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Sand
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 16, 2007
Posts: 1735
Location: Finland
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 Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 2:46 am Post subject: |
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It's just a matter of how each one of us faces the world.
In my approach I gain belief in understanding by constructing mental patterns on how things function and testing those constructions against actual behavior. If my mental approximations match the way the world acts I accept that in my belief system until I observe that the system ceases to function properly and then I continue my modification of my mental systems until I regain a good match. It is a progressive system under continual modification. When someone with a more acute outlook (such as Einstein) suggests better approximations I test those approximations against my own experience and if they function properly I temporarily accept them until they prove non-functional again and require further modification. I never merely totally believe in any pattern permanently and so my mental stance is always prepared to be modified.
It seems that you do not require the mental flexibility that I find essential to my viewpoint. |
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oscuria
Verbal Guerrilla
Joined: Feb 01, 2008
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 3:11 am Post subject: |
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It is not that, it is if I or others give "proofs" or "examples" you will find ways to criticize it and "debunk" them. That is vain talk and I shun away from it.
In the end it is purely an emotional issue. |
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Sand
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 16, 2007
Posts: 1735
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 3:14 am Post subject: |
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| In other words, you don't like being criticized. I can sympathize with that. Especially if the criticism is unanswerable. |
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oscuria
Verbal Guerrilla
Joined: Feb 01, 2008
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 3:23 am Post subject: |
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| Sand wrote: | | In other words, you don't like being criticized. I can sympathize with that. Especially if the criticism is unanswerable. |
Not really, I have grown a bit thick with criticism. I don't mind it.
The problem I have with these discussions is that it gets nowhere. Either the person has to be willing to convert, willing seek answers, if not it is a pointless argument. Most people are not willing to make the step or when they hear they dismiss what they've heard. It is the same for a person who is set with their beliefs. Vain talk of the Creator is not something that I approve of. It is one of the reasons why I am against the tactics used by evangelicals who I feel cheapen the Word (which to an outsider my beliefs would seem strange considering that I am not Christian and should not care about christian movements). |
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Sand
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 16, 2007
Posts: 1735
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 3:34 am Post subject: |
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| First of all, you don't seem stupid, so I am quite puzzled by your consternation over why people should or should not "convert". What does it mean - to convert? Does it mean throwing reason totally out the window and just going by a gut feeling that the world does not make sense without some superbeing supervising all major events? Since we live on a teensy weensy bit of rocky junk in a monstrously huge universe I cannot see that humanity is of much consequence. Especially since we seem to even not properly care for this irrelevant bit that we inhabit. I can't understand why humanity claims to be so important. As if a bit of green stuff on a slice of Roquefort cheese in my fridge suddenly declared itself the master of the universe. Doesn't that strike you as a bit humorous? |
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oscuria
Verbal Guerrilla
Joined: Feb 01, 2008
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 4:02 am Post subject: |
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I would have figured you'd understood what I meant by convert. "To cause (someone) to change in opinion or belief" is the definition I'm going for. I am against conversion of any kind and have always gone by the philosophy that not everyone is born to Follow. If you do not you most likely won't. If you believe believe wholeheartedly. He is not going to change just because you did, and if you cannot see Him you never will unless you are willing to look at things differently (through different eyes).
I very strongly hold to the belief that one should discuss such talks with another person of faith ("...Take delight in speak of Me with others of like mind."). That way it prevents me from speaking vainly as nothing in the end would be accomplished with a disbeliever. In that event, I would just advice you to read books and listen to opinions of bona fide instructors. It might help you better understand why people feel or think a certain way. i
I can't really enter into a discussion on how or why this earth is important. It is a world I live in, as far as I know there is nothing else like it (with life). I do not understand the outside world. My mind won't be able to understand much of it. The same with the Lord. |
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Sand
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 16, 2007
Posts: 1735
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 4:17 am Post subject: |
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| Since my life is totally oriented around logic and reason I am afraid we have encountered an unsurmountable obstacle. And from your side I can get a hint that logic and reason are totally inadequate tools of utility. We are, intellectually at least, alien species. |
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oscuria
Verbal Guerrilla
Joined: Feb 01, 2008
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 4:33 am Post subject: |
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| Sand wrote: | | Since my life is totally oriented around logic and reason I am afraid we have encountered an unsurmountable obstacle. And from your side I can get a hint that logic and reason are totally inadequate tools of utility. We are, intellectually at least, alien species. |
You are faced with a problem when you use scientific logic against religion. It won't work. There is so much mythology in scriptures that modern interpretations of logic cannot break through to understand it. You can attempt to disprove many events, but in the end all that is left is to believe. Nothing will ever change that. That is fundamental to faith.
There is a reason and reason as to why I hold to my beliefs, but they are not what you are looking for. We each have our own way of looking at the world. I can see Him everywhere, you do not. That is where our differences arise.
At a certain point in religious discourse/path, these tools become obsolete. All that is left is Belief. That is why it is inadequate for an atheist, and something that can never be understood. |
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slowmutant
FAITH HOPE LOVE
Joined: Feb 14, 2008
Age: 29
Posts: 6615
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 4:59 am Post subject: |
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What is the most basic article of faith?
THAT WE ARE MORE THAN THIS
It's even more basic than the belief in a God. What can I tell the person whom this most basic article of faith eludes? It's not really question of smart vs. stupid, right vs. wrong. Faith is faith is faith. |
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Sand
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 16, 2007
Posts: 1735
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 5:15 am Post subject: |
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| We tell ourselves funny little stories about how death is some unsubstantial ignorance. We cannot imagine ourselves not existing and of course, the universe, like some strange flexible stuff conjured out of dreams and fairytales permits one to see faces and monsters and Gods in clouds and swirling mists. But, of course, before we were born, was a time of neither pain nor pleasure but merely a time of being not. And this short peek in time we call our life will surely subside back into that ever encompassing unknowingness again since the tiny spin of forces that twirls our bits into delightful dynamism will, like the momentary tumble of leaves in a breeze, settle our dust back into the landscape until another gust fabricates something more or less interesting to bump and whirl in the sunlight. So much for eternity. |
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oscuria
Verbal Guerrilla
Joined: Feb 01, 2008
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 5:18 am Post subject: |
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| Sand wrote: | | We tell ourselves funny little stories about how death is some unsubstantial ignorance. We cannot imagine ourselves not existing and of course, the universe, like some strange flexible stuff conjured out of dreams and fairytales permits one to see faces and monsters and Gods in clouds and swirling mists. But, of course, before we were born, was a time of neither pain nor pleasure but merely a time of being not. And this short peek in time we call our life will surely subside back into that ever encompassing unknowingness again since the tiny spin of forces that twirls our bits into delightful dynamism will, like the momentary tumble of leaves in a breeze, settle our dust back into the landscape until another gust fabricates something more or less interesting to bump and whirl in the sunlight. So much for eternity. |
There are branches in the world that believe similar to you, but they are not atheists.
Before we were not, what after? If there was a before, what was it? If there was nothing, then why should there be an after? |
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Sand
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 16, 2007
Posts: 1735
Location: Finland
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 5:50 am Post subject: |
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| Whatever branch you may ascribe me to must certainly not affix a deity like a maraschino cherry on top of the whipped cream. If that is not atheism, what else can it be? To see myself as a temporary pattern in a cloud of atoms neither requires nor posits a pre nor post existence. |
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slowmutant
FAITH HOPE LOVE
Joined: Feb 14, 2008
Age: 29
Posts: 6615
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 5:54 am Post subject: |
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| Sand wrote: | | We tell ourselves funny little stories about how death is some unsubstantial ignorance. We cannot imagine ourselves not existing and of course, the universe, like some strange flexible stuff conjured out of dreams and fairytales permits one to see faces and monsters and Gods in clouds and swirling mists. But, of course, before we were born, was a time of neither pain nor pleasure but merely a time of being not. And this short peek in time we call our life will surely subside back into that ever encompassing unknowingness again since the tiny spin of forces that twirls our bits into delightful dynamism will, like the momentary tumble of leaves in a breeze, settle our dust back into the landscape until another gust fabricates something more or less interesting to bump and whirl in the sunlight. So much for eternity. |
WTF?  |
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slowmutant
FAITH HOPE LOVE
Joined: Feb 14, 2008
Age: 29
Posts: 6615
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 5:57 am Post subject: |
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| If you are just a temporary pattern in a cloud of atoms, why should we care? What is there to care about? |
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oscuria
Verbal Guerrilla
Joined: Feb 01, 2008
Posts: 2022
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| Posted: Sun May 18, 2008 5:59 am Post subject: |
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| Sand wrote: | | Whatever branch you may ascribe me to must certainly not affix a deity like a maraschino cherry on top of the whipped cream. |
That is why you are an atheist, because there would have been no distinction.
| Quote: |
If that is not atheism, what else can it be? To see myself as a temporary pattern in a cloud of atoms neither requires nor posits a pre nor post existence. |
Certainly theism is not confined to the west. It is not confined to Abrahamic religions, neither to the nature/animist beliefs of the Pagans. You would think that thousands of years of philosophy, theology, metaphysics, people would have developed very different religious beliefs. There is nothing new, the only major difference is that people today are willing to let go of the notion of a Creator. Mainly because they have not experienced it, or consider such experiences as irrelevant. |
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