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you are making it tangled.
i can't even say the phrase "existentialist absurdity is not tangled" without giggling.
I think this is because, despite my best efforts, you apparently don't understand the concept. Things are what they are and, ultimately, no one had any choice in deciding whether or not there should be any such thing as Reality. Reality just is. I don't see how you can possibly see that as "tangled."
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you already get this Gaylen. and you are already doing it. back in an earlier post you said you have an intuitive sense of the wholeness of reality and its goodness and you are part of it and you pray to it.
Yes, I have an intuitive sense of holism. I see that Reality has the potential for good and (thanks to my intuitive sense of holism) I feel that potential for good. I live it. The deepest, rawest essence of good is embodied in my very being, thanks to holism. I meditate upon it when seeking guidance and solace.
But I also see that Reality has the potential for evil. And, once again, if I pay attention and don't gloss over the truth out of fear, I feel the potential for evil within me. If holism is true, then it has to be there! Right? The potential for evil has to be there just as intrinsically as the potential for good.
Reality is both, so I am both. That is the implication of holism.
The last few paragraphs are a bit more subtle and could be harder to grasp, but if you think the concepts are "tangled" then I think you are somehow missing the point because, again, it boils down to "Reality is what it is" and the existence of good and evil implies that, logically, Reality has the potential for both.
there is no supernatural. Only natural. naturally, we just don't know it all yet. life is natural and we are part of a larger system of life. That doesn't imply god.
Saying everything is "natural" is just playing with words.
We have good reasons to think there are higher order dimensions, other aspects to "nature" than our "physical" world.
Do you actually think that Christians believe in magic? Really?
This question was not directed at me, and I am confused by the question, but just for the heck of it I want to say that my answer is yes. Really.
Being dead - really, truly dead - for 3 days and then coming back to life is magic (unless some space aliens with super-advanced fancy technology are involved, but I don't know of any Christians who explain it that way). A virgin birth via the Holy Spirit (as opposed to artificial insemination with the help of technology) is also a sort of magic. If the Earth is really around 7,000 years old, then there is certainly some magic happening because the light from Andromeda takes over 2 million years to get here, so the fact that we can see it suggests that the light we are seeing was placed in empty space by the Creator about 7,000 year ago with a trajectory toward Earth. Again, that seems like magic to me (not to mention being really sneaky on God's part). (Of course I realize that not all Christians are Young-Earthers, but I'm just throwing that in there for the sake of those who are.)
I suspect that I probably misunderstood your question, or completely missed the point of it, but just in case you are saying that Christians don't believe in magic, then I wanted to set the record straight.
BTW: Mystic might be an exception to the general rule that Christians believe in magic, although I am not fully convinced that even he is really avoiding it altogether, despite his best efforts to do so. If he fully succeeds in naturalizing the concept of God while still holding on the essence of Christianity, then I tip my hat to him. I think his heart is in the right place with this, although I remain deeply skeptical about the specific "Jesus" connection - and without that I'm not sure that that label "Christian" really applies. But I kinda see what he's getting at, and I respect it, even if I don't quite believe it.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 06-30-2017 at 08:00 AM..
We it's not the dosh, Gldbrick, it's the depressing sight of a dozen buggered keyboards stacked in the corner. However, I do it have it on my to do list..
pint of milk,
coffee (make sure it's fairtrade)
deny God
new keyboard
World domination by next week.
You almost gottiim...bit more line...sprinkle a couple more dried worms...get the fishnet ready....
na, I only do how it works. People's claims either match observations we have or they don't. The "don'ts" are pretty quickly seen. The "do's" are tricky because there can be more than one valid interpretation. The trick is figuring out which ones are more valid. Its ok to say both are valid sometimes.
Unfortunately, for your personal war, I have less emotional stake in this. I don't need it to be anything other than what is is. "pantheists" has some claims that match up nicely to the standard model. That's what is true.
i don't do "god' or "no-god", I am atheist so no statement of belief about god comes up for me when describing "how the universe works".
Your stance does not line up with the standard model as well as his stance. His makes better predictions than yours. again, just a fact.
Your response to the word god, because of its baggage and your gut wrenching life event with religion, skews your view. that's just a fact too. Your claim: "deny anything", "diminish all observation that don't support anti-religion", "answer to atheism first." Is not a healthy base axum. Its based on your emotional state and not necessarily objective observationally based nor proper application of the scientific method. It means deny anything that I am against. don't ever claim your is scientific. when you do you are lying. the anti-religion cause amounts to one religion (emotional based belief statement) fighting another one to me.
'religion" can't go away because people are social. Like minded people expressing their emotional connection to their surrounding won't go away. It really shouldn't be forced to go away either.
Imagine little miss hep sitting around with friends riding the woo woo train and your boys come rolling in. yeah, i can't support that. And I am not just letting you go by either.
I think this is because, despite my best efforts, you apparently don't understand the concept. Things are what they are and, ultimately, no one had any choice in deciding whether or not there should be any such thing as Reality. Reality just is. I don't see how you can possibly see that as "tangled."
Yes, I have an intuitive sense of holism. I see that Reality has the potential for good and (thanks to my intuitive sense of holism) I feel that potential for good. I live it. The deepest, rawest essence of good is embodied in my very being, thanks to holism. I meditate upon it when seeking guidance and solace.
But I also see that Reality has the potential for evil. And, once again, if I pay attention and don't gloss over the truth out of fear, I feel the potential for evil within me. If holism is true, then it has to be there! Right? The potential for evil has to be there just as intrinsically as the potential for good.
Reality is both, so I am both. That is the implication of holism.
The last few paragraphs are a bit more subtle and could be harder to grasp, but if you think the concepts are "tangled" then I think you are somehow missing the point because, again, it boils down to "Reality is what it is" and the existence of good and evil implies that, logically, Reality has the potential for both.
This post is not tangled at all. It is practical and it is pure truth.
Yes. Exactly. It is a potential for anything. It is "omni potent" in that it has the power or potential to become anything. Free will is us exercising our choice whether to choose good or choose evil.
Entirely consistent entirely without discord. (In case you are interested that is exactly what I study in my orthodox religious texts.)
This phrase though has not gone deep enough. " ultimately, no one had any choice in deciding whether or not there should be any such thing as Reality
It is probably well beyond the scope of this thread and this forum but it was very much a conscious choice. "Just happened" is, well, nature and very impersonal and sterile (words that apply also to science.)
On the big scale it was conscious choice to create Reality by God out of a desire to bestow love. That's why God is love by the way. And on a small scale our own human this life yes we consciously create.
So no it did not just happen. God consciously created it and we as snippets small subsets of God are also consciously creating our life every moment every second.
That is very personal and loving. And very very much by choice at every step. Free will. And how we exercise it. Nothing is random. Nothing ever just happens.
Last edited by Tzaphkiel; 06-30-2017 at 08:23 AM..
Saying everything is "natural" is just playing with words.
We have good reasons to think there are higher order dimensions, other aspects to "nature" than our "physical" world.
we would have to talk more. There may very well be more dimensions than our perspective. Again they are natural. yes, natural can be an unclear classification of the interactions around us. we would have to tighten that up. My point is that there is nothing "not of this universe", that's how I use the natural.
example. dark matter. Lets assume its 6 times more stuff than we know. thats a big if, but lets play alone if you will. That means there is a very real possibility that there is 6 times more life around us. I say, due to our complexity, that some people may 'sense" however slightly, that life. That's what proteins do, they react to their surroundings to do work.
some people misrepresent it as some all powerful being that went 'poof there it is". I say that its just a region of space around us that is life. that doesn't dimish the coolness of it. We have others deny any rational interpretation of that. I call them milli/funda-mentalist-think-ers (thanks trout, good catch with that notion)
On the big scale it was conscious choice to create Reality by God out of a desire to bestow love. That's why God is love by the way. And on a small scale our own one human this life yes we consciously create.
So no it did not just happen. God consciously created it and we as snippets small subsets of God are also consciously creating our life every moment every second.
That is very personal and loving. And very very much by choice at every step. Free will. And how we exercise it. Nothing is random. Nothing ever just happens.
But if God made a conscious choice to create Reality, then God is in some sense beyond or "logically prior to" (even if not, necessarily, temporally prior to) Reality, contrary to holism, which implies that if there is a God, then God essentially is Reality (not above or beyond it).
Above or beyond violates logical identity. If X=Y, then Y=X, and any change to X is a change to Y, and vice versa).
Anyway, the root problem is a paradox of self-reference. No conscious being can choose its own primordial essence (to exist, or not to exist, and what brute-fact properties apply to the nature of this existence). To have the capacity to choose implies that you already exist, but if you already exist, then the choice under discussion can't be "the choice to exist" because you already had to exist in order to make that choice. You might call that "tangled" but it is actually just pure logic.
And the eternal or non-temporal nature of God does not override the paradox of self-reference. If God had no beginning, then God could not have chosen to exist. Like us, given his existence, he can choose whether or not to continue existing, but he couldn't have chosen to exist in the first place.
At a fundamental (brute-fact) level, Existence just is. Existence didn't choose to exist, and throwing the term "God" into the mix doesn't change that pure, simple logic. If God exists, then God has to be a Divine Existentialist.
Last edited by Gaylenwoof; 06-30-2017 at 08:34 AM..
we would have to talk more. There may very well be more dimensions than our perspective. Again they are natural. yes, natural can be an unclear classification of the interactions around us. we would have to tighten that up. My point is that there is nothing "not of this universe", that's how I use the natural.
example. dark matter. Lets assume its 6 times more stuff than we know. thats a big if, but lets play alone if you will. That means there is a very real possibility that there is 6 times more life around us. I say, due to our complexity, that some people may 'sense" however slightly, that life. That's what proteins do, they react to their surroundings to do work.
some people misrepresent it as some all powerful being that went 'poof there it is". I say that its just a region of space around us that is life. that doesn't dimish the coolness of it. We have others deny any rational interpretation of that. I call them milli/funda-mentalist-think-ers (thanks trout, good catch with that notion)
I think there are higher order dimensions, and ultimately the highest is infinite. I think "nature" is made out of information, not little particles of "matter." I think the universe IS intelligence. Some people call that "God."
If there are higher levels of intelligence, then we can't expect to understand them.
Because our species seems "smarter" than the other animals, we can get carried away thinking we are special. Scientific people, especially, can be awed with their own knowledge. They can start thinking there is no limit to what they can understand.
It's not unity then.
The whole point of One is that nothing is dismissed. It all fits in a way that is harmonious and at peace.
There are no discordant elements.
And mystics views and posts are rife with discord because there are so many things that he is not at peace with.
The "discordant elements" are what are dimissed. You refuse to see this because your theology demands that the internally conflicting elements be resoved in illogical ways because you have to believe a BOOK is from God and can't accept thar what that book SAYS is from God really is.
Ooops, scratch that. THAT part is from the part of the book that you don't credit. All you have is the internally inconsistent and outdated part.
I think there are higher order dimensions, and ultimately the highest is infinite. I think "nature" is made out of information, not little particles of "matter." I think the universe IS intelligence. Some people call that "God."
If there are higher levels of intelligence, then we can't expect to understand them.
Because our species seems "smarter" than the other animals, we can get carried away thinking we are special. Scientific people, especially, can be awed with their own knowledge. They can start thinking there is no limit to what they can understand.
See Richard Dawkins, for example.
Those people are wrong, deeply wrong.
yes, "nature", I call the universe, is informatio. Due to the dynamic potentials that information is exchanged. Increase the complexity of exchange and shrink the volume we get a volume of space that anybody with a grain of sand worth of honesty would classify as life.
for example. A cell is totally made up of things we classify as non life, yet we classify that volume's interactions as alive.
The question ... How big a volume can we go and still be within reason? Cosmic muffin? i wouldn't because there is no need to. Also, comic muffin is an attempt to diminish how the universe works. that's not my goal. my goal is only the best description of the system we are in, people can chose what they want.
I claim that volume is the volume of earth and those interactions are what people mistakenly call "god". It is empirical in 2017 that we can classy this volume of space as life. All life is made up of non life. Classifying the biosphere as life and non life, although valid, is less valid, in that it will make less correct predictions, then classifying the volume as life. Also, all life is made up of life and non life parts. again, we have to tighten up before making a claim.
That claim predicts what you just said, gaylands interpretation, mystic' field, and glds universal life and others. The only interpretations it doesn't match is "deny everything to push anti-religion"and "my-omni-dude-only." there is no need for me to go further until the class can get a handle on that simple notion.
"omni god" and "deny anything" are childish at this point. to keep talking is like arguing with a 5 year old about how ice cream shouldn't be eaten breakfast lunch and dinner. or talking to an early teenage brain about consequences and responsibility. At some point we just work with what we have.
I do not do God. I am only an atheist. I do not draw conclusion based on any statement about a belief in god (+or-). I only do how the universe works. I have had no gut wrenching life event that alters my view of how the universe works. It works the way it works.
PS
side note: syfy stuff. But hey, they did branes on a train, I can do space buckling in PA.
maybe the expanding universe "buckles" inside of the edges of the universe to create these potentials. Think of a wire inner frame of a ball pushing out faster than the ball edge expands. if the rate of expansion of the ball walls is slightly less than the wire frame rate of expansion, the wire frame will buckle. that's the energy doing work.
Last edited by Arach Angle; 06-30-2017 at 10:06 AM..
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