I have a horrible feeling we’ve talked before if you are going to lead into some long ramble about ‘creation’? If so hope you have managed to express it better (go ahead).

Either way, prove me wrong and explain what you know of the supernatural. I don’t see anything to suggest there is anything other than what is nor can I personally see a way justify dualism - ie. Supernatural (beyond nature) because I frame everything in the universe as ‘natural’ and don’t side with ‘supernatural’ as a replacement for ‘we don’t know therefore god’. That just makes no sense to me.

I don’t really ‘believe’ things I know them to some degree based on experience. So when I talk to people and they say ‘god’ I understand as I know the term (as symbolic of something human) because I cannot claim to know of some being in possession of ‘supernatural’ powers. I have no issue with someone proposing an alien race superior in intellect and knowledge to the human race. It is just speculation though based loosely on some knowledge of the universe.

I just think everyone should make some kind of effort to engage with people they clash with and try and understand the other’s perspective rather than resorting to insults and/or violence.

Basically, a modicum of respect for a fellow human being. If lines are crossed insults and violence can be a necessary deterrent whether or not we view it as an ideal place to arrive at.

In todays internet/social media age there is a rather noisy minority ready to do away with context which does nothing other than conflate the problems in society by creating imaginary narratives that are used to fuel hatred.

Note: Understanding something does not mean we need to agree with it. It just serves us better to understand I feel.

If they are not eternal and not infinite then they are just like us. So then what is the difference? We are effectively ‘gods’ in the sense you seem to have outlined.

Correct me if I’m wrong and I’ll read when I get back.

See you later :)

okay, so we’re gods. No disagreement there tbh.

Thanks. Gotta go and get some food now.

I can make some sense out if that view. We just seem to differ in what we define as ‘god’. I presume to know beyond my limited senses, so the ‘infinite’ and ‘eternal’ are not for me to comment upon much.

It is a proposed and incomplete response the question. Answers are not really part and parcel of a phenomenological investigation.

I’ve already stated this twice at least. You are talking about ‘infinite’ and ‘eternal’ as if you have personal experience of such (which you do not). And the ‘gods’ are infinite and eternal (as you say), but that means you cannot possibly know about their motivations and reasoning because you are not eternal nor infinite.

This is like asking what it is like to be a bat but on a level akin to asking what it is like to be a unicorn - I would have an easier time imagining what it would be like to be a unicorn though.

In the sense that you are framing the term ‘god’ I agree. The most common problem, as I stated, it people ‘defining’ god in low resolution so that it is pretty hard to question them about it.

Very often, for those that do make more of an effort, their view of ‘god’ is not really that much far removed from a physicists view of the universe - although the language and terminology is quite different and varied (but to be fair the same kind of goes when we get deep into cosmological talk on the physicy side!)

My story is me I guess? In that sense the culmination of all human stories is ‘god’ (as I understand it in a religious sense), but I don’t believe many people who talk of this or that god see it in that way.

My view is more like the Jungian view of the collective unconscious - we create the world we live in as much as the world creates us. The idea/archetype of ‘god’ is more or less the Heirophant (the process that delineates between them.

Is what I just said ‘true’? No. It is a theory of why we have a such strong impulses to believe in things like ‘god/s’ as ‘real’ rather than as symbolic representations of humanity. I am not dogmatic about this just fascinated by human beliefs and various other things, and this is where it generally leads me.

I don’t. My point is that if such beings exist they are beyond my conception so talking about them is futile just like talking about square circles.

I know there are things beyond my immediate experience, and certainly beyond my finite existence. That does not then give me a clear and definitive reason to state with certainty what such items ‘beyond me’ are.

The obvious question is then what makes your story real and mine a fantasy? What if other people believe their story to be true and your’s fantasy? How do we judge between them?

There are many differing religious stories. I say they all carry something that makes them undeniably similar … they are human stories. I start from that point because it is true or we wouldn’t know the stories in the first place.

We have a rather limited and finite experience of the universe. There is no evidence to suggest what you are suggesting. It is a story only.

Homosexuality was also framed as such. Times move on.

When there are numerous cases of addictions, schizophrenia and other brain disorders being cured by use of psychedelics, as well as their use in helping people live more meaningful lives, I wouldn’t call such instances as being purely ‘mental illnesses’ when they cure said ‘illnesses’ in various examples.

It is an area that is seeing more and more research thankfully. It could all just be meaningless delusional mental sludge … it might be more than that though. My personal experiences lead me to believe there is more than simply a negative effect of such experiences (although not something that may be apparent or true for all!).

I think you are making too much of a leap from story to reality. Telling a story doesn’t make it true. I could tell you a story about how I lived in a giant shoe for a year but it doesn’t make the story real. The ‘truth’ in the story is in the reason I may have chosen to express myself this way.

There can be powerful meanings in stories that are stories about actual events. The power of meaning is not the same as making something true. We can watch a movie and know it is a complete fiction yet take something profound away from it. That doesn’t make it ‘true’ just useful to us in a certain way.

The definition of ‘god’. You said they/it is ‘infinite’ and ‘eternal’ but we have no direct experience of such concepts so it does not make sense to talk about what such beings do anymore than a race of people would be able to see colour.

If something is beyond us it is nothing to us. To speak of what is nothing is a fruitless exercise.

It is the conviction of being ‘misled’ I would have some qualms with. The fact is such experiences happen (hence my phenomenological approach rather than stating what is or isn’t ‘real’).

Maybe it is merely a … damn! I forget the term … originally an architectural term that referred to spaces between arches that serve no structural purpose yet were used for decoration … my minds gone blank!

Anyway, … Ah! There it is … Spandrel. Maybe it is a Spandrel, and some people suggest that art is a spandrel.

Either way there are benefits to ASC’s. Like with nuclear power we can destroy or create. There is a powerful property to such experiences either way and the main thrust of my point here is that it serves us to investigate. The most commonly reported and featured experiences appear to have been recorded in religious doctrines and I am saying the practices listed seem beyond coincidence in how they align with known triggers for ASC’s.

I don’t understand what truth has to do with a story in the sense you seem to be framing it?

As a little story it is fine. As some comparison to lived experience it leaves a lot to be desired. As I ah e mentioned there is a lack of validity in referring to beings that are literally beyond your comprehension as they are ‘infinite’ and ‘eternal’ (concepts used by humans to express something outside of experiential comprehension).

It does not hold up as a reasonable argument for the existence of said ‘god/s’ if the definition is so abstracted from human experience that it makes it impossible to confirm or deny. What would intrigue me more is what it is that makes you believe in such beings. I cannot imagine infinite or eternal beings any more than I can imagine a square circle, a sound without pitch, a physical object without surfaces or a colour without shade. I can of course ‘make up’ some abstract approximation of each of this but they would all fall short of meeting the said requirements (for example I can imagine a square shape with rounded corners and convince others that it is fine ti call it a ‘square circle’ but in technical terms it would neither be a square or a circle in mathematical terms.

That is just a story you made up.

Well, I would not put it like that exactly. It is more of an expression of human existence. A natural means of dealing with the immediate environment and possible otherness beyond our sense of selfhood.

‘Substance’? I stories have a certain impetus/‘substance’ to them. If you are trying for some kind of dualism I simply do not go into that any more as the phenomenological view on that suffices - as in I don’t care much about ‘the material’ nature of nature just the human lived experience (in the sense of religious practices and the general weltenschuuang).

As with stories, cultures and traditions, they chop and change over time. If there was some ‘god’ within this that I wished to put a label on it would to attempt to suggest to you that the ‘god’ you seem only able to vaguely define is more or less nothing more than the process of spontaneously creating narratives to map onto the world and said narratives affect through feedback.

That is why I view what you seem to call ‘god’ as the communication between sacred and profane (not that there is a real delineation between the two as humans implant some degree of ‘sacred’ upon every experience they have that moves them - and everything ‘moves’ us in some way.

A guy called Derren Brown refers to certain actions we make as ‘pantomimes’. One example he gave was if you walk down a street and realise you forgot something you articulate it by gesticulation or saying something out loud before turning around and walking back in the direction you’ve just come from. You will also act out such .pantomimes when alone. This is a step towards the ‘sacred’.

For a more obvious set of examples … birthdays, your bedroom, a classroom, a necklace and such. All have haboured within them memories and meanings that make mere places/items have more meaning beyond the ‘profane’.

Note: when I talk about ‘communicating’ between profane and sacred I don’t mean this literally. It is just an abstract way of expressing this. I’m not a dualist in this sense of the discussion because I’m coming at it from a phenomenological perspective.

What are you talking about? There is plenty of scientific literature about such states. Alter states of consciousness are not ‘in a different house’ as you put it. I assume you are implying that the term means something happening ‘outside the brain’ … absolutely not.

If you take various drugs you can induce this state. Again, various other triggers can induce such states.

Try telling someone tripping on mushrooms that experience is not ‘altered’ in any way. That is what I am talking about and why your response seems bafflingly uninformed. The term Altered State of Consciousness is a scientific term to describe (funnily enough) an altered state of consciousness.

If you have never heard of the term before a quick glance here should suffice (not that I’ve read it):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_state_of_consciousness

Not just me. A number of prominent neuroscientists.

Triggers include:

- sleep dep
- fasting
- dancing
- intense focus
- hyperventilation

Basically, things that stress the body. These all feature in religious practices and they have some beneficial uses but can obviously be dangerous.

You think neuroscience is bullshit? ASC’s are known phenomena. They are not woo woo, just certain brain states that do weird things.

I’ve experienced ‘bliss’/‘heaven’ and I exist within the universe. If you are talk about something beyond my comprehension then it is beyond my comprehension.

I don’t understand how you can say some beings have ‘good reason’ without knowing what he reason is? If you do know the reason then you must have the mind capable of fully understanding infinity and the eternal (which I cannot except for obvious reasons I hope).

I find it hard to justify the existence of some such being/s in anything other than a wholly abstract sense. In that category I have no issue with framing some fundamental unknowns/unknowable aspects of nature as x or y to serve as place holders though.

My view is more or less the reverse of yours. I see humanity as creating god/s and this doesn’t make them ‘lesser’ as they are cumulative aspects of all humanity expressed in multiple ways - and it is telling that there are common features across all cultures too.

I view a lot of religious belief as a kind of ‘narrative’ that straddles the Profane and Sacred aspects of human life.

In terms of ‘theism’ I think polytheism makes more sense as people can role play certain things and deal with problems piecemeal rather than try and ‘act out’ being Jesus or some such thing.

The relevance in what I mentioned above is that this is something innate to humans and can be seen in all cultures. It might therefore be worth paying attention to it if we are interested in ourselves, our place and the general meanings we foster life.

Religion fascinates me no end. There are some common features across all cultures that related to altered states of consciousness. Key triggers are key to rituals within religious institutes alongside numerous mnemonic techniques.

I’ve found hitting yourself and screaming works best :D

People avoid crazy people. Derren Brown had a good way of dealing with such by talking nonsense so someone.

BS, more like sublimation, rationalization on steroids. Trying to make yourself feel better about... — Agent Smith

Not sure what that means? I was talking about instances where members of the ‘audience’ took on the role of one of the representations on stage - sometimes they would kill, kill themselves eat feces or numerous other things. Full on Dionysus crap

I have a strong interest in this area. I have no intention of ‘rejecting’ answers only questioning their meaning. (See Above)

Okay. But can you comprehend ‘eternal’ or ‘infinite’. I argue you cannot so your definition is imprecise and mostly meaningless because of this.

I have no issue with you believing that some beings created other beings. I cannot except that you have knowledge of ‘infinity’/‘eternal’ matters though.

What do you mean by ‘heaven’?

Note: thank you for replying. Most people think I am poking fun sadly :(

Some would argue it is not an ‘extension’ but rather a piece of the ‘machinery’ of language - spoken or otherwise.

The Chorus in ancient Greece kind of outline what I mean by this. There is something interesting about how they were used in drama - and of course we have a rather myopic view of ‘drama’ in the modern world today but it was/is more ‘ritualistic’ in other cultures.

Clifford Geertz did some nice work in Bali on this. The ‘audience’ participated in ‘plays’ and entered trance states. In modern cinema it is easy to view ‘viewing a movie’ as something passive rather than an active engagement because that is how it has evolved over time.

The term ‘light’ is similar, in some ways, to the term ‘god’. It is ‘created’ as a means of encapsulating phenomena.

For me the so-called ‘religious tendency’ of humanity is more or less about creative interpretation that happens to serve memory and recall through emotive power. It is not much of a stretch to see how such a power mental tool can fashion a ‘god’ as an overarching view of ‘reality’.

Tell me what you mean by ‘god’ and see if I reject it.

My point was ‘atheism’ is a term created by people of religious belief to define others that couldn’t care less. When it gets to a point where so-called believers are actively affecting those that don’t care they might not be passive and perhaps question what it is the others are saying they have ‘rejected’.

Not believing in the teapot orbiting Jupiter is along the same lines. Why would I believe such a thing? Whatever this ‘god’ is define it and see what I think.

Also, I could state I believe all kinds of things that you may never have thought about or care for. I would not then need to create a term to marginalise your personal views on such matters though would I?

‘Let there be light’ and so ‘light’ becomes ;)

Well the whole ‘love of wisdom’ is merely a roughshod translation from a ancient language.

Having a ‘love of wisdom’ is kind of pointless if you are talking about ‘wisdom’ in a sense that means something different from others.

You are right. The more common modern conception frames philosophy as more concerned with questions. I think that might be why a great many people feel they are able to jump in as they feel it is ‘safe’ to avoid conclusions.

Frankly that is utter garbage. An atheist doesn’t ‘reject’ god, they just never really considered it at all and when told about some said ‘god’ simply don’t know/understand what the hell people are talking about - hence comparison to Santa.

You can see this is hunter gatherer tribes who were told of some ‘god’ and they asked where the god was. They believe what they see and have some vague belief in a possible afterlife (but they are non-committal).

Everyone is born an atheist because everyone is born without any real conception of themselves let alone some hypothetical being.

@Agent Smith It helps to understand a so-called ‘theist’ by asking what they mean by ‘god’ or whatever term they pick.

You will find there is a limitation to how well they can define what they are talking about, and if they are genuine they might even say they cannot possibly state what they feel/mean.

Have you red much of Eliade? The Sacred and The Profane is a nice book.

Our conception of existence is necessarily done so through a narrative. The ‘we’ that we are is only possible through narrative. Before we create a story there is no ‘we’.

Through certain studies we can see that we are born with empathy and project certain feelings onto objects that appear to interact with each other. Projecting agency onto objects is where the ‘narrative’ sprouts from.

The ‘narrative’ of ‘narratives’ is our nature.

Patriotism is a disease.

Women are generally less aggressive than men. There have been multiple studies to discern this. I believe the chance of a woman being more aggressive than a man is something like 40-60. The real divider is the physical strength obviously.

Aa for ‘fight’ it is not a technical term. It can mean ‘verbal exchange,’ ‘physical exchange’ or even ‘personal struggle’ in an abstract sense. An argument can be a fight. I would guess any possible distinction would come about due to the level of passion and hostility involved.

I can disagree with my partner but that doesn’t mean we fight about it. I can fight with my partner too but we have never exchanged physical blows or had any kind of hostile physical interaction. I would never raise a hand to her and she would never raise a hand to me either. I know this.

Anyway, why do women hate men? Is it alos because of ‘sex’?

Don’t be silly. You can figure that out for yourself. Minimal force is fine, be this grabbing arms or pushing away - both of which can result in some injury being incurred.

If there are weapons involved then a light kick or punch is fine.

If you’re trying to make out I would happily pound someone in the face repeatedly then absolutely not. Lethal force is possible for both sexes but more likely for men as they generally possess greater strength. If we were talking about some muscle-bound woman who was adept at cage fighting then I would likely reply in kind to a punch to the face. It is a matter of judging what is appropriate in the circumstances whether who you face is male or female, but I would repeat that same sex has a different dynamic for sure because men are generally brought up to protect women not assault them, and women often seek protection and security from men rather than the other way around.

This is a surprisingly common question on this forum. There are different ways to define what we mean by ‘philosopher’ depending on the context:

- Someone who actively studies philosophical texts with rigour (a scholar of philosophy).
- Someone who is erudite and interested in multiple fields that enjoys sharing and discussing/expressing ideas (more of a colloquial definition).
- Someone who builds ideas on previous works by philosophers with a high degree of analytic, discursive and critical thought (more of a professor/student level beyond scholarship).
- Someone interested in knowledge and information, meaning and existence and general ‘purpose’ of living/life questions without much rigour (more of an armchair philosopher or navel gazer).
- Someone actively involved in ‘spiritual’ pursuits. Be this of religious doctrines or other esoteric ideas and views.

Only two of these are technically viable whilst the others are just colloquial terms. For myself I straddle between the professional and colloquial sense. I am interested in multiple fields and have always been inclined to think and study. I have studied philosophical texts and lectures to some degree, but my over all view is not really akin to framing myself as a ‘philosopher’.

A lot of people just think they can call themselves a ‘philosopher’ because they have done a degree in philosophy or simply because they sit around thinking about things a lot. Others have themselves as a guru of sorts. Many others are failed politicians or wannabe politicians.

In a derogatory sense I guess I am more of a ‘sit around and think a lot’ person. I didn’t bother to read much actual philosophy until I was in my thirties.

I have repeatedly defined myself as a wannabe intellectual. I sometimes think I have the potential to offer up something of value to everyone … other times I view the pursuit as a whimsy. There is something egotistical involved to announcing yourself as a ‘philosopher’ I feel, but it is more or less a thankless task that is only ever really appreciated by future generations long after we’re gone (unless we get the opportunity to publish something popular or teach).

I have a general contempt for anyone calling themselves a ‘philosopher’ if I’m being brutally honest - but that is part of my anarchical nature.