You know I just had to look in this thread. I wonder how many others won't be able to resist opening it.

Anyway, I only saw the first video just now and I think what he is saying is very interesting. It seems to me that he is saying that the whole issue is itself idiotic. There is a saying: Don't argue with a fool, people might not tell the difference.

I'll have to listen to it again properly when I have time and then make a proper commentary.

Pastor AIO:

You know I just had to look in this thread. I wonder how many others won't be able to resist opening it.

Anyway, I only saw the first video just now and I think what he is saying is very interesting. It seems to me that he is saying that the whole issue is itself idiotic. There is a saying: Don't argue with a fool, people might not tell the difference.

I'll have to listen to it again properly when I have time and then make a proper commentary.

Nice to know you watch one of the videos. I know of another video that presents the question of God's ontology in very clear terms. Here is it .

Looking forward to your comments.

Well Atheism in popular vernacular is just a lack of belief.

I don't like the term Atheism because it labels me of what I am NOT rather than what I am.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0zSCpsOSSw

0thello:

Well Atheism in popular vernacular is just a lack of belief.

I don't like the term Atheism because it labels me of what I am NOT rather than what I am.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0zSCpsOSSw

Nice to see you posted a link to Thounderfoot's video. I like to watch his video and he is a real advocate of scientific rationalism and a thorn in the flesh of the creationists.

LoL I think me and you are going to get on quite well huxley.

You should check out Aronras foundational falsehoods of creationism. Or CRaP debunked.

Donexodus2 is also very good.

I was hoping [b]bawomolo [/b]created this thread

0thello:

LoL I think me and you are going to get on quite well huxley.

You should check out Aronras foundational falsehoods of creationism. Or CRaP debunked.

Donexodus2 is also very good.

Hello 0thello,

I very much hope we do get on. In this world replete with superstitious irrationalism, it is hard to find people with whom one can fraternise in a truly honest and enlightened manner.

Yes, I am also familiar with Aronra and his work. And I know CraP debunked as AndromedasWake, and he too is a great presenter of scientific criticism of creationism. Donexodus2 is also a very good debunked of creationism.

Here are others you may find interesting:

2) Potholer54

2) Pat Condell

2) AgnosticMan77 Pfor

2) ProfMTH

2) Stefbot

2) Cristofer7

2) cdk007

2) CaptainGhoul


I hope you find something useful in the above. Tell me a bit about yourself- where are you based and how did you come to disbelieve the claim of the religionist?

All of these people are on my subscription list, I have to say it is refreshing to see another non-superstitious person on this site. Ever since I've come here it was like stepping into the dark ages. People jumping at their own shadows and invoking their solipsism as if the the whole world shares their delusions.

I frequently watch the atheist Experience on video google or listen to the pod cast "non prophets". Two very good shows.

Don't worry,you're close to it.

GOOD NEWS
to God be the Glory

May Zeus bless you too. May Poseidon be merciful and bless you with calm waters on your boat trip to and from Naija.

Sounds ridiculous eh? Well that's exactly what the Christian God sounds like to me.

any reaosn why its only the Christian God you have a problem with?

DeReloaded:

any reaosn why its only the Christian God you have a problem with?

I don't remember saying " only the Christian God was a problem". All assertions of the existence of deities are equally ridiculous to me.

0thello:

Sounds ridiculous eh? Well that's exactly what the Christian God sounds like to me.

Is the christian God the only God people ask blessings from? Why be so specific?

Hello Huxley, You have broached this very same issue before in another thread titled ,'Who is God?'
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-136794.0.html#msg2321153

In that thread I sought to show the distinction between God and 'the concept of God'.  Here's what I said:

Someone might point to my physical body and say that is me.  But is it?  Someone might list a whole heap of characteristics and say that is me.  But would it  be?  Does anyone really get anyone else, or anything else for that matter.  Are we all not limited by our perspectives?  As soon as we experience something or someone we immediately mold the experience into a concept.  Preconceptions too affect the way in which we experience things and conceptualise the experience. 

So this question does not just apply to God but to everything that we might experience.  Who is God?  Who or what is anything? 

Any description is a distinguishing thing.  it distinguishes him from other agents that would be described differently.

To describe him as the creator of the universe is to distinguish him from other agents it would seem.  Yet since everything has it's source and root from creation, actually what that does is it makes him the main Agent in every activities that occurs in the universe.  In other words indistinguishable from every other agent.  He is the original agent behind the agent.  The source and the essence of all beings. 

Seeing how hard it is to define and distinguish God from any other aspect of the universe I think  . . . .  hmmmm what do I think?

. . . but let's get back to eightfootmanboy.  He is right to pick at all these conceptualisations of god and expose them as incoherent babble.  Yet God is not a concept.  He puts the cart before horse by saying that first we've got to know what we are talking about before we decide whether we believe in it or not.  For me the Experience precedes the Conceptualising. The Concepts are nothing but INTERPRETATIONS of the experience.  Furthermore the concepts always fall short of the Truth. 

One thing that can be said about cognitive categorisations is that they are binary.  Things fall into an either/or box.  Either it is or it isn't, one or the other.  What then if one has an experience that confounds all cognitive categories?  They babble and come up with all sorts of nonsensicalities in an attempt to articulate it but these will always fall short of the mark. 
Something that often occurs with such an experience is the sense of superlativeness.  Hence God is Great!  But that is sheer nonsense.  Something can't be just great.  We need criteria.  Great at what.  To be a great seducer of women is to be poor at fidelity.  So Allahu Akbar is a complete and utter nonsensicality unless we know what Allahu is Akbar at.  Akbar at killing?  Or Akbar at Dancing?  Akbar at what? 

God is ineffable.  But 8foot would say then what are we talking about?  An experience, I would answer.  An experience that actually occurs but boggles the mind.  I know it exists because I experienced it.  That I can't define it is a secondary consideration. 

I also addressed these issues in another thread thus:

whoooa!  I think we need to halt right there.  First that word God.  It is my experience that though it is a commonly used word whenever I probe into people's meaning of God I find that they are referring to something so utterly different from me that we cannot really be put in the same category. 

Therefore I could not tell you that I believe in God as you do.

Secondly, that word 'perfect'.  Perfection is a human concept that needs to be qualified by agreed upon criteria.  For instance a perfect Circle does not make a very good square.  Neither will a perfect square do as a circle.  First you need some criteria before you can talk of something fulfilling that criteria perfectly.  If pollution and mess are the criteria that we are referring too then I would agree with you that the world we are living in is a perfect mess. 

To say God is perfect you need to tell me according to what criteria.  It is an empty waffle to just say he is perfect.  Is he a perfect beast?  A perfect man, a perfect machine?   

Further more, this is the first time since I've known the word perfection that I've heard that it implies or means an elimination of possibility of arbitrarly events or chance. 

You have to be very careful of idolatry!  It is often the case that man tries to mold God into his own image.  Whether cast in structures of stone, wood, metal, or even conceptual structures,  an idol remains an idol, that is a work of man.

This crafting of God into definitions and structures based actually on your own mind and way of thinking with all it's limitations amounts in fact to idolatry. 

  This is from this thread:
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-124348.32.html#msg2146381

When you have experienced the divine though, many of the 'equivocations' that prop up in the concepts of God start to make sense a little bit.  For instance the claim that God is Love.  At the risk of confounding the matter further, I understand the statement cos it's possible to feel Love as something almost tangible and it seems to be all around coming off the trees and the rocks and all around, everywhere.  I bet I'm starting to sound like a right nutter, but it's the best I can do.  It's like a feeling of being cared for and being safe.  Being Loved. 
The saying that God is Great also might come from a sense of superlativeness and vast awesomeness that it is impossible to describe.  Again it doesn't fit into any of the categories of cognition.

The question I wanna ask is, 'Can experience continue after conceptualisation stops?'  And the answer to my question is, 'yes, absolutely'.  The Concepts are merely interpretations of reality.  Concepts occur in the brain. 

But this Conceptualisation of God does not just stop with God.  Remember the Spinning woman website I showed you? From this thread

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-241320.0.html

the website is here:

http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=552

There it is clear that Perception at it's most fundamental level is an interpretation of Reality.  All the categories of perceptions whether it is spinning left or it is spinning right are but fabrications of the mind.  Perception and Conception are similar processes of Cognition and obey the rules of cognition which introduces the limitations of mutually exclusive opposites.  So something cannot be going left and going right at the same time, it has to be doing one or the other.  In the case of that woman spinning.  What is that picture REALLY doing?  We know what we can see it doing, but what is it really doing?  And if we cannot define what it is really doing then can we say that it is impossible to discuss it's existence?

And one last thing.  8foot challenges theologians to come up with a concept of God that is not based on physicalism, or placing it above physicalism.  The guy needs to first define physicalism or naturalism because every definition thus far offered by naturalismist (sic) cannot cover all phenomena that we know occurs.  Hence why there has been no established definition yet. 
Apart from that I really like the videos and I like the guy.  He has great charisma and is quite a funny orator.

u guys actually sit down to read huxley?

JJYOU:

u guys actually sit down to read huxley?

+Raises hand+ I must admit I do. And I find it very enjoyable and often elucidating. It is so refreshing to have an issue on the table and actually discuss the issue on the table rather than hurl insults and personal attacks.

I wonder when Pat condell will do a number on religulous nigeria.I would love to hear what he's got to say about us.

Pastor AIO:

Hello Huxley, You have broached this very same issue before in another thread titled ,'Who is God?'
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-136794.0.html#msg2321153

In that thread I sought to show the distinction between God and 'the concept of God'.  Here's what I said:
. . . but let's get back to eightfootmanboy.  He is right to pick at all these conceptualisations of god and expose them as incoherent babble.  Yet God is not a concept.  He puts the cart before horse by saying that first we've got to know what we are talking about before we decide whether we believe in it or not.  For me the Experience precedes the Conceptualising. The Concepts are nothing but INTERPRETATIONS of the experience.  Furthermore the concepts always fall short of the Truth. 

One thing that can be said about cognitive categorisations is that they are binary.  Things fall into an either/or box.  Either it is or it isn't, one or the other.  What then if one has an experience that confounds all cognitive categories?  They babble and come up with all sorts of nonsensicalities in an attempt to articulate it but these will always fall short of the mark. 
Something that often occurs with such an experience is the sense of superlativeness.  Hence God is Great!  But that is sheer nonsense.  Something can't be just great.  We need criteria.  Great at what.  To be a great seducer of women is to be poor at fidelity.  So Allahu Akbar is a complete and utter nonsensicality unless we know what Allahu is Akbar at.  Akbar at killing?  Or Akbar at Dancing?  Akbar at what? 

God is ineffable.  But 8foot would say then what are we talking about?  An experience, I would answer.  An experience that actually occurs but boggles the mind.  I know it exists because I experienced it.  That I can't define it is a secondary consideration. 

I also addressed these issues in another thread thus:  This is from this thread:
https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-124348.32.html#msg2146381

When you have experienced the divine though, many of the 'equivocations' that prop up in the concepts of God start to make sense a little bit.  For instance the claim that God is Love.  At the risk of confounding the matter further, I understand the statement cos it's possible to feel Love as something almost tangible and it seems to be all around coming off the trees and the rocks and all around, everywhere.  I bet I'm starting to sound like a right nutter, but it's the best I can do.  It's like a feeling of being cared for and being safe.  Being Loved. 
The saying that God is Great also might come from a sense of superlativeness and vast awesomeness that it is impossible to describe.  Again it doesn't fit into any of the categories of cognition.

The question I wanna ask is, 'Can experience continue after conceptualisation stops?'  And the answer to my question is, 'yes, absolutely'.  The Concepts are merely interpretations of reality.  Concepts occur in the brain. 

But this Conceptualisation of God does not just stop with God.  Remember the Spinning woman website I showed you? From this thread

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-241320.0.html

the website is here:

http://delicategeniusblog.com/?p=552

There it is clear that Perception at it's most fundamental level is an interpretation of Reality.  All the categories of perceptions whether it is spinning left or it is spinning right are but fabrications of the mind.  Perception and Conception are similar processes of Cognition and obey the rules of cognition which introduces the limitations of mutually exclusive opposites.  So something cannot be going left and going right at the same time, it has to be doing one or the other.  In the case of that woman spinning.  What is that picture REALLY doing?  We know what we can see it doing, but what is it really doing?  And if we cannot define what it is really doing then can we say that it is impossible to discuss it's existence?

And one last thing.  8foot challenges theologians to come up with a concept of God that is not based on physicalism, or placing it above physicalism.  The guy needs to first define physicalism or naturalism because every definition thus far offered by naturalismist (sic) cannot cover all phenomena that we know occurs.  Hence why there has been no established definition yet. 
Apart from that I really like the videos and I like the guy.  He has great charisma and is quite a funny orator. 

Wow, this takes another twist. You seem to have reduced god to mere experience and experiencing. What is becoming more and more obvious is that the further one probes into the ontology of god the more the adept redefine him/her. In the times of Moses, this god use to manifest himself as a burning bush, or column of smoke, etc. In the early first century, he manifested himself in the form of Jesus. So if the Christian narrative is to be believed, these were attempts of of god ontology somewhat.

Now, you have reduced him to experience and experiencing. Is the god you experience the same god that the moslem, Sihks, Shaman, etc, etc, experience?

huxley:

Wow, this takes another twist.  You seem to have reduced god to mere experience and experiencing.  What is becoming more and more obvious is that the further one probes into the ontology of god the more the adept redefine him/her.   In the times of Moses, this god use to manifest himself as a burning bush, or column of smoke, etc.  In the early first century, he manifested himself in the form of Jesus.  So if the Christian narrative is to be believed, these were attempts of of god ontology somewhat.

Now, you have reduced him to experience and experiencing.  Is the god you experience the same god that the moslem, Sihks, Shaman, etc, etc, experience? 

Huxley, just what have you said above?  Have you thought about what I said before you posted a response.  Dude?!!

reduced god to mere experience and experiencing

Reduced?  Reduced to an experience?  Are you listening to yourself, man?  What isn't an experience?  The computer you are seeing?  You are experiencing it, is this not so?  The fart you farted this morning, you experienced it?  Did you not?  Your sense of identity, nay, even your sense of being is an experience, is it not?  So please tell me, what isn't an experience?  And how do you REDUCE something to an experience?  What is it in it's augmented state before it is reduced to an experience?  Can you see how ridiculous your statement sounds now? 

Your position is that if something can not be defined then it cannot exist.  I'm telling you that that is such a stoopid thing to say.  There are many things that we experience from time to time that defy our abilities to define or conceptualise.  Are you saying that those things cannot exist because we cannot grasp them with our puny brains? 

I will accept that without concepts we cannot think about things, and we cannot talk about things, and basically we cannot process them cognitively.  The Brain processes concepts.  Fair enough.  I accept that.  But to say that something that cannot be conceptualised cannot exist is ridiculous.  You're smarter than that, man! 

the further one probes into the ontology of god the more the adept redefine him/her

Redefines him?!  Where did I redefine him please?  Remind me of the definition that I gave to god.

Is the god you experience the same god that the moslem, Sihks, Shaman, etc, etc, experience? 

I cannot speak for the experience of others, but what I'm told by muslims, sikhs, and shamans, ie the concepts that they communicate to me regarding the object of their religious worship are not the same thing as my experience.  These concepts of theirs may or may not have been inspired by an experience.  When I say 'may not' I am also taking into account that some of the concepts may be pure invention. 

I form concepts too but I have learned that the reality is far deeper than any concepts I come up with.