A Question for Believers and Non Believers

[Nick_A]

Um...I have not copyrighted the word, dear.

True. However: your post count and personality back up your using 'Evidence' to simplify a greater statement. What you say is certain, it's a known quantity. You speak your own language.

When a random person asks for evidence, it's not necessarily intersubjectively verifiable data evidenced by the scientific method. Ie: I've heard plenty of religious people settle for 'personal evidence' when asked for evidence.

One must not be satisfied with the statement of an individual merely because they possess authority on a given subject. It is the message that is important, not who is referencing it. Some of the greatest minds ever have made major scientific miscalculations. Their greatness in those respects counted for absolutely nothing. Generally speaking however, the more wise and learned one is, the less likely they are to become prone to error. But no one is infallible. Everything must always be checked and scrutinised irrespective of whoever is stating it. I am just as guilty of this as anyone else. But even so. No excuses.

Personal evidence and scientific evidence are not the same thing. The first is subjective and prone to confirmation bias. And is to all intents and purposes an oxymoron. The second - the scientific method - is the only reliable indicator of how to accurately measure a hypothesis. That is a universal that is employed in science as a standard tool for investigation. Subjectivity doesn't enter the equation at all. Because the moment it does then that experiment becomes invalid.

And this brings me onto something else. How we sometimes have great difficulty in accepting what is and isn't true. And I mean truth in the objective sense. Subjective interpretation of factual knowledge is essentially unnecessary and useless. The onus is not for us to mould truth to our world view but the exact opposite. The number who make this classic error is staggering. Accept what is true irrespective of how you feel about it. Even better : accept what is true without having a subjective opinion one way or the other on it.

The trouble is that science cannot measure the quality of the moment since it is dualistic and measures in the domain between before and after. Appreciating the quality of the moment is the realm of consciousness which we lack as residents of Plato's cave. Many in thewse times have never even considered what the quality of the moment means.

[Epimethean]

You are, I fear, like a cave dweller, losing your sight, my friend.

[Anymouse]

The trouble is that science cannot measure the quality of the moment since it is dualistic and measures in the domain between before and after. Appreciating the quality of the moment is the realm of consciousness which we lack as residents of Plato's cave. Many in thewse times have never even considered what the quality of the moment means.

"Quality of the moment?" I have never considered what this means, because when I do, my head hurts.

It's not even subjective, it's just non-sensical. Like "the flavour of blue" or the "taste of baroque music."
James.

[Cinjin]

The world is REAL. Your bullshit religion is not. As long as you harm no one but yourself I would not care but you people can never keep your superstitions to yourselves.

Min is RIGHT ON about this. It's very rare that I get harassed about my deistic view of God and the reason: because I (and every other deist I've ever met) don't go around trying to get everyone else to put their name down on the "Deist Sign Up Sheet" and put into our schools, government and every other fuckin facet of our lives.

Belief structures, faith, religion - whatever you subscribe to - should be left at home. And if religious people could keep their views personal and private like they should ... we could all get along splendidly!

But that's not even close to reality is it. Kill anyone in the name of your god today?!?

[Nick_A]

The trouble is that science cannot measure the quality of the moment since it is dualistic and measures in the domain between before and after. Appreciating the quality of the moment is the realm of consciousness which we lack as residents of Plato's cave. Many in thewse times have never even considered what the quality of the moment means.

"Quality of the moment?" I have never considered what this means, because when I do, my head hurts.

It's not even subjective, it's just non-sensical. Like "the flavour of blue" or the "taste of baroque music."
James.

I agree. You haven't thought and your head hurts. I'm concerned with those who are willing to think for the sake of understanding even at the risk of a headache. They have experienced the relative conscious quality of the moment in themselves. One moment they have a higher perspective analagous to that of the forest. At the next they are fighting amongst trees having lost a conscious perspective and lowered the quality of the moment.

A person seeking to sustain a higher perspective, a higher quality of the moment, wonders why they continually lose conscious self awareness, become caught up in negative emotions and experience dulled senses as well. You are not concerned with these things so you are better off just taking two excedrins and not concerning yourself with it.

[Epimethean]

In a way strangely analogous to christianity, you seem interested in turning your life into a parenthetical statement, Nick.

[Nick_A]

The world is REAL. Your bullshit religion is not. As long as you harm no one but yourself I would not care but you people can never keep your superstitions to yourselves.

Min is RIGHT ON about this. It's very rare that I get harassed about my deistic view of God and the reason: because I (and every other deist I've ever met) don't go around trying to get everyone else to put their name down on the "Deist Sign Up Sheet" and put into our schools, government and every other fuckin facet of our lives.

Belief structures, faith, religion - whatever you subscribe to - should be left at home. And if religious people could keep their views personal and private like they should ... we could all get along splendidly!

But that's not even close to reality is it. Kill anyone in the name of your god today?!?

You refer to what we should do. But as creatures of reaction in Plato's cave since we are as we are, everything is as it is. Nothing changes because of what we are: the human condition. If we had wings, it would solve the problem of transportation. But we don't so we have this problem. The essence of religion is not about belief but revealing what we ARE. "Know thyself." We no longer even know what it means.

"Do You wish to know God? Learn first to know yourself"
-ABBA EVAGRIUS, FOURTH CENTURY

Obvious enough. The trouble is that we do not do it or even know how anymore. So everything continues as it is regardless of the finest platitudes and denials.

[Epimethean]

γνῶθι σεαυτόν, long before your mad monk.

[Faith No More]

Nick,
You seem to be equating self understanding with religion. The two are entirely exclusive. I need not religion to know who I am, and religion doesn't necessarily imply self awareness.

[Anymouse]

"Quality of the moment?" I have never considered what this means, because when I do, my head hurts.

It's not even subjective, it's just non-sensical. Like "the flavour of blue" or the "taste of baroque music."
James.

I agree. You haven't thought and your head hurts. I'm concerned with those who are willing to think for the sake of understanding even at the risk of a headache. They have experienced the relative conscious quality of the moment in themselves. One moment they have a higher perspective analagous to that of the forest. At the next they are fighting amongst trees having lost a conscious perspective and lowered the quality of the moment.

A person seeking to sustain a higher perspective, a higher quality of the moment, wonders why they continually lose conscious self awareness, become caught up in negative emotions and experience dulled senses as well. You are not concerned with these things so you are better off just taking two excedrins and not concerning yourself with it.

You misread, I'm afraid. When I do consider what this means, my head hurts. Not from the idea of Christianity, the idea of horrible metaphor. I did give other examples of such metaphors.

Any religion that burns and stones people because they do not believe the same way is evil.That represses their "God-given" thought processes is evil. That takes the greatest gift of their god [sex] and makes it sinful, or casts them into an everlasting torment is evil. That glorifies slavery and the repression of women is evil. I would never worship such an evil being.

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (KJV)

I also really don't like having to know more about someone else's holy book, because they don't read it themselves. Read the sections in Isaiah and Proverbs about adult nursing (how wives' are given this gift to prevent their husbands from going astray) sometime; no preacher in any church will read those to you, but they are there, and you would know it if you had read your holy book. (I have, it is a matter of self-defence from the endless missionaries.) You need a religion like mine, that has no such book at all. Or one like Discordia. If anyone can make sense out of the Principia Discordia, I applaud them. It's a hoot.

If the Bible had been written today, it would not be for sale to minors. It is a tale of the worst horrors both men and a god can ever inflict on humankind. Drowning everyone and repopulating the Earth by incest would never fly in a children's book.