Im confused by what Kant means when he says noumena is not "OF anything". My way of understanding Kant might be influenced by what I read from Heidegger on him, but I thought "thing-in-itself", "noumena", and "phenomena" are just different ways we perceive objects. The word "noumena" originally meant "that which is thought" and it seemed to me Kant choose this for a reason. Also Wikipedia says Kant referred to "the-thing-in-itself" as a transcendental object although "transcendental" refered to the structures of the mind elsewhere in CPR

When it comes to God telling Moses that his people would rebel, couldn't Moses go tell them what God said and change their minds?

There are two schools of thought in Christianity about how God knows everything. There are the Molinists (I think they are called Armenians in Protestantism) and compatabilists (Augustine, Aquinas)

Molinism says that God knows what you would do in every possible situation you could be put in and God puts our lives and choices together to form "history". Now I think the Molinist position is illogical. I don't think there is some foggy region where all our potential choices for every situation reside. Acts are existential realities. They exist only when the choices are made. Would not we be morally responsible for every situational choices that resides in this region of potentiality? If not, why not. It seems clear that Molinism blurs the reality of choice making itself. If you were not put into a certain situation, God couldn't know what you existentially would do. Unless the other theory its true:

Compatibilism, to me, seems like a possible philosophical option. I can't prove that some force (energy, grace, or whatever) can infallibly guarantee, with not violating the freedom of will, that a choice will be made in a specific way. I can't prove that it's possible and I can't prove it's not possible. Daniel Dennett has a brief video on youtube explaining why so many philosophers are compatabilists. It clears up confusion in a lot of areas. HOWEVER, if you are a theist and believe in compatialism, doesn't this mean that God could have saved everyone through his grace and that he must desire people to go to hell? This is a big problem for Christians, but I am not a Christian so I'll leave this to them to explain

My friend Alex told me today that in his opinion "Christianity was the art of religion, Judaism was the origin of religion, Hinduism was the science of religion, Buddhism was the absence of religion, and Islam was the death of religion". I thought that was rather interesting. He didn't mention ancient American religions though. When you think about the clash of cultures that happened when Christianity met the native Americans, it makes sense that the whites didn't like the native American idea of the earth being alive and filled with spirit (some who were good, some who were bad) because the Christians were even more about "over the rainbow" than of the hearth (and they were very much family people). This "not of this world" aspect of Christianity does seem to make it the art of religion because it's hard to see this world as perfect. And certainly Christianity has made some great art. Interestingly the southern neighbors of the North American natives had religious ideas similar to the Hindus (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GjGMWBWWKM) and the Hindus as well believed their jungles and the world to be filled with gods and demons. My friend is a yoga instructor and I think he regards the meditative practices of Hinduism to be, to an extent, scientific, which is why he classified Hinduism that way. Now Buddhism (the forms of it that don't focus on gods) seems very Kantian to me. We were talking about antimonies above in this thread and you can think of them as koans. For Kant, space and time are ourselves, and the objects presented to us in them are not things in themselves, nor are they us. So what are they? Kant never really makes that clear, and I think a Buddhist would take it as a splendid example of emptiness.

Judaism is not really the origin of religion however. John Paul II said in one of his books "The indigenous peoples of Australia boast a history tens of thousands of years old, and their ethnic and religious tradition is older than that of Abraham and Moses." That leaves Islam as the "death of religion". I think that all depends on who keeps power within that religion

Other sites have functions that hide any user's posts from your sight on the site if you choose. This site does not. — god must be atheist

Years ago I was on a religious site that had that option

I don't know why he misrepresented the specific questions I was asking in such a ridiculous and demeaning way

I presented a specific argument about dropping apples on the North and South pole. This is a philosophy forum and I most read philosophy, so it's ok to ask general physics questions when they come up. The link I cited mentioned particles from outer space which react to the earth as if it was flat. These where specific questions I was interested in.

Thanks. I've never taken a physics class before. Banno get's haughty all the time on this forum

Since this thread has slowed down, I wanted to try to jump in here quickly. The following video has much to add to my question here, so watch it if your interested. It's ten minutes only:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNqNnUJVcVs

Although I haven't read Einstein say this in words, I have heard all over the place that he thought the earth moves up towards an object when the object appears to fall. Now if the world is round and someone drops an apple on the North pole and someone drops an apple on the South pole, which way will the earth move? It doesn't make sense. If the earth was an accelerating disk, this actually would make sense however. Is the world a disk that sometimes acts as a sphere, or it is sphere that sometimes acts like a disk, or is it neither or both? Modern science seems to get stranger and stranger as time moves on and it's hard for us lay people to know what to think about material realism anymore

If worship means "giving your all" to someone, I can understand doing this with a human. I can even understand shutting off the mind and regarding an animal or material object as God. I was Catholic from age 8-17 and thought those 9 years that the bread at Mass was really Jesus. It eventually revealed itself as just a dream

The four antimonies are

1) that space and time must be infinite and finite in their directions. Hawking showed how time could start itself and there are many theories of space that use multiple dimensions that avoid Kant's arguments

2) that space is infinite and finite at the same time. I've struggled with this, but they say
calculus now solves this

3) that everything is determined, yet we have free will. Compatibilist theories have been around since Augustine, but newer thinkers give more detail on it than he did (Dennett comes to mind)

4) that the world needs a God and doesn't need a God. This one, well, will always be subject to debate, although Edward Feser claimed he solved it lol

Interestingly, Nietzsche wrote that Kant has "theologian blood" in him. He felt that Kant was afraid of atheist attacks on Christianity and wanted to guard the general thesis of his religion from rebuttal

Well I know that Kant thought his four puzzles could not be solved. That's what was wrong with his system and it took latter thinkers to find answers to them. If you wish to discuss them here, this thread isn't a bad place for that..

God really may be too real to be perfect. That's a great observation. But I don't really think in terms of worship. I'm not sure I can even understand what that means. The concept of unity, however, of every thing is an idea someone can use with meditation, light drugs like marijuana or nicotine, or just a good book on mysticism in order to gain a sense of spirituality about one's life.

I do not know how to process the idea of a savior. With regard to morality I still think in Catholic terms. I didn't believe in God until I was 8 and beginning Catholic homeschooling. I was in essence an atheist by the time I turned 18. Thoughts of a God "out there" and "above me" I find strange and impossible to process, so once people say someone within this "out there and above you" Godhead became a home sapein and died for my sake, all I can do is scratch my head. If I put it in the mythical categories of my mind, those ideas can be useful but I doubt I believe them in the same way you do. The problem in theology and to an extent philosophy is that too often people are not using the same ideas although they are using the same words in the conversation. The last time I was read Spinoza it seemed like he was saying God is in no way "out there" but solely and completely inside consciousness and created and continues to create creation solely and entirely through us (which btw organically led to Kant). Logical thoughts are spiritual and they are like a consummation whenever I have them, which is why I read philosophy. That's where I will spend my time

Considering that Einstein thought we were made of matter and energy, his views of religion may well be in accord with what I've been saying:
https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/07/11/do-scientists-pray-einstein-letter-science-religion/?fbclid=IwAR0SL0xC4gEkquoHxpaCpq88toObqK4B9YsyHMJEb3Pe3NMFtI3QD8QmXVs

I would rather dialogue with Christians though. There are things I can learn and debating them hasn't really gotten anywhere I've noticed. According to Jain philosophy there are seven things that could be said about a claim:

Arguably it (that is, some thing) exists.
Arguably it does not exist
Arguably it both exists and doesn't exist
Arguably nothing can be asserted about it
Arguably it exists and it is non-assertible
Arguably it doesn't exist, and it is non-assertible
Finally, arguably it exists, it doesn't exist, and it is non-assertible

This is a system that was set up to help show that there is some truth in most religions and philosophies, and uses these 7-tier logic to say that there are shades of truth everywhere. This doesn't deny distortion of truth is possible, but it helps lead the way to more mutual understanding. They were a more peaceful religion compared to other faiths in the past.

Finally, you might consider this theory about how science sees the origin of the universe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology

what spurred the activity in the first place is just not even in the picture? — Outlander

Fitche, Schelling, and Hegel have given me a new outtake on God. Materialism was fine for a while (a long time actually), but it leads to despair. The way I saw God before was as if he was an abstraction very foreign to me. Now what spurred the activity of the universe? Schelling speculated matter and space expand (Big Bang?), and thus in an instant create time and light (which are contractions). I personally like this aesthetic of the German Romantics. Time happens immediately with the expansion of matter. Matter needs time and makes what it needs as it expands. It's all simultaneous. This theory makes the world self-consistent in itself in the sense that science could explain the origin of everything using it's methods alone. But the full explanation of reality must be in God who is embedded in everything and even closer to me than I am to myself because he is all around me, and is therefore (in a sense) even more myself than I am myself. The last part really helps me spiritually, although it is a different way from traditional Christianity. Schelling said reason contracts the emotions into focus, but love itself expands. This reaching out with love is something I want to work on in my relationship with God. Although the relationship with God seems paradoxical in the way I've explained it, I don't want it just to just reason about him. I desire spiritual development

Hegel (whom I haven't mentioned yet) was a liberal Lutheran and was called by a famous German neo-Hegelian as the "Protestant Aquinas". He really was very logical like Aquinas but was very influenced by mysticism since a very young age as well. Is his work The Philosophy of Nature he writes "the Idea posits itself as that which is in itself; or, what is the same thing, it goes into itself out of that immediacy and externality which is death in order to go into itself" . This is about the creation of the world. The divine Idea unfolds and dies in order to become the Absolute. Absolutely speaking God cannot change, but there is much in mysticism that goes beyond rational thought. It cannot contradict rational thought because truth accords with truth, but Hegel throughout his works is constantly uniting rational argument with mystical insight in order to form a system of thought that satisfied our intuitions that there is more than matter in existence. I love this theology. Obedience has its place, but it's often misused by Christians, and the idealist emphasis becoming free. Fitche had beautiful things to say about this

Christians are usually trapped by what Jungian psychology calls the "archetype of the common man". This stunts to an extent spiritual progress and leads to delusions (like believing Jesus is in communion). Jung himself thought God was within us and this is in line with the best mystical poetry in humanities's history. My theory does do what Christians call "Satanic". I invert the roles of divinity and humanity (ego) and because of logical reasons put humanity on top of its ground (God) and say humanity can even transcend the goodness of divinity. That acquired goodness is superior to eternally possessed goodness is my axiom and I think it's pretty obvious. How I see it, Christians worship an "I am which just Is", which is idolatry. I did say we commune with our sacred Source, but we don't put actions we do which require virtue below this ground. We build on it

There are higher states of thinking than our normal consciousness. Terminology can be rather fluid in any language. However Buddhists speak of satori as enlightement and the Nirvana as surpassing them all. The equivalent to nirvana in Hinduism is samadhi, but since they believe there is substantial good beyond the emptiness of nirvana, they claim they have found an even higher state: moksa. By integrating our sacred natures with our Egos we can become exactly what Christians say Jesus is, perfect God and perfect man. That is the end result of the universe

It could be said that the Christian God did face infinite pain and conquered in Jesus. This theology has a flaw though. This didn't change God in himself and the Father and Spirit did not go through the experience. God in their sense never faced infinite pain in its nature or in it full will in order to become ultimately perfect. So their God is limited. I do believe the theistic God is real but it is in our divine core. It is limited still, but we can use our Egos to make virtue and practice morals in the face of difficulty and add that greater perfection to the limited but in a way infinite perfection of our Atman/Brahmin. Christians may say with Descartes that will is infinite and that is no upper limit to how good we can be. But the whole system is skewed. You have possessed goodness at the top as greater than goodness gained in adversity. In the systems of German idealism, we don't have the limit of never having God's nature and we can actually add greater superabundance of goodness to this infinity. Remember to keep in mind here there are many types of infinity

You say I don't know what language is. I say you don't know what an argument is. This conversation is over. Thanks for your imput

I already went over the argument in detail. You don't understand it. That's a lack in your faculty, not mine

You have absolutely no philosophical abilities so I don't know why you are even on this forum. You are also very immature in how you avoid questions. It's been like arguing with the raging hormones of a teenager

What's your excuse for wanting to kill babies? Are you an abortion doctor? Do you want to be one? Would you be one? Or are you just going to let other people do the dirty work?

The great but imperfect Crowley said in his Confessions:

“I consider criminal abortion [all abortion was criminal back then] in any circumstances whatsoever as one of the foulest kinds of murder. Apart from anything else, it nearly always ruins the
health of the woman, when it fails to kill her. The vigour of my views on this point strengthens
my general attitude on the question of sexual freedom. I believe that very few women, left to
themselves, would be so vile as to commit this sin against the Holy Ghost; to thwart the deepest instincts of nature in the risk of health and Life, to say nothing of imprisonment. Yet criminal abortion is one of the commonest of crimes and one most generally condoned by what I must paradoxically call secret public opinion .And the reason is that our social system makes it shameful and punishable by poverty for a woman to do what evolution has spent ages in constructing her to do, save under conditions with which the vast majority of women cannot possibly comply. The remedy lies entirely with public opinion. Let motherhood be recognized as honourable in itself, and even the pressure of poverty would not prevent
any but a few degenerate women, with perverse appetites for pleasure, from fulfilling their function.
In the case of such it would indeed be better that they and their children perish."

We need to eradicate poverty to help resolve this issue. Abortion is the worst kind of second degree murder because you are deliberately stopping a heart beat, killing brain waves, and destroying an organism that very well could be a full human being. No linguistic gymnastics can get you out of this. See you on another thread

There is no point in debating this issue with people who both have no genuine human emotions in the issue and who have no philosophical ability. I can tell from what people say on here whether they have or even can read a work in ontology and understand it. Saying this comes down to terminology is pure sophistry and reveals a mind that cant think philosophically and also doesn t really care about rational ethics at all

This conversation is disturbing. I'd rather not carry on

Possibly a baby. If your not comfortable caring out an abortion yourself, you probably shouldn't be defending it on the internet

You're now just trying not to see the truth. What rights does a fetus have? The right not to be killed for starters. It's based on their biology. It's probably pointless trying to reason with you. You desire to damn yourself, whatever that means

Because in all reasonableness a fetus might be a human being, the mother has no abortion rights. This is as good an argument as you will find in philosophy. You don't bury someone who might still be alive and although this Old West example certainly is a different situation from abortion, the core principle applies to abortion. You don't kill a being that in all reasonableness might be a human being.

Your position is obviously that abortion is a terrible evil to be rooted out at all costs, but I wonder why you think this will result in a better world for anyone. — Echarmion

First, the word female is a beautiful word. I don't see the problem there. Second, I actually supported Biden because the good of the whole community is more important than the loss of fewer lives. No one knows what trouble Trump could have gotten us into. It was said earlier that "maybe" I'm a robot and I responded that if we are just going to make crazy shit up than why not say slavery is ok. With regard to abortion, we clearly don't have to keep a thumb alive if it's cut off in an accident. However you have to use common sense when it comes to morality. Otherwise all kinds of evils become permissible. A fetus is not a cyst because a cyst never comes a full grown baby. Fetuses in the womb have been known to suck their thumbs, just like new borns. The women has no abortion rights and we don't balance the mother's "rights" with those of the fetus because the mother should just be a mother. They have no right to kill their offspring. Embryology has shown that fetuses have many characteristics of a human, and you cannot prove it's not a full human person. The Confederates argued that they needed to balance the needs of the blacks with the "needs" of the whites in the latters' desire for a segregated "traditional" culture. Abortion is the new slavery. It is the moral issue of the times, as slavery was then. Abortion, just like slavery, does not respect everyone and gives one group of people rights over others. If women don't want to get pregnant, then grow up and go become a nun or use birth control or whatever. Take responsibility for your actions. Of course I know that blacks are full human, but fetuses might be too. It's unbelievable that someone would be okay killing something that very well could be a baby. In one's mother's womb should be the safest place in the world. Many pro-choice people are for animal rights, but they show more respect for a gibbon than for a human fetus. In fact they treat fetuses with squeamishness and fear. It's totally lame and indefensible.

You are the one claiming that motherhood starts at birth. I have a much more respectful and wholesome view of pregnancy. A pregnant women is a mother, and females know this too. I know life can be hard, but you just don't care if something that might be a full human is killed. You are willing to publically defend it. I know I'm not a robot because only I make my decisions. If we are going down that sceptical rabbit hole, i ask you to prove Jews and blacks are equal to whites and shouldn't be enslaved. What's your evidence and PROOF that slavery isn't good for them. I respect life and other people. You are willing to use doubt to take life (even up to birth?)

Fetuses are know to laugh, cry, smile, and show other emotions. Sometimes they even touch themselves in some first primitive experience of sexuality. The pro-choice people, through completely selfish emotions arguments, claim they know for sure this isn't a human being. They say in New York they know for sure there is no human being until the first breath is breathed, but again with no evidence. Common sense obviously tells us to take the safer route and consider them all humans

I just finished reading the link. I hadn't read the book in awhile but that was one of my favorite parts of it. Thanks for the thread

You're a complete sophist dude, to put it kindly. Parental rights might be interpreted however the Supreme Court wants considering they consider the Constitution to evolve. You don't have a shred of evidence a fetus is not a full human because it's fucking obvious it could be. Your saying there is no possibility whatsoever that a fetus with brain waves and a heart could be a full human? Once you admit that this is possible, you can see that abortion is evil, unless you're a complete idiot

This is a great subject. Some do say everything minus notta is from our choice, everything from our smells to our hair color. Those who believed skulls showed the character still blamed people for their characters, so they too at least implicitly thought we choose our facial and head structures. It makes it easier to judge people this way, but Hegel rejects this and says our character is freedom expressed through the body we happen to embody

Hegel believed the human side of someone can be known by their body but not that specific structures necessarily indicate a certain temperament

I don't know what you mean by "concluding necessity would be ok"

Suppose the Supreme Court said you can kill your born child before it can recognize itself and argued that self recognision is the test of personhood. There is such a thing a the Mirror Phase in a child if you didn't know. In New York you can kill a baby seconds before it's born and not afterwards. What's really the difference? What this boils down to people not giving an F about anything but sexual freedom. They don't care about motherhood, they don't care about pregnancy, and they really don't care about sexuality. They demean the whole subject in the name of "freedom"

As those acts are reflected which makes sense when talking morals. Deducing potential would be false, concluding necessity would be okay. — Heiko

What do you mean