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Are Agnostics Welcome Here?

punshhh said:
The infinite regress is an impenetrable barrier between science and the mystery of existence.

I really was surprised when I came to this forum and discovered that no one was taking it into consideration in these theological debates. Or when it was suggested, that it had any relevance.
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More like a barrier between the abstract and the concrete. Let Plato die already: I like to eat my meal rather than the menu. We can play with these infinites under the banner of mathematics, philosophy, and metaphysics in general. A problem arises when we try to apply these abstract categories to real world explanations/examples. I.e., when we try to understand what it means from a physical point of view. But all this might be due to our clinging to the notion of substance, and maybe action is a better substitute? (I don't know, I would have to think more about it.)

Personally, I think layers of turtles, homunculi or an infinite numbers of gods is just settling for an abstract cop-out. (1) We can hide behind the notion of "more of the same" without actually explaining much; without having to clarify for an explanatory mechanism for interaction in the real world. (2) It also seems to suffer the same fate as Zeno’s paradox in that it is irrelevant in the real world.

Infinite regress seems to also imply infinitely small particles, or infinitely small … whatever. At least I find it difficult to wrap my head around the notion of infinitely small particles operating at infinitely smaller scales than Planck’s. What empirical evidence is there that would suggest that in the first place? Although I would gladly hear about how we actually deal with infinities and physical reality when it comes to explaining basic building blocks of the world (and no, I’m not suggesting Lego bricks).
 
punshhh said:
]Yes this deity has been around long before the "god of the gaps" was ever thought of and Piggy can't say it doesn't exist without placing the human intellect on a pedestal.

It may exist regardless, indeed if it does exist it was playing ping pong long before humans crept out of the slime.
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Proof? It may exist but the chances of that are vanishingly small considering the amount of time that theists have had to come up with some evidence. It couldn't have been playing ping pong because humans invented that game. It was originally called whiff whaff, now it it known as table tennis. Ping Pong is a registered trade name owned by Parker Brothers. Why you brought that in is a mystery to me. Why should the non-existence of a deity put human intellect on a pedestal? That doesn't make any sense either, but we are used to that from you.
 
TheGoldcountry said:
Somehow I can't see that happening. Complexity doesn't storm off in a huff just because people disagree with him, unlike some others. He says what he wants, and doesn't care if others like it or not.
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I have left the forums twice - both times because I didn't like how participating in them was affecting me. I returned when I'd taken a long enough break and missed them.
 
tsig said:
You don't mind making statements that imply that you have some deep insight into philosophical concepts that would be unpalatable here but you categorically refuse to discuss those concepts.
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Well this seems to me as all kinds of wrong. First, I do not have any deep insights. The substance concept that Ichneumonwasp was trying to convey is second semester Intro to Philosophy stuff. Second, it's not the concepts that are unpalatable. The distaste seems to center on the vocabulary or just a new way of looking at something. And third, I do not categorically refuse to discuss these concepts. I just don't see myself, with this particular audience, being any more successful or rewarded than Ichneumonwasp was.
 
the PC apeman said:
Well this seems to me as all kinds of wrong. First, I do not have any deep insights. The substance concept that Ichneumonwasp was trying to convey is second semester Intro to Philosophy stuff. Second, it's not the concepts that are unpalatable. The distaste seems to center on the vocabulary or just a new way of looking at something. And third, I do not categorically refuse to discuss these concepts. I just don't see myself, with this particular audience, being any more successful or rewarded than Ichneumonwasp was.
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Nonsense.

The "substance concept" is kindergarten stuff and he (and others) botched it while abusing reason.

The concepts are not only unpalatable, they are unworthy of our attention.

It isn't the vocabulary, it isn't "a new way of looking at something" - we are repelled by badly done thinking.
 
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the PC apeman said:
I hope the frustration of this thread passes and you will continue to post at JREF. It's tough having to live in the closet here (having to mask simple philosophical concepts to make them more palatable). Most people here would be fine with what you are saying if they could just get past some of their knee-jerk ick factor.
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the PC apeman said:
Well this seems to me as all kinds of wrong. First, I do not have any deep insights. The substance concept that Ichneumonwasp was trying to convey is second semester Intro to Philosophy stuff. Second, it's not the concepts that are unpalatable. The distaste seems to center on the vocabulary or just a new way of looking at something. And third, I do not categorically refuse to discuss these concepts. I just don't see myself, with this particular audience, being any more successful or rewarded than Ichneumonwasp was.
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So do you have those insights that we can't ingest or is your last statement hilited false.
 
the PC apeman said:
I did not say that. Simple and deep are not at all synonymous.
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Right you are, you said we're to dumb to understand your simple concepts that you won't tell us what they are for fear of disagreement.
 
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Limbo said:
If you understood mysticism and esoterica then you wouldn't be saying the things you say. You wouldn't expect to have or to find a concept of God that you can talk about rationally and logically in the first place.
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I said I understand mysticism, not that I agree with it.

On a mystics' board, sure, that's exactly the kind of escapist non-thought I'd expect to find.

But on a skeptics' board, no, it doesn't fly, so you can raise that kind of pseudo-argument as much as you like here, but don't expect it to get any traction.

If the only way you can talk about a thing is non-rationally and illogically, then you're just talking nonsense, and there's no way around that.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
OK, but let's see if we can isolate what sort of definition suffices for a god, then.

We have four or five obvious picks from antiquity to the middle ages: Brahman, Plato's god, Aristotle/Aquinas' god, Augustine's god and Anselm's god.


Let's choose two. Is Brahman a god and is Anselm's definition sufficient for a god?
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Let's have a thumbnail and see what they are. Then let's see if they end up able to exist in a way that's distinct from not existing.
 
Ichneumonwasp said:
But that's not what I really said. I did not say that describing god is impossible, but that getting a full description has always been portrayed as impossible. You seem to want a full description; I'm not sure what is wrong with the options offered. I left a few options for discussion up above.

As to monotheism arriving before the no-thing god (as you call it), I'm not at all sure that I believe that. Yahweh was not a monotheistic god until very late in its history having spent time wallowing in henotheism for centuries and possibly millenia. Monotheism seems tied to this type of god definition in most all traditions. Brahman looks like a single god with lots of demi-gods following; Plato and Aristotle's god was single. Same with Philo and the medieval theologians.
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I'm not asking for a full description. I'm asking for a sufficient one. That's all.

As for non-gods and monotheistic ones, if they're simultaneous, well, I don't suppose that would surprise me.
 
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punshhh said:
Yes this deity has been around long before the "god of the gaps" was ever thought of and Piggy can't say it doesn't exist without placing the human intellect on a pedestal.
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You still don't understand what I'm saying.

We don't have to put human intellect on a pedestal.

Regardless of our gifts and limitations, the simple fact is, if you and I are talking about something, rather than nothing or nonsense, then we have some idea of what it is.

If you're going to come to me with [this thing] is utterly inconceivable and incomprehensible and outside our universe and we couldn't recognize it if we encountered it, then all I can possibly say is that [this thing] is no thing at all and no one could possibly have a conversation about it.

But people have been talking about god and believing in god for some time now, so it can't be that, unless you just want to turn it into nothing, in which case we're back to having nothing to talk about.
 
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