The antithesis of subjectivity and knowledge is...

From the thread "Only theist believe irrational things":

The question that O'nus is asking is why declare onself atheist to begin with. I will do this, but naturally it's relevant to my opinion and nothing else.

I posit that we are all agnostic because we can't know until death. Either we die and the lights go out and that's it, in which case it can't be known.

Or...we die and consciousness continues in some form.

Either way death is how you find out.

With our inability to know until death being the determining factor we are faced with an arguement that can only be subjective.

We are all agnostic whether we accept this precept or not.

Why would you decide that there is no god with this being the case.

The final logical position is that existance is for whatever reason real. Existance either always existed or had a beginning. If it had a beginning than it is illogical and came from nothing. If this is the case than there is no reason to interject a middle man, which in this case would be god.

To say that existance was created by a God because something had to create it in order to be is illogical, because if god came from nothing than it's essentially saying the same thing as existance came from nothing. Either way SOMETHING CAME FROM NOTHING. Again, what is the point in saying that a being who came from nothing and therefore had no beginning created everything when you can just simplify it and say that everything came from nothing. You are saying the same thing...that is that we are and we can't say how or why. It's simply more logical to say that existance has simply always been and had no beginning. Again, there is no reason to interject a god into the equation...logically speaking. What must be accepted is that logic is only relative to an illogical precept.

Let your logic breed!

hmmmmm

I'm not really a logic driven person :banana:dur-hur! In all honesty, I am an intuition driven person. Why is this? Could be a lot of reasons. Could be that logic is masculine, and intuition is feminine and both the masculine religions and the masculine science has let me down.

logic can only go so far

logic can only talk about things you know, and predicting something based off of things you know. such as. logically, there is no God because we have not seen any God. that is logic, a conclusion based on WHAT YOU KNOW

but what logic can not talk about is things of which it has nothing to compare with. How can logic talk about a God that is beyond comprehension? If God is beyond human comprehension, then God is beyond logic.

actually, being the spiritual nut case I am, I don't think its any coincidence that monotheistic religions are masculine, that the feminine has been suppressed, and how screwed to shit everything is. its all a big sham to keep us away from the real spiritual path to God. our 'fall', or separation of God, is directly related to our relationship with the feminine

look whats happened, we have these masculine religions, with an ABC 'logical' approach to God. Pray, go to church, do this do that. Very easy to follow stuff, its all written down for you. theres no confusion. church = God. and yet how many Christians can actually testify they have witnessed first hand - God? how many Christians can tell you without a doubt if they know God is real?

you say we will never really know until die. well. . . . yes I agree and no I don't agree

There are people who have experienced God in this life time!! And they are working very hard to get the word out, how you can too. And why you haven't been able to do so before

What did these people do to experience God first hand leaving no shred of doubt in their minds? Essentially they died. Now for some, this was medical and they had a NDE and experienced God that blows away anything that Church had to say

For others, the death is metaphorical. They let their ego die.

And all of these people, regardless of their background - have only wonderful things to say about the experience. And the experience has only made them more loving individuals, not religious zealots bent on war. And they say, you can experience it too. You can 'know' once and for all, RIGHT NOW

The problem is, there is no logical path to this knowing. There is no religion that can lead you to this in this life time. There is no science that can discover God. Nothing. Because, logic is actually not founded on the absolute truth.

Its founded on what you know as of right now.

It can not understand or describe, THE UNKNOWN.

logic logic logic. you can never logic your way to God

so how can you know the unknown?

its like being placed in a dark room when you were used to seeing things clearly. blinded, you can only feel your way around. and as you feel your way around you have to know what you are feeling. really know what you are feeling because you don't have the sight to confirm it. you have to feel your feet as you walk. and you have to be aware of your self, otherwise you're going to forget where in this dark room you are

And if you could 'feel' the room, you're not blind anymore. And you've learned a different way of seeing and approaching reality. A different way of knowing reality where conventional seeing was blinding you. You will understand the objects in a room in a way people who only use conventional seeing wont.

what I am a babbling about is the spiritual path which is a feminine path. there will never be any outer physical proof of God laid before you. You can always logic your way out of it. The real proof, is something you experience. And be ready for it, or rather let go. Because it is going to be a thousand million times two times more emotional*spirit* than it will ever be. . . . . .intellectual.

and if you really understand what Im babbling about, then you understand from an intellectual state of mind, YOU CAN NEVER KNOW

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Originally Posted by juroara

hmmmmm

I'm not really a logic driven person :banana:dur-hur! In all honesty, I am an intuition driven person. Why is this? Could be a lot of reasons. Could be that logic is masculine, and intuition is feminine and both the masculine religions and the masculine science has let me down.

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This is extremely sexist. Women's brains actually develop the parts most notably associated with linear processing (mathematical reasoning) faster than men.

Read this essay. It explains better than I could why you are dead wrong.

To the O.P.; Perhaps you did this intentionally, but your topic left out several important options.

The universe did not have a beginning and there isn't a god/gods
The universe did not have a beginning and there is a god/gods
The universe had a beginning and there is a god/gods that had no beginning

zeneyes, disbelief in life after death doesn't make part of the definition of Atheism and the existance of life after death by itself wouldn't prove the existance of a god.

This video is basically repeating your last point, but it's Carl Sagan so I'm posting it anyway:

yep...that's pretty much my point Scatterbrain. At least Carl Sagan agrees with me.

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Originally Posted by Xaqaria

This is extremely sexist. Women's brains actually develop the parts most notably associated with linear processing (mathematical reasoning) faster than men.

Read this essay. It explains better than I could why you are dead wrong.

To the O.P.; Perhaps you did this intentionally, but your topic left out several important options.

The universe did not have a beginning and there isn't a god/gods
The universe did not have a beginning and there is a god/gods
The universe had a beginning and there is a god/gods that had no beginning

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im sorry for the confusion

when I mean feminine and masculine I mean yin and yang

I do not mean female or male

both males and females have both feminine and masculine

for the record I already knew that young girls tend to do better in math than young boys

What is intuition and how can it be used to reach a conclusion?

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I posit that we are all agnostic because we can't know until death. Either we die and the lights go out and that's it, in which case it can't be known.

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Well agnosticism and atheism are not incompatible. Being agnostic simply means you don't no for sure, but that doesn't mean you can't reject theism, in the same way that a court of law might not know 100% that a suspect did carry out a murder. Just because they are not 100% (99.999% doesn't count) sure, it doesn't that they then take the viewpoint that it is a 50-50 chance that he's innocent. There may be extremely good evidence for the suspect being guilty, and on that basis they reject the notion he is innocent. Just because they deem him guilty that does not mean they claim to know the answer 100%. And being agnostic in any way does not mean that all the options about the thing you are agnostic about are equally likely.

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masculine science has let me down.

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How?

I also want to savour the irony of you using many products of science to post this message, and presumably to give yourself a decent standard of living, whilst calling it a let down.

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What did these people do to experience God first hand leaving no shred of doubt in their minds?

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What makes most people think that dreams are real (whilst they are dreaming)? They lack the capacity to determine what is real and what is not. They might experience any kind of thing but just because they experience it, it does not make it real.

The brain can, and does hallucinate in the real world. It misinterprets things, combine these and add in being conditioned to believe certain things and bingo, you get your perception of a god.

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logic logic logic. you can never logic your way to God

so how can you know the unknown?

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Hey, you're doing that amazing thing called "claiming to know things you cannot know".

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with an ABC 'logical' approach to God.

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There is nothing logical about it.

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Pray, go to church, do this do that. Very easy to follow stuff, its all written down for you. theres no confusion.

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Yes, it's excellent for people who don't want to think for themselves - sheep.

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and yet how many Christians can actually testify they have witnessed first hand - God? how many Christians can tell you without a doubt if they know God is

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Because of what they have been conditioned and indoctrinated in to believing. They either so strongly want to believe something that they are actually able to believe themselves for real, or they have been conditioned in to interpreting things. Peer pressure also helps.

For instance, in a church the pastor will typically say "we can feel God is all around us". A child's parents will also likely repeat this kind of stuff.

Our hypothetical child sits there, but can't really feel anything, but everyone else around her is claiming to feel it. Very few people are prepared to admit something when everyone else will disagree, and over time all this doubt, conditioning, and wanting to fit in manifests itself, in the form of feeling this 'presence'.

Obviously in this example there is no presense, but it illuminates that peer pressure, indoctrination, and the brain's flaws can be responsible for many things.

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Originally Posted by juroara

for the record I already knew that young girls tend to do better in math than young boys

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See, I never understood this, because in every math class I've ever been in (All mostly AP), all the girls did worse or the same as all the guys, and I don't think ever held the highest grade in any of the classes.

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Originally Posted by A Roxxor

See, I never understood this, because in every math class I've ever been in (All mostly AP), all the girls did worse or the same as all the guys, and I don't think ever held the highest grade in any of the classes.

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I believe girls learn faster in general than boys. Just because they are better with math skills earlier in life does not mean that females are better at math than males once grown. I think this is mainly the difference between oxcytocin/estrogen and testosterone. As Ken Wilber says testosterone translates as "fuck it or kill it," this is more mathmatical in that it's more of a right or wrong, black or white type of thought. Whereas the female chemicals are more "relate to it, nurture it" do to the fact that females have to be able to relate to a little being that can't communicate with language.

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Originally Posted by Photolysis

Well agnosticism and atheism are not incompatible. Being agnostic simply means you don't no for sure, but that doesn't mean you can't reject theism, in the same way that a court of law might not know 100% that a suspect did carry out a murder. Just because they are not 100% (99.999% doesn't count) sure, it doesn't that they then take the viewpoint that it is a 50-50 chance that he's innocent. There may be extremely good evidence for the suspect being guilty, and on that basis they reject the notion he is innocent. Just because they deem him guilty that does not mean they claim to know the answer 100%. And being agnostic in any way does not mean that all the options about the thing you are agnostic about are equally likely.

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This is sort of my point. The truth is that we can't be certain. Once that little nugget of truth is accepted than we can make a decision one way or the other. In which case I would lean on the side of "there is no god." I leave room for the fact that I can't know, so I am agnostic, and you just admited that so are you. I suppose we would be agnostic atheist, but then that's sort of a contradiction. "I don't know, but there is no god"??? In the end it's just speculation to say one way or the other, which is why I say agnosticism is the only true possibility for us.

lol

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This is sort of my point. The truth is that we can't be certain. Once that little nugget of truth is accepted than we can make a decision one way or the other. In which case I would lean on the side of "there is no god." I leave room for the fact that I can't know, so I am agnostic, and you just admited that so are you.

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Any good scientist will technically remain agnostic on everything. But we need to make sure we understand the wording

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I suppose we would be agnostic atheist, but then that's sort of a contradiction. "I don't know, but there is no god"??? In the end it's just speculation to say one way or the other, which is why I say agnosticism is the only true possibility for us.

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It's not a contradiction if you use the correct wording:

Atheist: someone who rejects the idea of theism

Agnostic: someone who believes we can never be completely 100% sure about any idea being true

The correct way of describing me is "whilst I don't know for absolute certain, based on the evidence, I'm extremely sure [99.99..% sure] that there is no god, and reject theism on this basis"

In pratical terms, based on what I know and the lack of evidence for any arbitrary theistic beliefs, I will often say I reject it completely. However, if you were to show me extremely strong evidence that there was a god, Jesus turned water in to wine, etc, I would gladly accept it if the evidence was sound. Even the most well known atheists, such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, PZ Myers would do the exact same.

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Originally Posted by zeneyes

I believe girls learn faster in general than boys. Just because they are better with math skills earlier in life does not mean that females are better at math than males once grown. I think this is mainly the difference between oxcytocin/estrogen and testosterone. As Ken Wilber says testosterone translates as "fuck it or kill it," this is more mathmatical in that it's more of a right or wrong, black or white type of thought. Whereas the female chemicals are more "relate to it, nurture it" do to the fact that females have to be able to relate to a little being that can't communicate with language.

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Originally Posted by A Roxxor

See, I never understood this, because in every math class I've ever been in (All mostly AP), all the girls did worse or the same as all the guys, and I don't think ever held the highest grade in any of the classes.

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Originally Posted by juroara

for the record I already knew that young girls tend to do better in math than young boys

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These statements have enraged me to post a thorough look at how you all ought to be ashamed of yourselves for being so wrong. These statements are what perpetuate the stereotypes and stigmatism against millions of people which cause great anxiety and intrapersonal conflict. If any of you are female, shame on you, you are better than that.

Let's systematically demonstrate the problems here.

Male v Female Mathematics

As stated in Science storm (1), "..difficulty is experienced in these situations, the threat of confirming the negative stereotype presumably evokes anxiety and self-doubt, thus interfering with intellectual functioning, which in turn leads to poor performance." What the result is then is a self-fulfilling prophecy as it is already expected that these individuals so worse as that is the very premise of the study!

Furthermore, the only differences that occur during mathematical performances are insignificant. (2). The differences that do occur are attitudinal socio-cultural related. These differences are not derived from a biological determinant, but external variables. The biological differences are all statistically insignificantly different.

Gender Specific Intelligence

While there are obviously some significant anatomical differences between genders, their intelligence are fundamentally exact and any differences are too little to be considered significant. While each gender has a specific set of sexual hormones, these do not cause a significant impact on intelligence.

Furthermore, the differences noted between gender neurology is exaggerated and blown out of proportion. While the corpus callosum is larger in females than males, the anterior hippocampus is larger in males. Statements like this give a gross image that there is a significant difference when all that we can be talking about is a 2% difference. (3) The point is that the differences, although exist, are always statistically insignificant.

Furthermore, the neurological differences found are typically found within the frontal lobe. What needs to be understood here is that these differences are always associated with personality and personal expression. For example, women tend to internalize conflicts more while men tend to externalize conflicts more. This tendency can be found to be facilitated by the frontal cortex. This does not mean it is anymore intelligent than the other nor that these behaviours are entirely gender specific.

The point is that there is an interaction between the brain at all times for all things. Although there are gender dimorphic differences, the differences are far too little to make such a significant differentiation between the two and say one gender is "better" or "smarter" than the other. Another typical example is that males are more visuo-spatially skilled than females. However, the difference often observed only shows a trend which is hardly significantly different at all (p=.05) and still contains many instances of females being more visuo-spatially skilled than males. (4) (5)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/images/2...0213111043.jpg

This image illustrates the sexual difference between serotonin facilitation. You can see for yourself that the activity, although is somewhat different, is not significantly different. This differences only demonstrates a trend of serotonin production which are correlated to other behavioural issues. However, the fact is that both genders will each come to the same behavioural problems.

Ask yourself intuitively which gender is "smarter". Is this a problem set forth because of biology, or because of societal influences? Do you think you would see more females in power and in profession if these apparent "differences" were quelled as insignificant...?

I think so.

This ones for you ladies.

References: (Some require subscription)
1) Science Storm. (2001). Gender, Learning Curves, and Intellectual Functioning. http://www.sciencestorm.com/award/9616526.html

2) American Educational Research Association. (1977). Sex-Related Differences in Mathematics. http://aer.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/1/51

3) Oxford Journals. (2008). Mapping the Relationship Between Cortical Convolutions and Intelligence: Effects on Gender. http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi...ract/18/9/2019

4) Science. (1982). Sexual Dimorphism and Corpus Callousm. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/conten.../216/4553/1431

5) Oxford Journals. (2001). Normal Sexual Dimorphism of the Adult Human Brain Assess by In Vivo Magnetic Resonance Imaging. http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/cgi...tract/11/6/490

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Originally Posted by Photolysis

Well agnosticism and atheism are not incompatible. Being agnostic simply means you don't no for sure, but that doesn't mean you can't reject theism, in the same way that a court of law might not know 100% that a suspect did carry out a murder. Just because they are not 100% (99.999% doesn't count) sure, it doesn't that they then take the viewpoint that it is a 50-50 chance that he's innocent. There may be extremely good evidence for the suspect being guilty, and on that basis they reject the notion he is innocent. Just because they deem him guilty that does not mean they claim to know the answer 100%. And being agnostic in any way does not mean that all the options about the thing you are agnostic about are equally likely.



How?

I also want to savour the irony of you using many products of science to post this message, and presumably to give yourself a decent standard of living, whilst calling it a let down.



What makes most people think that dreams are real (whilst they are dreaming)? They lack the capacity to determine what is real and what is not. They might experience any kind of thing but just because they experience it, it does not make it real.

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theres is no irony in my words

I said masculine science, not science in general. I am talking about a specific mind set, or a point of view that we create supposedly based on science. not science itself or its products

you can bring up the 'well maybe they were hallucinating' argument all you want. there is no end to it because of how the brain functions

but lets have more respect for a human being than that. sure there are plenty of people who believe that when they are dreaming that it was real. yet when they wake up, they say "oh it wasn't real. it was a dream." can you understand that? they do have a grasp of reality once they wake up

when these people 'wake up' from their experience, they say just opposite. "it was more real than real"

I was listing harmless reasons to listen to these people. these experiences, especially from NDEs as a whole is harmless. Its harmless because it does not create a religion. And it goes against all fear based indoctrination that religion brings. There are so many christians that after they have an NDE, they say "God is not sending anyone to hell, the church is wrong" or "there is no hell, the church is wrong". either way many NDEs come out saying, the church is wrong. *so the church has concluded all NDEs are the work of the devil because the God in NDEs apparently is too loving as far as the church is concerned*

either way, the message that these people bring is nothing but absolute love and peace. and it does not require you to join any outer religion. these experiences are experienced by many regardless of what religious background. jew, hindi, even atheists have felt oneness with God.

we can argue all day long what is real, but in the end of the day these people are living richer lives. and they don't have to prove anything to you

so why not give it a try before knocking it down? its harmless. the sure tried method is dedicated meditation which only has positive side affects.

the experience is their for you. why not experience it first yourself before saying "not real"?

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Originally Posted by Mark75

What is intuition and how can it be used to reach a conclusion?

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a conclusion is an end to itself.

why look for an end?

the real spiritual path is about the journey not the end. since it never ends you need a means to guide yourself through uncharted territory

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Originally Posted by juroara

a conclusion is an end to itself.

why look for an end?

the real spiritual path is about the journey not the end. since it never ends you need a means to guide yourself through uncharted territory

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\o/

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theres is no irony in my words

I said masculine science, not science in general. I am talking about a specific mind set, or a point of view that we create supposedly based on science. not science itself or its products

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There is no such thing as 'masculine' science (using your definition of 'masculine' as being a synonym for 'logic'). There is only one type of science ... we call it 'science'. There is no such thing as intuition-based science; like "creation science" this is not science at all.

And this logical mindset has produced all the products of science you see. To say this has been a letdown (again, HOW?), is ironic

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but lets have more respect for a human being than that. sure there are plenty of people who believe that when they are dreaming that it was real. yet when they wake up, they say "oh it wasn't real. it was a dream." can you understand that? they do have a grasp of reality once they wake up

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Except in the case of the religious beliefs, people often do not wake up, bit insist on parroting their beliefs for their entire lives, and most of the time this is simply because they were indoctrinated, hence the strong correlation between your religion and your parents (92% of children in the UK share their parents' beliefs).

And I don't respect people who believe an abitrary set of archaic beliefs, no matter how bizarre. I respect their right to believe whatever they want, but being unable to distinguish between fact and fiction when it comes to a particular aspect of your life does not deserve respect.

If one person has a delusion he is deluded. If many people share this delusion, it is called a religion.

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when these people 'wake up' from their experience, they say just opposite. "it was more real than real"

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People have said the same thing about lucid dreaming (see LeBarge's book). That doesn't make it real, no matter HOW it feels.

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And it goes against all fear based indoctrination that religion brings. There are so many christians that after they have an NDE, they say "God is not sending anyone to hell, the church is wrong" or "there is no hell, the church is wrong". either way many NDEs come out saying, the church is wrong. *so the church has concluded all NDEs are the work of the devil because the God in NDEs apparently is too loving as far as the church is concerned*

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Talk about a massive generalisation. If you do some research you will also find Christians who have had a NDE and are terrified because of the visions of hell they had.

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we can argue all day long what is real, but in the end of the day these people are living richer lives. and they don't have to prove anything to you

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And when did I ask them to? Do I go up to these people in their houses or on street corners and start interrogating? Or am I merely expressing my opinion which no one is forced to read, in a small corner of the internet?

I don't care what people believe in private as long as it has no impact on how I can live my life. If you want to worship Isis, induce OBEs, meditate, or do bizarre acts with consenting people, as long as it's done privately, I really, really, don't care.

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the experience is their for you. why not experience it first yourself before saying "not real"?

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In the short time I've been lucid dreaming, I have witnessed and experienced many strange things impossible in normal life. But I don't feel a need to label these experiences as "God".