Originally posted by Halitose This one really is for movie critics, but I think it is quite fitting in this occasion.
The SKEPTIC is like a eunuch in a harem. He knows all about it, but has never experienced it.
similes are definitely not your forte.
so becoming a christian is like jumping into the orgy pit raring to go with a swinging manhood for the express purpose of gratuitous egotistical satisfaction; and the skeptic is the only one who is sure not to contract VD. did i interpret your main points correctly?
My point is that when it comes to faith in God, since it goes beyond just mere knowledge, it crosses into the metaphysical, faith, a belief for which one is willing to die for. The skeptic becomes a mere spectator, content with the meagre fact that he thinks he understands it, thinks he has wrapped his mind around it. He thinks to explain the metaphysical with the physical, faith with a emotional fling.
Originally posted by Halitose My point is that when it comes to faith in God, since it goes beyond just mere knowledge, it crosses into the metaphysical, faith, a belief for which one is willing to die for. The skeptic becomes a mere spectator, content with the meagre fact that he thinks he understands it, thinks he has wrapped his mind around it. He thinks to explain the metaphysical with the physical, faith with a emotional fling.
Originally posted by Halitose My point is that when it comes to faith in God, since it goes beyond just mere knowledge, it crosses into the metaphysical, faith, a belief for which one is willing to die for. The skeptic becomes a mere spectator, content with the meagre fact that he thinks he understands it, thinks he has wrapped his mind around it. He thinks to explain the metaphysical with the physical, faith with a emotional fling.
The skeptic...thinks he understands it, thinks he has wrapped his mind around it.
uhh....i think you need to grab the closest dictionary and look up the term 'skeptic'.
there are some things that are currently unknowable to us. the skeptic has the balls to take that medicine down; the rest need some measure of sugar coating.
Originally posted by LemonJello [b]The skeptic...thinks he understands it, thinks he has wrapped his mind around it.
uhh....i think you need to grab the closest dictionary and look up the term 'skeptic'.
there are some things that are currently unknowable to us. the skeptic has the balls to take that medicine down; the rest need some measure of sugar coating.
[/b]
You need more sugar than a moonshiner to coat the OT enough to make it palatable.
Originally posted by Halitose This one really is for movie critics, but I think it is quite fitting in this occasion.
The SKEPTIC is like a eunuch in a harem. He knows all about it, but has never experienced it.
That's not a very logical refutation, you don't always have to experience something to know its false or doesn't suit your life philosophy.
Plus.....you're coming from a phenomenolgical perspective, but as the anthropologist Levi-Strauss said in his critique of phenomenology.. ...experience is subjective
We belive what we want to believe, if you want to believe in religion and god you will if you don't you want, religion is a clever connunderum, because although you cant prove there's a god you cant prove there isn't
Originally posted by Serendipity That's not a very logical refutation, you don't always have to experience something to know its false or doesn't suit your life philosophy.
Plus.....you're coming from a phenomenolgical perspective, but as the anthropologist Levi-Strauss said in his critique of phenomenology.. ...experience is subjective
We belive what we want t ...[text shortened]... a clever connunderum, because although you cant prove there's a god you cant prove there isn't
I have to agree with your point on life philosophy, because that is all it eventually is for the skeptic.
If it doesn't fit into the parameters, chuck it out. But my point still stands. Faith and the metaphysical, goes beyond puny human reason, to fully understand it, you do need to experience it.
Originally posted by Halitose Faith and the metaphysical, goes beyond puny human reason, to fully understand it, you do need to experience it.
if it goes beyond human reason, then you can't understand it. that's the whole point. you choose to believe in something you cannot possibly understand.
your faith makes you comfortable and all warm and gooey inside -- i get it.
when i was young, i put my faith into god the way a good christian is supposed to. i was smart enough to realize it was getting me nowhere. you read some words in a book and then just let your brain take an extended vacation. things are rarely that easy. a better solution is to continue being a good person but also realize that god is an arbitrary concept. take your brain out of the jar and use it.
what do you have against the skeptic, anyway? do you think skeptics are inherently immoral people or something? you seem to be chiding the skeptic because some skeptics may have not 'tried' faith in god. well, i bet that you haven't tried putting all your faith into the bluish-green elves that live in your nose and create your smell sensations by waving around their magic wands made out of unicorn bone. what does that make you?
Originally posted by LemonJello if it goes beyond human reason, then you can't understand it. that's the whole point. you choose to believe in something you cannot possibly understand.
your faith makes you comfortable and all warm and gooey inside -- i get it.
when i was young, i put my faith into god the way a good christian is supposed to. i was smart enough to realize it ...[text shortened]... ensations by waving around their magic wands made out of unicorn bone. what does that make you?
Skepticism is healthy as long as you know when to dispense with it. Apparently, one like David Hume didn't, as a thoroughgoing empiricists, his Treatise on Human Nature didn't explain Human nature very well. In particular, "The self as a bundle". He could see the self (inner being) because of his empirical posture. His type of skepticism is . . . shall I say, dangerous? (I do enjoy reading Hume's works, but I always end up with a "Hume hangover"😉 Skepticism allows one to take an objective look at the matter and draw objective conclusions, something few people exercise. Obviously, we as finite beings cannot understand everything, but it doesn't preclude trying to understand as much as possible. In addition, for anyone to claim that miracles are improbable, as Hume claimed, requires one to have universal knowledge; that is unlikely.
Originally posted by LemonJello if it goes beyond human reason, then you can't understand it. that's the whole point. you choose to believe in something you cannot possibly understand.
your faith makes you comfortable and all warm and gooey inside -- i get it. ...[text shortened]... ir magic wands made out of unicorn bone. what does that make you?
if it goes beyond human reason, then you can't understand it. that's the whole point.
Nope. The whole point is actually that you will understand the most essential parts of it better once you have experienced it.
Originally posted by dj2becker Nope. The whole point is actually that you will understand the most essential parts of it better once you have experienced it.
well, then why aren't you pouring all your faith into the little bluish-green elves that live in your nostrils? it sounds silly, but the essential parts of it will clearly make perfect sense when you start to believe and experience the wonders of faith in the elvish. 🙄
i think you should start facing reality: you think you can know the unknowable; and you believe strongly in that which is arbitrary.
Originally posted by dj2becker [b]if it goes beyond human reason, then you can't understand it. that's the whole point.
Nope. The whole point is actually that you will understand the most essential parts of it better once you have experienced it.[/b]
dj2becker, I understand what you are saying, but when one is an empiricist, which I believe a number of people on this spiritual site are; It is difficult to have a dialogue concerning the a priori. David Hume confessed that himself in his Treatise on Human Nature. The spiritual realm exists in the a priori, not in the sensual. It is not provable in the empirical sense, but you can give reasonable answers. Both are real, if you don't believe that then you can't study Geometry, since it is based on unprovable theorems.
23 Jul '05 22:241 edit
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