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Messages - Koopaslaya

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136
Mario Chat / Re: SMB2 glitch
« on: May 31, 2010, 08:50:19 AM »
Everybody in the club is bumpin', bumpin'.*

*I hope someone catches the Destiny's Child reference.

137
General Chat / Re: Mouse and Pad
« on: May 09, 2010, 04:38:41 PM »
I never clean my room

That's gross.

138
I do have it.

139
General Chat / Re: THE COMING OUT THREAD!!!
« on: April 01, 2010, 02:46:05 PM »
Well, at least Lizard Dude isn't dead.

140
General Chat / Re: Old Shames on the FF.
« on: March 07, 2010, 05:34:07 PM »
2005 Koopaslaya: I posted a lot.

2010 Koopaslaya: I creep the boards, but rarely post.

141
General Chat / Re: Winter 2009 ADVANCED Poster Awards!
« on: February 11, 2010, 10:03:25 PM »
That's because you don't have an efficient, effective, and enthusiastic team working on them!

142
Mario Chat / Re: Mario games
« on: January 28, 2010, 02:49:18 PM »


You've earned 10 Koopaslaya points*


*Koopaslaya points have no monetary value. In fact, they have no value whatsoever.

143
Video Game Chat / Re: FP Tetris
« on: January 27, 2010, 09:25:04 AM »
This game just makes me dizzy.

144
Not at the Dinner Table / Re: What's Your Religion?
« on: January 25, 2010, 10:04:06 PM »
Ahh, I see your point now. It's an interesting concept. I definitely agree that complete comprehension of the Eternal God is something beyond the scope of human capability. To behold the Divine would indeed be more real than reality itself, because you would be for the first time staring pure reality in the face.

145
Not at the Dinner Table / Re: What's Your Religion?
« on: January 25, 2010, 06:14:35 PM »
I imagine it would have a consciousness altering effect similar to when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit.

If you are willing to accept that, then you are willing to accept at least the possibility that someone could have absolute proof of God, yet think that he be greater than God, for Adam and Eve certainly knew God's existence, yet they disobeyed.
Even those who have convinced themselves of the absolute necessity of God (whether or not they are right) have sinned. This is significant because the force of their absolute belief, which, in this case, would hold the same weight of absolute knowledge for them, is still not enough to stop them from sinning. Knowledge of God is not knowledge of God's will. I will stick to that point.

Also, knowledge of God does not hijack the will. Though your conclusion that people would all act as God wills might be true (and is actually the hope and prayer of Christians when they say "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"), they are not robotic slaves to God's will, because everything the person does would have to still come as the result of a free choice of the will; I would still need to choose the best option among many possible options to do something in accord with God's will. Knowledge of God would not take away the plurality of options or the choice that one would have to make, even if in every instance he chose the good. Socrates calls this the examined life; Plato, virtue; and the Christian, holiness.

I suppose the necessary conclusion to your argument is as follows: because of some aspect of human nature (which I still don't understand from what you have written), any proof for God that does not result in all people's conversion to sinlessness and God's will necessarily be a poor proof. I'm still not sure that this is right from what you said.

146
Not at the Dinner Table / Re: What's Your Religion?
« on: January 22, 2010, 11:25:21 AM »
Why There Can Never Be Conclusive Scientific Evidence of God's Existence

There can never be undeniable proof towards the existence of God (specifically the monotheistic Abrahamic God). The reason lies in the nature of free will and the story of Adam and Eve.

Also the question of "Why is there evil in the world, why does God allow it?" "Why do bad things happen to good people" etc., etc. is answered.

When God made the perfect land of Eden for his first humans to live in he inexplicably put in the middle of it all an evil, forbidden tree. Why? To instate free will into his humans.

God didn't want robots that loved him undeniably. If you create a creature that has no choice but to love you, does it really love you? The only way to truly love someone is it have the free will to choose to do so, otherwise it isn't a conscious choice, but just a robot following its programming.

So, God placed the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil into Eden so Adam and Eve wouldn't be ceaselessly loving automatons. God gave them the opportunity to screw up so they could make a conscious, free decision to obey and love him.

This is the nature of our world. God exists, but he let's injustice and evil to exist as well. He has put animalistic, tyrannical, sinful urges in us. God has done this so we can choose to hate him. So when we choose to love him it is a choice made by free will.

What does this have to do with there never being scientific proof of God?

If it were possible to prove God existed, we would all become automatons. If we saw or heard some kind of undeniable proof of God's existence we would love God without a choice. The mere knowledge of his for certain existence would strip  us of our free will to either hate or love God.

Discuss.

Warp, thanks for bringing my attention to this post. I'll try to be more brief this time and not use philosophical "jibbergabber."


TEM: I agree with much of your post. You make astute observations and good logical use of mythical, lesson-teaching stories. The last paragraph of argumentation, however, seems to suggest to me that knowledge necessitates action; that is,  if we know then we MUST act in accord with said knowledge. It is my belief that if an undeniable scientific proof of God is possible (and it very well might be), then people, while still believing, still might make sinful decisions. Knowledge of God's existence (or even, for that matter, absolute knowledge of God's will) is still indeed consistent with action against the divine will. How does this happen? The capacity for free will (which you readily acknowledge), might take to lower, temporal pleasures. Motion toward base things occurs when the rational part of the human being -- which very well might contain hard "facts,"like a proof of God's existence -- does not properly order the other parts of the human being. Passions, desires, and appetite, unchecked by will and even a reason which contains many hard facts can seize control of action.

Even with certain knowledge of things, action contrary to that knowing is possible because apparent goods carry a particularly strong pleasurable nature to them. The problem is that this pleasure is disordered.

In conclusion, most of the post is very good. It simply does not follow, however, that knowledge of God necessitates action which is always in accord with the divine mind. If there is an absolute, undeniable proof God, it is is still very possible that man could choose to act against what God would want.

147
Not at the Dinner Table / Re: What's Your Religion?
« on: January 21, 2010, 10:24:18 PM »
You're saying that religion distorts the concept of heaven. I'm saying that religion makes us believe in the concept of heaven.

Also, belief is not always truth.


I think we've strayed far from the original point of this example. I think we've both been misunderstanding one another here. I do not think faith is an opiate. The water example was just meant to show that water has a similar property to opium, so water (and a vast host of other perception-bending things) could also be considered a opiates in these Marxian terms.  I do not think that religion blurs the truth, especially when grounded and backed by solid philosophical and logical arguments. Religion holds to faith in beliefs, but I can assure you that these beliefs are all, at the very least, logical possibilities.

148
Not at the Dinner Table / Re: What's Your Religion?
« on: January 21, 2010, 04:36:53 PM »
You appear to have plunged into philosophy bull[dukar]-speak, by the way.

I very much have plunged into philosophy because religion, in my estimation, is always compatible with reason, but I do not think philosophical language to be bull[dukar]-speak. It takes a certain precision in language to convey things that are not self-evident or common to physical experience. I understand that I might come off as verbally-bloated or whatever, but it is nearly impossible to enter into discussion about things of this nature without differing to such language. I am certainly not a skilled-enough writer to pull off a discussion of non-physical concepts with the simplicity of conventional English. If I could wield my pen as swiftly and nimbly as a mighty warrior a sword, then I would. But alas, I cannot; for that I am sorry.

But, I insist, these Philosophical foundations are essential components of why it is that I believe what I believe. I think that this is a most fitting place for me to discuss these things, especially in this way. This topic has alwyas encouraged debate about religion. I find these logical arguments a worth means to that end. Now, if you are not willing to accept my arguments, fine, but dissent with arguments of your own. You jumped into the argument and I responded to your statements. It's fine if you disagree with my arguments, but casually and deprecatingly dismissing my arguments to establish what it is that I sought to convey won't either win you any points or make you come across as very bright. It is my belief that you just dismissed my language as bull[dukar] because you have no response, and you didn't want to admit checkmate. If you do have a response, I kindly invite you to share it.

And finally, let me get this straight: you acknowledge the concept of things that have no physical existence, but yet, you say that you understand the concept of thinking about things that don't actually exist (a statement which suggests to me that the concept in the first sentence of your reply you actually find to be non-existent). So... what is it? Do you think this concept exists or not? 

149
Not at the Dinner Table / Re: What's Your Religion?
« on: January 21, 2010, 02:20:42 PM »
The concept of the soul, self-awareness, and consciousness are valid terms for describing aspects of how it feels to be an organism and what drives organisms, but they don't exist through metaphysical or magical means.

Do doubt all metaphysical inquiry? Is all metaphysics simply magic to you? In your line of thought how does the concept of number exist? Is number physical always, id est,without 2,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 x10^100,000,000,000,000,00,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 things, then does said number does not exist? Or, could a number exist which does not have enough physical things in the universe to represent it physically?

Further, how do you respond to the argument of appearance?

1)Two sticks can appear themselves to be both equal and unequal at the same time.
e.g.

<------------------------------>

>------------------------------<

2)But in thought itself, equality never appears to be the same as inequality. That means that:
3) there need to be at least some universal idea, apart from matter, which is eternal and unchanging, right? The sorts of things I have in mind here are equality, length, largeness, smallness, etc...
-- The above argument is my abridged version of Plato's from his Phaedo, regarding materialists like yourself.

Let's not think of God, soul, love, hate, or other "feeling" types of metaphysical terms just yet. Let's simply arrive at some consensus with a priori metaphysical principles which drive the physical world (largeness, smallness, equality, etc.). From there we can move onto Goodness, justice, and the like, and then to God.

The major flaw of this thread is the Religious fervor which drives heated debates about ancient doctrines and misrepresented claims about religious intolerance by other religions. What this thread should be doing is carefully defending faith (or lack thereof) through well-reasoned logical arguments and rebuttals.


Response to Paper Luigi:

The water deceives us in that it makes us sense that the existence of the fish is other than it actually is, just as you might claim that religion makes us believe that the concept of heaven is other than it is (misplaced).

You say non-material things exist. Do you think that there is any order to these non-material things? For instance is the non-material concept of "good" better than the non-material concept of "bad"? I am interested to know how you handle gradation in the non-physical realm without God.

N.B. I am not yet talking about the Christian God. I am simply speaking of the highest being, or highest existence.

150
Not at the Dinner Table / Re: What's Your Religion?
« on: January 21, 2010, 05:45:56 AM »
Since you never explicitly mention God in you response, let's work in general terms. With your line of thought, all metaphysical inquiry is false, because the only thing that exists is matter. Does that mean that we are nothing more than our bodies? Does this mean that anything without matter is non-existent? I suppose, then, that you believe that the concept of number does not exist because it is not "physical." Love, hate, justice, prudence, and the like are all either (a) illusions and delusions, or (b)chemical processes in our brains.

I posit a different solution to your opiate analogy. Metaphysical inquiry IS possible. The person is not simple dead matter in motion. Existence transcends the physical. I can go into more detail a little later. My main idea is that you seem to deny anything that is not sensible as delusion.

Opium can make us perceive something that isn't really there. Religion is very similar in that it makes us perceive something that may not exist.


So does water when we look down at a fish. The water bends the light to make the fish SEEM like it's in a place that it actually is not.

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