Originally posted by Starrman
That's retarded, I have a desire for women with wings and hair made of candy floss, but we'd both agree they don't exist. Even if we ignore that flaw in his argument, he's still severely troubled with proving that there is a desire for god in the first place. Having read 'The Screwtape Letters' and Narnia etc. I expected more from Lewis, this sounds like bunk to me.

That's retarded, I have a desire for women with wings and hair made of candy floss, but we'd both agree they don't exist. STARRMAN--

Wings exist , candy floss exist , women exist.

If have such a desire I'm sure there are places you can go to fulfil your fantasies (LOL)

What's interesting about this desire is that it could be said to be an extension or elaboration of a real desire for sex corrresponding to a real reality , a woman. You have made some changes to your woman but it's not that different.

Originally posted by Nemesio
I'm not sure I agree with this. Perhaps the initial storyteller was simply 'telling stories' (albeit
pregnant with meaning), but I'd be willing to be that after a generation or two, the successful
'stories' became sources of identity, ways to establish and confirm one's peers in one's propinquity
group, and thus something which took on a much greater s ...[text shortened]... ed that the moon was carried in a
boat rather than on the back of a bear.

Nemesio

I'm not sure I agree with this. Perhaps the initial storyteller was simply 'telling stories' (albeit
pregnant with meaning), but I'd be willing to be that after a generation or two, the successful
'stories' became sources of identity, ways to establish and confirm one's peers in one's propinquity
group, and thus something which took on a much greater significance, as people have been fighting
about religion/culture for millennia.

I don’t disagree with this at all; in fact, I’d tend in at least some cases to carry it to the initial storyteller. I don’t suggest that various creation stories originated as just spinning idle yarns for the fun of it. There were probably “entertainment” stories and “serious” stories.

I disagree that our ancestors took their “identity stories” as literally as we tend to think they did. Within a mythological mindset, taking the stories seriously, and taking them as “journalistic” fact, are not the same thing. Remember, they were no less intelligent than we are; they simply thought about the world very differently. As you have often pointed out, it is a mistake to read—not only their mythology, but also their minds—from our modernist perspective. It is a modern phenomenon to think that a story must represent historical facticity to be “true.”

When a person of the tribe was punished for violating religious/mythic taboos, it was because such violation threatened the cultural fabric (which was probably not separate from the perceived ontological fabric), not because of theological disagreements (ala Thorg and Blerg). And, prior to the advent of what I might call “chauvinistic monotheism,” people did not tend to war on their neighbors because they worshipped the wrong gods, or the gods by the wrong names. They just had different gods, that’s all. At least that’s what I’ve gleaned from my reading. Religious wars do seem to be a “new trait” amongst humans—depending on how many millennia you want to go back. Rome had a long record of imposing Roman law, but not Roman religion—even vis-à-vis the Jews for a long time.

I recall an aboriginal storyteller who began the creation-story of his people with these words: “I cannot say that this is really the way it happened; I can tell you that the story is true.”

_________________________________

With regard to the Yahwist narrative, you might want to take a look at The Book of J, with commentary by literary critic Harold Bloom, but mostly to read the extracted “J” narrative as a piece (translated by David Rosenberg).

Originally posted by knightmeister
That's retarded, I have a desire for women with wings and hair made of candy floss, but we'd both agree they don't exist. STARRMAN--

Wings exist , candy floss exist , women exist.

If have such a desire I'm sure there are places you can go to fulfil your fantasies (LOL)

What's interesting about this desire is that it could be said to be an ex ...[text shortened]... l reality , a woman. You have made some changes to your woman but it's not that different.

I can push the envelope as far as it needs go to prove the point. What about fictional characters for example? I have a need for non-corporeal beings that occupy the singularity at the core of our nearest black hole etc.

You haven't dealt with the second objection, which is that what you call a need for god can be replaced with any number of lesser needs in conjunction, or indeed just the need for answers. The argument is still weak.

Originally posted by Starrman
That's retarded, I have a desire for women with wings and hair made of candy floss, but we'd both agree they don't exist. Even if we ignore that flaw in his argument, he's still severely troubled with proving that there is a desire for god in the first place. Having read 'The Screwtape Letters' and Narnia etc. I expected more from Lewis, this sounds like bunk to me.

I have a desire for women with wings and hair made of candy floss, but we'd both agree they don't exist.
I'm sure there are many who join you in such a desire; however, the desire can hardly be characterized as universal.

The argument isn't about imagination, it is about man's apparent needs. Man's needs are all externally satisfied--- and not from adaptation. Food did not evolve to satisfy man's needs, nor did man develop hunger because food existed. Throughout man's history on this planet, the issue of God has existed. If God does not exist, it is the sole, the only, one of man's needs which is strictly a product of his imagination... with absolutely no meaning or purpose, whatsoever.

Originally posted by LemonJello
Reading through this thread, I can't really figure out exactly what argument you are attributing to Lewis. Could you please simply state the premises and conclusion?

Knightmeister fairly well summed it up, if the post above this one failed to add anything to the same.

Originally posted by Nemesio
Well, you've couched it differently than I did.

Food satisfies hunger.
Water satisfies thirst.
Sex satisfies loins.
Answers satisfy curiosity.

I don't know about you, but curiosity is hardly an amusement for me. Yes, there are some
things about which we can be dimmly curious, like how they get the filling in the twinkies. But
for many people (my ...[text shortened]... at happens
when we die), the greater the agony.

Myths served to sate that pain.

Nemesio

I don't know about you, but curiosity is hardly an amusement for me.
Purposely understated for emphasis. It is not amusement which drives our curiosity: it is a need to know. Even if we decide their is nothing worth knowing, that knowledge itself is a vapor, we want to (have to) know even that truth.

Myths served to sate that pain.
Leading to the conclusion that Lewis settled upon: there must be something to our innate desire to know.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Knightmeister fairly well summed it up, if the post above this one failed to add anything to the same.

I hope not, for your sake. Knightmeister's summation stated that the mere fact we desire that it be the case that God exists bears directly on the question of whether or not God actually exists. If we were to break this thought down, it would be like saying: if God exists, then Q; Q is desirable; therefore, God exists. That is simply a textbook example of the fallacy argumentum ad consequentiam. So, hopefully for your sake Lewis' argument isn't as obviously terrible as knightmeister just made it sound. On top of which, I doubt it's a fact that we universally desire God (whatever that is supposed to mean).

So, if knightmeister did in fact fairly well sum up the argument in question, then the argument in question is pretty much a waste of consideration.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Leading to the conclusion that Lewis settled upon: there must be something to our innate desire to know.

It isn't a 'desire.' It's a need. As a species, we need to know just like we need to procreate. There is 'nothing' to it, it just is.

Nemesio

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
The argument isn't about imagination, it is about man's apparent needs. Man's needs are all externally satisfied--- and not from adaptation. Food did not evolve to satisfy man's needs, nor did man develop hunger because food existed. Throughout man's history on this planet, the issue of God has existed. If God does not exist, it is the sole, the trictly a product of his imagination... with absolutely no meaning or purpose, whatsoever.

You keep jumping a step. Man's needs are indeed externally statisfied. Food did not evolve to
satisfy man's hunger, man evolved such that he could eat the foods that are available. Knowledge
didn't evolve to satisfy man's curiosity, man evolved such that he could obtain knowledge in
order to survive more successfully.

The issue of God arose when man started to be aware of his self-awareness. He was the first
animal to be able to ask 'who am I' and naturally 'why am I who I am.' The need to know stuff
couldn't just be shut off since it was a biological predisposition. If God doesn't exist, it doesn't
preclude other answers to this question.

Nemesio

Originally posted by Starrman
I can push the envelope as far as it needs go to prove the point. What about fictional characters for example? I have a need for non-corporeal beings that occupy the singularity at the core of our nearest black hole etc.

You haven't dealt with the second objection, which is that what you call a need for god can be replaced with any number of lesser needs in conjunction, or indeed just the need for answers. The argument is still weak.

I can push the envelope as far as it needs go to prove the point. What about fictional characters for example? I have a need for non-corporeal beings that occupy the singularity at the core of our nearest black hole etc. ---------STARRMAN----

Don't be silly! This is no argument. Now , you might accuse me of mind reading but my guess is that you have no such need at all. Even if you do really have this need (LOL) I doubt whether it is shared by much of humanity.

The need....erhem......does have to be real you know.

Originally posted by Starrman
I can push the envelope as far as it needs go to prove the point. What about fictional characters for example? I have a need for non-corporeal beings that occupy the singularity at the core of our nearest black hole etc.

You haven't dealt with the second objection, which is that what you call a need for god can be replaced with any number of lesser needs in conjunction, or indeed just the need for answers. The argument is still weak.

what you call a need for god can be replaced with any number of lesser needs in conjunction, or indeed just the need for answers.----STARRMAN-----

And what might the question be? If the question is 'what is the meaning of it all?' then we might be inclined to speculate why the question exists in the first place. The fact that there is a need for answers does not prove that there is an answer but it sure is interesting.

Originally posted by LemonJello
I hope not, for your sake. Knightmeister's summation stated that the mere fact we desire that it be the case that God exists bears directly on the question of whether or not God actually exists. If we were to break this thought down, it would be like saying: if God exists, then Q; Q is desirable; therefore, God exists. That is simply a textbook example ...[text shortened]... argument in question, then the argument in question is pretty much a waste of consideration.

Knightmeister's summation stated that the mere fact we desire that it be the case that God exists bears directly on the question of whether or not God actually exists. If we were to break this thought down, it would be like saying: if God exists, then Q; Q is desirable; therefore, God exists. That is simply a textbook example of the fallacy argumentum ad consequentiam. So, hopefully for your sake Lewis' argument isn't as obviously terrible as knightmeister just made it sound. -----LEMONJELLO------


Why do you guys insist on thinking that we put these ideas forward as "proofs". Lewis's argument was, as far as I understand it, just thoughtful speculation. That men's desires are usually found to be based in some external reality seems to be a given. Therefore the fact that many many men desire God is interesting. It's no proof though , but Lewis's point was that in a world without light we would not know what darkness was. It's a subtle point , you either get it or you don't.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Knightmeister's summation stated that the mere fact we desire that it be the case that God exists bears directly on the question of whether or not God actually exists. If we were to break this thought down, it would be like saying: if God exists, then Q; Q is desirable; therefore, God exists. That is simply a textbook example of the fallacy argumentum uld not know what darkness was. It's a subtle point , you either get it or you don't.

knightmeister, I don't think anyone virtually ever puts forth complicated conclusions of this nature by way of "proof". What the hell would "proof" be? Some deductively valid argument where each and every premise is self-evident? No, I'm not expecting "proof" from you or anyone. But, one thing I do expect of others is that their arguments not be just obviously fallacious. Understand the difference?

Originally posted by knightmeister
It's no proof though , but Lewis's point was that in a world without light we would not know what darkness was. It's a subtle point , you either get it or you don't.

Do you think a blind person doesn't know what darkness is?
Do you think a deaf person doesn't know what silence is?

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
Do you think a blind person doesn't know what darkness is?
Do you think a deaf person doesn't know what silence is?

Nemesio

Do you think a blind person doesn't know what darkness is?
Do you think a deaf person doesn't know what silence is?

Nemesio---

I don't know. I think maybe they would know. However , if there was no light or sound then no-one would have eyes or ears , therefore blindness and deafness would not exist and nobody would even know what these terms meant. Do you "see" (LOL) the point?