DemonsAway Posted September 16, 2017 Posted September 16, 2017 23 hours ago, pogi said: You say that you agree with me that it is fine to have personal beliefs without requiring burden of proof, and that you are ok with people voting on legislation according to their personal beliefs, yet you insist that we are not justified in enforcing our personal beliefs on others without proof? Do you see the contradiction? Anytime a law is voted in, then the popular personal beliefs will be enforced on the minority who have different personal beliefs. That is how it works. You may not like the system, but that is the system. We don't need proof or reason, so long as it is found constitutional. That is the point of voting - to have the people's voices (personal beliefs) heard! What you are proposing is that the voice of the people be suppressed in favor of "reason, logic, proof, etc." But I have to ask - who's reason, logic, and proof should we trust? What you don't get is that reason, logic, and proof are in the eye of the beholder. There are only opinions and interpretations, i.e. "personal beliefs". Technically I feel the same way with private citizens I'm just not holding the them to the same standard as the leaders of any particular religion. The difference is that the spokespersons (leaders) for any particular religion are the ones who are ultimately the voice of their church. The ones who try to push religious specific laws into the public domain, not the citizen. That's why I don't get too caught up with ordinary citizens who are mainly voting on who represents them, not the laws themselves. Of course there are times when citizens are voting on local ordinances, propositions, and the like, but I won't get into that. Let's be clear, I'm arguing religious specific laws. I'm going to assume that even if you were non-religious your entire life you'd still be against things like murder, rape, theft, etc. Those aren't religious specific. To say I'm for suppressing voices would be grossly inaccurate. I'm for using logic and reason to debate the laws we live by. That means religious and non-religious alike having rational debate. Not I'm right, you're wrong discussions or the strictly liberal view or conservative view. Understanding how it affects everyone involved, who it affects, who's it hurting, who's it helping, using empathy and mutual respect for other human beings, and so on. Finding common ground and doing our best to come up with just laws with good justification. Something that is severely lacking with our government. Sure you can say that reason is in the eye of the beholder but I find that to be a baseless argument because you can justify any position that way. Why make any laws if there is no wrong view? There is good justification and bad justification and I think rational debate is the proper approach. Because the majority opinion is our system has no bearing on whether any law is just or right, a good law or a bad one, or a relevant law, and it doesn't mean we can't improve upon our current system. Would you take the same position if you were in the minority? Because the majority of the country are Christian should we have to live by Christian laws? If the majority were Muslim or Atheist would you take that position? My point with religious specific laws is that they are unnecessary in the public domain. A religious person can hold their religious beliefs, practice them, and live by their religious laws without imposing it on others. Allowing gay marriage isn't forcing any religion to allow it as acceptable within their religion and it's not infringing on the gay person's constitutional rights. If a religion wants to teach creationism they can still teach it in their churches, they don't have to force it on others in the public domain. This is where I say the religious (not all of course) don't understand and take into account that they can still live by their religious laws without alienating and enforcing it on people who don't share these beliefs. They are, at the end of the day, pointless laws to make. This is why I'm for secularism because it doesn't play favorites, every religion, non-religion, whatever we want to call any particular group has more of an equal voice. Most people put political affiliation before country and the greater good of the people. The art of finding common ground is lost in this country's politics.
DemonsAway Posted September 16, 2017 Posted September 16, 2017 22 hours ago, mfbukowski said: You are not understanding me at all and I suppose that is my fault, but it seems you just cannot conceive what I am talking about There are secular religions, without God. Evidence has nothing to do with religion OR secularism. It's like comparing basketball and knitting Here is an article I hope you actually read and understand written by one who's religious beliefs do not include belief in God and who is a secularist. It was written just before he passed away and captures it all. I won't be bothering you any more unless you want to discuss this article, AFTER you have read it. THIS is my view of religion- they only place I disagree with Dworkin is whether or not the belief in God is a useful belief in life. I find the belief in a Human God who is the Ideal Human highly useful in organizing my world view. But honestly I do not think you will understand this article or take it to heart, or reconsider you ill advised understanding of "religion" Let me put this bluntly. I totally agree with this guy except I believe in God AND the PHILOSOPHY of the LDS church http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/04/04/religion-without-god/ I think you went on the defensive too quickly. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think you saw “Burden of proof” and immediately took what I was saying as an attack on your beliefs. When I'm not attacking religion at all, just religious specific laws that really are unnecessary. Because like I said in the previous post you can still hold and practice these beliefs without pushing it on others for really no good reason at all. I've nowhere challenged as you put it, that a human god who is the ideal human is useful to you or anything akin to that. I read your article, there are things I agree on and some I disagree and a couple I'm still knocking around. To be honest I'm actually more surprised it's something you agree with and makes me curious what you call “Mormon philosophy” and do you differentiate it from Mormon belief, and doctrine? I personally would say there are things that seem quite contradictory to Mormon belief. I don't think most believers that I've ever talked to, of any faith, would agree with at least a few things in there. Especially where it gets to the section on “Religious Science and Religious Value”. I'm not putting you down by saying that, I'm just surprised is all. Maybe it's something you can talk about with someone more versed in the Mormon world. I'm not going to go into the article though. I feel there's not much more for me to offer on this topic and I'm getting to where I'm just repeating things, and we haven't been on the same page. Plus I'm not ready to do another long post at the moment. I apologize for any miscommunication and snide remarks. No hard feelings from my side.
mfbukowski Posted September 16, 2017 Posted September 16, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, DemonsAway said: I think you went on the defensive too quickly. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think you saw “Burden of proof” and immediately took what I was saying as an attack on your beliefs. When I'm not attacking religion at all, just religious specific laws that really are unnecessary. Because like I said in the previous post you can still hold and practice these beliefs without pushing it on others for really no good reason at all. I've nowhere challenged as you put it, that a human god who is the ideal human is useful to you or anything akin to that. I read your article, there are things I agree on and some I disagree and a couple I'm still knocking around. To be honest I'm actually more surprised it's something you agree with and makes me curious what you call “Mormon philosophy” and do you differentiate it from Mormon belief, and doctrine? I personally would say there are things that seem quite contradictory to Mormon belief. I don't think most believers that I've ever talked to, of any faith, would agree with at least a few things in there. Especially where it gets to the section on “Religious Science and Religious Value”. I'm not putting you down by saying that, I'm just surprised is all. Maybe it's something you can talk about with someone more versed in the Mormon world. I'm not going to go into the article though. I feel there's not much more for me to offer on this topic and I'm getting to where I'm just repeating things, and we haven't been on the same page. Plus I'm not ready to do another long post at the moment. I apologize for any miscommunication and snide remarks. No hard feelings from my side. I affirm Mormon doctrine and am a temple worker and in stake leadership. I don't need to talk to anyone. There is nothing there that conflicts with orthopraxis in any way. My point is simply that you do not know enough about Mormonism to see how that kind of Paradigm could fit. No hard feelings on my side either. I just wish we could communicate better. We push nothing on anyone. If they feel uncomfortable in the church then they can leave. That's always an option. I can't imagine how anyone would be in the church and feel that anything is pushed on them. All they have to do is leave. Staying on boards like this and being a critic just shows psychologically that one has unfinished business to deal with. Regarding the burden of proof my entire point was simply that there is no such thing. There are no such rules of inference. It's really a very simple concept. In a of court of law the rules are different. In philosophy there is no such thing as a burden of proof because philosophers actually understand that there is no such thing as proof of virtually anything. Even Bertrand Russell, a master logician said that there is no way he could prove that we did not blink into existence 5 minutes ago and that all of our memories are implants, and of course he was right. No mention of extraordinary claims. Edited September 16, 2017 by mfbukowski 1
thesometimesaint Posted September 16, 2017 Posted September 16, 2017 (edited) A very wise woman(My Mom) always told me that "Show me what you do, and I'll know what you really believe". Edited September 16, 2017 by thesometimesaint 1
Stargazer Posted September 16, 2017 Posted September 16, 2017 On 9/5/2017 at 5:03 PM, Maidservant said: Sometimes when I ask an atheist to describe the God they are talking about that they know doesn't exist, or can't know exists, then I tell them that I am an atheist to that God also (the one they've defined for themselves even while rejecting it or calling it a null set). Now that is brilliant! I am adding it to my quiver. Thank you! Sorry for the huge delay in quoting you -- I'm only just now getting back into this topic after some neglect to this board over the past couple of weeks. 1
Stargazer Posted September 16, 2017 Posted September 16, 2017 On 9/5/2017 at 5:36 PM, strappinglad said: Just for fun I present this .His book is not long. https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=anthony+flew+god&id=5E693C437E691FB2A1AC1CF7C3F3C2D21EBF8771&FORM=IQFRBA 2 Interesting! I believe I've heard about this before... Thanks for bringing it back to my attention. I need to buy this book. I happened to just notice your current signature: "Sometimes you have to make a decision in order to make a decision". This is quite true, I've found! Sometimes when I am having a hard time deciding whether to do one thing or another, and am quite perplexed as to which I would rather do or should do, I use this principle of deciding in order to decide. I either flip and coin or just arbitrarily decide upon one or the other alternative. I then examine my feelings to see if that is what I REALLY should do or want to do. Sometimes this confirms the choice, and sometimes it denies it, but it almost always helps me get off the uncertainty. To put it into one of my favorite quantum physics turn of phrase, it helps me "collapse the state vector". Thanks for the pithy quote! Did you get that from somewhere or come up with it yourself? 1
strappinglad Posted September 16, 2017 Posted September 16, 2017 3 hours ago, Stargazer said: Thanks for the pithy quote! Did you get that from somewhere or come up with it yourself? As far as I know, it is my version , but I'm also sure similar sentiments have been thought of before. I came up with it one day when I was wearing my pith helmet.
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