Why do you want me to shut up? The reasons you're given are not very good, or cogent. — All sight
With a proper philosophical dialogue, I could tell you what I think, and you could tell me what you think, rather than the reverse. — All sight
I did answer that. You're saying that you should only discuss the finer details of positions and doctrines with people that already agree with you and those doctrines. To always preach to the choir, and I disagree, that isn't what interests me. — All sight
So, that division by itself shows that there's room to at least show the other that his commitment on such beliefs is extra-rational, contrary to what he believes. — Πετροκότσυφας
I said there was no philosophical point in discussing religious beliefs with those who do not share them. — Janus
What I said specifically related to religious dogmas. Sure if you are interested you can investigate other religious dogmas than your own. But there would be no point having a philosophical argument over whether reincarnation or resurrection is true, for example, as such dogmas are taken on faith, and are not supportable by philosophical argument. — Janus
It's not that simple, as I tried to explain. — praxis
But, I already said that in my previous post where I pointed out how I don't experience fear, rather I experience curiosity. I just didn't use the word "natural". I think a better word would be, "common". It isn't common to fear largeness or otherness. Some people can have a fear of largeness or otherness, and it would be considered a phobia.I meant to say that I don't think it's natural to fear largeness or otherness, as Jake appeared to claim. If this were true then we'd have a natural fear of looking up at the sky, for example. We don't. Many look up at the sky with a yearning to explore the unknown. — praxis
Seems like you have faith in science. — Rank Amateur
Many people who have met all their deficiency needs do not self-actualize, instead inventing more deficiency needs for themselves, because to contemplate the meaning of their life and of life in general would lead them to entertain the possibility of their meaninglessness and the prospect of their own death and annihilation.
A person who begins to contemplate his bigger picture may come to fear that life is meaningless and death inevitable, but at the same time cling on to the cherished belief that his life is eternal or important or at least significant. This gives rise to an inner conflict that is sometimes referred to as ‘existential anxiety’ or, more colourfully, ‘the trauma of non-being’.
While fear and anxiety and their pathological forms (such as agoraphobia, panic disorder, or PTSD) are grounded in threats to life, existential anxiety is rooted in the brevity and apparent meaninglessness or absurdity of life. Existential anxiety is so disturbing and unsettling that most people avoid it at all costs, constructing a false reality out of goals, ambitions, habits, customs, values, culture, and religion so as to deceive themselves that their lives are special and meaningful and that death is distant or delusory. — Neel Burton, M.D. psychologytoday.com
This seems to be a monstrous irony coming from you! — Janus
You can't get to karma, reincarnation, resurrection, personal God, and so on, from some spiritual bloody exercise. Or do you disagree? If so, I would love to hear how you can get from, say, the mountain pose, to discovering that reincarnation really happens — S
This seems to be a monstrous irony coming from you!
— Janus — Wayfarer
Divine illumination is the oldest and most influential alternative to naturalism in the areas of mind and knowledge. The doctrine holds that human beings require a special divine assistance in their ordinary cognitive activities.
if metaphysics is philosophy and you consider metaphysics to be a theory of absolute presuppositions..., then the content of comparative religion studies is an incredible raw material for such analysis. — Πετροκότσυφας
as Nagel notes, our culture is characterised by a deep-seated 'fear of religion'. — Wayfarer
”1. First, of course I’ve repeatedly said during this discussion that I don’t usually use the word “God”, other than when replying to someone who has used it, including Fundamentalist Biblical-Literalists like you.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Trivial. Just imagine that when I use the word "God" it's whatever word you use instead
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…because you don’t know what you mean by it, though you seem to always be talking about the God of the Fundamentalist Biblical-Literalists.
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., which you have yet to actually state.
.Yes, at other threads. :roll:
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That is of no help.
.”Feel free to find them and refute them if you want to.
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”(…if it means anything to speak of refuting an impression).” — Michael Ossipoff
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Feel free to come round my house, put on a little maid outfit, and do all of my housework.
.”If I were to post all of that here, in this thread, it would amount to argument, and, as I’ve said, I don’t do argument or assertion on the Theism vs Atheism topic. Go for it if you want to, but I’d be arguing if I challenged you to—and, as I said, I don’t argue about Theism vs Atheism.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Right, and I don't do housework. But I'm just going to keep on moaning about the dishes, the dirty clothes, the dusty surfaces, and so on. Go for it and do all of my housework if you want to, but, as I said, I don't do housework, I just expect you to put up with my moaning about it, and when you confront me about it and ask why I don't just shut up and get on with it, I'll just revert back to my complaining and denialism.
”Are you sure that I said that Atheists should invest time and effort into my impressions and beliefs?” — Michael Ossipoff
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.You didn't say anything. You just made vague suggestions which I'm having to tease out of you like blood out of a stone.
.”Remember that if you refute my Theism, in addition to that of Fundamentalist Biblical-Literalism, then you’ll have refuted not one, but two, Theisms. Hardly more than a beginning, for your task of refuting every Theism.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Ha! That's not my task.
.The burden is on the theist.
.First, I need to be presented with a version of theism.
.I'm content with having never come across a version of theism, in all of my years, which isn't so problematic that it doesn't warrant acceptance. That is my position.
.”Feel free to find it in other threads if you want to “invest time and effort” on it.” — Michael Ossipoff
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Feel free to present it to me if you want me to invest my time and effort on it.
I just didn't use the word "natural". I think a better word would be, "common". It isn't common to fear largeness or otherness. Some people can have a fear of largeness or otherness, and it would be considered a phobia. — Harry Hindu
The theory I am offering to explain the universal existence of suffering and the universal failure of all philosophies to end that suffering is that the source of suffering is not found at the level of the content of thought, but arises instead from the medium of thought itself, a universal property of the human condition. — Jake
Feel free to come round my house, put on a little maid outfit, and do all of my housework.
Aside from that though, I'm not saying that it should be based on religious dogma. Only in the sense that religious dogma is its subject matter, the raw material which it analyses, not the premises from which its analysis begins. — Πετροκότσυφας
I agree that insecurity is a common reason religious folk engage in debate, but I think it's not the only one. I can't exclude the possibility that some religious folk are honestly intellectually curious. — Πετροκότσυφας
I will try to explain something. You and I have met personally, one of the only such actual acquaintances I have made via philosophy forums, and I thought we got along quite well, and I do like you. But I don't discuss philosophy (or my particular version of philosophy) with any of the people I like in the real world, or not much anyway. They have no interest in it and would likely not understand what I'm on about. — Wayfarer
But it's predictable that as soon as anything of this kind is posted on a forum, it's like tossing bloodied meat into the Piranha River. — Wayfarer
Here's an example: the idea you refer to here (divine illumination) is an article of faith; not something that can fruitfully be discussed in a philosophical context — Janus
as Nagel notes, our culture is characterised by a deep-seated 'fear of religion'.
— Wayfarer
Don't you think we should fear it, or at least regard it with a good amount of caution? — praxis
In speaking of the fear of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper - namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself. I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.
My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world. Instead they become epiphenomena, generated incidentally by a process that can be entirely explained by the operation of the non-teleological laws of physics on the material of which we and our environments are all composed.
No you wouldn’t. What you would like, is to argue about it. Your sole interest here is bating theists. What I’m trying to explain, obviously to no avail, is that your whole grasp of the subject is a culturally-conditioned stererotype, but unless you can drag the debate back to your terms then you have no intetrest n it. — Wayfarer
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