Philosophy Now Forum

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:46 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 13, 2022 3:20 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:30 pm On the other hand, he has no capacity I have seen here to demonstrate that the Christian God trumps Aristotle's when the question posed is "which one"?

You seem to be labouring under the delusion you have an audience other than me. If anybody's paying attention to us, I suspect it's few, and often none.

What's the "audience" have to do with it? He's...

There it is. Why are you referring to me as "he," instead of "you"? Are you thinking that somebody else is your audience here?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 13, 2022 3:20 pmIn any case, Aristotle was wrong about God. He was right about the rules of logic, though. And the rules of logic -- which are as indifferent to agendas as the laws of mathematics are -- say that not more than one view of God can be correct.

And then somehow he connects the dots between "logic" and "Christianity". Not more than one view of God can be correct but "shortly" he will provide us with the evidence that it is his Christian God.

Yep.

Just as soon as you tell me what you will even accept. Have you decided, yet?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 13, 2022 3:20 pmOh, I see.

Your assumption is that God would want to make everybody believe in Him, if He exists. Well, that would certainly finish off your free will, and any choice you might make with regard to God.

Is that a price you'd be willing to pay?

On the contrary, I'm willing to accept his "intellectual assumptions" about an omniscient God and human autonomy, but given human autonomy here how exactly is he addressing the point I raise about what is at stake given that the Christian God is not even being able to provide mere mortals with a Scripture able to bring those who worship and adore the God of Abraham together? Historically, rather the opposite, right?

Again, who are you talking to? I'm right here. You could ask me.

Why would you assume that God would want to force everybody to believe in Him, whether they wanted to or not? That seems, at least on the surface, a questionable assumption. How would you defend it?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 8:33 pm No. They're "rooted" in who God is. One's mere "dasein" or existential imaginings about God can be wrong. And you know that's true, precisely because there are so many contradictory views on tap.

Sigh...

You're not getting it. However many answers are "out there," even answers in which people fervently believe, that doesn't make a thing true. And when their beliefs are also mutually contradicting, you can be 100% certain, based on the rules of logic, that most of them are actually false.

That's logic 101.

Note to others:

Who are your "others"?

I'm starting to wonder if they're in your head.

What evidence that this Christian God of yours [and not all the other ones] really does exist?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 12, 2022 8:33 pm I keep trying to get to that. But so far, you won't tell me what evidence you would even accept on that score.

The problem is, if you will accept nothing, nothing can be done for you. But if you will set the bar in some sensible place, I can attempt to provide what you will believe.

So what would you accept as evidence of God?

I'd accept the sort of evidence that Christians could provide to demonstrate that Popes occupied the Vatican

You mean "historical evidence"?

There are various kinds of historical evidence. What kind will you accept? For example, it's not hard to show that a person named "Jesus" existed, and that He lived in first-century Israel. If that's all you require, the job is half done already.

But is that all you were requiring? I find that surprisingly simple.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:29 am So God would compel people to believe in Him? He would have no reason for wanting us to have a choice, you think?

If the Scripture went straight to the point with respect to Judgment Day and Heaven and Hell, it would be abundantly clear that the Christian Path is the One True Path.

It does. In fact, it's hard to imagine how it could be clearer.

"Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them; and they were judged, each one of them according to their deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." (Rev. 20:11-15)

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:29 am You're right: God's given you time. And he's given His Word for you to read and consider, and He's personally come in His Son and died for you, in order to convince you. He's been raised from the dead to prove that God's offer is sincere, and also that the time is not infinite: the Judge is coming. Moreoever, at this moment, He's sent somebody who knows Him into your "dasein," your existential sphere, to speak to you about your need of salvation.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:29 am He now owes you no more. And you have a decision to make.

Again, as though all of those who embrace a God other than the Christian God don't have their own "Scripture" here to convey to me.

Indeed, any number of people will tell you a different story. The only question is, will you believe what they say, or what God says?

But that doesn't get us around to answering this: Which one?

Well, we know it's not more than one. But that's a very good question: which "God" are you going to believe? Is it the one whose representative is Jesus Christ, or is it Muhammed's "god," or the Hindu "gods," or something else?

And, again, all those who are entirely sincere in choosing another God or who are never even aware of Christianity. Or does that qualify them for a "get out of Hell free" card?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:29 am You can leave that with God. He can make Himself known many ways, as Romans 1 will tell you.

As though that makes my point here go away!!

It answers it. But you won't know if you don't read it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:29 am Well, if Cultural / Environmental Determinism, which is what you're invoking here, were true, then it would be utterly impossible for anybody to believe anything not programmed into them. But since people quite routinely depart the traditions and cultures in which they were raised, that's clearly not the case.

He's the one calling all this "determinism" of course.

I'm not "calling it" anything: it's definitionally true, actually. If you believe that one's social background inevitably makes one what one is, then one is, by pure definition, a Social Determinist. It's not a pejorative, it's a description.

I'm not arguing that we can't move beyond our childhood indoctrination,

So it's inexplicable, then, why you would insist I must be programmed by "childhood indoctrination." Clearly, you don't know; and you've said that it's quite possible to "move beyond" it.

The point is what can I really know about IC's experiences and what can he really know about mine?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:29 am Well, right: you don't know me at all. It's amazing to me that you feel qualified to decide I'm "indoctrinated," based on no evidence at all.

That's my point, of course. IC has lived his life. And his experiences led him to Christianity. My experiences once led me to Christianity as well. But then another entirely different set of circumstances led me to atheism.

Then you've been sadly deceived. Atheism cannot be rendered in any logical form, so you must be responding to something more visceral and experiential. It's certainly not to the compulsion of reason, logic or even coherence, since Atheism cannot give reasons and contradicts itself even on its one basic claim.

On the other hand, if IC were able to provide us with demonstrable proof that the Christian God is the One True Path, all of those different experiences would become moot.

I gave you the historical evidence in the form you asked for it above. Just as the Pope lived in Rome, so too Jesus is recognized by every significant historian as having lived in ancient Judea. That's a simple, historical fact.

Now, that much information doesn't seem much to me, but if it convinces you, I suppose it will do. You didn't ask for more. But if you want it, ask for it.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:29 am Yes. Tell me what you'll accept, and I'll see what I can give you.

Over and over and over again: evidence that the Christian God does in fact exist on par with evidence that Popes do in fact occupy the Vatican.

And you've got it now.

What next?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:29 am Mount Tambora, Indonesia? You know that one?

Okay, let's go. What's your question about the Tambora tragedy? What do you want to ask, with regard to it, or what challenge would you like to put to me because of it?

71,000 to 250,000 men, women and children perished in it. What was the Christians God's point in triggering the eruption? That less than 10% of Indonesia's population is Christian? Or is it just tucked away in the Christian God's "mysterious ways" folder?

Well, let's figure out what the alternative is. And in doing so, I'll answer your question directly.

Do you assume, then, that it was God's responsibility to prevent the explosion? Just that one? Or all explosions similar to Mt. Tambora?

Answer, then I'll continue. I'm not done yet, of course.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:29 am Neiman's Jewish by birth, as is Kushner. And she thrashes around quite a bit. In the end, she opts simply to argue that we have to keep asking the question, and not to ask the question is not an option; but she also kind of despairs of an answer. She partly accepts that human-caused tragedies like the Holocaust are human-caused, but she never manages to solve things like Tambora.

Well, I can certainly respect that point of view.

Yes, I can too. But it still leaves us with no answer, doesn't it? So I think both she and Kushner owe us to do more...if they can. And if they can't, then I at least commend them for admitting that. But it doesn't solve the problem, of course.

On the other hand, though the Holocaust was the work of those like Hitler, an omnipotent God could have prevented it from happening....but did not.

Indeed so. Ask yourself this, though: could God even possibly have sufficient reason for NOT overriding such an event?

And, just out of curiosity, it's Judgment Day. The God of Abraham passes judgment on Christians, Muslims and Jews. Who goes up and who goes down given that only Christians recognize Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Even though Jesus Christ was Himself a Jew. As for the Muslims? That's always mystified me.

The Bible answers that one, too. Jesus said, "The Father loves the Son and has entrusted all things to His hand. The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 5:33-36)

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 11, 2022 4:29 am For our purposes, what's most useful in her analysis is the intelligent division between human-caused and what she calls "natural evils," which includes things like Tambora.

Okay, but nature's existence is of itself an act of God. So doesn't that make God evil?

Well, God made you: does having made you make Him evil? He gave you a will, a choice and an identity, and freedom to exercise them; does that make Him evil? And if you decided to use that freedom and power He gave you to do evil, would that make God -- or you -- responsible?

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:50 pmPredictors are based on statistical evidence so anyone can try to buck the trends and some succeed.

Social sciences are not about describin' man or the essentially simple & straight forward interactions between and among men. No, social sciences are about diminishin' man and complicatin' those interactions. It's a water-muddyin' endeavor (no different than what bubba does with his Datsun). And why is the water muddied? To control a man, make him doubt himself, erode his certainties, then offer solutions, solutions that just happen to diminish him further while just happenin' to elevate the problem solver.

Statistical evidence is a tool used by the problem-solver to craft explanations that prove the individual man is an insignificance, just a sum of numbers on a graph. It's a kind of self-fulfillin' prophecy and, as such, it ain't worth spit.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 7:26 pmWhy are you referring to me as "he," instead of "you"?

Rhetorical device meant to diminish you, to frame you as the defendant in a trial in which he is prosecutor.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:16 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 7:26 pmWhy are you referring to me as "he," instead of "you"?

Rhetorical device meant to diminish you, to frame you as the defendant in a trial in which he is prosecutor.

Ah.

Yeah...not working.

I know full well it's pretty much the two of us, with anybody else only marginally engaged. I just marvel that he doesn't know that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:30 pm I know full well it's pretty much the two of us, with anybody else only marginally engaged. I just marvel that he doesn't know that.

Well I think that this is a public, on-going conversation so of course the exchanges are being read. However, I got the gist of it a long while back so at this point I gloss it. No new developments.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:08 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:50 pmPredictors are based on statistical evidence so anyone can try to buck the trends and some succeed.

Social sciences are not about describin' man or the essentially simple & straight forward interactions between and among men. No, social sciences are about diminishin' man and complicatin' those interactions. It's a water-muddyin' endeavor (no different than what bubba does with his Datsun). And why is the water muddied? To control a man, make him doubt himself, erode his certainties, then offer solutions, solutions that just happen to diminish him further while just happenin' to elevate the problem solver.

Statistical evidence is a tool used by the problem-solver to craft explanations that prove the individual man is an insignificance, just a sum of numbers on a graph. It's a kind of self-fulfillin' prophecy and, as such, it ain't worth spit.

Who do you think these conspirators are, and how does their conspiracy give them power?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:30 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:16 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 7:26 pmWhy are you referring to me as "he," instead of "you"?

Rhetorical device meant to diminish you, to frame you as the defendant in a trial in which he is prosecutor.

Ah.

Yeah...not working.

I know full well it's pretty much the two of us, with anybody else only marginally engaged. I just marvel that he doesn't know that.

He does.

He's a *rhetorician: it's about the win, not an audience (though, of course, any he gets just tickles him to no end).




*meaning: he inveigles and obfuscates

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:53 pmWho do you think these conspirators are

Who benefits from men believin' they're just sums on a graph?

and how does their conspiracy give them power?

To control a man, make him doubt himself, erode his certainties, then offer solutions, solutions that just happen to diminish him further while just happenin' to elevate the problem solver.

I reckon you can figure it out...but you won't.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:28 pm And yet, you call it "a project of research and study," not, say, "a search for the truth." That's your explanation of it, not mine.

This is another technique of yours -- I see it as underhanded -- where you modify what was said through hearing it askance, and then work your assertion about it. It is another straw man fallacy deviation. It is a devious, dishonest technique. It is true that I use the terms research and study and also define it as a *project* but that is just a description and does not have relationship to what I do, let's say, internally. I could have used different terms and still they'd not define what is done internally. And what I do internally is not stuff to be shared publicly. And I can certainly understand why all who participate here, and you as well, separate their internal, personal lives from what is written on a philosophy forum.

And I will remain with my assessment -- which is fair and upfront and without devious intent -- that I do not think you have a clear grasp of what I do.

Having read and listened to you, I can see you have none. [I.e. no idea what salvation is]

The more honest way to have responded would have been to say: "Really? How did you arrive at that view?" So I never would say that I think you have no idea at all but I stick with my assessment that you have a 'murky' sense. And the reason I say this is because this is what I have gleaned from many Evangelical Christians. I also think that you will have to back-up your assertion that I have no conception. How would you go about doing that?

To you, yes: to us, no. Christ Himself promised it would be just that way. He said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," but also to His disciples He said, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest they are told in parables, so that while seeing they may not see, and while hearing they may not understand." (Luke 8:10) This is because God does not make Himself known to mere skeptics, but only to those who are willing to produce a little faith in Him: and though it be as small as a mustard seed(Matt. 17:20), He will not despise that. But "without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him." (Heb. 11:6)

What you do here is to place Scripture, with a set of asserted meanings that you believe you can rhetorically manage in this exchange, and set them up against me. This is another reason I regard you as dishonest and devious. However, you do this to everyone and it is, therefore, your go-to position. You set up alienation it seems to me and you seek, whther you wish to acknowledge it or not, the oppositions that you seem to relish -- for your own purposes. I do not recomend that you take these tacks but I certainly cannot control you.

I take these statements on different levels. I am very interested in both 'subtle hearing' as well as 'subtle seeing'. If there are mysteries, or levels of understanding, to be received or that can be received, that really points to what I think is one important key: gnosis. So in my own case I have certainly come to understand that at times I can hear and see things that others seem not to be able to, and I certainly have been made aware when I have been a dunce. So I am not at all closed to the core message in these sayings.

What you do here is (if you will permit my boldness) perverse. I believe that you have failed to hear much of what I have been saying, and you also fail to actually see me (to the degree possible through a forum of written essays), and what you revert to is typical Christian condemnation. Now if you did this to someone, say, weaker or more malleable than I am I might have to suggest that what you do is *bad* (genuinely wrong and destructive). And this gets toward the core of what my stress is: what you do many Evangelical types do and at the drop of a hat. I suggest to you that this is bad apologetics. And if all that is required is a *mustard seed* bit of faith what would you say you'd be responsible for if it happened that you crushed that little seed?

But here what I have done is to begin to argue down on the level that you operate at. And I really do not want to do that.

Your problem right now, Alexis, is that you want to think about Christianity as a sociolgical proposition: intellectually...without commitment...merely historically...academically...politically...all of which, by themselves are not evil, but that simply do not lead to the knowledge of God.

Since this is not, in fact, what *my problem* is, what you are saying does not have very much to do with me. And if this is so then what you are saying is way off the mark.

However, and with that said, I have definitely concluded that there are sociological, intellectual, historical, academic and political issues that are very very much bound up in these issues and questions. Yet I have said to you numerous times that what one does (therefore what I do, obviously) on an inner level is my business alone. And I really do feel that we -- we who are so steeped in nihilism and so within the power of many different destructive currents -- do indeed need to address a wide range of issues connected with our floundering spiritual life and our separation from our Christian matrix. (I definitely do not believe in rejecting it! and I believe in revivification of connection on many different levels). And this is why I keep making references to topical issues. I believe we have to see things in a wider context.

I understand it much better than you think I do, or that you give me credit for doing, I think you'll find. But that's fine: the important thing is not where I am; it's where you're going to be.

You rascal you!

Then disabuse me of my error. What is your personal commitment to Christ?

I'll do nothing of the sort, my friend!

Rather I'll ask you to speak about what those you mention with the faith of *mustard seeds* succeed in doing or not doing that wins them the salvation you regard as the most important thing.

What do true Christians do?

My encouragement is this: there's nothing more important than the disposition of ones own soul, as Christ Himself has said. To treat spiritual matters as academic, and the personal challenge as merely a sociological curiosity is to play games with one's own soul.

Even though you are saying this in your *devious mode* I cannot say that I disagree with you.

As we go forward I will, of course, continue to fill out my ideas.

Evidence of God wouldn't be so dubious if an intelligent creator god actually existed. This God would not be 'known' in a Christian sense; it would not purposely associate itself with mankind in such a way described by monotheistic theologists and philosophers.

It would be the cause of the religious myths that are not true, but it wouldn't have done this in an interested and personally involved manner. Such a 'god' would not establish contact with the mind of man through such a medium as Christianity, or Islam and Judaism and Hindu for that matter.

Rather religion-making would just be a characteristic of man the intelligent and cultured animal who creates his mythologies... and none of em, the religions I mean, would constitute either proof for, or an accurate description of, what a 'god' would be (like) if it existed, i'ont think.

The anthropomorphic stage of man's theological sense or intuition or longing or whatever you wanna call it, is the last comtean stage to be passed - straight outta Comte(n).

Just find a gore site (kaotic doesn't do the real graphic execution stuff anymore - change of policy or something) and watch a few of those cartel videos.

You know nothing more immediately than the fact that there is no 'god' when you see this stuff. And you know you're lying to yourself when and if you try to maintain your belief and justify the shit somehow.

Not even the devil would go this low (even if you did manage to figure him in).

In fact Christianity is a kind of obscenity of reasoning. To know what happens in this world, the worst of it, and still hold to the belief and the hope that there is a singular super being, 'god', that is omnibenevolent, and that is doing and/or allowing all this to happen for a reason. And this reason is 'good' because this 'god' is good.

It really is an assault on one's tastes. It immediately smacks against sound judgement when we consider the power 'god' must have... and that the best it could have done is a favela in Brazil on a bad night. One just can't conceive of a 'god' that would either want or allow (if indifferent; the deistic claim) such a world to exist in which it were possible. Ya just can't square it, man. And if you think you can, you ain't watching the right videos.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 9:32 pm I do not think you have a clear grasp of what I do.

I'm prepared to hear that. What do you do?

Having read and listened to you, I can see you have none. [I.e. no idea what salvation is]

I also think that you will have to back-up your assertion that I have no conception. How would you go about doing that?

Very easily.

I would just compare what you say about salvation with what Jesus Christ says. Anybody who does that is going to arrive at the same conclusion. For you, Christianity is a merely a sort of European "social milieu," and salvation is not faith in Christ, but rather something else...I'll let you say exactly what, since what you offer as an alternative is, at the moment, quite difficult to discern.

To you, yes: to us, no. Christ Himself promised it would be just that way. He said, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear," but also to His disciples He said, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest they are told in parables, so that while seeing they may not see, and while hearing they may not understand." (Luke 8:10) This is because God does not make Himself known to mere skeptics, but only to those who are willing to produce a little faith in Him: and though it be as small as a mustard seed(Matt. 17:20), He will not despise that. But "without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him." (Heb. 11:6)

What you do here is to place Scripture, with a set of asserted meanings that you believe you can rhetorically manage in this exchange, and set them up against me.

No. I just quote it.

That's what I try to do, as often as possible, so you can see I'm not making things up.

...what I think is one important key: gnosis...

Do you mean you're a Gnostic, or are you just using the Greek word for "knowledge"? If it's the former, then I know where you're coming from; if it's the latter, I can't really see why you didn't just say "knowledge," unless you were being deliberately obscure.

What you do here is (if you will permit my boldness) perverse.

Well, I am contradicting you, it's true.

But that's not perverse. It's merely to contradict. There is nothing gained by a false agreement with that which is not true, I think we'd both agree...or I hope we would.

...what you revert to is typical Christian condemnation.

"Typical," you say? And "Christian"?

And yet you've been making the case, up to now, that you don't think that I've been representing Christianity. So that's a bit of a marvel.

And if all that is required is a *mustard seed* bit of faith what would you say you'd be responsible for if it happened that you crushed that little seed?

What if I encouraged it to grow? What if that's what seeds are meant for?

Your problem right now, Alexis, is that you want to think about Christianity as a sociolgical proposition: intellectually...without commitment...merely historically...academically...politically...all of which, by themselves are not evil, but that simply do not lead to the knowledge of God.

Since this is not, in fact, what *my problem* is, what you are saying does not have very much to do with me. And if this is so then what you are saying is way off the mark.

Again, I'm ready to hear that.

Tell me what you do believe.

I understand it much better than you think I do, or that you give me credit for doing, I think you'll find. But that's fine: the important thing is not where I am; it's where you're going to be.

You rascal you!

I'm serious.

Then disabuse me of my error. What is your personal commitment to Christ?

I'll do nothing of the sort, my friend!

Well, Jesus said: "...everyone who confesses Me before people, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before people, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 10:32)

Therefore, consider why you won't...and what Jesus Christ says it means.

Rather I'll ask you to speak about what those you mention with the faith of *mustard seeds* succeed in doing or not doing that wins them the salvation you regard as the most important thing.

"...if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation." (Rom. 10:9-10)

My encouragement is this: there's nothing more important than the disposition of ones own soul, as Christ Himself has said. To treat spiritual matters as academic, and the personal challenge as merely a sociological curiosity is to play games with one's own soul.

Even though you are saying this in your *devious mode* I cannot say that I disagree with you.

I'm not too concerned with your assessment of my motives, honestly. I'd like you to realize I'm sincere, but if you don't, there's little enough that I can do about it, and little enough that it matters, as well. In all cases, the truth is the truth. And we have something upon which, now, we can at least agree.

As we go forward I will, of course, continue to fill out my ideas.

I will look forward to that.

promethean75 wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 9:48 pm Evidence of God wouldn't be so dubious if an intelligent creator god actually existed. This God would not be 'known' in a Christian sense; it would not purposely associate itself with mankind in such a way described by monotheistic theologists and philosophers.

Really?

How do you know this?

It would be the cause of the religious myths that are not true, but it wouldn't have done this in an interested and personally involved manner. Such a 'god' would not establish contact with the mind of man through such a medium as Christianity, or Islam and Judaism and Hindu for that matter.

And you know this by....?

Rather religion-making would just be a characteristic of man the intelligent and cultured animal who creates his mythologies...

Then it would surely be a bad thing. It would merely be a set of delusions that men were foisting on each other, in defiance of the stark fact of a meaningless, amoral universe. But since that universe would be inherently indifferent to morality, we couldn't say it was even "bad." We'd just have to say we either liked it or didn't, and the cosmos wouldn't care which we decided.

You know nothing more immediately than the fact that there is no 'god' when you see this stuff.

How does a trip into the dark heart of man incline one to the conclusion there's no God? It would rather suggest that man, not God, is much worse than most of us want to believe he is, and much more in need of salvation than he knows...rather as the Bible says he is, actually.

In fact Christianity is a kind of obscenity of reasoning. To know what happens in this world, the worst of it, and still hold to the belief and the hope that there is a singular super being, 'god', that is omnibenevolent, and that is doing and/or allowing all this to happen for a reason. And this reason is 'good' because this 'god' is good.

But there is no such thing as "obscentity" or "evil" or even "bad" in a world with no God; so even in framing the accusation, you have to be assuming that an objective standard of morality exists...and God is the only candidate.

It really is an assault on one's tastes.

Perhaps. But that depends on one's "tastes," doesn't it?

In a universe without God, what is important about "taste"? It means nothing. It just means that, being a nice guy, you happen to like some things, and the people on the websites you cruise like another kind of thing...

Or wait a minute...how did you find out about all this dark stuff, again?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:08 pm
No, it does not require "sensation." One can contemplate within the mind, absent any particular sensation.

Mind is a myth. No human person has ever seen a mind. It's a known concept, an idea arising from the mystery of life itself.

Well you invented this Progressivist Evolutionary narrative,

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:08 pmActually, I did not. It was Evolutionists who invented it, and I'm not one of them.

I'm talking about the idea itself..if you are identifying with the idea, then you are re-inventing the idea as if it was a real for you, otherwise you'd not even bother to mention it..however, you have mentioned it, because you believe it to be a created idea..that you then re-create ...this action is called projection. You are the projector, but can only identify with what you are projecting...why? ..because each the projector and the projection are each the cause of the other to exist, they are both one and the same reality.

Point to the ''thinker'' IC

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:08 pm"Point" indicates a physical action. You can't "point" to courage, love, envy or other emotions, or to intelligence or badness or to numeracy, such as the property of having six of something, nor can you "point" physically to an idea, such as unity or divisibility.

But these things are still real, and so is thinking. So the problem is in the way you frame your objection, not in thinking itself. Many non-physical things exist.

They are only real within the human mind IC...remember, you are here today, gone tomorrow, and you had nothing to do with the appearing and disappearing of you...now does that make you feel powerless? and is why you invented God?

By the way, there is no such thing known as a real non-physical thing...I'm sure you of all people understand that IC

Non-physical simply means ''physical''...ok.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 9:07 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:53 pmWho do you think these conspirators are

Who benefits from men believin' they're just sums on a graph?

and how does their conspiracy give them power?

To control a man, make him doubt himself, erode his certainties, then offer solutions, solutions that just happen to diminish him further while just happenin' to elevate the problem solver.

I reckon you can figure it out...but you won't.

I did indeed figure out your meaning as you made your idea clear as you usually do and I was trying to get you to enlarge on it.Which you did.

I may tell you that intellectuals are not elevated as they neither become very rich or very safe. Often the opposite. Have you not heard of starving artists who won't let go of their ideas in order to knuckle down to convention? Don't you know that school and university teachers are badly paid? Authors of academic books seldom write best sellers! Professors seldom get to earn $$$$$$s££££s by becoming famous TV presenters. Undergraduates get poorer marks when their work lacks originality but is derivative, so they have to work very hard to become successful intellectuals. Mental work is not easy or financially rewarding .

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Sat Apr 16, 2022 9:38 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:08 pm No, it does not require "sensation." One can contemplate within the mind, absent any particular sensation.

Mind is a myth.

Actually, it's the only thing you know for certain. See Descartes: "cogito ergo sum," "I think, therefore, I am."

What else exists, who can say for certain? All eternal things are possible to doubt. But one thing you do know: if there's a thought, there's some entity thinking it.

Well you invented this Progressivist Evolutionary narrative,

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:08 pmActually, I did not. It was Evolutionists who invented it, and I'm not one of them.

I'm talking about the idea itself.

You can't be. If, as you just said, there's no "mind," there's nobody to "talk about" it, and nobody to "think about it" when you do.

You see? What you're saying doesn't even add up on its own terms.

Point to the ''thinker'' IC

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:08 pm"Point" indicates a physical action. You can't "point" to courage, love, envy or other emotions, or to intelligence or badness or to numeracy, such as the property of having six of something, nor can you "point" physically to an idea, such as unity or divisibility.

But these things are still real, and so is thinking. So the problem is in the way you frame your objection, not in thinking itself. Many non-physical things exist.

They are only real within the human mind IC.[/quote]
They cannot be. You just said there's no "mind." It's a "myth," you said.

So no, they aren't real in any sense, according to your theory.

Not that I agree, of course. I'm just pointing out the problem.