A computer or mechanical switch system is just a series "engine" parts. It can appear to be alive but it is an electrical engine or an engine that acts as something else. Have you ever heard of the term "collective soul" or "collective consciense". Basically some people explain "awareness" through the concept that perhaps the whole universe is alive and we individuals are subsets of the whole set.

I agree. Globalism and war mongering are big problems.

I agree with you. It sucks.

Tribalism in the strictest sense is sinful but Tribalism on many levels is justified. Some religions see all converts as part of the same Tribe. To marry someone of the same religion means you value that person's philosophy. When two people of the same philosophy marry, that means they value each other for something other than what each other look like.

this is so cool. No sarcasm intended.

Without getting into modern or even classical Calvinism (there are like 10 different versions of Calvinism or reformed faith), you are 100% correct. Failure is always found by those who actually have the ability to see reality for what it is. I'm not saying we need to go out of our way to be sad but the saying goes like this "ignorance is bliss". This is why some people go sky diving or shark fighting. I wish you all the happiness in the world my friend.

Children are predisposed to believe in Santa Claus so I would have to agree with you. Santa Claus is essentially a lower case g god.

So when it comes to question of race and sexual identity, it is easy to say "look at the continuum in between the 'races' and between the 'sexes'". Is this a valid argument though? I think someone can be feel sure what a female or a male is without worrying about the in-betweens. But those people that are "in between" actually, I think, make it hard to say that the extremes are discrete. Someone would be hard pressed to prove what exactly constitutes a female. You can always change a little here or there, and it seems to be infinite. Where exactly can you draw a line on any of this stuff? — Gregory

Most animals have discrete sexes. Humans are not frogs. If you had an operation turning yourself into a frog then you could justify a sex change. In rare cases appendages are lost of someone might have XXY instead of XY or XX.

I'd like to run this by you all to for comments:

It seems that free will isn't just about choices; if it were then there would be no difference between us and computers with algorithmic decision trees (choices). However, free will is about choices that originate in a person - it can't have been put there, nor can the choice be an effect of a causal process that originates outside of the person. So, comparing human decision-making to computer processes simply on the basis that both involve choices is wrong because the issue isn't about the presence/absence of choices, it's about how these choices are made, specifically concerning whether they were part of a causal chain external to a person. — TheMadFool

Pulling the positive consequences of purpose given with religion or the belief in a diety, out of the equation, I would have to say the above quote is 100% correct.

Kindly elaborate:

I don't expect you to read this. I feel you are way way ahead of most philosophers i know but if you like here it is:

Jesus Christ can predict our actions with 100% accuracy however,

On that professor's notion of is Jesus Christ schizophrenic?

Its hard to feel completely comfortable with why Satan was created and why (despite predestination doesn't directly directly directly directly contradict free will) he allowed us to make bad decisions. The Bible says the God/Jesus Christ doesn't think the way man does. I speculate that prior to the creation of the angels and the mortal non living gods that God perhaps some measure felt for whatever reason to start creating entities beyond the Trinity. While I personally am not opposed to the idea of the Holy Trinity and I do not fall out side of the orthodoxy of Trinitarianism, I do believe focusing on the theology of Trinitarianism as though it was core Christian belief, changes our focus from Jesus Christ's personality to some lesser Biblical truth. I don't believe Trinitarian theology is paganism but I feel the Christian church should focus on the personality of Jesus Christ as laid out in the old testament and the new testament. And once again a careful reading of the major prophets of the old testament will reveal a God and also a Jesus Christ that truly showed compassion to the people of the old testament and also to the people of the new testament. Now many will say that Jesus Christ wasn't alone before he created the angels and the other entities however perhaps my frailties make me fail to see beyond the idea that if i'm inclined to play a video game or build a tower out of a deck of cards, that there is either a sharp or dull impulse to push me towards that endeavor. We people have a God given dna and also a nurturing of our development (the situations we are put into) that sharply influence are predispositions. God/Jesus Christ I would argue based on the name Jehovah ("I_AM" or "I_AM_WHAT_AM", the latter being a questionable interpretation as far as I know) does not inherently know his origins nor can give a complex answer that caused him to have the personality that he has. We don't have that "problem". So let me speculate that when Jesus Christ decided to start creating the angels, mortal non living gods and other entities I believe under my understanding of what i consider rational, the actions of Jesus Christ/God in the beginning are sometimes attributed to what would commonly be called true randomness (as opposed to computer generated randomness or even the seemingly random nature of our Universe). I'm not saying that the personality of God/Jesus Christ is random but that due to my frailties I don't know how to describe this concept in a more accurate way.

So at some point he created entities that do not include the Trinity (I suppose the Trinity existed outside of time and forwards and backwards through eternity). I also speculate God/Jesus Christ spent time in the beginning just sitting there trying to understand what was going on before he started creating entities. I also speculate the time period prior to this "age" or self awareness loops around and some how pushes Jesus Christ into a sort of looping God/being that exists outside of time and thus you could say the time before time should more accurately be defines that substance or deity always has existed outside of time. Most of what i am writing in this post is my own speculation (perhaps shared by many Christians).

When he created the entities such as angels or mortal and non living gods, did he create them as spiritual or "physical" creatures (angels are created so you could say they are creatures). To my current understanding of the Bible the angels and mortal non living gods are spiritual. The question i ask is to what degree do these creatures have the tendency to mimic their creator. To what degree (1 to 100%) is their conduct predictable. Humans are 100% predictable but are gods or angels 100% predictable. And once again is 1% or 100% predictable? Satan was actually number 2 to Jesus Christ right from the beginning. Many of the demons to my understanding were in fact angels at one time. For now on i will refer angels (perhaps good servant gods) as angels and bad angels and also demons as "bad gods". So we have the Trinity, the angels and then the bad gods.

At some point Satan betrayed Jesus Christ/God and so on and so on.

Why do I say in the classical sense that Jesus Christ/God is not schizophrenic but at the same time Christianity is not a dualist religion. The Bible says
that God does not think at all like the way people do, so let me say this: I speculate the need to create Satan as to some degree inferior to the Trinity was in compliance to the basic logic that if you were an ancient warlord or ancient king, your ruling was not based on a hereditary nature but your kingship was attained through merit. This is not something you can say for modern kings. I speculate God/Jesus Christ gave Satan to some degree an inferior nature to the Trinity because this is not unkind but it is simply logical and rational. I would argue this could be said of all entities and it even carries over into the creation of people but I speculate that the relationship between the former concept and intended human frailty is atleast mildly close but it might not even qualify as a linear relationship (and ofcourse not one to one considering a one to one relationship is a type of linear relationship).

I would like to speculate and here i have much misgivings about this speculation (keyword speculation) that Satan surprised to some degree God/Jesus Christ considering his nature was spiritual rather than matter. I do believe perhaps matter and energy can be built from spiritual substance but perhaps we could say matter and energy is an extremely complex dancing of spiritual forces that vibrates continuously and makes matter and energy have the qualities that we witness on a daily basis. Perhaps dealing with Satan is like my brother playing me (the opponent) in chess, my brother is much smarter than me and will probably will win the match but he must stress slightly over the issue. I would argue if Jesus Christ played any human in chess, the match would in all practicality be over before it started considering the realities of Scientific determinism. Jesus Christ, I speculate, stresses to some degree when dealing with non living gods but when dealing with people the results of what would happen came in before anything took place. My last speculation is that to some small degree Jesus Christ acts as a sociopath only in the sense that he does a criminal profile of all the entities he ever created. In that sense (and i stress this is a very remote and vague relationship) to some very small degree that God/Jesus Christ can be said to have minor similarities to someone who has schizophrenia.

I will go on to further to say in the end each Christian will never worship another Christian, but we the Porcelain chess pieces on his chess board will be all worshiped by the living God. Is it lawful for God to love and adore his wife (The Christian Church). I speculate that it is. We the christians were used as living sacrifices to manipulate the great spiritual powers (angels and non living gods) that were in Heaven.

On why God/Jesus Christ gave us inferior and imperfect dna as opposed to perfect dna like himself, I speculate there are various reasons for that: going beyond the fact that Jesus Christ achieved his status as an ancient king or warlord achieves his status being not through heredity but through merit, I believe among many other reasons, Jesus Christ wanted to show love to an animal similar to him and to love an animal not because of what that animal can do for him but for what that he (Jesus Christ) can do for that animal. There is only one marriage or sexual relationship in heaven and for all eternity and that the marriage between Jesus Christ and the Christian Church. Once again just about all of this falls outside the pale of orthodoxy and is mostly speculation.

Shit your right. I looked up the definition of fideism and i would have to say i am anti fideism like the OP. The first time i looked it up i read the opposite. Sorry.

Fideism: Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths (see natural theology). The word fideism comes from fides, the Latin word for faith, and literally means "faith-ism".

The human mind is limited and 1 + 1 =2 but when you try to quantify extremely complex problems you reach issues like not having a high enough sampling rate (compact disc for example)

When you are quantifying a spectrum and the sampling rate isn't high enough, those areas that lack data or information can have drastic consequences.

I guess you could say absolute truth exists but it is very hard to obtain. 1 + 1 = 2 is easy to obtain but in extremely complex systems a "low" sampling rate can produce results that were completely unexpected especially when the system is being test over an extended period of time.

i believe nurture and nature control everything we do (dna and situations). However I could go on and on how this concept doesn't completely (as in completely) nullify the idea of free will but i won't go into that right now unless you really want me too. In short i feel the OP is closer to the truth than most people would like to admit.

lol

Animals that understand abstract concepts are more prone to depression and the severe consequences of continual prolonged depression. In general it is good to be happy. Its one of those things that if you are sad for too long you just stop caring about certain abstract concepts. Money is an abstract concept.

Cheers friend.

Its called Military School like Westpoint. The modern US Military is nothing like the military of the 19th century. Not many people have what it takes to be in the modern US Military.

thoughs always require a thinker. You exist. Statistical probability should be applied to all rational decisions. You don't have to be 100% on anything (a specific holy book) and it would be a bad gamble to assume you don't exist. Everything is a gamble and it is good to play the odds wisely.

Because people are short-sighted. Mostly as a consequence of being lazy and greedy and stupid. Mostly as a consequence of being overworked, traumatized, under constant threat, etc. Or of bring raised by people who were like that and instilled their own bad habits formed from their traumas on their developing children. Our whole society is mentally ill, as a system not just as a bunch of individuals, and it’s a chicken and egg problem how to fix the system that could help fix the individuals who run the system without first fixing those individuals while they are still part of a broken system.

Best I can hope for is that the few people who are functional enough to work against the systemic dysfunction can over time pull hard enough long enough to pull the whole system back to functionality eventually. — Pfhorrest

That just about nailed it.

on this forum they are typically more left wing.
— christian2017

So far the results suggest otherwise. — Pfhorrest

i guess.

I've struggled with the issue of suicide for about 5 years and have tried multiple times and also dealt with depression. I recently joined a political party called Shark Fighter Nation. #Shark_Fighter_Nation

After joining the party my desire to commit suicide has disapeared just about completely. I've never been in the US Military but suicide among Veterans and US Military Personel is extremely high and great care should be taken when dealing with these people.

I do smoke tobacco continiously all day but other than that my life has gotten a whole lot better.

shark can be replaced with moving to chicago or Iran, bobcat, rattlesnake fighting it with a pair of garden shears, bears, alligators and there are various other ways of literally contending with the "dragon".

God bless you Sir and I hope you find whatever it is you are looking for in life. Perhaps you'll at some point begin enjoying life and live from then on out a long and happy life.

on this forum they are typically more left wing. I don't know how they are on other philosophy forums. I consider myself by and large a fiscally conservative Libertarian but my political party is Shark Fighter Nation. #Shark_Fighter_Nation

Another thing to note is that there are those who like to remain ignorant at all costs on one end of the spectrum and on the other end there are those like perhaps you who want the truth at all costs. "be as wise as a serpent and as gentle as a dove for he sends us out among wolves"

I would argue on many levels you are right. I believe in absolute truth for example but I believe it is very hard to approach the threshold of attaining absolute truth depending on what field of study you are into. Forensics and Crime investigation are fields of study where absolute truth is debated depending on the crime or "crime".

I think the man is absolutely brilliant and any short comings can be made up for the fact that we are all standing on his foundation in some sense. I couldn't find out if he was a Christian but i know he believe in a God/god.

"knowledge puffeth up" lol

However if you are looking for a date, insert more and more information into a system (we are all systems) and the more likely that system will "put out".

lol

I wish you the best my friend.

I think all people are philosophers. Some people just have better things to do with their time.

Not true. Our eyes interpret these frequency (our eyes and brains are radios and antennas at the same time) as colors. Your argument is silly, superfluous and you are parsing words.

Its a spectrum. As in any classification in order for something to be red it must fall between two lines (or fall within a specific area on a spectrum. Have you heard of the visible spectrum. There is visible and invisible light. Some animals can see light below red (infrared). Some animals can see above purple (ultraviolet). Some animals might be able to see gamma rays or even light coming from a wifi router.

Don't attack Israel, Don't defend Israel. Move Israel to Canada or America.

ok.

i agree.

If the jobs disappear switch to farming — Lif3r

overly restrictive zoning laws lead to war and poverty in the short term. War releases more co2 than anything.

Whats wrong with nuclear (fission) power. Fusion is just another type of nuclear power.

https://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2014/02/18/5-scientific-reasons-that-global-warming-isnt-happening-n1796423

thanks

brb. I'll post an article.

i don't believe climate change is caused by people.

ok. i'll probably follow the link later.

Globalism is a bigger issue than the environment.

Gnostic Christianity for one. We have tied equality righteousness.

Here is the older explanation from Gnostic sources.

http://gnosis.org/library/ephip.htm

I see the same in the bible but Christians do not believe in the equality of souls the way we do.

Regards
DL — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Gnostics don't believe that. Your parsing words.