ur_inner_child
.%$^!@&^#(*!?.%$^?!.
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2004
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- 2004
stop fucking spamming you horrible children
The evidence keeps on mounting. Good news.Slidey said:
To me that seems like one of those claims which would do well to take heed of the idiom "the grass is always greener on the other side". While I won't go so far as to attribute the above claim to you (given your penchant for ironic parody), I nonetheless think that claims like what you wrote above are often made with reference to unrealistic, romantic ideals. Perhaps we lost aspects of the wealthy, educated elite of old (Nietzschean overmen, perhaps, who stood on the shoulders of the many) in favour of a broader, more mass-consumed education system. But does that really constitute dumbing down civilization when it involves providing some semblance of education for all who possess the requisite cognitive abilities? Nonetheless, I don't think that we've lost the 'elite' either. We still have our Rhodes scholars wandering the halls of top tier institutions like oxbridge, Harvard, MIT, NYU, etc. with their associated faculties. Also, you need to stop making the mistake of using the 'anything goes' description for the relativist state/society (lest you fall prey to the "hsc/useless-wasted degree" that you so bemoan).Iron said:It never was. Democracy has really dumbed down civilization.
Actively questioning one's beliefs, one's society, one's most basic 'truths' is an important intellectual tool. You needn't change your mind in the end, but you should constantly question, nonetheless.JaredR said:G-d exists because I have the faith to believe he does.
Any further discussion is psuedo-intellectual, does not change anyones views and is a waste of time. There is no solid proof either way that he exists or not.
Debating religion does not make you intellectual.
I'm not sure why you see truth as dying with god. Plato certainly made arguments for the independence of morality from god, i.e. in Plato's Euthyphro a dialectical argument is made, claiming that things are not 'pious' in virtue of the fact that they are loved by the gods, but rather the gods simply happen to love that which is pious. In other words, Plato argues that 'the good' should not be defined relative to god but should instead be defined in terms of some kind of (Platonic) absolute.Iron said:I think that Atheists really miss the significance of reports on God's death - it means that truth is dead too. The logical conclusion is that any belief - no matter the linguistic constructions which necessarily decieve users into believing that there is perfection, purity, truth - is worthless.
I don't think it is quite that simple. Some areas of discourse may continue to admit of truth/falsity whilst others cease to do so. For example, few people these days would have trouble admitting that aesthetic claims are essentially statements of preference and that if we are to ever call them true we only mean 'true' in a relative sense. It's possible for aesthetics, theology and ethics to sink into a relativist quagmire while empirical science remains standing. It is similarly possible, of course, that science will go down with the rest of the ship, but it is a mistake to think that this is a necessary outcome.Iron said:You cant have it both ways. Either truth exists, or it doesnt. If it doesnt, then you cannot hide behind science, ethics etc, which is just another submission to the will to power of others, like Christians, who have made false claims to absolute truth for their own power. You have to take responsibility for your own reality, your own will to power.
Human Instrumentality Project._dhj_ said:But the real purpose of the notion of God is to alleviate the real human tragedy, and the real human tragedy is the fact that every human being can only access a part of the whole truth, and not the whole truth itself. The purpose of the God delusion lies in the idea that he or she is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. He or she is then the link between the parts of the whole truth, and human beings find comfort in the impossible idea that they, through god, can be connected with the other parts of the truth. Of course, they cannot, god does not exist and the human tragedy cannot be alleviated.
Well let's suppose that I believe it to be true (in the colloquial sense) that a certain tree in the forest fell and you believe it to be true that the tree is still standing, and let's then suppose that you are correct in the sense that the tree actually is still standing, what then is the truth? The truth is: 1) I believe the tree fell, 2) You believe the tree is still standing and 3) the tree is still standing. The belief as to the truth of something (even if it is correct) can never be that truth itself. It is only the truth in the sense that the belief exists. But once you break things down there's no real distinction between a truth of the belief and a physical truth, because a belief is a physical manifestation within a human being.Iron said:Dhj, my dear fellow, in what do you ground your meaning and truth then? Yourself?