Paragraphs please. I can barely find the next line down. I'm old ya know. I can't hold my breath that long.

This is all I see:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Karl Popper from The Open Society and Its Enemies [1945]


I will not tolerate this.

Go back to your desk and bring it back when you're done and then I'll read it.

Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

- Karl Popper from The Open Society and Its Enemies [1945]

@A10anis

Agnosticism is an epistemological position of the uncertainty of knowledge of things. In other words, the nature of knowledge about God, or knowledge in general really, as many above have pointed out (I'm taking it you did read the nice chart above!). Theism or Atheism is a position, either knowingly or unknowing rejecting or accepting the idea of God; one can be explicitly or implicitly atheist (like all children not exposed to the idea are implicitly atheist). Agnostic Atheist is the most common position, but few people have complete understanding of all the concepts involved, or have their own private understandings of what they mean; making any unilateral criticism troublesome. As to the foundations of science and Mathematics, Kurt Gödel had had a great role to play in the destruction of what most peoples concept of certain systems are. And the o so smart Karl Popper ideas on falsifiability has thrown the antique notion of certain truth from science against the wall, in which modern Philosophers of Science, like Hilary Putnam have found intractable to solve, except to say that very little separates, currently, the foundations of science form the foundations of any other dabble of the imagination. Einstein talked about this as well, that wonderment is really the pursuit of all great scientists...not certainty.

As to my original claim, that science has truths it can not rectify, I leave it to better minds to explain the problems of induction. David Hume, Nelson Goodman, and Kurt Gödel drastically changed any view of certain knowledge from science and maths that I had. The untenable nature of the empirical evaluation of reality is just as uncertain as Abrahamic codifications being real.

I close with this, some of the greatest minds in the history of science and philosophy had no problem, nay, drew power from the deep richness they gathered from their faith. It drove them to the limits of the thoughts of their day, René Descartes, Gottfried Leibniz, Blaise Pascal, Alan Turing (who kept some vestibules of faith even after what happened to him), Georg Cantor, and countless others all had some "irrational" faith was more than just a ideal system of commands by some dead people, it drove them to greatness, and in many cases to rejection and madness of their "rational" peers. Georg Cantor, the father of the REAL infinite, died in a mental institution only to have his ideas lite a fire in the minds of the next generation of mathematicians.

It is my believe that we all want to have issue with x number of people, and make peace with y number. We elevate the slightest difference, or conversely, ignore a great flaw to peg this mark just right for us. Perhaps my y is just bigger than your x, or most peoples x as I find this debate I have is a common one; for tolerance, peace, and consideration. If you still think what I am saying is non-sense, then I guess we have nothing more to say to one another. I hope I cleared up my thoughts a bit more, I am not very good at communicating things that are more than just the average amount of esoteric.

The problem of induction is simply that absolute certainty can never be established for ANYTHING not deduced. So the theory of relativity, the theory of evolution, etc. could all be disproved by one tiny piece of evidence.

Of course, the same problem applies to God.

>> ^StukaFox:
Somewhere, Zombie David Hume is tearing out his own liver in rage . . .


And Karl Popper. C. S. Lewis would be laughing his head off.

written by jwray
"Obviously, if you don't accept any axioms you can't get anywhere. Logic shows that axioms imply conclusions. Since I suspect this video is an attempt to put science on a par with faith, I offer the following quotation by Stephen Hawking:

“Any sound scientific theory, whether of time or of any other concept, should in my opinion be based on the most workable philosophy of science: the positivist approach put forward by Karl Popper and others. According to this way of thinking, a scientific theory is a mathematical model that describes and codifies the observations we make. A good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make definite predictions that can be tested… If one takes the positivist position, as I do, one cannot say what time actually is. All one can do is describe what has been found to be a very good mathematical model for time and say what predictions it makes.” (The Universe In a Nutshell , p31)

So far, every prediction I can make on the basis of the theory that there is no God is consistent with what I observe.

Since there are infinitely many things that can't be disproven without making some assumptions, such as Zeus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Russel's Teapot, in the absence of any evidence for something it is reasonable to act as though it doesn't exist.

And who is to discern what axioms to accept and to not accept? Even if we accepted those axioms, we end up with two answers to the same question.

Yes, I suppose it can reasonable to an extent, but to say that for sure it doesn't or does exists seems unreasonable, no? That is the point I have been trying to get across.

Obviously, if you don't accept any axioms you can't get anywhere. Logic shows that axioms imply conclusions. Since I suspect this video is an attempt to put science on a par with faith, I offer the following quotation by Stephen Hawking:

“Any sound scientific theory, whether of time or of any other concept, should in my opinion be based on the most workable philosophy of science: the positivist approach put forward by Karl Popper and others. According to this way of thinking, a scientific theory is a mathematical model that describes and codifies the observations we make. A good theory will describe a large range of phenomena on the basis of a few simple postulates and will make definite predictions that can be tested… If one takes the positivist position, as I do, one cannot say what time actually is. All one can do is describe what has been found to be a very good mathematical model for time and say what predictions it makes.” (The Universe In a Nutshell , p31)

So far, every prediction I can make on the basis of the theory that there is no God is consistent with what I observe.

Since there are infinitely many things that can't be disproven without making some assumptions, such as Zeus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Russel's Teapot, in the absence of any evidence for something it is reasonable to act as though it doesn't exist.