Well said

You don't have to see eye to on this, you know? — S

I'm now sure that we can't, assuming that AppLeo is being sincere, and that's okay. :blush:

Now where did I put that copy of The Virtue of Selfishness...

Thanks. It's kind of funny, because despite appearances, this is what they're effectively doing:

"I value mysticism! Mysticism makes me happy!".

"I disagree! I don't value mysticism, I value reason! Reason makes me happy!".

I explicitly said that I wasn’t talking about religious faith necessary. — praxis

What's the difference between religious faith and normal faith? They are both faith.

It is pointless to continue. I suggest, if it interests you, to study what religion is: how and why it may have developed and the role it plays in society. Then perhaps you’ll be able to untangle concepts like faith and mysticism from religion. — praxis

Religion is worthless.

These kind of arguments seem kind of fruitless to me. People can and do live different lives from each other, can and do feel differently about things, can and do have different sets of values, and can and do order them differently in terms of priority. That's the case with you two. You don't have to see eye to on this, you know? It's not like there's an answer in the same way that there's an answer to what 2 + 2 equals or what planet we're on. — S

Disagree. There is living in accordance to reality and there is not living in accordance with reality. Mystics don't live in accordance to reality. They want to live in a way that is impossible. They want to live based on what they feel. Not based on the facts. They want to avoid reality and pretend in a fantasy. You can't pursue life if what you value is life if you are mystical. If you value death then by all means be mystical because death goes hand and hand with mysticism.

Ayn Rand would hold the billionaires as virtuous, not some young buck who just read “Atlas Shrugged” for the first time and thought he was one of their club and who spends hours a day on a philosophy forum trying and failing to make a coherent argument. lol

Animals can only know reality through observation. They navigate through life with their instinct.

Humans navigate with reason. — AppLeo

It would be more 'reasonable' to think of reason and instinct as a continuum rather than either/or. Non-human animals can exercise some reason and some human behaviors are instinctual.

It would be more 'reasonable' to think of reason and instinct as a continuum rather than either/or. Non-human animals can exercise some reason and some human behaviors are instinctual. — Bitter Crank

I mean yeah, but that observation is trivial and doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Humans need to reason and cannot rely on instinct to live.

Ayn Rand would hold the billionaires as virtuous, not some young buck who just read “Atlas Shrugged” for the first time and thought he was one of their club and who spends hours a day on a philosophy forum trying and failing to make a coherent argument. lol — Noah Te Stroete

Which one of my arguments fails? Be specific or I'm just going to assume that you're insulting me because you like to feel superior to people you disagree with.

A sound argument has true premises and a conclusion that necessarily follows. You have miserably failed to argue anything.

Which one? Can you point to anything I say at all?

Let's just say someone is wrong and not give a reason why they're wrong. People are wrong just because I say so. Makes perfect sense.

Your conclusion that life has an objective meaning doesn’t follow from the premise that we have reason. That God doesn’t exist doesn’t necessarily follow from the premise that there is no empirical proof of Her existence.

It would be more 'reasonable' to think of reason and instinct as a continuum rather than either/or. Non-human animals can exercise some reason and some human behaviors are instinctual. — Bitter Crank

Most animals aren’t capable of reasoning, they are not equipped for it at all. Its not unique to humans but its not correct to say reason is a continuum. It really is something that you have or do not have.

I didn't say that because we have reason, life has a purpose. I said because life has a purpose to live, it is an objective fact that we must use reason.

Premise 1: The purpose/meaning of life is to live life.
Premise 3: Humans are a form of life.
Premise 2: Humans need certain things in order to live. Food, water, shelter.
Premise 4: Humans can only get the things they need by using reason.
Premise 5: Without reason, humans cannot get what they need.
Conclusion: It is an objective fact that humans must use reason to live.

If there is no proof of something, there is no reason to act as if it exists. To do otherwise would be to accept it as faith. Faith is detrimental to one's life because you cannot get what you need based on believing, only by knowing.

If the purpose of life is simply to live, then it doesn’t follow that people can’t have faith in some things. How is faith in God, as in believing that God exists, detrimental to life? You have failed to show this.

There's millions of examples.

People who believe in God tell homosexuals that they can't be homosexual. They even use their faith as an excuse to hurt and murder people. Homosexuals are forced to suppress themselves and are told that they will burn in hell if they don't. Why? Because it's based on faith. Any rational person would tell you to be homosexual if it makes you happy.

Or when someone is is suffering from cancer, but they have this irrational belief that God is testing their faith. That if they rely on a doctor to save them that must mean that they don't trust God to do what's right for their life. And there are people who take their faith seriously and would actually deny help from a doctor.

Or someone who has faith in the after life. They spend all this time and energy in this life preparing for something that they don't even know exists! And on top of it, they can't ask questions or change their morality because if they do, they'll burn in hell for eternity.

Or the crusade wars. I don't even need to explain that. It's because of faith those wars happened.

And in general, having faith in something makes you unable to prove something to other human beings. Which means that if you ever want to resolve a problem regarding faith, in other words, if you want everyone to agree with you, you have to result to violence. You must force people to agree with you.

People who believe in God tell homosexuals that they be homosexual. Homosexuals are forced to suppress themselves and are told that they will burn in hell if they don't. Why? Because it's based on faith. Any rational person would tell you to be homosexual if it makes you happy. — AppLeo

That is a case of a Christian fundamentalist. Faith isn’t the problem.

Or when someone is is suffering from cancer, but they have this irrational belief that God is testing their faith. That if they rely on a doctor to save them that must mean that they don't trust God to do what's right for their life. And there are people who take their faith seriously and would actually deny help from a doctor. — AppLeo

This is what Christian Scientists believe. Faith that God exists isn’t the problem.

As for the last paragraph, it seems you have a problem with evangelism. People can have faith without forcing their beliefs on others. I have a problem with evangelism, too.

Well, the people who don't take their faith so seriously are fine I guess. They are fine because their reason overpowers their faith. They don't actually take the test of God seriously enough to not consult help from a doctor, they let homosexuals be homosexuals, etc...

It's reason that keeps people from doing stupid things. It's not because of faith that allows people to live. You can choose to have faith, but it doesn't make your life better. It only has the potential to destroy your life.

Well, I don’t have a problem with atheism qua atheism. I do have a problem with atheists telling me what the meaning of life is and that faith that God exists doesn’t offer my life any meaning. That’s evangelism.

I dare say that AppLeo's penchant for oversimplification is rubbing-off on you, and it ain't a good look.

I read a statistic the other day that one in six people living today are starving to death. That's messed-up, right? I doubt those one in six could give a fuck about reason or mysticism. A ham sandwich would make them happy. But once their basic needs are met, other needs could rise to the surface, such as the need for meaning. Not just any meaning but big all caps MEANING. Picture in your mind the iconic vision of that sissy guy rolling a rock up a hill, if you will.

Now at this point I could start dropping Vicktor Frankl quotes, but I'm not gonna do that. I have too much respect for your intellect.

What I will do is simply point out that religion has developed to help bind groups via shared values, goals, etc, and that this is theoretically a successful survival strategy in terms of evolutionary psychology. Cooperative groups are positioned to be more successful or functional than uncooperative groups. There is ample historical evidence to agree with TheMadFool when he suggest (I'm assuming, I didn't read the OP) that this can turn poisonous. Systems of meaning that are based in ultimate authorities are prone to corruption. Power corrupts.

My position is that systems of meaning, or rather, the components of meaning can be developed outside of a religious framework. AppLeo would toss the baby with the bathwater and be left with a God shaped hole in his heart. :razz: I suggest that we keep the baby. Babies make people happy. Well, they do for most people anyway. I don't want one.

You can believe what you want, but that doesn't mean I can't disapprove of your beliefs.

I mean yeah, but that observation is trivial and doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Humans need to reason and cannot rely on instinct to live. — AppLeo

The real "grand scheme" puts humans and animals in the boat together. One of the ways religion poisons, is by splitting humans off from the rest of the animal kingdom, claiming divine favor, godliness, exclusive reason, etc. for humankind and a rather flat existence for everything else.

Much human behavior is genetically (or instinctually) directed--probably less than in other animals because our brains are organized for reasoned, instinctual over-rides. We tend to focus on behaviors we have reasoned control over, and pay much less attention to behaviors which are directed genetically.

Genetic control governs HOW we respond to WHAT. It doesn't govern whether we like Progresso more than Campbell soup, but it could very well govern how insistent we are about making our own soup. Instincts are what decide whether we will try -- and enjoy -- a ride on a roller coaster or not. Risk aversion or risk tolerance isn't something you choose.

As for animals reasoning, we have observed birds and mammals both doing problem solving. Crows are not reading Aristotle, but they have problems and they solve them--sometimes. We don't always solve our problems either, and we are reading Aristotle.

You mean you're entitled to your opinion? I guess that works too.

People are entitled to wrong opinions.

Pragmatically speaking, if it serves them some utility and doesn't harm others, then whatever floats their boat.

As for animals reasoning, we have observed birds and mammals both doing problem solving. Crows are not reading Aristotle, but they have problems and they solve them--sometimes. We don't always solve our problems either, and we are reading Aristotle. — Bitter Crank

I haven't explored the concept of 'reasoning' much and what that might be exactly, but it must have to do with the ability to form high level concepts and mentally manipulate (simulation?) them. This would seem to require language or language level symbolism of some kind. Not sure if other species of mammals have this capacity.

Of course other mammals can learn and solve problems, and they do it in essentially the same way that we do.

Yes, I agree.

Well, I don't know how they do it either. I'm not sure how my brain solves problems (or frequently doesn't even recognize that there is a problem).

But take the crows that figure things out that are of interest to crows--like fishing a grub floating on water in a tube, but below the level the crow can reach with it's beak... The crow, in this situation, picked up pebbles and dropped them into the tube--raising the water level until the grub was close enough to grab.

Trial and error? (I've certainly used that method successfully on a couple of occasions. Read the instructions when all else fails...) Now, the experimenters had placed a solution at hand (or at beak). Supposed several different kinds of objects -- twigs, bits of polystyrene foam, little ball bearings... small stones. How long would the crow have taken to figure out that only bits of stone worked well? Would the crow have checked out the options first, and then selected small stones?

Crows have large bird brains and they are very social. They make many sounds besides their familiar 'caw'. They maintain relationships with their parents over a year at least. They can recognize specific human faces (identifying the faces attached to people they consider trouble as opposed to faces of people who tossed food around). And it is the face, not the body -- masks were used in the experiment and birds used the mask to identify the wearer. In the experiment there was some indication -- not a lot but some -- that crows could pass this information about nuisance or useful people from one generation to another -- not biologically, but by 'communication' of some sort. Unfortunately, too many of the crows had disappeared during the au natural experiment to produce much data on this last item. One adolescent child of the surviving parent crow did correctly recognize a mask as trouble. But... too little data to be trusted.

If squirrels and crows could cross breed, they's probably be running things.

see above. Is it employing any reasoning at all, or just randomly plucking at straws, so to speak?