Purple Knight wrote: ↑Fri Aug 09, 2024 7:57 pm
The Tanager wrote: ↑Wed Aug 07, 2024 9:11 am
Purple Knight wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2024 4:14 pmI agree with that but in case of a conflict, it's better to choose your own experiences, especially if someone is claiming something that you have not even a single basis for. People can go wrong doing this (because, for example, they will disbelieve a platypus) but they do it, because the vast majority of the time, it's the right call. So if you've never seen magic, it's right to believe it doesn't happen. Seek the verification though. There's a fine line between trusting yourself over others, and ignoring others.
I agree with this, but I was talking about things like not limiting what evidence we will consider because of our previous worldview.
You should consider everything, but most people (I don't do this, but most do) have to make a decision about what we think is true and what isn't. If we have looked for blue swans, and not found any, the reasonable position is that there probably aren't any.
Purple Knight wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2024 4:14 pmBecause Jesus preaches things people generally do not accept. That + no miracles = crazy. That + miracles = righteous? So power = righteousness? See how the equation goes?
How do you get "that + miracles = power" to make that equation work, though?
Because the only reason anyone listens to what Jesus said is that he performed miracles. Otherwise everyone preaching a moral shift, on a street corner, on an internet forum, everyone claiming that their way was moral, would have to be listened to. But we don't. We instead dismiss them. I can only think this is because they lack magical powers, and if not for his supernatural abilities, Jesus would have been one more crazyloo.
The Tanager wrote: ↑Wed Aug 07, 2024 9:11 amI think we should listen to Jesus because of his embodiment of love. The miracles, for some, bring their attention on Jesus to where he can share his message.
And have you looked for prophets who embodied love on street corners? Or do you prefer Jesus without having listened to the local crazy? Now, if that local crazy had supernatural powers, you might take more notice, wouldn't you? You can say that's just getting your attention. But the question is, why does it do so? It doesn't do that for me. I'd be like okay he has superpowers. I have to reevaluate slightly what I thought was possible. But my assessment of the morality of what that guy says, will be exactly the same.
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Yes; the point about the 'black swan' fallacy is not to claim there are no black swans (which it turned out later there were) but to not believe there are just on an undisproved possibility
We may yet find red or blue swans but the logical position is that a claim they exist is irrational until they are found, not to prove they don't exists and until that is done 100%, we must believe as a firm fact, they do exist. of course the more is known, less possible it is that a variety of red or Blue swans will be found. (1)
This explains fallacious thinking and is why god - claims are irrational and the burden of proof is on the claimant, not on the one who does not yet believe the claim (which is why they have to shift burden of proof (2)
The basis of the fallacy is of course Faith, and the fault is gods and religions taught as fact before anyone had doubts. When people get older, they do question and we know by now how 'evidence' is produced to make the god - claim seem empirically valid.
These fail, as intelligent designer and Ontological arguments fail, and the historical reliability case is failing and will fail more .
The morality argument fails, too as claiming morality is god - given is counter to the principle of parsimony as the mind doing it is the simpler hypothesis and is better based on what we know of how things work, and 'God' in the blue swan here.
As said before, this is very simple logic, but a skewed mindset makes it almost impossible for Believers to grasp it. Their mindset is Faithbased and thus illogical from the start.
So you touched on 2 points, that Jesus did miracles, so we should believe he was divine. As I say, the veracity of the gospel story is questioned and should be questioned a darn sight more than it is.
The other is that Gospel morality is good in itself. This is also open to question, because really, we are using humanist morals to evaluate Gospel morality as valid. In terms of faith, Islamic morality has as much claim even if we think it flawed, because 'Who are we to question God?" If Allah says Quranic morality is right, then human morals should align with that, as it aligned with slavery in the Bible before 1860.
Shouting about Love is all very well, and we all get the pink fuzzy feelings which they think are Jesus in their hearts, when what they have is a blood pumping mechanism (You may trust me on this
). The temptation to do chlidlike faith and consider it rather a nasty and wicked thing to do to ask someone to wake up and smell the coffee is well understood, and we sympathise. But remain unintimidated by emotional blackmail. (3)
But it is not good reasoning or rationale, and the fact is that it doing nobody any favors to keep up belief that Santa brings the presents when one has got past the age of 8
P.s. the Santa analogy is as valid as the Blue or red swan, but god - apologists never get it. In my experience, they look for irrelevant nit - picks or evasions, and I still don't know whether they they are being deliberately evasive or they don't know they are....and, as usual
I already know the answer - logic and evidence (even if wrong and twisted) only are there to serve the Faith.
Have a nice week - end everyone. It has been raining here for three days.
(1) I should mention the Banana in the drawer. This is the of - misunderstood and misuses the ''absence of evidence' trope. It is used to validate the undisproved possibility, such as Fermi's paradox or life on other planets. But the logic is, there may be life elsewhere, but we cannot claim it as a fact until we know.
The paradox is a debate about probability - a philosophical perhaps mind experiment to try to work out the factors that suggest life (ET alien civilisation) is likely or not. I find the discussion pointless as we really don't know, but others (by longtime best mate ,for instance) find it fascinating. Point is as Al Murray would say, that the more the parameters are known the more we can evaluate whether something should be there or not. e.g Russel's teapot is not impossible, in fact but it is irrational to claim it is a fact. The draw being empty proves the banana is not there; the parameters are known.
This is why a creator - god is not impossible, but there is no logical reason to believe the claim (ID arguments aside) and Bible contradictions are the sock draw of Gospel debate. Claim there is a banana in the drawer by Luke (Ascension; penitent theif) is not validated by the others who say yes, they have no bananas, and the claim that they close not to mention there was a banana in with the socks (imparting a vanilla odour to the otherwise wet overcoat aroma) when they describe sorting the socks makes one doubt, or should, when they do it time after time.
(2) You can tell, on a rainy weekend, I have far too much time on my hands; You can tell an irrationality based on faithbased denailism because, when the fallacy is explained, they do not learn, but go into denial, and repeat the same debunked claim again and again. This is a signal of faithbased irrationality as clear as if they had a red flag driven in the top of their cranium.
(3) weepy reaction to 'attack on my Faith' is too much to go into here, as it leads into dometic abuse (inverted) and workplace bullying.
(one reason I dislike religious claptrap is, it brings out the worst in me).
