Simon Paynton

Enjoy the “Condor moment” lol

“Does middle-age make us better philosophers?”

– Kieran Setiya seems to be perpetually living in the future, and when he gets there, he then sees no more future.  But he gives an answer to his problem:  “invest more fully in the process“, “live in the present“.  I think the Buddhist idea of “non-striving” – i.e. that the journey is as im…[Read more]

Quantum physics is fantastical.

I don’t think so.

My point is that we can’t reject an idea just because it sounds wacky.  That would be silly and closed-minded.  It amounts to “believing what we like”.

which god did you credit for this event?

I didn’t.  I’m just saying that there are times when a hypothetical interventionist God is a suitable alte…[Read more]

An intervening God is a fantastical claim

That in itself is purely a matter of opinion and no reason to reject it.  Quantum physics is fantastical, for example.

a lack of evidence

I’ve had at least one experience that looks like God intervened.  I wanted to buy someone a book to help them with being bullied, but had no money, and set out anyway, hoping for the best.  Within half an hour I had found the required cash on the ground in a busy shopping centre, so I was able to buy it.

The interesting point w…[Read more]

The fault with this line of thinking is that it defines a property (existence) of an entity (god) that has not been shown to exist.

In that case, the argument is so flimsy as to be laughable.  But if that’s the case, why did the computer prove the argument to be true?

How can not believing in an interventionist god be wishful thinking?

Both definite positions, for or against, are wishful thinking, because neither can be proved.  I act as if God doesn’t exist (e.g. I don’t go to church, don’t pray, don’t believe the Bible stories etc.) but I still keep an open mind.

Then offer me something supernatural that…

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“[Spinoza’s philosophy] rejects the idea of a personal God who created, cares about and occasionally even tinkers with the world.”

Why do you think it is an unwarranted position to hold? It is not about whether or not it can be proven but whether or not it is believed.

Yes, but Spinoza’s grounds for believing that would have been just wishf…[Read more]

“Would Godel approve or would he now just think a MacBook was God?”

– this has to be simplistic: there must be more to the argument than this, but it seems to be, if we can conceive of something then it must exist.  Well, unicorns.

This is where I insist on being given an example of some experience so unique that it defies natural explanation. Can anyone assist with such an example?

I was actually just thinking of mathematics.

“Do you disagree with this argument?”

– this is interesting.

serious religious people do indeed think that absolute moral norms … must be grounded in something other than personal whim, social convention, or biological evolution. They must, in fact, find their justification in the deepest structures of reality, which is another way of saying in…

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“Love, not faith based bigotry will win the day.”

– trust the Dutch to be all free and easy about sexuality.  This is one reason why we love ’em.

Evidence (for example):

1. physical healing – it happens on its own
2. emotions – detecting what we like or don’t like
3. do you want to thrive? a) yes; b) no

@davis – what do you think of this proposed evidence for the pressure to thrive?  Can you think of another explanation for these things?  Don’t duck and dodge now.

extract the nice stuff, it’s stuff that’s been said many times before and many times since

Admittedly (according to Wikipedia) he was paraphrasing two separate statements in the Torah when he said “love God, and love your neighbour as yourself”.  But apart from that, I haven’t heard it anywhere else until I came up with the same formula for the…[Read more]