Kaimax Posts

So you're either a Nihilist or a Solipsist then.

The reason a personal god is silly, in my opinion is because it's completely arrogant. That in the vast universe we live in, of the billions of planets and stars and galaxies and all that we can even fathom, there is a god out there that gives a shit, SPECIFICALY, about ONE species of 10 billion, on ONE planet.

Come on now.

I'm not sure how pantheism solves the problem of a god belief at all, I mean, calling the universe god is no different from calling 'love' god. We have words for these things already, and I see no reason to call the universe 'god'. I see no reason to believe in a deistic god, as that god could not exist, and nothing could be demonstrated to be any different.

I'm an atheist because I've never seen a logically demonstrable useful definition of a god.

He also repeatedly publically expressed that he didn't believe in a personal god, felt the idea of a personal god was extremely arrogant and silly, and at most believed in a pantheistic, or even deistic type of god at BEST.

Congrats, that is probably the dumbest argument I'vE EVER heard. Literally. Ever.

...you know I just want to say that I saw that on 3 different T shirts in one day. Ironic eh?

.....grrrr I want to argue with you so much, but that's not what this topic is about so I'm going to take it to private messages.

Well...I KIND of agree with you in that people have the right to believe what they believe, and that I shouldn't let that bother me. the problem is there ARE people out there that take advantage of people who choose to believe things for which they have no good reason to believe. I mean, how many mediums claim to be able to speak to the dead and charge people money to do so? How many people claim to be able to tell a person's future via palm reading or tarot cards? these people get PAID...to bullshit the gullible. I don't like that, I don't encourage it. the thing is, those charlatans will not be convinced that they should stop, so instead I aim my conversation to the sheep...I try to convince people not to believe irrational things for THEIR good, not for mine. I'm not affected, I just empathize is all.

It nds like Ray Comfort's argument. "There's a creation, Creation, is 100% undeniable proof there's a creator!" There's so much wrong with it, it just leaves people speechless with the dumb. This is also regular referred to as 'visciously circular reasoning'. Similar to "We know the bible is true because it's god's word, we know it's god's word because the bible says so, we know the bible is true when it says this because it's god's word." Round and round you go.

Yes yes, I know "Oh dear, here comes BigLundi bitching about God and spirituality and religion again."

I'm actually not going to bitch about religion, or even God. what I'm bitching about this time, is more the rather trollish attitude of some apologetics.

There are arguments for god that are designed to be convincing, like the Morality Argument, the Kalam Cosmological Argument. And there are even arguments for Atheism that are convincing. Russell's Teapot analogy and the Problem of Evil being a couple.

However there are some arguments that are NOT designed to be convincing...moreso the are designed to win debates. By that I mean, an argument that is in no way valid OR sound, yet is so vague, complex, and strange that it's designed to pummel the opponent with semantics, purely for the purpose of making them look stupid.


There are 3 arguments, in my opinion, that are designed to do just that. 2 are Theistic, one is atheistic.

the first argument I'd like to address, breifly, as it only deserves it briefly, is the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God.

For those that don't know the Ontological Argument is essentially this:

1. God is defined as the greatest being in the universe.
2. In order to be the greatest being in the universe, this being must exist.
Conclusion: God must exist.

...Do you get it? It's an argument literall designed to DEFINE God into existence. I mean...come on. And yes, there is an updated Modal Logic version of the argument, but all THAT version does is state the same things, in a FAR more complex manner, that maybe 20 people in the world understand, not necessarily including the guy who made it up.

The second argument is the Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God.(also known as TAG)

This is the most infuriating one to me, as it's regualrly spouted by Christian Apologist Matt Slick of karm.org. It goes like this.

The foundation for the transcendental argument is that if two worldviews oppose eachother, and one fails to give an account for the existence of something, the other is therefore vindicated. Theism accounts for the existence of Logical absolutes, and Atheism does not.

1. Everything is either physical or conceptual.
2. Logic is a product of the mind, it is conceptual.
3. Logical Absolutes are transcendental, and will exist after human minds die.
4. It then follows that there must be a transcendent eternal mind that concieved of logical absolutes.
Conclusion: God is that mind.

This argument is put forth by an apologist...for christians. If you don't understand why that infuriates me it's because of what I said earlier. It's NOT a convincing argument. What it IS is a very confusing argument. Firstly, it begins by pissing off the atheist it's arguing against by saying, "I can account for something and you can't. Atheism is illogical lol." It then continues to start the argument in premises 2 and 3 by committing a fallacy of division. Just because a logical absolute is 'transcendent' doesn't in any way mean a human mind cannot concieve of it. That's like saying only a fat person's mind can concieve of chocolate cake.

Anyhow, this post is getting too long, so I'm going to just post the Omniscience Versus Free Will argument, my problem with it, then the TL/DR version of the post.

The omniscience argument goes like this:
God's omniscience is logicall contradictory to the doctrine that we have free will.
For instance, if God knows with infallible certainty that I'm going to snap my fingers in 30 minutes and blink my eyes, then I'm going to do that, and I never had an option not to.

The reason this is dumb is because it in no way addresses what free will is. free will is not the 'power to escape prediction'. If this argument could demonstrat that BECAUSE an omniscient god is watching, we'd be making different choices than if a god weren't watching, it'd be more valid and sound...but it doesn't do that.

I could re word the argument like this. "If God knows with absolute infallible certainty that I'm going to exercise my free will before I do it then I have no choice but to exercise my free will."

...No shit.












Too Long didn't Read version : the Ontological, TAG, and Omniscience vs. Free Will arguments don't convince anyone, and they're quite basically simply trollish. Never let anyone make them.

@ FinalBoss You say that a mind is different from a nonexistent thing because it’s been labeled as something that exists, yet is nonphysical, untestable, and immeasurable. What if I were to label the mind as simply being synonymous with my brain? What then? Labels are arbitrary, they’re simply different combinations of vowels and consonants that we assign meaning to by fiat. I mean, while it’s true we’re simply two people living our lives in the universe, which is what your analogy says I’m fairly certain, but does that mean it doesn’t, or even SHOULDN’T matter what either of us thinks?

@Legendary_Dollci I shouldn’t have to explain to you why we †˜feel’ things in our dreams, why dreams can appear to be vivid, and even how we can have LUCID dreams. Instead, I’ll simply say this, these things have indeed been explained without any use of a nonphysical mind. As far as people seeing the room their bodies are in, this has actually been tested, believe it or not, and it fails. Here’s how it was tested: A person lays in a bed, and they’re put in an induced state where they then †˜see’ the room outside of their bodies. The difference is, the people testing them, after inducing this state, place something on the wall behind the subject’s body, and ask the subject to read it. When the subject is brought back to consciousness, they fail, consistently, every time, to read what is placed above them, out of their human sight.

@K-1 Rhine has never successfully repeated any experiment he ever claimed in any way proved psychic energy or any other such woo woo pseudopsychology. Not only that, but whenever he published a paper, he would select already known dishonest studies, sometimes outright lie, and embellish his own results for the purpose of perpetuating his bias view that psychic energy, and psychics themselves must exist.

However the fact remains, as you said, such things are not able to be viewed in a scientific setting…unless…hold on a minute…

Do you think that there is such a thing as a nonphysical thing that can AFFECT reality, outside of our own bodies? Because if so that CAN be tested, scientifically, as anything that exists in reality, and affects reality in any way can be tested scientifically. The thing is, psychics and mediums and all that woo woo nonsense has never been successfully tested and replicated in any laboratory. I have no reason, whatsoever, to believe anything other than my own brain exists, and that its limits are in affecting my human body. So…that’s what I believe. Am I wrong in that?

I can see the possibiity of a severely mutated disease attacking my brain and causing me to becomme a 'zombie' in a wa. but for scientific reasons, I don't think I would last long as a zombie. I think I woudl end up starving, or melting, or freezing, or just being out and out shot by the military.



It's not that I want them to submit to my ideals, it's that I would like people to believe things and have a good reason to believe them, mainly because believing things for bad reasons is silly. Trust me, I'm open minded, if you can show me any evidence at all, or even a USEFULNESS in believing in the mind, I'll consider the idea, but I'm not so open minded my brains are going to fall out. All you've essentially done is define a mind into existence, and from what I can tell, your only reason for believing in this duality is...because you want to believe it. I mean...those aren't good reasons.

Was that a trolling vote, or do you actualy accept duality? If so, why. Also, it's not really decided...the vot'es on infinite xD

...Wow, so you differentiate between a mind, which is not percievable, untestable, and unobservable...and a nonexistent thing...because you DEFINE it as being different. I mean come on...you can't honestly think that's a good answer.

...Alright, as nondescreptive as that analogy was, I just have this to ask you. How do you differentiate between something that's outside the universe, can't be percieved, tested, or measured...and something that's nonexistent?

Depends.

*gendo pose*

Do you believe in fate...Piewalker?

2 points. 1. All three of those 'theories' are not 'theories' they are hypotheses. And...wel..they're all just as demonstrated as the existence of a nonphysical mind.

2. I didnt put 'maybe' up there because 'maybe' is included in 'no'.

The question is 'do you accept mind brain duality?'

If you answer, "I don't know if it's true or not, I have no opinion on it." Then guess what?


>.>
<.<
You don't accept it.

Nice draft. You'd best get an A or we're coming for you.

*sigh* So you're debating something that you already admit is in no way meant to be even correct? Why debate something idf you don't even have a reason to think it's correct beyond...oh I dunno, WANTING it to be correct?



You can't explain the mind NEAR as well as scientists can explain gravity. Gravity is extremely highly understood, observable, testable, and constant. there are plenty of things we understand about gravity, and how it work, and all these things are demonstrable. There is NOTHING you can explain about the mind, that is in any way demonstrable, because as you already say, it's an invisible, untestable, undetectable 'force'. By the way, an apologetics website isn't a good place to see what scientists have to say about gravity. Try physics papers...like...oh I dunno, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370157399000836 which has a...REALLY long explanation of just SOME of the things we know today.



So you have defined mind to be a thing that actually does work, a thing that DOES consist of energy, a thing that IS either energy, or matter. In essence, the mind(soul) IS a physical substance, via your definition, which defeats the entire purpose of Mind/body dualism, because the mind is a NONphysical substance, by definition, in Dualism.



Invisible energy is stil ap physical substance you know. Microwaves, for instance, are a physical substance. And if it's a physical substance, it CAN be tested, it CAN be observed, and since neither has been done for this supposed 'mind' you're putting forth as an existent thing....I'm wondering how in the WORLD you know anything about its properties aside from...randomly guessing, and making stuff up?



Based on what? I mean, not only can only extremely small particles, that we know of, travel faster than the speed of light, and even then only with catalysts, but you essentially just made up a substance that's physical, yet invisible, that cando something that up till a few years ago, scientists were fairly certain was a physical impossibility.

2) Are you sure you want me to explain split brains? It'll be another imaginary theory just like the two analogies and gravity....Ah fuck it, I might as well. Before I begin let's make something clear: The mind is invisible energy that has no properties of its own (in other words, its a force that can't be tested or measured).[/quote]

If it can't be tested or measured, guess what? It's not energy. Energy CAN be tested, and measured.



So let me get this straight. I asked you to use Dualism to explain split brain patients. And you said, "Sure." and you looked up what a split brain patient is, and gave the explanation of them...without using the mind...and then said, "Well, it has very ittle to do with the mind." Excuse me, but if you're calling the mind the 'soul' and it has ANY function at all in running the brain, but you have to explain SB using the mind. you don't get to just say, "The mind isn't in play here, it's just the brain." and then say that mind brain duality in ANY way explains SB patients. It doesn't, and you basically just flat out admitted this. My entire contention with Mind Body duality is that tthe offering of the existence of this thing called a 'mind' that in some way interacts withthe brain(a way you still haven't defined, besides using the analogy that it's 'fuel' in some way) in order to form our perception, personality, and everything that makes us...individual people. Yet, when asked to USE this duality to explain a problem wit hthe brain, you can't do it, you can only explain it in terms of the brain being all there is, with no mind at play. the mind offers nothinadditional to the tablIt's a no, invisible, untestable, unobservable thit is no different from anythign that's nonexistent...so why accept it as being 'there'?

In my experience, female players tend to be favored. Male WoW players are, from what I can tell, majoritively passive. So when a woman comes into the scene, if the players she addresses are all passive, which is a possibility, then the female is almost immediately moved up to a top position in the guild as an Officer, or, the woman -as in my case- might make her own guild, and then have a loyal following of people join up with her, majoritively males. Other women who aren't as aggressive will also favor this woman as someone who is capable of leading, and someone they can look to in times of drama.

Women are either officers, trusted players, or even guild leaders in my experience, heavily favored above the majority of the male players, and yelled at MUCH less in case raids take a wrong turn. VERY rarely do I EVER see a female player get chastized, and in fact, even if it is their fault that something went wrong, leaders will go out of their way NOT to yell at the females, and instead yell at the males for some imaginary thing THEY did wrong, like...for instance...getting angry at the female players for screwing up.


As a for instance, I was a tank player in WoW before I stopped playing a few months ago. When Cataclsm came out, so did new dungeons. In one of them, a pull consisted of 4 mobs, 2 of which had to be CC'd, or the whole raid would wipe.(if you need clarifications of any of my abbreviations, just say so). Meanwhile, the two tanks would each take one of the remaining mobs, and pull them apart, while the party shot down one, then the other. Well, the female in our group screwed up and attacked one of the CC'd mobs. I then took aggro from the mob, needless to say, we wiped, and I was annoyed with her, and told her she needs to remain more focused, as I don't want to die. I was then chastized for reprimanding her in any way, and in fact, I was not invited to furthur raids, because she complained that I was 'being a dick'.

Most people do replace 'mind' with 'soul' in Dualism.

You're saying the mind is an invisibele force of energy that causes the brain to function, and eventually, it runs out.

Well, here's the thing, if you're saying eventually the fuel runs out, then...wouldn't that mean the soul just ceases to exist?

It's a minor point really, and you even gave a seperate analogy that it's motre the engine running out and the fuel needing a place to go, but it's kind of irrelevant, as the main thing I usually like to get at with explanations like this is 'how do you know that?'. Essentially, you're making stuff up. I don't mean hat to sound derogatory in any way, but it IS what you're doing isn't it? I mean, do you have any observations that points to this conclusion? Do you have any reason beyond simply liking the idea to believe it to be true? How in any way does this do anything to explain how the brain functions? You're positing a new thing involved in the chemistry between the brain and the body that you A. have no empirical reason to believe is there, and B. Cannot explain the properties, or functions thereof...unless again..you just start making stuff up.


And, the most IMPORTANT qurestion I want to get at, is split brain patients. There are people out there who have split-brains. Essentially, they have 2 personalities, that are diametricaly opposed to eachother. A scientist, or therapist might ask a split brain patient "Do you believe in god?" and while he/she will say yes, their body will point to the answer 'no' on a chalkboard.

How do you explain them?