I started listening to the Atheist Community of Austin show back in 2010 or so, when I was a believer, I was trying to formulate a challenge to them but when I realized I couldn’t, I realized my logic skills were the problem. Matt can be a bit of a jerk, but he has changed his approach quite a bit over the years. He now prefers a discussion over debate, but he’ll still debate if that’s what you want to do. His “Atheist Debates” project goes over techniques, fallacies, good atheist arguments and sometimes he reviews a debate he did and breaks down where he could have done better. It’s a ton of data, too much to keep up with.
I was a believer back in the 90’s, but lots of science magazines and a few Carl Sagan books fixed that.
You’re the kind of person I do this for. I’m no Sagan or Dillilhunty or Hitchens, but I like to do my bit in contributing to the cause. I’ll likely never know if my words have made an impact on someone’s decision to question their faith, but, like Gretzky said, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”, so I keep at it because it’s lots of fun and you just never know when I’ll score.
This is kind of getting off topic but I’ll humor it I guess.
To be honest I cannot with 100% certainty say that something doesn’t exist. I would like to say enlightenment doesn’t exist and that maybe Buddhists were just mistaking a rewiring of the brain as true reality. But I can’t really know that and I don’t know enough about philosophy to argue with them. The bit about being the universe must have something to it, it’s not as easy to dismiss as the Christian god. I stopped believing in god when I see that no god would in his right mind create life and still be loving. But then again I can’t help but pray when I feel lost.
So no, there is nothing I can say I don’t believe in 100%. Still doesn’t answer who gets to decide what’s a valid question or not. It seems more like you can’t answer it and therefor judge it to be invalid, like most people I know.
So no, there is nothing I can say I don’t believe in 100%. Still doesn’t answer who gets to decide what’s a valid question or not.I don't think anyone said that they were answering the question of who gets to decide what's valid.
Xian. You can’t honestly be unable to imagine something impossible… that’s impossible. Stop all the hand-wringing and just name something you believe does not exist in the universe.
If you can’t come up with something, use this example: “a 23 kilogram hummingbird that has been living on the moon for the last 17 years”. If you somehow think there is a chance that one exists, feel free to add more specifics to it until it becomes impossible (say it has birthday candles for bones or can speak Esperanto, I don’t care.)
Please understand, there’s nothing philosophically wrong with imagining and describing an impossible object. No posse of outraged philosophers will arrive on your doorstep and beat you up.
Xian; be sure to scroll back to the bottom of page 3 for clarification on 3point’s question.
This conversation reminds of one I had years ago with a guy who thought he had it all figured out and just needed some funding to get his ideas tested. We could never get past the point in our argument where he demanded that I accept certain premises, that to me were not premises at all. For example that our not knowing where the universe came from is evidence for God. He came up with this analogy that arguing the religious argument against science is like girls trying to compete in an all boys basketball league.
I pointed out this is the “league” that the Catholic Church ran for 1,000 years but he didn’t accept that. Like Xian, once he had decided that his evidence, which was solely personal experience, was in fact the best evidence, there was no reasoning with him.
There are a few on here with mindsets that are… interesting… to work with.
Of them, Xian is by far the easiest to talk to. Even if my ideas are avoided, at least he/she doesn’t come across as blatantly willfully ignorant.
I have no problem with honest questions, especially because they often come from a place I was at long long ago. My ‘awakening’ happened on my own, over years of mental and emotional torture thinking about this stuff. If I can help others realize in a short period, what I spent ages suffering through, I will do so with a smile.
Seeing someone finally comprehend what I am saying after a long discussion is very gratifying, so waiting for the time when Xian comprehends what we’re saying is hopefully worth it.
That said, even Xian has to either piss or get off the pot someday. His constant worrying about irrelevant philosophical ideas (that are often incorrect), makes it hard for him/her to think about other ideas.
IT’s not irrelevant, you just say that because you can’t answer them. These are essentially questioning the very ideas that our society and culture are built on. To think that you are living a lie, how can you go on like that?
You don’t need to answer every philosophical idea floating around out there. Some of them are baseless. Our society is not based on the idea that everything is explainable and exists outside of our minds. The ideas of Buddhism are quite old and quite important to the formation of how we view the world today. Not to mention the influence of Abrahamic religions that consider our minds to be highly influenced by a transcendent powerful being out there somewhere. Science has shown us that we only experience a small spectrum of light and sound and are barely aware of magnetic forces that literally hold us on the planet constantly. When you think about all the questions of the ages that have been asked, all the philosophies that various civilizations have been built upon, exactly which lie are you talking about when you say we are living a lie?
You are not the first to come across these questions. You are not the first to ask why. You are not the first to say they are not part of this crazy scheme of cities and advertising and money. You just have internet access.
But what about how we believe there to be a self and how society is pretty much built on that?
If you can’t come up with something, use this example: “a 23 kilogram hummingbird that has been living on the moon for the last 17 years“. If you somehow think there is a chance that one exists, feel free to add more specifics to it until it becomes impossible (say it has birthday candles for bones or can speak Esperanto, I don’t care.)Except I still cannot believe that to be impossible. There is a small chance it can be so.
But what about how we believe there to be a self and how society is pretty much built on that?That's my question to you. What about it? You keep repeating that we are living a lie, but aren't very clear about what that lie is. If we respond to what we think you mean, you switch to something else. The idea of self autonomy is indeed an important basis of our laws. We are starting to understand that. We now do a lot more to treat mental health, rather than simply punish criminal behavior. So, we aren't just "living a lie", we are working on understanding who we are and how we got to where we are and trying to figure out how to change to better reflect reality. Just because you can find people who disagree or who are completely unaware of this, doesn't make it a gigantic lie that we are all living.
Xian wrote: “Except I still cannot believe that to be impossible. There is a small chance it can be so.”
Please tell me how you calculated the “small chance” you speak of.
Don’t be intentionally stupid. We both know that my example is utterly impossible. If you refuse to admit the obvious, there’s no point in pretending we can have a discussion.
That’s my question to you. What about it? You keep repeating that we are living a lie, but aren’t very clear about what that lie is. If we respond to what we think you mean, you switch to something else. The idea of self autonomy is indeed an important basis of our laws. We are starting to understand that. We now do a lot more to treat mental health, rather than simply punish criminal behavior. So, we aren’t just “living a lie”, we are working on understanding who we are and how we got to where we are and trying to figure out how to change to better reflect reality. Just because you can find people who disagree or who are completely unaware of this, doesn’t make it a gigantic lie that we are all living.Except they claim that if you question the foundations of what we believe existence to be that you will soon find they don't make sense at all. The claim about "you are the universe" and death is a myth, they mean that nothing is truly born or dies, it always was and will be. Kind of like how matter isn't created or destroyed, and how "death" isn't the destruction of matter.
Anyone can claim whatever they want. Why would they claim something and just leave you hanging? Or why don’t you start questioning the foundations of what we believe and see where that leaves you. Let us know. I can’t wait. Anything you come up with would be better than the constant droning of your posts about about how nothing is true.
I’m reading this book “Sapiens”, he went from talking about religion to talking about science and noted how much things changed since the 15th century. The Buddha came up with his theories of the mind long before that. He had some interesting thoughts, but anyone studying neuroscience today would need to start out by learning about statistics. Guantanamo would be baffled as to why that is. Whatever they are saying about where meditation will lead you, I highly doubt they are basing it on anything that can’t be explained with a few simple experiments.
Their claim is that to get at what you REALLY are is to throw away any ideas of being a self, your family, your desires and what moves you so that you can grasp what you truly are. That if you “cleanse” the false mind (culture, desires, wants, etc) then you get at the real you. That if you do so you will become unmoved by external factors and truly know peace.
Yeah. You keep saying that. That’s their claim.
Xian, what the hell [sorry 'bout the foul language, my frustration can get the better of me sometimes] is the point in arbitrarily choosing the stupidest and most personally defeating philosophy as the one you’ll literally waste your life pursuing. Please, for your own sake, dump it in the trash and pursue an uplifting, positive, understandable philosophy. If you honestly need help finding one, I guarantee you that we on here will find you some.
‘They’ (the writers of that website you constantly quote) have a hold on you that you need to be free of in order to finally live your life in a way that’s fulfilling and meaningful to you- on your terms and in line with your values/morals.
Only if you want to be happy and live your own life, will you be able to be free of the hold this philosophical black-hole has on you.
It honestly saddens me to know you will most likely reply with a “But they say …”, and tell me some stupid word-salad thing ‘they’ said. Please know that I don’t give a flying #%!& [more foul language- I’m feisty today] what ‘they’ say, and I never want to hear what 'they say ever again. I really only want to hear what YOU think. Deal?
There is an interesting article about this subject in the Mar/Apr 2019 issue of SI, “Dematerialization Crusade.”
Science deals with matter, nature and the natural universe.