"Atheists Are Ignorant" review

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"Atheists Are Ignorant" review

This is a review of a series of Youtube videos by the user "thesunofjuda" who claims to be a pantheist. Despite this claim, the videos spout all of the same misconceptions that theists tend to spout, whether sunofjuda is a theist or not.

 

I've written some basic responses to some of the ignorant remarks, but anyone else is welcome to add their two cents.

 

Here is a link to thesunofjuda's channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/thesunofjuda

 

Atheists Are Ignorant: Part 1

 

0:02 wrote:

Atheists are religious, too.

 

In what sense? Would you be willing to put an atheist and a Christian side-by-side and say that both of them are devoutly religious men?

Atheists---at least the ones you're probably referring to in your hasty generalization---are simply enthusiastic and involved. In that very limited sense, you might say that an atheist is "religious".

More likely, though, you are just having fun with words.

 

0:07 wrote:

With a messiah by the name of Darwin.

 

Congratulations. You've just demonstrated that you know absolutely nothing about atheism.

 

Atheism is a lack of belief in a god. Period. It's true that atheists tend to favor natural explanations for everything (which they should), but none of that is necessary for their atheism.

It's possible to be an atheist and NOT believe in evolution. I doubt there are many atheists that fit that description, but it's completely possible, just as it's possible to be an atheist and still believe in astrology.

But even the atheists that DO accept evolution do not worship Darwin, do not pray to Darwin, do not feel like they have a personal relationship with Darwin, do not believe that Darwin is anything other than a mortal man (who is now dead), and do not believe that Darwin possessed any superhuman wisdom. In fact, any learned atheist would gladly tell you that Darwin and his Origin of Species were far from infallible.

I also believe that the world is round and orbits the sun. Does that mean I have another messiah named Coppernicus?

With all due respect, stop being a fucktard.

 

0:16 wrote:

Historical documentation showing the human race is millions of years old...

and there is...

 

Historical documentation is not generally used as evidence for the age of the human race. Historical documents are used when discussing the history and development of certain aspects of human culture.

Archaeology does a much better job of proving the age of the human race. Historical documents can't be used because humans have not always been able to write or document their activities.

 

0:25 wrote:

...is not accepted by scientists because Darwin's theory might be disproven...

...Christians throw away evidence that disproves them...

 

Okay, first of all, it would have been nice if you would have used complete sentences. In all fairness, I should stop watching your video right now because you speak in loosely-tied fragments. Don't make your audience work for your meaning. Be coherent, please. We don't have to listen to  you, if you don't want.

 

More to the point, no atheist will deny that Darwin's theory could be disproved. But that's not saying much of anything, since ANY theory could be disproved. Our theory of gravity could be disproved, if sufficient evidence were presented to demonstrate that our current understanding is completely wrong. But just because something is open to being disproved does not mean that it will be, and evolution has so much evidence in its favor, that it's extremely unlikely that it would ever be disproved. Perhaps some sub-theory might be disproved, but very doubtfully the entire idea.

Also, Darwin's evolution is not even close to what we currently call "evolution". We go by something called the modern synthesis these days.

Darwin is to evolution what Freud is to psychology. Modern psychology owes a lot to Freud but looks nothing at all like his ideas. Evolution and Darwin are not much different.

And yes, Christians do throw away or ignore ideas that refute their... well... I think it would be more accurate to call them conjectures.

 

0:34 wrote:

The universe in (sic) an unexplained phenomenon...

and none of your theories proves it...

 

We don't have to explain that the universe IS. So no problems there.

It's difficult, though, to know HOW the universe came to be. And it's true that there is a lot about that question that we may very well never figure out.

However, there are plenty of things about the universe that we can and do know.

Evolution, for example, we know to be true, even if the details are still fuzzy.

Speaking of which, your jump from "evolution might be disproved" to "you can't explain the universe" seems to suggest you can't tell the difference between evolution and cosmology. You should fix that.

 

0:43 wrote:

Your favorite atheists such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are as bad as the televangelists.

 

They make irrational claims, encourage bigotry, and prey on the emotions of others to swindle them out of money?

Riiiiiight.

 

0:51 wrote:

In fact, they are televangelists. They use media to share with the narrow-minded masses.

 

No, actually, Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and university professor, while Christopher Hitchens writes book reviews and articles for vanity fair; and in fact, he's been on television for years discussing his political opinions. People simply pay more attention to his atheism lately.

 

A televangelist is a televangelist. End.

 

By your retarded definition, Bill O'Reilly is a televangelist.

 

1:01 wrote:

Atheism is a sad excuse for truth. It is an opinion.

 

It's not necessarily a truth claim at all. It's a truth claim if you're talking about the kind of atheist who claims that there IS NO GOD and that this is a knowable and indisputable fact.

But for the majority of us, it's a knowledge claim. Atheism does not say what is or is not true about the universe; it only makes a claim as to what we can possibly KNOW to be true about the universe. It does not necessarily say "there is definitely no god"; it simply says, "We have no way of knowing either way, but we currently have no reason to suppose there is, so to claim that there is a god is a presupposition."

Atheists do not make that presupposition.

 

1:06 wrote:

They say that religion is all garbage...

and that you can't prove God exists...

Religion does tend to be garbage, for the most part, but it really depends on the contents of the religion and what you are calling a religion.

Star Wars conventions might be called religious celebrations, depending on how loosely you were defining "religion" (I assume very loosely since you were attempting to apply it to atheism), but this would not be a harmful or delusional religion and, therefore, not quite in the same "garbage" category.

And proving the existence of god depends on how you are defining "god". We're not taking away opportunity to try and prove that god exists. In fact, we would love it if you could do that. It just so happens that all attempts to date have failed, and so we are pretty sure that whatever new "proof" you've come up with is going to fail as well.

But if you can do it, then go ahead. Prove God's existence and blow my mind.

 

1:13 wrote:

Which is true. You can't prove the religious gods...

but any god... no god whatsoever...

The gods of major revealed religions are so ridiculous and self-contradicting that they can generally be dismissed with hardly any thought whatsoever.

You sound like you're building up to an argument for deism or pantheism. Wee. Haven't heard that one before.

You are already failing to blow my mind.

*yawn*

 

1:20 wrote:

You cannot disprove that there is no god at all

 

Actually, yes you can. You could say, "Look over there. See that? That's god."

Bam. You've disproven it.

I think you mean that you can't PROVE that there is no god at all.

More or less, you're right. But if there is no reason whatsoever to suppose that there is a god, then there is every reason to continue being skeptical.

 

1:20 wrote:

but atheists must think they know everything because they can supposedly "prove" what they "know"

 

Ignorance. Refer to the previous response. ^

 

1:26 wrote:

They day atheists say

make up your own mind

 

What the hell does that even mean...?

 

1:29 wrote:

That would be nice but

they never will because they preach the gospel of Darwinism

*copy*

*paste*

Atheism is a lack of belief in a god. Period. It's true that atheists tend to favor natural explanations for everything (which they should), but none of that is necessary for their atheism.

It's possible to be an atheist and NOT believe in evolution. I doubt there are many atheists that fit that description, but it's completely possible, just as it's possible to be an atheist and still believe in astrology.

But even the atheists that DO accept evolution do not worship Darwin, do not pray to Darwin, do not feel like they have a personal relationship with Darwin, do not believe that Darwin is anything other than a mortal man (who is now dead), and do not believe that Darwin possessed any superhuman wisdom. In fact, any learned atheist would gladly tell you that Darwin and his Origin of Species were far from infallible.

I also believe that the world is round and orbits the sun. Does that mean I have another messiah named Coppernicus?

With all due respect, stop being a fucktard.

 

1:37 wrote:

But your wish, atheists, is so that everyone will think like you.

Doesn't that sound like Christianity?

Our wish is that everyone will think with their brains and not with a book.

Our wish is that no one will automatically presuppose supernatural answers to questions for which they currently have no answers.

We DO want people to think like us in the sense that we want them to be able to think freely.

The difference is that Christianity is dogmatic. Atheism is the polar opposite of dogmatic.

Unfortunately,  you seem to be completely oblivious to this fact, since you're so confused that you think atheists hail Darwin as a messiah.

 

1:44 wrote:

Atheism is not peace.

Free choice is peace.

Okay, hippie. Put the hash pipe down. Where did this sudden talk of "peace" come from?

Atheism makes no promises of peace or comfort or any other sort of thing. It's simply a label that indicates our stance in regard to the question: Do you believe in a god?

Atheism makes no promise of peace.

HOWEVER

It's not unthinkable that an atheist world would be a more peaceful one.

Think of one good thing a religious person could do that an atheist could not do.

It's difficult.

Now think of one horrible thing a religious person could do that an atheist could not do.

It's extremely easy.

Atheists may wish to argue that an atheist nation (or world) would be a more peaceful one, but that is not in any way a part of some kind of "atheist dogma". Atheism does not promise peace in the sense that Jesus promises peace. It doesn't promise peace at all. It is simply the case that it is correlated with a lack of hostility.

And by a lack of hostility, I mean physical hostility. Passionate verbal disagreement is something else altogether.

 

1:49 wrote:

Atheism is another duality

that separates the masses

I think the earth is round. How some people still believe it's flat is beyond me.

Oops, did I just evangelize a duality that separates the masses?

 

1:53 wrote:

So atheist tell Hitchens that his books aka atheist gospels

hitchens justifies deaths and the wars in the country

They are not atheist gospels. No atheist will take another atheist at his word simply because he's an atheist. Not all atheists agree about everything. That's exactly why we're not a dogmatic religion.

How many times am I going to have to say this? Don't you have anything else?

Hitchens' personal political opinions don't speak for the entirety of atheism at all, even if some of his political opinions have to do with the implications of religious faith.

You seem to have a problem where you find an atheist, then find something else that the chosen atheist approves of, and then declare that the other thing is atheism.

You are extremely efficient at missing the point.

 

2:01 wrote:

Or in other words...

a controlled society

No, that's exactly what we are AGAINST.

Are you a conspiracy theorist, perchance?

I mean... given this comment and the black background and the fuzzy sci-fi tones in the background of your video...

Just in case: the atheists are not trying to take over the world.

(or was that a lie to throw you off our trail? OMG!WTF!)

 

2:06 wrote:

Sadly, until people realize that life is not a game and you can't figure out everything

Please, daddy. Continue.

 

2:12 wrote:

And live with what you have instead of finding out why you have it

Almost done preaching?

 

2:17 wrote:

Organisms usually live and survive as long as they can

without think why... they just do

Way to finish your last thought before beginning a new one.

I hope this is going somewhere. I'm getting bored.

I'll just skip over all your preachy pseudo-wisdom to the next flagrant misunderstanding of atheism.

2:22-End of video wrote:

I am a wise sage. Come partake of my wisdom. (paraphrased)

 

I agree with peace and love, but piss on the woo-woo stuff.

 

 

Atheists Are Ignorant: Part 2

0:02-0:12 wrote:

Look I know you don't agree with my point of view.

But my video is about the closed-minded point of view atheists have.

 

Which was based on your complete ignorance of what atheism is.

 

0:19 wrote:

Common sense will tell you Christianity is a myth and the bible is untrue

 

woot!

 

0:28 wrote:

But what is wrong with people thinking that?

Nothing.

That the bible is untrue? Yes. Nothing. In fact, it's great.

 

Or do you mean what's wrong with believing that the bible IS true?

If that's what you mean, then you're horribly mistaken.

--Indoctrinating children who don't know better (you can't have a "christian child" just like you can't have a "libertarian child&quotEye-wink.

--Slowing of scientific progress

--The desire to teach children falsehoods in science classes

--Bigotry based on passages in a work of fiction

--Scaring children with horrifying threats of hellfire (would you also tell your children that if they don't go to bed when they're told, a man is going to crawl through the window and chop off their legs with a machete?)

--Government decisions being affected by a work of fiction (refusing stem cell research based on what Jesus likes is no different than doing it based on what Frodo Baggins likes).

 

To name but a few.

0:37 wrote:

Atheists have their points of view, and that's perfectly fine.

This isn't a matter of opinion, though.

If I told you that I think country music sucks donkeyballs, that would be a matter of opinion. We could debate about it all day. I could present to you an entire series of arguments for why country music should be banned forever, while you could present an entire series of arguments for why it should be permitted to stay. In this type of situation, one opinion is as good as another. Everyone is equal, and everyone is allowed to think whatever they want to think. I can think country music is vile if I please, and you can think it's great. Agree to disagree.

 

But suppose you tried to tell me that Santa Claus exists, and he lives at the North Pole. In this situation, one opinion is not as good as another. It is not an "agree to disagree" situation.

(This kind of thinking was even mocked in the movie Anchorman when Ron Burgundy insisted that the name "San Diego" translated to "a whale's vagina". It was pointed out to him that it simply means "Saint Diego", to which he responded, "Well, agree to disagree.&quotEye-wink

You cannot play the "agree to disagree" card in any situation where a disagreement arises.

This is one of those situations. If what you're claiming is obviously completely wrong or else is based on NO FACT whatsoever, then I am absolutely not going to agree to disagree.

So don't even start with the "everyone has their own opinion" business.

0:42 wrote:

But you guys preach like the Christians.

Only if your definition of "preach" is "promote/defend your ideas".

Do television commercials "preach"?

Do political candidates "preach"?

You are abusing the word "preach", just as you abused the word "religion".

 

0:47 wrote:

One of the best things about atheism is that no one told you how to be an atheist or what to believe.

But no... let's listen to hitchens and dawkins and darwin...

But only if we agree with them. They are not telling us how to be atheists and they are not defining what atheism means. They are simply promoting/defending their philosophical position. And since atheists ALREADY HOLD those philosophical positions, we are naturally going to agree with them.

"The best books tell you what you already know, or say what you mean to say, but better than you could yourself." --George Orwell

 

But not all atheists agree with each other about everything. Dan Dennett is a proponent of using the terms "brights" and "supers", which plenty of atheists (myself included) don't feel is very interesting or promising.

Sam Harris is an atheist that argues that "spiritual" experiences (scare quotes used purposefully) are completely real, despite the fact that there probably is no god. (His "spiritual" is a completely natural sort explanation of what religious believers consider supernatural or transcendent experiences).

 

Atheists are not dogmatic. This must be the fourth time I've said this so far.

1:03 wrote:

Come up with your own conclusions.

Without that atheism is a religion.

Okay, how's this:

You have no clue what you're talking about.

Again, this is a completely misguided argument.

Would you say that a first grade teacher who taught a first grader about George Washington was preaching a religion? I mean, the first grader obviously could not have come to her own conclusions about George Washington, so isn't she just taking her teacher's word for it? Isn't this some kind of Washingtonism religion?

 

No. The teacher simply exposes the child to the information that is out there, and the child then goes on to make her own decisions. If the child later became skeptical of the existence of a man named George Washington, she could look into it and come to her own conclusions.

Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens can present their ideas, but people are not going to swallow them automatically. They are going to test what is being said against their own knowledge. Look up any of Dawkins's interviews on Youtube where he defends his statements in The God Delusion. People do not accept all of his points as they are written, so Dawkins has to elaborate and defend. These books are meant to expose people to the atheistic position, but it is not some kind of mind control. If you disagree with a point Hitchens or Dawkins makes, no atheist is going to deny you that right; but they ARE going to ask you to explain yourself. It is a comparing of your own knowledge with the knowledge of another.

Religious texts are completely different. They are not to be questioned. It is not a comparison of your knowledge with the knowledge in the book; it is suppressing your own experiential knowledge and allowing the book to think and make decisions for you. It is a book that tells you how to live your life, what you may do, what you may not do, what you absolutely MUST do, what rewards you will receive if you obey, what punishments you will receive if you do not obey, etc. It is not just a philosophical position to be agreed with or disagreed with. It is also a rule book. A "guide".

The writing of Dawkins and Hitchens is nothing of the sort.

And your suggestion that Darwin's writing is a religious text is even more preposterous because it argues no philosophy whatsoever. It simply presents a series of observations and then uses those observations to make assertions that coalesce into a theory of descent by evolution. It would be almost like saying that a high school chemistry textbook is a religious tome.

 

Atheists Are Ignorant: Part 3

Oh this is rich. You uploaded Kennedy's speech on the menace of violence.

Question1:

What fucking violence?

Are atheists killing Christians? Are they killing anyone of any religious denomination? Give me one example of a known atheist that is known to have committed some act of violence IN THE NAME OF atheism or BECAUSE OF their atheism.

Passionate disagreement does not equal violence. If someone tells me that Earth is flat, I have every right to say, "You're a fucking idiot." That's not violence.

Let's skip to the parts of this HORRIBLY HORRIBLY MISUSED speech that I suspect you found to be the "juicy parts".

Robert F. Kennedy being misapplied by thesunofjuda wrote:

For when you teach a man to hate or to fear his brother,

when you teach that he is a lesser man...

because of his color or his beliefs...

or the policies that he pursues.

When you teach that those that are different from you threaten your freedom, or your job, or your home, or your family. And you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens, but as enemies; to be met not with cooperation, but with conquest; to be subjugated; and to be mastered.

We don't believe that people who believe in god are "lesser people", and we don't hate them, and we don't fear them, and we don't want them to fear us.

We just want them to know that what they believe is incredibly stupid and harmful, and they should stop.

Think of it this way: Suppose you have a friend who is an alcoholic. He doesn't believe he is an alcoholic. You think he is being stupid and that he is hurting himself and that he could potentially hurt others. What are you going to do? You're not going to fucking kill the guy. You're going to try and talk to him. You're possibly even going to get angry with him. But is it because you hate him, or is it because you hate his habit?

You're completely misunderstanding what's going on here. We're not going to kill anyone. We're pissed and incredibly irritated, yeah, and we have good reason to be. But we don't hate THE PEOPLE. We simply think that this "habit", this religious nonsense, is a complete load of bullshit that people don't need, that can be harmful to them, and harmful to others.

This has nothing to do with the people themselves. This has to do with IDEAS.

As for threatening freedom, atheists do have their freedom threatened. Why are they so mistrusted and stereotyped? Why do atheists have to pay higher taxes to compensate for the taxes that religious establishments DON'T have to pay, even though church and state are supposed to be separated? Why is god on the money and in the pledge of a secular country? Why do people want to teach fairy tales to my nieces and nephews in science classrooms? Why is it that when an atheist speaks up, there is immediately a wave of people who get angry and tell him to shut up, but a religious person is not met with the some level of retaliation? Since when did freedom of speech mean "I can say whatever I want, but you're not allowed to say anything back"?

Quote:

to be met not with cooperation, but with conquest; to be subjugated; and to be mastered.

Projection of epic proportions.

 

Atheists Are Ignorant Again

I guess this is some kind of twisted appeal to authority. A long audio interview with Matt Stone and Tre Parker. (authorities?)

Tre Parker wrote:

But basically, out of all the ridiculous religious stories I've ever heard... greatly, wonderfully ridiculous... the silliest one I've ever heard is... yeah, there's this big giant universe, it's expanding, it's all gonna collapse on itself, and we're all just here just cuz.

That, to me, is the most ridiculous explanation ever.

Well, it's nice that Tre Parker feels that way and that you agree with him. Let me sum up the problem that I suspect both of you may have:

"If there is a completely natural explanation for the universe and everything in it, then my existence is without meaning or purpose. I don't like that idea very much. Plus, I just don't see how it all could have happened by itself. Therefore, there must be some kind of god." (Translation: God of the gaps + I need to feel significant.)

Regardless of how close I am to hitting the mark, your appeal to Tre Parker means only as much as "Tre Parker agrees with me", which doesn't impress me at all. Just because he's a celebrity with a hit cartoon show does not mean he is incapable of presupposing a conclusion.

Also, he is obviously still able to call atheism a "religion", which more or less proves that he may not know much more about it than you do.

thesunofjuda wrote:

But no according to my last video, I'm the only one who thinks that way.

global atheism and anti-theism are not necessarily right.

You fellows shouldn't be so rude to those who don't subscribe to your exact way of thinking.

I'm not going to be rude about your pantheism (even though it's a presupposition), but I will be incredibly rude about your horrifically inaccurate caricature of atheism.

thesunofjuda wrote:

When they do that it kind of reminds me of these people that are on tv and knocking on doors.

Oh yeah, they are called religious who expand their fear of influence.

I think you may have been shooting for "sphere" of influence, but if you're trying to say that atheists use fear tactics, then let me ask:

How? By disagreeing with Christians (or other religions) and calling them idiots for buying into that nonsense? Does that make them afraid? Why?

 

thesunofjuda wrote:

but instead of fear you are assholes to get your point across and act like everyone else isn't educated.

why?

Well,  honestly, a lot of the time they're sort of not.

But it's not so much in the sense that they are stupid people. It's more that they are ranting on and on about something they know absolutely nothing about. Sometimes the thing they know nothing about is atheism. Sometimes the thing they know nothing about is science. Sometimes the thing they know nothing about is their very own religion!

Ignorance, in other words. Not exactly stupidity. They are different things, but sort of related.

For example, I asked you to stop being a fucktard earlier. This was probably interpreted as an attack on your intelligence. I'm not trying to say that you can't walk and chew gum at the same time. I'm trying to tell you that you clearly do not entirely understand atheism and yet you are trying to criticize it. Your understanding of atheism is a simplified caricature of what atheists actually say.

You were being ignorant.

 

Atheists Are Ignorant: Final

Quote:

Atheists tell me "man you got owned why do you keep making videos"

with my last few videos I said that atheists are like religious  people

because they get offended when people say "not so positive things" about their beliefs

and with comments and responses you posted you proved my point

so actually you got owned with your great beliefs

i'm done  have fun being assholes

 

People getting offended isn't proof that atheists are like religious people. It's proof that your understanding of atheism is completely wrong.

 

"Black people are just like Mexicans. They get mad when you say they're like the other ones."

 

If you said this and a black man suddenly got angry, it wouldn't prove that black people are like mexicans, and it wouldn't make you right. It would prove that you are being an ignorant little turd.

 

Have fun being an ignorant little turd.

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


Brian37
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"Atheist" refers to the lack

"Atheist" refers to the lack of belief in "god or gods". If I could redefine the word, it would be, "lack of belief in anything superstitious".

Pantheism is just another gap argument made out of ignorance. "Since we don't know everything about the Universe, it must have human qualities like us, IE "consciousness"."

I've run into pantheists before, and we even have one that hangs out on this site. Haven't heard from him in a while though.

They ARE in the same boat as any ancient myth lover.

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Luminon
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I think, thesunofjuda is

I think, thesunofjuda is right to some degree. However, he is completely unaware of how atheists think. They're  not trained to process, for example, an intuitive, vaguely presented, or metaphoric, information. They also consider it as an advantage in being correct and precise. However, by this they lose some possibilities in communication and understanding. This involves an untrust in subjective information and belief in an existence of objective information. Atheists prefer others to define how they will think for themselves. They use logics, just like most of people, but they overestimate its possibilites.

Quote:
Our wish is that everyone will think with their brains and not with a book.
If the brains are first educated by the correct books and people.
Quote:
Our wish is that no one will automatically presuppose supernatural answers to questions for which they currently have no answers.
Things may be all common for these who work with them every day and supernatural (or without answer) for the others. It's like a difference between a child of gynecologist and a child, who believes that children are brought to parents by a stork. Dividing anything at "natural" and "supernatural" violates a principle of reason. People, who work with "supernatural" sees no "supernatural".
Quote:
We DO want people to think like us in the sense that we want them to be able to think freely.
But not more freely than you do.
Quote:
The difference is that Christianity is dogmatic. Atheism is the polar opposite of dogmatic.
Yes, an opposite extremes. Poles are on opposite sides of Earth, but on both of them is damn cold.

Thesunofjuda may be a really good, free thinking guy, he has my sympathies, but nothing can prepare a freethinker on a meeting with atheists. Some atheists are freely thinking, but most of them are like orthodox theists, just much less polite. Well, the medieval dogmatic inquisitors had to reincarnate somewhere.

 

Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.


I AM GOD AS YOU
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  The way I read it ?

  The way I read it ?  

Pantheism ? , "this is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Fuck that Abe god dogma of separation Pantheism says, and that is good  ...... 

Pantheists, the way I read it are just in AWE of consciousness, and so is science.

Good P,  Bad P ..... and Buddha smiled and laughed ....  

  

 


Subdi Visions
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theism is make believe

Luminon wrote:
Dividing anything at "natural" and "supernatural" violates a principle of reason. People, who work with "supernatural" sees no "supernatural".

 

You can exchange the word supernatural for imaginary. That might enable you to see why it's a very logical place to make a division.

Respectfully,
Lenny

"The righteous rise, With burning eyes, Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies, To beat and burn and kill"
Witch Hunt from the album Moving Pictures. Neal Pert, Rush


Archeopteryx
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Luminon wrote:I think,

Luminon wrote:

I think, thesunofjuda is right to some degree. However, he is completely unaware of how atheists think. They're  not trained to process, for example, an intuitive, vaguely presented, or metaphoric, information.

I don't think it's that atheists are not trained to process that kind of information. I think rather that they generally refuse to accept that abstractions, metaphors, and ambiguities are anything other than abstractions, metaphors, and ambiguities.

Quote:

They also consider it as an advantage in being correct and precise.

Only as correct and as precise as is possible. Are you suggesting that it's sometimes advantageous to be incorrect and imprecise?

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However, by this they lose some possibilities in communication and understanding.

I don't think so. An atheist can still understand abstract concepts very well. They just do different things with abstract concepts. For example, both a theist and an atheist can understand the abstract concept of "love" without a problem, but only the theist, with statements like "god is love", attempts to un-abstract-ify the abstraction. It's a form of doublethink. Abstractions are simultaneously abstractions and not abstractions; metaphors are simultaneously metaphors and not metaphors. The atheist simply refuses to let the theist eat their cake and have it, too.

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This involves an untrust in subjective information and belief in an existence of objective information.

There's nothing wrong with subjective information, but both types of information cannot be used for the same purposes. They are not interchangeable.

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Atheists prefer others to define how they will think for themselves. They use logics, just like most of people, but they overestimate its possibilites.

Are you claiming that logic is somehow inherently flawed or limited? I wonder how one could come to such a conclusion without using the very logic that is under examination. That would be like using a hammer on itself.

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Our wish is that everyone will think with their brains and not with a book.
If the brains are first educated by the correct books and people.

I'm afraid you didn't get my meaning.

It's one thing to use a single book as a reference.

It is another thing to use a single book as an infallible source of answers.

 

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Our wish is that no one will automatically presuppose supernatural answers to questions for which they currently have no answers.

Things may be all common for these who work with them every day and supernatural (or without answer) for the others. It's like a difference between a child of gynecologist and a child, who believes that children are brought to parents by a stork. Dividing anything at "natural" and "supernatural" violates a principle of reason. People, who work with "supernatural" sees no "supernatural".

But your analogy falls apart at the point where the second child is completely wrong about the source of babies. It's true that, to the child, the stork explanation doesn't qualify as "supernatural", but that is only because of the child's ignorance.

But it's also completely different from theistic supernatural claims, since the child knows and understands exactly every element of its supernatural understanding. There is a definite stork that is delivering the baby in a definite and clearly understood way. Theistic supernatural explanations, if we continue with the child birth analogy, would be more along the lines of saying that "something we cannot comprehend that is really good gives us babies in some way that we cannot comprehend". The child's understanding is supernatural because it defies what we know to be true about reality. The theistic understanding is supernatural because it purposely defines itself as whatever reality is not. In other words, it is a blatant attempt to hide from any form of inquiry.

 

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We DO want people to think like us in the sense that we want them to be able to think freely.

But not more freely than you do.

Free to question and be curious about whatever they want. Free to come to their own conclusions, but also willing to have those conclusions questioned and tested by others.

Just as freedom of speech does not mean that I get to say whatever I want and no one is allowed to contest it, freedom of thought does not mean that I get to think whatever I want and no one is allowed to contest it.

A free thinker, therefore, would be willing to have his own thinking scrutinized by other thinkers.

Religions tend to have a "don't ask questions or you're a sinner" policy.

 

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The difference is that Christianity is dogmatic. Atheism is the polar opposite of dogmatic.

Yes, an opposite extremes. Poles are on opposite sides of Earth, but on both of them is damn cold.

I think you may have become too infatuated with your rhetorical device here. Explain to me, please, how dogmatic thinking and non-dogmatic thinking are equally bad. What good comes of dogmatic thinking that non-dogmatic thinking cannot accomplish?

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Thesunofjuda may be a really good, free thinking guy,

I think he is probably a free thinker---as much as the next person, anyway. I think he just currently has some bad ideas that he needs to re-evaluate.

And I have never denied his goodness as a person.

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he has my sympathies, but nothing can prepare a freethinker on a meeting with atheists. Some atheists are freely thinking, but most of them are like orthodox theists, just much less polite.

It's true that some atheists have dogmatic qualities, but I would hesitate to say "most of them".

 

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Well, the medieval dogmatic inquisitors had to reincarnate somewhere.

 

That is absolute hyperbole.

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


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Luminon wrote:I think,

Luminon wrote:

I think, thesunofjuda is right to some degree.

His argument is an inept tu quoque.

Luminon wrote:
However, he is completely unaware of how atheists think. They're  not trained to process, for example, an intuitive, vaguely presented, or metaphoric, information.

You're forgetting that most of the atheists here, and probably in general, were indoctrinated into various religions since childhood. What separates them from believers isn't that they "lack training" -- they have the same training as most of them, sometimes more -- but that they chose to scrutinize those beliefs by the same standards they do to determine the validity of every other proposition one is faced with.

Metaphors can be used to help a person understand a concept, but they don't bear on the validity of it. Too often, mystics and such simply use metaphors to obscure the absence of substance in their claims. Something is like something else, but the thing hasn't been demonstrated in the first place so it's not really like anything. If they had qualities, it wouldn't be so easy to abuse these concepts.

Luminon wrote:
They also consider it as an advantage in being correct and precise.

Do you advocate being incorrect, then? It seems like you're merely objecting to wonkery when it treads on your own difficult to defend conclusions.

Luminon wrote:
However, by this they lose some possibilities in communication and understanding.

There's also the possibility that the ideas being communicated are vague because they're non-sequiturs.

Luminon wrote:
This involves an untrust in subjective information and belief in an existence of objective information.

Not at all. Subjective information must be trusted on a daily basis, but it's not an effective way of gauging the more objective facts about reality. If you want to know the dimensions of an object, you bust out a tape measure rather than eyeball it, if you want to know with any accuracy. You can measure multiple times and build on the probability that you're correct in your measurements.

Luminon wrote:
Atheists prefer others to define how they will think for themselves.

That's a sneaky little ad hominem. So you're a free thinker because you impose whatever non-sequiturs you like on a situation? That's not freedom, it's incoherence.

Luminon wrote:
They use logics, just like most of people, but they overestimate its possibilites.

I think the possibilities of logic, versus incoherence, have been made abundantly clear. Incoherence might work if a person never had to make a conclusion about anything, ever. But they must, and they do, and this incoherence merely provides the person an indefensible position.


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I AM GOD AS YOU

I AM GOD AS YOU wrote:

  The way I read it ?  

Pantheism ? , "this is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Fuck that Abe god dogma of separation Pantheism says, and that is good  ...... 

Pantheists, the way I read it are just in AWE of consciousness, and so is science.

Good P,  Bad P ..... and Buddha smiled and laughed ....  

  

 

So why don't pantheists skip the gap and the label and do what the scientists do and say, "Wow, that is neat. "

Pantheists have to equate the Universe to being a giant brain. But all one has to do to see the absurdity of this is to put a slice of human cadaver brain under a microscope, and juxtapose it next to a Hubble space telescope of deep space. The two, even to a laymen, is quite obvious as to being completely dissimilar and unrelated.

Pantheists are looking for a magical cognitive nipple just like theists, they just dress their skunk in a newer tuxedo.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


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Archeopteryx wrote:I don't

Archeopteryx wrote:
I don't think it's that atheists are not trained to process that kind of information. I think rather that they generally refuse to accept that abstractions, metaphors, and ambiguities are anything other than abstractions, metaphors, and ambiguities.
I always try to think well of people, so I assumed that atheists can't do it, but if they refuse...well, they certainly show not much of a good will in communication and they ignore a valuable communication tool. I once wrote an allegoric story, which used a metaphor which PERFECTLY described the mechanism of reincarnation and what mistakes scientists do, how they wrongly apply logics and where they are just blockminded. A free thinking friend of mine was amazed by it and described is as a genial thing, he understood every hidden level of meaning and overtone, but the target subject, the naturalist Dawkinsoidic scepticist was just interested in it, but argued by an unprecision of using a metaphor. That made me think it's probably of a psychological cause, otherwise I'd have to be unpolite in my thoughts.

Archeopteryx wrote:
There's nothing wrong with subjective information, but both types of information cannot be used for the same purposes. They are not interchangeable.
I specially mean, that people tend to not believe their own senses, or own senses of people they don't even know. I have experienced things, which would make a normal uninformed guy get locked in a madhouse, just because he would think it's unnatural, because a vast majority of people knows nothing about it. Every subjective information is true, in the meaning, that it has a true, existing cause. If I, for example, experience a telekinesis, then I shouldn't search a doctor's number, but try it again. If a scientist reads on a voltage output measuring a greater value than on input, then the scientist shouldn't take pills, but find out the cause, change the science and get a Nobel prize. Both cases are possible, as far as I know. After all, every information you know is subjective. An objective information is just a large number of identic subjective informations.

Archeopteryx wrote:
Are you claiming that logic is somehow inherently flawed or limited? I wonder how one could come to such a conclusion without using the very logic that is under examination. That would be like using a hammer on itself.
I just say, that logics is overrated. I see a lot of formally correct logical conclusions, but the arguments on input are incomplete and thus the result is incorrect. Even truth itself isn't so simple, one fact has many levels of sense, which are less or more different to the lowest level. In higher context, the truth may change, it's a truth of the moment, of the place and of the context. And how can you be so sure  that you use the appropriate level of the truth, and that you have all necessary arguments? This must be taken into account.
"You're not thinking, you're just being logical" - Niels Bohr to Albert Einstein

Archeopteryx wrote:
But your analogy falls apart at the point where the second child is completely wrong about the source of babies. It's true that, to the child, the stork explanation doesn't qualify as "supernatural", but that is only because of the child's ignorance.
You didn't quite understand it.  While the uninformed child may believe in an objectively supernatural explanation, the child of a gynecologist has a quite good idea how things really are, because of the parent's work, it's even a daily routine. Things may be all common for these who work with them every day and supernatural (or without answer) for the others. For example, a reincarnation is considered to be absolutely undiscussable topic, but I have seen dozens of living proofs at home during the years. There is just a mechanism in human mind, which allows to view our past lives. It can be used for a healing therapy. My mother learned this method and practiced it through several last years, and thus I see a theme of reincarnation as an obvious thing, nothing "supernatural". Of course I know that most of people doesn't have such an opportunity to see a proof right at home, so they're just logical with a scarce facts they have.

Archeopteryx wrote:
Free to question and be curious about whatever they want. Free to come to their own conclusions, but also willing to have those conclusions questioned and tested by others.
If a theory is potentially true, then the others should come to the same conclusion. However, in many cases the others aren't on the same knowledge level, their paradigm must be expanded, beyond limits they currently have, then they can finally decide. If they ignorantly think, that they know enough, and that their supposedly missing knowledge is a piece of bs, then they can't logically get a valid result.
Example:
Statement: I am able to sense what others can't.
Necessary theory: existence of soft-material bodies, providing a higher range of senses, and that it's possible to tune at them.
Logical conclusion without the necessary theory: go see a doctor.
Result: one destroyed life, no practical benefit, which could be, for example, an ability to perceive and heal others' ailments. The result is important, not a coherence with official paradigm.


Archeopteryx wrote:
I think you may have become too infatuated with your rhetorical device here. Explain to me, please, how dogmatic thinking and non-dogmatic thinking are equally bad. What good comes of dogmatic thinking that non-dogmatic thinking cannot accomplish?
I'm sorry, that was a bit theatral, general and slightly metaphorical phrase. I'm used to the kind of people who can process it. I meant, that both religion and an official science, (where the greatest money flows) are highly dogmatic. Religion is naturally such, but a top science is dogmatic, because there are people at their warm, well paid places, directing huge financial grants and advicing to states what to use the money for, which is sometimes not the best choice. For example, if a state should buy a big, expensive (thus lucrative) wind electrical generators, then it would be nice if all cheap and 10x more efficient free energy gadgets would be safely buried under a thick label "conspiracy theories".

Archeopteryx wrote:
I think he is probably a free thinker---as much as the next person, anyway. I think he just currently has some bad ideas that he needs to re-evaluate.

And I have never denied his goodness as a person.

Yeah, he's a bit wild with that, but generally on a good way. I didn't see you really deny his goodness, I just wrote what I think, don't take me so seriously. First is a help to people no matter how, these discussions are just  a fun.

Archeopteryx wrote:
It's true that some atheists have dogmatic qualities, but I would hesitate to say "most of them".
Well, maybe I have just met a wrong people. It looks from my point of view like they would stand in a group in front of an enemy army and who will get further forward first, will get shot, so they just walk by tiny and slow steps. It's probably based on a primitive life in prehistoric troops, where an individual must really make sure to go and think with a troop, because he would otherwise be expelled really easily and end as a smilodon's lunch. Nowadays there are such an academic troops, and a science is highly developed inside an academic troop territory, but they're afraid to take a greater step outside of it, while the renegades explore freely, though they're sort of forbidden of participating on the troop's social life.

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Well, the medieval dogmatic inquisitors had to reincarnate somewhere.
 That is absolute hyperbole.
Not so absolute as you think, but yes Smiling
 

magilum wrote:
You're forgetting that most of the atheists here, and probably in general, were indoctrinated into various religions since childhood. What separates them from believers isn't that they "lack training" -- they have the same training as most of them, sometimes more -- but that they chose to scrutinize those beliefs by the same standards they do to determine the validity of every other proposition one is faced with.

My parents and I have the same religional background as most of "cured" atheists, and yet, they're not atheists, neither me.  I have seen atheists to judge religional texts by literally what's written there. It's logically correct, but it's in fact a joke, because the information is for example, in a metaphoric form and must be understood metaphorically. Refusing to seriously recognize and work with allegoric data when it's necessary, is like a sabotage of the process, resulting in labeling the information as a nonsense. However, an understanding the metaphor can give an useful information, or more different informations, hidden in deeper layers of meaning.

magilum wrote:
Do you advocate being incorrect, then? It seems like you're merely objecting to wonkery when it treads on your own difficult to defend conclusions.
I value an ability of being correct, finding an usable information, even if the input data aren't precise, literal, and descriptive, but are vague, metaphoric, legendary, seemingly unrelated, incoherent, and so on. It has been said about the philosopher's stone: "A wise man can find the stone in a dung, but a fool won't even believe it's in a gold."
Please don't take it personally.

 
magilum wrote:
There's also the possibility that the ideas being communicated are vague because they're non-sequiturs.
If correctly analyzed, they aren't, or if yes, then it's obvious why exactly. A real truth, found in a metaphor, is self-evident, if understood.

Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.


magilum
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 Luminon wrote:  magilum

 

Luminon wrote:
 

magilum wrote:

You're forgetting that most of the atheists here, and probably in general, were indoctrinated into various religions since childhood. What separates them from believers isn't that they "lack training" -- they have the same training as most of them, sometimes more -- but that they chose to scrutinize those beliefs by the same standards they do to determine the validity of every other proposition one is faced with.

My parents and I have the same religional background as most of "cured" atheists, and yet, they're not atheists, neither me.

Which doesn't contradict my point at all.

Luminon wrote:

I have seen atheists to judge religional texts by literally what's written there. It's logically correct, but it's in fact a joke, because the information is for example, in a metaphoric form and must be understood metaphorically.

And there are as many ways to interpret it as there are people to do so. Not that it's important, as it's never been demonstrated that there's a practical difference in interpreting it "correctly" by one standard, and not. It is ad hocs built on non sequiturs, and it's like that soup to nuts.

Luminon wrote:

Refusing to seriously recognize and work with allegoric data when it's necessary, is like a sabotage of the process, resulting in labeling the information as a nonsense. However, an understanding the metaphor can give an useful information, or more different informations, hidden in deeper layers of meaning.

No one needs to straw-man the information to make it look worthless. Its thousands of years of substantive stagnation have born that out.

Luminon wrote:

magilum wrote:

Do you advocate being incorrect, then? It seems like you're merely objecting to wonkery when it treads on your own difficult to defend conclusions.

I value an ability of being correct, finding an usable information, even if the input data aren't precise, literal, and descriptive, but are vague, metaphoric, legendary, seemingly unrelated, incoherent, and so on.

Once again, you're not contradicting my assertion. You don't like threats to your incoherent nonsense, as you'd demonstrated in your lengthy defense of miraculous window reflections, which you'd made significant only by your ignorance to their cause. This is very typical of religious and new age people.

Luminon wrote:

It has been said about the philosopher's stone: "A wise man can find the stone in a dung, but a fool won't even believe it's in a gold."
Please don't take it personally.

On top of being an appeal to authority, the quote is itself poisoning the well. You really are delusional if you think you have to qualify it like it's some devastating remark.

Luminon wrote:

magilum wrote:

There's also the possibility that the ideas being communicated are vague because they're non-sequiturs.

If correctly analyzed, they aren't, or if yes, then it's obvious why exactly. A real truth, found in a metaphor, is self-evident, if understood.

Except that that "if" circumstance hasn't born fruit ever. If, on the other hand, there are more exceptions to that "if" than instance, maybe it's time to abandon such an "if."

 


I AM GOD AS YOU
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  I agree Brian37 .... like

  I agree Brian37 .... like I said, Pantheism is "one small step" .....  

, yeah , what's with the hocus pocus shit people hang on too ......  why why why ?        WE are magic ? How silly indeed !  ...... hey Brian,  yeah,  save a pantheist  too !   { at least the P dogs are much friendlier than the X dogs }

 

    Thanks .....  really ..... and again friend  ..... 

, and I also love cats !  .....  

Meow , yeah , we are ONE ..... cat's are god too !    Yeah god ..... but it ain't magic .... wish it was ..... but we could pretend .....   

naaahh, fuck that pretending, I AM the real shit ...... I don't do make believe ..... I AM only the nitty gritty ...... 

Thanks Brian , Reality is enough for me .....          


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magilum wrote: magilum

magilum wrote:
Which doesn't contradict my point at all.

Ok, then.

magilum wrote:
You're forgetting that most of the atheists here, and probably in general, were indoctrinated into various religions since childhood. What separates them from believers isn't that they "lack training" -- they have the same training as most of them, sometimes more -- but that they chose to scrutinize those beliefs by the same standards they do to determine the validity of every other proposition one is faced with.

They choose to scrutinize those beliefs by the standards, because it is better than to blindly believe them, all right. However, to contradict your point, I think there is another, better way of scrutinization the beliefs, a way which is more constructive, not mere refusing of what is incoherent, but understanding what it would be, if it would be presented coherently. If I can see how it was meant, I have obtained more knowledge than just by refusing the concept. It would be nice, but I've got no idea how to teach this approach to information. It isn't like a formal rules of logics, which can be googled up. It's rather an experience.

magilum wrote:
Metaphors can be used to help a person understand a concept, but they don't bear on the validity of it. Too often, mystics and such simply use metaphors to obscure the absence of substance in their claims. Something is like something else, but the thing hasn't been demonstrated in the first place so it's not really like anything. If they had qualities, it wouldn't be so easy to abuse these concepts.

I haven't seen a misuse of metaphors for a very long time, I don't know what you're talking about. Wikipedia didn't contain any examples. Maybe Google will help. All I remember were used correctly, and demonstrated enough.

magilum wrote:
Once again, you're not contradicting my assertion. You don't like threats to your incoherent nonsense, as you'd demonstrated in your lengthy defense of miraculous window reflections, which you'd made significant only by your ignorance to their cause. This is very typical of religious and new age people.

I'm not contradicting? OK, I do not advocate being incoherent. I advocate finding a coherency in what seems incoherent to others, no matter how they are numerous. The "window reflection" argumentation failed on the fact, that most of my reasons are not available to be objectively presented, they're either subjective, or limited to a group of people which the  local citizen association consists of, and similar groups. The light patterns themselves alone aren't too persuasive, but I think they have the same cause, as other events, which are less easy to explain.

Yes, I am quite similar to the New Age people, after all, it's extremely broad definition. New Age is rather a sociopsychological phenomenon. Many different people, wise or foolish, adopted a very similar worldview in a very historically short time, without any authoritative influence. They just think it feels right. But it's a wide range of people. Some are pretty much like a scientists (sometimes including academic titles), but some practice things like Wiccan occultism, without even having idea what are they doing. And there's a large number of people with a generally open attitude, but without precise informations or many experiences.

magilum wrote:
On top of being an appeal to authority, the quote is itself poisoning the well. You really are delusional if you think you have to qualify it like it's some devastating remark.
Really? As I found, poisoning the well is a fallacy which makes all arguments of the other person less valuable. It wasn't intentional, I just thought this is the most precise definition of how I'd like to describe you and your distrust for searching in the incoherent informations.
Do you really think, that I just fight in a war of logical argumentation all the time? This is just one of several ways how to communicate. I see it doesn't go by the logical way, so I try the other, but you simply don't use them.
The problem is, we don't see each other as an equivalent peers. It would require me to be like you or you to become like me, but this is not the case, I am me and you are an athe...eh, you. The only thing I can do in these circumstances, is to present you things which I could be useful to you as best as I can, and hope they will be, while I'm trying to figure out what you've got to teach me. Probably the definitions of logical fallacies. With some, I didn't even know about their existence. Well, thanks for that.

 

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Luminon wrote:I always try

Luminon wrote:

I always try to think well of people, so I assumed that atheists can't do it, but if they refuse...well, they certainly show not much of a good will in communication and they ignore a valuable communication tool.

They don't refuse because they are rude; they refuse because metaphors are nothing more than metaphors. Its power as a communication tool has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I can understand perfectly the meaning of the following expression: "The sun was a bauble in the trees". But this is a metaphor and only a metaphor. All that it does is demonstrate a subjective relationship between the sun and a bauble, namely the way they look when seen through the branches of a tree. But the metaphor is not both metaphorical AND literal; the sun is not both LIKE a bauble and EXACTLY a bauble at the same time.

This is not a "we refuse to see it your way" situation. This is a "you can't eat your cake and have it, too" situation.

Either something is metaphorical or it is not. Period.

Quote:

I once wrote an allegoric story, which used a metaphor which PERFECTLY described the mechanism of reincarnation

No it didn't. If it perfectly described the mechanism of reincarnation then it would simply be a perfect description of the mechanism of reincarnation. Metaphors are by definition not exactly what they mean. They are inexact and indirect.

To use the same metaphor as before, I do not actually mean that the sun is a bauble in the trees. And when you first hear me say that the sun is a bauble in the trees, you know that this is not a true statement, so you are forced to ask yourself "what does he actually mean by that?" Only by comparing certain aspects of the sun and of baubles can you successfully determine what I mean by that expression. We like metaphors because they tickle the mind. They relate something we know to something else we know, establishing an interesting relationship we may not have considered before. But they are never exact. The expression "the sun was the sun" is an exact description of the sun. The expression "the sun was a bauble in the trees" is not at all exact. It is an indirect description of the sun through a completely unrelated intermediary.

So it was either a metaphor---an artistic and purposefully inexact expression---or it was not. You cannot have it both ways.

This is all that atheists deny theists. It's not that we don't understand metaphor, we just understand that metaphor is ONLY metaphor.

Quote:

and what mistakes scientists do, how they wrongly apply logics and where they are just blockminded.

Yes, that does happen. But that's why there are peer reviews. Do you think a certain scientist is using bad logic about something? Write an article about it and submit it to a periodical. Scientists are not protected from questioning.

Quote:

A free thinking friend of mine was amazed by it and described is as a genial thing, he understood every hidden level of meaning and overtone, but the target subject, the naturalist Dawkinsoidic scepticist was just interested in it, but argued by an unprecision of using a metaphor.

Right. Because metaphors are, by nature, not precise. They are abstractions and only abstractions. They are communication tools and only communication tools.

Quote:

That made me think it's probably of a psychological cause, otherwise I'd have to be unpolite in my thoughts.

Not psychological. It's just the realization the metaphors are only metaphors.



Quote:
I specially mean, that people tend to not believe their own senses, or own senses of people they don't even know. I have experienced things, which would make a normal uninformed guy get locked in a madhouse, just because he would think it's unnatural, because a vast majority of people knows nothing about it. Every subjective information is true, in the meaning, that it has a true, existing cause.

It's true that we don't automatically trust the sensory information gathered by others because we are not plugged into the other person's senses. The only way we can know what they are thinking or feeling is if they somehow communicate it to us through language.

However, just because we know that everyone has experiences we cannot know until they communicate them, this does not mean that we must accept as truth anything a person tells us they have experienced. People are perfectly capable of lying, misunderstanding, or being misled.

Take optical illusions for example. There are illusions that can make you see movement when there is actually none. There are illusions that can make you see colors that are not actually there. There are illusions that can make you see entire objects that are not actually there. And there are even illusions (my favorite) where an object is moving right in plain sight in front of your eyes (or in some cases appearing and then disappearing), and yet it takes you nearly a minute of scrutinizing the thing before you can see that any change is happening at all.

A person might look at such an optical illusion and say "nothing is moving". This is his sensory experience, but I do not---and in this case I should not---take his word as the truth about reality. There was movement. He simply misperceived or failed to perceive it.

Similarly, it is beyond the scope of our senses to detect that objects are made of molecules and atoms or that our bodies are comprised of billions and billions of individual cells. We need tools to arrive at such discoveries.

What a person sense is not enough. They have every right to say that they experienced such-and-such, but the recipient of their claim has every right to examine their claim and make a judgment. Did they really experience such-and-such or do they simply think they did? Is this person lying to me? Has someone else tricked this person? What is actually going on here?

As I said before, freedom of thought does not mean that people get to believe whatever they want and no one is allowed to question it.

Refusing to let your beliefs be examined is NOT free thinking. It is dogmatic thinking.

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If I, for example, experience a telekinesis, then I shouldn't search a doctor's number, but try it again. If a scientist reads on a voltage output measuring a greater value than on input, then the scientist shouldn't take pills, but find out the cause, change the science and get a Nobel prize. Both cases are possible, as far as I know. After all, every information you know is subjective. An objective information is just a large number of identic subjective informations.

Right. If something occurs that does not match with what you currently claim to be true of reality, then we need to investigate the matter and explain its cause. If we need to alter our understanding of reality, then we can do so, but only if it has been demonstrated that we have sufficient reason for doing so. If it could be demonstrated, for example, that telekinesis is possible, then we would definitely have to admit that telekinesis is a real ability that people can acquire or inherit. But until it is demonstrated that it is a real ability, we do not have to take the word of anyone who says, "I experienced telekinesis once". For all we know, the person could be stoned out of his mind.

As for objectivity being a collection of subjective information, you are inching your way toward the problem of induction, which has been addressed multiple times on this forum already, so I won't launch into another one of those discussions. They're around.
 

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Archeopteryx wrote:
Are you claiming that logic is somehow inherently flawed or limited? I wonder how one could come to such a conclusion without using the very logic that is under examination. That would be like using a hammer on itself.
I just say, that logics is overrated.

Logic is not something that can be "rated" and therefore it cannot be "overrated". Until there is something else that works just as well as logic that we could use just as well in its place, there is no such thing as logic being "overrated". That's like saying that the sun is overrated in photosynthesis.

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I see a lot of formally correct logical conclusions, but the arguments on input are incomplete and thus the result is incorrect. Even truth itself isn't so simple, one fact has many levels of sense, which are less or more different to the lowest level. In higher context, the truth may change, it's a truth of the moment, of the place and of the context. And how can you be so sure  that you use the appropriate level of the truth, and that you have all necessary arguments? This must be taken into account."You're not thinking, you're just being logical" - Niels Bohr to Albert Einstein

Right. It is definitely possibly to be logical but to miss the point. I often give an example created by David Mills to show how an argument can be internally logical while being completely false. It goes as follows:

"Suppose that I am the owner of a cabbage patch. One day I go to the store, and when I come home I find that my cabbages have been cursed. I know that there are three witches that live on my street, and I know that the first witch and the second witch are out of town on vacation, so I must logically conclude that it is the third witch that has placed a curse on my cabbage patch."

Internally logical. Completely untrue.

As you said, there are many variables (or you might say "levels&quotEye-wink in the story that need to have their truth values examined. The story is internally logical, but it only works if we accept that witches and spell-casting are true phenomena.

Witches and spell-casting are known to be works of fiction, so even though this account is internally logical, we must dismiss it as a lie on account of the fact that it has fictitious variables. If witches or spell-casting were later demonstrated to be real, we would obviously have to change our minds and re-examine the story, and perhaps find it to be true after all. But until witches and spell-casting cease to be works of fiction, this cabbage patch story will not cease to be a work of fiction either, despite its internal logic.

This is how science works as well. Our conclusions are based on what we know to be true based on the information we've collectively gathered over centuries of observation and experimentation (and the fact that we have advanced science so far testifies that its methods are not misguided). We can change our minds, certainly, if we have sufficient reason for doing so, and science has done this. We used to believe the Earth was the center of the universe, but we later changed our minds. This does not mean that science is indecisive or simply guessing about what is true. We reach conclusions using only the information we have. When new information is revealed, we must obviously re-examine and sometimes alter our conclusions, but it is downright insane to distrust science or logic simply because they sometimes come to the wrong conclusions. (When they do come to the wrong conclusions, it's invariably man' fault---not science or logic's fault. Much like computers, it's generally the user that is the problem.)

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You didn't quite understand it.  While the uninformed child may believe in an objectively supernatural explanation, the child of a gynecologist has a quite good idea how things really are, because of the parent's work, it's even a daily routine. Things may be all common for these who work with them every day and supernatural (or without answer) for the others. For example, a reincarnation is considered to be absolutely undiscussable topic, but I have seen dozens of living proofs at home during the years.

It is not a taboo subject in the least. People can talk about it all they want. It's only when they start claiming that it is a true phenomenon that the red flags will begin to fly.

You've seen proof that reincarnation is real? I am skeptical. You can believe reincarnation is true all you want, but if you want me to stop thinking you're a crazy person, you'll have to convince me. I'm not just going to take your word for it.

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There is just a mechanism in human mind, which allows to view our past lives. It can be used for a healing therapy. My mother learned this method and practiced it through several last years, and thus I see a theme of reincarnation as an obvious thing, nothing "supernatural". Of course I know that most of people doesn't have such an opportunity to see a proof right at home, so they're just logical with a scarce facts they have.

You know, to a certain extent, reincarnation is kind of sort of real. After all, our bodies are made of the food we eat, and the food we eat is made out of the food that it ate, which was made out of the food that it ate, etc. It is not at all impossible that some of the water in my eye was once pissed out of Marilyn Monroe. So we are made out of former beings. Lots of them.

But you seem to be under the impression that the same consciousness is continually reincarnating in new bodies.

I am skeptical. I believe any alleged proof you have for such a thing is subjective woo-woo magic talk. You can claim that you "saw into your past life" all that you want, but I absolutely do not have to take your word for it. It is not at all impossible that you are lying, delusional, misguided, fooled, or have been smoking way too much weed.

You can believe whatever you want, but you can't call me close-minded simply because I refuse to take your word for it.

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If a theory is potentially true, then the others should come to the same conclusion.

Right. Which is how we science works. This is how our explanations of reality are verified. Something must be falsifiable and able to be tested. If it is not falsifiable or able to be tested, we must continue to be skeptical or to suspend judgment.

A claim along the lines of "I was a dolphin in my past life" is not falsifiable or testable. The person can claim to have experienced memories of their past life all they want, and they are perfectly allowed to believe it, but they cannot expect us to take their word for it. We cannot test such a thing, and so we must continue to be skeptical or to suspend judgment.

Even if multiple people say, "I experienced memories of my past life", this is not good enough to be accepted as a scientific fact. For one, this is not a reproduceable test. For two, if it were reproduceable, it should be able to be tested and found to be true by ANYONE. Not just a lot of people.

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However, in many cases the others aren't on the same knowledge level, their paradigm must be expanded, beyond limits they currently have, then they can finally decide. If they ignorantly think, that they know enough, and that their supposedly missing knowledge is a piece of bs, then they can't logically get a valid result.

Like sunofjuda, you seem to be confusing demonstrable facts with personal opinions. Something you experienced has convinced you that reincarnation is true. Okay, go for it. Have fun with that.

But suppose that I said a personal experience has proven to me that I have had a telepathic conversation with an oak tree. I can believe that all I want, but I can't expect others to believe that telepathic communication with oak trees is a fact, because it is not reproducible, falsifiable, or testable by anyone. It is my own experience. It's like saying scientists are being closed-minded if they don't accept that I have knowledge of a color called "engwark" that they have never seen.

Of course they can claim that its bs if it is not a part of the knowledge they label "true". Until it is demonstrated that it is anything other than bs, it will continue to be a part of the knowledge they label "bs".

This is not closed-minded thinking. This is healthy thinking.

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Example:
Statement: I am able to sense what others can't.

This is exactly what I was talking about.

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Necessary theory: existence of soft-material bodies, providing a higher range of senses, and that it's possible to tune at them.
Logical conclusion without the necessary theory: go see a doctor.
Result: one destroyed life, no practical benefit, which could be, for example, an ability to perceive and heal others' ailments. The result is important, not a coherence with official paradigm.

You can believe the statement all you want, but you can't expect us to believe it without it being demonstrated to us. For all we know, you could be crazy.

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I'm sorry, that was a bit theatral, general and slightly metaphorical phrase. I'm used to the kind of people who can process it.

ATHEISTS CAN PROCESS METAPHORS.

I don't think you are able to "process" that metaphors are ONLY METAPHORS.

And it wasn't that I couldn't "process it". It's that you were equating dogmatic thinking and non-dogmatic thinking in badness ("coldness" ).

You still have no explained how the two are similar in any way. You are simply having fun with words, and that was the issue I was taking.

I can understand your metaphor, but your metaphor points to a lie.

To me, it's like you're saying that racism and non-racism are two extremes that are equally cold.

No. No they are not. One is definitely bad and one is definitely not.

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I meant, that both religion and an official science, (where the greatest money flows) are highly dogmatic.

Wrong. Dogmatic thinking refuses to alter its conclusions. Science does not meet this description. Nice try, though.

The bit about the money was a nice embellishment to a misguided statement.

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Religion is naturally such, but a top science is dogmatic, because there are people at their warm, well paid places, directing huge financial grants and advicing to states what to use the money for, which is sometimes not the best choice.

Scientists need to do science. To do science, they need money. To acquire money, they need to ask people for grants. That is just the way the system works. Sometimes people give them grants and the project turns out a negative result. This is no doubt a disappointment to those who provided the grant money, but the hypotheses that fail are just as important as the hypotheses that pass.

People also give a lot of money to Christian churches, which is a worse choice.

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For example, if a state should buy a big, expensive (thus lucrative) wind electrical generators, then it would be nice if all cheap and 10x more efficient free energy gadgets would be safely buried under a thick label "conspiracy theories".

Hm. I want to respond to this, but I cannot decipher its language. Sorry.

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Archeopteryx wrote:
It's true that some atheists have dogmatic qualities, but I would hesitate to say "most of them".

Well, maybe I have just met a wrong people. It looks from my point of view like they would stand in a group in front of an enemy army and who will get further forward first, will get shot, so they just walk by tiny and slow steps.

Atheists are not united by a dogma because atheism does not actually mean anything. We are not supported by a common something; we are supported by a common lack of something. It would be like discussing people who have no interest in traveling to France. What can you say that these people have in common other than their lack of something? Grouping them together would be like herding cats.

Atheists are no different. So speaking of an army of like-minded atheists is probably just as misguided. You'll no doubt find many like-minded atheists here, but that's only because the people who do not think like the atheists on this website are obviously not coming to this website! =]

Also, you've probably met plenty of atheists that do not fit your militant description. They probably just didn't bother to point out to you that they were an atheist. Many atheists don't care enough to even bring it up! =]

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It's probably based on a primitive life in prehistoric troops, where an individual must really make sure to go and think with a troop, because he would otherwise be expelled really easily and end as a smilodon's lunch. Nowadays there are such an academic troops, and a science is highly developed inside an academic troop territory, but they're afraid to take a greater step outside of it, while the renegades explore freely, though they're sort of forbidden of participating on the troop's social life.

I don't agree with your perceptions.

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Well, the medieval dogmatic inquisitors had to reincarnate somewhere.
 That is absolute hyperbole.
Not so absolute as you think, but yes Smiling

No, it is pretty much absolute. The inquisitors were absolutely dogmatic and they spread their ideas by forcing people to convert through the most terrible methods of torture mankind has ever invented. It actually reached the point where inventing new, more excruciating methods of torture was considered an art form, and some of the methods were indeed ingenious in cleverness but absolutely terrible in their cruelty.

Take for example the practice of strapping a man down to a table, filling a metal pot full of mice, turning it over upside down on his belly with the mice trapped underneath, and then heating the pot with hot irons until the mice became desperate to escape. You can probably deduce how such a thing would unfold.

Or there was the one where they would tie a person's hands behind their back and tie their ankles together. Then they would lower a hook from the ceiling and hang the person from the hook by their wrists and raise them to the ceiling with a bucket of sand hanging from their ankles, thereby painfully stretching their arms and putting tremendous strain on the joints. They would let the person hang like this for hours, and then, to punctuate the whole affair, they would suddenly release brake on the hook, letting the person fall freely toward earth, and then they would stop the chain suddenly, thereby popping the person's arms completely out of their sockets. The victim invariably died of shock.

This was all even more monstrous given the way they found new victims. A person was tortured in order to make them confess their blasphemy. Even if a person had not blasphemed, they would always confess under such extreme methods of torture. But it was not enough that they merely confess. They were always asked to give names of other who had "assisted" them in their blaspheming. Because of the extreme torture, names were always given. You can see how this quickly adds up to millions of innocent victims tortured and killed over a period of 700 years.

This is the kind of thing you are comparing atheists to?

It is absolute hyperbole in every sense of the word.

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


magilum
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Sighs... taps foot... does

Sighs... taps foot... does other things to demonstrate how pedestrian the conversation is (my ode to Nero).

Luminon wrote:

magilum wrote:
Which doesn't contradict my point at all.

Ok, then.

 

magilum wrote:
You're forgetting that most of the atheists here, and probably in general, were indoctrinated into various religions since childhood. What separates them from believers isn't that they "lack training" -- they have the same training as most of them, sometimes more -- but that they chose to scrutinize those beliefs by the same standards they do to determine the validity of every other proposition one is faced with.

They choose to scrutinize those beliefs by the standards, because it is better than to blindly believe them, all right. However, to contradict your point, I think there is another, better way of scrutinization the beliefs, a way which is more constructive, not mere refusing of what is incoherent, but understanding what it would be, if it would be presented coherently. If I can see how it was meant, I have obtained more knowledge than just by refusing the concept. It would be nice, but I've got no idea how to teach this approach to information. It isn't like a formal rules of logics, which can be googled up. It's rather an experience.

So these poorly rendered ideas could be coherent, if only they were.

Luminon wrote:

magilum wrote:
Metaphors can be used to help a person understand a concept, but they don't bear on the validity of it. Too often, mystics and such simply use metaphors to obscure the absence of substance in their claims. Something is like something else, but the thing hasn't been demonstrated in the first place so it's not really like anything. If they had qualities, it wouldn't be so easy to abuse these concepts.
 

I haven't seen a misuse of metaphors for a very long time, I don't know what you're talking about. Wikipedia didn't contain any examples. Maybe Google will help. All I remember were used correctly, and demonstrated enough.

I have no idea what you're talking about, since I made no specific reference. If you wanted one, you should have asked. A personal example of this was a conversation I'd heard in a Chi Gong class I'd once attended. The instructor, a protégé to an experienced practitioner, was taking chi, something never demonstrated to exist, outside of a metaphorical context, to grasp at some second-hand news story about a "mysterious second circulatory system" that he seemed to imply existed to move chi around. Presumably, he was describing the endocrine system, rather than a mysterious chi network, but we'll never know since the intellectual rigor of that room was such that no such redundancies could ever be reconciled. Maybe chi is a great metaphor for harnessing the endocrine system, but it's just a free-floating dingleberry of an idea in the hands of the mystics, never to be reconciled with physical knowledge. They just clap the dust off their hands, snap the straps on their overalls, and go home content not knowing how anything actually works.

Luminon wrote:

magilum wrote:

Once again, you're not contradicting my assertion. You don't like threats to your incoherent nonsense, as you'd demonstrated in your lengthy defense of miraculous window reflections, which you'd made significant only by your ignorance to their cause. This is very typical of religious and new age people.

I'm not contradicting? OK, I do not advocate being incoherent. I advocate finding a coherency in what seems incoherent to others, no matter how they are numerous.

I know people that think this way. It's impossible to get any kind of answer from them about anything. They always think they've answered something, but have only said two contradictory things, and trailed off.

Luminon wrote:

The "window reflection" argumentation failed on the fact, that most of my reasons are not available to be objectively presented, they're either subjective, or limited to a group of people which the  local citizen association consists of, and similar groups. The light patterns themselves alone aren't too persuasive, but I think they have the same cause, as other events, which are less easy to explain.

Emphasis added. Your reasoning is at best an appeal to ignorance once again. That something is mysterious isn't itself an argument for an interpretation of it. You don't want unexplained things if you're advocating a position: you want things that specifically necessitate an interpretation; that are testable and repeatable. And then you still have to leave it open to the possibility further evidence will come along and turn everything around -- like a real scientist must. You're just looking to unexplained things as a place to stash all your hugger mugger mystic aspirations.

Luminon wrote:

Yes, I am quite similar to the New Age people, after all, it's extremely broad definition. New Age is rather a sociopsychological phenomenon. Many different people, wise or foolish, adopted a very similar worldview in a very historically short time, without any authoritative influence. They just think it feels right. But it's a wide range of people. Some are pretty much like a scientists (sometimes including academic titles), but some practice things like Wiccan occultism, without even having idea what are they doing. And there's a large number of people with a generally open attitude, but without precise informations or many experiences.

LOL. I'm from Los Angeles, so you've got fuck all to say to me about this.

Luminon wrote:

magilum wrote:

On top of being an appeal to authority, the quote is itself poisoning the well. You really are delusional if you think you have to qualify it like it's some devastating remark.

Really? As I found, poisoning the well is a fallacy which makes all arguments of the other person less valuable.

The quote amounting to pre-discrediting an opponent via ad hominem. Also, it sucked.

Luminon wrote:

It wasn't intentional, I just thought this is the most precise definition of how I'd like to describe you and your distrust for searching in the incoherent informations. 

Do you really think, that I just fight in a war of logical argumentation all the time? This is just one of several ways how to communicate. I see it doesn't go by the logical way, so I try the other, but you simply don't use them.

Don't tell me what I do or do not, and try to portray me as a greedy reductionist or something -- well-poisoning asshole. I've explored all kinds of crazy shit in my life. I use intuition, but I recognize it as an unarticulated rationale, not a mysterious force that drips in from another dimension. Most of what I do could be explained or articulated if I chose to do so. Leaving something deliberately unexplained is a favored tactic of mystical fraud because there's nothing for them to articulate coherently at all. Like I said, you sit coiled like a pit viper, waiting for something unexplained to dump all your new age insecurities into.

Luminon wrote:

The problem is, we don't see each other as an equivalent peers. It would require me to be like you or you to become like me, but this is not the case, I am me and you are an athe...eh, you. The only thing I can do in these circumstances, is to present you things which I could be useful to you as best as I can, and hope they will be, while I'm trying to figure out what you've got to teach me. Probably the definitions of logical fallacies. With some, I didn't even know about their existence. Well, thanks for that.

An even proposition works out for you better than it does me. I believe in things that don't need me to believe in them. They are brute facts, and the basis for society as we know it. They have evolved, and been built upon, an advanced in tangible ways. Your side has stagnated, and withered to a shell compared to its previous importance.

 


Eloise
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Brian37 wrote:I AM GOD AS

Brian37 wrote:

I AM GOD AS YOU wrote:

  The way I read it ?  

Pantheism ? , "this is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Fuck that Abe god dogma of separation Pantheism says, and that is good  ...... 

Pantheists, the way I read it are just in AWE of consciousness, and so is science.

Good P,  Bad P ..... and Buddha smiled and laughed ....  

  

 

So why don't pantheists skip the gap and the label and do what the scientists do and say, "Wow, that is neat. "

Well, I can only speak for myself really, but the thing is, here, it's not a gap. The universe isn't supposed insofar, by pantheists, to be God, it is, rather, comprehended that the universe, us and everything, is indeed the very entity which has been contemplated and described in all (or at least most all) theological endeavour. The universe is one entity and it is comprised of the virtue, power and elegance of the being in question. It is God, we are god and belonging to god and the promises of theological revelation apply to this existence which is vaster and more elaborate in its wonder than we have yet discovered or imagined. In Pantheism, there is no magical being in the sky or any otherwise distantly removed aspect of the same there is only this existence; we just don't know the half of it.

 

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Pantheists have to equate the Universe to being a giant brain.

Not really. Most pantheists take a more basic approach to see the universe as a living dynamic connected entity with at least one viable spring of collective conscious activity.

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But all one has to do to see the absurdity of this is to put a slice of human cadaver brain under a microscope, and juxtapose it next to a Hubble space telescope of deep space. The two, even to a laymen, is quite obvious as to being completely dissimilar and unrelated.

The comparison between the consciousness of the universe and the consciousness of man is made between living brain cells and the universe.

But in any case, biologically dead matter and black deep space are very similar, they both serve the same very great purpose - dead bio cells in supporting the existence of live biological matter and empty regions in space in supporting the existence of dynamic ones.

 Sorry for that not being on topic, Arch. To your original post, good job is all I can say, from what I can tell sunofjuda needs to get his his rather large bombastic state of inner peace up off his smoking chair three days a week and get an higher education. 

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Archeopteryx
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Eloise wrote: Sorry for

Eloise wrote:

 Sorry for that not being on topic, Arch. To your original post, good job is all I can say, from what I can tell sunofjuda needs to get his his rather large bombastic state of inner peace up off his smoking chair three days a week and get an higher education. 

 

Topics seldom stay on track. I'm just happy when conversation is happening. =]

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


I AM GOD AS YOU
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  Eloise    you are

  Eloise    you are wonderful.

Gosh, I AM so lucky to know ALL you RRS fans. Really a blessing, RRS is godly !     I can now die at least half smiling, all I will need now is morphine ..... Thanks so much ..... we are ONE !        


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..

 

Archeopteryx wrote:
Archeopteryx wrote:
To use the same metaphor as before, I do not actually mean that the sun is a bauble in the trees. And when you first hear me say that the sun is a bauble in the trees, you know that this is not a true statement, so you are forced to ask yourself "what does he actually mean by that?" Only by comparing certain aspects of the sun and of baubles can you successfully determine what I mean by that expression. ... So it was either a metaphor---an artistic and purposefully inexact expression---or it was not. You cannot have it both ways. This is all that atheists deny theists. It's not that we don't understand metaphor, we just understand that metaphor is ONLY metaphor.
Of course I know that too, nobody takes metaphores literally. But they're useful, when you don't understand something. An unknown problem can be converted to a metaphor, you'll understand the metaphor easily and thus with a little more effort you will understand the original problem. It is very useful when you deal with something you've never seen before. Unfortunately, at the point of "a little more effort" a cooperation of a scepticist usually stops, while other people goes on. All right, I tried to see it from your side and it wasn't easy nor enjoyable, but maybe I understand it. Let's see. Scepticists are OK with seeing an explaining of poethical relationship between sun and trees by a "bauble", because a poethical thinking is acceptable and doesn't need an explanation. However, when someone uses a metaphor like a "car" as a "physical body" and a "driver" as the (hypothetical, mystical, unexplained) "soul", then there is another relationship. Everyone knows how a car needs a driver, a driver is the cause for a car existence, every moving car has a driver and there is much more in the driver's world than just being in a car. But if a scepticist tries in his mind to exchange the above mentioned words, he can't believe the result, because a reincarnation, an existence of the soul, or whatever is the metaphor about, isn't proven to him before. Is that right? Maybe I expected a bit of hypothetical consideration, pointing out a mistakes or unclear places, some deeper discussing it, and so on, not a total block of a communication. I mean, it isn't necessary to immediately believe the result, just to understand the scheme. Then a time will tell, where's the truth, I'm just trying to provide a scheme, which a reader can maybe recognize in his eventual later experiences and realize, that someone told him a similar thing.
Archeopteryx wrote:
Wrong. Dogmatic thinking refuses to alter its conclusions. Science does not meet this description. Nice try, though. The bit about the money was a nice embellishment to a misguided statement.
Really? Then I am misguided too. However, revolutionary inventions are the best way to the hell on earth. In this country is a man (there was a report about him yerstaday on the TV) who invented how to break a macromolecules in PET bottles (and other suitable junk like sawdust) and to create a fuel of them very easily and ecologically. It's not a petrol, it's a mix of 20% petrol, 70% of naphta and some water, thus it must be distillated. Analysis of the sample in a laboratory ordered by a TV staff confirmed it. About a liter of this concoction, in a fruit jar was reputedly usable for 20 km of ride and it's price was about 5 cents. If I remember it well, he had appraised his invention on a very high price (950 millions of dollars), and then he put this value into a company he wanted to create (as a starting fund). However, these money were only hypothetical, so it wasn't much clear transaction and some his co-workers (with a discretionary power) started borrowing real money, and made a big debts. Snd since then mr. Vasicek (Candidate of Sciences) lost everything and the report showed him to live and work in a quite abandoned place, hiding from the police for years. Even when he wasn't wanted, some two people once took him to a car and drove him to an interrogation, without a word of explanation, as he said. Currently he sent his invention to a foreign patent office (he's afraid it could be stolen here, which is quite possible) and it will take 3 years before it will be approved. An invention like this can make a country completely independent on a fuel import. 950 millions is a lot of money and assasins are cheap. What is one human life, compared to maintaining the economically-political world arrangement, for which so much people already died in wars? Fortunately csc. Vasicek is safe from this kind of attention, as long as everyone thinks he's a fool.My father knows him personally, and considers him quite credible. He's not the only genius who ended like this, at least in this country, this is why I'm a bit sceptical about a change in science and financial world. If you've seen an opposite case, then it probably was noting radical. We still pay for petrol and die of AIDS and cancer, the economic balance is, so far, standing still and it's unimaginable for currently ruling people to be it different.
Archeopteryx wrote:
Scientists need to do science. To do science, they need money. To acquire money, they need to ask people for grants. That is just the way the system works. Sometimes people give them grants and the project turns out a negative result. This is no doubt a disappointment to those who provided the grant money, but the hypotheses that fail are just as important as the hypotheses that pass. People also give a lot of money to Christian churches, which is a worse choice.
I heard about a prohibition of researching a something called "scalar physics" on all American universities. If it's true, it will last about 20 years before it will get better (well, about 5 is maybe gone). I (dis)agree about giving the money to Churches. In African regions, for example, they exchange a humanitary help to locals for their souls, thus the local tribes and villages don't get a food or medicine unless they abandon their traditional religion (which knew of the spheric Earth and heliocentric solar system thousands of years before) and become Christians.
Archeopteryx wrote:
Atheists are not united by a dogma because atheism does not actually mean anything. We are not supported by a common something; we are supported by a common lack of something. It would be like discussing people who have no interest in traveling to France. What can you say that these people have in common other than their lack of something? Grouping them together would be like herding cats. Atheists are no different. So speaking of an army of like-minded atheists is probably just as misguided. You'll no doubt find many like-minded atheists here, but that's only because the people who do not think like the atheists on this website are obviously not coming to this website! =] Also, you've probably met plenty of atheists that do not fit your militant description. They probably just didn't bother to point out to you that they were an atheist. Many atheists don't care enough to even bring it up! =]
Yes, you're probably right, the non-militant atheists are hard to recognize, only the more radical ones will show up if something is going on. Which isn't much, I didn't really spoke with many atheists. Some guys had a few questions after a philosophy classes (and lesser arguments with a teacher), and I left them a Buddhoidic feeling in them about me, or so they said Smiling Quite similar it is with New Age-oriented people. I have seen an interesting article about that, but it will require a new topic.
Archeopteryx wrote:
I don't agree with your perceptions.
All right, that's just an outside observation.
Archeopteryx wrote:
This is the kind of thing you are comparing atheists to? It is absolute hyperbole in every sense of the word.
No, not atheists as such. I meant an authoritative, conservative, self-important people, for example scientists, which relies on their foundings, which should be already renewed or replaced, which could bring them down from a scientific Olympus mount, extensive funds, deciding about international researches, and so on. I don't consider it as so absolute. I half-seriously speculated, that hypothetically reincarnated inquisitors appeared today as dogmatic scientists. These hundreds of years are a long time, and the best way how to temperance a sadistic inquisitor, is to let him die of an old age and then reborn as an eventual victim of later sadistic inquisitors. This is, what usually happens - getting a whole experience, from both sides. All beings can learn, no-one is excluded from self-development (at least not for long), and such a learning would be certainly very convincing. So today, after many incarnations in tough ages, a hypothetical reincarnated inquisitor would be hopefully pretty much like a normal person, maybe with a bit conservative thinking and a liking in a white coat cult.
magilum wrote:
I have no idea what you're talking about, since I made no specific reference. If you wanted one, you should have asked. A personal example of this was a conversation I'd heard in a Chi Gong class I'd once attended. The instructor, a protégé to an experienced practitioner, was taking chi, something never demonstrated to exist, outside of a metaphorical context, to grasp at some second-hand news story about a "mysterious second circulatory system" that he seemed to imply existed to move chi around. Presumably, he was describing the endocrine system, rather than a mysterious chi network, but we'll never know since the intellectual rigor of that room was such that no such redundancies could ever be reconciled. Maybe chi is a great metaphor for harnessing the endocrine system, but it's just a free-floating dingleberry of an idea in the hands of the mystics, never to be reconciled with physical knowledge. They just clap the dust off their hands, snap the straps on their overalls, and go home content not knowing how anything actually works.
That's quite interesting, because two days ago I've been at a doctor's. Not exactly. She is a woman who works in a near town for about 8 years already as an alternative medicine practitioner. I took a seat, and the healer took a bit special ohmmeter (light and sound value indication, only for kiloohms, special electrodes, and so on) and let me hold a bigger electrode in my left hand. (wetted by a salt water for better conductivity) Then, she examined with a second, small electrode my acupuncture points on my right hand and both feet. Every time she had put the electrode to a spot on my skin (wetted by the salt water first) the ohmmeter loudly and visibly announced a value in ohms, which she wrote down on a paper. She measured a resistivity of skin at acupuncture points of various "meridians" which goes through organs and body parts. The more resistivity it had,(80-70 kiloohms is a normal state, or 50? I don't remember) the better state was the organs in. However, I had some with 45-35 kiloohms, like brittle bones, complaining liver, and so on. I kind of damaged my health by a long-time stress at school, and these results confirmed what a real doctor told me about two weeks ago from a blood test, but the resisitivity tests showed even more. Next in order was my dad, who confirmed everything the healer found on him, and positively commented her foundings, she basically told him what he already knew. There was some more of the stuff going on, but the point is, that these "chi circuits", whatever they are, have their input points, which are very clearly electrically measurable. It's not only a chinese medicine, very similar technique was used by French farmers to heal their cows (maybe just with a bit bigger acupuncture needles). The chinese people had no ohmmeters at the old times, but the doctors were trained in founding the spots, they have a bit lower skin tension, it's possible to feel it. And the meridians are, with another training, probably visible similarly, as people learn to see aura. After all, it's not a non-material aura far from a body surface, but an electrically distinct meridians, affectable by metallic acupuncture needles. They often go around all the body, which can be logical, when you consider that all the body had grown from one cell. I don't say it's entirely an electrical effect (the meridians aren't a nerves), but it's very close to it. Please, can you choose a worse metaphor? This one quite reflects a reality.
magilum wrote:
I know people that think this way. It's impossible to get any kind of answer from them about anything. They always think they've answered something, but have only said two contradictory things, and trailed off.
Well, some things are diffcult to say verbally, and yet correctly. Probably they don't even realize it, wondering why don't you understand. It requires to be almost a genius to find the words for an edge thoughts, and the result is sometimes almost unreadable. I once wrote an essay about a philosophic book by Michael Foucault (Thinking of the outside) and it would be easier to eat the book than to understand it. This is why these people communicate rather by a mutual understanding and similarity.
magilum wrote:
Luminon wrote:
The "window reflection" argumentation failed on the fact, that most of my reasons are not available to be objectively presented, they're either subjective, or limited to a group of people which the local citizen association consists of, and similar groups. The light patterns themselves alone aren't too persuasive, but I think they have the same cause, as other events, which are less easy to explain.
Emphasis added. Your reasoning is at best an appeal to ignorance once again. That something is mysterious isn't itself an argument for an interpretation of it. You don't want unexplained things if you're advocating a position: you want things that specifically necessitate an interpretation; that are testable and repeatable. And then you still have to leave it open to the possibility further evidence will come along and turn everything around -- like a real scientist must. You're just looking to unexplained things as a place to stash all your hugger mugger mystic aspirations.
That was meant a bit ironically... I actually meant that there are events with too much questions to give a sense, and yet they exists. I just had no time and desire to present an examples and argue about each one of them. But for example, a gigantic figure of an aborigine man, which appeared in Australia, near Marree, so it's called Marree Man. It's created like the well known white horse in Britain or Nazca pictures, thus by scraping a surfacial layer of ground and exposing a contrasting geological background. The figure is anthropologically authentic, (except of the waistcloth lack) and displays an aborigine hunter with a characteristic hairstyle, throwing a boomerang. Whoever designed this image, wery well knew the aborigine culture (at the old times when they didn't usually wear a waistcloth) and how to throw a boomerang. It is very precisely carved into the ground, that it probably required a GPS for navigation, or something more precise. However, the weird thing is, that there were found no tracks of bulldozers or any other machinery (which would be absolutely necessary for such a project), no remains of apartment cells where the workers would live, or any other signs of human presence. Nobody reported a presence of any group of workers in near cities, they obviously didn't go for a beer after a work. Nobody paid for it (and be sure it would have to be quite an expensive fun), nobody announced it's existence, it was found by a coincidence, by passengers of an airplane. The hunter image just appeared several years ago and nobody claimed a responsibility for it. Except of Ben Creme, who commented it as an artwork by Maitreya. Maitreya's supposed to create also springs of healing water around the world, and other "miracles", dunno how about them, but one of these healing water springs is near here in Nordenau, (Germany) or in Tlacote (Mexico), in India, and so on. They all appeared a bit quickly for a coincidence, and they actually work. Nordenau spring in a mine stole is today a main part of a recovering facility, for example, for children from Chernobyl.
magilum wrote:
Don't tell me what I do or do not, and try to portray me as a greedy reductionist or something -- well-poisoning asshole. I've explored all kinds of crazy shit in my life. I use intuition, but I recognize it as an unarticulated rationale, not a mysterious force that drips in from another dimension. Most of what I do could be explained or articulated if I chose to do so. Leaving something deliberately unexplained is a favored tactic of mystical fraud because there's nothing for them to articulate coherently at all. Like I said, you sit coiled like a pit viper, waiting for something unexplained to dump all your new age insecurities into.
I'm sorry, maybe I'm too frank in what I see, think, and say. It isn't always pleasant to see how do I for example look like in the eyes of others. And sometimes again I'm not frank not enough, because I have it all backupped by experiences, but other people has not, so the only thing I can do is letting it unexplained, as an argument from ignorance. I know it sucks, but the explanation itself isn't much coherent, it sounds like a bunch of New Ageish talk, I'm probably reaching my verbalization limits. By the way, I would describe the intuition as a knowing of information, which I had no chance to obtain before, and yet the effect is the same like I'd know it. Here, if I am a scepticist, I lack an explanation, because as far as I know, people aren't connected together by neural threads, there is no collective superconsciousness and telepathy doesn't exist. What do you think about it, please? How is the intuition rational in providing a new, previously unknown informations? I can imagine if there are any previously known indicies, then intuition can somehow make a synthesis of them, or use something we didn't consciously notice, but that's not always possible.
magilum wrote:
An even proposition works out for you better than it does me. I believe in things that don't need me to believe in them. They are brute facts, and the basis for society as we know it. They have evolved, and been built upon, an advanced in tangible ways. Your side has stagnated, and withered to a shell compared to its previous importance.
Things I believe in are pretty much facts too - the difference is, that the most of society isn't accustomed to work with them. It requires to be already born that way, or, if I would explain it exactly, it requires to work on self during many lives, so in this one, a person has already enough extended possibilities of consciousness and perceiving. Everyone has this possibility, just some people are a bit ahead. (this is not a reason to consider anyone "less evolved", it means a greater responsibility and duties!) When this is achieved to some degree, a person is able to intelectually (and even literally) grasp, what others consider less than a vapor up the proverbial orbital kettle. Then, they can build upon it, and progress in ways tangible for them, just like everyone does with common facts. But they're a real minority, compared to the dominant socially-cultural majority. There is also a lower group, biological, people who mainly take care of own survival or material good (though usually not in a great scale), and a higher than the 'personal' I described, called transpersonal, which is quite far for a reach for almost everyone living today. You see I use a therminology created by american astrologer Dane Rudhyar, this is an example of a theory base, on which is builded upon even today.

Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.


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What the fuck is it lately

What the fuck is it lately with all the people running around calling themselves pantheists but shitting on atheists?

Panthiests are basically atheists that feel a "spiritual" experience from contemplating the universe.

It's not the pot calling the kettle black.  It's the pot calling the pot black.

He's bagging on himself and he's too stupid to notice.

BTW Arch, the line where you say "You're just having fun with words." is fucking awesome.  It made me laugh.

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Watcher wrote:What the fuck

Watcher wrote:

What the fuck is it lately with all the people running around calling themselves pantheists but shitting on atheists?

What the... where did that come from?? I have nothing but respect for atheists, especially US bible belt or middle eastern/african free thinkers, taking a rational humanist stand against the social and political juggernaut which is theism in those areas is nothing short of heroic in my eyes.

 

Quote:

Panthiests are basically atheists that feel a "spiritual" experience from contemplating the universe.

There is a major and significant difference between us, I ascertain that truth value in theology, atheists reject my position.

Quote:

It's not the pot calling the kettle black.  It's the pot calling the pot black.

He's bagging on himself and he's too stupid to notice.

Ahhh I see you're talking about someone else. Luminon? My apologies. I'll post the rest of my post because I think it warrants saying anyway. Smiling

 

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  All You folks rock,

  All You folks rock, Eloise is so fun , oopps sorry Watcher , I goofed ......  

But I must add,  I AM god and until you know that , shame on you !     

RRS is L O V E       


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Luminon wrote:[A lotta horse

Luminon wrote:

[A lotta horse shit.]

Small minds tend to puke needless verbiage, like a puffer fish trying to scare a predator.

1. Your scattershot anecdotes don't reinforce that teacher's argument, which was ad hoc and not followed up on.

2. When did incoherence become a virtue? Orwell would blush.

3. No idea what this paragraph is about other than wasting my time.

4. Ditto the time wasting.

5. Ditto, too.


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Luminon wrote:Of course I

Luminon wrote:

Of course I know that too, nobody takes metaphores literally. But they're useful, when you don't understand something. An unknown problem can be converted to a metaphor, you'll understand the metaphor easily and thus with a little more effort you will understand the original problem. It is very useful when you deal with something you've never seen before....... Then a time will tell, where's the truth, I'm just trying to provide a scheme, which a reader can maybe recognize in his eventual later experiences and realize, that someone told him a similar thing.

If I understand this correctly, then I don't disagree that metaphors can be used as aids in understanding.

However, the problem that theology tends to have is that the metaphors are not used as aids; they are used to reconcile.

A true metaphor draws a relationship between two things that are already known, such as a sun and a bauble.

A supernatural/theological metaphor draws relationships between things that are known and things that are not known, thereby shortchanging the listener.

For example, when a biology professor uses the lock-picking metaphor to help understand natural selection, the lock-picking metaphor is not our means for understanding natural selection. We know natural selection is true by other means. We know that locks and the process of picking them are true things. We are drawing lines between two things we already know. What we are attempting to understand is how they are (superficially) similar.

With the sun and the bauble, we know that there is a sun, and we know that there are baubles. We are drawing a line between two things we already know; the goal is to understand how they are superficially similar.

So the metaphor equation goes like this:

X (known thing) is like Y (known thing) because Z (superficial relationship)

When you take something like "god" or "reincarnation" and attempt to explain through metaphor, you end up with a completely different equation.

We can compare it to Ray Comfort's painter/painting metaphor. "The world is like a painting", he says, "and god is the painter." This is offered as a metaphor that assists in understanding, but is it really? Not at all!. It's really an attempt at reconciliation.

He is attempting to reconcile an unknown thing with known things by comparing the unknown thing to known things, thereby muddying the waters and stacking the deck. The equation looks more like this:

G (unknown thing) is like Y (known thing) because Z (relationship, presupposed since G is presupposed).

Metaphors can be used as aids in understanding, but---as with Ray Comfort's painter/painting metaphor---let's not just claim that that's what they're doing. Let's make sure that's what they are really doing.

 

Quote:
Really? Then I am misguided too. However, revolutionary inventions are the best way to the hell on earth. In this country is a man (there was a report about him yerstaday on the TV) who invented how to break a macromolecules in PET bottles.... currently ruling people to be it different.

Is that a problem with science, or is that a problem with people?

It is a problem with people.

Quote:
I heard about a prohibition of researching a something called "scalar physics" on all American universities. If it's true, it will last about 20 years before it will get better (well, about 5 is maybe gone).

I don't know anything about it, but it wouldn't be impossible for certain kinds of research to become prohibited if they were ethically questionable.

Quote:

I (dis)agree about giving the money to Churches. In African regions, for example, they exchange a humanitary help to locals for their souls, thus the local tribes and villages don't get a food or medicine unless they abandon their traditional religion (which knew of the spheric Earth and heliocentric solar system thousands of years before) and become Christians.

If they really care enough to help, why not just help? Why require the people to surrender their heritage? That's arrogant and heartless.

Quote:

Quote:
I don't agree with your perceptions.
All right, that's just an outside observation.

It's not that I can't defend my lack of agreement; I'm just not at all interested in pursuing that jazz.

Quote:
No, not atheists as such. I meant an authoritative, conservative, self-important people, for example scientists, which relies on their foundings, which should be already renewed or replaced, which could bring them down from a scientific Olympus mount, extensive funds, deciding about international researches, and so on. I don't consider it as so absolute. I half-seriously speculated, that hypothetically reincarnated inquisitors appeared today as dogmatic scientists.

It IS absolute. There are plenty of authoritative, self-important figures you could compare a person to without invoking medieval inquisitors, but you are specifically invoking the medieval inquisitors. Their uniqueness has nothing to do with their authoritative self-righteousness. Their uniqueness has everything to do with their violence and irrationality.

I'd advise making a comparison to a figure with less extreme baggage.

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


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Eloise wrote:What the...

Eloise wrote:

What the... where did that come from?? I have nothing but respect for atheists, especially US bible belt or middle eastern/african free thinkers, taking a rational humanist stand against the social and political juggernaut which is theism in those areas is nothing short of heroic in my eyes.

Urm...you seem to not be a pantheist from my point of view.  You have a little theist badge above your avatar.  So...you may be a panentheist.  Are you?

Eloise wrote:

There is a major and significant difference between us, I ascertain that truth value in theology, atheists reject my position.

Do you believe in some type of god, Eloise?

"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci


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Eloise wrote:Watcher

Eloise wrote:

Watcher wrote:

Ahhh I see you're talking about someone else. Luminon?

I'm not talking about anyone here.  I'm talking about the YouTube person that Arch speaks of.

"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci