Knowing God means also knowing one’s purpose and seeing the illusion many call life. It is the person being lead out of Plato’s cave and given vision of all seeing reality for the first time, including the illusion most are living under (very similar to the Matrix). That person is not able to relate this info to those still bound in the cave as they have no basis to understand it, but for those who are escaping you are their guides.
Yes it is that clear. Now what religion has to do with this is beyond me.
I fail to see how Christian religion provides a purpose. Let’s assume we all go to heaven for eternal life after our death. What’s the purpose of that? If regular life has no meaning, what is the meaning of eternal life?
This. In particular the last segment is beautiful.
“Presuppositionalists don’t debate. They claim to have solved the biggest problems in philosophy while asserting that they can’t possibly be wrong and that no other world view can do this; but they never demonstrate the truth of the claim… and I also see no reasonable justifications for why anyone should ever again waste time debating someone who has no interest in debate but wants to merely claim that you’re wrong because they’re convinced that they have a special friend who insures that they cannot be wrong.”
…Except that you can’t accept anything if it’s true, either. It doesn’t actually resolve the problem.
An Existentialist would begin with assuming all of that, and reply that that leaves us to invent our own meaning, which does not require inventing religion.
It’s possible they don’t, by a strict definition of “conscious” that requires some kind of spiritual component. I’m okay with saying that when a brain gets sufficiently complex, it can simulate consciousness with enough realism that it is indistinguishable from consciousness, complete with enough pseudorandom influences to move beyond pure determinism, or at least to a level of determinism so complicated that we can’t simulate it.
I confess I’m stuck at the bit where we think we’re looking at the real brain instead of a simulation of one. Nobody seems to know what the real one is like, or what it can do. When someone can point to the real brain that lies somewhere outside of conscious experience, and show it creating consciousness, I’ll relax.
As all empirical scientific proof happens within conscious experience, it’s going to be tricky to demonstrate scientifically how this real brain that lives outside of consciousness does it’s thing.
I was mulling it over today and consider these three “alternate reality” theories:
Only one “person” physically exists, as a brain in a vat being given artificial sensory input.
Many “persons” physically exist, plugged into a vast Matrix-like system and being given artificial sensory input and can interact each each other (or at least get the sense that they can).
No “persons” physically exist; reality as we understand it is just a clever computer simulation and “we” are all just similar but individually customized computer objects following pre-programmed rules in a sophisticated version of The Sims.
Can anyone offer any reason why any of these (or some fourth option) should be preferred? Because if not, isn’t the concept as arbitrary and meaningless as, say, religion itself?
