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John Cuthber, Thanks for entertaining my experiment. And forgive me for directing it at you. I forgot your mother had just recently passed. And the bearing on the discussion is my attempt to isolate the "real" components of our mutual understanding of what "actually is the case". You have in you mind, this model of reality, that you "know" exists outside your mind. So do I. We can both conceive of ourselves and each other, as actual existing beings. We can both take an "objective" scientific view of the situation. We know it exists in the manner you suggest, with things separated by the speed of light, yet existing similtaneously from a "god's" eye view, to be "later" understood as consistent and connected, as the "knowledge" or information of the one time and place reaches the other. And the whole operation can be "understood" as actual and real, and we can both easily and automatically adjust our models appropriately, as soon as the facts come in. But we are not constrained from this understanding by any expectation that it is only when the facts come in, that something is real. We know reality ahead of time, and in retrospect. We know there is "something" we are modeling, that is real, in and of itself, with a power and size and age and consistency that dwarfs our limited, mortal selves. A thing that will be the final judge of what was real or not, what actually happened or did not. How is knowledge of this actualness, normal, rational human thought when held by a scientist, and broken, irrational, faulty human thought when held by a theist? Why this has bearing on the discussion, is because it is one of the main pro OP points that this kind of thinking is what "believers" do, that makes them broken. If it turns out to be the same kind of thing that scientists do, then one would have to be careful not to poison the well. Just seems to me a reasonable assumption that we must, on many levels, and in many ways, be drawing from the same well. Whatever notion of God we may consider to exist or not exist. Regards, TAR2 And this is a potential central consideration, in answering the question of why we give a pass to "believers". Inow, Sorry, cross posted. But how many thousand years will it take to support the notion that there is currently actually something going on on the other side of the Milky Way? Seems rather unsupportable a notion, to me. Regards, TAR2

Just wondering, considering this "mortality" concept we have, where you draw the line, between fact and fiction when it comes to dead relatives. Consider this thought experiment. Take your Grandmother, or Great Grandmother, or someone who you knew and touched, who is now nonexistent (or dead if you please.) Now consider a time period, between the last time you saw her alive, and the first time you learned of her death. At what point, if any, did you remove her from the "real" category, and put her in the "nonexistent" category? Does that moment coincide with the actual moment of her death? Was there any length of time, that passed, where she was "alive" in your memory and model of the world, where she was actually not alive in reality? Would this knowledge of her, as a living Grandmother, that you had for that brief time, be considered by you, to be fact or fiction? Is your current knowledge of her, as a living Grandmother, fact or fiction? Just a thought experiment, a challege to your contention that unbroken people are able to tell fact from fiction. Where and how exactly, do you draw the line? And consider a "dream", an ideal, or a plan, or invention, that is completely fictional, as a concept in your mind, that "becomes" a fact, as soon as you bring it into existence. As soon as you build it, or draw it, or share the idea with another human. Take a simple thing like the statement "let's meet at Joe's at seven". When does the fiction become fact? As soon as it is said? As soon as it is heard? As soon as it is agreed upon? As soon as you are on your way to Joe's? When you and the other(s) are actually at Joe's? If two people look up at the night sky on a clear summer night and imagine together that each belongs to the same reality that includes the other, and the both together belong to that greater reality, and one suggests, let's me and you, call "it" God. Where exactly would you draw the line, between fact and fiction? And where exactly did those two people make any logical error, or do anything contrary to reality? Where is the fact part and where is the fictional part? In your estimation? Regards, TAR2

I was hoping for a response from Villain to my invitation to describe God in a "real" way. For I thought it was certain to yield some truth. Truth about what real thing it is, that believers in God, believe in. It must be "something". Mustn't it? Has it "no" real components? I ask these questions, because while I believe, that when it comes to determining facts, about objective reality, scientific method is superior to faith (pretending to know what you do not know), but when it comes to looking into the eyes of another human, who has just lost a loved one, and "knowing" what to do about it...pretending to know, what you do not know, seems to be the only available option. Scientific method in this case falls, rather meek and empty, to the floor, with no good answers to "what to do about it." "Eh, that's life" is a rather factual but inappropriate answer. And what seems to become apparent to people, when faced with death, is that "life goes on"...without the dead person. That reality exists, with or without him/her, and therefore reality will continue to exist, with or without ME. This realization automatically gives you knowledge of something you don't need to sense. Because you know it will be the case, even when you are "no longer the case". How can we pretend to know this that we do not know, this objective reality thing that was before we were, and will be after we are not? What is this thing that is so absolutely required for us to be at all, that has the audacity to be without us? We must believe in this objective reality thing. And our certain knowledge of its existence is not pretence, Might be silly to give it a name, as if you know it, or talk to it on a one to one basis, as if it is your friend or enemy, or consider it will still contain you in some way when you die. But it might not be broken to believe in it, and associate with it in such ways. In fact, its existence seems to be very much the case, and the associations our forefather's claimed to it are not so very different from ours. Not really different. Not different enough to call them broken, and us fixed. Not different enough, at all.

Villain, Not completely off topic. One of the early acknowledgements in this thread, was that inorder to evaluate the OP we would have to define God in some sort of mutually understood way, along with defining belief and broken. Many here have already disallowed "reality" as being usable as evidence of God. I have not disallowed it, in fact have noted to Inow that it is rather unfair to "disallow" the only kind of evidence that would be considered evidence. In my book, you are granted full access to all of reality, from which to draw your evidence. Stars, and Galaxies, all of time and space, the flowers in a mountain pasture, the black hole in the center of the Milky Way, the thoughts in our minds, the covenants we have with each other, our laws, our neurology, our DNA, our history, our ability to predict the future, our ability to converse with unseen others, the pluck of a guitar string...anything we know about, anything we dream about, anything we feel...anything we know. I am open to your evidence. Just tell me. The others may or may not follow your logic. But if it is about true things, they will have no trouble understanding. They are humans too. Same basic brain structure, same basic senses, same basic chemicals at work, access to the same internet, to look up corraborating evidence, whether it be physical or metaphysical, literal or figurative. Give at least a general idea of what this "truth" is that you see. I am fairly confident that the truth can stand up to any and all tests. That is sort of the nature of truth. It fits, exactly, with what is the case. Regards, TAR2

Inow, Thank you. I think that is the first time, or at least one of the very few times I ever got 2 pluses on a post. Law of averages I guess. If I post enough times, I will eventually accidently say something sensible. I am like the room full of monkeys banging randomly on the typewriters. Regards, TAR2 By the way. I don't think the monkeys would EVER type out the complete works of Shakespeare. And I believe there is not a proof that they indeed ever could. And if I am right, that there is no way to randomly generate the complete works of Shakespeare, that would be proof of sorts, that there MUST be something more than random chance at work in the universe. Not necessarily the God of Abraham, or Zeus, or Thor, or the life force of Star Wars, but "something" more than random chance... that would require the general idea of "God" to not be something only held by broken people. Put it this way. Think of the entire works of Shakespeare as being a number. An exact number. That was in base 60 or base 80 or 100 or whatever number of different letters there are, lowercase and caps, plus punctuation marks, spaces, indents, title fonts, line spaces and such. And this base 100 number is scores of millions of digits long. That is a way too big a number to accidently arrive at. There are too many other numbers that could be represented by this scheme, that are all NOT the complete works of Shakespeare. Way more NOT the complete works of Shakespeare than there are molecules in the observable universe. You cannot accidently type this exact number.

Villain, There is an appropriate tension between rationality and tradition/faith as depicted near the end of the Wiki article on "Reason". I only mention it, because its important to note that you are not the only one to have noticed that the world exists. Your traditions and faith may be very important to you. That does not give you rights to claim knowledge of the world that others do not have. You have to be able to share the knowledge, or it is not knowledge. Not objective knowledge. Your acknowledgment, that you do not care a small dirty rodents behind, about Inow's position, makes me think you very likely feel the same about my position, or ANYBODY else's position...because most other positions do not include the "knowledge" of the greater reality, that you have arrived at. One of Inow's main points in this thread, which I agree with to a large extent, is that when it comes to understanding nature, going by "faith" and tradition, has proven to be "not so good a way", as testing your beliefs against nature itself, and relying on other people to verify your findings. That logic and reason WIN over faith and tradition. By admitting you don't care a hoot about Inow's position, you have proven to me that you have no interest in finding out anything at all about nature. About objective reality. About the world we share. You just want to pretend you know the truth, and the rest of the world is too blind to see it. Well maybe you see it clearly. But if it is the truth you are looking at, then it has to be referring to the same world Inow is looking at, and I am looking at, and the rest of humanity is looking at. If you can show us all the evidence you have of a thing actually being the case. We are all ears. If its really there, you should have no trouble at all, pointing it out to us. Regards, TAR2 P.S. I was going to speak for you, and interpret your position to Inow, because it contains some elements that I have been trying to argue, and point out, during this quite openminded and wide ranging discussion around the idea that "people who believe in God are broken", but alas it appears you might be a good case in point, so I will let you speak for yourself. P.P.S But so as to not undermine any future arguments I may forward, I would like to mention that I did not just say that faith and tradition were not important, nor did I say that there was no truth in faith and tradition. I only was asserting that evidence and deductive reasoning have a better track record, when it comes to finding out facts and true things, and in determining what really is the case, than has been the track record of taking as literal fact, the myths of our forefathers.

Moontanman, I disagree. #1 is that nothing exists that we cannot investigate empirically therefore believing in something that cannot be supported by evidence is broken reasoning. #2 is that God made everything, God is real, it controls everything and we should not question god or how the universe works. #3 between these two extremes are the people who believe at some level or who compartmentalize their beliefs in such a way that the natural and the supernatural are simply separate things. Are your three general types. (#3ish)You left out a few "types". For instance immortal who believes that what we learn through empirical evidence is one thing, and the supernatural is another, and we have access to both. And the supernatural connection is more important than the empirical one.. (#2 and #1ish)And then types like me who believe god is not supernatural, but nature itself, and we can't possibly be anything else, but its creation, and we have no way to remove ourselves from reality nor does reality have anyway to rid itself of us. (#2ish)And you didn't mention anything about people who believe in God as a Ideal to be followed. That exists in ones heart and mind and societal rules and the minds of fellow "believers" in the Ideal, as a "real" thing that guides their behaviour, and sets their goals, and rewards them doing it right, and punishes them for doing it wrong. The difference being your three are framed in the negative third person. And mine in a more positive second and first person. You can not frame God in a positive first person light because you have already decided you don't need any "other" person but yourself to explain the entire shooting match. And anybody that "doesn't" feel this way is broken. And if this "first person only" view that you seem to hold, is "correct", well then I will be a monkey's uncle. Regards, TAR2

Moontanman, You left out a few "types". For instance immortal who believes that what we learn through empirical evidence is one thing, and the supernatural is another, and we have access to both. And the supernatural connection is more important than the empirical one.. And then types like me who believe god is not supernatural, but nature itself, and we can't possibly be anything else, but its creation, and we have no way to remove ourselves from reality nor does reality have anyway to rid itself of us. And you didn't mention anything about people who believe in God as a Ideal to be followed. That exists in ones heart and mind and societal rules and the minds of fellow "believers" in the Ideal, as a "real" thing that guides their behaviour, and sets their goals, and rewards them doing it right, and punishes them for doing it wrong. Regards, TAR2

Zapatos, No, you did not take me wrong. I meant what I said in the manner you took it. Inow in general, would not allow me to know, have knowledge of, another persons thoughts. I thought it unfair, that in light of this, he would claim knowledge of A Tripolation's, thoughts. My flip, in defense of Inow, was a confirmation of the possibility that we perhaps ARE able to know things we do not know about other people...and by extension nature itself. And I took this a little farther in addressing the essay Mr. Cretin linked. That perhaps we all know nature quite intimately, in that it is the only thing TO know. And took this even further to mean that we can know nature, and know when somebody else, is going against it. When somebody else is "getting it wrong". And we can make this determination about others, and often do. That in some ways even subjective views are already objective on some levels, and are true, to the extent that they are true. And that objective views have to be subjective views, by definition, in that they are singular human views, even when thought to be also the view of nature itself What that says about the thread question, I have no clue. Seems to argue in several directions at once. Probably why I sit on the fence. I don't really think we have it figured out completely yet. Not to my satisfaction, at least. People that believe in God are broken? Maybe. Maybe not. Regards, TAR2

the asinine cretin, I did think the essay was "more interesting than that". But I have already determined that there is nothing that is supernatural, and there is a natural explanation for everything. I was just proposing the next step. As in " if there is nothing supernatural, and everything has a natural explanation, then TAR2 already knows truth, as soon as he opens his eyes and lets it in." A scientist would do this, a religious person would do this. If we posit nature as both our source and our goal, we have to be right, because there is no "other" to come from, no "other" to be and no "other" to explore and no "other" to recognize, and no "other" to become when we die. And I thought it was interesting that the general human discourse on the nature of god, and the inappropriateness of faith in the supernatural as depicted in the essay and as expressed in the many "sides" that have been expressed in this thread, are roughly the same discourse I have with myself, all the time. Sort of funny. We can wait till we find the natural explanation through the scientific method, or just accept that the universe is wonderful and terrible on faith or intuition and wind up in the same place, either way. Regards, TAR2 After all, its not like scientific method, could ever discover anything that isn't true. or that nature could ever do anything that was not natural. Or that God could ever do anything other than that which is consistent with reality.

Zapatos, I agree certainly with the thought that it usually turns out that people who appear wrong to you, usually are not so wrong as you think. But there is probably also a correlary that would suggest that people that appear right to you, usually are not so right as you think. But both these things, probably being the case, it might be wise to say, the heck with objective truth, I'll just go with my best guess. When I read the Koran twice. Once for the jist and once for comprehension. It was after 9/11, which gave me quite a chip on my shoulder. I saw on 9/11 there was evil in the world, and I wanted to understand my enemy. What the heck had I done, that made me the great Satan, in anyone's eyes? I think I figured it out, and understand a lot of the shortcomings of both the groups I associate myself with, and the groups that I do not associate myself with. But I tend to think I am OK regardless of my issues, and my enemies simply have issues. But the point is, that I could read the Koran and know Mohammed's thoughts. What he was taking from the Bible, and what he was enhancing. When he was speaking as a messenger of ALLAH (truth) and when he was associating himself with Allah to validate his own power. You say that Inow can not know 1% of A Tripolations thoughts, and you may be right. But I think Inow CAN know, or have a good guess, based on those thoughts that A Tripolation expressed here, and other threads that Inow has read. And Inow would not have suggested to A Tripolation that he might be deep down lying to himself, if Inow didn't think that was a real possibility. Is it possible for me to evaluate Mohammed's deepest thoughts, and determine as well where he has given nature attributes nature does not have, and also tell where he has usurped the power of nature for himself? Yes I can. Because I know nature, and he/she/it is no Allah. That was Mohammed talking. Sometime talking sincerely about nature, and sometime making shit up. Regards, TAR2

the asinine cretin, Read the Maarten Boudry piece. Seems a thourough argument against supernatural things being approachable by science. But the definition of supernatural excludes supernatural things from nature in the first place (as is pointed out in the essay.) Which leads me to the interesting thought, in reference to this thread, that if God is a proxy for nature, as I have been arguing, and scientists will accept only natural explanations, then ANYBODY not believing in nature, as having both the first and last word, would indeed be broken. But since both scientists and religious people have nothing but complete faith in nature, then EVERYBODY who believes in nature, is not broken. Regards, TAR2

Inow, If you had a thought, that seemed rational and consistent, that fit nicely with all your other thoughts, that glued them all together, and someone were to show you good solid evidence that that thought was bogus, you would be in a tight spot. Your need for consistency and intellectual honesty would force you to either ignore the evidence and break your pact with yourself, or accept the evidence and become unglued. I think it very unfair of you to suggest to A Tripolation that he is deep down, lying to himself. Sort of unlike you. And not appropriate for the civil exchange of ideas, and seaching for truth, that you normally safeguard. I have been on threads with A Tripolation before, and I am quite sure that "getting at the truth" is one of his objectives as well. Seems better to me to attempt to understand the glue that holds another's thoughts together, than to imagine your's is the only glue that sticks. Regards, TAR2

the asinine cretin, I didn't read your "falsifiability" link, yet, perhaps I might learn something when I do. My mom (the departed mathematician, somewhat eccentric, strong believer in Christ, I often use as proxy for "believer",) would tell us (my sister, cousins, friends or whoever was present) her understanding of the fishes and loaves story. Jesus fed the multitude by pronouncing the several loaves and fishes that were apparently all they had, would be enough, and as these were passed around, the morsels and privately hidden peices of cheese and bread and berries or whatever, appeared from beneath the robes of those who had hidden such, for their own use, and were shared, and everybody ate. There is no magic or psuedoscience involved in such a miracle. No fishes or loaves needed to magically multiply. No rules of the universe needed to be violated. Only "Christian brotherhood" and "Jesus' Love" are required for the miracle to occur. Regards, TAR2

Moontanman, But we do have to consider, one of the other meanings of broken that has been discussed. That of "separated", as in the falling from Grace, or the fall of man. If looked at in this light, the uneducated, the "innocent child", the ignorant, are those of us, that are "closer" to nature, who have not yet been "polluted" by knowledge. Who have not yet eaten the fruit from the tree of wisdom. Who do not make a distinction between good and evil. There is, in Eastern Religions, this idea of purity, of "discounting" or attempting to remove the "unclean" from your being. This thought of "removing" the selfishness and want that "being separated" creates in your being. And of course that "unity" idea, which would be quite the opposite of broken. If "nature" is to be considered good or "god", which by most accounts it is, then "obeying it" or "getting close to it", or "believing in it" is not a false, broken thing, but a way to be that is desireable, and will yield both personal and common benefits. Few of us believe a child or a deer, or even a rat or goat-eating jaquar, is going to hell. We don't consider them responsible for their behavior and do not hold them to the same standards, that we hold ourselves, as "rational", learned, mature, responsible human beings. Theory being, that we have made the "break", where as, they have not. Regards, TAR2

Zapatos, I am in agreement with you, on the basis that I am not yet satisfied either that all counter points have been fully addressed. I am not so happy, for instance, with the equating of the concept of God, with the concept of the Easter Bunny. Although they are both "imaginary" concepts, the role that each play in my worldview are very very hugely different. I use again "my worldview", because its the one I have the most knowledge of, and use it, in the hope, that it is somehow understandable to other humans, that have similar equipment, that has evolved in the same environment (both gene-wise, and human culture-wise.) And I entertain both the concept of the Easter Bunny, and the concept of God. Even though I characterise myself as an atheist, being that an anthropomorphic god, makes no sense to me. And because I demand of myself "reasons" for believing something to be real, I can dismiss quite easily the concept of the Easter Bunny, as I can dismiss the concept of any particular God that has impossible characteristics. Any characterization of God proposed by another, to me, is an immediate straw man, that can be taken apart with very little trouble, as soon as the proposer claims that only by faith, can you know his/her god. Proves to me only that the God mentioned is true to that person, and has come primarily from their subjective store of commonly held stories that depict as a being or beings, the totality of the world we truely know. But this "totality of the world we truely know" is a concept that I hold in common with others. I would even guess that most, if not every person does "something" with this concept, and has in someway determined for themselves, their true relationship to this concept. A relationship that isn't conditional. A relationship that is real, and apparent and true, and does not require the permission of anybody, or anything else, to be the case. In my case, I feel alright about my relationship to reality and am rather sure, that while I am alive, it belongs to me and I to it, and when I die, at least it, will continue. But, here is where the concept of God differs from the concept of the Easter Bunny. This concept of God is actually referring to what actually is the case, really is true, and is commonly experienced by everybody. Certainly not experienced in the same way, and certainly, going by the amount of differing opinions about its characteristics, not given the same attributes, by everybody. So the belief in this God thing, that I, even as an Atheist, believe I can claim as mine, may be on some level, that same entity that religious people are basing their beliefs on. In which case, the Easter Bunny can't be compared to it. Regards, TAR2

the asinine cretin, I personally know the difference in character of a claim of falsifyable fact that we can all inspect together and the religious claims of imaginary flying donkeys. The later have the same laugh and cry effect on me, as they do you. But there is a large volume of reality to consider. And the most of it, lies outside my personal command. I make the assumption this is also the case for you. So from these assumptions I can join forces with you, and double (roughly speaking) the command of reality, that we could together have. The things you can show me are false, that I believed were true before comparing our knowledge, are easy for me to discard, and in the discarding, our combined knowledge of "objective" reality is increased. We can together, envision a slightly larger chunk of reality that we hold in common. And still together concede that the most of it, is NOT under our command. And since we rely on each other so heavily, in commanding the small bits of reality that we do command, it is disheartening indeed to run into people who believe that flying donkeys with angels on them that have messages for us from the guy that is truely in command, are real. How can we join forces with people like that? They must be broken. They refuse to drop the pretence, even in the face of the fact that their claims CANNOT coexist, with all the other things, we together know are true. Their only resort is to negate all that we know together, as illusion. Which turns my laugh, into a cry. But it begs for the question, "what command of the universe CAN I truely claim as mine?' and the next question, "what command of the universe CAN we together claim?", and the next question "who is a position to make an objective judgement on the case?" Which opens the door for a "true" belief that one might join forces with the mind that commands the universe, that sets the rules, that makes the planets orbit the Sun, that commands the flowers to bloom and the rainbows to arch across the sky, and let THIS mind, who we are so obviously created by, who we are so obviously subservient to, who we are so obviously under the command of, exist...and look to this mind, to make the required objective judgement. Regards, TAR2 it cannot be a mindless universe

the asinine cretin, Ok, so I thought I could lurk, but I can't. Too many thoughts half expressed and too many objections unanswered. I do not know the assumptions and figuring involved in the figure of how many molecules there are in the universe. You know which parts are left out, and which parts are included, and what facts are exptrapolated to arrive at a "plausable" number. And you know it is a guess, and an estimate, that given the starting assumptions the number cannot be greater than so and so, and must be at least so and so, so therefore there must be this many. You know what the definition of "observable" is, which leaves quite a chunk of the universe outside of the figure, and you leave out all the dark matter and energy that is "inside" the observable universe. These omissions that you make, allow you to claim to know something about the universe that I do not know, which you obviously do. But what if I don't know all your assumptions, or what if I don't agree with all your assumptions, or what if I don't know how you treated time in your figuring? Or how exactly you define the border between observable universe material and other than observable material? What if I thought you were talking about ALL the molecules in the UNIVERSE, as if you KNEW. As if you claimed to know something you do not know. Then I might figure you were making it up, and deluding yourself into thinking you had personal knowledge of the universe. That you had an objective certainty about the number of molecules in the universe. That you were making a claim that your model was fact...then my bullshit detector might go off. Regards, TAR2

Inow, I am not playing the victim. My attempts to think through, and argue through the implications and logic of the knowledge claims of those who believe in God and those who think believing in God is a "false" thing, have led me to certain insights, or conclusions about the grounds upon which both "sides" of this discussion are basing their claims of knowledge of objective reality. It is rather complicated to unravel and describe the subtle differences in the extent to which someone, myself for instance, believes they know something they do not know. And even more complicated to try to point out where I think someone else might be drawing the line between known things and things "greater than know". Especially if I am not granted any "real" ability to "know" what someone else is thinking. I am not "playing the victim", as much as simply recognizing that my take, and what I am trying to "discuss" is not coming across very well. My personal bullshit detector goes off when Mohammed has a talk with the angel Gabriel. My personal bullshit detector goes off when a scientist/mathematician says they know how many molecules there are in the universe AND that we don't even know anything about what most of the mass and energy in the universe even consists of. People believe they know things I don't believe they CAN know, all the time. Sometimes they actually DO know, what they claim to know. In fact, most of the time. My model of the world is limited to what I have been taught, or told, or learned of it, or experienced, or what of it, I contain in my body/heart/brain group, that evidently is made completely of reality, and is completely in reality. And what I claim to know is considerably huge in size and scope. I know there is this basement I am in, and this house, and this town, and route to work, and that building, and the cities I have visited, and the oceans and continents I have flown over, and the moon that astronauts from my country have visited, and planets and Suns beyond that. And upstairs is my family and in houses around, more families like mine, and in the cities I have visited and seen on TV and heard about and viewed on Google Earth, even more. More than I can concieve of, more than I can know. But I believe them to exist, and I believe them to KNOW the same reality I know. Same cities, same world, same Moon, same Sun, same worlds beyond. And I expect all the billions of people that currently exist on this planet, or ever existed on this planet, have some similar knowledge, and ability to know the truth, as I do. So we have a discussion topic here, "People that believe in God, are broken". I believe I know some of the ways they are, and some of the ways they are not. The people that believe in God don't want to hear how they are broken. The hard Atheists, do not want to hear how they are not. I am not playing the victim in announcing my "bowing out" of the thread. Just facing the reality that people are not all that interested in giving each other the benefit of the doubt, and trying to figure out what might be the common things we are referring to. What is figurative, what is literal, and what power we each really do have, to KNOW what we do not know. Regards, TAR

I have bowed out. In respect of Inow and the integrity of the thread. I might lurk around a bit, sitting on the fence, seeing myself in the words and thoughts of those on both sides of the issue.

Sorry Inow. I will bow out. I gave it my best shot. And never, not even once, did I think I was even the littlest bit, off topic. Thanks for the thread. I thought it was great. Regards, TAR2

Knowledge is power. And power corrupts. Absolute power, corrupts absolutely.

Ok, perhaps not MORE latitude, just some. As Athena mentions, we have to get our rules of behavior from somewhere. If some of us can take responsibility for our own actions and thoughts, and behave well, in the eyes of those around us, without the need for "hell and damnation" to be the principle thing we are avoiding in doing such, that is fine. But we can't let machines decide what is right and wrong for us, or formulae to determine when we are doing the appropriate thing, and when we are not. Cause someone has to build the machine, or write the formulae, and whatever the machine demanded or the formulae demanded would not be an "absolute" truth of any kind. It would be completely arbitrary, and serve only the purposes of the designer or mathematician. So Moses and Jesus after him, and Mohammed after him, "pretended" to know something they did not know. They themselves were most likely convinced they were telling the truth. And for all we know there is a "real" connection each of us has with the greater reality, where it is not "pretence" to feel it. And not "pretence" to go by what it tells you. When you, Inow, feel you are doing something for the good of society, you do it with little regard for how the members of society feel about your actions and thoughts. You are doing it "on your own" based on what you think is best for everyone. Where, scientifically speaking, are you getting this strength and certainty from? How do YOU know this thing? Is it a knowledge based on millenia of humans interacting with each other and developing rules of behavior together? No, you throw out anything that is over 200 years old, and anything that smells even a little like religion. So where do you get this "objective truth". Does it exist outside your head anywhere? Can it be tested? Can it be falsified? Where in the universe, do you find Scientific Method itself? It seems to me that you only find it in the hearts and minds of those that hold it, as a belief. And only see the results of it being put into practice. Never does "Scientific Method" itself, ever pay us a visit. We can not find it under rocks. Well I don't know that for sure, but I have not found it under any rocks that I have ever picked up. And anyone that claims they can find it under rocks, is pretending that they know something they don't know. Because "Scientific Method" does not actually exist. Not as something real. It is supernatural in character and has no place in the mind of a rational man or women. Society would be so much better off, if we showed these foolish people who believe only in the superiority of their individual intellect, logic, consistency and mathematical prowess, how silly their belief in such things as real, existing things we should all let guide our existence, is, in reality. The last two paragraphs are not entirely expressing my true feelings and beliefs. They are only meant as an "example" of true beliefs, held by one indivual, being misconstrued by another, as being "unfounded". Regards, TAR2 (although I will take credit for anything in those two paragraphs that actually makes any sense, because there is some of what I think, feel and believe, in those two paragraphs.)

Inow, Point taken. I have no argument. But its up to each of us, to make the determination of exactly which parts of reality are under our personal control, which parts of reality are under the collective control of our group, and which parts of reality could possibly fall under the control of the entire human race, ever. And even the conception of the last clause requires a bit of "pretending to know what you don't know". That, I suppose, is my only point. That we should give each other a bit of latitude, because none of us can claim knowledge of what is on the other side of the pretence line. And it is difficult to tell, from the "outside" of somebody elses mind, exactly where they, on the "inside" of their mind, are drawing the pretence line. And what type of thing they are imagining or pretending is on the other side. Regards, TAR2

Immortal, Didn't go to the link, sorry. There is certainly many "traditions". And truth of one kind or another to find in all of them. But a lot that is not objectively real and therefore not "true", as well. While I obviously don't know the answer to the thread question, since I have been all over the place, arguing every angle I can think of, pro and con, I would summarize my thoughts and feelings, by repeating something I think I mentioned before in this thread. People have been around for a long time. We have learned alot about reality and each other, and taught what we have learned to each other, and our children. If some belief was not appropriate to hold, it would not have been held for very long, because it would not have made "sense" and would not have served a purpose. Unlikely that any one of us could suddenly "see" the truth that everybody else has been missing for thousands of generations, over the vast expanse of this planet. Little things, particular things, new angles and insights, sure. But the big picture, the total package, we have had in view, the whole time. We are not the first, nor only to believe they knew the truth. My theory is that everybody did, and everybody does, know the truth...about something...but nobody ever did, or ever will, know the whole truth, about everything. It is not humanly possible to do so. But it is not dangerous or broken to pretend that there is such a thing as a view that sees it all. A God's eye view, from whose perspective you can "know" the whole truth, about everything, or at least have a "sense" of what that might entail. That it might be like what you DO know, multiplied by a zillion and having been like that for a long long time, and liable to continue that way, for a long time to come. Regards, TAR2