by d 281 Replies latest members politics
"First, what is an irrational belief is subjective to the person making the statement. ..." tec, page 14
That statement is a bit clumsy...
Are you saying that people who hold irrational beliefs feel that statements pertaining to their irrational beliefs, are "subjective"...?
"evolve a thicker skin"
Actually, I kinda like that ;)
Are you saying that people who hold irrational beliefs feel that statements pertaining to their irrational beliefs, are "subjective"...?
No, I'm saying that considering something "rational" or "irrational" is subjective.
Peace,
tammy
Just because people held on to a belief for a long time, that did not make it true, nor was it evidence of any value for the truth of that belief.
For example, the belief the Earth was flat, the belief the earth was the centre of the Solar System, the belief that the stars and planets cause disease (hence "Influenza") or that they control lives etc etc
All those beliefs were held for a long time, and were untrue. Many things have been held to be true, and seem to be, for a long time too, but proof or evidence for the truth or not of a belief comes from testable facts , not the length of time it has been held.
The same goes for the number of people who believe,that is not proof, the kind of people who believe,that is not proof, "Professor Smarty-Pants believes, what do you say to that?" I say "So what? Where is the proof ?".
Those of us who were born in to the WT and were told all our lives what to believe, with no proof, are heartily sick of that kind of dishonest teaching, to maintain that something is true, without proof, is just not good enough.
Evidence, the kind that would satisfy the keenest scientific and forensic minds is required before something can be accepted as true, otherwise it is a mere hypothesis.
You speak airily above Tammy, of a "pile" of proof or evidence.
Would you like to lay that evidence before us please ?
Just because people held on to a belief for a long time, that did not make it true, nor was it evidence of any value for the truth of that belief.
Of course. But that is not what I said.
I said that people in every culture, time, era, etc... separate or together... have sought out a creator/spirit/god/goddess/etc. Mankind discovers new things by building upon things that are already known to him. He is not so good at inventing something out of thin air. Such as a spiritual world or beings, from a purely natural "touch/taste/smell/hear/see" world.
There has not been, that we know of, a civilization that has not had some sort of belief in something other than our five senses - such as spiritual planes, or spirits/gods themselves.
That speaks to me.
If there was nothing TO a spiritual world/beings/creator, then I do not believe we could have conceived of it ourselves. Certainly not found it in every culture that we know of, even isolated ones.
On the other hand, a belief about something that you already know with your senses (there is an earth); can be wrong. Hence the flat earth or center of the universe, etc. Same with us being wrong about what this spiritual world/creator is like. For instance, if you were a being that lived only in water and you had never seen the earth or dry land or any evidence of such... then you could not have conceived of it. It simply would not occur to you. Not until you see it yourself, or hear of it from someone else who has seen it.
You speak airily above Tammy, of a "pile" of proof or evidence.
I do not speak of proof at all. Just evidence. Evidence as information that belief is based upon. No one believes something based on nothing at all. The evidence can be wrong; its interpretation can be wrong, but it is still evidence.
Would you like to lay that evidence before us please ? I have done this before, but okay... though I can only give you what is evidence acceptable to me. Others have different forms of evidence that help them decide. There is the above that I already wrote, as evidence to the spiritual/creator/etc. There are the witness who gave accounts of Christ that have been written down for us. The gospels. Christ, Himself, is evidence. Then there is personal evidence: prayers answered, hearing the spirit of Christ, the directions given always being right, etc. There is the truth inherent in the teachings and life of Christ. (truth as in I have seen evidence of all that He taught to be true - his teachings on how we are to live, the morality inherent, etc... if all that he taught and lived is true; then he himself cannot be a liar) That is my evidence. Peace, tammy |
Until I purchased that book, I had no idea of the extent of 'standing stones' in the British Isles - Zid
This circle is about 15 minutes drive from my house. They are called the Duddo stones
"No, I'm saying that considering something "rational" or "irrational" is subjective...." tec, page 14
Depends on the situation.
If one is referring to most of the physical world, where methodical forms of observations have given the vast majority of humankind a solid factual basis to rely upon, then NO - considering something "rational" or "irrational" is most certainly NOT "subjective".
All one has to do, is measure the comment against known facts. Then it becomes obvious whether the person's viewpoint or position is "rational" or "irrational".
On the other hand, if one moves into imaginary, invisible realms which can arguably be peopled with fantasy creatures, such as Bronze-Age Middle-Eastern-male volcano 'gods', Acheulean 'goddesses', fairies, elves, ogres, unicorns, aliens, flying spagetti monsters and the like, then we've clearly moved from that which is 'rational' based upon its being physically proveable or inferrable, into that which is NOT physically proveable or inferrable and therefore "irrational" - and nearly all comments by "true believers" regarding their own personal versions of such invisible belief systems are HIGHLY "subjective".
Zid
"I said that people in every culture, time, era, etc... separate or together... have sought out a creator/spirit/god/goddess/etc. Mankind discovers new things by building upon things that are already known to him...." tec, page 14
Until the MOST recent periods of human development, humans predominantly believed in a PLETHORA of "creatorS/spiritS/godS/goddessES...
"...He is not so good at inventing something out of thin air. ..." tec, page 14
Actually, humanity has used their ability TO IMAGINE "something out of thin air..." for a VERY long time. That ability is the foundation for humanity's technological advances...
".....If there was nothing TO a spiritual world/beings/creator, then I do not believe we could have conceived of it ourselves. Certainly not found it in every culture that we know of, even isolated ones. ..." tec, page 14
But nearly every culture that we know of, even isolated ones, ALSO believe in such things as fairies, ghosts, guardian angels, unseen animals, demi-gods, and many other fantasy elements that one could name - elves/invisible 'helpers', 'unicorns' or other magical and mythological animals, and so on.
So does that mean that fairies, unicorns, elves, sprites, pixies, imps, trolls, knomes, ogres, pegases, ghost ships, magical undersea kingdoms and other fantastical figments of the collective human subconscious ALSO exist??
No, they do not.
Zid
Hey, Cofty!!
Good to hear from you, man!!!
Do you feel up to posting on your thread http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/members/private/224492/1/Cofty-logging-out-for-a-while
that you're back???
It would make a LOT of people VERY HAPPY to hear about how you're doing...
(and one of these days I'd like to have a little thread/conversation with you, about those circular holes filled with rainwater that you photographed - I think they might have been fossilized nautilus shells - and the use of circular rainwater-collecting holes in rock, made by goddess worshippers...
I'm wondering whether there's a connection - especially with the additional emblem/icon of the spiraling nautilus shells and the use of "spirals" in some versions of goddess worship...)
Until the MOST recent periods of human development, humans predominantly believed in a PLETHORA of "creatorS/spiritS/godS/goddessES...
Whichever... all the same 'realm'.
Actually, humanity has used their ability TO IMAGINE "something out of thin air..." for a VERY long time. That ability is the foundation for humanity's technological advances...
Unless you can name something specific, then I must disagree. We build upon things that come first. Our knowledge, ideas, beliefs are always based upon something... no matter how remote. Nothing comes out of 'thin air' that I know of. So I would welcome an e X ample.
But nearly every culture that we know of, even isolated ones, ALSO believe in such things as fairies, ghosts, guardian angels, unseen animals, demi-gods, and many other fantasy elements that one could name - elves/invisible 'helpers', 'unicorns' or other magical and
mythological animals, and so on.
So does that mean that fairies, unicorns, elves, sprites, pixies, imps, trolls, knomes, ogres, pegases, ghost ships, magical undersea kingdoms and other fantastical figments of the collective human subconscious ALSO exist??
No, of course not... just as it doesn't mean that Zeus or Aphrodite or any of the other interpretation or versions of a god/goddess/creator is real -singular or plural. But most of those all fall under the 'spiritual' realm. How did a spiritual realm get born from a purely physical one? How is that leap made, with no point of reference; nothing tangible to base the belief upon?
Physical myths are easy enough... they still deal with the physical. A unicorn is a horse with a horn. A pegasis is a horse with wings.
But what is a spiritual thing based upon... the point of reference that could allow someone to make the leap from natural/physical -> spiritual?
Peace,
tammy
"Our knowledge, ideas, beliefs are always based upon something... no matter how remote. Nothing comes out of 'thin air' that I know of...."
Ideas are based on the physical world, just as we are rooted in the physical world. However, the "horseless carriage" would be a pretty good example of a technological advance pulled from the human imagination, and then worked into a reality.
But there I am speaking of physical realities that arise from non-physical concepts which have no precedents - that is the way I am defining "imagining" something "out of thin air".
And the question arises, since "carriages" existed, then would the "horseless" version be a totally new idea, since, in order to work the idea into physical reality, they had to use existing "carriages"...?
But attempting to use humanity's evolution of technology as a parallel for their evolution of a "god/goddess/supreme spirit" concept, is not an exact match. One is based upon physical needs and realities; the other based upon humankind's fear of death.
