Philosophical proof of a creator (of some kind)

[Tamminen]

Ron Schneider:

This is a fundamental form of idealism, variants of which can be found in minority viewpoints of Western philosophies. It is also basically a form of solipsism which I personally term “corporate solipsism” as opposed to that which I term “radical solipsism,” the belief held by an individual that he or she is the only one and thing that actually exists with all others and all other things being manifestations of one's imagination. If I believed the latter, then I wouldn’t be wasting my time here.

Can you explain what you mean by 'corporate solipsism'? I have written about my own views about reality in several posts on these forums and proposed a kind of sophisticated combination of solipsism and transmigration, and I wonder if your idea is similar or different.

[Don Schneider]

Ron Schneider:

This is a fundamental form of idealism, variants of which can be found in minority viewpoints of Western philosophies. It is also basically a form of solipsism which I personally term “corporate solipsism” as opposed to that which I term “radical solipsism,” the belief held by an individual that he or she is the only one and thing that actually exists with all others and all other things being manifestations of one's imagination. If I believed the latter, then I wouldn’t be wasting my time here.

Can you explain what you mean by 'corporate solipsism'? I have written about my own views about reality in several posts on these forums and proposed a kind of sophisticated combination of solipsism and transmigration, and I wonder if your idea is similar or different.

By what I have termed “corporate solipsism,” I mean that we and everything are but manifestations of universal consciousness, the fundamental ground of being that cannot be further sublated. Therefore all is universal consciousness just as dream characters and dream ambience are all manifestations of the dreamer, a sort of illusion within an illusion. Therefore “corporate” as all share in the unitary reality. (This is why characterizing this basic paradigm as “pantheism” is a bit of a misnomer. It is in actuality a form of monotheism in that it positions but one underlying substance of realty and not myriad ones.)

As I told Sam recently, I have trouble with the concept of the transmigration of souls or reincarnation within this paradigm. It is true that in the predominate intellectual school of non-dualist Hinduism based upon the Upanishads, Advaita Vedanta, there is the concept of the “atman,” or the individual soul which is subject to reincarnation until enlightenment is realized. Buddha, however, a presumed Hinduism reformer, rejected this concept and instead postulated the concept of “anatman,” or “no soul” (or "no self"). This is rather more in line with what I lean towards, though otherwise I’m in perfect accord with Advaita Vedanta. The Buddhist school that I have the most affinity for is Zen, at least from my understanding of it. It’s very much like Advaita Vedanta in substance, though far less intellectual in tenor.

To invoke another analogy, when an ice sculpture melts it is gone, it ceases to exist. However, the water which forms its substance is not gone, only one of its myriad forms is. Likewise, when a person dies, the universal consciousness of which he or she was a manifestation of within the illusion of material realty is gone, but the universal consciousness remains eternally.

A problem with the concept of reincarnation that I have is one that others have brought up. If a reincarnated being has no memory of having existed previously, then what is its point? It’s rather like God striking down an emperor of China and giving birth to a peasant. What is the utility of such? How can one learn from past life experiences if one has no memory of them?

Nevertheless, I do believe that the concept of karma has its place within my paradigm. I believe that the illusion of material realty is like a self-participating computer program. It unfolds according to an algorithm in which the “if this, then that” instructions were preformatted and all aspects of the program including (and especially) us play their part in deciding how the program precedes, unfolds. When an individual dies, his or her actions continue to affect the metaphorical program we call life. The repercussion of this are experienced—as all is experienced—by universal consciousness as its myriad manifestations.

Now what are the existential ramifications of this vis-à-vis the individual when one dies? It is difficult to express in words what I think. When Jesus (whom I believe was an enlightened being, a yoga in Hindu terms, who was heavily influenced by Eastern metaphysics which He attempted to merge into is His native Judaism): “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” He was pointing to the fact that we are all manifestations of the one underlying ground of realty, “corporate solipsism” as I term it. Therefore, another is in a sense quite literally one’s self. In other words, this instruction is less a lesson in ethics and morality as one of self-interest.

My guess is that the primal, undifferentiated consciousness created an illusion of material realty (as “Lila,” “the play of God”) in which it judged that an illusion of separateness (“Maya”) was essential to its purposes. Exactly how universal consciousness manages this trick of such an illusion, I have no idea. However, notwithstanding the perception that if you bang your thumb with a hammer you alone feel the resulting pain and not others does not negate the ontological fact that we are all essentially one. So our actual nature as universal consciousness survives eternally and timelessly and we all have a share in that, just not as the differentiated conscious “I” that we think of as ourselves.

[Sam26]

A problem with the concept of reincarnation that I have is one that others have brought up. If a reincarnated being has no memory of having existed previously, then what is its point? It’s rather like God striking down an emperor of China and giving birth to a peasant. What is the utility of such? How can one learn from past life experiences if one has no memory of them?

I agree, if there is no memory of having existed previously, "...then what is the point?" This is one of the reasons among others that I too do not believe in reincarnation. I would think that if one is going to be the same person over time, then necessarily, one would have to have consistency of memory. What makes it possible in my study of NDEs to live out many different lives in different realities, is that one returns to the self after having lived out a particular life. It's a matter of choice whether one lives out many lives or not. The perfect analogy to this is the dream. A dream is a low level of consciousness, and while in the dream one thinks that that reality is real, until we wake up, then our memories return. Our memories return, our awareness expands, and we have the correct perspective of this reality in terms of the dream reality. The same seems to happen when people experience an NDE, i.e., their memories return, in terms of who they really are, their sensory experiences and knowledge expands, and this reality seems dreamlike. The difference between what Don is saying, if I understand him correctly, is that the self is gone when we return back to the core consciousness. However, in my studies of NDEs, we keep our individuality within that core consciousness, and we have memories of each of the lives we live out, and we bring with us the experiences of each of those lives back to the core consciousness or The One, as I refer to it. What we experience here, I believe, is partly a soul-building process, but it's not the only reason why we come here to experience the life of a human.

Another interesting aspect to this is that the problem of evil seems to vanish in at least two ways. First, if we chose to come here knowing what we would experience, i.e., knowing that it would be very difficult, and painful, then this mitigates the problem of evil. Second, if this reality is similar to a dream or a holographic program, then the harm we think we experience here, is only something that is experienced while in this reality. For example, in a dream you think you're being harmed, but when you awaken you realize it for what it is, viz., a dream. In the same way, when you move from this reality to the next, i.e., after the death of the body, the harm is again mitigated by the knowledge of what this reality really is. This is why ultimately I don't believe there is evil. I'm not saying that this reality is as unimportant as a dream, because I think it is important. We come here to learn some very specific things; so we not only come here for ourselves, but for others who come with us, and for those who never come to this reality. We bring back with us the experiences of our lives as humans, and even those who choose not to come here can experience some or all of what we've experienced, because the experiences become part of the core consciousness that we can all tap into.

[Spectrum]

In his Critique of Reason, Kant asserted it is impossible to prove the existence of God as a reality.
Kant's view is all philosophical proofs of God are corrupted by the fallacy of equivocation;

Note the usual syllogism model in the philosophical proofs of God, i.e.

• 1. X [empirical] is Y [empirical] - based on Science
  2. God [transcendent] is X [empirical] - logically
  3. Therefore God [transcendent] exists as real like Y[empirical].

In all philosophical proofs of God [ontological, cosmological, etc.] the idea of God is always introduced on transcendental grounds.
Thus the empirical P1 does not follow to the conclusion when it is "corrupted" [equivocated, conflated] by the transcendental element in P2.

For any syllogism to be logical the basis must be consistent from P1, P2 to its Conclusion.

Therefore it is impossible to use philosophical proofs to prove God because it cannot escape the above fallacy of equivocation, i.e. conflation of the transcendental and the empirical.

In the OP's case, Einstein proof is empirical [as least possible] in P1, but a transcendental God is rhetorically [or ignorantly] squeezed into the syllogism, thus corrupting and making the argument fallacious, therefore false. It is comparing 'apples' with 'oranges'.

The only solution is to prove God as an empirical being first, then the premises of the syllogism [empirical all the way] will then be consistent towards the conclusion.

The critical question is why the desperation [rhetorically or ignorantly] by theists to conflate and equivocate?
Answer is this
http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/ ... =4&t=14794
The basis is a psychological desperation to maintain [force] consonance.

[Tamminen]

My world view is grounded on these basic insights:

1. If I did not exist, there would be nothing.
2. All experiences are mine.

Now these are paradoxical statements, because when I die, the world goes on, and there are certainly other individual subjects with their own experiences. So if those two principles are true, this must have some metaphysical consequences:

1. I am eternal.
2. We are all manifestations of one and the same 'I am'.

I think there is only one transcendental subject, transcendental in the sense that I transcend my individual self. It is the 'I am', the I who is just now having these experiences. In this role I am essentially temporal, a succession of experiences as the 'now' flows forward. All the individual subjects in the universe are manifestations of this 'I am', which is eternal although it must have had a beginning, for else I could not be here now.

My experiences are experiences of the world, and the world is, according to my hypothesis, my relation to other individual subjects, and in the end my relation to myself, which makes the universe causa sui, needing no other reason or cause to exist than itself, because the 'I am' is self-evident and not an accidental fact. I think the transcendental subject has an intrinsic property of, or tendency towards, self-transparency, which explains all the phenomena we are used to thinking as evolution, for example. And because my being consists of being in relation to other individuals, this relation must necessarily be material, as well as the others themselves, and also I as an individual. In fact matter can be defined as just that. So we are souls and bodies.

Because I am essentially temporal, I cannot have my being as another subject if I do not reincarnate or transmigrate and be born as that other. The others must be in my future or in my past, because they are not in my present as experiences. This, however, leads to a new way of understanding the relation between subjective time and world time. So the universal I demands, for its being, (1) the material world as its relation to itself, which guarantees its being in general and its transparency for itself, and (2) transmigration, which guarantees its symmetry among all its manifestations and the principle that there are no foreign experiences that are absent rather than present.

It is true that this concept of transmigration leads to a gloomy picture of existence. We all have our own projects that collapse when we die, especially if we do not leave some cultural traces of us for the other manifestations to see and laugh at. It is like Sisyphus pushing the stone uphill and letting it roll back when he reaches the top.

This also leads to a strictly deterministic world view: everything has in a way already happened, because we can meet our past in the world and seemingly act on it.

So I would not say there is any other creator than the transcendental I which is the primus motor of everything and which has its own inner logic of being, a logic that we do not fully understand yet, but which hopefully becomes more understandable in the course of our cosmic evolution. I may be too optimistic, though.

[Spectrum]

So I would not say there is any other creator than the transcendental I which is the primus motor of everything and which has its own inner logic of being, a logic that we do not fully understand yet, but which hopefully becomes more understandable in the course of our cosmic evolution. I may be too optimistic, though.

Note there are two "I AM" for consideration, i.e.

1. Empirical "I AM" - the empirical self, I or ego
2. Transcendent "I AM" - the transcendent self, I or ego

The empirical "I AM" is obvious, but there is no such thing as the Transcendent "I AM" in reality.
Note the following;
1. various counters to Descartes' "I AM."
2. There is no independent self - Hume, et. al.
3. The Buddhist non-self.
4. Various arguments against the existent of an independent permanent self.

The transcendent "I AM" is false, therefore you cannot use it as a premise at all to extrapolate to a universal transcendent being.

As for the existence of a 'transcendental being that created everything' you are merely taking a big leap without supporting evidence. You are reifying an illusion.
Try generating a syllogism for your argument and upon detail analysis it will definitely reveal the fallacy of equivocation of different senses.

A better research question for any one in this case is to ask, why am I [and others] reifying an illusion, i.e. take such a big leap of faith? Look into your brain and find out which neurons are firing when one is faced in such a situation.

[Tamminen]

Spectrum:

By the concept of transcendental subject I mean something similar to the metaphysical I of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. It has no properties, being only a point along which the world is coordinated. It has being only in its manifestation as an individual subject in the world. So you are right in a way in saying that there is no such thing, because it is not a thing of any kind. It is what connects one individual self to another individual self making subjective time one unified flow of events across the space-time of the universe.

As to the necessity of such a concept, I cannot present a logical proof for it. It is a metaphysical hypothesis made to explain some fundamental paradoxes of our existence, for example the paradox of death, and the insights that led me to build this scenario are too difficult to analyse logically, at least for my capacities at the moment.

But although I think it is a plausible view of reality, I understand that most people have not thought about things from this perspective. For them this is but bad poetry, a joke, but it only shows how different our ways of thinking can be.

-- Updated July 2nd, 2017, 7:58 am to add the following --

As to reification: When I say "I am Tamminen" and you say "I am Spectrum" we make a reification of the 'I am' as two different persons, which is ok. But when I say "I exist" and you say "I exist" and we say there are two subjects existing, we make a reification that we should not make. There is only one I existing, only its content of existence varies as time goes by and it adopts all its various manifestations as individual subjects. In fact we should not even say "There is one I existing" because that implies some kind of substance, we can only say "I exist" or "I am", which is a kind of an expression of self-evidence referring to the transcendental I.

[Don Schneider]

In his Critique of Reason, Kant asserted it is impossible to prove the existence of God as a reality.
Kant's view is all philosophical proofs of God are corrupted by the fallacy of equivocation;

Note the usual syllogism model in the philosophical proofs of God, i.e.

• 1. X [empirical] is Y [empirical] - based on Science
  2. God [transcendent] is X [empirical] - logically
  3. Therefore God [transcendent] exists as real like Y[empirical].

In all philosophical proofs of God [ontological, cosmological, etc.] the idea of God is always introduced on transcendental grounds.
Thus the empirical P1 does not follow to the conclusion when it is "corrupted" [equivocated, conflated] by the transcendental element in P2.

For any syllogism to be logical the basis must be consistent from P1, P2 to its Conclusion.



Therefore it is impossible to use philosophical proofs to prove God because it cannot escape the above fallacy of equivocation, i.e. conflation of the transcendental and the empirical.

In the OP's case, Einstein proof is empirical [as least possible] in P1, but a transcendental God is rhetorically [or ignorantly] squeezed into the syllogism, thus corrupting and making the argument fallacious, therefore false. It is comparing 'apples' with 'oranges'.

The only solution is to prove God as an empirical being first, then the premises of the syllogism [empirical all the way] will then be consistent towards the conclusion.

The critical question is why the desperation [rhetorically or ignorantly] by theists to conflate and equivocate?
.

1. Causality exits based upon empirical observation
2. Causality cannot exist within material realty as attested to by relativity
3. Therefore, causality and its origins must transcend material reality


Addendum: Kant was wrong.

[Don Schneider]

Note there are two "I AM" for consideration, i.e.

1. Empirical "I AM" - the empirical self, I or ego
2. Transcendent "I AM" - the transcendent self, I or ego

The empirical "I AM" is obvious, but there is no such thing as the Transcendent "I AM" in reality.
Note the following;
1. various counters to Descartes' "I AM."
2. There is no independent self - Hume, et. al.
3. The Buddhist non-self.
4. Various arguments against the existent of an independent permanent self.

The transcendent "I AM" is false, therefore you cannot use it as a premise at all to extrapolate to a universal transcendent being.

First, you state: “The empirical ‘I AM’ is obvious.” Then you state:

“1. various counters to Descartes' ‘I AM’
2. There is no independent self - Hume, et. al.
3. The Buddhist non-self.
4. Various arguments against the existent of an independent permanent self.”

You seem to contradict yourself by offering arguments that deny the “obviousness” of the “empirical ‘I AM.’” If the individual “I AM” is merely an illusory perception (as with Buddhism and Hume et al.), then the underlying reality that gives birth to that perception must lie elsewhere, i.e., transcendent.

[Tamminen]

Note the distinction between 'transcendent' and 'transcendental'. The material world is transcendent, meaning 'outside of us', as opposed to our experience of it, which philosophers call immanence, meaning 'that which is immediately present to us'. The term 'transcendental' belongs to the realm of subjectivity, and the transcendental subject, as I see it, is the precondition of all being whatsoever, transcending our individual experiences. It is what we are from the perspective of our eternal being. This is, however, my own interpretation of the concept, and perhaps Kant, for example, had another meaning in his mind.

[Spectrum]

Note the distinction between 'transcendent' and 'transcendental'. The material world is transcendent, meaning 'outside of us', as opposed to our experience of it, which philosophers call immanence, meaning 'that which is immediately present to us'. The term 'transcendental' belongs to the realm of subjectivity, and the transcendental subject, as I see it, is the precondition of all being whatsoever, transcending our individual experiences. It is what we are from the perspective of our eternal being. This is, however, my own interpretation of the concept, and perhaps Kant, for example, had another meaning in his mind.

Yes, definition is critical.
Your definition of 'transcendental' as 'subjectivity' is way off the norm within Philosophy.

In philosophy, what is 'transcendent' is always recognized as beyond what is material, physical, the mental and the empirical.

If you define transcendental as that subjectivity that is within each individual, such a "transcendental self" is still and always conditioned by the living subject.

However when you jumped into the idea of an eternal being of the individual, then that it is different sort of 'transcendental self' without any link to the empirical self at all. This is taken as an eternal soul that survives physical death which is an illusion as proven by Hume et. al and other philosophies.

David Hume, true to his extreme skepticism, rejects
the notion of identity over time. There are no underlying objects. There are no
“persons” that continue to exist over time. There are merely impressions. This
idea can be formulated as the following argument:

• 1. All ideas are ultimately derived from impressions.
  2. So, the idea of a persisting “self” is ultimately derived from impressions.
  3. But, no impression is a persisting thing.
  4. Therefore, there cannot be any persisting idea of “self.”

In short, because the “self” must be a constant, persisting, stable thing, and yet
all knowledge is derived from impressions, which are transient, non-persisting,
variable things, it follows that we do not really have knowledge of a “self” (and
therefore, there IS no self; or, at least, we should be agnostic on the issue).

http://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/ ... /Hume4.pdf

Therefore with a Premise of an 'empty' transcendental self, one cannot extrapolate to a grand transcendental Being [e.g. God] or a pantheistic Being.
This is what underlie the concept of atman [individual] and Brahman [Universal Being].
(the individual drop of water [H20] is part of the ONE Ocean)
It is also adopted by Schopenhauer in his individual 'Will' to the Universal 'Will'.

-- Updated Sun Jul 02, 2017 10:26 pm to add the following --

@Don Schneider

First, you state: “The empirical ‘I AM’ is obvious.” Then you state:

“1. various counters to Descartes' ‘I AM’
2. There is no independent self - Hume, et. al.
3. The Buddhist non-self.
4. Various arguments against the existent of an independent permanent self.”

You seem to contradict yourself by offering arguments that deny the “obviousness” of the “empirical ‘I AM.’” If the individual “I AM” is merely an illusory perception (as with Buddhism and Hume et al.), then the underlying reality that gives birth to that perception must lie elsewhere, i.e., transcendent.

Why 'MUST' there be an underlying reality?

Note your statement above starting with a big "IF" which is very conditional.
What you are insisting is 'IF' there is an empirical self, then there must a transcendental self, transcendental being or transcendental reality.
Note the equivocation of the different 'senses' between empirical and transcendental.

There is no independent reality or Being [God] that created that illusory perception.
The point is, it is the empirical self and its conditions that give rise to that illusory perception that there is some reality beyond one's empirical self.

The question is what makes and compels the empirical self towards such an illusion and therefore leading SOME evil prone believers to commit terrible evils and violence believing such an illusory Being giving them the commands to do so.

[Tamminen]

Spectrum:

Your definition of 'transcendental' as 'subjectivity' is way off the norm within Philosophy.

In philosophy, what is 'transcendent' is always recognized as beyond what is material, physical, the mental and the empirical.

If you define transcendental as that subjectivity that is within each individual, such a "transcendental self" is still and always conditioned by the living subject.

However when you jumped into the idea of an eternal being of the individual, then that it is different sort of 'transcendental self' without any link to the empirical self at all. This is taken as an eternal soul that survives physical death which is an illusion as proven by Hume et. al and other philosophies.

There may be different ways of using the terms, but I have used them according to the tradition of transcendental idealism, where 'transcendent' and 'transcendental' point to opposite directions from the immediately given.

What I am trying to say is that there is no permanent self, only a "point of view" to the world, and this point of view can only have being as an individual subject or succession of experiences. But what is not so self-evident to all is that this point, which I call the transcendental I, or the 'I am', is the principle of unification between all individuals, a presence wandering through all reality. Well, this is metaphysics, of course, not science, but I see no logical contradiction in it.

[Don Schneider]

@Don Schneider

First, you state: “The empirical ‘I AM’ is obvious.” Then you state:

“1. various counters to Descartes' ‘I AM’
2. There is no independent self - Hume, et. al.
3. The Buddhist non-self.
4. Various arguments against the existent of an independent permanent self.”

You seem to contradict yourself by offering arguments that deny the “obviousness” of the “empirical ‘I AM.’” If the individual “I AM” is merely an illusory perception (as with Buddhism and Hume et al.), then the underlying reality that gives birth to that perception must lie elsewhere, i.e., transcendent.

Why 'MUST' there be an underlying reality?

Note your statement above starting with a big "IF" which is very conditional.
What you are insisting is 'IF' there is an empirical self, then there must a transcendental self, transcendental being or transcendental reality.
Note the equivocation of the different 'senses' between empirical and transcendental.

There is no independent reality or Being [God] that created that illusory perception.
The point is, it is the empirical self and its conditions that give rise to that illusory perception that there is some reality beyond one's empirical self.

The question is what makes and compels the empirical self towards such an illusion and therefore leading SOME evil prone believers to commit terrible evils and violence believing such an illusory Being giving them the commands to do so.[/quote]

________________________________________________________________________________________________

No, I actually said the opposite. If there is in fact “no-self” as in Buddhism, for example, then there must be an underlying reality that gives rise to such an illusion in what we perceive as material realty. This is no different the saying that a dream character has “no-self”; therefore, it must have an underlying reality: which we know for a fact is the case.

The remainder of your reply, such as it is, is simply an unsupported assertion that there is no transcendent being (God, for example) and what amounts to a diatribe against religion. What makes "some evil prone" illusion-free non-believers act likewise?

[Spectrum]

There may be different ways of using the terms, but I have used them according to the tradition of transcendental idealism, where 'transcendent' and 'transcendental' point to opposite directions from the immediately given.

I agree with Transcendental idealism from the Kantian perspective and Kant's definition of 'transcendent' and 'transcendental'.

What I am trying to say is that there is no permanent self, only a "point of view" to the world, and this point of view can only have being as an individual subject or succession of experiences.

OK, agree.

But what is not so self-evident to all is that this point, which I call the transcendental I, or the 'I am', is the principle of unification between all individuals, a presence wandering through all reality. Well, this is metaphysics, of course, not science, but I see no logical contradiction in it.

I believe we have to take into account the following in the Kantian sense;

• 1. Transcendental I
  2. Transcendent I

I agree there is a common denominator of the Transcendental I within each living individual person but it dissipates upon the death of the individual.

However 'a presence wandering through all reality' [if independent of the living person] even after physical death would be a Transcendent I and illusory as I had argued above.

-- Updated Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:27 pm to add the following --

@Don Schneider

No, I actually said the opposite. If there is in fact “no-self” as in Buddhism, for example, then there must be an underlying reality that gives rise to such an illusion in what we perceive as material realty. This is no different the saying that a dream character has “no-self”; therefore, it must have an underlying reality: which we know for a fact is the case.

Buddhism like Kant deals with two truths, i.e.

• 1. Transcendental I -empirical and transcendental reality
  2. Transcendent I

The the empirical self is obvious where we interact with the self of other physical living persons who has an empirical self identified by his/her physical existence and identity. This empirical self also has a transcendental self which is represented by his/her mental faculties within space and time.
There is no transcendent I [soul] which survives physical death.

Similarly there is the empirical and transcendental reality which are always conditioned upon the transcendental I[s].

then there must be an underlying reality that gives rise to such an illusion in what we perceive as material realty.

This is based on the idea;

• 1. something cannot come from nothing
  2. There are things
  3. Things ultimately must have come from another thing, i.e. THE UNDERLYING REALITY

The above appear to so obvious but it based on speculation and a leap of faith because whatever is UNDERLYING REALITY cannot be proven.

As Kant and most Eastern religions proposed, whatever-IS is always conditioned upon the self [empirical and transcendental].
You may argue, the moon and universe predated humans, so there was a reality independent of the self which continue to the present. This argument can be countered, albeit tedious.

The remainder of your reply, such as it is, is simply an unsupported assertion that there is no transcendent being (God, for example) and what amounts to a diatribe against religion. What makes "some evil prone" illusion-free non-believers act likewise?

This point is very critical.

Despite not being to prove the real existence of an UNDERLYING REALITY, the majority [based on crude reason] reify it as God. I understand this is an imperative psychological necessity for the majority but such a belief has its inherent negative consequences [cons].
Why I bring this up is because at the rate it is going into the future, the cons from theism is outweighing the pros with the threat of the extermination of the human species. Do you have any concern for such a possible threat from a certain religion?

[Tamminen]

However 'a presence wandering through all reality' [if independent of the living person] even after physical death would be a Transcendent I and illusory as I had argued above.

Here we come to transmigration. The being of the presence is always presence for an individual self, but according to my hypothesis there is a temporal connection between those individual subjects. This may or may not be illusory and it is based on an insight that may or may not be illusory.