That's a loaded comment, reality is most definitely not subjective, but our understanding of it is.  Our understanding of it is subjective and relative.  That is the reason why we need to constantly, empirically test claims against reality.  The issue arriving from that is, absolute knowledge.  What do you know absolutely?  In other words if EVERYTHING is subjective, how do you know that reality is what reality is?

Bob presented a very thoughtful comment on " cognito ergo sum", I forget the thread.  Or the one I like "dubito, ergo cognito, ergo sum".  The very basis of knowledge.  That really is your objective frame of reference.  You start from that and everything else is just increments of certainty.  You can be 99.999999999% sure of something else, but you cannot have ABSOLUTE knowledge of anything else.  Which is fine, we do not need 100% absolute knowledge of anything else to function.  

Comment to be continued when I have more time....

Marty,

 I think your example is funny, because on the way to work today, my speedometer read 53, with the cruise-control on, and the radar-speed sign said 49.  So which one was objective, which one was right? Probably neither.   I have no problem with objectivity, if you can actually find some.  I met a girl from Britain who had never heard of the Revolutionary War. She was taught that America started from  British colonies, but was not taught that England had lost any war over it.  History is often most subjective.

Joe

Joe,

both readings were objective data. Both were reasonably close approximations to the 'correct' figure. Neither was the precise, exact figure.

The two readings confirm that your speed was likely close to, perhaps a little below, 50mph. What is your problem?? The bigger the discrepancy, the more your concern and uncertainty would be justified.

You are making a really fundamental mistake, confusing finite levels of accuracy in specific physical instruments with inability to obtain truly 'objective' data. Take enough care, go to enough trouble in the design and construction of the instruments, we can increase the accuracy massively. None of this has anything to do with subjectivity.

Objective, empirical data always is going to have an error range, a finite degree of precision. That's the thing about REALITY, we can never now it perfectly, it has layers upon layers of complexity, down to atoms and quarks, way below what we can perceive, whereas what we dream up in our imagination is much more limited. Our subjective ideas are cartoon-like in comparison to reality, with no real depth.

Perfect knowledge does not exist, except in the delusion of metaphysics, or the nonsense of Platonic Idealism.

Estimating the likely accuracy of any data is an essential part of understanding reality. We do not have access to ultimate truth, whatever that really means.

Same with history. Of course there is human error and misconception. But we do know with a rather high degree of confidence the broad sweep of it, while there is more uncertainty about the details.

What is funny about such comments from a believer, is that Biblical 'history' is extremely uncertain, and almost entirely subjective, especially the supernatural bits.

So by a logical extension of your comments, your belief is built on the sand of total subjective fantasy and wishful thinking. 'Faith' is the ultimate in subjectivity.

 

^ jean makes a funny. It's not funny to him, but it's funny to the rest of us who think. If christians were really responsible for science, instead of inhibiting it for dozens of generations, we'd have colonised Mars by now.
He also doesn't know what objective means, so of course he believes only his subjective views are objective. Many lulz were had.

Theists like objectivity very much. Theistic Realism says that a Perfect Being creating the universe is something that can be empirically proven and objectively proven to be true. Dawkins stated, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." However, for a Theistic realist, they complicated organisms or what not are seen as to having design because they have objectively found evidence that supports design. For example, the complicated machine of the flagellum is a sum of parts that create the propellor-like engine. A mouse trap has several parts that function to catch pesky rodents. If one of these parts are taken away (platform, hammer, etc.), then this mouse trap is no longer capable of carrying out its function. The flagellum is the same thing, because the parts must be together and functioning in their individual places and functions. If not, this flagellum would not function as the device that makes these microbes mobile, which then means death of the microbes or what not. 

Also, what do you think about the scientist putting a single-cell in a "perfect environment" inside of a test tube, and then breaking it open. The parts of a cell are all there, clearly, and no matter how long it stays there, humpty-dumpty will never be put back together again. Unless, some sort of force that is not supposed to be there comes out of the nothingness. That something has to be something supernatural, because anything natural would not make any sense in the nothingness. A mouse trap's hammer will never become a mouse trap on its own. 
 

 

I totally agree.

Our history is so sugar coated with garbage.

"The pilgrims came over here to escape religious tyranny"

NO, they came over here to set up their own tribal clicks. Freedom of religion didn't start until the signing of the Constitution, First Amendment and bill of rights because of people like Thomas Paine and Jefferson and the age of enlightenment in spite of the theocratic pilgrims.

"We settled America".

NO, we fucking invaded it and ran the people living in it off their land.

And that too. The idiots who think America won those wars by themselves are morons. There is a reason it is called a WORLD WAR, because the world was involved.

"The pledge says under God"

BUT WE DID NOT ALWAYS HAVE A FUCKING PLEDGE, and when we finally did the original did NOT contain "under God" because the guy who wrote it intended it for EVERYONE.

"In God We Trust"

Again, was not put on money from the onset, it was first put on coins in the late 1800s but not all coins, and did not get put on all money until the 1950s. And even then it was a clear violation of government favoring Christianity over all others because even the legislation with the coins, was written by Christians solely to promote Christianity.

"Christian nation"

BULL SHIT! Freedom of religion does not constitute a theocracy. Our freedom on the issue of religion DEPENDS on government staying neutral on the issue.

"As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion" Article 11 Barbary Treaty, signed without dissent by both houses of congress, June 10th 1797 by President John Adams.

Backed up by "No religious test" in the requirements of the oath of office, and backed up by the establishment clause in the First Amendment.

Our country severely lacks civics history and is peddled utopia Christian garbage.

EDIT, and our congress from day one didn't give a shit about December 25th as a public holiday for 67 years. That crap started AFTER the original founders long since left office and died. I doubt any of the founders would have wanted a public holiday over such a divisive issue that they knew was best left up to the individual.

 

 

 

No, what you have done is mentally filled a gap with your own whim by assuming.

Not knowing something only means you don't know something, "super natural" does not define anything. There are plenty of things in the past that humans chalked up to the "super natural" that we know now have natural explanations.

That "something" does not have to be a thinking thing or super natural. Even Stephen Hakwins says that a god is not required to explain anything about life or the universe.

Do we know what came before the big bang, before the "singularity", no. But since those two events were not shaped like a brain nor did they function like a brain, they cannot  be considered to have the same ability of a brain.

Science continues to work on solving what came before, but the scientists who do that are not postulating a magical super brain with a magic wand.

That would be like saying a tire can be the entire car at the same time. Or the tire doesn't exist because we cant see the air in it.

God claims however, new age woo or old myth, come from our natural flaw as a species in the fact that far too often we default to filling in the gap rather than test to insure quality of data.

 

Yep. Agreed.

The absence of God would make it HARDER to speak about objective, absolute truth.

Science / laws of nature which give meaning to "stuff" wouldnt conform to anything - they wouldnt need to. Chaos theory wouldnt even exist because in order to perceive chaos you need a datum - order.

Objective morality - pretty fundamental to most common theistic ethics - wouldnt exist. And optional/subjective morals actually nulify the very word "morality".

...in much the same way as an infinite number of definitions of marriage nulify the concept of marriage. (square circles anyone?) 

 

 

Yeah, He could, sure.

If He wanted to.

Who says God lacks consciousness? Atheists deny His existence, but for the sake of THIS argument can't you at least grant the concession that designer is aware of what He is doing?

 

You just got through saying order is a prerequisite for complexity. Surely, agreed moral precepts are part of what allows this complex system (humanity) to function. And why do you insert the notion of dictatorship? That's unusual from coming from you. In my theology, just as in your "atheology," - for want of a convenient term - humans WANT to follow accepted moral precepts.

 

Agreed.

 

Nope. Your definition of religion describes it that way. But you have to concede religion, even if it WAS perverse, is virtually universal and thus far...persistent. Darwinian evolutionary biology certainly doesnt seem to object to it.  

 

This is just opinion you realise. Interesting. And some of it seems intuitively right. But we dont KNOW that evolution "requires" a balance of "order" and "randomness" - abstract/metaphysical terms to say the least.

What's that thing they say about quantum mechanics?

...A fuzzy view of a clear reality or a clear view of a fuzzy reality...

By all means we can speculate and philosophize about "static sterile reality" but we arent... THERE ...yet. If anything, it seems to me that we are getting further and further away. Model-dependent theories of reality (M-theory) etc.

 

BTW - I enjoy reading your posts.

I agree with you that G-d is not a Cosmic Puppet Master who randomly violates whatever Laws of Nature you seem to be regarding as "Reality".  Glad we agree that at least Cosmic Puppet Master Strawgod is dead.

Should that be taken as some kind of "proof" of the non-existence of god and/or gods, or only as proof that the Cosmic Puppet Master Strawgod is dead?  I often lose track of the number of false gods which are created and destroyed by Atheists who seem to never lack for straw, but often lack for Logic.

The Law of Gravity does not care if you believe in it or not, but I assure you, Gravity will send you just as quickly to the grave should you reject it as the claims of Exclusivist Religions insist you will be consigned to some form of Hell should you reject them.  Nature is no less harsh an Ultimate and Final Judge as the Bearded Old White Guys which some insist are seated on thrones, casting Non-Believers into fiery pits of Hell.  You accept one, and reject all manner of the other.

Having rejected the notion of any sort of Divine Lawgiver, you appeal to Empathy and Compassion as the source Morality, without having anything as unforgiving as the source of the Law of Gravity for its enforcement.

I assure you that nothing in Nature requires Empathy and Compassion.  The lion gives not a single care about the "feelings" of a gazelle when it rips out its throat prior to turning it into lunch.  I have watched animals stalk and kill other animals.  Empathy and Compassion are not properties of the Natural World.  In Exodus 23:9, we are commanded to have Empathy and Compassion, properties which Nature -- the very Nature you worship as your god -- refuses to do anything to command.  The god you worship is truly and completely silent on the very things you claim "drive" moral behavior.  The snake eats the mouse whole, and having see the look on the face of a mouse about to be turned into a snack, it is not one I'd associate with an act of Empathy or Compassion.  Your god commands neither empathy nor compassion, and yet you appeal to both, where at least my G-d has commanded us to behave in that manner.

I think I'll stick with my G-d and leave you to yours.

Ah, Yin and Yang.  I recognize that.  You have a future as a Taoist.

Should you ever decide that Empathy and Compassion require something more than Wishful Thinking for their enforcement as "laws", you might have a future as a Theist of some sort.

I find it ironic that the folk who emphasize empiricism, Baconian principles, scientism, and so forth, dont seem to understand or can't relate to the concept of a divine, supreme Being as He applies to what science would call a "datum" or base line.

Notions such as;

- objective morality,

- absolute truth,

- justice, 

- human rights,

- etc

...seem to BEG for a universal yardstick, an umpire, an absolute zero against which the empirically-minded human can assess them.

 

Well, that's sort of assuming the conclusion.

There is a "natural source" of "scientific law" -- you drop a rock, it hits the ground, floor or your toe.  And yet, when people here say "I want a secular society in which XYZ values are present", there's either some claim that the "XYZ values" are "good" or should be "universal" or something else of that sort -- I see a lot of "empathy and compassion" types of claims.

Yet, the basic laws of Nature are that big animals eat little animals and they don't give a flip.  Do you think that's the right approach for human beings?  Might makes right, eat the poor, kill grandma, turn fat people into biodiesel to power my HumVee?

I didn't mean =literally= eating the poor.  I'm talking about the way the current financial upper-class has decided that they can screw over whomever they can screw over, all in the pursuit of a larger pile of money.  Soylent Green is still just a movie, though I'm sure some American Conservatives have their plans ...

Back to my comment --

I'm sure that "We" are strongest when some of "We" are forced by "something" to give "Our" stuff to "Those People".

When I look at the writings of people like Locke or Jefferson, I don't exactly see Atheists.  If your "All indications from nature suggest we are strongest when working together" is true, the source of that "truth" is something other than "Nature" because all indications from "Nature" are that "Might makes right".  A bull moose really =will= kill for the right to mate with whatever females are in the herd.  A lion really =will= kill the off-spring of another lion in the pride.  That's what "Nature" has to say on the subject.

I know this thread is bouncing around but I am glad you brought up Jefferson. Even on the issue of economics Jefferson was not a "Libertarian" on all issues. I am sure he would have been a social Libertarian, but most certainly he wouldn't have been a Soviet Communist, or a Chinese socialist, but he wouldn't be for the abuse of money in politics we have today.

He got burned by banks and died broke. He valued private business by he was most certainly for checks and balances even in the private sector. Something lost on people like Beyond.

 

Dont call me intellectually dishonest.

Nothing I posted above rests on something I can't/dont completely stand by.

It's not some throwaway statement about "objective morality" that I would/could only ever make to an atheist while nobody else was listening.  In fact the same reasoning applies to disputes BETWEEN THEISTS about morailty.  

It applies in business managment heirarchies where disputes are arbitrated by a higher authority.

It applies among primate groups which rely on an Alpha Male.

It applies on the sporting field when an objective umpire is listening to both sides arguing whether a rule was or wasnt broken.

 

...I'm beginning to get the idea that atheists have an ulterior motive for denying the value/existence of a Higher Objective Authority

 

Furthermore, none of your supposed examples of objectivity are valid.

"It applies in business managment heirarchies where disputes are arbitratedby a higher authority."

The higher authority is subjective to the higher authority.

"It applies among primate groups which rely on an Alpha Male"

The alpha male is subjective to the alpha male.

"It applies on the sporting field when an objective umpire is listening to both sides arguing whether a rule was or wasnt broken."

The umpire is subjective to the umpire.