God: What is your opinion or belief?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Stop squirming and answer the question!

Either you believe in god or you do not. Which is it?

I've ALREADY answered: I do not believe in a god.

Now stop asking stupid questions repeatedly like a child because you are incapable of accepting/understanding the answers.

Great so you are an atheist.
Why didn't you say so in the first place? I've never met an atheist that talks so much like a theist.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I'm thinking of going on a weekend monastic retreat for the silence it will afford me. God can come if he wants to, as long as he remains quiet. None of his burning bush chatter.

You could just leave your computer somewhere to the same effect.

[The Inglorious One]

Inglorious, I thought you were focused on a broader interpretation/perspective with your god idea, when you spoke of the "grounding of existence". That, to me, suggested no personification. But now you're defending such beliefs that embrace "personhood", so I don't know where you really stand. That's fine -- good luck -- I've explored it as much as I'm interested (and available) in doing at this time.

People are accustomed to others coming down firmly not only in what they believe, but what others should also believe as well. They will sometimes hide their expectations behind a vaneer of tolerance and acceptance.

I defend a person's right to claim that the experiencing of God's personhood is not incompatible with God being the ground of all things that have existence. Philosophically, denying God's personhood, the personhood of the Ground without which nothing that has existence cold exist, one is left having to choose between pantheism or materialism. Clearly, you have chosen the latter. That's fine, but it is a choice that does not correlate well with my inner life.

Skeptics latch on to the idea of a personal God and assume that belief in such a God necessarily implies belief in a magical being existing alongside other beings. That notion is so deeply ingrained in the skeptic's mind that it amounts to a deeply held superstitious belief, one that is implied in your post. It is an unfounded prejudice that, I am discovering, is impossible to avoid.

[Dalek Prime]

I'm thinking of going on a weekend monastic retreat for the silence it will afford me. God can come if he wants to, as long as he remains quiet. None of his burning bush chatter.

You could just leave your computer somewhere to the same effect.

It's not the forum that's the problem. It's the people in my daily life that won't quit bugging me.

[Lacewing]

Philosophically, denying God's personhood, the personhood of the Ground without which nothing that has existence cold exist, one is left having to choose between pantheism or materialism. Clearly, you have chosen the latter.

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

Skeptics latch on to the idea of a personal God and assume that belief in such a God necessarily implies belief in a magical being existing alongside other beings.

I don't think that skeptics "latch on" to anything that they haven't repeatedly experienced many theists pronouncing and demonstrating. It seems kind of twisted that you're trying to blame "skeptics" for not seeing theists correctly, rather than acknowledging what (many) theists have done and continue to do that represents their beliefs and themselves in a whole different light than what you're focusing on.

That notion is so deeply ingrained in the skeptic's mind that it amounts to a deeply held superstitious belief,

And again, you're projecting common theist behavior (in this case, superstitious belief) onto atheists. Your defense/denial of theist behavior, while you project such behaviors onto atheists, seems very transparent and odd.

It is an unfounded prejudice that, I am discovering, is impossible to avoid.

It seems like that's what you want to see/believe.

[The Inglorious One]

Philosophically, denying God's personhood, the personhood of the Ground without which nothing that has existence cold exist, one is left having to choose between pantheism or materialism. Clearly, you have chosen the latter.

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

Skeptics latch on to the idea of a personal God and assume that belief in such a God necessarily implies belief in a magical being existing alongside other beings.

I don't think that skeptics "latch on" to anything that they haven't repeatedly experienced many theists pronouncing and demonstrating. It seems kind of twisted that you're trying to blame "skeptics" for not seeing theists correctly, rather than acknowledging what (many) theists have done and continue to do that represents their beliefs and themselves in a whole different light than what you're focusing on.

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

[Lacewing]

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

I have no idea why you've come to this conclusion. My dear theist friends would not agree with your shallow assessment of me. I can only guess that you're a bit mad and thick with your limited conclusions. Carry on!

[The Inglorious One]

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

Any valid inquiry begins with not-knowing, or else it merely serves to confirm what is already known.

[Obvious Leo]

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.

[Hobbes' Choice]

"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.

[The Inglorious One]

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....

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

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?

And if one has to refer to something non-human in our world ... what would that possibly be? A dolphin? a whale? an eagle? a mountain? a sea? On one hand we might refer to automated sensors that could describe the 'energy' event and transcribe it, somehow, for our consideration. We might invent - or assemble - some sort of AI unit that would do this for us and would then provide us with a 'correct' and non-contaminated view/description of 'reality'. This is what some aspect of the scientific revolution implied was possible. Or this is where it tended, didn't it?

But since we are human, and since we are perception beings, we seem to be stuck in our limitations and the limits of the possible within the human category. But therein lie many different puzzles and opportunities. And again it resolves back into the nature and the quality of the perception-instrument, the nature and quality of the psyche. And this psyche ... we really have no way to define it ... it is an unknown quantity/instrument ... unless we resort to a materialist/biological model and reduce it to epiphenomena.

Yet that model, or shall I say with that tool of view - all the choices that go into that - and which produces that model, allows for no interpretive oeuvre. All you can do is describe mass, location, etc., and you can only do this in a dry, computer-voice. But when we do this we perform a strange manoeuvre against ourself, against the human.

This leads to an odd problem: we then are forced to redefine the human, and some part of that is to do away with the historically human! But wait! Nobel Obvious referred to a noble (and they are noble) race: the Aborigines. Cannot we become them? Is that where we must go? Is that what we must pull off? So, we have to stop being humans of one sort (the humans gone astray and turned evil) and become good human once again.

All interpretation involves the psyche, and the human instrument qua human! So, instead of becoming less human or more non-human, it would seem that one would need to become either more human or differently human. And this brings back the Aborigines, an image of possibility that will always stand before us: What is our 'original' human mode? What does it mean to be really human? or truly human? So, perhaps we go back to the Earth itself and live at a subsistence level but truly, nobly, or we take humanness to an ultramodern level, the level of fine tuned Star Trek warriors (they are essentially warriors of a new era). Sounds like a joke but it's not.

These questions are not small, by no means. A whole generation, or a few of them, in our own post-Sixtes era (a notable generation) ran up against these questions and made herculean, sometimes desperate, sometimes wacky, and sometimes quite mad efforts to answer the questions. I would suggest that we have all, in one way or another, come under the spell of this 'quest'.

[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.

[Gustav Bjornstrand]

I've never met a tolerant religious nut yet...

Your day has come!
________________________

Storm Boy

[Obvious Leo]

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....

Does this mean you're not going to answer my questions? Since you've never answered a previous one yet I'm not particularly surprised but you can hardly cry foul when you decline to allow your views to be subjected to any sort of scrutiny. I'm sure there are plenty of sites for such preaching as yours elsewhere on the internet but I suspect that a philosophy forum may have been an unfortunate choice of venue for you.

You religious freaks fuck up people's lives. So get stuffed.

Why hold back, VT? Tell them what you really think.