How human language refutes atheism

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Eriku
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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by Eriku » Mon Nov 08, 2010 8:40 pm

Gawdzilla wrote:
Eriku wrote:You've not had your stupid vaccines?
I is pitiful, weak oldster with compromised immune system. :levi:
Ah, fair enough.

[quite]
Rational thoughts keep it at bay for me. And exposure to stupidity reminds you why you take the position you do.
Not really, I take the position I do because I like to fight. :woot:[/quote]

Also fair enough.

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by Coito ergo sum » Mon Nov 08, 2010 9:33 pm

Before even reading this - human language can't be a necessary refutation of atheism because either there is or is not a god, and language can exist in either scenario. A god may create a universe without language, or language may arise without the need of gods.
spinoza99 wrote:I have outlined my points in another thread here.
Now I will discuss the main points in it succinctly one by one.

To be a true atheist you have to believe that there is only material.
Wrong. Many non-material things exist: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, heat, thoughts, the feeling of an orgasm....

So, if your argument depends on the false assumption that to be an atheist one must believe only in the "material" then your argument fails of an essential premise.
spinoza99 wrote:
That is to say there is no immaterial force which can control the movement of material.
Immaterial forces control the movement of material all the time, like when gravity acts to make things fall to the ground, or planets to orbit stars.
spinoza99 wrote:
Let me be very clear exactly what I mean by mind or immaterial force.
Are you equating "mind" and "immaterial force?" This seems to be bolloxing some things up. Mind and immaterial force aren't the same thing. Forces are not material - i.e. they aren't made up of matter. "Mind" is something else. You'll need to define "mind" first. But, the one thing that's for sure, your allegation that atheists believe only in "material" things is just wrong.
spinoza99 wrote:
The mind has three basic properties:

knowledge: the ability to know what bodies to move and where in order to achieve a result
power: the ability to move those bodies to the desired location
will: the desire to actually perceive the movement of these bodies as good, beneficial, desirable or necessary.
Atheists believe in knowledge, power and will. Most of us don't believe that the "mind' has the "power" to move bodies to a desired location, as in telekinesis. That's not a requirement of atheism, though, and it is quite likely that some atheists do believe in telekinesis.

Most atheists understand that the brain contains our knowledge, and that it has the power to cause our muscles to move, such that we may move ourselves to a desired location or move other things. Most atheists also place what you are calling the "will" in our brains. The will is a function of the biological, chemical and electrical processes in the brain organ. That's where our mind is.

Again, though - be clear on this - to be an atheist requires one thing and one thing only: an atheist does not believe in any gods. That's all. They may believe in a lot of hokey, new age, shit, homeopathy, magic and witchcraft, who knows. This whole "an atheist must believe only in the material" thing is a flat out misunderstanding of atheism - many atheists believe in new age energy and astrology.
spinoza99 wrote:
Mind is directly juxtaposed with randomness.
How so?
spinoza99 wrote:
Randomness has no knowledge, no power, and no will.
Of course not. Randomness is not a thing. It's a state of being - being random - "of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen." If we pick something at random - we pick it by pure chance. So, of course "randomness has no knowledge..." Neither do rocks, non-randomness, beauty, and erections.
spinoza99 wrote:
Randomness merely selects a choice from a finite set of choices. As it chooses, randomness does not care what it chooses, does not know what to choose and has no desire to choose one choice over another choice, it will simply choose any choice from a finite set, it doesn't matter.
There is no chooser, and no choosing. Randomness is just the state of some set of things being dispersed such that each has an equal chance -- they are dispersed by pure chance. A bowl full of M&M's shaken around - randomness. There is no "choosing" - there's nothing there going "ho hum, I don't care" - it just IS.
spinoza99 wrote:
For example, let us take the alleged destruction of the dinosaurs by an asteroid which is believed to have landed near the Yucatan Penninsula near Chixculub. The Earth has no mind, so one it couldn't KNOW about the approaching asteriod. Two, if it did know, it couldn't do anything about it because it has no POWER over the asteriod or any other object. And three if it did have knowledge and power, it couldn't use it because it has no WILL. Second example, the nucleic acids T C A G form the basis of DNA. When they are replicated incorrectly, so the monists believe, this is not the result of a mind KNOWING the result of the mutations, nor does a mind have the POWER to move these nucleic acids such that they are incorrectly replicated. Third, these mutations are not the result of any WILL.
Although put in words I wouldn't use, I can'ts say your wrong about the foregoing paragraph. You are right - DNA evolved without anyone willing it or desiring it, just as the asteroid hit the Earth without anyone willing it. It was flying through the universe following the physical laws of nature, and happened to be on target to hit the Earth. It was for no purpose. Nobody desired it. Nobody hoped against it. It was neither good nor bad - it just happened.
spinoza99 wrote:
Causation

The monists believe that all movement of bodies is the result of a physical cause and that all causes trace back to the first cause, the Big Bang, which was not the result of knowledge, power and will, it just happened, it was unintentional, accidental, random, arbitrary.
Not necessarily accidental, random or arbitrary. Perhaps better described as "undirected." It happened, most of us believe, according to some explainable set of laws or circumstances. As of today, as far as I know, there are some mathematical theories in theoretical physics as to how this could happen (string theory and brane theory, etc.), but there really isn't any empirical evidence. So, my understanding is the best we can say at this point is, "we don't know how or why the universe came to be in the first planck's constant length of time, but we'd like to and we're working on it."

There is no assumption, however, that it was an "accident" or "random" or "arbitrary." Maybe it was those things, but we don't know. There is likewise no assumption that there was an "intention" behind it. Nobody can prove there wasn't an intention behind it, so one can guess and say that he or she thinks there must have been an intention, but atheists generally don't subscribe to such a thing unless there is evidence for it - and there isn't.
spinoza99 wrote:
The dualists believe that there are numerous causes and that each of us is the prime mover of all our ideas and actions.
I'm not sure monists also don't think of each human as the prime mover of his or her own ideas and actions. It feels like I'm the prime mover of my ideas and actions.
spinoza99 wrote:
Our ideas are the results of our mind exercising its knowledge, power and will. For example, let's say you think the thought: "what would happen to time if I approached the speed of light?" When Einstein thought this, this thought was not the result of him blindly obeying physical causes, rather he was the prime mover in this idea. He had never encountered this idea before in any essay, but it was he himself that caused it.

Either: Will exists
Or: will does not exist

Either: Power exists
Or: power does not exist

Either: Knowledge exists
Or: knowledge does not exist

Either: all three exist together
Or: all three do not exist together

Either: ALL causes are due to an obedience to physical laws
Or: ALL causes are not due to an obedience to physical laws, but some are due to mind
I'm not sure you can dissociate the mind from the physical laws - the laws of physics. The mind is a construct of the brain, and the brain follows the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, etc. It's not magic.
spinoza99 wrote: The brain

The human brain, in the monists view, is no exception. It too is obeying physical laws. All outputs are the result on an input. Input stimuli, output action. So when a person utters the phrase: "I have dream that one day people will be judged not by the content of their character but by the color of their skin," that phrase is simply the result of the stimuli that person encountered. That person did not choose to utter that phrase he was just obeying physical laws, just as a rock obeys gravity when it falls down.
I think you are getting this one wrong. The brain may puzzle things out. Saying that the brain obeys the laws of physics is not saying that the brain is just a clunking mechanical machine wherein you put in numbers, it does appointed calculations and spits out the same result every time.

spinoza99 wrote: The problem human language poses to monism
I thought you said "atheism?" Atheism and monism are not synonymous.
spinoza99 wrote:
This is where monism falls apart. How do you program a human to speak correct sentences? The number of correct sentences is easily more than a googolplex, it may even be infinite, and the number of incorrect sentences is still larger. Natural Selection cannot program a human to utter langauge because how do you write a code large enough for all the output?
The brain is not a computer.
spinoza99 wrote: This code certainly could not be located in the DNA because the genetic code is only 3.2 billion base DNA pairs long. Moreover, natural selection not being intelligent and not knowing what langauge is, could scarcely contain the wherewithal that even eludes the smartest human beings.
Red herring. Yes, natural selection has resulted in us, and the smartest human beings as yet can't create beings like us (yet).
spinoza99 wrote:
Here is the dualist picture of language. The human mind has knowledge of what words mean and what constitutes a correct sentence. The mind then uses its power over neurons to move the mouth such that the proper sounds are uttered so that someone else can roughly understand what they mean.
How is this different than what a monist believes. The monist believes that the human brain creates what you perceive as the mind.
spinoza99 wrote:
Once you admit that there is a force that can manipulate material,
Who doesn't admit this? Gravity manipulates material (for example).
spinoza99 wrote:
it is very easy to understand that God is that force which can manipulate the material of the universe,
What force are you talking about? Some undetectable force that you "surmise" exists?
spinoza99 wrote:
and that what we do with our bodies, God can do with other material in the universe, though on a larger scale.
What we do with our bodies is done by our brains. What you perceive as a separate "mind" inhabiting your brain is a function of - a creation of - your brain. The brain follows the laws of nature - biological laws, chemical laws, laws of physics, electro-magnetic laws, etc. The brain is made of neurons and other pieces, which interact through the firing of electromagnetic energy and the interaction of biological and chemical compounds within the brain. The different structures within the brain are able to perceive the outside world, evaluate and categorize the input, and the brain is able to send signals to different parts of the body to do different things.

You misinterpret this as a feeling that somehow "you" are separate from your brain, and have some existence apart from it. There is no evidence of that, though, it the brain is sufficient to operate all the functions you refer to and to create this perception of a "mind."

By destroying or modifying certain structures in the brain, humans can modify this "mind" you refer to. It can be eliminated and destroyed by destroying parts of the brain. Memories can be erased. Feelings can be changed. Moods can be changed. The mind can be altered and even eliminated, by virtue of interaction with the structures of the brain.

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by Eriku » Mon Nov 08, 2010 9:34 pm

Nevermind this post. I've no idea why it's here.

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by cowiz » Mon Nov 08, 2010 9:40 pm

spinoza99 wrote: To be a true atheist you have to believe that there is only material. That is to say there is no immaterial force which can control the movement of material. Let me be very clear exactly what I mean by mind or immaterial force.
Bollocks. Why to I "have" to believe that? I can have a disbelief in a god or gods without "having" to have anything.

Utter shite of the must fulminating order.

In order to be a true theist, you "have" to have a brain full of shit.

See, I can make bollocks assertions too.
It's a piece of piss to be cowiz, but it's not cowiz to be a piece of piss. Or something like that.

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by Coito ergo sum » Mon Nov 08, 2010 9:43 pm

pawiz wrote:
spinoza99 wrote: To be a true atheist you have to believe that there is only material. That is to say there is no immaterial force which can control the movement of material. Let me be very clear exactly what I mean by mind or immaterial force.
Bollocks. Why to I "have" to believe that? I can have a disbelief in a god or gods without "having" to have anything.

Utter shite of the must fulminating order.

In order to be a true theist, you "have" to have a brain full of shit.

See, I can make bollocks assertions too.
Don't sell yourself short. Your assertion may be stronger than you first suspected.

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by cowiz » Mon Nov 08, 2010 9:45 pm

Coito ergo sum wrote:
pawiz wrote:
spinoza99 wrote: To be a true atheist you have to believe that there is only material. That is to say there is no immaterial force which can control the movement of material. Let me be very clear exactly what I mean by mind or immaterial force.
Bollocks. Why to I "have" to believe that? I can have a disbelief in a god or gods without "having" to have anything.

Utter shite of the must fulminating order.

In order to be a true theist, you "have" to have a brain full of shit.

See, I can make bollocks assertions too.
Don't sell yourself short. Your assertion may be stronger than you first suspected.
I have to admit that it's more of a hypothesis, with strong evidence supporting the premise.
It's a piece of piss to be cowiz, but it's not cowiz to be a piece of piss. Or something like that.

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by rachelbean » Mon Nov 08, 2010 9:48 pm

I just came here to post that every single time I read the title of this thread I think it is saying that Human League refutes atheism :hehe:
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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by Thinking Aloud » Mon Nov 08, 2010 10:07 pm

rachelbean wrote:I just came here to post that every single time I read the title of this thread I think it is saying that Human League refutes atheism :hehe:
Were you working as a waitress in a cocktail bar?

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by Bella Fortuna » Mon Nov 08, 2010 10:08 pm

Thinking Aloud wrote:
rachelbean wrote:I just came here to post that every single time I read the title of this thread I think it is saying that Human League refutes atheism :hehe:
Were you working as a waitress in a cocktail bar?
That much is true.
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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by cowiz » Mon Nov 08, 2010 10:08 pm

Bella Fortuna wrote:
Thinking Aloud wrote:
rachelbean wrote:I just came here to post that every single time I read the title of this thread I think it is saying that Human League refutes atheism :hehe:
Were you working as a waitress in a cocktail bar?
That much is true.
I picked you up and turned you around, and made you into someone new
It's a piece of piss to be cowiz, but it's not cowiz to be a piece of piss. Or something like that.

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by Tero » Mon Nov 08, 2010 11:23 pm

I can't be bothered to read it. But it may contain the fact that language in fact is dangerous. It allows you to lie more easily than sign language.

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by Coito ergo sum » Mon Nov 08, 2010 11:26 pm

pawiz wrote:
Coito ergo sum wrote:
pawiz wrote:
spinoza99 wrote: To be a true atheist you have to believe that there is only material. That is to say there is no immaterial force which can control the movement of material. Let me be very clear exactly what I mean by mind or immaterial force.
Bollocks. Why to I "have" to believe that? I can have a disbelief in a god or gods without "having" to have anything.

Utter shite of the must fulminating order.

In order to be a true theist, you "have" to have a brain full of shit.

See, I can make bollocks assertions too.
Don't sell yourself short. Your assertion may be stronger than you first suspected.
I have to admit that it's more of a hypothesis, with strong evidence supporting the premise.
I'd call it a theory, as yet unchallenged.

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by Bella Fortuna » Mon Nov 08, 2010 11:27 pm

How human language refutes atheism
...by saying, "No, no, atheism, you are WRONG!"

Like that.
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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by Coito ergo sum » Mon Nov 08, 2010 11:27 pm

rachelbean wrote:I just came here to post that every single time I read the title of this thread I think it is saying that Human League refutes atheism :hehe:
Would it be wrong of me to say that every time I read your posts I can't help but gaze at your breasts?

If so, I won't say it.
:biggrin:

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Re: How human language refutes atheism

Post by FBM » Mon Nov 08, 2010 11:31 pm

More ambiguous definitions, tautologies and false dichotomies. If I may quote a relevant source, "Not only is it not right, it's not even wrong!"
"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn't there. A theologian is the man who finds it." ~ H. L. Mencken

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