God given rights. Do you really have any?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

When a right is given to us by governments, they assume and have a duty to ensure that they are never taken from us. If governments do not accept and do this enforcement duty, then citizens have a corrupted government.

If a right is given to a soul, by god, he would have a duty to ensure that they are never taken from us. The fact that they often are, indicates that he is shirking his duty.

To me, rights are like laws, completely useless and worthless unless they can be enforced by a given power when they are breached.

Do you have any real god given rights, or are god given rights just a feel-good lie that we tell ourselves we have so as to ignore that we have none?

Regards
DL — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Noah Harrari would agree with you (the book "sapiens"). He says humans were able to coordinate on a massive scale due to legal fictions and fictions. He points out that the ammorite Hammurabi in ~1770bc made a list of rights just like the US made a list of right in ~1776ad.

Apes can function in groups of approximately 150 and strangely enough there are ~155 nations on this earth. He says we dominated the planet due to legal fictions such as money and fictions such as human rights and religion.

I think his book is worth reading. I read the first 4 chapters and watched a bunch of his videos.

depends on how accurate the system needs to be. NASA does have room for error but it has extremely less room for error than chevrolet does. 0.999 might be good for some systems but not good enough for other systems.

Everything can be quantified including the personality of a person or people. I'm not sure everything should be quantified though. There is an ancient book that talks about that in regards to whether a nation should have a census. I'm not actually against modern censuses.

edited

i disagree.
— christian2017

You show your low I.Q.

Strange you do not deny Yahweh's genocidal and infanticidal nature, yet call that evil prick good.

Regards
DL. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

We've discussed this stuff before. You didn't like my answers. Just because i have a low i.q. doesn't mean you have to make fun of me. How do you feel about pan-psychism? Plato had his own form too. There are over 11 different forms.

good point. I believe in Jesus so i'll be bedding my neighbor's handsome son. Hes over 18. Don't judge.

in my opinion yes. Have you seen the youtube video "10 dimensions explained". Its pretty interesting.

materialism and scientific determinism (~Fate or determinism) are really two different subjects.

I do reject materialism in the sense that some of the 11 forms of pan-psychism are quite plausible. Plato's version of pan-psychism is also fairly plausible.

As for fate, i feel people very often reject determinism because they want to feel superior to the guy who effed up his/her life. I believe embracing determinism allows us to live and let live. That being said if we do XYZ we should expect negative consequences to some extent. Even the most "sanctified" people are going to have negative reaction simply because to some extent or to the complete extent we are all robots.

The way i summarize my belief in pan-psychism and scientific determinism is that we are all figments of God's imagination. If he plays a scenario out in his head which includes particle physics (like a business planner or war planner), that scenario happens in reality and also it happens in his head.

We have to put up with his crap because he has nothing better to do than play out scenarios in his head. He is essentially alone and "we" are just along for the ride.

Just for fun, here's a random thought I came up with:

Since life is often hard work, and by its nature inherently meaningless, why fear death? Because ceasing to be cannot be any scarier than the trials and tribulations of living.

(Accepting all viewpoints and counterarguments) — Wandering-Philosopher

In my opinion everybody should be of a certain particular religion. lol.

#Shark_Fighter_Nation is the political party i belong too.

this includes sky diving, shark fighting, moving to chicago, moving to Iran, fighting a rattle snake with a pair of shears, fighting aligators, fighting bears.

I believe some people should avoid death all they can until much later in life.

On a separate note no one under any circumstance after doing any particular thing should ever commit suicide.

I don't believe having a death wish means a person has extra character neccesarily.

I would argue both.
— christian2017

All that is said of imaginary gods is speculative nonsense.

Even if your god were real, he should be rejected for the satanic prick that he is.

Would you follow Hitler out of fear?

Why, if not fear, do you follow a genocidal god?

Regards
DL — Gnostic Christian Bishop

i disagree.

I'm not a big fan of globalism
— christian2017

Yet you belong to a fascist religion that seeks world dominance and did not mind using inquisitions and murder to make it so.

Nice religion you follow. Not.

Regards
DL — Gnostic Christian Bishop

thats fair.

... edited.

The concept of men being slaves to the gods or being slaves to the city state temple priests who commune with the gods is very ancient
— christian2017

Islam isn't ancient, in fact it's the very latest incarnation of religion we know of and it means "surrender" or "submission". — TheMadFool

I was trying to say that the whole god(s)/slavery thing predates Islam. I actually didn't bring up Islam. Hammurabi goes back to ~1800bc and that god(s)/slavery thing predates him.

Are you familiar with Pan-psychism (over 11 forms)? I would argue set theory goes very much with pan-psychism and even scientific determinism (~Fate). Set was an Egyptian god. The subset is always somewhat enslaved to the Set. I believe Set (the egyptian god) is a derivative of Adam's third son Seth. We are paritally related to Seth and Cain according to Christianity.

Spinoza used the basic notion of Pan-psychism and broke away from Judaism, however i think the jews recognized Pan-psychism to some extent which is what partially (partially) propelled Spinoza to take it one step to far.

I don't believe Solomon was 100% correct when he said God dwells in darkness. He was partially correct but Solomon in terms of some of the things he said were based on partial knowledge and a limited ability to witness reality. I believe God is like a star in that he is a very bright object surrounded by darkness. Do a bing or google search on chapters or passages dealing with God dwelling in darkness.
— christian2017

My memory isn't what it used to be and it wasn't something worth mentioning to begin with. All I remember is briefly reading about Egyptian gods but I have no memory of the exact details of the mythology surrounding them.

Anyway, what would be useful to me, in the current context of god making slaves of men, is whether Egyptians too thought of gods as beings that had to be worshipped in ways that suggest a desire to obey them (the gods) unconditionally.

As for Solomon, all I know is he was famed for his wisdom. What does he mean by "god dwells in darkness"? — TheMadFool

The concept of men being slaves to the gods or being slaves to the city state temple priests who commune with the gods is very ancient. I know thats how the ancient Sumerians viewed the gods relationship to men. The pharoah was a pseudo god and had many slaves due to "divine right" and stuff along that lines.

Nations in the beginning started out as tribes in ancient sumer starting city states. A city state is like US state but much smaller terrain. You have your farms that surround the city and the farms help support the city in the middle. Every city-state (or greek polis) was a little different.

You should check out "The Epic of Gilgamesh" on wikipedia or get the book on amazon.com . You might be able to get a cheap copy on ebay. It is the oldest written piece of fiction on the earth.

I would argue (my opinion) God started out in the darkness and he plays scenarios out in his head using the laws of physics he created and particle collisions. I would argue when he plans a scenario out in his head it actually happens in reality. I would also argue if we are doing ok in terms of ethics, he can still send evil our way even due to the slightest amount of pride. I wouldn't let this make you be depressed but it is something to think about. Supposedly the oldest book in the Bible was written by a non israelite/jew. The book of Job is about Job and Job wasn't a Israelite nor a jew.

The book is fascinating. "Speak to the earth and it will teach you". I believe this is a polymorphic statement saying to embrace science and also brings up pan-psychism in my opinion. "the mountains and XYZ inanimate object glorify God"

Even despite all this i still believe scientific determination (~Fate) does not contradict pan-psychism.

I'm thinking about god right now. Don't get me wrong, I've spent a lot of time contemplating on god - does he exist? is he benevolent? is all religion just one massive delusion? and so on. Although I'm certain that I've devoted a considerable amount of time thinking on god I'm unsure how much of that thinking was of good quality.

As I wrestled with the idea of the divine, a thought crossed my mind - should I just take the plunge, make the leap of faith, and just believe in god, a benevolent creator who will unfailingly look out for me no matter what?

I began to feel a sense of comfort and peace engulf me like a warm blanket on a cold night. This just by entertaining a hypothetical acceptance of god; I wondered what greater peace and joy lay in store if I actually became a theist. Will it change my life completely from what it is right now - meaningless and sad - to something else - meaningful and happy?

Just as things were looking very bright for me and theism, I asked myself one single question: what is theism, actually? I then realized that theism is, at its core, a belief that there is a being whose commands one has to obey without question. Isn't this slavery? A slave must obey his master's command and the master makes it clear that he has zero tolerance for any disobedience. Yes, god's benevolence lessens the blow - surely a being who loves us will have our best interests in mind - but then ask yourself this: would anyone agree to be a slave to loving masters? No, right? Truth be told, benevolence precludes the condition of unquestioning obedience - they contradict each other.

Setting aside the good [slave] master conundrum for the moment, consider only how god demands absolute obedience, much like slavemasters did not too long ago.

Is belief in god then a symptom of slave mentality?

P.S. This isn't a comprehensive analysis but is just an exploratory effort on my part into how theism maybe a reflection of a slavish instinct within us all. — TheMadFool

Are you familiar with Pan-psychism (over 11 forms)? I would argue set theory goes very much with pan-psychism and even scientific determinism (~Fate). Set was an Egyptian god. The subset is always somewhat enslaved to the Set. I believe Set (the egyptian god) is a derivative of Adam's third son Seth. We are paritally related to Seth and Cain according to Christianity.

Spinoza used the basic notion of Pan-psychism and broke away from Judaism, however i think the jews recognized Pan-psychism to some extent which is what partially (partially) propelled Spinoza to take it one step to far.

I don't believe Solomon was 100% correct when he said God dwells in darkness. He was partially correct but Solomon in terms of some of the things he said were based on partial knowledge and a limited ability to witness reality. I believe God is like a star in that he is a very bright object surrounded by darkness. Do a bing or google search on chapters or passages dealing with God dwelling in darkness.

sounds like a mixture of one of the forms of pan-psychism and also to some extent scientific determinism. I don't have enough evidence for me to say your'e partial rejection of scientific determinism (~fate) is wrong.

Thats interesting.

This is why some New age people say all people have a chance to become gods. I don't believe thats true, however pan-psychism isn't entirely unbiblical. Spinoza and Plato both believe in Pan-psychism. Spinoza went against his Jewish faith when he accepted it. Jews i believe do accept pan-psychism to some extent.

What we experience on earth is nothing like in space. In space there is almost no friction except for flying hydrogen atoms and photons (light). Light and small things do provide friction but it is almost non existent

Ask a high school Physics teacher to confirm what i'm saying. However if there is no coefficient of static friction and no kinetic friction you could accerate a tank as long as you are applying you finger to it in space. It would push back and you would go in the other direction. If you were in space (as well as on the earth) every particle in the universe would be pulling on you and also you would start accelerating towards the closest moon or star more than likely. Gravitational pull is effected by the density of mass and something like inverse square of the distance.

all matter in the entire universe is attracted to itself. Right now i'm pulling on you and you are pulling on me. We are pulling on every star in the universe.

if there is no friction (static friction nor kinetic friction) i could accelerate a cruise liner with my finger. If there is the slightest bit of static friction or kinetic friction i would not be able to do that.

did you read the article i posted. Do a wikipedia search. Perhaps i'm missing something or perhaps you are missing something. If there was nothing there would be no witnesses that there is nothing, hence why there is something. Or atleast thats part of it.

there are videos on it but if you don't want to watch a video (there are over 11 forms and only some are ~valid IMO)

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Introduction:
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Pan-Psychism written out instead of a youtube video (see below):
In philosophy of mind, panpsychism is the view that mind or a mind-like aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality.[1] It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe."[2] It holds that mentality is present in all natural bodies that have unified and persisting organization, which most proponents define in a way that excludes objects such as rocks, trees, and human artifacts.[3]

Panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories, and has been ascribed to philosophers including Thales,[4] Plato,[4] Spinoza,[4] Leibniz,[4] William James,[4] Alfred North Whitehead,[1] and Galen Strawson.[1] During the nineteenth century, panpsychism was the default theory in philosophy of mind, but it saw a decline during the middle years of the twentieth century with the rise of logical positivism.[4][5] The recent interest in the hard problem of consciousness has revived interest in panpsychism.
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Pan-psychism further explained:
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Panpsychism holds that mind or a mind-like aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality.[1] It is also described as a theory that "the mind is a fundamental feature of the world which exists throughout the universe".[2] Panpsychists posit that the type of mentality each of us can know through our own experience is present, in some form, in a wide range of natural bodies.[8] This notion has taken on a wide variety of forms. Contemporary academic proponents hold that sentience or subjective experience is ubiquitous, while distancing these qualities from complex human mental attributes;[9] they ascribe a primitive form of mentality to entities at the fundamental level of physics but do not ascribe it to most aggregates, such as rocks or buildings.[1][10] On the other hand, some historical theorists ascribed attributes such as life or spirits to all entities.[9]

The philosopher David Chalmers, who has explored panpsychism as a viable theory, distinguishes between microphenomenal experiences (the experiences of microphysical entities) and macrophenomenal experiences (the experiences of larger entities, such as humans).[11]
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Ancient times and then skip to much later
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Panpsychist views are a staple theme in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy.[5] According to Aristotle, Thales (c. 624 – 545 BCE) the first Greek philosopher, posited a theory which held "that everything is full of gods."[12] Thales believed that this was demonstrated by magnets. This has been interpreted as a panpsychist doctrine.[5] Other Greek thinkers who have been associated with panpsychism include Anaxagoras (who saw the underlying principle or arche as nous or mind), Anaximenes (who saw the arche as pneuma or spirit) and Heraclitus (who said "The thinking faculty is common to all").[9]

Plato argues for panpsychism in his Sophist, in which he writes that all things participate in the form of Being and that it must have a psychic aspect of mind and soul (psyche).[9] In the Philebus and Timaeus, Plato argues for the idea of a world soul or anima mundi. According to Plato:

This world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence ... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.[13]

Stoicism developed a cosmology which held that the natural world was infused with a divine fiery essence called pneuma, which was directed by a universal intelligence called logos. The relationship of the individual logos of beings with the universal logos was a central concern of the Roman Stoic Marcus Aurelius. The metaphysics of Stoicism was based on Hellenistic philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Gnosticism also made use of the Platonic idea of the anima mundi.
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(skip a bunch of steps to modern times)
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The panpsychist doctrine has recently seen a resurgence in the philosophy of mind, set into motion by Thomas Nagel's 1979 article "Panpsychism" and further spurred by Galen Strawson's 2006 article "Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism."[22] Its prominent proponents in the United States include Christian de Quincey, Leopold Stubenberg, David Ray Griffin,[1] and David Skrbina.[5][16] In the United Kingdom the case for panpsychism has been made in recent decades by Galen Strawson,[23] Gregg Rosenberg,[1] Timothy Sprigge,[1] and Philip Goff.[6][24] The British philosopher David Papineau, while distancing himself from orthodox panpsychists, has written that his view is "not unlike panpsychism" in that he rejects a line in nature between "events lit up by phenomenology [and] those that are mere darkness."[25][26] The Canadian philosopher William Seager has also defended panpsychism.[27]

In 1990, the physicist David Bohm published "A New theory of the relationship of mind and matter," a paper based on his interpretation of quantum mechanics.[28] The philosopher Paavo Pylkkänen has described Bohm's view as a version of panprotopsychism.[29] The American philosopher Quentin Smith is also a follower[clarification needed] of Bohm's ideas.[citation needed]

Panpsychism has also been applied in environmental philosophy by Australian philosopher Freya Mathews.[30] Science editor Annaka Harris explores panpsychism as a viable theory in her book Conscious, though she stops short of fully endorsing the view.[31][32]

The integrated information theory of consciousness (IIT), proposed by the neuroscientist and psychiatrist Giulio Tononi in 2004 and since adopted by other neuroscientists such as Christof Koch, postulates that consciousness is widespread and can be found even in some simple systems.[33] However, it does not hold that all systems are conscious, leading Tononi and Koch to state that IIT incorporates some elements of panpsychism but not others.[33] Koch has referred to IIT as a "scientifically refined version" of panpsychism.[34]

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You might say this contradicts scientific determinism, however i believe evolution is the hypothetical god's(i say Jesus Christ) solution to solve his own depression. Evolution is controlled by scientific determinism. I can't list Bible verses, but this comes from the oldest or supposedly the oldest book in the Bible and i'm not in this case implying the book of Genesis. I don't believe we will become gods someday but i do believe in an afterlife.

i believe in scientific determinism or determinism as though the universe is a giant billiards table. I also believe in some forms (the later forms including a derivative of Plato's) of pan-psychism.

the iteration of events. Time can only be accurately measured in a small subset of the universe where the physical clock is going the same speed or approximate same speed as that subset of the universe. Special relativity....

I feel differently but since you are a very knowledgeable or atleast have a decent understanding on this and feeling/awareness, it would serve neither of us any purpose for us to argue. In short i very much agree with you.

We were talking about Pan-psychism earlier.

For the sake of argument if we assume there was god or gods, and if he/she ran scenarios through his/her head (like a business planner or war planner), do those scenarios happen in reality or just in his/her head? or both?

I would argue both.

I suppose if there was a god he/she could predict and run the collision of all the particles in the scenario. The scenario would have all the feelings of all people. Atleast thats my guess.

Noah Harrari would agree with you. He believes that man was able to dominate the planet and coordinate on a massive scale due to legal fiction and fiction. Apes can coordinate in groups of approximately 150. Humans can coordinate in the millions and due to money in the billions. I'm not a big fan of globalism but its ok if you disagree. I'm sure you'll have a comment for me on that.

Noah Harrari talked about this concept in "Sapiens". This belief that there is something beyond the grave drives people to coordinate. Perhaps where the Hawaians came from was overpopulated.

oh i see. i actually have a theory that i came up with just a half hour ago. Sometimes people get depressed and they are willing to "go skydiving". A king sent 100 boats all in different directions (each with 2 or 3 of males and females), and some boats made it and some boats just had their inhabitants die at sea. The probability does increase with that method but i do understand that finding Hawaii using that method isn't definite.

cool. I'll add that video to my journal. Do you have a summary of the video in written words? Even if the summary is 2 sentences long.

thanks for answering.

I've never heard that but i don't doubt it. How did they find Hawaii traveling in a small boat? Seems very risky. I've heard some claim they were well advanced in mathematics or atleast binary algebra and discrete mathematics (just 2 forms atleast).

true.

probably.

What i meant when i used the term was that skydiving, fighting a shark with a pair of garden shears and fighting sharks is the reason why noone should ever commit suicide. I would imagine alot of ancient hunter gatherers felt the same way.

true.

something akin to the Balkan peninsula. but i could be wrong.

assuming there is a heaven i want to be killed. but i'm not committing suicide. Leviathan and sharks exist so that no one has to commit suicide.

thats fair.

in my opinion this is the end of america.

alright brother i admit my defeat, but blaming without knowing the cause will not help you.

but why i enter into this arguement ? since i dont wish to enter into the arguement. ( expert ) — chustavo

i agree.

tell us more expert. — chustavo

there alot of people who read books on this forum. If you would like to talk to someone who reads books you won't have to look hard on this forum. Reading a book doesn't make someone an expert.

The classical view of emotion holds that emotions are natural states which we simply 'feel' and then subsequently 'express': one feels, viscerally, anger, which one then expresses by stomping a foot, clenching a fist, or having a yell. This is a view of emotion which has begun to be challenged by recent studies, which instead posit that emotions - or at least specific emotions, like anger, shame, happiness, and sadness - are conceptual reterojections which we attribute or impute to bodily states which are not 'in-themselves', sad, happy, angry or whathaveyou.

(To paraphrase William James somewhat: we don't stop our feet because we are angry - we are angry because we stomp our feet: although it's a bit more complex than that).

At stake in this is the status of emotion: is it an 'origin' - a brute biological given that is simply 'activated' in certain circumstances - or is it instead a 'result' - a bio-social 'production' that helps orient one's actions and is the outcome of an evaluative process? It's this latter view which I want to outline and discuss here.

The basic idea behind this second view of emotion is that emotion is two-pronged, as it were. At the 'base', biological level, what is 'immediately' felt is a kind of generic, non-specific 'affect', which simply indicates both intensity (heightened or dull feeling - 'urgency' of affect) and valence ('good' or 'bad' feeling, something threatening or rewarding). The second step in the 'production' of emotion however, is an evaluative one - a matter of categorising this initial affect (as sadness, as anger, as joy...), a categorisation which takes place on the basis of a range of bio-cultural considerations. To quote Lisa Felman Barrett - on whose work this thread is based - on this:

"Conceptual information about emotion can be thought of as “top-down” and core affect “bottom-up” constraints on the emerging experience of emotion. The idea is that conceptual and affective processing proceed in parallel, with the processing in each limiting, shaping, and constraining the way in which the brain achieves a single coherent “solution”—an instance of experienced emotion that is organized into a coherent interpretation and action plan that suits the particular goals of the individual and constraints of the context. All this occurs in the blink of an eye. The result is an emotional episode that people experience more or less as a gestalt."
— Feldman Barrett - Solving the Emotion Paradox

There are heaps of interesting consequences that follow from this, but I just want to start with discussing two: (1) - Emotion is action-oriented. To be 'angry' is to have made an assessment - not entirely conscious, but not entirely non-conscious either - that anger is the appropriate/most-useful way to address a particular situation: yelling and displaying aggression might be useful as a response to a bully.

(2) The second interesting consequence - the one I'm most interested in here - is that emotions (qua concepts) are differential. Anger may be invoked (or evoked, rather) in a range of different situations, none of which may have anything in common. The concept - and emotion - 'anger' does not possess an 'essence' which is simply expressed univocally, but is instead a varied set of behaviours that can be 'used' for various purposes. In Barrett's words: Packets of conceptual knowledge about anger will vary within a person over instances as context and situated action demand. No single situated conceptualisation for anger need give a complete account of the category anger. There is not one script for anger, but many".

Importantly, emotions, as differential, require that emotions are learned: they are a skill, which we learn to employ in one way or another, sometimes well, sometimes badly, sometimes to no effect. To end with another quote: ""conceptual knowledge about emotion constitutes expertise about how to deal with your own internal state—experienced as “an emotion”—and the situation or event that you believe caused that emotion in the first place. In this sense, emotion categorization is functional."

Anyway, I could go on and on with other implications, but I'll stop here for space and see how, if at all, discussion develops. — StreetlightX

Just as if i got hit on the head with a baseball bat, we would all agree i suffered a negative emotion.

I think what happens next is will i say to my self that i deserved (through stupidity or Karma) to get hit (sadness), or was the fact that i got hit someone elses fault (keyword fault) in which case i would feel anger.

Sadness and anger are common to all people.

Whether we feel sadness or anger is a matter of who we blame the negative situation on.