What do you accept on faith alone?

[BetteTheRed]

I am not even sure of that, to be honest. If the universe is a random event, as the Big Bang Theory suggests it could be, it would have no benevolence (or malevolence, to be fair) to speak of. It is just there and operating in accordance with physics. Some parts may be amicable to life as we know it, others may be hostile (and, indeed, that is the case) but that's just a product of how physics and chemistry work. While I hate to be citing a racist butthole here, I sometimes wonder if horror and fantasy writer H. P. Lovecraft had it right: The universe as a whole just doesn't give a crap about us. While it doesn't necessarily go out of its way to mess with us, it will happily squash us like bugs if we get in the way and most of the beings we encounter will be neutral to hostile in nature.

And that's where faith comes in, because I had a personal vision that convinced me of this.

And also, I did mention on a "macro level" (which is what my vision was clear on); on a micro level, like 'me', squashed like bugs for sure.

 

[BetteTheRed]

It's likely a neurological phenomenon, but it can be life-changing. What it is not is a belief.

Agreed. Probably related to that zone in the brain known as the "God spot", which, when stimulated, apparently reproduces that "Isness" experience, which I have also experienced some 3 times over my life.

 

[ninj]

Agreed. Probably related to that zone in the brain known as the "God spot", which, when stimulated, apparently reproduces that "Isness" experience, which I have also experienced some 3 times over my life.

It happens much more frequently than originally thought too, which is cool. It's kind of a pernicious idea that it's rare and only occurs with spiritual masters. I heard there are mystics serving life sentences.

 

[Mystic]

Richard Dawkins says at the end of chapter 4 of his book River Out of Eden, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”

Dr. Kenneth Miller is a friend of Dawkins. A devout Catholic, Miller is the famed evolutionist who testimony has repeatedly been sought to defend the teaching of evolution in public schools. He points out to Dawkins that he himself lives as if there is meaningful purpose to life and as if moral values are more than arbitrarily contrived social and cultural norms to serve the interests of society. Dawkins has no answer to the philosophical question, "Why should I care about the needy, if this does not make me happy or serve my life agenda?" Social sanctions and cohesion are pragmatic, not moral concerns. In other words, life is ultimately meaningless apart from the meaning I choose to give it. The lack of moral absolutes in an atheist's worldview is sufficient reason for a leap of faith that looks for God as a means of objective grounding of morality.

The question, "What existed before the Big Bang?" is meaningless because it presupposes time and, according to cosmologists, the Big Bang does not begin in time, but rather creates time and space. So when we ask the question, "Why is there something rather than nothing at all?", a God beyond time and space seems a plausible answer.

 

[Delightful Life]

Yup
And it matters what words we use and what thoughts we think with because these guide and limit what can be thought and experienced...

It is a good thing that most of our thinking and experience is non-verbal...

 

[BetteTheRed]

It is a good thing that most of our thinking and experience is non-verbal...

I would say that all of my thinking, and most of my experience is more verbal than otherwise. I don't see pictures inside my head, my vision is poor and unpredictable although still working well with magnified text. I like music, and can listen to podcasts, audiobooks, but prefer not to until I must.

My new big guy is a nice looking man, albeit massive. He likes it if I look nice when we're out, so I make a real effort, but it is an effort. I do not know how to decorate myself.

 

[Delightful Life]

. I do not know how to decorate myself.

Do you have people who you can rely on for feedback?

 

[BetteTheRed]

Do you have people who you can rely on for feedback?

My daughter, my sister. To some extent, they dress me. The big guy is also trying. Bit of an uphill battle. Has ever been thus. I'm sorta known for being somewhat eccentrically dressed. My life mantra for what covers me is, "is it clean?", "how wrinkled is it?", "is it intact/without tears", "does it in some fashion 'match'?". I live in sneakers (nice ones, dainty), boots, and ancient birkenstocks. The t-shirt I am wearing is a lavender tye dye with hummingbirds on it, was my mothers, probably 30 years old.

 

[BetteTheRed]

The lack of moral absolutes in an atheist's worldview is sufficient reason for a leap of faith that looks for God as a means of objective grounding of morality.

I am a non-theist. I have moral absolutes. I don't need to get them from religion, although many are found in religion(s). Many of them are cultural values, taught to me by my parents (my father was a an almost rigid atheist, my mother a lapsed Catholic).

I think my moral absolutes are pretty absolute. I know what they are; I know approximately how hard I would defend each one. I learned a lesson pretty early in life, that there aren't very many hills worth dying on. I don't think my values are the same as anyone else's, though, down to minutiae, anyway. Which is interesting. Or human.

 

[Mystic]

I think my moral absolutes are pretty absolute. I know what they are; I know approximately how hard I would defend each one. I learned a lesson pretty early in life, that there aren't very many hills worth dying on. I don't think my values are the same as anyone else's, though, down to minutiae, anyway. Which is interesting. Or human.

In other words, your alleged "moral absolutes" are epistemologically arbitrary and therefore meaningless. You have no answer to the basic philosophical question, "What makes right action right?" In terms of the standard philosophical classicification of moral theories, you would be categorized as an emotivist.

 

[Delightful Life]

In other words, your alleged "moral absolutes" are epistemologically arbitrary and therefore meaningless. You have no answer to the basic philosophical question, "What makes right action right?" In terms of the standard philosophical classicification of moral theories, you would be categorized as an emotivist.

But that doesn't matter?

What matters is the "cash value", what effects it has?

If a theist's moral absolute and a non theist's moral absolutes has the same effects (I am not talking about God here or being saved or not), that part has no real distinction?

 

[BetteTheRed]

You have no answer to the basic philosophical question, "What makes right action right?"

I have lots of answers to that sort of question. "Is it kind, it is factual, is it hurtful" is a good first start. "Ask politely the first time" is another good pointer which has served me well. The 10 commandments, modified, are pretty good indicators. And really, the Wiccan Rede, "And it harm none, do as ye will", and Dame Julian's "All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well", and "godde is love and love is godde" are all great signposts. I am something of a polymath of religious experience, and don't automatically dismiss anything, although, as we have discussed, I have some difficulty with emotional manipulation and hysteria, particular group hysteria.

In all of my years of university courses (which honestly, besides changing major from Biology to Geography to Economics to Literature, also seemed to drift into other areas), I never once took a philosophy course.

But the point is "my" moral absolutes are mine alone. Based on my accumulation of knowledge and experience. Obviously, yours are different, but objectively, better?

 

[Mystic]

I have lots of answers to that sort of question. "Is it kind, it is factual, is it hurtful" is a good first start... And really, the Wiccan Rede, "And it harm none, do as ye will",

Your reply commits the fallacy of begging the question because you duck the logically prior question, "What makes being "hurtful" and doing "harm" wrong.

and "godde is love and love is godde" are all great signposts. I am something of a polymath of religious experience, and don't automatically dismiss anything...

Ah, now that's a legitimate basis for your moral absolutes because, if love is the essence of the ground of all being ("godde"), then moral absolutes are grounded in creation itself and humanity is accountable for those absolutes. There can be no right or wrong in any meaningful sense unless we are utlimately accountable for our words and deeds.

In all of my years of university courses (which honestly, besides changing major from Biology to Geography to Economics to Literature, also seemed to drift into other areas), I never once took a philosophy course. But the point is "my" moral absolutes are mine alone. Based on my accumulation of knowledge and experience. Obviously, yours are different, but objectively, better?

I could tell you had taken no basic course in philosophy. From a philosophical perspective there is no such thing as private personal absolutes because their pure subjectivity ducks the prior question of what makes right actions right. Would it bother you that secular philosophers would categorize your moral perspecitve as "emotivist," given your disdain for emotionalism? You could escape such criticism by grounding your absolutes in a lovin God, even if you don't embrace the nuanced concept of the Judaeo-Christian God.

 

[ninj]

Your reply commits the fallacy of begging the question because you duck the logically prior question, "What makes being "hurtful" and doing "harm" wrong.

Ah, now that's a legitimate basis for your moral absolutes because, if love is the essence of the ground of all being ("godde"), then moral absolutes are grounded in creation itself and humanity is accountable for those absolutes. There can be no right or wrong in any meaningful sense unless we are utlimately accountable for our words and deeds.

I could tell you had taken no basic course in philosophy. From a philosophical perspective there is no such thing as private personal absolutes because their pure subjectivity ducks the prior question of what makes right actions right. Would it bother you that secular philosophers would categorize your moral perspecitve as "emotivist," given your disdain for emotionalism? You could escape such criticism by grounding your absolutes in a lovin God, even if you don't embrace the nuanced concept of the Judaeo-Christian God.

Someday we'll have a chat about Cartesian Dualism.

 

[BetteTheRed]

And another day, Berserk will not be a total jerk, with whom I would neither have a beer, nor entrust a puppy. Lucy would bite him, but Lucy bites many people, deserving and not.

then moral absolutes are grounded in creation itself and humanity is accountable for those absolutes.

Also, in what way is humanity responsible for creation? Your viewpoints are, to me, strangely anthropocentric?

 

[Mystic]

And another day, Berserk will not be a total jerk, with whom I would neither have a beer, nor entrust a puppy. Lucy would bite him, but Lucy bites many people, deserving and not.

Readers will note that Bette, faced with a difficult honest intellectual challenge, feels the need for malicious ad hominens--eloquent testimony to her small-mindedness. Yet her woke status exempts her from any Mod censure. What a hypocritical joke enforcement of Community Values is on this site! Oh, and I drink quality scotch and bourbon, not beer.

Also, in what way is humanity responsible for creation? Your viewpoints are, to me, strangely anthropocentric?

You don't get it. I never said that "humanity is responsible for creation." If Godde is love and the ground of all being, then love is grounded in the Creator to which humanity would then be accountable, thus removing alleged moral absolutes from the charge that they are mindless and arbitrary subjective postulates.

 

[Delightful Life]

My daughter, my sister. To some extent, they dress me. The big guy is also trying. Bit of an uphill battle. Has ever been thus. I'm sorta known for being somewhat eccentrically dressed. My life mantra for what covers me is, "is it clean?", "how wrinkled is it?", "is it intact/without tears", "does it in some fashion 'match'?". I live in sneakers (nice ones, dainty), boots, and ancient birkenstocks. The t-shirt I am wearing is a lavender tye dye with hummingbirds on it, was my mothers, probably 30 years old.

That lavender hummer tie die shirt sounds cool
Your mom sounds cool :3

 

[paradox3]

What I am asking is --what is the nature of the Faith alone that makes you believe
that God does exist and Jesus walked the earth ----is it just a concept you have adopted --

Was it because you have been told by word of Mouth-and you believed what people told you ---
Do you believe because you seen it written in God's Word ?-

The nature of faith is hard to describe but I think it goes deeper than adopting a concept. Childhood exposure played a big role for sure. I didn't believe everything people told me but I formed a few basic beliefs which have always stayed with me.

As an adult I have put more meat on the bones so to speak and my thinking has shifted around a fair bit.

Reading and reflecting on the Bible works for me as a spiritual practice. I don't know how much impact it is having on my beliefs at this point.

 

[Luce NDs]

I like the expression about the two side of the ultimate .. sort of embraces the whole thing of what is confined and what is out there that the confined can't experience from where they are packed densely.

Makes me mull the possibility that the mysterious garden of Eden may resemble Hawking's Black Hole Theosophy ... from which flows isness and the quandary of whether a psyche is or isn't a virtue. This bothers poles badly because they cannot resolve nothing ... as nothing cannot be falsified! This sophisticated because of the lack of evidence of the physis (fizzes over)? This is alter to physo an old word for matter diminishing to nothing at the vanishing point in an image ... nothing left but neural essence as dismissed by bra en farts by those that believe gathering knowledge is odorous ... plain boobs of nature? Blunders ...

Some are real booties if approached with adequate respect ... blunders should be exposed if we are expected to learn from how they escape note in vacant abstracts ... notaries? Word is like that evolving in common domains ... in confinement not so much ... thus open the myths properly and let them Eire out their grief ...

Expect some cracks cannot be repaired or sent into relief ... they are just breaks, recesses! Like MU Cis observed ... heat is thus recovered from the hard darkness of the mystery of what's under fete ... that's ole ... some say wyrd as they cannot get their head, esteem about it and thus neigh MS's ... not hu bris!

Psyche got it in a instant of sophisticated impact ... particle science! Never dispute the tiniest matter ... even if sub atomic as less that matter! Insubstantial ... then psyche is claimed to be out there ... beyond and few will accept no OBI's as crotchety old things ... a myth est Ide is ... purple!

Things to be familia with ... often tough given the beatings!

 

[unsafe]

paradox3 -----interesting reply ----thanks for taking the time to respond