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@sadolite
Is gold money? If not then the intrinsic value (or lack thereof) of gold is not really what we are discussing.
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@Discipulus_Didicit
I believe that I am experiencing something even if that something turns out to be totally illusory.
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@EtrnlVw
Sorry it took me awhile to get back. Yes if the superstring hypothesis is correct then we are all composed of the same.eneegy. I am uncertain how this suggest a any conciousness that exists without matter ( a particular kind of energy) as every conciousness ever observed is connected to a brain made of matter and stops being observable if the brain in question is destroyed or ceases to function .
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@Tradesecret
I haven't been much on the boards lately and mostl6 just reading when I do but this caught my eye. You seem to be misunderstanding or perhaps just miscategorizing this argument. This argument does not bring us to the conclusion that no god(s) can exist but merely that certain proposed deities are logically inconsistent and that therefore these particular proposed deities are unlikely to exist. I personally do mot generally like the wprds.good and evil since they would seem to presuppose an objective moral standard that I do not believe exists but this particular chestnut is actually meant to illustrate how some theistic beliefs are logically inconsistent and has little to do with atheists as they do not propose any omniscient omnibenevolent being. It also has little or nothingvto do with theist, like polytheist witch, who do not propose that the gods they believe in are omniscient and omnibenevolent.
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@EtrnlVw
Wait a minute, now all the sudden you are skeptical of mathematics, accurate predictions and theory?
No now I would like to know more sorry thatis the first thing. I Just want to read up about this if you have a link. Sorry if I tend to cone of argumentative even when I don't mean to be sometimes. And I am also more argumentative then perhaps I would like to be. Could be part of why I'm here.
As for this
First of all you don't need anyone to detect formless, conscious awareness for you...you ARE that, your awareness controls the physical body not the other way around.
How have determined this to be the case? Since the rest of this statement rests on this presuposition do you have a link to a peer reviewed study that shows this?
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@Outplayz
Weather was once thought to be caused by god(s). Earthquakes and disease as well. We have come to understand what causes these phenomena and they are no longer regarded as coming from a spiritual source. Unexplainable does not necessitate spiritual. In fact unexplainable is by its very nature impossible to describe. You may relate events if you like. Depending on the nature of the claim I may take you at face value or if the claim is more extraordinary I may be skeptical. In either case however if the cause is unexplainable or unknowable then we cannot make any positive claim about it.
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@Fallaneze
While this course of action could have utility (for example it might promote action that Is intended to favor the public good for example) it is not really a very sound pathway to truth and beliefs unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, are not a choice. It is one of the central ironies of my personal subjective world view that I am nearly certain that I must be wrong about some things. It is a virtual certainty. Yet I believe also that the.things that I "know" are correct. That is precisely why I try not to make claims without qualifyers. For example science is reliable if we accept that the physical universe actually exists. If our assumption of 'reality is faulty then science does not necessarily have explanatory power. Science also does not have explanatory power to say anything about what existed before the universe what exists outside the universe or what will exist after the universe or even if those terms have meaning in that context.Perhaps instead of changing your moral beliefs to better fit your worldview paradigm you should allow your moral beliefs to change your worldview paradigm.
My argument has never been that anyone is necessarily wrong. My argument is only that without observable physical evidence we cannot even be as certain as we are of 'reality which is not at all if you'll remember. My argument is that whether there is a creator or a deity or a god or some entity that fits all three of those descrptiors or if none exist at all or if many exist some one may be right by accident but no one can know that they are right.
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@Fallaneze
The findings are replicatable not the event. Independent research teams have verified the cmb.
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@Fallaneze
Just to be clear if we are wrong about the big bang that wpuld not in any way add support to the idea that some deity had created the universe it would 9nly mean that we are wrong about the big bang.
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@Fallaneze
I believe that the cosmic microwave background points to the earliest event we have evidence for. I believe it because the findings are verifiable and repeatable.
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@Outplayz
Yes that is precisely why it us beyond human epistemology to answer such questions
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@Plisken
We in this case is you and I since we are the ones engaged in this discussion.
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@Plisken
It is possible that there are 'godists (again not a term I often use) that are not human but we have no evidence to support such a hypothesis. Indeed all observable theists are human.
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@Plisken
I believe you are basing your statement on faulty information. It is the base that a 'godist' (not a term I generally use by the way) are not evolved. Evolution is observable and has been tested in laboratory conditions up to and including speciation. The living organisms on earth evolved over time. Including humans. By saying humans I mean all humans or I would have used a qualifier. Thank you by the way for the chance to illustrate that point while answering your post.
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@disgusted
I see no reason to target the lowest common denominator, that is not the audience I wish to engage.
The only target I am asking you to aim for is saying what you mean as that is vitally important in debate, though not terribly important I suppose if your goal is simply to be inflammatory.
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@Outplayz
I am interested in things that are testable in controlled laboratory conditions. Personal experience and anecdotal testimony are not good pathways to truth.
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@disgusted
My advise to you stands. Your original statement was about goddists not some, many or even most goddists. If you wish to be understood you should be clear and precise in your language. Just to be clear are you amending ypur original statementvwoth a qualifier or not?
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@disgusted
Your exact words were "Why do godists need an imposed purpose to give their lives meaning?" The answer is that all godists do not. Qualifying language is necessary to avoid these misunderstandings
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@Fallaneze
I do question whether reality is real, but in the end it is the only reality that I can perceive and so I'm incl8ned to accept it at face value as a convenience.
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@Outplayz
A dream is a personal experience. It cannot be more than anecdotal and is not a part of shared reality. I must disagree with you and call any evidence based on dreams weak evidence.
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@PGA2.0
It is beyond human epistemology to.explain the origins of the universe. Any claim to the contrary is fallacious. I do not presuppose anything but instead simply admit that I do not know. You are the one who claims certain knowledge of the original cause of the universe not I. So please answer your own question. How do we verify the facts with an origin? How do we test for such a thing?
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@Outplayz
When I was a believer I had many experiences that I thought were spiritual. What they really were is unexplainable at best and mundane at worst. (Best and worst in this context being based subjectively on the explanatory power of the event in relation to it being a "spiritual" event.) I have since come to the understanding that spiritual is an ill defined term and that many theists will describe very different events and group them all under the umbrella terms spiritual or religious claiming that the overwhelming number of spiritual experiences therefore counts as sufficient evidence when in fact the events do not share enough in common to be conclusively attributed to the same source at all.
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@disgusted
This entire thread is predicated on a broad generalization and as often happens with such blanket statements you cannot verify your claim as completely accurate. That us you are committing a black swan fallacy. You could say many goddists but without thus qualifier you have made an error.
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@Outplayz
I do not claim to kniw the answers I am simply unable to accept any explanation sans sufficient evidence.
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@PGA2.0
Since you deny God you must start with some other explanation and funnel everything through that system of belief.
Actually starting with an explanation is the exact opposite of how one goes about verifying knowledge. You start with a question not an explanation. You then examine the evidence and find an explanation that fits with the data you have collected. If you start with an explanation and funnel everything through your world view then you are not observing the scientific method, which is the single most reliable method at our disposal of separating fact from fiction.
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@Outplayz
Are you certain that the problem isn't that most humans aren't capable of demonstrating such truths?most humans aren't capable of handling such truths
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@EtrnlVw
Our most powerful electron microscope do not detect objects smaller than a particle do they? I would be happy to learn more if this is not the case otherwise I am pretty sure what you are describing is purely hypothetical and only described mathematically. As for this formless awareness of which you speak I don't think we can detect it and so I'm not sure it exists.So as you begin to have this stabilization is where you begin to see separation and contrast, but it all springs forth from a unified base, which can be labeled pure energy, or even deeper pure awareness which has no form.
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@Outplayz
By duality i mean is that everything is made of atoms, everything is made of the same material. If you looked at the universe under a microscope, everything would appear as one.
I'm not certain this is the case. The truth is that so far as we view things that are smaller and smaller things that appear to be one are truly many. Perhaps this will change one day but to my knowledge to date it has not.
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@Outplayz
I have no way of testing your experiences. It does not matter if you have had one spiritual experience or three or three million. They are not useful to our discussion as they are not a part of our shared reality. I do not expect you to take my word for any of my claims which is part of the reason I sincerely try to make as few possitive claims as possible and often qualify them. I also often provide a link or citation.
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@Outplayz
The answer is that until we can test a hypothesis we should remain skeptical of it. Dark matter is just a placeholder for whatever is adding extra apparent gravitation to the universe. The effects of the gravity have been observed the cause has not. If dark matter is whatever force or object is responsible for the extra gravitation then it seems to exist but we don't really know what it is. As for duality it depends on what sense you mean that in.
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@Outplayz
I am merely unable to accept any untestable claim.
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@Outplayz
I found when I was a believer that if I had an experience or feeling that seemed presentient that if it turned out to be correct I took it as evidence and if it was not correct I tended to dismiss it as unimportant.
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@Outplayz
How have you determined the intelligence behind an unexplainable event?
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@Outplayz
It seems odd to me that you both claim that you don't know what the phenomena was and also that it was spiritual. If you don't know what it was how can you know that it was spiritual? In any case humanity has a long history of ascribing a spiritual or supernatural cause to an unexplained phenomena only to find that the explanation, when discovered, was neither spiritual nor supernatural. I apologize I know you did not use the word supernatural it's just that both terms are not well defined and I'm not precisely sure what the difference even is.
In any case if claiming a spiritual agency is the cause of a phenomena that you have already admitted is unexplainable isn't an argument from ignorance then I'm not sure what would qualify.
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@Outplayz
You are welcome to replace the word supernatural in my previous post with the word spiritual. It does not change or even effect my argument.
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@Outplayz
i am sure i have seen phenomena that was not explainable.
If it is unexplainable then you cannot be certain of its nature. If you cannot be certain of its nature then saying the experience was supernatural is an argumentbfrom ignorance. Again you make my point for me.
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@Outplayz
The problem with your analogy is that eagles observably kill rabbits while your personal "supernatural" (or merely unexplainable as the case may be) experiences are not observable to me. One is observable to us both and one is not. They are therefore in a different category from one another and not directly comparable. We have shared experience of physical organisms engaging in predatory behaviors. We do not have shared experience of the supernatural whatever supernatural even means.
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@Outplayz
Testability means repeatability. A person's experiences cannot be repeated and so are untestable. You make my point for me.
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@Outplayz
Witnesses under scientific scrutiny give verifiably unreliable testimony recalling events in ways suggested by others rather than by actual events. Your memory is not a recording it is a reconstruction. In spiritual matters people have a distinct tendency to remember "positive" evidence and forget times that their belief was not borne out. In the face of this reality I'm not sure how I can be anything other than skeptical. It is not a choice my friend. It just is.
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@Outplayz
Personal testimony is quite unreliable. This is not an opinion it is a testable scientific fact. Personal testimony is not substantive evidence because of the nature of personal testimony not because of my personal feelings.
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@Outplayz
What is the practical observable difference from my perspective between a deistic god, a pantheistic god such as the one you describe and no god(s)?
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@Earth
Are you okay? We all wondered what happened to you!
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@breakingamber
Still looking for a dnd game to join?
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@disgusted
Unless you consider the soul more than a fairy take your question is nonsensical.
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@Fallaneze
How could we ever be certain that something was eternal? We do not have eternity to observe and so we could never confirm or deny anything as eternal. I see no way of knowing that any eternal thing does or even could exist. All we can say with certainty is that we have never observed anything eternal. Also I'm not sure what you mean by prime and the word conciousness is not well defined.
Do you have a definition that is useful to the discussion?
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@Fallaneze
I'm sorry but I must have missed the part where you defined terms in your other threads. What exactly is god to you? (If you have already defined terms I apologize because I really did miss it.)
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@Fallaneze
The conclusion should actually read that there is no observable reason to believe in any god(s) not that god(s) most probably do not exist but if skepticism is our default position the argument is otherwise sound.
Of course this argument can only apply to any god that is in fact posited to be a concious person with no physical body. There are many thousands of posited gods and not all share these qualities.
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@Goldtop
Mopac is not the best I can do. Thank you for helping me realize that.
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