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moot

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Posts posted by moot

  1. The existence of this "ordered nature" does not provide evidence of it's origin, only of its existence (forgetting for the moment the presumption that comes with the terminology "ordered").

    something cannot possibly come from nothing, correct? is it more likely that the being I just described ordered things, or they came to order themselves. it is only a preference which of the two we choose

  2. Also, what I am trying to explain is that it is just as reasonable for a god by whose nature would not leave evidence and is bound to natural laws to exist as such a being to not exist and our choice to deny its existence is just a whim or personal preference. granted the burden of proof is on the one trying to convince, but in the same breath on should look at both objectively before coming to a conclusion and one conclusion is just as good as the other.

  3. I admit my arguments are meant to be vague. From the deist literature I have read, most deists simply believe in a "x" factor or God that they ascribe the trait of thought and the ordering of the universe to. they make no claims as to the nature of this being, only stating that evidence points towards it existing and that it is either more or as likely to exist than not exist.

    after this is established they feel we can begin to add "color" to God

  4. Notions of God the Creator Being - which are common among deists - are contradictory on multiple grounds:

    "A consciousness conscious only of itself, existing in non-existence, acts in non-time, to create existence, time, and objects of which to be aware."

    There are at least four contradictions here, all related: consciousness requires objects of which to be conscious, existence implies existence, action implies motion through time, and creation requires all of those: existence, action over time, and physical objects to manipulate.

    Not all deists believe this to be true, you are over generalizing, the deism I refer to does not make any of those assumptions

    also, sentience does not necessarily require a physical brain because all matter is made of vibrations set at specific frequencies (learned this on Nova), how do you know that an energy being vibrating at a specific frequency is not sentient (cannot perceive)

  5. "the only difference between round and square is the color" This is equivilent to the above.

    how so? prove this without simply stating it as truth. I am only talking about practicality, the only diffenece between a blue nail and a red nail for building a wall that will not be seen is irrelevant. provided that the nails are the same in all else

  6. Being a philosophy, Objectivism tries to lay down some principles of how we should validate our knowledge. So, it is not simply "no faith", but a little more than that. According to these underlying principles, Objectivism rejects certain types of propositions as arbitrary and therefore not knowledge. Further, any time someone tries to get a little more specific about what God is all about, that will lead to contradictions, and Objectivism holds that contradictions do not exist.

    Objectivism uses its underlying epistemology while coming up with other propositions. So, if someone comes along and says, "I disagree with how you arrived at your conclusion, but I agree with your conclusion", that does not make him an Objectivist. Imagine some ancient medicine man who says: "There is an evil spirit living in your abscess", and lances it off. If this just so happens to also be the medically correct treatment, we would be wrong to call such a person's approach "perfectly compatible" with modern medicine. When we are comparing systems of knowledge, we should be comparing the systems, not just the leaf nodes.

    a god's nature is determined empirically, which means that once a contradiction arises its nature is changed to fit the new evidence

    also, if one does not define god, there is never a contradiction.

  7. Ok, here's how your sentence looks if I replace likely with what you meant by likely:

    it is just as has either an equal chance of being true, or neither chance is known and the evidence for either is very close in strength to the point of irrelevance that there is a God who created the current form of the universe, set up the laws of nature and does not violate them

    If there's an idea you conveyed in there, I'm missing it.

    the point is simply that Deism in all practical sense Atheism with a difference that makes no difference and is compatable with objectivism.

  8. so, you are saying that in order to be a objectivist one must necessarily blindly accept the fact that there is no god even though there may be gray area and it is just as likely that there is a God who created the current form of the universe, set up the laws of nature and does not violate them

    does the fact that Ayn Rand did not feel such a being exist preclude the fact those who also live free of anti-life principals (objecitists) must be atheists as well

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