The Atheist Experience

The Atheist Experience Aug 5, 2018 1:50:46 GMT FilmFlaneur likes this

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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2018 1:50:46 GMT

Aug 5, 2018 1:01:02 GMT Arlon10 said:

Aug 4, 2018 20:26:47 GMT @graham said:

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1) You can just ask them [whether they are gnostic].

Then the word "gnostic" means whatever any individual whosoever chooses it to mean. Then for 400 gnostics there could be 400 different definitions of what it means to be gnostic. In other words you have no definition whatever that can be applied with any consistent meaning. That is not a definition.

Amazing. Every single thing you just said is wrong.

There is a definition. You simply need to ask people if they think they meet the definition. That does not mean there is more than one definition.

I am fully aware that people can say things they do not believe. When they do it is called a lie.

No, no lie is needed.

Again, are you just too stupid to grasp this point? I even quoted to you specific ways that it could be argued (which you edited out and ignored).

If they truly lack belief then they wouldn't speak out

Wrong again. A person who lacks belief can take part in a conversation very easily.

Again, you appear to have a very firm belief that the only possible way to have a discussion is if one person asserts that X is true and the other asserts that X is false. That is untrue.

It is possible, for instance, for one person to assert that X is true, and the other to take the position "You don't have a good reason to believe that X is true. It might be, but it might not."

According to you, such people have to be quiet - and if they're not, then they must be lying and secretly believe that X is false.

The only reason to believe this is that you are fundamentally ignorant of how people speak to one another.

Debates (unlike after dinner speeches) involve two sides each with a claim.

But the claims do not have to both be positive claims.

Let me put it in the simplest possible terms. I'll use short sentences and everything. As if you had the mind of a child :

You : "god exists."
Me : "You don't have good reason to believe that."
You : "That means you think god doesn't exist."
Me : "No. I just think your reasons are not good."

According to you, that conversation is impossible. But there it is, anyway.

A proof is only necessary when there is a counter claim.

There is always a counter claim. But the counter claim is not required to be a positive claim in opposition to yours. The counter claim can simply be "your argument is a weak one."

Now how do you decide who has the burden of proof since both sides have a claim? Suppose you claim that arsenic is not toxic, do you have no burden of proof since your claim is not "positive"?

Arlon, brace yourself : "Arsenic is not toxic" is a positive claim.
"Arsenic is toxic" is also a positive claim.

BOTH of those claims carry a burden of proof.

But if you said "arsenic is not toxic" and I said "I don't think you have good reason to believe that", then the burden of proof is yours. I have no burden of proof.

Likewise, if you said "arsenic is toxic" and I said "I don't think you have good reason to believe that", then the burden of proof is yours. I still have no burden of proof.

Rather, as I explained several times, the burden of proof is on the side that challenges the "status quo."

And as I point out each time, this does nothing but demonstrate that you are fundamentally ignorant of how talking works.

That you have no standards means that what you say doesn't matter. That I have standards shows how what I say matters.

When you tell another person that they didn't feel what they felt, the only standards that you are displaying is a low standard of understanding.

They are often subjective, but not by definition. (Just saying.)

Yes, by definition. Just correcting what you were just saying.

I will decide whether their experience qualifies as "spiritual" by my definition of spiritual

And we arrive at the part of the thread where you decide that you need to invent new definitions of words to try and make yourself right.

Happiness is indeed entirely subjective, spirituality is not.

But spiritual experiences, which is what we're talking about, are. So you fail again.

If their dead relatives told them something they could not have known except by hearing from dead relatives, and that information could be verified, then that would be one sort of "spiritual" experience

Nope. Again, you're mixing up the experience with whether the experience maps to reality.

Once again : An experience is spiritual if it feels spiritual to the experiencer. That's it, that's the only criteria. Whether the experience has anything to do with reality is a different discussion.

if they did not learn anything at all from their experience they didn't already know, then that would be another sort of "spiritual," would it not?

No, it would not.

Notice that I have different terms for those different experiences. You still do not. One is "spiritual" the other is only "possibly" spiritual. That's how science works, since you didn't know.

ROFL, the idea that you think you know how science works is the most absurd thing you've said in a thread full of absurd things you've said.

You don't know how science works, Arlon. Not even remotely.

And at risk of doing the equivalent of a kicking a puppy... "spiritual" and "possibly spiritual" are not actually two different terms. One is merely a qualification of the same term.

Kind of like how I could call you ignorant, but you're really colossally ignorant.