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Understanding the universe: concepts of life, existence and so forth (pg. 5)
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
I'm afraid you must be suffering from affirmation bias. The author of that book merely tried to make as many disjointed pseudo-philosophical assertions as possible, and tried to put them as vaguely as possible so that everyone was bound to find a few sentiments that they could come to agreement with.
In terms of any type of logical analysis, however, there are so many non sequiturs involved that it would take a book of equal volume just to point them all out. Few assertions are supported by facts, or any type of logical deduction. Instead, rhetorical tricks are used to obfuscate the point being made and hide the lack of an actual set of premises or valid reasoning behind the conclusion. |
That may very well be true - but keep in mind that this is a statement attempting to explain EVERYTHING. The everything-ness of the moment is inexplicable save for the subjection of the individual - so you see, the premise was fallacious from the very beginning, but in good fun, the author tried to humor us by implicating a universal relativity towards logic, itself. I believe that it is a limitation to view statements such as this at absolute face-value; you must expand on them somehow and find your own conclusions in life - statements such as these can only serve a person for what they are, and all else should be left behind. I'm not saying there aren't gaps in the argument (there ARE), but taking what I can from this is all that I can do - by the very definition thereof ;)
Perhaps I'm bringing this further than the author even did, but isn't that often-times the point of such writings/threads? |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by Renegade
Which parts specifically? From here it just looks like a load of intentionally obfuscatory nonsense disguised as a pseudo-philosophy. As I said to Magnetonium, specify an issue you wish to discuss - in your own words - and I'm quite happy to discuss it. I will not, however, trawl through endless paragraphs of neon-orange text for some supposedly profound observation that doesn't actually seem to exist.
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I was referring to the part where the author spoke of (essentially) inertial reference points and Einsteinian concepts - movement of the Universe and the fallcy that is time. Perhaps you missed that when you weren't "trawl[ing] through endless paragraphs of neon-orange text"?
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So let me get this straight:
- There is a God.
- Part of God is me.
- That part of me is distributed throughout mankind.
- That part of mankind is "perfection".
- The only people who cannot see this perfection are those who refuse to "open their eyes".
First prove that God exists, then prove that part of my being is inherently constituted by God in some way, then prove that there is a comonality in this constitution shared by all of mankind, then define "perfection", prove that it exists in - and is common to - all men, then show how this somehow completes the circular logic by proving that God exists.
Maybe my eyes aren't "open" enough, but none of this makes sense on any sort of level. Once again, I fear that you're just being intentioanlly obfuscatory to avoid direct and frank discussion.
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Hehehe - I'm not going to try to argue my way out of this one - you've found a loophole - good for you. Now who is here to reward you for that finding? Who is here to give you a treat and pat you on your head? I'm not one big on instilling 'the fear of god' unto people, as I don't believe that God is (specifically) fear-inducing; rather, the human condition beckons for us to focus on what we truly desire in life. A utilitarian such as myself could never bring myself to seperate conclusions - not consciously desiring to do so, anyways. :stongue:
Bridging the gap in this circular arguemnt though, is the ever-provactive faith. You have to take that leap to find the perfection in people - that is the path towards God. Pascal's Wager aside, I believe that it turns out to be a very rewarding experience - living with faith. It is an (eventually) fallible condition, but one that has the potential for infinity - a contradiction of itself, if you will...sort of like God, itself.
I won't pretend to be sure about this, though - it's where my journey to convince anyone of anything ends. My egoism knows a boundary, for once :wtf: Finding your own conclusions in life, though, will be the ultimate reward. ;)
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Hey, I'm always up for a theological debate - ask anyone who's ever seen me post on these forums. What I will not do, however, is trawl through large passages of nonsensical text cut and pasted from some book, just to highlight the intellectual laziness of the original poster. Like I said, if there's any issues you want to discuss, raise them concisely and in your own words. I'm not going to debate Mr. Neale Donald Walsch via proxy, you understand?
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Which is exactly why I don't think the original poster intended for this to turn into a debate. This is a forum, yes, but the COR is far from the realms of Socratic reasoning. :stongue: |
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| TheVrk |
| quote: | Originally posted by Spacey Orange
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WOW, fer real:rolleyes: |
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| Magnetonium |
| I am not very good at arguments, so all I did is provide you with facts, or whatever you want to call those statements. The point is, the first 3 posts by me didnt do much in terms of answers, so thats why reading on is nice - you get to see a better picture of whats going on. Honestly, I dont know what to believe - I am confused. My life is hard as it is at the moment, and I never talked to God myself, and when I try to talk (I dont know how), I dont seem to be able to start a conversation. So who knows ... the point is, a lot of arguments in the book make a lot of sense. Thats why I wrote how our "time" on Earth works in the book, how complicated it is, how senseless, useless and stupid our time idea is. And I dont think these arguments typed from the book by me are any dumber - in fact, they MAKE MORE SENSE THAN WHAT WHAT HUMANS ARE DOING RIGHT NOW. |
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| Magnetonium |
Quotes from the book, from ALL THAT IS/ALL THAT IS NOT
"All of life is a process of deciding WHO YOU ARE, and experiencing that. As you keep expanding your vision, you make up new rules to cover that! As you keep enlarging your idea about your Self, you create new do's and don'ts, yeses and nos to enclircle that. These are the boundaries that "hold in" something which cannot be held in. You cannot hold in you, because you are as boundless as the Universe. Yet you can create a concept about your boundless self by imagining, and then accepting, boundaries. In a sense, this is the only way you can know yourself as anything in particular. That which is boundless is boundless. That which is limitless is limitless. It cannot exist anywhere, because it is everywhere. It is everywhere, it is nowhere in particular. God is everywhere. Therefore, God is nowhere in particular, because to be somewhere in particular, God would have to not be somewhere else - which is not possible for God. There is only one thing that is not possible for God, and that is for God not to be God. God cannot NOT BE. Nor can GOD not be like itself. God cannot "un-God" itself. I am everywhere, and thats all there is to it. And since I am everywhere, I am nowhere. And if I am NOWHERE, where am I?
NOW HERE.
Since some of you think there are no facts, try to dispove this paragraph ... go on, I mean, its all lies ... its not true, because ignorance says its not true. Or is it just beautiful words make it look so true? Ah? |
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| ierxium |
| You're taking this book way too seriously. Look in other places. A book is nothing unless you can compare it with others. And then you might be able to discuss what you have gathered. Don't be an echo. |
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| Flyboy217 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
I'm afraid you must be suffering from affirmation bias. |
Er... that's confirmation bias.
Anyway, do carry on. |
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| Magnetonium |
| quote: | Originally posted by ierxium
You're taking this book way too seriously. Look in other places. A book is nothing unless you can compare with others. And then you might be able to discuss what you have gathered. Don't be an echo. |
Yeah, I guess I see what you mean. Who is interested in me continuing typing up interesting quotations from the book? I guess, I'd say about 20% of people who say this thread actually found it understandable, agreeable or good. Its a waste of time. But when, as I said before, there is no such thing as time - we all live in the Eternal Moment Of Now. I am in the past, the present and the future. I am Now.
See, I am learning from the book. Yes, I am sounding like an echo. So thats why I am asking everyone who is involved, what should I do know, with regards to this thread? |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by Flyboy217
Er... that's confirmation bias. |
True. :D |
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| Halcyon+On+On |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
Yeah, I guess I see what you mean. Who is interested in me continuing typing up interesting quotations from the book? I guess, I'd say about 20% of people who say this thread actually found it understandable, agreeable or good. Its a waste of time. But when, as I said before, there is no such thing as time - we all live in the Eternal Moment Of Now. I am in the past, the present and the future. I am Now.
See, I am learning from the book. Yes, I am sounding like an echo. So thats why I am asking everyone who is involved, what should I do know, with regards to this thread? |
Don't be a reflection as well - do what you feel you must if you are your own person. :happy2:
I find that posting this sort of thing *is* very useful because it allows for you to view a certain topic from ways you might not have discovered on your own - you just have to wade through all of the other people on this forum post. :haha: |
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| DJ_Elyot |
It's too bad that this thread went to hell.
I think what's written there is an OPINION... and a very non-scientific, non-logical one at best. The areguments don't have any proof... many of them are non sequitur, and others are speculation at best.
I think in an online community like this, people demand better information... they don't want to be manipulated by pretty wording... they want to be convinced by concrete statistics. The words you typed our are poetic, yes, but they lack anything valuable. I can throw a bunch of random words, numbers, and formulae at you, but if you don't understand what each variable means and what each symbol represents, they're useless to you. If you don't know how the formula was derived, then what's the sense of knowing it?
Knowledge has to start from a beginning... a series of fundamental postulates... like Euclidean Geometry does. Then, each subsequent statement is proved by one or more preceding statements using the standard logical techniques (deduction, induction, proof by contradiction, proof by example, w/e). Your post has lacked this... that's why it has drawn so much criticism. It's not good knowledge. It's just poetic.
The stuff in the TOTA forums was better. |
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| Rodrico |
| quote: | Originally posted by Mr. Pink
and toronto boy speaks again! |
Hey! who let you out of your cage this late? |
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