• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!
  • Welcome to our archives. No new posts are allowed here.

If You Were Offered The Opportunity To See Satan Would You?

sear said:
... and the Holy Qur'an, and Nature.

There are scriptural answers to many questions.

But there are non-scriptural answers to most questions, including Epicurus'.
Click to expand...

But are they logical? Do they make sense or do they sound like some far out, unreasonable philosophy?
 
Satan can project His image as anything He wants to.

I'd prefer not to meet Him. Image projected as a Sweet Bae with desires on me?

Doubleplusungood.


Weakness meter pegged.
 
"But are they logical? Do they make sense or do they sound like some far out, unreasonable philosophy?" E #251
Click to expand...
I can address your question even if I can't answer it to your satisfaction.
But I'd like you to know I appreciate the thoughtful attitude required to compose it so constructively.

I'm a huge fan of logic, not merely for practical reasons (useful in diagnosis), but ironically for emotional reasons as well.
For example, I was born in '54. So the original run of Star Trek hit when I was young and impressionable.
I appreciated the psychological contrast between Kirk's emotional undercurrents, and Spock's logical façade.

BUT !!

Though I love the simplicity of purism, reality has forced me to admit that the better systems tend to be blends; which purists can criticize with their eyes closed.

Love is the text-book example. Love isn't purely logical. Why are you not gay, or if you are, why are you not straight?

Art Schopenhauer man can do as he wills, but cannot determine what he wills. It's not purely logical.
Some men prefer buxom women. Other men prefer breastless rib-cage.

Where's the logic?
Men generally are attracted to women that are "good breeders" and women generally are attracted to "good providers". tralphaz
Click to expand...
Take II:
"But are they logical? Do they make sense or do they sound like some far out, unreasonable philosophy?" E #251
Click to expand...
"Ideas are not for believing. Ideas are for using." psychologist Joy Browne
 
sear said:
I can address your question even if I can't answer it to your satisfaction.
But I'd like you to know I appreciate the thoughtful attitude required to compose it so constructively.

I'm a huge fan of logic, not merely for practical reasons (useful in diagnosis), but ironically for emotional reasons as well.
For example, I was born in '54. So the original run of Star Trek hit when I was young and impressionable.
I appreciated the psychological contrast between Kirk's emotional undercurrents, and Spock's logical façade.

BUT !!

Though I love the simplicity of purism, reality has forced me to admit that the better systems tend to be blends; which purists can criticize with their eyes closed.

Love is the text-book example. Love isn't purely logical. Why are you not gay, or if you are, why are you not straight?

Art Schopenhauer man can do as he wills, but cannot determine what he wills. It's not purely logical.
Some men prefer buxom women. Other men prefer breastless rib-cage.

Where's the logic?

Take II:

"Ideas are not for believing. Ideas are for using." psychologist Joy Browne
Click to expand...

Those are logical answers to earthly things, true...things pertaining to man's everyday life but what about deeper things man has pondered since the beginning of time, like the answers to questions about life itself and why man suffers, grows old, and dies or why God allows wickedness? I don't know, I am just asking since I don't read much about philosophies written by men...
 
"answers to questions about life itself and why man suffers, grows old, and dies" E #254

Yes.
They are both obvious, and age-old questions.

BUT !!

Our analytical tool-kit is filling out.
"A prudent question is one half of wisdom." William James
Click to expand...
The questions we ask, and their syntax can have powerful influence on the answers we obtain.

"Why ...?" implies a deliberate plan.
And many religious persons will not consider any other explanation.

But others understand what Dr. Carl Sagan stated:
"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." CS
Click to expand...
Here's how Hitchens put it:
"Astrology is I think the most feeble minded of the superstitions, and sinister only in the sense that it's the most solipsistic, just as the religious fool believes that he is the object of Gods creation, that he is so loved and created for a purpose, and even supervised at all times, that's how much he counts. By the way this is what's known as modesty among Christians, I don't understand it." Christopher Hitchens '98 CSPAN
Click to expand...
"or why God allows wickedness?" E #254
“Is god willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him god?” ― Epicurus (341-270BC)

""God" is portrayed as omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and short of cash." Crane
Click to expand...
 
Hmmm not sure those are logical or satisfying answers to age old questions...I have found them in the Bible though...at least they're satisfying to me...
 
As this topic is on Satan, I'll steer it back there.

Whether Satan had much influence over the writings in the Holy Bible I do not know. Satan may have written most of them for all I know.

BUT !!

Let's presume not; as that seems to be the convention.

For those that would meet with Satan:
- what would you want?
- Just a brief glimpse through a one-way mirror?
- Lunch? And or a
- conversation?

If you would ask questions, what 3 questions would you wish to ask first?

I'll start:

a) Milan Kundera said "Those who consider the Devil to be a partisan of Evil and angels to be warriors for Good accept the demagogy of the angels. Things are clearly more complicated." Assuming you're familiar with my culture's conventional attitude toward Satan as evil incarnate, do you define evil the same way we do? And if not, how do you define "evil"?

b) Are you a workaholic? Do you ever go on vacation? Play golf?

c) Do you have any plan to retire? If so, what would you do from then on, and, who would take over for you?
 
ashurbanipal said:
Well, it's certainly true that the write-ups by the science journalists in the articles I cited phrase things in terms of the brain. But your reply is rather too cheap to have any force. Analogy: someone might cite a number of articles about the physics governing the flow of water in a pipe. Would the fact that none of the articles say anything about water molecules be evidence there is no such thing--that there is just water, simpliciter? Of course not. That articles are written a certain way doesn't say anything, or anything much, about the correct ontology.

It's an assumption in those articles that the brain does this or that, and not the mind--but nothing in the underlying science tells us that mental events or states are identical with brain events or states (or are caused entirely by brain events or states). It's just something a lot of people assume, and don't ever question...which has been one of my points in all my discussions on these boards on relevant subjects. The case for materialism is surprisingly weak, and once you realize that and stop automatically believing it, it becomes very difficult to figure out why so many people are convinced it's correct.

Anyway, what the science does show is just what I had been saying: perception is highly mutable, and so it is possible for two people, even in the same physical environment, to have very different percepts of that environment. Your claim was that perception is not very mutable, and so everyone basically experiences the same thing in similar circumstances. That's just not true.
Click to expand...

The bottom line is that the articles you presented do not present evidence of spirits or the mind as separate from the brain nor do they even imply their existence. Talking about the flow of water without mentioning molecules is not the same thing. Molecules just refers the smaller physical structure of the physical thing we call water. Molecules are a physical description. Everyone whose senses and brain are functioning correctly experiences physical reality in generally the same way. Water quenches thirst the same for everyone regardless of how they perceive water. It has the identical physical impact on thirst and without it you die.
 
Elvira said:
Hmmm not sure those are logical or satisfying answers to age old questions...I have found them in the Bible though...at least they're satisfying to me...
Click to expand...

Who wrote the Bible?
 
"Jehovah God was the author...it was penned by some 40 men over a span of about 1,600 years..." E #260
Click to expand...
a) I don't recall any authorship credit being extended to "Jehovah god" in any Holy Bible I've ever seen.

b) "These [Biblical] books existed in the oral tradition for hundreds of thousands of years. They finally wrote them down in Aramaic, later translated into Greek, & then Latin, and finally English, hundreds and hundreds of revisions: and this is supposed to be absolute direct word of God." actor John Fugelsang
 
devildavid said:
The bottom line is that the articles you presented do not present evidence of spirits or the mind as separate from the brain nor do they even imply their existence.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure why you're replying this way--they weren't intended to show that. We were discussing, if you recall, perception, and the thesis that everyone experiences the world in the same way, and whether or not training (cultural or deliberate) could teach a person to experience the world in some other way. The articles I posted showed, and were meant to show, that perception is mutable. Not everyone experiences the world in the same way. There are no principled limits to how differently people can experience the world. The world you see is a representation only, and it's one that is shaped largely by your mind, not by the external world.

devildavid said:
Talking about the flow of water without mentioning molecules is not the same thing. Molecules just refers the smaller physical structure of the physical thing we call water. Molecules are a physical description.
Click to expand...

Not exactly the same thing, but applicable by way of analogy. The articles were about certain specific subjects. That they don't mention related things is not a knock against the existence of those related things.

devildavid said:
Everyone whose senses and brain are functioning correctly experiences physical reality in generally the same way.
Click to expand...

That term "correctly" is normative, and from my perspective, sounds almost like something you'd hear in a re-education camp. One of the articles I posted showed that people born in certain areas of the world do not perceive the color blue. Their eyes and brains are, presumably, physiologically similar to our own, but that color is not something present to their minds. In your view, their senses and brains are not functioning "correctly." If my thesis is correct, our ancient ancestors brains and senses were not functioning "correctly." Who determines, and on what grounds, what is "correct"?

devildavid said:
Water quenches thirst the same for everyone regardless of how they perceive water. It has the identical physical impact on thirst and without it you die.
Click to expand...

Sure. That some things are physical, or behave in some certain way, doesn't mean everything is, or does.
 
"everyone experiences the world in the same way" ap #262
Click to expand...
piffle

At some level of discerning, no two humans perceive precisely the same way.

Obvious examples are abundant.
In bright light I see red vividly.
But I have a sharp-eyed neighbor that can't see red at all, he's color-blind.

He's an avid deer-hunter. He and I were convoying to his home, driving about 45 MPH on a roadway posted at 55 MPH.
Unexpectedly, a mile or two from his home, he pulled to the shoulder, stopped, and got out.
I duplicated.
I asked what he was doing.
He said he wanted to take a closer look at the deer.

What deer ?!

He saw, driving past at 45 MPH a deer I could not see at a standstill !!

btw
there's a simple experiment you can do, that will demonstrate convincingly that when you put your left and right hands in the same bucket of water,
the water will feel warm to one hand, and cold to the other.
BUT IT'S THE SAME BUCKET OF WATER !!

So even YOU don't experience the world the same way as you.
 
Elvira said:
Jehovah God was the author...it was penned by some 40 men over a span of about 1,600 years...
Click to expand...

If it was written by men how can you be sure Jehova God was the author?
 
sear said:
piffle

At some level of discerning, no two humans perceive precisely the same way.

Obvious examples are abundant.
In bright light I see red vividly.
But I have a sharp-eyed neighbor that can't see red at all, he's color-blind.

He's an avid deer-hunter. He and I were convoying to his home, driving about 45 MPH on a roadway posted at 55 MPH.
Unexpectedly, a mile or two from his home, he pulled to the shoulder, stopped, and got out.
I duplicated.
I asked what he was doing.
He said he wanted to take a closer look at the deer.

What deer ?!

He saw, driving past at 45 MPH a deer I could not see at a standstill !!

btw
there's a simple experiment you can do, that will demonstrate convincingly that when you put your left and right hands in the same bucket of water,
the water will feel warm to one hand, and cold to the other.
BUT IT'S THE SAME BUCKET OF WATER !!

So even YOU don't experience the world the same way as you.
Click to expand...

All our senses work generally in the same way. They don't all work exactly the same. And there are ways to confuse our senses. But I don't give this any special significance as far as the general use of the senses.
 
"All our senses work generally in the same way. They don't all work exactly the same. And there are ways to confuse our senses. But I don't give this any special significance as far as the general use of the senses." dd #265
Click to expand...
a) We generally don't.

b) We may generally be correct in not doing so.

BUT !!

c) There are occasional examples of divergence in perception.

- Why for example, if each of us votes for the best candidate for U.S. president would ~half the nation vote Democrat, and ~half vote Republican? Is that not a divergence of perception?

- About a year ago there was a dress the caused a furor. Images were available of it. But persons could not agree on what color it was; EVEN WHEN THEY WERE BOTH VIEWING THE SAME IMAGE OF IT !!

- Then there are more kinky examples, such as masochists. Many persons prefer to avoid pain. Yet masochists are attracted to pain, and seek it out.

We agree about the rule.

But we lead ourselves astray if we deny the existence of the numerous and varied exceptions.
 
devildavid said:
If it was written by men how can you be sure Jehova God was the author?
Click to expand...

Have you ever seen 40 men agree on anything? lol! And over a period of 1,600 years to boot?
 
sear said:
a) We generally don't.

b) We may generally be correct in not doing so.

BUT !!

c) There are occasional examples of divergence in perception.

- Why for example, if each of us votes for the best candidate for U.S. president would ~half the nation vote Democrat, and ~half vote Republican? Is that not a divergence of perception?

- About a year ago there was a dress the caused a furor. Images were available of it. But persons could not agree on what color it was; EVEN WHEN THEY WERE BOTH VIEWING THE SAME IMAGE OF IT !!

- Then there are more kinky examples, such as masochists. Many persons prefer to avoid pain. Yet masochists are attracted to pain, and seek it out.

We agree about the rule.

But we lead ourselves astray if we deny the existence of the numerous and varied exceptions.
Click to expand...

I'm talking about the functioning of our physical senses, not the subjective ways that we perceive things.
 
Elvira said:
Have you ever seen 40 men agree on anything? lol! And over a period of 1,600 years to boot?
Click to expand...

This does not address my question. If the actual writing was done by men, why should we credit the authorship to Jehovah God?
 
devildavid said:
This does not address my question. If the actual writing was done by men, why should we credit the authorship to Jehovah God?
Click to expand...

Sure it does...if not divinely inspired by God, how could 40 men in the same room agree on anything, much less over a period of 1,600 years? They were ALL in agreement of what they wrote...impossible otherwise...
 
Elvira said:
Sure it does...if not divinely inspired by God, how could 40 men in the same room agree on anything, much less over a period of 1,600 years? They were ALL in agreement of what they wrote...impossible otherwise...
Click to expand...

That just means 40 men agreed to believe in the same thing. It does not indicate authorship by Jehovah God. Not impossible at all, especially because it was spaced over many years and handed down as traditional belief.
 
"I'm talking about the functioning of our physical senses, not the subjective ways that we perceive things." dd #268
Click to expand...
That's a distinction between process and result.

Why would it matter?
If one guy's functioning is the neurological firing of a series of synapses from appendage to brain, and

another guy's functioning is a combination of mechanical connecting rods, and hydraulic servos; but they each perceive the same red ball,

what difference would functioning make?

I'll avoid the process issue.

But the results are CLEARLY varied.

Some people want a black car, because they look fantastic!!

When I bought my car, I demanded a white one, because they're less expensive and more comfortable in this NY climate.

279257748f6a711694873dd617a8bad39602b5f.JPG
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom