Controversial Opinions on Life

[Saparmurat_Niyazov]

It seems that most people in the Western World that believe in God fall under that category, i.e. "Spiritual, not religious". For example, I have a friend that calls herself a Muslim because she agrees with the Koran, but she doesn't wear any of the ceremonial head wraps, drinks alcohol, nor does she pray at a mosque. I just don't think that a belief in god(s) or the supernatural are necessary to appreciate things like awe and wonder, have a moral base, or recognize that moral relativism has its limits (in other words, good and evil do exist).

 

[Vimana]

Was it by Carl Gustav Jung, Mircea Eliade, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, or Clifford Geertz?

Nope, Stephen J Gould. I forget the title, but I really don't recommend. Shit book. The guy is not as harsh with his reasoning as Dawkins, but he has more flaws in logic. I couldn't finish the book, but I kept reading the thesis over and over (it kept getting restated) and just got tired of the shitty reasoning.

I wrote an essay about why I'm an atheist. I can post it if anyone wants to read it. My type of atheism isn't the Dawkins type. I'm open to the possibility that any god, including one I can make up, could exist, and so I do not declare a belief in any at the expense of denying the possibility of all others. I feel my rational standpoint is pretty sound, but I can understand if someone in my place chooses to be religious. I must emphasize that I am not agnostic. I have been called that before, but agnostics consider a belief in a deity or deities. I don't.

One thing I hate is how little perspective everyone has about religion. They seem to think that their beliefs are the correct ones while all others are wrong. They don't seem to put it together that thousands of religions on this planet have thought that. I hate it when they say "oh, well Jesus says he is the way, so we're right." No. That doesn't mean you're right. It means you believe you're right and that a book supports your belief, but as for your belief being more rational than any other of the same type, no.

My family members, especially my Hispanic ones seem to regard my atheism as some kind of sickness. Like I've lost hope. I feel fulfilled by life, and my atheism has nothing to do with it. I consider the existence of a god very irrelevant to my existence. I treat gods the way traditional Buddhists treat them, I don't believe in any because I can be happy without them and they are simply something that can be questioned and ultimately cannot be rationalized unlike a question like "how can I be happy?"

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The "99%" probably mostly deserve their position in the lower realms of American society. In my personal experience, society progresses due to a small minority of independent thinkers and the rest only serve to maintain it through routine tasks. Even there, you see the people that brag about posting on internet forums at work, and they're the first ones laid off. Not to say that everyone suffering in a bad economy deserves it, but a lot of them *are* inferior beings. And at college it just becomes ridiculous with the amount of people whose entire goal is to stay consistently around the 51st percentile, where any time spent studying when they could have made a passing grade was potential party time wasted. Middle-class white people are particularly bad when it comes to this. The more illegal immigrants taking their jobs the better as far as I am concerned.

 

[Saparmurat_Niyazov]

Nope, Stephen J Gould.

Of course, how could I forget that guy? The 20th century was indeed a time of religious apologists.

@ Hamburger: Of course the 99% deserve to be where we are. That's why we're called 99%. The bigger argument is how much of the 1% deserve to have such a huge slice of the pie? Is every hedge fund manager really an innovator who's improving our civilization? Is every CEO an inventor? How many of them just got lucky (like Steve Jobs did, imo)? Don't get me wrong, you're right that if you wasted 4 - 6 years going to college getting a stupid liberal arts degree, you have no one to blame but yourself. However, I think there is something to be said for being concerned about the rapidly widening gap between rich and poor.

 

[Vimana]

I hate when people say the movement is about nothing.

 

[Dak]

Read the fucking "Mystery of Banking" and you will understand exactly who and what should be protested.

 

[Einherjar86]

Edit: Not to mention being argued into any religion would require a complete abandonment of logic.....

Assuming there exists an ideal, pure, blank slate of absolute logic, the parameters of which, if followed, would reveal Truth itself to the individual pursuing it, it seems to me that those who disbelieved in it but were debated unto the point that they "converted" were actually embracing logic, not abandoning it.

Unless you're insinuating that belief in religion is not a "logical" (in the analytic sense of the term) practice.

 

[SentinelSlain]

I know a load of kids who went to the best private school in my area. They basically got told how "special" they were constantly and seek evidence for the necessity of social stratification in everything around them.

 

[Dak]

Assuming there exists an ideal, pure, blank slate of absolute logic, the parameters of which, if followed, would reveal Truth itself to the individual pursuing it, it seems to me that those who disbelieved in it but were debated unto the point that they "converted" were actually embracing logic, not abandoning it.

Unless you're insinuating that belief in religion is not a "logical" (in the analytic sense of the term) practice.

I'm saying that there is no "natural" evidence to prove, at best, the existence of one deity vs the other, and really none to prove one at all excluding the overwhelming amount of religious documents/experiences/etc.

Therefore, absent your own personal experience with the divine, to be persuaded to accept a particular dogma would require an abandonment of logic and/or reason, since even most religions have more than one interpretation of their own texts, so to pick one purely on someone's word kind of takes the "god" aspect right out of the whole affair.

 

[Zephyrus]

I want to go back in time and shoot Kierkegaard in the face.

 

[Einherjar86]

Dak: my main issue with what you said is this point:

Edit: Could it be a delusion? Well I assume that's a possibility, but unless my life turns into a flaming wreckage due to my beliefs, I have no reason to care, do I?

So you're essentially claiming that existence under the influence of an illusion isn't necessarily bad considering the individual's own well-being. If you're happy with your life and conditions of existence, then you shouldn't care.

Some people might say the same about societal institutions that impose certain restrictions on their conditions of existence.

Edit#2: It can't be a misinterpretation, because assuming I was "contacted", why would said divine thing go through the trouble of reaching out to me and then allow the misinterpretation? That would seem rather dumb.

Why do you assume its intentions aren't to deceive you?

 

[Dak]

So you're essentially claiming that existence under the influence of an illusion isn't necessarily bad considering the individual's own well-being. If you're happy with your life and conditions of existence, then you shouldn't care.

Some people might say the same about societal institutions that impose certain restrictions on their conditions of existence.

I didn't say it couldn't be bad. I'm saying how would you know? Especially since we are talking about illusions, and the only benchmark we would have regarding the supernatural is to compare it to the natural phenomena around us.

Comparing human edifices to the potentiality of divine constructs is comparing apples and oranges, but that really is the historical and current root of the argument for said societal constructs.

Why do you assume its intentions aren't to deceive you?

What is achieved by the deception?

 

[Vimana]

Who would know? An infinite being almost certainly isn't human. We can only guess what its nature is like.

 

[Saparmurat_Niyazov]

As someone who is anti-state, you should know exactly what is achieved by deception.

 

[Dak]

As someone who is anti-state, you should know exactly what is achieved by deception.

Ah, but we are talking about the divine. Aren't they in control anyway? Or if they aren't, is it really the divine? Or some other thing?

If said being is "evil" and is in control, we are all quite fucked anyway. If it is good, then there is no problem. If it is something that has no control, it is still completely alien to our current knowledge in a natural sense, and thus what would be the benchmark for judging the intent, etc.?

 

[Einherjar86]

I didn't say it couldn't be bad. I'm saying how would you know? Especially since we are talking about illusions, and the only benchmark we would have regarding the supernatural is to compare it to the natural phenomena around us.

This is our first mistake: assuming that which is "supranatural" would abide by physical or human laws.

What is achieved by the deception?

I don't understand why this question is important at all; perhaps from your point of view this is relevant. As far as I'm concerned, I don't see why we have to impose anthropomorphic tendencies onto such an entity. As far as achievements go, its thoughts processes might be entirely removed from ours. What does it matter what is achieved?

 

[Dak]

This is our first mistake: assuming that which is "supranatural" would abide by physical or human laws.

I agree. So how could we even begin to tell a deception from the truth?

I don't understand why this question is important at all; perhaps from your point of view this is relevant. As far as I'm concerned, I don't see why we have to impose anthropomorphic tendencies onto such an entity. As far as achievements go, its thoughts processes might be entirely removed from ours. What does it matter what is achieved?

We do not need to impose such tendencies. You asked me a question though that attempted to box it into those, or I misunderstood your intent . I doubt it is possible for humans to see things outside of a ego-centric perspective, much less outside a human-centric perspective.

 

[Einherjar86]

I agree. So how could we even begin to tell a deception from the truth?

Why does this apply to supernatural/divine realms or entities, but not to human-made constructs or institutions? I, personally, feel that what many (including myself) might call our pitfalls of illusion and ideology are rooted in our very consciousness, making them essential components of our cognitive existence. To attempt to break through these ideological barriers and arrive at some pristine, primeval, objective Truth would result in the death of consciousness (as we understand it, being trapped within it).

Thus, in my opinion, social constructs and divine constructs spawn from the same source (and I would categorize divine constructs as social constructs).

We do not need to impose such tendencies. You asked me a question though that attempted to box it into those, or I misunderstood your intent . I doubt it is possible for humans to see things outside of a ego-centric perspective, much less outside a human-centric perspective.

Both characterizations stand, in my opinion (providing the entity is real):

If it is a supranatural entity whose actions and decisions (or what we perceive as such) lie beyond our comprehension, then you have no way of knowing what it wants, and you should be skeptical of it.

If it is an entity that actually possesses anthropomorphic qualities (and we haven't simply projected these onto it) then you have to take into account the fact that it might choose to deceive you because you did something to annoy it, or displease it; or, finally, it has no achievements in mind. Its intentions are simply for its own satisfaction. If this is the case, you should be skeptical of it.

Furthermore, provided it is actually a social construct that is a figment of some complex processes taking place within your mind, you should be skeptical of it.

The final argument being, as you've already said, that if we haven't had our own experience, you can't possibly explain it to us; to which I have no retort.

Belief, I have so specify though, is more persuasive if the subject possessing the belief expresses that she does not "know" the object of her belief. To know and to believe are very different. Belief requires ignorance, but not a negative ignorance. In belief, ignorance assumes a positive form. That which you do not know becomes the support for your belief.

 

[Saparmurat_Niyazov]

This ties into the debate upon the existence of a God and my critique on quantum mechanics: Since multiple, and possibly an infinite number of parallel universes supposedly exist, then god, the supernatural, and mythical creatures must exist in at least one of them. That is my problem with quantum mechanics. The implications of a speculation such as that destroy not only science but religion also, does it not?

 

[Zephyrus]

On a hypercosmic scale, perhaps.