Antlerman Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 gee i'd like to pretend there is more to it than that Antlerman. I cant argue with you about it, I see the illusion part. You do realize I was being ironic for the sake of making a point? If you reduce everything down like this, you strip life of any reality itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insanezenmistress Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 um i think so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shyone Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 i am comprehending what you said. but can only think to type... oh so it is all mastibatory? and when others want to play along we have "religion" I like the way you think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insanezenmistress Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 Shy one thank you. I have enjoyed your posts lately too. (its my new happy zen dance, doesnt look anyhting like my funky chicken) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev R Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 I think during my buddhist study when I came close to "realiseing" what your saying and would have had to face not being a "self" I ran screaming away. Becasue I could not comprehend it. ( perhaps still cant) Becasue I dont know how to take life if it is just a bunch of chemicals. Which is what alot of christians think of atheism. There is a bit more to it than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jedah Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 So, the question (which vigile has already answered for himself; I’m not sure if others share his viewpoint or not): are there absolutes in your belief system (whatever that may be), and if so, how are they justified? Oh boy this again Copy paste time. ========================================================== A common claim by Christian and Islamic apologists is that without an "absolute" source of knowledge it is not possible for anyone to claim any knowledge at all. This means that you supposedly cannot claim to have a basis for ethics, logic, or an idea about what lifes purpose is without belief in some sort of objective being which governs all. There are many problems with this kind of reasoning. Here is an interesting thing to ponder when questioning whether or not religious people who believe in an absolute being that dictates all have a better grasp on concepts behind reality than those who do not believe... The entire premise that to have such knowledge requires an absolute being rests on the idea that the answer to the euthyphro dilemma is that it is "right because God says so". This makes God an objective being- meaning that all he says is 100% truth and reality. If God were to say leprechauns exist, they would. In comparison, we are subjective beings. Reality is not bended to our will. If we believe that we see a leprechaun during an acid trip, it does not mean that leprechauns exist. It just means they exist in our mind. Our thoughts and opinions on reality are subjective and thus open to question. To put it in simpler terms, think of God ( Objective ) as a game programmer and us ( Subjective ) as characters in his game ( Reality ). The programmer dictates reality and we have no choice but to go with it. The thing about being a subjective being is that pretty much everything we experience or think is subjective. For all we know, everything we hear, breath, touch, and know is an illusion via a system similar to "the matrix". We can "know" things for 99.9999 % but we can never reach 100%. Every piece of knowledge we come across must first be comprehended by our subjective minds. Which explains why we humans have different opinions on what things mean - different ideals mean different things to two different subjective minds that have experienced reality through other perspectives. Ironically, this is why we even have different religions in the first place. Now lets take it up a notch and look at the relationship between a subjective being and an objective being. If one of us was to talk to God and God was to tell us the meaning of life, would he then have objective knowledge regarding life's purpose ? Actually, he wouldn't. In order to understand the objective knowledge that is being transferred, the subjective being in question would go through a number of subjective walls. First: acknowledge that they are talking to an objective being ( God ) - Subjective. How does the person know they are talking to God and not their own hallucination ? Even if He really was talking to God, it doesn't change the fact that his understanding of the situation is still subjective. Second: Acknowledge and comprehend the wisdom that has been given to you by the objective being. Wake up ! You just got told the meaning of life. So now what do you do ? Simple, the first thing the subjective being would do is attempt to figure out what he has been told actually means to him. whether this is done subconsciously or consciously doesn't matter, if the subjective being has any hope of remembering what he has been told, he goes through this step. This creates a problem: No matter what, a subjective being cannot gain access to objective wisdom even if it is told directly to you by the almighty one himself, because Just by comprehending what it is you have been told through a subjective mind, the objective wisdom you have gained becomes subjective to your own understanding and thus becomes subjective in the process. Its the same as pouring water into orange juice, no matter how much water is poured in their will still be some orange juice inside. its that barrier between 99.999999999999999% and 100% that we as subjective beings, by definition cannot ever cross. In other words, even if an absolute objective being exists that dictates the reality behind ethics, purpose, and logic...as far as we are concerned and as far as we can comprehend, it doesn't matter. As subjective being's we will always find ourselves turning to our own reason at one time or another, because that's what we ultimately understand. Even if God were to give us Objective knowledge of morality we would still only be able to comprehend that objective knowledge through a subjective mind. Our ethical standards would still be subjective. If God was to tell us that murder is in fact, morally good, how many of us would honestly just flat out stop thinking about what we feel is right or wrong and go kill everyone we know and love ? Except for the few extremely brainwashed individuals, most of us would try to protect our families from the inevitable onslaught to come. Personally, I would give God the finger. But that's just me. In conclusion: absolute "Universal Laws" dictating what "is" and "is not" are as far as we're concerned, nonexistent. When a person claims they have an absolute source for such things they are making a fallacious argument, because humans cannot know that. What is really meant when a person says "I know for an absolute fact..." is "To the absolute best of my senses, I know...". This is the case regardless of whether you believe in an objective being or not. When you claim that God is your absolute source of *insert philosophical concept here*, you are really just making a particularly well known and long since debunked argument known as "God of the gaps" where you claim a particularly unknown phenomenon is caused by "God". "I have purpose in life because GOD!", "I can be an ethical person because GOD!", "I know the difference between good and evil because GOD!", "I know *blah blah blah* absolutely because GOD!"...all of these are just arguments from ignorance. "GOD" can be replaced by "magical pink unicorn" and they would make just as much sense. ========================================================== Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Franko47 Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 Another way of looking at it is when we tell the child not to touch the hot stove element. The child may place some "faith" in this "absolute decree" from it's highest "authority figure", but once the child actually does touch the glowing element and is burned......well...... We've moved to an even better "absolute", haven't we ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 "Sweat heart, my love is an illusion, a delusion of my mind because there are chemicals released in my body when I think of you, triggering this emotions. And yes, you too are delusional. There ultimately is no 'heart', it's just my chemicals. Yes, I so-called love you, but there is no real such thing as love". Why is that we consider that just because our emotions are caused by chemicals in the physical realm that they are somehow fake? Why do people think that if we put our 'heart' off in some super special transcendent spiritual realm that will make our feeling somehow so much more 'real'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insanezenmistress Posted December 17, 2009 Share Posted December 17, 2009 Jedah said This creates a problem: No matter what, a subjective being cannot gain access to objective wisdom even if it is told directly to you by the almighty one himself, because Just by comprehending what it is you have been told through a subjective mind, the objective wisdom you have gained becomes subjective to your own understanding and thus becomes subjective in the process. Once upon a time i might have concidered myself some kind of prophet, becasue of this objective/subjective thing. I had my imaginary friend explain all that to me. Today i know i was more or less objectifying my reasoning ability. But let me work my way to my point instead of explaining my psychosis. "It" lead me to understand that what ever i learn has to be translated in terms i could understand. That is filtered thru my subjective self. "It" also taught me that when i CLING to "it's" truth or get egotictial about it i turn it into a lie. SOmething like the romans 1:20-25 arguement about how we worship the creation rather than the creator. I also realised that my objectiveisd IT was not an outside of me god, simply because it only knows what i know. And can only translate things i have already learned. I tested this "it" just like the bible teaches us to, and found it incomplete and inconsistant and ever changing. But great fun at parties. izm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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