Ask a Radical Atheist

[articulett]

You can only deny the existence of "self" until you get hungry.

Or need to pee.

 

[articulett]

I don't really see the point in being a non-dualist if you end up spending so much time thinking about dualism.

(wish I thought of that)

 

[Nick227]

What I wished to point out is that non-dual experiencing isn't metaphysically advantagous. It doen't give you the "real" world beyond experience. And it's more subtle than throwing everything into a blender.

You will probably point this our yourself, again and again, while most readers here continue to take it as metaphysics or the negation of self-awareness.

Such is life! People get confused and conflate an assortment of haphazard notions of altered states and spirituality-mysticism, choosing not to simply examine what something is. Usually, there is somewhere I find a personal investment in remaining so confused.

Although it has no known physical existence, and cannot survive simple examination, the notion of personal selfhood presents a resistance to change as great as any of the forces studied in physics.

Nick

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Such is life! People get confused and conflate an assortment of haphazard notions of altered states and spirituality-mysticism, choosing not to simply examine what something is.
Nick

Or isn't, as the case may be.

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

Unfortunately my computer is already possesesd by the Microsoft Daemons.

Can get one here!
http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/
Click on "Daemons" tab.

I'll get a ferret and name it, "Kleinman."

Neat site. Thanks!

I received a Tiger named "Verian".

 

[JEROME DA GNOME]

I can't speak for her, but i feel bad that most people are delusional.

You honesty think that most of the world's people; past and present, are delusional and you are one of the few with the truth.

Interesting.

 

[thaiboxerken]

You honesty think that most of the world's people; past and present, are delusional and you are one of the few with the truth.

Interesting.

Yes. I also know more about nuclear power than most people that have ever lived.

 

[articulett]

Although it has no known physical existence, and cannot survive simple examination, the notion of personal selfhood presents a resistance to change as great as any of the forces studied in physics.

Nick

Or so you believe.

This is an opinion. Moreover, there appears to be useful reasons why we think of "personal self hood" running individual bodies.

 

[Apathia]

Although it has no known physical existence, and cannot survive simple examination, the notion of personal selfhood presents a resistance to change as great as any of the forces studied in physics.
Nick

And now we return to the thread topic:

This very fabrication of a persistant, inherently real selfhood is at the base of Theism. God is the individual self writ large.

Back when I was a Theist, if you'd asked me why I chose the Christian God over the Greek Pantheon, I would Have told you it's because the Greek Gods were deficiant in Transcendence; they are too athropomorphic.
Of course the Old Testament God is every bit as maniaclly manly as Zeus. But I figured that all that was theater for backward times.
Now we understand that the Person of God is not like finite, biological creatures.

But the Theist still does project the image of man onto the cosmos.
The little "I" is inflated into the Great Metaphysical "I." The Divine is made out to be a person, just as ourselves. Theists project a controling, autocratic head for reality, much the same way we imagine we have a controling, autocratic mind (in spite of the way reality defies that every day.).

Naturally the Intelligent Design proponent has an unspoken assumption that everything begins with a designing self who wills this and that top down from the head. A partial state of affairs, or one aspect of a larger process, gets blown up into a Cosmic Principle.

Sometimes it's difficult for a Theist to get that reality is process evolutionary, just because he or she has a vested interest in being a little god.

 

[articulett]

Yes. I also know more about nuclear power than most people that have ever lived.

And computers, germ theory, genetics, and cosmology.

Gods aren't real explanation--they are "fill ins" that "feel good" but tend to fill space until actual facts and evidence replace them. Gods seem to feel real or like an explanation to the believer--but there is no more substance to it than "magic"-- or "the magic man that nobody can see"... etc. Gods, demons, and all sorts of mysterious entities and forces have been used as filler to explain that which humans don't understand... until scientific knowledge accumulates and allows for understanding.

I think that theists calling atheists arrogant is so ironic. The atheist make no claims to divine truths... most don't believe there are any. The theist claims that such truths exist-- and that he knows them! Which is the smarter position? Which is more humble? Only a person whose brain is mired in religious doublethink and nothing platitudes chooses the latter from what I see.

 

[Nick227]

And now we return to the thread topic:

This very fabrication of a persistant, inherently real selfhood is at the base of Theism. God is the individual self writ large.

The way I see it, in believing itself to be this body, this collection of thoughts and emotions, consciousness (I hate that word!) inevitably needs a vessel into which to place all the events which it can't ascribe to this sense of relative selfhood - ergo The World. Now, when there are experiences which don't even fit into this vessel, so it needs a bigger, catch-all vessel - ergo God! God is the great scapegoat, a giant wheelie-bin into which all the left-over and unexplained cogitations of ego get hurled.

Of course, this God's role is made all the more complex by the way in which the ego learns to examine the world. Believing objectivity to be a priori real it starts pontificating about the "creation of the world" based around its experience of apparent causality in the world around it. Assuming causality to exist as an absolute phenomenon it starts to ask all sorts of questions about "how I got here," "what's my purpose?," and "how did it all begin?" The ego-created God has to deal with all this stuff.

When the ego develops to the point where it can examine its own nature more closely, so the need for God inevitably dissipates.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Moreover, there appears to be useful reasons why we think of "personal self hood" running individual bodies.

A basic sense of selfhood is an evolutionary pre-requisite. Survival and procreation dictate the need for it in our animal ancestors. But the human sense of personal identity is imo vastly disproportionate to the actual need for it. One doesn't need to believe an idea is absolutely "yours" to the degree that one will fight and kill for it. This phenomenal degree of identification begs the question - what is the underlying motivation of the subconscious psyche that is creating it? This is where the subjective sciences, the spiritual sciences, can come in. Some of them attempt to deal with it.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

But the Theist still does project the image of man onto the cosmos.
The little "I" is inflated into the Great Metaphysical "I." The Divine is made out to be a person, just as ourselves. Theists project a controling, autocratic head for reality, much the same way we imagine we have a controling, autocratic mind (in spite of the way reality defies that every day.).

To my mind, there is one aspect of this activity that is justifiable, or at least understandable. In appreciating the extreme limitations of objectivity to provide reliable information in certain areas, so our more philosophical forbears used the notion of self-similarity (microcosm-macrocosm) as a potential means to explore terrain that was otherwise inaccessible.

Nick

 

[Piscivore]

Piscivore,

I'm sorry that I haven't been following everything you have said recently (mainly because I agreed completely with your first post in the series and didn't have anything to add) and I'm too lazy to look back at all the posts, so please excuse me if you have already covered this topic.....

It occurs to me that there is a very important aspect to your view that explains much of religious practice -- it is theater. What happens in a theater is not created by a writer or the actors or the audience, but by all of them working together to create this 'other reality'. The same is true of religious ritual. Communion doesn't happen in a wafer or in a person's mind or with a priest but through all of them working to create another reality.

I wonder if the Greeks viewed theater in this way since it was part of a religious festival -- that the only sense of the divine we ever know is a social creation? It certainly speaks to our human community -- a real communion. Maybe that's what divine means? What we create together?

That's a lot closer to what I'm thinking that what Articulett is understanding.

But, then, together we also created money and subprime lending practices...........

 

[articulett]

A basic sense of selfhood is an evolutionary pre-requisite. Survival and procreation dictate the need for it in our animal ancestors. But the human sense of personal identity is imo vastly disproportionate to the actual need for it. One doesn't need to believe an idea is absolutely "yours" to the degree that one will fight and kill for it. This phenomenal degree of identification begs the question - what is the underlying motivation of the subconscious psyche that is creating it? This is where the subjective sciences, the spiritual sciences, can come in. Some of them attempt to deal with it.

Nick

Well, I've never had the urge to kill... but I'm quite sure that the attachment to the self and ones offspring evolved because those who had such leanings, preferentially survived. I just don't understand what "spiritual sciences" are or how they "attempt to deal with" anything. But I think you should revisit the I am Soul thread and watch the TED talks. I think there is something useful you are trying to convey, but I"m not sure anyone but you is understanding you.

 

[articulett]

That's a lot closer to what I'm thinking that what Articulett is understanding.

Oh, well I understand that. And I agree. Theatre. Drama. Pagaentry. Myth. Storytelling. We are a storytelling species and we share information through emotional dramas and personification of concepts and ideals.

Many of our decisions are made based on emotions and instinct, though we may confabulate more prosaic reasons. Drama can be a better teacher or means of bonding or relating than something that doesn't "inspire" emotional involvement. And I agree that it's hard to put this "essence" into words, and how the term "god" might encompass it. Do you consider yourself a believer in "god"--and is this the explanation for the god you "believe in" or that inspires you?

A lot of times I hear about a belief in "god"... but it doesn't really sound like a belief... more of a feeling... a meaningful way on interpreting the world. I suspect that a lot of people aren't sure what the believe... or the details or words to describe it or why they believe it. They just want to be counted in amongst the believers and "know" they "believe in" something.

 

[Apathia]

To my mind, there is one aspect of this activity that is justifiable, or at least understandable. In appreciating the extreme limitations of objectivity to provide reliable information in certain areas, so our more philosophical forbears used the notion of self-similarity (microcosm-macrocosm) as a potential means to explore terrain that was otherwise inaccessible.

Nick

There's a fragment of this remaining in Science in the assumption that our limited mental faculties can map or even understand the way of reality at large.

"All that we can say about reality is a lie.
But every lie is an image of the truth."

 

[dglas]

The way I see it, in believing itself to be this body, this collection of thoughts and emotions, consciousness (I hate that word!) inevitably needs a vessel into which to place all the events which it can't ascribe to this sense of relative selfhood - ergo The World. Now, when there are experiences which don't even fit into this vessel, so it needs a bigger, catch-all vessel - ergo God! God is the great scapegoat, a giant wheelie-bin into which all the left-over and unexplained cogitations of ego get hurled.

It seems to me the obvious question, at this point, is to ask on what basis one determines that an experience is such that it necessitates an explanation beyond "The World" and into the realm of "God." What sort of experiences do not fit into either "The Self" and "The World?"

In other words, please give me an "experience" which cannot be understood in terms of neither the "self" [ego] nor "The World."

Of course, this God's role is made all the more complex by the way in which the ego learns to examine the world.

This seems to me more or less non-controversial, simply on the basis that the ego can conceive as it wishes, with o without reference to itself or the world.

Believing objectivity to be a priori real it starts pontificating about the "creation of the world" based around its experience of apparent causality in the world around it. Assuming causality to exist as an absolute phenomenon it starts to ask all sorts of questions about "how I got here," "what's my purpose?," and "how did it all begin?" The ego-created God has to deal with all this stuff.

So, if I read you correctly, you are suggesting that the reason for the creation of God is to act as a way of understanding things quite different to ourselves in terms we can identify with. Our lives seem to have a beginning and an end, therefore we seek to understand the universe the same way. In order to accommodate this beginning-end aspect of the universe, we posit a first-cause (God) to accommodate our limited conceit. Am I close here?

When the ego develops to the point where it can examine its own nature more closely, so the need for God inevitably dissipates.

Nick

I do not see how this follows. While we may, through understanding of self, conceive of the possibility of the universe being other than we are (in terms of beginning-end causality), it seems by no means necessary THAT we do so, Strangely enough, it strikes me that we might, understanding ourselves, still conceive of the universe as having a beginning and end, and that therefore despite a clear understanding of ourselves, we can still posit a God as an "explanatory" device.

I might even go a step further and suggest that with a non-dualist perspective, it may be more difficult to posit the difference between our own experiences and the universe so as to negate the need for a God as an explanatory device for an external phenomenon we cannot otherwise fit into the parameters of our experience.

Am I misunderstanding something?


Do I...
Win Powerball!!

 

[dglas]

...duplicate post....

 

[calebprime]

And if I were Clapton, I'd shake in my boots before matching my axe with Duane Allman or Dickey Betts.

agreed. And thanks for not taking offense.