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Growing rejection of religious traditions by religious adherents


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2 hours ago, David Dennison said:

No.

Why does he make that claim?

If you click on the article I linked in my above post it will take you to an article written by Carroll himself in which he directly answers your question in his own words.  This is the magic of the internet.  You can learn directly from some of the leading intellectuals in the world with such little effort.  It would be pretty silly to expect one to regurgitate words already written in plain & straightforward style and spoon feed you like an intellectual invalid.  It would be even sillier to think that the failure to spoon feed is a valid objection to an argument. 

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42 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Neuroscientists can't locate where language and abstract thought takes place in the human brain?

Language and reason don't reside in the brain either.  Our brains perceive them.  You keep trying to apply natural characteristics to abstracts.  They don't have these characteristics.

I hate to pivot to another subject you don't understand, but if you want to look at something natural that behaves similarly look at a quantum particle.  It is multiply substanciated, behaves based on deduction and not cause, defies most every law of nature.  And that's an object with intrinsic status.

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4 minutes ago, JBJ said:

Language and reason don't reside in the brain either.  Our brains perceive them.  You keep trying to apply natural characteristics to abstracts.  They don't have these characteristics.

I hate to pivot to another subject you don't understand, but if you want to look at something natural that behaves similarly look at a quantum particle.  It is multiply substanciated, behaves based on deduction and not cause, defies most every law of nature.  And that's an object with intrinsic status.

Every law that we know of. So far. 

But you make some very interesting arguments. You've obviously paid attention in class and read some interesting books. 

Well done.

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9 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

If you click on the article I linked in my above post it will take you to an article written by Carroll himself in which he directly answers your question in his own words.  This is the magic of the internet.  You can learn directly from some of the leading intellectuals in the world with such little effort.  It would be pretty silly to expect one to regurgitate words already written in plain & straightforward style and spoon feed you like an intellectual invalid.  It would be even sillier to think that the failure to spoon feed is a valid objection to an argument. 

OK. I read it. 

I don't agree with his premise or conclusion, but he makes a very compelling argument.

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6 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Every law that we know of. So far. 

I like Einstein and Bohm, so I'm still hoping that, you know, reality is real.  But Bohmenian mechanics don't provide the same comparison.

And don't think that "every law we know of. So far" applies to abstracts.  It's only for quanta.

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11 minutes ago, JBJ said:

I like Einstein and Bohm, so I'm still hoping that, you know, reality is real.  But Bohmenian mechanics don't provide the same comparison.

And don't think that "every law we know of. So far" applies to abstracts.  It's only for quanta.

Think or know?

Ahhhhh, just kidding.

Good talk.

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On 7/5/2018 at 1:54 PM, F250 said:

Most people probably understand that their religious convictions cannot infringe upon the civil liberties of other Americans.

 

And many of us who actually have religious convictions interpret them sliiiiiiiiiightly differently than OP does.

My church has rainbow flags in front of it. We don't merely tolerate gay marriage, we're in favor of it.

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8 hours ago, JBJ said:

It doesn't reside.  It is not instantiated.

i don't know how to explain it better than that.  It's like asking "where is red?"

Red is located at a wavelength of around 680 nm in the electromagnetic spectrum. The prototype meter is a standard maintained on a bar at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures located in Sèvres, France. 

Thats where red is. 

Edit: Well, shit. HOOAH beat me to it. 

Edited by WhatTheBuck
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7 hours ago, Rimbo said:

And many of us who actually have religious convictions interpret them sliiiiiiiiiightly differently than OP does.

My church has rainbow flags in front of it. We don't merely tolerate gay marriage, we're in favor of it.

81a99233434b0ad1f5ef3750618666c4--church

Edited by SaucyJack
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12 hours ago, HOOK'EMHOOAH said:

Red is a wavelength of the visible light along the electromagnetic spectrum. Red is all around us, however we observe other points along the spectrum based on how light is bent in our medium or how light is shifted as it travels between the stars.

main-qimg-fb425cd2b5a55c8d854c450a9cfc8a

 

4 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Red is located at a wavelength of around 680 nm in the electromagnetic spectrum. The prototype meter is a standard maintained on a bar at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures located in Sèvres, France. 

Thats where red is. 

Edit: Well, shit. HOOAH beat me to it. 

They are referring to qualia.  Knowing what wavelength of em radiation that leads to a human experiencing the sensation of red is a different thing than the experience itself.  See Mary's room thought experiment.  

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47 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

 

They are referring to qualia.  Knowing what wavelength of em radiation that leads to a human experiencing the sensation of red is a different thing than the experience itself.  See Mary's room thought experiment.  

Our responses are an explanation using science to answer a question that was posed to try and stump others with nonsensical bullshit. Neither post made any claim to the explanation superseding the experience of the color red. The question asked was "where is red?" We both answered correctly.

The problem with faith-based systems is they rely entirely upon subjective experience to explain their positions because they lack any testable, repeatable evidence to support their claims. Not one single faith has met its burden of proof. So as the saying goes, that which is presented without evidence will be dismissed without evidence.

Edited by HOOK'EMHOOAH
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9 minutes ago, HOOK'EMHOOAH said:

Our responses are an explanation using science to answer a question that was posed to try and stump others with nonsensical bullshit. Neither post made any claim to the explanation superseding the experience of the color red. The question asked was "where is red?" We both answered correctly.

The problem with faith-based systems is they rely entirely upon subjective experience to explain their positions because they lack any testable, repeatable evidence to support their claims. Not one single faith has met its burden of proof. So as the saying goes, that which is presented without evidence will be dismissed without evidence.

Philosophy is a wonderful discipline for exploring questions that are eventually answered by science. It allows man to exercise his brain with thought. I loved my philosophy classes in college. But science has a long and fruitful history of proving philosophers wrong.

That's a good thing!

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12 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Philosophy is a wonderful discipline for exploring questions that are eventually answered by science. It allows man to exercise his brain with thought. I loved my philosophy classes in college. But science has a long and fruitful history of proving philosophers wrong.

That's a good thing!

You are either trolling or you failed philosophy.

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11 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

In my experience, those lay individuals who feel most comfortable with logic are usually the ones who display the greatest misunderstanding.

Unfortunately, you’ll recall that your experience isn’t a source of knowledge.

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1 hour ago, David Dennison said:

But the experience itself occurs in the brain.

Mr. Dennison, as I asked in our last exchange, did you even browse the linked material and get familiar with the claims made?  If we aren't going to even acknowledge claims and will simply respond with whatever we already had up our sleeve, then we will just pointlessly talk past each other.   

It seems you subscribe to the materialist theory of mind.  I do not subscribe to such a theory and it should not be assumed as the default theory, but for this conversation let's assume it and I'll argue from that perspective.  Even if we assume the materialist theory of mind, it does not follow that everything is within the purview of science merely because "experience itself occurs in the brain."  According to this view, language is also a phenomenon of the brain.  But does what constitute a grammatically correct English sentence a problem of physics?  

 

1 hour ago, HOOK'EMHOOAH said:

Our responses are an explanation using science to answer a question that was posed to try and stump others with nonsensical bullshit. Neither post made any claim to the explanation superseding the experience of the color red. The question asked was "where is red?" We both answered correctly.

The problem with faith-based systems is they rely entirely upon subjective experience to explain their positions because they lack any testable, repeatable evidence to support their claims. Not one single faith has met its burden of proof. So as the saying goes, that which is presented without evidence will be dismissed without evidence.

You did not answer the question that was asked.  You gave the wavelength of em radiation that leads to the experience of red for humans with normal color vision.  That wavelength of em radiation is all around us.  But is it red if no conscious entity takes in the wavelength and perceives red?  Why don't the em radiation wavelengths outside 400 and 700 nm have associated colors?  What makes 400 - 700 nm special? Is the perception of red the complete equivalent of em radiation of a certain length?  Can one experience red in a dream without being exposed to em radiation?  The point is that the experience of red and em radiation corresponding to the perception of red are different things.  One can know everything there is to know about em radiation, but the only way to know the experience of seeing red is to perceive it yourself.  No amount of physics knowledge can describe what red is like for someone who lived in a black and white room their whole life.   

 

52 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Philosophy is a wonderful discipline for exploring questions that are eventually answered by science. It allows man to exercise his brain with thought. I loved my philosophy classes in college. But science has a long and fruitful history of proving philosophers wrong.

That's a good thing!

Science is merely a subset of philosophy applied to the physical world.  That is why it was called natural philosophy.    

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38 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Philosophy is a wonderful discipline for exploring questions that are eventually answered by science. It allows man to exercise his brain with thought. I loved my philosophy classes in college. But science has a long and fruitful history of proving philosophers wrong.

That's a good thing!

I'm not implying that philosophy doesn't have a place in the world. I am saying that subjectivity is prone to error and therefore can't be used as a reliable pathway to the truth. The objective nature of science (and the scientific method) is a far more reliable pathway to the truth and isn't susceptible to the faults of having a premise disproven calling into question every other premise therein as is the case with the philosophies of faith. The scientific method is based upon premises being disproven in order to advance our collective understanding of the natural world.

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6 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

You did not answer the question that was asked.  You gave the wavelength of em radiation that leads to the experience of red for humans with normal color vision.  That wavelength of em radiation is all around us.  But is it red if no conscious entity takes in the wavelength and perceives red?  Why don't the em radiation wavelengths outside 400 and 700 nm have associated colors?  What makes 400 - 700 nm special? Is the perception of red the complete equivalent of em radiation of a certain length?  Can one see red in a dream without being exposed to em radiation?  The point is that the perception of red and em radiation corresponding to the perception of red are different things.  One can know everything there is to know about em radiation, but the only way to know the sensation of seeing red is to see it yourself.  No amount of physics knowledge can describe what red is like for someone who lived in a black and white room their whole life.

The wavelengths of light are present whether any conscious mind is able to perceive them or not. The rest of the EM spectrum is still present even if we are unable to perceive them through our human senses. Eyes evolved over hundreds of millions or years and are not at all the same from one species to the next. Dogs can only see the colors blue and yellow, but that doesn't mean the rest of the spectrum doesn't exist. The mantis shrimp has 16 color receptors where as humans have 3. Mantis shrimp are able to see well into the UV portion of the spectrum. Here is a diagram illustrating the differences between humans and mantis shrimp.

main-qimg-aebdd88fbe15c6af8bed8cb7d7c0ef

So even if a person couldn't conceive of the color red, there are other ways to express the color red as it's a frequency. Heat felt on the skin and sound are both other methods of experiencing frequencies. All that is necessary is to have ears or skin sensitive enough to differentiate between the frequencies. Scientists use instruments to detect these frequencies because they are specially designed to do so without the possibility that the results will be tainted by the subjective nature of our human senses.

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20 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

Mr. Dennison, as I asked in our last exchange, did you even browse the linked material and get familiar with the claims made?  If we aren't going to even acknowledge claims and will simply respond with whatever we already had up our sleeve, then we will just pointlessly talk past each other.   

It seems you subscribe to the materialist theory of mind.  I do not subscribe to such a theory and it should not be assumed as the default theory, but for this conversation let's assume it and I'll argue from that perspective.  Even if we assume the materialist theory of mind, it does not follow that everything is within the purview of science merely because "experience itself occurs in the brain."  According to this view, language is also a phenomenon of the brain.  But does what constitute a grammatically correct English sentence a problem of physics?   

I believe language is a phenomenon of the brain and that what is a grammatically correct English sentence is something that can be explained by physics. Just like red.

I am a materialist. And a non-compatible determinist. I do not believe in free will.

I do, however, enjoy discussing these things.

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2 hours ago, HOOK'EMHOOAH said:

The wavelengths of light are present whether any conscious mind is able to perceive them or not. The rest of the EM spectrum is still present even if we are unable to perceive them through our human senses. Eyes evolved over hundreds of millions or years and are not at all the same from one species to the next. Dogs can only see the colors blue and yellow, but that doesn't mean the rest of the spectrum doesn't exist. The mantis shrimp has 16 color receptors where as humans have 3. Mantis shrimp are able to see well into the UV portion of the spectrum. Here is a diagram illustrating the differences between humans and mantis shrimp.

main-qimg-aebdd88fbe15c6af8bed8cb7d7c0ef

So even if a person couldn't conceive of the color red, there are other ways to express the color red as it's a frequency. Heat felt on the skin and sound are both other methods of experiencing frequencies. All that is necessary is to have ears or skin sensitive enough to differentiate between the frequencies. Scientists use instruments to detect these frequencies because they are specially designed to do so without the possibility that the results will be tainted by the subjective nature of our human senses.

You are conflating em radiation of a certain wavelength with the experience of perceiving red.  These are two distinct things.

 

2 hours ago, David Dennison said:

I believe language is a phenomenon of the brain and that what is a grammatically correct English sentence is something that can be explained by physics. Just like red.

I am a materialist. And a non-compatible determinist. I do not believe in free will.

I do, however, enjoy discussing these things.

You have to admit that in any other context (i.e. not already talking about whether all human knowledge is within the domain of science or can be explained by science) if you or anyone else were asked "is what constitutes a grammatically correct English sentence a problem of physics or one for physicists to address?" that the response would be "no, of course not."  It is only within this discussion when one makes the claim that all human knowledge is within the domain of physical science that one is then forced to give the bizarre answer that yes, English grammar questions are physics problems.  

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20 minutes ago, Aphelion said:

You are conflating em radiation of a certain wavelength with the experience of perceiving red.  These are two distinct things.

The question asked was "where is red?" There was zero predication in that question about how red is perceived. You don't get to ad hoc some bullshit onto that to try and escape the fact that the answers given are correct.

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26 minutes ago, HOOK'EMHOOAH said:

The question asked was "where is red?" There was zero predication in that question about how red is perceived. You don't get to ad hoc some bullshit onto that to try and escape the fact that the answers given are correct.

No one is adding anything post hoc.  People used and understood the term "red" long before there was any consistent theory of electromagnetic radiation and long before we knew that humans with normal color vision would perceive red when exposed to em radiation around 700 nm in wavelength.  How is it that people effectively used the term "red" long before the theory of em radiation came about?   What is it that they were referring to?  Of course they perceived red just as we do and understood it in that sense.  So what is being referred to with the term "red" is what has been understood since the terms origin and throughout the majority of its use.

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3 hours ago, Aphelion said:

You have to admit that in any other context (i.e. not already talking about whether all human knowledge is within the domain of science or can be explained by science) if you or anyone else were asked "is what constitutes a grammatically correct English sentence a problem of physics or one for physicists to address?" that the response would be "no, of course not."  It is only within this discussion when one makes the claim that all human knowledge is within the domain of physical science that one is then forced to give the bizarre answer that yes, English grammar questions are physics problems.  

Language is a product of the human brain. The human brain falls within the domain of physical science. I fail to see how that is bizarre. 

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I'm not implying you are unenlightened in anyway and I agree that individuals who subscribe to one faith or another can appreciate science. However, they are both at disparate odds with each other and only one of them will ultimately win out. The question each person has to answer for themselves is which one. Faith brought about the dark ages, slavery, mass genocide, and really the worst humanity has ever experienced whereas science brought about the advancement of our species and will continue to do so until the end of humanity. It sure as hell wasn't faith that put men on the moon or enabled humanity to reach the deepest reaches of the ocean or anything in between.


You have a lot of faith in science.
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45 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

 


You have a lot of faith in science.

Faith is the answer people give when they have no good reason for believing something. I have no need for faith as the findings in science are testable and repeatable by independent verification. Literally anyone can test anything in the scientific community.

 

Faith has fuckall to do with my life anymore than unicorns or gandolf.

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6 minutes ago, HOOK'EMHOOAH said:

Faith is the answer people give when they have no good reason for believing something. I have no need for faith as the findings in science are testable and repeatable by independent verification. Literally anyone can test anything in the scientific community.

 

Faith has fuckall to do with my life anymore than unicorns or gandolf.

The great thing about science is that it allows human beings to explore why human animals manifest faith and how faith affects human behavior.

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6 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

You believe science is all you’ll ever need and that it’s all going to be good. That’s faith bro. It’s ok.

That is not what I believe at all. I think humans need faith. My guess is that it's because we know we're going to die and that there is nothing we can do about it. Yet.

Edited by David Dennison
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7 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

You believe science is all you’ll ever need and that it’s all going to be good. That’s faith bro. It’s ok.

Nah. It's people that demonize science that are the problem and vice versa. Why attack when both can coexist?

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2 hours ago, David Dennison said:

The great thing about science is that it allows human beings to explore why human animals manifest faith and how faith affects human behavior.

Can it measure God? Like a mattress scale for deities? 

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3 minutes ago, RayDog said:

The answer is zero.

And yet the belief in the supernatural is almost universal across all times. Bizarre. It's almost, dare I say, innate? And many who refuse their, dare I say it, nature? become almost vitriolic in their denial. Bizarre.

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1 minute ago, El Diablo said:

And yet the belief in the supernatural is almost universal across all times. Bizarre. It's almost, dare I say, innate? And many who refuse their, dare I say it, nature? become almost vitriolic in their denial. Bizarre.

Human stupidity is almost universal.

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4 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

 


You have a lot of faith in science.

 

The scientific method is nothing more than a slightly detailed explanation of the process of rational thinking. You cannot have rational thinking without the scientific method, although you can add more detailed steps.

Belief and faith are inherently irrational thinking as they skip the step of verifying a hypothesis by testing it against reproducible observations and/or experiments.

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4 hours ago, El Diablo said:

And yet the belief in the supernatural is almost universal across all times. Bizarre. It's almost, dare I say, innate? And many who refuse their, dare I say it, nature? become almost vitriolic in their denial. Bizarre.

Faith didn’t help those women at Baylor. Where was your God then?

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On 7/8/2018 at 3:05 AM, Aphelion said:

Science is merely a subset of philosophy applied to the physical world.  That is why it was called natural philosophy.    

There are two branches of philosphy. One follows the rules of rational thought that incorporate the scientific method and where hypotheses are vetted based on being consistant with reproducible observations and experiments. This branch includes the sciences.

In the second branch of philosophy hypotheses are vetted based on being consistent with fiction. This is the irrational branch of philosophy.

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1 minute ago, RayDog said:

There are two branches of philosphy. One follows the rules of rational thought that incorporate the scientific method and where hypotheses are vetted based on being consistant with reproducible observations and experiments. This branch includes the sciences.

In the second branch of philosophy hypotheses are vetted based on being consistent with fiction. This is the irrational branch of philosophy.

Says the guy who thinks all of modern physics is wrong except him.

Rational.

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9 minutes ago, formermav43 said:

Says the guy who thinks all of modern physics is wrong except him.

Rational.

That is a mischaracterization. My work is based on quantum field theory and I (and others) have shown that all physics can be accounted for with electromagnetic theory. So, I agree with the bulk of electromagnetic theory.

Also, I challenge anyone to develop a system of reasoning that does not contain elements that are equivalent to the scientific method.

Edited by RayDog
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5 hours ago, El Diablo said:

And yet the belief in the supernatural is almost universal across all times. Bizarre. It's almost, dare I say, innate? And many who refuse their, dare I say it, nature? become almost vitriolic in their denial. Bizarre.

It might very well be human nature to believe in the supernatural. There might be an evolutionary basis for belief. We might need it for survival.

That doesn't mean what humans believe about the supernatural is true.

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