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**Anonymouse** · 02-19-2004, 11:54 PM

Originally posted by loseyourname First off, I didn't. I used reason. Second, if you are indeed Christian, then your faith has many things to say about historical events that are quite material. If they indeed occured, there would be evidence. If god indeed intervened the way he is said to have done, people would have noticed. It would have left some mark. I'm not saying it didn't. I really haven't looked into this enough to be able to say, although I certainly know the synoptic gospels at least are extremely suspect.

Eventually what we come to is how we lead our lives. Two people can look at the same situation and see it entirely differently. Thus, I can look at the majesty of nature, and its intricate web of organisms and processes that maintain and sustain life. I can look at the world and see a purpose, a pattern, and thought. I can see this beauty as evidence of intelligent design. I can look at life and see things that happen as miracles and interventions by God in our daily lives. I can have experiences that defy reason and logic, and believe this as evidence of Providence in my inner self. You can look at the same situation, and see nothing but chaos, nature is chaos, there is no intelligent design other than the haphazardness which pervades, everything see everything that is in our world as being evidence of this world and nothing more. If I wonder how they came to be, I obviously am moving away from science and my reasoning into forbidden territory that do not deal with science and reasoning. Thus I will leave that aside and not believe in any thing that I do not believe is provable or testable. I can have the same experiences and epiphanies and simply dismiss them as nothing more than an imbalance in brain waves or chemicals.

The problem with the Bible and its claims is that like anything else, it has been translated mistranslated, omitted, and the Bible, lets not forget, is only an amalgamation of a few books. There are a whole series of books that are not in what we call �The Bible�. Therefore, whatever history it talks about, we only have a limited understanding of it. But when the basic symbols and allegories of Christianity are compared with other religious beliefs and pagan religions, things become more in focus, as to how there is a certain connection between all these things that have been the uttered by one people or another.

Originally posted by loseyourname That is a completely unsubstantiated statement that you have still yet to back up. I have provided actual arguments for my assertion that faith and reason are not mutually exclusive. You have also yet to address these arguments.

Do we have reason to believe that historians have lied to us? Yes we do, yet we take on their word. Do we have reason to believe that politicians have lied? Yes we do, yet we take on their word for it. Do we have reason to believe that maybe our girlfriend doesn�t really love us? Yes we do, yet we take on their word for it.

Originally posted by loseyourname Wrong. Your complete ignorance of my arguments showing your fallacy show that you have no idea what you're talking about. You're just making things up and giving no backing for them whatsoever.

Yes, yes, I have no idea what I am talking about, and you know all. I love how the argument has revolved to little kids on a playground field, �I have this I�m better than you�, and you say �no you don�t have that�. Really, you seem to like it this way more so than before.

Originally posted by loseyourname Yes, and it has worked. You have contradicted yourself many times, and you have fallen in so deep that you can't produce any justification or defense of yourself. You simply to contradict your own beliefs and them defend yourself by saying that because your beliefs are based on faith, they can contradict themselves because they are not subject to reason. That simply doesn't hold up.

Oh woe is me, I have contradicted myself, says the self styled logician. I can�t produce any evidence of myself now he says HAHA! That was hilarity at its finest. When did I say because my beliefs are based on faith they can�t contradict themselves? In fact, I have not unless you can prove otherwise. I said my position is based on faith which is based on experiences that I have had that reason and logic cannot explain. Of course, for your sake you can make it elastic just to have some room to argue. I support you!

Originally posted by loseyourname One more time you make a knowledge claim as to another human being's motivation. I'm going to start quoting you on these.

I made a knowledge claim? It was more like an observation.

Originally posted by loseyourname Finally, you admit that you don't know. This is all I've wanted the entire time. Can we finally let this go now that you have admitted that you do not know?

I argued in the above from your perspective, to show you where you and I stand different, and where we differ, thus obviously you don�t know. Remember earlier I was arguing that knowledge can come through revelation, or experiences that defy logic.

Originally posted by loseyourname Exactamundo, Mousy. You don't know, you only have faith. Thank you for finally saying what I have been saying the entire time. You have faith, not knowledge.

It is only assumed that knowledge alone comes from scientific research and not through divine revelation. Thus, I�m helping you understand by taking your stance of �we don�t know�. I know and feel there is something greater than us just like I know and feel there is a soul and thought. That what I feel to be Providence is watching us and at times interfering in our lives, is where faith comes in. I have faith that it was that force and intelligence that uttered word and thought and created mountain and molecule. What you have been saying the entire time is �we don�t know�. Well, where do we come from? Where does anything come from? You �don�t know� you will say. But if we try to be cool and use logic, it would indicate that we had to have come from somewhere. Where?

Originally posted by loseyourname Yes, and you may be wrong. These things may explainable in completely material terms. We won't know until a complete inventory of human gene expression and brain function is done. It will be a while, and after that no one else will be having this argument.

And I �may� be right. Then again I �may� be wrong. But to me it�s not a matter of who is right or wrong, as it seems to be where you get excited. To me it�s more a matter of discussing and stimulating the mind, more so than being �right�, which to you is obviously your central point. This is perhaps the silliest example of human arrogance at work. This type of thinking would imply that eventually we can conquer nature and know the purpose and reason for everything and even how we �got here�, if taken to its logical ends. The obvious ignorance in your statement of trying to attribute morality and thought to �genes� deserves a thread on its own. Moreover, we know that �thought� is intangible and exists even when we die. We make a thought, and it lives past our lives. Socrates exclaimed his thoughts, and they live with us today. Kant made a thought and it lives with us today. Marx exclaimed a thought and it is with us today. And if we assume your line of argument of genes answering everything, where did genes come from?

Originally posted by loseyourname Yes Dude, you really gotta take the mouse of your pocket. It is you, not we, that have faith in this.

So you don�t believe something created us? Why not?

Originally posted by loseyourname So you disagree that you need evidence, then you produce evidence?

I disagree with �evidence� in the scientific sense of the term �evidence� which you are arguing for. I have �evidence� that is not necessarily �scientific� such as experiences which I cannot answer using reason.

Originally posted by loseyourname Wrong. You cannot prove those things to another person. You can prove them quite easily to yourself, and the fact that every single person that has ever testified claims to have experiences these exact same things, an extremely small leap of faith (actually, it's called inductive logic) leads us to believe that all humans possess these things.

�Wrong! You cannot prove this or that, you are wrong.� Really, you have to calm down. Most of your first words begin with �wrong�. �You are wrong, wrong, wrong�. So you are saying basically that I cannot prove morality to another person. In fact, I don�t need to prove it, we have it �built in� so to speak. It is against the law to kill a person. For hypothetical purposes, let�s assume the State repeals that law. Would you kill someone?

**Anonymouse** · 02-19-2004, 11:54 PM

Originally posted by loseyourname Then why do you keep saying that you do know? Why did people believe from the dawn of time that the earth was flat and that lightning came from an angry god? So you're not meant to know, yet you must believe that you know?

Why do I keep saying that I know? Because I have a secret.

I�m restating your position of �we don�t know�, but at the same time, trying to point out the anomalies that cannot be explained with reason, thus that itself lets us know that there is something greater than us. Why did the profane and the ignorant worship the sun or moon or stars? In fact many cultures practiced sun worship. Now, if we look at the exoteric meaning of this, it would seem stupid and ignorant for someone to believe in the sun. When it�s esoteric meaning is understood in the context of the ancient mysteries, the sun represents a great truth. It represents intelligence and intellect. The moon was the church of the ancient mysteries, and the stars were the followers or the initiates. When we understand this, we can see how there is purpose in the ancient pagan religions that go back to Providence.

Originally posted by loseyourname Because they may have a material, identifiable cause. Many philosophers have argued pretty effectively for ethical systems using reason alone, and many biologists have argued that recognition of the good may be completely explainable in material terms. I'm not saying they're right, in fact, I lean the other way, but you are saying they're wrong, and the simple fact is, you don't know that.

Many philosophers and biologists can argue all they wish. If I am an adherent of God and believe he created us all, and that all our systems of morality, of aesthetics, of metaphysics all emanate from this same source, philosophers and biologists have not much place here. Obviously for you they do. Thus morality is a part of us all. We live in a community and the life of any community depends on its moral condition. Public spirit, intelligence, uprightness, kindness, will make it a happy community, give it prosperity and continuance. Wide spread selfishness, dishonesty, corruption, crime will make it miserable and bring about its hasty ruin. Thus from every direction of metaphysics, aesthetics, and morality above all, we rise to the same principle, the common center, and ultimate foundation of all truth, all beauty and all good. The true, beauty, good are all diverse revelations of the same being.

Moreover, it is religion, not philosophy that at least gives man a father, a witness, a judge, so to speak, and from which emanates the concept of morality of �right� and �wrong� that we feel we have to live up to. How else does one explain morality and its reasons for being, why we feel that certain things are right or wrong? By religion, philosophy connects itself with humanity, from one end of the world to th other, believes and aspires in God. Philosophy contains in itself the common basis of all religious beliefs. It borrows from them their principle, and returns it to them with clarity. Maybe we should reformulate our thoughts so as to avoid the long point by point responses, get to the gist of statements, i.e. �I say blah blah blah blah� and you offer response �blah blah blah blah�.

Originally posted by loseyourname It is an idea that may or may not originate in biochemical processes in our brains. Your argument from personal incredulity does you no service.

If ideas are immaterial and when we reason about ideas, we are reasoning about immaterial things, how can ideas be traced to �biochemical processes� in our brains? Moreover, thoughts and ideas exist even when we die, therefore no more biochemical processes in our brains, yet our thoughts live on and are read, heard and thought of by other humans.

Originally posted by loseyourname If science has anything to say, it is only where these originate chemically. It has nothing to say about what they are conceptually or how they should be used. Science may be able to tell us why we have a sense of moral, but science cannot tell us what is moral.

But where does this sense of morality come from?

Originally posted by loseyourname Well, thanks for interjecting your unwanted sarcasm into other people's serious discussions. This is exactly why I said you're a five year-old. .

I don�t know about why, but I kinda like the idea of not growing up. You?

Originally posted by loseyourname [B]You said they can't show that certain animal behavior is automatic and unconscious. I only said it will explain behaviors and functions and by that give us only a new name of that, not its underlying cause or what its source is. And you are wrong. The source is gene expression modified through environment. Nobody is renaming the actions.[B]

Where did I say that? Not that I�m saying you�re making it up, it�s just my brain is hazy after midterms. And if so, I ask for evidence to prove me wrong. Furthermore I never said you are renaming them, I just said you are giving new names to new processes. Where do these �gene expressions� come from? And where do �genes� come from? But going back to what I said earlier, how do we know that they are not self aware and conscious? Science cannot know that, and this goes back to what I said earlier. It can only say an animal behaves a certain way, due to genes, but does it think or express thought?

Originally posted by loseyourname [B]And you are wrong. The source is gene expression modified through environment. Nobody is renaming the actions.[B]

Gene expression determines thoughts? Really? When was this proven?

Originally posted by loseyourname [B]The laws of physics are the source. The only thing science can't explain is the source of the laws of physics.[ B]

Read what I wrote and read this. This had noting to do with what I said. What was your point?

Originally posted by loseyourname Which are a good start. Without any investigation, this is probably the best evidence we have. It is not, however, enough by itself. Now if you will let us get past this, I will post additional evidence.

Why is it not enough? Why do you think an immaterial, intangible thing such as a soul has a material basis? This is how I sum it up. God is a soul, and it has created everything and endowed us with a soul. These are all immaterial. Moreover we all have root in the immaterial. We all must have come or been created by something, i.e. the material world must have been created.

Oh and as far as deleting my 4000 posts, do you think you scare me with that threat?

**loseyourname** · 02-20-2004, 12:32 PM

I'm not going to bother quoting what you posted in regards to space and time in the hopes that we can preserve space here. Every argument that you have presented shows very effectively that our perception of space and time are subjective and cannot be used as effective measuring devices. That is fine. I agree with you there, and frankly, that's rather obvious to begin with. But you have not addressed anything I have said. Time and space themselves are not objective, and they can most certainly be measured.

You continue to point out that years are based on a Gregorian calendar. I have told you before, when a scientist uses that term, that is not what he is basing it on. He is basing it on the time it takes the Earth to make one full revolution of the sun. Now that time actually does change somewhat over time, although the change is so negligible that it isn't important. Nonetheless, scientists have still devised a more reliable means of telling time. The second is defined as 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a microwave absorbed by a cesium atom. This is accurate to a deviation of one second every 20 million years. There is nothing subjective about this.

Furthermore, as I have pointed out, we measure space and time both using objects that exist within them. The meter is defined as the length that a ray of light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds. Yet another completely objective standard. The speed of light does not ever change; it is a universal constant.

I don't see the difficulty you are having with this. You continue to argue about human perception and I am not going to argue with you about that. Of course it is flawed, again, that is why I am telling you continually not to trust your perception. Now you're going to tell me that because your perceptions did not come to you through a physical sense, they are not flawed? So every endeavor a human being can hope to make in terms of measuring something is flawed and can never be done successfully, yet you can tell me that you know for certain the universe is created by an intelligent being because your perception is not flawed? Honestly, Mousy? Are you kidding me?

Originally posted by Anonymouse The point with that example, as with all other examples, is that our measurement of what we think time and space is, changes.

Your point is that when our speed changes, our measurement of our speed changes? Do you really need to make that point?

I have shown before that time and space have material existence. They are not intangible. You cannot feel them, Mousy, in the same way you cannot feel a neutrino or a photon, because it has no mass. However, neutrinos and photons behave in a manner that sets off chemical reactions that allow us to detect their presence, because they have a certain energy. Time and space don't even have this. Nonetheless, they have the property that they are the medium in which all things in our universe acquire properties and they can be observed through observation of these object's properties. A ray of light can be observed to travel in a curved path when it passed a massive object. Time dilation can be shown to occur in objects that move close to the speed of light. This is because space and time are both malleable. That which is immaterial and intangible is not malleable. That is the end of the story. You can argue endlessly about human perception, but your arguments are completely irrelevant to any point that I am making.

This is if you assume Jesus to be human, but then again this is if you assume the story of Jesus to be literal. But like I mentioned later in my post, faith is faith, logic is logic. I don�t see what you are jammering about here.

Even if you don't assume Jesus to be human, he still can't both be and not be God at the same time. It seems that you have nothing to say to this, so you continually deflect. I will ask once again: Do you believe that Jesus is God? If not, how can you call yourself a Christian? If you do, how do you reconcile this with the fact that competing faiths, using exactly the same perfect immaterial perception that you use, say that he is not?

**loseyourname** · 02-20-2004, 01:01 PM

Originally posted by Anonymouse [B]But when the basic symbols and allegories of Christianity are compared with other religious beliefs and pagan religions, things become more in focus, as to how there is a certain connection between all these things that have been the uttered by one people or another. [/QUOTES]

That is your belief. Others, who use exactly the same faith that you use, come to different conclusions. They don't think that when you analyze, competing faiths will reconcile. They believe that you are wrong, or that Islam is wrong, or that Jainism is wrong, or that Hinduism is wrong, or that Shamanism is wrong, or that Satanism is wrong. How is it that you are the one person amongst all these that happens to be right?

Do we have reason to believe that historians have lied to us? Yes we do, yet we take on their word. Do we have reason to believe that politicians have lied? Yes we do, yet we take on their word for it. Do we have reason to believe that maybe our girlfriend doesn�t really love us? Yes we do, yet we take on their word for it.

Are you trying to make my point for me here? You have just shown why it is foolish to accept things on faith alone. The fact that we do it doesn't mean we should be doing it. Quite to the contrary, I believe that any prudent person would agree that we should always critically analyze and question the assertions of historians, politicians, and lovers.

Oh woe is me, I have contradicted myself, says the self styled logician. I can�t produce any evidence of myself now he says HAHA! That was hilarity at its finest. When did I say because my beliefs are based on faith they can�t contradict themselves?

So you admit that you contradict yourself, but it's okay because it is faith contradicting faith? Is this honestly how you acquire a belief system?

I made a knowledge claim? It was more like an observation.

You observed me state many times that I do not believe it is moral to use faith alone as a justification for metaphysical belief, and that I would battle anyone who attempted to do so. Then you said that it was my ego that was forcing me to keep this up. First off, that is a knowledge claim. Second, you have made many others, saying that all humans desire a creator and that all humans desire moral order. Third, what is it that is making you keep this up that is any different from what is making me keep this up?

[QUOTES]I argued in the above from your perspective, to show you where you and I stand different, and where we differ, thus obviously you don�t know. Remember earlier I was arguing that knowledge can come through revelation, or experiences that defy logic.

I agreed that knowledge can come from revelation. You are not arguing that your knowledge came from revelation. You are saying it came from experiences that defy logic. You will still not say what they are, and so we don't know if they even do defy logic.

It is only assumed that knowledge alone comes from scientific research and not through divine revelation.

Assumed by who? I never assumed that.

But if we try to be cool and use logic, it would indicate that we had to have come from somewhere.

Then be cool. Show me some logic that proves we have to have been created.

And I �may� be right. Then again I �may� be wrong. But to me it�s not a matter of who is right or wrong, as it seems to be where you get excited. To me it�s more a matter of discussing and stimulating the mind, more so than being �right�, which to you is obviously your central point.

If it's a matter of arguing and not being right, why are you continually claiming that you are right and that our universe is the product of an intelligent creator. I have never made any similar knowledge claim.

This is perhaps the silliest example of human arrogance at work. This type of thinking would imply that eventually we can conquer nature and know the purpose and reason for everything and even how we �got here�, if taken to its logical ends.

I would like you to demonstrate for us how my argument that there are things we can't know leads to the logical conclusion that we can eventually know everything.

The obvious ignorance in your statement of trying to attribute morality and thought to �genes� deserves a thread on its own.

When did I attribute them to genes? I said they may be attributable to genes. If you want to start a thread about this, do so. I will have mountains of evidence on my side, and I'm guessing you will have more sophistry.

Moreover, we know that �thought� is intangible and exists even when we die. We make a thought, and it lives past our lives. Socrates exclaimed his thoughts, and they live with us today. Kant made a thought and it lives with us today. Marx exclaimed a thought and it is with us today.

This is because there are thinking human beings alive today that have knowledge of what these thoughts are. These thoughts will die as soon as they are forgotten, or thinking entities capable of remembering them vanish. This is beside the point anyway. The point isn't whether thoughts can persist. The point is whether individual awareness of these thoughts exists. Sure, Socrates' argument are still here for us to read and study. But does Socrates himself still exist?

And if we assume your line of argument of genes answering everything, where did genes come from?

This is best asked in the evolution thread, as this is a question of biochemical evolution. However, Christine would be better qualified to answer this for you, so you may want to ask her.

So you don�t believe something created us? Why not?

Because the laws of physics, by themselves, are enough to explain the order and diversity of life that we find today. There is no need to invoke intelligent creation. There are only two questions left unanswered.

First, how did those laws themselves come into existence? This may very well be something we can never answer, and that's fine. As I said, I believe there are things that we will never answer. Science might be able to explain this through M-theory, which is nowhere near being fully worked out, but even then, it cannot explain where superstrings themselves came from. There is always a cap on human knowledge. One can make a leap of faith and say they were created, or one can make a leap of faith and say that they are uncreated. I will make no such leap.

The second question pertains to human consciousness? What exactly is it, and how did it arise? It remains to be seen whether or not science has much of meaning to say about this. The scientific study of consciousness is a very new and unorganized discipline. Fifty years from now, when this is no longer the case, we can get back together and do this all over again, just like old times.

In fact, I don�t need to prove it, we have it �built in� so to speak. It is against the law to kill a person. For hypothetical purposes, let�s assume the State repeals that law. Would you kill someone?

That's exactly what I said, Mousy. There is no need to prove these things because all humans report having the same experience of morality and self-awareness and thought. Of course I would not kill anyone. I do not refrain from doing so because it is against the law. An intelligent person can very easily avoid being caught and prosecuted under that law.

**Anonymouse** · 02-20-2004, 01:16 PM

Originally posted by loseyourname I'm not going to bother quoting what you posted in regards to space and time in the hopes that we can preserve space here. Every argument that you have presented shows very effectively that our perception of space and time are subjective and cannot be used as effective measuring devices. That is fine. I agree with you there, and frankly, that's rather obvious to begin with. But you have not addressed anything I have said. Time and space themselves are not objective, and they can most certainly be measured.

You continue to point out that years are based on a Gregorian calendar. I have told you before, when a scientist uses that term, that is not what he is basing it on. He is basing it on the time it takes the Earth to make one full revolution of the sun. Now that time actually does change somewhat over time, although the change is so negligible that it isn't important. Nonetheless, scientists have still devised a more reliable means of telling time. The second is defined as 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a microwave absorbed by a cesium atom. This is accurate to a deviation of one second every 20 million years. There is nothing subjective about this.

Furthermore, as I have pointed out, we measure space and time both using objects that exist within them. The meter is defined as the length that a ray of light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds. Yet another completely objective standard. The speed of light does not ever change; it is a universal constant.

I have shown before that time and space have material existence. They are not intangible. You cannot feel them, Mousy, in the same way you cannot feel a neutrino or a photon, because it has no mass. However, neutrinos and photons behave in a manner that sets off chemical reactions that allow us to detect their presence, because they have a certain energy. Time and space don't even have this. Nonetheless, they have the property that they are the medium in which all things in our universe acquire properties and they can be observed through observation of these object's properties. A ray of light can be observed to travel in a curved path when it passed a massive object. Time dilation can be shown to occur in objects that move close to the speed of light. This is because space and time are both malleable. That which is immaterial and intangible is not malleable. That is the end of the story. You can argue endlessly about human perception, but your arguments are completely irrelevant to any point that I am making.

First off, a meter is an arbitrary tool of measurement we have chosen, based on our limited faculties. Foot, meter, minute, second, are all arbitrary. You also forget that Einstein's was a THEORY of relativity, in that the whole model is theoretical, and it assumes for the sake of argument. These are in no way scientific laws, such as the law of thermodynamics in that matter can never be created nor destroyed. So where did matter come from to begin with?

The idea of somehow trying to quantify time eventually gets us to a dead end. No matter what we do we are prisoners of time under the tyranny of time. The elasticity of time can best be observed in the Middle Ages between the conflict that was existent among the Church and the merchant community. One argued for time as belonging to God, and the other argued for merchants time, in which time was sold, i.e. usury and interest. The Church's time was based on bells ringing at given intervals int he day to remind the common peasant or the blacksmit of noon, or time of prayer, or what have you. Increasingly you started to get clocks or clocktowers in medieval towns right next to the church and these were invented by master craftsman and merchants, in which time was cut out into its finest details of hours and minutes, because merchants sold time, which the Church argued belonged to God alone. The clock is a medieval invention.

Originally posted by loseyourname I don't see the difficulty you are having with this. You continue to argue about human perception and I am not going to argue with you about that. Of course it is flawed, again, that is why I am telling you continually not to trust your perception. Now you're going to tell me that because your perceptions did not come to you through a physical sense, they are not flawed? So every endeavor a human being can hope to make in terms of measuring something is flawed and can never be done successfully, yet you can tell me that you know for certain the universe is created by an intelligent being because your perception is not flawed? Honestly, Mousy? Are you kidding me?

The reason I used "sense" in my argument for you is because there was no other way of me trying to convey whatever I've experienced in "sensible" terms. Our senses are not so much flawed, unless your blind of course, but rather LIMITED. Therein is a difference. The senses work fine in their given in what they are designed to do. To me God and soul are not a matter of perception, they are a matter of feeling as the closest way I can describe it. It is thought, a conscious thought of our existence in relation to everything else. You cannot honestly look at me and tell me that we have no soul, indeed you yourseld intrinsically believe in it, because it is the soul alone that gives any value to the things of this world, and its only by raising the soul above all other things that we can look rightly pon the purposes of this earth. No king, no throne, no empire no formula, can compare with the wonder and grandeur of what I already touched on, that is, the single thought. That alone of all things has made me at least comprehend the purpose and maker and that alone is the power that reigns over space, time and eternity because thoughts never die. Virtue, God, heaven, immortality or whichever you seek to hypenate exist not within the confines of this material world, but exist in thought and thought is feeling.

Originally posted by loseyourname Even if you don't assume Jesus to be human, he still can't both be and not be God at the same time. It seems that you have nothing to say to this, so you continually deflect. I will ask once again: Do you believe that Jesus is God? If not, how can you call yourself a Christian? If you do, how do you reconcile this with the fact that competing faiths, using exactly the same perfect immaterial perception that you use, say that he is not?

You are either not reading what I am writing, or you are intentionally ignoring what I am writing. Why can Jesus not be both? What part of faith and reason being separate can you not comprehend? If I argue from the perspective of logic, this is illogical. This is why reason is contrary to faith, something which has been the theme of my whole point throughout. And my whole purpose of the background of different religions is they all have the same purpose and talk about the same morals under different names. Furthermore, I believe Jesus to be the Son of God, I figured you would already know since I am Christian, it means it is implied. As far as your hang up with those that have never heard of Jesus, or those that do not regard Jesus as Son of God, this is where I brought in reference to Peter Abelard from the Middle Ages and how one can indeed lead a good and ethical life and not be Christian, i.e. not be a believer in Jesus. Furthermore I am not the judge of that only God is. This is a non-issue, which leaves me wondering why you're more interesting in proving one member of another faith wrong over another, when I myself am not hung up with it.

**loseyourname** · 02-20-2004, 01:22 PM

Originally posted by Anonymouse Why do I keep saying that I know? Because I have a secret.

I�m restating your position of �we don�t know�, but at the same time, trying to point out the anomalies that cannot be explained with reason, thus that itself lets us know that there is something greater than us.

Of course. The universe is greater than us. It doesn't indicate the existence of anything supernatural or separate from this universe.

Why did the profane and the ignorant worship the sun or moon or stars? In fact many cultures practiced sun worship. Now, if we look at the exoteric meaning of this, it would seem stupid and ignorant for someone to believe in the sun. When it�s esoteric meaning is understood in the context of the ancient mysteries, the sun represents a great truth. It represents intelligence and intellect.

Without the sun, life on this planet would not be possible That is why it was worshipped. So that it would come up the following morning. As soon as we realized that, as the Flaming Lips say, "the sun don't go down; it's just an illusion caused by the world spinning 'round," we stopped worshipping it.

The moon was the church of the ancient mysteries, and the stars were the followers or the initiates. When we understand this, we can see how there is purpose in the ancient pagan religions that go back to Providence.

We can also see that the moon and the sun are not supernatural entities. Perhaps in your own worship of "that which brought about the conditions that we observe on our planet and that which brought about your seemingly illogical experiences," you will also come to realize the same thing.

Many philosophers and biologists can argue all they wish. If I am an adherent of God and believe he created us all, and that all our systems of morality, of aesthetics, of metaphysics all emanate from this same source, philosophers and biologists have not much place here. Obviously for you they do.

Then go live in a monastery and remained convinced that you already have the answers. I will be here with the rest of the human race that actually asks questions and tries by investigation to find an answer.

Thus morality is a part of us all. We live in a community and the life of any community depends on its moral condition. Public spirit, intelligence, uprightness, kindness, will make it a happy community, give it prosperity and continuance. Wide spread selfishness, dishonesty, corruption, crime will make it miserable and bring about its hasty ruin. Thus from every direction of metaphysics, aesthetics, and morality above all, we rise to the same principle, the common center, and ultimate foundation of all truth, all beauty and all good. The true, beauty, good are all diverse revelations of the same being.

Of course, and that same being can either be explained by human brain chemistry, or it can't be. As of right now, we don't know.

Moreover, it is religion, not philosophy that at least gives man a father, a witness, a judge, so to speak, and from which emanates the concept of morality of �right� and �wrong� that we feel we have to live up to.

Of course. Religion gives a lot of great things. That doesn't mean that religion is correct. You are again arguing from the fact that you like something. The fact that you like the idea of having a supernatural father watching over you doesn't mean that you do.

How else does one explain morality and its reasons for being, why we feel that certain things are right or wrong?

I have stated before, this is perhaps the best evidence we have for intelligent creation. It is not, however, conclusive. Only a person with little knowledge of the biological basis of behavior would think that it is. That is why simpletons from Arkansas maintain that because it seems sensical to them, there must be a God. Meanwhile, more discerning people actually look for other answers and investigate competing hypotheses before dismissing them. That is how the human race comes to better itself.

By religion, philosophy connects itself with humanity, from one end of the world to th other, believes and aspires in God. Philosophy contains in itself the common basis of all religious beliefs. It borrows from them their principle, and returns it to them with clarity. Maybe we should reformulate our thoughts so as to avoid the long point by point responses, get to the gist of statements, i.e. �I say blah blah blah blah� and you offer response �blah blah blah blah�.

I think that's a good idea. I'm going to temporarily close this thread, and start a new one where we can do just that.

If ideas are immaterial and when we reason about ideas, we are reasoning about immaterial things, how can ideas be traced to �biochemical processes� in our brains?

This is a little complicated, I admit. Think of it this way. Every time you put a pen to paper, you are immortalizing a bit of yourself, as you have pointed out. Take Shakespeare's plays, for example. There are many themes present in them all, and these themes are immaterial. They are simply concepts. But they would have no existence if not for Shakespeare's manuscripts, which are material. In the same way, a certain feeling as experienced by a human being, pain for instance, is caused by biochemical processes, in this case external stimuli acting on nerve impulses. But pain itself is a concept, and as such is immaterial.

Moreover, thoughts and ideas exist even when we die, therefore no more biochemical processes in our brains, yet our thoughts live on and are read, heard and thought of by other humans.

They exist as either ink on paper, 1's and 0's in a computer database, or biochemical processes in the brain's of other human beings.

But where does this sense of morality come from?

I don't know. To answer would be premature. Instead, we study, and engage in intelligent discourse, in an attempt to come up with an answer.

I don�t know about why, but I kinda like the idea of not growing up. You?

There are ways of staying childlike that don't require you to harass other forumers and belittle their threads.

But going back to what I said earlier, how do we know that they are not self aware and conscious?

You test an animal's behavior. You give it problems to solve. You do this not just to one animal, but to many. Ravens, for instance, show a great diversity of problem solving techniques; different ravens will come up with different solution. They are rather obviously thinking about it. Wasps, on the other hand, will not solve the problem at all. They will all behave in a manner that is completely predictable; every single wasp will do exactly the same thing and fail in exactly the same way. This shows that they are not thinking; that their responses are automatic and conditioned.

**Anonymouse** · 04-17-2004, 05:02 PM