Interbane wrote:

Talk's cheap, Interbane. Please show the posts where they've answered my questions.

The last post on this page is where your questions were answered: http://www.booktalk.org/still-no-atheis ... 80-15.html

Check the thread now because I've just shown how you haven't answered any of my specific questions. Just thrown atheist propaganda that doesn't even address the issues I raise.

As for why humans invented all the metaphysical claptrap that's being discussed, there are many facets that converge on the answer. Why we believe in spirits, and how it happens "naturally":

Paradoelia - http://www.skepdic.com/pareidol.html

Irrelevant diversion. No one's seeing the Virgin Mary in a potato here. And every descriptor I've used for the Celestial Torah Christianity astrological iconic information is there for anyone to find and it obviously has nothing to do with seeing faces on Mars. If so, then Acharya too is projecting astrological meaning into ancient religious beliefs while you try to put them down here.

Apophenia - http://skepdic.com/apophenia.html

Again, atheist propaganda. I mean, really, do you think you can use an atheist website for "definitions" that are really just atheistic attack on theist beliefs? This one's really absurd because it doesn't seem to understand that it is precisely by mixing and matching that is otherwise called "creativity". I am reminded of the movie about Tucker, (I think its this movie) and his car, when Ford corp were trying to screw him out of patent for automatic windshield wipers and saying he invented nothing new, only put well-known parts together in a different way. To which the winning defense was that that is the way every new thing is invented. Books are written with well-known elements, words put together in novel ways and that is creativity, mixing this with that.
Agency Detection - http://www.icea.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/CAM/HADD.pdf

Absurd logic as if optical illusionary mistakes are equal to humans belief in spiritual forces that become evermore complexly defined which no amount of reading into an optical illusion would ever do. I mean do any of you see new religions formed from those optical illusion pictures popular as posters? Another non-starter argument.


Magical Thinking - http://skepdic.com/magicalthinking.html

Now here's where it get real interesting, Interbane, because unknown to you and all atheists, these words I'm typing and the ones you use, the letters that make them up? Do you have any idea how they arose as symbolic communication? Well, here's how: They started off as magical thinking, symbolic representations of human beings and given what we know as religious meaning to the ancients who first developed them. This is why to Hebrews for example, the very letters have immense "magical thinking" properties. Human speech, human script, all developed from "magical thinking". You wouldn't be able to understand me if it weren't for magical thinking allowing you to believe that when I write "humankind" you know what I mean because originally the symbols for "many humans" was given magical qualities.

The combination of these psychological facets of the human mind answer all your follow-up questions. Let me know if you don't understand any of them. There are also books that explain, in detail, how these characteristics have caused us to believe in false metaphysical concepts. I've posted links to the books in previous responses. Let me know if you can't find them.

They are atheist propaganda answers. Would I go to Christian fundamentalist website to get authoritative answers to atheist doubts about God's existence? I don't think so. So we're back to you answering my questions.


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As for logic, I'll show you what you're unable to see.

First of all, 90% of what you post commits the Ipse Dixit Fallacy. So, the majority of the content of your posts can be dismissed for committing that fallacy.

Bs. My posts reflect my spiritual work and everything pertaining to my arguments supporting my work is laid out in logical steps. The conclusions reached are logical ones with the steps for understanding the logical historical patterns given.

However, you do support some of what you say, although the instances are few and far between. Here are some of your attempts to support your points.

First: Sonoman: "...you forget all about Jesus Christ Superstar and the Age of Aquarius and a whole New Age spiritual movement that outnumbers your atheist one I suspect. And you forget too how universal astrological interest is in the world. Horoscopes are much more read than any Bibles, or Qurans."

Your quote here commits the Argumentum Ad Populum fallacy.

Second: Sonoman: " Please read the Story of Paxcalibur at: http://biomystic.org/paxstory.htm, and see that it has its own complex history and remarkable spiritual power acknowledged now by hundreds of Palestinian Christians including top leaders like the Melkite Catholic Archbishop of the Holy Land Dioceses."

Your quote here commits the Argumentum Ad Verecundiam Fallacy.

Third: Sonoman: "Celestial Torah Christianity is not a new organized religion but only a historical pattern there for all to find and marvel at the consistency of the Messianic Idea coming down to us intact now through 4000 years of diabolical religious interference."

This quote here commits the Appeal to Tradition Fallacy.

More diversionary b.s. How on earth do you think Acharya or any author, historian, scientist, writer shows any historic pattern if not by referencing it to historical reports showing degrees of popularity? How does a sociologist for example come to arrive at social behavioral judgments without surveying the popularity of ideas in particular populations? That ancients believed and used astrology in their religious beliefs that were foundational to their social systems is based on the archeological evidence where non-astrological beliefs are not to be found.

I would have kept going, but as I said originally, the vast majority already commits the Ipse Dixit fallacy, it's simply unsupported assertion. Essentially, 100% of what you type is illogical. Not just by the layman's definition of the word, but truly illogical.

Crummy putdowns are still crummy putdowns and as anyone can see this one is particularly irrelevant because every item I've placed in logical sequence is a well-known item of history to those who look. I didn't invent the Zodiac, I didn't invent the Celestial Torah based on Taurowet spiritual meaning of establishing a Way, a Teaching, based on astrological meaning of Zodiac components, especially the Saturn and Aquarius ones for the Jewish/Christian belief systems. You are still using arguments that don't apply, e.g. this Ipse-Dixit one, because I'm not creating anything myself but only pointing out a clear historical pattern in which astrological elements and meaning are being transmitted through time and space in ancient religious instruction, the Christian branch of which has been reestablished with the Celestial Torah's recovery.

I believe it's because you have no idea what Logic actually means. You've misused and abused the word so many times, then go on to commit a fallacy in every other sentence you type.

Read my response to your attempts to redefine logic as to exclude the root meaning of the word which is derived from "Logos", where a rational system defined the way in which the universe operated but that rational system was believed to be spiritually based. This is why both Philo of Alexander and the author of the Gospel of John could use the word "logically" and so do I. Our definition being the root one of Logos and not the latter man-made idea of that "logic" excludes the spiritual dimension altogether.

Still waiting for answers to my questions starting with how human brains come to have spiritual reception capability hardwired into them if there's no spiritual phenomena there to process as you atheists claim.

It seems to me that we have evolved a sense of awareness of something greater than us. Let's call it a mystical feeling. (I'm purposefully not using the word "spiritual" here because it does have supernatural connotations.)

So we all have this mystical feeling to some degree, some more than others. However, we tend to interpret this feeling differently.

Ah, I believe geo has reached the crux of the matter.

I would argue this feeling is something we evolved and can be explained naturalistically even if we don't completely understand it at present. Just to be clear, our lack of knowledge does not constitute evidence for God. Why should that ever be the default answer to gaps in our knowledge?

For the life of me, I can't remember the source, but an essayist once argued that we are driven for community, meditation, and connectedness. Most organized religions rule this domain as they have a center to focus on those things. That may explain why many are not devout, bust still show up for coffee and rolls in the sanctuary, not to mention helping out at the nearest food drive the local church has organized. So perhaps we are not spiritual, but rather, we are driven to deep community and connection, as well as mindfulness given our advanced mental state. I know people who are intensely involved in hobbies and other interests. Not sure how that is any different than what a monk does in Tibet.

Read any Eliot Pattison book set in Tibet and find out how wrong you are about generalizing religions as interchangeable social paradigms. Find the Southern Baptist family that spends 24/7/365 days of the year taking turns at four hours each spinning a family prayer wheel for the protection of the family, village and Tibetan deities.

sonoman wrote:Still waiting for answers to my questions starting with how human brains come to have spiritual reception capability hardwired into them if there's no spiritual phenomena there to process as you atheists claim.

I rather doubt that supernatural or spiritual concepts are hard wired. The intellectual capability to assess and validate phenomena within nature happily co-exists alongside our ability to imagine fiction. Neurological 'hard wiring' provides the capability to process various concepts and disciplines but none are individually hard wired; they are learned. It seems the more we learn about our particular interest the less inclined we are to listen to other points of view and this is true of both theist and non-theist. A rational response to your question can be found at http://www.miraclescam.com

sonoman wrote: Read my response to your attempts to redefine logic as to exclude the root meaning of the word which is derived from "Logos", where a rational system defined the way in which the universe operated but that rational system was believed to be spiritually based. This is why both Philo of Alexander and the author of the Gospel of John could use the word "logically" and so do I. Our definition being the root one of Logos and not the latter man-made idea of that "logic" excludes the spiritual dimension altogether.

No, no, and no.

Your definition is not the "root" one of logos, and anyone making such a blatantly false statement has no familiarity whatsoever with the etymology of the term.

Also, the Greek word logos is itself a "man-made idea".

It was later theistic philosophers who did the very thing you accuse Interbane of, and that is redefining the word.

The pre-Classical usages of the word logos was primarily to denote language and speech, such as that seen in Homer for example. Hence why in English the very Gospel of John you mention is translated as "In the beginning was the Word," and "word" is the most common way logos is used in the New Testament, accounting for more than 200 of its 330 occurrences (218 for the KJV, "sayings" making another 50, and "speech" for another 8 ). That is closer to the "root" meaning. Hence why, aside from it being the ancestor to the English word logic, it is also ancestor to the word logo, like in a company logo such as
or or
It's a word. And hence comes its relation to what we call "logic," because it was believed that thoughts, once formulated in the mind, were expressed by means of words, and that words were necessary to reason things out logically (especially if using Socratic method). Its Indo-European ancestor is believed by etymologists to be "leg," which means to gather or collect, and they relate this to "words" because words are a collection or gathering together of sounds and thoughts, and by extension the use of logic requires the gathering of ideas as well. Hence where we get our word "lexicon"- a collection of words.

Certainly ideas categorized as "spiritual" can be communicated through words or "logoi," but the Greek word logos hardly originated as some spiritual concept the way Neoplatonists and Johannine Christians used it, nor did it innately carry with it spiritual connotations by default. It was later generations who adapted the word to mean various different things, and even the "original" logos was adapted from a different Indo-European meaning. So when it comes to "redefining" the word, you are no less guilty than Interbane, who is no more guilty than the Greeks themselves and their various communities.

Vishnu wrote:The pre-Classical usages of the word logos was primarily to denote language and speech

On Logos, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclitus#Logos

Heraclitus wrote:This Logos holds always but humans always prove unable to understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. For though all things come to be in accordance with this Logos, humans are like the inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out, distinguishing each in accordance with its nature and saying how it is.

This definition of logos from the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus is similar to the Chinese concept of Tao, as the unseen way of nature. The existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger interpreted Heraclitus as using logos to mean the original connecting connectedness of being. So the hymn of Colossians 1:15-20 and the prologue of John's Gospel appear to rest in some older ideas.

Aristotle established logos, pathos, and ethos as the three basic modes of persuasion.

Logos: Appeal to rational or logic argument
Pathos: Appeal to emotion
Ethos: Appeal to credibility; the speaker establishes that he's an ethical person.

Aristotle established logos, pathos, and ethos as the three basic modes of persuasion.

Logos: Appeal to rational or logic argument
Pathos: Appeal to emotion
Ethos: Appeal to credibility; the speaker establishes that he's an ethical person.

I've never seen them side by side like that before. They're part of an overarching philosophy! It seems a sensible way to split the three.

Interbane wrote:

Aristotle established logos, pathos, and ethos as the three basic modes of persuasion.

Logos: Appeal to rational or logic argument
Pathos: Appeal to emotion
Ethos: Appeal to credibility; the speaker establishes that he's an ethical person.

I've never seen them side by side like that before. They're part of an overarching philosophy! It seems a sensible way to split the three.

They always go hand in hand for me: the three modes of persuasion. I only became aware of these a few years ago when I started teaching English composition. You'll see it in most of the English Comp textbooks.

In Greece, these modes of persuasion were more speech-oriented, but freshman English students are told to be cognizant of how they're trying to persuade their audience in writing. Likely it's taught in Speech class as well.

See this site, for example:

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/625/03/

sonoman wrote:Read any Eliot Pattison book set in Tibet and find out how wrong you are about generalizing religions as interchangeable social paradigms. Find the Southern Baptist family that spends 24/7/365 days of the year taking turns at four hours each spinning a family prayer wheel for the protection of the family, village and Tibetan deities.

There are Southern Baptist believers who find the bliss of prayer and during a revival, experience the same intensity and "oneness" that rivals that of a half-naked, shaved man in a robe. The same feelings are universal in respect to believers. Buddhists do not have the market cornered by any means.

I have no problem with spirituality, heck, it gives us great stuff like this: