Retitled: Modern philosophers are full of it!

[KrazyHorse]

NOOOOOOOO. DON'T GO. I LOVE YOU.

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

Sorry, but claiming that God, with Katrina, was out to get the homos isn't a naturalistic explanation.

Claiming that God was out to get the homos with Katrina does not imply that the claimer denies the existence of a proximate naturalistic explanation.



Do you really need me to take you by the hand here?

Nice try, but if you claim that God personally intervened and provoked the Katrina catastrophe in order to punish the homos, your explanation isn't naturalistic, even if you agree with the scientists on the proximal causes of the catastrophe. So even if the religious homophobes agree with the scientists on the proximal causes, there's no naturalistic part in their version of the explanation IMO, since they claim that God used nature in order to punish the homos.

[KrazyHorse]

What a sack of horse****. If I assign any role a hypothetical God may have had in acting as the ultimate cause for a phenomenon then none of the intervening proximate causes I offer can be considered naturalistic?

By extending that logic anybody who accepts the notion of a divine creation of the Universe 13.7 billion years ago is barred from providing naturalistic explanations of phenomena.

[KrazyHorse]

Now, if you want to tell me that the Greeks invented naturalism...which is the philosophy that all phenomena have naturalist explanations, then who am I to argue?

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
So far that's 2 philosophers attempting to insult me in this thread by reference to the fact that I drink.



The standards of rhetoric have certainly slipped in the philosophy department if this sample is any indication.

I didn't try to insult you, I was just being charitable. You see, unlike you, I'm actually a nice guy: instead of concluding that you were stupid, like you just did, I said to myself: maybe he's drinking, or maybe he's just tired, or maybe I'm not making myself clear (I'm not an anglophone, after all) ...

[Nostromo]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
What a sack of horse****. If I assign any role a hypothetical God may have had in acting as the ultimate cause for a phenomenon then none of the intervening proximate causes I offer can be considered naturalistic?

Well, it depends of the role he presumably played. The Katrina case I mentioned is clearly not naturalistic, IMO, since they claim that God watches over us, didn't like what was happening in the USA and then personally intervened and used nature to punish the homos. He presumably changed the course of nature in order to punish homosexuals. To put it simply, only "natural laws" are used in a truely naturalistic explanation. There's no place for supernatural agents like Gods or spirits. Since God plays an important role in their explanation, its not naturalistic.

By extending that logic anybody who accepts the notion of a divine creation of the Universe 13.7 billion years ago is barred from providing naturalistic explanations of phenomena.

Not necessarily. You can say, for example, that God created the universe, laid down all the natural laws, then stopped intervening altogether. That way, you could explain everything naturalistically, using only natural laws.

[Nostromo]

Your carefully-crafted reply has certainly proven nostromo's point that prior to the Greeks men wandered around pounding their heads against the ground because it was hopeless to even attempt any sort of rational planning for the future, given the fact that no phenomena whatsoever had yet been linked to anything other than the direct will of the gods. The pyramids were actually never built because nobody had yet conceived that soaking wood in water caused it to expand, cracking open a rock in which the wood had been placed.

Talk about a big fat ugly strawman...

[GePap]

Nostromo

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by nostromo
Not necessarily. You can say, for example, that God created the universe, laid down all the natural laws, then stopped intervening altogether. That way, you could explain everything naturalistically, using only natural laws.

Just as you could explain Katrina naturalistically....from the point of God's intervention on

If God didn't like how New Orleans was acting, caused (as the saying goes) a butterfly to flap its wings in Shanghai, and by that mechanism sent Katrina toward NO 6 months later instead of harmlessly out into the Atlantic then everything in this explanation from the flap of that butterfly's wings on is naturalistic. The events thus sent into motion evolved strictly according to natural law. The proximate causes thus offered are naturalistic (warm water in the caribbean, prevailing wind patterns etc.), even though one of the further-removed causes is not.

Simply put, you're drawing an arbitrary line in the sand. If I believe God last intervened in the world when he allowed Jesus to rise from the dead then how is this view any less naturalistic over the last 6 months than is the belief that God last intervened 6 months and 1 day ago in Shanghai?

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by nostromo


Talk about a big fat ugly strawman...

It's not a strawman when you said:

And they were the first to introduce naturalistic explanations of phenomena.

[Flip McWho]

So I'm wondering who these so-called "technical" people are.

Dude its a generalisation, its not necessarily accurate.

[Flip McWho]

And besides, there must be some use for them, afterall they are still about, annoying people aren't they?

[Flip McWho]

Another thing. If you're measuring based on value to society (outside of pay rates, and pay rates is a pretty ****ty way of measuring value to society really) then a ****load of people have no value to society at all. Only the "greats" (inventors, philosophers (like Plato/Aristotle etc) are off use. This includes the vast majority of technicians and computer people as well as vast majorities of every other field as well, including philosophers, who have no use to society.

[Flip McWho]

http://www.abc.state.va.us/Educatio...nt2/parent2.htm

And last thing for now, wow, you're guys laws are so anal.

[BeBMan]

I wonder how anyone here could think that his personal definition of "value to society" is generally valid, and not just crap for poor attempts to troll others.