[QUOTE]Originally posted by christoph1371


I tell people the same thing I always say," I don't support (believe in) that piece of equipment." I am very stern about not making someone wrong for his or her choices. How do you think that's makes people feel when you make them wrong...you think it makes them feel good? Well, one thing is for sure when you make someone wrong you automatically make yourself ...right. Being right feels a whole lot better in the right vs. wrong dynamic.

So then, leading someone to something that might be helpful to them is not something that should be done if it makes them feel bad? No one should ever do anything that generates negative feelings? No tough love?


You appear to be very stern about making me wrong. I don't think I have ever told you that you were incorrect/wrong for your views and if you got that...then I apologize.

Actually no. If you read, what I ask of you is to at least address crucial things which you have habitually ignored and concentrated on lighter aspects of what's being said. Since you give only a limited set of bits of information about your beliefs, and I disagree with them, and you give none of us anymore, there is nothing for me to converse over except that negative. If I agreed with you or wanted to show you were wrong I would go about that task and then end the conversation. That, however, is not what I've been doing.



I will repeat my invitation...if you are really willing/wanting to grasp/understand "why it is the way i think the way i do" then please call me, pm me, or email me.

I don't mean this derogatorily, but I'm not actually interested in that. I'm trying to see how you corrolate what you believe with the world around us. Again, its what you have been refusing to do.

And so, I believe this part of the discussion is pointless because I do not think you ever will actually show us how you corrolate your ideas to the world around us. I mean I can only guess is that since you seem to eschew anything that might make you feel bad, you don't bother to seriously introspect but make things up and absorb them based upon feeling positive about it.

I just don't understand why you entered into this conversation if your reasons can only be found by e-mail or pm, or some other private means.

So I've been repeating myself in this subtopic because we get nothing new form you. Nothing more to go on... so I'll give up.


jason

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Peaty

The sad truth is he thought he was right because he thought that's what the lord wanted him do.


I'm not sure who is lord was, but it wasn't the judeo-christian one, as he found it necessary to kill both Jews and Christians who found God more important than himself. Ref: Barmen Declaration; Karl Barth, Dietrich BonHoeffer


jason

 

Yep you got the words right. Non-objective, however, is usually called subjective

I agree with your lack of justification idea.

jason

 

Yep; and that science is largely an unknown.

jason

 

Okay, Jason I just hacked the crap out of one of your posts. I just tried to pull out some of the more important parts so that we can see them more clearly. I promise I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, as that is not my intention. If you feel that I've taken something out of context, let me know.

You are right that God either exists or does not exist. So, according to that, either people who believe there is a god are correct or incorrect. Unfortuantely, it cannot be proved that there is a god and it cannot be proved that there is not a god. So therefore, nobody is wrong or right on the topic of whether or not there is a god. So therefore, every person who has an opinion on this topic is neither correct or incorrect until we conclusively determine whether god exists.

So when you state that "Either God exists or God does not exist. One or more of us are wrong." I do not understand why you would say such a thing. Of course that is a true statement, but since nobody is sure whether it does or does not exist, then nobody can be wrong. Nobody can be right either.

You also state:
[quote] I am not at all questioning what you think about God, really. I am question this notion you appear to have that everyone creates their own reality and that all realities are just as real and can co-exist. This also is a delusion. Everyone can and is entitled to think what they want. But when ideas regarding facts differ, one or more of us is always wrong.[quote]

I think what Chris is trying to get at here is more of a philosophical point than a religious one. What you and I see as reality, say your example of us being on the planet earth, may actually not be reality. I am not the greatest of philosophic thinkers, but I'm going to try to do this anyway.

Is it not POSSIBLE that in some way that the human brain could not in any way comprehend that your "self" is not actually anywhere at all?

You would probably say, "Yeah, but my body is still sitting right here on Earth." And you would be right.

In order to at least understand where each other stand in this, we must first agree on some sort of terms where reality (being things that absolutely cannot be argued) intersects with things that are not definite.

I am not describing this very well at all, but let me ask you this. Do you think there are ideas that no human brain could ever hope to comprehend?

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mmboost

Quote:

Originally posted by Peaty

The sad truth is he thought he was right because he thought that's what the lord wanted him do.


I'm not sure who is lord was, but it wasn't the judeo-christian one, as he found it necessary to kill both Jews and Christians who found God more important than himself. Ref: Barmen Declaration; Karl Barth, Dietrich BonHoeffer


jason

Yes it was, I'm guessing you did not look at the link I referenced.

----
http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...rphy_19_2.html


He informed General Gerhart Engel: "I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so." He never left the church, and the church never left him. Great literature was banned by his church, but his miserable Mein Kampf never appeared on the index of Forbidden Books. He was not excommunicated or even condemned by his church. Popes, in fact, contracted with Hitler and his fascist friends Franco and Mussolini, giving them veto power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain, and Italy. The three thugs agreed to surtax the Catholics of these countries and send the money to Rome in exchange for making sure the state could control the church.

Those who would make Hitler an atheist should turn their eyes to history books before they address their pews and microphones. Acclaimed Hitler biographer John Toland explains his heartlessness as follows: "Still a member in good standing of the Church of Rome despite the detestation of its hierarchy, he carried within him its teaching that the Jews was the killer of god. The extermination, therefore, could be done without a twinge of conscience since he was merely acting as the avenging hand of god. ..."

Hitler's Germany amalgamated state with church. Soldiers of the vermacht wore belt buckles inscribed with the following: "Gott mit uns" (God is with us). His troops were often sprinkled with holy water by the priests. It was a real Christian country whose citizens were indoctrinated by both state and church and blindly followed all authority figures, political and ecclesiastical.

--------------------

 

You miss my point, something I have said repeatedly about actions vs beliefs/words in this thread.

Whatever Hitler claimed, his claims did not meet his actions nor his actions did not meet Christianity. And, we can say that even more strongly for his philosophy and how he carried it out in death camps.

Read the Barmen Declaration sometime. It is an eccumenical (across the whole board) document rejecting the Third Reich. Leader from just about every Christian denomination died because they would not give the authority in the Church from their faith in Christ over to Hitler.

Part of Christianity is the community, a tight diversity, which it demands in its existance. Trying to annihilate that community and reconstitute it in your own name and in one single human form instead of Christ (God-form) and the diversity he sought after sorta violates its main reason for existing. Hitler was not a Christian (of whatever form). The clergy which he had under his thumb was there by threats and the ones which rejected him died in his camps.


jason

p.s. I'm not arguing that you believe my faith in this post or that at the least you think what I said is True. I'm just arguing that this is the faith of Christianity, and Hitler did not adopt it.

 

Steppin

Steppin you do say that my statement of about God existing or not is true in its logic. But you seem to think that if you cannot prove it either way, then its not true or false. I am trying to say that just because we think or feel or don't think or feel a certain way or at all, our perception has no bearing on the ultimate truth of the object in question. A person, place, thing or circumstance is what it is by its objective existance, not a subjective perception.

Chris seems to be denying this... but not outright. All I did want was for him to clarify if he believes that there can be objective reality or if there is only subjective perception. He refuses to answer only returning with more of his esoteric (that's not a bad word) sayings or claiming this needs to be done in private.

jason

 

>Trying to annihilate that community and reconstitute it in your own name instead of Christs sorta violates its main reason for existing.

But isn't that the basis for religious wars? So you are saying it's OK to annihilate people in the name of god. Irishmen blow each other up in his name. Arabs blow themselves up in his name. Imams and ayatollahs oppress women in his name. Celibate popes and priests mess up people's sex lives in his name. Jewish shohets cut live animals' throats in his name. The achievements of religion in past history - bloody crusades, torturing inquisitions, mass-murdering conquistadors, culture-destroying missionaries. Somehow they justify that is OK to kill the other people because well they aren't really people because they don't believe what I do so it's not really murder.

Also, it was mentioned a while back that religious wars were really based on money, however - who had all the money before modern times? The Church that's who.

I will get back to the question that was asked. Do I believe in god, no I don't. I don't feel the need. Maybe it's because my family was Catholic who knows. I can appreciate and understand why others feel the need and that's fine as long as they don't try to forcibly make me come around to their way of thinking. Discussing it is fine, I enjoy reading this thread. Religon to me is way to hypercritical and subjective.

this is basically my view:

http://www.secularhumanism.org/intro/what.html

Just to lend some levity, I found this humorous:

Emo Phillips said this once:

----
When I was a kid I wanted a bicycle so bad that I prayed and prayed for it every night. I never got one though. Then it hit me, I was going about it all wrong. I stole one and then asked for forgiveness...

----

Peaty

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Peaty
[But isn't that the basis for religious wars? So you are saying it's OK to annihilate people in the name of god.
[/i]

OK, now I'm going to accuse you of not reading what I post j/k

People who kill people in the name of God are just as guilty of godlessness as Hitler. People who kill people in the name of God are denying the aspects of Christianity that I also said that Hitler denied.

If you read in many of my previous posts where we spoke about violence I repeatedly said that doing violence in the name of God is always wrong. (There will be things you can read in the judeo-christian scriptures where if read in a discreet vacuum you can say, "Ah ha! See they are doing violence in the name of God and God still likes them!" But if you read it outside of a vacuum you not only find this concept contradictory to the whole of those scriptures but you also can easily substantiate the actions with other themes.)

The achievements of religion in past history - bloody crusades, torturing inquisitions, mass-murdering conquistadors, culture-destroying missionaries. Somehow they justify that is OK to kill the other people because well they aren't really people because they don't believe what I do so it's not really murder.

In some religions killing for a myariad of reasons is OK. That is against Christianity and against the pearching of Christ... diametrically opposed. In no way is a Christian ever to kill another... appearantly even in self-defense and especially when the integrity of the faith is at stake. Anyone who has reads the Gospels, has read Jesus and Pauls words and still finds the need to kill (i.e. G. W. Bush) needs to severly limit which scriptures are brought into the argument... that would then be doing what Hitler and many others do: reading scripture within multiple enclosing vacuums of individual thought and emotion and personal agenda.



Do I believe in god, no I don't. I don't feel the need. Maybe it's because my family was Catholic who knows. I can appreciate and understand why others feel the need and that's fine as long as they don't try to forcibly make me come around to their way of thinking. Discussing it is fine, I enjoy reading this thread.


I completely agree about not being forcible. I do, however, think when a discussion is at hand, its useless to beat around the bush. So I have tried to be forceful, but not to convince of my point of view, only to get all the BS outta the way.

Religon to me is way to hypercritical and subjective.

Again, baby and bathwater being equally chucked. Religion isn't the problem, people and their seflishness is the problem. And they've compounded it by making selfishness a religion. And for Christianity they've doubly compounded it by making selfishness to the point of murder a Christian virtue. To which I say: "WTF!?!?!?"

jason

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by christoph1371

IF there were only two people in the whole universe and one believes in "objective reality" and the other believes in "only subjective reality"
Which person is right? [/i]

Neither is necessarily right. Because its not dependent upon what either believes. Do you understand yet? It doesn't matter what you or I believe. We might both be wrong. My point is the truth about anything is what it is irregardless of what you or I think or feel.

Here, maybe this will help you get what I am saying:

subjective: (3a) : characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind : PHENOMENAL[...] relating to or being experience or knowledge as conditioned by personal mental characteristics or states

objective (3a) : expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations [...] limited to choices of fixed alternatives and reducing subjective factors to a minimum

Here's a great analogy:

If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound? Well sound only happens if someone is there to hear it because it requires a healthy ear or other mechanism that translate vibrations into perception. Since it is perception it is subjective... Chris hears a tree-falling. Chris is the subject, the tree-falling is the object. Chris must hear the tree for the qualification of it to be a sound. However, the tree-falling, being the object will transfer kinetic energy from one form to another whether that event is perceived in any form or not. The objective reality here is what concerns the object: tree-falling. The possibly correct subjective reality here is if Chris hears the tree by the kinetic transfer reaching his brain through various organs and sensors.

Now expand this to a different event/thing/condition and separate out subject perception and event objectivity. Oh... hmmm... let's pick the existance of God "Jason belives God-exists". Jason is the subject. God-exists is the object. Jason's belief is based upon his perceptions 100%. God-exists is independent of Jason's perceptions. Either God really does exist or he does not and by my own reasonsing I could very be all wrong in my belief.

I'm not trying to prove to you that God exists. (That would merely be changing one persons subjective reality). I am trying to show you that whether I could prove it to you or not, regardless of what you or I think, there is an answer to this question that is true, not matter what we believe.

Regarding talk in "private" or as I shall say "in person": I believe that I am not typing/communicating something to you. I want the opportunity to clarify this. I ask you if you would like that opportunity to exist and you do not. But, I keep asking


I don't find it all that important to discuss it in person because of one reasons that is integral to all that I have been saying, its our perceptions. If we can write our thoughts on "paper" and explain them well enough to be understood, it is an indication that we understand ourselves. It reminds me of when my parents would insist that I used proper nouns instead of phrases like "that thing"

I'm actually at the point where I'm not interested in disvussing subjective vs objective reality anymore. Believe it or not, that's objective


jason