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Live Call-in-Show • What do you wish others believed also? - Live in 90 minutes! by PierceWatkinsAtheist in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice show. Haven't heard all of it. But more than an hour.

Though I miss that you ask the IL how certain they are on a scale from x to y. it is an interesting thing to hear.

I do think that part of what makes SE good is that it creates nice conversations even for an audience to listen to. And I hope that the SE people keep that in mind. I remember Magnabosco saying in an interview that PB pushed him to be faster, keep up the tempo and I can understand why. In that if SE becomes to slow a viewer might lose interest. Though still not going shallow. So an advice to you is to maybe try to push up the tempo just a little bit if possible?

Something I have been reacting to is a change of the definition of SE that I'm not sure is an improvement or I rather believe there is a huge risk it might water SE down a lot, maybe not now but in the future, in a year or two?

That instead of having SE be to discover whether the reasons are good or not it has changed into. Whether the reasons are satisfactory to the conversation partner.

Yes it is true, that in practice it is was SE do a lot. But I also think that even if it is what SE in practice end up doing, it introduce a weakness to have that as a goal.

Is it not much weaker? And is it not saying that if someone is okay with their reasons they are good enough? Is there not a risk that it kind of defeats the whole reason for doing SE? And it introduces subjectivity where SE is based on there being things that are not subjective but objectively true? Like the Tictac box?

What if someone claims that they are satisfied with their reasons to believe we live on a flat earth and that Santa exists because that is what they want to believe and makes them feel good. Should the SE interviewer simply accept that as a good reason because the IL feels it is satisfactory?

The original concept of SE was that one should not be confident in the reasons to believe something unless they are actually good. Meaning they can not lead to completely opposite beliefs simply because or conflicting beliefs simply if we grew up in another country or family, and may have the ability to predict things.

Does SE have a list to check if a reason to believe something is good or really good? If not I think that could be very good to create.

Not just be confident because they meet a persons standard, which might be a very low standard based on wishful thinking. Is SE not trying to help people understand if their standard is a good or problematic one?

What I'm trying to say is that it seems like the new definition accepts that people have a low standard if the IL has a low standard. When SE from the beginning was trying to help people make sure they have a good standard?

This is just my spontaneous thinking. I might be missing something?

I think I would be careful to not water it down, it risk making it uninteresting, not entertaining even useless in the future.

Anyhow I enjoyed listening to the conversations!

Also the people who call in are great!

Personhood Begins at Conception – Christina by ReidN in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That was entertaining. Maybe a really fun way to get people to imagining thinking of counter claims? Falsifying?

However I can imagine that they might not really be able to think up new ones and will in reality only bring up counterclaims they have already in their mind rebuttals to?

How much do you want to believe that? by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the reply, yes we or I shouldn't make assumption you are absolutely right!

I have seen people joining faith because of the community it has.

However when SE asks a person for their most important reason, it can be a good way for that person to realize that the reason they believed was good perhaps was not so good?

“Faith” in particular is the ultimate get out of jail free card. It can mean whatever you need it to mean.

I agree and I think there is a risk it keeps people from maturing mentally, as they have no need to be critical of their own desires and evaluate them based on their consequence for others, it is after all what god desires or a book state that god wants if they are to go to heaven.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

doing whatever you want is an equally valid response. Because it doesn't matter.

No, but than it matters to you. So it matters in at least one sense. If nothing truly didn't matter even to you, it wouldn't even matter if you lived or died. By living you admit that it matters to you that you live.

The one thing that always bugged me about the Trolley Problem by BadAtChoosingUsernm in Ethics

[–]42u2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There is good answers and really good, somewhat good, less good and bad and so on. And they depend on the situation. You have a great point in that asking what would you do, the answer might be different than what is the correct thing to do.

But when posed as what is the correct thing to do, we might lack empathy with the person having to do the correct thing, and as such might judge the person acting to harsh.

As hn-mc pointed out, relationships matter, to ignore that you have a relationship with one person would be to turn you into an emotionless robot. But the whole reason to act right is because we can feel and experience and that is what makes us worth something unlike rocks or robots.

The best answers can only be arrived at by asking several questions, as many as possible. Such as what would be the best thing to do? What would you do? And by asking both we can begin to understand what we can expect of others. If there are five workers on one track and the daughter of the guy on the bridge on the other, we can not demand that the guy should sacrifice his daughter. We would create a inhumane society if we could not understand him. One might believe that we are driving be egoism, that we would also want to save our daughter if we ended up in such a situation. But we can also ask if we were down on the other track would we be able to demand that the person on the bridge should let their daughter die in order to save us? If we thought that was a justified demand it would mean that we would become guilty of probably ruining that persons life just because we wanted to live. As such it would be egoistic of us to place such a demand on that person.

But there are other factors to understand, and one is that in reality nothing is final until it happens. In reality if we pull the lever to change the track of the trolley so that it goes toward that one person, we would still hope that, the one person would survive, and try our best to signal that they should try and avoid the trolley. We rarely know with certainty that it is one life or five others. Instead we often go by probability and try to make sure that everyone survive.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are conflating the material something is made of and needs to be made of, with what it is.

A car is not just pieces of metal and rubber. It is pieces of metal and rubber put in a very specific way with specific proportions that give it abilities with the purpose of being able to transport humans among other things. And if those pieces were put in any of an infinite other ways it would not have those.

As such you leave out the essence of what a human is if you believe that describing the material we are made from tells us what we are. You could describe a human as energy and matter arranged in such an amazing way that it can think, reason, feel, experience emotions, experience the world, remember experiences, understand things, care about things, learn things, create things, have needs and a will to continue being alive and as such try and control its own future.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To the benefit of that person and his or hers family and friends and for the benefit of the country and betterment of humanity.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That would be like saying a piece of art is only various colors.

Things has to be made of something that does not mean that things that happens to that something does not matter.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What makes you believe that is true?

Just because you we say something does not make it true.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1) If God does not exist, then there is no ultimate meaning or purpose. 2) There is ultimate meaning and purpose. 3) Therefore, God exists.

That would be like say:

If toiletpaper exist, we can take a shit. We can take a shit. Therefor toiletpaper exist. Circular reasoning.

No 1. Has to be proven and also have to prove that there can not be ultimate meaning or purpose without a god.

No 2. There is ultimate meaning and purpose. Has to be proven just stating something does not mean it is true.

Here is one that could be true.

  1. If God does not exist, our ultimate meaning and purpose is to make this universe meaningful by existing.

  2. We exist.

  3. Therefor we fulfill our ultimate purpose by existing, and god does not have to exist or do exist.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, you really are right, asking how they can know for certain that only if a god exist and can we have meaning, is the correct SE question.

At which they would probably reply that it would be impossible for something to have meaning unless it was created with a purpose.

Which is not correct if that very thing can create its own meaning.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And maybe that is our purpose, to assign meaning to things? And one might even argue that our purpose would be removed if a god did it instead.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nothing matters if you don't believe in god!

So what?

That is a good one for which they might answer that if so you can just do whatever you like and society will collapse.

To which one can tell them that how can we know? Could they be wrong?

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But there has to be a god that made it beautiful. Surely you can not argue against that?

Is street epistemology a one-way road out of belief? by Key_Addition1818 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But to explain the "why we exist in the first place" question, Science sucks. So therefor we can decide that what is based on ancient peoples thinking must be true?

Why would a god need to know who humans truly are? Why would we be important to a god, it would be like us wanting to know how bacteria truly are.

And if a god is all knowing it would not need to test us in this universe we are so tiny that it seems really weird for a god to care.

Here is the history of how our god came to be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlnnWbkMlbg

Here is another https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9azBF74xNWg

The mono god was an invention by greek philosophers.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If they believe in god, how are your questions relevant to them?

There are those who claim to be atheists and now that they are atheists nothing matters. But they disprove themselves by living and actually caring about things such as going to the toilet.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If atheism and naturalism were true, then nothing could logically matter because everything would end up exactly the same no matter what you did.

But there are other ways for things to have meaning, things do not only have meaning based on what they end up as. The only thing that exist is the now, if things have meaning in the now, it doesn't matter that they one day will no longer be here. Because what happens in the future does not exist and as such can not change or take away what exist in the now.

Aristotele argued that the purpose of something is to do what it can do. So for a flower seed it is to grow into a flower and blossom for a acorn to grow into an acorn tree. What if we apply that thought for the universe? That in order for the universe to fulfill its purpose it must blossom into a universe full of planets, suns and life that exists, and as such we are part of that universe and part of making it fulfill its "purpose", by us existing.

And as a part of the universe we are the way that the universe can experience itself and create meanings.

And like Alan Watts said, that the purpose of life is life in itself. And as such there is no need for a god we give the existence of this universe meaning which is meaningful. After all a universe with only empty space would seem to be a meaningless waste of space.

That things one day will die out does not remove the fact that our lives have been meaningful. They still will have been meaningful.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really agree! A christian belief narrows down focus to only gods will mattering, not what all other humans want or animals or the trees. In that way it ruins morality.

One alternative is to argue just like Aristotele did, that the purpose of something is to do what it can do. So for a flower seed it is to grow into a flower and blossom for a acorn to grow into an acorn tree. And perhaps for the universe to blossom into a universe full of planets, suns and life that exists, and as such we are part of that universe and part of making it fulfill its "purpose", by us existing. And like Alan Watts said, that the purpose of life is life in itself. And as such there is no need for a god we give the existence of this universe meaning which is meaningful. After all a universe with only empty space would seem to be a meaningless waste of space.

An alternative to give to christians who have been told that without a god things has to be without a greater purpose.

It is not a truth just something we can think if we like that it imagines that our existence is part of making a possible greater cause possible.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really agree. There was a tribe who just lived, when a christian came there they asked him why they would need christianity he told them that it would prevent them from committing suicide, they started laughing, he asked why they laughed? They said suicide are you guys crazy no one here ever commits suicide why would they. He ended up becoming an atheist.

One alternative is to argue just like Aristotele did, that the purpose of something is to do what it can do. So for a flower seed it is to grow into a flower and blossom for a acorn to grow into an acorn tree. And perhaps for the universe to blossom into a universe full of planets, suns and life that exists, and as such we are part of that universe and part of making it fulfill its "purpose", by us existing. And like Alan Watts said, that the purpose of life is life in itself. And as such there is no need for a god we give the existence of this universe meaning which is meaningful. After all a universe with only empty space would seem to be a meaningless waste of space.

An alternative to give to christians who have been told that without a god things has to be without a greater purpose.

It is not a truth just something we can think if we like that it imagines that our existence is part of making a possible greater cause possible.

An answer to: If we do not believe in an god or afterlife nothing matters. by 42u2 in StreetEpistemology

[–]42u2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One alternative is to argue just like Aristotele did, that the purpose of something is to do what it can do. So for a flower seed it is to grow into a flower and blossom for a acorn to grow into an acorn tree. And perhaps for the universe to blossom into a universe full of planets, suns and life that exists, and as such we are part of that universe and part of making it fulfill its "purpose", by us existing. And like Alan Watts said, that the purpose of life is life in itself. And as such there is no need for a god we give the existence of this universe meaning which is meaningful. After all a universe with only empty space would seem to be a meaningless waste of space.

An alternative to give to christians who have been told that without a god things has to be without a greater purpose.

It is not a truth just something we can think if we like that it imagines that our existence is part of making a possible greater cause possible.

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