Philosophy Now Forum

Fairy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:21 pm

accelafine wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:17 pm

Fairy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 12:37 pm

Whatever is imagined, that's what.

What about, 'Questions to Christian's second cousin who lives just around the corner' ?

Hardly that even, I am talking about Questions to the God believers.

Because "accelafine" is a "stickler" for the so-called "english" language it was alluding to the 'mistake' you made in your topic title here, instead of just directly pointing it out for you.

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:34 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:45 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:28 pm
But none of that prevents God from having priorities. So why is it not legitimate to ask what God puts before all other things?

Because whatever is the most valuable thing in the universe IS the thing most deserving of our affection. By definition, there's nothing higher.

But I'm not asking what is most deserving of our affection, I'm asking what God considers to be the most deserving of his affection.

1. God is not a 'he'.

2. What God considers to be so-called 'the most deserving' is just not abusing absolutely any thing at all.

But, for you human beings to work out and to know how to do this properly and Correctly, you will have to learn, understand, and know what the purpose of 'human beings' is, first.

That is you will have to learn and know what the purpose beings are, first, before you can then treat each other Accurately and Correctly, before you learn how to not mistreat all of the other things that all of you adult human beings are doing, in the days when this is being written.

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:34 pm

IC wrote: It's called "substitutionary atonement." And it's actually not a hard concept to understand. There are at least rough parallels in ordinary human practice. Think of when somebody else pays your fine for you, and you don't end up going to jail.

But for that to be analogous, the law would have to pay the fine that the law itself has imposed on me. Where's the sense in that?

It's when somebody else gives you a kidney, so you don't end up on dialysis.

But, going with the analogy again, I wouldn't need a kidney if God hadn't buggered mine up to start with.

IC wrote: Actually, the obvious fact is the opposite. You and I come into a world that was already formed and running when we were born. During our lives, much of what happens to us, from cradle to grave, is beyond our ability even to influence, let alone control; and what actually we can control or change often turns out to be very small, local, and only related to our own immediate situation. And we're totally out of control of when and how we die...short of suicide. And then, when we're gone, the universe will go on as if we never existed. So of what were we the center?

The entirety of our life experience takes place around us, therefore we are at its centre.

Maybe the real marvel is that so many people think they're some kind of "center of the universe" when nothing could be farther from the obvious truth.

And yet we can only experience the conduct of the universe as something that goes on around us.

IC wrote: To fictional ones, you're right; we can have no duty. But if God is God, then not only is it obvious we have duty to Him, but it's been an instant recognition by all cultures and by practically every person who has ever lived that we do.

I think your view is already well known, I am just expressing mine.

If it's not obvious to you, that might be a function of being raised in an atypically unspiritual culture.

I put it down to not being conditioned or brainwashed to the same extent as some people, or maybe not being as susceptible to the effects of it as some.

It's certainly not the world or historical average. And given that all attempts to construct a metaethical basis for morality on secular lines have been dismal failures so far, then if we believe in morality at all, it's only because of that legacy of recognition that mankind has that God should be the focus of our duty.

Although I am interested in why people believe the bizarre things many of them do, it's not really a matter of importance unless it threatens me in some way. I am just thankful that I don't live in a time or place where I have to pretend to believe something I don't.

There is, in fact, not one solitary thing that you nor or anyone else has to believe.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 10:20 pm

Fairy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:08 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:48 pm
Where did you get the phrase "unconditional love"? All love happens within certain "conditions."

For example, if nothing else, there has to be consent of both parties. That's a condition of any relationship we would call a "love" relationship.

I understand that. But are not all conditions unconditional? in that there is always the choice for both parties to consent to love or not consent to love.

Um...no, conditions are conditions. They're all "conditional."

..would that choice make any difference...

See my last answer, in the previous message.

Here 'we' can see another one who likes to claims things, but when questioned and/or challenged over those, unsubstituted, claims, provides absolutely nothing at all.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 10:21 pm

Fairy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:19 pm ...the love I already am.

I don't get this phrase.

you would not, obviously, when you are so, obviously, absolutely closed.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 10:39 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:34 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:45 pm
Because whatever is the most valuable thing in the universe IS the thing most deserving of our affection. By definition, there's nothing higher.

But I'm not asking what is most deserving of our affection, I'm asking what God considers to be the most deserving of his affection.

Well, "supreme" means that there isn't anything greater -- in any dimension of value.

IC wrote: It's called "substitutionary atonement." And it's actually not a hard concept to understand. There are at least rough parallels in ordinary human practice. Think of when somebody else pays your fine for you, and you don't end up going to jail.

But for that to be analogous, the law would have to pay the fine that the law itself has imposed on me. Where's the sense in that?

If you've committed the crime, and the judge just ignores that, then he's not much of a judge, is he? He'd be ignoring the law, not upholding it. The judge, the one who was supposed to stand for the law and uphold it, just waived it and made it no longer matter. Essentially, he colluded with you in getting away with your crime.

More absolute delusion, and attempts at deception and coercion, here.

A "paid judge" is meant to 'look at' all of the facts, and circumstances, including all of the mitigating circumstances as well. If so-called 'judges" just 'stood for the law', only, then absolutely every one of you adult human beings, in the days when this was being written, would have been punished and/or incarcerated.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 10:39 pm What's to be done with the next criminal, then? If the judge then prosecutes him, he's unfair; if he doesn't, though, then is he now bound by the principle of fairness to forgo all his duty to uphold the law?

'This one' is completely and utterly deluded here.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 10:39 pm Is he even deserving of being called a judge...or of being called an agent of justice? Or is he now just another type of criminal?

'This one' is going off track here somewhat.

That one only just human being named "jesus christ" so-called 'dying for your sins' has absolutely nothing at all about anyone paying fines for another nor any "judge' letting one off for some so-claimed crime.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 10:39 pm

IC wrote: Actually, the obvious fact is the opposite. You and I come into a world that was already formed and running when we were born. During our lives, much of what happens to us, from cradle to grave, is beyond our ability even to influence, let alone control; and what actually we can control or change often turns out to be very small, local, and only related to our own immediate situation. And we're totally out of control of when and how we die...short of suicide. And then, when we're gone, the universe will go on as if we never existed. So of what were we the center?

The entirety of our life experience takes place around us, therefore we are at its centre.

That's the illusion: because we are born as the center of our own perspective on the world and our own experience, we tend to think we're very important.

you obviously do. But, not every one is as self-centered as you are, nor has a 'superiority complex' like you do.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 10:39 pmThere's nothing unusual, therefore, about human hubris, even though it's quite out of proportion to reality.

If it's not obvious to you, that might be a function of being raised in an atypically unspiritual culture.

I put it down to not being conditioned or brainwashed to the same extent as some people, or maybe not being as susceptible to the effects of it as some.

Can you be brainwashed or conditioned into Atheism, or is it only people from other places and cultures that can be brainwashed and conditioned by their ethos?

you people do not even use the word 'brainwashed' Accurately, and Correctly. And, this is because you people were 'conditioned' into believing, and disbelieving, things without even questioning 'them'. Which, by the way, was, also, part of 'the conditioning'.

Which all goes back to stories about 'God', and 'the devil', and how the 'devil' is continually fooling, deceiving, and conditioning you human beings into Falsehoods, while 'God' is continually instructing and guiding all of you to what is actually, irrefutably, True, and Right, in Life.

If only you ones would just LOOK and LISTEN, instead of TALK and EXPRESSING.

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 11:40 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 10:39 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 8:34 pm
But I'm not asking what is most deserving of our affection, I'm asking what God considers to be the most deserving of his affection.

Well, "supreme" means that there isn't anything greater -- in any dimension of value.

Your determination not to answer what I thought was a simple and innocuous question is puzzling, but you must have your reasons.

One of those reasons is that it could not answer, openly and honestly, without contradicting "itself".

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 11:40 pm

IC wrote:

Harbal wrote:I put it down to not being conditioned or brainwashed to the same extent as some people, or maybe not being as susceptible to the effects of it as some.

Can you be brainwashed or conditioned into Atheism, or is it only people from other places and cultures that can be brainwashed and conditioned by their ethos?

Yes, I've heard arguments for atheism that don't stand up, yet some people have found them persuasive. I daresay people can be "brainwashed" out of a belief just the same as into a belief. I grew up with no pressure either way. I don't care what you say, all religious belief is irrational. Even so, many/most of us abandon rationality and do believe in some sort of god, to some extent. I can only guess there is an emotional/psychologic need in human beings that accounts for that; the so called god shaped hole. Some of us just don't have that need, for some reason or another. The thought of living in a pointless world seems to freak some people out, but it doesn't bother me at all.

So, why the apparent persistent need of yours to keep pointing out that what you presume or believe is true is more accurate and correct than what other people believe or presume is true?

If 'the world' was truly pointless, then why bother trying to get 'your views' accepted, and agreed with, or upon?

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 11:40 pm And I can't see what point God would give to the world, anyway.

you say this like God is some sort of human beings like thing.

God is not some separated from 'the world' thing that chooses what 'point' to give, or not give, to 'the world'.

There is just One Universe, which is eternal and infinite, and how It works, or behaves, can be in no other way.

Now, 'the point' of an always existing Universe is so that, through the infinite evolving-creation process, the Universe, Itself, can, and will, come-to-know (thy) Self. And, 'the reason', or 'further point', for this Universe existing was so that 'I' can bear witness to this always unfolding Creation.

There would be no point to any nor all-of-this, if there was no one to watch and observe it all play out, or unfold.

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 11:40 pm I don't think it matters whether people believe in God, or don't believe, as long as they don't try to interfere with everyone else's choice on the matter.

Could you envision that you might be interfering here with other people's choices, even if it is in a, relatively, small way?

Or, do you believe that you are not doing this, at all?

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 11:40 pm I must say that your assertion that God, the demands of God, the demands of religion, must come before all else is something I find disturbing.. Before family, before friends, before all human beings?

But, what God wants so-called before all else never ever puts the well being of one behind the want.

Also, God never ever 'demands' absolutely any thing at all. you human beings are, literally, absolutely free to do absolutely any thing of 'your choosing'.

However, 'the demands of human beings made up religions' is a completely whole other matter.

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 11:40 pm No, that can't go unchallenged. That's wrong, IC, it's just plain wrong.

And, very, very Wrong, at that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 12:04 am

Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 11:40 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 10:39 pm
Well, "supreme" means that there isn't anything greater -- in any dimension of value.

Your determination not to answer what I thought was a simple and innocuous question is puzzling, but you must have your reasons.

I am answering it. I don't know why you don't like the answer...but I can't make you like it, so you'll have to please yourself.

Here, again, is 'this one' attempting to deceive you readers here.

'Responding' to questions is never ever necessarily 'answering' questions.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 12:04 am

IC wrote: Can you be brainwashed or conditioned into Atheism, or is it only people from other places and cultures that can be brainwashed and conditioned by their ethos?

Yes, I've heard arguments for atheism that don't stand up, yet some people have found them persuasive. I daresay people can be "brainwashed" out of a belief just the same as into a belief.

I agree. People can even be brainwashed into a true belief, if not-being-brainwashed requires the believer of the idea to know the reasoning and evidence behind it. For example, most people will accept that the universe is expanding, but only because their science teacher says so. That might be brainwashing, if they don't know about things like the red shift effect, say. They're believing something true, but for no good reason.

Exactly like one believing that God is a "he" on absolutely nothing at all other than just being told so and/or told it is true because it is written in a book. Which, obviously, is the most IDIOTIC and STUPIDEST of things.

Also, believing that the Universe is expanding just because of the so-called 'red shift effect' is just as STUPID and IDIOTIC as believing that the Universe is expanding only because some so-called "english teacher" says so.

Which reminds me, why, exactly, do you believe, absolutely, that God, Itself, is a "he" 'immanuel can"?

Not that you will eve answer this clarifying question, openly and honestly. Because, if you did, then you would only end up looking absolutely STUPID and IDIOTIC.

Do you have absolutely any good reason for believing, absolutely, that God, Itself, is, laughingly, 'male gendered'?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 12:04 am

I don't care what you say, all religious belief is irrational.

Now, how would you know that? Were you brainwashed into believing it, or have you actually investigated every religion, and discovered that none can ever be rational? You really seem to think you know, to the point you can say, "I don't care what you say..." But how good is your evidence for that "knowledge"?

...the so called god shaped hole...

If that phenomenon is real, then it's a phenomenon that stands in need of some explanation, in its own right. Why would a totally godless universe manage to inculcate in so many people a belief in such a thing? It seems an impossible question even to ask, though, since a Materialist or Physicalist universe has no "why" to it at all, by definition.

Absolutely False and Wrong, again.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 12:04 am
Still, here's this odd phenomenon: almost everybody -- over 92% of the world's population today, and even more in the past, have a "god-shaped hole" in their psychological makeup? That needs explaining, for sure.

Some of us just don't have that need, for some reason or another.

Well, since not more than 4% of the world's population, even today, seems to have that need, is it possible that there's something missing from you? Or have you been enculturated or brainwashed into disbelief?

I don't think it matters whether people believe in God,

Well, we'll see. I think it matters both now and later, and you think it doesn't now, and won't later. One day, later comes.

'This one' actually believes that by continually 'threatening' others, then they will, eventually, come.around, also, to "immanuel can's" indoctrinated presumptions, and beliefs. Which is even more STUPID, if that was possible, than just believing some thing is true on nother more than another just telling them so.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 12:04 am

I must say that your assertion that God, the demands of God, the demands of religion, must come before all else is something I find disturbing.. Before family, before friends, before all human beings? No, that can't go unchallenged. That's wrong, IC, it's just plain wrong.

Wait.

How can anything be...what's your word? "Wrong"? If you live in a universe with no god, and hence no moral absolutes, how can you suppose that doing ANYTHING can be "wrong"?

Why do you persist with this absolutely ILLOGICAL and IRRATIONAL 'reasoning' here "Immanuel can"?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 12:04 am You'll have to explain that one to me, if you can.

Will you ever even just begin to explain how just because a 'male gendered thing' is claimed to exist, then this is only when, supposed and so-called, 'moral.absolutes' could, only, exist?

Also, there is no necessity, at all, that if you live in a Universe with God, then there are 'moral absolutes'. Especially so when ones like you "Immanuel can" who keep believing and claiming this is absolutely true cannot even name one, supposed, 'moral absolute', nor even give one 'good reason' why if you are living in a Universe with no God, then this, automatically, means that there are no 'moral absolutes', at all.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 2:02 am

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 1:00 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 12:04 am
Wait.

How can anything be...what's your word? "Wrong"? If you live in a universe with no god, and hence no moral absolutes, how can you suppose that doing ANYTHING can be "wrong"? You'll have to explain that one to me, if you can.

You have chosen to base your moral position on God,...

Not me. You. I asked you.

How do you come up with a designation like "wrong," (which clearly you expect others to agree with, even if I decide I don't, and which plausibly you also think I should agree with, if I were thinking "rightly," I must assume), based on a godless world?

I know how I come up with my moral judgments, and have not been shy about saying so: but it seems quite obvious that nothing in your own worldview justifies you calling anybody, doing anything, "wrong" in the objective sense that you are attempting to invoke here.

And if all you mean is, "Harbal finds it wrong for him," then you can't possibly also be expecting me or anyone else to think you're right when you say it. Why should we?

Well I, too, have a moral outlook, but mine has nothing to do with God.

Then in what sense can you call your outlook objectively "moral"? Or do you only mean, "Harbal knows what he likes, and nobody else needs to agree?"

This goes back to your former incoherent position about morality all being subjective. If all morality is merely subjective, then how is Harbal expecting anybody else to be obligated -- or even inclined or persuaded -- to accept his subjective value judgment of "wrongness"?

You see? It just doesn't make any sense for you to express moral outrage or objection, or to call anything "wrong," unless you have some justification for why somebody else OUGHT to agree with that assessment. And you don't. You've previously admitted you don't. You've made all moralizing out to be purely subjective; and that means, that nobody else -- and, in fact, not even you, yourself -- has even a slight duty to share that position.

you do not have any justification for why somebody else OUGHT to agree with your assessment of what is 'wrong' neither "immanuel can".

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 2:35 am

Fairy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 2:33 am Please stop hating us women you horrible men. It's you that are the evil ones, but then you blame the woman for being evil. Please stop with the mental abuse, please, my own father mentally and sexually abused me for years, please stop it. .please make it all stop.

None of us is your father. We're not abusing you. We've been disagreeing with you. It's quite different.

Not listening is abuse.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 2:35 am If that's how it has been for you, all I can tell you, with all kindness, is you need counselling help. Nobody gets over a history of abuse by suppressing or denying it.

This would explain how and why 'this one' has not got 'over' its history of abuse.

In fact 'this one' will never 'get over' its history of abuse while it keeps denying that there was any.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Sep 19, 2024 2:35 am You get through it by dealing with it, and you need help to do that.

Exactly what could, and should, be said, and conveyed, to you you "immanuel can".

Age wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 3:16 am
1. God is not a 'he'.

Shiva Shakti.
Shiva, total consciousness, total awareness, total awareness of … what goes where and when. Masculine … He.
Shakti, the energy that moves … feminine. Get ‘er done. She.

In this sense, the God referenced in the Holy Bible as masculine (he) is more witness than doer, more judge than executioner, and in the judging more prone towards, hee hee, so if we're illiterate and limited to phonetics, God indeed is a Hee.

I guess the original concept of God was invented by people who believed the masculine gender was a thing.
I'd select which particular 'Christian' I'd ask a question from. In my experience all Jehovah's Witnesses can direct me to scriptural references, and a C of E priest explained a finer point about the place of ritual in Christianity, and a Methodist minister explained to me how the Doctrine of Atonement worked(very flexibly!).

However most Christians, in my experience , are not theologians.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 2:25 pm I guess the original concept of God was invented by people who believed the masculine gender was a thing.

Masculine sex certainly is. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that schwing to share.

Walker wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 2:28 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 2:25 pm I guess the original concept of God was invented by people who believed the masculine gender was a thing.

Masculine sex certainly is. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that schwing to share.

But I did not insinuate God has a penis.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 2:33 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 2:28 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 2:25 pm I guess the original concept of God was invented by people who believed the masculine gender was a thing.

Masculine sex certainly is. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that schwing to share.

But I did not insinuate God has a penis.

For Christians, God (aka Jesus) did have a penis. And of course Zeus had all of those mortal children, conceived through sex (although Helen was hatched from an egg, because Zeus raped (or seduced) Leda while in the form if a swan.).

Leda and the Swan by W.B. Yeats

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

Alexiev wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 2:41 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 2:33 pm

Walker wrote: ↑Tue Sep 24, 2024 2:28 pm
Masculine sex certainly is. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that schwing to share.

But I did not insinuate God has a penis.

For Christians, God (aka Jesus) did have a penis. And of course Zeus had all of those mortal children, conceived through sex (although Helen was hatched from an egg, because Zeus raped (or seduced) Leda while in the form if a swan.).

Leda and the Swan by W.B. Yeats

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

I accept what you say; I forgot about Jesus Christ. Trinitarian God and Zeus both have penises.

However my main point , despite Yeats's amazing sophistry, remains , that gender is a cultural matter.