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RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 3, 2011 at 9:21 pm
(This post was last modified: December 3, 2011 at 9:21 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
So, what you're saying here is that in the absence of any evidence, and without even so much as a claim to personal experience, you choose to believe that god can speak to you? Not exactly surprising.
Yes, god could prove his own existence, and hasn't. Dead beat dads are like that as well.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 5, 2011 at 4:14 pm
(December 1, 2011 at 9:20 pm)Elihu Wrote: I am new here on the boards, so greetings to anyone who reads. I have been reading "Orthodoxy" by G. K. Chesterton and would like to present some of his thoughts on rationalism as I have processed them.
Opening Statement: Pure rationalism leads to both determinism and materialism which ultimately deprive us of our humanity.
Pure Rationalism Defined: Nothing can be accepted as fact which cannot be explained and observed from its first principle in its entirety.
Big Idea: Pure rationalism is a trap that can only be escaped by allowing for that which is mysterious. "Man can only understand everything else by what he does not understand... The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid." (47)
Body: My argument is simple. If you are a pure rationalist and cannot accept as fact anything not observable and explainable, then you are trapped in a box that no longer allows for the existence of common humanity as a greater principle. You can be kind, but there is no such thing as kindness. Because nothing beyond the rational box exists, kindness itself, which is really beyond the box, cannot exist except in your own imaginings.
In order to be freed from this box, you must accept a mystery; something you cannot fully understand. Only then can humanity be restored.
"...when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force." (42) No, just... no.
"Sisters, you know only the north; I have traveled in the south lands. There are churches there, believe me, that cut their children too, as the people of Bolvangar did--not in the same way, but just as horribly. They cut their sexual organs, yes, both boys and girls; they cut them with knives so that they shan't feel. That is what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling. So if a war comes, and the Church is on one side of it, we must be on the other, no matter what strange allies we find ourselves bound to."
-Ruta Skadi, The Subtle Knife
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RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 5, 2011 at 4:22 pm
(This post was last modified: December 5, 2011 at 4:23 pm by lucent.)
(December 3, 2011 at 9:21 pm)Rhythm Wrote: So, what you're saying here is that in the absence of any evidence, and without even so much as a claim to personal experience, you choose to believe that god can speak to you? Not exactly surprising.
Yes, god could prove his own existence, and hasn't. Dead beat dads are like that as well.
What we know about you is that you're suppressing the truth. You have been given sufficient evidence and you deny it. I can't count the number of atheists I've spoken to who have had out of body experiences, or other spiritual experiences, and still deny it, and I know you aren't any different. Youre even married to a Christian, which I also find odd considering the hateful way you scorn everyone who shares her faith. You simply don't have any excuse for your unbelief. You know there is a God, you know who He is, and you outright reject Him.
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RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 5, 2011 at 4:31 pm
(December 5, 2011 at 4:22 pm)lucent Wrote: You simply don't have any excuse for your unbelief. You know there is a God, you know who He is, and you outright reject Him.
There is no him. There is only it. It is a figment of your wilful and utterly undisciplined imagination.
Unlike you, we don't have excuse for our actions. We have reasons. We know the existence of your god is overwhelmingly improbable. We know accepting shabby and vaporous, yet overarching assertion demands rejection of the concretely proven. We know we would be much the lesser human beings if we can be swayed merely by what could impressed somthing like you totally out of the negligible amount of wits you have.
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RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 5, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Quote:You have been given sufficient evidence and you deny it.
I've seen no evidence at all....nothing but the whining of rather dull twats who cherish superstition above reality.
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RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 5, 2011 at 4:50 pm
(December 5, 2011 at 4:22 pm)lucent Wrote: You simply don't have any excuse for your unbelief. You know there is a God, you know who He is, and you outright reject Him. Lol, that is like, the perfect troll answer. You are one hilarious troll (I guess that is what being "pink" refers to on this forum?). We need excuses for unbelief? That is barely even a word!  No there isn't enough evidence. And we're not rejecting it, we're rejecting the interpretations and significance of so called "evidence" like out-of-body experiences. That doesn't mean souls, or heaven, or God exists.
"Sisters, you know only the north; I have traveled in the south lands. There are churches there, believe me, that cut their children too, as the people of Bolvangar did--not in the same way, but just as horribly. They cut their sexual organs, yes, both boys and girls; they cut them with knives so that they shan't feel. That is what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling. So if a war comes, and the Church is on one side of it, we must be on the other, no matter what strange allies we find ourselves bound to."
-Ruta Skadi, The Subtle Knife
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RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 5, 2011 at 5:50 pm
(December 1, 2011 at 9:20 pm)Elihu Wrote: Body: My argument is simple. If you are a pure rationalist and cannot accept as fact anything not observable and explainable, then you are trapped in a box that no longer allows for the existence of common humanity as a greater principle. You can be kind, but there is no such thing as kindness. Because nothing beyond the rational box exists, kindness itself, which is really beyond the box, cannot exist except in your own imaginings.
This is why I've always said that far from being "brights" atheists tend to be extremely ignorant of the world around them. This ignorance is not a product of their IQ, which may be otherwise quite high, it comes from everything they have to close their eyes to in order to maintain their atheism.
For instance, in all the reports of precognition all over the world througout all of time, an atheists has to claim none of it ever happened and all those who think it did are deluded.
"In the beginning, the universe began." Is the only statement they can make about the meaning of the universe.
Or when it comes to morality, they will say, "Atheists can be moral without God." And in so doing they have to believe that morality can exist without an ultimate authority for the laws of morality.
They end up becoming extremely limited and ignorant because of the box they keep themselves in. Thus, one can truly say it takes more faith to be an atheist than to be a theist.
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RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 5, 2011 at 6:12 pm
(This post was last modified: December 5, 2011 at 6:13 pm by Anomalocaris.)
Now we have three fools echoing each other. Perhaps they feel the same foolishness repeated three times is nontheless additive, and we would be stupified into gullibility by the combined sum of their idiocy.
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RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 5, 2011 at 6:53 pm
Quote:"In the beginning, the universe began." Is the only statement they can make about the meaning of the universe.
Simply because we refuse to fill in the blanks in our knowledge with your stupid fucking god.
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RE: The Trap of Pure Rationalism
December 5, 2011 at 7:32 pm
(This post was last modified: December 5, 2011 at 7:33 pm by Doubting Thomas.)
(December 1, 2011 at 11:59 pm)Elihu Wrote: Do you feel that pursuit of truth is hindered by not allowing for the possibility of supernatural revelation?
Not at all. If some kind of evidence is shown which proves this supernatural revelation, then it can be considered. However, all supernatural revelation (presumably from gods) has shown to be nothing more than wishful thinking by the people who claim to have been spoken to by their god. Ever notice that this divine revelation about anything always seems to be exactly what the person receiving the revelation wants? For instance, Herman Cain said that God told him to run for President, and now look at where he's at. Why is it that you never hear a Catholic say that God told them that abortion is OK?
The problem with supernatural revelation is that any mook can just claim that his god told him this or that, and there's no way to prove it one way or the other. So as far as being useful in the pursuit of truth, well, it's about as useful as a wart on your nose.
Christian apologetics is the art of rolling a dog turd in sugar and selling it as a donut.
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