The Invalidity of Atheism
A god hypothesis would require atheism to be invalid. We look and that is what we see. Atheism as a non-belief in something never shown to exist is intangible in itself. Atheism is if anything a product of the Bible, a rejection of religion.
Theism offers an explanation for our existence, atheism offers no explanations of its own, a weaker position. Naturalism is the counter-position to theism, atheism occupying a non-existent middle ground. The majority of the world's scientists, academics, etc. are not atheists accepting religion for what it is, Stephen Jay Gould's non-overlapping magisteria an example.
If atheism were valid, atheists would not be able to open their mouths. They would have nothing to talk about. Atheism is in being a-theistic making them a-theists.
The invalidity of atheism does not validate theism, as naturalism may still be right, but atheism needs to be invalid for theism to be right.
Anyhow, why should we listen to those who reject a God (a relatively simple addon) but then continue to believe in mermaids, unicorns etc.
Atheism is a rejection of free-speech (primarily another element of the Left).
Theism offers an explanation for our existence, atheism offers no explanations of its own, a weaker position. Naturalism is the counter-position to theism, atheism occupying a non-existent middle ground. The majority of the world's scientists, academics, etc. are not atheists accepting religion for what it is, Stephen Jay Gould's non-overlapping magisteria an example.
If atheism were valid, atheists would not be able to open their mouths. They would have nothing to talk about. Atheism is in being a-theistic making them a-theists.
The invalidity of atheism does not validate theism, as naturalism may still be right, but atheism needs to be invalid for theism to be right.
Anyhow, why should we listen to those who reject a God (a relatively simple addon) but then continue to believe in mermaids, unicorns etc.
Atheism is a rejection of free-speech (primarily another element of the Left).
Comments (1357)
Sweet fuckin' Jeezus. :roll:
Atheism preceeded the Bible by millennia and every religion that rejects worship of all deities entails atheism with respect to those unworshipped deities. So, on these two points alone, your post is grossly uninformed and thereby "invalid" itself.
Quoting L'éléphant
Suppose atheism claims only that 'theism is not true', that – regardless of whether or not there is a theistic deity – what is said in religious texts and believed 'about some deity' is demonstrably not true. Does such a formulation of atheism make more sense to you?
And one thing that can never be is atheism preceding theism, as the title says it all. We also need to keep in mind, barring one very small statistical error, all societies have had their god/s.
I guess the thing is, the onus is on the atheists, not the theists.
Theists: God exists, we believe in god.
Atheists: God does not exist, we don't believe in the existence of god.
Note that the atheists deny the existence of god, not that they would not believe it if god exists. If god truly exists, the atheists would turn into theists.
"The Riddle of Epicurus", circa 3rd century BCE. No reference to the Hebrew scriptures and nearly seven centuries before the Christian Bible and over nine centuries before the Qur'an. Hopefully you're not allergic to a short wiki article on "the history of atheism": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_atheism :chin:
I find that article suspect because pygmies would not have been able to make a statement, god does not exist. If they didn't have a concept of spirituality or deity, they would not have been able to make that statement -- which is essential to be an atheist, no?
I mean, they could not be called atheists. Maybe something else -- but not atheists.
No. :point:
[quote=a pigmy]I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.[/quote]
Who said that? I was referring to the article you linked, which referenced 6 BCE, and then proceeded to describe the pygmies as non-spiritual, non-superstitious, non-religious, and no concept of a god or gods.
What is 'not true' is false? Atheism, in its dishonesty, needs to avoid such a declaration. It does not have the backing of science, Big bang and evolution still technically theories. Atheism is really the rejection of a perceived harshness, evolving over time, currently rejecting the patriarchy Moses, Jesus & Muhammad represent. So, no this formulation makes no more sense to me.
God would need to give us the power to solve evil, and which is something we are presently doing. And isn't it that 'evil' was a choice we made ourselves, the original sin, itself an act of free-will we chose.
I'd dismissed "barring one small statistical error" but it does seem more involved than I'd first understood.
I can't explain the Pygmy lack of belief, but can't understand how any tribe couldn't contemplate a basis for its own existence. They must have been subject to a lot of survival pressure to not allow a/any supernaturally-based philosophy.
If people wanna believe it's up to them. Everyone has the right of their own reality. Theists know, atheists believe.
Wrong. :wink:
Atheism is not a belief. It is a lack of belief. A responsible contemporary atheist is more likely to say - 'I am not convinced that god/s exist.' For the same reason that a Christian does not believe in Zeus, Allah, Ganesh, Ahura Mazda, Thoth, Krishna, whichever.
Quoting EugeneW
Demonstrate any of this? I thought not..
This is a critique of theism, not atheism. Atheism is the lack of belief in God/gods. If you think that God/gods have never been shown to exist, then you would be an atheist (unless you choose to believe with, self admittedly, 0 evidence). Atheism cannot be tangible in a literal sense by definition, just like not-stamp collecting is just as real as the number zero: neither are tangible yet are very real.
The Bible is not holistically religion. Atheism is the rejection of theism (or, more generically, yes, religion): not just merely Christianity.
It is not a weaker position because it doesn't positively assert anything (it is a doctrine of negations). Is it a weaker position to not-stamp collect, or be an avid stamp collector? Neither. Atheism is not meant to provide anything beyond simply lacking a belief in God/gods. This doesn't mean in the slightest that someone should be a theist because "atheism is a weaker position", nor does it have anything to do with naturalism.
No it is not. Traditional physicalism or materialism would be an appropriate counter argument. Naturalism is a philosophical theory that rejects supernaturalism, while not necessarily negating metaphysics. Naturalism is not the claim that all there is is definitely the material world, it is the theory that all natural events must be explained by natural laws, logic, reason, etc.
You either believe something, or you don't (principle of noncontradiction). Therefore, each person either believes in God/gods, or doesn't. Theism is the belief in such, atheism is the negation. These are, in terms of beliefs, the only two options.
Atheism is opening your mouth and claiming you don't believe, that is it. Other philosophical theories have to invoked to claim further. If I'm not a stamp collector, that is all I am going to be able to say about the matter, but that has nothing to do with other, completely unrelated, positions I may voice.
What exactly did you prove here? Atheist is the term for those who subscribe to atheism. I'm not following the logic here.
It is not "theism" vs "naturalism". You can be an atheist and subscribe to metaphysical truths (you can also not be a naturalist and be an atheist). Likewise, naturalism is a philosophical theory pertaining to epistemic claims, theism is pertains strictly to belief. Not all theists claim to "know" God exists. Lots do, but some don't (some are agnostic theists). Some prefer, contrary to a 2 dimensional labeling system, a 1 dimensional representation: atheism - agnosticism - theism. However you fancy, none of it implies naturalism.
Atheism does not necessitate that one should believe in mermaids. I honestly haven't met a single atheist that does, nor does it pertain to atheism in any way imaginable: that would be a separate assertion.
Not at all. Again, atheism is the negation of theism. Theism is the belief in God. Gnosticism (not in the sense of the gnostics) is the claim of knowledge (epistemically) either way, agnosticism the negation thereof. This has nothing to do with "Left" (I would presume you are referring to politics) nor free-speech.
Fortunately, many religions preceded the Bible, so atheists existed far before Christianity did. For example, Epicurus, the Pyrrhonists, Diagoras, Kesakambali, Lucretius, and Theodorus, who, all of which, believe it or not!, lived before Jesus did. How could this be?
Are they simply a product of something that hasn't come into existence yet?
The atheist believes in the fairy tale that no gods exist. So it's a belief. Do they have demonstrate of any of this? I think not.
Sure, what method did you use to show Zeus doesnt exist? Ill just use that one.
No, again you are wrong. :wink: The atheist says they have no reason to believe there are gods. They do not necessarily say there are no gods. I don't believe in Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster for the same reason. I don't say they do not exist I say I have seen no reason to think they are real. Big difference.
Quoting DingoJones
Exactly. :up:
Then they are no atheists. Agnostics maybe. I'm a theist but to be honest don't give a fuck about them gods.
I think of you more as an eccentric, based on your entertaining responses.
Zeus does exist.
Well, you know, it's just that I think nature by itself can't have spawned a creature like my wife. Somehow, some mad god must be involved. Luckily, I might add!
Big Foot can be met, in principle. But proving no gods to exist is a more exquisite task. How can you met gods that don't exist?
Ok, so do you believe in all gods or are you going to rely more on something like “Zeus exists as feature of greek mythology”?
I believe there are as many gods as creatures in the universe. The Greek saw a few of them. Western man sees some unified omni god monster.
What is your definition of a god?
this has to be a troll. Best left alone.
You'd think so. But I've heard this kind of incoherent, quasi-libertarian shit from some apologists in recent times. Next comment is usually a connection between Communism and atheism, along with a conspiracy to deprive people of liberty, along with their faith.
Quoting Bob Ross
Incorrect. Atheists do assert something: God does not exist.
Quoting EugeneW
In mythology no less, sir.
I don't believe that a purple man with seven arms rules the Omniverse on a throne made of cotton candy.
I give up. Why?
Nice.
I understand that you said "positively assert anything".
There is more than one way to skin a cat. It's all positive if you asked me.
Why is good knot a very tail? You argue that atheism is a belief. The standard reply is that it's a lack of belief (which is more strictly correct, IMN), but I do think atheism is often associated with a disenchanted worldview. This worldview (which is mine) strikes me as merely subtractive. The atheist (tends to) takes fewer entities seriously than a certain kind of theist (the theist meanwhile still expects toasters and teamsters to work.)
"If the only thing keeping a person decent is the expectation of divine reward, then, brother, that person is a piece of shit." :halo:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/656116 :fire:
The original gods were all related to the strange but very important objects they cognised all around them.
The sun, moon, stars, wandering planets, earth, water, forest, wind, thunder and lightning etc.
You have to combine this with the human tendency to view events and make up their own version of what actually happened, taking account of the 'Chinese whisper' effect. The early god(s) and their entourage fables were such an obvious outcome, easily garnished from the most basic understanding of YOUR own psyche. The later fables of Christianity, Islam etc are just more sophisticated versions of earlier fables. Almost nothing from the biggest religions today are original. The stories are much the same only the names have been changed.
I remember a TV show where a Scots reporter spent time with isolated tribal peoples all over the world.
It was a good series. As a final episode, he decided to bring the Chief of a particular tribe and his main entourage (about 8 people altogether) to London. I think this was a 'sensationalist' episode which intended to get that 'overwhelmed' response from these 'simple/backwards folks' visiting London.
Scenes like the tribesmen all chasing after a squirrel in a park, to find out what the hell it was and the moment where the Chief does not appreciate being told that he cant meet 'The Queen'(as they stood outside Buckingham Palace) during this particular visit, even though he considered himself her equal in status. They were then taken inside St Paul's Cathedral. This was the only scene of value to me when, the words of the chief an all his group, were translated, as exclaiming that 'man did not build this place. This place could only have been created by god.'
For me, this demonstrated where gods came from in the mind of early humans. This understandable assumption has been with us ever since, even though we know its completely wrong. Human's built that useless building (give it to the homeless)!
Atheists cannot disprove the existence of god. Theists gravitate to Pascal's wager as the unknown scares them. Fear of what they don't understand is simply more powerful than their ability to rationalise and reason. They will rarely admit this however, For three main reasons.
1. Their economic/social/influential status is dependent on theism.
2. Theism is a fundamental part of their control over others.National or tribal control or even just as a
desirable family moral code.
3. Their memory of the 'fear' aspect of why they became believers has faded and they are convinced it
was never part of their reasoning.
:fire: would indicate an accusation of 'Flaming,' that your words are a deliberate attempt to inflame the opinion of others.
Ergo, 45% of people alive today are 'pieces of shit'?
"Good Knot in the Fairy Tail" is a fairytale because it sprang up in the minds of employees in the fairytale factory. It was created in response to the harsh reality of theism, to counteract a miracle-devoid universe to bring back a mystery-element, so badly needed. Good Knot gets untied finally, resolving the Fairy Tail. The moral of the fairytale being that even in a theist universe miracles and wonders can be found. One doesn't need atheist fantasìes and materialism to accomplish that.
I personally consider Alexander the (not so) great to be a butcher but I did like the story of his encounter with the Gordian knot. If he could untie it, the local powers would submit to him without a fight.
He just chopped it to pieces with his sword. A scientific solution in my opinion. Sharp metal cuts rope!
If true, (probably just another exaggerated Macedonian story) it was a clever moment from an otherwise savage autocrat.
What do people generally believe is the percentage of those who are pieces of shit? Somewhere in the 90% + range, probably.
Like @Tom Storm, I, too, have heard this type of reasoning before. The constitutionally given right to free speech trumps informal logic.
Because they want to. .
Anyway, the question was specifically for the OP.
Fascinating. Almost a reversal of what's expected. Some consider theism to be a position that insists on the wizardry of the world, while they think of atheism as a grim disenchantment.
Here again. A typical tail would be that the New Age woo woo is 'ferry dust' sprinkle on the otherwise egolisciously satanic Mill of the world. To me we're all already 'born in scene' and this dream is exciting enough without angels and dragons.
As far as the invalidity of atheism, I do have a lot of experience talking with them (atheists) and I will say that it is important to respect everyone's opinion/belief/position on life and things of that nature. I have long since made it a point to always consider the position of an atheist when writing philosophy. I ask myself, "what would the atheists that I've known, think about this particular philosophy"?
God really does the same thing if you think about it. God takes into consideration all people, not just the ones who believe.
Which of course is not the same thing as actually proving it. A Nobel Prize and a shit-ton of money awaits the person who can prove gond/s. One suspects this will go unclaimed.
Quoting chiknsld
So do you know god/s personally? This is the kind of odd personal claim an apologist might make. Why would we take this seriously?
As I have stated to you, my post is not meant to be persuasive. And I also stated in my first post that this is not the place to discuss God since they are heavily moderating which discussions can be had about God.
My post was mostly about the invalidity of Atheism. I'm not here to explain to you how or why I believe in God (no offense).
You can't make extravagant claims on a philosophy forum and expect for them to go unchecked.
So you not only believe god/s are real, you claim to know what god/s think. A double whammy of implausibility from an atheist's perspective, as I am sure you must know. Pray tell us how it is achieved?
The debate about the nature of atheism takes place precisely because people make claims such as yours and won't or can't justify them. Ideas live in ecosystems.
I'm sorry that I tickled your fancy by mentioning that I can prove we are not alone (by way of logic). Again, my post was really about the "invalidity of atheism".
For fear of derailing the thread, I'll have to ignore if you continue to ask for proof of God. I'm not going to continue repeating myself.
I will say this (correct me if I am wrong), you do not believe in God but you continue to ask for proof of God. What to you is proof of God?
By the way, you have 3 thousand posts on this site. In my younger days I could do that in a couple weeks (if not less). You speak to me as if you represent a group of people by referring to yourself as "we" or "us" and you seem to think that you have more experience in philosophical conversations than me.
Also, what are your thoughts on the things I said regarding the "invalidity of atheism"?
As an atheist, I hold the position that I have seen no reason to be convinced there is god/s - let alone people knowing what god/s want. So I am asking for theist's evidence. That should seem reasonable, surely?
The main role for an atheist in these conversations is to ask theists - 'why do you say that?'
I don't know what would be counted as 'proof', but I do know that nothing I have heard or seen so far works for me.
It's important because governments all around the world have harmful religious agendas, from killing gay people in Saudi, to working to overturn Roe versus Wade in the USA. We know religious nationalism is a huge problem all around the world (Putin anyone?) and all of these are folk who not only believe in god/s, but think they know what god/s wants.
So why do you make the claims you do?
Good grief.
Suggested title of new post: "The Invalidity of A-Ancient-Astronautism"
Hi! Here again too. The matter-only-tale was created as a woo theory because the theìst dream was devoid of wonder and miracles. It posits a ferry dust that operates autonomously. We're born in some woo-kind of eternal matter fields. This old-age woo is about to be supplanted. The angels and dragons of materialism are too much to bear.
What about the existence of the universe? Why should the gods show themselves to us? Who says they don't lay back in their heavenly jungle fields, just watching their creation? Which gives me a wonderful idea for a short story!
If it is not immediately evident to you that there is something going on, whilst living and breathing in a gigantic universe...then it's a safe assumption that you will probably never believe in God. It's kinda just one of those things. In all my incredible wisdom, I can say at least that much.
Quoting Tom Storm
Wouldn't it be so easy for you if everything was all natural? I mean, then you wouldn't even have to ask a theist why they believe in God right? Or for proof? But wait (here comes the justification)...
Quoting Tom Storm
You've got to be kidding me. Haughtily asking for proof of God in the guise of sincere and genuine civic duty? Vladimir Putin? Gays in Saudi Arabia? You're making a mockery of atheism.
Religion does not have a monopoly on psychopathy, not to mention the fact that you are trying to veer the conversation towards the term "religion" rather than the far more neutral term "God".
The only reason I mention the word "theist" is out of respect for the thread (which is about atheism). Plenty of non-religious practicing people still believe in God. Nice try though.
You ask for proof of god. I give you the evidence: the universe.
:up: I'm sure you know what Ietsisism/Somethingism/x-ism is, the vague intuition that there's more (to reality) than meets the eye. To me ietsism is proto-religion, and for the past 5k years, god(s) have been placeholders or assumed values of x in x-ism. What lies ahead is anyone's guess.
I wonder if the good boy ever got laid. Maria Magdalena? Are there Jesus ascendants alive today? Is the Jesus gene still around us?
What kind of evidence do atheists ask? Scientific? Then, no. There's no scientific proof for the existence of god.
Funny. The existence of dreams works the same way -- you can't show scientifically what you dreamed of last night. If you dreamed of riding a giant quark, you couldn't show this scientifically, not in pictures, not in actuality. Yet, everyone on Earth had claimed at one time or another that they dreamed about something. And that dreams exist.
So, if I demand that you show me the proof that you dreamed of something last night, I am acting like the atheists.
A fallicious entailment. You think I worship any of them? No way.
L'elephant. The question should be: is there evidence they don't exist. No! So do they exist? Yes!
You need gods just like everyone else 180booze... Just to deny them...
WYSIWYG? So, to you metaphysics is flights of fancy, fantasizing? Looking for the ideal partner is like vowing to be a lifelong bachelor/spinster?
:chin: No, no, he has a point!
Let's not use this. This is a fallacy.
OK, that helps. I can't speak for others, but here's my 'moderate' version of what's (to me) an atheistic scientific worldview: we mostly don't know what the fuck is going on. (But we tend to ignore stuff we don't understand and ignore that very ignorance.) Yet we have found a few exploitable patterns which have nevertheless already been enough to revolutionize life on earth. To me the existence of the whole shebang is unexplained and seemingly even inexplicable in principle, since there will always be something functioning as brute fact in any map or any orienting 'fairy tail' which we one-eyed men must cling to as a leash. I trust that state-of-the-art scientific models are pretty good, but they are just more mops and maps to me, not some Final Truth about that which is Most Real. Neither the priest nor the poet nor the physicist wear the crown (perhaps poets are quickest to say so?).
But if we do the same with the existence of god, people want evidence? If I can't produce proof that I dreamed I rode a sleigh pulled by reindeers, no one would say I didn't dream, or dreams don't exist.
Then what about the existence of the universe?
There is evidence people dream. I dream you dream, everyone dreams. My dreaming is proof of your dreaming. If you say you dreamt I believe you.
Anyway, I do not "deny them". I claim that what believers say about "them" is demonstrably incoherent and not true.
Only cataphatic metaphysics; my speculative concerns move on from there to .
Proof of gods.
Any arguments against beliefs that they should be supported by evidence is invalid. You can't demand evidence for something that is not knowledge.
This goes for both theists and atheists. It is futile to try to convince someone to discontinue his or her BELIEF.
A bit of an underestimate, I'd say... :razz:
This is not evidence! I knew you were gonna say this.
Look, if I said I dreamed I was floating, I would not be able to produce proof of me floating. What is YOUR evidence of MY claim?
That's denying them. Under the guise of "not true". Where is the evidence? You don't have it. Sorry booze...
You are a solipsist?
Trollish tantrum?! So pathetic. :lol:
If you tell me you had a dream, than that's proof enough for me. Of course, you could be lying...
Could you be arsed to go outside of this thread and have a smoke outside the building? You're loitering.
Sorry my sweet booze... The one laughing is the pathetic...
You asked for proof! I gave you one: the universe... Gonna smoke one...
I take them myself! Doneenunny!
Look who's talking!
I'll need to keep on posting this until one or more of you read this and it sinks in.
You can't report me for repeating myself, because all of you have been repeating yourselves too.
a·the·ism (noun)
• disregard/dismissal of what theists have failed to prove in the first place
• absence of theism or doubt/disbelief therein, hence the leading 'a'
Terms like antitheism, atheism, igtheism, misotheism, etc, are derived from theism, and theism can mean a few things. Diverse, fantastic, narrated (pseudo-historicized) characters, that supposedly intervene/participate/meddle in human affairs, and adherents go by whatever commands/rules, rituals, fate designations, ... Taking those stories to be literal history converges on fundamentalism. Does anyone seriously believe that a preacher in Middle Eastern antiquity supernaturally fed 5000-9000 people (in 2 rounds) with a handful of food...?
I see! I didn't realize we had a choice (in the matter). Only put stock in that which can be affirmed! There's something inherently sick about denial (of reality). Transcendence is the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Are we so pathetically weak? We are dissatisfied (dukkha).
Quoting god must be atheist
Do you have proof of this?
I got there first! :grin:
:chin:
No, I don't. Do you seriously belief gods don't exist? Do you really belief laws of nature and the basic stuff in it are clever enough to create themself?
Do you speak and comprehend English? FAITH is a BELIEF. It requires no proof. What's so fucking hard to understand about that?
I was writing that finally some wise words in a quiet piece of water in a boiling ocean had arrived. Then you posted again...
who said they needed to create themselves? This is not a valid assumption. They could have existed forever. No need for creation.
However, if you believe that creation happened, that's your prerogative, and nobody has the power of argument to deter you from that. On the other hand, if you said that creation is a necessity, a necessary event, that is not belief; that is a claim, and it can be argued against.
Atheists have no proof. It's a fairytale, not a belief. Only theists have proof.
Such as? :pray:
You're right that atheists have no proof. But so don't theists.
In fact they are eternal. But too dumb to come into existence.
We agree on that.
The fact that the universe, in its eternal infinity, exists.
A theist is simply a believer in god/s. It has nothing to do with practicing a religion. There was no 'nice try'.
Quoting chiknsld
If it is not immediately evident to you that there is nothing going on, whilst living and breathing in a gigantic universe...then it's a safe assumption that you will probably always use god/s as an emotional crutch. You see, you are not presenting an argument, you are just using words to construct a rudimentary appeal to mystery and emotion. I can do it in reverse and it's no better.
Quoting chiknsld
I did not say religion has a monopoly on psychopathy. Although in some theocracies it does. I see you prefer deflection to argument.
Quoting chiknsld
Do you have evidence of anything that is not natural? I thought not...
Justification? One of many reasons for anti-theism perhaps.
Asking people why they believe in god/s? I know many of those reasons, having a priest as a close friend, having worked in palliative care services and working with people to prevent suicide has taught me enough about believer's reasons.
But still you avoid discussing yours and resort to deflections Ok I get it, it's hard if you have no good reasons.
And you know what? I don't care that people are theists (as long as they don't want to establish a theocracy) I'm just on a forum and when theists use words that sound like they know stuff when it's way more likely they don't, I sometimes enter the discussion. Arguing about god/s is no more useful than arguing about what the best Adam Sandler movies is.
Take care, it was fun. Maybe we can engage about some other stuff later.
sorry to have preemted you. I was getting frustrated. Please understand.
I don't care about atheists. As long as they don't wanna establish an atheocracy. But they did, goddamnit!
Quoting 180 Proof
Not only one. Where else does it come from? I don't mean I don't understand because of lack of knowledge. In fact, that knowledge left nothing else to conclude. When all gaps are closed, it becomes clear.
Expecting a het is goed om thuis te zijn from @EugeneW, who denkt dat atheïsme een fart is ?
It would be a proof of god's existence if that were the only valid explanation. But other valid explanations exist, and they are not any less or more valid than the other. Therefore the only thing you can claim is that the infinite space and matter in it have existed forever; but the cause of their existence is not necessarily god, AND it is not necessarily the lack of god. Either beliefs are possible, therefore either beliefs are valid AS BELEIFS but not as knowledge.
Have you considered the atheist objection that the deities of popular religions are not plausible (for ethical reasons among others) ?
Are you more concerned with proving the existence of an otherwise indeterminate creator (a demiurge who no longer tinkers with his dirtmonkeys) or with some particular conception?
Is the main thing that bothers you just a hole in the story ? You never got back to me on my last post which suggests that our human ignorance is the rule and not the exception. We just don't bother much with that which is disorderly (our deep learning models are picking up some slack for us lately though.) Is it the hubris or complacency of some atheists that puts you off?
Quoting god must be atheist
I hear two birds outside chirping. A dove has started cooring. "Morning has broken, like the first morning". The dog yawns and cries at the bed like a small child. The bed squeeks and love calls. "Love, you make some coffee?" That's proof enough for me.
It's CONVINCING enough for you, but philosophically it's not proof. Proof on the philosophical level is universal. If it's proof for you, then it's not proof for everyone. Therefore it's not universal. Therefore it's not philosophical. So I would humbly like to ask you to not use the word proof when in conversation about philosophy unless you mean a philosophical proof. Thanks.
Read my words booze. The appeal is to gnorance...
For me, gods exist for everyone. If they don't wanna belief it it's up to them. They can say with equal force that they don't exist universally. Now who's right? Both are.
The philosophical proof, for me, is the existence of the universe. Im writing a short story on it. Thanks to Tom Storm.
??? ????. ?? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???????? ???????
In translating that back to English, I noticed that 'figured' became 'count.' Otherwise it's the same.
https://context.reverso.net/translation/
thanks.
You apparently figured it out.
Hofstadter is wrong and right.
So your view is that some kind of intelligence had to make this shit, but you don't know/care exactly what kind? And you aren't religious? I really just want to know. Irreligious theism is somewhat exceptional around here. I remember arguing on that side once long ago with a Spanish exchange student on a school bus. Oh those decadent Europeans! Trying to corrupt my innocent vaguely Catholic mind. (As I said, long long ago when dragons roamed our planet.)
Gott genießt den Geschmack seines eigenen Samens
I used the same! Did you reverse back again?
I only retranslated the one I wrote. I don't see any that you've written so far.
It becomes "guess"
How so?
Quoting EugeneW
Oh, I missed what you're referring to it seems.
Figure becomes count becomes guess. I didn't go further.
Logic, reasoning power and the general education of most people in the Westernized cultures have helped a bit, don't you think?
Whereas religion was spread with terror, fear, torture and the threat of death. At least the Christian religion was spread that way in Europe back 2000-1500 years ago.
Please also consider that no apostates exist because they were forced at knife point to leave their religion. As per the inner conviction of belief in god nobody abandons their belief unless they can't but abandon it.
What I am saying is that atheocracy is getting established for at this point in history that is the sensible thing to do. People go for evidence; while there is no evidence that there is no god, there is plenty of evidence that the universe can and does function without any interference by any god or gods. THIS is the reason that atheocracy is gaining popularity, not some perverse, diabolical or else personal vendetta against god or against religious people.
Indeed! To fuck up the planet, society, and personal relations.
Oh, yes, that's correct.
The software is pretty impressive, especially considering that it's just a mountain of statistics in its guts. That's how orderly our linguistic ejaculate tends to be. We are 'whirlpools in the traces,' a 'rose in iron dust.' And the motor of the World Spirit is Gott schnuppert die Unterwäsche von Mädchen.
Almost all natural so-called primitive societies have been wiped out of existence.
You think the religious wars, the Autodafe, the impending torture of Galileo, the child mortality, the birth mortality of mothers, the starvation, the plague, was not fucking up the planet and personal relationships?
Hey, the Great Flood, was that not due to fucking up the planet and the breakdown of personal relationships?
What you say is the fault of atheism, is actually not, if you think about it. It is the fault of human nature, and not atheism nor theism.
By the missionaries, and by the industrialists of the nineteenth century.
Your point is???
:rofl:
Where can you buy that motor?
I think EugeneW used Dutch, not Deutsch.
That the new religion is science. By law you must learn that Book on school.
Yeah, I want one, too. I walked into the local dildo shop but they said come back next week, the shipment is late from China, due to Covid.
but what you say does not follow from what you claim. Time to go to bed, and come back tomorrow.
Who got there because of the scientific imperative of discovering new worlds. Columbus was a child of the Enlightenment.
Look thou in thy wicked Darwinian heart where Jesus guzzles kerosine on a throne made of chocolate and fingernail clippings.
That is only true from the perspective of a truly uneducated person.
If you agree that belief requires no proof, and that relgious faith is a form of belief;
And if you agree (which you can't, seeing you have no education in science) that scientific teachings are not a matter of belief but a matter of knowledge based on evidence;
Then and only then you must agree that science is not religion; neither new, nor old religion, since religion is based on faith, and science is based on knowledge.
But since you don't know anything scientific, you look at it from the outside, and you don't understand it; therefore to you the body of science appears to be a body of faith. But it is not. The body of science is a body of accumulated knowledge.
:lol:
Damned you! You made me spill my coffee!
All anyone really needs is a traffic cone, a bicycle chain, and a pound of unsalted butter.
I'm laughing too. I love that you took that in the proper spirit.
I have a physics theory about the universe. And that's exactly the reason to believe!
:up: God, does He exist for everybody or for only a select few (the chosen ones)? There's nothing impossible or inconsistent about that, right?
Proving God doesn't exist is quite easy. Consider God a (scientific) hypothesis, it'll entail certain observables. Forgive me Laplace!
A simple disproof of god follows:
1. If God exists then there should be no evil.
2. There is evil.
Ergo,
3. God doesn't exist [1, 2 MT]
(My thanks go out to @180 Proof)
Quoting lll
De penis van God ejaculeert het heilig ejaculaat aan de bron van het universum, het heilig Erect. Het Heilig Erect is eeuwig. Het Heilig Ejaculaat periodiek. Wij zijn spermatozoen in het Heilig Ejaculaat.
A false and evil assumption... For some they exist, for others they don't. They deny reality though and row their boat in a meaningless universe.
Indeed! Another story I've heard (perhaps the most believable of kosmic very tails) is: De wereld schiet uit de schreeuwende anus van Jezus Christus.
There he sad with cheers porn out his ice.
More seriously, Theologie is zelf de God die het descibes. Also De mensheid schiep God als een spiegel en een vleider.
Nice! That inspires this hypothesis: We zijn vlekken in de luiers van drooling reuzen.
Speaking in tongues (glossolalia). Looks like you're about to shut down your brain's language center or maybe you're hyperclocking? :up: Do keep us posted about your journey!
Right! Which makes one wonder:
Kan het zijn dat de kwijlende reuzen iets verkeerds gegeten hebben?
Some! Proof of free will?
If mama giant made them eat, it's proof of an unfree will. Poor babies!
:ok:
III matches 111 rather nicely.
Sweet lord Jesus... Where has the philosophical debate on free will come to? Not to mention this thread which is about proof of atheism, which clearly can't be given.
Well I went out to the bar tonight, "so to speak", long awaiting anything that resembled moderate discourse on your behalf (rather than the child's play you seem so eager to engage in).
I will refrain from responding to the flagrant disingenuousness of your comments until tomorrow. Don't worry, I'll make sure to address all feeble trivialities with sober mind as I did earlier, if at the very least for "argument's sake".
Yea, you take care as well, lol.
I can agree precisely because I have such education. And let me tell you, there is no difference between the scriptures once taught and those taught at our schools and universities, where the minds of our children are brainwashed with objective sounding BS, turning the young into mindless computer-like colorless adults, brabling and repeating the objective sounding BS they were so eagerly to learn about.
Too simple, I think, for most. Consider this synoptic excerpt:
[quote=Summa Atheologicae of 180 Proof]i. Omnibenevolent AND omnipotent G
ii. G created the world and all of its creatures.
iii. All creatures suffer.
iv. Suffering is inconsistent with having been created by an omnibenevolent AND omnipotent G.
v. Suffering, ergo an omnibenevolent AND omnipotent G is not real (does not exist).
vi. Consequently, the possibilities are (a) omnibenevolent but not-omnipotent G or (b) omnipotent but not-omnibenevolent G or (c) neither omnibenevolent nor omnipotent G or (d) no G whatsoever.
vii. Corollary – vi. (a, b & c) G is not worthy of worship as "G" (re: "The Riddle of Epicurus").[/quote]
:smirk:
God doesn't exist. Even if he exists, he can't help us or he is bad/indifferent or he's in the dark about our agony. It's a bright day, eh? Picnic?
[quote=Franz Kafka]There is an infinite amount of hope in the universe ... but not for us.[/quote]
:up:
Its also 'nice' that individuals from both sides do leave their trench now and then and kick a wee common thought about in no man's land, to the entertainment of all those watching from either trench.
I have a couple of questions, neither is of great importance but are of interest to me.
One comes from the repeated posting from @god must be atheist regarding belief/faith/knowledge.
@EugeneW has a personal theory on the structure and workings of the Universe based on his own studies in physics and quantum physics in particular. I think his proposal would be labeled as a hypothesis at this stage, within the rules of the scientific method. In my opinion, he has 'faith' in his hypothesis and he 'believes' it is correct. But for his hypothesis to become a theory, he would need more empirical evidence to support his hypothesis.
So is it the case, that ultimately, any faith-based or belief-based proposal has AT BEST, the same status as a scientific hypothesis and is no more valid than any other human musings such as a faith in the proposal that Harry Potters ancestor, also conveniently called god created the Universe using the spell (first revealed here folks, on this very thread) 'Creatus Universeearse!' (no, the second word of this incantation is not my 'true handle,'). The Jedi religion has been reported (could be fake news) as the fastest-growing religion in the world. Is Jediism related to panpsychism? are such, in my opinion, deserved mockeries of theism deserved?
Humans are naturally attracted to naturalism. @L'éléphant types about dreaming about supernatural human skills such as 'floating' or perhaps 'flying.' Dreams can certainly produce interesting scenarios but for years I have attempted to dream lucidly and I can often force my rational conscience to interrupt my dream and insist that the scenario playing out is BS or boringly based on a film I watched that evening or an issue I am currently worried about or the fact I drank a coffee before falling asleep etc and I can then alter what is being presented by my 'sub conscience' or ID or whatever label you prefer for such, to obey the direction of my conscious. I have almost full recall when I awake, at least from a little before I 'took over' the dream. So, my second question is:
Why are we so attracted to/intrigued by all things 'supernatural?' How many here have ever genuinely experienced anything they cannot explain by natural means when they apply rational thinking?
No supernatural ability has ever stood up to scientific scrutiny, so I conclude that its just a product of human fear. Born from all the scary reptilian screeches we heard when we hid in caves at night because we were unable to fight in the dark! No natural night vision ability. You would think a benevolent god would have at least given us night vision when we lived in the caves, if it had then perhaps we would not have needed to develop the ability to sleep for 8 hours a day.
Create themselves? :brow:
What does that have to do with anything anyway?
Quoting Gregory A
Seems the thread has veered off the opening post, and become a gallery for bloviating the usual old apologist arguments.
This thread is about the invalidity of atheism. The laws of nature are stupid. Can't bring themselves into existence, nor the matter they are about. So it needs intelligence to bring them about. Gods, that is.
Alrighty, I somehow failed to make you believe in God. How ironic that probably no one here is trying to convince you to believe in God. :razz:
Quoting Tom Storm
Again, no one is trying to convince you to believe in God. Continue on with your fake entitlement though. :wink:
Quoting Tom Storm
No one is trying to convince you to believe in God. Goodness, how hard is it for you to be around people who talk about God without you asking them to prove God exists?
Quoting Tom Storm
Hey, it's your right to not believe in God, I won't argue with you there. As I originally said, I think it's very important to respect the opinion of atheists. It's you who seems to have an issue respecting the opinion of theists.
Quoting Tom Storm
Just stop already. You are hardly some sort of authority that anyone needs to impress or prove to you their own personal belief in God. Again, the thread is about the "invalidity of atheism". I know the difference is apparently too subtle for you to comprehend. For you, the "invalidity of atheism" is an opportunity to make believers prove God exists.
Quoting Tom Storm
Acting innocent again, eh? :yawn:
Quoting Tom Storm
Stop insulting my belief in God. Again, you are not some sort of authority that I need to prove to you that God exists. That's silly.
I will say this though, God is very real. All you have to do is just look at the world around you. I know you think this is all a game and you can just copy my words and then input them with your atheist beliefs. But as I said from the beginning, if you can't realize that God created this world then you are probably never going to believe in God. What's wrong with being an atheist by the way? If you don't believe in God then you probably should have very little to say. But yet you talk so much about wanting proof of God. It's almost like you keep forgetting that you don't believe in God. You're not even staying on topic and discussing the "invalidity of atheism".
Here are my two cents: we should all respect what atheists have to say. Many atheists are incredibly smart people. The real difference between believers and atheists is that atheists tend to think (in my humble opinion) that people need or should prove that God exists. But really there is no way to prove that God exists at least not in the way that you want proof. By the way, you can't even explain what proof would look like to you, because you're just here to troll believers. Typical, old atheist agenda. Some things never change.
And you prove this constant once again, lil D-Ker: "stupid is as stupid does". :yawn:
And precisely because of my stupidity I understand the laws of nature. It's all just about love and hate. We are living proof. 90 for me, 90 for you. Mutually orthogonal. I guess orthonormality will never be reached.
The existence of the universe and all creatures in it is the evidence of gods, considering it has no intelligence to create itself.
No, I've seen glossolalia, and there's no software for translating it.
It does, but I was going for |||.
It's a symbol I used for a piece in a chess-like game I once made up.
Can we hyperclock? :chin:
Chess-like? Curious...
So is it the case, that ultimately, any science-based proposal has AT BEST, the same status as a theist hypothesis and is no more valid than any other human musings such as a faith in the proposal that Harry Potters ancestor, also conveniently called "the scientist" created the Universe using the spell (first revealed here folks, on this very thread):
"Mani Fold, Calabi Yau
Super Sym, M-theo Ry
Strings Vibrate Twistor Tau
Holo, Brane, Let It Be!"
There's a huge family of chess like games. I toyed with my own variants (still do at times.) Some pieces, like the |||, could only move through other pieces. They are like ghosts or electricity. I view game creation as kind of sculpture. Playing them can be a blast too ( I prefer fast versions like bullet chess.)
The brilliance of the theory of evolution is that it makes the emergence of complexity and intelligence from the simple and unintelligent surprisingly plausible. On Youtube you can find videos of genetic algorithms that create little pieces of artificial intelligence that get more adaptive and complex over time. Obviously they are simplified models, but I think they provide insight.
Well said.
For me a big difference between a theological speculation and a scientific hypothesis is that I expect the latter to offer me a map from uncontroversial observables to uncontroversial observables. In other words, it counts something we can all agree on and predicts something we can all agree on. It may use postulated entities like quarks or flamperpoofies or whatever in its calculations, but its rubber should meet the road somehow. Falsifiability is an imperfect criterion but a gesture in the right direction. If I can't be wrong, I may be practicing self-hypnosis and nothing more.
A classic objection to this approach is to ask where the gods come from. If stupid physical laws need a creator, why not those more-complex creators? If a watch needs a watchmaker, why doesn't a watchmaker need watchmakermaker? And why doesn't a watchmakermaker need a watchmakermakermaker? End so end end so end?
Only through other pieces? So not over free fields? Interesting... I duuno though if this ghost piece is proof of gods.
Quoting lll
Yeah, it's fantastic and amazing how simple basic matter field can deliver the complexities of the organisms on our planet, between the heat of Sun and cold of dark universe. Somehow all creatures are equal. People=ant=elephant=... All conscious bodies. People being free and aware on top. There were only loose particles once. Intelligence, be it ant-like or human-like, are basically all the same, except that we can talk about it. The basic stuff is not intelligent. Where did it come from. This thread gave me a wonderful idea for a short story. I send it in when finished.
Eternal beings. The universe is eternal too but too stupid too create its own basic stuff. Eternal intelligent beings don't need a creator.
Yes. So the more standard pieces are essential to the ghost king.
Quoting EugeneW
I wouldn't say it is. It plays on the idea of incarnation or possession.
I had another piece, a real bloodthirsty fellow, who could capture friendly pieces (as many in a row as possible) in order to grab an enemy piece. This allows for spectacular surprise attacks at great cost/sacrifice. Potentially you could sacrifice almost all of your pieces on a single move. If you play chess, you know that sacrifices are a big part of the drama, the bigger the better.
Cool. I look forward to checking that story out.
Good reply. Some might question whether eternal beings are sufficiently intelligible. And the existence of these eternal gods seems to function in your theory as a brute fact. In other words, you seem to suggest that there simply are eternal beings, for no particular reason. Is this not just as weird as the idea of there being dead junk for no reason that eventually evolved so that it talk about itself ?
This is a philosophy forum - we debate ideas like god/s. If this triggers you, deal with it.
I'm assuming you are sober now (as per your own admission) - your last response (which you have now sanitised) was quite a display of bile and judgement. I'm assuming it was the booze talking, not your theism?
You seem to be a vulnerable, sensative theist who is quick to jump at shadows. Here's a collection of nasty, unwarranted phrases from your latest response that suggest you are a dishonest interlocutor who has created a phantom Tom to dump abuse on.
Quoting chiknsld
Quoting chiknsld
Quoting chiknsld
Quoting chiknsld
Quoting chiknsld
Quoting chiknsld
All of these seem to have metastasized from your earlier comment.
Quoting chiknsld
Now it would be great if you could construct responses in future without resorting to personal attack and bogus assumptions. It makes it look like you have nothing to say, which may not be the case.
Quoting chiknsld
Ok, I think most of us already knew this. But you have dodged my question from the beginning and I am assuming you won't face up to it even now.
You not only believe there is a god you you indicated that you know how god thinks. How could you expect to say something like that on a philosophy forum of all places and not have some ask for justification?
Quoting chiknsld
We might have avoided the need for you to get worked up and nasty if you had just answered the question. How do you know how god/s think?
I was on your side @chiknsld but Tom made an excellent point here! If the atheist doesn't want to believe, this will not make them!
We have to be more sneaky and sleazy...
I had the same thought. And you are right. But somehow eternal dead shit isn't dead and has to have gotten a divine spark to be farted into existence. I believe even fundamental particles posses elementary love and hate, and these could be the eternal beings like the gods. But still... if they are made with intention (or by accident as in my story...) seems somehow to give them more meaning.
You made me laugh, friend.
Fair enough. Are you influenced by Empedocles?
I owed you one, friend! Two, in fact! The coffee stains on my clothes are the silent witnesses!
Well, he was influenced by Xenophanes, and I hold X responsible for the rise of the modern concept of one unified non imaginable omni God. And together with Plato he laid the basis for the modern notion of one and only never reachable reality. I don't like both and sympathized with the ancient gods. Not as a myth but as a reality. Empe seems okay though. Thought he was god and showed off his wealth. No problem. He did good things with his wealth.
It's bedtime, and the Moon is fuller than ever! Catch you later, buddy! Always good discussion with you. Next time Hofstadter?
Have good dreams!
Thanks! If I remember them I'll tell you about them!
All of my comments are in their original form. I'm not sure why you are acting like I am scared of what I say to you, as if you are an authority.
And as far as your atheism, again I respect all atheist's opinions. As I have already asked you, what is wrong with just being an atheist? You do not believe in God, okay and? You go around asking theists for proof of God but you are not genuinely interested in their beliefs. Really you are trying to prove to theists that there is something wrong with their personal beliefs.
Oh and I almost forgot you're somehow trying to prevent the formation of future theocracies. :snicker:
If you didn't change your above comments, I apologise. They looked even more nasty when I first saw them last night, but now I am used to your abusive ways they seem on par with your general approach. Again apologies. By the way, did you notice I apologised when you're the one being derogatory? :wink:
Quoting chiknsld
Most forms of atheism are about interrogating this question of proof of god/s. Especially when someone makes a god/s claim as you did, which you won't justify on a philosophy forum.
Quoting chiknsld
So now you can read minds and determine motivations? I wonder why you arrived at this projection.
Generally I don't engage with abusive folk. It's tiresome and also for many others here.
Cheers for now.
You missed the point of my argument about the existence of dreams. And you totally did not get the dreams/dreaming exist. There's no doubt about it, people dream. My point of saying that while dreams exist, and people really do dream, we cannot show proof that we're dreaming. Yes, maybe a brain scan of a person dreaming might show some active parts of the brain through imaging, but the imaging wouldn't show the "dream" itself, only that the person's part of the brain is at the moment active.
Lol, so now it was a mistake? You didn't even have to ask for proof! :snicker:
Just stop with the false and constant pretense of authority and things might come along for you just yet. :)
And no, atheism is not about interrogating theists for proof of God.
Quoting Tom Storm
Goodness gracious :grin:
Quoting Tom Storm
As I said before, you take care bud!
But unlike faith or belief-based hypotheses, scientific hypotheses can be progressed into accepted fact!
:up:
Scientific hypotheses can have faith-based hypothesis for inspiration. If you know the gods you know the universe. As such, theism is indispensable for science. "How would the gods have made this particle act?" This question stood at the base for my massless matter fields view.
By the same token, can you proof to me that you are awake and not dreaming?
If each human you meet, confirms to you (if you ask them) that in their opinion, humans dream, then that is proof enough. Can you PROVE you exist? You have less need to, if I and others confirm you do.
I exist and I think solipsism is utter nonsense, so I think you exist too. If you dream and I dream and we get further evidence from brain scanning and from asking others then that's pretty convincing proof in my opinion. If every human alive stated that god exists then I would not be calling it a fable, because I would believe it to. Do you know of any humans who say that humans don't dream?
No proof is or can be absolute as one can always imagine a circumstance where the conditions are different. All mathematical proofs for example are reliant on the accuracy of their related first principles.
Atheist's, 'as non-believers in gods', should have nothing whatever to say about religion, specifically the religions of the Bible, and can't specifically reject any religion or any god.
Theism offers an explanation for our existence, atheism offers no explanations of its own, a weaker position.
Naturalism, as the term suggests is a belief in Nature, a naturally occurring universe.
atheism occupying a non-existent middle ground
There are believers, non-believers & there are atheists. Atheists 'attempt' to negate theism. Non-believers are those when asked do they believe, reply 'no'. We know who atheists are because they are active in their attacks on theism.
If atheism were valid, atheists would not be able to open their mouths.
.
If atheism were valid it would accept that it has nothing to say about something it doesn't believe exists.
Atheism is in being a-theistic making them a-theists.
Atheists are actively opposed to theism. They are 'a-theistic'. They are a-theists.
The invalidity of atheism does not validate theism, as naturalism may still be right, but atheism needs to be invalid for theism to be right.
Theism and naturalism are counter positions philosophically, not opposed socially, culturally or politically.
Anyhow, why should we listen to those who reject a God (a relatively simple addon) but then continue to believe in mermaids, unicorns etc.
If when looking into your container of 'non-beliefs' you select one, then all of those other things in there become real. Atheism for example says nothing about non-belief in mermaids. A theist believes in a god, but that doesn't stop him believing in many other things. His belief in god does not stop you believing in other things.
Atheism is a rejection of free-speech (primarily another element of the Left).
There are many explanations for atheism, some weak, some strong. But the advent of 'red-shift' (social) is the strongest. The Left after censoring no less a person than a US President has no problem shutting down theists.
The real catch is that by entering into a (any) debate, you by default put your opponents on an equal footing as yourself, allowing as you need (and do ask) them to prove what they are claiming. For atheists to not accept this is to have them standing on ground arrogance has mislead them into believing exists.
'Can have', yes, 'needs,' no.
Quoting EugeneW
You have yet to provide adequate evidence for your view of the Universe and your view is one of many in existence. There are probably as many posits on the structure and workings of the Universe as there are posits on the structure and workings of god. But no god hypothesis has ever progressed beyond the posit stage. I think that is an important point to consider. Humans create gods, gods don't create
humans.
Quoting EugeneW
So why do the vast majority of scientists not believe in god?
"How would the gods have made this particle act?" works perfectly well as "How does this particle act?" Just not for you it seems. You seem to need the god part, the majority of scientists dont.
I agree with @chiknsld right to 'a personal god' but I also fully support @Tom Storm's very fair and balanced critique of theism.
I highly recommend the following musings of Sean Carroll, titled
'Why (almost all) cosmologists are atheists'
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/writings/nd-paper/
Whether aware of it or not atheists attempt to silence theists. Theism, you are forced to agree, is placed on the right, politically. There are of course conservative atheists, no group being completely homogenous, but still, the softness of the Left, the perceived (and real) harshness of religions can not but result in generating political opposition.
You've got me here. It's not communism, but instead another even more horrific head of the Hydra that is the Left, feminism. Which will not only conspire to deprive males of their lives, females of their freedoms but along with that (all) faiths not worshiping God the Mother.
I refuse categorically to read one more word of the good man. Besides him being obviously wrong about the universe (though he has a good view of general relativity) and time simply exists, he at least could have answered some of the questions I asked. Those guys seem to think they're living in some home-made ivory castle from which they won't descend and from which they keep the folks living down, who they call the ignorant lay persons, entering, in fear that they threaten their construction. Meanwhile they keep the folk in awe with their so-called fundamental knowledge, creating an atmosphere in which they play the role of initiated priests in the church of wisdom, chanting the bibles of science written and invented by their illustrious progenitors, selling it as the new god image we should bow to, while in fact they want us to bow to them.
You also don't argue against that straw-filled creature. And if you were to you too would be a theist by disagreeing on a particular deity.
You must have had some pretty bad experiences! Do they make you worship the Mother God? Praised is her name.
Why indeed. I mean mermaids are not super-natural, why not believe in them. Eh?
As a loser, a homeless person, someone sleeping in a car, yet with a message, can communicate with others wherever they are in the world I can't help but consider such an outcome so slanted in my favour can come about by mere chance. But, still don't let me stop you believing that a 12v powered tablet computer, a hotspot from my phone, like the Mount Rushmore memorial are simply Natural features of an uncaring universe.
So how do you categorise mermaids? Obviously they are not 'natural,' or at least they have never been physically discovered anywhere yet on planet Earth. I categorise mermaids as fictitious, just like god.
God belief is completely valid. IT'S A BELIEF. It purports no knowledge. Atheism, ditto, but the opposite.
Any arguments against beliefs that they should be supported by evidence is invalid. You can't demand evidence for something that is not knowledge.
This goes for both theists and atheists. It is futile to try to convince someone to discontinue his or her BELIEF.
— god must be atheist
The assertion 'God is real' is an assertion of belief. But! To say you can't demand evidence of something that is not knowledge (being in receipt of the facts) isn't quite true as evidence of 'dark matter' exists without anyone knowing dark matter really exists. God too could be a theory, not simply a belief.
A sure confirmation of Nature would be a non-existent universe, a hypothetical situation we could at least contemplate?
I'd chosen mermaids to avoid the 'out' that tooth fairies allow by being super-natural. Your atheism says nothing about mermaids, unicorns, etc, so we need to believe you accept these as real as you do not protest their unlikely existence (up until now that is)? New species are discovered daily by the way.
Belief is just a 'measure of confidence' that a proposal is true.
I have no problem with your 'positive level of confidence,' that god exists.
A harmless personal faith in a god of your imagination that gives you comfort when you are scared is exactly that, harmless.
I will however continue to fight fervently against any leakage from your theism or any organised theism, into politics, education, societal directives etc.
Reading your posting on this thread in general, I think your analysis of atheism and atheists is contrived and insignificant.
I will look online at the ways available to contact Sean Carroll. He certainly does YouTube podcasts where he answers questions submitted to him. Did you send him an email and got no response?
From the link:
Let's evaluate and criticize this introductory words of our beloved priest Carroll.
"... a more old-fashioned point of view that is still more characteristic of most scientists, who tend to disbelieve in any religious component to the workings of the universe."
Einstein and Hawking thought differently. We may add that a religious component doesn't necessarily mean a "component to the workings of the universe".
He writes:
"The past few hundred years have witnessed a significant degree of tension between science and religion"
This tension exists only between the biblical method of creation and the scientific method. The creation myth provided by science is just a description of the workings of creation, not of creation itself of which it by definition can't offer an explanation, no matter how advanced our theories or how small the gap or its closure. We simply don't know how gods let it be.
"In modern times, scientific explorations have provided their own pictures of how the world works, ones which rarely confirm the pre-existing religious pictures."
Indeed. How it works. No picture is offered to how the universe came to be. Stupid matter can't pull itself into existence.
Pope Carroll continues:
"Roughly speaking, science has worked to apparently undermine religious belief by calling into question the crucial explanatory aspects of that belief"
Then, roughly speaking, science is apparently undermining itself. It can offer no explanation for the existence of the universe it describes. Not because we don't understand the workings yet (and I'm pretty convinced I do already now, no haughtiness implied!) but we can't understand in principle.
Should I continue? Carroll is just a priest in disguise, proselytizing souls to turn to his apodictical creation myth, standing further from the truth than the wildest fantasies our contemporary religious friends.
No bad feelings @universeness. Everyone rows his boat how they want.
Yes:
"Hi Sean Carroll! I was discussing on the philosophy forum. I'm writing about a cosmological model which tries to explain dark energy, particle/antiparticle asymmetry, mass generations, the nature of spacetime, etc. I think massless preons exist which make up quarks and leptons. Not as pointlike particles but as 6d structures of which three are curled up in Planck-sized circles (like circles on a cilinder). Their bindings in triplets creates massive quarks and leptons. In 3d they seem pointlike. Our universe contains equal numbers of both.
The thing I wanna ask you about. If the universe consists of two infinite 4d spaces, divided by a Planck-sized wormhole (like the center of a torus, the torus being open on the outside), could it be two 3d universes are pushed into real existence from a virtual state? Like Hawking radiation? Could all matter (except gravity) be confined to 3d while expanding in a negatively curved 4d space (the Gaussian curvature on the mouth of a torus is negative). Maybe our universe is, together with a mirror universe (antiprotons, antineutrons, positrons, and antineutrinos) expanding from a central tiny mouth, and when the both have accelerated away to infinity, the stage is set for a new inflation around the mouth, and two 3d universes are spat out, which again expand to infinity, etcetera. Is there an argument that reasons against this? Thanks in advance!
He at least could have answered some thing...
What about the denial of Bigfoot, ghosts, or aliens? Can one logically deny those?
Well, it was good of you to have a look at the article anyway.
Your response to it marries with your views on theism and you already know my views on theism.
ABSOLUTELY no bad feelings EugeneW, I very much enjoy our exchanges!
I agree and I hope you do get a response, eventually.
Perhaps he is still reading through other emails, who knows what his workload is?
As I said before, I got responses from Joe Atwill and Dan Dennett but not Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins.
I don't follow. If atheism is valid wouldn't they be able to talk with mouths wide open and loud words? It are the theists who should be silent.
Quoting Gregory A
This is confusing. The invalidity of atheism seems equivalent to the validity of theism. Is naturalism compatible with theism?
Quoting Gregory A
I'm not sure atheists believe in mermaids and unicorns. They can be found in principle while gods live in a world outside of the universe. But then again, maybe mermaids and unicorns live along with the gods.
Quoting Gregory A
That depends on the atheist and the power they possess. I'm a theist and an anarchist.
Quoting DingoJones
Creatures with the power of creation.
I see. What kind of creation do you mean? Like spontaneous creation out of nothing or would a human being creating a song or painting or a baby in their wombs count?
Do you believe in multiple gods then?
People can be bound together in shared values, goals, and norms with fictions (institutional facts) and societies are built on them. They're an indispensable part of human social life. Money, property, marriage, governments, etc etc, are observer-dependent and not brut facts. Is Biden the president of the United States? Some believe that Trump is the actual president, despite the lack of evidence to support that belief.
I point this out to show that we all accept fictions of some kind. Some fictions carry more power than others. Religious fictions carry a lot of power and that's why they are met with a lot of skepticism in modernity.
So the issue isn’t about believer/non-believer, it’s about which leaders we choose to follow and why we follow them.
Creation out of nothing, indeed. But no spontaneously. Well, in a way it was...l I believe in multiple gods. Details will be revealed in a short story. I saw this forum offers the possibility to present them. Tom Storm gave me inspiration. Await my friend. The so eagerly looked for truth will be revealed once and for all.
Quoting Gregory A
Saying that "atheism is invalid" makes no sense. It connects two things that are incompatible with each other:
The word "invalid", in a philosophical context, means that an argument, statement or theory is not true because it is based on erroneous information or unsound reasoning.
The term "atheism" has nothing to do with any of the above. It refers to the disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God.
So you most probably mean then that the arguments and/or theory supporting atheism are invalid.
In that case, I more than agree. I believe it is quite evident, if one thinks simply this: How can someone who does not believe that something exists, can prove that it doesn't exist?
If, as an atheist, I try to make any argument about the inexistence of God, I will immediately fall on my face. It would be trying to prove the inexistence of something I don't believe it exists!
So, my reply to the subject is that atheists actually have no arguments at all, valid or invalid.
***
(What follows is my position on trying to prove the existence of God.)
The belief in God (theism) is not a subject to argue about. If we try to prove God's existence based on reasoning, we will have to make arbitrary assumptions --I have proved that elsewhere in TPF-- and the construction will fall apart before even it is completed, because it will be based on wrong or no foundations.
The belief in God can only be discussed on grounds of personal experience, i.e. having an experience of God. If I say "I feel the presence of God", this is not arguable. You can't say, "This is incorrect", "This is a lie", "Prove it!", etc. If nothing else, God most probably means a different thing and has a different form from what you yourself believe. This alone, excludes the subject from argumentation.
This, as far as "theism" is concerned. In "atheism" --literally "a-" (=without) + "theism"-- things are more simple. If I have no experience of God, that's all. It doesn't exist for me. End of story. I should better not try to make any argument about that. I explained why in the beginning ...
Your confusion lies with conflating the second-order meta claim of atheism (theism is not true) with the first-order object claim of theism (there is at least one god). Evidence against theism? Theists' conspicuous failures for millennia to soundly demonstrate that "there is at least one god" is true (especially given the extraordinary scope of what's canonically-liturgically attributed to "god" whereby evidences, direct or not, should be ubiquitous and yet are completely absent). This only "proves" that theism is just as unwarranted as interpreting fairytales or poems literally. Only imaginary things, after all, require "faith" (i.e. suspension of disbelief). :pray: :roll:
Quoting Gregory A
Sounds like you've got something of a persecution complex. Incel maybe?
Agreed, there's also a bias for being or existing things at least epistemologically.
If we deny quantum mechanics then we epistemologically never deny/negate physics entirely (we could be extreme general relativists or string theorists) however if we assert quantum mechanics, then that entails mechanics (at least epistemologically).
If atheism is defined as the negation of theism then I'm not sure how one ever gets to that position even given infinite negations of physical theories.
Now physics can be shown to be an issue by attacking the premise of it (that the material universe is fundamentally matter and energy) but this doesn't seem to imply that physics has no validity or doesn't exist in this world (can't be talked about) or that we have the means to justify that we have exhaustive means to show it doesn't exist.
I think atheism ends up throwing the baby out with the bathwater and theism, and even atheism, should be assumed that they are real but in terms of what they are like social constructs etc.
As a bearer of the 'Y' Chromosome, I'm not allowed to worship the Mother God. We are as excluded from that right as transgender males are from acceptance by feminism.
You have a preconceived notion of soundly demonstrating. If science has no way to demonstrate how the universe came into being, there is one possible explanation left. We theists might add that the stupidity of the laws of physics is sound secondary proof.
So, two independent proofs of the existence of gods. What proof science has that they don't exist? Zeronada, nonenienteziltch... :sparkle:
There seems to be no way to verify that atheism is true. There is no way to ever get to theism being false without asserting theism as a verifiable proposition but if theism is verifiable at all (can be true or false) then atheism is contradicted (after all, it would inherent the truth aptness of theism if it's a second order claim as you say).
From this, why doesn't this follow:
If theism has no way of proving how the universe came into being, there is one possible explanation left.
You changed demonstrate for proof. I don't know if that was to side-step an empirical requirement (depending on your definition of demonstrate) or if you are making an asymmetrical analogy.
In any case there are proofs of creation from God in cosmological arguments, contingency of creation arguments, ontological. Aristotle required a prime mover and Plato required a form of good. I'm not sure if those overlap with your statement.
Wherever the nonsense arises from that one can't negate that which they don't believe, I don't know, but nonsense it is. Bigfoot isn't forced into existence by logical entailment because I'm unable to deny his existence because I don't believe in him.
Those aren't proofs. Those are fallacious arguments. If they were proofs, the matter would be concluded.
In any case Godel's ontological argument has been automated and verified in other languages or terms and as itself. That would be a proof. Even the sep, among many papers that sought to automate it, has said so.
No proof for this existence of God is valid.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/#GodOntArg
That's an expectedly nice picture you paint of your 'team'. But the reality is atheists demand evidence of God and then demand theists shut up if that is not supplied. Killing openly 'gay people', those promoting homosexuality? Roe v Wade is a very politically contentious piece of legislation, one that is open to challenge. Once again atheism trying to shove its leftist agenda down people's throats. You have no understanding of what free-speech is. The Left emotionalists. What soothes your bleeding heart is right.
Argument from ignorance fallacy.
Apologetic gibberish. Assertion without argument can be dismissed without argument (Hitchen's Razor).
Science concerns discomfirming evidence and not "proofs", lil D-Ker. The truth-claims of theism have been repeatedly falsified by counter-evidences (e.g. historical, hermeneutical and empirical) and everyday human experience as well as having been shown to be logically unsound and conceptually incoherent. You're preachments, lil D-Ker, are typical examples of the vapid vacuity of deity-worship. :sweat:
A problem with your Göd above, neglecting the question machinery with which [s]he[/s] it is lowered upon the world state, is its abominable blankness and blandness. I could be wrong, but I assume the goal is a benevolent bloke with his hands on the controls who'll make exceptions for the righteous, give 'em a tit for a tat, a pet for a this or that. Derive if thou canst from then hair a god worth the conjuring.
It would imply that if the universe came into being (entailed) and it was epistemologically graspable, and that a scientific explanation couldn't explain it, that something else can. In any case this would rid science of the burden of dismissing theist claims.
I'm not sure what you're saying. You're saying God must be all positive properties? That's in definition D1. If you're saying a particular conception of God then the proof is a God-like being which is valid in most mainstream religions such as christianity etc. It wouldn't be those conceptions exactly but it would be valid for them which is just to place it on the table.
I'm saying that most folks want a personal god who cares about them and that the gods cooked up by logicians and metaphysicians tend to be uselessly abstract, scratching only a metaphysical itch which is rare in the first place. The alternative to this, which is maybe more common, is that believers in Jehova or Allah or Jesu ( the personal god in some ancient story ) try to drag in abstract logic chopping and ignore that, at best, this gets them only an indeterminate deity and not the avatar of their sweaty and pugnacious tribe.
Once one enters the realm of reason and logic, the game is already lost perhaps (or beginning to be won), for reason is essentially universal, and a god subject to logic is already the slave of man or his self-flattering pocketmirror.
The worst bloodlettings in history have been carried out by atheist regimes, Stalin's communists (9M+), Hitler's National Socialists (10M+), Mao's Red Army Communists (40M+), Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge Communists (1.5M+)
I'm not entirely sure how to mince that as those conceptions of God you mentioned were all universalist (they allow membership of all) and against tribalism.
In any case, the validity is in a God-like being and that's the baseline here. Anything after that is tangential to this point.
So, putting it bluntly, do you go from Gödel's 'proof' to a religion with specific content? Does your God prohibit incest ? (Asking for a friend.) If so, what's the trail from proof to prohibition? Do you need only to get your foot on the first rung? Is logic a disposable ladder?
Not even a good ad-hom. What am I to do to avoid Dick Dawkins and his crusades to silence theism then?
Quoting Gregory A
Yep, must be an Incel ...
You can't deny a God-like being doesn't exist if you accept his proof is the point and the op is about atheism.
Also I'm clearly not interested in talking about my religion with you lol
But the domain of science can never speak about the supernatural deductively. It can only speak about its own limits and not even conclusively.
In the USA, I don't see the silencing of theists or really any kind of supernatural theorists. You can even believe that extraterrestrial reptiles who eat children run the world and they won't lock you up. You can blog about the flatness of the earth as you fly around the globe. As far as I can tell, religious folks are often resentful of the intellectual minority who dare to challenge or mock not silence such theories.
That "intellectual minority" would preclude Aristotle, Plato, Newton, Godel etc. In any case it doesn't speak to the propositions.
Tell me/us How You Know this. :chin:
It would have to propose a supernatural entity from which to derive other supernatural entities from or it would have to prove supernatural entities derive from natural ones. Neither of these claims you would assert physics should/does make and no definition of physics I'm aware of includes them. Physics simply can't verify nor negate supernatural entities. It doesn't say whether supernatural entities exist or not just that physics is limited to natural objects (particularly defined).
I don't accept his 'proof,' and I'm trying to emphasize the absurdity of getting from symbols dancing on a page metamagically to your bag ditty gad from the fury tails in yore dirty old books.
What don't you accept about his proof? It's valid.
Frege's sense and reference distinction might help. For instance commentary can be written about God in particular ways and still refer to God in other commentaries (e.g. Aquinas can quote Augustine and still be speaking about the same catholic trinitarian conception of God). So a proof can have overlap as a sense with another sense assuming a similar reference.
Quoting 180 Proof
aka "indirect observations". Science might not grasp the "supernatural" itself but any of its physical effects (e.g. scriptural claims of "miracles" that change physical things) are well within the scope of scientific investigations. Evidence of "supernatural" effects on the physical world are completely lacking and according to all of the extant religious traditions and their scriptures such effects must be ubiquitous yet they are not. Like "evidence" of dragons ...
Turning the crank of tautology detector won't get you what you want. I happen to be trained in math, and it's the discipline in which one never knows nor needs to know what one is talking about, for only structural properties matter. If you want to leap from some formal exercise to a statement about reality, you need a justification of those formal principles, and of course you have to give your symbols a meaning in the world of flesh and blood. There's a difference between a king on a chess board and a king of the Jews.
The epistemological positions (belief, know, makes you hungry when you read it etc) have nothing to do with the ontological position (does God exist). Already there's an issue with the framing of defining a position by one's belief. It introduces nothing except you don't believe and, in any case, would preclude almost everything about atheism including arguments against theism (which require an ontological position).
Theology is itself the god it seeks, I might metaphorically suggest. But, granting the poetic license of intending at least to further decorate a concept, you still need a bridge from a game of dead symbols to the throne of the cosmos.
Sure but it can't ever tell what it is except that it's a natural phenomenon. The position was, since science cannot intuit any supernaturalism then any reference to science can never disprove supernaturalism.
EugeneW then took it a step farther and said we need a new body of knowledge to speak of these things.
Geniuses can be superstitious or wrong. All it takes is a moment of innovation against the usual background of conformity and confusion.
One doesn't need an experiment to do science otherwise pure physics is thrown out the door (and the higgs boson, as well as general relativity and all science shows this is not true).
There's actually an issue with requiring an experiment or reference to a material object. It makes physics and math circular.
You seem to enjoy a phobic anti-atheist rant. Good for you! However, many atheists are conservatives. Some are fairly right wing. Ayn Rand was an atheist. Libertarians tend to be atheists. Many atheists are arseholes. They are not really a team. Some atheists believe in ghosts and astrology. The only thing they have in common is the lack of a particular belief. To say that atheists are all far left social engineers is to engage in a conspiracy theory. Many people like these conspiracy theories as they make it easier not to think.
Quoting Gregory A
Superficially true. But these regimes did not kill for the 'glory of atheism' the way The Inquisition, The Crusades, the Witch Trials, Putin, Islamic State, Isis, etc, killed or kill 'for the glory of God'. They killed as part of a cult of personality and in the name of political fanaticism and nationalism. I would agree that political fanaticism is as bad as religious fanaticism. But I wouldn't include Nazi's - they had the Catholic church and the sermons of Martin Luther to back up their thinking and the slogan, 'Gott Mit Uns' - 'God is with us' was very important in Nazi lore and old German nationalism.
I'm not sure what you're referring to. The social constructs which are the sense of the logic symbols can perfectly refer to an external object. This happened with Einstein theorizing black holes.
I wouldn't be so brave to preclude them so easily particularly how necessary God is for their work.
You can walk back your position but the point is if science can't refer to supernatural entities then everyone should figure out what means we are to do so so we can analyze these positions.
I don't think I disagree. Even through our built-in "studio", it doesn't seem possible for us to ever approach atheism.
In any case you entail something by even speaking of it so to say "God doesn't exist" is contradictory in a sense like saying "nothingness is blank".
On the contrary. It's an argument from gniorance. I used some Occam's shaving gel. Which left me with a clearly shaven face of the universe, free from traditional and contemporary bairdgrow beneath which it got buried last century.
Quoting 180 Proof
Says who? Theories need proof. Falsification is important but only for arriving at the final theory. If arrived, after a lot of shaving and falsifying, confirmation is all that's left. At the same time, proof of gods has been established.
Quoting 180 Proof
If you talk about miraculous healings, vìsions of Mary, or whatever, yes. Though I'm pretty sure the ancient Greek didn't take scientific proof seriously. Nor will reli-folks who claim to have seen Mary. The scientific proof of gods is science's own shortcoming in explaining where the laws and ingredients of the universe themselves came from. You call that reasoning from ignorance. While in fact it's from gnorance.
Loveya, 180 booze! :love:
That is absolutely true and an important point.
Thanks!
But theism has a way. The universe is work of gods. They were tired of eternal love and hate making. Created love and hate particles to eternally lay back in the heavenly jungles and eternally watch their creation work itself out. The human gods messed thing up a bit, to great discontent of the other gods. When you have found the basic stuff of the universe and the laws describing these workings, what else than gods are the conclusion of the origins of this matter and its laws,?
At some point the rubber meets the road (experiments are done) or it's just theology or poetry. No doubt there's a 'formal' side to any mathematical science. I can mathematically derive implications from postulated laws and compare them with actual measurements. At the moment I like to think of science in terms of maps from uncontroversial entities to uncontroversial entities, passing through whatever theoretical entities turn out to make for reliable prediction. And I take mine black, with minimum ontological commitment.
Are you saying we our a medium?
Science involves more induction issues the more empirically-laden you make it.
I know Hume's problem, etc. Science is just the least worst thing we seem to have. It makes us fail better. Let's let our theories do our dying for us.
I can understand that position. I would say math that was valid 3000 years ago is still valid today without any losee of truth.
Atheism, another head of the Hydra that is the Left, should be feared. My counter-attacks are needed to prolong my right to exist as a conservative. There are left and right elements to Christianity, but generally theism itself is on the right, conservatives.
The worst bloodlettings in history have been carried out by atheist regimes,
— Gregory A
Quoting Tom Storm
True in the fundamental sense. Their status as atheists (godless) allowing them to kill regardless of being conscious of any philosophical value. Atheists hypocritically raise these points, fought and enforced in the name of God only, but otherwise not in compliance with either Christianity or Islam. And still not anywhere near the number of dead at the hands of those who were atheists at the time of these events. The American Civil War, another bloodbath, perpetrated by the Left, their atheist leader Abraham Lincoln.
Hah! Good one. I guess the statement "There are no bigfoot, ghosts, and aliens" could logically trip you off. But in fiction, we could be at liberty to talk about them. So, the proper way to deflect this type of inquiry is, bigfoot, ghosts, and aliens exist in fiction.
So anecdotal account can serve as proof. What if every human you meet confirms to you that god exists, would you accept that as proof of god?
Yeah that's what I do. I like that approach. I see no other way than to talk about them as they are.
Richard Dawkin's crusades include the USA. There are prominent atheists there too. The right of free speech should preclude anyone from being locked up for what they believe, and for the expresion of those beliefs too. The atheist's challenge is not to 'put up' but is to put up or shut up. It is an attempt at censorship. Atheism is not to be aware of ethics afterall.
Why would you ask that? Is that even intellectually honest? That's the thing -- this is not about JTB. This is about requiring someone to produce proof of his or her belief in god. What utter nonsense!
Because you can't show that either.
The existence of the universe is proof of gods.
Why is that?
You know you can make a case about that. If physicists can make a case about the big bang by pointing to things present in our universe, you could also do the same with god. They call those things evidence that the big bang happened -- but mind you, those evidence could also be present without the big bang happening. It's not if and only if those things exists, that big bang happened.
So atheism is logical as long as God is fictional ? Isn't that exactly what atheists say?
No your objection doesn't work because you still have to speak of them all as existing.
Nouns, even proper nouns, needn't have referents to have meaning. "The king of France doesn't exist" is a meaningful proposition despite the non-existence of a king of France.
Your argument that the very declaration that God doesn't exist somehow bootstraps him into existence because logic dictates every speakable noun have an empirical referent is absurd. I can't speak aberjobbies into existence.
I'm a theist, by the way. There are atheists too. I can't deny their existence because I've actually seen them. I'd be hard pressed to claim I know there is a god more than I know there are atheists.
That's the whole point. You don't need an *empirical* reference but you do need some reference otherwise it's a meaningless non-proposition.
"Intelligently" is a goofy term with no real reference and is really non-propositional.
No, it' is a proposition and it has meaning and it has no referent whatsoever.
If it has no reference then how can you predicate anything about it? It needs something to build off of. For instance the queen of england has a material reference where the queen of france has one as well but in the past etc. In any case the queen is the object which is more accurately understood through predications.
"I am the king of America" is a meaningful proposition. It has a truth value, and it is false. "King of America" has no referent. "I am the king of Canada" is similarly a false proposition, but it is distinct in meaning from the first proposition, meaning "king of America" and "king of Canada" have different meanings, despite neither having a referent.
:up:
Quoting Hanover
:clap: Amen, brother!
I said term which includes any part of speech or phrase.
How can you parse the phrase "king of america" without a referent at all? I feel it's necessary to emphasize that the referent does not need to be material but if you don't know what a king is or what america is or what they are when conjoined (a linguistic conception, a monarch of america game simulator) then you can't meaningfully decide whether it's true or not.
Every part of speech has a referent? What about articles, prepositions, verbs, gerunds, etc? Where is the "the", the "about", the "cooking"?
I was replying to him. I don't know what that refers to. I said term which includes adverbs.
I've not argued words have no meaning. I've argued they need not point to anything to have that meaning. The word "the" means something, but there is no "the" in a material or non-material way.
Okay but there are times the king of america does exist and even times you are the king of america. There are certainly references which make that true such as choosing monarch in civilization as america.
You've just argued that a referent must exist for there to be meaning. What does "intelligently" refer to?
I just said it has too general reference. It's like saying "this is objective fact" where we can't properly describe "objective" except as their subjective fact. So it's a reference to an existential construct (subjective fact).
By America, I mean the USA, and the USA never had a king.
Okay so you have to refer to America and a king of a certain sort (in a monarch position of government etc etc). Them conjoined implies a reference. That you have to refer to things to specify what you mean implies the necessity of a reference (not a material reference).
Saying its only referent is its subjective meaning is denying it has a referent.
The referent to "Donald Trump" is Donald Trump. See how you have a word, its meaning, and the actual referent? You're missing the actual referent with the term "King of America."
You need a reference for king. You've already said that. You also need one for America (again already said). How they are conjoined dictates another reference for instance the King (of Spain visited) America is completely different from King of America. So there's still a reference there or there is no way to meaningfully parse the statement "King of America".
Substance abuse, my friend. Make an appointment with Dr. Wittgenstein to begin your therapy. Grammar's grabbed you by the groin most grievously.
He would be saying what I would. You would find the reference in the language game but he very specifically speaks about everything having a reference.
It'll sound like none scents but parsing is best understood in terms of bodies doing stuff effectively in the world. Sometimes the appropriate reaction is a shrug or a giggle. The taken-for-granted realm of spirits (meanings in minds) has been shown wanting.
I'm talking about his later work. Are you?
Incorrect. Atheists say god does not exist. Which is different than saying god is fictional. I just said that about bigfoot and company.
This is a killer passage from the Blue Book. I guess you can call it a transitional work, but I find the gist of the moon called went gone slime hair.
I think we can add that understanding a language is understanding a lifeworld or a form of life. Language is embedded in the world. The meaning of the stop sign is there in the way the cars move around it.
An atheist would claim that God is a fictional character in the Bible. They wouldn't deny he existed as that fictional character. If they did, I think someone would just open the Bible and show them where he was being talked about.
The same holds for Tom Sawyer, Tiny Tim, and Harry Potter. They don't exist as anything other than fictional characters.
Language games? From philosophical investigations?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_game_(philosophy)
I literally said language games. Yes he's referring to the designated language is what is used to give meaning to a word so the meaning of the word refers to the language which it's a part of.
Nice quote. I'm surprised then that you'd still insist on some spectral referent.
In the first example, we are trying to get water into our body. In the second ,we are trying to keep poison or infection out of a friend's body. In the last, access to a space is being secured. The context-bound 'meaning' of the sentences is there in the relationships of the expressions of 'iterable' tokens (words) with other bodily movements. As I understand him, Wittgenstein shows the futility of trying to find meaning in some private headspace.
I'm not sure what private headspace is but for later witt language determines meaning and language can be private or social. In any case it's what determines meaning for him but that's completely tangential to what we were talking about which was whether terms needed references at all.
Words are clearly dependent on meaning based on the language that instantiates it for him. The 'use' is the application of the language.
Wittgenstein is profound and difficult, despite the honesty of his prose, because we don't want to hear what he's saying, attached as we are to our 'go stories' which are 'obviously' true. This 'obviousness' is the mote in my brother's eye.
[quote = Wittgenstein]
If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means - must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?
Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! --Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. --Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. --But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. --No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.
That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.
[/quote]
And the world is 'clearly' flat. Don't be surprised if philosophy surprises you after all. Did you visit the florist for common scents?
Again, I've not argued words have no meaning. I've argued words need no referent for meaning, and I've not conflated reference for usage.
The bottom line is that Yahweh's existence is not logically required simply because that word has been used. Usage provides meaning, but it doesn't create the referent. That is, you can talk about God and the term can be impregnated with all sorts of meaning from that use, but that does not create the God you're talking about.
The same holds true for the person who believes that Tom Sawyer is non-fiction. They can talk about him, understand him, and be fully wrong about his existence. I'm an A-TomSawyerist in that I disbelieve in his existence.
Yes the world is so big and vast once you learn a new word that others must been in the same position as you.
I intuited you meant language games and you did not get the reference so I cited works. It's very clear what he means by that, it's not at all esoteric, and I referenced an article for you.
Where does a word get its specific meaning then?
You need a word with meaning from wherever you think they get assigned meaning.
There is no possible way to be an a-anything. It's entailing existence to non-existence. To say you *are* a non-existing object is inherently contradictory and I've already specified how it's epistemologically impossible to arrive at an a-anything position.
I'm just saying that lots of stuff that's 'obvious' is revealed to be just knee-jerk habit as one keeps studying and thinking. I don't mean to offend you. I was genuinely surprised that you looked for a referent for a noun and praised the later Wittgenstein in almost the same breath. I see him as busting up all the 'obvious' stuff so that we see the strangeness of our signal slinging with fresh eyes. For whatever it's worth, this isn't my pet theory but just a paraphrase of various scholars. Here's one more quote from The Blue Book.
Philosophy, as Wittgenstein with his royal 'we' intends the word, 'is a fight against the fascination which forms of expression exert upon us.' I'm still in therapy myself, egregiously gripped by grammar.
You did not understand wittgenstein's language games when I referenced it. He says meaning is derived from the languages which instantiates the sentence and words. I do not agree with that whatsoever but he still says there is a referrent to the language.
You are new to philosophy. Many people here seem to be not. You are also young and egotistical and you're trying your best to claw up some dignity where you shouldn't feel the need to.
Also the advice "you don't know" and "there's more to learn" is effectively meaningless and is either trivial or points towards nothing.
I'm really not so young anymore, just egotistical. Amen false office ours. A talk links his runes.
Quoting Shwah
A reference through it. Irreverence threw it. A river runs through it. For river run over all men. For reverend ever endeavor amend. Thigh will be dim inert as it is unleavened.
Quoting Shwah
His lung wedge gums aren't the only jumpers in his chomp yard.
[quote=Blue Book]
Now what makes us it difficult for us to take this line of investigation is our craving for generality. This craving for generality is the resultant of a number of tendencies connected with particular philosophical confusions.
...
The idea of a general concept being a common property of its particular instances connects up with other primitive, too simple, ideas of the structure of language. It is comparable to the idea that properties are ingredients of the things which have the properties; e.g. that beauty is an ingredient of all beautiful things as alcohol is of beer and wine, and that we therefore could have pure beauty, unadulterated by anything that is beautiful.
There is a tendency rooted in our usual forms of expression, to think that the man who has learnt to understand a general term, say, the term "leaf", has thereby come to possess a kind of general picture of a leaf, as opposed to pictures of particular leaves. He was shown different leaves when he learnt the meaning of the word "leaf"; and showing him the particular leaves was only a means to the end of producing 'in him' an idea which we imagine to be some kind of general image. We say that he sees what is in common to all these leaves; and this is true if we mean that he can on being asked tell us certain features or properties which they have in common. But we are inclined to think that the general idea of a leaf is something like a visual image, but one which only contains what is common to all leaves. (Galtonian composite photograph.) This again is connected with the idea that the meaning of a word is an image, or a thing correlated to the word.
[/quote]
In an earlier quote it's shown that meaning-as-image loses its appeal without a mystifying obscurity that lingers only until we follow this fantasy to the and.
The points stale what.
Theism, the belief in god/s, has not been validated as a truth. Its belief does not correspond with a known fact. Naturalism is the counterargument to theism, the two being non compatible.
Anyhow, why should we listen to those who reject a God (a relatively simple addon) but then continue to believe in mermaids, unicorns etc
— Gregory A
We need to accept that atheists believe in these unlikely creatures as the extent of their non-belief relates only to god/s. They are 'atheists' nothing more.
Atheism is a rejection of free-speech (primarily another element of the Left).
— Gregory A
Theism is a belief and should be able to express itself as such, but atheism as a non-belief should have nothing to say. An atheist is the equivalent of a heckler, disrupting the theist's attempts to practice their free speech. Anyone can challenge religion/s as they clearly exist.
What is your definition of a god?
— DingoJones[/quote]
Imagine a stranger or an acquaintance comes up to you and assures you that their grandmother came back from the dead or that their son leaped over the house. You'd be intrigued. At least I would. But I'd want some evidence pronto and get bored pretty quickly with various excuses. 'No one knew she was dead but me, but really she came back.' Or 'my son can only do it when no one is looking or just me.' If there were more witnesses supporting these claims, I'd more more intrigued. But I want to see the dead restored to life or the boy pull an ET over my house. The 'shut up' that comes from impatience is just symbolic of my right and yours to not have to listen to those who have lost our trust or respect. At times it's seems that theistic complaints are even a bit entitled, as if they don't just want protection from censorship (which they have in the US) but rather a captive audience.
Quoting Gregory A
No more, as far as I can see, than in hanging up on a telemarketer or a robocall. We do not owe one another our ears. As a believer in free speech, I think we owe one another only tolerance. I do try to hurt you or lock you away because we disagree and you do the same.
[quote=Jefferson]
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
[/quote]
In my experience, theists often fail to note just how moral and even neurotic their foils those pesky agnostic or atheistic liberals can be. Or I wasn't invited to the pansexual key party this month. Hard to say. Neither decency nor smug self-righteousness require religious belief or its absence. In my experience, most people have some kind of patchwork religion of childhood Christianity, self-help books, sci-fi, conspiracy theory. I find the theist/atheist issue way too binary, way too simple. I just want to know that neighbor isn't a maniac who can't deal with not being the center of the world, happy enough in his/her beliefs to not need my approval or admiration.
If atheism were valid (which it obviously isn't) wouldn't they still have non-valid theism to talk about?
With all due respect, you need to read a response more carefully.
Quoting universeness
So I have already answered your second sentence above but not under the condition of 'every human I meet' but under the condition of 'every human alive.' The existence of so many atheists and the fact that the numbers are growing is part of what keeps my own atheism affirmed.
Your label of anecdotal evidence is ultimately, a correct one. Such evidence can be enough to convict someone (rightly or wrongly) of murder, especially when the main evidence is based on the witness statements/testimony in court, only. I am 99.99999% sure gods don't exist. I would use a similar percentage for my 'positive level of confidence,' that I exist.
So no, anecdotal accounts are not absolute proof but they can be 'the best that can be achieved for now,' due to the nature of the question being asked.
So 'can you prove humans dream?' I think the answer is no, you can't absolutely prove it but YES, humans dream. I capitalise, to indicate my level of confidence in my YES. I think if you polled this site membership and asked something like 'What confidence level do you have that human's dream?' 100%, 90% to 100%, between 50% and 90%, between 0% and 50%, 0%. The majority would vote for the range 90% to 100%.
Your point of 'but you can't prove it!' Has no more value than 'You can't prove god exists,' or 'You can't prove the Universe has no origin,' etc.
Asking anyone of these often claimed 'big, deep questions are not, in my opinion' so big or so deep as I never hear an accompanying thunder clap or angelic chorus or even a wee drum roll, when such questions are asked. Asking such questions has never been revelational.
This skewed logic of yours is pure sophistry and as I have already stated, insignificant. You just string nonsense together and hope you can get near the bullseye on the dartboard. I think you are not even throwing darts in the same room the dartboard hangs in.
What does Matt Dillahunty talk about on YouTube on a daily basis. What do your nemeses such as Richard Dawkins write books about? What do groups like MythVision discuss on a daily basis.
Do you think your silly metalogic invalidates atheism and actually supports the OP title?
I find it very difficult to offer you anything but scorn and mockery.
You type with the thoughts of a character like a sandwich board man with the words 'Atheism is invalid' chalked on either side as you wander aimlessly up and down the high street exclaiming 'atheists should not speak because they are atheist and because they are all leftists and because they.......well....just because......
The Left are out to censor all things that hurt their eyes and ears, theism with its patriarchs is one of those things.
They also fail to notice the ulterior motives atheists have instead naively accepting their non-belief on face-value.
Richard Dawkins toured the USA, the Beatles did too of course but then doesn't that cultural aspect subtract from his Atheism, the evidence adding up to show there is a crime.
The Right has a set of values, the Left a similar but counter set, meaning one thing the Left has only half of a chance of being right.
:rofl:
So, this is your logic? The left and the right make a whole. So the left is half of the whole. So the left has at best, half of a chance of being RIGHT. Apart from laughing about your poor handling of the words left and right in "LEFT has only half a chance of being RIGHT."
You conflate ratios with politics to try to make a logical point. We have not to consider the moralities of right-wing or left-wing politics, we have just to consider their 50%, coin-toss chance of being correct.
REALLY?
There are many theories and books on the JFK assassination, but only the one assassin, Lee Oswald.
I was looking at the latest YouTube offerings.
Sean Carroll has this:
This is a 3 hour session where he answers questions submitted to him. He must do this on a monthly basis at the moment. Maybe he has answered your questions here? I would assume they would have responded to your email, even if just to tell you to listen to this podcast for your answers but perhaps you need to ask him your questions via this 'mindscape' initiative. I think he explains in the podcast how to submit your questions. I have not listened to this March episode yet but I will. If your answers are not in this one, perhaps you can get them in the April episode.
No, because you just told me you don't believe in the 'flying spaghetti monster.' Why did you do that is your logic demands your silence on that which you don't believe exists? Got it?
Quoting Gregory A
I don't think you should call yourself a dummy for not believing in the 'flying spaghetti monster.'
I agree with you that it doesn't exist, how's that for common ground! Welcome to our same level. Have you got it yet?
Quoting Gregory A
Yeah? You don't believe the one about the kill shot coming accidentally, from one of his own security men? or the triangular assassins hidden on the 'grassy knoll' etc. Have you got enough space on your sandwich board to reveal the truth about the JFK assassination as well? Do you still not get it yet?
It is my logic. If x amount of people are on the left, the same number on the right, then given those parameters the Left has only half a chance of being right. The moral of the story, you really should have thought things over before becoming the leftwing extremist that you are.
I am sure that all of the deep thinkers on this forum are duly impressed by the logic or what you have just typed above, or perhaps not. I will leave that for their consideration.
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
Sorry Gregory A, but I am still laughing at your logic.
I will stop now.......:lol: ....sorry!
The number of gumballs in a machine is either odd or even.
If I tell you that the number is even, do you believe me?
Theism may say yes they do believe me, without requiring a count.
Atheism does not accept the claim due to the lack of convincing evidence.
This does not mean that the atheist takes the alternate view, that the number of gumballs is odd.
They simply hold the VALID position of 'we do not currently know the number of gumballs.'
Atheism is therefore a completely valid position.
Matt suggests this is the correct definition of atheism, it is a rejection of the god posit but does not state that the existence of god is impossible. But Matt has also assigned a 'positive confidence level' to his rejection of the god posit towards a percentage level similar to my own. This does little damage, in my opinion, to the atheist position that god is not impossible.
Naturalism is not an escape pod for atheism. Newton, when he established the foundations of science, said something to the effect that only God could've been the one behind the laws of nature of which a handful he enumerated.
There's no arguing with theists. The laws that miracles violate and the miracles themselves, as per theists, are God's work. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Heads I win, tails you lose kinda deal!
:zip:
That seems so odd to say that 'positive confidence level' idea.
In any case that would be so awesome if that's all theism was (just getting epistemologically tricked) (side example, your grandma says "I love you, do you believe me?" This example wouldn't preclude theism/atheism).
No, theism has always been about specific God claims. If theism was purely just the non-starter that is "belief" then why would theists ever disagree with each other.
That epistemological position ("belief") would be doing so much work there and still couldn't do enough.
In any case, the proof is in the pudding, atheists are clearly antagonistic to theists. There's no disbelief/ambiguity there but even if there was, that metric wouldn't be enough to describe the situations or what those words have been/are doing for all of human history (or even one moment).
It's just my attempt to calm the disturbance created by the belief/non-belief or believer/non-believer wave machine.
Quoting Shwah
I think you are confusing theism with religion. Theism is the belief that god(s) exist. Atheism states there is insufficient evidence for such a claim. Buddism has no gods, you could call it an atheistic religion as it is not theistic.
Religious people argue about name/practices/tenets/dogma associated with the religion they favour but theism is a mere umbrella term for 'There is a god.'
Quoting Shwah
Well speaking as an atheist, I certainly am when they are antagonistic towards me or atheism.
You are making a sweeping statement which should be judged on a case-by-case basis. I am rarely antagonistic towards the theism espoused by @EugeneW as I can follow his logic, even though I don't agree with him. He is also not antagonistic towards my commentary in support of atheism.
I am antagonistic towards @Gregory A or the even more illogical @Joe Mello as they are antagonistic and insulting, in my opinion to all who disagree with them.
Quoting Shwah
Remember that religion(for or against) has been used as a political football to justify power struggles and slaughter since its inception. The god posit cannot be scapegoated for the behavior of crusaders etc. It is humans who have employed the posit for horrific purposes. It's like blaming socialism for the slaughters committed by maniacal cults of personality such as Nazism, Stalinism or Pol Pot(ism). It's just BS to suggest such. Humans behave like maniacs sometimes, that's not god fault or socialism's fault, these are just abused labels of convenient purpose at the time. Many godly folks and all true socialists/humanists are benevolent towards others, don't tar them with the same brush as some maniac popes/priests/imams/gurus/theosophists/autocrats/aristocrats/plutocrats etc.
If I slaughter 50 worshipping Muslims and I shout 'I do this in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord my God.' Does that make those two characters responsible for my actions or is it totally down to me? I'm sure you agree that its the latter. We need to stop accepting the labels that evil people use to justify the evil they do. Nefarious individuals cannot be trusted to 'tell it like it truly is.'
You seem to be showing even more how inaccurate saying "theism is just belief" is or you're showing a worse claim "theism cannot be a purely linguistic claim (as it can lead to issues)" but that latter would apply to anything and never manage to supplant the issues/inaccuracies of using an epistemological position for theism (or any -ism really) and it seems circular anyways ("what is theism? It's belief in God", perhaps god-fearingly so).
In any case, religion itself is an application of a theistic claim. There is possibly, in the philosophy of religion, a pentaune (five-in-one) God with distinct possible derivations and thought puzzles which may intuit issues or benefits in the triune God vs the unitarian God. Keep in mind that no religion of a pentaune God exists.
I have not challenged 'its existence' as it is an impossibility from the start, something I'd made clear in my first line.
There are many theories and books on the JFK assassination, but only the one assassin, Lee Oswald
— Gregory A
No, you are not going to corner me in with words. And I've never believed anything other than the Warren Commision's finding based on the evidence available. All else unsuported by facts. I'm a non-believer in a conspiracy, consequently I have nothing to say about it. Still don't get it yet?.
No problem. I'm embarrassed by your stupidity.
Quoting Agent Smith
There is no escape for atheism. The 'this is what we've been waiting for' thing that they will try and lay on us if science suggests God is a possibility, will not work. That escape is covered. Naturailsm is not a non-belief in God, but is a 'belief' in Nature, a naturally occurring universe. Atheism, as the term suggests, says nothing about Nature. Miracles? You must be talking about religion? What does that have to do with theism really?
I think that sometimes, a philosophical approach to the application of logic (as an epistemology) can be too literalist and at other times, not literalist enough and I think this often throws philosophical thinking into circles. I don't struggle with what you are trying to project on to me. I find 'theism is a belief that god exists,' literally or linguistically easy. I don't get 'over excited' by the possible extremity of abuses or human interpretations of the theistic posit which result in maniacal consequential actions. "If you don't believe as we do and don't do and live as we say, then we will kill you." Is a threat that has existed amongst humans since we evolved the ability to think. The fact that a religious or political doctrine is often manipulated to support such, is a distraction. Using statements such as 'I do this in the name of god/an ism or even just because 'I can' or 'because you cant stop me,' is down to the problem of bad human ethics rather than any inaccurately labeled excuse an individual or group might employ for their own nefarious reasons or as a more complicated and clever attempt at subterfuge (eg the invention of the Jesus Christ character).
Quoting Shwah
Yes, it is but do you accept that the tenets/rules of particular examples are most likely solely produced by human musings alone and have zero contribution from anything supernatural?
Quoting Shwah
You are just demonstrating human musings on possible religous manifestations. You are demonstrating what I am talking about. Do you think this pentaune god exists? Did it speak to you in your head and tell you to post about it on this thread? or are you just 'thinking' about gods?
And watching these same limited analytical minds do it on a Philosophy forum is laughable.
Aristotle wasn't "religious", and he is known as "The Philosopher". And he came to numerous well-thought-out step-by-step conclusions, after simply observing the physical universe, that the existence of an omnipotent God was a necessity. How many of today's atheists do you think have read through Aristotle's "Metaphysics" to see for themselves if his logic is sound? Well, actually, how many of today's atheists actually could read through it?
John Locke certainly wasn't religious, and some consider him to be the greatest philosopher, and he stated this:
"Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, though but even in thought, dissolves all."
I was just accused above of being illogical. Was I accused by a philosopher, or one of today's atheists with an agenda? I have a Philosophy degree, so I know what is illogical and what isn't. When I wrote awhile back on this forum that from the discovery of our universe expanding outward from a single point at an ever-increasing speed, we can logically deduce that an omnipotent power is the power behind the "dark energy" causing this expansion, and not a finite power, which could not be behind it. How is this illogical?
And I wrote many other actual logical reasonings that only one or two members of this forum had the thinking to address coherently.
Today's atheists are not philosophers, and that they have taken over a forum called "The Philosophy Forum" has been in my experience a lot like Alice falling down the rabbit hole and discovering all sorts of characters who don't make a lick of sense.
Yeah, even though based on the logic that you employ, you should not be doing so.
You have no belief in the spaghetti monster so you cant reference it. It would be illogical for you to do so based on your own application of logic!
Quoting Gregory A
Well, yes, I do see the massive flaws in how you form your belief system, I do get that.
If you lived in Russia right now and you listened to your beloved state TV channel, you would no doubt be singing Putin's praises. The words 'I've never believed anything other than the Warren commission's findings show that. So, you accept the 'magic bullet' theory then?
Quoting Gregory A
Well I'm glad I have the power to embarrass you, even if its inspire by your delusional thinking.
Quoting Gregory A
Yeah, keep tubthumping on your tin bath, see if the echo's progress your proposals?
The story of Alice in wonderland is another fable, Joe, it didn't really happen!
Have you placed your degree in philosophy next to old pictures of your many cars, numerous old female admirers, your earlier bodybuilding physique, your days in the monastery smiling beside your fellow monks and I am sure, your many other memorable moments and thought about 'what it all means?'
Is your best answer 'god did all this for me!' and after I pass (hopefully a long long time from now Joe.)
I will live with it forever at its place and I won't have to hear these nasty atheists again.
Am I anywhere near your belief system Joe after your 70+ years on this planet, living as a human.
“The mistake here then is (Baker &) Hacker's thought that what is problematic for Wittgenstein—what he wants to critique in the opening remarks quoted from Augustine—is that words name things or correspond to objects, with the emphasis laid on the nature of what is on the other side of the word-object relationship. Rather, we contend that what is problematic in this picture is that words must be relational at all—whether as names to the named, words to objects, or ‘words' belonging to a ‘type of use.'It is the necessarily relational character of ‘the Augustinian picture' which is apt to lead one astray; Baker & Hacker, in missing this, ultimately replace it with a picture that retains the relational character, only recast. There is no such thing as a word outside of some particular use; but that is a different claim from saying, with Baker & Hacker, that words belong to a type of use. For a word to be is for a word to be used. Language does not exist external to its use by us in the world.”(Phil Hutchinson and Rupert Read)
Don't tell me you don't fear them cause they don't exist! :wink:
Just listening to the Sean Carroll Mindscape podcast in the background as I work on one of my oil paintings, in-between posting comments on this thread. He was discussing 'time reversal' based on a question he had been asked. It's on the first 20 mins. I think you would enjoy that. He also tells you how to submit questions!
If that's your preferred way of thinking then I don't want to barge in on that. That being said you asked two questions which would attack my ontological positions so it'd be odd for you to say the epistemological nature is all you want but then question the applicability of my positions.
This distinction is really what comes at play here. You cannot approach theism from an epistemological standpoint or you simply can't ask the questions you did. In that then it's useless to define theism as belief rather than propositional statements.
I will answer the propositional questions regarding the ontological nature of theism.
I don't really care to speak about my religion but suffice it to say that many theistic conceptions are naturalist entirely or idealist (spinoza, aristotle are an example of the former and berkeley and, perhaps, hegel are examples of the latter). I will say science, which is concerned with nature in a particular way, can't ever deny supernaturalist concepts because no supernatural objects etc ever go into its domain.
The conception of a pentaune god does not require the communication nor livingness of said conception of god to exist. I don't have to worship a pentaune god to develop a thought puzzle around this. This applies towards any science or math field as well (e.g. we can theorize gravitons and what they may do if they exist without being forced to base our physics on it or even insert it at all). We also apply ethical conundrums into thought puzzles. In any case the main point is you can't use an epistemological definition for theism to ask this and if you're questioning these things then you necessarily are using an ontological nature to interpret and question these things (you need a framework to do so). Atheism, while being the negation of theism de jure (linguistics) and de facto, is not an ontological framework but the rejection of one. In that you can't ask these questions through atheism but through some other framework you may be or may not be conscious of using. That ties more into the point that atheism is not a position one can meaningfully get to without separating atheism from theism and implying atheism is just some random name for a gaming group that has shared likes and dislikes. A huge fall away from all atheist claims and from new atheist claims and from hitchens and all before him.
Sure but you would say aristotle's prime mover is valid for God like Aquinas did no? The cosmological argument would include aristotle's prime mover.
I have commented to you before about the many times I have personally challenged the god power since I was 15. I almost reached a stage where I quite enjoyed the emotion of fear.
What would convince you that I have no fear of gods or their supporters/enforcers such as Satan and his crew.
I like a quote from a song by crowded house. 'god is just jealous because the devil looks so cool in red.'
I like it when creative people attempt to reduce the ability of the god fable to invoke fear in others.
This is also why I love films like 'The life of Brian' or most of the words in 'Jesus Christ superstar.'
I am much more afraid of what my fellow humans might put me through than I am of gods.
Fellow humans can directly affect my life, gods have demonstrated no ability to do so.
I don't think they exist and that IS a reason for my lack of fear of them but I also despise them if they do exist due to the evil they allow humans to do.
Yeah I agree with that entirely. For wittgenstein it wasn't use itself but use from a language someone used. I disagree with that but yeah I see no way to have words not refer to something without fundamentally only saying vapid things.
The fact time goes forward is proof of the benevolence of the gods. And at the same time of their laziness. Time goes backwards only for virtual particles. The vacuum contains an eternal fluctuating in time, the fluctuation time being the Planck time. And just like there is an asymmetry between two opposite directions in space (in the light of wrongly assumed basic weak interactions), there is an asymmetry in time (in the same light). In the mirror universe the asymmetries hold too. Between anti quarks and anti-leptons. But because these contain the same preons as the quarks and leptons in our universe, the asymmetry is due to an asymmetry in space itself.
You're close to the truth, soon to be revealed on this forum! The world of philosophy, religion, and physics will shake in its foundations...
Devils are not involved in the tale of creation... The situation, once known, is a mundane one. An understandable one. I think the gods are glad me telling the revelation. They had trouble reaching their creation. But they found a loophole... The dream.
I appreciate your rigour from the standpoint of pointing out to me, philosophical rules that I must contend with when I make the statements/comments on theism and atheism that I have made so far on this thread. I have admitted to being a philosophical novice at best. I will try my best to respond to the points you have made but please be understanding If I display a frustrating level of command of academic philosophy.
Quoting Shwah
Logic is my chosen epistemology to begin with, why can I not approach theism using logic. I don't see that belief or 'propositional statements.' have no basis in logic. I think therefore I propose. If the logical deliberations of a physicist results in them proposing a new label such as 'the cosmological constant,' once called a biggest mistake but not so much now. Then why was it illogical for a creature such as a cro magnon to look at the big shiny think in the sky and grunt 'god?'
I don't really care if some ancient or modern recognised philosopher says it is not valid to use logic to question the theistic position. (If that is what you are saying?) Most propositional statements have a basis in the logical thought processes of the thinkers involved in making the proposals.
Quoting Shwah
I know the story of the life of Spinoza but I haven't read anything by him. I have watched a few YouTube vids about his life and his contributions to philosophy and I view him in a similar way to Christopher Hitchins. He was persecuted by theistic dogma. Science can and cosmologists in partiular, mainly do deny supernaturalist concepts and they will continue to do so until evidence proves otherwise.
Your argument that nothing supernatural can enter the domain of nature gives the supernatural no importance or relevance at all towards the existence or events in this Universe other that the theistic belief that it manifests as god and thus the creator of said Universe. As an atheist, I reject such claims.
Quoting Shwah
I agree.
Quoting Shwah
I used ontology all the time in computing to categorise variables and data types etc. In philosophy, I get that ontology refers to categorising the metaphysical. I have limited interest in the 'after physics' or 'beyond physics' stuff. I am a naturalist/physicalist/materialist/scientist etc. I do find metaphysical discussions interesting but any conclusions produced by them demonstrate very poor predictive power in my opinion.
Quoting Shwah
Who said it was a random name? It's a valid label that indicates rejection of the posit of theism.
Atheists are not a gaming group as such is entertainment-based. Atheists argue amongst themselves as much as any other labeled grouping of humans.
I have no idea what you mean by your last sentence above. I have as much in common with Mr Hitchens, Mr Dawkins, Mr Harris, Mr Dennett, Mr Dillahunty, Mr Carrier, Mr Atwill and the many other well-known atheists and the ancient ones such as Democritus as I have ever had. I think they are correct and the theists are incorrect.
:rofl: A good build-up EugeneW, be careful you don't over-reach.
Just an episode, universeness, just an episode... Or maybe, the final chapter...(don't get me wrong though)
Yeah it's not a problem.
Logic itself isn't really a meaningful statement with no predication. Classical logic, which you may be referring to, asserts the law of non-contradiction and law of excluded middle (along with law of identity and maybe a few others depending on the specific language). Fuzzy logic denies those two former laws and we use it in electronics and there are tons of logic languages besides that.
I'll go a bit further and say everybody uses their logic language of choice, even if they don't know it or contradict themselves, so saying "logic is my epistemological choice" is trivial at best.
As for the assumption that the world is material, math cannot be material at least epistemologically. That is to say it may in fact be ontologically material but we have no way to approach that from this limit that physics necessitates math to do physics. This is an asymmetric relationship where we don't need physics to do math (as that would be circular).
In addition, modern math/logic is based on the principle of being more universally applicable than to material objects (as shown by frege's reasoning here).
Also physics is very much a philosophical endeavor and was called natural philosophy (as a group name with chemistry, biology etc) until a century and a half ago.
Also you can't even reject theism with atheism. You're using naturalism, materialism or whichever frameworks you're using. There's no way to get to an "atheist" position ontologically or epistemologically.
I appreciate that as your philosophical analysis of my statement and I fully endorse the rigor of the scientific method so I can't complain when you employ philosophical studies to critique the methodology I employ to debate theism. I remain respectfully unconcerned about the points you are raising here.
Quoting Shwah
I have heard this many times. Mathematics is a logic-based language with very impressive predictive power, unlike metaphysics or metamaths for that matter.
Quoting Shwah
Force=mass*acceleration is as much from the physics world as it is actioned in the mathematics world
A screwdriver and a paintbrush can be considered two quite different tools but you need them both when hanging a new door. I would not call a screwdriver and a paintbrush symmetric, would you? so the idea that maths hand physics might in some philosophical reference frame be deemed asymmetric seems of little consequence in the real world.
As for your comment from 'Frege,' who I have never heard of (but I am not blaming you for that.)
I would say well so what? All such require context. How many/big/small/far etc.
Quoting Shwah
No, Physics is a scientific endeavor. The fact that it had a less accurate label in the past means little.
Philosophy has sub-headings such as ethics, metaphysics etc and many other sub-divisions that physics has nothing to say about.
I can only comment and say these aren't really fruitful objections for either of us. Some of its handwaving and others are just negating the point with no justification and the points have seemed to take a life of their own and have lost any reference to a main point that we were discussing. I can't meaningfully respond to that without going down the path of complete tangentiality.
I have nonetheless enjoyed our exchange here. You can take some credit perhaps in that the more I read the points raised by the 'philosophy' angle (for want of a better phrase). The more compelled I feel to take greater care when considering how to form a response to someone on TPF.
I don't mean that I will be less antagonistic to those who I think are being antagonistic. I just mean, any improved understanding of philosophy will hopefully improve my future responses on TPF. If I continue my presence on the forum.
I am an interloper here due to my lack of philosophical credentials but I think I have other credentials of value to threads that have scientific, political or religious aspects to them.
You certainly do, appreciate the conversation.
Thank you for your kind, supportive reply. :smile:
You're working with a fallacious reduction of options. There aren't just "either believe in God, or believe in mere chance". It's also possible to not have any particular opinion on the matter. Or believe that Earth is controlled by beings from other galaxies. And whatever other cosmogonies people believe in.
I asked you
Why are people theists? Why do people believe in God?
This is to point out that most people who have ever believed in God, have not done so as a result of careful consideration and choosing, but were simply born and raised into a monotheistic religion. They were taught to believe in God, they never chose to do so.
The people who _choose_ to believe in God are a minority.
Do you have any comment on this?
Quoting EugeneW
An egotheist, then.
Unless you declare the ontology and epistemology of theism empty. But indeed, from the scientific òntology and epistemology alone you can't deduce the non-existence of gods.
Quoting baker
Haha! A selfish theist? Or a theist thinking he's a god himself? Only gods give meaning to life. That's the reason for believing in them. And the fact that science can't explain the presence of the universe. The laws of nature and the basic stuff in it is too stupid to cause its own existence.
I think that's a method but I don't think it's practical as we would just all have to forget that God(s) exist whatsoever and probably spiritualism too and even ethics could eventually lead back to God a bit directly. In any case theism is verifiable by any conception of God.
Yeah science can't dictate those and atheism literally has no ontology or epistemology to speak of.
By the very fact an atheist denies gods he accepts their existence. He only wants proof they exist.
I 100% agree otherwise you're saying something trivial (nothing is nothing, which without anything to parse meabs nothing) which is immaterial to being the negation of theism.
There you go!
Sorry, I had intended to respond to this side point you made, but forgot to.
Do you compare love between blood relations with a feeling of 'biological loyalty/responsibility,' or 'loyalty based on previous/current acts of nurture such as feeding/clothing etc, a love born of such dependencies perhaps?' Love has many levels and manifestations.
There is of course also the question of what we define as love in comparison to obsession or power over others or love of pain/violence or love as an addiction, etc
My simple answer is that sure, if grandma says she loves me then I will initially accept her word. In a similar way a child might accept being told by a 'loving father' that god exists but If grandma then went on to behave in ways towards me that were not what I consider loving, then I would reject her posit until her behavior changed or as I got older and started to question the logic of daddies god posit and he suggested that god was not to be questioned by me and I must just accept its existence as fact then there would be rejection on my part. So, if people tell me god exists then I need the evidence just like I need the evidence from granma that she loves me.
Yeah I would agree with that and similarly I'd charitably apply it to theists. There's some logical reason they believe what they do so "belief" is a non-starter for any proposition. It's necessarily entailed with anything one says even if conditionally.
Aristotle taught us how to think more than what to think. To spend a few weeks carefully reading his “Metaphysics”, and never proceeding until the paragraph your reading is understood, is to become a different thinker. His Prime Mover is one of many rational conclusions with “God” at the end.
You are spending a lot of time here arguing with potheads and uneducated bigmouths.
When your thinking becomes evolved, one of the benefits is to spot a wannabe thinker immediately, which will save you from wasting time on them.
I spent some time here looking for a thinker to interact with. I found only one or two.
Most posters here are Internet trolls who Google their asses off to plagiarize and sound intelligent.
Flee …
Seems you are one of them...
Do you reject out of hand that its a response to primal fears?
Primal fears are logical or are properly consequential or derivable. I wouldn't say primal fears can meaningfully speak about religions in anything less than a shallow sense though.
Why do you need any such interaction when you receive direct revelations from your god?
Stay Mello Joe, you are displaying too much ungodly emotional content for such a paragon of intellect.
But could they be a source for the human need of god as a 'benevolent protector' from primal fears.
Why would such be 'shallow' if they are so deeply felt to earn the label primal as in 'first' or 'important' or 'fundamental.'
Do you think only humans experience and dispense love as we define the various manifestations of it?
If an animal can experience and dispense love, then does this means god owes them its benevolence as well? Do you think god owes us benevolence if it is responsible for our existence and do you 'believe' that god, as you perceive it, loves us?
Sure but it's hard to speak about love or charitability in fear except at most on a shallow level. It's much easier to speak about charitability in terms of love rather than fear.
In addition to that, I think the first stage of religion is the burial cults which are derived in animals today from extreme love and then grief at loss. It'd be hard to consider those feelings in terms of fear except derivatively for some people.
Animism, what I assume is the second stage of religion, seems almost entirely impossible to speak of in fear in the later developments (such as shintoism) but even in terms of late-stage hunter-gatherer totem animal animism, the fear of the animals if predicated off the beings (in whichever interpretation) and not the subject or foundation itself.
I suppose epistemologically it may seem more accurate for some but the ontological narrative informs the epistemological narratives.
Now read the last two replies to me from the Internet troll you are wasting time trying to have a philosophical discussion with, and you will see what a poor thinker looks like.
I have written that I spent 5 years in a monastery and “received” direct revelations from God, but he wants to phrase it as me saying that I still “receive” such revelations.
And who would claim that God doesn’t want us to display emotions but a mental midget?
Flee … he’s probably stoned and here to giggle to himself like an idiot.
Absolutely not. Even elementary particles. The gods had a reason creating them. That gives love meaning. Await the final word to be told my fellow Earthling! :wink:
I get your point but I'm just here to talk about philosophy and I try to avoid conversations that are dead-ends.
What about the Egyptian Pharaohs are their large memorial pyramids. Do you think they had such built out of aspirational love or primal fear of their ever-impending oblivion, despite their personal wealth and power.
I suggest you do your own running Joe. If you drop your disrespectful commentary then I will take my finger off the trigger as well. If you can't do that then run boy run!
I would say pyramids are a development of the burial cult stage with developments past animism towards paganism.
Some spiritual traits about pyramids: they are built high to bridge the path between earth and the sun (heaven), the bodies are not burned to get closer to heaven, dead pharoahs may become gods if they reach their path (and get haloes which are just suns over your head), embalming is an understanding of the body and which are most important (which influences early surgery).
So a lot of ethical, scientific discoveries are from this. I think it would be hard to define these meaningfully in terms of fear.
Are you sure your not a secret panpsychist EugeneW?
Quoting EugeneW
Ok, at least you have always sounded pantheist which is my favorite flavor of theism, if I had to choose one.
Consider me a psychopantheist, universeness.
All interesting points, but I am not convinced that you do not attribute most ancient and even some modern burial traditions with human 'hope' for a further existence after death.
Almost a plea to their gods for more life or renewed life. All the effort put into such rituals were in my opinion, attempts to demonstrate respect and subservience to what they perceived as the wishes of their god(s). Such hope for further existence in preference to oblivion has to be due to human primal fear. If you simply won't accept that then I must accept that your non-acceptance is for reasons you earnestly believe and is not mere philosophical window dressing.
:rofl:
I consider you a joy to exchange views with!
I mean you have to define gods to fear them and people, even if it's a fear-worshipping cult, don't fear them all equally. Fear is definitionally a predicate of the religion and not one that is necessary to have the religion. In that, fear is defined by the religion/gods and not the other way around. A better metric is probably "being" and humans grasp to that based on love initially and a more developed "spirituality" later.
Edit: Can fear lead to spirituality? I think it's possible definitely, even to love, but I think fear-based love/spirituality cannot fully express either and would remain shallow if it is used as the guiding variable for either.
Ok then let me try another angle. Do you think humans would consider the existence of gods if we did not die (immortal, if you like) or do you think gods would still be posited if humans had no primal fears such as a fear of death or more importantly, personal non-existence?
Well, isn't that because atheism isn't a philosophical system? Apart from the positive dogmatists, isn't atheism simply the view that there is no good reason to accept the proposition that god/s exist.
I think it's definitely possible. Sex could be an opening towards it (as in tantric sex) and definitely love still.
"No good reason" is tangential here but as for the question "does God exist" no human/conscious creature can arrive at the negative position.
What exactly are you saying is definitely possible? That gods may not be considered/needed if we were immortal (which transhumanism and future technologies may take us a lot closer towards) or if humans had no primal fears? or are you saying something else? I didn't understand your sentence about sex.
That people can arrive to the concept of theism, but also spirituality, without death. They can use love or sex (as in tantric sex which is spirituality development through sex from the Hindu tradition).
Could not the same thing be said about Russell's teapot or any number of things we can invent but not assess? I don't think it is tangential, surely the point is what reason do we have for believing a given thing?
The point, for Russell's teapot, is whether it's verifiable or not - not whether we have reason to believe it's there or not (which was the point of Russell's Teapot).
Russell's Teapot was for Russell unverifiable (before the space age) but it can be verified today given some effort. Atheism, on the other hand, has nothing to verify. Theism does (a conception of God).
An interesting viewpoint Shwah. I cant perceive the path you suggest myself without the 'termination'/oblivion threat. I remember a line from a poem.
'It was the sweetest berry he had every tasted.'
That was because he was hanging of the edge of a cliff and was about to plunge to his death.
Another was a scene from Babylon 5, which portrayed a character who was 'the first one.' The first thinking lifeform ever created in the Universe and he was an or thee Immortal. In the scene he makes the comment.
"Only those who have a short lifespan can perceive that love is eternal, you should enjoy that wonderful illusion as it is transitory."
I know this came from the mind of a writer but it rings true to me.
"Good evidence" is doing a lot of work - the wiki says empirically unfalsifiable which can be reworded as unverifiable here. Belief entails "good evidence" for the believer so it's immaterial here.
Anyway, again, thanks for the interesting extension to our initial exchange.
I will make room for @Tom Storm as he can take you on a more philosophical direction than I can.
I think fear can lead to it and I think death is the best expositor of fear for all creatures mostly. I personally don't think "death" is a thing so much as it's the absence of life (when your body stops working). I don't think death is a tangible or intangible object or energy which spreads over people. I think that's why I defined the beginnings of religions/spirituality/etc in terms of love (and the loss/absence of it). It seems to be a verifiable variable that can be worked with.
Edit: It was nice talking to you.
I don't think this is immaterial (well technically it is because there's no material evidence, but that's a separate matter) :wink:
The key question about god/s is what reason do I have for believing in god/s? Beliefs, presuppositions, faith - all of these need to be interrogated. People believe in alien abductions (there's well documented personal testimony) people believe that black people are inferior to white people. Beliefs are not sacrosanct - people believe in things for dubious reasons. Someone having a sensus divinitatis is no good answer to the atheist's question; 'What reasons do I have for accepting the preposition that god/s exists?'
Don't take Mello seriously, my friend! We both know better!
For theists this isn't a big picture at all (and sometimes ever) for how they deal with religion or spirituality. If it was all they focused on they would never get to worshipping God. In abrahamic religions, as well as assumedly with all other religions, you actually grow in your relationship with God so it would be God which determines your theistic positions (why and how) etc still.
The reason you believe in God is based on your relationship with him. Some conceptions of God demands animal sacrifices, some charitability, some war, meditation etc and these can speak to you in different ways with different applicability and explanatory power on your ethics and understanding of the world and its parts. You could never get to all of that and what theism does by examining belief without a conception of God.
No. The below is what I quoted from your post. If I didn't see that, then that's not what I responded to originally. Please see below. I'm paralleling your post below.
You were saying something about dreams.
Quoting L'éléphant
I don't, I think he is hurting, who knows why? I am sure he will reject my suggestion due to pride.
So don't be surprised if I get an 'aw f*** off!' response.
What about the reason that there exists a universe?
Ok, sorry about the crossed wires, I don't think our positions are changed by your update.
Quoting Shwah
I think that's one potential reason. I also think fear and socialization are major reasons people believe. It's hard not to be a believer when you are conditioned from birth by your culture and family to believe. When everything you know is directed towards god/s. When there is a considerable price to pay for apostasy. I think it could be naïve to say that a 'relationship with the divine' is the primary explanation. The nature of that relationship is hardly value free - it is the resolute product of upbringing, culture and expectation.
:ok:
It runs into an induction issue by trying to account for ontological assertions simply through culture (family or macro-cultures). For instance genders are defined as social constructs but they are informed by material considerations of sex and gametes etc.
Religion, even excluding how at least abrahamic religions approach God, could never be approachable if it was fundamentally determined by culture. Metaphysics is about first principles and a creator etc is a first principle. Your conception of God informs your worldview of math, science, ethics where what a culture can determine meaningfully is much less.
Because people can sense to different degrees that there's something guiding them through life. Even you have a degree of 'faith'. You may say it is humanism, yet humans are responsible for Global Warming and as we speak are contemplating a solution to it in the form of a Nuclear Winter.
I was raised with a natural explanation of our origins. Never had any religion in my life, am not religious now. I've not rejected religion, just never had any of the stuff.
Soft living moves people to the left. The Left are actively destroying religion. Churches empty out in good times regardless.
Quoting Shwah
Only if you insist. A 'creator' may also be understood as a woo of the gaps. A creator is a tentative hypothesis at best. Just because a person believes in one does not make it true.
Quoting Shwah
Can you back that up with evidence, or is this opinion? Personally I think most positions people hold are culturally located. Not sure how god/s are all that different to people's views on clothing.
Quoting Shwah
It would be a brave person to argue that culture and family doesn't play a major role. You'll note, I said 'major reasons' not 'solely'.
The very religion a person holds is largely matter of geography. If you are born in one part of town, you're Hindu. If you are born 30 miles South of this, you're Anglican. In a town, the street you live on may determine whether you are fundamentalist, 'fag-hating' Bible thumper, or an inclusive rainbow flag wearing Liberal. The personal relationship each one has with god/s is a matter of place and time.
Quoting Shwah
Perhaps helping to make my point here. How difficult to see anything more if your reality is shaped and contained by the god/s and religious worldviews provided to you by family and culture.
When believers connect math and science to god/s they tend to teach creationism instead of evolution and extol the virtues of capital punishment, whilst considering abortion a sin.
Maybe a distinction between spirituality of your culture and spirituality of you as an individual may help. We would say spirituality of your culture informs the individual but that the spirituality of the culture is still deficient of God.
However you may define God (even as a "woo"), it's dealing with objects which would inform math etc. The best example I can think of which is complete is Aristotle's prime mover and how important and informative it is to the universe as he views it. His science, to whichever degrees of accuracy they are, are informed by that thing which is more fundamental than a culture. In fact his culture is polytheistic so a culture can't be an object which allows one to reach God fundamentally (even if the culture's spirituality informs your own (whichever that would be)).
Is this not what someone might call trivially true? In the end all views can have a bearing on how you view math, etc. Can you tease out more how this is helpful?
When it comes to what we call reality, do not most people keep two (or more) sets of books and hold inconsistent and contradictory epistemologies? A belief in god/s does not necessitate a particular approach to epistemology, unless people are educated and striving for consistency. Whatever happened to the non-overlapping magisteria? :razz:
I think maybe a more concrete example is how arithmetic informs calculus (you need arithmetic to do calculus but not vice versa). Whether you use a duodecimal system or decimal etc, and even how you do arithmetic (whether it's wrong or not) informs how the calculus problem will be (what digits are used and whether it's wrong or not or whether there are multiple answers).
In this same sense, culture simply doesn't have the ability to inform decisions like whether math/science are foundationalist and how they relate to each other (creation/causation narrative). An example of this is the Jesuits, and even ancient greeks up to archimedes and beyond, denying or banning infintesimals. This changed how math was done (more geometrically) and caused calculus to not be developed.
As for the last bit, I believe people pick what they believe is most true in any situation and existential crises happen when a really fundamental belief one holds is shown to not be as universally applicable so I believe trend towards a single foundation or fundamental truth but allow caveats either through ignorance or some more fundamental truth that guides when to choose between the two.
That's paranoid projection, brother, for which you have not made a case. I'm not sure that most people can walk without that crutch or something like it. If you take away Jesus, they'll get their fix from the child-eating lizardmen who live in tunnels or the Pleiadians come to save us from outer space. If the species makes it another few centuries, we'll probably have believers in the mutterings of a pontifical pulsar, with cryptographers interpreting its beeps and buzzes for a priesthood. I suspect that you're defending a monotheism (and not 'the Seven' or The Secret) simply because you were born among those who babbled of it and not some other fairy's tail. You've shown up late, too, for its glory days are past indeed, and the educated, if still Christian, are at least modest enough to take their theology negative (figurative or cultural at the least.)
You can check out The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to discover that Christianity was originally an offensive heresy that refused to tolerate the other religions already in place, like an only child who just would not share its toys.
To be an atheist is usually to also be a relatively educated person with respect for science. The average theist who shoulders into an intellectual discussion comes off as 'pre-philosophical' in their apparent disregard of the norms of critical inquiry or just polite conversation. For instance, the contempt than this or that noisy atheist may have for your current beliefs is not censorship. It sounds to me like you'd like them silenced for hurting your feelings. Free speech cuts both ways, brother.
I doubt any of this plays a role in the atheism versus theism debate in general, regardless of any epistemological implications of some beliefs.
Well said, friend! Well said!
But a cats like to play with mice, do they not?
You said math can be informed by anything and I showed an example where calculus, which is really close to arithmetic, still can't inform arithmetic.
In this, since religion informs math, it is not informable by culture. You may be conflating math the field with math the objects/relationships of quantity etc.
Edit: Math, the field, may decide to go to lunch later because a fire drill where math, the system of relationships between quantities, is never affected by fire drills, it actually informs the physics which allows them.
Are you sure it's the boots and not your feet ?
Some of them are, yes ! And I don't like those mother flappers either ! For what it's worth, I like gun rights and free speech and distrust book burning chew believers of every polkadot and stripe.
Man-haters are as tedious as woman-haters. Our war is against cliché perhaps. Beware the cardboard windmill and the candycane lance. Check for the enemy behind you. Or, better stool, within you.
How does religion inform math? When I said math can be informed by anything I simply meant that math is practiced via a perspective and this perspective can be influenced by anything from education to technology.
Sure but perspectives would be immaterial here to the question of God's existence or not.
For lack of exhaustion, this link deals a bit more into the issues of a scholastic conception of christ as used by catholics then.
Edit: For fun, this is a positive example of religion affecting physics. Newton's particular conception justified an aristotelian prime mover which informed his physics in a different way from Leibniz. A key difference between the two is Newton's acceptance of absolute motion where Leibniz only allowed relative motion. I don't know the formal derivation but I imagine this suffices.
Also this may be interesting,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-stm/
That quote is emphasizing why Newton chose absolute space and absolute time which was a development past Descartes, who denied space because he didn't think anything could be empty. Two different conceptions of God with two different physics derivations.
Please accept my playful challenge, friend.
A Dialogue
by Thomas Money, Sean Dough, and Brian Fog
========================
Q. Why is there a Universe?
A. God created one.
Q. Why is there a God ?
A. There just had to be one.
Q. Why can't someone say then that there just had to be a Universe?
A. Because the Universe is not like a person.
Q. Why does the big Explanation of things have to be like a person?
A. Because I'm more comfortable with that. Now brush your teeth and go to bed.
========================
If gods made love and hate particles which had to behave in a very precise mathematical way, to make both and collections of them function properly, religion might inform us.
Isn't inserting god/s into that hole what you do when you don't have an answer? It's using a mystery to explain a mystery?
I'm gonna brush my teeth lll!
How could the universe have existed without gods? How can dead particles, conforming to physical laws, have brought themselves into existence? Aren't they to dumb for that?
Because there is an answer! And you inspired my answer.
No. That's not what you do if you don't have an answer. Though I have to admit, eternal gods are a mystery. But at least they explain the universe, and how people managed to fuck it up locally. Maybe they did better elsewhere in the universe, but I doubt it.
Atheist Father: For no reason. The universe just showed up. Now go to sleep. Your brain’s neurotransmitters need to slow down for a time.
Theist Mother: The universe was created for you, darling, by God who loves you. It is his wonderful place for you to live and play. Go to sleep, now. You’ve had such a busy day. I love you.
Sorry Tom, I'm sticking different things in that hole when I don't have an answer...
Question: Would the recent scientific discovery of dark energy, which is the mysterious force behind our universe expanding outward from a single point at an ever-increasing speed, be more logically an energy originating from an omnipotent power or from a finite power?
Is this a euphemism?
Child: Why is there a universe?
Theist Father: The universe was created for you. Now go to sleep. Your brain’s neurotransmitters need to slow down for a time.
Atheist Mother: The universe just showed up for you, darling. It is a wonderful place for you to live and play. Go to sleep, now. You’ve had such a busy day. I love you.
Taking your temperature is the euphemism... What if the hole is closed? Can I still put the thermometer in? Don't ever trust a priest asking you this!
It is an energy proving we are expanding in a higher dimensional infinite space, created by eternal gods to gìve room for the eternally re-inflating universes from the source, the central singularity. It is proof of their being fed up with playing the eternal game of love and hate. They started a research program to create and develop love and hate particles situated in a very special unique space. The universe is that unique result. Now they just watch us. The virus god, the squirrel god, tree god and whale god. Human gods contributed too, but fucked up a bit.
If the hole, the gap, is closed, what else can you conclude? That it's just there for us? How can it be there just for us? Somehow it's more reasonable that intelligences created the universe, even when they are an eternal mystery just the same.
From co-working finite powers, with creation ability.
My theory is that we'll always be left with some unexplained 'it' in our grand narratives. It seems to me that you are willing to take certain eternal gods for granted, untroubled by the issue of where they came from.
I don't see what can ever stop us from asking a 'why' that functions like a torch for unveiling contingency or brute fact. Some fellow somewhere said that we humans are a 'nothingness' because of this, a hole in the whole, incapable of plugging that very hole. Or we are like a mouth trying to swallow itself (the mortal of the sorry is oral, along with the moral of the starry). "Tell me tell me tell me the chew numb of got. " It's the and of the word as renew it.
Do not give Eugene any personal information.
To me that's a rich issue. What is an explanation? There are various theories, but in this context I think it boils down to some kind of animism or anthropomorphism. The explanation has to be a personality, a divine intelligence (maybe also with a benevolent will.)
Quoting Tom Storm
I totally agree. I think the special sauce of this kind of explanation is the linking of the strange to the familiar. If the gods are basically just humans without bodies, then that's comforting. Things happen for reasons that humans can understand, since the gods involved are (implicitly) essentially human. (Feuerbach writes of sublimated monotheisms ending up with the quality of human 'reason.' Thought has no limitations, no body, no location. It's the chew or true holy ghost. )
Yes. I take them for granted. But there is something very different between taking an eternal universe for granted (and I do take that for granted, as it's there, complete with all matter and creatures, all developing according to their own laws) and eternal gods whose intelligences created this. Only an eternal universe, without eternal gods having created it, seems meaningless. Despite all meaning we can internally assign.
I take it that the meanings or meaning that humans assign isn't intense or decisive enough for you?Some thinkers have argued that a god-strength meaning would actually humiliate us. One might even argue that only a no-meaning-include universe allows us to play god. Others suggest that the universe evolves its own eyes with which to look at and understand itself, and that we are those eyes. What if our god-universe evolves like a fetus in the womb? And we 'are' that process as we debate this very issue? What if theology itself is the god it articulates? That'd be a self-creating god right there, a god that works from within the mortal meat of a divine dog, write in the broken hurt of his creator-creation.
I don't think we are the heads of some universal hydrabeast, using us to masturbate in its attempt to spawn new universes as it can't find a female companion. Or us being part of a universe retroactively collapsing the wavefunction and bringing itself in existence. Mind you, this would be even more outrageous than gods or dead particles only.
The meanings we assign are enough but not without that divine underlayer.
Personally I don't feel attached to a myth, though the idea that we are stains on the diapers of drooling giants makes the most scents so far.
Quoting EugeneW
Curious. Is this more of an intellectual or an emotional dissatisfaction? Is it your mind that demands a metaphysics or your heart that demands divine empathy?
That's a fun theology.
That's a good question! I think both. Something mysterious is missing from them. Something unexplainable. The universe is explainable. Be it by physics or Dawkins. But the mystery of eternal gods, being tired of eternally making love and war, creating together these elementary love particles, massless preons with the right basic charges, basic love and hate, evolving into a world resembling their own, except the human gods having fucked up in that creation, lets the wonder return. That's more or less what the short story is about. Gods being tired and bored of making love and hate eternally, longing to lay back in heavenly jungles to watch us play out the story they played so long themselves.
Quoting EugeneW
Ah, OK. So perhaps the vision of the universe as a vast, dead machine that disappoints you. If you don't cling to life after death and aren't that interested in divine commandments, then it seems to be the disenchantment of the world that you object to. I do think we've been tamed. Our imaginations are clubbed into submission. Today's sane man is modeling what Vico's early/divine men would have experienced as a straitjacket.
Quoting EugeneW
That's truly a beautiful plot.
Just as a point of interest, have you read Caesar's Messiah by Joeseph Atwill, or Creating Christ by J Valliant and W Fahey. Both these books posit that Christianity was invented by the Romans as was Jesus etc.
Another road is those who don't agree with the posit that the Romans created Christianity but still posit that Jesus Christ was a made-up character, such as the works of Dr Richard Carrier. Professor Robert Price is also another interesting road or Professor Bart D Ehrman. Most of these individuals have spent most on their lives in the study of theology and religion. Most were believers and some even held religious ministerial posts. Now they are amongst the strongest voices against organised religion.
These people are experts in theology as they now reject it.
Haven't read those guys, no, but I'm open to the hypothesis that there was no Jesus, or no particular Jesus (maybe a type of prophet/rebel who was conglomerated and/or decorated or outright fabricated.)
To me the main thing is the way the story lives on. Hamlet is 'fake' and Socrates is 'real,' but they both exist for me as talking 'ghosts' in books, just like Jesus...who almost certainly had words put in his avatar's mouth, if there was an original in the first place.
I've been an atheist for about 20 years, so I feel pretty neutral on this issue. Maybe there was such a guy. Maybe not. Some of the words in the book are nice. Others not. I consider myself influenced by some Christian ideas, but I guess many of us must be.
Bruno Bauer is one of the people like this that interests me. He was a left Hegelian, and he was part of the attempt to transform Christianity into something modern and rational. David Strauss has some great passages too.
Dark energy is posited as a reason for why the expansion is accelerating not as a reason for the initial singularity starting to inflate and then expand. Dark energy may or may not exist. You don't need a god as the origin of the singularity. The singularity may be the result of interacting branes creating a multiverse or it may be a result of a Universe bounce between time epochs. These are just scientific posits but for me, any of them are more likely than your god posit. A god who only chatted to you when you were in one of its monasteries and cut you off afterward. You choose to accept that as reality? and you dismiss all the posits of Cosmologists as they muse about possible alternatives to the god posit and you are convinced that you occupy the intellectual high ground? Really?
Vlad Putin is a monster, his opponent, the Left, an even bigger monster. And I do accept the magic bullet theory. I do respect those that can doubt these things though, an ability I admittedly don't have..
No problem. I'm embarrassed by your stupidity
— Gregory A
Your stupidity is (an effect) brought on by a zealous nature intellectual arrogance allows.
There is no escape for atheism. The 'this is what we've been waiting for' thing that they will try and lay on us if science suggests God is a possibility, will not work. That escape is covered. Naturailsm is not a non-belief in God, but is a 'belief' in Nature, a naturally occurring universe. Atheism, as the term suggests, says nothing about Nature. Miracles? You must be talking about religion? What does that have to do with theism really?
— Gregory A
In all fairness what would we do with these 3 Dawkins books : The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene & The God Delusion if evidence of a god were shown. How does he get away with 'The Magic of Reality' anyhow.
I don't think you are mentally ill Joe, just a little confused about 'what it's all about.'
Spend a couple of weeks back with the monks. Your God might re-establish a commlink with you and help calm you. I think you over-estimate @EugeneW's personal interest in you or anyone else on TPF. I am sure REAL internet trolls can pick much more interesting targets than you Joe. They tend to go for people who are currently in the public eye.
You got a laugh out of me with that twist. Well done, sir.
That's not how the word is used by most. If you make up your own usages, you'll likely be misunderstood, especially if you are demonizing/misrepresenting folks. Here's what I got from googling 'atheist,' just to be sure of myself before pointing it out.
a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.
Sounds like a pretty well-balanced approach to me, although I think the influences are from more ancient storytelling as all the Christian stories are rehashed from earlier ones.
I don't know those guys but they sound interesting. So much I would like to read, Just not enough time.
Come on you wonderful science geeks, get that transhuman stuff moving a lot faster. We need a lot more than this max of around 100 years to work stuff out properly!!
Yes indeed. I'd like 1000 years, maybe a million. I want to know some languages, all of them maybe. Oh the list goes on and on. Don't get me started.
I'll just drop one link, 'cause it's well written and suggests what some might call an atheistic mysticism, though it's not mysticism in my book but just insight into language in the jargon of its time. I pretty much agree with Feuerbach as presented below, though the last line pushes it.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/
A sample, which others on this thread might weave into their thoughts on God even.
Even though physics shows that such a bullet path is impossible, hence the use of the word magic?
Quoting Gregory A
Now there's a good example of the boiling pot calling out the frothing kettle!
Quoting Gregory A
Dawkins does not believe in magic! But yeah, he is allowed to reference the word, just like you reference words like 'science'.
What will we do with the bible, the quran, the torah etc if the god posit is proved false?
God would seem to have the easier route. Science may never be able to disprove god, yet all god has to do is appear and submit itself to scientific scrutiny. Should be easy for an it that manifests all the omnis.
:naughty:
Does the scientific discovery of dark energy logically reveal an omnipotent power at work?
And so far I received a confused and sloppy hypothetical response that included dark energy may not exist and avoided the actual question about whether or not the power behind it could be logically an omnipotent power.
Why are you silly uneducated people on a philosophy forum when all you do is pull shit out of your asses and plagiarize the Internet?
Look up the word “philosophy”.
It isn’t defined as “love of bullshit”.
Yours is an appeal to popular usage and if accepted why then the title of this thread 'The Invalidity of Atheism'. Why not let Google decide everything for us. We are here to present our own interpretation of what motivates the relevant groups. To me, for example, atheism is an element of the Left. Does Google agree. I don't think so. But they do at the same time take the 'Christ' out of their doodle leading up to and including Dec.25 their own atheism on display, and a show of solidarity with the Left.
A fairly accurate description of love in my opinion.
I didn't want to waste space by quoting the whole article.
I wish the turn of phrase used by these people was a little less 'flowery' and more 'layperson' friendly.
Or perhaps I am just making excuses for my own limited comprehension of such wording.
Perhaps you can assist me @III After reading some of this, I thought it supported a panpsychist position, then I thought it was more duelist, and finally, I thought it may actually be in support of naturalism.
Is my thinking anywhere near what it is actually saying?
I had a look at the link you offered, I will add it to my ever-growing 'things I should read' list.
No!
Quoting Joe Mello
:rofl: Stay Mello Joe. Your Mr Angry tattoo shows when your shirt sleeve rides up as you throw your old arms in the air in frustration. It's an ugly, ungodly tattoo that might earn you a place in Satan's playpen.
As gods enforcer, he also watches you and can set up a commlink. Your lucky that it doesn't exist either.
Your comments about the 'political left' remind me of the world view of Maggie Thatcher.
You, like her, do a great service for 'lefties' like me. You create more of us than my best efforts ever could.
Oh, so we get to make up our own meanings ? My girl soak inky. I appreciate this weeps mail over potty. A roach beep some witch? A go sinner claws it ?
For get a boot out ! Its shelf help noses same stew me. Spore me your plops and puns and your both dump flu of has it. Go brick to pet. (But hairy back !)
This sounds like Tucker talk, bought to your buy these sponsors, the rich that prey the poor against the poor with their bunk which deserves a snore. The real left is or could be the solidarity of folks that work for a living. The talking heads, actually rich and famous and privileged, are 'anti-elitist' because they gripe about Mexicans and Starbucks cups and pronouns and pledge the legions and skull prayer and a portion and sport the troops. Shrill whiny petty indignation, a mirror image of the participation trophy snowflake Left they obsess over. That's the Coyote's cardboard windmill. A man'll course his own shadow for a traitor, don't you know? Show me your bogey and I'll show you what you tamp down to fretlessly strut across this great strange of fools.
I dig the humor, though I'm 25 years deep into my first real relationship. We evolved together, paid some serious dues, and now it's a fairly smooth ride.
Quoting universeness
He was the 'you are what you eat' materialist guy, so beneath all the flowers is very much the soil of mortal flesh. When we think though, we participate in an inherited culture which is basically the operating system of our flesh. Before I can be a fascinating individual, I have to learn how to talk (welcome to the jingle!), and if I want to be 'logical' or 'rational' then I have to go 'where the thoughts lead me' and be 'coherent' and 'consistent.' The norm of rationality is understood to be universally binding. For instance, I don't get to make up a definition for 'atheist.' I can do that, but then I'm drifting away from the norm of individual-independent knowledge. To participate in philosophy is (ideally) to think without bias, to think 'from' or 'as' the point-at-infinity 'universal mind.' In my opinion, there's no need at all for the supernatural in this. It's just that language is so near us that we tend to ignore how freaky it is (ontically near is ontologically far), along with the implications of simple concepts like 'rational' and 'universal' and 'objective.' Wittgenstein's 'form of life' is (as I see it) basically the same thing. 'Spirit' is the fancy version for philosophers who were transforming a (pessimistic) Christian theology into an optimistic humanism, hoping no one who'd get mad would notice.
Grandchild: Can you tell me what you think dark energy is? Maybe we should start by doing some research. What are the sources of your information?
Grampa Joe: Don't be a smart aleck. The logical answer is God, goddamnit! Now go to sleep.
Mother: Dad you're frightening him.
Grampa Joe: Good! It will keep him off the damn internet.
Mother: So dad, where do you get your information on dark matter?
Grampa Joe: I don't need no damn information. The answer is God, goddamnit! Now go to sleep.
Mother: I don't think I can.
Well played.
No Crazy Mello Joe. It logically reveals that there is a higher dimensional space, a non-simply connected space, consisting of two separated sub-spaces, connected by an ultra thin wormhole, the central source singularity. The gods created it, together with love-and-hate-loaded particles, to let two universe come into being periodically and eternally. One for each kind of god, a rough distinction into which godkind can be divided. They watch the heavenly theatre eternally now, realizing the sapiens-gods fucked up in their unified efforts to create and develop the so badly needed particles to give them two eternally repeating universes which they can watch contently relaxed. Only those strange foolish lunatic nee gods... They are looking for ways to communicate with us. I got some message recently. You wouldn't believe me! Keep on tuned, for the final revelation! You have been fooling yourself, Crazy Joe Mello!
I've found atheism to be very aesthetically pleasing, just as much as theism
It's you who should be Gregory A...
haha
Quoting Joe Mello
No, sir. :shade:
:lol: :clap:
@lll
@Fooloso4
Astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson, an atheist, disagrees with you three boys, and calls the discovery of Dark Energy the best argument he's seen for the existence of an omnipotent God.
But, hey, you have each other and adolescent emojis for an argument against it.
I said to watch the responses, and you boys have not disappointed.
To an objective rational mind, and not an adolescent giggling mind, an omnipotent power would create an ever-increasing energy, while a finite power would create an ever-diminishing energy.
It's not even a philosophical debate, but a logical deduction.
You boys are on the wrong forum. Try like a video game or television forum. That way you won't keep embarrassing yourselves to actual persons who know how to think upon meanings beyond what makes an adolescent giggle.
Grandpa Joe is a foreman and owner of a painting company, can work twice as fast as any of his workers, does all the dangerous high (60' sometimes) work, and has this little game he plays with people where he offers them $100 if they can guess his age. At Sherwin Williams today, while he was checking out a large order of paint, he grabbed a can of paint from an elderly customer he was talking to and said he would pay for it if he could guess his age. The old guy said, "45". Grandpa Joe replied, "I'll be 70 this year". The old guy then said, "You're lying".
Grandpa Joe enjoys playing this game and has gotten guesses from 40 to about 55, and never in the 60s.
Grandpa Joe is a living Dúnedain Ranger. His grandsons, who have worked on his crew, call him "The Ninja".
Hey, Joe. I'm sorry if I was too rude or taunting. You did sorta ask for it, but I really don't want an ugly vibe. So good luck on your future endeavors! I'll leave you to it.
Beautiful sentence, friend. 'Keep on tuned' indeed.
That those who enjoyed watching people being eaten alive by lions should find the compassion of Christians offensive heresy makes sense.
I'm not religious, but can still say thank God for Christianity.
Isn't he the guy that is all over the internet and youtube? Shouldn't that disqualify him? Are you a closet internet plagiarizer?
Quoting Joe Mello
And yet, he remains an atheist. The best argument but not good enough. How about a citation quoting where you read this so we can read it in context.
Quoting Joe Mello
Good to know if I ever want to discuss house painting. Brush or roller or spray?
Quoting Gregory A
Can't speak for others, but some of us are not afraid to admit we just don't fucking know. Upon a little reflection (though against the grain of attachment), the noisemark 'God' is revealed as a piece of machinery that don't even work, that don't explain shit, but only replaces a complex thing that needs explaining with a yet more complex and inscrutable entity. It's like explaining a knock knock joke with fake vomit. There is no there there, just a smily face drawn on a darkness, a transparently phony attempt to paint a daddy on the blue that we came out of and the black that we go into.
Seems you’re a man and not a boy.
Good luck to you, too.
Tell me more.
Clearly, gramps, you're either too illiterate or too addled with age or both, so here's a very short video of Dr. Tyson spelling out the atheistic context within which he considers the "discovery of Dark Energy" (it's actually a prediction, Joe, that's not yet been observed, or "discovered"):
If dark energy is "the best argument", as you babble, in the context of the statements above, it's certainly not a sound argument ... like your uninformed ramblings.
NB: Btw, Dr. Tyson is neither a philosopher nor a theologian, therefore you citing him but not also his "arguments about god" – notice, at the end of the video clip, Tyson considers his "beliefs irrelevant" to scientific findings (re: "the real world") – has no substance and is nothing more than a pathetic attempt at a fallacious appeal to authority. So ... you ought to take sonething for that flatulence, old man. :smirk:
:lol:
That was as solid a rebuttal as anyone could ask for. Too bad it will be dismissed out of hand.
Made me laugh though.
The level of projection at work in this thread is psychologically remarkable. One guy remarked how important this thread must be to atheists cuz its 18 pages (at the time)…from the person whose making 90% of the posts with two other of gods special children. The disingenuous and dishonest discourse doesnt seem like the way jesus would have done it.
I suspect trolling is as common amongst theists as it is amongst atheists. That is, its hard to imagine they actually believe everything they are saying. My guess is they are angry because they feel insulted by atheists, which in itself is a staggering hypocrisy.
It should worry you that atheism is a product of a particular environment, the same one that gave us communism, and gives us pacifism, feminism and other left-wing ideologies.
To me the right of free speech includes being a member of the KKK, being a Nazi, a devil worshiper, a pedophile, a pacifist, an anarchist, an atheist, even a feminist. Why? Because with due respect to your godlessness, these people might just turn out to be right. There would be few rules that need respecting when it comes to Natural outcomes. We might alternatively be wiped out by nuclear war for example.
I'm here defending a right to free speech while trying to silence others?
'It sounds to me' that you are just turning my argument around to suit. An immature thing to do.
Let me clarify. You've talked as if there's a threat of theists being silenced by some gang that includes Dawkins. I've said that you haven't made a case for what just sounds like paranoia to me. In general you remind me of Tucker Carlson, who I think is a cynical manipulator of his fans. He's just so shrill. He's a bow-tie white boy mega-Karen. Whether he's influenced you or not, you've both got the same 'worm in your brain' from my perspective, except he might just be faking it. As I've said in other words before, beware the all too ordinary madness of an unrealistic boogeyman. Your cholesterol level might be more of a threat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THUFzmmKMPs
It's because I've no trouble understanding what you are saying that you should have reason to worry.
If Richard Dawkins were a non-believer in a god/s we would (mostly) not know who he is. We do know who he is because he's an atheist, someone actively opposed to theism. Yes, he has that right, but be honest about it. Dawkins personal motivations are there, but regardless atheism is an element of the Left by virtue of the fact it represents an attack on patriarchy.
The name sounds familiar, but otherwise, I've never heard of Tucker Carlson. My beliefs are pretty much my own and trace my understanding back to what I see as the foundation for Left and Right, our 'X' and our 'Y' chromosomes.
Despite predicting there will be no males left within 100 years, my real fear is being silenced well before that time. The Left has so far censored no less than the President of the USA, I'm a nobody.
Don't let a comfortable existence lull you into a false sense of security, I'm a theist yet can still foresee terrible outcomes, you, a non-believer should have no excuses.
No kidding? The dude is the loudest voice on the right, last I checked.
Quoting Gregory A
The Selfish Gene is an exciting/good book (you might like it, given your interest in chromesones), and I think he was already famous as a popularizer of evolutionary science and felt that rationality and science needed to be defended. Just as you may feel males need defending. If you read his book, you'll see why males and females automatically stay just about balanced. It's game-theoretical.
Quoting Gregory A
There are plenty of men on the left, plenty of women on the right. A war of the sexes sounds like a fortunately unrealistic nightmare. Some of us are married and/or have great friendships with women (or at least hope to at some point.)
Quoting Gregory A
I'm genuinely concerned that you might be troubled in some way. From my perspective, you are worried about something that's as unlikely as aliens attacking the planet. Please seek help if you are having violent fantasies. Seriously. I know women, lots of 'em, and they aren't scheming against us ! They love us more than we love ourselves sometimes.
Also seems unfortunate that your theism isn't more of a comfort. Personally I've never been tempted to mess with beliefs that seem to be working for people. I'm only critical of others' beliefs on philosophy forums, since that's why we're here, or at least philosophy includes for many people.
:grin: Always glad to hear about long-lasting and in the main, 'beneficial,' and positive human relationships. I have very good friendships but I have always chosen badly when it comes to a female partner. Never been married and no kids (thankfully). I have been engaged twice but both of those long term (well, only around 4 years each actually) turned out bad. So, since I was around my late twenties, I only indulge in sporadic visits to lady land, I tend to run from anything more and the offers have reduced to close to zero as I am now closer to 60.
Quoting lll
I think the majority of people demonstrate such intentions. Good people do it with humility and balance,
Quoting lll
It's a very interesting word, 'bias.' in my opinion it is no less relevant in politics or in science than it is in philosophy. Your sentence is in general, good advice as a MEASURE of the difference between skewed thinking and good thinking. I have my preferred approaches to problem-solving but I will try not to merely 'hate' all that I find 'evil,' from racists to billionaires to evanhellicals to autocrats. It's really easy for me to hate each of them. I try to search for evidence of some good in each person on a case-by-case basis. I feel a strong bias against people I consider to be 'bad,' but I can get past it if they demonstrate an ability to learn how to treat others better. I am a strong advocate of the golden rule as the prime directive, 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'
Quoting lll
A good goal, which I subscribe to. An old description of 'spiritual' is merely to be 'animated' or to move about. Carl Sagan often used the term in this way to pour cold water in its association with 'supernatural' but I think most people today DO still associate the term with the supernatural.
:rofl: :rofl:
That's exactly how that conversation would go down! :rofl:
This reminds me of a short extract from a conversation in a crematorium.
Employee 1: Wow, what a beautiful corpse!
Employee 2: Certainly is!
Employee 1: Guy must have really looked after himself.
Employee 2: Yep, well, do you want to take some final photo's (ha ha) or will we just cremate it?
Employee 1: Yeah, let's get on, lots more to do today!
I hope your personal maintenance efforts award you long long life but nothing you have said above has any relevance AT ALL, to the existence of your god.
When I read your comments above, I saw an image in my head, of the horse from the animated movie of George Orwell's Animal Farm, go figure...
You sound too 'bulky' and too much of a 'heavy lifter' to be 'Ninja like.'
I would have lost the $100 bet as well because I have read your typings about your life viewpoints so I would have guessed your age as much, much younger than 40.
I am amazed that after 70+ years living as a human. Your own (humble?) opinion of yourself and your 'in your head' life achievements have the significance to you and others that you suggest above.
A very poor, small, weak, hungry person working as a cleaner in a big tent which passes as a hospital, on the outskirts of a poor village in a 3rd world country is more significant to the human condition on this planet than you could ever EVER be!
I think this just about sums up your logic.
I am sure we all await more such 'pearls of wisdom' from you.
How about:
I am not religious but thank god for Islam.
I am not religious but thank god for religion.
I am not political but thank providence for Politics.
I am not scientific but thank providence for Science.
I am not a thinker but thank providence for Thinking.
You have a strong imperative towards what I would consider 'humanism.'
You add to my hopes for a better future for all of us by such typings!
Thank you for your kind words!
Pretty solid rule indeed.
Quoting universeness
Yes indeed. Time's change. I like reading old books. It frees my mind from being stuck in today's little vocabulary. I also notice that many (not all) problems that seem new are not new at all.
I often find a lot of your typing to be rather cryptic and you have to toil a little to follow your meaning but that's just down to my own preference for 'plain talk'. I do however fully accept that plain language often lacks the emotive power needed when discussing significant issues or the 'big questions.'
I do glaze over when reading the 'in-house' terminology or turn of phrase associated with subject-specific publishings but I have necessarily done so myself in the past when writing computing science educational materials for use in schools. I also think storytelling would lose its 'heart' if the choice of language was restricted in any way. I suppose I will just have to persevere, regardless of my perceived frustration with the language approach of others.
So, carry on my cryptic friend! Your good heart seems to shine through anyway.
I said he’s an atheist and told you what he said about Dark Energy, in other words, I juxtaposed his atheism alongside his view of Dark Energy as the best argument he has seen for an omnipotent God.
And you gave me a rebuttal by searching for a video that shows me he’s an atheist and doesn’t show me his comment on Dark Energy.
And you gave me talking points attacking religious people.
See, this is what happens when a person is uneducated in higher education and hasn’t taken courses such as Logic and Rhetorical Theory, which I did when getting a Philosophy degree and Graduate degree in Professional Writing.
You had to show me where he didn’t say what I said he said about Dark Energy, and actually said that it wasn’t a good argument for an omnipotent power, not what his poor philosophical mind says about God when equating God with religion and faith. The point I made was that even with his poor philosophical mind he still logically deduced that Dark Energy displays the characteristics of an omnipotent power.
I get it. You sat on the toilet one day reading a book by Dawkins and had an epiphany about God. Good for you, you circumvented getting the proper education for thinking upon God beyond what you heard from religious people, like Neil’s lopsided education in science did to him.
But his education at least gave to him a moment of logical deduction when he thought upon the mystery of our universe expanding at an ever-increasing speed through the power of an even more mysterious Dark Energy.
You think poorly, write poorly, and are simply a face in a crowd of others like you with very big mouths attached to very small minds.
And to you and them, no Google machine was used in the writing of this actual very good rebuttal.
Stop embarrassing yourselves. It’s ugly to watch.
I try to adjust my talk to the conversation, but sometimes I can't help having too much fun. There is a beauty to the simple style a person can find in Hemingway, for example. The Sun Also Rises is great. The Feuerbach stuff can be summed up by saying that 'God' is just the good stuff in us, our thoughts and feelings, and that that is enough. We participate in something bigger than us when we plug in to the rest of the species through thinking and music and art and so on. The great geniuses leave a stain in the 'tribal memory.' I also like the idea of a flame that leaps from melting candle to melting candle. Our bodies are the candles, and the flame ,which we think of as ourselves, is just as much made of all the people who came before. After all, who invented the very language we think in ? It was developed over time, with individuals leaving little 'stains' of their minds to become parts of the minds of those not yet born. To me this helps us feel less alone and less afraid to die. We're not really little ghosts trapped in a box. We are linked through language and feeling. The box is something like an illusion. To me there is nothing supernatural in all of this. It all boils down to thought and feeling. It doesn't big us the big answers. It doesn't save us from death. But it connects us in life.
Quoting universeness
Thanks ! Your good heart is also apparent, my friend.
:wink:
Updated the post, added something I hope you'll like.
I couldn't spot anything marked 'EDIT' in your last few posts but I did 'like' all you have typed in your last few posts. :smile:
Quoting lll
Thanks for your translation, I appreciate your time and effort, spent on my behalf.
I don't agree with crediting that which I am convinced does not exist as the source of any personal good I may be judged by others as possessing or as something I regularly or sporadically demonstrate.
I think he aids the theist posit of associating 'good' with 'god,' and he ignores the many storytelling traditions which also assign such words as evil/jealous/vengeful/angry etc to god(s).
We participate in something bigger than us when we plug in to the rest of the species through thinking and music and art and so on.
For you, what is this 'something bigger,' is sounds like panpsychism to me. I have posted before that I don't utterly reject the posit of some kind of emergent panpsychism but I would need much more evidence of such before I could give more credence to it than 'yeah, well.....but.....'
To me this helps us feel less alone and less afraid to die. We're not really little ghosts trapped in a box. We are linked through language and feeling.
I agree, the term ghost has no significance for me as a 'physicalist,' and I agree that we are not 'trapped in a box' due to any limitation of our existence within the Universe, I do think that our species is currently trapped on this glorious planet but we have the potential to leave the nest. I certainly feel and almost 'know' the 'linkage,' between all of us that you infer.
To me there is nothing supernatural in all of this.
I soooooooo agree, supernatural is nothing more than a theistic plug for a human gap in knowledge as is god.
It really as something as simple as science or literature or music or philosophy. To do these things are to interact with something bigger than the individual. For Feuerbach, there's nothing 'bigger' than the human species. God, for him, was just a projection of the best parts of ourselves (a giant nice daddy with infinite knowledge), and humanism is just us reeling that projection back in and building Heaven on earth.
My metaphor is misleading, I see. The 'ghost' just refers to the popular idea of a solitary consciousness. One philosopher (Ryle) called this 'the ghost in the machine.' The far out version would be : how do you know that you are a singular person? Why are you an 'I' and not a 'we' or a 'this' ? We inherit ways of talking and thinking, and we take them as if they are more than that.
Then your judgement of “spiritual” will include actual research into what it is, rather than a one-sided trip into your own head.
Nice ! We using the ordinary 'magic' of language for that right now. Amazing ability we've evolved biologically, culturally, and technologically (given the help of the screens and wires.)
Good point ! Looking back on the era of the Young Hegelians and before, there's a definite purification of the God concept so that the obviously irrational and offensive stuff is removed. So you have a crude concept moving toward a rational concept toward finally a replacement of God by an awakened humanity who realizes that God was its dream of what it should/could be.
Fair enough.
Quoting lll
Yeah, I just don't subscribe to the association.
I think its a valid approach to try to 'reconstruct' certain cultural terms.
Homosexuals tried it with 'gay.' I think it has had a mixed success but perhaps, overall it was successful.
Black folks attempted it with how the 'n' word is employed amongst themselves. I don't think this has been successful and I think it does them no favours to do that.
I don't think it can be done with a word like Nazi. Although the memory of one attempt (if you could call it such as a 'tongue in cheek') A couple I was friends with in my 20's. They loved humour and always 'wound each other up.' The held great house parties. They had a very angellic looking son and hen he was about 5, his mother taught him to say 'daddy is a nazi,' whenever she prompted him.
She did so during some parties, depending on the form of windup she was getting from her husband.
I and others at the party found this hilarious at the time but those who were new invites offered a more shocked or perplexed look. I still smile about it but I still think it will always be a rejected label.
I think the sooner we reject the god label the better for the progression of our species. We should not give it the association this Feuerbach did, in my humble opinion.
Quoting lll
I note the 'traditional' context within which you use this term but again I consider my literal understanding of 'heaven on Earth,' as an inaccurate and undesirable goal for the human race. Humans cannot exist without comparators, the hungrier we are the more we enjoy eating. To a limit of course, those close to death due to hunger are incapable of displaying pleasure when they are given some food. If heaven is a place of no pain/stress/suffering/want then it would soon become a hell for humans.
It would be like having no more questions to ask. What would our purpose be then?
Hawking, Sagan & Gould all had high profiles too, but (likewise) for reasons that appeal to the public, not because of their contributions to science as great as those were.
The title 'The Selfish Gene' (although the book is genuine science I'm sure) is so atheistic as to put me off. If it's not obvious Dawkings is taking a shot at theism as he does with all titles of his books that I'm aware of. Otherwise, I have no real interest in chromosomes or genes as they play no part in my reasonings. The point had been, (and I should apologize for not elaborating on that) that my understandings I trace back that far. I don't see anyone else doing the same (I don't dare to look as I've said). That said I'm sure there are quite a few that see things in some sort of similar way (no one else here in the institute where I'm held does though).
And, no problem with the biological balances. But the socio-political imbalance we see symbolized as 'XXX - Y' tells us that 75% of the population will eventually be Left, 25% Right.
I see as the (symbolic) foundation for Left and Right, our 'X' and our 'Y' chromosomes.
— Gregory A
Never heard of the "battle of the sexes"? It's been promoted for years by the media.
Don't let a comfortable existence lull you into a false sense of security, I'm a theist yet can still foresee terrible outcomes, you, a non-believer should have no excuses.
— Gregory A
Even if there were aliens they would hardly attack our planet. Between them and us would be infinite reasons not to. That is the amount of resources out there would guarantee them having no reasons to be interested in us. I mean the universe could hardly be so crowded. The elimination of all males on the other hand is inevitable, only a small chance of averting this as an outcome.
Consider, if by chance I'm right, and others like me are right, then what chance is there?
There's an element of concern masking your ad-hom, sure. But still when a non-believer tries to reassure a theist everything will turn out ok everybody should start sh*tting themselves I would have thought.
Quoting lll
Yeah, 'ghosts in the machine' became a song title, movie title as well I think. It's a good emotive phrase when I remove my 'literalist' hat.
I can only answer the personal existence question with my personal view. I think therefore I am is enough for me and I reject solipsism as nonsense.
All the curent evanhellical ba****** use this exact subterfuge to convince duped theists to contribute many millions to their personal bank accounts.
I think this will only grow in the future possibly even exponentially, but do you think there is anything in this that speaks for the posit of an emerging panpsychism?
He himself reports his personal conflict (before, during, and after the date of first publish) regarding his choice of title for this book and if you watch his interviews you will see that overall, he thinks his choice was a bad one but he is (no surprise) nonetheless happy regarding the success of the book.
Dear uncle Crazy Joe Mello!
I'm sorry to see you have your periodic episode. Last week godkind finally was able to communicate a message to mankind, by means of a dream I had which will be revealed before to long. Let me tell you: dark energy is just a necessary means they invented after a depressing global event in the heavens. It's just an ingredient invented, not to express their omnipotence but to bring relief for the god beings. I saw the mechanism leading to the accelerated expansion of the universe they created to ease themselves.
They added, especially for you, a short message. They are aware of your awareness of heaven. But you are fooling yourself. They don't like the image you mirror and show mankind. They asked me, because they care about you, to help you and give you some support in the difficult times you experience during your episodes. So, uncle Joe, consider the gods on your side and try not to run too high. My thoughts are with you and the gods care about you! Say hi to dr. Piller and to that nice nurse!
All the best, little EugeneW
I think Dawkins himself actually suggested that this title would have been better. Do you get that title from watching one of his interviews?
1. God is a necessary precondition for logic and morality (because these are immaterial, yet real universals).
2. People depend upon logic and morality, showing that they depend upon the universal, immaterial, and abstract realities which could not exist in a materialist universe but presupposes (presumes) the existence of an immaterial and absolute God.
3. Therefore, God exists. If He didn't, we could not rely upon logic, reason, morality, and other absolute universals (which are required and assumed to live in this universe, let alone to debate), and could not exist in a materialist universe where there are no absolute standards or an absolute Lawgiver.
St. Thomas Aquinas put emphasis on the transcendentals, the properties that make up reality. Although there are more he focused on three in particular: truth, goodness, and beauty. I believe that these three point to the existence of God but also points to man being a spiritual creature; we have the capacity to know the truth, we have the ability to do the good, and we can know what is intrinsically beautiful. In my opinion this triad of transcendentals points to why I personally believe Christianity is true. Other religions carry truth and goodness but beauty is absent and by this I do not mean religions are not aesthetically pleasing. Buddhist prayers are beautiful as well as the Islamic call to prayer and Jewish temple services. When I say they lack beauty I mean that they lack it as a property of reality, of being. The doctrine of the Incarnation, when God via his kenosis (self-emptying) becomes man in the person of Christ, shows us a God that truly experiences the human condition. Therefore, the resurrection of Christ also points to what is truly beautiful. This, of course, is just my opinion and is not meant to insult.
This is an example of your ability to exclaim wonder and credit for the workings of naturalism. Are you sure such thoughts cannot sustain your humanism? Are you sure you definitely need external gods as the (for me rather boring) source?
I far prefer the profound mystery of not knowing and really not needing to know the absolute truth regarding the source/origin of our Universe. I can live FULLY and HAPPILY without a 'god crutch'.
No. I read the book and when he said that organisms are vessels to secure the procreation of genes (or memes) I just thought, why aren't genes just in our service instead of we in theirs? Altruistic, that is.
You have mentioned this several times, as if it confers a kind of authority. What is your degree in philosophy? An AA or BA or equivalent. Surely if it was a higher degree you would have said so. Instead you have graduate degree in professional writing.
You should know that there are some here who have a Ph.D. or equivalent in philosophy, but we are confident enough in our education to rely on the strength of our arguments rather than our degree status. With a BA you have only begun to scratch the surface.
I agree with the inherent ontological and ethical necessity of man to have an action such as christ did. I don't even mean politically in that we needed that to be where we are today. Just looking at Socrates who showed an ethically important action, we have the foundation for western philosophy (which was supplanted by christianity during Rome and then christianity became the basis of early modern philosophy).
That being said, I feel the transcendental argument fails due to its circularity. I'm more an advocate of the ontological argument (which Plato would have enjoyed) and the cosmological argument (which would point to Aristotle's prime mover) slightly less. I don't see the benefit or historical relevance for the transcendental argument. If you already believe then sure it makes sense even with less explanatory power.
I'm reminded of a hegelian who was asked to formalize their position and he said "a", which is formal and still just an assertion.
Well, realizing that the universe is the same as heaven breaths the live into it, about which Hawking asked. The fire in the equations. The gods invented two basic particles. As I already thought. The two massless Weyl particles and 7 gauge fields between them. And the space to live in. They brought it into existence after they got bored with eternally making love and hate and now they lay back watching all creatures in the universe (one for every god) playing the game they used to.
Only those damned homosapiens-gods gave some trouble...
I agree and I think this was a poorly judged and fear-based reaction to the 'divine right of kings or/and aristocracy' that the few had manipulated from religions historically. People had suffered so much and religion was weaponised against them. This was not the fault of the god posit but was the fault of the nefarious ba****** that manipulated it.
I would personally prefer dialogue with you on this point rather than your further reasoning that leads you to assert god exists, at least for now.
I think you summarise the theist/atheist debate quite well.
It's currently at panto stage really.
God exists?
Theist: Oh yes it does!
Atheist: Nah! seriously unlikely that it does!
Ok, so I altered the traditional panto style exchange, just a little!
Uncle Joe! Don't stain your philosophy degree! I don't show off with my physics degree uncle! Why doing it with yours,? By the way, exactly because I actually know something about physics, your adagio of comparing dark energy with omnipotence is nonsense. It's no proof of god. It's just a clever stuff the created. Expansion of 3d into 4d ,(approximations, but useful)
Well, I am almost certain that 'The altruistic gene' was one of the titles he thought might have been a better choice.
The cover wouldn't match the content then.
If there were no structure to the “materialist universe,” whatever that’s supposed to mean, nothing would be possible and there could only be chaos (though chaos would have no meaning).
Quoting Dermot Griffin
This seems to only mean that you experience beauty exclusively in your own religion. Have you considered that the same might be true for others in their religious experience?
Keep the faith man! Dawkins would have found a way!
I don't think so. He obediently sticks to the dogma...
When the meaning given by universal creatures was all the meaning around, the meaning would be... eeeh... meaningless! If only matter with a non-material element in it existed, what would be the meaning of life?
I don't think gods and their story offer a moral compass, or any of that kind of BS. But they offer the answer to why all is there. Science can't explain. Be it Dawkins or Hawking.
Stealing/plagerising William Cowper (1773) (keeps old Joe Mello happy):
Dawkins works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
Also stealing from Omar Khyyam:
Dawkins moving finger writes and having writ, moves on.
Or just me, as a fan:
Good job, well done Mr Dawkins, keep doing what you do best.
Just my opinion @EugeneW sorry if it offends.
Why not TO LIVE? is that not enough?
Yes. The meaning of life is life itself. But then Dawkins is wrong. We don't procreate genes and memes cause they order to, as he implies, but just because to live. But as a physicist I wanna know the reason, the cause of life.
"From the outside, you can't see what's in a black hole..."
No, Dawkins explains the mechanism of life, just as Darwin and many others did.
Living life is what humans can do, due to the mechanisms which allow it or bring it into existence/conscience/awareness.
Dawkins reports no 'reasons' for the establishment of the mechanisms but he himself fervently embraces the wonder of living. He regularly asks 'are the wonders of the Universe not good enough, why do you need god?' He is trying to get people to combat their very strong instinct towards calming their primal fears with pleads for protection from nonexistent supernaturals. especially when such deals normally involve compliance with nefarious religious doctrines, totally invented by humans based on ancient storytelling. The main purpose of such religion is to make the majority serve and maintain an elite few and to f****** fight and die for them when they command us to!
I share and understand your wish to know more about 'the reason, the cause.' So let's keep looking. Science is our best way forward. Anything told you in a dream was just an exchange between YOUR Rcomplex, YOUR limbic system and YOUR cerebral cortex!
Absolutely no external influence was involved unless you ate and drank too soon before sleep. In which case your dream may have had more to do with soup than spirit, unless the spirit was a single malt!
You are clever, you don't need stupid gods.
I bet if you denied their existence for the next second, minute, hour, day, month, year etc
Your life would not change one iota! Especially if you smash any rising fears that manifest by doing so.
Just like a recovering junkie, for some, going through religious cold turkey can be tough but worth it in the end.
:rofl: sorry, I am just laughing as I know your immediate instinct will instruct you to employ the usual reversal on my last comment. :halo: I will save you time so you can just copy & paste:
Just like a recovering junkie, for some, coming back to religion by going through atheistic cold turkey can be tough but worth it in the end.
Exactly! We could go on ages like this. Why didn't he just call his book: "Genes and memes, why we should thank the gods"...?
Yeah but there is the residual hope that I may not get a light beam through your theistic fog but I may get a wee shard of light through the theistic fog of any reader, clouded by such.
Don't you F****** dare EugeneW, get your hands off that keyboard until you take that 'reversal' hat off!
:rofl: :lol: :rofl:
Then I take the hat inside out first! Through the atheist mist, it's difficult for the gods to reach us. They try and try and try... Attending us that also the human gods were involved in creation. They played their part in heaven but their endless mind squiblings didn't any good for their collective creation.... Take that ursser!
From the outside, I don't know what a particular human thinks, feels, wants etc.
They need to tell me and if they don't then I never will never know, unless someone else knows and they tell me.
Your god(s) are totally silent and are unable to manifest, We only have made up ancient stories and the promise of those who interpret their own dreams. Just not good enough!
This is just wordplay, fun, but just prose and rather disjointed.
It's what happened in heaven. I was informed in a dream and by forum member Tom Storm, who the gods used to inform me.
ooooookkkkkaaaaayyyyyy! Sorry, I can't do any better :halo:
Tòm Storm. His name speaks... The disjoint nature of the prose I use is disjoint because the situation in heaven was rather disjoint...
Quoting universeness
Don't be sorry universeness! Call me mental or disjoint. But isn't the scientific approach, which is an honorable one, using prose also? And rather disjoint too?
A theist who glorifies himself and creates a god in his own image: "God is whatever I say God is".
A self-styled "theist" who doesn't care a straw about God.
There is not one god. There are as many gods as there were, are, and will be creatures in the universe.
Thus such "theists" themselves render God irrelevant.
Well, without them we wouldn't exist. So they give meaning to all life. Their reasons for creating us were selfish but understandable.
:rofl: :lol: :rofl:
How you say that in Scottish?
The point has been made before. If there is a God (God Hypothesis) then those things put forward to challenge 'God' will fail out of necessity. The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Lizard Men etc. are fails. Humanism, a 'faith' constructed by atheism to counter religion, fails too. Humanity, the thing responsible for global warming and offering an antidote in the form of nuclear winter should be trusted?
Blah blah blah...
Just look at what you write...
Quantum fluctuations are determined processes.
You're not stupid. It's that arrogance has caused you to not think over your own position properly.
In all fairness what would we do with these 3 Dawkins books: The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene & The God Delusion if evidence of a god were shown. How does he get away with 'The Magic of Reality' anyhow
— Gregory A
Of course he doesn't believe in magic. The point was and should be obvious is that the title is a mistake either way, a blunder on his part. He is avoiding the use of 'miracle' and is trying to indoctrinate children at the same time. If I were an atheist and had written the same book I would still use 'miracle ' despite its theistic overtones. Not using it as though no one would notice is plain stupid.
And, how could God submit 'himself' to scientific scrutiny and then still be a god. A god that submits to anything is not a god. If we knew there was a god what would that do for our freewill.
The Bibles represent belief they are not an attack on anything. Even if it turned out we are subject to a Natural universe where everything is decided by chance, these books would still have value.
He litterally writes that he was overwhelmed by the realization (which he calls an absolute truth) that organisms are machines made and ordered by genes with the purposes of procreating them, pass them on. Or memes, in the case of humans. Now what kind of meme is that? Can't he do better? The meaning, purpose of life is to pass on life. It's circular and devaluating. If you see people as machines programmed by selfish genes, what has gone wrong in your life?
Besides Darwinian evolution, from which the central dogma in biology evolved, there is Lamarckian evolution. The organism being central and not genetics or Mendelian operations.
I think we have some common ground between Oxford English and Glaswegian Dialect when it comes to oooookkkkkkaaaayyyyy! Perhaps the only difference would be how many plums you have in your mouth at the time you stretch out 'ok.'. I don't mean to mock you with any malice aforethought EugeneW. I mean that in earnest. As an atheist, I am 100% skeptical when anyone claims direct revelation from god, while awake or in a dream, and I assume that if they are serious, then something else is going on.
But these are the tactics used very often to declare opposing positions as something else going on (if taken seriously). You can say the same of Dawkins' "realization" that we are gene-driven machines...
Just look at the last day active threads. 13 of them are about gods...
Are you not really just saying here, that in your opinion, we are all gods?
There is a song by a great Canadian band called Arcade Fire, its called Wake Up.
Two Lines from the song are:
We’re just a million little gods causin' rainstorms, turnin’ every good thing to rust.
I guess we’ll just have to adjust.
Its one of my favourite songs, here it is:
Maybe this is where your gods truly exist, only in the lyrics of some good songs.
Yes, humans create the problems, humans can create the solutions, we don't need judgment or redemption from a fictitious character that we also created. God is like global warming, a problem human's created, atheism is a possible solution to that particular problem.
Great song! Look at the arm of the drowning. Reaching for the candle. Longing to wake up from the bad dream.
A powerful image!
No problem at all, I just have a problem with the theistic lazy, easy, and rather simplistic solution of a
supernatural superhero labeled god. I think to achieve the 'more' you are talking about we need to at least have the ability to leave our little pale blue dot nest and learn how to exist outside of it,
We are still at the infantile stage of territorial wars Mike! We are still impressed by celebrity! Most of our species are more interested in sports, immediate self-gratification and sex rather than global politics.
I do not reject sports or sex, they just need to be prioritised properly.
From the perspective of understanding the true origins of the Universe, we have hardly began!
Dont burden us with 'quick fix', fake solutions such as god.
So how did it manage to stop and change direction in mid air?
Quoting Gregory A
Well, I appreciated your attempt to reduce your level of provocation.
Quoting Gregory A
You have conflicting standards Gregory A. Religions have been doing this for the whole of our past 10000 years of tears and you try to lay this accusation at Dawkins door! Shame on you. That is just outrageous, especially when he states at almost every opportunity that one of the most pernicious acts of religion is how they manipulate and terrify children. He is absolutely correct and you are wrong with equal intensity.
Quoting Gregory A
Oh come on Gregory A, you forget your own claims, you claim it is omnipotent, it can do anything it chooses to, according to you. Your first sentence above completely contradicts the previous claims you have made about what omnipotence means. Your incoherence is on display!
Quoting Gregory A
Yes, as historical fables which were once believed by some to be the literal word of a (by then) debunked creator. As a TV series, the bible would be a bigger hit than Game Of Thrones, as the bible has much more sex, mindless violence, supernatural content and artistic license.
Anyway, to get right to the point, yep, atheism is an argument and ergo, can be valid/invalid unlike theism which isn't an argument and so is neither valid nor invalid. Theism is, as Wolfgang Pauli put it, not even [s]wrong[/s] invalid!
:grin:
I don't see your issues here. You quote the word 'machines,' which have mechanisms, which is what I typed, no reasons, just natural mechanisms. Dawkins does not talk about genes 'procreating.' I listen to his audiobook versions from time to time, they are free on YouTube. He talks about gene replication not procreation. You inserted the imagery of that word for your own purposes. You have to play fair EugeneW!
Meme just means fast replication. You use the term 'Passing on life,' to deliberately invoke an emotional response in others. You do this as an attempt to subtract from Dawkins's argument that there is no reason behind the EMERGENCE of life. He does not deny the emotional capacity of lifeforms such as humans, he celebrates it. You are using stealth to accuse him of things he is not guilty of. Play fair!
A human is more than the sum of its mechanisms due to the fact that consciousness demonstrates other aspects such as emotional ability.
So we each layout or claims EugeneW and let the readers of such be our arbiters!
Yes. But how do they replicate? By procreation. Unless procreation means something different than I think
On the contrary. The reason, according to our friend, about the emergence of life is the selfish gene gene wanting to replicate. Likewise for human life and memes. I don't agree with this. Life just used genes and memes to its advantage. This goes against the central dogma (!). Information is supposed to flow in one direction, which hasn't been proven but taken as dogma, to protect the gene based view on evolution.
Pauli's exclusion principle states that an atom cannot have the same set of quantum numbers in its electronic configuration. It has scientific rigor, why do you conflate it with your subjective opinion about whether or not the atheist or theist posits can be considered beliefs or arguments?
You have demonstrated many times in your postings that you have impressive analytical abilities but you also allow that ability to be fogged by taking the direction of exchange down wasteful blind alleys at times. This is just my opinion of course. You like to wear a coat of many colours Agent Smith.
I prefer you on 'straight up' mode. Not that I ever want to dent your sense of humour. Humour remains vital to all.
Yes. But Dawkins-based evolutiin tries to explain them all in that context of replicating genes. There undeniably is evolution. But his interpretation is rather confused and disjoint.
Procreation can be taken as 'producing offspring' or 'reproducing,' this is not the same as replication.
Would your clone be your offspring?, I think not!
You are trying to invoke the image of humans procreating, with god(s) procreating and conflate that to have an association with the natural mechanisms Dawkins writes about in the selfish gene.
You are trying to use this conflation as some kind of contrived evidence for the existence of god(s).
In my opinion EugeneW and with all due respect, the hypothetical paper you write such suggestions on is wet through and soggy and won't hold the words you want to write on it.
What's the argument involved in atheism? Please argue with me dear! :lol:
The selfish genes are the genes that won through, within the rules of natural selection. To me, 'selfish' just points to the idea that our genes don't care about the fact that the genes of the neanderthals (for example) didn't take the top spot, that's all. It does not suggest our genes made a conscious decision to replicate and prevented any other competing genes from doing so. There is no suggestion that they have any such inherent cognitive ability (that would be panpsychist!). Replication of DNA/RNA happens because it can!
Stephen my man, gods don't procreate. They are eternal beings. They created the universe(ness) to watch us playing the game of life. The view that we make love to replicate genes (though this obviously happens) is a deceptive one. But it's precisely the view our friend want to impart on the world.
Can genes win?
That's an assumption as silly as the gods...
Yes but not the resulting phenomena of human consciousness!
Those answers are still being sought.
Dawkins speaks towards how the brain formed genetically but he speaks little about its functionality and its demonstrated or potential ability.
So human genes stand on the top? Why?
Quoting universeness
Consciousness is necessary for life. It's present in all forms of life. The gods put this mystic ingredient even in elementary matter fields, with corresponding gauge fields to express it. An explanation in scientific terms will be a vacuous attempt as it misses the necessary ingredient.
Many ancient writings would disagree. Zeus was forever shapeshifting to seduce mortal and immortal females. You have made many somewhat inappropriate suggestions of gods producing, shall we say 'the seeds of life'
Quoting EugeneW
Now you are off again wearing your 'entertainer' hat. which is fine, but there remains nothing in your words that provide any evidence of the god posit.
Become dominant or the most common if you don't like 'win.'
I already told you, as did Darwin, natural selection.
That's exactly how it can't be explained. Genes are just an aid for organisms. Once there were proteins only. Then ribosomes were formed to make new proteins with, in combination with DNA. The proteins (chicken) came before DNA. The chicken came before the egg, in this case.
Genes don't dominate.
Let's get there first. The scientific explanation will come but I doubt it will happen in our lifetime.
But there also viruses.
So your happy with 'most common' then!
So?
The scientific explanation never comes. Like I said, it misses the key ingredient.
Why don't they stand on top?
Most common?
I hope you appreciate EugeneW that we are doing ourselves no favours here, in the minds of any readers of our current exchange! It has quickly became laboured and rather pointless. I can hear other members shout 'will you two just......' I think we should end it for the sake of their tolerance levels.
For the sake of members? What favour do they need?
Ok, thanks for the exchange EugeneW. :smile:
Ran out of ammunition? I hear that all the time. "Im off for a walk" "Got things to do", "Good day", and now "for the sake of the members we should stop the conversation". Sorry universeness. A weak excuse!
:rofl: I am immune to such bait EugeneW.
You consider it bait? You think I'm out to getya? :lol:
Not at all, you misunderstand. I am just being considerate of others. When Impasse has been reached, the exchange becomes fruitless. Face to face, over some beers, we could debate until one or both of us passed out from the beer. But on a public discussion website, I like to try my best to consider other readers, I can be completely blinkered and self-indulgent but I try to stop being so when I realise that's the direction of play.
Why you think impasse has been reached? We only warmed up a bit...
I don't think you've understood the point of my post. I maybe stuck in a blind alley, but you're off on a tangent. Wanna leave the solar system? Be my guest. Send us pictures! :smile:
They would be delighted to see us both pass out at the same time! :lol:
There are many games you can play against yourself. Look for a solitaire version of atheism vs. theism.
Because You had reduced the exchange to:
Quoting EugeneW
Quoting EugeneW
Quoting EugeneW
Quoting EugeneW
Well between your blind alley's and my tangents and trips outside of the solar system, it's unlikely we will ever find ourselves on common ground. Hey ho, such is life.
:lol:
I wouldn't blame them!
A blind alley and a trip outside to the universe? But that's exactly what this thread is about. Blind watchmakers and/or gods.
Im still working out the story. Looking for fine English without translation machines. These things suck for poetic prose! The great story will be revealed on this very forum! Consider yourself lucky to life witness the event of the new millenium. Already now! The future will never be the same again!
God playing hide and seek with himself? :lol:
I would never forgive them! :lol:
Eh? Atheirsm is the view that there are no gods. What has it got to do with free speech? It's nothing to do with politics, it's not a political movement or anything of the sort.
When you say 'invalid' what I think you mean is 'false'. Atheism is not an argument but an assertion/proposition about the way things are. Only arguments can be valid or invalid. Beliefs, assertions etc, can be true or false.
That's what Dawkins has reduced it to! Genes variating in order to arrive at new proteins to give them a better chance to replicate. Which is no more than an unproven, god-like dogma in biology. Even called the central dogma of molecular biology... How close to religion can you get?
Dawkins might have considered other titles but he didn't actually gave it another title. He might not mean litterally that genes are selfish, but he called them that. What you think people think if they hear about selfish genes? He employed sleazy tactics in "enriching" the world with his reductionist bs. He's a wolf in sheep clothes, talking high English, while being contemptuous towards religion, which in his eyes is just a collection of memes ordering us to propagate them to survive, to cope with life, so without any reality value. That thought is a meme too. A meme he uses in order to wipe religion from the table because he fears religion as he cant explain it, so he rationalizes it...
But you anthropomorphise what the genes demonstrate as part of their natural functionality and you arrive at the will of the god(s). Its YOUR theistic conflations that try to nudge towards the god posit not anything suggested by Dawkins.
Quoting EugeneW
He would agree with you that, in hindsight, he could have chosen a 'wiser' title for the book but I think you are over-stretching the significance of this shortfall.
Quoting EugeneW
This line of insult is beneath you EugeneW. It's open to easy returns such as 'The majority of religious preachers are wolves in sheep's clothing.' It's pointless panto talk.
Let's drop the discussion of the fabulous Richard Dawkins. I'm a big fan. you are not, who cares?
Let's talk about why YOU need the god posit. Why do you give it more credit than that of a lazy, boring, unlikely fable? Try to give me a response without engaging your entertainment mode on or your poetic prose mode or your storytelling mode. You 'hop' from your science mode (your best and most relevant mode), in my opinion, to your god posit in a surreal jump into a fantasy fog of non-thinking.
You throw away your empiricism and naturalism and replace it with woo woo!
Why do you need the woo woo?
That's more like it, Scotsman! It's not me anthropomorphizing, it's Dawkins. He calls them selfish. All organisms use genes. The first protein life evolved better means by ribosomes. All different organisms did it their wag, jn mutual stimulation. The nudge to the gods is made to breathe the fire of love and hate into the matter. Matter alone can't explain. When you have a cosmological eternal model, one cannot do other than conclude intelligences created it. The gods were bored. Eternally playing the love game was simply too much. They were tired. So they created the universe. It looks like heaven! Now they watch us, laid back on the heavenly desserts... That realization gives true meaning. We're just acting like the gods. But we die. And get born again. In every new universe renewed. To please the gods with our plays, be it viral or humanoid... Ooookaaaay! :lol:
It's not just the title. I have read the book and it's not very optimistic!
I just don't like the guy. It's not an insult to science or evolution but to his interpretation.Dont you insult theists?
How do you know its woo woo?
I completely agree!
Because it aint such a fable and the scientific fable (how interesting it might be, as we both know!) can't explain the universe, life, and consciousness. It can describe it at most.
An attempt at dramatic prose, not evidence of god.
Quoting EugeneW
I repeat again, give Science the time and resources required to do this, meantime your are just engaging in panto talk.
Quoting EugeneW
Pure subject opinion, the atheist position rejects this so more panto exchange.
Quoting EugeneW
Like imagery from a low budget theatre show, not evidence of god.
Quoting EugeneW
Purely from your entertainment mode.
Quoting EugeneW
I have listened to the audio version, it leaves optimism/pessimism to the judgment of the reader/listener. I found it factual and informative, not optimistic or pessimistic.
Quoting EugeneW
Only on a comment by comment basis. People often assume I like/dislike someone on a personal level. I try not to slam the door shut on people I don't really know. But sure I have emotional prejudices as well, based on reports on someone or stuff I have read about them. I do hate Hitler/Thatcher/Paedo priests.
But I used to be a fan of Lenin until I read a lot more about him. Now I think he was just as bad as Stalin.
Quoting EugeneW
Do you really enjoy the panto exchange 'How do you know it isnt?'
Quoting EugeneW
But you don't, therefore, retract the source comment. You don't further justify your claim that Dawkins is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Why do you think he argues against theism, for fame? for fortune? He was already a successful scientist with good pay. You think he revels in the BS he has to deal with from theists who make a living from their storytelling.?
Quoting EugeneW
Ok, contemplate your gods for me. Tell me about your feelings? Compare them with your feelings for those humans and or animals in your life that are precious to you. Which do you prioritise and why?
Tell me about your personal relationship with YOUR god(s)
If you have no such perceptions of god(s), then your god means very little indeed to your existence.
I'm with Sean! I think if humans created what is badly labeled or proposed as a human goal, 'Paradise on Earth,' If there was no more poverty/war/racism/territoriality/economic or power-based elites etc.
The remaining theists or at least the remaining Christians would claim;:
"But all that good stuff has happened only because humans started to learn the lessons our good god has been trying to teach them since Adam and Eve fell from grace," After that, they would most likely sing some song that repeats the word god, jesus and hallelujah a lot.
Never forget Gregory the religious peddlers that will preach to you about the rewards you will receive AFTER YOU ARE DEAD!
Meantime you must comply with their instruction based on the claim that they are gods messengers.
Commandment number 1, their prime directive is your responsibility to support them, maintain their status/wealth/positions of power and be willing to give up your life in defense of them.
Also, you must donate some of your earnings to them, even if doing so means a poorer life for you and your family. Don't concern yourself with that! Your reward and your family's rewards will happen in f****** heaven!
Likewise are the equations in physics, in the even more dramatically prose of math, said to be a universal language but only spoken by some, under the guise of the scientific clothes worn by the new priests. Let me assure you, the language it not that difficult and it's used to impress and expresses just approximate non-existent features of reality. Math just breaks up, tears apart and divides. It's a silly idea the hominid gods played around with and since they were involved in creation too we're stuck with it. Most gods weren't aware of their wicked deceit during the development of creation.
And I repeat, who knows gods show up in the future.Or have already even....It's quite hard to reach us!
Dumb matter, even eternal, can't bring itself into existence.
The gods showed me.
What is it you don't like about them? Im working on a short story to reveil it all. It can be read before not to long exclusively here on Teeee.. Peeee. .....ah WTF! :lol:
F****** heaven is actually a pretty good description!
I think though that your view of gods is pretty subjective here! With such a god (God!) I can understand turning atheist!
To me, you are just performing a sort of DJ-style mix of some labels used in science and some labels used in religion with the forlorn hope you will get a hit record. The resulting music hurts my ears.
Quoting EugeneW
But you won't reveal any details of YOUR personal relationship with these entities you now claim to have a commlink with. Maybe you are talking to aliens or quantum fluctuations or just your own imaginings.
I suppose I will just have to wait in anticipation of your 'report.'
I personally think YOUR god(s) come from YOUR ID (as in Freud).
Your god playthings and your personal presentation of YOUR god(s) are harmless and at best, for me, 'entertaining,' but I was hoping for a more meaningful exchange with you on the premise of the OP.
I think there is no way to make progress for either of us on this subject.
Of course. The music made by the god-dj sounds awful in the ears of atheists. How else can it be?
Quoting universeness
The only personal relationship I have is that they made me see something in a dream and by the unusual amount of theist threads: in 2 weeks: (a)theism, good and evil, Christianity, why are things they are, omnipotency, creation, time, particles, etcetera. 20 threads related. Havent seen this before. Also you have a part in the game! Science demystifies. Which is good! But not in relation to the meaning of life and the reason for our being.
Ah! Now you try to explain my thoughts about gods in a psychological framework. From my personal constitution or ID. That's the easy way out. I can explain your atheism in the same vain.
What kind of exchange you had in mind? It's about the invalidity of atheism. I gave reasons why it's invalid. You say it's psycho pant babble. It explains our fooking around on Earth. An explanation that sattisfies more than the scientific one. The explanation being that we just fool around like the gods did. And their fooling around was eternal and without ground. They just fooled around and got tired of it. Understandable, after eternity! And now? What are your reasons that it is valid?
I thought I would attempt a more philosophical style response to your point Gregory rather that my two more emotive ones. If I understand teleology correctly. Sean is suggesting that if such a rule existed that children were 'spared suffering,' until they reached adulthood then this would be evidence that god existed as such as rule would be 'fit for purpose' and make sense and be necessary as a rule towards that which is surely innocent of sin. I would imagine that a god would have to also prevent Lions from eating Lambs as well, until they became fully grown sheep. The fact that no such rules exist, suggests god does not exist. Such rules would be teleological (I think) as they function from their purpose rather than being formed due to the causality of the creation of the children or lambs.
A dog is not 'given' sharp teeth 'by' evolution, the teeth themselves were 'caused' by evolution.
Children would have to evolve as impervious to any kind of suffering until they reached adulthood to match the evolution of sharp teeth in a dog.
As, I said, I'm with Sean so yes, he does 'take down' teleological arguments regarding god with such examples.
I see no path forward for us on this topic.
There is no common ground to build on.
You shouldn't take Carroll too seriously. The argument he refers to is well known in philosophy. It's a fallacy, if p then no q. So p is true. Nonsense of the priests. Carroll is prejudiced as he wants to objectify his limited worldview.
Quoting universeness
The whole universe is our common ground.
How does he know the priests would say this. He just imagines that in an attempt to oppose theism while he doesn't even understand the workings of the universe.
What you have isn't theism, it's a type of atheism, and of the worst variety.
Theism proper requires active membership in a monotheistic religion. Without that, one is just making stuff up to suit one's fancy.
Most religious people however would argue that their beliefs were a matter of faith, not subject to empirical or rational validation. If they were validated there would be no basis for faith. If you want to understand the nature and importance of faith I would recommend two sources, the first, the gospels and teachings of Jesus, and the second Wittgenstein's book 'On Certainty' (as well as the Philosophical Investigations).
It's the mono-freaks making things up. To be a theist one has to think one god only exists? Why? How do you know I make things up?
Do you express submission to your god/s?
Do you acknowledge that they were there before you and that they contextualize you?
Good questions bakerboy!
-Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The humanid gods are questionable little buggers!
-Off course they were there before me
-They contextualized the whole universe and all creatures evolving in it. For there own advantage. They watch us eternally. Without moral expectations or other bs.
Some people claim to 'sense' messages from dead humans, or what your future will be, or where water is under the ground or who is really an alien lizard person passing themselves off as a human. Do you rationalise them as 'psychological evidence of something?'
Quoting Mike Radford
I agree that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but it also follows that mere faith is poor evidence of existence.
Quoting Mike Radford
This is normally called 'progress.' When faith becomes validated. Faith in the Higgs boson was validated at CERN's LHC.
Quoting Mike Radford
Perhaps you should try having a little more 'faith' in your fellow human beings.
You cite a good example of human tenacity and admirable if desperate altruism. When no one else is available blind humans will try their best to help each other. If their creator simply watches them bump into things then it does less than the blind at least trying to lead the blind.
Connery? :smile:
Give me an example of your deference to them.
Quoting EugeneW
Give me an example of your defiance of them.
Explain your inconsistent relationship with that which YOU label god(s)
Serves dollops of faith to whoever the comment was directed to.
Well, if I was with Sean Connery Agent Smith then I would be dead!
Do you know something about me that I don't? :death:
Faith is merely a 'positive measure of confidence,' that an idea has merit.
The fact that some people see it as belonging exclusively to theists is their confusion not mine.
Deference is to much. I just like it that they created the universe.
At the same time I think that the homonoid-gods should have been watched more carefully, as their part in creation was, how to put it mildly, eeeh..., nosogood!
Quoting universeness
What inconsistent relationship?
I take it by homonoid god you mean those who looked like humans as opposed to being all animal or some hybrid of the two but who was 'watching them?'
Quoting EugeneW
You typed sometimes yes, sometimes no when @baker asked you:
Are you grateful to your god/s?
Do you express submission to your god/s?
Your own answer suggests an inconsistent relationship with your gods.
I find your claim that you believe in god(s) less and less convincing.
I mean the gods of who we are mortal incarnations.
Quoting universeness
Why can't a relation be inconsistent? Exactly that yes/no inconsistency deepens the proof of gods. In my theology, that is.
Quoting universeness
On the basis of liking the gods and not liking them?
No, you know I am a fan EugeneW but I am moving towards the opinion that you are naturally mischievous.
You have a good sense of humour but there is a darker side I think.
I think you like the role of Devil's advocate. You may be a leg puller, a windup merchant.
Your theism could well be almost a caricature of theists you have encountered in your past.
You have no religion,
Quoting EugeneW
You have no deference to your god(s). You demonstrate none of the expected theistic behaviors, you merely CLAIM to believe in god(s) but you don't exemplify personal behaviors in support of your claim.
I am therefore left with the thought that you are role-playing/caricaturing, because you get a buzz out of mixing your empirical scientist/theist incompatibility. It may even be a pre-meditated act to caricature communication with god(s) to show how evanhellicals, for example, earn their money.
You may even be doing this subconsciously, without truly realising it.
You will probably claim this is just psychobabble on my part but I am not so sure.
Your opinion is right. Im naturally mischeveous. But so were the homonid gods! They laugh about me! Not sure what you mean by playing the devil's advocate. I play advocate of the gods.
Quoting universeness
All my behavior is in support of my claim. Like yours is to. The universe is a carbon copy of infinite eternal heaven. All creatures mortak carbon copies of heavenly gods.
Quoting universeness
This is indeed psycho panto babble. The usual "unconscious motives" talk. I dont go for that. How can a message from the gods be premeditated? Theism is compatible with science. Science though offers no real explanation and the things they think explain (fundamental physics, evolution, etc.) are just a description. Not the ream reason why were here or why we do the things we do. My theology answers that. It's mysterious and understandable at the same time and not the science panto babble stories as told by scientists who think they know, but in reality unconsciously deceive themselves. I know better...
Now here you might be right! Though I dont believe in the devil.
I missed this one. I do not blame the god fable for the religions created by nefarious humans who wish to become rich and powerful by manipulating the primal fears of their fellow humans.
I was merely trying to highlight the pernicious intent of the majority of today's organised religions to @Gregory I am sure he is already aware of such but I think it's always an important point to stress.
I know that many many many religious folks and groups such as the salvation army perform acts of altruism on a daily or even hourly basis. I am just saddened by the fact that they see such acts, as originating from their theism instead of where it should come from, in my opinion, their humanism.
'Heavenly rewards AFTER YOU ARE DEAD!' weaponised mainly by the nefarious leaders of religious doctrines and is disseminated by their puppet facilitators. Like popes and priests or arch bishops and bishops and ministers or Ron LHubbards facilitators of scientology or ......the list is big.....far too freaking big......
I am suggesting that the premeditation is your, not a gods.
Quoting EugeneW
That about does it for me EugeneW. I can no longer take your claim to be a theist seriously.
Why?
Quoting universeness
This shows your unconscious fear of god!
Because humans should care about other humans because we are all humans and we can decide that it should be so, we don't need a god fable to provide our moral code or our ethics.
Quoting EugeneW
:rofl: total BS. Why would I fear that which does not exist?
I don't take gods seriously too. But they give meaning to our existence and the universe.
Perhaps for you, if you say so but then you are a leg puller, a windup merchant by your own admission so.......:naughty:
Gods dont provide morals. They are just as good and bad as we are.
Quoting universeness
Why should you fear something that does exist? They dont want us to behave in any morally prescribed way. They dont want us to believe in them.
Yes! I even pull the legs of the gods! And they dont mind. What meaning has life without them? And I dont mean loving your fellow men or being happy walking in the park with my dog.
What?? Lions exist, do you fancy a one-on-one fight with one?
Your fists and legs against its teeth and claws? No fear of such eh?
Samson is also a fable!
Quoting EugeneW
What non-existent beings want has no relevance at all (let's get ready to panto! Can you resist the temptation?)
Quoting EugeneW
Two good examples, add to it anything else that human consciousness can come up with.
If you wait for your god to tell you you will have to do a lot more dreaming.
How about 'to pursue knowledge of that which we currently have no knowledge of,' and 'to boldly go where no one has gone before,' etc.
I mean: why should you fear gods?
If they didn't exist no.
What's the use of that? Or better, the meaning? I already know how the universe works. So? No big deal...
I don't as they don't exist but humans traditionally fear that which is presented to them as much more powerful than they are because such can kill them no matter what kind of resistance they can muster. it's the type of primal fear I have often referred to and its why some people turn to theism or religion to promise compliance with the perceived will of such ID manifestations. This is exactly what nefarious organised religious doctrines are able to manipulate and is the basic source of the divine right of kings and popes(a.k.a Roman Emperor). Such nasty humans promise to intercede between you and god so you will be looked after, mainly AFTER YOU ARE DEAD!
Quoting EugeneW
That's not how it works, as well you know, (take off that windup merchant hat now and then), your hypothesis has not currently progressed from the posit stage. Your 'faith' in it has limited currency value.
By doing so we can give more meaning and purpose to the Universe, instead of assigning such a responsibility to a nonexistent supernatural. As a human being, you need to take responsibility for your own existence and your own actions, stop scapegoating supernatural gods. What happens on this planet is down to human behavior not the behavior or perceived will of god(s).
Scapegoating god(s) is evidence that the human race still has a lot of growing up to do.
The word 'adult' is inappropriately awarded, in my opinion, it should have to be consistently earned through demonstration.
I know it's true. And it fits exactly the universe needed by the gods. It was a huge effort. The whole of the godkind was involved in finding the right two particles and the space for them to exist eternally and over and over again (where did I hear that before). The particles of love and hate evolving in the almost infinite scala of beings, organisms, creatures.
Why should you be afraid of such gods?
Let's try to reduce the amount of repetition between us.
Why should gods imply handing over responsibility? You do the same: in the name of some universal non-existing being, the hydra universa.
It's useless. You don't believe they are there. Whatever rows your boat. I know they're there...
Why should we do that? What meaning and purpose does She demand of you?
No I don't, if you are referring to some kind of panpsychism then I have raised no mor that a small eyebrow twitch towards such. Your invoked image of a multi-headed nonexisting beast add nothing to your point.
Quoting EugeneW
If you agree it's useless then stop contributing to it. If you have no new points to raise and you don't think I have any new points for your consideration then you can do as I did earlier in this exchange and declare impasse. I remain a fan EugeneW, but based on this exchange, I am now convinced that in truth, your theism is even more speculative than my twitch towards panpsychism. Your theism just gnaws at you more due to your more, in my opinion. impetuous and mischievous nature.
Yes you do. You said you think we are the tools of a universe trying to create new ones. That sounds even sillier than God.
Atheist panto talk. On the same level as ordinary theist panto talk used by jehova freaks.
We do that which we are capable of doing as an act of common will. There is no Universal identity based on an anthropomorphic she, there are only the lifeforms produced by naturalism.
Again, this is repeat mode. I have already clarified my stance on panpsychism and cosmopsychism. You were the main contributor to my thread on it so you know fine well that I have no more that a passing interest in it. My main view at present is that I see little value in talking about 'outside of the Universe.'
I am a fan of string theory and Mtheory but I have no powerful loyalty to any origin theory for the Universe.
Quoting EugeneW
Fair enough, if that's how you feel.
I'd come here knowing there would less, but much smarter people than at Twitter, a compromise. And fair enough I'm treated like a theist who has aimlessly wandered into an enemy camp. But the arrogance that leads to presumptions like this above is unbelievable. I've never been to a church service in my life, don't have a religious bone in my body, and have been aware of evangelist types since the 70's (the documentary 'Marjoe', Jim Bakker in the 80's). And, from someone who believes in a Kennedy assassination conspiracy. For Christ's sake!
That's the nature of most gods. Some homonoid gods have lost that. Their aid in creation led to current day shit in the world.
It's not about how I feel but about your defense of atheism. It levels the religious propaganda. You state there is/are no god(s). You relocate creation to creation itself. You have a responsibility towards the universe. Sounds like worshiping a god.
:lol:
It sounds nothing like worshipping a god to me. The Universe is not sentient. Is YOUR god sentient?
What did you mean then by us creating a universe for the universe?
Yes. The gods are sentient. Of course. They rest on their backs, wings, centipods, and just watch their creation, projected on the heavenly heavens. They explain and are a mystery at the same time. Why did they eternally make love and hate before they got bored and created the universe? No one knows!
Is being sentient a pre for worshipping?
It's your naivety that is unbelievable!
Quoting Gregory A
If you watched a documentary about evanhellical nasties like Jim and Tammy Baker, then perhaps you fell asleep or were not paying attention or.........as you forgot to condemn them as the horrors that they are.
An appeal to Christ means nothing to me as I don't think he ever existed.
I recommend you read Creating Christ by James Valliant or Caesar's Messiah by Joe Atwill or alternatively the works of Dr Richard Carrier. These might help you progress a little.
I prefer the Hulk or The Vision or Dr Strange for my personal entertainment.
Quoting EugeneW
Well, I am sure some are happy just walking around and around a big rock in Mecca!
You can see this is hunter gatherer tribes who were told of some ‘god’ and they asked where the god was. They believe what they see and have some vague belief in a possible afterlife (but they are non-committal).
Everyone is born an atheist because everyone is born without any real conception of themselves let alone some hypothetical being.
I like them too but they are just fantasies...
Quoting universeness
:lol:
Or around a monster particle accelerator in the sacred church of CERN.
I did not type 'us creating the universe,' quote where I typed this?
I typed about humans pursuing new knowledge, in my opinion, adds to the meaning and purpose of the Universe.
and Thor?
Introducing by popular demand! Philosophical DJ EugeneW :clap: :clap: :pray: :clap: :clap:
Now that's real garbage. Then how come this thread is 26 pages and half of all threads last week involve gods? The meaning of it all, why are things as they are? Good and evil, Christianity, free will, are there more than one?, etcetera. Check for yourself. Never before there were so many threads involving gods in two weeks...
:rofl: I think it's mostly 'little old you and me' causing the main bulk! We hardly constitute a 'popular response from the masses.'
I haven't yet received a message of him... But maybe he can speak in lightnings only. They try anything to contact us. The situation is getting out of hand. Had they only looked better at those hominid gods....
:lol: :lol:
You're my man Stephen!
and you mentioned the word fantasy.......
My point was ‘atheism’ is a term created by people of religious belief to define others that couldn’t care less. When it gets to a point where so-called believers are actively affecting those that don’t care they might not be passive and perhaps question what it is the others are saying they have ‘rejected’.
Not believing in the teapot orbiting Jupiter is along the same lines. Why would I believe such a thing? Whatever this ‘god’ is define it and see what I think.
Also, I could state I believe all kinds of things that you may never have thought about or care for. I would not then need to create a term to marginalise your personal views on such matters though would I?
:smile: see, at least we are still pals!
Tonight on radio TPF. DJ Steef and Eugene, bringing you the voice of the gods. Directly from the heavens!!!
The gods are the eternal beings in an infinite eternal heaven. They made a carbon copy of it, so all gods are represented but as mortals. They have the power of creation.
crrrrrrrrrrrrr, crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, crrrrrrrrrrrr aw just cant tune-in to any show broadcast from heaven.
maybe them gods is too dumb bums to make a transceiver thingy or may bees theres jist nae body there!
I predict you will reject @EugeneW's answer as I would too, but remember, he is a self-confessed leg puller!
I have no issue with you believing that some beings created other beings. I cannot except that you have knowledge of ‘infinity’/‘eternal’ matters though.
What do you mean by ‘heaven’?
Note: thank you for replying. Most people think I am poking fun sadly :(
Bro Steef .wait....is that just static...crrrrcrcrecccrcreagggg...cgg...crrrrrhu...hum...humaccccccrrrr....hu.....crrrrrrrff.....humanscrrrrr......yo.....crrrf....you.......crrrrfff....yourfu.....crrftttddddjjjhgggfff......
BroEuge... wtf?
Then its silent
"Dj Steef and Eugene! Thanks for tuning to us! We triedages reaching you. Godkind want mankind to know to take better care of creation. We wanna watch a while longer. Many gods watch a world where they no longer live in an...crrrf....ggggffggfhh.....pppiiiiiiiiijtssds....
Damned Steef! It actually worked!
Can't you imagine a heaven? Its just like our universe, that has no beginning in space as well as time. Well, the current universe is actually bound with a bginning in time, with the possibility that infinite big bangs occur, inflating away from a central singularity (in a 4d space, which on small scale is actually 7d but that are physical technicalities). So heavenly life is just as life in the universe. The gods had good reasons to create this infinite series of big bangs on a 4d infinite substrate space.
:smile: Ok
Then appear to us in the town squares and say so you cowardly, nonexistent gods!
I don’t understand how you can say some beings have ‘good reason’ without knowing what he reason is? If you do know the reason then you must have the mind capable of fully understanding infinity and the eternal (which I cannot except for obvious reasons I hope).
I find it hard to justify the existence of some such being/s in anything other than a wholly abstract sense. In that category I have no issue with framing some fundamental unknowns/unknowable aspects of nature as x or y to serve as place holders though.
My view is more or less the reverse of yours. I see humanity as creating god/s and this doesn’t make them ‘lesser’ as they are cumulative aspects of all humanity expressed in multiple ways - and it is telling that there are common features across all cultures too.
I view a lot of religious belief as a kind of ‘narrative’ that straddles the Profane and Sacred aspects of human life.
The problem is, they have created the universe but are not omnipotent. All heavenly creatures, from the tiniest viruses in the heavenly granules and squads, to the biggest blue whales were involved. An existential void had befallen heaven. They only wanted to lay back and watch. They succeeded but didn't take homonid gods into good account in the eager and enthusiasm to create love and hate particles (which we observe as elementary particles).
Quoting I like sushi
But if only imaginary, what meaning they give?
So you are claiming that these gods are powerful enough to create a Universe and creatures such as us within it but they have no ability to physically manifest within it. Yet many of the ancient god stories have god manifesting regularly, all over the planet, by means of 'showers of gold' to 'burning bushes with booming sky voices.' Now they have lost such abilities? This is part of the tall tale you are trying to convince me is factual? Seriously?
The idea that every fantasy story told by Marvel comics is true is more likely than your theistic posits.
Your just 'havin a laugh!'
The reason was that they were fed up with eternal existence. Endlessly playing the game of love and hate. Let's hope they don't get fed up watching us!
Precisely! They would disturb the natural order, their own creation. Once in a while they succeed but the message is mistaken always.
With you always! :smile:
Except that Marvel characters are fantasies.
Faith is not evidence of anything. The fact that somebody has faith does not imply the reliability of that faith. Faith might be closely related to trust. Some people take great reassurance from their trust in God. I don't think that we should necessarily disrespect that trust, even if we do not regard the object as reliable.
In your reference to the Higgs Boson particular you are confusing propositions that are held as hypotheticals and those that are held as a matter of faith. The validation of hypothetical propositions is certainly progress, but those of faith do not need such validation. They are different insofar as they are not held on the basis of any evidence.
The truth of philosophical propositions is not a matter of popular belief. Philosophy, like any other discipline, is not a matter of democracy. Those qualified to arbitrate on philosophical claims are those that have had some training in philosophy.
On the more general matter of 'faith' or trust in humanity I have always been cautious when it comes to the kindness of strangers. Human beings are equally capable of great intelligence and great stupidity.
That's a theology, or better, a theonomy. How do you know its not true?
As a little story it is fine. As some comparison to lived experience it leaves a lot to be desired. As I ah e mentioned there is a lack of validity in referring to beings that are literally beyond your comprehension as they are ‘infinite’ and ‘eternal’ (concepts used by humans to express something outside of experiential comprehension).
It does not hold up as a reasonable argument for the existence of said ‘god/s’ if the definition is so abstracted from human experience that it makes it impossible to confirm or deny. What would intrigue me more is what it is that makes you believe in such beings. I cannot imagine infinite or eternal beings any more than I can imagine a square circle, a sound without pitch, a physical object without surfaces or a colour without shade. I can of course ‘make up’ some abstract approximation of each of this but they would all fall short of meeting the said requirements (for example I can imagine a square shape with rounded corners and convince others that it is fine ti call it a ‘square circle’ but in technical terms it would neither be a square or a circle in mathematical terms.
The story is the truth. What else we got?
There can be powerful meanings in stories that are stories about actual events. The power of meaning is not the same as making something true. We can watch a movie and know it is a complete fiction yet take something profound away from it. That doesn’t make it ‘true’ just useful to us in a certain way.
That's a fantasy, not a story about reality.
The theological story is true and thats the reason it gives meaning. Scientific stories are true also but lack meaing.
There are many differing religious stories. I say they all carry something that makes them undeniably similar … they are human stories. I start from that point because it is true or we wouldn’t know the stories in the first place.
What's your story? That gods are a human invention?
How convenient!
The trouble with your windup hat, is that you are in danger of becoming just another theistic guy who cries 'wolf'/god when no wolf/god, ever appears, after a while, your shouts are ignored.
Quoting universeness
For the gods, yes. How else would the universe be able to function. Besides, they have shown themselves! Just look around you! All of life, all organisms. Intruding destroys. And because they see their creation being destroyed by the human carbon copies of the homonid gods, they try to reach us. Hidden variables are good for that, but only when people dream.
My view is more like the Jungian view of the collective unconscious - we create the world we live in as much as the world creates us. The idea/archetype of ‘god’ is more or less the Heirophant (the process that delineates between them.
Is what I just said ‘true’? No. It is a theory of why we have a such strong impulses to believe in things like ‘god/s’ as ‘real’ rather than as symbolic representations of humanity. I am not dogmatic about this just fascinated by human beliefs and various other things, and this is where it generally leads me.
I dont ask them to show up! It's you who's crying wolf about that.
Physical reality is shaped by mental reality and vice-versa. We constantly mediate between the outer and inner world. We find ourselves in the middle, in between the brain and the world outside, tied to both we play along, like the gods.
Im not sure I understand the answer to the "why".
The gods are not eternal and infinite. Heaven is, like the universe.
Thanks. Gotta go and get some food now.
Not just about the definition of god. Also about their existence. You see them as truly existent only in relation to the human endeavor and not as existing outside the universe. All this talk about gods...and I overlook the dog looking at me with asking eyes and wiggling tale.
Huh?
Correct me if I’m wrong and I’ll read when I get back.
See you later :)
Primal fear, in my opinion, and hope against nonexistence/oblivion after death, and I believe it is for these reasons that we can dismiss the god posit. Human fear is never a good source of rationality.
Is it not a good thing to encourage our fellows to combat their primal fears and to boldly go......
Do you think that dependence on and deference to (nonexistent) supernatural will is commensurate with human progression and development? Science progresses, Theism has not progressed at all, in my opinion, in the last 10000 years of human civilisations.
Quoting Mike Radford
I applaud your sentiment here and if during debate, I see signs that I am damaging the psyche of a religious individual or even significantly upsetting them, then I will stop, apologise and desist but I will still make the same points if asked.
Quoting Mike Radford
Well, I appreciate this 'traditional' viewpoint but I don't subscribe to the idea that the term 'faith' is the exclusive property of theists. I endeavor to change this. I want to claim the word for common use as a human measure of confidence level or belief level regarding an idea.
"I kind of accept/accept/support/believe/have faith that you are a good person/ that the Higgs boson exists. I think this is a perfectly valid use of the word faith, despite any perceived clash with 'propositional hypotheticals'
Quoting Mike Radford
You further back up your position by what you correctly state above but I am not suggesting the overthrow or disregarding of philosophical academic authority. I just advocate for a stronger repurposing of the term 'faith.' Perhaps in a similar way the homosexuals repurposed the word 'gay.'
Quoting Mike Radford
A wise position, especially if you have others who are dependent on your decisions but this is and probably always will be a judgment call. I have personally had a mixed success when initially giving others the benefit of my doubts, so I agree with your 'cautious' approach.
That's like you taking credit for a house I built.
Evolution and natural selection produced what you cite above not god.
It's you!
No it's not me it's you!
No it's not me it's you!.....until we both pass out from the beer! :rofl:
There is no logical fallacy in Carroll's argument. Not all arguments follow symbolism
There is a great/big difference. Gods have the power of creation. Dumb physical laws are too stupid to create themselves. Hawking asked what breaths life into the equations. It where the gods.
The logical fallacy is that his observation that there is no evil implying there would be a god because we obey that god is an unreality. It's a false assumption.
How can there be more than one God?
Carroll is using teleological arguments against themselves, not saying that teleological arguments are logical. An illogical argument follows its own logic
But you pass out last! :lol:
Coincidentally, I see a science propaganda doc on tv. On SCIdiscoveryscience (and telling my wife not to take it too seriously!). About the technological singularity, computers creating life like gods... Aliens on Gliese colonyzing everything by a quantum computer...
There are as many gods as there were, are, and will be creatures in our universe. Why can't that be?
Not sure I follow. Can you rephrase again his teleological argument?
Yes, evolution took place. And natural selection took place. But they didn't create the stuff necessary for evolution and the creatures evolving.
On TV; "chapter 113: a creation program" Seriously! About artificial reality and simulation, imaginary loops...
"We have reached the point technology allows us with virtual characters. If we learn more and more we can fool...blah blah. The machine is able to control our minds, if they want to..."
The teleological argument looks for signs of God in nature. Carroll looks for things that one would expect but doesn't find and so concludes one cannot expect signs from nature
What about nature itself? Seems pretty solid evidence.
This argument presumes we are forced to suffer. What if we are forced to life, created to live like the gods did?
What evidence for some "person" out there from matter? None. What evidence we don't have to struggle? None. Your position is high fangled and impractical
Does a baby who suffers cause it's own suffering or is it forced into a theodicy God never endured?
They exist outside of spacetime and the matter in it.
Quoting Gregory
The gods endured suffering too. Why not?
Your unconventional polytheism is not satisfying
Either way, prove me wrong and explain what you know of the supernatural. I don’t see anything to suggest there is anything other than what is nor can I personally see a way justify dualism - ie. Supernatural (beyond nature) because I frame everything in the universe as ‘natural’ and don’t side with ‘supernatural’ as a replacement for ‘we don’t know therefore god’. That just makes no sense to me.
I don’t really ‘believe’ things I know them to some degree based on experience. So when I talk to people and they say ‘god’ I understand as I know the term (as symbolic of something human) because I cannot claim to know of some being in possession of ‘supernatural’ powers. I have no issue with someone proposing an alien race superior in intellect and knowledge to the human race. It is just speculation though based loosely on some knowledge of the universe.
Take this: Hakim Uluseyi proposes the construction of a space Ark. To preserve us and get away from annihilation (we probably have self-induced by the application of science in the first place!).
I mean, uploading our minds into a quantum computer, meeting alien intelligences, the last step in evolution, the awakening of the cosmos after 13 billion years at last... Get real!
It is to me. On top of science, which cant give meaning, it gives meaning. We are not just collections of particles obeying the new God of Dawkinskian evolution.
Believe it or not, I just had a deja vu while writing to Gregory!
Why can't a dream be evidence for creation? In the short story I write Ill tell more about it. Im not English though, so it takes a bit to complete it. A translation machine doesnt work!
Quoting I like sushi
In a dream, during thinking on this forum, and by my cosmological model, it became clear. Add the fact that there never had been more talk about gods on this forum, and my psychosis is complete!
Polytheism sounds cartoony to me. Nonduality is better I say. It says spirituality is totally one
The technological singularity is a concern but I think it's unlikely to be any time soon. By Moore's law, on average, computer processing power doubles every two years. The evidence of the rate of improvement in processing power since computing took off in the late 70's demonstrates Moore's law to be pretty accurate. Serial processing is being replaced by parallel processing using many processors on one core. One of the fastest today is the IBM Sequoia in America with a Speed of 17.1 petaFLOPS using
a core of 1,572,864 processors.
As Quantum computers advance, this already incredible speed will be easily surpassed.
So computer speed and storage capacity can easily equal and in fact way surpass the capacity of the human brain but it is not yet as compact and it does not have the operating system capacity or app capacity of the human brain. AI is still not very impressive. We are also very far away from creating a machine with the movement capacity of the human body.
But if we reach a technological point where we create Robots or cyborgs that can fully program and build other machines then the singularity could happen but I think we are clever enough to build in fail safe's to prevent 'Westworld' or 'The terminator' type predictions. I could of course, be dead wrong.
The brain has virtual infinite memory capacity. Try to implement that on a computer. The only thing computers excell in is speed.
Sci-fi shows play with this concept all the time but from the point of sentient lifeforms who existed in our galaxy millions of years before humans. In Babylon 5 they are called the first ones. The Vorlons, The Shadows etc. To us, they would seem like gods, but they are not. Why are these god-like descriptions less likely than the descriptions you have been posting here to describe your version of god(s). Could I replace every mention you have made of god(s) on this thread with 'The Vorlons,' would it change your claims much? Apart from your 'but mine are real and yours are fantasy,' claim. The same claim that the Christians have about the Muslim god or hindu god(s) and vice versa.
No it doesn't, its memory capacity is as far away from the infinite as the number 1 is.
A single supercomputer could theoretically employ every hardiisk and/or solid-state memory unit available on the planet, all stacked together, and we can make more and more devices to increase its memory capacity. A single human brain's memory capacity is well defeated.
By virtual infinite, I mean 10exp(10exp20). More or less. A bit more even, as I rounded off downwards.
Another simple example would be that the storage capacity of the internet is measured at 10^ 24 bytes, or 1 million exabytes. The memory capacity of a single human brain is estimated to be around 2.5 million petabytes.
I exabyte = 1024 petabytes
You can buy a 1 terrabyte SD unit for around £60 from the shops!
1024 of them would be a petabyte of memory capacity and 2.5 million of them would match the above estimated memory capacity of the human brain. This could be achieved NOW for a single supercomputer, if such memory capacity for a single computer was required.
Read good the number I wrote.
Your number has nothing to do with the memory capacity of the human brain.
If you want a big number then check out the wikipedia quote below:
In the PBS science program Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Episode 9: "The Lives of the Stars", astronomer and television personality Carl Sagan estimated that writing a googolplex in full decimal form (i.e., "10,000,000,000...") would be physically impossible, since doing so would require more space than is available in the known universe
and a googolplex is as far away from infinity as 1 is.
It seems a big enough number to be called infinity. The brain can contain all physical structures of the universe. That's more than I can say for a memory chip. A 1 followed by 10exp20 zeros is a pretty big number. There are 10exp 90 particles in the visible universe. A 1 followed by only 80 zeros. A computer memory has just 10exp30....
It is the capacity.
What?? there is no number big enough to be called infinity, that's just mathematical fact!
I have a Computing science honours degree, trust me, Computers can outdo the human brain on processing speed and memory capacity but thats all for now. Computers, no matter how you network them together and no matter what current systems and application software you employ, they cannot currently reproduce the workings of the human brain. We don't even fully understand the working of the human brain yet.
For all practical purposes a 1 with 10exp20 is infinite...
so what's 1 with a trillion zero's? closer to infinite?
A one with 24 zeros, like for a computerchip, is zero in comparison.
A lot closer than a 1 with 24 zeros!
Quoting universeness
Quoting EugeneW
The issue isn't the existence of religion. Religion is very real. When I'd said ' Thank God for Christianity' I hadn't gone back on my position in any way. And it was you that had quoted me out of context anyhow. You can be thankful for Christianity too and it would not turn you into a theist. Why should anyone's status change by being grateful to a religion. It just shows you are opposed to something simply because it represents theism.
No! I'd said I'd been aware of the documentary exposé 'Marjoe' since the 70's & Jim Bakker
in the 80's, how does that not make me very aware of a nasty side to evangelism. And the consensus among the experts is that Jesus was real. Those that claim differently are to be compared to those claiming different theories about the JFK assassination. That is they are trying to make money by writing books backing up their controversial claims. Regardless it doesn't matter anyhow whether Jesus was real, as Christianity is, and it has had an incredibly positive influence on the world. So, you can be a Christian, but not be a theist, be a theist but not be religious.
What's atheism and Christianity got to do with each other??? You really have no idea what any of this is about. Your bias makes you unable to look at any of these things in a clinical way.
I've been gay for most of my life only becoming a little bit cynical as I've got older. Do you get it?
The consensus would be that atheism is simply a non-belief in god/s but the reality is that atheists are actively opposed to theism.
Theism does not relate to atheism. Atheism relates to theism. Theism is not an attack on atheism. Theists defend theism from the attacks of atheists. Where's the hypocrisy then.
And, you can't teach an old dogmatist new tricks.
How does it all hang together? We have to work for it i.e. we need to earn our place in heaven here on earth, a place where being good is, well, "impossible" (try it) - aut neca aut necare (it's either you or me, better you, right?). Doesn't it give you the feeling you're playing an RPG in nightmare mode? Some may disagree though and these folks are the lucky ones; for some reason unfathomable to me or those like me, they were born to do "great things." Details? None of my business.
Precisely! The poor bugger got caught up in his own fucking meme (excusez les mots). Which would be no problem, but he's actively engaged in fighting theism. Like a real inquisitor.
Quoting Agent Smith
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And the gods watch. Again. Without morally obliging.
If atheism is the view that there are no gods then it would have nothing to do with free speech. If atheism challenges theism to show proof of god/s, then it would most certainly be challenging theism's right to free speech. If atheism isn't to the left, then theism isn't to the right???
There are two possibly valid positions, one, the belief in a naturally occurring universe, and one in a supernaturally occurring universe. Consequently, there can be no (logically) valid middle ground.
You ask theists for evidence of god/s then you have no evidence of god/s yourself, for your request to be valid, means you also have no evidence of Nature (a naturally occurring universe). You can't hold out for evidence of one then still ask for evidence of the other.
Quoting EugeneW
Quoting EugeneW
Quoting EugeneW
Your dialogue is based on obfuscation and distraction on this issue, in my opinion, EugeneW.
You gave no response to:
[b]Quoting universeness[/b]
and I know for a fact that computing technology can already surpass the memory capacity and processing speed of a single human brain. So Who knows how far that technology will go, given even another few thousand years of science and scientists. We have already discussed transhumanism in other threads and you know my views on that topic. I fully expect human lifespan to be vastly extended in the future and that there certainly will be more physical merging between humans and technology.
An article I read recently in New Scientist magazine suggests that the first human to live to 150 to 170, is alive today!. I find that much more interesting than your playtime with nonexistent god(s).
I can understand him not liking the opiated Christian that lives in a world where little goes wrong. And can understand his dislike for those that reject science. And his enjoyment of touring the world enlightening others with his understandings. But still, there is that arrogance that leads to making mistakes. I wouldn't like it if Dawkins were discredited for any reason, but would rather he be more open-minded just in case.
Speed is all computers got. On a memory chip you can store 10exp24 bits? Compare with the brain: 10exp10exp20. That's about 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
..........dzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzx........overloaoaoad.....
And the row continues to the ends of the Earth! A bit more than a chip memory... Take that Earthling!
Do you really care how old we can get? Why?
I just dont get what he's got against theism. Isn't it obvious the universe is created? He's got the right to be an atheist, of course, but his vision is a cold one.
You miss the point again! I am incredulous at the statements you type, such as the one above.
You think I should be grateful to the most pernicious con tricks in human history such as Christianity and Islam. I would need a book a similar number of pages as the babbling bumbelling bible to list my complaints against horrible doctrines like Christianity and Islam. Have you got it yet?
Quoting Gregory A
And yet, you cant see the very nasty sides of the nasty ways in which humans manipulate all religious doctrines. I know that the best comeback theists can come up with against this is to talk about the nastiness of non-religious systems such as fascism/totalitarianism/autocracies etc, which is total BS. Such systems kill any humans that get in their way. Theism is neither here nor there to such 'cults of narcissistic personalities. Putin IS A THEIST and an autocrat so the labels are not mutually exclusive. The Nazis swore allegiance to Hitler and god, etc, etc. The excuses for humans killing humans are myriad and we must stop scapegoating god(s) and political doctrines for the heinous behaviour and the evil that humans do in their name. NUCLEAR BOMBS DONT KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE.
I have no problem with individuals like @EugeneW who have their own personal version of god(s). I will debate them based on my own atheism but such exchanges are ultimately harmless. It only becomes a problem when those who group together in common religious faith want to impose a theistic code or ethics/commandments or BS like sharia law or any educational/political/social directive OF ANY KIND that a whole population must comply with. To me, such directives are like a declaration of war on human progress.
Quoting Gregory A
Again I throw your exasperation with my viewpoint and your claim of 'you really have no idea what any of this is about,' right back at you. It's like asking what's fascism got to do with humanism, what's war got to do with peace? I think the answer is a great deal! If you ignore the rising strength of one then you invite the subjugation of the other. To maintain a healthy balance you MUST be very attentive to both and decide where you think the balance between any two opposing viewpoints should be set. It is unlikely that one will ever eradicate the other completely. On theism vs atheism, I advocate for vast majority atheism and very small theism as I believe this would be most commensurate with human progress towards the goal of global unison. One species on one pale blue dot planet, moving towards interplanetary existence.
To be replaced by the con of science?
There are plenty of things I don't understand by still don't feel the need to make disparaging remarks about.
Belief in god had come about naturally because in those times there was no other explanation for our existence. That said many people continue to believe regardless of those who say it isn't so.
We are born with a sense of justice. A baby cries when hungry expressing an injustice. It doesn't just lie there.
I can give you a similar list of complaints of the horrible doctrine of the sciences...
Scientists are obliged to stay out of what are philosophical positions, and they mostly do. But if they choose to participate they then immediately become philosophers, and consequently can find themselves out of their element. Einstein was not an atheist, which doesn't make him a believer, but showed he was smart enough (let's face it) to see what atheism is really about.
Yes or (no shit Sherlock!) atheism OPPOSES theism but most atheists will pick their targets wisely. I would prefer to debate a priest or imam or guru in comparison with a 'so-called,' theist, who simply has a personal theism! A person who merely gets comfort from belief in an all-powerful supernatural superhero that's going to protect them from their primal fears and award them existence for eternity after they die. One who imagines an eternity in a happy-clappy place where they want for nothing and everyone is equal and no minorities are treated as inferior etc. Good luck with that! I will inform them that I think they are dellusional and dbate the details with them if they want in the way I am doing with @EugeneW on this thread but I can tell the difference between a dangerous theist and a harmless one. My target is the dangerous ones. Most atheists are against organised religion but some atheists are rich powerful autocrats who run a country! There are many flavours of bas****, some absolute scumbags do label themselves atheist as part of their 'cunning plan.'
He believed in god. Said even he dont play dice. Thats an inspiration for his science. He believed, and I think rightly, QM isnt the final answer.
That's a charicature, a panto cheat! Why you think primal fear is involved? I could say the same of theism...
Quoting EugeneW
This reminds me of a quote from Carl Sagan's movie 'Contact.'
If we are the only intelligent lifeforms in the whole Universe, it seems like an awful waste of space!
You seem to be wastin space EugeneW.
The most dangerous species is still the scientist.
This approach is so tedious, computer memory does not consist of a single chip so what are you talking about?
Quoting universeness
I could tell your hero the whole universe is filled with life. Life in heaven is much broader than even in the visible universe exists. There is much more life beyond the horizon.
About the maximum memory of a computer. The number of 1s and 0s to be stored.
I am learning more about your approach all the time EugeneW, you ask questions that you already know the answer to. I assume you just do so to annoy your opponent. The danger is that they might just decide you are not worth their time and they will excuse themselves with such as 'I need to go now!'
No! I truly don't! I dont give a fuck how old I get and are absolutely not interested in prolonging my life scientifically.
If you think science is a con then stop your own personal relationship with it, you insult your own house!
Dawkins has his motives but none of these are scientific. If we set about to do constructive things, then becoming famous that way is very difficult. But if on the other hand we be destructive, fame can easily be had. My generation knew who Lee Oswald was, subsequent generations know who Richard Dawkins is. One destroyed a president, the other is destroying religion.
I am going to use an old politician's response to your employment of repetition EugeneW.
"I refer you to previous on record comments I have made, on this issue."
Damned! I think Im gonna call you a comrade!
I think we all have faith regardless of what we say. But that doesn't mean everything in life will turn out okay. We need to ward off the forces of 'evil' for one thing. Atheism is one of those.
Still no response to:
Sci-fi shows play with this concept all the time but from the point of sentient lifeforms who existed in our galaxy millions of years before humans. In Babylon 5 they are called the first ones. The Vorlons, The Shadows etc. To us, they would seem like gods, but they are not. Why are these god-like descriptions less likely than the descriptions you have been posting here to describe your version of god(s). Could I replace every mention you have made of god(s) on this thread with 'The Vorlons,' would it change your claims much? Apart from your 'but mine are real and yours are fantasy,' claim. The same claim that the Christians have about the Muslim god or hindu god(s) and vice versa.
Why not?
If it's justified to return the accusation I do. And it's more than justified. Science has done no good.
There are no doubt other species in the universe. But they are no gods.
Well, if people don't believe in god, who am I to tell them they should? I don't understand it but its up to them. And to be fair, no one really knows. Im convinced gods exist, for atheists also. But that's my objective reality.
A computer is built with an amount of memory which makes it commercially viable to the current home market. Computers not built for the home market are built for functionality purposes and are given the memory capacity they need based on their intended functionality but the point I have labored to you ad nauseam is that there is no upper limit to the amount of memory capacity that could be electronically assigned to a computer network as I demonstrated with my example of the memory capacity of the internet. Despite this, instead of accepting that this actually rather minor point that computer systems can surpass the processing speed AND MEMORY CAPACITY of the human brain is true. You insist on trying to blow air on the dying heat of your attempts at rebuttal. In my opinion, this does not reflect well on your debating skills.
The point is, it's childish to come up with complaints about whatever religion. Every way of life, way of thinking and being, has its pros and cons.
The number of particles in the universe, 10exp90, is by way not enough to even approximate brain memory capacity. Can you use more particles than in the universe for a computer memory?
I think @Gregory A is probably closest on this one but it remains controversial.
The quote from Wikipedia is:
Albert Einstein's religious views have been widely studied and often misunderstood. Albert Einstein stated that he believed in the pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza. He did not believe in a personal God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings, a view which he described as naïve. He clarified however that, "I am not an atheist", preferring to call himself an agnostic, or a "religious nonbeliever." Einstein also stated he did not believe in life after death, adding "one life is enough for me."He was closely involved in his lifetime with several humanist groups.
Agree! and each also has its associated measure of fact against fiction.
There is.
Agree! That's why you dont believe in gods. Your measure is one amongst many though.
Wrong! Which scientific document are you getting your number for human brain capacity from?
How can a human brain hold more information than the number of particles in the universe that the brain you are talking about IS PART OF! The information quanta you refer to is part of this Universe!
As is yours (welcome back to the pantomime! act III, I think.)
That's my hat!
Scientists are obliged to do no such thing! They often choose to, when they think that the philosophical points made are erroneous and of little value or meaning to the hypothesis/theory/experimental results under discussion at the time. But they will speak to philosophical claims if and when they feel it is prudent to do so.
To quote Rod Stewart
"You wear it well, a little old-fashioned but that's all right!" :smile:
What's your personal opinion got to do with science's projected ability to extend human lifespan?
Then stop doing science and go help build a tabernacle for your god(s) or you run the risk of being assigned the label hypocrite!!
You said that I know why people wanna prolong their life artificially. I dont, so I asked why. Are you afraid there is nothing after this life? Is your certainty the reason?
You give Richard a great compliment here, you should send him a copy of your compliment, it will help brace him in this, in my opinion, honorable goal but I think 'destroy' is unlikely, 'vastly reduce its influence in politics, education, commerce and society,' would be more accurate and a more realistic and achievable goal.
What?? Should we have just stayed in or caves then and not made the use of fire that we did and not have employed science to attach a big bit of sharpened flint/stone to the end of a strong long pole and used it to more easily kill animals for food or spear the local tribal invaders?
Bye
Then copy the quote you are referring to, I don't recall typing that or the context you present.
Quoting EugeneW
Why someone might choose to extend their life was not part of my presentation. I presented future human life extension as 'within the capability of science,' based on the fact that science is the main reason why general human lifespan has been extended. More humans get to 100+ now than at any previous time in the history of our species. That tendency to human lifetime extension is not going to stop unless we go extinct.
Quoting EugeneW
What?? have you read my previous comments on this issue at all?
"I refer you to previous on record comments I have made, on this issue."
Quoting EugeneW
My certainty about what? that there are no god(s)?
Science attempts to extend and maintain human life and lifespan regardless of the god posit.
And that, Stephen my man, is what theists can say as well. I just saw a plane crashed. 135 people killed. In hospitals thousands of people die unnecessary each year. Thousands of maimed bodies by a lefthanded medicine that should be righthanded, Bridges collapse, cars crash, spacecrafts explode, buildings crumble down, animals tortured in the name of, atomic bombs exploded, cancer, zyclon B, technological warfare, Tjernobyl, disappearance of indigenous cultures, depression, global warming, species extinct, natural order fucked up,... should I continue?
:lol: :rofl:
I tried to warn you that the exchanges on this tread would test your exasperation tolerance level but you suggested I should effectively 'mind my own business.'
He/she's right uni! You should effectively mind your own business! :lol:
I know I know... Just returning the fear-inspired image of gods you paint. Why should one believe outa fear?
Aint that theist?
:rofl: and you lay this confidently at the door of science?
You don't accuse the human's abuse of science/technology. You give them no responsibility for firing the gun, you blame the technologies of science for providing the gun and the bullets.
So, you do think we should have stayed in the caves then, as you blame the inventors of the spear and the spear+ for our 10000 years of tears. yes? and your solution to this human record of technological abuse is to immerse your primal fear of potential human behavior in the protection of god fables?
I thought you were made of stronger stuff than that EugeneW!
F*** primal fears, I will boldly go where no one has gone before, if I ever get the chance. I will be shit scared probably but i will do it anyway! slava ukraini!!!
No its pantheist and perhaps if he were still alive, he would have probably updated it to panpsychist.
I mean, you said I asked a question I have an answer to.
If you think I worship gods, absolutely no. But they add an unexplainable element to a world where science claims that everything is answerable. Well, it cant explain where the universe came from, but it says we just wanna procreate genes or memes. Life becomes meaningless then.
Pantheist is theist also.
:rofl:
What's that quote from 'A Christmas Carol?, from Marley's ghost to Scrooge?'
Something like 'The human race IS your business,' something like that anyway!
It you keep stretching the elastic of your rebuttals EugeneW, they will snap!
And again... you lay the Christian monstrosities at the door of Christians? Then I have more right to do so. Oppenheimer was involved in the making of the A-bomb. And what to think of Teller, proudly presenting his thermonuclear toy? Oppenheimer thought he had become dead, but after the fact. What about them scientists torturing animals to know how the brain works and even get paid or prizes? And what's so important about finding a small fucking particle at CERN. I can tell them right now without having done one experiment.
Einstein said: "der Herr Gott würfelt nicht"... How clear can it be?
Congrats!
No, I said that, I think, one of the techniques you employ on a discussion website like this, is to ask 'but why why why? style questions when you know find well, what the response is going to be. It's an old ploy also used by politicians who don't want to answer a question directly. They will dance around with repetition and clarification and will constantly ask their opponent to give more detail on their point etc. All attempts to frustrate and exasperate their opponent so they are compelled to stop their dialogue and make an excuse to discontinue the exchange. This allows the other person to claim victory due to possession of the 'battleground.' You have declared this as your own opinion when you typed that people often make excuses to me that they have to 'go walk the dog' or 'go get something to eat.' etc and you suggest that such excuses are evidence of you being victorious over them. I think this is mischievous on your part.
Quoting EugeneW
I previously asked you about your relationship with YOUR god(s) as did @I like sushi. At last, you have now offered a little more insight. So, you don't worship god(s). It sounds to me then that YOUR god(s) are AT BEST, 'background decoration,' in your life and not as significant as your more emotive postings would suggest. As I said, you are a mischievous provocateur, in my opinion, and an unconvincing theist. You just get a buzz out of 'annoying' atheists. But most atheists are well-practiced at dealing with such. Individuals like Matt Dillahunty would quickly chew you up, in my opinion.
Quoting EugeneW
This is just a repeat again so:
"I refer you to previous on record comments I have made, on this issue."
The so-called christian leadership at the time, absolutely yes, they are guilty as are all those 'christians' that took part in a particular atrocity. I don't scapegoat a god fable or nonparticipating Christians.
I judge each atrocity based on those responsible for it alone. I don't think it's valid to project individual atrocities onto the general labels the perpetrator's claim as theirs and as supporting their heinous acts
Would you prefer it if the Nazis had produced the Abomb first?
Sometimes you have to get filthy yourself to defeat dirty evil!
That's the scientist speaking in me! If I knew I wouldn't ask. You presuming me to use that tactic is just a tactic. It's he "fallacy of the vacuous premise to obfuscate and sew confusion to evade the question". A red herring, in ordinary colloquium.
Without science no A-bomb.
I will file your opinion under the philosophy of Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry.
"Opinions are like assholes, everybody got one!'
Back to the cave for you then, to cower in the corner at all the scary noises outside.
I won't be joining you.
I don't speak that language but I am content with the Wikipedia quote on Einstein, for now.
If I am wrong then I am sure some god will permit his 'essence' to comlink with me in one of my dreams to correct me, as it seems all the available documentation on Einstein is unable to irrefutable settle this issue.
It will be dark then in our cozy cave! I would miss your cuddling. Why should we go back to the caves? It's only that science should be separated from state. It's the same unholy pairing up as God and state once formed. The bible replaced by the science books. A one and only objective reality. Now every creature has its own objective reality, but should one be given privilege to others, which is clearly the case in society?
I disapprove, are you a vegetarian or a vegan? or is that a whole other thread.
Quoting EugeneW
The search for knowledge regarding the origin, structure and workings of our Universe!
Your hypothesis has not moved past the posit stage yet.
I hope the fact you are pissed off at the current cosmology and physics worlds has not influenced your wink towards theism.
:lol:
I don't think so. Why should they do that?
But it happens. Not in the name of god but in the name of science, the magic words which, when uttered, legitimize.
:lol: I only cuddle women EugeneW they used to let me do that a lot more than they do now! :gasp:
Quoting EugeneW
Make up your mind, do you welcome the technologies produced from science or not.
If you think that humans need to control technology better and prevent it falling into the hands of the nefarious, the crazies, the autocrats etc then say so and I will agree. If your solution is abandon science and embrace theism then I am against you.
I knew you would bring this up. No its not because Im pissed that my cosmology isnt accepted or understood. It's just that its importance is way overestimated.
No, it's mostly in the name of capitalist f***wits who want as much profit as their sweaty hands can bank as quickly as possible. Animal experiments for reasons of developing medicines to help save humans I can live with but only if no other way can be found.
Ok EugeneW, I have to accept your word. I am sure you understand why I might consider the possibility. :smile:
I value a very limited part of the fruits hanging in the trees of science. Why is science named in one breath with technology. I really don't get the awe for technology. Just saw a commercial on TV (a flat one!) asking for employees in technology sector... "We create the future, you work along with us?" A scala of tech was shown. Tech. The future. ?????
Im serious! I wanted to write it but then thought you would say me writing it is actually a sign I am pissed off... Well, maybe I am, but then only at a personal level.
So how else will we be able to leave this planetary nest EugeneW? should we wait for god instructions on how to extend humanity beyond our little pale blue dot. Should we just stay here forever and just control our population better? Why did your god(s) create such a vast space? are we not allowed to explore it?
The hypocrisy I was referring to was a theist being offended by an atheist while at the same time constantly saying the same sorts of things about atheists, and of course more broadly speaking the religious have done far more offensive things to atheists than anything someone like Dawkins has ever done to theists. Its hypocrisy.
Because of this perceived “attack” in theism its impossible to have a real conversation across the isle when one or both parties come in with a chip on their shoulders.
I'm serious too! Write what you want, from 'a pissed off at science' perspective or not. You are a free man. I fully support you in this. If you want to claim that your words are based on a dream you had then that's totally valid. If you want to claim that you are relaying the word of god to humanity then you will not be the first to claim this and you will not be the last. I will not support you in that claim, that's a bridge too far for me!
If you want to suggest something like this is what YOU THINK god would say to humans if it could, then I for one, would support you. Of course, you don't need my support one way or the other. You can decide to 'publish and be damned.' You will have followers and dissenters, as per previous examples of such. Then everyone will just move on and your typing will be filed and referenced in the same way as previous examples of such writings have been.
You might even start a new religion, who knows. It's your decision and any consequences, good or bad are yours as well.
I have no intentions leaving the planet, universeness. The colonialization of the Milky Way is another myth cooked up in the fantasy blender of science. Nice to write about but to actually undertake is something completely different!
The gods created that much space for making possible a csrbon copy for all heavenly creatures, god-kind. They don't forbid anything. They are just worried that we fuck up nature and kill species, even make them extinct. Because all the creatures we made extinct, have a counterpart in heaven. You could say, then why dont these continue their life in heaven. Indeed! I havent an answer yet.
Page 32! And counting!
Quoting universeness
Again: You're my man Earthling! I guess we're not that different after all! Both looking for meaning. You find it in science, I think it doesn't provide meaning at all. But we're both seekers! :smile:
Fine but do those who disagree with you have to stay on this planet as well or will you let them try to develop technologies that will allow them to leave, explore and populate that which is outside of this planet?
Quoting EugeneW
No, these are your concerns EugeneW, not any god(s). You just assign the god label in an attempt to enforce the viewpoint you state here or/and as an attempt to shift responsibility for YOUR personal directives onto a nonexistent god which has no ability to take responsibility. So if people followed your directives and as a result, the human race stagnated over time and we went extinct because we could not control over-population etc. Your future supporters could always play their 'get out of responsibility' card by saying but it was not our directives, it was gods!
What about the ones we didn't make extinct? 99.9% of all species that there have ever been on Planet Earth have gone extinct. The number of species that human activity has made extinct is depressing but it is small in comparison. We didn't make the dinos extinct? Are you suggesting the dinos have heavenly counterparts?
I agree, we are all looking for meaning, we are just arguing about the best way to go about it.
I respect true seekers that's why I gave time and brain space to the DIMP guy and the Klein Bottle/Mobius strip guy and YOU, the 5D torus guy. :smile: I am not claiming that my particular brain space offered them much but at least I was supportive and I label them 'true seekers.'
I think these are the worries of the gods. That's why they attempt to communicate.
Quoting universeness
That's a good question! The dino-gods lay back in rest maybe. Realizing they have played their part.
BTW, you show (,luckily!) a lot of interest in theism/gods/God. Why?
I am surprised you ask! Due to its historical use by nefarious humans to facilitate small elites to control large populations. Its power has been reduced since but remains still very very powerful and it still presents clear and present danger to the progression and survival of the human species.
Torus Guy! Is that a Marvel character yet? Stan Lee would have been jealous! "Said nuff!".
Quoting universeness
Doesn't science have the same feature? The difference though that its power has grown exponentially...
In my opinion, absolutely not. Some of the technologies which have come from scientific endeavors have caused many problems due to who controls them and what purposes they have been used for.
Technology gave us the light bulb and the internet and morphine etc and also the gun and the bullet etc but as I have said and you have not directly responded to, Nuclear bombs don't kill people, people kill people. If you want to insist that science can cause as many problems for humanity as religions can then I really have few problems with that insistence. Perhaps we can agree that both require far more rigorous checks and balances than exist at present. I agree, but, technology will take this species beyond this planet which will give us much better protection against extinction, nothing in theism offers that unless you think god(s) will eventually give us good spaceships.
Could be another story for your writing hand. You know enough about the physics involved so you could give Torus guy the powers he needs to control his Universe, just like the old human storytellers did for all the gods they invented! :wink:
Of course. Christianity doesn't kill people either. People kill people. You can't separate both though. Science and Christianity dont exist in a vacuum. They're part of human thinking and activity.
Quoting universeness
I think it causes problems as well as good things. But the balance is totally unbalanced, so to speak.
Quoting universeness
Not sure what you mean by "far more rigorous checks and balances than exist at present".
The spaceship argument is...well...ridiculous. or should I say ludicrous. My native tongue aint English (wished Glasgowian were!). No offense! I know you are serious about that stuff.
Quoting universeness
Could be a new title on the list! "TG and the dark solution"
As usual, the pleasure was mine uni! :wink:
Hadnt seen this one yet! I go into it later! The dog looks at me again with waggling tale. I know what time it is!
I think it's important to separate human actions and the labels used to describe it.
A killer Christian has to contend with his/her COMMANDMENT from god 'Thou shalt not kill.'
Science has no such commandments. Medicine has DO NO HARM and must also be contended with.
Quoting EugeneW
Control of dangerous technology is normally the purview of politics or 'those with power,' so we must have adequate checks and balances to prevent nefarious individuals from gaining economic or political power or both and therefore stop them from gaining access to such technology or stop them from ever having the authority to use such technology without permission from independent arbiters who represent the Populus involved.
Quoting EugeneW
It wasn't an argument, how do you suggest we expand beyond Earth without developing the necessary technologies. Your suggestion that we just don't, is not going to be adhered to and it's a bad suggestion anyway as extinction is much more likely if we all exist on one planet only.
ok maybe ramorra!
I away for a shower a feed and then the cheers of the beers!
It's quite the opposite. Science is a mere decoration. The explaining power of the sciences (insofar they have one) wrt the meaning of life (many physicists would say we're just here because of a quantum quirk or quack at the dawn of time or some fictional breaking of a gauge theory in a false vacuum) or the things we do (Dawkins gospeling the truth of organisms being machines to replicate genes or, in the case of people, memes), is non-satisfactory. The existence of gods fills life with a meaning that is non-explicable. The gods are just there eternally. How they came to be is a complete mystery. They just are. But contrary to a universe just existing and made up out of dead matter, as science teaches, life being (just?) an emergent phenomenon, it gives existence and our playing a magic load. Explaining things science cant. Gods can even be useful for physics and cosmology. Eternal inflation, for example, is an absurd idea. Like MWI and the standard interpretation in QM.
Some atheists challenge some theists from time to time to justify their beliefs. On a philosophy forum that is entirely appropriate and acceptable. It's also appropriate and acceptable in public discourse in response to theists arguing for their beliefs, or even just proselytising. I don't think I've ever heard an atheist say that theists should not be allowed to express their views.
You personify atheism and theism in your post, which I think causes conceptual mischief.
Indeed, both theism and atheism are neutral with regard to political handedness. There are many lefties in the clergy in the UK for example. And many right wing people whom I very much doubt believe in anything much past the narrow material interests of themselves and their loved ones.
I'm not sure if I'm an atheist or not, but in any case I ask both theists and atheists to justify their metaphysical views on a philosophy forum. The question of the burden of proof is interesting and complex it seems to me.
Sure. And even if society is more 'stable' or 'harmonious' under a monolithic religion, it says nothing about the truth of the belief system. It makes sense that a kind of monoculture, where there is minimal dissent or skepticism, is going to appear more stable.
Absolutely no. They are the cause the planet will get fucked up more and more. It grows exponentially in accordance with the imperative of science: "Discover!" Creation and the creatures involved in it gets fucked. No wonder humanity will be in danger one day, if not already. That clock! Dreaming to escape by a space ark is as silly as the believe in one almighty monster god. But dream on universeness! Instead of reducing technology, by the advocates even mirrored as indistinguishable from magic one day, you try building a spaceship to the stars! To escape the mess brought about by technology in the first place! Dream on dream on. We cant even create a virus...
The commentary usually involves what Durkheim (for example) calls anomie, the sense of being alienated from any kind of substantive value.....
That's the cliché, of course and it conveniently overlooks other factors. It reminds me of when I used to meet (some) old Germans, in the 1970's. They'd intone, "Say what you like about Hitler, but there was less crime, everyone knew their role and there was national pride.' Overarching foundational meta-narratives like religions bring unity and certainty, regardless of intrinsic merit.
Precisely. The monolithic reign of the current religion of the sciences says nothing about the truth of that belief.
But atheists aren't just people who don't believe in a god/s, they are as well actively opposed to such belief. It's why they are called 'atheists'. And you are entitled to share your beliefs, regardless of their strengths, with anyone prepared to listen. It's a right of free speech you have.
There are no scientists here regardless of your or others qualifications. All people here are philosophers.
Scientists are people who 'specialize' in fields of what otherwise are part of regular human existence.
Dawkins suffers from Lee Oswald syndrome. How to become famous in America. Oswald assassinated an American president, Dawkins goes after its religion. Both destructive actions.
:grin:
:100:
Alternatives modes of expression (recommended):
1. We're bound to rerun in the universal domain eternally. Again and again and again...
2. We're bound to rerun in the universal domain eternally. Again and again and again...ad infinitum
3. We're bound to rerun in the universal domain eternally. Again and again and again...ad nauseum :vomit:
4. We're bound to rerun in the universal domain eternally. Again and again and again (again × [math]\infty[/math])
5. Left to the reader as an exercise
Some atheists can't challenge some theists. Atheism as the term suggests is a challenge by all atheists to all theists, put up or shut up. Atheism by its existence threatens the free speech of theists. It is 'a-theism'. You are confusing atheism with naturalism the belief that the universe comes about naturally, no need for the supernatural, and is the real counterargument to theism. There is no proof of Nature (Big Bang is a theory, abiogenesis, and evolution too) so why the need to prove God.
And yes there are leftwing elements in the clergy, and there are the trendoid religions with their Harley Davidson riding priests, but let's face it religions are generally conservative. And conservatism is on the right.
Theists have every right to defend themselves from atheists. And sure there is a need for control mechanisms that do self arise, unions for example defending workers from the negative effects of Capitalism's survival of the fittest philosophy's impact on wages. But religion is hardly out of hand. And governments themselves have a far worse track record when it comes to mistreatment of its citizens. That said atheists are not anarchists as well.
I read rumors though that guys like Dawkins and Harris joint with the extreme right.
Enlightenment NOW. The case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.
Nice words. Humanism and progress. Who dont like humans and progress. But words can deceive. One's humanism can be other's inhumanity. One's progress can be other's way back.
Dawkins comes across as conservative, Harris too I'm sure. But atheism is different things. To these two it is a vehicle to fame they wouldn't have by just being scientists. Why atheism is an element of the Left is that it represents a patriarchal system, Moses, Jesus & Muhammad being men. The Bible teaching that women should obey their husbands, getting the Left's heckles up as well.(although good advice at the time, and mostly still now. Husbands obeying their wives in different instances too. A survival mechanism, the same reason why men are usually older than their female partners).
I don't see were you have established this is a cliche.
Karl Polanyi created the theory of substantive economics to specifically redress the problem that modern life has become over-monetized and lacking in substantive value. I live in the world; it's a real problem, not a cliche.
Humanism is the 'faith' of atheists and is meant to be a slap in the face for theism. But if a god is real, then anything set up to challenge its existence must fail. Humanism is a fail as just about all that is wrong with the world is of human creation. Global Warming the threat of Nuclear Winter etc. Atheism too is a fail. Naturalism fails as it is virtually non-existent and can never offer faith anyhow.
So what examples of 'worship' do you witness atheists participating in? Do they pray to nature, do they build places of worship to nature? Do groups of atheists gather together and sing worship songs to mother nature? Do we have a holy book of nature? Do atheists use any of the Omni's to refer to nature? I find your conflated comparison ridiculous.
Quoting EugeneW
Not for any atheist I know of.
Quoting EugeneW
Taking a leaf out of your book EugeneW, It could just as easily be said:
The Universe is just there eternally. How it came to be is a complete mystery.
The boring old switcheroo!
Quoting EugeneW
Only as examples of lazy, quick-fix solutions that offer zero progress.
Quoting EugeneW
I think I will leave that to those better qualified than I, meanwhile, the theists/religious stalwarts are welcome to continue to stagnate on Earth. I predict that if theism still has advocates 100,000 years from now, they will not have progressed one planck length from where they are right now. They will still be wasting their time and energy on that which does not exist and the evidence they have to support their claim will be the same as it is now.
Sure it's a cliché, but I didn't establish it as one - that was done by every thinker or apologist from Nietzsche to Jordan Peterson. It's a very common 'go to' argument against atheism.
-The invalidity of atheism
-My favourite philosophers of religion and theologians
-If one person can do it
-Jesus and Greek philosophy
-Omnipotence
-What is mysticism
-A first cause is logically necessary
-Thoughts on the way we should live
-The problem of evil
-Christian abolitionism
-Does God love some more than others
-Different creation/causation narratives
-Why are things the way they are
-The meaning of life
-Atheism and solipsism
-An argument against the existence of the most advocated god
-Free will and omnipotence
-A time problem for theism
-Can theists reject dualism
-Pascal's wager
-Does God have free will?
-The Christian trilemma
-Omnipotence and the law of non-contradiction
-The root of all evil
-An objection to a cosmological modal argument
-Fine tuning argument
-Why does time move forward
Is this a strange coincidence? Do I perceive pregnancy everywhere?
:rofl: Another pearl of knowledge from Gregory A which again, is way off the mark.
Quoting Gregory A
and your point is.......
Quoting Gregory A
Yeah, I am sure Richard Dawkins read about the life of Lee Harvey Oswald and thought to himself, "That's the life for me! If I copy his approach to life then I will become famous in America too!!" :lol:
'Keep em comin' Gregory A, you are very entertaining.
I think you will find that Oswald is infamous not famous and Dawkins is well known and respected, unlike Oswald. Your comparison between the two is utter nonsense.
Did Jim and Tammy Baker study Lee Harvey Oswald in their bid to become famous in America or is that suggestion, like yours, just BS.
The worship of an alien super advanced and super "intelligent" species (the omniscient and omnipotent gods) who have created us in their super computer. Cheers mate! You hang over from last night,? :smile:
Einstein would have been a realist which would leave him a little ambiguous. The harshness of reality and the miraculousness of existence causing confusion to many philosophers. The promise of immortality that 'Many Worlds' offers for example would have given him (if he'd lived a few more years) some reason to have belief. While on the other hand (his) determinism pretty much dashes all hope of believing.
In the labs they even beg nature! Forcing her to give answers in a language they suppose nature speaks. But she doesn't speak this language. They force her to speak it. By arranging the shape of experiment. Poor nature! Like that she wont answer...
Our friend Dawkins want to be famous not like Oswald but like the the guys writing silly books about him. Pays off...
It would be the nature of the syndrome not who it would be named after that matters. And Oswald's first name was Lee, not Lee-Harvey, (and being a communist he would have dropped his middle name ). Jim and Tammy wanted wealth more than fame. And who wants to be infamous, Oswald thought he was doing the right thing by communist standards killing an enemy (actually the best friend the communists had at the time when compared to his opponent at the 1960 general election the rabidly anti-communist Richard M. Nixon).
And again, in what ways have you witnessed this 'worship,' displayed?
Have you simply heard individuals talking about what you have typed above or do they sing and pray about it?
Quoting EugeneW
I am quite lucky on the 'hangover' front. I don't seem to suffer much the next day, no matter how much I drink. Tongue like a carpet and a bit groggy but a strong coffee and I'm pretty much 'back.'
Hope you had a good night yourself! :smile:
Quoting EugeneW
Such 'exaggeration' and 'added emotion,' are just attempts to bolster your viewpoint but they are just meaningless and unimpressive to me.
Quoting EugeneW
I will let Mr Dawkins answer for himself when it comes to whether or not he covets fame.
I personally don't think he does but I haven't asked him and I haven't watched an interview where he does discuss it directly. I did watch a session where he reads out all the hate mail he gets from theists and just general individuals who don't like him. It was quite entertaining.
The point is we don't need science to attach a head to a stick to make a spear, these are natural progressions, not things handed to us by scientists. It's the other way around in fact science owes its existence to the human need for discovery. .
It's a cultural thing (regardless of where he was born) the/you Brits are more likely to stand up and want to be acclaimed compared to say the Americans with their modesty and respect (the legacy of a strong Christian past).
What exactly do you mean by worshipping? Singing praying and bend in awe? Then no. That's not to be seen in science as they have no gods to worship. They onky have nature to beat into submission. To make up for the lack.
Quoting universeness
I'm sure he likes that mail. So he can proof his point.
I don't really care about getting his name structure correct in your eyes. The 'syndrome' of which you type is a conflated invention from your own musings and in my opinion, it has no relevance or significance whatsoever to the life of Richard Dawkins.
Oswald himself when interviewed in his earlier years rejected the term communist and
preferred Marxist. Communism and socialism are badly abused terms in capitalist America, culminating in the heinous actions perpetrated by McCarthyism. Some Americans are trying to show the rest that the two terms do not represent anything near what they have been told.
Many 'philosophers' on this site often cite the 'communes of Epicurus,' as a model of a good way to begin and run a human civilisation.
Quoting Gregory A
Fame and infamy are assigned to or removed from an individual by 'the masses,' regardless of the wishes of the individual involved. There is no doubt that some people actively seek and covet such as fame. Some also love infamy. Many people are often attracted to being considered notorious for example and notoriety is a sibling of infamy in my opinion. Such words are far more nuanced than you suggest.
Quoting Gregory A
Which 'communist standard' are you referring to? The epicurean communist standard, the hippy communist standard? The communist standard of Castro or the communist standard of each person that lives in Cuba/Russia/China that you have personally met and talked politics with? Or are you just spouting political generalisations? Nixion was just another narcissist, we have a large supply of them, in every generation.
It was you who associated the word 'worship' with atheists and scientists, not me.
Quoting EugeneW
Well, it's a legitimate way of dealing with his haters if you ask me. Well done Richard!
You suggested science and nature are seen by scientists as equivalent to god(s)
I disagree, as scientists do not apply the Omnis to science or nature and they don't worship science or nature in any way that resembles theistic worship.
Indeed. But their prayers are to a dead god. The god "they" worship is nature itself. Im a scientist too (as you probably know...) but I don't worship nature nor the gods. Im just admiring their beautiful creation and love knowing about it.
Well, they worship the holy science books and the holy words in science festivals. The upper priest of science gather to spread the words and to proselytize.
The worshipping isnt manifest. It hides in the minds of scientists and they secretly worship. It is not done to openly worship. That would be a sign of weakness.