iNow

Oh well. So much for asking you not to quibble when the basic gist was right or you avoiding asking me red herring questions.

Perhaps, but that is not what happened here. Let me repeat the same point you seem to have missed the first four times. You claim the universe could not have come from nothing, or that it’s always been here is not a sufficient explanation. Then in the next breath you state that it’s perfectly fine to assert god came from nothing or has always been there (I paraphrased, but that’s the gist so please let’s not quibble). That is why you’ve been rightly accused of special pleading. Protest all you’d like and ask a bunch of irrelevant red herring questions. This is what you've been doing. More below in hopes of not having to explain this a 5th time: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Special_pleading

In case it wasn’t clear from Phi’s response, Holmes, that is not something that can be configured here in the UI. It’s that way at the software level, and this site uses, but does not own or code that software.

Except for all those logical fallacies being pointed out and which you consistently ignore. Special pleading is the most obvious one, but your appeals to personal incredulity have been rampant, too.

But these bills are directed at middle schools and high schools where the kids are less than 16-17 years old

Totally understand, and please recall I wasn't responding directly to you... People are directly affected, and I feel bad for all six of them.

There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of athletes. Transgendered people have already been competing with them incognito. Transgendered humans also make up much less than 1% of the population. I reject the idea that there will be a huge impact, and struggle even to see a marginal impact on fairness and competition, but acknowledge it. I also acknowledge that people feel differently and that’s okay, but while your individual motivations / rationalizations may be pure, at the broader societal level this isn’t about protecting athletes. This is about attacking transgendered humans. Millions upon millions of athletes out there. Maybe a few hundred (or even a few thousand) transgendered examples… many of whom were already competing outside of our awareness. Isn’t there a saying that applies here… something about mountains out of molehills… being penny wise and pound foolish? Perspective.

Unless the defecating animal is sick, then their feces is unlikely to harm the person ingesting it. It’s mostly water, harmless bacteria, undigested food, and some dead cells.

I don’t disagree

God, why do people care so much about this ridiculous topic? Isn’t this just the next gay marriage?

Perhaps it’s always been there ≠ Cannot be explained

No. Read again. I said EVEN IF I chose to concede this point, then your conclusion is still nonsequitur. My concession would offer no weight nor value to your conclusion that a supernatural explanation is the only valid one. Doesn’t matter what you call them. Call them Fred for all I care. My point stands independent of the label you choose to apply.

Sigh. I didn’t think this was a hard concept, but I’ll try again. Even if I stipulate that one cannot use material laws to explain their own origin, this adds nothing to the conclusion toward which you’ve leapt, the conclusion that supernatural explanations are the only valid ones. That is a baseless nonsequitur that gains no weight EVEN IF I concede to your line of questioning. EDIT: Lol. I x-posted with studiot who also began with a sigh 😂

And yet I did. Amazing! No, I am not. I am saying that neither the absence of some process nor the absence of possibility for a process are enough to make the logical leap you’re making toward a supernatural explanation. You need. It read anything more into it than that unless you are actively trying to misunderstand me? Perhaps it’s not the answer you’d prefer, but it IS an answer. Please stop with the No True Scotsman fallacy (and related other fallacies you keep ignoring when pointed out). By watching you repeatedly ignore the obvious flaws in your reasoning being pointed out to you. You also stipulated it yourself when saying this: And this: And this: What you have is a preference, one that pleases you psychologically, and that’s okay, but you do not have a valid conclusion based on logic as you keep claiming, and definitely not from logic itself rooted in questionable premises. Hope that helps. Any arguments I make are on the merits and don’t rely on appeals to authority or title.

There are two key factors under consideration here, IMO. One is the way our drive for more (resources, safety, security, food, shelter, convenience, etc.) has been selected evolutionarily. Those who did better proactively obtaining resources tended to reproduce more successfully than those who didn’t. The other is desensitization and how our baseline for what is and is not enough is relative. We get used to what we have, but the drive to obtain more doesn’t exactly go dormant even when we have enough. It takes training and mindfulness and conscious focus to overcome these underlying tendencies which are often operating within us without us even realizing it.

You seem to accept supernatural explanations for reasons of psychological comfort, not for reasons of logic. At least be honest with yourself and us about this.

TBH, I find your question rather moot. You could point to a billion challenges or gaps in the scientific understanding or approach. Not a single one of them would ever allow us to make a valid or logical jump to assuming supernatural cause. That’s nonsequitur, and IMO is a cop-out that should be below a mind as obviously sharp as yours.

If you have such gaps in your thinking about the simple things like this, it's difficult to trust you don't have similar gaps when asserting supernatural causes, themselves reliant on special pleading.

Nope. As should be clear to everyone including you, I was pointing out you were incorrect when describing the thread subject.

Since when are you the OP in this thread? Sloppy sloppy sloppy thinking abounds

Actually, right there in the title: The Schrödinger's cat thought experiment proves there is no God For someone so passionate about arguing on reason and logic, you sure seem to make a lot of remedial reasoning errors and overuse logical fallacies

I wonder if you realize nobody is engaging and this isn’t a blog

Not really. We all travel forward though time at the rate of one second per second within our local frame of reference. We just need our disruptive friend to ask smarter more focused questions.

Do you know what a nonsequiter is? Given the above, I’m assuming No.

Totally agree, now move along