Amos

John I don't know how much plainer I can get and I wrote in simple English. I think it is the philosophical concept you have trouble with in which you can't comprehend that God is alive and well within the Catholic Church.

John Page

Amos:

Thanks. I comprehend your statement "...God is alive and well within the Catholic Church".

How so? Because you say so?

[ March 19, 2002: Message edited by: John Page ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

Dear Sandlewood,
Welcome back. And thank you for your well-reasoned thoughtful response.

Agreed. The converse of a true statement is not NECESSARILY true. So if experience is existence, I erred in saying that it NECESSARILY follows that existence is experience.

So I will allow that something can exist that cannot be experienced. I would stipulate, however, that that something is a meaningless proposition, its something on the order of a square circle. I'll grant you the possibility of something existing that cannot be experienced if you will grant me that that possibility is as remote and meaningless as that other possibility which keeps making the rounds here that also cannot be disproved, that orbiting pink rhino.

In other words, the proposition that something can exist that cannot be experienced has as much intellectual status as any negative that cannot be disproved. You can't prove that there is no orbiting pink rhino and I can't prove there is no existent thing that is not experienced. Fair enough?



Based upon meaning. Either the universe is meaningful, that is relational, or it is not. It cannot be partially meaningful and partially meaningless anymore than your wife can be partially pregnant or a life form can be only partially alive. Some things are triune. Some things are binary. And some things just are.

So far, the universe just is, and is totally meaningful. The more deeply we probe, the more deeply we unravel its relatedness. The singularity that precipitated the Big Bang is the very image of something that simply is (self-contained, unique, integral, without admixture of duality, and totally inter-related). This is the very picture of meaning, the very picture of monotheism. Yet you propose that it may not be entirely so?

Let's be concrete. If experience is existence, that is one way to intellectualize the fabric of reality. That is, it is a meaningful statement about the inter-relatedness of this universe. Now if you choose to press the possibility that some things exist independent of their being experienced, then you are also dashing the probability of a totally meaningful universe and positing the premise of an only partially meaningful universe. And to that premise, I return your retort: "based on what?"

Science is on my side, on the side of meaning. Why should I suppose that the universe is only meaningful to a point when, so far, science has yet to reach that point?



OK wise guy, all right Mr. Know-it-all, what would we think about? That's like saying, even without a body I could still move. Thinking is the processing of information. If there is no information, there must necessarily not be any thinking.



Au contraire, Einstein proposed equally impossible scenarios to his friends and the counterintuitive conclusions to those "thought experiments" helped him arrive at his Theory of Relativity whereby the speed of light, not time, is the only constant.



Allow me to be more straightforward then. A knife in the back is a construction of my brain not of my body and iron. It is a mental construction derived from experiencing a series of sensory inputs. The pain, the blood, the weak knees, my memory of the movie "Psycho," all these sensory inputs either arriving at my brain from the present moment or from my memory bank, are processed by my brain to infer that I've been stabbed, when all my brain really knows is that it's been handed a jumble of sensory inputs.

Ergo, my brain INFERS that my body has been stabbed in the back. What's true of the knife in my back is true of everything that we can know. That is, all knowledge is INFERRED because all sensory inputs are relational.



Let's see if I've got this right, "I think" is the premise, but the existence of me is not assumed. Then what the hell am I doing in the premise?



Thinking is a subset of existence. One must first exist in order to do or think or attempt to defend Descartes. Ergo, you do have to assume you exist before you can posit that you think. That's why cogito ergo sum is a tautology.



Circulus in demonstrando! You might just as well say: doubting is not something you can think about, because thinking about it requires doubt. Your statement's premise (we must think) is assumed by its conclusion (to doubt is to think), with no inference drawing argument to tie them together. You might as well say: "I think because I think so!"

No doubt, doubt is a species of thought. So is memory, imagination, and symbolic manipulation. By definition, any one species of thought requires thought. This is a truism, not a truth.



You just haven't met any Traditional Catholics. We were wise to Descartes back in the 1600’s. His books were on the index (banned) the moment they were published. I confess to liking some things he says, but in the eyes of the Traditional Catholic Church, he has always been wrong.



Not even my theist wife understands my theory. But I believe that if it were understood, it would help harmonize, not clash with, theistic beliefs.



1) Thinking is the processing of information. Information is not us, but one step removed from us. Ergo, yes, thinking is an indirect experience. It proves the existence of nothing, but through it we may infer the existence of everything.
2) Being that which we can only in our present state know is the direct more mysterious way of experiencing existence.
3) We cannot know this, only infer this. If we are willing to infer that the information we process is derived from existent things, we should be willing to close the circle by inferring that the existent things experience their being, which is to say, God experiences His creation.
4) If things exist, they necessarily must experience their being or in what sense can we say that they exist? Existence without being is merely a semantic construction as empty of sense as the conception of a sphere without volume.



Before answering what that means, we must answer what existence means. Implicit in the concept of a thing in existence is the medium of space time in which the thing is in existence. In other words, something cannot just simply exist. It requires a matrix in which to exist. In our universe, we call that matrix space-time. It is the means whereby motion occurs. Ergo, existence is necessarily an activity.



Because "to be" means to be in a medium other than space-time, i.e., TO BE eternal and infinite and NOT TO BE bound by space-time. According to Descartes, what is, what has being, is what he called "pure natures." Straightness or geometric shapes or numbers would be examples. Those abstractions are not contingent upon motion, that is, they are not bound by space and time. God and His angles are the theological corollary to Descartes’ philosophical pure natures.



Because motion begets and requires motion. Existent things in space-time, by definition, then, must move. Ergo, their movement must be sustained. For example we avoid the need to nap by drinking coffee, a brick of gold continues to exist as a brick of gold because its electrons continue to spin. But pure natures, or what is being (i.e., God) does not move and cannot be moved. It is contingent upon nothing and so has no need of being sustained.



You are confusing useful information with information per se. And you are confusing the detection of a photon, per se, as non information simply because it is not useful. The law of non-contradiction states that information is the binary mental process whereby we determine that things either are or are not.

Now, if I do not detect a photon, I have information that there is not a photon. If I do detect a photon, I have information that there is a photon. If you persist in your claim that you can detect a photon and yet somehow not have information, then you are flatly contradicting the law of non-contradiction. And that’s quite a contradiction! -- Cheers, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Amos

John as I said, "infallible" means in charge of destiny. To be in charge of destiny we must have a free will and to have a free will we must be one with God. To be one with God is to have the mind of God and if you have the mind of God you do not need a hotline with God . . . unless you do not know who, where or what God is.

The opposite of this is also true and so if a church is not infallible it can not be a church under God but just a social gathering of people trying to be nice to each other until one of them gets angry and leaves.

The proof of "infallibity" is saints because saints are in heaven and to be in heaven you need the mind of God without the saint-sinner complex. The Catholic Church had and still has many of them and they left behind and still infer wisdom for us to communicate with. This in turn is why the Catholic Church is the envy of the world.

Do you believe it now?

Ted Hoffman

Dear Amos
I am impressed by the way you seem to have an answer to every question I have for you.
However, your last response is full of holes and it indicates that your theory of how life "works" is incomplete and not valid.

Amos, when you do not answer questions that I pose concerning your theory, then what it means is that it (the theory) leaves a lot of questions unanswered.
That means its not watertight. It means that it cannot be considered a valid theory. Questions only arise when a theory is either incomplete, lacking self-consistency or not consistent with human knowledge and experience.
From your suceeding responses, I deduced that you did follow the question. Am I right?

I largely agree with what you said in your latest response, so I will just focus on what I find on=bjectionable.

Are you a believer of the theory that Antlantis once existed?

So, who is it that existed in purgatory and shared his experience with the living about what happens in purgatory?
If none, how do we know that purgatory even exists other than as a myth?
This example is not clear: what do you mean by "where" in "exactly from where the previous generation started"? Is it a region, a spot in a rotting log? a hole?

What constitutes a "generation" as far as butterflies are concerned?

Animals move to places where they survive best. Its got nothing to do with previous generations. There is need to demonstrate that a species follows the patterns of previous generations and not survival needs.

What place is that? I know we start from the womb. So please specify which place is this. Is it the same place for all of us?

Wrong. Hermaphrodite animals are not both male and female. They have male and female reproductive organs in a single organism like the earthworm.

So I should dismiss it?

[Edited to remove the female reproductive organs]

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: jaliet ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Albert
In the same same way, you cannot prove that there is God, but even then, it can be proved logically, that there is no God, just like there is no orbiting pink Rhino.
Because the conclusion that there is an orbiting pink rhino cannot be arrived at through valid premises therefore its an irrational and invalid conclusion.

You commit this fallacy because you believe existence equals experience.
I hold that experience is an activity while existence is not.
Because experience requires consciousness/ awareness while existence does not. A stone exists, but a stone does not experience.
Your dead body exists, but your dead body does not experience.
I want to be true to myself. So that means I want to be in a medium other than space time?
Albert, you will have to do more than just say.
You dont know what God needs for sustenance Albert - maybe he takes peoples souls and spirits for supper and prayers plus supplications for dinner? We will never know. The concept of God however needs sustenance. But ignorance gives it the synergy it needs in its war with reality.

And that is why the concept of God cannot sustain itself anymore in the minds of men. As people get more enlightened, infidels increase, liberal christians multiply.

The clergy realised the concept could not sustain itself in the minds of men and thats why they use fear (hellfire) to keep scared people going back to church to have their minds refreshed about this God - concept and to be reminded of blood on the cross and Gods wrath.
Unlike the big bang and other scientific theories, which do not require visits to the lab every sunday.

So you tell me Albert, which one needs to be sustained - science or religion?

In any case, God is a concept(as Amos said earlier). If the concept needs sustenance, God needs sustenance.

John Page

Amos:

I asked you:

You responded:

No. You haven't offered me any information, let alone proof, that the catholic church has a privileged or special connection with god.

I'm not asking you why I should believe catholic dogma, I'm asking you why you believe in catholicism.

Please answer the question.

Cheers.

Amos

There is lovely ancient Buddhist poem translated by Ezra Pound that includes purgatory (sic). It is called "A River Merchants Wife: A Letter" and here purgatory is entered at the "narrows of the river Kiang." Also "A Stange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cilinder" by James the Mille deals extensively with purgatory and is quite readable. In fact, purgatory is all over literature and maybe that is why literature is always Catholic.

Amos

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Albert Cipriani

Dear John,
This is too smart a place and too philosophical a forum to squander on Bible verses. I'm happy to engage you intellectually, but not over historical points of fact.

I'm not interested in looking up the chapter and verse where Jesus told Peter he was to be the pope of his Catholic Church which was to go to the four corners of the world spreading the gospel. But for what it's worth to you, those verses, the patristic writings which collaborate with them, and the historical record are our "special link," as you put it, with God.

How is revelation different from little girls bearing false witness against their neighbors? Let me think. That's a tough one. I give up. I'll leave it for you to figure out cuz I don't want to hazard committing another sin of misquoting you. -- Albert the Traditional Catholic

Amos

Hello John

Please understand that it is never my ambition to make you believe what I write because that would just be like second hand oats to you. In my view argumentation is for the discovery of Truth and also know that my beliefs are never part of the argument.

Here is your question <strong> My point remains that the the catholic church is self appointed - unless you can provide evidence of the church's direct line to god its like in New York when they say "Trust me!". </strong>

Self appointed means "infallible" and I showed you twice how and why the Church is and must be infallible and added as a bonus that every Church must be infallible as a necessary truth. Of course you can't believe this because it is a philosophical concept reserved for Catholics only -- or every Church would be infallible (sorry my question "do you believe it now" was in sarcasm).

Notice that I am more inclined to argue the philosophy behind Catholicism which does not make me a believer, per se.

[ March 20, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>