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dr wu23 View Drop Down
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Points: 20706 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2013 at 19:51
Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

 
Lot of words there but when you distill it down we are back at square one that says no one knows...that's still called agnosticism last time I looked...and still imo the only tenable position.
And no...not hedging any bets...just being honest.
Smile

Sure it's tenable. I self-identify as an atheist, but when you press me on the issue of what we actually know, you might get me to eventually admit that I should properly be called an agnostic, since being absolutely certain there is no God isn't very defensible giving the limits of human knowledge. But there is something to be said of self-identifying as an atheist rather than an agnostic. It is taking that step, and choosing a side. I understand wanting to be true to ones own convictions, or lack thereof in the case of agnostics, but there's only so much hand-wringing that a person can do before saying, "All right, I admit it. I act like there's no God in my day to day life, so I might as well just admit it. Yes technically I don't know, but for all practical purposes I live my life like an atheist. So call me what you will."

It's not about hedging bets, nor about Pascal's Wager. Go where your heart tells you to go, but as far as I know, no one's heart tells them to muddle about in existential confusion forever.
 
My heart tells me people need to get on with their lives and not worry about things they can't do anything about.
Existential confusion..?  Something that really has never  entered my life in any meaningful manner and shouldn't be something anyone needs to kvetch over.
 
 
One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
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stonebeard View Drop Down
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Points: 28057 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2013 at 21:45
Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

 
Lot of words there but when you distill it down we are back at square one that says no one knows...that's still called agnosticism last time I looked...and still imo the only tenable position.
And no...not hedging any bets...just being honest.
Smile

Sure it's tenable. I self-identify as an atheist, but when you press me on the issue of what we actually know, you might get me to eventually admit that I should properly be called an agnostic, since being absolutely certain there is no God isn't very defensible giving the limits of human knowledge. But there is something to be said of self-identifying as an atheist rather than an agnostic. It is taking that step, and choosing a side. I understand wanting to be true to ones own convictions, or lack thereof in the case of agnostics, but there's only so much hand-wringing that a person can do before saying, "All right, I admit it. I act like there's no God in my day to day life, so I might as well just admit it. Yes technically I don't know, but for all practical purposes I live my life like an atheist. So call me what you will."

It's not about hedging bets, nor about Pascal's Wager. Go where your heart tells you to go, but as far as I know, no one's heart tells them to muddle about in existential confusion forever.
 
My heart tells me people need to get on with their lives and not worry about things they can't do anything about.
Existential confusion..?  Something that really has never  entered my life in any meaningful manner and shouldn't be something anyone needs to kvetch over.
 
 

Then basically you live the life most atheists do, you just identify as an agnostic.

The day-to-day lives of atheists and agnostics are more or less the same, and we ought not to act like there's a really big difference between the two.
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dr wu23 View Drop Down
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Points: 20706 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2013 at 22:05
Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

 
Lot of words there but when you distill it down we are back at square one that says no one knows...that's still called agnosticism last time I looked...and still imo the only tenable position.
And no...not hedging any bets...just being honest.
Smile

Sure it's tenable. I self-identify as an atheist, but when you press me on the issue of what we actually know, you might get me to eventually admit that I should properly be called an agnostic, since being absolutely certain there is no God isn't very defensible giving the limits of human knowledge. But there is something to be said of self-identifying as an atheist rather than an agnostic. It is taking that step, and choosing a side. I understand wanting to be true to ones own convictions, or lack thereof in the case of agnostics, but there's only so much hand-wringing that a person can do before saying, "All right, I admit it. I act like there's no God in my day to day life, so I might as well just admit it. Yes technically I don't know, but for all practical purposes I live my life like an atheist. So call me what you will."

It's not about hedging bets, nor about Pascal's Wager. Go where your heart tells you to go, but as far as I know, no one's heart tells them to muddle about in existential confusion forever.
 
My heart tells me people need to get on with their lives and not worry about things they can't do anything about.
Existential confusion..?  Something that really has never  entered my life in any meaningful manner and shouldn't be something anyone needs to kvetch over.
 
 

Then basically you live the life most atheists do, you just identify as an agnostic.

The day-to-day lives of atheists and agnostics are more or less the same, and we ought not to act like there's a really big difference between the two.
 
And who exactly is doing all this 'acting'..?
The difference for me is that I don't dwell on it on a daily basis, but I also don't pretend I know for a fact there isn't something Other like most atheists like to do.
One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
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stonebeard View Drop Down
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Points: 28057 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 11 2013 at 23:34
Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

Originally posted by stonebeard stonebeard wrote:

Originally posted by dr wu23 dr wu23 wrote:

 
Lot of words there but when you distill it down we are back at square one that says no one knows...that's still called agnosticism last time I looked...and still imo the only tenable position.
And no...not hedging any bets...just being honest.
Smile

Sure it's tenable. I self-identify as an atheist, but when you press me on the issue of what we actually know, you might get me to eventually admit that I should properly be called an agnostic, since being absolutely certain there is no God isn't very defensible giving the limits of human knowledge. But there is something to be said of self-identifying as an atheist rather than an agnostic. It is taking that step, and choosing a side. I understand wanting to be true to ones own convictions, or lack thereof in the case of agnostics, but there's only so much hand-wringing that a person can do before saying, "All right, I admit it. I act like there's no God in my day to day life, so I might as well just admit it. Yes technically I don't know, but for all practical purposes I live my life like an atheist. So call me what you will."

It's not about hedging bets, nor about Pascal's Wager. Go where your heart tells you to go, but as far as I know, no one's heart tells them to muddle about in existential confusion forever.
 
My heart tells me people need to get on with their lives and not worry about things they can't do anything about.
Existential confusion..?  Something that really has never  entered my life in any meaningful manner and shouldn't be something anyone needs to kvetch over.
 
 

Then basically you live the life most atheists do, you just identify as an agnostic.

The day-to-day lives of atheists and agnostics are more or less the same, and we ought not to act like there's a really big difference between the two.
 
And who exactly is doing all this 'acting'..?
The difference for me is that I don't dwell on it on a daily basis, but I also don't pretend I know for a fact there isn't something Other like most atheists like to do.

My point is basically that atheists don't know. They don't believe, but don't want to have to qualify it whenever they're asked. Atheists don't dwell on it all the time. Ask Britons (god knows there are a ton of em here...) The country/region is largely atheistic, and I bet they don't talk about how much there isn't a god all the time.

In the end, there's no significant difference between an atheist and agnostic. Both are going to mark "none" on polls on religions for research purposes.
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Points: 29630 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2013 at 02:21
Who made God?
Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Points: 29630 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2013 at 02:22
Also, are we actually here?  How can you be certain?
Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Points: 29630 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2013 at 02:25
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Edited by Slartibartfast - April 12 2013 at 02:25
Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Points: 15784 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2013 at 09:16
Originally posted by Slartibartfast Slartibartfast wrote:

Also, are we actually here?  How can you be certain?


It's implicit in our definition of 'here' that there is a 'we' and we are here.
"One had to be a Newton to notice that the moon is falling, when everyone sees that it doesn't fall. "
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Gerinski View Drop Down
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Points: 5160 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2013 at 12:30
Originally posted by Slartibartfast Slartibartfast wrote:

photo


What was the meaning of that? is he an atheist? or is it he who created god? or you doubt whether you are really here because he looks at you with Matrix eyes?
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Points: 1301 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 12 2013 at 18:50
Originally posted by Gerinski Gerinski wrote:

Originally posted by Dean Dean wrote:


 
On the face of it what proof have we that a god may or may not exist? One-tenth of bugger-all really. We have some stories. Written in books. By men.
This is certainly true of all the fictional gods (all of those in your long list, from Thor to Yaweh and all in between).
But proof is not the only rational justification for guessing, or even believing, that a 'god' (understood simply as some higher entity involved in the existence (and perhaps workings) of the universe which we can not at present comprehend) is likely to exist.
Logic alone, without proof or even empirical suggestion, has been a very useful guidance for many scientific advances, many conjectures have been regarded as reasonably accepted scientific truth for years and proof / empirical confirmation came only later.

Einstein deduced special relativity and all of its counterintuitive consequences (the invariability of the speed of light, length contraction, time dilation etc) purely from applying logical reasoning around 1904. Proofs of all these phenomena came only much later.

The fact that electromagnetic energy must be quantized was deduced by Max Plank and Einstein also from applying logical reasoning to the black body radiation problem, with proof coming only later.

Schwarzschild had no proof or even observational or experimental suggestion of the existence of black holes, he deduced their likely existence purely from working out solutions to Einstein's general relativity equations in 1916, reasonable proof of their existence was not obtained until the 70's.

The existence of the Higgs boson was predicted by logic and mathematical consistency and has remained a reasonably accepted scientific truth without proof for decades.

Alan Turing deduced that it should be possible to build a universal computer applying logic, before there was any physical evidence suggesting that it could indeed be done. 

Similarly, even if the existence of a god is at least at present beyond any reasonable possibility for empirical inquiry (and very possibly forever), some people may, from their logic system of (non religious!) beliefs, forge the opinion that the existence of a god is more likely than, for example, the likelihood that our universe started by pure chance out of nothing, that it's all what there is and that there is no deeper explanation for its existence.

This would not mean adhering to any of the existing religions nor thinking that such a god should deserve worship or demand any particular code of action during our human life. Practically it would not make any difference with living as an atheist.
In a certain sense, being agnostic is more compatible with the scientific spirit than being atheist, since science is based on always questioning the existing body of knowledge, always aiming at searching for deeper explanations even if the hypothesis suggested by logical reasoning seem at present crazy and untestable, while atheists simply take the current status of knowledge (that all evidence suggests that there is no god) as sufficient truth and give up to question further.

I do not personally favour much this position, at present my logic does not lead me to believe that a god likely exists, but I just want to insist that such a position may be legitimate and that such a god would not be based on ancient tales and books but on individual opinion forged in the present.

People needed a higher power to make it through life (12-step) might be okay.  The problem is we've used 'god' as our answer for everything and have made zero progress in learning how to deal with ourselves, our relations, our emotions etc.  If you need proof, just look at the internet Wink.  We don't need god, because even if one true one exists, he ain't much more useful than any of us.  The problem comes when people assume their god is right and their beliefs have implications for the rest of humanity.  It's unconscionable, to tell you the truth.  Fundamentalist Christianity professes to be about love, but it really is thinly veiled fear and delusion about an uncertain world.  They take no responsiblity for the consequences of their beliefs...most of us are going to hell, creationism, etc.

I used to be more of a live and let live guy, but I'm seeing that religion in and of itself is quite divisive, dangerous and delusion.  This delusion effects us all in many different ways...politically, socially.  It must be confronted.
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Points: 1708 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 13 2013 at 11:20
Atheism can be just as divisive.  Anyone here heard of this guy?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/the-new-atheist-crusade-a_b_222864.html

He's a really interesting fellow with an interesting history.
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Points: 6797 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 13 2013 at 12:20
Originally posted by Gerinski Gerinski wrote:

Originally posted by Slartibartfast Slartibartfast wrote:

photo


What was the meaning of that? is he an atheist? or is it he who created god? or you doubt whether you are really here because he looks at you with Matrix eyes?
 
He is God, only backwards. 
 
(Great photo though, Slarti)
 
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Points: 37575 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 14 2013 at 05:51
Originally posted by dtguitarfan dtguitarfan wrote:

Atheism can be just as divisive.  Anyone here heard of this guy?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/the-new-atheist-crusade-a_b_222864.html

He's a really interesting fellow with an interesting history.
Demonising the opposition is nothing new and extremists are by very definition not representative of the majority. Any opposing view is divisive regardless, especially when that is met with equal weighted counter argument. Each person must decide for themselves whether their views represent extremism and/or fundamentalism by how they regard people who hold opposing views, not have that foisted upon them by the people with opposing views. I am an atheist, but I do not demonise theists or new atheist nor do I support extremism from either side.
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Points: 997 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 11 2013 at 10:39
Not being a believer doesn't prevent from figuring out how "heaven", or ideal life, should be, under which physical principles, how one would ultimately enjoy life.

This could make for an excellent leisure at any degree of commitment, and reveal who we are and how we/everything actually work/s.
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Points: 5160 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 11 2013 at 16:35
Originally posted by jayem jayem wrote:

Not being a believer doesn't prevent from figuring out how "heaven", or ideal life, should be, under which physical principles, how one would ultimately enjoy life.

This could make for an excellent leisure at any degree of commitment, and reveal who we are and how we/everything actually work/s.
'Heaven, or ideal life' ? 'how one would ultimately enjoy life'?
By my definition, life after death, if it would exist at all which I don't think it does, would not be 'life'. And 'eternal life' is a meaningless concept, as we know life, having it eternally would probably be more a curse than a blessing. Eternity simply means 'not experiencing time' and that would mean just a single moment experience, experiencing all of time at once, no room to anything else.

Enjoy the life you have here because chances are that this is the only one you're going to get.
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Points: 997 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 11 2013 at 19:43
I'm not necessarily talking about life after death, nor Heaven as you can find it in religious traditions, but "yours".

Of course it requires that eternity allow time, which means things can change.

Let's see how is eternity is if, instead of being a curse, it's actually wonderful to our own standards. 

Why should I change my own definition of eternity for yours? How can't my suggestion be a way to enjoy "life I have here" ? 




Edited by jayem - June 12 2013 at 13:23
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Points: 34550 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 11 2013 at 20:01
God spoke to me today, told me he doesn't exist
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Points: 997 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 12 2013 at 14:38
Originally posted by JJLehto JJLehto wrote:

God spoke to me today, told me he doesn't exist
...

...less than twenty-four hours a day...

...in the inexisting realm of nothingness...

...save everything that actually makes what He is (as a masculine deity)...

...that all vanishes in the Ancient World's Fantasies...

...of future times...

...from prehistorical point of view...

...if history begins after nowadays...

...and we're cyborg's dinosaurs...

...of a bigoted kind.
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Points: 8903 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 12 2013 at 14:56
i have a feeling that time and space are infinite, but we are not. We have a beginning and an ending.
      Death is hard to accept, but it is the real end, as my "gut feeling" dictates to me.
        These are just feelings, mind you.

Edited by presdoug - June 12 2013 at 16:48
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Points: 6797 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: June 12 2013 at 15:22
You don't know for sure?  You sure?
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