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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 10 2012 at 14:04
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 10 2012 at 14:10
An atheist could believe in all of those things, and a theist could disagree with all of them. Any attempt to make a serious point with a poorly constructed meme probably will result in failure.


Edited by Equality 7-2521 - April 10 2012 at 14:11
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 10 2012 at 15:00
Originally posted by Equality 7-2521 Equality 7-2521 wrote:

I disagree. I could care less about the human race as a whole. You have a peculiar morality you're suggesting. Not everyone shares it, and you haven't attempted to justify it.

Even your idea of validity is wrongheaded to me. Truth and knowledge have their own value to me personally. I study math for that reason. Much of it currently has no bearing on the human race. I enjoy that about it.


I think you understand the implications but not the implications of the implications

Math is still only coherent when related to human practice. I can imagine such a thing- a placeholder, a verbal construction of letters and numbers I know- a Diblenuler Quarkitrigometic Half-Number of 1-0-43 to the Third Power. Does it it have practical math value? Is it necessary to go out and test and wait patiently for its objective (practical math) value to come around and fulfill its subjective value? Or can we just chalk it up to a verbal construction I am using in a post for subjective reasons in a subjective way, and acknowledge that its objective value just is not ever going to manifest itself.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 10 2012 at 15:17
Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:



I think you understand the implications but not the implications of the implications

Math is still only coherent when related to human practice. I can imagine such a thing- a placeholder, a verbal construction of letters and numbers I know- a Diblenuler Quarkitrigometic Half-Number of 1-0-43 to the Third Power. Does it it have practical math value? Is it necessary to go out and test and wait patiently for its objective (practical math) value to come around and fulfill its subjective value? Or can we just chalk it up to a verbal construction I am using in a post for subjective reasons in a subjective way, and acknowledge that its objective value just is not ever going to manifest itself.




Most of math is not related to human practice at all, and all of it is coherent. That statement is just flat out incorrect.

To answer your questions. I don't know, and yes to some degree. You construct may be immensely useful. It may be (is) junk. You have your reasons for creating it, but it may be incredibly useful regardless.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 10 2012 at 17:56
IMPF: Yeah I understand your intentions but that's nonsense. You could be an atheist rapist or an atheist homophobe. Being an atheist means you suspect that all religion is false. It doesn't mean you are more moral than anyone else. There's no specific set of ethical beliefs that an atheist MUST hold. Studies show that in general, atheists are more moral than theists, but the caricature of the immoral rapacious atheist who is so because he believes he will not be held accountable is not a total fantasy - such people do exist.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 10 2012 at 18:31
Originally posted by Equality 7-2521 Equality 7-2521 wrote:



Most of math is not related to human practice at all, and all of it is coherent. That statement is just flat out incorrect.

To answer your questions. I don't know, and yes to some degree. You construct may be immensely useful. It may be (is) junk. You have your reasons for creating it, but it may be incredibly useful regardless.


Your bluffing. My construct is not useful and you know it. It's bull. Context, context, context ,context, context, context, context, context, context, context.

Whether it could be true in a hypothetical situation outside this context is an irrelevant question.

And Math is human practice, silly. As such it has to be coherent. If it is neither it doesn't exist.

Context, context context.

I argue that context is everything in the universe. Context Context Context!

 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 10 2012 at 19:50
Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:



Your bluffing. My construct is not useful and you know it. It's bull. Context, context, context ,context, context, context, context, context, context, context.

Whether it could be true in a hypothetical situation outside this context is an irrelevant question.

And Math is human practice, silly. As such it has to be coherent. If it is neither it doesn't exist.

Context, context context.

I argue that context is everything in the universe. Context Context Context!

 


I'm not bluffing though. It could be useful. As I said, it is not, but it could be. You could take a branch of mathematics such as category theory. It seems like it was drawn up by some drunk mathematicians bored at a bar, but it's incredibly useful. Non-Euclidean Geometry was treated as heretical and thought to be completely useless, divorced from the real world. Turns out it describes our universe. Ternary expansions for a number just seem like a curiosity, but they are indispensable to proving certain things. You're being rather dismissive here and ignoring how mathematics really works.

Rick Santorum's philosophy is a human practice, but that doesn't make it coherent.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 10 2012 at 23:14
Originally posted by Equality 7-2521 Equality 7-2521 wrote:

Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:



Your bluffing. My construct is not useful and you know it. It's bull. Context, context, context ,context, context, context, context, context, context, context.

Whether it could be true in a hypothetical situation outside this context is an irrelevant question.

And Math is human practice, silly. As such it has to be coherent. If it is neither it doesn't exist.

Context, context context.

I argue that context is everything in the universe. Context Context Context!

 


I'm not bluffing though. It could be useful. As I said, it is not, but it could be. You could take a branch of mathematics such as category theory. It seems like it was drawn up by some drunk mathematicians bored at a bar, but it's incredibly useful. Non-Euclidean Geometry was treated as heretical and thought to be completely useless, divorced from the real world. Turns out it describes our universe. Ternary expansions for a number just seem like a curiosity, but they are indispensable to proving certain things. You're being rather dismissive here and ignoring how mathematics really works.

Rick Santorum's philosophy is a human practice, but that doesn't make it coherent.


I refuse to believe you believe that my most spurious banter could contain the seeds of eternal wisdom.

Would you base the human race's perspective on the possibility that it could contain such seeds, totally inaccessible to the human race,

What a sad sad sad turn of events. I did not mean to undo us.

As for Ricko, its entirely coherent as a subjective state for objective conditions. They just do not seem coherent. Everyone knows, for instance, that Ricko-boy is preaching for quite coherent reasons - wealth, power, on behalf of a political party filled with utter pragmatists. Quite blandly coherent actually. Just like it is coherent when a religious person wants to live forever, because who indeed wants to die? Incoherent is relative to how subjective something really is.

Take for example a dream. I dream weird crap. Weird crap indeed. It has coherentness as building blocs, but it is so subjectively rooted, minutely rooted in it ... that it is relatively incoherent.

My new math is much the same. It is so rooted in minute intricacies of collective verbal expression and my own subjective glimmers and brain farts. It is divorced from practical meaning. You'd have to really dig into that verbiage to get anything objective out.

Maybe you could get out that I am interested in heresay about Quantum mechanics, hence I included Quark in one word. Or that I am interested in dialectics by the concept of a half-number, when does a number become a number, that kind of bullsh*t? You have to really dig deep, and you aren't going to learn a lot.

Sorry that I am less verbose tonight and more crude. It is 12(am) here and my heart is fluttering with possibilities that will never happen. I will be cold and machine like again by mid afternoon (tomorrow).


Edited by RoyFairbank - April 10 2012 at 23:23
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 00:06
Running low on LSD? Just read a RoyFairbanks post!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 08:25
Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:



I refuse to believe you believe that my most spurious banter could contain the seeds of eternal wisdom.


I said it didn't, but it could. Take it or leave it.

Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:


Would you base the human race's perspective on the possibility that it could contain such seeds, totally inaccessible to the human race,

What a sad sad sad turn of events. I did not mean to undo us.


No, but I would not do the same for evolution, or general relativity, or quantum mechanics, or Newton's Laws of Motion. It's a fools bet.

Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:


As for Ricko, its entirely coherent as a subjective state for objective conditions. They just do not seem coherent. Everyone knows, for instance, that Ricko-boy is preaching for quite coherent reasons - wealth, power, on behalf of a political party filled with utter pragmatists. Quite blandly coherent actually. Just like it is coherent when a religious person wants to live forever, because who indeed wants to die? Incoherent is relative to how subjective something really is.


I don't know where you're pulling your definition of incoherent from, but it is not the dictionary.

p implies q
not p
Therefore not q

There's nothing subjective about that argument, but it's incoherent.

Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:


Take for example a dream. I dream weird crap. Weird crap indeed. It has coherentness as building blocs, but it is so subjectively rooted, minutely rooted in it ... that it is relatively incoherent.


What's the point of this example?

Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:


My new math is much the same. It is so rooted in minute intricacies of collective verbal expression and my own subjective glimmers and brain farts. It is divorced from practical meaning. You'd have to really dig into that verbiage to get anything objective out.


No I don't. It could be a useful formulation. The origins of it have nothing to do with its practical abilities. Math history is replete with examples of vein, whimsical creations describing intricate processes of nature.

Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:


Maybe you could get out that I am interested in heresay about Quantum mechanics, hence I included Quark in one word. Or that I am interested in dialectics by the concept of a half-number, when does a number become a number, that kind of bullsh*t? You have to really dig deep, and you aren't going to learn a lot.


This is all irrelevant. Christian Kramp initiated the use of the ! to represent a factorial product. He did it because of his shock at how quickly factorials grow. His reasoning stands independent of the notation's use.

"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 09:14
Quote I said it didn't, but it could. Take it or leave it.


*Listening to Leave It by Yes*

I can feel no sense of measure and no illusions about you saying a blatant contradiction.

It really - as in reality - you basically admit, is complete bunk.

In a hypothetical vacuum beyond this reality of bullsh*tness, it could possibly, given we accept this vacuum, be nonbullsh*t. Hey it could be anything. Spin lead turds into golden skyscrapers.

Idealism. Which is what I have been saying all along.

Little do you know it but your creating exceptions to reality as it related to your own practice. And that's not something you can transcend! You are 1000000% human. Everything you think is human. It is even human to think you are thinking beyond your human-ness.

Our song, it gives us a reason, our song. [Next track]

 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 09:27
The answer is 42. Coincidence happens. A random formula, idea or hypothesis can be useful or it can be utterly useless, concepts do come from nothing (and at least one Universe that we know of).
 
100% human is probably a limit, Ermm even for Pat.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 10:07
Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

The answer is 42. Coincidence happens. A random formula, idea or hypothesis can be useful or it can be utterly useless, concepts do come from nothing (and at least one Universe that we know of).
 
100% human is probably a limit, Ermm even for Pat.


So the context of an idea does not matter, nor does the circumstances of the species who thought it up, and spontaneous generation is possibly a pivotal occurrence at the level of human cognition.

This is called idealism. When the idea has a supposed separate existence from practical reality.

Agnostics = Idealists

Its anything goes in the world of agnosticism. This is why the ultimate direction of western philosophy was towards post-modernism, because the agnostics concluded that since anything goes, nothing means anything.

What a tangled spontaneous web we weave.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 10:56
Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:

Quote I said it didn't, but it could. Take it or leave it.


*Listening to Leave It by Yes*

I can feel no sense of measure and no illusions about you saying a blatant contradiction.

It really - as in reality - you basically admit, is complete bunk.

In a hypothetical vacuum beyond this reality of bullsh*tness, it could possibly, given we accept this vacuum, be nonbullsh*t. Hey it could be anything. Spin lead turds into golden skyscrapers.

Idealism. Which is what I have been saying all along.

Little do you know it but your creating exceptions to reality as it related to your own practice. And that's not something you can transcend! You are 1000000% human. Everything you think is human. It is even human to think you are thinking beyond your human-ness.

Our song, it gives us a reason, our song. [Next track]



It's only a contradiction if you fail to differentiate between colloquial and literal speech. I literally recognize a non-zero probability of your idea being useful. However, in my somewhat informed opinion on the subject, I do not believe it to be. In the same way I would say: I have eaten broccoli. I never eat broccoli. This would not be a contradiction.

As Dean said, that might be a little bit too much human for me to achieve. Little do you know it I'm neither creating exceptions to reality nor do I think I think beyond my human-ness.

"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 11:03
Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:



So the context of an idea does not matter, nor does the circumstances of the species who thought it up, and spontaneous generation is possibly a pivotal occurrence at the level of human cognition.

This is called idealism. When the idea has a supposed separate existence from practical reality.


I'm sorry but that is reality. The use of an idea is independent from the circumstances which gave rise to it. You cannot even prove that the idea had something give rise to it. Particles jump from nothingness into being with no cause. Your theory is insufficiently narrow to practically model reality.

Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:


Its anything goes in the world of agnosticism. This is why the ultimate direction of western philosophy was towards post-modernism, because the agnostics concluded that since anything goes, nothing means anything.

What a tangled spontaneous web we weave.



Unfortunately, you are incorrect. Your very attempt to claim agnosticism as some rigidly defined philosophy betrays the accuracy of the statement itself. Further though, Agnosticism en masse does not claim anything goes. Unless you can prepare a step of deductions to go from "Things not disproved are possible" to anything goes, we have little reason to keep debating this.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 11:08
Originally posted by The T The T wrote:

The purpose of this thread is to discuss the origins of your beliefs, or actually, lack thereof (in the case of Atheism) As I'm pretty sure that, unlike most cases with religion, atheism and similar secular school of thoughts are not imposed or taught by parents, it's more than likely that in most cases you will have reached ythe decision not to believe (or at least the decision to DOUBT) by your own free will (this doesn't mean ALL religious people haven't made their choice out of free will)  How did that happen? When, how old where you? Are you happy about your choice or at times you long for the days when you had something to believe?
 
I'd also love to hear about people who have their own versions of God, not dependant of churches or holy books or prophets....
 My desire in the past to take on the role of Atheism grew from anger. I was a victim of a Satan worshipping community in my hometown. Several cases which were dismissed brought me to the attention that elderly members of a Satan worshippers sect had posed in churches and as a result, I became disgusted with both ends of the spectrum. Christianity in the day and Satan cults at night. It was complete duo worship in my hometown and this had been evident to me when I was a child.
 
As a child it became (at first), difficult to discover  just who belonged to a cult. You would want to discover that to protect yourself. There were ritualistic killings in the newspapers, people were convicted, but it seemed as if nothing was being done regarding a solution to the overall problem these cults created. I probably stay out of churches because of the fear I have from what I have witnessed in the past. Obviously I have experienced a much more extreme series of events which can be nailed down to the phrase of "Being in the wrong place at the wrong time" lol!

This happened back in the mid to late 60's and the early 70's. I still carry some of the scars and still make attempts to attend church for the pathetic choice of reaching out to Christians who have a positive outlook on life. It seems farce to me due to all the secret meetings or seperate meetings of church members who practiced Luciferian concepts on my friends in the 60's and 70's. It's difficult to put it behind me. I still converse with a few of them who are either in the mental shelter or those who sit at home and can no longer work for a living. They have posted their testimonies on line and I stay in contact with them.
 
In High School....I experienced the bizzare....or what would have been known then as bizzare. My hometown was infested with cults. Satan cults in the woods, secret meetings that were held in mansions, 3rd generation Watchtower society, and just a vast amount of people who practiced witchcraft and perhaps did not belong to a cult. A boy was sacrificed to the Devil then kids were handcuffed and sent away for medical testing. I have been damaged and torn by the realization of this community for many years. Over the years it has destroyed my ability to have faith in a God.....what ever you think that God may be. Cosmic muffin? whatever. I don't see the ghosts that people claim to have seen. I have never seen a demon and I personally think it is foolish to worship Satan. I have only witnessed the physical torture of people. If someone was working roots on you and you didn't believe in voodoo or Black magic, then perhaps you were affected by roots or medicine. It's confusing because you are led to believe that someone has you under a spell...but in the logical sense it is nothing more than the affect of medicine or worded long ago as a witch doctor's potion.
 
If someone from a Satan cult decides to stab you, it is all about their physical being and not some demon riding on their shoulder giving a command. Perhaps one should consider that this is all very delusional on the cult members behalf. It seems just a laughable concept when people talk themselves into believing that worshipping Satan will grant them more power than the hobo eating out of a trashcan. It always revolves around their agenda to gain power by following the left hand path. I've seen nothing but pain for people and that's where the logic in my mind rules over any pursuit to gain power through some dark spiritual realm. In the film "Rosemary's Baby" one of the actors screams out..."God is dead!" "Satan Lives!". In my hometown there was duo worship and now I find it almost impossible to believe in anything. How can anyone have trust after that realization?  
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 12:13
Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:

The answer is 42. Coincidence happens. A random formula, idea or hypothesis can be useful or it can be utterly useless, concepts do come from nothing (and at least one Universe that we know of).
 
100% human is probably a limit, Ermm even for Pat.


So the context of an idea does not matter, nor does the circumstances of the species who thought it up, and spontaneous generation is possibly a pivotal occurrence at the level of human cognition.
You are creating a causality connection where none exists or is implied. Context can be important and in most instances it is but that does not discount the possibility that it isn't, or the discontinuity between context and circumstance that results in the concept lacks the contiguity to say that A begets B. Of course there is a good chance there will be some cause that resulted in the idea, but they two may be so unrelated as to make any link between them tenuous, just because we cannot determine the cause of the idea does not render the idea useless or worthless.
Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:


This is called idealism. When the idea has a supposed separate existence from practical reality.
Only to a philosophy student. In the real world it means something else.
Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:


Agnostics = Idealists
I doubt it.
Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:


Its anything goes in the world of agnosticism. This is why the ultimate direction of western philosophy was towards post-modernism, because the agnostics concluded that since anything goes, nothing means anything.
Well, if you say so, but as I don't care to know what post-modernism means then it doesn't matter which direction philosophers meander in. I don't think agnostics (or athiests) have a unified philosophy - the very idea would be an anathema to most of them - just as they don't have a church or a codex.
Originally posted by RoyFairbank RoyFairbank wrote:


What a tangled spontaneous web we weave.
When first we practice to deceive? ... no, you've lost me.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 12:24
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 12:26
Religions use the word cult to denigrate other religions. 
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2012 at 13:23

...though some of them are cults, but perhaps not religions in the accepted sense of the word.

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