Creationism and life in general

[Al_Moritz]

That you cannot understand is just one of those things. Don’t take it to heart and don’t take it out on us by giving insults! Its not our fualt that you lack reasoning skills. You have to know what it is I am saying before you can decide whether the ideas are nonsense.

MindOverMatter2,

I understand and share your frustration, but I don’t think this is a commensurate response. Why don’t you simply explain what you responded to, and why your response is what it is?

Al

 

[StrawberryJam]

That you cannot understand is just one of those things. Don’t take it to heart and don’t take it out on us by giving insults! Its not our fualt that you lack reasoning skills. You have to know what it is I am saying before you can decide whether the ideas are nonsense.

I don’t lack reasoning skills, I lack faith. While that may sound one in the same to you, I don’t start out with theory and work back to hypothesis.

I asked you very clearly if you had started out with a unknowable untestable thing and then gone from there.

Your answer was all about untestable this and that.

I’m not sure how you felt your answer below was any type of answer.

I haven’t stated anything that is unknowable. The scientific principle of testing physical objects does not apply to the epistemological/ontological context in which i was making my argument. The context in which i was operating does not require scientific tests and neither does the knowledge acquired fall within the legitimate capacity of the scientific method.

What you say here very clearly describes faith and belief. We do agree that has nothing to do with the scientific method at all.

I don’t think it’s honest to claim a person without faith or belief is lacking reasoning skills when what is needed for it is a suspension of them.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I don’t think it’s honest to claim a person without faith or belief is lacking reasoning skills when what is needed for it is a suspension of them.

I don’t think its honest or intelligent for somebody to reduce all possibility of true knowledge to the scientific method in-order to support and promote atheism. You have made a straw-man of my post and what I said in support of that end, which is to me a bit deceptive.
Reasonable people just don’t do it, and I am not going to apologise for exposing you as such.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Peace.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I don’t lack reasoning skills, I lack faith. While that may sound one in the same to you, I don’t start out with theory and work back to hypothesis.
.

The thing is, I would have to be working within the epistemological context of science in-order for your accusation to have any meaning.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I don’t think its honest or intelligent for somebody to reduce all possibility of true knowledge to the scientific method in-order to support and promote atheism. You have made a straw-man of my post and what I said in support of that end, which is to me a bit deceptive.
Reasonable people just don’t do it, and I am not going to apologise for exposing you as such.

Science does no such thing. I have not done such a thing by asking you to answer my question.

Science is always open to new information.

What have you exposed about me? Other than my lack of patience for your misrepresentation of Science, what could it be?

 

[StrawberryJam]

The thing is, I would have to be working within the epistemological context of science in-order for your accusation to have any meaning.

I don’t understand how you can say this with a straight face.

Help me out here. You go from theory and work backward to support it and then are surprised someone calls you on it.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

MindOverMatter2,

I understand and share your frustration, but I don’t think this is a commensurate response. Why don’t you simply explain what you responded to, and why your response is what it is?

Al

I appreciate your charitable attempt to correct my attitude, but I am way beyond the point of frustration. I have been explaining my position for years on this forum to many people. It always comes down to the same thing; radical agnosticism. When opponents are willing to entertain the possibility that something could pop out of absolutely nothing in order to justify ignorance of God, what we are left with is more than an opponent who lacks faith, but rather we have an opponent who lacks the will to accept God.

You cannot convince somebody who will hide beyond the most ridiculous ideas in order to maintain disbelief.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Peace.

What does that mean to you?

 

[StrawberryJam]

I appreciate your charitable attempt to correct my attitude, but I am way beyond the point of frustration. I have been explaining my position for years on this forum to many people. It always comes down to the same thing; radical agnosticism. When opponents are willing to entertain the possibility that something could pop of absolutely nothing in order to justify ignorance of God, what we are left with is more than an opponent who lacks faith, but rather we have an opponent who lacks the will to accept God.

You cannot convince somebody who will hide beyond the most ridiculous ideas in order to maintain disbelief.

I like your attitude. It gives me a lot of reasons to question faith.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Science does no such thing. I have not done such a thing by asking you to answer my question.

Science is always open to new information.

What have you exposed about me? Other than my lack of patience for your misrepresentation of Science, what could it be?

I made no accusations against science so please do not be so deceptive as that make it appear that I did. The problem is “you” keep framing my argument within the epistemological limitations of the scientific method. And when I say that this is not the context in which I was working you accused me of promoting faith posing as knowledge.

This makes it evident to me that you believe that all true knowledge about objective reality is scientific knowledge and that I could not possibly be working in a different framework of knowledge that is legitimate.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I made no accusations against science so please do not be so deceptive as that make it appear that I did. The problem is “you” keep framing my argument within the epistemological limitations of the scientific method. And when I say that this is not the context in which I was working you accused me of promoting faith posing as knowledge.

This makes it evident to me that you believe that all true knowledge about objective reality is scientific knowledge and that I could not possibly be working in a different framework of knowledge that is legitimate.

Maybe you should stop worrying about perceptions and feelings and start answering questions and stop being so emotional.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I like your attitude. It gives me a lot of reasons to question faith.

You like my attitude because it gives you an excuse? How much more do want to expose yourself?

 

[StrawberryJam]

You like my attitude because it gives you an excuse? How much more do want to expose yourself?

I want people to understand that Science is being misrepresented here.

Let me ask you on what basis would I know if vaccines were a good thing?

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Maybe you should stop worrying about perceptions and feelings and start answering questions and stop being so emotional.

I answered your question. You replied with an insult in-order to present the illusion of intellectual superiority. If you had asked nicely to further explain my epistemological position, I might have. But now i see that it is a waste of time. You can’t fill a cup that’s already full.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I answered your question. You replied with an insult in-order to present the illusion of intellectual superiority. If you had asked nicely to further explain my epistemological position, I might have. But now i see that it is a waste of time.

Show me your answer to my question, and then we can talk.
Your answer was basically, supernatural stuff can’t be tested. Right>?
If I am wrong, show me where I missed your answer.

 

[Al_Moritz]

Maybe you should stop worrying about perceptions and feelings and start answering questions and stop being so emotional.

No, MindoverMatter 2 answered in a matter-of-fact way. I am afraid you are the one who is emotional here. By the way, what happened to your “catholic leanings”? Are you now a card-carrying naturalist?

 

[Al_Moritz]

I appreciate your charitable attempt to correct my attitude, but I am way beyond the point of frustration.

I am too. I have discussed with atheists over the last few years, and discovered that despite their self-proclaimed ‘rationality’ a rational discussion is mostly impossible, even though there are exceptions. Then I came to this board, and had hoped that Catholics would be open to reason, but I have discovered that they are mostly – not always – just as impenetrable to reason as the atheists that I had despaired on. I have pretty much given up, my frequency of posting has dropped dramatically for at least two weeks now. And I feel so much better and more balanced. I can now concentrate with much more ease on other important things in life.

Apparently the crux of the matter is that usually people do not change their mind. However, the ability and openness to change one’s mind is a prerequsite to be open to reason. I have changed my mind a few times in life, and I have questioned my current convictions many times, before I settled for accepting that they are probably right – while in the back of my mind there is the awareness that I may be wrong after all, even though at this point I don’t assume the likelihood for that to be high.

I have been explaining my position for years on this forum to many people. It always comes down to the same thing; radical agnosticism. When opponents are willing to entertain the possibility that something could pop out of absolutely nothing in order to justify ignorance of God, what we are left with is more than an opponent who lacks faith, but rather we have an opponent who lacks the will to accept God.

You cannot convince somebody who will hide beyond the most ridiculous ideas in order to maintain disbelief.

I agree with all of that. People are constantly willing to engage in the most absurd contortionist mental gymnastics only to avoid the reasonable conclusion. The general lack of training in philosophical thinking does not help either, something which you probably are painfully aware of, given your obvious solid philosophical background.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I am too. I have discussed with atheists over the last few years, and discovered that despite their self-proclaimed ‘rationality’ a rational discussion is mostly impossible, even though there are exceptions. Then I came to this board, and had hoped that Catholics would be open to reason, but I have discovered that they are mostly – not always – just as impenetrable to reason as the atheists that I had despaired on. I have pretty much given up, my frequency of posting has dropped dramatically for at least two weeks now. And I feel so much better and more balanced. I can now concentrate with much more ease on other important things in life.

The crux of the matter is apparently, usually people do not change their mind. However, the ability and openness to change one’s mind is a prerequsite to be open to reason. I have changed my mind a few times in life, and I have questioned my curent convictions many times, before I settled for accepting that they are probably right – while in the back of my mind there is the awareness that I may be wrong after all, even though at this point I don’t assume the likelihood for that to be high.

I agree with all of that. People are constantly willing to engage in the most absurd contortionist mental gymnastics only to avoid the reasonable conclusion. The general lack of training in philosophical thinking does not help either, which you probably are painfully aware of, given your obvious solid philosophical background.

What is absurd, what are the contortionist mental gymnastics?
I asked about how I could know if vaccines would be good or bad.

Give me some guidance based on your worldview on that please.

I could go on, and ask if you would or would not find science helpful in answering this question and why. But, based on your posts, I know you can as long as you can also hold views that have nothing to do with science. Tell me how you do it.

 

[StrawberryJam]

No, MindoverMatter 2 answered in a matter-of-fact way. I am afraid you are the one who is emotional here. By the way, what happened to your “catholic leanings”? Are you now a card-carrying naturalist?

When I have to ask about how people decide on vaccines, I don’t consult people who have beliefs in things. I ask if they understand science. So do you.

Homeopathy, is it okay or not? Why bother with faith when it leaves it open to all sorts of fallacy and disrespect for science? Does your God want this?