Topic: Health and Religion - page 113. (Read 210900 times)

It is more elegant and far easier to accept as a working hypothesis that sentience exists as a potential at the source of creation, and the strongest evidence has already been put on the table: Everything to be observed in the universe implies consciousness.

The world is rational.
Human reason can, in principle, be developed more highly (through certain techniques).
There are systematic methods for the solution of all problems.
There are other worlds and rational beings of a different and higher kind.
The world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived.
There is incomparably more knowable a priori that is currently known.
The development of human thought since the Renaissance is thoroughly one-dimensional.
Reason in mankind will be developed in every direction.
Formal rights comprise a real science.
Materialism is false.
The higher beings are connected to the others by analogy, not by composition.
Concepts have an objective existence.
There is a scientific (exact) philosophy and theology, which deals with concepts of the highest abstractness; and this is also most highly fruitful for science.
Religions are, for the most part, bad—but religion is not.

Positivists decline to acknowledge any a priori knowledge. They wish to reduce everything to sense perceptions. Generally they contradict themselves in that they deny introspection as experience. … They use too narrow a notion of experience and introduce an arbitrary bound on what experience is …

One bad effect of logical positivism is its claim of being intimately associated with mathematical logic. As a result, other philosophers tend to distance themselves from mathematical logic and therewith deprive themselves of the benefits of a precise way of thinking.

What I call the theological worldview is the idea that the world and everything in it has meaning and reason, and in particular a good and indubitable meaning. It follows immediately that our worldly existence, since it has in itself at most a very dubious meaning, can only be means to the end of another existence. The idea that everything in the world has a meaning [reason] is an exact analogue of the principle that everything has a cause, on which rests all of science.

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Ah you mean materialism as in hedonism, this again is the problem for empiricists (they don't have a priori and therefore can't have nice things).

Most likely, but the reasons used would be subject to critique. Even your definition of good is not the infinite creator, but something else. Leibniz defined this world as the best possible world in order for the world to have a good reason to exist, this was god's will as the good itself, that gives the idea of good as perfection, I use the same without the theological conceptual framework .. my definitions are very technical, I'm afraid it would not go far, explaining them here in more detail. Suffice it to say, that the idea of good is one of perfection, that there is an essential duality to it (the a priori idea of perfection as imperative and a necessary relation of its determinations and a posteriori practical perfection as a contingent relation), that this leads to to the specific practical idea of good for a human society as the identity of the good of individual and the good of common (everyhing done in a way not at the same time beneficial to the individual and the society as a whole is bad), etc. but thats not really the nihilist part, nihilism is about ontology, the lack of onlogical ground, the absence of the infinite that would prevent time from having a reality.

Excerpts from the Introduction:

When one knows a number of things, and understands how they are categorized and systematically interrelated, then he has a great advantage over one who has the same knowledge without such distinction. It is very much like the difference between looking at a well-arranged garden, planted in rows and patters, and seeing a wild thicket or a forest growing in confusion.

When an individual is confronted by many details and does not know how they relate to one another or their true place in a general system, then his inquisitive intellect is given nothing more than a difficult unsatisfying burden. He may struggle with it, but he will tire and grow weary long before he attains any gratification. Each detail will arouse his curiosity, but not having access to the concept as a whole, he will remain frustrated.

If one wishes to understand something, it is therefore very important that he be aware of other things associated with it as well as its place among them. Without this, one's longing for truth will be frustrated and he will be pained by his unsatisfied desire.

The exact opposite is true when one knows something in relation to its context. Since he sees it within its framework, he can go on to grasp other concepts associated with it, and his success will bring pleasure and elation.

When one studies a subject, he must therefore be aware of the place of each element within the most general scheme. When one takes into account existence as a whole, including everything imaginable, whether detectable by our senses or conceivable by our minds, then he recognizes that things are not all in the same category and level. The categories are both varied and numerous, and as they vary, so do the rules and principles associated with them. In order to comprehend the true nature of each thing, one must also be able to recognize these distinctions.

There are, however, certain primary elements that must be recognized as part of the essential nature of each concept. Out of all the levels and categories, one should be able to distinguish the following: the whole and the part, the general and the particular, the cause and the effect, and the object itself and its associated qualities.

Thus, when one examines something, he should first determine whether it is a whole or a part, a general category or a detail, a cause or an effect, an object or a property. When he realizes its place in the general scheme, he can then recognize the elements needed to complete his understanding and provide a precise general picture. If it is a part, then he will seek to discover its whole. If it is a particular case, he will seek to find its general category. If it is a cause, he will seek its effect; if an effect, its cause. If he finds something to be a quality, he will seek to discover its subject. He will also strive to ascertain what kind of quality it is, whether it precedes, accompanies or follows its subject, and whether it is intrinsic or accidental, potential or actual. All these are distinctions without which we cannot have a complete picture of any thing's true nature.

Beyond this, one must look into the nature of the thing itself, determining whether it involves an absolute or limited concept. If the concept is limited, he should ascertain its limits, since even when a concept itself is true, its truth is corrupted if it is improperly compared to something, or if it is taken outside its area of validity.

It is also important to realize that the number of individual details is so great that it is beyond the power of the human mind to embrace them and know them all. One's goal should therefore be to attain knowledge of general principles.

By its very nature, every general principle includes many details. As a result, when a person grasps a general principle, automatically he also grasps a large number of details. Although at the outset a person possessing a general principle might not be aware of its specific details or recognize them as elements of the general principle, later, when confronted by them, he will be able to recognize them. Once he is aware of the general principle he will not be at a loss to recognize the details that [fall under it and] cannot exist without it...

Taking all of this into consideration, I have written this small book. My intent was to set forth the general principles of belief and religion, expounding them all in a way that is clearly understood, to provide a complete picture, free of ambiguity and confusion. The roots and branches are presented according to their place in the general scheme, so that each one can be put to heart and be grasped with the greatest possible clarity. This book provides a basis which will make it much easier for you, its readers, to attain knowledge of God

We have no real value just because value isn't real, but a property of knowledge.
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While things themselves aren't good or evil, facts serve as the basis of our knowledge of them as good or evil. Inherent significance is an oxymoron, there is only extrinsic meaning,

And how to be certain in the knowledge of (the) idea of good? You have to deduce it a priori, much like a mathematical proof.

Of course, the fact that the machinery of time holds all the other machinery of nature, is far greater evidence for God than of lack of a god.

So you conclude "there may be value depending on the context"; if this is so, then only one who has educated oneself about the entire diversity of contexts and the whole of history can say that he has the correct "finite process" for valuation. So this path to knowledge obviously involves learning about the other worlds and those rational beings of a different and higher kind. You also would eventually have to realize that the world in which we live is not the only one in which we shall live or have lived, and that there are contexts presently unknown to you. This very line of reasoning denies humanism, and it is a problem for the nihilist because according to secular scholars, "all rational atheists are humanists" (unless you are some oddball French philosopher from the 20th century). The nihilist needs a wide diversity of contexts in order to have a complete glimpse into the valuation problem, therefore any educated discussion of these contexts will turn to the subject of extraterrestrials, etheric beings, and the like.

I think that your version of nihilism is nothing new;

The assumption that is required in your argument is that human knowledge of value can progress, but this is dependent on humanism, the idea that man is the sole judge of all things.

How can you say that man's knowledge of value can progress unless man himself is the judge of that progress?

It is good that you bring up the rational basis of values in the context of objectivity; one philosopher has said:


Since values have a rational basis, it is sensible to ground our highest virtue in thinking, and the highest evil would be to refuse to know about other contexts of knowledge and values; therefore, only a sufficiently diverse education can allow the potential for the progress of values.

there is no intrinsic value, and therefore valuing is required as a finite process among other, succeptible to context and change, and because of that capable of progressing.

In place of the old morality, we will get the new morality-one that's more relevant-namely that "nothing is real except our world of desires and passions," as Friedrich Nietzsche phrased it in his book Beyond Good and Evil. Formally, this philosophy is not called pluralism, but secular humanism. The problem Christians have with secular humanism is not that it is truly pluralistic, but that it subjects man to the sentimentality and enthusiasms of the moment. Indeed, history has shown that secular humanism - the view that man is the sole judge of the world, including morality, the shape of society, and the value of the individual - is very bad for humanity.

To take values as fixed, therefore only blocks the potential progress of values and robs them of their rational basis, that they always possess in some form. It doesn't even mean there isn't an objective basis of values, just that they aren't inherent to mere objectivity itself. As an analogy, we can take mathematics, that has an objective basis, yet isn't inherent in things themselves, but has to be created in order to describe them.

Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict “It is.” Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say “It is,” you are refusing to say “I am.” By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: “Who am I to know?” he is declaring: “Who am I to live?”

I fail to see how metaphysical nihilism does not lead inevitably to moral nihilism. On what grounds do you establish morality. You can make rules codified into law reflecting the preferences of the majority but how can anything ever be right or wrong. At best you have the preferences of a majority or realistically the preferences of the ruling elite subject to change and personal expediency. What is the inherent significance of these rules? Nothing just transient strictures that carry a degree of risk if broken. If there is no world just things what does that say about humanity itself? Well we must simply be one more group of things with no real necessary value. If you can reach any other conclusion starting from metaphysical nihilism I am curious as to how.  

Have you considered the possibility that the the end point of such a search the optimal rational ontology and morals may be ethical monotheism and if so the potential consequences of rejecting the optimum while searching for it. Ethical monotheism does not require a belief in spiritualism.

There is a certain ironic elegance to a universe in which continued and sustained existence comes only to those who honor and respect its creator not via divine intervention but through inevitable cause and effect. Do we live in such a universe? It is entirely possible that we do.

For philosophy, nihilism is foremost the metaphysical nihilism, that is a nihilism in ontology and epistemology (there is no eternal ontological ground, in theistic terms, world doesn't have a creator, in any sense, and therefore has no unity as the world, this lack of unity, this unity is the concept of the world, therefore onlogical nihilism can claim that there is no world, just things).

This should not be confused with the simplistic claims that there is nothing, and we can't know anything as theists interpret it, but as its own metaphysical ground capable of producing rational ontology, epistemology and morals without succumbing to spiritualism. On this basis what we can say is that there is no intrinsic value, and therefore valuing is required as a finite process among other, susceptible to context and change, and because of that capable of progressing. To take values as fixed, therefore only blocks the potential progress of values and robs them of their rational basis.

there is no intrinsic value, and therefore valuing is required as a finite process among other, succeptible to context and change, and because of that capable of progressing.

To take values as fixed, therefore only blocks the potential progress of values and robs them of their rational basis, that they always possess in some form. It doesn't even mean there isn't an objective basis of values, just that they aren't inherent to mere objectivity itself. As an analogy, we can take mathematics, that has an objective basis, yet isn't inherent in things themselves, but has to be created in order to describe them.

Thinking is man’s only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one’s consciousness, the refusal to think—not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment—on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict “It is.” Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence exists; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say “It is,” you are refusing to say “I am.” By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: “Who am I to know?” he is declaring: “Who am I to live?”

Many of these unbelieving scientists think that the universe was created by the Big Bang something like 13 billion years ago.

Now I know the reason why some people with high IQs become atheist.  Scientist who were really intelligent do not believe the existence of our Almighty God, Einstein is exception.  They became rebellious sometimes, high egos with super high confidence that they do not believe that their someone who is behind all the  things we have on Earth.  And because of thinking their superiority, they do almost what they want.  They abused their health compared to people who believes to the existence of God.  These people values their lives as they know that our body is the temple of Christ.  Thus, people who believes God values their life.  They are mostly the contented person and they are mostly the happy beings.