Me!!!!!!

Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
Me!!!!!!

Hello!!!! 

My name is Alex and I live in Portugal... a supposedly socialist country 

I'm not an atheist... but I'm not a theist either. I just cant define "God"... whatever that is... I'm just a... utopian socialist?!? kinda hippie, with a doomer touch... and a rational believer on a transcendent reality. My favorite philosopher is Bertrand Russell and my modern time hero is Jon Stewart from daily show 

My conservative friends call me an atheist, my atheist friends call me a theist... my real friends just call me crazy

I believe in the transcendental reality of Near Death Experiences. I believe in the after life. I don't believe in the Bible.

My moral guru is Mahatma Gandhi. My favorite scientist is Einstein (God does not, he famously said, play dice). The person I would like to met was Jesus. 

My favorite fictional argument is Jesus vs. Socrates... not the one on the internet... the real one... (I would give years of my life to see this one!)

The most unexplainable thing is the Ouija game 


 


Atheistextremist
atheist
Atheistextremist's picture
Posts: 5134
Joined: 2009-09-17
User is offlineOffline
Hi Teralek

 

Nice to meet you. Like a lot of others here I believe that unless something can be proven by repeatable experiment, then it is the product of the human imagination. I personally don't believe the biblical jesus existed. I find no clear evidence outside the bible after an extensive search. There is far more evidence for Mr Pinkwhistle and the Magic Faraway Tree. In any case, you need to meet member Luminon, who shares some of your curiosity on the nature of the hitherto unexplainable.

My moral guru is the guy who has been driving the sydney city mission vans every night for 25 years, picking up drunks and the homeless and taking them to the salvation army men's home in Surry Hills. Ultimately, it's what you do every day that makes a difference. For me the most unexplainable thing in the universe, more complex than QT, is the appalling form of my football team, the Cronulla Sharks. They have been terrible all my life. Loyalty is a horrible thing.

 

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


Jeffrick
High Level DonorRational VIP!SuperfanGold Member
Jeffrick's picture
Posts: 2446
Joined: 2008-03-25
User is offlineOffline
Hello to Portugal

 

 

                Sorry to hear you would like to talk to Jesus, since there was NO such person, the charactor Jesus was created from several sources mostly fictional ( Lord Mithras & the Zorastrians for one and maybe a few obscure itinerate preachers.

 

"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."

VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"

If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
Howdy

Man! You're funny! A little extremist to me but funny!

Leave repeatable experiment behind... You're only going to make your life miserable and agressive. There are many truths that cannot be tested and have a good probability of being real! I rather speak about odds than speak about "reals" or "unreals"

«Ultimately, it's what you do every day that makes a difference.» - I agree COMPLETELY... but in your case I wonder... what makes a difference to what?! (uh oh... a smell an ethical argument coming... just leave it be...)

That Luminon guy seems nice too! Got to meet him!

I believe Jesus existed as a person. There was also some roman philosopher who spoke of him. I put the odds of Jesus existence at the same height that I put Socrates... Those guys didn't like to write...


robj101
atheist
robj101's picture
Posts: 2481
Joined: 2010-02-20
User is offlineOffline
I bet you and Luminon will

I bet you and Luminon will get along grandly.

Welcome.


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16422
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:Hello!!!! My

Teralek wrote:

Hello!!!! 

My name is Alex and I live in Portugal... a supposedly socialist country 

I'm not an atheist... but I'm not a theist either. I just cant define "God"... whatever that is... I'm just a... utopian socialist?!? kinda hippie, with a doomer touch... and a rational believer on a transcendent reality. My favorite philosopher is Bertrand Russell and my modern time hero is Jon Stewart from daily show 

My conservative friends call me an atheist, my atheist friends call me a theist... my real friends just call me crazy

I believe in the transcendental reality of Near Death Experiences. I believe in the after life. I don't believe in the Bible.

My moral guru is Mahatma Gandhi. My favorite scientist is Einstein (God does not, he famously said, play dice). The person I would like to met was Jesus. 

My favorite fictional argument is Jesus vs. Socrates... not the one on the internet... the real one... (I would give years of my life to see this one!)

The most unexplainable thing is the Ouija game 


 

I hate to burst your bubble, but there is no in between.

If you think, even if you claim to not know, that there might be a thinking being with no body or brain, then you are an agnostic theist. You believe that something with thinking capabilities started all this, the best you could call yourself is an agnostic theist. You don't know what to call it, but "someone" bigger than you, started it.

Then there is the AGNOSTIC ATHEIST. This is the person who does not claim certainty, but does not see evidence for an invisible, immaterial magical super brain.

I am am an atheist. But strictly in the context of time frame. Of every claim currently claimed  and in the past, about invisible magical super brains, I see no credible evidence supporting such, by any name of any label, past or present.

I am ALSO, an agnostic atheist, only in regards to the future. I do not claim to know what I will find in the future as far as evidence, but from what I have seen presented by humanity so far, it is not looking good for comic book super heros humans have always invented as their own placebos.

I see all god claims that are currently popular as being no different than the gods of the past. Simply a reflection of the humans that invent them and believe in them.

 

"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


Jeffrick
High Level DonorRational VIP!SuperfanGold Member
Jeffrick's picture
Posts: 2446
Joined: 2008-03-25
User is offlineOffline
Teralek

 

 

 

                   To believe the Jesus charactor quoted in Matt 10; 35-39  AND  Matt; 5 is the same person is ALSO TO BELIEVE that Mr.T & Mr.Rogers Are the same person.   This is Absurd and assinine to the extreme.

 

                  To believe that any Nazarene drinks wine, and attends week long weddings (in Canna) where it turns water INTO wine,  while hanging with prostitutes and street urchins,  is also to believe that Mormans celebrate in Temple with scotch, rum, beer and wine while Vegas showgirls dance at the alter topless.    This is absurd and assinine almost to the extreme of thinking Mr.T &  Mr. Fred Rogers are the same person.

 

 

                  Jesus Christ is not a name it is a TITLE!!!  It means "The lords annointed Salvation"  It's why christians call him Christ the savior, it's what the name means. It is NOT a name you give to a real person.

"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."

VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"

If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?


butterbattle
ModeratorSuperfan
butterbattle's picture
Posts: 3945
Joined: 2008-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:I'm not an

Teralek wrote:
I'm not an atheist... but I'm not a theist either.

You're..."agnostic?"

Teralek wrote:
My conservative friends call me an atheist, my atheist friends call me a theist... my real friends just call me crazy

Lol.

Teralek wrote:
My favorite fictional argument is Jesus vs. Socrates... not the one on the internet... the real one... (I would give years of my life to see this one!)

Oh oh oh, how about Plato vs. Nietzsche? Jesus vs. Ayn Rand?

 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


butterbattle
ModeratorSuperfan
butterbattle's picture
Posts: 3945
Joined: 2008-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:Leave

Teralek wrote:
Leave repeatable experiment behind... You're only going to make your life miserable and agressive. There are many truths that cannot be tested and have a good probability of being real! I rather speak about odds than speak about "reals" or "unreals"

Holy.....you're going to catch a lot of flak.

How do you know the odds if you don't experiment?

 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


Cpt_pineapple
atheist
Posts: 5492
Joined: 2007-04-12
User is offlineOffline
Ola  Bem-vindo ao forum.

Ola

 

Bem-vindo ao forum. Voce e um agnostice ateu desde que voce nao acredita em Deus

 

 


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
Brian37 wrote:If you think,

Brian37 wrote:

If you think, even if you claim to not know, that there might be a thinking being with no body or brain, then you are an agnostic theist. You believe that something with thinking capabilities started all this, the best you could call yourself is an agnostic theist. You don't know what to call it, but "someone" bigger than you, started it.

Then there is the AGNOSTIC ATHEIST. This is the person who does not claim certainty, but does not see evidence for an invisible, immaterial magical super brain.
 

Hey you're absolutely right! More or less... If you want to label me as an Agnostic theist go right ahead, because I checked with the definition and it's me!My problem is with the word theism. Theism means God. It's God's traditional definition which bothers me. I don't know if He thinks the way we think he thinks... and I don't know if I can even say "someone".

Have you guys seen the movie "Contact"? One of my favorites! Based on a novel of a very beloved Atheist - Carl Sagan

It as some adorable quotes like:

"Do you love your father?"

"Yes"

"Prove it!"

Or the personal experience she had at the end which she believed with all her heart but without any proof. Personal experience is a rational experience to make one's beliefs... Carl Sagan believed that.

Although I have a degree in science and I try to be a rational person... several things make me a "believer":

- My own personal experience (which I will not tell)

- Kalam Cosmologial argument.

- The validity of near death experiences.

- A test I made with a home made version of Ouija game

- The problem of morality

- The existence of consciousness
 

Jeffrey... I do believe that there was someone they called Jesus... don't try to convince me otherwise by making funny analogies. You can call him John the Carpenter, I don't care. I said I don't believe in the Bible, though is a reference cultural and historical book. Someone has been in Palestine 2000 years ago that changed the world and inspired people like Gandhi, Luther King, Tolstoy and ... made Nietzsche crazy. I 'd like to meet him. What proof do you have Socrates has a better chance of existing than Jesus?!

 


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
butterbattle

butterbattle wrote:

Holy.....you're going to catch a lot of flak.

How do you know the odds if you don't experiment?
 

It's all based on personal experience... and personal interpretation of reality

Cpt_pineapple wrote:

Ola

 

Bem-vindo ao forum. Voce e um agnostice ateu desde que voce nao acredita em Deus
 

Portugues também?? Lusofonia está em todo o lado!  

Não, sou mais um Agnostico teista se me quiseres catalogar


Atheistextremist
atheist
Atheistextremist's picture
Posts: 5134
Joined: 2009-09-17
User is offlineOffline
Those quotes were hardly proof of god.

 

Teralek wrote:

It as some adorable quotes like:

"Do you love your father?"

"Yes"

"Prove it!"

Or the personal experience she had at the end which she believed with all her heart but without any proof. Personal experience is a rational experience to make one's beliefs... Carl Sagan believed that.

 

Humans most all feel love but it's completely subjective. My loving feeling may differ from yours. And you wouldn't describe love as a universe creating deity. It's a human feeling produced by the human brain, period. It does not prove the existence of anything but the human brain. Additionally, those feelings are chemicals and in the future we will know what love actually is at the atomic level. There are also measurements of real personal experience. If a UFO came down and took me away to fantasyland where I cavorted with doe-skinned nymphs that would be one thing. If I sat staring at the heavens wishing the nymphs would hurry up and come, then that would be imaginary.

Ellie's experience on Vega was not the same as believing in god. If I went to heaven and chatted with god in full detail then I would believe it. But I have not and no one else ever has, either. Contact, great movie though it is, really reflects our need to know, and the cage of human comprehension that encloses us, and that's all.

 

 

 

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


Atheistextremist
atheist
Atheistextremist's picture
Posts: 5134
Joined: 2009-09-17
User is offlineOffline
None of these

Teralek wrote:

Several things make me a "believer":

- My own personal experience (which I will not tell)

- Kalam Cosmologial argument.

- The validity of near death experiences.

- A test I made with a home made version of Ouija game

- The problem of morality

- The existence of consciousness

 

None of these is the slightest reason to believe in an exo-universal anthropomorphic deity. Consciousness is a property of the human brain. Morality is a set of cultural norms passed down through generations. Near death experiences have no validity outside the human brain. Your personal experience is too subjective for us to consider. Cosmology is a bad argument that excludes the deity from its fundamental premise. The ouija board thing. Well. Perhaps the addition of this to the list is instructive in terms of your spiritual nature as a person, but it does not reflect any knowable reality as far as I can tell.

In any case Teralek, you are a theist and I'm not sure it's possible to attach anything rational to that.

 


 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
Damn! You're really an extremist!

Atheistextremist wrote:

 Humans most all feel love but it's completely subjective. My loving feeling may differ from yours. And you wouldn't describe love as a universe creating deity. It's a human feeling produced by the human brain, period. It does not prove the existence of anything but the human brain. Additionally, those feelings are chemicals and in the future we will know what love actually is at the atomic level. There are also measurements of real personal experience. If a UFO came down and took me away to fantasyland where I cavorted with doe-skinned nymphs that would be one thing. If I sat staring at the heavens wishing the nymphs would hurry up and come, then that would be imaginary.

Ellie's experience on Vega was not the same as believing in god. If I went to heaven and chatted with god in full detail then I would believe it. But I have not and no one else ever has, either. Contact, great movie though it is, really reflects our need to know, and the cage of human comprehension that encloses us, and that's all.

 

Man you're really an extremist!

Love may be subjective but it's real and you can't prove it on a test tube. Period. I'm just trying to prove that there are things that are real but have no substance. Like abstracts. We don't have to experience reality with all our senses (which tend to trick us all the time) to know reality (i.e. If I went to heaven and chatted with god in full detail then I would believe it)

I had my personal experience with a reality beyond this one. It was an indirect experience but an experience nonetheless. And since it was personal I will not loose my time there.

 

Atheistextremist wrote:

Consciousness is a property of the human brain.

 

 

Prove it. Many people have tried that and still can't find an explanation to consciousness... We should be philosophical zombies.

 

«Morality is a set of cultural norms passed down through generations.»

Careful mate! You're stepping on land mines here! If morals are just cultural norms nothing give us the right to judge rights and wrongs because there really aren't any. Gang rape is ok if the culture say so, and so is murder.

You're mate Michael Shermer famously said: “Abandon free will in favor of determinism and moral culpability flies out the court window"

«Near death experiences have no validity outside the human brain.» 

That's your opinion. I've studied the matter. Read books and peer reviewed studies and that was not my conclusion.

«Your personal experience is too subjective for us to consider.» You got that right... but then again I'm not trying to convince you. I'm just showing my points and trying to understand yours

«Cosmology is a bad argument that excludes the deity from its fundamental premise.» 

Since you didn't even bother to look what the Kalam argument is I'll enlighten you very rapidly... In this Universe everything has a cause... there has been multiple causes for the existence of things since the Big Bang. The Big Bang origin (cause) is a mystery but is a must! Since it was space-time which was created whatever created the Universe exists outside this continuum. Given the premise that Nothingness can't create anything... There has to exist a "platonic existence of something" that gave birth to the Universe. This thing has no cause because it exists outside space-time so it wont abide by the same rules.   

«The ouija board thing. Well. Perhaps the addition of this to the list is instructive in terms of your spiritual nature as a person, but it does not reflect any knowable reality as far as I can tell.»

I will speak about my field experience on this at a latter time.

«In any case Teralek, you are a theist and I'm not sure it's possible to attach anything rational to that.» That's your opinion on what's rational or not... 

 

 


Jeffrick
High Level DonorRational VIP!SuperfanGold Member
Jeffrick's picture
Posts: 2446
Joined: 2008-03-25
User is offlineOffline
Teralek

 

 

 

             There was someone in Palastine 2000 years ago who invented a religion that influenced the modern world,  his name is Saul of Tarsus--known has St.Paul. It's unlikely even he believed in a real person Jesus, he wanted people to believe in a mystical spirit of the lord, in short belief for the sake of believing.

"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."

VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"

If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?


Atheistextremist
atheist
Atheistextremist's picture
Posts: 5134
Joined: 2009-09-17
User is offlineOffline
Oh, bother.

Teralek wrote:

Atheistextremist wrote:


Since you didn't even bother to look what the Kalam argument is I'll enlighten you very rapidly... In this Universe everything has a cause... there has been multiple causes for the existence of things since the Big Bang. The Big Bang origin (cause) is a mystery but is a must! Since it was space-time which was created whatever created the Universe exists outside this continuum. Given the premise that Nothingness can't create anything... There has to exist a "platonic existence of something" that gave birth to the Universe. This thing has no cause because it exists outside space-time so it wont abide by the same rules.   

 

Yeah look - I do know about this and that's why I said cosmology excludes the deity from its fundamental premise. If all you say here is true, then what caused god, a being so much more complex than a boring old universe? You can't exclude him - he must have a cause.

Also, could you define nothing for me? I don't think there is any proof of nothing in this universe and positing there is nothing outside it is dealing in assumptions.

 

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
Socrates or Jesus?

Jeffrick wrote:

  
             There was someone in Palastine 2000 years ago who invented a religion that influenced the modern world,  his name is Saul of Tarsus--known has St.Paul. It's unlikely even he believed in a real person Jesus, he wanted people to believe in a mystical spirit of the lord, in short belief for the sake of believing.

You still haven't answer my question... guess it must be a bit inconvenient 

You think Paul has a better chance of existing than Jesus?! I don't think so... Jesus is quoted more often in unrelated books


Luminon
SuperfanTheist
Luminon's picture
Posts: 2455
Joined: 2008-02-17
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:My

Teralek wrote:

My conservative friends call me an atheist, my atheist friends call me a theist... my real friends just call me crazy

LOL Smiling Me too. There must be more cathegories.

Teralek wrote:
I believe in the transcendental reality of Near Death Experiences. I believe in the after life. I don't believe in the Bible.

My moral guru is Mahatma Gandhi. My favorite scientist is Einstein (God does not, he famously said, play dice). The person I would like to met was Jesus. 

My favorite fictional argument is Jesus vs. Socrates... not the one on the internet... the real one... (I would give years of my life to see this one!)

The most unexplainable thing is the Ouija game 

Heh, nice. But I suspect that Jesus and Socrates would not repeat what history had put into their mouths and the argument would soon end on mutual agreement. That's what all great teachers do, they basically tell the same thing, they just wrap it differently for different cultures.

My information is, that the Jesus guy was one of these teachers. As a jewish initiate of a mystical sect, he repeated the ancient story on his own life, purposedly. Some stuff like virgin birth or earthquake on the day of his death is of course fake. Too bad there is so little evidence for him. Reputedly, the real date of his birth was 24 years earlier than scholars think, but I don't know, really.

 

As you see, people here are hardcore rationalists. Yeah, they always say how much science discovered, but they never say how much research got lost, because it seemed too extraordinary. Rationalists probably take so much LSD, that they can't trust their senses anymore, only reason and logic Smiling Good luck with discussion. How do you know here that you scored a point? By sudden silence and change of topic.
But still, this forum is a place where i can use long, complicated words (and foreign language) and people won't lynch me for it.

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


Atheistextremist
atheist
Atheistextremist's picture
Posts: 5134
Joined: 2009-09-17
User is offlineOffline
Well now

Teralek wrote:

Love may be subjective but it's real and you can't prove it on a test tube. Period. I'm just trying to prove that there are things that are real but have no substance. Like abstracts. We don't have to experience reality with all our senses (which tend to trick us all the time) to know reality (i.e. If I went to heaven and chatted with god in full detail then I would believe it)

I had my personal experience with a reality beyond this one. It was an indirect experience but an experience nonetheless. And since it was personal I will not loose my time there.

 

Atheistextremist wrote:

Consciousness is a property of the human brain.

 

 

Prove it. Many people have tried that and still can't find an explanation to consciousness... We should be philosophical zombies.

 

«Morality is a set of cultural norms passed down through generations.»

Careful mate! You're stepping on land mines here! If morals are just cultural norms nothing give us the right to judge rights and wrongs because there really aren't any. Gang rape is ok if the culture say so, and so is murder.

You're mate Michael Shermer famously said: “Abandon free will in favor of determinism and moral culpability flies out the court window"

«Near death experiences have no validity outside the human brain.» 

That's your opinion. I've studied the matter. Read books and peer reviewed studies and that was not my conclusion.

«Your personal experience is too subjective for us to consider.» You got that right... but then again I'm not trying to convince you. I'm just showing my points and trying to understand yours

«Cosmology is a bad argument that excludes the deity from its fundamental premise.» 

Since you didn't even bother to look what the Kalam argument is I'll enlighten you very rapidly... In this Universe everything has a cause... there has been multiple causes for the existence of things since the Big Bang. The Big Bang origin (cause) is a mystery but is a must! Since it was space-time which was created whatever created the Universe exists outside this continuum. Given the premise that Nothingness can't create anything... There has to exist a "platonic existence of something" that gave birth to the Universe. This thing has no cause because it exists outside space-time so it wont abide by the same rules.   

«The ouija board thing. Well. Perhaps the addition of this to the list is instructive in terms of your spiritual nature as a person, but it does not reflect any knowable reality as far as I can tell.»

I will speak about my field experience on this at a latter time.

«In any case Teralek, you are a theist and I'm not sure it's possible to attach anything rational to that.» That's your opinion on what's rational or not... 

 

Sure Teralek. Love is real. It's a real human feeling that occurs inside the skull of a real human being. Other pair bonding animals may feel it but we need to know more about the nature of the brain before we can tell if this is true. Love as felt by brains does not prove there is a god. It proves humans feel a feeling towards each other that they call love.

I can prove consciousness is a property of the human brain by hitting myself on the head with a hammer. One tap and my consciousness will disappear. It's amazing how brain damage completely changes personality. Why is this so?

Morality is a challenging area. I find it difficult discussing this when the theistic mind immediately turns to raping women and other extreme and weird behaviours. Raping women is socially unacceptable. It's also an act that undermines the social fabric drummed into us boys from the moment we are told not to hit our sisters. I don't believe there is a cosmic law that says rape is wrong but I do believe rape harms another person and thanks to my fluffy upbringing and yours this is abhorrent to us. I don't like hurting people in any way - women in particular. We can thank empathy and inherited social morality for that.

As for gang rape and murder being culturally ok - yeah I reckon there have been times in human history when such things have been socially acceptable in particular groups - you just described the rape of nanking, the fall of berlin, the destruction of constantinople, the sack of jerusalem and so on and so on and so on. Morality is definitely cultural. A few hundred years ago churchmen burned witches in the churchyard while the villagers cheered them on. If you saw people attempting to burn a young woman for nothing, outside your church, what would your reaction be?

I know what my reaction would be. But rewind time 500 years and if we intervened on the basis of modern morality, you and I would be next on the stake.

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


Magus
High Level DonorModerator
Magus's picture
Posts: 592
Joined: 2007-04-11
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:Prove it. Many

Teralek wrote:

Prove it. Many people have tried that and still can't find an explanation to consciousness... We should be philosophical zombies.

Medications can change the emotions, fears and moods of an individual.  Depression medication is a clear example of this.  So emotions are tied directly to brain state.  Memories can be lost due to brain damage.  So memories are part of the brain. 

What is there left to be not part of the brain?

Teralek wrote:
 

«Morality is a set of cultural norms passed down through generations.»

Careful mate! You're stepping on land mines here! If morals are just cultural norms nothing give us the right to judge rights and wrongs because there really aren't any. Gang rape is ok if the culture say so, and so is murder.

You're mate Michael Shermer famously said: “Abandon free will in favor of determinism and moral culpability flies out the court window"

To suggest that moral must come from outside of a culture or outside of the social dynamic is to suggest that morals are not useful.  If morals are useful we can derive them simply on their use.  If one system of morals is more useful than a conflicting system of morality then the more useful system is more moral.  So yes we can judge better and worse moral systems.

Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
Hello Luminon

Luminon wrote:

Heh, nice. But I suspect that Jesus and Socrates would not repeat what history had put into their mouths and the argument would soon end on mutual agreement. That's what all great teachers do, they basically tell the same thing, they just wrap it differently for different cultures. 

My information is, that the Jesus guy was one of these teachers. As a jewish initiate of a mystical sect, he repeated the ancient story on his own life, purposedly. Some stuff like virgin birth or earthquake on the day of his death is of course fake. Too bad there is so little evidence for him. Reputedly, the real date of his birth was 24 years earlier than scholars think, but I don't know, really.

 

As you see, people here are hardcore rationalists. Yeah, they always say how much science discovered, but they never say how much research got lost, because it seemed too extraordinary. Rationalists probably take so much LSD, that they can't trust their senses anymore, only reason and logic Smiling Good luck with discussion. How do you know here that you scored a point? By sudden silence and change of topic.
But still, this forum is a place where i can use long, complicated words (and foreign language) and people won't lynch me for it.

Nice to meet you! People here already warned me about you! And they were right! I agree with everything you've just said! 

I noticed your signature links and was most pleased to see "The study on our irrational and self-destructive economy". This is SO TRUE!! It's my main "extremist activity" right now! Not this theist/atheist thought swamp.

Science is not the search for the truth, it's a lobbyist field where "odd" studies are not funded because they appear "extraordinary". This Lancet study for example was funded only from the medical scientists pocket for example.

Atheistextremist wrote:

Yeah look - I do know about this and that's why I said cosmology excludes the deity from its fundamental premise. If all you say here is true, then what caused god, a being so much more complex than a boring old universe? You can't exclude him - he must have a cause.

Also, could you define nothing for me? I don't think there is any proof of nothing in this universe and positing there is nothing outside it is dealing in assumptions.


 

I said before and I'll say again... "Since it was space-time which was created whatever created the Universe exists outside this continuum. Given the premise that Nothingness can't create anything... There has to exist a "platonic existence of something" that gave birth to the Universe. This thing HAS NO CAUSE because it exists OUTSIDE SPACE-TIME so it wont abide by the same rules."

Define nothingness is a problem for two reasons: any attempt to define Absolute Nothingness turns It into Something. However space time had a beginning according to standard theory. But Nothingness can't give birth to the Universe... because it doesn't exist... so something outside this reality gave birth to the Universe. I believe in the existence of abstract objects, as I made clear in the other topic about the ontology of mathematics.

Atheistextremist wrote:

I can prove consciousness is a property of the human brain by hitting myself on the head with a hammer. One tap and my consciousness will disappear. It's amazing how brain damage completely changes personality. Why is this so?

Conscience is part of the brain as shown by your violent proof. My point is that chemical reactions on the brain don't explain consciousness awareness per se. I'm for the NDE explanation that consciousness is like the image on a TV set. The TV is the physical brain and the emissions broadcasted is consciousness. When you shut down your TV doesn't mean that consciousness disappears, only means it lost its ability to communicate with the material world. When you untune the signal, the image gets distorted, that's what happens with brain damage. Why can't you remember your experience during the time of your unconsciousness during the hammer knockout I can't explain and why you CAN remember VIVIDLY when your heart stops in an NDE experience, I can't explain.

Atheistextremist wrote:

Morality is a challenging area.

I'm glad we agree! I believe that Meta-ethics is an atheist nightmare! And your comments only prove my point.

After much study in this matter I consider myself an Ethical subjectivist proponent of the Ideal observer theory developed by Roderick Firth. I believe in moral Universalism.

On moral Universalism I'm backed by most modern philosophers.

According to hard core "atheistic" rationality "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one" So gang rape is Ok. The needs of the rapers (many) outweigh the needs of the one. You say things that make no sense «I don't like hurting people in any way - women in particular. We can thank empathy and inherited social morality for that.» This is much unlike you! A lot of illogical things here! Why women in particular?! Is there any Universal rule that says they need more protection? Empathy? That's an illusion created by your brain that don't bring what's best for you. You say you don't believe in a cosmological moral but you keep judging moral facts and thank your education... but that's trivial since that moral is an illusion... without moral Egoism is really the best thing! IF you have the chance and you know you wont get caught you must rob, rape or kill to enjoy living the best you can...since you're heading to oblivion... a heavy consciousness is not logical.

Meta-ethics was chosen by ALL religious founders for promoting religious thoughts not by mere chance. It is one of the most compelling proofs on the existence of God or at least proof on the existence of cosmological laws independent from Space-time. I believe that there is a deep spiritual connection between all human beings. This connection fits in perfectly with my feelings of altruism, love and compassion and adds logic to them.

I'm for "what is right, is right, even if no one is doing it , and what is wrong, is wrong, even if everyone is doing it" (I'm not sure who am I quoting). Ethic is an abstract reality like numbers and it is a reality like the laws of physics. Are real weather you believe them or not. Ethics is a sub product of life. Free will is a sub product of consciousness.


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
Ignostic

Hey your friend Whatthedeuce helped me out with my "labeling"

I maybe be an Ignostic!

I really have a semantic problem when it comes to define "God" or "Deity".

I can only attribute "It" very few characteristics.


Jeffrick
High Level DonorRational VIP!SuperfanGold Member
Jeffrick's picture
Posts: 2446
Joined: 2008-03-25
User is offlineOffline
Teralek

 

 

 

                     On this site my specialty is historical accuracy.  I do not involve myself in deep philosophical debates, others on this site do. I read the philosophy debates but I do not join in, it's not my forte'.

 

 

                      Has for your questions to me;  with the best available evidence I can tell you that Paul  of Tarsus was more then likely a real person,  that Jesus christ was a conglomeration of several people; real and imagined.  The godly aspects of Jesus christ;  i.e. virgin birth, 12 apostles, the last supper, the marrige  at Canna, his death and reserection; are all - nearly word for word - direct copies of Lord Mithras from 600 BCE.

 

 

                      About Socrates;  he was probably a real person;  I do not much care. For the simple reason that the true believes in Socrates do not call him a god, they are not building churchs to his memmory,   more importantly they are not showing up on my front poarch to  tell me about him and they are not trying to coerce the local school board into teaching religion as if it were science.

 

 

                      Does that answer your questions to me?

 

 

 

"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."

VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"

If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
Jeffrick wrote:        

Jeffrick wrote:

 

                      On this site my specialty is historical accuracy.  I do not involve myself in deep philosophical debates, others on this site do. I read the philosophy debates but I do not join in, it's not my forte'.

 
                      Has for your questions to me;  with the best available evidence I can tell you that Paul  of Tarsus was more then likely a real person,  that Jesus christ was a conglomeration of several people; real and imagined.  The godly aspects of Jesus christ;  i.e. virgin birth, 12 apostles, the last supper, the marrige  at Canna, his death and reserection; are all - nearly word for word - direct copies of Lord Mithras from 600 BCE.

 
                      About Socrates;  he was probably a real person;  I do not much care. For the simple reason that the true believes in Socrates do not call him a god, they are not building churchs to his memmory,   more importantly they are not showing up on my front poarch to  tell me about him and they are not trying to coerce the local school board into teaching religion as if it were science.

                       Does that answer your questions to me?

 

 

Hey dude! Your beef is with Christian evangelics not with me!! I can make the same argument you did with Socrates. Jesus "was probably a real person". Talking about God or churches says nothing to the likelihood of Jesus existence! How can the fact that "evangelics are bugging your ass" say that Jesus probably didn't exist in the first place?!

I know nothing of Lord Mithras... I will investigate

 


butterbattle
ModeratorSuperfan
butterbattle's picture
Posts: 3945
Joined: 2008-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:Since you

Teralek wrote:
Since you didn't even bother to look what the Kalam argument is I'll enlighten you very rapidly...

Ouch. You're a more typical theist than I gave you credit for, assuming that we've never seen this argument before. Ha...ha...ha...ha!

AtheistExtremist, like most people on this forum, has seen the Kalam Cosmological Argument dozens if not hundreds if not thousands of times from theists just like you. Now, let's see what jewels you posted.

Teralek wrote:
In this Universe everything has a cause...

Prove it.

What about particles that pop in and out of existence? What's the cause of that?

Teralek wrote:
The Big Bang origin (cause) is a mystery but is a must!

Why?

Teralek wrote:
Since it was space-time which was created whatever created the Universe exists outside this continuum. Given the premise that Nothingness can't create anything... There has to exist a "platonic existence of something" that gave birth to the Universe.

What meaning does "Platonic existence of" add to the sentence?

Teralek wrote:
This thing has no cause because it exists outside space-time so it wont abide by the same rules.

It has different rules, yes. How do you know those rules include having no cause?

Since causality is nonsensical without time, how do you know this "first cause" could "cause" anything?

Alright, now, if you can answer all of those questions, you have a first cause. Congratulations! Now, why should we call this first cause God? Do you think it's intelligent? How do you know that? Do you think it possesses any other traits? How do you know it possesses those traits?

Teralek wrote:
That's your opinion. I've studied the matter. Read books and peer reviewed studies and that was not my conclusion.

Okay, then you're conclusion is wrong.

All they prove is that the brain goes crazy when it is oxygen deprived. In some cases, patients claim that they "floated" near the ceiling of the room, so tests have been conducted on NDEs to determine whether the patients' actually have souls that leave their bodies. For example, the hospital will stick a note at the top of a tall cabinet that no patient could have seen unless they actually "floated" near the ceiling. Afterwards, patients will say that they did "float" near the celing, but that they didn't see the note. This shows that they didn't actually float near the ceiling; it was all in their head.   

It is also very telling that people from all sorts of backgrounds have similar experiences, but they also all tend to bias their NDEs to whatever religion or worldview they are a member of or are acquanted with. Muslims will say it was a message from Allah. Christians will say it was Jesus. Etc.

Teralek wrote:
- A test I made with a home made version of Ouija game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideomotor_effect

Teralek wrote:
- The problem of morality

I'm a moral subjectivist. Morality is an abstraction of what we like or don't like based on our instincts and our culture. Actions do not become "okay" if they are cultural norms nor do they stay "not okay"; it is not normative, merely descriptive. We believe what we believe because of our instincts and culture. Morals are merely strong preferences, some stronger than others. There is no basis for claiming something to be "absolutely" good or "absolutely" evil, just as there is no basis for claiming an absolutely good ice cream flavor.   

See any problems with that?

Teralek wrote:
- The existence of consciousness

Consciousness is not a "thing" that exists. It is an abstraction of what we experience as intelligent beings due to our complex brains. 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


ex-minister
atheistHigh Level Moderator
ex-minister's picture
Posts: 1711
Joined: 2010-01-29
User is offlineOffline
Jeffrick

Jeffrick wrote:
 

                   To believe the Jesus charactor quoted in Matt 10; 35-39  AND  Matt; 5 is the same person is ALSO TO BELIEVE that Mr.T & Mr.Rogers Are the same person.   This is Absurd and assinine to the extreme.

                   To believe that any Nazarene drinks wine, and attends week long weddings (in Canna) where it turns water INTO wine,  while hanging with prostitutes and street urchins,  is also to believe that Mormans celebrate in Temple with scotch, rum, beer and wine while Vegas showgirls dance at the alter topless.    This is absurd and assinine almost to the extreme of thinking Mr.T &  Mr. Fred Rogers are the same person.

 

                  Jesus Christ is not a name it is a TITLE!!!  It means "The lords annointed Salvation"  It's why christians call him Christ the savior, it's what the name means. It is NOT a name you give to a real person.

 

Matthew 10:35-39 not same Jesus as Matthew 5:1-12

However,

Matthew 10:35-39 same Jesus as Matthew 5:27-30.

Can't Jesus have multiple personalities? Would you expect that of a god?  

Religion Kills !!!

Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/


BobSpence
High Level DonorRational VIP!ScientistWebsite Admin
BobSpence's picture
Posts: 5939
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
"The problem of morality" is

"The problem of morality" is a problem for Theists, to reconcile actual human moral behaviour with the concept that we were created by a benevolent God, and to explain the many examples in the Bible of God behaving in a way that most people would find deeply immoral if anyone but 'God' did it, and also to explain why God created all the disease organisms, especially the ones which kill babies before they have a chance to 'choose' to follow him, and many other reasons.

Without the God concept, the 'moral' behaviour of human beings is not a problem to understand at all. Morality is a strong reason for not believing in the God of the Bible, or any other God anything like that.

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
answer to butterbattle

 

Quantum mechanics is on another championship... Not even you can explain what's behind quantum particles popping out to existence! I speculate is a property of space-time continuum... and It's connection to a transcendent reality. As to prove that everything in the Universe has a cause... the best proof I can tell you is go study physics or chemistry! What do you want me to say? I mean, you are here because your parents had sex, the Sun is here because an ancient supernova cloud coalesced... etc. BTW- have you heard about those studies that claim that consciousness can influence reality? fascinating...

So if everything reverts back in time to the Big Bang and the Big Bang is a phenomenon in this reality it MUST have a cause. However it can't have a cause according to standard theory because "before" the Big Bang there was no space-time... we've reached a paradox... I solve the paradox by saying that there is something beyond it that generated the Universe. This something needs no cause to exist because as you've said "causality is nonsensical without time".

«how do you know this "first cause" could "cause" anything?» We are here! 

«Alright, now, if you can answer all of those questions, you have a first cause. Congratulations! Now, why should we call this first cause God?» I go no further mate... from here on I'm an Ignostic 

From here I don't haven't any strong arguments really... But I personally believe that there is another reality and this is some sort of "continuum" of Absolutes. Absolute love as shown by NDEs. There is another level of existence. This level is unlike anything that we can experience on this reality. Our mission here is to learn, it's like a school. I speculate that we have to live at this plane because we wouldn't bare the potentialities of the other reality. As a baby can't ride a roller coaster until he can grow strong and bare it.

No mate! Your conclusion about NDEs is the one which is hasty and partial to your cause! The investigators don't often reach to conclusions like yours. They always postulate several explanations and claim for more studies... "off record" some of the scientists involved think that the experiences are true. The Lancet study is a classic one because they couldn't find an explanation. It's not oxygen deprivation because NDEs don't happen to everyone. They only detected it in 18% of the sample. There was no correlations... or so I remember. Medical science say you're mind will shut down in about 10 sec after the heart stops, but people involved seem to remember details after the 10 sec period. If NDEs are true, there are no judging Gods, we judge ourselves... by realizing the linkage between all things and all actions and all thoughts... http://www.iands.org/

These people wake up and tell they just had the most VIVID experience of their lives... although they should be unconscient... even blind people have these experiences! Even Atheists... they stop being atheists BTW.

No one saw, yet, what the scientists put on the cealing because no one looked at it... yet... it's understandable... when your're dying the last thing you worry is the graffiti on a lamp...

It's also understandable that you bias your interpretation of the experience... When you experience something unrelated to anything you've ever seen you try to relate it to something...


 

Yes I see a problem with your morality... if there are no absolutes you can defend rape if in your mind its ok, and I cannot condemn you because as you say morality is an abstract, it's not normative. There are absolutes (Universalism) in ethics - most philosophers think there are. Without Universalism anything goes, really. I've already explained my position in Ethic theory in a previous post. This was a much though theme. I've done some research on the subject. I'm going to quote Noam Chomsky if I may:

 

“... if we adopt the principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others -- more stringent ones, in fact -- plainly cannot be taken seriously when they speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil.

In fact, one of the, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow.”

 

I will make a post about my "Ouija" experience...

"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me." Bertrand Russell

My favorite quote!!!!

 

 


BobSpence
High Level DonorRational VIP!ScientistWebsite Admin
BobSpence's picture
Posts: 5939
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
No version of the 'First

No version of the 'First Cause" argument 'proves' anything more than their may have been 'something' at the 'beginning' (if there actually was a beginning) which may had no prior cause.

Since events and particles are observed in Physics labs every day with no apparent causation, or a cause that is so tiny in energy that it is undetectable, the idea that the Big Bang needed a 'cause' of any greatness, if any, is totally unnecessary, and NOT implied by careful examination of reality.

So there is NOTHING pointing from any cosmological argument to a GOD, at most they point to the possibility of some prime, random, quantum scale 'twitch' in reality.

 

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
BobSpence1 wrote:No version

BobSpence1 wrote:

No version of the 'First Cause" argument 'proves' anything more than their may have been 'something' at the 'beginning' (if there actually was a beginning) which may had no prior cause.

Since events and particles are observed in Physics labs every day with no apparent causation, or a cause that is so tiny in energy that it is undetectable, the idea that the Big Bang needed a 'cause' of any greatness, if any, is totally unnecessary, and NOT implied by careful examination of reality.

So there is NOTHING pointing from any cosmological argument to a GOD, at most they point to the possibility of some prime, random, quantum scale 'twitch' in reality.

 

Well mate... I don't agree with you... and I've explained why in my previous post... this doesn't prove God of course. It just proves the First Cause and the probable existence of another plane of reality... which I happen to believe in as much as you believe in atheism. 


Jeffrick
High Level DonorRational VIP!SuperfanGold Member
Jeffrick's picture
Posts: 2446
Joined: 2008-03-25
User is offlineOffline
ex-minister

 

 

 

                         Matthew 5: 27-30 sounds like the Marquis de Sade and his minions,  followed closely by Matthew 5: 17, 5-21-22[the complete opposite of Matthew 10:35-39}  followed by Matthew 5: 34 - 47 which sounds like Mahatma Gandhi.   Matthew 5:48 is nothing more then unadulterated B.S..

 

 

                         Let's recap;Talk about a multiple personality disorder as we go from Mr.Roger's neighborhood, to hypocracy (Sarah Palin), to the Marquis de Sade, to Mahatma Gandhi, and eventually up the line to Mr.T.  Plus the useual B.S. in between,  and we haven't even left Matthew yet.

 

 

                         Could you help me with the jesus quotes about makeing a human king as head of a church,  I'm not sure where they are for citation purposes. To compare with the "render unto caeser....." (seperating church from kings) quote.

"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."

VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"

If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?


robj101
atheist
robj101's picture
Posts: 2481
Joined: 2010-02-20
User is offlineOffline
I always question more when

I always question more when it takes an essay to answer a question or to offer an explanation. Have I said that before?

Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline

ex-minister
atheistHigh Level Moderator
ex-minister's picture
Posts: 1711
Joined: 2010-01-29
User is offlineOffline
My Kingdom is not of this world

Jeffrick wrote:
 

                         Could you help me with the jesus quotes about makeing a human king as head of a church,  I'm not sure where they are for citation purposes. To compare with the "render unto caeser....." (seperating church from kings) quote.

I don't know of any. If fact I believe the Bible was never in favor of a king. God and baby Jesus have too big an ego for that. A human head of the church has been called the anti-christ in book of revelations. In the old testament the Jews wanted a King. God is said to have begrudgingly granted that.

I never understood how the Catholic Church choose to have their priest called 'father' when this text is contrary.

 

Matthew 23:8-12. Jesus said to his disciples:

But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

I have also wondered why Christians get so involved with politics - Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world. I really think they just use Christianity for their political gain and nothing else.

John 18:36-37

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

 

Perhaps someone else might know of texts that reference what you want, but it seems a consistent message to me.

 

Religion Kills !!!

Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/


robj101
atheist
robj101's picture
Posts: 2481
Joined: 2010-02-20
User is offlineOffline
ex-minister wrote:Jeffrick

ex-minister wrote:

Jeffrick wrote:
 

                         Could you help me with the jesus quotes about makeing a human king as head of a church,  I'm not sure where they are for citation purposes. To compare with the "render unto caeser....." (seperating church from kings) quote.

I don't know of any. If fact I believe the Bible was never in favor of a king. God and baby Jesus have too big an ego for that. A human head of the church has been called the anti-christ in book of revelations. In the old testament the Jews wanted a King. God is said to have begrudgingly granted that.

I never understood how the Catholic Church choose to have their priest called 'father' when this text is contrary.

 

 

Matthew 23:8-12. Jesus said to his disciples:

But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

 

I have also wondered why Christians get so involved with politics - Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world. I really think they just use Christianity for their political gain and nothing else.

John 18:36-37

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.” “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

 

Perhaps someone else might know of texts that reference what you want, but it seems a consistent message to me.

 

For the Mathhew quote I would guess they take it that he meant this for his 12 disciples, not the general public. Thus being called father is cool and christlike or something.

Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin


Atheistextremist
atheist
Atheistextremist's picture
Posts: 5134
Joined: 2009-09-17
User is offlineOffline
What the fuck are you talking about?

Teralek wrote:

Atheistextremist wrote:

Morality is a challenging area.

I'm glad we agree! I believe that Meta-ethics is an atheist nightmare! And your comments only prove my point.

After much study in this matter I consider myself an Ethical subjectivist proponent of the Ideal observer theory developed by Roderick Firth. I believe in moral Universalism.

On moral Universalism I'm backed by most modern philosophers.

According to hard core "atheistic" rationality "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one" So gang rape is Ok. The needs of the rapers (many) outweigh the needs of the one. You say things that make no sense «I don't like hurting people in any way - women in particular. We can thank empathy and inherited social morality for that.» This is much unlike you! A lot of illogical things here! Why women in particular?! Is there any Universal rule that says they need more protection? Empathy? That's an illusion created by your brain that don't bring what's best for you. You say you don't believe in a cosmological moral but you keep judging moral facts and thank your education... but that's trivial since that moral is an illusion... without moral Egoism is really the best thing! IF you have the chance and you know you wont get caught you must rob, rape or kill to enjoy living the best you can...since you're heading to oblivion... a heavy consciousness is not logical.

 

The assertions you make are nonsensical. The idea that somehow it suits an atheist to tear supportive social environments to pieces, to go around merrily raping, in gangs, because this is an 'advantage' to the many. What the fuck are you talking about? Where is the advantage to the husband of this woman? Her father and brothers and her friends? Where is the advantage to her children? What 'many' are you talking about? This donkey you are pinning a tail on is a crock of shit. In the family environment and in all social environments, things like stability, support, alliances and intimate relationships are vital to individual and group survival. They are paramount. There's a reason rape is among the worst of crimes and it's not because it is an 'advantage to the many' it's because it is an affront to many.

You keep insisting the irreligious position is by default, immoral, and if you continue to do that here then you are going to garner serious abuse. This argument is an intolerable ad hominem. What we know as factual is is that all humans live in groups and social morality serves the group and as a result it serves the individuals in the group. The idea morality is some magical potion scattered over us by an exo-universal deity is laughable. Morality is human. You can see the natural progression of pre-conventional morality in younger children, going on to conventional morality in slightly older kids and then progressing to post conventional morality in teens, facilitated by cultural activities like team sports, scouts, girl guides and all the rest of the social directives that encourage us to experience another's point of view and to sacrifice our individuality for the team. 

Looking around us we can see that morality is a central element of all human culture. But what you are spouting here is the assertion that universal morality, a giddy state where we constantly give ourselves up for each other, is somehow a thing we can attain in general life as we compete for resources. You are mistaken. No human and no humanly-conceived character, including biblical jesus, actually shows consistent universal morality. We can show empathetic morality - a local example on this site would be Brian37 - but not everyone achieves this elevated moral state. Personally, I think I reach it sporadically. If I practiced true moral universalism I would not get out of bed in the morning for fear of delaying some one else's commute to the office.

As for a conscience being illogical, I can only assume you are suggesting it serves the human purpose better to have no feelings for others but this is demonstrably stupid. Here we are, the most successful animal on the planet, and we have strong feelings for each other and act on them every day. Look at our societies, look at our cities, our support for our football teams, our local clubs, our involvement with our children's schools, with our neighbours. We even fight in each other's wars and die for each other.

As for morals being an 'illusion' that's silly, too. Morality is a real property that emerges from the human brain. Read that again. A property that emerges from the human brain. It's a human characteristic that's vital and central to what makes us human and helps us survive. But it's not proof for the existence of this assumption you keep insisting exists outside the universe but whom we can know nothing whatever about.

Teralek, you need to come down from your ivory tower and read some Jean Piaget. You also need to avoid using sentences that include statements like: "According to atheist rationality...gang rape is ok."

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


butterbattle
ModeratorSuperfan
butterbattle's picture
Posts: 3945
Joined: 2008-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:Not even you

Teralek wrote:
Not even you can explain what's behind quantum particles popping out to existence!

No, I can't. But, I didn't say I could. The issue I am discussing is the soundness of the KCA. Your first premise is that everything in the universe has a cause. Do you really know that?

Teralek wrote:
As to prove that everything in the Universe has a cause... the best proof I can tell you is go study

Okay, so you can't show that the KCA is sound?

Teralek wrote:
physics or chemistry!

I'm a physics major.

Teralek wrote:
What do you want me to say?

I want you to say, "I don't know if the KCA is sound or even valid." Hehe.

Teralek wrote:
So if everything reverts back in time to the Big Bang and the Big Bang is a phenomenon in this reality it MUST have a cause.

Why?

Teralek wrote:
However it can't have a cause according to standard theory because "before" the Big Bang there was no space-time...

 

Right. Well, perhaps the conditions before our universe allow for something similar to causality. We don't know.

Teralek wrote:
This something needs no cause to exist because as you've said "causality is nonsensical without time".

Well then, how did this cause cause the universe? Why do you feel the need to posit this extra cause? Why don't you just say the universe needs no cause to exist because "causality is nonsensical without time?"

butterbattle wrote:
how do you know this "first cause" could "cause" anything?

Teralek wrote:
We are here! 

No. I think you begged the question. How do you know there needs to be this first cause for us to be here?

Teralek wrote:
I go no further mate... from here on I'm an Ignostic 

Oh, uh, okay.

Teralek wrote:
It's not oxygen deprivation because NDEs don't happen to everyone. They only detected it in 18% of the sample.

Right. 18% of the people whose brains were oxygen deprived.

Teralek wrote:
There was no correlations... or so I remember.

No correlation between what and what?

Teralek wrote:
Medical science say you're mind will shut down in about 10 sec after the heart stops,

Where did you get this number?

And what does "shut down" mean? That is an absolutely meaningless term.

Teralek wrote:
but people involved seem to remember details after the 10 sec period.

Uh, they're in cardiac arrest. How do they know how long it was?

Teralek wrote:
Even Atheists... they stop being atheists BTW.

 

What? You mean all of them or a few examples that you saw online?

Teralek wrote:
No one saw, yet, what the scientists put on the cealing because no one looked at it... yet...

No one? Nobody? Not even one of them?

Teralek wrote:
it's understandable...

Really?

Teralek wrote:
when your're dying the last thing you worry is the graffiti on a lamp...

Oh, but they can describe all the stuff that they could see from the ground fine. Yes, apparently, the first thing they worry about is the stuff that they didn't have to float to the ceiling to see. 

Teralek wrote:
It's also understandable that you bias your interpretation of the experience... When you experience something unrelated to anything you've ever seen you try to relate it to something...

It's called skepticism. I don't believe it until it's more likely that it's true than not.

Teralek wrote:
if there are no absolutes you can defend rape if in your mind its ok,

 

Well, what does "defend" mean? If there are absolutes, then criminals never think their actions are justified?

Teralek wrote:
and I cannot condemn you because as you say morality is an abstract, it's not normative.

Yes I can. I condemn the Holocaust; I don't like it. See? I can still condemn things.


Teralek wrote:
Without Universalism anything goes, really.

 

Only in the sense that you can't call anything absolutely right or wrong. Pragmatically, there is no difference, because our preferences still haven't changed. In that sense, the only difference is that moral objectivism is clumsier.

But, ultimately, I could just respond to all of these remarks on morality by pointing out that they are appeals to consequences, as I expected.

Teralek wrote:
In fact, one of the, maybe the most, elementary of moral principles is that of universality, that is, If something's right for me, it's right for you; if it's wrong for you, it's wrong for me. Any moral code that is even worth looking at has that at its core somehow.”

I do use the negative golden rule, but merely as guideline to organize my moral preferences.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


butterbattle
ModeratorSuperfan
butterbattle's picture
Posts: 3945
Joined: 2008-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:According to

Teralek wrote:
According to hard core "atheistic" rationality "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one" So gang rape is Ok. The needs of the rapers (many) outweigh the needs of the one. You say things that make no sense «

I don't like hurting people in any way - women in particular. We can thank empathy and inherited social morality for that.

» This is much unlike you! A lot of illogical things here! Why women in particular?! Is there any Universal rule that says they need more protection? Empathy? That's an illusion created by your brain that don't bring what's best for you. You say you don't believe in a cosmological moral but you keep judging moral facts and thank your education... but that's trivial since that moral is an illusion... without moral Egoism is really the best thing! IF you have the chance and you know you wont get caught you must rob, rape or kill to enjoy living the best you can...since you're heading to oblivion... a heavy consciousness is not logical.

Regardless of whether there are absolute morals or not, people will do what they desire, what they prefer to do. I am not prevented from robbing, raping and killing by some invisible absolute moral wall; I don't do these things primarily because I don't want to. I don't like robbing, raping and killing. Those are my preferences. 

"You say you don't believe in a cosmological moral but you keep judging moral facts and thank your education..."

No. You're begging the question. He keeps expressing his moral preferences.

"without moral Egoism is really the best thing!" 

Without absolute morality, nothing is the best thing, by definition. There is no better or worse; that's what it means for there to be no absolute morality.

"a heavy consciousness is not logical."

You mean a heavy conscience? A lack of a heavy conscience isn't logical either. Preferences aren't logical, period; they're preferences.

As previously stated, we derive our preferences from a combination of our instincts and our culture. Because we are a social animal, our instincts are not limited to what is obviously beneficial for only the individual. Since humans live in groups, evolution not only selects for individuals that survive to reproduce, but also groups of humans. More precisely, evolution will select for instincts that benefit the in-group as long as they are not too detrimental to the individual. For example, we don't like murder, even if it is someone unrelated to us, because the loss of a member of the in-group weakens the group. On the other hand, we may sometimes cheer at death, such as in war, because we consider the deceased to be in an out-group that our group was competing with.

I recommend: http://www.rationalresponders.com/what_does_sugar_have_to_do_with_murder

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
 This is tiresome... I

 This is tiresome... I guess you must have been bugged by so many religious guys that you gained some sort of allergic reaction.

Well I insist! On cosmology I was only trying to defend the likelihood of First Cause as the most probable cause of the Universe... from there on... it's all speculation. I'm not defending God... whatever that is. I have further opinions, sure, but they are not scientific in that sense.

Well moral is a more closed subject for me. You guys are the minority here... most philosophers defend some sort of Universality.

I'm a ""what is right, is right, even if no one is doing it , and what is wrong, is wrong, even if everyone is doing it"" kinda a guy. If I gave the impression that "irreligious position is by default, immoral", that's not what I meant. What I meant was that: non-universal positions are by default immoral...

from wikipedia wrote:

Ethical subjectivism is one form of moral anti-realism. It holds that moral statements are made true or false by the attitudes and/or conventions of people; either those of each society, those of each individual, or those of some particular individual. Most forms of ethical subjectivism are relativist, but there are notable forms which are universalist:


Ideal observer theory holds that what is right is determined by the attitudes that a hypothetical ideal observer would have. An ideal observer is usually characterized as a being who is perfectly rational, imaginative, and informed, among other things. Though a subjectivist theory due to its reference to a particular (albeit hypothetical) subject, Ideal Observer Theory still purports to provide universal answers to moral questions.
 

This is where I stand morally. By standing here I'm merely stating that ethics is a relativistic thing but Universal at the same time, and more importantly: that no isolated group has the ownership of the best moral code. This is not incompatible with atheism. I find your philosophical moral grounds very individualistic. However I shouldn't have said: "According to atheist rationality...gang rape is ok." and I must excuse to Atheistextremist and rephrase to "According to pure Moral nihilism, rape could be Ok, logically" (as in: reproduction is good for the species, woman X doesn't want to reproduce, let's rape woman X). Also the holocaust is hard to condemn because under Moral nihilism we don't have the higher standard to condemn it. There are no higher standards in Moral nihilism. We shouldn't have condemned the nazis to death because we are not morally superior to them... My opinion is, ethics is like science, we evolve in it and became aware of progressively higher standards in morality.

 

The central question about moral and ethical principles concerns this ontological foundation. If they are neither derived from God nor anchored in some transcendent ground, are they purely ephemeral?” Paul Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1988) p. 65.

 

I recommend: Roderick Firth (1952). Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (pity... I don't think it's online)

On the NDE I recommend the reading of the study, so we can talk more: http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm

Teralek wrote:
It's also understandable that you bias your interpretation of the experience... When you experience something unrelated to anything you've ever seen you try to relate it to something...

butterbattle wrote:
It's called skepticism. I don't believe it until it's more likely that it's true than not.
And I think that is very prudent of you! I am a more likely kind of guy than a less likely kind of guy!

Ultimately God is a matter of faith. You can't prove it's existence with science. Aside this, for your information, on faith ideology I'm more close to the Bahai faith. I'm not with the group though. I'm just a friend of their cause. I never said I was a God believer because I can't define It. I only said I was a transcendent reality believer.


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
NDE

 Also, answering your question, I've never seen (from the studies I've read) ANY atheist who remained so after an NDE.

This is not just some bogus thing you can easily discard. Even New scientist magazine is saying: "No medical explanation for near death experiences" 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1693-no-medical-explanation-for-near-death-experiences.html

Greyson claims that: "No one physiological or psychological model by itself explains all the common features of NDE. The paradoxical occurrence of heightened, lucid awareness and logical thought processes during a period of impaired cerebral perfusion raises particular perplexing questions for our current understanding of consciousness and its relation to brain function. A clear sensorium and complex perceptual processes during a period of apparent clinical death challenge the concept that consciousness is localized exclusively in the brain."

As to time elapsed between cardiac arrest and loss of conscience... I'm trying to find the paper were I read it...

More on Pim van Lommel research: http://www.cinemind.com/atwater/VLommel.html

Pim van Lommel et al., argues, "With a purely physiological explanation such as cerebral anoxia for the experience, most patients who have been clinically dead should report one."

Here is a reply from Pim van Lommel (head researcher of the Lancet study) to skeptics: http://www.nderf.org/vonlommel_skeptic_response.htm

The reply is to Michael Shermer,  a known skeptical.

 

 

 

 


Eloise
TheistBronze Member
Eloise's picture
Posts: 1808
Joined: 2007-05-26
User is offlineOffline
Atheistextremist wrote:My

Atheistextremist wrote:

My moral guru is the guy who has been driving the sydney city mission vans every night for 25 years, picking up drunks and the homeless and taking them to the salvation army men's home in Surry Hills. Ultimately, it's what you do every day that makes a difference.

Oh so true, and good choice of a guru too, I knew of the SCM's work through some (well probably more than some) old friends helped at the "Oasis" -respect - they have done a heap for Sydney's downtrodden, young and old.

AtheistExtremist wrote:

For me the most unexplainable thing in the universe, more complex than QT, is the appalling form of my football team, the Cronulla Sharks. They have been terrible all my life. Loyalty is a horrible thing.

 

Damn, you're a Sharks fan? That's gotta hurt, lol, they've never even had a crack at the premiership have they? Hey, but take some consolation in that the Cowboys have overtaken them in the bout for the "real" Wooden Spoon this year and whatever happens it goes to the Victorians anyway,  BAHAHAHAHA!  I so love that.

 

 


 

Theist badge qualifier : Gnostic/Philosophical Panentheist

www.mathematicianspictures.com


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
LOL Yeah and loyalty is not

Eloise wrote:

Atheistextremist wrote:

My moral guru is the guy who has been driving the sydney city mission vans every night for 25 years, picking up drunks and the homeless and taking them to the salvation army men's home in Surry Hills. Ultimately, it's what you do every day that makes a difference.

Oh so true, and good choice of a guru too, I knew of the SCM's work through some (well probably more than some) old friends helped at the "Oasis" -respect - they have done a heap for Sydney's downtrodden, young and old.

AtheistExtremist wrote:

For me the most unexplainable thing in the universe, more complex than QT, is the appalling form of my football team, the Cronulla Sharks. They have been terrible all my life. Loyalty is a horrible thing.


 

Damn, you're a Sharks fan? That's gotta hurt, lol, they've never even had a crack at the premiership have they? Hey, but take some consolation in that the Cowboys have overtaken them in the bout for the "real" Wooden Spoon this year and whatever happens it goes to the Victorians anyway,  BAHAHAHAHA!  I so love that.

LOL 

Yeah and loyalty is not very atheistic... and definitely not logical 

You're a Gnostic/Philosophical Panentheist?? 

I'd love to know what you think! I Love philosophy!

 


Kapkao
atheistSuperfan
Kapkao's picture
Posts: 4121
Joined: 2010-01-12
User is offlineOffline
Luminon wrote:As you see,

Luminon wrote:

 

As you see, people here are hardcore rationalists.

I am a hardcore rationalist (I value my ability to reason more so than most human-animals I could name), but then... "language of the concepts of logic" seems like an unwieldy, inefficient tool of "skepticism".

I'm a staunch skeptic of theism of all types, but then... I'm also a skeptic of some of the gibberish spewed by quite a few atheists (I.e. philosophy of "rigorous logic&quotEye-wink

 

fck editor makes Kapkao a sad panda.

“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)


butterbattle
ModeratorSuperfan
butterbattle's picture
Posts: 3945
Joined: 2008-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:This is

Teralek wrote:
This is tiresome... I guess you must have been bugged by so many religious guys that you gained some sort of allergic reaction.

Lol. Hahahaha, yeah, sort of. 

But, you did write some fairly inflammatory stuff. 

Teralek wrote:
Well I insist! On cosmology I was only trying to defend the likelihood of First Cause as the most probable cause of the Universe... from there on... it's all speculation. I'm not defending God... whatever that is. I have further opinions, sure, but they are not scientific in that sense.

Oh, alright then. I'll lighten up a bit. 

Teralek wrote:
I'm a ""what is right, is right, even if no one is doing it , and what is wrong, is wrong, even if everyone is doing it"" kinda a guy. If I gave the impression that "irreligious position is by default, immoral", that's not what I meant. What I meant was that: non-universal positions are by default immoral...

Okay. Can you prove it?

from wikipedia wrote:
Ethical subjectivism is one form of moral anti-realism. It holds that moral statements are made true or false by the attitudes and/or conventions of people; either those of each society, those of each individual, or those of some particular individual. Most forms of ethical subjectivism are relativist, but there are notable forms which are universalist:

Which wikipedia page did you get this from?

There are people who believe that what is morally right or wrong is determined by cultures, people, etc. That is not what I believe. What I believe is there is not and cannot be any objectivity regarding the rightness or wrongness of actions whatsoever. Iow, I do not claim that attitudes and/or conventions of people makes an action right or wrong; I claim that nothing makes an action right or wrong because morals are merely preference, like aesthetics.  

Teralek wrote:
"According to pure Moral nihilism, rape could be Ok, logically"

Well...there goes my promise of lightening up a bit.

Are you sure this is the same "Ok" that you were using before? What you said before was that the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or one," implying that the action is justified. All you mean now is that the action is not unreasonable. That is not the same; it is an equivocation.

Either way, it is an entirely inane statement. To the nihilist, no actions would be morally justified and no action would be morally unreasonable, period, because they hold that morality does not exist.

Teralek wrote:
(as in: reproduction is good for the species, woman X doesn't want to reproduce, let's rape woman X).

Strawman! Where in the definition of nihilism does it say that the nihilist necessarily opts for raping people for reproduction? Where in the definition of nihilism does it say that the nihilist necessarily cares about the survival of his species?

Teralek wrote:
Also the holocaust is hard to condemn because under Moral nihilism we don't have the higher standard to condemn it.

Then, all you're saying is that if you are a nihilist, you cannot criticize it using objective standards because there aren't any. Another completely obvious and inane statement. It doesn't make it any harder to "condemn;" to condemn something just means to have an unfavorable judgment of it.

Teralek wrote:
We shouldn't have condemned the nazis to death because we are not morally superior to them...

No! Should you not like any flavors of ice cream more than other flavors because none of them are absolutely better flavors of ice cream?

To say that we shouldn't condemn the Nazis because we are not morally superior to them is a normative statement based on ideas like fairness and justice. It is a blatant contradiction. If there are no objective morals, then there is no should or shouldn't about anything. I have no obligation or "normative" reason to do anything.

Teralek wrote:
The central question about moral and ethical principles concerns this ontological foundation. If they are neither derived from God nor anchored in some transcendent ground, are they purely ephemeral?” Paul Kurtz, Forbidden Fruit (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1988) p. 65.

No, they are not "ephemeral." They are not "things." They are not "forms." They do not exist as any entities or have any substance, period. They are abstractions of our preferences. Not every concept has to be some Platonic woo-woo.

Terlake wrote:
Ultimately God is a matter of faith.

Meaning, you believe it even though the evidence is insufficient, simply because it makes you feel good?

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
Man! you must be a part time


 

Man! you must be a part time critic or something... or just like to disagree with people!  Agreeing is just not your thing!

You even disagree with Atheist commentators like the quote from Paul Kurtz!

 the quote from wikipedia is in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-ethics

its about meta-ethics.

butterbattle wrote:

Teralek wrote:
I'm a ""what is right, is right, even if no one is doing it , and what is wrong, is wrong, even if everyone is doing it"" kinda a guy. If I gave the impression that "irreligious position is by default, immoral", that's not what I meant. What I meant was that: non-universal positions are by default immoral...


Okay. Can you prove it?
 

I think I already made my point, as such, it is pointless to repeat myself again. The quote on my sentence says it all. Furthermore that quote tells me there are absolutes in ethics. Non-universal positions are immoral because they permit immoralities. According to you There are no wrongs or rights there is only chocolate and vanilla.

You know I've seen a joke once that could apply to some of you 

 

butterbattle wrote:

Teralek wrote:
(as in: reproduction is good for the species, woman X doesn't want to reproduce, let's rape woman X).
 

Strawman! Where in the definition of nihilism does it say that the nihilist necessarily opts for raping people for reproduction? Where in the definition of nihilism does it say that the nihilist necessarily cares about the survival of his species?

This is not a question of option, it IS a question of lack of "qualia" you can't qualify universally any moral act under nihilism. "Any adequate moral system must have a transcendent standard beyond human nature." Preferences are just that... preferences.

butterbattle wrote:

Teralek wrote:
We shouldn't have condemned the nazis to death because we are not morally superior to them...

No! Should you not like any flavors of ice cream more than other flavors because none of them are absolutely better flavors of ice cream?

To say that we shouldn't condemn the Nazis because we are not morally superior to them is a normative statement based on ideas like fairness and justice. It is a blatant contradiction. If there are no objective morals, then there is no should or shouldn't about anything. I have no obligation or "normative" reason to do anything.


 

If I understand you correctly you say that we should condemn the nazis for the same reason that we like or dislike flavors (we should condemn the nazis only because we don't like killing jews). I am in a complete disagreement with this, because these are completely different things:

"There are things that are objectively morally wrong... when we say that, we mean somethings are wrong independently of whether anybody thinks it to be so or not" There are objective truths and subjective truths. For example: "When I say chocolate is delicious I said something that is definitely true" "Saying chocolate is delicious it reflects the subject rather than the object - the chocolate" These are subjective truths. That is why there's no law imposing that chocolate is better than vanilla but there are many universal moral codes imposing moral values on humans - as in Laws! In a sense humans already make a difference between preferences and moral codes objectively.

So I say that in a context a moral scenario is always right or wrong. It becomes a fact as in 1+1=2. (quotes are from Sean McDowell). Ethics is an objective truth, as is a scientific fact. Preferences are subjective truths.

butterbattle wrote:

Terlake wrote:
Ultimately God is a matter of faith.

Meaning, you believe it even though the evidence is insufficient, simply because it makes you feel good?

Well... yeah! (see I can agree with you!) but as you know for many people the answer to that is not so simple. My beliefs in a transcendent reality also comes from my experience, my knowledge and my interpretation of the facts, that to ME say it is much more likely to exist than not.

 


Magus
High Level DonorModerator
Magus's picture
Posts: 592
Joined: 2007-04-11
User is offlineOffline
Quote:Teralek wrote:(as in:

Quote:

Teralek wrote:
(as in: reproduction is good for the species, woman X doesn't want to reproduce, let's rape woman X).

butterbattle wrote:

Strawman! Where in the definition of nihilism does it say that the nihilist necessarily opts for raping people for reproduction? Where in the definition of nihilism does it say that the nihilist necessarily cares about the survival of his species?

Teralek wrote:

This is not a question of option, it IS a question of lack of "qualia" you can't qualify universally any moral act under nihilism. "Any adequate moral system must have a transcendent standard beyond human nature." Preferences are just that... preferences.

 Again to suggest  that moral require a "outside" standard is to suggest that moral are useless. If they are useful then they can be derived simply on their use within the human social system. 

Teralek wrote:

butterbattle wrote:

Teralek wrote:
We shouldn't have condemned the nazis to death because we are not morally superior to them...

No! Should you not like any flavors of ice cream more than other flavors because none of them are absolutely better flavors of ice cream?

To say that we shouldn't condemn the Nazis because we are not morally superior to them is a normative statement based on ideas like fairness and justice. It is a blatant contradiction. If there are no objective morals, then there is no should or shouldn't about anything. I have no obligation or "normative" reason to do anything.


 

If I understand you correctly you say that we should condemn the nazis for the same reason that we like or dislike flavors (we should condemn the nazis only because we don't like killing jews). I am in a complete disagreement with this, because these are completely different things:

"There are things that are objectively morally wrong... when we say that, we mean

somethings are wrong independently of whether anybody thinks it to be so or not

"

There are objective truths and subjective truths

. For example: "When I say chocolate is delicious I said something that is definitely true" "Saying chocolate is delicious it reflects the subject rather than the object - the chocolate"

These are subjective truths.

That is why there's no law imposing that chocolate is better than vanilla but there are many universal moral codes imposing moral values on humans - as in Laws! In a sense humans already make a difference between preferences and moral codes objectively.

So I say that in a context a moral scenario is always right or wrong. It becomes a fact as in 1+1=2. (quotes are from Sean McDowell). Ethics is an objective truth, as is a scientific fact. Preferences are subjective truths.

Incorrect. We condemn the nazi's because their behavior is/was detrimental and less effective at maintaining and improving social cohesion of the species.

Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
Magus wrote: Again to

Magus wrote:

 Again to suggest that moral require a "outside" standard is to suggest that moral are useless. If they are useful then they can be derived simply on their use within the human social system. 

On the contrary! Precisely because Ethics is an "outside" standard that it gain it's meaning, and it's just not random noise. Claiming that outside standards are useless is the same as saying matter is useless.

I can keep this argument/contra-argument indefinitely if you want 

Magus wrote:

Incorrect. We condemn the nazi's because their behavior is/was detrimental and less effective at maintaining and improving social cohesion of the species.

You can't condemn them on that basis. You can only condemn them based on your culture or your preferences. I can argue that Germany social cohesion was fine without the Jews and if Germany had won the war and we were in some sort of 4th Reich utopia, everybody would think that extermination of the Jews had been a good thing... It would still be wrong though according to my philosophical beliefs.


butterbattle
ModeratorSuperfan
butterbattle's picture
Posts: 3945
Joined: 2008-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:You even

Teralek wrote:
You even disagree with Atheist commentators like the quote from Paul Kurtz!

Atheists only necessarily agree with me one thing, the existence of God. I can disagree with them on everything else. His quote was stupid.

Teralek wrote:
or just like to disagree with people!  Agreeing is just not your thing!

I do enjoy debate, but you also just think that because I disagreed with you on a billion different things. Seriously, have you noticed that you're the only person in this thread that I've disagreed with? It's not that "agreeing is not (my) thing." If you stay longer on this forum, you will discover that my views on philosophy and religion are essentially the same as most of the top posters and moderators here, including AtheistExtremist and most of the people that have posted in this thread. AE's username and avatar are more a satire of religious people who speak of atheist "extremists" than a statement of fact, and you played right into it with your confirmation bias.

Teralek wrote:
The quote on my sentence says it all. Furthermore that quote tells me there are absolutes in ethics.

That quote is a naked assertion. Do you have any evidence or arguments for moral objectivism beyond appeals to consequences and naked assertions?

Teralek wrote:
Non-universal positions are immoral because they permit immoralities.

If you assume objective morality, then they, in principle, permit immoralities. In practice, unless you know, for certain, what these objective morals are or they have real influence on our world, our preferences are all that matter.

If I assume moral subjectivism, then neither objectivism nor subjectivism would be immoral. However, subjectivism would a better system for clarifying and carrying out our preferences. Objectivism would confuse the situation and take up time by speaking of and debating moral absolutes.  

Teralek wrote:

I don't know a single person on this forum that this comic would apply to.

Teralek wrote:
(as in: reproduction is good for the species, woman X doesn't want to reproduce, let's rape woman X).

butterbattle wrote:
Strawman! Where in the definition of nihilism does it say that the nihilist necessarily opts for raping people for reproduction? Where in the definition of nihilism does it say that the nihilist necessarily cares about the survival of his species?

Teralek wrote:
This is not a question of option, it IS a question of lack of "qualia" you can't qualify universally any moral act under nihilism.

 

Okay. So, are you simply saying that the syllogism above is a preference that the nihilist can hold?

Teralek wrote:
"Any adequate moral system must have a transcendent standard beyond human nature."

That is also a naked assertion and begs the question by assuming that there is objective morality.

Teralek wrote:
If I understand you correctly you say that we should condemn the nazis for the same reason that we like or dislike flavors (we should condemn the nazis only because we don't like killing jews).

Well, almost, except I wouldn't say "should." If you want to condemn Nazis, you can. Or, if you don't want to, then don't. 

Teralek wrote:
I am in a complete disagreement with this, because these are completely different things:

Great. Any evidence or arguments?

Teralek wrote:
"There are things that are objectively morally wrong...

Okay. Naked assertion.

Teralek wrote:
when we say that, we mean somethings are wrong independently of whether anybody thinks it to be so or not"

Yes, that's what the phrase means.

Teralek wrote:
There are objective truths and subjective truths.

Okay. Another naked assertion.

Teralek wrote:
For example: "When I say chocolate is delicious I said something that is definitely true" "Saying chocolate is delicious it reflects the subject rather than the object - the chocolate"

Actually, the literal meaning of the sentence does not explicitly reveal that it is the subject who finds the chocolate delicious. That is merely assumed because no one who said that would be trying to start a philosophical debate by claiming that chocolate is absolutely delicious. On the other hand, if you claim that murder is wrong, most people assume that you mean murder is absolutely wrong in addition to you holding the preference that murder is wrong because most people hold to objective morality and assume that you do. 

Teralek wrote:
These are subjective truths.

Yes.

Teralek wrote:
That is why there's no law imposing that chocolate is better than vanilla but there are many universal moral codes imposing moral values on humans - as in Laws!

Well, this is a confused mess.

First of all, laws are made by people. They don't represent truth, only the opinions of the people that make the laws. If the legislature wanted to impose a law that chocolate is better than vanilla, then they could. It wouldn't even be close to the first time that people legislated aesthetics. Throughout history, there have been laws on music, art, dance, etc. In some cases, specific kinds of aesthetic expression have even been banned, particularly with corrupt dictators or any kind of government that grew too powerful and became oppressive, fascism, communism, etc.

Regardless of whether or not there are moral absolutes, we are motivated by our preferences, not absolutes. People don't legislate chocolate over vanilla because they don't care whether someone else eats chocolate or vanilla. They simply like to eat chocolate more than vanilla themselves. However, they do care about morally significant actions committed by others because, well, those are their preferences, those things matter to them. Remember, it's about the survival of the group. Instintively, the preference of a flavor of ice cream is inconsequential compared to actions that might harm the group.

Teralek wrote:
In a sense humans already make a difference between preferences and moral codes objectively.

Argumentum ad populum?

Humans want to think that morals are absolute because it was beneficial for the survival of the in-group; our instincts are still with us.  

Teralek wrote:
So I say that in a context a moral scenario is always right or wrong. It becomes a fact as in 1+1=2. (quotes are from Sean McDowell). Ethics is an objective truth, as is a scientific fact. Preferences are subjective truths.

Okay. Naked assertion. Naked assertion. Naked assertion. Naked assertion.

Teralek wrote:
that to ME say it is much more likely to exist than not.

Then why do you use faith?

 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


Magus
High Level DonorModerator
Magus's picture
Posts: 592
Joined: 2007-04-11
User is offlineOffline
Teralek wrote:Magus

Teralek wrote:


Magus wrote:


 Again to suggest that moral require a "outside" standard is to suggest that moral are useless. If they are useful then they can be derived simply on their use within the human social system.



On the contrary! Precisely because Ethics is an "outside" standard that it gain it's meaning. and it's just not random noise.


This is empty of justification.  Explain how having it come from some unknown source adds value to it.

Teralek wrote:


 Claiming that outside standards are useless is the same as saying matter is useless.

I can keep this argument/contra-argument indefinitely if you want



I never claimed outside standards are useless.  I claimed that if morality must come from an outside source then it cannot be rational nor derived on its use.  If something cannot be derived on its use then it cannot be useful per definition.

The question now is, are morals useful.  Are they helpful?  If you can answer yes to any of these then you have just derived it without influence of some "transcendental source".  If however you say no.  Then you have demonstrated that you think they are useless.  There is no other way around this.

Teralek wrote:


Magus wrote:


Incorrect. We condemn the nazi's because their behavior is/was detrimental and less effective at maintaining and improving social cohesion of the species.



You can't condemn them on that basis. You can only condemn them based on your culture or your preferences. I can argue that Germany social cohesion was fine without the Jews and if Germany had won the war and we were in some sort of 4th Reich utopia, everybody would think that extermination of the Jews had been a good thing... It would still be wrong though according to my philosophical beliefs.

I never suggested that Might makes right.  I can demonstrate that moral are useful, but I never said it was the only thing that was useful.  Might is useful as well. Might and morals can be conflicting methods of survival.  However that does not suggest that might is better than morality.  It only suggests that for short term gain it could be more beneficial to use might. However over long term situations morals are more useful.  The gain for might is usually swift, but the chance of consequences are high.  I can even use your example to prove this.  Did we or did we not stop and punish Germany for their actions? 

 

Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.


Teralek
Teralek's picture
Posts: 620
Joined: 2010-07-15
User is offlineOffline
You both have good points. I

You both have good points. I need time to study the subject. Get back to you later...

Chill butterbattle  

 

EDIT: This is great! I'm glad I came here. I'm still in the process of reviewing my philosophical ethics. But I can already say that by putting my ideas to the test in here I was able to perceive it's weaknesses so I will reformulate. I'm still with moral realism though...

          BTW - Because of Eloise I look up a concept I was unaware of: Panentheism. Quite interesting... I hope it helps me to leave my Ignosticism.