Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
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Jesus said (and I am paraphrasing) If you had the faith of a mustered seed, you could move mountains. Please could someone get the correct quote out of the King James Bible and keep it in contacts.
So, I guess if you believe enough, then all these things can be done.
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So Philosophical Sceptism has absolute arguments which support it? If the reasoning behind my statements is only relative..what is the basis behind that argument behind my reasoning?
__________________ If knowledge is power..how come we have so many idiots in charge?!!
So who/what was Jesus implying that we have to have faith in?
Was he implying that by having faith in ourselves..we can do anything?
Or was he implying that by having faith in God's abilities..we can do anything?
Do you think Jesus believed that the truth was something that is just relative to man..or did he believe that the truth was something that is relative to God?
__________________ If knowledge is power..how come we have so many idiots in charge?!!
Last edited by whobdamandog on Dec 2nd, 2005 at 02:43 AM
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
There is no difference, I am God, or at least part of God. The only down side to this is, you are also God. There is a truth, but we cannot understand it. Thanks for the debate, and I wish you great happiness.
__________________ I play guitar, sing & write songs. Listen to my music HERE Or my new CD HERE
Sorry let me clarify..I mis-typed. What I'm asking is this.
Ush pointed out earlier that the "reasoning" behind my statements could be questioned by one who believes in Philosophical Skepticism. My response to you/or him is what basis do you have to determine this particular argument as being true. You follow?
__________________ If knowledge is power..how come we have so many idiots in charge?!!
Well, if we are all indeed God, then we should have the ability to understand all the mysteries of life..unfortunately..we do not. Good debating with you as well.
__________________ If knowledge is power..how come we have so many idiots in charge?!!
Gender: Male Location: Southern Oregon,
Looking at you.
That is the true aspect of my faith. I am part of God and therefore can know the true nature of reality. In the Lotus Sutra Buddha says that only Buddha’s can understand the truth aspect of nature, but then continues and explains the ten aspects. Why did he bother, if we can’t understand? The point is, we are all connected and we live in the true nature of reality. But this has nothing to do with 2 + 2 = 4 and 2 + 2 = 4 is nothing more than a model we have made to understand one aspect of nature. Math relates to the true nature of the universe like a clock relates to time. We know that clocks do not control time, so, don’t assume that math controls reality.
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Gender: Male Location: Dreaming...Or am I living...
Well... Nice tricky question here.
It is safe to assume that 2+2=4 simply because we have done enough trials in the past to make an extrapolation into the future.
Now This doen't nessasarily have to hold true in the future, but we can pretty safely assume that this will always be the case, but what is stopping it from changing? Nothing. Why couldn't tommorow 2+2=fish?? Logically right now that seems impossible, but what if instantaniously our logic changed around by some cataclismic force. Some could call it an act of God, but I would disagree, just some cataclismic force. Then 2+2 could equal fish or anything. And for all we know this could have already happened and we couldn't know, what if 1 second ago the universe reformed and made 2+2=4 and just changed all our memories (our brains are simply molocules after all) to reflect this?
But we can say that this happening could be safely disregared, for agruments sake.
Still numbers are only placeholders. We have assigned these numbers to represent what we belive to be some value or thing backing them up, but there isn't numbers are all theroretical, as are names. if you say you have 2 oranges, 2 is just a discription of what you see in front of you, same as oranges. You use the word Orange to discrbe the round fruit in front of you. But fruit is just a way to discribe a bunch of things that grow on trees, and this can go on infinitly.
So by this argument the number 2 is a written representation of our theroy of objects existing to lend evidence to the representation of the number, and so the circle goes.
By this argument 2+2=4 is just more representation of some experiment, but like US currency there is nothing to back it up except faith. The faith that the equation works, and the faith that you can buy stuff with a slip of paper that's not backed up by gold or any sort of hard currency, all faith. And don't try to bring a faith=god argument because faith is simply a nessisesity for not going insane because it is impossible to justify everything.
The idea that things can be doubted. But if you want to point out that that itself can be doubted also, then feel free- but that only feeds into their position, which is that nothing you say can convince them of the existence of an absolute because you might be mistaken.
As for this bit:
"So if an individual believes that
Their hand will not grow back after cutting it off..
Their hand will not burn if they stick it in the fire for ten minutes..
They can not fly if they jump out the window...
These beliefs make them delusional?
These beliefs are not tangible and do not exist as "Truths" in the real world?"
Well, I'm not really talking in that area because my relatavist and/or sceptic (and I feel I should point out that I am neither) doesn't actually 'believe' any of the above, he is just saying he can never be truly, 100% certain that any of the above won't happen, and even if they do it and it doesn't happen, that might just be their perceptions at fault.
But the whole point is this- if you try and use logical reasoning or a philisophical position to try and refute relatavism, a relatavist has only to adopt a position of scepticism and then there is nothing you can really say or do that will successfully undermine them. They will simply hold the position that everything you say might be void so none of it will convince them of an absolute.
What tpt says above is indeed correct- as I said, Maths only has absolute truths because it assumes that its own system of logic is correct. That assumption is based on faith. But it is still spectacularly useless to doubt it. But it isn't really Maths- or by the same basic principles of rationality and cause and effect you mentioned in the Evolution thread- that is making such an assumption; these assumptions necessary are those taken by just about everybody about everything else you could not practically exist.
And in answer to yout original question, our relatavist would just say that it has not been established for certain that 2 + 2 = 4 in the first place.
__________________
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Dec 2nd, 2005 at 09:24 AM
Firstly, there are no absolute truths whatsoever, only conditional and relative arising.
Secondly, numeric value and their meanings only exist inside our minds. Even Einstein said that mathematics does not conform to reality and vice versa.
The meaning of numbers, as with everything else, is all subjective.
Nobody can proof an absolute, as such an act would subject the absolute in question.
You've agreed that there is an "absolute" basis to "Philisophical Sceptism."
Math has truths..which can't be refuted.(this would make these truths absolute..)
So basically we're in agreement that "absolute truths" do exist within life. When you bring in the argument of "Philosphical Skepticism" and the reasoning behind my arguments..you are taking an "absolute" stance against them. You follow?
I'm glad we could have this discussion...:smile:
__________________ If knowledge is power..how come we have so many idiots in charge?!!
But that so-called absolute idea can be doubted, as my entire post went on to say and you simply ignored.
So no, your logic is in total failure here. Scepticism is the practice that completely undermines what you say- it is a belief that simply refutes all you are trying to stand for, no matter how much you try and smugly smile about it.
The entirity of your post above, a sceptic will simply ay you could be wrong about.
You cannot establish the existance of absolutes in that way. Any means you use to try and do it might be doubted. It is a premise you cannot establish.
__________________
"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
"You've never had any TINY bit of sex, have you?"
BtVS
Last edited by Ushgarak on Dec 2nd, 2005 at 05:06 PM
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Dec 2nd, 2005 02:34 AM
The only down side to this is, you are also God. There is a truth, but we cannot understand it. Thanks for the debate, and I wish you great happiness.
