god vs. god MMV

[skahound]

Re: god vs. god MMV

most of you don't live your lives in accordance with the consequences of such a conclusion.

Have you lost your mind? Are you saying that because I'm an atheist that I live a life that's full of evil and wrong-doing? I beg to differ. At least I'm not out killing legitimate doctors because my "faith" tells me that what they practice is wrong therefore they deserve to die. I'm also not out strapping C4 to my chest and walking through crowded markets, trains, and nightclubs because my "faith" tells me that I'll enjoy 30 some-odd virgins upon my ascension to the heavens. And last time I checked I wasn't declaring land as my possession to which I had no rightful ownership. I also don't go about my day telling people how they should live their life because what they may do may clash with my "faith" and what a man in a suit and tie tells me to believe on Saturday or Sunday.

Now, explain to me what these "very basic things" are of which you speak. And what's your basis? Are they "very basic" to you? Your religion? Your god? Lest we not forget that you're an atheist as well. Do you believe in the polytheism of the Greeks or the Romans? No? Ok, then you're an atheist by their standards.

And you're right, I know that answers to all questions are found in science somewhere. Everything has an explanation; there are some things that we have yet to discover the answer to though.

Let me ask you about your god. Have you seen him/her/it? Will you ever? If and when you do will you be able to prove it? No, I didn't think so. You waste your time and precious resources believing in something that no one will ever be able to prove actually exists. Why?

[skahound]

Re: god vs. god MMV

Atheists want to think they are the boss of their lives.

And what's the matter with thinking that? I do control every facet of my day, from the time I wake up to whether I drink coffee to what I watch on t.v. at night. To say that someone has written/planned out that on Thursday May 3, 2007 at 8:45pm I would be sitting on a red chair in the family room of my home in Orlando, Florida watching 'The Office' on NBC in high definition no less and that I would pause the DVR at precisely 8:46pm in order to get a glass of unsweetened iced tea and use 1 packet of Publix brand artificial sweetener is beyond absurd.

[Miroslav]

Re: god vs. god MMV

And what's the matter with thinking that? I do control every facet of my day, from the time I wake up to whether I drink coffee to what I watch on t.v. at night. To say that someone has written/planned out that on Thursday May 3, 2007 at 8:45pm I would be sitting on a red chair in the family room of my home in Orlando, Florida watching 'The Office' on NBC in high definition no less and that I would pause the DVR at precisely 8:46pm in order to get a glass of unsweetened iced tea is beyond absurd.

But how can you control every facet of your life in a world explained solely by science? Are you saying you have free will?

If so, how do you know you have free will?

[skahound]

Re: god vs. god MMV

But how can you control every facet of your life in a world explained solely by science? Are you saying you have free will?

If so, how do you know you have free will?

I have free will to type this message right now. I have free will to hit the submit button. Now if you want to dive in a little deeper and explain the processes by which those things occur once I make the conscious decision to act then we can discuss science. There was a recent, very large, study published on the brain and why we do the things we do. It deals with how many impulses our brain has to wade through at any given nanosecond and why some impulses succeed and others don't. You should check it out; it's definitely worth the time to read. Or you could not read it I guess and say that you didn't because your god planned for you not to, your choice I guess.

And what's all this talk about free will anyway? Who really cares? Why not just live? Why not just be happy to be on this planet? Why waste your time trying to give credit to someone or something that you will probably never come to realize?

[Miroslav]

Re: god vs. god MMV

I have free will to type this message right now. I have free will to hit the submit button. Now if you want to dive in a little deeper and explain the processes by which those things occur once I make the conscious decision to act then we can discuss science. There was a recent, very large, study published on the brain and why we do the things we do. It deals with how many impulses our brain has to wade through at any given nanosecond and why some impulses succeed and others don't. You should check it out; it's definitely worth the time to read. Or you could not read it I guess and say that you didn't because your god planned for you not to, your choice I guess.

And what's all this talk about free will anyway? Who really cares? Why not just live? Why not just be happy to be on this planet? Why waste your time trying to give credit to someone or something that you will probably never come to realize?

It's interesting and not just a bit ironic that your confident assessment that you have free will basically seems to amount to....a belief

So about the science...all things I've read on science ultimately come down to a deterministic paradigm of: 1. cause and effect, or 2. random result generation/probability. It may be excruciatingly complex, but it ultimately boils down to some combination of those two points. So, if by "free will" you mean that your actions involved in typing that message and hitting the send button were determined by a whole complex system of other factors...or else your behavior is the result of some sort of a process that systematically generates random results, then I accept your conclusion as being fully consistent with what science has to offer. I just wonder how "free" you really, though

Free will is important to talk about because it is an absolutely critical component in assessing the human condition - which is key in any theism/atheism debate. It's fine to just live life and be happy, as you say (although I'm not sure what significance "happy" has to you, given that it is just a very complex set of biochemical and neural processes that are either determined or randomly generated) and not question the contradiction between what you believe and what science can explain for you...but then at least recognize the fact that you're living your life very much behind the veil of belief and faith like everyone else.

[beto]

Re: god vs. god MMV

Ah, atheism...what a grand delusion! You atheists like to think you're free from that "crutch" of faith. And yet you're not very different in your inability to answer some very basic things...

delusion?

delusion: the act of deluding; deception by creating illusory ideas, a mistaken or unfounded opinion or idea; an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary.

I'm not "free" from faith, I just don't believe in gods, it's just how I am, I don't feel better nor worse than any other men.

how is free will even possible in a purely science based world

chaos? why should a "science-based" world have to be preplanned?

...and so you just basically say to yourselves "even if I personally can't explain it, it's all there...in the Scientific Method....somewhere..."

but then at least recognize the fact that you're living your life very much behind the veil of belief and faith like everyone else.

That's the beauty of it, I'm not saying anyone can become a string theorist by reading two books, but scientific theories must not only be verifiable, they must comply and prove all previous events and predict future ones. And anyone can pick them up and understand them, there's no belief system involved, it's pure logic, and mathematics. Whoever says "alright, I can't explain it, but it's all there, so I guess it works" is not really interested in a scientific explanation of things. And doing so doesn't automatically cancel the subscription to your religious belief of choice.

And even if you really believe that pure science says all there is to say about age-old human phenomena such as, say, "love"...most of you don't live your lives in accordance with the consequences of such a conclusion.

"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." -- Albert Einstein

Are you sensing the irony here?

No I'm quite confused actually. But I'm an atheist, and even worse, I'm studying sciences, so that might have something to do with it.

Through the very process that leads them to believe that they have opened their eyes and separated themselves from the blind faith followers, atheists end up demonstrating that they are just as much "bound" by a faith as everyone else.

how come is science a blind faith? by piling up knowledge and constantly evolving scientists lead blind sheep through the storm? Scientists are people trying to find out how nature works, what are the inner-workings of everything, and many of them have religious beliefs, just as many as you can find in any other environment. It's the search for answers that guides them, not faith.

[skahound]

Re: god vs. god MMV

It's interesting and not just a bit ironic that your confident assessment that you have free will basically seems to amount to....a belief

My atheism has absolutely nothing to do with refusing to have "belief" in my life. Of course I have to have faith in certain things and believe that what I've been taught is correct, etc. But I do not have to take that faith and belief and put it into some imaginary "person" because I do not have the intelligence or self-confidence to trust that there is a purely scientific process behind it. You keep referring to randomness but look around you, look around the universe, there is "order" behind every door. Do a little digging, but I warn you it will probably cause you to question your faith. However if you're anything like the other theists I've met in my life then you probably want nothing to do with being challenged and having your mind opened. For that would upset your bearded man in the sky and your "spirt" would not rise from the wooden box in the dirt where you'll eventually find yourself.

which is key in any theism/atheism debate.

Actually not even so much a theism/atheism debate but a theism/theism debate. There are theistic doctrines, even Christian ones, that stress that free will is 100% of daily life and that god will sort these acts and behaviors out in the end.

It's fine to just live life and be happy, as you say (although I'm not sure what significance "happy" has to you, given that it is just a very complex set of biochemical and neural processes that are either determined or randomly generated)

I don't have to argue the way I live my life, because as I've already mentioned my life is far more fruitful than the people that kill themselves or others every single day in this world in the name of god. I live every day with a smile on my face. If I wanted to go around 24/7 trying to figure out why my lips create an arc when certain synapses in the brain fire and Dopamine levels increase, then I would've gone into neuroscience. I can be happy without having to explain the minutia of what process it is that's making me happy. When my wife says that she loves me, it makes me smile.

[Miroslav]

Re: god vs. god MMV

delusion?

delusion: the act of deluding; deception by creating illusory ideas, a mistaken or unfounded opinion or idea; an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary.

I'm not "free" from faith, I just don't believe in gods, it's just how I am, I don't feel better nor worse than any other men.

If you admit that there is faith in your approach, then that's good enough for me...my whole point is pretty much that as a human being you can't escape faith - some element of it is always incorporated somewhere in your view of the world. Doesn't matter whether you're religious, atheist, whatever.

The delusion is "believing" that as an atheist you are above all the silly faith stuff.

chaos? why should a "science-based" world have to be preplanned?

That's the beauty of it, I'm not saying anyone can become a string theorist by reading two books, but scientific theories must not only be verifiable, they must comply and prove all previous events and predict future ones. And anyone can pick them up and understand them, there's no belief system involved, it's pure logic, and mathematics. Whoever says "alright, I can't explain it, but it's all there, so I guess it works" is not really interested in a scientific explanation of things. And doing so doesn't automatically cancel the subscription to your religious belief of choice.

Science doesn't have to be all pre-planned...but to cut to the chase, here is my issue with relying on science to explain everything.

If it's an atheistic world, science is all there is; it's the alpha and the omega. Everything should be explainable by science; science "rules all", in a sense.

But I believe that there are key aspects of our existence that science is fundamentally incapable of explaining. Not that it hasn't progressed to the point where it is able to do so, but that it just can't. And if it can't, then what does that say about atheism?

Like all people, atheists are forced to accept the notion that at some fundamental level they are in control of their destinies and that they are "free" to make choices in their lives. If you can just scientifically explain to me what we mean by things like "free will", "love", "meaning", etc. then I will probably be persuaded to become an atheist. But if science can't get us there, then we're back in the realm of faith.

"It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure." -- Albert Einstein

That's a great quote...but see everything I said above. If we're in a purely science-based world and we haven't even yet established what free will looks like...then what of our feelings and all of our personal evaluative statements about "meaning" in life? What does "have meaning" even mean in a purely scientific world?

how come is science a blind faith? by piling up knowledge and constantly evolving scientists lead blind sheep through the storm? Scientists are people trying to find out how nature works, what are the inner-workings of everything, and many of them have religious beliefs, just as many as you can find in any other environment. It's the search for answers that guides them, not faith.

Science is not leading a blind faith. I never said that. I don't doubt the validity of any scientific discoveries that people have made over the centuries.

I just suspect that it's certain people who are leading a blind faith by expecting that science can explain every aspect of their lives and that it essentially "frees" them from the constraints faith...all while they go about their daily lives subscribing to the same traditional scientifically unexplained notions of free will, love, meaning, etc. as everyone else.

[unkownartist]

Re: god vs. god MMV

^^^ But what if you can't find the answer?

Ah, atheism...what a grand delusion! You atheists like to think you're free from that "crutch" of faith. And yet you're not very different in your inability to answer some very basic things...

(...such as why we and everything around us has come to exist; do we have free will, how is free will even possible in a purely science based world; what is the "meaning" or nature of our feelings - i.e., can you even have love and happiness in a purely science based world, and if so what does it mean...)
.

and of course believing in god gives u all the answers? bulshit, thats just the easy road out my friend

[Miroslav]

Re: god vs. god MMV

My atheism has absolutely nothing to do with refusing to have "belief" in my life. Of course I have to have faith in certain things and believe that what I've been taught is correct, etc. But I do not have to take that faith and belief and put it into some imaginary "person" because I do not have the intelligence or self-confidence to trust that there is a purely scientific process behind it. You keep referring to randomness but look around you, look around the universe, there is "order" behind every door. Do a little digging, but I warn you it will probably cause you to question your faith. However if you're anything like the other theists I've met in my life then you probably want nothing to do with being challenged and having your mind opened. For that would upset your bearded man in the sky and your "spirt" would not rise from the wooden box in the dirt where you'll eventually find yourself.

Perhaps I should first clarify that I'm not the average religious person you think that I am. I don't go to church. I don't subscribe to any earthly religion. I don't anthropomorphize my deities as some dude in a flowing white robe with a beard. And I don't doubt the validity of science in anything that it has shown...so I'm not concerned about not upsetting some fragile ritualistic belief system written in a book.

If you accept that faith is an inescapable part of your life...then I fully agree with you. That's pretty much my whole point. You don't have to take your faith and subscribe it to that dude with the flowing white robe and a beard...but, well, can science explain things like "free will" for you? I think it fundamentally can't - that's my faith, you could say.

I don't have to argue the way I live my life, because as I've already mentioned my life is far more fruitful than the people that kill themselves or others every single day in this world in the name of god. I live every day with a smile on my face. If I wanted to go around 24/7 trying to figure out why my lips create an arc when certain synapses in the brain fire and Dopamine levels increase, then I would've gone into neuroscience. I can be happy without having to explain the minutia of what process it is that's making me happy. When my wife says that she loves me, it makes me smile.

A perfectly acceptable argument. And I'm glad that you're happy. But if you can go through life subscribing to all those traditionally "unscientific" notions of happiness, love, and freedom without really understanding or explaining them and just believing that science somehow could...then it sounds very much like a faith/belief-based approach to me.

We all have to have faith in something.

[asdf_admin]

Re: god vs. god MMV

red1. it does not give you all the answers, but it gives you the important ones.

[unkownartist]

Re: god vs. god MMV

red1. it does not give you all the answers, but it gives you the important ones.

in theory dom yes but give me one piece of hard evidence or proof that the teaching of the church has built its knoledge on actually fact , thats what gets me about it, all the basis is knoledge from yesteryears, i swore i would try to keep out of this post but the lour was to great , i like a good debate from time to time, for me this knoledge was built when there complete understanding of the earth space etc was built on the fear of having no hard evidence on what is actually happening around u, for me the whole thing is built on fear

[KinKyJ]

Re: god vs. god MMV

DIE THREAD, DIE!!!

[beto]

Re: god vs. god MMV

If you admit that there is faith in your approach, then that's good enough for me...my whole point is pretty much that as a human being you can't escape faith - some element of it is always incorporated somewhere in your view of the world. Doesn't matter whether you're religious, atheist, whatever.

The delusion is "believing" that as an atheist you are above all the silly faith stuff.

Likle I said, I'm not above it, underneath it or to the sides of faith. That's a fundamental difference in our point of view, you want to put faith in everything, you've even twisted my previous comment into something where you read that I admit having faith. You need faith to believe in things you can't explain, when you're chasing that explanation, faith goes out the window.

Science doesn't have to be all pre-planned...but to cut to the chase, here is my issue with relying on science to explain everything.

If it's an atheistic world, science is all there is; it's the alpha and the omega. Everything should be explainable by science; science "rules all", in a sense.[/quote]

But I believe that there are key aspects of our existence that science is fundamentally incapable of explaining.

If we were living in the 1600's, you'd be saying something like, "if earth spins, why aren't we feeling a wind on our faces? if earth moves around the sun, how come we don't feel any movement at all?" and you'd use those questions as a foothold for your point of view. Holding to unexplained things to discredit science is quite an empty argument.

[quote[Not that it hasn't progressed to the point where it is able to do so, but that it just can't. And if it can't, then what does that say about atheism?[/quote]

Care to pinpoint some of the things science is able to explain but then it just can't and marks the end of the atheists as we know them? Your point is, scientifics they can't explain everything "even if they're able to do so" so atheists are wrong. What in hell has science to do with atheism? Science has come up with an interesting theory about the origin of the universe, man have walked the moon, we know the inner workings, the composition, the past and the future of distant stars just by looking at their light. What does that say about atheism? Nothing. Science hasn't been able to explain everything, and so what? care to compare explanations? but you have to prove things here, magic and miracles won't do it.

Like all people, atheists are forced to accept the notion that at some fundamental level they are in control of their destinies and that they are "free" to make choices in their lives. If you can just scientifically explain to me what we mean by things like "free will", "love", "meaning", etc. then I will probably be persuaded to become an atheist. But if science can't get us there, then we're back in the realm of faith.

I'm not forced to accept any notion. You are.

If you can just scientifically explain to me what we mean by things like "free will", "love", "meaning"

I'm starting to believe that you don't have the slightest idea about how science works or what science is. You somehow pretend to have everything explained, laid out in front of you, perfect theories and a complete knowledge of everyhthing. To bring you a completely logical explanation that replaces your faith. No one will do that, and science doesn't ask anyone to change their faiths. Though the opposite has happened quite a few times.

I just suspect that it's certain people who are leading a blind faith by expecting that science can explain every aspect of their lives and that it essentially "frees" them from the constraints faith...

So you suspect, that there are certain people... Want to talk about certain people leading blind faiths and convincing their followers that they're being freed?

[thesightless]

Re: god vs. god MMV

he he.

skahound has become CDJ's mirror. i love this thread.

in related news out of orlando....

Joe R (privacy protected) was oddly enough smited down by a bolt of lightning today with no clouds in sight. witnesses say the victim was spouting anti god slogans on the corner, yelling at old people that they were wasting thier lives going to mass, and suddenly, a bolt came from the sky and struck down a promising young man, only 2 years into what relatives call a perfect marriage.----AP wire