@Paine

Yeah, he’s your “friend”.

Paul was a Pharisee, a learned Jew who was a Roman citizen, not a “cop”.

Paul is literally called the Hellenistic/Jewish Apostle.

There is literally a Pauline Christianity, and a religious order the Paulist Father, and I met some of them when I was a Franciscan Friar.

I’ve known who Paul was and what Paul wrote for over 40 years.

But you listen to your “friend” who Googled Paul, and you keep telling me about the point you were trying to make when you insulted me and told me to go read again.

Make that of what you will.

@Paine

Are you going to tell me that you were wrong about Paul not being an academic and about me needing to read the texts more closely, or just keep writing whatever pops into your head at the moment … when you’re not flattering your “friends”, that is?

It’s a greater “element”.

God is defined as the greatest being we can imagine.

So of course “something greater than the greater thing” is God’s omnipotent power.

You keep looking for another “ingredient” because of your failure of imagination.

A metaphysical principle that discovers the logical explanation of how the greater things in our reality, such as life and thought and emotion, came to be in such a lesser reality, as our physical universe is, is like the discovery of a once in many lifetimes new super nova overhead.

And you dig holes in the ground to see it, and then whine when you can’t see it and become confused.

The greatest person who ever lived said that we must become like children to see the kingdom of God.

You gave away your sense of awe and excitement to egotistical opinions you frame as math problems.

@Real Gone Cat

Well, I could certainly come up with a better name than you did. And I love cats. But if it’s from the hippie days I enjoyed, that’s cool.

And every merely opinionated person on the Internet cannot accept knowledge and understanding as actual realities, only opinions. So, projecting their face in a crowd onto every face they see, these confused persons only welcome others who are confused.

And no truly wonderful person would use “Messiah” in a derogatory way, for he or she would see the need for one everywhere, and fully appreciate the spiritual Messiah that we already have.

And I have felt little emotion reading the posts here, and certainly never anger, which is probably because I have a Graduate degree in Professional Writing and only appreciate or react to good writing.

@Metaphysician Undercover

I’m only taking about one principle, and you keep talking about your definition of what is “greater”, and I am correcting your definition because I provided the principle not you.

I’m repeating myself because you’re repeatedly holding up quantity for me to look at as a greater thing when quantity is not part of the principle, other than calling the extra element of superior quality an added element.

Get your own logical metaphysical principle.

The one I gave to you is elegant, logical, and real, not some intellectual rambling that may or may not provide the answer to how life and thought came to be on a pile of rocks.

What you should be doing is looking to science to see if it supports the principle, not trying to make it your own.

Science supports it everywhere, but scientists refuse to broaden their parameters beyond the second degree of abstraction, mathematics (like you are doing postulating quantity instead of quality), to include the philosophical science of Logic.

You and most of the posters here have a failure of imagination.

180 just called the principle “woo”, the go to skeptic talking point of Internet trolls.

Einstein said that it was his imagination that moved him to his theories more than his mathematics did.

That’s why he became “Einstein” and not just a face in a crowd of other scientists.

There are a couple of posters here who readily appreciated the principle and welcomed it into their thinking like they were waiting for it.

These posters have not destroyed their imaginations from a bombardment of superficial opinionated thoughts shot out of ego and the worship of mathematics.

It doesn’t seem you’re ever going to appreciate anything other than what you have thought up yourself, even if another Einstein showed up.

Too bad.

@Metaphysician Undercover

I already posted that a greater thing has an extra element, a qualitatively extra element.

You posted an example of more of the same element, which is simply quantitative.

So your example failed to see the importance of quality, and replaced quality with quantity, making quantity equal to or better than quality.

Look at your example and mine for what I’m saying, not a word I chose to use.

@Manuel

You don’t have to read back too far to get answers to most of your questions.

@Janus

You’re trolling me.

The relationship between Metaphysics and Epistemology is a fine distinction.

Equating Metaphysics with Revelation is idiotic.

And any logical principle is a metaphysical principle.

Metaphysics is a particular science.

To be metaphysical means to be outside the realms of the senses.

@Garrett Travers

I honestly didn’t think I could enjoy anything you wrote, but I actually enjoyed the whole thing.

If you ever want to hear about what happens when we challenge Jesus’ promises through real sacrifice, instead of giving up on him, I have a story to tell you.

For now, I’ll just say … holy shit, the stories are all true!

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.

@Philosophim

You're doing that Internet trolling thing.

Seeking to get praise by faceless people on the Internet would be pathological and stupid.

Figuring "everything out" is not the same thing as figuring "something out".

Is there a difference between a skeptic with a philosophy hobby and an academic with a Philosophy degree? And would the academic find it very difficult to read the thoughts of the skeptic because he overcame the errors in the skeptic's thinking long ago?

And can there not be threads on this forum where only persons interested in learning something should go and learn something?

I was never a fan of everyone getting a trophy, because that would not help us as a human community put each person in their proper places.

The great philosophers distinguished between opinion and knowledge.

Today's thinkers mostly don't.

@Garrett Travers

All your answers are dependent upon measurements and physical phenomenon.

You can't measure that two contradictory statements in the same sentence can both be true, but they can't.

I asked you about "powers" we possess, and you equated each power with the "seat" for that power.

A "seat" of a power is not equal to the power. No one says I brained of you today. I heart you very much.

You do not ponder a divine God, the greatest being we can comprehend. But only such a being could be responsible for the powers we possess. And he seats these divine powers in our physical bodies. And there is no evidence that our physical bodies could be capable of evolving into creators of these powers.

The physical universe, no matter how complex it can get in our heads, cannot be the author of thought itself, only the seat for thoughts to be part of a mindless physical universe.

You do not know the difference between the nature of a thing and a thing in action.

And you look for "evidence" in the second degree of abstraction when there is a higher third degree of abstraction.

You are a materialist. And materialists have always been around.

You have no real answers to human existence or even existence itself, only to physical realities that are already up and running.

As a philosopher, you have created a world for yourself tethered to mathematics and machinery, and you feel it was brilliant on your part to do so. It wasn't, and never has been.

And if there was an atheist charity coalition, it would consist of three guys in a basement passing out a dozen turkey dinners on Thanksgiving.

So you stop it.

@Philosophim

Debates are okay.

You know what I like better?

Running into an amazing person who has spent a lifetime becoming skilled in something.

And I have met and appreciated many such persons.

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.

I do not think that it is different at all when we meet a person who has become very experienced intellectually or spiritually.

It's not insignificant that no person here so far has been curious about monastic life after meeting a person who lived in a monastery.

@Metaphysician Undercover

You have held up quantitative as equal to or better than qualitative. I don't think it can be.

We have different notions of what it is to have being, which is one of Philosophy's oldest debates.

Plato said that being is the quality and shape of a thing.

I have always held that the quality of a thing is the best way to judge a thing.

Using your example, for a thing to exist for a long time and not experience that it is existing for a long time is far less of an existence than for a thing to live for a moment and experience that it is living for only a moment.

The equaling of quantitative with qualitative seems to be a modern phenomenon.

We live on a beautiful blue and green planet teeming with an amazing biosphere. Earth is a living miracle set within a lifeless and uninhabitable universe.

But so many of today's "thinkers" are more in awe of the vast size of our universe, even calling Earth a small insignificant planet that is probably one of many living planets.

I don't see how the quantity of a thing is anything else than more of the same thing.

@Garrett Travers

So "Human Consciousness" is equal to the physical brain that dies at our death?

A thought is simply a chemical reaction?

The love we feel for our family is just a physical phenomenon?

A person born with a brain injury and never understands themselves or anything else is just a shit-out-of-luck person?

A human being at his or her death is the same thing as the snuffing out of a candle?

All the people throughout the history of humanity who have claimed to know and love God were absolutely delusional?

And you know all this because you are a truly amazing fellow who is highly respected and who inspires everyone by his example to become another amazing human being like yourself?

Or are you just an opinionated bigmouth in love with the thoughts bouncing off the top of his own head?

@Philosophim

Thanks for the welcome.

The answers to your questions are right on this last page.

And atoms and molecules are made of the same stuff. There is nothing in a molecule that is an extra element from an atom, like ice cubes are not greater than water, just frozen water.

But the first ancient bacteria was greater than the dead primordial soup it was swimming in because it possessed the quality of being a living being, which is not simply a more complex dead object.

@Srap Tasmaner

Your post demands a lot of thought.

See if some of my recent answers answered some of your questions.

I’ll get back to you when I can do it well enough.

@emancipate

For only me?

Who is the spokesperson for reality?

My dog Luna?

T Clark, a photon "particle" has no mass.

@emancipate

Light has zero mass.

Matter has mass.

How much mass matter has doesn't matter when judging it to be greater than light.

That matter has mass and light doesn't is a "qualitative" difference.

Okay, let me clarify what makes a thing "greater" than another thing. And this clarification is not my clarification, but something known for centuries by all the greatest thinkers humanity has produced.

First, one must have in his or her mind an integral understanding of what makes up a thing -- its elements. And I don't mean its atomic number.

A living thing and a material object both have matter and take up space. But a living thing has an extra element, and not simply a quantitatively extra element but a qualitatively extra element. A living thing is alive. So, when we place a living thing and a material object before us, and as the only spokespersons for reality, we can proclaim with absolute certitude that a living thing is greater than a material object.

Light and matter both emit electromagnetic waves. But matter has the extra element of mass. So, we can also proclaim with absolute certitude that matter is greater than light.

And so on ...

And ...

When something is "more complex" than another thing, but actually the same thing with no extra element to it, it is not a "greater" thing than its simpler counterpart.

I apologize for being "vague" about lesser and greater things. But I was so because I took for granted that people on a philosophy forum had learned and incorporated into his or her thinking this basic tenet of philosophy.

You know, today's thinkers are very unclever when they throw out the past and endorse modern skepticism without the firm foundation under their thinking that great thinkers before them have erected.

Ignorance of our past is just that -- ignorance.

@praxis

praxis, when I went into the monastery I threw in the garbage years of drawings and writings that I had done stoned.

But after stopping every passion for seven years, I left the monastery when I experienced what John of the Cross called “The Dark Night of the Soul”, came home, and began a normal life again.

Over time, my spirit rejuvenated and God drew close again. And then I realized that my time in the monastery was focused on me, not God and others.

Today I am successfully becoming more and more fully alive from the journey away from self-love and towards love of God and others.

And this journey is not a simple and easy one, or everyone would take it and get nothing from it.

Our life becomes as great as our experiences, not as we think it to be.

And it is the balancing of Yin and Yang that improves us, not the experience of one of them.

@unenlightened

unenlightened, “love” is not the greatest thing when there is a chance to disarm someone pointing a gun at your head.

Singing kumbaya all day is not what a great lover does.

Laying down her life for another is.

@emancipate

emancipate, to ask a question that has already been answered is kinda dumb.

Did you not read my long post about a “Baptism of Tears”?

If you’re truly interested in the quality of my experiences of God, starting there would be a better place than spurting out questions off the top of your head.

@Janus

Janus, a critical examination of my posts would reveal that I came here writing about a metaphysical principle and not about revelation, and that my subsequent posts about revelation were in response to questions that demanded such a response.

To claim to have critical thinking skills is the first claim of every skeptic, not a proven reality from simply dismissing everything that can’t be mathematically or visually confirmed.

Qanon’s mantra is “do the research”.

You have gravitated towards revelation in my posts for personal reasons, not because your critical thinking skills demanded it.

A basic metaphysical principle would be that “No two contradictory statements in the same sentence can both be true”.

Scientists couldn’t function without it.

But there are many more logical principles of ever-increasing elegance. A truly disciplined and talented intellect would be on the search for them, and would step by step from the most basic to the most elegant discover them.

When G. K. Chesterton became a scholastically trained academic, he said that doing so did not teach him what to think but how to think.

Today’s thinkers don’t even know the difference.

And until a person firstly does a line by line disciplined and talented walkthrough of Aristotle’s “Metaphysics”, that person will not have taken even the first step towards a true ability to think from the most basic to the most high levels.

Today’s “critical thinkers” don’t even talk a good game.

@Joshs

See, Joshs?

Srap, your diatribe displays an incredible lack of imagination.

It’s obvious to me that why I came here isn’t really important when compared to where here is.

Your view of this philosophy forum is more like it’s a treehouse and I’m a new kid from another neighborhood who hasn’t taken the secret vow yet.

I provided you a metaphysical principle and claimed it is extremely important in understanding the evolution we know took place on our planet. And you, a moderator, focused on the single sentence where I said I discovered it. But I also said I spent years learning to understand it. And I also asked your treehouse friends to ponder it and see what they think.

And I ended with that I was looking forward to further discussions.

But now you’re telling me I needed to first earn the right to take your secret vow.

Change the name of the forum. You don’t deserve it.

MU, I explained the principle step by step showing that I understand it very well. You ignored these steps, Now you’re accusing me of just repeating it from someone else.

And, no, the last thing I expect is you to readily understand such an elegant principle. You have given me no reason to, no matter how many questions you ask and consider on point when they’re not.

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

Add to this the basic ego problems that stop a person from honestly expecting to learn anything.

Your questions haven’t been about the principle but about your ideas.

Be honest. You didn’t ponder it at all, but simply rushed into the first thoughts off the top of your head.

@Tom Storm

Sounds good, Tom. Anytime you have an idea you want to hash out or see something going on here, just chime in.

It is said that the best apology is changed behavior. You seem to know that.

@Joshs

Joshs, I am actually quite a veteran of forums such as this. Sam Harris has two forums, Project Reason & Sam Harris, that I spent many years on. So, I am coming from a position of kinda knowing who's who pretty quickly. And there are posters here who truly just want to derail my posts or try to get a rise out of me, all because I'm not the "theist" they can push around with the same talking points they have compiled for years.

You and some others are not such persons and I have not treated you so.

And it's really only you and some others that I am hoping for good conversations with.

I may be wrong, but I truly believe that a vast many of forum regulars on any forum are only there to write their thoughts and then read them back to themselves.

Thanks for your help. I will try more. But keep your eye on what I often come up against.

@praxis

praxis, it's honestly hard to understand what you write.

If you're stoned on weed, that would be quite disrespectful to anyone taking the time to read what it is you write.

I sold tons of weed and smoked it for years. But 25 years ago I put it down out of respect for myself and everyone around me. I have five grandchildren who have never seen me high because I have never been high since they were born.

And if you're not stoned I stand corrected.

"You keep mentioning your credentials and vast mystical experience and in doing so it appears as though being seen as an authority is very important to you. May I ask why that is so important?"

praxis wrote this, and then feigned surprise when I "took that personally".

I think it would be a good practice around here to be a bit more honest with yourselves, and each other.

I've been on many forums, and this one has gathered the same stinky moss.

@Hanover

I figured it out. Thanks for your help.

@Srap Tasmaner

Srap, yesterday you asked me a question about how I discovered the principle. I took the time to answer you. It was a respectful and sincere answer, right?

But what did you do? Nothing. No further communication. Just silence.

And now you come back to my thread to add some cocky quip to entertain your "friends".

Yes, Mr. Moderator, I'm the only asshole around here.

@Bret Bernhoft

Bret, I forgot to respond to you. You're a rare bird to have understood and appreciated the principle.

Thanks for that.

T Clark, now go back and copy the sentences from your "friends" that prompted these responses, which you dishonestly edited to your own benefit and the benefit of your "friends".

You won't.

Look at any thread on this forum and you will find a back and forth of personal attacks. I just did. So why are you just concerned about my thread?


Wait a minute ... you're the idiot who said I was "itching to start a fight" after my very first post because I included the metaphysical principle in it. So, you saw me as your enemy from the very beginning and never for a moment even tried to understand what I was saying, and now you're trying to justify your first impression.

What a mope ...

I think the question of how Greek Philosophy gave to Christianity its intellectual foundation is a good one.

Jesus was a carpenter, not an academic.

The Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation shows the influence of Greek Philosophy. Revelation even states that John lived on the Greek island of Patmos.

Paul was the academic mostly responsible for Greek Philosophy influencing Christianity at its very beginning. And the Christian Apologists from the first century onward were highly influenced by Greek Philosophy.

unenlightened, you haven't really read through the thread, have you? For if you had, you would probably judge me to be respectful for most of the time.

And, of course, like all forum regulars on every forum on the Internet, you cannot see the disrespect in your faceless "friends".

And where do you think you are? I wrote on this "Philosophy" forum an elegantly simple metaphysical principle that couldn't have been received with more ignorance or ad hominem.

Even you came to this thread and looked at me instead of the principle.

No. Creating a great forum on the Internet is far from a reality. It always becomes home to wannabe know-it-alls.

praxis, how many times have you told others that God doesn't exist? What are your credentials for doing so? Did you spend five years in a monastery asking God to show up and he didn't? Or did you come up with God not existing sitting on your toilet?

And if you were truly intelligent, you would have determined by now that I'm a lot smarter than some fool asking me a loaded question.

You don't even know what a scholastically trained academic is, do you?

javi, God is the highest mountain I climb, not the rocks along the way.

All my concerns down here don’t go away because I can see the mountain top.

Joshs, that was a really great theological and philosophical movement. Kierkegaard was a mystic who arrived at many of the same places I did by taking the same route I did.

My favorite period is the middle of the 20th century, for that is when science entered the equation. Read Pierre Lecomte du Nouy, “Human Destiny”. He’s the scientist who worked out the timing of a dead body through blood coagulation. He roots his philosophy and theology in science.