I don't think you know what I'm getting at. They believed in something before any sort of proof whatsoever. Before Moses or Jacob or Isaac, yet however when God came before Moses in a form of a burning bush, he said I am the God of the Hebrews and your ancestors. How is it they knew this before he actually turned any of them? You dig? Kind of hard to explain what I mean.

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First thing we learn about emotion, is that it has it's price. A complete paradox. But without control, without restraint, emotion is C H A O S.

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Originally posted by Sevas Stra I don't think you know what I'm getting at. They believed in something before any sort of proof whatsoever. Before Moses or Jacob or Isaac, yet however when God came before Moses in a form of a burning bush, he said I am the God of the Hebrews and your ancestors. How is it they knew this before he actually turned any of them? You dig? Kind of hard to explain what I mean.

Er not really, they made it up themselves, therefore they knew about 'God' before he 'showed up' in the 'burining bush' to 'Moses' (if that really happened which is highly unlikely as, correct me if I am wrong, but the burning bush episode occured in the Sinai right? But the Jews never crossed the Sinai)

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Originally posted by Sevas Stra I don't think you know what I'm getting at. They believed in something before any sort of proof whatsoever. Before Moses or Jacob or Isaac, yet however when God came before Moses in a form of a burning bush, he said I am the God of the Hebrews and your ancestors. How is it they knew this before he actually turned any of them? You dig? Kind of hard to explain what I mean.

In fact, I have an even bigger mystery!!!

How DID JK Rowling know what was gonna happen in the first Harry Potter film BEFORE she saw the film eh? Kinda hard to explain no?

Good post Lira, but I'm going to have to take you to task on a couple of things:

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Originally posted by Lira That's because the deities portrayed by these religions should not be taken literally either.

The trouble is that you're opening up a Pandora's box by claiming that certain aspects of the Bible should be interpreted metaphorically (i.e. the nature of God) where others should be taken more literally (i.e. moral instruction). If the nature of God is not consistent with the God presented in the Bible (given that the God of the Bible - as you pointed out - isn't even presented consistently by the Biblical authors to begin with) then it begs the question, "why was God portrayed in this way to begin with"? If God is as you have described him and the God described in the Bible is metaphorical, then why were the authors of the Bible so obfuscatory? If God isn't actually omnibenevolent and omnipotent (willing and capable of preventing suffrage), then why did they paint him in that light?

Furthermore, if you argue that this aspect of the Bible is metaphorical, then where do you draw the line? How to you decide which aspects of the Bible are meant to be interpreted literally and which are meant to be interpreted as metaphors? How can one obtain any truth from this book if the lines between fact and fiction are so indistinguishably blurred?

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Take the Nihilist maxim, for example, that the world and human existence is without meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. This goes completely against the human need of creation and imagination - living in such meaningless world would get most people depressed during harsh times, and would soon lead to our very own apocalypse, as most people wouldn't find much reason on living.

Nihilism needn't be interpreted so pesimistically though. All this philosophy actually states is that the concepts you mentioned ("meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value") are not absolute and that an "authentic" exploration of these concepts begin from the starting point of absolute rejection of all pertinent and pre-existing doctrines. Thus, the nihilistic doctrine states that any authentic "meaning, purpose, truth or value" must be based on the assumption that every "meaning, purpose, truth or value" every previously ellucidated is either false or unverifiable. It's essentially Cartesian skepticism, in these terms at least, but less metaphysical or ontological in scope.

Now - and this is the point that most people fail to understand about Nihilism - this doesn't mean that concepts like "meaning, purpose, truth or value" cannot exist, or that the nihilist must live without them, it just means that they can only ever be authentically explored subjectively. You can't form an authentic value, for instance, if you begin from the starting point that murder is wrong. You must first presume it isn't and then proceed from there (which may of course lead you to the same conclusion, but at least it's a conclusion you've arrived at rationally and subjectively, rather than just unquestioningly inheriting a pre-existing mantra from elsewhere). Thus, one's own value system is created ex nihilo - from nothing or, to put it another way, from nihilism.

Now, if you're familiar with the doctrine of existentialism, you can begin to see how a nihilistic philosophy actually takes shape. Existentialism begins from the starting point that human existence has no inherent "meaning, purpose, truth or value" but from this beginning - for me at least - the most "optimistic" of all philosophies can be created.

From Sartre's "Existentialism as a Humanism":

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[W]e can begin by saying that existentialism, in our sense of the word, is a doctrine that does render human life possible; a doctrine, also, which affirms that every truth and every action imply both an environment and a human subjectivity. The essential charge laid against us is, of course, that of over-emphasis upon the evil side of human life. [...] It is, however, the people who are forever mouthing these dismal proverbs and, whenever they are told of some more or less repulsive action, say “How like human nature!” — it is these very people, always harping upon realism, who complain that existentialism is too gloomy a view of things. Indeed their excessive protests make me suspect that what is annoying them is not so much our pessimism, but, much more likely, our optimism. For at bottom, what is alarming in the doctrine that I am about to try to explain to you is — is it not? — that it confronts man with a possibility of choice. [...] Existentialism is nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position. Its intention is not in the least that of plunging men into despair. And if by despair one means as the Christians do — any attitude of unbelief, the despair of the existentialists is something different. Existentialism is not atheist in the sense that it would exhaust itself in demonstrations of the non-existence of God. It declares, rather, that even if God existed that would make no difference from its point of view. Not that we believe God does exist, but we think that the real problem is not that of His existence; what man needs is to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of God. In this sense existentialism is optimistic. It is a doctrine of action, and it is only by self-deception, by confining their own despair with ours that Christians can describe us as without hope.

(The full text can be found here. I recommend it as an excellent read if you have an hour or two free.)

So, to put it bluntly, I disagree with your apocolyptic conclusions about nihilism. Human existence may be inherently meaningless, but that is not say that it is lived without meaning.

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Why? Simply because there needs to be some organisation.

Why religious organisation, though? Don't our secular societies demonstrate that order can be maintained beyond the confines of organised religion?

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Religion, such as other forms of art, can provide this. Not all people can be bothered to read a code of laws, but they'd instantly read the story about noble men doing the right thing by saving the world from demons.

I think you're being too harsh on mankind. Even if they can't be bothered reading a code of laws (and let's face it - who actually has read a code of laws in their life?), I'd like to think that most people - on a most general level at least - have a fundamental understanding of what is wrong or right. A man with an empathetic capacity will never feel comfortable knowingly injuring another man without cause for instance. I don't think that the removal of religion (or even possibly the removal of laws) would result in quite so clear a moral decline. From your perspective, at least, would the destruction of religious codes cause you to start acting immorally because you knew that you could do so without any form of divine judgement?

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Last edited by Renegade on Jan-05-2005 at 15:46

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Originally posted by Sevas Stra I don't think you know what I'm getting at. They believed in something before any sort of proof whatsoever. Before Moses or Jacob or Isaac, yet however when God came before Moses in a form of a burning bush, he said I am the God of the Hebrews and your ancestors. How is it they knew this before he actually turned any of them? You dig? Kind of hard to explain what I mean.

And they continue to believe without proof. When was the last time anyone saw a burning bush?

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Originally posted by Renegade And they continue to believe without proof. When was the last time anyone saw a burning bush?

I saw loads a few years ago, but that was only cosmy younger brother set the fieldon fire

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Originally posted by Renegade And they continue to believe without proof. When was the last time anyone saw a burning bush?

dude this is literally the dumbest post i've seen in any religious discussion. When was the last time you saw a hippie walk on water in that case ?

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First thing we learn about emotion, is that it has it's price. A complete paradox. But without control, without restraint, emotion is C H A O S.

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Originally posted by ::TranceVanDyk:: scientific laws are not always right 100% of the time. if any of u know anything about quantum physics, and other fields, laws can be broken, and broken repeatedly. and string theory, which is a sub-catagory of quantum physics, read up on it in the other thread. therefore, events such as miracles cannot be said to be against scientific laws, because just as in civil/government law, the rules can be broken.

No, quantum physics don't break any physical laws. Macro-scale physical laws are just approximations of quantum-scale occurances. When you start to move towards subatomic particles, they become less and less accurate approximations because you're asking for more and more precision.

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Originally posted by Sevas Stra I got one simple question or whatever you want to call it. Let's go back in time to the ancienct Hebrews. Now it was their belief there was only one God and not dozens like Egyptians for example. Now how exectly did it involve into organized religion while others didn't? I mean the Hebrews had no more proof of their God than anyone else y'know?

Maybe a good answer to that question is the fact that judaism is not the only organized religion existing in the world?

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1+1=10

Read thoroughly next time and understand why i chose judeasism because it's the basis for all the other religions. And that's completely besides the point, though I get what you're saying that had nothing to do with my question.

___________________
First thing we learn about emotion, is that it has it's price. A complete paradox. But without control, without restraint, emotion is C H A O S.

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Originally posted by Sevas Stra I got one simple question or whatever you want to call it. Let's go back in time to the ancienct Hebrews. Now it was their belief there was only one God and not dozens like Egyptians for example. Now how exectly did it involve into organized religion while others didn't? I mean the Hebrews had no more proof of their God than anyone else y'know?

If my answer is not satisfying I will reword it. I'm a big fan of analogies

I'll answer in two parts.

Why Judaism is different:

Imagine you have 7 people. You need food. You know about agriculture but its going to take 10 years for 1 person to clear enough forest to grow food. So in the meantime you send 6 people off to hunt because if you dont' you will starve, but you know that agriculture is a better way to feed yourself so you leave 1 person behind to clear the forest.

10 years go by. The forest is clear. You can now convert to an agriculture based society thanks to the 1 person who had been working on it all that time (the jew), but you still like hunting cause its fun and you like a VARIETY of food so 2 people stay hunters (a Hindu and a Wiccan), everyone else , converts to agriculture.

***
Why do people see different version of God:

Imagine that mankind has two aspects. A spritual self and a physical self. The physical self is confined to the earth, while the spiritual self exists in a different environment.

The spiritual self is locked in a room. The walls of that room are covered in drawings that depict the story of God. So the Muslim is in one room. And the Jew is in another. And everyone discusses what the meaning of their pictures (archetypes) are.

So a Christian can argue all day with a Muslim and try and convince him to "see" what the writing on the wall says.. but you will never convince each other, because you are all looking at different walls, and hence different writing. It's like seeing different sides of a coin. How can you convince me its "heads" if I see the "tails" side and vice versa.

Hence the problem with all religious debate. People have to stop fearing what it says in other people's rooms. And instead come together and discuss what it means as a whole.

Imagine each religion is a different coloured light. Christianity is Blue, and Islam is Red etc. You have to turn your mind into a prism and combine all these different lights to form white light. Then all the shadows will go away...

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