"Educated people are more likely to be atheists."

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TheEditor
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Re: "Educated people are more likely to be atheists."

Post by TheEditor » Sat Jun 20, 2015 8:28 pm

You are a little inaccurate when you say "A solipsist is one who believes that only he exists." More accurately it's "the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist."


At the risk of sounding like a geek, Solipsism is the theory; the one holding to it is a solipsist. I think Paidion was correct here.

Regards, Brenden.
[color=#0000FF][b]"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."[/b][/color]

dizerner

Re: "Educated people are more likely to be atheists."

Post by dizerner » Sat Jun 20, 2015 8:48 pm

TheEditor wrote:
You are a little inaccurate when you say "A solipsist is one who believes that only he exists." More accurately it's "the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist."


At the risk of sounding like a geek, Solipsism is the theory; the one holding to it is a solipsist. I think Paidion was correct here.

Regards, Brenden.
It carries with it two ideas, Brendon. One is that your "mind" is all that exists, the other is that your "mind" is all that you can know exists. I'm using the latter emphasis, and it's not incorrect.

From Wikipedia:
As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.

Notice it says "might not" here as an epistemological position, not "absolutely does not."

steve7150
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Re: "Educated people are more likely to be atheists."

Post by steve7150 » Sun Jun 21, 2015 9:17 am

Educated people are more likely to be atheists.
Religion works more through the emotions than through reason.







Just from my own observation i do think the first statement is true. I suspect that when we spend a lot of energy developing our knowledge that somehow the part of us that connects with God somehow may be neglected. Also when you experience that many questions can indeed be answered by science you start to view science and knowledge as the pathway to solving everything given enough time, and this also diminishes a thirst for God. My own paradigm is that science and knowledge is great but this pathway has been provided for us by God but many educated folks have trouble including God.

Re the second statement i think religion certainly works through emotion but there is also a great deal of reason within it also particularly Christianity which highlights humanity's problems but also provides solutions. That seems reasonable to me. :D

Jose
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Re: "Educated people are more likely to be atheists."

Post by Jose » Sun Jun 21, 2015 12:49 pm

dizerner,

I think you've entirely missed what Brenden was trying to say. He wasn't challenging you about different forms of "solipsism," he was just pointing out that you used the wrong word in your statement. I think you didn't realize it but you basically said, "A solipsist is the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist." The statement should have been : "Solipsism is the view or theory..."

dizerner

Re:

Post by dizerner » Sun Jun 21, 2015 2:33 pm

Jose wrote:dizerner,

I think you've entirely missed what Brenden was trying to say. He wasn't challenging you about different forms of "solipsism," he was just pointing out that you used the wrong word in your statement. I think you didn't realize it but you basically said, "A solipsist is the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist." The statement should have been : "Solipsism is the view or theory..."
No... you guys should be able to figure this out. Okay look, Paidion said:

"A solipsist is one who believes that only he exists."

Now I say:

You are a little inaccurate when you say that more accurately it's "the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist."

IT SHOULD BE OBVIOUS I'M NOT REPLACING THE IDEA OF "IST" WITH "ISM" I'M FINISHING PAIDION'S DEFINITION.

"A solipsist is one who believes...

"A solipsist is one who believes...

"A solipsist is one who believes... "the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist."

VERSUS WHAT?

"that only he exists."

Come on guys I don't want to explain really obvious stuff.

Jose
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Re: "Educated people are more likely to be atheists."

Post by Jose » Sun Jun 21, 2015 4:28 pm

I feel kinda foolish majoring on such a minor point, but you are still not seeing it.

In your last post you clarified by saying "A solipsist is one who believes... "the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist."

HOWEVER...

Yes, your point would have been really obvious if that's what you had said previously, but it isn't.

Before you made the correction stated above, in the beginning of your reply, in trying to defend what you said, you actually repeated the same mistake:
_______________________________________________________________
No... you guys should be able to figure this out. Okay look, Paidion said:

"A solipsist is one who believes that only he exists."

Now I say:

You are a little inaccurate when you say that more accurately it's "the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist."
________________________________________________________________
That translates into: "You're incorrect in saying that a solipsist is one who believes that only he exists, more accurately, a solipsist is the view or theory that the self is all that can be known."

What you said here is that a solipsist is the view.

Thus Brenden said: At the risk of sounding like a geek, Solipsism is the theory; the one holding to it is a solipsist.

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jriccitelli
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Re: "Educated people are more likely to be atheists."

Post by jriccitelli » Thu Jun 25, 2015 1:12 am

The discussion group I go to would avoid this direction of thought (proceeding) because we basically have one rule, that we start from a 'realists' view of things and the world, since most Darwinists we know do not hold an illusionary view of the world (even a idealist looks both ways before crossing the street) we do not need to revert back to the circular reasoning that idealism and Eastern metaphysical belief would lead to (quantum physics aside). We also try to stay with the objective rather than subjective.

Although this kind of reasoning is interesting, especially if you enjoy philosophy, it does sound like the left brain (methodical) arguing internally with right brain (sensory), so I will leave this alone.

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TheEditor
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Re: "Educated people are more likely to be atheists."

Post by TheEditor » Thu Jun 25, 2015 1:28 am

I stand by my geeky correction. I was going to let it go, but when I saw Dizerner dig his heels in, and misquote himself, I have to call "foul." :D

Regards, Brenden.
[color=#0000FF][b]"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."[/b][/color]

dizerner

Re: "Educated people are more likely to be atheists."

Post by dizerner » Thu Jun 25, 2015 1:43 am

I never misquoted myself and you are acting like immature children too consistently for me. You probably will try to turn that back on me somehow, I don't care. No point in being on this forum anymore. I do thank you for the times you acted more maturely, and the great discussions. I wish you all well, take care and goodbye.

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TheEditor
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Re: "Educated people are more likely to be atheists."

Post by TheEditor » Thu Jun 25, 2015 2:29 am

Hi Dizerner,

Why would you think that I would turn it back on you? If you feel as though mine and (I assume) others interchanges with you are "immature too consistently", then I don't blame you for not wanting to interact with me, or the others you feel fit this description. I would say, in fairness, that I reread our last 20 interactions to see what may have led you to this conclusion. I can't find anything, unless it was my joke that I was "shocked" that I agreed with you on another thread. But I hardly think that is the reason. I am left to wonder if perhaps you are sensitive to criticism? I merely pointed out what I felt was an error on your part and even softened it by saying I was being admittedly "geeky" in my correction. I wouldn't have even offered the correction in the first place, had it not been for the fact that you too were correcting another poster in an equally "geeky" fashion--but you were the one who was incorrect. It's just a forum, and we're just a bunch of guys and gals.

Regards, Brenden.
[color=#0000FF][b]"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."[/b][/color]

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