Have you read William James's seminal work, "The Varieties of Religious Experience"?
Universe - Life - Purpose - Existence?
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Have you read William James's seminal work, "The Varieties of Religious Experience"?
Alphexcoil,
I took you for above these questions. Unless, you are just adding fuel to the discussion? Donât go all Godelâs theorem on me man.
____________________________________________________âSo I'm supposed to die and go to heaven while an ape dies and just disappears? If I have a soul, they have to have a soul.â
____________________________________________________
No, on the first part, Yes, on the second part. Life/spirit does not cease to exist when it leaves the body just as it is not âcreatedâ as it enters the body.
Ever ask yourself what is the âIâ? Its not âifâ you have a soul/spirit/are alive, you are the soul/life/spirit. The mind is not the soul. The intelligence is not the soul. The ego is not the soul. These things are all subtle matter.
___________________________________________________
âThat being said, then we could go right down the chain and get to mice and assume they must also have a soul.â
___________________________________________________
Yes, You are beginning to catch on.
____________________________________________________
âWhy are there physical laws within a universe that is able to set evolution into gear?â
____________________________________________________
That is the nature of the material nature. Why is water wet?
____________________________________________________
âWhy are some people so against cloning? I think it is because it strikes a subconscious realization that there may be no soul. It is the fear that "if two people are exactly the same, how do you account for the whole soul thing?" Well, mother nature has been cloning for years -- its called IDENTICAL TWINS. Is there a law against that?â
____________________________________________________
Either ignorance or a deeper understanding of the potential risks. Why is Japan and the EU against GMO food?
I think it is because it strikes a subconscious realization that there may be a soul/life/spirit that cannot be replicated even though their is an identical body.
I donât think that scientists specializing in the field of cloning would be so foolish as to suggest that the life force in each body would be the same. If they did it would really put a damper on the whole life comes from matter THEORY? (You might have to ask Gordon Gecko why two cloned any things brought up in an identical controlled environment would not have the same personality) Perhaps, he would say the scientists focked up and it was not a perfect clone. HAHAHAHA! The more I think of the life/spirit arising from inert matter THEORY the more I laugh.
Why do people think that a cloned BODY will house an identical life/spirit? DEEP IGNORANCE of what is matter and what is life. Clone all the bodies you want, you will still require the efficient cause/life to activate them.
Hey Gordon, what happens to your simplistic "brain function" theory when medical experts are able to do a brain transplant and there is no personality change. THINK DEEP!
____________________________________________________
âWe feel this overwhelming need to be special because of our intelligence. Or, perhaps it is ego? In any event, we're reduced to debating "science / religion" and forcing positions such as, "your faith is illogical" or "your science cannot define god." It is a huge circle where the arguments just rotate in a never-ending ferris wheel. Yet, I am still left with questions that cannot be answered.
Unfortunately, they'll never be answered. Nobody knows what lies after death -- no matter how scientific or religious they are. It is the great unknown.â
____________________________________________________
EGO baby, you got that right. Pride, Adoration and Distinction = subtle sense gratification.
True science and true religion are the same thing. There is no debate going on at the higher conception, only more research. Both are searching for the absolute. Many people cop out along the way and conclude there is no absolute. They generally conclude that sense gratification is the purpose of life. The same sense gratification available to dogs and hogs.
Please do not tell me you are frustrated in your search already. If you do not understand that life/spirit exists separate from matter why would you lament for what comes at supposed death anyway? [Death!, You know, when that one chemical vanishes without a trace, when that certain synapse in the brain no longer works. Haha!]
What is unknown about life existing and what is unknown about it sometimes being embodied in various material bodies?
___________________________________________________
âMy biggest problem is reconciling the beauty in the world with the pain and suffering -- why we're even here to begin with when, in a few billion years, the sun will erase any shred of evidence that we ever existed. That supernova will even catch up to Voyager and Pioneer -- nothing will escape the inevitable gravitational collapse and resulting explosion that will incinerate everything.â
____________________________________________________
Problem? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so is the pain and suffering. As long as you hover in the material plane you will have this duality for that is its nature. You are here for this is a place for the spirit to enact its free will.
You got the total implosion of the material universe part right.
__________________________________________________
"So then ... why?"
__________________________________________________
Is that really your level of inquiry or do you just want to know how to move in this world without being affected by its dualities? For the latter go rent âThe Matrixâ For the former, first deserve then desire â become a sincere seeker of that which is not matter.
Peace out
I took you for above these questions. Unless, you are just adding fuel to the discussion? Donât go all Godelâs theorem on me man.
____________________________________________________âSo I'm supposed to die and go to heaven while an ape dies and just disappears? If I have a soul, they have to have a soul.â
____________________________________________________
No, on the first part, Yes, on the second part. Life/spirit does not cease to exist when it leaves the body just as it is not âcreatedâ as it enters the body.
Ever ask yourself what is the âIâ? Its not âifâ you have a soul/spirit/are alive, you are the soul/life/spirit. The mind is not the soul. The intelligence is not the soul. The ego is not the soul. These things are all subtle matter.
___________________________________________________
âThat being said, then we could go right down the chain and get to mice and assume they must also have a soul.â
___________________________________________________
Yes, You are beginning to catch on.
____________________________________________________
âWhy are there physical laws within a universe that is able to set evolution into gear?â
____________________________________________________
That is the nature of the material nature. Why is water wet?
____________________________________________________
âWhy are some people so against cloning? I think it is because it strikes a subconscious realization that there may be no soul. It is the fear that "if two people are exactly the same, how do you account for the whole soul thing?" Well, mother nature has been cloning for years -- its called IDENTICAL TWINS. Is there a law against that?â
____________________________________________________
Either ignorance or a deeper understanding of the potential risks. Why is Japan and the EU against GMO food?
I think it is because it strikes a subconscious realization that there may be a soul/life/spirit that cannot be replicated even though their is an identical body.
I donât think that scientists specializing in the field of cloning would be so foolish as to suggest that the life force in each body would be the same. If they did it would really put a damper on the whole life comes from matter THEORY? (You might have to ask Gordon Gecko why two cloned any things brought up in an identical controlled environment would not have the same personality) Perhaps, he would say the scientists focked up and it was not a perfect clone. HAHAHAHA! The more I think of the life/spirit arising from inert matter THEORY the more I laugh.
Why do people think that a cloned BODY will house an identical life/spirit? DEEP IGNORANCE of what is matter and what is life. Clone all the bodies you want, you will still require the efficient cause/life to activate them.
Hey Gordon, what happens to your simplistic "brain function" theory when medical experts are able to do a brain transplant and there is no personality change. THINK DEEP!
____________________________________________________
âWe feel this overwhelming need to be special because of our intelligence. Or, perhaps it is ego? In any event, we're reduced to debating "science / religion" and forcing positions such as, "your faith is illogical" or "your science cannot define god." It is a huge circle where the arguments just rotate in a never-ending ferris wheel. Yet, I am still left with questions that cannot be answered.
Unfortunately, they'll never be answered. Nobody knows what lies after death -- no matter how scientific or religious they are. It is the great unknown.â
____________________________________________________
EGO baby, you got that right. Pride, Adoration and Distinction = subtle sense gratification.
True science and true religion are the same thing. There is no debate going on at the higher conception, only more research. Both are searching for the absolute. Many people cop out along the way and conclude there is no absolute. They generally conclude that sense gratification is the purpose of life. The same sense gratification available to dogs and hogs.
Please do not tell me you are frustrated in your search already. If you do not understand that life/spirit exists separate from matter why would you lament for what comes at supposed death anyway? [Death!, You know, when that one chemical vanishes without a trace, when that certain synapse in the brain no longer works. Haha!]
What is unknown about life existing and what is unknown about it sometimes being embodied in various material bodies?
___________________________________________________
âMy biggest problem is reconciling the beauty in the world with the pain and suffering -- why we're even here to begin with when, in a few billion years, the sun will erase any shred of evidence that we ever existed. That supernova will even catch up to Voyager and Pioneer -- nothing will escape the inevitable gravitational collapse and resulting explosion that will incinerate everything.â
____________________________________________________
Problem? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and so is the pain and suffering. As long as you hover in the material plane you will have this duality for that is its nature. You are here for this is a place for the spirit to enact its free will.
You got the total implosion of the material universe part right.
__________________________________________________
"So then ... why?"
__________________________________________________
Is that really your level of inquiry or do you just want to know how to move in this world without being affected by its dualities? For the latter go rent âThe Matrixâ For the former, first deserve then desire â become a sincere seeker of that which is not matter.
Peace out
They's responses in bold
Ever ask yourself what is the âIâ? Its not âifâ you have a soul/spirit/are alive, you are the soul/life/spirit. The mind is not the soul. The intelligence is not the soul. The ego is not the soul. These things are all subtle matter.
first of all, we can get rid of the whole soul concept. it's just not needed. you're trying to say something is somewhere when you can't even prove it. so let's get rid of it and make it easy. SOULS DON'T EXIST. prove to me a soul exists like my foot exists and then we can talk. who you are is YOUR ACTIVE BRAIN. it needs to be no more complicated than that..i don't care how many times you've read the bible.
(You might have to ask Gordon Gecko why two cloned any things brought up in an identical controlled environment would not have the same personality)
ok just to be very clear here. if 2 clones were created at exactly the same moment, obviously they would not be the same person. i know this is obvious to some, but just in case. for example, if your dog dies, you can't clone it and bring it back. it would just be like an empty hard drive in your computer that is identical to a previous one. it's the subject matter that's stored (as in a brain) that determines who the dog is and the personality it has.
so, i WOULD say, if you created 2 human clones, kept them in the same empty room and treated them exactly the same way (i mean EXACTLY), they would have VERY VERY similar personalities. if they were EVER treated even the slightest bit differently, it would throw off everything forever and ruin the experiment.
Hey Gordon, what happens to your simplistic "brain function" theory when medical experts are able to do a brain transplant and there is no personality change. THINK DEEP!
please, please, please don't tell me you're trying to say if my brain got switched with michael jackson's, there would be no personality change!!! i will laugh!!!!!!
anyway, i'm not familiar with this experiment. also, i don't know who did this and what their agenda was. i will tell you right now, if my brain was switched with michael jackson's, i would be who i am now, but i would just look like michael jackson. however, my personality would begin to change because i no longer look like who i was and i would not be treated the same way by others.
ALL MY BELIEFS ARE ROCK SOLID! I DON'T CARE WHAT SUBJECT WE TALK ABOUT!!
Ever ask yourself what is the âIâ? Its not âifâ you have a soul/spirit/are alive, you are the soul/life/spirit. The mind is not the soul. The intelligence is not the soul. The ego is not the soul. These things are all subtle matter.
first of all, we can get rid of the whole soul concept. it's just not needed. you're trying to say something is somewhere when you can't even prove it. so let's get rid of it and make it easy. SOULS DON'T EXIST. prove to me a soul exists like my foot exists and then we can talk. who you are is YOUR ACTIVE BRAIN. it needs to be no more complicated than that..i don't care how many times you've read the bible.
(You might have to ask Gordon Gecko why two cloned any things brought up in an identical controlled environment would not have the same personality)
ok just to be very clear here. if 2 clones were created at exactly the same moment, obviously they would not be the same person. i know this is obvious to some, but just in case. for example, if your dog dies, you can't clone it and bring it back. it would just be like an empty hard drive in your computer that is identical to a previous one. it's the subject matter that's stored (as in a brain) that determines who the dog is and the personality it has.
so, i WOULD say, if you created 2 human clones, kept them in the same empty room and treated them exactly the same way (i mean EXACTLY), they would have VERY VERY similar personalities. if they were EVER treated even the slightest bit differently, it would throw off everything forever and ruin the experiment.
Hey Gordon, what happens to your simplistic "brain function" theory when medical experts are able to do a brain transplant and there is no personality change. THINK DEEP!
please, please, please don't tell me you're trying to say if my brain got switched with michael jackson's, there would be no personality change!!! i will laugh!!!!!!
anyway, i'm not familiar with this experiment. also, i don't know who did this and what their agenda was. i will tell you right now, if my brain was switched with michael jackson's, i would be who i am now, but i would just look like michael jackson. however, my personality would begin to change because i no longer look like who i was and i would not be treated the same way by others.
ALL MY BELIEFS ARE ROCK SOLID! I DON'T CARE WHAT SUBJECT WE TALK ABOUT!!
Quote from Gordon Gekko:
ALL MY BELIEFS ARE ROCK SOLID! I DON'T CARE WHAT SUBJECT WE TALK ABOUT!!
I hear you screaming that you are secure in your belief systems, and I have to wonder who you trying to convince of your security by screaming them on a message board?
777, just ask yourself why you reply here, too. what's the difference?
They,
You raise some great points. However, I don't feel that I can truly embrace an unbiased standpoint when it comes to religion. I often feel that there is "more" than this reality, yet I have no way of knowing or proving that.
I understand that science makes a flower pretty so that a bee will pollinate it. I also understand there is an "intrinsic" beauty to a flower which many people love (especially women and many red roses).
God has not gone out of his way to make himself known. You cannot use the Bible as an example since it was written by man. God did not pen the bible himself.
We can first state two separate premises:
a) The universe does not have a creator
b) The universe does have a creator
However, since the universe obviously exists, there had to be some creation event to bring it to the state that it is in now. The argument that the universe is infinite in time is flawed since it has already been proven by Einstein, Hawkins, et al. that time and space were created together during the first moments of the universe.
In other words, asking the question, "what happened 2 seconds before the big bang" is an incorrect way of viewing time and the creation event called the "big bang." Asking that question is tantamount to asking, "Where does a circle begin?"
So if we assume that, in fact, there is a creation event for the universe (which science has already proven), then we can entertain the idea that there is some creator for the universe that spawned the creation event called the "big bang."
Now, this leaves us with some other possibilities:
Assuming there is a creator, what can we tell about this creator based on our own external reality?
a) The creator has created a reality which he (ignore the sexism) himself resides in.
b) The creator has created a reality outside his own reality.
c) The creator is reality.
d) The creator is beyond all reality.
Asking these questions requires us to define "reality." For this purpose, I will define reality as "all that which man perceives with his senses that is shared and verifiable by other men." In other words, we are merely stating that in order for something to be called reality, it must be shared among many people and all can verify the "constant" nature of reality.
However, this itself poses a problem because when we have a realistic dream, it seems to be real. This could be reality. However, it must be a reality that can be verified by others. Well, in the instance of a dream, the others are those within our own dream -- so they may easily verify that the wall we are touching in our own dream is in fact a wall which they can also touch.
So, is there some other way we can define reality with more exactness to be able to exclude dreams? If you were having a "very real" dream, there may never be a way to prove within that dream that you are, in fact, dreaming at the time.
Can you prove that you aren't dreaming right now? If you re-read this post and it is the same post, chances are that you are awake.
So, getting back to the creator -- is this creator inside this reality? Well, since nobody can verify the creator's existence within this reality, I think we can conclude that the creator exists outside this reality. This leaves us with the possibility that he is outside our reality in another reality -- the creator's reality ... OR, the creator is synonymous with reality itself. In other words, the act of sentience is through the power of the creator -- or sentience IS the creator.
Since it appears that:
a) The universe did have a creation event
*and*
b) The creator cannot exist within this reality
It is safe to assume that science will fail in searching for a god and that the only leap across the reality-bridge is through faith. This much I have gotten out of philosophy but it is still hard to understand why there is so much pain and suffering in this world.
However, I do know that there is one thing that seems to bring universal happiness to everyone and everything -- and that is the power to "create." Once you create something, whether it be art, music, science project, program, etc -- in essence, you are participating in the very thing that has propelled everything in this universe. There seems to be a constant cycle of creation and destruction events in the universe. There appears to be a cycle of things that run around and around.
You raise some great points. However, I don't feel that I can truly embrace an unbiased standpoint when it comes to religion. I often feel that there is "more" than this reality, yet I have no way of knowing or proving that.
I understand that science makes a flower pretty so that a bee will pollinate it. I also understand there is an "intrinsic" beauty to a flower which many people love (especially women and many red roses).
God has not gone out of his way to make himself known. You cannot use the Bible as an example since it was written by man. God did not pen the bible himself.
We can first state two separate premises:
a) The universe does not have a creator
b) The universe does have a creator
However, since the universe obviously exists, there had to be some creation event to bring it to the state that it is in now. The argument that the universe is infinite in time is flawed since it has already been proven by Einstein, Hawkins, et al. that time and space were created together during the first moments of the universe.
In other words, asking the question, "what happened 2 seconds before the big bang" is an incorrect way of viewing time and the creation event called the "big bang." Asking that question is tantamount to asking, "Where does a circle begin?"
So if we assume that, in fact, there is a creation event for the universe (which science has already proven), then we can entertain the idea that there is some creator for the universe that spawned the creation event called the "big bang."
Now, this leaves us with some other possibilities:
Assuming there is a creator, what can we tell about this creator based on our own external reality?
a) The creator has created a reality which he (ignore the sexism) himself resides in.
b) The creator has created a reality outside his own reality.
c) The creator is reality.
d) The creator is beyond all reality.
Asking these questions requires us to define "reality." For this purpose, I will define reality as "all that which man perceives with his senses that is shared and verifiable by other men." In other words, we are merely stating that in order for something to be called reality, it must be shared among many people and all can verify the "constant" nature of reality.
However, this itself poses a problem because when we have a realistic dream, it seems to be real. This could be reality. However, it must be a reality that can be verified by others. Well, in the instance of a dream, the others are those within our own dream -- so they may easily verify that the wall we are touching in our own dream is in fact a wall which they can also touch.
So, is there some other way we can define reality with more exactness to be able to exclude dreams? If you were having a "very real" dream, there may never be a way to prove within that dream that you are, in fact, dreaming at the time.
Can you prove that you aren't dreaming right now? If you re-read this post and it is the same post, chances are that you are awake.
So, getting back to the creator -- is this creator inside this reality? Well, since nobody can verify the creator's existence within this reality, I think we can conclude that the creator exists outside this reality. This leaves us with the possibility that he is outside our reality in another reality -- the creator's reality ... OR, the creator is synonymous with reality itself. In other words, the act of sentience is through the power of the creator -- or sentience IS the creator.
Since it appears that:
a) The universe did have a creation event
*and*
b) The creator cannot exist within this reality
It is safe to assume that science will fail in searching for a god and that the only leap across the reality-bridge is through faith. This much I have gotten out of philosophy but it is still hard to understand why there is so much pain and suffering in this world.
However, I do know that there is one thing that seems to bring universal happiness to everyone and everything -- and that is the power to "create." Once you create something, whether it be art, music, science project, program, etc -- in essence, you are participating in the very thing that has propelled everything in this universe. There seems to be a constant cycle of creation and destruction events in the universe. There appears to be a cycle of things that run around and around.
THE DIFFERENCE is I don't have to scream.......to be heard.
All very logical. However, is it God's logic?
Do you remember the question:
Is God so powerful that he could make a stone so heavy he couldn't lift it?
or
Can it be both raining and not raining at the same time?
Human logic is based on duality, the existence of opposite values, which are relative, and understood only in context of one an other. Black has no meaning without white, right without wrong, infinity without the finite, death without life.....
From our experience it is impossible for it to be both raining and not raining at the same time, or for an all powerful being to create something he could not lift, as we judge by our own experiences, not God's experiences.
However, what if God is not subject ot "our" logic? Imagine that he is able to simultaneous create a situation in his world of rain and not raining at the same time.....what if his world is the exact opposite of ours? Eternal and never changing, full of nothing but bliss, not the product of a creation, but having eternal existence outside of the boundaries of space and time.
We take our puny material minds, stuck in linear thinking and boundaries of physical perceptions, slaves to time and space, and then have the folly to hold God to our standards. Just like a child holding an adult to the child's reality.
Do you really think an absolute supreme being is subject to the laws of nature, if He himself created them?
Well that's very true. So then what is it? Is the state of being both black and white called a state of gray or is it a state of being two different states at once?
That is illogical to me but that's just my human logic.
So it is illogical to me for something to be in two states at once -- but then again isn't that what quantum particles are doing all the time?
ahh, william james, so that's where you're lifiting all this stuff from.
well, i suppose willy was a lot better than then your run of the mill christian apologist...
still, it reads more like a crutch for christians to lean on than any objectively compelling reasoning (which is, i believe, what he intended...)
i don't know why you still bother responding optional. you've agreed that there is no particular reason an atheist would be requried to subsribe to any religious point of view, so why keep pushing the issue?