twodot posted:

I don't see how you can reasonably believe this without also possessing some sort of speculation of the meaning intended by "extra-dimensional". I've offered a speculation, but it was correctly pointed out my speculation didn't make any sense (which is in line with my belief that the words offered were word salad without a meaning). Absent even a single proposed non-idiot definition of "extra-dimensional" doesn't parsimony demand we treat the definition as not having meaning behind it?

Quift posted:

How about the definition I suggested some posts ago. The collective consciousness of humanity. Would this qualify as God?

twodot posted:

I never said that, I specifically anticipated you going off the rails like this:

I'm familiar with "extra-dimensional" as a term, it does not make any sense in this context. If I hear a foreign language, I think "Hmm, I don't recognize those sounds, I won't make judgments about them.", if I hear someone say God is defined as an extra-dimensional being, I tell them their definition is garbage. Now are you going to support your asserted belief that there is any meaning or are you going to continue to straw man me?

Deuteronomy 20:10-18 posted:

10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

16 However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy[a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the Lord your God.

Who What Now posted:

Who What Now posted:

So you haven't read any dictionary definition that fits, ergo ones don't exist, and you anecdotally didn't understand when a few other people used it, ergo they had no intended meaning when they used it. Two more arguments for ignorance. Well right now your argument has no good evidence behind it at all, so regardless of the validity of my position yours doesn't seem to have a leg to stand on.

Quift posted:

The collective consciousness of humanity. Would this qualify as God? Would this assumed consciousness be extra dimensional? Meaning only existing in space through us.

Who What Now posted:

so regardless of the validity of my position

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

Why do you believe in God?

twodot posted:

Were you honestly expecting to find evidence that a sentence is word salad? I'll go ahead and acknowledge that I don't actually have MRI scans of that poster's brain while they were making that post, so I can't directly prove anything about their state of mind. What I can do is read that sentence and think "Hmm, they're using a term I'm familiar with both in this context and its original context, science fiction novels, and this sentence doesn't make any sense". I can also see similar posts like:

and see that even when people provide a definition of extra-dimensional, it still doesn't make any sense. Also what kind of poster would ever write something like this:

You can't be bothered to give a single argument (edit: Note: literally the only thing you need to do to prove your point is provide a definition that makes sense in context) in favor of your position beyond "I believe", because the validity of your position doesn't even matter. Why are you posting?

Who What Now posted:

Just because you aren't capable of understanding doesn't make whatever it is you're ignorant of meaningless. Just because you don't agree with the usage doesn't make it meaningless either. You don't like the definition he gave, but he still have one regardless of your personal feelings about it. How is that so hard to understand?

vessbot posted:

No.

Who What Now posted:

I don't.

SedanChair posted:

Three kids got carried away with a ghost story and everyone else followed suit.

Quift posted:

Why not?

Quift posted:

Why not?

Arglebargle III posted:

Hello; hi.

Dzhay posted:

"or he's simulating us on a computer or something".

The Groper posted:

It's this. God is the proto-goon, hopelessly addicted to SimUniverse.

vessbot posted:

Because for the vast majority of believers over the vast majority of time, he is supposed to exist independently of the human mind. In your definition instead, he is a figment of it.

Dzhay posted:

The point I was (unsuccessfully) trying to make is that these threads always go nowhere because the pro-God lot don't seem to be able to agree on what they're trying to defend. I was trying to say that - to everyone else - it's pretty clear what "God" means: it's this big magic bloke who is apparently omni-lots of stuff and doesn't like it when men hold hands. Of course arguments against said bloke don't also work against "the collective mind of humanity" or what have you, but they don't need to (and that idea is stupid for a number of other reasons).

(I thought "extra-dimensional" was an easy way of saying "we're proposing he lives somewhere real, but perhaps not readily accessible to us; perhaps literally in a higher dimension or he's simulating us on a computer or something".)

quote:

Not everyone in the neighborhood is enamored with the work of art, with Swannock saying, “Jesus is not a vagrant, Jesus is not a helpless person who needs our help. We need someone who is capable of meeting our needs, not someone who is also needy.”

Quift posted:

Well, a collective consciousness would exist within you as well as without you. Like how your consciousness exists between your neurons rather than within them.

Quift posted:

Why do you, who do not believe, get the privilege of defining God? That is an absurd straw man. I propose a definition that might not be existing, but at the very least it is credible.

You must separate belief in the symbol (bloke in the sky), from the actual thing.

And preferably reference scripture instead what you imagine the majority of the population think. Unless you can prove the thought systems of most of the worlds believers.

Dzhay posted:

Before we get to anything you said about my post, let's address this. What, precisely, the gently caress are you talking about here? In what sense is consciousness "between" neurones (or, indeed, localisable at all)?


I was being rather condescending (I still am, this is the internet), but in general, people who claim belief in a god tend to say that it is a thing with a mind and opinions of its own, external to them, that can in some way intervene with the mundane world. Very often, they will claim that their god pre-dates humanity and perhaps created the universe. Details vary, but they usually attribute to this god some abilities that, say, the spare processor cycles of a bit under 10^10 humans (and far fewer than that at any significant distance into the past) could not account for.

Of course, these people could be lying when they say they think this, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Dzhay posted:

I was being rather condescending (I still am, this is the internet), but in general, people who claim belief in a god tend to say that it is a thing with a mind and opinions of its own, external to them, that can in some way intervene with the mundane world. Very often, they will claim that their god pre-dates humanity and perhaps created the universe. Details vary, but they usually attribute to this god some abilities that, say, the spare processor cycles of a bit under 10^10 humans (and far fewer than that at any significant distance into the past) could not account for.

Of course, these people could be lying when they say they think this, but I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Quift posted:

Well, consciousness isn't localisable at all. It is therefore clearly extra dimensional. Or do you argue that your own consciousness doesn't exist? This argument is to explain the concept of extra dimensional in an understandable way. You can refute this argument. But merely claiming it is irrelevant because it doesn't overlap with your previous notions of absurdity seems lazy.

To adress your second point. This would be irrelevant to this discussion. I can argue only from my own understanding of the world. I can try to express it in terms that overlap with yours. But I cannot claim that my understanding exactly mirrors that of people I regard as stupid. (woman who doesn't understand Jesus above for instance).

And I can definitely not claim to have more than theories with regards to the underlying belief systems of people who lived 2000 years ago. To claim that I not only understood this perfectly but also thought it naive and stupid, that would be arrogance of the highest order. Don't you agree?

What I can try do to the best of my ability is build a belief system that is a synthesis of the faiths I have encountered.

After all it stands to reason that all major religions have some basic insights in common. Humans tend to be rather alike after all. Maybe it's in our DNA?

Hence a belief system that merges sociology, politics, philosophy, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and ancient norse myths.

I can argue for my faith. And explain it logically. But this is in no way relevant for people with little faith, like teleevangelist idiots or wabbahists. But for instance sufi Islam folds neatly into my own faith, which has much of its foundation in gnostic thought.

In short, my belief is that there are many ways to achieve knowledge and enlightenment. All paths are not equal but once arrived the path you have taken becomes meaningless, since you can see all paths from there.

It is like going to geography class. You can get there by boat, fly or take the scenic route. But once there you learn geography.

The bible is full of symbols like the geography class and boats. Idiots 1000 years later then try to locate an ancient classroom and think that God should look like a geography teacher. The discussion becomes more interesting if we decide that God probably doesn't look like a geography teacher at all.

And my definition of God is as ancient as humanity, since it is the expression of humanity. Which is both within me and outside of me. Transcendental so to speak. God didn't create humanity as an act of will, nor did humanity create God. We are the ants in a hive. Is a single ant living alone really part of ant-dom?

From here I can go through Catholic thought, Islam, sociology or Hinduism or Buddha, they are all just paths. Dao if you will.

The global consciousness. God. Brahma. The balance.

Of course something like that cannot be reduced to something tiny that cares about men holding hands. That would be ridiculous. Most people who believe are after all not extremists or fundamentalists. They are normal happy people who try to teach some basic decency. Mostly because so many of the churches are so full of poo poo. Hence all the agnostics who sort of believe in God but don't want to get within a mile of fundamentalism.

Quift posted:

We are the ants in a hive. Is a single ant living alone really part of ant-dom?

Who What Now posted:

Can I get your dealers contact info, I want to get whatever you were on to come up with this poo poo.

Smudgie Buggler posted:

You realise humans made the idea of 'ant-dom' up, right? We made the categories; they weren't made for us.

sugar free jazz posted:

poo poo I can't find my keys must be extra dimensional again

Quift posted:

Have you looked where you left your consiousness?

quote:

Extra dimensional is just a clumpsy way of expressing levels of abstractions. Some things exist only thanks to the existance of other things. Like forests for instance.What we call a forest is an ecological system that exists thanks to the existance of a number of concrete things. Like trees, beetles and birds. Together though they form a forest. The same is true for most biomes. So in a way biomes are extra dimensional. To not see this is literally to not see the forest for all the trees. The same way our collective self can exist thanks to the existance of our individual selves, which in turn can only exist thanks to the collection of neurons that carry our consiousness.

The key to understanding systems is often left where you last used it. I would recommend the entrance of your domicile. Look for the key to understand the world in the hallway of your mind.

Who What Now posted:

Consciousness is not a thing, it's an action or process at best and something that doesn't actually exist at worst. Asking "where is consciousness?" makes no more sense than asking "where is running?".


In a sense forests really don't exist. It is a label of convenience, nothing more. What you're doing is confusing the map for the place, saying that a label or a abstraction is the same as a physical thing, which is absurd. A street map of Chicago is not literally Chicago.