First Michael, thanks for keeping the ball rolling. We are discussing abstract topics across language and cultural barriers and I really dig the way you are keeping the discussion very respectful. I hope you sense my own respect for you in my attempt to understand your POV and get a chance to articulate my own for my own understanding.
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" > <curtisdeltablues@> wrote: > > > I was not trying to convince anyone that my POV is right or debate > > it's superiority (as Edg wants me to do) or try to argue that others > > should adapt it. But evaluating my capacities for love or passion for > > reality as limited seems to go against everything I value in other > > people's spiritual perspective. > > Curtis, thats definitely not what I had intended to say. In the > sentence below, to which Judy was responding, "... he cannot love > Reality as such" the term to be emphasized would be 'AS SUCH', > 'Reality as such' would be as opposed to the objects of reality, like > the things you love in life. 'Reality as such' or may be 'Reality in > itself' would be an attempt to find a substitute word for GOD or BEING > in a more common and vague way. What I am saying here is almost > redundant: If you do not believe in God, you cannot love him or her. > As simple as that. But that is for a religious person one of the main > issues at all: To LOVE God. In any metaphysical quest, there may be > passion, search for Truth, but loving God doesn't enter the picture. I wonder if you are using the term in a different way from a Christian evangelist who might use the same words. I guess I might need to understand what you mean by "loving God", how that manifests, and how you experience that. I think you may have a more personalized view of God than I thought previously in the discussion where he seemed too abstract to "love". I guess that if there is a God who has thousands of names in Hinduism, calling him "life" and saying that I love "life" may be similar. If you mean an ecstatic connection to being alive then I am with you 100% and it becomes a "you say tomato, I say tomaaaato" kind of thing. If you are having and experience of a personal God mystically or are focusing your energy on an image of God, then I probably got off at the last bus stop. > Please be truthful: I had tried to point this out in my original post, > saying that you can of course love your wife, your pet, people and so > on. But you surely cannot love God. To say 'I love life' is a > different issue IMO, as it is more used in the sense that generally > you like the things you do in your life etc, it isn't usually seen as > a concentrated love towards a transcendent whole. I'm not sure we could know if your words correspond to my reality or vise versa. Words like "transcendent whole" invoke more of a feeling for me than a clear definition. I don't know if my love of life includes what you are referring to here. Life is pretty deep. > > My point really is, that in this discussion about God, the word 'Love' > didn't really enter until now, but it is the most important word for > any theist. I could easily say, that I believe in God, because I love > him, and you would probably say, that this isn't logical. You would > say that this doesn't prove anything, wouldn't you? I don't think it is meant to prove anything is it? It seems to describe a subjective state for you and your statement proves that you have that feeling well enough for me. If you are trying to use your feeling to prove an external God because of how strong the subjective experience is then no, I would probably not interpret that subjective experience as proof of anything beyond your internal state. (my own internal experiences are evaluated the same way) > > So I propose for you reason, rationality has a greater weight in your > personal quest, is so to say the operative factor, while for me it > isn't. Reason plays a role for me too, a big role, but in a different > way, with different conclusions. This may be so. I think that this difference is more evident in this area then the rest of our lives though. I also believe that these separate words, useful as their are in context, are a bit misleading when we get to how we approach our experiences. Humans seem to use all their faculties all the time especially when things really matter, so it would surprise me if it was all one way or the other for us. Perhaps part of our individuality is the mix of faculties we use in each context. As a blues musician, the idea that I am dominantly functioning from rationality rather then heart isn't a good match. Floating in subjectivity for hours at a time is literally my job. Looking at rationality another way, it refers (for me) to how we weigh the value of our supporting evidence for beliefs. I don't think your belief in God is inherently irrational. You probably have good reasons for believing in a version of God given certain premises that you accept. When I believed in God it was rational even though I re-evaluated my reasoning and concluded that I had premises that I no longer accept. But given those premises and experiences it was perfectly rational for me to conclude the existence of God as I suspect it is for you. If you can answer the question "Why do you believe in God" (for yourself I am not challenging you here) then you are using you rational faculties to weigh the value of your experiences and coming to a conclusion. It can't be all heart. You have reasons for concluding that you "love God" but they are personal reasons that may not be useful to prove it's reality to someone else. > > In no way was my post an attempt to put you down or anything. I had > purposefully used the phrase 'rational atheist' throughout as a > concept, and had also made it clear, that I don't know were you stand > exactly. So it couldn't have been an evaluation of what you experience. I get that you aren't trying to put me down. Inherent in this discussion are our beliefs that we are correct in our view. It would be crazy for us not to believe this. They are mutually exclusive in one sense, which is why some discussions like this break down and become Edg-like. But your care in communication has allowed for a good discussion and I appreciate it. But I am arguing that I am not using less of my faculties to appreciate life than you or anyone else uses. > > I also like to point out, that much in the post was about choice, the > way Kierkegaard defines it, like in the phrase 'Subjectivity is > Truth' That I think is a fundamental difference between us two. Realty > is subjective to me, while you seem to posit a rational, objective > universe (I am not sure here, but it seems to at least play a big role > in your views). I simply claim that I live my own truth, my souls > truth. (Normally you would now say, we don't know if a soul exists, it > could all be an illusion of the mind; there we go again). So, besides > all the overlaps of our worldviews (mainly due to the phrase: 'I don't > know' and our common human quest) I do see a decisive, fundamental > separation line, in the way we approach, I would say subjective vs > objective. You may be right here. I am more of a philosophical pragmatist and do no subscribe to the extreme skepticism concerning objective reality that you seem to suggest. Again I suspect that this is very situation dependent for you and doubt that you would function in this mode in the emergency room making decisions for a loved one, but I could be wrong. Although I accept that people's world views can be radically different, I do believe in a physical world outside my mind that will continue to exist when I die. But if you put the duality of functions at heart and mind rather then objective and subjective I would argue that I am cranking the same level of full heart as any lover of God. So far I haven't seen any relationship between a person's love of God and their ability to love people so it seems to be irrelevant to my life. There are God lovers with big full hearts and atheists also in my experience. If someone says they love God but hate people, then I suspect what they are feeling for God may be something else. I'm a "by there fruits ye shall know them" kinda guy. Thanks again for taking time with this topic. It has generated a lot of cool stuff from others here which makes this thread successful in my book! > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, t3rinity <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > <snip> > > > > An atheist may be in awe, but > > > > > basically (Unless he is a Buddhist or Taoist)he is just exploring > > > > > a kind of a metaphysical study. So he may be in awe, yes. But he > > > > > cannot LOVE reality as such, and he cannot develop a passion about > > > > > it. > > > > >
