Waves

to give yourself an objective understanding of a concept through many different subjective means. Religion and science both being subjective means like youve said Of course the "objective" part is illusionary- but again thats why we created life. for that illusion of objectivity.

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Ego Tripping

Hm...good answer. bongsmilie

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smoke

objective understanding... objectivity being an illusion.

so basically we try to understand something we can't.

again, we don't know SHIIIIIIIIIIIT.

Waves

subjectivity is just as much an illusion as objectivity. that doesnt mean we cant understand things in a subjective or objective way.

In 4000 years we went from worshipping the sun to creating vessels capable of traveling to the moon. If that isnt understanding and knowledge i dont know what is.

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snapshot

sounds more like that could be contributed to manipulation of subjective reality rather than an understand of objective reality.

well, just as easily could be one or the other.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that society has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins

Ego Tripping

what if the illusion IS the illusion?

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Waves

To build a spacecraft we needed a couple things.

1) a belief system in which every construct is repeatable. science. this is the subjective part, as science in itself is a belief system unique to every person.
2) an understanding of the objective laws governing our universe.
3) people to subjectively come to objective conclusions regarding the belief system of "interstellar" travel

and on it goes. so it is subjective AND objective. coming to objective, or "real" understandings through subjective means, such as science or religion. but its all just evolution. ya dig?

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Ego Tripping

You run yourself in circles. I think you're using the word illusion too loosely. At what point does an Experience stop being an illusion?
You are equating technological advancements to philosophical. How have we truly progressed as a functional Race thriving on helping our neighbor instead of the current dog-eat-dog society we have now? The Greeks didn't have Indoor Plumbing either but they were just as 'advanced' as we are today.

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Waves

all this confusion with "illusions" and stuff came about because people dont understand that they are NOT their physical bodies. they are a point of consciousness with a subjective connection to a physical body. of course many religions have been saying this for thousands of years. and so we get confused about wether or not our perception is physical or non physical, or illusionary or "real." which is very understandable if you think about it. but sooner or later we will officially realize that "we" extend FAR beyond our physical bodies. at which point science will provide the necessary belief constructs(repeatabl e- think computer software or some type of machine) for EVERYONE to start exploring what we've all been missing out on. so illusions are real, we create illusions in real life just as much as we do in "dream life", i guess you could say. imo
No, im not trying to argue that we've made any progress from a non physical standpoint or philosophical standpoint at all. in fact in that area i would say we are REgressing. but in the area of applying subjective beliefs to objective reality, we are making AMAZING strides. this will eventually get to the point where we "officially" discover non physical reality. i mean, if you think about the area of psychology, its only been around for a few hundred years. so we have so much shit to do that its amazing to think about, whereas i cant really see any more progress in the way of "major" religions such as christianity, islam, or any of that. science is FULL of "we dont knows" and theories, while religion has already given all its got to give.

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shylo666

or the child, becoming more inquisitive and less likely to believe something simply because they've been told it's true, may simply outgrow the idea of there being a "mystical personage who is omniscient" just because they've always been told there is one.

some of us are a little more discerning than that.

snapshot

Can we really speak in metaphors when we talk about God? Should we only use the most concrete language possible. I have an idea that all these metaphors and analogies and similies only cloud the conversation with more unnecessary nuance. Like with what I just did with the word "cloud". Someone might think the word is there specifically, and another might not take it as literally. One might think an actual cloud is covering the people conversing, and another may wonder if this cloud is being formed because, like a mist, it unintentionally attempts to sway from the truth, in that the argument needs to be able to be misinterpreted because the entire idea of the sentence can not be verified otherwise. The multitude of different perceptions people can have about the idea allows the idea to make sense to the reader, since the conversation (99% of the time) leads a conversing pair back to square one, in that the only thing one can agree on is that they view the world differently.

I think that's a stumbling block that most people don't seem to think is able to be overcome. Using concrete language, using the right words, and being as specific and scientific as possible when talking about God. God does not appear to be in the esoteric, as our language would suggest. God seems to be as real, if not more real than you or I, but when we talk about It we tend to ramble off in subjective reasoning as if we didn't know anything about what we were talking about. Often we choose metaphors just to describe the way we are thinking about what we are thinking about: "My brain's moving a million miles a second and I think I'm seeing in pictures and man, I'm out there."

My idea is that we just need to learn the right words. How many of us can say that we have a descent enough vocabulary to explain our thoughts. Half of us couldn't give the technical names to 80% of the objects around, and less of the words to describe how we feel. THese obstacles can be remedied and a whole new type of conversation could be had. Where we aren't limited by words because we know them all. In fact, we would become limited by only our imagination just to come up with new words to explain the new ideas.

Intelligence intesification is learning. If God is your motivation I have little doubt that the mastering of language would have you feel to God. If personal knowledge is what is important to you the right words would only help you learn faster.

As of now I don't think I could keep up with anyone who has a solid upkeep of words in their heads. And I don't necessarily think it's very important at all to read anyone's ideas and actually take them seriously. I think that's one reason people's beliefs are so hard to change.

I don't know what this is an advertisement for: you guys learning or me needing to become more interesting. i'm becoming limited by my words.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that society has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins

KRONIK

Verklingen, I'll tell you the huge gaping hole in all the theories I see just like this one. You keep coming to the same bullshit assumption, which means the "so-called" proofs haven't really proven anything because they all come to the same ridiculous assuption:
"---and this must be God."
"---which we know as God."
Those "---" parts are skipping over anything really explanatory.

You're coming to the conclusion that 1 + 1 = 5.

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verklingen

My dear KRONIK, I believe you are falling prey to your misconceptions of the term "God." This is why I've abandoned referencing the term. The fact is that no thing can exist without first being executed, and any execution must have an executor. This realization, and the simple question which follows it (who executes existence?) is encompassed in the broad term "God;" not some giant man in the sky with a white beard who throws lightning bolts at people who use condoms.

I'm under the impression that your parents told you all about God and Santa Claus when you were little, but it could just be a bullshit assertion.

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bongload

No one knows if god exists, there isn't even such a thing as an educated guess towards the subject... That's why it's called faith.

JcPizwink

Well I know God exists. It's just that my reasons aren't enough for some people.

Just wanted to throw a little wrench in my board lurking...

snapshot

I bet if we talked long enough I would eventually get you to agree with me that no one really knows anything and that the feeling you have about God is synonymous with the feeling you have when you feel you know an objectively observable object, even though the means by which those sense impressions were received are completely opposed in nature.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that society has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins

Ego Tripping

^ I disagree.

I'd be a fool to deny my experience. God is very Real, just depends on what you think I think of when I say God.

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snapshot

I'd be a fool to think I ever got a full shot of reality, even within my eyesite, because I know my senses neglect many important parts of reality that naturally I might never have come across.

I could logically prove God's existence to a point and then stop, because the ending appeared to be the most logical conclusion in order to further my existence. But if I were to keep rationalizing my existence in God I would eventually come to terms with one can not truely know anything, and to suggest otherwise is to suggest that our senses do not deceive us, and when they do we always notice it.

I could give any definition of the word "God" I wanted to and you may agree with my definition, but I gaurantee that our meanings of "God" are completely different because every word we recall is connected to specific subjective experience from where we used and learned the word before.

To say you know God is almost as meaningless as to say you know a table. You can never fully experience the table, therefore never fully know it. You may convince yourself that only a certain level of knowledge concerning a certain aspect of your "God" need be knowable in order to truely "know" him, but again the predetermining of how much one needs to grasp on the subject in order to know something falls back on the previous experiences of the individual.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that society has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins

Waves

how can you deny the reality of your every waking moment?

you are getting a FULL SHOT of reality EVERY moment. reality is the moment. the holy moment.

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snapshot

no. the brain is not fully equipped. we are getting as much as we possibly can when we are working at maximum potential and efficiency. we use radios, televisions, and other devices because our brains don't have the tools to decode these levels of reality (specifically on the EM wave scale).

It can be as holy as you want it to be.

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that society has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
-Richard Dawkins