What if there's an afterlife but no God?

[Baldeee]

This point of view pivots on the premise that anyone's view on the topic of religion/spirituality is just as valid as anyone else's. IOW it does away with the notion of revelation or enlightenment and instead lends value to the notion of "telling a good story".

Surely it pivots merely on not being logically fallacious with appeals to authority?
If you accept the authority you will believe what they say.
If you don't accept it then they you won't believe it or accept it on their word alone.
Since all of religion seems to require appeal to such authorities for its validation, it is (as others have mentioned elsewhere) a cycle of needing to believe to be able to believe.

So how does one validate the truth or validity of one view over another without recourse to such authority?

 

[lightgigantic]

Surely it pivots merely on not being logically fallacious with appeals to authority?

as I said, only if one is working with the premise that there is no basis for enlightenment/revelation etc ..... unless you feel that such things as your "revelation" of whether you are hungry or not is just as poignant as anyone else's?

 

[lightgigantic]

Who said anything about "contemporary" social tropes? You certainly didn't:

Ok even easier.

If you are not talking about contemporary society/religion, then we can dismiss everything you've said at the onset.
:shrug:

 

[Baldeee]

as I said, only if one is working with the premise that there is no basis for enlightenment/revelation etc ..... unless you feel that such things as your "revelation" of whether you are hungry or not is just as poignant as anyone else's?

Revelation, theologically speaking, is with regard communication with/from a deity.
I do not consider myself a deity.
So you are suffering a fallacy of equivocation with the layman's concept of merely revealing things.

There may be a basis for enlightenment and revelation.
But i am rational and have no evidence of anything other than peoples' claims to such.
There is nothing to which I can judge the authority, other than the authority itself.
And I consider to do that to be fallacious.

If you want to believe in order to be able to believe, then do so.
But even if you accept a basis for revelation, you still have nothing to support any person's view on the topic as any more valid than anyone else's, other than appeal to that same authority.

 

[lightgigantic]

Revelation, theologically speaking, is with regard communication with/from a deity.

It involves quite a bit more than mere "communication"

I do not consider myself a deity.
So you are suffering a fallacy of equivocation with the layman's concept of merely revealing things.

no more than "revealing" the state of your hunger to yourself is no more valid than anyone else's opinion on the state of your hunger

There may be a basis for enlightenment and revelation.
But i am rational and have no evidence of anything other than peoples' claims to such.
There is nothing to which I can judge the authority, other than the authority itself.
And I consider to do that to be fallacious.

Once again, the only (rational) way one can say that anyone's opinion is just as valid as any one else's is if there is no basis for revelation/enlightenment.
Kind of like saying that anyone's opinion on whether you are hungry or not is just as valid as anyone else's, since there is no scope for any individual to be intimately aware of the state of their hunger.

IOW if you want to talk of "rationality", it requires that you introduce premises that run contrary to the subject.

If you want to believe in order to be able to believe, then do so.
But even if you accept a basis for revelation, you still have nothing to support any person's view on the topic as any more valid than anyone else's, other than appeal to that same authority.

Incorrect.
If one accepts revelation (or intimate familiarity with a subject that empowers one to see with knowledge) then there most certainly is something to support one's view ... unless you think that the only reason a doctor can analyze an x-ray and you can't is because of the glasses they wear or something.
(ie you think that since your eyeballs are just as functional as the doctors, the only reason they see something that you don't must be due to their reading glasses, since there are no contextualizing issues of knowledge - like maybe medical knowledge - one can call to rest one's case on)

 

[Baldeee]

It involves quite a bit more than mere "communication"

It may do.
But anything else is irrelevant.

no more than "revealing" the state of your hunger to yourself is no more valid than anyone else's opinion on the state of your hunger

If the discussion was about god revealing things to himself, then you'd have a point.
But it isn't.
It's about communication from one individual to another.
Or from god to an individual.
Can you not see the difference?

Once again, the only (rational) way one can say that anyone's opinion is just as valid as any one else's is if there is no basis for revelation/enlightenment.

And the rational position is that there isn't.
But if you have evidence to bring to the table?

Kind of like saying that anyone's opinion on whether you are hungry or not is just as valid as anyone else's, since there is no scope for any individual to be intimately aware of the state of their hunger.

Yet you are not talking about knowing oneself.
You are talking about revelation.
That involves communication from one to another...
From god to someone.

IOW if you want to talk of "rationality", it requires that you introduce premises that run contrary to the subject.

It just requires that I base decisions on the evidence I have, and introduce no redundancy.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.

Incorrect.
If one accepts revelation (or intimate familiarity with a subject that empowers one to see with knowledge) then there most certainly is something to support one's view ... unless you think that the only reason a doctor can analyze an x-ray and you can't is because of the glasses they wear or something.
(ie you think that since your eyeballs are just as functional as the doctors, the only reason they see something that you don't must be due to their reading glasses, since there are no contextualizing issues of knowledge - like maybe medical knowledge - one can call to rest one's case on)

And how do you gain this intimate knowledge of the deity?
Would it perhaps be through appeals to authority?
Or is there something you an bring to the table that can adequately demonstrate that the concept is not a redundancy?

 

[wynn]

Exercising our imaginations can be enjoyable.

And when it comes to the subjects of supposed gods and hypothetical post-mortem existence, it seems that maybe all that anyone has ever had to go on is their own and other people's imaginations.

So the scripture issue might just come down to whether we should defer credulously to the religious imaginations of people who lived in the distant past, or whether it's ok to speculate more creatively here and now.

I don't expect a whole lot of truth or light to emerge from it either way, but the speculative mode might be more entertaining.

Madness and vexation are not entertaining.

Although I suppose at first, they may seem so. Until they show their ugly faces.

 

[Magical Realist]

Ok even easier.

If you are not talking about contemporary society/religion, then we can dismiss everything you've said at the onset.
:shrug:

Everything I said at the onset was that the bible has zero relevance to society. That it establishes no contemporary social tropes follows from that does it not?

 

[wynn]

It may do.
But anything else is irrelevant.
If the discussion was about god revealing things to himself, then you'd have a point.
But it isn't.
It's about communication from one individual to another.
Or from god to an individual.
Can you not see the difference?
And the rational position is that there isn't.
But if you have evidence to bring to the table?
Yet you are not talking about knowing oneself.
You are talking about revelation.
That involves communication from one to another...
From god to someone.
It just requires that I base decisions on the evidence I have, and introduce no redundancy.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
And how do you gain this intimate knowledge of the deity?
Would it perhaps be through appeals to authority?
Or is there something you an bring to the table that can adequately demonstrate that the concept is not a redundancy?

The problem with your approach is that it puts you in the passive position, in the position of the victim: you're waiting for someone else to explain things to you, to justify them to you - and this is about things that you yourself are interested in to begin with.
IOW, you're placing the responsibility for your beliefs into someone else's hands. This way, you'll always be at a loss.

 

[lightgigantic]

Everything I said at the onset was that the bible has zero relevance to society. That it establishes no contemporary social tropes follows from that does it not?

and I made the point that by comparison, its actually you who has zero relevance to society.
Earlier you tried to get around this harsh reality by citing a list of obscure, controversial and/or outdated peripheral (as opposed to fundamental/orthodoxical) ideas derived from religion.

I'm not sure where you want to take this from here.

 

[Magical Realist]

and I made the point that by comparison, its actually you who has zero relevance to society.
Earlier you tried to get around this harsh reality by citing a list of obscure, controversial and/or outdated peripheral (as opposed to fundamental/orthodoxical) ideas derived from religion.

I'm not sure where you want to take this from here.

You just confirmed my point, that the bible is full of outdated ideas that don't apply to the modern world. Thanks!

 

[lightgigantic]

You just confirmed my point, that the bible is full of outdated ideas that don't apply to the modern world. Thanks!

by pointing out that you are merely focusing on peripheral issues while simultaneously ignoring the intrinsic nature of your own non-importance in the universe?
...I'm not sure how you think that works
:shrug:

 

[lightgigantic]

It may do.
But anything else is irrelevant.

just the minor detail that the other party involved in the "communication" operates out of a vastly greater ontological context

If the discussion was about god revealing things to himself, then you'd have a point.
But it isn't.

Sure
Its about a living entity reciprocating with another one who happens to contextualize reality.

It's about communication from one individual to another.
Or from god to an individual.
Can you not see the difference?

the difference lies in the ontological categories of the individual's involved.
By comparison, your successfully communicating the net worth of the annual gross production of a sugar mill to an ant would be a lesser feat of communication.

IOW its not just one powerful individual communicating to a less powerful one. Its one individual that constitutionally empowers reality communicating with another one that constitutionally is contextualized by that said reality ... (much like, say your sense of dietary satisfaction is contextualized by your own being)

And the rational position is that there isn't.

Incorrect.
You are simply obscuring your value systems that you utilize before you bring so-called rationality to the discussion

But if you have evidence to bring to the table?

Kind of a useless question unless you are bringing some quality of discernment for perceiving evidence to the table

Yet you are not talking about knowing oneself.
You are talking about revelation.
That involves communication from one to another...
From god to someone.

I think the problem here is that you insist on working with an inferior theoretical definition of god

It just requires that I base decisions on the evidence I have, and introduce no redundancy.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.

and of course the big problem with that is that you have limited the so-called parameters for evidence at the onset in due accordance to your value system (such as working with an inferior definition of god, trying to bring metonymic empirical investigation to a subject that it cannot even theoretically hope to grasp etc etc)

And how do you gain this intimate knowledge of the deity?
Would it perhaps be through appeals to authority?
Or is there something you an bring to the table that can adequately demonstrate that the concept is not a redundancy?

once again, its a useless question unless you yourself bring some sort of qualification to the discussion.

If you don't believe me just try and evidence an electron to me while I play the part of a cynical high-school drop out and retort "yerfullashit!" to everything you say

:shrug:

IOW, as it was said earlier, passively sitting around for the express purpose of waiting for someone duke it out against one's value system is a good way to discredit anything that can't be successfully communicated via animalistic grunting.

 

[Baldeee]

Given that you are unable to provide any support for your position, and don't seem to have done in anything of yours I've read, other than circular logic that relies on appeals to authority, it surprises me that you even bother replying or holding discussions with anyone other than those who already believe.

and of course the big problem with that is that you have limited the so-called parameters for evidence at the onset in due accordance to your value system

Yet you have provided no other satisfying value system that does not require one to already believe.

If you don't believe me just try and evidence an electron to me while I play the part of a cynical high-school drop out and retort "yerfullashit!" to everything you say

That's the difference between us.
I wouldn't try to.
Yet you seem to bother.
Why is that? :shrug:

 

[Magical Realist]

Baldee:"But if you have evidence to bring to the table?"

LG:"Kind of a useless question unless you are bringing some quality of discernment for perceiving evidence to the table"

Typical theist copout: "I have evidence for God's existence, but you have to have faith to see it." Sorta like saying it's only evidence for people who already believe in God. That's not evidence. That's self-delusion.

 

[lightgigantic]

Typical theist copout: "I have evidence for God's existence, but you have to have faith to see it." Sorta like saying it's only evidence for people who already believe in God. That's not evidence. That's self-delusion.

incorrect

If you don't have the tools to evidence a claim, its pointless to try and clamour for something to be evidenced.

If you don't believe me, just try and evidence an electron to me while I retort "yerfullashit I don't see a dang thang"
So you either don't have the tools or are yet to explain exactly precisely what model for discerning evidence you have in mind when you talk about there being "no evidence"
which is it?

:shrug:

 

[lightgigantic]

Given that you are unable to provide any support for your position, and don't seem to have done in anything of yours I've read, other than circular logic that relies on appeals to authority, it surprises me that you even bother replying or holding discussions with anyone other than those who already believe.

I am simply working with what support your position can and cannot afford and pointing out the inherent limitations of it at the moment.
IOW the precise point you are consistently failing to address is in what manner your system of "evidence" is limited or (when advocated as having a monopoly on all knowable claims ... such as you are doing at the moment) exists at the expense of others

Yet you have provided no other satisfying value system that does not require one to already believe.

Incorrect

I am pointing out how you are trying to problematize a value system by radically advocating another one that cannot even theoretically approach the question.
Kind of like clamoring about the inconsistencies of recording temperature by advocating the use of tape measures and disregarding thermometers (even though the effectiveness of tape measures in measuring distance doesn't really add anything to the discussion)

That's the difference between us.
I wouldn't try to.
Yet you seem to bother.
Why is that? :shrug:

You might have noticed how I am not bothering to evidence it to you for that exact reason.

eg : IOW, as it was said earlier, passively sitting around for the express purpose of waiting for someone duke it out against one's value system is a good way to discredit anything that can't be successfully communicated via animalistic grunting.

What I am bothering to do is point out how your attempts to portray yourself as "rational" and whatnot is far from accurate.
:shrug:

 

[Balerion]

incorrect

If you don't have the tools to evidence a claim, its pointless to try and clamour for something to be evidenced.

If you don't believe me, just try and evidence an electron to me while I retort "yerfullashit I don't see a dang thang"
So you either don't have the tools or are yet to explain exactly precisely what model for discerning evidence you have in mind when you talk about there being "no evidence"
which is it?

:shrug:

Why don't we start with the reasons why we believe in the electron, and the reasons why you believe in God? Instead of copping out every time you're asking to present some evidence for your beliefs, let's go ahead and list them, so we can judge for ourselves.

 

[wynn]

You are simply obscuring your value systems that you utilize before you bring so-called rationality to the discussion

Maybe it is inevitable that people do that.

Acknowledging the relative nature of one's position pretty much renders discussion as we know it redundant.

 

[Baldeee]

I am simply working with what support your position can and cannot afford and pointing out the inherent limitations of it at the moment.
IOW the precise point you are consistently failing to address is in what manner your system of "evidence" is limited or (when advocated as having a monopoly on all knowable claims ... such as you are doing at the moment) exists at the expense of others

When you put forward evidence that runs counter, and a means to observe that evidence that is not within the limitations of the system you think I am using, then you can start to criticise.
Otherwise you are just pushing your claims outside of enquiry by anything other than recourse to authority.

Incorrect

It is entirely correct from what I have read.
Perhaps you can repeat what you think you may have already stated in this regard?

I am pointing out how you are trying to problematize a value system by radically advocating another one that cannot even theoretically approach the question.
Kind of like clamoring about the inconsistencies of recording temperature by advocating the use of tape measures and disregarding thermometers (even though the effectiveness of tape measures in measuring distance doesn't really add anything to the discussion)

Yet merely pointing out what you see as problems with others' systems in no way describes your alternative system.
Perhaps you think saying "Your system is limited" is sufficient description of your own?

You might have noticed how I am not bothering to evidence it to you for that exact reason.

I meant that I would not even bother trying to detail the issues.
Yet you hide behind attempting to merely highlight weaknesses instead of actually detailing the alternative you subscribe to.
And you persist in evasion despite requests to do so.
You seem to do nothing but look to hide in those perceived limitations as comfort that you're not deluding yourself.

What I am bothering to do is point out how your attempts to portray yourself as "rational" and whatnot is far from accurate.

Only if you misunderstand what it means to be "rational".
If one uses the information they have in a logical and consistent manner, introducing no redundancy, then they are being rational.
One does not need to have all the information, or even be unaware that additional information exists.
It is merely a matter of the way one uses the information they have.