Asking of the Designer what we would of any other designer (The atheist delusion)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Saturday, July 30, 2011, 00:07 (4866 days ago) @ whateverist

At one time I would not have said so but I now find it just as compelling to understand my subjective experience as I do the external world. I needed to understand how it could be that I can seemingly adopt any stance I wish and yet find myself drawn to defend some positions over others. Where do my stongest held beliefs come from? The same applies to all preferences. Why do some books/movies move me and others not? Why do I find meaning in some activities but only alienation in others? All of these hint at a self that is not up to me because it is me. So where does that come from and how come there are such marked differences in how all this is expressed in various individuals?
> -We are in similar positions; I've found refuge in Buddhist teachings, Nietzsche, and recently--Dostoevsky. (Your mileage may vary...)-One thing I can agree with having studied something along the lines of 8 various religions at this stage in my life... there ARE commonalities. I'm currently reading "The Hero with 1,000 Faces" by Joseph Campbell, he does an earth-shattering analysis of MANY world myths and goes at great length to show the common thread that links them all--indeed, the subjective experience itself seems to give some tantalizing hints in regards to cross-cultural patterns of mythos...-If you don't care for reading technical books about Zen, you might enjoy "Siddharta" by Herman Hesse. In the last year I found it to be both a wonderful book of literature as well as an introduction of sorts to a different way of exploring the psyche.-> Personally I find the question of our collective origins a fait de compli. We're here so there must be a story of how that came to be. I wouldn't expect it to be easy to track down but it is interesting. 
> 
> I find the prospect of a creator god very suspect. Nothing points to that for me. No intuitive likelyhood whatsoever. Occam's razor says a mystery supported by another mystery itself shrouded in mystery is most likely much ado about nothing.
> -You and I are in stark agreement here. -> I do consider the question of deity to be a separate question from that of a creator. That there might be transpersonal 'entities' which vie with one another in our innermost beings seems much more plausible, though not something I think about a lot. Deity does not imply all knowing or all powerful or the fount of everything. That is a very extreme formulation and one I easily reject as too unlikely.-This is reminiscent of old paganism: Our various psychological states represented as Gods. No more unlikely than any other formulation...

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\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"