MarkostheGnostic said:

You're fairly new here, have you seen this post that I began (I don't begin many posts)?: http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/19085311#19085311

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Advocate said:

MarkostheGnostic said:

You're fairly new here, have you seen this post that I began (I don't begin many posts)?: http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/19085311#19085311

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I got Aristotle at 77%. Kant was only a 29% for me! But then, I'd probably also be a bit of Kierkegaard and Lewis. I like Plato to a point...the point at which he accuses art and writing of being devilry!

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Advocate said:

If we have human intellect, it is prone to every kind of wandering, distraction, impurity, oversight, and misplacement imaginable.

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Yet as I attest, there are higher truths, things beyond human intellect that can guide us on how to live.

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If we had only human intellect and reasoning, nothing would prevent murder and greed for selfish gain. Indeed, there clearly are higher truths that reason does touch upon, such as moral absolutes: do not lie needlessly, for instance, unless some higher principle dictates otherwise.

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Kant tries to base reasoning solely within human power. But this is folly if we have a Creator who imprints himself onto our minds.

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To think of humanity apart from God is to think of a child without a biological mother to birth him: an illogical conclusion, a misplaced premise, and bad logic. For logic tells us that all things in this universe are bound by cause and effect: where is the cause for us if not outside the universe?

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TryptaVision said:

Advocate said:

If we have human intellect, it is prone to every kind of wandering, distraction, impurity, oversight, and misplacement imaginable.

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Can this include religion and believing in God?

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Yet as I attest, there are higher truths, things beyond human intellect that can guide us on how to live.

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You are again, making this claim using human intellect and rational with nothing other than cause and effect from your own human experiences in life. This is an opinion not based on hard facts which don't have other explanations.

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If we had only human intellect and reasoning, nothing would prevent murder and greed for selfish gain. Indeed, there clearly are higher truths that reason does touch upon, such as moral absolutes: do not lie needlessly, for instance, unless some higher principle dictates otherwise.

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Why do we not murder people? Well, so their friends and family don't murder us in return. In the same respect, being greedy can result in consequences that are not beneficial to us within human society. We can easily come to this conclusion that it is not beneficial to participate in these activities with human intellect and reason. Also, a large percentage of the human population partakes in these things, thats my first argument against moral absolutes. My second issue with moral absolutes is that it implies that humans do not have free will, because moral absolutes would mean we can only act in a predetermined manner, that is, morally. You said the claim that God can exist for some but not others is completely foolish, as he is of higher existence, yet here you are implicitly implying moral absolutes which are also of a higher existence can apply to some but not for others. Maybe I missed something, but I think you used logic which you called folly to justify your own claim.

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Kant tries to base reasoning solely within human power. But this is folly if we have a Creator who imprints himself onto our minds.

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That is a big if. I am not saying it's not possible or untrue, but you are trying to discredit Kant with an IF that doesn't have a large amount of observable evidence. He bases reasoning solely within human power because it's the highest framework he can provide hard observable evidence for.

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To think of humanity apart from God is to think of a child without a biological mother to birth him: an illogical conclusion, a misplaced premise, and bad logic. For logic tells us that all things in this universe are bound by cause and effect: where is the cause for us if not outside the universe?

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To think God created this massive universe just to sit in a infinitesimally smart part of it to babysit humans is to me the illogical conclusion. Just because we have not yet discovered the secular cause for life, by no way means that it does not exist. Just to be clear, I am not saying religion is definitely wrong, I'm just saying we don't have a way to prove either or, so why even include it into our philosophy at this point in time. I think Kant was exactly right for basing reason solely within human power, because human power is all that we are currently sure of. I think it is bad logic to base our philosophy on things that we are unsure of.

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Advocate said:

Your points are all valid and I will address them later, when I'm not so tired. But if I may, I think you are overlooking my main premise, which is simply that human intellect is inadequate without God. I feel that, given my firm belief in God, questions about our ability to believe in God are a bit misplaced. Christian theology has the Holy Spirit as sort of a corrective lens to bring human reasoning in line with God's higher intellect and wisdom. So there is a distinction to be made between natural human thought and purified human reasoning in the Spirit.

You are welcome to take issue with this, of course, and I will be happy to justify my beliefs. But then, Kant was a Christian. In my opinion, his mistake was trying to separate God from his views on reasoning, which is contradictory if he believed that God gave us the capacity to reason and if he believed in the tenets of Christianity that I mentioned.

Does this clarify my position in a way that resolves any inconsistencies you can discern? I'm not asking you to accept my beliefs blindly, but I do contend that I am consistent within them.

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TryptaVision said:

Advocate said:

Your points are all valid and I will address them later, when I'm not so tired. But if I may, I think you are overlooking my main premise, which is simply that human intellect is inadequate without God. I feel that, given my firm belief in God, questions about our ability to believe in God are a bit misplaced. Christian theology has the Holy Spirit as sort of a corrective lens to bring human reasoning in line with God's higher intellect and wisdom. So there is a distinction to be made between natural human thought and purified human reasoning in the Spirit.

You are welcome to take issue with this, of course, and I will be happy to justify my beliefs. But then, Kant was a Christian. In my opinion, his mistake was trying to separate God from his views on reasoning, which is contradictory if he believed that God gave us the capacity to reason and if he believed in the tenets of Christianity that I mentioned.

Does this clarify my position in a way that resolves any inconsistencies you can discern? I'm not asking you to accept my beliefs blindly, but I do contend that I am consistent within them.

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Yes it does, I hope I didn't come off as an ass because I wasn't trying too! As I said, I think he tried to separate God from his view on reasoning because human power is the highest framework he could provide hard observable evidence for. I see the contradiction, but he was a practical philosopher. Kant said, "One cannot provide objective reality for any theoretical idea, or prove it, except for the idea of freedom, because this is the condition of the moral law, whose reality is an axiom. The reality of the idea of God can only be proved by means of this idea, and hence only with a practical purpose, i.e., to act as though (als ob) there is a God, and hence only for this purpose." Kant didn't necessarily believe in the supernatural aspect of religion, he believed in God for moral purposes not to answer questions about existence or reality, thus I don't think he contradicted himself.

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Advocate said:

"If God were a Kantian, who would not have us till we came to Him from the purest and best motives, who could be saved?" ~C.S. Lewis

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MarkostheGnostic said:

I do not subscribe to the non-biblical, Augustinian hypothesis of Original Sin. The Gnostics of different schools illustrated alternative interpretations of the Genesis myth. The Hebrews who wrote the Genesis myth adhered to a good and an evil inclination (Yetzer Tov and Yetzer Hara, respectively). Original Sin, inherited depravement, made 'external' salvation absolutely necessary, hence the Eucharist and the power-structure of priesthood and church which dispensed the sacrament became absolutely necessary. Pure politics. Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. Neither do I anthropomorphize God into masculine pronouns, or entertain a Zeus-Deus form bestowing blessings and curses from a throne, even metaphorically speaking. The universe is a much bigger place than the pre-Copernican pre-moderns could ever have imagined, and the Creator of the universe remains utterly incomprehensible. Likewise any presumption about what God 'wants' of human beings. Revelation, promise of reward, or fear of punishment is not necessary for a human being to perfect his/her Compassion while alive.

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redgreenvines said:

advocate;
why must he accept what you propose

when speaking of god or the unknown unknowable
we use a placeholder
god is a placeholder of a vast unknown thing  that may be no thing
like a zero in math
just don't try to divide by god, you get all kinds of trouble.

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redgreenvines said:

I said god is like zero
in my way of seeing the world, you are trying to discern or divide by zero.
unless you are committed to being the big zero yourself - god (which will get you committed in any state), then you should not try to dispense his law, and therefore you should not dispense what another must or must not.

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Advocate said:

MarkostheGnostic said:

I do not subscribe to the non-biblical, Augustinian hypothesis of Original Sin. The Gnostics of different schools illustrated alternative interpretations of the Genesis myth. The Hebrews who wrote the Genesis myth adhered to a good and an evil inclination (Yetzer Tov and Yetzer Hara, respectively). Original Sin, inherited depravement, made 'external' salvation absolutely necessary, hence the Eucharist and the power-structure of priesthood and church which dispensed the sacrament became absolutely necessary. Pure politics. Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. Neither do I anthropomorphize God into masculine pronouns, or entertain a Zeus-Deus form bestowing blessings and curses from a throne, even metaphorically speaking. The universe is a much bigger place than the pre-Copernican pre-moderns could ever have imagined, and the Creator of the universe remains utterly incomprehensible. Likewise any presumption about what God 'wants' of human beings. Revelation, promise of reward, or fear of punishment is not necessary for a human being to perfect his/her Compassion while alive.

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You talk as though God (assuming he exists) doesn't have an intentional plan for human beings. If you subscribe to the teachings of the Bible, you surely must accept that human beings are at the CENTER of God's design.

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DividedQuantum said:

Excellent post, Markos. 

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Advocate said:

Genesis 1

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

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