Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sy Borg]

Sy,

So please tell me how Noah's sons saved all the Australian fauna? Or how he managed to gather two of every animal without a) getting killed b) having other animals killed? How did he manage to feed millions of animals the diets they require? How did they keep the animals in place? Who cleaned the dung? How could they all breathe in there? What about pregnancies? Illness? The smell!

Critical thinking applied to something of such a grand scale would make it seem implausible or even ridiculous. But one thing I have learned is that anything is possible (within my frame of experience). Of course, I cannot conceive of how something like the flood or the animals in the ark could possibly occur. To me (and probably most people) it is beyond the realms of what is can occur in reality. But does that notion in itself create an impossibility, obviously not.

But really, should anyone have to waste even a second analysing something so ludicrous? It is not comparable with the BBT, not in any way. That is false equivalence, and unworthy of addressing. That's akin to saying that Santa's legend (which is as believable as Noah's ark) is just as credible as cosmology and physics.

I said nothing of the sought. Maybe you didn’t understand me?

"Philosophical suicide" is a famous Albert Camus term. I expect if you look it up you'll find a more thorough explanation than I can give.

Why would you tell me to look it up? If you have a good grasp of what the term implies, by all means, explain it when asked to politely.

The ark story is impossible. If you disagree, I have recently bought the Sydney Harbour Bridge and I can sell it to you at a low, low price.

In my experience on the forum in 2022, it has been rare for any explanation I provide to be properly considered. I have explained and explained - look at my posting number - but I'm losing interest because what I say in this area is usually misinterpreted. There's no way of moving forward but following the same, dull faulty circles, covered a million times before. I am prepared to point people in a direction ... if they are interested to look.

[Fanman]

Sy,

The ark story is impossible. If you disagree, I have recently bought the Sydney Harbour Bridge and I can sell it to you at a low, low price.

That is a good one. It isn’t that I believe it – I just will not say that it is impossible, because I don’t see myself as having the capacity to do so.

In my experience on the forum in 2022, it has been rare for any explanation I provide to be properly considered. I have explained and explained - look at my posting number - but I'm losing interest because what I say in this area is usually misinterpreted. There's no way of moving forward but following the same, dull faulty circles, covered a million times before. I am prepared to point people in a direction ... if they are interested to look.

I don’t know what to say to this, Sy. I wouldn’t want to join the circle you describe, but given that you’re telling me about it, from your perspective I probably have.

[ernestm]

Here is an argument, Why God is an Impossibility.

There are two types of perfection for philosophical consideration, i.e.

• 1. Relative perfection
  2. Absolute perfection

1. Relative perfection
If one's answers in an objective tests are ALL correct that is a 100% perfect score.
Perfect scores 10/10 or 7/7 used to be given to extra-ordinary performance in diving, gymnastics, skating, and the likes. So perfection from the relative perspective can happen and exist within man-made systems of empirically-based measurements.

2. Absolute perfection
Absolute perfection is an idea, ideal, and it is only a thought that can arise from reason and never the empirical at all.
Absolute perfection is an impossibility in the empirical, thus exist only theoretically.
Examples are perfect circle, square, triangle, etc.

Generally, perfection is attributed to God. Any god with less than perfect attributes would be subjected to being inferior to another's god. As such, God has to be absolutely perfect which is the ontological god, i.e. god is a Being than which no greater can be conceived.

So,

• Absolute perfection is an impossibility
  God, imperatively must be absolutely perfect
  Therefore God is an impossibility.

Can any theists counter the above?

I don't understand why a divine creator is still thought of as perfect.

To me, the existence of rational order at all in the universe does imply a rational agent. Of course that's only an induction.

But the evidence appears to be that the intended creation, as per Engels, was to create a living being with opposable thumbs connected to a brain, after which, the development of civilization is pretty much automatic.

I can imagine a rational agent designing the periodic table the way it is to enable the existence of life. I can imagine a rational agent intentionally making evolution possible as a tool, in order to create something interesting with a mind capable of rational thought and choice.

Beyond that, it seems to me the other aspects are vastly misunderstood, even in this communications arena. We all know of Nagel's 'what's it like to be a bat?' which says a bat's sensory experience and awareness is too alien for us to understand. A creator capable of making the universe we know now would not have any senses we could possibly comprehend. It seems to me, if we are the only intelligent life ever, and were intentionally made, then any consciousness we know of would go totally insane waiting 14 billion years for us to show up. So it would have to be able to experience a million years as a second, or zoom in to less than nansoeconds to see what's going on,

Moreover to find us, it would have to perceive some dimension in string theory or something in which the degree of our entropic complexity would stand out. Otherwise it wouldn't be able to find the planet where things happened to be just right for life.

And after that, I don't see much evidence that the human race should be so deserved of such special treatment. It seems to me, not all species would end up being quite as awful as human beings are, if they evolved elsewhere, it's pretty easy to imagine them being better, but much worse and they'd wipe themselves out before even getting to steam power.

[Sy Borg]

Sy,

The ark story is impossible. If you disagree, I have recently bought the Sydney Harbour Bridge and I can sell it to you at a low, low price.

That is a good one. It isn’t that I believe it – I just will not say that it is impossible, because I don’t see myself as having the capacity to do so.

In my experience on the forum in 2022, it has been rare for any explanation I provide to be properly considered. I have explained and explained - look at my posting number - but I'm losing interest because what I say in this area is usually misinterpreted. There's no way of moving forward but following the same, dull faulty circles, covered a million times before. I am prepared to point people in a direction ... if they are interested to look.

I don’t know what to say to this, Sy. I wouldn’t want to join the circle you describe, but given that you’re telling me about it, from your perspective I probably have.

Sorry Fan, I think you have worn flak for others' sins. My bad.

Realistically, what are the possibilities?

1. Deities don't exist. The universe is self-organising, though perhaps some entities will evolve/develop in the far future that we today would perceive as godlike

2. Deities are subjectively real, but not otherwise. Notions of agency within nature have been inherited from thousands of generations of human ancestors, who all until recently believed that powerful natural entities had agency. Thus deities are subjectively real as a potential in our brain configuration, inherited from a long line of superstitious ancestors, but not an ontic reality.

3. There are synergies in reality, as described in the Tao, Buddhism and other schemas. These, as per #2, might be be interpreted as a deity or deities.

4. The Sun has a kind of consciousness that could be interpreted as a deity. We are increasingly finding organisation in the Sun's structure. It might produce a different kind of consciousness to anything we imagined.

5. The Earth has a kind of consciousness that could be interpreted as a deity. After all, we are only a small part of Earth, so it's logically greater, and we are a system within the Earth's system. Again, maybe there's complex organisation in our planet that we don't understand.

6. The entire universe is conscious to some extent, and this is interpreted as a deity or deities.

7. The spirits of the dead still exist in another dimension/realm that could be interpreted as a deity or deities. There have been many hard-to-explain anecdotal incidents, but nothing conclusive. Many indigenous people believed this.

8. Multiple deities actually exist, and they might be interpreted in different ways. Hindus and many indigenous groups have their own particular polytheistic schemas. Even the Romans and Greeks, thought I don't think they took them entirely seriously.

9. There is one supreme deity that created the universe and let it go.

10. There is one supreme interventionist deity that created everything.

11. The multiverse exists and this is interpreted as a deist creator.

I can't think of any more off the top of my head.

[Belindi]

Genesis 6 explains why God flooded the Earth. You may see this as evil, I see a God who has to witness the evil ways of mankind throughout our history. But God is a just, merciful and forgiving God, we still have the chance of a greater good life after death; and that gives me hope.

Genesis 6
5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

It is an allegory.

Allegory is the expression of truths or generalizations about human existence by means of symbolic fictional figures and their actions.

Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Allegories have at least a little basis in material reality. The Euphrates did flood from time to time and riparian people could build boats or rafts to save themselves and their livestock.

[Fanman]

Hi Sy,

I like your post in response to me, but it's a lot to unpack and discuss. My general belief is that there is a spiritual aspect to life, but I am not entirely sure of its nature. To be honest, I wouldn't like to be sure about such things, as that would impact my ability to live a normal life. I think that not knowing (or not being certain) offers a kind of safety and that doubt protects the mind from going into things that may not be real.

[Sy Borg]

Hi Sy,

I like your post in response to me, but it's a lot to unpack and discuss. My general belief is that there is a spiritual aspect to life, but I am not entirely sure of its nature. To be honest, I wouldn't like to be sure about such things, as that would impact my ability to live a normal life. I think that not knowing (or not being certain) offers a kind of safety and that doubt protects the mind from going into things that may not be real.

It seems fairly comprehensive on first glance, but is missing panentheism, which might come in at #10. If you think of other ideas that were missed, by all means pass them on.

I agree with your thoughts above. I have had spiritual experiences myself, so there is spiritual aspect to life. Even if these experiences are just spurts of dopamine production, the subjective effects (and affects) are significant, and cannot be dismissed. We stem from about 10,000 generations of ancestors who believed in the agency of natural phenomena. What impact would the cumulative epigenetic effects of such belief have on the evolution of our brains? We are surely "wired" to see agency in all aspects of nature.

It's darkly ironic that, in recent centuries, people believed in the sentience of the universe while denying the sentience of other sentient animals, having been mislead by false claims of human divinity. If humans are divine, then so are dogs, trees and rocks. Personally, I am deeply impressed by the Earth and the Sun, two incredibly special entities amongst trillions of other remarkable entities (other stars and planets). People tend to resist the idea that they are part of the Earth, contained within the Earth's systems ... that we are individually and collectively less than the Earth, in much the same way as brains are less than the whole person, and subject to the overall body systems (albeit with feedback loops).

Why do so many Christians worship phantasms while treating the extraordinary world of which they are just a tiny part with contempt?

[Fanman]

Hi Sy,

When it's all said and done, who knows? I don't see a need to categorise spirituality as being purely subjective. It may be or it may not be. I do actually have an idea why Christians do as they do. It's because they justify their life experiences according to scripture. If something happens in their lives that correlates with scripture, they believe that it is an act of providence or destiny. Or that the happenstance is proof that the correlating scriptures are true. They don't understand that what they perceive could be a coincidence or something they've done by themselves. They are so reliant on God, that they think it's his strength and not theirs when they face or overcome even the slightest adversity. I prefer to claim ownership of what I achieve or even when I fail.

[Mounce574]

Can you prove without a doubt that God does not exist? If so, how did creation happen? Can you prove beyond a doubt your answer is correct? Please enlighten me. I believe in God, and I want to see your perspective more clearly.

[Sculptor1]

Perfection can only be based on certain criteria.
Criteria are arbitrary.
So there is only relative perfection. And this is achieved when the qualities of a thing match the criteria.

If we say a perfect number ONE has no integer, and is only conceptual. Then any of us can imagine a number ONE which is perfect.

There can be no absolute and total perfection since it is equally possible to imagine a quality not possessed by any thing.

What this might have to do with any thing called god is moot.

[Sy Borg]

Mounce, there are various explanations for the Big Bang, and it is important to appreciate that the BB was probably not the beginning of everything, that there was something beforehand from which the BB came. The most well-accepted hypothesis so far is that vacuum energy has always been present, with matter and anti-matter particles spontaneously appearing and cancelling each other out. For unknown reasons, at some stage there was an imbalance that resulted in inflation rather than cancelling out.

As soon as one decides that a deity did it, all investigations stop. Whatever, the fact that there are mysteries does not mean that one can claim that it was the work of an Iron Age Middle Eastern deity that thinks rather like humans do. Did you see the list I made above?

IMO theists would do well to avoid being so materialistic that they feel the need to explain their faith in physical terms, dissatisfied with their beliefs being "only" subjective. They seem to not notice that they disregard the subjective domain as much as science does. The difference is, science (aside from psych and neuroscience) aims to examine everything without subjective influence.

Note that researchers do not disregard subjectivity because they don't value subjectivity; many see it as fascinating and important. However, many experiments require subjectivity to be put aside as much as is humanly possible to obtain maximum accuracy and minimum bias. It's about rigour, not attitude.

This approach tends to be routinely misunderstood by theists who see science as being in competition with religion, and thus are not interested enough to explore. Logically, there is no such reason for theists to disregard subjectivity as they do. The subjective domain is absolutely critical for theists - the arena of mystical experiences - yet many theists' innate materialism limits the potentials of what I think of as "mystical brain architecture" as they try to justify their beliefs. It's like art and sex. Such things tend to work best when you don't think too much about it.

Few will criticise a theist of great faith who has no interest in justifying his or her faith. The issue comes when theists pretend to do science, latching onto some mysterious (and even well-understood) phenomena to justify the fact that they are modern human beings who have disregarded the last 2,000 years of learning to follow an Iron Age Middle Eastern almanac of mythology, exaggerated and extrapolated history, strictures, customs and, very often, taking a swipe at the poor old Canaanites and their practices at every opportunity. When theists pretend to do science, they very often fall into dodgy and intellectually dishonest claims.

By contrast, there is usually respect for the maturity of those who value what has been learned, but maintain a personal faith (in whatever).

[Fanman]

Mounce574

Can you prove without a doubt that God does not exist? If so, how did creation happen? Can you prove beyond a doubt your answer is correct? Please enlighten me. I believe in God, and I want to see your perspective more clearly.

Of course not. I don’t know how creation happened. I cannot prove that I am correct. I am agnostic. But I used to be a Christian. I don’t expect you to take on board what I’m saying, but I know how Christians perceive life. Let me ask you. If there is a God, why hasn’t he shown himself to us?

[amorphos_ii]

knowledge clutters the mind, so is it not more perfect to have pure thought - the emptied cup. like, imagine that the God learned everything and it has all been absorbed, so now he can intuit what he needs to as and when required.

perhaps imagine the after universe statelessness, and that it may be the same as the pre-universe statelessness.

[Belindi]

Can you prove without a doubt that God does not exist? If so, how did creation happen? Can you prove beyond a doubt your answer is correct? Please enlighten me. I believe in God, and I want to see your perspective more clearly.

When you say "prove" I assume you mean prove by means of evidence, what we call empirical proof.

When we seek empirical proof of the existence of something we look for evidence of its having been in a place at some time. All the stuff we see around us is not in question so it's reasonable to assume that something caused it all to happen.

What caused it all to happen is either God or nature.
Both God and nature are causes of stuff but God and nature are not themselves caused by anything else.

[3017Metaphysician]

Sy,

So please tell me how Noah's sons saved all the Australian fauna? Or how he managed to gather two of every animal without a) getting killed b) having other animals killed? How did he manage to feed millions of animals the diets they require? How did they keep the animals in place? Who cleaned the dung? How could they all breathe in there? What about pregnancies? Illness? The smell!

Critical thinking applied to something of such a grand scale would make it seem implausible or even ridiculous. But one thing I have learned is that anything is possible (within my frame of experience). Of course, I cannot conceive of how something like the flood or the animals in the ark could possibly occur. To me (and probably most people) it is beyond the realms of what is can occur in reality. But does that notion in itself create an impossibility, obviously not.

But really, should anyone have to waste even a second analysing something so ludicrous? It is not comparable with the BBT, not in any way. That is false equivalence, and unworthy of addressing. That's akin to saying that Santa's legend (which is as believable as Noah's ark) is just as credible as cosmology and physics.

I said nothing of the sought. Maybe you didn’t understand me?

"Philosophical suicide" is a famous Albert Camus term. I expect if you look it up you'll find a more thorough explanation than I can give.

Why would you tell me to look it up? If you have a good grasp of what the term implies, by all means, explain it when asked to politely.

I too am waiting with bated breath!