Exposing Atheistic Myths

[Keith&Co.]

I am a Neo Post Modern Quasi Materialist. Our numbers are small but we are growing.

**GASP!!**
Just like the gypsy woman said!!

 

[Half-Life]

So to imagine something as "independent of perception" is meaningless because there are no properties if no one is there to observe them.

....which you still only can assert, not support.
And this still violates Occam's Shaving Kit, thus it is the less efficient explanation for consilience.

I don't think you have given this much thought beyond liking the vonclusion.

What do you mean it's not supported, Keith? So you believe something can be completely red and completely yellow at the same time? Something can be both 3 feet and 10 feet at the same time?

You're not making sense, Keith.Properties are based on the mind. If there are no minds, you are on the hook to explain the properties of things that are only known through minds.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

John the potter creates a red coffee cup. What did he create it out of? When does it actually become a red coffee cup? Does it become one when John closes the kiln and no longer sees it? But God does? But John opens the kiln and finds his red coffee cup has cracked in the firing. Did God cause it to crack? How does all of this work? God was the only one observing the coffee cup in the kiln.

 

[skepticalbip]

So to imagine something as "independent of perception" is meaningless because there are no properties if no one is there to observe them.

....which you still only can assert, not support.
And this still violates Occam's Shaving Kit, thus it is the less efficient explanation for consilience.

I don't think you have given this much thought beyond liking the vonclusion.

What do you mean it's not supported, Keith? So you believe something can be completely red and completely yellow at the same time? Something can be both 3 feet and 10 feet at the same time?

You're not making sense, Keith.Properties are based on the mind. If there are no minds, you are on the hook to explain the properties of things that are only known through minds.

You are walking through a dark room. You trip over something. You have no idea what it is or how it looks. Is it there?

Does it only come to exist after you switch the light on and can describe it in detail? If so, what did you trip over?

Was the light switch there before you switched the light on so you could see the switch?

 

[Half-Life]

What do you mean it's not supported, Keith? So you believe something can be completely red and completely yellow at the same time? Something can be both 3 feet and 10 feet at the same time?

You're not making sense, Keith.Properties are based on the mind. If there are no minds, you are on the hook to explain the properties of things that are only known through minds.

You are walking through a dark room. You trip over something. You have no idea what it is or how it looks. Is it there?

Yes. God is observing it and your mind describes it. This doesn't prove it exists independently of perception. "Independently of perception" means "no minds." No minds, no description, you have no way to describe it.

 

[DBT]

As far as I know Superposition is very hard to maintain in the lab, the vibration of a passing truck some distance away collapsing wave function/superposition, which does not need someone being defined as an observer, just particle/wave interaction.

Which suggests that the universe evolves without someone watching.

 

[skepticalbip]

What do you mean it's not supported, Keith? So you believe something can be completely red and completely yellow at the same time? Something can be both 3 feet and 10 feet at the same time?

You're not making sense, Keith.Properties are based on the mind. If there are no minds, you are on the hook to explain the properties of things that are only known through minds.

You are walking through a dark room. You trip over something. You have no idea what it is or how it looks. Is it there?

Yes. God is observing it and your mind describes it. This doesn't prove it exists independently of perception. "Independently of perception" means "no minds." No minds, no description, you have no way to describe it.

If you can evoke a magic eye then it is only fair that I can evoke magic matter that doesn't need an eye.

 

[Keith&Co.]

So to imagine something as "independent of perception" is meaningless because there are no properties if no one is there to observe them.

....which you still only can assert, not support.
And this still violates Occam's Shaving Kit, thus it is the less efficient explanation for consilience.

I don't think you have given this much thought beyond liking the vonclusion.

What do you mean it's not supported, Keith?

i mean, you can prove perceptions of existing properties can vary between individuals, then jump straight to "there are no properties if no one is there to observe them."
That's a logic fail.
You might say there are no perceptions without a perciever, but that is not evidence the proprrty itself is observer dependent.

So you believe something can be completely red and completely yellow at the same time?

i notice how your example was not 'what the piece IS,' but 'how the piece looks.' To two people. With kniwn dofferences in their perceptions. That does not change how a mass spectrometer in either person's hands will measure the piece.

You're cheating.

Something can be both 3 feet and 10 feet at the same time?

If we want to make this analogous to your colorblind example, yes. If we get an engineer and a sculptor, one with a great deal of experience estimating sizes, and one who just sucks at it, yes, two people can look at the same thing and make different estimates of the size. That does not mean they will get different numbers when they use a tape measure.

You're not making sense, Keith.Properties are based on the mind.

nope. Perceptions occur in the mind. Properties are based on the components of an object, and the condition it is in.
At least, you are fucking hopeless to prove otherwise.

If there are no minds, you are on the hook to explain the properties of things that are only known through minds.

Sure. You conflate perception and properties.
They exist independently of minds.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Yes. God is observing it and your mind describes it. This doesn't prove it exists independently of perception. "Independently of perception" means "no minds." No minds, no description, you have no way to describe it.

If you can evoke a magic eye then it is only fair that I can evoke magic matter that doesn't need an eye.

But Halfie's magic is real! Really, really real!!

 

[skepticalbip]

This entire exchange from Halfie was supposedly an attempt to prove god exists. However, god's existence must be taken as a given for him to make his argument.

There must be a very high pitched whine coming from Aristotle's tomb.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I see light from a star a billion years away, star only becomes real once I see the light that took that long to get here?

 

[Rhea]

I see light from a star a billion years away, star only becomes real once I see the light that took that long to get here?

Time Traveler!!

 

[abaddon]

I see light from a star a billion years away, star only becomes real once I see the light that took that long to get here?

That's what Half-Life thinks the materialist's/atheist's position SHOULD be if we were true to strict empiricism the way he thinks we should be. (Strict empiricism = believe only what you directly perceive 'with your mind').

One of his posts contended:

1. a yellow banana doesn't exist independently of perception.
2. because the yellow does not exist independently of perception.
3. therefore the banana does not exist independently of perception.

So, if I have managed to make his nonsense come together into a summary:
Absolutely everything is qualia. So if you're not currently perceiving something, it can't exist... unless another mind is perceiving it. That other mind is the mind of God.

Or that's what I've been able to understand of Half-Life's stance.

The problem isn't that the star doesn't exist until YOU see its light. It's that it doesn't exist if God's not seeing it. Because it's all "ideas", or I think to update that, it's all qualia.

 

[steve_bank]

I generally align with Naturalism and Free Thought. There can be no supernatural or immaterial. By definition anything that exists is natural, even a god.

The material-immaterial dichotomy has no meaning. Photons pass through bodies. In the early days of radio people were sppooked by the idea that something unseen could get into a house with doors and windows closed activating a radio receiver.

There are things we can detect and things we can not.

Immaterial versus material has no meaning. If something affects reality then there is a causal connection. If a Wican casts a spell and turns a prince into a frog it is not 'supernatural. There would be a causal relationship even if we can not find it.

It was part of several Star Trek stories. When Kirk is confronted by an apparently omnipotent being in the end there is a causal link in the powers.

 

[skepticalbip]

If god gets a bit tired after the billions of years he has been keeping track of every subatomic particle in the universe and needs to take a nap, does the universe vanish or does he have his reindeer fill in for him? After all he did wear himself out after only six days according to the Bible and he wasn't even having to keep updating his naughty or nice list at the time.

 

[Keith&Co.]

If god gets a bit tired after the billions of years he has been keeping track of every subatomic particle in the universe and needs to take a nap, does the universe vanish or does he have his reindeer fill in for him? After all he did wear himself out after only six days according to the Bible and he wasn't even having to keep updating his naughty or nice list at the time.

Or sneezes! God cannot keep his eyes open when he sneezes, so everything blinks out . Maybe that's what Deja Vu is, God reremembering everything from scratch.
Immaterialism AND last Tuesdayism.

 

[bilby]

Isn't Bruce Jenner a female mind trapped in a mans body?

Where does the female mind come from? How do you think mind is formed?

Mind. Soul. Free will. Autonomy. Call it what you like.
I think these are the product of God's creativity.

You are wrong. And reality doesn't give a flying fuck what you think.

 

[Half-Life]

I see light from a star a billion years away, star only becomes real once I see the light that took that long to get here?

That's what Half-Life thinks the materialist's/atheist's position SHOULD be if we were true to strict empiricism the way he thinks we should be. (Strict empiricism = believe only what you directly perceive 'with your mind').

One of his posts contended:

1. a yellow banana doesn't exist independently of perception.
2. because the yellow does not exist independently of perception.
3. therefore the banana does not exist independently of perception.

So, if I have managed to make his nonsense come together into a summary:
Absolutely everything is qualia. So if you're not currently perceiving something, it can't exist... unless another mind is perceiving it. That other mind is the mind of God.

Or that's what I've been able to understand of Half-Life's stance.

The problem isn't that the star doesn't exist until YOU see its light. It's that it doesn't exist if God's not seeing it. Because it's all "ideas", or I think to update that, it's all qualia.

Bravo! You understand it! If only the other atheists could see it, too. I can give credit where credit is due. The other atheists are running around chasing their own tails and celebrate when they bite the tail only to realize it's their own tail they bit.

Since you understand the argument and you still call it nonsense, then please tell me how you empirically verified things CAN exist independently of minds.

 

[Half-Life]

What do you mean it's not supported, Keith?

i mean, you can prove perceptions of existing properties can vary between individuals, then jump straight to "there are no properties if no one is there to observe them."
That's a logic fail.
You might say there are no perceptions without a perciever, but that is not evidence the proprrty itself is observer dependent.

So you believe something can be completely red and completely yellow at the same time?

i notice how your example was not 'what the piece IS,' but 'how the piece looks.' To two people. With kniwn dofferences in their perceptions. That does not change how a mass spectrometer in either person's hands will measure the piece.

You're cheating.

Something can be both 3 feet and 10 feet at the same time?

If we want to make this analogous to your colorblind example, yes. If we get an engineer and a sculptor, one with a great deal of experience estimating sizes, and one who just sucks at it, yes, two people can look at the same thing and make different estimates of the size. That does not mean they will get different numbers when they use a tape measure.

You're not making sense, Keith.Properties are based on the mind.

nope. Perceptions occur in the mind. Properties are based on the components of an object, and the condition it is in.
At least, you are fucking hopeless to prove otherwise.

If there are no minds, you are on the hook to explain the properties of things that are only known through minds.

Sure. You conflate perception and properties.
They exist independently of minds.

Size is only known through the mind, just like the yellow of a banana. If you have a plane on a runway it will measure very long. You will not disagree with this, Keith. But, once the plane is in the air flying high, I can hold up that same tape measure and it will look like the plane is about 1 inch long.

Is the plane simultaneously both lengths at the same time? Il'l give you a hint: NO!

 

[bilby]

Mind. Soul. Free will. Autonomy. Call it what you like.
I think these are the product of God's creativity.

These are just words. When you say 'soul,' what exactly are you talking about? What is the composition of this thing called 'soul?' Spirit stuff?....What is Spirit? How does Spirit interact with matter?

Did the Female spirit/soul accidently inhabit a male body in your example?

Souls are ghosts. Pretty easy to understand, abracadabra stuff and all that.

We know all of the interactions that are possible for matter on scales smaller than solar systems, but larger than nucleons.

None of them allows for a spirit, soul, or ghost to interact with the brain or body of any living thing.

Souls, spirits, ghosts and any other 'life after death' or dualistic phenomena are as physically impossible as a brick that falls upwards. These things simply cannot exist, unless our best tested physics is completely and utterly wrong in a number of very obvious ways that would be immediately apparent to kids in a middle school physics class. Our best tested physics isn't that wrong. In fact, it's indistinguishable from 100% right, according to our most sensitive and expensive tools for testing it.

To believe in ghosts, souls, or an afterlife requires a lack of knowledge about reality that is a massive insult to the many thousands of experts who have devoted their lives to the discovery and publication of that knowledge.

You don't need to know how a petrol engine can make your car go; But you shouldn't insult the thousands of mechanics and engineers who have devoted their lives to improving those engines and the cars they power, by making absurd claims that the entire understanding of how they work is wrong, and that in fact they only work because of a prayer you said last week. That would be unbelievably stupid, insulting and arrogant. And so is claiming that material humans can interact with a hypothetical "soul". It's absurd, it's nonsense, and it's a massive red flag that says "Here is someone so badly misinformed about reality that they don't even realise how little they understand, or how much is now understood".

Every philosopher from before the middle of the twentieth century (and most of those since) who have considered these questions, have been completely unqualified to do so because they haven't kept up with the remarkable - and testable, and repeatable - results that have come from quantum field theory.

If you don't even know what the four forces that interact with matter are, or the properties of the particles that carry those forces, then you are as qualified to discuss interactions between humans and hypothetical unknown external influences as a neolithic man would be to install and upgrade the operating system on a modern laptop.

Go home, theists. You are so far out of your depth, that you are at severe risk of the bends.

Physics has now described reality sufficiently well as to render your claims provably false. Your ignorance of these proofs is no defence. Fuck off and learn some physics. It's not easy - but unlike religion, it actually works as a means to understanding reality.