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Faith of a Rationalist

The_Liquid_Laser

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Bottom line is, if he is the Son of God or intellectually sound, he should be making true utterances about the world which could be proven in terms of objective reasoning. If he knows what he is talking about he should be able to defend that rationally.

It doesn't matter if he is the Son of God, it only matters that he makes true utterances.

False.

He is only required to be correct about one thing, that he is the Son of God. A person of the most virtuous character would make sure they are certain about something like this before they went around claiming it. Misleading someone about this would cause too much harm, so the virtuous person must have absolute certainty that they are correct.

If I am wrong then the easy way to disprove me is to provide a counterexample. Provide a counterexample where a person meets the three qualities that I described, but somehow comes to the wrong conclusion that they are the Son of God.
 

SolitaryWalker

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False.

He is only required to be correct about one thing, that he is the Son of God. A person of the most virtuous character would make sure they are certain about something like this before they went around claiming it. Misleading someone about this would cause too much harm, so the virtuous person must have absolute certainty that they are correct.

If I am wrong then the easy way to disprove me is to provide a counterexample. Provide a counterexample where a person meets the three qualities that I described, but somehow comes to the wrong conclusion that they are the Son of God.

My point was that he must make accurate claims about the world and be able to explain how they are accurate. He was not doing this, he was just saying 'you ought to believe me or you will burn in hell!'.

Because of this whatever claim he has made is of no use to us as he has failed to construct an argument. As it stands, what he said is simply non-sense. However, because he has touched basis with some very important ethical notions, we can expound on his statements and as a result of such an inquiry of our own make discoveries about the subjects he has commented on.

His sound knowledge of the world and an ability to back it up will be evidence of him being the Son of God, or the best and the wisest of men. This is an accolade we award to him after having observed his performance, not before. Much like we award the Gold Medal to the top athlete after the game and not before. Otherwise we have no way of knowing if he is the Son of God.
 

Venom

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BlueWing, here is an attempt at assimilating parts of your creed...and relating it to a slightly different endeavor than God, our life's pursuits. I feel the stuff you included about philosophers discussing man's ultimate unhappiness relating with the ideas of the noumenal, phenomenal, finite, unquantifiable etc ...could of lead to a very different conclusion.
(if my attempt at synthesizing is far off, then I would still like to hear what your thoughts are based on my conclusion derived from own interpretation, even if its not the interpretation you desired)


Humans are aware of how finite they are in their existence. Our observable time on earth is finite and everything we do is a finite action. Everything we create is only manipulating finite masses. We are confined to the empirical and finite. We find this idea limiting, and so seek such undefinable, unquantifiable and therefore SEEMINGLY INFINITE goals. These are therefore impossible objectives because they can't be ACCURATELY or RIGOROUSLY defined in the empirical world, such as love, spirituality, justice, immortality/infinite legacy, supreme power, etc.... These all ultimately fail because we all only have finite means of attempting to reach these unquantifiables. So in trying for love we can only find sex/time spent with someone. In search for immortality all Donald Trump can build is finite buildings. In search for power, all military conquerors could find, was finite amounts of land on a map.

So ultimately we come to find that finding a way out of being finite is futile. However, being finite, is not in of itself a happy realization. We arrive back at the idea of human existence being ultimately unhappy. So to be truly happy we really must not even exist. We have already "not existed" in seeming infinite amount of time, and will return to such a state. So to waste this blip of time, for a quicker return to that state is not worthwhile. That state will always be there, and the world we live in, no matter how unhappy, might as well be experienced. Staying here and experiencing here, in no way hinders how much time we will take away from nonexisting (infinity - 1 = infinity, the 1 is negligible). So we might as well exist and "enjoy" it.

The best we can arrive at: Rather than thinking about a pursuit of happiness, think of life as a pursuit of experience. Its the closest we can get to when discussing the merits of why one should exist in unhappiness rather than the happiness of unexistance. Also, why is it everyone is able to understand that two separate people are describing say God, love, justice etc, even though they can't accurately define or agree on a definition of these unquantifiables? I wager its because they are still brushing up on a bit of the truth, thus we are all aware of "how close" we are to defining the undefinable. In such a sense, living life as a pursuit of experience, besides being closest to the actual merits of existence, also may put us closest to "brushing up" on that bit of undefinable happiness.



****
Slightly different twist, but borrows heavily on the stuff concerning: finite, unquantifiable etc... if i just butchered it all to hell, then oh well haha :)
 

SolitaryWalker

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BlueWing, here is an attempt at assimilating parts of your creed...and relating it to a slightly different endeavor than God, our life's pursuits. I feel the stuff you included about philosophers discussing man's ultimate unhappiness relating with the ideas of the noumenal, phenomenal, finite, unquantifiable etc ...could of lead to a very different conclusion.
(if my attempt at synthesizing is far off, then I would still like to hear what your thoughts are based on my conclusion derived from own interpretation, even if its not the interpretation you desired)


Humans are aware of how finite they are in their existence. Our observable time on earth is finite and everything we do is a finite action. Everything we create is only manipulating finite masses. We are confined to the empirical and finite. We find this idea limiting, and so seek such undefinable, unquantifiable and therefore SEEMINGLY INFINITE goals. These are therefore impossible objectives because they can't be ACCURATELY or RIGOROUSLY defined in the empirical world, such as love, spirituality, justice, immortality/infinite legacy, supreme power, etc.... These all ultimately fail because we all only have finite means of attempting to reach these unquantifiables. So in trying for love we can only find sex/time spent with someone. In search for immortality all Donald Trump can build is finite buildings. In search for power, all military conquerors could find, was finite amounts of land on a map.

So ultimately we come to find that finding a way out of being finite is futile. However, being finite, is not in of itself a happy realization. We arrive back at the idea of human existence being ultimately unhappy. So to be truly happy we really must not even exist. We have already "not existed" in seeming infinite amount of time, and will return to such a state. So to waste this blip of time, for a quicker return to that state is not worthwhile. That state will always be there, and the world we live in, no matter how unhappy, might as well be experienced. Staying here and experiencing here, in no way hinders how much time we will take away from nonexisting (infinity - 1 = infinity, the 1 is negligible). So we might as well exist and "enjoy" it.

The best we can arrive at: Rather than thinking about a pursuit of happiness, think of life as a pursuit of experience. Its the closest we can get to when discussing the merits of why one should exist in unhappiness rather than the happiness of unexistance. Also, why is it everyone is able to understand that two separate people are describing say God, love, justice etc, even though they can't accurately define or agree on a definition of these unquantifiables? I wager its because they are still brushing up on a bit of the truth, thus we are all aware of "how close" we are to defining the undefinable. In such a sense, living life as a pursuit of experience, besides being closest to the actual merits of existence, also may put us closest to "brushing up" on that bit of undefinable happiness.



****
Slightly different twist, but borrows heavily on the stuff concerning: finite, unquantifiable etc... if i just butchered it all to hell, then oh well haha :)

There is a lot in this. Some relevant to my credo, some is not.

Though it should be noted that Nietzsche in his famous essay 'Schopenhauer as educator' claimed that Schopenhauer teaches us to pursue things that truly make us happy. He instructs us not to pursue sensual pleasures and other worldly goals, but something deeper, like the aesthetic pursuits which bring us the true calm.

Schopenhauer believed that dispassionate contemplation on the aesthetics brings us in closer affinity with our intellect. This divorces us from our sensual and the physical being, therefore conduces to our non-existence. Schopenhauer also has a strange metaphysical principle which equates our sensual and the physical being with the root of all suffering. Thus, bringing ourselves closer to non-existence shall minimize suffering ironically.

My view differs from Schopenhauer's in 2 respects. He regarded aesthetic contemplation as more conducive to the intellect than the sciences and philosophy. Seemingly because he thought that the sciences and the philosophies are not inspiring enough to get us to think with intensity. (Very common of a Feeling type to say this as their Thinking is not easily engaged unless their Feeling has been engaged first).

I argue however that simply because the sciences, mathematics and philosophy are in their own right more stimulating, or require more precise and thorough analysis, they conduce to attunement with the intellect more than the arts. It may be more difficult for some to be inspired by the sciences and philosophy than by the arts, but in itself the former holds more potential than the latter.

I do embrace Schopenhauer's claim that attunement with the intellect is antithetical to our will to live. As the intellect divorces us from our senses and the drive to act, instead it urges us to contemplate which in itself as aforementioned divorces us from our raw being. My position however is less radical than Schopenhauer's. Unlike Schopenhauer, I do not maintain that non-existence is a good thing, though it is desirable for us to tone down much of our will to live in order to have a more calm, controlled and rational approach to life. This way we are not at the mercy of our dispositions as much because attunement with the intellect allows us to discover what life is best for us, and the newfound control over ourselves grants us the self-discipline to execute the previously envisaged plan.

The infinite realm is inaccessible and any interaction with this entity should be read figuratively rather than literally. It simply means, as earlier argued by Schopenhauer, we should pursue goals that are truly worthwhile, not the worldly ones. However, there is a slight chance of mystical interaction with the infinite realm. Rabbi Moses Maimonides maintained that the religious prophets were able to propound the insights they did because of their powerful imagination. The imagination is the most abstract cognitive faculty we have, therefore most likely of all to divorce us from the world of present experience and draw us in affinity with the infinite. This it may accomplish only to a limited degree, and the insights are not clearly translatable from the infinite to the finite because they are incommensurable.

This is possible because, as argued by Kant, the finite world that we know is our unconscious representation of the infinite realm. If the prophets were able to pierce deeply enough into our unconscious, they may have acquired some very vague perceptions of that realm.
 

Evil Otter

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Viktor Frankl had an interesting idea not necessarily on this subject but relating to it - just as an ant cannot understand the meaning of human existence as he only lives for the purpose of living, maybe a human cannot understand the "super-meaning" of a God's existence.

At any rate, my personal thought is that if there is eternal life it would need an eternal purpose but such a thing could not be finite.

Lay man terms- Eternal life= running a race with no finish line, thus you'll only do it for the love of running itself and/or love for the fellow runners
 

RaptorWizard

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RaptorWizard's responce to SolitaryWalker's Faith of a Rationalist thread:

People perceive the world as they see it through their confined perceptions, and as such, philosophers who dare to challenge the societal paradigms of their time, like Giordano Bruno (RaptorWizard’s favorite philosopher) or Benedict de Spinoza (SolitaryWalker’s favorite philosopher) were branded heretics, the first being burned at the stake, and the second receiving ridicule from the stupid multitudes. Our state of existence is so wretched that non-existence would be preferable to it, and as such, the world is by no means what Leibniz termed ‘the best of all possible worlds’. The unspeakable suffering of mankind cannot be denied. Mankind is ever in search for a life of paradise. We must then increase our perception on the problem of evil, the essence of knowledge and how salvation could possibly be achieved. I as of right now oppose the proposition that we see beauty everywhere in this world, incapable for our grasp. Perhaps perfection only exists in the heavens, a realm currently outside our comprehension. If we were to all enter paradise, surely its perfection would proliferate under the happiness we would all share together, rather than losing its perfection upon our entrance, as SolitaryWalker incorrectly asserts. SolitaryWalker says salvation comes only when the intellect takes primacy over the will, and that the will is in motion, the will being the foundation to all existence. He also thinks that not even the brightest of us will access full truth and knowledge, but if nothing is even true or false, understanding even to begin with could perhaps only be found in empiricism. Some would also hold enlightenment to be a vision of the world objective and independent of prejudice, and that we must not deem the world to be what we can accept via personal taste, the limits of our vision not indeed being the limits of the world. The real universe is outside our perception, the poverty of our imaginations perceiving the infinite existence as finite. Perhaps everything exists only in the way we with our vision perceive the thing to be, in accordance with our reasoning faculties. Matter as well as all things nonphysical may be manifestations of a fluctuating force, a will objectifying itself. Perhaps the point of greatest importance is that the way we perceive the world will always be finite as long as we impose restrictions upon it. Spinoza’s doctrine of salvation comes through contemplation. We must believe reason to be the light of the world, the ultimate end of philosophy.

:wizfreak:
 
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