I am new - and friends (hold on now) I am Swedish (dumb and slow) so enlighten me and pardon my bad English...

so - what do you have to say as to the criticism I am reading about you. Do you think there is something in this? Is it some sort of image or are you not able to give reasons for what you state or are you of the opinon that you were clear on the matter and other should have understood your point?
Or what else?

I just started participating and thus I did probe a bit... that is quite normal and if you are going to ignore me on that ground I would think you are a very sensitive person...
Right?

okej so what I am understanding by your post here is: that the man Foghorn is secretive and will not say what he thinks you guys should have been able to understand - or you are trying to convey an idea that he makes himself secretive and wants to have that image for no reasons at all other than it is some sort of image?
Right?

so, then your comment - not for me, makes it alright to be biased and apply cancel culture manners?
Explain so that I can understand how you think... because I cannot understand that sort of behavior? Do you folks only want to get your thoughts verified by those who say what you want to hear or listen to?

Cant say - have at this stage in life an entire library inside and I am not the librarian --- sadly. So to know exactly within my notions and to know which one of the thousands and thousands I have read within science, philosophy, psychology, novels and straight garbage - I do simply not know.

Because "profound impact" requires that you also know how this particular book changed you, altered your behavior and you person and in what way.
I would say that I was very very impressed by the books of Kant - all of them. The one that I read first: the first Critique was difficult due to the language he uses and thus understanding the concepts - but then when I had a grasp of it - I did not find the other all that difficult. What impressed me is the diligence that man had in explaining, thus the vast knowledge he possessed and the insights and the ability to explain this thoughts in a stringent and coherent manner.

I know - that reading his books sort of put my own neurons in "order" --- and that reading him helped me understand a lot that I did not know before I read his books - but I also held a critical approach to what he wrote and thus I read books of Jung and others in order to verify or find flaws - like Freges books that do refute some thoughts in Prolegomena (thus the first Critique ...) but...
Still...
Deep impact?
How am I to do "soul search" within that? I know that all I have lived, all I have read, and all that I have picked up and "put into my own rucksack" has formed me - but what particular part gave me more than others?
Maybe the books of HC Andersen, the brothers Grimm and the narratives (children's version) of Thousand and one night - when I was preschool - impact me in my core?
Who knows... no idea...

I started readin before school and never stopped and have been a reader of - all that I found interesting and were I could learn something about humans and life.

and....?

I do not like when people tell me to ignore someone they - with their own minds or what ever they have judged - have a preset conception of, that is normally called: to be bias. And if you state - like the member Foghorn did - what you actually understood from what another member wrote - this is the correct manner to proceed. You then - by doing this (stating in short what you think you understood the other was trying to communicate to you) shorten the endless misunderstandings that normally occur when we read others.

So this sort of proceeder to state what you think you understood - is a good way to go. I will not ignore anyone. That is some sort of child play and immature. Do not want to partake there. But thanks for that invitation. Would not apply it to anyone though in this time of cancel culture. Do not partake in ignoring those who might give me inputs I do not even seek out - because they are unknown to me.

Want to be open and be able to discuss all with a critic mind and form my own opinions.

so you mean to say that the atheists do not know how to distinguish between gods made in the image of humans that are many or fictive figures like Superman and Batman and if there would be a real God?
This is really a very strange reason you are giving me - and if this is the reason "atheists reject all gods regardless, even if we do not know how to distinguish between them" it seems childlike to me.
Just like a little child saying: no no no I don't --- and you ask: what more exactly do you not - and they say: whatever.
Seems irrational to me, thus illogically to refute all you do not even know how to distinguish between.

If you do not know something you refute it?!
Right?
Well, yes, this is what I have encountered when I started studies within philosophy - that most humans reject and refute some sort of mental image of metaphysics - like bogus - and what they refute is their own lack of knowledge of the subject matter they normally when I ask them: can you please define what you think metaphysics is? They actually have no answer to it and react like children and say: well I refute that ...
What?
Metaphysics..
Yeah, but tell me what you think that is...
No, just accept I refute it...

Okay... :smile:

But I am interested. I have always - this is the correct way of handling philosophy according to all the great masters - both Greek and European: have an open mind, be open to all and learn from all.

So whatever you are suggesting that will bring some new thoughts to mind: go for it - and I will want to see where this takes us --- and I will maintain a critical mind. So, go and we will see where this then ends. I will follow and speak my mind in regard to what ever you propose.

Yes you are right, the notion is real - but then the God believer says they also thus know the sources - the cause - of their notion. And during all times everywhere - regardless of country, culture and if they were atheists or not - they have experienced the same God. And the experience and this notion that is real they all identify with the very same God. And when they identify who this God is they normally have a experiance of inner cognitive and emotional growth.
This is recorded by the Church and they call these humans saints.
The God they identify - regardless of where they were born or if they were atheists, secular, jews, muslims or what ever they were is Jesus.
Most of these humans (and I have heard lots of these testimonies on youtube and such) did not go to christian gatherings or such - but had a direct unexpected experience and identify this entity the same way.
Why can there be no credibility for this?

"no-one is able to answer the "who is God" question - neither the atheists who then refute what they do not know - more or less.
:rofl:

And forgive my poor English ... but you will have to suffer it as it will not be any better...than this.

No - my first question in this thread was due to the debate where everyone seems to assume someone - whom they are not able to define ... so my answer to your question and suggestion to discuss the core of the matter --- is yes. I am interested to really know... who is God - the logically refuted one by atheists ---

I will explain ... how can we go beyond the words we use to explain what we have - learned, and thus also go beyond what we know?

I do not understand your suggestion --- :wink:

the card game being the metaphor x you suggested a journey beyond?

What about this:
One criteria for the contingent existence of matter is their substantial change. All that arises starts its existence or perishes - does thus not exist with necessity - but can or can not exist.
Some things are contingent without having come into existence because if we think that something non necessary exists we do not have to assume that this x also has arisen in time.
To cause something to exist is not the same as that same something has arisen at some point of time and that this same something is maintained in the existence.
That which is contingent exist must if we follow that line have come into existence ultimately caused by that which is not contingent.
If we accept that the universe could or could not exist and thus does not exist with necessity - then we must assume the existence of the Absolute.
The absolute exists by necessity and is the cause of its own existence and causes all other contingent to come into existence.

I would say that logic is based on the - faculty - of rationality.

thank you, have listen carefully and often to Antonio Damasio and Christof Koch among others... yes... there are many concepts we use daily that we cannot give account of or define: reality for instance... so...yes

because...?

And science is very much what we normally within philosophy call: begging the question...

Well... where does that all leave an atheist?

If I may I will resume this threads debate:

Atheists put their faith in theories and methods given to them from the Roman Catholic Church and its clergy: Mendel, Bacon etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Catholic_clergy_scientists

And have no definition of the god they refute = unknown god is refuted.

And thus this is logical?
Would have fooled me...:rofl:

ejem... you know... when and if we have studied (years in my case) epistemology and the theories of science at the uni - we aught to know that we ---- assume. Because simply put and in brief the "process" of proving something is as follows:

you learn how to view something according to someones theory (a bit like the Bible you know - some one writes down some theory about some phenomenon)
then you deepen your knowledge in regard to that theory and others similar
then you propose - on that very basis - something
know you look for what you have predicted
when you find what you expected - you might say: it is proven

What?
The theory you know, of which you expect something? Yeah... right... so?

oki - but... that is also the fact with the rest we --- assume - in regard to all that exists... so the BB is not the only theory we have in regard to what we believe

yeah but it was a very serious believer who gave the world and atheists that knowledge of a Big Bang --- this gentleman: Georges Lemaître a Roman Catholic priest - and by the way it was the Roman Catholic Church who "invented" the scientific method : https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/no-catholic-church-no-scientific-method/

so the serious believers normally gave the atheists what they build their atheism on?
Strange...
:wink:

but for those who have had "personal God experiences" it seems they do have the notion that God is completely real - even if invisible to our eyes (we do not have excellent sight now do we :rofl: )--- but as an atheist has never had that sort of experience they refute that other have? That would be the same as if I who have never had a depression or angst would say: it does not exist even if humans say they experience that - it's all made up.

okay - but ...
there are lots of things we do assume exist but cannot be defined nor describe completely - our consciences is one of these things - and we have several of those within theoretical physics - but you would not say they do not exist (take black holes - they are only recently "seen" or said to actually exist) - and within physics they keep on looking for them because they believed - so if an atheist does not look how are they going to find?

hear hear

:smile:
aaa... so you reject a magic man in the sky? I guess that most of the serious believers do share your point of view...
But seriously - what or who is God?
Because as far as I know the judo-christian stand is, has always been: no one knows God or can define him absolutely... so what part in that sort of statement does an atheist reject?
Or do they reject - as do most serious believers - a magic man on a cloud with a white long beard
:rofl:

My position is quite clear - if and when no-one knows or knows how to define who or what they are discussing they are all just fumbling in the dark... seems quite pointless to me!
So if there is a definition that atheists use - what is that definition?

I would honestly like to know...

I am just asking - because if no-one - not believers nor atheists who refute the same "undefined god" discuss a matter where no-one knows who or what we are actually talking about - what is the point?
I mean if a believer does not know who he/she believes in - and the atheist does not know either who or what they refute - what is going on?

Hi all,
new member here!

So, I read the beginning and the end of this thread and it seems to me that (as norm) the "discussion" went south. :smile:
But I have a question to both believers in God and atheists - an answer to this I did not see nor find and which is the most important for both atheists and believers: God. Who is he: definition?

In short: a definition of who we are supposed to discuss about here?
Someone?