No Truth

First of all, this "'spiritual' thing" is not vague at all. It's only difficult to explain. It's like trying to describe an object to a man with his eyes closed. But I can assure you that revelation is clear as a bell to me. I think material is the vague thing, an attempt to reduce litterally everything to the "atom," by which I mean the smallest particle, something that human beings have been searching for for 3000 years and still have not been able to locate. So which do I believe? Something that I encounter in everyday experience, or something that is entirely inconceivable?

Because the conclusion of a deductive syllogism is valid only when both premises are true, including the major premise. In a deductive syllogism, this premise is always an absolute. However, granted the problem of universals, no absolutes can be known with certainty. So, no deduction can be known with certainty. This gets even more complicated when you contemplate God. Since God is limitless, no absolute, all of which are necessarily limitting, can adequately describe Him.

But every human being has a different genetic make-up. So what you're really doing is placing a clear-cut division between the human and the non-human. I don't think that such a line can easily be conceived. I don't believe that you have such conceived such a line. So it can hardly be considered to "work well"

Love, hatred, pride, fidelity, regret, reproach, these are just a few of the words that could potentially make it to the list, if I even wanted to define "man" as a universal in the first place.

Faith in grammar is faith in causality, at least partially. I'd also turn to Hume for an argument against cause. To believe that the thought, perception, experience, etc. is contingent upon the thinker, perceiver, expiencer, what-have-you is bad faith. No self is necessary, no unity among perception, experience, thought, and imagination. But I think to really understand this, you have to have an understanding of Nietzsche's metaphysics, which, while I don't want to get into since I don't even want to disprove the existence of the self, is the belief that the universe is entirely irrational. I'm beginning to think this is going nowhere since neither one of us really wants to disprove the existence of the self.

Science's assurtion that there is an objective reality is not valid unless it can solve the problem of solipsism. How does it go about this?

I'm not saying "there's no truth" or "there's no reality." I'm saying "there's no objective reality" (for the sake of argument). Reality may be entirely subjective. I'm not denying the existence of a reality, just the objective reality.

That is without a doubt, true. The argument, of course, presupposes the existence of God. But I only said I was going to demonstrate how an objective world can be deduced from using God as a first principle. So you should have expected God's existence to be presupposed in the premises. We'll get to arguments for God's existence later.[/quote]

 

How can someone get sick of livin fer nothin?

 

I thought you might enjoy this site very much.
Thanks for standin' up for truth.
www.gotquestions.org/star-light.html

 

Easy! Look at all the College kid's who kill themselves,and
all the teenager who kill themselves.

I suffered years of depression because life had no meaning.
it was like a cruel joke.
I thank God that I gave God a chance,because it is the best
choice I ever made in my whole entire life,amen.
It's just soooooo personal. You can't understand it without
tryin' to.

 

dna,
Are you giving us a choice between suicide and self-delusion?

What about we who don't believe in your god and lead meaningful lives because of the freedom afforded by that non-belief?

I see you as a slave to anothers dogma.

 

No, you were depressed because you assigned an inappropriate emotion to an fact. I donno bout you, but I'm happy that life has no meaning, it means I'm free to do whatever I want, whatever is possible. There are no limits.

 

TheHammerSpeaks

"First of all, this "'spiritual' thing" is not vague at all. It's only difficult to explain. It's like trying to describe an object to a man with his eyes closed. But I can assure you that revelation is clear as a bell to me."

No, it's actually like trying to describe an object that does not exist.
That you want to exist.
To a person that has never seen the object that may or may not exist.

'Spiritual' means NOTHING but what the speaker puts into it.
You can talk about it forever..
But where is it?
What is it?

"spiritual' is like beauty. It is in the eye of the beholder.
It is an INTERPRETATION.

"I think material is the vague thing, an attempt to reduce litterally everything to the "atom," by which I mean the smallest particle, something that human beings have been searching for for 3000 years and still have not been able to locate. So which do I believe? Something that I encounter in everyday experience, or something that is entirely inconceivable?"

IBM made their logo out of individual atoms.
We can manipulate atoms.
And do it every day.
Atoms are not the smallest particle,
And everyday existence is composed of atoms
As you are...
You encounter them every day..

"Because the conclusion of a deductive syllogism is valid only when both premises are true, including the major premise. In a deductive syllogism, this premise is always an absolute. However, granted the problem of universals, no absolutes can be known with certainty. So, no deduction can be known with certainty. This gets even more complicated when you contemplate God. Since God is limitless, no absolute, all of which are necessarily limitting, can adequately describe Him."

Incorrect

"I reason therefore i exist, and thus 'a' reality exists"
is an absolute truth...

Prove to occam that there is UNCERTAINTY that you exist.
Or that a reality exists for you to [exist] in.
It is not possible to do so.
For every argument is an absolute proof that you DO. [exist]

And .
The word god is our description of a concept created by our predecessors.
Occams description of a god is JUST AS VALID as organised religions.
And more rational
Religious gods spew irrationality.
Such garbage as hell and redeption.

Hume?
Nietzsche?

What is this? the 1800's?

Think for yourself.

Occam

 

Well you certainly seem very sure of what my experiences are and what they are not.

I already went over this. A spiritual experience is no less concrete than any other kind of sensory experience. It's plain as day.

Yes, it is an interpretation. You're absolutely right. And like all other interpretations, it can only be understood in context - at a certain time, by a certain group of people, which explains why you have no idea what I'm talking about. Now let me ask you something, what "facts" or "truths" are not subject to interpretation?

No, I have never seen an atom. I've seen the IBM logo, but that doesn't prove that it's made up of atoms. And yes, an atom is the smallest particle. That's what the word has always meant. This particle was thought to be discovered, but then protons were discovered, and then quarks, and some time in the future some smaller particle will no doubt be discovered, and this process will continue on forever because the whole idea is bullshit.

You're right, I misspoke. In a categorical, deductive syllogism the major premise will always be a universal.

Why should I? I don't want to disprove the existence of the self.

I don't know what your description of God is, but if it's rational, then it's inadequate. God cannot be described rationally because He is above human understanding.

I don't think that's the problem. I've heard plenty of people make the same arguments you are. I think you should take your own advice.

Well this was a lovely little waste of time, but I've got to get back to work now.

 

Yes.

He explains that in his article, I believe. Life = intrinsic value, other values arise from this value, then personal values, and etc. You can check out his arguments on my site, or his: www.objectivethought.com

Ok.

Lol – I would say that objective reality can never be known through the sciences due to man’s finitude. However, I’ve already argued for the necessity of objective reality which science rests upon – which you misunderstood, but I’ll get to it again below. Because objective reality is necessary, science is fine as a method of study about it. You’ve also objected to the methods science uses in studying it – but I’ve also explained why those objections are invalid.

Lol – you can take the word “vague” out of my statement and my point still stands. Because as I said, there is strong evidence to show that your “spiritual” experience is nothing more than material experience provided an unnecessary term (and a confusing one, considering the implications generally attributed to it).

Yeah – but this doesn’t hurt logic at all – because logic isn’t a tool meant to find all the facts in the universe, its only meant to weed out contradictions that cannot be facts.


You can have three set ups:


1)All apples are green and not green.


2)All apples are blue.


3)All apples are fruit.


Conclusion to be arrived at: The apple is my hand is (1); (2); or (3).


Using logic, you can discount (1) – using our knowledge and sense perception, you can discount (2), and using knowledge and sense perception, you can conclude (3). Logic is also used in (2) and (3) and we know both still have the possibility of being true because they are not incoherent – however, once we apply those other methods of understanding, we can see which one is valid.

The Human Genome itself can be modeled and applied to all humans. Besides this, it is not the only description available to science. We can get more in-depth if you like.

Humans are a species of mammal belonging to the family homo sapien with a particular genetic sequence unique to them as compared to other living things.

These are not unique to humans, and still may be reduced to scientific categorization.

The statement itself is still applicable to objective reality – that is the point I was trying to make. To say “there is no objective reality” is to make an objective statement, falsifying your own statement.

Right – I should’ve said more clearly that is unjustifiably presupposes God’s existence. You’d have to establish God as necessarily existant – and this approach does not do that. To say “God objectively exists and is the solution to solipsism” begs the question of “How do you know God objectively exists?” – from the perspective of solipsism.

 

I think that this has gone on long enough. Socratic dialectic is great but it just gets too confusing online. I'm getting the feeling we're just repeating ourselve so I'm going to cut to the chase, the irrefutable proof of God's existence.

The question is, "How do we know that God exists." "Know" is the key word. There are many ways to know something: there is knowing how to build something from a blueprint, and then there's acutally doing it; there's knowing a casual aquaintance, and then there's knowing someone in the union of marriage. All of these have one thing in common, the knower presupposes the existence for the thing known. The difference is in how these things are known. To the engineer, his product is only an abstraction, an experiment in thought. To the comrade of the aquaintance, the complexity of his associate is not appreciated. To the craftsman, his product is concrete (no pun intended), and he knows it well because he built it; he watched it constructed over time. To the husband, his wife is a part of him; he knows her as he known himself.

You cannot think of God as a thought experiment. You cannot know Him this way. You have to make a comitment, like the comitment made by speaking the marrital vows. You have to suffer, you have to struggle as your faith grows. And then you will realise why faith is the most powerful kind of knowledge, because it overpowers any evidence contrary to it. Power is knowledge.