How Did You Become An Atheist?

I never said my nous was perfect. Or even implied it. But lets look at the entire statement.

I referred to the formal definition of the word. You just cut that part out. So you completely took that out of context and put words in my mouth.  What does this say about you?

I am not going to pander to your neurotic requests. Tell me or not. You definition of Ultimate reality is unclear. It sounds like you describing objective reality. Which of course exists. I am talking about a God. An entity. Our conversation was on Christianity how is that not clear. No i do ot believe a God exists. I believe we do not know. Thought I've made that clear.

fair enough 

I would appreciate it if you gave me a little bit more charity. Your constant insults are neither necessary or helpful. I am not insulting, even though I know you are in the mud and not nearly as informed about this subject as you would like to make pretense. Perhaps you would have an easier time if you ditched the attitude. Bear with me please, and with patience.

Nous does not mean "common sense and practical knowledge". Not in any context that I am aware of, and certainly not in the context of Orthodox theology. It is, as I said, the intellect as a whole, including not only the mind, but influences, priorities, pulls, passions, etc. It is like the eye of the heart and soul. 

The Ultimate Reality means exactly what it means. You say it means "Objective reality, which of course exists".

Perhaps if you did not have all this baggage and superstition attached to the word "God", you would not struggle as much. But here, let me help a little more.

All definitions courtesy merriam-webster...

Entity - being, existence; especially : independent, separate, or self-contained existence

Being - the quality or state of having existence

Existence - the state or fact of having being especially independently of human consciousness and as contrasted with nonexistence

I hope this helps to reveal something to you. When I say, "God is The Supreme and Ultimate Reality", I am really talking about the truest, all encompassing, all pervading, uncircumventable, perfect, reality. Absolute existence. 

Truly, reality itself, and in the truest sense of the word. In fact, to say there is no Ultimate reality is to deny reality and existence itself. As our very experience scientifically confirms, there is some form of existence, reality. If there is some form of Reality, there is an ultimate reality.

So I am sure even you can see, if you are willing, that God obviously exists, and it is self evident. Apodictic truth. Likewise, an entire tree of logic built off faulty premises will come to reasonable conclusions that are false. That being the case, in ones love of The Truth, calibrating the tool that is being used to measure and cleaning the lens of one's instrument is more integral than reason itself.

Because The Word of Truth itself said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, they will see God", not "Blessed is the one who is best at mental gymnastics, they will see God", neither "Blessed are those who are philosophically advanced and logical, they will see God."

A pure heart is a clean and undefiled nous.

And truly, even purifying the nous as the active process of abiding in The Way, The Truth, and The Life is an apodictic truth. 

If me calling that request(not you) neurotic is an insult, than it is insulting to try to make me "say the magic words" to get an answer to a question you complained I didn't ask. Expect I did ask it. Now you are telling me "I know you are in the mud and not nearly as informed about this subject as you would like to make pretense". How the hell would you possibly know that. Do you need to feel superior when you debate people or do you think you are taking me to church right now. You've also managed to ignore most of what I have written you. Which is also insulting seeing as I took the time to respond to everything you have written. You have put words in my mouth and purposely taken what I've written out of context. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

A simple google search will show the number 1 definition as common sense; practical intelligence. So you are wrong. It means exactly what I said it did. We used simple used it in different context.

Now lets see how you agian take my words out of context.

Do you see how I in no way say Ultimate Reality means objective reality. And how I specifically refer to God as an entity. I said that what you make it sound like. Because you are being unnecessarily enigmatic and cryptic. You could just try being direct and clear. The is why I struggle. My perception of God is widely shared. .

No God does not obviously exist. You haven't demonstrated that at all. You are just making unfounded assertions based on general knowledge. Like the fact the there is a reality. The only reason it is clear to you is because you are indoctrinated. Anybody would need to be indoctrinated to see it the way you do. This is not rational.

Try again.

If you don't believe there is ultimate reality, I can only conclude a few things...

1. You have no idea what you are denying.

2. You are lying.

3. You are a fool.

I am giving you the benefit of the doubt, and going with 1. You have to understand, from my perspective, you aren't standing on anything, so I am not impressed with your pretense of rationality. 

This is the only thing we need to talk about now.

The Ultimate Reality.

What do you think that means? 

@WyseGui has said

He thinks you are debating. It is dishonest of you to let him continue thinking this. If debate is unchristian and you are not debating but merely proclaiming your beliefs he deserves to know otherwise you are not having this discussion in good faith.

I concur

It is kind of pointless to debate with someone who is in denial of ultimate reality.

It is also kind of pointless to debate when a common understanding hss not been established.

And the thing is, it is impossible to reach a common understanding with a nihilist or a nihilist in denial because the very nature of their position is to destroy everything. Common understanding is meaningless. Debate to the nihilist is simply an exercise in strife.

I tell you something that is a waste of time. Telling you yet again thay no one has to deny that reality exists to deny you're claims about reality. 

You wouldn't understand my claims about reality if I even told you, because if you cared about understanding what I was saying, you would have already admitted that the ultimate reality exists long ago.

Instead you want to argue about whether the conception you have of a conception I have exists.

You know what ultimate reality means. You know it exists. You don't want to admit it does because you have an irrational fear of being exposed as an idiot.

Groundhog day....

It certainly doesn't have to be that way.

Do a thought experiment for a moment and accept that I mean exactly what I am saying. Imagine even that I am telling the truth.

It should be obvious that as long as someone is in denial of God, they are not entitled to be taken seriously. Quite the contrary, if they get anything other than mockery or scorn they are getting more than they deserve.

That is why I can't accept that anyone who denies God understands what it is they are denying. It is really better this way.

You claim your ultimate reality is a god ergo your ultimate reality only exists in the imagination of humans.

I'm denying a claim made by humans, it's really quit simple.

If the ultimate reality exists only in the imaginations of humans, it doesn't fulfill the basic requirements of what it means to be the ultimate reality.

You are talking nonsense as usual.

I'm probably going to regret asking this, but what exactly is ultimate reality.  

If you're talking about intrinsic reality (reality as it truly is) then that obviously must exist because there is a reality and it has to look like something even if it's something stupid like a bunch of marshmellows or a herd of realicorns. 

You got it.

Of course from here, I'm guessing that we'd disagree on what ultimate reality is.  But instead of putting words in your mouth, I'm happy to just have you tell me if you're interested in discussing it. 

We likely do disagree on what ultimate reality is, and I'd love to talk about it. I would, however, like to point something out first...

You are no longer an atheist, you believe that God exists. 

Funny. 

Only if god is merely atoms.  Because to me, ultimate reality is what reality would look like if we could see it through a perfect lens.  Nothing god like about that. 

Not god. This is a different word than God. I am talking about God.

The word "God" means "the ultimate reality".

I think you will find that there are many conceptions of God.

That said, a conception of God is not truly God. The uncreated is very much distinct from anything in creation. Conceptions are by nature created things.

Well if it's not actually god that you're talking about, but merely what reality actually looks like, then there's not contention on my part.  You can call ultimate reality anything you want if that's all you're doing is just naming it. 

Just know that naming it god doesn't make it divine in any way.  

I could call my toaster a horse and be semantically correct if I invent my own dictionary, but it's still just a hunk of metal that makes my toast no matter what I name it. 

In philosophy, they would call this the difference between an assertion and a proposition.  I could say. 

God exist! and then say. 

Toaster's exist, but really, I mean god. 

These would be two different assertions, but since they both carry the same meaning, they would be considered the same proposition regardless of how I attempt to word it.  

There is a formal name for things that are uncreated.  They're called non existent.  That is to say they're imaginary.  Fake.  Abstracts that are embedded in deeper more convoluted abstracts.  Square circles.  Four sided triangles.  Silent noise.  These things are equally as true as god and equally false as well. 

I accidentally learned something about mystery religions the other day btw.  It only made me take your position less seriously than I did before.  I originally thought you were making up your definition of mystery.  But it's worse than that.  it turns out that mystery religions have been spreading lies for centuries.  

I am not talking about gods, I am talking about God. A toaster is not the ultimate reality, and therefore can not be God.

If your god is a toaster though, I will have you know that those who place their trust in lying vanities forsake their own salvation. This toaster god is a created thing. It began to exist, and one day it will cease to exist. It is not worthy of your veneration, let alone your adoration.

Couple things there. 

Nothing every begins or ceases to exist.  they just form or deform.  Every particle that ever makes up any given toaster will always exist, but at some point they might be mixed with a different set of particles in a different shape.  So by your definition, toasters are in fact ultimate reality. 

My contention stands.  Ultimate reality is reality as it actually is and you can call it god as much as you want and it's just as valid if I call god a toaster.  It's just a label.  there's no ontology behind the label to differentiate it from anything else.  

So "god" in this case is not anything divine at all.  Just another atom.