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Originally Posted by Lazors View Post
I'm arguing for using science as a lens of observation without giving it a monopoly on the things it's worse at explaining. What exactly it's bad at explaining is hard to define, because in my view it lies beyond the communication of words. Words is simply a model of understanding that fits the wide majority, but in terms of expressive power, it's very low on the scale. Maybe because the brain doesn't process words directly, but has to translate them into images. Don't know if this applies to more abstract thought.
I'm sure that as a friend of discourse you will hate the idea of having an argument over a concept that cannot be put into words. If you want to view it as a rhetorical trick or a flimsy thought with no argumentative value, that's ok. I know I'm being controversial and possibly very annoying.

Nonsense. That reads as 'I don't know how to explain what I'm thinking, so I'm just going to blame language'. What's holding you back isn't words being shit communicative tools, it's a lack of words. You need more words!

What science fails to explain is not hard to define, and it certainly does not lie beyond the capabilities of language. What you were trying to put into words, is that science does not (/should not) deal with abstract concepts - The domain of science is objective reality, truths.

I think that's the point you wanted to make, if I'm wrong tell me. On the point itself, I don't think science has a monopoly on abstractions at all (maybe you were just saying that it shouldn't, not that it does).

Originally Posted by xero901 View Post
I dunno man. I've traveled into hyperspace and saw a reptilian with a Pharaoh's head dress while in the middle of a pyramid. Was it my own imagination? Was it real? What dictates reality? Our senses? I had a complete ego death, warping all of my senses. Of time, presence, feeling, etc. If reality and clear evidence is dictated by the usage of our senses and logical thinking, would that not mean in the conscious state we possess during dreams, that they too are a part of reality?
That's why I make the inference that all of it is a dream projected at us through our senses

Your senses do not dictate reality. They dictate your experience of reality, but they do not dictate reality. Reality exists independent of your senses (reality existed before you were born and will continue to exist after you die). This sort of thinking is dangerously close to solipsism.

You remind me of a uni mate I still occasionally interact with on Facebook. He's big into his psychedelics too and quotes ol' Terence like any good modern hippy. Every now and again I gotta bring him back down to Earth.

There's something to be said for having an open mind, but open it up too far and all sorts of weird shit starts leaking in. Don't view this as me attacking you, view it as me genuinely trying to help you.
Last edited by Ele; Jul 6, 2017 at 04:02 PM.
Ima just leave this note here

God was created by religion
People believe in god therfor he is real to them

There is no evidence to prove of his exsistance
No the world we live in doesnt count
Because we dont have an awnser for why the world was created doesnt mean it was created by a god.
While you can argue the opposite its still not a valid point

Next there are tons of religions out there
That means more then one
They were writen hundreds of year ago
So since there are multiple religions writen by multiple different people what makes any one of them right when they all rely on "faith"

And so on what makes any one of the gods they conceived right?

Romans believed in multiple gods what if they are right?

To end my note i personally cant believe in god
So since i dont believe in a god it doesnt exsist to me
Last edited by Calamity; Jul 6, 2017 at 06:27 PM.
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It doesn't exist to anyone, regardless of their level of belief. 'Exist' isn't a word to be thrown around lightly. Like I mentioned to xero, experience/perception of reality has nothing to do with actual reality.

Me believing the moon is made of cheese doesn't make it any more real, and to say that 'for me, the cheese moon exists because of my belief in the cheese moon', is a inane, vacuous statement. It doesn't mean anything.. Just panders to and comforts religious folk.

Maybe that's not what you meant, but that's how you phrased it.
Last edited by Ele; Jul 6, 2017 at 06:09 PM.
Originally Posted by Ele View Post
It doesn't exist to anyone, regardless of their level of belief. 'Exist' isn't a word to be thrown around lightly. Like I mentioned to xero, experience/perception of reality has nothing to do with actual reality.

Me believing the moon is made of cheese doesn't make it any more real, and to say that 'for me, the cheese moon exists because of my belief in the cheese moon', is a inane, vacuous statement. It doesn't mean anything.. Just panders to and comforts religious folk.

Maybe that's not what you meant, but that's how you phrased it.

If "It doesn't Exist to anyone" why are there religions?
"regardless of their level of belief."
that is what creates the notion a god exists in the first place

you also compare something that cant be proven to something that can be proven. = flawed logic
We can disprove the fact that the moon isn't cheese but we cant disprove a god


you also skipped over the whole point of my post
Last edited by Calamity; Jul 6, 2017 at 06:23 PM.
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You're fundamentally misunderstanding what it means for something to exist. Belief in unicorns doesn't make unicorns exist. Belief in god doesn't make god exist. Does the idea of unicorns exist? Yeah. Does the idea of god exist? Yeah. Does that mean it actually exists? No.

Don't like my cheese moon example? I'll redo it. 'For me, unicorns exist'. Just as inane. Just as meaningless. Just as divorced from actual reality.

The rest of your post, you explaining why you don't believe in God, isn't something I have issue with so I didn't address it... Is that a problem...?
Last edited by Ele; Jul 6, 2017 at 06:40 PM.
Originally Posted by Ele View Post
You're fundamentally misunderstanding what it means for something to exist. Belief in unicorns doesn't make unicorns exist. Belief in god doesn't make god exist.

Fundamentally this logic is flawed because people can believe in something to the point of making it real to them within their own mind (why a god was created)
To elaborate better on my original statement
reality and what is real can be 2 different things
For instance people who take hallucinogens will think(believe) something is real when it is not. (A hallucinogen is a psychoactive agent which can cause hallucinations, perceptual anomalies, and other substantial subjective changes in thoughts, emotion, and consciousness)

people can think something is real
if you cant disprove it whats to say its not real?
people believe to the point that a god is real
take away the belief or the possibility of a god and it becomes non-existent

the thoughts people have about god are very real
that manifestation of thoughts creates the god religions base their ideology around.


Originally Posted by Ele View Post
Don't like my cheese moon example? I'll redo it. 'For me, unicorns exist'. Just as inane. Just as meaningless. Just as divorced from actual reality (which was the standard for comparison).

The rest of your post, you explaining why you don't believe in God, isn't something I have issue with so I didn't address it... Is that a problem...?

For this I have no problem I i just felt like you missed my main point but i guess I was wrong.
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Probably not, but I mean i really fucking hope so.

When I think about it, I usually just come back to the question of why. Why create a universe and create people who can feel, hurt, and sin, just to eventually kill them all anyway?

Sounds like some fucked up science fair project lmao.

But then again, the way I see the big bang is a multiple number of coincidences and occurrences that happened exactly right in order to facilitate life.

And think about this: Earth is EXACTLY where it needed to be in order to house life. Not too far away from the sun, but also not too close. It has both water and land, large enough to allow for billions of people to live on.

Perhaps we won the lottery, or perhaps we really do have some sadist all knowing being controlling every part of our lives.

I guess we really won't know until we die.


It's also interesting to note, that there are multiple occasions that people have died, and been resuscitated. Upon waking up, some of them claim to have been in heaven and seen God. (In particular I'm going to reference the children that have experienced this). From what I've read, there are multiple similar accounts that all reference the same things, along with the same descriptions.

Perhaps some mass hysteria? I don't really think these children have the capacity to lie about something like that but who knows.

Another question to ask yourself. If there IS a God, which religions God(s) is it? Maybe we have multiple gods from the greeks or romans. Maybe it is just 1 powerful and almighty God.

There are a lot of posts that say there is no proof that God exists. I ask you, is there any proof that he doesn't??

Sorta reminds me of the Schrödinger's cat experiment. We won't know until we die (open the box).
Last edited by Fox; Jul 6, 2017 at 06:59 PM.

i miss you ocean
Originally Posted by Calamity View Post
Fundamentally this logic is flawed because people can believe in something to the point of making it real to them within their own mind (why a god was created)

To elaborate better on my original statement
reality and what is real can be 2 different things

For instance people who take hallucinogens will think(believe) something is real when it is not. (A hallucinogen is a psychoactive agent which can cause hallucinations, perceptual anomalies, and other substantial subjective changes in thoughts, emotion, and consciousness)

people can think something is real
if you cant disprove it whats to say its not real?

Again, this is just experience/perception of reality (what you called 'what is real'). Using hallucinogens as an example, imagine that I'm tripping on some mad LSD and I see a unicorn right in front of me. Imagine then that I ask my friend to take a photo of the area in front of me. Lo and behold, the photo does not reveal a unicorn to be standing there. What I thought was real, my experience of reality turned out to be at odds with actual reality.

Yes, in my mind there would've been all sorts of chemical shit firing off so that I actually, visually see a unicorn... BUT, the unicorn doesn't actually exist in reality. That's the point I was getting at when I said god doesn't exist to anyone - Doesn't exist in actual reality.

Yes, reality and perception of reality are two different things, but the latter does not influence or dictate the former.

Originally Posted by Parrot
There are a lot of posts that say there is no proof that God exists. I ask you, is there any proof that he doesn't??

Was that a joke?
Last edited by Ele; Jul 6, 2017 at 07:21 PM.
Originally Posted by Ele View Post
Nonsense. That reads as 'I don't know how to explain what I'm thinking, so I'm just going to blame language'. What's holding you back isn't words being shit communicative tools, it's a lack of words. You need more words!

I expected this sort of criticism. Of course, trying to explain with words that words can explain what words can explain isn't really convincing to me. Is it possible to translate a painting to a text without losing its original intent?
If not, you have to accept at least that the communicative value of art is different from the communicative value of text.


Originally Posted by Ele View Post

What science fails to explain is not hard to define, and it certainly does not lie beyond the capabilities of language. What you were trying to put into words, is that science does not (/should not) deal with abstract concepts - The domain of science is objective reality, truths.

You're right, I was sloppy in distinguishing between science and abstract thought. I see science, art, math, and really all fields of knowledge as lenses to understand the universe. I would say though that science and art stems from the same core, the intuition derived from our observation of patterns. The scientific method is not an automated objective system, it requires intuition because there's no other way you'd know what to test for. There's an endless number of potential causes for a phenomenon, and thus a virtually infinite number of hypotheses. Without intuitive thought the advance of science would be much much slower.
The thing that binds science and art together is that they both take inspiration from the patterns of the world to create their work. Intuition is the subconcious observation of the patterns of the universe. The patterns of the universe is our way of understanding the whole that can never be understood without being split into smaller parts.

(I'm echoing Pirsig a lot here)


Also, forgot to address this:
Originally Posted by Ezeth
Also science and reason doesn't do shit to art, you can still express how you feel through imagery without science standing in the way. You can still have mindfullness and be at one with yourself without mixing in religion as well.

If you swallow the idea that art is beyond science and reason, and there are ideas that cannot be translated into words, you must accept that there is something bigger that we cannot understand. If that isn't the definition of God I don't know what is.
Last edited by Lazors; Jul 6, 2017 at 07:56 PM.
Brendan (he who passeth judgement on the frequent changing of signatures): I don't do hentai anymore
Originally Posted by Ele View Post
Your senses do not dictate reality. They dictate your experience of reality, but they do not dictate reality. Reality exists independent of your senses (reality existed before you were born and will continue to exist after you die). This sort of thinking is dangerously close to solipsism.

This is where I go back to the idea of collective unconscious.
EDIT:
Well it is solipsism. If reality existed independent of my senses, what proof do I have of that other than my senses?
Originally Posted by Ele View Post
You remind me of a uni mate I still occasionally interact with on Facebook. He's big into his psychedelics too and quotes ol' Terence like any good modern hippy. Every now and again I gotta bring him back down to Earth.
There's something to be said for having an open mind, but open it up too far and all sorts of weird shit starts leaking in. Don't view this as me attacking you, view it as me genuinely trying to help you.

I like how you view my thinking as harmful. It's actually quite humorous. No, believe me bro. I was the exact same way before I started experiencing really out there shit happening in my life. Like biblical quotes written on the wall perfectly fitting into the context of the situation I faced, people I had known forever ago meeting up in weird times in my life, thoughts I had months, years, or days ago manifesting in the most random ways. Conversations I've had with shamanistic people, learning Qi-gong, experiencing Deja Vu in weird checkpoints of my life where I found myself maturing and growing up. Visions of Alex Grey paintings and St Germaine's ascension through third eye meditation, etc.
It's very much a everything is and everything isn't kind of thing, I believe. I don't go too far into the 'everything is fake' head trip, but I don't allow the ego to be so attached to the world to think that it needs to hold on to something that is so ever changing and fluid. I find a center between the two and engage life in that mindset.

Edit: I feel as if there's a big misconception here on my actual intelligence and disposition because I'm playing the devil's advocate here with the spiritual talk. But believe me when I say I've been on the opposite of the argument plenty of times as an egotistical atheist.

Originally Posted by Lazors View Post
If you swallow the idea that art is beyond science and reason, and there are ideas that cannot be translated into words, you must accept that there is something bigger that we cannot understand. If that isn't the definition of God I don't know what is.

S a v a g e

Edit: That's another thing, you guys are completely ignoring the repeatable visions, symbols, and archetypes that pop up in many grand mal psychedelic trips. There's a reason why Alex Grey paints the shit that he does, there's a reason why people recite violet flame mantras, there's a reason why people talk of sacred geometry so much. It can't just all be ingrained in our own brains with the evolutionary timeline spreading as far as it does. It /has/ to come from somewhere. Like the study done on Japanese monkeys from Mt. Fuji attempting to wash and eat sweet potatoes. The researchers saw that the monkeys had started chilling in Fuji's hot springs a couple of hundred years ago when they had witnessed humans doing it.
So they attempted to give them dirty sweet potatoes and teach them how to wash them and eat it. Also to see if they could spread the information around and teach the group. They did. So the researchers move onto another island completely separate, but within the same vicinity from the other to attempt this experiment.
Despite never conducting the experiment, all the monkeys already knew how to wash sweet potatoes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundredth_monkey_effect

Edit: Another thing, if people aren't asking for your help. And if you think 'helping' someone is flexing your own ego at them, attempting to invalidate their opinion as drug-fueled rambling, you got too much to work with in your own head to be working in mine brah.
Last edited by Xer0; Jul 6, 2017 at 08:43 PM.
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