10 votes
Posted 04 March 2014 - 09:36 PM
Have a good day.What is this mountain of vapidity and vagueness meant to mean? It's certainly not evidence of anything except the tendency of religious folk to like mystical sounding emptiness,
Posted 05 March 2014 - 02:02 AM
Posted 05 March 2014 - 07:37 PM
http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/66586-gobligoop-and-anything-goes/page__st__150#entry647596Do you imagine anyone reads these summaries, or is impressed by them? If your family and friends saw this they would be very concerned.
Edited by shadowhawk, 05 March 2014 - 07:46 PM.
Posted 08 March 2014 - 02:45 AM
Posted 08 March 2014 - 07:18 AM
Edited by deeptrance, 08 March 2014 - 07:32 AM.
Posted 08 March 2014 - 08:03 AM
Have a good day.What is this mountain of vapidity and vagueness meant to mean? It's certainly not evidence of anything except the tendency of religious folk to like mystical sounding emptiness,
Posted 08 March 2014 - 09:41 AM
Have a good day.What is this mountain of vapidity and vagueness meant to mean? It's certainly not evidence of anything except the tendency of religious folk to like mystical sounding emptiness,
I second johnross47. What evidence have you provided for anything?
I find your hypergraphia to be evidence of religious mania, something I've personally experienced after a psychotic episode that was precipitated by a pair of concussions and extreme hyponatremia. I became extremely prolific in writing long e-mails to many people, often sending the same people as many as a dozen messages a day, and I was filled with religious ecstasy. I accepted Christ's forgiveness, I felt a potent kinship with Buddhism, and I indulged in the Hindu practice of Kirtan (worship via call-and-response singing.) I had undeniable visions of being in multiple universes, being in many lifetimes, of time flowing backwards and reality being turned inside-out.
It's not an insult. It's just an observation. I certainly am not suggesting you're currently psychotic, but you might be somewhat manic. And that's fine --- nobody is normal, there's no such thing as a truly "normal" human being! But the point here is that mania tends to produce a tendency towards mysticism and confidence in direct intuition and insight rather than in sensory experience. The problem I see with apologetics is that it diminishes the power and beauty of insight by pinning it to the sluggish realm of linguistically contingent logic, a realm where there can never be any satisfying conclusion other than those that are settled upon out of an unexamined internal preference for a particular argumentative outcome. That is a terribly unsatisfying way to explore the true nature of all that is!
Posted 08 March 2014 - 08:32 PM
Posted 08 March 2014 - 09:38 PM
Posted 08 March 2014 - 10:13 PM
His posts lack any real arguments like most of your posts. http://www.longecity...150#entry647596 I should update your list. More name calling, ad hominem, logical fallacies. Have a nice infinite regress which if true would mean you never made it to here.Have a good day.What is this mountain of vapidity and vagueness meant to mean? It's certainly not evidence of anything except the tendency of religious folk to like mystical sounding emptiness,
I second johnross47. What evidence have you provided for anything?
I find your hypergraphia to be evidence of religious mania, something I've personally experienced after a psychotic episode that was precipitated by a pair of concussions and extreme hyponatremia. I became extremely prolific in writing long e-mails to many people, often sending the same people as many as a dozen messages a day, and I was filled with religious ecstasy. I accepted Christ's forgiveness, I felt a potent kinship with Buddhism, and I indulged in the Hindu practice of Kirtan (worship via call-and-response singing.) I had undeniable visions of being in multiple universes, being in many lifetimes, of time flowing backwards and reality being turned inside-out.
It's not an insult. It's just an observation. I certainly am not suggesting you're currently psychotic, but you might be somewhat manic. And that's fine --- nobody is normal, there's no such thing as a truly "normal" human being! But the point here is that mania tends to produce a tendency towards mysticism and confidence in direct intuition and insight rather than in sensory experience. The problem I see with apologetics is that it diminishes the power and beauty of insight by pinning it to the sluggish realm of linguistically contingent logic, a realm where there can never be any satisfying conclusion other than those that are settled upon out of an unexamined internal preference for a particular argumentative outcome. That is a terribly unsatisfying way to explore the true nature of all that is!
As you might expect, I applaud both your posts. The first is a pretty clear encapsulation of all the points made by posters other than SH. If we discard all the outdated "proofs" and ask what caused our universe, we are left with something truly awesome and wonderful: that all of this present reality could have arisen from what appears to be a very different sort of origin in a soup of quantum particles (or strings or whatever hypothesis turns out to be right). We are still, then, left with how that original state of affairs came about, the much feared infinite regress, but personally I don't find it threatening: it's just the current state of affairs and we can wait for enlightenment from science. Whether there was any intelligence involved is still open too.
Off topic so back to the TAO.
Posted 09 March 2014 - 12:17 AM
Edited by deeptrance, 09 March 2014 - 12:18 AM.
Posted 09 March 2014 - 12:33 AM
If we discard all the outdated "proofs" and ask what caused our universe, we are left with something truly awesome and wonderful: that all of this present reality could have arisen from what appears to be a very different sort of origin in a soup of quantum particles (or strings or whatever hypothesis turns out to be right). We are still, then, left with how that original state of affairs came about, the much feared infinite regress, but personally I don't find it threatening: it's just the current state of affairs and we can wait for enlightenment from science. Whether there was any intelligence involved is still open too.
Posted 09 March 2014 - 12:50 AM
I expected a reasoned discussion on the topic. What I got was this example. http://www.longecity...150#entry648240Hmm... Shadowhawk, I'm quite comfortable with your critique of my critique, and I have nothing much to say to your Dr. Bronner's product labels other than that they read like Dr. Bronner's product labels (see below). Basically, impossibly complicated and overly graphic and poorly organized and demanding of the reader to participate in this thread with the same level of vigor which you've brought to it. Ain't gonna happen, there are many other things I'm attending to in any given day and this isn't my priority. Thus, my arguments will never rise to the level of discourse you're asking for, but hopefully you're finding some others who are playing the game at your level of skill. I read your c.v. and see that this is more than just a hobby for you, so there's no way I can possibly meet your demands for full participation in the debate. Just wanted to drop in with my own observations fwiw.
A typical Dr. Bronner's product label:
http://all-one-typog...ermint-32oz.jpg
Edited by shadowhawk, 09 March 2014 - 01:17 AM.
Posted 09 March 2014 - 12:44 PM
If we discard all the outdated "proofs" and ask what caused our universe, we are left with something truly awesome and wonderful: that all of this present reality could have arisen from what appears to be a very different sort of origin in a soup of quantum particles (or strings or whatever hypothesis turns out to be right). We are still, then, left with how that original state of affairs came about, the much feared infinite regress, but personally I don't find it threatening: it's just the current state of affairs and we can wait for enlightenment from science. Whether there was any intelligence involved is still open too.
Agreed on all points. I'm currently of the view that the universe itself IS intelligent, and that we're just too anthropocentric to see it. We define everything in human terms, because of course we see ourselves as being the purpose for the universe's existence. Which we are, but then again so is a speck of dust in a distant galaxy.
I like to invent creation stories, and the most recent one is that the inherent curiosity of infinite possibility generates infinite universes based on infinite combinations of parameters, and our universe is very special to us because the parameters of our universe made it possible for us to exist. But our existence has always been a certainty, and I entertain the possibility that we've always existed and always will exist, though obviously not as what we temporarily appear to be. See, I can be pretty far out there too, but I would never ask anyone else to believe any of my crazy notions. I find it obnoxious when religious memes contain code for aggressive self-replication, but I suppose that's precisely why they're so successful. I try to embed a self-destruct mechanism in all of my concepts about "truth."
Posted 10 March 2014 - 06:18 AM
...all the evidence there is, is the old "proofs" discarded by most thinking people long ago.
...to see if I can make any sense of the thinking of believers. I know a few believers but none of them have ever attempted to justify their beliefs; some produce the tired old avoidance cliches such as "If you have to ask you obviously can't understand it." Very insulting really, and very stupid.
Posted 10 March 2014 - 09:34 AM
...all the evidence there is, is the old "proofs" discarded by most thinking people long ago.
Apart from the patent absurdity of many elements of those proofs, there is a pattern of argumentation that parallels conspiracy theories and denialism. For example, if you go to any lively comment thread for an article about global warming, there will inevitably be a number of deniers who employ identical tactics which consist of readily falsifiable assertions, false correlations, false attributions, and a general demonstration of misunderstanding of the phenomenon at hand. Deniers and conspiracy theorists utilize a debate tactic that consists of machine-gunning their opponents with questions designed to keep the opponent on the defensive and to raise doubts among readers. I hope I've given up on trying to debate global warming, as it's a truly hopeless enterprise. If I carefully address 3 of their challenges using evidence and citations, they reply with 4 new questions. It's a game that has no end. They're clearly not interested in seeing evidence or understanding the complexities of the issue, so it's pointless to respond to them.
I feel similarly about religious debate, though in the latter case I find it much easier to give it a rest and not try to convince anyone of anything, partly because I can see good reasons why someone would choose to believe in just about any sort of ultimate explanation for the cosmos and existence. I mean, we're never going to have a single explanation that eliminates all mystery, thank god, so why not embrace the mystery and allow for a many interpretations --- provided that people don't go jihadi on those who have a different way of seeing things....to see if I can make any sense of the thinking of believers. I know a few believers but none of them have ever attempted to justify their beliefs; some produce the tired old avoidance cliches such as "If you have to ask you obviously can't understand it." Very insulting really, and very stupid.
I can see why you'd find that insulting, but I don't think it's meant that way. Have you ever taken LSD or had any other mind-blowing experience of altered consciousness? You cannot explain it to anyone else, it's absolutely impossible for them to truly grok what you're talking about because they're listening to you with their "normal" mind and that's exactly what is amazing about altered states, that the mind itself changes and therefore the universe changes. Nothing brought this home to me quite so profoundly as when I was psychotic/manic. I saw things and experienced things that permanently changed my way of looking at reality, and it was like a religious experience, the kind where "If you have to ask, you obviously can't understand it." I wouldn't put it in those exact words, but I do understand how people can feel 100% confidence in subjective experiences that cannot be transmitted to another via any means of communication.
In other words, if you really feel the presence of "God," or you really see that everything is One, or you truly get that there is only Here and Now, such an experience is so far outside of ordinary conscious experience that it can feel impossible to share with others because the only way to see those things is to see them directly with your own eyes. It's like how in Zen, there's no direct discussion about satori, there's only a lengthy practice of a way of living and meditating in order to hopefully facilitate the student's eventual direct experience of it. "The Tao which can be named is not the true Tao."
Posted 11 March 2014 - 07:36 PM
Edited by shadowhawk, 11 March 2014 - 07:39 PM.
Posted 11 March 2014 - 08:05 PM
WHICH GOD? http://www.longecity...600#entry648070
The TAO as used by C.S. Lewis http://www.longecity...570#entry647262
http://www.scifiwrig...ons-of-the-tao/
I highly recommend Lewis’s book, The abolition of Man.
Related to this is another book, “What We Can’t Not Know,” by J. Budziszewski. This must read book is also about the objective law written on the hearts of humans which the bible talks about. Do this and not that
Posted 12 March 2014 - 01:49 AM
Edited by shadowhawk, 12 March 2014 - 01:52 AM.
Posted 12 March 2014 - 01:04 PM
WHICH GOD?
The TAO as used by C.S. Lewis, is the basis of our U.S. constitution and Budziszewski (What We Can’t Not Know) argues our law comes from the TAO. http://www.amazon.co...'t not know
http://www.amazon.co...'t not know
http://www.amazon.co...94585434&sr=1-6
There is honor even among thieves and while they may all steal, they don’t generally believe it is alright to steal from each other. The law is written, even on the darkest heart. http://www.longecity...600#entry648070
So we can expect given a Christian view of humankind, that there will be a common morality, even among Atheists that generally follows the Decalogue or Ten Commandments. We can’t not have a moral code because we have one written on our hearts.
This leads to such beliefs as all roads lead to the same place or, because of pluralism, nothing is true. So, humans everywhere have the TAO written in there hearts and Christianity teaches we violate and break our personal code, all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God, Christianity teaches.
Do all roads lead to the same place? Well we would have to know the place to answer that question confidently. You would have to know the place to answer yes or no.
Edited by johnross47, 12 March 2014 - 01:05 PM.
Posted 12 March 2014 - 05:35 PM
Edited by shadowhawk, 12 March 2014 - 06:28 PM.
Posted 13 March 2014 - 01:48 PM
All roads do not lead to the same place even though someone says the do. Each road will take you to a different place. If you want to go somewhere it is important to know the right road, and where you want to go. You have to choose and there are consequences of your choice. This isn’t so unusual or unfair because it is that way with all of life. Obviously, however the statement that all religions lead to the same place is false. Sure there are common things about them such as intelligence and design are involved in building a road but that fact alone is not enough. The TAO is enough to tell us there are facts like roads which we must choose to follow but it does not tell us which one.
So, all roads do not lead to the same place. WHICH GOD?
Ever hear of the elephant and the blind men?
Posted 13 March 2014 - 05:55 PM
I have said many times I am a Christian and this topic is about Christianity. How could you have missed this? As for the proofs of the first section on the existence of God http://www.longecity...600#entry647448 you have refuted none of them. http://www.longecity...150#entry648240All roads do not lead to the same place even though someone says the do. Each road will take you to a different place. If you want to go somewhere it is important to know the right road, and where you want to go. You have to choose and there are consequences of your choice. This isn’t so unusual or unfair because it is that way with all of life. Obviously, however the statement that all religions lead to the same place is false. Sure there are common things about them such as intelligence and design are involved in building a road but that fact alone is not enough. The TAO is enough to tell us there are facts like roads which we must choose to follow but it does not tell us which one.
So, all roads do not lead to the same place. WHICH GOD?
Ever hear of the elephant and the blind men?
The time to tell us which of the gods you favour was quite a long way back, when you were failing to prove its existence. Not knowing the details of your god meant we couldn't examine its coherence or fit with the universe.
Edited by shadowhawk, 13 March 2014 - 06:10 PM.
Posted 13 March 2014 - 11:12 PM
Posted 14 March 2014 - 08:58 AM
God is an Elephant?
This is a kind of many paths lead to the same place parable.
http://www.bethinkin...ant-and-the-zoo
http://en.wikipedia....and_an_elephant
http://www.longecity...600#entry649366
It is a popular analogy used to show that all religions are valid ways to describe God. Religion professors especially love this .............etc etc etc
How do we know it is an elephant? We look at the drawings of the blind men and the elephant and know the truth only because we are on the outside. There is one elephant, a real one and we can see from a different vantage point. http://www.reasonsfo...d-the-elephant/
Perhaps light can help us understand.
Posted 14 March 2014 - 05:06 PM
God is an Elephant?
This is a kind of many paths lead to the same place parable.
http://www.bethinkin...ant-and-the-zoo
http://en.wikipedia....and_an_elephant
http://www.longecity...600#entry649366
It is a popular analogy used to show that all religions are valid ways to describe God. Religion professors especially love this .............etc etc etc
How do we know it is an elephant? We look at the drawings of the blind men and the elephant and know the truth only because we are on the outside. There is one elephant, a real one and we can see from a different vantage point. http://www.reasonsfo...d-the-elephant/
Perhaps light can help us understand.
I've abbreviated, because why would anyone want to read it twice? It's a well known old fable used by all sorts of people to illustrate all sort of ideas. It's proof of nothing, it just conveys an idea about having a full picture.
thanks, now to light.
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