What we need here is quantum physics and getting past dualistic thinking.

Okay, let us go with your experience of time. Which takes longer, for you to use the bathroom or for someone else to use the bathroom? People commonly experience time quite differently when they are waiting for something compared to when they are having fun, and oh my goodness does fly when I am writing!

For sure I don't think like everyone else. This greatly troubled me until my later years and being okay with being different. :joke:

I am a bit horrified with that black and white thinking. "If A is false then non-A is true, so to disprove is to prove something...". Reality is not just this or that but is a complexity of this's and that's and a matter of conditions and degrees. A president can make both decisions we like and ones we do not like, and that makes arguing if he is good or bad president a fool's game, but we do that all the time as if one argument cancels out the other. Water is not a liquid when it is cold enough to become ice or warm enough to evaporate. Our truths can be conditional not just true or false.

I worded myself poorly. You didn't say time couldn't be known. I am saying time can not be known because we can not experience it.

"An abstract concept is an idea about something abstract. 'Concept' is fancy for 'idea'." Yes

"Time is something we have an idea 'of'. It is not itself an idea." It is not? How do we have an idea of time?


"It's like saying 'free will is an abstract idea' or 'morality is an abstract idea'. Same mistake - confusing the idea with what the idea is of." What is free will if not an abstract idea? Morality is a matter of cause and effect, and our understanding of cause and effect is abstract. Animals are not credited with morality because they do not reason as humans reasons, but they behave morally because their survival depends on it.

I don't know about you, but I am so tired nothing is making sense to me, however, I think our argument is right on target. Do you remember Robin Willaims "Reality... what a concept." Have you ever tried LSD? I have heard it can be an experience that changes a person's reason. Good night

"It seems that you regard human reason as a kind of intuition or feeling that derives (however imperfectly) from Reason. Through a glass darkly, so to speak.

If so, do you regard it as futile to try to determine the conditions for knowledge? That there just are none (other than emanating from Reason)?"

Reasoning and knowing are not equal. With math we can reason measurements of time. Time being intangible and not something we experience. If one lives on a desert island with only males, one can reason females are different, but can know the difference without experience. LOL I think some males can know the difference without having reasons to explain the difference, other than they are impossible to get along with. LOL

Does anyone know Kabala? Kind of a Jewish philosophy. God not having a body could not know what it is like to be human, so Jesus, God in human form, was necessary for knowledge of being human. with this knowledge, the jealous, revengeful, fearsome and punishing god became forgiving and more tolerant of humans. LOL

Knowledge is dependent on experience.

Three o'clock is nothing more than an idea. If we experienced time, we would not need a clock to know it is three o'clock. There is nothing concrete about 3 o'clock. You can not see it, hear it, touch it, taste it. Our measurements are manmade concepts and quite culturally bound. The crazy notion of 3 o'clock, or the 12-month calendar, were not experienced by all cultures, as say a desert, forest, water are actually experienced and known through experience, that is different from knowing time because a teacher taught the concepts of time.

I spoke of time because this is in the OP

Bertrand Russell came up with a counterexample, one of kind made more famous later by Edmund Gettier (and that have subsequently become known as 'Gettier cases'). In Russell's case, a clock has stopped and is reporting a time of 3pm. Someone ignorant of the fact the clock has stopped but desirous to know the time looks at the clock and forms the belief that it is 3pm. By pure coincidence it is, in fact, 3pm. This person has a justified true belief. They belief that it is 3pm, and it is 3pm - so their belief is true. And their belief is justified because they have formed it in an epistemically responsible manner - they looked at a clock, a clock it was reasonble to assume was working. However, though they have a justified true belief that it is 3pm, it seems equally clear to our reason (the reason of most of us, anyway) that they do not 'know' that it is 3pm. — OP

By what authority do you claim time is not an abstract concept and therefore can not be known?

Ah, you bring up a good point. Not all branches of science are the same. For an engineer, it is pretty black and white. Either it works or it does not. Some wouldn't even call psychology a science, however recently brain studies are more scientific than Freud's speculations and "knowing" which was culturally biased.

A problem with modern age science is specialization. It is like studying the universe with a telescope that can focus on one light in the sky but is so limited it can not explain the universe.

And I think our materialism has also created a blindness that may set the US behind the pack of progressive technology. Reality is not limited to matter, but is energy and I don't think we have a good grasp of the forces. Our linear logic got us to where we are now, but nonlinear eastern logic could pick up the ball and maybe leave us in the dust?

I like your explanation of relative knowledge. I found an explanation of it in a very old book "The Science of Logic" along with an explanation of why this demands we remain humble and not be too sure of ourselves. Understanding that is of cultural importance. I think education for technology has taken us down a fool's path with a greatly over-exaggerated opinion of ourselves.

That is a nice belief but there are elites whose voice of authority weighs much more than others, and they can prevent correction just as the church of old was able to prevent correction, short of torturing and killing people. Only a person with much persistence and knowing people with strong connections can get past the control of these guardians of truth.

Why doesn't that person's justified true belief qualify as knowledge? I — Bartricks

Just for the sake of argument, time is an abstract concept. Time is not a tangible reality. That is, it is not a thing that is perceptible by touch, therefore it can not be known. It can be believed by an individual or the whole state in that time zone can believe that it is three o'clock, as it can be believed the earth is flat, but if I understand the OP argument, believing something is not exactly knowing it. Experience is a vital part of knowing, and if it is not perceptible by touch, it can not be experienced.

Pattern-chaser

Both are true. Keep in mind water is essential to life and it can kill.

Addiction to anything, including sugar, is harmful. An addiction turns us into slaves to the substance or behavior. Even exercising is addicting. In rats and humans the habit of exercising becomes physical in that the our bodies will become uncomfortable if we stop exercising when we are in the habit of exercising, same as we feel hungry when we need food. Our addictions are physical cravings, and they control our thinking. We can use our mental powers to stop addictions but it is not easy to break some addictions and avoid returning to the substance or activity that is addictive.

Is there agreement that cause and effect has nothing to do with morals?

Okay, thank you for letting me know you are not interested.

Your understanding of our consciousness is very limited. I will dare to say, abstract thinking takes us far beyond the concrete and limited world we crudely perceive. But consciousness is so much more than this. We are aware of only a tiny bit of our experience at any one time and even that can be distorted or lacking in information.

Because the study of the Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC) is, by and large, dependent on subjective reports of experience, what passes for the NCC is liable to be merely the neural correlates of meta-consciousness. As such, potentially conscious mental activity—in the sense of activity correlated with experiential qualities—may evade recognition as such.

As a matter of fact, there is circumstantial but compelling evidence that this is precisely the case. To see it, notice first the conscious knowledge N—that is, the re-representation—of an experience X is triggered by the occurrence of X. For instance, it is the occurrence of a sense perception that triggers the metacognitive realization one is perceiving something. N, in turn, evokes X by directing attention back to it: the realization one is perceiving something naturally shifts one’s mental focus back to the original perception. So we end up with a back-and-forth cycle of evocations whereby X triggers N, which in turn evokes X, which again triggers N, and so forth. — Bernardo Kastrup

I have had mystical experiences and they are more than emotion. They can be concepts with relatively no feeling at all. They can be events that have on explanation other than someone who just passed is communicating to me. The last one was validated, by me sending someone words that made no sense to me, and she gave the words that gave meaning to the words I sent her, without her knowing that was what she was doing. The lights flickering in an elevator when another friend crossed over makes me question why this unusual thing happened at that time. My sense of another incarnation may be imaginary, but the thoughts have impacted my life and I would not claim with the certainty that you have there is no more to reality than what we are aware of.

Are you saying all people organize their thoughts the same way with the same fundamental thoughts, so reason should bring them to exactly same conclusion and if it does not, one person is wrong and the other one is right?

Why are you so sure you know reality? We can know a lot about our planet and we are learning more about the universe but that is not all there is to know.

Okay, I will go a step further into a subject I love. First, I use the word "God" because that is what interests Christians and I hope to build a bridge between their understanding of God and mine. Just insisting there is no God, strengthens their notion that they have God's truth and I don't want to do that. That is being a little bull-headed, isn't it? And how much fun is it to around and around in a circle of if God does or does not exist? That is a boring and irritating argument that goes nowhere. It will come to no good. Better to say something that others might think about. Okay, there is a God, now let us talk about what is real about this God. Now we have an argument worthy of our effort.

Here is something to think about...

"It is a frequent assertion of ours that the whole universe is manifestly completed and enclosed by the Decad and seeded by the Monad, and it gains movement thanks to the Dyad and life thanks to the Pentad." Iamblichus — Iamblichus

And here is something else to think about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNDGgL73ihY

The laws of quantum mechanics are not the same as the laws of our universe. To this day the quantum mechanic thing keeps happening and gets organized in our universe. I think that is a correct way to explain the existence of our manifest reality and the quantum mechanics from which this comes?

Oh, oh I keep wanting to say another word we could use is logos. I am not referring to Jesus, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was Gods". I guess all the Bibles are using the word "word" now and not logos but the original word from John would have been logos.

The phrase "the Word" (a translation of the Greek word "Logos") is widely interpreted as referring to Jesus, as indicated in other verses later in the same chapter.[4] This verse and others throughout Johannine literature connect the Christian understanding of Jesus to the philosophical idea of the Logos and the Hebrew Wisdom literature. They also set the stage for the later development of Trinitarian theology early in the post-biblical era. — Wikipedia

Logos means, reason, thought of as constituting the controlling principle of the universe and as being manifested by speech. — Webster Dictionary

Jewish ideas of man and God were hijacked by the Greeks and then codified and formalized by Rome. Very much a work of man, not the voice of God. The notion of a trinity God was impossible to communicate in Latin until new words were created and this lead to a lot of warring between Christians who already had Greek concepts and Christians who did not. However, Greeks with their geometric, sacred math had no problem with the trinity.

"The Triad is the form of the completion of all things." Nichomachus of Gerasa a Pythagorean philosopher.

"Surface is composed of triangles" Plato

"Force without wisdom falls of its own weight." Horace a Roman poet.

Manifestation coming out of the trinity was a Greek concept long before it became a Christian concept and logos is the voice of reason, the wisdom, also a Greek concept long before Christianity.

Mysticism is the antithesis to reason. Reason is our only means to knowing reality. — AppLeo

I think an understanding of what you said depends on understanding the different modes of thinking.
Understanding the difference between accumulating facts and analyzing those facts with mathematical and scientific thinking and mysticism or the debating Scholastics were doing, are completely different modes of thinking.

The Church promoted Scholasticism and Scholastic scholars argued how many angels could stand on the head of a pin and if Eve had hadn't eaten the forbidden would babies be born miniature adults instead of helpless babies? They took a lot of pride in their serious contemplation of truth. That is how the Greeks came to argue what is true and good following Aristotle, and we should all know, Aristotle didn't have an understanding of the importance of experimenting to gain facts, and basing our understanding on evidence that can be observed. There was severe backlash against Aristotle that ended scholasticism and brought us into the modern age. Grrrr I am out of time, Here is link that may help...

Combining these two forms of logical reasoning together with the three different types results in the following distinguish in logical reasoning:
Deductive. Formal deductive reasoning. Informal deductive reasoning.
Inductive. Formal inductive reasoning. Informal inductive reasoning.
Abductive. Formal abductive reasoning.
https://www.google.com/search?q=different+modes+of+logic&rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS481US483&oq=different+modes+of+logic&aqs=chrome..69i57.6676j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Contents
3.1 Syllogistic logic.
3.2 Propositional logic.
3.3 Predicate logic.
3.4 Modal logic.
3.5 Informal reasoning and dialectic.
3.6 Mathematical logic.
3.7 Philosophical logic.
3.8 Computational logic.
More items...

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHKZ_enUS481US483&ei=kj5HXLqbFN-Ck-4Pp9GvyAQ&q=types+of+logic+in+philosophy&oq=different+modes+of+logic&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i71l8.0.0..169127...0.0..0.0.0.......0......gws-wiz.yxUPt9ieSoc
— google

Not all thinking is the same, and if we are using the scientific method we may not put much faith in mysticism. What I said of the difference between Christian and scientific thinking, and these people with their different approaches to knowing truth, do not trust each other.

You don't really believe this do you, it's a joke right. — Rank Amateur

I question if the general public understands that difference between concrete thinking and abstract thinking, fast thinking and slow thinking, nor between doing math and thinking mathematically, so let us work on that...

http://maverikeducation.blogspot.com/2014/05/doing-math-vsthinking-mathematically.html

Doing math is an operation. It's about arithmetic and applying mathematical procedures such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, estimation, and measurement to solve an algorithmic or story problem correctly and successfully. It's all about the reproducing and applying facts and procedures to achieve or attain that correct answer because, in the end, that's all that mattered - get the correct answer!

Thinking mathematically is an art - specifically, as Lockhart (2002) states, "the art of explanation. It's about actively developing deeper knowledge, understanding, and awareness of mathematical concepts, practices, and processes - more specifically, analyzing how, evaluating why, and creating new ways of thinking about and using mathematics. It focuses on deeper understanding of procedural knowledge, deeper thinking about conceptual knowledge, and deeper awareness of how mathematics can address, handle, settle, or solve real world issues, problems, and situations. — maverikeducation

Most parents can help their children do basic math, but the new math is not the basic math most of us learned. The difference is so great, schools should have night classes for parents to learn new math so they can help their children with homework. The children whose parents can not help them are at an extreme disadvantage because it is learning a thinking skill, not just adding and subtracting. Most of us grew up with timed math test. That was is using the Behaviorist Method for education that is also used for training dogs. There is a stimulus and response. It is fast thinking. New Math is slow thinking.

Try taking out the word Christian in your sentence and insert black people and see how it reads — Rank Amateur

Black people can also be Christians. Politically the problematic group is not Blacks as a race but Christians as a group. Blacks as a group do not believe they are the only ones who know God's truth. Christians as a group, believe they are the only ones who know God's truth. These people are using a book for evidence and that is not how historians or scientist look for validation of what they believe. Because Christians are using their interpretations of a holy book to know truth, they can not come to an agreement on what truth is. Whatever, the word "Christian" is not equal to the word "Blacks".

Generally, this is the majority of how people behave with these types of questions, tribalism rather than actually thinking. — Christoffer

Your writing is so beautiful and I regret I am out of time and energy. I what to share a couple of thoughts just to keep the momentum moving forward.

I want to nominate Daniel Kahneman for a noble prize. His explanation of our two systems of thinking is perhaps something we want to add to your thoughts of universal thinking verses being tribal. The issue is a most important education issue that we seriously need to discuss. We can not do better unless we learn better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8gpV-xjECM

Secondly, we used to read moral stories to our children. A moral is a matter of cause and effect. At the end of the moral story, we would ask, what is the moral of that story, and the answer would be something like, because he didn't give up he succeeded.... Because no one helped the Little Red Hen, she did not share her bread with them... the king and all the adults, were vain and foolish when they believed the tailors who said the cloth of the new suit would reveal who was smart and who was stupid, and when the king paraded down the street in his underwear, the little boy who called out he had no clothes on became the hero. We should not be afraid to call it as we see it.

When we understand morals as a matter of cause and effect they are easily changed with better reasoning. The other side is understanding morals are about cause and effect, is it is vital to our liberty and democracy to hold that understanding or morals. Our reality is as Cicero said- if we do the right thing we get good results and if we do the wrong thing we get bad results. That makes our moral judgment vitally important. No amount of prayers or animal sacrifices or popularity will get good results if we are wrong. Whatever happens, it is the consequence of what we say and do.

Our freedom of speech is the freedom to reason, not the freedom to say anything we please. We have anarchy confused with freedom and this is disastrous! Freedom comes with responsibility. Like it is foolish to walk a dog in a city without a leash, it is also foolish to allow some humans off the leash because their judgment is no better than their dog's. This is an education problem that is not being addressed by education for technology.

AppLeo
37
We derive order from our own understanding of the universe. The universe is independent of order. What would be a disordered universe? By saying the universe has order, it's implying that a creator created the universe. The universe wasn't created. — AppLeo

If the universe was not created, why does it appear to be our reality? Of course, there is the Hindu explanation that this is all a dream and when the dreamer wakes up, it all starts over again. Our reality could be a hologram or multi-dimensional and what we perceive could be only a tiny part of what is. For sure it is all energy and at the atomic level, the rules of physics are not the same as the rules we have thought hold the universe together. but we can use those laws of physics to create and destroy. That gives us evidence for believing in them.

Laugh, instead of questioning if there is a god, should we be questioning if there is a manifested reality? My perceptions could be all wrong, but I perceive a created universe, and that I can follow the laws and get good outcomes, or violate the laws and get bad outcomes. For there to be a manifest reality there are laws of physics that give it order. At least for the universe I perceive, all depends on those laws and order.

Of course, if our sun slipped into another dimension, it would take at least 8 minutes for the darkness to reach us and without its gravity, we would no longer be held in an orbit around it. Then our argument about of if the universe was created and if it has order or not, wouldn't really matter. :lol:

Im not sure how to respond to any of that. Im glad that my questions amuse you, but you didnt really address anything I said.
You arent really offering anything of substance, the words are just empty assertions. You could replace “god” with any gibberish word and lose nothing from your statements.
Also, did you just state with pride that you were banned for being frustrating? That doesnt sound like a good thing. — DingoJones

Oh dear, I didn't think my thoughts were that different. :worry:

Oh yes, I was banned from a science forum for speaking of god as I speak of god and it hurt a lot. Whenever I get excited about an argument and start having one realization after another, and become euphoric as my sense of enlightenment grows, I get banned. That is a huge crash from my euphoric state of being. For you to say I don't make any sense is disheartening, but at least I am not worried about you banning me, and you ask questions! What a gift those questions are. I try to say things that make people question what they think, but I am not doing so well when it is taken as gibberish.

There is no substance to an abstract. Reach out your hand and try to pull a 4 out of the sky. Do you pay attention to math and things like string theory? That is where this crazy thinking begins with the Greeks and math. The Sumerians and Egyptians were much better at math than the Greeks, but then some geek Greeks like Archimedes, Democritus, Diophantus, Eratosthenes, Euclid, Hipparchus, Heron Of Alexandria, Ptolemy and Pythagoras began playing with math concepts. They advanced math from practical mathematics to abstract concepts. The ideal and universal truth. The triangular shape is not just what you make with a rope and use as a tool, but on earth, the moon, and Mars a triangle is a triangle. That is a quantum leap of intelligence. It is abstract, not concrete.

With math, we can know the unknowable. I have college lectures where a professor can talk about math and knots for hours. With math, we can learn of DNA and the universe. I am not a mathematician, but I read books and listen to lectures explaining how math can be used, and why we believe this and that. I wish I were young with a more pliable brain and had a math coach who could help me understand the mysteries of math. Math is about so much more than numbers! The book "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe" gives a very different understanding of god than holy books. Each number, 1 through 10 represents a concept of nature. With this knowledge, we have cured more evil than religions have. To know god is to understand how the universe works and this is pretty important to our survival and good moral judgment.

We may be on the verge of another math breakthrough that will radically change our perception of reality. Math has changed and changed since we first began thinking in terms of numbers. As math changes so does our understanding of reality change. When someone says the universe is not ordered, I can not deal with that. It is like telling a Christian there is no god. To see reality through math is a very different perspective that trying to understand it by reading a holy book.

Okay, I am bowing out of this discussion. This is really, really sad that at this point in time, there can are people who believe the universe doesn't have order.

Folks here is your problem. Education for technology has not resulted in people having a good understanding of reality, and there is no point in arguing with them. Their religious belief is the poison that is being questioned. They are sure they know truth and won't question what is true. We are in serious trouble!

You left out the group that read the holy books, looked at their message and their purpose. Thought deeply about them. And find meaning in them, and by faith chose against the other alternatives to believe them.

You point is just the same old tired and complete false belief that dumb people believe and smart people don't

Especially my Christian friends avoid math and science because they just don't want to make the effort of thinking.
— Athena

This is just patently false, and insulting. Take out the word "christian" and put in any other group and see how it reads.

as is the rest of the paragraph - it is pure bigotry — Rank Amateur

You made some excellent points. I listen to college lectures and know without question that some of our countries highly honored professors are Christians. However, a problem comes up when they are arguing with an atheist who may have a math and science foundation of knowledge because their foundation of knowledge is so different. You see, it is not a matter of IQ but rather a matter of having different foundations for knowledge. A similar problem comes up when speaking of people from different cultures with different religions.

We can take out the word "Christian" and put in the words, Hindu, Buddist, Jew, Muslim, Taoist. Are you as willing to honor these people as you want us to honor Christians, or does the term bigot apply only when speaking of non-believers and Christians? Are you equally willing to honor all other religions? A big problem I have with religious people is they tend to believe they know God's truth and everyone else is wrong unless they are Hindu or Buddist. Do you believe you know God's truth and everyone else is wrong? Do you point a figure at those others and say they are ignorant? I know Christians mean well but they have made enemies with their certainty that they know God's truth and others do not.

No one pondered Christianity more than Martin Luther and he believed God determined who would be masters and who would be servants and that the witch hunts were necessary. He lived with a lot of ignorance. Studying the bible does not resolve that problem.

I like the Bhagavad Gita explanation of being a good person better than the Biblical explanation. I like the notion that wise sagas are important to us, and that this is human wisdom, not the word of God. I think the notion that a God spoke to only a few people very suspect of error. Like if God does work that way, then Allah corrected the religious ideas of Jews and Christians when he gave the correct explanation to Mohammed, right? Or how about this, God spoke to the Jews his chosen people and later comers shouldn't mess this up with new stories and we should be sacrificing animals as God commanded us to do, and all the pagans did at that time, although those pagans were not worshipping the right god, but they got the need to sacrifice animals right. Of course, before you decided what is God's truth, you studied all the other religions so you could make an informed decision, right? That is what you mean by giving the decision a lot of thought, right?

If the people do ask questions of the religion available to them, what questions are they asking and where are they looking for answers? We can reasonably argue the universe is ordered and therefore there must be a god. It is everything else they believe about reality, humans, and god that matters. It is not just a question of if there is or isn't a god. Does God talk to us as Quakers believe, or just a few people, or is Joseph Campbell right about god speaking to everyone, only people in different environments and with different cultures understand Him differently?

You know there are Christians who avoid math and science because they don't want to put the effort into learning math and science, so your logic that what I said is false has to be an emotional response not your reasoned response. In general, people avoid learning math and science, even professors. This becomes a problem when people who have at least some understanding of math and science are arguing with those who do not. Their argument cannot be based in logical because they are not working with the same foundation of knowledge.

I would say that is a description “b)”, no meaningful definition of god. You have taken some ideas you had and called it god. Why? Couldnt you avoid alot of confusion by not using the word god?
An unknowable god is not a meaningful definition either. It describes nothing, has no exlanatory power at all, no substance at all that would necessitate the use of the term “god”.
So I still disagree. — DingoJones

:hearts: I love your questions and over the years have had to answer them many times. Christians and atheist both hate me. :lol: A mod in a science forum got so frustrated with me, he banned me.

What happens when we insist God is unknowable?

What is wrong with confusion? Isn't it a whole better than being sure we know the truth?

Why does a god have to be defined? Really why does a god need to define? The moment we think we know god, we know god not. Do you get the logic of that statement? All we can know is what we think we know, and God is beyond our comprehension so perhaps we should not be too sure of what we think we know as we should not be too sure there are only 3 dimensions.

It totally changes the argument with religious people when there is agreement that there is a god. It is much better than spending eternity going around in a tiny circle about the existence of God. End that stupid argument! God exist, now what? Now we have a chance of having meaningful arguments. Atheists can join this larger argument if they can get past their knee jerk compulsion to argue there is no god. And really how much abstract thinking is there in the argument that there is no god? Atheists are shooting themselves in the foot when they block intelligent discussion with the one argument that there is no god. Their stupid argument only proves to the Christians that they are right because the Bible speaks of those evil non-believers. How logic is it for atheists to keep proving them right when their goal is to prove them wrong? Change the argument.

I have no problem with the existence of God. The universe is obviously ordered or we would not be here to argue the point. Now can we get information?

If the deduction of a speech that criticizes a specific ethnic group, concludes that it is not based on facts and that the criticism is coming from an emotional reaction out of a fear of the unknown (fear of another ethnicity). The deduction itself has proven it to be a harmful speech against this group and that the possible consequences of such a speech may stir up hate against this ethnic group, further pushing a division between people and the rise of racism between them. No one decided this, the deduction and breakdown of the speech decided this. — Christoffer

That is beautiful! :hearts: That is the kind of thinking that attracts me to the forum and gives me hope for humanity. We must get back to education for the higher order thinking skills, so that we have a civilization that understands them. That is essential to defending our liberty and democracy.

The are two ways to have social order, culture or authority over the people. In the US we stopped transmitting our culture when education for technology replaced our liberal education. We killed the education Thomas Jefferson thought we must have to have a strong and united republic. Republic is our politic order. Democracy was our cultural/social order and it requires good logic skills and devotion to gaining knowledge. That leaves only authority over the people.

If we all understood the reasoning you gave us, we wouldn't need moderators because logical and social agreements would rule. We need moderators now because we have neither the understanding of logic nor the social agreements and things spin out of control without authority over us. That reality pushes the question of who has that authority and what qualifies someone to be a moderator, and should the accused have a defense and a trail? What is to prevent moderators from functioning like defensive alligators, and forcing us to submit to their authority simply because they have the power? I am new here, but I have been in forums for many years and mods who do not understand what you said may not be good mods. They can just be having a bad day, and some is banned with no defense. If we knew our history we might object to mods having that kind of power.

Purple Pond
275
Freedom of speech is important in that censorship can be abused by powerful institutions as a tool to disenfranchise certain people, making them less influential. If liberals and their ideas such as freedom, democracy, human rights are censored, their messages will not reach everyone. However, on the same coin, if fascist, Nazi, racist, and other hateful speech are censored, their toxic can be contained.

Some speech harms society, some speech hurts society, most speech does neither. The question is who should stem the flood of harmful speech? Well, it depends on the domain. In the public domain, the government can do something about harmful speech. But here's the key question, can we trust them? Governments have been known not to act in the interest of the people. As for the private domain (such as here in the philosophy forum), it's really the owners pejorative prerogative. Your house, your rules. For example, I see nothing wrong with YouTube banning Alex Jones form their website.

So it comes down to two questions:

In the public domain, can we trust the government to censor "harmful" speech?

In the private domain, do you agree that what can be said is the owner's pejorative prerogative? — Purple Pond

Well, I have considered leaving the forum because of the increase in unpleasant experiences with immature and disrespectful people. I am strongly in favor of freedom of speech that is freedom to reason. However, statements like this are not what I consider the reasoning that we need to protect.

Okay, I'm sorry. There-there, hush now, mummy make it better. Would you like a tissue? How about a hug?

Are you done now? Can we continue? Or would you rather drag this out some more? — S

If I were a mod, I would nib this kind of posting in the bud. Post like that can ruin the forum because more mature people who are looking for intelligent and polite discussion what talk like that like they want trash thrown in their front yard. When talk like that takes over a forum, quality people leave.

Perhaps we want to understand reasoning a little better before making judgments about freedom of speech. Not all reasoning is the same. Humans can function on different levels from the level of alligators in the swap to the level of sages. Here is an explanation of the different levels of thinking...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8gpV-xjECM

The example of the post that should not be accepted as the freedom speech is not focused on the topic but is an intentional badgering that leads to trouble. That badgering is not defensible and it is not something we should protect.

Well yes, everyone must use reason to some degree or else they would be destroying their ability to live. — AppLeo

Not all reasoning is the same. People read holy books and take it on faith that the books are the best knowledge of life we can have. A few people willing to read the books, question the truth of what is said and look for evidence. That is a completely different level of thinking/reasoning.

To think on the higher level requires training for abstract thinking. Unfortunately, that was dropped when we replace liberal education with education for technology. The masses are stuck with thinking on the concrete level and have no awareness of the abstract level of thinking. We lack an understanding of thinking and how our brains work. Especially my Christian friends avoid math and science because they just don't want to make the effort of thinking. They want authority over them and to be free of responsibility and just obey God's chosen authority over us. Democracy is a huge responsibility they don't want. They want the lion king to return and restore paradise for them and they believe Trump is a great father for our country. :lol: Point- do we want democratic responsibility or a Great Father to rule us? We can reason in favor of either, but not of the reasoning will be high order reasoning.

I disagree, I think that any such concept is a) deism which is still theism b) isnt a meaningful definition of god or c) has no meaningful distinction from religion.
Can you explain your concept of god? — DingoJones

For me, the important differences are, the way we come to know God and what we believe about humans. Both are based in Greek philosophy. The Sumerians had a story telling us we were created to help the river stay in its banks. The Greeks didn't seem to have an idea of why men were made, but women were made to be both desirable to men and as a punishment for men. :lol: Down the road, philosophers decided everything had a purpose. Birds are born to fly, horses are born to run, and humans are born to think. Believing we are born to think is a whole lot different from what religion tells us! The very first story tell us desiring knowledge is what got us in trouble with God in the first place. I like the story of Pandora and the box a whole lot better! She opened the wedding gift from Zeus, not to gain the power of knowledge but because she was curious. This may sound like silly stories, but what they tell us about what we think of humans and knowledge is important. We are curious and want to know, and are born to think, no sin! NO SIN.

The God of Abraham holy books are about who has the authority and who is to obey. That is not compatible with democracy. The Greeks and Jews fought over who should get a job. The Jewish way was dependent on birthrights, and authority and jobs were inherited. The Greeks gave jobs to whoever was the most suited to do a job. This lead to war

The Maccabean Revolt (Hebrew: מרד החשמונאים‎) was a Jewish rebellion, lasting from 167 to 160 BCE, led by the Maccabees against the Seleucid Empire and the Hellenistic influence on Jewish life.
Maccabean Revolt - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabean_Revolt — wikipedia

Christians were very tied into this inherited authority notion until the renaissance brought pagan thinking into the community and transition to modernism began. This goes with exploration and commerce and people without royal blood getting wealthy and seeing life differently than the Christian story. Our story of God and what we believe about humans is very important!

Next is the curiosity and that we are born to think, as the bird is born to fly. Wanting knowledge is not a sin. Wanting knowledge of God is natural, and the only thing we can study is nature. The only thing we can study is nature. Essential to our liberty and democracy is understanding how things work. We are not sure if God is 3 dimensional or multidimensional. We are not sure string theory is getting us closer to understanding the reality of our reality? If you want me to define an unknown God, I can not do that. All I know is we don't know everything and need to keep our minds open.

The problem with being atheist is the closed mind and exaggerated opinion of humans as the highest authority. That is nuts. Humans don't know enough to think they are at the top of the chain. Collectively we can know a lot, but individuals can know very, very little. The more we know, the more we know of what we do not know. That leads us to the unknowable God. It keeps us humble and our minds open.

I don't agree with your judgement either.
Oy vey. — Valentinus

I am saying the God Abraham religions are not compatible with the democracy. I am also saying it is possible to have a concept of God that is separate from religion. Are you arguing against these points? Please clarify your argument.

This may not be the right forum for you. Bad manners is not the meaning of freedom of speech. You aren't a monster. Just immature.

I came here to share knowledge with others who are here to share knowledge, and I have a huge preference for maturity and civility. I don't think others have a right to tear down the standard that has been set here.

I don't see how the opinion you express here requires so much denigration. — Valentinus

Hopefully, S is young and will realize better in time.

Do you have any ideas about how the mental work of abstract thinking can be made comprehensible to those who know as little as S? I am feeling frustrated with this challenge. Nothing important about democracy is understood without understanding what abstract thinking has to do with liberty and democracy. It is a way of perceiving human capability and God, that is essential to understanding our liberty and democracy as rule by reason but how can this be explained so it is more understandable? This is not the Christian God but the Deist God.

Theism is the belief in the existence of at least one god. Atheism is its opposite of theism, the lack of belief in the existence of any gods. Deism is a type of theism, the belief in a god who created the universe, but does not intervene in it.
Theology: What is the difference between deism and theism? - Quora
https://www.quora.com/Theology-What-is-the-difference-between-deism-and-theism

My 11 year old great grandson understands arguing as an ego challenge rather than as a method to discover truth. A democracy is rule by reason, not rule by Trump deciding what is best for us. We are to argue what is so and what should be until we have a consensus on the best reasoning. Then we declare this a law as we have a law of gravity. It is universal, not special interest. We all agree to the follow the law because it makes sense and if we do not agree with it, it is our duty, our responsibility to persuade others that the reasoning is wrong, and of the better reasoning.

Again, this understanding is about abstract thinking. Democracy is a very complex concept. Believing democracy means everyone participates in the government and everyone has a degree of political power is nice but it also far from understanding the deeper meaning and more complex concept. The simple understanding most people have of democracy is concrete thinking, not abstract thinking.

Ah! I see. You were talking about abstract thinking, whereas I was talking about abstract thinking. :meh: — S

How do you define abstract thinking? I love your argument because it led to me finding the best definition of abstract thinking I have ever seen.

Concrete thinking refers to the thinking on the surface whereas abstract thinking is related to thinking in depth. Concrete thinking does not have any depth. It just refers to thinking in the periphery. ... While some mental process is involved in abstract thinking, no such effort is evolved in concrete thinking.Mar 31, 2010
http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-concrete-and-abstract-thinking/ — Difference Between

Now that goes with Daniel Kahneman's explanation of "Thinking, Fast and Slow". Daniel Kahneman explains how our brains work and why even the most highly educated people can make terrible mistakes in judgment. Some people have a gut reaction to the notion of God and that is fast thinking. Those who question the existence of God are slowing down to ponder the deeper implications of the possibility of a God.

Here is a very short and excellent explanation of fast and slow thinking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8gpV-xjECM

where everyone informed on everyone else, abortions outnumbered live births, and a simple politeness like holding a door open for someone was viewed with suspicion. — AJJ

You are speaking of the US, right? We have mandatory reporters. Teachers, health care workers, counselors and anyone working with people is such a way are mandatory reporters who can get in serious trouble if they do not report suspect abuse, and so much as holding a baby and hitting the wives car with a fist, can be reported as child abuse.

When we "liberated" women, increasingly women and children fell below the level of poverty and abortions increased.

We used to laugh at the poverty of Russia and many people sharing homes. We now have people sharing homes and those living on the streets tend become like feral cats.

Wow. That's a blatant red herring. Just to clarify, is your "Okay" a concession to the following quote which you were responding to? — S

I often say things to prompt some thinking on what is said. If you want to argue a god is knowable that means doing some research, but the best we can do is research the manifestation of a mighty and powerful force and infer something about the mighty and powerful force and that is being done.

Analogies are just supposed to show that there's something in common, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification. — S

But what does the mighty and powerful force have in common with the Loch Ness Monster? How is our thinking of the two same? Now if you are speaking of Zeus or the God of Abraham, they share in common imaginary ideas of what exists. But I have said believing these notions of gods are real is concrete thinking, either they exist or they don't. Concrete.

I am speaking of abstract thinking and that makes the notion of god, a mighty and powerful force, completely open and now we can wonder if the manifestation is limited to 3 dimensions, or if there are multiple dimensions, and how might people living on another planet think of this god? We can ask why did other people say there are different gods? What truths do people share in common and on what do they do they disagree. There is so much more we can come to know when we think abstractly.

What made Athens so highly intelligent, leading some to believe they were a race of genius, is abstract thinking. In a world full of concrete thinkers, the people of Athens began thinking abstractly and this lead to science and the advancement of western civilization. Then like the US they became focused on technological correctness and began to atrophy.

If liberty and democracy are bad ideas then we currently have the best possible leader. — praxis

I love your reply.

You would debate whether relieving human suffering is a good idea or not? Granted that merely feeding the hungry (1 out of 6 people currently alive, approximately), isn’t a fix to universal human flourishing, but the effort would be in the right direction, I believe. — praxis

Yes, I would debate the notion that it is possible to do that, and I would debate the idea that it is a good thing to do. A debate is about gaining information and that is important to have a good plan. I am concerned that the food supply is very vulnerable and that this problem is getting rapidly worse. Also feeding people results in breeding people and that makes the problem worse.

DiegoT
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↪S so these movements say. But we can not study social phenomena from the point of view of the phenomena themselves; the scientific study of the Bible started to progress when an author questioned that the Torah was written by Moses. You can not ask, say, FARC narco terrorists what they are; they will tell you they are the people´s army of liberation. You need to observe and compare with similar phenomena before making a classification. I argue that communism and christianism are part of the same phenomenon because they share many common features, not to mention a common origin. — DiegoT

In 1830 Tocqueville wrote that Christian democracies becoming a despot, a totalitarian government that would so control our lives our lives they would be meaningless and unfulfilling. I have always seen the conflict between communist and Christians totally baffling. Communism is applied Christianity, isn't it?

Rather, it's what I believe are two essential qualities of what may be regarded as 'religion', which I point out in response to DiegoT's query. — praxis

I do not think you find that in Hinduism or Buddhism?

Counterproductive to what purpose? If God's not the ultimate authority then who does God answer to? — praxis

Ah, God is the authority of what and how does that work? What you said is completely incomprehensible to me because I do not believe there is a God that can be as a human authority. There is a right way and wrong way to do things, but that is not because a god says this is so. It simply is how things work. Our planes can appear to violate the laws of gravity because of taking advantage of air flow, and there is no god authority that says this is how things will be. It is the laws of physics that makes it so. Starting a war with another country may have some benefits but the problems will likely outweigh the benefits, although we are unlikely to be conscious of them. If we were more conscious it is unlikely we would engage in war. That is saying, it is wrong to start a war because of the destruction, not because a god wants us to war or doesn't want to war. We are the only human authority. The mighty and powerful force is not such an authority.

This is a non sequitur that you cannot promise me, unless you're a God or something. Maybe there is a God and he gets a kick out of critter sacrifices." — praxis

What evidence do you have that there is a god that would want animal sacrifices? Without evidence why would anyone think a god would want such a thing and what would be the qualities of such a god? Frankly, I think it is repulsive for humans to think they can manipulate a god to do their will by sacrificing animals or saying prays. Perhaps we should try cannibalism and see how well that works. I can not judge that myself but must wait for a god authority that I don't believe exist, to tell me cannibalism and sacrificing animals doesn't please a god? That is nuts. It is a good example of why such a belief is counterproductive. It prevents us from knowing truth. Welcome to the dark ages, brought on by Christian thinking. No thank you, that is what I am opposing.

"Trouble" is a little ambiguous so I can't quite agree that science is important to staying out of it, or even that staying out of it is a desirable objective. — praxis

Yeap, welcome to the dark ages brought on by Christian thinking. And folks, god has allowed Satan to have power on earth and we are in the last days, so ignore what science has to say about global warming, and those who are quite sure destroying another country is not the will of God. This is a huge thinking problem and I hope we get past it.

Liberal education prepares us for scientific thinking and good moral judgment (abstract thinking). That is not education for technology (concrete thinking) Your thinking here has been concrete, not an abstract and this is a serious problem in the world today. It seems you need a Bible to tell you cannibolism is not okay because you don't think we can make these moral (science) judgments for ourselves. That means liberty and democracy are not possible, so why are we paying so much to defend our democracy? Maybe China has better leaders and can give us a better economy and better defense? What would make a president of the US a better leader if liberty and democracy are bad ideas?

The science exists to end world hunger, as well as many other human challenges, yet millions starve to death each year. Fuck religion and science, people need to wake up. — praxis

We can also feed all the stray cats and dogs, and I do not think that is a good idea. If you want to start a thread to debate if we can feed the world or not, and if that is a good idea or not, pm me and I will throw in my two cents worth.

First of all, you need to stop saying that it's unknowable if you're going to tell me about it. That's a blatant contradiction. — S

Okay, and how do you propose we go about researching God?

It's like if you were to tell me that the Loch Ness Monster exists, and then when I react with disbelief, you explain that you only meant as an abstraction, it would deflate the issue to a triviality. — S

I hardly think a notion of God is equal to a notion of the Loch Ness Monster. How could an argument about the existence of a Loch Ness Monster be abstract? The existence of a Loch Ness Monster is universal in what way? How would knowledge of a Loch Ness Monster make us think or behave differently? Compared to the notion of a mighty and powerful force that we must come to understand for our very survival. Are you wanting to argue there is no mighty and powerful force that gives form to the three dimensional experience we have, and 2+2 does not equal 4 on the moon or Mars but only on earth does 2 + 2 equal 4, or that a triangle on Mars is not the same as a triangle on earth? Are you understanding what math has to do with abstract thinking? Would "do unto others as you would have them do to you", be different on a different planet?

Sure. That's the false or unsubstantiated side of the fork. — S

I am sorry, I do not understand the meaning of that sentence. Greek stories of the gods contain truths. When we interpret them abstractly we can have the advantage of the truths. However, if we interpret the stories concretely then our understanding is false. Same with interpreting the Bible. There is wisdom in holy books and we see it when are thinking abstractly, however, when we are thinking concretely we have false beliefs mixed up in the wisdom and the result of this can be very bad. That is why the church didn't want uneducated people to have Bibles that they could read for themselves. Things like the witch hunts, or beating the devil out of our children, can come out of uneducated people reading the Bible.