>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^HadouKen24:
Eh... the consistency of physical laws is a proposition one must necessarily take on faith.
While Hume's argument was philosophically true when it was made, it is a groundless assertion that physical law will cease to be consistent. The scientific history of consistency which we have observed since the time of his life is evidence of consistency.
We now have mountains of evidence that physical laws have continued to be consistent, while the probability that they will remain so is not 100%, it does not follow that the position is groundless, and therefor requiring faith.
Given the available evidence we can safely claim that it is astronomically unlikely that physical laws will arbitrarily cease to be consistent. They could, just as my life might be a complicated computer simulation, or I'm living on an alien wild life preserve, or the earth will stop spinning at noon today, but these are not likely, only possible, belief in any of these would require faith, assuming their falsehood does not.





Assuming the falsehood of something does indeed require faith - faith in that the assumption is true. the only way you could say that you do not need faith would be if in fact you knew for certain. since you don't you require an (active) belief.

>> ^HadouKen24:
Eh... the consistency of physical laws is a proposition one must necessarily take on faith.

While Hume's argument was philosophically true when it was made, it is a groundless assertion that physical law will cease to be consistent. The scientific history of consistency which we have observed since the time of his life is evidence of consistency.

We now have mountains of evidence that physical laws have continued to be consistent, while the probability that they will remain so is not 100%, it does not follow that the position is groundless, and therefor requiring faith.

Given the available evidence we can safely claim that it is astronomically unlikely that physical laws will arbitrarily cease to be consistent. They could, just as my life might be a complicated computer simulation, or I'm living on an alien wild life preserve, or the earth will stop spinning at noon today, but these are not likely, only possible, belief in any of these would require faith, assuming their falsehood does not.

Eh... the consistency of physical laws is a proposition one must necessarily take on faith. The first person I'm aware of who pointed this out was skeptic and atheist David Hume.

It's called the Problem of Induction in philosophy. One can never prove by observation that the universe will remain consistent, because this begs the question by assuming the conclusion--that past consistency is a guide to future consistency.

Likewise, the video overstates the objectivity of science; philosophy and sociology of science show that a strong subjective element is not only present in science, but in principle ineradicable.

However, these cannot be used by naive Evangelicals to bolster their claims. The self-criticism and intellectual openness of science show it to be a far more reliable way to discover facts, and a far healthier way to resolve disputes about the world.

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.

Somewhere, Zombie David Hume is tearing out his own liver in rage . . .

I'm a 6 by Hume's standards of knowledge, and a 7 by Popper's or Russell's.

the lyrics in the description are wrong:

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable,
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table,
David Hume could out-consume,
Schopenhauer and Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say could stick it away,
Half a crate of whiskey everyday.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René DesCartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker
but a bugger when he's pissed.

>> ^MINK:
god had bad PR for so long that people now have no idea what they are trying to deny.


Even if you could demonstrate the existence of a designer, you would have no good reason to suppose the designer were a god rather than an alien in charge of some kind of computer simulation of this universe. The leap from "I don't know how this happened" to "there's some kind of omnipotent spirit out there" is a large and illogical one.

btw,
"Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?" - David Hume, summarizing Epicurus' refutation of the notion of an omnipotent benevolent God.

You can't blame it all on free will. There are natural parasites, diseases, etc., that cause a lot of suffering. If there is an omnipotent god, then he is to blame for them.

Early Christian theologians tried to blame it on original sin. Punishing one person for the deeds of another person is wrong, therefore the concept of original sin is ridiculous.

I always thought Brit Hume from Fox News looks like a basset hound.

Liberals dominate the media....this has been announced by Rush Limbaugh. And Thomas Sowell. And Ann Coulter. And Rich Lowry. And Bill O'Reilly. And William Safire. And Robert Novak. And William F. Buckley, Jr. And George Will.

And John Gibson. And Michelle Malkin. And David Brooks. And Tony Snow. And Tony Blankely. And Fred Barnes. And Britt Hume. And Larry Kudlow. And Sean Hannity. And David Horowitz. And William Kristol. And Hugh Hewitt.

And Oliver North. And Joe Scarborough. And Pat Buchanan. And John McLaughlin. And Cal Thomas. And Joe Klein. And James Kilpatrick. And Tucker Carlson. And Deroy Murdock. And Michael Savage. And Charles Krauthammer. And Stephen Moore. And Alan Keyes.

And Gary Bauer. And Mort Kondracke. And Andrew Sullivan. And Nicholas von Hoffman. And Neil Cavuto. And Matt Drudge. And Mike Rosen. And Dave Kopel. And John Caldara.

The mainstream media in this country are dominated by liberals. Look at how they all gave Bill Clinton a pass on the whole Monica Lewsinsky affair. Remember? It was never in the news. We never heard any of the salacious details.

Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Brit Hume - The Unholy Trinity of FOX News.

I don't think Madison Square Garden is big enough to accommodate all three of those egos at the same time.

This phrasing of the Epicurean Paradox is from David Hume's "Dialogues concerning Natural Religion" (1779), not directly from Epicurus. It's still a great philosophical question, though.

Hume argues that when we reason inductively we make an assumption - that nature is uniform. How can we justify this assumption? We could argue that from our past inductions this assumption appears to be true. But if we use induction to justify induction then we will just end up going around in circles.

I understand that 'young earth creationists' must piss everyone off. The evangelical campaign against rationality and science is a real problem. But, while all theists are creationists - and by creationist I mean that they hold the belief that God created the world - 'young earth creationists' are a minority. Personally, I think that the basic idea of creationism - that God created the world - is not incompatible with what we have learnt from science regarding evolution and the origins of the universe. Since God created the world, the world is a form of revelation - just like the Qur'an. Consequently, the scientific study of reality is just as important as the study of the Qur'an as both were created by God. Religion is not meant to compete with science - it is meant to complement science. Science does provide a better approximation of the physical reality we inhabit - but it doesn't answer many important questions: What is the meaning of life? Why do we exist? What is right? How should I live my life?

Granted, no one can ABSOLUTELY prove anything outside of formal abstractions like mathematics. Hume's criticism of induction amounts to nothing more than the mutual fund disclaimer. It is no more irrational to accept the scientific method than to accept that the sun will rise again tomorrow. The fact that scientific knowledge gives us much more ability to predict and control our world than religion suggests that science provides a better approximation of reality.

Science is no more rational than religion. Read the famous philosopher David Hume - an atheist/naturalist and sceptic about religion - on the problem of induction.