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Are all sceptics materialists?

I've been arguing that I think that modern physical theories are moving towards absurdity. Computer Simulation or Multiverse is no
better than religion; Religion even trumps those theories in evidence!
Islam, for example, did stabilize a society for a very long time and even ushered in a Golden Age. And isn't it at least a little bit odd
that one man was able to conquer the entire Middle East within his lifetime? That's evidence. I doesn't trump Quantum Mechanics or
Relativity in evidence but it does trump Multiverse theory.
When I mention this a lot of times I get the response that it's a straw man to think that all sceptics believe in such theories. After all, they
are nothing but unproven hypothesises, right? The point I'm making however is that they are preferred by sceptics over religious theories
because present day sceptics are almost without exception Materialists. And that it is essentially the Materialistic world view that is in trouble
when I state that Islam has more evidence going for it than Magical Computer Programmers. So I'm accusing the present day scientists or sceptics
of being dogmatic Materialists. Otherwise, they should take Islam way more seriously than Multiverses since that's what the evidence says.

My question is if someone can provide me an example of a person considered a sceptic, yet who isn't a Materialist. Are there any sceptics that
aren't Materialists? Or is such a position considered to be implicitly contrary to scepticism?

How much do you know about computer modeling? Are you exactly qualified to assess how these models are made? I seem to recall that you claim to write code but that's not the same as understanding modeling and simulation.
 
Craig4 said:
How much do you know about computer modeling? Are you exactly qualified to assess how these models are made? I seem to recall that you claim to write code
but that's not the same as understanding modeling and simulation.

I wrote this physics simulation/game engine from scratch in C++. It's one of my hobbies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ75ojwwMD8

Currently, I'm working on this :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbnHb3rItuQ

I'm basically an expert on 3D Graphics and Physics Simulation. I've worked in the game industry for a couple of years and I have one actually published
xbox360/PS3 game on my name, but it wasn't very well received. (It sucked.) I currently work in computer security.
 
+Porpoise of Life You fail to understand the argument. It's about weighing the evidence fairly, and modern science doesn't do that. So, it's not science
because they've strayed from honesty. Here's the whole argument again, starting with an explanation of what I mean when I say Scientific Method :

Actually, the common sense argument isn't very good owing to the ambiguity in the word. The thing is you start with pragmatism out of necessity.
You have to survive, don't you? But to know anything about the Universe requires a mechanism of not deluding yourself, because the mind
has the tendency to come up with all sorts of stuff that doesn't match reality. And if you make the mechanism of requiring evidence rigorous enough,
you end up with Feynman's philosophy of science. What matters is what the experiment says. You should end up with a hierarchy of certainty. Quantum Mechanics
and Relativity have been tested rigorously to such a degree, and our technology couldn't work without them being correct, that they trump the observation that
one man, Mohammed, conquered and stabilized a society all by himself. But that occurrence, which as I've described it cannot be denied, as it really happened,
trumps Multiverse and associated theories because there is zero evidence for those. So if honest standards were applied, Islam should be more deeply studied
and not just in an anthropological way that views its claims of Divinity as a historical superstition. It's the claim of non-Materialism that has more evidence
going for it than the Materialistic theories. Simply due to the fact that Islam _worked_ and it's hard to explain how one man by himself could have done all that.
Not as evidence-based as QM, but more evidence based than Multiverses or Computer Simulations. And the fact that it doesn't have that standing shows
a bias towards Materialism that is unscientific.
 
+Porpoise of Life You fail to understand the argument. It's about weighing the evidence fairly, and modern science doesn't do that........

Except it does. You haven't even begun to make the case that it doesn't, and the nonsense of comparing it to Islam is just a good way of undermining any sort of argument that you might have had.
 
You fail to understand the argument. It's about weighing the evidence fairly, and modern science doesn't do that.

Ironic, really, coming from someone who makes up his own evidence and misrepresents modern science. Let's see where you've "weighed the evidence fairly", shall we? First, you claim that it's a prevalent theory in science that the universe is a computer simulation, for which you have produced in evidence one scientist who has addressed the question, not of whether such a theory is correct, but how one might address determining whether it's correct. Second, you've asserted that Mohammed conquered the entire Middle East within his lifetime; by any conventional definition of "the Middle East" this is simply untrue. Third, you've claimed that the above constitutes "evidence for Islam," whatever that means; you've clearly stated that you don't mean that this is evidence for Islamic scientific theories (again, whatever the hell those are) yet at the same time claimed that this evidence suggests that Islam should be taken more seriously than multiverse and computer simulation theories as a Theory of Everything, thus contradicting your own premise. So your evidence, in these three instances, is respectively insignificant, false and, according to your own assertion, irrelevant.

Quite clearly, your claim that modern science doesn't weigh the evidence fairly is no more than a petulant whine that people don't accept everything you say and choose you as their master, as you've specifically suggested they should. But with a showing like this, it's hard to imagine anything you could be a master of; certainly not of the fair weighing of evidence.

Dave
 
I've already posted this on what I think the scientific theory of Islam is. It was a delight to me that it turned out to be the Shahada,
the fundamental Oath of Islam. The observation is that Mohammed apparently thought it best to choose the most evidence-based assertion for this.

Ok, to make it clear : I know they're unproven hypothesises. And so is 'There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger'.
Both are unproven. I know this.
But ... they're not equal in evidence due to the fact that Mohammed really did something extraordinary.
And so, ... even though the evidence for Islam is not as strong as that for QM, it's still evidence. More than that for the other 'unproven' hypothesises.
And evidence is _never_ certain, not even that for QM. So the argument is valid, unless you require _absolute_ certainty but that's beyond the scope
of the Scientific Method.
 
I've already posted this on what I think the scientific theory of Islam is. It was a delight to me that it turned out to be the Shahada,
the fundamental Oath of Islam. The observation is that Mohammed apparently thought it best to choose the most evidence-based assertion for this.

Ok, to make it clear : I know they're unproven hypothesises. And so is 'There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger'.
Both are unproven. I know this.
But ... they're not equal in evidence due to the fact that Mohammed really did something extraordinary.
And so, ... even though the evidence for Islam is not as strong as that for QM, it's still evidence. More than that for the other 'unproven' hypothesises.
And evidence is _never_ certain, not even that for QM. So the argument is valid, unless you require _absolute_ certainty but that's beyond the scope
of the Scientific Method.

Well, if you count that as evidence... There have been more successful empires in our past.
That means we have evidence for Jupiter, evidence for El, evidence for Tengri, evidence for Huitzilopochtli, evidence for YHWH, evidence for Jesus, evidence for the Jade Emperor, and so on.
Which means that Allah can't be the only god.
There, disproven by your own standard of evidence.
 
I've already posted this on what I think the scientific theory of Islam is. It was a delight to me that it turned out to be the Shahada,
the fundamental Oath of Islam. The observation is that Mohammed apparently thought it best to choose the most evidence-based assertion for this.

Ok, to make it clear : I know they're unproven hypothesises. And so is 'There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger'.
Both are unproven. I know this.
But ... they're not equal in evidence due to the fact that Mohammed really did something extraordinary.
And so, ... even though the evidence for Islam is not as strong as that for QM, it's still evidence. More than that for the other 'unproven' hypothesises.
And evidence is _never_ certain, not even that for QM. So the argument is valid, unless you require _absolute_ certainty but that's beyond the scope
of the Scientific Method.

I don't know what your definition of the above bolded may be, but your posts are anything but clear.

Isalm is no more screwy than any other religion, but at the core of them all there is a requirement for the adherent to abandon evidence and embrace faith - there is no more un-scientific pov - and worse, all religions claim to be the one true faith and all the others are false.
 
Porpoise of Life said:
Which means that Allah can't be the only god.
There, disproven by your own standard of evidence.

I think it's pointless to debate you any further. The only thing you seem to be interested in is spreading confusion. Not because you want to get to the
bottom of things, but purely for the sake of confusion.
So telling you that within Liber 418 there exists a system that can unite all of those apparently conflicting religions would be pointless.
The concept of Allah in Islam can be compared to the concept of Hadit as Uber-Master (not to be confused with Hadith) in Thelema.
Ever heard of comparative religion? That's what Crowley is all about!
 
BStrong said:
all religions claim to be the one true faith and all the others are false.

Like Western scientists. And because they've strayed from the sanctity of Science, they became the worst of the dogmatists.
Try arguing with them! Oh, wait ...
 
BStrong said:
adherent to abandon evidence and embrace faith

This thread or argument, because I'm going to put all of these findings on my blog when it finally arrives, proves, with all the rigour demanded by the
principles of sound science, that modern-day Western scientists have done just that : Abandon evidence for a faith in Materialism.
 
This thread or argument, because I'm going to put all of these findings on my blog when it finally arrives, proves, with all the rigour demanded by the
principles of sound science, that modern-day Western scientists have done just that : Abandon evidence for a faith in Materialism.

If you think this thread proves anything at all then you have utterly no idea of the concept of proof. That you attach it to science ("with all the rigour demanded by the principles of science"), shows that know nothing whatever about science either. But we already knew that.
 
...
Ok, to make it clear : I know they're unproven hypothesises. And so is 'There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger'.
Both are unproven. I know this.
But ... they're not equal in evidence due to the fact that Mohammed really did something extraordinary.
No, he didn't. Embarrassingly backward.

And so, ... even though the evidence for Islam is not as strong as that for QM, it's still evidence.
No, it is not.

More than that for the other 'unproven' hypothesises.
And evidence is _never_ certain, not even that for QM. So the argument is valid, unless you require _absolute_ certainty but that's beyond the scope
of the Scientific Method.
Heck, if you lower the bar enough, we can worship Saturday morning cartoons, too.
 
Like Western scientists. And because they've strayed from the sanctity of Science, they became the worst of the dogmatists.
Try arguing with them! Oh, wait ...

I've yet to encounter a scientist that insists that their discipline is the one true science, but within the last week I encountered an individual that was in the process (in rw) of telling a catholic that they were going to hell because of...wait for it... The Pope, and because they weren't "born again."

If you wish to assert that religion is superior to science, have at it.
 
If you think this thread proves anything at all then you have utterly no idea of the concept of proof.

I've been debating these issues for about a year now on an international board that's filled with academics, sceptics and scientifically-minded people.
Just to be as sure as I possibly can be. Science isn't perfect, you know, but it's at least as rigorous if not more so than most experiments done
in sociology that are accepted by the community at large.

Heck, if you lower the bar enough, we can worship Saturday morning cartoons, too.

When the materialistic delusions become absurd enough, you can do that, yes. I've also said that you're almost, but not quite, able to proof that Lord Xenu
exists, already. It's logical trivialism you're running into, absurdity.
 
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Could you use the quote function properly. That last quote isn't of my words, but Hlafordlaes'.
 
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I've been debating these issues for about a year now on an international board that's filled with academics, sceptics and scientifically-minded people.......

As here. Given the (claimed) company and the (claimed) time discussing with them, one would have thought you'd have learned by now to apply logic and provide evidence.
 
I've been debating these issues for about a year now on an international board that's filled with academics, sceptics and scientifically-minded people.
Just to be as sure as I possibly can be. Science isn't perfect, you know, but it's at least as rigorous if not more so than most experiments done
in sociology that are accepted by the community at large.

When the materialistic delusions become absurd enough, you can do that, yes. I've also said that you're almost, but not quite, able to proof that Lord Xenu
exists, already. It's logical trivialism you're running into, absurdity.

I think I've already made this request in another thread, but allow me to make it again, as it was never answered:

  • Anyone, regardless of identity or opinion, may take a stone in hand and drop it. Universally, all see it fall, so we call it a law of nature. No police required to enforce it. All human behavior is circumscribed by it, as a working of the world.
  • Many, but depending on time and place, have claimed things written on a stone as universal laws, but since it depends on who is talking when and where, the laws change, and are not universal. Priests or even police are used to enforce them. Human behavior is not tied to them inexorably, and these laws cannot be shown to be a working of nature, only of man.
How is it that no god has been able to carry his own weight, like the law of gravity, and actually be an effortless, self-enforcing universal? The answer is simple, and did come from a cartoon character, Hulk: "Puny God!"
 

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