The Rational Proof of God's Existence
- Thread starter phildwyer
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ice-is-forming
With dignified ease and grace..
top of the page again daisy, and with that picture
the tide is turning...
the tide is turning...
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Is this thread still going? Hasn't phil provided his "rational proof" of G*d's - chortle - 'existence' yet? He's taking his time - isn't he? This thread has been running for over a year and still no 'proof'.
Makes you think, doesn't it?
Makes you think, doesn't it?
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
What's he saying?
"You fool"
"Leave this thread immediately"
or
is it
a combination of the two?
"You fool"
"Leave this thread immediately"
or
is it
a combination of the two?
fractionMan
Custom Title
How about we get back to discussing doughnuts?
I have an overwhelming urge to print off 10,000 pages of that shit and stuff them down my old theory tutor's throat.
ATOMIC SUPLEX
Member Since: 1985 Post Count: 3
Wow this thread has come back to life.
Welcome back bullspout fountain.
Welcome back bullspout fountain.
Jonti
what the dormouse said
There's an endless supply of this kind of computer generated verbiage at The Postmodernism Generator. Enjoy!The Postmodernism Generator said:
adc069975 said:
Not "a conscious will" but its own autonomous and regenerative power, yes. That's because man's alienated labour is *money.* And money both reproduces and rules the world--from the lives of individuals to the policies of nations. And this despite the fact that money has no existence outside the human mind. It is a purely imaginary or--as previous ages put it--*spiritual* phenomenon. And yet who could dispute its practical power?
adc069975 said:
Well, I dunno. If my understanding of Hegel's concept of Geist is correct then it can be seen just as a driving force, rather than something that has the features of a second order cybernetic system.
ATOMIC SUPLEX
Member Since: 1985 Post Count: 3
phildwyer said:
Bollocks. Money maybe an intermediary to direct barter but it is still barter. Maybe the perceived value of money varies form person to person within the human mind, but I put is to you Phil that you are in fact a twonk.
Fruitloop said:
It is. Except of course that the power of money has greatly expanded since Marx's day. And that power is not only geographical but also psychological. Although I've tried not to argue by name-dropping in this thread, you will have perceived that my argument is an extension of the logic used by Lukacs, Debord and Baudrillard in their interpretation of commodity feitshism.
I extend their reading by showing how the psychological power of money corresponds to certain pre-Enlightenment, theological concepts, and I suggest that these concepts are therefore not obsolete, as is popularly supposed. On the contrary they offer us what contemporary economics and philosophy conspucuously lacks: an ethical critique of the power of money.
That's all really.
Wintermute
easy tiger
Yes.
Can we all go home now?
Yours,
God
Can we all go home now?
Yours,
God
phildwyer said:
Why does it need an ethical critique? It's in my immediate interest to escape from alienating and dominating social relationships. Only the bourgeoisie needs an ethical critique!
I don't understand how the power of capital can be understood as intrinsically malign, since it merely instantiates an unequal distribution of power between labour and private property. As a capitalist, the whole system would function elegantly in my interest - and were it not so it would be necessary to replace it with something else that served the same purpose better.
In any case, in looking beyond capital it's important not to deny its creative force, even though that force is alienating and amoral. It seems to me that to see money only in its destructive aspect (rather than as an epiphenomenal aspect of class struggle) fetishizes it just as much as the dominant ideology, only in the other direction.
Fruitloop said:
As a British subject, capitalism *does* work in your material interests. That's why you and others need an ethical critique to show that it works against your spiritual interests. Money is not any longer (if it ever was) "an epiphenomenal aspect of the class struggle." It is a psychological force, existing only in the mind, and systematically perverting and destroying its host. A glance at pre-Enlightenment thought shows a variety of extremely lucid, highly effective means of identifying, criticizing and destroying such forces.
Is it bollocks in my interests.
I can't afford a house, so I have to constantly add to someone else's capital in order to have somewhere to live.
I have to sell the bulk of every day - my freedom essentially - to someone else for them to make money from, in order to survive.
The ruling class is constantly seeking to exert deflationary pressure on wages, to roll back welfare gains made over the last 50 years, and to extract more labour value for the same or lesser standard of living.
Behind every apparently free transaction lies the violent enforcement of the capitalist system - the iron fist behind the velvet glove. Only the naturalisation of property and wage-labour relations keeps the iron fist from being on permanent display, just as only working class political action can reveal it.
The only sound that would accompany a revolutionary praxis based on pre-enlightment techniques for combatiing abstract entities is that of the ruling class laughing quietly to themselves.
I can't afford a house, so I have to constantly add to someone else's capital in order to have somewhere to live.
I have to sell the bulk of every day - my freedom essentially - to someone else for them to make money from, in order to survive.
The ruling class is constantly seeking to exert deflationary pressure on wages, to roll back welfare gains made over the last 50 years, and to extract more labour value for the same or lesser standard of living.
Behind every apparently free transaction lies the violent enforcement of the capitalist system - the iron fist behind the velvet glove. Only the naturalisation of property and wage-labour relations keeps the iron fist from being on permanent display, just as only working class political action can reveal it.
The only sound that would accompany a revolutionary praxis based on pre-enlightment techniques for combatiing abstract entities is that of the ruling class laughing quietly to themselves.
Dear Phildwyer,
I have been following this thread for some time now, and have spent a lot of time reading the content. I have found it interesting but also very frustrating, I have come the conclusion that you are unable to provide the "logical proof of the existance of God" as promissed at the outset.
There have been some interesting ideas raised, however, can I suggest you rename this thread (if this is actually possible)? My suggestion for the new thread title is as follows:
- "My philisophical perception of economics and a proposed connection with the human concept of God"
This title is far more acurate than the original and would be less misleading for any newcomers to your thread.
You may not agree with this. If you could explain why your title is more relevant to the content of the thread perhaps I would realise what I have missed.
I have been following this thread for some time now, and have spent a lot of time reading the content. I have found it interesting but also very frustrating, I have come the conclusion that you are unable to provide the "logical proof of the existance of God" as promissed at the outset.
There have been some interesting ideas raised, however, can I suggest you rename this thread (if this is actually possible)? My suggestion for the new thread title is as follows:
- "My philisophical perception of economics and a proposed connection with the human concept of God"
This title is far more acurate than the original and would be less misleading for any newcomers to your thread.
You may not agree with this. If you could explain why your title is more relevant to the content of the thread perhaps I would realise what I have missed.
Fruitloop said:
No, as a British subject you *are* a material beneficiary of capitalism. You benefit from a welfare state, infrastructure, education and health care that your state can afford to provide you because of the taxation it imposes on companies and individuals who profit from the exploitation of the neo-colonial world. Why do you think Britain is richer than Nigeria, a country with far greater natural resources and population? Magic?
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
phildwyer said:
Are you referring to the pampered western worker Phil?
Diem K said:
You raise some fair points, but I would not change the title of the thread even if I could (which I can't). The reason is that I believe I can indeed prove God's existence through rational means if I am allowed to proceed with my argument free from the kinds of interruptions that have too often disgraced this thread.
exosculate
a stagger with a beat
phildwyer said:
Go on Phil, your belief is beyond question.
phildwyer said:
I step in here without reading anything (sorry, too long a thread for me to read, would cost me days of dizzyness.)
I think you would find your rational means being called irrational by those who can only reason within their own frame of pre-set logic. Some time ago on a US message board in the course of a similar discussion about "logical proof" I posted that logical proof. In context of that discussion not difficult since what is framed with the concept "God" exists in the abstract.
salaam.
Well, I'm a NZer, so I've never really had any of those apart from 'infrastructure' here, although I do pay shitloads of income tax in the UK - out of money not gained from exploiting the neo-colonial world as far as I'm aware. The big businesses that actually do profit from the exploitation of this 'neo-colonial world' are in fact understandably reluctant to part with any of their ill-gotten gains as tax - to the tune of between £25bn and £85bn per year.phildwyer said:
In any case, the whole thesis involves a bizarre essentialism. The developing world has its managerial classes and comfortable lifestyles - many of them doubtless rather more luxurious than mine. The whole momentum of globalisation is that the poverty and exploitation that was formerly the preserve of the global south can be right here, next door to the opulent palaces of capital.
The fact that up until now the w/c have been allowed to have back an ever-diminishing proportion of the money they pay in tax as public services has a lot to do with the post-war consensus, and little to do with imperialism. However, I think that the process of erosion of these privileges will render them merely a historical curiosity within the next 20 years or so, which will at least clarify matters.
I'm surprised to see you making the stock bourgeois argument that anyone who has someone worse off than them is a net beneficiary, even though in their case (as I pointed out) the system of capital renders them far worse off than they would otherwise be (which is surely the important question!). To be the last person left on the lifeboat (maybe munching on the femur of one of your erstwhile companions) is perhaps a privilege, but not from the point of view of a man on dry land! Indeed, to frame this particular argument in a national context is to have already conceded to a major plank of the dominant ideology.
It's becoming clear to me why you do need an 'ethical critique' of capitalism - it's because this crooked thinking (of which the appeal to the PWW stereotype is only the tip of the iceberg) renders you unable to make a coherent material critique.
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