Atheism vs. Religion

Are you religious?

  • Yes, I follow a religion.

    Votes: 19 38.8%
  • No, I firmly believe that there is no God.

    Votes: 19 38.8%
  • I haven't thought about it enough to decide for myself.

    Votes: 11 22.4%

  • Total voters
    49
That without a human being there to see truth, in every single instance, there is nothing anywhere to see anything. One has to imagine it's existence in any other case.
 
Originally posted by neon_duke
But it doesn't take any responsibility away from us at all. It is 100% our responsibility to understand it, or die from the lack of understanding our environment. That relieves us of nothing, which is perfectly fine, since I ask to be relieved of nothing. I don't see how it seems "comforting" to imagine that the Truth is indifferent to our presence. "Comforting" to me would imply the belief that a God created us, loves us, and will make everything all right in the end. But that particular belief just isn't terribly comforting to me and others who I am like.

What created these nice systems? What created the organization that we can easily apprehend? What created truth?
 
Originally posted by milefile
That without a human being there to see truth, in every single instance, there is nothing anywhere to see anything. One has to imagine it's existence in any other case.

OK. It still seems that you are hung up on the frame of reference. But I'll leave it at that.

Originally posted by milefile
What created these nice systems? What created the organization that we can easily apprehend? What created truth?
I don't know. Does that mean it can't exist?
 
Originally posted by milefile
I think we did, do, will.
So suns did not burn, planets did not orbit, seas did not condense, until we arrived to figure it out?
 
Originally posted by neon_duke
So suns did not burn, planets did not orbit, seas did not condense, until we arrived to figure it out?

No. But it was meaningless. Truth has to mean something. What is the point otherwise?

The sun will explode. So what? Why does that matter? Without humans there to decide it matters at all, it doesn't.
 
You will say truth doesn't have to mean anything. I will disagree because I say it serves purpose.

Yup, that is what I was going to say. Why must truth serve purpose? What purpose has it served those who have been executed for speaking it?
 
Originally posted by milefile
You will say truth doesn't have to mean anything. I will disagree because I say it serves purpose.
Understanding of truth serves purpose. Purpose is accomplished by understanding Truth. But Truth, in and of itself, does not need to mean anything. It is the understanding of it that has meaning, not the truth itself. The meaning is that Understanding allows humans to operate for their own Purposes, within the systematic environment that is Truth.
 
Understanding of truth serves purpose. Purpose is accomplished by understanding Truth. But Truth, in and of itself, does not need to mean anything. It is the understanding of it that has meaning, not the truth itself. The meaning is that Understanding allows humans to operate for their own Purposes, within the systematic environment that is Truth.

But how can something with zero value matter at all?

You're 100% correct - Truth has no value without Understanding. I never said it did...
 
Originally posted by milefile
But how can something with zero value matter at all?
Because with understanding, Truth becomes not only valuable, but critical... but only to human purposes.
 
Originally posted by milefile
So then:

1. Human understands.
2. Truth is born.
NO! That simply doesn't follow, logically. It's more like this:

1. Truth exists.
2. Human understands.
3. Human gains value.
 
Before humans, truth is the only thing that exists. It is only after humans arrive that lies exist.
 
Bah. I'm not even going there. I'm surprised you seem to have read Beyond Good and Evil. You missed the whole point. It's germination can be found in an early essay called On Truth and Lies in and Extra Moral Sense. I suggest you check it out. It says what I have been trying to say much more elegantly than I could ever hope to.

*edit*
The essay is called On Truth and Lie . . . , not "Beyond". I got it mixed up with the aforementioned book.
 
Bah. I'm not even going there

I was just trying to illustrate how things exist without humans. It didn't work though because of the mulitple ways to use the word truth... anyway... I'll read the essay and get back to you.
 
I believe that there is a God and that Jesus came and died for our sins. I can feel God in my life day to day, guiding me along, and it wasn't until I excepted Jesus into my life that these changes started to occur. Waking up early and having my quiet time (prayer time) has been very benifitial to me. I recently visited Colorado and while I was looking at the mountains I couldn't bring myself to believe that all of this was one giant accident, that there is a creator.
 
I think this quote captures the assertion Nietzsche is making.

“What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.”

If truths are illusions about which one has forgotten, why do inventions work? How does science go about creating new tools which rely on true physical principles to work? The fact that humanity invents proves that we are learning truths about our environment. So either Nietzsche is totally off on this point, or we’re talking about different kinds of truths.
 
You're taliking about technology, which is important and valuable. But Fritz is arguing that truth is (used for) much more than that. Scientific facts, like the temperature at which water freezes, is valuable if you want to make a freezer, or predict what state water will be in after a time. But the human dependence and expectation of all things to be organizable into conceptual schemata like that has deeper consequences beyond useful devices, not the least of which being that very dependence and expectation.
 
I clipped out these passages as seeming to point to what I have been trying to say:

There have been eternities when it (intellect) did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead beyond human life. It is human, rather, and only its owner and producer gives it such importance, as if the world pivoted around it.

...he desires the agreeable life-preserving consequences of truth, but he is indifferent to pure knowledge, which has no consequences; he is even hostile to possibly damaging and destructive truths.

The "thing in itself" (for that is what pure truth, without consequences, would be) is quite incomprehensible to the creators of language and not at all worth aiming for. One designates only the relations of things to man, and to express them one calls on the boldest metaphors.
 
I believe in Viperism, does that count? j/k no seriously, I think there's a god but I don't understand religion at all and don't like to talk about it even more. I don't get why if your gonna believe in god that you have to be in a religion and you are bound by some rules made up by whom? As well as people to me not seeming to follow them and I'm not talking about stuff that's been in the news. I guess in a way this stuff starts to sound like Politics and I hate that too.

Nick:rolleyes:
 
But the human dependence and expectation of all things to be organizable into conceptual schemata like that has deeper consequences beyond useful devices, not the least of which being that very dependence and expectation.

I need a concrete example here. What real truth is there beyond raw scientific fact?

The temperature at which water has frozen is true. The expectation that it will continue to freeze at that temperature is not real truth.... The expectation that all things can be organized is not truth, but it is reasonable given our current perception of the universe.
 
Professor Hawking, one of the most famous "truth seekers", is practically obsessed with a "theory of everything". His books are among the most popular around, and this idea that a "theory of everything" is disseminated in this way. Along with that a belief that this is attainable is encouraged. but this didn't just start, Fritz saw it a hundred and thirty years ago.
 
Originally posted by danoff
I need a concrete example here. What real truth is there beyond raw scientific fact?
Pain is bad.

This may or may not be a good example but...

It has been scientifically proven that calorie restriction extends life. Mammals who are kept at the verge of starvation will live longer than well fed mammals, all other things being equal (an easy and almost given state for humans). And it is assumed that a long life is better than a short one. A huge amount of technology is devoted specifically to this end, extending human lives. Yet one method which has proven to yeild excelent results is not encouraged, and most people don't even know about it. Instead we are taught to eat well, that we need 3000 calories a day, etc. It's printed right on the food. Because pain is bad, and hunger is pain. So we intentionally shorten life to avoid the discomfort of hunger and enjoy food. A truth that is "harmful" is ignored.

The temperature at which water has frozen is true. The expectation that it will continue to freeze at that temperature is not real truth....
Sure it is. Being able to predict and anticipate is one of the primary uses of truth.

When something is proven (perceived) to be false, it instantly becomes useless, even threatening.
 
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