No, by definition neither reading nor watching film is passive. It can be passive if you’re… passive while doing it.
You’re a “man of action” huh, or prioritize busy-ness (“business”) for its own sake, physical movement, for certainly actually sitting quietly and thinking and working through information and ideas can’t possibly be “active” to you, right? Lol.
Ok now let me read the rest of what you wrote, I’m holding out hope for you still.
No, I didn’t bring up Alselm, you did. Same with Nietzsche.
Those Christians weren’t talking about Alselm, they were talking about how atheists can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, therefore God must exist. It’s classic pathological level stupidity. The ontological argument isn’t something they were seemingly aware of, or if they were they didn’t mention it.
Let me summarize your position:
A bunch of other philosophers think that a “dualism vs. non-dualism” absolute categorical distinction makes sense, therefore I’m going to think this too, despite that I’ve offered nothing so far by way of explaining any of my ideas along those lines.
Anselm said some stuff about “faith in knowledge” therefore… (Well I don’t even know, what the fuck is your point even?)
The two common forms of the ontological argument are that 1) we can think about a greatest possible being (whatever “greatest” means) therefore one must exist, and 2) it’s “greater” (again, problematic) to think about a being than cannot be conceived to not-exist than it is to think about a being that can be conceived to not-exist.
These are, both formulations, the stupidest loads of shit that ever passed for reasoning or philosophy. If this is what you think reasoning and philosophy are then you are absolutely incapable of either.
And I read quite a lot, incidentally, as well as currently working on my third book. In one second I think a thousand times more profoundly and deeply than any of this ontological argument garbage… This stuff doesn’t even count as thinking, it’s pure fallacy, psychologism, empty rationalizing.
Atheism is the absence of divine faith, revelation, or intervention.
Great, thanks for that kernel of wisdom.
So others aren’t tempted to think along these same lines, let’s look at what’s wrong with the ontological arguments.
These arguments are nothing but lies. They pretend that we come to an idea (in this case the idea of God) by a way that we do not in fact come to them. How does anyone have this idea of God? Someone told them about it; they were born into a culture with deep historical factors of pushing a certain religious mindset and telling children that this “God” thing exists and has such and such properties and aspects. But religion stays silent on the logic of why such a God should exist, so the medieval philosophers stepped in to try and justify it.
Problem is, you can’t justify an idea you have simply by appealing to something about that idea itself, as idea. Do I believe in cheese because there is something about the “idea of cheese” that requires what I think of as cheese to exist? No, I believe in cheese because I am having an experience of something that has been given the name “cheese”. The ideatums of our ideas, the objects about which our ideas are ideas, are not equivalent to the ideas we have about them. Nor does the idea by itself cause itself to exist, nor does the actual reasons why we believe in the existence of an object come from the idea we have of those objects… In fact, it’s more interesting because our ideas come from, in part, both the object itself which the idea represents/names as well as from that idea’s participation in much larger idea-universes of meaning-- contextual relation.
To pick any idea and try to derive the existence of its supposed object merely out of the idea itself, not looking at either the actual real reasons in our experience for why we hold the idea nor looking at the larger contexts and connections between the idea and other ideas, is really stupid. We don’t believe in triangles because the idea of a triangle somehow gives necessarily the fact that triangles must exist, we believe in triangles because we can draw them and we can define them clearly. Defining the idea of a triangle (a two-dimensional object with three straight lines for sides, lines connected at the ends, with interior angles adding to 180 degrees) comes from how this idea 1) relates to other ideas such as lines, points, angles, and dimensions, and 2) can be demonstrated by simply using a piece of paper and a pencil.
Ideas that are more abstract, like say “justice”, are the same way but constitute more complex experiences and contexts. The idea of justice does not self-derive itself, nor does the mere idea of justice act as sufficient cause for us to declare that the object of this idea in fact exists. Even if we can take the idea and construct an argument from necessity for its object’s existence, this is never in fact how the idea came about. The idea of justice came about because we have experiences with things that we decided to include under the label/name “justice”, we had these experiences already and the idea or concept only abstractly gathered there together and provided further context and meaning to them. The idea extracts something from the experiences of which it is an idea. The idea serves to clarify, define, expand and explain. It is not necessary that any object or existence must produce a certain idea of itself, much less that such an idea would thereby be the rational justification for that object or experience’s existence let alone the in fact reason for why we had the experience, perceived the object, or thought the idea.
The ontological argument is saying that the very idea of God itself, because this is the “greatest” idea (whatever that means… what is “greater” and why, about it?) must therefore exist. The logically necessary implication on which the argument is based is that there is no possible way we humans could have come up with the idea of God unless God actually exists: problem is, that’s not true. It’s quite easy to understand how we could come up with the idea of God, and indeed humans have been having numerous different ideas about God and gods since there have been humans. One easy example of how to arrive at the idea of God, an example other philosophers have used, is to simply take a human being as we experience it, and abstract away all its limitations; limits of duration in time, extension in space, limits of ability to understand and know, moral limits to our goodness, limits of our ability to act (life heavy object, create things, etc)… once you take the idea of a human being and create a new idea of it without any of the limitations common to a human being, you arrive at the template for the idea of a god/gods.
Another example of how to arrive at the idea of God/gods is to look at the bicameral model of the human consciousness and the theory that in the past at a certain point humans started experiencing an inner voice, the inner monologue of language that we all experience today. Once symbolic language developed and became commonplace, at a certain point the experience of having an inner linguistic thought process whereby we can spontaneously talk to ourselves in our own head must have been new and probably overwhelming. Since one of the most basic functions of language is to name things, early humans may have experienced something like looking at things and suddenly had the names of those things appearing in their self-experience as if talking to them… the old pagans could easily have associated this experience with those objects themselves, thus believing that every object has a “God” associated with it or that every experience was a god since each discernible object appeared to speak to them. Objects of greater meaning and forcefulness on their perception would naturally be assumed to be more powerful gods, like the sun, moon, rain storms, and other people.
Ancient peoples believed that certain people among them were gods, and they also believed in gods of the sun, moon, rain, plants and trees, animals, etc. Our ideas about God have been many and evolved over time.
So the premise of the ontological argument is not only stupid but is simply wrong. You can’t derive the existence of something simply by looking at properties contained in your idea of it. Cheese doesn’t exist because the idea of cheese contains the aspect of being yellow, no matter how much “greater” the color of yellow or any other aspect of the idea might be or I might want to imagine it to be.
I can’t believe that anyone in the world even gives a fuck about whether or not there’s a god.
Agnostics are pussies.
You’re actin like schizophrenia don’t exist. You’re actin like multiple personality disorder don’t exist.
You’re picture is clueless, it ignores the reality of the situation.
Hello Wyld
Well, if you are so drenched in philosophy then the date of the argument doesn’t matter. Go ahead: destroy it.
As for the op- Religion shouldn’t not be, or should not be reduced to the rational arguments for belief or not, especially because we are not entirely rational beings. Belief in God or Jesus, or Allah does not come after a mathematical proof. I believe that religion is a cultural practice, passed on, a way we live life here on earth. God is an ad hoc part of that cultural legacy. Deep down God is a tool, a function, an engine through which a transaction with Reality can be complete and a return to balance restored. That transactional part is part of the beast in us. It is that which fuels superstition and we are adept at it because we have survived through it- this proto science.
To me, arguing about the proof on either side already represents a decline, thus that even if you are able to “prove” the existence of God, it is already evidence of a disconnection with the original aspiration which could have care less for proving what was soooooo self evident. What is left in its place? An argument??!!
I understand your point, but it is necessary that we develop arguments even against things like religion which serve non-rational functions, as you point out. Thus part of our argument must include the fact that religion serves these various functions, but we should not simply choose not to investigate what religion is merely because part of its function falls outside of the rational.
Philosophy should investigate both the rational and non-rational, both the cognitive and the affective-emotional. If, and this is a big if that turns out not to really be true, our investigation into religion discovers that religion is entirely necessary and good despite its also being non-rational, then our philosophical investigation would serve to defend and justify religion. But I think it’s quite easy to argue that religion comes out of such investigation looking quite weak, pathetic and uninteresting.
Maybe some people need religion to subjectively cohere themselves, maybe cultures need religions to balance and regulate social realities; but even if so, there is no argument I’ve ever seen that demonstrates this fact should last forever or must last forever. Religion as I see it, is a temporary stage in the evolution of subjective consciousness. Eventually the human species will no longer need religion—its true elements will be replaced by science, philosophy, direct investigation and personal conscious power, while its untrue elements will simply be left behind as errors and historical remainders. This is progress.
Been watching DarkMatter2525 cartoons again, have we?
Hello Wyld
The investigation requires an item to investigate, which then, because of this necessity, reduces the phenomena to an average, to a cartoon, to a picture that comes into focus by leaving out something and for that reason I am skeptical of investigating religion. Let’s take Christianity for example. The Bible is different things for different people. To the historian, it is a collection of manuscripts written by different humans at different points in history which is reflected in the message. For the believer, the one practicing the religion, it is the word of God. The definition used determines the perspective of what “religion” “is”. Once that identity is “given” then something else is left out which possesses its own importance. At any given study of religion you record as well the attitudes of the era of the investigator, so the conclusions are conditioned by the question, which contains already the answer, made from the selective perspective of a researcher who is shaped by his surroundings. At what have we arrived then? When there is no object there is no real objectivity and without that what we are left with is a tale, an autobiography of a researcher.
Philosophy is itself a form of religion. Today it is natural to see this separation between religion and philosophy but for men like Plato, Heraclitus, and others that distinction was not self evident. My point is that an investigation could conclude all of those things and yet never in an objective way. Here for example you conclude that “religion”, you’ve “found”, is quite weak, pathetic, and uninteresting. For me this means that, as you have defined religion, you have inevitably made it weak, pathetic and uninteresting. Could a different conclusion be reached based on a different “take” on religion? Probably. And yet either study deals with the personal choices that the researcher has made one way or another. What is missing is the finished object itself.
There is no evolution of subjective consciousness. Every person is born with pretty much a standard brain, with standard biases, fears, the fuel of religion and many other “vices”, if you will, of the human kind. I wish that racism would be left behind, an error that we will outgrow as a species, but then you remember how our species actually work, how they actually evolve. It is not that we evolve but that the environment in which we are born changes for each generation. That said, we retain the same problems and concerns as our ancestors. The problem of suffering, sickness, and death. You see science and philosophy as things that will supplant religion when it is quite possible, just as they have been up to now, that they will be co-opted by religious folks. It is not “either/or” only but also “and”.
By “religion” I mean how religious people mean it. As a belief system. I don’t obviously mean what religion can mean to a historian.
Philosophy is not at all a form of religion. Philosophy is entirely different.
There is certainly an evolution of subjectivity. What we call subjectivity is a substance, a reality, a being that evolves and changes and progresses over time. Religions are simply symptoms of a particular stage in the overall development of subjectivity. Subjectivity does not reduce to one’s “brain”.
Hello Wyld
Do you really think they see it as a “system”?
Certainly not what Plato, or Cicero thought about it. Not that they are necessarily right, but just saying that it could be understood in that way so I think that you overstate your case by using “not at all” when in fact it was.
When you say: “What we call subjectivity is a substance, a reality, a being that evolves and changes and progresses over time.” how did you come about this “knowledge”, these conclusions? Personally, it sounds as religious as anything else I have read in this forum. I guess that you will offer some very original definitions of “subjectivity” to be able to tie to its antonym. What is the atomic weight of subjectivity? This idea of yours is very Germanic, but it demonstrates my point. Do you deny that the condition of the brain affects a person’s subjective experience?! You have never done any drugs?
A psychologist would have a field day with this childish projection. This line of argumentation works - but only with THEISM. It making this conversation they are trying to justify their own position by trying to tar-brush their opponents with the same problem that exists for Theism.
Try this:
“Theists can’t say that God exists. They need to have faith in it! They can’t even prove it!”
“Yeah! You’re right!”
“Yep, you can seriously destroy every Theist argument with just that one thing. Because all their arguments are based on that one thing.”
Since the Atheist is not even making a positive claim, but simply disbelieving the argument does not work against atheism but is effective against theism. To apply it to Atheism is question begging nonsense; what god, which god, what do you mean god?
As an atheist nothing I know or understand is based on God. But by the same token nothing I believe is based on atheism. Atheism is just a tag that indicates a non-belief. You might as well say that everything I believe is based my disbelief of unicorns.
Theist = dumb
Atheist = dumber
Agnostic = over it
Well, the Christians could be forgiven for this line of reasoning if they are only used to modern, bad atheists, because modern, bad atheists all act like this is true. They proclaim that God doesn’t exist, and when asked for evidence of this position, they run away squealing “You can’t prove a negative!” and “I don’t have a burden of proof, you do!”. These are implicit admissions that they don’t actually have anything to base their position on. There are other, good atheists out there (mostly dead of old age by now) that will actually give reasons why it’s irrational to believe in God if they are asked. Perhaps the Christians in this non-fictional scenario have never met intelligent atheists before.
Welcome back Tab. Do you hear from Xunxian or JTT?
Does anyone ever “get over it”?
Agnostic= Intellectual and existential pussy.
Doubt does not have to indicate riding the fence or inability to decide. It can lead to further and better understanding.