History

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

Clayton — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:36:37 GMT

liberty student:
Faith and doubt are the results of intuition, informed by knowledge or lack thereof (ignorance).

We all take huge leaps of faith each day, what we know is tiny compared to what we do not know. That is the nature of human existence.

I think many people (John Ess being a rare exception btw) who have a problem with religion, are usually informed by their own anti-religious bias, than by anything profound, insightful or logical.

QFT!

Clayton -

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

liberty student — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:30:50 GMT

Epicurus Ibn Kalhoun:
Tho I think faith is just a product of ignorance. You don't know, so you have faith this is happening, or will happen.

Faith and doubt are the results of intuition, informed by knowledge or lack thereof (ignorance).

We all take huge leaps of faith each day, what we know is tiny compared to what we do not know. That is the nature of human existence.

I think many people (John Ess being a rare exception btw) who have a problem with religion, are usually informed by their own anti-religious bias, than by anything profound, insightful or logical.

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

Laotzu del Zinn — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 03:11:20 GMT

http://thesaurus.com/browse/conviction

same thing really. Tho I would say faith has no basis in evidence (faith exists regardless of evidence, whether affirming or denying), whereas conviction can.

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

DD5 — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 03:03:52 GMT

liberty student:

Epicurus Ibn Kalhoun:
Faith is the single most destructive thing in human history imo. Faith in states, religions, theories, friends, family.

I would say ignorance is the most destructive thing in human history. My faith in my family, in my morals, in myself (esteem) etc provide me great comfort and an advanced capacity to socialize.

Is it faith or is it conviction? Is their no basis for this "faith" of yours?

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

Laotzu del Zinn — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:58:21 GMT

I would say ignorance is the most destructive thing in human history. My faith in my family, in my morals, in myself (esteem) etc provide me great comfort and an advanced capacity to socialize.

I would agree with that. Tho I think faith is just a product of ignorance. You don't know, so you have faith this is happening, or will happen. You dont know if you're family will "jack" you, so you have faith that they won't.

Im not saying faith in itself is bad. Just that, it is faith in Hitler that allowed Nazi's, and faith in Stalin that allowed USSR. Faith in the church that led to the dark ages. Etc, etc Faith in business that leads to corporatism... it just goes on

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

liberty student — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:24:58 GMT

Epicurus Ibn Kalhoun:
Faith is the single most destructive thing in human history imo. Faith in states, religions, theories, friends, family.

I would say ignorance is the most destructive thing in human history. My faith in my family, in my morals, in myself (esteem) etc provide me great comfort and an advanced capacity to socialize.

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

liberty student — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:23:49 GMT

Dondoolee:
The thing that I claim as valid is forever true and forever valid so long as I have some form of power to make it such. If I recognize a god as being a fact and self evident just because of the very essence of my being, so be it. It is not religions claims that matter, but my acknowledgment and agreement of the religous claims. The power of my claim, by my power of being, by my power of describing and categorizing is the validation. From an ontological point of view the language is not the totality of the logic, I am.

I'm not even sure I agree with this completely, but I think you're great.

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

Laotzu del Zinn — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:09:40 GMT

Faith is the single most destructive thing in human history imo. Faith in states, religions, theories, friends, family.

It may be valid to you. But I would really encourage all people to stop relying on what is valid to you, and start relying on what is valid to any objective observer.

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

Clayton — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 01:35:03 GMT

Logic isn't some arbitrarily chosen "method," it's the expression of the law of non-contradiction, and it's the same everywhere in the universe.

I've presented no criticism of logic. But Austrian methodology is not merely logic.

...And a "hunch" isn't the same thing as superstition, one is a guess that could possibly be right, and the other is the act of irrationally clinging to something that clearly isn't.

I didn't say they are they same. I said you cannot formally distinguish between them.

John Ess asked me to explain this, so I will.

To provide a formal distinction between two categories is to provide a decision procedure (or "algorithm") to determine whether a thing is a member of the one category or the other. For example, let us say you want to formally distinguish between even and odd numbers. You could say, "divide the given number by 2, if the result is a whole number, then it is even, else it is odd." This is a formal distinction. Many words we use differentiate between things that we cannot formally distinguish because they are just too fuzzy and complex. This is especially true when discussing human feelings and experience of the physical world. Science, helps us construct formal procedures for distinguishing many kinds of things in the physical world. For example, you can use the techniques chemistry to identify the elemental composition of an unknown substance. You can use an oscilloscope to distinguish between different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. And so on.

Clayton -

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

William — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:56:31 GMT

@John Ess:

lol, sorry I can't help myself:

So much as I am unique and owner of all my properties: I have the ability and power to claim to be all and all to myself, undefinable by language, forever changing, and forever perfect (and I hold this as ontological fact). Everything I claim is valid. Any authority I wish to arbitrarily subject myself to (be it religion, freedom, reason, good, country, whatever) becomes valid. Of course, if such an authority can hold no power over you (that is John Ess) your rejection becomes valid as well. In this sense religion is valid. In the sense of some one who rejects but yet can still categorize it and deal with it, religion is valid.

If some one can not reject the tenets: there is the immaterial, a thing can not be itself, and a square circle exists and claim that these things are a fundamental part of their being, it is valid in an ontological sense. Of course you can easily shrug off and be non cognitive to such silly things, but so long as something is seen as valid by me it is valid, no matter how or why. And so long as you are catagorizing me in terms that can help affirm the fact that I belive in a square circle the concept of "Dondoolee believes in square circles" exists, is recognized, and a part of your reality in some form.

The thing that I claim as valid is forever true and forever valid so long as I have some form of power to make it such. If I recognize a god as being a fact and self evident just because of the very essence of my being, so be it. It is not religions claims that matter, but my acknowledgment and agreement of the religous claims. The power of my claim, by my power of being, by my power of describing and categorizing is the validation. From an ontological point of view the language is not the totality of the logic, I am.

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

John Ess — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:17:28 GMT

Well, I think religion is also a claim to objective ontology: there is something conscious out there and consciousness emerges from matter (making it an object). In addition, heaven and hell -- if they fit people in them -- have to have a size and location (and thus an object). But even subjective ontology (like math or concepts) can be epistemically objective. That is you can say things about it, quantify it, do testing, etc.

So on both fronts religion is fighting:

A subjective ontology/objective epistemology: writing, reading, etc. about the concepts or feeling of religion.

and objective ontology/objective epistemology: making inferrences from/about the existence of an object (God) and places (hell/heaven).

Either or both of these count as the όντος. It is what is there in a religion.

And from this we can making claims about the validity/coherence of their concepts on the one hand. And on the other hand, we can expect God and heaven/hell to line up to the same expectations of any other type of object. Namely, that we can ask where exactly they are, how big, etc.

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

Jesse Forgione — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:16:41 GMT

(The above was meant to be a reply to a post by Clayton on the first page)

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

Jesse Forgione — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 23:14:07 GMT

You couldn't be more wrong.

Logic isn't some arbitrarily chosen "method," it's the expression of the law of non-contradiction, and it's the same everywhere in the universe.

...And a "hunch" isn't the same thing as superstition, one is a guess that could possibly be right, and the other is the act of irrationally clinging to something that clearly isn't.

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

William — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:45:56 GMT

Religion is a claim in the realm of objective epistemology.

I think I am saying that ontology by a long shot trumps epistomology (in fact, in a way it is its creator) and it is the ontic being that can or can not choose to enter epistomological arguments. So much as a Religion, self, or whatever does not wish to define itself or justify itself with epistomological standards, and claims a form of ontological truth it trumps any episomological framework. If something claims ontological truth, it is up to another ontic to verify or reject it by their own standards.

While objective material reality may exist, and may be the only thing to exist (and I say it does) I can only know something through my being (dasein).

That said, closing statement is yours: I really don't want to get into this topic on this thread.

Re: The Libertarian War on Church Was Wrong

John Ess — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:44:16 GMT

Pilate asks Τι εστιν αληθεια; ("What is truth?")

but this is in response to Jesus saying: πᾶς ὁ ὢν ἐκ τῆς ἀληθείας ἀκούει μου τῆς φωνῆς.

"Those who care about the truth follow me."

Hence, my position that religion is about a claim to truth. And without the claim to truth there can be no setting free or following Jesus. So that must be the central issue.

In fact, in context the claim by Pilate is what makes Jesus punishable over someone who was actually criminal like Barabas, even though there are no real charges. A position, we find it, in defense of the absurd laws of the state and the mob since Pilate is a prefect of the Roman state! Who here is so 'skeptical' that they would make a claim like this in a court of law?