Why Is Anybody Convinced There Is A God?

Why Is Anybody Convinced There Is A God? Aug 22, 2017 11:50:21 GMT

Quote

Post by Terrapin Station on Aug 22, 2017 11:50:21 GMT

Aug 22, 2017 11:32:58 GMT Toasted Cheese said:

Aug 22, 2017 10:54:31 GMT Terrapin Station said:

Proof implies that something can't be wrong. If we've proved that P, then it's not possible that not-P. Otherwise we haven't proved that P. Proof also has a normative implication.

One's support for something is simply the reasons that one believes what one does. And it doesn't necessarily have a normative implication, because the reasons that one believes what one does can be very personal.

Re different people experiencing different things, that's simply because we don't have identical perspectives. It doesn't imply that anything is illusory. We don't occupy the same space, for example, so you perceive things from one perspective, and I perceive them from another. That's not the only thing that's going on there, but it's one example.

So if we both walk into my kitchen, we should both see the refrigerator. We won't see it exactly the same, because we don't have identical perspectives--we're seeing it from different angles, we might be seeing different sides, etc., and we don't have identical perceptual faculties If you don't see it at all, then there's reason to wonder what's going on with your perceptual faculties, or what might be going in your brain aside from your perceptual faculties, once you receive that external information.

"Purposes" are simply things we invent for ourselves as individuals, when we do (not everyone invents a purpose for him/herself).

We are discussing the existence of God, which is a subjective belief. Proof or Support is not something that can or will justify these various beliefs. What can be supported, is within your own life and the existence of your conscious awareness, regardless of what you believe about it being snuffed out when your physical dies, or if it is infinite and goes on forever.

I think you need to let the refrigerator analogy go, you are intellectualizing it to create meaning that doesn't even exist. Even if I am in your presence and we are occupying the same space, it is still all projected illusion. That is what we would have created for ourselves in that current moment. Even this online discussion is all projected illusion. The external information is manifested within the internal. External\Internal, it is all one and the same anyway.

Purpose is how we contribute and it is also our driving force. We all have a purpose to live and survive, and we are contributing to our purpose with every action we do. You cannot escape it and it is an invention of our projected illusionary mindsets. The key is, how inventive are we really being?

The post you're quoting from me above doesn't have anything to do with belief in God particularly. We'd moved on to more general ideas. And I was interested in your "illusion" comments, because I want to teach you something about that sort of view.

Re this comment:

* All beliefs are subjective. That's because "subjective" refers to something being a mental phenomenon, and belief is a mental phenomenon.

* Most people have reasons for believing something like "There is a God." Not everyone does have a reason, but I thinkthat most do, even if it's "It just feels right to me" or something like that. In that case, that's their support for their belief, it's what they consider a good (enough) reason to believe it.

* No empirical claim is provable. Empirical claims are only falsifiable at best (but often, in practice, they're not falsifiable, either, for reasons more or less described by the Duhem-Quine thesis).

* If you assign meaning to something, then meaning exists. Meaning is simply a mental phenomenon. As long as that mental phenomenon obtains, then meaning exists.

* What does "intellectualizing" something refer to in your usage?

* What I want to get to is your reasons for believing this: "Even if I am in your presence and we are occupying the same space, it is still all projected illusion." But it doesn't seem like you'll allow yourself to be led to giving your reasons for believing it.