belief

Originally posted by RJHinds
You provide the following two quotes on your profile page:

"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."
- Andre Gide

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with
sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."
- Galileo Galilei

The second one is the only wise quote.

Actually they are both wise.

But I am surprised you like the second.

Sense reason and intellect lead inexorably to the rejection of the existence of god.

This is why religions are so uniformly against people using them to examine their
faith.

The only sensible position is to believe things for which there is evidence.

You ask people to believe in your god without evidence.

Thus you are asking people not to use sense and reason.

Thus you are not following this wise quote.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Actually they are both wise.

But I am surprised you like the second.

Sense reason and intellect lead inexorably to the rejection of the existence of god.

This is why religions are so uniformly against people using them to examine their
faith.

The only sensible position is to believe things for which there is evidence.

You ask people to be ...[text shortened]... ou are asking people not to use sense and reason.

Thus you are not following this wise quote.

I believe reason and intellect used wisely will lead to the truth,
which results in belief in Jesus the Christ.

Originally posted by googlefudge
Actually they are both wise.

But I am surprised you like the second.

Sense reason and intellect lead inexorably to the rejection of the existence of god.

This is why religions are so uniformly against people using them to examine their
faith.

The only sensible position is to believe things for which there is evidence.

You ask people to be ...[text shortened]... ou are asking people not to use sense and reason.

Thus you are not following this wise quote.

Two more quotes from Andre Gide:

My faith in communism is like my faith in religion: it is a promise of salvation
for mankind. If I have to lay my life down that it may succeed, I would do so without hesitation

—André Gide, The God That Failed

...and after his visit to the Soviet Union:


It is impermissible under any circumstances for morals to sink as low as
communism has done. No one can begin to imagine the tragedy of humanity,
of morality, of religion and of freedoms in the land of communism, where man
has been debased beyond belief

—André Gide, quoted in Culture, Civilization, and Humanity

Originally posted by RJHinds
Two more quotes from Andre Gide:

My faith in communism is like my faith in religion: it is a promise of salvation
for mankind. If I have to lay my life down that it may succeed, I would do so without hesitation

—André Gide, The God That Failed

...and after his visit to the Soviet Union:


It is impermissible under any circumstances for morals ...[text shortened]... n
has been debased beyond belief

—André Gide, quoted in Culture, Civilization, and Humanity

I am not sure what your point is (Actually I have no idea what your point is), but....

It wasn't communism per say, that caused the problem.... It was the political structure imposed to enforce communism
on the people of the soviet union, plus Stalin's (and his followers) psychotic behaviour and paranoia setting the tone for the whole
terrible mess.

Communism would work, and might even be inevitable in a 'post scarcity' society (if we ever create one), but is
impractical and inferior to capitalism in a society that is still in the age of scarcity.

The horrors though of Soviet Russia are hard to comprehend, more people died in Stalin's purges than the total allied casualties
of WW2.
And that's not counting the starvation and disease that ravaged the poor and desolate, technologically backward nation.

Communism for the masses might work someday, but now it requires a draconian state to enforce it.
This is of course unacceptable.

Originally posted by googlefudge
The only sensible position is to believe things for which there is evidence.

nay, even that is not sensible. the only sensible position is to have no beliefs.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I am not sure what your point is (Actually I have no idea what your point is), but....

It wasn't communism per say, that caused the problem.... It was the political structure imposed to enforce communism
on the people of the soviet union, plus Stalin's (and his followers) psychotic behaviour and paranoia setting the tone for the whole
terrible mess ...[text shortened]... day, but now it requires a draconian state to enforce it.
This is of course unacceptable.

ah, but the soviet union wasn't a communist state. it was a dictatorship with a slave workforce. the same can be said for practically all the 'communist' block nations that popped up following the politics of marxism.

for a true(er) communist model, we need to look at the amish, mennonites and kibbutzim as a few examples.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
nay, even that is not sensible. the only sensible position is to have no beliefs.

seconded

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
nay, even that is not sensible. the only sensible position is to have no beliefs.

Are we supposed to believe that? 😵

Originally posted by JS357
Are we supposed to believe that? 😵

absolutely not!

you're supposed to deeply analyze it and come to the conclusion that it is the best possible philosophy by which to live your life.

Originally posted by JS357
Are we supposed to believe that? 😵

Thing is, we do believe stuff, whether we/i admit , or not.
"God" is like a flower or a cloud. You see it but you dont go "I believe in that cloud". It's just there .

Thats why I like story telling as the best method (in general), for teaching people spiritual stuff.
There's no pressure when you are telling a story, and depending on where the person is with their spirituality, they will take from the story what they need- if anything.
Otherwise you've just told a story. No threats of hell or being dishonest.etc.

It's when people want proof that I have trouble and cant see myself even trying to prove my assertions.

There is no substitue for direct experince, which is the only real truth that you can believe 100%

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
absolutely not!

you're supposed to deeply analyze it and come to the conclusion that it is the best possible philosophy by which to live your life.

You are supposed to deeply analyze and then come to the conclusion
that you have no beliefs. That seems like another product from your
warped brain.

Originally posted by karoly aczel
Thing is, we do believe stuff, whether we/i admit , or not.
"God" is like a flower or a cloud. You see it but you dont go "I believe in that cloud". It's just there .

Thats why I like story telling as the best method (in general), for teaching people spiritual stuff.
There's no pressure when you are telling a story, and depending on where the per ...[text shortened]... substitue for direct experince, which is the only real truth that you can believe 100%

The cloud is just there, whether you believe in it or not. So too, is God.

Originally posted by VoidSpirit
nay, even that is not sensible. the only sensible position is to have no beliefs.

depends how you define belief and knowledge.

Any sensible definition of knowledge includes belief.
In fact you can class knowledge as particularly strongly held and justified belief.

While I don't agree with that definition entirely, you can certainly place knowledge
on a sliding scale of belief.

So I can make the statement that I believe there is no god, but don't know there
is no god.
Where knowledge here would implicitly be a particularly well justified belief.

Plus you have things like, believing in being kind and polite to strangers.
It can be reasonably argued this is a good thing, but not to a certainty for all cases
and possibly not to the point where you could say you know it's best to be kind
and polite to strangers.

I can also believe that we all live in a common reality and that the scientific method
is the best possible way of determining how it works....

Good luck proving to an absolute certainty that is true.
But it is demonstrably helpful to believe it.

Depending on how you define knowledge you could even say you know it.
But that's just my point, We could sit around for hours/days discussing exactly how
you define knowledge, and still not agree at the end.
But if you accept that part of the definition must include belief. As you can't know
something to be true if you don't believe it to be true.
Then it doesn't necessarily matter exactly where you draw the line for knowledge,
you are simply saying that it meets your criteria (which you can specify if needed)
for particularly strongly justifiable belief.

I also believe it is wrong to commit murder, think I should stop believing that?

Originally posted by RJHinds
The cloud is just there, whether you believe in it or not. So too, is God.

The two are not equal examples.
You can perform tests to detect clouds, and we have a theoretical and experimental underpinning
of what they are and how they work.

Of course IF god exists, it exists independent of peoples belief in it.
The difference here being there is strong evidence for the cloud you would have to dismiss to
not believe in it.
Whereas there is No evidence for God, meaning if you believe in it, you have to believe in it without
evidence.


You can know the cloud exists if you can observe it and believe in its existence.
You can't know that god exists as you can't observe it but you can believe in it's existence.

The first is sensible and justifiable.
The second isn't.

Originally posted by googlefudge
I am not sure what your point is (Actually I have no idea what your point is), but....

It wasn't communism per say, that caused the problem.... It was the political structure imposed to enforce communism
on the people of the soviet union, plus Stalin's (and his followers) psychotic behaviour and paranoia setting the tone for the whole
terrible mess day, but now it requires a draconian state to enforce it.
This is of course unacceptable.

You said the following statement was also wise:

"Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it."
- Andre Gide

My point in quoting the contradictory statements of Andre Gide on
communism is to compare it with the contradictory statement above.

He seems to be saying to believe those who are seeking the truth, even
though they have not found it. But those who have found the truth are
to be doubted, rather than believed.