Why is there something instead of nothing?

[Colter]

Laughing. Yes it's that pesky logic again. Thanks for the compliment.

Cheers Atom, my pleasure.

 

[Eudaimonist]

The consciousness of God is observable in the faith life of religious people.

So you claim.

However, the consciousness of something entirely subjective is what is evident to me in the faith life of religious people. There is nothing evident that they are conscious of any universe-creating super-beings.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Colter]

So you claim.

However, the consciousness of something entirely subjective is what is evident to me in the faith life of religious people. There is nothing evident that they are conscious of any universe-creating super-beings.


eudaimonia,

Mark

This is from your part time friend Jesus who you refer to when it's convenient:

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

 

[Eudaimonist]

This is from your part time friend Jesus who you refer to when it's convenient:

When it is appropriate to discussion.

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Oh, come on! Jesus didn't invent love, even brotherly love. That is a human capacity. Love isn't evidence for a universe-creating super-being.

That would be like saying that erotic love is evidence for the existence of Aphrodite, or that war-courage is evidence for the existence of Ares.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Those who worship the demigods will take birth among the demigods; those who worship the ancestors go to the ancestors; those who worship ghosts and spirits will take birth among such beings; and those who worship Me will live with Me.

Bhagavad Gita 9:25

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Im not at all surprised that you don't read my quotes and that similarly insincere people would be just as self deceived.

Insincere? As I said, I'm interested in what you have to say, not in the Urantia Book. How is that insincere?

I quote the UB because it says it better than I could rephrase the philosophical explanation or truths therein.

Then simply say "Read the Urantia Book. It contains everything I want to say." And leave it at that. If that's the extent of discussion you want, then so be it.

If you were even more honest with yourself in your confession that you don't actually read my replays, you would discover that your mind is already made up and you don't really want to discover an answer that might go contrary to your unbelief.

Not at all, Colter. I don't read your quotes because I'm not interested in the UB. I'm interested in having a discussion with you, not reading a book. If I wanted to read the UB, I would read the UB.

Your questions then are phony, your participation is phony. You don't really want to know what I think, your request that I must put an answer in my words is an insincere excuse to avoid real truth seeking. Your claim that you want to know what I think is bunk!

On what basis do you think that? In what way is it insincere to request that we engage in a discussion on a person-to-person basis, rather than throwing quotes at each other?

 

[Colter]

When it is appropriate to discussion.



Oh, come on! Jesus didn't invent love, even brotherly love. That is a human capacity. Love isn't evidence for a universe-creating super-being.

That would be like saying that erotic love is evidence for the existence of Aphrodite, or that war-courage is evidence for the existence of Ares.


eudaimonia,

Mark

God is Love weather you credit God for love or not. Jesus is the Son of God, his challenge to his disciples going forward was to love as he loved, that the world would know his disciples by their dedicated lives of loving service. All of this in context is an example of how God is observable in the lives of his followers. In the same way those of the world can be observed in the doctrines of humanism and atheism.

 

[Eudaimonist]

God is Love weather you credit God for love or not.

You are just reciting dogma here.

All of this in context is an example of how God is observable in the lives of his followers.

No, it is an example of how a certain sort of love in observable in those lives.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Colter]

I've always liked this reference to those who hide behind in the revolving door of logic and the mathematics of the material creation:

"The mechanistic philosopher professes to reject the idea of a universal and sovereign will, the very sovereign will whose activity in the elaboration of universe laws he so deeply reverences. What unintended homage the mechanist pays the law-Creator when he conceives such laws to be self-acting and self-explanatory!" UB 1955​

 

[Eudaimonist]

I've always liked this reference to those who hide behind in the revolving door of logic and the mathematics of the material creation

Yeah, that darn logic! It so gets in the way of believing whatever one wants to believe. Very inconvenient.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Colter]

Yeah, that darn logic! It so gets in the way of believing whatever one wants to believe. Very inconvenient.


eudaimonia,

Mark

But I know you aren't really a soulless automaton, you just play one on the internet. Its the common default position of the godless, a belief that lifeless atoms of mater organized themselves into conscious mind while insisting everything is logical.

 

[ranunculus]

Why is there something?
Because nothingness can't exist.
Existence is a necessary property of the universe.

 

[True Scotsman]

But I know you aren't really a soulless automaton, you just play one on the internet. Its the common default position of the godless, a belief that lifeless atoms of mater organized themselves into conscious mind while insisting everything is logical.

Eudaimonist is one of the most thoughtful and measured souls I've ever encountered on an internet forum. If he is playing at being a "soulless automaton" then what does that make you, who quote from the world's longest deepity to make your points?

you're problem is that everything is logical and you can't stand that. Logic is a real party pooper isn't it? It doesn't allow you to have your nonsensical beliefs guilt free. It places too many constraints on you. It doesn't allow you to blur the line between your imagination and reality as you'd like. It puts the lie to your primacy of consciousness metaphysics.

Instead of attacking people, here's a thought. Provide a reasoned argument instead of a bunch of bald assertions and then maybe someone will take you seriously as a thinker.

 

[Eudaimonist]

But I know you aren't really a soulless automaton, you just play one on the internet.

It is not my view that anyone is a "soulless automaton". I'm not a reductive materialist.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Colter]

Eudaimonist is one of the most thoughtful and measured souls I've ever encountered on an internet forum. If he is playing at being a "soulless automaton" then what does that make you, who quote from the world's longest deepity to make your points?

you're problem is that everything is logical and you can't stand that. Logic is a real party pooper isn't it? It doesn't allow you to have your nonsensical beliefs guilt free. It places too many constraints on you. It doesn't allow you to blur the line between your imagination and reality as you'd like. It puts the lie to your primacy of consciousness metaphysics.

Instead of attacking people, here's a thought. Provide a reasoned argument instead of a bunch of bald assertions and then maybe someone will take you seriously as a thinker.

Logic is good as far as it goes, but life is not entirely logical, that's where the faith of the Atheist comes into play. And what a bizarre accusation, that someone who knows God feels guilty about loving him as opposed to the ego ruminations of a Scotsman? Constraints? In the faith life dependency means life everlasting, the Atheist dark philosophy of a life lived well (bald assertion) is ultimately rewarded by death, is an unappealing utopia.

I don't have a primacy of consciousness metaphysics created by a self important women to weak to quit smoking, to proud to ask for help, forced into Social Security and Medicare in contrast to her life long conservative philosophies. Members who eventually thought their way out of Rands Objectivist movement describe their former state of mind as "one of intellectual conformity and excessive reverence for Rand." Rands lover and chief advocate Nathaniel Branden later apologized in an interview to "every student of Objectivism" for "perpetuating the Ayn Rand mystique" and for "contributing to that dreadful atmosphere of intellectual repressiveness that pervades the Objectivist movement." source Wiki.

Ironically that's the same impression I got with you early on in our exchanges, dry, lifeless, intellectually repressed, a mind incapable of thinking outside of the Rand box.

It's hypocritical to make bald assertions then cry fowl and accuse others of bald assertions.

"Logic is valid in the material world, and mathematics is reliable when limited in its application to physical things; but neither is to be regarded as wholly dependable or infallible when applied to life problems. Life embraces phenomena which are not wholly material. Arithmetic says that, if one man could shear a sheep in ten minutes, ten men could shear it in one minute. That is sound mathematics, but it is not true, for the ten men could not so do it; they would get in one another’s way so badly that the work would be greatly delayed." UB 1955​

 

[Eudaimonist]

Ironically that's the same impression I got with you early on in our exchanges, dry, lifeless, intellectually repressed, a mind incapable of thinking outside of the Rand box.

That's quote ironic coming from someone who can hardly make two posts without quoting the Urantia Book.

May we please avoid personal attacks?


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[True Scotsman]

Logic is good as far as it goes, but life is not entirely logical, that's where the faith of the Atheist comes into play. And what a bizarre accusation, that someone who knows God feels guilty about loving him as opposed to the ego ruminations of a Scotsman? Constraints? In the faith life dependency means life everlasting, the Atheist dark philosophy of a life lived well (bald assertion) is ultimately rewarded by death, is an unappealing utopia.

I don't have a primacy of consciousness metaphysics created by a self important women to weak to quit smoking, to proud to ask for help, forced into Social Security and Medicare in contrast to her life long conservative philosophies. Members who eventually thought their way out of Rands Objectivist movement describe their former state of mind as "one of intellectual conformity and excessive reverence for Rand." Rands lover and chief advocate Nathaniel Branden later apologized in an interview to "every student of Objectivism" for "perpetuating the Ayn Rand mystique" and for "contributing to that dreadful atmosphere of intellectual repressiveness that pervades the Objectivist movement." source Wiki.

Ironically that's the same impression I got with you early on in our exchanges, dry, lifeless, intellectually repressed, a mind incapable of thinking outside of the Rand box.

It's hypocritical to make bald assertions then cry fowl and accuse others of bald assertions.

"Logic is valid in the material world, and mathematics is reliable when limited in its application to physical things; but neither is to be regarded as wholly dependable or infallible when applied to life problems. Life embraces phenomena which are not wholly material. Arithmetic says that, if one man could shear a sheep in ten minutes, ten men could shear it in one minute. That is sound mathematics, but it is not true, for the ten men could not so do it; they would get in one another’s way so badly that the work would be greatly delayed." UB 1955​

Ahhhh, the gift that keeps on giving. More personal attacks in lieu of a reasoned response. When in doubt, shout, right?

 

[Colter]

Ahhhh, the gift that keeps on giving. More personal attacks in lieu of a reasoned response. When in doubt, shout, right?

Want some cheese to go with the whine you two? With your characterization of someone's faith as "nonsensical beliefs" and an "imaginary God" one would think you wouldn't be so thin skinned when I point out the mental gymnastics within Randism and how that sounds.

 

[Colter]

That's quote ironic coming from someone who can hardly make two posts without quoting the Urantia Book.

May we please avoid personal attacks?


eudaimonia,

Mark

And I note that you avoid those quotes.

You seem nice enough, this stuff isn't personal, I've taken a lot more from Christians on Christian sites. Will try to be more sensitive though.

 

[True Scotsman]

Want some cheese to go with the whine you two? With your characterization of someone's faith as "nonsensical beliefs" and an "imaginary God" one would think you wouldn't be so thin skinned when I point out the mental gymnastics within Randism and how that sounds.

I did not say that God was imaginary. I simply asked you to give me a reliable method to distinguish between what you call God and something you may be merely imagining, and you couldn't.

What mental gymnastics within "Randism" are you referring to? Please be specific.