meltzerboy
New member
How is the problem “nonexistent”? It has been a philosophical topic of discussion and debate throughout the ages.
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MPat
Guest
Let’s see:
- “Religion” corresponds to “suspect”.
- “True religion” corresponds to “criminal”.
- “All religions are false.” corresponds to “No one did it.” or, in other words, “No crime was committed.”.
- “[Many] Religions exist.” corresponds to “[Many] Suspects exist.”.
Ah, but it is not “nothing”. It’s just that the defence lawyer tries to declare all evidence inadmissible.
Just like in case of religion we have numerous claims of miracles, philosophical arguments and the like. And in most cases the “defence” tries to claim that all of those pieces of evidence are “inadmissible”…
And, of course, lack of corpse and murder weapon does not mean that there is nothing to investigate. There is even a Wikipedia article: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_conviction_without_a_body.
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Pallas_Athene
Guest
Undoubtedly so. But: have you ever heard of a hungry philosopher? The empty navel gazing of “ultimate” truths has always been the pastime of well-fed individuals, who never had to worry where their next meal will come from.
Just because some (otherwise) smart people engage in a useless endeavor, it will not make that endeavor respectable. Some (otherwise) smart people spent long hours and debated how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle. Well-fed people will find useless subjects to fill up their otherwise empty lives. If they had to work to earn their next meal, they would not waste time on such irrelevant questions.
Would be nice…
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Pallas_Athene
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Nope, not ALL. Only the dubious “evidence”.Ah, but it is not “nothing”. It’s just that the defence lawyer tries to declare all evidence inadmissible.
Have you ever wondered why “hearsay” evidence is inadmissible in court (in serious cases)?
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Bradski
Guest
Good grief, does no-one understand logic? This is Logic 101. Let’s try to make it as simple as possible.
A. There are many religions.
B. The OP assumes that they are not compatible. That is, if one religion is true, then the others are false.
C. From B we get that no more than one can be true.
D. The ONLY possible options are therefore: Either ONE is true, or they are ALL false.
The only possible contention anyone could have with that is B, that some religions may be compatible in some ways. But that does not correlate to the OP and is therefore a different matter entirely.
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NovusFidem
Guest
While I agree with you, I also have to agree that the original question presented is an illogical statement (or at least skips several steps in presenting a logical line of thought).
Your statement makes sense. Either we have one true religion, or we don’t. Having many **claiming **to be the one is irrelevant to this fact - that either one is right, or none of them are.
The original question, however, presented that “since so many claim to be right, it is most reasonable to assume that none is”. And that is not really the case.
I’ll agree that it is reasonable to assume that none is, but certainly not the most reasonable option
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NovusFidem
Guest
Weird that you’d call it useless. In what little time of researcher I had, the use of philosophical methods to raise and solve problems was at least essential.But: have you ever heard of a hungry philosopher? The empty navel gazing of “ultimate” truths has always been the pastime of well-fed individuals, who never had to worry where their next meal will come from.
Just because some (otherwise) smart people engage in a useless endeavor, it will not make that endeavor respectable. Some (otherwise) smart people spent long hours and debated how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle. Well-fed people will find useless subjects to fill up their otherwise empty lives. If they had to work to earn their next meal, they would not waste time on such irrelevant questions.
It is from Philosophy of Sciences that we learn scientific models, and fundamental concepts such as “dialectic”, “materialism”, “causality”, etc.
Medicine and other health areas rely on philosophy when dealing with Ethics and Bioethics (two areas that branched from Philosophy). Hopefully I don’t need to explain why bioethics is important… Many sciences derived from Philosophy; much of what was only ideas in the head of Philosophers gained form and became something you may call “useful” today.
Mathematics and logic were developed by Philosophers such as Pythagoras, Aristotle, Plato and Descartes. How is Philosophy not useful, if what it creates ends up becoming so essential to our development?
There are philosophers not worth their salt. But the **endeavor **of Philosophical studies is NOT useless.
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Pallas_Athene
Guest
Tell me about them.
Back in those times when there was practically no knowledge of reality, everything was collected under the label of “philosophy”. But that was thousands of years ago. Philosophy is separated into several sub-disciplines today:- metaphysics - “what is reality”, or “what exists”.
- epistemology - "how do we gain information (knowledge) about this reality.
- ethics - “how should we behave”?
- aesthetics - the “study” of beauty… a totally irrelevant endeavor. “Beauty” is only skin deep, and what one person finds beautiful, the next person finds ugly.
I rather doubt it. People observed reality, they made assumptions about it, tried to find evidence for those assumptions. This method crystallized into something we called the “scientific method” today. Insofar there is only ONE epistemological method which allows us to separate true and false propositions about reality. No matter how many times I asked for an alternative epistemological method, I was confronted with silence.
Mathematics and logic are the two “abstract sciences”, based upon some selected axioms. They have nothing to do with the objective reality - even though they may provide useful tools to investigate this reality. But that is a lucky coincidence.
Tell me what is their use today. I am willing to listen.
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NovusFidem
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And, funny enough, many believe that there is much about “reality” yet to be understood. In that case, Philosophy is just as useful as in “those times”.Tell me about them.
A method which relies largely in syllogisms, which is a logical method that relies in deductive reasoning or deductive logic, being logic a discipline of Philosophy.
Philosophy is being proven to be truly useless, indeed.
That is a practical method that has its utility, and I doubt anyone will be able to offer a better model. It is also, to my understanding, a branch of Philosophy. I am not sure what you wanted for me to offer…
If the idea was to dismiss Philosophy for offering “one single method” only, then please, give me an alternative to the scientific method that is just as useful in predicting observable phenomena/statistical results reliably.
I can offer none for Philosophy (specially since I am no major in that subject). It is only fair that you are given an equal challenge.
“Lucky coincidence”! Nice.
I don’t understand what you are getting at. First, you complain that Philosophy is an “useless endeavor”; then, given logic and maths - the later of which “has nothing to do with the objective reality” (I agree in part), - you **admit **that they are useful tools.
And then, you dismiss the relation of “Philosophy producing useful tools” as a “lucky coincidence”.
Bioethics? With cloning, stem cell use, end of life therapies, a load of new medical discoveries in treatments, scientific studies with live animals… For ONE branch of a BRANCH of Philosophy, isn’t that a lot already?
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Father_Read
Guest
The atheist’s statement presented by the OP seems to be too vague. Here it is again: “Since it is inconceivable that all religions are right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong.”
What is meant by “right”? And why is the stated conclusion “the most reasonable”? In my opinion, the proposition (as is) doesn’t allow for a very productive debate.
What is meant by “right”? And why is the stated conclusion “the most reasonable”? In my opinion, the proposition (as is) doesn’t allow for a very productive debate.
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Tomdstone
Guest
What is the use of mathematics? Is that your question? Do you have a checkbook? Do you have a bank account? Have you heard of satellites moving around the earth? Have you heard of carbon dating? Fans of baseball keep track of win-loss ratios, batting averages and pitchers’ earned-run-averages. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) said, “The universe cannot be read until we have learned the language and become familiar with the characters in which it is written. It is written in mathematical language, and the letters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which means it is humanly impossible to comprehend a single word. Without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth.” It is too bad that they locked up Galileo since he was a great scientist.
Mathematics have proven to be useful fpr problems arising in commerce, land measurement, architecture, astronomy, chemistry and physics. The pure mathematics of number theory has applications in cryptography.
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MPat
Guest
You know, those claims do contradict. With the second one you *are *trying to rule the evidence inadmissible.
Oh, but it is perfectly acceptable in most countries. The whole idea of “inadmissible evidence” is not used that much outside the “Common Law” countries.
And the reason is simple. In Common Law countries (USA, UK and the like) juries consisting of untrained people are very common. Thus they are prevented from looking at any evidence that is not “crystal clear” and is likely to support the prosecution.
But we are not a court, and thus there is no reason to rule any evidence “inadmissible”.
meltzerboy
New member
Even warrior goddesses, such as Pallas Athene, have an inner life as well as an external life. The inner life consists of our thoughts, emotions, drives, and the questions we pose to ourselves about our identity, the meaning and purpose of our existence, where we came from and where we are going after we die, why we and other sentient beings feel pain and suffer, the meaning of the universe, and whether or not one G-d or several gods exist and, if so, what His or their nature might be. Even people who are in the midst of struggling for their physical survival and feel the pain of hunger, disease, and war ask themselves these questions at some time or other during their life. The inner life is part of the human condition, part of our need for answers to explain our fleeting earthly existence and our wish to get closer to the truth concerning why we are alive and what the larger meaning of life is all about.Undoubtedly so. But: have you ever heard of a hungry philosopher? The empty navel gazing of “ultimate” truths has always been the pastime of well-fed individuals, who never had to worry where their next meal will come from.
Just because some (otherwise) smart people engage in a useless endeavor, it will not make that endeavor respectable. Some (otherwise) smart people spent long hours and debated how many angels can dance on the tip of a needle. Well-fed people will find useless subjects to fill up their otherwise empty lives. If they had to work to earn their next meal, they would not waste time on such irrelevant questions.
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Pallas_Athene
Guest
None of these questions ever occurred to me. The universe simply exists, it does not “care” about us. We exist because our parents had a fun night. No “mystery”.
Maybe as a passing thought. Now, when people are in pain, or are hungry, when they see the cruelty surrounding us… AND they happen to believe in a “benevolent god”, then they ask: “why”??? And the answer by the believers is: “it will be rectified in the next life”, or “God gave it, God takes it away, blessed be the name of God”, or “who are you to question God”? or something equally useless. The assumption that there is a “loving and caring deity” does not give answers, it just piles up the unanswered questions.
There is no “larger” meaning of life. We give it meaning.
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Pallas_Athene
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In kangaroo-courts everything is admissible if it supports the case of the prosecution. I rather doubt that hearsay evidence, like someone claiming that he overheard a conversation about an impending crime would be admissible anywhere.
That is NOT the reason. The real reason is that hearsay evidence is unreliable. Even the testimony of eye-witnesses is subject to cross-examination to see how reliable their testimony might be. And of course, one piece of actual physical evidence (provided that the chain of custody is rigorously maintained) will beat the testimonials of a thousand people.
Oh, you can present whatever you wish to introduce as evidence. You will only waste your time. As far as I am concerned, an “evidence” of “she says” that “he heard” that “she might have seen” a spaceship (loaded with little green men) landing in the rose garden of the White House - can be dismissed out of hand.
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Pallas_Athene
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No, it is NOT. Math is a wonderful mind game, part of the abstract sciences, but not part of physical sciences. It has many uses, and it is fun. It is a great tool.
Math and logic have nothing to do with philosophy. They used to be part of philosophy, way back when there were no sciences, only “philosophy”. People made up different categories, tried to explain the reality… and eventually the real physical sciences were born.
By the way I recall a good joke:
Q: “What is the most frequent sentence that freshly minted Doctor of Philosophy says in his first job?”
A: “You want fries with that?”
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Pallas_Athene
Guest
The questions are there… all right. What about the answers? How to answer these questions depends upon the “metaphysics” one subscribes to. But metaphysics without a proper “epistemology” is just empty speculation.
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NovusFidem
Guest
No, it doesn’t depend upon metaphysics. It depends upon the society, the accepted cultural values and views, which will define the ethics and, thus, the morality of the decisions made. This is what Philosophy does - critical thinking.
Take cloning, for example. What does the USA thinks about human life? What value does the american society give to a zygote? And an embryo? Based on those values of that specific society, what would be ethical and what wouldn’t be ethical for us to do in regards to cloning? Can we clone a human ear in a rat’s backside? Can we clone a human liver in a petri dish? How much can we meddle with human beings without stepping over individual human rights?
And Philosophy gives answers: this society considers human being to be X. So we can’t clone X, or we’d be stomping over human rights, since we’d be subjecting a human being to experimentation that could pose a risk for its health. We can clone a human ear in a rat’s backside, since a human ear is not a human being. We can also clone a human liver, by the same logic.
So on, so on.
And metaphysics? That comes when one tries to define values, as this is a more abstract concept. But Philosophy, you’ll find out, works with MORE areas than only metaphysics. There are philosophers trying to explain values and morals using Evolution (caring about each other was naturally selected, for example).
Or did you think that ALL philosophers believe in God/sobrenatural? Some try to give meaning to concepts such as “values” without relying on a spiritual force compelling us to do good. Some offer evolutionary explanations, cognitive developments, sociological influences, proposing a possible answer to the foundation of “morals”.
For you, it may not be enough. “Ohh, but there is no consensus!”. Which is why I say: then, thank goodness we have Philosophy. Perhaps one they they will find an answer, like they did for so many other problems!
Philosophy is too large a subject, which is why so many other subjects got separated from it: like maths, psychology got so complex by itself, that it became a science of its own. “Science” as we know it was once called “philosophy of nature”.
You can dislike Philosophy as much as you want, but it hardly is useless as you put.
meltzerboy
New member
But would you at least admit that we have the need to give life our own personal meaning, because meaning is important to us? Even the existentialist philosophers would admit that much. BTW, do you subscribe to Sartre’s existentialism, or perhaps to Camus’ humanism?
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Tomdstone
Guest
Well then, I can’t make any sense of what you are talking about.
You say - tell me what is the use of mathematics today, and then you say that that is not your question?
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