Comments on: Why There Are, By Definition, NO Atheists in Foxholes

By: Sigg3

Sigg3 — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 14:09:17 +0000

No, Jesus approved.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:05:48 +0000

Chuckle. Oh you’re going straight to hell for that one

By: Sigg3

Sigg3 — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:43:33 +0000

Sigg3.net now features 50 pictures of Jesus! That's right.

By: Sigg3

Sigg3 — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 13:27:19 +0000

Very pseudo-philosophy, if I don’t mind me saying. Which I don’t:)

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:24:29 +0000

Oh, also, I don’t know if you delved deeply into my blog here, but I wrote about God and nothing a while back… 10 years ago in fact. Yikes!

http://jim.casablog.com/1997/10/23/the-concept-of-nothing/

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 18:22:15 +0000

No, now why would I have picked that example?

Your mugging still pisses me off. I wish I was there. I know what I would have done. I would have kicked some ass. How do I know? Because I’ve been in that situation before.

I was in college and some asshole was beating up his girlfriend. I was walking with my girlfriend at the time. I immediately stepped toward the scene, but she tugged at me, saying that we should just keep moving. I ignored her plea and jumped into action, pulled the guy off and occupied him until the cops showed up. It was afterward that I thought about the possible ramifications like: what if he had a knife or gun. But I just saw that poor woman and reacted.

I would have thrown down with you Sigg3, even if I would have gotten beat up too. We’d have been beaten up together. Kinda like life, no? We’re all beaten up and killed together… all we’ve got is the together.

By: Sigg3

Sigg3 — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:53:26 +0000

‘Nothing at all’ would suit me better.
Thinking (or the act of imagining) ‘nothing’ and thinking ‘God’ seems to be quite the same to me. Or maybe ‘God’ and ‘Santa Claus’ are more like it. (Gave me a great idea ’bout Santa-jihad.)
With Descartes; these are made-up ideas, ideas that I make for no place in res extensa, such as unicorns.

You didn’t pick that mugging-example by chance, did you? Sneaky bastard.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:53:27 +0000

Very nice discussion we have going here. I look forward to reading your book. I know you come from a philosophy background, so I won’t get bogged down in the precision of your discipline, but as a lay person, I made some assumptions (of course). In this case, rational for me means, "that which will offer me the most safety for the least risk" coming from the point of view of "if I die, that’s all she wrote." Perhaps I’ve triggered a special word within your realm which I didn’t mean to trigger. I suppose it is the same thing in physics. Speed and velocity are two separate things. Most people outside of engineering use those two interchangeably, but we engineers know there is a world of difference.

"I just don’t see what God has to do in it…" Ah, but you see, that’s the basic misunderstanding. God doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with it. That’s the sticky wicket, now isn’t it. Life is like one of the pictures of something mundane and banal, but from really really close, so close that you can’t figure out what the hell it is. I think that’s our situation. We call it God, but it is known by a number of names. We trap it with orthodoxy, but it cannot be contained. We codify it, but words fail utterly.

I do throw out the common notion of God when I use the word God – which I suppose is problematic. Flying Spaghetti Monster perhaps?

By: Sigg3

Sigg3 — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:23:45 +0000

Of course, my razor blade compression of Kant portrays it like a thoughtless religion ramble, far from its profound level of understanding. It’s a solid piece of work.
I just don’t see what God has to do in it, except for being a “solid” part of Kant’s childhood and life.

By: Sigg3

Sigg3 — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:40:02 +0000

I do not say that Kant’s theory is purely Christian, I’m just saying the atheist would have a hard time substituting terms throughout his works (God, Angels, Good, Evil etc), and then end up with something meaningful.
I mean ‘divine being’ vs. ‘perfect being’, like one of my teachers suggested, doesn’t really solve the problem of presupposing what you’re supposed to explain.

Re: getting mugged. If the rational thing for you is being a coward, then sure:)
You seem to ascribe rule-following to the concept of rationality. This may prove unfruitful.
A definition of ‘irrationality’ in Philosophy of action reads something like:
when an agent does X knowing that X is not what the agents wants to do (general) and does not want to do X (specific) but still does it.
It’s like impulses acting against you. Causes are often in the direction of weakness of the will or mental illness.
In this sense (and by contrast) rationality would be doing what one (know one) wants to do, hence; “I’d rather go home now to my family and children rather than risking to get beaten” OR “I’m gonna shout out for a crowd so we can get the bastards”.
Would it be harder for you to help a known pedophile in the situation you describe?
I think we do what we want to. Difficulty’s that most people don’t know what they want.

I like your contention, though. It is very neo-pragmatic. I am writing a book about the subject:)
People oft remember that we lived in caves a sneeze ago, and we neglect the ongoing impact of what customs we’ve brought with us ever since.