This is a whole other issue - how employees can regulate their employees lives outside of work. I don't think they should be allowed to at all. Terms of employment should not be applicable to anything outside of work. If they dismiss someone for this, they should immediately lose all federal and state funding and have to pay him his salary until he gets a new job and pay back every cent they got from the state and federal government in the last year.

Quote:

Do you not understand what the word "or" means when given a list of requirements.  It meants "one or the other" or could mean "both."

Wrong again.

'Or' always means one or the other. 'And' would be what we use wen being all inclusive. Using 'or' when trying to be all inclusive leads to different connotations.

Example:

'Zebras are black and white,' (Suggesting both colors are present)

'Zebras are black or white,' (Suggesting Zebras can be one color or the other)

'Proof' is a mathematical term. It doesn't apply outside mathematics at all. Unless your dealing with numbers, asking for a 'proof' of anything is spouting gibberish.

I think the only reason "strong" atheism is considered a weak philosophical position is because 

"god" can be defined and re-defined to be what the hell ever you want it to be. How can one be sure that something so amorphous does not exist?

[...]

I'm not a "strong" atheist because... well, because I'm lazy. I don't' want to have to sift through the huge piles of god definitions to come up with an argument that backs my position. "No evidence means I don't see a need to care about it" works as well and it's a whole lot easier.

A)The bank's 'counter-evidence' is evidence of absence. Your lack of evidence to support your claim is absence of evidence. These two things are not equivalent.

B)When you stop getting liquid out of your glass, that is evidence of absence. It is not absence of evidence.

C)One would presume you look under the bed, which, once again, provides evidence of absence. Prior observation of this state, combined with no new evidence to contradict it, means that when you looked under your bed at 3 years old, there was the evidence of absence that is still valid today.

Again, this is why semantics matter. Absence of evidence is simply no evidence to support a claim. It is NOT evidence to disprove a claim.

Until one was caught in the 1930s, there was no evidence that coelacanths continued to exist as anything more than fossils. At that point, there was an absence of evidence. There was not, however, evidence of absence, as was made abundantly clear when one was caught in a fishing net.

Evidence of Absence is something that actively shows something is not presence. Example: A litmus test that would show the presence of acid not doing so. Fire suddenly going out when placed in atmospheric conditions where the presence of oxygen is questionable.

Absence of Evidence is simply a lack of anything that actively shows that something is present. Example: Nobody spotting a certain type of fish.

Absence of Evidence, combined with conjecture and inference, can give us high enough probability of absence that we need not presume presence, but it is not, and never will be, evidence of absence.

Oh, WOW, BMcD! Look at how terribly wrong you are!

'...A lack of sabotage doesn't prove that no Fifth Column exists.  Absence of proof is not proof of absence.  In logic, A->B, "A implies B", is not equivalent to ~A->~B, "not-A implies not-B".

But in probability theory, absence of evidence is always evidence of absence.   If E is a binary event and P(H|E) > P(H), "seeing E increases the probability of H"; then P(H|~E) < P(H), "failure to observe E decreases the probability of H".  P(H) is a weighted mix of P(H|E) and P(H|~E), and necessarily lies between the two.  If any of this sounds at all confusing, see An Intuitive Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning.

Under the vast majority of real-life circumstances, a cause may not reliably produce signs of itself, but the absence of the cause is even less likely to produce the signs.  The absence of an observation may be strong evidence of absence or very weak evidence of absence, depending on how likely the cause is to produce the observation.  The absence of an observation that is only weakly permitted (even if the alternative hypothesis does not allow it at all), is very weak evidence of absence (though it is evidence nonetheless).  This is the fallacy of "gaps in the fossil record" - fossils form only rarely; it is futile to trumpet the absence of a weakly permitted observation when many strong positive observations have already been recorded.  But if there are no positive observations at all, it is time to worry; hence the Fermi Paradox.

Your strength as a rationalist is your ability to be more confused by fiction than by reality; if you are equally good at explaining any outcome you have zero knowledge.  The strength of a model is not what it can explain, but what it can't, for only prohibitions constrain anticipation.  If you don't notice when your model makes the evidence unlikely, you might as well have no model, and also you might as well have no evidence; no brain and no eyes.'

 

(Feel free to cease derailing the thread with shitty and incorrect arguments at your nearest convenience, thanks).

DeludedGod wrote:

At any rate, all material interactions and processes as we understand them are the result of the interaction you described. But the second half of the post seemed primarily concerned with the problem of personal identity.

It was not clear what precisely you meant by the point that sentience belongs to the universe. What do you mean to state that this property belongs to something? If material processes result from interactions within a Bosonic field (which they do) then where the distribution of information within the field causes the material process as observed, then all the properties of material objects themselves, and their processes, result, however indirectly from QM .But what you were essentially doing, therefore, was drawing an analogy. To state that two processes are analogous and that, as a result, if one process has some property, the other process must have the same property, is a non sequitur.

It seemed that the primary implication of the principle being advocated was that personal identity is a problematic process, because material objects are not composed of immutable substances which are distinct from their external world.

You need to decide what you are talking about. This debate is not about the philosophical problem of personal identity.

How's the weather in Australia, by the way?

 the primary description we have of God in most theologies is that man is In His Image.

I disagree with that. If someone is convicted of a crime that's different. If they aren't convicted a business needs to abide by innocent to proven guilty anyway.

By the way battered women's shelters are usually run by volunteers and it's extremely unlikely an abusive man would even go for it even if it was a job - it doesn't pay well and requires a temperment that type of man couldn't handle. Some of them only have women working because of what the women there can take.

A very left leaning socialist leaning toward communist who thinks private ownership of business should generally be illegal here.

Quote:

A very left leaning socialist leaning toward communist who thinks private ownership of business should generally be illegal here.

Dear Mr. Pinko-Scum,

I respectfully disagree with your positions.

Signed,

Capitalist Pig

 

Since, in this thread, Kevin and I have resurrected the topics introduced in our debate and it's pretty obvious that my personal beliefs are based on a very Quantum worldview of physical models that most people are not the first bit familiar with, for all who are interested this blog presented by the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University is an extensive but very informative background read which should help you to understand my arguments much better.

 

Suppose that someone built an exact duplicate of you on Mars, quark by quark - to the maximum level of resolution that quantum physics permits, which is considerably higher resolution than ordinary thermal uncertainty.  Would the duplicate be really you, or just a copy?

Since, in this thread, Kevin and I have resurrected the topics introduced in our debate and it's pretty obvious that my personal beliefs are based on a very Quantum worldview of physical models that most people are not the first bit familiar with, for all who are interested this blog presented by the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University is an extensive but very informative background read which should help you to understand my arguments much better.

HisWillness wrote:

Saying "God doesn't have to follow math" is a new rule, simply drawn from the infinite number of possible permutations of attributes that an arbitrarily defined creature could have. You have produced a new zero.

                Sounds absolutely cosmic.    Will.....have you been eating mushrooms again ?

 

Was that trippy? Maybe I've been reading too much Joyce.

To all of you:

Quote:

(Feel free to cease derailing the thread with [tangential] and incorrect arguments at your nearest convenience, thanks).

Except, of course, that your example actually supports my case, not yours: Gaps in the fossil record. Gaps in the fossil record is an example of 'absence of evidence', not 'evidence of absence'.

Claiming that a lack of evidence is proof...

...lack of sabotage doesn't prove that no Fifth Column exists.  Absence of proof is not proof of absence [And that's perfectly fine, since it's not what I was arguing].  In logic, A->B, "A implies B", is not equivalent to ~A->~B, "not-A implies not-B".

But in probability theory, absence of evidence is always evidence of absence [...So you'll have to explain to me: How does this statement support your argument, again?].   If E is a binary event and P(H|E) > P(H), "seeing E increases the probability of H"; then P(H|~E) < P(H), "failure to observe E decreases the probability of H".  P(H) is a weighted mix of P(H|E) and P(H|~E), and necessarily lies between the two.  If any of this sounds at all confusing, see An Intuitive Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning.

You can't give a single example of evidence that would have to exist if God does

When it comes to accurately modeling the existence of the divine, you do, as you indicated, have zero knowledge. Only likelihoods.

There's that 'proof' word again. Expect we're dealing with evidence, not proof. Allow me to highlight something for you, since apparently you need to be spoonfed your data:

The absence of proof is not proof of absence.

...You mean evidence, I assume? And yes, absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Example:

'God' is a crap concept. There no way it could possibly exist

Correct. Which is why it's unfair to argue from ignorance and simply state, 'Oh, yeah, Achilles was probably real. Y'know... just a tough guy, or something,'

Fair enough.  But what you contesting is that:

The fact that we would recognize the myths as erroneous, but not the figure central to them, is borderline lunacy (...at least it's not total lunacy).

i.e., that the "figure central to them" is not real.

The absence of proof is not proof of absence.

(...This is a curious thing for someone claiming not to be a theist to say)

 - An all-powerful, all loving God that answers prayers should have demonstratable effect on said prayers.

 - An all-powerful, all loving God should have created a universe devoid of suffering.

 - An instantaneous creation event that created every single organism in one shot should be obvious from the fossil record.

...I'm sure people can think of others. Feel free to read the many articles of Todangst for further enlightenment.

'Crap' concept . . . . it isn't even defined.

Especially when you cannot give an example of what evidence would be necessitated if a cause were true. You can't give a single example of evidence that would have to exist if God does, which means you can't give a single solid example of the evidence that's missing.

When it comes to accurately modeling the existence of the divine, you do, as you indicated, have zero knowledge. Only likelihoods.

The same can be said for any numbers of things. Given a high enough probability, it's sensible to say at that point, 'Okay. We more or less no for sure that this is how this things works.'

We've been knocking God off the list of a variety of things we used to think he did over the centuries, until now we've finally reached the point where attributing anything to God now is simply senseless. If we have the knowledge now that we did in times of antiquity, God would never even have been concieved of in the first place.

By your standards, no person employed by the university has a right to free speech, no person inside the university has a right to protest, no person inside the universty has a right to vote or engage in political discourse, etc. You're giving Catholics their special pleading on a silver platter and waving through their free pass on issues they happen to find offensive once again.

It definately does not exist if you can't define it.

Once again.. you're changing the argument you started off with.  "Can't" and "is not," are different phrases with different implications. (You originally contested that God, as a concept, absolutely does not exist.. "it isn't even defined.&quot.

And if everyone took your lazy approach?

'Ah, whatever. Probably God did it.'

How could you possibly argue that this wouldn't be an impediment to progress?

Because I could still ask the question "how?"

The fact that we would recognize the myths as erroneous, but not the figure central to them, is borderline lunacy (...at least it's not total lunacy).

i.e., that the "figure central to them" is not real.

The absence of proof is not proof of absence.

It's the weakest of apologetics; because you've cherry-picked this particular piece of insanity out of your view, you think the overall scheme (which includes it) is reasonable, because any true Christian would do the same.

Um.. no, I never said that.  I merely responded for myself and other Christians that think like me.  No more or less.  Many denominations, however, do profess, I believe, a "non transubstantiation" perspective on the aforementioned act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transubstantiation#Views_of_other_Churches_on_transubstantiation

No, it can't.

The reason dictionaries give you different definitions is that each one it provides is specific. See: Grade 1 English.

You fail to understand that when I said "two ways," I was not suggesting that the dictionary's definition was not specific, but rather that it intentionally used the disjunctive "or" as to make the word apply to two very specific scenarios (or three, if you count "both" as one).

See: Grade 5 English.

'Or' always means one or the other. 'And' would be what we use wen being all inclusive. Using 'or' when trying to be all inclusive leads to different connotations.

Example:

'Zebras are black and white,' (Suggesting both colors are present)

'Zebras are black or white,' (Suggesting Zebras can be one color or the other)

Example:
I cannot teach english or math.

So I guess that means that I can't teach english.. or I can't teach math.. since obviously "or" requires one at the exclusion of the other.

Of course, you're a dishonest twat, so you decided to derail the discussion into a semantics argument about the word 'thing'.

And you're a petulant ignoramus.

?  Did that aid the discussing in anyway  ?

As for your statement that followed the personal attack, I didn't derail anything.

One of the major issues, original issue:

"There no way it could possibly exist; it isn't even defined."

Response:

"Something that is not defined cannot be said to not exist.  See: Thing."

Your response:

"Thing is a categorical label, it does not exist."

My response:

"Thing may be a categorical label, but it can be used to refer to something specific, although not precisely described, therefore, how can you say that it doesn't exist without further context?"

Hypothetical conclusion:

"You're right, thing can refer to something specific that does exist, although that is not precisely described.  Therefore, I cannot have said that "thing" does not exist without further definition or reference as to what thing I was talking about.  In the same way, I cannot say "God" does not exist without referring to a particular definition of God."

Or, you could have just corrected your original statement:

"God CAN'T be defined."

Which would be a different argument entirely.. but not what you said.

    See? You're just a fucking moron.

    There's your problem right there.

    'Proof' is a mathematical term. It doesn't apply outside mathematics at all. Unless your dealing with numbers, asking for a 'proof' of anything is spouting gibberish.