Reality from the view point of theists

@izzythepush,

No actually what happened was I was at a friends house to spend the night when I was about 13. My friend fell a sleep on the couch and I was bored because it was in the middle of the day, well long story short, I was playing with a lighter and held it to his heel while he slept, "I was amazed at how long he allowed me to do that, come to find out your heel is so thick that when you finally do feel it, it's too late.

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@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

No actually what happened was I was at a friends house to spend the night when I was about 13. My friend fell a sleep on the couch and I was bored because it was in the middle of the day,

When did this happen, the middle of the day, or the middle of the night?

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@izzythepush,

It was in the morning when I arrived at his house to spend the nite. What do you call it a sleep over maybe? We called it spending the night even though it was the whole day.

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@reasoning logic,

You arrived in the morning, and by lunchtime he was asleep?

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@izzythepush,

I do not know exactly what time it was all I know is that it was a long time ago, I was young, it was still daylight and I was bored as hell and found something real stupid to get into. I never in my life seen anyone wake up and jump up so fast. Man was he ever pissed but I am sure I would have been also.

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@reasoning logic,

Let me repeat Searles again. All is subjective and that's an objective fact.

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@Frank Apisa,

No I am not ignoring you. You are simply begging the question with a "layman's" assumption that "reality" and "know" are separately definable. But philosophers like Wittgenstein have staked their careers on pointing out that "meaning is usage"....i.e. words cannot go beyond words. Unless you can take that point on board as self-evident, you will be forever talking to yourself about the word "know". The fact is that theists know there is a God, because it is part of their agreed usage, and vice versa for atheists.
You only need look at the activity at the frontiers of science to understand how "reality" is continuously subject to negotiation. (Thomas Khun.."the Structure of Scientific Revolutions").

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@reasoning logic,

Regarding the word "is" as in "Is human flesh food ?". The point I am making is that "is - ness" (aka "reality") is about what happens next...i.e. in what contexts do we decide to eat human flesh (or call abortion "murder" etc). We don't normally go around questioning "is-ness". Disagreements about "is-ness" are about renogiation of social reality as illustrated by that well known philosopher Mick Dundee Wink

Punk: Give me your wallet !
Girl :Watch out Mick, he's got a knife !
Dundee: That's not a knife (producing his own larger version) ...Now that's a knife ! (Punk flees).

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@fresco,

Quote:

We don't normally go around questioning "is-ness".

Very good point and that does make a lot of sense.

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@reasoning logic,

reasoning logic wrote:

I am trying to figure out if theist have any criteria that has to be met before something can be called reality and if there is, what is the criteria needed for something to be called reality?

Have any Theists chimed in on this question yet? It looks to me like everyone on this thread is probably a non-theist (of various flavor).

Judging from this thread, theists seem less interested in the subject of reality than non-theists are.

Why do non-theists seem more interested in questioning reality?

Does the desire to question come first and result in non-theism, or does non-theism come first and result in questions.

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

Let me repeat Searles again. All is subjective and that's an objective fact.

That I do not understand, JL. Can you explain why everything is subjective...that it actually is an objective fact?

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@fresco,

Fresco, I am glad you are not ignoring me.

I'm not even trying to “define” anything here, I’m just participating in a discussion.

Theist don’t know there is a GOD…some of them insist they know, but that does not mean they know…it just means they say they know or they insist they know.

Some atheists say they know there are no gods…but that does not mean they know there are not gods.

The reality is that there are gods or there are no gods (actually, it may be something different then even those two choices that simply cannot be understood by us)…and that reality, it seems to me, is not dependent upon how any individual feels about reality…unless, of course, the reality is that “reality” is what someone feels about it.

Wittgenstein could stake his political career on being Napoleon reincarnate, but that would not make him Napoleon reincarnate…so the fact that he has staked his career on what you mentioned does not actually come into play.

Mostly, I have been talking about what is “at least possible”…and it is at least possible that no philosopher who has ever considered this issue has ever come close to resolving it.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

The reality is that there are gods or there are no gods

NO !
The "reality" is that there are those for whom " a God concept" has functional status who occasionally come into conflict with those for whom it has no such status. All we have are concepts, embedded in a network of inter-actional relationships. "Knowledge" is about confidence of expectancies about inter conceptual relationships. Theists "know God" because they have confidence in their expectancies about the relationship between the concepts "self" "God" and "existence".

If you cannot understand this, put yourself in the shoes of a medieval physician for whom "the humors of the body" had "reality". Consider the social network, established practices, and texts which sustained such "reality" over several centuries until what were undisputed functional things became re-classified as dysfunctional concepts. All we call "reality" has its zeitgeist and is subject to shifting human needs.

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@fresco,

Quote:

NO !
The "reality" is that there are those for whom " a God concept" has functional status who occasionally come into conflict with those for whom it has no such status. All we have are concepts, embedded in a network of inter-actional relationships. "Knowledge" is about confidence of expectancies about inter conceptual relationships. Theists "know God" because they have confidence in their expectancies about the relationship between the concepts "self" "God" and "existence".

You seem determined to suggest that because this is YOUR reality, Fresco…it must be THE REALITY.

My point is: You may be right…but you also may be wrong.

If you are saying, however, that there is NO POSSIBILITY that there is a reality that is independent of what humans think about it--and you KNOW that for a fact, I am interested in hearing how you KNOW that to be the case. (I cannot even imagine an argument that works for this, but I certainly am willing to listen.)

Quote:

If you cannot understand this, put yourself in the shoes of a medieval physician for whom "the humors of the body" had "reality". Consider the social network, established practices, and texts which sustained such "reality" over several centuries until what were undisputed functional things became re-classified as dysfunctionalconcepts. All we call "reality" has its zeitgeist and is subject to shifting human needs.

I am not interested in, nor am I discussing, what any individual or group of individuals accepts as a reality, Fresco. I am discussing what actually IS…whatever that happens to be.

Once again, if you are saying that there is NO POSSIBILITY that there is a reality independent of what humans think about it…please explain why you KNOW that to be the case.

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The reality of medieval physicians did not effectively deal with disease and injury. The reality of modern medicine has an excellent record in dealing with disease and injury. Comparing the two is an exercise in hilarious, but essentially meaningless, logic chopping. Although, of course, the logic is, as Frank notes, Fresco's logic. I rather enjoyed Frank's point about none of us knowing the nature of reality--except Fresco.

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The reply to both above is that I make no claim about "reality" other than its meaning is determined by context. In saying that, I am reiterating the transcendent position adopted by Quine, Wittgenstein and Rorty about the non-representational nature of language. Would be dissenters might bear in mind that Quine was considered an expert in logic, and Wittgenstein was far from irreligious. They might also take unto consideration that recent developments in cognitive science have been inspired by that non-representalist position insofar that the observer is now considered as an integral part in the construction of reality, as opposed to a mere passive recipient of signals or data.

The italics above are merely a reference to the adage "hope springs eternal...." Wink

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No, that's the essential nature of your silliness. The observer constructs a description of reality. The inability of any observer or commentator to categorically describe reality with complete accuracy is not evidence that reality is a construct. It is evidence that the descriptions of reality are constructs. Not to put too fine a point on it, reality doesn't care if you live or die.

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@Setanta,

Thanks, Set. Glad we are on the same page on this one.

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@Setanta,

Oh dear ! Then there seem to be a lot of "silly people" making a living from those ideas, in some of our foremost learning and research establishments ! Laughing

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@fresco,

Quote:

The reply to both above is that I make no claim about "reality" other than its meaning is determined by context.

As I said earlier...and as Setanta is mentioning in his reply to you...we are not talking about the meaning of reality...we are discussing REALITY.

The REALITY...despite our ability to describe it and despite our desires to do so...is still the REALITY.

May I assume from this reply, though, that you are not saying that it is impossible that "REALITY may be independent of any conceptions we may have of it?" In other words: It is possible that REALITY is independent of any concepts we may have of it.

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Reality from the view point of theists

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