ZOMBIE FORUMS

Okay, I'm kind of tired, and I may regret starting this thread in the morning, but...

The way this thread will work is, you post your personal philosophy (i.e. whether god exists, whether objective truth exists in all circumstances, whether there is an afterlife, what the difference between good and evil is, whether free will exists, etc.) And others attack your ideas, trying to find holes in them. We'll see where the thread goes from there. Most likely it will evolve into something else entirely.

So, anyone want to start?

I'm nowhere near having a philosophy that would appear at all coherent when taken beyond the boundaries of my skull, but if Wandering Idiot wouldn't mind defending MOO-ism, I'd love to hear it. 8)

Actually, to be perfectly honest, one of the big reasons I started this thread is to create another excuse to argue with WI about stuff like free will, quantum physics, chaos theory, or whatever. Also, if I'm lucky, he'll post some sort of humongous introductory rant (as he is wont to do) describing his philosophy in detail. What can I say, I'm a masochist. :)

*slips in before WI can break brains*



Just remember that the rest of us might do what we wilt and hunt you down.

EVERYTHING SIMPLY EXISTS! WE CAN FIND HOW THEY WORK, NAME AND LABEL THEM, BUT THE SIMPLY ARE. NO BEGINNING, NO END, AND ALWAYS A BALANCE TO EVERY ACTION. WE MIRROR NATURE, WHICH IN TURN REFLECTS US!

I REPEAT: EVERYTHING SIMPLY IS!

-H-Kat

Human beings do not actually have physical limitations. Our limits are put in place by our mind based on what we have experienced or witnessed in our lives. Should someone reject this concept the only limit on their physical capabilities would be at the cellular level and how much punishment can each cell take and how much energy can they possibly produce.

An example of this would be that basically every year it is declared that there is no way anyone can run a mile faster than X. Having set that goal, almost every year someone breaks that. Right now the world record for the mile is about 3:40.

Ok, so how do you explain this?



Sounds a lot like a physical limitation to me. You are made up entirely of cells. If cells have limits to what they can do, so do you. I suggest you really think about what you write and not contradict yourself. It will save you from much embarrassment in the future.

As for the mile run example, all it proves is that those people who said people cannot run faster than X speed miscalculated. It does not prove that we do not have limitations.

Have you seen The Matrix: Reloaded a few too many times revolutio? :P

Sorry, had to slip that in; though I think I get what you were trying to say.

What we view as our physical limitations are truly far more constricting than what we could possibly accomplish if we were somehow able to turn all (literally: all) our energies towards accomplishing a goal. Physical training does indeed improve our bodies, but, more importantly, it convinces our minds that we can indeed do a little bit more this time. Feat such as the Marathon, the Alamoe (sp?), and that one crew's voyage of endurance (y'know, the one that tried to go down to the South Pole, but their ship got caught in the ice on the way in and they spent a year and a half trekking around before sending three guys north in a life boat in search of help; I can't remember the name) are not so much feats of endurance but of sheer tenacity and determination.

Instead of posting my personal philosophy, I will be posting my reason for <b>*not*</b> posting my personal religion.

Basically, there are two main types of proof in this world: personal proof, and proof you can show others. For example, lets say Khym gets abducted by aliens, and after some contact with them, is returned to Earth. Sure, that's plenty of proof for Khym to believe that aliens exist, but he has no proof he can show others. That, ladies and gents, is personal proof.

My personal philosophy/religion/general hold on the universe is based heavily on personal experience on things that could be considered supernatural. However, I will not go into details, as

1) I don't know how to explain it

2) It's rather personal and private

and

3) I have no proof to show others.

However, the thing about this is, that most religions and philosophies can only be truly proven by personal experience. Therefor, any philosophy could be proven...in theory...but only on an individual basis, for the most part.

Nice point Nebula Queen. The need to prove something that you know to other people is something that grips almost every human being. It also has quite a strangle hold over myself, though I dislike it and fail to understand it.

Without that need though we probably wouldn't have a Debate forum.

One of my main beliefs is that "faith" is a dirty word not to be said in polite company.

Oh yes, I do believe in God.

-MiB
Probably confusing

I believe in god.
I can understand that some people don't, its their choice.
I don't know about after you die, I just know that right now I live without hurting anyone to any large degree while helping a couple of people here and there.

I guess thats a good way to live my life, although I doubt that the entirety of society could work that way.

Actor.

On the subject of religion:

Edit: MiB, I'm going to go out on a limb, make a fool of myself, and wonder if what you meant by the faith comment is somewhere along the lines of "What faith? Faith is a belief without proof. You have all the proof you need right before you."

I don't believe in god, mainly because I haven't been given any convincing evidence. A lot more can be said of science (though it certainly isn't perfect). A lot of people confuse the big bang with science's version of the beginning of the universe. Not entirely, as it is more along the lines of the beginning of the universe as we know it. Basically, science takes a whole lot more reasonable approach, so I'll have to logically believe it in the absence of anything better. A problem is, though, science doesn't have all the answers, and is always changing.

I used to be quite the staunch atheist. The I realized something seems to be lacking in the whole "science explains everything," argument. It's explains the way things are, but why are they what they are? Why is there a weak nuclear force? Everything seems to go back to the something arising from nothing argument if you try to explain how things got to be the way they are.

Basically, I don't pretend to know whether there is a God, supreme being, etc. or not. I'm a good little agnostic, I guess. Bordering on atheism, sometimes, but only because people can be so . . . sad, sometimes. Science might have all the answers someday, but somehow I doubt it, and it certainly doesn't now.

Religion is also a deeply personal thing. It's belief. As such, it is about what one believes. Not what someone shouting to you about the fires of hell thinks, not the person desperately trying to save your soul believes, not what the kind person handing you the pamphlet about better living believes, not even what the people who raise you believe. This is why I don't have any like for organized religion (though I no longer actively dislike it). This is why I find the idea of what commonly goes on at churches . . . repugnant.

The church often promotes kindness as an effort to save one's soul. This defeats the purpose of kindness in my opinion. It's supposed to be about being good to the other person, just because that's the right thing to do.

I dislike Calvinisim, though Lutheranism and Catholicism sometime go for the same position, too.

On other stuff:

Tolerance is pretty much the biggest tenet in my personal philosophy. Not because it is the most important (though it certainly ranks high up there), but because it seems like it is what is most lacking these days. Tolerance is what lets us live together. Period. Even if we were all the same person, tolerance would still be needed.

This tolerance thing leads to several other things, like my belief in the legalization of marijuana. I don't use it myself because I think it is a pretty stupid thing to do. The harm outweighs the benefits, and all. But that's just my opinion. Feel free to do what you want to yourself, just be aware of what that entails.

Honesty is a secondary one, but one I'm able to live by pretty well. I have had bad experiences with lies (both my own, and . . . others'), so I'm fairly sickeningly truthful. You could say lies are my pet peeve.

Arrogance doesn't bother me as long as it is justified.

People suck at critical thinking WAY too often. And that includes me a lot, too.

There are two kinds of hypocrites. The ones who expect all the high standards and all of other people, and claim they do the same themselves, but don't, and make no attempt to live up to those standards. And then there are the ones that realize their faults, and do their best to be that perfect person they expect everyone else to be, but fail. I don't mind the second kind, needless to say. They remind me of me.

Knowledge is personally my favorite thing in life. I'm in training for life as an ivory tower intellectual. I don't see why everyone is against it, really. Sure, the ivory tower intellectuals who try to make knowledge the be all and end all of life are just as stupid as the people who think book learning is useless. But knowledge in and of itself tends to be only beneficial. People who think their is knowledge worth having and knowledge that is useless bother me a little bit, because they cut themselves off from so many enriching things.

Oblivion would be a sucky afterlife, and it is the only thing that frightens me. I'd really prefer to go to Hell than face oblivion.

I'm debating becoming a hedonist, and whether I'm already a hedonist. Think about it: everything people do is for the sake of happiness. I say, keep the end goal in mind.

I make it a point to stop and take a look at my views and beliefs every once in a while, and see if I still believe them, and whether I can really say that belief is justified.

I simultaneously suffer from inferiority and superiority complexes. It sucks. I wish I could be perfect, and it really hurts everytime I'm not. So I rationalize it a lot.

I wish I could say all I wanted and still talk less.

I talk about myself a lot once people get me started. They ask, and I do my best to enlighten.

To me, hedonism is not what many think of it as, only a value philosophy saying that the end goal in mind is happiness. I guess that's sorta what you said.

On religion:
I'm religious, but not in the usual sense; I'm an atheist (or maybe more of an agnostic like Abunai). I hate it when people say that organized religion is bad, because, in many cases, it helps organize communities, help the poor, instill good values, etc. Like any organizational body, older religions get corrupt. Being anti-religion is like being an anarchist: you hate the system because of its evils, but ignore its blessings.
Of course, that doesn't mean that I support all religions, or that I actually believe in any of the spirituality.

Nope, not going to be drawn into this.

::nods:: Your example reminds me of what happened to Ellie Arroway in Carl Sagan’s Contact. (The movie was good, especially for an adaptation of a novel, but the origial book was much better, which is saying something.) Probably one of the best examples of how personal experience shapes one’s own beliefs in ways that can never convincingly translate to others is the experience she and her teammates have toward the end of the book. And while most of us don’t journey across the universe in dodecahedral wormhole borers, our personal experiences can be just as removed from the knowledge of our peers as hers was from the humans who remained on earth.

Very nice point; you expressed my previously posted sentiment much more eloquently than I was able to. Thanks! 8)

Except, of course, that they had the 8 hours of tape to prove it. ;)
I liked that movie. Maybe I should see it again, as my memories of it come from before I moved, which must have been when I was 6.

I like guns.

Heh. Hate to disappoint you, but my personal philosophies tend to be fairly simple in nature. They're basic principles, after all. But not to worry, I'm sure I'll find some way to end up making an overlong post, anyway ;) [EDIT: Hey, look! I was right!]

(For the record, I don't like "thought labels" [i.e., "-ists" and "-isms"] overmuch, because they inherently leave out a lot of subtle variations in opinion between individuals. I use them here because they're a convenient method of shorthand, but just because I say I am an X-ist, doesn't mean I necessarily agree with everything that other X-ists say on the subject. It just means that X is closer to my views than any of the other labels I'm aware of. Fair warning.)

Lemme see- I think I'll just do this by category:

Existential - I'm actually something of a Solipsist. I'm aware that I can neither prove or be sure that the rest of you or the universe exist, or even what "existence" means. That said, I live under a truce with my Solipsistic tendencies and accept tacitly that you do exist, for practical reasons, until a better explanation comes along :)

Religious - Agnostic. More or less. It's the only truly defensible position, as I see it. (Strong)Atheism is silly, because how the hell can we categorically state that there is no all-powerful entity(ies) controlling the universe? The mere fact that if there was one, it would have the ability to make it appear to us as if it did not exist, should be enough to keep any sane person from a complete endorsement of Strong Atheism. In fact, Theism is the more defendable position in a way, since the Theist has only to show evidence of God(s) to be correct, whereas the Atheist, even in the absence of any evidence for God(s), cannot prove his position. That being said, I do find organized religions to be frequently silly and self-contradictory (not to mention the fact that there are six major, mutually exclusive ones, which is hardly good odds), so I could be said to lean towards the "Atheist" side of things where they are concerned. I'm not a Christian for about the same reasons I don't worship Odin, or Ra. It's technically possible that God is an evil, goofy bastard who decided to look at the religions we created for ourselves, and then remake himself in that image. But quite frankly, Theism is vastly more defendable if you limit it to a simple belief in some higher power. Which is exactly what a lot of people nowadays seem to be doing. Anyway, both Theism and Strong Atheism make statements about the existence of God(s), something which we simply don't know the answer to yet one way or another. Hence my Agnosticism.

And for the record, I much prefer the idea of simply ceasing to exist when I die as opposed to most religions' roughly 50-50 chance of eternal torment. Any God who could allow such a thing as eternal torment to exist would have to be one heck of a sadistic bastard. Besides, the idea that I would be unable to actually end my life when I so chose annoys me to no end.

I may not have any particular religious beliefs, but I do like thinking about the possibilities inherent in the concept of "higher beings". The idea of an entity that can do *anything* and knows *everything* is very weird, and quite interesting. There are Godellian complications, which presumably God would be able to get around. If there was such a being, I doubt ve would be very understandable to us.


Social/Ethical - I think I'll start with the quote Lucis used:

While Crowley's original quote could just be seen as a statement of universal truth (after all, people *do* do what they want, including retaliate for other's actions), the Wiccan version, "An' it harm none, do what thou wilt", is far more interesting from the standpoint of being an actual behavioral guide (and yes, I know there are interpretation issues with both of those, but I'm ignoring that for our purposes). Although I think the Wiccan Rede is an extremely reasonable starting point for determining which things a society should ban outright, it is complicated by the concept of potential harm, which is hardly a trivial matter. We in the US just fought a war over potential harm. And then of course, there's the small matter of defining just exactly what constitutes "harm". The physical type is fairly straightforward, but what of psychological, social, or indirect harm?

My own personal opinion on laws is based on what I see as a well-defined split between Ethics, and Morals (These are my own, somewhat specialized definitions of the words which are probably somewhat different than the standard ones). Basically, anything which directly harms another person in a manner they do not wish is a matter of Ethics. Causing harm to oneself, or to other people's concept of "society" is a matter of Morality. I care a great deal about Ethics. I don't give jack shit about Morals, at least as far as actual lawmaking is concerned. In my opinion, the role of government is to protect people from each other, not from themselves.


Personal - Eh, I won’t go into my personal life philosophy too much; you’d probably just find it depressing, although it suits me well enough. Let’s see- I do have a great interest in pursuing Truth, because I believe it to be a prerequisite for just about everything. And if the only Truth is that there is no Truth, well, that’s something to start with :) Oh, and the non-depressing parts of my personal philosophy have been influenced somewhat by that of the Transhumanist theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky. (It was his list of soul-types that I pasted in the Free Will thread) I have my share of disagreements with him, but his “interim Meaning of Life” isn’t too bad. And if anyone mentions the term “technological determinism”, I’ll be forced to smack them upside the head. What, pray tell, do you think has been driving changes in human society for the last few hundred years? It sure as hell isn’t human nature, which has remained pretty much the same...



Thee Church ov MOO is an anticonformist mind-virus disguised as an elaborate joke disguised as a religion. Or vice-versa. Or, y’know, just swap those three around anyway you want. It’ll be about as true no matter how you arrange ‘em.

A few quotes are in order:

MOOism has NOTHING to do with cows.

MOO is a religion for people who don't believe in religion. Heck, for people who don't believe in MOOism!

The Church of MOO is a religion for those who shout "Crowded" in a theatre fire.

It’s like Discordianism, only more so. And wheras Discordianism takes some of its cues from Greek mythology, MOOism’s underlying mythology is a more contemporary pastiche of sci-fi, conspiracy-theorist, and physics concepts. And it makes frequent (sometimes obscure) references to things too numerous to mention, including every other semi-parodical pseudo-religion out there. Oh, and (Icy should like this one) it’s also the world’s first postmodern religion.

MOOism is the perfect religion for me, since strict observance of it doesn’t require me to actually do anything. And even if it did, one of the most central tenets of MOOism is that its followers are expected to ignore the tenets of MOOism (including that one :), so I could just ignore it anyway, and still be a MOOist. Which raises the question of whether or not it is possible at all to strictly follow the tenets of MOOism, which is sort of the point. MOOism is intended to free one’s mind from restrictive, conformist thought. Or at least that’s what the purposefully-pretentious explanation of it put up as a joke says...

After Floyd Gecko’s mysteeerious *waggles fingers* disappearance from the ‘net some time ago, the only remnant of the original site I can find is this partial mirror. It leaves out a lot of the best stuff, though, like the Don Coyote novel I mentioned here and Shoes for Industry (It was a charity! I think...) I stumbled across the original site completely by accident, by clicking “next” on a Discordian webring box, and I have yet to meet anyone else who’s even heard of it. If by some miracle you’re reading this, and know where a full mirror of the original site can be found (or how to track down that bastard Gecko), drop me a PM, eh? There’s also the 150-page Grate Book of MOO (download and open in Wordpad, trust me) a full copy of which I thankfully have saved on my hard drive, but it’s full of in-jokes that no one but the original MOOists (which I am not) would get, and the quality isn’t always up to that of the site. It’s still great fun, though.

Anyway, in short, MOOism is full of crap. So it’s truer than most things :)

[EDIT: Looking back on this, I think one thing I didn't make clear enough is that MOOism is also utterly freakin' hilarious, as long as you have the right mindset]

Oh, and Yevaud, feel free to splay the contents of your skull all around the thread. If it weren’t for the insane rantings of madmen, we wouldn’t have religions at all ;)



Eh? What's this "nature" thing you speak of? It sounds dangerously like some kind of Evil Western Compartmentalist concept... And I'm not even going to dignify your assertion that there is some kind of "we" as separate from the rest of the universe with a comment. Blasphemer!

(Seriously, though, as much as I like thinking of all things as being one, there are definitely advantages, from the human point of view, in categorizing subsets of it. It allows us to talk about things, for one. Otherwise, all conversations would go pretty much like this: “The one is all.” “Yep.” “The all goes on.” “Uh-Huh.” “...” ...”)




Fine, then. Run to Canada in under 3 secs*. Phfff, no limitations, indeed... Just because some people made a few incorrect predictions about the upper limits of athletic performance (which, for one thing, didn't take into account our modern training methods, drugs, more diverse gene pool, etc.) doesn't mean that if we put our minds to it we would all be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, or do gravity-defying cartwheels off of walls while firing automatic weapons ;) In the larger sense, though, I think you're right in that we should never assume our current limitations will last forever. There have been times when few people thought we would be able to fly, or fly faster than the speed of sound, or stand on the moon, etc. I think it's not unreasonable to think that someday we'll be able to break the light-speed barrier (yes, blah blah basic physics, the point is we simply don't know everything yet), not have to die for biological reasons, etc.

* Note: Those living on the US-Canada border do not qualify. Smartass.



Quite frankly, I have a problem with the ideas of theories ever being "proven" beyond a shadow of a doubt. They simply become "more likely to be true, within the limited scope we are aware of". Now, back to Khym's anal-probing expedition. He might not have any physical evidence to show us, assuming the aliens were careful enough not to leave any, but he could still *tell* us about the experience. If Khym is someone we know to be honest, we might be inclined to believe him (or less disinclined to believe in the existence of aliens in the future than we would have otherwise been). After all, we accept as true plenty of things which we never see for ourselves (we could probably stand to do a bit less of that, but it does have its uses). Of course, we might also be inclined to think that he had fallen asleep or had some type of hallucination, since, in our own experience, both of those things are far more common than alien abductions. I'd honestly be curious to hear your reasons for your religious/mystical outlook, if you decided to change your mind and thought of a way to express it. I promise I wouldn’t make a response to it (and neither would anyone else. *glares around*) I'm not such an Evil Materialist Bastard that I can't entertain new ideas every now and then...



Well, presumably, you believe that it is the height of fallacy to believe in something without reason (the definition of "faith", as near as I can tell), and you also believe that you have sufficient reason to believe there is a God. I'd certainly like to hear it :) Either that, or you had some wacky-fun meaning in mind that we'd never guess.



I agree. I’m just not sure why living one's life that way would have to be predicated on a belief in a god. From your description, it sounds like you’re one of those people I was talking about above- someone with a vague belief in a higher power, rather than a strict follower of a specific religion. Nothing wrong with that- I certainly can’t disprove it. Heck, if it makes you happier than you would be otherwise, and you don’t care too much about the strict pursuit of Truth (which I’m not naive enough to believe everyone does), I would tend to think of it as a positive thing (Same goes for followers of more organized belief systems as long as they don’t try to force their beliefs on others, which unfortunately happens far too often*).

* There’s a reason for this, and it has to do with societal evolution (or Memetics, it you prefer). Simply put, those belief systems which do not contain within themselves some method of self-propagation tend to die out. To give a simple example, think of how many belief systems must have existed in the mind of a single person, who never told anyone about it. They die with the person. It sounds silly, but there’s a reason most of the major religions contain evangelistic tendencies, or at least a lot a lot of exhortations to *believe* in them, and pass them down to one’s offspring. (There are other factors of course, but I’m not going to get into a Memetic discussion of religion here- there are plenty of those elsewhere)




But of course, they don't control everything. That's why there's actual genuine anarchBLATTTs out there (0.007% of the population)... But the MediaCorps like to chun out pretend anarchBLATTTs, to discredit them. And it ain't hard. They just have to make ya swallow the line that "rebels is kool". So they use the rebels to sell everything from cars to diapers to canned tuna. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Don't they have the right to preserve themselves? It's done in self defense. Without profits, they'd die. And a corporation has just as much right to life as a human does. It's just our prejudice that says only spatially-localized information patterns have the "right to life".
So SWALLOW the line, and support your local corporation.

-The Grate Book of MOO, Brainwashing And You, done in a faux-Jamaican accent. Because he felt like it, that’s why.


MIND-CONTROL CONSPIRACIES ARE PEOPLE TOO!
-MOOist saying
extra-secret bonus link- a list of the Enemies of MOO (a parody of conspiracy theorists, obviously) Ph34r!!!


EDIT: Fixed a few unforgivably awkward turns of phrase, and minor typos. I really should check my posts better when I write them between calls...