Added: 4 years ago
From: LennyBound
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  • "or that God is real to begin with?"

    I would go with this one given the option as the first one follows on from it. So there is no reason to go into a second level claim when you have not even shown the first level claim to be true.

    If you are aware of any reasons, evidence data or arguments to lend credence to the notion that there is a god, I would be agog to hear them.

  • Is there really "goodness in the world"? I might agree that there is goodness, but I can't agree that it exists "in the world." What does it mean for something to be good, empirically speaking?

    If I were in Dennett's position, I would have said, "Thank Chaos."

  • @ArcadianGenesis

    Good, in the moral sense, has no empirical meaning. It cant. Good only exists towards an end. A shovel is good for digging holes, things can be good for humans, or good for your health, or good for Dan Dennet.

    When one refers to moral goodness, one means good for humanity, society, good for alleviating suffering, good for conscious, thinking beings.

    If you were genuinely in Dennetts position (IE a philosopher) you would perhaps understand why he says 'Thank Goodness'.

  • I would say that the definition of good you gave is not moral good but pragmatic good. I have not denied the concept of goodness, but particularly *moral* goodness. This seems to be a supernatural concept, so I assert that moral claims can be reduced to pragmatic claims.

  • @ArcadianGenesis

    There is no objective good, or objective morality, other than towards some (utilitarian) end. It is a human construct. The notions of value, meaning, purpose, right or wrong are all totally meaningless in a universe without conscious thought in it. These are things that only we can decide and create.

    Its good that you have dismissed supernaturalism. But now you need to rebuild your understanding of these concepts. This is philosophy, Dennetts profession.

  • I agree with you that morality is a human construct. However, I do not espouse utilitarianism. You are wrong to suggest that all philosophers would agree with Dennett here. There are many other thorough-going moral theories. I recently took a college course in ethics. I know the arguments for utilitarianism, and I know the arguments against it. There are many other moral theories which are relevant to Dennett's position. Maybe you should look into them.

  • @ArcadianGenesis

    Really, you did philosophy and you came out of it with the conclusion that there is no such thing as goodness?

    That worked well for you i guess...

  • Not exactly...you keep misrepresenting my view. I assert that there is no "moral goodness" because this is a non-natural concept. To the extent that there is goodness in the world, it can always be reduced to pragmatic goodness (efficiency, survival, needs, etc).

    I consider myself to be a moral non-realist naturalist. However, there are certain realist theories that do appeal to me, namely particularlism.

  • great story, read terribly

  • Thank goodness. Nice one :D. I will use now it insteead of god, becouse i was using it just becouse of being get used to it, but not meaning vain god by itself. Nice :).

    Thank god - > thank goodness

  • I am not trying to say that I think you're stupid, it's just that I would like it if for once a Christian admitted that they don't actually know for sure that God exists. You believe he exists, but believing and knowing are two different things.

  • There is no use trying to point out such distinctions.

    To the person, belief equals truth.

  • Belief equalling truth is Postmodernist, relatvist nonsense, two opposing viewpoints cannot both be true, for example "The world is flat", "the world is a sphere", clearly the world is a sphere, but suddenly because another person believes the world is flat, that it becomes that way, what utter nonsense.

  • To the fool belief equals truth.

  • No, I want you to tell me how you know this god is there in the first place.

  • Science has discovered that everything is made of atoms. So, basically, we are all made of the same stuff as EVERYTHING else in the universe. If everything came from the big bang, life came from the same things as exists in the cosmos. Humans are the only intelligent life we know that has come from this same material, that is now beginning to trace its origins in the universe. We are the only ones who can ponder these origins. That, to me, is much more amazing than anything Christianity claims.

  • We are stardust :P

  • the fact that God saved his life isnt arogant...its specific

  • The "fact" that God saved his life simply isn't a fact.

  • prove it....

  • You can't make a claim, like "This man was saved by God," and then when someone says "No, he wasn't," you say "prove it." You're the one who made the claim without any evidence to support it, so the burden of proof lies with you. An attempt to shift that burden is called an "argument from ignorance." You should be the one to have to prove that it WAS "God's" actions which saved this man, if only because there is no evidence to support your claim. Get it? You can't just shift the burden of proof

  • well wasnt this whole video basicly about God not being real? wasnt this video about how God had NOTHING to do with saving this man? so in that case, the person who made the video must show proof, HE broadcasted the video saying that God's not real, and he cannot save people.

  • Well, he states that it wasn't God, that it was the whole team of doctors who worked so hard to save his life. It was also those who came before those doctors and made such great contributions of technology, research, and knowledge to the field of medicine who enabled the doctors to save his life. We can clearly see that that was the case, we can see the doctors, we can see the sophisticated technology they use. You're the one who says it was an invisible God, so you prove that that's the case.

  • well, without God, the doctors wouldnt have the medical knowledge that they have...and without God, medical techonolgy wouldnt be so advanced.

  • Yeah? How do you know that? I think the doctors were just born with intelligence, and they worked incredibly hard to be able to do what they do. How do you know it was God's doing? How do you know that this god exists? This is debate has been had so many times...

  • " without God, medical techonolgy wouldnt be so advanced."

    I doubt that as I have read more medical peer reviewed science papers than you will ever know, and not one of them was authored by "god" but by people who got down and did the work and wrote up the science and released it.

  • The man was saved by a complex medical procedure in which highly trained professionals cut open his chest and operated on his internal organs. If he had not had this procedure, he would not be alive. He's free to repeat that fact as loudly as he wants to. If *YOU* think God had something to do with it and NOT his doctors, NOT his operation, then THE BURDEN OF PROOF IS ON ***YOU***.

    Easy way to prove that it's God and not doctors is just to not call 911 next time you get a heart attack.

  • Besides, Osama Bin Laden believes that GOD helped bring down the twin towers. According to your logic, if you think God had nothing to do with the towers coming down then the burden of proof should be on you, right??

  • "wasnt this video about how God had NOTHING to do with saving this man? "

    No frankly it was not. What this video WAS about was thanking those who actually really did do the hard work and make the survival happen. Some people really did do a lot of work and study to make this event come about. Well done those people!

  • The burden of proof NEVER lies with the person who claims that something DOESN'T exist. In the American justice system, the burden of proof is never on the person accused to prove that he's NOT guilty or that it DIDN'T happen. The burden of proof is on the person claiming that something exists rather than not, that someone is guilty of a crime rather than not, etc.

  • One of the most beautiful, eloquent and amazing things I have ever heard in my life! I love that man!

  • Dennett is the best. I'm so glad he got through it all okay. Thanks for posting this!

  • Thank goodness he has loads of money to pay the hospital and doctors as well.

  • What's wrong with going broke from medial bills. Do you want universal health care? What are you, a SOCIALIST!?!

    (Isn't that stupid, calling universal health care "socialism"? How is that a real argument? It's like arguing that universal health care is bad because it has cooties! The name of the freaking country is "The UNITED States of America"! UNITED! As in "e pluribus unum": from many, ONE! If we all decide to share a burden for our mutual benefit, WTF is wrong with that?!?)

  • I'm from Norway, and here we have what you Americans refer to as universal health care, which we in Scandinavia refer to as "public health care"; and it works really well for us at least.. But then again, in American eyes we're probably bloody communists.

    Still we have more liberties than you, and a far more liberal legal system. And it works well for us.

    But we're not you, so I won't blame your choices. Just informing you of our situation here in northern europe :)

  • Darn commies. ;)

    (just kidding)

    Obviously we're one of the only major industrialized nations in the entire world that does not have a public health care system, we should be scratching our heads and thinking "If THEY can do it and it WORKS JUST FINE FOR THEM, why the hell can't WE do it??"

    You guys aren't going bankrupt paying taxes, right?? You guys aren't forced at gun-point to worship portraits of Comrade Lenin are you?? So why the hell do some people in my country NOT want this?

  • @Blacksun1942:

    We pay extremely high amounts of taxes here in Norway compared to most nations really. But most of us don't complain, as the public sector is really well run over here.

    But although we pay a high share of our income as taxes, the standard of living is extremely high as our earnings are really good. Also we still have around 2% unemployment, even after the credit crunch hit..

    And no, haven't seen any portraits of Lening anywhere around :D

  • Excellent speech!

  • Wonderful, wonderful stuff.

  • Glad you like it. Thanks for watching! :-)

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