snorbury said:Aldebaran said:
I prefer to look at my red burning star using its Arabic name
My conclusions end with a thin line, where conviction crosses it to encounter and embrace belief.
The absolute proof you are seeking will not, however, lead to a change in your position, it will only confirm your beliefs in god and in yourself.[/qutoe]
I can only say that up to now everything that is brought forward as "proof" that God does "not need to exist" adds to the suggestion of proof of the opposite.
Fuck religion, that's for sceptics and nutters
No, but no doubt about it that some religious are most certainly sceptics and nutters.
salaam.
A question to "the believers"
- Thread starter meurig
- Start date
Aldebaran said:
Aldy - you keep on mentioning about your "rational logical reasoning" being behind your faith in a supernatural being.
But isn't it your faith that does that? Isn't that what faith is - acceptance of beliefs that are not demonstrable through reason???
btw we seem to be converging on the same ground as the other thread going on! (I could say "coincidence or fate?" just to be controversial!)
Aldebaran said:
I find God to be on the less likely side for the following reasons:
i) Ockham's razor
ii) The simple argument against ontological morals - what sort of thing would it be, which is related to (i)
iii) The regression argument.
iv) Popper - an untestable theory is no sort of theory - it cannot increase knowledge.
v) If one takes a Spinozan view of God, I regard it as epiphenomenalism.
Gmart
Well-Known Member
the Arrogance of Man
So why do we try and characterise 'him' as such as if 'he' is suddenly going to talk to us or communicate in some way?
IT is pantheistic, and that's the end. We'll never be able to understand IT or relate to any degree, or even use language to talk about IT effectively or accurately. So it's best not to.
Also IT is a 'don't know' situation and so on basic principles it is better not to comment on things one does not know surely?
Why would the existence of IT have any bearing on these activities? We don't know so we accept it and get on with life.
Aldebaran said:
So why do we try and characterise 'him' as such as if 'he' is suddenly going to talk to us or communicate in some way?
IT is pantheistic, and that's the end. We'll never be able to understand IT or relate to any degree, or even use language to talk about IT effectively or accurately. So it's best not to.
Also IT is a 'don't know' situation and so on basic principles it is better not to comment on things one does not know surely?
Gmarthews said:
Why would the existence of IT have any bearing on these activities? We don't know so we accept it and get on with life.
well said sir
Nickster said:
Belief in god has and can be arrived at through reason, even if this is not usually the case.
See Thomas Aquinas:
(My personal favorite)
God is greater than that which can be imagined.
We cannot imagine god.
Therefore, god exists!
And of course, the unmoved mover argument, which is more reasonable.
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
nah, you usually dont call G-d an it because then you're saying that (S)He's equivalent to an object or an animal or a small child ... you're demeaning Him (or Her).
and traditionally people say "it" to refer to someone that doesn't matter or they're really contemptuous of ...
there's no real reason to call G-d a "he" apart from the fact that there really isn't a pronoun that will describe what the deity actually **is** - you have to do with gender specific 1's, and traditionally in english, g-d was called a he in order to emphasise his strength and power ... although in a language like hebrew (and probably arabic as well), there are different words for g-d in order to emphasise his/her masculine and feminine aspects
and traditionally people say "it" to refer to someone that doesn't matter or they're really contemptuous of ...
there's no real reason to call G-d a "he" apart from the fact that there really isn't a pronoun that will describe what the deity actually **is** - you have to do with gender specific 1's, and traditionally in english, g-d was called a he in order to emphasise his strength and power ... although in a language like hebrew (and probably arabic as well), there are different words for g-d in order to emphasise his/her masculine and feminine aspects
Gmart
Well-Known Member
Sure, i feel that it is more accurate and the rest just sounds like not as important as that. I am not being contemptuous or anything, and i think that if we humanise it by attaching some arbitrary he or she to it we are changing what it is, though we obviously don't even know.
Language is thus distracting and should be avoided. It is after all a personal issue...
Language is thus distracting and should be avoided. It is after all a personal issue...
frogwoman
Let them eat newts
nah, i think g-d does have human characteristics but its a question of proportionality (oh goody - i get to do my rs revision...)
it's like talking about a good person and a good dog.
both are good, but a good person has more "goodness" than a good dog. if a person is good they have to be so much more than to do things when told to, to be loyal, not jump up and bite people, not shit on the carpet, etc.
whereas for a dog, it doesn't actually matter. if it does all those things, it'll be a good dog.
now, when we talk about a person being good and about G-d being good, it's the same thing, since although they possess the same quality, G-d is infinitely more good than a human.
that doesn't mean that G-d's like a human, or that his "goodness" is anything like what humans understand goodness to be - but what good is as a human quality is a reflection of that quality in G-d, even though it's not AS good, and we'd demand far less of someone to call them a "good person" than to be infinitely omnibenevolent like G-d is.
it's like talking about a good person and a good dog.
both are good, but a good person has more "goodness" than a good dog. if a person is good they have to be so much more than to do things when told to, to be loyal, not jump up and bite people, not shit on the carpet, etc.
whereas for a dog, it doesn't actually matter. if it does all those things, it'll be a good dog.
now, when we talk about a person being good and about G-d being good, it's the same thing, since although they possess the same quality, G-d is infinitely more good than a human.
that doesn't mean that G-d's like a human, or that his "goodness" is anything like what humans understand goodness to be - but what good is as a human quality is a reflection of that quality in G-d, even though it's not AS good, and we'd demand far less of someone to call them a "good person" than to be infinitely omnibenevolent like G-d is.
you're saying that like it's a bad thing ...meurig said:
I didn't wish to insult you, it just slipped out, but, it's not even in the same class as Oscar Wilde's. Your insult above though, is really quite stylish.
It was just that it was slightly irritating at the time to to hear you saying again that -the glass was half empty - (for me) when I'd just explained that wasn't what I think.
Hello ZWord,
I thought you were alluding to
Lady Bracknell: To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
from the Importance of Being Earnest.
Now that we've put the cudgels down, I take your point that as a theist you are not wholly pessimistic; but I still think it takes a fairly dim view of humanity to hold that there can be no hope for it without God.
What do you think of Aristotle's position?
I thought you were alluding to
Lady Bracknell: To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
from the Importance of Being Earnest.
Now that we've put the cudgels down, I take your point that as a theist you are not wholly pessimistic; but I still think it takes a fairly dim view of humanity to hold that there can be no hope for it without God.
What do you think of Aristotle's position?
What was Aristotle's position?
I kind of sympathise with the point of the original version of the story of Pandora's box, the story being that someone let out a bunch of plagues and misfortunes on humanity, to torment us - the last of which was false hope, who by her lies discouraged mankind from generally committing suicide.
But, I generally thought in this life that hope is not false. And \was the most optimistic of people. But all the same, if humanity is an accident, then I reckon we're a bad one.
I kind of sympathise with the point of the original version of the story of Pandora's box, the story being that someone let out a bunch of plagues and misfortunes on humanity, to torment us - the last of which was false hope, who by her lies discouraged mankind from generally committing suicide.
But, I generally thought in this life that hope is not false. And \was the most optimistic of people. But all the same, if humanity is an accident, then I reckon we're a bad one.
"Aristotle actually categorised soul as purpose. To Aristotle, everything had a soul, even hammers. The soul of a hammer was its function - ie its use. The soul of a plant was to grow and reproduce. And the soul of a human was to understand. That was its purpose. And going on that basis I'd say we had good grounds to be very optimistic."
Well it's kind of commonplace that the pourpose of an artifact is its funciton, And of course we as the creators of artifacts, know their functions, and purposes, because we made them,... the purpose of an organism, is less obvious, as we didn't make them.. Fair enough you could say that purpose of aplant is to grow, and reproduce, and then you could say the same of any living organism, - you could even say within a human-centred view of things, that the purpose of aplant is to produce oxytgen for us to breathe, and you could come up with all manner of possible purposes for individual humans and for humanity in general, But, going by the same argument as for plants, you'd probalby conclude that the purpose and destiny of a human is to live and die.
But whatever you decided the purpose of humanity was, people could come up with a whole load of different possible ones, ands they'd be real subjective purposes, but without god, \to give them objectivity, they could equally well be dismissed as illusions to keep us happy.
Which is kind of related to fela's thread about reality and truth, and the point that there is no objectively true account of a situation without God to have it. If two people meet, and have a totally different experience of each other and what happened from the other, then there are two subjective experiences of the meeting, but no overall truth, and only if there's some mind that has access to both experiences, can there be an overall truth.
Well it's kind of commonplace that the pourpose of an artifact is its funciton, And of course we as the creators of artifacts, know their functions, and purposes, because we made them,... the purpose of an organism, is less obvious, as we didn't make them.. Fair enough you could say that purpose of aplant is to grow, and reproduce, and then you could say the same of any living organism, - you could even say within a human-centred view of things, that the purpose of aplant is to produce oxytgen for us to breathe, and you could come up with all manner of possible purposes for individual humans and for humanity in general, But, going by the same argument as for plants, you'd probalby conclude that the purpose and destiny of a human is to live and die.
But whatever you decided the purpose of humanity was, people could come up with a whole load of different possible ones, ands they'd be real subjective purposes, but without god, \to give them objectivity, they could equally well be dismissed as illusions to keep us happy.
Which is kind of related to fela's thread about reality and truth, and the point that there is no objectively true account of a situation without God to have it. If two people meet, and have a totally different experience of each other and what happened from the other, then there are two subjective experiences of the meeting, but no overall truth, and only if there's some mind that has access to both experiences, can there be an overall truth.
Why would God necessarily be objective? From all the accounts I've read he sounds incredibly partial.
There can be truth, it's just that we will never have *total* access to it, just increasingly refined models. I honestly don't see why this is such a problem for some people.
Aristotle illustrates that people can give their own lives purpose. And that's not delusional. If someone says the purpose of their life is 'x' and then acts toward that purpose, then axiomatically that *is* the purpose of their life. Aristotle's own life unwittingly reveals this, which is strange, given how witty he was.
There can be truth, it's just that we will never have *total* access to it, just increasingly refined models. I honestly don't see why this is such a problem for some people.
Aristotle illustrates that people can give their own lives purpose. And that's not delusional. If someone says the purpose of their life is 'x' and then acts toward that purpose, then axiomatically that *is* the purpose of their life. Aristotle's own life unwittingly reveals this, which is strange, given how witty he was.
I wouldn't wish to deny that people can give their own life purpose.
But that's a long way from saying that they can give humanity purpose.
in general, the only sense I can make of the idea of an objective viewpoint, is that it's the kind of viewpoint God has.
When Aristotle says that the purpose of "man" is -to understand, I think, well, Don Juan would have probably said something else, if he'd ever existed or wrote anything, and it's really just a case of aristotle justifying the purpose of his life, as far as he's concerned, by trying an argument that it's everybody's purpose.
Really you ought to be trying an existentialist outlook on, like the purpose of human life is for everyone to find/choose their own purpose, and then live it authentically, which is a noble attempt to give life meaning in the absence of god, but, all the same, I still think it's a bit hopeless. Personally, I'm quite convinced that the only reason people can find purposes for their lives and live them, and find that the process makes sense that way, is because actually, they are spirits, and they came3 here with purposes for their lives, and that's why it works that way. The kind of worldview you ought to have without "God" just doesn't seem to me to allow for any grounding to these purposes, or any hope that trying to live them will be fruitful.
But that's a long way from saying that they can give humanity purpose.
in general, the only sense I can make of the idea of an objective viewpoint, is that it's the kind of viewpoint God has.
When Aristotle says that the purpose of "man" is -to understand, I think, well, Don Juan would have probably said something else, if he'd ever existed or wrote anything, and it's really just a case of aristotle justifying the purpose of his life, as far as he's concerned, by trying an argument that it's everybody's purpose.
Really you ought to be trying an existentialist outlook on, like the purpose of human life is for everyone to find/choose their own purpose, and then live it authentically, which is a noble attempt to give life meaning in the absence of god, but, all the same, I still think it's a bit hopeless. Personally, I'm quite convinced that the only reason people can find purposes for their lives and live them, and find that the process makes sense that way, is because actually, they are spirits, and they came3 here with purposes for their lives, and that's why it works that way. The kind of worldview you ought to have without "God" just doesn't seem to me to allow for any grounding to these purposes, or any hope that trying to live them will be fruitful.
ZWord said:
I do have a vaguely existentialist outlook on life
But this is ameliorated by my view that we as humans continually fail to see how much we agree on in terms of purpose.
Without a generality of common purpose humanity would not have created civilizations, and we would not be having this conversation.
I believe this to be an empirical truth; and I think as individuals we often forget it, simply because it's so blindingly obvious. We cannot conceive of a world in which humans do not act in concert, so we ignore the very obvious fact that the vast majority of the time we do.
Well I agree, - we do have a common purpose, .
In a way, the common desire to live in a perfect world, that grounds morality, is the inevitable result of a mind that creates goals for itself, .
Whether the purpose is a real possibility, or just an elusive dream, best forgotten with childhood, is what bothers me.
In a way, the common desire to live in a perfect world, that grounds morality, is the inevitable result of a mind that creates goals for itself, .
Whether the purpose is a real possibility, or just an elusive dream, best forgotten with childhood, is what bothers me.
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