him: It is impossible to ‘disprove’ his skepticism because his skepticism is basically agnosticism concerning certain metaphysical questions, questions which no person can answer.
you: Yes, perfect. I guess I wasn’t being clear.
So if no person can answer then why should I even bother with a link, but it’s obvious since “no person can answer” then you, as demonstrated, can’t even answer (the questions I provided).
See that word right there–imaginary? Yeah. It kills whatever point you were trying to make, because you admit the difference between the real and the imaginary.
Dreaming is contradisinctory to wakefullness. ,
No, it’s not. I know that I’m not imagining him, so the other option is…
No, it doesn’t. The mind does not impose categories upon reality.
His “skepticism” is a mental masturbatory dead-end. It gets you nowhere.
I have to take it on faith (either in GOD or something else). If faith is not a good reason (as is frequently proclaimed by you “rational” thinkers), then yes, that’s what I’m saying.
Well I don’t know if one can answer these questions; people said the same thing about proving one’s existence until Descartes. But the point is that these questions must be answered if we wish to rid ourselves of faith. Until then, we take much for granted.
Now, are you going to put forth anything meaningful?
Nice, good work. I see that mises.org is not the place to talk about God or deeper philosophical questions. It’s a place where all Rothbardian’s can come and agree on the NAP.
Pure sarcasm and stupidity. Just know that Ayn Rand was full of faith, just like you, and just like everyone else who believes they truly know something. The only people absent of faith are real nihilists, those who wake up in the morning and check to see if the sun came out.
Second off your projection of me being a “rational thinker” has nothing to do with the questions I had asked.
Thirdly, you are a fool for not being skeptical enough about my position and therefore constructing a reason about what I do or do not proclaim when it comes to God. So you trashed your position and painted me wrongly all in one swoop. good job.
questions of faith is theology and not metaphysics so Stephen was wrong to begin with and a circular proof is called being self-evident not taking it for granted.
i don’t need to. I simply wanted to understand what the hell you were talking about. You need a break or something. Your boiler is over-heating.
So you don’t believe that there is an external world and we don’t sense anything. That’s your position. That’s partly what I wanted to know. [:|]
I apologize. I hate repeating myself over the internets. Sorry I misunderstood you, but there’s a lot of hostility here. But questions like that have been traditionally assigned to the philosopher and metaphysician. These are the deeper questions which go beyond science.
thank you for being civil enough to come forward and state this. I respect that in a person. I find that to be not only courageous, but meek. Meekness is the blooming of peace. I can hope to share in such virtuous actions.
Epistemology is moving away from such questions because they are unable to justify things like absolute truth or natural law (or any other fundamental question) without God. The lunatics will soon have all of the ‘intellectual’ and ‘philosophical’ justification they need for anything.
Quine says it all: “Let me interject that for my part I do, qua the lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s Gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.”
This is extremely important. Philosophy has been the major justification for moral relativism, complete subjectivism and historicism. If you can refute this claim, without god, then please do. It would rid us of the so-called philosophers who influence lunatics like Hitler, Marx, and others. Who would deny that Aristotle changed the destructive path put forth for humanity by Plato?
I very much respect Murphy. His pieces were some of my first exposures to Austrian thought, I loved his essay on the Hoppe-priori, and so on. I still consider it a high point of my LRC writing that one of my pieces elicited a positive email from him. But I must disagree here. First of all, here is the operative phrase:
Well, it’s an interesting assertion, but I fail to see any argument for it. Furthermore:
Well, let’s talk about this God of the Bible. This is the God of the Bible who asks Cain what he’s done - and gives evidence, saying “your brother’s blood(s) cries out to me…” Well, why didn’t he say “I saw you do it?” What else does this narrative tell us? God creates two people, and people are the high point of creation - and yet he also creates a tree which no one is allowed to eat from. This kind of arbitrary use of power is exactly what we libertarians oppose. Furthermore, this tree gives the power to know good from evil - so the Biblical theist must say that we only know what good and bad are through sin, and thus we shouldn’t - so our fight for liberty is actually sinful!
Moving on, we find that Cain’s punishment for murder is a mark on his forehead, which will change how people look at him - people presumably consisting of his parents and no one else - yet somehow he goes on to build cities. Ten generations later, God decides that people are all basically evil - who created them again? - and kills them in all in a flood, except one, who is perfectly righteous - who promptly gets drunk after the flood. A few generations later, he speaks to Abraham, who loves him - and commands him to sacrifice his son, revealing at the last minute that he was only kidding. What? (I’ll leave out the narratives which serve the purpose of showing that Israel and Christianity are perfect and deserve lots of land and everyone else deserves to die, but the case of Ishmael sent out to die in the desert deserves some notice.)
What else do we find? Well, we have the nation of Israel commanded, after leaving slavery, to come to Israel and kill all the nations living there. That sounds fair. We have two brothers who, hearing their sister was raped, think it is just to kill the entire population of the city in which it happened - and they are granted the priesthood and the kingship. In the desert, the nation on its way to Israel is attacked by a small band of Amalekites - in response, they are to kill, many generations later, all the descendents of the Amalekites. So we learn a good deal about collectivism and guilt by association. Then we get the real kicker - the nation comes across a nation which, rather than attacking it, does something far worse - have sex with them! The women have the audacity to have consentual relations with the Israelities! So, naturally, they must all be killed - but we can spare the very young virgins - who will be kept alive “for yourselves.”
Then we have some laws, mostly about sacrificing animals, because God, being omnipotent and just, apparently needs animals to eat and wine to drink, and can get it no other way than by people offering it in a huge temple paid for by taxpayer dollars. There are some other laws, too, and the better known ones are quite libertarian. Some aren’t - a man who rapes a woman is required to…marry her. (Admittedly, some would argue that this is a reasonable punishment, but most wouldn’t.) We learn the details of taking slaves from other nations and putting nails through their ears, of an economic system without interest and without solid property rights, of elaborate payments to priests, of capturing women in war - before you can force them to sleep with you, you have to keep them around for a few days without cutting their nails, and so on.
Now tell me, how does all this give a libertarian a good reason to fight for liberty? This boils down to a justification of arbitrary decree, taxation, and absurd wars. Those who enslave, steal, and murder apparently not only experience temporary victories, but are promised eternal life and the State of Israel.
Depending on how one defines the bible, we can also talk about the Kings and their behavior.
No, it’s because we’ve gotten past the Pythagorean Hangover. For instance, there is no Big Mac Truth aka Truth With Special Sauce aka Absolute Truth. There is simply truth. Belief otherwise is to continue to believe in some super-realm, like Plato’s forms. It’s metaphysical garbage.