I don't know what it means that "they are interpretations of us having (in some ways) separate bodies". — Noble Dust
Eh I feel like you're trying to play into me saying I'm a poet. — Noble Dust
Actually I want to convince you that you are a poem. — Yellow Horse
Sure, go ahead. — Noble Dust
On the God issue, I think it's helpful to clarify (however roughly) between a God that interferes in the world and perhaps the afterworld and a philosopher's or mystic's God that involves gnosis, ecstasy, etc.
I don't personally believe in the first kind of God. The year 2020 is not helping, and humans tend to get lost in their fantasies. — Yellow Horse
Where we perhaps disagree is that I think you understand some of these patterns to exist independently of human beings. — Yellow Horse
I cannot prove scientifically that Truth must be conceived as a Truth that is valid independent of humanity; but I believe it firmly. I believe, for instance, that the Pythagorean theorem in geometry states something that is approximately true, independent of the existence of man. — Albert Einstein
Therefore it is only people living in the same period and, broadly speaking, in the same community, who inhabit the same world. People living in other periods, or even at the same period but in a totally different community, do not inhabit the same world about which they have different ideas, they inhabit different worlds altogether. — Yellow Horse, quoting Owen Barfield
This is one of the insights that Barfield is known for. — Wayfarer
they're only perceptible to reason, but they're real. — Wayfarer
The point of the essay was, in short, that what we refer to or think of when we use that name, is nearly always a social convention or collective idea comprising layers of meaning that have been built up over centuries. — Wayfarer
So I guess, at the end of the day, I'm still on the religious side of the ledger, although I rather hope more towards the gnostic end of that scale. — Wayfarer
Language just is the intelligible structure of the world, I suggest, and the rational minds thought needed to grasp that structure are themselves 'more language.' — Yellow Horse
I believe that scientific naturalism is incapable of reaching an ultimate truth, on the grounds of its constitution. To reach that, requires what the sages describe as 'realisation'. — Wayfarer
The problem is, that doesn't allow for anything other than language - no referent, nothing beyond words. — Wayfarer
I'm fascinated by the fact he predicted anti-matter because it 'fell out of the equations' but that its existence was only confirmed much later. That, to me, again, is more evidence of the power of reason, and it's certainly not simply a matter of language, seems to me. — Wayfarer
To predict anti-matter is to voice an expectation that certain statements involving 'anti-matter' will become facts (to present a fact candidate). — Yellow Horse
If one looks at that funky jazz objectively, the reason why those sages taught silence and stillness, was because it was a meditative technique with the aim of developing a state of mind, body and the various spiritual states of consciousness. It wasn't because the answers of the universe were nothing, or unspeakable, unknowable etc. — Punshhh
to the initiated there was generally an understanding that there were ultimate truths, or narratives, but that they were unintelligible until certain exalted states had been achieved, if at all. — Punshhh
I don't think he was doing that, it's not my place to say what he was saying though.You’re right, it’s rather uncool of the wayfarer to hypocritically reify the ultimate truth.
Yes, although I was referring to the esoteric schools. They were though, part and parcel of the system as you describe it.This is an essential aspect of religion. After all, what good is a religion that doesn’t promise ultimate truth? And just as significantly, what good is a religion that delivers it? Zero, on both counts, because the point is social cohesion via social hierarchy. Worse is that religion doesn’t actually promote the development of virtue because that leads to independence from the group and hierarchy.
The problem with this is that it follows we're not in a position to say that anything at all does not exist. Because no one is going to say that whatever is manifestly in-itself existing does not exist, that leaves only those things which do not manifestly in-themselves exist that are subject to this conjectural existence. That's a lot of things. God has a lot of company - with an exactly equal claim to existence. Flying hippopotami in every color in the rainbow with MAGA hats, and the same without MAGA hats. And that's just the hippopotami.We are not in a position to say 'God does not exist'. — EnPassant
To start with, the definition of God as the source of all contingent things is sufficient for 'belief in God' and sufficient for a simple definition of God. — EnPassant
God has a lot of company - with an exactly equal claim to existence. Flying hippopotami — tim wood
If the Big Bang turns out to be the source of all contingent things, and is not a person or in any way at all like a mythical deity, just some impersonal cosmic event, would you call that "God"? — Pfhorrest
Eh? You affirm truth and then deny the same truth you affirm. In kindest terms that's crazy-making.God has a lot of company - with an exactly equal claim to existence. Flying hippopotami
— tim wood
That is only true for non theists. — EnPassant
On what grounds?Theists would disagree. — EnPassant
"Flat-out" I wouldn't know. And theists assert claims that not only are unsupported but that are in principle unsupportable. So yes, to the degree claimed misguided/deluded, Except this: if it's a Christian God we're talking about, there is an entire history you apparently are not even aware of the possibility of, and, Christians profess their creed in the "We believe...". Never in the sense, "God exists."So flat-out atheism must assert theists are misguided/deluded and that claim cannot be convincingly defended. — EnPassant
Again, I don't know about the pure, but as to reason, you need only inform yourself as to the nature of God as developed over a few thousand years by some very heavy and heavily interested thinkers. They reasoned, in brief, that God is unknowable. And that makes sense, because if you want to believe in an all-whatever being, then he/she/it/they cannot be delimited by what can be known about them.The pure atheist cannot reason in the opposite way and declare that God does not exist. — EnPassant
But the big bang must be contingent. — EnPassant
You have to go back further, into eternity, the get to the source. — EnPassant
Black holes and other astronomical bodies can be deduced to exist by reason alone
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