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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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 Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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| Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 8:14 pm Post subject: |
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I insist everyone uses only pictures from now on!
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pastis
Joined: 20 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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| crash bang wrote: |
| pastis, just go back to trying to pick up k-girls and falling off your bar stool at the foreigner bar |
No need to project your limited world view on me; your cheap plebian sentiments don't appeal to me. I just think they might appeal to Rteacher, for a change - help him break out of his shell as it were.
Anyhow, as for all you simpleton god dobbers and krishna wannabes, I find you weak and very disgusting. That is all. |
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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 12:26 am Post subject: |
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| Rteacher wrote: |
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C'mon, RTeacher!? Do you really reject science? This is disappointing. Can't you balance your view even a little?
I suppose you won't respond to this question either, but will continue in a private conversation. . . |
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crash bang
Joined: 11 Jul 2007
Location: gwangju
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| Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 4:32 am Post subject: |
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| damn those scientists and their high-falutin logic and thinking |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 4:52 am Post subject: |
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"Omkara's" concern that only balenced views of religion and science be presented is quite evident by his featuring Dawkins dogmatic atheism on this thread.
Of course, "Ed209", "Pastis", "Justin Hale", etc. always present balenced views, and are careful to note positive aspects of religion.
"Omkara" apparently prefers to mix in some PC, pyschobabble, impersonalist word jugglery, and a cool avatar name to achieve an overall balenced effect ...  |
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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 3:50 pm Post subject: |
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A balanced view, RTeacher, does not imply that we conclude that all arguments are equal. Rather, it implies that we acknowledge Wisdom when she shows her face.
Did you watch the Dawkins video? Is there not some important truth in what he says?
Funny, the only people who call Dawkins vicious are those whose thinking he is critical of.
Honestly, I felt some sting in his words, as I read The God Delusion. But, as I suspended my prejudices, I began to see his point in clear terms, as I have but only rarely in books. By the latter chapters, I was cheering him on. He is doing important work, if only to bring the discourse back into balance.
His argument, in part, is that our PC arguments allow for the ugliest face of religion to go forth and multiply, in a virus like fashion.
That I am PC? Hmmm. . .I suppose. |
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kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
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| Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 3:59 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Omkara"]
| kermo wrote: |
| Quote: |
| -a lack of miraculous action in my experience. I've heard some pretty wild stories from people I trust, but I haven't seen much first-hand. |
Here is where I part company with you. I think you are witness to miracle every moment. . .not in a sentimental, foolish romantic's sense, but in the sense that Einstein would have held. He said that either everything is a miracle, or nothing is.
Rather than calling what the christians call miracle miracle (since their claims would actually result in the non-possibility of a universe organized according to rational principle), I call the symmetry, regularity and improbability the miracle. Washing the eyes alone can bring us to see miracle. |
I should have been more specific. I haven't been witness to much of the activity that the apostles were told to expect, i.e., drastic healing as a result of prayer. I have a sense of the miraculous. I find beauty and wonder at the aquarium, in a physics textbook, in the growth of a child, in the healing of a papercut, in a well-told joke.
I'll continue to think about what you've said, and I appreciate the way you've treated me like a fellow traveller, not an enemy. |
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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 4:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Rteacher wrote: |
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| ...that stifling free speech in the name of political correctness poses a greater danger to freedom, and assuming that the Absolute Truth is devoid of personality - or is limited in some way - is not a correct explanation of reality. |
I agree witht the first part. But we must have standards of measure. That I would challenge a statement with reference to standard measure--ie, critical theory, mothod and science--is not an assault on free speech.
As for your latter claim, you have the freedom to make as many assertions as you want. But the form of the claim is not falsifiable; hence, the only thing I can do is counter-assert. Perhaps try to use the conditional phrase--that would be appropriate for this kind of forum. that is , state, IF there is a supreme personality, this or that follows. It is a kind of epistemic humility which differs from political correctness. . .
Quote: I think that higher-dimensional beings (demigods) can exert some control over various phenomena like tsunamis and earthquakes, but there's no reason to believe that we're capable of detecting it - or that we're intelligent enough to understand how collective karma works.
I can do nothing with this. I think aliens have progammed their hard drives, and that is our reality. Can you falsify or do anything with this kind of sentence? No. But I can assert it all day long. . .
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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed May 14, 2008 4:07 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="kermo"]
| Omkara wrote: |
| kermo wrote: |
| Quote: |
| -a lack of miraculous action in my experience. I've heard some pretty wild stories from people I trust, but I haven't seen much first-hand. |
Here is where I part company with you. I think you are witness to miracle every moment. . .not in a sentimental, foolish romantic's sense, but in the sense that Einstein would have held. He said that either everything is a miracle, or nothing is.
Rather than calling what the christians call miracle miracle (since their claims would actually result in the non-possibility of a universe organized according to rational principle), I call the symmetry, regularity and improbability the miracle. Washing the eyes alone can bring us to see miracle. |
I should have been more specific. I haven't been witness to much of the activity that the apostles were told to expect, i.e., drastic healing as a result of prayer. I have a sense of the miraculous. I find beauty and wonder at the aquarium, in a physics textbook, in the growth of a child, in the healing of a papercut, in a well-told joke.
I'll continue to think about what you've said, and I appreciate the way you've treated me like a fellow traveller, not an enemy. |
I appreciate your sincerity!
I think people like you, who have that sense of the miraculous, have what real teachers need. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 6:21 am Post subject: |
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Falsifiability is not necessarily the last word in science - I don't think you can logically falsify the Absolute Truth.
Defining the Absolute Truth as the source of everything (past, present, and future) I think that any assumption that it's limited in some way (eg: devoid of personality) would be mistaken. |
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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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A proposition cannot be scientific unless it is falsifiable in principle, otherwise it is untestable.
Absolute truth would be of the kind that, were it known, would generate many sentences and propositions, which are themselves falsifiable.
A falsifiable sentence would look like this. "Apples are made of cheese." Or, "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." I can test these propositions. I do not falsify the truth, only test the accuracy of the statement; hence, they are falsifiable.
We need to make a distinction here between the Truth and true statements. In this sense, your are right. Absolute Truth is unfalsifiable. But, as for you and I, we don't have that. So, we look at what we say with respect and criticism. Then, through the process of dialectics, we move toward an intellectual understanding of Truth.
I understand the very important distinction between intellectual knowledge and the experience in which the knower and the known become unified in Yoga; but, the two in principle, did we understand correctly, should not contradict one another. Yet, the contradictions are the richest part of this kind of discourse. Contradictions show us where our knowledge is lacking, and so point the way. |
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Omkara
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 3:06 pm Post subject: |
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| Rteacher wrote: |
Falsifiability is not necessarily the last word in science - I don't think you can logically falsify the Absolute Truth.
Defining the Absolute Truth as the source of everything (past, present, and future) I think that any assumption that it's limited in some way (eg: devoid of personality) would be mistaken. |
There could be a problem with this definition. We assume that all things have a source. But what about the source? We fall into and infinite regress.
I think the structure of our mind makes us think that there are sources and causes of everything; but it might not be true in all cases. It is a projection of our mind's structure on the universe. But, why should we assume that the universe finally resembles our grammar? |
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