Philosophy Now Forum

An atheist cannot reason with a theist - if it could, there would be no theist.

Similarly a theist cannot reason with an atheist - if it could, there would be no atheist.

Conclusion: the human mind seeks for REASON

Is there a reason why I exist? ...What is the reason I exist? ...Why do I exist, rather than not exist? How could I ever know why and for what reason do I exist?

The questions here are endless. There are only questions with no answers.

The truth is, we'll never know what it is we seek to know.

The dark truth is the only answer.

If we came from something, it was the dark, and to the dark we return.

If by existing as a self-aware sentient conscious entity who knows it exists, then this knowing will also know it dies.

Who or what is this ''knowing'' that knows it lives and dies?

Can this ''knowing'' be located as an object we can tangibly touch?

Or is this ''knowing'' simply ''not-knowing'' infinitely for eternity?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sat Apr 08, 2023 9:19 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sat Apr 08, 2023 9:06 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Apr 08, 2023 7:32 pm

What we mean by God, is an infinitely superior being to whom we can attach whatever ability or quality we like, as the need arrises, in order to justify whatever claim it occurs to us to make about him.

And he's agnostic about that existing??

I'm just a lunatic, I guess.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Seems the human being is the only species on earth that questions it's reality.

So, if you insist that reality can be questioned, then you really ought to have some answers to your questions, else what's the reason for the questions?


Truth is, if there were any answers, there would be no more questions.

However, imagination is infinite in expression. What is imagination? .... I've no idea, without making the question another idea.


In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem. Is but a dream within a dream.


No one sees the seer. No one knows the knower. That's all folks, this is your lot.

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:57 am Whatever good God [not evil Allah] one believes in, what is critical is one should not impose one's theism or deism onto others. It should be private and personal.

But with secular belief systems and objective moral facts you have the green light to use AI, genetic modification and nanotech to transform all humans into your ideal image.
Because it's secular, so then it's ok.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 9:51 am
But with secular belief systems and objective moral facts you have the green light to use AI, genetic modification and nanotech to transform all humans into your ideal image.
Because it's secular, so then it's ok.

But machines can never know their creator. No matter what image is formed. Any image of a creator could only be an image of the imageless. There is nothing behind any image, except the nothingness of empty space.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 8:23 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:57 am

Whatever good God [not evil Allah] one believes in, what is critical is one should not impose one's theism or deism onto others. It should be private and personal.

Unless they pick Allah, of course.

The cure for a punishing imagination is to give it no mind.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:40 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 5:05 am He's not a "pretentious twat", Atto. He's a human being,

With a little practice, it isn't difficult to be both, and he seems to have put in the practice.

I work hard, it is true, but there is still vast ground to cover.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 9:51 am

Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:57 am Whatever good God [not evil Allah] one believes in, what is critical is one should not impose one's theism or deism onto others. It should be private and personal.

But with secular belief systems and objective moral facts you have the green light to use AI,

No. No more than religion.

... genetic modification and nanotech to transform all humans into your ideal image.

Nothing in religion proscribes that.

Because it's secular, so then it's ok.

Because it is secular you can challenge it rather then look in some dusty out of date book.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 9:51 amBut with secular belief systems and objective moral facts you have the green light to use AI

Mebbe not...

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 07, 2023 8:51 pmhttps://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/is-ai- ... -principle

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:40 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 5:05 am He's not a "pretentious twat", Atto. He's a human being,

With a little practice, it isn't difficult to be both, and he seems to have put in the practice.

Haven't we all? Haven't we all been that way to at least someone, someone who we thought was worthy of our ire?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 4:07 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:40 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 5:05 am He's not a "pretentious twat", Atto. He's a human being,

With a little practice, it isn't difficult to be both, and he seems to have put in the practice.

Haven't we all? Haven't we all been that way to at least someone, someone who we thought was worthy of our ire?

I know I can be obnoxious, but I'd hate to think I was pretentious.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 4:22 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 4:07 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 7:40 am

With a little practice, it isn't difficult to be both, and he seems to have put in the practice.

Haven't we all? Haven't we all been that way to at least someone, someone who we thought was worthy of our ire?

I know I can be obnoxious, but I'd hate to think I was pretentious.

No. I don't think I've ever seen you pretentious that I would speak of but if you were given the proverbial green light by conventional wisdom or some other ideal of what is noble and right, had done everything in life that you thought to the best of your fallible ability was the right or best thing to do, then maybe you'd be under the impression that you were better than others who had not chosen that path also? We can only guess what our reaction would be to something some of us have perhaps never felt before. Or perhaps it's "pretentious" to think we're better than anyone who we think we're better than? We're all in the same boat of confusion from what I can tell, left with scant means of discerning what the overall or complete picture is. Or maybe I'm wrong to be agnostic? But it's difficult not to cling to certain cherished beliefs that we are "right" about something, even if it's to cling to the belief that we are "right" about being confused.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 3:36 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 9:51 amBut with secular belief systems and objective moral facts you have the green light to use AI

Mebbe not...

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 07, 2023 8:51 pmhttps://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/is-ai- ... -principle

Me being ironic/sarcastic.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sun Apr 09, 2023 2:56 pm No. No more than religion.

Agreed, though I tend to find more skepticism about technology amongst religious people, but it's certainly not forbidden.

Nothing in religion proscribes that.

I was responding to VA. He has a problem with trying to impose religion. I don't think he quite listens to himself when he expounds his dreams of his secular utopias.

Because it is secular you can challenge it rather then look in some dusty out of date book.

Go ahead, challenge nanotech, AI and genetic modification. In my world I can challenge religions and I can challenge techocratic solutions. Generally speaking I can keep religions off my back. To the technocrats and their funders I'm like a fly buzzing on the other side of a mountain chain.