YEP! I don’t know how anyone has yet said anything actually substantial about anything ‘before’ the big bang. My understanding is that time itself actually began during the big bang. Talking about a before does not make any sense if time as we know it came to be in the big bang. I’ll agree with you in the assertion,'Someone out there needs to read a book. Or, at least, watch the short video presentation linked." Or… hang out in a coffee shop with Ratty and discuss woo woo to their heart’s content. LOL
1 Like
You know, I’m starting a library of referenced witticisms by Cali. When I eventually gain sufficient knowledge and understanding (Can I use those words like that?) of the vocabulary implemented in the constructions of such disparagisms, I plan on increasing my own abilities significantly.
So your comprehension of love and compassion are different than mine, and yet we still know what they are, since they are subjective terms with different meanings to different people?
So there are no universal values upon which to base morality?
So, morality can be based on hatred?
So, there’s no objective standard by which to say my morality is comparatively “better” than Hitler’s?
So, when I tell you that I can see the future, and I explain that it’s bright, I’m being facetious and you don’t believe me? Lol. This is getting good. Let’s keep going!
So, you can demonstrate that I don’t have conscious access to the universe in the present moment?
So, you weren’t born in ‘65?
So, in order to be omniscient it is not enough to know everything in the present moment, one must know everything all the time?
So, if there is an objective standard on which to base morality, it would not be the case that people choose subjective values to base there morality on?
So, the word universal has no relation to the word “absolute”?
So, desiring pain is a subjective tendency? Much like my tendency to masturbate compulsively? Or much like the tendency of a pedophile to desire sexual gratification from children? These are “subjective” values which are judged by subjective standards imposed on them by society?
So, dictionaries are authoritative?
So when I experience love and compassion in my heart, mind, body, and soul - I am making vapid metaphors?
Nope you are just being inaccurate. Your brain may convince itself that one may have a mind and a soul. A heart is a pump controlled by the brain, A body doesn’t not have emotions it has physical reactions. A body is made of flesh and bone, it is not full of shit, only a portion is for that purpose whatever anyone says to the contrary about you Ratty.
2 Likes
Put another way. Any physical reactions you imagine you are having in your heart are being caused by your brain. Given you have a propensity to imagine your heat being some sort of emotional meter, you are more likely to continue attributing emotional states to your heart. “Believing is seeing.”
Not the point, the point was I was not disputing or rejecting that such emotions exist, as your straw man implied, only that they are not a universal basis for morality as this is a subjective claim, and my assertion was neither a straw man fallacy nor did it move any goal posts.
The dictionary definitions are not compiled subjectively, but based on the objective data of what most people understand the words to mean. However words change over time, and subjective opinions influence this.
I am dubious, but please give me one, and I will take a look, but even if there were the decision to use them would still be a subjective choice.
Of course, fear and hatred are strong motivators for actions, morality is solely concerned with whether actions are right or wrong, ipso facto hatred and fear not only can but often are motivators for subjective morality in us all.
No, since basis of your morality is subjective, all moral evaluations are subjective, once you accept something is good or bad you can make objective evaluations about how best to achieve this.
I don’t believe you no, since all you offered was a bare claim, and I suspected you were being facetious, indeed hoped would be a better word.
That’s not what omniscience means. Your posts amply demonstrate you are not omniscient. try imagine what limitless knowledge would look like in a post on here, it’s not an easy thing to do, but it would look nothing like any of the human ideas we see.
That doesn’t address the contradictory claims you made? Either we all have the same moral values, or they are relative, you cannot claim to reject the idea morals are relative, then simultaneously claim some people have different (shitty) morals, as they cannot both be true at the same time.
Google them and see if they are synonymous, but the fact remains you claimed love and compassion were a universal basis for human morality, and they quite demonstrably are not, and I offered examples of people who make moral judgements devoid of both love and compassion. I would imagine most of us do at some point, since fear and hatred are also powerful motivators. Would you have felt love and compassion for Hitler or Adolf Eichmann or Joseph Mengele after their crimes, or would you have been happy to see them hanged?
I don’t know what motivates masochists if that is what you’re asking, but one need not be a masochist in order to seek pain, as my examples showed, there are ordinary people who seek / want pain, often as this will be the lesser or shorter pain for example. The problem is that when you deal in absolutes they become hard to defend. So your claim that “no one wants pain” was demonstrably a claim you couldn’t hope to defend, which is why you’ve been adding caveats ever since.
You’re moving the goal posts again, this was your claim:
I was responding only to that claim, and it is demonstrably wrong.
You didn’t say experience, here is your claim:
When you claim to be doing that, yes.
Emotions are the product of our brains, the heart does not contain emotion, though it may be influenced by the brain when we experience strong emotions, I don’t believe in souls as no one can accurately define them or offer any objective evidence they exist.
Why do you keep referencing the soul? Do you actually think it’s a real thing? Can you be an atheist and still believe in the human soul?
Of course one can be an atheist and still believe that souls exist. Atheism is a response to god propositions, not soul propositions.
Technically yes!
Technically you can be an atheist and believe in ALL of the following: alchemy, astrology, ghosts, speaking with the dead, psychic powers, karma, etc.
I just wouldn’t recommend it; that stuff does not work.
1 Like
Unfortunately, yes. You can believe in crystal magic, cutting open the entrails of rats and predicting the future, reincarnation, karma, pyramid power, chakras, chi, sympathetic and parasympathetic magic, and still not believe in a god. You just don’t happen to be a ‘rational’ atheist.
1 Like
There are pains and pleasures which may entirely consume the body. As a musician you must be aware of such raptures induced … for example … by the work of Beethoven?
1 Like
I did not mean “universal love” in the same sense as “universal health care”. I meant it in the sense of “whomever may possess it will extend it without discrimination”. Do you not think such affection for people is possible?
A thread on this point of contention might be interesting.
Love that extends to oneself and all others. Love which does not allow one to bear ill will to those who have abused you.
Ah ha! “Universal hatred” so it seems? What then defines immorality?
And yet, you still have yet to confirm or dent that you were born in ‘65?
Perhaps there are limitations to my conscious awareness.
Clearly we all maintain different sets of values. Clearly some are superior to others. Clearly someone can be the judge of that. Ie. a person with a superior set of morals based on a more stable set of values.
Not my intention. My intention was to say that universal love and compassion, when maintained by an individual, do not allow them to be cruel or bare ill will towards others. It
What is a more accurate indicator of the meaning of compassion? A dictionary entry or a personal feeling of it?
And “find” is simply a poetic manner of saying “experience”. 
I apologize for the inconsistency.
I consider certain feelings in the heart which extend to the mind, body, and soul (if you’ll allow for the term) to be expressions of one’s emotions … yes. It is accurate to say that feelings of pain and pleasure are experienced in the heart.
Well. You may have forgotten. I am a “schizophrenic”. My views on God are highly influenced by so called “hallucinations” - the type of which I am unable to discern from reality.
so why are you introducing another unrelated argument? Pain and pleasure are 100% generated by the brain.
1 Like
Did i not already give you the Classic Greek definitions of love? Yet you are still failing to acknowledge them?
Eros (romantic, passionate love)
The first kind of love is Eros, named after the Greek God of fertility.
Eros is passion, lust and pleasure.
The ancient Greeks considered Eros to be dangerous and frightening as it involves a “loss of control” through the primal impulse to procreate. Eros is an intense form of love that arouses romantic and sexual feelings.
Philia (affectionate love)
The second type of love is Philia, or friendship.
Plato felt that physical attraction was not a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to mean, “without physical attraction.”
Agape (selfless, universal love)
The third is Agape, selfless universal love, such as the love for strangers, nature, or God.
This love is unconditional, bigger than ourselves, a boundless compassion and an infinite empathy that you extended to everyone, whether they are family members or distant strangers.
Storge (familiar love)
Storge is a natural form of affection experienced between family members.
This protective, kinship-based love is common between parents and their children, and children for their parents.
Storge can also describe a sense of patriotism toward a country or allegiance to the same team.
Mania (obsessive love)
When love turns to obsession, it becomes mania.
Stalking behaviors, co-dependency, extreme jealousy, and violence are all symptoms of Mania.
Ludus (playful love)
The Ancient Greeks thought of ludus as a playful form of love.
It describes the situation of having a crush and acting on it, or the affection between young lovers.
Pragma (enduring love)
Pragma is a love built on commitment, understanding and long-term best interests.
It is a love that has aged, matured and about making compromises to help the relationship work over time, also showing patience and tolerance.
Philautia (self love)
The Greeks understood that in order to care for others, we must first learn to care for ourselves.
Ratty your arguments stem from ignorance. It is nice that you are thinking at all, but start with the basics, better minds than yours or mine, have already delved these human conditions and brain states.
3 Likes
Of course, just as stress is expressed as a tightening of the back and chest muscles along with headaches…instructions from the brain.
Fear is expressed by adrenalin flooding the muscles, inhibiting pain and increasing the heart rate and thus oxygenating the limbs ready for flight or fight.
Brain states, Ratty, that express as a physical reaction. Your heart is NOT “feeling” anything… it is reacting to instructions from the brain. Your heart is not feeling an emotion any more than your sphincter is “feeling” anything when you shit yourself in fright.
2 Likes
Listening to some Mozart or Beethoven, you experienced what we in the world of unbelief like to call “an emotion.” It was induced by a form of artistic expression. It was created by your fellow human beings. It is commonly known as an emotional influencer, and even used, by religions to elicit the exact response you were feeling. You will also find it used in video games, TV shows, movies, advertising, and more. To confess you were moved would be quite common. To attribute magic beyond human understanding to such phenomena is ‘schizophrenic.’ You were not receiving a signal from the spirit world, your heart, or some unknown and unmeasurable force beyond time and space.
3 Likes
And yet there is a source of pain (heat, knife, etc), an object of pain (skin, flesh, muscle, etc.), and the sensation of pain (the brain). This is how I see it. The brain is clearly only a part of the pain and pleasure process. It needs a medium in which to exist.
Sheldon asked for an example. I gave him one. I am not arguing that these different types of love exist.
Well, much like the impression of an external world generated in the brain via the eye, the feelings which appear in the body, heart, what have you, have their generation in the mind. I am not arguing that the mind creates the feeling. I am stating the simple fact that if you cut off your penis, for example, it’s going to hurt in your crotch (that is at least how it will appear). I find it laughable that we resort to saying “it’s all in the mind” when clearly it doesn’t occur without said appendages (or for that matter an external reality upon which to base the faculty of sight).