This clears up some suspicions I’ve had about you.
I’m not convinced. You are superb at making extraordinary claims, but exceptionally poor at providing evidence and coherent explanations. That’s bad luck.
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Ever notice how atheists are virtually always on the opposite side from God on many issues?
- Thread starter Patrick66
- Start date
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
@Windwalker, If I were to put my views in two lines, it will be this:
1. Go with science but not beyond it.
2. Do not accept things without evidence.
@F1fan, IMHO even Theravada is at times not true to what Buddha said. Their theory of 'kamma' differs from what Buddhas taught. I gather that they believe in reincarnation, while Buddha did not. They believe in eternal self (atta), while Buddha believed in 'anatta'. Also that Theravadins believe in ghosts, heaven and devas. Theravada - Wikipedia
1. Go with science but not beyond it.
2. Do not accept things without evidence.
@F1fan, IMHO even Theravada is at times not true to what Buddha said. Their theory of 'kamma' differs from what Buddhas taught. I gather that they believe in reincarnation, while Buddha did not. They believe in eternal self (atta), while Buddha believed in 'anatta'. Also that Theravadins believe in ghosts, heaven and devas. Theravada - Wikipedia
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Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I do not think that you even know what a theory is. Nor are you fooling anyone. So why waste all of the time posting?
Woah now. Drop bears are real.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I know. As you can see they must have eaten his argument. Go back and read it and consummation by drop bears appears to be the only possible explanation. And as I said, they were falling left and right after he posted that.
DNB
Christian
What kind of image can non-corporeal spirit have?
DNB
Christian
I give up.
Look at the task you've assumed for yourself - defending a vague biblical scripture referring to Abrahamic god, which simply says that man is made God's image, which we are to assume is a good thing and makes man special, but we have no clear image of this deity to know what that means. The believer has to maintain a soft thinking mode that accepts this uncritically, but the critical thinker, who is accustomed to precision and rigor, isn't satisfied with poetry. Of course you give up. You can't give them what they require.
I concluded earlier that the best description of what the believer means by man being made in God's image refers to the qualities that make man distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom cognitively, or special in God's eyes. You described that in terms of spiritual intuitions and aspirations, which I pointed out are merely the consequence of giving apes speech and the reasoning capacity necessary to think, which language imposes on thought by ordering it into objects, processes, and relationships (parts of speech ordered by grammar). If chimps got speech tomorrow, they would be praying to mankind and offering us sacrifices within a week.
Of course, chimps are in our image and we theirs, since we share a common ape ancestor. And we can give a scientific description of what that means that doesn't resemble the biblical poetry, but actually catalogs observable features. We want meaning in words when we're discussing reality, not poetry. I enjoy vague language as in song lyrics, but its purpose is as art, not communicating fact, and that's what you have here - a creative way to say that man is special and closer to God than the beasts using the metaphor of image to represent relatedness.
Yes, that is the faith of logical positivism. I respect your beliefs, though I see them insufficient to attain the highest Knowledge available to humans. It has it's value, but unlike yourself, I do not see it as one true way. One True Way'ism is too fundamentalist for my tastes.
I'm pretty certain that Buddhist deities are still considered "woo woo" by Western "skeptics". No?
Buddhist deities - Wikipedia
Not if you are at the magic and mythic levels. I continually try to educate and inform Western "skeptics", that deity forms are all symbolic of real things, even if those things are non-material, subtle and causal level realities we all have access to, if we are perceptive of those, that is of course. But my understanding of these as 'archetypes' and symbols, is from the rational perspective and beyond.
Most people who see these things literally however, are at the magic and mythic stages of conscioussness structures. I personally know Tibetan Buddhists who are from Tibet itself, and they very much believe they are literal beings, just as any Christian believes angels are literally beings as well. It's not the religious system that makes these seen from a more "rational" perspective.
You have mythic and magic stages in Buddhism, as well as Christianity, as well as Hinduism, and as well as atheism too, as I've come to realize through experience of interactions with countless atheists over the years. They too do not understand the symbolic nature of God, and imagine it to be a literal being, and therefore reject God on that literalist basis, which is indicative of the mythic-literal stage.
I'm not sure if you read this post I made recently, but I realize I'm using a lot of terminology and technical terms that may not be followed easily by you. If you look at this post I made here, I think it will go a very long ways to maybe helping clarify what I am talking about in posts and comments like the above:
Ever notice how atheists are virtually always on the opposite side from God on many issues?
It's no more "unevidenced" than humanism.. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Humanism is what laws the society makes at any time. Beating women or having slaves was OK around 1,500 years ago. Take any religion for that matter. I am not pointing fingers particularly at Islam.
www.religiousforums.com
Sure it does. For instance:
The Pāli Tipiṭaka outlines a hierarchical cosmological system with various planes existence (bhava) into which sentient beings may be reborn depending on their past actions. Good actions lead one to the higher realms, bad actions lead to the lower realms.[110][111] However, even for the gods (devas) in the higher realms like Indra and Vishnu, there is still death, loss and suffering.[11
They also have at 25 other Buddhas, which they see as cosmic beings. Now, the West's modern atheist looking for an "atheist religion" running into talk of things like "higher realms", or "planes of existence", and devas (gods), and such, might think that is just a bit to magical for their tastes. I say that, because of countless posts by countless atheists who balk at the notion of the "spiritual realms", and live after death.As I've said, Buddhism, even Theravada Buddhism, is full of magic and mythic ideas, stories and teachings. So I don't think calling it an atheistic religion is true at all. The only thing it does is avoid discussions and debates over a "creator god". The rest hardly qualifies it as only a philosophy, or atheistic in nature. It's simply not. It's full of myth and magic too.
True, and I believe ideal Christianity should be that as well. I reject dogmatism. I consider it anti-spiritual.
Please do so. He is a really well-informed and educated presenter and everything he is saying in his may videos are right up my ally, and also quite informative to me as well.
I'm not sure of your assessment of Zen Buddhism here. It may be what you were familiar with from way back in the 1960's, but you should see what those in the West used to imagine what T'ai Chi was did with it as well!
I have a book someone gave me who thought I might like it as he knew I was a student and practitioner of T'ai Chi Chuan. It was from the '60s. There are these photos of this woman doing a number of the postures that I know from the forms, like White Crane Spreads its Wings, or Brush Knee. It was absolutely laughable!
She's barefoot in nylon stockings in the sand, doing what looked like modern interpretative dance poses, which looked nothing at all like the posture. And which violated every core principle of a proper structure. Her feet crossed over each other, with toes going in opposite directions, for one thing! You could blow on her and she'd fall over. Nonsense. Rubbish.
So, yeah, maybe what you were exposed to was garbage like that too. But that's not what Zen Buddhism is, any more than that dude with his hot girlfriend in her miniskirt and nylons in the sand he was taking photos of pretended to do Tai Chi in the hopes of him getting laid afterwards was authentic either. I call that nonsense Faux Chi or Húshuō Chuan.
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The funny thing is, they are doing that within their particular system. They are following the rules of logic, or the rules of inference within their system, the same way you may be within yours. That is what I was saying when I said, they may not make the same conclusions as yours, as their context is not the same as yours. They aren't playing cards with the same deck, in other words, but the do follow the rules of logic as well as you do, only within the rules of their own systems.
My point is, it is justified to them. They are not "just believing" it. They can support it in their minds, and it is in their minds. You just are playing in a different ballpark than they are. But they aren't just playing a game of "anything goes". That's my point. Do you understand the difference I'm point out here?
I'm trying to say that the act of justifying a belief is being done in them the same as it is for you. It's just that it's not justifiable to you, given your framework. It is justifiable to them, given their framework. In other words, truth is relative in this case, not absolute.
But my primary point is, they are psychological doing the same thing as you, which is justifying a belief. They're not just believing without any basis at all. They can point to at least something that they can justify to themselves why it is they believe a particular thing.
It is important when you wrongly call a religious faith the same thing as a bad belief or unjustifiable belief. That just leads to ignoring what the other person is talking about.
To a tribal person who has never encountered modernity, a flashlight is supernatural. To him, it is not due to the laws of nature. It is outside his experience of reality. Ditto in all the rest we are talking about.
We are at an impasse. No further discussion is possible. You've placed a wall that entire fields of study and research are disallowed past.
I never said it was unjustified. I'm positive you feel fully justified in your belief/faith.
It's justified to you, given what evidence you allow and disallow. But it's not justifiable to me, which is why I see possibilities beyond it.
You do realize that worldviews are expressions of one's faith, don't you? Of course, I include more in my understanding of faith, so that makes a difference in how we see these things and can or cannot talk about them.
Secret Chief
Vetted Member
Ostronomos
Well-Known Member
For information regarding my current shortcommings and what I'm doing to overcome them see my responses in the latest thread in Philosophy.
The struggle is real. But I accept the challenge.
My point is that that doesn't matter to the critical thinker. He decides for himself if a belief is justified according to the rules of valid reasoning.
I've seen what passes for justified belief from hundreds of believers. I've seen their evidence. They're wrong about their evidence supporting their conclusions by academic standards, and no other "reasoning" they might concoct to connect that evidence to that conclusion is valid.
Belief in a god IS unjustified belief as I defined justified, unless you can show me the sound argument that ends, "therefore, God."
Once again, that doesn't matter to my evaluation of his beliefs.
What further discussion is necessary unless you have a rebuttal, which I'm happy to hear if you have one? I defined justified and unjustified faith. If you think I've made an error, please identify and refute it. If you can't do that, yet we are done, but not because of any impasse more than the dialectic process ends with the last plausible, unrefuted opinion. That's what peer review is. That's how a courtroom trial proceeds. Back and forth until somebody makes an argument that isn't refuted, and then the process ends. A reason an argument or claim can't be refuted is that it is correct. That, and an idea's ability to predict outcomes are the tests of an idea's correctness.
In a court of law, dialectic begins with an opening statement by the prosecution and a theory of a crime. If this argument is convincing to a jury and not successfully rebutted, it's time for a verdict: guilty. But perhaps the defense can poke a hole in that theory, maybe by offering an alibi for the defendant. Perhaps there is cell tower ping data suggesting that the defendant wasn't present at the scene of the crime. If this isn't rebutted, it becomes the last plausible unrebutted argument, and the jury is ready to vote for acquittal. But then, the prosecution produces photos of the suspect near the scene of the crime, resuscitating the original theory of guilt. And once again, if this cannot be successfully rebutted - if it cannot be shown that the prosecution cannot be right - the debate is over and the jury able to convict. This is dialectic, and it ends with the last plausible, unrebutted claim. Any other form of discussion is useless in deciding matters.
I don't really know your definition of faith, but since you don't like mine, it must be different. As I use the word, which is essentially limited to unjustified belief, my worldview contains no faith. If you disagree, please identify a belief I hold that you think isn't justified and explain why you think so. It's the same thing I just told you above. Mere dissent or unsupported contrary opinions like the one above aren't persuasive. Only sound rebuttal is.
Secret Chief
Vetted Member
Zen Buddhism is a school that originated in Japan in the 13th century. It was transmitted from China, where it is known as Chan Buddhism, which arose in about the 6th century ("zen" is the Japanese pronunciation of "chan"). I will admit that, in a former life, I had a pony tail and for this I am extremely sorry.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I hate to tell you but your present day man-bun is not an improvement.
I had a quick read about the company, and was about to lose my mind. How could drop bear be a UK alchohol free brand??
But the founder was an ex-pat from Melbourne, so it suddenly makes sense. Pretty neat cans.
Secret Chief
Vetted Member
If you can cope with the notion of no alcohol, all four beers are good uns. I particularly like the Tropical IPA - it's more hoppy than something that's extremely hoppy.
Secret Chief
Vetted Member
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I hate to admit this, but I have had some alcohol free beer and actually liked them. Please don't tell my friends!If you can cope with the notion of no alcohol, all four beers are good uns. I particularly like the Tropical IPA - it's more hoppy than something that's extremely hoppy.