God: What is your opinion or belief?

[The Inglorious One]

ROFLMAO!! Your veneer is beginning to fade. You're just another anti-theist bigot.

Isn't it funny how people who don't believe in bullshit are constantly told that they must be 'tolerant' to those who do, but never the other way around. I've never met a tolerant religious nut yet, so stick your religion up your arse. I'm not tolerant of you. You religious freaks fuck up people's lives. So get stuffed.

Isn't it funny that you are what you scorn?

[The Inglorious One]

I've chosen neither. Limited choices and definitions are manmade.

What a curious statement. It implies that there is some other pole, some other consciousness, or a not-consciousness, to which we humans should refer. I imagine all of us have had this thought at one time or another. Yet, if we are to propose that there is some other consciousness either in the world, or in any world, that is 'not-human', what would it be? and how would it see 'the world", the Cosmos?

Very interesting. I wish I was that articulate.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

ROFLMAO!! Your veneer is beginning to fade. You're just another anti-theist bigot.

Isn't it funny how people who don't believe in bullshit are constantly told that they must be 'tolerant' to those who do, but never the other way around. I've never met a tolerant religious nut yet, so stick your religion up your arse. I'm not tolerant of you. You religious freaks fuck up people's lives. So get stuffed.

Isn't it funny that you are what you scorn?

Typical stupid religio comment. You might as well say that being intolerant of criminal is being the same as the criminal. Idiot.

[attofishpi]

I do not believe in a god. I think about "all" being "connected energy" -- which is NOT a god.

What makes you so certain that this "connected energy" is NOT a God?

To suggest ALL being is a connected energy, is to suggest that I am connected to a tree somewhere in Southampton, how so?

[attofishpi]

Does look like an old man. Once you know it exists you soon real eyes God's not spineless.

If you base your outlook on life on puns, whether verbal or visual, you're going to end up with a strange view of the world, which seems to be born out by your posts.

Are you as an atheist (lol) attempting to issue advice to me?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Inglorious.

Do you communicate with a supernatural being through prayer and/or meditation?

Do you gather with others of like mind to perform various rituals of worship?

Do you base your system of personal ethics on your interpretation of what a divine being would expect of you?

I have many more questions for you, Inglorious, but perhaps we could start with these.

"Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world." ― Arthur Schopenhauer
.

I think that only applies to theists like you.
You arbitrarily place limits on the universe, conceiving it as a creation of an anthropic entity.

Oh, geez....

Is that the best you can do?

[The Inglorious One]

Is that the best you can do?

Oh, geez....

Grow up.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Is that the best you can do?

Oh, geez....

Grow up.

Obviously that is the best you can do: stare blankly at good questions, throw your eyes up and run away.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

To get to the bottom, to the core, of this conflict in perception and 'ruling idea' takes a bit of effort. I suggest that - essentially - the battles in our present - loosely understood as between atheism and theism - are continued battles that began some hundreds of years before, and which are part of a vast paradigm-shift. What interests me is the degree that 'most people' are unaware of what is happening to them. Yet indeed something is being done. Consider the following from The Rape of Lucrece:

For men have marble, women waxen, minds,
And therefore are they form'd as marble will;
The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds
Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill:
Then call them not the authors of their ill,
No more than wax shall be accounted evil
Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.

I suggest that it is crucial to take some steps back and to examine how an entire metaphysic, a way of being in the world, of relating to the world, and to being, has been undergoing a shift, a conscious or a willed shift on one hand, and a resultant, contingent, unavoidable shift on the other. There is both a conscious aspect and a more subterranean, unconscious 'will' in operation. If we are caught by unconscious force and do not and cannot really understand what is happening to us, and what is being imposed on us, I suggest we are the worse for it. Yet too 'ignorance is bliss': Knowledge is a heavy burden and demands much.

In argumentation - 'these days' - one notices that each polarised side attempts a devastating one-line destruction of the opponent's position. To render their distortions - their deliberate and conscious lies! - as transparent and obvious. But

“A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.”

And of course I am suggesting that both camps deceive themselves. But I would be forced to place myself in the 'theist' camp yet I would qualify that definition in so many layers of explanation that - to the atheist camp - they'd assume obfuscation and sophistry. The atheist camp, generally, cannot see the Ruling Ideas (and the perception-decisions this entails) that dominate their will and their intention. And to understand what they are up to - what they desire - one must, I submit, analyse to what end their will and their intention tends. Because isn't it true that each pole, in any argument, really represents a set of interests? If we cannot and do not come to understand what exactly we are advocating for, and why, and if some large aspect of it remains unknown to ourselves, it seems that our battles will be merely gory and violent and will lack warrior finesse and high skill.

I wish to suggest that the Atheistic Battle is an extension of The Rejection of Scholasticism in favour of another, a newer, a more practical mode of 'being in the world'. Scholasticism is complex but in simple terms it might be said to be: The imposition by the imagination of an Imagined Scenario on the Phenomena of The World. It can be intensely rational, and very intelligent! and thus deceptive. In fact, a great deal of our 'intellect' (as in intellectus) is an historical endowment from the efforts of the Schoolmen.

[From The Seventeenth Century Background by Basil Willey, 1934].









If you've managed to get through this, you will have noted that each position has its raison d'être, its sane and sensible will and desire that it seeks to impose/enforce. And thus, I suggest, this entire 'conversation' is infected by misunderstanding, fear of deception by sophistry, deep historical suspicion, and blind ressentiment which does not fully understand what it resists (and fears).
___________________________

• '...the infinite machine, beyond'

Indeed! I am thinking of Lacewing's emotional/metaphysical declarations about 'energy'.

What is interesting to consider - necessary to consider - is that both Scholasticism and all its declarations, and the new empirical quantifying method, are both erroneous! Or each contain errors, express errors. I am again reminded of Lacewing's manoeuvre, which is not really her's but one of our age, to avoid making any decision because one (the soul, the person) senses that all decisions and hard-and-fast definitions will land one in their requisite errors.

I also suggest - it seems rather obvious - that we are in a transitional age where Idea, at the most basic level, and Idea that can connect all aspects of being (mind, soul, being, consciousness and physical structure) are all up in the definitional air. But one thing that has not changed is the 'platform' in which we find ourselves: Eternal, constant, beyond comprehension.

[The Inglorious One]

What is interesting to consider - necessary to consider - is that both Scholasticism and all its declarations, and the new empirical quantifying method, are both erroneous! Or each contain errors, express errors. I am again reminded of Lacewing's manoeuvre, which is not really her's but one of our age, to avoid making any decision because one (the soul, the person) senses that all decisions and hard-and-fast definitions will land one in their requisite errors.

I also suggest - it seems rather obvious - that we are in a transitional age where Idea, at the most basic level, and Idea that can connect all aspects of being (mind, soul, being, consciousness and physical structure) are all up in the definitional air. But one thing that has not changed is the 'platform' in which we find ourselves: Eternal, constant, beyond comprehension.

I didn't get through all of it, but you're right: we are going through a transitional phase of human existence or self-definition. Science is losing its grip just as Scholasticism lost its grip (even though we retain some of its habits).

It seems to me we should celebrate our finitude, for that is where our freedom resides. Pure existence (what Lacewing seems to be advocating) is the same as non-existence. God begins by chiding Abraham, "If it wasn't for Me, you wouldn't exist." After a moment of thoughtful reflection, Abraham respectfully replies, "Yes, Lord, and for that I am very appreciative and grateful. However, if it wasn't for me, You wouldn't be known." In God, we live, move and have our being; in us, God escapes the experiential limitations of unqualified infinity.

How things will play out is anyone's guess, but my guess is that neither science or popular religion will come out on top. Perhaps some kind of Neo-platonism?

[The Inglorious One]

I suggest that it is crucial to take some steps back and to examine how an entire metaphysic, a way of being in the world, of relating to the world, and to being, has been undergoing a shift, a conscious or a willed shift on one hand, and a resultant, contingent, unavoidable shift on the other. There is both a conscious aspect and a more subterranean, unconscious 'will' in operation. If we are caught by unconscious force and do not and cannot really understand what is happening to us, and what is being imposed on us, I suggest we are the worse for it. Yet too 'ignorance is bliss': Knowledge is a heavy burden and demands much.

Interesting. I suggest we are, in the long term, the better for it. Sure, there's a lot of turmoil and we haven't seen the worst of it, but isn't that what real progress entails? The old has to be torn down to make room for the new.

And of course I am suggesting that both camps deceive themselves. But I would be forced to place myself in the 'theist' camp yet I would qualify that definition in so many layers of explanation that - to the atheist camp - they'd assume obfuscation and sophistry. The atheist camp, generally, cannot see the Ruling Ideas (and the perception-decisions this entails) that dominate their will and their intention. And to understand what they are up to - what they desire - one must, I submit, analyse to what end their will and their intention tends. Because isn't it true that each pole, in any argument, really represents a set of interests? If we cannot and do not come to understand what exactly we are advocating for, and why, and if some large aspect of it remains unknown to ourselves, it seems that our battles will be merely gory and violent and will lack warrior finesse and high skill.

This, for me, is the crux of it all. I cannot discern to "what end their will and their intention tends." On one hand, they resent the imposition of religion and religious values, but on the other hand, they do not hesitate to impose their own (or lack thereof). What, exactly, are they advocating? I see no structure, no organizing principles, no values apart from "if it feels good, do it as long as it doesn't do any immediate harm." If the slate were wiped clean, could the atheist camp gather the forces from amongst themselves to rebuild civilization? With everyone "doing their own thing," I don't see how.

[Lacewing]

I do not believe in a god. I think about "all" being "connected energy" -- which is NOT a god.

What makes you so certain that this "connected energy" is NOT a God?

To suggest ALL being is a connected energy, is to suggest that I am connected to a tree somewhere in Southampton, how so?

It seems to me that to identify something as a god is to give it an identity, to which all sorts of characteristics and meanings and stories can be attached. I do not think that all-that-is needs an identity.

As for "ALL being connected energy", I think of it this way: We see ourselves and pretty much everything else we interact with as somewhat "solid". Yet, at the molecular level, nothing is solid... we are temporary "collectives", filled with space, and shifting and moving within space. We apply our own human ideas of "solidity" and "distances between"... yet both may only be products of our particular level of perception. I'm guessing there may be no solid divisions/separations (or even distances) at all. If everything shares space, I'm guessing that it's all connected through that. I'm also guessing that the creative element that brings collections seemingly together, and then swirls them into dissipating again, is like an ebb and flow of waves of energy. Magnificent creative energy with no name or agenda.

[Harbal]

Are you as an atheist (lol) attempting to issue advice to me?

No, I'm someone who doesn't say there isn't a God, just someone who says they can't see any reason to think there is and I'm not attempting to give you advice, I'm attempting to imply that you are a plonker.

[Obvious Leo]

How things will play out is anyone's guess, but my guess is that neither science or popular religion will come out on top. Perhaps some kind of Neo-platonism?

Much of modern science IS neo-Platonism. Physics, for instance, is an exclusively Platonist doctrine because it was derived from Thomist theology which is likewise Platonist. In fact I've often heard it said or implied that most of modern science and philosophy is little more than a collection of footnotes to Plato. I'm reluctant to be quite so unkind myself but the case for this claim is not without merit.

I'm attempting to imply that you are a plonker.

A few sandwiches short of a picnic, Yorkie, but not without comedic value.

[Harbal]

A few sandwiches short of a picnic, Yorkie, but not without comedic value.

If we're going to use the picnic analogy I would say that there's just the empty basket.