From concept of God to object of God in existence

a reply to: Talorc

Ouch. And there it is. Time for an "about face."

Why? Do you think empirical inquiry is incompatible with changing concepts?

Or do you yearn for something eternal to cling to?

You seem to equate transience with illusoriness. Why do you think they are the same?

a reply to: Observationalist

Who decides which questions need answers and which questions do not? Can I decide for myself which questions need to be answered, and which answers require suitable evidence to be considered valid?

oops

oops twice

oops thrice

a reply to: randyvs

for some reason the site doesnt want me to talk to you anymore.

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: randyvs

for some reason the site doesnt want me to talk to you anymore.

I'm surprized it lets you talk to anyone.

originally posted by: randyvs

originally posted by: TzarChasm
a reply to: randyvs

for some reason the site doesnt want me to talk to you anymore.

I'm surprized it lets you talk to anyone.

Im not. i have some genuinely insightful stuff to say, unlike fake spiritualists who use their religion for ego polishing purposes. on to the aforementioned insightful stuff...now that the site is done hiccuping.

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: TzarChasm
I assumed truth was meaningful to you.

or you could go back and formulate a meaningful response to my points. its up to you.

Just answer me this instead, were you looking for
truth when you asked this question?
"why do we need to know for sure?"

truth is valuable only when it is useful. and truth is only as useful as those who distill it from perception. deception can be more useful and helpful than truth when it is well applied, and truth can be more harmful than healthy when it is poorly applied. in short i was not looking for truth, i was interested in promoting genuine thought and introspection.

a reply to: randyvs

You got me all wrong Mo. It's actually the more superior feeling
that is KNOWING I'm more superior. That's actually where my
sites were set chief. Don't screw it up again?

this is what happens when people are more concerned about being righteous than being good. some people want to be acknowledged but they dont want to be useful. some people are very useful but never acknowledged for it. its not about the credit, it is about the results. if you look good while being useless or impractical, you are not good. superiority is what fake theists enjoy because it gives them all the feel-goods without any of the effort or sacrifice of being thanklessly fruitful. be careful how smug you become in your spirituality, vanity and pride are both sins in your book.

a reply to: TzarChasm

i have some genuinely insightful stuff to say,

There's no evidence of that on this whole site.
And you saying so only allows you to believe it.

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: TzarChasm

i have some genuinely insightful stuff to say,

There's no evidence of that on this whole site.
And you saying so only allows you to believe it.

considering where you get your inspiration from, i just cant find it in myself to be offended by your skepticism. either way ad hominem is an ugly color on you. i thought you were better than that.

originally posted by: TzarChasm

originally posted by: randyvs
a reply to: TzarChasm

i have some genuinely insightful stuff to say,

There's no evidence of that on this whole site.
And you saying so only allows you to believe it.

considering where you get your inspiration from, i just cant find it in myself to be offended by your skepticism. either way ad hominem is an ugly color on you. i thought you were better than that.

I'm willing to bet that Randy's opinion does not reflect the majority... at the very least it doesn't reflect mine. And he's been trolling ATS for as long as I have.. lol...

originally posted by: Astyanax

Why? Do you think empirical inquiry is incompatible with changing concepts?

No, rather my point is this: that's all that empirical inquiry can provide us. Inconsistent concepts that can't truly offer proof of causality. I believe it was Kant or Hume, one of those guys, who demonstrated that empirical facts can never justify causality. At best, we can say everything that occurs in the "phenomenal" world is a set of coincidences, a string of occurances that happen to coincide with each other.

So then you have to turn to rationalism, and rationalism by necessity always postulates a "second world", a world that is in some way "more real" than the empirical world (Plato was a rationalist).

So, the way is see it, that "other world" very well could consist of Platonic forms or something like that. Of course I can't prove it, but my guess is as good as yours or anyone else's. I know this is way off track from your original contention about inborn concepts, but I still think its worth talking about.

Or do you yearn for something eternal to cling to?

And who doesn't? Even if you say you don't, you really do. No one, absolutely no one is able to fully conceive of and come to terms with finiteness and mortality while they live. In a way, every single person alive clings to some sense of "the eternal" as it relates to the self. Every person, even if they're not consciously aware of it (or they attempt to deny it), has this inkling of something "eternal" inside themselves.

You seem to equate transience with illusoriness. Why do you think they are the same?

Not the same, exactly, but always related; what is illusory is necessarily transient and inconsistent. If there were something permanent and unchanging, what could possibly be more real than that?

a reply to: Talorc

empirical experience is rooted in the premise that all of reality is scaled proportionately which means consistency, and that consistency is the bridge between empirical experience and rationalist data. protons hold a positive charge no matter where in the universe you are. hydrogen has one proton and one electron no matter where in the universe you are. e=mc2 no matter where in the universe you are. these are facts as determined by empirical testing and rationalist thinking tells us that both these facts and the methods used to confirm them will be equally valid on the micro and macro scale. atomic physics mirrors astrophysics using much the same techniques to measure them both. HOWEVER...these same techniques have taught us that change in inevitable. entropy is a very real force and not a damn thing lasts forever. the universe is moving and shifting. where is it going? what is it becoming? we dont know. all we know is that we have tools and methods which have proven reliable and that is how we study the currents and eddies of the cosmic winds. but the universe is a big place and it takes decades to compile even a partial picture of exactly what is happening where and for what reason. at best we get a glimpse of how things were behaving tens of thousands of years ago which is how we extrapolate what will happen tens of thousands of years from this moment. thats the best we can do. and considering how well things are going within our atmosphere, i would suggest that we focus our attention closer to home instead of trying to wedge ourselves into the center of the cosmic scene because frankly we have our hands full already.

originally posted by: Woodcarver
a reply to: Observationalist

Who decides which questions need answers and which questions do not? Can I decide for myself which questions need to be answered, and which answers require suitable evidence to be considered valid?

Good question, I don't know. The one who knows the answers?

Teachers ask questions that they already know the answer to. They are trying to draw out a conversation among the class. A good teacher is not just looking for the right answer so he can identify the brightest kid in the class, but he sees value in the interaction between students and challenging thier criticle thinking. A wrong answer or "stupid" question is better than silence.

As for deciding which question need answers, well if you get to decide then your the teacher and the class. That's a pretty lonely proposition. Although you don't have to deal with any stupid questions, right?

a reply to: Pachomius

I’m convinced, one cannot know God unless other faculties, now cut off from the average human, are activated


That’s what real religion is all about the activation of this these inner faculties of awareness.


Jesus: The Kingdom of God is within you

Muhammad: He who knows himself knows his lord

Buddha: When asked after enlightenment, Are you now man or God, he said, "neither, I am awake"

a reply to: Talorc

I believe it was Kant or Hume, one of those guys, who demonstrated that empirical facts can never justify causality.

It was Hume, who showed that causality is predicated on induction, which cannot be relied upon. Kant then ‘demonstrated’ that it did not matter; causality is a precondition for empirical inquiry, not something that can be demonstrated by it.

It doesn’t matter. Whether or not causality exists, the world and the bulk of phenomena it contains present the appearance of being caused. Science itself tells us that the world is not strictly deterministic; yet it is deterministic enough for us to obtain repeatable results from observation and experiment, and to predict the future in terms of the effects of known causes. As TzarChasm points out abvoe, reality is consistent. And nothing more is necessary for us to function in and manipulate it.

At best, we can say everything that occurs in the "phenomenal" world is a set of coincidences, a string of occurances that happen to coincide with each other.

Forgive me, but that is certainly not the best I can say. It is the best a philosopher can say, perhaps. But a human being endowed with the usual faculties can assert a great deal more than this.

So then you have to turn to rationalism, and rationalism by necessity always postulates a "second world", a world that is in some way "more real" than the empirical world (Plato was a rationalist).

It is not necessary to run to rationalism like a frightened child. All that is required is to take the world of appearances as you find it and seek to understand it better through observation and experiment.

Science is not naive. It has itself shown that the physical substance of the world is not at all as it appears to our senses, and also that causality, whatever it is and whether or not it ‘really exists’, it not at all how we conceive it to be. But science has also shown us that we can safely rely upon the world to be the way it appears to be, and that causality, or something that bears the appearance of causality, appears to operate in it. Nothing further is necessary.

(Who doesn't) yearn for something eternal to cling to? Even if you say you don't, you really do.,,,Every person, even if they're not consciously aware of it (or they attempt to deny it), has this inkling of something "eternal" inside themselves.

Kindly do not presume to tell others what they do and don’t yearn for. I am perfectly comfortable with high levels of uncertainty, thank you very much, and so are all serious scientific materialists, Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists and live-for-the-day hedonists. Not everyone is so frightened of reality that they need to bury their brains in the Bosom of the Father.

Absolutely no one is able to fully conceive of and come to terms with finiteness and mortality while they live.

This is religious dogma, not an empirically established datum.

Everything that exists, exsist because the singularity had all the Properties present within it to form the existance we observe today over time.

In geneis Chapter 1. It is stated that God said: Let Earth bring forth all......... THis implies that God did not create but Earth did.

God formed the singularity.


In genesis Chapter 1 verse 2. This is what the verse describes.

Nothing but darkness:


Verse 3: Let there be light:


Verse 6. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.

THis is the firmament.

a reply to: randyvs

How someone could die 2000 yrs ago in total obscurity? And also as a person whos message was a great love worth idolizing. Tender and kind etc. If he were a normal man he would of stayed in that powerless obscurity forever.

For the simple reason that books of the bible came about many years after his death. It serves a purpose of controllers to keep hope alive in some afterlife reward for putting up with their shi"te for so long. Otherwise there'd be a violent revolution every 10 years.

I don't see any babys being born uttering the words "Jesus save me" so the argument that it is self evident is nonsense.

Now about blood saving you that's so old, Christianity doesn't have the monopoly on blood sacrifice as some mystical rite to appease hungry gods or to bring blessing upon an infertile land

a reply to: LucidWarrior

Zero is a number, infinity is not; unless you mean something else?


"Calculus/Infinite Limits/Infinity is not a number"
en.wikibooks.org...

I can't copy & paste because as the calculus symbols don't come out right

a reply to: Talorc

In a way, every single person alive clings to some sense of "the eternal" as it relates to the self.

That in my humble opinion would be the "self" the "I" or "ego" that thinks it is eternal. I guess we all do that as some form of evolutionary necessity. Now that I have children it does and doesn't appear as important whether my self continues; it'd be good to see my kids have my grandchildren, but evolutionary a part of my unconscious yearning was satisfied when I had children.

PS thanks for your contribution to this thread