07-31-15 3:20 • Plea For Emotional Intelligence
Celtia: There is lots of scientific evidence for God.
What is it?
Celtia: To me, the evidence we have in science only helps prove God even further, because the evidence has not proven otherwise in a scientific way I find convincing. The evidence has never disproved a soul or a god. It has perhaps suggested it, but there are also scientists and popular theories who uphold the opposite.
I'm asking if there is any science that unbelievers find as convincing evidence against either a soul or a god.
Is there any science that you find as convincing evidence against Satan? If not, do you therefore believe in Satan? If not, why not?
Celtia: I don't drove into that evidence, seeing as I'm not and have never been a Christian and do not follow their form of thinking on this topic. I couldn't prove for and against it. I don't follow it so the interest there is minuet.
Yet, you are asking the atheists to show you scientific proof against your pet deities to justify their lack of belief in them. Perhaps, like you, they don't require scientific proof not to believe...they just "don't drove into that evidence" and "do not follow their form of thinking on this topic."
If it's reasonable for you to not believe in Satan, even without having specific evidence against him, it should be equally reasonable for anyone to not believe in your posited entity simply because "the interest there is minuet."
If it's reasonable for you to not believe in Satan, even without having specific evidence against him, it should be equally reasonable for anyone to not believe in your posited entity simply because "the interest there is minuet."
Celtia: But if they had good scientific evidence supporting it and presented it to me, I would look into it with an unbiased mind.
This specifically describes every atheist I know.
Cowgirl: Again with the "logic" and "evidence"! What about how we feel? Does that mean nothing these days?
What I've realized lately is that we live in a society that discredits anything coming from the emotional/spiritual part of our brains.
Um, are you talking about the United States? The society which invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein "had WMDs" and "was responsible for 9/11"? The society where a majority of people believe that a Son of God was born of a virgin and died for our sins? The society where a significant portion of the population does not accept that evolution occurred? The society where the majority regularly votes against their own economic self-interest to protect and enhance the interests of billionaires?
I don't know what society you live in, but in my society, the United States, the vast majority of people operate with and are manipulated by the emotional/spiritual part of the brain and wouldn't know logic if it bit them on the cerebral cortex. If this society was capable of anything beyond "emotional/spiritual" thinking there is no way we would have accepted invading Iraq as a reasonable response to 9/11.
I don't know what society you live in, but in my society, the United States, the vast majority of people operate with and are manipulated by the emotional/spiritual part of the brain and wouldn't know logic if it bit them on the cerebral cortex. If this society was capable of anything beyond "emotional/spiritual" thinking there is no way we would have accepted invading Iraq as a reasonable response to 9/11.
Cowgirl: This can't be used as evidence, everyone says, our feelings can't be trusted. What if we get just as much valid information from the emotional part of our brain as we do from the logical part?
Our brains produce all kinds of information, both "emotional" and "logical". Some of it seems to be valid, and some of it doesn't. That is why it is so important to check outside the brain. No matter how logical an argument is, if the premises do not correspond accurately to reality, then the argument is invalid. No matter how deeply an emotional perception is prized, if it can't be confirmed there is no way to determine if it corresponds to anything in reality.
If there is something to the claims that gods, souls, Satan, etc. exist outside of the brain, then the place to look for evidence of those things existing outside the brain is outside the brain.
If there is something to the claims that gods, souls, Satan, etc. exist outside of the brain, then the place to look for evidence of those things existing outside the brain is outside the brain.
Cowgirl: What I do think, is that this part of us has been repressed and questioned for so long that we need to learn how to use it again.
Reason just came onto the scene a few short centuries ago, and has already caused an explosion in human understanding and capability. If, prior to that time, people had something "emotional/spiritual" going on that worked, they certainly had nothing to show for it. Their lives were almost always nasty, brutish and short.
Curing disease, creating technology and discovering the nature of space/time are demonstrations that reason and evidence work. They produce. There is nothing to suggest that pre-reason, the emotional/spiritual brain was producing anything that worked better than now, or that people back then knew how to use it in ways that we don't.
So, considering the irrational way we run our society, I don't agree that we are just too logical nowadays. And, considering what human life was like before reason, I don't agree that we need to learn to be that way again.
Curing disease, creating technology and discovering the nature of space/time are demonstrations that reason and evidence work. They produce. There is nothing to suggest that pre-reason, the emotional/spiritual brain was producing anything that worked better than now, or that people back then knew how to use it in ways that we don't.
So, considering the irrational way we run our society, I don't agree that we are just too logical nowadays. And, considering what human life was like before reason, I don't agree that we need to learn to be that way again.
07-31-15 3:25 • Forget Science
Celtia: You claim no human knows about gods. But I do know. At least in myself, and on a personal level, I KNOW there IS a God. And a soul.
Who are you to claim you know what no one knows? There is no reason to think that you are better at figuring this out than anyone else. You aren't even checking.
Celtia: Simply because SCIENCE does not know, doesn't mean that I don't know on a personal level.
Forget "science." Bringing up science here is a dodge.
If you "know," then any other person should be able to "know" also. Reality is not available only to Phds through telescopes and microscopes, and it's not available only to you. We are all living right here in it. This isn't rocket science, it is the fundamental nature of the universe, which every person has equal access to.
If you "know," then any other person should be able to "know" also. Reality is not available only to Phds through telescopes and microscopes, and it's not available only to you. We are all living right here in it. This isn't rocket science, it is the fundamental nature of the universe, which every person has equal access to.
Celtia: I know because I have lived it, seen it, experienced it. And you and science have not.
This has just got to be the biggest load of exclusive apprehension I have ever seen.
Everyone lives it, sees it, experiences it. We are all here. We are all made of almost the same stuff, in almost the same way, doing almost the same thing, in the same place. We have all lived it, seen it, and experienced it. You are not different.
Any person is capable of deific experience and meaningful fortuity. You are not the only person who has experienced what you describe. It is extremely common among people across all cultures. Some people claim it is Gods, or souls, etc. Some don't.
Simply experiencing this is not making a claim. Attributing it to God is making a claim. As the person making the claim - "This experience was God! And a soul!" the burden of proof is on you. Any person who is not making a claim about it does not have to provide evidence about it. That is the difference.
Everyone lives it, sees it, experiences it. We are all here. We are all made of almost the same stuff, in almost the same way, doing almost the same thing, in the same place. We have all lived it, seen it, and experienced it. You are not different.
Any person is capable of deific experience and meaningful fortuity. You are not the only person who has experienced what you describe. It is extremely common among people across all cultures. Some people claim it is Gods, or souls, etc. Some don't.
Simply experiencing this is not making a claim. Attributing it to God is making a claim. As the person making the claim - "This experience was God! And a soul!" the burden of proof is on you. Any person who is not making a claim about it does not have to provide evidence about it. That is the difference.
Celtia: What about you? What EVIDENCE do YOU have against it? You do not know for sure, as science has not been able to disprove it.
Again, forget science. Again, a dodge. This is about everyone.
Have you ever heard of a fundamental right of jurisprudence called "innocent until proven guilty"? It's a good thing our courts do not work in the way you are proposing. Proving innocence - like proving a negative - is basically impossible, and hundreds of years ago people realized that requiring it results in terrible miscarriage of justice.
The onus is not on "science" to "disprove" gods. People do not have to prove another person's claim is wrong. The person making the claim has to prove that it is correct, beyond a reasonable doubt. That is why evidence is required to support your claim and evidence is not required of anyone else. You are the one making the claim, and no one else is.
Have you ever heard of a fundamental right of jurisprudence called "innocent until proven guilty"? It's a good thing our courts do not work in the way you are proposing. Proving innocence - like proving a negative - is basically impossible, and hundreds of years ago people realized that requiring it results in terrible miscarriage of justice.
The onus is not on "science" to "disprove" gods. People do not have to prove another person's claim is wrong. The person making the claim has to prove that it is correct, beyond a reasonable doubt. That is why evidence is required to support your claim and evidence is not required of anyone else. You are the one making the claim, and no one else is.
Celtia: You will never get it, because it's all about perception and personal perspective.
No. What is real is not about perception and personal perspective. Reality is what our perception and perspective is of. It exists independently of humans.
Celtia: What do you mean by "checking"?
Looking outside your head to see if what you think accurately corresponds to what can be observed.
Celtia: How is science a dodge?
"Science" is not participating in this conversation. We are.
The dodge is pretending that I cannot know what you claim to know because I = "science." I am capable of every kind of human perception you are capable of. If you can "know" something outside your thoughts, the others in this discussion should be able to "know" it also, just like everybody can know that the sun is shining overhead.
The dodge is pretending that I cannot know what you claim to know because I = "science." I am capable of every kind of human perception you are capable of. If you can "know" something outside your thoughts, the others in this discussion should be able to "know" it also, just like everybody can know that the sun is shining overhead.
Celtia: Right, and "Fundamental nature of the universe" isn't down to the science.
The fundamental nature of the universe precedes science.
Celtia: What kind of evidence do you use to help found your beliefs?
I avoid belief, I find no use for it.
Celtia: I supported my claim with my personal experience and the scientific research.
Your personal experience is not proof of anything if it cannot be confirmed. I have no clue what the evidence you have provided is because you have ignored my request to name it. Please say what the evidence is and I will consider it.
Celtia: So, what about YOUR claim that there isn't one?
Where did I make that claim?
Celtia: One persons perception of reality is completely different from another's.
There is no reason to think this is true. If our perceptions were completely different, there is no way that we could run an international airport. It takes too much consensus understanding of the nature and relationships of matter, space and time.
Anyone who can catch a flight on time and travel to another city shares enough perception of reality with every other human to perform an extremely complex task.
If you can cook from a recipe, drive in traffic, or laugh at the jokes in a stand-up comedy routine, you share so much perception of such similar nature to your fellow humans that you can coordinate a tremendously complicated task in an extremely similar way. There is no way we could operate so similarly to each other if we did not have similar perception and understanding.
We may differ on matters of taste and preferences, but humans are all made with nearly the exact same set of tools to perceive and operate. There is no reason to think that you have some kind of sensory apparatus which is not present in every other standard human toolkit. There is no evidence of it.
Anyone who can catch a flight on time and travel to another city shares enough perception of reality with every other human to perform an extremely complex task.
If you can cook from a recipe, drive in traffic, or laugh at the jokes in a stand-up comedy routine, you share so much perception of such similar nature to your fellow humans that you can coordinate a tremendously complicated task in an extremely similar way. There is no way we could operate so similarly to each other if we did not have similar perception and understanding.
We may differ on matters of taste and preferences, but humans are all made with nearly the exact same set of tools to perceive and operate. There is no reason to think that you have some kind of sensory apparatus which is not present in every other standard human toolkit. There is no evidence of it.
Celtia: What we can see through reading scientific journals and magazines is, scientists from around the world have completely different perceptions of this reality.
Wrong. The reason science works is because consensus about reality can be achieved through study. Is there any disagreement that objects in earth's gravity well fall at 32.2'/sec²-drag? Is there any disagreement that the third element is lithium?
There are plenty of different ideas at the frontiers of science, where no one really knows what is going on. But once discoveries are made, and published and replicated and subjected to peer review...once they become understood, the disagreements fall away and consensus - a precise description of what is occurring - is forged.
There are scientific disagreements only in the unknown. The known is very well agreed upon.
There are plenty of different ideas at the frontiers of science, where no one really knows what is going on. But once discoveries are made, and published and replicated and subjected to peer review...once they become understood, the disagreements fall away and consensus - a precise description of what is occurring - is forged.
There are scientific disagreements only in the unknown. The known is very well agreed upon.
Celtia: Therefore, as a collective, as a whole, we still don't really KNOW yet what is real and what isn't real in regards to this topic.
That is why you don't know.
Celtia: Who are we to judge what perceptions of reality are right or wrong?
We are humans, who desperately need to understand how to live in reality or we will quickly die. We are absolutely required by nature to find out what perceptions of reality are accurate enough to work. We find out by checking.
You don't "judge" which perceptions of reality are right or wrong. You check.
If you can't tell by checking, you don't know is the reality.
You don't "judge" which perceptions of reality are right or wrong. You check.
If you can't tell by checking, you don't know is the reality.
Celtia: No one can share someone else's exact same perception, at the exact same time as someone else is experiences it.
Perceptions can be very, very similar, and anything people do as a group requires that they be.
Plenty of people have had experiences which they describe very similarly to yours. Some of them draw the conclusion that the experiences are experiences of Gods and souls. Others do not. It is not known if the experiences correspond to anything outside the human brain.
Plenty of people have had experiences which they describe very similarly to yours. Some of them draw the conclusion that the experiences are experiences of Gods and souls. Others do not. It is not known if the experiences correspond to anything outside the human brain.
Celtia: Another person can try to UNDERSTAND and be EMPATHETIC with that perception, but they cannot perceive it exactly as said other person is perceiving it.
Are you seriously saying that God, the source and controller of the universe, and souls, the source and essense of personhood, are so confined to your specific, exact perception that no other person can ever do anything to experience them?
Have they no independent existence at all which can be observed? Is there is nothing there that another person - not a scientist, just a normal person - can see for themselves?
Have they no independent existence at all which can be observed? Is there is nothing there that another person - not a scientist, just a normal person - can see for themselves?
Cowgirl: What if you actually DO create your own reality, therefore the only evidence can ONLY come from YOU?
There is an entire universe of evidence to the contrary. We seem to be inside a universe which pre-existed humans for billions of years. Everywhere we look are processes already in motion.
Our every action for survival suggests otherwise as well. If we don't directly interact with the environment outside us, and actively insert parts of into ourselves, we quickly die.
If you are truly creating everything about this reality, including these words, how could you have not known what they say five minutes ago?
As Sheldon Cooper said on Big Bang, "You know how I know I'm not in the Matrix? If I was, the food would be better."
Our every action for survival suggests otherwise as well. If we don't directly interact with the environment outside us, and actively insert parts of into ourselves, we quickly die.
If you are truly creating everything about this reality, including these words, how could you have not known what they say five minutes ago?
As Sheldon Cooper said on Big Bang, "You know how I know I'm not in the Matrix? If I was, the food would be better."
Cowgirl:Then all this "show me physical evidence" and "reality only happens outside your brain" debate would be pointless.
So would eating. Yet, we eat.
07-25-15 7:20 • The Business Man and the Living Wage
NerdyPants: Not everyone can be a doctor, a lawyer, or a CEO. We need clerks and dishwashers. How does that mean they should get paid slave wages, just because their jobs are "less important"?
LizFan: Elizabeth Warren said this:
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - God bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
Wanda: Elizabeth Warren has obviously never known any of the pillars of our community known as the business man!
Yes, the altruistic business man, selflessly working longer and harder than everyone else, taking all the risks, all to provide hundreds of families with livelihood. Um, no.
Wanda: They ARE "paying it forward" every single day - plus weekends and evenings!
No. Paying someone in exchange for increasing your profits is not doing them a favor, or giving them a gift, or doing something nice for them. It is increasing your profits. No niceness required.
Wanda: It takes a huge effort to launch something - long before there are any employees who got educated or any roads needed.
So? Lots of things take huge effort on the part of individuals, like recovering from a serious illness, or raising up a special needs kid. The business man is not doing more than other people.
Wanda: That business owner is carrying on his shoulders the families and lives of all his employees every day.
...which he can dump at any time it becomes profitable to do so, and frequently does.
Wanda: All of his employees should treat him with gratitude and respect for his continuing to give them a place to earn their paycheck!
Give!? He could replace all of them with robots and computers as soon as it becomes proftible, and frequently does. Do you think the robots and computers should treat him with gratitude and respect for "giving them" a place to make his profit?
Wanda: And let's not forget this enormous factor: if a business fails, the owner does not get to simply move on to some other job -- he has lost everything: all those hours and years of his life invested, all the money he poured in with the hope of giving his family a better life.
This is the stupidest part yet. Everyone who loses a job can lose everything, all those hours and years of their life invested with the hope of giving their family a better life. How do you come by the idea that business owners get this more? Business owners don't have more to lose than other human beings.
Every single person working for money, from owner on down, is in it for the money, to serve personal desire for money first. Otherwise they would be doing it for free.
That is not a problem if you acknowledge it straight out. But pretending that the business owner is a troddendown hero, who slaves harder and longer and risks more, is bullcrap. Lots of people work really long and really hard and are at risk of losing everything. The business owner is not doing more or at greater risk than regular people.
Regular people don't owe gratitude to their employers for "helping" them. If anything it is mutual, and those at the top owe as much or more gratitude to those below them, who work long and hard for less compensation, but who are creating the actual products and services which keep them in plush offices.
Even better, forget pretending it's about "gratitude" and use business models that pay people who work a week enough to live for a week.
Every single person working for money, from owner on down, is in it for the money, to serve personal desire for money first. Otherwise they would be doing it for free.
That is not a problem if you acknowledge it straight out. But pretending that the business owner is a troddendown hero, who slaves harder and longer and risks more, is bullcrap. Lots of people work really long and really hard and are at risk of losing everything. The business owner is not doing more or at greater risk than regular people.
Regular people don't owe gratitude to their employers for "helping" them. If anything it is mutual, and those at the top owe as much or more gratitude to those below them, who work long and hard for less compensation, but who are creating the actual products and services which keep them in plush offices.
Even better, forget pretending it's about "gratitude" and use business models that pay people who work a week enough to live for a week.