I beg your pardon.
We are not talking about a word but the concept the word represents.
You have limited reality to suit your worldview, which was my original contention: Philosophical materialists are stuck in their tiny materialistic mental box. They won't look out the window, not because there is nothing out there but because it makes them uncomfortable.
Or, are you suggesting that it is impossible to have a word that means "all that exists"?
Since you are requiring that I break down your logic to show the flaws, I must assume you have had no training in logic whatsoever. If you have had training in logic, you are either ignoring its laws or have forgotten them.
Your syllogism:
Major premise:
The universe is all that there is.
Minor premise:
If something were outside the universe it could not be part of the universe.
Conclusion:
Therefore something outside the universe cannot exist.
This fallacy is called Petitio Principii or "begging the question," which is assuming the thing you are trying to prove. It is the most basic of fallacies.
What you mean is that you somehow know of things that are not observable. Please explain how you then came to know them.
Evolution is almost composed exclusively of elements that are not observable! Shame beavus! Was I mistaken when I gave you credit for thinking?
Do you know of things you cannot observe? The question absolutely absurd, hypocritical, and sophomoric. Everyone knows things they cannot observe! If you want a lesson in the theory of knowlege, I charge $105 an hour.
It is amazing to me that I so often have to give the high-brow evolutionists lessons in elementary logic. You people are supposed to be the enlightened ones yet you mock us if our vocabulary exceeds 800 words.
Explain why I can't with equal legitimacy claim that there is a 2D realm of Mandarin-speaking Elvis's flying upside down on winged donkeys.
You can. Here's another lesson in logic for free: The burden of proof is on the new idea.
You are certainly free to assert anything but you should be able to back it up. I have given good reasons to believe why there is a reality outside of our physical universe. You can only offer the lame and trampled excuse that if you can't observe it, it doesn't exist. Any 7th-grader of average intelligence who hasn't been force-fed darwinism through the elementary grades will be able to discern which position is superior. Deny it till you turn blue, but please offer some sort of rational basis.
"Origin"? There is no origin if it has always existed.
No kidding. The burden of proof is on you to show or at least provide some logic that indicates why matter is eternal.
You don't realize that you believe in an infinite universe containing unobservable properties that are incomprehensibly different from those properties we do observe, and yet are knowable.
Of course I understand the argument I put forth. I admit some of the properties are unobservable. Most of evolution's claims are unobservable. If the unobservable element makes it impossible, then evolution is impossible as well. The properties are not incomprehensibly different.
You see, beavus, your side tries to explain all the impossibilities of the Big Bang by telling us the laws of physics were different then. How convenient! That is no less intellectually cowardly than your claim that we hide behind God.
It does not wash, beavus, to say that
dirt is eternal = science
God is eternal = superstition
frog -> prince = fairy tale
frog + time -> prince = science.
Sorry, that's not correct. Medved was against evolution.
I'm not going to butt heads with you. If you refuse to understand my very simple and uncontroversial point that a single word can be used to represent the concept "all that exists" then I don't see how I can hold a worthwhile argument with you. The fact that I spell that word "universe" leaves us only an argument of semantics and does not even begin to challenge any point of view you have yet to make. Your misconstrued syllogism was anticipated and preempted by my earlier post.
If you believe that there are concepts for which no word can be made to represent, then we will simply have to disagree.
I'm sure you are responding to someone in your posts but as you are attributing alliances and beliefs to me that aren't mine, you are not responding to me. Do the courtesy of responding to ME and we can continue the discussion. If you simply want a sounding board then post to yourself.
Ouch! There's a scam. Good screening process though, as anyone dim enough to pay $105/hr for epistemology lessons is probably too dim to scrutinize the nonsense he's fed.
I'm sure that the fact that you think you do makes the evolutionists chuckle as much as does me.
Really? I'll have to see if I can find someone on my side and ask them if that is true. Since you know more about me than I do, maybe you can tell me if I believe the big bang theory?
Whew! Good thing I don't say that then, huh?
Sigh -- okay, if you insist. One sec while I go look out the metaphysical window...
Okay, I'm back. I saw pink unicorns, what did you see?
This fallacy is called Petitio Principii or "begging the question," which is assuming the thing you are trying to prove. It is the most basic of fallacies.
The Straw Man fallacy is pretty basic too, like the one you just made. Contrary to your misrepresentation of it, his position was actually that anything which interacts with the universe ought to be properly considered part *of* the universe, which is fundamentally different from your misunderstanding of what he's trying to say.
He's arguing from an inclusive view, you attributed to him an exclusive view.
You thought he was trying to prove the non-existence of anything beyond the universe (as *you* define the universe and the concept of "beyond" it). Instead, he was simply saying that whatever exists, he'd rather view it as being part of the all-encompassing "universe" (as *he* views the concept of "universe").
Like all too many battling philosophers, you two are bitching about definition choice, not substance.
Ten yard penalty.
Evolution is almost composed exclusively of elements that are not observable! Shame beavus! Was I mistaken when I gave you credit for thinking?
No, you were mistaken when you presumed that you fully understood his point before you starting throwing the insults.
Evolution, like any science, rests upon observations. Sure, we can't "observe" amphibians splitting off from fish (we weren't there at the time), but we can certainly observe literally millions of pieces of hard, see-and-touch evidence today which may shed light on the event.
His comment, however, was dealing with the very unobservable nature of your admonition to "look out the window" in a metaphysical sense.
If you want to focus on truly observable phenomena and argue that it should count as convincing evidence for a deity, feel free and try to make your case.
But the moment you get frustrated when that's not going as well as you had hoped and you start just shouting at people to "look beyond your materialistic philosophy room and look out the window", *that's* when it's fair game to start teasing you about your invisible friends.
If you want to make an evidence-based argument, make one.
If you want to make a faith-based argument, fine.
But don't try to tell us that one is identical to the other. And don't make the mistake of believing it yourself.
Do you know of things you cannot observe? The question absolutely absurd, hypocritical, and sophomoric. Everyone knows things they cannot observe! If you want a lesson in the theory of knowlege, I charge $105 an hour. It is amazing to me that I so often have to give the high-brow evolutionists lessons in elementary logic.
Okay, *thirty* yard penalty for overweening conceit...
You people are supposed to be the enlightened ones yet you mock us if our vocabulary exceeds 800 words.
No, we mock you when you get pompous.
I can talk like William F. Buckley too, but why would I want to? Try reading the liberal "intellectual" publications sometime, they go *nuts* on that stuff. After the five hundredth sentence like, "a forum that would look for the means and modes of dialogues between critical discourses as various as semiotics, Habermasian critical pragmatics, Lacanian psychoanalysis, Foucauldian analysis, deconstruction, structuralism, and Chomskyian linguistics", I'm more than happy to talk like a normal person so as to put as much distance as possible between myself and that sort of robotic buzzspeak.
[beavus wrote:] Explain why I can't with equal legitimacy claim that there is a 2D realm of Mandarin-speaking Elvis's flying upside down on winged donkeys.
You can. Here's another lesson in logic for free: The burden of proof is on the new idea.
Cool, so Dhatar is responsible for creation of the Earth, and if you want us to believe in that young upstart Jehovah, you've got an uphill climb ahead of you.
Tip: Don't get all snotty about claiming the crown of Mr. Logic one moment, then revert suddenly to, "my idea's better because it's older" -- it just makes you look silly.
I have given good reasons to believe why there is a reality outside of our physical universe.
I must have missed them, could you run them past us again?
You can only offer the lame and trampled excuse that if you can't observe it, it doesn't exist.
Straw man alert -- that's not what he said.
Any 7th-grader of average intelligence who hasn't been force-fed darwinism through the elementary grades will be able to discern which position is superior.
If you want to claim the distinction of thinking in tune with a "7th-grader of average intelligence", I'll not try to dissuade you.
Most of evolution's claims are unobservable.
I suspect you're operating on a very restrictive definition of "unobservable" here...
If the unobservable element makes it impossible, then evolution is impossible as well.
Got any examples, or are you going to continue to destroy us with generalities?
You see, beavus, your side tries to explain all the impossibilities of the Big Bang by telling us the laws of physics were different then.
But, we can show how those different laws are a predictable and measurable consequent of quantum physics, and can calculate detailed accounts of what happened at various stages, and test them (within limits) in particle accelerators.
What have you got? "Well, it says here in this book written from Nth-generation oral histories that might have gotten a bit garbled along the way..."
That's not nearly as quantitatively predictive, is it?
PROVE that there is something out there before you make this lame Ad Hominem claim. Who appointed you judge over this man to call him 'Materialist?' Thy Beam makes thee Blind. And how do you know what makes him 'uncomfortable?'
Maybe it is just an honest search for truth based upon facts. Who are you to assert otherwise?
Major premise:
The universe is all that there is.
Minor premise: If something were outside the universe it could not be part of the universe.
Conclusion: Therefore something outside the universe cannot exist.
This isn't what he said, and this isn't Begging the Question. This could be termed Excluded Middle Term, Affirming the Consequent and a bunch of other stuff but this is all bull.
Properly structured this would be:
If there were something outside the Universe it could not exist.
There is something outside the Universe,
Therefore, there is something outside the Universe that cannot exist.
Your syllogism contains no common terms so you demonstrate that you don't understand logic well enough not to make the most basic fallacious errors.
I charge $105 an hour.
It is amazing to me that I so often have to give the high-brow evolutionists lessons in elementary logic.
Seems you overcharge.
The burden of proof is on the new idea.
ok darkshadow, I finally found it. Have you met Donh? He holds there is no 'Burden of Proof' just a 'Burden of Best Guess'. Maybe you should argue with him. But he's just a Creationist in disguise. And I digress.
Burden of Proof means you must have some evidence before anyone can take your claim seriously. You have no evidence for yours, near as I can tell.
I have given good reasons to believe why there is a reality outside of our physical universe.
BY DEFINITION, not possible.
The burden of proof is on you to show or at least provide some logic that indicates why matter is eternal.
Why? Because you say so? Matter exists now, that is all you know. That is all you can ever know, try though you might. Prove that it isn't eternal (!) prove that it came from God. None of it can be 'proved.'
Of course I understand the argument I put forth. I admit some of the properties are unobservable. Most of evolution's claims are unobservable. If the unobservable element makes it impossible, then evolution is impossible as well. The properties are not incomprehensibly different.
'Unobservable' and without evidence are entirely two different things. I cannot 'observe' radiation but the evidence of its existence will kill me, as it did Madame Curie. I cannot 'observe' any 'evidence' that justifies Creationism. There is none. None. If one starts with just what one observes about the Universe, and never hears of the Bible, one will never, ever, ever, ever, reach the conclusion that Jesus Died on the Cross for Your Sins. Never. Ever.
Given only the evidence of the natural world one could arrive at evolution. The problem that Creationists now have is the question:
Why did God put so many fossils in the world to make it appear that evolution is true? Either God is very cruel in His judgments or He has a very weird sense of humor.
all i have time for today