Aikido.. The reality?

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JowGaWolf

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we don't know everything. God does.
I make no claims one way or another on this one. How can I claim that second statement when I can barely tell what you know and what you don't know. With the exception of a few things we have discussed on this forum, the most I can do is either believe what is said about you or don't believe. Believe what you say or don't believe.

The thing about spiritual beliefs is that people believe it for themselves. Not because someone else believes or doesn't believe. Spiritual belief in general is an inward activity. It needs no confirmation from others and it becomes who we are. regardless of what the belief is. Which is why people can believe in the same thing differently.
 
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drop bear

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Look at how much we screw up with the little power that we have now. Think of all the screw ups of the past and present that were due to the lack of knowledge, or the rejection of knowledge. I couldn't imagine that more power would make us less of a screw up. I'm my opinion I think we just become more effective at messing things up.

"Radium Girls" pretty much sums it up. Also the saying "If I only knew back then what I know now."

Just my perspective.

The point with omniscients is we would know back then what we know know.

So you understand everything. You can do everything. And for some reason you not only gave nuts to an allergic kid. You also made that kid allergic in the first place.

Are you a moral person?
 

drop bear

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I make no claims one way or another on this one. How can I claim that second statement when I can barely tell what you know and what you don't know. With the exception of a few things we have discussed on this forum, the most I can do is either believe what is said about you or don't believe. Believe what you say or don't believe.

The thing about spiritual beliefs is that people believe it for themselves. Not because someone else believes or doesn't believe. Spiritual belief in general is an inward activity. It needs no confirmation from others and it becomes who we are. regardless of what the belief is. Which is why people can believe in the same thing differently.

Like Russell's teapot or aiki.
 
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JowGaWolf

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The point with omniscients is we would know back then what we know know.
I don't think people are like this. But if something like that were possible, then forgetting would be a thing. We know things and we forget things. Sometimes on purpose and sometimes not.

Again I'm not saying that is something that I believe. Just that we forget things. Someone asked me if I had the choice to know everything, would I want to know everything. I thought I would answer yes. But then I thought about how it fills to learn about something that I didn't know before and how exciting that is. It would be like knowing everything that will happen in a movie before you see it. I don't think I would find much enjoyment in that. I don't think there would be much enjoyment in life to take away all of the surprises.

Are you a moral person?
The problem with "moral" is that there doesn't seem to be an agree upon standard of what that is. What is "moral" for one group may be "the worst thing ever" for another group. Just look at how religions have fought each other over the years. Find a war or conflict and you'll find two sides that think differently about what makes a "moral person"

Like Russell's teapot or aiki.
yep. It is what it is.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Overall, I appreciate the post and agree with most of it. It's just brain exercise for the most part, but I do enjoy philosophy of religion and logic in particular. It's enjoyable. And nice to use my liberal arts education once in awhile.

Regarding your first paragraph, I would replace "assumptions" with "premises" and then say, "it depends." For example, it depends on whether we can both agree that a premise is true. It's just how arguments are built.

So, for example, I misquoted St. Anselm before... I think I attributed to Thomas Aquinas. Anyway, I love the language involved in that argument. The entire thing builds on agreement on definitions (from memory, so it is paraphrased from the original):

  1. God is that than which no greater can be conceived.
  2. If God is all power, all knowing, and all good, but doesn't exist, than we can conceive of something greater... a being that is all of those things... but DOES exist.
  3. Bingo, bango, bongo, God must exist.
This argument only works if we agree that the definition of God is quite literally THE best, most amazing, powerful, awesome thing we can possibly imagine.

So, in the same way, when you think about the problem of evil, and start to consider how theists define their own god (core elements, without which it isn't the theistic god), you run across things like omniscience and omnipotence. Point is, we can start to argue that god doesn't exist by agreeing on things that, without which, it would not be God. It might be something pretty cool, but not god. Like it's very powerful, but not all powerful... dangerous, cool... but can't be God, because God is all powerful (that than which no greater can be conceived).

Interesting aside, not all theists have agreed on whether God is benevolent... for example, many of the founding fathers of America were deists.

In other news, I realize this is completely off topic, but I dig this ****. I understand if we need to get back on track. :)
Yeah, we probably should have gotten back on track a few posts ago, but like you, I enjoy this kind of discussion.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Not at all. I am just making the same argument you are.
I am a lifetime engineering and science nerd. My work demands that much of what I do is explained in the physical sense. The majority of martial arts is ground in the physical. But I am big enough of a person to acknowledge that we are limited as humans to explain everything.
Can you honestly say you can explain everything that has happened in your lifetime?
C'mon man.
Except that you made it first, and I used another example to demonstrate that it's a non-functional argument. So you just repeated the argument - with no adjustment or reasoning why it might actually be functional. Which isn't at all the same thing I did.

So, yeah, you abandoned the debate.
 

dvcochran

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Except that you made it first, and I used another example to demonstrate that it's a non-functional argument. So you just repeated the argument - with no adjustment or reasoning why it might actually be functional. Which isn't at all the same thing I did.

So, yeah, you abandoned the debate.
Please use another example..

Your example, as strange as it is, is still grounded in physical possibilities. Someone could shoot a teapot out in space for all we know.

Dismissively ending a discussion because it did not end the way you think it should says a lot.
 

Gerry Seymour

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Please use another example..

Your example, as strange as it is, is still grounded in physical possibilities. Someone could shoot a teapot out in space for all we know.

Dismissively ending a discussion because it did not end the way you think it should says a lot.
That's the point. There could be one out there, and you can't prove otherwise. But the example doesn't become less cogent if we replace the teapot with an invisible snow golem.

Now, find a better argument than simply repeating yourself, or acting as if you weren't the one abandoning debate.
 

Oily Dragon

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合気道.

The middle part is Qi, the tail end is "The Way".

The first glyph is the most interesting on infinite levels. This is what often gets lost in translation into English.

Bumping myself, why not.

Nobody is interested in the naughty bits of Aikido??? Come on, I learned them all in a single day.
 
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JowGaWolf

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Bumping myself, why not.

Nobody is interested in the naughty bits of Aikido??? Come on, I learned them all in a single day.
Makes me not want to ask just because I know you are waiting for someone to ask lol
 

Martial D

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Think of it like this.. You have 4 roads (a single road with no addition side streets) that you can take to get to the same destination. (your house). Without a doubt you know where these 4 roads lead. You are free to choose which way you want to go home. Even though you choose different paths, You will end up in the same place. So no matter which road you take your destination will always be your house.

As long as you choose one of those 4 paths, your destination will always be your house. One road may be longer or shorter, easy or difficult, but the destination will always be the same. While you may be able to choose the Journey you may or may not be able to change the destination.

It sounds impossible but it's not. We all walk different paths in life but we all arrive at the same destination - Death. Depending on the person's perspective some believe that we map our our lives and hardships before we are even born and that life is nothing but a lesson we agreed to take. For me personally that stuff gets too complicated. So I stick with my paths and the single destination that we all arrive at no matter what path we take.
Fair..but neither here nor there with regards to the point I made.
 

Wing Woo Gar

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You think it is a 'healthy mindset' to just believe something without any evidence it might be true?
You mean like that every art does what Chinese martial arts does but better? I assume that You, of course, must realize that there are quite a large number of Chinese martial arts out there. You must also be able to agree you haven’t experienced them all. Thus, you must be engaging in the ”healthy mindset” that you mentioned above.
 
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JowGaWolf

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You think it is a 'healthy mindset' to just believe something without any evidence it might be true?
Yes. Just not everything you hear or see. It's impossible to have evidence before belief for every single thing. Even science doesn't follow evidence before belief.

What's is a hypothesis? Basically something that you think or believe to be true based on little evidence or observations. As you work through the process you'll either evidence for your belief or you gain evidence that your belief is inaccurate. The belief that man can fly came before the evidence of it.
 
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JowGaWolf

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You must also be able to agree you haven’t experienced them all. Thus, you must be engaging in the ”healthy mindset” that you mentioned above.
Exactly. You get it. Belief before evidence. For a moment I thought I was the only one to see this. The belief that there was life and water on Mars existed long before we landed a craft on Mars. Belief before evidence.
 
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