Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

God is a human concept.

A concept with no referent is a nothing. It's what we call a "delusion." So you're on the same page as Dawkins et al.

What we do have to arm us for the struggle is the examples of good people like Jesus,

Whom you never believe, it would seem.

[tillingborn]

I have it on my desk here, so we can find out really quickly if I have.

Then let's see how quickly you can find the passage in which Nagel says evolution does not happen.

So you don't have to read it, and can play semantics with some aspect of his wording, rather than dealing with his argument? No, thank you. I can wait until you're done reading him. Then we'll talk.

Granted it is nearly ten years since I read Mind and Cosmos, but I know for certain that doing so again will not help you find any passage in which Nagel asserts evolution does not happen.
Besides, nothing Nagel says will do anything to answer this:

Evolution does not have "its own account". Evolution is a process which the articles you refuse to read demonstrate does not take "billions of years". There are theories about what drives evolution, which are subject to revision as our research and understanding develops; those are what most people would call scientific theories. Then there are spurious claims made by people such as yourself, who in their determination to believe that "The Lord God formed the man from the soil of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," invent nonsensical consequences, call it "Evolutionism" and insist that everyone who knows that evolution is a fact is committed to the rubbish made up by people like you. Now can you tell the difference between evolution and "Evolutionism"?

[Gary Childress]

I guess I'll have take your word for it and assume you're not making baseless assumptions about something you have no knowledge of.

Not at all. I'm simply telling you what the word literally means, and what it implies. That's all.

I'm sorry to be a sour puss, IC but I can't believe you know any more about transcendental matters than anyone else does,

Why would that be?

Because I assume you've never been dead or outside the universe. Have you?

Are you thinking it's because you don't have any such experience?

But if I've windsurfed or been to Dar El Salaam, does that mean that you should disbelieve that windsurfing or Dar El Salaam exist, simply because you have not?

I can theoretically go to those places if I so chose. I can't transcend life unless I cease to have it, and it seems to be a one-way thing from what I understand. Or is it not?

And wouldn't it be tragic if you could have such an experience, but never did, and the only reason was because you chose not to believe it was possible?

I've had some pretty bad experiences with religious delusions. I'd prefer not to have any more.

...I struggle with worship. Sorry, God.

We all have a struggle to realize what God is really worth. His worth is infinite. But His worth is what it is, regardless of what we think.

OK. God's worth is infinite. FWIW, I'm more interested in finding a pretty girlfriend. At least I can feel it when I hold her hand or give her a hug or have sex. If I reach out my hand into the air I doubt I'd feel God's. At least I haven't so far.

[Gary Childress]

His worth, such as it is, is just below a no name brand of corn flakes.

One day, I promise you, you'll be regretting you ever said that. That's all I can tell you now.

Maybe he will, maybe he won't. I have yet to seriously regret any of my rants concerning God. I have more regrets about hurting the feelings of other humans than I do about harming a supposedly immortal, infinite being. No harm no foul as I see it. I hope God can take a few insults here and there. It would be kind of sad if he couldn't.

[Dontaskme]

A concept with no referent is a nothing. It's what we call a "delusion." So you're on the same page as Dawkins et al.

Well, since nothing cannot exist, a concept with no referent cannot be a nothing. A concept can only be self-referential, relating only to itself as it is self-conceived in this conception. Therefore, concepts are all there is here. But they are empty...just as a character in a dream is empty.

A concept or a name, or a label is a disguised definite description that signifies some unique characteristic of what is otherwise this unknowable existence. If any object known (concept) has a characteristic feature, the name has a referent, but only to itself as the concept is known by the ONLY knowing there is, which is this immediate unknowing known.

All known concepts are in and of themselves just empty abstract ideas, that in and of themselves cannot know, they are simply known by the only knowing there is, this unknowing known as it is conceived conceptually in this artificial conception.

Seems like the entire world of conceptual knowledge is an illusion appearing as this known empty-fullness... synonymous to an empty dream.

All there is is just what's happening which is this unknowing happening also interacting and talking to this same unknowing what's happening.

[Alexis Jacobi]

God is a human concept.

A concept with no referent is a nothing. It's what we call a "delusion." So you're on the same page as Dawkins et al.

The strange thing, even for those who allow the concept of god & soul, is that Dawkins with a reference to ‘delusion’ is not wrong. And he is strongly right.

It is likely that most men cannot go deeply inside their god-concept since doing that, analytically, tends to wreck the conceptualization. So believers return to an inner contemplation and subjective relationship to restore their ‘experience’ of divinity. It is acutely personal and subjective. And as such prone, certainly, to delusion.

But then so too is our subjective ‘interface’ with the reality we envision. Our ‘metaphysical dream of the world’. A man without a ‘dream’ is not a man really. He’d be an AI.

Existence, being — these have no explanation. You can only stand before the magnitude of what this is. Yet man explains and conceptualizes. I think this is Lacewing’s core assertion in a nutshell.

In a sense relationship to god is like the sentiment of being on love:

Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

Delusion, delirium and even the sort of thinking that results from extreme, protracted pain. You have to take these things into consideration when contemplating “man and his belief”. You cannot not think about them.

[Alexis Jacobi]

His worth, such as it is, is just below a no name brand of corn flakes.

One day, I promise you, you'll be regretting you ever said that. That's all I can tell you now.

Seen in another way — that is if god is all there is to come out of or return to — Dubious would simply become re-subsumed in the eternal and essential ground: like a snowflake on the water.

You Immanuel have attached such horrifying sentiments, laden with fear, terror and guilt, to the dilemma of man’s separation.

Fire & brimstone, gnashing of teeth, threats & horrors — these are the core of your argument Immanuel. You can make no headway among those immune to your threats.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Talk to Harbal or Lacewing or IC or Biggus if you prefer.

. . . Oh god . . .

[Alexis Jacobi]

Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
Ah! she did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me,
A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly:
He took her with a sigh.

Love’s Secret — William Blake

[Harbal]

Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invisibly.

I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
Ah! she did depart!

Soon after she was gone from me,
A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly:
He took her with a sigh.

Love’s Secret — William Blake

I have an excellent volume of Blake, but I haven't read it yet.

[Alexis Jacobi]

All known concepts are in and of themselves just empty abstract ideas, that in and of themselves cannot know, they are simply known by the only knowing there is, this unknowing known as it is conceived conceptually in this artificial conception.

Seems like the entire world of conceptual knowledge is an illusion appearing as this known empty-fullness... synonymous to an empty dream.

Yet we still have our chores and our hobbies — like cooking or interior decoration. Illusions perhaps but they fill the time between one abyss and the next.

[Harbal]

Illusions perhaps but they fill the time between one abyss and the next.

I wonder whether you just have a taste for hyperbole, or your life really is this dramatic.

[promethean75]

^^^ https://youtu.be/lNtOfJT0aQU

[Belinda]

God is a human concept.

A concept with no referent is a nothing. It's what we call a "delusion." So you're on the same page as Dawkins et al.

What we do have to arm us for the struggle is the examples of good people like Jesus,

Whom you never believe, it would seem.

But there is a referent for God as a human concept. The referent is very important to our survival. The referent for God as a human concept is hope, faith, and charity, or as some would have it good, truth, and beauty: all humanly achievable. Jesus himself achieved them as did other examples of how to live a good life.

[Belinda]

God is a human concept.

A concept with no referent is a nothing. It's what we call a "delusion." So you're on the same page as Dawkins et al.

The strange thing, even for those who allow the concept of god & soul, is that Dawkins with a reference to ‘delusion’ is not wrong. And he is strongly right.

It is likely that most men cannot go deeply inside their god-concept since doing that, analytically, tends to wreck the conceptualization. So believers return to an inner contemplation and subjective relationship to restore their ‘experience’ of divinity. It is acutely personal and subjective. And as such prone, certainly, to delusion.

But then so too is our subjective ‘interface’ with the reality we envision. Our ‘metaphysical dream of the world’. A man without a ‘dream’ is not a man really. He’d be an AI.

Existence, being — these have no explanation. You can only stand before the magnitude of what this is. Yet man explains and conceptualizes. I think this is Lacewing’s core assertion in a nutshell.

In a sense relationship to god is like the sentiment of being on love:

Not lost, although I long to be
Lost as a candle lit at noon,
Lost as a snowflake in the sea.

Delusion, delirium and even the sort of thinking that results from extreme, protracted pain. You have to take these things into consideration when contemplating “man and his belief”. You cannot not think about them.

The in love phenomenon is ecstatic. It's a leaving of self to join with another self. That's why The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa by Bernini is about her loving to her climax and also about her climactic devotion to God.