I view myself as an instructor, since my job in life is to acquire information. I have no credentials to back up my claims, other than my own brain, which is superior to any degree any college can offer. Progress in pure thought requires a human brain - not a college degree. The greatest strength of my philosophy is that it can be challenged rather easily, whether one chooses to verify or refute.

    Humans exist. Why they exist is beyond the scope of my philosophy and will not be discussed. There are a variety of ways to organize all of the things that exist. For the purposes here, I have chosen to organize things (all things that exist) 3 ways:

Category 1: Humans.
Category 2: Exist because of humans. (Humans are relevant.)
Category 3: Exist prior to humans. (Humans are irrelevant.)

    Summarily, we have humans, those things humans have brought into existence, and those things that existed prior to humans. Examples, I feel, are appropriate at this point.
    -An ant maintains a category 3 existence. If humans disappeared, ants would not disappear. Ants do not require humans in order to exist. This example can be extended to nearly the entirety of the animal kingdom, with the exception of certain bacteria and insects that require humans.
    -The boogeyman maintains a category 2 existence. He exists within the imagination of human beings. If humans ceased to exist, the boogeyman would go extinct. This example can be extended considerably to encompass the totality of human imagination.
    -Atoms maintain a category 2 and 3 existence. Elements heavier than plutonium do not occur naturally, so they require our existence. Those lighter than, and including plutonium, do not require humans.
    -Both science and religion maintain a category 2 existence. Science is a process by which natural processes are investigated and occurs due to the human mind. Religion is a collection of belief systems and exists due to human imagination.
    -The Gods (Christian, Muslim, Greek, Norse, etc.) maintain a category 2 existence. Since Gods arise from religion, they are automatically category 2. Some people mistakenly place Gods in category 3.
    More examples of category 2 existence:
Art, sports, writing systems, music, computers and books.
    Highly debatable category 2 possibility:
Language. (Animals do communicate.)
    More examples of category 3 existence:
Dinosaurs, planets, gravity, stars, electrons, space and time.

    My philosophy does not invalidate the existence of anything. Reality is simple and this is a simple explanation. In order to accept my philosophy, one must overlook a minor detail - the future. The future is beyond the scope of my philosophy, although time is included. Paradoxes do exist, and have fun with that one!

I find it extremely self-serving of mankind to put itself at the center of the Universe, the way you just did in your categorization. Well, not literally of course, but at the center of existence anyway.
Why would you organize things into categories based on human existence? Why not on life in the first place? Seems to make a lot more sense to me.

So I would revise it to:

Category 1: Life/Organisms
Category 2: Exist because of life/organisms.
Category 3: Exist regardless of life/organisms.

The things you put into category 3 still hold true by this classification, except for other life forms like Dinosaurs and ants obviously, because it's ridiculous to categorize them alongside planets, gravity, space, time and stars anyway.
Also, it neatly fits language into Category 2, no debate possible.

Furthermore, your signature is also incorrect. Many people (claim to) have memories of past lives, or of their mother's womb in case you meant that, and regardless of whether those memories are real or not, it is incorrect to say that noone stops to think about it.

I'm a religious man and you are so mistaken but I never believe myself as worthy enough to represent God. So I'm gonna stay out of this one as there is too much scope here for this to disproportionally spiral out of control. Never mix religion and politics and then start a debate on it. You can't keep this kind of thing light-hearted/non-serious.

'I know that most of you kids see me as some kind of.. "booger-man", but I'm not really such a bad.. 'dude'. Oh, your milk's gone cold, I'll ring for the maid.'

*laughs half-heartedly* Whoops, wrong button!

i beg to differ!!

simpsons?

'Just a little incident involving the bogeyman! '

yep, Burns' Heir
( :

Weee, responses!

I think he chose to work with the "human" framework because that's what he is. He starts at himself, and works outward from there. I think it's a fair way to do it, and it takes a lot for another human to claim the other is being "self-centered" when, in fact, we are all being self-centered by continuing to assert our will, indeed, our existence.

As for the signature ... agreed. And uhh ... didn't Plato argue that the souls' "immortality" means an extension all the way to the beginning of time, and not just a ray that starts at 1983 CE and then extends forward into eternity? So plenty of people HAVE thought about it, and have even been concerned about it. Just not many Westerners, and their religious worldviews/backgrounds. Which brings us to the next guy...

HAHAHAHA. Oh, it hurts.

I remember being a naive little 16-year-old, coming to challenge ol' Jodo on his thoughts re: God. I remember when he said "I believe in God, but not the way that 99.9999% of other people do when they say the same phrase." He believes in God(s) as a category 2 existence: our imagination. Man creates God, not the other way around.

Of course, I still agree with you Ephidel. But let's not just give up, or just shrug off Jodo's line of thought, patting ourselves on the back and giving ourselves a consolation Bible verse to keep our heads afloat: "the foolish man says in his heart, 'there is no God'" (Psalm 14:1). It's just not civil to turn the other way. Not to mention your "religion/politics" rant, which is COMPLETELY inappropriate for this forum. Where did our OP (Jodo) mix religion and politics? Nowhere.

So Jodo says:

Now remember, our friend is presenting HIS philosophy. He is sure in his belief that there is no such thing as a "real" (non-man-made) God. And he has a pretty solid argument: where is he/she/it? If you open your window in a dramatic fashion and yell "God where are you?" The best you'll get is a neighbor telling you to shut up. (I like to imagine that scene in The Neverending Story where Bastien agrees to give the princess chick a new name...totally classic).

I still believe in God, despite the fact that I could very well go shout out my window in an act of desperation and get *zero* reply (remember, if God is all that most religions make him/her/it out to be, he/she/it has the CAPABILITY to reply to me in a tangible way). It's certainly irrational of me to continue my belief, but I think there's reason to hold onto hope, afterlife, meaning, etcetc. Not quite pantheistic, but I do admit I'm disillusioned with the notion of God that I was raised to believe in ("buddy Christ" etc).

So yeah Jodo, my only beef with your presentation is that you're happy to place God(s) in category 3 without a second thought. I just want to protest" it's not fair!" (in a rather childish way) to stand up for all the theists out there (myself included). But you have your reasons, and you've presented your thoughts about this to me plenty of times before. So yeah, fair enough.

Re: The Future...

The "concept" of the future certainly exists in your breakdown (category 2). But the ACTUAL future ... it's a big question mark. You could make "the future" a category 4, I guess. You may even want to put all other unknowns in a category 4 as well (might I submit you put some semblance of a "supreme being" or "first cause" in that slot?).

But then that's not really a philosophy of reality. That's just admitting that there's a whole bunch of shit we don't know/understand. Which I HOPE everyone here can acknowledge.

All in all, I like the breakdown. Amazingu's breakdown works too, but since we ARE humans, it may be good to start with what we have (though your thoughts on people with mental retardation, handicaps, and other maladies would be welcome here as well...some "objectivists," like those of the ARI (Ayn Rand Institute), would argue that they are less than human.)

Ramza

If you believe in God, and you've reflected on the significance of that, you should already know the "meaning of life" so to speak.

As generations have progressed it is highly likely that mankind's connection to God had grown weaker. There is speculation enough to say there is a link between the pineal gland and religious experiences. This has great significance because some scientists now believe maybe not in God per se, but that mankind has a history linked with a "higher power".

Lots of people trust in Plato's euthyphro dialogue to disprove God's existence/importance, they however are severly mistaken. This is not a boolean equation, a simple yes or no will not suffice. The way I approach it is that if things are right or wrong independant of God therefore we don't need him, then they obviously haven't read the Bible in context. We all know why we need God, and to deny the fact is human arrogance at it's ugliest. As for the argument that things are moral/immoral under God's will. He could just change his mind they say, I say what difference would it make if murder was moral. Our job is to follow God unreservedly, blind faith so to speak, we have to leave our fate in God's hands. We should remember Abraham preparing to kill his own firstborn son under God's command, or maybe Job's torment and suffering. The lesson here is that we SHOULD have blind faith when following God. What kind of devout servant of God would you be if you didn't?

The real problem people have is against organised religion. Paedophile priests, Vicars picking and choosing which pieces of the Bible they want to believe, and the whole poncy atmosphere surrounding it. You can see why I do not claim to say what I do in God's name, yet it is up to all of us to start and complete our own paths for spiritual enrichment.

And don't become a Buddhist, your hardly thinking independantly are you? (ooooohh enlightenment! Ohhhhmmmmmmm!!)

To overcome the Spider's Curse
Simply quote a Bible Verse

(reverse the curse)
(esrever eht esruc)

THE WERLD IS SQUARE.

So that's who Capcom was going after in re4 during the whole Castle Scenario..

But according to Shigesato Ito, Dinosaurs & Ants & Bears (oh my!) are evil creatures bent on aiding Giygas & Pokey/Masaru enslave the Human Race.
(where are the humans racing to, anyways?)

Whoops, I did-ant mean to startle you!

Nah, i think his name was actually Play-Dough

I remember that, Matoya's Cave, those broomsticks from FF1. I think. Or was it FF4. Hmmm...

I think Capcom were just sticking to the old religious nutcases storyline, "We want to resurrect ultimate evil and all that.". FE PoR, Castlevania CotM, it's a tired old cliché but it easily produces a good bad guy. Saddler on Separate Ways was far harder than I expected. Leon got the easy way out.

Did you ever get my email Bryan?

It was in Darryl's Tomb (FF6), the funny thing was that you could re-chisel your answer into the headstone more than once.
( ;

DAMN! I should've remembered that. If I remember correctly (this time) the Growth Egg is near there. I prefer FF5, Exdeath, Gilgamesh, I think Shinryu is waaayyy better than Omega. And hey, I actually got a job, several in fact. See I'm full of surprises;)

Wow, this topic has gone out of hand in a way that I totally did NOT see coming.
Hurrah for Simpsons and Final Fantasy quotes though!

Also, on topic:

Yes, that, and also, this:

Those are really really scary thoughts in my view. The kind of thoughts that would drive people to fly airplanes into tall buildings. It's EXACTLY people who think like this that give religion a bad name.

If it's our job to follow god unreservedly then what's the point of free will? Why didn't god just make it easy on himself and pre-program all of us to abide and follow him? Isn't the whole idea for one to follow god's path because they "want" to - not because they are told "it's the right thing to do" - he doesn't want robots, much like the marine corp I think god wants us to question things - then make an informed decision based on the data we've been given. If anything it's our job to be human - to sin, repent, learn and interpret the world around us the best we can. Most people in life have the same goal(s) but nobody takes the same path.

Also, in the literal sense, isn't life - or more specificaly what we "do" in that life - that decides our fate? If we were to follow god without question what would be the point of this "test."

Thank y'kindly.
( :

The way i see it though, no human being conciously chooses to be born, we just wake up one day in a random time-period and begin living out that particular life.
Usually we have no recollection of our first few years of existance (I myself can't remember anything that happened to me before age 5). We don't have control over what country we're born in, we don't decide who our biological parents are going to be, we don't decide what kind of morals and values we're going to subscribe to until our early to mid-teenage years.

We don't know exactly how long we're going to live, where we will die, what we will die of, or how long it will take to pass away.
If it's from some random car accident/ Act of 'God', chances are that death usually comes quick and (hopefully) painlessly.
(i wonder if Kojima considers FOXDIE to be an Act of 'God').
If you happen to become affiliated with some form of organized crime somewhere in your lifespan and get accused of 'snitching' or what-have-you, chances are that 'The End' might not be so quick and sweet (see any Quentin Tarantino movie for reference).

Whether you believe in Reincarnation (sometimes i do) or Heaven/Hell or Wind-Fish/Darwinism or Just-Pitch-Black-Silence-As-Your-Bones-Return-To-The-Dust, all that really matters is that you make some kind of difference for the better on Mother Earth while you're here.
Nobody's perfect, but as long as you learn from your mistakes and use them to evolve into a better person in the long run, that's all we as humans can really do.

Ashley, I've responded to you in JasonMalice's thread.

Me too Shoebonics, I remember very little from when before I was 8.

You know, your really quite intelligent if you try

I STILL lose sleep over that Foxdie crap. The Wind-Fish was one of the BEST Zelda characters EVAR! I can hear the music now.

I like you being mental Shoebonics, but your viewpoint is correct. At this point in time, we are all imperfect. We just have to do the best we can. No-one (even God) can ask for anything more. Of course, you should probably be well, self-disciplined and never accept that your good enough, not to strive for perfection but to strive for better.

WOW! You have the standpoint that is very progressive and external to the whole God vs. Evolution debate. I applaud you and shower you with gifts good sir.

Welcome to Our Community, Mr. Ephidel.

(or is it Ms.?)

*gives Friend-Hug, otherwise known as Shuggie-Hug*
( :

It's Mr.

I'm glad to be accepted:)

(Gives handshake)

I started with humans because they (we) are self aware. We are constructed of material that the universe kindly provided and arranged in such a fashion to enable thought. One could argue (this is not my idea - I read it somewhere) that humans are merely the universe thinking. I see nothing wrong with considering humans (us) to be the unquestionable superior life forms, since we have discovered nothing superior (nothing we can't kill thoroughly). If we wanted to, we could kill almost every lifeform on this planet, including ourselves. Some hardcore extremophile bacteria are probably buried deep beneath the seafloor and other parts of the crust, so they would be difficult, but not impossible, to kill.

  If one accepts the notion that humans are merely activists of the universe, then a very interesting new way of thinking can be achieved. Without intelligent life, processes such as star formation and evolution work slowly. With very complicated arrangements of atoms (humans), other arrangements of atoms can be coerced to change at a more rapid pace. As an example, consider this:

   Normally (based on what we know of our own solar system), it takes millions of years for planets to form. Imagine if we came upon a young solar system and moved the material around as we saw fit, locking the planets into orbits, making a secondary star, etc. We could do all of those things in one lifetime, with the proper technology. And it wouldn't be 'us' doing it - it would be a fed up universe, tired of the plodding pace.

   Are we humans or are we the universe? Is there an experiment one could conduct to test this matter (no pun intended)?

   As for my signature, well, that requires a bit of explaining. If there is an afterlife, then we are alive right now. That is very easy to accept. However, what's to stop one from considering the possibility of a beforelife? I'm not talking about a previous life - not that crazy shit. I'm talking about some kind of unknown existence before one exists. This is identical to the afterlife. The beforelife and the afterlife are identical. How can that be?

   This is very simple. Each human is granted a period of existence. Before existence, there was a very long interval of nonexistence. After existence, there will be a very long interval of nonexistence. The interval after existence concerns many people and they call it the afterlife. But no one seems to understand that the period before is the same thing! A logical question to arise out of this is simply - which interval of nonexistence is longer?

Not to be a complete groupie, Jodo, but what's your IQ?

190+?

My IQ is nowhere near that level. I scored around 125 when I was 8. Since IQ varies insignificantly with age, it's probably the same right now.

   The scale on which I took the test is like this:

   100 = average
   140 = genius

   My younger brother scored higher than 140, but he doesn't care about philosophy. He spends most of his spare time playing fantasy baseball and football. There are lots of high IQ people out there that have no interest in 'deep' questions.

    Many people have much higher IQs than Einstein (did) and they aren't revolutionizing the way we think of time and space. I have to side with Robert Heinlein here. He stated that there is such a thing as a 'unique genius'. An example of a unique genius is Isaac Newton (a person I admire).

   If I did produce something of value, I would prefer to keep it secret. This may seem strange to you, but I don't like that much attention. I would rather discover something, die, and let someone else try to make sense of it. That would save me the trouble of having to explain it.

Then you should revere Newton's teachers and mentors, instead of Newton himself!

My understanding re: Newton and Calculus is this...

All Newton did was systematize the way it works and stick the name "Calculus" on it. All the actual theory behind it came from the generation before him, and Newton worked from there.

So maybe, if you discover something awesome, you can raise up an Isaac Newton that's stuck with having to explain it all after you die.

Ramza

But the stuff without value you post here.

Explains a lot to me.

No, i understand perfectly. i myself don't like public attention either (at least most of the time, heh.)

You should start writing THE BIBLE, VERSION 2.1 and see where it takes you..

Actually, the Bible is probably at version 52.7 by now. It was originally written in Hebrew (and a few other languages). It has been translated from those languages numerous times and translation (I can tell you from experience) is like creative writing.

    So I should really write THE BIBLE, VERSION 52.8. Hehe.

Translating is just getting the meaning across. It was written in Hebrew-Aramaic (Old Testament) and Greek (New Testament) and I believe the Vatican keeps at least some of the original Dead Sea Scrolls hidden away. Smoke and mirrors as usual. I studied French, German and Spanish, the Spanish being the easiest by FAR. You DO NOT want to learn German, the case endings will practically have you CRYING with frustration. I'd much rather talk about Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias than unemployment in Germany, it really didn't help that the subject was so boring.

Please invite me to the book-signing when you're done.

-shoe

My philosophy on reality:

THERE IS NO SPOON.