As far as what else you've said and posited; you might want to state things that you hope for or think might be true as "hopes" and "might be's". I, like many others in this thread, have taken your "This is <such>" and "those people are <so on>" as you saying you already firmly believe or *know* such things. Your clarification is now clear - that you don't know but are testing the waters; looking at your original post, it didn't sound that way at all.
Definition 1. A point is that which has no part.
Yeah many of these cultures believed in human sacrifice too. Are you saying there is merit in human sacrifice? After all if you are using the argument that there is validity in belief in god simply because there are so many cultures around the world that believe in some sort of god or gods, then it must stand that there must be validity to believing in god.
I still don't understand the bit about the disco for mice though.
Inspired by the evident failure of my efforts so far, someone else might like to have a go at describing the 'geometry' of mind, as they see it.
For a start, they might like to consider human selves. Do these exist, for a start? It's not obvious that the infinitesimal 'points' of Euclid exist, either, yet his choice of the point as a fundamental concept was inspired.
Euclid's Elements, Book I
Very well then, let's look at ourselves (i.e. my self, your self, their selves). Inspired, perhaps, by the Euclidean analogy, the first question to ask might be whether a self is like a point. That is, does it have parts? I'll leave the rest to you.
You're in left field, friend.
To admit the obvious fact that many humans feel a need to explore their metaphysical questions is a far cry from ascribing any validity to - or excusing any practices arising from such needs.
Here's my little opinion. True religion which is rare on earth is made of love, of feeling, of seeing the world and others in it as beautiful, and being grateful for this.
For me the spirit is nothing but emotion, concept, sensation as a unity, also known as life.
I did the mice bit as some playful comedy. I think we can only pray with bloody hands, because there are no clean hands. And I don't think there is a better form of prayer than seeing another human being as beautiful, and loving this beauty. We are all mortal of course. So the mice (us) dance on the tail not of a mere cat but on a tiger. And this is the terrible aspect of reality. The world can be cruel beyond mere human cruelty. But the mortal mice dance with their bloody whiskers tickling one another despite all this. Because they accept the tiger. They forgive the future(death/betrayal/etc) and the past ("sins" of self/others) and DANCE. :detective::flowers::Glasses:
Beautiful! The Euclidean point...yes indeed. And isn't this the infinitesimal considered spatially? I'm sure you know the Wittgenstein use.
Plato is so obviously right when it comes to Forms....maybe not on all the details.
Probably not on all the details, which often look silly (although not as silly as my OP in this thread!), but yes, I'm with you also on this. He's obviously right in some way. He had a hold of the sacred, and wouldn't let go. He had that tiger by the tail, and has led us all on a merry dance that never ends.
I'm sure I don't. Tell me. I haven't read nearly as much philosophy as I should.
5.61 Logic pervades the world: the limits of the world are also its
limits. So we cannot say in logic, 'The world has this in it, and
this, but not that.' For that would appear to presuppose that we were
excluding certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case, since it
would require that logic should go beyond the limits of the world; for
only in that way could it view those limits from the other side as well.
We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think we cannot
say either.
5.62 This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there
is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it
cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this
is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language
which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.
5.621 The world and life are one.
5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)
5.631 There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains
ideas. If I wrote a book called The World as l found it, I should have
to include a report on my body, and should have to say which parts were
subordinate to my will, and which were not, etc., this being a method of
isolating the subject, or rather of showing that in an important sense
there is no subject; for it alone could not be mentioned in that book.--
5.632 The subject does not belong to the world: rather, it is a limit of
the world.
5.633 Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be found? You will
say that this is exactly like the case of the eye and the visual field.
But really you do not see the eye. And nothing in the visual field
allows you to infer that it is seen by an eye.
5.6331 For the form of the visual field is surely not like this
5.634 This is connected with the fact that no part of our experience is
at the same time a priori. Whatever we see could be other than it is.
Whatever we can describe at all could be other than it is. There is no a
priori order of things.
5.64 Here it can be seen that solipsism, when its implications are
followed out strictly, coincides with pure realism. The self of
solipsism shrinks to a point without extension, and there remains the
reality co-ordinated with it.
5.641 Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk
about the self in a non-psychological way. What brings the self into
philosophy is the fact that 'the world is my world'. The philosophical
self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with
which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit
of the world--not a part of it.
I think someone like myself, who has little love, and sees mostly horror, can still have true religious thoughts; but if the thoughts are true, he'll slowly become a better person (perhaps quickly, but I'm suspicious of rapid conversions or transformations, including that of Saul/Paul); and if I remain the same useless turd I still mostly am, my religious thoughts aren't true.
How is that any different than the need itself?
Even though I agree with your post here. It is a fair assessment however; I find a fault in it, and it is a typical fault.
Why is it that people presuppose a god's existence becomes a barrier to knowing or not knowing, when there are other uncertainties that never give rise to conflict?
I could suggest that there is an invisible being that moves among us. It has one task and that is to cut the life strings from an individual. There is no death, it is only this invisible being who causes it to occur. These life strings as long as they are attached to the human body, the body would go on living indefinitely, if this being were to fail to sever these strings. I can say this with absolute fact that this being does exist. But how?
Since I can not provide for you any evidence what so ever. Are my claims rational or logical? Since the attributes of the argument make it plausible, why are they not acceptable?
So from this point on, anyone who rejected my assessment would be in error, if you are suppose to accept all possibilities equal to any lack of evidence for any claim.
So regardless of the claim, you must always accept it as plausible. If this is true then all science would become completely useless. But since I do not adhere to what I have stated it is obvious that you should not simply accept a theory without any basis for evidence.
Since there is absolutely no evidence for a god, it would stand that logical reasoning would dictate that a god does not exist. If you do not accept that claim then you must, for consistency sake, accept ALL claims equally no matter how unlikely they are. If you don't accept all claims equally then you invalidate your own argument.
Not saying I agree with the this argument but assuming God exists, and God is the requisite for a moral standard as you said then, actually yes, according to William Kingdon Clifford, at least in his essay, The Ethics of Belief, it does matter if you believe in Him.
Clifford basically explains that it's not even what you believe but why and on what grounds you believe it. Therefore, if God exists and is the reason for such moral standards, and you believe killing people is wrong, then while that may be true, if you believe it on any grounds short of believing such a truth is from God then you are wrong and "the pleasure is a stolen one." . . . It is sinful because it is stolen in defiance of our duty to mankind. That duty is to guard ourselves from such beliefs as from a pestilence which may shortly master our own body and then spread to the rest of the town. . . . It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything for [unworthy/insufficient/false reasons]."
burger-book
But as I was replying to Twirl about what appeared to be an as yet-unformed opinion, it seemed prudent to encourage him/her towards that 'self discovery' of how he/she really feels in the first place. This strikes me as a necessary "first step" before asking others how they feel about theological beliefs stated as if they were their own, but in fact haven't any idea where they stand.
Quote:We cannot think what we cannot think; so what we cannot think we cannot say either.
5.62 This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there
is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it
cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this
is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language
which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.
I had heard a paraphrase of Wittgenstein that 'we cannot set a limit to thinking, because to do so we would have to think on both sides of the limit'. I think this is the passage it was referring to. But it fails to understand that you can see past thought - you can, if you are sufficiently aware, understand the very nature of thought itself. By what faculty do you become aware of thought? Through bare awareness.
Solipsism is dependent on the illusion that I am separate from everyone and everything, that experience or consciousness is mine alone. But if consciousness is collective, there is no basis for solipsism.
On the other hand the truth of the thoughts that are here communicated
seems to me unassailable and definitive. I therefore believe myself to
have found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems.
And if I am not mistaken in this belief, then the second thing in which
the of this work consists is that it shows how little is achieved when
these problems are solved.
6.4311 Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience
death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration
but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the
present. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field
has no limits.
6.52 We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been
answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course
there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer.
6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of
the problem. (Is not this the reason why those who have found after a
long period of doubt that the sense of life became clear to them have
then been unable to say what constituted that sense?)
6.522 There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make
themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.
6.432 How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference
for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.
6.4321 The facts all contribute only to setting the problem, not to its
solution.
6.44 It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it
exists.
6.45 To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole--a
limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole--it is this that is
mystical.
6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me
finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through
them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder,
after he has climbed up on it.) He must transcend these propositions,
and then he will see the world aright.
And yet the emotion associated with the term God is worth something. Hegel describe reality as spirit...but "spirit" too has supernatural associations.
In my mind, the supernatural is idolatrous. So-called God is here and now all the g-- damned time! But "God" is just a concept, a word, a piece of driftwood.
I find stating "Mind knowing Mind as Mind" as a better way to communicate what Hegel meant, as he defines Spirit as "Reason, when Reason knows that Reason is all there is". (paraphrased. I don't have my copy on me at the moment. I think he also takes, like, a paragraph to say it or something....) I find that it avoids the supernatural association we tend to have with "Spirit".
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all idolatrous insofar as they attempt "to evade or ignore the demanding core of true religion: radical self-abandonment to the Divine as manifested in the turn toward others and toward objective reality" (p. 24). They are idolatrous insofar as they invoke another hidden world and promise an afterlife in that world, as a way of redirecting people's aspirations in the "all too this-worldly interests of the religion" (p. 24).
Yes I agree too, with the caveat that we don't know enough about nature to know what is 'super- ' to it.
I'm sure this can be shot down instantly, but what the heck - who wants to live forever? I just want to know if it makes any sense to anybody. It's not intended as gospel.
