Hi, I'm the Godhead

[Godhead]

Synackaon -

Are you saying that all the atheists here are trying to convert me to atheism? Tavarish said he's not.

[fr0d0]

Seriously fr0d0, believing in something without a logical reason to do so is, by definition, illogical. This is a forum dedicated, at least by what I've seen, to rationality and free thought. You're free to think anything, however ridiculous or sane it may be but you are expected to articulate and defend it logically.

QED

[Godhead]

Synackaon -

For what purpose would someone have to defend what they believe? Defend against what? What is under attack, and does it feel threatened? Don't people only defend things which they feel are jeapordised by something else? My belief in god has always been strong and nothing that has ever been said by anyone has ever made me change my mind, so why do you feel that I have to defend that belief? I certainlt don't. I'm not sure where you think the attack is coming from. If you're going to use the word "defend", you need to establish what is doing the attacking. I don't feel that your views aren't attacking mine, so I personally don't feel the need to defend them. There's nothing to defend them against.

[tavarish]

Tavarish -

You're saying that you're not trying to convert me, yet you want me to take the time to tell you all about my beliefs so that you can point out the holes in them which you see. The thing is, no matter what I say, although you might see holes in my beliefs, I don't. So all you can do is confirm to yourself over and over again why you disbelieve what I believe, while I remain unconvinced by your point of view (not that you've told me much if anything about it). Why would I want to take the time to help you play out that scenario? Are you sure you don't want to convert me? Do you want to ridicule me?

In your first post, you invited questioning into your belief system. So far you have dodged questions, given ridiculously vague answers, and horribly illogical ones. I want to establish where our differences lie, but we first have to recognize what your standards of evidence and persuasion are. I'm willing to bet that you don't go through life thinking fire trucks are ice cream cones and that up is indeed down. Why then, would you hold such a logically contradictory belief and assert that as true?

The only thing I'm trying to get out of this conversation is how you view your beliefs to be reasonable and representative of reality - that's all.

I don't care what you believe. I just want to find your reasons for doing so, which is exactly what you wanted to happen at the beginning of this thread.

---

Synackaon -

For what purpose would someone have to defend what they believe? Defend against what? What is under attack, and does it feel threatened? Don't people only defend things which they feel are jeapordised by something else? My belief in god has always been strong and nothing that has ever been said by anyone has ever made me change my mind, so why do you feel that I have to defend that belief? I certainlt don't. I'm not sure where you think the attack is coming from. If you're going to use the word "defend", you need to establish what is doing the attacking. I don't feel that your views aren't attacking mine, so I personally don't feel the need to defend them. There's nothing to defend them against.

You have yet to establish why your beliefs are at all reasonable and consistent with the standards elsewhere in your life. That's what he means by defend. A defense in this context is the ability to withstand scrutiny.

[Godhead]

Tavarish -

I have established that. My beliefs weren't handed to me, I decided on them myself, and they made sense to me, which is why I have them. At no point did I find myself feeling that I had to justify anything as all my beliefs already made sense to me, hence no need for any part of me to defend anything against any other part of me. I have no inner conflicts, everything is established within myself. If what you mean is establish why my beliefs are reasonable and consistent to you, I already know that they are not.

[theVOID]

What does valid mean anyway?

It's in the fucking dictionary, with a specific entry about logical discourse, I should not have to look it up for you...

"Logic . (of an argument) so constructed that if the premises are jointly asserted, the conclusion cannot be denied without contradiction".

You absolutely fail to meet this criteria as contradictory conclusions were inevitable, even though you have asserted several times that you feel your conclusions to be 'valid'.

If it means acceptable, then that's ok because I accept all my views. If it means permissable, that's alright too because I permit myself to have whatever view I migh have, and it's ok for others to have theirs.

It means neither (read above).

You can permit yourself to believe any old bullshit you want to believe. You absolutely cannot, however, believe something for the hell of it and also claim to give a fuck about determining truth.

If you simply admit you don't give a shit about determining truth i will be done with you, else you'd better have a damn rational reason for believing the propositions you do.

If it means better, then that's great because my views and my philosophy serve me, and so they're better for me than other views.

Acceptance of slavery is therefore better because it serves the slavers better than not keeping slaves?

Round up them niggers for godschild!...

...Or do you admit that your methodology for accepting valid beliefs allows one to justify all kinds of horrible things and is therefore unacceptable?

Whichever way you look at the word, it boils down to ourselves and what we consider acceptable, permissable, and good / useful.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the proposition "god=universe=us" is true. You DO NOT give a shit about what is true. To state otherwise, based on the totality of our discourse to date, makes you nothing more than a filthy liar.

Of course it's up to each of us to decide that for ourselves, and not decide it for each other.

What is true, is true, regardless of who believes it...

You see... I told you that you don't give a fuck about the truth.

But if someone wants to convince or persuade another person that their view would serve them better, there are ways to go about it, and the only good reason I can think of for even wanting to do that at all is to help the person because you like helping people.

Only in dealing with the reality of the situation can you deal with the cause of such problems, putting your magical manifesting god bullshit conclusions onto everything achieves precisely fuck all.

But even if you did manage to make someone question their own views, you merely end up with a void, which isn't going to automatically be filled by your view.

I do not have a view, all I have is a stringent methodology that disallows any positive belief regarding the nature of reality, because there is no possible way to validate such a belief and therefore absolutely no reason to conclude any conceivable possibility is true. The outcome of my methodology is a simply statement : "seek more information"

[tavarish]

Do you think that 1+1 can equal both 2 and 4 at the same time?

[theVOID]

Seriously fr0d0, believing in something without a logical reason to do so is, by definition, illogical. This is a forum dedicated, at least by what I've seen, to rationality and free thought. You're free to think anything, however ridiculous or sane it may be but you are expected to articulate and defend it logically.

QED

I am utterly stunned by your support for such a statement, considering the fact you completely fail to meet it's requirements.

[Godhead]

Void -

I do care about the truth. You have your way of deciding what you think is true, I have mine.

[theVOID]

Void -

I do care about the truth. You have your way of deciding what you think is true, I have mine.

You clearly do not give a fuck about the truth (this is evident due to the fact that you completely avoid responding to the majority of my argument, on multiple occasions) or else you wouldn't consider "emotions and intuitions" acceptable criteria upon which to determine the truth of a given proposition, especially considering:

1. Feelings and intuitions can lead to an unlimited number of contradictory conclusions, therefore any conclusion reached due to emotional or intuitive reasons cannot possibly be considered valid.

2. There is no demonstrably logical way in existence to determine the truth of the nature of reality, and therefore any such positive belief in any of the possible conclusions is irrational.

3. I do not consider anything related to the nature of existence to be "true", as I believe (and would argue vehemently, should you accept the challenge) that the information required to conclude upon the nature of existence is not possessed by any single being on this planet (should it exist at all), therefore having positive belief in any single conclusion is completely irrational and therefore idiotic.