[PLUG-TALK] Being plonked on plug...
Jeme A Brelin
jeme at brelin.net
Wed Nov 19 00:46:09 UTC 2003
On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Russ Johnson wrote:
> * Jeme A Brelin <jeme at brelin.net> [2003-11-18 13:28]:
> > On Tue, 18 Nov 2003, Russ Johnson wrote:
> > > Don't we have the right to be as irrational as we want? I mean, this is
> > > plug-talk, and there's no "topic" off limits.
> >
> > You DO have the right to be irrational, but if you're going to be
> > irrational, don't pretend that you're arguing with any kind of logic or
> > reason.
>
> I believe I am arguing logically. So do some of my friends. They just
> don't happen to be on this list.
If you're being so logical, you'd drop the argument because you would know
that it's not logically arguable.
Your friends
> > > What "assertion of faith" have I made? Something that is
> > > "self-evident" needs no faith.
> >
> > So, if Michael said the existence of God was "self-evident", you'd buy
> > it? I don't think so. You'd demand proof.
>
> For me, yes. The inalienable rights we're speaking of are certainly
> self-evident. I.e., they make sense, they are plain to see logically,
> and most folks also see it that way.
If they are logical, then they have proof. If they are "self-evident",
then they have no proof, as you said. You can't be both logical and
without proof.
> Even folks that don't live here can see them, once they are pointed out.
Same could be said for Catholicism or Euclidean geometry. Any religion
can be spread.
> The existence of god, on the other hand, isn't plain to see, and most of
> the humans on this world don't see it, even after it's shown to them.
Most humans believe in some kind of supernatural stuff. For example, you
have your "free will".
> I've been reading some stuff today about how the Catholic church is a
> lie.
I don't know much about that. I will say that I read the other day that
all languages were a creation of the Catholic church (and all based on the
one true proto-language, Basque) and that nearly everything we're taught
about history is a lie. So, I'd just say be careful of your sources.
> How Peter didn't ever live in Rome (and how there's this big arguement
> about whether he did or not).
Well, I don't give a shit about the Catholic church (why do I keep typing
"churge"?) or so-called Christianity generally, but I will remind you that
you can't really prove a negative. A lack of evidence is not evidence of
a lack.
> How there's no such thing as a "pope" in the bible.
If you knew at all of what you wrote, you'd know that the whole idea of
the "Pope" comes from this shit that Peter says Jesus told him about
leaving him in charge and honoring in Heaven whatever rules Peter and his
descendants make on Earth. "Pope" just means head, father, or leader (in
its various interpretations).
> Just goes to show how some people can have the wool pulled over their
> eyes very easily.
Well, it goes to show how readily you believe what you want to believe.
> Now, understand, I'm not claiming any of this is true, but there's a lot
> of evidence out there.
There's all kind of "evidence" in the world. Personally, I think Jesus
Christ was a Gnostic anarchist and I think the scripture supports that
quite well (especially if you leave in the crap the Catholics cut out). I
also think that the whole "resurrection" thing was a hoax perpetrated by a
clever charlatan on some very miserable religious followers. But it's all
just talk because it happened a fucking long time ago.
> Then there's the whole "worshiping Mary" vs. no gods before me thing.
Yeah, I don't quite see how the Catholics work around the whole idolatry
thing.
> > Faith is the only proof for things unprovable. You insist that the
> > inalienability of certain rights is "self-evident". That is an
> > assertion of truth that is unprovable without faith.
>
> No, self-evident is not the same as faith. Although, I can see where you
> might make that assumption. Faith is accepting something as fact, even
> with evidence to the contrary.
OK, Russ. Here's where your failure to master your native tongue rears
its ugly head yet again. Faith is proof of things unprovable. It is NOT
belief against evidence. You just made that up based on your own
knee-jerk hatred of anything that implies religion.
Faith is a belief strong enough to act as evidence. Faith is what we have
in the axia of our logical systems. We have faith in, say, the "laws" of
physics. (Western civilization gave up on trying to answer the "why"
questions in physics a long time ago and now just describe the phenomena
and call that good enough.) We don't have any more proof than the
consistency of those laws with observations, but those laws change when
new phenomena are observed. (For an interesting analysis of this
particular aspect of faith and science, I recommend Richard Feynman's "The
Character of Physical Law")
You can't prove everything. You must have fundamental faith in your axia
in order to prove other things.
I mean this in the most earnest way, Russ, but you need an education.
Some solid readings in logic and logical philosophy would be a great
start. The more you read on these topics, you might find your vocabulary
coming more in line with accepted usage at the very least (else the
reading won't make much sense at all!) and hopefully you'll also sharpen
your understanding of both syllogism and articles of faith.
I suspect that you are mostly self-taught and so your understanding of
things is really limited by your prejudices, presuppositions and
predelictions. If you are formally trained in anything, I would guess it
to be trade/technical in nature with very little study of the humanities,
arts, and letters. I suspect even your mathematical training is limited
to numerical analysis with algebra and counting used only as tools to
those calculating ends.
Anyway, bust out the Hobbes and Marx and Smith and Descartes and Voltaire
and see what you can grok. If necessary, take some courses. If you think
the instructor's a total idiot, you're probably not trying hard enough.
J.
--
-----------------
Jeme A Brelin
jeme at brelin.net
-----------------
[cc] counter-copyright
http://www.openlaw.org
More information about the PLUG-talk
mailing list