The OED says that the "house or building..." use of "premise" actually comes from an earlier legal meaning ("The subject of a conveyance or bequest..."). Even for those who (inaccurately) think etymology determines "correctness", this isn't an incorrect use of the word.
When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, “Who then can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:25–26, ESV)
You didn't ask me, but I can respond as someone with a similar background. I grew up in a religious household. I spent about a decade from ages 18-28 studying philosophy both academically and casually, then entered a technical field and got reaquainted with science.
Many philosophical problems informed my view of religion, but probably the most profound were Carl Sagan's invisible dragon and the problem that there are so many differing and incompatible religions. Many religious people will freely admit their beliefs have no evidence, and yet from my point of view, if that's true, how can anyone claim their particular religion is correct? Why should I believe in Hinduism instead of Catholicism? I never got a satisfactory answer to that in any of my philosophy classes or reading. (The problem of evil is another strong one, but didn't have as big of an impact on me as the first two.)
As far as science goes, the two main contributors to that were biology and physics (although there are some countervailing forces there: the order of the universe truly does seem miraculous). Jay Gould's essay "non-moral nature" where he describes parasites that lay their eggs on paralyzed victims, then the eggs hatch and the larvae eat the victims alive, was probably the first thing I read that had bearing on religion. But if you look at nature generally there is obviously an overwhelming amount of suffering. Kids who die from random genetic mutations, animals that get eaten alive crying. I could never square any of that with God.
As far as physics, what really gets me is the sheer immensity and seeming indifference to human scales. Because of the speed of light, we are basically trapped within our own universe. Space is mostly an enormous empty void, and there is no sign that any other planet would be especially hospitable to our species. On a more mundane level, human beings have been killed in incredibly stupid ways, like the guy who was irradiated to death because of a software bug in the x-ray machine. So you put all of that together and it just doesn't suggest any sort of divine guidance to everything going on around us. (Which isn't to say there aren't counterarguments, but that's the sort of evidence and thought processes I imagine the parent was referring to.)
Not the person who asked either but I appreciate the effort.
My sentiment is very similar.
To the science part I will add that, at least, it has some explanatory power that is useful. It's finding checks out and makes many areas of our life better and more confortable.
No religion can come close to the benefits of science, especially when you consider that humanity was actually doing science before it was even called that (in a cruder way but nonetheless).
Religion is systematically about imposing the morals and superiority of one group upon the others while offering very little in return. It has been the justification for plenty of domination and suffering and that alone should tell you that something is wrong.
If God existed, he would have killed the religious zealots creating the suffering or at the very least prevented their actions.
Not necessarily trying to debate or anything—clearly you've put a lot of intellectual effort into this over the years already—but I find one point you made particularly interesting. (Disclaimer: I am a Christian.) Namely, that "religious people will freely admit their beliefs have no evidence." There are some (many?) religions where this is the case, but I honestly don't think Christianity is one of them—the Bible puts a strong emphasis on evidence. For example:
- The gospels themselves are composed of three primary sources as well as a secondary source.
- Jesus made specific prophetic claims (famously, the destruction of the Second Temple in Mark 13:2, or that he would be crucified in Matthew 20:18-19).
- 1 Corinthians 15:6 references more than five hundred eyewitnesses, most of whom were claimed to be still living.
- Acts 17:17 describes Paul as "reasoning" with secular Greek philosophers (instead of merely, say, "moralizing" or "persuading"), although I suppose these discussions may have been more philosophical than empirical given the Greeks' philosophical bent.
- The gospels claim that even the Pharisees did not deny Jesus' miracles, but merely attributed them to malign influence (Mark 3:22) or just decided to kill him (Matthew 12:14).
- Jesus' parable in Luke 16:19–31 implies that for some people, getting more evidence will not actually change their minds, regardless of how persuasive it would be.
Of course one could (and should) argue that an emphasis on historicity is not itself evidence; but I just wanted to point out that Christianity is not one of the religions where you just have to believe blindly. On the contrary, the Bible presents unbelief in the face of evidence as a main obstacle between us and God (cf. Romans 1:18–20).
Well for one thing, even in freshman philos, we were introduced to the 5 different kinds of truth. That sets up the foundation for more years of study in which faith in anything is hard to recognize as objectively true.
But that university specialized in analytical philosophy, which I learned decades later. You will never stop learning, that's for sure
Titanfall was one of my favorite games ever, largely because of the movement. (I even hated using the eponymous Titans, because they take away your ability to run on walls!)
I disagree, because with an instrument you actually get music out at the end, which is enjoyable in its own right on top of the satisfaction of executing the technical challenge of playing it. A more akin analogy, in my opinion, would be “any musical instrument which has been artificially muted”—this could definitely still be fun, and indeed I’ve played my keyboard without sound before, but it really doesn’t compare.
A better analogy than music might be dance: The reward for dancing well is simply the feeling of dancing well. In a properly-designed game, the game feel of successfully completing the technical challenge is itself the reward. A dance that feels unpleasant probably won't be performed recreationally, and a game that doesn't feel fun to succeed at won't see much play.
> I disagree, because with an instrument you actually get music out at the end...
You've clearly never heard me playing my horns!
I never found the end result of all that practice to be rewarding (as the kids seem to say these days), [0] and -brother- I tried for years and years. So, I switched hobbies to video games and have a leisure-time activity that I like a lot more.
[0] Those unfortunate enough to be within earshot were usually fairly unimpressed with the result, so this isn't just me shittalking myself.
I want to push back on this, because the Christian conception of God definitely includes the idea that God created all good and comforting things, and is indeed their ultimate source. Like, just because God is transcendent[0] does not mean He cannot create things that are perfectly approachable, understandable, and enjoyable.
[0] Jesus being human changes the calculus quite a lot, of course, as elaborated in e.g. Hebrews 4:14–16. God, who was fully transcendent, became human, hence why Jesus is also called Immanuel/Emmanuel (lit. “God with us”) in the Bible.
AFAIK it would take an infinite amount of time to measure something to infinite precision, at least by the usual ways we’d think to do so…. I suppose one could assume a universe where that somehow isn’t the case, but (to my knowledge) that’s firmly in science-fiction territory.
I don't think time and measurement precision are necessarily related in that way. You can measure weight with increased precision by using a more precise scale, without increasing the time it takes to do the measurement.
The real point is that it takes infinite energy to get infinite precision.
Let me add that we have no clue how to do a measurement that doesn't involve a photon somewhere, which means that it's pure science fiction to think of infinite precision for anything small enough to be disturbed by a low-energy photon.
I'm not making the case that it is possible to make measurements with infinite precision. I'm making the case that the argument "It is not possible to make measurements with infinite precision, therefore we cannot tell if we live in a rational or a real world." is begging the question. The conclusion follows logically from the premise. Unless the argument is just "we can't currently distinguish between a rational and a real world", but that seems trivial.
There are limits to precision there too. The amount of available matter to build something out of and the size you can build down to before quantum effects interfere.
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