Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 3:29 pm

Martin Peter Clarke wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 3:16 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 1:59 pm Can't say any of the above match my criteria for godliness.
Doesn't it strike you as fishy that omnipotent gods have to communicate with us via humans?

Very good. Love wouldn't.

Love has to be put into a real life context before we can know what it means.

Yes. Only higher animals can love. Which is an increasingly low bar. Iguana. Fish. Preying mantis. I expect a Tillichian transcendent ground of infinite eternal being to to make Themselve's clear. They don't in the slightest. The twisted Gods of our fearful imaginings fill that Loveless vacuum.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 1:59 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 10:37 amthe Christian God communicated with us via Jesus . Allah communicated with us via Muhammad and the Koran.

Doesn't it strike you as fishy that omnipotent gods have to communicate with us via humans?

Come on now, Will, even our own pop culture has given us hints as to why the Gods cannot risk giving humans the "Full Monty," so to speak.

In other words, I suggest that the Creator of this strange and opaque dimension of reality we momentarily reside within, employs a sort of Star Trekian "prime directive" so as not to disrupt the integrity and functionality of what is, in truth, a grand "cosmic womb" that is designed to awaken new eternal souls into existence.

Furthermore, in practical terms, if the universe is indeed the "womb" of a higher Being,...

(and, yes, I realize that that's a big if)

...then it would be literally impossible for this higher Being to reveal her [his/its] true and ultimate form to the "womblings" (to her embryos) while they're still held within the fabric of her being,...

...thus, she uses humans themselves as a lower (and proxy) means of communicating with them in order to inform them of her existence.

Are you a member of the "twin two" group of humans in my little soap opera -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/fuck- ... -%E2%80%A6 -- or are you somewhere in between?

Anyway, as I keep trying to point out (make that - humbly suggest), the truth of reality is far more "natural" and "organic" and "wonderful" than what this temporary "gestation" period leads us to believe.
_______

seeds wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 7:07 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 1:59 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 10:37 amthe Christian God communicated with us via Jesus . Allah communicated with us via Muhammad and the Koran.

Doesn't it strike you as fishy that omnipotent gods have to communicate with us via humans?

Come on now, Will, even our own pop culture has given us hints as to why the Gods cannot risk giving humans the "Full Monty," so to speak.

In other words, I suggest that the Creator of this strange and opaque dimension of reality we momentarily reside within, employs a sort of Star Trekian "prime directive" so as not to disrupt the integrity and functionality of what is, in truth, a grand "cosmic womb" that is designed to awaken new eternal souls into existence.

Furthermore, in practical terms, if the universe is indeed the "womb" of a higher Being,...

(and, yes, I realize that that's a big if)

...then it would be literally impossible for this higher Being to reveal her [his/its] true and ultimate form to the "womblings" (to her embryos) while they're still held within the fabric of her being,...

...thus, she uses humans themselves as a lower (and proxy) means of communicating with them in order to inform them of her existence.

Are you a member of the "twin two" group of humans in my little soap opera -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/fuck- ... -%E2%80%A6 -- or are you somewhere in between?

Anyway, as I keep trying to point out (make that - humbly suggest), the truth of reality is far more "natural" and "organic" and "wonderful" than what this temporary "gestation" period leads us to believe.
_______

Why do you believe, absolutely, that 'being alive', in the living eternal and infinite Universe, Itself, is only a so-called 'gestational period', and it is only after you die you find out what the actual Truth is, exactly?

Does it not seem totally bizarre to you that you do not learn and discover Truths when you are 'alive', but only supposedly do after you are 'not alive'?

The universe is like a giant divine napkin, and we're all just stains on it. It's possible for me to imagine it, so it must be the case.

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 1:59 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 10:37 amInscrutable and indifferent gods are Monsanto, Big Pharma. Big Oil, Monsanto, Nestle, cults such as ISIS or Taliban, cults of individuals such as Hitler, political extremism, nationalism, Zionism, Jingoism, colonialism.

Can't say any of the above match my criteria for godliness.

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 10:37 amIthe Christian God communicated with us via Jesus . Allah communicated with us via Muhammad and the Koran.

Doesn't it strike you as fishy that omnipotent gods have to communicate with us via humans?

What would you expect so-called 'omnipotent gods' to communicate with you human beings via, exactly, if not via you human beings?

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 8:08 pm The universe is like a giant divine napkin, and we're all just stains on it. It's possible for me to imagine it, so it must be the case.

How does 'this' 'logically follow', exactly?

Age wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 8:09 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 8:08 pm The universe is like a giant divine napkin, and we're all just stains on it. It's possible for me to imagine it, so it must be the case.

How does 'this' 'logically follow', exactly?

You got me there, Age. I must be pulling the idea out of my ass.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 1:38 am

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 12:57 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 11:01 pm There you go. You just proved the case…again.

Actually, dearest one, it is you doing what you always do: avoid entirely the thrust of my post by focusing on irrelevancies. It’s okay however.

Well, that’s because the majority of your post is always so foamingly lunatic and off-point — while being so utterly self-assured, as well — that it’s mind-numbing even to bother to try to reply to that many errors in a row.

But worse: it’s boooooring.

And this last one was no exception. So I just don’t bother.

But you never so-call 'bother' when you can not counter nor refute another, nor when you can not back up and support you.

And, as for the one', here, who is so 'self-assured' but who fails, absolutely, in standing up for, and in standing behind, their 'self-assured' claims, here, then that is certainly you "immanuel can".

you do not so-call bother only when you know you will fail, flounder, and crumble, and you have proved this True over and over, here, in this forum.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 1:38 am If any of it represented even a remote challenge, I might actually have replied somewhat.

Lol what a joke. It is when you do feel challenged "immanuel can" when you so-call 'do not bother', and 'try to' run and hide.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 8:15 pm

Age wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 8:09 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 8:08 pm The universe is like a giant divine napkin, and we're all just stains on it. It's possible for me to imagine it, so it must be the case.

How does 'this' 'logically follow', exactly?

You got me there, Age.

What do you mean by, 'you got me there, Age?'

I only asked you, 'How does 'this' 'logically follow', exactly?'

Now, either you 'know', and thus 'you' could have informed 'us', or you do 'not know', and so you will remain quiet and silent.

Honestly I have absolutely no idea nor clue as to how it 'logically follows' that if it is possible for you to just 'imagine' some 'thing', then 'that thing' must be 'the case'.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 8:15 pm I must be pulling the idea out of my ass.

Honestly I do not care an iota where you pull, or get, any idea from, I am just seriously curious as to why you would say and claim that if it is possible to imagine some thing, then that thing must be the case.

Until you can explain how the two 'logically follow' I do not see how they could, let alone supposedly do.

C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion by John BeversluisJohn Loftus heartily agrees with a debunking of C.S. Lewis.

C.S. Lewis’ writings contain three major arguments for God’s existence: the ‘Argument from Desire’, the ‘Moral Argument’, and the ‘Argument From Reason’.

How about this...

Those here who are most familiar with his arguments, please note the extent to which he provided hard evidence to back them up. Do Lewis's attempts here come anywhere near the neighborhood of WLC and the RF Christians? In other words, actual historical, scientific and rational proof that the Christian God does in fact reside in Heaven?

Lewis furthermore argued that the ‘Liar, Lunatic, Lord Trilemma’ shows that Jesus is God.

You tell me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis%27s_trilemma

Is this just another argument in which the truth of it revolves around the assumption that how you define the meaning of the words in the argument itself need be as far as one goes? Or do you go up into the spiritual clouds in order to debate the parts that permit one to acquire the optimal definition?

He also deals with the major skeptical objection known as the Problem of Evil. Beversluis examines these arguments and finds them all defective; some are even fundamentally flawed.

Flawed given a fiercely fought battle over definitions and meaning, or flawed because it never really does connect the dots between words and worlds?

Finally Beversluis examines Lewis’ crisis of faith when he lost his wife, the love of his life.

Back to the part where some abandon Gods and religions given their own crisis, while others cling all the more to Gods and religions because, well, what's the alternative?

‘The Argument From Desire’ echoes Augustine’s sentiment in his Confessions when addressing God that “You have made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.” Lewis develops this into an argument for God’s existence which can be formulated in several ways; but the bottom line is that since humans have an innate desire for joy beyond the natural world (which is what he means by ‘joy’), there must be an object to satisfy that desire, therefore God.

Again, even if this is accepted by some as "proof" enough that a God, the God does in fact exist, why their God and not another?

Then the part that gets around to theodicy. Well, at least for those of my ilk.

Age wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 8:05 pm
Why do you believe, absolutely, that 'being alive', in the living eternal and infinite Universe, Itself, is only a so-called 'gestational period', and it is only after you die you find out what the actual Truth is, exactly?

Does it not seem totally bizarre to you that you do not learn and discover Truths when you are 'alive', but only supposedly do after you are 'not alive'?

Well that resembles a belief held by some non-Christains. Mind that might be in the context of some other beliefs. So not BIZARRE to me.

Have you ever heard of the Bardo Thodol? We're talking Tibetan Buddhism. The context is a belief set. REALLY YOU (the essential you) is part of the ONE, well everything is part of the ONE. But trapped in Maya (delusion) means being (re)born, living, and thus suffering. The object in most of the Eastern religions is to gain enlightenment, realizing you are the one, and so escape being reborn into suffering. That's a general set common to Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.

OK, it's hard gaining enlightenment. A branch of Buddhism in Tibet (I think ~1400 BCE) believed in a possible shortcut, a short period following death but before being reborn into sufferingwhen it might be possible to "see the light". The Bardo Thodal (aka Tibetan Book of the Dead) is sort of like a guide how to do that. A roadmap for how to possibly escape the wheel of life (suffering).

In other words yes, I do think the mainstream of Christian belief strange. But not particularly strange when you look at the strange beliefs in some other religions. . So not bizarre.

seeds wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 7:07 pm

Will Bouwman wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 1:59 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Thu Jul 31, 2025 10:37 amthe Christian God communicated with us via Jesus . Allah communicated with us via Muhammad and the Koran.

Doesn't it strike you as fishy that omnipotent gods have to communicate with us via humans?

Come on now, Will, even our own pop culture has given us hints as to why the Gods cannot risk giving humans the "Full Monty," so to speak.

In other words, I suggest that the Creator of this strange and opaque dimension of reality we momentarily reside within, employs a sort of Star Trekian "prime directive" so as not to disrupt the integrity and functionality of what is, in truth, a grand "cosmic womb" that is designed to awaken new eternal souls into existence.

Furthermore, in practical terms, if the universe is indeed the "womb" of a higher Being,...

(and, yes, I realize that that's a big if)

...then it would be literally impossible for this higher Being to reveal her [his/its] true and ultimate form to the "womblings" (to her embryos) while they're still held within the fabric of her being,...

...thus, she uses humans themselves as a lower (and proxy) means of communicating with them in order to inform them of her existence.

Are you a member of the "twin two" group of humans in my little soap opera -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/t/fuck- ... -%E2%80%A6 -- or are you somewhere in between?

Anyway, as I keep trying to point out (make that - humbly suggest), the truth of reality is far more "natural" and "organic" and "wonderful" than what this temporary "gestation" period leads us to believe.
_______

Why? Why can't they reveal Love?

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm

Age wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 8:05 pm
Why do you believe, absolutely, that 'being alive', in the living eternal and infinite Universe, Itself, is only a so-called 'gestational period', and it is only after you die you find out what the actual Truth is, exactly?

Does it not seem totally bizarre to you that you do not learn and discover Truths when you are 'alive', but only supposedly do after you are 'not alive'?

Well that resembles a belief held by some non-Christains.

What, exactly, supposedly resembles 'a belief, and what even is 'that belief', exactly?

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm Mind that might be in the context of some other beliefs. So not BIZARRE to me.

Okay. What are 'your beliefs' based upon, exactly, and are they all infallible?

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm Have you ever heard of the Bardo Thodol?

Not that i remember.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm We're talking Tibetan Buddhism. The context is a belief set. REALLY YOU (the essential you) is part of the ONE, well everything is part of the ONE.

But, there is really only the One. Which is what the word, 'I' refers to, and who 'I' am, exactly.

The word, 'you', implies 'an other', which really there is not, other than conceptually.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm But trapped in Maya (delusion) means being (re)born, living, and thus suffering.

Which is what only 'you', human beings, are doing, here.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm The object in most of the Eastern religions is to gain enlightenment, realizing you are the one,

Again, 'you', by definition, can not be the One. Only 'I' can be, and am, the One. As 'I', by definition, is singular, and One, only.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pmand so escape being reborn into suffering.

Do 'you' suffer, sometimes?

Do 'you' have 'the answers, always?

And, 'this' is because 'you' are, still, wondering, 'Who 'I' am?' correct?

Once 'you', also, learn, or discover, 'Who 'I' am, exactly', then 'you' too will be living with all of 'the answers', and thus without any suffering, at all.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm That's a general set common to Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.

People's different individual, personal, and subjective views and beliefs are certainly not necessarily 'the best way' to be 'looking at' and 'considering' things.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm OK, it's hard gaining enlightenment.

But, it was, and is, not. Again, that is, once you learn the 'how-to' of how to gain enlightenment, the obtaining enlightenment is Truly very simple, and very easy.

'Where' does 'this', learning and becoming wiser, all play out, exactly?

In 'Life', or in the 'waiting to' re-turn and/or 'waiting to be' re-born, in to Life', again?

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm A branch of Buddhism in Tibet (I think ~1400 BCE) believed in a possible shortcut, a short period following death but before being reborn into sufferingwhen it might be possible to "see the light".

1. you individual human beings do not get so-called 'reborn'. Because of who and what you human beings are it is an absolute logical and physical impossibility to be reborn, or reincarnated.

2. What is actually happening, and occuring, HERE, in this One and only eternal Life, and Universe, is that the One just waits, patiently, for an intelligent enough species to come along and recognize, realize, comprehend, and understand, fully, what actually exists,, happens, and occurs, HERE

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pmThe Bardo Thodal (aka Tibetan Book of the Dead) is sort of like a guide how to do that. A roadmap for how to possibly escape the wheel of life (suffering).

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm In other words yes, I do think the mainstream of Christian belief strange.

Okay. But 'I' was asking 'seeds", in light of what it believes and/or suggests, here.

MikeNovack wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 9:30 pm But not particularly strange when you look at the strange beliefs in some other religions. . So not bizarre.

That you human beings believe things to be true, when then is not a shred of proof for them is what 'I' would find Truly bizarre if 'I' did not already know why 'you' do that.

Age, the "you" vs "I" matter that you are nattering about.

Were I trying to describe Eastern religions to you from the point of view of an adherent of one of them it would be "I". When I am describing in terms of "this is what you were believing were this your religion it would be "you".

Even seeing "I" as being real is Maya, why I am trapped on the wheel of life and suffering << from the point of view of say a Hindu >>

Now on the matter of seeing human behavior as bizarre ---- If I see one person over here doing something strange and inexplicable and one over there doing something strange and inexplicable, I might think "how bizarre their behavior". But if it is a quarter of the people over here and a quarter over there I don't think bizarre but instead "how strange the range of normal human behaviors"

seeds wrote: ↑Fri Aug 01, 2025 7:07 pm...she uses humans themselves as a lower (and proxy) means of communicating with them in order to inform them of her existence.

Here's the bit I don't get: if she can communicate directly with some humans, why can't she do so with all of us? I really hope you have a better answer than the self righteous and woefully unsubstantiated whinge of certain Christians that their god does speak to us and it is our fault, those of us who don't hear, for not listening.