Sarkus
Originally Posted by lightgigantic
so I guess it must also be equally tenable that you may possibly come to the understanding in the future that it is not possible
(or is it only you who has the authority to dish out post dated checks to your whim?)
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Absolutely - but until it is known FOR CERTAIN that it is not possible, it remains a possibility.
the problem is that your favoured method of knowledge (empiricism and rationalism) has no scope for certain knowledge - thus if you want to open the game to post dated checks we can say anything - eg - in the future we may come to know that the moon is actually made of cheese
You appear to take current inability as absolute inability - a logical fallacy that I will continue to point out to you for as long as I spot you doing it.
and your fallacy is you assume
- empiricism/rationalism is a medium that can approach absolute knowledge
- there is no methodology to ascertaining theistic claims
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and until you can explain why psychological investigations of culture still remain a soft science, even in the light of engineering, it appears you are just throwing in red herrings
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Who said anything about psychological investigations.
if not psychology what else?
geology?
I'm talking about observations of societies.
and more specifically, the cultural norms or values that under ride their function
One can delve into the psychological whys and wherefores to one's heart's content - but the observations are STILL evidence of the material and can subject to the same scientific method.
its not clear what observations you are talking about to determine the extent of cultural influences on near death experiences
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I can show you a rubber ball
I can also show you a tea spoon
Can you show me a justice?
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If you first define it - and to do so would require material.
The administration of law; the act of determining rights and assigning rewards or punishments
good luck in showing what it is through arrangements of dull matter
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I guess it depends whether you hold contradiction within two or more hypothesis's as an obstacle in the pursuit of the reasonable ...
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Where's the contradiction of which you speak?
the big bang theory and plasma cosmology are two different theories on the origins of the universe
There may well be a contradiction in interpretation - that further study will help remove, but not in the underlying facts, observations and evidence.
and in the meantime, we have contention - namely should the big bang theory be reworked or should it be scrapped in favour of an alternative suggestion
http://www.skepticalinvestigations.o...es/bigbang.htmAgain, you happily confuse scientists with the scientific method.
Scientists have their own agenda (e.g. funding sources, egos etc) that often inhibit the scientific method from being used correctly.
So, there is competing theories... so what?
so what?
so if I tell you that I was born in ireland and later tell you I was born in japan and some time later tell you I was born in Nepal, it doesn't raise issues about what the hell I am talking about?
You wouldn't begin to think that i was talking nonsense or had no real clear idea where I was born?
None of it disputes the known evidence - only questions the earlier moments than we can trace back to.
I'm sorry, LG, but your examples just do not support your arguments.
the whole issue about speculative theories of science is that they are not actual observations of evidence but rather interpretations of evidence
This only becomes messy when persons such as yourself artificially give such speculations the status of empirical facts
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if ten different people have ten different opinions and change their minds on ten different occasions each, we have a mess
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Please don't change the analogy, or further clarify what you mean by "messy". You mentioned the football stadium with firecrackers - now please explain why you think this is "messy"?
Or is this just another "throw in a seemingly-clever analogy and hope noone questions it and realises it's actually pretty rubbish" attempt by you?
I guess it requires a bit of imagination
I can't say that I have seen a football stadium full of people firing off their own personal fire crackers
probably due to the extremely
cacophonous nature of such an event .....