Unas

I'm 18 and this is my first post. I hope to have rewarding discussions here. Now to my point...

Here's the revolutionary insight: The "God" idea is not influenced by or susceptible to methods of rational, logical, and dialectical argumentation. Rationalistic atheists and theists, both beclouded by a distorting subconscious faith in linear reasoning, engage in utter idleness when they attempt to argue for their convictions on the necessitations of a supreme objectivity. Nietzsche would say, manifestations of Logicality merely cloak a preestablished pathos. And this Nietzschean viewpoint is supported by empirical observation: Has a Believer ever submitted to the bloodless logical machinery of the atheological logician; and has an Unbeliever ever been converted by the cunning inferences and inspired intuitions of the theologian?

Facts are obviously structured and pre-charged by the life conditions in which they arise. The idea that certain things can be decisively "proven" in a rarefied void of hyperintellectuality - in fact our entire unthoughtful subscription to the very word-concept "proof" - what does this represent but a massive self-evasion of wisdom?

Nietzsche basically said: Authentic expansion of awareness, not a dwarfing obsessional scholasticism!!

Kant tried to unveil theological enigmas through the application of scientific formulas. And in the self-imposed restrictions of his system, he succeeded. Kantian metaphysics is perfectly valid and consistent according to the requirements of Kantian metaphysics. Do you understand?

So, atheists will continue to be atheists and theists will continue to be theists, and naive arguments will be built up and demolished, and both groups shall be engulfed by unconsciousness, entropically enmeshed in dogmatic self-reinforcement.

philechat

There are a good number of atheists on this board who are relativists. They would also argue against a so-called objective knowledge or objective reality. To me I have never subscribed to the doctrine that atheism is a closed philosophical system anyways--at least not in the sense that atheism is the objective reality itself.

We need a point of reference for all knowledge...and that's where "perspectives" come in. To me it is less about whether God "objectively" exists or not but what the implications of each perspective are.

diana

Hi, Unas.

Rational theist is an oxymoron. That's why faith is so indispensible.

A "distorting subconscious faith in linear reasoning"? Hrm. Please to define what you mean by "faith" here.

Also, I'm wondering what you recommend we replace "linear reasoning" with? Circular reasoning? Or is there another choice?

Well actually, yes to both questions. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say Nietzsche was full of bunk here.

However, if you wish to proffer the theory that "manifestations of logicality merely cloak a preestablished pathos," I ask you to begin by offering a reasonable method to test this theory, beginning with giving us a definite way it can be falsified. Thanks in advance.

You mean, like gravity? I don't find this premise obvious at all. Please provide the reasoning process--and please avoid the "distorting subconscious faith in linear reasoning" that you condemn, yet make this accessible to reason somehow (I have "faith" in you )--by which you have determined that facts are "structured and pre-charged by the life conditions in which they arise."

Or just further explain that sentence; it's possible I'm just misunderstanding your meaning.

Oh brother. What does "rarified void of hyperintellectuality" mean? Would that roughly equate to "stupid luck"?

Our "unthoughtful subscription to the very word-concept 'proof'"? Please to not drag me into your private hell.

You might consider also explaining how what we label as "proof" is a self-evasion of wisdom.

Are you making the argument--while hiding behind the proverbial legs of Nietzsche, from the looks of it--that we can't "know" anything?

Open your mind. Let your brains fall out. Feel the freedom.

Yes. Now you might explain how we are to presumably "know" anything if we wantonly discard all of the rules (which are, by their very characters, restricting in some sense) by which we know anything?

Your entire argument--while suffering from the very "distorting subconscious faith in linear reasoning" you condemn--is built upon the false assumption that no one ever changes sides based upon the arguments of the other side.

Your witness.

Welcome to II.

d

Theli

Wow, that Unas sure has a perspective on everything. And imagine that all along we were discussing such irrelavent things as evidence and reason, while the world around us is one big fairytale and neither logic or evidence can help us to understand it.

*sigh*

Jobar

Welcome, Unas- that was actually a very good first post, it's just that (as diana points out) there are some flaws in the facts you are basing it on. I would say that religious belief- faith- interacts very weakly with rational thought. Faith is largely an emotional process, not a reasoning one. We try to keep the tone of this forum cool and calm (not always successfully!) in order to maximize the effect that our logical and rational arguments can have on what is obviously a deeply felt part of the lives of the believers who come here. And of course, we unbelievers are also like this- but less so, or so it seems to me.

There have been people who came here as believers, and because of rational discourse they changed their minds (perhaps not only because, but they have said it had a great influence in the change.)

I would hazard to say that going the opposite way- from unbelief to belief- is very largely an emotional decision. Look at the atmosphere of church revivals and charismatic services in general. "Give your heart to God!" Such excessive appeals to the emotions are transparently an attempt to circumvent the power of the individual to make rational decisions.

Unas

Diana, and Everyone Else

Rational theist is not an oxymoron, unless you plan to reform history according to your whim. Plato, Augustine, Descartes, Kant, and so many more - all rationally-minded theists, all cocksure supporters of disinterested, imperious reason as a tool in illuminating God.

I don't advocate the total dismissal of linear reasoning - or reasoning itself for that matter - but that we deflate our quite religiose immodesty and prejudice in the capacity of a depersonalized rationality to effectively de-mythologize and de-mask reality. This is what I call subconscious faith in linear reasoning - the faith whose blindness leads us to believe linear reasoning allows a glimpse into 'the secret of Being'.

What I recommend is this: Not the abandonment of rule-based cognition, but its incorporation into a more humble, unpretentious, integral, and cosmically truthful mode of envisionment. Look at all the major innovative physicists' (Eddington, Planck, Pauli, Schroedinger, Heisenberg, etc.) writings: They all say science derives its methodology from a potentially reductionistic shadowland of over-mathematized symbols; all warn against Reason's unchallenged dictatorship; all quite mystery-enchanted (i.e. 'mystically inclined').

Don't take what I say as an authoritative mastery of Nietzsche. Nietzsche was certainly not a bunk-peddler. Read him first and wait a few years to let his philosophy sink in, then you can assess.

In general the technique of argumentation fails. Sure there are exceptions, but were the converted people really committed to their respective convictions in the first place? More often than not, amid hardcore partisans, the ones who actually deserve the titles of 'theist' and 'atheist', argumentation becomes comical and pointless.

Insight: Humans operate more on the basis of a specific psychic neediness than unbiased logical analysis. This is Hitler's point concerning propaganda, and it is eminently, timelessly true. Humans are not fleshless, feelingless computers. Psychological motives undergird the most sophistacted, intellectualized conceptuality. For example, Kant: scientific to the point of hardness, ruthless in perceptual exegesis, yet laughably, tragically enslaved to crude dogmatism. He couldn't unlearn the soothing lullaby of Judeo-Christianity, because it had been cruelly enforced onto his imagination from birth with the utmost emotional force. This is what I mean by 'life conditions'. If you look closer at atheists and theists, you will find that intellectual systems arise from a quite embarrassing assortment of inner dynamic needs. Therefore, argumentation is naive. Understanding is key.

Marlowe

I applaud you, Unas - the dogmatic belief that rationality is the last and best (indeed, only) way to talk about reality has become so entrenched in certain sectors that if something cannot be reduced to logical proofs, then it is simply assumed to not exist - or at least not be worth worrying about. This coming from human beings who should know from a single day of existence (much less the many that everyone here has lived) that experience is not so easily reducible. It's the old scientific saw - one ounce of data (experience) always trumps a pound of theory. Rationality is a tremendously powerful tool, to be sure - but put the tool to the task. How can a universe that produced us - and we all know how much irrationality is included in human nature, be completely described by rationality alone?

I have never met anyone - not even the most hardcore rational materialist who did not come to their belief without intense emotional interactivity in the thought process and it is a conceit of 'unbelievers' (I think you perhaps meant 'nontheists' here since no one exists without a worldview, philosophy or system of thought, the human mind simply does't work that way) that they, through their rationality have eliminated emotional concerns from their system of belief. In my experience, rationalists have a great need to believe that the universe is systematically and completely understandable, that mystery is in reality 'stuff we haven't looked into deeply enough yet', and to derive an underlying comfort from this as it gives a sense of burgeoning control. The idea basically, that we don't know it all yet, we can't control it all yet - but one day we will.

That some religions make direct appeals to the emotions, acknowledging the fact that this is half of the equation of belief (so such an appeal is not really 'excessive') is not 'an attempt to circumvent the power of the individual to make rational decisions', since religions tend to have traditions of philosophers who've spent a good deal of time creating rational arguments as well, and this material is available to anyone within the system (anyone not within the system too for that matter). That in the midst of a religious ceremony the appeal is primarily emotional is reasonable as in that forum people are involved in the experience of their religion.

betzerdg

UNAS,

I know exactly what you're speaking to here, I am a prime example.

I was in the infidel discussion forum a year or so ago...and yes...arguments are very rarely productive in changing beliefs.

I began my "search" for meaning with certain presuppositions...actually a leap of faith not based on fact, theory or rational...and proceded to add substance to my presuppositions and strengthen my position by adding fact theory and rational to my faith.

And I see that atheists have done the same. Evolution a prime example.... And we seek out information supportive of our views.
"Linear" thinking as opposed to "block" thinking has done much to reinforce the idea that we can LEARN all that we need. Analytical reasoning leads to truth. But, alas, we can never LEARN our way to G-d. ... even though in my perception, the order of nature, the complexity of our DNA structure, everything about our creation declares that there is intellegent design..and an intelligent designer.

Knowing G-d begins with an almost Kierkegaarding sense of "a leap into the dark"....daring to hope that there is more than reason, that our emotional responses are not some kind of primitive survival tools, but an indication of the "hidden" the "spiritual" the "mystical" aspects our our existence. Why would "love" or "sacrifice" or "sorrow" be a part of our language if "survival of the fitness" was the goal of the evolutionary process. How could "courage" or "honor" ever creep into our awareness of life if life is only about the physical.

And if I had not experienced that spark of the divine, that unexplainable stirring in a place deeper than my intellect...I might be on the "other side" faithing (believing) in the incomplete and unproveable concept of life from non-life ...of chance and random selection dictating my existence..and who knows...maybe even hoping that G-d doesn't exist.

Shalom,

Betzer

diana

I wonder if they were the same presuppositions I began with. Let's see, shall we?

I began my "search" for meaning with the presupposition that Evangelle, goddess of the nymph sprites, had laid an egg on the moon and from it sprang the cosmos. She of course wants me to behave myself and has a special mandate that I weed the garden every third Tuesday, but that's just legalism. Let's stick to the spiritual aspects, shall we?

Her nymph sprites came down to earth to spread joy and beauty and bring hope to desert nomads particularly, where there isn't much joy and beauty to spare, but that was 9000 years ago (give or take a few days because priests have occasionally gotten their leap years screwed up).

Since then there has been the potential for beauty, joy and peace in the world, but she is chronically thwarted by Bestial, Lord of Ugliness. If you but look around your apartment, you cannot but acknowledge his existence.

My faith teaches me that beauty will in time prevail, and soon, but Evangelle does not reckon time according to my clock. But my faith is strong, and my reason is built upon it. I feel it in my heart that I am right.

Yes, I grant you this was a leap of faith not based on fact, theory or reason. But after I proceeded to add substance to this presupposition and strengthen my position, I found it easier and easier to add fact, theory and reason to my faith.

Which of course proves how reasonable I can be.

I trust you arrived at the very same truth via this infallible process?

Anyhow, had I not personally experienced that spark of the divine, that fulfillment, joy and peace that overcame me when Evangelle smiled upon me, I might be on the other side faithing in that cruel, genocidal and petulant God who seems so popular today, and possibly even thinking that Evangelle didn't even exist.

I get that, too. I just refrain from discussing it in polite company. And you're right--it is divine.

If you want to discuss evolution, please uproot here and replant yourself in the Evolution/Creation forum.

If you wish to discuss Ye Olde Intelligent Design Argument, please start your own thread. You don't have to, of course, but I for one think it would keep this one from tangenting too wildly.

d

Scotsmanmatt

M.Bell
I think that would be a false dichotomy positing that one must either use only reason or faith. The middle ground and what I take to be the meaning of rational theist is one who argues rationally for those things in their religion which fall within that boundary whilst recognising that their are other matters which lie outside of rational demonstration.

M.Bell
I know your question is not intended for me but for future reference when I use the word, 'faith' I mean by it, 'confident trust in a person, thing or idea' and not, 'belief in the absence of evidence' or 'belief contrary to the evidence' or 'believing something I know ain't true'.

<snip remainder>

Thanks
M.Bell