You're either a theist or an atheist. Being agnostic is the answer to a different question. "Do you believe that at least one god exists?" If you answer "yes", you're a theist, if you answer either "no" or "I don't know", then you're an atheist. Although personally I still think that "I don't know" is a cop out. It's a question of belief not knowledge, so everybody should be able to give a definite answer about what he believes. "Do you believe that you can know the nature of god?" If you answer no, then you're an agnostic, no matter what you answered above. Nothing wrong with judging people by their fruits, biblically speaking. However, we're not talking about what makes us feel good, but about what is most likely true or not. Only looking at the result of people's actions is not a methodology that brings us any closer to the truth. What you're making here is a moral judgment, not one of reason. Again, nothing wrong with that, but it's a different question. To me, both Hitler's and Gandhi's views on religion were irrational while Hitler's actions were immoral and Gandhi's were moral. Two separate questions, two separate answers.
You call it a cop out, I call it being honest. I happen to believe based on my experience that it is very likely that the universe contains what we may define as deity, so I can say that I believe it and it's an assumption on which I can build, but I also acknowledge that I cannot be sure, and that whatever evidence I may offer is personal and circumstantial, so I'm not about to claim that I know. I recognize that in our present state the truth about metaphysical matters is unknowable, so consider myself a deist leaning agnostic. The answer is no, I don't presume that I know God's nature. But I do think that -assuming God does exist in some form, which is an assumption I make- I can make an educated guess about God's nature, primarily by examining my own nature, by looking inward at myself, and also to some extent by observing others as well as by observing the universe, and learning about it both through science and through other traditional human wisdom. I'm not talking about what makes me feel good, but about what works. If something works for me, I will incorporate it to my belief and assume it to be true. Yes, moral to some extent, but also practical. I believe in reason and I do use reason to make sense of my reality because doing so obviously works, and because it's practical. Also reason does help me make moral choices. But reason is a tool, I'm not going to worship reason or make a cult out of reason. I define reality based on what works for me and I try to use reason and think rationally because it works. But I judge all ideas -even the ones you may by your own suppositions consider to be unreasonable- based primarily on how well they work for me. Based on their fruits, as you well said, borrowing from Jesus.
I think we really need to get our definitions straight. Remember how I phrased the question. I didn't ask "does god exist?" but "do you believe that at least one god exists?". So if you answer "I don't know" you're effectively saying that you don't know what you believe, which is a cop out in my view. The only case I could imagine where I don't know what I believe is when a completely new concept is introduced to me...but as soon as I gather some evidence, I automatically form a belief and I can't do anything about it. That's very vague though...how/why does it make sense to you? Which properties does a belief have to have in order to make sense to you? Now that I thought about it, I guess being moral is also being rational...depending on how we define morality of course, personally I'm with Hume there, so that makes sense...when we go with Biblical morality (like stoning your daughter when she's had pre-marital sex), then that's not so rational.
As you both should be aware, I spend almost no time here at all. However, I do briefly stop by every so often and if I see something that is plainly ludicrous, (such as saying that a belief in god is different from a belief in fairies, pixies and elves when they're the same thing), then I say so. If some people weren't so full of shit they'd be prepared to admit that the WHOLE POINT of their posts on here, (particularly the starting of many threads), is to try and make others believe in god if they're atheists or to make them rethink the issue so they'll START to believe in god if they're agnostic or otherwise unsure about the matter. This dignan fella, among others, has been starting these threads for YEARS, apparently in the guise of 'a genuine enquiry', or, 'opening lines of dialogue' and suchlike crap. if he would at least do us the courtesy of BEING HONEST and thus show us some respect by plainly stating that he believes in god and we should too, then I'd have more time for him but all this mealy-mouthed twoddle is just plain annoying. So, in short, most of the religious nutters on here have shown utter contempt for the rest of us, believing us to be too moronic to understand their deeply-held, (like THAT'S supposed to make a difference???!!!), beliefs... I'm just replying in kind Understood?
Sounds very profound, but unless you can provide us with a positive ontology, it's nothing but empty words. What is the element of deity and what are its attributes? And how can we reach it with our minds? Did you even read my posts? I talked about knowledge in relation to your beliefs, not in relation to the world. I thought I was very explicit about it. Not to mention that time and again I corrected you when you misrepresented me as saying that we can absolutely know the nature of the world. So even if my post was not as clear as I hoped it to be, it should have dawned on you that this couldn't possibly be my position. And yes, I expect everybody "to know" about his own personal beliefs. Agreed. Again, I agree. What you're saying is that you're the ultimate judge. Yes, that makes sense. But if you don't ultimately trust the deity, even if you absolutely knew it existed, then what purpose does it even have in a world in which you can't absolutely know it exists? The way you describe it, you're acting as if "deity" didn't exist, so for all intends and purposes, it doesn't. Again, when you're the judge, you act as if "deity" didn't exist. If you only accept those claims by "deity" that make sense to you, then why even have the middle man between you and reality?
He said: 'I didn't ask "does god exist?" but "do you believe that at least one god exists?"' You can (and did) answer yes or no to that question: You stated that you believe in some kind of deity (your "it could be..." statement) and then in the part quoted above you say you don't profess to know. Well the question in this particular case was not "do you know if it exists or not" but "do you know if you believe it exists or not". Clearly you believe in something and you know that you believe in something. Instead of addressing that you went on to a mischaracterization of benztown's arguments and the atheist position. Again, he was talking about whether or not you know that you believe in X or Y (do you believe in a deity?), not whether you know one exists. You disconnected from that discussion to say "I don't know and I don't believe you know either". Clearly benztown knows what he believes in, so it seems you're now talking about knowing whether this deity exists or not. The problem is that benztown has over and over again made it clear he does not claim absolute knowledge and only claimed that he is making the rational, based-on-evidence decision. Again and again on these forums it has been stated that ideas like "God does not exist" are usually not claims of absolute knowledge but rather the best answer based on current evidence, or the short-hand for something like "with the understanding that we can't absolutely prove a negative and these ideas are always open to evidence in the future". It's hard to buy your claims of being open-minded when you repeatedly go back to things that have been addressed and demonstrate that you've either ignored them or thrown out all these things you agree with benztown on. All it's going to lead too (and sure enough since I've taken long to reply benz has beaten me to it) is a bunch of "I agree" parts in his reply. No problem with agreeing, the problem is that you are mischaracterizing something that has been cleared up again and again. benztown is not claiming absolute knowledge, stop using that red herring, especially if you want to appear open-minded.
I apologize if it didn't come out more clear, but I thought I made it clear that I believe in possibilities, and that it is rationally to believe in possibilities. If you don't get it, you don't get it, and I don't expect you to. I'm not trying to convince you of anything, just explaining how I see reality. My issue -I wouldn't call it problem- with Benztown is that he is claiming that his position is the only rational one. I know for a fact that I apply reason to the possibilities I consider and to whatever I build from them, so I am not willing to concede that I am being irrational. Now he seemed to agree that the acceptance of possibilities is rational, but I still don't see how he relates it to his more specific statement that the only rational position is atheism. I would just agree to disagree and leave it at that, except that I appreciate the way he thinks and I am enjoying the discussion, and I throughly enjoy exploring the premises and suppositions that he brings up, and examining where they lead to. So, to me the point is not so much to prove that I'm right -I don't think we can know that- but to probe the different ways of looking at things.
Maybe I should write a book, so I can start my own religion. But really, it's not my interest to convince others of ideas that work for me. I share them with people if they are interested, and I've found that there are people who understand exactly what I'm saying, and others who don't. So, obviously it's subjective. But it's not like I came up with these ideas on my own. I've read a lot, all the great thinkers, and I believe I've learn from them not only to consider their assumptions, but how to make assumptions of my own. It's hard to put my belief on paper, let me try to give you a few brief ideas. It will sound irrational to you, but I don't mind. I understand rationally what I'm trying to say, and I've met others who do as well. Not everybody sees it, though, and my guess is you probably wont. I believe that while observable, sensory, material nature may be finite, nature itself is infinite. I believe in the unity of all that exists. I believe that the regularity of all that happens -which enables us to make the suppositions that Hume rejects as irrational- is evidence of that unity, and it is evidence that our natural world is much more than it seems to be, based on the way we perceive it with our senses. So, I believe we limit ourselves immensely by accepting only that which we perceive. For example, I believe love is much more than the chemical reaction it leaves in my physical brain, just as I am much more than the elements we can recognize in my physical self. My assumption is that this unity is God. I don't think I'm a pantheist, because that would reduce God to nature as we perceive it, and I believe God is much more than that. The physical we perceive is just the footprint. Anyway, got a customer. I'll get back to the discussion later.
Again, unless you fill these words with meaning, they're just empty words. What is this immaterial nature you imply? From your previous posts, I take it that you mean things like love and hate, products of the human mind. But how can concepts like these be infinite? I can imagine the material world to be infinite, either in time or space or both, but infinite love? What does that mean? Not to mention that you still haven't established why you believe that these things are immaterial in the first place. Again, what does that mean and what does it imply? I am one with my cat, my TV, my car? What does that even mean? I can't even begin to imagine that, not to mention that all the evidence that I have indicates that my car and myself are indeed very distinct entities. And what's the difference between a world in which I am one with my car and a world in which I'm not? Here, I once again see a premise and a conclusion, but no connection between those two. Why would the regularity of all that happens imply unity and an immaterial aspect of the world? In my view, the regularity does indeed imply the exact opposite of what you write, it's evidence that there's nothing on top of the material universe. And I can even give you a reason and make the connection between the premise and my conclusion: Assuming that the laws of nature as we understand them are indeed all that is, then the world would have to be absolutely regular, because there wouldn't be anything that could possibly interfere with these laws. If however there was something on top of that, that something could perceivably interfere with the laws of nature...indeed that's the reason why such a thing is being postulated in the first place, in order to justify claims that are not supported by the physical laws. So if anything, your immaterial world makes our universe less stable and less regular, not more so. Again I don't see the connection. How are these examples for any kind of limitation? Believing that love is the result of bio-chemical interactions in your brain accounts for the same phenomenon you experience as believing that love is more than that. So where are we limiting ourselves? But I go back to what I wrote earlier: Your belief gives us a testable prediction. According to your beliefs, a simulated human could not feel emotions or even use reason, since he would be lacking a mind. I'm hopeful that we'll live to see the first simulated humans, and I believe that they will act and feel exactly the same as we do. Well, you just replace one mystery with another. Where's the point? Unity, god, immaterial, deity...they're all undefined and therefore empty words and you just use one to explain the other.
No, I get that. That's not what the post was about. You said, out of the blue, "I don't know and I don't believe you know". You said this in response to a question about whether you believe in X or Y, not whether or not anyone knows if X or Y are true. So why in the world did you suddenly, out of the blue, declare that you can't know anything when over and over in this discussion benztown has agreed that you can't make claims of absolute knowledge? My issue with your post was that you were making an assertion that has been handled again and again. This seems to suggest that a big part of what has been said is being completely ignored or dismissed by you. I know you've been arguing that your position is rational, but that wasn't the issue I was replying to in the last post though I do deal with it below. I agree with benz - your position is not rational. It may be internally consistent, it is certainly appealing, but it does not hold up to evidence. You are too hung up on the negative connotation that you attach to this and desperately trying to show that that which is consistent with your own internal beliefs is rational. Simply applying reason at some stage does not automatically make it rational. The thing is, I replied because despite what you say, (that you enjoy this discussion), you seem not to be paying attention to some of the discussion (which I've been following because frankly benz is doing an amazing job, perhaps the best I've seen on any forum of handling these issues). You completely ignored the idea that had been repeated again and again that atheists don't generally make claims of absolute truths and suddenly, 40+ pages into a discussion where that is one of the parameters (or at least has been for several pages) you demonstrated that you still don't understand benz's position. Not that you disagree with it, but that you do not understand his position or do not believe that his position is what he has claimed and demonstrated it to be. This after trying to assert that you are more open-minded than others. In your reply to benztown, as he points out, a lot of what you are saying is simply assigning a label to something that already has one. You also make several conclusions that are not connected to their premises. I'll leave him to handle those as he's far better, I did think it was valuable though to point out that despite your claims of open-mindedness there is evidence that you have ignored simple premises on which benz's arguments are built.
To you, perhaps. They are not empty words to me, or I wouldn't be writing them. It means that while the physical universe, which is the reflection, may end, the realm of the mind, of ideas, in which I exist, will remain. Perhaps another physical universe will emerge later, and if it does, it may be different than this one, maybe with different rules and different scenarios, but it will also reflect the eternal existing ideas. I use the word ideas for lack of a better word, I wish I could be able to explain it better. Some people get it, some don't. It feels like the Buddhist parable that somebody brought up in another thread, like a bird talking to a fish. I guess we can call them immaterial because we know they are not material, even though they leave imprints in the material. How do I explain it all to you in a nutshell? A lot of it is based on Spinoza. I don't agree with everything Spinoza writes. I doubt it's possible to agree 100 percent with anybody on metaphysical matters, at least in our present condition, but he's one of the greatest thinkers in history. Some of his assumptions and conclusions make sense to me, so I incorporated much of it into my own belief system. Here's a summary: http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/4h.htm True. But to just say the universe is regular for no other reason than the fact that we can perceive it as being regular is also a premise and a conclusion with no connection between those two. Do you reject every possible reason why the universe behaves as it does, and just assert that it is what we perceive it to be for no particular reason? And it's a legitimate point of view that I accept and respect, but one of many possible points of view. I see regularity as something more. regularity makes life possibly. More than that, it enables rational beings such as ourselves to make sense of it. It's an amazing attribute that our universe has, a powerful attribute. So, it is not unreasonable to speculate about it, about what it means. Yes, assuming... But why is it necessary to assume that the only thing that is is what we can perceive? That is to me a huge assumption. Even in the materialistic realm, there could be a lot that we don't perceive. What if we completely lacked the sense of sight? Then we would presume that there is no light. We wouldn't even be able to comprehend the concept of light. Yet light exists. So, I would argue that understanding the laws of nature and being able to define them does not necessarily lead logically to the assertion that what we observe is all there is and that there is no reason for it. What is your rational for believing that? No, I don't think it necessarily has to interfere. In fact I don't believe it does at all. I believe deity is in tune with nature and it does not interfere with the laws of nature, but rather that its attributes may be seen in the laws of nature. As Einstein said, a God that reveals himself in the harmony that exists. (And he also got that from Spinoza btw). That is one area where I differ with some of our traditional religions, in that they think God is constantly interfering with nature. I think nature is part of the nature of God, why would he interfere with it? Thus it follows that understanding nature through science also helps me understand God. Well, I think there is a risk of limitation, yes. For example, I think personally I might risk underestimating the power of love if I reduced love to merely a chemical reaction in my brain. Yet that may not be true of you. If you tell me that you reduce love to nothing more than a chemical reaction and yet are still awed by its power, I accept that. Perhaps the very fact that you personally don't find these idea as limiting as I do is one factor that makes it easier for you to accept it. As I said, each person has to take the ideas that work for him in order to maximize the potential of his own existence. I don't believe that. I believe it is very possible that such a being could feel emotions because I believe that it is very likely that such a being could possess a mind. And I don't mean a programed simulated mind. Why would we assume that such a being would lack a mind? If we as intelligent creators are able to create a realistic human receptacle that resembles ourselves, then it is not irrational to see the possibility that a mind as our own might choose to inhabit it, just like our minds choose to inhabit our physical body. If mind exists, I fail to see why it would shy away from such a wonderful human creation. And if love exists, why would love not visit such a creation just as it visits us, and leave imprints on it as it leaves imprints on us? Imagine the possibilities. We could be creating receptacles capable of hosting the essence of mind. I'm with you on one thing. I really want to see this happen. It would be awesome. I see great possibility there. I wonder what a man-created sentient being that lacks the evolutionary instincts that we as humans possess might be like. Maybe they'll be free from a lot of the prejudices that we have, and we may be able to learn from them. I hope it happens, within our lifetime. It's all a mystery, regardless of what we choose to believe or to disbelieve. Even if we are to go to the extreme and take skepticism as far as Hume did, it still all remains a huge mystery. But I am here, I exist, so I make of it whatever makes the most sense to me. You do likewise.
Well, if you know what they mean to you, then it shouldn't be difficult to explain it to others. Ok, that I can imagine. Of course I still don't see how you arrive at such a belief other than by making stuff up. Wait a second, how do we know that? You just made a major claim there in this little sentence. I certainly don't know that and I can't see how anybody could possibly know that. It's certainly interesting, but I'll deal with that in a separate post. I'm sorry, I don't see a gap there at all. It might have to do with you going back to make it sound as if I talked in absolutes, which I don't. Or it might have to do with the fact that you don't actually state a premise here, merely the reasoning and the conclusion. The premise would be: "My perception of reality correlates with reality." "I believe the door is closed, because I perceive it to be closed." would be the same kind of argument, based upon the same premise. Of course not, but I won't believe in any possible reason unless it's based on verifiable evidence. Well, but what does your statement have to do with anything I said? Of course I agree, would the laws of nature change constantly, then there couldn't be life as we know it. But this doesn't address my point. Well, it was an assumption as a part of an argument, demonstrating that this assumption better correlates with reality than your alternate assumption. Therefore, while not being a necessary assumption at all, it is in fact the reasonable assumption. If the laws of nature as we can perceive them are sufficient to explain the universe that we live in and that we can observe, then there is no reason to believe in anything on top of that. Simple as that. If you postulate the existence of something else, you have the burden of proof, otherwise you'd have to believe in every unsubstantiated claim. It's the methodology that I gave you several pages ago...nothing has changed there, my reasons remain the same as back then. That's not what I said. I said "could perceivably" not "would necessarily"... Granted, you don't believe this, but the majority does and that majority has the same evidence you do. So we come back to the problem of variability. If you don't have hard evidence, the probability of being correct is 1/infinity=>0 But even disregarding that, even assuming your belief is the only rational one for whatever reason, even then it couldn't possibly better account for the regularity of nature than the belief that nature is all there is. At the very best, it would be equal, but not better, so your argument is still not valid. Well, I don't see that risk at all. But be that as it may, even if there was a risk, that would have no bearing on reality. Not believing that you'll win the lottery jackpot might increase your risk of committing suicide, but that doesn't make believing that you will win the jackpot any more rational. So what kind of things would a mind attach itself to? What's the minimum requirement? Do cats have minds? Apes? Cockroaches? Bacteria? What about fetuses? Or why not the CPU of my computer? Yes, but when I encounter a mystery, I accept it the way it is, I don't make up other mysteries in order to try to explain it.
Now let's look at Spinoza. First of all, let me say that I do admire him for what he came up with, given the time he lived in. And especially atheists appreciate his thinking, as he was one of the first post-medieval thinkers who broke through the religious dogmas of the time. But that of course doesn't prevent him from being wrong. The major error was of course to simply assume the existence of god and base everything on top of that. The article mentions that Spinoza thought that this was a trivial matter and it also mentions the ontological and the cosmological argument for god as a basis for Spinoza's belief. Both these arguments have been thoroughly debunked though. However, looking at where Spinoza came from, it's not surprising that he simply assumed that god existed. But since he didn't have a real basis for this assumption, all his following conclusions are in fact without basis. What Spinoza tried to do was to create a world view that was both internally consistent and consistent with the observable universe. Interestingly, the result Spinoza came up with is actually very similar to that of a materialist. The universe described by Spinoza would be indistinguishable from a purely material universe from a human point of view. Would Spinoza's premise that god exist be valid, then he would have a point, but since it's not, it's simply more reasonable to get rid of the supernatural aspects of his belief. Again, think about the problem of variability. With that having said, let's look at some particulars: The Unity of Substance We can distill the major premises: p1) God exists p2) Different substances can't interact p3) Substance creates itself p4) Substance is infinite Conclusions: c1) Finite things are not substances in themselves, but modifications of substance c2) Everything we perceive is of the same substance as ourselves c3) That substance is god Now let's dissect this: First of all, we have already established that p1 is unfounded, therefore c3 has also no basis and has to be cut. The rest however is simply based upon Spinoza's definition of "substance". So while being correct, it doesn't tell us anything about the world we live in and it certainly doesn't imply anything beyond the material world. Thought and Extension This is a very interesting concept, but again, Spinoza simply made this up. It is a great leap of course to say that for every mental state there's a perfectly correlating state of the body. That must have been revolutionary at that time. But by today, we've made another leap, namely we have models that exactly tell us why and how there is this correlation instead of simply making up some metaphysical claims. The reason is of course that the mental state is a product of the physical state. Compared to that, Spinoza's idea seems to be unnecessarily convoluted, especially given that he doesn't provide any evidence. He basically postulates an infinity of parallel realities, two of which are the realm of extension and that of thought. All these parallel realities perfectly correlate with one another without having any causal connection. They're simply different manifestations of god. Again, the god premise doesn't hold, so what do we have left once we get rid of it? Well, we have two parallel realities that perfectly correlate with each other and which are expressions of the same fundamental "substance" (e.g. the laws of nature). Again, we arrive at a perfectly material world view. So if you take out the unfounded god premise in Spinoza's arguments, the result is in fact in line with a materialistic world view, which is of course not surprising, given that (as I mentioned in the beginning) Spinoza's universe would for us have been in fact indistinguishable from a materialistic universe. So what Spinoza's world view ultimately comes down to is that he believed in a materialistic universe with a bunch of assumptions put on top of that, that are not based on objective evidence. But since they're not based on evidence, they're almost certainly false, given the problem of variability. Finally, I want to add a discrepancy between Spinoza's idea of God and reality (which Spinoza couldn't know), which actually rules out Spinoza's god. Spinoza says that thought and extension are two attributes of god, each of which independently expresses the entire essence of the one infinite substance. Today we know that our universe had a beginning, so we know that at least the "extension" part didn't exist at the point of the Big Bang. Since this attribute reflects god's substance, that however means that god didn't exist which contradicts him being eternal.
First off, that is probably the first thread I ever started, and I was generally interested in people's opinions. Also, I have only been posting here for about a year or two. But, I guess since you can read my mind.... Also, it is the "Spirituality and Religion" forum, so I am kind of perplexed by your dismay that someone would post something about spirituality and religion here. Does it also upset you when people start threads about MLS stadiums in the MLS forums? You actually couldn't be more wrong, and your intolerance of others and their ideas is actually quite disconcerting.
Whatever. You're just mad that the US is better than England at soccer. Can't wait to see you guys crap out in Brazil also. The smilies mean I can say anything.
Or as Crash Davis put it, like a Martian talking to a Fungo. You do realize this is why poetry, art and music exist? To convey concepts or truths that are difficult if not impossible to convey with prose? If you study spiritual adepts from every tradition you'll find they attempt to do a lot more showing than explaining, or explaining only obliquely. From the wiki page for ineffability: There's a reason spiritual practices consist largely of practices rather than just debate (although there's plenty of that too). It's about training your mind/soul/whatever to see the world as it is and inhabit that world more fully. Although there's a great Alan Watts quote there too: "I'm in the business of effing the ineffable."
i've been tempted to visit the Geocaching forum for the explicit purpose of telling them how stupid their hobby is, but then God told me not to, so i didn't...
Uh-huh! Where's 'here'? According to the stat next to your name you joined BS in 1999... Well, that raises the possibility of an experiment I could try. I shall go into that area and start a thread asking why MLS Stadiums are such crap and do they not realise just how much MLS teams suck and why they don't just give up? Let's see what sort of response I get, shall we? Not like you then, eh? That's your response, is it? You're not even going to TRY and disprove the soup-monster 'hypothesis??? A bit pathetic IMO. What, from the 1-1 'WIN' y'mean? Well, that's not very christian, is it?! ... and right back at yer dude
So, basically, 'You vere onlee takeen ordeers', eh? Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah.. now I remember. We've got that fella over here atm y'know but he had to leave some of his henchmen... sorry, 'Cardinals', behind. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/15/popes-visit-aide-dropped Pope's visit: aide steps aside after comparing Britain to 'third world' TBH I'm surprised the fella still seems comfortable showing his face.