Super Genius
Posts: 1,424 
Location: Tula
Location: Tula
August 20th, 2007, 01:38 AM
And then we get surprised, why the others don't want our truth and keep sticking to their fallacies 
Besides, voicing your beliefs and convictions is one of the ways to find like-minded people.
And the "intellectual squabbles" over the different points of view really do give some spice to life.
Quoting Curiosity
It's a very good question, Curiousity! I guess part of it is just the childish desire to share the truth with the others For those who have definite opinions - religious or otherwise - why is it we feel the need to prove it to others what we believe.
I have no wish to share anything whether to try to convince another that my belief is positive, or negatively - to have to defend my belief.
It is mine - I need no confirmations. Life itself is enough proof there is a reason.
I have no wish to share anything whether to try to convince another that my belief is positive, or negatively - to have to defend my belief.
It is mine - I need no confirmations. Life itself is enough proof there is a reason.
And then we get surprised, why the others don't want our truth and keep sticking to their fallacies Besides, voicing your beliefs and convictions is one of the ways to find like-minded people.
And the "intellectual squabbles" over the different points of view really do give some spice to life.
Super Genius
Posts: 1,424
Location: Tula
Location: Tula
August 20th, 2007, 01:48 AM
Quoting karrie
If you do have some sense of the supernatural, Karrie, how come you wouldn't believe it if you saw some supernatural occurence with your own eyes? Looks like you believe in supernatural that is in your head, in the supernatural that you think of, but you don't believe in it when it happens? So the conclusion is - you believe in things you don't believe in? Or do you disbelieve the things you believe?
It wouldn't end my spirituality, as I stated, but it would drive a skeptical nail further into my religious belief.
The reason being, that almost every 'miracle' out there has been accomplished by a variety of illusionists. What you call 'proof' is impossible, due to the faulty nature of humanity's perceptions of the world. If people felt they'd seen proof, I'd probably doubt it as illusion.
What I trust, is my own mind. That thrumming sense of a deeper power surging through the world. I'd have much less faith in a physical manifestation and 'proof', than I do in my own senses of the 'supernatural'.
The reason being, that almost every 'miracle' out there has been accomplished by a variety of illusionists. What you call 'proof' is impossible, due to the faulty nature of humanity's perceptions of the world. If people felt they'd seen proof, I'd probably doubt it as illusion.
What I trust, is my own mind. That thrumming sense of a deeper power surging through the world. I'd have much less faith in a physical manifestation and 'proof', than I do in my own senses of the 'supernatural'.
Super Genius
Posts: 1,424
Location: Tula
Location: Tula
August 20th, 2007, 01:56 AM
Quoting look3467
Umm... must be something wrong with me, but this dismal picture just doesn't look like a perfect world to me. Or was that sarcasm?..
In a perfect world:
There would be absolutely no growth, no demonstration of love, or forgiveness, no buildings to build, no kingdoms to rule, no diseases to catch, and no death.
We wouldn't need to propagate for sex would be hum drum, no excitement, no thrill, no attraction.
These are just a few of the things that would be lacking in a perfect world.
There would be absolutely no growth, no demonstration of love, or forgiveness, no buildings to build, no kingdoms to rule, no diseases to catch, and no death.
We wouldn't need to propagate for sex would be hum drum, no excitement, no thrill, no attraction.
These are just a few of the things that would be lacking in a perfect world.
August 20th, 2007, 02:19 AM
Now, a supernatural occurence that was, well, natural, happening on a broad scale across the face of the earth, or occuring within animals, I would easily believe.
People though, well, that's where my mistrust lies ultimately.
Quoting Vereya
Hmm... hard to explain. I guess my distrust would lie with a single individual exhibiting the supernatural. And I'm not saying I would disbelieve necessarily. But it would be met with great skepticism.
If you do have some sense of the supernatural, Karrie, how come you wouldn't believe it if you saw some supernatural occurence with your own eyes? Looks like you believe in supernatural that is in your head, in the supernatural that you think of, but you don't believe in it when it happens? So the conclusion is - you believe in things you don't believe in? Or do you disbelieve the things you believe?
Now, a supernatural occurence that was, well, natural, happening on a broad scale across the face of the earth, or occuring within animals, I would easily believe.
People though, well, that's where my mistrust lies ultimately.
Knows No Bounds
Posts: 3,428
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Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
August 20th, 2007, 02:54 AM
There are objective truths, and there is an objective reality out there that exists regardless of our limited perceptions of it. Science is the only known way to those truths, and when science and mysticism (a catch-all term I'm using here to include all forms of religious and other non-rational beliefs) come into conflict over claims about the way things work or the nature of reality, irrationality has to yield to science. Much of the history of the last four centuries can be understood as religion giving ground to the scientific revolution. Science works, consistently, predictably, and reliably, in ways religion and faith and mysticism do not and can not. It's also true that two of our three best and most reliable scientific theories, relativity and quantum mechanics (the third is evolution) cannot both be true in any absolute sense, because they're fundamentally inconsistent. But they're close enough to whatever "the truth" really is that they can be used to engineer products that work consistently and reliably. Every electronic device in our lives depends on our understanding of quantum mechanics for its operation, and GPS satellites and detectors depend on general relativity for their accuracy. These aren't just airy-fairy theories far removed from the real world, they have real and measurable consequences that have to be considered in designing and building things.
My personal view, admittedly just a hypothesis, not a fact, is that reality is fractal, which really means that at whatever scale we look at things, the level of complexity is the same. Think of a shoreline, for instance. You can see it on a map at various scales, and you'll see an irregular line marking the boundary between water and land. But go to the shoreline and look at it, and you'll see variations no map at any useful scale could represent. You can go down to the level of individual sand grains on a beach, or farther, to the level of individual molecules in the mineral grains that make up the beach, or even farther, to the quantum level of electrons and protons and neutrons, and at every scale the line marking the boundary is equally complex and irregular. You can go even farther: protons and neutrons aren't fundamental, they're made of three different kinds of more basic things called quarks. And what are quarks made of? We don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn they're made of something even more fundamental. Strings maybe. And then the strings will turn out to be made of something else...
We're never going to figure it all out. but the joy is in the journey, not the destination.
Quoting MikeyDB
Lot of hard questions there, Mikey. I'm not really sure how to answer them all. I'd certainly immediately agree that there are questions that so far elude our understanding, but that's just another way of saying we don't know everything. Of course we don't, only an idiot would claim otherwise, but I'd never agree that we will *never* understand them. I believe--one of my few articles of faith--that nature is consistent and, at least in principle, comprehensible, though I'd also immediately agree that we may not be smart enough to comprehend it all. The evidence we have so far strongly suggests that nature behaves consistently and reliably according to certain rules, and any postmodern deconstructionist who thinks scientific truths are human inventions of no greater or lesser value than any so-called spiritual insights is invited to jump off the peak of the roof at the front of my house into the rock and juniper garden below. Science will tell us exactly what'll happen: you'll accelerate at a known rate and hit the rock garden and junipers at a predictable velocity, and seriously injure or kill yourself. And that'll happen no matter what you believe. Would you say that there is a possibility in all the universe or in the meta-universe for that matter that explanations may exist, that are simply beyond the means provided by “science” as we currently understand this idea, and that while our science may permit mathematical or theoretical models that satisfy our limited abilities in this variation on existence, that something may exist that eludes our understanding? (outside the scientific paradigm) ... etc...
There are objective truths, and there is an objective reality out there that exists regardless of our limited perceptions of it. Science is the only known way to those truths, and when science and mysticism (a catch-all term I'm using here to include all forms of religious and other non-rational beliefs) come into conflict over claims about the way things work or the nature of reality, irrationality has to yield to science. Much of the history of the last four centuries can be understood as religion giving ground to the scientific revolution. Science works, consistently, predictably, and reliably, in ways religion and faith and mysticism do not and can not. It's also true that two of our three best and most reliable scientific theories, relativity and quantum mechanics (the third is evolution) cannot both be true in any absolute sense, because they're fundamentally inconsistent. But they're close enough to whatever "the truth" really is that they can be used to engineer products that work consistently and reliably. Every electronic device in our lives depends on our understanding of quantum mechanics for its operation, and GPS satellites and detectors depend on general relativity for their accuracy. These aren't just airy-fairy theories far removed from the real world, they have real and measurable consequences that have to be considered in designing and building things.
My personal view, admittedly just a hypothesis, not a fact, is that reality is fractal, which really means that at whatever scale we look at things, the level of complexity is the same. Think of a shoreline, for instance. You can see it on a map at various scales, and you'll see an irregular line marking the boundary between water and land. But go to the shoreline and look at it, and you'll see variations no map at any useful scale could represent. You can go down to the level of individual sand grains on a beach, or farther, to the level of individual molecules in the mineral grains that make up the beach, or even farther, to the quantum level of electrons and protons and neutrons, and at every scale the line marking the boundary is equally complex and irregular. You can go even farther: protons and neutrons aren't fundamental, they're made of three different kinds of more basic things called quarks. And what are quarks made of? We don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn they're made of something even more fundamental. Strings maybe. And then the strings will turn out to be made of something else...
We're never going to figure it all out. but the joy is in the journey, not the destination.
Bright Spark
Posts: 447
August 20th, 2007, 06:51 AM
They have that covered....it is obviously because "God wanted the person to be with Him".
The typical MO of the snake oil salesman is to have both eventualities covered.
Muz
They have that covered....it is obviously because "God wanted the person to be with Him".
The typical MO of the snake oil salesman is to have both eventualities covered.
Muz
Quoting Dexter Sinister
I don't believe that either. If god's really running it all, he'd be responsible for you getting cancer in the first place. You might want to ask him why he let that happen to you before you ask him to fix it.
A Mad Mulligan
Posts: 2,771
Videos: 3
Location: The Moonsine Cafe
Videos: 3
Location: The Moonsine Cafe
August 20th, 2007, 07:17 AM
Is praying any different than just keeping a positive attitude? I'm sure the view from there will differ from the view from here.
Quoting Dexter Sinister
Or we don't findout anything and it all just fades to black.
Maybe so, but there's no evidence it'll affect the outcome, it'll just make the sufferer's decline and ultimate death less unpleasant. You can try to be upbeat about it, set your affairs in order, tell everybody you love that you love them, and recognize that death is something we all face sooner or later and accept it when your time comes, or you can sink into depression and anger and make your life and the lives of those who love you a misery. I've seen both patterns more times than I care to remember. My mother did the former, my father did the latter. But either way, we're all going to die, and then we'll find out what this discussion's really about. Or if it's about anything at all.
Is praying any different than just keeping a positive attitude? I'm sure the view from there will differ from the view from here.
Steven Hawking's Tutor
Posts: 4,612
August 20th, 2007, 09:40 AM
Dex
Thanks for your considered and erudite response.
I have a similar respect for science and scientific method…if you would.
What does the human proclivity to invest in mythos and abstraction for its under-girding moral and ethical theses say about us? Doesn’t it suggest that when reason fails and ignorance reigns supreme that we will knowingly and willingly turn to fantasy and imagination in the face of comprehension and apprehension of the very real and tangible component elements of our experience of existence?
We acknowledge that human religious practices over the entire span of recorded history and from paleontological evidence pre-dating that record that our ignorance regarding the nature of ‘being’ leads us to invest-in, to immerse ourselves in… self-delusion? Neanderthal shamans unearthed from peat bogs in various locations around the world serve to illustrate that humanity (although Neanderthal wasn’t Homo Sapiens…but a “close” genetic relation) has practiced this willing self-delusion for a very long time.
And despite accommodating this fantasy of the existence of a divine realm and omnipotent causal entity as the creator being…we’ve rejected the reality that pulses around us. We can now afford to forgive the ignorance of our ancestors when it comes to many events that occur as expression of entirely natural phenomena, because human understanding of the nature of our experience of ‘being’ informs us through greater knowledge about that nature as derived through observation hypothesis and experimentation over generations. We evolved…..
And yet it is only our understanding of and facility to manipulate substance that has evolved.
Life forms evolve. Evolution is about adaptation and survival.
Humanity it seems would rather cling to fantastic stories and juvenile affirmations created and popularized during the adolescence of human evolution. Our psychology has been manacled and hobbled by the substitution of mythology and fantasy for rational thought. Whether we explore Roman or Greek mythology, or examine aboriginal pantheism from tribal societies around the planet, causality credited to a force or energy beyond the ken of human understanding has served as sub-structure to political and ideological notions that have in these perhaps final days of human existence built and maintained the mechanisms of our “progress” but in so doing have also built the engine of our demise.
We will and perhaps have already ceased to evolve in a mental or intellectual sense because the ignorance and misunderstandings of long-dead civilizations are kept “alive”.
Global conflicts that have yes certainly resulted in far greater facility with shaping our substantive universe through technological development in the pursuit of wider-ranging and more lethal weaponry rely on defining differences. The ultimate defining “difference” has been what we “believe”…
We believe that our notions ideas and characterizations of this imaginary extra-worldly construct are the unassailable and irrefutably “right” vision of human development. That there is some epiphany, some blinding moment of clarity that will dawn in human consciousness that informs us that yes it is “our” god and only “our” ‘god’ that is the only “real” and “true” god. A god that demands of us that we kill anyone and everyone failing to subscribe to our ‘beliefs’ regardless that this endeavor involves collateral destruction of millions of life forms and the eradication of the means of life for millions.
I have no doubt that the “believer” will claim usurpation and high jacking of their “beliefs” to serve ideological and political ends…with the believer as much a victim to the carnage of this self-defeating behavior as the non-believer…
It’s long past time that humanity divested itself of this artificial and destructive inclination to cling to the unsubstantial and the ethereal and comes to terms with the reality that is unescapable and inevitable and that permeates our experience of ‘being’.
We stopped incarcerating the disturbed and the infirm when we understood that “demonic possession” was a myth. We stopped dancing for rain and bountiful harvests when we began to understand geography and meteorology. We abandoned our fantasies when we chose to replace willing self-delusion with reason and understanding.
We may be evolving but so long as there are significant numbers among us willing to stop the clock and subscribe to imaginary constructs as pathway to “purpose” and “meaning”, we allow and in fact embolden those who’d find greater comfort in embracing ignorance and delusion.
Dex
Thanks for your considered and erudite response.
I have a similar respect for science and scientific method…if you would.
What does the human proclivity to invest in mythos and abstraction for its under-girding moral and ethical theses say about us? Doesn’t it suggest that when reason fails and ignorance reigns supreme that we will knowingly and willingly turn to fantasy and imagination in the face of comprehension and apprehension of the very real and tangible component elements of our experience of existence?
We acknowledge that human religious practices over the entire span of recorded history and from paleontological evidence pre-dating that record that our ignorance regarding the nature of ‘being’ leads us to invest-in, to immerse ourselves in… self-delusion? Neanderthal shamans unearthed from peat bogs in various locations around the world serve to illustrate that humanity (although Neanderthal wasn’t Homo Sapiens…but a “close” genetic relation) has practiced this willing self-delusion for a very long time.
And despite accommodating this fantasy of the existence of a divine realm and omnipotent causal entity as the creator being…we’ve rejected the reality that pulses around us. We can now afford to forgive the ignorance of our ancestors when it comes to many events that occur as expression of entirely natural phenomena, because human understanding of the nature of our experience of ‘being’ informs us through greater knowledge about that nature as derived through observation hypothesis and experimentation over generations. We evolved…..
And yet it is only our understanding of and facility to manipulate substance that has evolved.
Life forms evolve. Evolution is about adaptation and survival.
Humanity it seems would rather cling to fantastic stories and juvenile affirmations created and popularized during the adolescence of human evolution. Our psychology has been manacled and hobbled by the substitution of mythology and fantasy for rational thought. Whether we explore Roman or Greek mythology, or examine aboriginal pantheism from tribal societies around the planet, causality credited to a force or energy beyond the ken of human understanding has served as sub-structure to political and ideological notions that have in these perhaps final days of human existence built and maintained the mechanisms of our “progress” but in so doing have also built the engine of our demise.
We will and perhaps have already ceased to evolve in a mental or intellectual sense because the ignorance and misunderstandings of long-dead civilizations are kept “alive”.
Global conflicts that have yes certainly resulted in far greater facility with shaping our substantive universe through technological development in the pursuit of wider-ranging and more lethal weaponry rely on defining differences. The ultimate defining “difference” has been what we “believe”…
We believe that our notions ideas and characterizations of this imaginary extra-worldly construct are the unassailable and irrefutably “right” vision of human development. That there is some epiphany, some blinding moment of clarity that will dawn in human consciousness that informs us that yes it is “our” god and only “our” ‘god’ that is the only “real” and “true” god. A god that demands of us that we kill anyone and everyone failing to subscribe to our ‘beliefs’ regardless that this endeavor involves collateral destruction of millions of life forms and the eradication of the means of life for millions.
I have no doubt that the “believer” will claim usurpation and high jacking of their “beliefs” to serve ideological and political ends…with the believer as much a victim to the carnage of this self-defeating behavior as the non-believer…
It’s long past time that humanity divested itself of this artificial and destructive inclination to cling to the unsubstantial and the ethereal and comes to terms with the reality that is unescapable and inevitable and that permeates our experience of ‘being’.
We stopped incarcerating the disturbed and the infirm when we understood that “demonic possession” was a myth. We stopped dancing for rain and bountiful harvests when we began to understand geography and meteorology. We abandoned our fantasies when we chose to replace willing self-delusion with reason and understanding.
We may be evolving but so long as there are significant numbers among us willing to stop the clock and subscribe to imaginary constructs as pathway to “purpose” and “meaning”, we allow and in fact embolden those who’d find greater comfort in embracing ignorance and delusion.
Theism Exorcist
Posts: 368
Location: The Capitol
Location: The Capitol
October 19th, 2007, 09:52 PM
Quoting lone wolf
I know it seems terrible , but everything in life is defined through math . Even such things as human emotions are testable and attributable to chemical balances or imbalances in the brain . X amount of this compound and y amount of that compound triggers an emotion . Have you ever tried an antidepressant it actually makes you happy , a happiness i cannot distinguish from the "real " thing . Sometimes the math is beyond us but whenever we find something it;s there , there are mathematical patterns of order in nature patterns that arise on the subatomic level even when you try and scrabble a system .
Gee ... think by the numbers? I prefer to seek my own answers.
Wolf
Wolf
Theism Exorcist
Posts: 368
Location: The Capitol
Location: The Capitol
October 19th, 2007, 09:54 PM
Footnote to the above post , stimulating certain parts of the brain chemically and electrically have been proven to trigger out of body and spiritual e xperiences in subjects far from any religious or "metaphysical " setting.
Footnote to the above post , stimulating certain parts of the brain chemically and electrically have been proven to trigger out of body and spiritual e xperiences in subjects far from any religious or "metaphysical " setting.
Theism Exorcist
Posts: 368
Location: The Capitol
Location: The Capitol
October 19th, 2007, 09:57 PM
Quoting Vereya
There is no your truth or mine . This idea is childish . There is one truth out there and most of it we do not know , instead of redefining the term to suite our positions we should be engaged in a search for that truth . An investigator with a point to score is the least likely to see the truth , which is why for philosophical reasons i've forever a skeptic even about my own opinions
It's a very good question, Curiousity! I guess part of it is just the childish desire to share the truth with the others And then we get surprised, why the others don't want our truth and keep sticking to their fallacies
Besides, voicing your beliefs and convictions is one of the ways to find like-minded people.
And the "intellectual squabbles" over the different points of view really do give some spice to life.
And then we get surprised, why the others don't want our truth and keep sticking to their fallacies Besides, voicing your beliefs and convictions is one of the ways to find like-minded people.
And the "intellectual squabbles" over the different points of view really do give some spice to life.
Mighty Intellect
Posts: 1,905
Location: Northern California
Location: Northern California
October 20th, 2007, 11:52 AM
Otherwise, rewrite history and bury all the idol worship that has ever been done even to the cave mans existence.
What drives some to even today to argue against that as if though it weren't there to start with, but arguing as though its still is?
I can argue all day and all my life, because I believe it to be so, that God exists to comfort us in the world of the flesh, first, by whatever means there was available and the knowledge available about Him.
I have be privileged, not as a caveman, but as a modern man to have the knowledge and understanding of this great and wonderful God, and how He has developed humanity to what now is, and yet, continuing to.
There can never, I mean never be a marriage between faith in science only and faith in God, because the latter requires something in us that does not exist physically, but spiritually.
Faith in God does give science its due, for God is the greatest scientist that exists.
Peace>>>AJ
Quote:
Seems to me that what you said proves that there is something in mankind, a spark, a thread, a mite or something that compels mankind to seek something above its self as a source of comfort in the trials of its life. We acknowledge that human religious practices over the entire span of recorded history and from paleontological evidence pre-dating that record that our ignorance regarding the nature of ‘being’ leads us to invest-in, to immerse ourselves in… self-delusion? Neanderthal shamans unearthed from peat bogs in various locations around the world serve to illustrate that humanity (although Neanderthal wasn’t Homo Sapiens…but a “close” genetic relation) has practiced this willing self-delusion for a very long time.>>>MikeyDB
Otherwise, rewrite history and bury all the idol worship that has ever been done even to the cave mans existence.
What drives some to even today to argue against that as if though it weren't there to start with, but arguing as though its still is?
I can argue all day and all my life, because I believe it to be so, that God exists to comfort us in the world of the flesh, first, by whatever means there was available and the knowledge available about Him.
I have be privileged, not as a caveman, but as a modern man to have the knowledge and understanding of this great and wonderful God, and how He has developed humanity to what now is, and yet, continuing to.
There can never, I mean never be a marriage between faith in science only and faith in God, because the latter requires something in us that does not exist physically, but spiritually.
Faith in God does give science its due, for God is the greatest scientist that exists.
Peace>>>AJ
Knows No Bounds
Posts: 3,428
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
Videos: 2
Location: 50° 30' N, 104° 38' W
October 20th, 2007, 09:50 PM
Quoting look3467
Maybe so (though I strongly doubt it), but he's also one of the worst design engineers who's ever existed. Consider as just one example the excretory and reproductive systems of mammals. He's done the equivalent of running an open sewer line through a playground.
...God is the greatest scientist that exists.
Theism Exorcist
Posts: 368
Location: The Capitol
Location: The Capitol
October 20th, 2007, 10:01 PM
Quoting Dexter Sinister
Also speaking as an engineer in training , one of the worst aspects any engineering model is redundancy which ironically enough can be found in all life on earth , 100s of animal species have redundant organic structures .
Maybe so (though I strongly doubt it), but he's also one of the worst design engineers who's ever existed. Consider as just one example the excretory and reproductive systems of mammals. He's done the equivalent of running an open sewer line through a playground.
Mighty Intellect
Posts: 1,905
Location: Northern California
Location: Northern California
October 20th, 2007, 10:54 PM
I see the world and all its contents a marvel of a work.
I mean, look at the majestic mountains, the color of the trees in Autumn, the thousands of different fish in the sea.
I mean come on, you and I both know that no human being ever had the wisdom of knowledge to create all that there is.
As a matter of fact, the technology of mankind has killed billions upon billions.
I have no problem giving all the credit to God.
Peace>>>AJ
Quoting Dexter Sinister
Well, mankind can say or think anything he wants to his own satisfaction.
Maybe so (though I strongly doubt it), but he's also one of the worst design engineers who's ever existed. Consider as just one example the excretory and reproductive systems of mammals. He's done the equivalent of running an open sewer line through a playground.
I see the world and all its contents a marvel of a work.
I mean, look at the majestic mountains, the color of the trees in Autumn, the thousands of different fish in the sea.
I mean come on, you and I both know that no human being ever had the wisdom of knowledge to create all that there is.
As a matter of fact, the technology of mankind has killed billions upon billions.
I have no problem giving all the credit to God.
Peace>>>AJ
Clever Clogs
Posts: 601
October 20th, 2007, 11:16 PM
I am theist and currently-possibly-baptist.
Why is good question.
Perhaps because I saw visions and experienced different lifestyle.
and still struggling against my sin..
Terrible yet still believing.
I have no problem revealing my belief, I believe in Christ and that is that.
And I am suppose to be liberal [shakes his head a little].
My teacher was telling me, "Aren't you conservative?" after discussion about homosexuality.
Awkward situation it was hehe.
I am theist and currently-possibly-baptist.
Why is good question.
Perhaps because I saw visions and experienced different lifestyle.
and still struggling against my sin..
Terrible yet still believing.
I have no problem revealing my belief, I believe in Christ and that is that.
And I am suppose to be liberal [shakes his head a little].
My teacher was telling me, "Aren't you conservative?" after discussion about homosexuality.
Awkward situation it was hehe.
