The problem with arguing any two religions or even atheism against theism is that each side uses their own belief system as the baseline to compare the other one with. You cannot do that because if one belief system is faulty then you cannot use that faulty system to compare the other one. You can't say the other guy’s religion or non-religion is wrong because it doesn't jive with your own understanding or beliefs. Each side can only have faith that theirs is the correct one.
The Problem with Arguing One Belief System Against Another
- Thread starter Brutus1964
- Start date
Brutus1964 said:
It is all about ROOTS for me. going to the begining of mythology, philosophy, religion, science....and seeing what you find. ANd just as importantly, looking at the actual going on in the world around you.
it is seeing PATTERNS, and listening to your intuition, and also trying to be flexible too. meaning being open to other ideas no matter how daunting.
what you and your religion see totally un-aware of for example is how myth was composed! you seem to take suface structures as sacrosanct, haveing no knowledge of the literary devices that were used in myth writing. poising to stuff you may not be awae of. ie., makin the unknower a bit of a fool. like...not getting the joke kind of thing
the patter n i intuit with you is your religious views and political views correlate. you dont see deep enough into what's going on for my money. everything is surface. Bush wants a 'real good world ...folks (smirk)' and so does your bible. everyone with--well the Mormons that is--with their own little planet
it is all absurd and needs serious challenging!..
that is why you are here.
otherwise why ARe you here?
to turn us all on to mormonism....?
it AINT gonna happen babe
Duendy
The idea for this thread really wasn't intended do discuss any particular religion but more of a philosophical discussion on how religion is argued in the first place.
The idea for this thread really wasn't intended do discuss any particular religion but more of a philosophical discussion on how religion is argued in the first place.
Brutus1964 said:
okayy......well most of what i said stil holds. for eample, a literalist understanding of religious mythology is going to conflict with a deeper reading that has grokked about how words were used to convey all forms of pointers to other stuff the sur-face reader may not be aware of
i am not being elitist about this. iam trying to say that surely if that is not known then what is one talking about?
also the origins of a religion. in christianty's case--pagan origins. THAt has to be known about. In Hebrwic--Zoroaastriansim has to be known about as it is a major influence
am i on the ball now Bru?
if not give us a master class demonstration
atheism is not a belief system, just the opposite.Brutus1964 said:
so can you clarify: if a muslim and xian are arguing. which one has the faulty religion in your eyes.Brutus1964 said:
but an atheist can because he is neutral.Brutus1964 said:
quite true... their must be an impartial judge.
Audible
But the atheist still uses his own understandings as a baseline to compare atheism with theism. If the theists are right then you have to be wrong, and would make you the one arguing from the faulty position. If the theists are wrong then they are the ones arguing from the faulty position.
Also you cannot say that the atheist is arguing from a nuetral position because he has already prejudiced himself against any theist position.
But the atheist still uses his own understandings as a baseline to compare atheism with theism. If the theists are right then you have to be wrong, and would make you the one arguing from the faulty position. If the theists are wrong then they are the ones arguing from the faulty position.
Also you cannot say that the atheist is arguing from a nuetral position because he has already prejudiced himself against any theist position.
Brutus1964 said:
i am seeing it as like positive negative and earth
ok, take the Israelies and Palestinaian conflict. Now Israelie will see THEIr position as positive and Palestinaians position as negative, and Palestinian will see vice versa. so i ask myself then, what is missing? and i come up with EARTH. that Earth is the ..neutralizer(?).....Earth is the common bond that creates the dynamic circuit of positive and negative, whereas those two belief systems are in a kind of VISCIOUS cicuit with OUT being Earthed
The commonality being Nature, and not literalist beliefs from a written book.
Actually this is my experience both of your religion, other Abrahamic and all patriarchal beliefs, and mechanistic science-of which many athiests embrace after giving up, or denying patriarchal and spiritual religious belief. The missing factor is Earth/Nature
so EARTHED is the key. Nature is the unacknowldeged nurturer of the frowning thinking philospher-ascetic. a bit like the unacknowledged canteen lady comeing round with the tea and foodstuffs to the ever so serious and 'important' exectutive men. they also do all their fukin cleanin!
I cant agree as religion is founded in mythology, where'as atheism is based in logic, so cant be arguing from a faulty possition. logic as we know it, is faultless.brutus said:
no, you can, he has no prejudice toward theism just the opposite.brutus said:
Brutus1964 said:
Its called ethnocentrism and it is something that researchers in anthropology and sociology have been dealing with for years. One of the ways that anthropologists attempt to overcome this is through participant observation. They live among the people they are attempting to understand and describe and experience much of what they experience, gaining trust from those they are with. They're never truly accepted as a member of the group (perhaps in some rare instances when an anthropologist will "go native"), but gain enough trust an insight to be able to be more objective in their ethnography.
Its a bit difficult to conduct participant observation, however, when your goal is to disrupt the other culture/belief system by arguing against in public. It is definately ethnocentric to "witness" to another religion/culture's members without first attempting to accept that their own religion/culture has as much validity as your own.
Your logic is flawed.audible said:
Belief is "any cognitive content held as true." Therefore, atheism, though it is grounded in logic, is still a "belief." A more logically tenable belief than some form of theism, but a belief nonetheless.
That's very true, Brutus. I would go on to say that our presumptions don't end with our beliefs, but that those beliefs influence the general culture. To judge Japanese culture, for instance, based on western values would be like comparing apples to oranges. The idea that God makes sense is based less on an objective, universal system of logic, and more on the culture in which you were raised, which was in turn created by the very belief system you are asked to judge.
I dont agree, there is a big difference between knowing a thing with a solid logical base, and believing.SkinWalker said:
know To perceive directly; grasp in the mind with clarity or certainty.
To regard as true beyond doubt.
To have a practical understanding of, as through experience; be skilled in.
To have fixed in the mind.
belief: The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another.
Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.
so I dont think audios logic to be flawed.
The point of this thread is that any belief system that argues against another belief system, using itself, will always precieve itself to be correct regardless of anything else.
Get it or don't.
Get it or don't.
Of course, some of us atheists started out religious. And some theists changed from one religion to another. They therefore understand each position from 'within' the belief.Brutus1964 said:
Personally, I started off Protestant (Evangelical) and then moved through several other religious belief systems (Christian and Non-Christian) before becoming an irreligious theist (Agnostic) and winding up an Atheist. I have a fairly good understanding of each.
~Raithere
Max Action
Registered Member
It is all about epistemology for me. Going to the beginning of science, evolution, language, perception, consciousness....and seeing what you find. And just as importantly, looking at the limitations in your ability to know if you have the faintest clue about the "actual" goings-on around you.
It's seeing that we can only reliably find the patterns that we are already looking for, and knowing that we'll never have any idea when to distrust and when to pay heed to our intuitions - and yet trying not to lose our minds entirely ... maintain some sense of self, some sense of which way is up, some sense of which way the light is - no matter that deep down we know damn well that it's all utterly meaningless, and nothing is any truer or cooler or better or more preferable than anything else - at least not in any logical, non-circular way. No matter how much we wish it weren't really so.
What you and your scientific naturalism seem to be totally unaware of is how science and knowledge evolved! You seem to take crude utilitarian metaphors as sacrosanct, having no knowledge of the literary devices that were used in their formation.
The pattern I sense to look look for and find so easily with you is that your philosophical views and your political views correlate. You dont see deep enough into what's going on for my money. Everything is surface.
It is all absurd and needs serious challenging!
That is why you are here.
Otherwise, why ARE you here?
---
I don't know about Brutus' overall argument, and if he's a Mormon I disagree with his conclusions far more than yours - but in the beginning/end, he's right about one thing - "Each side can only have faith that theirs' is the correct one."
There is no reason to think we can have even an inkling of knowledge at the level of reality-modelling where we pretend to understand reality itself - this fuzzy inability to calculate at this level of analysis, combined with our misguided but deep-seated conviction that we're actually quite adept at it - this is the very reason religions can seem perfectly plausible to believers ... and how we all manage to allow ourselves to believe that there is some "meaning," some superiority, in our one preferred, imagined belief-arrangement.
Our minds have evolved to be compelled - to varying extents - to stay busy chopping down at other worldviews, so that they can avoid realizing that their own li'l worldview is ultimately, demonstrably, objectively, knowably, no better or worse, smarter or dumber, more rational or more sane, than any other way-of-reality-modelling / meta-perspective / worldview / way-of-believing.
No matter how complex the system --- no matter how many intricate correlations from observable reality it manages to internalize, how many tiny useful ways it can map out local patterns with detailed mathematical symbology - and no matter how emotionally-satisfying, presupposition-fortifying, or ego-gratifying- --- once you step outside of them, all belief systems ultimately stand upon the same nothingness, the same faith, the same willful and utilitarian blind denial, as does any other worldview. All systems self-reference. The snake eternally eats its own tail. An infinite number of true equations can be drawn up to restate in other terms that 1=1.
Which if two fictional realms is "better" when we have no realiable access to truth - and regardless - we have no unassailable reason available to automatically prefer a 'truer' worldview to a less true one. After all, are there not other criteria worth considering? Of course. But can anyone claim that where they stand - how they choose to balance it all out, is anything but inescapeably subjective?
What I'm trying to say, I guess, is:
Om.
Goodnight!
It's seeing that we can only reliably find the patterns that we are already looking for, and knowing that we'll never have any idea when to distrust and when to pay heed to our intuitions - and yet trying not to lose our minds entirely ... maintain some sense of self, some sense of which way is up, some sense of which way the light is - no matter that deep down we know damn well that it's all utterly meaningless, and nothing is any truer or cooler or better or more preferable than anything else - at least not in any logical, non-circular way. No matter how much we wish it weren't really so.
What you and your scientific naturalism seem to be totally unaware of is how science and knowledge evolved! You seem to take crude utilitarian metaphors as sacrosanct, having no knowledge of the literary devices that were used in their formation.
The pattern I sense to look look for and find so easily with you is that your philosophical views and your political views correlate. You dont see deep enough into what's going on for my money. Everything is surface.
It is all absurd and needs serious challenging!
That is why you are here.
Otherwise, why ARE you here?
---
I don't know about Brutus' overall argument, and if he's a Mormon I disagree with his conclusions far more than yours - but in the beginning/end, he's right about one thing - "Each side can only have faith that theirs' is the correct one."
There is no reason to think we can have even an inkling of knowledge at the level of reality-modelling where we pretend to understand reality itself - this fuzzy inability to calculate at this level of analysis, combined with our misguided but deep-seated conviction that we're actually quite adept at it - this is the very reason religions can seem perfectly plausible to believers ... and how we all manage to allow ourselves to believe that there is some "meaning," some superiority, in our one preferred, imagined belief-arrangement.
Our minds have evolved to be compelled - to varying extents - to stay busy chopping down at other worldviews, so that they can avoid realizing that their own li'l worldview is ultimately, demonstrably, objectively, knowably, no better or worse, smarter or dumber, more rational or more sane, than any other way-of-reality-modelling / meta-perspective / worldview / way-of-believing.
No matter how complex the system --- no matter how many intricate correlations from observable reality it manages to internalize, how many tiny useful ways it can map out local patterns with detailed mathematical symbology - and no matter how emotionally-satisfying, presupposition-fortifying, or ego-gratifying- --- once you step outside of them, all belief systems ultimately stand upon the same nothingness, the same faith, the same willful and utilitarian blind denial, as does any other worldview. All systems self-reference. The snake eternally eats its own tail. An infinite number of true equations can be drawn up to restate in other terms that 1=1.
Which if two fictional realms is "better" when we have no realiable access to truth - and regardless - we have no unassailable reason available to automatically prefer a 'truer' worldview to a less true one. After all, are there not other criteria worth considering? Of course. But can anyone claim that where they stand - how they choose to balance it all out, is anything but inescapeably subjective?
What I'm trying to say, I guess, is:
Om.
Goodnight!
duendy said:
alright say you ae communicating with a 'one-sided believer'...take a scientist who claims that Earth and the individual are 'insignificant', right. he has said you are insignificant. so we have gone from the medieval view of earth being the centre of the universe to that (not that i agree with the former view)
now i am not like mr or mrs scientist who lives by that 'truth'--that we are insignificant. i am more ambiguous. i am coming from a spoition that feels that yes are ARe insignificant--(if you now make a mental image of your self in the spiral galaxy. see it from the distance so the spiral galaxy is about 2-32 across. keeping in mind it vastness, and then think of yourself on earth in THAT!)....so, one CAN feel from imagining that that one hardly EXISTS one is so insignificant. but what the scientist wont entertain is that you are that AND....that you are insignificant and you are all of that too. so what is my understanding in relation to hers/his would you say?
now i am not like mr or mrs scientist who lives by that 'truth'--that we are insignificant. i am more ambiguous. i am coming from a spoition that feels that yes are ARe insignificant--(if you now make a mental image of your self in the spiral galaxy. see it from the distance so the spiral galaxy is about 2-32 across. keeping in mind it vastness, and then think of yourself on earth in THAT!)....so, one CAN feel from imagining that that one hardly EXISTS one is so insignificant. but what the scientist wont entertain is that you are that AND....that you are insignificant and you are all of that too. so what is my understanding in relation to hers/his would you say?