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Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - Cap'n Coconuts - 12-09-2017
This is a thread where I expound on things that people usually don't think about, as bizarre as that is for a Mario fansite. These things aren't quite Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, but they are probably Things Most Men Don't Want to Know.
Nonetheless, the unexamined life is not worth living--so join me, friends, on the path to true enlightenment.
Thoughts on Naturalism
Naturalism is the metaphysical theory that natural phenomena are the only things that exist. Everything is made up of matter and energy, governed solely by the laws of physics, and is utterly unaffected by any supernatural or spiritual agency whatsoever. There are no such things as souls and no such thing as an afterlife.
However, if I have no soul and there is no afterlife, then I have no alternative but to cease to exist when I die. I will be nothing but rotting meat 6 feet under the ground. My personality and memories will be gone forever. It would be as if every pleasure and sorrow I felt had never been.
My family, friends, acquaintances, and enemies will, at one point or another, also die. Their personalities and memories, too, will also be lost forever, including their memories of me.
When all is said and done, it will be as if I had never existed.
The same applies to all of humanity. Nothing in a natural universe is eternal, not even intelligent life. We could drive ourselves to extinction, perhaps through an engineered disease or mutually assured nuclear destruction. In billions of years, our Sun will expand into a red giant and reduce our planet to a charred husk--if it survives at all.
But even if we somehow avoid those things, there is no avoiding the death of the universe itself. Every physical action increases entropy, and the amount of usable energy in the universe decreases. Stars run by fusing lighter elements into heavier ones. There will be a time when too little energy and too little hydrogen exist to form new stars. The heat death of the universe will surely follow.
Or perhaps the universe will stop expanding and collapse in on itself. As that happens, the cosmos will heat up. We won't survive that, either. The strong, the weak, the wise, and the fool will meet the same bitter end.
Either way, all intelligent life will cease to exist, and everything we have accomplished will be all for nothing. Technological progress. Societal reforms. Artistic expressions. Culture. Political power. Riches. Fame. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
Therefore, naturalism implies existential nihilism. If it is true, then our existence has absolutely no value or purpose. There isn't even a reason to make your own meaning for life as the existentialists do because you won't remember all those warm and fuzzy feelings when you die. It makes no difference. There's no reason to kill yourself or anyone else either--because again, it makes no difference. You dying 50 years from now will have the same effect as you dying right now.
But enough about that, let's talk about morality! How does that work if naturalism is true?
People have beliefs about what justice is and what it isn't. What is good? What is evil? Do you even know? Can you even know? People certainly think they do. They have all sorts of ideas on how they should live and how they should be governed. Pro-choice, pro-life, feminism, men's rights, LGBT, traditional family values, liberal, conservative, etc.
But if humans have no purpose--certainly not a divine one--what can you tell me what we ought to do? How we ought to live? Can you tell me what ought from what is, especially if what presently is will inevitably not be? Will my ethical choices matter in the grand scheme of things?
If there are no spirits nor afterlives, then they cannot possibly matter.
Therefore, naturalism implies moral nihilism. We cannot have any meaningful sense of good or evil if the end result for both in the grand scheme of things is exactly the same.
Thus have I reasoned. But is it truly reasoning? If natural things are the only things that exist, then everything is bound by the laws of physics. Thus, everything is predetermined. There is no free will. Your thoughts and actions are caused only by the interaction of particles in and outside of your body. Wikipedia defines reason as "consciously making sense of things"--but without any free will, I have no ability to consciously make myself do anything.
If you believe in free will, reason, morality, and/or purpose in life, you cannot logically be a naturalist. To do so is to engage in doublethink. If any of those things exist, then the supernatural must also exist, and must by necessity be interlinked with it. Fulfilling our purpose, then, begins by understanding the supernatural: to fear God (whoever He is), and keep his commandments (whatever they are), because this is the whole duty of man.
It is the only possible duty of man.
You literally have nothing better to do with your time.
Memento mori, ladies and gentlemen.
This concludes today's Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts. To be continued...
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - bigpotato - 12-09-2017
Solid reasoning (probably because I agree with you). But it's good to start these discussions. I shall be watching this thread with interest.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - Turly Gang - 12-09-2017
Logic is overrated. You need to use it in order to figure stuff out, but since it's a process of synthesis using two previously-conceived ideas, you need to figure stuff out before you can use it.
In all seriousness though, I believe that there has to be some sort of omniscient being in order for philosophy to have any real merit in the first place. For the reason stated (though in a somewhat joking manner) in the above paragraph, every single school of thought on morality and the purpose of life or whatnot would need to start from one of two places:
1: Divine (or demonic) inspiration, whether or not the person is aware of it.
2: An impulsive and largely chaos-theory-based reaction to an idea or scenario.
So you either need to have a self-perpetuating faith in a thing that lacks any physical form or empirical evidence, or you need to have an intellectually-overriding emotional connection to something that lacks any physical form or empirical evidence. Neither sounds entirely logical, but I suppose that's because nothing that we do is ever really ENTIRELY logical. Treating one's viewpoint as "self-evident" is the most common quick fix, but it's a Band-Aid fix for a wound that most people don't bother sterilizing.
In spite of the fact that I've been called a religious zealot more than once in my life, I basically look at the world in two different ways; through the eyes of faith, and through the eyes of what is apparent. Apparently, everything is chaos. That's all that you ever see, and it's all that any rational being would have any reason to believe in if left to his own devices. And yet, I believe that there is something more, if for no reason other than the fact that the church I go to has a service every weekend, and there are always people there. But there are other reasons why I believe, and one of those reasons is that there are people hunkered down somewhere in their homes, talking about how much better the world would be without religion. As though they're just so sure that it really matters at all whether their side wins and their opponents lose. As though the vision of the world they have, and who they help and hurt, is somehow objectively more important than somebody else's view, and the people who they help and hurt. SOMETHING is either pulling us from the outside or pushing us from the inside. There is a precedent for belief in what can't be seen, and precedents, regardless of how far they've been twisted and turned and misinterpreted, do not exist without reason. At least, that is what is apparent. And..."self-evident," I guess.
Thinking sure is complicated and full of pitfalls. It's no wonder we don't do it more often.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - Cap'n Coconuts - 12-09-2017
(12-09-2017, 02:19 AM)Soopakoopa Wrote: So you either need to have a self-perpetuating faith in a thing that lacks any physical form or empirical evidence, or you need to have an intellectually-overriding emotional connection to something that lacks any physical form or empirical evidence.
If it counts, Christ did have a physical form and there are some facts about his life that are commonly accepted. The issue is whether or not He was actually God in the flesh, did miracles, and died for our sins. Cold-Case Christianity, a book by J. Warner Wallace, tries to take evidence from the past to prove Christianity. I might write my thoughts about that some time in the future, because people are more likely to listen to me if I express ideas in my own words than if I just tell them to buy books.
Quote:Faith and reason is a careful balance, and it's one that people just love messing around with, usually for reasons along the lines of "come on, I can't believe people still think that in <year>" or "but no, really, my point of view is obvious and you're just a living caricature of ignorance and evil, right?"
well, people will be jerks for just about any reason that makes them feel superior
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - Turly Gang - 12-09-2017
(12-09-2017, 02:58 AM)Cap'n Coconuts Wrote: well, people will be jerks for just about any reason that makes them feel superiorThe one universal constant that everyone can seemingly agree on, regardless of race, culture, religion or upbringing.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - HylianDev - 12-10-2017
I've gotta say, this is pretty insulting. It's easy to tell when somebody's only agenda is to make other people's philosophies look bad.
Since you specifically chose to look at another worldview with your view's ideas of meaning and morality, surprise, they don't line up.
First of all, who cares how bleak naturalism might look. If I have cancer would you suggest that I just choose a worldview where I don't since that's just too depressing?
Second of all, I give my life meaning the same way you do. If you're a Christian, let's face it, you aren't meant to be on MFGG right now. You're commanded to go preach the gospel, not go to college and get a career and etc. The blood of every sinner you don't warn is on your hands. Jesus said to not even worry about food; when you go somewhere to preach, somebody will give you some. Yet here you are living like a naturalist, enjoying what the world has to offer.
Third of all, your morality is probably only different than mine on a surface level. We assimilated to our society's morality. If you claim the Bible is the perfect moral authority but are against child sex trafficking and genocide (Numbers 31:17-18), for example, then you're being hypocritical.
If you're against pedophilia, you're probably against it for the same two reasons I am: you were raised to strongly denounce it, and you understand that it causes bad psychological harm. Not because of the "objective moral standard" you claim to have, which encouraged it at one point and never condemned it.
If you want to discuss.philosophy, awesome. Don't come out to try and deliberately misrepresent other worldviews please.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - Money - 12-10-2017
![[Image: 1041_11.gif]](http://media.chick.com/tractimages67491/1041/1041_11.gif)
CC's argument summed up.
Yo hey maybe people realize the fact their lives are short and will ultimately be forgotten is part of the reason they do good? Because they know everyone's in the same boat and that there's no purpose in being needlessly cruel for temporary gain? Like f*** I'd consider myself someone who's spiritual but if the only reason you do good is to get good boy points so God will give you a thumbs up when you die then you're kinda a self absorbed dick.
Plus most "naturalists" dont actually believe in the things you claim they do, lol. Everyone's a product of their environment and humans are biologically wired to act certain ways so "free will" doesnt REALLY exist. Reason (the process of finding the truth) may be subject to bias and "absolute truth" will never actually be reached, but that doesnt mean that some things are closer to it than others by all measurable metrics (2 is bigger than 1 even if infinity cant ever be reached). I've already covered morality (making people suffer is bad yo bc theyre goin thru the same s***), and lol @ the idea of naturalists thinking there's purpose in life.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - VinnyVideo - 12-10-2017
HD, it sounds like you're accusing Coconuts of "deliberate misrepresentation" of what naturalism is, but your post says nothing about what you think naturalism is or should be. I think what Coconuts is saying is that if you take the philosophy of naturalism to its logical extreme, it's very hard to synthesize meaning or morality from life. Maybe you'd live in a way that's useful to you, or because you don't want to see others suffer, but even in that scenario, your actions would have very little meaning in the grand scheme of things.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - HylianDev - 12-10-2017
Vinny, yeah you're right. I should've said a little more about it at least.
To my mind, naturalism isn't a philosophy I chose because it's really cool, it's just what I see as fact. The only effect is has on my life is that I don't add other philosophies to my worldview. I live the same as most people, except without the occasional mention of a god of some sort.
The way I see most Christians, or most Western people really, is that they're 99% naturalists except "OH YEAH God happened that one time. And I love him and stuff". They live the way I do for the same reasons and with the same motivations. They believe in science. They agree with physics, which is pretty much naturalism. But where it counts, they add the currently prevailing religion.
To my mind, they don't get meaning from God, they get meaning from themselves. You don't play video games to glorify God and give you meaning. You do it because you like fun. You refrain from reckless decisions so you don't have to face the consequences and risk unhappiness, or because you don't want to see others suffer.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - Evil Yoshi Toes - 12-10-2017
@HylianDev Christianity is pretty broad, and there are a lot of different versions of Christian belief. Not all Christian religions tell their followers to drop everything and worship God 24/7, or to forget that science exists. Most modern commonly practiced forms of Christianity encourage people to use their talents and actions to live life fully and morally (according to the morals that religion teaches). Christians don't have to be radicals in order to follow their religion unless they are part of a radical form of Christianity. And this of course goes for all religions.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - GothGirlGangBlasterMaster - 12-10-2017
EDIT: my poopy phone submit before i could type a reply. will fix in a minute
i'm gonna focus on the main point which is that there's no inherent point to a finite existence because the whole argument basically revolves around that
first of all dying 50 years from now absolutely is different from dying today. there's 50 years of possibilities cut out. 50 years of meeting new people, learning new things, teaching people s***, creating things and leaving behind memories. and that's not even getting into s*** like starting a family or something that leaves behind your genes or memes for centuries.
your point is that the universe will eventually end, so nothing a person does will affect the outcome. it's like a math equation with no variable: 2+2 always equals 4.
while it's true that on the scale of billions of years we won't have much effect, it's completely pointless for living creatures to operate on that scale. a person can make decisions that affect people for a month, a year, a decade or even a lifetime. it's because we only live for a short time that our decisions have meaning. if you or i can have a lasting positive impression on a person's life, we should be proud of that impact, even if the people we influenced will also someday die.
so it appears you believe in an infinite life after death. i don't want to get too far into it, but consider this: infinity is a lot longer than the ~75 years a person lives. so does that mean a religious person shouldn't give a f*** about anything other than going to heaven or hell? is injustice acceptable in the long term? should you just do the bare minimum to ensure salvation and just treat the whole of your mortal existence as a chore, a prelude to forever?
whether you believe in an afterlife or just acknowledge the inevitable heat death of the universe, you can still value your own life and what happens in and after it.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - HylianDev - 12-10-2017
I want to kind of re-state my point, hopefully in a more concise and civil way.
Your conclusion here seems to be summed up pretty good here:
Quote:If you believe in free will, reason, morality, and/or purpose in life, you cannot logically be a naturalist1. Free Will
I don't believe in free will.
2. Reason
I believe in reason because it produces results. Typically the Eric Hovind types would jump in and say "but how can you trust your brain to process reason if it's randomly evolved" or something of that sort. I can verify patterns and because of that I am more likely to survive as a living organism, and my kind has increased quality and length of life by a long shot. That's a decent -- though imperfect -- metric for how trustworthy my logic is. The 0.01% chance that I'm wrong about reason seems to me to be pretty much reserved to "nothing is real as you know it, the universe is your own illusion" or something like that. My response to that is: surely you don't claim to be any more certain than me that this isn't the case.
3. Morality
As far as morality, it seems like you define it way too narrowly.
The whole subjective vs objective morality thing, for instance. Objective morality is literally just subjective morality, except some people like to go around saying "god's morality is better than yours". Objective morality might as well be a kind of subjective morality. That's only point one; other points include the haughty idea that whatever moral system you follow and claim to be the objective one really IS the best one. There's so much in-fighting, especially in Christianity, that any claim of objectiveness from anybody of any worldview, especially someone who says "here dude read this other book that was written by people I don't know and can't understand in any sort of personal way", shouldn't be taken too seriously in my opinion.
Where does my "morality" come from? As I said in a previous post, the same place as yours. But when I talk about morality, here's what I say: Morality is a practical, political thing. The idea that objective morality exists, and that the purpose of man is to fear God and keep his commandments, seems entirely contrary to what morality should really be about. It's not about obeying authority. I obey the law, and pay taxes to a system that punishes people who disobey the law; in return, the world is better to me than it would be without the law. I have my strong criticisms of how we do this, but it's better than nothing. Now, a lot of people will disagree with my specific view of morality; anarchists probably think we could get along better without cops, fascists think we need MORE cop action, etc. But it's the people who believe in objective morality that are unique in that they offer no solutions and no reasons for believing what they believe. If I'm wrong, feel free to do a big write-up about this sentence; I genuinely believe and stand by what I just said.
4. Purpose
My purpose and your purpose are one in the same. Happiness.
I know I can experience happiness, I know I can experience fun, I know I can experience love and joy and peace. I'm motivated to do things that will help me experience these things. Just like you.
Even the world's most devoted Christian is a hedonist, in that they do what they do because they love God and obeying God gives them pleasure. They want to go to heaven, the ultimate hedonist paradise, where they can worship God all day long and experience nothing but pleasure for all eternity. The same can be said of Islam and Buddhism by only changing a few words.
Trigger warning on this next part:
So your main points are all pretty thoroughly debunked, if you ask me. By my posts, and the posts of others.
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
SpoilerBut I'd also like to get to the whole "you aren't committing suicide right this instant, therefore clearly proving the existence of Yahweh, national god of Israel and Canaanite storm god-turned-primary deity" thing.
Cap'n Coconuts, I know you're a smart guy. You clearly do a great deal of thinking. But this argument was really not good. I just can't express what it's like to open up a thread where a 20-something on a Mario forum says that most people are for some reason scared of the divine knowledge you're about to drop, and then your argument amounts to "atheists, why haven't you killed yourselves? check mate".
Also you quoted Ecclesiastes more than once, a book from the Old Testament. I believe there is one and only mention of the afterlife in the Old Testament, and here it is, Ecclesiastes 3:21:
Quote:Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"
The Old Testament doesn't believe in an afterlife. The book you quoted bangs into your head almost every other verse how meaningless life is.
You might say "why bother keeping God's commandments if there isn't an afterlife?" Well, Ecclesiastes is widely believed to have been written by Solomon, who is also believed to have written Proverbs. Let's take a look there, chapter 1:
Quote:10 My son, if sinful men entice you,
do not give in to them.
11 If they say, “Come along with us;
let’s lie in wait for innocent blood,
let’s ambush some harmless soul;
12 let’s swallow them alive, like the grave,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
13 we will get all sorts of valuable things
and fill our houses with plunder;
14 cast lots with us;
we will all share the loot”—
15 my son, do not go along with them,
do not set foot on their paths;
16 for their feet rush into evil,
they are swift to shed blood.
17 How useless to spread a net
where every bird can see it!
18 These men lie in wait for their own blood;
they ambush only themselves!
19 Such are the paths of all who go after ill-gotten gain;
it takes away the life of those who get it.
Basically, read all of Proverbs 1. The author is saying, "don't get caught up in evil, or bad things will happen to you". You'll die, or get hurt, or get in trouble.
Back to Ecclesiastes: my favorite way to sum up its meaning is with verse 9:10, here:
Quote:Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
Do what do you, and mean it. You are going to die, and then you'll have no knowledge of anything and none of it will have mattered, so make it count.
Amen, Solomon.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - HylianDev - 12-10-2017
(12-10-2017, 12:31 PM)Evil Yoshi Toes Wrote: @HylianDev Christianity is pretty broad, and there are a lot of different versions of Christian belief. Not all Christian religions tell their followers to drop everything and worship God 24/7, or to forget that science exists. Most modern commonly practiced forms of Christianity encourage people to use their talents and actions to live life fully and morally (according to the morals that religion teaches). Christians don't have to be radicals in order to follow their religion unless they are part of a radical form of Christianity. And this of course goes for all religions.
Christianity is indeed very broad. But that's where things get tricky: how do you judge Christianity? By what's said in the Bible, or by the beliefs that a particular Christian has?
In my opinion, there's often at least one disconnect among Christian beliefs: usually the "why believe at all" part doesn't really have much of an answer. They might say "the universe needs a creator!" and use the old Ray Comfort "every painting needs a painter, every building needs a builder" thing, but rearranging pre-existing paint into a pre-existing painting within a universe with time and physics isn't comparable in any way to creating matter itself within a universe, especially since time is a property of the universe and time is required for the universe to have not existed and then existed.
Another disconnect is usually "I believe the Bible!" but typically they believe the teachings they were brought up with, or teachings they like. I'm convinced that if somebody sat down with 0 Biblical knowledge, was told that the Bible was 100% truth, and read it cover to cover, they wouldn't come up with a belief system anything like modern liberal Christianity. There's an urgency all over the New Testament to save the lost and to live right for God because the end of the world is right around the corner.
So my answer to that is: if the Bible is indeed your standard, which church in Revelation best related to your life? How much blood is on your hands?
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - Cap'n Coconuts - 12-11-2017
(12-10-2017, 08:14 AM)HylianDev Wrote: I've gotta say, this is pretty insulting. It's easy to tell when somebody's only agenda is to make other people's philosophies look bad.
Could not the same have been said of Socrates? You know, corrupter of the youth, bringer forth of strange gods, general philosophical gadfly and bogeyman of Ancient Greece.
Or perhaps I'm not here just to "make other ideas look bad", but to actually evaluate ideas and their implications, and I decided to critique naturalism first.
Quote:Since you specifically chose to look at another worldview with your view's ideas of meaning and morality, surprise, they don't line up.
Is this a roundabout way of calling me "biased"?
I have my own presuppositions and biases, yes. So does everyone else. That has no bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsehood of anything I have said.
And frankly, I'm doing a better job at it than you are.
Quote:First of all, who cares how bleak naturalism might look. If I have cancer would you suggest that I just choose a worldview where I don't since that's just too depressing?
I certainly care, and Bigpotato certainly cares, and I contend that you should.
Besides that, I don't think I implied that naturalism was false because it was too depressing.
Quote:Second of all, I give my life meaning the same way you do.
My meaning in life is defined by my closeness with God, and yours is defined by living apart from God. How are these the same thing? Are they not the opposite?
Quote:If you're a Christian, let's face it, you aren't meant to be on MFGG right now. You're commanded to go preach the gospel, not go to college and get a career and etc. The blood of every sinner you don't warn is on your hands. Jesus said to not even worry about food; when you go somewhere to preach, somebody will give you some. Yet here you are living like a naturalist, enjoying what the world has to offer.
Does my apparent hypocrisy change whether or not what I said is true? Absolutely not. How faithfully I follow God's commandments have no bearing on whether or not they should be followed. Even the Apostle Paul, as faithful as he was, struggled with his own sinful nature.
Anyway, MFGG is not a thing I use to make my life "meaningful". Fangaming is nothing more than a hobby to me. You have assumed it is something more. Or, perhaps, you are interpreting my meaning in life by your beliefs--wait, weren't you just criticizing me for applying my beliefs to other worldviews?
Quote:Since you specifically chose to look at another worldview with your view's ideas of meaning and morality, surprise, they don't line up.
You see, your responses to me thus far aren't really all that reasonable. You are arguing with your emotions and with personal attacks.
I really doubt you have the intellectual or moral high ground you seem to think you do.
Quote:Third of all, your morality is probably only different than mine on a surface level. We assimilated to our society's morality. If you claim the Bible is the perfect moral authority but are against child sex trafficking and genocide (Numbers 31:17-18), for example, then you're being hypocritical.
You made a reference to the scriptures! It's a shame you didn't do that for the earlier railing accusations against them in your reply, but here goes.
First, it's convenient that you skipped over the immediate context, which would have given you a reason for people being killed. Here's some highlights you missed:
Quote:Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people. (Numbers 31:2)
Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD. (Numbers 31:16)
So this event, which you call a genocide (emotionally loaded, like everything else in your post) was because they had caused the people of Israel to fall away to sin! This is not kiling them based on their nationality, genetics, or even religion. This would not have happened if Midian had left the Israelites alone.
And as for "child sex trafficking"? Now that is insulting. It's easy to tell when somebody's only agenda is to make other people's religions look bad. /s
Yes, they spared the little girls. In the custody of Israelites, they would learn the law of Moses. Many of them would even be married to Israelites. But child sex trafficking? Perhaps I have gone partly blind from seeing such an audacious accusation, but I don't see that in the text!
Quote:If you're against pedophilia, you're probably against it for the same two reasons I am: you were raised to strongly denounce it, and you understand that it causes bad psychological harm. Not because of the "objective moral standard" you claim to have, which encouraged it at one point and never condemned it.
If you look for pedophilia specifically? Probably not.
If you look for illicit sex, of which pedophilia is a subset? Absolutely.
Quote:which encouraged it
Is that explicitly in the scriptures somewhere, is it your interpretation, or is it someone else's?
Quote:If you want to discuss.philosophy, awesome. Don't come out to try and deliberately misrepresent other worldviews please.And what have I misrepresented? From what I can tell, you've misrepresented me far more than I have misrepresented anything.
Moneyman Wrote:
CC's argument summed up.
Appeal to ridicule (posting a Chick Tract comparing me to him). Straw man ("what's to keep me from becoming a god" even though I never said that). Moneyman's argument summed up.
I have trouble seeing why I ever bother arguing with you. Time and time again, you have chosen to mock people and ideas you don't like. If you're not going to take me seriously, then maybe you should stop posting in this thread. Perhaps I shouldn't dignify you with any further responses because you deserve none.
And the rest of this I'm just going to skim through because replying to everything is time-consuming and exhausting.
Blastermaster Wrote:your point is that the universe will eventually end, so nothing a person does will affect the outcome. it's like a math equation with no variable: 2+2 always equals 4.
Well, it's more like there are variables, but they basically get multiplied by zero at some point. It's something like lim t-> ∞ of x*(1/t); Your impact X is there, but it becomes less significant as t increases.
Quote:while it's true that on the scale of billions of years we won't have much effect, it's completely pointless for living creatures to operate on that scale. a person can make decisions that affect people for a month, a year, a decade or even a lifetime. it's because we only live for a short time that our decisions have meaning. if you or i can have a lasting positive impression on a person's life, we should be proud of that impact, even if the people we influenced will also someday die.
But that positive influence you've had on them will die with them unless there's a higher purpose for it that transcends nature.
Quote:I don't believe in free will.
If you don't believe in free will, then why were you acting as if you do?
You were offended that I expressed my thoughts in a certain way. It doesn't make sense to be offended at me if I couldn't willfully insult you, nor does it make sense if I didn't have the will to make ideas look bad. You are contradicting your words with your actions.
Quote:The Old Testament doesn't believe in an afterlife
The Old Testament doesn't believe in anything. It's a collection of books.
Though from my impressions, it not that it denies the afterlife so much as it has no idea what the afterlife is. The last verse of Ecclesiastes says that "God shall bring every work into judgment", which doesn't seem very sensible thing to do if there's nothing left of us after death to reward or punish.
Quote:But I'd also like to get to the whole "you aren't committing suicide right this instant, therefore clearly proving the existence of Yahweh, national god of Israel and Canaanite storm god-turned-primary deity" thing.
Although my original post was clearly influenced by Ecclesiastes, It was not written to prove that Yahweh specifically existed. I suppose "whoever He is" is not broad enough.
Regardless, you really should know better.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - HylianDev - 12-11-2017
So first off i want to say that my posts weren't written as well as they could've been and I was being kind of arrogant. My bad. I want this so be a constructive discussion.
To address your points directed to me:
Quote:Could not the same have been said of Socrates? You know, corrupter of the youth, bringer forth of strange gods, general philosophical gadfly and bogeyman of Ancient Greece.
Or perhaps I'm not here just to "make other ideas look bad", but to actually evaluate ideas and their implications, and I decided to critique naturalism first.
I didn't mean it was insulting in that you shouldn't ever criticize naturalism. I want to be right and I want my ideas to get better, so I want people to criticize it. I more meant it was insulting in that the answers to a lot of your criticisms seem intuitive to me, and I figured they'd probably seem intuitive to most people, which I guess was an incorrect assumption.
Quote:Is this a roundabout way of calling me "biased"?
I wouldn't say it's a roundabout way of calling you biased, it was more of a way of pointing out that your argument wasn't great, which might imply that you're biased, or that your argument was just flawed.
Quote:I have my own presuppositions and biases, yes. So does everyone else. That has no bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsehood of anything I have said.
This isn't really relevant. Even if I did say that just to call you biased, this isn't much of an answer to the criticism. This would really only be an answer if I directly called you biased and said nothing to criticize your argument.
Quote:I certainly care, and Bigpotato certainly cares, and I contend that you should.
Besides that, I don't think I implied that naturalism was false because it was too depressing.
Why do you care how depressing the truth is? This seems strongly anti-truth to me. The way I see your worldview is that you start with the assumption that God is real, and then you live a mostly naturalist life believing mostly naturalist things until you see something that doesn't line up and then you criticize that for contradicting your beliefs. On paper, that sounds like a pretty dishonest worldview. The fact that you'd criticize a worldview because it seems depressing to you doesn't exactly help you look any more honest. Also I think it's best to actually live in a worldview before you criticize how depressing it might be. I used to be a young earth creationist evangelical, and a lot of people's offhanded remarks about that worldview don't make sense to me because they don't get it and don't try very hard to.
Not to mention that I would much rather live in the world as I see it -- where everything makes sense and then you die -- than a world where almost everybody who has ever lived of all time burns in hell for all eternity. That isn't just a depressing worldview; it's much worse than ceasing to exist after a while.
Quote:My meaning in life is defined by my closeness with God, and yours is defined by living apart from God. How are these the same thing? Are they not the opposite?
Maybe we just have different definitions of "meaning". What is yours? My definition is more like "I want to find something that seems fulfilling and then go after it". Basically, that verse from Ecclesiastes 9.
Also to call my life defined by living apart from God seems like a very biased way to put it. That's assuming that you're right, first of all; secondly it's assuming that the specific God you believe in is the real one, or at least some other God who would consider my life to be apart from them; and thirdly, that's definitely not the only way you can define my life. I don't just make sure that I'm apart from God at all times and that's it.
Quote:Does my apparent hypocrisy change whether or not what I said is true? Absolutely not. How faithfully I follow God's commandments have no bearing on whether or not they should be followed. Even the Apostle Paul, as faithful as he was, struggled with his own sinful nature.
Anyway, MFGG is not a thing I use to make my life "meaningful". Fangaming is nothing more than a hobby to me. You have assumed it is something more. Or, perhaps, you are interpreting my meaning in life by your beliefs--wait, weren't you just criticizing me for applying my beliefs to other worldviews?
I wasn't trying to point out hypocritical actions, but rather hypocritical beliefs. Maybe I missed the mark on that one, but you seem to be really driving home the whole "fear God and obey his commandments" thing from Ecclesiastes, but Ecclesiastes is pretty far removed from the teachings of the New Testament. Yeah that's still part of it, but there's much more important stuff going on in the NT. Faith, for instance, which is opposite reason, which is what we're all dealing in here.
Also, we have different definitions of meaning; I wouldn't say I'm judging your worldview by mine, I'd say our definitions were different.
Quote:You see, your responses to me thus far aren't really all that reasonable. You are arguing with your emotions and with personal attacks.
I really doubt you have the intellectual or moral high ground you seem to think you do.
I'm not really claiming moral high ground here, and I also don't see why I'm being emotional for saying that you're criticizing naturalism badly. You're saying "if you believe in morality you have to believe in the supernatural because morality comes from the supernatural"; that is bad arguing. I told you that I define morality differently than you do. I had a whole big write-up on morality that you didn't criticize at all.
Quote:So this event, which you call a genocide (emotionally loaded, like everything else in your post) was because they had caused the people of Israel to fall away to sin! This is not kiling them based on their nationality, genetics, or even religion. This would not have happened if Midian had left the Israelites alone.
Let me get a definition or two:
"genocide: the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group."
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/genocide
"genocide: the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/genocide
"genocide: the intentional killing of all of the people of a nation, religion, or racial group"
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/genocide
They intentionally killed all of the Midianites (except the little girls). That's genocide. There doesn't need to be any specific motivation. I was not dishonest in using that word.
Also, you're just saying "they had GOOD REASON for the genocide!" You're basically applying Divine Command theory it seems to me.
There's no framework in the Bible for when a genocide is acceptable. Basically how it seems to work is: murder is wrong, until God tells you to do it. If God hasn't told you to do it, it's wrong.
So basically, whatever God has to say is, by definition, good to you. If your definition of good and moral is "God said so" then judging my morality with your definition of morality is definitely not a good idea.
Quote:Yes, they spared the little girls. In the custody of Israelites, they would learn the law of Moses. Many of them would even be married to Israelites. But child sex trafficking? Perhaps I have gone partly blind from seeing such an audacious accusation, but I don't see that in the text!
Yeah I definitely misspoke; trafficking is not the word I should've used. I meant to use the word "slavery". I think this is an accurate word.
(this line sounds really arrogant but I just can't seem to find a good way to word it. I really did misspeak, I really did mean to say "slavery", I really do think kidnapping little girls and killing their families and then marrying them is slavery)
Quote:If you look for pedophilia specifically? Probably not.
If you look for illicit sex, of which pedophilia is a subset? Absolutely.
"pedophilia: sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object; specifically : a psychiatric disorder in which an adult has sexual fantasies about or engages in sexual acts with a prepubescent child"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pedophilia
"pedophilia: sexual desire in an adult for a child."
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/pedophilia
There's nothing there about it having to be premarital sex, so it's not necessarily against God's law. Pedophilia is alright by Biblical standards. Though I would assume that if the US were to right now vote to legalize adults marrying children, you'd probably be against it, despite what the Bible says. Because your morality mostly comes from your society, not the Bible.
Quote:Is that explicitly in the scriptures somewhere, is it your interpretation, or is it someone else's?
Pedophilia is encouraged when God told the Israelites to keep the little girls for themselves. That was a command from the mouth of God.
Quote:If you don't believe in free will, then why were you acting as if you do?
You were offended that I expressed my thoughts in a certain way. It doesn't make sense to be offended at me if I couldn't willfully insult you, nor does it make sense if I didn't have the will to make ideas look bad. You are contradicting your words with your actions.
Have you ever actually read into any arguments against free will?
I don't believe in "free will". That doesn't mean I don't believe in "will".
Clearly there are things I want to do. Clearly, the only control that I have over my will is built-in.
I'll actually let Paul take this one away for me:
Quote:Romans 7
15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
And here's some more for good measure:
Quote:1 Corinthians 12:3
Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, "Jesus be cursed," and no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit.
John 6:44
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.
Acts 13:48
When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honored the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.
John 10
24 The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
Romans 9
10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”[d] 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”[e]
14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[f]
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[g] 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[h] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
Free will doesn't exist in real life or in the Bible. The argument over free will is really hard and complicated, but basically here's one more little point: people who believe in free will are operating under the assumption that everything except the human consciousness is under the laws of the universe. I do not operate under that assumption.
Quote:Though from my impressions, it not that it denies the afterlife so much as it has no idea what the afterlife is. The last verse of Ecclesiastes says that "God shall bring every work into judgment", which doesn't seem very sensible thing to do if there's nothing left of us after death to reward or punish.
I actually answered this criticism in an earlier post:
Quote:You might say "why bother keeping God's commandments if there isn't an afterlife?" Well, Ecclesiastes is widely believed to have been written by Solomon, who is also believed to have written Proverbs. Let's take a look there, chapter 1:
Quote:10 My son, if sinful men entice you,
do not give in to them.
11 If they say, “Come along with us;
let’s lie in wait for innocent blood,
let’s ambush some harmless soul;
12 let’s swallow them alive, like the grave,
and whole, like those who go down to the pit;
13 we will get all sorts of valuable things
and fill our houses with plunder;
14 cast lots with us;
we will all share the loot”—
15 my son, do not go along with them,
do not set foot on their paths;
16 for their feet rush into evil,
they are swift to shed blood.
17 How useless to spread a net
where every bird can see it!
18 These men lie in wait for their own blood;
they ambush only themselves!
19 Such are the paths of all who go after ill-gotten gain;
it takes away the life of those who get it.
Basically, read all of Proverbs 1. The author is saying, "don't get caught up in evil, or bad things will happen to you". You'll die, or get hurt, or get in trouble.
The whole "really bad things happen to bad people" theme repeats in Proverbs.
Quote:Proverbs 7
18 Come, let’s drink deeply of love till morning;
let’s enjoy ourselves with love!
19 My husband is not at home;
he has gone on a long journey.
20 He took his purse filled with money
and will not be home till full moon.”
21 With persuasive words she led him astray;
she seduced him with her smooth talk.
22 All at once he followed her
like an ox going to the slaughter,
like a deer[a] stepping into a noose[b]
23 till an arrow pierces his liver,
like a bird darting into a snare,
little knowing it will cost him his life.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - HylianDev - 12-11-2017
Something I missed that I'd like to articulate here real quick:
The reason that we all do things is because we're motivated to. We're emotional creatures. We have desires. We want to do things. It sucks to just sit there and do nothing. If you don't breathe, that's painful, and then you'll die. I want to eat good food, I want to play video games, etc. It's as simple as that; for you, as well as for me.
Also, thoughts on "why not kill yourself":
Which gave me another thought: if you believe in objective morality, then which political system is the best? How should we best punish criminals? How should we best educate our children? How should we best do anything? It's convenient that the Ten Commandments are considered to somehow be objective morality (except when God tells you to break them), but there's so much very super important information missing from it that we basically don't know anything ABOUT God's morality except "murder is usually bad" and a few other "don't do this" things.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - GothGirlGangBlasterMaster - 12-11-2017
(12-11-2017, 01:03 AM)Cap'n Coconuts Wrote:Quote:while it's true that on the scale of billions of years we won't have much effect, it's completely pointless for living creatures to operate on that scale. a person can make decisions that affect people for a month, a year, a decade or even a lifetime. it's because we only live for a short time that our decisions have meaning. if you or i can have a lasting positive impression on a person's life, we should be proud of that impact, even if the people we influenced will also someday die.
But that positive influence you've had on them will die with them unless there's a higher purpose for it that transcends nature.
yeah i know
but that should be perfectly acceptable to a creature that will also die.
there's simply no reason for us to think on the scale of hundreds, millions or billions of years when we only live for a small fraction of that.
basically I'm saying you have to flip your thinking to understand the Naturalist perspective. instead of: "nothing i do matters because i only live a short time," you ask the question "if i only live a short time, what can i do that matters?" that's some counter-postive If Q Then P thinking for all the philosophy students in the audience.
and that gets back to what i was saying before: if you live 75 years and you make an impact on a person that lasts 75 years of their life, that's still a massive accomplishment for a human.
basically what i want to get across is that a purpose doesn't necessarily need to be something conveyed by a diety or spiritual entity or whatever. we can pick our own.
that would then lead into discussion of what constitutes a good or bad purpose, which has been discussed for centuries if not millennia.
RE: Philosophy with Cap'n Coconuts - VinnyVideo - 12-12-2017
Locked upon request.