The Bible; Divinely Inspired?

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Anger is a phenomenal fact as well. It is more than a physical state of the brain because it is a mental state, and mental states and physical states, while related, are not the exact same thing. To say that they are, seems to say that mental states are known the same way that other physical states are known, and they are not known in that same manner, and thus a reduction of mental fact to physical fact seems ill-founded philosophically.


Well, that depends on what you take to be evidence of "non-material truths", if your philosophy is materialism, then you have a priori excluded the possibility of non-material truths.

Ok, but that still doesn't have anything to do with anything. I mean, to say that philosophy is emergent from the mind, which is emergent from the brain, does not say that psychology is the same field as philosophy, it would be like saying that quantum mechanics is the same study as anatomy. Interestingly enough though, if we argue that logic is nothing more than a complex function of the brain, then we run into an issue about whether strict logic, such as math is necessarily reliable(brain functions are not after all), this ends up being problematic for us because all processing and actions rely upon logic, so if logic cannot rely upon itself, then that seems a major philosophical problem.

Ok, I really do not see how arguing that we are beings with a lot of physical elements to us proves that philosophical questions are bad.

it is supposed that man was perfect to begin with, but in the fall began to slowly die and that the human race is essentially "devolving" becoming more and more imperfect (genetically). The supposition provides interesting insight (if it is true) into why marrying family members such as cousins was not a big deal as it is today, and in some instances why the religious/sociological viewpoint on marrying very close family members seems to get more strict. Now you can't marry a cousin (or is it 2nd cousin) because the genetic abnormalities are too similar. It also proposes an interesting thought into genetic/informational entropy of the human genome over the course of time. Maybe we are evolving, maybe we are devolving. The extrapolation associated with both makes me uneasy about accepting either. Though while aspects of evolution make sense, the concept of genetic/informational entropy and the degradation of genetic information as it is copied over time makes more sense than some premises of evolution.

Still on the fence. Just saying that the idea that our bodies are degrading isn't all that illogical.

I don't think I'll respond to you anymore. You're childish.

You find it childish to challenge religion because it throws up flimsy answers to question that put it onto the back foot. For centuries religions have hidden behind the "mysterious ways" "its not for us to understand" "god didnt refuse to answer he just said no" BS answers whilst at the same time controling, dividing and destroying people, without the slightest bit of supporting evidence for their beliefs.

You go on about mans imperfections whilst at the same time talking of the creators infallibility and call me childish when I point out the contradiction in that statement!!

I

No, I don't think the bible is the work of god at all.
The only reason why Jesus has some credibility is because there are multiple sources about him, the bible isn't the ONLY source about him.

slowmutant finds it childish because you are saying things that he doesn't like to hear. He will say things like 'you are wrong' without saying why. That would be real childishness, that is the way of the slowmutant.

Nope. It may have a core of truth, as with all the other religious texts.. But the bible is no different than the others. Same basic story.

My unpopular opinion:
How could anyone put blind trust into a frankensteined BOOK, written by humans-- and then worship this illusory "God" just because they insist that's our true creator? The only purpose of religion is to divide and conquer. Period. Why one would want to worship one of these gods of lore is beyond me. You may be worshiping the wrong one for all you know. You can't confirm that the god of the bible is good and not in fact the equivalent of Satan who only sees its worshipers as slaves. Just pointing out the obvious here, but.. Yes, it's quite likely that all of the gods of all of the religions were just extraterrestrial/advanced beings who posed as gods or angels or the devil, or whatever else suited their needs and desire for a submissive slave race who were willing to sacrifice and kill for them. (But of course, they did it in a way where we didn't realize we were slaves.. What's that saying, "the best slave is the one who says he is not a slave"?)

I HIGHLY DOUBT that our true creator (assuming there is one) has anything to do with the ilk spoken of in the bible and other stories/accounts. (I mean, I'm sure the gods of myths and legends exist in some form or another but I do not believe they are what people think they are.)

DentArthurDent is behaving in a Biblical manner. Take note ...


That's the Gospel According to Luke, Chapter 18, Verses 15 through 17.

I'm surprised that any Christian would admonish someone as "Childish," when such behavior is a wide open opportunity for some proper evangelism!

And people wonder why I'm so down on religion.

well, now that you mention this, It refers to their innocence, probably it might have to do that children may accept things more easily than adults, that children may not question things like adults would, and supposedly, less corrupted than adults.


Because of lack of attention from catholic priests in childhood?

Physical science has its origins in our experience. Physics is NOT deduced a priori from self evident principles. It is the result of abstracting and idealizing experiences known through our natural senses.

ruveyn

Wrong. Physical science has its origins in the natural laws of the universe, which we then observe, and then deduce.


An object descending through a gravitational field accelerates at a definable rate. An object in motion tends to remain in motion until acted upon by an outside force. Heat flows from warm object to cooler objects. These are self-evident rinciples. Our knowledge of physics is derive from them and others like them.


X-Rays can not be detected directly by any of our seven natural senses. Instead, X-Rays were first detected by exposing them to photographic plates that had been wrapped in optically opaque materials.

It is through measuring and quantifying physical events that our basic foundations of science came to be.

Abstraction and idealisation of experietial memories is the realm of religion, not science.

No, right! The science of physics isn't natural laws, it is the observation of natural laws governing certain sets of behavior. Thus reveyn is right.


No, they aren't. Is it logically impossible for gravity to not involve definable acceleration? That the law of momentum wouldn't hold? That heat would not flow from warm objects to cooler objects? And if it isn't logically impossible, then how not? Not only that, but aren't all of the distinctions you draw upon originally known through observation, thus making physics still not fully introspective?


However, X-rays refer to knowable physical realities, and can be related back to these senses by processes that themselves were verified by scientific processes, which were related to empirical data. In any case, it isn't as if X-rays were a priori given that you say that they were proved by empirical evidence, and also given that the existence of X-rays was considered a hoax by many leading scientists of the time(harder to have a priori based hoaxes).


Umm.... yes, but that contradicts this "Physical science has its origins in the natural laws of the universe", as foundations and origins do not seem like they would be different things given the discussion and context.

If you have a notion of "physical laws" then you aren't NOT abstracting and idealizing. The notion of speaking of a law, or an equation is moving beyond empiricism towards an abstraction and an idealization.

Our fanciest instruments have to be comprehended through the natural senses. We read the dials and the displays with our eyes. The raw material of physics is empirical experience. We first knew of light by our eyes. X-rays are just another kind of light differing from visible light only in frequency. We comprehend waves by the undulation of the waters in the seas and by vibrating objects. We comprehend energy as motion and motion is originally derived from experiencing moving objects. That is where the concept of energy originated. Modern physics is a mathematical elaboration and extension of what was conceived through experience. We do not pluck our theories out of thin air. They are rooted (ultimately) in what we experience. If we were blind and deaf and could not feel we could not have invented the science of physics.

ruveyn

Physical principles exist outside of our experience of them - we do not have to experience a physical principle in order for it to be real. Yet, direct experience of their causal nature is require for those principles to be internally validated.

You can tell me all you want that it is possible to see and converse with someone who is currently thousands of miles away, but until I have actually experienced a teleconference, your assertions are invalid to me.

By the same token, you could also tell me that it is possible to see and converse with a supernatural being that lives beyond the physcal boundaries of the universe, but until I have actually experienced such a miracle, your assertions on this are also invalid to me.

Fortunately, we live in a universe governed by physical laws - whether we are aware of those laws or not, so the likelihood of the former experience far exceeds the likelihood of the latter.

Yes, but physics does not exist based upon principles but rather our experience of them.


Yes, and that latter part is where the argument comes in. If you must experience a teleconference to know it, then your knowledge about the physical world is empirical, not aprioristic.


Well... ok?? This is actually outside of our point, but ultimately still agrees with it. Experience is an important source of knowledge, and your own claim of knowledge is based upon that, which means that it seems to have a plausible origin for conflict with a science-centric source of knowledge(not a necessary conflict necessarily, although I think philosopher of science Paul Feyerabend has argued that a conflict between logic and empirical data can exist, but I don't remember the argument.
Oh, teleconference vs miracle? Well.... if I assert the validity of a principle of Arthur C. Clark: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" then the problem becomes even more difficult, however, then the issue really comes down to what background of knowledge you are working within, but with sufficient limitations to knowledge, it seems plausible that the teleconference might be less than or equally plausible to you than the miracle.