Hello, Anyone interested in a debate?

[bennyboy]

I'm not sure I'd take that stance, since ideas about personhood must be considered positive assertions.  There is a mythology of the self, specifically of the importance of the self, which is based more on imagination than any observable reality.

HOWEVER, I'd argue that religious ideas, being based on a world view one adopts without empirical evidence, must therefore be considered an expression of the self, and not of objective reality.

Anima, I'd say that a belief in God, therefore, is clearly a superstitious belief.

I do not quite understand what you are saying here.  It seems that you are stating the idea of personhood is a positive assertions based on imagination rather than observable reality.

No, not the idea of personhood.  Ideas ABOUT personhood.  If pressed, I might be tempted to start defining terms: "self" as the general sense of sentience and awareness, and "personhood" as ideas about the self and its relationship with reality, perhaps.

It then seems that you are saying religious positive assertions (without empirical evidence, which were equally lacking in assertions of personhood) is an expression of self and not the objective reality and would there by be of imagination as well.

I'd say any assertions not based on objective observations would be expressions of one's (largely imaginary) ideas about one's personhood, yes.

However, I am not reaching your conclusion.  If I am understanding you so far than what we must both state is subjective assertions about our personhood or god do not necessarily (though they may coincidentally) express the objective reality.  We may further extend that to state that any subjective assertion does not necessarily express the objective reality, as any subjective assertion is merely an expression of the imaginary self.

I'm not sure what "subjective assertions" are.  Nor am I sure that the self is, at its essence, imaginary.  Could you elaborate?

A shared sense of perception presents an irresolvable paradox for advocates of the idealist schools.  If the reality is subject to the subject’s subjectivity and no two subjects are the same subject than it must be stated that the subjective reality is different for each subject.  Arguments built upon such a foundation are not justified in later inducing that the subjectivity of subject A is similar enough to the subjectivity of subject B to state that the subjectivity is shared as a form of sensus communis.  The lack of a relating principal between subjects A and B leads to the paradox in question; the idealistic solution of which must be contradictory to the very concept of subjectivity by stipulation that reality while being totally subjected to the subjectivity of each subject approaches objectivity due to the lack of subjectiveness of the subjectivity of each subject.  This is of course in total disregard to the subject as self, for self would be subjected to subjectivity and thus cannot be considered self as the definition of the subject, which is self is not fixed.

In order to stipulate that such a thing as sensus communis one must contend; as the realist schools; that there is an objective reality to which the subjectivity of subject A and the subjectivity of subject B correspond.  The correspondence of subjectivity to the object, which is not dependent upon the subject, is what allows one to stipulate that there is sensus communis that exists among the subjects regarding the reality of the object.

I don't consider idealism and objectivism to be mortal enemies.  If by idealism you mean solipsism, in which everything is a projection of the self, then the idea of communal agreement is moot.  If by idealism you mean that what appears to be objective reality is really all ideas under the hood, then you'd have sets and subsets, some of which overlap and some of which don't.

Consider the Matrix.  From the perspective of the normal Joe Schmoe in the Matrix, a car is a car and being hit by one will kill you.  Would Joe's observations of "car" be subjective or objective?  You and I, standing outside the system, know there's really no car there; however, since Joe doesn't have access to that perspective, he "knows" the car is really there. Now add Sally, Joe's wife. She has access to a view of objects in the Matrix that is different than Joe's. They can establish a communal understanding of things by communicating about them; specifically, that neither one of them has invented "car." That they are both wrong about the ultimate nature of "car" (it exists only as a collection of ideas) is irrelevant to whether their observations are objective or not.