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Logical Progression

  
  

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Sleeperservice
20:31 / 17.02.02
Battleground God

Test your internal logic with this 'god game' A bit silly but I only had to bite one bullet...
 
 
Laughing
20:40 / 17.02.02
I managed to come out unscathed. Hooray! My logic is internally consistent!
 
 
gentleman loser
20:40 / 17.02.02
How dare you burst my inner convictions!

Atheism is a matter of faith, by the way.

[ 17-02-2002: Message edited by: gentleman loser ]
 
 
Tom Coates
09:04 / 18.02.02
Atheism is only as much a matter of faith as a scientific theory. Neither can be proven, only disproven - and the one that remains standing and is most internally consistent (ie. there is nothing in our lives that cannot be explained without the presence of any of the gods we have been told about before therefore there is no need for the inherently implausible notion of an all-powerful consciousness) is probably correct or most correct.
 
 
Jackie Susann
09:04 / 18.02.02
First time I have seen actual proof that consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.
 
 
gridley
09:04 / 18.02.02
damn, I was doing fine until I said that rapist was wrong to do what he did.

now, I'm really confused....
 
 
The Voice of Reason
12:57 / 18.02.02
this is dumb.

answer me this: mr. rapist feels justified in beleiving god told him to be evil. TRUE. it doesnt matter what we think, it's true regardless. of course he feels justified, or else he wouldnt do it to start with!

faulty logic on their part. the question didnt ask if god would sanction his actions, it asked if he felt god would. two totaly different monsters. i wuz robbed.

second, if god exists, I would still not be able to make circular squares or 1+1=72. sorry, but i still wouldnt have any power. god might be able to, but that is once again, not what the question asked.

nationalism is the cancer of society
-Albert Einstein
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
13:20 / 18.02.02
yes the questions are faulty, like the loch ness one
 
 
Sleeperservice
13:52 / 18.02.02
I was told I required a higher level of proof for the existence of god than for the theory of evolution. I too felt I was robbed as the question about evolution is slightly vague.

Given that it's a philosophy site, however, that's missing the point a bit I think. They're trying to make people aware of the way in which their belief systems work on an internal level and can be inconsistant. I'd love to see George W's answers

Anyone tried the matrix game on that site? How did it know what card I had picked?!
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
14:46 / 18.02.02
I bit a bullet and took a direct hit. But I still managed to get a medal of honor somehow.

Re: the rapist question

The question wasn't about whether the rapist thought he was justified, it was asking if you thought the rapist was justified in his convictins. And if you had given an answer earlier that showed that you believe that internal convictins alone are not enough to form a rational decision, and yet still said the rapist was justified, well, your logic is inconsistent.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
15:34 / 18.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Johnny the zenarchist:
I bit a bullet and took a direct hit. But I still managed to get a medal of honor somehow.

Re: the rapist question

The question wasn't about whether the rapist thought he was justified, it was asking if you thought the rapist was justified in his convictions. And if you had given an answer earlier that showed that you believe that internal convictions alone are not enough to form a rational decision, and yet still said the rapist was justified, well, your logic is inconsistent.

edited for shitty spelling
 
 
akira
16:45 / 18.02.02
I bit a bullet.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
17:56 / 18.02.02
No bullets, no hits, when I gave answers that accurately reflect my veiws. But then I took the test again, this time accepting the existance of God just for the sake of argument.

And now I want to go and have a long, convoluted row with whoever designed the game over whether, if one was to accept that a just and loving God could create horrible diseases for a higher purpose, ze might not also have created sin for a higher purpose, which would invalidate one of their supposed contradictions... and I don't even believe in God. *sobs*

See what hanging around here does to you?
 
 
Not Here Still
17:57 / 18.02.02
I, too, dragged my knuckles on teh evolutionary theory/belief in God bit, and fell over there...
 
 
the Fool
19:46 / 18.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Tom Coates:
Atheism is only as much a matter of faith as a scientific theory. Neither can be proven, only disproven - and the one that remains standing and is most internally consistent (ie. there is nothing in our lives that cannot be explained without the presence of any of the gods we have been told about before therefore there is no need for the inherently implausible notion of an all-powerful consciousness) is probably correct or most correct.

Execpt that there is still no PROOF either way. Scientific theory is as much belief based as anything else in this reality, just like the existence of other people. We BELIEVE other people exist but there in no proof of that fact and there never can be. We could all be asleep and in a coma, dreaming the whole thing. Implausibility is just a matter of perspective, and it shifts on tides of probablity and permutation. Today's truth is tommorrow's fiction. Correct and Incorrect are just fashion statements, and they date and go out of fashion like jumpsuits, flat earth and teenage mutant ninja turtles.
 
 
Ganesh
19:58 / 18.02.02
Pick your probabilities and do your best to balance 'em.
 
 
Thjatsi
09:59 / 20.02.02
quote:Today's truth is tommorrow's fiction. Correct and Incorrect are just fashion statements, and they date and go out of fashion like jumpsuits, flat earth and teenage mutant ninja turtles.

After reading your declaration of relativism, I feel obligated to ask the two standard textbook questions:

1) Aren't you making a statement of objective truth in saying that there is no objective truth?

2) What exactly do you plan on accomplishing with this life philosophy?
 
 
Captain Zoom
09:59 / 20.02.02
Three direct hits, no bullets and the unnerving feeling that my beliefs are just not logical.

Typical day for Zoom.

(And Tara took 2 hits and no bullets. A wee bit of "Oh yeah. Didn't read that clearly enough." But sound enough beliefs. She is part Vulcan by the way.)

Zoom.
 
 
BioDynamo
09:59 / 20.02.02
Two direct hits, one bitten bullet. Keep 'em coming.
 
 
gridley
11:39 / 20.02.02
quote:Originally posted by the Fool:
Correct and Incorrect are just fashion statements, and they date and go out of fashion like jumpsuits, flat earth and teenage mutant ninja turtles.

Wait teenage mutant ninja turtles aren't cool anymore?

MOM! I NEED NEW PAJAMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
 
Re-Set
17:23 / 20.02.02
2 hits, no bullets. Distinction or something. Pretty good, but there is a flaw in the rape question, after the second question "If God does not exist then there is no basis for morality.", which I answered false to. If there is a non-God motivated basis for morality, then the rapist can be morally wrong despite his convictions.
 
 
the Fool
19:31 / 20.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Thiazi:


After reading your declaration of relativism, I feel obligated to ask the two standard textbook questions:

1) Aren't you making a statement of objective truth in saying that there is no objective truth?

2) What exactly do you plan on accomplishing with this life philosophy?

1. Unfortunately yes I am. Mainly I just get flustered when people call Atheism 'logical' or 'rational' when really its just another belief structure/religion that worships the deity called 'no god'.

Objective truth can be used to show that objective truth is actually subjective. Just like how the Buddhists use logic to show that ultimately logic doesn't work.

Actually I probably should have replaced the word truth with paradigm, its a bit closer to what I meant I think.

2. What do I intend to do with this life philosophy? I intend to experience life, enjoy paradox and contradiction and be happy. The only truth is that there is no truth. The only certainty is uncertainty.
 
 
Re-Set
19:51 / 20.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Sleeperservice:


Anyone tried the matrix game on that site? How did it know what card I had picked?!


Very simple. They change every card, not just the one you picked.
 
 
Thjatsi
23:26 / 20.02.02
1. But how can you be certain that nothing is certain?

2. You are making the assumption that you can experience life. This seems out of place with your epistemology.
 
 
the Fool
02:49 / 21.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Thiazi:
1. But how can you be certain that nothing is certain?

2. You are making the assumption that you can experience life. This seems out of place with your epistemology.

1. I am not certain that nothing is certain, of that I am certain.

2. Of course I assume I experience life, I haven't achieved nirvana yet... anyway its good for a laugh while it lasts, don't you think?
 
 
Thjatsi
20:40 / 21.02.02
1. Then why did you make your original post, if your weren't certain regarding its validity?

2. But, if there is no proof of anything, then why do you believe that you are capable of experiencing life instead of believing that you are not capable of experiencing it? Was this decision based on a whim?

It all just seems a bit odd to me, but maybe that's just because I work on what I would call an order-based perception of the universe.
 
 
the Fool
09:29 / 22.02.02
quote:Originally posted by Thiazi:
1. Then why did you make your original post, if your weren't certain regarding its validity?

2. But, if there is no proof of anything, then why do you believe that you are capable of experiencing life instead of believing that you are not capable of experiencing it? Was this decision based on a whim?

It all just seems a bit odd to me, but maybe that's just because I work on what I would call an order-based perception of the universe.

1. The certainty of the proposition inclined me to attack it apparent 'logicality'. I see no reason why there should no god as much as see no reason why there should be god. Ultimately I think its limiting, framing things around the word 'god'. There 'seems' to be something going on, but words always fail to describe it...

2. I've actually tried to disbelieve in existence. Its scary, and doesn't actually work from experience. The only way to disbelieve in existence that I think might actually work is to kill yourself. And that's a bit scary (and I will die eventually, so why hurry) so for the moment I believe I exist, purely because I seem to and it is all I know. I don't have any proof, nor I can I have any.

Order I have found contains as much chaos as chaos contains order. They are indivisable. Like yin and yang, round and round.
 
 
Thjatsi
18:32 / 01.03.02
1. If you're not certain about anything, then how can you be certain that the poster's logic is ultimately flawed?

2. So you do, at least for the time being, believe that you exist?

3. I fail to see how you can make all encompassing statements about order and chaos while at the same time maintaining that there is no knowable truth.
 
 
Logos
19:23 / 01.03.02
4 bitten bullets, mostly over semantics. It felt like one of those arguments you have with one of your pretentious, but slightly dim friends at 3AM.

Yes, Fred, an omnipotent God could make a square circle, but does not appear to have done so. Thus, we do in fact have rational bases for the topics we're discussing...No, failing to prove that something exists is not equivalent to proving that something doesn't exist, unless we've done an exhaustive proof...If you ask me the one about creating the mountain that's too heavy for God to lift, I get to smack you.
 
 
mr insensitive
20:17 / 01.03.02
Some cultures beleive suicide is a brave act, and embracing deathg is the second step in the four-step path of becoming a shaman. Suicide is ultimately a chaotic act, incomprehensible to people who maintain a sense of order in the world, no matter gow fractured they perceive it to be.
 
 
Thjatsi
00:20 / 02.03.02
I think our problem is that we have different definitions of order. When I say that I work on an order-based model, I mean that the universe is at least partially knowable, and that taking the time to learn about it, and build theories on the way it works is worthwhile. By a chaos based model, I mean something akin to epistemological realitivism.

I work on an order based model of life, and while I'm probably the least suicidal person I know, I do consider suicide to be a rational decision. I would also point out that the fundamentalists who give their lives in order to further their cause are also working on an order based model of life, even though it is one that is based on very different premises than mine is.
 
 
Lurid Archive
01:52 / 02.03.02
That site is quite fun. I took no hits or bullets.

One comment above I thought was interesting:

quote: Mainly I just get flustered when people call Atheism 'logical' or 'rational' when really its just another belief structure/religion that worships the deity called 'no god'.

I think I disagree with this. I do believe that in the absence of some life changing religious experience, atheism is more rational. That doesn't mean that its better, just more rational - hell, being consistently rational is a really good way to screw up your sex life.

Why is atheism more rational? Well, it goes like this. Every day we make assumptions about the way the world works - how can you survive otherwise? These assumptions are by neccessity sceptical in nature. So if some bloke comes up to me on the street and proclaims themselves the Son of God, I don't believe them unless I have a good reason.

This is really the only rational way to operate since there are countless explanations for anything you observe and its just ridiculous to give them equal weight. Broadly speaking, you take the explanation that is simplest or requires least assumptions.

So if someone claims that there is a god, I'd have to concede that this could be true. I'd also have to concede that I could be living in the matrix or that I could be living in an alien holo world or that I could be a butterfly dreaming that I am Lurid Archive or that I could be a brain in a vat in Margate or that there could be an invisible unicorn sexually tampering with me as I type.

The thing is, any rational person rejects these sorts of hypothetical scenarios not because they can somehow prove they are incorrect but because there is no good reason to believe that they are correct. Its the same with god. Saying "there IS a god" is far too strong a statement to accept without any supporting evidence and so any rational person will reject this statement unless - this is important - they have good reasons to do otherwise.

BTW - this is not the same as agnostiscism. It might be true that aliens implanted Father Christmas on the earth to spread peace, good will and tooth cavities. But I don't believe in him because I don't have any reason to. It would sound very strange to say, "yeah, I believe in Father Christmas - how do you know he didn't come down in the Roswell crash? Huh? prove it to me!".
 
 
Tom Coates
08:24 / 02.03.02
Exactly! There are an infinity of unproveable theories! To call Atheism an act of faith is to call the belief that we are not all lorded over by hat-wearing Killer Whales with cybernetic implants 'an act of faith'. I mean - it's POSSIBLE - but as a proposition in its own right ludicrously improbable... 'God' is acceptable to people purely because it's a concept that has been repeated and used by many people in very many different ways - not because it is an intrinsically plausible idea...

Atheism - to me - seems to be the only justifiable position!
 
 
Mystery Gypt
08:27 / 02.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Mordant C@rnival:
ze might not also have created sin for a higher purpose, which would invalidate one of their supposed contradictions.


unless sin itself is defined not as a moral conflict but a logical contradiction of god itself.
 
 
Mystery Gypt
08:31 / 02.03.02
quote:Originally posted by Tom Coates:
'God' is acceptable to people purely because it's a concept that has been repeated and used by many people in very many different ways -

or more likely because there has been a part of our brains evolved / designed in to experience god. so at the least god is a neurological phenomenon. but there is no atheism-spot found in the brain.
 
  

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