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[Starver]

(This is a reply to a post on page 160 of (currently) 178...  Feel free to ignore.)

I wonder, did Siquo's re-conversion involve probability quasi-science? e.g. even if there the chances of the bible being true are tiny, the punishment for being wrong in the case of atheism is nothing while the otherway around would equal eternal punishment.
Now, this is actually one of the arguments that turned me atheist... I react badly to extortion.

Personally, I react badly to Pascal's wager.  He doesn't take into account the contrary wishes of alternate deities.

One might prescribe that you eat fish on a Friday.  Which is reasonable enough.  But another might proscribe fish-eating on a Friday.  Or fish eating at any time.  Or any eating at all during daylight and/or night-time on certain Fridays/any Friday.  So what do you do?  Go all bulimic with your Fish Supper and hope that it satisfies them all?  (Watch out for the God who hates you for wasting food!)

Pursuing the wishes of any particular deity in the interests of pleasing Him could get you in trouble with another one that actually exists (and almost always causes you Earthly inconveniences, though you may take the view that this is the least of your worries when your eternal soul might be at stake).  Whereas honestly pursuing a more generically non-theistically-inclined "be good to everyone else" course of living could easily be looked upon kindly by most versions of deities, except those who are really far too picky to be able to please at all (or explicitly require that you are actually not good to everyone else), which makes it a low-odds crap shoot to start with and maybe slightly better to aim at a random religion that you think you could fake complience with...  But then faking complience is surely a doomed concept when dealing with your typical omniscient being...


The alternate POV is (I think) made in The Last Battle (C.S. Lewis, the chronoligically last in the Narnia series of books) that "Evil done for the sake of [Good God] Aslan is accepted by [the Evil God] and good deeds done in the name of [the Evil God] is accepted by Aslan", or words to that effect.  But then you're dealing with a pantheon of gods (or at least a duotheistic pairing) and outside the realm of one all-powerful monotheistic deity or similar panentheistic entity.


Now, if I was actually able to change my own nature, I may be able to say that this is why I follow my own particular course within the hinterland of theism/atheism, gnosticism/agnosticism and devotion/apatheism.  But then I also 'believe' that I am restrained by causality to be who I am, think what I think, do what I do, entirely based upon determinism, so that'd be a rather disingenuous argument to rely upon anyway...  But (playing my part within this deterministic universe of mine) I'm also bound to explain this particular world-view to you all.  Sorry, can't help it!  It's the universe that made me do it!

[dreiche2]

Language on holidays == I don't understand, and I'm going to stop trying.

What I mean is that, in my opinion, language loses its meaningfulness once it is no longer applied to concrete aspects of reality. Concepts such as 'nothing' are only meaningful in context. 'Nothing' itself is not something that is real.

For example, if I am in a restaurant and the waiter asks me, "what would you like for dessert?", then the answer "ice cream" is meaningful. The answer "not ice cream" is also meaningful. The answer "nothing" is also meaningful. But 'nothing' is not a thing. It's not on the menu, it doesn't have properties, nor can it itself be a property of anything that exists. It merely means, in this context, "not any thing".

Similarly, the statements:

A level of "existence", if you can call it that, that transcends exist and not-exist.

So when I treat Nothing as a thing and a place I do so on a meta-abstraction level above the conventional "thing and place" that excludes it.

These are all meaningless statements because they do not map onto reality. This meta-abstraction level is just a fantasy land in your head where words play tag. These statements are as meaningful as saying "blue is heavier than seventy".

But you're trying to apply these thoughts to something that is supposedly real, namely god.

Have you read the story I linked to? It's an excerpt from "Godel, Escher, Bach", a pretty good read.

I've got a similar story to characterize god:


What is the difference in between a crocodile?

What is the difference in between a crocodile?

What is the DIFFERENCE in between a crocodile?

Crocodile?!

God!



There. You're welcome.

[G-Flex]

Pascale's Wager is an unequivocally flawed argument. It doesn't work, because, as has been said, it only takes into account the Christian God, and even then, only one particular aspect of him. The risk-reward tables need to account for the infinite number of possible gods, and the infinite number of afterlife systems that don't involve a god at all. Once you do this, the entire thing falls apart.

[Siquo]

These are all meaningless statements because they do not map onto reality. This meta-abstraction level is just a fantasy land in your head where words play tag. These statements are as meaningful as saying "blue is heavier than seventy".

Mathematics, Science, Logic, they all map equally to reality as the words "nothing and everything". Probably even less. Words only make sense if you understand them. Blauw is zeker zwaarder dan zeventig. That would not make sense to someone who didn't understand it. That does not mean that they were meaningless words.

The book where the excerpt is from deals with Logic (capitalised to mean the real one, not the made-up set of rules most high-schoolers in this topic use). Not understanding the story/allegory out of it's context makes sense, but it was merely quoted to show the concept of infinite layers in a way better than I can.


Language was specifically the engine from getting away from reality. Only by NOT mapping onto reality was humanity able to abstract, and those abstractions and imaginations were the birthplace of science. Mapping straight onto reality is back to the stone age, and probably before that, language-wise.

[dreiche2]

Language was specifically the engine from getting away from reality. Only by NOT mapping onto reality was humanity able to abstract, and those abstractions and imaginations were the birthplace of science. Mapping straight onto reality is back to the stone age, and probably before that, language-wise.

But science is only meaningful because at some point, it does map back to reality.

Please explain what it means "to exist and not-exist" at the same time.

Please explain why "everything is dual".

Please explain anti-god.

Please explain what it means to be heavier than blue.

And if you can explain all of these things, including the last one, then please explain why any of these explanations should actually matter, if these statements are not actually statements about aspects of reality, or at least imply statements about reality.

[Sergius]

Philosophy actually encompasses both religion and science. Philosophy is like, omni-present, you know. 

So, philosophy is omnipresent, it exists everywhere, therefore it must also exist nowhere, which means philosophy doesn't exist.

[Micro102]

But what you said right now was just philosophical 

[Siquo]

And if you can explain all of these things, including the last one, then please explain why any of these explanations should actually matter, if these statements are not actually statements about aspects of reality, or at least imply statements about reality.

No, I'm done. They matter to me. I'm real. Therefore they matter to the real world.

Really, I feel like I just discovered nuclear power, and the caveman next to me keeps repeating "But can you eat it? Huh? Huh? Can you?"

[eerr]

You will all go to hell for not worshipping several dieties simultaneously who threaten you with hell for not worshipping them.

Also, you will achieve hell at several diffrent severities for a few of them because you are worshipping multiple dieties.

[Cheeetar]

People expecting you to be able to make your ideas make sense in any way but inside your head is reasonable.

[3]

Really, I feel like I just discovered nuclear power, and the caveman next to me keeps repeating "But can you eat it? Huh? Huh? Can you?"

No, that's really not the case.

I'll use an analogy. Today you went out and met a man who told you that the moon is made of cheese. You begin proclaiming that the moon is made of cheese. Someone asks why you know that the moon is made of cheese, and why it matters. Your response is "I exist, and my arguments exist, therefore the moon being made of cheese matters (and the moon may/may not be made out of cheese, I haven't really thought about that)". You've said something which might not necessarily make any sense whatsoever to anyone else and stated that it matters because you are a physical entity and you express that it matters. And you still give no explanation.

Your behaviour just might have a perceptible effect on something, but that's not to say it's relevant to anything. If I started shouting rhetoric at nothing in particular, would it matter to anyone?

And I repeat, you still give no explanation.

[Siquo]

Really, I feel like I just discovered nuclear power, and the caveman next to me keeps repeating "But can you eat it? Huh? Huh? Can you?"

No, that's really not the case.

Yes, that really is the case. That Is How I Feel. Now if you'll tell me I have no right to feel that way, then you're really delusional.

[Analogy that's just off enough to matter]
Your behaviour just might have a perceptible effect on something, but that's not to say it's relevant to anything. If I started shouting rhetoric at nothing in particular, would it matter to anyone?

You assume that it's my arguments that matter. No, it matters to me. My personal well-being has improved. I became a nicer person overall, which had its effect on other people as well.

And now you want an Explanation of what? Cheeetar is right, but I've been doing that the last.. 100 pages? Some posts are actually read and rebutted or agreed upon, others are not read at all. I'm being told to be reasonable by people who have no idea about formal logic. If I change my mind I'm being evasive, if I don't I'm stubborn. Others just tried to insult me, although their lack of grammar and spelling made it a bit funny. When I'm brainstorming aloud I'm just changing concepts at will.

Most of all, I know why I'm here and have stated my reasons, why's the rest here?

You, 3, you want an explanation? Tell me why you want one, then I'll think about it

[Neruz]

And there he goes again.

[Siquo]

You still here? Shouldn't you be in school?

[Neruz]

University, and i am. Just finished doing an abstract letterforms assignment.