I am speaking of YOU.
Sam,
I am speaking of YOU.
And I am speaking to YOU. If you follow my post, “teach us how to become rational” is a nonsensical proposition. The way to “become” rational is to foster concensus, which is to provide a wider and wider base of what is accepted as “rational”, but there is no objective “rational” status. The only “hole” that there is, is thinking that whatever you think is too rigidly the correct and “rational” position.
Dunamis
But there is a difference between believing in the Great Pumpkin and refusing to believe in it because there is no sign of its existence.
Sam,
But there is a difference between believing in the Great Pumpkin and refusing to believe in it because there is no sign of its existence.
Those that believe in the Great Pumpkin see signs of its existence everywhere. Those that don’t don’t. The problem is that what “believers” are attempting to accomplish is a structuring of subjectivity in a particular way, just as athiests are attempting to do the same (despite their appeals to some “objective reality”). When it comes to structuring subjectivities, there is no “right” answer. No doubt though you feel more “safe” seeing the world through the lenses you hold up. Keep with it.
Dunamis
You don’t follow the rules of the game 
Sam,
Honestly I don’t know what game you are playing or why you are playing it…but I hope you win! 
Dunamis
The game is called Philosophy of Religion
I’ve studied the Philosophy of Religion, and the rules are not those that you have set, nor is it confined to the assumptions you have made.
Dunamis
Fchiii! Fchiii!
I have read that book, and from what I gather, the author did not read the Bible.
[size=150]RELIGION IS AN EXPERIENCE.[/size]
Can you imagine someone dismissing the problem of evil or the ontological argument only by saying that it is just a faith stance of the atheist/theist and being taken seriously?
Sam,
Can you imagine someone dismissing the problem of evil or the ontological argument only by saying that it is just a faith stance of the atheist/theist and being taken seriously?
I just did and do. Obviously you feel most comfortable circling around and around in the paradoxes your assumptions generate. Forgive me if I step outside of your comfort zone of “problems”. For me the point is to dissolve the problems that Philosophy of Religion addresses, not to “think as much like a Medieval Philosopher as much as possible”, unless that is the kind of thing that makes you feel good about yourself.
Dunamis
I, I converse with Richard Swinburne, Brain Davies, Stephen T. Davis, Douglas Krueger, George H. Smith, Matson, Bruce Reichenbach, Julian Baggini, David Hume, and more, who share happily my philosophical space.
Sam,
You’re either being stubborn or you fail to see what is being said. The concept of good-evil can only exist as a construct of mind. Mind can only ‘see’ from a subjective perspective. One more time: no matter how a construct is organized, no matter how rigid the definitions, no matter how complete the logic, the construct is subjective. It may be a useful makes-sense-to-you construct, but the illusions of duality are just that. Illusions. Have faith in whatever subjective illusion you choose, Sam. but by all means, have faith.
JT
Sam,
I converse with Richard Swinburne, Brain Davies, Stephen T. Davis, Douglas Krueger, George H. Smith, Matson, Bruce Reichenbach, Julian Baggini, David Hume, and more, who share happily my philosophical space.
And I converse with Plato, Plotinus, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Philo, Nicholas de Cusa, Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella, Cicero, Valentinus, Augustine, Paul of Tarsus, Blake, Jung, Freud, Lacan, Foucault, Butler, Irigaray, Kristeva, Spinoza, Al-Ghazali, Hume (funny he doesn’t remember you), Darwin, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Dennett, Deleuze, Negri, Badiou, Dewey, James, Rorty, Davidson, Quine, Kuhn, Varela and Maturana just to name a few off the top of my head. Please, continue with whatever inner conversations you are having.
Dunamis
What’s the point in doing philosophy if all rests on faith? What’s the point in arguing for something? You don’t aim at truth: you are just playing a game whose rules your opponent shares.
Does philosophy mean nothing more than monopoly?
What’s your purpose?
the point is doing it…
one plays the hand one is dealt…
the deal is fixed…
the way the game is played; however, is not…
-Imp
Sam,
What’s the point in doing philosophy if all rests on faith?
Because under my conception, the experience of ‘sense’ falls within an immanent process, so the manufacture of consensus becomes an operative unfolding of Being, the organization of effects around acknowledged principles, justified within a moment of history. The ‘objective’ that is argued over becomes in human endeavors, at heart a product of values and prescription.
But since you imagine that you are conducting some kind of actual progress in your “study” of philosophy - other than the one that I propose - what is the meaning of your endless and seemingly fruitless postings of “proofs of God”. I just don’t get that game. It strikes me more as empty musings. To me a much more interesting question is: “What is it that we are doing when we try to find a ‘proof’ of God?”
Dunamis
Ok, you have won: all rests upon faith and philosophy is not entitled to be a reliable guide to truth.
And in fact, truth and reasonableness may be meaningless.
Sam,
And in fact, truth and reasonableness may be meaningless.
No. Truth and reasonableness are negotiated experiences, assemblages of power, manufactured consensus within history by humans participant in what may be assumed a larger Becoming. Rather than philosophy not being a “reliable guide”, philosophy is in fact a powerful means of discovering the underlying pictures that shape and determine our experience, and a productive means toward greater coherence amid diversity.
Dunamis