Religion's

Well that is one I can say that I've never heard of. Can't see any flaws in it, though I'm not going to pretend I even comprehend it really.

Lets not talk about doubt for this. We've already determined that you can doubt just about anything. So lets say what an average person would say exists, does exist. If I don't believe you exist it does not prevent you from existing. Likewise we both conceptually know that there are people in China. We don't think of all 1.3 some billion of them individually. But as far as I'm concerned, they all have faces, they all have stories, they all exist. Whatever "truth" is will continue to be true, even if I don't comprehend or acknowledge it.

I've never heard that it needs to loop back on itself. Though it is a nice test, because if it does not agree when the two ends meet then there had to of been mistake somewhere. But yes the difference between the two was a big topic in my philosophy class. There are also two distinct versions of Foundationalism. I'm too lazy to look it up now but we always referred to them as the rope and chain methods. The rope method cares less about how good each proof is and more about how many proofs you have (like a rope being lots of fibers woven together. Each fiber is weak but together they are strong. Chain method is basically saying, once I've proven it we can call it true and move on we don't need to prove it again.

Can you provide some example of something (phenomena or phenomenon) that exists without reason? And hallucinations and dreams don't work because you imagining it is the cause.

I thought we more or less came to a conclusion on this. I'm having trouble thinking of new ways to explain this. I fully admit that being under the label agnostic is a decision. What I'm saying is that by what that label means you are not deciding what religion(s) is/are true and false. A Christian says Christianity is true, A Hindu says Hinduism is true, an Atheist says none of them are true, and an Agnostic would refuse to make a statement because there is no way of knowing what is true or not. You can't pass judgment (or decide what religions, if any, are true), and that is why I group Agnostics with Undecided. You don't make the decision, not because you can't but because you don't want to.

post count is completely arbitrary to me, and that isn't just a "I'm already prem" thing. If it wasn't for P telling me I was one post away, I wouldn't have even noticed I turned prem until I was going "Why the heck did my user name color change?"

I think that this argument has gone on long enough that we are both starting to tire of it. And with the forum allowing us to create branches to our discussion, it is a lot like having multiple arguments at once, simply compounding the issue.

But it would be awesome, just think...

 

Not what I meant at all. More like this:

 

Wholly Chao! You know of this amazing... thing? 8D
I just discovered it yesterday. xD So I still haven't "Gone Off Alone & Partaken Joyously of a Hot Dog" on the first Friday of my illumination.
And since I don't have any hot dogs in the house, nor do I have money to go buy any, I will have to prolong my official illumination, I suppose. xD

 

This was all very well and good until you became ONE OF THE DEBATERS.

And The Maker believes in you, for yours is the tar that will rep the heavens!

[Obligatory racist terrorist joke]

Well you aren't. So choose a religion. And no, you can't get around it by deifying your leader after death either, so no Caesar for you.

My thoughts are that I should leave replying to this until we get down to your other post.

Greedy.

Yes, this is really the Spamzone, although you may call it the Playground if you wish. (although no one ever does.)

Go stand in the time-out corner for thinking this could end any other way. Also, your beliefs suck. (Speaking of which, what were they again?)

Why so surprised? I'm here most days.

Kinda like having your intestines sucked out by a pool drain.

They're unheard of in any Pokémon games I play. Honestly, my luck is atrocious.

Nope. Lack of a belief in a god is atheism. It doesn't matter whether it could have existed or not. If there not the belief 'God exists' then it is a lack of theism, thus atheism.

Pokémon has, and always will have an enormous potential for badass. I approve.

Stop hanging out on Cinnabar coast. It's bad for your health.

GO GROUDON!

Elaborate.

Chev, I found some people who think like you!

ohai

There are people to help you with that. We call them doctors.

Prove you exist.

-sigh-

I should really just call myself a non-believer instead. Or perhaps I should say "I don't believe in a god". Those should slip under the radar.

My neighbours are getting suspicious. They keep asking me about their missing cat! D:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZsYEGmhEbc[/video]

Think what you can do for Satanism, not what Satanism can do for you.

Presumably you'd be more likely to try to eat me if I were a turkey sandwich.

"Hah, I don't exist any more! See, I told you so!"

Or you're right, and Budda has a great sense of humour.

And so, the argument ultimately concluded.

Bea=Bear

Mind=blown

Rawr. You suck.

Let's just leave this refined part right here.

Bound by the rules and traditions of Christianity, but still going to hell because of belief in other powers. Are you a masochist?

*BEA

Call me when the timeline's sorted out.

brb making shield dual disk

It's also a Playground.

Arguments and viewpoints are subjective. It's perfectly possible to draw two valid conclusions that oppose each other from perfectly valid data. Both sides can come out of an oppositional argument without converting the opponent, while having constructed a flawless theory.

Then what is a lack of belief?

Everything ends up at sex, religion or politics. This thread started out at one of them, so it's remained on topic.

Makaze, you should quote this in your signature or something.

Nooo

Conceit approving of conceit? You'll enter a recursive loop of approval!

I think a better argument would be to question the senses that inform him that a wall exist. It'd be extremely easy to make the argument that it's all in the mind.

Speak.

I hope you tried to convert her to Satanism and animal sacrifice. Or explained the benefits of polygamy.

Break down a wall that isn't there?

Is there any religion in the list that's okay with that?

An artist's depiction:

We need a nickname for Sforzato. Zato? Zats? Sfor?

Easy to type, not so easy to pronounce.

This is beginning to look more and more like a harem. We've got Lilbueno, Nova, GS and Makaze, not to mention the pet bear of truth. Throw in a few love Klein Bottles, and we're away.

This is looking more and more like a so-bad-it's-good harem.

I'm going to pretend you're talking about the harem, in which case I can say that I strongly hold an indecisive view on whether it is positive or negative.

Needs more capitalisation.

Post counts are easy. Postwhore more.

1st rule of rep: You don't talk about fight club.

Finally. I knew it would come in handy. Please see the apatheist quote by Lilbueno above.

Where does "I conclude that X is most likely in my eyes" fit in?

Damn. Looks like I'll never get there now.

Seconded.

We just lost a spamzone. ._.

WHELP, OFF TO VOXLI

Hindu hugs are on a completely different level. So many arms!

Or the thread dies before then.

Oh u.

That's the great thing about metaphysics: No matter how much you try to unravel existence, you need to believe in it to communicate your theory.

Are you a Pagan?

Summarise it in a sentence for the lazy.

Unless, of course, the entire chain of causation is a lie, which nicely solves most problems of causation.

Zone out, and pick a single part of their posts, and poke a hole there. It's easier than trying to create your own wall of text, and it gets you into the discussion.

How does the whole Mormon thing work out for you? Do you have to wear that undergarment thing?

OUR Jesus is the real one!

See the link about causation that I posted earlier. You'll like it.

This should be moved somewhere post-counting. Ah well. Discussion for discussion's sake is how things should be.

Dude, it's a miracle we're not posting cat pictures by now. We're going fine.

Great. Now I have an obligation to complete this cycle. I better get a pin out of this. B|

I wonder if I can get off homework with this argument?

I still have three staffships left. There's no way you'll sink them all!

It's amazing what a night in a torture cellar will do to a person's beliefs.

I feel honoured. :>

Which one of us did this first, and when? I completely forgot about it until you reminded me.

MORE. INFO. NOW.


That was refreshing. It's been a while since I've done something like that.

 

Ok,P, i admire your dedication for quoting many of the replies lol it took me a while just to read them all

 

If only quotes were quoted, too.

 

P has too much time to waste.

 

P and waste in the same sentence? Ew.

 

That was awesome P. SOMEBODY CREATE A PIN FOR THIS!

Feel free to join in ;D

 

Oh so nobody noticed when I did it in the KH-V House thing, but when P does it AS A RESPONSE TO THAT, everyone goes wild.

Thanks guys. :c

@P: You did it first, in that thread with lots of Zexion's Wife. Or whatever her name was. And then I did it a couple of times after that.

 

I had the blessings of Arceus. You did not.

 

Oh u. c:

A somewhat parody religion with a touch of seriousness in the philosophical sense that worships Eris (aka Discordia) who the Greco-Roman goddess of Chaos.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordianism

Which is also why I now understand the movie The Number 23.

Just a few of the brilliant findings you will experience through Discordianism.

 

I was being close-minded on that statement. I just mean that we wouldn't use this thread as a “This is why your religion is wrong” piece

Fixed. Note to self: url tags mess up videos

Love the video BTW

*gnaws on P's arm*

I get my version of Jesus by taking the best parts of the other interpretaions of him until you get something like this

Spoiler: Jesus

 

That is too bad. I came up with it on my own, after all.

We conceptually assume that people exist in China. We understand that people may exist there, but we do not know anything objectively. This I will keep in mind, always. And the statement that it will continue to be true is ridiculous. Nothing is, or, at the least, must be permanent, including things that are objectively true now in this universe. Things change. Please die, for example. People in China could have existed years ago, and we are only hearing about it now. There are millions of ways for things to work. Doubt is the best position here overall for this reason.

Both are fallacious, though. How can you go back to prove it again if you cannot prove it in the first place? The chain methods sounds like begging the question to me.

Reason is not cause. Like I said, semantics again. One thing that always bothered me about Christians, though, was that they would always claim that everything had a cause... Except for God. Can you?

No... An Atheist says that Atheism is true. 'Is' and 'is not' are the same in all aspects because they are both claims to what cannot be known. It is a system of belief in itself. Tacking the 'not' on there does not rule it out as an 'is' option. We have been over this before.

I do not care much either. But if they had moved it, it would have been nice. Ah well...

Not really. I do not tire of arguments easily, especially when the other side is civil about like you are being.

Oh, don't worry so much about that. A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing what he reads.

Hehehe.

Again with these silly semantics issues... Atheism is a word that defines a denying of god's existence in this language. It is defined as such specifically to differentiate it from a lack of belief in either side. As I said, 'is not' is the same as 'is too'. It is clearly and by all accounts other than yours meant to be the opposite of theism, and not simply a lack of it. Use as it is meant to be used here, for the sake of discussion.

"Atheism is commonly defined as the position that there are no deities. It can also mean the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. A broader definition is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist."

There is no need to broaden it here as mentioned at the end, particularly because it overlaps with another option in the list. It is like how both 'right' and 'correct' can mean the same thing, but only correct means that and that solely. If you must use both words, then use right only to mean the direction, and use correct for what it is meant to be used for in its place. Do not confuse this any more than you need to, please.

Buddhism is a great example of this. A religion is defined as, "A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a supernatural agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs." No god is needed for such things, and many religions do not have them, even among those in this list here.

A have to admit, this made me laugh. I commend you.

Wait, Sforzato said that? Have I mixed us up already? Man.

Wrong. Neither set of data can be proven to be valid, so the point is moot in both cases. Where it can be proven valid, in math and general logic, for example, there is only one right answer, so you are wrong in both cases there.

I have been saying it the entire time. Agnosticism is the obvious answer. It has been said already here that it is the opposite of knowing. I hold that all knowledge is belief, as used in the gnostic sense. So, an absence of knowledge, as knowledge is used by gnostics, is an absence of belief.

Lol.

Good idea. I will do that now...

Here is where I pull out one of the more obscure definitions of the word for you.

"In literature, a conceit is an extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem. By juxtaposing, usurping and manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways, a conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison. Extended conceits in English are part of the poetic idiom of Mannerism, during the later sixteenth and early seventeenth century."

Thank you for that.

According to my senses, it is. Breaking down my senses or breaking down the wall; either way, I am not accepting what I see. That is the point.

Most of the above, if you go through some rituals first.

Again, you made me laugh. And again and again I might add. How do you do it?

Sforz-kun works for me, or just Sforz for short.

Only for you, I think. It is easy enough for me. "Sph (as in sphere) - ors (oars) - kun". It might help.

How did GS and the pet bear get in there? I do not remember seeing this development emerge.

I will have it documented when I get a response to this, but I too will remain impartial for now.

I never was fond of rules anyway.

Pragmatic agnosticism, or pragmatic realism, if you prefer. As opposed to naïve realism, which I may have mentioned before.

Not funny.

Two three or four votes now.

What? How do you figure that?

The more likely of the two so far.

Not quite. I can use this computer in a lucid dream if I want to. Belief is not needed for use, as far as I know.

Basically, fnord. That is all.

I am not why you linked to that, really, as it proposes causation as self-evident truth from what I can tell.

Hahaha! "Jesus said to give unto Ceaser what is Caesar's, but he did not say what was Caesar's. Because Caesar got all of his money and made his coins through slavery and taxation, we can safely assume that Ceasar owned nothing, and that Jesus was saying that we should give everything to God here." "But Paul says that we should pay our taxes!"

You have no idea how many times I have gone over this one...

I am reading it now. Thanks. So far, the main problem that I have with it is that is does assume the original point; that is, that the hand 'began' to exist. That time is passing... Which I would argue against with my idea mentioned earlier to mixt.

And, reading more of it... I do not see the appeal here. It appears to assume that something can transcend time without proving that it can. It ignores completely the notion that I myself moved my own hand. See this notion here:

Spoiler: Wall of text

If we had a line of soldiers consisting of only 20. This line stops on 20. There is no 21st. Every soldier in the line has a gun and is capable of shooting, but there is one condition that needs to be fulfilled before any soldier in the line can ever have a chance to shoot. That condition is for the soldier before him to shoot. Keep in mind that the line stops at 20. Will a shot ever be fired? The answer is no, because the one closest to us will not be firing, on account of the one before him not firing, on account of the one before him not firing and so on. The final soldier does not have a soldier before him and yet his condition for firing is also unfulfilled. Hence, no shot will be fired and we are left with complete silence. Let’s now double the line. Will anything change? Obviously, no. Again, complete silence. Make it a billion soldiers? 13.7 billion years worth of soldiers? Same result. Same complete silence. So you see, making it infinite or entertaining an ‘abrupt cut-off’, either way, the result is exactly the same. The entire series remains restricted to ones imagination. The need attached to each and every unit remains unfulfilled, including the need attached to the very first unit in the series.

In utter desperation, he or she will now ask, “OK, you tell us, what happened? You will inadvertently say, ‘there was an Entity in the background all along (God) who pulled the trigger for the first soldier’. Where did this Entity come from? He was never part of the equation. This is absurd. If you can entertain this absurdity, I can claim that the very first unit in the series occurred causelessly. What’s the difference?â€

We will respectfully remind them at this point that we are still discussing their side of the disjunction. There are no soldiers for us, as will become clear very shortly. Be patient. This whole analogy was carefully tailored to reflect only our adversary’s notions of existence and causality, namely that both causality and existence cannot occur independent of spacetime. This is why there is no such Entity as part of the equation. We are not being gratuitous. Not at all.

At this point, we particularly ask our reader to please focus on what is about to be said. In the upcoming paragraphs we will address some major rebuttals which have been presented throughout the ages. This will get intense, and it is possible that some might need to reread what we will mention a couple of times in order to get a clear picture.

What just happened in these last two paragraphs is very significant: The atheist thought we were getting ready to establish a “first cause†(after all, this is what the majority of arguments out there do), thinking we too must reply to the soldiers’ analogy. He found positing an entity outside spacetime to be absurd because according to him there is no existence, nor causality outside spacetime. He misunderstood and believed the soldiers were there to represent entities and attributes which exist in the world. Since we also believe in the existence of such entities and attributes, we also must offer a solution. He then assumed our solution was to invoke a first cause. Based on this, he attempted to put words in our mouth: “there was an Entity in the background..†We, instead, took this very objection of the atheist and made it a component of our proof, which we will later make use of in order to establish “occasionalism†which is our true belief.

The soldiers are not there to represent entities and attributes which began to exist. Therefore, not everyone who accepts the existence of these entities and attributes will be confronted with this ‘riddle’. Rather they are there to represent existing entities and attributes only in their capacity as causes leading to the movement of my hand. This is the understanding of our adversary. The analogy was tailored specifically for him. We do not adopt this position. Therefore the soldiers do not apply to us.

We claim there is absolutely no solution to this problem according to the principles held to be true according to the adversary, namely that causality and existence cannot occur independent of spacetime.[9] As for the question of whether positing a first cause is a viable position, in and of itself, and if an agnostic chooses to forgo their principles (of spacetime dependency) and entertains “transcendence†solely in order to terminate the infinite regress, while of course claiming that the Entity is simply transcendent and beyond spacetime (in order to differentiate him from the rest of the soldiers), though life-less and unconscious… will such a positing undermine our fifth premise which states that the cause for the hand-movement is not a contingent cause? In other words, what problem is there in having an Entity set the series of contingent causes into motion at a particular point in time (for ease of reference, let’s choose the Big Bang singularity), and then have the contingent causes bring about their effects, one after the other, eventually leading to the movement of my hand? Moreover, why does this Entity need to be alive, or posses any consciousness? Perhaps he triggered the chain reaction inadvertently?

This is an important question. We will address this below:

We contest the notion that mere transcendence (being outside spacetime) is sufficient in terminating the infinite regress. Rather what is required is “necessary existenceâ€. This was intended to be explained at stage 6, but we see no option but to exhaust the issue right here at premise 5. We thus begin:

The very first event in the series of contingent causes occurred, configured with a specific configuration of certain attributes, such as location, precise moment of existence, intensity, duration, etc. Take the time aspect for instance: The event occurred at a particular point in time which has been traced back to approximately 13.7 billion years ago. We argue that in the mind’s eye it was conceivable for this to have occurred before or after its actual time by an almost infinite amount of moments in either direction. All such moments were equal. There was nothing in the very nature of the event which required for it to come to be at its specific moment (otherwise, we would not have been able to even conceive other possible moments), nor was there anything within its very nature requiring for it to not exist at this moment (because impossible things do not happen). All moments were thus equal in relation to its very nature. Now, when it did occur at its specific moment, this must have been on account of an attribute within the Being that caused it which specified one of an almost infinite amount of moments above all others. We will call this attribute “willâ€, constitutive of which is “lifeâ€. Claiming that the Entity caused the chain reaction of contingent causes without being alive, or without possessing will, is absurd, because it entails a contradiction of non-equality within the total possible moments, all of which were deemed equal.[10] Thus there must have been will, constitutive of which is life. So the attribute by which the actual coming into existence of the first event occurred is “powerâ€, and the attribute by which the attributes of that event (location, moment of existence, intensity, duration, etc.) were specified is “willâ€. Moreover, an Entity capable of creating based on specification can not create what He does not “knowâ€. We thus have the four attributes of life, power, will and knowledge. These are all necessary. Without them, the infinite regress cannot be terminated.

By the admission of the agnostic, transcendence was a requirement for terminating the regress. In addition to that, we have shown in the previous paragraph that the Entity must also have been alive, willing and knowing. Otherwise, He could not have caused the first event in order to trigger the chain reaction. We further argue, that the power, will, and knowledge of this Entity cannot have been restricted only to the first event, but rather, by rational necessity, these attributes must also be “perfectâ€. By perfection, we mean they must extend to all the subsequent contingent events in the chain leading up to the movement of my hand. Otherwise, positing that the four attributes are restricted to only the first event would disqualify this Entity from its role in terminating the regress, because He would then need another Entity in order to specify the application of His attributes to the first event and prevent them from applying to all others, in which case He would not be the Entity we were seeking. He would just be another contingent being posited outside spacetime. The regress would thus continue without being terminated. He wouldn’t be able to end the regress, rather he would just contribute to extending it.

Since for the very termination of the regress it is absolutely necessary for the Entity to have not only brought the first event into existence, but also all other subsequent events, it now becomes clear that it is absurd to posit a first cause outside spacetime which brought about the first event but remained disassociated from all others. Our premise that the cause for this hand-movement was not a contingent cause thus holds true.

From the above, it is quite clear that the movement of my hand can absolutely not have been caused by something which is of the same nature as the movement itself, namely contingent.[11] This is because, for the cause to be contingent results in an infinite series of causes going back in the past which can never be traversed and concluded. Since the series can never be concluded, the movement of my hand can never have had a chance to exist, whereas we confirmed that the hand did move. Both the movement of my hand (Premise 1) and the non-existence of this movement (entailed by the contradictory of Premise 5) at the same time is a contradiction. Therefore, side A of the disjunction is clearly impossible.

Conclusion: Therefore, by rational necessity, it must have been a necessarily existent Being who created the movement of my hand [along with all of what this entails].

This brings us to the conclusion of our argument. There is not much left for us to do at this point. Everything has already been explained in sufficient detail. Having disproved the false side of the disjunction, naturally, the only way my hand could have moved, since that could not have happened causelessly (Premise 2), and it also could not have happened based on a contingent cause (Premise 5) — the true reason my hand moved must have been by the creation of a necessarily existent Being, free of all of the properties which led to the glaring absurdities discussed above. This must be so. This Entity can not have a beginning for its existence. Otherwise He too would need a cause [or Creator], thus bringing us back to the soldiers. Moreover, He does not need a Creator, because He is not attributed with events or any of the spacetime dependent attributes that things in the universe are attributed with. All of his Divine attributes are perfect and do not require specification. His knowledge, will and power apply to all possible things. In short, He is exalted and pure from all of the possible reasons why someone can ask the question, “Who created him?â€​

As far as I can tell, they never did address the original question. How can something exist outside of time?

Done. I am wondering if you linked me to the wrong thing at this point now. For one, this last part is completely ridiculous...

Spoiler: More text

Finally, He must be one. Because if there were multiple such necessarily existent beings then the removal of the absurdities discussed above could have alternatively been attributed to either of the two, thus resulting in the other being dismissible. This contradicts the necessary existence of that other, whereas we assumed them both to be necessarily existent. This is a contradiction, and what led to it must be impossible, namely the positing of multiple necessarily existent beings. Therefore, He must by rational necessity be one.​

So, because it messes up your theory, it contradicts. I fail to see the problem here at all, really...

So, wrong link, or no? Because it does not make much sense, given the context. Meh...

This is why I am not complaining all that much. I enjoy it, and that is the point anyway.

I guess...

I would join in, but alas, I am not as funny as you can be. The effort would be wasted on me.

Dammit!

Seconded. I need to catch up on my history here anyway.

Well, for that, let me quote from one of my favorite passages in our Bible.

NONSENSE AS SALVATION

The human race will begin solving it's problems on the day that it ceases taking itself so seriously.

To that end, POEE proposes the countergame of NONSENSE AS SALVATION. Salvation from an ugly and barbarous existence that is the result of taking order so seriously and so seriously fearing contrary orders and disorder, that GAMES are taken as more important than LIFE; rather than taking LIFE AS THE ART OF PLAYING GAMES.

To this end, we propose that man develop his innate love for disorder, and play with The Goddess Eris. And know that it is a joyful play, and that thereby CAN BE REVOKED THE CURSE OF GREYFACE.

If you can master nonsense as well as you have already learned to master sense, then each will expose the other for what it is: absurdity. From that moment of illumination, a man begins to be free regardless of his surroundings. He becomes free to play order games and change them at will. He becomes free to play disorder games just for the hell of it. He becomes free to play neither or both. And as the master of his own games, he plays without fear, and therefore without frustration, and therefore with good will in his soul and love in his being.

And when men become free then mankind will be free.
May you be free of The Curse of Greyface.
May the Goddess put twinkles in your eyes.
May you have the knowledge of a sage,
and the wisdom of a child. Hail Eris.​

I would think so. How long did it take you get through all of it?

 

I suppose that's true (or also not true?). I still have some learning to do, don't I? XD

 

It will come in time. In the meanwhile, I suggest reading some wonderful works such as Zen Without Zen Masters, The Illuminatus! Trilogy and Principia Discordia, for our official literature.

 

I've actually looked online to see if any nearby Chapters/Indigo stores have any copies of the Illuminatus! Trilogy, but nadda. I will keep looking, though. Independent/specialty bookstores: here I come. c:

 

What, are we roleplaying now? CAN I BE CHANE?

EDIT: Just realized that that was a rather old post. Oh, well...

 

Not even Half Price Books has them. Whatever will we do?!

Haha! And someone was just joking that you and I were getting hitched the other day. Great news now...

 

"hitched"? I am not caught up with the strange internet terms of today. HITCHHIKING.