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You think "truth" & "being right" is what matters...and you are WRONG about that.
What REALLY matters...is WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE.
Let me 'splain it to ya...so maybe you'll "get it"...I'll use this analogy:
Regardless of all the scientific meteorological evidence against it...I have most people BELIEVING FOR SURE that it is going to snow 2 feet tomorrow in New York USA.
Now...how is the FACT that it isn't going to snow at all, let alone two feet, going to effect shovel sales if most people *believe* it's going to snow 2 feet anyway?
It doesn't matter if Theists are wrong and Atheists are right...or if Atheists are wrong and Theists are right...as respects the effect on the world that 98% of the people that have ever lived embraced Theism!
That a small minority are NonBelievers doesn't mean squat, even if they were/are totally "right"! The FACT that the vast majority DID/DO believe GUARANTEES what they believe IS going to matter!
Answer this, then just maybe you will understand: What would you rather have as your income this year---The money spent printing and distributing copies of the Bible, copies of the Quran, or copies of Hawkings books?
Sometimes what is "true" and what is "right" will also be the most popular...and then it will carry "super mojo"...like "God Exists" does.
But, in the contest of "What is True VS What is the Most Popular"...What is the Most Popular will win 999 times out of 1000. Ad Populm RULES!
You think "truth" & "being right" is what matters...and you are WRONG about that.
What REALLY matters...is WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE.
Let me 'splain it to ya...so maybe you'll "get it"...I'll use this analogy:
Regardless of all the scientific meteorological evidence against it...I have most people BELIEVING FOR SURE that it is going to snow 2 feet tomorrow in New York USA.
Now...how is the FACT that it isn't going to snow at all, let alone two feet, going to effect shovel sales if most people *believe* it's going to snow 2 feet anyway?
It doesn't matter if Theists are wrong and Atheists are right...or if Atheists are wrong and Theists are right...as respects the effect on the world that 98% of the people that have ever lived embraced Theism!
That a small minority are NonBelievers doesn't mean squat, even if they were/are totally "right"! The FACT that the vast majority DID/DO believe GUARANTEES what they believe IS going to matter!
Answer this, then just maybe you will understand: What would you rather have as your income this year---The money spent printing and distributing copies of the Bible, copies of the Quran, or copies of Hawkings books?
Sometimes what is "true" and what is "right" will also be the most popular...and then it will carry "super mojo"...like "God Exists" does.
But, in the contest of "What is True VS What is the Most Popular"...What is the Most Popular will win 999 times out of 1000. Ad Populm RULES!
Sort of the my religion, right or wrong philosophy.
You think "truth" & "being right" is what matters...and you are WRONG about that.
What REALLY matters...is WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE.
Let me 'splain it to ya...so maybe you'll "get it"...I'll use this analogy:
Regardless of all the scientific meteorological evidence against it...I have most people BELIEVING FOR SURE that it is going to snow 2 feet tomorrow in New York USA.
Now...how is the FACT that it isn't going to snow at all, let alone two feet, going to effect shovel sales if most people *believe* it's going to snow 2 feet anyway?
It doesn't matter if Theists are wrong and Atheists are right...or if Atheists are wrong and Theists are right...as respects the effect on the world that 98% of the people that have ever lived embraced Theism!
That a small minority are NonBelievers doesn't mean squat, even if they were/are totally "right"! The FACT that the vast majority DID/DO believe GUARANTEES what they believe IS going to matter!
Answer this, then just maybe you will understand: What would you rather have as your income this year---The money spent printing and distributing copies of the Bible, copies of the Quran, or copies of Hawkings books?
Sometimes what is "true" and what is "right" will also be the most popular...and then it will carry "super mojo"...like "God Exists" does.
But, in the contest of "What is True VS What is the Most Popular"...What is the Most Popular will win 999 times out of 1000. Ad Populm RULES!
So you don’t care if what you believe is true, you only care if others join with you in believing it. That’s a crap way to live, but if that is your standard, so be it. I’m better than that, reject that, and would never tolerate that in myself or anyone I value.
Personal experience is meaningless garbage. Observation, logic, and reason offer the most reliable path to knowledge.
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Until you can demonstrate your claims with hard and strong scientifically acquired evidence, you have zero, zilch, nada. I reject personal experience, and I reject so-called scientific “extrapolation”.
No one, including you, lives his life on the basis of personal experience being "meaningless garbage." No one, including you, flatly "rejects" personal experience. (News flash: Observation is a component of personal experience.) Everyone, including you, makes innumerable decisions, including extremely important ones, in which personal experience plays an important or even decisive role. Is your personal experience irrelevant to you and your clients in your real estate work?
What would make you think that logic and reason cannot be applied to personal experience? Most people do it all the time.
Another individual's claims of extraordinary personal experiences may or may not weigh heavily with me, depending on my assessment of the individual's psychological health and credibility. My own extraordinary personal experiences will inevitably weigh heavily with me. I do, of course, apply logic and reason in evaluating them.
If my own extraordinary personal experiences accord with the testimony of thousands of other individuals who are psychologically healthy and credible, this becomes a body of evidence to be taken into account. If someone chooses to characterize this body of evidence as "meaningless garbage" because it is experiential and testimonial, this is his personal opinion and choice - but it certainly doesn't mean that it is meaningless garbage; the one doing the rejecting may be the one who is irrational or blinded by emotion or bias.
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The scientific method is the beginning, middle, and end of knowledge acquisition.
This is a statement of personal philosophy, not of fact. Scientific methodology is appropriate for the acquisition of knowledge about matters that are susceptible to investigation and analysis via scientific methodology - i.e., the natural order.
If one's philosophical paradigm is naturalism, the nonexistence of anything beyond the natural order is an axiom of the paradigm; it follows that scientific methodology is the only tool for the acquisition of knowledge that will be recognized. If one isn't wedded to philosophical naturalism, then one likewise isn't limited to knowledge acquired via scientific methodology.
Moreover, no one, including you, lives as though scientific methodology were the sole tool for the acquisition of knowledge. Just as with your statements regarding personal experience, this is a vast overstatement.
Even within the domain of philosophical naturalism, those wedded to this paradigm often use exceedingly thin scientific evidence as the launching pad for pretty wild and even quasi-religious speculation in their efforts to deal with the very sorts of ultimate questions with which religion deals. This is countenanced only because the speculation remains within the domain of naturalism (e.g., the Many Worlds hypothesis). Others not wedded to the naturalistic paradigm make use of some of the same scientific evidence to support theistic or other non-naturalistic explanations.
Lastly, there are large bodies of scientific evidence that do not fit neatly into the naturalistic paradigm and are in some instances almost impossible to reconcile with it. Anyone who insists that only knowledge acquired via scientific methodology is relevant must honestly confront this challenging evidence as well, which those wedded to philosophical naturalism are seldom willing to do. Hence the unwillingness of the keepers of the naturalistic paradigm to allow Intelligent Design even a foot in the door as possibly the best scientific explanation for significant bodies of scientific evidence.
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There is only one supreme being of your life, and that is little old you. There is nothing more, nothing else, nothing bigger, nothing more powerful, and nothing in charge, or offering guidance. The meaning and purpose for your life comes 100% from you. And when you die, all of that, and all of you, ceases to exist and is gone forever.
And you, a NJ real estate agent, know all this how?
Why do so many scientists, including Nobel laureates, flatly disagree with you?
The fact is, all of the above is simply your personal opinion - right? It isn't knowledge acquired via scientific methodology at all - right? You simply disagree with those who have concluded, often on the basis of a deep understanding of the relevant scientific, experiential and testimonial evidence, that literally every statement you make is false - right?
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And we have to keep repeating this, but the truth of a proposition is not determined by the number of people who believe it, or how fervently that believe is held. Same significance as “personal experience”: None.
And your statements of personal opinion in the paragraph I have quoted immediately above are of precisely the same non-significance - right? If you disagree, on what basis do you disagree?
No, truth isn't determined by popular vote. However, when someone such as yourself makes grand dogmatic truth claims such as you are making, and huge swaths of humanity, including scientists and others who surely have a deeper knowledge of the relevant evidence than you can possibly have, reject literally every one of those claims, I think a rational person is going to see your claims in the proper perspective. Perhaps not as meaningless garbage, but as the personal opinions of one NJ real estate agent.
No one, including you, lives his life on the basis of personal experience being "meaningless garbage." No one, including you, flatly "rejects" personal experience. (News flash: Observation is a component of personal experience.) Everyone, including you, makes innumerable decisions, including extremely important ones, in which personal experience plays an important or even decisive role. Is your personal experience irrelevant to you and your clients in your real estate work?
What would make you think that logic and reason cannot be applied to personal experience? Most people do it all the time.
Another individual's claims of extraordinary personal experiences may or may not weigh heavily with me, depending on my assessment of the individual's psychological health and credibility. My own extraordinary personal experiences will inevitably weigh heavily with me. I do, of course, apply logic and reason in evaluating them.
If my own extraordinary personal experiences accord with the testimony of thousands of other individuals who are psychologically healthy and credible, this becomes a body of evidence to be taken into account. If someone chooses to characterize this body of evidence as "meaningless garbage" because it is experiential and testimonial, this is his personal opinion and choice - but it certainly doesn't mean that it is meaningless garbage; the one doing the rejecting may be the one who is irrational or blinded by emotion or bias.
This is a statement of personal philosophy, not of fact. Scientific methodology is appropriate for the acquisition of knowledge about matters that are susceptible to investigation and analysis via scientific methodology - i.e., the natural order.
If one's philosophical paradigm is naturalism, the nonexistence of anything beyond the natural order is an axiom of the paradigm; it follows that scientific methodology is the only tool for the acquisition of knowledge that will be recognized. If one isn't wedded to philosophical naturalism, then one likewise isn't limited to knowledge acquired via scientific methodology.
Moreover, no one, including you, lives as though scientific methodology were the sole tool for the acquisition of knowledge. Just as with your statements regarding personal experience, this is a vast overstatement.
Even within the domain of philosophical naturalism, those wedded to this paradigm often use exceedingly thin scientific evidence as the launching pad for pretty wild and even quasi-religious speculation in their efforts to deal with the very sorts of ultimate questions with which religion deals. This is countenanced only because the speculation remains within the domain of naturalism (e.g., the Many Worlds hypothesis). Others not wedded to the naturalistic paradigm make use of some of the same scientific evidence to support theistic or other non-naturalistic explanations.
Lastly, there are large bodies of scientific evidence that do not fit neatly into the naturalistic paradigm and are in some instances almost impossible to reconcile with it. Anyone who insists that only knowledge acquired via scientific methodology is relevant must honestly confront this challenging evidence as well, which those wedded to philosophical naturalism are seldom willing to do. Hence the unwillingness of the keepers of the naturalistic paradigm to allow Intelligent Design even a foot in the door as possibly the best scientific explanation for significant bodies of scientific evidence.
And you, a NJ real estate agent, know all this how?
Why do so many scientists, including Nobel laureates, flatly disagree with you?
The fact is, all of the above is simply your personal opinion - right? It isn't knowledge acquired via scientific methodology at all - right? You simply disagree with those who have concluded, often on the basis of a deep understanding of the relevant scientific, experiential and testimonial evidence, that literally every statement you make is false - right?
And your statements of personal opinion in the paragraph I have quoted immediately above are of precisely the same non-significance - right? If you disagree, on what basis do you disagree?
No, truth isn't determined by popular vote. However, when someone such as yourself makes grand dogmatic truth claims such as you are making, and huge swaths of humanity, including scientists and others who surely have a deeper knowledge of the relevant evidence than you can possibly have, reject literally every one of those claims, I think a rational person is going to see your claims in the proper perspective. Perhaps not as meaningless garbage, but as the personal opinions of one NJ real estate agent.
You think "truth" & "being right" is what matters...and you are WRONG about that.
What REALLY matters...is WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE.
Let me 'splain it to ya...so maybe you'll "get it"...I'll use this analogy:
Regardless of all the scientific meteorological evidence against it...I have most people BELIEVING FOR SURE that it is going to snow 2 feet tomorrow in New York USA.
Now...how is the FACT that it isn't going to snow at all, let alone two feet, going to effect shovel sales if most people *believe* it's going to snow 2 feet anyway?
It doesn't matter if Theists are wrong and Atheists are right...or if Atheists are wrong and Theists are right...as respects the effect on the world that 98% of the people that have ever lived embraced Theism!
That a small minority are NonBelievers doesn't mean squat, even if they were/are totally "right"! The FACT that the vast majority DID/DO believe GUARANTEES what they believe IS going to matter!
Answer this, then just maybe you will understand: What would you rather have as your income this year---The money spent printing and distributing copies of the Bible, copies of the Quran, or copies of Hawkings books?
Sometimes what is "true" and what is "right" will also be the most popular...and then it will carry "super mojo"...like "God Exists" does.
But, in the contest of "What is True VS What is the Most Popular"...What is the Most Popular will win 999 times out of 1000. Ad Populm RULES!
Are we discussing what matters? That's a different conversation than discussing what's knowable.
No one, including you, lives his life on the basis of personal experience being "meaningless garbage." No one, including you, flatly "rejects" personal experience. (News flash: Observation is a component of personal experience.) Everyone, including you, makes innumerable decisions, including extremely important ones, in which personal experience plays an important or even decisive role. Is your personal experience irrelevant to you and your clients in your real estate work?>snip
I wouldn't go so far as to say meaningless garbage but I get that if I have an experience that seems to come from some divine source that doesn't mean it does.
So you don’t care if what you believe is true, you only care if others join with you in believing it. That’s a crap way to live, but if that is your standard, so be it. I’m better than that, reject that, and would never tolerate that in myself or anyone I value.
Belief in belief.
"Believe in something! Even if it's wrong! Believe in it!"
--Glenn Beck
"I mean, say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos."
--Walter Sobchak, The Big Lebowski
Sort of the my religion, right or wrong philosophy.
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Originally Posted by Marc Paolella
So you don’t care if what you believe is true, you only care if others join with you in believing it. That’s a crap way to live, but if that is your standard, so be it. I’m better than that, reject that, and would never tolerate that in myself or anyone I value.
No. Y'all know what I believe (Pantheism)...and my Theistic view.
It has nothing to do with mainstream Theology...though I do not care what Beliefs others hold.
I am just stating how things go down in this world...based upon observations.
And observations will indicate that what is popular (what people *Believe*) is much more powerful a factor than "mere Truth".
That isn't "my" standard...that is the World Standard.
"God Belief"...especially the Jehovah/Allah/YHWH version...IS the "World Standard"...and has been for many scores of Centuries.
If you like "facts"...get hip to that one.
.And even though I don't follow that view...I don't have a problem with anyone that does...I "tolerate" it, no problem. It's y'all that get all emotionally irregular over it...deem them of "no value", and think that accepting their different view is "a crap way to live".
Me...I don't have that problem.
It's very unfortunate that you have such a negative view of the vast majority of the people who have lived over the past few thousand years.
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