Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Make a proper argument and I will give a it a more thorough response. As it was that was all that was needed to refute that nonsense.
See if you can even make one point at a time. I doubt if you can.
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Ever notice how atheists are virtually always on the opposite side from God on many issues?
- Thread starter Patrick66
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See if you can even make one point at a time. I doubt if you can.
Wow, citing Bob Marley, God (not known to exist), the Bible (not factual), and Nostradamus as a basis to explain why critical thinkers not accepting the claims of many diverse religious folks is an illusion?
If the following is valid why aren't all theists who claim their version of God exists using it as an argument? You should be peddling this to them. The reason critical thinkers reject the claims by theists is due to a lack of valid and credible evidence. Even the popular arguments like Kalam are heavily flawed because they have to assume a God exists to seem like they work. Take away that assumption and all the popular arguments fail.
Yeah, I've heard this "information is immaterial" argument before. Its biggest flaw is that without a mind to use or understand information it isn't really information in the sense that we humans refer to it. I've heard the laws of physics is immaterial information. I've heard DNA is immaterial information, and the reason it works on matter is due to the magic of a supernatural. So when whoever wrote this writes "a misunderstanding of reality can be created by mind" I find it ironic.
The typical argument goes that if it requires a mind to understand information, and information existed before humans and their minds existed, then there must be a mind of God to create and understand the information. Of course this fails because there is no factual basis for the existence of the laws of physics requiring any mind to exist. Again, the God is assumed necessary because that is the conclusion the believer wants.
This claim also seems to feed the ego of those who believe it as they see themselves as a type of God themselves when they create and understand information themselves, just like the God they imagine.
Yeah, exploiting how science is still working on a complete definition as an opportunity to hone confusion, and create a gap for a supernatural. Whatever the definion of mind it is accepted to be a set of functions living brains perform.
Incoherent confusion of mind.
If some mere mortals say so, as if they are a God themselves. Why assume a God exists and can be defined, yet human minds can't be?
But spirit is still material. So why does this seem profound? I know theists like to believe spirit is immaterial, but why assume that? As an excuse for religious belief? If you can't see how your own mind manipulates itself what use is this attempt at an argument? Arguments require facts, not guesses and assumptions.
Is the language true or fiction? See how you lay out a metaphor for knowing, and allow flaws in thinking so you can have the illusion you want? Of course you don't.
A treatise of hubris.
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Extreme dismissal is vastly worse than ordinary dismissal.
And has it occurred to you that your writing is highly flawed and relies too heavily on unwarranted assumptions, so incoherent to critical minds? Of course you haven't. You would have caught your errors already and not posted nonsense.
Assuming a mutli-verse is real, which we don't know, so not relevant. And no one can assert that any of the many gods in human lore is included in reality, so not something that is relevant as a description of real. Gods are in the category of imaginary.
Your thoughts?
What have those ideas done for you that you recommend them for others? How do you use them to make life better? I'm expecting that they aren't useful to you except in a psychological sense that wouldn't be of interest to me. Many people enjoy thinking that they see further, but when asked what they see, it turns out to be endogenous feelings they experience that they project onto reality, as when they claim to experience gods. I don't believe you have anything that deserves to be called metaphysical truth. Metaphysical speculations are idle, also ideas useful for nothing. When you claim to experience "the atman," I understand that as misunderstanding an endogenous mental state, not an apprehension of external reality.
Agreed. It's just form if outside of a mind. It becomes information when apprehended and conceived. The etymology f information suggests this kind of understanding. Form comes in-to consciousness, in-forms it, and become in-formation.
And that's an important distinction as you imply. DNA wasn't information before the advent of conscious minds to apprehend it, and it's not a code, which is a product of mind using symbols like a human language.
You just expressed your faith twice in the above statement "I believe 'physical energy' to be the ultimate reality", and that science is the decider of this belief. Both are statements of faith.
2. The affective component of faith
One component of faith is a certain kind of affective psychological state—namely, having a feeling of assurance or trust. Some philosophers hold that faith is to be identified simply with such a state: see, for example, Clegg (1979, 229) who suggests that this may have been Wittgenstein’s understanding. Faith in this sense—as one’s overall ‘default’ affective attitude on life—provides a valuable foundation for flourishing: its loss is recognised as the psychic calamity of ‘losing one’s faith’.
Sure. And Insight or Awareness meditation, helps to cultivate that type of "parallel processing" and make it more accessible all the time. It is to develop that type of awareness, that leads to Awakening, or our eyes being opened, or Enlightenment. Contrast this with Concentrative type mediation, which is about single points of focus, strengthen concentration and attention to a laser focus. Both types are valuable, and both types do different things. Both offer different benefits towards Awakening or Enlightenment.
I'm glad you are now recognizing what I was telling you, which you seemed unaware of at the time when you challenged me.
Thanks for the info and the history. But is atheism part of Advaita Vedanta schools of thought? To me, when I speak of God, I mean Brahman. My understanding is that in Advaita Vedanta Brahman is Ultimate Reality. And that Ultimate Reality to them is pure Consciousness. Is that incorrect? If so, doesn't that deny a pure Physicalist reality, which you seem to believe in?
Oh, let's be careful with the term atheist here. Buddhism is not an atheistic religion. They do not deny God exists. They simply lack focus or doctrines regarding a "creator God". They simply leave it out or bypass the question either way. But if you do look at Buddhism, especially the Mahayana and Tibetan lines, they are full of deities or gods. They may give them different names, but the teachings are very much supernatural beings.
Here's a great 15 minute video I watched recently discussing what modern atheists like to claim that Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion, and that it is atheistic religion as you just claimed. He details how both claims are simply untrue. And that "secular Buddhism" is just some Western sanitized version of it that removes all these unwanted theistic and mythic elements from it. It's a version to let atheists have a religion, without God. But it's not really Buddhism.
You just made that a very clear categorical statement. You defined it as physical energy. That is to point out here again, a faith a statement of faith.
When you can figure out why humility is more powerful than the ego, then I'd say your eyes are beginning to be opened.Why should I be humble in face of ignorance? Why should not I berate it? That is what I want everyone to be rid off.
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It's notable that what Westerners consider as gods and supernatural beings is different than how the East considers these categories. The West sees things in an oddly more materialistic framework (even when they claim the supernatural is immaterial) as they refer to real, defined phenomenon. To Westerners God is a real being that acts in ways that affect the material world. The same goes with angels, demons, Satan, whatever. The Eastern view of a supernatural is a divine element of all things. Gods are symbolic of real things and phenomenon, not looked as personalities.
Well like anything these days Buddhism is many things, a philosophy, a religion, a method, etc. The original form of Buddhism is Therevada and is non-theistic. Id doesn't refer to any gods or supernatural. As you note there are other forms that have developed with the core ideas of Buddhism retained. Siddartha said no one has to agree with all of it. Use what has value and improve the state of life.
I'll have to watch this to see what is being claimed. Therevada is non-theistic. Zen Buddhism is what I consider the Westernized version that is a bit of a cheap knockoff. I had to grow a pony tail and buy a Nehru jacket, and that was the deal breaker.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
OK, what would you suggest for me, if not that? Yes, my statement about 'physical energy' is very categorical, and I have no reason to change it. Nothing other than it existed at the time of 'inflation'.
What was I unaware of? What had you suggested? And what is new that I now accept? Kindly mention that clearly.
Brahman is not a God. Brahman (physical energy) is the stuff that all things in the universe are constituted of. Don't speak of Brahman if you do not understand it. Sankara said: "Jeevo Brahmaiva na parah" (a living being and Brahman are not two different things). Nothing like 'Pure Consciousness' exists. It is a figment of imagination - if not God then 'pure consciousness' type of thing. I totally reject this apologetic approach.
Mahayana and Tibetan Buddhism are not pure Buddhism. They are later developments. Buddha would have talked about creator God or the Judge God, if he had any such view.
Why do I need to watch a video? I have my views about things and I have never come across anything which warrants a revision of my views.
I will be humble when you show me evidence of what you claim, and not till then. Why should I be a part of ignorance?
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muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
..so more than 50% of mankind are irrational, and you are happy with one of these
"irrational" doctors to treat you?
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Quit using black and white fallacies. Yes, it is an irrational belief. But there are degrees of irrational beliefs. We all have some. But in general the stronger one's religious beliefs are the more likely that one is governed by irrational beliefs. Why do you think that being a doctor makes one immune from irrational thought? There were a small number, but there were "doctors" that opposed vaccinations during the pandemic. That is a serious enough break from their hippocratic oath that they should have lost their licenses...so more than 50% of mankind are irrational, and you are happy with one of these
"irrational" doctors to treat you?
The world is not black and white. There is a very wide range of irrational beliefs. Don't be offended when yours are pointed out. I am sure that I have some myself.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
No, it isn't .. but you seem to think that people who believe in God,
are being irrational .. now THAT is black and white thinking..
..and condemning over 50% of the human race.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
..and religious people are all "non-humanists"??
..forget political rhubarb .. it's just deflection from the topic.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
No, that is a conclusion based upon a lifetime of observation. Now it may not apply as much to some of the religions that I am less familiar with, but from what I have seen they still have at least some of the problems that the Abrahamic religions have.No, it isn't .. but you seem to think that people who believe in God,
are being irrational .. now THAT is black and white thinking..
..and condemning over 50% of the human race.
Do you think that you can show that your beliefs are not irrational? You would be a first if you could.
What does the word mean? It's the privative form of rational - 'without reason' (privative prefixes make something an opposite, like a-theist, il-logical, im-moral, un-friendly). If one cannot produced a sound, evidenced argument supporting a god belief, that is, using valid reason, then one holds that belief ir-rationally. It's by definition.
Some argue that it is rational to hold such a belief even if it is unsupported if it comforts or helps one overcome an addiction, and I won't argue with that, but it's a different meaning of reasonable more akin to understandable than correct.
No, that is critical thinking. You seem to find the word irrational offensive, but you needn't. Reason is ONLY for deciding what's true about the world so that one can anticipate the outcomes of choices and in so doing, navigate life successfully, which for me includes maximizing love, leisure, beauty, and comfort, none of which require critical thought to enjoy, just to achieve. The passions are irrational, and we celebrate them. We embrace and celebrate the Dionysian aspect of ourselves, which a departure from our rational Apollonian nature. These two are the rider and the steed, the head and the heart, the brush and the pigment. One is doing the thinking (rational) so the other can do the feeling (irrational) and feel well often.
Condemnation? No, just commenting on the fact that humanity comprises a spectrum of cognitive types with more or less skill processing information, with most relatively unskilled at critical thinking. Without that skill and the ability to distinguish sound from unsound arguments, the only path to belief is faith.
I think that most people are unaware of this other kind of thinking and what it can do regarding eliciting knowledge from observation, and how people can be right and know it while others can only say, "Well, that's just your opinion," as if all opinions are guesses like theirs and therefore equal.
It depends what you mean by religious. I know of several theistic humanists posting here on RF. Their values, methods, and agenda are indistinguishable from mine, and we only differ by a god belief, which they claim to have, but seem to have well compartmentalized. All are educated professionals in the sciences, and none are zealous theists. But they also promote education, secularism, tolerance, social and economic equity, human development and enabling, and the like as an atheistic humanist would. I don't consider them religious, and I suspect that they would agree. I believe it's mostly cultural for them.
No, you're deflecting. There was nothing political about the comment. It came from a cabinet secretary, which made its anti-environmentalism even more egregious, but it could have come from any zealous Christian, which was the point.
Here's the comment again. Did you want to address it this time? Do you agree with the speaker?
- "We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand" - James Watt, Secretary of the Interior under Reagan (note his position and responsibilities)
The only thing I suggest is you stop claiming it's not your faith, but rather own it as your faith. That's perfectly fine and reasonable to have physicalism as your faith about Ultimate Reality. It's not fine to claim it's not faith however.
These are matters of philosophical beliefs, not established science facts. Merely claiming science as your authoritative source doesn't make that belief itself what science says. It's what you conclude by your reading of the science is all. I don't make those same conclusions when I see the science however.
I have a different philosophical view on it. It's not that I'm reading the science wrong. I'm just not extending it beyond what it can and does say and wrongfully claiming I'm not engaging in faith.
You had said originally when I brought up awareness meditation as a different type of meditation than concentrative meditation,
"I differ with this scheme. How can one have insight if one does not concentrate. There is only one type of meditation. Floating is the initial stage when you do not resist your thoughts. Floating all the time will be a perversion, just for fun, it does not achieve anything."
Now that have explained in detail how there are different types of meditation practices, with different effects, and how that awareness meditation is not "floating" as you assumed not knowing what it was, you seem to now acknowledge the validity of my original claims. I did know what I was talking about, yes?Physical energy is not what I understand Bahaman to be. It does not exclude material form, but it is not reduced down to it either. Rather form is an expression of it, meaning matter (physical energy) arises from that Formless all, and is not other to it, nor it other to form. It is the substrate of all existence, including physical energy. It is Neti Neti, not this, not that. To say Brahman is physical energy is saying "This, and not that". It makes Brahman dualistic.
Now, my calling that God is perfectly reasonable. God as a word is pointing to Absolute Reality, or the Infinite Ground of all Being. It doesn't have to be viewed as "a god", or a person, or an entity, or a deity. All of those are themselves forms. They are as I call them "Faces we put upon the Infinite".
As such they have usefulness for the dualistic mind to take transcendent realities the seeker tries to find, and gives them an object of mental focus, which when engaged in, enacts the spiritual nature within themselves rising towards transcendence and making itself known the the conscious mind. But these are not literal objects that exist in physical forms, as the immature mind projects. They are dualistic projections of a nondual reality.
I have very clearly throughout every post been saying exactly that. I just spelled that out above in the previous paragraph. Even "God" as a deity form, is not other to That, but is a 'face" or an expression of it, just as the human is. I feel you continue to make wrong assumptions about what it is I am saying, despite my explaining it otherwise.
As a matter of your faith. Correct?
Whatever. One of the beauties of Hinduism is that it doesn't think only this one sect has the truth and all others are not "pure". This is why I asked you if your background was in Christianity. You speak like one quite often.
You should watch that video I linked to. It's good. It addresses these things.
To be informed? To educate yourself as to the perspectives of highly educated people, which is what I shared?
Well, there we have it then. You have your faith, and will not entertain perspectives that challenge your beliefs. As the Christian fundamentalist likes to say, "God said. I believe it. That settles it for me". "Science said it. I believe it. That settles it for me". Same faith, different gods.
How will you see when you will not look? How can you know humility when your faith blinds you?
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Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Yeah, I know. Some things have necessary proofs, others still lack that. It is an on-going work.
I have no problem with that. Your views yours, my views mine.
There are eight steps of meditation according to Patanjali (Yoga - Wikipedia).
Again, our understanding of Brahman is different. I am not always impressed by scriptures and scripture writers.
God, reasonable to you, utterly unreasonable for me.
Why should I first accept duality and then try to transcend it? I just do not accept duality. Accept the reality directly.
One does not necessarily need to belong to a sect. Nothing wrong with standing up to your own views.
Thanks, but I follow what Buddha said in Kesamutti sutta (Kesamutti Sutta - Wikipedia). I do not take the perspectives of these highly education people as God's own truth. I make my own decisions.
I will entertain other perspectives if evidence is provided.
I have already looked and found what I wanted to. Who is 'blind' if you believe without evidence?
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I make the distinction between justified belief and unjustified belief. Unfortunately, both are called faith at times, leading to equivocation (meaning ambiguity, not deceit) of the two. So, one might say that he has faith that his car will start like it did the last several hundred times he tested it, but his belief is justified (by experience, hence empirically) if it is that the car will probably start but might not. If he also chooses to drive drunk because he believes a guarding angel will protect him, he is engaging in unjustified belief. We need to keep these two ideas distinct.
In the case of physicalism, the belief that nature may be all there is and that there is no reason to believe that anything exists which is not physical (matter, energy, and force interacting in space and time) is justified by experience as long as the belief is tentative to the extent that one would accept that there is more to reality if there were evidence that needed supernaturalism to account for it. There is no need or value at this time to invoke supernaturalism. No faith in the sense of unjustified (or insufficiently justified) belief is required to hold a naturalistic position absent evidence of the supernatural.
Do you disagree?
Ostronomos
Well-Known Member
Well, I have channeled a number of genuine God-theories linking God and even religion to science due to my unique gift of consciousness expansion. I am not claiming to be a prophet, but I can certainly lay claim to the title of "God's Great Genius" though without renown and the fame that characterizes such.
I can tell you that I have written many proofs of the existence of God. And the above post on the Theory-Reality Correspondence was my last breakthrough. Consider what a mind is when it is not expanded - a single neuron firing in a material brain (the illusion) is not a mind worth mentioning. Now consider when all neurons are firing at once - you would have a mind of a different kind all together. Hence, mind/ the source, meets its target, reality. Of which there are degrees of linkage and expansion. That's me.
Ostronomos
Well-Known Member
GOD = PHYSICAL ENERGY THAT POSSESSES INTELLIGENCE = RISIDES IN ALL THINGS MATERIAL.
The problem with that is everyone believes their beliefs are justifiable. Otherwise they wouldn't believe in them, right?
Now, what may meet your standards for justications, may not meet the standards of others. And others' justifications for their beliefs might not meet your standards. And that becomes a debate. But often in such debates people are only talking across each other trying to defend their beliefs, because they all believe they are justified in having them.
Actually I think it's quite helpful to realize they are both faith (which is the truth of it). It helps those arguing relax their insistence on being right because that's how they see things.
Again, many of these believers in God, or those who use that word feel empirically justified to believe the way they do. But let's not cast confusion on the meaning of the word faith to equate it with unjustifiable beliefs. Clearly, believing they can drive drunk because an angel will protect them is a bad belief. It is not only a bad, unjustifiable belief, it's bad or inauthentic faith as well.
As I've been having that other conversation about the word love, there are plenty of horse**** uses of that word to describe rotten and terrible things, like "I smack you around because I love you". But that's not real love, any more that saying real faith means being an idiot and walking out in front of cars because you believe you'll be saved by Jesus from death is. To try to make it only that, is not a legitimate argument.
Sure, but it is faith nonetheless. It goes beyond empirical proof, but takes what appears to one's mind to be a reliable way to think about it, and "believing" that ultimate reality is nothing but physics. However, there are others whose experiences see that that is not all there is. Both are engaging in faith, and both feel justified in doing so. It's not really "blind belief" in either instance, and faith is not just wishful thinking based upon nothing at all but denying facts, which is how you tend to cast aspersions upon it.
This all depends upon what one deems to be supernatural. Supernatural to one person, may just be the natural reality which blows away our current ideas and notions of what is reality. This is nothing new in human history.
That's not faith to me. That's bad faith, or abuse of the word faith to justify bad beliefs. An authentic faith, has justifications for it, even as it lacks ultimate proof, such as one's views of the ultimate nature of reality. Anytime anyone speaks their views about ultimate reality, it is a matter of faith, for the atheist as well as the theist.
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I'm using the word in the technical or academic sense, that is, using the accepted laws of inference to connect premises or evidence to (sound) conclusions as occurs in the law and the sciences.
I think it's helpful to recognize that people use the word for justified belief interchangeably with another word spelled and pronounced the same. Some might call that the same word with different definitions, and I wouldn't quibble with them, but to me, they're homonyms.
That's another meaning for "faith" and distinct from the other two, justified belief and unjustified belief. Faith also refers to a religion, like the Jewish faith. It's also a girls name, as with Faith Hill. Three more homonyms, homonyms being writings or utterances with different meanings, but spelled alike (homographs) and pronounced alike (homophones), like medical practice, batting practice. I call them different words, but like I said, that's not important. You can call them the same word ("I think it's quite helpful to realize they are both faith"), but they don't mean the same thing, and we need to not conflate them just because they look and sound alike.
My meaning is the standard one - not due to the laws of nature.
Disagree. By my reckoning, there is no authentic or inauthentic faith - just unjustified belief, and considering such beliefs truth or knowledge is unjustified.
And no, a world view does not need to be believed by faith. Mine isn't. I'm an agnostic atheist. Where's the unjustified belief in that? What do you think I believe that isn't justified empirically? I don't say that gods and supernaturalism don't exist. They just aren't part of my world view because they aren't needed to account for any observation. There is no unjustified belief there.
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