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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[Putnam]

How do you define "broken bits"? If you become a better person after brain damage, are you once again cantankerous after death? Why does the world look exactly the same as it would if souls were not to exist?

[Rolepgeek]

Nah, you missed my point, Putnam.

The physical body itself is the flaw, in my analogy. It doesn't necessarily look exactly the same, because you have nothing to compare it to; there's a shitton of stuff we can barely detect/that only interacts occasionally with stuff we can detect right now, if ever. The world, as we can see it directly, also looks exactly the same as it would if Dark Matter were not to exist. Doesn't mean it doesn't.

[Putnam]

The world, as we can see it directly, also looks exactly the same as it would if Dark Matter were not to exist.

That's... not true at all. Dark Matter isn't some stuff that does nothing that we made up for no reason, like the implication of a philosophical zombie or whatever.

[Rolepgeek]

No, I'm saying that we can only detect it through abstract instruments. It has nothing to do with it being proved. It's not philosophical zombie level stuff, no, but I'm saying that if Dark matter were near us, we have no idea if we could physically interact with it. That's why I said 'as we can see it directly'. We don't have spiritual energies detection technology (certainly not any that could actually be called scientific). A hollow iron sphere looks exactly the same as a solid iron sphere, and if you can't reach it to knock on it, you've got no way to tell.

I'm not going for external justification here, I'm not religious. I'm conducting a mental and philosophical exercise about how it can be logically self-consistent in about a thousand different ways. A crapton of the points brought up to try and refute it are made in lack of context, or forgetting context the bible was in, and etc. Like if someone claims the bible's dumb because it called a whale a fish when clearly it's a mammal. Which somebody in my class did, more or less, today.

[Putnam]

it also said grasshoppers have 4 legs and rabbits chew cud iirc

seriously, though: "abstract instruments" is something I can only describe as... hilariously wrong. What's "abstract" about them? Our instruments are far, far better than human senses and dark matter not existing would show completely different things on our instruments (in fact, the galaxy wouldn't have a similar structure, so the night sky would be entirely different too).

[MonkeyHead]

... and determining if an iron sphere is solid or hollow is also trivial without knocking on it, especially if it is in motion or interacting in some way with other objects in some way.

Whales being a mammal and incorrectly identified in the bible IS damning to its claims of divine provenance (even via inspiration) and of being a "perfect work".

[Rolepgeek]

First off, monkeyhead, is that so? Should I make my analogy that was meant to be short and sweet more specific? If there is an iron sphere embedded into a wall out of reach and you don't have a way to hit it with something, you cannot determine from first principles whether it is hollow or solid(if you bring up hitting the wall, you're deliberately missing the point). Second, no, whales are not mammals, because mammal is an arbitrary, and more importantly, modern, category we use based on evolutionary similarities and vague physiological tendencies. If your categories use something else, like, say, beasts roam the land, are usually relevant to either food or work, and have fur, while fish swim in rivers, lakes, and oceans, usually have scales or slimy skin, and often have fins of some sort, then calling it a mammal is ridiculous. So no, it not specifically being predicted for our time, instead of the one it was written in, does not prove jack shit, at least with shitty arguments like that.

They are indeed far better. And yes, they measure things, and if things were different they would measure different things. That's what instruments do, abstract or not. But you could not do it yourself, not in a million years. Other instruments just let you do things you already could with greater precision. Look at small things, make far away things look closer, compare weights more accurately. This is looking at things do far away and in such minute changes of precision, from the bending of light, that we are wholly reliant upon the instrument. Electron microscopes are abstract because they measure things we simply cannot scale ourselves down to look at in a roundabout way. This is the same in the opposite direction.

Now as to my point with that: if we didn't have those instruments, we would not be able to discern the phenomena. The page you linked even said that there were two theories; that we'd gotten gravity wrong for large enough scales, or there was new type of matter we didn't know about. It required the development and refinement of those instruments to be able to say definitively. We don't yet have an instrument for measuring anything spiritual, if there is indeed such. Dismissing it because we as of yet have no instruments that would clue us in as to how there would be a difference in the world if souls [did/didn't] exist seems like a poor judgement call. It's isn't a reason to believe, and there's other reasons to disbelieve, but that seems like a poor one.

[MonkeyHead]

My point about the iron sphere may have been a bit glib - sorry. That said, the whole Whale not being a fish thing is kind of a big deal with regards to people who claim the bible is perfect in nature. Notice, not that Whales should be identified as mammals (for the reasons you outline), but that it is not a fish. Subtle but important difference. Why the mis-categorisation occurred is fairly irrelevant compared to the fact that calling it a fish is wrong. The same as calling grasshoppers 4-legged, or labelling bats as birds. They are claims made by a book that are wrong, and torpedo any claims of divine perfection. They are creatures that are lumped in with others that they should not be, and such a thing would not occur in a work of divine provenance.

[Arx]

The Bible is not perfectly scientifically accurate, no. And this torpedoes it's validity? Newtonian mechanics are pretty useless in most highly rigorous scenarios, but that doesn't mean they should be completely thrown out. They're still a good approximation in an Earth frame of reference.

[MonkeyHead]

The Bible is not perfectly scientifically accurate, no. And this torpedoes it's validity? Newtonian mechanics are pretty useless in most highly rigorous scenarios, but that doesn't mean they should be completely thrown out. They're still a good approximation in an Earth frame of reference.

The bible not being scientifically accurate torpedoes any claims of it being a perfect work. Any inaccuracies in it (and there are plenty) hit any claims of it being "perfect", and there are people out there (yes, a minority, I know) who adopt a literalistic stance on the matter and who assert the bible is perfect, when it is demonstrably not. In the same way, anyone who asserts that Newtonian mechanics is perfect is wrong.

[Arx]

The Bible is not perfectly scientifically accurate, no. And this torpedoes it's validity? Newtonian mechanics are pretty useless in most highly rigorous scenarios, but that doesn't mean they should be completely thrown out. They're still a good approximation in an Earth frame of reference.

The bible not being scientifically accurate torpedoes any claims of it being a perfect work. Any inaccuracies in it (and there are plenty) hit any claims of it being "perfect", and there are people out there (yes, a minority, I know) who adopt a literalistic stance on the matter and who assert the bible is perfect, when it is demonstrably not. In the same way, anyone who asserts that Newtonian mechanics is perfect is wrong.

Ah, okay. In that case, I don't actually necessarily disagree with you.

[Putnam]

Yeah, and people tend to claim that the thing isn't falsifiable, which is demonstrably false (as this whole conversation shows).

[Rolepgeek]

My point about the iron sphere may have been a bit glib - sorry. That said, the whole Whale not being a fish thing is kind of a big deal with regards to people who claim the bible is perfect in nature. Notice, not that Whales should be identified as mammals (for the reasons you outline), but that it is not a fish. Subtle but important difference. Why the mis-categorisation occurred is fairly irrelevant compared to the fact that calling it a fish is wrong. The same as calling grasshoppers 4-legged, or labelling bats as birds. They are claims made by a book that are wrong, and torpedo any claims of divine perfection. They are creatures that are lumped in with others that they should not be, and such a thing would not occur in a work of divine provenance.

I'm not saying the bible doesn't make false claims. I'm saying that believing that they have been lumped in with others that they should not be - that the category used is wrong - is a subjective matter. These categories are not objective. They follow general guidelines of nature, but playtpi if nothing else go to show they aren't perfect (in all seriousness, they're weird). We create the categories, not the other way around. If their definition for the category of fish isn't the one we use, then it isn't fair to say 'you said it was something it wasn't! ha!'. Use the grasshopper bit to prove them wrong, if you like (bats fly, and if that's how you're defining your categories, telling them that they way they categorize things is objectively wrong is...dumb(and pointless cuz it was 2000 years ago but whatevs), at best). But whales swim, they don't have paws or legs or claws, and they look quite a bit like a fish, if you can't examine them up close. They fell into the category of 'fish' for a long time, historically, and that's for a reason. It is a categorization error. It's not saying 'it's a fish because they have scales and gills' (although it's possible it claims they do in which case nevermind but I don't believe it does), it's saying 'it's a fish because fish swim in the ocean and have fins'.

The real point here I'm making is something about fallacies and intellectual rigor when debating or something but the whole issue is really besides the point. Only came up because of the example I chose. Bible's wrong on a bunch of stuff, it's 'right' on a bunch of other stuff, it's not perfect but the contradictions are harder to spot then people think, and having good arguments is important, because otherwise all you end up as is a weak man(different from a strawman) which trains the other side to believe there are no good arguments for your viewpoint, since all the ones they've seen are poor and can be easily dismissed. How many intelligent people and lines of thinking are dismissed because of their ruder or less verbally skilled compatriots tainting them by association?

[Vilanat]

Whale not being a fish thing is kind of a big deal with regards to people who claim the bible is perfect in nature. Notice, not that Whales should be identified as mammals (for the reasons you outline), but that it is not a fish. Subtle but important difference. Why the mis-categorisation occurred is fairly irrelevant compared to the fact that calling it a fish is wrong. The same as calling grasshoppers 4-legged, or labelling bats as birds

The Leviathan (In modern hebrew Leviathan is the same word as Whale) in the bible is considered a sea dwelling dragon breathing fire which resemble a great scaled snake in appearance, and as far as i can tell and would be glad to be proven wrong, not mentioned anywhere in the bible as a fish.

In fact, as far as i can tell, the Whale is not mentioned anywhere in the bible (Which is not that uncommon since a few relatively common creatures of the area of Israel are not mentioned as well).

There is no where in the bible where a bat is considered the modern definition of a bird. it is considered a flying creature, but that's the only categorization it gets since the bible categorized animals through means of transportation.

The grasshopper, along with various other such insects are mentioned to have 4 legs, and 2 leaping hinds.

I would strongly suggest to avoid the english translations of the bible, since in the case of the Birds, it is rather confusing. in the English translation of leviticus it says Birds, in the hebrew text it says Of, which literally means "flying". there is also a passage (in Deuteronomy) where the bat is included with Tziporim, which is indeed the modern hebrew word for Birds, however, early on in Noah tale, Tzipor is defined as "those with wings".

In the case of the grasshopper argument, or rather, the "4 legged insects" in some english translations it says insects and in some it says creepers, while in the hebrew text it says Sheretz which is a general word to describe small creatures. other inclusions of Sheretz, beside the obvious are mice, worms and moles.

[Loud Whispers]

Basically if we all learnt Hebrew and Latin things would be simpler