Oh look, the in tray is full again. This promises to be fun. The regulars here will understand that the tone of voice being deployed here is very definitely Stadtler & Waldorf, for reasons that will become apparent shortly, and you are strongly recommended to pay attention to the entire post to learn why.
So, let’s begin yet another excursion into the world of “It’s petunias time again”, shall we? (Bonus points to those who understand the reference).
Let’s see if your conduct of discourse from this point on lives up to this billing, shall we? Only the past experience of numerous individuals here, myself included, leads to treating assertions such as yours above with deep suspicion - in my case, 14 years of dealing with posts such as this in various forums has provided me with a large data set informing me that such assertions do indeed deserve deep suspicion.
Your user name told us that. Though of course the regulars here are used to needlessly vocal declarations from your ilk.
And already, the antennae are starting to twitch. Be patient, you’ll learn why in due course.
Captain to crew, we’re in the AO, the TERCOM is set to TF 200, hard ride … DSO, keep vigilant watch for SAMs.
I suspect your assertion about your eagerness above is woefully premature.
No surprise there, And already, the familiar parts of the aetiology of your ilk are coming to the fore.
Oh dear. It’s this tiresome assertion I’ve seen so many times before from your ilk. Indeed, if I’d been paid £10 for each time in the past an assertion of this sort had crossed my path, I would now be driving a Bentley. Again, stay tuned for reasons why this assertion is, to put it bluntly, horseshit.
And here is your first big problem. Namely, atheism isn’t a “worldview”, or any of the other things mythology fanboys keep asserting it to be (let’s see, going through the checklist, it isn’t a “belief system”, an “ideology”, or a “religion” either, three other favourite assertion we see from your ilk frequently).
Atheism, in its rigorous formulation, is nothing more than suspicion of unsupported mythology fanboy assertions. That is IT. It’s the only thought process that is found observationally to be universal among atheists, and as a corollary, is sufficient to constitute a definition. Don’t bother with facile recourse to argumentum ad lexicographium or any other such nonsense, I’m not interested in what sources lacking rigour assert on the matter.
As a direct corollary of the above, atheism as a thought process doesn’t involve presenting assertions., at least if done properly. Instead, it consists of requiring mythology fanboys to provide genuine, rigorus support for THEIR assertions, because without said genuine, rigorous support, the assertions in question are safely discardable in accordance with the rules of proper discourse, rules which sadly I’ve learned over the past 14 years that mythology fanboys are either [1] completely ignorant of, or [2] regard themselves and their assertions as being exempt therefrom. I’m not letting them play that game, an haven’t for a long time.
Oh, and before you even begin to respond to the above, be advised that “My favourite Bronze Age mythology says so” isn’t “evidence” for your cartoon magic man, it’s evidence solely for the propensity of the authors thereof to make shit up, then pretend that their made up shit supposedly constitutes fact. A prime example of this is provided by the ridiculous assertion contained within the pages of your mythology, that genetics is purportedly controlled by coloured sticks. That assertion was utterly destroyed by a 19th century monk, when he launched modern genetics as a properly constituted scientific discipline. I can provide similar rebuttals of other ridiculous assertions contained in your mythology with ease.
So, already, your “understanding” is found wanting.
Meanwhile, before I continue, another concept for you to factor in at this juncture. Namely, because atheism, when conducted properly, only concerns itself with one issue, it does NOT pretend to have answers to the myriad of questions that mythology fanboys wrongly (and frequently dishonestly) assert purportedly constitute the remit of “atheism”. They don’t. Those other questions are the remit of well-defined human endeavours to whom those of us who paid attention in class, turn to find out if there are any genuine, rigorous answers to said questions.
Examples of relevant well-defined human endeavours called upon include the physical sciences, pure mathematics, and certain branches of philosophy. The latter class of endeavours needs to be approached with caution, because all too often, these have been infected with varying degrees of unwarranted assertionist cant and blather that need to be swept aside, before reaching the kernels of genuine reasoning cloaked by said cant and blather. Again, several of us here have long experience of the epistemological tank traps awaiting the unwary.
You are strongly advised to pay close attention to the above before moving on, because it will pay dividends shortly.
First of all, learn the distinction between “immaterial” and abstract. Again, typical failure of rigour on your part.
First of all, every process that has ever been observed, while residing in large part in the abstract realm, has its basis in material interactions. There are no exceptions. Every attempt to conjure purported “exceptions” into existence via apologetic spells has failed dismally, and if I have time, I’ll explain to you why apologetics is itself a dismal failure of an enterprise. But, let’s deal with issues in their proper priority, and cover this ridiculous assertion of yours.
Quite simply, mythology fanboys like you cannot even give a proper, rigorous definition of the so-called “immaterial”. I’ve never observed one being provided by your ilk. Furthermore, one of the tank traps that your ilk continue to fall into, centres upon the fact that any entities or interactions that are observable, fall within the remit of scientific investigation by definition. That’s what science is - the study and analysis of the observable. The various branches thereof have been spectacularly successful in this matter, and scientists have alighted upon vast classes of entities and interactions, that the Bronze Age nomads responsible for your mythology were completely incapable of even fantasising about. Furthermore, those same scientists have placed said classes of entities and interactions into usefully predictive, quantitative frameworks of knowledge, of a sort that said Bronze Age nomads would have regarded as magic.
Meanwhile, back to your ridiculous assertion above. The mere fact that, to take your example of the laws of logic, these can be instantiated in a machine (Alan Turing was merely the first to place this realisation on a rigorous footing), suggests strongly that there is no “magic” involved, and as a corollary, no magic man needed. Again, we’re dealing here with processes, and once again, every process that has ever been observed has had a a material basis without exception.
There’s also the little matter that the first well-defined formal treatise on logic was written by Aristotle, fully 300 years before your religion and a significant part of its accompanying mythology even existed.
As for ethics, you’re in for a very hard ride shortly, but that will come a little later. But, one problem you have, is that your assertions about a purported “objective morality” are fatuous. Because “Magic Man says so” is as far removed from “objective” as it gets. In case you never learned the genuine meaning of the word, an objective phenomenon is one that can be reliably observed and understood by multiple independent observers, regardless of whatever presupposition they my hold, and the nature of which is wholly unaffected by any presuppositions present.
Mythology fanboy assertions about “objective morality” fail this basic test dismally. Their assertions on the matter are by definition critically dependent upon well-known presuppositions, the presupposition that a magic man from a specific mythology is real being central thereto.
On the other hand, those of us who paid attention in class, recognise certain key facts about ethical behaviour. The first being that humans were engaging in ethical behaviour, and devising ethical codes to abide by, fully two millennia before your mythology existed, and as a corollary, fully two millennia before your magic man was asserted to exist. Perhaps the canonical example being the Code of Urukagina, which was the first ethical code generated by humans, to institute prohibitions against slavery and the exploitation of the poor by the rich. On those matters, your mythology fails dismally.
But, there’s even worse to come for your naive and blithe assertions on this topic. Namely, that there exists an abundant scientific literature, documenting in exquisite detail the evidence for the evolutionary and biological basis of [1] our capacity for ethical thought, and [2] the motivation to act thereupon. Given the vast scope of the literature in question , I provided an extensive document covering said literature and its findings, and again, you are strongly advised to read that document in full, and learn what scientists have alighted upon over the past 50 years or so.
There’s also this nice video clip you can spent time watching and learning from, provided by the author of several of the peer reviewed scientific papers I cite in my document:
So already, a large number of your presuppositions have been roundly tossed into the bin by rigorous work in relevant fields.
So, let’s move on …
I just provided a detailed exposition that made no recourse to your imaginary “immaterial laws”, but instead relied upon proper examination of observational data. You’re not very good at this are you?
Just dealt with this above. Apparently you still need to learn that abstract concepts are capable of being materially instantiated.
And once again, we see that familiar and tiresome part of the mythology fanboy aetiology - the posturing on the part of the mythology fanboy, as being in a position to lecture us on what we think, without bothering with the inconvenience of actually asking us if the requisite presuppositions bear even the most tenuous connection to reality. 14 years of seeing this is wearing a little thin.
Looks like your initial billing about your purported discoursive conduct is heading into the same sewer as many of your other assertions.
Bare faced lie.
The "laws of logic " are nothing more than a conceptual rendering of processes. And as such, are amenable to material instantiation. See, for example, every computer that has been built since 1945.
At bottom, it’s all data processing, as Alan Turing taught us in his paper On Computable Numbers, and which was subsequently expanded upon by such as Kolmogrov and Chaitin. No imaginary “immaterial” entities involved.
Once again, there’s a difference between abstract and “immaterial”, which I’ve already told you about.
And there’s another of your big problems.
Namely, that those of us who treat this topic seriously, do NOT assert that a god type entity in its most general form does not exist. Instead, we recognise that the question is unanswered. Not least because, if a genuine, rigorous answer had ever been provided in the past, this would now be part of our mainstream boy of knowledge, and no one would be arguing about this (except for the likes of flat Earth contrarians).
Instead, the BIG mistake mythology fanboys ALWAYS make, is to presume that the only possible candidate for the “god role” is whichever candidate is asserted to exist in their favourite choice of pre-scientific mythology. The fact that the mythologies in question ARE pre-scientific, and frequently contain ludicrous assertions about the natural world, has no effect upon their complacent pursuit of this parochialism. Furthermore, another elementary concept that mythology fanboys fail to register, is that any entity asserted to exist, can be safely discarded if that entity is asserted to possess contradictory or absurd properties, and cartoon magic men from pre-scientific mythologies all fail this basic test.
There’s also the little matter that mythology fanboys cannot agree among themselves on a global scale, which of the numerous mythologies humans have invented is purportedly the “right” mythology, and that adherents of a particular mythology cannot agree among themselves what said mythology is purportedly telling us. Yet against this hilarious backdrop of rampant anti-consilience, mythology fanboys posture as being in a position to assert that their choice of mythology, and their choice of cartoon magic man, is the only possibility.
Furthermore, as a counter to your complacent (and possibly dishonest) assertions about my thinking, I’m on public record here and elsewhere, as welcoming any genuine evidence for any god type entity that might exist, on the basis that should said evidence be forthcoming, it will falsify all of our ridiculous pre-scientific mythologies at a stroke. Indeed, I’ve entertained ideas about the issue that mythology fanboys are frequently incapable of even fantasising about, and as an example, I direct you to this thread I provided for the purpose. Yes, I’ve been diligent and prolific here. Once again, you’re strongly advised to peruse the material in question in full, not least because I’m sadly familiar with mythology fanboy indolence.
Meanwhile, in case you’re wondering why scientists propose explanations for the universe and its contents based upon material entities and interactions, there’s a simple reason for this - namely, material entities and interactions are the only ones that have been reliably and repeateably observed and measured in the centuries that scientists have been operating. Scientists have a habit of sticking to whatever is supported by evidence.
Already dealt with your fallacies here above in detail. Once again, we have evidence for material entities and interactions in abundance, as documented in several million peer reviewed scientific papers. We have ZERO evidence for the merely asserted “immaterial”.
This isn’t an “explanation”, its a blind assertion. Learn the difference.
Given the nonsensical assertions associated therewith, it’s just as well.
Poppycock. Some operators in the ethical realm will choose personal gain over collective well-being. There’s no mystery here about this from the standpoint of not treating a cartoon magic man as real. On the other hand, it’s a gigantic problem for you and your assertions about a magic man.
Try “does the action in question result in observable harm being dispensed to the recipients?”
No cartoon magic man needed.
Heard of empathy, have you?
You know that you don’t want someone to break your legs with a baseball bat. It doesn’t take anything other than basic empathy, to realise that the same is the case for other members of your species. Indeed, that extensive exposition on ethics I provided above via that Google document, covers the matter in some detail.
Now, I’ll enjoy seeing your failure to respond to the above with substance, a prediction that arises from a large data set obtained over 14 years of dealing with your ilk.
But, before departing, two observations. One, why is is that every mythology fanboy launches into predictable peddling of repeatedly destroyed assertions here, without once performing even the most elementary of checks to see if these assertions have been addressed by previous posters? Is due diligence a skill that your education system failed to teach you?
Also, as for apologetics … the deconstruction thereof I’ve just provided above, should be telling you something important. Namely that the whole business of apologetics, is nothing more than the concoction of convoluted semantic fabrications and elisions, aimed at pretending to provide evidential support for blind mythological assertions, with which to dazzle the gullible and uneducated. It’s a variation on the failed mediaeval theme of trying to conjure entities into existence with magic spells.
Enjoy your homework.