Try to publish on academia.edu or arxiv.org depending on the content type. You're more likely to be able to upload philosophy things on academia.edu than otherwise. arxiv.org has limited peer review and generally requires technical/scientific content. — fdrake

Thanks for the suggestion, @FDrake. My experience with (some) of these sites is that they have a prerequisite before even considering any paper, and that is an academic designation or advanced degree. I have no such things in philosophy. They wouldn't even touch me with a ten-foot pole.

In a way I understand their stance. Should they consider unsolicited submissions from laymen, then they would be overinundated by crazy bat shit. So they save themselves the trouble, and they shut out the baby with the bathwater from their waters.

Socrates, Aristotle, would have been equally rejected by these publishing authorities. That's my only consolation.

But that sounds like my performance in the fiction writing field. When I was younger and more involved in trying to get published, some authorities and critics compared me to Shakespeare. Yep. They said, "This guy ain't Shakespeare."

Great point. However, notice that relativeness as applies here isn't the concept itself which is universal but to objects being compared to each other. A house may be heavier than a car and a car may be heavier than a person, relatively speaking, but that doesn't invalidate the concept of weight does it? — TheMadFool

I covered this point some time ago in this thread. It is really frustrating that:

1. People don't read threads that are important.
2. People forget what they read.
3. People don't think for themselves.

My point was that there are qualities that can be ranked by size, such as length, without having a unit length to measure with, such as a yard stick or ruler. If you lay two strings side by side, anyone can tell which is longer, without a ruler.

But there are qualities that can't be measured or ranked, such as the love of a mother for her child as opposed to another mother's love for her child.

Complexity can be established in some cases. A car is more complex than a balance scale. Or a set of five equations with five unknowns and being second degree, is more complex than one equation with one unknown and being first degree. But it is invalid to call a hydroelectric complex less or more complex than a human's brain.

There are qualities that are impossible to intuit, yet measuring instruments exits that can establish the magnitude of the quality. Such, for instance, is radioactive radiation.

But for crying out loud, why can't you guys accept, that complexity has no measures, and other than in cases of obvious differences, there is no way of telling which is more and which is less complex.

We simply don't know how the brain works, and our measuring techniques are not much help either.

MR is a theory based on unknowability. I reject that. I think the functioning of the brain is knowable, but we just haven't got there yet.

MR may have practical applications, up to the point when it becomes obsolete due to advances on knowing how the brain works. If it works in the first place.

↪Coben The question in the OP isn’t whether God exists, but if people would still have mystical experiences if he didn’t. Since we have examples of mystical experiences attributable to things other than God, the answer is yes, whether or not God exists and might be behind other such experiences. — Pfhorrest

The topic assumes that god exists. It does not claim god exists; but proposes to deal with the topic in light of assuming that god exists. It is a given. Look at the wording.

It is impossible to talk about this topic in this thread not thinking or not accepting, even for argument's sake, that god does exist. There is a word to describe this way of thinking and dealing with a topic, but I never memorized it. It's a damn good word.

But this way you squeeze out about half of the participants in this forum, who, out of principle, never would assume god exists.

If there was no God to speak of, would people still feel a spiritual, God-like sensation?

God does exist. You are God. — ovdtogt

Oh, shucks. Why is @BBQueue and @PfHorrest always god? Why can't I be god once in a while? Not fair. (Sucks his thumb in a defiant way.) :-)

I also have papers that have my own ideas, and I would really like to hear others' criticism of it and to defend it. But how do I get over the anonymity barrier? I want the ideas associated with my real person, but here we are anynomized. Any suggestions?

If we want to keep threads like that going it would be useful to know why they stopped wouldn't it? — Isaac

I tell you why I wouldn't start it, and mine is a unique case, but perhaps it is becoming less and less unique.

I can't read. Period.

My focus, not the visual but the cognitive, gets blurred, my attention vanes, my boredom increases.

I can take a couple of pages of magazine articles, or maybe up to five, which is about 2000-3000 words. Beyond that I am not "not interested", but indeed incapable.

My uncle gave me a book called "Saul". Not fiction, but historical investigation into the life of Jesus. It is incredibly well written, well-paced, the ideas are brilliant in it. I could not read past 20 pages. It's about 400 pages long.

-----------------

That said, and that sad, I would enjoy reading / discussion groups that have topics that are written in 2000-3000 words.

We can induce people hearing things with drugs also, this doesn't mean when they are hearing things at other times, there is no thing they are hearing. You didn't say that since we can induce the feeling with drugs this means that when it happens without the drugs it is really just an internal chemical thing with no actual object of sensing or stimulation, but often this is used as an argument demonstrating, supposedly, that therefore it isn't God when people feel this feeling. — Coben

I don't think god's existence or lack of existence should or could be decided with a feeling. It is impossible to decide whether god exists or not. There is a fifty percent chance that it does and fifty that it does not.

If god manifests, it can be chalked up to illusion in people. If god does not manifest, which is the historical and present case, then there is nothing to go on. It is not impossible that god exists, and it is not impossible that no god exists. Empirical evidence to the existence of god, once empirical evidence is extant, can be discounted.

The only way to approach the god question and the knowledge whether one exists or not, is via belief.

it would have no start to its existence and if it never started existing it does not exist. — Devans99

Something that exists forever, has no start for its existence, yet it exists forever. I don't see the difficulty that Aquinas raises is valid.

4. Nothing can permanently exist inside of time - it would have no start to its existence and if it never started existing it does not exist. — Devans99

This point is false. Something can exist since all eternity, and can exist into infinite future. There is no logical or other limitation that prevents something from being such. The limitation Aquinas put on this is false, arbitrary, and does not stand up to even intuitive reason.

↪god must be atheist I think that your interpretation is probably a minority view - I am no expert but I understand that different sects of Christianity interpret the bible differently. Everyone is entitled to their own view. — Devans99

I absolutely agree with you here. I am claiming that my interpretation is right, and everyone else's who believes in eternal suffering in hellfire is wrong. This is a strong claim, I stand by it, and the bible verses prove me right.

The interpretation I hold true is not up for debate... the bible verses all of them either allow death to be the eternal punishment, or they specifically say it is death. Therefore it must be death, and not eternal punishment by way of eternal suffering. No bible verse mentions eternal suffering as such as the punishment for sinning.

the action or process of causing so much damage to something that it no longer exists

the action or process of killing or being killed

These two definitions (taken at random) do not allow destruction to last forever.

In the case of the first one, the destruction must END in not existing. This is a requirement of an action to be desctructive. If the process of destruction lasts forever, then the thing will exist forever. - Hence, the desctruction is not forever, because if it were forever, it would be called something other than destruction.

In the second example, if the process is destruction, then it must end in death. If it does not end in death, it is not destruction. Therefore the destruction ends in death, which in turn lasts forever.

I'd interpret this as the punishment will be everlasting - whereas death is a process that last for a short amount of time - once it is over there is no more punishment. — Devans99

Wow. Death lasts forever. The process is called dying, not death. Look it up in any dictionary. Death comes after dying. Death lasts forever. Dying lasts for a short time (relatively speaking.)

"They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might" - 2 Thessalonians 1:9 — Devans99

My interpretation is this: the destruction will be everlasting.

Carthago was destroyed. Its desctruction has been (for all intents and purposes) everlasting.

Destruction is a process, as well as an end state. The interpretation can't be made one way or another. Your belief against mine, there is no deciding factor either way.

However, if you ask a linguist, he or she may say that destruction is an end state. The destroying is the process.

Had better look up the meaning in a dictionary.

I could be wrong in assuming this (etc.) — BBQueue

I, for one, believe that yes, you're wrong in assuming this.

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” - Matthew 25:46 — Devans99

Eternal punishment is death. The Bible says that many times. Even the quote by Matthew here juxtaposes "eternal punishment" not with "eternal joy" or "eternal happiness" but with "eternal life". So the juxtaposing means that the punishment is death, which is eternal.

If the punishement was was suffering, it does not say that. It says "eternal punishment." Death is forever. Death is a punishment. There is no inference implied or expressed that the eternal punishment is suffering forever in Hell.

I read all quotes supplied on the website that was linked to your link, @Devans99.

Not one of the quotes said anything at all of staying in hell forever.

Two of the quotes said "hell fire is forever" or that "the fire of hell burns forever" but they stayed clear of saying that souls stay there forever in pain.

I welcome you, nay, challenge you to take an exact quote from that list, not alter it, and present it here, and show with clear logic and unambiguous wording that that quote means eternal suffering for the sinners. I call you out; I claim that you can't even show ONE such quote here.

"But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." - Revelation 21:8 — Devans99

No, Devans99, the bible versions you and I read are not widely different. We just read them differently. Your quote does not claim any length of time to be spent in the fiery lake of burning sulphur. You assume they stay there burning to all eternity; but that is not asserted there. At best this is up for interpretation. Or fantasizing, or plain wishfully claiming what one wants to claim, regardless of the words of the Bible.

On the other hand, I thank you, and this is not a joke or a come-on, for the link that takes me to bible quotes on hell. Thank you.

Not sure I get this either. Are you saying that increasing standards would reduce involvement to a level that would be more detrimental than the improvement in the first place? — Isaac

This has been proven in practice, Isaac. If you weed out all the Shtuppoids, then the site comes to a grinding halt insofar as dynamic exchanges (however nonsensical they may be at times) are concerned. Please visit the ScienceChatForum's philosophy section. There are ten currently active users on the site, and the entire community of those users generate on the average 3 posts a week. They have moderated all the Shtuppoids out of existence there, everyone is actually smart and reasonable, and therefore have nothing to say to each other.

I was kicked out of there because of insurgency. The head moderator there could not tolerate my tone. The basic rift started when they would not listen to me that "some" in syllogisms means "at least one". I had to raise my voice at them badly to be heard, by way of using huge letters in red, and that escalated, through a series of ego-hurts on both sides, to my getting expelled.

I have never looked this up, but where in the Christian bible is it said that god is infinitely good and infinitely powerful? Are these two claims not inferences by people?

I know that the Jewish god says of himself, in the preamble of the ten commandments, "I be a bad-ass mean and jealous god." The actual verse says, "I'm a mean and jealous God." That does not sound like a declaration of being all good and loving and stuff. This has come from His mouth, directly. I would not argue with a big guy like that, telling Him that he is a liar, telling him I don't beleive he is not mean and jealous, but goody-goody-good. He might smite me on the spot for crossing him.

Under the Christian belief system there is the spectre of Hell which seems to undermine the free will argument against the problem of evil. Excepting idiots, there is no difference between removing someone's ability to do evil and allowing them to do evil but telling them they will face eternal damnation if they do. — Devans99

This would stand, if the Bible of the Christians specifically said that sinners go to Hell for eternal damnation of eternal suffering. But the Bible does not say that anywhere. There are two concepts of Hell in the bible: 1. Death; eternal nothingness; and 2. In the Gyehennah, the souls perishing like a moth in a candle flame, in an instant, over the eternal fire of the Gyehennah.

So the misconception started by some stupid Christian misreading the verse, and interpreting that the eternal fire means eternal suffering. But it does not. The fire is eternal; however, the soul is snuffed out in a flash, and it is no more.

There are many more references to death in the Bible. One says that people when they go into their graves, they lose their consciousness; they feel nothing, they remember nothing. Another one says that on the day of resurrection, the bodies will rise from the grave, but their souls will not be the same as the first time around that occupied them. Or something to this effect.

I get all my information on the Christian dogma from street preachers. Some are Baptists, some are Yehova's Witnesses, some are just independents. They all say different things, and generally the Yehova's witnesses are the most precise, they refer to actual verses in the bible when they make a claim. The Independents are the worst, they just say whatever comes to them, and call it the word of god.

There is also a gender devide. The independents are all male; two of them in my town are gay, and they shout things against homosexuality. The Yehova's witnesses always come in twos, or in even numbers. (2, 6, 8, etc.) If one or more of them are women, then they are in their early sixties, and delectably sexy.

Is it not kind of the moral responsibility of the creator to create one who is moral. If the creator creates immoral, does that not make the creator immoral? — chromechris

Hi, there, @Chromechrist! No, you are not rude or offensive. You put up a good argument, and the beauty of your feistiness is that your arguments are clear, concise, not convoluted, and as the icing on the cake, are easily shot down.

IN the question I quoted here, that you asked of me, you made one logical error, and that is choosing a premise that is not true. You said (in some other words) that the creator created something immoral. Without going into the argument (which is not necessary, because the permise is wrong), I must say the creator did not create something immoral. The creator created something that has a free will, and that act alone did not make the creation immoral.

If the creator created something immoral when he created man, then man would be consistently immoral. But man is not consistently immoral. ERGO, QED, god did not create something immoral.

Sorry. You asked me to retract my words, @Tim Wood, but my first post referred to the OP which had been written by @Waechter418. Still, I kept referring to claims as if they had been written in the OP by you, @Tim Wood. This is a mistake I made, because I assumed you'd be the same feller, being the author of the OP. I mistook your ingidnation to be that of the original poster. So I mixed the identities up.

My mistake. I admit to it. I apologize for it.

.↪god must be atheist ↪praxis ↪ovdtogt Between the OP and this post are three replies that imo should not have been posted. My annoyance with them is that they together seem to instantiate a remarkable depth of ignorance that on occasion seems to rise up and even overwhelm what might have been good thinking and a way into a good discussion. So I challenge those three to, even as Socrates himself did in the Phaedrus, recant and retract their remarks and replace them with something worthy of the OP and this Forum. — tim wood

I have a better idea. Why don't I sit in ashes, tear my hair and rent my clothes, and fast for seven days for the sins I've committed on this forum.

But seriously speaking, this is the essence I was trying to express in highly sarcastic tones:

1. Enlightenement. The route you proposed which I quoted is not the ONLY way to enlightenment, and I claim (without support, so please don't ask why I claim this -- only intuition tells me) that Selfrealization is PERHAPS not even the best route to enlightenment.

2. Schools. You mentioned that schools opened up in the East. I called you out by asking you to name these schools. I don't know, and I won't accuse you with this, but my intuition tells me that you just said this, without knowing for sure that any such schools opened up, particularly based on the concept of Selfrealization as created by Socrates. If I am mistaken, please accept my apologies.

3. You named three countries, and I bet if the orient adopted a thought borne by Socrates, then it's not only the three countries that would cultivate the thought, but many more. I believe it was a general overgeneralization, which could have, or may have, hurt the national pride of other countries, the countries you did not name.

One last word: As you can see, if you had been able to read my subtext, you would have seen TREMENDOUSLY CLOSE ADHERENCE TO THE TOPIC by me. It is not my ineptitude that you dismissed my post and I don't take any flack for it by you.

Please, I ask you to never, never, never again dismiss my posts as unworthy when they come up from time to time. If anything is unworthy, it is the dismissal of them first hand without getting or trying to get their meaning.

It is not likely that I will put in similar effort in future.

Indeed, it is an ongoing puzzle why I still participate in any philosophy forum.
So very tiresome...all efforts seem to disappear down a deep, dark hole.
I guess I need another break... — Amity

Early in the nineteenth century, a Hungarian playwright wrote a masterpiece, not translated into English, due to its language being in iambic meters, rhyming, and in Hungarian; this masterpiece, "The Tragedy of Man" had to deal with Adam looking for a home after being tossed from the garden (the first recipe for tossed garden salad), and he travels not only in space, but in time as well, reaching as far as the planet Mars. He is being guided through the ages by Satan, trying to sell him real estate in a multitude of disguises he wears.

Anyhow, I never read the play, it is long and tedious, like all epic masterpieces. Apparently Adam is unsuccessful in his journey for finding a habitable spot in the known universe. But the ending is the inspiring call by god as Adam exeunts left stage with a long chin:

"MAN, KEEP ON STRIVING, AND HANG ON TO YOUR HOPES!!"

Time is measured by the movement of objects or particles. If no particles or ligh waves are moving then there is no time. — christian2017

You said it: time is measured by the movement of objects. But time is not generated by the movement of objects. Therefore if no movement occurs, time can still exist.

Much like distance is measured with a distance-meter, such as with a ruler or a yardstick, but if no yardsticks existed, distances would still exist.

You basically put the horse behind the cart.

or anyone wants to help increase quality, please flag discussions you feel are unworthy of the place. — Baden

It's not discussions that I'd propose to moderate. I'll send you a file that shows how the deterioration of the site could be prevented, by a specific example. I'll send it to Baden, and he can distribute it among the mods.

Yes, I agree with you, @fdrake.

I must say that my criticism above here does not apply to all questions that had been chosen to present to Dr. Pigliucci. For instance, I especially liked StreetlightX's questions... they were open-ended, and asked relevant parts of Stoicism that are neglected these days, and I liked his concern about the complacency effect Stoicism lays on society.

All the questions had good points and bad points, but some were somehow imbalanced and / or unanswerable; some had the questions too deeply buried, under too many layers of pre-explanations, is the feeling I got from them.

Nevertheless, I praise all questioners, because we all had honest aspirations to have answers for our questions; they were not vainly asked, but indeed had purpose in the asking.

I read some of the questions, including mine, and they seemed to be of the type that answered themselves, and then asked the Professor if he agrees. Maybe not all of our five questions were structured the same way, but some were. This seemed like self-adoration by the questioner, "look how smart I am because here's proof I understand you, and I feel kind of being a kindred spirit with you". Not a type of names dropping, but still. Rubbing elbows, instead of seeking enlightenment.

Dr. Prof. Pigliucci perhaps expected other types of questions, questions that probed and sought true enlightenment. He may have been taken aback by the verbosity and overstylization of some of the questions. A little less overt politeness and adoration also may have been in order... he did not come here, and he expected others also to not come here to hear praising of Caesar, but to have Caesar speak himself.

In effect, I think he declined the answering of the questions for these reasons. I could be wrong in this assessment, but I see it this way at this point.

I posted this only because direct questions were asked of the audience, "thoughts, anyone?"

While it's true that there is no way of knowing if god is real or not or if anything is real, claiming to be agnostic or saying something like "I don't know if there's a magical weightless monkey standing on my head or not" has on practicality or other reason, and additionally claiming to be agnostic carries with it the idea that it is reasonable to believe in a supernatural god. — nr2004

Bit of a long convolution, but it makes sense.

However, please consider that it is reasonable to believe in a supernatural god. Not practical, and not conducive to anything positive or useful, but reasonable. Because the existence of god can't be proven, and equally the non-existence of god can't be proven. If somethin is not foolproof deniable, then it is reasonable to believe in it. And the deniability of god is not foolproof. Therefore it is not unreasonable to believe in god.

Mind you, in my opinion only an unreasonable person would believe in god (not to misconstrue: the unreasonable person can be very smart, intelligent and knowledgable; even good-looking and charming). But it's everyone's personal perogative to believe or not believe in god, without a philosophical penalty.

It is sort of absurd, though, to think that a conversation should cease because you disagree. — Brett

I reiterate, in case you missed it: my disagreement is immaterial. It is the logic that denies agreement with the notion that we progress from simple to complex. Who, that is, what person, presents the logic that forces the denial of agreement is IMMATERIAL.

Yeah, and then we’d have to introduce licenses flr having sex. — I like sushi

Because the law makers are sadistic and deny people pleasure just because people enjoy pleasure?

Yeah, that's sensible, just look at the tax returns. Not only are you forced to enforce yourself to pay taxes, but you also have to wrestle with incomprehensible descriptions, a busy work of millions of unnecessary calculations, and declaring you haven't lied. (Which everybody does, but we declare the opposite anyway.)

So... they force us to hurt ourselves, at great lengths of effort and time, and morally condemn ourselves via selling our souls to the Devil as lying is a deadly sin.

Yep, you're right, Sushi. Anyone who forces its subjects to do this, would LOVE to have the control of who can have sex and who can't.

Even those who do not believe in God face the challenge of choosing between what is morally good and morally bad to develop their moral characters all the time and this is only possible because God is hidden. — Mysteryi

It is possible, but this is not the only possibility why, and atheists are adamant on the alternative explanation being more believable.

Some atheists believe that morality is a natural phenomenon in humans, because it helped the species' survival.

Therefore the entire argument can be ignored, as to morality being god-given, because an equally valid and acceptable alternative theory also explains the existence and importance of morality; and this alternate explanation is palatable to atheists, since it does not involve a god figure anywhere in the explanation.

Whether I removed myself from the converstation or not, the logic I presented stayed here. I am not material or important to the conversation; my ideas are. And my ideas stayed.

My agreement as the agreement of a person, does not matter. My logic and my arguments irrefutably show that YOU ought not to agree as well that we go from simple to complex, if you follow logic and reason.

If you agree that we go from simple to complex, you act unreasonable. I don't think that making unreasonable claims is reasonable behaviour on a philosophy site.

By "you" above I meant general "you" not you particularly or you alone as a person.

A better unanswerable question, at least I think so, is to ask, what prompted god to create the world WHEN he created it?

obviously there were changes that precipitated the creation. Creation does not just spontaneously happen; it is done when one is prompted to do it.

So there was something that prompted god to create the world when he did, as he had had an INFINITE time of the past when he never even budged.

But if something nudged god to create the world, then something existed, that was not stagnant.

What was that thing?

There is another argument that shows that time existed before the big bang.

Assuming that there was no change and no movement before the big bang proves that time was immesurable. But it does not prove that time did not exist.

"What was the time five minutes before the big bang? It was five minutes to big bang." Just because nobody could measure it, because there was nobody to measure it, and nothing to meausre it with, and nothing to measure it by, time still existed very happily, so to speak.

Okay, agreed. So we go from simple to complex? — Brett

You can agree with this if and only if you can create a reliable and true measure of complexity. Until then, we can't agree. Arbitrary or quasi-arbitrary declarations as to how complex a thing is are meaningless, and should be disposed of.

Then why make this statement? — Brett

Because the original post or one of the first posts claimed that humans have not created anything more complex than humans themselves.

This was one of the premises of the argument, and I called it false. Now you question why I made this argument; I made it because it threw light upon the fact that the original premise was false, so the entire argument is false.

You guys have been debating something undebatable for several pages of posts.