Hawking says there are no gods

[JayUtah]

That is a POW.

No. It is an axiom of the system in which the believers in God have stated their claim.

We get it. You're obsessed with relativism. That doesn't make it relevant to this debate. A real philosopher, I think, would see that.

 

[Belz...]

Yes, that is how things work, because you are observing it. It is limited cognitive relativism and it works for some humans and not others.

Relativism on top of relativism, then? It's turtles all the way down, folks!

That it doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it doesn't work for me.

Again: if I punch you in the face, you can't argue that I didn't without looking like an idiot. Some things are not dependant upon your point of view. The Earth has a natural sattellite sitting about 375,000km in orbit. You can't dispute that.

You: Everything is different things.
Me: No.

That bears no ressemblance to any part of our discussion. As Jay said, you're trying to put words into our mouths, but no one is stupid enough to not notice.

That "no" is caused by things, but can't be reduced to a thing.

There could be no better proof of how bad a philsopher you are than the above.

 

[Belz...]

That is a POW.
Your POW is that you know all facts for all and metaphysics for all. I get your POW. And you can't get mine, because there are no POWs including your own.

You don't get that you are as much a product of nature/nurture as I am. We are just different products and thus have different POWs.

Why are we talking about prisoners of war, now?

 

[JayUtah]

I don't think you're clear on what the word "standard" means.

Are you accusing Tommy of redefining words to suit his argument?

Then you degrade philosophy to the intellectual level of shopping.

My point in a nutshell. Tommy wants it taken as read that he's an expert in philosophy. He's still arguing in that arrogant mode that led him to demand Skeptic Ginger give him guru credit for his 25 years of dabbling. But when push comes to shove, he's just spouting freshman coffeehouse crap and insisting that no one can possibly know that's what he's doing. Sadly, this is the brand of pseudo-philosophizing I've seen so many times in public debate forums.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This is massively intellectually insulting.

Being told "Just think whatever you want, you are right in your own way" is how you talk to a child, not an ego formed, rational adult you think of as an intellectual equal.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Why are we talking about prisoners of war, now?

Because we're all POWs in the War on Facts.

Dave

 

[JayUtah]

Yes, that is how things work...

That is not how things work for the people who are claiming God exists and acts in the ways they claim he does.

It is limited cognitive relativism and it works for some humans and not others. That it doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it doesn't work for me.

What "works for you" is irrelevant. Your frantic dissolution of the meanings of words has nothing to do with the people who are claiming God exists and does the things they attribute to him. Your gibberish doesn't work for them. They don't want it.

 

[JayUtah]

Being told "Just think whatever you want, you are right in your own way" is how you talk to a child, not an ego formed, rational adult you think of as an intellectual equal.

True, and it simply has nothing to do with the beliefs Hawking addressed. The believers in the God Hawking referred to do not consider themselves merely "right in their own way" regarding what they believe in. They have to go do such intellectual gyrations as claiming God covers up his tracks, especially when science fires up the telescope. They're claiming God exists in a literal sense and does literal things to sneak around the universe and make their lives better while evading detection.

Certainly there is subjective satisfaction in what they believe. But they do not claim this substitutes for facts. They believe their God exists as a matter of physical fact, not as a matter of the mush-headed nonsense Tommy has spewed.

 

[Belz...]

Are you accusing Tommy of redefining words to suit his argument?

Me? Never!

I'd never dare say, for instance, that he deliberately bends, twists, breaks and tears words, definitions, dictionaries and whole libraries apart in service for his ego-stroking attempt at demonstrating his own mastery of thought and indeed reality itself.

No, to do that would be beyond the pale, and I'm not that kind of man.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

No. It is an axiom of the system in which the believers in God have stated their claim.

Yeah, and what facts are axiomatic in the end. And how many kinds there are or only one, is axiomatic in the end. That is the point of cognitive relativism. There are different axioms for what makes a fact a fact. And there are different axioms for what are useful and useless.

We get it. You're obsessed with relativism. That doesn't make it relevant to this debate. A real philosopher, I think, would see that.

Yes, I get that you have your personal standard as per your "I think". And I get that philosophers can't agree on cognitive relativism. And I get that you think that it means I am not a real philosopher.
But the problem is for you that there are other philosophers, who argue in favor of different variants of cognitive relativism.

No matter how much you want to pin it on me, as particular to only I, that is not the case.
So you can't decide if I am able to do philosophy only based on the fact that I advocate a form of cognitive relativism. That is a dead end, because then there are other philosophers, who are not philosophers.

Cognitive relativism is relevant as per the OP:
"I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing, according to the laws of science," Hawking, who died in March, wrote. "If you accept, as I do, that the laws of nature are fixed, then it doesn't take long to ask: What role is there for God?"
We, you and I, use a not completely overlapping set of axioms, because we share some and some are different.

And you can go totally physics on me and it won't change that we are in fact in some cases different; i.e. limited cognitive relativism.

 

[Belz...]

He's still arguing in that arrogant mode that led him to demand Skeptic Ginger give him guru credit for his 25 years of dabbling. But when push comes to shove, he's just spouting freshman coffeehouse crap and insisting that no one can possibly know that's what he's doing.

Absolutely, and that's what I was alluding to earlier when I pointed to a sentence of his as evidence that he's a bad philosopher. It's the kind of argument and word-twisting seen in first-year philosophy students; you know, the ones that don't take the course seriously and think they can use it to annoy their parents or their dates.

 

[Belz...]

Yeah, and what facts are axiomatic in the end.

Wrong.

Yes, I get that you have your personal standard as per your "I think".

Wrong again.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

True, and it simply has nothing to do with the beliefs Hawking addressed. The believers in the God Hawking referred to do not consider themselves merely "right in their own way" regarding what they believe in. They have to go do such intellectual gyrations as claiming God covers up his tracks, especially when science fires up the telescope. They're claiming God exists in a literal sense and does literal things to sneak around the universe and make their lives better while evading detection.

Certainly there is subjective satisfaction in what they believe. But they do not claim this substitutes for facts. They believe their God exists as a matter of physical fact, not as a matter of the mush-headed nonsense Tommy has spewed.

And you believe differently about the universe.
Your problem is that it is not a brute physical fact that there are no gods. If in the strong sense that was the case, then religion wouldn't be a social fact.
You don't seem to get that different beliefs work in both directions.
There is variation as part the universe and that is what is going on here.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

Wrong.



Wrong again.

Right and wrong are also axiomatic.

 

[JayUtah]

You don't seem to get that different beliefs work in both directions.

No. You don't seem to get that I do get what you're saying, and that I've given you the reasons why it's not relevant to Hawking's line of reasoning. Instead of addressing those reasons, you're just piling on the gaslighting.

 

[Belz...]

Right and wrong are also axiomatic.

You don't believe a single word of what you type, that much is clear.

 

[JayUtah]

Yeah, and what facts are axiomatic in the end. And how many kinds there are or only one, is axiomatic in the end. That is the point of cognitive relativism. There are different axioms for what makes a fact a fact. And there are different axioms for what are useful and useless.

That is completely at right angles to my point.

And I get that you think that it means I am not a real philosopher.

No. If you think that's my argument, then you don't get it at all.

So you can't decide if I am able to do philosophy only based on the fact that I advocate a form of cognitive relativism.

No, that is not my argument. That's the argument you're desperately trying to shove into my mouth. You seem to think I'm dumb enough to let you do it.

You want your claim to expertise received in a certain way. You are unwilling to substantiate that claim in a way that is congruent with the way in which you want it received. Instead you're trying to invent a new "anything goes" standard, apply it to yourself, and pretend this meets a standard that demands others accept your claim. The shorter way of saying that is "making stuff up." You're claiming expertise you can't demonstrate you have, and stamping your feet in a pseudo-philosophical tantrum because it's not working.

See if you can respond to this post without using the words "cognitive relativism."

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

You don't believe a single word of what you type, that much is clear.

The funny part that the standard for that is yours and your group's.

 

[Belz...]

The funny part that the standard for that is yours and your group's.

That's not even a functional sentence.

As for standards, we went to the moon with them, and made the internet with them. The whole human enterprise stems from standards and expertise and empiral validation.

Your way of thinking has done nothing but waste ink and pixels.

 

[JayUtah]

You don't believe a single word of what you type, that much is clear.

It's pretty clear to me too. A few days ago he all but admitted he's just trolling. He can't seem to address the inconsistencies and contradictions in his own arguments, even when they're pointed out to him, so there's no reason to take him seriously. We seem to be reduced to playground, knee-jerk style nonsense as his only arguments.