free12thinker

WJ,
If nothing is absolute, than why do you believe in God. The answer is out of faith. Our answer is out of reason and logic. We use reason and logic in everything, much like the rest of the world. And I'm quite sure you use it in everything else in life, but to you, religion is immune from reason and logic.

Quite simply, we don't make it immune to reason and logic. Case Closed. Now go away.

WJ

Hey numbnuts! Is your Being logical? Prove it? (Describing the birthing process won't get you there.)

Unless you've got something more intelligent to say, you may want to take your little tool and go home and play with it yourself. I'm not interested in playing with either of you alls little dick games. <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" />

brighid

Wj,

You really disappoint me. I really hoped we were coming to some sort of common ground, but this latest out burst demonstrates a different reality. Although there are no absolutes, there are certainties. I am certain that the Christian God you worship could not have existed or possess the traits He is alleged to possess, even if a man named Jesus lived at the time this myth developed. He has left no credible evidence to make this God rise up above ALL others. Atheists don’t worship any BEING – logical or illogical in a religious sense. Although there have been a few men who have worshipped me as a “Goddess” Logic is not impervious to human failings, but I have yet to find any other tool that consistently provides valid or probable answers. We aren’t claiming to know ALL the answers, but we are claiming that logic and reason are the best known tools to discern what is real and what is likely unreal, or false. So, if there are no absolutes then we must judge in degrees of likelihood and unlikelihood and therefore logic and reason are the only feasible tools to make such necessary judgments.

Theism clings to absolutes and specifically Christian theism requires absolutes – such as the belief in a very specific and exclusive God and with this belief comes eternal rewards and the lack thereof eternal punishments. The bible does contain some wisdom, some very nice poetry and a ton of other garbage including divinely sanctioned acts of genocide, torture, rape, murder, slavery, incest, etc. I do not find it to be morally superior or unique and I personally find the example the Dalai Lama sets to be a far superior moral position then Christ ever did.

A

WJ

Bri!

Don't be disappointed. Contradiction exists; 'belief' is all there is(?). It comes down to choice. Otherwise, you raise a very very good epistemic question; what comprises the will to the believe anything? Without sentience, this particular discussion about human nature could not take place. Religion would not have 'appeared' in the conscious mind as a plausible solution. How could it? A little bit of James' psychology of religion and logic would help here... .

Now, you should know this from your teachings of DL. (BTW, are you belinda carlisle by any chance?) Anyway, I agree about the importance of respecting other sentient Beings from those teachings, which is not much different than Christianity with respect to FH & L.

FH& L are very important concepts with respect to your concerns about absolutes. You know what my next question will be, right? Well, I'll tell you.
If Christianity is an absolute epistemic belief system as you say it is, why are those concepts of FH & L the cornerstone or at least an integral part of the belief system itself?

I'm glad you're a woman. Please tell me how absolute, say, love is? Biologically, women are supposed to have the love, caring, and feeling and sentient market cornered. No?

Ok, nevertheless, if no thing is absolute (which I can understand from an existential view of Christianity, say OT), then what does it *mean* to hold and *choose* any kind of epistemic belief at all? I think maybe there is some common ground that can be found in that question.

Walrus

Kamchatka

You Who? Samhain, I'll begin with you.

You said (posted 5/18/02), ". . . you haven't offered anything to back up your assertions and therefore, they are still worthless in my eyes. Do you expect us to believe what you say because you say it?"

Hmm. I suppose that worthless in my eyes part is meant to have that kick back effect that Koyaanisqsti referred to in a previous post. I am not your average "troll" in need of feeding and the worth of my assertions in your eyes is meaningless.

No, I do not expect you to believe what I say. But, I do expect that you would have believed the world to be flat 600 hundred years ago.

You said, ". . . I may or may not agree with the idea that humans have reached the point of 'full consciousness' but once again, I ask you, do you have anything to logically back this up besides 'I just say so'?"

At birth, at least, human babies become conscious. A number of studies have suggested that infants are equipped at birth with a number of movement patterns: sucking, breathing, gripping, crying etc.

There is evidence of phylogenetic preprogramming in infants' innate reactions to certain visual impressions prior to any relevant experience. We can get into the "where" this preprogramming comes from later, but it is safe to assume it predates Free12thinker's version of how his child was created.

Multiple studies have suggested that infants are born with an ontogenetic propensity for "blind faith" towards some reference person. Studies of children lacking the opportunity to project this ontogenetic trust suggest that severe developmental problems result in a large percentage of the cases.

As the child developes the personal bond or relationship with the objects of ontogenetic trust, the child tends to develop an adverse behavior towards "outsiders". The family unit is forming. The child has developed, at this point in its conscious developement, a "blind trust" for the persons of reference, generally the biological parents, and a lack of trust in all others.

It is the reference persons who are most responsible, at this stage, for the developement of the child's consciousness.

Eventually, the child grows to adulthood and in the meantime his consciousness or awareness of his environment has also grown. While the body quits growing, it never stops changing and as a result consciousness never stops changing.

Most human children still become parents and thereby the reference person for "blind faith". Eventually, each human dies, biologically, but they have continued the developement of human consciousness by adding to the ontogenetic pool from which phylogenetic adaptations develop.

The above is a small fraction of the evidence that suggests that humans are born with god belief, blind faith. At this point in human consciousness our survival is tied to this ontogenetic phenomenon.

As a result, atheism must be learned.

You said, "I'd provide evidence that Muhammed and Moses were tyrants, I don't have a big beef with Buddha. The other two, if they are portrayed correctly by their respective books, would seem to be preying on the fears of humans for purposes of control. Religion is tyranny at its finest."

Your original assertion was that they were "dunbasses". Now your evidence of their dumbassedness is that you threaten to show evidence that they were tyrants.

Before you attempt to make good on your threat to provide evidence that they were tyrants, I would appreciate it if you would explain how you came to the conclusion that providing evidence that the historical figures accused of dumbassedness are tyrants would prove their dumbassedness.

After you get done showing your evidence for those assertions, I would further appreciate some evidence for your assertion that "religion is tyranny at its finest."

Don't get me wrong. Maybe they were dumbasses. Maybe not. If they were dumbasses, what is their dumbassedness measured by? Your dumbassedness? My dumbassedness? Einstein's dumbassedness? Their peers' dumbassedness? Humanity's collective dumbassedness?

It would be "nice" if you would also explain why you consider Moses and Muhammed dumbasses as a result of their allegedly tyrannical qualities while a person who concluded that we are all reincarnated until we use up our karma is somehow less a dumbass.

You said, "Even if all is based upon human perception, which I think is a very arguable stand, then how could one still say that god(s) exist when human perceptions have created truth as governed by our own perceptions. The arguement that god(s) can exist because all is based upon human perception is irrelevant, since human perception has provided for things which disprove god(s) quite well."

The infant innately perceives the parent as the person of reference. It is an innate sort of anthropomorphism; blind faith in a supernatural form of reference that, hopefully, benevolently provides for all of the infants needs and fosters the developement of that infants consciousness, up to and including how to become the supernatural reference point.

Parents are gods. They are supernatural powers perceived by the infant but not understood.

I was aware of the atheist assertion that there is no proof of gods, therefore no god belief, but I was not conscious of the assertion that human perception has actually "disproved god(s) quite well." Please elaborate.

Kamchatka

I must go to work now, but I promise to return and respond to every post, especially your Koyness's.

free12thinker

Describing the birth process is logic, as we define it. Logic is defined as "a science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration." Let's apply this to the birth process and our BEING. The birth process is logical because it entails an application of valid ideas (made valid by experiments and eyewitness accounts) and demonstrations, and as such, we can infer that birth is a result of sexual intercourse, and our BEING is a result of such birth. Sounds like logic to me.

Furthermore, a human being is defined as "the quality or state of having existence". When you argue the validity that we are BEINGS, or ask that I prove to you that our BEING is logical, all I must do is prove that we have existence. And in doing that I simply have to define existence and prove that we have such a thing. Existence is "the state or fact of having being especially independently of human consciousness and as contrasted with nonexistence." Are we getting there yet?

Now I didn't come up with all of those pretty definitions in quotes, by myself. I got them from a dictionary. The dictionary we use to define terminology that we use. And as they are defined by us, we can make use of them so long as we stick to the definitions. In other words, before you say that it doesn't make sense, make sure you think about whose definition or reality it is weighed against.

WJ

What is consciousness. What, where, how and why?

Think ex-nihilo, for the sake of argument. Or, don't think ex-nihilo, and use science and logic to make it all make sense.

Edit: postscript, who invented words? What is the real purpose of a dictionary?

Wally

[ May 23, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>

Samhain

Kamchatka:



Well, at least I wouldn't have believed the moon was a jelly doughnut like you do now nah-nah-nah-na-nah-na

Any more personal attacks that you'd like to throw out there before we move on?

Is falling on their knees in worship one of those?

And...?

Is this even comparable to faith in a god-diety? I see the point you're driving at, but it's still non-sequitur.

Sorry, non-sequitur. While what you suggested may hold that infants hold a certain type of god-regard for their parents, the "faith" does not seem to be blind, and I don't think it's even comparable to god-belief. Sorry, unless you can prove that these things are one and the same thing, then this argument has a good correlation, but fails in application.

Actually, it had to do with the actual authors, and it was from a literary point of view. The books themselves, while they have been some of the more influential books in the world, seem to be poorly written. As said, without the believers, they are just poorly written books. As you can tell, the books are full of contradictions and can be disproven at face value quite easily because of those contradictions. Some of the contradictions and ideas are so blatant and some of the stories are so ridiculous, that I find it hard to believe that they expected anyone to believe what they wrote at all. As folklore and poetry, well, they are fairly decent works, as philosophies, well, they are lacking immensely.

Well, what else is the purpose of religion, if not for mass control?

You just love stuffing that straw-man, don't you?

Now I'll be asking you to provide the proof, and prove that this has any kind of applicable correlation as far as god-belief. Sorry, once again "non-sequitur" comes to mind.

It has to do with common perceptions of god, and human perception itself. Through human perception, an omnimax creator is not logically possible. the omni-traits which so many religions hold to be true are contradictory and self-refuting. If a god is able to be explained by logic and reason, and it's known then it probably will lack worship from anyone around. A god explained by science isn't really a god, and a god not explainable most likely doesn't exist. A "creator"? Perhaps. A "god"? Doubtful it would be viewed as such after it is known.

EDIT: Oh, and by the way - Where is the proof for the assertion that god(s) exist because they have followers who believe in them and because they are written down on paper? I'd love to hear the wonderful proofs that you have for this assertion.

[ May 23, 2002: Message edited by: Samhain ]</p>

Pomp

WJ and Koy (and, to a lesser extent, others),

Please stop the insults and various other uncivil behavior ("F*CK OFF!" "numbnuts").

Thank you.