seebs

Ooh, an interesting question. Is emotion a tool for understanding the world? Not exactly. At the same time, it's a *part* of the world. At some times, it is true that I am depressed; at other times, it is true that I am happy. This information may allow me to learn things about the functioning of the brain... so it's part of a tool for understanding the world, but not, probably, in the sense you meant.

Mythology? Mythology captures a substantial chunk of the philosophy of the people who wrote it, which in turn serves as grist for the philosophy mill. Sounds useful to me.

Neither, however, is a tool of the same sort as logic or reason... And in turn, none of those are the same sort of tool as empiricism, or science, or...

Still, as a general rule, I'd say that emotion and mythology are not useful in science, but may be fundamental to building a world view that allows you to coexist with the world.

High Ideologue

And on the basis of what scientifically reproducible discoveries do you come to this conclusion? How do you know that an object of worship is just a metaphorical sugar pill? Here is the flaw in your metaphor. A sugar pill can be known to be just a sugar pill. A belief system that can not be proven to be in conflict with truth and knowledge can not be dismissed out of hand as being simply a metaphorical sugar pill. The best a metaphysical naturalist can say is that they have chosen to believe in their own non theistic world view.

You are engaging in mind reading here. As I pointed out for you above your point is not well taken. To describe someone as worshipping a 'Great Placebo' implies that you are in possession of truth and knowledge based on scientifically reproducible discovery that indicates whatever this individual may be worshipping is a false object of worship. Coming into possession of such truth and knowledge may be possible in some cases. In my case, it is not possible for you to do so. Therefore, there is no threat made to the emotional and physiological benefits I might derive from my extreme views about self and world.

Hiding away from the world is not the answer. It is necessary to communicate with others in order to find those who are like minded and with these individuals form a community of faithful believers.

High Ideologue

What is your definition of a cult?

It is also possible to know the truth that best produces health and imagine the myth that best produces happiness. Are your circumstances really so limiting that you can't afford to devote some of your energy, space and time to imagination of a myth and fantasy that best produces happiness? If you choose to answer this question please take care to make a distinction between myth and fantasy based on mystery and lies and ignorance based on denial. Some infidels seem to be under the impression that myth and fantasy based on mystery equals lies and ignorance based on denial. This is not the case.

High Ideologue

We're putting on,

Our best suit, our best tie, our best line.

Our best dress, our best style, our best smile.

Our best hi, our best truth,

get ready set go!



We're putting on

Our best mask, our best dance, our best cry,

Our best chant, our best spell, our best sigh,

our best hi, our best myth,

lights, action and show!



Ideology

Fashions Reality

What is Ideology? Ideology is a body of ideas, a world view, reflecting the needs and aspirations of an individual, group, class and or culture. Ideology is made up of a combination of truth and knowledge based on discovery and myth and fantasy based on mystery. You are a part of the group calling itself the Secular Web. I found that some Metaphysical Naturalists who post to threads in forums of the Secular Web deny that they too embrace a form of myth and fantasy based on mystery. The fact of the matter is that they do. Quoting now from the index page of this web site: Our goal is to defend and promote a non theistic worldview which holds that the natural world is all that there is, a closed system in no need of a supernatural explanation and sufficient on to itself. There is no truth and knowledge based on scientifically reproducible discovery that you can sight to prove conclusively that this is the case. It is possible though that this is the case. As such, belief in a non theistic worldview includes one myth and fantasy based on mystery out of a number, diversity and variety of possibilities only limited by our creative abilities and powers of imagination. So what Metaphysical Naturalists are doing is combining a finite understanding of truth and knowledge based on discovery with a myth and fantasy based on mystery to fashion their perception of reality. The only thing in question is your ability to recognize and acknowledge this.

High Ideologue

Yes I disagree. Take a look at the preceding post. I assert that ideology fashions reality. I also assert that Metaphysical Naturalists embrace a form of myth and fantasy based on mystery: the myth and fantasy that the natural world is all that there is, a closed system. If you are willing to acknowledge that a non theistic worldview includes this myth and fantasy based on mystery, then I have to wonder: Why choose to include this particular myth and fantasy based on mystery in your worldview over an extreme myth and fantasy based on mystery that produces the most powerful emotional responses of joy, faith and love imaginable?

kctan

Ideology fashions reality ?

Myth & fantasy based on myteries ? What's so mysterious about reality ? Where are the myth & fantasy of reality ?

Take a knife & chop off one of your hands. Use your ideology to fashion the reality that your hand is still intact.

Go ahead & prove me wrong.

Maybe some cold hard reality would wake you from the dream you're having.



BTW maybe you should jump infront of a speeding vehicle & see if your ideology can make you become superman & avoid getting harm.

People who can't accept reality as it is deserved to have reality smack them in the face.

May you live in interesting time.

Perchance

Good morning, High Ideologue.

But then why do you want to accord them the same status as scientific proof?

Not very clearly. Even when you explain that you need myth and fantasy, you then go on to say that other people need the same things, and that, basically, everyone is like you.

Yet you supposedly know that I live in a community of agnostic atheists and have a reading comprehension problem.

If you were presuming that, your statement would have been something like "But you may not have any respect..."

That is easy to accept. The absolute form of your statement, though, indicates that you don't think I have any respect for them.

But you don't explain why.

This is where the ad hominems start in again. If you think I'm being verbally abusive and don't want to respond, then that, of course, is your choice. I can tell you that from where I'm sitting it looks as though you're ignoring arguments because you don't want to deal with them.

Of suffering? I don't think there's a solution (though certainly if people of different religions weren't taught to hate each other, there wouldn't be as much of a problem of religious war). I do think that sometimes people want a simple solution so much they invent one ("Everyone would be happy if the world were ruled by a single government" or "Everyone would be happy if the world were all Christian"). I don't think that'll work. If a group of people did sit down and seriously try to figure out the problem of human happiness, they'd probably start squabbling inside a week .

My point is that people excuse their omnibenevolent deity with things like the free will defense, and yet insist that he should take credit for the good in their lives. Just not the evil.

What is yours, then? I can tell you that I don't think suffering has a purpose (except in highly individualized and rational cases, such as when a doctor causes temporary pain to cure an injury). Certainly no cosmic purpose. Things just happen.

You don't listen to explanations, do you?

Pardon me, I was just overcome with a fit of the giggles.

My statement simply is meant to point out that people usually don't have an explanation for how a great good divine power can exist and people still suffer losses. They have emotional explanations- like "This is a test"- and if one presses them, they retreat into something like "Well, God is unknowable."

1) Not all are agnostic atheists, as you claimed earlier. This is one reason that the word remains specifically "non-theistic." A community of agnostic atheists would call itself one.

2) You implied that bad things would happen to me if I changed my mind and embraced theism. What evidence do you have for this assertion? There are theists and atheists here who get treated poorly, but there are also many who get treated very well.

Atheism is a lack of belief, High Ideologue. Nothing else. I've met atheists who hold political views and views on art that are radically different from mine here. I've met a few who still believe in an afterlife although not in a god. And I've met secular humanists, who hold a belief in humanity that I do not share.

I'm afraid that in your haste to call atheists "faithful believers," you tend to lump us together.

But they're not religious. They don't worship deities or have rituals. There is no specific creed of atheist belief. I've been witness to several attempts to come up with one, and all people do is argue. I don't understand why you continue to call us believers, unless you truly cannot conceive of a world where some people are not believers.

-Perchance.

Perchance

But it's not important to me, so I'm not going to become angry and frustrated.

There.

Of course, you may think that's myth and fantasy. As you will .

Your thanking others for their help seems, though, just to consist of saying, "That doesn't invalidate my argument. Thank you."

You seem unwilling to consider the possiblity that you might be wrong. (Note the word seem).

Because you came here saying, among other things, "Please prove to me that a DEE doesn't exist."

People told you this was impossible.

You said, "Therefore, a DEE exists."

This is the fallacy of argumentum ad ignorantium (if something hasn't been disproven, it must exist). This is simply not true. Logic works the other way. If I haven't received proof I consider viable, I won't consider something to exist. I haven't received proof of the DEE. Though you talk about scientific proof, you have not offered it.

I have nothing to prove to you, because I am not making the positive assertion. You are, and instead you are trying to reverse the argument and shift the burden of proof.

Sorry.

:sigh:

Overly dramatic language.

You have yet to prove that there is any community of agnostic atheists. Even when you quoted from the Secular Web's introductory statement, you quoted "nontheistic," and somehow you want that to mean the same thing as "agnostic atheist." I am somewhat puzzled that you would do this, given how closely you relied on dictionary definitions earlier. Why try to twist words?

Also, note how you qualify your preceding statement. First it was "my ideas." Now it is "the arguments of agnostic theists as a class," which is something quite different. I have heard many agnostic theist arguments. Yours are actually quite close to pure theist arguments ("Prove to me that God doesn't exist," "I'm happy believing in God," and "You can't believe in God unless you're willing to see him" are some of these). And the very fact that there are atheists and agnostic atheists here talking to you proves that not everyone "flees" from your ideas. Or do you consider them to flee unless they convert?

May be interpreted. But they can also be interpreted in other ways.

Are you willing to acknowledge they can be interpreted in millions, probably billions, of other ways?

-Perchance.

Arvel Joffi

I absolutely believe in the possiblity of an eternal essence, but what does dark matter have to do with it?

I can't help but be reminded of my elementary school friend's theory that Heaven exists behind black holes. It's impossible to enter it alive, so that's a good place for it.

High Ideologue

Why do you claim that I accord mythical theories the same status as scientific proof?

Where do you get these ideas from?

Once again you display for all to read a misrepresentation of my ideas that might indicate you have reading comprehension problem. I did not say that you live in a community of agnostic atheists. I said you are a member of a community of agnostic atheists. Go back and look for yourself if you don't believe me. I can only speculate about your reasons for repeatedly misrepresenting my ideas. Maybe I should just ask you: Why do you keep misrepresenting my ideas and arguments?

I will answer all arguments. I will not answer the same arguments over and over again. I will not defend arguments I didn't make. I will not try to prop up straw men you knock down. I don't really care about how things look from where you are sitting. If you continue to engage in repetitive questioning and if you continue to make rebuttals to my ideas by misrepresenting my ideas, setting up straw men and knocking these down then I will ignore you. I don't need to respond to verbal abusive and or logical fallacies.

I think we are all life forms in a self-consuming biosphere divided by a conflict of predator and prey. Some communities of faithful believers self organizing around gnostic theism project the discovery of this conflict of predator and prey into myth and fantasy as a conflict of their good one and evil one here on Earth. Would eliminating their myth and fantasy about their good one at war with their evil one here on Earth eliminate the conflict of predator and prey that divides our self-consuming biosphere? I don't think so.

For my answer read chapter 21 of the House of Ideology Manifesto entitled 'Why Does One Suffer?'. It is available for you to read for free at Http://www.4iam.org .

Finally you make a good point. Yes it is important to make a distinction between agnostic atheism and Metaphysical Naturalism. Metaphysical Naturalists embrace a worldview that includes the myth and fantasy that the natural world is all that there is. Agnostic atheism simply have no belief in God or Gods. Fine the Secular Web is not a community of agnostic atheists per se. Let us put aside the Secular Web for the moment. Are there any authors you look to for inspiration and leadership as ideological authorities well versed in agnostic atheism? You mentioned the II Library earlier. Who you do look to for inspiration as an agnostic atheist? Do you have relationships with business associates, friends, and or family members that are also agnostic atheists? How about John Lennon? Is he one of your heroes? What in your mind constitutes a community? You may think that you are not a faithful believer in anything. The fact of the matter is that you are a faithful believer in an agnostic atheistic approach to making up your mind about self and world. To you this is the way, the truth, and the light.

I said something to the effect that if achieving and maintaining high status in a community of faithful believers self organizing around agnostic atheism is your goal and hearts desire in life then embracing theism possibly would not bring you the most powerful emotional responses of happiness.

It stands to reason. Members of a community of faithful believers self organizing around belief in an agnostic atheistic approach to making up their minds about self and world would be expected to adhere a standard of conduct that includes something similar to the following rule: 'Thou shalt not have a belief in God or Gods'. If a member breaks this rule they have transgressed and will be punished with low status, reading assignments and or lengthy lectures. If they refuse to return to conformity to this standard of conduct then the deviant member will no longer be an agnostic atheist. A deviant member will be ostracized or at the very least marginalized. If the deviant member has devoted their entire life to building relationships with other agnostic atheists and their deviation from this standard of conduct is blatant enough, then it is possible the deviant member may find him or her self without the relationships and support he or she had come to rely upon. Pain of leaving a community of faithful believers self organizing around belief in an agnostic atheistic approach to making up their minds about self and world would however the opportunity to seek out those who are like minded. Ultimately, such a deviant member of a community of faithful believers self organizing around a belief in an agnostic atheistic approach to making up their minds about self and world might find happiness and high status in a community of faithful believers self-organized around theism.