Religion

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:45 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:25 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

Atheists strive to be better men.

 

And women. If there's one thing we shouldn't inherit from religions (and of course, there's many more than one), it's sexism.

Very true. The Bible, Torah and Qu'ran have some incredibly sexist passages, but given the times in which they were written, that goes without saying. Once again, the question arises: Why do modern Christians now reject those passages but continue to hold steadfast with beliefs that are synonymously compatible with the majority of atheist moral values?

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:42 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:27 PM, RandySicko said:

if you hadn't made the absurd claim that humans aren't the most complex example of life on this planet, I might have taken you seriously enough to provide an answer.

 

It depends on your criteria. As we're talking about how life works, I was going by genetics. Humans do not have the biggest genome of any life on this planet by a long shot. Of course, it's not the size that matters, but what you do with it...

 

So, which ten commandments were you referring to? As you're a Christian, I'm guessing either the "ten" in Exodus or the other "ten" in Deuteronomy, I was just wondering which in particular.

I follow the traditional Catholic Catechetical formula

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:50 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:33 PM, RandySicko said:

I have determined that this Christian set of moral values is ideal to having a peaceful society. If you have no defined moral values, what makes you better than the next man with no defined moral values?

 

O.O

 

Those moral values didn't even go as far as to condemn slavery. They're certainly far from ideal.

 

What makes atheists, and indeed everyone else, moral is their innate sense of morals. You don't need to be taught an arbitrary list of forbidden activities. You already have a sense of what's right and what's wrong. If you didn't, you wouldn't feel a need to speak out against injustices that your religious texts say nothing against.

Zoe, though I have been in agreement with most of what you have said thus far, I have to quibble a bit on the "innate" moral values. I don't know if that is necessarily true. However, i will say that due to the human abilities to share collective experiences, we are very quickly able to form moral value systems from the simplest emotive processes, i.e. empathy.

edit: i dunno wtf just happened...posted before I finished typing.

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:46 PM, RandySicko said:

The very fact that we're typing back and forth here is evidence of God to me.

That's odd. I see it as the evidence of the wonderful work performed by people such as Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee.

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:27 PM, RandySicko said:

if you hadn't made the absurd claim that humans aren't the most complex example of life on this planet, I might have taken you seriously enough to provide an answer.

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:46 PM, RandySicko said:

It is not so much about controlling as it is helping people get along and see something greater than themselves.

So... you want to help people see something greater than themselves, yet you also want to believe we're the most complex lifeform on the planet?

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:56 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:27 PM, RandySicko said:

if you hadn't made the absurd claim that humans aren't the most complex example of life on this planet, I might have taken you seriously enough to provide an answer.

 

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:46 PM, RandySicko said:

It is not so much about controlling as it is helping people get along and see something greater than themselves.

 

So... you want to help people see something greater than themselves, yet you also want to believe we're the most complex lifeform on the planet?

I do not see any contradiction there.

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:52 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:50 PM, ZoeB said:

What makes atheists, and indeed everyone else, moral is their innate sense of morals. You don't need to be taught an arbitrary list of forbidden activities. You already have a sense of what's right and what's wrong. If you didn't, you wouldn't feel a need to speak out against injustices that your religious texts say nothing against.

 

Zoe, though I have been in agreement with most of what you have said thus far, I have to quibble a bit on the "innate" moral values. I don't know if that is necessarily true. However, i will say that due to the human abilities to share collective experiences, we are very quickly able to form moral value systems from the simplest emotive processes, i.e. empathy.

Unless you're a psychopath (by definition), you can empathise with other people, imagining what it's like to be in their position, and adjusting your actions to at least somewhat minimise the suffering of other people. Some do this to greater extents than others, but I think it's safe to say that very few people would actually need to be specifically told "hey, don't kill someone else, that would be bad." Of course, you can train people to kill each other, but to say that it doesn't sit right with most of them and plays on their consciences would be putting it mildly.

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:56 PM, RandySicko said:

I do not see any contradiction there.

It's just that the kind of "humility" that involves fantasising about being the most important lifeform in the whole universe, watched over by an (the only, even!) omnipotent, loving father-figure amuses me, is all.

Some Christians see God as an old bearded man in the sky, yes. You happen to see little green men floating around beyond the stars, which amuses me.

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:10 PM, RandySicko said:

Some Christians see God as an old bearded man in the sky, yes. You happen to see little green men floating around beyond the stars, which amuses me.

I wouldn't anthropomorphise other lifeforms (Earth alone has nourished lifeforms as diverse as us, jellyfish and Opabinia regalis). They certainly wouldn't be humanoid. But yes, I think it's very unlikely that in a ~13.75 billion year old universe, our tiny blue speck of dust is an any way the most happening and trendy place. The universe, it turns out, is a really big place. It's far more interesting than even the most audacious tales dreamed up by our primitive cultures.

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:45 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:25 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

Atheists strive to be better men.

 

And women. If there's one thing we shouldn't inherit from religions (and of course, there's many more than one), it's sexism.

This is a generalization; I don't think that all atheists strive to be better men. I could just as easily say that Christians strive to be better people, or that Muslims do.

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:25 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

Gmanyo, I Explain to me what Christianity is.

 

Isn't the main focus of your belief system a belief in the miraculous events and existence of Christ, son of God? The God of the Old Testament? Because if it isn't, then you are right, I do not know what Christianity is, nor does most of the Christian population.

I think it's this:

God created man with inherent value. But then we went against God's commands and, since God is perfect, separated ourselves from him and now we deserve punishment. However, since he loves us, he took the punishment on himself through his son, thus forgiving us of our sin. Now we only have to accept this forgiveness.

The idea that the only requirement for heaven is accepting forgiveness is often seen as offensive, but at least consider the logic behind it. God is perfect. You have to be perfect to be as good as God, and getting angry that murderers can go to heaven for free is seen as arrogance; you both don't deserve it, and both of you were forgiven for all of your sins. There are probably hundreds of books written on this topic alone.

The law is a means of showing us that we are not perfect and that we cannot uphold God's standards. According to New Testament theology, this is shown in the Old Testament by the Israelites living under the law and fucking it up over and over and over. There was no way that they could ever obey the law. Most of their fuckups were pretty big, too; not like "Oh, you broke this one tiny law, you're fucked!" but "Oh, you made a golden god of a cow and had orgies to worship it." (yes, that actually happened).

I'm not arguing for the truth or moral correctness of this message, but I'm pretty sure that's the main point of Christianity according to the New Testament. At the very least according to modern theology.

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:25 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

nor does most of the Christian population.

I completely agree with this. Popular Christianity is, in my opinion, so far off from what the Bible actually says.

edit:

ZoeB, I think this article posted earlier sums up my point about consciousness pretty well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-zombie

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:36 PM, gmanyo said:

ZoeB, I think this article posted earlier sums up my point about consciousness pretty well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-zombie

I read it, but it seemed pretty nonsensical. If it acts like a human being and is completely indistinguishable from one, then by what criterion isn't it one? This is also one of the (many) problems I had with Battlestar Galactica (the 2004 version; I've never seen the 1978 one): in what way are the cylons meant to not be people if they're impossible to tell apart?

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:46 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 4:42 PM, chimera slot mom said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 3:33 AM, Atop said:

having faith in infinity,

 

not a personal god...........

 

a gigantic,

 

multi-dimensional,

 

infinite swirling first thing,

 

that has existed and will exist,

 

forever

 

and ever

 

AMEN-RA

 

Ra Hoor Khuit

 

Horus

 

Ain Soph

 

The First Thing

With infinite names.

Call it what you will.

 

The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao

The name that can be named is not the eternal name

The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth

The named is the mother of myriad things

Thus, constantly without desire, one observes its essence

Constantly with desire, one observes its manifestations

These two emerge together but differ in name

The unity is said to be the mystery

Mystery of mysteries, the door to all wonders

 

So why call it a God?

 

Why not say the infinite? The truth? The Good? The Universe? The Way of All Things? Why does it need to be attributed as a God? This incredibly nebulous, non-specific thing? Why not call science a God at that rate?

 

Btw, Im not necessarily disagreeing with you, I love Taoist philosophy myself, I'm just throwing this out there that we shouldn't rely on the word to comfort and protect ourselves from atheism.

I agree completely. One cannot escape it nor grasp it, naming it is futile. Someone else put it better: "To be conscious of the original mind, the original nature - just this is the great disease of Zen."

The problem with atheism is the classification and compartmentalization of things. Atheism, in its extreme, takes an exclusive stand point of teeth and stomachs. Everything else is there to support the effectiveness of the teeth in accomodating the stomachs. Roughly speaking it's an attempt to one-up the assumed falseness of natural or childish consciousness, to see through it all with every tool one has at ones disposal. That in itself is an attempt at protection, namely protection from ignorance, protection from time and death. I'm not saying this is what you are proposing, but what some people take out of atheism is that you are a machine and the thought that you are a machine is a machine - so you might as well kill yourself if you don't have the sense to be infinitely proud to have figured it all out.

Of course there are teeth and stomachs, but there is a quality of being itself that cannot be described or compartmentalized, but at the same time does not supplant the teeth and stomachs. It makes being and thinking itself a funny thing. This is why people need a source, because they know there is a source. They just don't know what to call it or what to do with it.

The fact that it is so incredibly nebulous and non-specific is exactly the point of it. That is how it perfectly accommodates the teeth and stomachs, by being their exact opposite. The up has to have a down, in has to have an out and so forth, because it's obvious the universe will not put up with half-measures. You cannot call God source or Science source because that is an assumption that there is something that is not source. You're going to have to put up with people putting names on whatever they think it is and having stupid little rituals, because again, no one has any idea what to do with it.

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:27 PM, ZoeB said:

I wouldn't anthropomorphise other lifeforms (Earth alone has nourished lifeforms as diverse as us, jellyfish and Opabinia regalis). They certainly wouldn't be humanoid. But yes, I think it's very unlikely that in a ~13.75 billion year old universe, our tiny blue speck of dust is an any way the most happening and trendy place. The universe, it turns out, is a really big place. It's far more interesting than even the most audacious tales dreamed up by our primitive cultures.

Read a medical book and then tell me we evolved into this

*reads a medical book*

lol

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:47 PM, RandySicko said:

Read a medical book and then tell me we evolved into this

And which part of our bodies do you deem irreducibly complex? I'm not sure how you can be aware of how we work and not realise

Is this still you being humble?

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:45 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:36 PM, gmanyo said:

ZoeB, I think this article posted earlier sums up my point about consciousness pretty well:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-zombie

 

I read it, but it seemed pretty nonsensical. If it acts like a human being and is completely indistinguishable from one, then by what criterion isn't it one? This is also one of the (many) problems I had with Battlestar Galactica (the 2004 version; I've never seen the 1978 one): in what way are the cylons meant to not be people if they're impossible to tell apart?

I think you missed the point. The idea is that it does not have a consciousness, but seems like a human. Reacts like a human but does not actually sense things. Chemical reactions. The idea that a consciousness is separate from the physical part of your body. It's the point I was making. If you read the rebuttals section, your point is in there.

I've never watched Battlestar Galactica, otherwise I would probably think your comment was funny. Too bad I don't get it.

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:58 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:47 PM, RandySicko said:

Read a medical book and then tell me we evolved into this

 

And which part of our bodies do you deem irreducibly complex? I'm not sure how you can be aware of how we work and not realise

.

 

Is this still you being humble?

Energy, thoughts, memory, consciousness, emotions.. stuff like that. Just because we think we understand what we can explain does not make it any less complex. What do you believe we evolved from?

edit: and what did the monkey evolve from?

Most of the Christians I know in the States are evolutionists, by the way. They're not quite as sure about it though; not for religious reasons, but if you ask them they'll be like "Yeah, I believe it, but I still have a few questions." I haven't looked into it much, so there might be a really obvious answer for this, but my biggest question regarding evolution is the changing of chromosome numbers. I don't quite get how it would happen. Irreducible complexity's a bit confusing, too (I guess chromosome numbers is also irreducible complexity in some senses).

So at which point did the species just decide to grow ribs to protect vital organs... or say, stomach acid to digest food? Oh, it happened over billions of years? Beneficial mutations? Thats like saying billions of years from now, a human will be born that has the ability to breathe underwater. I'm not really asking for scientific explanations or dates... just showing that chance is not a factor.

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:59 PM, gmanyo said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:45 PM, ZoeB said:

If it acts like a human being and is completely indistinguishable from one, then by what criterion isn't it one?

 

I think you missed the point. The idea is that it does not have a consciousness, but seems like a human. Reacts like a human but does not actually sense things. Chemical reactions. The idea that a consciousness is separate from the physical part of your body. It's the point I was making. If you read the rebuttals section, your point is in there.

I think the whole concept of "p-zombies" only makes sense if people have some kind of external driving force, ie a soul, which they patently don't. As indeed it says in the rebuttals part of that page. So that "argument" doesn't really help anyone; if you believe in the supernatural, it's self self-evident that such entities can exist; if you only believe in the natural, it's self-evident that they can't.

Our thoughts are just chemical reactions. That's my point! And that fact doesn't make them any less valid or interesting. Indeed, how splendid a thing is it that us mere bags of chemicals can create works of art and love one another?

  On 3/28/2012 at 6:04 PM, RandySicko said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:58 PM, ZoeB said:

And which part of our bodies do you deem irreducibly complex?

 

Energy, thoughts, memory, consciousness, emotions.. stuff like that. Just because we think we understand what we can explain does not make it any less complex. What do you believe we evolved from?

 

edit: and what did the monkey evolve from?

We get energy from eating dead lifeforms, which in turn got it (often via other dead lifeforms, if you're not a vegetarian) by photosynthesising sunlight. The sun is a giant nuclear reactor. That's where we get our energy from.

We're getting a step closer to explaining how memory works. It's all perfectly natural.

Emotions are a useful way of regulating our behaviour, to ensure we do what's in our genes' interests. At least, that's what they're supposed to do. It doesn't always work out, as we sometimes figure out ways of triggering the emotion without getting a real result (as with watching romantic comedies or having protected sex).

No, we didn't evolve from monkeys. Monkeys and ourselves have a common ancestor. To look at merely one branch of evolution, namely our own, we (Homo sapiens) evolved from Homo erectus (with possibly others in between), which in turn evolved from a different genus. The Homo genus evolved from Hominidae, such as Australopithecus afarensis. While we as a species probably don't know all the details, and I myself as an individual certainly don't, we've at least discovered the fossils of different creatures that, when placed in chronological order, look slighly less like us each time you go back further in time. Of course, comparing the DNA of all the current and very recent species is also a dead giveaway! You can see which arbitrary things lifeforms have inhereted from their ancestors.

Here, you might like this overview of where we came from.

  On 3/28/2012 at 6:24 PM, RandySicko said:

So at which point did the species just decide to grow ribs to protect vital organs... or say, stomach acid to digest food? Oh, it happened over billions of years? Beneficial mutations? Thats like saying billions of years from now, a human will be born that has the ability to breathe underwater. I'm not really asking for scientific explanations or dates... just showing that chance is not a factor.

What makes you think you're showing anything? Other than your misunderstanding of evolution, that is.

  On 3/28/2012 at 6:38 PM, ZoeB said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:59 PM, gmanyo said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 5:45 PM, ZoeB said:

If it acts like a human being and is completely indistinguishable from one, then by what criterion isn't it one?

 

I think you missed the point. The idea is that it does not have a consciousness, but seems like a human. Reacts like a human but does not actually sense things. Chemical reactions. The idea that a consciousness is separate from the physical part of your body. It's the point I was making. If you read the rebuttals section, your point is in there.

 

I think the whole concept of "p-zombies" only makes sense if people have some kind of external driving force, ie a soul, which they patently don't. As indeed it says in the rebuttals part of that page. So that "argument" doesn't really help anyone; if you believe in the supernatural, it's self self-evident that such entities can exist; if you only believe in the natural, it's self-evident that they can't.

 

Our thoughts are just chemical reactions. That's my point! And that fact doesn't make them any less valid or interesting. Indeed, how splendid a thing is it that us mere bags of chemicals can create works of art and love one another?

I mean, it's a rebuttal against the claim that everything is chemical reactions in many ways. The point is to show that there are some problems with believing in only "the natural", because consciousness doesn't make sense. You are saying "it's obvious that it's just chemical reactions", but the rebuttal is "it can't be chemical reactions, because chemical reactions can't do that". The chemical reactions should not create actual experiences. We should not be able to experience things any more than a rock can. The p-zombies are like rocks, only they move.

Zoe, You've done it! Thanks to your Wikipedia link and some infallable human scientists, i now know where we come from!!!

  On 3/28/2012 at 6:40 PM, goDel said:

  On 3/28/2012 at 6:24 PM, RandySicko said:

So at which point did the species just decide to grow ribs to protect vital organs... or say, stomach acid to digest food? Oh, it happened over billions of years? Beneficial mutations? Thats like saying billions of years from now, a human will be born that has the ability to breathe underwater. I'm not really asking for scientific explanations or dates... just showing that chance is not a factor.

 

What makes you think you're showing anything? Other than your misunderstanding of evolution, that is.

I'm just describing it on an extremely basic level.