I believe only in 2 things: Everything is god or nothing is god. It makes it more easy!
So, wait... you're saying that the reason to believe this is because it's easy? Quantum physics isn't easy, molecular biology isn't easy, rocket science isn't easy, et cetera. It's easier to believe that the Earth is flat, or that the sun goes around the Earth./quote
Actually everything is quite easy.. everything is just a point of view. Didn't Einstein said that his theories were quite simple.. You only have to know the theory.. and who decides if Earth is round or flat.. to a being who can only think 2-dimensional the earth is flat my friend... And doesn't everything circel around everything? Isn't everything connected?! We actually think 3-dimesnional and are not yet able to comprehent dimensions beyond that, but we are allowed to speculate on it!
So, you argue then that POV defines truth? Alrighty. My point of view is that there are objectives which are absolute, and not dependent on viewpoints. So that, being my viewpoint, must be true, then. So there are objective truths, and your viewpoint is therefore self-contradictory and self-destructive. Which, as Aristotle pointed out in his Law of Noncontradiction, means that your argument must be false. It demands that two mutually exclusive facts both be true: that truth and reality are subjective and that they are objective (that is, my subjective truth of objectivity is just as valid as your subjective truth of subjectivity. My subjective truth of objectivity can only be true if yours is false because mine is inherently overruling by nature.)
Or let's try this. Let's say that my point of view is that you are, by nature, incapable of defining truth. So now what? Which of us is right? I'd love for you to explain how we're both right.
Next, as for the Earth being round or flat... The spherical nature of the Earth is not defined by our beliefs. Whether we are capable of perceiving it is a different matter. The Earth did not change shape when the Greeks suddenly said "you know what? It's a sphere!" or when Sturlusson titled his book "Heinskringla" ("the world is round") As for "doesn't everything circel around everything? Isn't everything connected?!" Why would everything circle around everything? Why would everything be connected? I mean, to some degree, you can throw in Chaos theory, and say that things are connected that way. Molecule 1 bounces off the butterfly's wing, and hits molecules 2 and 3, which hit 4,5,6,7 etc which hit 8,9,10.... and two years later, there's a hurricane in Florida. But I get the feeling you're not talking about physical cause-effect here.
Next, we are, in fact, able to comprehend addition dimensions. Hence Einsteins theories. By the way, he had multiple theories, some of which are quite simple. But again, I'd love for you to explain how the Special Theory of Relativity and the vibrations of Supers Strings and the Nature of Old Norse Poetry are simple. I mean, I wrote a 25-page paper on the Norse stuff there, and believe you me, it is sure as **** not simple.
And as for speculations... we're not 'speculating' on these more advanced dimensions and ideas. Ever heard of CERN? Or that supercollider thing they have? Look it up. We're not speculating. We're discovering ways to affect the observable three dimensions through additional dimensions in order to learn about them indirectly.
If everythings is god then everyone and every stone, star or whatever is god and all ethic rules are legal to it.
So Hitler was a goodguy. I mean, if you want to try to argue that, fine. But you might have a problem. Especially since he didn't respect other things, lifeforms.... eh... under your philosophy, he didn't respect God (the other life forms, et cetera.) Oh, yeah. Throw in all the other psychopaths throughout history, too.
So you say there is good and evil: Black and white.. there are no more colours? You decide that a god is good or evil.. Maybe god is both.. like we are.. we are not all good or evil. For instance George Bush is a mass-murder as well... and people decide he is on the good side.. To me it seems that in every war there's a maas murder! Just remember this the wealth or the power of the one is some-one else's poverty. Besides that if a big meteor hits earth is this meteor then a bad and evil meteor.
Given that you obviously don't quite understand the implications of the nature of Good and Evil, let me point something out. Good is not a physical characteristic. It cannot be possessed by a mere physical object. Something which is 'good' or 'evil' must possess something beyond mere lumps of matter, as is the case with an asteroid. Let's start with your first point. Other colors. Good and evil are by nature binary. One or the other. As you move into more complex systems -- containing more than one property -- there may well be a combination of the two. An idea, society, system, et cetera may have elements which are 'good' and elements which are 'evil.' So, within complex systems, Shades of Grey may exist. There is a third option: neutrality. That's what matter is. A lump of iron is neither good nor evil. The purposes to which it may be put, however, are. There is no fourth option. Something is either Good, Evil, or Inherently Unable to Possess Either Quality. Again, within complex systems, you get combinations of these characteristics. That's how you can have "greater or lesser good" and "greater or lesser evil."
God being both good and evil, just as humans are both: I disagree. Humans are not both. I could go into an in-depth description of Christian doctrine on the point, but I'll just throw out a hyper-simplified version because this is going to be long enough as it is. I believe that humans are in a state of being inherently evil. This is not necessarily an active evil (ie, Hitler) as opposed to a passive evil (the lack of good). Darkness doesn't actively exist; it is rather an absence of light. Cold doesn't actively exist; rather, it is an absence of heat. Et cetera. the human nature is an inherent absence of absolute good. Whether or not any good remains at all is beside the point, and is controversial. Mormons, for example (TheJord can correct me if I'm wrong--) believe that there is inherent good in humanity. Anyway, the point is that, because of a lack of absolute good (black and white now,) humans are somewhere in the range of imperfect to passively evil to actively evil. Enter black-and-white. A human, as a unit, is either perfect or imperfect. Justice must be carried out by a perfect God, (else he would not be perfect) and those imperfections must therefore be accounted for. AKA, punished. Enter Jesus, who as a human is able to be the target of such punishment, and as God is worth infinitely more than any number of humans. He, therefore, is able to bear the full brunt of the justification. At that point, for those who accept the substitution, their imperfections and/or evil is considered as having been punished vicariously. For those who don't accept, well, they've rejected the substitution, so...
Upshot of all this relating back to the argument is that humans are also "good or evil, not both." Which? Evil. Perhaps not manifestly and actively, but nevertheless. As for good tendencies they may have, societal pressures and selfish interests can eeasily create those, and even instill a desire to do good for good's sake. Sorta like a reverse version of "The Noble Savage."
As to Bush: The question at hand isn't whether or not we went to war. The question isn't whether or not people die in war. The question is, was it justified? Is war ever justified? Which is the lesser evil the pre-war status quo, or the war? Same question in every war. If it's justified, then it is, by definition, not murder. Murder is, by definition, death by wrongful-- evil-- means or causes. If you;re using a different definition, then you're not speaking Standard English, and communication of your ideas is therefore a two-sided equivocation in which neither side is adressing the points brought up by the other, because both are talking about two entirely different things.
As for which is the greater evil, war or no war, honestly, I'm glad we took out Hitler before he took us out. The war in Iraq was, as far as I am able to determine, inevitable. I could be wrong, of course, but my point is this: it is contestable whether or not the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the rest of the world are justified. But they either are or are not. It's not subjective. We argue over whether or not Bush IS a mass murderer, et cetera. Not say "well, I think he is, you think he's not, we don;t really know because we're both right, even though that's impossible." (That is, something cannot be both X and NOT X at the same time.)
Wealth and Power vs. Poverty: Wow. I just learned about that in Shakespeare 380, actually. It's called Infantile Narcissism. The idea that because someone has something, someone else must have lost it. Ie, Duncan has the Crown. Therefore Macbeth necessarily LOST the crown. So he wants it back. Even though he never really had it. the fact that Bill Gates has money does not mean that people are starving. They may be starving, but it's not because Bill Gates stole their money. In fact, from my understanding, Bill Gates is well-known for philanthropy. He's not rich because he took their money, he's rich because he created a product of great value, and others gave him money in exchange for it. did they steal if from starving people? Maybe some of them did, given the massive numbers of people who use Windows. Beside the point. You can't lost what you didn't have. I'm not saying that people starving is good, I'm just saying that it's not necessarily the rich person's fault. Sometimes it is. But they're not starving because he's rich. Even if he wasn't, they'd still be starving. False-Cause Logical Fallacy and Infantile Narcissism. The reason it's called that is because, in a much more absolute manner, it's the natural state of an infant, who has not yet learned that the world is not an extension of its own mind. That is, the baby thinks: "I'm hungry. WAAAAHHH!" then it's suddenly fed. It thinks that it got food because there was a hunger. Not because they complained loud enough that another being got tired of listening to the whining and got a bottle, or whatever. This same idea has progressed into a pseudo-comprehensive worldview.
And if everything is god then everything is uncounsesly connected with eachother what can explain telepathy and other esp things.
Even assuming you believe that stuff, there are so many different ways to explain those phenomena that the fact this potentially explains it is no support at all. For example, some explanations would be: 1. a connection in the mass unconscious suggested by Jung (Think Freudian psychology) 2. a sense existent on some sort of spiritual or mental plane, rather than physical plane (which is sort of how I figure the so-called 'women's intuition') which could fit into a large number of religions which consider the soul to be connected to, but separate from, the body 3. an ability of the mind (or societal mind) to define reality (think New Agers or Postmodernists)...
I could go on for a long time. And all that's assuming you even believe the stuff exists. No comment there. /quote
Yep.. Just think about a hyve-mind by insects.
See, there we sort of agree on the fact that it would explain things. Whether or not it's true, well.... I actually believe in an extremely limited "hive nature" of humanity, in that we're all humans. Hive-mind, not so much, although the All-Omniscient Internet is definitely getting us there.
Anyway, my point was that the fact that it's a potential explanation means nothing, because there's dozens of other explanations that work just as well. And I have yet to see evidence of a human hivemind. Besides. The psychologists don't like Freud anymore anyways.
This is called pantheism = everything is god.
You know, I've always sorta wondered about the etymology on the 'pan' prefix. Was it derived from Pan, or was it connected later? I sorta get the sense that it was derived by a sort of metaphorical relation, not a direct relation. ie, Pan is the god of nature, and since one could say that in a sense, everything exists within nature, Pan would sort of encompass everything. But he's not actually the god of everything, which is what I know a bunch of New Agers/Neopagans claim these days. As I recall, some of them also call Thor a female.
By my knowing Pan is the greek word for: Everything. And yes Pan is also the god of nature. but one does not exclude the other on that. Nature is also everything isn't it? Normaly you have first a word and after that you named something it. By the way what was first Bastet or the godess Bastet. Or was she first a woman who became a godess later???
Well some people call Pim Fortyun a man.. so?!!! 
Maybe Thor was castrated after he had a son and a daughter with his mistresses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor
Okay, etymology not really relevant, just a wandering thought. Bastet: I dunno if there was a human Bastet later deified. I don't know much about Egyptian myth at all. If there was, it doesn't mean that she was or is a supernatural being. I can, however, point out Bragi Boddasson, an Old Norse poet, who was later considered to be the god of Poetry. And Thor wasn't castrated in the myths. If you re-write your mythology to the point where Thor's a woman, then it's not Thor anymore. One of Thor's defining characteristics is his masculinity. And I don't care what you think, just because you think that Thor is real doesn't mean that lightning is caused by a mystical chariot dragged by goats. The nature of the universe doesn't give a **** whether you think lightning is caused by electronic discharge or giant turtles from the heavens. It doesn't change based on a democratic vote over whether people think that the earth is warming, cooling, or staying the same.
Oh, and don't bother linking to Wikipedia for me on Old Norse myth.
I've got a copy of the Poetic Edda sitting right in front of me. And I've read the whole thing. With footnotes and introduction, conclusion, index.... Plus all the other resources I've read on the stuff, primary and secondary sources. Translated primaries, of course. Much as I wish I could, I can't read actual Old Norse. Anyway, point being, I'd lay down 40:1 odds that I know more about it than anyone else on here.
Alright, I took so long typing this that TLHH logged me out, and I had to copy-paste it all into a new reply. So I'll give it a rest now.
Well, maybe not. On to the other thread of discussion:
1. WHO IS JEHOVAH? Jehovah, an Anglicization of Hebrew YHWH. The YHWH is itself Anglicized, given that it's a translation from an independent orthography. (Germanic J often = Modern English Y, dittos with W = V; so an early English pronunciation of the spelling "Jehovah" would have been about equivalent Modern "Yaweh".)
2. IS JEHOVAH THE SAME AS GOD? Yes. All a single being with multiple "names." After all, why would an absolutely sufficient being existing outside of time, space, et cetera, have a name? Who would have named the being? Himself? Maybe within the context of a human time/space continuum, but what name would be given outside? What purpose would it serve?
3. WHAT IS JESUS' RELATIONSHIP TO GOD? Jesus is a human incarnation of a manifestation of God. That is, God made himself take on human form. There's a whole long thing I could go into about the nature of Trinity. But Jesus is an incarnation of the same being as Jehovah.
So yeah, and I agree with all of Kralik and ge's answers, too.
Topic: Deep Questions Seemingly Unanswerable (Read 9267 times)
