HAHA....there's a reason our minds to perceive things in linear fashions concerning cause and effect, dude.
It goes the way with this world that causes beget effects.
I think we can consider that case closed.
I still think the Hebrews got it wrong, syntactically, and it's Am I?
And, in order for "I" or self-identity to function or even exist, there must exist a separation between the operative and the operation.
Not quite. See, X-rays are there, we only need the technology to measure them. God does not submit to these criterion, for he is immaterial (hence, incomprehensible and immeasurable). Are you suggesting we just need a God Detector?
Individuals with preconceived notions of how god functions, who believe in spirituality, and can provide absolutely no evidence to corroborate what they feel (it's just an emotion). There was a chick in college who stalked me for 3 years, was bipolar, and when she wasn't taking her meds, thought she was a druid priestess. Whenever I hear of these individual, direct experiences of god, I automatically think UFO abductions, bipolarism, and paranoid schizophrenia. Sounds rough, I know. But many prominent religious leaders were epileptic, paranoid schizos (think Paul, or perhaps Caesar [he trained to be a high priest as a youth]).
Actually, linear thining is natural. It helps the young mind make sense of the world. It isn't conditioning. As a matter of fact, religious conditioning vies against this progression, and "trains the mind to think in a non-linear fashion" as you suggested earlier. In other words, religion trains you to think unnaturally.
That last statement I consider true beyond all contradictiuon.
I think this statement is ridiculous. (I hope you don't think I'm being disdainful. This is an argument, and I'm not going to waste words, so it might sound abusive). According to this thesis, General and special relativity would never have arisen. People constantly question the existence of things, and their non-existence. Consider the technological revolution of the past century. The world does not even look like a former shade of itself anymore. Seventeenth century time-travellers would never recognize New York City....
I do agree with that last part. But it's part of being a living creature. You select to remember, and choose to observe what is germane to you. (Natural selection wouldn't favor the transcendental poet. He'd get eaten by every predator on earth). Everything else is dross. But I don't think this has any place in this argument.
I don't like this line of thinking. I never have. You question the gamut of experience/perception based on what experience/perception has given you first, in order for you to question its validity. This is like the skeptic's credo. Fun to read. But logically untenable.
They are. If I'm born alone in a black cave, fed through some kind of nanotechnological feeding device (don't ask), and have a sense perception inhibitor of another nanotechnological sort, and am never able to feel, touch, taste, smell, see, or hear anything outside of myself, or even of myself, I will never develop any kind of identity. For all I know I could be running through a forest, hitting every tree on the way there, but I'll never know it. I have no input. Hence, there is no development.
This is pretty demonstrative of the tyranny of cause and effect.
I love how if you take a strong stance against religion and spirituality, and don't curb your distaste for it, people will very quickly say: "Well, only if you made a serious study of the subject."
Well, ****, I've studied it almost 20 years (first five years don't really count, except as brainwashing), half-in, half-out, and never half-assed. My greatest gripe with religion is that 99% of the people who profess it, or profess to disbelieve in it, display 5% sincerity on the topic. That goes for many of the people on this board. Hopefully, I figure if I stir up enough ****, someone might acutally begin to exercise their brain cells. that's why I love to argue this subject, and why many people hate to do so. (Not talking about you, SB).
Do you wonder why I keep arguing with you guys?
I love discussing this topic. I may not be a believer. But I am sincere in my interest and research into it.
Please don't make that mistake again.