@L'éléphant

So, you’re confused because I have written words you do not understand, and not because you do not understand the words I have written?

Sorry, dude, that’s idiotic.

@emancipate

You’re on a philosophy forum and don’t know that all metaphysical discussions are in the realm of our imaginations?

Stupid people don’t know they’re stupid, you know.

Isn't this simply putting things in their order of significance - a rock is less than a mouse; a mouse is less than a human? — Tom Storm

Perhaps it's an order of "significance", but Joe would not even identify it as such. If Joe said it was an order of significance, then I would say that is completely subjective. To him, one is more significant than the other. Joe seems to have a strong feeling about that, and thinks it ought to be obvious to me. But of course in philosophy we don't make our judgements based on strong feelings, we proceed with rational arguments and logic. That's why I asked Joe to justify his claims, because are not in any way obvious to me.

It’s common sense and your own experiences. — Joe Mello

Clearly it's not any part of my experience. It's some principle you dreamed up, so it's part of your experience. And it makes no sense to me, for a person to be using "greater" in the way that you do, to refer to a quality which cannot be measured in terms of quantity. Obviously, "great" in any normal usage is a quantitative term. That's why I requested you switch to a principle like "better and worse", which is more consistent with my experience of a quality which is not measurable as a quantity. You refuse to switch, because if we remove the ambiguity brought by the word "greater", your principle makes no sense at all, and therefore completely loses its emotional appeal.

@universeness

When I was 24, I was a painter with a high paying job, 5 girlfriends, a sports car, and a bodybuilder running 10 miles 3 times a week.

Then one morning, without any effort or pleading on my part, God gave to me such a revelation of himself that I gave up the life I had and went into a monastery at 25 and left at 30.

It was the most difficult thing that I have ever done. But the constant revelations of himself God gave to me kept me sacrificing my pleasures for his revelations.

It’s amazing how lazy selfish humans in love with themselves don’t see how the love of God alludes them.

It’s amazing how lazy selfish humans in love with themselves don’t see how the love of God alludes them — Joe Mello

I do not see any proof of God's love in myself. How can I find out one?
Did I write properly this time or should I proofread something?

@Metaphysician Undercover

It’s not part of your experience that your dog is greater than your kitchen counter?

Go away now and be a thinker only you wants to understand.

@javi2541997

No, your second sentence is wrong.

And knowledge of the truth leads us to love of the truth and becoming fully alive.

Truth and love share a relationship that we as human beings become failures for our whole life when we do not share in it.

Your life will only be as great as your knowledge and love is.

God is our greatest adventure, and only great adventurers go in search for God.

Enjoy your coffee.

@Monitor

Gee, it’s like an omnipotent spiritual power, a Dark Energy, is behind my posts pushing them outward with ever-increasing speed.

I spent a decade on Sam Harris’ atheist forum and had only one personal thread that I was allowed to go on. The Administrator kept closing it down and starting a new one with derogatory titles, like The Dump and The Jar. All these threads became the most popular by hundreds and hundreds of pages. Then he shut down the forum and moved it to the old forum where it all began, and didn’t invite me, despite me having the most popular thread on that forum too. And now only about a half dozen posters go there once in a great while.

I’m not here for myself or for intellectual reasons.

Each one of us, no matter how much the thoughts off the top of our heads won’t shut up, has the spirit of God trying to give to us truth and love.

I’m here in service to that spirit.

No, your second sentence is wrong — Joe Mello

Why? Excuse me, with all my purest respect, are you an English professor or linguist?

@javi2541997

I do have a Graduate degree in English and taught high school, but you should have written:

“How can I find [it]?

When I was 24, I was a painter with a high paying job, 5 girlfriends, a sports car, and a bodybuilder running 10 miles 3 times a week. — Joe Mello

If you were having such a nice wee life, it's hardly surprising that you found the empty darkness scary.
Your money, girlfriends, car, strength mean absolutely nothing when you were alone in your room at night and the wee unexplained noises happened.

When your mind screamed at you that religious doctrines such as catholicism threatened you with eternal damnation in hell, if you continued with what they would consider ungodly behavior and an ungodly life. Your brain decided that 5 years of penance in a monastery would be your Pascals wager. You heard the voice of god in your head but it was just your own self-doubt. You created your own revelation.
You should read Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot and pay attention to his chapter on the great demotions.

I have said this many times and challenged your superhero non-existent god many times, in the pitch dark, by myself. From when I was 14. I have called it every bad name I can think of and asked it to show me its power.
I do that rarely now as I am cursing at non-existing fables and I am wasting my time.
Your god has no power! It doesn't exist or it is a coward which cannot even silence this little weak atheist. I can only be killed by a human who is messed up enough to claim to be working in the name of your god fable or just because they don't like me and want to. I will most likely die, as most do, due to a natural or accidental act.
I have had and continue to have a wonderful life. I accept death as a harbinger of change. I leave the development of having more options, to the scientific attempts to increase longevity and develop transhumanism.
Go back to enjoying your strength, female fans, cars and bodybuilding and perhaps do more to help poor people as you go. Enjoy your life, as it's the only one you have. Don't be afraid of oblivion. You were not afraid of it before you were born. There is nothing in the darkness except what we bring ourselves.

If your age means you are more comforted against your fear of non-existence by your belief that you have had 'special communications' with your superhero, then that's fine. continue with your delusion but please don't try to infect others with your fairy story viewpoints.
Use your special relationship with your superhero to call upon it to show me its power.
I have asked priests, ministers, Jehovah witnesses, Mormons, evanhellicals, Satanists, theosophers, mystics, pagans, etc, etc, to do the same
Their gods are all as powerless as yours.

I was not referring to God. I was speaking about the entity itself. This is why I guess it is better formulated as: "How can I find out one?" in the sense of finding "something" or "someone".
I was not referring to God as the "one"

By the way from 16 to 20, I served my apprenticeship as a painter and decorator. I also gained the UK qualifications of City & Guilds, Advanced craft and FTC (Furthest trade certificate). I can do sign writing, graining, marbling, etc. I can hang specialist wallpapers from Japanese hand-painted ones to Lyncrusta Waltons. I became a journeyman and still hone my skills in these areas but I decided to go to Uni when I was 22 and study computing instead of becoming an interior designer, so in a small way, we are brothers of the brush. I retired after teaching computing science for 30 years.
Being a skilled person does not prevent you from falling for god fables due to being afraid of eternity.
Being a rational thinker does!

It’s not part of your experience that your dog is greater than your kitchen counter? — Joe Mello

Without qualification as to greater in what sense, that question doesn't even make sense to me. Are you talking magnanimous? If so, I can't even begin to class a dog, let alone a kitchen counter. I have no idea what you are talking about. Sorry Joe, but your continued gibberish, and refusal to explain yourself, makes discussion rather pointless.

What brother Joe means, I guess, is that everything evolving in the universe is filled with some kind of divine spark that can't be explained by the material it's contained in.

I’m here in service to that spirit. — Joe Mello

:rofl: The boing old christ complex! another non-existent character. I think these threads are popular because all intelligent people enjoy throwing stuff at religion, that all. Look at the size of the thread on Trump, similar reasons. This is not due to the veracity of your point of view, it's more due to incredulity at your level of personal delusion.

Him saying that we should serve the divine or worship the god is too muuuuch! Why? That's not what they wanted. They would laugh at us, our churches or mosques, the popes and imams, all the sacred words written, and they are asking themselves if they did make a mistake.

Brother Joe loves the attention given. Like we all do. Why ventilating his thoughts on a forum? He wants his ideas to get attention. To be criticized. But what are his ideas? Seems the existence of an OOO God. Let's go for the lesser ones though.

I’m not here for myself or for intellectual reasons.

Each one of us, no matter how much the thoughts off the top of our heads won’t shut up, has the spirit of God trying to give to us truth and love.

I’m here in service to that spirit. — Joe Mello

10 years at Sam Harris’ forum.

Insanity is repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. — Narcotics Anonymous

You’re on a philosophy forum and don’t know that all metaphysical discussions are in the realm of our imaginations? — Joe Mello

No there is also the realm of sense experience and the realm of concepts (among other things). You don't know the basics son. God is beyond your metaphysical understanding. Your attempt at deriving a metaphysical principal is rooted in a dualistic understanding of reality. Come back when you get past the mirage kiddo.

Use your special relationship with your superhero to call upon it to show me its power.I have asked priests, ministers, Jehovah witnesses, Mormons, evanhellicals, Satanists, theosophers, mystics, pagans, etc, etc, to do the same
Their gods are all as powerless as yours. — universeness

Martin Hagglund , among others, makes what I consider to be the best argument for atheism. Rather than disbelieving in a god because there is no proof, one should disbelieve because the concept itself is repugnant.

“…a vast number of religious people do not regard their faith as competing with knowledge. While accepting the freedom of scientific inquiry and democratic pluralism, they hold that religious faith is crucial for the spiritual shape and profound meaning of life. An atheism that does not engage this sense of religion will fail to transform deep-seated notions about faith. Even many people who themselves do not have religious faith believe that it would be great and beneficial to have such faith. The latter attitude is what the philosopher Daniel Dennett has described as believing in belief in God. “Such a person doesn't believe in God but nevertheless thinks that believing in God would be a wonderful state of mind to be in, if only that could be arranged.”16 This belief in the existential value of religious faith (rather than in the truth of religious claims) is the main line of defense for religion in a secular age, after its authority to organize society or legislate over science has been conceded.”

I still don't see from this why it's repugnant. Why should science legislate and organize society? That's just the same as god doing that.

Every point you make here is reasonable, fair and accurate within the framework you suggest.
But it does not matter how much individual humans are comforted by the idea of a supernatural superhero, who cares about them and will offer them life after death if they do this or that, if it turns out that it's complete bullshit. How much more could this species achieve, if such speculation was no longer, ever, ever delivered to the less educated as undeniable fact!

Heroin can make you feel really good (so I've heard anyway) but the cost to you and to society can be extreme. Religion as an opiate of the masses is well described.
I do have a real problem saying to a person with a personal faith that comforts them and they don't preach about, "Your god is fake."
I mostly won't do it. But if they start to threaten me and everyone else with damnation or any punitive consequences of not having a faith in their god, then for me, they have crossed the line.

An atheism that does not engage this sense of religion will fail to transform deep-seated notions about faith. — Joshs

My approach to such people would be different than my approach on this thread. My approach would be much more gentle and I would stop if I thought I was doing damage to the psyche of an individual believer who was of the type you describe but individuals like the few religious scientists that exist make for a much more interesting and good-natured debate, compared to those who claim personal religious revelation, through mental/physical contact with what they perceive as god.

I will shout right back at pulpit bullies!

a vast number of religious people do not regard their faith as competing with knowledge. — Joshs

I don't think the number of rational theists is 'vast' amongst the number that currently exist.

Even many people who themselves do not have religious faith believe that it would be great and beneficial to have such faith. — Joshs

People are always attracted to what makes them feel good but do you not agree that truth is more important than what makes you feel good?

This belief in the existential value of religious faith (rather than in the truth of religious claims) is the main line of defense for religion in a secular age — Joshs

I agree but I see this as more like its last defense. A benevolent, benign faith that does not threaten punitive consequences for non-acceptance. A commune you can join if you wish but you can leave whenever you like with no negative consequences, almost Epicurean in concept. Some individuals with a personal faith may demonstrate this but I see no evidence of such a doctrine in any organised faith group or theosophist group such as the moronic Scientologists.

Btw, I am a Daniel Dennet fan and a Sam Harris fan.

Btw, I am a Daniel Dennet fan and a Sam Harris fan. — universeness

Dennet, Harris, Dawkins, Pinker, Hofstadter, Hitchens, they all propagte atheism and science. It's the same as propagating theism, with god replaced by science.

Yes, Joe. In the brief time we've known you, we've learned that you're quite a guy. Sorry, @Tom Storm, I couldn't stop myself.

I have a degree in Philosophy, and a Graduate Degree in Professional Writing. — Joe Mello

I spent five years in a Catholic Monastery — Joe Mello

After 7 years as a mystic letting God do the talking, and acquiring a scholastic education at the same time, belief became knowledge, and the mystery became truth. — Joe Mello

I was a counselor for 12 years, so I was a therapist for 12 years. — Joe Mello

But only a scholastically trained philosopher has become philosophically advanced in learning how to think. — Joe Mello

have the philosophical clarity to think profoundly and without personal prejudices in the third degree of abstraction. — Joe Mello

All I did was spend years learning to understand it, and years seeing how every new scientific discovery only supported it and never refuted it. — Joe Mello

I sacrificed years to come to a knowledge and love of God. — Joe Mello

this baptism is a special gift God gives to those of us he desires to be close to. And close to God is where I have been ever since. — Joe Mello

I have spent decades experiencing God — Joe Mello

a scholastically trained academic — Joe Mello

To be truly philosophically adept takes talent and an openness that are both extremely rare. — Joe Mello

A truly disciplined and talented intellect — Joe Mello

disciplined and talented — Joe Mello

a great lover — Joe Mello

an amazing person who has spent a lifetime becoming skilled in something. — Joe Mello

I have been a professional painter for over 40 years and painted my first house 55 years ago. This summer, I painted a cape by myself in 6 hours. My business is more than half commercial, and I painted a long hallway in Titleist last month surrounded by people, and I organized the whole thing like a ballet, so no one got in each other's way. So, I really can't learn much from other painters. Maybe something, but not much. — Joe Mello

an academic with a Philosophy degree — Joe Mello

Oh, and I'm a vocalist. Sang Zeppelin in the 70s with a rock band called Mordor, and Prince in the 80s with a funk band called Chill Factor. And I love singing Frank Sinatra and Teddy Pendergrass today. — Joe Mello

I have a Graduate degree in Professional Writing — Joe Mello

philosophically trained mind — Joe Mello

When I was 24, I was a painter with a high paying job, 5 girlfriends, a sports car, and a bodybuilder running 10 miles 3 times a week. — Joe Mello

great adventurers — Joe Mello

I spent a decade on Sam Harris’ atheist forum and had only one personal thread that I was allowed to go on. The Administrator kept closing it down and starting a new one with derogatory titles, like The Dump and The Jar. All these threads became the most popular by hundreds and hundreds of pages. Then he shut down the forum and moved it to the old forum where it all began, and didn’t invite me, despite me having the most popular thread on that forum too. And now only about a half dozen posters go there once in a great while. — Joe Mello

I do have a Graduate degree in English and taught high school, — Joe Mello

god replaced by science. — EugeneW

Do you really believe that God is so easily replaced?

It's the same as propagating theism, with god replaced by science. — EugeneW

No it's not. Science makes no claim of supernatural agency and god is a fable, based on the human tendency to make up stories about that which they don't yet understand. God is merely of the gaps in our knowledge. Science is simply the most reliable method we have, to search for, identify, constantly review, scrutinise and establish new knowledge. Scientists will also turn to storytelling or at best, educated guesswork, when they 'thought project' hypotheses about the meaning of life the universe and everything or at least a T.O.E.

I know you probably won't welcome this from me but your post above, listing Joe's skills was hilarious.
I tried not to laugh but "I couldn't help myself." :rofl:

Why should science legislate and organize society? — EugeneW

It doesn't, you are thinking of politics, not science.

A creator is a valid theory for the origins of the cosmos, one which many happen to believe. And you guys get angry, because you disagree, but how can it be ignored when it's a perfectly viable theory? There is no evidence of anything contradicting the postulate of a creator.

Nor, technically, can there be.

It strikes me that God and the concept of eternity are every bit as frightening as death. And maybe you guys are such reactionaries to the notion because you are afraid.