Obama's Stimulating Package

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
1

Ever noticed how some people are full of shit?

First there was that Youtube clown posing as Thomas Paine fancifully pretending that Paine would have supported an integration of “god into public life” whatever that means. Or that Paine would have supported a universal draft.

It gets worse.

In the recent thread, some asshole wrote:

Do you think less God in our country means we are abandoning the ideas of the founding fathers, or that the founding fathers were following the popular belief system of the day and were able to get away with integrating the word God into every document they wrote?

I think it’s perfectly hilarious that members on this forum can babble at great length whilst eating this shit up. Time to intervene.

The word god did not appear in the constitution, and only twice appears in any of the 85 federalist papers, one of which referring to the god of the thebans. The word god is not to be found in the articles of confederation. The word God appears one time in the declaration of independence, but that’s the extent of it in the founding documents.

Oh, and I’m not singling out the religious folks on this forum. Here’s a gem our resident pretentious poser dhickey:

It’s funny when people (especially atheists) toss the word logic around without knowing what it means. Logic allows us to move from premises (axioms) to conclusions (theorems). Logic can only prove that if an axiom (or set of axioms) is true, than a theorem is true. Logic cannot be used to prove axioms - these are often (though not necessarily) taken to be self evident though unproven.

It does not make a system any less logical to build on axioms that not self evident or even false. A system only becomes illogical when logical errors are committed. Sometimes axioms that were assumed to be true without being intuitively obvious were later discovered to be theorems derived from simpler axioms. See for example the least upper bound (LUB) axiom and Zermelo?Fraenkel set theory. This does not mean logicians who assumed the LUB axiom to be true prior to the early 20th century were illogical, despite what the atheists on this forum will tell you.

There is nothing more “logical” about atheism than theism. Inasfar as all scientific endeavor is provincial and “scientific proof” is a phrase only to be found in reader’s digest or wherever dhickey found his education, we are forced to make assumptions where we do not have all the information.

To pretend that this is illogical is naive, but when it comes from someone who labels themselves as “ruled by logic and reason” it becomes pleasantly ironic.

2

You will be called names…

3

Great :slight_smile:

However, in order to stimulate insult creativity, let’s get seven easy insults out of the way: moron, stupid, idiot, ignorant, dumb, gullible, and fool.

4

[quote]Gael wrote:
You will be called names…

Great :slight_smile:

However, in order to stimulate insult creativity, let’s get seven easy insults out of the way: moron, stupid, idiot, ignorant, dumb, gullible, and fool.[/quote]

You forgot, dick, spam dagger, pussy, asshole, butt juice licker, and bastard…

5

Don’t overlook shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker… and tits.

6

I do believe Dhickey was attempting to assert that faith is not very different from innate human reason.

Why is murder wrong? Because our innate human reason deems it so. Something in our metaphorical soul tells us murdering the innocent is bad.

And this is different from most concepts of “God” because…?

7

BTW, only searching for the word “God” in our founding documents is horribly deceitful. The founders made TONS of references to a higher power, in different terminology. Creator, Lord, etc…

You’ll be very hard pressed to find great philosophers who did not have some concept that you could easily replace with the word “God”.

The founders based many of the ideas of “natural rights” on the assumption that we are all special in some way, by virtue of being human.

From a purely scientific stand point, we are not special beyond our larger brains. But something in our reason tells us we are something more. And most scientists would probably agree with that.

So, when people talk about God as an equalizer, the being who loves us all, I feel a very similar association to our human reason.

And now I’m rambling far off topic…

(For the record: I’m currently an agnostic who was raised kind-of-Jewish)

8

I might be able to prove you wrong.

Let’s try a transcendental argument for the existence of God:

P1: If God does not exist, moral facts do not exist
P2: Moral facts exist
C: Hence, God exists

9

Setting the schizophrenia of the post aside, I think there is a good nugget about the “logic” of believing in a god. Logic is not just an endpoint, it is a process - and in the absence of complete information, that process may include assumptions, inductions, and other methods of inquiry not based in science.

There is nothing more “rational” in disbelieving in a god than there is believing in a god. Whether or not you are rational depends on how to you get to your conclusion.

10

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
BTW, only searching for the word “God” in our founding documents is horribly deceitful. The founders made TONS of references to a higher power, in different terminology. Creator, Lord, etc…

You’ll be very hard pressed to find great philosophers who did not have some concept that you could easily replace with the word “God”.

The founders based many of the ideas of “natural rights” on the assumption that we are all special in some way, by virtue of being human.

From a purely scientific stand point, we are not special beyond our larger brains. But something in our reason tells us we are something more. And most scientists would probably agree with that.

So, when people talk about God as an equalizer, the being who loves us all, I feel a very similar association to our human reason.

And now I’m rambling far off topic…

(For the record: I’m currently an agnostic who was raised kind-of-Jewish)
[/quote]

Actually you touch one something that throws people. I will say it this way. It doesn’t matter what you call God, it is still God. If you want to refer the Him (Her, It, Am, whatever God is) as the Force, Allah, Nature, the Muse, etc. it’s all still God.

The problem with science and empiricism in general, is that science really just measures relationships. Because Event ‘A’, event ‘B’ happens. The problem is that unless you can know every single instance of the event ‘A’, event ‘B’ relationship, you cannot know it for certain. It sounds like semantics, but it is an important distinction philosophically. It means that people have to take these correlational relationships occurring reliably, on faith. You cannot know that every time you let go of a penny, it will fall…It’s a pretty safe assumption based on the history of penny dropping, but you can never know it for certain. Key word 'assumption…BTW, If you hold a penny and let it go, I bet you $1 million bucks it will fall.

11

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Setting the schizophrenia of the post aside, I think there is a good nugget about the “logic” of believing in a god. Logic is not just an endpoint, it is a process - and in the absence of complete information, that process may include assumptions, inductions, and other methods of inquiry not based in science.

There is nothing more “rational” in disbelieving in a god than there is believing in a god. Whether or not you are rational depends on how to you get to your conclusion.

[/quote]

Word.

12

[quote]pat wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
BTW, only searching for the word “God” in our founding documents is horribly deceitful. The founders made TONS of references to a higher power, in different terminology. Creator, Lord, etc…

You’ll be very hard pressed to find great philosophers who did not have some concept that you could easily replace with the word “God”.

The founders based many of the ideas of “natural rights” on the assumption that we are all special in some way, by virtue of being human.

From a purely scientific stand point, we are not special beyond our larger brains. But something in our reason tells us we are something more. And most scientists would probably agree with that.

So, when people talk about God as an equalizer, the being who loves us all, I feel a very similar association to our human reason.

And now I’m rambling far off topic…

(For the record: I’m currently an agnostic who was raised kind-of-Jewish)

Actually you touch one something that throws people. I will say it this way. It doesn’t matter what you call God, it is still God. If you want to refer the Him (Her, It, Am, whatever God is) as the Force, Allah, Nature, the Muse, etc. it’s all still God.

The problem with science and empiricism in general, is that science really just measures relationships. Because Event ‘A’, event ‘B’ happens. The problem is that unless you can know every single instance of the event ‘A’, event ‘B’ relationship, you cannot know it for certain. It sounds like semantics, but it is an important distinction philosophically. It means that people have to take these correlational relationships occurring reliably, on faith. You cannot know that every time you let go of a penny, it will fall…It’s a pretty safe assumption based on the history of penny dropping, but you can never know it for certain. Key word 'assumption…BTW, If you hold a penny and let it go, I bet you $1 million bucks it will fall.[/quote]

Good job. Now, replace the word “because” in the second sentence of the second paragraph with “when” and you would be completely correct.

13

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
There is nothing more “logical” about atheism than theism.

I might be able to prove you wrong.

Let’s try a transcendental argument for the existence of God:

P1: If God does not exist, moral facts do not exist
P2: Moral facts exist
C: Hence, God exists[/quote]

This is still a logical argument, even if the premises are wrong.

14

[quote]Gael wrote:
pat wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
BTW, only searching for the word “God” in our founding documents is horribly deceitful. The founders made TONS of references to a higher power, in different terminology. Creator, Lord, etc…

You’ll be very hard pressed to find great philosophers who did not have some concept that you could easily replace with the word “God”.

The founders based many of the ideas of “natural rights” on the assumption that we are all special in some way, by virtue of being human.

From a purely scientific stand point, we are not special beyond our larger brains. But something in our reason tells us we are something more. And most scientists would probably agree with that.

So, when people talk about God as an equalizer, the being who loves us all, I feel a very similar association to our human reason.

And now I’m rambling far off topic…

(For the record: I’m currently an agnostic who was raised kind-of-Jewish)

Actually you touch one something that throws people. I will say it this way. It doesn’t matter what you call God, it is still God. If you want to refer the Him (Her, It, Am, whatever God is) as the Force, Allah, Nature, the Muse, etc. it’s all still God.

The problem with science and empiricism in general, is that science really just measures relationships. Because Event ‘A’, event ‘B’ happens. The problem is that unless you can know every single instance of the event ‘A’, event ‘B’ relationship, you cannot know it for certain. It sounds like semantics, but it is an important distinction philosophically. It means that people have to take these correlational relationships occurring reliably, on faith. You cannot know that every time you let go of a penny, it will fall…It’s a pretty safe assumption based on the history of penny dropping, but you can never know it for certain. Key word 'assumption…BTW, If you hold a penny and let it go, I bet you $1 million bucks it will fall.

Good job. Now, replace the word “because” in the second sentence of the second paragraph with “when” and you would be completely correct.[/quote]

I like to take time out of the equation so nobody can go “quantum” on me.

15

[quote]Gael wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
There is nothing more “logical” about atheism than theism.

I might be able to prove you wrong.

Let’s try a transcendental argument for the existence of God:

P1: If God does not exist, moral facts do not exist
P2: Moral facts exist
C: Hence, God exists

This is still a logical argument, even if the premises are wrong.
[/quote]

Well, the premises (presuppositions, I’ll call them from here on out) are the crux of the entire thing. If you can maintain a consistent (non-contradictory) worldview while holding on to your presuppositions (i.e., there is no Creator God), then your worldview is likely true. If not, your worldview is not.

I maintain that without a creator God from which all morality flows, there is no reason we ought not put our newborns in a microwave something like that (hopefully, we all agree that putting your baby in a microwave is a Bad thing). I’m appealing to the existence of moral facts that I think everyone agrees on.

16

[quote]pat wrote:

You cannot know that every time you let go of a penny, it will fall…It’s a pretty safe assumption based on the history of penny dropping, but you can never know it for certain. Key word 'assumption…BTW, If you hold a penny and let it go, I bet you $1 million bucks it will fall.[/quote]

I’ll take that bet.

17

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
Gael wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
There is nothing more “logical” about atheism than theism.

I might be able to prove you wrong.

Let’s try a transcendental argument for the existence of God:

P1: If God does not exist, moral facts do not exist
P2: Moral facts exist
C: Hence, God exists

This is still a logical argument, even if the premises are wrong.

Well, the premises (presuppositions, I’ll call them from here on out) are the crux of the entire thing. If you can maintain a consistent (non-contradictory) worldview while holding on to your presuppositions (i.e., there is no Creator God), then your worldview is likely true. If not, your worldview is not.

I maintain that without a creator God from which all morality flows, there is no reason we ought not put our newborns in a microwave something like that (hopefully, we all agree that putting your baby in a microwave is a Bad thing). I’m appealing to the existence of moral facts that I think everyone agrees on. [/quote]

That depends on you’re definition of God. You’ll be hard pressed to find an atheist who doesn’t believe in innate human reason (with the obvious exception of hard core Aristotelians). If you mean God as in “higher being and creator,” then your argument, while logical, is not necessarily true.

18

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
Gael wrote:
PRCalDude wrote:
There is nothing more “logical” about atheism than theism.

I might be able to prove you wrong.

Let’s try a transcendental argument for the existence of God:

P1: If God does not exist, moral facts do not exist
P2: Moral facts exist
C: Hence, God exists

This is still a logical argument, even if the premises are wrong.

Well, the premises (presuppositions, I’ll call them from here on out) are the crux of the entire thing. If you can maintain a consistent (non-contradictory) worldview while holding on to your presuppositions (i.e., there is no Creator God), then your worldview is likely true. If not, your worldview is not.

I maintain that without a creator God from which all morality flows, there is no reason we ought not put our newborns in a microwave something like that (hopefully, we all agree that putting your baby in a microwave is a Bad thing). I’m appealing to the existence of moral facts that I think everyone agrees on.

That depends on you’re definition of God. You’ll be hard pressed to find an atheist who doesn’t believe in innate human reason (with the obvious exception of hard core Aristotelians). If you mean God as in “higher being and creator,” then your argument, while logical, is not necessarily true.
[/quote]

You’re committing a category error here. We’re not talking about “innate human reason,” because if it didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be able to have this discussion. We’re talking about the existence of moral facts - the things people know they ought or ought not do.

But since you brought that up, why do the laws of logic exist and how is human reason accounted for in the atheist theory of knowledge?

19

[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
There is nothing more “logical” about atheism than theism.

I might be able to prove you wrong.

Let’s try a transcendental argument for the existence of God:

P1: If God does not exist, moral facts do not exist
P2: Moral facts exist
C: Hence, God exists[/quote]

If not A, then not B

B.

Therefore A.

Is that your argument?

20

Because I can do that, too.

P1: If God does not exist, evil does not exist.
P2: Evil does exist.
C: Hence, God exists.

Substitute “nuclear weapons,” “abortion,” “Osama bin Laden,” “a 1978 Chevrolet Impala” or “chocolate easter bunnies” for “evil,” and the argument is just as valid.