Philosophy

[Edward]

This forum isn't about attracting religious nuts. We're open to those who wish to debate ideas and discuss but, it is not the primary purpose. And the forums doing better than ever, fyi.

So, I assume you speak for the owners of the forum? And you say it's primary purpose is not to debate and discuss? Then what is it? Hey, I've been to lots of Christian forums where all they want to do is post JPEGs of flowers and paintings of Jesus with a lamb on his lap and write little banal notes of tired encouragement. They have a handful of members and it's just for them. Is that what this forum is? Just a little myspace for atheist freshman and teens?

Fine. Just say so. Don't make forums called "Discussion" and then say you don't want discussion.

On my end, I can see what the OP might mave been trying to do but, the way it's worded it sounds to me like hes lying to himself and trying to sound like hes found some deeper meaning in life, when really hes just throwing words together.

Reality is a prison - seperating us from what? reality is everything that is real.
reality is an illusion - no, your perception of reality can be flawed but, everything is what it is, and it is not what it is not.
evil is caused by ignorance - Then your definine a global trancendant evil? then what defines it. Evil is subjective, get used to it.

It really sounds to me like this whole 'philosophy' came from an anime plotline. It's almost exactly the kind of thinking I used to do when I had just finished watching Saturday morning cartoons and fancied myself a samurai warrior from feudal Japan.

If I'm wrong, feel free to show me but, don't even try to challenge me based on my interpretation of a few lines of text.

I wouldn't think of challenging you...really.

[Kyuuketsuki]

You know, you call others "fucking ridiculous" but you have absolutely no intellectual curiosity at all.

Not really, what he seems to be saying (much like I would) is that all the OP has done is layer an unprovable idea on top of what we perceive as reality.

All atheists seem to know how to do is berate what they won't take the time to even think about.

Not only is that a generalisation based on limited experience (I know of lots of atheist who buy in the philosophical gobbledegook) but you're wrong ... the point is that we DO think (HAVE thought) about these things and what you got from Adrian was his summarised conclusion, for what seems to be much the same reason I responded with, "Bored now!"

Lots of philosophers through the ages have doubted that what we consider "reality" is truly all there is. Parmenides, Zeno, Plato, Aristotle, Berkeley to name a few. But I guess with a wave of your what, 20-year-old hand, you would dismiss them as "fucking ridiculous" as well.

Being "into" philosophy as I can see you are, you are almost certainly going to reject all of what I say in the following paragraph(s) which is fine but, as I say above, I HAVE given this a great deal of thought and I have rejected modern day philosophy as largely meaningless.

Philosophy seems to have (as is usual within the English language) a correct meaning and a number of common usage meanings but, thanks to Asimov (who was one of those dratted Doctor's of Philosophy as you probably know) and his "New Guide to Science", it appears that it derives from the ancient Greeks. Asimov devotes some space to philosophy where he referred to the Greek investigations of the universe and that they called (and I quote) 'their new manner of studying the universe philosophia ("philosophy"), meaning "love of knowledge" or, in free translation, "the desire to know"'(page 8). I would argue that it is because current day philosophers seem to provide little or no direct value to the real world that much of the philosophy bandied about today is little more than academic psychobabble. The true philosophers are scientists.

Obviously I accept that philosophy can generate ideas that can feed into science (the real philosophy) but alone it is a pointless waste of space and nowadays philosophers seem largely people with huge ego's blowing deductive sunshine up each other's arses (and don't even get me started on its bastard child, metaphysics).

Both Adrian and I chose to be dismissive of the original posters arguments for good reason ... that we didn't outline those reasons (and Adrian's' may well be different from mine) doesn't mean our views lack thought, it means (certainly in my case) we can't be arsed to answer.

Let me tell you something I know that you don't seem to know:
Everything you know--has been taught to you. You think you're advanced, intelligent, wise, oh, and what's the other word...educated. But you don't espouse any original ideas.

Maybe, maybe not but let me tell you something YOU apparently don't know ... nor do you!

A man with an original idea, wrong or right, is worth a thousand know-it-all's. A person says they're gnostic. I'm intrigued, but you seem to be threatened to the point of hostility. Why is that?

Who says we're threatened, that's just like all those other theists posts where they say were angry or aggressive or whatever ... we're not, you simply perceive it that way and I say above I read Adrian's comments as dismissive. In fact, being brutally honest, I thought his response was really, really funny.

Oh, and here's a clue I learned from some of my...shall we say, experience...if you want a successful forum, you don't talk to your new members like that. You want this forum to run with the big dogs, you should grow up, act like a manager, and enforce your own rules. You're supposed to be an example for the rest of us in here to follow. You want ten of your friends to be in here posting once a week? Fine, piss off everyone who comes in to try out the forum. Believe me. If you want to be successful, you better find a way to attract every religious nut, like me and the gnostic, that you can. You'll always have pleanty of atheists to challenge them.

The forum, despite your implicit claim otherwise, is doing fine and (personally) I wouldn't want too many people like Dagda and you here ... it's not that I don't (sometimes) enjoy the debate or am (sometimes) unwilling to answer, it's just an awful lot easier to post these kind of things than it is to raise a coherent argument against it and that is exactly what leads to replies like Adrian's and mine.

But what do I know. You probably think I'm fucking ridiculous, too.

If you buy into the idea that what we perceive as reality is an illusion then yes, I do, not you personally but the POV expressed ... I think it's naïve, premature, very little different from a religious beliefs indeed a kind of god substitute.

I mean don't get me wrong, I still think philosophical ideas can be interesting and sometimes even useful (when they feed into science) ... here's one that I kind of buy into (I'm not sure it's what most would call philosophy, I just classify it as such because I don't see how there can, at least at our current level of technology, be any real evidence):

When you look at a computer screen you assume the screen is external to you but, because everything you perceive is merely data that have already entered your brain, what you perceive as external is a neurologically constructed model inside your brain of the real world outside your brain. The key point is you NEVER perceive the external world directly you only ever perceive second-hand "messages" from where it was processed into the three-dimensional model of the real world that you “see”. The things that you perceive as being the genuine articles "out there" are actually simulations of them inside your brain.

So you interact with the real world through a simulation and as long as that simulation is an exact analogy of the real world you do not experience problems. However when that internal model falls out of sync with the real world the subject begins to experience problems and paranormal, insane or non-sober experiences result ... one only has to drink three or 4 beers to get a good idea of what this can be like.

Since the internal model is a construct it is obvious that other brain (possibly abnormal) activities can interfere with that model ... for example if the neurological program that places the “virtual” you in one location in the model places you in a different location in error an out-of-body experience might result.

“The location of your consciousness could appear to expand and engulf the entire world-model, resulting in a "cosmic consciousness" experience. Or, inside your brain's program, experiences like pain could be placed in a location outside your simulated body, such as in the perceived location an amputated leg used to be, resulting in a "phantom pain" apparently outside your body. In each example, only the parameters of a simulated body inside the brain are transcended, and thus the evidence of a spirit body disappears like a ghost.” Ian Williams Goddard, 1999

When assessing and understanding paranormal experiences such as out-of-body or past lives it is important to understand the nature of the data existing within our brains and the fact that it does not necessarily have to be the same as that in the real world. The real world is never directly perceived.

Objective evidence to date indicates that such paranormal experiences are unique to the subject and that the only changes occurring are with the subjects internal world model.

Objective observers tend to view such experiences therefore as personal and not related to the real world in any literal fashion and, quite rightly, dismiss them as such.

References
“Out Of Body Experiences” Ian Williams Goddard, 1999

Not, of course, that I would say the above is true (how could I know?) but it sounds like a logical hypothesis and I would be interested to see if someone could devise some real tests for it ... maybe the recent brain imaging work in Japan (?) will one day yield some results.

Anyway, to summarise what is a way too long post, we DO think about these things much more than you'd like to believe, we simply CHOOSE to cut to the chase and dismiss such views as rubbish because we're reasonably confident that's were we're going to end up and an awful lot of time and effort (as this reply demonstrates) is required to deal with it effectively.

Kyu

---

So, I assume you speak for the owners of the forum? And you say it's primary purpose is not to debate and discuss? Then what is it? Hey, I've been to lots of Christian forums where all they want to do is post JPEGs of flowers and paintings of Jesus with a lamb on his lap and write little banal notes of tired encouragement. They have a handful of members and it's just for them. Is that what this forum is? Just a little myspace for atheist freshman and teens?

The owner is Adrian ... if he's anything like me (perish the thought) the forum's primary purpose would be a place to hang out, discuss ideas, have a bit of pseudo-intellectual fun. With the exception of the "debate forum" itself I'd say that debating was too formal a purpose even if some of us lean towards such ideas.

Fine. Just say so. Don't make forums called "Discussion" and then say you don't want discussion.

Firstly we're human (we have lives, limited time and sometimes we just get arsed off), secondly it's an atheism forum (there's nothing in the rules that says we MUST discuss ideas that bear no specific relationship to atheism), thirdly there's nothing in the rules that says we MUST discuss anything (simply a set of behaviour guidelines) and fourthly we do (that you don't like the answers is your problem not ours).

I wouldn't think of challenging you...really.

I find cynicism works much better if the argument you're raising in the first place is a good one ... see above.

Kyu

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

@Edward

I happen to agree with some of what you've said,although I extend it to internet forums generally.Viz A tendency to attract a plethora of the people you describe, who use forums as a platform for intellectual masturbation. I know I often do. Here there is some reasonable discussion, usually,but not always within my grasp. Real debate is rare on most forums and acceptance of dissent less common than members like to think. It's my perception that anonymity of forums often brings out people's less attractive qualities. I can be total crunt with hardly any effort at all.

I don't know long you've spent on forums,I suspect either not long or you may be slow learner.


When joining a forum,one has no right of expectation. You have the obligation to fit in with the existing rules and dominant culture. If you are not willing or able to do so, you will usually be invited to leave.


Complaining about people not living up to your expectations will get you exactly nowhere.
Nor indeed will making fatuous generalisations about "atheists" with no evidence, assuming we're an homogeneous group.

The above is mean to be blunt rather than deliberately insulting. I hope you hang around.

[Demonaura]

Did I ever say I spoke for the admins? I speak as a member and I know what I come here for.

This sentence is speaking for the staff: They can make a thread called whatever they want to accomodate whatever they want because they run the site.

When I said it's not it's PRIMARY purpose I meant just that, it could do a million other things but, until I'm told otherwise by an admin everything I've seen tells me that the site does not exist only to attract creationists for debate. Which was all I said. It should be pretty obvious that different sections exist for different reasons, for example our debate section was created to accomodate a group of girls that wanted to come here and debate.

So relax, I only stated that the forum does not exist to throw religion in the face of theists, don't need to jump at me (and I'm the type to jump back if you want to put words in my mouth).

[LukeMC]

I think I'll address the OP.

This is my personal philosophy/theology. Make of it what you will.

-Reality is a prison.

I can agree with this premise only if you extend it to say "a prison from which we cannot escape". Reality encompasses all that is real. To leave the prison is to leave reality, and to leave reality is to enter a plane which isn't real and therefore doesn't exist. You cannot do that for such a plane wouldn't be there (by definition).

-reality is an illusion

I'll accept this in a round-about way. Many of our perceptions of reality are indeed illusions; simplified models or arbitrary concepts. However, when you state reality is an illusion, I cannot be entirely sure of what you mean. If reality is all of that which is real, and you go on to claim that what is real is an illusion, you could be sayign one of two things: either our perception of what is real is an illusion, or reality as an entity is an illusion. The latter premise is a contradiction as it states being real is an illusion, therefore "real things" aren't really there, and therefore don't exist and therefore are not real. In that case I'll imagine you make the former claim; that our perception of reality is an illusion: nothing is as it seems and it's all an evolved construct of our brains trying to put together pieces of a puzzle which don't accurately reflect what really is. Such a debate is worthy of its own thread, as there are so many things that could be said about it. I find it really interesting

-Evil is caused by ignorance

Also deserves its own thread. Do you define evil as that which hinders the welfare of humans? Of animals? Of all life (this includes bacteria)? Of our entire ecosystem? I cannot agree nor disagree on the causation of evil without having your definition of what constitutes such a characteristic.

-there are four types of people in the world; the spiritualy asleep;the spiritualy blind; those that are awake but refuse to see and the spiritualy awake.

So, we have those who are ignorant of spirituality entirely (asleep), those who want to see but can't (blind), those who choose not to see (awake but refuse) and those who... Wait, could you clarify the last one? I'm guessing you meant to imply that the spiritually awake can and DO see their spirituality. Okay, I agree. Now riddle me this: what does it mean to be spiritual and which of the 4 categories are the best?

I think it's safe for me to assume that being spiritually awake is the goal you propose. To achieve this, must you recognise your "place" and "meaning" in the universe, and feel your interconnectedness with it? What are the actual guidelines for achieving the goal? And why would somebody refuse to recognise their true nature? It seems to me that you're implying there is a correct conclusion (accepting your god, etc) and that anyone who refuses to see this god is "awake but refusing to see". I could dispute so many implications and finer details of this idea, but first you must clarify your guidelines for achieving spiritual awareness?

-there are three gods; Satan, Jehovah and the One, Source of All.

And now it gets dissapointing. What are these three gods, where did they come from, where are they now and how did you come to realise they exist in the way you understand them to?

- the Christ was the One's messanger, sent to reveal the truth. Christ was not the One's son any more than we are.

So this "One" god has interest in our personal lives. Interesting. Could you explain why you feel this to be true, and why this god cares about us looking upon another with lust? I suppose this follows on from the last set of questions I asked. Explain your gods.

-Reincarnation is the fate of souls which have not learned to see.

What are souls? How did you come to the conclusion that such entities exist? How did you come to the conclusion that these entities must learn to "see" things in order to avoid being recycled?

-the light of the One resides within us all (good old fashioned pantheism there).

I'll consider this to be poetic mumbo-jumbo. I'd say the same sort of thing for the universe: "the essense of the universe resides within us all". It's poetic nonsense which serves nothing more than an uplifting view of a situation. I won't dispute your claim until you've told me about this "One" though, although I can't see this point being important.

The list goes on, but that is my central philosophy to life.

Thanks for sharing Now lets get into some more detail and put your ideas to the test. One of us should surely learn something from the exchange.

[dagda]

I would like to thank LukeMC. Your post was insightfull and has pointed out a few of my bad explanations. I must apoligies to everyone. My origional post was screwed up. The grammer was fucked and the points were over simplistic. Once again, I apoligies. I would also like to apoligies for my undoubtily bad spelling. I have this weird problem with visulisation of words so please bear with me. I should probably put my posts through a spell check but I can never be assed. So, sorry.

To Adrian, I would like to say don't tell me I am 'fucked up' and leave me hanging. Its like a doctor saying you have a disease and then leaving the room.

Right. I will explain my philosophy. First; reality is an illusion. LukeMC was entirely right when he talked (wrote?) that my philosophy falls apart here because reality is all that exists. What I really should say is what we percive reality to be is an illusion. Beyond our material realm (although realm makes it sound Warcraft-like, does it not?) there is another realm in which the true God is. Where this is and what exactly can be found there requires more reaserch and contemplation.

Reality is a prison. What I should have said is what is what we percive reality to be is a prison. To Adrian I would say that an illusion can be a far more powerful prison than any off bars and stone. For instance, there are many schitzophrenics who feel trapped by their condition. Schitzophrenia is a condition which brings upon delusion and hylucinations e.g. a big delusion. The diffrence with the reality we percive is that their is no-one to tell us that we are in an illusion hence we go on trapped in our prision/delusion obliviouce. To borrow from Philip K. Dick 'Humanity only belives it is free because it has never been free'.

I will explain my other points in latter threads where they they can be explained fully.

[Kyuuketsuki]

To Adrian, I would like to say don't tell me I am 'fucked up' and leave me hanging. Its like a doctor saying you have a disease and then leaving the room.

Dagda, I would like to point out that Adrian, at least in this thread, didn't say you were "fucked up" he simply made the observation that form his POV your philosophy was "fucking ridiculous" ... I make this point because the first (the way you said he said it) would be personal whilst the second (what actually was said) was a valid discussion point.

Kyu

[Tiberius]

You know, you call others "fucking ridiculous" but you have absolutely no intellectual curiosity at all. All atheists seem to know how to do is berate what they won't take the time to even think about.

He wrote a contradictory statement. It didn't take me much thinking (and I did think about it) to realise it was contradictory. I simply pointed it out.

Lots of philosophers through the ages have doubted that what we consider "reality" is truly all there is. Parmenides, Zeno, Plato, Aristotle, Berkeley to name a few. But I guess with a wave of your what, 20-year-old hand, you would dismiss them as "fucking ridiculous" as well.

Not at all, but dagda wasn't saying that. He said that reality was a prison but also an illusion. I fail to see how one can argue both at the same time. What he really needs to define is reality, because I take reality as everything that exists (and that includes multiple-universes if they do exist). In my mind, reality is a constant. It's like the "fog of war" in PC strategy games. You only know a certain amount at the start, but as the begin exploring, more and more is revealed. However just because the fog was covering it doesn't mean it isn't already there. Gravity existed before we discovered it for example.

Let me tell you something I know that you don't seem to know:
Everything you know--has been taught to you. You think you're advanced, intelligent, wise, oh, and what's the other word...educated. But you don't espouse any original ideas.

I suggest you read my blog, because I espouse original ideas quite frequently on there. I think you are leading yourself down a trap by claiming I don't espouse original ideas, because a simple review of my posts on this forum would reveal a number of them. On the other hand, what is wrong with espousing non-original ideas if I have thought about them and I agree with them. There are no rules that say everything I utter must be original (in fact most of the time it helps to have a point that is backed up by other people's thinking).

A man with an original idea, wrong or right, is worth a thousand know-it-all's. A person says they're gnostic. I'm intrigued, but you seem to be threatened to the point of hostility. Why is that?

I agree, original ideas are great whether they are right or wrong, and as I said above, I've thought up several. I'm intrigued too, but I'm not threatened. So far dagda has done nothing to cause me to push my panic button, I simply disagree with what he says as to my mind it is a contradiction.

Oh, and here's a clue I learned from some of my...shall we say, experience...if you want a successful forum, you don't talk to your new members like that.

Dagda isn't a new member, and it shouldn't matter anyway. If a new member comes along (as you have) and makes up some ridiculous circular argument, I have the right to call them on it. You just don't like people who have a problem with your way of thinking, that's fine, this is what debate and discussion is all about.

You want this forum to run with the big dogs, you should grow up, act like a manager, and enforce your own rules. You're supposed to be an example for the rest of us in here to follow.

Coming from the guy who broke several rules with this post, I find the above very hypocritical. But you are right, I should enforce my own rules, which is why I support Kyu's decision to issue you with a warning over the aforementioned post. I tried to count how many times you directly attacked a member in that post, but there were too many instances. It really was a very beautiful rant.

You want ten of your friends to be in here posting once a week? Fine, piss off everyone who comes in to try out the forum. Believe me. If you want to be successful, you better find a way to attract every religious nut, like me and the gnostic, that you can. You'll always have pleanty of atheists to challenge them.

This is a forum for atheists. We don't need religious nuts (and I'm glad you finally admit to being one) to have nice discussions. Atheism covers one disbelief, it doesn't have a dogma so many atheists disagree with each other over other things. This is why we aren't posting pictures of Darwin everywhere. We actually want a good discussion!

But what do I know. You probably think I'm fucking ridiculous, too.

That all depends on your views. If you have beliefs that are fucking ridiculous, I will call them fucking ridiculous.

[LukeMC]

Right. I will explain my philosophy. First; reality is an illusion. What I really should say is what we percive reality to be is an illusion. Beyond our material realm there is another realm in which the true God is. Where this is and what exactly can be found there requires more reaserch and contemplation.
[...]
Reality is a prison. What I should have said is what is what we percive reality to be is a prison.

Okay, I have a few more questions. Can this prison be escaped during our lifetimes? If not, how could you conclude that our perceptions are an illusion, having never escaped them and compared them to the true reality? And if it can be escaped, show me the way

Also, the part I've underlined in that quote ^ By this, do you mean it needs more research by scientists and must be tested vigorously and thought abotu until a consesus is reached? Or are you saying you need time to look into this yourself and make up your own conclusions?

[dagda]

I think the prison probably can be escaped in our lifetimes (e.g. Buddah style etc) but it is more usuall to escape it upon death for the simple reason that, at death, the soul finds it much easier to break free of the prison due to the weakning of its hold on the soul at that point e.g. no longer conected through the body and all that entailes. In other words, although it is possible to escape it during our lifetime (I think the Buddah, the Christ and probably St. John are examples) this is incredably difficult due to our almost unshakable link to the material body.

How we can escape the prison is also very hard work. I think it requires deep meditation and philosophical contemplation throught our lives and the cultivation of very strick will power. All these are not only good for the health and well being of the individual on their own, I think that they allow us a higher sense of spirituality (in that we have a sense of something greater than ourselves-not neceserily God) which provides us with a greater chance of breaking through the prison walls. Very advanced practitioners may be able to do this in thier lifetime.

My view on reincarnation comes in here. I think that souls (the essens of souls I will go into depth about latter) that do not escape the prison, for whatever reason, rebound back to earth where they are reborn as an animal or human, depending on the luck of the draw.

I also think that people's souls may not be reborn for a time. They are left wondering in limbo and this is where the spirit phenomenon comes from. This I am the least sure off and a well placed argument would probably convince me otherwise, but that is my theory on life so far, I suppose.

---

I think the prison probably can be escaped in our lifetimes (e.g. Buddah style etc) but it is more usuall to escape it upon death for the simple reason that, at death, the soul finds it much easier to break free of the prison due to the weakning of its hold on the soul at that point e.g. no longer conected through the body and all that entailes. In other words, although it is possible to escape it during our lifetime (I think the Buddah, the Christ and probably St. John are examples) this is incredably difficult due to our almost unshakable link to the material body.

How we can escape the prison is also very hard work. I think it requires deep meditation and philosophical contemplation throught our lives and the cultivation of very strick will power. All these are not only good for the health and well being of the individual on their own, I think that they allow us a higher sense of spirituality (in that we have a sense of something greater than ourselves-not neceserily God) which provides us with a greater chance of breaking through the prison walls. Very advanced practitioners may be able to do this in thier lifetime.

My view on reincarnation comes in here. I think that souls (the essens of souls I will go into depth about latter) that do not escape the prison, for whatever reason, rebound back to earth where they are reborn as an animal or human, depending on the luck of the draw.

I also think that people's souls may not be reborn for a time. They are left wondering in limbo and this is where the spirit phenomenon comes from. This I am the least sure off and a well placed argument would probably convince me otherwise, but that is my theory on life so far, I suppose.

As for further research, I think scientists should conduct further research (the multi-verse and repeating Big Bang theories have already hinted at a beyond universe) but that philosophy and theo-philosophy should play its part too (Plato more than hinted at the existence of a beyond universe).

---

I don't know what happened here