[J m HofMarN]

So yeah, there are a gillion threads about an old man in the sky, but very few about the mortal understanding of the laws governing our existence. So lets all ask some of those very interesting questions and banter, and share our general ideologies.

I myself lean towards existentialism which is generally an athiest, individualist deal. We generally believe that god, laws, morality etc are not foreign written in stone concepts but are created by existence and the individual.

And here's a good question. Someone said that faith is not wanting to know the truth. Any thoughts?

This statement is interesting to me because it leaves the meaning of Truth open. If one has faith that means certainty of something without clear evidence. We must thus assume that the truth is uncertainty and the statement is saying that faith is a comfort against uncertainty.

For instance, none of us are certain to live out the day tomorrow, but those with faith can say they will go to heaven should they die, thus adding certainty to uncertainty(truth). However, interestingly enough in my view, Truth does not preclude the existence of God or so forth, because it simply demands an acceptance of uncertainty, and faith in nihilism or atheism is still faith.

[Spoon Poetic]

I have had to have faith in many instances, or else everything would have been too much for me to keep handling life. You can have faith in something that isn't true and it still be helpful; you can have faith in something absolutely true and it be detrimental. There is a lot that can be said both for and against faith. Luckily, the things that I have just had to have faith that they would turn out alright, almost always do. Such as when my brother was born, and the doctors all said he had no chance. The cynical part of me calls my faith "denial" that the bad thing would happen; the rest of me calls it "faith" that everything was going to turn out okay. I guess really it's pretty much the same, but "denial" has bad, crazy person connotations and "faith" has good, sweet connotations. I don't really know where I am going with this. Anyway.

As far as life philosophies go, I think I kind of have my own, that is a blend of many well-known philosophies mixed in with personal experience.

One thing I like to experiment with though, is the Jungian philosophy of a shared subconsciousness. It explains a lot of the weird things about the world, and even explains some weird things about myself. Also it would just be awesome to one day be able to communicate to each other through dreams or something. I try to manipulate my dreams a lot, and sometimes I find myself in a dream that seems to be someone else's. I'm not saying it is someone else's dream, it's just a neat concept. What if you could travel into other people's dreams? With enough study into this "shared subconscious," could that kind of thing be possible?

I'm not saying I'm a hardcore believer in this stuff, but I do like to experiment with it and I like the idea.

[Casual]

I think it’s fair to say I have no faith in anything. My approach is agnostism so I can sit on the fence and say to both sides "show me some proof". If I'm honest there are times when I bounce between staunch atheism and a sort of feeling that it would make sense for there to be a higher power. Like many people I have had experiences in my life where I look back on them and wonder whether it was coincidence or providence.

[J m HofMarN]

Spoon- Havent read up a lot on that aspect of Jung's stuff, but it does sound interesting. I put very little store in the subconscious myself. Firstly because its, arguably, beyond our control, and secondly because that seems to be getting more into psychiatry than philosophy.

Casual- Maybe you could share with us an example of such an experience, if not one of yours at least a made up example. I will sometimes give thanks to a higher power when something unexpectedly good happens, or grumble when something bad happens. Perhaps this is a way of shirking my own responsibility, but then why do we thank god when good things happen as often as when bad things happen?

And since no one else is joining in on this one, here's another question:

Does existence (IE: The universe) precede perception (IE sentient beings) Or is it merely a product of some sentient being either human or divine? Kind of the tree falls in the woods deal.

My answer would have to be affirmative. I think that without beings to percieve, things simply don't matter, and losing their gravity and bearing they may as well cease to be. But this goes further. Could such an idea thus justify the idea of a god? Yes, perhaps, but the core of it is that existence, consciousness, is the great building block of the universe and no one consciousness could come before. I find it absurd that God had power to create both the universe and consciousnesses, the consciousness which, thus percieving him and his universe, justified his existence. It's a bit of a logical loop really.

It is more likely to me that the consciousness forces of all of us simply existed, and that needing something to percieve so as to judge and quantify that existence, they somehow willed the universe into being. And perhaps willed god into being. It was nietzche I think who said that if God didnt exist we would have to create him.

[reiner]

I've never been a fan of the whole tree in a forest idea. It puts an emphasis on our version of perception (human or not) judging the importance of an event, and I believe that in itself is vain. An event's importance need not be judged, because it's another piece of a large picture, whether or not someone has an appreciation of it. Think of how many possible events have occurred in the past, on a macroscopic (or micro-) that have influenced our existence and therefore our perception.

I for one believe God to be the force that started everything, if that even exists. Technically, there could be no beginning, just like there could be no end. God for me doesn't necessarily have to be sentient or purposeful, and I believe that makes more sense. God is the chaos, the fire starter, the chances in every moment and existence is simply the outcome. I don't know if this sort of belief is filed under any sort of philosophy, but maybe someone else can tell me if there is one.

By this standard, I still appreciate life. I think I got a lucky hand, even if it's a just a pair of eights on a cosmic scale. Sometimes I wonder if there really is a big dude in the sky, ready to whisk me off to a happy place or sit me next to a lake of fire. Either way, the ability to think and perceive these notions is pretty cool.

I think I get what J m said. I find the logic interesting. But I wonder about justification of the universe through perception. What force creates the need for justification? Is it God himself? That would definitely make the three inseparable.

Hope I didn't ramble on too much. I'm not much of a debate forum type.

[Slade]

Concerning the origin of everything, Kant wrote that the universe doesn't follow the law of causality; it's a concept we humans have created to describe events in a meaningful way. I'm not sure if he was on to something or copping out.

I think the universe would exist whether we were here to perceive it or not. If you put a box in a sealed room and no one observes it, it still exists. And the only thing I've heard contrary to that is God is still perceiving it, which requires a deity to work in the first place, which is still up in the air. It also places a good bit of arrogance on our perceptions, especially when you consider that we're smaller than the atoms of grains of sand on a beach in the cosmic scale.

I'm an agnostic existentialist with some Buddhist and Discordian tendencies.

[civilian_number_two]

You know the Van Allen radiation belt that surrounds our planet? This is a common example brought up in conversations like this. Here's the thing. We only discovered this recently, but have reason to believe it was always there. Wouldn't it be a tad idiotic to suggest that it came into being the moment we discovered it? That's like saying land came into being every time a new explorer found it.

So, agree with reiner on the tree/forest thing.

As for deities as agents of creation, I see thenm evidence that mankind created those stories. I don't see the evidence of the deities themselves. Therefore I believe the stories are fiction created by folks to fill the gaps of human knowledge.

[J m HofMarN]

Reiner- I dont see it as vein to judge the world through human perceptions at all. It's more falacious to try to judge things by artificial morals created supposedly by a deity or what have you. We have only our existence to figure things out by, and to try to create articial systems of philosophy which rely on random and uncertain factors is illogical. Observation, debate and reliance on human experience is the way to come to an understanding of how to live life.

You're right on in your ideas of depersonifying god if you ask me. I think God is a force within all of us, and not necessarily one single being in the clouds.

What force creates the need for justification? Is it God himself? That would definitely make the three inseparable.

It's us of course. We think therefore we are as they say. That brings up the question of why we need to justify our existence and give it form at all. That's a question I havent quite gotten my head around yet but the simple answer is that questions like that are an integral part of being human and how we answer them defines us.

Also, yeah, ramble on. Thats kinda what philosophy and debate are about.

Pope-

Concerning the origin of everything, Kant wrote that the universe doesn't follow the law of causality; it's a concept we humans have created to describe events in a meaningful way. I'm not sure if he was on to something or copping out.

Nonsense. If the universe didnt have to, and doesnt, have to follow the law of cause and effect, than why do any of us? Every action should have an equal and opposite reaction whether its the first action or the last. For the universe to come to exist something had to will it to form, and for it to be percieved there had to be something to percieve it.

If you put a box in a sealed room and no one observes it, it still exists

It still exists because you know it exists, or some consciousness at some point is aware of it, even perhaps after death. The theory that existence would continue without the collective human consciousness is quite meaningless speculation. It is entirely possible that our perceptions and will are all that hold reality together in the first place. I think the idea that we are unimportant on a universal scale takes away from the value and, moreover, the impact of life. The two to me are wholly different things though.

[Spoon Poetic]

Psh... You all have it wrong.
Really, we are all just figments of that darned butterfly's overactive imagination.

[Itaritz]

I tend to stay away from high philosophy these days, since it usually boils down to either a discussion of poorly-defined abstract concepts open to cultural and linguistic interpretation or some kind of two-or-three-way between agnosticism, philosophical Taoism and rationalism, all of which are so self-contained as to be philosophically invincible. So forgive me if I don't make any sense and/or don't come back to counter-argue.

To me this whole tree-in-forest/box-in-room argument implies a fundamental belief in non-tangible aspects of the human nature; a spirit or soul, if you will. I truly fail to see how, say, light triggering reactions in the human eye and brain could have created the light in the first place; it would seem that some unknown force must be responsible, which is leading us back to deist concepts. Unless of course we assume that the generally accepted rules of cause and effect, that the cause must precede the effect, don't apply, but that's getting into physics that I don't know.

The problem, at least for me, is that saying "circular logic" has always seemed to me like saying "shining light," or something to that effect. At some point, in all logical processes, an assumption must be made about something. That assumption, and nothing else, is what colours a philosophical debate.

I'm not really trying to answer any specific argument with this, just rambling.

[Casual]

Casual- Maybe you could share with us an example of such an experience, if not one of yours at least a made up example. I will sometimes give thanks to a higher power when something unexpectedly good happens, or grumble when something bad happens. Perhaps this is a way of shirking my own responsibility, but then why do we thank god when good things happen as often as when bad things happen?

Whoops better late than never I always say, I suppose a good example for most people would be the day you met someone important in your life that shaped many of the days that followed. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I had never met some of the people that matter to me, what if I had decided to stay in bed that day and watch crappy daytime TV? Was I "fated" to meet these people or do things really just happen? To be honest I try not to deal too much in "what if's" because that's the first step on the path to crazy.

P.S. I too find myself praising or cursing god at odd moments despite not believing in him, I've always put it down to a force of habit form a Christian childhood. Either that or because people on TV do it.

[barend]

I believe in Devolution.

[reiner]

So you doubled the sales of the Super Marios Bros movie when it hit DVD, eh Barend?

[civilian_number_two]

Super Mario Brothers? I hope to God he was actually referring to the punk-pop band Devo.

[barend]

Devo it was.