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[10ebbor10]

There is almost 0 evidence for an existence of a <anything> aside from personal experiences.

FTFY, Now it's an argument usable by anyone for everything

How? I can put a piece of wood up to fire and watch it burn, and demonstrate to others that the wood can catch fire, and that it turns black. And this can also be replicated by other people.

How are certain these real people exist? What leads you to believe that there's someone who's writing this post. What if this is actually a hallucination, or a simulation, or a dream.

It could be, but what is the evidence for that? I can touch people, see people. Evidence is gotten from the senses, therefore I believe that this isn't a virtual world.

I was just proving that you can't prove anything without axioms, one of which are your personal experiences.

Also VR tech can simulate touchy feeling things. (with enough money put into it itmight even be realistic)

[Sheb]

We had that argument already, and the result was that yes, we need axioms, but we should use as few as possible.

[10ebbor10]

We had that argument already, and the result was that yes, we need axioms, but we should use as few as possible.

God makes everything happen just the way it does because it's part of his higher plan that we mortals can't understand.

is:
 1. A Single axiom (Or maybe 4-5 , depending on how you count)
 2. A perfect explanation for everything

It's however terrible at explaining anything. Luckily, that's not the point of the Bible, nor are religion. There's no science in scripture, and there has never been any science in scripture. Counts for myths and the like too.

[Micro102]

Well yeah, nothing is proven. The point is that the only evidence of god is people who "experience him", these vary and can not be shown to not be hallucinations or dreams. Anyone who can consider that sufficient evidence would have to believe the stories of all religions and alien abductions. And of course most religions clash with each other so personal experiences are pretty much useless as evidence.

[kaijyuu]

Eh, I'll accept personal revelation as a reason to believe something, but not evidence you can actually show anyone else. I of course will be skeptical and assume hallucination/dream/etc. But if they believe it, I won't push the issue.

[penguinofhonor]

Philosophy rating: 11/10

Ditch the epistemology. We're not talking about that again.

[Micro102]

So, what does everyone think about the whole "cross in 9/11 memorial" thing?

[Frumple]

"It's been over a decade, now. Can we just flipping move on, please?" My mostly canned response to anything 9/11 related at this point. I tone it down a lil' for folks that actually lost people. A little. It's still been over a decade. Most sympathy dries up at that point, and becomes concern you're still grieving about it.

Was there some sort of controversy involved or something? Why are you bringing it up?

[penguinofhonor]

I think he's talking about this.

[dei]

A religion is a set of beliefs. Atheism is a set of beliefs that states that there is no higher power. Feminism is a set of beliefs that state that women should be equal to men. Liberalism and conservatism are sets of beliefs that state two entirely different political views. Therefore, Atheism, Feminism, Liberalism and Conservatism are religions.

Furthermore a person's personal beliefs could be a religion unto themselves. Therefore since no two people believe the exact same thing for the most part there are as many individual religions as there are people. I therefore follow my own religion because I believe in my own personal paradigm.

That is all I really wanted to say. The lot of you will probably believe something different, but that is because you each have your own personal paradigm, your own religion. That means that no matter what something will conflict and therefore will not be agreeable, as I expect a lot of what I have to say is to the majority of those I interact with.

Oh well. I'm going to go get something to eat.

[Leafsnail]

Please please please do some statement definition in the OP.  Fenrir's posts about Connotation Smuggling were funny but I don't think we can rely on those forever.

[Grek]

We had that argument already, and the result was that yes, we need axioms, but we should use as few as possible.

God makes everything happen just the way it does because it's part of his higher plan that we mortals can't understand.

is:
 1. A Single axiom (Or maybe 4-5 , depending on how you count)
 2. A perfect explanation for everything

I continue to maintain that we shouldn't count by number of axioms but by minimum message length for this exact reason.

[penguinofhonor]

Please please please do some statement definition in the OP.  Fenrir's posts about Connotation Smuggling were funny but I don't think we can rely on those forever.

I think I'm just going to start enforcing the "no semantic arguments" rule. Wait, I don't have one of those here. I guess a certain amount of semantics comes with such a nebulous topic. I think I could make one that fits.

• Are your arguments based solely in language? Do they have no point besides shifting different people into different categories that have no real effect on what that person does or thinks? If so, it's too semantic. Don't do it.

That seems pretty functional. Statement definition might still be necessary, but as someone who's kind of opinionated on some statement definitions I don't want to just choose what I want because that'll naturally favor people who agree with me. But still, having people spend a dozen pages on whether or not atheism/theism/feminism are religions is just kind of stupid. Any suggestions on what to do here?

[Flying Dice]

It might be best to clearly and plainly define what is meant by "atheism", "theism", and "religion" for the purposes of the thread.

Namely:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

a·the·ism/ˈāTHēˌizəm/
Noun:   
The theory or belief that a god or gods does/do not exist.

the·ism/ˈTHēˌizəm/
Noun  
Belief in the existence of a god or gods.

re·li·gion/riˈlijən/
Noun:   
The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.

That would probably reduce some of the semantics wankery, and (I don't think?) that anyone seriously disputes those, though obviously the third is rather focused on Abrahamic and Classical faiths. They could probably be refined a bit, but having common definitions for something that central would do wonders for reducing misunderstanding and semantic games. Just my two cents.

[Leafsnail]

Mandated definitions help eliminate the cause of semantic arguments, so I think they're helpful.

That would probably reduce some of the semantics wankery, and (I don't think?) that anyone seriously disputes those

As we've seen many times before that first definition is very problematic as it doesn't line up with actual everyday usage (eg: Richard Dawkins is not an atheist under it, same applies to almost every prominent atheist you care to name).