Jim

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
I suspect it is our old theist friend from Think Atheist.

I don’t believe for a second Dr. Bob was a philosopher. I’ve never met a PhD philosopher who would avoid a straight forward questions. Dr. Bob claimed to be a professor of physics, one who studied the strange empirical world of physics yet still believed in Go…[Read more]

michael17 wrote:
Well the pagan interpretation of hell is as such. Scripture speaks of the second death after the resurrection to Judgement.

They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might

2 Thessalonians 1:9

This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels…

[Read more]

Damnit I did forget about the curve. You’re right. I have to add a lot more factors into my formula. I also forget about lightening strikes which are more likely to hit you if you are alone on a big sidewalk far as possible from the building as otherwise its almost certain the building would get it. And while on the subject there are also…[Read more]

Strega wrote:
I would just have taken the easiest route.

If no one is on the ladder then in general (not always) it’s ever so slightly safer to not walk under it as there is the tiniest chance it may fall down while you go under it. Another bonus with walking around the ladder is you are less close to windowsills where thing may fall down from…[Read more]

David Philpot wrote:
The illusion of a shared spiritual vision is created by special pleading, as a way to unify the personal experiences of  the congregants, in much the same way the disparate messages in the Gospels are harmonized in the minds of believers.

Which is all sort of fine as they sit around in isolation (though I still feel bad for…[Read more]

PopeBeanie wrote:
we’ve been completely ignoring the probabilistic effects of quantum entanglement between these supposed perfect copies of each other.

If a startrek replicator replicates a person and then it replicates a new replicator and the replicated replicator replicates the new copy of the person…does that mean Wesley Crusher grows in…[Read more]

michael17 wrote:
Reg. God uses poets and minstrels to allude to the truth, thanks for sharing.

Yes. The greatest genius to ever exist, decides to teach his puny little children his wisdom through hundreds of metaphorical poems that result in anything but knowledge but boundless confusion, conjecture, opinions and an utter mess of claims,…[Read more]

According to Christianity the priest goes to Heaven but the unbelieving victim of his “sins” goes to Hell.

God seems to forgive just about anything except a lack of blind belief. But then, we puny humans with our feeble minds cannot possibly comprehend the moral perfection of the bearded man in the sky.

I don’t think its the best way to look at things. I think the failure should be placed inversely. There has been so much lingering doubt by so many Christians all peppered throughout  religious history. The insane amount of literary and philosophical works (and trickery) to justify God’s even existence again and again, and why a word-for-word ap…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
There are reasons why people choose or value certain values. Most people value cooperative thriving. Adolf Hitler, or Isis, value(d) wholesale murder. Both sets of values are chosen for different reasons.

You’re doing it again Simon. When you say most people you really mean “within a family unit or close community” and you’re…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Davis wrote:
some values are obviously derrived from facts.

And this is an arbitrary assumption: other values could equally have been derived from those facts.

No. That’s totally false. In some moral systems there is a logical answer to many moral problems, especially in deontological ones and consequentialism. If the…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
If we say that the values derived from facts are “obvious”, then we are already assuming values.

Sorry Simon but you are mixing up two different things. First the axioms that ground a moral system. These are incredibly subjective and while someone may put some rational thought into it…they all remain statements which are…[Read more]

Unseen wrote:
Values cannot be derived from sets of facts.

Of course they can. Values have always come from a hybrid of assumed axioms (highly conceptual moral frameworks and/or dictated norms) along with facts. The first is almost but not entirely exclusive of facts) the second can use facts to various degrees and various use of logic). The…[Read more]

Simon Paynton wrote:
It’s a human instinct to wish to treat others ethically,

Then why are most of of tribesmen in the interior of Brazil, remote Africa and Papua New Guinea agressive if not violent to all outsiders who enter their territory…including unarmed women and children? Perhaps you mean treat those within their family unit, perhaps wit…[Read more]

Theoretical rights aren’t irrelevant. Activists in countries without human rights still use a template to fight for them (even if they never arrive). Frequently activists in developing countries aspire (and sometimes citizens) towards a set of high level human rights which could only be realised in one’s fantasies and yet some are. It’s a case of…[Read more]