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ITT we define god

Started by P3nT4gR4m, March 09, 2009, 07:59:50 PM

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P3nT4gR4m

Quote from: Anomalous on March 09, 2009, 09:59:34 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 09, 2009, 09:50:07 PM
Quote from: Anomalous on March 09, 2009, 09:12:12 PM
God is a hallucination which humans are genetically predisposed towards as an escape route from the brute seriousness of reality.

You believe this?

It's an idea I entertain more often than others.

For the purposes of discussion, let's say I do.

Also, if god is ineffable shouldn't you just STFU about it like Taoists about the Tao?

Because I don't believe in the "brute seriousness of reality". I've seen primates who take it seriously but that makes me laugh so hard I find it really difficult to join in with them.

There is no should and shouldn't in my book, Just what you can get away with. Telling me I shouldn't do something is a surefire way to have no effect on the outcome whatsoever :lulz:

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Richter

Quote from: Eater of Clowns on May 22, 2015, 03:00:53 AM
Anyone ever think about how Richter inhabits the same reality as you and just scream and scream and scream, but in a good way?   :lulz:

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Kai

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Suu

"God" is comfort food for the mind. It allows the believer to have peace when they reach a point in their life when nothing can be explained by logic, reason, science, etc.

Prayer may not actually create miracles and change things, but inevitably all it is is a self-fulfilling prophecy, you're asking for help for something that may not make sense to you, but in the end it can subconsciously motivate you to solve your problems or answer your questions.

I actually DO believe in deities myself, but I don't go through the painstaking prayer and rituals needed to "speak" or "bond" with them. They don't have the fucking time to give a fuck about my petty problems, they'll be there when they are needed. Like Dionysus on my couch talking me out of suicide in August. Yes, most likely it was a manifestation of my drunken subconscious, but again, it gave me the answer I needed at the time. Therefore, he did his job, real god, hallucination, what have you. That was "god" at work.
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Suu

Sovereign Episkopos-Princess Kaousuu; Esq., Battle Nun, Bene Gesserit.
Our Lady of Perpetual Confusion; 1st Church of Discordia

"Add a dab of lavender to milk, leave town with an orange, and pretend you're laughing at it."

Kai

Quote from: Suu on March 09, 2009, 10:28:31 PM
"God" is comfort food for the mind. It allows the believer to have peace when they reach a point in their life when nothing can be explained by logic, reason, science, etc.

Prayer may not actually create miracles and change things, but inevitably all it is is a self-fulfilling prophecy, you're asking for help for something that may not make sense to you, but in the end it can subconsciously motivate you to solve your problems or answer your questions.

I actually DO believe in deities myself, but I don't go through the painstaking prayer and rituals needed to "speak" or "bond" with them. They don't have the fucking time to give a fuck about my petty problems, they'll be there when they are needed. Like Dionysus on my couch talking me out of suicide in August. Yes, most likely it was a manifestation of my drunken subconscious, but again, it gave me the answer I needed at the time. Therefore, he did his job, real god, hallucination, what have you. That was "god" at work.

I like this post. :)
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. --Loren Eisley, The Immense Journey

Her Royal Majesty's Chief of Insect Genitalia Dissection
Grand Visser of the Six Legged Class
Chanticleer of the Holometabola Clade Church, Diptera Parish

Richter

Quote from: Anomalous on March 09, 2009, 09:59:34 PM
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 09, 2009, 09:50:07 PM
Quote from: Anomalous on March 09, 2009, 09:12:12 PM
God is a hallucination which humans are genetically predisposed towards as an escape route from the brute seriousness of reality.

You believe this?

It's an idea I entertain more often than others.

For the purposes of discussion, let's say I do.

Also, if god is ineffable shouldn't you just STFU about it like Taoists about the Tao?

Humans being fairly social animals, it makes sense that we find it easy to generalize random happenstance into a social paradigm. 
If an outgrowth of this is assuming that there's an incoroporeal will(s) outside of our own head or anyone else's head that's doing it's own thing, for / against / neutral to us, it's still an idea that helps us deal with it all. 
If it provides meaning, protection, or support to the person, it works.  Even if ONLY an elaborate falsehood, it can still be a valid and useful idea for navigating life, as useful as: "Glowing red things might burn you, don't try to grab them"


"Why when I talk about faith, do you always assume I'm talking about God?"
Quote from: Eater of Clowns on May 22, 2015, 03:00:53 AM
Anyone ever think about how Richter inhabits the same reality as you and just scream and scream and scream, but in a good way?   :lulz:

Friendly Neighborhood Mentat

P3nT4gR4m

I find it interesting how people will discount "spiritual visions" as "hallucination" as if that somehow negates the experience. Like you're telling me that I didn't see this figure or that figure and it didn't say this or that to me? And the "fact" that it was actually a part of my own mind reaching out and projecting this into my consciousness isn't equally impressive?

I'm up to my arse in Brexit Numpties, but I want more.  Target-rich environments are the new sexy.
Not actually a meat product.
Ass-Kicking & Foot-Stomping Ancient Master of SHIT FUCK FUCK FUCK
Awful and Bent Behemothic Results of Last Night's Painful Squat.
High Altitude Haggis-Filled Sex Bucket From Beyond Time and Space.
Internet Monkey Person of Filthy and Immoral Pygmy-Porn Wart Contagion
Octomom Auxillary Heat Exchanger Repairman
walking the fine line line between genius and batshit fucking crazy

"computation is a pattern in the spacetime arrangement of particles, and it's not the particles but the pattern that really matters! Matter doesn't matter." -- Max Tegmark

Telarus

#23
Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 09, 2009, 10:48:18 PM
I find it interesting how people will discount "spiritual visions" as "hallucination" as if that somehow negates the experience. Like you're telling me that I didn't see this figure or that figure and it didn't say this or that to me? And the "fact" that it was actually a part of my own mind reaching out and projecting this into my consciousness isn't equally impressive?

Exactly. God/dess[Deity] is the 3rd circuit code for the ineffable. The artist/mystic takes the ineffable and brings it creatively and mysteriously into our language/symbol systems.

Deity, for me, serves as a lens through which to view a reality tunnel (shades of 6th C meta-programming function). On the other hand, I can use the model of Deity as a lens to view models.... to view Deity as an expression of communal-meta-narrative within a society of domesticated primates (7th C hive-mind/egregore/DNA-recursive-intelligence... shades of Rastafarian's use of "I and I" instead of 'We' to denote the body of the community).

Deity is also a hallucination that the mind creates when thought tries to examine thought. The One Who Reads the Meta-Narrative is the One Who Writes the Meta-Narrative.

Some random philosophical-physicists once said there are two ways for the universe to observe/feel/perceive itself, and we are capable of both. One as an embodied observer looking 'out' at the universe, and one as what it feels like to be made of the stuff of the universe, i.e. the emergent intelligence of a random blotch of hydrogen in complex arrangement with some other crap.
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Quote from: Kai on March 09, 2009, 10:32:48 PM
Quote from: Suu on March 09, 2009, 10:28:31 PM
"God" is comfort food for the mind. It allows the believer to have peace when they reach a point in their life when nothing can be explained by logic, reason, science, etc.

Prayer may not actually create miracles and change things, but inevitably all it is is a self-fulfilling prophecy, you're asking for help for something that may not make sense to you, but in the end it can subconsciously motivate you to solve your problems or answer your questions.

I actually DO believe in deities myself, but I don't go through the painstaking prayer and rituals needed to "speak" or "bond" with them. They don't have the fucking time to give a fuck about my petty problems, they'll be there when they are needed. Like Dionysus on my couch talking me out of suicide in August. Yes, most likely it was a manifestation of my drunken subconscious, but again, it gave me the answer I needed at the time. Therefore, he did his job, real god, hallucination, what have you. That was "god" at work.

I like this post. :)

Me too.

Anyway, if I wasn't an atheist, I'd be a pantheist, and believe that every single thing in the universe had an equal amount of divinity in it.

ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞

Quote from: P3nT4gR4m on March 09, 2009, 10:48:18 PM
I find it interesting how people will discount "spiritual visions" as "hallucination" as if that somehow negates the experience. Like you're telling me that I didn't see this figure or that figure and it didn't say this or that to me? And the "fact" that it was actually a part of my own mind reaching out and projecting this into my consciousness isn't equally impressive?

People who refuse to admit these experiences were in any way hallucinatory, as though that needs to take away from them, generally have trouble making other key distinctions as well. Such as when to take their kid to a medical doctor and why gays have fuck all to do with their shitty marriage.

Your own mind reaching out and projecting fucked up shit into your consciousness is not impressive, that's par for the course.

Learning how to minimize that or control that is remarkable.

Learning how to come to terms with horrible events without resorting to the supernatural is remarkable.
P E R   A S P E R A   A D   A S T R A

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Quote from: Suu on March 09, 2009, 10:28:31 PM
"God" is comfort food for the mind. It allows the believer to have peace when they reach a point in their life when nothing can be explained by logic, reason, science, etc.

Prayer may not actually create miracles and change things, but inevitably all it is is a self-fulfilling prophecy, you're asking for help for something that may not make sense to you, but in the end it can subconsciously motivate you to solve your problems or answer your questions.

I actually DO believe in deities myself, but I don't go through the painstaking prayer and rituals needed to "speak" or "bond" with them. They don't have the fucking time to give a fuck about my petty problems, they'll be there when they are needed. Like Dionysus on my couch talking me out of suicide in August. Yes, most likely it was a manifestation of my drunken subconscious, but again, it gave me the answer I needed at the time. Therefore, he did his job, real god, hallucination, what have you. That was "god" at work.

I think you may be using the Christian definition of "God" when you say it's "comfort food for the mind". What about people whose concept of "God" is less benevolent... or just doesn't give a shit? Or multiple  layers of "God", ranging from "doesn't give a shit" to "overtly malevolent"? Having a "God" whose attention you hope to evade whenever possible isn't terribly comforting.

What about a sense of "God" simply as that which is? Usen, which (or who, call it whatever) is essentially existence itself? You may give thanks to it, out of gratitude to be part of it.

I don't really pray to my gods... I pray to my ancestors, and they don't have any supernatural powers. They only power they have is to bring me knowledge that might be useful for my situation.
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Requia ☣

I gave up the whole concept of God in favor of the divine, it helps remind me that I really have no fucking clue what form God, the gods, or whatever else is really right.

It also avoids the fun conversations where people are utterly convinced there is no other concept of God than theirs try to tear down my faith with arguments that really really don't apply to anything I'm talking about.   :argh!:
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Thurnez Isa

If there is no God then what was the box that Indiana Jones found in Raider's of the Lost Arch and what was that cup he drank in the 3rd in the series?

To deny this is to deny reason itself!!!
:argh!:
Through me the way to the city of woe, Through me the way to everlasting pain, Through me the way among the lost.
Justice moved my maker on high.
Divine power made me, Wisdom supreme, and Primal love.
Before me nothing was but things eternal, and eternal I endure.
Abandon all hope, you who enter here.

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