Russellâs argument is that Godâs existance is something against which evidence is impossible and for which evidence is absent. From this he concludes that one can assume He is unlikely to truly exist.
Your argument is incorrect. The teapot argument is about what âISâ, or what âexistsâ, while the âmurderâ argument is about the âOUGHTâ, or âshould beâ. One ought to refrain from âmurderingâ not because there is a âproofâ against it, or because a certain society considers it wrong, rather because of the (fully secular) concept of reciprocity.
Hence, i did say âhuman existance must be valuable.â for murder to be wrong. Either human existance IS valuable or it IS NOT valuable. Thats not an OUGHT question. The OUGHT question only arises after it has been determined whether individual human existance is valuable or not. Which is pretty doubtful, as we will all be dust in just 300 years and as mankind will be gone in 4 billion years or, if turning out to be realy clever, in just 100 billion years at latest.
So one should believe in something immaterial to be a binding concept for our material world because someone else suggested so?
âValueâ is a concept, not an ontological object. Reality can be subdivided into two parts, one would be the ontologically existing objects, the other is the realm of concepts, which do not have ontological existence.
Not âbecauseâŚâ. Whether it was suggested or not, our life is valuable to us. Starting from that point and âprojectingâ onto others we can enhance our well-being by cooperating versus antagonizing. Very simple concepts.
âRightsâ are social constructs. âLoveâ is an emotion and actions expressing it. âBeautyâ is a concept, and a subjective one at that. âJusticeâ is an expression of interpersonal relationships. So is âfreedomâ and âlibertyâ. None of these exist as ontological objects. There are no ontologically existing human ârightsâ. A ârightâ is something that is granted by someone in power (generally a government) to other people and it expresses that the people can perform certain actions (or refrain from doing certain actions) without fear of repercussions. Yes, I am aware of the Declaration of Human rights, and the famous âlife, liberty and the pursuit of happinessâ, but these are pretty and poetic âpies in the skyâ without any significance. If a ârightâ is not enforced, it is âwishful thinking or baloneyâ. But it is a nice concept, and it would be neat to have it in reality.
Why would it be? Ontologically existing objects have many âimmaterialâ aspects to them. There are âactivitiesâ, âproperties / attributesâ and ârelationshipsâ, none of which exist ontologically, but none of which can exist without the ontological foundation of actual objects. Noting âirrationalâ about it.
Since we discuss âValueâ, there exist at least soem chemical-electrical process in our brains connected to âValueâ, therefore it is a bit strange to claim it does not have ontological existance.
Ok, therefore there can be no empirical argument vs murder. Its just a subjective matter.
And therefore, if the missionary claims that the cannibal should not eat him, the cannibal can just refer to Russellâs thinking, that for something so remotely strange as food having the right not to be eaten, which the cannibal furthermore cannot disvprove, the burden of proof naturally rests with teh missionary and failing to provide any, the cannibal can rest assured that likely he is correct and the missionary is toast.
Thats an unsubstianted claim, especially as there are 7 billion humans around potentially with varying opions about their own lifeâs value, especially the roughly 1 million commiting suicide each year indicate some sort of variance.
Irrational is to act as if they are true.
If this is a material world, even what i wrote in this post could a short enough time () before i write the words be predicted with an accuracy() better than pure chance.
Sure looks like that you donât understand the concept of âconceptâ. You confuse entities with their representations.
Only a hopelessly uneducated person would think that the Pythagoras theorem can be proven âempiricallyâ.
Take the âworld formulaâ, starting conditions of the universe, a rather big computer, calculate and among the immense amount of predictions will be that some intelligent life form develops and that some members of that species will prove Pythargoras theorem and THEIR THOUGHT PROCESS TO DO SO and hence also the proof of the theorem.
Que??? You measure the two sides on the right angle, calculate, and then check whether the calculation is the same as the hypotenuse. Whatâcha talking about?
That is âverificationâ not âproofâ. The theorem talks about ALL triangles with a right angle. There is the Goldbach conjecture, which says that **ALL **even numbers can be composed as the sum of two prime numbers. This conjecture has been **verified **for several million even numbers, but that does not constitute a âproofâ. None of these can be proven âempiricallyâ. Empiricism is a tool for the external reality, not for the abstract or axiomatically based sciences.
That sciences only happen in our brain, which is part of the external reality and can in principal be studied via empiricism. How can you distinguish in a purely material universe between external reality (=outside human mind?) and something else(=inside reality=inside human mind?)?
Pascal was a great mathematician and a lousy philosopher. The reference to the âheartâ is just a ridiculous euphemism for âemotionsâ. The phrase to âhumble reasonâ is exactly the same as Lutherâs proclamation, which said: âreason must be made the handmaiden of faithâ and âreason must be trampled underfootâ⌠the hostility toward reason has never been expressed more clearly than that.
Nope. His reference to âheartâ would be more like the âexistential core of our being,â the point at which we participate in existence itself and essentially apprehend what is for what it is. This has little to do with emotions but more along the lines of Aristotleâs definition of truth as that which is. "To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is trueâ (Metaphysics 1011b25)
Oh, how sweet. Thatâs what people who believe in fairies say - that fairies must exist because no one can absolutely prove they donât.
The word âhowâ refers to the means by which something came about. The word âwhyâ refers to the reason for or explanation of its existence. If the Big Bang is the beginning of physical reality, the sequence of physical causes has a beginning. The âhow,â at least, in terms of physical causation has arrived at its logical beginning.