Interesting point! There sure seems to be a lot of defensiveness on the part of self-identified theists. I wonder how come.
How does a person know the difference between "socialized pack instinct" and the "loyalty" of a dog? It is a philosophical idea attributing meaning. You can say calling a dog loyal is unnecessary, or even wrong, but people that choose to call a dog loyal don't think so, they believe the dog is loyal.
If I'm trolling then so are you. I have no crisis of faith, because what I have faith in is the same as my faith in being able to see, or experience, in general. When I'm dead, I guess I'll have this crisis of faith you have somehow "realised" I'm having now. And I've responded. I have said my experiences continue to be real, and that is what makes me still think they are real. Why should I have faith in something that "happened" but doesn't "happen" now?
Wynn - there is very little I would say we actually know, vs think or believe. Is somebody supposed to know whether god exists? Or whether the dog is kind? I don't think so. And I think people's judgement is less an issue here than having a conversation about the same subject is.
This logic seems to be that "I'm real" and therefore anything that I experience or think about is real. Anything that you think about may be useful to you, no doubt. That doesn't mean that they represent some truth in the world outside of your consciousness. People chose to believe in God or in some religion because they feel that it is beneficial to them in some way. Why pretend to actually be able to know that a supernatural being exists and interacts with you?
There are two sides of the brain. Science makes more use of the left brain, The philosophy of science factors out much of the right since the left brain is about facts, logic or differential data. The right brain is more about emotions, intuitions and symbolism. This is not allowable as science proof. There is value in this, but a full brain is better than half. The left brain differentiates, which in math, tells us the slope of a curve at a given point. The left brain of science gives us explanatory angles for the data at a given point. The right brain integrates, which in math is connected to the area under the curve from X1 to X2. An emotion like love or hate has a wide range of situational uses; area of application. The words of spoken language is left brain but the body language is right brained. Language divides us into cultures, but we all use the same body language; universal 3-D integration. The left brain sees details and how things differ, whereas right brain see the generalities and how things are similar. Wisdom, which is about understanding the essence of things and how they relate in expanded ways, is more connected to religion than science. Science is more about how things differentiate down to the tiniest details; specialization. The modern theories in particle physics has little to do with chemistry because the left brain can't integrate too well. It treats them as separate, although common sense says they should mesh and coordinate at all levels. Religion can integrate with generalities, but can't differentiate the details which is why Creationism is not able to come up with the needed science; needs more left brain. Since the right brain is connected to emotions, this is the older side of the brain and is connected to earlier evolution. Animals are not about logic but integration via instincts. Religion is the liaison to the past and our instincts.
Indeed. Why even pretend that you know God must be a supernatural being, because that's all you've ever found out about the subject? Yes, well done. By conflating "think" with "experience" you've managed to sink both with a single stone.
If God isn't supernatural then it has another name and doesn't require faith or belief. If God is a tree then the word "tree" works better than "God".
I think so. And so do many other people, theists and atheists. Has it ever occured to you that the opposition that theists tend to get from atheists might actually be God letting the theists know that they - ie. the theists - underperform, that they aren't living up to their claims? What if God has sent atheists to keep theists honest? The reactions of atheists to theists are often much the same as people's reactions to any boaster: ridicule, mistrust or at least distancing. Here they are, the theists, claiming intimate knowledge of God - of God! - and yet they call upon the principles of secular society for their protection. That is strange! If they inded have God Almighty on their side, then why are they as vulnerable and as needy as ordinary people? If God is indeed your friend, then even if ordinary people put you into a concentration camp - you shouldn't have a problem with it. If it's all just your private faith - then why talk about it in public? If this would be about any other topic or person than God, it would be understandable that people want to talk about it, even if they aren't all that sure about it. But with God, it's a different matter altogether. To claim intimate knowledge of, or faith in that one being that precedes all others, that one being that contextualizes all others, to declare the ultimate one-upmanship - "I know God and you don't, I have God on my side and you don't!" - it is only reasonable that that one won't be just allowed to get away with it. I dare you: do an experiment. For three consecutive days, start your day with praying Our Father, express gratitude to God before every meal or drink you take, express gratitude that you have work to do and money to earn, and at the end of the day, conclude with praying Our Father. After those three days, come back, and see how eager you still feel to argue at Sci.
Wynn, brings up an interesting point. Before the evangelicals were involved in the public so much the religion I was around (grew up in a Methodist environment) was private. Even around the most religious people that I knew most of them read about it but didn't really talk about it unless it was at church on Sunday. They tried to live the life but they never tried to convince anyone else. If they couldn't say something positive they said nothing. Had religion stayed like that (before the Moral Majority and Family Values) there would be much less opposition from non-believers regarding whatever someone else believed in. The "Creationists" ,"Young Earth" people and the meddling into stem cell research were the tipping point for non-believers to get more publicly involved. The Jerry Falwell types are the antithesis of the religious environment I grew up around.
The "I'm rubber, you're glue" defense doesn't fly here, sorry. But you don't have the confidence in it to share, and instead purposely evade. Of course you're having a crisis of faith. That's circular logic. "I believe it's real because it's real." Even so, I've asked you how you know what's real and what isn't, how you know your experiences aren't dreams or hallucinations, and you trolled the thread by putting cole's semantic evasion through a funhouse mirror.
so how does one know whether the dog is "loyal", i.e. meaningfully caring, or is simply exhibiting instinctual behavior, and we are anthropomorphizing? Maybe there are things we will know, or some people already know, but I have my doubts when people use the word "know" as to whether they shouldn't really be saying, "think". I personally think empirical data is useful for certain things, and those things that can't be tested shouldn't be called known. claims about themselves they aren't living up to, or claims about some being the being isn't living up to? The theists I know are not generally talking about what a good job they are doing as theists, more often they get in big groups and sing songs and ask for forgiveness for their failings. i don't have any problem with atheists. Atheists don't have to be here on earth for some purpose for me. most theists claim to believe they are not the ones responsible for their ability to "see" god, so this is mostly inapplicable, calling religious people boasters. I know your experiences with theists and mine are vastly different. Religion should not be considered a Pinocchio experience in reverse, turning real boys into puppets. It shouldn't make you oblivious to pain to be religious. You speak as if a theist should no longer be a human animal that avoids violent pain, or feels that they should not act because the world of god is such that they have no reason to change it or participate in it. Like religion should make everyone Panglossian, and transform them into supernatural beings. I just don't get it. why talk about anything? It shouldn't be hurting anyone (especially people of adult mentality), and having to discuss something requires a different layer of thinking than sitting around thinking or reading does. I don't know, medical discussions would be worse. You are so dead-set on this particular point it is like nobody could say to you, "I did x, it had some effect," unless they have become supernatural beings. That isn't how religion in the west functions, so call religion in the west messed up, it is all we had out here, until the 1950's when eastern ideas began to become popular, mostly minus the gurus, so mostly not eastern religious practice anyway. nobody else's personal philosophy is my business. I admit I get frustrated with people using definitions I think are inaccurate, but anyone's belief system should be theirs to have, and I don't have a problem respecting another person's rationality. Only fundamentalists have problems with other people's religion or lack of religion. The only two teams I see are the people who realize they don't know everything and the people that think they do know everything. i can guarantee this would improve anyone's outlook, even if they substitute fate or the universe, or their boss, or their parents. Depending on the day, or month, or year, I often have things to do I feel are more constructive so a controlled experiment would be impossible. I will do it anyway, thanks for the suggestion.
You're not making any sense. I used the imagery of a person riding a hippo to a bank robbery as a caricature of a dream for the purposes of demonstrating how ridiculous it would be to accept every experience as real. The shorthand is perfectly viable among people who aren't trying to validate their faith through a semantic war of attrition. If I said to anyone else, "Was that a dream, or was it real," they'd know exactly what I meant. It's only when dealing with the likes of arfa and yourself that the word takes on a new, entirely out-of-context meaning. I mean, shit, I could have used it in the hip-hop lingo sense of "credible," but no one reading the context of my post could have reached that conclusion. This began when you said it is the non-theists who muddy the words. Obviously, since I meant the word in the only possible way it could have been meant in that context, you are mistaken. So I refer you back to my original advice: If you wish to interject an alternate definition of a term, make it known. You are no more your reflection in the mirror than you are the image of yourself in a picture. And "most people" would understand what I meant when I said "It's not you, it's just a reflection." But then, most people aren't useless pedants. More straw. I never said it was conjecture on how some religious people think, I said it was conjecture in how arfa thinks. Do you not read any of the posts you quote, or are you really this dishonest? And you've already pre-loaded your pedant gun, as if that's supposed to tantalize me. Obviously, you will object to anything I say as being an "idea" of God, rather than a definition--as if there's a difference, functional or otherwise--and we'll be back at it again, rather than getting to the real point, which is a discussion of your or arfa's religious experiences. But then, that's all this is, isn't it? A distraction. You are throwing down smoke bombs and flashbangs and any other trick you can think of to keep the topic away from your experience with God. I'm not going to be a party to it anymore. Make with the story, or get lost. Obviously not, since you don't have the stones to be so direct. No, you've merely inferred as much by likening my arguments and objections to those of small children, or lamenting how some don't even reach that level.
Not my problem. Claims about themselves that they aren't living up to. I don't think it is most. Much evangelism rests on the conviction that getting to know the truth about God is one's own duty and within one's ability. Actually leaving people's belief in God, to God and the people, would make an end to evangelism as we know it. I dind't call all of them boasters. Just those who go out and talk on the topic of God to atheists and agnostics. Don't even try this. If a theist gets to be so bloody special, so chosen, so able that he gets to know the truth about God - while the rest of us muck around in the mud: then yes, I expect the theist to be above and beyond the strife of ordinary life. Knowing God, or even just getting to have faith in God should count for something. How much more so if the theist uses this qualification against other people - like the Jews, deeming themselves God's chosen people. Claims of extraordinary privilege will evoke extraordinary envy in other people. And it is only right that they do. Except that we're not talking about gardening or baking biscuits. We're talking about that One Most Important Being. That One Being that you get to know of, or have faith in, and the rest of us don't. Yes, I am dead-set on this point. Because I actually believe that faith in God, what to speak of knowledge of God, should make a real difference in a person's life. And not be a mere accessoire. Moreover, the scriptures agree with me on this point, when they say that for a person with God, there can be no fear. No. God is the one topic that, as far as definitions go, concerns everyone. When one person makes claims about God, they are thereby implicitly making claims about everything and everyone else, including the people they are talking to. I'm taking "God" and talking about "God" more seriously than you. And I'm not even a theist. Claiming to have knowledge of or faith in God is the highest claim a human can make. So claiming knowledge of or faith in God has implications and consequences that no other claim can possibly have. How PC. Yes, you go and do it!
I've asked you that too. You also appear to be evading the question you're asking. Why is that? You aren't happy with my response. I know what's real for the same reasons you know what's real. I know I'm not hallucinating as I type this. I know I'm really doing it. And, I'm not sure why you think the question is so important.
