The same statement was valid 1000 years ago when the Earth was deemed to be flat. You could still observe gravity. Today science tells you that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, yet it can. There are some studies at the moment firing neutrinos between Geneva and the Gran Sasso in Italy, with the neutrinos arriving faster than they should. The spiritualist would have told you that anyway, but you can't believe it because science is the ultimate validator. If you take science as the ultimate validator then you are selling yourself short. Likewise, if you take spirituality as the ultimate validator you are also selling yourself short. Take the best from both, science and spirituality will eventually merge. The two have a lot to learn from each other. The problem with science is that it is constantly changing. When the Earth was deemed to be round and not flat, or that the sun does not revolve around the Earth all the main stream scientists refuted the idea without considering the alternative. Why? Because people build careers on science, their credibility would be knocked around and the same applies today. Before you can embrace a new concept you will do everything you can to justify why your previous concept is correct. 10 years ago the concept of other dimensions was voodoo talk, today it is a more widely embraced theory. The search for the G-d particle? Science should look at spirituality, they could save themselves 20 years. The universe behaves in fractals. If it is easier for you to justify it to yourself as a cop out then go right ahead. You have all the information available to you, but it easier to stick to the status quo rather than embracing new theories. My concepts will be lost on you, who knows, maybe in a few years time. As I said earlier, this is a subject that is learned, not taught. The problem with G-d is that religion copyrights it.
So science tells us that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Science also tells us that some things can travel faster than the speed of light. Science attempts to explain phenomena. It hypothesizes, gathers evidence to support a claim, which either adds credibility (if the evidence holds) or removes credibility (if evidence doesn't hold); if the latter, it causes us to rethink and rebuild our hypothesis. This is the most sensible way to gain accurate information of the world. I do not know in detail the history of any of this. What I do know is that science attempts to make sense of the world. In many cases we have validated claims, in some cases we don't have sufficient evidence to declare anything with certainty; instead we have possible explanations which have their grounds in sensible reasoning. The fact that scientists of the past have come to erroneous conclusions doesn't change this fact. The more we learn the more we reshape and refine our views. My goal is to come to sensible conclusions. Therefore I do not subscribe to worldviews not rooted in empiricism, unless I find good reason to believe that a viewpoint not rooted in empiricism is superior to one that is. Hypothetically speaking of course; I do not know what could be of greater persuasion than an explanation rooted in empiricism.
There are 2 sayings that spring to mind. The first that if you come across a genius and a fool arguing it is hard to tell the two apart, and the second, that there is no worse deaf than someone who does not want to hear. With that being said I wish you all the best. Enjoy wallowing in logical fallacies.
We can't prove most things, there's always theories, but saying they can't prove this or that love doesn't exist is stupid. Personally I don't think love is an ethereal magic it's chemicals in your head triggered to make you feel a certain way. Eg. A mother loves her new born baby, it benefits the baby and gives it a great chance of survival - evolution. A man loves a woman sticks round protects his young better chance of survival - evolution. We are basically evolved to the point of questioning our own reality and the nature of the universe, but in the grand scheme of things we know fuck all. The majority like to think we have a good understanding to try to make sense of things because the truth is we are struggling to understand the why's and he how's. We are animals, we are not the centre of the universe or the all knowing any thing we cannot prove does not prove anything. Keep an open mind. Ps. I'm an atheist, a skeptic and I believe scientific research should be the main priority of the human race. We sweat the small shit too much, the universe is mind blowing.
...I could just as easily say it takes a fool to find reason to believe in an entity that has no evidence leading toward its existence. I guess I'll sum up my argument and be done here. You can not be confident in any belief that is not grounded in empiricism. This is the very reason you take this path. It's the path that creates the least amount of assumptions possible, therefore it remains the most sensible.
love is real through faith. and i don't mean believing in god. i mean blindly believing without proof. it is what it is. some people have faith in a real love connection others don't. just because you haven't come into contact with someone your willing to blindly trust and invest some effort at love with doesn't mean its not real. but my argument could work against me as well. moral of the story is, love exists if you choose it to be a part of your life.
Empiricism has it's faults man. There are many places of the world we believe exist, however, have we personally checked and visited these places? We believe they exist without direct, personal, empirical evidence. This sounds silly, I know, nevertheless the premises is still true. You can certainly be confident in a belief that is not grounded in empiricism. A huge problem with empiricism is the fact that our mind, brain, and eyes will deceive us. For example, the McGurk effect [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0]Try The McGurk Effect! - Horizon: Is Seeing Believing? - BBC Two - YouTube[/ame] Our brains are not always trustworthy.
What do you mean? It's a property of the universe. You are right I have never witnessed the world outside of the United States. However I can see via the internet, news, pictures, videos, the evidence for the rest of the world existing. The fact that I can gather information from a million separate sources, and the fact that they piece together so accurately with all other sources tells me that for the world to not exist as it is portrayed would be so statistically improbable that it's virtually impossible. The only two sensible options for me now is to believe that the world exists as it is portrayed, or to believe in some solipsist view that I am the only conscious being and everything else is a figment of my imagination. Or some fucking insane conspiracy theory. The point I am trying to illustrate is this: I see a soccer ball on a field. There are an infinite number of ways it could have landed there: via aliens, a tiger, Brad Pitt, a tornado, a tsunami, a person, hell maybe an ant on steroids moved it there. The fact is without any further evidence I can't say for certainty how it got there. I can narrow my field of possibilities using the information I have observed from how the world operates. The chances of it being placed there by anything or anyone outside of a 50 mile radius are virtually zero. (okay, unless someone was on vacation, played soccer, then left the state...). I have good reason to believe that it was placed there by a person, but it may have been the wind, or some other likely phenomena. But I can not be confident in much else. I guess I should state now that I'm not trying to win an argument. I'm always down to see different people's perspectives...
You can see via the internet, news, pictures, and videos the evidence, but you must trust (or have faith) in the people and their honesty. They could easily lie and say a picture is from a certain place when it could very well be from a completely different area in the world. It takes faith to believe what you're looking at is really what it's said to be. You are placing your trust in those sources, which is not empiricism. That is faith which you expressed earlier is non-sensible. Well, the solipsist view or some conspiracy theory seem to be the only ones that are truly grounded on empiricism.
Faith connotes religious belief or belief without good reason. I do not care to argue over the definition but let it be known there is difference between trust for good reason and trust without good reason. I have good reason to trust in these sources because the likeliness of hundreds of thousands of independent sources that paint the same picture of the world is virtually zero. Any other alternative would be nonsensical, other than solipsism; regardless of whether that is true it makes no difference to the fact that deriving judgments empirically gives for a more statistically likely understanding of the world than any other means. And I do derive my judgments empirically. The sources are my evidence which I have observed with my senses. From the thousands of non-contradictory sources it is safe to say the world exists as it does. A conspiracy theory is highly, highly improbable. As I take the most statistically likely approach, I do not believe it. I do not know if the phrase 'empirical evidence' is used to mean 'direct evidence for a claim' (as in, personal accounts only), or whether it is used to mean in general 'evidence gained by observation' (as in, outside sources are acceptable). Regardless I do not care to argue a definition, but rather the principal; let it be known that I use the latter definition for my argument.
No, it doesn't. For the sake of conversation, I will appease to your understanding. Faith (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) You can read that later and understand that there is no difference. You trust the likeliness, which proves it's not grounded in empiricism. I'm not arguing about why your trust is more valid than someone who has "faith". All I was trying to get you to see is that you assert any belief which is not grounded in empiricism is non-sensible, yet you believe things that aren't grounded in that.. That's all man. Likeliness is not empirical evidence though. "Empirical research is research that derives its data by means of direct observation or experiment" Fair enough, however consider this; This is a picture of the North Pole. You would consider this empirical evidence of the North Pole, right? (emphasis added) Well, I lied. This is a picture of the South Pole, or so I think. This is not empirical evidence of the North Pole as believed prior. So how can you be sure that the evidence you observe online is really what it's said to be? You can't empirically. By the definition in the link I provided, we both would have faith in google images to provide a genuine picture of the South Pole.
It is of my belief that the chances of a claim being true is a function of the quantity of empirical evidence. My judgments come from the empirical evidence (the sources.) The likeliness is being derived from the quantity of supporting and non-contradictory evidence. Yes it is empirical evidence (to suggest it is the North Pole.) It is also very inconclusive evidence. I would need more evidence that supports the claim that it is the North Pole, otherwise I withstand judgment. Let's assume it is the North Pole. If I bothered to take the time to put together a whole portfolio of evidence together, I could give someone sufficient reason to believe it exists.
It's a property of the universe, it's like saying that the sky is blue because it's a property of the sky. Why is there gravity? What does science say is the reason for it?
[quote name='"Liquidtruth"']What do you mean? Give someone in love an MRI and you will see their love quite clearly. [/quote] Get them to praying during the MRI and you'll see their faith as well.
Indeed. Not that the existence of blind belief exonerates blind belief, of course. That question is wrong and silly in so many ways.