Neither a theist nor an atheist

No they wont fail to do so if they are also rationalistsEdited by granpa, : No reason given.

Touching things up a bit (such as fixing spelling etc.) is fine, BUT you really shouldn't be making significant content changes well after the original posting of the message.AdminPhat was easy on you, which can be OK. But it looks like we should have been more demanding before this got promoted to open debate.It also ended up in the wrong forum. I'm going to close this in 15 minutes (hopefully time to catch messages in progress), and then move the topic to a better place.No replies to this message. Go to General Discussion Of Moderation Procedures (aka 'The Whine List') if you feel moderation issue discussion is needed.Adminnemooseus

Why would an empiricist require reason to get to emergent properties? What reasoning is in place to infer that water is wet, for instance? It seems like something you can get to by sensing the wetness of water, without needing to use reason.

Thread copied here from the Neither a theist nor an atheist thread in the Human Origins and Evolution forum.

People subscribing to the purely empirical world view think that since we are "just atoms" therefore everything is, as the saying goes, "all-good" and that therefore "anything goes".
Such a person lives in a world where freewill reigns and cause and effect is virtually non-existent.This is clearly an unreasonable position and anyone holding it is clearly unreasonable.
Their lack of, and therefore need for, reason should be obvious.
Such a person would see reason, and anyone teaching reason, as trying to take away their freedom and enslave them.emergence creates difficulties even for rational people much less irrational peopleThe mind is an emergent property and the whole world is still arguing over the reasons why people behave the way they do and especially why people commit crimes. how would u empirically determine why people commit crimes?emergence is one of those concepts that is simple and obvious once you understand it but which can be quite slippery and hard to grasp for those that are unfamiliar with itEdited by granpa, : No reason given.Edited by granpa, : No reason given.Edited by granpa, : No reason given.Edited by granpa, : No reason given.Edited by granpa, : Added slippery lineEdited by granpa, : Added "and hard" to make it less clunky

But most everything you have posted since the opening of this thread suggests you are promoting religion, and most likely a particular brand of religion.So, which is it?Is this "middle path" you are espousing just another way of evangelizing?And, between absolutes, how is any "middle path" possible anyway?

I would have added the following to my previous post but I just got into trouble for editing my posts late so instead I'll just create a new post in reply to to previous onewhat is the reason why the dinosaurs went extinct?
There are clues but in the end this is something we are simply never going to be able to empirically see.
We must instead rely on our intuition and reasonI guess what I should have said is that the reasons why things happen arent necessarily empirically observable but are perceptible to intuition.
Without intuition people subscribing to the purely empirical world view see a world devoid of reasons and resort to reductionism (which fails to take into account emergence)Edited by granpa, : No reason given.Edited by granpa, : No reason given.Edited by granpa, : No reason given.

So now you're talking to yourself?You are proselytizing. Obviously. I lived through the fracking Jesus Freak Movement of such extremely aggressive proselytizing that normals still want to have absolutely nothing to do with Christian fundamentalists nor ever anyone who would make the dire social mistake of introducing themselves as being a Christian. Because, the common reasoning goes, only one of those horrid proselytizers would do something like that.Cut to the chase. Give us the money shot. Just exactly what is it that you are trying to sell us. And don't you dare say that you aren't trying to sell anything, because that would be a lie. Door-to-door proselytizers came to my door one day and I told them what I tell all door-to-door salesmen, that I do not buy anything sold door-to-door. They lied to me saying, "But we're not selling anything." And I told them, "Oh yes you are. And I am already very familiar with what you are selling and I know not to even begin to consider buying it." We have seen so many proselytizers, far too many of them. We know what they look like. They look exactly like you.What are you selling? State its name. Cut the bullshit. Deliver your money shot and allow us to say "No thank you so very much!"ABE:These rock opera lyrics kept leaping to mind:

quote:

---

But you've been told many times before
Messiahs pointed to the door
And no one had the guts to leave the temple!

---

Unfortunately, that was the protagonist singing to spin his own Messianic web of deception, which his followers end up rejecting, leaving him in his original vegetative state:

quote:

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We're not gonna take it
We're not gonna take it
We're not gonna take it
We're not gonna take it
We're not gonna take it
Never did and never will
Don't want no religion
And as far as we can tell
We ain't gonna take you
Never did and never will
We forsake you
Gonna rape you
Let's forget you better still

---

Normally, I would offer points for identifying the cultural references. But I'm sure we both know exactly how valuable those points would be.Edited by dwise1, : We're Not Going to Take It!

This, amongst lots of other things you wrote, doesn't make any sense. We can empirically see the evidence for the reasons the dinosaurs went extinct. You do know that clues are empirically observable?Edited by Pressie, : I didn't put in the right /. I put in \qs.

A newbe, who thinks he/she knows it all, is always fun! He thinks that he provides new 'insights'. In the end he's just another very fundie religious person pretending not to be one.I normally learn a lot from the responses to the incoherent ramblings as displayed by people such as granpa.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.

Really? Please explain how you get from "just atoms" to "anything goes"? I fail to see the connection.

You claimed, I disputed it, and your response is to repeat it? What do you think empirical means?The empirical world view holds that knowledge can be acquired through percetptual/sensory experience.The fact is that emergent properties are accessible to our senses, more than the existence of atoms are. So you are entirely wrong. And empiricists have experience of at least one mind. Sure, but its real easy to experience emergent phenomena. In fact, our brains are pretty much wired to do so.

Yeah, that's a people-thing.
Going with a decision and sticking to it is closer to animal-instinctual thinking. It's a basic mode and many people do it, sometimes without noticing. No. Not at all It's not like "the middle path" is immune to this sort of thing. Because the middle-path is still walked by people... and people do this.What helps is using our intelligence. Think about things and make informed, intelligent decisions about them.Atheists can do this (and many do).
Theists can do this (and many do).
Middle-path walkers can do this (and many do).But the middle-path doesn't make it easier or better to do this... the only thing that makes it easer and better is education and a willingness/motivation to learn how to help other people instead of hurt them.It's quite possible that you use your intelligence and also walk the middle path... but that doesn't mean anything. There's no connection there. You may have used your intelligence to find the middle path... and that leads you to believe the middle path helps people use their intelligence. But this isn't true.By telling others "you should be on the middle path" you are actually retarding them from using their own intelligence to figure it out. This sort of... backfires... on the whole notion of your end-game (people intellectually thinking instead of instinctually following).It's not the middle-path that's helping you. It's simply not-being-instinctual and actually using your intelligence (and also having a motivation to help others).Those that use their intelligence to find the atheistic path find the same sort of balance.
Those that use their intelligence to find the theistic path also find the same sort of balance.It is definitely not restricted to "the middle path" in any way. A governing body of justice is more of a common-sense thing then a "significant law."
With any large-enough group of people, there are going to be those who think it's easier to take advantage of others and do things without regard to the well-being of others. It's simply common-sense that some group should exist to protect the rest of the population from these wingnuts.I don't have an issue with making it a law. But if you're trying to say it's significant that it's a law... then, well... meh. It's as significant as a law that says "Thou shall not kill." Um... yeah, that's kinda obvious. There's no real need for any higher intelligence to figure this sort of stuff out.

It's interesting that you say an agnostic "believes". What you say is true of a professing agnostic. My point is that neither Faith nor marc9000 nor Phat actually knows what they profess to believe.

At this point someone usually interjects "But all information comes to us through our senses therefore all information is empirical". That may be true, but the way we process that information isn't always empirical. Intuition can give true and justified results yet because of its nature it is impossible to prove it to someone else. There is nothing magical about intuition. Intuition is simply the brain using inductive reasoning and massive parallel processing to determine the reasonableness (plausibility) of certain possibilities. You suspend your disbelief long enough to get a "feel" for how well the idea "fits" with everything else you know. Does it conflict with other things you know? Does it require that you make many other assumptions? Or would it, in fact, explain things that would otherwise be unexplained?Intuition can't tell you whether a given idea is true or not, but if used properly, it does tell you whether that idea is reasonable or not. Occam's razor states that the most reasonable possibility tends to be the correct one. This is an important principle in understanding Russell's teapot and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.It really is as they say: "you see what you want to see". And if you truly want to see what the facts say when they are allowed to speak for themselves then you will indeed see that too.