Why Believe in a God when It is Impossible to Prove?

[Sy Borg]

Poor Job! He never realized who his real friends were.Three thousand years later and we still have the same problem! :twisted:

Yeah. God was a real arsehole

They were all arseholes.

Job: "Oh woe is me! I mourn my three lovely daughters and seven lovely sons!"

God: "Never mind. I'll give you ten new ones - even lovelier than the first batch."

Job: Cool!

And we allow psychopaths who uncritically take this nonsense on board to rule our nations. In fact, in the US and other developing countries, it's compulsory for the leader to be a believer in such nonsense! Hence the world is as it is ...

[GaryLouisSmith]

It would seem easier to say that planet Earth is a god

You have called me a pessimist, Greta. I suppose I am about the earth and maybe the cosmos. What do you think of this article by Catherine Ingram, who believes it is too late to save the human species, and maybe all other species, from extinction. http://www.catherineingram.com/facingextinction/ I more or less agree with her.

[Sy Borg]

Gaz, I think it likely that human levels of sentience (and higher) on this planet will survive biological humans. Sentience will be able to exist within a synthetic substrate.

I see that as the only way that humans can ever become truly moral. As biological beings our lives are entirely dependent on killing and harming other organisms. No matter how moral we want to be, severe privation (esp. of loved ones) drives us to commit atrocities. It is not blameworthy, no more than our macrophages can be blamed for spending their entire existence killing and eating hostile germs and fungi in our bodies.

Then again, a synthetic sentience might be a tad short on empathy unless it has memories of its former human state (like us relating to "the ape within").

People who believe in an immaterial old man in sky who is bigger than the universe would see the above as ludicrous. For them, the lion shall lie with the lamb, apparently until the Sun expands to consume the Earth.

[GaryLouisSmith]

I think it likely that human levels of sentience (and higher) on this planet will survive biological humans.

I obviously have no idea what the future holds for human or other sentient beings. It may be something pleasant or it may be something horrible. My thinking is that the world is the exemplification of eternal Forms and those Forms and that exemplifying ever repeats. Nothing is ever lost. All things return. The Forms are eternal and they will forever be exemplified as this or that in this or that world. The good and the bad, the pleasant and the unpleasant, it is all there. There is no need for despair. It may be inevitable that Dawkins’ Selfish Gene will always commit suicide. So what? It all returns. And the show begins again. And it is a show, full of excess and exaggeration and rapture. Nothing is ever lost. Props and costumes can always be brought out again from the storeroom and put on stage. Existence is theater.

[GaryLouisSmith]

I see that as the only way that humans can ever become truly moral.

I am not a moralist, but I will comment anyway. I have said that existence is theater. In times of High Morality, when a puritanical attitude reigns, it is the theater and actors who are held up as the most immoral, because they do not tell the truth of life. Theater is excess and exaggeration. It is wild debauchery. It is sexual perversion. If existence is theater it is an immoral thing. It is Nietzsche's Eternal Return of the Same. It is the rule of the dandy. It is the arena, the templum, where the gods romp. Violence as a show. Eat it. Drink the blood, Submit.

[Belindi]

How can you philosophise without being a moralist?

Theatre is not wild debauchery and so forth although it might include wild debauchery or whatever. Theatre originated in religious ritual and religious ritual is theatre today. If you own the secular or religious ritual whatever it is ,and are not a tourist or a parasite, then the theatre is meaningful.

[Sculptor1]

Yeah. God was a real arsehole

They were all arseholes.

Job: "Oh woe is me! I mourn my three lovely daughters and seven lovely sons!"

God: "Never mind. I'll give you ten new ones - even lovelier than the first batch."

Job: Cool!

And we allow psychopaths who uncritically take this nonsense on board to rule our nations. In fact, in the US and other developing countries, it's compulsory for the leader to be a believer in such nonsense! Hence the world is as it is ...

True enough.
Maybe one day they will think so highly of God that they want to sacrifice Trump on a burning pyre?

[Sculptor1]

How can you philosophise without being a moralist?

There are many branches to philosophy which do not include ethics.

[GaryLouisSmith]

How can you philosophise without being a moralist?

Theatre is not wild debauchery and so forth although it might include wild debauchery or whatever. Theatre originated in religious ritual and religious ritual is theatre today. If you own the secular or religious ritual whatever it is ,and are not a tourist or a parasite, then the theatre is meaningful.

I am a phenomenological realist. I believe that all the phenomena that appear are real. They are not just in my head. And behind the phenomena there is nothing. I am an anti-substantialist. So what are those phenomena? They are the Eternal Forms repeating repeating repeating ever again and again as this and that.

If you believe as I do, then there is no difference between theater and reality. Reality is theater. And just a in a play by Homer or Shakespeare you don’t start preaching at the characters or accuse them of immorality, so in this life which is theater I do not moralize about what I see. It is all just a part of the play. And though the play comes to an end and closes for a time, it or another play will take its place and once again the lights shine on Broadway and we are entertained. The play is real, but it is without substance.

The whole point of a play is that we might be enchanted and know rapture.

That's nice, I like " So what are those phenomena? They are the Eternal Forms repeating repeating repeating ever again and again as this and that. "

When you say there is no difference between theatre and reality I think of how religion and religious faith used to pervade all of life. How do you manage to steer clear of the secular?

[Belindi]

Sculptor, "An unexamined life is not worth living" Socrates.

The only component of academic philosophy that does not include values is logic.

[Karpel Tunnel]

I am a phenomenological realist. I believe that all the phenomena that appear are real. They are not just in my head.

Do you treat what others would consider different kinds of phenomena: dreams, waking experiences, imagined scenes, drug trip phenomena - the same? IOW are they real the same way for you? Or another way of saying this...if you treat them differently - like if you dream a giant wave is coming you don't upon waking head to higher ground - then doesn't this come down to semantics. You have a large category real that encompasses other people's real, but also hallucinations, dreams, imagined things, etc. However, they like you react differently and treat differently these experiences. Is it more than semantics? I am assuming yes. So, in what ways is it more than semantics. How does this make you different from the typical realist`?

[Belindi]

Greta, I have pressed the wrong button again and made a mess of Gary's post. Sorry Gary. I inserted my reply to his as if it was all his work. Would you please let me know how to rectify?

[Sculptor1]

It is a tragedy that there is no "edit" button: the legacy of a mod that never trusted anyone who posted.

[Karpel Tunnel]

It is a tragedy that there is no "edit" button: the legacy of a mod that never trusted anyone who posted.

I suppose that's true. I first took it as too much trust. What, we're gonna make them totally clear in one draft?

[Sculptor1]

Moderation can go too far.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moderation