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echthroi_man
Skeptic Friend
104 Posts |
 Posted - 08/03/2002 : 10:29:05 [Permalink]
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quote:
No, I'm saying the belief in god doesn't exist, not god. Certainly Jehovah doesn't exist, but you knew that.
There is some truth to your claim that belief in God is based on fear. My personal belief (this is not Christian doctrine) is that when God said, "Let us make man in our own image," that He meant let us make man into a spiritual as well as a physical being. Hence the story of the creation of man and the Garden of Eden are poetic allegories for the bestowing of a soul onto Homo sapiens. What I believe is that God designed evolution to create intelligence and then waited for an intelligent creature to arise. Once the intelligence of that creature developed to the point that it began asking such questions as, what is the purpose to existence, am I alone in the universe, is there somehing greater than I am, God stepped in and gave each mmber of that species a soul, to help the species along in its spiritual growth.
The questions almost certainly were spawned in part out of fear; the granting of souls was God's way of saying do not be afraid, you are not alone, I love you and I shall help you. Unfortunately, the story of the Fall tells us that because we are also physical creatures our physical weaknesses, including fear and hate, can keep us from fellowship with God. By becoming human in the form of Christ, God is trying to reconcile with us by saying, see, I know what it feels like to be phyical creatures, but you do not have to be afraid or hateful; trust in me and love your fellow man and everything will turn out well.
Unfortunately, our weakenesses being what they are, we tend to keep screwing things up.
The Irish Headhunter
Oblivion -- When you REALLY want to get away from it all! |
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echthroi_man
Skeptic Friend
104 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 10:35:34 [Permalink]
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quote:
You said that this spiritual stuff is not detectable by physical means then you go and say it can be felt which is quite physical. You can't have it both ways.
I said this was a hard concept to get one's mind around; part of the problem is the words we are forced to use. I don't mean feeling as in the tactile sense, I mean it as in the emotional sense. The mind has a nonphysical attribute to it, so it is most in tune to the spiritual realm other than the soul. It "feels" the spiritual realm in a nonphysical fashion. I cannot explain it any better than that, so I understanding that you would not find it convincing; if I were in your place I wouldn't either. The problem is that until we have objective means of detecting and investigating spiritual forces there are certain aspects of this interaction that are going to remain mysterious.
The Irish Headhunter
Oblivion -- When you REALLY want to get away from it all! |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 11:02:17 [Permalink]
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God that was a belly laugh and a half.
 @tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 12:17:36 [Permalink]
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Well, I'm sure I'm misunderstanding because it seems like you're laughing at something someone said, Larry.
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God that was a belly laugh and a half.
"Not one human life should be expended in this reckless violence called a war against terrorism." - Howard Zinn |
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@tomic
Administrator
USA
4607 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 12:42:55 [Permalink]
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Well, I said you can't have it both ways and then I get one of those classic complicated sounding explanations as to why he thinks he can. I've just seen it so many times that I found it amusing.
@tomic
Gravity, not just a good idea...it's the law! |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 13:52:42 [Permalink]
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My goodness, you keep different hours from me. Please excuse me if I can only touch on a few points at present
That is a logical fallacy called the appeal to ignorance: "No one has proven that God exists, so God cannot exist."…{and later} absence of evidence is not evidence of absence
It is only a logical fallacy when you twist people words.
What we are dealing with here is not a god, only you. You, I presume, are as human as the rest of us.
You cannot prove that god exists.
You are the one who does not posses the evidence.
However you are the only one who is making an existential claim.
You are the one who is trying to twist simple logic in that you are presenting your lack of any evidence to support your claim as a reason to believe your claim.
Perhaps you are working on a misconception of Atheist thought. Atheists do not have a belief that god doesn't exist. Atheists lack a belief in god.
Semantics. In the end, however you chose to say, you are saying that God does not exist. In the complete absence of empirical evidence one way or the other, that claim can only be made by faith, which in turn makes it a belief.
Semantics is the study of words, which includes definitions. The absence of something, by definition, cannot be the presence of something.
Atheism is the absence of belief. The absence of Theism. It is not a belief in itself, quite the opposite.
If you do not reject god, then you cannot claim that there have been no gods. The latter is a rejection of the existence of god, despite your prologue.
This would be true only if there were a god and I was rejecting him.
I am not rejecting god because there is no god to reject. What I am rejecting is your story that there is a god. There is a very big difference here.
The mind has a nonphysical attribute to it, so it is most in tune to the spiritual realm other than the soul.
The study of the human brain is still a very young science. But we do know that the brain is a very physical organ. It has been said that the brain excretes thoughts like the liver excretes bile. Wonderful as it is, there is nothing magical about your brain or your thoughts.
Simple experiment to demonstrate physical source of thoughts.
Take two martinis and pour them into your physical body so that they enter your physical blood stream. Take care not to splash them into the spiritual realm but keep them within three dimensions. Wait a few minutes until this small amount of alcohol enters your physical brain and take note of any change in the quality of your thoughts.
Thoughts are effected by spirits--but only spirits like gin and vodka.
It "feels" the spiritual realm in a nonphysical fashion. I cannot explain it any better than that, so I understanding that you would not find it convincing; if I were in your place I wouldn't either.
What I'm seeing from my place is that you have caught yourself in a contradiction.
You want there to exist a "nonphysical" "spiritual realm." You claim knowledge of this "realm" (are you sure you wish to use this term which is so closely associated with fairytales?) while at the same time saying that it is impossible to have any knowledge of it.
If it is impossible for science to have information on the spiritual realm then it is impossible for you to have it either.
The problem is that until we have objective means of detecting and investigating spiritual forces there are certain aspects of this interaction that are going to remain mysterious.
We already do have objective means of investigating spiritual forces. Since we have never been able to detect any we are bound by honesty not to claim that they exist.
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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PhDreamer
SFN Regular
USA
925 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 14:06:36 [Permalink]
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quote:
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"God-as revealed in his book of edicts and narratives is practically an idiot. He has nothing to say that any sensible person should want to listen to."
-- Johann Most
Except love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Hardly unique to Christianity.
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Except do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Ditto.
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Imagine how much better the world would be if everyone followed God's words in just these two instances, instead of heeding the words of Mr. Most.
And how much better still if God hadn't created humans with a specific capacity for knowledge and then demanded that humans eschew that knowledge when dealing with God's own existence. Tell you, I'm glad his image didn't include his atrocious critical thinking skills.
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It is the one trait shared by all deities. They may be able to take physical form, but their normal nature is spiritual.
Not surprising that the "one trait shared by all deities" is an ad hoc explanation for why they can't be observed.
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Semantics. In the end, however you chose to say, you are saying that God does not exist. In the complete absence of empirical evidence one way or the other, that claim can only be made by faith, which in turn makes it a belief.
Surely by now you have heard many times why this is a gigantic crock of shit and you don't need me to tell you again, yes?
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I would say that what you felt was God, but that the cultural context in which you were raised called God "Isis".
Not one of God's more brilliant schemes, I'd say.
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The only way we know anything about the spiritual realm is because we have souls that connent to that realm, but the connection is so subtl that we cannot experience with our physical minds. We can only feel it.
You don't keep up with psychological research, do you? What makes your "feelings" that a) you have a soul; b) there is a spiritual realm; and b) that soul is connected to said spiritual realm qualitatively different from my "feeling" that I will win the lottery tonight?
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Because the spiritual realm through which He operates is not detectable by physical means. I grant this is a hard concept to get one's mind around, but it's like being fish inside a tank made of one-way mirrors. Our owner can see us inside the tank, but we cannot see him because on our side we see a mirror. All we know of him is the occasional anomalous event, such as food apearing from nowhere.
Unless you've had Jebus conjure up your dinner lately, all you know of him is what a book full of ancient goatherder mythology tells you.
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As a Christian, however, I also recognize that in addition to the physical realm, there is also a spiritual realm. Since in my worldview science can only tell us the truth about the physical realm, I believe that other investigatory methods are needed to investigate the spiritual realm. Contrary to your evaluation of me, I would never use one of these other methodologies for investigating any aspect of the physical realm; they are inappropriate for that purpose. But neither would I use the scientific method for investigating the spiritual realm; it is inappropriate for that purpose. I believe that far from being dishonest, this is the most honest appraisal one can make. What I find dishonest is the complete rejection of any investigatory method except liberal science.
Contrarily, what's intellectually dishonest is your use of blatant tautological reasoning in your promotion of alternative "investigatory method[s]." Do you have another way of determining the validity of "feeling" other than the "feeling" that it's correct?
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.
-D. Hume
Edited by - phdreamer on 08/03/2002 14:36:09 |
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Slater
SFN Regular
USA
1668 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 15:35:04 [Permalink]
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"Feeeeeelings,woha oh oh feeeeeelings!!!"
Thank you ladies and gentlemen and welcome to Harry's Lounge the swingest joint on I 40
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My business is to teach my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. ---Thomas Henry Huxley, 1860 |
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echthroi_man
Skeptic Friend
104 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 20:10:33 [Permalink]
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quote:
God that was a belly laugh and a half.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Just trying to expose you to a different perspective.
The Irish Headhunter
Oblivion -- When you REALLY want to get away from it all! |
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echthroi_man
Skeptic Friend
104 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 20:36:14 [Permalink]
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You cannot prove that god exists.
I cannot prove that God exists scientifically; I can prove (to myself) that God exists using a nonscientific methodology.
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You are the one who does not posses the evidence.
I have no physical evidence, but I do have spiritual evidence.
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However you are the only one who is making an existential claim.
You are the one who is trying to twist simple logic in that you are presenting your lack of any evidence to support your claim as a reason to believe your claim.
I have made no such argument; in fact I have admitted that I do not expect anyone to accept my evidence since it is subjective and personal.
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Semantics is the study of words, which includes definitions. The absence of something, by definition, cannot be the presence of something.
Atheism is the absence of belief. The absence of Theism. It is not a belief in itself, quite the opposite.
No, agnostism is the absence of belief; atheism is the presence of disbelief.
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The study of the human brain is still a very young science. But we do know that the brain is a very physical organ.
Yes, the brain is a physical organ, but the mind is a nonphyical emergent property of the brain.
I started out my career in mind research, specializing in the biochemistry of thought, so I understand quite well that much of what we call thought and other mental processes are caused by biochemical and biophysical processes. Yet many of my colleagues, some of whom were hard-core materialists and few of whom were theists of any kind, tended to believe quite strongly that the mind had a component that was separate from the physical nature of the brain. I often had quite stimulating conversations concerning the mind and the soul with a colleague who otherwise held your exact opinions concerning religion and superstition and the nature of existential claims, yet based on his research he admitted that he could no longer make blanket pronouncements that the sould did not exist.
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What I'm seeing from my place is that you have caught yourself in a contradiction.
You want there to exist a "nonphysical" "spiritual realm." You claim knowledge of this "realm" (are you sure you wish to use this term which is so closely associated with fairytales?) while at the same time saying that it is impossible to have any knowledge of it.
I said no such thing. I said it is impossible to have any knowledge of the spiritual realm using physical methodology, but one can gain knowledge of the spiritual realm through nonphysical methodologies.
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If it is impossible for science to have information on the spiritual realm then it is impossible for you to have it either.
Only if you believe that the worldview of scientism is the correct view of reality. I choose not to believe that, so I also believe that I can have knowledge that does not come from science.
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We already do have objective means of investigating spiritual forces.
What are those methods? By what criteria would you determine that what you observed was the spiritual realm and not some aspect of the physical realm?
The Irish Headhunter
Oblivion -- When you REALLY want to get away from it all! |
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PhDreamer
SFN Regular
USA
925 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 20:59:28 [Permalink]
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No, agnostism is the absence of belief; atheism is the presence of disbelief.
GRRR. This is annoys me to no end. You might think you can just repeat this ad nauseam and it will eventually go unchallenged, but not so. What in the blue hell is a "presence of disbelief" and how does it differ qualitatively from an "absence of belief" in such a way that you yourself can distinguish between them? Be specific. Spelling counts.
Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.
-D. Hume |
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echthroi_man
Skeptic Friend
104 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 21:00:20 [Permalink]
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quote:
quote:
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"God-as revealed in his book of edicts and narratives is practically an idiot. He has nothing to say that any sensible person should want to listen to."
-- Johann Most
Except love your neighbor as you love yourself.
Hardly unique to Christianity.
I never said they were. I simply pointed out that, contrary to what Mr. Most has said, they indicate that in fact God does have things to say that a sensible person would want to listen to.
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And how much better still if God hadn't created humans with a specific capacity for knowledge and then demanded that humans eschew that knowledge when dealing with God's own existence.
Since man has the capacity for spiritual knowledge as well as physical knowledge, I would hardly claim that God has demanded that man eschew knowledge of His existence.
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Not surprising that the "one trait shared by all deities" is an ad hoc explanation for why they can't be observed.
No more ad hoc than recognizing any unique characteristic of any entity.
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Surely by now you have heard many times why this is a gigantic crock of shit and you don't need me to tell you again, yes?
On the contrary, what I find to be a cauldron of excrement is the rhetorical argument that the a priori rejection of God is simply a lak of belief in God.
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You don't keep up with psychological research, do you?
What makes you think that, other than we are having a disagreement?
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What makes your "feelings" that a) you have a soul; b) there is a spiritual realm; and b) that soul is connected to said spiritual realm qualitatively different from my "feeling" that I will win the lottery tonight?
Since my conviction is based on subjective evidence which is personal, I cannot explain it in way that would be meaningful to you, who hasn't experienced what I have. All I can say is that your feeling is based on emotion while mine is based on the spiritual aspect of my being. The two feelings are different, but I cannot explain how because I have no terms that can describe that difference. To put it crudely, it is like the difference between being hungry because you last ate six hour ago and having been starved for a week. Or a better analogy might be the difference between having an erection while watching a porno film versus the feeling of a full-blown orgasm. There is simply a world of difference between these two kinds of feelings.
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Unless you've had Jebus conjure up your dinner lately, all you know of him is what a book full of ancient goatherder mythology tells you.
The analogy still holds.
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Contrarily, what's intellectually dishonest is your use of blatant tautological reasoning in your promotion of alternative "investigatory method[s]." Do you have another way of determining the validity of "feeling" other than the "feeling" that it's correct?
Nothing that could be considered scientific.
The Irish Headhunter
Oblivion -- When you REALLY want to get away from it all! |
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echthroi_man
Skeptic Friend
104 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 21:08:25 [Permalink]
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GRRR. This is annoys me to no end. You might think you can just repeat this ad nauseam and it will eventually go unchallenged, but not so. What in the blue hell is a "presence of disbelief" and how does it differ qualitatively from an "absence of belief" in such a way that you yourself can distinguish between them? Be specific. Spelling counts.
The presence of disbelief is when someone says I do not believe that God exists. That person has chosen to reject the faith-based claim that God exists by making the equally faith-based claim that God does not exist.
The absence of belief is when a person says I don't know whether God exists of not. That person recognizes that we can only base a claim for the existence of God on faith; not having any faith one way or the other he makes the neutral claim that he has no belief.
The Irish Headhunter
Oblivion -- When you REALLY want to get away from it all! |
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PhDreamer
SFN Regular
USA
925 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 21:36:41 [Permalink]
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I never said they were. I simply pointed out that, contrary to what Mr. Most has said, they indicate that in fact God does have things to say that a sensible person would want to listen to.
If God doesn't have anything unique or novel to say, why bother listening to him at all over, say, Hammurabi?
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Since man has the capacity for spiritual knowledge as well as physical knowledge, I would hardly claim that God has demanded that man eschew knowledge of His existence.
How does one measure a "capacity for spiritual knowledge"? Where does it reside? More importantly, how does one differentiate between things that are spiritually "known" and self-delusion?
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Not surprising that the "one trait shared by all deities" is an ad hoc explanation for why they can't be observed.
No more ad hoc than recognizing any unique characteristic of any entity.
You're right. Basically all we doctrinally know about God is that there's three of him and they're all jealous. Everything else is just made-up apologetics.
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Surely by now you have heard many times why this is a gigantic crock of shit and you don't need me to tell you again, yes?
On the contrary, what I find to be a cauldron of excrement is the rhetorical argument that the a priori rejection of God is simply a lak of belief in God.
Let me get this straight, the things atheists say are the reasons for their disbelief are completely wrong and only you know the real reasons? One of which is called an "a priori rejection of God" which, and I don't know if you realize this, means that I, as an atheist, subscribe to a philosophy that rejects the very idea of God before I am even cognizant of the concept?! I'm having a great deal of trouble right now coming up with reasons not to call you a pompous ass.
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You don't keep up with psychological research, do you?
What makes you think that, other than we are having a disagreement?
*shrug*
You don't seem to have any idea what actual scientists have to say about feelings.
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What makes your "feelings" that a) you have a soul; b) there is a spiritual realm; and b) that soul is connected to said spiritual realm qualitatively different from my "feeling" that I will win the lottery tonight?
Since my conviction is based on subjective evidence which is personal, I cannot explain it in way that would be meaningful to you, who hasn't experienced what I have.
Why can't you describe it to me now? After I have "experienced" it, will certain words become available that weren't before to allow us to discuss our shared "experiences"?
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All I can say is that your feeling is based on emotion while mine is based on the spiritual aspect of my being. The two feelings are different, but I cannot explain how because I have no terms that can describe that difference. To put it crudely, it is like the difference between being hungry because you last ate six hour ago and having been starved for a week. Or a better analogy might be the difference between having an erection while watching a porno film versus the feeling of a full-blown orgasm. There is simply a world of difference between these two kinds of feelings.
Are you kidding? You choose analogies that describe differences in quantity rather than quality and proceed to say there is a "world of difference" between them?! Do the strengths of these feelings exist on a continuum or is there just 'Strength A' and 'Strength B'? If the former, where does the line appear dividing "this is a self-delusion" from "this is a spiritual aspect of my being"? And what about the Heaven's Gate cult? Was their "dividing line" mechanism just screwed up? Were they able to convince themselves that a "self-delusion" was a "spiritual aspect of being"?
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Unless you've had Jebus conjure up your dinner lately, all you know of him is what a book full of ancient goatherder mythology tells you.
The analogy still holds.
Great. Do we just get to make up things that count as God activities or do they have to appear in ancient goatherder mythology texts?
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Contrarily, what's intellectually dishonest is your use of blatant tautological reasoning in your promotion of alternative "investigatory method[s]." Do you have another way of determining the validity of "feeling" other than the "feeling" that it's correct?
Nothing that could be considered scientific.
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echthroi_man
Skeptic Friend
104 Posts |
Posted - 08/03/2002 : 22:09:43 [Permalink]
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If God doesn't have anything unique or novel to say, why bother listening to him at all over, say, Hammurabi?
You are moving the goalposts. Mr. Most stated that God has nothing to say that a sensible would be interested in. I demomstrated that this was not the case, so now you say that it must be unique. That is an enritely different point from what we were discussing.
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How does one measure a "capacity for spiritual knowledge"?
Using subjective methodology.
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Where does it reside?
Where does what reside?
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More importantly, how does one differentiate between things that are spiritually "known" and self-delusion?
The same way you differentiate between me being a real person and me being a figment of your imagination.
The problem with the self-delusion apologetic is that it is impossible to refute. I can never convince you that what I feel really is spiritual evidence and not self-delusion, because both are subjective, thus a personal experience I can share with no one.
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Let me get this straight, the things atheists say are the reasons for their disbelief are completely wrong and only you know the real reasons?
Yes, they are wrong (though in fact most atheists who do not dedicate themselves to criticizing religion do no say what you guys say on this forum). No, you guys know it as well, but to maintain the air of objectivity that is the basis for your credibility you cannot afford to admit it.
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One of which is called an "a priori rejection of God" which, and I don't know if you realize this, means that I, as an atheist, subscribe to a philosophy that rejects the very idea of God before I am even cognizant of the concept?!
That is not how a priori is used in this context. It means that you decided whether God exists or not based on faith before you even try to find any evidence to support that faith.
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Why can't you describe it to me now? After I have "experienced" it, will certain words become available that weren't before to allow us to discuss our shared "experiences"?
No, but you will better understand what the words I am forced to use mean in that new context. Words like feelings.
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Are you kidding?
I said the examples were crude.
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Great. Do we just get to make up things that count as God activities or do they have to appear in ancient goatherder mythology texts?
No, we use spiritual evidence to determine what anomolous events are due to spiritual forces and which are due to unknown physical forces.
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Were your parents Christians too?
Yes, they were.
The Irish Headhunter
Oblivion -- When you REALLY want to get away from it all! |
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