which they refer. Their own one. — Benj96

I would refer to the Christian god if I were to say this, not a god of my own creation.

I suppose it would be more correct to say, "I do not believe in the Christian concept of god" rather than "I don't believe in god", but then it would take longer to say it.

True. I surrender.

You are reversing the order of things. — Ennui Elucidator

Perhaps I misunderstood you, I thought you meant to say that caring about Israel was somehow a proof of underlying antisemetism, but now that I reread your comment I see that may not be what you claim.

If that is the case, you have my apology, because then I have derailed the debate.

Thanks for the debate, you hold out well, even if I didn't follow your arguments.

And this is all just some long-winded logic to convince us that we are probably antisemitic for thinking about Israel?

Nah, I am not following.

I said that focus on Jews is likely antisemitic and that Israel is an example of that. Focus on Ukraine is a different topic. — Ennui Elucidator

It doesn't hold logic that you need to be "anti" something to think about it. The other way around holds though, if you are "anti" something then you probably think a lot about it.

So your support of Ukraine doesn't mean that you hate Ukrainians, but it may mean that you hate Africans. — Ennui Elucidator

You claimed before that westerners thinking about Israel probably means that they are antisemitic.

Do you retract this statement?

At this point I do believe I am talking to chatGTP, am I wrong?

The danger with conversations like these is that any example I offer to show the problem will just lead to your allegations that I am trying to deflect. — Ennui Elucidator

That you like to deflect is already evident by the fact that I just had to ask the same simple question 5 times in a row and still never got an answer. You are a hopeless case.

This also speaks against your first arguments, when you said westerners hate Jews because they care about Israel.

So answer this. Does westerners hate Ukrainians?

Your personal feelings are entirely aside from the system. — Ennui Elucidator

I am a person "in the west" so yes, I matter here.

Now answer... Do I therefore hate Ukraine?

So, answer the question. Do I therefore hate Ukraine?

Oh, no. You won't bullshit yourself around this one. You claim I hate Jews because I am worried about the war in Isreal.

Do I therefore hate Ukraine?

So, now that you have unloaded some more nonsense... do I hate Ukraine?

The West only cares about Israel because it is antisemitic — Ennui Elucidator

I started to care about Israel when it became relevant in a conflict escalation that could lead to world war 3, before that I did not care.

nothing that happens there would cause WW3 — Ennui Elucidator

There are powers in the Middle East that have nuclear options, things can happen.

I care even more about Ukraine, are you going to tell me I hate Ukrainians now?

If that is what you said, then you need to rewrite your argument, because it makes little sense.

For the Western audience, you can't just point to its coverage as reason for why you are talking about it as if that is independent of the Western antisemitism. It is covered because the West is antisemetic and when you talk about it, you are likely just acting out that antisemitism. Isn't your fault. You don't know any better. It is a system of antisemitism just as it is a system of racism. — Ennui Elucidator

What? Talking about 1 of the 2 wars that could bring about world war 3 makes us antisemetic?

We need Lionino to come back here and tell you how dumb these arguments are.

Which is basically my original comment's point. — Lionino

Yes, I think I follow, except I think that "confused" is not the same as not bothering with fully knowing the meaning of a world before using it. People just don't care enough to be correct in all they say.

Ooof. A lot to unpack here — AmadeusD

Oh, I am sorry if I seem personal here. I ment it more in general.

I believe you can be successfully bullied for just about anything. E.g. A girl with red hair can start a school loving her hair and graduate hating it, just from it being used as an avenue of attack for bullies.

You probably fall in my "iron will" category, but I am out of my depth here again, please don't hate me.

I am openly not straight and being insulted for it doesn’t bother me because I’m not ashamed. — AmadeusD

A constant barrage from the same angle will wear anyone down. You will start to crack and it will become a weakness. Bullying tactics 101.

I am guessing you haven't been bullied enough to form cracks yet, or that you have an iron will. Or that you had inept bullies :rofl:

I would say first that those people are deluded because — Lionino

I don't think people need to be delusional because they don't share your grasp of the terminology.

lying or confused — Lionino

Confused seems better. Even so, saying you are an atheist is usually enough to get the correct message across.

Math, however, does not seem to fully derive/be apprehended from physical reality, because otherwise all mathematics would be applicable to physics, and that is clearly not the case — Lionino

Maybe, I am unsure. It all comes back to not being able to imagine a new color as I stated here

The reason why I think this is — mentos987

From this exercise, I deduce that it is more likely that all the constituents of our most advanced math are still basic physical elements that we have prior experience of.

"would be applicable to physics" We can make plenty of new combinations of elements and most of them have no place in reality.

1. Either all things have a prior cause for their existence, or there is at least one first cause of existence from which a chain of events follows. — Philosophim

3. This leads us to 3 plausibilities. — Philosophim

I don't know if this has been said because I am lazy and have not read comments, but..

I think a 4th option would be that you follow the chain of causation as far back as you can and then find out that the next causation source exists in a universe a layer above ours. Such a universe would not necessarily follow our laws of causation and could be rather unknowable.

The concept or image of a golden mountain does not come from experience — Lionino

original thinking is just small pieces of prior experience that we recombine in a new pattern — mentos987

Yes, the golden mountain is a combination of Gold + Mountain. I agree that it is original but the elements of it originate from nature. A randomizer of all existing physical combinations could achieve the same.

There is nothing in nature (or in mind) that i refers to — Lionino

"i" was crafted to fill up a gap in mathematics, it was not directly inspired from nature, true. But, we have found out that it does correspond to real natural behavior in electricity. I still believe that math is fully derived from physical reality, even if we have taken "leaps" of logic to reach where we are.

derive from Peano arithmetic (I am not sure if it does — Lionino

I am not sure either, but I remember that “deriving from simpler math” was a constant exercise in all of my higher math courses. So I assume that you can derive it all the way back to + - / * .

The agnostic label should be reserved for those who are truly divided (even if the evidence sways their mind in another direction) and prefer to suspend judgement in the await for more evidence. — Lionino

So what about those that are sure that our religious gods do not exist, but have no clue about anything supernatural beyond that? Are they just atheist or are they agnostic atheist?

Ye, you are right. I lack the prerequisite knowledge here.

You’re welcome to continue weighing into this conversation on the physicalist side, if that position isn’t also averse to your inclinations. Hoping you’ll give us more goodies like the tree-bridge. — ucarr

Music to my ears. My standpoint is this: Humans are not capable of truly original thought. What we call original thinking is just small pieces of prior experience (originating from the physical worldfrom the physical world) that we recombine in a new pattern.

The reason why I think this is because we know that the wavelengths of light goes far beyond the spectra that we call visible light, so if our eyes where constructed differently we would be able to see new colors. And yet, when you are asked to imagine a new color, you find that it is utterly impossible. We are not even capable of doing any truly original imagination.

Maybe I haven’t tried enough different drugs, I hear good things..

Such Christians tend to interpret requests that they define God as an indication of dishonesty on the part of atheists. — wonderer1

To define something you would need to know something about it, does Christians claim to know god? Maybe, I don't know. To me it seems like arguments that god does not exist are weak, and arguments that it does exist are even weaker.

Yeah, there's some esoteric knowledge required to get the joke. — wonderer1

The argument comes to a dead halt with "Define "God"", why would we be able to define god? I am not a believer but if a god were to exist outside of our world, it would seem utterly hopeless to try to define it.

1) Define "God" as a mind which is not contingent on the existence of an underlying information processing substrate.
2) If minds are contingent on the existence of an underlying information processing substrate, then God does not exist.
3) Minds are contingent on the existence of an underlying information processing substrate.
4) Therefore God does not exist.

This?
Meh, I was not impressed.

WNA? Nvm, found it

I wouldn't say "in-built math — JuanZu

Ye "in-built" may not be true. I do think toddlers do a calculation to determine what is more and what is less. It is a form of math.

I believe we already solved this. Hallucinogen is correct, in his claim of irrational, if "belief" is to be counted as absolute (true or false). The way most seem to consider it though, it is more of a scale.

Edit. Maybe agnostic people are keener on thinking in terms of scales/degrees/continuums, since they are more focused on doubt itself.

Greed. Even a toddler have enough inbuilt math to enable them to be greedy and want what they think is "more".

Excellent example of the natural world practicing physical number for counting! What person in the village thinks two trees or four trees have fallen over the creek? — ucarr

Well, I mention this because you used bridge building as an example of mental concepts taking physical form. I am trying to add to that that the mental concept in turn came from an original physical form.

Real number in the real world built number sign within the head. What are number signs in the head without real number in the real world? — ucarr

I am unsure what we are talking about. I do not claim that math isn't real, just that it isn't man made. The symbol "3" may be manmade, but the symbol isn't building any bridges, it is just part of the shared concept. We have constructed ourselves a concept that we implement in engineering sure, but I think that all inspiration for it comes from physical reality.

I should maybe be excluded from this discussion..

I don't believe in pure mental concepts at all, not the way you guys are talking about it — mentos987

That isn't a belief that I share. — Hallucinogen

Ye, the belief basically stems from the low chance that everything we experience could ultimately just be one huge fever dream and none of it be true. Since you can't argue away this possibility you instead leave a little room to doubt everything else.

Except that I think, and therefore am..

Then you aren't certain, you just have a high degree of confidence. — Hallucinogen

True, but I believe that no one is ever 100% sure, so when we say "certain" what we really mean is 99.9...% sure. And if everyone else if fine with equating this to being certain, who am I to argue against it.

As long as you don't know, you are an agnostic, because you lack knowledge. There aren't degrees of knowledge in a thing; it takes only a binary value. — Hallucinogen

I do not agree here either. When I say that I am "absolutely certain" about something what I really mean is that I believe it to be true with an error margin of about 0.01%.

"I think, therefore I am" is one of very few truths that are 100% certain.

I also believe that most people that call themselves atheists are really agnostics. Atheism is just a more common term.