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-- The Belief Spectrum
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they believe because they simply believe.

i know you don't understand that, but it isn't for you to understand.

it is really that simple.

who are you to challenge anything someone chooses to believe even if they are wrong? Think about it very carefully.

No, people believe because they want to. They see evidence because they want to. I don't know about you, but this suggests that people will blindly follow most any doctrine that's presented to them in a proper social setting should it adequately tickle their need to perceive reality in a more favourable way - there is nothing wrong with this desire whatsoever, as I suppose that almost everybody does it in one way or another, but getting some people to admit this often turns out entertaining.

quote:

Originally posted by elFreak who are you to challenge anything someone chooses to believe even if they are wrong?

Just the same - who are they to say that their perceptions are justified by their faith?

Truly, nobody is anybody. But when your world perspective involves me and where my life is heading, I think the disdain is just as prevalent, only theirs is dressed up in more kitsch than a wedding cake.

put it this way, what is worse:

wanting to believe or needing to feel like you are right?

refers you back to the third reich neo paganism discussion

quote:

Originally posted by elFreak put it this way, what is worse: wanting to believe or needing to feel like you are right?

In a political and historical sense, I fail to see the difference.

quote:

refers you back to the third reich neo paganism discussion

See? There is so little difference. They wanted to believe, so they imposed their world view - they needed to feel "right" because they were social animals. Any given society could succumb to the exact same thing, and likely will again.

I think we can all agree that we should just spend a night in Rapecity.

quote:

Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On In a political and historical sense, I fail to see the difference. See? There is so little difference. They wanted to believe, so they imposed their world view - they needed to feel "right" because they were social animals. Any given society could succumb to the exact same thing, and likely will again.

in a political and historical sense you are arguing for the sake of arguing.

quote:

Originally posted by enydo I think we can all agree that we should just spend a night at the Roxbury.

Fixed.

"let it be"

- john lennon

"peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time"

-jesus christ (of latter day saints)

John Lennon was a fucking untalented idiot, AND THAT'S MY PERSONAL BELIEF WHO WOULD YOU BE TO SAY OTHERWISE LOLCOLZDFD

trent resnor is marrying a tranny.

He always did have a thing for ethnics.

I think everyone is just astounded she isn't a guy. I mean, yeah, she has a cock, but she doesn't look like a dude, yaknow?

"who let the dogs out? who? who? who?"

-ania's neighbor.

quote:

Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov To put it in spiritual terms perhaps, but it also sounds a great deal like Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, where 'God' is simply virtue, and man becomes closer to 'God' by striving to be more virtuous.

well that's certainly one of the things i think god is.

moral hazard is correct in that i consider the hindu concept of brahman to be closest to my conception of truth (at the moment at least, lol)

also i don't mean truth in the sense of right/wrong, but rather the ultimate nature of everything.

i really have no idea if it's possible to know this truth, pkc, and yes, it is always an approximation. i think the only truth that might be knowable is that the truth is unknowable, if that makes sense.. and that's more or less what i think separates 'spiritual' people from simple followers of dogmatic belief structures.


and to the snide 'life has to have a meaning' fellow:

this isn't a meaning it is the essence of the thing itself.

the most beautiful mystery to experience is to just realize you are existing. it blows my mind every time. ps, i like that word 'realize'. it is implicit in the word that everytime you 'realize' something you are participating in a creative act.

some scientists make a big deal about how improbable it is that organic compounds could have evolved to such degree and that this is somehow amazing.

for me the most incredible thing is that anything exists at all. it's really easy to take this for granted, but when you think about it, it's really fucking incredible that anything exists at all, regardless of how it exists.

quote:

Originally posted by elFreak faith is a system of beliefs and is completely unrelated to being a system of facts. The same can be applied as much to atheists/agnostics as it can be applied to any form of faith.

no.

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade Atheism simply constitutes a "disbelief" in the notion of God. Nothing about atheism states with any certainty that "there is definately no God", rather, to be in atheist is merely to say: "given everything I have experienced, I have experienced nothing that would positively indicate the existence of any deity". Thus there is no faith in this position anymore than there is faith in most other negative, ontological/metaphysical statements. Scepticism (or lack of faith) is the opposite of faith. For me to say "that chair does not exist" is to make a negative ontological claim, and marks a position of scepticism rather than a position of faith. You may argue that it requires faith to deny the existence of that chair, but then I'd argue how? Such a negative ontological claim requires the denial of faith in our senses, not faith in anything specific. To deny the existence of that chair - or of that God - requires the exact opposite of faith, namely scepticism. The point of all this is merely to show that it requires no faith (or no faith in any particular piece of knowledge) to become an atheist, and thus the position of agnosticism - insofar as agnosticism is the rejection of possibility of knowledge with such regards to such things - is not really all that different from atheism. As I say, no atheist claims to "know", or have "faith in" the fact that God doesn't exist, because it takes no knowledge or faith to make a negative ontological claim. In fact, we're all born atheists: it's the default position. From this perspective then, we can see how atheism and agnosticism are really the same thing: both make negative-ontological claims, both deny the existence of a God.

(im lazy and he's far smarter than i am.)

There's really no effective way to argue with that.

quote:

Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN Atheism simply constitutes a "disbelief" in the notion of God. Nothing about atheism states with any certainty that "there is definately no God", rather, to be in atheist is merely to say: "given everything I have experienced, I have experienced nothing that would positively indicate the existence of any deity". Thus there is no faith in this position anymore than there is faith in most other negative, ontological/metaphysical statements. Scepticism (or lack of faith) is the opposite of faith. For me to say "that chair does not exist" is to make a negative ontological claim, and marks a position of scepticism rather than a position of faith. You may argue that it requires faith to deny the existence of that chair, but then I'd argue how? Such a negative ontological claim requires the denial of faith in our senses, not faith in anything specific. To deny the existence of that chair - or of that God - requires the exact opposite of faith, namely scepticism. The point of all this is merely to show that it requires no faith (or no faith in any particular piece of knowledge) to become an atheist, and thus the position of agnosticism - insofar as agnosticism is the rejection of possibility of knowledge with such regards to such things - is not really all that different from atheism. As I say, no atheist claims to "know", or have "faith in" the fact that God doesn't exist, because it takes no knowledge or faith to make a negative ontological claim. In fact, we're all born atheists: it's the default position. From this perspective then, we can see how atheism and agnosticism are really the same thing: both make negative-ontological claims, both deny the existence of a God.

i'm not sure every atheist shares that exact belief, and agnosticism does not deny the existence of god.

But surely agnostics can at least recognize that there is greater reason to doubt that in which there is not yet any indisputable proof for, and is otherwise the result of cultural phenomenon rather than reliable observation, no? And I mean a 'God' in the physical, open to consensus sort of deity - not your metaphysical perceptual sensibilities.

#5

I don't think most religious people would say that God is "physical."

I'm not going to jump into this whole thing because I'll get into it with at least one person and wont be able to get myself off the computer.

The whole concept of "knowing" that God exists or doesn't is a fascinating one, but I've come to an interesting realization that only a theist can know if God exists for certain, hypothetically of course.

I am as skeptical about religious visions and experiences as the next guy, but if you think about it an atheist can never have a single experience that confirms the non-existence of God, where as a theist could in fact have such an experience and have it be confirmed for them 100%. Of course no one would believe them, but why would they care if the experience was a genuine one?

On the other hand I suppose an atheist could say that every passing moment that they don't receive confirmation of God's existence is an equally valid experience as a theist might experience through a one time vision or experience.

I'm actually reading God Delusion right now. Most of the first half which talks about why God, atleast the theistic God, does not exist is very interesting. I'd rank myself 6 or 7 on his scale, if I were to consider this type of God. But when it comes to a concept such as the Hindu Brahman, I'm an agnostic. But I'd assume the realization of "Brahman" or the ultimate "truth" would really mean getting a profound insight into a theory-of-everything, something which physicists are hoping to discover. It's probably gona be something on these lines and i'm pretty certain the chances of the existance of "Brahman" are high.

I'm a little bit skeptic about other half of the book that begins from the chapter on roots of religion and then moves on to addressing morality and those things. Dawkins claims that religion is a by product of our childhood inclination to accept, without questioning, what our parents teach us about the environment. Things like warning not to swim in a crocodile infested river or something like that, which is important from the child's survival perspective. And then parents talk about religion in the same vein, and the children accept it without any questions...thus keeping religion into existance, which otherwise would have died a Darwinian death. This kind of argument appears to be simplistic.

He's put forth some interest thoughts as to why people tend to be altruistic and what Darwinian advantage acts of altruism have on survival. Or for that matter, his thoughts on how morality is independent of religious thought. I found these arguments refreshingly different and very interesting indeed...but I don't know. Are theories like these gaining general acceptance in the scientific community ? Meaning, are we getting more scientific evidence to support these arguments ?

If you find Dawkins' ideas to be interesting, I'd also recommend a book by Howard Bloom (not a scientist, just so you know) called The Lucifer Principle. It basically correlates our moral and religious foundations in terms of memes (what Dawkins is on about), but also poses a critique of Dawkins, as well as some of his own ideas considering historical movements and events. It's not hard, empirical science or anything, but I felt it was a great read nevertheless.

quote:

Originally posted by Ridexer What is god?

Baby don't hurt me.. don't hurt me.. no more



that was your cue meat

I'm thrashing somewhere between

1.61803399 and 3.14159265

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