Atheists... what would it take?

Re: Raithere

Originally posted by tiassa

Tiassa, you wear me out. Though you'll never be able to claim a talent for being succinct your posts are interesting.

Regarding the reference, I was indicating why these boards take the trends that they do, not refusing to accept that there are other notions of God or refusing to discuss them.

So we have 6 requests that God do for individuals what is said won't be done

So God refuses to perform miracles? Most religions include miracles in their mythology.

3 more requests for something that is doctrinally out of the question

Whose doctrine? Seriously, one moment you're complaining that there are too many strictures on the notion of God brought to discussion, the next moment you're claiming doctrinal authority… which is it to be?

What strikes me are the eleven requests for invalidations of a concept before the individual will accept the validity of the concept. Oh, well. (For the record, those are the 6 for true miracles, the 3 for personal appearance, the 1 for direct benefit, and the 1 for impossibility.)

75% of the respondents accounted for have requested proofs of God which are inherently contradictory. I find this a compelling statistic.

How is it that God demonstrating its existence invalidates itself as God? I assume this is coming from a concept of God as "that which is unknowable" but then I must question where you derive your inception of the concept of God in the first place.

Technically, that only serves my point. But I'll point you over to the Kharkovli thread instead of leaving it simply standing at that.

I'll leave a detailed reply for when I have time and will post in the proper topic, however, after a superficial reading it seems that you are discussing religion as a social phenomenon. While I agree the topic is valuable it reduces God to an abstraction rather than the fact most Theists claim it to be.

I have repeatedly reminded all of a greater sense of God. If you have yet to see it, perhaps you're not looking?

Ah, one of Jan's favorite arguments. If you can't sense God then you're not looking or not looking properly. And you like to claim it's the Atheists who are arrogant, for shame.

Seriously though, what you call a "greater sense of God" I consider to be the shadow of lost infancy and childhood. It's the lost sense of security and awe most of us experienced during these periods in our lives. Fortunately, I do not have to go without satisfying these deeply ingrained needs. That I do not is a point of major confusion for most Theists.

we can knock off gods one at a time if we want but will never get back toward that central idea of a godhead which is present in all religions. What is the concept of God, for instance?

Another familiar argument: The lost truths. I see no such origins evinced in the various concepts of God, believe me as a Theist I looked hard for them. The similarities that exist do so because of our common human nature rather than remnants of a unified past.

On the one hand, I've been advised that such a "god" is an unnecessary condition, and to the other, I've been asked a couple of times to provide a godhead for discussion. I'm not sure what to make of it.

The first is a reply to the notion of an unknowable God, which is simply an unnecessary complication. The second is obviously an attempt to get you to state your position on what God is. You refute all attempts to debate God's existence based upon a lacking definition of God yet refuse to bring another consideration to the table.

Part of the key is right there, I promise you.

I have a feeling we're going to be returning to our "meaning and consciousness" debate on this one. Any ultimate answer or ultimate question implies that there is an intent to existence. If I'm off track here you'll need to be a bit less abstruse. I'm not here to solve riddles.

I have yet to see this process taking place.

The most simple one goes like this: There is no evidence or condition that supports any idea of God or necessitates God's existence, therefore to believe in God is simply an unnecessary complication.

It's out there.

I'm waiting. It's rather difficult to analyze an argument that hasn't been presented.

Can you give me another words?

See above.

What is it with atheists and this idea of, "I never said that"?

It generally occurs when you misrepresent a statement in order to refute it or point out an error.

I repeatedly pointed back to an example of the process for you in the Downside topic and you made the justification I've included at the beginning of this post.

Please refer back to my reply to that at the top of this post.

And for all the times I've mentioned the difference between defeating the Christian concept of God and the general concept of God, I have yet to see an atheist undertake it.

Take another look up; this is not the first time I have presented that argument.

God is a necessary word to encapsulate a range of ineffable principles in the Universe.

What a joke. The word God expresses the inexpressible? You've also claimed that God is unknowable. What possible point is there in pursuing this unknowable, inexpressible concept? How can you possibly assert truth to such a concept? It sounds to me like your following Jan's dark path of illogic. I'll quote Sting, "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da".

It is easy to reject God while subscribing to religion; it is much harder to do the opposite.

Not really, we call them lapsed Catholics; I went to school with lots of them. Using your depiction of a patriot as religious you give an example of and atheist patriot. Though, personally, I find the use of the term religion in this manner to be problematic.

Here ... here's a question: Do atheists say, "Goddamnit!"
And I know for a fact that many of them do. Now, why?

It's part of our vernacular. I also say "Shit!" even when there's no shit to be seen and "Fuck!" even when I'm not having intercourse.

But whether it's my own paganism, Christianity, Sufism, or whatnot, I have always asserted that the godhead is illusory, a representation, a compressed idea, a scale-model (at best), or otherwise not truly real.

Then what about the larger concept of God is real and how can you know?

People create gods; upon what foundation do they build them?

Well you begin to answer the question yourself.

How did superstition anthropomorphize?

Because we have a strong tendency as humans to do so. We often conceptually project ourselves into the objects or events we witness. Human language is rife with examples. I don't find the riddle particularly difficult.

Remember, sir, that if you meet the Buddha walking along the road, you are to kill him.

I read this long ago and I proceeded to do so.

We might compare that to a common Sufi phrase: "I have not learned anything."

Or even Socrates… and don't forget Bill and Ted.

~Raithere

 

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Raithere

No, Raithere, the Christian God refuses to perform miracles just to convince people that He exists. In general, ask a Christian.

Well, after all your insistence that we're only talking about the Christian God, I'm wondering why you're confused. But, as with miracles and healings, the Christian God does not make house calls on demand.

Outside of that, all of the requests are balderdash because, when applying the larger template of God, miracles, personas to make appearances, and so forth all disappear.

I do find Douglas Adams quite useful here. I might point toward the Hitchhiker's Guide summary of the argument concerning God--that God requires faith (doctrinal), that proof invalidates the concept of faith (logical), and therefore any proof removes faith and causes God to disappear in a puff of dust.

There's that aspect.

But killing the Buddha is a parallel concept.

The Adams' concept centers largely around the God of the Christians; the bit about killing the Buddha is a Zen principle. Do you see how the two disparate faiths overlap? That to stand with proof of God before you indicates that you are not seeing God?

I get it from paying attention to what people who believe in God say about God. It's really quite simple, but that last is only my opinion.

And the Top 40 is, as a rule of thumb, quality musical theory and ace execution by talented songwriters and musicians capable of clearly expressing their vision.

And the most popular television show is necessarily the best.

Movies?

Election results?

Come on ... Christianity intentionally appeals to the lowest common denominator. Many religions do. This is the problem with those religions; by assembling the least intellectual of society, they tend to carry simplistic notions of God.

If, then, the godhead is to be exploited to human benefit, or even if its benefit comes from its eradication, that still must be done from a platform of understanding, else one is randomly dropping firestorms on what they're not entirely sure is there.

I could claim them to be illiterate, Raithere.

Let's try this again:

• I have repeatedly reminded all of a greater sense of God. Why are you asking me to present one when I already have? If you have failed to see this in my posts, perhaps you're not looking?

That may well be true. It is, in fact, a strong possibility. But we cannot say it is definitely true.

Denial is not just a river in ... oh, never mind.

You're on a discussion board, proactively expounding on your sense of belief. I think you do, in fact need to satisfy those ingrained needs by exploring them. Analogously, we might consider the notion of sexual intercourse. Some people just need to get laid. But not Bob. No, sir. That he doesn't need to satisfy those ingrained sexual needs confuses people. Of course, he's stroking to online porno, so ....

Lost truths?

Tell me, Raithere, why is murder wrong? What about rape?

Notions of economy and greed?

Does it bug you when you see a child suffering? Why or why not?

The common human nature is a part of the concept. So are the physics, quantum mechanics, and biology of the Universe. Its creation, its progress ... I would put it to you this way: watch a fire-cracker explosion. You've just seen a scale model of the Universe. What if that was your infinite Universe? When the light goes out, has the effect of the explosion stopped? No, it has not. The concept of god represents both space and time, and all the events therein.

You ever make tomato soup with milk? It's now five minutes later, and you're rejecting the soup because it's all "skin". On the one hand, there's still hot soup underneath the skin, but you might not know that from such a superficial examination, and, on the other hand, the skin which leads you to the rejection of the soup can easily be avoided if the soup is formulated a different way.

I'm waiting for your proposed word to substitute for the whole of what the god-concept comprises.

Can you get any more offensive? Go on, try it.

And then remember that just because you can't understand the expression of God put before you does not mean that it's not there. Here, I'll post a reminder here:

• I have repeatedly reminded all of a greater sense of God. Why are you asking me to present one when I already have? If you have failed to see this in my posts, perhaps you're not looking?

Ah, you have not read Adams' fine tales. Okay. Makes sense. Um ...

• So goes the story: The Vogons have destroyed the Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass, and the mice are particularly upset about that. The Earth, it turns out, was a large, organic computer, and every portion of it was dedicated to solving the problem assigned it. Prior to the Earth, a computer named Deep Thought postulated that the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything was, in fact, forty-two. However, Deep Thought could not, at that time, remind the people of what, specifically, the question was. So the designers at Magrathea built the Earth as a massive computer to calculate the Ultimate Question. Five minutes before the Earth was destroyed, it finished its routine, and the answer materialized in a cafe in Rickmansworth. Then the Vogons arrived. And then the Earth was destroyed. Two earthlings made it off the planet; Arthur Dent and Tricia MacMillan. Arthur Dent was on the planet longer than "Trillian" was, and thus holds in his circuitry (body) the program in its latest state. The mice would like to extract that imprinted data from Arthur Dent's brain in order to extrapolate and finish the calculations.

Now then, religion as it applies to life is an interesting thing, but there are some interesting things going on with creation stories. No creation story is ever truly irrelevant, though most of them read like nonsense in the form we've received them today. But they did make some sense at the time of their inception, and it can be reasonably postulated that our inexplicable religious bent reflects buried, imprinted impressions of the Universe itself. Before you scoff that one off, I ask, why do you not feel the Earth move? And why do you not consciously hear Cosmic Background Radiation? Conditioning, you might say? But of course ... and how many billions of years came between the Bang and earthling life? Perhaps the pattern is faded and distant?

There is nothing in the Universe that says a light switch can only be implemented to activate and deactivate lights.

Cryptic, I admit, but the point is in there.

Our conclusions depend upon the data set being complete enough to draw a conclusion from. In addition to our objective ruling out of gods, we must consider our conclusions about how we arrive at that point. There is much which defies our perception in this Universe.

Being that I've claimed in the past that gods and religions represent our essential ignorance of ourselves, I think it's fair to say that the god-myth has a good long life ahead of it still. But let me know as soon as you find the word that makes "God" unnecessary.

Ah, I see.

Tell me about incest. Believing in, say, the Christian God would have you believing that it is wrong to sleep with your mother and reproduce by her. An unnecessary complication? Admittedly, if one throws enough darts, one will eventually necessarily hit the target. But take a look at much of the religion people reject. Prohibitions against homosexuality in the Old Testament don't bother me because wasting seed for recreational sex was a practical danger. The Hebrews, I'm sure, would send their apologies for not having invented microscopes.

The longer you insist that, the less sympathetic I am to the present communication difficulties. On the one hand, you say you haven't seen it despite the fact that I've presented the notion several times in recent weeks, and to the other, you look over to the thread where one version of it is being discussed and object to the transformation of God into something that's not as easy to throw stones at.

Where?

I'm still waiting ....

Or when someone has no better response. Personally, I would like to see people reading each other's posts with a bit more sympathy, but that approach doesn't seem to work. I mean, I even pointed you to examples, and you still managed to say, "I don't recall anyone doing this". While it is entirely possible that you don't recall or that you didn't read those posts, I find the phrase annoying when it represents a state that is not true. Mind you, I hear the "I didn't say that" or "Nobody said that" more often than I should from people of integrity. Especially when I point it out to them that they are representing an untruth.

Yes, well, stating the obvious doesn't seem to help much, does it? See, that's the problem. It's a perfectly fine explanation, and it's perfectly fine to accept it if you want. But it doesn't excuse the trend, and it doesn't help transfer the atheist conclusion to other ideas in such a wonton manner as our atheists seem to prefer.

I mean, right there is a downside to atheism. I suppose I should go include that in its relevant topic.

If you say so.

I'm waiting for that proposed word. In the meantime, I'll sing along.

Lapsed Catholics?

Sure, I'll agree that there are problems in using the term religion as applies to patriotism, but that points toward other factors that I can't yet account for. An atheist will reject God's arbitrary-seeming authority while adhering to another. It shows the limitations of atheism's value, in that sense.

But neither shit nor fuck has anything to do with God.

Knowing would imply that I've learned what there is to learn.

The larger concept of God that is real manifests itself in people's actions. Gods, regardless of what one thinks of them, do in fact have influence in the decisions people make, and therefore the nature and progress of human societies, and also therefore how humans interact with the nature around them (e.g. prior Catholic considerations on the Devil considered the nature of evil as relates to a blind horse; apparently, it's a classic illustration that I'll have to look up and drag out if e'er there arises a worthwhile topic to include it in.

Well, I could answer myself, but I would imagine that you would object to the answer.

So I'll wait for yours.

Yes, but such an explanation hardly addresses the degree to which those anthropomorphizations affect people. Of course, I didn't necessarily ask, but it seems to me that if we leave it at that, we leave it quite sterile and without any consideration of the human processes themselves. People do feel, sir. And their feelings happen to be the one thing in the world that is most real to them.

You'd think that if superstition was anti-evolutionary, people would have ditched it long ago.

But it wasn't. Even religion helped keep the human species in it, so to speak. Certes, knowledge is replacing superstitions, but the luxury of information now has people reeling as their presuppositions are crushed. The only real problem with that is that they look to God for solutions.

And did you continue to seek the real Buddha, or did you presume you had killed him?

thanx,
Tiassa

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Tiassa

Here is the two-option question to which I responded. Very clear to see. The God (capital letter, monotheistic) usually, at least here, represents the christian idea of god, does it not?

Once again: I did not bring it up, please don't make up lies about me.

 

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Re: Tiassa

"usually" but I think you already know that I am not a Christian. Nice move

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Whatever you say, Adam, despite what's already written down

Only if you choose that it does.

People refer to "god" when speaking of a deity such as Zeus. Zeus was a god.

IHVH (Yahweh) is a god.

Christians call Yahweh "God".

The word "God" is also the capital name used to refer to the godhead. When Newsweek or Time, for instance, finds that anywhere from 80-95% of the people surveyed believe in "God", that finding is not restricted solely to the Judeo-Christian experience. It includes all the Hindus, Muslims, and others whose belief systems have a godhead.

Furthermore, without leaning on the Christian deity, the choice put before you is accurate. You have either "God" and the Universe or "nothing" and the Universe.

Awww, Adam, you ought to wait until you have something to complain about. Haven't you ever heard the story of the boy who cried wolf? Or is this one of those things that you disbelieve because nobody can prove that there ever was either a boy or a wolf?

You took a point which referred to "God" and transmuted it into a point that refers to the "Christian God".

It is only your focus on specific labels; nothing more, nothing less.

But if you really insist ... sure. Whatever. I'll believe you. It matches your form.

thanx,
Tiassa

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TheChosen

Yes, you're right, I forgot you have not claimed to be christian. Please then explain what you emant when you suggested a choice between "God or nothing".

Tiassa

Tiassa, surely you jest. In my previous post I showed what was posted, what I responded to. Ignore the very high likelihood of that being a reference to the chrisian god, Creator spirit, or a similar monotheistic concept if you wish. But I think you know you are reaching very far to make a non-existent point.

Ignore what is there is you wish. That is true to your form.

As for 42...

In the Hitch-hikers story, 42 was not actually the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. That is a common misconception held by those unable to keep track of a stream. The question programmed into the computer was something like "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" The answer was "42". Note that the question and the answer did not match. The result? The meaning of life, the universe, and everything was stored in Arthur Dent's brain, and he said it quite clearly after figureing out that the question and answer do not match: "I've always felt there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe." That sentence is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything. It's all stuffed.

 

Call me fascist if you want Adam

Call if fascism if you want, Adam, but once again I am quite sure you're missing the point. And, once again, I will tell you how.

You can argue the actual semantics of the question/answer all you want, but the point is that that question was thought to be hiding in Arthur Dent's brain. Developed within a system, the effect of the system is inherently written into his being. Or, as you have written, he meaning of life, the universe, and everything was stored in Arthur Dent's brain. (Which leaves me wondering what issue you're having with the issue.) As with Cosmic Background Radiation, as the example goes. We haven't merely filtered it out the way we might the freeway noise or such. Having been conceived, developed, and born within an environment, we are intrinsically connected to it. Does anyone remember that Superman couldn't actually fly? Technically, he could leap incredible distances? I actually remember that bit from the Salkind movie, and I've actually been in an Android's Dungeon-styled comic shop and listened to that exact debate going on behind the counter.

The effects of the environment in which an object develops will show. If we might imagine a multiverse, each with different background radiation frequencies, it would be quite simple to determine the frequency by looking at an object from any given Universe; sufficient technology, of course, as it has become apparent to me that the Jews may just be expected to apologize for not inventing microscopes.

Well, Adam, you're so anxious to "even the score" or some such that you're willing to (A) lie about me in order to have a point to argue against and ridicule, as demonstrated in history; (B) lie about yourself while you cover for either inadequate or irresponsible expression ("I never said that, I didn't mean that"); and (C) follow me from topic to topic trying over and over and over to score a point that way.

So surely, Adam, you jest.

If you wait until you actually have a complaint instead of attempting to invent one out of thin air--to create one on faith, as such--then it wouldn't be so hilarious to me when you cry wolf.

You mean like this topic where I've shown you what the issue is, and cited it? How could I ignore it, Adam? Like the time I "ignored" the other problems in your posts and cited them for you?

I believe the point has even been clarified by its author. So if you insist on telling the author what he meant to say, take it up with him.

Oh, wait. I see that you have.

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,
Tiassa

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Re: Raithere

Originally posted by tiassa
Outside of that, all of the requests are balderdash because, when applying the larger template of God, miracles, personas to make appearances, and so forth all disappear.
…
God requires faith (doctrinal), that proof invalidates the concept of faith (logical), and therefore any proof removes faith and causes God to disappear in a puff of dust.

Then why and on what grounds do you continue to assert the existence of any God(s)?

That to stand with proof of God before you indicates that you are not seeing God?

I've no problem understanding the concept; I simply fail to see where God becomes a necessity.

I get it from paying attention to what people who believe in God say about God.

This is fine as far as determining where you derive the concept from but I still fail to see any support for assertion of the concept.

I have repeatedly reminded all of a greater sense of God.

What "greater sense of God"? I don't sense or feel anything for which I need to rely on the notion of God to define and there are others who agree with me. Can you demonstrate or otherwise prove this assertion? If not, why should I bother with it?

Why are you asking me to present one when I already have? If you have failed to see this in my posts, perhaps you're not looking?

Why are you being so evasive about it then? Instead of simply restating your notion of God you continue to repeat, "I already did" or otherwise divert the discussion. It seems to me that you're reluctant to expressly define your position. No matter, if this is how you wish to address it, I'll go along.

That may well be true. It is, in fact, a strong possibility. But we cannot say it is definitely true.

No, we can't. However, when considering a concept that has a strong possibility of being true as opposed to a concept that is either 1) unprovable or 2) illogical, I don't see the sense in asserting the latter.

I think you do, in fact need to satisfy those ingrained needs by exploring them.

Sure, what would you like to discuss about the human need for security and awe (perhaps wonder would be a better word)? Perhaps we can start with a discussion of why Theists mistakenly assume that God is the only thing that can fulfill these needs and therefore Atheists go lacking.

Tell me, why is murder wrong? What about rape?

Because; In both cases, the person committing the action is inflicting harm on another person without their consent.

The common human nature is a part of the concept. So are the physics, quantum mechanics, and biology of the Universe. Its creation, its progress ...

So now we need to discuss every facet of the Universe before we can come to a conception of God? Please. If God is simply the Universe and everything within then why not just say, "The Universe" why not say, "Everything"? Why invoke a concept that largely implies a personality or at least a consciousness and carries all the religious baggage along with it? No, sorry. There are certain aspects of an object that make it God as opposed to it being a frying pan, a supernova, the Earth, Human predilection, excrement, the Universe as a whole, the entire dimension of time/space, or every conceivable possibility.

So, I'll ask you specifically: What, if anything, in your conception of God distinguishes it from Not-God? If the answer to the first question is nothing, what distinguishes the concept of The Universe including God from the concept of The Universe (or as you put it "space and time, and all the events therein) without God?

The concept of god represents both space and time, and all the events therein.

Why not simply say "space/time and all the events therein"? Why not simply say "the Universe" or "the entire history of the Universe"? Why anthropomorphize?

And then remember that just because you can't understand the expression of God put before you does not mean that it's not there.

I understand it okay; I just don't know why you have to express it in fits and starts, scattering it all over the place. You obviously have a problem being succinct but I wonder if it's deliberate at times.

I have repeatedly reminded all of a greater sense of God.

What greater sense of God?

Ah, you have not read Adams' fine tales.

Sure I have; I did mention the Ultimate Answer and the Ultimate Question.

it can be reasonably postulated that our inexplicable religious bent reflects buried, imprinted impressions of the Universe itself.

One hardly need delve into fantastic fables of God and creation in order to explain man's tendency towards superstition, anthropomorphism, tribalism, politics, society, mythology, etc. This is just the appeal to popularity in sheep's clothing.

Before you scoff that one off, I ask, why do you not feel the Earth move? And why do you not consciously hear Cosmic Background Radiation? Conditioning, you might say? But of course ... and how many billions of years came between the Bang and earthling life? Perhaps the pattern is faded and distant?

Sure, the pattern of the inception of the Universe is imprinted upon the contents of the Universe. There is a similar theory in physics known as the Holographic Principle. [url]http://physicsweb.org/article/world/13/3/3/1[/url] So? Are you telling me that you can read this pattern and see God?

Our conclusions depend upon the data set being complete enough to draw a conclusion from. In addition to our objective ruling out of gods, we must consider our conclusions about how we arrive at that point. There is much which defies our perception in this Universe.

Again, no problem here. I take the weak Atheistic position myself. God may be a possibility but that does not make it a probability much less a necessity. Neither evidence nor logic necessitates God; I might as well believe in Santa Claus and undetectable, flying, pink bananas.

Being that I've claimed in the past that gods and religions represent our essential ignorance of ourselves, I think it's fair to say that the god-myth has a good long life ahead of it still.

Don't forget our essential ignorance of the Universe.

Tell me about incest. Believing in, say, the Christian God would have you believing that it is wrong to sleep with your mother and reproduce by her. An unnecessary complication?

Are you telling me that one must believe in the Christian God in order to believe that incest is wrong? If not you can dump the argument.

Or when someone has no better response.

I disagree, but I'm not digressing any further, you want to discuss then lets discuss but I'm tired of wasting time discussing the discussion. What a fucking waste of time.

I mean, right there is a downside to atheism.

No, it's a downside to discussion boards… all topics eventually digress.

Lapsed Catholics?

A Catholic that believes but doesn't behave as if he believes…. it's a joke… nevermind.

Sure, I'll agree that there are problems in using the term religion as applies to patriotism, but that points toward other factors that I can't yet account for.

It might be an interesting topic somewhere else.

An atheist will reject God's arbitrary-seeming authority while adhering to another. It shows the limitations of atheism's value, in that sense.

That's because Atheism determines nothing about accepting or rejecting authority.

But neither shit nor fuck has anything to do with God.

Please don't get into linguistics with me. In the vernacular, goddammit has as much to do with God as hysterical has to do with the uterus. Don't waste my time.

The larger concept of God that is real manifests itself in people's actions.

Proof? Logical support? Reason for assertion?

Gods, regardless of what one thinks of them, do in fact have influence in the decisions people make, and therefore the nature and progress of human societies, and also therefore how humans interact with the nature around them

Proof? Logical support? Reason for assertion?

Yes, but such an explanation hardly addresses the degree to which those anthropomorphizations affect people.

I disagree, we mentally explore the world much as we physically explore the world by going out and touching (I do not mean this in a literal, psychic, sense). When you imagine what it's like to be a squirrel do you imagine the squirrel as separate from you or as if you were the squirrel? The latter, of course.

it seems to me that if we leave it at that, we leave it quite sterile and without any consideration of the human processes themselves

It is a human process, how can it be without consideration of a human process?

People do feel, sir. And their feelings happen to be the one thing in the world that is most real to them.

And thus we have most of the misery in the world.

You'd think that if superstition was anti-evolutionary, people would have ditched it long ago.

It had it's use at one time, so did the appendix. We're also speaking about ideas, or memes, here which have their own evolutionary methods.

the luxury of information now has people reeling as their presuppositions are crushed.

Granted… hopefully we'll get through this rough period. I liken it to the early teenage years in a human life.

And did you continue to seek the real Buddha, or did you presume you had killed him?

Please, the goal is not to find Buddha.

~Raithere

 

Tiassa, you really want my butt, don't you?

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Please, Adam, no homosexual tendencies

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TheChosen

Not my fault! I was just an innocent friggin bystander!

 

Tiasa,

it's somewhat true that other concepts of god (apart from abramic) get little airtime, I gotta say that you are equally guilty in contributing to the bias. There are plenty of posts where you go on about different parts of x-tian history, obscure xtian theology, etc, etc, etc.

I fully agree that debunking the xtian myth is too ridiculously easy and not really worth the effort. OTOH, it's good entertainment, just look at the fun everyone had when KalvinB was around with his righteous anger and insults.

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However, it gets old after a while.

I'm decided that I don't want to post anymore on the xtian myth, nor will I read other posts about it.

I've always been curious as to what the more articulate posters around here have to say about concepts like satori(enlightenment), karma (destiny, not fate), rebirth(re-incarnation), etc. However, there's never been sufficient interest when these topics were raised.

Well, I did try to talk to tiassa about Wicca (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=6823&perpage=20&highlight=wicca&pagenumber=2 ) and these were the conclusions -

A wiccan (or by extension a shaman, voodoo guy, etc) is unable to provide any proof at all of his/her powers. Eg. Read something locked inside a vault.

A wiccan may experience the supernatural, but is not able to reproduce the experience for other people.

I think the conclusion was that science as it stands has "not discovered everything ... and has not even discovered all ways of discovering things."

 

I have the feeling that the writer of this thread was not interested in other ways of thought at all. He was just out to proselytize. This thread is going absolutely nowhere.

 

...and you aren't alone in that suspicion.

 

For me to beleive in god, the clouds must spell out "get down muthafucka" in block letters while steaming piles of feces rain from the sky.

Then from the skies there must be a deep gravely voice singing Barry White songs. Between each song, the voice must bellow "I'm god, so don't fuck with me!!!"

That would be proof enough.

 

Or maybe he was just curious...

 

Raithere

Because part of the concept of God exists independently of the petty religions so many atheists spend time debunking. Especially of the Biblical tradition so many atheists spend time debunking.

Um ... I thought we were talking about the idea of what it would take for an atheist to believe in God in terms of your question, How is it that God demonstrating its existence invalidates itself as God?. We're aware that you fail to see where God becomes a necessity, but I don't see how that relates to the point we were discussing.

I hope, over time, to make that clear. It isn't going to be quite as easy as possible. I'm actually thinking of a phrase that might clear things up, but I don't usually recognize this condition because it so rarely comes up. Nonetheless, we'll see.

See, I always wonder why it focuses so much on the self. I don't sense or feel anything .... So what? You're not supposed to.

Here, try this link. Try 5b and 6b.

Well, try starting with the idea that God is not a thing or an entity or a personality or a being.

It's scattered throughout my reminders about the context of God; atheists often refute the miniscule ideas of God while ignoring the larger perspective of God.

The word "God" represents a condition or state. That state cannot solely be said to be existence, but, well? On the one hand, we talk of a multiverse, but to me the whole thing is simply the Universe. No matter how many "universes" there are in the multiverse, the whole of existence is the whole of existence. But it's not just that, because it is also the passing of time and all that is and was and will be and all the possibilities, all the imaginations .... The word God represents the whole of everything. I mean, look at how silly that phrase is, the whole of everything. If you would like to provide a word for it, like I said, I'm open to suggestions. But the gods of religions are merely self-evident aspects of the whole of everything. "God's will" may be a silly way of putting it, but if life, the Universe, and everything was meant to be different, it would have been. Religion is nothing more than fatalism with rules and a name. Humankind is "created in God's image"? Sure. This is how we evolved; we are a reflection of the conditions put before us in the Universe. Should we have evolved otherwise, we would have.

It's why I favor the Sufi term accretions. The stupid sentiments of most religions distract humanity from "God's will", such as it is (and I remind you that I agree it to be a silly phrase), which is simply the way of living and existing in the Universe. Another Sufi phrase that catches my perception is the idea of "certain opportunities for humankind" (see Kharkovli thread). The advancement of the human species in the Universe is hardly an inappropriate "way". It seems, in fact, quite logical to me when examining the rest of the living scheme for comparison.

Part of the problem is that you've demonstrated the need for a definition that cannot apply. You have to stop refuting long enough to see the idea you're trying to refute. As long as you expect some sort of being, entity, deliberate will, or otherwise cohesive image of God, you're missing the point.

Boy, keeping an open mind won't even make you happy, will it?

Yes, and black people steal, Mexicans are lazy, and Atheists have no morals. I mean, we can talk about individual religions, such as Christianity, but anyone who pays attention knows how easy I think it is to debunk evangelical religions.

Think of Buddhism--some atheists claim to respect it and I won't challenge that. I believe them. Everybody knows there's something weird about Buddhism. But even I don't spend enough time with Buddhist materials to discuss it beyond basics. But I've never really come across its godhead, either. I know my own excuses to myself for not having gotten around to studying Buddhism, but what about anyone else? Are we talking about atheism rejecting a religion, or atheism rejecting God? I've found Buddhists to be admittedly and intentionally evasive on the subject of the godhead, to the point that I simply say it doesn't seem to matter to them what the details are. Sufis, as well, are notoriously vague on the subject of the godhead, and if the joke holds° the way I think it does, it's because neither Sufis nor Buddhists want to create a boxed-in, doctrinal, canonical godhead--it causes adherents to focus wrongly, to set improper priorities. There does seem to be integration with local and personalized deities, but I don't know the dynamic or philosophical workings of that.

But as to lacking ....

• Evangelical religions, such as Christianity, frequently take the position that someone without God is missing a certain desirable quality in life. Though I would have thought it needless to say--another poster has proven the need--I am and always have been a critic of evangelical religion. There's three years of my posts around here if you doubt me on that.

• One of the difficulties that I ran into as an atheist is that I could no longer communicate with people as well. Lacking certain words in my recognized lexicon interfered with my ability to consider the subtleties of human vagary. Incidentally, I see this in many of Sciforums' atheists. This is, of course, the nature of the, uh, discussion board. But to suggest that atheists are lacking this part of the human experience--missing out, as such--is to presume that it is equally important to everybody. Furthermore, it is pointless to cite the atheist's loss of a certain human experience because, having created the atheistic experience, such a possibility is known to exist, and theists choose to "miss out" on that portion of the human experience.

And ...?

Specifically, while I pesonally agree with you, I happen to see it as an election on my part to subscribe to an idea.

I mean, you can't prove that murder or rape are actually wrong.

Why does it actually matter that someone is inflicting harm on another? At some point, we're all flying on principle. At some point, we give away the objective justification because it just doesn't exist.

What is the standard of right and wrong that makes murder and rape wrong? What actually and really justifies that standard?

Because neither of those words are any more consistent in that sense than "God". But the word "God" denotes a certain degree of everything. People tend to envision more of everything when striving toward the totality of the God concept.

Because whether or not you can cope with the fact, religion is a real thing and will be until the end of my own life. If any good is to come of it, the idea and seeming necessity of God which possesses humanity needs to be known and worked with. One need not believe it. But the way to destroy it is to get to know it. If you really want it done with, you ought to know what it is you want done with. It usually tells you how best to go about finishing it. I mean, there have been times in my life for which I was known to cause atheism in other people. Namely, all I was trying to do was move their thought process past religiously-inspired guilt by showing that if the greatest potential of God (their chosen) was real, then the source of their guilt didn't matter. At the point that religion stopped bearing judgment, it became irrelevant and, as you said, unnecessary. If, on the other hand, we reorient religious sentiment toward the ultimate potential of its own vision, it will either answer its own questions and thus evaporate in a puff of logic, or else make itself irrelevant.

In the meantime, it is necessary to have a basis for communication with the clear majority of people who believe in God; I generally have more confidence in atheism and its attendant pathways than I have shown of late. I've never known the active representation of atheism to function so poorly as it has of late. The point being that in this (theistic) part of the human experience there is much work to be done which will benefit human progress. Attempting to tear it down without understanding it will only reinforce its superstitious power in people's psyches. Having found an acceptable definition of God, I am now free to explore the sentiments of a certain state of mind, and relate my findings to others in a vernacular which bears the greatest potential for effecting change.

Only if you insist. Why bother complicating the issue like that?

It's a human tendency that contributes toward communication and common identification. But when the god concept is anthropomorphized into a deity and spawns a religious practice, it is already limited. Think of the events you recognize in daily life. Spectacular, such as sieges and earthquakes and hockey (oh, my) ... or a bit more mundane, such as a sneeze or a fart ... or how about an event of grandeur, such as a comet, or supernova? I saw HST pics of a galactic collision. Well, the alleged aftermath thereof. Now that is an event. But what if the whole "the entire history of the Universe" or whatever phrase you would use for it, is actually a single event, then however many of those single events there are and the single event they create is part of God .... There is no fixed idea of what God is. Period. That's the problem with it. As annoying as that seems, that characteristic can be described, and it's genuinely part of it. God is a human creation in this sense, so its purpose does seem to relate to life and humanity and the whole of creation as such, but the actual answer to what that thing called God actually is comes kind of when it's too late. As annoying as that is, it is part of the concept. Imagine that there is an actual End Of The Universe. All of it is over. It dissolves into nothingness as the effect of the "single event" of the Universe passes into conditions that no longer support space/time as we know it. If humanity exists in the Universe when that happens, well, they get their answer to pretty much everything. All of our philosophical yearnings and introspections which compel us to construct mythical representations of the ineffable will be justified or thrown out in that instant. Of course, we won't get to enjoy that moment at all, and that really sucks, but it fascinates people in the sense of conquest because they cannot stand to not understand something. They've built up these amazingly complex psychological phenomena around an idea. We've invented a paradoxical idea--everything about God is paradoxical. It's why certain of those perceptions are undermined by scientific knowledge.

In order for there to be a right and wrong, for instance--e.g. murder, rape--there must necessarily be a standard by which right and wrong is measured. What justifies that?

While the religious gods represent exceptionally and necessarily limited perspectives, they derive from some greater sense of purpose. Don't like the word "God"? How does Higher Purpose sound?

Humanity at its true maximum potential--that is, the true potential that is neither your idea of it nor mine nor anyone else's specifically, but the best one actually possible, by which humanity is most successful--points toward the aspirations people attach to their ideas of God.

Try it this way: American political parties. They have it wrong. They are wrong. They behave wrongly ... what, then, is right in any of those cases? What constitutes the proper state of existence and conduct? The God question is quite similar, but of a greater magnitude.

Your application of the word "God" in that paragraph advises me that you're still thinking of too small and specific an idea of God.

Umm ... if it's really, really clean acid, maybe. Whether I can tell you what it says coherently enough to make sense, well ... that's the problem with using drugs.

Actually, I doubt I could take enough LSD to pull it off.

More specifically, our myths represent allegories of that pattern. Especially our creation myths. I mean, there's a Hopi story about the Spider Woman saving the Ancient Ones who sang even in the times of cataclysm. In the first few ... I forget which unit, but it's like milliseconds, after the Bang, the range of elements that could exist in the Universe was determined. Spider Woman (condition of reality) during cataclysm (Bang) saved (created) Ancient Ones (harmony of pre-Bang stasis?) who sang (specific frequencies, e.g. atomic properties, radiation, &c.)

And no, I'm not suggesting that's what the story means. I'm just throwing it up as a possibility to indicate that our myths may reflect what we know merely by existing. Our myths are not necessarily by that point accurate. I won't even suggest their accuracy. But even creation ex nihilo isn't utterly ridiculous in this sense. After all, in a pre-bang harmony, if stasis exists with no differentiation, existence itself seems rather unnecessary. God/No-God? Exist/Not-Exist?

Or, from that point, what caused the Bang, and how exactly did it happen that determined the range of elements and other factors of the reality we as humans are attempting to determine? That question has its religious symbols.

Incidentally, an excellent article. Thank you.

And if it serves you some functional purpose and you leave me out of it, you're welcome to it.

Point.

No, I was providing an example.

If "God says so" is a dumb reason to not sleep with your sister, what is a good reason?

Why is that a good reason, then?

And what, when you get right down to right and wrong, makes it any less arbitrary than "God says so"?

Well then, I invite you to get on with better arguments than that.

Why don't you just post an outline of what's acceptable to you?

And ...

I think they're intertwined, actually. I mean, why does atheism reject God/religion/whatever? The God-myth has no objective basis, and that's well and fine, but atheists happen to be quite happy to subscribe to other myths. Americans, for instance, subscribe to the myths of state and free society. The only thing that makes our way of living "right" is that we decide it is. That's about as ridiculous as believing in God, I'd say. I mean, sure, I believe that the US seems to be one of the better places to be, but I can't prove it without an arbitrary standard of right and wrong.

Actually, the phrase is an appeal to God. It's a curse. God damn it. Why are you so irritable?

How many people who believe in God do so because they think it's evil? Religions generally allege to strive toward human betterment. Now, looking at it from a scientific--method point of view, it would apppear that most religions have failed to support their assertions. However, what is obvious in the observation is that, regardless of their behavior, people sought to characterize themselves as acting in the interest of human betterment.

This trend toward the notion of human betterment reflects what I consider to be self-evident, that the purpose or meaning of human life is human perpetuity (and, I suppose, we can throw in progress). Despite the actual religion one has, and despite the errors of its execution (humans are imperfect, after all) one can still say that the God-concept is manifest in people's actions because they still strive after that ineffable ideal, that core upon which limited interpretations--religions--are built.

Um ... you can look at any religious person for proof that gods affect the decisions people make. The people choose to allow this, but the gods that they construct do, in fact, affect the world.

Right. Now, go back and put that fragment back into the rest of the paragraph it goes with.

C'est la vie. Does that idea mean anything more or less than "Such is God's will"? In the end, it shouldn't matter but yes, it does because of religions. But do you really think that people are going to simply abandon God if they believe they can feel and experience it just because you tell them it's illogical?

Well, at least we agree on that.

There's justice in that.

In a way, you've got the hang of it. However, you kill the Buddha because it is not the real Buddha.

thanx,
Tiassa

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Re: Raithere

Originally posted by tiassa
Because part of the concept of God exists independently of the petty religions so many atheists spend time debunking.

That such a concept exists does not necessitate that it's true. I mean, seriously, your assertion of God comes from the fact that Atheists spend time debunking alternative notions?

We're aware that you fail to see where God becomes a necessity, but I don't see how that relates to the point we were discussing.

Gee, I thought that a demonstration of why God is necessary would be a relevant point. I know that if I heard such an argument that I could not refute it would go a long ways towards changing my opinion. In fact, there are a couple of issues that push me closer to the Agnostic side of the scale.

See, I always wonder why it focuses so much on the self.

Only because your use of the word sense was not clarified previously. Please not that definitions 1-4 all involve an inherently subjective description.

Well, try starting with the idea that God is not a thing or an entity or a personality or a being.

In which case I don't see any difference between the concept of God as "everything" and the concept of "everything" without using the term God. In fact, I find the use of the term God to be extremely misleading. It inherently implies an entity, or at least awareness. Even the Buddhists, who are so vague in their conception of God, as you pointed out, imply awareness if not intent or identity. Find a new word, Tiassa, or demonstrate how your concept of God can be differentiated from "the whole of everything" without the connotations that the term God implies.

It's scattered throughout my reminders about the context of God; atheists often refute the miniscule ideas of God while ignoring the larger perspective of God.

Why scatter it? Do you even have a cohesive concept of God or is it just a vague scattering of notions? I'm happy to discuss and debate but come on, how amorphous of a concept do you expect me to be able to understand? How can you say you even have a valid concept if you are unable to express it? You're approaching God as a meaningless concept here, Tiassa.

The word "God" represents a condition or state. That state cannot solely be said to be existence, but, well?

Okay, then what can it be said to be? Can you really state anything about this concept that differentiates it from everything else? You definition is quickly approaching the BS threshold.

But it's not just that, because it is also the passing of time and all that is and was and will be and all the possibilities, all the imaginations ....

Okay, so we have space/time and everything it contains, plus imagination. Where's God? Where's the intent and meaning come from that you imply?

The word God represents the whole of everything. I mean, look at how silly that phrase is, the whole of everything. If you would like to provide a word for it, like I said, I'm open to suggestions.

Then invent a new term… the word God is too loaded with meaning for it to make any sense in this context. See my comments above regarding being.

"God's will" may be a silly way of putting it, but if life, the Universe, and everything was meant to be different, it would have been.

"Everything was meant" necessitates intent. Your argument that God "is not a thing or an entity or a personality or a being" falls apart here.

Religion is nothing more than fatalism with rules and a name. Humankind is "created in God's image"? Sure. This is how we evolved; we are a reflection of the conditions put before us in the Universe. Should we have evolved otherwise, we would have.

"Put before us" by whom or what? You imply action, who's the actor? "Should we"? Are you simply incapable of accepting that something "is" without it being intended? Again, if there's intent, who is doing the intending.

The advancement of the human species in the Universe is hardly an inappropriate "way". It seems, in fact, quite logical to me when examining the rest of the living scheme for comparison.

I agree, I also find all the "accretions" associated with the word God to be a tremendous hindrance to such an ideal. I also find it to be unnecessary.

Part of the problem is that you've demonstrated the need for a definition that cannot apply. You have to stop refuting long enough to see the idea you're trying to refute.

I take exception to the latter statement. I'm not simply trying to refute, I'm trying to understand, analyze, and discuss. That I come up with problems to your POV does not mean that I'm being close-minded. You've said quite a few things now that I have agreed with, I would think that this proves that I'm not simply being combative. Sorry, but I don't just implicitly accept what anyone has to say, why should your opinion be any different?

As long as you expect some sort of being, entity, deliberate will, or otherwise cohesive image of God, you're missing the point.

No, I'm not. I see no reason to invoke all the problems and alternative meanings implicit in the word God for what you have described so far. In fact, I find it to be problematic to the extent of being absurd. If you want to use God and other religious concepts simply as conceptual terms with no status reality, fine, but you go further than that an assert that God is real.

But I've never really come across its godhead, either.

This is precisely why Atheists respect it. Buddhism comes very close to being an Atheist philosophy. Their definition of God is so nebulous and void of consciousness or intent that it almost disappears. Zen Buddhism and Taoism are even less definitive. I approached each of these philosophies in my search and retain much of their philosophies. There are two main reasons why I'm have rejected them:

1) They all make the assertion that life is suffering. I don't find this to be the case and I find the escapist approach to life that they build upon this to be pointless and unnecessarily negative.

2) The concept of God becomes so vague and without intent that I believe the only reason it is retained is to provide for a continued existence beyond this one. As such, I find it to simply be an emotional crutch with no other purpose and an unnecessary complications due to it's implications. BTW, this is also one of the problems I'm having with your conception.

Evangelical religions, such as Christianity, frequently take the position that someone without God is missing a certain desirable quality in life.

Yes, we began to discuss this already. Security and Wonder. Thing is, one need not go without fulfillment of these needs as an Atheist. One needs to change their paradigm regarding the Universe and Self. Granted, this change is not easy and it can be painful but I have found it to be well worth the effort. I found that several Eastern religions have the key to this transition; I simply find their orientation to be negative when it need not be.

One of the difficulties that I ran into as an atheist is that I could no longer communicate with people as well. Lacking certain words in my recognized lexicon interfered with my ability to consider the subtleties of human vagary.

Why truncate your vocabulary? I find that bizarre. I have no problems with human vagary. Use the terminology that fits the situation… if you need to discuss the reality or truth of a concept you do so at the appropriate point; your entire belief system need not be implicit in every word you use… how strange.

I mean, you can't prove that murder or rape are actually wrong.

It depends on your precepts.

Why does it actually matter that someone is inflicting harm on another? At some point, we're all flying on principle. At some point, we give away the objective justification because it just doesn't exist.

Ultimately, reductionism will bring everything into a purely subjective arena and comes to the point of near meaninglessness. Our own consciousness is the only thing we can be absolutely certain of without entailing certain assumptions. Practically, one needs to be able to identify varying degrees of resolution in order to establish a useful paradigm, various realities if you will. It is, however, quite possible to establish useful and mutually beneficial paradigms on an objective basis. Generally, I find these to be less problematic than those that insert or are based upon imaginary or illusionary concepts.

What is the standard of right and wrong that makes murder and rape wrong? What actually and really justifies that standard?

We’re off topic already; I'm not going to delve into moral foundations at this point. Suffice it to say a philanthropic system can be developed objectively and factually without relying on the authority of a fictional God.

Because neither of those words are any more consistent in that sense than "God". But the word "God" denotes a certain degree of everything. People tend to envision more of everything when striving toward the totality of the God concept.

Sorry, the argument doesn't fly with me… what the hell is a "certain degree of everything" anyway? You still have to qualify and quantify and you'll need to do a whole lot more of it when using the term God. See this topic as evidence. How many words did you have to type to define your conception of God, and is it even complete yet?

Because whether or not you can cope with the fact, religion is a real thing and will be until the end of my own life.

If religion is a real thing then take a picture and post it. Otherwise, religion is a concept; a paradigm or system of beliefs.

the idea and seeming necessity of God which possesses humanity needs to be known and worked with.

You've leapt all the way to a conclusion of the necessity of God without a single argument in-between much less a proven argument or a single iota of evidence. Prove it or flush it, Tiassa, this argument has no better foundation than Christian fundamentalism as it stands. The concept of God can be understood and worked with without believing in it.

One need not believe it. But the way to destroy it is to get to know it. If you really want it done with, you ought to know what it is you want done with.

I comprehend pantheism, Tiassa, and I'm still waiting for [I[any[/I] argument that necessitates God.

At the point that religion stopped bearing judgment, it became irrelevant and, as you said, unnecessary. If, on the other hand, we reorient religious sentiment toward the ultimate potential of its own vision, it will either answer its own questions and thus evaporate in a puff of logic, or else make itself irrelevant.

It is irrelevant and it's about time the paradigm fade into the background. I'm not trying to deny anyone their own personal leaps of faith and irrationalities but it's about time we develop and predominantly accept something founded upon reality than wallowing in fantasy and fairy tails.

The largest problem I have with religion is that it is largely based in ignorance. Religious politics therefore becomes largely a drive to maintain ignorance in it's supporting population. I've around 6000 years of evidence here. It's time for a change.

The point being that in this (theistic) part of the human experience there is much work to be done which will benefit human progress. Attempting to tear it down without understanding it will only reinforce its superstitious power in people's psyches.

Science, logic, and education. It's impossible to "tear it down" directly because their illogical arguments are inviolate. Education is the only means by which we can reduce the ignorance, as we progress religion will trend towards the purely philosophical.

Having found an acceptable definition of God, I am now free to explore the sentiments of a certain state of mind, and relate my findings to others in a vernacular which bears the greatest potential for effecting change.

I believe there is a more direct method than working within the system. I have no trouble communicating with religious people when I so choose, my vocabulary has not been hindered by Atheism. In addition I see working within the system to be problematic, with a tendency to be viewed merely as support than affecting change.

Only if you insist. Why bother complicating the issue like that?

I believe the opposite. Removing God from the equation is a clarification; adding or retaining it complicates matters. These concepts stand on their own, without God. Why add what is not necessary?

Imagine that there is an actual End Of The Universe. All of it is over. It dissolves into nothingness as the effect of the "single event" of the Universe passes into conditions that no longer support space/time as we know it. If humanity exists in the Universe when that happens, well, they get their answer to pretty much everything. All of our philosophical yearnings and introspections which compel us to construct mythical representations of the ineffable will be justified or thrown out in that instant.

Yes, I get it. And largely agree, although I believe you're being a bit assumptive that anything meaningful will become apparent to us "inside" the Universe.

They've built up these amazingly complex psychological phenomena around an idea. We've invented a paradoxical idea--everything about God is paradoxical.

And you don't see this as a complication?

In order for there to be a right and wrong, for instance--e.g. murder, rape--there must necessarily be a standard by which right and wrong is measured. What justifies that?

Certainly not a non-existent authority. Religion is the opiate of the masses. There are better means that don't involve 6000 years of prejudice and ignorance. Time to wipe the slate and start over; our originating premises have been proven wrong.

While the religious gods represent exceptionally and necessarily limited perspectives, they derive from some greater sense of purpose. Don't like the word "God"? How does Higher Purpose sound?

I like that one.

Humanity at its true maximum potential--that is, the true potential that is neither your idea of it nor mine nor anyone else's specifically, but the best one actually possible, by which humanity is most successful--points toward the aspirations people attach to their ideas of God.

I disagree; I find most religions to be severely limiting in this aspect. I understand that you have a broader conception, Tiassa, and perhaps yours would be workable… but I think it will be easier and quicker to change people with knowledge than to simply try to supplement their existing religions.

Your application of the word "God" in that paragraph advises me that you're still thinking of too small and specific an idea of God.

No, I understand what you're getting at if not the entirety of your particular conception. I was referring to the true reasons for religious behavior.

More specifically, our myths represent allegories of that pattern.

I've delved into this concept myself. I find it lacking. Mostly I find it relies on mistranslation. It's easy to look back and hindsight and say they were referring to this concept or that but these stories while analogous of the human condition are largely coincidental in their similarity to modern physics. Physics itself, except in the purely mathematical sense, is entirely analogous. It doesn't then surprise me that a physics analogy is similar to a mythological allegory. The commonality is us.

And if it serves you some functional purpose and you leave me out of it, you're welcome to it.Point.

My perspective, exactly.

No, I was providing an example.

And what, when you get right down to right and wrong, makes it any less arbitrary than "God says so"?

Nothing, necessarily, though I do believe objective reasoning can be found for many points of morality. But at least we can dump the baggage of religion.

The only thing that makes our way of living "right" is that we decide it is. That's about as ridiculous as believing in God, I'd say. I mean, sure, I believe that the US seems to be one of the better places to be, but I can't prove it without an arbitrary standard of right and wrong.

This may be true but we'd at least be able to find a wider commonality than religions offer and we'd be able to find a standard that fits the application. Many religions have become very detrimental to western societies value judgments. The fundamentalist reaction is indicative of this.

Actually, the phrase is an appeal to God.

Only if it's meant as such. More commonly it's an interjection.

Why are you so irritable?

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sorry… Actually, I'm more excitable than irritable.

Religions generally allege to strive toward human betterment. Now, looking at it from a scientific--method point of view, it would apppear that most religions have failed to support their assertions. However, what is obvious in the observation is that, regardless of their behavior, people sought to characterize themselves as acting in the interest of human betterment.

Onwards then; towards the development of a better paradigm.

Um ... you can look at any religious person for proof that gods affect the decisions people make.

No. That's the effect of the individual's religions concepts.

However, you kill the Buddha because it is not the real Buddha.

No, you kill Buddha because he's in the way. Buddha only points the way he is not the goal. Therefore, if you meet him and think you've reached the goal you must kill him and continue onwards for he is inhibiting your progress.

I'm quite enjoying this discussion btw, even if these posts are becoming overly lengthy.

~Raithere

 

Raithere

I've tried to give this a lot of thought, Raithere, hence the few days since giving it attention. But I'm finding it harder and harder to give your arguments serious consideration.

Such arrogance only clouds your view of the situation. One need not be an atheist to see the faults in any given religion. I really wish that you wouldn't pretend otherwise. Such preconceptions necessarily interfere with any understanding of religion which you might, someday, accomplish.

What you are telling me, here, in essence, is that a condition to which a word has been assigned does not exist. That the condition, which requires a word to describe it lest it remain unrecognized, does not necessarily exist.

I mean, how am I supposed to react to that? It's fair enough to say that God is not the sun in the sky, but don't tell me that the sky doesn't exist.

So, let's stop and think about this.

What we are discussing with that vein is the most central to the topic: what it would take for an atheist to believe in God. Respecting the confines of the atheist requests, it would seem that a good number of those "proofs" would, in fact, invalidate that God.

Lacking any substantive response to that, it would appear that you shifted to the necessity of God, already an issue around here somewhere.

The necessity of God is an issue to consider, only not for this vein. To introduce it to the portion you have is a digression, diversion, or otherwise an attempt to evade the portion of the debate into which you inserted it.

Of course, then there's you, with your failure to see the necessity of the idea of God, combined with your demand that, since the word doesn't work for you, other people invent a word for you to use. I figure that would at least give you a new platform to argue from, but I'm nonetheless inclined to let you provide the word which demonstrates that the idea of God is unnecessary. What other word represents everything that "God" does?

This is part of the reason I took a few days to respond. I have found no way of responding to you here which does not involve my rolling on the floor in fits of laughter. It kind of makes diverse considerations hard when the self is the primary context one employs.

God is not a thing but should be called "everything"?

Silly, that.

If, for instance, God is solely a phenomenon of the living, then it would, in fact, be correct. If something promotes the living endeavor, it is said to be God's will, happiness, or other manifestation of personality. If something is detrimental to the living endeavor, it is not God's will or happiness.

I like how atheists pretend notions of God are as new and young as modern atheism.

Well, gee, I could compile it into one list, but there are two necessary truths about that:

(1) Many atheists would not read it because it would be too long and confusing for them.
(2) Even at its most complete, it would still be inaccurate.

I'm quite sure you're aware that cohesive concepts of God often purport knowledge instead of promoting discovery, learning, or understanding. Given the discussion Xev and I undertook in the Kharkovli topic, given my three-year history of discussing the nature of God, and given the magnitude of the god-concept I'm presenting here, I could make the same mistake as the Christians and give you some miniscule thing that is easier to hate than respect, and compel you to waste your energies debunking yet another inaccurate reduction of the god-concept into an easily-defeated, doctrinally-founded, infinitesimal notion of God.

In that sense, I know you would like me to make it easy for you. But it ain't going to happen.

Well, at least you understand part of the issue.

• how amorphous of a concept do you expect me to be able to understand? In light of the unsupported, refutory demand by atheists that one not say that "God is beyond understanding", you're providing me endless amusement.

God is not ever to be understood in its whole.

Anyone who says they understand God is lying to you.

It's actually related to the idea of killing the Buddha. But since it was for your satisfaction and not your growth that you slew the Buddha, I well understand why the concept slips under the radar.

Such is the nature of discovery.

So imagine that we're talking about a city. I can understand why you don't like the city you're in; I can understand that it has some nasty roads, some bad places, and some issues of safety which distract you from doing your work. You're told this is the City of God, but you're convinced it's not. So you get on your computer and tell everyone that the City of God does not exist. And then I get on my computer and remind you that the City of God may well exist, but you're describing New York City. So you tell me about the rush hour, and I say you're still not describing the City of God because there is no rush hour along the road I'm searching. And then you say that I can't be in the City of God and you're right. And then you somehow conclude that you are, in fact, in the City of God when, in fact, you are in New York City and merely need to hop three blocks west to get a drink and take your mind off things.

I'm not to the city yet. But I can tell you that the landmarks you've described are somewhere behind me on the trip; several cities back. I'm quite sure that I've been through the very neighborhood you're complaining about.

However, you wish for me to tell you every detail about the City I have not yet reached. That is the only thing that will convince you that the religious zealots who told you that you were in the City of God can possibly be wrong.

And that analogy is not particularly trumped-up in my opinion. It represents adequately what I'm seeing.

It's entirely possible. And that's not an arbitrary agreement. That you are carrying on a meaningless fight speaks to your authority in that matter.

Because after any person accounts for everything there is always something left to be included. "Everything" is a word that is just as subject to vagary as anything else. "Everything" means different things to different people, especially when they are in the habit of defining words in terms of themselves and focusing so greatly on the self. "Everything" is inadequate because when you say "everything" to a person, they perceive "everything" according to their own needs. The word "God", regardless of faith, indicates a more definitive sense of "everything", a state of "everything" that is beyond understanding. I tell you, Raithere, if "Everything" worked as a word, we'd be using it as such.

Gee, should I bother asking which intent or meaning you're after? Or should I just answer so you can tell me that's not what you're talking about?

Have you missed the assertion that people create gods?

Beyond those petty notions of god, though, we might point out that the intent or meaning is inherent in life. Life perpetuates. Good and bad, right and wrong, can be determined in relation to living factors.

Of course, that just makes me arrogant for raising the collective above the individual, doesn't it?

The problem you're having with the word is your own damn problem, Raithere, and you are the one who repeatedly charges that the word is unnecessary. I await your proposal of a term to replace God.

And until you offer it, I suggest you quit your bitching. Don't ask me to do your thinking for you. Like you'd really accept it if I did.

Or is that part of your point?

I do wonder if you read novels. In the future, Raithere, I shall directly hold you to the rhetorical standard you're trying to apply. In the meantime, get a point or don't bother.

If the factors of the Universe's development prescribed a different form, it would have developed accordingly.

2 + 2 = 4, right? Now then, if the mathematical principles of the Universe were different so that the range of possible elements, the relationship of various forces (e.g. gravity), and so forth, showed different results, then such would the Universe be.

I take it you're aware of much research taking place into the origins of the Universe? That they've pushed as far back as milliseconds after the Bang?

So I take it that you're aware that the Universe can be expressed largely in mathematical terms?

So when you get back to the Bang itself, it is possible (and hoped) that one might be able to look at the process and mathematically express that process.

Now, had that process been different, should it have been represented differently in the Universe, the Universe would reflect that in its very existence and nature.

Is it really that hard to understand, Raithere, or is the old anti-identification compelling you toward combativeness?

By the existence of the Universe itself.

Life, the Universe, and Everything, at least.

You're too hung up on ideas of authority. "Mama, should I?" Get over such juvenile dependence.

Are you retreating into this unnecessary hair-splitting for want of a point?

Because it's merely "hardly an inappropriate way" as opposed to the purpose of life?

That's why some people work to strip away the accretions. However, being that atheism is an anti-identification, I wonder why it focuses on perpetuating the accretions deemed to be such a hindrance.

So the ideal of the advancement of the human species in the Universe is unnecessary?

Shall we all just kill ourselves in a nuclear war and get it over with, then?

Oh, I should take this moment to ask you if you really want to apply the rhetorical standard you've prescribed?

Think carefully.

How many hairs would you like to split, and judging by what I've seen so far, I'm curious as to whether that hair-splitting is in lieu of a better rhetorical position?

Like I said, I can apply that silly rhetorical standard and forsake reading comprehension to the gods of Ego, but even then I, as a theist, wouldn't look quite as silly as you, the atheist, worshipping in the temple of the god Ego.

So would you like to have a nice, progressive discussion, or would you like to tell us what makes the advancement of the species unnecessary?

Perhaps you could give a lecture on the "Benefits of Extinction". Hey, no more having to wear your "Sunday dress"! Woo-hoo.

Wow, from bull-hunky to pure-grade bullshite. Here, we'll take a lok at the rest of your "exceptional" response:

• That I come up with problems to your POV does not mean that I'm being close-minded. True, but insisting that the problems of your own POV constitute my POV is quite closed-minded.

• You've said quite a few things now that I have agreed with, I would think that this proves that I'm not simply being combative. Well, I could point to your insistence that I invent words for you since you find existing words inadequate, but let me guess, when you insist that God is unnecessary, cannot provide a term that equals it, and insist that others do your thinking for you and invent that term, you're just trying to understand and discuss?

• Sorry, but I don't just implicitly accept what anyone has to say, why should your opinion be any different? Well, I think this particular appeal is crap in light of what's at issue. I mean, you could, for instance, simply accept that the discussion is about a god-concept that you don't entirely understand, but you'd rather call what you don't understand unnecessary so that you can focus your anti-identification on something definitively finite, miniscule, and weak. I don't accept you to drop your atheism and accept God, but I do expect you to accept that the concept you're discussing insofar as you might accept the term into the debate. In the meantime, you're trying to end the debate by saying there's none to have. It is, I admit, an easier solution for you than actually learning about the notions of God that you seek to ref--... sorry, I mean understand.

Like this. You choose to not accept an idea for discussion. As a counterpoint, I could start a topic about atheism and then tell all Sciforums' atheists to f--k off because what they're describing isn't atheism. I could, for instance, insist wholly on my own version of atheism which, while logical, is rejected by atheists.

I can see how you would. After all, if you find it problematic to consider things you don't understand, the god-concept certainly does become absurd. However, it would seem that addressing any part of the living experience could become problematic to the point of being absurd. Of course, nobody ever said the living experience itself wasn't so problematic as to be absurd.

Basically, what I see here is that you, as an atheist, having concluded that there is no God, find it absurd that one should assert that there is a God. However, being an atheist, you have not, I would suspect, considered every notion of God. However, being that you would prefer to focus on one specific godhead, I find your insistence that the god you reject is the only god allowed for consideration beyond mere absurdity.

And on some days I assert that perceived reality is not real.

Two ideas for you to chew on:

• It has an observable effect, and therefore is not real.
• Perception is subjective, and therefore real.

This would be a very substantial topic. You ought to try building one about it.

 

nothing can convince me that there is a 'god' simply because there is no chance of there being one. Like somebody said before: there are more chance of there being other intelligent life in the universe than there being a 'god'.

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no, wait, zig-zag rolling papers are 'god' they stick in any conditions; fun for all the family.

*edited in comical remark*