But it does. For each observer.
An observer may also say that he holds no opinion one way or the other, or that it is both beautiful and hideous, or even, as you have, said, that it is variably beautiful and not. Let me try to illustrate it another way. I’ll give you a complete system with two axioms:
- Axiom 2 is true.
- Axiom 1 is false.
We need to define ‘beautiful’, and also decide whether communication determines status. I may lie and say that the Mona Lisa was actually drawn by Da Vinci’s contemporaries, despite not believing that. Also, undecided does not equal undecidable.
Formal ‘strong’ axiomatic systems may have to choose between consistency and completeness, yet it’s not clear that elements of human reasoning can be pigeonholed to a formal system.
this human ‘spirituality’ thing is a totally artificial construct. The prime movers of this are the power-mongers amongst us - those who like to control other people. It works two ways, for there are great masses of people who like to be controlled - they seem to love being told what to do. Many like both.
Also, most humans deny reality - their pointless death, so they dream up all sorts of things. What joy for my argument! Spirituality is one of these stupid dreams. Oh pity us poor humans, that delve in such poor diversions!
Welcome to the SDMB. Your arguement here is quite familiar. There are several regular members who believe as you do. They haven’t succeeded in mounting an arguement that has swayed anyone. Do you have anything new to offer?
I’d like to point out that not everyone who has spiritual beliefs is looking for someone to tell us what to do. There are many people{like myself} who don’t belong to any church and aren’t looking for some power monger to control us. I admit a lot of that kind of thing goes on as people struggle with their spirtitual side but that is far from the sum total of mankinds desire to understand life’s mysteries.
Of course you are free to choose what you believe but the fact is that what does or does not happen when our bodies die remains an unanswered question. You have no more proof than anyone else for your conclusions. If you hang around the SDMB much you’ll see that there are a couple of believers who are far form stupid.
Well, when you die the vast majority of people start to decompose unless steps are taken to alleviate this rather uncomfortable condition. While there is no proof that you don’t continue on after death, there is also no proof that there is something after death. If you tell me that you have a million dollars in your lunch pail and I open it only to find a half eaten ham sandwich, which I point out to you. Yet you say you believe it is a million dollars therefore it is. If we take the contents of your lunch pail to the bank and try to deposit it, what do you think they’ll say? Can we use the contents of your lunch pail to buy another ham sandwich? Of course not.
Just because you believe, have faith, or wish for something to be true doesn’t make it so. Not all the people in the world, or Liberal’s logic, can make it otherwise.
The vast majority of the people believe for no other reason than that is the way they were brought up. Most catholics churn out little catholics, most muslims churn out little muslims, and most miscellaneous churn out little miscellaneouses. If you were raised in a society of athiests with had no knowledge of religion and god you probably would not even contemplate that there was one and if someone tried convincing you otherwise you’d have them committed for their own good before they harmed themselves and others. As Sam Harris pointed out in his book ‘End of Faith’, if the president started adding to his speeches, “We trust in Zeus” how long would he remain president? Yet, he can stand before the world and say, “We trust in God”, with impunity. No one questions it (well not much anyways).
Personally, I agree with you. However, you come across as sounding much too arrogant. Coming from me, that is really saying something. However, before you lose heart, please read the following, and see how it can apply to me, talking to cosmosdan.
Also, the following are interesting threads about atheism, to get you started. There are an awful lot, already.
Whoa. I don’t think we have any direct teachings of Jesus. He left no written corpus for anyone to study and use draw conclusions.
What we do have are second or third hand stories written by people who were not present at the time of Jesus. These stories are ascribed to various people who were present, presumeably to lend authenticity. We also have whole libraries of comentaries on those second had accounts and comentaries on the comentaries.
In some respects it reminds me of the multitude of Sherlock Holmes studies.
Yes, yes, yes, we know there’s no proof. There’s no proof either way. It’s been said a thousand times. We really don’t need a pointless analogy about a ham sandwich to make the point. In another thread a guest used the term liberty of conscience in refering to people’s right to choose what they believe. It’s a good term.
Yes I know. And if it is true all your denial and ranting won’t change that will it? There are many unanswered questions and mysteries yet to be solved. Without proof either way we are both allowed to choose what we believe. Ain’t that cool?
There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a lot of myth and tradition in religion that is accepted as truth that has little to do with how things really are. People think they know when they really don’t. It’s a human trait that you find in the spiritual, as well as atheists and agnostics. We must choose what we believe based on our own life experience and hopefully we will modify our beliefs as time and experience dictates. All the myth and tradition that religion contains doesn’t negate any truth that it contains. It’s all the human experience and the quest to discover the answers to the questions yet unanswered.
I read about half of “The End of Faith” and plan on reading the rest. I thought it was a great book. I agree with him that the time has come to challenge people’s beliefs. Consider this. If you don’t want religous folks imposing their beliefs on you then please don’t try to impose yours on anyone else either. There’s room for honest open discussion and an exchange of ideas while still allowing people to choose their own path ,which is a right I assume you want for yourself.
A belief doesn’t have to be approved by you or make sense to you any more than yours do for anyone else. All we hope for is tolerance and respect. If a president believes then he is allowed to say so. If you think he’s an idiot or hypocryte {or in this case both} then don’t vote for him.
You’re right about that. We have no way of verifying that Jesus actually existed. That doesn’t prevent us from drawing meaning and value from those things attributed to him.
So plug in “attributed” if it makes you feel better and move on.
I’m not saying you don’t have that right to believe whatever you want. You most assuredly do. Nor would I want to ever deny you that right because it is the only thing that keeps me and others like me from ending up being burned at the stake by the “believers” of the world.
If he started claiming a belief in Zeus, I’d consider him a nutball, not an idiot. Although, I admit, there probably isn’t much to differentiate between the two. And so would most of the American public. I’d hazzard a guess he wouldn’t be president much longer than it was necessary to find something to impeach him if he mentioned ol’ Zeus as much as GWB does God. You can’t have a crazy person with his finger on the button, after all… … … :dubious: And yet there is a whole lot of literature around Zeus that should put him at least on par with Jesus, et al. Yet one is currently popular, the other isn’t.
Ah yes, the Platonic argument in The Republic. Even if a story is pure hokum, if it serves to maintain order and keep the people in line it’s OK.
Agreed.
Now we are in full agreement. That was the gist of my argument.
We don’t have anything written by Socrates either. Same same. In any case, Jesus is alive, and speaks directly to those who worship Him.
You cannot say definitly that Jesus “is” alive, you can say,you believe Jesus is alive and speaks to people. If some one now days says that too much, he may be committed to an Institution. One can believe he hears Jesus, and if that makes him or her feel better, and act better, no harm done as far as I am concerned, but it doesn’t make it a fact. I personally think it is harder to live for someone than to die for them, and if Jesus were trully alive he would be still living as a man on earth. In my thihnking that would be a greater sacrifice than being dead for a few hours when He knew he would come back from the dead . If my child said;I am going to die on Friday, but I will see you again on Sunday I would say okay, will you be home for dinner? He never commanded any one to write a book and a lot of what He is quoted to have said in the Bible is contradictory.
Monavis
Forgive the word thinking.bad, bad spelling
Glad to hear it. Your subtle ridicule of “believers” is is not an expression of respect or intelligence.
I was talking about a president professing belief in God. If he professed belief in Zeus that would be an acknowledgement that he no longer wanted to be president. You may have noticed that those nutballs who wrote the Declaration of Independence mentioned a creator. There’s no real comparison between belief in Zeus and belief in Jesus. As mankind works his way through myth and legend to a clearer understanding of reality who’s to say how much of what we believe about Jesus is myth or not? Who’s to say what value we find in the process of working through the myth to get to the truth?
Not my point at all. The truth, meaning, and value, can come to us in many ways. We may accept certain things as true until we gain new information and new insight and then we move on leaving old beliefs behind. It’s the natural process of growth.
We don’t know how much of the Jesus story is myth and legend but the things he taught have value. If someone is kinder and more compassionate to his fellow man because of his belief in Christ that has a benefit for all those around him. The same with other spiritual pursuits.
The honest truth is that it is difficult for me to respect a grown person who insists on believing in myths and fairy tales contrary to any evidence of same. If it comes through in what I write then I can’t much help that. How does a person phrase an argument in such a way that says a person’s beliefs aren’t valid? You are after all questioning something that person may feel very deeply about. Others may be able to do so. And if I use the term ‘believers’ in such a way that offends you remember that the war on terror is a war against those sorts of people who are believers.
I disagree that the cases are “Same same.” Those who wrote of Socrates actually knew him and the authors are identified. Plato, for example, was a student of Socrates. In addition, I can’t find any body of belief, or model for living, in those writings. Socrates method, as described by Plato at least, was to get people to make an assertion and then continue to ask questions for the purpose of showing the person that he was hopelessly confused. And this was done without Socrates having expressed any opinion of his own. No wonder the people of Athens wanted to be rid of him.
The Jesus story is told by unknown authors who never knew Him, and who wrote years after the fact.
Whether it was your point or not, your defense was that used by Plato. It was also the refuge of Bill Bennett when one of the tales in his Bood of Virtues, which was allegedly a collection of true accounts of various virtues, was shown to be an old fable in disguise. People use the same defense in the case of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
I happen to think that actions to promote social good can be justified on their own merit in the furthering of social good. We are gregarious animals who need to live and act in a society. That which is ethical, I think, is that which promotes the cohesion of society and vice versa. I don’t believe we need to depend upon myths which, in addition to the benefits, have historically also provided justification for some pretty unspeakable acts.