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clam_dude
stranger in astrange land

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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: zzripz]
#18124868 - 04/17/13 04:01 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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I'm not sure what you're talking about. You brought up North Korea.
-------------------- "I would like to thank god for making me an atheist" - Ricky Gervais
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johnm214


Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: clam_dude]
#18125482 - 04/17/13 06:14 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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clam_dude said: I'm not sure what you're talking about. You brought up North Korea.
To cite DPRK as a counterpoint to the secular position is just stupid.
They have deified their leaders and created a cult of leader worship and unquestioning faith in the state. This is exactly what the problem with religion is in the first place.
Faith and credulity is the problem to begin with, religion is just one manifestation of it.
But zzripz will never have an honest discussion on this. I doubt he can with his goofy position.
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teknix
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: teknix]
#18125901 - 04/17/13 07:24 PM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
teknix said: I have one question to solve this riddle:
How many of you "atheist" have concluded that there is not a god in any way, shape or form?
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Vaipen
Psychonaut

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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: zzripz]
#18127812 - 04/18/13 02:28 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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zzripz said: yes that is very interesting. I have wondered about where atheists are at. I was never brought up religiously as a child as such, but did have the feeling--because of religious stuff permeating into my imagination--that I was sometimes being watched by Jesus, and I would flash him---this is no joke lol
I have been through stages of search, especially after my LSD experiences when 15.
I like your Tarot cards idea. Now which card would represent the atheist? In a way you could be right about The Devil. In that the mythical meaning given to the 'Devil' by Christianity is that he is at the centre of matter. And this is what we here from atheists lots---that only 'matter' exists and there is no 'spirit'---or for the latter they will say, 'so where's the evidence?'. They want 'solid material evidence'.
That is exactly it! Well worded. Throughout history, the church has tried to focus mankind on the immaterial reality, associated with good and shunned the Earthly aspects of life, associated with evil. Earthy or Earthly things are for example bodily pleasure, such a sex. Somehow raveling in those things was considered bad. Of course the church is a truly twisted system. But we talked before about how abstinence as practiced by Ayahuascero's might actually have a logical reason. I think the church in its opressive way tried to force people to find 'god' by doing away with Earthbound things.
The Tarot card devil is the devil for a reason in its association with materialism, lust etc.
I find it very funny how there is this obvious link between that old divination system and the notion of personal enlightenment through using practices inc. abstinence. It is worth exploring if we can link other cards to certain life cycle perspectives.
[quote[ I have heard some atheists patronizingly tell others they are trying to convince they are right that they themselves used to think 'woo woo', but have gone through a 'trial of fire' to get to where they are. That sounds like 'hell' talk lol too.
Well, what they describe is a distorted image of what they believe they went through. What they went through is their personal eureka moment. A moment where all different perspectives collide and one wins out. And in their case it is a view of reality where god does not exist. That view wins out because of many factors. Psychological, cultural, sociological etc. Each of these carries their set of arguments. And it is therefore no wonder that many people have this rational, scientific stance, culture provides a lot of these arguments - or call it indoctrination- , so that when the arguments on all possibilities have ripened and the time of decision comes, the emphasis falls toward materialist, scientific and often dogmatic views.
In a way it is not a eureka moment, which in a way is 'enlightenment for the non-believer'. They have their moment of enlightenment, but they just call it different, more in line with logical reasoning. So they will tell you that 'after weighing all the arguments..' or 'I have conscluded after doing soem research that...' or 'using science as a method I can no longer support the idea of...'. All these phrases fall within the perimeter of logical thinking.
But what they had was en experience of falling into a mind trap and call it progression. It is an enlightening experience for them but they must realize it is merely a stage of life, where colliding views necessarily must be explored one by one. Cultural indoctrination however, in most people, fixates what should be a temporary position. We humans are not born with a baseline scientific preference. We are born preferenceless.
All views in essence are useful, to explore, to belief in these things is needed so we have the benefit of exploring opposing views. It is through accepting these phases we progress, just like Tarot tries to capture.
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I often think that what atheists are so passionate about is dispelling any talk about spirit and/or spirits because they see a danger of that. And in a way they are right if we look at cultures like Aztec and Mayan cultures that had mass sacrifices to 'spirits/gods' and of course the stuff that has gone down in the big religions to appease the 'Gods'.
But we should always be equal in our judgment. If we warn and consider the dangers of belief systems, we should also warn about the dangers of too much rationality. I think overall the rational materialist view on reality has done equal harm. It took religion thousands of years to kill and maim people globally but with modern science at hand we have achieved global climate change in less than 100 years. And we aren't done yet. A crusade killed many thousands, but fine dust in the air and other forms of pollution kill millions each year.
We should be moderate in both expressions of our consciousness, rationality and intuition, science and religion.
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but they always seem to have a blindspot for the same horrors--if not even worse-- in atheistic cultures where, in the absence of a spirit or god, a man and/or State is deified! Stalin, North Korea, scientific materialism/Church of Scientism, cetra
So we all have to look very seriously at what all this means because it is us, and how we are, and what we are doing in this world---destroying it. WHAT do we mean by 'matter' and 'spirit' is a crucial question.
Well, what about this idea: 'spirit' or 'spiritual' is that aspect of human consciousness that enables us to be passionate about perspectives, whether they are religious, political, philosophical or scientific in nature. There are passionate 'spirited' scientists. There are logical believers. Whatever you go far into with your mind, is what we could call spiritual. A fanatic maniacal and scientist with no qualms about inventing say, an atomic weapon, is very spiritual, just like his religious counterpart on a crusade slaughtering thousand of non-believers and pagans.
'Matter' or a 'materialist' would be considered the opposite of spiritual. It would be someone who goes to the same progressive line of fanaticism as the spiritual man, from moderation to increasing steps of fanaticism, but in terms of moderation. You end up with an extreme moderated person. You can take anything to the max, spiritualism, science, philosophy. Since I am a solipsist I know about taking it to the extreme :-)
Atheism in the extremist way is a fanatical moderated man, who feels passionate about not believing in god because to him that is an extreme idea.
Here is the same boundary of consciousness again I mentioned before: you cannot bite you own teeth or touch your fingertip with another, you cannot make music about music and you cannot be so moderated without crossing into fanaticism.
Even moderation must be moderated. If you push, you pull, if you pull, you push.
Just some ideas.
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zzripz
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: Vaipen]
#18127848 - 04/18/13 02:50 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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When I hear 'too much rationality' I get images of-- the Surrealist and DADA art movements which came about soon after the First World War, and they suspected that that horrific war that caused the deaths and disabilities physical and psychological and spiritual of MILLIONS of men, was brought about by too much rationality, and so they tried to undermine that rigid groove they believed the modern mind was caught up in by inspiring surreal imagination to restore sanity

Another thing I thought about was 'High Strangeness' this is a term meaning how some reported UFO experiences have seemed extremely surreal. Could it be that other beings can also see that overt rationality is a cause of the insanity amongst groups of mindsets in this world and through intervention of a kind that greatly undermines this rational oppression radical avenues of change may take place? other researchers think it is the very collective unconscious at work etc---or BOTH/AND
Look at the very title of this thread which purports to suggest that "rationality" is the supreme aspect of being human.
Is that SOOOOO???
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Vaipen
Psychonaut

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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: clam_dude]
#18127854 - 04/18/13 02:54 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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clam_dude said:
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zzripz said: but they always seem to have a blindspot for the same horrors--if not even worse-- in atheistic cultures where, in the absence of a spirit or god, a man and/or State is deified! Stalin, North Korea, scientific materialism/Church of Scientism, cetra
I'm sorry, I can't let you get away with this. Who cares if stalin was an atheist? What if he also likes steak, and I like steak? Does that mean you have to worry about me killing millions of people?
There is a link between atheism and human conduct. Just like there is a link between a religion and a man his conduct.
Most people claim what you claim, that there is no link between very bad conduct and what they believe in. You say it is of no relevance that Stalin e.g. was an atheist, but do you claim that there is no link between crusaders Robert of Normandy or Bernard of Clairvaux and religion?
Of course there is. Both find justification for cruelty in what they believe to be ultimately true.
All you do is make a logical mistake here: because both the atheist and religious man commit violence, there can be no link between what they believe in. But as I showed you, this is not true, because both people find justification to commit violence as part of their worldview.
In the case of the atheist, since he doesn't believe in after death judgment, it may be easier to sign an order to move entire peoples to another area. The religious crusader may feel judgment, but he does it because it is also righteous to kill heretics.
The atheist believes in no gods and therefore might feel powerful as a man on Earth and be the highest authority. And for this reason makes decisions that harm others, for their own best intentions no doubt. The crusader acts in accordance with the rules of god and as a servant of god must save lost souls by putting hte blade to them, so they repent in the last moment, to save their souls.
The atheist in his worldly way organizes society ruthlessly, the crusader ruthlessly enforces spiritual organization. They both operate in their own realm, society in the name of improvement and a better way of material life, wealth as a goal and spiritual life as an improvement, wellbeing as the goal.
To understand a Stalin, Pol Pot, a Hitler is to understand what they believed in. It is always relevant. No one should ever again argue that 'it doesn't matter'.
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Vaipen
Psychonaut

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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: JoieDeVivre]
#18127873 - 04/18/13 03:05 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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JoieDeVivre said: That wouldn't be a unicorn it would be a genetically modified horse. 
Then what are you? Who are all of us?
Lol! We are all the result of genetics. Is this a semantic game?
If a unicorn is a beast with a horn out of its head as a result of its genetics, how is it then a horse? You are like 99.xx % alike a chimp. Am I calling you a chimp without hair? 
What is the unicorn to itself? A horse with a horn? I do not think of myself as something else with some adaptation. Is a cow a pig with black and white fur? Considering that in nature many species are just fractions of percentages apart, how would a unicorn be a horse with a horn?
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Vaipen
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: clam_dude]
#18127876 - 04/18/13 03:07 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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clam_dude said:
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teknix said: Well, there isn't any evidence for that conclusion, plain and simple. Explain all you want, it doesn't mean anything without evidence.
Do you have a learning disorder? I'm not trying to be insulting. It's just that, in the context of this debate, it would be nice to know.
Did you get a warning for this personalism?
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Vaipen
Psychonaut

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Posts: 782
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: clam_dude]
#18127881 - 04/18/13 03:12 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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clam_dude said:
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Vaipen said: f you alter that brain chemistry by introducing some compound you alter the overall chemistry. Instead of serotonine or some other thing connecting to a receptor, the flood of DMT pushes that out of the way and connects instead. And your perception of reality changes. How is that not real?
This has been covered many times in the thread. How on earth do you manage to confuse a perception of reality with reality itself?
To me there is no difference.
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Vaipen
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: Diploid]
#18127889 - 04/18/13 03:19 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Diploid said: And your perception of reality changes. How is that not real?
How can you not get that someone on acid whose perception of reality is that he can fly runs smack into actual reality when he jumps off a building and is smashed to pieces?
Perception of reality is not reality. One is in your imagination. The other is in the real world. One can't even be seen by anyone outside your head, the other one can kill you.
I'm just absolutely floored sometimes by the shit I read here. 
If a man on LSD runs into a wall that is what you see, maybe it is not what he sees. Don't you remember? Castaneda changed into a crow and flew. And, like you, he kept asking the wrong question: 'Don Juan, did I really change into a crow and fly?' And Don Juan would say: 'You felt yourself change, you experienced flight, so you flew'.
I can't see your thoughts or emotions directly either. Yet you are real, or so you claim. How can you be real? You exist in my mind, in my perception. If, by your own words, perception is not reality, how can you be real?
Btw, if you are 'floored' is that because you are a floorer just as a roofer that roofs can be roofed?
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Vaipen
Psychonaut

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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: zzripz]
#18127912 - 04/18/13 03:37 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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zzripz said: When I hear 'too much rationality' I get images of-- the Surrealist and DADA art movements which came about soon after the First World War, and they suspected that that horrific war that caused the deaths and disabilities physical and psychological and spiritual of MILLIONS of men, was brought about by too much rationality, and so they tried to undermine that rigid groove they believed the modern mind was caught up in by inspiring surreal imagination to restore sanity
Another thing I thought about was 'High Strangeness' this is a term meaning how some reported UFO experiences have seemed extremely surreal. Could it be that other beings can also see that overt rationality is a cause of the insanity amongst groups of mindsets in this world and through intervention of a kind that greatly undermines this rational oppression radical avenues of change may take place? other researchers think it is the very collective unconscious at work etc---or BOTH/AND
Look at the very title of this thread which purports to suggest that "rationality" is the supreme aspect of being human.
Is that SOOOOO???
It lies withing the realm of possibilities I would say. There is certainly this eerie fairy-like quality to many of these observations. Even caught on camera these phenomenon are both there and not quite there. It reminds me of that research with cats.
In this research, what I remember of it, they put cats in cages surrounded by vertical or horizontal bars. Their brain's were trained to see those because their world was made into a, let's say vertical place. Then they introduced horizontal formations but the cats didn't register it.
When a human consciosuness sees a UFO hovering about, how can we truly tell what he experiences? Maybe his brain isn't 'trained' to see the whole form of the phenomenon. UFO's have this nasty ability to be very evasive to the minds' eye. Hmm. I am still not clear on this myself. Because there is evidence of real world existence. Indentations on the ground, sometimes higher levels or radiation.
The whole issue with UFO's sure confounds us deeply and causes a lof of controversy. It sure looks like some injection of that what fools the mind into our overly rationalist society. But then again, are we really that rationalist? In many ways we are, but if I look at dogmatic science, I see a lot of belief there. So if science holds a lot of belief, as a species overall we are more believers than anything else. But maybe these entities understand that and by pushing to more extremes by showing UFO's, they hope to call us to be rational. But not to rationalist science, but to reasoning, both intuitive and logical reasoning.
You mentioned WWI. There are some weird reports from soldiers who experienced strange things. You might look it up. There is one about the Krim War iirc, where an entire regiment or something like that marched into some cloud and never came out. If the UFO phenomenon is some sort of expression of the human condition, it is not strange to see UFO's along the frontline, where the human minds is in an extreme state, there is trauma, existential fear, loathing, anxiety and the most gorgeous poetry you could ever find.
Maybe things break through in to 'reality' where the stress is highest. How that would explain UFO's over a desert beats me. And so you keep circelling to the same conclusion, that it is too alien for us to understand, it keeps escaping all explanations.
Atheism does away with deities, the unseen and unprovable, and so I bet most atheist would claim UFO's are not 'real'. All the people that I discussed this with who are atheists and scientific minded claim there might be a 'something there' but refuse to entertain any sort of explanation.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: Vaipen]
#18128058 - 04/18/13 05:20 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Vaipen said:
Quote:
clam_dude said:
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teknix said: Well, there isn't any evidence for that conclusion, plain and simple. Explain all you want, it doesn't mean anything without evidence.
Do you have a learning disorder? I'm not trying to be insulting. It's just that, in the context of this debate, it would be nice to know.
Did you get a warning for this personalism?
Not a personalism. It was a question.
IMO rational thinking is very rare. Many who say they are rational are in ways just as irrational as those they point their fingers at.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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zzripz
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: Vaipen]
#18128092 - 04/18/13 05:47 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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it keeps escaping all explanations.
EXACTLY. 'Ration-nality' seems to NEED 'concrete explanation' within the criteria of its understanding though.
No I don't think it is authentic rationality what atheists assert is "rational". it is more 'rationality' cut off from the deeper imagination. It is as though such 'rational mind' identifies with its image of itself and stands like a gatekeeper against any 'anomalous intruding thoughts and feelings'. Any 'woo woo' 'tooth fairies' 'unicorns' which are seen as threatening that 'rational world of pureness'. it is an 'impure' versus 'pure' dynamic going on.
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JoieDeVivre
Hippie Babysitter



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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: zzripz]
#18128380 - 04/18/13 08:14 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Well you're wrong. Scientific rationalism is all about imagination, but that doesn't mean we make things up or manipulate evidence to support our own desires.
-------------------- Sapere aude "We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results."
UBUNTU- I am because we are.
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teknix
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: Icelander]
#18128781 - 04/18/13 10:21 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Icelander said:
Quote:
Vaipen said:
Quote:
clam_dude said:
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teknix said: Well, there isn't any evidence for that conclusion, plain and simple. Explain all you want, it doesn't mean anything without evidence.
Do you have a learning disorder? I'm not trying to be insulting. It's just that, in the context of this debate, it would be nice to know.
Did you get a warning for this personalism?
Not a personalism. It was a question.
IMO rational thinking is very rare. Many who say they are rational are in ways just as irrational as those they point their fingers at.
It is a personalism, because it is directed at the person and a rhetorical question meant to be-little the target. He can't see me so he obviously misses, but it is still a personalism or ad hominem.
"An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man" or "to the person"[1]), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an argument made personally against an opponent instead of against their argument.[2] Ad hominem reasoning is normally described as an informal fallacy,[3][4][5] more precisely an irrelevance.[6]"
You see, I am a person and the question was a rhetorical one, more akin to a claim. It doesn't matter if I have a learning disability or not as far as any argument is concerned. Show how it is illogical or irrational rather than make bogus claims like you have.
A question can be just as much of an argument in philosophy as a statement.
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teknix
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: JoieDeVivre]
#18128814 - 04/18/13 10:29 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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JoieDeVivre said: Well you're wrong. Scientific rationalism is all about imagination, but that doesn't mean we make things up or manipulate evidence to support our own desires.
Where the hell do you get the "scientific" part from? Science doesn't back your position (opinion) at all in conclusion, that is a completely delusional idea.
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clam_dude
stranger in astrange land

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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: Vaipen] 2
#18128849 - 04/18/13 10:37 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Vaipen said:
Quote:
clam_dude said:
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teknix said: Well, there isn't any evidence for that conclusion, plain and simple. Explain all you want, it doesn't mean anything without evidence.
Do you have a learning disorder? I'm not trying to be insulting. It's just that, in the context of this debate, it would be nice to know.
Did you get a warning for this personalism?
I'm sure you haven't read the last 80 pages of this thread. But if you had, you would realize that some of these things have been explained to teknix probably 1000 times. And he still keeps reiterating the same old line. So my question seems appropriate. Although, to be fair, I don't think teknix has a learning disorder. I just think he decides not to listen.
-------------------- "I would like to thank god for making me an atheist" - Ricky Gervais
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teknix
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: clam_dude]
#18128861 - 04/18/13 10:38 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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I don't accept bare claims without evidence . . .
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Chronic7
Registered: 05/08/04
Posts: 13,679
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: clam_dude] 1
#18128866 - 04/18/13 10:39 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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believing in nothing at all is the only truly rational position, neither being for nor against, but HONESTLY
hopefully this has already been said but its worth repeating
--------------------
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teknix
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Re: Atheism is the only rational position [Re: teknix]
#18128875 - 04/18/13 10:42 AM (10 years, 9 months ago) |
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Quote:
teknix said: To say anything about god, god must first be defined.
If god is beyond the capacity of the human minds comprehension then man cannot define god.
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