seeds wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 11:12 pm
seeds wrote: ↑Sun Oct 14, 2018 11:19 pm
...you need to lose the naïve assumption that your own personal and limited experiences of “various altered states of consciousness”...
(along with your personally selected readings and biased reflections)
...represent the full spectrum of what
can be experienced by humans as they seek answers to the ultimate questions.
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Mon Oct 15, 2018 3:47 am
I make it a point to exhaust all known knowledge and literature that relevant to this point.
Which areas do you think I have not covered or missed?
If I have not, then I will cover it.
What you need to cover is encapsulated in the following suggestion:
First, you need to figure out how you can literally enter into the mind of every human on earth.
Then after you have directly analyzed the contents of their minds and have ruled-out the possibility of anyone ever having experienced an event in their life that would counter your personal theory,...
...then you can safely say that you have covered, if not everything, then at least a big chunk of what you have missed.
What’s that you say? You say that’s impossible!
It is obvious a person cannot literally enter into the mind or brain of another person.
Note, absolute certainty is an impossibility within empirical-rational reality.
But we can read the thoughts of a person from one's external expression, not 100% but to the best of our ability.
Humanity has now completely mapped the human genome which once thought to be impossible.
We are now on the way to map all the neural pathways of the human brain.
http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/
Once we have fully or reasonably mapped the human brain what is there to hide within what is going on inside the human brain?
If there is to be anything else, it has to be empirical-rational possible awaiting evidence and not an impossibility like the idea of God [illusion].
Right, it
is impossible - which is precisely why my earlier assertion about your attitude needs repeating:
seeds wrote: ↑Sat Oct 13, 2018 2:58 pm
You seem to be presenting yourself as a classic example of someone who believes that just because you yourself have not experienced anything that would point to the existence of a transcendent level of reality, then neither has anyone else.
With that being said, I am going to point out to you the exact same thing that I point out to all hardcore materialists. It is something that you are going to insist is nonsense, but it is nonetheless true, and that is you are “sleep-walking” through life.
Or more aptly stated - you (as are all humans in general) are functioning at a level of consciousness wherein the utter perfection of the dream-like illusion of the universe has you so under its thrall that you simply cannot recognize what’s going on.
It’s like a fly landing on a human arm and not being able to recognize or comprehend that it is walking on the living body of a being that is so far above it in scope and consciousness that there is no comparison,...
...likewise, the same thing applies to humans as we walk on the earth.
It is almost impossible for us to understand that everything we are (physically) and that everything we see throughout the universe is all part of the living structure (the living mental fabric) of a Being that is so far above us in scope and consciousness that we cannot recognize what it really is.
Now of course, you will just accuse me of delusional thinking and continue on with your unimaginative mantra about how such ideas are merely the result of an existential crisis...
...while I, on the other hand, will simply interpret your closed-minded (materialistic/nihilistic) attitude as being a testament of the depth and degree of your somnambulism.
All of which seems to be an exercise in futility, wouldn’t you agree?
_______
Btw, my philosophical approach is not materialistic/nihilistic.
My approach is an empirical-rational realist and transcendental-idealist.
I believe in an independent-reality and yet encompassed within an interdependent reality that is conditioned by human elements.
There is no excuse to insist there must be something like 'God' just because it is natural [inevitable and unavoidable] we cannot know everything 100% and with absolute certainty.
The control to this is, for whatever claimed to exists or possible to exists, bring the evidence to support one's claim.
If you insists there is an absolute independent God existing as real, then, yes, you are engaging with an illusion as driven by an inherent unavoidable existential crisis within your brain/mind and psyche.
If you are purely speculating, then we can leave it at that until you can bring the evidence to support your speculation.
As I had demonstrated the thought 'God exists' is shared by people who are mentally ill, has brain damage, took drugs/hallucinogen, under heavy stress, triggered electronically, involved in meditation for a long time, out-of-blue, etc. There are tons of evidence to support such experiences.
The control element is Buddhism rely on non-theistic approach to deal with the same inherent unavoidable existential crisis.
Those who had mental illnesses and experience God were cured with the appropriate medicine and counselling.
As such, until you can bring the evidence to support your claim, it is most likely your "direct experience" that support your personal conviction God exists is real, is due to the impulses of the existential crisis.
Note this example where you are 'forced' to perceive two 'normal' faces.
This is the same impulses [in different set and degrees] that force you to the judgment 'God exists as real'.
Does this make me a theist or a physicist?