Fair Chance?
- Thread starter TheERK
- Start date
That's true. Animals, if anything, experience emotions even more strongly than we humans. What seperates humans from the animals is our moving away from emotional motivations in our actions. Animals are led by their emotions to follow instinctual patterns.
I always thought that our intellect makes us different. 
I'm sure you know yourself better than I do.Dreamwalker said:
No feeling can keep you from believing in God, it's you that interprets the feeling and then by your choice walk away from Him. If you choose to trust the feeling. If you want to believe in God then you will find that there are many feelings that will help you.
You say that you don't feel love, but I think you do. Love can be just living and tolerating eachother. There is no passive form, no equilibrum. We all got to take a stand. Otherwize we would need to build everything more and more on top of eachother to find balance. Since everything is under change.
You say "religious lies" but you don't know that they are lies. You are preset in your oppinion.
@ Enigma
If I go and kick an animal repeatedly, I am sure it would start to hate me.
It is no consequence if hate is emotion or instict (whereas I think that animals, including us, have instinctual emotions.), animals have both and so do we. Overcoming those instincts however is something that few beings are capable of (so it seems). So overcoming love and hate could be the next evolutionary step.
If I go and kick an animal repeatedly, I am sure it would start to hate me.
It is no consequence if hate is emotion or instict (whereas I think that animals, including us, have instinctual emotions.), animals have both and so do we. Overcoming those instincts however is something that few beings are capable of (so it seems). So overcoming love and hate could be the next evolutionary step.
Animals act on instinct through emotions. It feels good to follow instincts. It feels bad not to. That's why sex feels so good. That's why that early morning pee feels so good. That's why parents love their children. That's why fear induces flight or fight responses. Instincts are tied to emotions. Emotions come from the lizard brain that is buried far under our thinking brains. We, as humans, have seperated from this emotional feedback system in many ways, but we still fall prey to it from time to time.
Cyperium said:
But why do you have to build everything on top of each other to find balance? When you have found balance in your soul, you can accept everything. All struggles are there because we take a stand.
It is entirely possible that if we ever did succeed in overcoming instinctual responses we would be signing the death warrant of our species. Instincts are there for a reason. There may come a time when logic will fail and instincts are required. If we have none, we're doomed. This is the ultimate flaw of the vulcans. But even they still have instincts, they're just deeply repressed. Sorry to break out the Star Trek chatter.
With heart I mean the seat of emotions - that was probably also what the Bible meant since it was throughly believed in that time that the heart was the origin of thoughts and emotions. Now we rather believe it is the brain, but I think it's all working together. The heart here is used as a image, not a physical object. Another thing why the heart is useful as a image is because there are a "constant knock on the door".Katazia said:
You must understand that the body and the mind evolved together. I can imagine that even without spiritual understanding and only physical understanding about evolution and so on, this might still be valid:
Evolution enhanced bodily functions that had symbolic significance, to enable symbolic constructions and greater understanding by the brain, the constant knock on the door by the heart may be such a symbolic enhancement.
invert_nexus said:It is entirely possible that if we ever did succeed in overcoming instinctual responses we would be signing the death warrant of our species. Instincts are there for a reason. There may come a time when logic will fail and instincts are required. If we have none, we're doomed. This is the ultimate flaw of the vulcans. But even they still have instincts, they're just deeply repressed. Sorry to break out the Star Trek chatter.
Hmm, perhaps I have a flaw in my argumentation. I do not want to overcome the instincts, I meant overcoming the "instinctual emotions" like love and hate, because they are not really useful IMO.
Cyperium,
What the intellect can do is objectively filter out claims that have no basis and which cannot be justified, and use independent facts to find real truth. The outcome of that is to conclude that Christianity has no objective facts as its basis – it relies entirely on unreliable emotions.
Kat
Agreed, but where emotions fail is when we want to determine truth. Emotions are inherently unreliable in that regard, and as you say they are just your desires.
What the intellect can do is objectively filter out claims that have no basis and which cannot be justified, and use independent facts to find real truth. The outcome of that is to conclude that Christianity has no objective facts as its basis – it relies entirely on unreliable emotions.
Kat
Because there will allways be something with a lack of balance, and there will allways be a need to compensate for that, so instead of balancing on a thin line, you should choose which side you want to be on.Dreamwalker said:
Though balancing can give you alot of insights and trust me, it's not all that bad. But sooner or later you will find that there is allways some kind of unbalance and you have to struggle with that too.
To not take a stand and just plainly stop worrying about things is a nice idea, I give you that. I've also thought about doing that.
But not taking a stand means to accept nothing. To be moved by no force.
Two people can say exactly the same thing, one have a good purpouse and want to help you, one have a bad purpouse. The one that had a good purpouse will succeed in his help while the one with a bad purpouse won't.
There is no way of knowledge to know which one has a good purpouse and which one has not. This is why we have to trust a greater force. Some call it to be moved by the holy spirit. If you don't take a stand you will be like a bouncing ball, moving from good and bad, without meaning.
It's in the bible: If only people were either hot or cold...but now people are neither and I spit them out of my mouth.
Cyperium said:
Yes, it is about evidence, because there is evidence that tells us things completely contrary to what you are claiming. So many times, what people feel in their heart is patently false. If you *really* need examples of this, I can elaborate, but hopefully you understand.
You can't always trust what people 'feel in their heart', as un-romantic as it sounds.
This thread got derailed. If you're going to talk about the existence or lack thereof of the soul, please start a new thread.
I haven't gotten a single comprehensive answer to my opening post question. I am simply asking for a justification of the unfairness, or an explanation of why it really is fair, and only seems unfair.
I haven't gotten a single comprehensive answer to my opening post question. I am simply asking for a justification of the unfairness, or an explanation of why it really is fair, and only seems unfair.
You will never get any justification for god's actions other than god's will be done. God refuses to justify himself. And I certainly don't think he ever promised to be fair anywhere. If anything, he promised to be unfair.
TheERK,
You will never receive a meaningful answer from a Christian since you know you have set a paradox that is impossible for them to answer. The only honest answer would be for them to admit that such a god could never exist, and I can't seem any of them doing that any time soon.
Kat
You will never receive a meaningful answer from a Christian since you know you have set a paradox that is impossible for them to answer. The only honest answer would be for them to admit that such a god could never exist, and I can't seem any of them doing that any time soon.
Kat