I believe in elephants.
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I believe in elephants.
It is our choice if we want to end up in hell, I don't think that it necessarily means the God is not good, we have the free will but it just have a consequence when our choices are wrong. Not everything is perfect (I don't think I ever said that) but I just cannot conceive the idea that things came into existence just from pure chance or evolution.
We are predominantly Catholic here but I am not a Catholic even though my parents are. Perhaps we can compare our cultures? Is your neighborhood/relatives 'atheists' also? I never met an atheist before but only in this forum so I was curious as to how an atheist thinks.
Frankly, we never discussed it in any detail. None of my family professed any particular belief one way or another. I think that would be pretty nearly the definition of agnostic as in: Don't know. Not going to dwell on it.
We did attend church, but it was the Unitarian church and we attended roughly once a year. I'm still not sure why.
As for evolution, after working with it in a few computer programs, I have no doubt that it could result in the diversity of life we see today. Once you have written a few genetic algorithms and seen how they solve problems that you can't solve, it's clear that what we see in the world is entirely plausible as a result of a highly un-intelligent process. Now, if you are talking about the appearance of life on this planet versus other planets, that would be a different issue. There is speculation that life could be likely on planets within certain parameters, but at this point we have N = 1, which is not enough evidence to prove anything one way or another. We need better sensors just to be able to answer the question of whether or not planets of this size and distance from a sun of this type are common. We'd need FAR better sensors than that to determine whether or not life exists on such planets, and it is entirely possible that, given the distances involved, we will never have sensors good enough to answer that question. So, it may be that the existence of life at all is a miracle, but the life that we see today can't be considered to be miraculous once you are well acquainted with a process that can produce it.
As for my beliefs, I'm totally on the fence. While I see no need for a God, I also see that the picture isn't complete, and God could very easily exist. In fact, I feel that it is quite likely that the world is either 8 or 11 dimensions, and God need be nothing more than a 5th dimensional being for whom we are the toys. This became clear from some work I was doing with robotics. I could make a robot that was clearly 3 dimensional, but it could only perceive the world in 2 dimensions. After thinking about how it would interact with the world around it, I realized that it would see 'spooky behavior at a distance', similar to what we see as quantum entanglement. It would see this in its interaction with my table, where four disconnected items would be totally entangled. Push on one and the other three moved wherever they were in space. The bot, which could not perceive the 3rd dimension, would not be able to understand this any better than we can understand quantum entanglement. However, since we perceive 3 dimensions, it is obvious to us why the four table legs move in unison. Similarly, if there was a fifth dimensional being, it might see our world as obvious, but we can't imagine that any better than the 2D bot could imagine the top of the table. Heck, it wouldn't have a concept for "top", let alone "up".
Therefore, God could just be at a higher dimension, which means that God could have a God that was a sixth dimensional being, and so on. However, it doesn't prove that God could, or does, exist. Better yet, further thinking about the bot shows that it is entirely possible that there is a God, but that God doesn't even know that we exist, let alone care that we do. It's actually a fairly compelling argument, as it would explain a lot of things that current religions have a hard time dealing with, such as the death of kids, terrorist attacks, tsunamis, and the like. I've written enough, though. I suppose that the bottom line is this: There are lots of possibilities and I see no good reason to choose one over another, so I don't worry about it. If there is life after death....I guess it won't remain a mystery forever. For now, I can wait.
I personally find a 'God' to be a simplistic reasoning for the unknown. When you talk about a God, I'd question you on what you think a God is. Is it a person? Is it anything at all? How does it do what you think he/she/it does? It's very easy to say that God did something you have no explanation for, what makes me think this whole religion thing is just an antiquated way of saying stop your critical thinking and do your slave work.
I'm not doubting there is an origin to the universe, but I can't possibly imagine what it would be. And I'm fine with the unknown.
And then there's the whole sociocultural aspect of the religion, which for the most part I don't think is wrong. When considering the catholic commandments, I'm perfectly fine raising any children I might have one day with those values in mind.
Here is one thing I usually don’t see come up in these types of discussions is this. Just for arguments sake let’s say an intelligent being, or god, created the world. What kind of sadist would set something like this up? Just about everything thing on this planet lives on the death of other things on this planet. For example the food chain, bacteria or viruses that destroy the host, and that basically to live something else has to die. It is a blood bath out there every moment of every day. What kind of a sick twist would come up with that?
Attachment 98135
Well...
In a serious tone..
My official title I like to give myself is an agnostic atheist. With that said, I do not deny the possibility for a god existing. BUT I do not believe that any of the religions created by mankind have got correct description of the god that's existence I allow. I believe that the only god that could possibly exist would not care about the personal actions of people. Or even about the human race as a whole, Heck, he might not even know that we exist. He would not be bothered with letting ant sized creatures worship him, and he would definitely not influence events, because then we would have found him, either directly or indirectly. He would also probably have to be very smart, unfathomably so. I don't know if he would be immortal since I really don't know if anything can escape the laws of thermodynamics. Afterlife is also so flawed concept that I can almost say with certainty that there is no such thing.
So to summarize:
- God doesn't know/ doesn't care that mankind exists
- There is no afterlife
- He doesn't influence events if he knows we exists
- He would not be interested in praise by creatures that are almost infinitely less intelligent than himself
- Might or might not be alive
- Not omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent
Why would I bother myself caring if such a god exists ? So I just live my life on the assumption that no god exists and make the best of it.
In other words, your disbelief in the existence of God - and nuances which are generally attributed to religion that worships a God - is the reason why you don't believe in God?
What I find quite mystifying is the religious zealotry that accompanies those who are opposed to the existence of God.
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To be honest, I've often thought the same. I'm not religious myself (I could best be described as agnostic, tending gently towards atheism) but I have freinds who sit on both sides of the fence. None of my religious freinds are at all agressive and, apart from the occassional nutter handing out leaflets with menaces in the city centre, I've rarely met anyone who really forced their religious point of view at me. Most of my atheist freinds are equally reasonable and non-confrontational but there's definitely a small group who can be extremely aggressive in preaching their atheism. It's odd, why get so bunched up about something you don't believe in.Quote:
What I find quite mystifying is the religious zealotry that accompanies those who are opposed to the existence of God.
On the other hand, I don't think BlindSniper's post fell into that category for me. I read his post as a summary of his beliefs rather than a statement of "this is what is, there shall be no argument".
To me, agnosticism is really the only rational position to take when faced with a question we can't absoutely know the answer to. In fact, in a universe which still holds so many unknowns it seems just as crazy to me to state that "there definitely is no God because I can't prove his existence" as it does to say "there definitely is a God although I can't prove his existence". I think there probably isn't a God because we have a pretty good physical model that doesn't require the existence of a creator, but I'm open to having my mind changed at any time.
He probably doesn't live on a cloud though.
It was the egg. A dinosaur laid it.Quote:
Well I've often thought of it like this: which came first the chicken or the egg?
edit>
Which is pretty much a miracle given the state of CC lately. Proof of the existence of God, perhaps?Quote:
For the most part this thread has been civil and respectful
I guess something that bothers me is the President taking the oath of office on a Bible. To me it is the equivalent of asking Zeus to look after us. To me it is a sad state of affairs that so many people still believe in Gods, Devils, and the like.
Well to me, each is to his own. If one chooses to believe in something, good on them. My only problem is when they try to impose it on someone else. As for a President taking the oath on a bible, fine, but only if he chooses to. It's the choice part that I find important.
People must be free to believe what they want, but must also allow others to hold their beliefs.
Understood...I guess what I mean is we wouldn't want a President that truly believed the world is flat, is only 6000 years old, and there is a Devil out there just waiting to lead us astray. At least I hope so. Having a President that believes in God is like having a President that believes in leprechauns. We might as well just let the Pope run things. That way at least the Republicans would have someone they could relate too...
Oops..broke the being nice warning :blush:
Facts - man - facts...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religio..._States_Senate
Seems more Democrat's in the Senate follow the Pope!
Not sure you can get the House with details - but at least the summary here shows that Catholics far from rule...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members...tates_Congress
I'm just trying to figure out if being fiscally conservative and kind of Catholic is one or two hits against me in your book??
:)
No, I doubt the existence of a god because what I can't reconcile what I see in the natural world with the existance of an abrahamic God. The god(or equivalent entity) that I allow to exist would have those mentioned qualities, which gives me no reason to think he exists, or even if it does, It wouldn't change the way I lived.
I think that's different from a President who believes in God though. We can empircally prove that the earth is round (or an oblate spheroid if I'm feeling pedantic) but we cannot empirically prove that there is no God. Combine that with the fact that a massive number of people on the planet believe there is a God whereas only a tiny number believe the earth is flat (and, lets face it, most of them are only having a laugh). To me that indicates that believing in God isn't actually irrational like believing in a flat earth is.Quote:
we wouldn't want a President that truly believed the world is flat
I must admit, I'm slightly uncomfortable with the introduction of any religious paraphanalia (not sure I spelt that right) into the rituals of government which, I believe, should be wholly secular but if it's just a way of displaying his sincerity in taking the oath then I don't have a real problem with it. After all, it's not important that he swears on something you believe in. It's important he swears on something he believes in.
What?! As an Irishman (sort of) I can assure you there's nothing wrong with believing in the little people. And they can get very nasty of you start denying their existence.:bigyello:Quote:
Having a President that believes in God is like having a President that believes in leprechauns
Well, they sure haven't been too generous with that pot o' gold.
"So the Biblical scholars mis-translated the Hebrew word for "young woman" into the Greek word for "virgin," which was a pretty easy mistake to make, since there is only a subtle difference in the spelling. But back then it was the "virgin" that caught people's attention. It's not every day a virgin conceives and bears a son. So you keep that for a couple of hundred years, and the next thing you know, you have the Holy Catholic church."
Mainly the point is that over hundreds or thousands of years, stories change and become far from what actually happened.
I thought the mistranslation was from "unmarried woman". The point is still the same, though. Once you translate a document from language to language to language, while also transcribing from book to book to book, all you have is a giant game of telephone.
Still, even with that problem, the bible is uncommonly problematic. The early days of the established Catholic church included a fierce competition between two camps debating exactly what Christ was. The bible is anything but silent on the subject. However, scripture ads equal amounts of weight behind the arguments that he was the son, and that he was an aspect. There wasn't a solution to this question until the Creed of Nicaea, and even that was nothing more than a political compromise.
FunkyDexter notwithstanding, I'm going with the chicken.Quote:
Which came first .. the chicken or the egg
I haven't tried to put this into words before, but my thinking generally relies on evolution.
"First" there was the "big soup" (I'm referring to here on earth), a conglomeration of
chemicals and water. Then comes along a cosmic ray, and a new molecule is formed.
Then comes along another cosmic ray, and a larger molecule forms .. eventually some
genetic string of simple DNA.
This process repeats and simple life forms, such as bacteria, appear. More cosmic rays,
more mutations, and then chickens.
The chickens can't reproduce yet, ie, form eggs .. they just live and die. There aren't too
many of them. But, then comes along another cosmic ray, changing a strand of DNA, and
this one chicken is now able to form an egg. A different cosmic ray hits another chicken,
enabling it to fertalize an egg-forming chicken. As this sexual approach leads to faster
propogation of the species, this randomly formed species "stands the test of time."
The above images sum up why I will no longer believe in the existence of God.
Now on a more serious note:-
I can tell you how I reason with this but I've discovered people who share the same reasoning but can articulate it much better. Not to mention they're more knowledgeable about the insanities of religious thought than me, some I wasn't even aware of:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtBQpryGmqI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qul1vds7J-s
The guy who made those videos articulate my thoughts better than I could. He's pretty spot on.
Here's another cute one:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK7P7uZFf5o
Perfect illustration of the twisted mind of a religious person.
I think the question now needs to be "Why are you not a believer of the existence of this thread"!
Exactly what I thought when I found that vid. It reminds me of time at an old job where all the employees except me were Jahovah's Witnesses. JWs as far as they're concerned, are mandated by God to convert any creature under the sun towards the "truth" as they called it so you know a little heathen like me was really in for it. It was like 8 hours a day of pure divine propaganda. I was pretty naive at the time and before coming to work there I never really questioned religious doctrines and beliefs. I sorta accepted it as truth so I was quite receptive to their attempts at indoctrinations. But after a while I started to question what it is they were teaching me as there were quite a few contradictions and sometimes, just plain nonsense in what they were trying to sell me as truth. They're explanations for these inconsistencies made even less sense. Ironically it was my experiences at this time with these people that finally led me to fully understand that Christianity was based on a bunch of bronze age nonsense. That video is quite reflective of the times my bullshit detector was scratching and clawing against their indoctrination attempts in the late half of the game.
@Spoo: I'm going with the egg. While you make a good point when it comes to life itself, we are talking chickens here, and chickens came from eggs. It does come down to evolution though, and the falibility of our concept of speciation. Before there was a chicken there was a proto-chicken that evolved into the chicken. At some point there was some change to the genome of the proto-chicken that resulted in a chicken, but it happened when two proto-chickens did the funky chicken and produced an egg that hatched into something that was quite similar to them, but was not them, nor was it a faithful reproduction of all of their genes. While this time cannot be tracked to a single reproductive event, there was a point where two things that were not yet fully chickens mated to produce an offspring that met the full criteria of chickenhood.
Yea I saw that video too :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a8pI65emDE
I am starting to believe that for some people it is easier to criticize God for whatever imperfections we perceive than to criticize "evolution" and it is somewhat saddening. We are all programmers here and we are able to make those programs because of our thought, we cannot make a program just by randomly typing on the keyboard, someone with an intelligent mind created those programs but even if we believe our programs to be perfect, others may still criticize it for whatever reason.
Christianity: The fantasy that life on Earth was perfectly created in 6 days by a supreme entity and got messed up because a talking snake convinced a woman to eat a magical fruit.
Evolution: The idea that tiny changes add up to a huge difference over the span of millions of years.
Come on, should there even be any argument ?
I think I can be quite certain that if I wrote a program to constantly output random bytes of random lengths into executables, I'd get a couple "Hello World"s in a few hundred thousand years.
We are not controlled by God, if He controls us then He may have prevented people from criticizing Him, we have our free will and we are free not to believe in Him, alas, narrow is the way that leadeth unto heaven and I'd sure miss having you guys up there. =)
God may exist. We don't know what initiated the Big Bang. Many scientists don't rule out the possibility that it was some being that exists on a higher plane than our universe. If that is what happened then that was the extent of that being's involvement in creation. God, as described by organised religion, does not exist. Organised religion is b*llocks and really just a tool to control people.
I don't believe in God...but I'm afraid of him.
According to Schrödinger, this thread did not exist until I opened it and interacted with it.
As for much of the other points... religion is is imperfect as are the people that created it. Doesn't matter what religion it is... they all have their contradictions (tolerance and love thy neighbor and all that... unless they are gay, Muslim or somehow other wise different from you)... it's because of these contradictions and hypocritical messages that I don't go to church. Do I believe in God, sure. Part of it is because of the way I was raised, and part of it is because of personal experiences. It's the same reason I do believe in ghosts and demons. I have had too many experiences for me to ignore that they do exist. And I don't mean from watching episodes of Ghost Hunters, I mean, real, live experiences. I also believe that some people can be psychic too... most that claim to be, aren't... but some few are.
-tg
A single programmer cannot program by simply smashing on the keys. However, if you take trillions and trillions of people all smashing on the keyboard, several hundred thousand of them could very well write something that works.
Evolution is constantly criticized, re-examined and if someone were able to prove it false, it would be discarded for a better theory. No religious person has that same conviction. Science is about learning more about the universe and changing our beliefs based on fact. Religion is about sticking to your story no matter what evidence is thrown in your face to prove otherwise.
That's not a correct analogy. If we weren't there, who would do the random typing on the keyboard? The point is that virtually all chemical reactions in this world are accepted without resorting to faith. DNA is nothing more than chemicals, and nobody is seriously suggesting otherwise, not even in the wackiest religious views. Given DNA and cell structure, evolution is nothing spectacular. It certainly isn't random, but it isn't directed, either. So the comparison is not to a bunch of coders randomly hitting keys on a keyboard. The comparison is to the creation of the keyboard in the first place. The rest of it is well understood and can be readily replicated.
Now, you might feel that leaves open a window for God, as somebody created the keyboard, even though once the keyboard was there the rest is quite unimpressive. Of course, saying that God created the DNA and the Ribosomes then sat back and watched what happened is hardly a fair reading of scripture. If you chose to believe that, I'd have no particular quibble with you. Of course, by then you have largely abandoned scripture in favor of making up something that feels more accurate, which is all anybody else has done.
But random typing on a keyboard is not a valid analogy, since evolution is not random, and you have the skills to determine this for yourself. It is an unintelligent process, to be sure, but it is clearly capable of producing the life that we see. That's not something that is accessible to everybody, but it IS accessible to a coder of your skill. Therefore, if you choose not to believe it because you refuse to look at it, you can't very well expect us to join in what amounts to willful blindness. You would only use evolution in coding to solve problems that you can't solve with your human intelligence, and it may well be that you have never encountered such a problem, but they certainly exist.
That may or may not be an argument for how the first cells arose, but it still isn't evolution. In the case of evolution, you would have to add some process that selected the product of that typing such that only the chosen typists got to type more. In the case of life, the selection mechanism is the chance to reproduce, but it doesn't HAVE to be that selection mechanism. In computer programs, you can make the selective force be whatever you want. Quite often, you make the wrong choice. Several of my programs originally evolved for the wrong target, which can be a very subtle bug to find. However, that was there because I had a target in mind. If reproduction is the only target, then there is no right or wrong to the evolution, there is only success or failure, which can be as much accidental as deliberate. It doesn't take trillions, though, it doesn't even take dozens in many cases.
Shaggy
The above bit seems to be our only (ahem) bone of contention.
Let's take this step by step.
1.
On this part we are in total agreement.Quote:
two proto-chickens did the funky chicken and produced an egg
This is the event that led me to "go with the chicken."
2.
This is the part where we diverge.Quote:
that hatched into something that was quite similar to them, but was not them, nor was it a faithful reproduction of all of their genes
This is the situation that apparently leads you to "go with the egg."
I'm no biologist or geneticist, but why would it not be a "faithful reproduction of their genes"?
To me, it would be.
Unless, perhaps, another cosmic ray enters the picture and causes a mutation in the egg.
Could you expand?
I'm sure that we don't even know a good 10% about how reality itself really works but that is taking it a little too far for me. I'm willing to accept weird stuff like 11 dimensions but when we start with ghosts and demons I mean its just....Come on, we barely scratched the surface of understanding our reality. Stuff like M-Theory is massively complicated on its own, but when you apply intelligence to beings that exist in state that is beyond our senses to detect, you're just adding unnecessary complexities to an already complex system that we barely understand. Gods, demons, ghosts ? I really don't how to even begin rationalizing the existence of such things, especially in the absence of any kind of evidence.
You know to be honest, I've heard a lot of people talk about first hand experience with paranormal happenings and I've always wished really hard to get just one such experience. Just one! Man, I tell you I'd settle for a moving shadow or something. I'm starting to think its a little too much to ask :mad:
How can you criticise evolution for our imperfections? It's just a process with no specific purpose. If God exists and he created us then we should be perfect because supposedly God is and he doesn't make mistakes. If that's true then he must have wanted us to be imperfect, so how is He worthy of worship as a result?Sure we could... if we had enough time. The thing that those who claim that evolution is improbable forget is the vast time scales involved. If we have seen evolution at work in the short time that we have been specifically studying it then imagine how much has occurred in the millions of years preceding. If we had many millions of years then we could easily bash out random bits of of text on the keyboard and repeatedly throw away the bits that didn't work and keep only those that improved what we already had. In the number of keystrokes that could be made in millions of years, do you not think that something useful would result? It's not like evolution was required to make the jump from sea slug to human being in one go.
I watched the video from post #689 and followed some links to an episode of the Australian TV show Q&A featuring Richard Dawkins & Cardinal George Pell, the most senior member of the Catholic church in Australia. During that show, George Pell said that God did not create Adam and Eve and that that was just a religious story to illustrate a point. He said that human beings did in fact evolve, from Neanderthals or the like. Richard Dawkins rightly corrected him on the evolutionary path but, more importantly, raised the question of what original sin actually means if the Garden of Eden never existed. That point was never addressed. Interestingly, George Pell also said that animals have souls, albeit less complex than those of human beings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD1QHO_AVZA
Hey, until I had such first hand experiences... I too didn't necessarily believe in them either. It's one of those things... but over the last 30+ years... for me, the personal evidence is a little too much for me to ignore. And in the case of the demon... I wasn't alone at the time, there were about a half-dozen of us present at the sighting and we all saw it. Then again, I will admit that it may not have been a demon specifically as it didn't seem malevolent, and it may have just been a spirit... the reason I think it was a demon was the eyes... but still, that doesn't negate that I think they possibly exist.
-tg
You're too modern. If you were a bit old school, you'd have had plenty of those experiences. I think peyote would get you there.
It's kind of odd that I would make a drug reference, considering that the hardest drug I've ever done was aspirin, but when I get old and decrepit, I might try some mushrooms or something. It's kind of like the point behind Demolition Derby: Once the machine has worn down to the point that it isn't really all that functional or reliable anymore, you might as well have some fun with wrecking it the rest of the way.
@Spoo: The analogy breaks down pretty thoroughly, and I'd rather not try to defend that position. The problem is that the term "chicken" is used to describe any number of different animals both specifically and very loosely (prairie chickens are not any kind of chicken, nor is Chicken of the Sea). So, since we can barely say what is a chicken, saying when they arose is pretty near impossible. However, if you could come up with a definitive definition of what is a chicken, then you could come up with a definitive definition of what is not a chicken. Two of those not-quite chickens mated. The genomes separated and recombined when the egg was fertilized. Something got a bit catawumpuss in the transcription, or some incorrect nucleic acid got inserted, or whatever (including possibly a cosmic ray, though those tend to simply break the DNA rather than substitute one base for another), and the result was that a gene was changed, and chicken-ness was where it had not been in the parents. However, since there is no such thing as chicken-ness, and we can't even come up with a sound definition of what is a chicken, the whole discussion is rather specious. I wouldn't disagree with you about life back to the primordial soup, but those certainly weren't chickens. The egg itself came along long after life did, but before chickenhood was in flower (batter, actually), so it wasn't a chicken before the egg, and it wasn't a chicken for quite some time after the egg, but at some point a thing hatched out of an egg that was in some way different from the genes of its parents, and that difference was chicken-ness...but in reality, it is all just a human concept of what is a chick, so, it was neither the chicken nor the egg, but mind, that came first.
Shaggy
No, I'm afraid we still disagree.
The proto-chicken vs real-chicken issue aside for the moment,
my way of thinking leads me to believe that, in the case of sexual
reproduction, a male and female life-form must be present to create
a fertalized egg.
Hence, the chicken comes first.
Spoo
Till him thanks :D
:eek: :confused: Have you not looked at this thread :confused:
No... it's your choice if you want to end up in hell.
I know there is no hell to go to, so I have no choice, I can not go there. ;)
:thumb:
I to believe in elephants, and I believe in rabbits :lol: ;)
I don't think it is so much of a disagreement in substance as a difference in scale. You are looking at the metaphorical sequence of life beginning, while I am looking at the much narrower sequence of chicken beginning. While there is sexual reproduction without males and females, as a general rule, I think there probably was life before there was eggs. However, there were certainly eggs before there were chickens, too, so by the time that chickens entered the timeline, eggs had been around for millions of years. Life had been around for longer than eggs, almost certainly (though at some point it becomes a bit hard to figure out what an egg is), but chickens are just a sub-plot.
Shaggy
Yes .. well put.
.
.
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This is the bit I was focusing on.Quote:
I think there probably was life before there was eggs
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.
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Totally agree.Quote:
However, there were certainly eggs before there were chickens, too, so by the time that chickens entered the timeline, eggs had been around for millions of years.
Spoo
See, the only thing we disagree about is whether or not we disagree about anything.