I'm not going to come out and say that I expect "God" to hand me everything I want in life, nor do I want him to oppress me, but I can't expect a combination of both. If "God" wanted us to be happy, he'd give us things. If "God" wanted us to suffer, he'd make things harder to achieve (as opposed to having them easier to achieve, such that he is practically handing us rewards).
Don't you think that to be quite a bold statement to assume that you know what God would do depending on what he wanted? A bit arrogant to me.
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-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
I love Discovery Channel and i love The Bible † : )
Almost as lame as my post lol.
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Equinox is right you don't need porn the entire 6 weeks i was in Italy having fun drinking and doing some fun stuff with cousins i completely forgot about sex/porn/women...
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
If I had a penny for every time a religion and science argument lead to hardcore porn...
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Irri (thats my new name for you Irrational) I feel like your setting him up for failure lol.
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
I voted religious because I am a Born Again Christian and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ
ZOOOMMMBBIIEEE!!!!!Run!!!
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-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
I prefer to talk about the origin of life as "I don't know".
I believe it is impossible to prove with 100% certainty that evolution both works at all times AND that evolution was indeed the one and only possible mechanism for the origin of life.
I do not consider bacteria the same form of life, or life at all, as human, and I define life as constructs that have receptors(and I am almost never able to explain that to anybody), the presence of receptors in humans is what prevents me from believing that a more powerful being that created us does not exist, because the receptor seems to be entirely and absolutely out of scope of the physical reality we are aware of, nor does its generation at the point of creation of life as said by evolutionary theories seem logical.
In the end, I find philosophy superior to science when discussing that particular question.
I am not ditching absolutely all of evolution, or even evolution itself, merely saying that there will always be unanswered questions in it, it's impossible to prove, and it is not the only viable theory. Evolution is very easily simulated, very easily controlled as well, by anything that could have created us and our receptors.
I<3 Equinox
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
@Don
Why exactly is "I think therefore I am" a false statement? Introspective research to self awareness can be a pretty powerful argument.
I am not a philosopher nor even a student of philosophy so forgive me for my crude description; it is an idea I read on, but I try to recite the idea as well as I can.
The Descartes' argument of "I think therefore I am" is flawed in the sense that your own thoughts are not the ultimate proof of your own existence. It was related to the (impractical) notion of doubting our senses. As you yourself said, it is a logically plausible idea that we all do not exist as separate entities, that we are just "sections" of the same, bigger entity, unaware of each other.
Definitely valid. I've heard that one more than once. Doesn't mean I like it though.
Since I choose to be practical, I choose to believe that self awareness is a pretty powerful thing. There's nothing like that incredible feeling of self awareness that happens after a few brief moments of introspective reflection. It's a fleeting feeling but it's so weird I can't help but agree with "I think therefore I am". But thats just my opinion of course.
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
...Hhhmm..I see what you mean with the hot and cold thing. But, I think the example was used more to illustrate how we use language to understand what we see and feel. In the same way I think it's an reasonable assessment to logically follow that pattern of thought by Anaximander as I tried to describe(in a terrible way that would have definitely got me a failing grade in class haha).
I agree with rejecting that kind of skepticism. Some philosopher from thailand I believe had the famous concept from his experience as a butterfly in a dream. He said it was so real that he no longer knows if he truly exists in the dream world or the other. But I choose to think it's bs...It pretty much comes down to what you said. There's really no point in rejecting senses and honestly it's just not practical at all. We trust them because they help us survive. Likewise, it makes science very trustworthy as well.
Why exactly is "I think therefore I am" a false statement? Introspective research to self awareness can be a pretty powerful argument.
@Kiserai- All I have to say is go do some research on odd cultural ethics. Not murdering is DEFINITELY not a universal moral concept found in all cultures. In fact, cannibalism might be a more commonly accepted act than you might think.
If there is anything that was ever subjective, it's certainly morality!
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
What a typical response. Did I say that God was what kept me from doing something bad? No. I merely pointed out the very relevant concept that without an ultimate standard, morals do not actually exist. And it would be impossible for me to be a horrible human being as you so eloquently put it. Nor did I ever say that morality does not exist in the minds of humans. What exists and does not exist can certainly be relative to every person. However, without a standard the existence of morality will never be anything more real than the creatures Blizz comes up with out of their heads. Morality without a standard is only as real as you want it to be. It's a standard that we created in order to live with each other more efficiently. People use the terms good and bad without really understand what they are implying in terms of social and religious context and how those 2 thing intertwine so intimately to give us our own ideals today on which just about everybody bases their lives around despite the fact that they might not even be religious at all.
But in any case, way to jump the gun there bud. Fanatical religious folks and full blown atheists have so much in common I swear...
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
What is GOOD without divine motivation? There is no such thing as good or bad without an ultimate qualifier. Without that, good and bad is nothing more than a figment of our imagination. Well, rather, just a concept that has no real application other than helping a species survive. Anything else is pointless. Without an ultimate standard, ethics are nothing more than social illusions.
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
The Pentateuch is the 1st 5 books of the bible attributed to being written by Moses. Many theologists started noticing things that didn't make sense like Moses writing about his own funeral in the 3rd person in the past tense in the 2nd book. Or other things like Numbers 12:3 saying "Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on earth." One would not expect the most humble man on Earth to say hey and I'm the most humble man on earth! I agree it shouldn't matter but there are those who will debate the issue into the ground.
BTW I threw down some votes in your direction on your art, nicely done.
Thanks!
I see all of your points for sure and knowing who wrote the books is important. But to bring out that JW's still believe that he wrote it kinda sounded like they still believed the earth was flat like it was something absurd. When really, authorship is a pretty fuzzy thing.
For instance, the Book of Enoch is supposed to not be written by him based on the fact that there are continuity issues with the writing. Which I think happens to be the stupidest assessment to make. And also the most obvious. Enoch was one of the very first humans according to the bible, and whatever he wrote, if ever, was certainly written and rewritten a thousand times before our oldest copy(which happens to be from the caves of Qumran that we discovered in the...1940's?). It was also originally probably an oral story anyway. So Enoch was probably dead for a thousand years before his tale was ever even taken to paper...or bear skin or w/e they used.
@Don...The existence of a God is just as plausible as multiple universes. Also, I may be wrong but I feel a lot of you in this thread have a very constricting and simplistic view of God that could definitely use some different views.
Personally, I'm a deist. In my mind God would not be anything we can comprehend...Fuck...I was really trying to get around going into Anaxamander and Thalese philosophy. Oh well.
Thalese tried to figure out where the universe began. He tried to single out a point of origin based on the surroundings around him. What did he see? Water. Something that could take the shape of anything. Something that could actually change in form mysteriously(btw to give context Thales was an ancient philosopher). In fact, water was probably the only thing he ever saw change in state of matter. All life as he knew it was only sustained by water. So, he made the assessment that the original matter that created all life was water.
However, Anaximander a later philosopher, disagreed. Anax said that for the matter to be the thing that which started it all, it must have no opposite. In other words, if there was SOMETHING here before there was ANYTHING, that something must in effect be everything at once and have no opposite. It must not have an opposite because if it did, that would mean that there was something else. Meaning it could not possibly be the single point of origin. Everything we see and feel can only be described by opposites. We would have no idea what cold is without hot, for, it would always be cold and if there was no such thing as hot it would be indescribable what cold actually was without reference to hot. So he concluded that, the "God matter" must be completely indescribable without any definable shape or appearance.
Those little stories were used to describe my ideas on the subject. God would be a completely abstract concept literally out of the reach of logic in any way. An idea I like to play with is that if God was here before everything that he was in fact everything. Not even the space between atoms existed. There was nothing but "God". This concept gives the idea of no beginning much more plausibility in my mind anyway. So, if there was nothing else besides God, and God decided to create something, then those things are just pieces of god. So everything that "exists" today is actually everything that existed 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 years ago. Everything that existed those many eons ago were but one thing. One philosophical notion really puts science on the chopping block. Science is an analysis used by our senses. One philosophical thought says that we cannot trust our senses because we are perceiving difference when it does not exist.
If everything had an single point of origin, everything from that single point of origin without any opposite is still a part of that single origin. Meaning, there are no opposites and our senses cannot be trusted at all.
So with that idea in mind, I also like to play with the idea that we could all be one. One piece of existence only perceiving an illusion of any difference. So in effect, God in this instance would merely be everything and nothing at all, all at once. It's almost mor of a Buddhist philosophy.
So anyway...All that was to describe a different way to think about "God".
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Would you care to enlighten me as to who wrote the Pentateuch? Does that one passage really mean he didn't write the rest of it or any of it?
And for that matter...So? I don't see what the relevance of that point is lol. Not being rude I just don't really see why it matters for any reason other than pure academic interest.
And damn, maybe one of his followers finished up Deuteronomy for him.
Also, Jw's are not the only ones that believe that. Jewish people also claim authorship to Moses by way of the Talmud.
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Right but if your going to say that then it's your responsibility to clarify that your referring to what people believe as opposed to what the bible says and how it can be interpreted so that we can shun just a tad bit of light upon a massive amount of ignorance.
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"I want to say something but I'll keep it to myself I guess and leave this useless post behind to make you aware that there WAS something... "
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
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Don't you think that to be quite a bold statement to assume that you know what God would do depending on what he wanted? A bit arrogant to me.
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Almost as lame as my post lol.
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
ZOOOMMMBBIIEEE!!!!!Run!!!
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
I<3 Equinox
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Definitely valid. I've heard that one more than once. Doesn't mean I like it though.
Since I choose to be practical, I choose to believe that self awareness is a pretty powerful thing. There's nothing like that incredible feeling of self awareness that happens after a few brief moments of introspective reflection. It's a fleeting feeling but it's so weird I can't help but agree with "I think therefore I am". But thats just my opinion of course.
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
...Hhhmm..I see what you mean with the hot and cold thing. But, I think the example was used more to illustrate how we use language to understand what we see and feel. In the same way I think it's an reasonable assessment to logically follow that pattern of thought by Anaximander as I tried to describe(in a terrible way that would have definitely got me a failing grade in class haha).
I agree with rejecting that kind of skepticism. Some philosopher from thailand I believe had the famous concept from his experience as a butterfly in a dream. He said it was so real that he no longer knows if he truly exists in the dream world or the other. But I choose to think it's bs...It pretty much comes down to what you said. There's really no point in rejecting senses and honestly it's just not practical at all. We trust them because they help us survive. Likewise, it makes science very trustworthy as well.
Why exactly is "I think therefore I am" a false statement? Introspective research to self awareness can be a pretty powerful argument.
@Kiserai- All I have to say is go do some research on odd cultural ethics. Not murdering is DEFINITELY not a universal moral concept found in all cultures. In fact, cannibalism might be a more commonly accepted act than you might think.
If there is anything that was ever subjective, it's certainly morality!
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
What a typical response. Did I say that God was what kept me from doing something bad? No. I merely pointed out the very relevant concept that without an ultimate standard, morals do not actually exist. And it would be impossible for me to be a horrible human being as you so eloquently put it. Nor did I ever say that morality does not exist in the minds of humans. What exists and does not exist can certainly be relative to every person. However, without a standard the existence of morality will never be anything more real than the creatures Blizz comes up with out of their heads. Morality without a standard is only as real as you want it to be. It's a standard that we created in order to live with each other more efficiently. People use the terms good and bad without really understand what they are implying in terms of social and religious context and how those 2 thing intertwine so intimately to give us our own ideals today on which just about everybody bases their lives around despite the fact that they might not even be religious at all.
But in any case, way to jump the gun there bud. Fanatical religious folks and full blown atheists have so much in common I swear...
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
Thanks!
I see all of your points for sure and knowing who wrote the books is important. But to bring out that JW's still believe that he wrote it kinda sounded like they still believed the earth was flat like it was something absurd. When really, authorship is a pretty fuzzy thing.
For instance, the Book of Enoch is supposed to not be written by him based on the fact that there are continuity issues with the writing. Which I think happens to be the stupidest assessment to make. And also the most obvious. Enoch was one of the very first humans according to the bible, and whatever he wrote, if ever, was certainly written and rewritten a thousand times before our oldest copy(which happens to be from the caves of Qumran that we discovered in the...1940's?). It was also originally probably an oral story anyway. So Enoch was probably dead for a thousand years before his tale was ever even taken to paper...or bear skin or w/e they used.
@Don...The existence of a God is just as plausible as multiple universes. Also, I may be wrong but I feel a lot of you in this thread have a very constricting and simplistic view of God that could definitely use some different views.
Personally, I'm a deist. In my mind God would not be anything we can comprehend...Fuck...I was really trying to get around going into Anaxamander and Thalese philosophy. Oh well.
Thalese tried to figure out where the universe began. He tried to single out a point of origin based on the surroundings around him. What did he see? Water. Something that could take the shape of anything. Something that could actually change in form mysteriously(btw to give context Thales was an ancient philosopher). In fact, water was probably the only thing he ever saw change in state of matter. All life as he knew it was only sustained by water. So, he made the assessment that the original matter that created all life was water.
However, Anaximander a later philosopher, disagreed. Anax said that for the matter to be the thing that which started it all, it must have no opposite. In other words, if there was SOMETHING here before there was ANYTHING, that something must in effect be everything at once and have no opposite. It must not have an opposite because if it did, that would mean that there was something else. Meaning it could not possibly be the single point of origin. Everything we see and feel can only be described by opposites. We would have no idea what cold is without hot, for, it would always be cold and if there was no such thing as hot it would be indescribable what cold actually was without reference to hot. So he concluded that, the "God matter" must be completely indescribable without any definable shape or appearance.
Those little stories were used to describe my ideas on the subject. God would be a completely abstract concept literally out of the reach of logic in any way. An idea I like to play with is that if God was here before everything that he was in fact everything. Not even the space between atoms existed. There was nothing but "God". This concept gives the idea of no beginning much more plausibility in my mind anyway. So, if there was nothing else besides God, and God decided to create something, then those things are just pieces of god. So everything that "exists" today is actually everything that existed 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 years ago. Everything that existed those many eons ago were but one thing. One philosophical notion really puts science on the chopping block. Science is an analysis used by our senses. One philosophical thought says that we cannot trust our senses because we are perceiving difference when it does not exist.
If everything had an single point of origin, everything from that single point of origin without any opposite is still a part of that single origin. Meaning, there are no opposites and our senses cannot be trusted at all.
So with that idea in mind, I also like to play with the idea that we could all be one. One piece of existence only perceiving an illusion of any difference. So in effect, God in this instance would merely be everything and nothing at all, all at once. It's almost mor of a Buddhist philosophy.
So anyway...All that was to describe a different way to think about "God".
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
And for that matter...So? I don't see what the relevance of that point is lol. Not being rude I just don't really see why it matters for any reason other than pure academic interest.
And damn, maybe one of his followers finished up Deuteronomy for him.
Also, Jw's are not the only ones that believe that. Jewish people also claim authorship to Moses by way of the Talmud.
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged
-Equinox
"We're like the downtown of the Diablo related internet lol"
-Winged