Reality And Spirituality

[Asimov]

I'm not using my own definitions.

 

Yes, you are. See, smell taste, feel and smell are senses, not perceptions....that is just one example.

 

No, I really am not.

 

Perceiving is the act of using one's senses.

 

As I've said all along, if anyone can truly prove this it would push the psychology and philosphy fields aeons ahead.

 

And as I've said all along, what reason do you have to think that there are only subjective realities?

 

Why would subjective realities interact with other subjective realities?

Why is there coherency in subjective realities?

 

What reason do I have to think that there is only subjective reality?

 

 

 

 

Now because our reality DEPENDS ON THE MIND TO DEFINE IT (aka perception or sensory imput), that is the reality that i am saying exists.

 

There is no "our reality". There is reality, and then there are our beliefs regarding reality. Differing viewpoints do not a reality make.

 

its retarded to say that you know what that reality is absolutely.

 

I know that reality is non-contradictory.

[Soule]

I'm not using my own definitions.

 

Yes, you are. See, smell taste, feel and smell are senses, not perceptions....that is just one example.

 

No, I really am not.

 

Perceiving is the act of using one's senses.

 

As I've said all along, if anyone can truly prove this it would push the psychology and philosphy fields aeons ahead.

 

And as I've said all along, what reason do you have to think that there are only subjective realities?

 

Why would subjective realities interact with other subjective realities?

Why is there coherency in subjective realities?

 

What reason do I have to think that there is only subjective reality?

 

 

 

 

Now because our reality DEPENDS ON THE MIND TO DEFINE IT (aka perception or sensory imput), that is the reality that i am saying exists.

 

There is no "our reality". There is reality, and then there are our beliefs regarding reality. Differing viewpoints do not a reality make.

 

its retarded to say that you know what that reality is absolutely.

 

I know that reality is non-contradictory.

 

your reality contradicts itself because it relys on sensory imput to tell you what is real. because illusions can exist that make things seem real that arnt, such as color, your reality contradicts itself. saying this, you cannot prove that the reality that you say that you experiance absolutely, truly exists the way that you experiance it. so all that we can truly say exists, at least to each individual, is an individual reality which is not objective, or what each person individually experiances if you dont want to use the word reality. though to me it seems easier to use that word.

[Dhampir]

your reality contradicts itself because it relys on sensory imput to tell you what is real. because illusions can exist that make things seem real that arnt, such as color, your reality contradicts itself.

First off, I told you color is not an illusion, secondly, even if it was, how is any of this a contradiction?

[Soule]

your reality contradicts itself because it relys on sensory imput to tell you what is real. because illusions can exist that make things seem real that arnt, such as color, your reality contradicts itself.

First off, I told you color is not an illusion, secondly, even if it was, how is any of this a contradiction?

 

color is an illusion. if you percieve something to be blue, like my mousepad for instance, that is your sensory imput of it. however in objective reality the object probably is not blue. in fact it is just a wavelength of light that is being reflected off of the object, not the object itself, that we percieve as blue. so because we percieve the object itself as blue, and the blue is nothing but a wavelength of light, and not the object itself, we can say that color itself is an illusion created by the brain.

 

it is a contradiction because if what he says we experiance is objective reality then anything that your senses would say is real, would be real. however, because senses sometimes tell you that something is real that really isnt real, then we can say that what we are experiancing is not objective reality.

[Amanda]

color is an illusion. if you percieve something to be blue, like my mousepad for instance, that is your sensory imput of it. however in objective reality the object probably is not blue. in fact it is just a wavelength of light that is being reflected off of the object, not the object itself, that we percieve as blue. so because we percieve the object itself as blue, and the blue is nothing but a wavelength of light, and not the object itself, we can say that color itself is an illusion created by the brain.

 

it is a contradiction because if what he says we experiance is objective reality then anything that your senses would say is real, would be real. however, because senses sometimes tell you that something is real that really isnt real, then we can say that what we are experiancing is not objective reality.

 

Can we all say it is reality that we all see the mousepad as what we have collectively come to a consensus to call blue?

 

Can we all say it is reality that the mousepad appears blue because of the wavelength of light reflecting off the mousepad?

 

Aren't both assertions reality?

[Open_Minded]

Reality = Everything that Exists.

Reality (thank you Dhampir)

n 1: all of your experiences that determine how things appear to you; "his world was shattered"; "we live in different worlds"; "for them demons were as much a part of reality as trees were" [syn: world] 2: the state of being actual or real; "the reality of his situation slowly dawned on him" [syn: realness, realism] [ant: unreality] 3: the state of the world as it really is rather than as you might want it to be; "businessmen have to face harsh realities" 4: the quality possessed by something that is real [ant: unreality]

 

Can we all say it is reality that we all see the mousepad as what we have collectively come to a consensus to call blue?

 

Can we all say it is reality that the mousepad appears blue because of the wavelength of light reflecting off the mousepad?

 

Aren't both assertions reality?

 

Thank you, Amanda ... yes - both assertions fit the definition of reality.

 

Perception = The use of our senses to interact with the world (Sensory Perception).

perception (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language)

n. The process, act, or faculty of

perceiving

.

The effect or product of perceiving.

Psychology.

Recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli based chiefly on memory.

The neurological processes by which such recognition and interpretation are effected.

Insight, intuition, or knowledge gained by perceiving.

The capacity for such insight.

 

Perceive

perceive (The American Heritage Dictionary)

v 1: to become aware of through the senses; "I could perceive the ship coming over the horizon" [syn: comprehend] 2: become conscious of; "She finally perceived the futility of her protest"

 

Experience = A specific act where our senses interact with the world (smelling a flower).

experience (The American Heritage® Dictionary)

n. The apprehension of an object, thought, or emotion through the senses or mind: a child's first experience of snow.

 

Active participation in events or activities, leading to the accumulation of knowledge or skill: a lesson taught by experience; a carpenter with experience in roof repair.

The knowledge or skill so derived.

 

An event or a series of events participated in or lived through.

The totality of such events in the past of an individual or group.

 

Conception = The use of our reasoning abilities to coalesce our percepts into knowledge.

conception (The American Heritage® Dictionary)

The ability to form or understand mental concepts and abstractions.

Something conceived in the mind; a concept, plan, design, idea, or thought.

 

Perspective = The individual beliefs and thoughts of a single invidual human.

perspective (The American Heritage® Dictionary)

A view or vista.

A mental view or outlook: “It is useful occasionally to look at the past to gain a perspective on the present” (Fabian Linden).

The appearance of objects in depth as perceived by normal binocular vision.

 

The relationship of aspects of a subject to each other and to a whole: a perspective of history; a need to view the problem in the proper perspective.

Subjective evaluation of relative significance; a point of view: the perspective of the displaced homemaker.

The ability to perceive things in their actual interrelations or comparative importance: tried to keep my perspective throughout the crisis.

The technique of representing three-dimensional objects and depth relationships on a two-dimensional surface.

 

Original Post

 

The human experiance is based upon perspective. ones reality depends on perspective to define it. perspective itself can be seen as a filter through which we all experiance what we do. when it comes to human existance and human experiance there is no absolute reality that humans can experiance because of that "filter". everyone can experiance and percieve everything differently.

 

Is it not ironic to any one of you that we have found ourselves debating definitions of words which can easily be found with a quick web search of www.dictionary.com?

 

Even things as simple as word definitions can get all convoluted because of perspective - because the user of the word is filtering its meaning through individual perspectives, through ones "A mental view or outlook".

 

When it comes to human existance and human experiance there is no absolute reality that humans can experiance because of that "filter". everyone can experiance and percieve everything differently

 

If those of us, who tend to think about these types of things, who tend more towards being open in our thinking rather than "set in our ways" can get so side tracked by our own personal perceptions when it comes to something as simple and basic as language and the use thereof, then how can anyone claim an "absolute reality" in which humans can access in an objective way?

[Amanda]

If those of us, who tend to think about these types of things, who tend more towards being open in our thinking rather than "set in our ways" can get so side tracked by our own personal perceptions when it comes to something as simple and basic as language and the use thereof, then how can anyone claim an "absolute reality" in which humans can access in an objective way?

 

Open Minded, I thought I said the same thing, and answered this question here:

 

Perhaps our discussion just shows each of our tendency to one side of the coin or the other?

 

There is the concrete side, what is tangible according to our common perceptors, on one side. Perhaps this could be referred to on the outside, the surface, what we can see, touch, hear, smell, and taste, as objectionable evidence.

 

The other side of the coin is perhaps the abstract concepts of what is causing the outside to project the way it does, its character. What lies beyond what we can actually perceive with our five senses that allows the senses to experience it in the way it does.

-------------------------------------------------------

There are many aspects of life we can not validate with our senses alone, that we have come to collectively accept as truth/reality. The problem is that we are constantly refining truth/reality with new findings. We have to cling to something we collectively come to a concensus to call reality, or we could not interact nor survive! The concrete is the beginning and most consistent of this, but do we stop there?

 

Am I missing something?

[Open_Minded]

If those of us, who tend to think about these types of things, who tend more towards being open in our thinking rather than "set in our ways" can get so side tracked by our own personal perceptions when it comes to something as simple and basic as language and the use thereof, then how can anyone claim an "absolute reality" in which humans can access in an objective way?

 

Open Minded, I thought I said the same thing, and answered this question here:

 

Perhaps our discussion just shows each of our tendency to one side of the coin or the other?

 

There is the concrete side, what is tangible according to our common perceptors, on one side. Perhaps this could be referred to on the outside, the surface, what we can see, touch, hear, smell, and taste, as objectionable evidence.

 

The other side of the coin is perhaps the abstract concepts of what is causing the outside to project the way it does, its character. What lies beyond what we can actually perceive with our five senses that allows the senses to experience it in the way it does.

-------------------------------------------------------

There are many aspects of life we can not validate with our senses alone, that we have come to collectively accept as truth/reality. The problem is that we are constantly refining truth/reality with new findings. We have to cling to something we collectively come to a concensus to call reality, or we could not interact nor survive! The concrete is the beginning and most consistent of this, but do we stop there?

 

Am I missing something?

 

Amanda - - I did see this post - and in fact considered quoting it in my last post, and thanking you. But, my post was already getting too long. So I included your last comments - because they were shorter.

 

No... you are not missing something.

 

I hope others are seeing the irony as well, because quibbling about definitions of words that can be used in different ways - is certainly food for thought regarding the original post.

[Ouroboros]

For everyone to look into, Constructivism:

 

Constr. Epistemology

Constr. Learning Theory

[Dhampir]

color is an illusion. if you percieve something to be blue, like my mousepad for instance, that is your sensory imput of it. however in objective reality the object probably is not blue. in fact it is just a wavelength of light that is being reflected off of the object, not the object itself, that we percieve as blue. so because we percieve the object itself as blue, and the blue is nothing but a wavelength of light, and not the object itself, we can say that color itself is an illusion created by the brain.

And again, the wavelength is in no way perceptible other than as color. Sight is how we learned to percieve those energies; our brains take in that information, and interperet them for us as such. And as such, the light reflected off the blue object is is representative of the object, and therefore NOT an illusion. Unless you can point to some objective method of identifying objects...

 

it is a contradiction because if what he says we experiance is objective reality then anything that your senses would say is real, would be real. however, because senses sometimes tell you that something is real that really isnt real, then we can say that what we are experiancing is not objective reality.

The reality is that the brain uses very real physical processes to generate this hallucination, based off some real object or experience, so something is real. At this point, if a person can't identify or have identified the fact of a hallucination, it becomes pointless to bother, because one would have to question the reality of everything. Our senses came about as a means to observe nature, which is to say it is irrational to assert that anything could be an illusion, because unless there is a definite malfuction, the savest assumption is that our senses don't fool us (not taking in 'optical illusions', especially considering how they can be identified as such.)

[its_just_me]

Can we all say it is reality that we all see the mousepad as what we have collectively come to a consensus to call blue?

 

Surprisingly enough...the answer is no. We can't. Prove to me that I exist. Prove to me that I am a conscious person. How do you KNOW I am conscious? I know I'm conscious, but how do you know I'm conscious? You don't. Just as I don't know with certainty that anyone else is conscious. Without the basis that the people we are having a consensus with even exist and/or are conscious, we cannot say that it is a reality that we all agree on blue being blue.

[its_just_me]

And as I've said all along, what reason do you have to think that there are only subjective realities?

 

Because thus far, that is all that we can scientifically prove.

 

Why would subjective realities interact with other subjective realities?

 

You can't prove that they do.

 

Why is there coherency in subjective realities?

 

Again, you can't prove that their is.

 

What reason do I have to think that there is only subjective reality?

 

Because that's all we know for certain. An objective reality is only speculation at this point in time. Does it make sense? Absolutely.....can we prove it? Nope.

 

I know that reality is non-contradictory.

 

How do you know that?

[its_just_me]

How do you know this? What if your brain is making it all up?

As for everything else, well, to assume that everything could be an illusion generated by the brain leaves open the speculation that the brain (read: mind) itself is but an illusion, generated by... ... the... ...brain? At this point, if an illusion is an incorrect perception, then what the fuck is correct? Either everything is an illusion, at which realization I should be able to think myself right out of existence, or there is something that exists independent of the mind. If anything exists independent of the mind, that means there is an objective reality, to which we can anchor our individual realities.

 

The conclusion: Something Has To Be Real. If an illusion does not exist, it must be predicated upon something that does.

 

Actually, this is a pretty good hypothesis...I'm intrigued. Must ponder for a while. Very 'Matrix'...lol.

[Asimov]

Because thus far, that is all that we can scientifically prove.

 

Bullshit. How do you know there is only subjective reality? You're stuck on the same little rock that you place yourself on in regards to an objective reality.

 

You can't prove that they do.

 

If they don't, then what is this that we live in? Why are you and I interacting? Why are you claiming you're conscious, and how come I'm not mired in hot swedish girls if everything is subjective? hmm??

 

Why is there coherency in subjective realities?

 

Again, you can't prove that their is.

 

Of course I can, we have the fundamental forces of nature, the laws of physics, the laws of logic, the axioms of existence.

 

If the universe wasn't coherent, then none of these would be available to us.

 

What reason do I have to think that there is only subjective reality?

 

Because that's all we know for certain. An objective reality is only speculation at this point in time. Does it make sense? Absolutely.....can we prove it? Nope.

 

Naked assertion. We don't know that there are only subjective realities.[/b]

 

How do you know that?

 

 

Like I said, coherency.

[Lightbearer]

You can disprove a subjective reality, like Asimov said, he is not surrounded by hot swedish bikini models at the moment so reality doesn't bend to his will or his whims.

 

You can even make an experiment out of this

 

Tell group A to think, wish or pray that a block in the middle of the room will move because reality is subjective and it will move if they want it to.

 

Tell group B to move it.

 

Then examine which perception of reality is valid. One where you wished and prayed for action or one where you perfomed action to achieve your ends.

[its_just_me]

You can disprove a subjective reality, like Asimov said, he is not surrounded by hot swedish bikini models at the moment so reality doesn't bend to his will or his whims.

 

You are assuming you can control the subective reality.....just because I can perceive 'it' subjectively, doesn't give me 'control' over it.

[Asimov]

You can disprove a subjective reality, like Asimov said, he is not surrounded by hot swedish bikini models at the moment so reality doesn't bend to his will or his whims.

 

You are assuming you can control the subective reality.....

 

Why wouldn't we be able to? If it's only me, then what's to stop me from controlling reality?

[its_just_me]

You can disprove a subjective reality, like Asimov said, he is not surrounded by hot swedish bikini models at the moment so reality doesn't bend to his will or his whims.

 

You are assuming you can control the subective reality.....

 

Why wouldn't we be able to? If it's only me, then what's to stop me from controlling reality?

 

Just because I can perceive 'it' subjectively, doesn't give me 'control' over it....we are at the whim of our sensations and perceptions.

 

I'm trying to find a couple of good journal articles.....I'll post them when I find them.

[Asimov]

Just because I can perceive 'it' subjectively, doesn't give me 'control' over it....we are at the whim of our sensations and perceptions.

 

Perceive "what" subjectively? Perceptions of what? Sensations of what?

[Kuroikaze]

Just because I can perceive 'it' subjectively, doesn't give me 'control' over it....we are at the whim of our sensations and perceptions.

 

Perceive "what" subjectively? Perceptions of what? Sensations of what?

 

uh, reality I would guess...I don't mean to butt in cause I've been gone a few days, but having read through the posts it seems that no one is really saying anything dramatically different, but using different words to say similar things

 

Asimov, with all due respect, (I mean that, because even though we may not exactly see eye to eye on everything I do respect you) I think you are creating a straw-man out of your oppositions argument.

 

I consider myself a philosophical Taoist as well as an existentialist and relativist so I think I'm at least somewhat knowledgeable about this topic. So let me at least try to clear up some misconceptions.

 

No one is claiming (at least I didn't notice anyone claiming this) that there is not an objective reality, but that what we perceive is not necessarily what objective reality is. No one is claiming, either, that we can simply make stuff up and it will equal reality... this would be called a delusion and is not the same as subjectivity.

 

First, our senses, we know they are not perfect, for instance there are many sections of the light spectrum we cannot see, sounds we cannot hear....now of course those things exist even though we can't sense them (objective reality) but to us they essentially do not exist because we do not perceive them (subjective reality) So our senses limit our understanding...of course technology expands our knowledge (otherwise we wouldn't know about the light spectrum we cannot see)

 

Second culture limits our understanding, Asimov I know you claimed that reality appears the same to all people who think logically...to me this just seems like a no true Scotsman fallacy (though perhaps I misunderstood your point) anyone who differs from your view is simply "not being logical" plenty of smart people disagree about the nature of reality (we are disagreeing right now)

 

First I don't' think logic is an absolute, logic is based off our observations of realty, which any good scientist will admit is incomplete at best...unless we had ALL knowledge there is know way to know for sure that logic is perfect... (I'm not saying its useless, on the contrary I find it a very useful tool, but it is not perfect) Secondly, people don't deal with reality logically as a rule

 

I think humans are more rationalizing not rational, we fail to use logic all the time, I hardly think you or I are exceptions to that. And I don't think it would even be reasonable to ask us to examine every thought we have with logic.

 

In any case our culture gives us many of our ideas about right and wrong, Socrates was a great philosopher but still thought slavery was a moral institution. Samurai thought that one must be honorable to commit sepuku while other people find suicide to be morally objectionable.

 

The problem is that, morality and spirituality do not exist in the realm of objective reality the way a chair or table or "hot Swedish bikini models" do. They are concepts that cannot be measured in an empirical way. Of course I'm not saying we can't appeal to logic in a discussion of morality, but many moral concepts, while not illogical, on based on the ideals that a person values

 

Just ask if sepuku is right or not and eventually you will dig down to the root of the problem, is it better to die with honor or live in disgrace? What is disgrace anyway? Why is living disgraceful in certain cultures under certain curcumstances viewed as bad? ect... ect... The question cannot be easily answered.

[Asimov]

uh, reality I would guess...I don't mean to butt in cause I've been gone a few days, but having read through the posts it seems that no one is really saying anything dramatically different, but using different words to say similar things

 

That is a distinct possibility that I have been thinking about.

 

Asimov, with all due respect, (I mean that, because even though we may not exactly see eye to eye on everything I do respect you) I think you are creating a straw-man out of your oppositions argument.

 

Another possibility.

 

No one is claiming (at least I didn't notice anyone claiming this) that there is not an objective reality, but that what we perceive is not necessarily what objective reality is. No one is claiming, either, that we can simply make stuff up and it will equal reality... this would be called a delusion and is not the same as subjectivity.

 

Ok, I agree with that. Sometimes what we do perceive is not objective reality, but it appears that some of them are saying that we never perceive objective reality and I object to that. If they aren't, then ok.

 

First, our senses, we know they are not perfect, for instance there are many sections of the light spectrum we cannot see, sounds we cannot hear....now of course those things exist even though we can't sense them (objective reality) but to us they essentially do not exist because we do not perceive them (subjective reality) So our senses limit our understanding...of course technology expands our knowledge (otherwise we wouldn't know about the light spectrum we cannot see)

 

Yes.

 

Second culture limits our understanding, Asimov I know you claimed that reality appears the same to all people who think logically...to me this just seems like a no true Scotsman fallacy (though perhaps I misunderstood your point) anyone who differs from your view is simply "not being logical" plenty of smart people disagree about the nature of reality (we are disagreeing right now)

 

Now it appears you are making a straw-man out of my position. I don't consider anyone who differs from my view as being illogical. I consider anyone who's reasoning to be contradictory and illogical to be illogical. I am perfectly willing to accept that I am wrong, and I've done so on a number of occasions.

 

First I don't' think logic is an absolute, logic is based off our observations of realty, which any good scientist will admit is incomplete at best...unless we had ALL knowledge there is know way to know for sure that logic is perfect... (I'm not saying its useless, on the contrary I find it a very useful tool, but it is not perfect) Secondly, people don't deal with reality logically as a rule

 

Logic is a study of argumentation, so it is not absolute. Reason is the tool we use to identify reality and gain knowledge about it. People who abandon reason as a value are not people who live as fully human.

 

I think humans are more rationalizing not rational, we fail to use logic all the time, I hardly think you or I are exceptions to that. And I don't think it would even be reasonable to ask us to examine every thought we have with logic.

 

Rationalizing is a part of being rational...and at the very least you gain points for trying. An illogical rationalization is being irratoinal...Shimple as dat.

 

In any case our culture gives us many of our ideas about right and wrong, Socrates was a great philosopher but still thought slavery was a moral institution. Samurai thought that one must be honorable to commit sepuku while other people find suicide to be morally objectionable.

 

Our culture breeds many of the ideas regarding right and wrong, it is our choice to accept those memes.

 

Analyzing why something is right or wrong would be a method of being rational. Just accepting what our society tells us is being irrational

 

The problem is that, morality and spirituality do not exist in the realm of objective reality the way a chair or table or "hot Swedish bikini models" do. They are concepts that cannot be measured in an empirical way. Of course I'm not saying we can't appeal to logic in a discussion of morality, but many moral concepts, while not illogical, on based on the ideals that a person values

 

Morality could be, and so could spirituality. Just because we haven't empirically observed those as facts does not mean they are not.

 

That is a subject of intense debate (objective morality) and something of an interest to me.

[Amanda]

For everyone to look into, Constructivism:

 

Constr. Epistemology

Constr. Learning Theory

HanSolo, I think that basically says what I've been saying. I do like this from the second site you referenced...

 

This idea has been extremely influential in pedagogy, and is usually termed constructivism. (See "Constructivism (learning theory)") Once knowledge is constructed internally, it is then tested against reality the same way a scientist tests the validity of hypotheses. Like a scientist, the individual learner may discard, modify, or reconstruct knowledge based on its utility in the real world. Much of this construction (and later reconstruction) is in fact done subconsciously.

 

These sites probably deserved more focus than than I was able to expend, however, IMO, all that still seems to support that reality is basically relative.

 

Can we all say it is reality that we all see the mousepad as what we have collectively come to a consensus to call blue?

 

snip<Surprisingly enough...the answer is no.> snip < we cannot say that it is a reality that we all agree on blue being blue.>

It's Just Me, what is blue for me may not be blue for you, true. However, the reality is that there is a color which has come to be consistently known by an agreement by all of us, to be called blue... whatever we actually do see. The concrete reality perception gleaned from this kind of objective consensus has a utilitarian aspect in the real world for survival. Please see the above quote from the site HanSolo referenced. Isn't it at least a reality that we all generally agree?

 

It's Just Me, I agree with you on this too...

What reason do I have to think that there is only subjective reality?

 

Because that's all we know for certain. An objective reality is only speculation at this point in time. Does it make sense? Absolutely.....can we prove it? Nope.

This one seems difficult to understand...

I know that reality is non-contradictory.

 

How do you know that?

It's Just Me, how can ablsolute reality contradict itself?

 

 

 

Kurioikaze, great post!

[Kuroikaze]

 

Now it appears you are making a straw-man out of my position. I don't consider anyone who differs from my view as being illogical. I consider anyone who's reasoning to be contradictory and illogical to be illogical. I am perfectly willing to accept that I am wrong, and I've done so on a number of occasions.

 

 

 

yeah, like I said I may have misunderstood you, it just seemed to me that this could be taken as a conclusion of your postion, but I could have misunderstood it.

 

Analyzing why something is right or wrong would be a method of being rational. Just accepting what our society tells us is being irrational smile.gif

 

I agree completly, however the problem is that many times the idea passed to us through culture can be so pervasive that we don't even realize that our postion is illogical.

 

I'm sure Socraties thought his postion of slavery was perfectly logical. Of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't seek to be as rational as posible, the more rational we are the more likely we can see beyond our cultural bias.

 

Of course I'd never want to go as far as to say that I'm rational enough to have done away with ALL my cultural bias, nor would you I'm sure. To me doing that would make me no better than a evangelical christian.... and I'm sure no one here wants that

[Kuroikaze]

 

Morality could be, and so could spirituality. Just because we haven't empirically observed those as facts does not mean they are not.

 

That is a subject of intense debate (objective morality) and something of an interest to me.

 

Yeah, that's a good point, I currently think that morality lies somewhere between objective and subjective....exactly what kind of mix I'm not sure, but if I were then I wouldn't study philosophy and psychology

 

a good example of what I'm getting at would be the moral rule that it is wrong to murder, though this may be objective the question it raises is what constitutes murder.

 

Not all killing is considered murder. In many ancient cultures for instance, it was not murder even if you killed in cold blood if the person was not part of YOUR culture. Do I think they are wrong? Sure I do. But on the same note I don't ' have a problem with killing an animal to eat it. Why not? because its not a human and therefore not part of my group.

 

While I am doing it on a more broad scale than the ancients I'm still doing essentially the same thing, and I'm big enough to admit it...while I eat a big steak of course

[Soule]

ok then. so now that we have cleared that up, lets simplify the origional question.

 

because people sometimes percieve things different ways, couldent humans percieve god in different ways? being more than one god, different personalities... etc?