Thinking higher thoughts (not focusing on chemicals for example) is good is it leads to character building. But nobody really knowns what "God" is so atheists can sometimes be the greatest believers of them all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch-DliKSGu0

So you are saying the cardinality vs density distinction applies in geometry?

I think there are too many problems with abstract geometry in this regard. I have always wonder if I could go off in one direction in space forever until a friend told me I would simply return to where I started. This blow my mind. Then recently I realized this applies too, perhaps, to the infinite divisibility thing. If I divide an object too much I will come back to the surface area. This makes sense to me as a looped curve

First, if you divide something infinitely, infinite parts separate and fall about from each other. Second, Cantor said all geometric objects have the same size infinity of these parts

Perhaps more modern mathematics has improved on Cantor. I've started to think there is no infinite division possible in geometry, but that objects turns back on itself and remains finite in every respect. I wish I new more about the technical aspects of this but I don't

If Heidegger believed that love was ontic and anxiety was ontological, than I think he has it backwards, although I don't think he says this. Intentionality always has to be activated by love of something in some sense. You can't just have will power and anxiety. You would be crippled instantly. And Heidegger doesn't just use the word "care" but says over and over again that man takes care of the world, and I think he would say the world takes care of him too. As I see it, being is man and time is spiritual love. But this is my first impression of the book. It's the only one I've read by him

Well if matter is infinitely divisible than the parts divided go on forever. I don't know how the proof goes but Cantor proved that any size geometric object has the same infinity of parts as any other. This is a very counter intuitive area of study

Euclidean geometry assumes that planes are infinitely divisible so there is no end to how many points and lines can be on it. Oddly, Cantor showed that all planes have the same infinity of points if they are truly infinitely divisible. Therefore infinity is defined in an odd sense in mathematics. A sphere within a sphere has the same infinity of area as the one that contains it. They both never end in what can be measured and their areas have an uncountable infinity as their limit. This is a very difficult subject

Maybe the "agent" gave us dreams

The

I've read it twice and the OP is not very clear and probably not very good as an argument. Also, why can't you control your emotions in discussions.

I reread the OP for a second time and he seems to be arguing that dreaming the world into existence is impossible because we can connect logical connections in the world

Where's the argument that matter is not mighty enough in its substance to provide perception once the matter rolls, meshes, and forms randomly into the proper structure? We know what a pie is like an animal knows what meat is. Is your argument that abstract thinking itself can't come from matter? That's what I thought the OP was about at first

Well we might not understand what matter is so we can't know whether we think with it or something else. The idea of soul you have in your consciousness might be the proper thought with regard to matter and your brain. It is possible we get fooled by these ideas. Logic might apply to the universe but our logic might not because we might assign ideas of mind to something outside matter when it really springs from matter. I don't think it's a very important issue in the context it's often put in.

I was pointing out that you need to put something in the place of matter as causing sensations and that your idea of God does not work in this regard. If you have another explanation in regard to epistemology do offer it

Based on what Banno points out and what you've said elsewhere, you don't have an answer to the problem of pain because God can do all evil as well as good. So he can fool us all he wants, making us confused and miserable. So if matter alone is not the explanation for perception, we can also say a God that that is not bound by rules is not the answer either.

https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333?fbclid=IwAR3olPEM0IJU153GNvvZ5ktHV32cbFql_2MOz3IeiNnKh5LuSnxVydk9RJE

A liberal friend of mind sent this to me, calling it malarkey. There is a struggle in the US between traditional white people and non-white Americans and their liberal white friends. It's a power battle for the most part. It is almost as if a race war is underway or already here in a way. Everyone ideally should get equal privileges but this never seems to work out practically. People don't get along and people don't always know what is best for them. A lot of whites feel like they should be showed respect from non-whites and they don't want to deal with non-whites being all around them all the time. Non-whites like to get in the face of whites to make their presence known and this leads to conflict. It goes back to the foundation on this country and it is not an issue that can be settled by a debate

Nobody knows what the greater good is. Everyone has to guess. But governments are not going to listen to a poll on every issue that comes up. They are here to stay. Why do we have income tax in this country? Because the U.S. is a society. The rich use the roads and avenues of society like everyone else. Who runs society? Governments. So the powerful take from the rich and give to the non-starving. This is how humans act. Nature has a political dao. We separate kids from their parents when the parents do wrong to show the kids and the parents the might of the nation. Humans can't choose to act any way they want. Power and rights will always fight each other and nobody in the end knows where we will end up

Power is not bad. Politics is founded on it. Why can't a state secede in the US? Because the power of the feds will prevent it for the greater good. A person can't say "I paid for my property and now I secede from the city and nation with me and my family". The powers will stop him. If a state becomes powerful enough to secede then they have the right. In the Civil war the South said (essentially) "might makes right with slavery and secession" but the North proved them wrong. Are we slaves? In a sense. All a human deserves are fundamental needs and rights. Power limits this or rights become corrupt

I think that the world is never in a stable state, nor anything in it. Our thoughts make it seem stable (phenomenological thoughts) but when thoughts become more in tune with the world they become flux as well and you can act practically but become a relativist in ontology. That's my two cents

I've gone back and forth my whole life on how to understand God but saying you believe in God is good because this has been confirmed by lesser depression among religious people. Everybody has community, religious people speak something different

Atheists should speak that they believe in God and renew the world. The conflict between believers and atheists causes so much harm. You can still debate about Noah's ark, Mohammed sleeping with a nine year old, and all that. They need to stop defining themselves as disbelievers in God. What a relief it could be for them to say "ye I believe in God" but to know inside that they consider their conscience to be God. One thing prevents this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Pride

And read Critique of Practical Reason

2) is false. Ergo, 3 is false. 1) is true, and so is the conclusion. — god must be atheist

If you start calling God your conscience instead of fighting a phantom you could proclaim belief in God and atheism at the same time!

I only experience my own experiences and I can't find a way to understand how others think so I go about trying to "wing it" with life and philosophy.

I saw your thread btw. Interesting discussion

Everything (logic, religion, metaphysics, ect) is just a way of life. We are like people running on fire and everyone changes their minds many times in their lives

Jews themselves were persecuted in WWII, but, as you say, they are taking it out on other people. Blacks in America are taking out their anger by riots, and white conservatives condemn it. Yet Israel has done much worse damage in revenge and Foxnews and company supports it. Trump himself said that, when asked about Putin's crimes, "there is blood on our hands too"

Hamas targets civilians but, of course, the U.S. nuked two cities in order to get their way- Humans are like the "lower" animals when they are in a fight

Thanks for the thoughts. I'll just say someone who's mind is in constant flux cannot communicate his experience to someone who believes in absolute Truth

I think Jacobi referred to a "summersault of faith", which I thought was a poignant way to phrase it (did I spell that right lol)

I can't think of anything I can hold on to, consider, and judge to be certain. Life moves too fast, at least for me. But Aquinas's methods are ingenuous for giving one a mental feeling of truth and this helps people act morally and with kindness. A constant feeling of mental doubt is not good for the doubter or for anyone else I think, and too much philosophy likes to break down instead of building up. The Catholic Church has defined that judgment comes right after death and that you don't wait to go to heaven. In my understanding though, the general judgment and the private judgment are the same and the soul never is nor can be without the body. So there is no afterlife like atheists say OR there is no death (the dead body being a shadow of your new body in paradise)

This is why I don't think relativism refutes itself. Someone can think everything is relative and hold that belief on probable grounds, and that on probable grounds, to infinity and we don't understand infinity. Our bodies and everything is flux and we can't understand it. We are born to have faith, give mercy, and hope

I don't totally agree with you. I see no complete certainty in intellectual matters for us on earth. At the back of my mind I suspect it is all just matter that we know and think with. If I could prove spirituality it would be based on faith no more, right?

Aquinas says in Contra Gentile that stars, the moon, and the sun are unquantitative. He had very esoteric opinions on "heavenly bodies" as if they were Platonic Ideas instead of real matter. That's one of the reasons Galileo got in trouble when he used his telescope. People claim the telescopes were faulty, had dirt in them, or were instruments possessed by the devil

Yes. Ideas are always in flux but we go with the best probabilities as they present themselves to our souls

So for Aquinas substance comes out of matter by form and the appearance of substance is accidents? Then wouldn't essence, nature, and quiddity be just another word for the matter\form composition? There is another old Greek word used in this question to but I forget it

I don't think we can know anything for sure and on this Kant's position seems most accurate. But Hegel started with Kant but added Aristotle's and Aquinas's ideas as phenomenologically relevant to understanding Kant's. We can't stay in a world where we know nothing and Aquinas is a good start in believing again in knowledge

I've found that I've needed some spirituality in my life even though I've always talked about it a lot.

Philosophy for me is fun when it deals with things that are hard to grasp and impossible to know. I am my body but it changes matter all the time yet it's hard to posit an essence to it. Resurrection is being your body in heaven. I don't believe we can exist without our body

I agree with your distinctions. Kant said however that we can know phenomena as it presents or appears to us. The noumena is what is unknowable and Aquinas says somewhere that we can't fully understand things without thinking with the mind of God. So maybe they agree. Kant holds that senses are more known by intellect than intelligible objects are know by us. This leads him to discount all Aquinas's arguments for God and I agree with that. The form\matter distinction I think is important for understanding the ressurection of the body, although these are matters of faith in Kant's view, and in mine

1) you need a conscience to be good

2) God is your conscience

3) you need God to good

There are good people in the world.

Modern philosophy is sometimes about total skepticism of truth and so is like Buddhist practice except it doubts its way out of reality instead of doing it with meditation or yoga

But what if your body goes somewhere else when you die? Maybe the dead body is not your body in the sense that your new body is. Reincarnation happens when all the cells of your body are new. A resurrected body is the essence of your body as it passes through life and is in a new place. Think of Elijah on a chariot