Walter Kaufmann's "The Faith of a Heretic"

link: http://www.archive.org/stream/faithofaheretic012669mbp/faithofaheretic012669mbp_djvu.txt

Of great interest to those obsessed with the "good" life, honesty, values, meaning, etc.

Addendum post: Addressing the specific subject of overzealousness in moderation (that was a bit of a joke there, did you spot it?).

It has been suggested that our new mod has been a tad overzealous. I'm not going to deny that I've seen a few (short) bans which were debatable, but I'd ask those whose complaint this is to please consider it in the context of the situation as a whole. This being /ph/, I'm sure we can be reasonable.

We appointed our shiny new mod specifically to deal with a problem and he made a judgement call that a short but hard campaign was the best way to resolve matters. I'm looking round the board and comparing it to a couple of weeks ago - he's dealt with the problem. Results do count for something and he did it for your benefit too, not just his own.

From an appointment point of view it can't have been easy - we figuratively threw him in at the deep end and instead of drowning, he's drowned the idiots - this is a remarkable result and one which deserves our thanks. Some of you good guys got gently splashed in the struggle, that's something he regrets, but it's not indicative of a new stalinist-era /ph/.

In any situation where it's necessary for one to be highly zealous, it's almost inevitable for one to cross the line occasionally and slightly into overzealousness, but that's not something unique to Marthur, it's a problem anyone can face when the circumstances dictate.

Finally, he is a new mod, and it's not realistic of us to expect perfection right out of the gates, especially in the middle of a flood of four big dicks up my assholeners. It's a learning curve, but he's not had a normal introduction to it, having started during turbulent and unreasonable times. Despite a couple of minor slip-ups, taking all the above into account I've got to say that on balance he's done an excellent job for us all and I'm confident that now things are settling down we'll be able to maintain a standard that everyone's happy with.

>>10398
No, God talks to everyone. It's a matter of listening, and doing what we're told. That's the only difference between any of us, really. Not everyone is really willing to listen to God, fewer are willing to obey, so I think most folks do what they can to fuzz up the connection. Even Christians do that. I'm arrogant enough to say I have a pretty clear signal, but honestly it doesn't make things any easier.

Whereas most folks aren't sure what God is telling them, I know it to a moral certainty. Sounds nice, but then when I disobey, and I do more often that I should, I don't get to say I didn't know, I have to look God in the face (metaphorically speaking), and turn away. It's direct disobedience, and it's not pleasant. So while I'm faced with the same temptations as everyone else, I don't get to hide behind bullshit like "went too far", and "didn't know", I have to own up to the bitter fact that I wanted to fap to that chick, or I didn't want to buy that homeless guy a burger, or I didn't want to tell that guy God loves him, etc, in spite of the sure knowledge that what I was about to do was directly defying God.

>>10401
I hate when Christians step into the really embarrasing sci-fi subjects of Religion such as Resurrection, magic healing, inner voices coming from God itself and so on, and take all that shit for granted.

>>10404
Me too. It's something I have to struggle against sometimes, it's pretty easy to forget what God's done for me in the stress of daily life and the prep for future troubles. We all tend to take God, and what He's done for us, for granted, and that's bullshit. So when we try to talk to other folks about God working in our lives, we likewise forget that other folks don't have prayer to fall back on.

It's odd, you know? I mean, Sunday School when I was a kid was all about Bible stories, and those are nice, but in Jr. High and HS, they ought to have transitioned into class teaching how to deal with the problems we were all facing. Instead of how to talk to our friends that drank, we were taught that alcohol (etc) was bad. Instead of how to reach people, we were taught that such behaviors are non-Biblical and should be avoided.

That's all well and good for me to believe, and I don't drink, but it didn't do shit for my ability to reach out to the people that do. Same thing with sex, drugs, violence, you name it. When I hit the real world, and noticed that most people aren't Bible types, yet we're not living in Gomorrah, it was something of a surprise.

>>10325
>You don't need to fight against nihilism, you just need to find out what your own values are and change your conception of value from external to internal.
>Find out what your own values are
>Change your conception of value from external to internal
How is choosing my own values, and making them subjective to me as opposed to absolute *not* Existentialism?

Nihilism is the belief that there is no objective value, no meaning, and that creating our own meaning is useless. If you start creating meanings, you're an existentialist.

" reason and logic tell me that ultimately, every belief, idea, and ethical standard are constructs of the human mind, and thus have no concrete backing in reality. "

The human mind does not need to solely construct, but can also discover- Some argue that objective truth does exist, (Math, logic, and, some believe, ethics)

You appear to be a cultural relativist, but be aware morals -can- be seperate from god, and any observer.

google shit, yo.

>>10226
1.Read
2.Become a cynic
3.???
4.PROFIT!

>>10393
I thought this referred to how everyone's image of god is based on their own personality.

>>10402
Or that we choose religions that suit us (poor farmers choose the religion that says the meek will inherit the earth, people living in a caste system choose religions where deities perpetuate caste systems, and people close to nature gravitate towards animism). Or about a dozen other things. That's the great thing about quotes. They CAN be interpreted.

>>10403
Agreed. Like, I agree with the principals of Sikhism, but I couldn't become one because
A) Im not fond of growing a beard
and
B) I can't give up meat

>>10386
To clarify: You are right; it is egocentric to assume humans are the ONLY sentient thing around, let alone to be the ones to eventually take over god's position. I do believe in the idea of another sentient species someone out of our solar system. I was using humanity as the "base" creation to destroy god because of the fact that we're the only ones we know of right now. Just clarifying.

Also, (not relevant) does anyone have an interest in artificial intelligence? IMO, that's where we will truly start forging our way to cliche` godliness, haha.

>>10394

Artificial intellegence is tricky, to try and make it relevant. As I've said, I don't believe in God or anything, but when I was younger I did, due to my family. No matter how I try, I can't make it so artificial beings would have souls. I can imagine dogs, monkeys, dolphins, lizards, maybe even insects having souls, being complex and biological... but an android? It just doesn't seem right to have a soul.

That's probably just a result of my limited way of seeing things, as there is no reason why a system of evolution cannot encompass mechanical as well as biological evolution. Maybe it's because I don't think my desktop computer is ever going to become Data from ST:TNG. If it did, in my lifetime, could I treat it as I treat a human being, knowing that, in my youth, computers could barely run SimCity without crashing? I doubt it. Maybe if androids were created by taking dying humans and "downloading" the entire contents of their brain inside the mechanical body. I haven't quite figured out the mind/body dichotomy and exactly what a soul is or how it works, yet. It's the most difficult problem I've yet encountered, and might take several more years to work to a solution.

But God doesn't care. If he's replaced by humans, martians, lizard men, androids, Cthlhu, as long as he dies, that's great! :D

>>10395

I was just saying that AI would help us eventually become something of the idea of a god, either by technological breakthroughs to make us cyborgs with lasers, or breakthroughs in biotechnology.
That, and AI would be the closest we may come to creating a sentient being.

Also: Souls do not inherently matter in my idea here.

That is all. Let us eat cake.

Nah. I think death is just an illusion of an end.

>>10279

I think you're confusing the mind with the soul. What is a soul? Everything most people attribute to the "soul" is usually a result of the mind.

I do not fear death by astonishment.

>>10365 here.

I didn't cite anything examples because I really don't want to be involved in this discussion. I am not religious so I don't care. That being said, the Lucifer series is very interesting as it touches on a lot of the philosophical issues that come up if you look deeper into Christian mythology, the parts about God and the Angels. To keep >>10369 happy I will say that the series is essentially about Lucifier trying to escape God's creation. However it develops in the story that God knew he would try and do this because he knows everything that is going to happen in his creation. At one point in the story God leaves his creation for a while so events can unfold that he has no knowledge of, it is the only way he can experience randomness and fully test his creation in respect to Lucifier. I am not trying to sound well read, if you jumped to that conclusion first it generally implies that you are the sort of wanker who brings things up to sound well read. This is a discussion and that particular piece of literature is relevant to it. It is like when the gays look at everyone in terms of if they could turn them gay or not, it never occurs to them that some people never think about sucking dick. Same thing here, there are some people who don't try to look like a poser all the time and just reference things that relate to what they are talking about.

But I digress, the series is somethign like 80 issues long so of course I am not going to list it in point form. If you want me to be more specific about my post then; you should read the Lucifer series because it looks at the mythology behind Christianity in terms of God, the devil and angels. It doesn't even mention Jesus or anything of the bible dickery, it is purely concerned with the God/Devil thing, pure Christianity if you will. Of course if you look in

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>10378
Pic related, well said.

>>10377
Meh. The thing is, when you've been through the discussion so many times and have read a few dozen books on Christian apologetics as well as a few dozen pieces of anti-Christian reactionary literature, you get tired of going through the motions of an argument that you know can't lead anywhere on either side and just want to skip to the inevitable endgame, unless of course you're arguing with someone that isn't as well versed in the matters as you are, in which case I consider arguing for either side to be silly because then I might end up winning with a point I know to be flawed. Something I consider to be misleading and unethical.

>>10289
By posting more cool drawings!

But, more seriously, to get rid of depression, head over to /mind/ and to get rid of nihilism, become an existentialist (the easy way out) or determine an objectively moral thing to do with your time.

As to your food question, you could probably synthesize ATP or sugar from nonliving sources, but that is what plants are for.

Frankl. He doesn't actually address the point but, y'know, good enough for government work. Depends on the type of nihilism you suffer from too. If you subscribe to determinism then don't worry, you're too cowardly to kill yourself.

>>10307
Listen to this man. I'm not kidding.

Human beings don't really have any perception of the passage of time. Epistomologically speaking, we are only aware of having memories, which are constructed in seeming chronological order and in which we perceive causality.

Secondly, although we perceive events causing later events, one can look at it the other way around; certain events require a specific chain of prior events in order to occur. Considering we are only directly aware of past events having occurred, we ought to treat history as equally necessary interdependent events, separated by a period of time. In this case, postdestination and predestination are both factors in determining 'now', but due to the nature of entropy (amongst other factors) we are merely unaware, as of yet, of the future events that will happen that help to determine the present moment.

This is the product of my introspection regarding the passage of time and causality. I like it because it helps to explain why a specific event occurs when quantum mechanics can only predict a range of possible events, and because it circumvents 'present chauvinism', the idea that the present moment is somehow qualitatively different from the past or future moments.

The gist of quantum mechanics is not that matter actually behaves randomly, but that our ability to infer what will happen from past observations is ultimately limited; limited in such a way, however, that we can predict the behaviour of matter with a fixed degree of probability.

As for first causes; assigning a personality to cosmological origin is completely arbitrary and unnecessary. If there was a 'first cause', its existence is necessitated by the fact of present existence. I think it best not to dwell on the subject, since it is obvious that mankind's understanding of time and cosmology is woefully lacking.