Aldo_Anything Posted:

Catholicism alone was responsible for so many problems over the last 20 years, like its abortion/contraception politics or view on homosexuality. While I would support a reform of Catholic values (allow women to become priestess, let them have sex), I don’t see this happening in the near future. Not to speak of the Islam.

While I would agree that wars have been fought in the name of a state or nationality, I remember none that was fought in the name of science. Then, there are countless religious wars, because if you take your faith seriuosly, all other believers are wrong.

What about World War II?

Religion and nationality seem to create a natual rivalry, like prefessional sport teams. You want your guys to win.

Well said.

Unlike science, where they leave it to more or less intellectual jokes.

There’s quite a bit of rivalry and mudslinging within the scientific community. Who gets ridiculed and dismissed? Who gets grants? Actual science may be impartial, but scientists are still apes and the direction of scientific inquiry is shaped by monkey business.

@Soron

You haven’t made a compelling argument against belief in God so much as an observation/philosophic stance: doing good just for the sake of getting into Heaven isn’t really doing good.

I agree with you.

A good counter, though: regardless of your reasons, doing good still helps people.

Also, in the case of Christianity it’s not by good works but God’s grace (and/or faith) that one receives salvation. Like Shii says.

Chawin Posted:

and that’s the great thing about philosophy, you can’t prove anything.

Yeah, you see philosophers making claims and then others working with the validity of their arguments ( “Is this logically self-consistent?” ) more often than anything else.

@Duncecap

Pascal’s Wager is a satire? I hadn’t heard that before, but it makes sense. If you can post a link or explanation, I’d love to see it.

Duncecap Posted:

Write this on a slip of paper:

“Here is a thought”

Then read the piece of paper: Is it a thought? Does it exist without a mind to hold it?

A much better example from modern times: The computer. It can take a thought, replicate it, and send it to other computers, and even to paper.

Does the computer hold a mind, and if so, then from whence is the mind?

Now, if computers can continually create thoughts, then can there exist a mindless state that can create and be a progenitor of thoughts?

The state of a thought without a mind, and even of transmitting and creating thoughts, seems to me to be a simple idea to grasp, given familiarity with todays technology.

“This is a thought” is not a thought except in a mind. It is convenience that leads us to treat the words themselves as a thought. They evoke the thought when read, they represent the thought, but the meaning of symbols is arbitrary.

If you are prepared to say thoughts exist without thinkers, meaning can exist outside of minds, and the period at the end of this sentence inherently contains the meaning of life. Does it?