I don't think age is really relevant, but critical thinking skills and knowledge are. I wouldn't deny my children religious knowledge. I think the more educated someone is concerning the world's religions, the less likely they are to be taken in my any one of them. The more you know, the less you believe.
Rainbow_Troll
JoinedPosts by Rainbow_Troll
-
24
When can I let my guard down?
by hybridous inquick background:.
born-in, but never baptized.
remainder of family still (by all appearances) loyal dubs.
-
-
-
26
Disfellowshipped people are dead people?
by snugglebunny inskimming though my iphone earlier today i came across a fb post - which i now can't find!.
basically it was a claim that a gb member had stated that associating with a disfellowshipped person was akin to sleeping next to a corpse.. so obviously i'm curious as to whether anyone else has come across this..
-
-
Rainbow_Troll
Snugglebunny: Basically it was a claim that a GB member had stated that associating with a disfellowshipped person was akin to sleeping next to a corpse.
We're really more undead than just plain dead, so I'd say it's more like sleeping next to a vampire; which is way sexier!
-
20
Does God really care about mankind?
by Sour Grapes ini am dying of cancer.
yesterday i asked my full blown jw wife if she could snap her fingers and make me well would she do so?.
she replied, "yes.
-
-
Rainbow_Troll
My dad died of cancer. He wanted so much to live and was willing to do anything. But the chemo and radiation just made him sicker and ensured what time he had left would be wasted in agony. If I were you, I would try Gerson's therapy.
Orthodox quacks claim it's hoax, but it sounds a lot funner than chemo.
-
5
Does Anyone Wish Satan Were Real?
by Rainbow_Troll ini left the memorial tonight with a renewed antagonism towards all that is good and holy.
i doubt the existence of satan, but i had to recite two "our father who wert in heaven..." prayers just to feel cleansed of the miasma of sanctity i had just endured for over an hour!.
it's times like these when i wish that there really were a devil that i could sell my soul to in exchange for his support in corrupting as many christians away from their faith as i possibly can.
-
-
Rainbow_Troll
I left the Memorial tonight with a renewed antagonism towards all that is good and holy. I doubt the existence of Satan, but I had to recite two "Our Father who wert in heaven..." prayers just to feel cleansed of the miasma of sanctity I had just endured for over an hour!
It's times like these when I wish that there really were a devil that I could sell my soul to in exchange for his support in corrupting as many Christians away from their faith as I possibly can. Also, the idea of going to Hell after I die, where there is not a single moralist or Christian and everyone is evil, would be so reassuring.
Does anyone else here wish Satan were a real being? If he were, would you worship him or at least ally yourself with him in exchange for power, sex or simply out of pure hatred for Jehovah? If you don't believe in Satan, do you still like to pretend that he's real by praying to him or conducting Satanic rituals for fun as a sort of emotional catharsis?
-
37
Was it just me or was something different about the memorial last night?
by kpop inthis was the first memorial that i declined to do any work for the memorial.
i was assigned as a parking attendant after getting downgraded from doing the sound and had no intention of doing either task but i had to attend for my family and continuation of my fade.
i sat there last night listening to the talk and couldn't help but shake my head as my brain attempted to process the bs.
-
-
Rainbow_Troll
I hate the memorial. It's the closest thing to a ritual that JWs have and yet they conduct it in a way that has no emotional power or beauty. Even the puritans had more flair than the JWs!
-
147
Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?
by cofty init is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.
if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.
followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.
-
-
Rainbow_Troll
What a lot of people label metaphysics is nonsense; but I blame the new agers for co-opting the term to talk about their crystals and channeled entities. In the popular sense of the word, metaphysics in a synonym for pseudo-science and even superstition. When I use the word metaphysics, I mean the branch of philosophy that deals with issues like ontology, causality, identity, teleology and the question of free will. Wikipedia has an informative article on it if you need clarification.
-
147
Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?
by cofty init is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.
if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.
followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.
-
-
Rainbow_Troll
I have read a lot of writers who are scientists, but I can't think of even one who's views could properly be considered 'scienticism'. Richard Dawkins comes as close as anyone, but even he admits that science can't answer every question. He has an enlightened disdain for Freud's psychological theories (which are empirically unprovable), but he doesn't reject the field of psychology or think it should be replaced with neurology.
I do know one person who's views might rightly be described as 'scientism'. But he isn't a scientist and in fact knows very little about science (though he is good at math). I think his 'scientism', though, boils down to a hatred for religion. He hates religion so much that I can't make an allusion from the Bible or quote a saying of the Buddha's without hearing his objection to such nonsense. He roundly rejects the existence of anything that cannot be seen, touched and measured precisely because this is the last refuge of religion now that science has so thoroughly refuted all of its claims about the origin of humans and cosmology.
Some lay people who don't understand science and have a chip on their shoulders when it comes to religion may very well be guilty of scientism, but I don't think they represent the mainstream in science. The late David Bohm wrote an extremely fascinating philosophical book, Wholeness and the Implicate Order. Roger Penrose and Douglass Hofstadter are at least two living scientists and writers who seem to be very comfortable with metaphysics. I'm certain there are plenty of others.
-
147
Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?
by cofty init is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.
if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.
followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.
-
-
Rainbow_Troll
cofty
So basically just maths then?Math is the subject least prone to error, but logic, as a subset of math, can also help us with other questions that I don't think would be easily amenable to scientific experiments. Just off the top of my head:
What is matter? What would its properties be if it could exist in a higher spacial dimension? Or what if we removed a dimension? Is matter infinitely reducible to smaller and smaller components or are their fundamental particles that cannot be reduced any further? And how does matter relate to consciousness? Is consciousness an epiphenomena of matter arranged in a particular configuration or is it essentially independent of matter? Can consciousness survive the destruction of the body? Is there a God? If there is, what would such a being be like?
These questions are much harder to answer than any math problem. Most of them are actually interdependent on one another and so could not be answered in isolation; in fact, even a single wrong answer could through off the entire equation! But these questions are nonetheless amenable to a sustained exercise of logical deduction. I will not try to answer any of them here (that would require an entire book at least!) but I encourage anyone who is interested to read Aristotle's Logic, Plato's Dialogues, Plotinus' Enneads, René Descartes' Meditations on the First Philosophy, Baruch Spinoza's Ethica and Wilhelm Leibniz's Metaphysics and Monadology. I strongly recommend George MacDonald Ross' excellent survey of Leibniz's thought. His book, Leibniz, is long out of print, but can still be obtained via the interlibrary loan system. There is also a decent ebook on Leibniz available from Amazon by Mike Hockney: The Last Man Who Knew Everything. Hockney is a good enough writer and very brilliant, but in my opinion he wastes a lot of space criticizing anyone who disagrees with his views.
There is a logical progression in the works of these thinkers and those who are patient and willing to think through the questions they raise, using their own powers of deduction, will find the answers to these questions and many more besides. None of these philisophers got everything right. They all made mistakes. But philosophy is not dogmatic like religion. Properly, there should be no Platonists, Aristotelians or Nietzschians. Don't read them looking for answers. Read them so you'll know which questions to ask so you can arrive at your own answers!
-
147
Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?
by cofty init is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.
if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.
followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.
-
-
Rainbow_Troll
cofty
Rainbow Troll - Thank you for your answer. I get the impression that the only example of things that cannot be known through empirical scientific evidence is pure mathematics. Is that correct?I used math because it is really the simplest example, but essentially I believe logic can address any question of metaphysics (which is mostly math, but also touches on things like theology and ethics) Logic can give us intuitions about physics as well (Einstein's thought experiments being a good example), but these intuitions should always be tested empirically when possible, since it is very easy to make logical errors when the subject is as complicated as what happens at light speed or how subatomic particles behave.
-
147
Scientism - Nothing But a Childish Insult?
by cofty init is not uncommon for theists to accuse rational people on this forum of "scientism".. in my opinion it is nothing but a cheap shot from those who know they lack evidence for their beliefs.
if something like "scientism" actually does exist then i have never encountered it.. here is part of an exchange from another thread - i have brought it here as it was off-topic.... scientism = claim of scientific method being universal and the only valid method of knowledge.
followers of scientism always demand scientific evidence to anything.
-
-
Rainbow_Troll
Rainbow Troll - Please give me a specific example of something that can be known without science.
There are many examples I could offer, but the arguments are complex and I fear they might lead to off topic detours, so instead of discussing Leibniz, I will use a simple example that anyone can understand and agree with: mathematics.
It would be a mistake to say that mathematics is exclusively a priori, since some very simple mathematical operations can be demonstrated empirically (add one apple to a basket of seven and you have eight apples); but excluding the simplest arithmetical operations, most mathematical truths are forever beyond empirical demonstration and must be arrived at deductively through reason alone. A common example that everyone deals with everyday are negative numbers: no one can demonstrate their ontological reality - you cannot remove apples from an empty basket - and yet negative numbers are invaluable in physics, which is a branch of science that is devoted to studying what most people would consider the real world. The roots of negative numbers, known as 'imaginary' to mathematicians and the fact that by performing operations on them with 'real' numbers gives us 'complex numbers' which scientists use every day to solve problem in the real world is yet another example of demonstrably real entities that can never be detected with any physical instrument for the simple reason that they are not physical entities. How could any scientist - no matter how brilliant - prove through experiment that some infinities are 'bigger' than others? Yet the German mathematician Georg Cantor proved it without any laboratory equipment, through simple deduction.
Now, some physicists (and even mathematicians) have argued that mathematics is only a human invention and that there are no 'laws' of physics, only generalizations drawn from many observations over time and translated into mathematical terms. In other words: the 'laws' of physics do not dictate the behavior of the real world, they only describe that behavior in terms that the human mind can comprehend. I admit that I see no way of really refuting this line of thought, but I nontheless see it as absurd. It is simply an unacceptable coincidence that an invention of the human mind should be able to not only describe physical phenomena so precisely, but also predict it with little to no error. Pythagoras was right: the world is composed of numbers and equations. What we know as physical reality is only our experience of a mathematical, metaphysical reality filtered and organized through our imperfect sense organs. The 'real world' is scentless, colorless and insubstantial; all those latter qualities being (to use Aristotle's terms) accidental, not essential. Though I think it is unlikely that our world is a computer simulation, I believe that The Matrix is a pretty good analogy for reality.
But it is not just that logic can prove things to which science has no access to, it can also disprove erroneous ideas which science could never refute; ideas than have plagued humankind for centuries, resulted in untold death and misery, and held us back for long enough. I think the worst of these errors is the monotheistic God concept. Even Richard Dawkins has admitted that he cannot prove that God does not exist. On a scale of belief with 10 representing implacable atheism and 1 perfect faith, he places himself at 9 or perhaps 9.9999... His theist opponents have wrongly and unfairly interpreted Dawkins humility on this point as a weakness and have used it to argue that theism offers certainties that atheism could never provide.
Well, I am not as humble as Dawkins. On Dawkin's scale of belief/unbelief, I place myself squarely at 10. I am absolutely certain that God, as he is understood by Christians and Muslims, does not exist; that he cannot exist. And I know this NOT through omniscience, but through simple logic. In a former post I gave a summary of my position which anyone is free to try and refute if they wish. But they will not because they cannot. There is no such thing as an omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe. There can't be because the very qualities of this alleged being are incompatible with each other. He is a logical impossibility with no more probability of existing than a five sided triangle. Behold the power of logic!
Again, I don't want to dis science. I think that science, properly understood, is applied mathematics which is the mother of science, logic, and philosophy. But as the daughter of math, science should no her place and not defy her mother or ignore her sisters. But some recent scientific theories have proceeded to just that; a perfect example being Quantum Mechanics. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle rightly states that when a scientist uses an electron microscope to discover the position or velocity of a particle this very act of observation (the electron beam) causes the particle to deviate from the trajectory it would have taken had he not attempted to observe it. Therefore we cannot know, in principle, the simultaneous position and velocity of any given particle. Okay, I agree; but then scientists apply logical positivism to Heisenberg's principle and say that, since we cannot measure one without changing the other, the particle has no position/velocity until we measure it and it is in fact our act of measurement which "collapses the particle's eigenstate". Once I accept this non-sequitur, I open myself to all sorts of madness: parallel universes, cats that are simultaneously dead and alive, observer created reality.
It's ironic that scientists who use the scientific method, with its double blind experiments that are specifically designed to protect the subject(s) of the experiment from being affected by the observer, have now rejected the reality principle in favor of solipsism! Niels Bohr, one of founders of quantum physics, famously argued that there is no way to prove that the moon exists when we are not looking at it and, if one takes logical positivism seriously, he's right! But all this madness could easily be avoided if scientists embraced the logical (but empirically unprovable) assumption that particles DO have both a specific velocity and position even if we are incapable of measuring both simultaneously. This would not be a wild leap of faith, it would only be an acknowledgement of the reality principle upon which the very philosophy of science depends. Otherwise, if reality is not objective but generated by the observor, then the scientific method becomes useless.
I could give you other examples but I trust I have made my point. Strict empiricism is a dead end road, a cul de sac, that ends in madness. The only way that science can save itself is by retracing its path back to the point just before it accepted Wittgenstein's error, and then go from there.