The Philosophy Thread

[Welsh Exile]

*theology suggests that hell is more an absence of God and not necessarily a punishment so maybe it won't be so bad for us sinners. An eternity of booze, gambling and other vices.

I think this is another great example of moving with the times. I personally think the idea of hell existing (even for people like Hitler) reprehensible but as you say, it’s very common for Christians today to say that hell is the absence of god (I.e nothing) which is a lot more palatable.

Mind you, I don’t even find the concept of heaven very nice. I think there will come a point after a few million years where I’d just ask god to switch me off and let me sleep for eternity.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

I've personally found it baffling that some people just can't accept the idea of simply ceasing to exist. For all of history up until your birth you didn't exist just fine, so why is it so difficult to believe that for all of history after your death it will be the same?

 

[Welsh Exile]

I've personally found it baffling that some people just can't accept the idea of simply ceasing to exist. For all of history up until your birth you didn't exist just fine, so why is it so difficult to believe that for all of history after your death it will be the same?

I don’t know who this quote is attributed to (or even the exact quote as I can’t be arsed to Google it) but when someone asked someone (lol) what is life like after you die and he responded with something like “I imagine it’s exactly like life before I was born”

 

[Saintjay]

That's the main catch of religion, well nearly all of them. People want to know or believe there is more to life than nothing but a black void. If you Belief in god X Y or Z you've a better chance. It's the whole point in faith I guess. People are scared of death, and scared of how they will die.

Reminds me of the cemeteries being full of people who thought they were indispensable.

I'm not overly religious, never christened. Parents decided it should be my choice in what I believe. Struggle with the whole my gang is right, believe in the other gang and your doomed kind of thing. Let alone killing each other over it.

 

[Welsh Exile]

That's the main catch of religion, well nearly all of them. People want to know or believe there is more to life than nothing but a black void. If you Belief in god X Y or Z you've a better chance. It's the whole point in faith I guess. People are scared of death, and scared of how they will die.

Reminds me of the cemeteries being full of people who thought they were indispensable.

I'm not overly religious, never christened. Parents decided it should be my choice in what I believe. Struggle with the whole my gang is right, believe in the other gang and your doomed kind of thing. Let alone killing each other over it.

You’ve just given a good outline of something called “Pascals wager”

Pascal was some French dude (surprise surprise) who I think was more known as a mathematician/physicist rather than a philosopher but he coined this idea that due to the fact you can’t prove god exists or doesn’t exist you essentially take a bet on whether he does or not. If you believe and he does exist it’s win win. If you don’t believe and he exists it could be a firey afterlife and if you believe and he doesn’t exist then no loss really.

The problem with this is that assuming you believe in god as some kind of thing of improving your odds at the afterlife then I think God is going to know the reasons behind why you believe in something so it’s all a bit silly really.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

You’ve just given a good outline of something called “Pascals wager”

Pascal was some French dude (surprise surprise) who I think was more known as a mathematician/physicist rather than a philosopher but he coined this idea that due to the fact you can’t prove god exists or doesn’t exist you essentially take a bet on whether he does or not. If you believe and he does exist it’s win win. If you don’t believe and he exists it could be a firey afterlife and if you believe and he doesn’t exist then no loss really.

The problem with this is that assuming you believe in god as some kind of thing of improving your odds at the afterlife then I think God is going to know the reasons behind why you believe in something so it’s all a bit silly really.

It also assumes that there is no downside to believing in god and god existing. What if it's a different god who is more angered by people who believe in other religions than atheism? Or a god who doesn't give a **** one way or the other, or a god who didn't want to be worshipped and wanted people to be empirical (god emprah of mankind)

 

[Welsh Exile]

It also assumes that there is no downside to believing in god and god existing. What if it's a different god who is more angered by people who believe in other religions than atheism? Or a god who doesn't give a **** one way or the other, or a god who didn't want to be worshipped and wanted people to be empirical (god emprah of mankind)

It also kinda assumes believing in god isn’t much hassle so might as well do it. I mean, depending on which religion and interpretation of that religion you take, believing in god takes quite a lot of sacrifice if doing it properly. To do all that and for it all to be a load of ******** seems like a lot of hassle to me. lol.

 

[Welsh Exile]

I like to think god will give me a pass for being an agnostic atheist. If he doesn’t he’s a bit of a **** imo, but I’ll be perfectly happy if he sentences me to an eternity of nothing as that was what I was expecting anyway. If he sends me to hell I’ll be doing lines of gear of hookers tits so win win.

 

[Saintjay]

I think i quite like some of the ideas in Hinduism and with Buddhists.

I'll know If god decides I've been a dick. I'll be reincarnated as a Leicester Tigers fan.

If it is really bad I'll come back Welsh.

 

[Welsh Exile]

I think i quite like some of the ideas in Hinduism and with Buddhists.

I'll know If god decides I've been a dick. I'll be reincarnated as a Leicester Tigers fan.

If it is really bad I'll come back Welsh.

This is why I find the idea of Karma quite disgusting though. No matter what you’ve done in a past life no one deserves to go through what we’ve had to endure the last few years.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

This is why I find the idea of Karma quite disgusting though. No matter what you’ve done in a past life no one deserves to go through what we’ve had to endure the last few years.

Yeah, if you get put into a favela because you were a bad boy and end up a gang so you get thrown into Gaza and then get radicalised and turned into a worm and are pretty bitter because the muck life isn't for you so you get turned into one of those flies that eats cow **** and then get turned into something worse because you spent your life eating cow ****, it's really only a self fulfilling circle.


Seperately, Im bitter enough that stoicism was co-opted by those manosphere guys. Philosophy fails when its used for gain and not peace imo.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

How have we got this far in the thread without this?

 

[Welsh Exile]

How have we got this far in the thread without this?

I’ve never heard this.

 

[ragr66]

Seperately, Im bitter enough that stoicism was co-opted by those manosphere guys. Philosophy fails when its used for gain and not peace imo.

They've built a temple of convenience rather than a library of wisdom. Marcus Aurelius would raise them, see them and call their bluff.

 

[BrokenWing]

The Pope is making Trump look foolish though so it's all good in Catholicism for once.

I believe the famous quote applies here “The only thing necessary for Donald Trump to look foolish is for good men to do nothing”

 

[BrokenWing]

Every so often an old boss would answer a question with "What would Jesus do". He was Welsh. (The boss, not Jesus).

I prefer "What would Brian Boitano do?"

 

[Demfad]

Fat or thin, that one person is getting it.

Currently reading a lot about time/gravity, black holes, white holes and Einstein-Rosen bridges. It makes my head hurt and feel more stupid than normal.

I'm fun at parties.

I have read that stuff on and off. Advice I'd give is that any particular thing you don't understand just accept the conclusions and move on. Don't get stuck. Once you have the bigger picture you can revisit the tricky concepts.

 

[dirty harry]

I have read that stuff on and off. Advice I'd give is that any particular thing you don't understand just accept the conclusions and move on. Don't get stuck. Once you have the bigger picture you can revisit the tricky concepts.

This might be the comment of the year!!!!
Where were you 20 years ago ffs!!

I wasted so much time studying for my first degree letting my ego dictate that i must understand every complex poxy Newtonian gravity expression trying to determine net gravitation force of a hypothwtical binary star system...

Whrn you accept, move on, and return at a later date it suddenly makes more sense, like a seeing eye puzzile

 

[Demfad]

This might be the comment of the year!!!!
Where were you 20 years ago ffs!!

I wasted so much time studying for my first degree letting my ego dictate that i must understand every complex poxy Newtonian gravity expression trying to determine net gravitation force of a hypothwtical binary star system...

Whrn you accept, move on, and return at a later date it suddenly makes more sense, like a seeing eye puzzile

I talk a better game than I play in this regard to be fair! I had a relation who was an astronomer so read up a little as a pastime.

It is a good lesson in life too. Sometimes its better not to dismantle every barrier, let it go-walk around carefully and some wisdom may come with hindsight later (or not).

 

[mackerzz]

Was going to make this an atheist thread and branch out to moral philosophy but I thought I’d make it more broad so feel free to post anything about epistemology or anything philosophy related. I’m a big believer in children as young as 6 being made to study philosophy and critical thinking until they’re 18 as I think it would counter a lot of the problems we see today with how people analyse information and how they reach the conclusions they do. I’m sure this will go down like a lead balloon anyway but hey ho.

I’ll get us started with a classic thought experiment in moral philosophy and perhaps I will branch out into religion and atheism later.

I’m sure some of you may have heard of The Trolley Dilemma but for those that haven’t here’s a summary:

A runaway trolley is heading down a track towards five people who can’t move. You are standing next to a lever. If you do nothing, the trolley kills the five people. If you pull the lever, the trolley switches tracks, but there is one person on that track who will be killed instead.

Naturally the question is, is it right to pull the lever and sacrifice 1 person to save 5?

For those of you that say pull the lever to save the 5 there’s a follow up:

Imagine you are standing over a bridge next to a fat man. You know that if you push the fat man off the bridge he will stop the trolley killing 5 people, do you push the fat guy or not?

Unsurprisingly a lot of people who would pull the lever in scenario 1 will not be so comfortable pushing the fat man as it doesn’t feel right. Which then leads onto ethical emotivism and how really morality isn’t objective but rather just based off emotions.

Interesting, no?

I’ll get my coat.

The best way is to figure out how to kill all of them at the same time. then theres nothing on your conscience

 

[Gavin]

Couldn't find a Religion Thread...

But this was hilarious.

 

[Welsh Exile]

Couldn't find a Religion Thread...

But this was hilarious.

I had to watch this on double speed as the cringe level was too high.

 

[Welsh Exile]

It’s like the video I keep posting on here of Trump being asked what his favourite bible verse is.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

Couldn't find a Religion Thread...

But this was hilarious.

Brand is the stupid mans idea of an intelligent man. He uses the tactic of using much longer words and more complex sentences than requires to mask the fact that often what he's saying is complete ********.

 

[Welsh Exile]

I am an open critic of Christianity but I’m pretty sure Jesus, if he exists up in the heavens, won’t be very happy with an alleged rapist suddenly switching to Christianity as a cover against said allegations.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

I've never sat down and read a bible in my life but if you're lugging around one with zero annotations, you're absolutely not well versed. Completely performative, can't see it working anywhere but the States.

 

[Welsh Exile]

It’s just the sheer laziness that I find amazing. I mean, if I was going to go on a Christianity grift you can bet your house on the fact I’m going to memorise a dozen or so bible verses that I can use when people ask me crazy questions like “what bible verses are your favourite/were you reading in court” but he can’t even be arsed to put in some basic work.

 

[Ragey Erasmus]

It’s just the sheer laziness that I find amazing. I mean, if I was going to go on a Christianity grift you can bet your house on the fact I’m going to memorise a dozen or so bible verses that I can use when people ask me crazy questions like “what bible verses are your favourite/were you reading in court” but he can’t even be arsed to put in some basic work.

Brand response: One cannot simply summarise the intricacies of personal philosophy and ethics by whittling down ones entire metaphysical understanding into a selection of passages from ones preferred literature on the matter

English: I don't have a favourite verse.

 

[Welsh Exile]

Brand response: One cannot simply summarise the intricacies of personal philosophy and ethics by whittling down ones entire metaphysical understanding into a selection of passages from ones preferred literature on the matter

English: I don't have a favourite verse.

I prefer Trumps outright refusal to say what his favourite bible verse is. That’s the smarter play for the lazy grifter. Just say no, I’m not going to tell you. lol.

 

[Gavin]

Iconic