RE: Non-existing objects
June 26, 2017 at 10:04 am
(This post was last modified: June 26, 2017 at 10:24 am by Whateverist.)
(June 26, 2017 at 1:04 am)KerimF Wrote:(June 25, 2017 at 11:36 am)Whateverist Wrote: Sounds like:
1) you are convinced there is a God whose intention and power account for the universe we inhabit;
2) you believe it is possible to live ones life without studying or even hearing of this God;
3) you think the situation for knowing God and knowing geometry are comparable.
Okay, my order is life as I find it with a side of geometrical 'objects' but no gods, thank you. What's yours?
Thank you for your interesting notes.
Yes, if someone did never feel the need to search for which end purpose he was forced to exist in this life, why should he bother himself by even just believing there is a Will/Power behind his own existence? After all, the instructions about how to play his role in this life are already embedded in his living cells (forming his human living flesh). So he has no choice but following them (though they are very complex in order to give him the feeling he has a free will). He does it with or without his knowledge.
On the other hand, what is the difference in your opinion if I say my computer is made (through many processes) by a certain company and my being is made (also through many processes that needed millions of years) by a certain Will/Power?
About Geometry, I meant if someone is not interested in learning Math seriously, the reason won't be because Math has abstract notions but because he doesn't see in it a useful knowledge for his life.
So, we may say that typical atheists and the formal theists have no real interest in knowing more than what their human living fleshes may need. To express this satisfaction, a typical atheist says: 'God doesn't exist'... no matter what the word 'god' may refer to. And a formal theist glorifies, when necessary, the god and some Elite (as Pharaohs, Prophets or Messengers for example) who are approved by the authority that organizes the community he belongs to.
I can't agree that we have no choice but to follow the role embedded in our nature (my bolded). At best I think you'll find our nature consists of a constellation of predispositions and an assortment of interests not all of which are even known consciously by us. These vie with one another chaotically. Even if one subscribed to a theory of determinism I would think the calculus required to predict how all these become resolved in ones life is beyond anyone's understanding. Therefore it would be naive to suppose that each action a person takes was ever inevitable from any possible point of view - including a divine one.
(June 26, 2017 at 2:31 am)KerimF Wrote:(June 25, 2017 at 12:35 pm)chimp3 Wrote: Please don't make us guess what your "Will/Power" means. Your original post alluded to a supreme power or deity. Please clarify what you believe in. Or are you taking refuge in ambiguity?
But please tell me first, do you trust or not 'your' personal observations and logical reasoning (to analyse them) more than of anyone else?
It happens, I didn't meet yet a mature sane person who can 'fully' trust his abilities to discover his 'deep' nature and the world 'as it is' (far from the great speeches and famous stories).
So when I talk to a person I know in advance he will compare what I may say with what his trusted sources used saying on these days. In other words, one of the main differences of a formal theist and a typical atheist is actually the name/kind of the sources/references that should be trusted for knowing the truth(s).
Not addressed to me but I can't help but make a plug for self reliance here. Of course I trust my personal observations and logical reasoning (and intuition for that matter) more than of anyone else. What choice do I or anyone else have? If I am incapable of applying my own judgement directly what chance would I have in choosing the correct source of guidance? Accept no substitutes: we each have a sensory cognitive array on par with anyone else's. No expert, living or dead, ever started off better equipped than ourselves. Rather than seek a shortcut by looking over the shoulders of others to crib their answers I suggest we make our own choices. Right or wrong, we have a better chance of eventually going right when we allow the consequences of our own choices feed back on our own impulses rather than on those that never issued from us in the first place.
(June 26, 2017 at 1:04 am)KerimF Wrote:
So, we may say that typical atheists and the formal theists have no real interest in knowing more than what their human living fleshes may need. To express this satisfaction, a typical atheist says: 'God doesn't exist'... no matter what the word 'god' may refer to.
And a formal theist glorifies, when necessary, the god and some Elite (as Pharaohs, Prophets or Messengers for example) who are approved by the authority that organizes the community he belongs to.
In my experience most atheists like myself do not say 'God doesn't exist'. They merely never get a satisfactory answer to what it is "a god" refers to. We then go back about our business knowing that in the minds of those who asked, we now meet the description of one who does not believe in 'god'. But it was never the case that belief was withheld from any actual god. From a myriad of descriptions given for 'god', not one of one of them could ever be demonstrated. Your typical atheist is simply someone getting on with their life who has stopped waiting for a coherent answer to his return question "what is a god?" But apart from the question "do we believe in god X" it would not have come up.
