DoubtingThomas

You claimed it was paradoxically illogical to keep using logic to persuade. I put forward the proposition that, excepting for style, all attempts to persuade (intentional or not) were logic and reason based. In other words, I believe I was supporting your proposition. I'm talking about the explicit verbal appeal to another person's logic as a tactic, in contrast to other approaches, regardless if they involve reason in some other way. And all of those approaches (if they impart virtue) are anchored in logic and reason. Hence the contradiciton.

It is entirely relavent to the point because you are depicting for us exactly how you envision this exchange. I don't know why you would start another thread to deal with this. I think we can make our points in a few more posts each. I'd be equally curious to know what a self-proclaimed theist has to say about the thing I described. Given the infinite number of things you could ask for, there's no reason to assume anyone is a 0%'er.

I was almost certain the claim being made was exactly what you said it isn't. ie. That pre-historic theories are as good as history (something Joe is guilty of quite often in his drug talks), that by extension we missed a golden age of "chillin', takin' shrooms, and just relaxin' bro." I'm sure there are a lot of interesting theories about the development of homo sapiens; however, not even stoned ape theory requires the socialist paradigm that was being introduced by Joe here. Frankly, I have no issue with him hyping drugs. His body, his audience's bodies, his and their choice. But, when he talks out of his ass about history, pre-history, economics, and sociology... I have to take umbrage.

I defined what I was asking for, just like you said. "What % likelihood do you believe there is that X, defined as [here you define what you're asking about], exists?" If you can't see the similarity, i'll reformat more precisely: What % likelihood do you believe there is that X, defined as an all-powerful, all-loving, infinite, invisible, and unknowable, exists?

You claimed it was paradoxically illogical to keep using logic to persuade. I put forward the proposition that, excepting for style, all attempts to persuade (intentional or not) were logic and reason based. In other words, I believe I was supporting your proposition.

Ok, let's start with you then. I believe there is a __ % chance that ___________ exists. I define ___________ as ________________________________________________________________. I describe myself as a _____________. Cleansed of all those defined words, we have a madlib. I don't know what there is for me to disagree with, frankly. If you think the above madlib style produces anything like meaningful "data," then you will have to define what you mean by "meaningful data." But, I know how you feel about definitions. I made clear around a dozen times that you must first define what you're asking about. The question you ask is "What % likelihood do you believe there is that X, defined as [here you define what you're asking about], exists?" It is the questioner who defines what they're asking about to make sure that the answer they get is actually what they're after. Rather than just asking someone "Are you an atheist?" or "Do you believe in God?" you ask it the way I said there and you are going to get more precise answers. Do you believe in an omniscient, all-loving, all-powerful, invisible, unknowable being in the universe? If so, what is your certainty of this thing? In either case, what do you call yourself, based on this belief (or lack there of)?

I don't see a fundamental diffirence between these three examples. Reasoning by way of rhetorical argument and telling a moral story are essentially one in the say, you have examples of virtue and not-virtue and in either case they can be literally true or not. They are simply there as a device to convey meaning. Similarly, leading by example is essentially acting out the former two or doing one's best to emulate the qualities one would present as reasonable. In either case there is a rational motive, to supply some instruction on reason and virtue, but the two examples you gave don't necessarily require one to be acting in a persuasive manner. A story might be interesting and circumstantially reasonable. A parent being watched by a child may have no idea he or she is being watched and simply impart virtue unknowingly. Reasoning by way of rhetorical argument is explicitly giving someone the premises and conclusion. Telling a moral story or role modeling involves demonstration without necessarily explicitly revealing premises and conclusions. Thus they are different and affect people in different ways. In certain situations one may be more effective than the other. I don't think I commented on the effect of stylistic diffirences. All I meant to point out was that your examples were all fundamentally intentional or unintentional use of reason. We've already covered here the difference behind reason being involved in the actor's motivation vs. reason as the explicit verbal method of communication in an attempt to persuade. Or reason, as in, logic and reason. Not necessarily persuasive.

Ok, let's start with you then. I believe there is a __ % chance that ___________ exists. I define ___________ as ________________________________________________________________. I describe myself as a _____________. Cleansed of all those defined words, we have a madlib. I don't know what there is for me to disagree with, frankly. If you think the above madlib style produces anything like meaningful "data," then you will have to define what you mean by "meaningful data." But, I know how you feel about definitions.

I don't see a fundamental diffirence between these three examples. Reasoning by way of rhetorical argument and telling a moral story are essentially one in the say, you have examples of virtue and not-virtue and in either case they can be literally true or not. They are simply there as a device to convey meaning. Similarly, leading by example is essentially acting out the former two or doing one's best to emulate the qualities one would present as reasonable. In either case there is a rational motive, to supply some instruction on reason and virtue, but the two examples you gave don't necessarily require one to be acting in a persuasive manner. A story might be interesting and circumstantially reasonable. A parent being watched by a child may have no idea he or she is being watched and simply impart virtue unknowingly. Reasoning by way of rhetorical argument is explicitly giving someone the premises and conclusion. Telling a moral story or role modeling involves demonstration without necessarily explicitly revealing premises and conclusions. Thus they are different and affect people in different ways. In certain situations one may be more effective than the other. I don't think I commented on the effect of stylistic diffirences. All I meant to point out was that your examples were all fundamentally intentional or unintentional use of reason.

Actually i'm just evaluating statements rationally based on literal definitions. If you, as you have, want to insist on changing definitions or not being concerned with them, you are free to argue about super-human things and what percentage we believe in our own idea of super-human-things. I simply ask that you stop misusing words for which we already have definitions. But many - even most people out there - do NOT evaluate statements rationally based on literal definitions. So if you want to know what they believe you cannot just assume what they mean by a word is the same as you mean when you use it. I get the idea that you have little interest in knowing what those people believe. I and some others do. So if you are not interested in accurately assessing their beliefs, this discussion really isn't very relevant for you. If you are then it will be crucial to work as hard as you can to clarify what people mean rather than simply focus on being frustrated that they are using words in ways you deem incorrect. You make a strong case that most people are ignorant of the definitions; however, that's clearly not the case on this forum so I don't believe that's a fair point. I want as much to understand their meaning as you; however, you are repeatedly coming back to your mis-use of words (like atheist) and follow with complaints related to being called on that mis-use of the word. If you want to clarify what you mean, or simply make up a term for it, by all means do so. Just stop taking words we do know and re-tooling them to fit your arguments.

I don't see a fundamental diffirence between these three examples. Reasoning by way of rhetorical argument and telling a moral story are essentially one in the say, you have examples of virtue and not-virtue and in either case they can be literally true or not. They are simply there as a device to convey meaning. Similarly, leading by example is essentially acting out the former two or doing one's best to emulate the qualities one would present as reasonable. In either case there is a rational motive, to supply some instruction on reason and virtue, but the two examples you gave don't necessarily require one to be acting in a persuasive manner. A story might be interesting and circumstantially reasonable. A parent being watched by a child may have no idea he or she is being watched and simply impart virtue unknowingly.

The world is a scary place. Lets say I let you out of your cage and stop feeding you thin gruel tomorrow. What are the possible problems you might run into on your own? You might get mugged. You might skin your knee on a rock. I know it's hard to predict, but I would be interested in the possible problems involved with not keeping you caged in my basement.

Actually i'm just evaluating statements rationally based on literal definitions. If you, as you have, want to insist on changing definitions or not being concerned with them, you are free to argue about super-human things and what percentage we believe in our own idea of super-human-things. I simply ask that you stop misusing words for which we already have definitions.

Accepting that theism implies contradictory premises is all that has to be "believed." Since that's a pre-requisite (a == a && a != !a) for all rational thought, I don't think it matters one iota what percentage one wants to put behind their conviction. My point is that it's a completel waste to ignore the fact that by-definition theism is a non-starter: Something is everywhere all the time != Something is unknowable and undetectable (ever) : Implies that the speaker knows about the entire future of human knowledge. Something is unknowable != We know something about it (theology) : Obvious contradiction. Theism is not Deism. Atheism is not Adeism.

No, it's pretty simple. Theism: A personal god that governs the universe infinitely and unknowably. Athism: No personal god that governs the universe infinitely and unknowably. If you do not define god as the personal, universe governing, unknowable, all powerful entity, you are not a theist, you are an atheist. If god is only subjective, which is what you're describing, and everyone can define it as they so please: then we have no objective thing to debate about. Giving a percentage of certainty in god as me and my dog (100%) vs. you and the flying spaghetti monster (5%) is meaningless. I have no idea what you mean. If you can define god in any way you want, then i'm 100% in belief of this thing you call god because it is whatever I want it to be. Personally, I think that's a misuse of the word and frankly I could care less what other people believe about their own made-up "god," so long as they do not follow a personal, infinite, religion god as a theist. Math was your word, not mine. You stated that god is whatever people say god is. I say I am god and so is my dog. I am 100% certain that I exist and that my dog exists, therefor I am 100% certain that your "god," exists. I just gave an accurate rendition of what you were asking people to report about their beliefs. Do you not agree that it is absurd?

In that case, the conclusions reached from your arguments will only be applicable to yourself, since others have a different sum of experiences. If your personal experience includes noticing that the scientific method makes it possible to know which theories have predictive power, then your method becomes more useful. Exactly /emoticons/emotion-1.gif So which is it? My use of the word "but" is probably the source of the confusion. I didn't mean "but, alternatively". I meant "but, additionally". I've removed the word "but" from the quoted copy above, to see if that makes my intended meaning more clear. Moncaloono says that he argues from the sum of his experience of reality. I commented that this will be more productive if his experience of reality includes the experience that "the scientific method is useful". Moncaloono agreed. So I think he interpreted my post as I had intended it. I don't agree that the "sum of my experience," can be said to encompass empiricism unless I carry out the tests and do all the math myself. Even a computer doing the work would render it problematic, unless I wrote the code. Perhaps Moncaloono would like to further describe the philosophy from which he gains so much pride? On a related note, I also fail to see the claimed correlation with UPB.

The lizard overlords will be pleased.

Atheism is the negation of theism. It's not a difficult word to parse. Furthermore, if you can't define god, then you can't give any certainty to it's existence. If god can be ANYTHING. 100% certainty. I could be god. My dog could also be god. Perhaps we're both god. Or you could simply define god as the theists do: infinite, all knowing, unknowable, invincible, everything, always, all at once, etc. By this absurd definition we can easily realize that he probability of this thing is zero. It is a description of somthing that can never be observed, can not exist in the universe, and does not fit any defintion of "existence." By your "math," we are all practicing polytheists.

That about sums it up. The vast majority of the "new atheist" movement is sympathetic to socialism, if not an advocate for some re-brand of the communist utopia. Of course this isn't suprising. They are children and chief beneficiaries of the state. Most are highly "educated," and well on their way to tenure or public research grants and have not had the first thought which was not fed to them through the channel of a fellow academic statist. They buck religion only because their professors questioned religion and because they view religion as being an inferior and defunct state apparatus from which they cannot gain. The vast majority of them have "skills," which are entirely predicated on the state apparatus.

In that case, the conclusions reached from your arguments will only be applicable to yourself, since others have a different sum of experiences. But if your personal experience includes noticing that the scientific method makes it possible to know which theories have predictive power, then your method becomes more useful. Exactly /emoticons/emotion-1.gif So which is it?

That certainly clarifies your meaning. I can't find anything to disagree with except the small point we discussed already. Cheers.

I think that's a valid distinction. I think anyone that subscribes to the viewpoint of statism starts with the proposition that states are necessary for civil society, and that that proposition is a "zombie idea." I don't agree with that though. For example, there are people who work for the state that want there to be a state because it benefits them. They may not believe it's necessary. Some may even think it's harmful but just not care. There are people who support states for different reasons, not all of them because of the benefits they think it has for society as a whole. Okay, but that's not the primary point, that's the secondary point (the primary point being the last few words of the last sentece of my previous post). But let's change "anyone" to "some amount greater than 0% and less than 100%" in my secondary point and that should clear that up :-). I think the zombie idea is that there is any one form of social structure that everyone on earth has to have, especially some very extreme hierarchical one. So you don't think the state is an extremely heirarchical social structure that (most) everyone believes we need for no justifiable reason?

I didn't gather from that post how -you- would frame the argument except to say that it was "man-against-man." Could you go into more detail?

I wouldn't argue minimum wage is more damaging to the economy than the sum of any number of other state influence, but I think we can agree the effect on entry-level and young workers is common sense and quite obviously under-reported or not reported at all by the (state) media. A politically connected business may get away with that; however, this http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Independent-Contractor-%28Self-Employed%29-or-Employee%3F is what I meant. It's a deliberate morass meant to ensnare the employer or employee; whomever the state wants to milk. Right. It's a bad part of a bad system.

I'll need a little better than "this is what the acronym stands for," and "it is like UPB," if you are serious about conveying your meaning.