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Crowley might have been a drug-addicted sophist and not a good source for seeking ultimate truths. But was he a good sophist? I am interested in occultism and symbology, but only as entertainment. I am certain of my materialistic beliefs. It might be that he is so popular here because he is clever and decadent, something shocking and thrilling if you don't take it as truth.

Also, was he actually a fun sophist? You seem to have read a lot so I would ask for your opinion. Is he worth reading for entertainment?

[b800h]

Absolutely! He's very entertaining.

As a committed materialist, what do you make of the Kalaam cosmological argument and others which make similar points? How can something come from nothing?

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I am not well-read enough to really have a reasoned answer, but mine is that we don't know. But just because there is something more, something we don't understand, doesn't mean that it's something greater. It's just something we don't understand.

Through the ages people tried to answer the great mysteries with great answers, but they didn't achieve anything. Truth should have predictive power, and understanding of great enigmas should help explain lesser ones, like the laws of gravity can calculate the fall of an object, but these answers haven't done something useful. But lesser questions have been answered with lesser and less interesting answers, and they successfully predicted stuff. Through answering many small questions, we now know why rain happens, why the seasons change, or how eels and flies come into existence. And the domain of the great mysteries was reduced, bit by bit.

Trying to answer the great mysteries, like the origin of existence, is building a house from the roof. Religious experiences and the numinous can be better explained by psychiatry and medicine than by theology.

There might still be something not more, but greater, than our understanding. It is probable, since our intuition and our senses are limited. But if there is, it would be equal to a colour we don't see due to lacking color cones. We might be unable to intuitively explain how it's like to see color to a colorblind person, but it's not divine or magical, greater than the material world and what we can measure and calculate; it's just greater than our eyes or our vocabulary.

That is at least my belief. It was hard to write somewhat concisely my beliefs, but I think I did a good enough job. I must say I'm not opposed to trying to answer the great mysteries, it's very similar to when the ancient greek philosophers tried to find the origin of matter. But I do not believe real truth can be obtained that way.

Also, I must say that your comments in this post were great. A perspective very different to the common HN point of view, thought-provoking and in-depth. I also learned the word numinous, which makes me happy as I have now a word to describe something I couldn't before.