To think or to blindly follow.....

Darat said:
Can you name them and where they say this? (I've just been reading through the thread and seem to have missed these five people?)
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I'm interested too, not because I want to get into a name calling match, but because I honestly cannot see where these people have actually said such things. And I don't want a second-person interpretation of what someone else thinks they have said. I want the actual words where they have said it. You can do it without names if you like, Geoff, just give us the quotes.
 
Every time you see "The Bible", the person actually wrote "materialism".

Roger:

If you are going to discuss The Bible, you need to keep the discussion within the assumptions of Bible.

It's a pointless thread. He directly challenged my request that a Biblical description of how we perceive the world be criticized purely in terms of Biblical assumptions. There's no possible way to communicate in this situation.

Paul:

I have to agree with Roger....

Sam: (Responding to Geoff's : "What - you won't have the discussion unless we all agree the conclusion is going to be "The Bible is true" before we start?

"Yes. We are discussing Biblical things, are we not?

Geoff: No. We are discussing the objects of perception.

Sam:

I will view any philosophical discussion from a Biblical standpoint and judge it as sense or nonsense accordingly. I doubt this surprises anyone.

Geoff, if you want to find out the implications of a Biblical perspective, I may well participate. But if you're unwilling to start from an agreed set of [biblical] assumptions, well, good luck, it's your time, but I don't think it's a productive way to spend mine.



Now....faced with a bunch of people who would re-intepret all evidence/arguments under the agreed assumption "The Bible is true", how would you ever manage to convince them that evolution is true? Answer: You couldn't, because all evidence will be re-interpreted so that it fits with the Bible. And that is EXACTLY why the arguments at the site about materialism never get anywhere. The "Truth" has already been decided upon. The Bible is, after all, true. :rolleyes:
 
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JustGeoff said:
Every time you see "The Bible", the person actually wrote "materialism".

Roger:

If you are going to discuss The Bible, you need to keep the discussion within the assumptions of Bible.

It's a pointless thread. He directly challenged my request that a Biblical description of how we perceive the world be criticized purely in terms of Biblical assumptions. There's no possible way to communicate in this situation.

Paul:

I have to agree with Roger....

Sam: (Responding to Geoff's : "What - you won't have the discussion unless we all agree the conclusion is going to be "The Bible is true" before we start?

"Yes. We are discussing Biblical things, are we not?

Geoff: No. We are discussing the objects of perception.

Sam:

I will view any philosophical discussion from a Biblical standpoint and judge it as sense or nonsense accordingly. I doubt this surprises anyone.

Geoff, if you want to find out the implications of a Biblical perspective, I may well participate. But if you're unwilling to start from an agreed set of [biblical] assumptions, well, good luck, it's your time, but I don't think it's a productive way to spend mine.



Now....faced with a bunch of people who would re-intepret all evidence/arguments under the agreed assumption "The Bible is true", how would you ever manage to convince them that evolution is true? Answer: You couldn't, because all evidence will be re-interpreted so that it fits with the Bible. And that is EXACTLY why the arguments at the site about materialism never get anywhere. The "Truth" has already been decided upon. The Bible is, after all, true. :rolleyes:
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Have you ever met anyone who you thought could match - or even surpass - your intellect?
 
JustGeoff said:
You'd think so, wouldn't you? But in the thread about perception there are at least five people claiming that the debate should only be conducted if we all first agree that materialism is true before anybody defines their terms or answers any questions. I posted this article specifically for them, although since it applies on a much more general level and is of relevance way beyond that thread I guessed it may provoke some interesting discussion anyway.
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Well, that thread is already MUCH too long for me to catch up on, but are you sure that is what they claim? Isn't it just your interpretation?

Hans
 
Oh, Geoff. I'm not a materialist. I haven't been arguing in favor of materialism. I'm just trying to sort through all the drek and find the irrefutable refutation of materialism. I'm missing it so far. Not agreeing with the refutation does not constitute being a materialist.

~~ Paul
 
JustGeoff said:
Every time you see "The Bible", the person actually wrote "materialism".
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Really? That is new to me. The bible equals materialism?? MMmmm, guess I hafta read it again, then.........

Now....faced with a bunch of people who would re-intepret all evidence/arguments under the agreed assumption "The Bible is true", how would you ever manage to convince them that evolution is true? Answer: You couldn't, because all evidence will be re-interpreted so that it fits with the Bible. And that is EXACTLY why the arguments at the site about materialism never get anywhere. The "Truth" has already been decided upon. The Bible is, after all, true. :rolleyes:
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You could find that many people here claiming the bible is true?

Wait ....

.... just checked, this IS the JREF forum. Mmmmm funny, that.

Well, we do have bible fundies passing through here, but I'm surprised you were able to round up five of them in a single thread. But I agree, any debate with bible fundies is generally useless. Espescially the kind that claim the bible is materialism :eek:.

Hans
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Oh, Geoff. I'm not a materialist. I haven't been arguing in favor of materialism. I'm just trying to sort through all the drek and find the irrefutable refutation of materialism. I'm missing it so far. Not agreeing with the refutation does not constitute being a materialist.

~~ Paul
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I know you aren't. I shouldn't have included you above.
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Oh, Geoff. I'm not a materialist. I haven't been arguing in favor of materialism. I'm just trying to sort through all the drek and find the irrefutable refutation of materialism. I'm missing it so far. Not agreeing with the refutation does not constitute being a materialist.

~~ Paul
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This is where I find this thread doubly ironic.

It's the fanatics of this world who absolutely demand their opponents slot into certain catergories that they can label and vilify. They absolutely hate any kind of uncertainty in this regard because it makes it harder to hate.

So here we are being accused of being fanatical materialists by the man who is obsessed by labelling people who disagree with him because he cannot respond otherwise.

Geoff you dick, get a clue.
 
JustGeoff said:
Every time you see "The Bible", the person actually wrote "materialism".
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I haven't bothered to read the new thread beyond the first 2 pages, but yes, if you want to show "The bible" is inconsistent you should do so on the strength of it's own assumptions, not on yours.

You have a problem with doing this, however, as you do not view your assumptions as being such, but think of them as fundamental truths. As such, you view any set of assumptions which do not include your own as an inconsistent denial of the nature of reality.

This is why you are yet to convince anyone of the truth of your position.
 
JustGeoff said:
Every time you see "The Bible", the person actually wrote "materialism".

Roger:

If you are going to discuss The Bible, you need to keep the discussion within the assumptions of Bible.

It's a pointless thread. He directly challenged my request that a Biblical description of how we perceive the world be criticized purely in terms of Biblical assumptions. There's no possible way to communicate in this situation.
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It is intellectually dishonest to quote somebody out of context, and I am done with you.

For the others in this thread, Geoff was asking what the consequences of a particular materialistic stance was. Within that context, yes, you have to limit yourelf to materialistic assumptions. Geoff's trick is to inject assumptions not based on materialism, show a contradiction further down the line, and then claim that invalidates the materialistic assumptions. Hey, I can prove Euclid geometry is wrong if I'm allowed to inject Riemann geometry into the middle of a proof.

Geoff, I am saddened by your dishonesty in this regard.
 
He further lies because I explicitly stated that materialism was an assumption I was making. He injects the Bible, and somehow perverts a tenative assumption into a claim of irrefutable knowledge based on no evidence.

(rule8)er.
 
JustGeoff said:
And that is the truth of the matter. In ALL situations. It applies to belief in materialism every bit as much as it does to Islam.
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I'm perfectly prepared to consider, in an open-minded way, the relative merits of various forms of materialism and dualism. I would be happy to do the same with idealism and neutral monism too but, unfortunately, I just don't understand them. It is hard to be persuaded by something that you don't understand.
 
Roger

Perhaps I owe you an apology. The arguments about realism and anti-realism with respect to external objects are not specifically about materialism, but materlialists tend to give certain answers to the questions surrounding it. You may have thought that I was trying to disprove materialism, and that in order to do so it was neccesary to assume materialism is true. If so, I apologise because the misunderstanding may well have been my fault. In fact I wasn't actually trying to disprove materialism, I was trying to prove something about direct realism, and making any assumptions (either way) about materialism were not neccesary and unhelpful.

Geoff
 
chriswl said:
I'm perfectly prepared to consider, in an open-minded way, the relative merits of various forms of materialism and dualism. I would be happy to do the same with idealism and neutral monism too but, unfortunately, I just don't understand them. It is hard to be persuaded by something that you don't understand.
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That's understandable.
 
Jekyll said:
I haven't bothered to read the new thread beyond the first 2 pages, but yes, if you want to show "The bible" is inconsistent you should do so on the strength of it's own assumptions, not on yours.

You have a problem with doing this, however, as you do not view your assumptions as being such, but think of them as fundamental truths. As such, you view any set of assumptions which do not include your own as an inconsistent denial of the nature of reality.

This is why you are yet to convince anyone of the truth of your position.
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I was not trying to show materialism was inconsistent. The other thread was full of that. Instead, I was attempting to demonstrate the difficulty in defending direct realism. I made no assumptions. People seem to see assumptions where there are none. Specifically there seems to be a view that if you do not assume materialism is true, you must be assuming it is false. This is not the case. You do not have to assume either way. You can assume it is unknown.
 
Geoff,

Name some of those who you have met and thought could match - or even surpass - your intellect.
 
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