Atheists...

[Zetetic11235]

I only side with the side which I percieve needs defending, and I do support your right to point out the bad in humanity, and conjecture solutions to such problems.

I prefer to maintain the most objective stance I can. The only way which I can acheive such a goal is to generally take no stance on anything subjective if I can avoid it, however; you have to take a basic stance one way or another, but after that you can take or leave most anything. I won't 'join the dark side', as you so sarcastically put it, but I will support your right to express it when you come under attack from the opposing view point.

Atheism and theism both have their place, but when it comes down to it , its just nonsense in the form of metaphysical confusion. What I see is a monkey pointing at a cloud and saying that it is this, and another who doesn't see it saying that it is not. One makes conclusions based upon what he saw in the cloud and thinks that he is correct, and the other still doesn't agree with the other monkey. When it comes down to it they are arguing over a moment of confusion, when one thought that it could reach beyond the evident, beyond its own humble existence to somthing greater.

[andykelly]

Ok seeing as my last (purposely wordless) post got no answers and I'm not sure anyone even clicked it, I'm reposting it and adding a few words.

I'm emprirical by nature
I refuse to follow mainstream religions as i'm a free thinker
i want to know the truth regardless of whether I like it or not.

I'm reading Dawkin's The God delusion pretty much as we speak - I agree with his writing to a large extent esp his critique of modern day and historic religious induced madness used for political aims

The extremes of born again evangelical christianity and the hijacking of Islam by muslim fundamentalists are obvious modern day examples of the dangers of fundamental religions.

Not only has mankind not got all the answers, we havn't even yet got all the questions.

Where I find Dawkins comes to a philosophical cul de sac is somewhere his imagination has been stunted due to his iconoclaustic stance.

I have an open mind re a Deity, I'm no fan of organised religion (even though it's not all bad - sure its been corrupted and still is but some good has come from it)

Last night I was star gazing - thats me at my most spiritual. I got back home and googled "galaxies" and this is the best link I came across

I defy anyone to look at these images and still claim to KNOW definitively that there's not a God like force in Nature.

SPACE.com -- New Pictures Reveal 100,000 Galaxies

[boagie]

Andykelly,

Man at his sanest is a creature of wonder, the spectrum of the cosmos is such a sublime experience that one naturally wonders of what the source is, is the cosmos in fact that higher power often spoken of. It seems to me that sanity is only maintained if the defination of god/the source is limited to a naturalistic speculation, where we are left in wonder all the same, speculations as to superior beings as creators of all is just silly, there is not the remotest foundation for such a belief. It is true that people involved in religious traditions do, do some very humanitarian works, but so do people that do not belong to such traditions, they just do not attribute their compassion to an outer source. One thing in mentioning free thought, all of these traditions are a group thought, as you know, it is often wonderful to spend time with someone on the same wavelength, the sense of community, of belonging, helps these traditons maintain themselves, it is more than their beliefs that hold them together.


"When fascism comes to America it will come wrapped in a flag, and carrying a cross." StClair Lewis.

[Zetetic11235]

The god that holds up to speculation an reason is the one which is itself the entirety of the physical reality and nothing more. The late physicist John Archibald Wheeler has speculated that the very physical laws themselfs might be evolving. An adaptive, changing reality. It could be that there is some conciousness to reality, it is also possible that reality is simply a machine. It further could be that conciousness is mechanical and able to be synthesized via A.I. and conciousness is in te very fabric of physical reality, considering our conciousness and being most certainly is.

That we are concious seems the best evidence that the physical reality of which we are a part has a conciousness. If nothing else, that conciousness is part of physical reality is self evident, and thus that which we explain is being explained by a part of itself. This is why we cannot understand anything beyond relational reality,i.e. the relationship between physical things is all that we can knowand communicate. Even qualitative things are known and communicated relationally. I do not know if my colors are qualitatively the same as yours, but I know that relationally yellow denotes the same thing for both of us. It is an odd universe in which we live and we are an odd species to think we could know it without even knowing ourselfs.

[Didymos Thomas]

The god that holds up to speculation an reason is the one which is itself the entirety of the physical reality and nothing more.

Only if we demand that we be able to express everything about God.

"The tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be spoken is not the eternal Name."

[Zetetic11235]

Indeed! I was hoping someone would bring up the god of the unkown, the god of the inexpressible. I think that this is the original god concept, why so disparate regions have such similarity in their religious beliefs when one delves in deep enough.

This god is the god I think Wittgenstein had in mind when he spoke of the mystical and of god. We acknowledge this god at all times, and all confusion comes from attempts at expressing this god. Talk about bable! We all speak glossolalia hearing what we want and saying nothing when we speak of this god that we can sense but never communicate!

[Didymos Thomas]

I was hoping someone would bring up the god of the unkown, the god of the inexpressible.

Inexpressible, I think so. Unknown, I'm not so sure. I guess it depends on what we consider to be the necessary conditions for knowing something. If this includes the ability to express, then unknowable seems appropriate. I do think that we can experience the inexpressible.

Heh, at least I'd argue that we can experience the inexpressible. Bable, indeed.

[Zetetic11235]

Incommunicable, I suppose, indefinite when put to relational terms such as language or definite spacial form.

[boagie]

Hi all!

Are these things applicable to the imagination, does not something indeed have to have existence to be known, one can while in the same state of consciousness entertain that one is experiencing the existence of a creation of the imagination, through the imagination itself. Einstein said that imagination was more important than knowledge, and I believe this, left in ignorace, with nothing but the raw materials of the environment, the imagination would deliver up tangiable knowledge. The speculations of the imagination reguarding deities does not have the apparent raw matierals to come to tangiable understanding of the supernatural, anything it delivers up is still the property of the imagination, to be known, it must exist outside the imagination, as in a subjects relation to something tangible. Imagination without these basic materials is nothing, literially, nothing.





"When fascism comes to America it will come wrapped in a flag, and carrying a cross." StClair Lewis.--------think Bush!

[Khethil]

Originally Posted by boagie

... anything it delivers up is still the property of the imagination, to be known, it must exist outside the imagination...

Here, here.

This is terribly relevant to such discussions in my humble opinion.

Thus, to me, it remains of paramount import that I keep fixed on that which I - according to my own epistemological methods, and in my mortal and flawed state - can quantify. Otherwise, we flail about in our minds grasping anything that can be imagined, touting "it's possible! it's possible!".

Where I'm at and given what I believe, I feel I'm best grounded in the reality that we collectively share as members of the human animal species. Yes, let us imagine! Let us delight in all the wonderful possibilities our fancies can conjure!; but one should only stick one's head in the clouds as far as their feet remain on the ground.

<dismounts soapbox>