• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

Cognito ergo sum

Riveroaks said:
That's funny !!!

Another funny play on words is the unofficial US Navy Motto:

"Everyone should believe in something.
I believe I will have another drink."
Click to expand...
I guess that would be "bibo ergo sum".

Many beliefs make far less sense.

;)
 
Riveroaks said:
The Land Of Canaan originally was occupied by "Canaanites" -- an indigenous people whom the Books of Moses, Joshua and Samuel do not describe favorably. (These "books" were originally parchment scrolls, not codex books as we now think of books.)

The land was under the political sway of the Egyptians as well.

The Hebrew slaves of Egypt and Joshua their prince who succeeded Moses occupied it and took it around 1400 BCE. These Hebrews were originally Babylonians.
.
Click to expand...

The claim is based on fiction?
 
Riveroaks said:
Since we each think, therefore someone must be doing the thinking.

Since someone is doing the thinking, therefore he/she must exist.

She/he must therefore have a living soul.
Click to expand...

I like how you describe your epistemology. That's not an easy thing to layout and I think you've done a better job than any other I've seen describing it.

By a "living soul" do you just mean "something that exists that corresponds to me" or do you mean an intangible unseen essence in the more religious sense?
 
Moot said:
It's not really yours to give.
Click to expand...

Right.

It is God's and He already gave it to the Jews.

Then it was the United Nation's to give and IT DID.

Then, it was the traditional right of spoils and the winner of the war kept the spoils And after being repeatedly attacked by the Islamic states which conspired against them and militarily sought to defeat them, the Jews prevailed. And they deserved the land they had defended/conquered.

By God. By law. By conquest.

And by RIGHT.

Israel belongs to the Jews.
 
Riveroaks said:
...........Rene Descartes stumbled upon the true philosophy of being. Cogito ergo sum. That's where it all starts.
Click to expand...
You may need to (if you care) acquaint yourself with Logicman more in the course of time. His forte consists of showing how the bible provides the answer to all questions, Cartesian thinking isn't really his field.
 
roughdraft274 said:
I like how you describe your epistemology. That's not an easy thing to layout and I think you've done a better job than any other I've seen describing it.

By a "living soul" do you just mean "something that exists that corresponds to me" or do you mean an intangible unseen essence in the more religious sense?
Click to expand...

As philosophers, WE must detach ourselves from all external influences and think things through on our own. I don't know if this is written down as a law of philosophy anywhere, but I consider it to be self evident.

Thus, you are correct when you say "something that exists that is me" and therefore by logical induction that there are also others that exist external to myself.

Because if I exist, then others can exist, and since I see indications of others existing all around me -- objects that look like me and which cause me joy and pain -- then others probably also exist.

I do not know what comprises my existence. I know I see with my eyes which are organs of my physical body.

When I close my eyes, it seems like I exist inside of my head right behind my eyes.

When I am asleep however, it seems like I am free and floating around the universe and through time in an unlimited manner.

I do not know which of these two perceptions is the most realistic manifestation of what my existence truly is.

To my knowledge, I have only existed from the times of my earliest memories since I was a child. However all throughout that existence there has been this dual nature of existence -- either while awake or when asleep.

Chagos said:
You may need to (if you care) acquaint yourself with Logicman more in the course of time. His forte consists of showing how the bible provides the answer to all questions, Cartesian thinking isn't really his field.
Click to expand...

I also know of other people with complex belief systems like that, and I have found them to be very poor philosophers and thus not really very rational, just habitual rationalizers. One of my own personal modern 10 Commandments -- the second one -- is to beware of all organized religions. And an obvious corollary to that would be to be very wary of all fanatically religious adherents to any of them.
 
Last edited:
Logicman said:
"spiritual"? Satan is spiritual.

But unless Harrison had Christ as his Lord and Savior for the remission of his sins, he won't be in heaven (John 3:36, John 14:6, etc.), at least according to the Word of God.
Click to expand...

I have found that if you truly want to read or quote Biblical passages, that you first need to find the original Hebrew or Greek version and then literally translate every word, word for word, to figure out what is really being said. I have not found any English translations that are very accurate, although for fun I will read the Catholic-English Douay Rheims version when I feel too lazy to look up the Hebrew or Greek.

Just a point for future reference.

Although many people's philosophies are intertwined with their religions, this is somewhat of a fallacy first caused by San Tomas Aquinas. In those days they were trying to fuse Greek philosophy with Christian theology.
 
zyzygy said:
John and Paul were middle class boys, Ringo was too sickly when he was young and George was not a street fighter. None of the Beatles was ever involved in a knife fight. Did you live in Liverpool in the 1950's?
Click to expand...

England is anti-gun and has therefore become a knife culture, both before and since Jack The Ripper in 1888.

Liverpool is a rough city.

I'll bet dollars to donut holes they each were in plenty of knife fights as juvies.
 
Riveroaks said:
England is anti-gun and has therefore become a knife culture, both before and since Jack The Ripper in 1888.

Liverpool is a rough city.

I'll bet dollars to donut holes they each were in plenty of knife fights as juvies.
Click to expand...

You would lose your bet.
 
roughdraft274 said:
I like how you describe your epistemology. That's not an easy thing to layout and I think you've done a better job than any other I've seen describing it.

By a "living soul" do you just mean "something that exists that corresponds to me" or do you mean an intangible unseen essence in the more religious sense?
Click to expand...

I don't consider this proof of a living soul.

We do not have the ability to distinguish our minds from a complex set of conditioned reflexes. That's why i left metaphysics blank- it is speculation.

I guess, yes, if you abandon the traditional definition of "soul," you can come out coherent.

I suppose, from the logical positivist movement, i wonder why we care? If i have or do not have an eternal soul, in what way should that meaningfully change my behavior?

What metric of my minds abilities allows me to conclude that there is some essence, the soul, that cannot interact with the real world in any way except through my mind?
 
Absentglare said:
I don't consider this proof of a living soul.

We do not have the ability to distinguish our minds from a complex set of conditioned reflexes. That's why i left metaphysics blank- it is speculation.

I guess, yes, if you abandon the traditional definition of "soul," you can come out coherent.

I suppose, from the logical positivist movement, i wonder why we care? If i have or do not have an eternal soul, in what way should that meaningfully change my behavior?

What metric of my minds abilities allows me to conclude that there is some essence, the soul, that cannot interact with the real world in any way except through my mind?
Click to expand...

Well truth is its own reward, and seeking truth is a passionate endeavor for most philosophers.

This is why we seek to understand everything around us including ourselves.
 
Riveroaks said:
Well truth is its own reward, and seeking truth is a passionate endeavor for most philosophers.

This is why we seek to understand everything around us including ourselves.
Click to expand...

There are an infinite number of possible explanations for a given observation set.
 
zyzygy said:
I have a shelf full of books about about the Beatles and no knife fights are mentioned.
Click to expand...

Ok lets think about this logically then --

The omission of an item does not guarantee that it does not or did not exist.

With Liverpool being such a tough place, and England being such a knife culture, and kids being kids, especially rough kids, I would say the chances are better than 50%.

Even if your books said they were alter boys, I still would suspect it.
 
Tazmanian Devil said:
Right.

It is God's and He already gave it to the Jews.
Click to expand...
Then God must've changed his mind when he brought forth the diaspora.

There are no facts to be found anywhere that says the land of Israel belonged to the Jews since the dawn of time when in fact the land belonged to the Canaanites, the Assyrians (northern part), the Egyptians, the Babylonians, Chaldeans, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Christians (parts of it), the Ottoman Turks, and the British, proving otherwise.


Then it was the United Nation's to give and IT DID.

Then, it was the traditional right of spoils and the winner of the war kept the spoils And after being repeatedly attacked by the Islamic states which conspired against them and militarily sought to defeat them, the Jews prevailed. And they deserved the land they had defended/conquered.

By God. By law. By conquest.

And by RIGHT.

Israel belongs to the Jews.
Click to expand...
Sure, it does now. But God didn't give it to them, and they didn't get it through conquest or by right...they got it because the UN gave it to them, like you said.
 
Riveroaks said:
Ok lets think about this logically then --

The omission of an item does not guarantee that it does not or did not exist.

'sWith Liverpool being such a tough place, and England being su's(sch a knife culture, and kids being kids, especially rough kids, I would say the chances are better than 50%.

Even if your books said they were alter boys, I still would suspect it.
Click to expand...

The knife culture is a recent thing. They grew up there in the 1950's. I lived in Liverpool in the 1970's. When did you live there?
 
Riveroaks said:
Logic for me is both inductive and deductive, inductive being the most powerful because it first observes all things and draws preliminary conclusions, and deductive being a reconstruction of the rational cause and effect for the inductive reasoning which has observed anything in nature or among people(s).

...

Since we each think, therefore someone must be doing the thinking.

Since someone is doing the thinking, therefore he/she must exist.

She/he must therefore have a living soul.
Click to expand...
Faulty deductive reasoning right there. Why would anyone who exists, with a brain and the ability to think the thought, therefore also have a living soul? In order to take that logical step you have to define what you mean by 'living soul' and then show how that is inextricably linked to the ability to think, while avoiding the correlation/causation fallacy.
 
I think "Cognito" ergo sum is more relevant these days...
 
Andalublue said:
Faulty deductive reasoning right there. Why would anyone who exists, with a brain and the ability to think the thought, therefore also have a living soul? In order to take that logical step you have to define what you mean by 'living soul' and then show how that is inextricably linked to the ability to think, while avoiding the correlation/causation fallacy.
Click to expand...

We do not know what the living soul is because we cannot observe and examine it.

We can only perceive that it exists and that it is doing something -- cogito -- thinking.

Thus all of perception begins with an inductive observation of existence followed by a deductive analysis of impact of existence both of which confirm each other in the conclusion that existence exists.

These two forms of logic always go hand in hand together, with the inductive always preceding the deductive.

The deductive is at best a confirmation of that which has been inductively inferred either from within ourselves (in the case of existence) or from outside ourselves (regarding the rest of the world and universe around us).
 
zyzygy said:
The knife culture is a recent thing. They grew up there in the 1950's. I lived in Liverpool in the 1970's. When did you live there?
Click to expand...

Unless you knew them personally and interviewed them face to face, I don't think you could know either way.

And 1888 is not a recent thing -- Jack The Ripper and his copycat psychos have haunted the streets of England since the Kings and Queens of England have disarmed their folk and taken away their rights as Englishmen to keep and bear arms.

That's two stikes in a row, Zyzygy my dear friend. I see you love to argue for the sake of argument alone. But there needs to be rules. You're cheating, dear friend.
 
Moot said:
Then God must've changed his mind when he brought forth the diaspora.

There are no facts to be found anywhere that says the land of Israel belonged to the Jews since the dawn of time when in fact the land belonged to the Canaanites, the Assyrians (northern part), the Egyptians, the Babylonians, Chaldeans, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Christians (parts of it), the Ottoman Turks, and the British, proving otherwise.


Sure, it does now. But God didn't give it to them, and they didn't get it through conquest or by right...they got it because the UN gave it to them, like you said.
Click to expand...

I was hoping to talk about cogito ergo sum, but you guys are arguing over Israel's right to exist. That's definitely a sague (seg-way) if not a complete hijack.

As far as God (JHVH -- the Jewish God) changing His mind, it does appear that he did so a at least 5 times. The first time was 722 BCE when the Assyrians conquered Hoshea king of northern Israel and took 27,290 prisoners hostage back to Assyria, according to Assyrian cuneiform tablets.

The second was in 605 BCE when the Babylonians conquered Jehoiakim king of Judah and subsequently deported in several waves the Jews themselves to Babylon.

They were lucky enough however to be freed by Cyrus of Persia in 539 BCE and return to Jerusalem. So then the God apparently changed his mind back.

The forth was in 136 AD when the Romans finally depopulated Judea by genocide and dispersion when a rebel Simon Bar Kokhba led a third revolt against the Romans.

Like the Babylonian captivity, in the Roman diaspora however the Jews managed to survive and prosper in other parts of the world. The rest we know as history starting with Herzl in 1897 and culminating in the 1948 overthrow of British rule and the declaration of the newborn Jewish State Of Israel. That was the fifth time He apparently changed His mind again.

It would appear that the Jewish God JHVH did indeed change his mind several times back and forth -- that is a logical inductive conclusion from the observation of the last 2,500 years out of the Jews' 3,400 year history when their own writings tell us their own first prince named Moses led them out of Egypt.

So what kind of God changes His mind? A very anthropomorphic God, I would think, would not you? Maybe He felt bad about what He had allowed to happen? Maybe He had been angry about something and later got over it? Who knows? Has anyone spoken to Him lately about it? Face to face?

The ancients with their predisposition towards superstition would be inclined to then ask: So who is the stronger god? The Jewish God JHVH or the Palestinian God ALLAH ??

Usually the people who win a war is deemed to have the stronger One.

Cogito ergo sum.
 
Last edited:
Moot said:
Then God must've changed his mind when he brought forth the diaspora.

There are no facts to be found anywhere that says the land of Israel belonged to the Jews since the dawn of time when in fact the land belonged to the Canaanites, the Assyrians (northern part), the Egyptians, the Babylonians, Chaldeans, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Christians (parts of it), the Ottoman Turks, and the British, proving otherwise.


Sure, it does now. But God didn't give it to them, and they didn't get it through conquest or by right...they got it because the UN gave it to them, like you said.
Click to expand...

Your rules recognize that rationale.

Someone else may feel the other reasons hold greater sway.

Whatever way you look at it they have it.

How else can a people claim a land?

By continuously occupying that land for thousands of years without interruption?

Bingo.

The Jews own it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom