Jinxy wrote:Sadly, when a life ends in suicide, the entirety of that life is summed up by that one act. And to reduce it to a discussion of whether the action was strong or weak further diminishes the totality of the person's life.

HANDSON wrote:You miss the conceptual significance. Duchamp's intention, at least to some extent, is to question the nature of the art object. By offering the banal ready-mades he successfully, in my view, stretches the envelop of what art can be. He takes an object functional in one way and makes it significant in another.

Further, By hanging the urinal upside down on the wall and signing it R Mutt he takes the object out of it's normal functional context and creates a situation whereby one can view it in an aesthetic sense: as a symmetrical, sculptural form with a smooth white glossy surface.

HANDSON wrote:Art in the best sense, at it's best, has conceptual content as the artist's intention; it may address the human dilemma, provide insights, offer understanding, seek roads to improvement.

Lesser artistic intentions offer, in the least, attempts at entertainment or are possible simply decorative.

I'd like an example of 'much art specifically aimed to be useless'.

OnlybutteredPopcorn wrote:Perhaps your thinking is also "wishful". You believe or "wish" God isn't real.

OnlybutteredPopcorn wrote:Nobody knows, just like nobody knows where the chaos came from. Its the same argument. She says chaos just was then God. I say God just was then chaos or whatever else. Its the same argument and there's no solution.

OnlybutteredPopcorn wrote:Yes I do.

OnlybutteredPopcorn wrote:Okk but people that believe in life after death believe in some sort of deity

Well spirits are deities and are higher being than us. God would be the one who overlooks them.

OnlybutteredPopcorn wrote:Ok, where did the chaos come from?

OnlybutteredPopcorn wrote:
Well even if you don't believe in God, it makes sense the universe had to start from something. Chaos or the universe can just show up. I see your argument as well with God. Nobody knows how come came about if there was just nothing before, but most people assume god was already there. I've wondered the same thing but I don't anyone can answer that. So are you saying the universe has always been here?

Spectrum wrote:A. People believing in God is one big set.
B. People believing in ghosts and spirits is a big independent set.
C. People believing in souls is another big independent big set.

Re Venn Diagrams, I think there is a likely reasonable overlapping of the three sets/spheres with many that do not overlap. [/img]

OnlybutteredPopcorn wrote:To the atheists that DO believe in ghost, spirits, souls, whatever, your beliefs do not make ANY sense to me. Most people would agree that ghosts are spirits stuck in our realm instead of moving on to the afterlife. If you are an atheist, how could you believe an afterlife exists?