They only claim to be theist. The human mind cannot believe in God without fooling itself. Everyone is at the core an atheist and in philosophy an agnostic

To believe in God is something that can't really be done. Derrida rightly points out that God is beyond reason so the best stance is atheism as the negative way way to knowledge. There is no belief in God that is real. Whether there is a God in the sense that there might be water on a planet is not a good (hypothetical) question

As Sartre says, we start with freedom (will) and end in "reason". Authenticity takes responsibility but too many look for reasons to justify their actions and God becomes their scapegoat. To those trying to become friends with the judge, it seems clear that he exists

Do you rule out a spaghetti monster who lives on the back of your head and only you can't see?

Do you rule out a rotting pile of spaghetti in another dimension?

An animist would regard himself humbly and learn from other species while seeing divineness in everything. But a human is not an inferior species a priori. It's about a balance of belief.

Humans are animals as well. If animism says a storm is equal to a baby they are insane and that is not religion. But animism can be salvaged by those who believe spirit is imbued in everything but had it's highest expression in the animal kingdom. If it has no hierarchy then it's just blind idolatry and is not cognitive. That's not a religion. But as in every religion on earth, members believe various things across a spectrum. You will find no a great amount of consistency on animism in the literature. But you have to separate the cognitive from the insane and savage parts

My point was if someone were to consider nature to be Divine it would be far easier to see divinity in animals then in the sun. The anthropologists I knew in college were far more interested in primate consciousness and how humans treated animals when the are regarded as divine then in the plants they ate. Worshipping a rock is old fashion idolatry. Trying to see divinity in animals is not.

I never said animism comes from the word "animals". I took Latin for years in my teens. Aside from that, look at Jainism. They believe the world is divine but worry about killing insects and not grass. There is a natural belief in humans that they and animals are above grass and rocks. So everything might be divine as Spinoza thought but we relate with conscious creators. Totems expressed how we are connected to animals and most reincarnation accounts say we can come back as an animal but not as a piece of iron. If animism is said to be that the world is divine and that alone, most religion would agree with it. But being social creatures we have to look at animism in how it acts. Sacrifices of animals is usually seen as more sacred then giving up a rock. The social element is important and if the river and your pet are divine a healthy religion is going to give more care and thought to the pet as it expresses the divine to us more clearly. It would be very hard to look at all the literature to see the percentage of religions in history that treat animals different from objects and ones which don't but nature worshippers are keen to see nature in its reality and humans and animals can offer far more wisdom to us than rocks. Again, look to how humans act, not to their general metaphysical scheme

If...

1) humans

2) animals

3) objects

..are all divine, there probably is a hierarchy among 1, 2, 3 such that you can feel more love from 1 over 2 and 2 over 3

An infinity of numbers does not prove an infinity in what's real but nor does it prove a highest being can't exist which was your point

What's your point?

TMF said there is no actual infinity in reality but God is not a numerical infinity so this doesn't apply to God I say in response.

There are:

1) actual infinity of things

2) abstract infinity of numbers

3) quasi-infinity of the past

4) essential nonnumerical infinity of the ground of being

I'm not sure reason can decide which of it's concepts must conform to reality is they are not processed through the senses

Aren't their people more often named after animals than objects? There is nothing that hasn't been worshipped, but I've read about Mongols believing their horses were gods. The Huns were accused of having sex with their horses and maybe this was an animist rite too. When all matter is Divine it seems to me human nature is then drawn to animals for an answer to life's questions, as if they had the wisdom we need. A rock might do this but it's less communicative

Relationship with animals is easier than with a stone so animists build totems and look into the eyes of animals to see their reflection

The ground of being is beyond number

TMF was saying in *reality* there is no actual infinity. I assume he knows we can think of infinity in terms of numbers

Anselm first claimed that the greatest idea must represent the greatest being by using a slight of hand but it was a meditative technique. Aquinas the rationalist easily disproved it but earlier objections didn't work. A perfect lion or island doesn't have to exist because it merely represents the highest idea. It being the highest idea was Anselm's contribution to philosophy by using it in that context. Descartes turned it into a modern argument by saying thoughts represent reality necessarily so since we have the perfect idea, as he thought, it must correspond to something otherwise the thought has no substance although any lesser ideas represent merely the highest

The ontological argument doesn't prove too much because it takes the maximum of good and puts it together, which might not be possible of course, but assuming its premise that we have the maximum idea it doesn't prove inadvertently that lesser things exist of which we have an idea. It says the maximum idea must have its natural correlate. Otherwise it is not the greatest being thought but an inferior idea. Kant separates the argument with a tactical move by saying whether God exists or not does not affect the perfection of the idea but Descartes would, and did, insist that the perfect idea cannot be in a mind unless it corresponded to a real being

I think animism actually regards animals as the highest expression of mother nature and holds them as God-like, hence the connections with environmental concerns

The brain is consciousness because you are a body. It is true we don't know exactly what a brain is and how much we construct reality, but neurology is the best science to understand the substance of consciousness. How could something "incorporeal" understand matter? If you set of consciousness as a realm above and beyond matter than you are denying the existence of the brain and dissociating somewhere else and calling this a realm beyond matter. How can anyone know what is beyond matter or that matter can't be conscious? Consciousness is the soul and it is dependent on neurons but it can read between the lines with images, poetry, and philosophy

Gravity is not a force so a gravity wave is ripples in spacetime

Consciousness is "for itself" and finds how to be "for others" as well, in his search for growth. His nature in itself is what is called Heaven, Nirvana, Dao, and Ash ect., consciousness being such a modern word. It's unfathomable because it's outside social language. Do we get lost in matter or in non-physical realms when we stray from our nature. No one can penetrate into such a question

What about the sin of piety?

You're a common idiot dude. I'm 35, I'm not a kid. You wouldn't have a chance first of all. And you say God is a finite mind with infinite power and thoughts. How does that lopsided picture work in your "mind"? And then you say this mind is Reason but can perform contradictions. So once again a guy or girl that doesn't give his name out is laughed off stage. Take a bow as you leave

If I cross from A to B there are infinite halves I have to cross. This is easy to prove. The mystery is that it is finite, not that there are infinite halves. The infinite halves divided have space between and have theie same size when together. And what is that size?

Reason can't perform a contradiction. That's against its nature

The lengths are still there. How many parts a thing has should finite but Aristotle says its infinite but only potentially so. A part of say a bicycle doesn't exist potentially however; the whole bike exists and all its parts. If it can be divided infinitely it has infinite spatial parts

Yes

Then all the parts are there unseparated. Now does an object have infinite unseparated parts

Does what can be parted exist before parting

I already refuted all you just said. It's like talking to a rock. If parts can be divided they are there

God can't be Reason if he can ACT a contradiction.

Yes, I do think he had an organic disease. His use of methal hydrate might have been an abuse for him though which could have weakened his mind. He might not have known he got syphillis and might have thought it was a consequence of his actions. He was either insane, saintly, or evil because what he said was unusually blunt yet profound at the same time

I feel that there is a large audience that will accept this, it being a numbers game after all, in a sort of truth by vote world. — FreeEmotion

Christians believe everyone is a bad person without Jesus. But maybe everyone is bad and turn to religion in order to feel better. Majority does not rule in philosophy and how it relates to religion. This forum, I believe, does not favor the majority in the debates that occur here. It is really easy to say "I like the Bible, it sounds so true" but every religion has members who feel the same about their books. See:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnJvuXpU6SU

One man's patterns are another persons nonsense. Why can't Christians just discuss this stuff with themselves? Why do they try to sell it to other people? If you want to evangelize why not talk only about your relationship with Jesus? You're going down the apologetic path yourself.

Nietzsche was a drug user. He took sedative pain killers because of pain in his abdomen

Your bare assertions are leading us nowhere. — aRealidealist

No it's just that I have been in so many discussions about Aristotle and Zeno that I have gotten bored of it, particularly since Aristotle was obviously wrong and yet people defend him. If a piece of matter is infinitely divisible it has infinite parts in actuality. Again, I've gotten bored of the subject. But it is obvious that if the whole is actual and it can be infinitely divided, the parts that would separate in the infinite division are really there when the whole is together and this is the key to understanding why you were wrong about Gabriel's horn. Whether there is anything infinite in nature is debatable, but in geometry and calculus and all that it is not. There is no clear answer about whether math applies perfectly to the real world

Thanks, good stuff for me to research. I think it goes to show that math, philosophy, and physics can never be separated

Thanks, peace