How confident are you about various so called facts?

by slimboyfat 175 Replies latest social entertainment

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  3rdgen

  I would like to comment on #16 because it is the only question for which have a radically different opinion.

  My father and grandmother personally knew JFR. Father was a close associate and occasional traveling companion of Knoor. He spent less time with Franz. Mom was baptized in Seattle 1937 alongside Max Larson who took her out on a date later that night. He made it clear to her on the boat ride he's not gay.

  Hubby spent over a year at Bethel as the main Chef. He brought specially prepared dishes to the private rooms of Franz and others at the top. He spent time observing Dave Mercanti (sp?) Franz's virtual lifelong "assistant". Hubby is 99.99% sure they prefer same sex. The bigger question is were/are they practicing or NON practicing? Who knows? Who cares? Wait.......

  Ordinarily it's indeed nobody's business except that I (for one) would expect the attitudes and policies of the organization to reflect the leadership at the top and visa versa. Hypocrisy anyone?
• 

  slimboyfat

  Indeed hypocrisy is what makes it a relevant question.

  I kind of came to the boring prevailing consensus view that Russell was asexual, Rutherford was a womaniser, Knorr was gay, and Franz... who knows. Maybe he was very repressed whatever his inclination.
• 

  LoveUniHateExams

  Interesting OP, Slimboyfat.

  I actually think the % to number 16 is higher. In addition to the sexuality of Knorr and Franz, what about Chitty and Greenlees? I'd put the likelihood that at least one GB member is/was homosexual at 95%.

  No facts about the world are absolutely certain - not sure about this. There must be some facts that are beyond question - felids are obligate carnivores, dinosaurs existed, every human will eventually die, etc.
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  slimboyfat

  Cofty, there are senses in which the earth is flat. In what sense could the earth be flat that it would meet your definition of the earth being flat?

  I'm just saying rule nothing out.

  I'm very doubtful that homeopathy could be effective because the mechanism seems absurd. But do I know everything about how reality works so I can absolutely exclude the possibility? Of course not.

  Even Dawkins admits he's not 100% sure there's no God. He's technically agnostic. I think we should be agnostic about everything. Almost certainly.

  That doesn't mean I can't say I believe in evolution or don't believe in homeopathy. 99% and 98% are pretty high degrees of certainty. For all intents and purposes you and I agree on those topics. It just means I can't absolutely rule anything out because there is always a possibility, no matter how remote, that I picked up something wrong, misunderstood, was given bad information, or my brain is simply not capable of comprehending the situation. Or some other problem of relating the reality of some issue to language of a particular statement about it.
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  slimboyfat

  Hal Femlings claims lions in England lived on straw during WW2.

  Surely at some point humans will become immortal.

  But did the dinosaurs that existed correspond to what we understand by the word? What would it even mean to say dinosaurs never existed? What sort of proposition is it.
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  cofty

  Cofty, there are senses in which the earth is flat

  No there aren't unless you are now just avoiding a simple question and playing silly word games.

  The earth is not flat - this is 100% certain. If you have even 0.001% doubt about that then I don't understand you.

  You know exactly what I mean by "The earth is not flat". If you are going to pretend otherwise I would rather watch paint dry than continue this conversation.
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  LoveUniHateExams

  Hal Femlings claims lions in England lived on straw during WW2. - lions cannot live on straw. That claim is false.

  Surely at some point humans will become immortal. - that is one huge assumption. Why do you feel sure about this?

  But did the dinosaurs that existed correspond to what we understand by the word? - it doesn't matter. My statement simply asserted that dinosaurs existed. This has to be accepted as 100% fact, based on fossils of dino skeletons and activities.
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  slimboyfat

  You are equally certain that homeopathy doesn't work and the universe began in a Big Bang 14 million years ago,as you are about the shape of the earth.

  In other words homeopathy is as likely be effective as the earth is to be flat.

  Aren't there even some clinical trials that support homeopathy?

  What do we mean by flat anyway? How would a flat earth work anyway?

  The earth is very flat. It's flat all the way round. Everywhere. It's round nowhere in particular except for its entirely.
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  cofty

  You know exactly what I mean by "The earth is not flat". If you are going to pretend otherwise I would rather watch paint dry than continue this conversation. - Me

  What do we mean by flat anyway? ... The earth is very flat. It's flat all the way round. Everywhere. It's round nowhere in particular except for its entirely - SBF

  I just lost the last remnants of interest in this topic.

  It started ok and as usual ended up with semantics. ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz
• 

  slimboyfat

  humans will become immortal. - that is one huge assumption. Why do you feel sure about this?

  
  

  Because if the human body is essentially a machine and aging is a technical failure then there must be a technical solution. If mankind doesn't blow itself up first then it's bound to come up with the solution sooner or later. Conquering aging isn't immortality but it a long way toward it. If consciousness consists of arrangements of matter this can be stored at some point too.

  Dinosaurs: I can also make the statement "Jesus existed" but if it turns out that the Jesus who existed was actually called Fred and did none of the things in the gospels, then in what sense did Jesus exist?

  Cats: I'm just telling you what Hal Flemings said, about lions AND tigers eating straw during the war. I don't believe it either. 99%