The worst thing about religion

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see: the asch conformity experiment and the milgram experiment


just because someone conforms to the masses or to authority doesn't make it correct.

lol, it is for them!

I'll take your word for it, as I don't find golf particularly exciting. I'm sure it is quite difficult. I was only pointing out that, if you're looking at purely the psychological aspect, chess would seem to be more difficult, especially at a higher level where you have to intensely study your opponents play and prepare specific novelties to play against them.


That's a good attitude to have, even if it does contradict your earlier posts.


Anyone who claims they are sane must obviously be insane. The fact of being unable to recognize one's own insanity demonstrates a complete lack of objectivity and proves that one is insane.


Rather a freak of nature. Is he going to keep it going? 14 golds would be enough for most people to be ready to retire. It would be interesting if he returned to compete in the 2012 Olympics.

that's because you can't really prove a negative. however, to make claims of something existing and then not presenting proof other than claiming it can't be disproven is not evidence or proof. just that someone is claiming that bigfoot exists and is healing the sick.

Because you generally change meanings of terms to support your position, and hold all rationality to an almost tautological point of agreement with your position.

Calling you a closed system, is not an ad hominem, it is a negative statement on your position, although, I know how much you like to see the term as existing when it is not there. I did not call you a moron or anything like that despite how much I thought it. Trust me though, I am also not irrational or nonsensical either, I have likely read more philosophy and theology than you have, and if I had to bet, so has most of your opposition.

What is a "p-zombie"?

What is an intuition?

I don't believe anything. You believe god exists. I do not share this belief. There is no reason for me to do so. You have not said why you believe in god either.

twoshots, there has been debate on this thread over the number of theists vs atheists/agnostics posting. Could you clarify your theological views?

I know about both of those.

The issue is absolute proof as opposed to probabilistic proof. Popularity and authority are not means of absolutely proving something, and few people are very concerned with absolute proofs either, but rather they are usually taken as means of pointing to something likely true. Now, I'll be honest, they aren't a major part of my epistemology either, but a person can rationally use them as part of a valid epistemology.

Umm... an understanding based upon that little thing described as intuition. Most people have intuitive understandings of certain things. Damned if I know if animals are moral, I think most people assign morality to human beings due to the accepted phenomenal level of our existence.

How isn't it an argument?

1. Every finite and contingent being has a cause.
2. Nothing finite and contingent can cause itself.
3. A causal chain cannot be of infinite length.
4. Therefore, a First Cause (or something that is not an effect) must exist.

That seems plenty like an argument to me, and the first cause has attributes traditionally assigned to God given to it.

I change the meaning of terms? I see insanity as I lack of logic and reason.

Are you aware of what tautological means? I don't think so.

Carry on though, I like it when I can observe irrationality at work.

YOU are using ad hominem attacks as you and others have done throughout this thread. How much philosophy you have read is irrelevant. How sad that you must use this to support your arguments? Very sad. Theology? The study of a non-existent subject. Like studying unicorns and fairies.

Last edited by corroonb on 19 Aug 2008, 5:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, you do.


Basically, what I am saying is that your terms define themselves circularly, and thus are a tautology, sort of like the statement "Either it will rain tomorrow or it will not rain tomorrow.", everything you say is true, simply because you have warped the definitions so that it must be true.


*sigh* right.

Where? I have insulted your position, I have insulted people generally, but I have not substituted an insult for an argument, which is the qualification for an ad hominem.

The reason I say that, is not as an argument, but rather as a means of affirming my belief that I think you are a stupid bastard who does not know how little he actually knows, but is too damned arrogant to come to any understanding. I mean, hell, you have difficulty knowing what an intuition is, and you don't know what a p-zombie is. The smart atheists such as Daniel Dennett and Eliezer Yudkowsky know what both of those are, and are good enough to undermine the concept rather than just try to unwittingly resurrect the defunct belief known as logical positivism(had to mention other thinkers or else you might go about thinking that your atheism was the problem). And hell, before, you even cry out ad hominem, why don't you research it, so that way you know that it isn't just insulting you or your position, but really is the fallacy of using an insult in place of a logical argument, something that I don't think most people here actually truly engage in.

Theology is actually a good study for sharpening the mind, as it isn't a non-existent subject, but rather an attempt to find the proper interpretation of a religious text. Something, that students of comparative religion engage in, and something that even atheists have engaged in a bit of, in order to make their positions clearer. Heck, given that theology tends to be very philosophical, it is a very good subject to study in order to better understand the world.

What caused the First Cause then? How can an effect (God) not have a cause?

Umm.... HA HA HA HA!! Nothing caused the first cause, that is why it is the first cause, it is defined as uncaused. God is not an effect, he is the first cause.

Premise 1 states that every finite and contingent thing has a cause, and thus the First Cause is held to be something that in infinite and not contingent. Also, the conclusion (line 4 in that argument) states that there must be something at the start of the chain of causation that is not an effect, but only a cause. Before Christian theology existed, the Greek philosophers held that such an entity would have to exist, an "unmoved mover" "First Cause" "Prime Mover" etc. In the Christian view the unmoved mover is called God. If you say that you still need a cause for the first cause, then you must deny the coherence of reality or dispute premise 3. Or, you could deny causation altogether and be done with it.

"Stupid bastard" is an ad hominem attack. You have repeatedly used fallacies in supposedly rational argument.

Theology is a load of rubbish. Study of religious texts has no more epistemological worth than the study of literature.

What philosophy have you read then, o master of the written word?

I have read Aristotle, Plato, Lucretius, Descartes, Kant, Hume, Nietzsche, Spinoza and so on. I have read Plato and Aristotle in the original Greek.

Please explain what intuitive understanding means? It sounds like an oxymoron.

You have repeatedly characterised me as being stupid or ignorant and yourself as being intelligent and wise. This is ad hominem and is a contemptible ploy. You should be ashamed of yourself.

well with golf it has mental and physical aspects. Mainly mental. And the pressure is emense at a major competition. Thats why its so unbelieveable that Tiger won the 2000 US open by 15 shots.

How does it contradict them? I don't even attempt to study. The only thing i've done recently was try to learn all the capitals of every country, that was last year. I just haven't had the desire to continue with that. I got like 170 right when I last tested myself.

lol, no! Believing in something in which there is no proof that it exists is insane, isn't it? I only have faith in things I can control, not something or someone that it would be a nice feeling if they were real.

so is Tiger. But no Phelps is a beast. If he stays healthy, or doesn't die, due to eating 1200 calories a day, i'm pretty sure he'll be there in 2012