An Intellectual's Christian Narrative: A Non-Magical Alternative (Revelations, prophet, atheist)
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O , my bad, no, I mean, I suppose she is fine, she is just dead to me.
I ruin everything I touch, these hands look Gentle but sure enough, I will get my mind in a tither not even thinking of what I am doing and when I open my eyes, I have squeezed all the life right out of thing.
O , my bad, no, I mean, I suppose she is fine, she is just dead to me.
I ruin everything I touch, these hands look Gentle but sure enough, I will get my mind in a tither not even thinking of what I am doing and when I open my eyes, I have squeezed all the life right out of thing.
yeah, I get that. But hey, when you open your eyes you see it, that's a start.
Yeah, it is people like that that make me notice what a bad listener I am sometimes.
yup, l8, the other l8, pel, miss, ward, and a few others make me feel small to. its funny, the non milli/fundy can see a whole lot further than people locked into a belief statement or statement of belief, if you will.
I have never heard a clear -thinking reason to believe in a religion. I have heard a lot of clear -sounding arguments, but, when unpacked, they come down to unreason or bad reasons.
As far as traditional religions are concerned, I might agree, insofar as most of them have a tendency to make claims that are inconsistent with empirical evidence (which is why I have been focusing in this thread on holy books, because they tend to be the sources of these beliefs). But if one steps away from the trappings of holy books and considers more general concepts of God as a conscious (or unconscious) "Source of being" or as a "Cosmic Mind" or "Reality-as-Conscious" etc., then I think there are some good "clear-thinking" reasons for belief. I have not seen any evidence or arguments to convince me that God is the only rational option, but I certainly see God as a rational option.
Most of my openness to God concepts can be tracked back (as you are well aware, by now) to my belief that qualia cannot be explained in the objective terms of current science. Every line of reasoning and evidence that I have been able to track always ends up back to this point: The qualitative subjective aspects of reality end up being fundamental (or, at least, the potential for these properties ends up being fundamental). Reality is fundamentally qualitative, and to be qualitative is to be either conscious, unconscious, or proto-conscious. These considerations don't necessarily imply that there is a God (hence I am agnostic rather than straight-up theist) but, to be honest, insofar as I have to bet on these things, I place my bets in favor of some sort of God concept turning out to be true. I suspect that some variation of a Non-temporal Cosmic Mind or Non-temporal Reality-as-Conscious type of concept will turn out to be true. I personally doubt that God is an "Intelligent Designer" (although I think some variation of that concept can be reasonable) but I do strongly suspect that there is a form of "eternal intelligence" built into the fundamental fabric of Reality.
I also strongly suspect that people can, and do, "tap into" this "eternal intelligence" (or the eternal substrate that is the potential-for it) via the simple fact that we are intelligent conscious creatures and thus partake in this "Feeling of Being-ness" during every moment of our lives. As I've been saying, I doubt that God "writes books" but I don't doubt that some writing was (and probably still is) composed by people under the inspiration of some deep sense of "God within us". These people are still people, and thus they are entrenched in social/historical context, so parts of what they write are probably not highly relevant to everyone in every moment of history, but some aspects of their writing could be truly universal in the grandest sense of the term. These universal aspects could resonate with anyone who reads them in the proper frame of mind. Personally, I think it is unfortunate that people take these genuine aspects of resonance and assume that every aspect of the writing is literal historical/moral truth, but I can see how that happens, and this (I suspect) is how religions are born and sustained.
As far as traditional religions are concerned, I might agree, insofar as most of them have a tendency to make claims that are inconsistent with empirical evidence (which is why I have been focusing in this thread on holy books, because they tend to be the sources of these beliefs). But if one steps away from the trappings of holy books and considers more general concepts of God as a conscious (or unconscious) "Source of being" or as a "Cosmic Mind" or "Reality-as-Conscious" etc., then I think there are some good "clear-thinking" reasons for belief. I have not seen any evidence or arguments to convince me that God is the only rational option, but I certainly see God as a rational option.
Most of my openness to God concepts can be tracked back (as you are well aware, by now) to my belief that qualia cannot be explained in the objective terms of current science. Every line of reasoning and evidence that I have been able to track always ends up back to this point: The qualitative subjective aspects of reality end up being fundamental (or, at least, the potential for these properties ends up being fundamental). Reality is fundamentally qualitative, and to be qualitative is to be either conscious, unconscious, or proto-conscious. These considerations don't necessarily imply that there is a God (hence I am agnostic rather than straight-up theist) but, to be honest, insofar as I have to bet on these things, I place my bets in favor of some sort of God concept turning out to be true. I suspect that some variation of a Non-temporal Cosmic Mind or Non-temporal Reality-as-Conscious type of concept will turn out to be true. I personally doubt that God is an "Intelligent Designer" (although I think some variation of that concept can be reasonable) but I do strongly suspect that there is a form of "eternal intelligence" built into the fundamental fabric of Reality.
I also strongly suspect that people can, and do, "tap into" this "eternal intelligence" (or the eternal substrate that is the potential-for it) via the simple fact that we are intelligent conscious creatures and thus partake in this "Feeling of Being-ness" during every moment of our lives. As I've been saying, I doubt that God "writes books" but I don't doubt that some writing was (and probably still is) composed by people under the inspiration of some deep sense of "God within us". These people are still people, and thus they are entrenched in social/historical context, so parts of what they write are probably not highly relevant to everyone in every moment of history, but some aspects of their writing could be truly universal in the grandest sense of the term. These universal aspects could resonate with anyone who reads them in the proper frame of mind. Personally, I think it is unfortunate that people take these genuine aspects of resonance and assume that every aspect of the writing is literal historical/moral truth, but I can see how that happens, and this (I suspect) is how religions are born and sustained.
the universe is universing.
To deny it at every turn is illogical.
yeah, I get that. But hey, when you open your eyes you see it, that's a start.
O man like 15 people wrote me asking what happened to Plerro when I wrote that, we had all sorts of visitors asking,'' what did you do?'' ya know in that tone where they know that I will KNOW they were really the ones.
But really, I did hear that Plerro is some kind of insect scientist um, like she is some kind of wanna be insect and she is in East Asia studying some kind of bug that a certain color is derived from through the application of heat. Bug freaks, go figure.
...I place my bets in favor of some sort of God concept turning out to be true. I suspect that some variation of a Non-temporal Cosmic Mind or Non-temporal Reality-as-Conscious type of concept will turn out to be true. I personally doubt that God is an "Intelligent Designer" (although I think some variation of that concept can be reasonable) but I do strongly suspect that there is a form of "eternal intelligence" built into the fundamental fabric of Reality...
So you favor "God being true."
And you see God being "non temporal." As in outside of time, as in not affected by time.
And you suspect an "eternal intelligence" as "fundamental to reality."
So basically you are recognizing fundamentals that religion has known for thousands of years. That is where your "critical thinking" and "graduate level" courses seem to have brought you.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 12-04-2017 at 07:43 PM..
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