Religion means service and worship of God or the supernatural and implements commitment or devotion to religious faith (Webster). A religion is often given and is regarded as a duty, which is not in question, although the connected weltanschauung may be not believable anymore. Discussions are mostly useless in such cases. In contrast to that, a weltanschauung (world outlook) is just an understanding (description) of the total world scenarios, which is not necessarily connected with a religion. It is therefore open for discussion and implements no duties. You can develop a believable weltanschauung for yourself, e.g. based on the assumption (or faith) that the total world scenarios are perfect. I tried this and ended up with a world outlook, which is most desirable and satisfying for me (described on my website). Now I would be very much interested to learn about alternative views, which I may regard as even more desirable and satisfying. ------------- My weltanschauung: http://www.users.bigpond.com/hermann.raith
*Originally posted by Hermann You can develop a believable weltanschauung for yourself,...* Of course, if you develop the wrong one, you'd just be stupid. Consider Christianity the uberweltanschauung.
toni1, I came from Christianity and left the Christian church after I recognized that the Christ story is not believable. Each weltanschauung is based on an unproved assumption. Such assumptions can be very basic, like "everything is caused by matter" or "the world scenarios are perfect", which allow discussions. On the other hand religious people have a blind faith in something very complex, like "the bible is the absolute truth" - this allows just discussions between bible believers, but not with people, who don't believe in the bible.
*Originally posted by Hermann I came from Christianity and left the Christian church after I recognized that the Christ story is not believable.* Based on that, am I supposed to believe that everything you say is now well thought-out? *Each weltanschauung is based on an unproved assumption.* I can gather that yours is also based on unproved assumption, then? *Such assumptions can be very basic, like "everything is caused by matter" or "the world scenarios are perfect", which allow discussions.* Sounds very simplistic. The discussions are undoubtedly also very simplistic. * On the other hand religious people have a blind faith in something very complex, like "the bible is the absolute truth" - this allows just discussions between bible believers, but not with people, who don't believe in the bible. * This is why you should consider Christianity as the uberweltanschauung. You probably left because you thought it was a religion. My weltanschauung has enough room in it for various beliefs, yours is too small to contain Christianity.
Toni1, Please answer the following simple questions: 1. Can you agree, that good and evil are relative values? What for some people is evil is for others good and opposite, just depending on their point of view. A dogmatic bible believer would say, good and evil are fully defined by the bible and this would terminate any discussion. 2. If good and evil are relative values, how can they be balanced? 3. Why was Christ needed for balancing, when balancing of good and evil is not possible?
*Originally posted by Hermann Please answer the following simple questions:* Sure, why not? *1. Can you agree, that good and evil are relative values? What for some people is evil is for others good and opposite, just depending on their point of view.* Good and evil ARE in fact relative values when defined by man. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! (Isaiah 5:20, KJV). As you can see, good is defined as evil in some cases. "Woe," on the other hand is pretty much universally regarded as a bad thing. * A dogmatic bible believer would say, good and evil are fully defined by the bible and this would terminate any discussion.* One might say that, but they can't be, since the Bible is a book of limited size, and good, pretty much by anyone's definition, would have to be infinite. *2. If good and evil are relative values, how can they be balanced?* A leading question, but what the heck. Good and evil can easily be balanced by eliminating evil. *3. Why was Christ needed for balancing, when balancing of good and evil is not possible? * I say balancing good and evil IS possible.
Toni1, Now it becomes clear where we would basically disagree: You believe, that at least in the view of God good and evil are absolute values. I doubt this and think also God would accept that good and evil are relative just depending on the person and on the individual circumstances. If there is something like "sin", I would accept this only for doings which are regarded as evil by that person. Again I believe that balancing of good and evil is not possible and not necessary. Justice is no natural law. The Christian God behaves like good parents by not insisting in punishment when the kids regret their wrong doings. The problem is just, that he behaves like this only in favor of his followers and this is extortion.
*Originally posted by Hermann Now it becomes clear where we would basically disagree: You believe, that at least in the view of God good and evil are absolute values.* Evil isn't an absolute value. As for good, good is infinite. Infinity in one sense might be considered absolute. But in another sense, infinity could be considered infinite relative to finitude. * I doubt this and think also God would accept that good and evil are relative just depending on the person and on the individual circumstances.* Good, being infinite, could not possibly be dependent on the person or the circumstances. Let us take food, which some would consider a good thing, as an example. And let us consider a being who lives for ever and also requires food. If food is good than any less than an infinite amount of food for that being would amount to evil. The being would starve, regardless of how much food there is, unless there is an infinite amount. * If there is something like "sin", I would accept this only for doings which are regarded as evil by that person.* How would you define "sin" in the example I gave? *Again I believe that balancing of good and evil is not possible and not necessary.* If it is not necessary, than what would the statement "balancing of good and evil is not possible" mean? *The Christian God behaves like good parents by not insisting in punishment when the kids regret their wrong doings. The problem is just, that he behaves like this only in favor of his followers and this is extortion.* The meaning of your last statement is unclear, since the regretting is what creates the followers. There are no people who regret their wrong doings, yet are not his followers.
my world outlook If you are familiar with transhumanism, and are excited about it then maybe you'll agree with my ideas of earths history. I was raised mormon, but I knew that wasn't giving me the whole story, I don't hate mormonism or anything, I see a purpose for religion, but anyways, you can't talk about "GOD" and have everybody thinking the same thing, some people think god controls the universe (meaning he is NOT a resident of the universe) I personally have no fuckin clue where the universe started, but the very fact that it exists leads me to believe that someone made it, to serve a purpose, whether or not jesus has anything to do with the creation of the universe, i don't know. Now on to humanity, it is hard to deny that Jesus was actually a man, and walked the earth. When I read the bible, I see a lot of interesting things that might be references to advanced technology, here, I will open my bible here and find a quick example for you, not necessarily the best example.... genesis 35:4 and they gave unto jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand, and all their earrings which were in their ears, and jacob hid them under the oak which was by shechem. Now, some of you might say "ah that's rubbish! see, how can there be more than one god, thats the bible for crying out loud!" well god is a reference to "advanced technology" or something that the writer didn't understand, I'm guessing it's some sort of nanotechnology, insect life maybe. And the earrings might have been communication devices for all i know. But the point I'm trying to make is that I think the bible is a record of alien life on earth, and Jesus the alien had some things he wanted us to know, for the good of mankind, and that is why he told them to record it. You have to think hard in order to interpret it correctly. It is VERY symbolic. You think the bright star during jesus's birth was a supernova? Or a spacecraft? I think it was a spacecraft. And that whole story of jesus's birth might have been bullshit rumors that got written down at one point. If you want to read some really interesting stuff, read ezekiel, starting at the beginning, the spacecraft graphics in independance day the movie remind me of the beginning of ezekiel. And remember, God is watching you (he has his space based telescopes pointed in our direction) Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
*Originally posted by zophim If you are familiar with transhumanism, and are excited about it then maybe you'll agree with my ideas of earths history.* Familiar, but the excitement meter looks like it's reading zero. *But the point I'm trying to make is that I think the bible is a record of alien life on earth,* In a way it is. Just try to keep track of who the aliens are and who the people are. *You think the bright star during jesus's birth was a supernova? Or a spacecraft?* The thought that it was a bright star has crossed my mind.
toni1, I did not mean that there is an absolute "good" and an absolute "evil", but it is relative whether a certain example is regarded as good or evil. E.g. I don't think that it was an evil doing or a "sin" when cannibals killed other people for eating. Sorry, I did not understand your food example - that is too high for me. You are right, I should have said, if balancing of good and evil would be possible, it would still not be necessary. If a child regrets to have beaten another child by seeing the result, it will still not become a follower of somebody. zophim, If you read the bible like a horoscope, you will find infinite possibilities for interpretations. I am not interested in stories about UFOs etc. - there are too many offers of strange beliefs. I trust only my rational thinking. Therefore I would only believe things, which fit to my weltanschauung. Of course, my weltanschauung could also change, but this requires that somebody convince me in a rational manner.
ideas about the universe so some people think that god is living outside the universe, watching us with control over time and space, and we are all in his toy box, his "creation", which is the universe, not just earth. In that case, what purpose does this creation serve? To breed intelligent selfish beings, that spread quickly and take over a planets resources, with time. Leads me to believe that the universe is actually huge, and humankind has only been here for a short while, there were other things here long before humankind ever came along, and they were stupid, we know that much, and along the course of recorded human history, there have been witnesses of alien visitors, which explains where humanity came from and their own strange notion that we owe our presense here to someone else. See I am not throwing out religion completlely here, most religions also have reference to something like "he will come again" which is interesting, I think we're likely to get alien visitors in the not too distant future. But having a look at all this, and the nature of the universe, and the nature of human intelligence, you can come to a conclusion about whether the universe was designed to support life. Whether someone actually built the universe to fit their needs, or whether it came about through chance. The nature of human intelligence is to produce resources for it's own survival. The nature of the universe limits us to our own star system, but we know there are infinately more of them out there. If we are lucky we might see humanity go to mars in this century, we do have the capability to potentially communicate with other star systems, although it would be a one way link pretty much, and hope the best for what they send us back. Say humankind were a little more evolved though, like back in the bible people lived pretty long (I dont know if that has any significance or not) but if this universe was designed to support us humans, and it is something we should be thankful for, then we aught to have the ability to travel to other stars dont ya think? Computers are getting really tiny these days, the smaller they get the faster they are. Your brain also has the ability to process information like a computer, it is just a lot more complex than computers are at the moment. It appears to me, though, that you could fit a pretty intelligent being into a space smaller than your own body, and if you look at that verse I read in my first post, it mentions tiny gods, and earrings (I thought they might be communication devices at first, but maybe they are more tiny gods chilling in jesus's ear, lol). Your brain also has the ability to self replicate, and do minor repairs on itself. If cells are designed to simply self replicate, and then the intelligence came later, or evolved from lesser intelligence, we wouldn't know or explain how our ability to self replicate came about, but we are just now coming to learn about how our ability to self replicate works (in the last 500 years or so) before that nobody knew. This suggests that we were designed, or perhaps we evolved in a different star system, and we were somehow planet here, along with a bunch of other types of life, that come and go over the years. THIS suggests, that we get a lot of visitors, and like I said earlier, there is record of stuff like that in the bible. So the universe is a lot bigger than you can imagine, and there are probably such complex entities in the universe, we are probably pathetic in the big picture. The question I still have is what is the purpose of the universe? It seems to just support complexity, or more acurate maybe would be beauty...... Hmmmmmm...... its nice to think that there COULD be an afterlife Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I agree with einstein, the more I learn about the universe, the more it makes me think somebody created it. Theres my Weltanschauung.
zophim, Thanks for your detailed explanation of your weltanschauung. Except from the last sentences I would regard this as a materialistic weltanschauung. You expand our working area by aliens, but there is still no individual future for us or for the aliens and there is nothing independent from matter. The main point on my website is the assumption of a spiritual world, which allows to see an individual future and a general purpose. I have no principal objections against aliens - perhaps they know more about the spiritual world than we do.
totally misguided Hermann, Toni1, Please I had expected better! No I cannot and will not agree. It is just so short sighted, it really disappoints me. Different people have different needs, true. But the denying of those needs are universally experienced as a wrongdoing. Hence there is a basis for a universal (and I believe objective!) ethics. I will start a discussion in the "Ethics, Morality, & Justice" forum on the matter. It is a piece I have written for a forum of the UN and the Dutch department of foreign affairsd aeling with the issue. I have few wishes here and the largest is to eliminate the misguided view of moral relativism. ~Merlijn
interdimensional travel well I haven't ruled out the possibility of a spirit world. If you're familiar with quantum theory, and the two slots experiment (in which a single light source passes through two slots), you know that there are unanswered questions in physics, the way energy interacts with other energy, it gives us the notion that there might be other universes co-existing in different dimensions than ours. But the fact remains, that human life is simple, and there is no fine line between life, and no life. Of course I don't know everything, and one thing that I find interesting is that we know so little about the way our minds work, perhaps our minds tune into some other dimension that we don't know about, which gives us our ability to think creatively. yes I am a very materialistic person, I figure it's my purpose to find out about these things.
Merlijn, Sorry, that I have to disappoint you - but moral and ethics are relative! It seems to be possible to define an absolute moral or ethics for the UN, for any government (different e.g. for US and Iran), for the pope and even for cannibals - all are very different, but who will tell, which is better or worse in absolute measures? I agree with you by saying, that the well being of living creature should be aimed - the question is just how? All groups of interests have here different opinions. Lets assume an extreme case: No country can allow actions of terrorists and it is their duty to avoid them. But do the terrorists really wrong by following their belief, for which they are even willing to die? - Who else does so much for their belief or ethics? I think we have to differentiate between evil and "sin" (even I don't like this term). I would accept that it is a "sin", when you do something where you know it is wrong. But good and evil, as well as moral and ethics depends totally on the individual point of view. zophim, I am very familiar with the quantum theory and the two slot experiment. But here we have basically not an open question we have an answer! The two slot experiment provides just the probability where a particle will arrive, but there is no predetermination for the single event - even not by God. This gives us a basis for a new thinking. Generally I agree with you by saying "it is our purpose to find out about these things" leading to our own weltanschauung.
Hermann, Am I right when I assume that the following is the case: Because you do not know the answer to some very difficult questions, you dismiss the possibility that there is a right answer to them?
Compromise Merlijn, I cannot accept the statement that good and evil are absolute values, because there are too many examples where this is simply not true. As I have explained in your thread (>Philosophy>Ethics, Morality,& Justice) we can try to formulate a rational ethics, which will have a wide base, but it is still only the view of rational minded people. On the way there we have to fight against all kinds of fanaticism.
*Originally posted by Hermann I did not mean that there is an absolute "good" and an absolute "evil", but it is relative whether a certain example is regarded as good or evil. E.g. I don't think that it was an evil doing or a "sin" when cannibals killed other people for eating.* You have built yourself a very small box to live in. To you, evil is one side of the box and good is the other. *Sorry, I did not understand your food example - that is too high for me.* Your box is too small. *You are right, I should have said, if balancing of good and evil would be possible, it would still not be necessary.* So, what does it mean to say, "If possible, not necessary," as you do? If something is not possible, how could it be necessary? How could someone conceive of a necessary, though impossible, characteristic of the universe? *I trust only my rational thinking. Therefore I would only believe things, which fit to my weltanschauung.* The small box. *Originally posted by Merlijn Please I had expected better! * Perhaps you expected something with deep ontological import. Sorry, evil is not here to stay, so it is not an absolute, except as the absence of good. *Originally posted by Hermann It seems to be possible to define an absolute moral or ethics for the UN, for any government (different e.g. for US and Iran), for the pope and even for cannibals - all are very different, but who will tell, which is better or worse in absolute measures? * Wow, you live in a very small box!
