Desert Fox
Master Don Juan
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2008
- Messages
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Very good discussion.
I'm a little philosophical at the moment...
- Thread starter ChrizZ
- Start date
Desert Fox, you're trying to explain the supernatural using the natural. You cannot throw science at religion and attempt to disprove it. Science cannot disprove what it cannot explain. Both lie in two separate areas, physics and metaphysics. If you can find results for a duplicated test that shows God doesn't exist, then you can use science to back up your theory that God is false. Until then, science does not prove or disprove anything about religion.
Also, what's funny is that science relies on a correspondence theory of truth. That is to say that science relies on our sensing of the world around us to prove itself. What if our senses of the world around us produce a false vision of the actual universe. What if our senses are wrong? Since, logic does not play a prominent role, if our senses of the universe are ever proven wrong (in a ironic twist since it would probably be done using science) then our basis of science is gone.
Religion, on the other hand relies on a correspondence theory of truth. That is to say that it relies on logic alone. As long as one can make statements that form together, their logic is sound. Of course you can argue logic with more logic but it can never be completely disproved.
Since science and religion rely on two different forms of the theory of truth, why try to compare then.
And of course at the end of the day, religion also relies on the pragmatist theory of truth which is that the truth is whatever is most practical to one. And if we use the James model of pragmatism, no explanation is needed for why people believe in religion other than it serves a utility for them.
Also, what's funny is that science relies on a correspondence theory of truth. That is to say that science relies on our sensing of the world around us to prove itself. What if our senses of the world around us produce a false vision of the actual universe. What if our senses are wrong? Since, logic does not play a prominent role, if our senses of the universe are ever proven wrong (in a ironic twist since it would probably be done using science) then our basis of science is gone.
Religion, on the other hand relies on a correspondence theory of truth. That is to say that it relies on logic alone. As long as one can make statements that form together, their logic is sound. Of course you can argue logic with more logic but it can never be completely disproved.
Since science and religion rely on two different forms of the theory of truth, why try to compare then.
And of course at the end of the day, religion also relies on the pragmatist theory of truth which is that the truth is whatever is most practical to one. And if we use the James model of pragmatism, no explanation is needed for why people believe in religion other than it serves a utility for them.
Look ChrisZ, the flying leprechaun has his plans for you. It was his (I know he is male) intention that you should exist like a microbe in this world. It was his intention that you be consigned to spend your time on earth typing "philosophical" questions into the internet vortex.
It would be better for you if you could just accept this, just as an amoeba has to accept its position in the universe. The lottery winner never spends time asking why me, only the person run over by the truck. It is because we are careless on roads that we are run over and because we buy tickets that we win lotteries.
Here, if you want some meaning, consider this. Out of the million sperm which your daddy blew into your mummy, the flying leprechaun chose you to be conceived. It met up with 23 chromosomes in your mummy's egg. Just try and work out all the possible permutations there are for that combination. The odds against you being you are so great that it could only have happened through the will of the flying leprechaun.
Pay homage to him each Friday, by wearing a green tie.
It would be better for you if you could just accept this, just as an amoeba has to accept its position in the universe. The lottery winner never spends time asking why me, only the person run over by the truck. It is because we are careless on roads that we are run over and because we buy tickets that we win lotteries.
Here, if you want some meaning, consider this. Out of the million sperm which your daddy blew into your mummy, the flying leprechaun chose you to be conceived. It met up with 23 chromosomes in your mummy's egg. Just try and work out all the possible permutations there are for that combination. The odds against you being you are so great that it could only have happened through the will of the flying leprechaun.
Pay homage to him each Friday, by wearing a green tie.
It wouldn't matter which sperm made it the egg, he'd have been born one way or the other when there's millions of them to choose from. If it had been another sperm, he might look different, and that's it. You're making it sound like only 1 sperm in the million is fertile.ElChoclo said:
When you look different, you are different. If ChrisZ had been a different sperm he might have been ChristineZ. If your concept of self is such that you consider yourself to be still be "you" regardless of whether you are male or female, an introvert or an extravert, a dwarf or a giant, then you have perhaps misunderstood the flying leprechaun's teachings.
I'll put it in terms more comprehensible for an internet forum. It's just like the movie Highlander. They go around chopping off each other's heads, but there can be only one at the end, (Christopher Lambert). So, the lucky sperm/egg which wins, is you, (though not Christopher Lambert of course, otherwise you would have a funny accent for a person pretending to be a Scotsman.)
You can only triumph through the intervention of the flying leprechaun because the odds are against you being born. Something so inherently improbable could only occur through the actions of an external entity, right?
I'll put it in terms more comprehensible for an internet forum. It's just like the movie Highlander. They go around chopping off each other's heads, but there can be only one at the end, (Christopher Lambert). So, the lucky sperm/egg which wins, is you, (though not Christopher Lambert of course, otherwise you would have a funny accent for a person pretending to be a Scotsman.)
You can only triumph through the intervention of the flying leprechaun because the odds are against you being born. Something so inherently improbable could only occur through the actions of an external entity, right?
fertileTurtle
Master Don Juan
You could only say life is pointless if you knew everything. You don't know everything, so you can't say if there is a point to life or not.
The problem with this eternal philosophical debate is that neither address the main core question, how existence and such began. Even believing in the outside omnipotent causing the events of the big bang is flawed, since again, we're not addressing how the outside omnipotent originated. Then people claim "God is infinite" and at one point on the timeline of infinite decided to crap out existence. That's still yet another paradox.
In reality, the human ego and "mind" is what created the mystery of "origin." The mind likes to categorize everything as having a "beginning" and an "end." The flaw and paradox in the system of logically assessing it this way is that whether you believe in science ("big bang") or religion ("God") both do not explain how there was a beginning, since you can infinitely question where such and such came from endlessly. Based on this, it's safe to assume that all is infinite and all just "is."
If you ask me, I find the infinite universe itself along with it's infinite microscopic nature. (Infinite likely flows both ways, big and small.) In terms of microscopic size, you can constantly cut it in half, I don't think there's an end to it. According to physics you have quarks, but evenso I believe it goes smaller than that endlessly. In a sense atoms remind me of mini universes themselves, with their rotating electrons and neutrons planets within its own solar system. It's like a bunch of mini universes make up us, since we're composed of literally an infinite grouped bunch of infinite universes (atoms.) Infinite also flows the other direction in terms of how large it is, since both infinitely small and large and relative, they're intrinsically linked together as a single mind-numbing paradox to the logical human ego, but in reality it just "is."
What "is" is how I define God. We are God. We are what it "is." We are part of the infinite single organism that is. In reality all that is a single entity, God, and we are part of its infinite splitting entities within that one entity, just as the heart of your body pumps on its own accord to your being. We part of God, we are it. We are what "is." The universe itself is God. It's a conscious organism, just as everything has consciousness to its own degree.
As for purpose. There is no purpose. We're merely the conscious universe gaining its own ability to observe itself. We are products of the universe/God and that singular essence has gained the ability to inhabit form on a tiny planet to observe itself. All it is observation, the divine/God playing a game on itself by hiding into form. When you question your own identity, there is no "self." Everything is form, and that same singular essence inhabits itself in all of us. You are part of that whole essence that is inhabiting a certain physical body, known as "form." Through it God can play hide and go seek with itself, because being a single entity is "boring" because it is alone, so it splits into us so we can question everything and try to piece together a puzzle that does not exist for God/universe/what have you's own intellectual amusement, just as we are having this conversation right now.
Um, yeah.
In reality, the human ego and "mind" is what created the mystery of "origin." The mind likes to categorize everything as having a "beginning" and an "end." The flaw and paradox in the system of logically assessing it this way is that whether you believe in science ("big bang") or religion ("God") both do not explain how there was a beginning, since you can infinitely question where such and such came from endlessly. Based on this, it's safe to assume that all is infinite and all just "is."
If you ask me, I find the infinite universe itself along with it's infinite microscopic nature. (Infinite likely flows both ways, big and small.) In terms of microscopic size, you can constantly cut it in half, I don't think there's an end to it. According to physics you have quarks, but evenso I believe it goes smaller than that endlessly. In a sense atoms remind me of mini universes themselves, with their rotating electrons and neutrons planets within its own solar system. It's like a bunch of mini universes make up us, since we're composed of literally an infinite grouped bunch of infinite universes (atoms.) Infinite also flows the other direction in terms of how large it is, since both infinitely small and large and relative, they're intrinsically linked together as a single mind-numbing paradox to the logical human ego, but in reality it just "is."
What "is" is how I define God. We are God. We are what it "is." We are part of the infinite single organism that is. In reality all that is a single entity, God, and we are part of its infinite splitting entities within that one entity, just as the heart of your body pumps on its own accord to your being. We part of God, we are it. We are what "is." The universe itself is God. It's a conscious organism, just as everything has consciousness to its own degree.
As for purpose. There is no purpose. We're merely the conscious universe gaining its own ability to observe itself. We are products of the universe/God and that singular essence has gained the ability to inhabit form on a tiny planet to observe itself. All it is observation, the divine/God playing a game on itself by hiding into form. When you question your own identity, there is no "self." Everything is form, and that same singular essence inhabits itself in all of us. You are part of that whole essence that is inhabiting a certain physical body, known as "form." Through it God can play hide and go seek with itself, because being a single entity is "boring" because it is alone, so it splits into us so we can question everything and try to piece together a puzzle that does not exist for God/universe/what have you's own intellectual amusement, just as we are having this conversation right now.
Um, yeah.
LyteOrchestra
Don Juan
ChrizZ,
You are correct. I have had those thoughts before. It's nice and all to think about them in an abstract sense. Do you have the balls to follow through and live your life like that. Do you have the balls to do whatever the f*ck you want besides breaking the law? It would be quite admirable if you could.
Many people have had the very same existential revelations. Few actually can break free. Let us know if you do, you'd have some wonderful anecdotes no doubt.
You are correct. I have had those thoughts before. It's nice and all to think about them in an abstract sense. Do you have the balls to follow through and live your life like that. Do you have the balls to do whatever the f*ck you want besides breaking the law? It would be quite admirable if you could.
Many people have had the very same existential revelations. Few actually can break free. Let us know if you do, you'd have some wonderful anecdotes no doubt.