[ENTP] Christian ENTPs?

[entropie]

WW3 will be fought cause burping cat annoyed the hell outa people:

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzP3PWq1hSk"].[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Domino]

And after this thread - open bar and Jello wrestling!

 

[guesswho]

Well, let's begin with saying that I do understand where you are coming from but it's inconsistent, for me, none the less. I wonder what free will constitutes for you?
Whether or not one decides that limited options means I cannot choose from all the options and thus cannot consider myself having free will is odd. I have 100% free will from what I am aware of, whether some decisions sometimes may feel harder than others.

Yes, I have behavioral patterns and some of them are possibly and quite probably outside of my reach that I am unaware of; the ones I do have a sense of awareness however, imo, could only be the options that are open and thus what defines my free will. Then again, some may choose to define this as the illusion of free will and whether this or that is true, I cannot say and I'll never speak of.


I'm not sure I manage to convey what I mean. If it's still unclear, I'll sit down and think and try to share it differently but if it is not and you plainly just do not agree, then I would love to be picked to pieces.

I guess I see free will more like a theoretical thing.

However yes, just because you are not free, it does not necessarily mean that you do not have a free will.
But in the same time, just because you decided something freely, it doesn't mean that your decision couldn't have been conditioned unconsciously.
Suggestion for example. It doesn't impose you do to something, but it shows that it would be more appealing and rewarding that you decide a certain thing.
I go buy a can of coke. I decided to buy a can of coke. Yet 10 days ago, I saw a commercial that associated coke with pleasure, excitement etc. The connection stayed in my mind. I forgot about the commercial.
Of course, I was my own decision to buy the coke, but was it free?

Ask a person what he wants? Is he going to tell you some individual values that he defined himself? Or is he likely to want what everybody wants.
I've noticed a lot of people, after they finish highschool, go study and specialize in things that their parents do. (or the opposite, if they've got a rebel thing going on) My dad is a cop I want to be a cop. My dad is a cop I want to be a lawyer.
It's his free will. But is in not conditioned by many factors?

A person develops some kind of social anxiety. He wants to do things that he would normally do, go out with people etc, but fears his intense anxiety and becomes increasingly avoidant. Was it his free will that made him decide to become avoidant?

However, just because free will is limited, it does not necessarily mean that it does not exist. It's just limited and conditioned.
We perceive our will as being free, but is it free?

I don't know, I've grown to hate this term of "free will" as I have oftenly heard it in politics: "they must not strip us of our free will" "our free will is what differentiates us from...". When in fact is BS.

In a way, we are free, but I fail to understand our freedom.

 

[Domino]

and a tendency for an irritating brand of contrariness.

i'm agnostic, but i've learnt that belittling others for their spiritual beliefs makes you fat and grumpy.

I would love all 2000 pounds of your grumpy fat every day and every night.

 

[strawberries]

I would love all 2000 pounds of your grumpy fat every day and every night.

only if you make me scream out the name of your deity.

 

[Domino]

What's there to prove? Look around you. There have been more atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion than anything else in the history of the human race.

It's not the religion or the ideology. IT'S THE PEOPLE.

 

[Domino]

only if you make me scream out the name of your deity.

Good thing I'm not Hindu or you'd go hoarse.

 

[Perch420]

Tell that to Scientific American.

There are several regions involved. No *one* god spot.



That's an opinion only until it's proven concretely. Based on logic steps, correct? Moving from hypothetical to theory to hard proof.

I disagree on the "why". That's not the only reason for believing in something higher than oneself. It may push people to assign "God" to what they themselves cannot explain but we're hardly living in times where schizophrenia is caused by goblins or "humors" anymore.

When I was living in rural Ireland, there was a mystical pall that hung over the place. It wasn't in my mind. The dead die but they don't leave.

In my own home in the States, I found the spot on the floor where my grandmother died even though I had never been told it was there. It was cold and a chill passed through me whenever I walked over it. I asked my mother and she confirmed it as the spot where my grandmother died years before I was born. I would press someone to explain that to me in scientific terms.

People want to believe in something higher than themselves because they're weak and can't handle the idea of being the arbiter of their own fate. Why were most people in the Soviet Union atheists even though all people share the desire to be part of something greater? Because instead of having the goal to pray to Jesus and go to heaven, they had to goal to work hard and contribute to the community. Everything was planned out for them in advance; they weren't in charge of their own path in life. The majority of people want security and want a cushion to protect them from the meaninglessness and arbitrariness of life. It's the minority that accepts the universe as it is and makes something out of it instead of living in delusion that make an impact in the world.

And the reason you "felt" ghosts was because, like Dawkins said, the human mind is very susceptible to delusion. That's it.

 

[Perch420]

It's not the religion or the ideology. IT'S THE PEOPLE.

It is the religion, though. The inquisition didn't just pull their shenanigans for no reason. It says in the bible that disobedient children should be stoned, that gay people need to be killed, and that rape and slavery is fine. What kind of message do you think they would get from the Bible other than that God is a hateful, bitter, and angry deity.

 

[guesswho]

People want to believe in something higher than themselves because they're weak and can't handle the idea of being the arbiter of their own fate. Why were most people in the Soviet Union atheists even though all people share the desire to be part of something greater? Because instead of having the goal to pray to Jesus and go to heaven, they had to goal to work hard and contribute to the community. Everything was planned out for them in advance; they weren't in charge of their own path in life. The majority of people want security and want a cushion to protect them from the meaninglessness and arbitrariness of life. It's the minority that accepts the universe as it is and makes something out of it instead of living in delusion that make an impact in the world.

And the reason you "felt" ghosts was because, like Dawkins said, the human mind is very susceptible to delusion. That's it.

The people in the Soviet Union may have been atheists, but they worshiped their leaders as if they were God. In a way it was convenient for Stalin, God was no match for him.

 

[Perch420]

Not really. Stalin was considered a genius and was given enormous respect, but he was never deified a la Kim Jung Il or his father. Why I even brought up the Soviet Union was that its people were driven towards a goal by the government. They didn't have to make their own decisions, or at least any significant ones. Likewise, people flock towards religion because it offers a sense of purpose to their lives.

 

[Sniffles]

People want to believe in something higher than themselves because they're weak and can't handle the idea of being the arbiter of their own fate. Why were most people in the Soviet Union atheists even though all people share the desire to be part of something greater? Because instead of having the goal to pray to Jesus and go to heaven, they had to goal to work hard and contribute to the community. Everything was planned out for them in advance; they weren't in charge of their own path in life. The majority of people want security and want a cushion to protect them from the meaninglessness and arbitrariness of life. It's the minority that accepts the universe as it is and makes something out of it instead of living in delusion that make an impact in the world.

And the reason you "felt" ghosts was because, like Dawkins said, the human mind is very susceptible to delusion. That's it.

So wouldn't the issue be more about human weakness than religion? Even if you manage to get rid of religion, you still have the issue of human weakness finding something else to cling to. The past 200-300 years bears this out.

 

[Beorn]

Well, one can make it sound nice: every joy you feel is a tiny touch of god; but it still baffles me that such an explanation should satisfy you.

You're not getting it. It's not the explanation that satisfies me. It is God himself.

Either that or I'm delusional. In which case you shouldn't be baffled by anything i say or do.

O, I see. The crux remains that you have not become a christian but were raised a christian. You presuppose god, do you not? Or are you really saying that god has given you this second pair of glasses?

I believe God gave me a second pair of glasses. But, because I was raised by parents with these same glasses it's hard to determine at which point I saw things through my own eyes and not theirs.

If so, was his earthly form that of a book; and if it was a book, why do you not believe in Hobbits as well?

First of all, I do believe in hobbits and I have every intention to turn into one.

There's no reason why God's use of a certain medium for communication would render all other uses of the medium authoritative. It is not the medium that is authoritative it is the use of the medium by God. Tolkien was not God nor was he divinely inspired by God.

Morality doesn't need religion. Do you think before Jesus, people were running around raping and skinning each other?

Well... i mean... they were... and they still are with maybe less skinning.

But, my point is that you may act morally, but there is no reason to do so if morality is always evolving.

Rapists and murderers may be immoral or maybe they are just ahead of their time.

Morality is biologically ingrained into people to preserve the human race. That doesn't mean it has no logical basis, though. All living beings are irreconcilably interconnected, so one living being suffering causes all living beings to suffer. It would be logical, therefore, to minimize suffering in the world.

No, logic is not the basis. The basic presumption is that preservation of the human race is good. There is nothing logical or illogical about that. It is just a value judgement.

But, in your framework that value judgement has no basis in objective reality therefore it's really just a preference.

Okay. I can buy that explanation far better than the other.

(Although if you run into someone who actually knows their detailed history and/or archaeology, and throw in a textual critic or three who can chart inherent patterns of evolution with the OT, I think things will get really interesting.)

Well yes, it's rare for me to run into someone on the nets that is that informed.

 

[guesswho]

If Stalin wasn't considered a God, I'm sure Lenin was.

One does not break free from the need with a substitute, because it's just a replacement.

 

[Domino]

And the reason you "felt" ghosts was because, like Dawkins said, the human mind is very susceptible to delusion. That's it.

How can I form a delusion about something I knew nothing about?

 

[entropie]

How can I form a delusion about something I knew nothing about?

Well I am fantasizing about you every night

 

[Perch420]

Not really. Secular humanism can fulfill that role much better. People's sense of meaning should come from the fact that they are part of the human race and their purpose should be to improve its condition. I used to be somewhat religious when I was a kid but nothing that I experienced inspired me anywhere close to how Carl Sagan and other humanists did.

 

[Perch420]

How can I form a delusion about something I knew nothing about?

You imagined something that wasn't there.

 

[Perch420]

If Stalin wasn't considered a God, I'm sure Lenin was.

One does not break free from the need with a substitute, because it's just a replacement.

No, he wasn't. My parents were born in the Soviet Union so I have on pretty good authority that, while Lenin was definitely idealized and respected, he was never assigned any supernatural abilities or any other traits that would portray him as anything but an intelligent and well-meaning leader.

 

[xisnotx]

Define "girl"?

I can define it however I choose to define it. For the sake of conversation...possession of a vagina. It's an incomplete definition..but that conversation just boils down to semantics..

My point is..lack of evidence is not evidence.

Lack of evidence can't be a reason to make a positive claim.

I think this is actually a fallacy..let me look it up..it probably explains what I'm trying to say a lot better.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance

Argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam or appeal to ignorance, is an informal logical fallacy. It asserts that a proposition is necessarily true because it has not been proven false (or vice versa). This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes a third option, which is: there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to "prove" the proposition to be either true or false. Nor does it allow the admission that the choices may in fact not be two (true or false), but may be as many as four; with (3) being unknown between true or false; and (4) being unknowable (among the first three). And finally, any action taken, based upon such a pseudo "proof" is fallaciously valid, that is, it is being asserted to be valid based upon a fallacy.[1] In debates, appeals to ignorance are sometimes used to shift the burden of proof.

So yes..it is illogical to believe something is true just because it can't be proven false.
It is illogical for someone to believe I am a girl just because he or she can't prove I am not a girl.
It is illogical for someone to believe that there is a god just because he or she can't prove that there isn't one.