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Smudgie Buggler posted:You realise humans made the idea of 'ant-dom' up, right? We made the categories; they weren't made for us. Of course not. I quite possibly made it up right now. Language is a living breathing thing through which we communicate according to our will, ability and need. Since we humans are living in a state of evolution and revolution language changes constantly. The point I tried to make was that this (language) is an expression of humanity. We cannot have an evolving language without other people who can test either our faith or our patience. Hence the evolution of our civilisations, cultures, nations, cities and belief systems.
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Sep 5, 2015 19:36
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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. A collective consciousness cannot exist without humans' consciousnesses. God can. It's different. quote:Why do you, who do not believe, get the privilege of defining God? He did not claim it's his privilege, he referenced the existing history of the concept. When you argue for "our collective consciousness," you're not referencing that, but rather something else. quote: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). "This second point" you're trying to dismiss as irrelevant is a succinct summary of what "God" conventionally means to the majority of believers. It is not only relevant, but the fundamental basis of the whole topic. quote:God didn't create humanity as an act of will Do you understand that in conventional God-belief, he did exactly that? --- Now you can use words however you want, and no one is holding a gun to your head to prevent you from arguing "only from my own understanding of the world," but in a discussion about this topic which has been a very contentious issue for millennia, you must understand that "God" is a very loaded word with lots of implications and the things you say about it will be taken in the context of its pre-existing connotations. Therefore if you don't want people conflating this thing that you're taking about with their pre-existing notions of God, you should just use a different word! Its like...Let's say you create a computer program and the acronym of its description happens to spell out NIGGERS, would you use that as its name and commit yourself to a lifetime of exasperating arguments where you have to fight off the inevitable backlash by clarifying that this has nothing to do with the pre-existing horrible racial epithet and is a separate thing that happens to match... or would you save your energies and just call it something else, thus avoiding the confusion to begin with? Why would you possibly choose the first option? That's what you're doing with "God" in this thread.
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Sep 5, 2015 20:05
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Quift posted:Where is consciousness is an absurd question since it does not exist in the typical way we think of when we think of things existing. That does not mean it doesn't exist (we all seem to have one, and if we dont, were does the illusion of consciousness reside?). Rather we could claim that it exists extra dimensionally. This is not the term I would have chosen (prefering the term trancendental), but whatever. Let us define the concept anyway. Where does God reside is a question that sort of comes up so I better have an answer. Right? I was gonna make a joke but drat dog you actually think like this. "Forest" isn't a relationship. It's an extremely vague name for a wide variety of environments. You seem to be arguing for, of all things, Cartesian dualism, so you got bigger problems than "what is consciousness?" Edit those things being the hundreds of years of arguments pretty conclusively destroying dualism and that you're not familiar with any of it sugar free jazz fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Sep 5, 2015 |
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Sep 5, 2015 20:18
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You can't admit that something doesn't exist and then in the same breath ask where it resides. That's literally asking the same question. Instead of clumsily using metaphors you read in the thread why don't you start over?
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Sep 5, 2015 21:57
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Good point. I'm going to stick with the forest. I have tried to define a biome, city or nation as something which describes relationships between the million parts within it. This goes for most interesting concepts. Another one is life. Which exists as a relationship between inanimate matter. This does not necessitate dualism. Life is not something separate from the matter in which it resides. Neither is consciousness separate from the neurons that give it life, nor language from the humans that carry it. Nor God from humanity. Now, we could discuss either the millions upon millions of different versions of God. But if we instead try to define the common ground of most faiths we end up with something a bit less complicated. To begin with I think that any version of God that is disproved by science is false. If there is such an entity it is a matter of faith, not of denial. With regards to the age of God, I have no idea how a concept to describe an aspect of humanity might be older than humanity itself. More importantly, the existance of God is irrelevant. What is relevant is that enlightenment exists. Belief in God is one of many ways to achieve this. But plenty of People achieve some form of awakening without Jesus. So there are many paths to enlightenment. They are not equal but once arrived the path you have taken becomes meaningless. If your spirituality awakened thanks to the story of mowgli, neo or Buddha is irrelevant. They are all the same story. Is this clearer?
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Sep 5, 2015 23:38
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Just how much acid did you take before writing that?
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Sep 5, 2015 23:41
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Quift posted:Good point. Consciousness being "extra dimensional," with a VERY generous reading, would imply dualism. The non generous reading would be that it's word salad.
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Sep 6, 2015 00:01
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Quift posted:And as a citizen of the city of chigago (hypothetically) you are part of the city. The city would go on without you but not without everybody. Because even if the buildings were left standing without the people there would be no relationship between them, and the city would die or rather transform into a biome. (Yes, cities are a form of biome. Smartass. Try to understand instead of nitpick). Understanding without nitpicking is not understanding.
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Sep 6, 2015 00:02
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In completely sober right now. I still don't get why the existance of consciousness necessitates dualism? Do I need to argue that it exists in a single place? It might be clearer if you took on the subject yourself. It is not really an easy task to explain these concepts in English. (English being my third language).
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Sep 6, 2015 00:06
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Quift posted:In completely sober right now. I still don't get why the existance of consciousness necessitates dualism? Do I need to argue that it exists in a single place? It doesn't. Unfortunately you are pretty much incapable of expressing yourself, so don't expect people to react to you in ways that make sense to you. Try reading some Husserl and Heidegger to relieve yourself of your half-baked ideas about the consciousness and stuff, man.
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Sep 6, 2015 00:12
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Don't suggest that someone reads Heidegger some things you can't take back
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Sep 6, 2015 00:42
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Heidegger is good.  If for nothing else but to introduce you to his students-analysts-critics like Patocka.
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Sep 6, 2015 00:44
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Quift posted:What is relevant is that enlightenment exists. Does it? Do you have concrete evidence that this is the case or can you demonstrate it?
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Sep 6, 2015 00:44
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Quift posted:More importantly, the existance of God is irrelevant. What is relevant is that enlightenment exists. How so? Enlightenment is, as far as we can tell, simply emotional ecstasy through understanding a concept. It doesn't mean enlightenment is actually a functional concept
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Sep 6, 2015 00:45
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Schrodinger's God
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Sep 6, 2015 01:38
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Quift posted:More importantly, the existance of God is irrelevant. This is literally a discussion specifically about the existence of God, it's in the thread title 
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Sep 6, 2015 02:13
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steinrokkan posted:Heidegger is good. Only good thing about Heidegger is I had a professor whose friend, another professor, wrote an ironic, erotic Heidegger fanfic. That was a weird class man.
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Sep 6, 2015 02:14
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Why do you hate him so much?
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Sep 6, 2015 02:18
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Only ever read in translation which might be the problem, but the professors and grad students I talked to who read him in German hated him just as much for the same reasons. It's meaningless bullshit word salad garbage. Like I get a choice between reading Heidegger and David Lewis, or Heidegger and Tarski or Frege or whatever, I'm not fuckin reading Heidegger. edit I'd rather read Averroes than read Heidegger sugar free jazz fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Sep 6, 2015 |
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Sep 6, 2015 02:25
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I only read him with a companion (written by Patocka, who studied under both H. and Husserl) so I guess the word salad aspect was somewhat alleviated. Anyway, I think his thesis of existentials is pretty handy.
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Sep 6, 2015 02:28
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Anyway, whatever happened to Kyrie Eleison, why isn't he posting in this thread?
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Sep 6, 2015 02:30
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He was banned for being the only poster in these threads worse than me.
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Sep 6, 2015 02:31
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steinrokkan posted:Anyway, whatever happened to Kyrie Eleison, why isn't he posting in this thread? He was banned for being an utter idiot.
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Sep 6, 2015 02:41
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Nothing can alleviate that word salad poo poo. He just makes up terms and doesn't define them clearly and keeps going as if it makes sense at all then introduces new terms without any definition then keeps plowing on it's so bad. I read Being and Time and hated every second of it.
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Sep 6, 2015 02:42
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OK, I suppose that's a matter of translation because I enjoyed his creative approach to language. German is more malleable than English.
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Sep 6, 2015 02:43
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:What does God mean to you? That word means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and because I'm not under the delusion that Meaning is made of real stuff we can isolate and examine I don't see much point in trying to construct a single definition. At best, all I could do is define god in a way that descriptively fits a plurality of people. At worst, it'll be unique to me and nearly completely useless to any sort of philosophical enquiry. I'm no more comfortable standing up and declaring I know what 'god' means anymore than I know what 'beauty', 'good', 'justice', 'love', or any of those words' antonyms mean. They are far too vague, malleable, and generally icky. I can either tell you what sorts of things first come to find when those words are uttered OR I can tell you with reference to other concepts more precisely what I mean by any given personal utterance of them. But I do not believe they are imbued with discoverable meaning. Quift posted:Of course not. I quite possibly made it up right now. Language is a living breathing thing through which we communicate according to our will, ability and need. Since we humans are living in a state of evolution and revolution language changes constantly. The point I tried to make was that this (language) is an expression of humanity. We cannot have an evolving language without other people who can test either our faith or our patience. Hence the evolution of our civilisations, cultures, nations, cities and belief systems. Well then what was the point of your rhetorical question regarding one ant being a part of ant-dom? This isn't about the messy vagueness of language, by the way. It's about the messy vagueness of our thoughts. Smudgie Buggler fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Sep 6, 2015 |
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Sep 6, 2015 03:30
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Hi I'm God posting through a vessel of My divine will to tell everyone that I exist, thanks.
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Sep 6, 2015 04:10
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Smudgie Buggler posted:That word means a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and because I'm not under the delusion that Meaning is made of real stuff we can isolate and examine I don't see much point in trying to construct a single definition. At best, all I could do is define god in a way that descriptively fits a plurality of people. At worst, it'll be unique to me and nearly completely useless to any sort of philosophical enquiry. My original point was that God, just like language is part of what it means to be human. The name of God tells us quite clearly that it is a concept about consciousness. The God of moses that is. The concept of God means different things at different points in history, thus must be interpreted differently at different points in the bible. But after moses you get a more durable version that continues to have some basic concepts locked down. Also useful to remember is that the words God and concept are pretty interchangeable in many settings. Most gods are but embodied concepts. So it stands to reason that the first monotheism focuses on a single concept. A central truth.
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Sep 6, 2015 09:39
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More or less every religion is pretty clear about their gods not just being forces, they're alive, individual things which personify natural forces, but they're definitely separate entities from them. They might be magically linked or something but there is definitely Poseidon, god of the ocean, and then the actual ocean. The ocean does not go around putting its literal dick into things.
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Sep 6, 2015 15:32
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Quift posted:My original point was that God, just like language is part of what it means to be human. quote:The name of God tells us quite clearly that it is a concept about consciousness. quote:The God of moses that is. The concept of God means different things at different points in history, thus must be interpreted differently at different points in the bible. But after moses you get a more durable version that continues to have some basic concepts locked down. quote:Also useful to remember is that the words God and concept are pretty interchangeable in many settings. quote:Most gods are but embodied concepts. So it stands to reason that the first monotheism focuses on a single concept. A central truth. Seek therapy. Smudgie Buggler fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Sep 6, 2015 |
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Sep 6, 2015 15:38
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guy doesn't need therapy he just needs to do less drugs
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Sep 6, 2015 15:43
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Cast off your shackles and bask in the light of knowledge cast by the Morning Star. Open your heart to Lucifer and become the vessel through which His works are made manifest upon the Earth. Suffocate your spirit in the ashes of hope and embrace the yawning abyss.
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Sep 6, 2015 15:59
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mandatory lesbian posted:guy doesn't need therapy he just needs to do less drugs Or more drugs.
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Sep 6, 2015 16:54
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Hi just once again posting to say that I am the Way and the Light, this post is a miracle, and any of My children who believe not in Me are surely damned for ever and ever, amen. OP better fall down and praise Me, or else.
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Sep 6, 2015 18:12
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Arglebargle III posted:Hi just once again posting to say that I am the Way and the Light, this post is a miracle, and any of My children who believe not in Me are surely damned for ever and ever, amen. OP better fall down and praise Me, or else. Is that you Zeus?
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Sep 6, 2015 18:40
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Praise Tengri, Allfather of the Sky.
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Sep 6, 2015 18:46
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Talos be praised
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Sep 6, 2015 18:53
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Smudgie Buggler posted:In what settings are the referents of the words 'God' and 'concept' the same thing? Daniel Dennett did this talk about liberal religion called "You might be an atheist if..." where he riffed off of Jeff Foxworthy redneck jokes in the form "If you espouse [such-and-such fig leaf over non-belief that allows you to maintain a notional God-belief so as not to shock Grandma (or yourself) while at the same time staying in accordance with the basic facts of the universe that modern science has revealed to us, and otherwise not being batshit crazy; but its implications completely neuter God into an empty label] then you just might be an atheist." He goes on with these for a while, (the whole talk is really good) and then as kind of a punch line, one if them is "If you think that 'God is a concept' then you're definitely an atheist!"
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Sep 6, 2015 19:07
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CommieGIR posted:Is that you Zeus? I didn't actually post that, it is in fact a miracle. I have no explanation, other than that I have been chosen as the prophet of God, which is the only possible correct explanation. Praise Him. (Or be damned.)
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Sep 6, 2015 21:14
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Well to be specific your account has been chosen as the prophet of god. Which may or may not be against the rules.
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Sep 6, 2015 21:36
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