The Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[Nique]

Originally Posted by krylo

Oh man. Thanks a lot. I needed that.

Hey guys! The Jehovah's Witness thinks he's smart!

Wow. I guess I can see why this thread went unmoderated now... So that krylo can show his true colors without fear of consequence.

Let me just quote the opening statment of this thread to illustrate the irony:

Originally Posted by fifthfiend

We, the Nuklear Power Forums moderators and administrators, are putting our faith in you the community, to be able to discuss faith, metaphysics, theology and belief, in a reasoned, civilized, adult manner.

I'm not even going to give you the benefit of the doubt here. No one here deserves that kind of mudslinging, and you know it. I wouldn't stand for it if it was directed at someone else, and I sure won't take it being directed at me.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Have you explained why that is, by the way? Bullshit is bullshit.

I mean it's bullshit in that I would never claim that this is actually the case, since it's a pointless, convoluted hypothesis. But at the same time, it isn't expressly impossible, so it casts doubt on our observations. Or it would, if we didn't just always assume they were right.

If you mean that for some god awfully strange reason our eyes, from the beginning of recorded history, interpreted some color we define currently as yellow-orange as blue instead then you argument is pointless. Blue is a subjective measurement. Subjective measurements are never wrong. Well unless you purposely make them wrong. Blue is 475nm because we defined blue as 475nm. If we saw the same shade at the yellowish-orange part of the spectrum we would still have named it blue. The actual shade we interpret has no physical meaning beyond the human mind. So it could be that way but it doesn't matter because it is subjective fact not objective fact. Basically the spectrometer would still about the same length in nm as for what is currently yellow-orange light we'd just call it blue instead.

Oh, come on, now you're just trying to be difficult. I only described the photons are yellow-orange to avoid having to write "the wavelengths between where yellow and orange are." This should have been obvious based on the fact that I already used these long, precise terms to describe this problem, and was only clarifying it afterward.

No see because the effects of reality happen if we see them or not. As much as you might want to believe it when a try falls in the forest when no one is around it does make a sound.

I fail to see how this is at all relevant. It still seems like you're basically saying there's an inconsistency of some sort just because we happen not to see a particular tree fall. Yes... yes, I like that analogy.

Also:
Our senses can produce false information
All of the information we gather through our senses is external reality
are slightly logically incompatible but I forged on to find a more clear cut inconsistency.

Also no idea what you're talking about. Look, you said you had some implied definitions. Let's save ourselves the pain of shadow-appending your derivation and trying to see if it makes sense from there by your rewriting it it a more complete form without these hidden implications. Then we'll talk about it.

The meter is an arbitrary unit. The standard can't be wrong because the meter has no meaning outside of human society. We could make it as large or as small as we wanted and it wouldn't change anything. Its a tool so we don't have to use Universal, or Planck Units. They are hard as hell to do calculations in.

But the thing is, how do you know whether or not something is a meter in length? You'd need some sort of measuring machine in order to come to such a conclusion. Even if you were to make the comparison as direct as possible (by actually somehow comparing the length of something to the actual distance you observe some light travel in 1/299792458 seconds), what you're using is still technically a machine, and thus can still suffer from the same sorts of flaws I described earlier.

Well using the light example, if we measured the wavelength of light to be 450nm instead of 475nm then the predictions of the photoelectric effect would suddenly become meaningless. Since 450nm light should have more energy that 475nm light we would expect a greater power output. For that to suddenly not happen would invalidate the principle.

We only know the power output by observing an effect of it. That observation could, too, be an incorrect representation of reality, leading us to think the data is consistent, when in reality it is not.

Are you seeing a pattern here? Everything you know about the world (except maybe your own existence) you know because of observations of it, or from implications of those observations. Cite any possible observation you want that would expose these errors, and I can just say those observations are incorrect too; incorrect in just the right way to validate the other error(s). Having stated the overall pattern of my reasoning, I hope never to have to give another example of it again. I've done it like 10 times now.

There is such a thing as a logical assumption

My entire point is that they're necessary.

No. Deductive logic, they kind I've been using and talking about requires you start with indisputable facts and then come to a conclusion.

Let's go back to what you said a fact was. You said it was something anyone could confirm for themselves. You never stated the following explicitly, so if you disagree, please state it; but the only way for someone to confirm something is by sensing it somehow. Or by using a measuring machine, the output of which is also introduced to people via their senses. So this whole definition hinges upon our senses being something we can trust to give us true and reliable information. Hence the whole argument. Without the idea that our senses are reliable (assumed or derived), there is no guarantee that there even is such thing as a fact.

[Mesden]

Originally Posted by Nique

Wow. I guess I can see why this thread went unmoderated now... So that krylo can show his true colors without fear of consequence.

Let me just quote the opening statment of this thread to illustrate the irony:


I'm not even going to give you the benefit of the doubt here. No one here deserves that kind of mudslinging, and you know it. I wouldn't stand for it if it was directed at someone else, and I sure won't take it being directed at me.

I think it was a joke, Nique. If you're just like saying this in satire, I guess I missed it, but I'm pretty sure Krylo doesn't label all Jehoavah's witnesses as stupid off the bat.

Just saying. He had italics and everything.

[Krylo]

I also had invisi-text.

[Nique]

I am going to kill you so hard. So very... very hard.

(So I guess everyone can ignore the 'bad post' report and also the PM I sent to fifth, and my general bent-out-of-shapeness.)

[Archbio]

My entire point is that they're necessary.

It seems pretty obvious to me that they are (everything but "something thinks therefore something is" is less than 100% certain). I'm under the impression that you're imparting some significance to that idea beyond that, but I don't see what it is.

The only hint is that you seem to imply some sort of negative quality to those logical assumptions, such as here:

But at the same time, it isn't expressly impossible, so it casts doubt on our observations. Or it would, if we didn't just always assume they were right.

It makes it sound as if these assumptions were a form of willful ignorance.

Also, obviously, the less probable something is, the smaller the doubt it casts., obviously.

[Krylo]

If it makes you feel any better, you missing the joke actually made it funnier to me. You know, considering the content of it. Good stuff.

I mean, it probably doesn't make you feel any better. But still. Hilarious.

No hard feelings, though.

[Nique]

As long as there's no hard feelings towards me - becuase of my, you know, kind of not wasting any time trying to get your ass in trouble - then I'm totally cool.

I am expieriancing a multitude of emotions right now. Embaressment, Anger, Relife, Joy... Quite the interesting sensation.

[Krylo]

I'd imagine embarassment is up there pretty high. If it was me it would be.

But, let me take a moment of everyone's time here to say something.

Guys: What just happened there? With Nique totally missing that joke and blowing his top (tried to get me in trouble with the other mods too)? Yeah, I don't blame him for that.

Rather, I'd like to use this as an object lesson for why religion is normally off limits on the forums. One of the reasons, anyway.

People can be very touchy about religion, because it tends to be rather important to those of you who, for whatever crazy reason, believe in a magical man in the sky.

As a result, off the cuff funny comments can be taken in ENTIRELY the wrong way and cause hurt feelings that they shouldn't cause.

Honestly, I'm more than a little surprised that it took about 500 posts for it to happen here... though I've no doubt that if we began seriously discussing other issues that religion pertains to (abortion, stem cell research, burkas...) we'd have had flared tempers much much sooner. I also have no doubts that we had some less public hurt feelings, already (in fact, I know it, as I've told a few people that this is unmoderated and I refused to step in as a moderator on some seperate occasions).

I knew, from experience, there was a chance Nique would take that the wrong way (thus the italics AND invisi-text, and even then I was really hoping he'd bother hitting the quote button or selecting the message), but I also figured I had put enough safeguards in there to make it as obvious as possible it was a joke, without ruining the joke.

Anyway, sorry for any hurt feelings, Nique. Though I am still laughing... uh... WITH you. Because, you know. From where I am? Pretty funny. You'll think it's funny in about a month too.

And absolutely no hard feelings on you.

P.S. I wasn't going to post the 'you trying to get me in trouble' thing, to save you some embarrassment, but you sorta already did. Silly.

[ZAKtheGeek]

It makes it sound as if these assumptions were a form of willful ignorance.

Okay, I see how you could interpret it that way. But that is totally not what I'm trying to say.

It seems pretty obvious to me that they are (everything but "something thinks therefore something is" is less than 100% certain). I'm under the impression that you're imparting some significance to that idea beyond that, but I don't see what it is.

I'm just defending the position. Sithdarth( SS) is disagreeing the crap out of me.