences that proved to me that there
 exists something like the theist God. Things that I can not explain
 otherwise are some kind of "divine intervention" that saved my life. Could
 there be an explanation that is completely secular?

>>>
>>> Could it be explained by MWI + anthropic principle? You died in a large
>>> number of branches, in the ones where you survived something very unlikely
>>> necessarily happened?
>>>
>>>
 I am open to such, but its like arguing that something like the
 spontaneous unscrambling of an egg actually happened but one does not have
 a collection of unimpeachable witnesses available.

>>>
Ever you have an experience that is like Mitra's history rewrite
 idea http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3825? I have!

>>>
>>> I love this idea and I bet on its validity. That being said, how can you
>>> know you had such an experience? Could you elaborate?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Telmo.
>>>
>>>

 On Monday, October 6, 2014 2:15:44 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>
> Here's an interesting interview of a philosopher who is interested in
> the question of
> whether God exists.  The interesting thing about it, for this list, is
> that "God" is
> implicitly the god of theism, and is not "one's reason for existence"
> or "the unprovable
> truths of arithmetic".
>
> Brent
>
>
>  Original Message 
>
>
>
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/can-
> wanting-to-believe-make-us-believers/
>
>
> Gary Gutting: "This is the 12th and last in a series of interviews
> about religion that I
> am conducting for The Stone. The interviewee for this installment is
> Daniel Garber, a
> professor of philosophy at Princeton University, specializing in
> philosophy and science in
> the period of Galileo and Newton. In a week or two, I’ll conclude with
> a wrap-up column on
> the series."
>
> ...
>
> Daniel Garber: "Certainly there are serious philosophers who would
> deny that

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread spudboy100 via Everything List

Sent from AOL Mobile Mail
Ok, very good Bruno. Like Shrodingers cat not being a cat, but a particle 
state. However, there have being papers by L. Suskind, some years back sort of 
indicating an embedded identity, with a BB. So there must be some confusion on 
my part. I can dig up some links to old articles that indicate personality, and 
consciousness. 

Mitch

-Original Message-
From: Bruno Marchal 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Thu, Oct 16, 2014 02:04 AM
Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God 
anymore?

On 15 Oct 2014, at 13:23, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

 Aha! Now what of Boltzmann Brains and how this topic is 
undervalued by the intellects here. 

The UD is more general than the Boltzman brain. It contains the web of all 
Boltzmann brain manifestation. 

There is no actual real "brains", even for a physicalist it is only first 
person symmetry breaking in the symmetrical universal waves of the (quantum) 
vacuum.

Bruno

-Original Message-

 From: John Clark <
 mailto:johnkcl...@gmail.com";>johnkcl...@gmail.com>

 To: everything-list <
 mailto:everything-list@googlegroups.com";>everything-list@googlegroups.com>

 Sent: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 7:30 pm

 Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God 
anymore?

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 12:54 PM, Bruno Marchal 
 <mailto:marc...@ulb.ac.be";>marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:

> I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what is at the 
> origin of the physical universe,

Then if modern cosmologists are even close to being correct God is not 
omniscient, God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb as a sack full of 
doorknobs. And that is a great example of someone more than willing to abandon 
the idea of God but not the English word G-O-D.

> or what is at the origin of the conscious belief in the physical universe

Then my brain is God but your brain is not because I believe in a physical 
universe but you have said on this list that you don't. 

> With that definition of God, God's existence is quite plausible

If you redefine dragons as the animals the run in the Kentucky Derby Race every 
year then the existence of dragons is quite plausible.

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-16 Thread Telmo Menezes

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Stephen Paul King <
stephe...@provensecure.com> wrote:

> Hi Telmo,
>
>   One event involved an email exchange that I has with two people. We
> where discussing theories of emergent space-time. Nothing really
> consequential. It didn't go anywhere as on of the persons said that I had
> to wait for his paper to be published for further information on his theory.
>Thing is, now the only evidence that I can find that the events
> happened are in my memory. All of the emails and so forth are gone, as if
> they where wiped clean from our reality.
>

Thanks Stephen.
If I understand the ideas in Mitra's paper correctly, wouldn't it require
that you yourself had forgotten about the discussion?


>
> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Telmo Menezes 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Stephen,
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 8:53 PM, Stephen Paul King > > wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Brent,
>>>
>>>I have had a couple of experiences that proved to me that there
>>> exists something like the theist God. Things that I can not explain
>>> otherwise are some kind of "divine intervention" that saved my life. Could
>>> there be an explanation that is completely secular?
>>>
>>
>> Could it be explained by MWI + anthropic principle? You died in a large
>> number of branches, in the ones where you survived something very unlikely
>> necessarily happened?
>>
>>
>>> I am open to such, but its like arguing that something like the
>>> spontaneous unscrambling of an egg actually happened but one does not have
>>> a collection of unimpeachable witnesses available.
>>>
>>
>>>Ever you have an experience that is like Mitra's history rewrite idea
>>> http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3825? I have!
>>>
>>
>> I love this idea and I bet on its validity. That being said, how can you
>> know you had such an experience? Could you elaborate?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Telmo.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Monday, October 6, 2014 2:15:44 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:

 Here's an interesting interview of a philosopher who is interested in
 the question of
 whether God exists.  The interesting thing about it, for this list, is
 that "God" is
 implicitly the god of theism, and is not "one's reason for existence"
 or "the unprovable
 truths of arithmetic".

 Brent


  Original Message 



 http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/can-
 wanting-to-believe-make-us-believers/


 Gary Gutting: "This is the 12th and last in a series of interviews
 about religion that I
 am conducting for The Stone. The interviewee for this installment is
 Daniel Garber, a
 professor of philosophy at Princeton University, specializing in
 philosophy and science in
 the period of Galileo and Newton. In a week or two, I’ll conclude with
 a wrap-up column on
 the series."

 ...

 Daniel Garber: "Certainly there are serious philosophers who would deny
 that the arguments
 for the existence of God have been decisively refuted. But even so, my
 impression is that
 proofs for the existence of God have ceased to be a matter of serious
 discussion outside
 of the domain of professional philosophy of religion. And even there,
 my sense is that the
 discussions are largely a matter of academic interest: The real passion
 has gone out of
 the question."

  --
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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

The key point is that atheist don't believe in God, but believe that  
God deos not exist. But to have such a belief you need to believe that  
you have the right notion of God, and this is what they share with the  
christian: the same conception of God, even if it is to assert its non  
existence. They dismiss, like the fundamentalist christian, the  
possibility that there is other religions, or other conception of God,  
which shows they don't read the literature.


Bruno

On 16 Oct 2014, at 08:44, LizR wrote:

Sounds like doublethink to mewhich was of course a virtue and a  
necessity if you lived on Airstrip One.


On 16 October 2014 18:21, Platonist Guitar Cowboy > wrote:



On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 5:28 AM, meekerdb   
wrote:


I works with "house" and "Brent" too.  What's curious is that  
failing to believe in anything implies that you do believe in it.  I  
suppose it goes along with the spirit of "everything".  If I can  
think of it clearly enough to fail to believe it exists then it must  
be among the the everything that exists.



If Bp & ~p, then the machine just reasons inaccurately. Believing in  
Santa, even though not real (real enough to be minor source of  
income for some at certain times of year...), like children that go  
through the Santa performance.


If you believe p while also not believing p, then you are peculiar  
reasoner.


Peculiar machine/reasoning: Bp & B~Bp

If I remember this stuff... so grain of salt.

But yes, negation as a whole is kinda weird/curious fundamentally. PGC


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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 16 Oct 2014, at 06:00, Richard Ruquist wrote:




On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 11:28 PM, meekerdb   
wrote:

On 10/15/2014 7:25 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 4:00 AM, meekerdb   
wrote:
Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence  
of Santa Claus you must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus"  
refers to and therefore you do believe in Santa Claus.  A curious  
inference for a logician.


That's just fancy language, wherein semantic of "Santa" is mapped  
to "fictitious entity, old, fat, gift giving etc"; so you applying  
belief predicate to it results in believing untrue fiction.


What's more curious than this is why you choose "Santa" instead of  
"house" or "Brent" in your example.


But roughly I'd say yes, to negate some proposition you have to  
know semantic it refers to and point to/represent that idea, with  
all its possible flaws, and note said negation. And that isn't  
curious, I'd call it normal because I can't think of some inversion  
before I have a grasp on some usual state of affairs. PGC


I works with "house" and "Brent" too.  What's curious is that  
failing to believe in anything implies that you do believe in it.  I  
suppose it goes along with the spirit of "everything".  If I can  
think of it clearly enough to fail to believe it exists then it must  
be among the the everything that exists.



I suggest that believing and not believing in anything is consistent  
with MWI (and therefore comp) for if you believe something in one  
world, you will fail to believe in it in some other world.


Not in the normal (Gaussian) worlds. There is no world in which I  
believe in the christian God, or in 2+2=5, except in the world I am  
not bruno, or in the worlds I have alzheimer, etc. (assuming comp  
works correctly, of course, or that QM is correct).


Bruno




Richard

Brent

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 16 Oct 2014, at 05:40, LizR wrote:


I don't believe that's what Bruno means


Thanks God!

Bruno



(which if I'm wrong means I DO believe that's what he  
means...)



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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 16 Oct 2014, at 05:32, LizR wrote:


Is this a fair comment, Bruno?


No. See my answer to Brent. Tell me if you see the point. I have never  
said that atheists believe in God, only that they share the same  
concept of God than the (fundamentalist) christians. I only say that  
atheists *behave* exactly like the (fundamentalist) christians (and  
muslims): only the God of the bible makes sense for them. They both  
ignore and dismiss the *many* other religion. It is in  that sense  
that I say that atheism is christian or ally to the christian cause.  
Many bishops knows that. One said some years ago on the radio that  
atheism was the best advertising of christianism and its notion of  
god. Both atheists and christian condemn the coming back of reason and  
experimentation in theology.


Bruno




On 16 October 2014 15:00, meekerdb  wrote:
Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence of  
Santa Claus you must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus"  
refers to and therefore you do believe in Santa Claus.  A curious  
inference for a logician.


Brent


On 10/15/2014 6:29 PM, LizR wrote:

I think I can see what he means, whether or not you agree with him.

On 16 October 2014 12:29, John Clark  wrote:
On Wed, Oct 15, 2014  Platonist Guitar Cowboy > wrote:


>The stupidity prize you made up is clearly yours to claim,

Oh I've said plenty of stupid thinks in my time, but I don't think  
I can compete with Bruno's  "Atheism, as I know it, is a slight  
variant of christianism".


  John K Clark



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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 16 Oct 2014, at 05:28, meekerdb wrote:


On 10/15/2014 7:25 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 4:00 AM, meekerdb   
wrote:
Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence  
of Santa Claus you must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus"  
refers to and therefore you do believe in Santa Claus.  A curious  
inference for a logician.


That's just fancy language, wherein semantic of "Santa" is mapped  
to "fictitious entity, old, fat, gift giving etc"; so you applying  
belief predicate to it results in believing untrue fiction.


What's more curious than this is why you choose "Santa" instead of  
"house" or "Brent" in your example.


But roughly I'd say yes, to negate some proposition you have to  
know semantic it refers to and point to/represent that idea, with  
all its possible flaws, and note said negation. And that isn't  
curious, I'd call it normal because I can't think of some inversion  
before I have a grasp on some usual state of affairs. PGC


I works with "house" and "Brent" too.  What's curious is that  
failing to believe in anything implies that you do believe in it.


Precisely: atheists does not fail to believe in God: they believe that  
the notion of God has no sense, but they use only the christian God to  
make their point.


And to believe that something does not exist, you need a precise  
version of it. So atheits, like christian (the fundamentalist one)  
believe that they have the right notion of God. the fundamentalist  
christian believe it exists, and the atheists believe it does not  
exist, and as you see, both share the same concept, and defend it up  
to the point of not studying the field which exemplifies the subtlety  
of the concept. for the greeks: god is defined by the ultimate reality  
that we search. It is a pointer of what we don't know about the reason  
why we are here.




I suppose it goes along with the spirit of "everything".  If I can  
think of it clearly enough to fail to believe it exists then it must  
be among the the everything that exists.


The concept exist, but both fundamentalist christian and atheists  
believe that there is no other concepts or definitions possible.


You see the point?

Bruno





Brent

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 16 Oct 2014, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:

Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence of  
Santa Claus you must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus"  
refers to and therefore you do believe in Santa Claus.  A curious  
inference for a logician.


Brent, are you trying to compete with John Clark, in attributing me  
things I have never said.


All what I said is that Atheists and Christian defend the same  
conception of God. The atheists defend that conception so that they  
can announce proudly to the world that there is NO god.
And doing so, they share the literalism of the fundamentalist  
christians.


Bruno





Brent

On 10/15/2014 6:29 PM, LizR wrote:

I think I can see what he means, whether or not you agree with him.

On 16 October 2014 12:29, John Clark  wrote:
On Wed, Oct 15, 2014  Platonist Guitar Cowboy > wrote:


>The stupidity prize you made up is clearly yours to claim,

Oh I've said plenty of stupid thinks in my time, but I don't think  
I can compete with Bruno's  "Atheism, as I know it, is a slight  
variant of christianism".


  John K Clark



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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 16 Oct 2014, at 01:29, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014  Platonist Guitar Cowboy > wrote:


>The stupidity prize you made up is clearly yours to claim,

Oh I've said plenty of stupid thinks in my time, but I don't think I  
can compete with Bruno's  "Atheism, as I know it, is a slight  
variant of christianism".


Then why do you defend the idea that christians have the genuine  
notion of god. I know why. So you can utter how the notion of god is  
stupid, etc. But you would be a non-christian, you would not care  
about their definition, and open to quite different type of  
theologies, like the platonist original one.


Bruno




  John K Clark




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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

On 15 Oct 2014, at 18:56, John Clark wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 10:01 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

>>> I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what  
is at the origin of the physical universe,

>> Then if modern cosmologists are even close to being correct God  
is not omniscient, God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb  
as a sack full of doorknobs.

> Proof?

Educate yourself by reading the excellent book by Lawrence M Krauss  
"A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing".

It assumes still enough physicalism so that he put still some magic in  
the brain.

 >> I believe in a physical universe but you have said on this list  
that you don't.

> I never said anything like that.

You never said anything like that? On october 13 you said  " But,  
wait, we don't know if there *is* a physical world".

In the context, it means a primary physical world. I insist enough of  
that important distinction.

As usual in statements of this sort you don't explaine what you're  
talking about, that is to say you don't  even attempt to explain how  
things would be different if there was or was not a physical world  
but nevertheless you said it.

Study the papers or read the posts. I even show precisely that the  
difference is testable.

> I said only that if comp [...]

I have zero interest in what you have to say about "comp".

It is a weak version of comp (that is it is implied by all version of  
comp, and so the consequence I get applies to those version). You just  
stop to think at the step 3 of the UDA. That's poorly convincing hand  
waving.

> which again confirm my point (you know the one which trigger your  
bot-like answer).

If you don't like my bot-like answer then stop making the exact same  
bot-like accusation; I give the stupidity prize to  "Atheism, as I  
know it, is a slight variant of christianism".

Then answer the argument I gave why Atheism is a copy of christianism.

Bruno

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

On 15 Oct 2014, at 13:23, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

Aha! Now what of Boltzmann Brains and how this topic is undervalued  
by the intellects here.

The UD is more general than the Boltzman brain. It contains the web of  
all Boltzmann brain manifestation.
There is no actual real "brains", even for a physicalist it is only  
first person symmetry breaking in the symmetrical universal waves of  
the (quantum) vacuum.

Bruno

-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 7:30 pm
Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence  
of God anymore?

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 12:54 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

> I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what  
is at the origin of the physical universe,

Then if modern cosmologists are even close to being correct God is  
not omniscient, God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb as  
a sack full of doorknobs. And that is a great example of someone  
more than willing to abandon the idea of God but not the English  
word G-O-D.

> or what is at the origin of the conscious belief in the physical  
universe

Then my brain is God but your brain is not because I believe in a  
physical universe but you have said on this list that you don't.

> With that definition of God, God's existence is quite plausible

If you redefine dragons as the animals the run in the Kentucky Derby  
Race every year then the existence of dragons is quite plausible.

  John K Clark

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

On 14 Oct 2014, at 17:15, spudboy100 via Everything List wrote:

John,

Instead of God, what do you propose as a substitute for all the  
awful suffering you have accurately, cited? Marx said that religion  
is an opiate for the people, so what do you offer as a pain reliever?

Aspirin (quinine), cannabis, salvia divinorum. Humid tobacco can help  
too. There is also LSD, MDMA, tabernanthe iboga.

Avoid alcool, and ... petrol.

Bruno

-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 11:01 am
Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence  
of God anymore?

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:42 PM, Samiya Illias > wrote:

> Are you at war with Islam?

No, I'm not at war with anyone.

> Why should God put terror in your heart?

Because God is obviously a sadist and gets off on bondage. Why else  
would God spend a infinite number of years happily disemboweling his  
victims and then healing them so he can have the pleasure of  
disemboweling them again? And this hideous demon you call "God"  
never EVER gets tired of it, He never gets tired of hearing the  
screams of those in agony. And we are told by both Christianity and  
Islam to love this revolting thing they call "God" because if we  
don't this fiend will start disemboweling us too and He will never  
stop.

Christianity and Islam are not only intellectually idiotic they are  
also morally bankrupt.

> He knows your innermost thoughts and knows how honestly or  
otherwise you seek to understand and make meaning of it all. God  
knows the set of circumstances

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

He's making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town

> God sent us in this world and provides sustenance for all of us  
whether we remember Him or not. He gives freely to all in countless  
ways: the oxygen we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat,

He also sent us the cancer that rots our children's bones and the  
typhoons that drown us and the earthquakes that crush us. And if God  
didn't give us food water and oxygen we wouldn't live long enough to  
sin and then God wouldn't be able to engage in His hobby, torturing  
billions of people for eternity.

> God keeps inviting to forgiveness.

Well I might be able to forgive God if He would change His ways,  
but He won't, His compulsion to disembowel billions of people for  
eternity is just too strong.

> God will forget those who forgot God in this world, and so they  
will suffer in Hell with nothing but scalding water to drink and  
food that will not nourish.

Yep, that's your God alright,  that's the pervert we're supposed to  
love.

  John K Clark

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

Sounds like doublethink to mewhich was of course a virtue and a
necessity if you lived on Airstrip One.

On 16 October 2014 18:21, Platonist Guitar Cowboy 
wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 5:28 AM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>>
>> I works with "house" and "Brent" too.  What's curious is that failing to
>> believe in anything implies that you do believe in it.  I suppose it goes
>> along with the spirit of "everything".  If I can think of it clearly enough
>> to fail to believe it exists then it must be among the the everything that
>> exists.
>>
>
>
> If Bp & ~p, then the machine just reasons inaccurately. Believing in
> Santa, even though not real (real enough to be minor source of income for
> some at certain times of year...), like children that go through the Santa
> performance.
>
> If you believe p while also not believing p, then you are peculiar
> reasoner.
>
> Peculiar machine/reasoning: Bp & B~Bp
>
> If I remember this stuff... so grain of salt.
>
> But yes, negation as a whole is kinda weird/curious fundamentally. PGC
>
>
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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 5:28 AM, meekerdb  wrote:

>
> I works with "house" and "Brent" too.  What's curious is that failing to
> believe in anything implies that you do believe in it.  I suppose it goes
> along with the spirit of "everything".  If I can think of it clearly enough
> to fail to believe it exists then it must be among the the everything that
> exists.
>

If Bp & ~p, then the machine just reasons inaccurately. Believing in Santa,
even though not real (real enough to be minor source of income for some at
certain times of year...), like children that go through the Santa
performance.

If you believe p while also not believing p, then you are peculiar
reasoner.

Peculiar machine/reasoning: Bp & B~Bp

If I remember this stuff... so grain of salt.

But yes, negation as a whole is kinda weird/curious fundamentally. PGC

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread Richard Ruquist

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 11:28 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 10/15/2014 7:25 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 4:00 AM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>>  Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence of
>> Santa Claus you must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus" refers to
>> and therefore you do believe in Santa Claus.  A curious inference for a
>> logician.
>>
>
>  That's just fancy language, wherein semantic of "Santa" is mapped to
> "fictitious entity, old, fat, gift giving etc"; so you applying belief
> predicate to it results in believing untrue fiction.
>
> What's more curious than this is why you choose "Santa" instead of "house"
> or "Brent" in your example.
>
>  But roughly I'd say yes, to negate some proposition you have to know
> semantic it refers to and point to/represent that idea, with all its
> possible flaws, and note said negation. And that isn't curious, I'd call it
> normal because I can't think of some inversion before I have a grasp on
> some usual state of affairs. PGC
>
>
> I works with "house" and "Brent" too.  What's curious is that failing to
> believe in anything implies that you do believe in it.  I suppose it goes
> along with the spirit of "everything".  If I can think of it clearly enough
> to fail to believe it exists then it must be among the the everything that
> exists.
>


I suggest that believing and not believing in anything is consistent with
MWI (and therefore comp) for if you believe something in one world, you
will fail to believe in it in some other world.
Richard

>
> Brent
>
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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

I don't believe that's what Bruno means (which if I'm wrong means I DO
believe that's what he means.[image: Inline images 1]..)

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

Is this a fair comment, Bruno?

On 16 October 2014 15:00, meekerdb  wrote:

>  Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence of
> Santa Claus you must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus" refers to
> and therefore you do believe in Santa Claus.  A curious inference for a
> logician.
>
> Brent
>
>
> On 10/15/2014 6:29 PM, LizR wrote:
>
> I think I can see what he means, whether or not you agree with him.
>
> On 16 October 2014 12:29, John Clark  wrote:
>
>>  On Wed, Oct 15, 2014  Platonist Guitar Cowboy 
>> wrote:
>>
>>   >The stupidity prize you made up is clearly yours to claim,
>>>
>>
>>  Oh I've said plenty of stupid thinks in my time, but I don't think I
>> can compete with Bruno's  "Atheism, as I know it, is a slight variant of
>> christianism".
>>
>>John K Clark
>>
>
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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread meekerdb


On 10/15/2014 7:25 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 4:00 AM, meekerdb > wrote:


Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence of Santa 
Claus you
must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus" refers to and therefore you 
do
believe in Santa Claus.  A curious inference for a logician.


That's just fancy language, wherein semantic of "Santa" is mapped to "fictitious entity, 
old, fat, gift giving etc"; so you applying belief predicate to it results in believing 
untrue fiction.


What's more curious than this is why you choose "Santa" instead of "house" or "Brent" in 
your example.


But roughly I'd say yes, to negate some proposition you have to know semantic it refers 
to and point to/represent that idea, with all its possible flaws, and note said 
negation. And that isn't curious, I'd call it normal because I can't think of some 
inversion before I have a grasp on some usual state of affairs. PGC


I works with "house" and "Brent" too.  What's curious is that failing to believe in 
anything implies that you do believe in it.  I suppose it goes along with the spirit of 
"everything".  If I can think of it clearly enough to fail to believe it exists then it 
must be among the the everything that exists.


Brent

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 4:00 AM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence of
> Santa Claus you must have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus" refers to
> and therefore you do believe in Santa Claus.  A curious inference for a
> logician.
>

That's just fancy language, wherein semantic of "Santa" is mapped to
"fictitious entity, old, fat, gift giving etc"; so you applying belief
predicate to it results in believing untrue fiction.

What's more curious than this is why you choose "Santa" instead of "house"
or "Brent" in your example.

But roughly I'd say yes, to negate some proposition you have to know
semantic it refers to and point to/represent that idea, with all its
possible flaws, and note said negation. And that isn't curious, I'd call it
normal because I can't think of some inversion before I have a grasp on
some usual state of affairs. PGC

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread meekerdb

Bruno seems to think that if you fail to believe in the existence of Santa Claus you must 
have a definite idea of what "Santa Claus" refers to and therefore you do believe in Santa 
Claus.  A curious inference for a logician.


Brent

On 10/15/2014 6:29 PM, LizR wrote:

I think I can see what he means, whether or not you agree with him.

On 16 October 2014 12:29, John Clark > wrote:


On Wed, Oct 15, 2014  Platonist Guitar Cowboy mailto:multiplecit...@gmail.com>> wrote:

>The stupidity prize you made up is clearly yours to claim,


Oh I've said plenty of stupid thinks in my time, but I don't think I can 
compete
with Bruno's "Atheism, as I know it, is a slight variant of christianism".

  John K Clark



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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

I think I can see what he means, whether or not you agree with him.

On 16 October 2014 12:29, John Clark  wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 15, 2014  Platonist Guitar Cowboy 
> wrote:
>
> >The stupidity prize you made up is clearly yours to claim,
>>
>
> Oh I've said plenty of stupid thinks in my time, but I don't think I can
> compete with Bruno's  "Atheism, as I know it, is a slight variant of
> christianism".
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>
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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014  Platonist Guitar Cowboy 
wrote:

>The stupidity prize you made up is clearly yours to claim,
>

Oh I've said plenty of stupid thinks in my time, but I don't think I can
compete with Bruno's  "Atheism, as I know it, is a slight variant of
christianism".

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread spudboy100 via Everything List

Excellent article Stephen. Sean Carrol has made a career, even more than 
Krauss, of skewering BB's or anything they consider unconventional. Although 
Krauss does wink and nod at FTL travel. Aaronson is beyond clever, but I don't 
see his thesis, as well thought out as it was, as being the best answer 
(Vaidman Bombs). Consider please Brun's experimentation with Closed Timelike 
Curves. Applying this to the thermodynamics of Boltzmann, quantum mechanics, 
with CTC's, we get something that looks like J. Richard Gott, and Li Xin Li's 
(Princeton) Einstein's Universe. BB's included. (Gotts article on ARXIV "I'd 
Rather See One Than Be One."). 

-Original Message-
From: Stephen Paul King 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Wed, Oct 15, 2014 11:30 am
Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God 
anymore?

Hi Spudboy,

   Not Boltzmann brains. Vaidman brains!

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 7:23 AM, spudboy100 via Everything List 
 wrote:

Aha! Now what of Boltzmann Brains and how this topic is undervalued by the 
intellects here. 

-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 7:30 pm
Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God 
anymore?

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 12:54 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what is at the 
> origin of the physical universe,

Then if modern cosmologists are even close to being correct God is not 
omniscient, God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb as a sack full of 
doorknobs. And that is a great example of someone more than willing to abandon 
the idea of God but not the English word G-O-D.

> or what is at the origin of the conscious belief in the physical universe

Then my brain is God but your brain is not because I believe in a physical 
universe but you have said on this list that you don't. 

> With that definition of God, God's existence is quite plausible

If you redefine dragons as the animals the run in the Kentucky Derby Race every 
year then the existence of dragons is quite plausible.

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 6:56 PM, John Clark  wrote:

>
>
>
> > which again confirm my point (you know the one which trigger your
>> bot-like answer).
>>
>
> If you don't like my bot-like answer then stop making the exact same
> bot-like accusation; I give the stupidity prize to  "Atheism, as I know it,
> is a slight variant of christianism".
>

Why? It's the same behavior. What you call bot-like answer is what
literalist Christian fundamentalist refer to as "strict duty of prayer":
Mindless iteration of unexamined bullshit daily, which you are keeping up
with.

The stupidity prize you made up is clearly yours to claim, keep, and take
home as long as you keep spamming the list with your personal wishful
thinking prayers: "Well known for disliking"... phhh! Yeah, you are as
"well known", renowned, and famous as Einstein etc...

You can also make a fool of yourself and dig holes in the woods. You'll
appear idiotic/naive to less people statistically speaking. Unless of
course you're into public humiliation/embarrassment stuff, in which case
maybe it's time to come out of the closet, and seek out those kinds of
communities and their forums?

But I bet you can't stop, like the fanatic Christian cannot stop with his
prayer/bot-like mantra babbling. That's a comp prediction btw ;-)

Nobody cares though finally, as passionate as your posts may seem to other
idiot, you still have nothing. So stick to your prayer and dutifully keep
repeating it, lest you be engaged by more posts that will steal your great
name/fame due to saving the rest of us from ourselves with the great
no-bullshit scientific wisdom approach... that ironically leaves in this
case nothing but bullshit in its wake. PGC

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread John Clark

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 10:01 AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

>>> I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what is at
>>> the origin of the physical universe,
>>>
>>
> >> Then if modern cosmologists are even close to being correct God is not
>> omniscient, God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb as a sack
>> full of doorknobs.
>>
>
> > Proof?
>

Educate yourself by reading the excellent book by Lawrence M Krauss "A
Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing".

 >> I believe in a physical universe but you have said on this list that
>> you don't.
>>
>
> > I never said anything like that.
>

You never said anything like that? On october 13 you said  " But, wait, we
don't know if there *is* a physical world". As usual in statements of this
sort you don't explaine what you're talking about, that is to say you
don't  even attempt to explain how things would be different if there was
or was not a physical world but nevertheless you said it.

> > I said only that if comp [...]
>

I have zero interest in what you have to say about "comp".

> which again confirm my point (you know the one which trigger your
> bot-like answer).
>

If you don't like my bot-like answer then stop making the exact same
bot-like accusation; I give the stupidity prize to  "Atheism, as I know it,
is a slight variant of christianism".

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread Stephen Paul King

Hi Spudboy,

   Not Boltzmann brains. Vaidman brains
<http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1951>!

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 7:23 AM, spudboy100 via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> Aha! Now what of Boltzmann Brains and how this topic is undervalued by the
> intellects here.
>
>
> -Original Message-
> From: John Clark 
> To: everything-list 
> Sent: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 7:30 pm
> Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God
> anymore?
>
>   On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 12:54 PM, Bruno Marchal 
> wrote:
>
>  > I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what is at
>> the origin of the physical universe,
>>
>
>  Then if modern cosmologists are even close to being correct God is not
> omniscient, God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb as a sack
> full of doorknobs. And that is a great example of someone more than willing
> to abandon the idea of God but not the English word G-O-D.
>
>   > or what is at the origin of the conscious belief in the physical
>> universe
>>
>
>  Then my brain is God but your brain is not because I believe in a
> physical universe but you have said on this list that you don't.
>
>   > With that definition of God, God's existence is quite plausible
>>
>
>  If you redefine dragons as the animals the run in the Kentucky Derby
> Race every year then the existence of dragons is quite plausible.
>
>John K Clark
>
>
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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread Stephen Paul King

Hi Telmo,

  One event involved an email exchange that I has with two people. We where
discussing theories of emergent space-time. Nothing really consequential.
It didn't go anywhere as on of the persons said that I had to wait for his
paper to be published for further information on his theory.
   Thing is, now the only evidence that I can find that the events happened
are in my memory. All of the emails and so forth are gone, as if they where
wiped clean from our reality.

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 5:58 AM, Telmo Menezes 
wrote:

> Hi Stephen,
>
> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 8:53 PM, Stephen Paul King 
> wrote:
>
>> Hi Brent,
>>
>>I have had a couple of experiences that proved to me that there exists
>> something like the theist God. Things that I can not explain otherwise are
>> some kind of "divine intervention" that saved my life. Could there be an
>> explanation that is completely secular?
>>
>
> Could it be explained by MWI + anthropic principle? You died in a large
> number of branches, in the ones where you survived something very unlikely
> necessarily happened?
>
>
>> I am open to such, but its like arguing that something like the
>> spontaneous unscrambling of an egg actually happened but one does not have
>> a collection of unimpeachable witnesses available.
>>
>
>>Ever you have an experience that is like Mitra's history rewrite idea
>> http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3825? I have!
>>
>
> I love this idea and I bet on its validity. That being said, how can you
> know you had such an experience? Could you elaborate?
>
> Cheers,
> Telmo.
>
>
>>
>>
>> On Monday, October 6, 2014 2:15:44 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>>>
>>> Here's an interesting interview of a philosopher who is interested in
>>> the question of
>>> whether God exists.  The interesting thing about it, for this list, is
>>> that "God" is
>>> implicitly the god of theism, and is not "one's reason for existence" or
>>> "the unprovable
>>> truths of arithmetic".
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>>
>>>  Original Message 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/can-
>>> wanting-to-believe-make-us-believers/
>>>
>>>
>>> Gary Gutting: "This is the 12th and last in a series of interviews about
>>> religion that I
>>> am conducting for The Stone. The interviewee for this installment is
>>> Daniel Garber, a
>>> professor of philosophy at Princeton University, specializing in
>>> philosophy and science in
>>> the period of Galileo and Newton. In a week or two, I’ll conclude with a
>>> wrap-up column on
>>> the series."
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>> Daniel Garber: "Certainly there are serious philosophers who would deny
>>> that the arguments
>>> for the existence of God have been decisively refuted. But even so, my
>>> impression is that
>>> proofs for the existence of God have ceased to be a matter of serious
>>> discussion outside
>>> of the domain of professional philosophy of religion. And even there, my
>>> sense is that the
>>> discussions are largely a matter of academic interest: The real passion
>>> has gone out of
>>> the question."
>>>
>>>  --
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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 15 Oct 2014, at 01:30, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 12:54 PM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:

> I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what  
is at the origin of the physical universe,

Then if modern cosmologists are even close to being correct God is  
not omniscient, God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb as  
a sack full of doorknobs.

Proof?

And that is a great example of someone more than willing to abandon  
the idea of God but not the English word G-O-D.

> or what is at the origin of the conscious belief in the physical  
universe

Then my brain is God but your brain is not because I believe in a  
physical universe but you have said on this list that you don't.

I never said anything like that. I said only that if comp is true,  
then invoking a *primary* physical universe to explains the appearance  
of a physical universe does not work.

> With that definition of God, God's existence is quite plausible

If you redefine dragons as the animals the run in the Kentucky Derby  
Race every year then the existence of dragons is quite plausible.

It is the definition used by philosophers and non confessional  
theologians since more than 2500 years. It annoyes only the  
fundamentalist muslims, christians, and the strong atheists, which  
again confirm my point (you know the one which trigger your bot-like  
answer).

Bruno

  John K Clark

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread spudboy100 via Everything List

Aha! Now what of Boltzmann Brains and how this topic is undervalued by the 
intellects here. 

-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 7:30 pm
Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God 
anymore?

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 12:54 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what is at the 
> origin of the physical universe,

Then if modern cosmologists are even close to being correct God is not 
omniscient, God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb as a sack full of 
doorknobs. And that is a great example of someone more than willing to abandon 
the idea of God but not the English word G-O-D.

> or what is at the origin of the conscious belief in the physical universe

Then my brain is God but your brain is not because I believe in a physical 
universe but you have said on this list that you don't. 

> With that definition of God, God's existence is quite plausible

If you redefine dragons as the animals the run in the Kentucky Derby Race every 
year then the existence of dragons is quite plausible.

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-15 Thread Telmo Menezes

Hi Stephen,

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 8:53 PM, Stephen Paul King 
wrote:

> Hi Brent,
>
>I have had a couple of experiences that proved to me that there exists
> something like the theist God. Things that I can not explain otherwise are
> some kind of "divine intervention" that saved my life. Could there be an
> explanation that is completely secular?
>

Could it be explained by MWI + anthropic principle? You died in a large
number of branches, in the ones where you survived something very unlikely
necessarily happened?


> I am open to such, but its like arguing that something like the
> spontaneous unscrambling of an egg actually happened but one does not have
> a collection of unimpeachable witnesses available.
>

>Ever you have an experience that is like Mitra's history rewrite idea
> http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3825? I have!
>

I love this idea and I bet on its validity. That being said, how can you
know you had such an experience? Could you elaborate?

Cheers,
Telmo.


>
>
> On Monday, October 6, 2014 2:15:44 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>>
>> Here's an interesting interview of a philosopher who is interested in the
>> question of
>> whether God exists.  The interesting thing about it, for this list, is
>> that "God" is
>> implicitly the god of theism, and is not "one's reason for existence" or
>> "the unprovable
>> truths of arithmetic".
>>
>> Brent
>>
>>
>>  Original Message 
>>
>>
>>
>> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/can-
>> wanting-to-believe-make-us-believers/
>>
>>
>> Gary Gutting: "This is the 12th and last in a series of interviews about
>> religion that I
>> am conducting for The Stone. The interviewee for this installment is
>> Daniel Garber, a
>> professor of philosophy at Princeton University, specializing in
>> philosophy and science in
>> the period of Galileo and Newton. In a week or two, I’ll conclude with a
>> wrap-up column on
>> the series."
>>
>> ...
>>
>> Daniel Garber: "Certainly there are serious philosophers who would deny
>> that the arguments
>> for the existence of God have been decisively refuted. But even so, my
>> impression is that
>> proofs for the existence of God have ceased to be a matter of serious
>> discussion outside
>> of the domain of professional philosophy of religion. And even there, my
>> sense is that the
>> discussions are largely a matter of academic interest: The real passion
>> has gone out of
>> the question."
>>
>>  --
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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-14 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 4:48 PM, Samiya Illias 
wrote:

>
>
>
> No. Verses were noted down and memorised as revealed.
>

What if somebody human made a mistake here, like all of us from time to
time?


> Towards the end of the prophetic mission, when all the verses had been
> revealed, the Heavenly Messenger Gabriel made the order of the Quranic
> verses known to the prophet and committed it to his memory, which he
> communicated to his companions. The huffaz ( who memorised the Quran)
> learnt it in the correct order. Later on, when the written verses were
> being compiled during the caliphs' time, the huffaz were consulted on the
> order of the verses.
>

Maybe they made some mistakes?


> Since the time of the Prophet Muhammad, the Quran has been transmitted
> both orally and in written form.
>

Maybe some mistakes were made here?


> There are millions of people who know the Quran by heart. Furthermore,
> once a year, in the month of Ramadhan, the Quran is read in congregational
> prayers every night such that the entire Quran is revised in one month. The
> person who leads the prayer is a hafiz and there is always another hafiz
> right behind him ready to check should he ( the prayer leader) make any
> mistake.
>

Good, that somebody checks something once in awhile I guess...

Because if not, mistakes could be conveyed by large number of generations.

Even if they're all good people and mean well, following their culture's
traditions: many people wrong in consensus does not make them right.
Particularly about nature of some supreme principle/god... or what some say
was written by such.


> This practice has been going on across the globe for several centuries.
> If you were to read the Quran, you will see that it is not arranged by
> topic. The message is repeated across the Quran with similar and different
> examples. Monotheism, keeping duty to God, prayer, good deeds and glad
> tidings for the hereafter, and clear warnings of Judgement Day and the
> consequences of lack of faith and good deeds are repeatedly explained with
> examples.
>

That, particularly "consequences of lack of faith" doesn't sound like, and
I quote you:


*Holy Quran 109:6--لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِيَ دِينِFor you is
your religion, and for me is my religion.*


> The fate of nations bygone is also repeated to convey the message, and
> various references to natural phenomenon explain by examples as well as are
> signs which can be verified by scientific knowledge, across the centuries
> depending on the level of scientific knowledge available at the time of
> study. The book continues to amaze with its factual accuracy.
>

Not to some people that read it:

http://www.foundalis.com/rlg/Quran_and_science.htm

If I'm supposed to be amazed by factual accuracy, I admit to not be
convinced by either side of such points. But the page states more about the
link between science and the scripture than what I can understand from your
posts.


> It helps belief in those verses which cannot be verified and must be taken
> on faith.
>

Perhaps our beliefs have all the help they can get already, which can even
be a problem. Does the scripture treat this problem? PGC

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-14 Thread Samiya Illias



> On 14-Oct-2014, at 11:24 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> 
> 
>> On 13 Oct 2014, at 19:37, Samiya Illias wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 13-Oct-2014, at 8:54 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
 On 12 Oct 2014, at 18:36, John Clark wrote:
 
> On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 11:30 AM, Samiya Illias  
> wrote:
> 
> > Consider the following verses of Chapter 75:16-19   Stir not thy 
> > tongue herewith to hasten it.   Lo! upon Us (resteth) the putting 
> > together thereof and the reading thereof.And when We read it, 
> > follow thou the reading; Then lo! upon Us (resteth) the explanation 
> > thereof. 
 
 As long as we're quoting the Quran how about  2:176
 
 "God has revealed the Book with truth; those that disagree about it are in 
 extreme schism” .
>>> 
>>> READ: God obeys to truth if God is some maw in reality, God already = 
>>> Truth). 
>>> 
>>> Then it just say that liar and wrong people are in trouble.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 
 or 2:190–93
 
 “Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places from which 
 they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage. . . . if they attack you 
 put them to the sword".
>>> 
>>> Defend yourself against the liars.
>>> 
>>> Something like "slay them wherever you find them" is a biit theologically 
>>> problematic, and as samiya said, Muhammad wrote this during a war, and 
>>> can't concentrate enough on what God told him. he is human, and probably 
>>> influenced by temporal problems, I would guess. 
>> 
>> Correction: I wrote that these verses were revealed as instructions during 
>> war.
> 
> OK. Sorry.
> 
> 
> 
>> All verses in the Quran are the exact revealed words without any changes by 
>> Mohammed or anyone else. 
> 
> The problem for me, is that, if I open my mind up to accept this literally, 
> then I automatically open my mind to the possibility that Satan made some 
> changes in it. 

How? If you literally open your mind to accept that the Quran is 'exact 
revealed words without any changes by Mohammed or anyone else ' , then  are you 
not contradicting yourself when you say that 'then I automatically open my mind 
to the possibility that Satan made some changes in it ' ??? 

> 
> Are you willing to try this exercise? Find the verses added by Satan.  
> (assuming all this)
> 
> Mohammed is a human. 
Yes Muhammad is a human and we bear witness to that. 

> 
> You attribute him an implicit deity character when you believe he is not 
> fallible, as all humans are. 

I say that he did not fail in his mission of communicating the message because 
God made foolproof arrangements to ensure its communication to Muhammad's 
people through Muhammad, and through his companions and other Muslims to the 
rest of the world. The responsibility of ensuring that the Quran stays free if 
changes is not left upon us humans. If it had been left to humans, it would 
have suffered changes just as much as any other scripture. 

> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> 
>>> 
 
 or 3:12:
 
 “Say to the unbelievers: ‘You shall be overthrown and driven into Hell—an 
 evil resting place!’” .
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yes, those who mock truth build their own destructions, like those who lie 
>>> about petrol and cannabis. 

Your passion for cannabis is amusing :) 

>>> Unfortuanetly that can take time ...
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 
 Or 3:118
 
 “Believers, do not make friends with any but your own people. They will 
 spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your ruin. Their 
 hatred is evident from what they utter with their mouths, but greater is 
 the hatred which their breasts conceal” .
>>> 
>>> Maybe Muhammad get paranoid. Or you can interpret it by "don't try to 
>>> convince the studdborn". Here, I would have more time, I would consult many 
>>> translations.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 
 Or 5:57
 
 “Believers, do not seek the friendship of the infidels"
>>> 
>>> Don't try to make dialog with people coming up with 2+2=5. 
>>> 
>>> The question is not "is this the most common interpretation of the Quran, 
>>> it is "is this the correct interpretation of the Quran".
>>> 
>>> That very crucial point was debated by the 8-9-10-11th centuries, among 
>>> serious theologians and philosophers, at the time the "real" debate 
>>> (between Plato's and Aristotle's conception of reality) was still discussed.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 
 or 5:80–82
 
 "You will find that the most implacable of men in their enmity to the 
 faithful are the Jews and the pagans, and that the nearest in affection to 
 them are those who say: ‘We are Christians’”
>>> 
>>> Well, not sure Samiya will agree with me, but this type of ad hominem 
>>> statement has no place in a sacred text.
>> 
>> Well as it is mentioned in the Quran, it must be the general rule of the 
>> thumb. Will need to study the historic general trend of individuals and 
>> nations towards/against Muslims. 
> 
> OK. The bi

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-14 Thread Stephen Paul King

Hi John,

   Yo wrote: "God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb as a sack
full of doorknobs." Indeed, your existence is proof of this claim!

   Try harder not to project the consequences of being finite and human
onto something that you will never understand. Too be sure, I find that
those that religionists that push their personal beliefs onto others are
reprehensible, but it is the "pushing" and attempts to control the minds of
others that is evil, not the belief in what can not be "rationally"
explained.

   There is no replacement for 1p definiteness.

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 7:30 PM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 12:54 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
> > I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what is at
>> the origin of the physical universe,
>>
>
> Then if modern cosmologists are even close to being correct God is not
> omniscient, God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb as a sack
> full of doorknobs. And that is a great example of someone more than willing
> to abandon the idea of God but not the English word G-O-D.
>
> > or what is at the origin of the conscious belief in the physical universe
>>
>
> Then my brain is God but your brain is not because I believe in a physical
> universe but you have said on this list that you don't.
>
> > With that definition of God, God's existence is quite plausible
>>
>
> If you redefine dragons as the animals the run in the Kentucky Derby Race
> every year then the existence of dragons is quite plausible.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>
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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-14 Thread John Clark

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 12:54 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what is at
> the origin of the physical universe,
>

Then if modern cosmologists are even close to being correct God is not
omniscient, God isn't even very smart, in fact God is as dumb as a sack
full of doorknobs. And that is a great example of someone more than willing
to abandon the idea of God but not the English word G-O-D.

> or what is at the origin of the conscious belief in the physical universe
>

Then my brain is God but your brain is not because I believe in a physical
universe but you have said on this list that you don't.

> With that definition of God, God's existence is quite plausible
>

If you redefine dragons as the animals the run in the Kentucky Derby Race
every year then the existence of dragons is quite plausible.

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-14 Thread Stephen Paul King

Hi Brent,

   I have had a couple of experiences that proved to me that there exists 
something like the theist God. Things that I can not explain otherwise are 
some kind of "divine intervention" that saved my life. Could there be an 
explanation that is completely secular? I am open to such, but its like 
arguing that something like the spontaneous unscrambling of an egg actually 
happened but one does not have a collection of unimpeachable witnesses 
available.
   
   Ever you have an experience that is like Mitra's history rewrite idea 
http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3825? I have!

On Monday, October 6, 2014 2:15:44 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote:
>
> Here's an interesting interview of a philosopher who is interested in the 
> question of 
> whether God exists.  The interesting thing about it, for this list, is 
> that "God" is 
> implicitly the god of theism, and is not "one's reason for existence" or 
> "the unprovable 
> truths of arithmetic". 
>
> Brent 
>
>
>  Original Message  
>
>
>
>
> http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/can-wanting-to-believe-make-us-believers/
>  
>
>
> Gary Gutting: "This is the 12th and last in a series of interviews about 
> religion that I 
> am conducting for The Stone. The interviewee for this installment is 
> Daniel Garber, a 
> professor of philosophy at Princeton University, specializing in 
> philosophy and science in 
> the period of Galileo and Newton. In a week or two, I’ll conclude with a 
> wrap-up column on 
> the series." 
>
> ... 
>
> Daniel Garber: "Certainly there are serious philosophers who would deny 
> that the arguments 
> for the existence of God have been decisively refuted. But even so, my 
> impression is that 
> proofs for the existence of God have ceased to be a matter of serious 
> discussion outside 
> of the domain of professional philosophy of religion. And even there, my 
> sense is that the 
> discussions are largely a matter of academic interest: The real passion 
> has gone out of 
> the question." 
>
>

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 13 Oct 2014, at 20:19, Samiya Illias wrote:




On 13-Oct-2014, at 10:37 pm, Samiya Illias   
wrote:





On 13-Oct-2014, at 8:54 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:



On 12 Oct 2014, at 18:36, John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 11:30 AM, Samiya Illias > wrote:


> Consider the following verses of Chapter 75:16-19	Stir not thy  
tongue herewith to hasten it.	 Lo! upon Us (resteth) the putting  
together thereof and the reading thereof.	And when We read it,  
follow thou the reading; Then lo! upon Us (resteth) the  
explanation thereof.


As long as we're quoting the Quran how about  2:176

"God has revealed the Book with truth; those that disagree about  
it are in extreme schism” .


READ: God obeys to truth if God is some maw in reality, God  
already = Truth).


Then it just say that liar and wrong people are in trouble.





or 2:190–93

“Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places  
from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage. . . .  
if they attack you put them to the sword".


Defend yourself against the liars.

Something like "slay them wherever you find them" is a biit  
theologically problematic, and as samiya said, Muhammad wrote this  
during a war, and can't concentrate enough on what God told him.  
he is human, and probably influenced by temporal problems, I would  
guess.


Correction: I wrote that these verses were revealed as instructions  
during war. All verses in the Quran are the exact revealed words  
without any changes by Mohammed or anyone else.






or 3:12:

“Say to the unbelievers: ‘You shall be overthrown and driven  
into Hell—an evil resting place!’” .



Yes, those who mock truth build their own destructions, like those  
who lie about petrol and cannabis.

Unfortuanetly that can take time ...





Or 3:118

“Believers, do not make friends with any but your own people.  
They will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but  
your ruin. Their hatred is evident from what they utter with  
their mouths, but greater is the hatred which their breasts  
conceal” .


Maybe Muhammad get paranoid. Or you can interpret it by "don't try  
to convince the studdborn". Here, I would have more time, I would  
consult many translations.







Or 5:57

“Believers, do not seek the friendship of the infidels"


Don't try to make dialog with people coming up with 2+2=5.

The question is not "is this the most common interpretation of the  
Quran, it is "is this the correct interpretation of the Quran".


That very crucial point was debated by the 8-9-10-11th centuries,  
among serious theologians and philosophers, at the time the "real"  
debate (between Plato's and Aristotle's conception of reality) was  
still discussed.






or 5:80–82

"You will find that the most implacable of men in their enmity to  
the faithful are the Jews and the pagans, and that the nearest in  
affection to them are those who say: ‘We are Christians’”


Well, not sure Samiya will agree with me, but this type of ad  
hominem statement has no place in a sacred text.


Well as it is mentioned in the Quran, it must be the general rule  
of the thumb. Will need to study the historic general trend of  
individuals and nations towards/against Muslims.



It contradicts also the surat of the poet and the surat of the  
table.


I have no problem. I would be Muslim I would explain this by the  
fact that Muhammad is a human being, or Löbian entity, which can  
always get wrong, or that someone added this, perhaps a Christian.


If you were a Muslim you would not doubt the wisdom and knowledge  
of the author of the Quran. Rather, you would try to understand why  
is it so.
When God sends revelation, God ensures that it is delivered  
verbatim. Consider the following verses:

Holy Quran 72:27
--
إِلَّا مَنِ ارْتَضَىٰ مِنْ رَسُولٍ  
فَإِنَّهُ يَسْلُكُ مِنْ بَيْنِ  
يَدَيْهِ وَمِنْ خَلْفِهِ رَصَدًا


Except whom He has approved of messengers, and indeed, He sends  
before each messenger and behind him observers

Holy Quran 72:28



You cannot quote the text as an evidence for the authority of the text.







--
لِيَعْلَمَ أَنْ قَدْ أَبْلَغُوا  
رِسَالَاتِ رَبِّهِمْ وَأَحَاطَ بِمَا  
لَدَيْهِمْ وَأَحْصَىٰ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ  
عَدَدًا


That he may know that they have conveyed the messages of their Lord;  
and He has encompassed whatever is with them and has enumerated all  
things in number.







That might be a part of some good argument, only if that was not part  
of the Quran.



Bruno




to be encouraged.




Or 6:49:

“Those that deny Our revelations shall be punished for their  
misdeeds” .


This is either an argument-per-authority, or a trivial statement  
that departing from truth leads to catastrophes. We need much more  
translation to judge this, especially that in those time, such an  
assertion apparently irreligious might only be a poetical  
assertion on some acceptable axiomatic of truth.







or 3:149–51

"We will put terror in

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 13 Oct 2014, at 19:37, Samiya Illias wrote:




On 13-Oct-2014, at 8:54 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:



On 12 Oct 2014, at 18:36, John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 11:30 AM, Samiya Illias > wrote:


> Consider the following verses of Chapter 75:16-19	Stir not thy  
tongue herewith to hasten it.	 Lo! upon Us (resteth) the putting  
together thereof and the reading thereof.	And when We read it,  
follow thou the reading; Then lo! upon Us (resteth) the  
explanation thereof.


As long as we're quoting the Quran how about  2:176

"God has revealed the Book with truth; those that disagree about  
it are in extreme schism" .


READ: God obeys to truth if God is some maw in reality, God already  
= Truth).


Then it just say that liar and wrong people are in trouble.





or 2:190-93

"Slay them wherever you find them. Drive them out of the places  
from which they drove you. Idolatry is worse than carnage. . . .  
if they attack you put them to the sword".


Defend yourself against the liars.

Something like "slay them wherever you find them" is a biit  
theologically problematic, and as samiya said, Muhammad wrote this  
during a war, and can't concentrate enough on what God told him. he  
is human, and probably influenced by temporal problems, I would  
guess.


Correction: I wrote that these verses were revealed as instructions  
during war.


OK. Sorry.



All verses in the Quran are the exact revealed words without any  
changes by Mohammed or anyone else.


The problem for me, is that, if I open my mind up to accept this  
literally, then I automatically open my mind to the possibility that  
Satan made some changes in it.


Are you willing to try this exercise? Find the verses added by Satan.   
(assuming all this)


Mohammed is a human.

You attribute him an implicit deity character when you believe he is  
not fallible, as all humans are.












or 3:12:

"Say to the unbelievers: 'You shall be overthrown and driven into  
Hell--an evil resting place!'" .



Yes, those who mock truth build their own destructions, like those  
who lie about petrol and cannabis.

Unfortuanetly that can take time ...





Or 3:118

"Believers, do not make friends with any but your own people. They  
will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your  
ruin. Their hatred is evident from what they utter with their  
mouths, but greater is the hatred which their breasts conceal" .


Maybe Muhammad get paranoid. Or you can interpret it by "don't try  
to convince the studdborn". Here, I would have more time, I would  
consult many translations.







Or 5:57

"Believers, do not seek the friendship of the infidels"


Don't try to make dialog with people coming up with 2+2=5.

The question is not "is this the most common interpretation of the  
Quran, it is "is this the correct interpretation of the Quran".


That very crucial point was debated by the 8-9-10-11th centuries,  
among serious theologians and philosophers, at the time the "real"  
debate (between Plato's and Aristotle's conception of reality) was  
still discussed.






or 5:80-82

"You will find that the most implacable of men in their enmity to  
the faithful are the Jews and the pagans, and that the nearest in  
affection to them are those who say: 'We are Christians'"


Well, not sure Samiya will agree with me, but this type of ad  
hominem statement has no place in a sacred text.


Well as it is mentioned in the Quran, it must be the general rule of  
the thumb. Will need to study the historic general trend of  
individuals and nations towards/against Muslims.


OK. The bible does that too, like the gospels. No problem with non  
literal interpretation of the sacred text, and historical perspective,  
but beware those who will take some verses literally.









It contradicts also the surat of the poet and the surat of the table.

I have no problem. I would be Muslim I would explain this by the  
fact that Muhammad is a human being, or Löbian entity, which can  
always get wrong, or that someone added this, perhaps a Christian.


If you were a Muslim you would not doubt the wisdom and knowledge of  
the author of the Quran.


I guess. But as wise and knowledgeable he was, he was a human, and all  
humans are fallible.


I can accept as axiom for God that God is not fallible.

It is about infinitely harder to accept that a human is not fallible,  
or that you can know that he has not failed.




Rather, you would try to understand why is it so.


For the pagans, I understand, but with comp, paganism and  
resistance to the argument-per-authority seems to be encouraged.





Or 6:49:

"Those that deny Our revelations shall be punished for their  
misdeeds" .


This is either an argument-per-authority, or a trivial statement  
that departing from truth leads to catastrophes. We need much more  
translation to judge this, especially that in those time, such an  
assertion apparently irreligious might only be a poetical assertion  
o

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

On 14 Oct 2014, at 09:16, Richard Ruquist wrote:

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:42 PM, Samiya Illias > wrote:

On 14-Oct-2014, at 5:03 am, John Clark  wrote:

On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 Samiya Illias  wrote:

>> If the Quran has told Muslims to "put terror into the hearts of  
the unbelievers" and if the Quran really is the word of God then  
you will be in a constant state of war until the last unbeliever  
has been converted or murdered.

> Incorrect. God and his angels will put terror in the hearts.

Then God isn't doing a very good job, I guess He needs  
reinforcements. Neither God nor His angels puts terror into my  
heart, but religious nincompoops with a fetish for dynamite do.

Are you at war with Islam? Why should God put terror in your heart?  
He knows your innermost thoughts and knows how honestly or otherwise  
you seek to understand and make meaning of it all. God knows the set  
of circumstances He put you in the world with, including your family  
and education and other influences, and He knows and understands  
what and how you think and react and why. We do not know whether  
your heart is one day meant to acknowledge and appreciate God or  
not. It's between you and God.

It is important to also keep in mind that the Messengers were sent  
to people who not only did not believe in monotheism, but as a  
nation these people were committing many transgressions and sins,  
and some of the greatest of Muslims were from people with such  
backgrounds.

If I were to cite an example from Prophet Mohammad's time, Omar was  
an ardent disbeliever in the message, very angered by the prophetic  
mission and was on his way to murder the prophet. Yet, God saw good  
in him and guided him to faith. He went on to become the second  
leader of the Muslims after the prophet's death. There are many  
historical records about him, both pro and anti, depending on who  
wrote it,  you may wish to look them up.

> Muslims are not asked to do that.

And yet Muslims are told to:

"Say to the unbelievers: 'You shall be overthrown and driven into  
Hell--an evil resting place!'" .

And

"Believers, do not make friends with any but your own people. They  
will spare no pains to corrupt you. They desire nothing but your  
ruin. Their hatred is evident from what they utter with their  
mouths, but greater is the hatred which their breasts conceal" .

And

"Believers, do not seek the friendship of the infidels"

> According to the Quran [...]

Samiya, this is 21st century, other than the fact that you mommy  
and daddy told you it was true why would you care what the Quran  
said?

> God doesn't force faith on anyone.

But Muslims and Christians do.

> In fact, on the contrary, those who do not want to believe, God  
withholds guidance from them.

What I want to know is why a omnipotent being would consider a  
belief (or the desire to have a belief) in something for which  
there is no evidence a virtue, in fact the very greatest virtue  
there is. It's childishly easy to understand why a bipedal hominid  
like Jesus or Mohamed or any mountebank who wished to gain some  
control over his fellow hominids would push this idea, but I don't  
see why a omnipotent being would.

> if you put one toe out of line  a loving God with torture you in  
ways beyond imagining for a infinite number of years.

> Well, if you do not believe in God or after-life, why do you  
worry about it?

I worry that God will torment me in the afterlife about as much as  
I worry that the big bad wolf will huff and puff and blow my house  
down, however I do worry that other people worry about it because  
nothing in human history has causes people to do more stupid and  
destructive things than religion.

>> I think the God of the Quran is the second most unpleasant  
character in all of fiction, only the God of the Old Testament is  
worse.

> I think Allah ( The Deity) is the most loving and compassionate.

Well you'd better think that God is most loving and compassionate  
because if you don't your religion says that most loving and  
compassionate being will torture you in ways too horrible for our  
present human minds to contemplate. And a most loving and  
compassionate God will continue performing His butchery on you not  
for a million years, or a billion years or a trillion years but for  
a INFINITE* number of years.

God sent us in this world and provides sustenance for all of us  
whether we remember Him or not. He gives freely to all in countless  
ways: the oxygen we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat,  
the education that feeds our minds, the knowledge and feelings that  
nourish our hearts, the natural beauty that provide for our senses  
of sight and hearing and so on. God also provides wealth and comfort  
in varying degrees. God does not discriminate on the basis of faith  
in this world, as here we all have equal opportunity to believe or  
reject. And God keeps inviting to forgiveness. However,

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?



On 13 Oct 2014, at 18:26, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:




On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 2:17 AM, meekerdb   
wrote:

On 10/12/2014 2:35 PM, LizR wrote:
I imagine most philosophers don't think about God because God isn't  
a very good explanation for anything. You just have to ask "where  
did God come from?" so see that you've just been diverted away from  
the quest for knowledge of ultimate (or original) causes.


That's true of the Arbrahamic, theist kind of God, which was my  
point to Bruno.  Philosophers may very well think about "why we are  
here" or "the set of unprovable truths", but they respect common  
usage of language enough not to call it "thinking about God", or  
"theology", as Bruno would have them do.


I just wanted to comment on all the sniping concerning Bruno's  
alleged "unusual use of the terms theology/belief/god": Having been  
introduced to a few members of catholic theology faculty of Trier,  
I've had a few discussions concerning the topic, and the use is not  
considered non-standard, when equated with ineffable, inconceivable,  
collection of all sets, transcendence/transcendental entity, reason  
or foundation/reality, god etc. Call it "working hypothesis" if  
you're vain enough and want to distinguish yourself and your usage  
from the common folk, if you need to. Same difference.


And I think it should raise an eyebrow, that this usage conforms  
even to conservative German Catholic theologian use, admittedly not  
the more traditional ones among them, but to academics, there didn't  
seem to be a problem.


Philosophers and members of this list who consider this non-standard  
should therefore point to some evidence instead of the constant  
whining/sniping/policing without backup (which includes begging with  
"popular use" justifications; since when is this equated with  
serious evidence?). Catholic theologian are ahead of you + you guys  
don't offer any alternative, therefore you bore chanting this  
nonsense again and again, that not only exhibits consistency with  
neo-platonist (or Brent's "old Greeks") but with confessional  
Catholic theologians today, so get over it. PGC





Well said.

I suggest to define God by "either the physical universe OR what is at  
the origin of the physical universe, or what is at the origin of the  
conscious belief in the physical universe".


With that definition of God, God's existence is quite plausible, and  
we can proceed in trying to figure out the plausibility of more  
detailed notion, maybe by adding theological axioms like  
computationalism: the soul incarnation is invariant for a digital  
substitution made at some level.


Making clear the assumptions, you can get theorems, and gives good or  
bad notes to other religion, where "good" mean here "correct or  
consistent with comp", and "bad means false or inconsistent with comp".


For example many atheists believes that their present incarnation is  
unique, when arguing that there is no afterlife. But comp is closer to  
Hinduism and buddhism, here, where incarnation implies reincarnation,  
in your usual most probable Turing universal environment, or in others.


At no point we need to assert that we are true or false. But we can  
better analyse the consistencies and plausibilities of the ideas.


Bruno



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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

Very Good.

Thanks

Mitch

-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 12:24 pm
Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God 
anymore?

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014  spudboy100 via Everything List 
 wrote:

> John, Instead of God, what do you propose as a substitute for all the awful 
> suffering you have accurately, cited? 

That's asking a awful lot of me, I don't have a solution that will eliminate 
the suffering in the world. I wish I did.  If I were God I would have made 
extreme pain a physical impossibility, but unfortunately I didn't get the job.  

> Marx said that religion is an opiate for the people,

And like opium religion is not a good long term solution to sorrow; for every 
person who is made happier contemplating the pleasures of heaven there are 10 
made more unhappy contemplating the tortures of Hell. And then you've got 
millions of people saying they will kill you right now if you don't love God X 
and renounce all other Gods, and millions more saying  they will kill you right 
now if you don't love God Y and renounce all other Gods. And both are saying 
their kind and merciful God will torture you for all of eternity if you don't 
love Him, even though there is absolutely nothing lovable about either of them.

> What'dya think of Brian May?

I think you mean Brian Cox, he said " There is naivety in just saying there’s 
no   God" but he doesn't say why it's naive except to say that some very very 
smart people have believed in God; and that's true. I think it's true because 
most people, perhaps even most very smart people, tend to believe what their 
mommy and daddy told them into adulthood, stuff they were told before they were 
potty trained. There is no other explanation for the enormously strong 
correlation between deeply held religious belief and geography.  

  John K Clark 

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-14 Thread John Clark

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014  spudboy100 via Everything List <
everything-list@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> John,  Instead of God, what do you propose as a substitute for all the
> awful suffering you have accurately, cited?

That's asking a awful lot of me, I don't have a solution that will
eliminate the suffering in the world. I wish I did.  If I were God I would
have made extreme pain a physical impossibility, but unfortunately I didn't
get the job.

> Marx said that religion is an opiate for the people,
>

And like opium religion is not a good long term solution to sorrow; for
every person who is made happier contemplating the pleasures of heaven
there are 10 made more unhappy contemplating the tortures of Hell. And then
you've got millions of people saying they will kill you right now if you
don't love God X and renounce all other Gods, and millions more saying they
will kill you right now if you don't love God Y and renounce all other
Gods. And both are saying their kind and merciful God will torture you for
all of eternity if you don't love Him, even though there is absolutely
nothing lovable about either of them.

> What'dya think of Brian May?
>

I think you mean Brian Cox, he said " There is naivety in just saying
there’s no God" but he doesn't say why it's naive except to say that some
very very smart people have believed in God; and that's true. I think it's
true because most people, perhaps even most very smart people, tend to
believe what their mommy and daddy told them into adulthood, stuff they
were told before they were potty trained. There is no other explanation for
the enormously strong correlation between deeply held religious belief and
geography.

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

Moreover, John-

What'dya think of Brian May?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11143875/Prof-Brian-Cox-Theres-a-naivety-in-saying-there-is-no-God.html

I don't know if he's right or way wrong, but I find his focus, interesting. 

-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 11:01 am
Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God 
anymore?

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:42 PM, Samiya Illias  wrote:

> Are you at war with Islam?

No, I'm not at war with anyone.

 > Why should God put terror in your heart?

Because God is obviously a sadist and gets off on bondage. Why else would God 
spend a infinite number of years happily disemboweling his victims and then 
healing them so he can have the pleasure of disemboweling them again? And this 
hideous demon you call "God" never EVER gets tired of it, He never gets tired 
of hearing the screams of those in agony. And we are told by both Christianity 
and Islam to love this revolting thing they call "God" because if we don't this 
fiend will start disemboweling us too and He will never stop.

Christianity and Islam are not only intellectually idiotic they are also 
morally bankrupt.  

 > He knows your innermost thoughts and knows how honestly or otherwise you 
 > seek to understand and make meaning of it all. God knows the set of 
 > circumstances

He sees you when you're sleeping 
He knows when you're awake 
He knows if you've been bad or good 
So be good for goodness sake 

You better watch out 
You better not cry 
You better not pout 
I'm telling you why 
Santa Claus is coming to town 

He's making a list, 
Checking it twice; 
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice. 
Santa Claus is coming to town

> God sent us in this world and provides sustenance for all of us whether we 
> remember Him or not. He gives freely to all in countless ways: the oxygen we 
> breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, 

He also sent us the cancer that rots our children's bones and the typhoons that 
drown us and the earthquakes that crush us. And if God didn't give us food 
water and oxygen we wouldn't live long enough to sin and then God wouldn't be 
able to engage in His hobby, torturing billions of people for eternity.  

> God keeps inviting to forgiveness. 

Well I might be able to forgive God if He would change His ways, but He 
won't, His compulsion to disembowel billions of people for eternity is just too 
strong.  

> God will forget those who forgot God in this world, and so they will suffer 
> in Hell with nothing but scalding water to drink and food that will not 
> nourish. 

Yep, that's your God alright,  that's the pervert we're supposed to love. 

  John K Clark 

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

John, 

Instead of God, what do you propose as a substitute for all the awful suffering 
you have accurately, cited? Marx said that religion is an opiate for the 
people, so what do you offer as a pain reliever? 

-Original Message-
From: John Clark 
To: everything-list 
Sent: Tue, Oct 14, 2014 11:01 am
Subject: Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God 
anymore?

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:42 PM, Samiya Illias  wrote:

> Are you at war with Islam?

No, I'm not at war with anyone.

 > Why should God put terror in your heart?

Because God is obviously a sadist and gets off on bondage. Why else would God 
spend a infinite number of years happily disemboweling his victims and then 
healing them so he can have the pleasure of disemboweling them again? And this 
hideous demon you call "God" never EVER gets tired of it, He never gets tired 
of hearing the screams of those in agony. And we are told by both Christianity 
and Islam to love this revolting thing they call "God" because if we don't this 
fiend will start disemboweling us too and He will never stop.

Christianity and Islam are not only intellectually idiotic they are also 
morally bankrupt.  

 > He knows your innermost thoughts and knows how honestly or otherwise you 
 > seek to understand and make meaning of it all. God knows the set of 
 > circumstances

He sees you when you're sleeping 
He knows when you're awake 
He knows if you've been bad or good 
So be good for goodness sake 

You better watch out 
You better not cry 
You better not pout 
I'm telling you why 
Santa Claus is coming to town 

He's making a list, 
Checking it twice; 
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice. 
Santa Claus is coming to town

> God sent us in this world and provides sustenance for all of us whether we 
> remember Him or not. He gives freely to all in countless ways: the oxygen we 
> breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, 

He also sent us the cancer that rots our children's bones and the typhoons that 
drown us and the earthquakes that crush us. And if God didn't give us food 
water and oxygen we wouldn't live long enough to sin and then God wouldn't be 
able to engage in His hobby, torturing billions of people for eternity.  

> God keeps inviting to forgiveness. 

Well I might be able to forgive God if He would change His ways, but He 
won't, His compulsion to disembowel billions of people for eternity is just too 
strong.  

> God will forget those who forgot God in this world, and so they will suffer 
> in Hell with nothing but scalding water to drink and food that will not 
> nourish. 

Yep, that's your God alright,  that's the pervert we're supposed to love. 

  John K Clark 

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-14 Thread John Clark

On Mon, Oct 13, 2014 at 11:42 PM, Samiya Illias 
wrote:

> Are you at war with Islam?
>

No, I'm not at war with anyone.

> Why should God put terror in your heart?
>

Because God is obviously a sadist and gets off on bondage. Why else would
God spend a infinite number of years happily disemboweling his victims and
then healing them so he can have the pleasure of disemboweling them again?
And this hideous demon you call "God" never EVER gets tired of it, He never
gets tired of hearing the screams of those in agony. And we are told by
both Christianity and Islam to love this revolting thing they call "God"
because if we don't this fiend will start disemboweling us too and He will
never stop.

Christianity and Islam are not only intellectually idiotic they are also
morally bankrupt.

> > He knows your innermost thoughts and knows how honestly or otherwise you
> seek to understand and make meaning of it all. God knows the set of
> circumstances
>

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town

He's making a list,
Checking it twice;
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town

> God sent us in this world and provides sustenance for all of us whether
> we remember Him or not. He gives freely to all in countless ways: the
> oxygen we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat,
>

He also sent us the cancer that rots our children's bones and the typhoons
that drown us and the earthquakes that crush us. And if God didn't give us
food water and oxygen we wouldn't live long enough to sin and then God
wouldn't be able to engage in His hobby, torturing billions of people for
eternity.

> God keeps inviting to forgiveness.
>

Well I might be able to forgive God if He would change His ways, but He
won't, His compulsion to disembowel billions of people for eternity is just
too strong.

> > God will forget those who forgot God in this world, and so they will
> suffer in Hell with nothing but scalding water to drink and food that will
> not nourish.
>

Yep, that's your God alright,  that's the pervert we're supposed to love.

  John K Clark

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-14 Thread Samiya Illias



> On 14-Oct-2014, at 6:28 pm, Richard Ruquist  wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 8:37 AM, Samiya Illias  
>> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> On 14-Oct-2014, at 3:28 pm, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
 On 12 Oct 2014, at 18:33, Samiya Illias wrote:
 
 
 
> On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 9:15 PM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> 
>> On 10 Oct 2014, at 20:37, Samiya Illias wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 10:43 PM, Bruno Marchal  
>>> wrote:
>>> 
 On 10 Oct 2014, at 00:21, John Mikes wrote:
 
 Samiya, I did not participate in the sequence about your wisdom on the 
 list, because you did not refer to my question: WHAT, WHEN, and HOW 
 did it occur that you first thought of the existence of God? (I 
 suggested tha it was your Mummy and at your age as a baby when you 
 were taught to pray, giving you the overtone of your thinking. Later 
 on you may have expanded into the wisdom your father was studting.)  I 
 am not a Bible-scholar, consider the 
 
 Jewish Bible a compendium of earlier tales from (mostly mid-eastern) 
 people - then the 
 Christian Bible a second tier leaving out things and adding 
 Jesus-related stories, (attached some modifications from 
 reform-thinking), while
  
 some hundred years after Jesus the Prophet Mohammad presented the 
 Quran as the work of Allah. 
 
 We are not capable of thinking otherwise than in our human logic PLUS 
 restricted to our 'knowledge-base' we (to date) accumulated and 
 believe. 
 Teleology - the AIM of the World - is beyond that. 
 What I believe in my gnostic thinking is a "WORLD" of infinite 
 complexity of which we got only limited glimpses - even those not 
 correctly understood.
>>> 
>>> That's exactly how the arithmetical truth looks like from the 
>>> perspective of the universal numbers.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 Of this 'treasure' of "knowledge" we THINK we know the World. Well, we 
 don't. 
>>> 
>>> Nor do they. But the wisest know they don't know.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 We don't know what is good, or bad,
>>> 
>>> I agree if you mean the moral good or moral bad and other theories, but 
>>> basically we know very well what is good and bad. I agree that if we 
>>> look at the details, it can look a bit like the Mandelbrot set, but for 
>>> the main things I think all the mammals knows the difference between 
>>> good (like eating, mating, dancing, ...) and bad (sick, desperate, 
>>> broken, burning, etc.).
>>> Now the good divides into the good good and the bad good, and the bad 
>>> divides into the good bad, and the bad bad.
>>> Amateur of wines and beers knows things around this.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
 what (so far) unknowable factors do influence whatever happens in 
 addition to those we (think) we know. If there  is a 'Godly' 
 teleology, our human logic asks: Why did a 'Creator' not create it as 
 it is to be finally, but that would go into your prohibition of 
 questioning God.
>>> 
>>> Samiya, does the Quran prohibits questioning God? 
>>> Do you think we can avoid questioning when praying? 
>> 
>> No, rather it exhorts us to think deeply. 
>> [3: 191=192 Translator: Sahih International] Indeed, in the creation of 
>> the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day 
>> are signs for those of understanding. Who remember Allah while standing 
>> or sitting or [lying] on their sides and give thought to the creation of 
>> the heavens and the earth, [saying], "Our Lord, You did not create this 
>> aimlessly; exalted are You [above such a thing]; then protect us from 
>> the punishment of the Fire. 
>> 
>> Prophet Abraham's faith is greatly praised in the Quran. Consider the 
>> following verses about him: 
>> [2:260 Translator: Pickthall] And when Abraham said (unto his Lord): My 
>> Lord! Show me how Thou givest life to the dead, He said: Dost thou not 
>> believe? Abraham said: Yea, but (I ask) in order that my heart may be at 
>> ease. (His Lord) said: Take four of the birds and cause them to incline 
>> unto thee, then place a part of them on each hill, then call them, they 
>> will come to thee in haste, and know that Allah is Mighty, Wise. 
>> 
>> [6:74-78 Translator: Pickthall] (Remember) when Abraham said unto his 
>> father Azar: Takest thou idols for gods? Lo! I see thee and thy folk in 
>> error manifest. Thus did We show Abraham the kingdom of the heavens and 
>> the earth that he might be of those possessing certainty: When the night 
>> grew dark upon him he beheld a star . He

Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?

2014-10-14 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 4:54 AM, Samiya Illias 
wrote:

>
>
> On 14-Oct-2014, at 12:51 am, Platonist Guitar Cowboy <
> multiplecit...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Is there something like an internet publicity chapter in the Qu'ran (I
> assume there must be some things related to men of fame who value
> appearances etc)?
>
> Or a chapter that tells us how to manage living in a world with billions
> of people who all have their own personal theologies in front of creation,
> and what to do when all the sacred scriptures, that everybody chooses to
> believe/disbelieve... what to do when all of these are interpreted, read,
> and understood partially differently and partially in agreement at the same
> time? Don't flood me with citations: Just give me one for these last 2
> points, if you have to. PGC
>
> Holy Quran 109:6
> --
> لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِيَ دِينِ
>
> For you is your religion, and for me is my religion."
>

Do you follow the book/scripture you preach sincerely?

Does speaking of god's majesty and the sanctity of personal religious
choice, while advertising an exclusive, literal, personal and concrete form
only, constitute a sincere approach to you. Sounds like "my interpretation
is the best... I am certain of it... but you can have an opinion, if you
stay away." Is this a genuine choice?

Your religion, as can be seen by all the quotes, makes prescriptions on
others' religion, so no, for me is "not my religion", as long as I am
forced to accept that "for you is your interpretation of religion, which
pretends to allow mine, but in authoritative manner does not". PGC

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Re: Do today's philosophers even think about the existence of God anymore?