For former Mormons who became atheists

[_subgenius]

(beyond the horizon imposed by my humanity, which is inherently incapable of understanding total reality, in my experience).

Given your position, there is no way for you to propose that there is anything beyond that which is imposed by your humanity. "Total reality" is as you understand it - it is impossible for you to suppose, assume, or even speculate that there is something "else".

The problem with concepts like "universe" and "God" is that they are hard to talk about meaningfully.

meaningfully?

I want to know whether the universe/God is kind.

why? if by your own admission you can never know and by your own thinking it is not possible for you to know either way.

Good is evil, sometimes. Love is hatred. Life is death. I cannot see any way around this. But it is certainly possible that I am just a blind man stumbling where those with eyes walk purposefully.

you seem to seasoning your posts with a little Aleistair Crowley as well. (spoiler alert?)

[_Hermes]

I was thinking of the bow of Heraclitus, or the lyre, but I wouldn't be surprised if Crowley said something similar.

[_subgenius]

I was thinking of the bow of Heraclitus, or the lyre, but I wouldn't be surprised if Crowley said something similar.

yes..."unity of opposites" being a notion for both of them...and obviously what you are peddling here. Though you seem to rely more on the far eastern references - or worse the new age references which cloak them with far eastern references (ie Motorcycle maintenance...ugh).
So, while i appreciate the mystical qualities presented...i must warn you....there are many on this board that will claim that Dr Shades can not be both in the hall and in the room.
viewtopic.php?p=649666#p649666

[_Hermes]

When I look at ethical dilemmas (the only ones I really care about), it seems to me that real life problematizes the opposition that language makes convenient (with words like good and evil, love and hate, positive and negative, etc.). Another problem that arises is the contrast between the individual and the universal, which in some cases is insuperable (as far as I can tell): there are some problems which only I can solve for myself, and it would be folly for me to expect anyone else to give me final, actionable answers (such as many of us routinely demand from priests, prophets, politicians, divinity, or ideology).

I think Pirsig is interesting (even if he isn't right about everything: how could he be, offering a theory of everything?), much as the early Presocratics are (along with other thinkers in what some have called mystical traditions). But there is a certain practicality in their "mystical" worldviews that often escapes notice. To me it seems that they accurately describe what happens to me routinely as I notice the world, separate it into ideas that I can manipulate, and then readjust as my ideas prove inadequate to cope with ongoing experience. For years I tried not to notice this process. I tried to make my experience stop with the "correct" (true) concepts in place. Mistakes were an indication that the world was wrong rather than proof that I needed to re-evaluate my worldview, scrapping or at least questioning the bits that kept on giving me grief. Today, I retool and scrap concepts much more easily (recognizing their inherent fragility rather than trying to make them permanent the way I used to).

Talk is cheap. Thought is even cheaper. I used to think the opposite. I used to obsess over saying and thinking only the "right" things. Then I realized that I couldn't help speaking and thinking mostly nonsense, most of the time, and that there was no way I was going to reduce that to a perfect stream of lucid truth. That is the greatest revelation of my faith journey (to date).

[_subgenius]

When I look at ethical dilemmas (the only ones I really care about), it seems to me that real life problematizes the opposition that language makes convenient (with words like good and evil, love and hate, positive and negative, etc.). Another problem that arises is the contrast between the individual and the universal, which in some cases is insuperable (as far as I can tell):

what means you by using "problematizes"?

if you are proposing that the individual and universal are both contrast-able and yet are inseparable then wherein lies the "problem" ?
is the "problem" not, in your view, the consideration which may be that contrast and inseparable even exist?

there are some problems which only I can solve for myself, and it would be folly for me to expect anyone else to give me final, actionable answers (such as many of us routinely demand from priests, prophets, politicians, divinity, or ideology).

for example, which problems?

At what point are suggesting that this "disconnect" occurs?

I mean, all human beings solve the hunger problem the same way - they eat....they all solve the respiration problem the same way - they breathe....they all solve the exhaustion problem the same way - they sleep....

so - how is it possible that, suddenly, there is a human condition that is unique and only unto one particular individual?

I think Pirsig is interesting (even if he isn't right about everything: how could he be, offering a theory of everything?), much as the early Presocratics are (along with other thinkers in what some have called mystical traditions). But there is a certain practicality in their "mystical" worldviews that often escapes notice. To me it seems that they accurately describe what happens to me routinely as I notice the world, separate it into ideas that I can manipulate, and then readjust as my ideas prove inadequate to cope with ongoing experience. For years I tried not to notice this process. I tried to make my experience stop with the "correct" (true) concepts in place. Mistakes were an indication that the world was wrong rather than proof that I needed to re-evaluate my worldview, scrapping or at least questioning the bits that kept on giving me grief. Today, I retool and scrap concepts much more easily (recognizing their inherent fragility rather than trying to make them permanent the way I used to).

are you suggesting that your mind - no! your being - is some sort of complex Rube Goldberg machine?

Talk is cheap. Thought is even cheaper. I used to think the opposite. I used to obsess over saying and thinking only the "right" things. Then I realized that I couldn't help speaking and thinking mostly nonsense, most of the time, and that there was no way I was going to reduce that to a perfect stream of lucid truth. That is the greatest revelation of my faith journey (to date).

are you suggesting that you make conscious decisions to not make conscious decisions?

[_Hermes]

It seems to me that the separable and contrastable exist momentarily, in contexts where they make sense. But they don't exist absolutely (outside of particular, material situations). The universal thus becomes less real than the particular: it exists as a useful mental fiction, helping us describe a class of things descriptively (rather than prescriptively). The universal Canis familiaris exists as something actionable and useful in certain contexts, even if invoking the words tells you precisely nothing about particular dogs (which might be Chihuahuas or Great Danes). If I try to make universals like Canis familiaris more real than the particulars that they point to, I run the risk of assuming that all Canes familiares are small, spindly things when my experience with them is limited to Chihuahuas. My category becomes too small to handle reality.

The result of thinking this way, for me, is that I don't put much stock in universal descriptions of nature which affect to be prescriptive. My attitude is one of inquisitive interest ("what does reality look like?") rather than one of decision ("after careful investigation, I have concluded that the meaning of life is 42, for reasons that anyone of sense must find compelling"). I am not sure what the limits of Canis familiaris look like, over the long haul (as epigenetics continue to play themselves out). I don't believe in a Platonic idea of "dog" that is unitary, definite, and coherent for all dogs everywhere at all times.

[Guest]

On human problems. We all eat, but we don't all eat the same food (and I don't want what you're having). We all drink, but I don't want what you're drinking. We all have sex, but I don't like it the way you do. People naturally tend towards the creation of universal ideals of food, sex, and whatnot, even when these prove worse than useless in real life (e.g. when you make wheat a mainstay of your diet and I have Celiac disease: this problem only increases if you are a priest or a scientist or some government official with all kinds of social clout that you use to force me to eat the wheat that kills me).

[Guest]

On conscious thinking. I make the conscious decision to regard most human thought, including my own, as errant nonsense--interesting burps emanating by accident from some remarkably lucky pieces of organic matter (that might just as easily not have become conscious at all). The immediate utility of thought is to show me proximate danger, even when it isn't there (does that look like a tiger in the grass? better safe than sorry). Its ability to separate out ultimate truth or the secret(s) of happiness (for me, let alone an imaginary universal like mankind) is very limited.

I used to think of thought as a vehicle for universal knowledge. Now it seems more like a vehicle for particular ignorance. But of course I still think. I cannot really help that.

[_Hermes]

On the human body as a Rube Goldberg machine. I really like this idea, actually. As animals, we contain all kinds of idiosyncrasies (why did we get eyes with unnecessary blind-spots built in?) and redundancies (two kidneys? two eyes? two lungs? no economist would waste resources like that). We are inefficient, redundant, clunky, and everything we do involves unnecessary complication (even at the simplest level, biological life represents an unnecessary complication in inorganic matter, a complication that persists and becomes more complicated with time, thus far!).

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Gen 1:25-27 Confused Christian god creates Man after it creates animals

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Gen 2:18 Confused Christian god creates Man before it creates animals

18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

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If the Bible is fundamentally unreliable for information about their god, why do Christians put so much faith in it? It's patently obvious that the Bible is nonsense, yet we have relatively smart people believing in it. That's stunning to me.

V/R
Dr. Cam