subject:"Re\: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS."



On 09 Feb 2013, at 23:03, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/9/2013 6:16 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:


If you make evolution set the standard, then you have to buy the  
darker side of its theology: "Good Tsunami, asteroid, CO2, mass  
extinctions of life forms; as these shocks will create a stronger  
forcing function on populations and individuals to adapt in the  
long term; good my family got killed in that last quake".


You can recognize that evolution is responsible for you valuing your  
life,


It might be partially responsible. Evolution "assumed" arithmetic.



and valuing the life of your children even more, without making  
natural selection your standard of value.


OK.

Bruno.





Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On 09 Feb 2013, at 17:28, John Clark wrote:

On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Quentin Anciaux  
 wrote:

> you agree that if I ask you the question in the MWI context, what  
is the probability that you see the photon hit the left plate,  
you'll say 50%,

As I've said before the primary weakness of the MWI is how to  
consistently assign probabilities to observers seeing things,  
particularly if the number of universes is infinite and not just  
very large.  All the probabilities need to add up to 100% or it's  
nonsense,

... making your "W and M" prediction into nonsense. (with W and M  
being respectfully denoting the corresponding subjective experience of  
being in the city W, or, exclusively, the city M, as you cannot be in  
both cities from the first person point of view.

and there is considerable debate about how well Many World's has  
managed to do that, some say pretty well but others say not so much.

> yet you say that in the duplication experience of Bruno, it 100%  
you see left, 100% you see right which is of course false... the  
correct one either in MWI or with Bruno's experiment is 50%. If you  
can do a prediction in MWI so can you *the same way* in Bruno's  
experiment, only bad faith prevent you to admit it.

In Many Worlds everything is completely deterministic, everything is  
determined by Schrodinger's wave equation; or at least that's it's  
goal if it can get over the infinity problem mentioned above. But  
Bruno claims to have found a brand new type

I just make my case. I have never brag on "new" and things like that.  
That is not relevant, and the fact that you insist on this illustrate  
an ad hominem kind of argument.

of indeterminacy never seen before when all he has really discovered  
is the less than astonishing fact that the guy who well see the  
photon go to the left is the guy who sees the photon go to the left.

And this miss the point that the act of prediction is asked to the guy  
in Helsinki. That if he said "W or M", all his "successors" will  
agree, and that if he said "W and M", all its successors will refute  
the prediction, assuming of course that he has the cognitive ability  
to understand the definition of first person and third person given in  
comp, at the start of UDA.

Bruno

  John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.



On 09 Feb 2013, at 15:16, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:




On Sat, Feb 9, 2013 at 12:19 AM, meekerdb   
wrote:

On 2/8/2013 12:04 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:




On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 1:23 AM, meekerdb   
wrote:

On 2/7/2013 3:15 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:




On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 10:53 PM, meekerdb   
wrote:

On 2/7/2013 12:01 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
“A secular purpose” is a nice ruse, because it is “theology-free”,  
right?


Yes it is.  It's not dependent on any ultimate foundation of the  
universe (per Bruno's definition of 'theology') or even any  
agreement about what that might be.  It only depends on the public  
subjective non-religious values of society as expressed in their  
laws.  That's what 'secular' means.



By what mechanism does a value become "non-religious"? How did  
"marriage" become secular for instance?


Can you define non-religious values?


I can where religions are certified by the state.


Care to share an example of a secular value stripped of all  
religious and transcendental connotations?


Sure, murder is bad.  Of course this may be incoporated into many  
different religions as a value imposed by some transcendental force  
- but it's constancy across many cultures and religions, it's  
obvious relation to evolutionary survival makes it pretty clear that  
it's a secular value.



You take "negation murder" to be a secular value? Ok, I'll go along  
with this even though I believe no state or individual sees that, as  
an ethical end to strive for in the sense of a negative intrinsic  
value.


"Not murder" is, along with all these cultural and evolutionary  
factors, transcendental, as it follows from valuing life in the  
simpler self-referential statement: "I live, hence I don't want to  
die. I live, therefore I wouldn't want to be killed, therefore  
murder is bad."


You ask why, and you'll get a transcendental answer: "Because my  
life is not worth killing." => simply belief, as the person in  
question could be a Hitler type, with a Stauffenberg waiting in the  
next room. Human life appears as the primary, intrinsic value even  
here, and not "not murder", which is merely instrumental negative  
value implied by the primary value of affirming human life. The  
negative instrumental value can be overridden, to assert the  
intrinsic one. "I value human life" in the general intrinsic,  
affirmative sense is much harder to override.


"Value human life" is common sense with transcendental roots; not  
some naive nonsense imposed onto religions by their arbitrary  
transcendental false deity.


Additionally, some mystics, theologians, and religions were able to  
nail this point without recourse to "historical appearance of  
cultural consistency and religions, evolutionary survival", in which  
you've obscured the transcendental quality to make your point: these  
are imho just sophisticated justifications (still products of  
science's narrative of seeking truth; a truth beyond our reach =>  
transcendental smiles back at us again anyway, if you ask "why?"  
enough times) of something much simpler: the will to live, including  
the irrational belief bit we can't wrap our minds around, as we  
could also be evil and our value of life misplaced at times.


If you make evolution set the standard, then you have to buy the  
darker side of its theology: "Good Tsunami, asteroid, CO2, mass  
extinctions of life forms; as these shocks will create a stronger  
forcing function on populations and individuals to adapt in the long  
term; good my family got killed in that last quake".


Good points.

In fact some people seem to have hard to understand that physics is  
not theology, as they bear on different questions. But saying there is  
no theology, makes physics (usually) into a theology. It is no more  
physics: it is physics + a theological assumption. It becomes *a*  
theology.
Not saying it makes it authoritative, which is, provably with comp,  
the theological trap.


In science, locally, we can still tolerate an amount of authority and  
conservatism, but in religion we can't.
The contrary can happen, and that's we have not really begin to do  
science.


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.



On 08 Feb 2013, at 17:54, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Jason Resch   
wrote:


>> there is a single result in Bruno's experiment, John K Clark sees  
Washington and Moscow.


But under MWI you agreed you see the photon hit the left or the  
right plate, not the left side and the right side.  So which is it?


Yet more confusion and for exactly the same reason, those God damned  
personal pronouns.




H = Helsinki where the person is read and annihilate. M is for Moscow,  
and W is for washington (the cities or the experience of feeling to be  
in the cities, according to the context).


We have agreed that:

- the M-guy is the H-guy.
- the W guy is the H-guy
- The M-guy is not the W-guy.

No problem because pronouns are indexical, and thus modal notions, on  
which typically the Leibniz identity rule don't applied.


We know by comp that the H-guy will survive. The H-guy knows comp, and  
so knows that the two computerized version  s, that is the M-guy and  
the W-guy , will not have direct access to the memory of their  
respective doppelganger, and so that whoever the H-guy will become, it  
can only be felt to be in one city, and that it has two be W or M.


The experience, when done, we can get confirmation. If the H-guy  
predicted "W or M", then the W-guy and the M-guy can compare the  
statement "W or M" in their diaries (which has been multiplied by  
definition of first person), then they look at the city, and the W-guy  
see W, which makes W or M true (by elementary logic). Etc.










John K Clark sees the photon hit the left AND the right side of the  
plate, however John K Clark has been duplicated so the John K Clark  
who sees the photon hit the left side of the plate sees the photon  
hit the left side of the plate and  the John K Clark who sees the  
photon hit the right side of the plate sees the photon hit the right  
side of the plate. In the same way John K Clark sees Washington AND  
Moscow although the Washington John K Clark sees only Washington and  
the Moscow John K Clark sees only Moscow.


If it is in the same way, it justifies the same use of probability.  
The only difference then is that in the quantum the 3p duplication is  
the 3p quantum superposition, and in comp it is the amoeba type, or  
computer type of classical duplication (a read of code followed by a  
reconstitution).



It is crucial, as this shows, before MGA that to use correctly a  
physical laws to predict a first person experience (like seeing an  
eclipse) we have to assume the physical universe is little to apply  
the laws, if not, we have to take into account the probabilities of  
having extension in the universal dovetailing, or in some long enough  
universal dovetailing.


Physicalist must bound the physical universe, to keep the brain mind  
identity thesis they use implicitly in applied physics.


Then MGA suggests this does not work either, unless some magic is put  
in the notion of matter.


Bruno






  John K Clark



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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On Saturday, February 9, 2013 9:07:50 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>  On 2/9/2013 5:13 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>
>  
>> It's how I recognize intelligence - and so do you.
>>  
>
> No, I recognize intelligence by experiencing learning. If there were an 
> Elvis impersonator who was so good that you could not tell the difference 
> between a film of him performing and one of Elvis performing, would you say 
> that he had become Elvis Presley?
>
>
> Learning is only detectable via function.
>

Experiencing learning is implicitly detected already. 

Think about it this way:

Let's say I'm a politician. I am about to give a press conference and so I 
have a stack of cards which have been pre-prepared for me by six different 
speech writers. They are color coded; red for questions about the military, 
white for the economy, green for the environment, etc.

If I am a complete idiot, assuming that my writers have done their job, I 
can field most if not all of the hot button questions without having known 
much about them at all. I need only know how to read and to be able to 
recognize which colors belong to which category of questions, and which 
questions seem to be about which category.

Note that there is no one intelligent agent which has an understanding of 
all of the categories.

However, if I were not an idiot, I could conceivably *learn* through the 
course of acting out this political charade, a bit of what I find myself 
parroting. If I am very intelligent, I could actually become informed in 
all of these categories and become, myself, a single intelligent agent with 
a polymath understanding - but -

my function need not change.

Nobody in the press will be able to tell whether I am a genius or an idiot 
based upon anything that I say, given that my speech writers have 
effectively predicted the types of questions which can be answered. As a 
politician, I could probably evade any question which isn't covered by my 
cards.

So there it is - a thought experiment, which, without getting into too much 
Searlean complication, clearly shows the enormous hole in assuming any sort 
of equivalence between intelligence and function, especially when there is 
both a will and skill to execute a simulation of intelligence.

Craig

> Brent
>  

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.


On 2/9/2013 5:13 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:



It's how I recognize intelligence - and so do you.


No, I recognize intelligence by experiencing learning. If there were an Elvis 
impersonator who was so good that you could not tell the difference between a film of 
him performing and one of Elvis performing, would you say that he had become Elvis Presley?


Learning is only detectable via function.

Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.



On Saturday, February 9, 2013 7:57:03 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>  On 2/9/2013 4:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>
>
>
> On Saturday, February 9, 2013 6:52:46 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: 
>>
>>  On 2/9/2013 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>>
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, February 9, 2013 6:29:54 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: 
>>>
>>> On 2/9/2013 3:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>>> > Evolution would have no need for generating values, since values are a 
>>> subjective 
>>> > motivation. 
>>>
>>> "Subjective motivation" is just a quantitative value seen from the 
>>> inside. 
>>>
>>
>> Why would quantitative values have an inside though? The only reason that 
>> we might presume that is because we are looking at it retrospectively. If 
>> you turn it around though, and assume quantitative mechanisms can exist 
>> without awareness, then there is no possibility of any interior experience 
>> being generated. How and why would such a thing arise?
>>  
>>  
>>>
>>> > All evolution would have to do is simply impose a script that assigns 
>>> a high priority to 
>>> > protecting ones own children and ones own life. 
>>>
>>> And that's what happened and that's what you feel as love of life and 
>>> love of children. 
>>>
>>
>> I understand why that makes sense to you, but you are making that up by 
>> taking the undeniable existence of love and drawing a straight line to what 
>> you presume, unquestionably, to be the cause. It's an unfalsifiable 
>> misconception which begs the question. Lets say you wanted to make a 
>> computer program that did not feel anything, but just reproduced and 
>> survived. Are you suggesting that is impossible? 
>>
>>
>> Yes.  Just like a philosophical zombie is impossible because intelligence 
>> entails consciousness, goals and purposes (like survival) plus intelligence 
>> entails values and emotions.
>>  
>
> It's circular reasoning. You are assuming that function is intelligence, 
>
>
> It's how I recognize intelligence - and so do you.
>

No, I recognize intelligence by experiencing learning. If there were an 
Elvis impersonator who was so good that you could not tell the difference 
between a film of him performing and one of Elvis performing, would you say 
that he had become Elvis Presley?
 

>
>  and then projecting your own human goals, purposes and consciousness 
> onto that function. Then, realizing that your own consciousness doesn't 
> make any sense as far as assisting function in any way
>
>
> I don't 'realize' that - and neither do you.  It's just another of your 
> unsupported assumptions.
>

How would you like me to support it? Because you are a human being, you 
must admit that you are subject to projecting cognitive bias. Are you 
saying that you are immune to this? You have not conducted a study to 
examine your own bias, so you really aren't qualified to reject my 
hypothesis scientifically. You can say that you think I'm wrong, but I 
already know that is what you would think...that's how you support your 
bias. 

>
>  , so you affirm the consequent by concluding that there can't be a 
> philosophical zombie. In reality, every machine that human beings have ever 
> built is a potentially philosophical zombie, it's entirely up to the 
> beholder who determines how deeply they subscribe to the pathetic fallacy.
>
>   
>>  Are you saying that whenever a sufficiently complex machine is 
>> programmed to avoid specific conditions that avoidance conjures an 
>> experience of pain out of nowhere?
>>  
>>
>> Pain and pleasure.
>>  
>
> Can you explain why that would happen and how it could happen? 1+1 = pain?
>  
>  
>>  
>>   
>>  
>>>
>>> > Like any computer program, a quantitative equivalence which is 
>>> unsentimental and 
>>> > unconscious would always be more effective. 
>>>
>>> Unsentimental, maybe.  But not unemotional.  For example, rage is very 
>>> useful in defense 
>>> of one's children. 
>>>
>>
>> No it isn't. You are only looking at it retrospectively. The 
>> effectiveness of rage is not in the experience of rage, it is in the boost 
>> of strength, endurance, aggressive behavior, etc. All of that could be 
>> engineered without inventing some kind of ridiculous 'emotional state' as a 
>> theatrical presentation. 
>>
>>
>> That's what you say.  But what do you think is an emotional state except 
>> the boost in adrenaline, the focus on objective, etc?
>>
>
> I think that an emotional state is a sensory-motor experience in which we 
> participate directly. Adrenaline is a substance, it has no emotional 
> qualities. A dead person's body could be filled with adrenaline and there 
> would be no emotion there.
>  
>  
>>   You are simply imagining the two can be separated because you have 
>> different words and viewpoints to describe them.
>>  
>
> No, I am observing that there are different words for them because they 
> have absolutely nothing in common except a spatiotemporal correlation. 
>  
>>  
>>  Look at it prospectively instead. You are trying to make an effectiv

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On 2/9/2013 4:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Saturday, February 9, 2013 6:52:46 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 2/9/2013 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Saturday, February 9, 2013 6:29:54 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 2/9/2013 3:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> Evolution would have no need for generating values, since values are a
subjective
> motivation.

"Subjective motivation" is just a quantitative value seen from the 
inside.

Why would quantitative values have an inside though? The only reason that 
we might
presume that is because we are looking at it retrospectively. If you turn 
it around
though, and assume quantitative mechanisms can exist without awareness, 
then there
is no possibility of any interior experience being generated. How and why 
would
such a thing arise?

> All evolution would have to do is simply impose a script that assigns 
a high
priority to
> protecting ones own children and ones own life.

And that's what happened and that's what you feel as love of life and 
love of
children.

I understand why that makes sense to you, but you are making that up by 
taking the
undeniable existence of love and drawing a straight line to what you 
presume,
unquestionably, to be the cause. It's an unfalsifiable misconception which 
begs the
question. Lets say you wanted to make a computer program that did not feel
anything, but just reproduced and survived. Are you suggesting that is 
impossible?

Yes.  Just like a philosophical zombie is impossible because intelligence 
entails
consciousness, goals and purposes (like survival) plus intelligence entails 
values
and emotions.

It's circular reasoning. You are assuming that function is intelligence,

It's how I recognize intelligence - and so do you.

and then projecting your own human goals, purposes and consciousness onto that function. 
Then, realizing that your own consciousness doesn't make any sense as far as assisting 
function in any way

I don't 'realize' that - and neither do you.  It's just another of your unsupported 
assumptions.

, so you affirm the consequent by concluding that there can't be a philosophical zombie. 
In reality, every machine that human beings have ever built is a potentially 
philosophical zombie, it's entirely up to the beholder who determines how deeply they 
subscribe to the pathetic fallacy.

Are you saying that whenever a sufficiently complex machine is programmed 
to avoid
specific conditions that avoidance conjures an experience of pain out of 
nowhere?

Pain and pleasure.

Can you explain why that would happen and how it could happen? 1+1 = pain?

> Like any computer program, a quantitative equivalence which is 
unsentimental and
> unconscious would always be more effective.

Unsentimental, maybe.  But not unemotional.  For example, rage is very 
useful
in defense
of one's children.

No it isn't. You are only looking at it retrospectively. The effectiveness 
of rage
is not in the experience of rage, it is in the boost of strength, endurance,
aggressive behavior, etc. All of that could be engineered without inventing 
some
kind of ridiculous 'emotional state' as a theatrical presentation.

That's what you say.  But what do you think is an emotional state except 
the boost
in adrenaline, the focus on objective, etc?

I think that an emotional state is a sensory-motor experience in which we participate 
directly. Adrenaline is a substance, it has no emotional qualities. A dead person's body 
could be filled with adrenaline and there would be no emotion there.

  You are simply imagining the two can be separated because you have 
different words
and viewpoints to describe them.

No, I am observing that there are different words for them because they have absolutely 
nothing in common except a spatiotemporal correlation.

Look at it prospectively instead. You are trying to make an effective 
replicator.
Why would you ever need to do anything but optimize its behaviors?

You wouldn't, but that would entail it having values and emotions.

Values and emotions don't exist yet. That's what I mean by looking at it prospectively. 
You have to justify the creation of 'values and emotions', but you can't. You can only 
claim blindness to the obvious difference between a machine acting rapidly and 
forcefully, and an experience of anger and strength. It may not be your fault. I don't 
know if I have every come across someone who has the Western orientation who is able to 
shift their perception. It's a foreground-background shift, which you may not be wired 
to be able to do, in which case I apologize for expecting you to be able to do that.

And I apologize for expecting you to be able to imagine that implementing intelligence 
would entail value and emotion.

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On Saturday, February 9, 2013 6:52:46 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>  On 2/9/2013 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>
>
>
> On Saturday, February 9, 2013 6:29:54 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: 
>>
>> On 2/9/2013 3:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>> > Evolution would have no need for generating values, since values are a 
>> subjective 
>> > motivation. 
>>
>> "Subjective motivation" is just a quantitative value seen from the 
>> inside. 
>>
>
> Why would quantitative values have an inside though? The only reason that 
> we might presume that is because we are looking at it retrospectively. If 
> you turn it around though, and assume quantitative mechanisms can exist 
> without awareness, then there is no possibility of any interior experience 
> being generated. How and why would such a thing arise?
>  
>  
>>
>> > All evolution would have to do is simply impose a script that assigns a 
>> high priority to 
>> > protecting ones own children and ones own life. 
>>
>> And that's what happened and that's what you feel as love of life and 
>> love of children. 
>>
>
> I understand why that makes sense to you, but you are making that up by 
> taking the undeniable existence of love and drawing a straight line to what 
> you presume, unquestionably, to be the cause. It's an unfalsifiable 
> misconception which begs the question. Lets say you wanted to make a 
> computer program that did not feel anything, but just reproduced and 
> survived. Are you suggesting that is impossible? 
>
>
> Yes.  Just like a philosophical zombie is impossible because intelligence 
> entails consciousness, goals and purposes (like survival) plus intelligence 
> entails values and emotions.
>

It's circular reasoning. You are assuming that function is intelligence, 
and then projecting your own human goals, purposes and consciousness onto 
that function. Then, realizing that your own consciousness doesn't make any 
sense as far as assisting function in any way, so you affirm the consequent 
by concluding that there can't be a philosophical zombie. In reality, every 
machine that human beings have ever built is a potentially philosophical 
zombie, it's entirely up to the beholder who determines how deeply they 
subscribe to the pathetic fallacy.

>  Are you saying that whenever a sufficiently complex machine is 
> programmed to avoid specific conditions that avoidance conjures an 
> experience of pain out of nowhere?
>  
>
> Pain and pleasure.
>

Can you explain why that would happen and how it could happen? 1+1 = pain?

>
>   
>  
>>
>> > Like any computer program, a quantitative equivalence which is 
>> unsentimental and 
>> > unconscious would always be more effective. 
>>
>> Unsentimental, maybe.  But not unemotional.  For example, rage is very 
>> useful in defense 
>> of one's children. 
>>
>
> No it isn't. You are only looking at it retrospectively. The effectiveness 
> of rage is not in the experience of rage, it is in the boost of strength, 
> endurance, aggressive behavior, etc. All of that could be engineered 
> without inventing some kind of ridiculous 'emotional state' as a theatrical 
> presentation. 
>
>
> That's what you say.  But what do you think is an emotional state except 
> the boost in adrenaline, the focus on objective, etc?
>

I think that an emotional state is a sensory-motor experience in which we 
participate directly. Adrenaline is a substance, it has no emotional 
qualities. A dead person's body could be filled with adrenaline and there 
would be no emotion there.

>   You are simply imagining the two can be separated because you have 
> different words and viewpoints to describe them.
>

No, I am observing that there are different words for them because they 
have absolutely nothing in common except a spatiotemporal correlation. 

>
>  Look at it prospectively instead. You are trying to make an effective 
> replicator. Why would you ever need to do anything but optimize its 
> behaviors?
>  
>
> You wouldn't, but that would entail it having values and emotions.
>

Values and emotions don't exist yet. That's what I mean by looking at it 
prospectively. You have to justify the creation of 'values and emotions', 
but you can't. You can only claim blindness to the obvious difference 
between a machine acting rapidly and forcefully, and an experience of anger 
and strength. It may not be your fault. I don't know if I have every come 
across someone who has the Western orientation who is able to shift their 
perception. It's a foreground-background shift, which you may not be wired 
to be able to do, in which case I apologize for expecting you to be able to 
do that.

Craig

> Brent
>  

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On 2/9/2013 3:39 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Saturday, February 9, 2013 6:29:54 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:

On 2/9/2013 3:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
> Evolution would have no need for generating values, since values are a 
subjective
> motivation.

"Subjective motivation" is just a quantitative value seen from the inside.

Why would quantitative values have an inside though? The only reason that we might 
presume that is because we are looking at it retrospectively. If you turn it around 
though, and assume quantitative mechanisms can exist without awareness, then there is no 
possibility of any interior experience being generated. How and why would such a thing 
arise?

> All evolution would have to do is simply impose a script that assigns a 
high
priority to
> protecting ones own children and ones own life.

And that's what happened and that's what you feel as love of life and love 
of children.

I understand why that makes sense to you, but you are making that up by taking the 
undeniable existence of love and drawing a straight line to what you presume, 
unquestionably, to be the cause. It's an unfalsifiable misconception which begs the 
question. Lets say you wanted to make a computer program that did not feel anything, but 
just reproduced and survived. Are you suggesting that is impossible?

Yes.  Just like a philosophical zombie is impossible because intelligence entails 
consciousness, goals and purposes (like survival) plus intelligence entails values and 
emotions.

Are you saying that whenever a sufficiently complex machine is programmed to avoid 
specific conditions that avoidance conjures an experience of pain out of nowhere?

Pain and pleasure.

> Like any computer program, a quantitative equivalence which is 
unsentimental and
> unconscious would always be more effective.

Unsentimental, maybe.  But not unemotional.  For example, rage is very 
useful in
defense
of one's children.

No it isn't. You are only looking at it retrospectively. The effectiveness of rage is 
not in the experience of rage, it is in the boost of strength, endurance, aggressive 
behavior, etc. All of that could be engineered without inventing some kind of ridiculous 
'emotional state' as a theatrical presentation.

That's what you say.  But what do you think is an emotional state except the boost in 
adrenaline, the focus on objective, etc?  You are simply imagining the two can be 
separated because you have different words and viewpoints to describe them.

Look at it prospectively instead. You are trying to make an effective replicator. Why 
would you ever need to do anything but optimize its behaviors?

You wouldn't, but that would entail it having values and emotions.

Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On Saturday, February 9, 2013 6:29:54 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
> On 2/9/2013 3:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
> > Evolution would have no need for generating values, since values are a 
> subjective 
> > motivation. 
>
> "Subjective motivation" is just a quantitative value seen from the inside. 
>

Why would quantitative values have an inside though? The only reason that 
we might presume that is because we are looking at it retrospectively. If 
you turn it around though, and assume quantitative mechanisms can exist 
without awareness, then there is no possibility of any interior experience 
being generated. How and why would such a thing arise?

>
> > All evolution would have to do is simply impose a script that assigns a 
> high priority to 
> > protecting ones own children and ones own life. 
>
> And that's what happened and that's what you feel as love of life and love 
> of children. 
>

I understand why that makes sense to you, but you are making that up by 
taking the undeniable existence of love and drawing a straight line to what 
you presume, unquestionably, to be the cause. It's an unfalsifiable 
misconception which begs the question. Lets say you wanted to make a 
computer program that did not feel anything, but just reproduced and 
survived. Are you suggesting that is impossible? Are you saying that 
whenever a sufficiently complex machine is programmed to avoid specific 
conditions that avoidance conjures an experience of pain out of nowhere?

>
> > Like any computer program, a quantitative equivalence which is 
> unsentimental and 
> > unconscious would always be more effective. 
>
> Unsentimental, maybe.  But not unemotional.  For example, rage is very 
> useful in defense 
> of one's children. 
>

No it isn't. You are only looking at it retrospectively. The effectiveness 
of rage is not in the experience of rage, it is in the boost of strength, 
endurance, aggressive behavior, etc. All of that could be engineered 
without inventing some kind of ridiculous 'emotional state' as a theatrical 
presentation. Look at it prospectively instead. You are trying to make an 
effective replicator. Why would you ever need to do anything but optimize 
its behaviors?

Craig

>
> Brent 
>
>

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.


On 2/9/2013 3:08 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
Evolution would have no need for generating values, since values are a subjective 
motivation. 


"Subjective motivation" is just a quantitative value seen from the inside.

All evolution would have to do is simply impose a script that assigns a high priority to 
protecting ones own children and ones own life. 


And that's what happened and that's what you feel as love of life and love of 
children.

Like any computer program, a quantitative equivalence which is unsentimental and 
unconscious would always be more effective.


Unsentimental, maybe.  But not unemotional.  For example, rage is very useful in defense 
of one's children.


Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.



On Saturday, February 9, 2013 5:03:58 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>  On 2/9/2013 6:16 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote: 
>
> If you make evolution set the standard, then you have to buy the darker 
> side of its theology: "Good Tsunami, asteroid, CO2, mass extinctions of 
> life forms; as these shocks will create a stronger forcing function on 
> populations and individuals to adapt in the long term; good my family got 
> killed in that last quake". 
>
>
Not really though. This stems from the 'survival of the fittest' 
misconception of evolution. More selection filters doesn't make for an 
organism more impervious to all future threats. If people survive a flood 
because they live on the top of hills, that doesn't mean that their 
offspring is stronger in any way. Even if some people who survive an 
earthquake did so because they were smart and prepared for natural 
disasters doesn't mean that they aren't idiots in a dozen other ways.


> You can recognize that evolution is responsible for you valuing your life, 
> and valuing the life of your children even more, without making natural 
> selection your standard of value.
>

Evolution would have no need for generating values, since values are a 
subjective motivation. All evolution would have to do is simply impose a 
script that assigns a high priority to protecting ones own children and 
ones own life. Like any computer program, a quantitative equivalence which 
is unsentimental and unconscious would always be more effective.

Craig


> Brent
>  

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.


On 2/9/2013 6:16 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
If you make evolution set the standard, then you have to buy the darker side of its 
theology: "Good Tsunami, asteroid, CO2, mass extinctions of life forms; as these shocks 
will create a stronger forcing function on populations and individuals to adapt in the 
long term; good my family got killed in that last quake". 


You can recognize that evolution is responsible for you valuing your life, and valuing the 
life of your children even more, without making natural selection your standard of value.


Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-08 Thread meekerdb

On 2/8/2013 12:04 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 1:23 AM, meekerdb > wrote:

On 2/7/2013 3:15 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 10:53 PM, meekerdb mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:

On 2/7/2013 12:01 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

“A secular purpose” is a nice ruse, because it is “theology-free”,
right?

Yes it is. It's not dependent on any ultimate foundation of the
universe (per
Bruno's definition of 'theology') or even any agreement about what that
might
be. It only depends on the public subjective non-religious values of
society
as expressed in their laws. That's what 'secular' means.

By what mechanism does a value become "non-religious"? How did "marriage"
become
secular for instance?

Can you define non-religious values?

I can where religions are certified by the state.

Care to share an example of a secular value stripped of all religious and transcendental
connotations?

Sure, murder is bad. Of course this may be incoporated into many different religions as a
value imposed by some transcendental force - but it's constancy across many cultures and
religions, it's obvious relation to evolutionary survival makes it pretty clear that it's
a secular value.

Brent

Not trying to make a point. Just interested :)

PGC

Brent
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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-08 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2013/2/8 John Clark 

> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 7:25 PM, Jason Resch  wrote:
>
>  >> there is a single result in Bruno's experiment, John K Clark sees
>>> Washington and Moscow.
>>>
>>
>> But under MWI you agreed you see the photon hit the left or the right
>> plate, not the left side and the right side.  So which is it?
>>
>
> Yet more confusion and for exactly the same reason, those God damned
> personal pronouns. John K Clark sees the photon hit the left AND the right
> side of the plate, however John K Clark has been duplicated so the John K
> Clark who sees the photon hit the left side of the plate sees the photon
> hit the left side of the plate and  the John K Clark who sees the photon
> hit the right side of the plate sees the photon hit the right side of the
> plate. In the same way John K Clark sees Washington AND Moscow although the
> Washington John K Clark sees only Washington and the Moscow John K Clark
> sees only Moscow.
>

Yet you agree that if I ask you the question in the MWI context, what is
the probability that you see the photon hit the left plate, you'll say 50%,
yet you say that in the duplication experience of Bruno, it 100% you see
left, 100% you see right which is of course false... the correct one either
in MWI or with Bruno's experiment is 50%. If you can do a prediction in MWI
so can you *the same way* in Bruno's experiment, only bad faith prevent you
to admit it.

Quentin


>
>   John K Clark
>
>
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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.


On 2/7/2013 3:15 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 10:53 PM, meekerdb > wrote:


On 2/7/2013 12:01 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

“A secular purpose” is a nice ruse, because it is “theology-free”, 
right?


Yes it is.  It's not dependent on any ultimate foundation of the universe 
(per
Bruno's definition of 'theology') or even any agreement about what that 
might be.
 It only depends on the public subjective non-religious values of society as
expressed in their laws.  That's what 'secular' means.


By what mechanism does a value become "non-religious"? How did "marriage" become secular 
for instance?


Can you define non-religious values?


I can where religions are certified by the state.

Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On 2/7/2013 12:01 PM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

There might be confusion between necessary and possible dangers.

If there is, you haven't cleared it up.

Necessary danger: It’s legal for your neighbor to walk on to your property and shoot you
for emotional reasons or it’s legal to burn a minority on racial grounds etc.

What's 'necessary' about either one of those events? First, if it were legal it would
still be extremely unlikely (my neighbor likes me) and certainly no necessary. Second, it
can happen even though it is illegal. So it's a possible danger - but not necessitated by
anything.

Possible danger: eating hallucinogenic mushrooms or driving a car (more die of the
latter on % basis).

These involve some degree of danger, so you are required to meet certain criteria and get
a license to drive a car and there are various rules for traffic to reduce the degree of
danger. That more people die of car accidents than eating hallucinogenic mushrooms is not
really to the point. Many more people drive and ride in cars that eat hallucinogenic
mushrooms and they thereby accomplish many things useful to society as well as too
themselves, while of hallucinating is of dubious value. In any case eating hallucinogenic
mushrooms is widely tolerated in the U.S. and it's not even clear that it is illegal under
federal law, independent of any religious claims.

Beating people in public/private again: necessary, forced harm; no matter how you look
at it. Smoking a herb: possibly, depends on how you look at it.

“A secular purpose” is a nice ruse, because it is “theology-free”, right?

Yes it is. It's not dependent on any ultimate foundation of the universe (per Bruno's
definition of 'theology') or even any agreement about what that might be. It only depends
on the public subjective non-religious values of society as expressed in their laws.
That's what 'secular' means.

Brent

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-07 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 8:34 PM, meekerdb  wrote:

>  On 2/7/2013 8:23 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 4:47 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>  2013/2/7 Platonist Guitar Cowboy 
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>>>


  2013/2/6 meekerdb 

>  On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
>  On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:
>
>  On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>>
>>
>>>  > Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.
>>>
>>
>> A religion is just a cult with good PR.
>>
>
> It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established
> religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point,
>
>
> What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government
> recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that
> they sought the recognition.  And all that you can consider 'established'
> have sought adherents.  But "legitimacy"??  I'm not sure how that world 
> can
> be attached to "religion".
>
>
>  In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by
> the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden 
> (like
> scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the case.
>
>
>  I'm curious.  How do they get recognized?  Do they  have to apply,
>

 They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not
 illegal, some sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group can
 be). But for example, scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for now) but
 they are often brought to justice by ex-member (for good reason I think).

>>>
>>>
>>> Sorry to be frank, but if this is serious (I miss some joke), then it is
>>> naive: the mechanism that serves to monitor and "regulate" the founding of
>>> religions in Western Europe, is the same judicial tool to control and
>>> finally repress religious groups- by seemingly "integrating" them.
>>>
>>> The moment any of these groups moves to do things like:
>>>
>>
>> Well they have to conform to the laws (same as in the USA)... So no sects
>> are not illegal in belgium, they can't be declared illegal as long as they
>> conform to the laws like anywhere else on earth. And as I said, scientology
>> *is not* illegal in belgium and it is *in practice* not in theory.
>>
>> No if you rant about the laws it's a totally different subject and you
>> should not conflate the two.
>>
>>
> Why? Because religious beliefs have nothing to do with judicial concepts?
>
> Our judicial marriage model has nothing to do with the Christian
> conception of marriage?
>
> There is no freedom of religion,
>
>
> You seem to jump from there are some restrictions on practices that
> claimed to be religious, to there is NO freedom of religion.  Is it your
> position that freedom of religion only exists when every practice called
> 'religion' by its adherents is permitted?  I hope you don't have freedom of
> religion for Aztecs.
>
>
Yes, that is what I am after Brent. You want me to take this seriously? Ok:
"you got me". Should I step outside put my hands on the car now, or what?
Damn it! I was so close to world domination, and then Brent stepped in...
DAMN YOU BRENT :)


>
>  no freedom of thought, no legality of sects that stray from Western
> European Christian-Secular legal conceptions => this is "conflated" via
> history, so don't blame the messenger á la "thou shalt not conflate"...
> also you take this conflation for granted in arbitrary manner suiting your
> argument, but not when I raise religious freedom issues + you legitimize
> via "because they conform to the laws like everywhere else on earth", which
> is not an argument.
>
> Discriminatory laws have been passed before and continue to be passed.
>
> The legality of sects you cite is peanuts given to caged animals, to be a
> bit hyperbolic :)
>
>
> The freedom of religion you seek is like letting the lions run free in the
> zoo - to be a little hyperbolic.
>
>
I just don't like to confuse necessary and possible in absolute reductive
sense, particularly when considering danger in a broad sense, which you do
in every line here. I am not being hyperbolic this time.

PGC




Brent
>
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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.


On 2/7/2013 8:23 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:



On Thu, Feb 7, 2013 at 4:47 PM, Quentin Anciaux > wrote:




2013/2/7 Platonist Guitar Cowboy mailto:multiplecit...@gmail.com>>



On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Quentin Anciaux mailto:allco...@gmail.com>> wrote:



2013/2/6 meekerdb mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>

On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg 
 wrote:

> Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.


A religion is just a cult with good PR.


It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every
established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some 
point,


What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government
recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer 
would be
that they sought the recognition.  And all that you can consider
'established' have sought adherents.  But "legitimacy"??  I'm 
not sure
how that world can be attached to "religion".


In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be 
recognized by the
government. If not they are classified as sect, and are 
forbidden (like
scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply 
the case.


I'm curious.  How do they get recognized?  Do they  have to 
apply,


They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not 
illegal,
some sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group can 
be). But for
example, scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for now) but they 
are often
brought to justice by ex-member (for good reason I think).



Sorry to be frank, but if this is serious (I miss some joke), then it 
is naive:
the mechanism that serves to monitor and "regulate" the founding of 
religions in
Western Europe, is the same judicial tool to control and finally repress
religious groups- by seemingly "integrating" them.

The moment any of these groups moves to do things like:


Well they have to conform to the laws (same as in the USA)... So no sects 
are not
illegal in belgium, they can't be declared illegal as long as they conform 
to the
laws like anywhere else on earth. And as I said, scientology *is not* 
illegal in
belgium and it is *in practice* not in theory.

No if you rant about the laws it's a totally different subject and you 
should not
conflate the two.


Why? Because religious beliefs have nothing to do with judicial concepts?

Our judicial marriage model has nothing to do with the Christian conception of 
marriage?

There is no freedom of religion,


You seem to jump from there are some restrictions on practices that claimed to be 
religious, to there is NO freedom of religion.  Is it your position that freedom of 
religion only exists when every practice called 'religion' by its adherents is permitted?  
I hope you don't have freedom of religion for Aztecs.


no freedom of thought, no legality of sects that stray from Western European 
Christian-Secular legal conceptions => this is "conflated" via history, so don't blame 
the messenger á la "thou shalt not conflate"... also you take this conflation for 
granted in arbitrary manner suiting your argument, but not when I raise religious 
freedom issues + you legitimize via "because they conform to the laws like everywhere 
else on earth", which is not an argument.


Discriminatory laws have been passed before and continue to be passed.

The legality of sects you cite is peanuts given to caged animals, to be a bit 
hyperbolic :)


The freedom of religion you seek is like letting the lions run free in the zoo - to be a 
little hyperbolic.


Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On 2/7/2013 7:12 AM, Platonist Guitar Cowboy wrote:

On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Quentin Anciaux > wrote:

2013/2/6 meekerdb mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>

On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:

On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

> Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.

A religion is just a cult with good PR.

It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established
religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point,

What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government
recognition of
religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that they sought
the
recognition. And all that you can consider 'established' have sought
adherents. But "legitimacy"?? I'm not sure how that world can be
attached to
"religion".

In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by the
government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden (like
scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the case.

I'm curious. How do they get recognized? Do they have to apply,

They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not
illegal, some
sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group can be). But for
example,
scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for now) but they are often brought
to
justice by ex-member (for good reason I think).

Sorry to be frank, but if this is serious (I miss some joke), then it is naive: the
mechanism that serves to monitor and "regulate" the founding of religions in Western
Europe, is the same judicial tool to control and finally repress religious groups- by
seemingly "integrating" them.

The moment any of these groups moves to do things like:

- change conceptions of marriage

- change conceptions of family

- import for example its sacred ceremonial brew from South America, that has a
controlled substance in it for thousands of years

- want more appropriate economic frameworks for taxation for their conceptions of groups
and individuals (why not marriages, as Judith Butler often put forward, between 3,4,5 or
more partners, if their financial strategy and survival is solid with every partner
consenting? Today: If a community of six partners works and lives together, hopefully
they pair off to 3 males and 3 females, and still they would be taxed as 3 couples)

- or simply make too much money: the western democracy rears its totalitarian face; less
obvious than in North Korea, but let's stop telling ourselves stories about our
democracy vs. China etc. We have learned nothing from totalitarian times and wars.

Just because we hide the totalitarian tendencies in different judicial spots of cultural
prejudice, doesn't mean freedom of religion.

A Rastafarian wanting some of his sacred herb in France: fat chance, if he were to cite
his religious reasons in court.

One can invent a religion and cite it for anything from eating hallucinogenic mushrooms to
burning Jews. In the U.S. the general rule is that a legal prohibition must serve a
secular purpose (not be directed specifically at a religion) and laws apply equally to
everyone. So if your religion says you can beat women who show their face in public,
that's just too bad for your religion.

So yes, you can apply for official recognition of your religion if you are interested in
playing poker in pairs with plastic money beside your bed.

Sorry, prohibition applies here too. So yes, alternate religious groupings are in
practice illegal in Western Europe, if not on paper.

PGC

So what's the advantage of being recognized? Will some authority prevent you praying at a
shrine or from reading your sacred text if you're not recognized? Will you get some tax
advantage if you are? And when a religion is recognized that must imply that it is
somehow defined. How is that done? And how finely are religions defined...is
Christianity recognized as one religion, or do they distinguish Catholics from Baptists
from Mormons? This all seems impossibly messy.

Brent

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-07 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 06 Feb 2013, at 20:11, Quentin Anciaux wrote:




2013/2/6 meekerdb 
On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

> Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.

A religion is just a cult with good PR.

It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every  
established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point,


What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government  
recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would  
be that they sought the recognition.  And all that you can  
consider 'established' have sought adherents.  But "legitimacy"??   
I'm not sure how that world can be attached to "religion".


In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by  
the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are  
forbidden (like scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but  
that's simply the case.


I'm curious.  How do they get recognized?  Do they  have to apply,

They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not  
illegal, some sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group  
can be). But for example, scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for  
now)


OK. With enough money on the table, anything is legal in Belgium, and  
many countries.




but they are often brought to justice by ex-member (for good reason  
I think).


Also, I am talking about the legislation I knew about many years ago.  
Maybe today they focus only on "sectarian behavior" (which would be  
more reasonable).


Bruno







Quentin

or does the government have some standard (numbers?) by which they  
automatically get recognized?  Do they have to file some statement  
of doctrine/theology/dogma with the government so that it can be  
determined whether a group is a splinter sect or a different  
religion?  Is Mormonism recognized?


Brent


The result is that sect become secret societies, so it is even  
harder to get rid of them, or for adherent to ever been able to get  
out of the influence. It is a real social dramatic problem. Then  
corruption makes also some sect still developing, like notably  
scientology.


Bruno



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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-07 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 06 Feb 2013, at 20:06, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:



On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

> Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.

A religion is just a cult with good PR.

It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every  
established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point,


What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government  
recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would  
be that they sought the recognition.  And all that you can  
consider 'established' have sought adherents.  But "legitimacy"??   
I'm not sure how that world can be attached to "religion".


In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by  
the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are  
forbidden (like scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but  
that's simply the case.


I'm curious.  How do they get recognized?


Arbitrarily. basically great known religion are accepted (the  
Abramanic one and, Hinduism, Buddhism). With the other you have to be  
careful when recruiting, and try to look like an association without  
financial interests. Typically a sect will be considered as such if  
people complain on sectarian activity, the most typical one being the  
subtraction of the children from the parents.



Do they  have to apply, or does the government have some standard  
(numbers?) by which they automatically get recognized?  Do they have  
to file some statement of doctrine/theology/dogma with the  
government so that it can be determined whether a group is a  
splinter sect or a different religion?  Is Mormonism recognized?


It is not. Now if there are enough people adhering, and if the  
religion is widespread in some places, they can have a chance. Most  
people accept this state of affair, because we do have an history of  
"bad sects" leading to collective suicide. Scientology has oscillated  
between some form of acceptance and reject. Eventually, when too much  
people complains, like it has been the case for scientology, the  
government get its attention turned on them, and they disintegrate the  
sect, which sometimes come back with another name.
Jehovah witness are tolerated because they are numerous, and  
considered as a variant of christians. Most male members were sent to  
jail, though, because they refused the military service, when it was  
obligatory for all.


Bruno






Brent

The result is that sect become secret societies, so it is even  
harder to get rid of them, or for adherent to ever been able to get  
out of the influence. It is a real social dramatic problem. Then  
corruption makes also some sect still developing, like notably  
scientology.


Bruno



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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-07 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2013/2/7 Platonist Guitar Cowboy 

>
>
> On Wed, Feb 6, 2013 at 8:11 PM, Quentin Anciaux wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> 2013/2/6 meekerdb 
>>
>>>  On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>  On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:
>>>
>>>  On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:

 On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:


>  > Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.
>

 A religion is just a cult with good PR.

>>>
>>> It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established
>>> religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point,
>>>
>>>
>>> What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government
>>> recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that
>>> they sought the recognition.  And all that you can consider 'established'
>>> have sought adherents.  But "legitimacy"??  I'm not sure how that world can
>>> be attached to "religion".
>>>
>>>
>>>  In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by
>>> the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden (like
>>> scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the case.
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm curious.  How do they get recognized?  Do they  have to apply,
>>>
>>
>> They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not
>> illegal, some sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group can
>> be). But for example, scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for now) but
>> they are often brought to justice by ex-member (for good reason I think).
>>
>
>
> Sorry to be frank, but if this is serious (I miss some joke), then it is
> naive: the mechanism that serves to monitor and "regulate" the founding of
> religions in Western Europe, is the same judicial tool to control and
> finally repress religious groups- by seemingly "integrating" them.
>
> The moment any of these groups moves to do things like:
>

Well they have to conform to the laws (same as in the USA)... So no sects
are not illegal in belgium, they can't be declared illegal as long as they
conform to the laws like anywhere else on earth. And as I said, scientology
*is not* illegal in belgium and it is *in practice* not in theory.

No if you rant about the laws it's a totally different subject and you
should not conflate the two.

Regards,
Quentin


>
> - change conceptions of marriage
>
> - change conceptions of family
>
> - import for example its sacred ceremonial brew from South America, that
> has a controlled substance in it for thousands of years
>
> - want more appropriate economic frameworks for taxation for their
> conceptions of groups and individuals (why not marriages, as Judith Butler
> often put forward, between 3,4,5 or more partners, if their financial
> strategy and survival is solid with every partner consenting? Today: If a
> community of six partners works and lives together, hopefully they pair off
> to 3 males and 3 females, and still they would be taxed as 3 couples)
>
> - or simply make too much money: the western democracy rears its
> totalitarian face; less obvious than in North Korea, but let's stop telling
> ourselves stories about our democracy vs. China etc. We have learned
> nothing from totalitarian times and wars.
>
> Just because we hide the totalitarian tendencies in different judicial
> spots of cultural prejudice, doesn't mean freedom of religion.
>
> A Rastafarian wanting some of his sacred herb in France: fat chance, if he
> were to cite his religious reasons in court.
>
> So yes, you can apply for official recognition of your religion if you are
> interested in playing poker in pairs with plastic money beside your bed.
>
> Sorry, prohibition applies here too. So yes, alternate religious groupings
> are in practice illegal in Western Europe, if not on paper.
>
> PGC
>
>
> 
>
>
>>
>> Quentin
>>
>>
>>> or does the government have some standard (numbers?) by which they
>>> automatically get recognized?  Do they have to file some statement of
>>> doctrine/theology/dogma with the government so that it can be determined
>>> whether a group is a splinter sect or a different religion?  Is Mormonism
>>> recognized?
>>>
>>> Brent
>>>
>>>
>>>  The result is that sect become secret societies, so it is even harder
>>> to get rid of them, or for adherent to ever been able to get out of the
>>> influence. It is a real social dramatic problem. Then corruption makes also
>>> some sect still developing, like notably scientology.
>>>
>>>  Bruno
>>>
>>>
>>>  --
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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-06 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2013/2/6 meekerdb 

>  On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
>  On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:
>
>  On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>>
>>
>>>  > Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.
>>>
>>
>> A religion is just a cult with good PR.
>>
>
> It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established
> religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point,
>
>
> What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government
> recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that
> they sought the recognition.  And all that you can consider 'established'
> have sought adherents.  But "legitimacy"??  I'm not sure how that world can
> be attached to "religion".
>
>
>  In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by the
> government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden (like
> scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the case.
>
>
> I'm curious.  How do they get recognized?  Do they  have to apply,
>

They have to apply. But contrary to what Bruno claims, sect are not
illegal, some sects can and have been declared illegal (as any group can
be). But for example, scientology is not illegal in Belgium (for now) but
they are often brought to justice by ex-member (for good reason I think).

Quentin


> or does the government have some standard (numbers?) by which they
> automatically get recognized?  Do they have to file some statement of
> doctrine/theology/dogma with the government so that it can be determined
> whether a group is a splinter sect or a different religion?  Is Mormonism
> recognized?
>
> Brent
>
>
>  The result is that sect become secret societies, so it is even harder to
> get rid of them, or for adherent to ever been able to get out of the
> influence. It is a real social dramatic problem. Then corruption makes also
> some sect still developing, like notably scientology.
>
>  Bruno
>
>
>  --
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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-06 Thread meekerdb

On 2/6/2013 1:25 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:

On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 PM, Craig Weinberg >
wrote:

> Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.

A religion is just a cult with good PR.

It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established religion
intentionally sought legitimacy at some point,

What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government recognition of religion
(and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that they sought the recognition. And
all that you can consider 'established' have sought adherents. But "legitimacy"?? I'm
not sure how that world can be attached to "religion".

In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by the government. If
not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden (like scientology). It is awkward and
arbitrary, but that's simply the case.

I'm curious. How do they get recognized? Do they have to apply, or does the government
have some standard (numbers?) by which they automatically get recognized? Do they have to
file some statement of doctrine/theology/dogma with the government so that it can be
determined whether a group is a splinter sect or a different religion? Is Mormonism
recognized?

Brent

The result is that sect become secret societies, so it is even harder to get rid of
them, or for adherent to ever been able to get out of the influence. It is a real social
dramatic problem. Then corruption makes also some sect still developing, like notably
scientology.

Bruno

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-06 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 06 Feb 2013, at 04:00, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:




On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

> Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.

A religion is just a cult with good PR.

It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every  
established religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point,


What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government  
recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would  
be that they sought the recognition.  And all that you can consider  
'established' have sought adherents.  But "legitimacy"??  I'm not  
sure how that world can be attached to "religion".


In my country, that is the case. Religions have to be recognized by  
the government. If not they are classified as sect, and are forbidden  
(like scientology). It is awkward and arbitrary, but that's simply the  
case. The result is that sect become secret societies, so it is even  
harder to get rid of them, or for adherent to ever been able to get  
out of the influence. It is a real social dramatic problem. Then  
corruption makes also some sect still developing, like notably  
scientology.


Bruno






Brent

or if it's more of an inevitable consequence of surviving long  
enough to seem ancient. Are their ancient cults (other than those  
intentionally shrouded in secrecy)?


Craig


  John K Clark
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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-06 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 06 Feb 2013, at 03:42, meekerdb wrote:

On 2/5/2013 9:53 AM, John Clark wrote:

 > You've agreed there is a single definite result (even in MW)  
after making some measurement.

Yes.

> You then say there is no single result in Bruno's experiment

Not true, there is a single result in Bruno's experiment, John K  
Clark sees Washington and Moscow.

> because "you have been duplicated."

It is beyond dispute that "you" has indeed been duplicated, so if  
that personal pronoun is used in a question with no additional  
information on which "you" is being referred to then no answer can  
be given because the question is ambiguous.

It seems that part of the problem is that in English "you" is both  
second person singular *and* plural.  Being from the south I suggest  
that the experiment be expressed as "You have been duplicated and  
y'all see Washington and Moscow.

That's correct, as we have already discussed many times.
But then with QM MW, you must say "y' will all see the electron being  
everywhere". So the QM-MW and  the comp indeterminacy comes from the  
fact that although we can say, in the 3p views on the 1p views that  
y'all see W and M, that seeing will be disconnected, and individual.  
If not the 1p views are just eliminated, and neither QM without  
collapse, nor Mechanism makes any sense.

Bruno

Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-06 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 05 Feb 2013, at 18:53, John Clark wrote:

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013  Jason Resch  wrote:

>> After a experiment has been completed the Many World's  
Interpretation can give some people, including me, a intuitive feel  
of what just happened,

> The analogous experiment in the UDA is pressing the button and  
seeing what City you now find yourself.
  ^ 
^^
Yep it's true, the pee pee "proof" can not be explained without the  
use of ambiguous pronouns to hide behind.

I did it more than once. You miss the point: you know that whoever you  
can feel to be in the immediate future---after pushing the button, you  
(whoever you have become) will see only one city, making your  
statement non sensical.

> So I would say MW is a theory and not an interpretation.

OK, but it's a theory that has not been proven;

An applied theory is never proven. And MW is a theorem in QM. It  
follows from the linearity of the evolution and of the tensor product.  
Superpositions never disappear. QM is not proven (except from comp),  
but the existence of the moon has never been proven. "To prove"  
happens only in theories, and all theories are assumed. We have only  
evidences or refutation.

don't get me wrong I rather like the theory but that doesn't make it  
true. Godel thought that all arithmetical statements are either true  
or they are not, but he also knew there are true arithmetical  
statements that can never be proven to be true. So maybe that's also  
the case for statements about physics and cosmology, maybe many  
worlds is true but there is no way to ever experimentally  
demonstrate it. On the other hand maybe tomorrow somebody will find  
a experimental way to prove it.

> I know of no good explanation of why quantum computers should work  
under single-universe interpretations.

And at least so far quantum computers haven't done much of anything  
except to find the factors of the number "15". We'll talk again when  
somebody makes a real quantum computer, but I don't see what they or  
many worlds has to do with the pee pee "proof".

Comp implies MW, or many-dreams, and that physics emerges, in a  
precise mathematical way, from that.
We have already an ortholattice structure at the sigma_1 bottom. You  
criticize without studying.

 > You've agreed there is a single definite result (even in MW)  
after making some measurement.

Yes.

> You then say there is no single result in Bruno's experiment

Not true, there is a single result in Bruno's experiment, John K  
Clark sees Washington and Moscow.

That can make sense, but but then you are me. And that does not make  
the relative indeterminacy disappear, because John Clark, in Helsinki,  
is wrong if he predicts that he *will* see both W and M. He will see  
only W, or only M, as seeing is a first person view, and that first  
person view will not been duplicated *from his first person view",  
only from a third person view, but we do this since we are amoeba.
So if your prediction is "John will see W and M", both the first  
person obtained will refute it.

> because "you have been duplicated."

It is beyond dispute that "you" has indeed been duplicated, so if  
that personal pronoun is used in a question with no additional  
information on which "you"

We have already agreed that you are both, because you are duplicated.  
But without adding telepathy you cannot know in advance which one you  
will feel to be.

is being referred to then no answer can be given because the  
question is ambiguous.

>> However Bruno in his pee pee proof claims to have discovered  
something new about prediction but he is wrong about that.

> Third person indeterminacy is not what he claims as some new  
prediction.

Bruno claims to have found a new sort of indeterminacy unrelated to  
quantum indeterminacy or the sort of uncertainty Godel and Turing  
dealt with.  Bruno's claims are untrue.

So what is your algorithm of prediction? "W and M" has been refuted,  
but you stick repeating that it is untrue, without given any algorithm  
which is not refuted immediately by BOTH copies (showing that the  
pronouns' ambiguity is just irrelevant).

> you abandoned the proof at step 3 out of the 8.

One does not need to eat the entire egg to know it is bad.

You deny elementary common sense, and avoid the definitions given when  
we single that out. No one here is able to make any sense of your  
"refutation".

Bruno

http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 10:00:05 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
>
>  On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote: 
>
>
>
> On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote: 
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>>   
>>
>>>  > Unpopular religions are denounced as cults. 
>>>  
>>
>> A religion is just a cult with good PR.
>>  
>
> It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established 
> religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point, 
>
>
> What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government 
> recognition of religion (and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that 
> they sought the recognition.  And all that you can consider 'established' 
> have sought adherents.  But "legitimacy"??  I'm not sure how that world can 
> be attached to "religion".
>

Not necessarily a government recognition, but community acceptance. 
Something enjoyed by Episcopalians but not the Satanic church. Some Wiccans 
seem to be seeking a more conventional status within the community, i.e 
petitioning the military to provide a choice for Wiccan symbols on 
gravestones. 

Craig
 

>
> Brent
>
>  or if it's more of an inevitable consequence of surviving long enough to 
> seem ancient. Are their ancient cults (other than those intentionally 
> shrouded in secrecy)?
>
> Craig
>
>   
>>   John K Clark 
>>  
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> No virus found in this message.
> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
> Version: 2013.0.2897 / Virus Database: 2639/6070 - Release Date: 01/31/13
>
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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread meekerdb


On 2/5/2013 11:02 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg > 
wrote:

> Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.


A religion is just a cult with good PR.


It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established religion 
intentionally sought legitimacy at some point,


What would that mean? Legal? Where there is official government recognition of religion 
(and probably tax breaks) the answer would be that they sought the recognition.  And all 
that you can consider 'established' have sought adherents.  But "legitimacy"??  I'm not 
sure how that world can be attached to "religion".


Brent

or if it's more of an inevitable consequence of surviving long enough to seem ancient. 
Are their ancient cults (other than those intentionally shrouded in secrecy)?


Craig


  John K Clark

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No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com 
Version: 2013.0.2897 / Virus Database: 2639/6070 - Release Date: 01/31/13



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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread meekerdb

On 2/5/2013 9:53 AM, John Clark wrote:

> You've agreed there is a single definite result (even in MW) after making 
some
measurement.

Yes.

> You then say there is no single result in Bruno's experiment

Not true, there is a single result in Bruno's experiment, John K Clark sees Washington 
and Moscow.

> because "you have been duplicated."

It is beyond dispute that "you" has indeed been duplicated, so if that personal pronoun 
is used in a question with no additional information on which "you" is being referred to 
then no answer can be given because the question is ambiguous.

It seems that part of the problem is that in English "you" is both second person singular 
*and* plural.  Being from the south I suggest that the experiment be expressed as "You 
have been duplicated and y'all see Washington and Moscow.

Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread Jason Resch

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 11:53 AM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 4, 2013  Jason Resch  wrote:
>
> > You then say there is no single result in Bruno's experiment
>>
>
> Not true, there is a single result in Bruno's experiment, John K Clark
> sees Washington and Moscow.
>

But under MWI you agreed you see the photon hit the left or the right
plate, not the left side and the right side.  So which is it?

Jason

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread meekerdb


On 2/5/2013 6:04 AM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 3:01 AM, Quentin Anciaux > wrote:




2013/2/5 Jason Resch mailto:jasonre...@gmail.com>>



On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 2:04 AM, meekerdb mailto:meeke...@verizon.net>> wrote:

On 2/3/2013 7:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

On 2/3/13, meekerdbmailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>
 wrote:

On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that 
indeed
basically all
correct machines
believes in God, and in some theories question like "is 
God a
person" can
be an open
problem.

But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact 
that you
cannot cut
with your
education which has impose to you only one notion of 
God.

Why should there be more than one notion designated by 
"God".

Do you not agree that there are multiple religions and each is 
free to
designate its own God or Gods?  To choose one sect of one 
religion's
God as the standard God for all atheists to disbelieve in is
favoritism.  Why do the atheists choose the Abrahamic God over 
the God
the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Zoroastrians, the Deists, the 
Platonists,
or any of the myriads of religions since lost to history?


Because that's the god of theism - hence a-theism.


So are you also an a-deist?  What about an a-Brahmanist, or
a-Hyper-intelligent-simlatorist?



You say it
is because it is the most popular.  Even if that were so, 
Atheism
isn't about rejecting one God, it rejects all Gods.


Not at all.  All the atheists I know allow that a deist god is more 
likely
to exist than a theist god.


They still (I would think) put that probability less than 50%.



You would have to
be quite an expert to disqualify every religion's (and indeed, 
every
person's) notion of God.


I don't have to 'disqualify' them (whatever that means); I just 
fail to put
any credence in them.


How do you differentiate yourself from agnostics, who also fail to put 
any
credence in them?




The Abrahamic
religions use
the word to designate a particular notion: an omniscience, 
omnipotent,
benevolent creator
person who wants us to worship him.

Not all do, which you failed to account for in your below 
probabilities.


Not all what do? 



Not all Christians define God as an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent 
creator
person who wants us to worship him.


Then they're not Christians... christianity is defined by a set of dogmas 
(hey dogma
is what define religions), so if you doubt the basic dogmas of 
christianity, why
would you call yourself a christian ??


So Thomas Aquinas was not a christian, because he understood the incompatibility of 
omniscience and omnipotence.


He understood there could be a conflict and he proceeded to redefine 'omnipotence' to 
meand 'do anything not self-contradictory', then you could invoke the 'nature of God' to 
say that some things, e.g. sinning, would be contradictory.


Brent

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Re: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 1:14:07 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg  >wrote:
>  
>
>>  > Unpopular religions are denounced as cults. 
>>
>
> A religion is just a cult with good PR.
>

It's interesting. I would be curious to know whether every established 
religion intentionally sought legitimacy at some point, or if it's more of 
an inevitable consequence of surviving long enough to seem ancient. Are 
their ancient cults (other than those intentionally shrouded in secrecy)?

Craig


>   John K Clark 
>

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Re: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread John Clark

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013  PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:


> > Unpopular religions are denounced as cults.
>

A religion is just a cult with good PR.

  John K Clark

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Re: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Tuesday, February 5, 2013 11:59:09 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote:
>
> Quentin,
>  
> I agree with you, if that's what religion is.
> But it is not generally like that. 
> Instead, you are talking about a cult. 
>  
>

The distinction is questionable. I would say that all religions begin as 
cults and that all cults become religions given enough time and popularity. 
Unpopular religions are denounced as cults. Same with religions that become 
popular too suddenly.

Craig
 

>  
>  
>
> - Receiving the following content - 
> *From:* Bruno Marchal  
> *Receiver:* everything-list  
> *Time:* 2013-02-05, 11:42:46
> *Subject:* Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
>
>  
>  On 05 Feb 2013, at 15:04, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 3:01 AM, Quentin Anciaux 
> 
> > wrote:
>
> 
>
>
> I do not believe in any *personified* gods, and in any *dogmas*, so in 
> that settings I would call myself an atheist. I'm agnostic about what I 
> could call an existential force, a reality "maker"... Religions does not 
> allows doubt, questionning, religions is about dogmas. I would side with 
> John in saying that wanting to use god for something else than the accepted 
> meaning (which means a super *being*/*person*) is wrong. I can accept the 
> notion of the One (which is not a person), the one is not a *god* in that 
> sense.
>
> But when you talk with religious zealot, saying you're agnostic means to 
> them that they could enrol you in their dogma, and so to them I really 
> prefer saying I'm an atheist, because really I don't believe their BS, I 
> don't want to believe, I want to doubt, question, search answers, religions 
> gives non-questionable "answers", religions are not about seeking truth, it 
> is just "shut up and believe".
>
>
> My point is there are various levels of sophistication in understanding. 
>  A three-year-old might have some concept of numbers, and so does a PhD 
> mathematician. Their understandings may be incomparable, but you could say 
> they both have some belief in numbers.  The fact that many people might 
> have little understanding in certain field is not an appropriate reason to 
> say there is nothing of any interest in that field.
>
>
>
> I agree. And to reject a notion because of a common misunderstanding can 
> only maintain and spread the misconception.
> It remains typical that atheists are so few inclined to accept that we 
> tackle theology with the scientific method. 
>
> I have used the term "theology" because I have been qualified as such, by 
> vindicative strong atheists, and this when I said things like "I am 
> interested in the question 'could a machine be conscious" (answer: that's 
> theology), or even just "I am interested in modal logic" (comment: that's 
> theology). Eventually I think there were right, and to prevent such easy 
> dismissal I have called that theology. 
> Another reason, is that I want prevent the statement "science has shown 
> that we are machine", and a big part of what I have done should explain why 
> this is not a scientific statement, and why saying "yes" to the doctor asks 
> fro some act of faith. Then the theory of consciousness makes it a basic 
> and common mystical experience, which takes the form of an automated or 
> instinctive bet on a reality.
>
> No scientist get any trouble with this. But I made my old atheists, and 
> marxist, and philosophers, ex-friends quite unhappy. May be they were just 
> jealous or something, but the persistence of the problem that atheists seem 
> to have with the use of the scientific attitude in theology makes me 
> suspects that they were perhaps more serious in their religious dogma "no 
> God!". In fact they meant probably no ""God"", (with quotes), but they did 
> not say, as they know this is only vocabulary. The idea that "matter" is an 
> hypothesis makes also some people nervous. But in science we should never 
> make any ontological commitment, not a single one. Ontological commitment 
> are private matter.
>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>  
> Jason
>  
>
>  
> Regards,
> Quentin
>
>
>
>  then 70% of people use that same meaning.   If there's some
> other notion,
> why not call it something else.
>
> The discordians have their own notion of Pope, as do the Catholics.
> Who is anyone to say there is only one meaning of Pope?
>
>
> That's not two different meanings any more that king is two different 
> notions because there is more than one king.
>
>
&g

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 05 Feb 2013, at 15:04, Jason Resch wrote:




On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 3:01 AM, Quentin Anciaux   
wrote:



I do not believe in any *personified* gods, and in any *dogmas*, so  
in that settings I would call myself an atheist. I'm agnostic about  
what I could call an existential force, a reality "maker"...  
Religions does not allows doubt, questionning, religions is about  
dogmas. I would side with John in saying that wanting to use god for  
something else than the accepted meaning (which means a super  
*being*/*person*) is wrong. I can accept the notion of the One  
(which is not a person), the one is not a *god* in that sense.


But when you talk with religious zealot, saying you're agnostic  
means to them that they could enrol you in their dogma, and so to  
them I really prefer saying I'm an atheist, because really I don't  
believe their BS, I don't want to believe, I want to doubt,  
question, search answers, religions gives non-questionable  
"answers", religions are not about seeking truth, it is just "shut  
up and believe".


My point is there are various levels of sophistication in  
understanding.  A three-year-old might have some concept of numbers,  
and so does a PhD mathematician. Their understandings may be  
incomparable, but you could say they both have some belief in  
numbers.  The fact that many people might have little understanding  
in certain field is not an appropriate reason to say there is  
nothing of any interest in that field.



I agree. And to reject a notion because of a common misunderstanding  
can only maintain and spread the misconception.
It remains typical that atheists are so few inclined to accept that we  
tackle theology with the scientific method.


I have used the term "theology" because I have been qualified as such,  
by vindicative strong atheists, and this when I said things like "I am  
interested in the question 'could a machine be conscious" (answer:  
that's theology), or even just "I am interested in modal  
logic" (comment: that's theology). Eventually I think there were  
right, and to prevent such easy dismissal I have called that theology.
Another reason, is that I want prevent the statement "science has  
shown that we are machine", and a big part of what I have done should  
explain why this is not a scientific statement, and why saying "yes"  
to the doctor asks fro some act of faith. Then the theory of  
consciousness makes it a basic and common mystical experience, which  
takes the form of an automated or instinctive bet on a reality.


No scientist get any trouble with this. But I made my old atheists,  
and marxist, and philosophers, ex-friends quite unhappy. May be they  
were just jealous or something, but the persistence of the problem  
that atheists seem to have with the use of the scientific attitude in  
theology makes me suspects that they were perhaps more serious in  
their religious dogma "no God!". In fact they meant probably no  
""God"", (with quotes), but they did not say, as they know this is  
only vocabulary. The idea that "matter" is an hypothesis makes also  
some people nervous. But in science we should never make any  
ontological commitment, not a single one. Ontological commitment are  
private matter.


Bruno






Jason


Regards,
Quentin

then 70% of people use that same meaning.   If there's some
other notion,
why not call it something else.

The discordians have their own notion of Pope, as do the Catholics.
Who is anyone to say there is only one meaning of Pope?

That's not two different meanings any more that king is two  
different notions because there is more than one king.


They have different properties though.  As is the case between Gods  
of various religions.  There are some nearly universal  
characteristics, but no two are identical.  You could even say,  
every Christian has a different understanding and view point of what  
God is.  Perhaps there are Gods in some religions which are not only  
consistent or probable, but real.  Should science not have some  
interest in their investigation (especially if they are part of  
reality)?




Why then,
should there be only one meaning of God?

Because then we wouldn't know what "God" meant.  Of course like many  
words it may refer to more than one thing and there may be some  
variations.  "Automobile" refers to lots of different things, but  
they all have wheels, motive power, and carry people over surfaces.   
That doesn't mean you can call an aircraft carrier and automobile.


So then what are the universal properties of God?  You seem to shy  
away from them and prefer your own overly specific, self- 
inconsistent definition, because it is the one you can most  
comfortably admit you disbelieve in.  This is trivial though and I  
think we can do better.  It is like a mathematician proving there  
are no numbers that are prime and even and greater than 2, so the  
mathematician decides he has proven all there is to prove and gives  
up

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread Jason Resch

On Tue, Feb 5, 2013 at 3:01 AM, Quentin Anciaux  wrote:

>
>
> 2013/2/5 Jason Resch 
>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 2:04 AM, meekerdb  wrote:
>>
>>> On 2/3/2013 7:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>>
 On 2/3/13, meekerdb  wrote:

> On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>> It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed basically
>> all
>> correct machines
>> believes in God, and in some theories question like "is God a person"
>> can
>> be an open
>> problem.
>>
>> But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you cannot
>> cut
>> with your
>> education which has impose to you only one notion of God.
>>
> Why should there be more than one notion designated by "God".
>
 Do you not agree that there are multiple religions and each is free to
 designate its own God or Gods?  To choose one sect of one religion's
 God as the standard God for all atheists to disbelieve in is
 favoritism.  Why do the atheists choose the Abrahamic God over the God
 the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Zoroastrians, the Deists, the Platonists,
 or any of the myriads of religions since lost to history?

>>>
>>> Because that's the god of theism - hence a-theism.
>>
>>
>> So are you also an a-deist?  What about an a-Brahmanist, or
>> a-Hyper-intelligent-simlatorist?
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  You say it
 is because it is the most popular.  Even if that were so, Atheism
 isn't about rejecting one God, it rejects all Gods.

>>>
>>> Not at all.  All the atheists I know allow that a deist god is more
>>> likely to exist than a theist god.
>>
>>
>> They still (I would think) put that probability less than 50%.
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>  You would have to
 be quite an expert to disqualify every religion's (and indeed, every
 person's) notion of God.

>>>
>>> I don't have to 'disqualify' them (whatever that means); I just fail to
>>> put any credence in them.
>>
>>
>> How do you differentiate yourself from agnostics, who also fail to put
>> any credence in them?
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
  The Abrahamic
> religions use
> the word to designate a particular notion: an omniscience, omnipotent,
> benevolent creator
> person who wants us to worship him.
>
 Not all do, which you failed to account for in your below probabilities.

>>>
>>> Not all what do?
>>
>>
>> Not all Christians define God as an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent
>> creator person who wants us to worship him.
>>
>
> Then they're not Christians... christianity is defined by a set of dogmas
> (hey dogma is what define religions), so if you doubt the basic dogmas of
> christianity, why would you call yourself a christian ??
>

So Thomas Aquinas was not a christian, because he understood
the incompatibility of omniscience and omnipotence.



>
>>
>>>  I just took the proportion of the world population that self identified
>>> as Christian, Muslim, and Jew.  The major remaining portions are
>>> non-believers and Hindus.
>>>
>>>
>>>
Together their adherents constitute 54%
> of those who
> believe in a theist god.  And if we take your view that atheists and
> agnostics use the
> same definition,


>> That is not my view.  I am trying to ascertain what is the God that
>> atheists disbelieve in, and if it is one in particular (and not all of
>> them, which is what I thought most atheists believed (e.g. Richard Dawkins
>> and John Clark say they believe in zero Gods)), why have they chosen some
>> particular religion's God instead of others?  Are there Gods atheists
>> believe in but do not tell anyone about?
>>
>
> I do not believe in any *personified* gods, and in any *dogmas*, so in
> that settings I would call myself an atheist. I'm agnostic about what I
> could call an existential force, a reality "maker"... Religions does not
> allows doubt, questionning, religions is about dogmas. I would side with
> John in saying that wanting to use god for something else than the accepted
> meaning (which means a super *being*/*person*) is wrong. I can accept the
> notion of the One (which is not a person), the one is not a *god* in that
> sense.
>
> But when you talk with religious zealot, saying you're agnostic means to
> them that they could enrol you in their dogma, and so to them I really
> prefer saying I'm an atheist, because really I don't believe their BS, I
> don't want to believe, I want to doubt, question, search answers, religions
> gives non-questionable "answers", religions are not about seeking truth, it
> is just "shut up and believe".
>

My point is there are various levels of sophistication in understanding.  A
three-year-old might have some concept of numbers, and so does a PhD
mathematician. Their understandings may be incomparable, but you could say
they both have some belief in numbers.  The fact that many people might
have little understanding in certain field is not an appropriate reason to

Re: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread Roger Clough

Hi Jason Resch 

"God" is a word, and the meanings of words are established by use.
So the word "God" can mean whatever you intend it to mean.


- Receiving the following content - 
From: Jason Resch 
Receiver: everything-list 
Time: 2013-02-04, 22:12:54
Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.





On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 2:04 AM, meekerdb  wrote:

On 2/3/2013 7:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

On 2/3/13, meekerdb ?rote:

On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed basically all
correct machines
believes in God, and in some theories question like "is God a person" can
be an open
problem.

But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you cannot cut
with your
education which has impose to you only one notion of God.

Why should there be more than one notion designated by "God".

Do you not agree that there are multiple religions and each is free to
designate its own God or Gods? ?o choose one sect of one religion's
God as the standard God for all atheists to disbelieve in is
favoritism. ?hy do the atheists choose the Abrahamic God over the God
the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Zoroastrians, the Deists, the Platonists,
or any of the myriads of religions since lost to history?



Because that's the god of theism - hence a-theism.


So are you also an a-deist? ?hat about an a-Brahmanist, or 
a-Hyper-intelligent-simlatorist?
?



You say it
is because it is the most popular. ?ven if that were so, Atheism
isn't about rejecting one God, it rejects all Gods.



Not at all. ?ll the atheists I know allow that a deist god is more likely to 
exist than a theist god.


They still (I would think) put that probability less than 50%.
?



You would have to
be quite an expert to disqualify every religion's (and indeed, every
person's) notion of God.



I don't have to 'disqualify' them (whatever that means); I just fail to put any 
credence in them.


How do you differentiate yourself from agnostics, who also fail to put any 
credence in them?
?





The Abrahamic
religions use
the word to designate a particular notion: an omniscience, omnipotent,
benevolent creator
person who wants us to worship him.

Not all do, which you failed to account for in your below probabilities.



Not all what do? 


Not all?hristians?efine God as an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent creator 
person who wants us to worship him.
?
? just took the proportion of the world population that self identified as 
Christian, Muslim, and Jew. ?he major remaining portions are non-believers and 
Hindus.





? Together their adherents constitute 54%
of those who
believe in a theist god. ?nd if we take your view that atheists and
agnostics use the
same definition,


That is not my view. ? am trying to ascertain what is the God that atheists 
disbelieve in, and if it is one in particular (and not all of them, which is 
what I thought most?theists?elieved (e.g. Richard Dawkins and John Clark say 
they believe in zero Gods)), why have they chosen some particular religion's 
God instead of others? ?re there Gods atheists believe in but do not tell 
anyone about?
?
then 70% of people use that same meaning. ? If there's some
other notion,
why not call it something else.


The discordians have their own notion of Pope, as do the Catholics.
Who is anyone to say there is only one meaning of Pope?



That's not two different meanings any more that king is two different notions 
because there is more than one king.


They have different properties though. ?s is the case between Gods of various 
religions. ?here are some nearly universal characteristics, but no two are 
identical. ?ou could even say, every Christian has a different understanding 
and view point of what God is. ?erhaps there are Gods in some religions which 
are not only consistent or probable, but real. ?hould science not have some 
interest in their investigation (especially if they are part of reality)?





Why then,
should there be only one meaning of God?



Because then we wouldn't know what "God" meant. ?f course like many words it 
may refer to more than one thing and there may be some variations. 
?"Automobile" refers to lots of different things, but they all have wheels, 
motive power, and carry people over surfaces. ?hat doesn't mean you can call an 
aircraft carrier and automobile.


So then what are the universal properties of God? ?ou seem to shy away from 
them and prefer your own overly specific, self-inconsistent definition, because 
it is the one you can most comfortably admit you disbelieve in. ?his is trivial 
though and I think we can do better. ?t is like a mathematician proving there 
are no numbers that are prime and even and greater than 2, so the mathematician 
decides he has proven all there is to prove and gives up deciding to advance 
the field by provin

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 03 Feb 2013, at 22:56, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed basically  
all correct machines believes in God, and in some theories question  
like "is God a person" can be an open problem.


But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you  
cannot cut with your education which has impose to you only one  
notion of God.


Why should there be more than one notion designated by "God".  The  
Abrahamic religions use the word to designate a particular notion:  
an omniscience, omnipotent, benevolent creator person who wants us  
to worship him.  Together their adherents constitute 54% of those  
who believe in a theist god.  And if we take your view that atheists  
and agnostics use the same definition, then 70% of people  use  
that same meaning.   If there's some other notion, why not call it  
something else.



The meaning of words can evolve. In this case I use the word  
"theology" in the old original sense, and even that sense still make  
sense for 70% of the Abramanic theology, despite adding more weird  
attributes.
Like John you confirm my feeling that atheists defend the use of the  
word as it has been imposed to us, and not the more general concept  
which bring theologies in the first place.


Using another world would not help in the comparative theological  
studies, including the comparaison with comp.


Bruno






Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 03 Feb 2013, at 19:58, Jason Resch wrote:




On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Bruno Marchal   
wrote:


On 01 Feb 2013, at 17:10, Jason Resch wrote:

Very nice post Bruno.  I found your points convincing and  
informative.


Thanks Jason. I appreciate.

I really don't know what happens with John K Clark.

At least John K Clark answers mails, and the contradiction can be  
made public.

Some other people have not been so polite.

Is there any one on the list who understood Clark's point, and would  
like to defend it?



When I first saw the UDA I paused at step 3 as well, and raised the  
point on the list that both perspectives are experienced and that  
these experience could rightly be said to belong to the same  
person.  I think you replied that Chalmers had said the same thing  
and also that he said it would imply that we are everyone.  The  
notion of a universal self, however, is advanced and using it here  
at step 3 is in a sense "skipping ahead".  I think the reasoning on  
duplicates eventually leads to the realization on the self, which  
John Clark may had already reached with his writing of short stories  
on the subject of duplicates.  I think I know what he means when he  
says "I experience both", but he is using "I" in a different sense  
than you mean it.  I think he is using "I" in the broad sense of the  
universal self rather than the immediacy of "here and now" and "what  
is it my mind presently has access to?"  Like a split brain patient  
experiencing both sides of the screen, but one hemisphere of the  
brain not remembering the other hemisphere's experience, you could  
in the same sense say John Clark is presently experiencing both W  
and M, but suffers from the same amnesia/loss of access of a split  
brain patient.


Yes. Indeed. Someone (Lee) made a similar point, and i think agreed  
that this entails that we are already all the same person, like the  
same amoeba, or the universal self, but John did not reply when I  
asked him if that was his view. Then it is also not relevant for the  
first person indeterminacy as it concerns the next possible first  
person experience about the result of an experiment (like pushing on a  
button, and looking which city we feel to be).







Despite that I share this broad sense of self, I came to realize my  
problem with step 3 came down to.


Good. It is frequent that some people takes time to get the first  
person indeterminacy. I think most people eventually understand, but  
some people seems to be unable to acknowlegde it. I guess it is more a  
psychological problem than a problem of being able to reason or not.





What I find most surprising about John's position is that he can use  
"I" in the same sense you mean in the UDA when referring to many- 
worlds thought experiments, but he refuses to use it in that same  
sense when it comes to duplication in the UDA.


Yes. And he did become rather delirious when explaining to me and  
Quentin why. He introduced the non relevant distinction that in QM the  
doppelganger belongs to different universes, like if that could change  
the comp probability.


It is a bit sad as being open to the QM MWI is normally a big help to  
get the comp MDI (many dreams).


Also, he uses often the mind-brain identity thesis, which is already  
non sensical in MWI, and of course also in comp.


But the worst is in his tone, which does not reflect that he is  
willing to think on those matter seriously, so he does look like a  
sort of priest of the materialist dogma, and at the same time he is  
not, as he said he was open to the idea that arithmetic might be the  
basic reality. That's what is rather weird. To be continued ...


Bruno


http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-05 Thread Quentin Anciaux

2013/2/5 Jason Resch 

>
>
> On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 2:04 AM, meekerdb  wrote:
>
>> On 2/3/2013 7:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>>
>>> On 2/3/13, meekerdb  wrote:
>>>
 On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

> It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed basically all
> correct machines
> believes in God, and in some theories question like "is God a person"
> can
> be an open
> problem.
>
> But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you cannot
> cut
> with your
> education which has impose to you only one notion of God.
>
 Why should there be more than one notion designated by "God".

>>> Do you not agree that there are multiple religions and each is free to
>>> designate its own God or Gods?  To choose one sect of one religion's
>>> God as the standard God for all atheists to disbelieve in is
>>> favoritism.  Why do the atheists choose the Abrahamic God over the God
>>> the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Zoroastrians, the Deists, the Platonists,
>>> or any of the myriads of religions since lost to history?
>>>
>>
>> Because that's the god of theism - hence a-theism.
>
>
> So are you also an a-deist?  What about an a-Brahmanist, or
> a-Hyper-intelligent-simlatorist?
>
>
>>
>>
>>  You say it
>>> is because it is the most popular.  Even if that were so, Atheism
>>> isn't about rejecting one God, it rejects all Gods.
>>>
>>
>> Not at all.  All the atheists I know allow that a deist god is more
>> likely to exist than a theist god.
>
>
> They still (I would think) put that probability less than 50%.
>
>
>>
>>
>>  You would have to
>>> be quite an expert to disqualify every religion's (and indeed, every
>>> person's) notion of God.
>>>
>>
>> I don't have to 'disqualify' them (whatever that means); I just fail to
>> put any credence in them.
>
>
> How do you differentiate yourself from agnostics, who also fail to put any
> credence in them?
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>>>  The Abrahamic
 religions use
 the word to designate a particular notion: an omniscience, omnipotent,
 benevolent creator
 person who wants us to worship him.

>>> Not all do, which you failed to account for in your below probabilities.
>>>
>>
>> Not all what do?
>
>
> Not all Christians define God as an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent
> creator person who wants us to worship him.
>

Then they're not Christians... christianity is defined by a set of dogmas
(hey dogma is what define religions), so if you doubt the basic dogmas of
christianity, why would you call yourself a christian ??

>
>
>>  I just took the proportion of the world population that self identified
>> as Christian, Muslim, and Jew.  The major remaining portions are
>> non-believers and Hindus.
>>
>>
>>
>>>Together their adherents constitute 54%
 of those who
 believe in a theist god.  And if we take your view that atheists and
 agnostics use the
 same definition,
>>>
>>>
> That is not my view.  I am trying to ascertain what is the God that
> atheists disbelieve in, and if it is one in particular (and not all of
> them, which is what I thought most atheists believed (e.g. Richard Dawkins
> and John Clark say they believe in zero Gods)), why have they chosen some
> particular religion's God instead of others?  Are there Gods atheists
> believe in but do not tell anyone about?
>

I do not believe in any *personified* gods, and in any *dogmas*, so in that
settings I would call myself an atheist. I'm agnostic about what I could
call an existential force, a reality "maker"... Religions does not allows
doubt, questionning, religions is about dogmas. I would side with John in
saying that wanting to use god for something else than the accepted meaning
(which means a super *being*/*person*) is wrong. I can accept the notion of
the One (which is not a person), the one is not a *god* in that sense.

But when you talk with religious zealot, saying you're agnostic means to
them that they could enrol you in their dogma, and so to them I really
prefer saying I'm an atheist, because really I don't believe their BS, I
don't want to believe, I want to doubt, question, search answers, religions
gives non-questionable "answers", religions are not about seeking truth, it
is just "shut up and believe".

Regards,
Quentin

>
>
>>  then 70% of people use that same meaning.   If there's some
 other notion,
 why not call it something else.

  The discordians have their own notion of Pope, as do the Catholics.
>>> Who is anyone to say there is only one meaning of Pope?
>>>
>>
>> That's not two different meanings any more that king is two different
>> notions because there is more than one king.
>
>
> They have different properties though.  As is the case between Gods of
> various religions.  There are some nearly universal characteristics, but no
> two are identical.  You could even say, every Christian has a different
> understanding and view point of what God is.  Perhaps there ar

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-04 Thread meekerdb

On 2/4/2013 7:12 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 2:04 AM, meekerdb > wrote:

On 2/3/2013 7:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

On 2/3/13, meekerdbmailto:meeke...@verizon.net>>
wrote:

On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed
basically all
correct machines
believes in God, and in some theories question like "is God a
person" can
be an open
problem.

But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you
cannot cut
with your
education which has impose to you only one notion of God.

Why should there be more than one notion designated by "God".

Do you not agree that there are multiple religions and each is free to
designate its own God or Gods? To choose one sect of one religion's
God as the standard God for all atheists to disbelieve in is
favoritism. Why do the atheists choose the Abrahamic God over the God
the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Zoroastrians, the Deists, the Platonists,
or any of the myriads of religions since lost to history?

Because that's the god of theism - hence a-theism.

So are you also an a-deist? What about an a-Brahmanist, or
a-Hyper-intelligent-simlatorist?

Probably - although I'm not informed on the latter.

You say it
is because it is the most popular. Even if that were so, Atheism
isn't about rejecting one God, it rejects all Gods.

Not at all. All the atheists I know allow that a deist god is more likely
to exist
than a theist god.

They still (I would think) put that probability less than 50%.

No doubt. Dawkins only places himself at 9 on a 1-to-10 scale of disbelief in the god of
theism.

You would have to
be quite an expert to disqualify every religion's (and indeed, every
person's) notion of God.

I don't have to 'disqualify' them (whatever that means); I just fail to put
any
credence in them.

How do you differentiate yourself from agnostics, who also fail to put any
credence in them?

Agnostic may mean giving equal roughly equal credence to every position. Agnostic may
also mean the position that nothing can be known about the existence of god(s).

The Abrahamic
religions use
the word to designate a particular notion: an omniscience,
omnipotent,
benevolent creator
person who wants us to worship him.

Not all do, which you failed to account for in your below probabilities.

Not all what do?

Not all Christians define God as an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent creator person
who wants us to worship him.

So what makes the Christians?

I just took the proportion of the world population that self identified as
Christian, Muslim, and Jew. The major remaining portions are non-believers
and Hindus.

Together their adherents constitute 54%
of those who
believe in a theist god. And if we take your view that atheists and
agnostics use the
same definition,

That is not my view. I am trying to ascertain what is the God that atheists disbelieve
in, and if it is one in particular (and not all of them, which is what I thought
most atheists believed (e.g. Richard Dawkins and John Clark say they believe in zero
Gods)), why have they chosen some particular religion's God instead of others? Are
there Gods atheists believe in but do not tell anyone about?

You seem to be confounding "disbelieve in" and "failing to believe in". To "believe in
zero gods" is ambiguous since it might mean asserting "There are no gods" or "There are no
gods that I believe in." Compare "There are no aliens on other planets" and "There are no
aliens on another planet that I believe in."

then 70% of people use that same meaning. If there's some
other notion,
why not call it something else.

The discordians have their own notion of Pope, as do the Catholics.
Who is anyone to say there is only one meaning of Pope?

That's not two different meanings any more that king is two different
notions
because there is more than one king.

They have different properties though. As is the case between Gods of various
religions. There are some nearly universal characteristics, but no two are identical.
You could even say, every Christian has a different understanding and view point of
what God is. Perhaps there are Gods in some religions which are not only consistent or
probable, but real. Should science not have some interest in their investigation
(especially if they are part of reality)?

Why then,
should there be only one meaning of God?

Because

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-04 Thread meekerdb


On 2/4/2013 4:29 PM, Jason Resch wrote:



On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 12:39 PM, John Clark > wrote:


On Sun, Feb 3, 2013  Jason Resch mailto:jasonre...@gmail.com>> wrote:

> What I find most surprising about John's position is that he can use 
"I" in
the same sense you mean in the UDA when referring to many-worlds thought
experiments, but he refuses to use it in that same sense when it comes 
to
duplication in the UDA.


After a experiment has been completed the Many World's Interpretation can 
give some
people, including me, a intuitive feel of what just happened,


The analogous experiment in the UDA is pressing the button and seeing what City you now 
find yourself.  (Don't bother replying to this unless you make some new realization; 
we've gone over this a dozen times already.)


as opposed to just crunching the numbers. However when it comes to 
prediction Many
Worlds is no better than Copenhagen and Copenhagen did come first; and 
that's why
Many Worlds is not the dominant explanation in the scientific community, 
although
it's popularity is increasing.


Many worlds requires that gravity be quantized, where the CI does not (according to 
http://www.anthropic-principle.com/preprints/manyworlds.html ).


What gave you the idea CI allowed non-quantized gravity?  It isn't a question of 
interpretation: if gravity is a classical field then it could be used to evade the 
uncertainty principle.


So I would say MW is a theory and not an interpretation.  Also, I know of no good 
explanation of why quantum computers should work under single-universe interpretations.


Because they traverse all allowed Feynman paths.


Brent
Thirty one years ago, Dick Feynman told me about his 'sum over
histories' version of quantum mechanics.  "The electron does anything it
likes', he said.  "It goes in any direction at any speed, forward or
backward in time, however it likes, and then you add up all the
amplitudes and it gives you the wave-function."
I said to him, "You're crazy."  But he wasn't.
  --- Freeman J. Dyson, 'Some Strangeness in the Proportion' 1980

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-04 Thread Jason Resch

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 2:04 AM, meekerdb  wrote:

> On 2/3/2013 7:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:
>
>> On 2/3/13, meekerdb  wrote:
>>
>>> On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>>
 It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed basically all
 correct machines
 believes in God, and in some theories question like "is God a person"
 can
 be an open
 problem.

 But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you cannot
 cut
 with your
 education which has impose to you only one notion of God.

>>> Why should there be more than one notion designated by "God".
>>>
>> Do you not agree that there are multiple religions and each is free to
>> designate its own God or Gods?  To choose one sect of one religion's
>> God as the standard God for all atheists to disbelieve in is
>> favoritism.  Why do the atheists choose the Abrahamic God over the God
>> the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Zoroastrians, the Deists, the Platonists,
>> or any of the myriads of religions since lost to history?
>>
>
> Because that's the god of theism - hence a-theism.

So are you also an a-deist?  What about an a-Brahmanist, or
a-Hyper-intelligent-simlatorist?

>
>
>  You say it
>> is because it is the most popular.  Even if that were so, Atheism
>> isn't about rejecting one God, it rejects all Gods.
>>
>
> Not at all.  All the atheists I know allow that a deist god is more likely
> to exist than a theist god.

They still (I would think) put that probability less than 50%.

>
>
>  You would have to
>> be quite an expert to disqualify every religion's (and indeed, every
>> person's) notion of God.
>>
>
> I don't have to 'disqualify' them (whatever that means); I just fail to
> put any credence in them.

How do you differentiate yourself from agnostics, who also fail to put any
credence in them?

>
>
>
>>  The Abrahamic
>>> religions use
>>> the word to designate a particular notion: an omniscience, omnipotent,
>>> benevolent creator
>>> person who wants us to worship him.
>>>
>> Not all do, which you failed to account for in your below probabilities.
>>
>
> Not all what do?

Not all Christians define God as an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent
creator person who wants us to worship him.

>  I just took the proportion of the world population that self identified
> as Christian, Muslim, and Jew.  The major remaining portions are
> non-believers and Hindus.
>
>
>
>>Together their adherents constitute 54%
>>> of those who
>>> believe in a theist god.  And if we take your view that atheists and
>>> agnostics use the
>>> same definition,
>>
>>
That is not my view.  I am trying to ascertain what is the God that
atheists disbelieve in, and if it is one in particular (and not all of
them, which is what I thought most atheists believed (e.g. Richard Dawkins
and John Clark say they believe in zero Gods)), why have they chosen some
particular religion's God instead of others?  Are there Gods atheists
believe in but do not tell anyone about?

> then 70% of people use that same meaning.   If there's some
>>> other notion,
>>> why not call it something else.
>>>
>>>  The discordians have their own notion of Pope, as do the Catholics.
>> Who is anyone to say there is only one meaning of Pope?
>>
>
> That's not two different meanings any more that king is two different
> notions because there is more than one king.

They have different properties though.  As is the case between Gods of
various religions.  There are some nearly universal characteristics, but no
two are identical.  You could even say, every Christian has a different
understanding and view point of what God is.  Perhaps there are Gods in
some religions which are not only consistent or probable, but real.  Should
science not have some interest in their investigation (especially if they
are part of reality)?

>
>  Why then,
>> should there be only one meaning of God?
>>
>
> Because then we wouldn't know what "God" meant.  Of course like many words
> it may refer to more than one thing and there may be some variations.
>  "Automobile" refers to lots of different things, but they all have wheels,
> motive power, and carry people over surfaces.  That doesn't mean you can
> call an aircraft carrier and automobile.

So then what are the universal properties of God?  You seem to shy away
from them and prefer your own overly specific, self-inconsistent
definition, because it is the one you can most comfortably admit you
disbelieve in.  This is trivial though and I think we can do better.  It is
like a mathematician proving there are no numbers that are prime and even
and greater than 2, so the mathematician decides he has proven all there is
to prove and gives up deciding to advance the field by proving anything
else.

In showing that an omnipotent, omniscient, omni-benevolent God cannot
exist, you end up doing science and advancing the field of theology.  You
could prove logically some possible properties of God are mutually
inc

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-04 Thread Jason Resch

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 12:39 PM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 3, 2013  Jason Resch  wrote:
>
>
>> > What I find most surprising about John's position is that he can use
>> "I" in the same sense you mean in the UDA when referring to many-worlds
>> thought experiments, but he refuses to use it in that same sense when it
>> comes to duplication in the UDA.
>>
>
> After a experiment has been completed the Many World's Interpretation can
> give some people, including me, a intuitive feel of what just happened,
>

The analogous experiment in the UDA is pressing the button and seeing what
City you now find yourself.  (Don't bother replying to this unless you make
some new realization; we've gone over this a dozen times already.)

> as opposed to just crunching the numbers. However when it comes to
> prediction Many Worlds is no better than Copenhagen and Copenhagen did come
> first; and that's why Many Worlds is not the dominant explanation in the
> scientific community, although it's popularity is increasing.
>

Many worlds requires that gravity be quantized, where the CI does not
(according to http://www.anthropic-principle.com/preprints/manyworlds.html).
 So I would say MW is a theory and not an interpretation.  Also, I
know
of no good explanation of why quantum computers should work under
single-universe interpretations.  In any case, your undermining of
many-worlds is only a red herring for the real problem, which is this:

You've agreed there is a single definite result (even in MW) after making
some measurement.  Despite the fact that according to MW there were
multiple results and you were duplicated.  You then say there is no single
result in Bruno's experiment because "you have been duplicated."  There is
an inconsistency somewhere in there.

>
> However Bruno in his pee pee proof claims to have discovered something new
> about prediction but he is wrong about that.
>

Third person indeterminacy is not what he claims as some new prediction.
 It is only a building block to see how arithmetical realism can explain
the appearance of the physical universe.  Of course you would not know this
because you abandoned the proof at step 3 out of the 8.

>   And to make matters worse Bruno is pushing on a string, he's trying to
> establish a chain of identity from the present to the future and that's
> never going to work, you've got to do it from the present to the past.
>

Reverse causality experiments in QM has shown that your existence is
consistent with multiple pastes as well.  In any case, this is not a
problem if you accepted the survival with a digital substitution of your
brain which was an explicitly assumption before any steps of the proof.  If
you reject this assumption, it is not a flaw of the proof, you just don't
believe in the computational theory of mind.

> I don't know what my future identity will be, maybe tomorrow I'll become a
> rodeo clown, maybe I'll be elected Pope, maybe I'll be dead I just don't
> know, but I know who I was yesterday.
>

Even that is not a given.

Jason

>
>
>

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-04 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Feb 3, 2013  Jason Resch  wrote:

> > What I find most surprising about John's position is that he can use "I"
> in the same sense you mean in the UDA when referring to many-worlds thought
> experiments, but he refuses to use it in that same sense when it comes to
> duplication in the UDA.
>

After a experiment has been completed the Many World's Interpretation can
give some people, including me, a intuitive feel of what just happened, as
opposed to just crunching the numbers. However when it comes to prediction
Many Worlds is no better than Copenhagen and Copenhagen did come first; and
that's why Many Worlds is not the dominant explanation in the scientific
community, although it's popularity is increasing.

However Bruno in his pee pee proof claims to have discovered something new
about prediction but he is wrong about that.  And to make matters worse
Bruno is pushing on a string, he's trying to establish a chain of identity
from the present to the future and that's never going to work, you've got
to do it from the present to the past. I don't know what my future identity
will be, maybe tomorrow I'll become a rodeo clown, maybe I'll be elected
Pope, maybe I'll be dead I just don't know, but I know who I was yesterday.

  John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-04 Thread Bruno Marchal



On 02 Feb 2013, at 09:08, meekerdb wrote:


On 2/1/2013 7:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


And here you come back with your vocabulary problem. You don't  
believe in the fairy tale version of christian God, and for some  
mysterious reason you want throw out all notion of gods like if it  
was the only one.


That's not accurate.  I am happy to consider other notions of gods,  
but they are all persons and I don't believe any of them exist.  The  
meaning you want to assign to "God" is the ultimate foundation of  
the world, which I would call "urstuff" or something similar.


I disagree.
I use God to avoid stuff, as we already know it is not "stuffy". Read  
the greeks. read the taoists, read many idealist school of buddhism.





The theory you have put forward that the world is emergent from the  
computations of a UD doesn't make the fundamental a person


It is an open problem.



and so I can't see any reason to call it "a god" of "God" of even  
"ONE" (since it is very numerous).


? Arithmetical truth is unique. The standard model of arithmetic is  
unique. And we can't really define it, without using more intuitions,  
on sets and infinities.


I did provide a definition of God: what is responsible for everything,  
and can't be named by its creatures. See the arithmetical  
interpretation of Plotinus for more. Even Plotinus was cautious about  
the "personhood of the ONE, and about its possible will".


Bruno



http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/



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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-04 Thread meekerdb

On 2/3/2013 7:20 PM, Jason Resch wrote:

On 2/3/13, meekerdb wrote:

On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:

It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed basically all
correct machines
believes in God, and in some theories question like "is God a person" can
be an open
problem.

But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you cannot cut
with your
education which has impose to you only one notion of God.

Why should there be more than one notion designated by "God".

Because that's the god of theism - hence a-theism.

You say it
is because it is the most popular. Even if that were so, Atheism
isn't about rejecting one God, it rejects all Gods.

Not at all. All the atheists I know allow that a deist god is more likely to exist than a
theist god.

You would have to
be quite an expert to disqualify every religion's (and indeed, every
person's) notion of God.

I don't have to 'disqualify' them (whatever that means); I just fail to put any credence
in them.

The Abrahamic
religions use
the word to designate a particular notion: an omniscience, omnipotent,
benevolent creator
person who wants us to worship him.

Not all do, which you failed to account for in your below probabilities.

Not all what do? I just took the proportion of the world population that self identified
as Christian, Muslim, and Jew. The major remaining portions are non-believers and Hindus.

Together their adherents constitute 54%
of those who
believe in a theist god. And if we take your view that atheists and
agnostics use the
same definition, then 70% of people use that same meaning. If there's some
other notion,
why not call it something else.

The discordians have their own notion of Pope, as do the Catholics.
Who is anyone to say there is only one meaning of Pope?

That's not two different meanings any more that king is two different notions because
there is more than one king.

Why then,
should there be only one meaning of God?

Because then we wouldn't know what "God" meant. Of course like many words it may refer to
more than one thing and there may be some variations. "Automobile" refers to lots of
different things, but they all have wheels, motive power, and carry people over surfaces.
That doesn't mean you can call an aircraft carrier and automobile.

This is not to say the word is meaningless. There are commonalities
between different religions and belief systems. In nearly all, it can
be said that God serves the role as an ultimate explanation. Whether
it is the Platonic God,

Can you cite Plato referring to such a being?

the Hindu God, the Sikh God, or the Arbrahamic
God, this property is almost universal. In this respect, it is
perfectly natural for Bruno to say under the arithmetical/CTM belief
system, God (the ultimate explanation) is arithmetical truth. Under
Aristotelianism, the ultimate explanation is matter (The buck stops
there), and so matter is the God of Aristotelianism.

Except that all those gods are persons. Arithmetical truth is (a) ill defined and (b) not
a person.

Brent

Would we be better off had we abandoned the word "Earth" or "World"
merely because we discovered it is round instead of flat, instead of
amending our notion of what the "Earth" or "World" really is?

The Earth is defined ostensively. If we could define god(s) ostensively then it would
make sense to say we discovered it's properties were different than we had supposed.

Brent

Jason

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-03 Thread Jason Resch

On 2/3/13, meekerdb  wrote:
> On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>> It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed basically all
>> correct machines
>> believes in God, and in some theories question like "is God a person" can
>> be an open
>> problem.
>>
>> But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you cannot cut
>> with your
>> education which has impose to you only one notion of God.
>
> Why should there be more than one notion designated by "God".

Do you not agree that there are multiple religions and each is free to
designate its own God or Gods?  To choose one sect of one religion's
God as the standard God for all atheists to disbelieve in is
favoritism.  Why do the atheists choose the Abrahamic God over the God
the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Zoroastrians, the Deists, the Platonists,
or any of the myriads of religions since lost to history?  You say it
is because it is the most popular.  Even if that were so, Atheism
isn't about rejecting one God, it rejects all Gods.  You would have to
be quite an expert to disqualify every religion's (and indeed, every
person's) notion of God.

> The Abrahamic
> religions use
> the word to designate a particular notion: an omniscience, omnipotent,
> benevolent creator
> person who wants us to worship him.

Not all do, which you failed to account for in your below probabilities.

>  Together their adherents constitute 54%
> of those who
> believe in a theist god.  And if we take your view that atheists and
> agnostics use the
> same definition, then 70% of people use that same meaning.   If there's some
> other notion,
> why not call it something else.
>

The discordians have their own notion of Pope, as do the Catholics.
Who is anyone to say there is only one meaning of Pope?   Why then,
should there be only one meaning of God?

This is not to say the word is meaningless.  There are commonalities
between different religions and belief systems.  In nearly all, it can
be said that God serves the role as an ultimate explanation.  Whether
it is the Platonic God, the Hindu God, the Sikh God, or the Arbrahamic
God, this property is almost universal.  In this respect, it is
perfectly natural for Bruno to say under the arithmetical/CTM belief
system, God (the ultimate explanation) is arithmetical truth.  Under
Aristotelianism, the ultimate explanation is matter (The buck stops
there), and so matter is the God of Aristotelianism.

Would we be better off had we abandoned the word "Earth" or "World"
merely because we discovered it is round instead of flat, instead of
amending our notion of what the "Earth" or "World" really is?

Jason

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-03 Thread meekerdb


On 2/3/2013 8:28 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed basically all correct machines 
believes in God, and in some theories question like "is God a person" can be an open 
problem.


But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you cannot cut with your 
education which has impose to you only one notion of God.


Why should there be more than one notion designated by "God".  The Abrahamic religions use 
the word to designate a particular notion: an omniscience, omnipotent, benevolent creator 
person who wants us to worship him.  Together their adherents constitute 54% of those who 
believe in a theist god.  And if we take your view that atheists and agnostics use the 
same definition, then 70% of people use that same meaning.   If there's some other notion, 
why not call it something else.


Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-03 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 01 Feb 2013, at 19:48, John Clark wrote:

On Fri, Feb 1, 2013  Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> Well, I am not an atheist.

Sorry to hear about your mind virus, but don't despair, even rabies  
can sometimes be cured.

I am an agnostic. I think that a serious scientist has to be agnostic  
on any ontological commitment, be it God or Matter.

Then with comp I explain that Matter (primitive matter) does not make  
much sense, and that physicalism cannot work.

> Evolution have programmed us to believe, or to take very seriously  
our environment,

Yes because that program works. And Evolution also programmed us to  
believe almost everything adults told us when we were children and  
no doubt somebody told you that atheist were bad people so although  
you've managed to free yourself from the God idea (and I  
congratulate you for that) you still want to make the "I am not an  
atheist" noise with your mouth so you redefine the word "God" and  
thus all related words like "atheist".

I just do research. My personal belief are private.
My point is that the real debate is between the Aristotelian view,  
where Matter is primary and everything else emerges from material  
combinations, and the platonist view, where matter is secondary and  
emerge itself, statistically, in the mind of arithmetical beings.  
Today both Christians (with exceptions) and atheists (with fewer  
exception) have adopted the Aristotelian view, more or less imposed to  
us by authority since 1500 years, by the Church, but also by many kind  
of materialist philosophies.

> What do you believe in?

Well, I believe that Tallahassee is the capital of Florida for one  
thing. I believe in all sorts of other things too, I just don't  
believe in God.

It simpler to generalize the notion of God so that indeed basically  
all correct machines believes in God, and in some theories question  
like "is God a person" can be an open problem.

But you have a vocabulary problem related to the fact that you cannot  
cut with your education which has impose to you only one notion of  
God.  In the "machine theology" god is arithmetical truth, and I am  
pretty sure that you do believe in that God. It is a good notion of  
God for the machines (as seen from outside, as the machine itself will  
not been able to even define "arithmetical truth"). Indeed it obeys to  
the two main fundamental attributes: it is not definable, and it is  
responsible for the machine dreams (from which the sharble "physical"  
realities should emerge (as provable or arguable (at least) once e  
take comp seriously enough.

> You don't believe in the fairy tale version of christian God, and

Guilty as charged.

> for some mysterious reason you want throw out all notion of gods  
like if it was the only one.

I throw out all Gods who are beings that are responsible for the  
multiverse; I don't throw out a hypothetical vastly powerful being,

Good. With comp, arithmetical truth is enough (even a tiny part of it).

I'm a agnostic on that, but such a being would not be a God just a  
comic book superhero or supervillan.

?

> Vocabulary discussion. Just to define your God, which is actually  
a christian simplification of Aristotle's third God: primary matter.

In my opinion Aristotle was the worst physicist who ever lived,  
certainly nobody has harmed the subject more.

No. It was an excellent physicist. Perhaps the first one. He was wrong  
basically on all points. OK. But this we can know thanks to the fact  
that he made precise statements and serious research.
He was a good theologian, he invented logic and modal logic notably to  
argue in metaphysics and theology. But he seems to be also wrong, in  
that field, at least with respect to the comp hyp.

>God looks like Santa Klaus to me too, and that is exactly why  
theology has no more substance to it than Santaklausology.

> This is so ridiculous.

I don't see why you believe Santaklausology is more ridiculous than  
theology, one is about a invisible man who lives at the north pole  
and the other about a invisible man who lives in the sky.

Read books written by O'meara, on the revival of Pythagoras with the  
neoplatonists, or read his book on Plotinus. Study the Platonists  
theology, because comp, in which you believe, implies us to bactrack a  
lot, which is not hard to guess given the lasting use of argument of  
authority in the field.
You can' compare the concept of God in Plato with a sort of Santa  
Klaus in the sky.

> It is pretty ridiculous to throw out a concept because of a word.

It's even more ridiculous to throw out a concept but stay loyal to  
the word for it.

Because it is the one used by most, before and around Christians.  
Notably by Plato, on which I try to point.

 >> you're going to have to invent a new word for it, let's call it  
"Fluberblast".

> The fact that you reject "one" which is the quite standard term in  
neoplatonism shows

Re: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-02 Thread Roger Clough

Hi meekerdb 

God is not in spacetime, which is extended, so he doesn't physically exist. 
He is intelligence, etc., which is not extended, exists beyond spacetime,
and is nonphysical. You don't have to think of God as a person, or
believe in any "fairy tales" (whatever they are, I don't know) unless
you think of the One as a person.


- Receiving the following content - 
From: meekerdb 
Receiver: everything-list 
Time: 2013-02-02, 03:08:08
Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.


On 2/1/2013 7:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: 
And here you come back with your vocabulary problem. You don't believe in the 
fairy tale version of christian God, and for some mysterious reason you want 
throw out all notion of gods like if it was the only one.

That's not accurate.  I am happy to consider other notions of gods, but they 
are all persons and I don't believe any of them exist.  The meaning you want to 
assign to "God" is the ultimate foundation of the world, which I would call 
"urstuff" or something similar.  The theory you have put forward that the world 
is emergent from the computations of a UD doesn't make the fundamental a person 
and so I can't see any reason to call it "a god" of "God" of even "ONE" (since 
it is very numerous).

Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-02 Thread meekerdb


On 2/1/2013 7:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
And here you come back with your vocabulary problem. You don't believe in the fairy tale 
version of christian God, and for some mysterious reason you want throw out all notion 
of gods like if it was the only one.


That's not accurate.  I am happy to consider other notions of gods, but they are all 
persons and I don't believe any of them exist.  The meaning you want to assign to "God" is 
the ultimate foundation of the world, which I would call "urstuff" or something similar.  
The theory you have put forward that the world is emergent from the computations of a UD 
doesn't make the fundamental a person and so I can't see any reason to call it "a god" of 
"God" of even "ONE" (since it is very numerous).


Brent

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-02-01 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 31 Jan 2013, at 19:42, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Jan 31, 2013  Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> i don't believe in the GOD in which you don't believe in.

Then what are we arguing about? Are we arguing about science or  
mathematics or philosophy, or are we just arguing about first grade  
vocabulary?

Good question. You are the one criticizing the use of some word,  
despite, like we do in science, the key words are redefine each time  
we use them.

> but I disagree with your insistence to define God by the Abramanic  
one,

I don't understand how you can disagree with the definition of a  
word, especially if it's the same definition used by 99% of the  
people on the planet who wish to communicate.

Today, in Occident, perhaps. the term "God" as a lasting use in  
philosophy; as others have point out. In comp, it is the difference  
between G and G* which relates the Platonist "god" , truth, with  
arithmetic. It is tha fact, many thanks to Tarski theorem, that the  
concept of arithmetical truth share the main attribute of God: like  
non nameability, ineffability, roots of everything, everywhere and  
everytime presence/relevance, and even more with the God of the  
neoplatonists (simplicity, origin or the Noùs, origin of the souls,  
origin of the illusion of matter, and why it obeys a "spurious  
calculus" (Plotinus). The similarities are striking, and Plotis get  
quite close to comp with its chapter on "the Numbers".

> God, in philosophy or science, denotes the ultimate explanation

You believe that your pee pee argument proves that numbers are the  
ultimate explanation of everything, it doesn't prove that

It does not prove that for someone confusing "and" and "or" or first  
person and third person. You should find a flaw to assess what you say  
here, but you just stop doing the experience. To verify the  
statistics, you have to put yourself at the place of each copies, but  
for unknown reason you fail to do that simple exercise.

but even if it did that would not be "God" as the word is commonly  
used.

And here you come back with your vocabulary problem. You don't believe  
in the fairy tale version of christian God, and for some mysterious  
reason you want throw out all notion of gods like if it was the only  
one. This is like throwing genetics because some people are wrong on  
it. It is not rational.

I tend to interpret this by the fact that you want the whole field of  
theology being spurious, but it seems clear you have never read  
neoplatonists, or just Plato and Aristotle on Gods and God.

Numbers are not a being much less the supreme being, numbers did not  
will the universe into existence and numbers do not change human  
destiny or the way the universe operates on a whim influenced buy  
prayer.

... and you don't red me. the God notion raised by comp is NOT a  
number. Arithmetical truth is NOT definable in arithmetic.  I have  
insist on this all along. You betray that you did not read the post,  
and that your critics is based on prejudices, like your critics on  
theology in general.

Numbers are not the source of all moral authority, and nobody thinks  
that numbers are deserving of worship, and nobody prays to the  
integers.

Indeed. Comp makes this into a blasphemy. God, in mechanism, is not a  
number, at all. Nor is matter, nor is consciousness.

You could of course personally redefine the word so that "God" and  
numbers are synonyms,

I could not. I have explained this in detail.

and in the extraordinarily unlikely possibility that you manage to  
convinced others to adopt this new linguistic convention you would  
have succeeded in explaining absolutely nothing about how the world  
works, you'd have just changed English, one of about 7000 human  
languages used on this planet.

And then you'd need to invent a new word for the old meaning of the  
word "God" and then people like me would say "of course I believe in  
God but I don't believe in Fluberblast" and then over time people  
would develop a emotional attachment to the word "Fluberblast" and  
insist on redefining the word and give it such a amorphous all  
encompassing sloppy meaning that everybody would have to say " I  
believe in Fluberblast".

Vocabulary discussion. Just to define your God, which is actually a  
christian simplification of Aristotle's third God: primary matter.

At ll level, you seems to defend the Aristotelian theology/theory of  
everything. Like many atheists you want us to believe that this is the  
only rational option. But comp explains in detail why this can't work,  
and to avoid this, you have to do confuse 1p and 3p at some point, and  
we have shown you were.

>> I know exactly what it is that I don't believe in,

> Really?

Yes really.

> It looks like Santa Klaus to me.

God looks like Santa Klaus to me too, and that is exactly why  
theology has no more substance to it than Santaklausology.

This is so ridiculous.

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-31 Thread meekerdb


On 1/31/2013 6:18 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:


> you seem to believe that physics does solve the mind-body problem,


The evidence very strongly indicates that mind is what the brain does if that's what 
you mean.


So you do assume the existence of a primitive or primitively material brain?


That doesn't follow. It may be that minds and brains are necessarily linked, without 
assuming that either one is fundamental.


Brent



Are such brain Turing emulable?

If yes, how do you predict the first person feeling of a person doing a physical 
measurement?


You might study some book on the mind-body problem. Serious books makes clear that we 
have not yet solve the problem. Note that UDA, and especially MGA (which I will 
re-explain on the FOAR list) is by itself a formulation of the problem, in the mechanist 
frame.




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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-31 Thread Stephen P. King


On 1/31/2013 2:00 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:



On Thursday, January 31, 2013 1:42:20 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Jan 31, 2013  Bruno Marchal > wrote:

> i don't believe in the GOD in which you don't believe in.

I admit there is a story (probably apocryphal) about Pythagoras
killing a man for leaking the proof that the square root of 2
could not be expressed as a fraction.


Wait, someone leaked that?!?  Death to the infidel!

Craig


LOL! Yeah!

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Stephen

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-31 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Thursday, January 31, 2013 1:42:20 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jan 31, 2013  Bruno Marchal >wrote:
>
>  > i don't believe in the GOD in which you don't believe in. 
>>
>  

> I admit there is a story (probably apocryphal) about Pythagoras killing a 
> man for leaking the proof that the square root of 2 could not be expressed 
> as a fraction. 
>

Wait, someone leaked that?!?  Death to the infidel!

Craig 

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-31 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 29 Jan 2013, at 22:14, John Clark wrote:

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> I am very glad with all your posts on religion, as they confirm my  
theory according to which (strong) atheists are (strong) Christians  
in disguise.

Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never  
heard that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12.

> same definition of the creator

EXACTLY!  I have a well defined meaning of the word " God"  so when  
I say "I don't believe in God" it actually means something, and the  
meaning of the word is such that it doesn't reduced the sentence to  
triviality. People may and usually do disagree when I say "I don't  
believe in God" but at least they know what I'm talking about.

The usual answer here is that i don't believe in the GOD in which you  
don't believe in. I agree with you, but I disagree with your  
insistence to define God by the Abramanic one, or even by the fairy  
tales popularly added to it.

God, in philosophy or science, denotes the ultimate explanation which  
we are searching. It is the ultimate "ensemble", or the ultimate  
reason for that ensemble. Then comp makes even clearer why such  
"reason" is related to many intuition conveyed in many texts inspired  
by people having "mystical experience", or going through "altered  
state of consciousness".

In contrast you've tortured the meanings of words so much that when  
you say "I do believe in God" nobody knows what you mean and in  
fact, I'm not trying to be insulting I mean this quite literally,  
when you say "I do believe in God" you don't know what you're  
talking about.

It means that I believe that a theory of everything makes sense. It is  
a way for me to communicate that I am AGNOSTIC on the current paradigm  
which presuppose or assume (very often implicitly) the primary  
physical universe.

I know exactly what it is that I don't believe in,

Really? It looks like Santa Klaus to me. You know that both of us does  
not find such existence plasuible, or even capable of explaining  
anything. But comp explains that the assumption of a primary physical  
universe does not only NOT explain much more (it just compress  
information), but fails on the mind-body issue, so we have to use a  
term different from "universe" (which has physicalist connotation),  
and I use the term God, as it was used with that large and vague  
meaning for a millenium before it becomes a political tool of  
manipulation. But if you don't like that term I will use "ONE" with  
discussing with you, as you take the vocabulary too much seriously, imo.

but the thing that you do believe in is a bunch of amorphous mush  
with virtually no relationship to the traditional meaning of the  
word "God" .

I search a TOE. Concentrate on the understanding, not the vocabulary.

But you are far from alone in doing this, for reasons I don't  
understand some atheist just want to make the noise  "I do believe  
in God" with their mouth, and they don't care what if anything it  
means.

I think that you have not understand the mind-body problem, from  
cognition to after-life, and the problem of the origin of the physical  
universe.

Do you believe in a primary physical universe? Are you physicalist?

> same impulse to forbid the scientific method on the deep questions.

Bullshit. I'm a atheist
because a world that was intelligently designed

We both have agreed that this does not make any sense, at least as an  
explanation.

would look very different from one that was not, therefore deciding  
between the 2 hypothesis is a scientific question that can be  
resolved just like any other.

Not really with comp. A machine cannot distinguish the result of some  
simple programs, and a random (or not ORACLE. That makes most  
conventional religion not interesting, as being irrefutable. And thus  
non scientific.
That is why comp is interesting, as it is completely refutable. If  
your were willing to study step 4, you would be able to progress  
toward the understanding of that fact. You have not replied to my last  
refutation of your prediction algorithm.

> I was just asking what do you mean by "grand concept", with the  
goal of making sense of what you were saying. You elude the point.

I have noticed that when people get into a tight corner they often  
try to change the subject by asking me for a definition of some very  
common word that I've used. The trouble is that any definition I  
give will be made of words and I can be certain that my debate  
opponent will demand a definition of at least one of those words,  
and away we go.

You elude my simple question. What do you mean by "grand concept"?

> BTW, I am still waiting your comment on my last rebuttal of your  
predicting algorithm in self-duplication.

I wasn't aware that I had a "predicting algorithm in self- 
duplication",

In the WM-duplication, with annihilation of the original you do ha

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-30 Thread John Clark

> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 4:42 PM, Jason Resch  wrote:

> Your rhetoric may work in other places where you argue with religious
> people

I wish it had but no. Such is the awesome virulence of the religious mind
virus that there is nobody to my certain knowledge in which my arguments
have caused a recovery. Statistically if you are infected at a early age a
cure of the religious mind parasite is almost as rare as recovery from
rabies. Even exchanging one virus (like Christianity) for another parasite
(like Islam) is unusual.

> but I, and probably others on this list, find it rather unconvincing.
>

If you agree with Martin Luther (and if you're a Christian you've got to)
that " Reason should be destroyed in all Christians. Reason must be
deluded, blinded, and destroyed. Faith must trample underfoot all reason,
sense, and understanding" and that we should "tear the eyes out of reason"
then I'm not surprised that my rational arguments failed to convince you
because no rational argument could do that. You have imposed this blindness
on yourself for one reason and one reason only, mommy and daddy told you to
do it from the first day you learned language; there is quite simply no
more to it than that.

  John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-29 Thread Platonist Guitar Cowboy

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 10:14 PM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
> > I am very glad with all your posts on religion, as they confirm my
>> theory according to which (strong) atheists are (strong) Christians in
>> disguise.
>>
>
> Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never heard
> that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12.
>
>
>> > same definition of the creator
>>
>
> EXACTLY!  I have a well defined meaning of the word " God"  so when I say
> "I don't believe in God" it actually means something, and the meaning of
> the word is such that it doesn't reduced the sentence to triviality. People
> may and usually do disagree when I say "I don't believe in God" but at
> least they know what I'm talking about. In contrast you've tortured the
> meanings of words so much that when you say "I do believe in God" nobody
> knows what you mean and in fact, I'm not trying to be insulting I mean this
> quite literally, when you say "I do believe in God" you don't know what
> you're talking about. I know exactly what it is that I don't believe in,
> but the thing that you do believe in is a bunch of amorphous mush with
> virtually no relationship to the traditional meaning of the word "God" .
>
> But you are far from alone in doing this, for reasons I don't understand
> some atheist just want to make the noise  "I do believe in God" with their
> mouth, and they don't care what if anything it means.
>
>
>   > same perpetual use of authoritative arguments,
>>
>
> So you think my arguments are reliable and trusted as being accurate  and
> are the best of its kind and unlikely to be improved upon. Well I'm
> blushing, there not THAT good, someday sombody might do even better.
>
> > same impulse to forbid the scientific method on the deep questions.
>>
>
> Bullshit. I'm a atheist because a world that was intelligently designed
> would look very different from one that was not, therefore deciding between
> the 2 hypothesis is a scientific question that can be resolved just like
> any other.
>
> > I was just asking what do you mean by "grand concept", with the goal of
>> making sense of what you were saying. You elude the point.
>>
>
> I have noticed that when people get into a tight corner they often try to
> change the subject by asking me for a definition of some very common word
> that I've used. The trouble is that any definition I give will be made of
> words and I can be certain that my debate opponent will demand a definition
> of at least one of those words, and away we go.
>
> I would humbly suggest that for efficient communication you buy yourself a
> dictionary, then you wouldn't need to ask people what obscure and little
> used words like "grand" and "God" mean, you could just look them up.
>
>>  >> that depends on how you define "define". And after that I'd like to
>>> know the definition of  "define "define" "; and after that [...]
>>>
>>
>> > If you are interested in a theory of "definition", by some good
>> introductory book in logic, as this is has been well studied.
>>
>
> If I already knew what the word "define" meant then I wouldn't need such
> books, and if I didn't know the meaning then asking to define "define"
> would be like asking to klogknee "klogknee".
>
> > BTW, I am still waiting your comment on my last rebuttal of your
>> predicting algorithm in self-duplication.
>>
>
> I wasn't aware that I had a "predicting algorithm in self-duplication",
> and I have no way of knowing if I should praise your rebuttal or condemn it
> because I don't know what on earth you're talking about.
>
> > you seem to believe that physics does solve the mind-body problem,
>>
>
> The evidence very strongly indicates that mind is what the brain does if
> that's what you mean.
>
>
>> > which is exactly what UDA shows it does not.
>>
>
> UDA? Oh yes, all that pee and pee pee stuff.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>

I agree with Jason.

I don't know how the bodily fluids relate to TOE's or the UDA apart from
primary school usage of urination phonetic pun on the UDA's use of 1p, 3p
observations and views, though.

But for humor to work, the audience must find it funny.

This gets no laughs from me, nor from Jason i would guess, and I gig comedy
occasionally (badly, but I do...)

Russell can probably explain this to me: how this sort of "joke" is closer
to TOE then posing a question concerning possible future technological
horizons. Because from what I can tell, this particular phenomenon is in
the domain "perception of physical body", but that's not totally right;
it's more like "psychological connotations of metabolic fluid deposits in
discourse"; which is of course, much more specific and much further afield
from Ensemble Theories of Everything or Russell has A LOT of deleting to do.

Everybody can label stuff with their own word fields and make funky
assignments, re-frame stuff over and over. Doesn't disguise empty arguments
from authority and it doesn't shed one

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-29 Thread Jason Resch

John,

Your rhetoric may work in other places where you argue with religious
people but I, and probably others on this list, find it rather unconvincing.

Jason

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 3:14 PM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 Bruno Marchal  wrote:
>
> > I am very glad with all your posts on religion, as they confirm my
>> theory according to which (strong) atheists are (strong) Christians in
>> disguise.
>>
>
> Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never heard
> that one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12.
>
>
>> > same definition of the creator
>>
>
> EXACTLY!  I have a well defined meaning of the word " God"  so when I say
> "I don't believe in God" it actually means something, and the meaning of
> the word is such that it doesn't reduced the sentence to triviality. People
> may and usually do disagree when I say "I don't believe in God" but at
> least they know what I'm talking about. In contrast you've tortured the
> meanings of words so much that when you say "I do believe in God" nobody
> knows what you mean and in fact, I'm not trying to be insulting I mean this
> quite literally, when you say "I do believe in God" you don't know what
> you're talking about. I know exactly what it is that I don't believe in,
> but the thing that you do believe in is a bunch of amorphous mush with
> virtually no relationship to the traditional meaning of the word "God" .
>
> But you are far from alone in doing this, for reasons I don't understand
> some atheist just want to make the noise  "I do believe in God" with their
> mouth, and they don't care what if anything it means.
>
>
>   > same perpetual use of authoritative arguments,
>>
>
> So you think my arguments are reliable and trusted as being accurate  and
> are the best of its kind and unlikely to be improved upon. Well I'm
> blushing, there not THAT good, someday sombody might do even better.
>
> > same impulse to forbid the scientific method on the deep questions.
>>
>
> Bullshit. I'm a atheist because a world that was intelligently designed
> would look very different from one that was not, therefore deciding between
> the 2 hypothesis is a scientific question that can be resolved just like
> any other.
>
> > I was just asking what do you mean by "grand concept", with the goal of
>> making sense of what you were saying. You elude the point.
>>
>
> I have noticed that when people get into a tight corner they often try to
> change the subject by asking me for a definition of some very common word
> that I've used. The trouble is that any definition I give will be made of
> words and I can be certain that my debate opponent will demand a definition
> of at least one of those words, and away we go.
>
> I would humbly suggest that for efficient communication you buy yourself a
> dictionary, then you wouldn't need to ask people what obscure and little
> used words like "grand" and "God" mean, you could just look them up.
>
>> >> that depends on how you define "define". And after that I'd like to
>>> know the definition of  "define "define" "; and after that [...]
>>>
>>
>> > If you are interested in a theory of "definition", by some good
>> introductory book in logic, as this is has been well studied.
>>
>
> If I already knew what the word "define" meant then I wouldn't need such
> books, and if I didn't know the meaning then asking to define "define"
> would be like asking to klogknee "klogknee".
>
> > BTW, I am still waiting your comment on my last rebuttal of your
>> predicting algorithm in self-duplication.
>>
>
> I wasn't aware that I had a "predicting algorithm in self-duplication",
> and I have no way of knowing if I should praise your rebuttal or condemn it
> because I don't know what on earth you're talking about.
>
> > you seem to believe that physics does solve the mind-body problem,
>>
>
> The evidence very strongly indicates that mind is what the brain does if
> that's what you mean.
>
>
>> > which is exactly what UDA shows it does not.
>>
>
> UDA? Oh yes, all that pee and pee pee stuff.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
> --
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> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com.
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>
>

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-29 Thread John Clark

On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> I am very glad with all your posts on religion, as they confirm my theory
> according to which (strong) atheists are (strong) Christians in disguise.
>

Wow, calling a guy known for disliking religion religious, never heard that
one before, at least I never heard it before I was 12.

> > same definition of the creator
>

EXACTLY!  I have a well defined meaning of the word " God"  so when I say
"I don't believe in God" it actually means something, and the meaning of
the word is such that it doesn't reduced the sentence to triviality. People
may and usually do disagree when I say "I don't believe in God" but at
least they know what I'm talking about. In contrast you've tortured the
meanings of words so much that when you say "I do believe in God" nobody
knows what you mean and in fact, I'm not trying to be insulting I mean this
quite literally, when you say "I do believe in God" you don't know what
you're talking about. I know exactly what it is that I don't believe in,
but the thing that you do believe in is a bunch of amorphous mush with
virtually no relationship to the traditional meaning of the word "God" .

But you are far from alone in doing this, for reasons I don't understand
some atheist just want to make the noise  "I do believe in God" with their
mouth, and they don't care what if anything it means.

  > same perpetual use of authoritative arguments,
>

So you think my arguments are reliable and trusted as being accurate  and
are the best of its kind and unlikely to be improved upon. Well I'm
blushing, there not THAT good, someday sombody might do even better.

> same impulse to forbid the scientific method on the deep questions.
>

Bullshit. I'm a atheist because a world that was intelligently designed
would look very different from one that was not, therefore deciding between
the 2 hypothesis is a scientific question that can be resolved just like
any other.

> I was just asking what do you mean by "grand concept", with the goal of
> making sense of what you were saying. You elude the point.
>

I have noticed that when people get into a tight corner they often try to
change the subject by asking me for a definition of some very common word
that I've used. The trouble is that any definition I give will be made of
words and I can be certain that my debate opponent will demand a definition
of at least one of those words, and away we go.

I would humbly suggest that for efficient communication you buy yourself a
dictionary, then you wouldn't need to ask people what obscure and little
used words like "grand" and "God" mean, you could just look them up.

> >> that depends on how you define "define". And after that I'd like to
>> know the definition of  "define "define" "; and after that [...]
>>
>
> > If you are interested in a theory of "definition", by some good
> introductory book in logic, as this is has been well studied.
>

If I already knew what the word "define" meant then I wouldn't need such
books, and if I didn't know the meaning then asking to define "define"
would be like asking to klogknee "klogknee".

> BTW, I am still waiting your comment on my last rebuttal of your
> predicting algorithm in self-duplication.
>

I wasn't aware that I had a "predicting algorithm in self-duplication", and
I have no way of knowing if I should praise your rebuttal or condemn it
because I don't know what on earth you're talking about.

> you seem to believe that physics does solve the mind-body problem,
>

The evidence very strongly indicates that mind is what the brain does if
that's what you mean.

> > which is exactly what UDA shows it does not.
>

UDA? Oh yes, all that pee and pee pee stuff.

  John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-29 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Tuesday, January 29, 2013 8:48:32 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 27 Jan 2013, at 15:57, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sunday, January 27, 2013 8:09:06 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> I would like a semi-axiomatic definition of "sensory", to make this more 
>> palatable. I try to get a theory of sense, and I can't take that notion for 
>> granted, even if I agree that from the 1p pov, it looks like primitive (but 
>> that the comp theory can already explained why).
>>
>
> Sensory is primitive, 
>
>
> Of course, in the comp theory, sensory is not primitive. It only feels 
> like primitive, exactly like a part of matter looks like being primitive.
>

There's a difference though. Feeling can't feel like feeling if it isn't 
feeling. Matter can look primitive because matter is inferred from 
sensory-motor participation - we see public bodies as visual obstacles, we 
see surfaces and infer volumes, we hear obstructed volume levels, we feel 
tangible resistance to our touch and can ascribe massive qualities to it. 
All of these, combined with the consensus agreement of other peer 
perceivers contribute to a compelling sense of realism, which I would 
relate to my concepts of significance and perceptual inertia - 
meta-meta-feeling, sense with bass, like electricity with ground - 
orientation, and worldliness.

You give away comp's weakness by saying that sense 'only feels like 
primitive', because feeling is already sense. It is actually comp which 
feels like it's primitive to another set of sensory-motor experiences, that 
of the verbal-logical thinker. Thought and logic are a special flavor of 
sense which is optimized to feign objectivity and hide the fact (i.e. 
Baudrillard's simulacra: a copy with no original: comp takes literally the 
anonymous impersona of arithmetic as the root of personal sense, rather 
than the peripheral extension of sense until apotheosis of self-denial).

> Comp explains those feeling, except for a tiny part that it still explain 
> has to remain unexplainable.
>

Comp doesn't explain any feeling. It explains that if there was a such 
thing as feeling, then comp has a place to theoretically put it. I maintain 
that this place is not the true home of feeling, but a sterile partition, 
an entombment of the almost-utterly-unconscious level of sense.

>
>
>
> but comp can't explain it because explanation is only a motive which seeks 
> to translate one sensory experience into another sensory mode. 
>
>
> That's correct, but this cannot been applied validly to refute comp. 
> Similar remarks for what follows.
>

You say it cannot be applied, but I see clearly that it must.

Craig

>
> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
> It's not that you agree from the 1p POV, it is that you have no choice but 
> to agree - all that your 1p POV consists of is sensory experience. There is 
> nothing else that it can ever consist of, and of course there is no 3p POV 
> except in the explanation of multiple 1p experiences.
>
> I think it's useful to talk about sensory experience as 'afferent 
> phenomenology' or maybe 'private participation' (whereas motor or motive 
> activity would be public-facing participation). Note that you can have a 
> public experience in a dream, but the sense of realism of waking public 
> experience is, under most conditions, more significant in comparison. 
> Without the comparison, a dream can seem real, but usually being awake 
> seems clearly different from a dream. I think that's not because of 
> differences in the logic of the experiential content, but because of 
> sub-personal and super-personal (unconscious) sensory connection.
>
> Sense is always the connection from one 1p state to another or from a 1p 
> state to its 3p reflection; bridging the literal and the figurative 
> (understanding), the figurative and the figurative (poetry), or the literal 
> and the literal (physics), or even the figuratively literal (logic) and the 
> literally figurative (math).
>
> Deleuze has some interesting things to say about sense - about how it 
> exists on the surfaces rather than the depths. I would agree in the way 
> that synapses are important neurological sites or the junctions of a 
> transistor are important. I think that sense is the way that the depths 
> from each other, and/or that division accumulates depth. They are the same 
> thing, except that the surface is foreground-active from our empirical 
> perspective as nested participants in timespace, while the surface is 
> background-irrelevant from an absolute perspective as surfaces require 
> timespace to manifest. Without timespace, at the absolute scale, there is 
> no 3p as there is only a totality of depths.
>
> Craig
>
>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Craig
>>
>>
>>> Bruno
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> -- 
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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-29 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 27 Jan 2013, at 15:57, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Sunday, January 27, 2013 8:09:06 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

I would like a semi-axiomatic definition of "sensory", to make this
more palatable. I try to get a theory of sense, and I can't take
that notion for granted, even if I agree that from the 1p pov, it
looks like primitive (but that the comp theory can already explained
why).

Sensory is primitive,

Of course, in the comp theory, sensory is not primitive. It only feels
like primitive, exactly like a part of matter looks like being
primitive. Comp explains those feeling, except for a tiny part that it
still explain has to remain unexplainable.

but comp can't explain it because explanation is only a motive which
seeks to translate one sensory experience into another sensory mode.

That's correct, but this cannot been applied validly to refute comp.
Similar remarks for what follows.

Bruno

It's not that you agree from the 1p POV, it is that you have no
choice but to agree - all that your 1p POV consists of is sensory
experience. There is nothing else that it can ever consist of, and
of course there is no 3p POV except in the explanation of multiple
1p experiences.

I think it's useful to talk about sensory experience as 'afferent
phenomenology' or maybe 'private participation' (whereas motor or
motive activity would be public-facing participation). Note that you
can have a public experience in a dream, but the sense of realism of
waking public experience is, under most conditions, more significant
in comparison. Without the comparison, a dream can seem real, but
usually being awake seems clearly different from a dream. I think
that's not because of differences in the logic of the experiential
content, but because of sub-personal and super-personal
(unconscious) sensory connection.

Sense is always the connection from one 1p state to another or from
a 1p state to its 3p reflection; bridging the literal and the
figurative (understanding), the figurative and the figurative
(poetry), or the literal and the literal (physics), or even the
figuratively literal (logic) and the literally figurative (math).

Deleuze has some interesting things to say about sense - about how
it exists on the surfaces rather than the depths. I would agree in
the way that synapses are important neurological sites or the
junctions of a transistor are important. I think that sense is the
way that the depths from each other, and/or that division
accumulates depth. They are the same thing, except that the surface
is foreground-active from our empirical perspective as nested
participants in timespace, while the surface is background-
irrelevant from an absolute perspective as surfaces require
timespace to manifest. Without timespace, at the absolute scale,
there is no 3p as there is only a totality of depths.

Craig

Bruno

Craig

Bruno

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-29 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 27 Jan 2013, at 18:31, John Clark wrote:

On Sun, Jan 27, 2013  AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:
> Without religion, science is pseudo-religion

That's OK with me. Religion is bullshit,

We have discuss this. You confuse religion with clericalism. By saying  
gross statement like "religion is bullshit" you are favoring the  
clericalists and literalists.

I am very glad with all your posts on religion, as they confirm my  
theory according to which (strong) atheists are (strong) Christians in  
disguise. Same faith in the creation, same definition of the creator,  
same perpetual use of authoritative arguments, same impulse to forbid  
the scientific method on the deep questions.

so pseudo-bullshit is better than pure, triple distilled, extra  
virgin, investment grade bullshit.

> How would you define "grand" for a concept?

That depends on how you define "define". And after that I'd like to  
know the definition of  "define "define" "; and after that [...]

I was just asking what do you mean by "grand concept", with the goal  
of making sense of what you were saying. You elude the point.

If you are interested in a theory of "definition", by some good  
introductory book in logic, as this is has been well studied.

BTW, I am still waiting your comment on my last rebuttal of your  
predicting algorithm in self-duplication. You seem to praise reason,  
so why do you act so much irrationally on that subject. Your attitude  
is perhaps impulsed by the fact that you seem to believe that physics  
does solve the mind-body problem, which is exactly what UDA shows it  
does not.

Bruno

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-27 Thread John Clark

On Sun, Jan 27, 2013  AM, Bruno Marchal  wrote:

> > Without religion, science is pseudo-religion
>

That's OK with me. Religion is bullshit, so pseudo-bullshit is better than
pure, triple distilled, extra virgin, investment grade bullshit.

> > How would you define "grand" for a concept?
>

That depends on how you define "define". And after that I'd like to know
the definition of  "define "define" "; and after that [...]

  John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-27 Thread Craig Weinberg

On Sunday, January 27, 2013 8:09:06 AM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 25 Jan 2013, at 20:52, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>
>
>
> On Friday, January 25, 2013 2:16:02 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 24 Jan 2013, at 22:03, Jason Resch wrote:
>>
>> John,
>>
>> I agree with Craig.  The concept of divine simplicity exists in several 
>> religions ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simplicity ). 
>>
>>
>> Little numbers can develop crazy complex behaviors, and with comp they 
>> can support (locally) rich inner experiences. 
>> The difficulty relies in the first person statistical fitness with the 
>> probable universal neighbors. (As you can guess).
>>
>
> Makes me think of superfluid helium...
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z6UJbwxBZI
>
> As simplicity approaches the absolute (and -271K He is an interesting 
> range of simplicity in matter) it seems to expose the hidden complexity of 
> our expectations for what is minimal. Of course, I point to this to show 
> again that arithmetic truth and information float on the surface of an 
> ocean of permanent and expanding sensory depth.
>
>
> I would like a semi-axiomatic definition of "sensory", to make this more 
> palatable. I try to get a theory of sense, and I can't take that notion for 
> granted, even if I agree that from the 1p pov, it looks like primitive (but 
> that the comp theory can already explained why).
>

Sensory is primitive, but comp can't explain it because explanation is only 
a motive which seeks to translate one sensory experience into another 
sensory mode. 

It's not that you agree from the 1p POV, it is that you have no choice but 
to agree - all that your 1p POV consists of is sensory experience. There is 
nothing else that it can ever consist of, and of course there is no 3p POV 
except in the explanation of multiple 1p experiences.

I think it's useful to talk about sensory experience as 'afferent 
phenomenology' or maybe 'private participation' (whereas motor or motive 
activity would be public-facing participation). Note that you can have a 
public experience in a dream, but the sense of realism of waking public 
experience is, under most conditions, more significant in comparison. 
Without the comparison, a dream can seem real, but usually being awake 
seems clearly different from a dream. I think that's not because of 
differences in the logic of the experiential content, but because of 
sub-personal and super-personal (unconscious) sensory connection.

Sense is always the connection from one 1p state to another or from a 1p 
state to its 3p reflection; bridging the literal and the figurative 
(understanding), the figurative and the figurative (poetry), or the literal 
and the literal (physics), or even the figuratively literal (logic) and the 
literally figurative (math).

Deleuze has some interesting things to say about sense - about how it 
exists on the surfaces rather than the depths. I would agree in the way 
that synapses are important neurological sites or the junctions of a 
transistor are important. I think that sense is the way that the depths 
from each other, and/or that division accumulates depth. They are the same 
thing, except that the surface is foreground-active from our empirical 
perspective as nested participants in timespace, while the surface is 
background-irrelevant from an absolute perspective as surfaces require 
timespace to manifest. Without timespace, at the absolute scale, there is 
no 3p as there is only a totality of depths.

Craig

> Bruno
>
>
>
>
>
> Craig
>
>
>> Bruno
>>
>>
>>
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>  
>
>
> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
>
>
>
>

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-27 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 25 Jan 2013, at 20:52, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Friday, January 25, 2013 2:16:02 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:

On 24 Jan 2013, at 22:03, Jason Resch wrote:

John,

I agree with Craig. The concept of divine simplicity exists in
several religions ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simplicity ).

Little numbers can develop crazy complex behaviors, and with comp
they can support (locally) rich inner experiences.
The difficulty relies in the first person statistical fitness with
the probable universal neighbors. (As you can guess).

Makes me think of superfluid helium...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z6UJbwxBZI

As simplicity approaches the absolute (and -271K He is an
interesting range of simplicity in matter) it seems to expose the
hidden complexity of our expectations for what is minimal. Of
course, I point to this to show again that arithmetic truth and
information float on the surface of an ocean of permanent and
expanding sensory depth.

I would like a semi-axiomatic definition of "sensory", to make this
more palatable. I try to get a theory of sense, and I can't take that
notion for granted, even if I agree that from the 1p pov, it looks
like primitive (but that the comp theory can already explained why).

Bruno

Craig

Bruno

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-27 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 25 Jan 2013, at 05:08, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013  Craig Weinberg  wrote:

> evolution is complex and counter-intuitive.

The basic idea behind Evolution is not complex but it is counter- 
intuitive because the human mind tends to endow intentionality to  
nearly everything. That's why Darwin's ideas, although simpler than  
Newton's, too longer to find.

> A universe from invisible, intangible laws that pop into  
'existence' from nowhere seems likely?

Darwin can't explain why there is something rather than nothing and  
neither can anybody else,

You are right. But comp explains that everything can be explained by  
assuming a Turing universal reality (like arithmetic), and it explains  
that we cannot get Turing universality from less. So it explains 99%  
and it meta-explains completely why we can't explain the remaining 1%.

least of all the invisible man in the sky dingbats. Darwin can't  
even explain how life first came to be on this planet, but once  
bacteria came to be he can explain how humans evolved from them, and  
that's a pretty good accomplishment. Science can explain a lot but  
it hasn't explained everything, but religion hasn't explained  
anything. Zip zero nada goose egg.

Without religion, science is pseudo-religion, or instrumentalism.

> I didn't say that God is not seen as grand, only that the concept  
of God is not a grand concept. See (use-mention distinction).

I am quite familiar with the  use-mention distinction and that ain't  
it. If God is grand so is the concept.

How would you define "grand" for a concept?

Bruno

>> But you aren't exactly a expert on science, you admitted that to  
you most scientific papers are just a huge amount of mumbo jumbo, so  
your readers might be wise to take your views on the value of  
science with a grain of salt.

> Argument from authority.

Despite its many faults the argument from authority beats the hell  
out of argument from ignorance; and Craig let's face reality, you  
know next to no science and the really depressing thing is that  
you're not even trying to learn more.

  John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-26 Thread Jason Resch

Thanks. The below shows it would be impossible for us to have a
rational discussion on the subject and therefore we need not waste any
electrons on the subject.

If in the future you change your mind and are interested in discussing
the merits/properties/purpose of a possibly true and rational religion
(which I define simply as a set of beliefs) we can do so.

Jason

On Jan 25, 2013, at 9:55 AM, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 Jason Resch wrote:

> how do you define the word "religion"?

re·li·gion [ri-lij-uhn]

1 n. A theological fungus that thrives best in the dark and when fed
by bullshit.

2 Believing what you know ain't so.

3 The boast of the man who is too lazy to investigate.

4 Religion is to rationality as horseshit is to horsepower.

John K Clark
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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-25 Thread Craig Weinberg



On Friday, January 25, 2013 2:16:02 PM UTC-5, Bruno Marchal wrote:
>
>
> On 24 Jan 2013, at 22:03, Jason Resch wrote:
>
> John,
>
> I agree with Craig.  The concept of divine simplicity exists in several 
> religions ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simplicity ). 
>
>
> Little numbers can develop crazy complex behaviors, and with comp they can 
> support (locally) rich inner experiences. 
> The difficulty relies in the first person statistical fitness with the 
> probable universal neighbors. (As you can guess).
>

Makes me think of superfluid helium...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z6UJbwxBZI

As simplicity approaches the absolute (and -271K He is an interesting range 
of simplicity in matter) it seems to expose the hidden complexity of our 
expectations for what is minimal. Of course, I point to this to show again 
that arithmetic truth and information float on the surface of an ocean of 
permanent and expanding sensory depth.

Craig


> Bruno
>
>
>

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-25 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 24 Jan 2013, at 22:19, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 4:03 PM, Jason Resch
wrote:

> I agree with Craig. The concept of divine simplicity exists in
several religions

And in those religions how did a simpleton God make life? Darwin
provided the mechanism by which Evolution did it, so those
religions need to explain exactly how the invisible man in the sky
did it.

> Of course, the whole question of what is simple and what is
complex requires a definition of complexity. The universal
dovetailer is a simple program, yet it generates all programs. The
Mandlebrot set has a simple definition, but is infinitely detailed.
Pi has a simple definition, but an infinite expansion of digits. So
apparent complexity, of a universe, a world, etc. need not be
dependent on complex underlying principles or systems.

If you don't like the simple-complex dimension use the humble-grand
dimension. The Bible says something grand made something humble and
it doesn't say how so it explains nothing; Darwin says something
humble made something grand and the best part is he said how it did
in, and that is a explanation worthy of the name.

You confuse theology before 523 and after. If you appreciate reason,
look at the development from Pythagorus to Plotinus, for example.

You would see that they depict a different conception of reality, than
the current Aristotelian one, and which by many token is somehow more
rational as committing less ontological commitments. And it would be
just a lie to say that science has decided on this.

Study computer science and take a look how coherent Plotinus appear,
from a complete arithmetical point of view (see the pdf at my
frontpage url).

If you prevent the rationalists to study theology, it will remain in
the hand of the irrationalists, you know.

Bruno

John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-25 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 24 Jan 2013, at 22:03, Jason Resch wrote:

John,

I agree with Craig. The concept of divine simplicity exists in
several religions ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simplicity ).

The book by O'Meara on Plotinus makes clear the idea that Plotinus
want the ONE to be simple.
The ONE is seen as the simplest thing from which the MANY can emanate,
and the SOUL contemplate (or fall).

The concept is also not dissimilar to the "Neti Neti" (Not this, not
that) explanation of Brahman in Hindusim ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_neti
) or the Nirguna Brahman, which is Brahman without qualities.

Nice. That's also a common point with neoplatonist theologies. It is
negation theologies, where the big thing is only refuted to be this or
that. With comp this applies to both "truth" and "the inner god", that
is you-at-the-first-person (you-1 have no definite name or
description), you-yourself are not this or that.

Of course, the whole question of what is simple and what is complex
requires a definition of complexity. The universal dovetailer is a
simple program, yet it generates all programs. The Mandlebrot set
has a simple definition, but is infinitely detailed. Pi has a
simple definition, but an infinite expansion of digits.

So apparent complexity, of a universe, a world, etc. need not be
dependent on complex underlying principles or systems. Bruno often
says, arithmetic is much bigger when seen from the inside.

Little numbers can develop crazy complex behaviors, and with comp they
can support (locally) rich inner experiences.
The difficulty relies in the first person statistical fitness with the
probable universal neighbors. (As you can guess).

Bruno

Jason

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 2:54 PM, John Clark
wrote:

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 Craig Weinberg wrote:

> A two year old can understand what God is supposed to be.

A two year old can't understand how something simple can know
everything and neither can I; and there is a reason the word
"simple" is often used as a synonym for "stupid". And the Bible just
says that God made animals but it doesn't say how, but Darwin didn't
just say Evolution made animals he explained how it did it. Saying
"animals exist because of God" is no more helpful than saying
"animals exist because of flobkneegrab".

> The position that I am arguing is knock down that unsupported
balloon that you tried to float about science being better than
religion because science always means that complex things are
explained by simple things.

That is not what science means that is what a explanation means; a
theory (like the God theory) that explains the existence of
something unlikely (like us) by postulating the existence of
something even more unlikely (like God) is worse than useless.

> Your straw man of me arguing that God is not important didn't work.

Good, now I don't have to find a verse in the Bible proving that it
teaches that God is grand.

> This is something that science and religion have in common, not
which sets them apart.

But you aren't exactly a expert on science, you admitted that to you
most scientific papers are just a huge amount of mumbo jumbo, so
your readers might be wise to take your views on the value of
science with a grain of salt.

John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-25 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013  Jason Resch  wrote:

> how do you define the word "religion"?
>

re·li·gion  [ri-lij-uhn]

1* n.* A theological fungus that thrives best in the dark and when fed by
bullshit.

2 Believing what you know ain't so.

3 The boast of the man who is too lazy to investigate.

4 Religion is to rationality as horseshit is to horsepower.

  John K Clark

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Re: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-25 Thread Roger Clough

Hi John Clark 

If you want to learn about science, study Darwin, etc.
If you want to learn about God, read the Bible.

- Receiving the following content - 
From: John Clark 
Receiver: everything-list 
Time: 2013-01-24, 11:17:30
Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Craig Weinberg  wrote:

?
> Genesis doesn't say anything about God being grand and complex as far as I 
> know. 

It certainly says God is grand and if it didn't say that a omnipotent being was 
complex it certainly should have. And Darwin provided a real explanation, he 
didn't just say that complex life evolved from much simpler life, he provided 
the engine, he explained how the mechanism works. 

But exactly how did God create the heavens and the earth? Genesis doesn't say, 
and that's why Genesis explains absolutely nothing; it might as well have just 
said "stuff happens" for all the enlightenment it brought.
?
>It's a three letter word and it is not explained at all,

I know. That's the problem.

> so how complex could it be?

Infinitely, and that's a 10 letter word.? 

> Isn't God just supposed to be "I am that I am."?

I believe so. I'm not sure of the exact verse but it's somewhere in the Bible, 
I think it's in The Book Of Popeye ? "I yam what I yam and I yam what I yam 
that I yam".
?
> Had Gutenberg printed the Origin of Species instead of a Bible, printing 
> probably would not have caught on with the public.

Had Gutenberg printed the Origin of Species Gutenberg would have been slowly 
burned alive by the church. Do you have any reason for defending the barbaric 
actions of this institution other than the fact that I don't like it? 

> I doubt that most televangelists have even studied theology.

You can study mythology or you can study the appalling behavior of primitive 
bronze age tribes but there is nothing in theology to study. There is no field, 
there is no there there. 

? John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-24 Thread Stephen P. King

On 1/24/2013 11:59 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Thursday, January 24, 2013 11:08:14 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013  Craig Weinberg > wrote:

> evolution is complex and counter-intuitive.

The basic idea behind Evolution is not complex but it is
counter-intuitive because the human mind tends to endow
intentionality to nearly everything. That's why Darwin's ideas,
although simpler than Newton's, too longer to find.

Funny thing that. In a universe devoid of intention, the human mind is 
overflowing with the illusion of intention.

> A universe from invisible, intangible laws that pop into
'existence' from nowhere seems likely?

Darwin can't explain why there is something rather than nothing
and neither can anybody else,

I can, and I have. There is no 'nothing'. Nothing is an idea that a 
participant in something has about the absence of everything.

least of all the invisible man in the sky dingbats. Darwin can't
even explain how life first came to be on this planet, but once
bacteria came to be he can explain how humans evolved from them,
and that's a pretty good accomplishment.

It is an extraordinary accomplishment. Not knocking Darwin.

Science can explain a lot but it hasn't explained everything, but
religion hasn't explained anything. Zip zero nada goose egg.

Religion is not about explaining what is useful, it is about 
explaining what seems important. Judging religion as a competitor to 
science is like judging your head as a competitor to the rest of your 
body. Again, you make it about winning winners who win, proving the 
non-winners to be LOSERS. This is not the attitude of science, or 
philosophy, or theology, it is wrestling.

> I didn't say that God is not seen as grand, only that the
concept of God is not a grand concept. See (use-mention
distinction).

I am quite familiar with the  use-mention distinction and that
ain't it. If God is grand so is the concept.

Uh, no. The US Federal Tax Code is grand. The concept of a nation 
having a tax code is not grand.

The God concept is incredibly primitive and compelling (as attested to 
by anthropological universality). It is basically this.

A child understands:

I can know things and do things.
Grownups know more things and can do more things than I can do - they 
are wiser, stronger, more aware, and have been around longer.

"Who can do and know more things than grownups?"
There must be grand-grownups who know and do more than anyone.
There must be someone who knows and does everything.
Our Father, who art in heaven...

That's it. Big Daddy = God. Not complex.

>> But you aren't exactly a expert on science, you
admitted that to you most scientific papers are just a
huge amount of mumbo jumbo, so your readers might be wise
to take your views on the value of science with a grain of
salt.

> Argument from authority.

Despite its many faults the argument from authority beats the hell
out of argument from ignorance; and Craig let's face reality, you
know next to no science and the really depressing thing is that
you're not even trying to learn more.

When the first fallacy fails, move on to the Ad Hominem.

You must have forgotten to defend your reasoning though. Let's face 
reality John, you can't stand losing.

Craig

Hear Hear!

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On Thursday, January 24, 2013 11:08:14 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jan 24, 2013  Craig Weinberg >wrote:
>
> > evolution is complex and counter-intuitive. 
>>
>
> The basic idea behind Evolution is not complex but it is counter-intuitive 
> because the human mind tends to endow intentionality to nearly everything. 
> That's why Darwin's ideas, although simpler than Newton's, too longer to 
> find.  
>

Funny thing that. In a universe devoid of intention, the human mind is 
overflowing with the illusion of intention.

>
> > A universe from invisible, intangible laws that pop into 'existence' 
>> from nowhere seems likely?
>>
>
> Darwin can't explain why there is something rather than nothing and 
> neither can anybody else, 
>

I can, and I have. There is no 'nothing'. Nothing is an idea that a 
participant in something has about the absence of everything.

least of all the invisible man in the sky dingbats. Darwin can't even 
> explain how life first came to be on this planet, but once bacteria came to 
> be he can explain how humans evolved from them, and that's a pretty good 
> accomplishment. 
>

It is an extraordinary accomplishment. Not knocking Darwin.

> Science can explain a lot but it hasn't explained everything, but religion 
> hasn't explained anything. Zip zero nada goose egg.
>

Religion is not about explaining what is useful, it is about explaining 
what seems important. Judging religion as a competitor to science is like 
judging your head as a competitor to the rest of your body. Again, you make 
it about winning winners who win, proving the non-winners to be LOSERS. 
This is not the attitude of science, or philosophy, or theology, it is 
wrestling.

> > I didn't say that God is not seen as grand, only that the concept of God 
>> is not a grand concept. See (use-mention distinction). 
>>
>
> I am quite familiar with the  use-mention distinction and that ain't it. 
> If God is grand so is the concept.
>

Uh, no. The US Federal Tax Code is grand. The concept of a nation having a 
tax code is not grand. 

The God concept is incredibly primitive and compelling (as attested to by 
anthropological universality). It is basically this. 

A child understands:

I can know things and do things.
Grownups know more things and can do more things than I can do - they are 
wiser, stronger, more aware, and have been around longer.
"Who can do and know more things than grownups?"
There must be grand-grownups who know and do more than anyone. 
There must be someone who knows and does everything.
Our Father, who art in heaven...

That's it. Big Daddy = God. Not complex.

> >> But you aren't exactly a expert on science, you admitted that to you 
>>> most scientific papers are just a huge amount of mumbo jumbo, so your 
>>> readers might be wise to take your views on the value of science with a 
>>> grain of salt.
>>>
>>
>> > Argument from authority.
>>
>  
> Despite its many faults the argument from authority beats the hell out of 
> argument from ignorance; and Craig let's face reality, you know next to no 
> science and the really depressing thing is that you're not even trying to 
> learn more.
>

When the first fallacy fails, move on to the Ad Hominem.

You must have forgotten to defend your reasoning though. Let's face reality 
John, you can't stand losing.

Craig

>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.



On Thursday, January 24, 2013 3:54:03 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jan 24, 2013  Craig Weinberg >wrote:
>
> > A two year old can understand what God is supposed to be. 
>>
>
> A two year old can't understand how something simple can know everything 
> and neither can I; 
>

Nor can they understand how something simple like 'probability' or 
'determinism' can account for everything.
 

> and there is a reason the word "simple" is often used as a synonym for 
> "stupid". And the Bible just says that God made animals but it doesn't say 
> how, but Darwin didn't just say Evolution made animals he explained how it 
> did it. 
>

Right, because evolution is complex and counter-intuitive. God concepts are 
an inescapable feature of all known human cultures (for better or worse, 
obviously).
 

> Saying "animals exist because of God" is no more helpful than saying 
> "animals exist because of flobkneegrab".  
>
> > The position that I am arguing is knock down that unsupported balloon 
>> that you tried to float about science being better than religion because 
>> science always means that complex things are explained by simple things.
>>
>
> That is not what science means that is what a explanation means; a theory 
> (like the God theory) that explains the existence of something unlikely 
> (like us) by postulating the existence of something even more unlikely 
> (like God) is worse than useless.
>

A universe from invisible, intangible laws that pop into 'existence' from 
nowhere seems likely?
 

>
> > Your straw man of me arguing that God is not important didn't work.
>>
>
> Good, now I don't have to find a verse in the Bible proving that it 
> teaches that God is grand.
>

I didn't say that God is not seen as grand, only that the concept of God is 
not a grand concept. See (use-mention distinction). 

>
> > This is something that science and religion have in common, not which 
>> sets them apart.
>>
>
> But you aren't exactly a expert on science, you admitted that to you most 
> scientific papers are just a huge amount of mumbo jumbo, so your readers 
> might be wise to take your views on the value of science with a grain of 
> salt.
>

Argument from authority. Does that mean I'm wrong about science and 
religion having simple causation to complexity in common? No, it does not.

Craig
 

>
>   John K Clark
>  
>
>

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-24 Thread Jason Resch

John,

Before we proceed in meaningless circles, how do you define the word
"religion"?

Jason

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 3:19 PM, John Clark  wrote:

>
>
> On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 4:03 PM, Jason Resch  wrote:
>
> > I agree with Craig.  The concept of divine simplicity exists in several
>> religions
>
>
> And in those religions how did a simpleton God make life? Darwin provided
> the mechanism by which Evolution did it,  so those religions need to
> explain exactly how the invisible man in the sky did it.
>

>
>> > Of course, the whole question of what is simple and what is complex
>> requires a definition of complexity.  The universal dovetailer is a simple
>> program, yet it generates all programs.  The Mandlebrot set has a simple
>> definition, but is infinitely detailed.  Pi has a simple definition, but an
>> infinite expansion of digits. So apparent complexity, of a universe, a
>> world, etc. need not be dependent on complex underlying principles or
>> systems.
>
>
> If you don't like the simple-complex dimension use the humble-grand
> dimension. The Bible says something grand made something humble and it
> doesn't say how so it explains nothing; Darwin says something humble made
> something grand and the best part is he said how it did in, and that is a
> explanation worthy of the name.
>

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-24 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 4:03 PM, Jason Resch  wrote:

> I agree with Craig.  The concept of divine simplicity exists in several
> religions

And in those religions how did a simpleton God make life? Darwin provided
the mechanism by which Evolution did it,  so those religions need to
explain exactly how the invisible man in the sky did it.

> > Of course, the whole question of what is simple and what is complex
> requires a definition of complexity.  The universal dovetailer is a simple
> program, yet it generates all programs.  The Mandlebrot set has a simple
> definition, but is infinitely detailed.  Pi has a simple definition, but an
> infinite expansion of digits. So apparent complexity, of a universe, a
> world, etc. need not be dependent on complex underlying principles or
> systems.

If you don't like the simple-complex dimension use the humble-grand
dimension. The Bible says something grand made something humble and it
doesn't say how so it explains nothing; Darwin says something humble made
something grand and the best part is he said how it did in, and that is a
explanation worthy of the name.

  John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-24 Thread Jason Resch

John,

I agree with Craig.  The concept of divine simplicity exists in several
religions ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simplicity ). The concept
is also not dissimilar to the "Neti Neti" (Not this, not that) explanation
of Brahman in Hindusim ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neti_neti ) or the
Nirguna Brahman, which is Brahman without qualities.

Of course, the whole question of what is simple and what is complex
requires a definition of complexity.  The universal dovetailer is a simple
program, yet it generates all programs.  The Mandlebrot set has a simple
definition, but is infinitely detailed.  Pi has a simple definition, but an
infinite expansion of digits.

So apparent complexity, of a universe, a world, etc. need not be dependent
on complex underlying principles or systems.  Bruno often says, arithmetic
is much bigger when seen from the inside.

Jason




On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 2:54 PM, John Clark  wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 24, 2013  Craig Weinberg  wrote:
>
> > A two year old can understand what God is supposed to be.
>>
>
> A two year old can't understand how something simple can know everything
> and neither can I; and there is a reason the word "simple" is often used as
> a synonym for "stupid". And the Bible just says that God made animals but
> it doesn't say how, but Darwin didn't just say Evolution made animals he
> explained how it did it. Saying "animals exist because of God" is no more
> helpful than saying "animals exist because of flobkneegrab".
>
> > The position that I am arguing is knock down that unsupported balloon
>> that you tried to float about science being better than religion because
>> science always means that complex things are explained by simple things.
>>
>
> That is not what science means that is what a explanation means; a theory
> (like the God theory) that explains the existence of something unlikely
> (like us) by postulating the existence of something even more unlikely
> (like God) is worse than useless.
>
>
> > Your straw man of me arguing that God is not important didn't work.
>>
>
> Good, now I don't have to find a verse in the Bible proving that it
> teaches that God is grand.
>
>
> > This is something that science and religion have in common, not which
>> sets them apart.
>>
>
> But you aren't exactly a expert on science, you admitted that to you most
> scientific papers are just a huge amount of mumbo jumbo, so your readers
> might be wise to take your views on the value of science with a grain of
> salt.
>
>   John K Clark
>
>
>  --
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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On Thursday, January 24, 2013 1:45:55 PM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Craig Weinberg 
> 
> > wrote:
>
> >>  It certainly says God is grand and if it didn't say that a omnipotent 
>>> being was complex it certainly should have.
>>>
>>
>> > Ah, so we are talking about what you think Genesis should have said 
>> rather than what it actually says.
>>
>
> Yes, the Bible is a reprehensible document not only because of what it 
> says but because of what it does not say.  
>  
> > Show me where in Genesis it says anything about God being grand or 
> complex:
>
> Has it come to this, do I really have to prove that the Bible doesn't 
> teach that God is of no importance? Craig, I think you've lost track of the 
> position you're arguing for and just feel obligated to contradict anything 
> said, even if it supports your view, rather like this:  
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y
>

Certainly God is supposed to be of the utmost importance, but that sense of 
grandeur is not rooted in complexity, either conceptually or literally. A 
two year old can understand what God is supposed to be. The position that I 
am arguing is knock down that unsupported balloon that you tried to float 
about science being better than religion because science always means that 
complex things are explained by simple things. If you recall, I said that 
religion does the exact same thing. The God concept is grand in a different 
way than natural selection is grand, but they are comparable as far as the 
relation of simplicity to complexity. This is something that science and 
religion have in common, not which sets them apart.

Your straw man of me arguing that God is not important didn't work.

Craig

>   John K Clark
>
>  
>
>
>

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-24 Thread John Clark

On Thu, Jan 24, 2013 at 11:58 AM, Craig Weinberg wrote:

>>  It certainly says God is grand and if it didn't say that a omnipotent
>> being was complex it certainly should have.
>>
>
> > Ah, so we are talking about what you think Genesis should have said
> rather than what it actually says.
>

Yes, the Bible is a reprehensible document not only because of what it says
but because of what it does not say.

> Show me where in Genesis it says anything about God being grand or
complex:

Has it come to this, do I really have to prove that the Bible doesn't teach
that God is of no importance? Craig, I think you've lost track of the
position you're arguing for and just feel obligated to contradict anything
said, even if it supports your view, rather like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

  John K Clark

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On Thursday, January 24, 2013 11:17:30 AM UTC-5, John Clark wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Craig Weinberg 
> 
> > wrote:
>  
>
>> > Genesis doesn't say anything about God being grand and complex as far 
>> as I know. 
>>
>
> It certainly says God is grand and if it didn't say that a omnipotent 
> being was complex it certainly should have.
>

Ah, so we are talking about what you think Genesis should have said rather 
than what it actually says.

Show me where in Genesis it says anything about God being grand or complex:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+1&version=NIV

> And Darwin provided a real explanation, he didn't just say that complex 
> life evolved from much simpler life, he provided the engine, he explained 
> how the mechanism works. 
>
> But exactly how did God create the heavens and the earth? Genesis doesn't 
> say, and that's why Genesis explains absolutely nothing; it might as well 
> have just said "stuff happens" for all the enlightenment it brought.
>  
>
>> >It's a three letter word and it is not explained at all,
>>
>
> I know. That's the problem.
>

Make up your mind, do you have a problem with the God concept being too 
simple or too complex?

>
> > so how complex could it be?
>>
>
> Infinitely, and that's a 10 letter word.  
>

Infinity is not quite as simple as God, but it is still very simple 
compared to natural selection and genetic replication. 

> > Isn't God just supposed to be "I am that I am."?
>>
>
> I believe so. I'm not sure of the exact verse but it's somewhere in the 
> Bible, I think it's in The Book Of Popeye   "I yam what I yam and I yam 
> what I yam that I yam".
>

I was just thinking that there should be a Chuckle Like Popeye Day added to 
the calendar actually.

>
>> > Had Gutenberg printed the Origin of Species instead of a Bible, 
>> printing probably would not have caught on with the public.
>>
>
> Had Gutenberg printed the Origin of Species Gutenberg would have been 
> slowly burned alive by the church. Do you have any reason for defending the 
> barbaric actions of this institution other than the fact that I don't like 
> it? 
>

I don't like the church either, but the church is not theology. To me, the 
church is a social organization which uses the popularity of theological 
themes to gain political influence and control over a population. All such 
organizations can be as barbaric, from governments to business to country 
clubs and unions. Theological ideas however, are just early philosophy, 
which is early science. Science, in its refinement of philosophy has made 
obvious strides beyond theology, but not everything that has been discarded 
along the way can be forgotten. This is a simplistic view of progress. 
Until science can reconcile physics with psyche in a way which does not 
diminish either one, there will continue to be a huge blind spot which 
fundamentalist churches will exploit.

>
> > I doubt that most televangelists have even studied theology.
>>
>
> You can study mythology or you can study the appalling behavior of 
> primitive bronze age tribes but there is nothing in theology to study. 
> There is no field, there is no there there. 
>

http://divinity.duke.edu/sites/default/files/documents/academics/course-schedule-course-listing-2012-fall.pdf

Hyperbole and bigotry are the antithesis of science, IMO. Ignorance plus 
arrogance only helps your ego, not science.

Craig

>   John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Re: Re: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.



On Thursday, January 24, 2013 4:34:38 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote:
>
>  Hi Craig Weinberg 
>  
> An anthropic God is the only one we can make sense of.
>

By 'we', you mean 'you'. You are wrong over 1.5 billion times even if we 
just count the Buddhist 'we' in Asia alone.

You do know that Buddha isn't the 'God' of Buddhism, right? How about 
Taoism or Confucianism? Shinto? Wicca?

Craig

>  
>  
>  
>  
>
> - Receiving the following content - 
> *From:* Craig Weinberg  
> *Receiver:* everything-list  
> *Time:* 2013-01-23, 09:22:38
> *Subject:* Re: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 
> STEPS.
>
>  
>
> On Wednesday, January 23, 2013 6:58:03 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote: 
>>
>>  Hi John Clark 
>>  
>> From his hostile postings, Craig seems to have been very 
>> very badly hurt by the Christian Church sometime in the past. 
>>
>
> Haha, not at all. Some of my best memories in high school were of drinking 
> beers and smoking cloves with the lovely and exciting girls from my 
> friend's church group. I think cathedrals are wonderful. Church services 
> bore me but not as much as synagogue services - wow, if you want to have a 
> monotonous meaningless experience try sitting through a three hour 
> monologue in Hebrew.
>
> I just think that the idea of an anthropomorphic God is an unfortunate and 
> seductive mistake. If I sound hostile, it is because of the tremendous 
> damage that this concept can do to people's lives. I am hostile toward 
> crystal meth too. I love the idea of recreational drugs, but I have known 
> too many exceptional people who have seen the course of their lives 
> derailed by crystal.
>
> Craig
>
>
>  
>
>>   
>>
>> - Receiving the following content - 
>> *From:* John Clark 
>> *Receiver:* everything-list 
>> *Time:* 2013-01-22, 13:23:37
>> *Subject:* Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.
>>
>>  On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 3:12 PM, Craig Weinberg wrote:
>>
>>   >> The astronomer Giordano Bruno would not have been surprised to hear 
>>>> that the invention of science was a fight against theology, he was burned 
>>>> alive by the church for suggesting that the bright points of light you see 
>>>> in the night sky were other suns very very far away. 
>>>>
>>>
>>> >The Catholic Church of the 16th century is no more representative of 
>>> Theology
>>>
>>
>> In Europe in 1600 the Catholic Church was not representative of theology 
>> it virtually was theology; competing franchises like Judaism and Islam were 
>> just rounding errors, and they were just as dumb anyway. 
>>
>>  >than ethnic cleansing is representative of Darwin. 
>>>
>>
>> Huh? Charles Darwin and ethnic cleansing, it does not compute.
>>
>>  >> Explaining how complexity came about from simplicity is much better 
>>>> than saying complexity came about from even more complexity. 
>>>>
>>>  
>>> > Religion does the same thing. 
>>>
>>
>> Bullshit.
>>
>>  > The Tower of Babel. Noah's Ark. Genesis. Complexity emerges from 
>>> simplicity
>>>
>>
>> God is not simple, although very often the believers in God are. 
>>
>>  > Ron Popeil is not a theologian. 
>>>
>>
>> True, Ron Popeil is much more moral than theologians because the stuff he 
>> sells on TV actually exists.
>>
>>   >> What would lead to unemployment is if the LHC discovers nothing 
>>>> mysterious that contradicts what we think we know. 
>>>>
>>>
>>> > Not really.
>>>
>>
>> Yes really.
>>
>>  > Validating the standard model is just as profitable as mystery.
>>>
>>
>> Bullshit. Everybody knows that the standard model is very very good but 
>> they also know it can't be the end of the story because it says nothing 
>> about gravity or Dark Matter or Dark Energy nor can it explain why 
>> neutrinos have mass. And everybody knows that unlike telescopes that have 
>> found a lot of surprising stuff in fundamental physics, particle 
>> accelerators have not discovered anything surprising in almost 40 years 
>> (finding the Higgs was not surprising, not discovering it would have been 
>> surprising and that's why many hoped it didn't exist but they were 
>> disappointed), and if the LHC doesn't find anything new either it could be 
>> the last

Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-24 Thread Bruno Marchal

On 23 Jan 2013, at 15:22, Craig Weinberg wrote:

On Wednesday, January 23, 2013 6:58:03 AM UTC-5, rclough wrote:
Hi John Clark

From his hostile postings, Craig seems to have been very
very badly hurt by the Christian Church sometime in the past.

Haha, not at all. Some of my best memories in high school were of  
drinking beers and smoking cloves with the lovely and exciting girls  
from my friend's church group. I think cathedrals are wonderful.  
Church services bore me but not as much as synagogue services - wow,  
if you want to have a monotonous meaningless experience try sitting  
through a three hour monologue in Hebrew.

I just think that the idea of an anthropomorphic God is an  
unfortunate and seductive mistake. If I sound hostile, it is because  
of the tremendous damage that this concept can do to people's lives.  
I am hostile toward crystal meth too. I love the idea of  
recreational drugs, but I have known too many exceptional people who  
have seen the course of their lives derailed by crystal.

Crystal meth, like crack cocaine, or the quite terrible Krokodil, are  
typical products of prohibition. Krokodil appeared in Russia after an  
attempt to make heroin disappear in large region there.
Like "wood alcohol" during alcohol interdiction, prohibition invites  
people to build ersatz which are usually far more dangerous than the  
original products.

Bruno

Craig

- Receiving the following content -
From: John Clark
Receiver: everything-list
Time: 2013-01-22, 13:23:37
Subject: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 3:12 PM, Craig Weinberg   
wrote:

>> The astronomer Giordano Bruno would not have been surprised to  
hear that the invention of science was a fight against theology, he  
was burned alive by the church for suggesting that the bright points  
of light you see in the night sky were other suns very very far away.

>The Catholic Church of the 16th century is no more representative  
of Theology

In Europe in 1600 the Catholic Church was not representative of  
theology it virtually was theology; competing franchises like  
Judaism and Islam were just rounding errors, and they were just as  
dumb anyway. �

>than ethnic cleansing is representative of Darwin.

Huh?� Charles Darwin and ethnic cleansing, it does not compute.

>> Explaining how complexity came about from simplicity is much  
better than saying complexity came about from even more complexity.

> Religion does the same thing.

Bullshit.

> The Tower of Babel. Noah's Ark. Genesis. Complexity emerges from  
simplicity

God is not simple, although very often the believers in God are.�
�
> Ron Popeil is not a theologian.

True, Ron Popeil is much more moral than theologians because the  
stuff he sells on TV actually exists.

>> What would lead to unemployment is if the LHC discovers nothing  
mysterious that contradicts what we think we know.

> Not really.

Yes really.

> Validating the standard model is just as profitable as mystery.

Bullshit. Everybody knows that the standard model is very very good  
but they also know it can't be the end of the story because it says  
nothing about gravity or Dark Matter or Dark Energy nor can it  
explain why neutrinos have mass. And everybody knows that unlike  
telescopes that have found a lot of surprising stuff in fundamental  
physics, particle accelerators have not discovered anything  
surprising in almost 40 years (finding the Higgs was not surprising,  
not discovering it would have been surprising and that's why many  
hoped it didn't exist but they were disappointed), and if the LHC  
doesn't find anything new either it could be the last of these very  
expensive machines for a century.

�ohn K Clark

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http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/

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Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.

2013-01-24 Thread meekerdb


On 1/24/2013 8:17 AM, John Clark wrote:


>It's a three letter word and it is not explained at all,


I know. That's the problem.


Interestingly, in Aramaic the word was "Elohim", and my jewish/anthropologist friend tells 
me that's a plural.  So it should have been translated "gods", except that didn't sit well 
with the later monotheism.


Brent

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Re: Re: Re: HOW YOU CAN BECOME A LIBERAL THEOLOGIAN IN JUST 4 STEPS.