A Non-Violent Solution?

[Anomalocaris]

And thats a plain old truck load of horseshit, starting:

1. Atheists can't truly prove that there is no spiritual or magical essence to reality.

You cant prove I don't have an udetectable friend that makes fish turn to bacon, nanner, nanner. Seriously, are you this stupid?

.

The bottom line is that the jealous God religions are under attack (and rightfully so). But the people who are attacking them are refusing to offer the believes a 'safety net'.

The safety net is called fraud. Those who need such a safety net should have their needs removed. I understand the removal can be effectively and securely accomplished by rendering the needers dead. Which is not much a net loss since such safety nets have historically proven to be extremely lethal themselves.

[Abracadabra]

The safety net is called fraud. Those who need such a safety net should have their needs removed. I understand the removal can be effectively and securely accomplished by rendering the needers dead. Which is not much a net loss since such safety nets have historically proven to be extremely lethal themselves.

A belief in a possible spiritual essence to reality is not fraud.

On the contrary, for all anyone knows it may very well be the ultimate truth of reality.

Also, spirituality in general has not historically proven to be extremely lethal. The only ones that have been lethal are the ones that claim that there exist specific personified Gods, and/or demons. And also claim to have scriptures that represent the thoughts, directives, and commandments of those deities.

I can certainly understand everyone's over-reaction to such evil visions of gods at war with demons. In many ways I can't blame people for over-reacting to this. The Christians go around condemning everyone in the name of Jesus as "The Christ". The Muslims go around demanding that God is a male-chauvinistic pig, etc. Even the Witch-burnings were driven by a superstitious belief in a specific demonic Satan who is supposedly at war with the Christian God.

But all those are based on doctrines that make very specific claims about what these gods and demons are like, etc.

~~~

I think the real bottom line is that humans in general (at least in terms of the masses) simply aren't capable of comprehending a truly benevolent concept of spirit. It takes truly wise people like Deepak Chopra to comprehend and teach such things as pure intellectual wisdom.

In truth, a lot of religious people could potentially become highly criminal if they were actually convinced that there is no spiritual essence to reality at all. After all, if the truth of the matter is that we're just a bunch of overly evolved apes in an otherwise cold-dead universe, why should it matter if we knock off our unruly ape neighbors?

Killing mere accidents of a cold unfeeling dead universe could hardly be considered 'immoral'. In fact, what would morality even mean in the context of an 'immoral' universe?

If pure secular atheism is true, and everything we believe to know about physics is also true, then it's futile to imagine that someday we (as a species) might actually leave this speck of dust we live on. Our fate is apparently sealed. We're just stuck in this solar system until our star has a hiccup and then we're toast. And that's all there was to that.

So why should morality even be a consideration, even for the human species as a whole?

If are just random products of a cold-empty explosion that has no innate property of morality. Kill anyone you feel like killing. Why not? The universe does it all the time. Evidently it's no big deal. It's just the nature of the beast.

This is the line of reasoning a religious person can easy conclude. If there is no spiritual essence to reality, then it's nothing but a freaking accident. So the very concept of morality is a meaningless concept.

Why would you want to kill people's dreams who imagine that there is something greater going on?

I wouldn't try to convince people that there cannot possibly be anything mystical or magical going on behind the scenes. That would be stupid. Especially when I know that this cannot be ruled out entirely.

But I do feel that need to dump these hateful jealous-God religions for sure. These hateful jealous-God religions are detrimental to humanity.

So why not focus on the REAL PROBLEM, and quit pretending that we can prove that there cannot be a spiritual essence to reality, when that very claim right there is a fraudulent claim?

It's an outright lie to claim that anyone can prove that there cannot be a spiritual essence to reality. To claim that such a thing could be proven is fraud right there.

So if you want to avoid fraud don't support those kinds of false claims.

Just deal with the jealous-god religions directly and forget about trying to claim that mystical visions of a potential spiritual essence to reality has been disproved. That's a false claim anyway. Why spread lies just to address the problem of jealous-god religions?

Stick to what we can actually know. And don't over-react to the real problem. Overreacting to the problem is totally unnecessary.

[genkaus]

I'm not asking anyone to loan credence to anything. All I'm asking them to do is not to lie about what they can't know. When you proclaim to know that no possible concept of spirit can possibly exist, you are either outright lying about what is actually known, or you are displaying a gross ignorance of your own to actually believe that yourself.

If you are expecting anyone to let your views stand without critical examination, then you are asking for their credence.

And I'm saying that no possible concept of spirit can exist independently of physical reality. Your conceptualization of "spirit" not only depends on absence of knowledge, it goes against what is known.

I personally don't believe that you can. After all, if you could, then why would you so passionately proclaim that it's been ruled out and cannot possibly be?

It's crystal clear that you cannot imagine a spiritual component to reality.

Actually, I believe that there is a spiritual component to certain specific entities within physical reality. Its the existence of the spirits without those entities is what I have ruled out.

It's 'safer' for society in general because there are no doctrine that proclaim to be the 'Word and Commandments' of any God when considering a mystical philosophy of spirit. No one could proclaim that God hates homosexuals, or that God even demands to be worshiped, or that God supports male-chauvinism, or that God will cast non-believer into an eternal hell-fire as punishment for refusing to believe and obey.

Those kinds of religions can be dismissed solely on the content of their absurd contradictions of what they claim their God characters must be.

You don't even need science to dismiss them. You can easily dismiss on pure common sense. It's asinine to proclaim that a God who will hateful condemn everyone who doesn't believe in him to be an all-benevolent God.

These religions can be dismissed so easily the only miracles associated with them is the miracle that anyone today is still gullible enough to believe in them.

Ideas of spirituality that doesn't proclaim to hold scriptures of commandments and directives written by an "all-benevolent hateful god" would indeed be far 'safer'. No one could hold up a book and proclaim to have "the word of God" in their hands.

Spirit as a mystery would necessarily need to remain a mystery. Anyone proclaiming to have any more knowledge of spirit than this would be laughed off the planet.

I personally believe that this extreme phobia to any idea of spirituality actually stems from these jealous-God religions that basically amount to nothing more than emotional terrorism aimed toward anyone who doesn't believe in them.

It's just a gross over-reaction to the problem.

It would be like outlawing all knives because someone used a knife to stab someone to death.

The hateful God of the Hebrew mythology is the problem. It has created Islam and Christianity. Two religions that have grown to become emotional terrorism in the name of this mythological God. Even the original Judaism never seemed to get quite that disgusting about it. But even so, they still support many of the idiotic claims made by the religion within their own culture.

But to get carried away and try to claim that any and all spiritual ideas must be ruled out just because of a few bad apple religions it over-kill.

What you don't realize is that every religion is the necessary consequence of your "philosophy of spirit". Any philosophy which uses absence of knowledge as its basis and tells people that it is okay to believe whatever you want as long as you avoid knowing any truth about it could lead to nothing other than religions like Islam and Christianity.

It's just an over-reaction to the problem, and it's a falsity in its own right anyway. No such thing has ever been proven in any verifiable way, nor it is likely that any such verifiable proof could even be constructed. To even begin to claim to have such proof (as you claim to have), you would first need to know the precise details of every possible picture of spirit that anyone could possibly imagine. Otherwise, how could you possibly claim to have disproved their specific picture of spirit?

You couldn't. And this is precisely why your claim is utterly absurd.

I'll repeat your words to you:

"You don't even need science to dismiss them. You can easily dismiss on pure common sense. "

This is why I have dismissed your "philosophy" as sophistry.

All your claim can possibly do is demonstrate your own lack of imagination to come up with a picture of spirit that can't circumvent what you believe you have disproved.

So all you're doing by proclaiming to have such a proof is displaying your own lack of creative thinking.

I can imagine many natures of spirits that do not fit with my philosophy, starting from the mysterious aether. But my creative thinking and imagination have no bearing on reality. Any nature of spirit I can imagine, I can also rule out by applying rational thinking.

I've fully understood every claim you have made thus far, and I've even tried to explain to you why your objections don't even remotely apply to concepts of spirit that I can construct.

What I stated were inescapable axioms, which means that either they are applicable to any concept spirit you can think of or your concept is self-refuting.

In fact, I can prove you wrong right now. All of life could be an illusion created in such a way that you would indeed be lured into believing what you currently believe (i.e. that any spiritual essence to reality can be rulsed out). So in that case, all you would have done is fallen for the illusion that was actually designed to lure you into that very conclusion.

If you believe that you can rule that out, then you're far limited in creative thought than I had first imagined.

And here is the evidence that you actually did not understand my argument.

I didn't "rule out" the possibility that life is an illusion. In fact, I even accepted this premise in my criticism of the perpetual dream argument. What I showed you is that even in this case, the axiom of existence is still applicable to the reality outside the illusion.

No, that very claim is an unwarranted assumption on your part.

You can have absolutely no clue whether your 'axiom of existence' would even be applicable to such a separate reality. You must be imagining in your mind that any imagined 'separate reality' is just basically a copy of your experience of spacetime removed by a dimension or something like that.

Your "axiom of existence' stems from your belief in cause & effect, a unidirectional flow of time, a supposed dichotomy of structure and consciousness and the assumption that consciousness must then necessarily require structure first to bring it into existence.

That is a philosophy based entirely on a spacetime physics model.

You have absolutely no way of knowing that this model of reality would need to apply to any separate reality that might give rise to the spacetime phenomena.

So your argument doesn't hold. You're just assuming that their cannot be a reality that's much different from the spacetime you find yourself in.

But that's a totally unwarranted and uncreative conclusion.

All you're doing is demanding that everyone else think in the same limited way that you think. That's all. You don't have any 'proof' of anything.

Its an axiom, not an assumption, therefore, it is applicable to the separate reality as well.

As far as the causation argument goes, primacy of existence does not rely on it (its the other way around, in fact). The question is simple - can there be existence without consciousness? The answer is yes because the answer "no" is self-refuting.

But they do loan support to my hypotheses. Especially in terms of supporting that my hypotheses cannot be 'ruled out' using our current knowledge of the world. And that's all I need to claim. In fact, that's all I've ever claimed - they can't be ruled out.

Even scientists cannot rule them out so why should I? And some scientists are even seriously considering that they may very well be true. So that's no different from me seriously considering that a spiritual model based on these same idea could be true.

So yes. If my only claim is that my spiritual pondering cannot be 'ruled out', (and that is my only claim), then these strange theories proposed by physicists do indeed support my claims.

That's all I've been claiming from the get go.

You're the one who has been unrealistically proclaiming that you can rule everything out.

Lending support to a hypothesis means giving evidence for ruling it in, not "not giving evidence for ruling it out". If I let go of an apple, it drops to ground. This fact lends no support to my hypothesis that OJ killed his wife, just because I can't rule it out upon it.

Well, I personally don't accept the former (your axiom of existence). For me, that's extremely easy to dismiss, and I have already done so.

There is no and can be no rational reason to dismiss it. If you have then your argument is self-refuting or invalid.

And the latter is equally meaningless to me. You say, (based on the known nature of consciousness). The only problem there is that no one knows the nature of consciousness. You need to assume quite a bit on that one yourself. If you're assuming that electrical activity in a physical brain = consciousness, that itself may be a totally invalid assumption.

In fact, that very question at the very heart of my spiritual philosophies. I question just what it is that is having an experience.

If the matter that a brain is made up of cannot itself have an experience, then how could the whole conglomeration suddenly have an experience?

Its not a great mystery. Your argument is equivalent to saying "If one single rock cannot support a structure, how can a collection of bricks make a house?"

We see emergent properties due to specific structures all the time in nature. Consciousness is just another one of them.

That is a deep philosophical mystery and question in an of itself. Apparently you have convinced yourself that you have answered that question. But you haven't convinced me.

Well, clearly we different on what we consider to be rational. You jump to wild conclusions demanding that your axiom of existence must apply to all possible concepts of reality. Where is there any rationale in that? All you're doing is denying reality the freedom to be something that you cannot possibly understand. I personally don't see that as being rational, I just see that as being highly arrogant. Why should reality be limited by your own personal creativity and imagination (or lack thereof)?

And your other faith-based belief is that you understand the nature of consciousness. I think you would get laughed off the podium if you when to a science symposium or even philosophy symposium and proclaimed to have such knowledge in any indisputable way.

You're just claiming to know more than is yet known. Consciousness is still a deep mystery to the sciences and to philosophy. And while they have guesses no one has been able to prove anything conclusive as you seem to have convinced yourself that you believe to know.

Your idea of rationality is to imagine whatever the hell you want and call it rational. Here is a short list of reasons why you are necessarily irrational.

1. If the axiom of existence is not applicable to the source of this reality, then it is not applicable to this one. If so, then there can be no such thing as reason or rationality. Therefore, the very possibility of your belief being true precludes its own rationality.

2. You believe that your imagination is a valid way to determine what to hold as the truth. That is irrational.

3. You believe that rather than knowledge, it is the gaps in knowledge that justify belief. That is irrational.

4. Your beliefs are not based on reality - known or unknown. That is the textbook definition of irrationality.

Only in your own delusions.

Do you or do you not argue that it is valid to hold a belief in absence of any evidence to the contrary? That is the fallacy of argumentum ad ignoratiam.

Like I say, if that's true, then all you have done is demonstrate your lack of imagination.

Even if that were the case, I would prefer my lack of imagination over your lack of intelligence.

Well, there problem is no such thing as an "absolutely false statement".

Personally I think this may be the heart of your limitations. You must be thinking of "truth" as something that is "absolute". You must be thinking that something can either be shown to be true, or false, and once it has been determined to be one or the other that must be carved in stone absolutely.

That's actually classically thinking right there.

You need to move on to relativistic or relational thinking.

What you deem to be 'true' based on knowledge gained from previous experiences, etc., are all relative truths.

It's kind of like the truth of the constant Pi. Pi is the relationship between the lengths of the circumference and diameter of a geometric circle. Pi ~ 3.14... is always true in Euclidean or flat space. However, when space becomes warped this value of Pi no longer holds true.

So the truth of the value of Pi is a relative truth dependent upon the geometry of the space under consideration.

This same thing actually holds for all 'truths'. All truths are dependent upon the situation in which they are found to be true.

What you are trying to do is take truths associated to spacetime experiences and force those "truths" onto every possible idea of reality.

But you have no reason to believe that these are "absolute truths" like that. They could just as easily be "relative truths" that only apply within certain situations.

You've convinced yourself that some "axiom of existence" must necessarily be true in some absolute immutable sense. And that no matter what the 'True Nature" of reality might be, this absolute truth of an axiom of existence must apply to it.

That's totally erroneous thinking right there.

You're lost back in the days of classical thinking and imagining that you can discover absolute truths that must hold everywhere and everywhen.

This is the folly that philosophers fall into.

The very notion that you can know an absolute truth that can never be broken in any possible situation is an unwarranted and unsupportable ideal right there. Yet this is the very basis of your entire position.

I prefer to cal them contextual truths - that is true given a specific context.

What would you call a statement without the assumption of which, no statements regarding truth, falsehood or knowledge can be made? The axiom of existence is such a statement. Strictly speaking, it cannot be said to be "true", because the very concept of truth relies on it.

Well, there you go again displaying your demand in absolute truths and absolute axioms.

Besides, I totally disagree with your ideas on axioms anyway. Axioms are not necessarily known to be true. They are simply assumed to be true for the sake of building a structured formalism on top of them.

In fact, if you could "prove" an axiom it would no longer be an axiom.

It wouldn't even need to be an axiom if you could 'prove' it. If you could prove it, it would be a theorem based on even lesser 'axioms' that you has previously assumed to be true in order to prove what you were calling an 'axiom'.

Axioms cannot be proven. Axioms are necessarily the rock bottom unprovable assumptions that lay at the foundation of a formal logical system.

If you think you can prove an axiom, then you need to go back and retake logic 101.

It seems you do understand some of it. Yes, axioms cannot be proven, but your argument about "axioms assumed to be true to build a formalized structure" applies primarily to mathematical axioms. Logical axioms, of which the given is a type, are taken to be universally true.

Personally I feel pretty confident that I understand logical thinking far better than you do.

The deluded often do.

You don't even seem to understand why all truths are necessarily relative to a particular system or logical foundation. And you also seem to think that axioms somehow represent irrefutable absolute truths that must always apply in every imaginable scenario. Neither of those are logically correct.

So as far as I can see, you're the one who has no understanding of logic.

If you want to talk to me concerning logical systems the first thing you'll need to do is acknowledge that all truths are relative to the system in question. And the second thing you'll need to do is acknowledge that axioms cannot be proven and are just assumptions that must be agreed upon before a logical system can even get off the ground.

What you don't understand is that the primacy of existence is the foundation of logic itself. Without the assumption of this axiom, there cannot be a system of logic and there cannot be any concepts of truths or falsehoods.

Is someone isn't prepared to accept your axioms, nothing more needs to be said. You can't prove them, and if the other person doesn't accept them, then you're done right there.

And if you think you can prove them, you are are mistaken in calling them axioms, and you need to go back even further to actually proposed some axioms that will be accepted, and then prove whatever you're trying to prove from there.

No. What I can do, as I'm doing here, is to show them that in order to remain logically consistent, they cannot escape accepting those axioms, since those axioms are the foundation of the system of logic itself.

From my perspective you don't seem to have any clue how logical formalism even works.

And how did you get a clue about how logical formalism works without understanding its foundation?

---

I think the real bottom line is that humans in general (at least in terms of the masses) simply aren't capable of comprehending a truly benevolent concept of spirit. It takes truly wise people like Deepak Chopra to comprehend and teach such things as pure intellectual wisdom.

I'm disappointed in myself that I did not see the similarity between you and that fraud before. Given the content of his pseudo-scientific ideas it seems inevitable that you would be his admirer.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Abracadabra Wrote:
I think the real bottom line is that humans in general (at least in terms of the masses) simply aren't capable of comprehending a truly benevolent concept of spirit. It takes truly wise people like Deepak Chopra to comprehend and teach such things as pure intellectual wisdom.

The guy is a fraud.

Please describe and provide credible evidence for the existence of spiritual anything.Please consider that brevity is the soul of wit.

Telling people they 'just don't understand',constantly, is an ad hominem attack and and intellectually lazy at best.

[Abracadabra]

I can see that it's just as futile trying to talk intelligently to an atheist as it is to converse intelligently with a Christian or Muslim.

I guess it really is true that humanity is nothing but a bunch of overly arrogant apes who can't reason any better than the rats they evolved from.

About the only wisdom they have ever displayed is the wisdom to recognize that humanity is indeed a rat-race.

You people have just convinced me that humanity truly is hopeless and worthless.

Why I thought that atheists might actually listen to reason is beyond me.

Clearly they are every bit as blind as the people who worship jealous gods.

So carry on with your ignorance.

I truly don't care.

[Abracadabra]

I can imagine many natures of spirits that do not fit with my philosophy, starting from the mysterious aether. But my creative thinking and imagination have no bearing on reality. Any nature of spirit I can imagine, I can also rule out by applying rational thinking.

Then by your very own confession, you have a limited creativity and imagination.

What I stated were inescapable axioms, which means that either they are applicable to any concept spirit you can think of or your concept is self-refuting.

There is no such thing as an inescapable axiom. All that truly exists in that regard are overly-arrogant philosophers who have erroneously convinced themselves that their personal opinions cannot be dismissed.

And here is the evidence that you actually did not understand my argument.

I didn't "rule out" the possibility that life is an illusion. In fact, I even accepted this premise in my criticism of the perpetual dream argument. What I showed you is that even in this case, the axiom of existence is still applicable to the reality outside the illusion.

No it wouldn't. And I've already explained why this isn't the case.

Your "axiom of existence" (by your very own definition) is based on a your own preconceived notions of what you believe to be 'reality'. You've already demanded that in order for your axiom to hold two things must be in place:

1. Structure can exist independent of consciousness.
2. Consciousness must necessarily be the sole product of structure.

You can't prove either of those two assumptions. Especially with respect to any concept of reality that may be totally different from the illusion of dichotomy created by a spacetime universe.

So your "axiom of existence", is already based on the very limited view that the structure of our spacetime universe, and your imagined dichotomy between structure and consciousness must hold in every possible description of an underlying reality.

You have no justification in demanding that.

So you're just filled with hot air.

Clearly you just think you know far more than you do.

As far as I can see you simply have a very limited knowledge of logic, and you totally ignore the dependencies of your axioms.

There's no point in discussing this with you any further until you go back and pay attention in the foundational courses.

You are erroneously assuming way too much about the power and applicability of your basic "axioms" (i.e your foundational assumptions).

That's all there is to that.

[genkaus]

I can see that it's just as futile trying to talk intelligently to an atheist as it is to converse intelligently with a Christian or Muslim.

I guess it really is true that humanity is nothing but a bunch of overly arrogant apes who can't reason any better than the rats they evolved from.

About the only wisdom they have ever displayed is the wisdom to recognize that humanity is indeed a rat-race.

You people have just convinced me that humanity truly is hopeless and worthless.

Why I thought that atheists might actually listen to reason is beyond me.

Clearly they are every bit as blind as the people who worship jealous gods.

So carry on with your ignorance.

I truly don't care.

Yes, it is truly futile for you to try and talk intelligently.

[Cosmic Ape]

Burn down every religious institution on it's day off when nobodys there. Then they can wonder why all of their god(s) didn't stop the heathens from burning down their brainwashing facilities.

[Rusko]

A non-violent solution...hmm...

[genkaus]

Then by your very own confession, you have a limited creativity and imagination.

What limitation?

There is no such thing as an inescapable axiom. All that truly exists in that regard are overly-arrogant philosophers who have erroneously convinced themselves that their personal opinions cannot be dismissed.

Even as you make this statement, you have already accepted that inescapable axiom.

1. You made the statement "There is no such thing as an inescapable axiom".

2. For this statement to hold any relevance or meaning to the conversation, it must be a fact, not an opinion.

3. For it to be a fact, it must be independent of my desires or yours, i.e. it must be independent of any consciousness.

4. Therefore, before making that statement you must accept that things can exist independent of consciousness - that is the axiom of primacy of existence.

This is not proof of the axiom of primacy of existence. This is evidence that no statement of knowledge or truth can be made without implicitly assuming that axiom.

No it wouldn't. And I've already explained why this isn't the case.

Your "axiom of existence" (by your very own definition) is based on a your own preconceived notions of what you believe to be 'reality'. You've already demanded that in order for your axiom to hold two things must be in place:

If you think that an axiom depends upon any other things, then you must really not understand what an axiom means.

1. Structure can exist independent of consciousness.

This is not something that the axiom of primacy of existence depends on - this is the axiom. Its simply another way of saying the same thing

2. Consciousness must necessarily be the sole product of structure.

This statement is derived from the axiom. It is not presupposed.

You can't prove either of those two assumptions. Especially with respect to any concept of reality that may be totally different from the illusion of dichotomy created by a spacetime universe.

The first statement. By definition, it cannot be proven. The second is a consequence of the first. These axioms are definitely applicable to this reality and they would be applicable to any reality that is logically coherent. Your basis is that in the alternate reality, they somehow, magically, won't be applicable and that reality would somehow, magically, still be logically coherent.

So your "axiom of existence", is already based on the very limited view that the structure of our spacetime universe, and your imagined dichotomy between structure and consciousness must hold in every possible description of an underlying reality.

If it doesn't hold for a particular reality (underlying or otherwise) that reality would be self-contradictory and irrational. Is that the form of your imagined reality?

You have no justification in demanding that.

So you're just filled with hot air.

Clearly you just think you know far more than you do.

As far as I can see you simply have a very limited knowledge of logic, and you totally ignore the dependencies of your axioms.

There's no point in discussing this with you any further until you go back and pay attention in the foundational courses.

You are erroneously assuming way too much about the power and applicability of your basic "axioms" (i.e your foundational assumptions).

That's all there is to that.

You reveal your own ignorance of philosophy by talking about "dependencies" of axioms. You talk about application of logic and reason and yet ignore its very foundations without which no application of logic or reason would be possible. You talk about limitations of knowledge when your own position is based on absence of it. You talk about denying the axioms, when with every statement of fact you make, you have already implicitly accepted them.

Going back to the courses would not suffice for you. You need to be born again and grow up again.