There can be no light without the dark.....right?

[look3467]

Good and evil are largely subjective, for example some people may call an action good while others may call it evil - it depends on whether or not the individual perceiving that action perceives that the outcomes of that action are desirable (or at least preferable to the alternative outcomes) and perhaps whether or not the action itself conforms to the individual's perception of desirable modes of behaviour (if they put value not just on the ends but also the means).>>>InformedIgnorance

What you just explained is what God intended us to exercise as gods. Now, without any standards there can be no degree of trespass, so it becomes relative.

The bible states: Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

So the words "no law" indicates there is no opposition, therefore, no quarrel.

The quarrel is the test of our godliness by reason of a standard as the op-poser.

Ref:Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. Rom 5:13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

No form of Godly knowledge is to be termed "in darkness" for lack of, and "Light" for Godly knowledge.

Which way do we want to look at it?
Scientifically or spiritually?

That is up to each one of us to decide.

Blessings, AJ

 

[glyphkenn]

What you just explained is what God intended us to exercise as gods. Now, without any standards there can be no degree of trespass, so it becomes relative.

The bible states: Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

So the words "no law" indicates there is no opposition, therefore, no quarrel.

The quarrel is the test of our godliness by reason of a standard as the op-poser.

Ref:Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. Rom 5:13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

No form of Godly knowledge is to be termed "in darkness" for lack of, and "Light" for Godly knowledge.

Which way do we want to look at it?
Scientifically or spiritually?

That is up to each one of us to decide.

Blessings, AJ

yeaaah, but what do yooou think about it. you've become so heavenly minded you are no earthly good. You not even speaking English any more with all your bible saids. I've read the bible cover to cover many times . Usually true true bible thumpers are not as eloquent or as tolerant as you. Your okay in my book. I'll get at on another topic.

 

[Tom Terrific]

You bear no responsibility to me (what’s with all this personal stuff, anyway?)…

I wasn’t asking your opinion. As for the “personal stuff”: aren’t you a person? Aren’t we two people talking? Or do you see yourself as some sort of soulless mathematical entity – wait, that may be exactly what you see yourself as, and me as well. After all, I doubt you would admit to the existence of anything so amorphous as a “soul.” Well, I think refusing to regard oneself as a person takes a lot more faith (and foolishness) than the converse. I will continue to believe that both you and I are persons and that for as long as this conversation continues we are two persons talking. That makes our conversation personal.

And we have language and concepts regardless of whatever is meant by ‘reality’.

We do? How? What is the difference between what we are saying and the vocalizations of a chimpanzee? How do we know there is any relationship between what each of us is saying and hearing the other say? How do we know anything we ideate has any meaning at all? How do we know that meaning exists to begin with? Why bother talking at all? Why bother doing anything?

You take much for granted. Your problem isn’t that you’re too critical; your problem is that you aren’t critical enough. You ought to train the same tools you use to tear apart the belief systems of others on your own; that might open your eyes.

… good and evil are opposites…

You keep saying this, and I keep denying it.

… ‘good’ is simply ‘no evil’…

Again, no it is not. You choose to think so, and appeal to language to substantiate your position, as if language defined reality or as if knowledge were limited to what we can ideate or express in language. But knowledge precedes conception and expression. This is the point you will resist most strongly; and I won’t argue with you over it. It is pretty obvious. Words and concepts are infused with meaning, and that meaning has to come from somewhere prior to conception and thought. Your only alternative to this conclusion is to deny meaning altogether – and some do. That, of course, is ridiculous, because no one actually lives in accordance with that principle. Everyone behaves as if their actions mean something; and what someone believes is described by what they do, not what they say.

We really do not “define” anything; we can only describe. We can only model our experience. The idea that we can frame reality as a closed system with pre-existing and unquestionable axioms is completely false; Goedel demonstrated that nearly a hundred years ago, much to Bertrand Russell’s chagrin.

I believe that there exists a quality called “Good” from which all that exists is derived and of which all that exists partakes. Can I prove it? Not really. But neither can you prove the contrary. You choose to believe that good and evil are merely relative qualities, while I choose to believe that good alone is absolute and that evil is relative. Neither of us can prove that our position is correct and the other’s is incorrect. I am able, I think, to demonstrate that relativism is a hopeless frame for reality, but not to someone who doesn’t want to see it. And most relativists most assuredly do not want to see it, and will run from the room with their eyes tightly shut in order to avoid seeing it.

So, you are saying there is knowledge? Please enlighten me.

See above.

With respect you came to this discussion to argue an explicit point, using language: “Good and evil are not opposites; that misconception may be the root of the conceptual problem. Evil is the absence of good, not its opposite.” But now you want to dismiss all discussion on the basis that language is absurd…

I did not come to argue or debate. I came to express a different point of view and to point out the flaws in yours. If what I say makes no sense to you, well, let it go. I have already indicated my readiness to be finished with this discussion.

I do not want to dismiss all discussion. What I want to dismiss, and do, is that reality and our experience of reality can be confined to what we are able to say about it. Language is not the limit of awareness; it’s only the threshold.

You cannot believe what cannot be believed, and therefore you must have an understanding of what it is you believe.

This made no sense to me at first, until I realized that you must understand “belief” as “subscription to a set of propositions.” Belief is much deeper than that. Post-Enlightenment rationalism has been the drug of choice in Western thought for the past 300 years; but it limits one to a very stilted view of reality.

Belief, or faith, is better understood as trust. One subscribes to this or that proposition as an act of trust, because of the perceived beneficial nature of the outcome of doing so. Every action is so formulated – great ones, such as choosing a religion or no religion, or choosing to marry or not marry, and small ones, such as whether to get out of bed or to have eggs or pancakes for breakfast. Choosing to believe that good and evil are merely relative is another example.

You believe that good and evil are merely relative because your reason cannot define them any other way. The problem is that there exists knowledge and understanding that precedes reason and upon which reason is based. You believe that all knowledge is rational, and that forces you to think in terms of dichotomies. But knowledge cannot be rational, because reason assigns meaning to its elements and that meaning must come from somewhere *outside* reason’s limits.

So what is ‘good’ about me (or anthing, come to that)?

Don’t you know?

You appear to believe you are privy to special knowledge not available to the rest of us…

On the contrary, I think it’s available to everyone. But people who argue your point of view usually don’t want to see it. “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,” as the saying goes. The irony is that the heaven that Milton’s Satan was refusing had nothing to do with reigning or serving. His own blindness, born of pride, kept him from seeing the reality in terms of anything but power.

 

[St Giordano Bruno]

Do you mean subjective darkness or objective darkness? Starting with subjective darkness that can be any sensation of any visible light while one is awake and conscious and that presents itself as a sensation of the colour black. Photons of light play a more direct role in darkness while you are conscious but that does not apply experiences of darkness in dreams and hallucinations to give the sensation of any colour black such dreaming you are running down a dark ally. Those sensations of darkness can be put more down to neural impulses.

 

[look3467]

yeaaah, but what do yooou think about it. you've become so heavenly minded you are no earthly good. You not even speaking English any more with all your bible saids. I've read the bible cover to cover many times . Usually true true bible thumpers are not as eloquent or as tolerant as you. Your okay in my book. I'll get at on another topic.

As I have been saying all along and without change, we are gods! That entitles us to free thinking but not without a price.
The price we have to pay is endurance and alienation via subjection. A place in time, not of our choosing, nor to whom we are born to and finally, to what state of belief system we are raised in.

Alienation from Godly knowledge due to our ability to think individually as gods.
We were created in darkness, meaning without knowledge of who the creator really was/is.
Darkness, not having to do with the physical lack of light, but rather darkness not having the light of the spiritual knowledge of God.

You've read the bible cover to cover looking for what? Unless you have faith to believe
in the light of God's knowledge via His prophets, his Son and His words, you have no faith.
For therein (Faith) : Rom 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

A small bit from "Albert Barnes...Notes on the bible commentary":

the phrase “righteousness of God” is equivalent to God’s “plan of justifying people;

his scheme of declaring them just in the sight of the Law; or of acquitting them from

punishment, and admitting them to favor.” In this sense it stands opposed to man’s

plan of justification, that is, by his own works: God’s plan is by faith. The way in

which that is done is revealed in the gospel. The object contemplated to be done is to

treat people as if they were righteous. Man attempted to accomplish this by

obedience to the Law. The plan of God was to arrive at it by faith. Here the two

schemes differ; and the great design of this Epistle is to show that man cannot be

justified on his own plan, to wit, by works; and that the plan of God is the only way,

and a wise and glorious way of making man just in the eye of the Law. No small part

of the perplexity usually attending this subject will be avoided if it is remembered

that the discussion in this Epistle pertains to the question, “how can mortal man be

just with God?” The apostle shows that it cannot be by works; and that it “can be” by faith.

This latter is what he calls the “righteousness of God” which is revealed in the gospel.

The term "heavenly minded" is a two edged sword, it cuts both ways.
It goes along with the following verse: Mat 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Blessings, AJ

 

[blackout]

I agree with darkness being "default" considering it is defined as a relative absence of light. However, I'm not sure if it's the primary state of the universe to lack photons (if we're talking about total darkness here, e.g. no light whatsoever). That's a tough question to answer because we don't know if the universe had a beginning state or not -- it may not have began to exist at all, for the Big Bang Event could have merely been the beginning of a state of the universe rather than the existence of the universe.

From what we do know about events shortly after the Big Bang event, though, the visible universe would have been opaque with so much light because of the unimaginable temperatures, pressures, and interactions between early matter (such as quark-gluon plasmas -- not a layman's term, but "early matter" works for that ). However, there still would have been space between photons which might be interpretable as the "presence" of darkness -- but not absolute darkness.

As for photons coming out of the darkness -- sure, actually. Particle-antiparticle pairs come in and out of existence all the time in the vacuum (in such a way that preserves the total energy of the universe, though), especially photons (which are their own antiparticle). Whether or not this phenomena has anything to do with the primary or fundamental state of the universe in terms of darkness or light, though, I don't know -- because it would require a knowledge of whether the photons were first or whether the vacuum (and darkness) were first (and possibly both always existed); a veritable "chicken and egg" problem.

ahh... That was interesting.

Thanks for your efforts to explain it so I could understand it. :cover:

Just found antiparticles on wiki.

 

[Daviso452]

whatever happened to short posts?

 

[Desert Snake]

whatever happened to short posts?

Yeah, I know.

 

[look3467]

whatever happened to short posts?

Skip over if you like, don't have to read them you know.


Blessings, AJ

 

[cottage]

I wasn’t asking your opinion. As for the “personal stuff”: aren’t you a person? Aren’t we two people talking? Or do you see yourself as some sort of soulless mathematical entity – wait, that may be exactly what you see yourself as, and me as well. After all, I doubt you would admit to the existence of anything so amorphous as a “soul.” Well, I think refusing to regard oneself as a person takes a lot more faith (and foolishness) than the converse. I will continue to believe that both you and I are persons and that for as long as this conversation continues we are two persons talking. That makes our conversation personal.

Well of course we are two persons talking! I was referring to the creepy pretence at having concern for someone you don’t know. The reason you are speaking to me is because you have beliefs you need to defend (the prior self), not because you care about any particular individual on a public forum.

Again, no it is not. You choose to think so, and appeal to language to substantiate your position, as if language defined reality or as if knowledge were limited to what we can ideate or express in language. But knowledge precedes conception and expression. This is the point you will resist most strongly; and I won’t argue with you over it. It is pretty obvious. Words and concepts are infused with meaning, and that meaning has to come from somewhere prior to conception and thought. Your only alternative to this conclusion is to deny meaning altogether – and some do. That, of course, is ridiculous, because no one actually lives in accordance with that principle. Everyone behaves as if their actions mean something; and what someone believes is described by what they do, not what they say.

Your argument is misguided. I explained in an earlier post that language is not necessary to make good and evil intelligible. Good and evil are not mere words but states, actions or events, and we can conceive of positive actions and we can conceive of negative actions, regardless of the terms we use to describe those states. But self-evidently we can only conceive of things as ‘good’ if they are without bad or negative occurrences. A newborn child or an animal can be observed to react to particular stimuli and it doesn’t matter whether ‘good and bad’ or ‘kajok and zipoh’ (the latter pair being words I have just invented) are used to describe what is seen.

We really do not “define” anything; we can only describe. We can only model our experience. The idea that we can frame reality as a closed system with pre-existing and unquestionable axioms is completely false; Goedel demonstrated that nearly a hundred years ago, much to Bertrand Russell’s chagrin.

Everything, and I do mean everything, is subject to examination and analysis, for reason and logic itself may on occasions be wrong or misapplied (and I include in that Russell’s Principia Mathematica, to which Goedel responded with his Incompleteness Theory). Nothing is to be insulated and protected by doctrine, dogma, inductive arguments or even pure logic. If something can be shown to be both one thing and another at the same time and in the same way, then I concur; but in the meantime, unless you can demonstrate otherwise, it is the case that you cannot believe what you cannot believe. For all your mystical utterances and belief that words have no corresponding value you would not come here and announce that goodness and evil are the same one thing or that a perfect circle is also an oval. Like it or not you, too, are a slave of logic and reason just as the rest of us because it enables coherent thought.

I believe that there exists a quality called “Good” from which all that exists is derived and of which all that exists partakes. Can I prove it? Not really. But neither can you prove the contrary. You choose to believe that good and evil are merely relative qualities, while I choose to believe that good alone is absolute and that evil is relative. Neither of us can prove that our position is correct and the other’s is incorrect. I am able, I think, to demonstrate that relativism is a hopeless frame for reality, but not to someone who doesn’t want to see it. And most relativists most assuredly do not want to see it, and will run from the room with their eyes tightly shut in order to avoid seeing it.

You say you believe there is a quality called ‘Good’. But all you are saying is that you believe there ultimately exists a state or source where there are no negative qualities, which of course is what makes it good! And I notice you shy away from explaining what goodness is, as you absolutely must if you’re not to acknowledge its utter dependence upon the absence or impossibility of evil, and yet you acknowledge the existence of evil by giving examples of it in an earlier post! So if you know what is evil then it follows you know what is not evil. The question then for you to answer is what is the qualitative difference between a state of no evil and ‘Good’?


[/quote]

I did not come to argue or debate. I came to express a different point of view and to point out the flaws in yours. If what I say makes no sense to you, well, let it go. I have already indicated my readiness to be finished with this discussion.

Excuse me, but you certainly did come to argue a point. If you came here to ‘point out flaws’ in an argument then you are engaging in debate, or did you perhaps think that your objection should be accepted without a murmur?
In order to defend an indefensible position, that evil is not the opposite of ‘good’, you have argued against the utility of language, but when defects are demonstrated in your argument you then expect to reject the very same means of expression that brought your own argument to this forum. Can you not see how that position is self-refuting?

Belief, or faith, is better understood as trust. One subscribes to this or that proposition as an act of trust, because of the perceived beneficial nature of the outcome of doing so. Every action is so formulated – great ones, such as choosing a religion or no religion, or choosing to marry or not marry, and small ones, such as whether to get out of bed or to have eggs or pancakes for breakfast. Choosing to believe that good and evil are merely relative is another example.

You believe that good and evil are merely relative because your reason cannot define them any other way. But knowledge cannot be rational, because reason assigns meaning to its elements and that meaning must come from somewhere *outside* reason’s limits.

Well, one can choose to have eggs or pancakes for breakfast, marry or not marry etc, but it’s clearly incorrect to say that we ‘choose to believe good and evil are merely relative’ when it is impossible to posit ‘goodness’ without reference to the concept of evil. One has to deliberately and absurdly deny that self-evident intuition if one is to protect mystical or doctrinal beliefs to the contrary. And your last sentence is a misleading and selective attempt to apply reason, which is self-contradictory given everything you’ve said so far. The problem isn’t your particular metaphysical explanation but your belief as faith in its certainty, which takes it out of speculative metaphysics and into the realm of mysticism. Everything I say may be wrong or false, except where a contradiction or some other absurdity demonstrates otherwise, but mystics can make no such admission despite their arguments being grounded in the same empirical and logical world as the doubters.

On the contrary, I think it’s available to everyone. But people who argue your point of view usually don’t want to see it. “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,” as the saying goes. The irony is that the heaven that Milton’s Satan was refusing had nothing to do with reigning or serving. His own blindness, born of pride, kept him from seeing the reality in terms of anything but power.

So many words and yet you say nothing at all. I’ve seen this before where those who cannot escape their mystical inclinations attempt to bolster and rationalize their beliefs through trying to convince others. You began several posts back with a reasoned argument, but when I presented my opposing argument you resorted (rather haughtily) to oblique mystic-speak.