What is an Atheist?

So what's really going on?

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seeds
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by seeds »

popeye1945 wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 1:08 am Belief without evidence closes the door to wonder, the magic man in the sky did it. No need to question that now is there. Silly anthropomorphism!
What you are failing to understand is that you, or, more specifically, your "I Am-ness" that sits at the throne of your consciousness, is the "magic man in the sky" within the inner-dimension of your own mind.

And that is especially obvious as that inner aspect of your being, hovers above and observes the "almost real" appearing phenomenal structures of your dreams.

Now, with that in mind, imagine a thought experiment where one of the human characters in one of your dreams, somehow awakens into self-awareness and becomes conscious of their surroundings. Indeed, I'm talking about surroundings that are literally made from your mental imaging energy...

Image

In which case, how do you suppose you* (the hovering creator and observer of the dream) would appear to that person within that strange context of reality taking place within the spatial "arena" of your mind?

*(again, I'm talking about the ontological status of your inner "I Am-ness," and not about that blob of flesh, drooling on a pillow in a darkened bedroom.)

My point is that by trying to visualize what your inner "I Am-ness" would look like to that dream character, is how you should be trying to visualize the greater "I Am-ness" of this universe,...

...and not by way of any of the anthropomorphic nonsense handed down to us in the world's religions as interpreted and depicted by the Michelangelo's of the world.
_______
seeds
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by seeds »

attofishpi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 1:23 am
commonsense wrote: Sun Aug 07, 2022 8:47 pm
seeds wrote: Sun Aug 07, 2022 6:45 pm
As much as you will no doubt insist that I am mistaken, I'm afraid that when it comes to the crux of my argument, I simply don't see a whole lot of difference between the following two assertions,...
  • 1. "I believe there is no God" (hardcore [anti-theist] atheism).

    2. "I do not believe there is a God" (your brand of soft atheism).
...for they both imply that the proponents of either option operate under the shared assumption that nothing intelligent was involved in the creation of the universe.

Now, unless you are going to suggest that the reality we are experiencing could be an elaborate "simulation" taking place on a computer somewhere, or some other such nonsense similar to that,...

...then, again, your brand of so-called "soft" atheism does not avoid the implication that the amazing order of our world was somehow founded upon blind and mindless (serendipitous) processes.

Thus, at least in that regard, you are no different from the "hardcore" (anti-theist) atheist.

(Continued in next post)
_______
Please note: #1 above says that I have a belief. #2 says I don’t have a belief. Not the same.
Personally, I think they are just stating the same thing,...
Precisely,... at least when it comes to the fact that they both default to the incredulous "chance hypothesis."
attofishpi wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 1:23 am Anyway, seeds, I think you are going a bit overboard mate. I think from reading previous posts, that you believe we are not in out perfect form (as humans) and that we will evolve into something else?
Not just "...something else..." atto, but literally a "new universe" similar to the one we are presently held within.

Now I don't expect you to accept my theory, but geez, man, how many times do I have to upload this particular image...

Image

...before its metaphorical implication becomes clear?...

...(The implication, of course, being that we humans are the "Ultimate Seeds" [the ultimate embryos] of the "Ultimate Lifeform" [the universe creating Entity that we call "God"].)

Now it is needless to say that my theory could be complete nonsense.

However, the bottom line is that if it is at least a "possibility" that we have been given the gift of eternal life, then we simply must have something logical to do to occupy infinite time, otherwise, eternal existence could probably get pretty tedious and boring.

And thus, the creation (and maintenance) of a universe,...

(created out of the living mental fabric of one's own mind)

...seems to be the only thing that could provide us with an eternally fulfilling, and eternally "fruitful" purpose.

And I say "eternally fruitful" purpose because logic dictates that we would eventually evolve to the point of being able to create this level of order...

Image

...out of our own mental holography.

Which means that we too will eventually be able to forever pass-on eternal life to our own offspring in precisely the same way we have received it from our progenitor,...

...thus, completing the "cycle of life" at the highest level of reality.

Keep in mind that according to our own investigations, this scene,...

Image

...along with every other material phenomenon in the universe, is not only allegedly 99.9999999 percent "empty space",...

...but also appears to be created from an infinitely-malleable (informationally-based) substance that, according to physicist and author, Nick Herbert, is,...
"...no more substantial than a promise..."
...yet it is capable of becoming absolutely anything "imaginable" (just like the substance from which our thoughts and dreams are created).

(My goodness, the parallels between our minds and the mind of God [the universe] are becoming almost too obvious.)

As I have suggested many times in the past, as we stand on the earth and look out into the universe, we are viewing...

(from a "fetal-like" - [a "seed within a melon" like] - perspective)

...the extent to which a singular living consciousness...

(a consciousness in possession of eternal life)

...has been able to order the contents of its own personal mind to the point of being able to replicate itself by conceiving its own offspring (us) within itself.

Again, I could be wrong, but as always, I just don't know how the truth of reality could get any more "natural" and "organic" and "equal" and "perfect" and "wondrous" for all of us, than what my theory suggests.
_______
popeye1945
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by popeye1945 »

seeds wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 12:26 am
popeye1945 wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 1:08 am Belief without evidence closes the door to wonder, the magic man in the sky did it. No need to question that now is there. Silly anthropomorphism!
What you are failing to understand is that you, or, more specifically, your "I Am-ness" that sits at the throne of your consciousness, is the "magic man in the sky" within the inner-dimension of your own mind.

And that is especially obvious as that inner aspect of your being, hovers above and observes the "almost real" appearing phenomenal structures of your dreams.

Now, with that in mind, imagine a thought experiment where one of the human characters in one of your dreams, somehow awakens into self-awareness and becomes conscious of their surroundings. Indeed, I'm talking about surroundings that are literally made from your mental imaging energy...

Image

In which case, how do you suppose you* (the hovering creator and observer of the dream) would appear to that person within that strange context of reality taking place within the spatial "arena" of your mind?

*(again, I'm talking about the ontological status of your inner "I Am-ness," and not about that blob of flesh, drooling on a pillow in a darkened bedroom.)

My point is that by trying to visualize what your inner "I Am-ness" would look like to that dream character, is how you should be trying to visualize the greater "I Am-ness" of this universe,...

...and not by way of any of the anthropomorphic nonsense handed down to us in the world's religions as interpreted and depicted by the Michelangelo's of the world.
_______
What you seem to be failing to understand is that the essence of who you are is not your experience of the world. The essence of who or rather what you are, are the genes that rather casually throw off life forms only to renew those forms in a chain of beings. The I am-ness you speak of is what is traditionally called the self, which in my opinion is a highly functional illusion, enabling our survival and journey through an often hostile world.
commonsense
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by commonsense »

seeds wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 12:25 am
commonsense wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 3:29 pm
seeds wrote: Sun Aug 07, 2022 6:43 pm
So, there was no "Big Bang"?

I suspect that the only reason you made that statement is so that you could use the phrase:

"...patternless cacophony of chaos..." :D

I like it, but it's nonsense.
_______
At what time did this Big Bang occur?
Well, if you imagine the bracket on the lefthand side of the word "universe" in this simple illustration...

ETERNITY<----[universe]---->ETERNITY

...as being the "BANG POINT" (the inception point) of our little universe, and the bracket on the righthand side of the word "universe" as being the "NOW",...

...then at least according to the proponents of modern cosmology, the time of the Big Bang was approximately 13.8 billion years ago (with time being arbitrarily measured by using the particular cadence of the "clock" of our little solar system).

However, if you imagine that each of the tiny dashes extending in either direction away from the brackets, represent one billion years of our solar system's time cadence,...

...then when compared to the "real" amount of time implicit in either direction of "ETERNITY," the entire 13.8 billion year age of the universe...

(represented by what lies in-between the two brackets)

...is not even the blink of an eye.
_______
So, right smack dab in the middle of eternity. I can agree with that. And I thank you for the illustration/explanation. It must be hard, though, to locate the bang point along the timeline. How can we do that?
seeds
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by seeds »

popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am What you seem to be failing to understand is that the essence of who you are is not your experience of the world.
Not only am I not failing to understand that the essence of who you are is not your "experience" of the world, but I go to great lengths to point out that the "experiencer" of experiences is the real essence of who you are.

In other words, your inner "I Am-ness"...

(or, in metaphysical parlance, your "soul")

...is what represents the essence of who (and what) you really are.
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am The essence of who or rather what you are, are the genes that rather casually throw off life forms only to renew those forms in a chain of beings.
"Genes" are nothing more than the architectural "instructions" that guide physical matter (in this case, flesh) into specific forms, and have nothing to do with the higher ontology of your inner "I Am-ness" that sits at the throne of your consciousness.
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am The I am-ness you speak of is what is traditionally called the self,...
I Agree.
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am ...which in my opinion is a highly functional illusion, enabling our survival and journey through an often hostile world.
I disagree.

The actual "illusion" comes in the form of the "ghostly" (99.9999999% empty space) world of physical matter. Whereas the "self" (the creator of ghostly worlds such as dreams and material universes) is what is real and eternal.

The so-called "hard problem of consciousness," along with the "mind/body problem," aren't called "problems" for no good reason.

Therefore, until those "problems" are resolved, you need to stop treating the self (the inner "I Am-ness") as if it were made of a substance that is no different from that which composes ordinary matter.
_______
popeye1945
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by popeye1945 »

seeds wrote: Mon Aug 15, 2022 9:30 pm
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am What you seem to be failing to understand is that the essence of who you are is not your experience of the world.
Not only am I not failing to understand that the essence of who you are is not your "experience" of the world, but I go to great lengths to point out that the "experiencer" of experiences is the real essence of who you are.

In other words, your inner "I Am-ness"...
(or, in metaphysical parlance, your "soul")
...is what represents the essence of who (and what) you really are.

I am-ness is a very limited identity, I know this because I have experienced being without memories. All one knows is being alive feels pretty good. The body is the structure that one's essence creates and on being born there is but this I am. It is a limited identity and one only acquires the wider identity from the context one is brought forth in. Experiences and feelings cluster around this I am-ness you speak of. Well I guess I am really just agreeing with you. Still one's essence must be the energies that express the being I am, which in context, is a generality.
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am The essence of who or rather what you are, are the genes that rather casually throw off life forms only to renew those forms in a chain of beings.
"Genes" are nothing more than the architectural "instructions" that guide physical matter (in this case, flesh) into specific forms, and have nothing to do with the higher ontology of your inner "I Am-ness" that sits at the throne of your consciousness.
The throne of consciousness is the relation between subject and object, this involves the energies of ultimate reality as experienced by body consciousness and is thus a readout of called apparent reality, or as Albert says, an illusion but a persistent one.
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am The I am-ness you speak of is what is traditionally called the self,...
I Agree.
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am ...which in my opinion is a highly functional illusion, enabling our survival and journey through an often hostile world.
I disagree.

The actual "illusion" comes in the form of the "ghostly" (99.9999999% empty space) world of physical matter. Whereas the "self" (the creator of ghostly worlds such as dreams and material universes) is what is real and eternal.
The so-called "hard problem of consciousness," along with the "mind/body problem," aren't called "problems" for no good reason. Therefore, until those "problems" are resolved, you need to stop treating the self (the inner "I Am-ness") as if it were made of a substance that is no different from that which composes ordinary matter.[/quote]

One must be careful here in defining what is an illusion, one's perception of the world depends upon the energies of the world and the state of one's own biology. I would venture to say that even illusion, delusion, and mistaken perceptions are biologically dependent. Albert says and I do not disagree, that apparent reality is an illusion or in my sense, biological interpretation. The self, the I am-ness is a function, just a mind is a function. Just as the world as object/apparent reality is biologically dependent so to is the experience of I am-ness, an emergent property of subject and object.
You have some interesting thoughts seeds.
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attofishpi
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by attofishpi »

popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am The throne of consciousness is the relation between subject and object, this involves the energies of ultimate reality as experienced by body consciousness and is thus a readout of called apparent reality, or as Albert says, an illusion but a persistent one.
popeye1945 wrote: The I am-ness you speak of is what is traditionally called the self,...
I Agree.
popeye1945 wrote: ...which in my opinion is a highly functional illusion, enabling our survival and journey through an often hostile world.
I disagree.
Y R U agreeing and disagreeing with yourself?
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by popeye1945 »

attofishpi wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:22 am
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am The throne of consciousness is the relation between subject and object, this involves the energies of ultimate reality as experienced by body consciousness and is thus a readout of called apparent reality, or as Albert says, an illusion but a persistent one.
popeye1945 wrote: The I am-ness you speak of is what is traditionally called the self,...
I Agree.
popeye1945 wrote: ...which in my opinion is a highly functional illusion, enabling our survival and journey through an often hostile world.
I disagree.
Y R U agreeing and disagreeing with yourself?
attofishpi,

LOL!!!! Not an easy proposition to deal with, the I am-ism is simply being alive, been there done that. Without any memory at all that is all there is your alive, and it feels pretty dam good. If the memory lapse lasts very long it is utterly disorientation, lost in the world. One should realize this I am-ness must be common to all organisms not necessarily limited to humanity.
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by Dontaskme »

popeye1945 wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 9:34 am
attofishpi wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:22 am
popeye1945 wrote: Sat Aug 13, 2022 9:17 am The throne of consciousness is the relation between subject and object, this involves the energies of ultimate reality as experienced by body consciousness and is thus a readout of called apparent reality, or as Albert says, an illusion but a persistent one.


I Agree.


I disagree.
Y R U agreeing and disagreeing with yourself?
attofishpi,

LOL!!!! Not an easy proposition to deal with, the I am-ism is simply being alive, been there done that. Without any memory at all that is all there is your alive, and it feels pretty dam good. If the memory lapse lasts very long it is utterly disorientation, lost in the world. One should realize this I am-ness must be common to all organisms not necessarily limited to humanity.

Knowledge being the hallucination of a brain braining...an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present, in other words to know you are alive is a conceptual illusion.

The Aliveness of a tree has no concept it is alive. Aliveness is known only as it is conceived to be in this artificial not-knowing conception born of a physical brain that projects imageless light into contrasting image, the image of itself as it is known conceptually as and through a physical brain, the braining of the brain. :D

Metaphysics is an abstract concept of what can only be known as physics. In other words, there is no metaphysical realm that can be known to exist, except in the physical brain, aka metaphysics is an illusion.
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by promethean75 »

i think some metaphysical questions are legitimate despite them being empirically unanswerable. Causality, for instance, is one of my favs and specialities, and that's an entirely metaphysical subject. a subset of this is of course the determinism/freewill debate.

the difficulty we face is how to talk about these concepts clearly and avoid falling into nonsense. Spinoza and Kant were pretty fuckin impressive at doing this. Talking simply, clearly and carefully about the matter. well as much as one could talk about the matter at all. 'member we're already out of scientific bounds here cuz we're doing metaphysics.... but the questions are real, the notion of cause is real, we aren't making up fake questions here. 
popeye1945
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by popeye1945 »

Dontaskme wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:24 am
popeye1945 wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 9:34 am
attofishpi wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 5:22 am

Y R U agreeing and disagreeing with yourself?
attofishpi,

LOL!!!! Not an easy proposition to deal with, the I am-ism is simply being alive, been there done that. Without any memory at all that is all there is your alive, and it feels pretty dam good. If the memory lapse lasts very long it is utterly disorientation, lost in the world. One should realize this I am-ness must be common to all organisms not necessarily limited to humanity.

Knowledge being the hallucination of a brain braining...an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present, in other words to know you are alive is a conceptual illusion. The Aliveness of a tree has no concept it is alive. Aliveness is known only as it is conceived to be in this artificial not-knowing conception born of a physical brain that projects imageless light into contrasting image, the image of itself as it is known conceptually as and through a physical brain, the braining of the brain. : DMetaphysics is an abstract concept of what can only be known as physics. In other words, there is no metaphysical realm that can be known to exist, except in the physical brain, aka metaphysics is an illusion.

attofishpi,

I think your confusing the map for the terrain, one doesn't need language to experience one's own being. Knowledge is experience, these are meanings as reactions of the body to the energies of the physical world, and all meanings are experiences. Knowledge of the plant world is ever-increasing and there seems little doubt that it is conscious. What is consciousness, consciousness is to experience the world through one's biology and this all organisms do. Knowledge is not hallucination, knowledge is full body consciousness and it is the sole property of a conscious subject never the property of the world itself, until the meanings of experience is bestowed upon a meaningless world by a conscious subject. Metaphysics is not an abstract concept, it is to my way of thinking simply imagination in flight, the property of wonder and it is how the knowledge of physics tends to grow.
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by attofishpi »

popeye1945 wrote: Thu Sep 01, 2022 11:13 pm
Dontaskme wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 11:24 am
popeye1945 wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 9:34 am

attofishpi,

LOL!!!! Not an easy proposition to deal with, the I am-ism is simply being alive, been there done that. Without any memory at all that is all there is your alive, and it feels pretty dam good. If the memory lapse lasts very long it is utterly disorientation, lost in the world. One should realize this I am-ness must be common to all organisms not necessarily limited to humanity.

Knowledge being the hallucination of a brain braining...an experience involving the apparent perception of something not present, in other words to know you are alive is a conceptual illusion. The Aliveness of a tree has no concept it is alive. Aliveness is known only as it is conceived to be in this artificial not-knowing conception born of a physical brain that projects imageless light into contrasting image, the image of itself as it is known conceptually as and through a physical brain, the braining of the brain. : DMetaphysics is an abstract concept of what can only be known as physics. In other words, there is no metaphysical realm that can be known to exist, except in the physical brain, aka metaphysics is an illusion.

attofishpi,

I think your confusing the map for the terrain, one doesn't need language to experience one's own being. Knowledge is experience, these are meanings as reactions of the body to the energies of the physical world, and all meanings are experiences. Knowledge of the plant world is ever-increasing and there seems little doubt that it is conscious. What is consciousness, consciousness is to experience the world through one's biology and this all organisms do. Knowledge is not hallucination, knowledge is full body consciousness and it is the sole property of a conscious subject never the property of the world itself, until the meanings of experience is bestowed upon a meaningless world by a conscious subject. Metaphysics is not an abstract concept, it is to my way of thinking simply imagination in flight, the property of wonder and it is how the knowledge of physics tends to grow.
Poppy, I honestly don't know why you are addressing me here, are you mixing me up with DAM's quote? Or are you talking to me about something I might have said in another thread - in which case, please address the above in the other thread!
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by popeye1945 »

Ok, sorry for the mistake!
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by attofishpi »

popeye1945 wrote: Fri Sep 09, 2022 2:37 am Ok, sorry for the mistake!
No worries cobber - everyone seems to be doing it to me lately! (the thing above, not the other thing)
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Re: What is an Atheist?

Post by Harbal »

“There’s no way to prove that there is no God. You just have to take it on faith.”

— Woody Allen

:)
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