Originally posted by havalina
Nah, I wasn't presenting anything so ground breaking my next stop is ending world hunger. Just making a couple of **impassive** proposals. Since the overwhelming general consenus of Atheists, Humanists et al is that Christians ride on pure emotional generalities and doom and gloom arguments (that which I won't dismiss altogether).
My question really revolves around how YOU view your hypothesis "god exists" or "religion is the right answer for me". Do you view it as tentative, until something more "fitting" comes along or do you view it as "this here shit is RIGHT ON, forget about all that other junk."? It's an important disctinction which speaks to your perspective regarding epistemology.
Originally posted by havalina
This girl is going to get lambasted but here it goes.... Because there isn't enough reasonable evidence to eliminate the need for faith. Just like you use faith to fill in the blanks in your Logic, so do I.
I use my faith to establish that logic and reason are indeed worthy of my faith. It is a circular argument, but it's on the level fo the definition of the word reason, so it causes the minimal logical damage.
Originally posted by havalina
I do not want to define your views for you, so I will say faith is relative. Your faith may very well mean "uncertainty". And my faith means "trust".
Well I suppose to some degree everything is relative. In this type of conversation we do need to agree on what we're talking about, you're right. I'll try to take your definition into account when responding. I do believe however that in this case we're using 'faith' in the same sense of the word: "trust" is pretty much what I mean.
Originally posted by havalina
Being intelligent and emotionally healthy isn't going to resolve what faith stands in the place of. Like understanding the Trinity for example.
Are you sure? What I'm saying is that if you are intelligent and emotionally healthy, you shouldn't need to believe in something that is pretty much bullshit, like the idea of the trinity in terms of the standard christian definition that I'm familiar with "father/son/holy ghost" or whatever. That last part there is almost surely a crock of shit made up by people who were trying to socially engineer humans so that they didn't kill each other, and simulatneously using bullshit to explain that which they thought they understood, but really didn't have a fucking clue about. For instance. I'd be all the money in the world that most people living throughout all of time have ended up thinking they had pretty much figured all the important shit out, whereas if you pick up a math or physics or atronomy book, you know better. Unless of course, you're unreasonable (the proverbial "you".
Originally posted by havalina
I'm not sure how Nihilism(sp?) is either here or there. I can still assume my proposals if nothing is objective.
Nihilism: Nothing is there. Hehe, my point had nothing to do with nihilism. It has to do with knowledge, consciousness and the core of philosophy (as I see it). If one asks the appropriate questions I believe one ends up with "well shit, I can't prove it's not the matrix". That's the core of philosophy to me, that one really can't "prove" much regarding the nature of conciousness's place in "reality". That's not Nihilism. I'm not saying "Nothing is there.", just "Nothing can really be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt", or more succinctly "all knowledge is tentative.
Originally posted by havalina
I agree to an extent. I am from the school of thought that proposes the universe has a beginning. These processes that manifested you speak of, assuming they came from said universe, cannot sufficiently be the cause of our abiltity to think infinitely.
How is it that you can "think infinitely"? I think you're exagerating. It certainly
seems infinite but that is really just poetic language don't you think? I'm of the same school of thought that says "the universe has a beginning" but only because there is a bunch of extremely plausible sounding evidence suggesting that the universe is a bit over 14 Billion years old. There are some interesting theories as to what might have "existed" before that. My problem is that with religions in general what is the point of thinking of something that might have existed before the big bang besides to say "god", when that description does nothing to really increase our understanding of the process that lead to the universe. Actually I guess that fine as long as it makes you ask "what is god?" rathere than "how may I serve god?". See the difference? See why one is wrong? Hehe, okay.. well it's VERY wrong to ME.
Originally posted by havalina
For, if we are given the ability to think about/of infinity, causelessness, perfection, Super Man, etc... I do not understand how something that isn't infinite gives something an abilty to think infinitely.
So then, why would you presume to be able to answer such a sohpisticated question with a simplistic answer like "god"? Eh, I'm getting tired and don't want to type a whole bunch.. so I'm dropping it for now.
Originally posted by havalina
Please do not assume my faith = laziness.
I have faith for lack of proof. Just as I have faith that gravity exists, though we cannot prove it.
faith for lack of proof is laziness. at least that's how it sounds to me. you basically just told me "I don't have proof, so it must be this explanation". That is lazy and worse, to me it wreaks of despair, hidden behind a veil of religion. I don't mean to imply that you are some wretched thing, I'm just saying that in general that's how the concepts in question relate to me from what you said. *shrug* just saying that's not a personal attack. It's just an analysis of your words.
Originally posted by havalina
Yes something personified or greater. It seems people have natural, innate desires...thirst, hunger, sex, etc. These natural desires have a corresponding object to it (water, food, [insert sex object here]. We have a natural desire to know where natural wonders came from. Since every other natural desire has a corresponding object to it, there is good reason to think the same who created natural wonders.
That is not a reasonable conclusion to draw. You're thinking of things in a poetic and beautiful manner and drawing "happy thoughts" conclusions from your line of pretty thinking. Are the desires which are a result of my mind unnatural? If so, why are there so many freaky feet fetish people? Ick! It's obviously some sort of genetic thing, an anomoly of some sort!
LOL. I'm not trying to be rude I swear, but your reasoning is not good here. Can someone else explain why this is false quicker than I can? I'm getting tired. Thanks in advance, for real. Booya Kasha.
Originally posted by havalina
It's hard to think of what their 1st mode of communiation would be. The eyes most likely. And I agree, their intellectual skills would more than likely evolve from there. However, I believe primitive cavemen were as real as pixies. IMO, from the beginning of mankind, humans were always able to think as competely as we can today. We never evolved, rather tapped into different ways of thinking. You more than likey don't agree with my creation stance, but we'll have to agree to disagree so this thread isn't hijacked
1st mode of communiation? I don't know what that means, but it sounds pretty uh... well, religious. *shrug* Okay.
Primitive cavemen are as real as pixies????? I'm sorry, but this is why I didn't respond in the first place. IMO, you don't seem serious about your interest or you wouldn't say things that are so grossly un-informed. How do you explain the skeletons? What about the science behind it? It's pretty plausible. It's certainly far more plausible than an invisible sadist in the sky and a dead guy who you think absolves you of sin. *shrug* That's a true statement. I would say that if you argue against the basic idea of evolution, you are not earnestly interested in objective reality.
Originally posted by havalina
After you've picked yourself off the floor from laughing at my reasoning, let me know if I failed to answer your questions.
Hehe, you're fine and sorry I tend to sound rude but I really didn't mean it that way.
