Philosophy Now Forum

sthitapragya wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Dontaskme wrote: I define information in the context of knowledge known.

Humans can only know what they know via the information they hold which is knowledge. Knowledge comes from a human perception, and is therefore illusory since a perception is never how reality actually is, a perception is an interpretation of how reality appears to be. This knowledge belongs to the realm of intangible sensations, ideas, beliefs, concepts, and thoughts. .

This is a typical and false ploy. Not only are you undermining everyone else's arguments, but you are simply also removing the rug from under your own feet and thus invalidating anything and everything you say.

He just does not get that. That is why I have him on ignore. The sum total of what he says is always zero. Complete waste of time.

bahman wrote: The OP does sound. It is based on two propositions: (1) God is timeless and (2) God is a person (ability to decide and act). The act of creation need decide and act which one follows another one. This however is impossible in timeless framework. I cannot make it simpler than this.

Dontaskme wrote:What else is there to do with our time in the real timeless realm where no one lives..where dreams do come true via the myriad of imagined made up stories running rampant unimpeded unchallenged nowhere and everywhere right here now...where life doesn't care about your story about it ...and life just goes on same as it ever was....same as it ever was...same as it ever was...same as it ever was....Blah!

sthitapragya wrote:
What ignorance are you talking about? I understand exactly what you refer to as God. I challenge you. You tell me what your definition of God is and I will tell you mine. They will be exactly the same.

What absurdity? You are the one who has absurdly taken a hypothesis and concluded it is proved without any proof whatsoever. I have never seen anything more absurd in my life.

And Bentley HAS not defined God, has he? It is just a cop out. He wants me to define it to him and reject it, so that he can say, "that is not the God I was talking about." You guys never can and never will define your God. And you cannot accept that.

And why would I take it upon myself? You are the ones who don't know what you are talking about. You keep talking in vague terms about your precious God, but REFUSE TO DEFINE HIM. Well, put up or shut up. Define him. You cannot. You know it and I know it. Because you are doubtful of your definition yourself.

And again, it is your responsibility to know what you are talking about. I know I deny any magical being of any kind whatsoever. Apply that to your God. If he has magical properties like transcendence, I deny his existence as a hypothesis because you would have to prove he is transcendent. You say he is omnipotent. WEll, prove his omnipotence. You say he is the source of all values. Prove he is the source of all values. I do not see any reason to believe any of this bullshit without proof. It remains a hypothesis and that too a very far fetched one.

And just because a thing has been around for centuries does not make it right. For centuries people believed the world was flat. We grew out of it. We can grow out of God. If you guys get the psychological wherewithal to do it.

Yeah. Because any discussion of God is mysticism, or superstition or at most theology. Nothing more. You want to exhalt this absurd discussion to the level of philosophy if it makes you feel better, well knock yourself out. This is a discussion on superstition. Nothing more. IT is NOT philosophy.

Dontaskme wrote:I define information in the context of knowledge known.

Humans can only know what they know via the information they hold which is knowledge. Knowledge comes from a human perception, and is therefore illusory since a perception is never how reality actually is, a perception is an interpretation of how reality appears to be . . .

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Easy answer to possibly meaningless questions.

You have nothing here. No answers, and no real questions.

It is nothing but fantasy- and the bigger you make god the more ridiculous you look.

Dontaskme wrote:
I define information in the context of knowledge known.

Humans can only know what they know via the information they hold which is knowledge. Knowledge comes from a human perception, and is therefore illusory since a perception is never how reality actually is, a perception is an interpretation of how reality appears to be. This knowledge belongs to the realm of intangible sensations, ideas, beliefs, concepts, and thoughts. Or, of mental brain activity. The realm of mental activity is useful for human in that it generates a known reality that is perceived to be real. And life evolved this sophistication process, it was life that manifested the mind, which human thinks or is made to think is required to conduct life. But the mind does not make life happen. It reconstructs it, makes it known. Otherwise life is unknown even to itself. A reconstruction is an artificial representation of reality and not how reality really is. Real reality is functioning automatically and spontaneously without a mind to do so. Life does not know it is alive. Human could not have known they were alive before life manifested a mind.

Life made the brain, the brain doesn't make life. Life is a transformation process of energy. This transformation process is expressed as sophistication. Since life is light the sophistication has to be primarily illusory, an optical and an auditory illusion, a reflection of light, so to speak.When light moves it produces sound, and these sounds later appeared as a word with a meaning. This was the birth of mind, which took place in human. The mind appeared in the sophistication process so that this process, no matter how illusory could be known. Life was present and happening before the advent of the mind therefore the mind has artificially superimposed a false reality over reality as it really is. Life is not an illusion in the sense it's not happening, it's an illusion in the sense it is happening to a someone. There is no one to whom life is happening. All knowledge about reality is illusory. There is no one living life. Life just is without knowing. The grass grows all by itself without a mind to do so.

So man cannot be the doer of life. He is the knower of life only through the artificially created mind of knowledge which life manifested not man and this knowledge is an illusory knowing. Real knowing knows without knowing. Man only thinks he is the knower, he thinks he is intelligent because of his powerful mind. The mind is the architect of man. The mind builds a man. He is measured by it. A mind that is intelligent is admired; it brings a man pride and makes him the centrepiece of society. Believed to be a necessity so that life can function, be maintained and progress. But is that mind free of the unwanted? Yet man is proud of his mind. What value could there be in a mind that can never keep disharmony away? Intelligence is the life that manifested the mind and the body, the body and mind are not the intelligence. Intelligence came before the mind of man. So we are not who we think we are. Life is but it doesn't need a mind or brain to be. That is the only power, the only intelligence that's of any real value.

Reflex wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Easy answer to possibly meaningless questions.

Quite right: the question of God's existence, rightly understood, is meaningless, even absurd.

You have nothing here. No answers, and no real questions.

You might be right here, too. But by the same token, the same can be said about you.

It is nothing but fantasy- and the bigger you make god the more ridiculous you look.

Just one more opinion among the countless others that suggest a preference for incoherence over clarity.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: It could be said of me, but I did not start the thread.
I'm not making any claim for incoherence. You've got me completely wrong. The fact that you ought to recognise that the questions you have asked are in fact incoherent gives utter clarity. Persisting with baseless questions is about as clear as mud.
You just need to think it through, and have the courage to challenge the basis of any question you ask.
Why me? Is about as good as what colour is the wind; or what is the sound of blue.

Reflex wrote: if you understood the classical definition or what I refer to as "God," you would know that "what" is utterly incoherent because it presumes boundaries that make God a being alongside other beings.
aAgain, I suggest that you at least do some investigating before making a fool of yourself. The nature of "proof" such as you want establishes boundaries where none exist.
Your denial of God amounts to the denial of your own rationality.

Reflex wrote:I refer you again to where you quoted me. Apparently, you either did not read what you quoted or don't accept what was said because you want God to be delimited, to be less than the source and sustainer of all that is, so you can control the "debate." You want God to be a person alongside others even though that is not the classical concept and utterly incoherent to it.

sthitapragya wrote: The problem is how do you know the undefined and that this undefined is the source and sustainer of all that is? For an undefined, you know a lot of things about it as a certainty.

Let us assume that this undefined is the source and sustainer of all that is. What is so great about that? What is so amazing about that? The undefined has created the universe and sustains it. So what is the big deal? How does knowing that help us?

Reflex wrote:

sthitapragya wrote:

Reflex wrote: if you understood the classical definition or what I refer to as "God," you would know that "what" is utterly incoherent because it presumes boundaries that make God a being alongside other beings.
aAgain, I suggest that you at least do some investigating before making a fool of yourself. The nature of "proof" such as you want establishes boundaries where none exist.
Your denial of God amounts to the denial of your own rationality.

Exactly. And without boundaries there is no definition. And that is the biggest paradox here. You claim a classical definition of the undefined. This is irrational.

Reflex wrote:I refer you again to where you quoted me. Apparently, you either did not read what you quoted or don't accept what was said because you want God to be delimited, to be less than the source and sustainer of all that is, so you can control the "debate." You want God to be a person alongside others even though that is not the classical concept and utterly incoherent to it.

The problem is how do you know the undefined and that this undefined is the source and sustainer of all that is? For an undefined, you know a lot of things about it as a certainty.

Let us assume that this undefined is the source and sustainer of all that is. What is so great about that? What is so amazing about that? The undefined has created the universe and sustains it. So what is the big deal? How does knowing that help us?

Do you deny the existence of existence? Can you define it? Can you define "energy"? If yes, then you can do what no scientist can do because they do not know what energy is. Or consciousness, for that matter.

sthitapragya wrote: No, I don't deny existence. No one in their right mind would. But why would you be certain that existence needs a source? Existence just IS. It doesn't seem to need a source. It might, but it might not. So why the certainty?

Reflex wrote:

sthitapragya wrote: No, I don't deny existence. No one in their right mind would. But why would you be certain that existence needs a source? Existence just IS. It doesn't seem to need a source. It might, but it might not. So why the certainty?

ROFLMAO!!! You just admitted to the veracity of the God-concept according to classical theism.

Do you seriously believe I am the only theist who said, "God does not exist, but is existence itself"?

sthitapragya wrote: But then why call it God? Existence is a perfectly good name for the phenomenon. And why give it spiritual and mystical overtones? Existence is. Dealt and done with. We can try and understand what it is. But why all the woooooooooo about it?
I am honestly puzzled at the need to call something God.
Wait. Maybe you consider existence to be self aware. If that is the case, then we come back to the same problem. Do you think existence is self aware? Or conscious?