Government is great at failing, get used to it. It is why the founder fathers wanted it as small as possible.


"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty."

-Plato

To say this is nothing amounts to a misunderstanding of your perception as well as the real philosophy behind the concept of nothingness.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nothingness/

Oh and labeling 'nothing' to a channel = self defeating.

Your preaching to the choir Mr. Maher. I think everyone should see this movie and contemplate their beliefs a bit more critically.

Does society really need the facade of religion as discussed by Socrates/Plato, or can we have our moral values sans religion?

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.

I'm a dumb bald wiggy with a skull and cane-o,
You rhymin' all cloggy while my rap be Drano,
My favorite city in Texas, that would be Plano,
Dana Plato played with Play-Doh now the b;tch is K.O.

>> ^SDGundamX:
>> ^bluecliff:
>> ^gwiz665:
All the evidence presented to me indicates that there exists no supernatural being (a god), thus my conclusion is that there is no god. If any evidence has been introduced to other people, I would like to be shown this so that my conclusion can be strengthened or invalidated.

Isn't the meaning of faith precisely that there IS no evidence...
"Evidence" and the metaphysical don't go together, it's beyond experimental verification - most good things are...

For example...?




The fact that you in no way can actually know that other people arent mindless robots. There is no "proof" for consciousness.
(this is a tangled problem, because it depends on you definition of consciousness, but it's a classic example)


This is also a clasical theory, Platos, one of the oldest (in the western tradition)
i quote it from wikkipedia -

"In a notion derived from Plato's dialogue Theaetetus, philosophy has traditionally defined knowledge as justified true belief. The relationship between belief and knowledge is that a belief is knowledge if the belief is true, and if the believer has a justification (reasonable and necessarily plausible assertions/evidence/guidance) for believing it is true."

The presumption is -
you have to actively believe in something to "have" knowledge

otherwise you could theoretically state
that you know something, but that you don't believe in it, which is problematic, to say the least.

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>> ^budzos:
there must be a beginning
No, that's just your human brain, wired for binary opposition, trying to find the "non-existence" to pair with "existence."
If the big bang theory is true, it's possible there is also a "big crunch", which allows for no true beginning or end to time and space, but creates definite points in time in the past and future beyond which we cannot observe, effectively serving as a beginning and end to the universe. Recent findings have shown the expansion of the universe to be accelerating, most likely due to dark matter, which sort of messes up this theory.
What really bugs me, SO MUCH, about this whole need for a beginning, is just what the show's host said... "where did God come from?" God is no explanation at all, a way to answer a question without thinking.


I wasn't stating that as an imperative belief, merely that it's a valid point to make. If you fixate on the idea that the Big Bang all there is to it you make the assumption that our current understanding of the universe is as good as its going to get and there's no sense in trying to look further. I think that line of reasoning is no different than the person who states God is the answer to everything, and there's no reason to look further.

When I think of things like this I'm always reminded of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. We should never become too fixated on what we know, because there could just as easily be something behind it. I think science has successfully turned around from looking at the shadows to take a look at the fire time and time again, that's how science progresses. So I think its important to ask the question how can there be existence without non-existence. I'm not saying its impossible (frankly I happen believe current theory regarding the origins /nature of the universe), but I don't think we should pigeonhole ourselves into thinking that way, hence why such thinking is always important.

The dog is a living representation of life in Plato's cave and other sick *philosophy stuff.

"All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince."

Plato

"Necessity is the mother of invention", to paraphrase Plato. I think I can see how they came up with the idea...

I know three languages: English, Classical Latin, and Ancient Greek, and will begin learning German in the fall. Those three languages are not equal in their expressive capacities. As an example, it is awkward and difficult to express parallelism in an English sentence. Frequently, we are reduced to the awkward expression "on the one hand this...on the other hand that...", which is hardly natural. As a result, English speakers tend to omit any explicit mention of parallel ideas, because the way to express them is so cumbersome. Ancient Greek however has the handy expression "men...de", which explicitly notes parallel ideas. Suddenly, parallel ideas can be quickly and naturally expressed and as a result connections that would be omitted and implied in English are explicit in Greek.

Another example, the demonstrative use of adjectives. English does use adjectives demonstratively but such adjectives tend to be very ambiguous. "The land of THE FREE and the home of THE BRAVE"; we understand the meaning but there are many unanswered questions with regards to these demonstrative adjectives. Are these free people or free things? Is it one or many? Are we talking about the concept of the free as a whole or just a specific instance of it? In Greek and Latin, those sorts of questions are answered by case endings, and, in Greek, the definitive article. As a result abstractions based upon purely conceptual ideas are much more easily expressed. If you ever pick up an English translation of Plato, you might be puzzled by references to the Good and the Just and the Noble; all of which are expressed much more lucidly in the original Greek.

The point here is that different languages and dialects provide you with different expressive toolkits. Some of these toolkits are better able to equip one to speak and write articulately than others. I do not know enough about the dialect spoken by Black urban Americans to say definitively whether or not it better equips one to speak articulately. It is however entirely possible that, by not having their speech and language "corrected", young, Black Americans are being handicapped in their ability to express themselves. One who cannot express his or herself is doomed never to break out of the working class.

what i find interesting is that so much of the time people really seem to talk past each other on these issues and don't always realise they aren't talking about the same things. i'm not sure if i can contribute to this conversation in a meaningful way but i would like to try. i haven't read every single post with careful eye so forgive me if i repeat too much of what has already been said, however i don't hear anyone addressing the topic that condell is incorrect on a number of points. he perhaps should look up the definition of faith again or think it through again. faith is not the suspension of disbelief or whatever he called it. perhaps some people call the suspension of reasoned faculties faith but they are not correct. faith should be well reasoned and though through very carefully. every belief a person holds should be weighed in light of evidence and there is no way around this. condell believes many things about life, himself, and the universe that he cannot prove but believes them anyway in light of his weighing of the evidence. he cannot prove he is not the only intelligent life form there is but there is good evidence this is not true. he cannot prove he is not a brain in a vat but it is not convenient to believe that and so most of us do not. everyone has basic beliefs and assumptions about life that are unavoidable. in short, we all have a "faith" and this is a plain fact. he happens to have faith in the human mind, human reasoning capability, and a whole host of other basic assumptions that no one can prove or disprove but perhaps seem likely based on experience... but in the end there is nothing that can ultimately validate those experiences... we just have to take a leap of faith at some point... everyone does it... totally unavoidable. there are some things that cannot be scientifically measured. there is a limit to science that people like dawkins can't seem to accept. science can not tells humans what is right and what is wrong. in an atheist world view there is no reason whatsoever to believe that there is anything wrong with taking an axe to condell's head yet i'm sure he believes very firmly that this would in fact be wrong. plato asked, "what is the good?" this is a good question and one that cannot be answered logically in an atheist framework because it all will boil down to opinion, power or preference. bertrand russell put forward the idea that you can understand right from wrong based on feeling. just like you determine colour with your eye so too you determine right from wrong based on feeling. this is silly but exactly the kind of nonsense the atheist is reduced to because without something outside the human system providing a moral frame work there is no foundation for morality.
practicality has nothing to do with it. what matters is what is true. someone earlier brought up the point that no matter what good things you think religion might bring you it doesn't matter if it is false. he is completely correct... and this is also true of atheism. despite what benefits one might think it could bring what matters if it is true. i find it incredible that dawkins cannot seem to understand that atheism is completely unprovable by any means. it might be valid for him to say he thinks it is more reasonable to believe atheism is true based on the evidence but ultimately that leaves in the same position as the well reasoned person of religious conviction arguing the same point from the other side.
i find it so sad that there are those who cannot seem to understand that science tells us zero about the existence or non-existence of God.
so of course religion and religious beliefs should be subject to careful evaluation for every person... and using reason, logic, philosophy and the like should all be employed... however, again, science is not the tool for that. those that think it is should reexamine the limitations of science. it is merely a tool to construct models to make predictions about the world. it cannot tell us right from wrong (in the moral sense) and it cannot tell us what is really real... what each person believes is really real is merely a leap of faith.

like Plato said... "Necessity is the mother of invention"