The insanity of religion

You know as I was driving to breakfast this morning, something finally occurred to me, seaoat, and you just confirmed it.

I never could understand why you would actually believe the Bostom Marathon bombers were nothing but "common criminals". And why your only criticism during that whole episode was aimed at the police who were trying to catch them.

It's now evident to me why you would say that. Because you actually have bought into this Matthew nonsense. For you, the real wrongdoer is never the perp. The real wrongdoer is any victim of the perp who resists.
You were expecting all those people with their arms and legs blown off to offer their remaining arms and legs to those perps. Because that's what the Bible has taught you.

Bob,
Concepts are important. By calling the Boston Bombers common criminals is simply to acknowledge Evil without creating more Evil. Some try to promote those bombers into a tapestry of hate for all who are Muslim, or try to change the criminal enterprise of ISIS backed by the Israelis and Saudis into something which it has not really been. Its purpose was to destroy the nation states of Syria and Iraq where shia influence had a power base and where those nation states were a threat to Israel and Saudi Arabia. The pope has asked for an end of the death penalty. You import that I may share in that conclusion. I do not. I do not like the death penalty, but would like the death penalty not to be eliminated, just narrowly limit deaths by society, as I do not like abortions, but I do not want them eliminated, just narrowly limited to as close to zero in both categories........did Matthew guide me in those decisions.......maybe, but I recognize I am not truth or perfection, and that I will fall short, but I try to follow a path of truth.

2seaoat wrote:Bob,

 The pope has asked for an end of the death penalty.  You import that I may share in that conclusion.  I do not.

I never said a thing about the death penalty, the pope's position on it, or your position on it.
You have ignored every point I made and responded to something I never even said.

Actually, as I wrote in another thread, I'm opposed to the death penalty. For two reasons.
One, because of how it's implemented, it costs the taxpayers more to keep a convict on death row than it does to give that same convict a sentence of life in prison.
And two, because it's the easy way out for the perp. I prefer to see the perp suffer by rotting inside a cage for the rest of his natural life.

But one thing is for goddamn certain. I don't want the law to tell the victim of a perp that he has to be further victimized by that perp. Jesus may be in favor of that but not me.

Brother Carl Gallups,  the right-wing baptist church pastor/radio show host was a sheriff's deputy before he became right-wing baptist church pastor/radio show host.

I sure would like to see this policeman/baptist pastor/radio host be asked about that bible verse which says the victims of theft should not resist and instead offer to give more of their possessions to the perp.  
I would surely like to hear his response to that.
Or Mike Huckabee's response.  Or Rick Santorum's response. Or that woman in Kentucky's response. Or Sarah Palin's response.  Or markle's or pacedog's response.  Or the response of any other conservative Christian.  lol

2seaoat wrote:The point being,  that if an understanding of the nature of existence is not "conceivable" to the human mind,  then it will remain "unknowable" to us.


Very good Bob, you get Kant.

No I don't "get" Kant,  seaoat.  This is what I wrote in post #162 which you're replying to...

____________________________________________

This is from the wikipedia page on Kant...

"Kant in his critical phase likewise sought to 'reverse' the orientation of pre-critical philosophy by showing how the traditional problems of metaphysics can be overcome by supposing that the agreement between reality and the concepts we use to conceive it arises not because our mental concepts have come to passively mirror reality, but because reality must conform to the human mind's active concepts to be conceivable and at all possible for us to experience."

I don't even get the point of all that.  But it's this line seaoat used that got my attention...

"reality must conform to the human mind's active concepts to be conceivable and at all possible for us to experience. "

__________________________

As the post clearly says,  "I don't even get the point of all that".
Exactly the opposite of me "getting" Kant.

2seaoat wrote:Who needs to impress, it is what it is.  Bob may not want to turn the other cheek and shack up with a divorced person, but none of that is the essence of Matthew 6.  It is that you do not need and operator to connect a call with God, and that he is always a part of us independent of those who try to convince us their way is God's way, or those who try to convince us that he cannot exist.

My question is what is the truth and perfection?

God

It is indoctrination at it's best and precludes all we have learned about the workings of the mind and the psyche of our thoughts.

A priori knowledge.....you lack the conceptual aptitude and are most certainly the poster child for Kant.  You would be the proudest occupant in the allegory of the cave where you would claim speaking about how indoctrinated one must be to believe that the shadows are  truth.  My faith is simple.  God is truth and perfection which our universe, nature, math and science confirm each and every day that there is an apex of the same which unifies it all.  You think that your limited knowledge can define truths undiscovered, and that my faith in God somehow cannot be logically verified, because after all your posteriori   knowledge exist only in shadows and to suggest otherwise is beyond your experience.  Like I told Boards.....I have made my bet, and I feel at peace with my selection, you are welcome to believe that everyday the truths, beauty, and perfection of this world is a random roll of the dice, and that there is no portal to enlightenment, it must be a sad world of limitation you face each and every day.  For me Matthew 6 has guided me for almost fifty years, criticized by the devout as limited, and criticized by those limited to their experience as believing in the sky fairy.......and finding peace in scripture which guides my life.

Oy vey! After all of this, the only thing we have accomplished is that Oatie believes the the "truths,beauty and perfections of this world" is due to a God based on ancient writings. Everything we know that contradicts that is to be ignored and cast aside. I say to you Oatie, it must be a sad world of limitations your mind lives in but it is your right to believe whatever delusions you want. That's the beauty of religion.

is due to a God based on ancient writings.

No, once again your comprehension of concepts is not your strong point. I believe that the world has presented me with perfection and truths. I have written how as an eighth grader I had that paradigm. If only I could expand my experiential world, I could expand my knowledge and seek more truth. However, in the end there is no point in following that paradigm exclusively if it is deemed to fail. Some truths will remain undiscovered in my lifetime. My belief in perfect truth and God simply is the realization that with faith I can achieve God where I can never achieve the same in my experience as a living human being.

Everything we know that contradicts that is to be ignored and cast aside.

I have had these discussions since I was a child, but that sentence I simply do not comprehend, nor have I seen others make that argument. So explain how our experiences and knowledge base require us to cast aside the concept of truth and perfection in our universe, the natural world, math, or science such that you have discovered in your life the facts that refute truth.

believe whatever delusions you want.

What delusion. Where or what have I said is delusional and not able to be proved by the scientific method by those things beyond our limits of the human mind. Do you like the folks in the Middle ages deny that the black fever was a parasitic invasion of the body which man in its limits of experience and concept could not verify. So is the truth of a parasitic infection causing disease unable to be discovered because in the allegory of the cave you limit your known world to shadows......and did not the truth reveal itself. If being non delusional is the acceptance of truth by only the limits of our mind, then is that by definition delusional?

Let me help you with the fallacy of your concept that only experience can find truth, and in the absence of our minds ability to go beyond posteriori knowledge is delusional.

Early in the cycle of yellow fever, Washington DC would be evacuated because of the reality that the disease progressed in the summer months.  People would go to the country to escape the disease, as if the air was bad in DC.  Their hypothesis and experience was confirmed.  Fewer people got yellow fever when they left DC in the summer.   Therefore their truth was limited by the reality of their experience, yet the cause and effect of yellow fever, and the truth of the same escaped them.  The truth was always there.   The truth was perfection and certain, but yet discovered and in its stead was falsehood.   A person in the country could just as easily be bitten by a mosquito carrying the disease as the truth of the disease, but because fewer infected people were getting bitten in the country, their truth remained......Country air is healthier in the summer than city air.   You argue that I am delusional or that I am limited in my beliefs.  Quite the contrary, there is nothing delusional in believing in absolute truth and perfection in our universe, in nature, math,and science and that truth is God.  All Matthew six provides is a verification of the portal.....not that it is exclusive.....and not that I have to rely on man to find truth, rather that truth is connected to me yet undiscovered.

2seaoat wrote:Let me help you with the fallacy of your concept that only experience can find truth, and in the absence of our minds ability to go beyond posteriori knowledge is delusional.

I'm not sure who any of your last few posts are in reply to,  Vikingwoman or me,  since you didn't specify who.

But it must not be me,  because...  

A posteriori knowledge is knowledge derived from experience.

And A priori knowledge is knowledge which is independent of experience.

... and I'm not able to see the relevance of making that distinction to anything I wrote.  
So I'm assuming your reply was to Vikingwoman.

But I will add this.  If seaoat or any other human being can explain the nature of all existence,  I'm all ears.  
But if the answer is to tell me the nature of all existence has been explained in any work of writing up to this point,  then it's going to have to be more than just making that claim.  
I don't do claims when there's nothing else but the claim.  I require more than just a claim.  If I was going to bet on claims alone,  I would have lost my ass by now.  And that applies to poker,  life, politics,  religion,  philosophy, science and everything else. And Donald Trump in particular. He better start backing up his claims or he can go fuck a duck.

... and I'm not able to see the relevance of making that distinction to anything I wrote.  
So I'm assuming your reply was to Vikingwoman.

You are correct.  It was directed at Dreams.

If seaoat or any other human being can explain the nature of all existence,  I'm all ears.  
But if the answer is to tell me the nature of all existence has been explained in any work of writing up to this point,  then it's going to have to be more than just making that claim.  


I agree.  We do have people that make those claims.  They stand and pray the loudest.  I do not have that knowledge of truth.  I have to the extent my life has allowed me to experience and learn truth, but it is a journey destined to fall short.  Some argue we can find truth and perfection while we live, others argue that truth and perfection can only happen after death.  I do not have that answer, nor do I think it matters because my faith says that God is truth and perfection in the universe, in nature, math and science and that God sits at the apex of truth.  I have not experienced that knowledge yet in my life, and it is my faith that perhaps I will experience that knowledge after death, but I have no experience which can verify the same, nor is there anybody who can tell me the truth in my life's experience, so I find NOTHING wrong with skeptics like yourself Bob, but that in no way changes truth and perfection and the existence of God which we have not discovered or is beyond our mind's percption.

2seaoat wrote: I find NOTHING wrong with skeptics like yourself Bob, but that in no way changes truth and perfection and the existence of God which we have not discovered or is beyond our mind's perception.

I would prefer a different word than "perception".  I would put it as: an understanding of the nature of all existence is beyond our mind's capacity.

If you're equating the word "God" with the concept "the nature of all existence",  then I have no quarrel with that.  A rose by any other name is still a rose.  And so is what we're discussing here.

I would prefer a different word than "perception". I would put it as: an understanding of the nature of all existence is beyond our mind's capacity.

That would be the wrong word. The discussion since Plato has been that perception not capacity is the issue. In the Allegory of the cave it is not that the cave dwellers cannot process or have the capacity to process the reality, rather they cannot perceive. When I talked about Kant's concepts which Dreams having never experienced higher thought believed I was just cutting and pasting, it was the essence of his approach to these age old questions that one important consequence of his views is that our experience of things is always of the phenomenal world as conveyed by our senses. It is not limited by our capacity of our brain or minds. Your use of the word capacity is a misapplication of a concept which has been debated since the beginning of time. Boards thinks I am making up chit religion, and Dreams thinks I am cutting and pasting, but any educated person knows these important philosophical debates and understands that it is the perceptions through our senses which allow the mind to process information. If my nose does not work, and my mind has infinite capacity, is there smell. If a tree falls in the forest and I cannot hear, or see it......did it fall.

Matthew 6 is not God playing dice. It is not a matter of my or your mind not having the capacity to understand we just have a few senses and truth and perfection I would argue almost needs infinite senses to comprehend truth and perfection, not infinite capacity, because even a single cell organism can sense a universal truth like heat. So as a Christian who believes that as a man I am limited, that I cannot achieve truth in perfection within my experiential existence because my senses by definition are limited which has been proven over and over again in science, then my faith prays for that truth and perfection in this life and beyond. It remains faith......nothing more or less.

2seaoat wrote:I would prefer a different word than "perception".  I would put it as: an understanding of the nature of all existence is beyond our mind's capacity.

That would be the wrong word.  The discussion since Plato has been that perception not capacity is the issue.  In the Allegory of the cave it is not that the cave dwellers cannot process or have the capacity to process the reality, rather they cannot perceive.  

Firstly,  so we're all on the same page, here is a description of Plato's Allegory of the Cave...

Plato has Socrates describe a gathering of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from things passing in front of a fire behind them, and they begin to give names to these shadows. The shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, for he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners.

This has no application to what I've been saying in this thread.
 
Why?  Because,  yes of course,  the human mind is fully capable of comprehending what the "philosopher" (freed from the cave) is witnessing.

But no matter how much philosophy or religion or science now exists in the world,  and no matter how much philosophy or religion or science will ever exist in this world,  the scuba diver will never be able to communicate his ideas to the minnow anymore than this "philosopher" will ever be able to communicate his ideas to a gnat on the cave wall.  

It's my belief,  and admittedly I have no proof of this,  that a human mind attempting to comprehend the nature of all existence,  is analogous to the minnow ever being able to comprehend the ideas of the scuba diver.
In fact,  multiply the difference between the minnow and the scuba diver by infinity,  and that will make the analogy more accurate.

I think what has befallen all philosophy and all religion, seaoat, is that it sees humanity as being at the center of all existence.
It just cannot bring itself to see humanity in the role of the minnow. And in that sense, it's simply denying our reality.

A realization of this reality in no way diminishes the value of humanity or the value of having life as a human being.
Humanity is capable of amazing and astonishing things. But it's not capable of everything. And my question is, why does it feel it has to know everything.

is that it sees humanity as being at the center of all existence.

I agree. It assumes the human senses are superior. This was my query to the folks who came and knocked on my door with their bibles when I was first married. Most would simply slam the door, but I have a hunger for knowledge and I wanted to learn. It was the certainty that humans were supreme, that my dog could not go to their concept of heaven, and that they had answers which has reinforced my belief in Matthew 6. Not only did it historically allow the division of Christian faith into Catholic and Protestant, but it goes much deeper conceptually into man's ability to speak of truth and perfection. Again my deeply held Christian faith is that God is a unitary truth and perfection which is the apex of our universe, in nature, math, and science, but I have always had problems with people who claim they have seen God. Just because I have not does not mean they have not, yet almost universally it is a Christian belief that man is in the image of God.

The Bible tells us that no one has ever seen God (John 1:18) except the Lord Jesus Christ. In Exodus 33:20, God declares, “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live, yet it seems man has conceptually made truth and perfection in the image of man. I just do not comprehend this and am I bound by man's interpretation of the scriptures as written. Well some would argue that the bible stands on every word, I find that to be a logical fallacy which can only be reconciled by the beauty of Matthew 6. You see whether I use your capacity. or the philosopher's perceptions and senses, I do not try to create a fantasy which elevates man at the exclusion of all other things in the universe and nature to fill the apex of truth and perfection. God may be your minnow. All my Christian beliefs give me is that my life must be guided by truth, and to the extent I can attain that truth within my experiential life, then I will celebrate life, my beliefs, and have found peace staying faithful to truth. I have sadly strayed from truth in my life, but wisdom is is earned.

2seaoat wrote: God may be your minnow.  

"God" is a human word concept,  constructed by the human intellect.

Yes,  since in my analogy the minnow is a metaphor for the totality of the human intellect,  the word "God" is of course a part of that,   like every other human idea.

There is one big difference between my belief and the belief espoused by book religion,  seaoat.

I will never tell anyone who chooses not to share my belief that he or she will have to go to a place called "Hell" run by a "Devil".  And no one will be set on fire and burned for all eternity.  You won't even have to suffer a minor burn.  lol

I think at the end of the age Bob and Seaoat will be the last ones standing with their fishing poles in a school of "minners."

And no one will be set on fire and burned for all eternity.

The Church certainly is not perfec. How could other Christians who were like you and were uncomfortable with the absolutes of conformity with their doctrine,yet to those same men it appeared that God my be a secondary consideration to political power. The Protestant reformation basically insisted that man cannot be the nexus, but scripture must decide. I have posted this process, but almost all religions have an element of conformity. Yet, I argue many within those same Protestant denominations have equally become a process of conformity to man, and less conformity to the search for truth and perfection in God. As you might realize, I present problems wherever I go when another person wants to define my religion and what Christianity means.....I have the atheist religion saying it what it is, and I have my fundamental brother and his wife telling me what it means, but alas how can there be reconciliation and peace if these religions pull a believer in different directions, and therein lies the beauty of Matthew 6.

SheWrites wrote:I think at the end of the age Bob and Seaoat will be the last ones standing with their fishing poles in a school of "minners."  

The last time I went fishing,  I joined some friends who needed six of us to charter a fishing trip.
It was a remarkable experience.  The boat captain and his "deck hand" used the latest technology to put the boat on top of a school of red snapper.
And once they got us on top of the red snappers (which were swimming near the bottom),  they also had mastered the technique of backing up the fishing boat to make it easier to for us to hook the fish.

The result was that five of the six of us immediately got their limit of two snappers on their hooks and reeled them in.  
The sixth person was unable to hook the first snapper.  So the deck hand offered to do it for him and then let him reel it in.  And the most embarrassing part of the story is the "deck hand" was one of my PE coaches at Workman Junior High School (before they called em middle schools).
Fishing is not my strong suit and I've since sworn it off.  I now prefer to let Frank Patti do the fishing.
So seaoat will have to be the last fisherman standing.  lol

I think at the end of the age Bob and Seaoat will be the last ones standing with their fishing poles in a school of "minners."


Sadly, I use "minners" for bait.

2seaoat wrote: And no one will be set on fire and burned for all eternity.

The Church certainly is not perfec. How could other Christians who were like you and were uncomfortable with the absolutes of conformity with their doctrine,yet to those same men it appeared that God my be a secondary consideration to political power.  The Protestant reformation basically insisted that man cannot be the nexus, but scripture must decide.  I have posted this process, but almost all religions have an element of conformity.   Yet, I argue many within those same Protestant denominations have equally become a process of conformity to man, and less conformity to the search for truth and perfection in God.  As you might realize, I present problems wherever I go when another person wants to define my religion and what Christianity means.....I have the atheist religion saying it what it is, and I have my fundamental brother and his wife telling me what it means, but alas how can there be reconciliation and peace if these religions pull a believer in different directions, and therein lies the beauty of Matthew 6.

I'm in agreement with most all of that.  Except I still don't comprehend how that leads you to Matthew 6.
It would help if you could elaborate a little further and explain what Matthew 6 means to you in a way I can understand.  Try to put it in clear and simple terms, using only your own words and without references to the ideas of Kant or Plato or other philosophy.  Only your own.  
I realize you're going to tell me you've already done this because in your mind you believe you have.  But you haven't communicated it sufficiently for ignorant dumbasses like me.  Try again.

Matthew 6 clearly states that man has a direct line to God, without other men qualifying the connection.

2seaoat wrote:Matthew 6 clearly states that man has a direct line to God, without other men qualifying the connection.

I see.  So you decided to have faith in that claim.  Now I understand.  

May the force be with you. And I mean that sincerely. The only beef I have with anyone's religion begins at the end of my nose. And since I have no worry about that with your religion, I support you in it.