Religion, Philosophy, The divine and The Self Thread

[71 dB]

I see this as a discussion.  You don't seem at all comfortable with people disagreeing with you.  My post above was a statement, not "an attack."

Again, the topic at present is, the individual's willingness to scrutinize what he believes.  Thank you for demonstrating that a deficiency in that regard is not at all restricted to the religious.

There has to be a reason to scrutinize.
I can do it every 5 seconds but it doesn't change anything if there is not new information that changes the game.
Where is your "new information" that would change my mind?
All you do is claim me for not scrutinizing and if something makes me uncomfortable then that is the reason.

I have changed my mind many times in my life when I have felt there is a reason to do so *. Often there just isn't.

* For example in my youth I considered classical music unsuitable for modern people. Then I actually explored classical music and realized fast that classical music has tremendous cultural and artistical value and is totally "suitable" for modern ears. If that's not a 180 of a belief I don't know what is.

[drogulus]

He is not just another thing in the world with uncommon superhuman features (like Apollo would be) but an Absolute Ground on which everything else is dependent, not Supreme Being, but Being itself.

     That's exactly the intellectual ink I'm talking about, and the kind of thing Dawkins would quote to expose theologians for the sham thinkers they are.

     The distinction you make between kinds of gods says nothing about whether any of them or any kind of them are more than fictional.

     Things existing is no basis for claiming "Being" "Be"s, or needs an entity to (uphold? sponsor? frixilate?) it. In modern parlance, "Being" isn't a thing, in my parlance nothing doesn't exist, in Hume's parlance, existing isn't a property. Shame on anyone who uses it as in an argument for the existence of a dubious entity.

[drogulus]

     The ontological modal argument is that a perfect being must exist so a Most Impressive Being must. The argument fails on the grounds that the conclusion is assumed in the premise, so it isn't a proper argument. I would only add that perfection isn't a property but a modifier of actual properties. A diamond without flaw can be said to be perfect because the properties in question are identifiable real properties by which perfection can be specified. No one has any idea of what a "necessary perfect being" could be other than as a feature in an argument that is useless for any practical application. No entity is ever proved to exist except by the properties it has, even if only as a scientific or mathematical consequence of the extistence of other real entities. The case of neutrinos was like this.

[Karl Henning]

I would only add that perfection isn't a property but a modifier of actual properties.

Indeed. And BTW this is part of the challenge of addressing the fallacy of those who (e.g.) feel that "perfect music" after the death of Brahms is "impossible."